The New York herald., 1922-08-13
IRELAND VITAL
TOWORLDPEAC
Her Position as Outpost O
Western Europe Invests
Free State with Great
Political Importance

the placing of the things of the next
world before the things OF this. T.
Englishman's heaven lies rather
this world OF buying and selling. eating
and drinking. than over the shadow
border of death. To the Irishman
everything in life is translatable by
symbol-the Englishman, on the other
hand, knows nothing about symbol and
holds to what he calls concrete fact.
To the Irishman the Englishman is
sentimental-to the Englishman the
Irishman is illogical. While the mass
of the Irish traders are just as keen
on "the main chance as the English
men of business. under emotional
stress even the most venal of Irish
men is apt ito catch a vision of some
far off heavenly city" and to let the
main chance go by.
The Irishman, deep down, to-day,
as always. believes that he has certain
peculiar qualities which can only find
their full manifestation when he is
free. To him, the only mother counA
try" is Ireland-unlike the New Zea-
lander, the Australian, the South
African or the Canadian, to whom.
despite their increasing differentia-
ton. Great Britain is still the mother
land. Boston, is still nearer Dublif
than London. If miracles still ha
pened and some God given statesma
could once realize these most obvious
facts, then in that moment England
would have on her flank most de-
voted friend who would use the last
drop OF her life blood to keep intact,
Irish soil against any continental in
vader. The danger is that If Eng
land still fails to recognize 1t, Ireland
may be misused, or may misuse her
self, in the world welter that is, even
in our generation, to overwhelm white
European civilization, and so Ireland
might become the European cockpit.
For Europe to-day is once more fast
becoming an armed camp.
Free State Plan Opens Way
To Full Trust in New Ireland
What all lovers of Ireland-and
England-are praying is that with the
coming of settled conditions and tn
building up of the new Ireland under
the Free State the British statesmen
will seize the profound psychological
truth that the only Ireland which can
be trusted is an ireland who is trust
ed-an Ireland told to go to hell or
heaven as it pleases her, unfettereu.
The real merit in the Free State is
that it opens a channel to this reatl-
zation.
ireland will be bilingual using Irish
more and more (already the strides
being made in speaking this tongue
even now understood by fourth of
all ireland, are extraordinary. Eng
lish will be used as the language of
commerce and will form another ana
natural link with the British peoples
but the Irish Renaissance in poetry
prose and drama, will find itself large
ly, ultimately in the Gaelic, as it is to-
day finding itself in the English Ian
guage The fact is that in this ques-
ton of language and literature Ire
land is fast >changing-so much 50
that what held good for the day bca
fore yesterday is no longer any indi-
cation of the country's evolution. -,
Much nonsense is talked about coma
pletely wiping out English in the
future Ireland and using only the
Irish. Language is undoubtedly the
national focus. but no man ever loses
by understanding other languages
than his own, and in fact, as every
linguist knows. ones own tongue gains
by a knowledge OF other tongues.
England has nothing to fear from
an educated Ireland. only she must
also accept philosophically the moro
national outlook and the more cosmo-
politan outlook which will come at
one and the same time from a broad
ening of the educational stream. Tire
real menace to Great Britain is the
keeping of Ireland from gaining nas
tional consciousness; something that,
as in the past, would leave her an easy
prey to sectionalism and prevent her
from acquiring a steady national policy
toward England The day that an
educated Ireland finds her national
soul will see unified Ireland of both
north and south. and with it n unity
more easy of understanding and one
more easy to work with on equal terms.
All this has been fully realized and e2-
pressed TO the writer by men so widely
professor, John MacNeill Zone of the
profoundest Celtic scholars in the
world, and the Ulster Protestant.
George Russell CA. E."). Strange as
It may sound. Gaelic Ireland can be
n good friend to Saxon England-an
AnGlo-Irish Ireland. never.
y
Economic and Artistic Groups
Instead of Political Parties
The evolution OF the future Ireland
politically will, as in other matters, be
vitally different from that OF any
other European country. We are moro
than likely to see the abolition Of tho
party system" and instead the COM
ing of d group system, under which
the Irish nation. ultimately divided
into guilds" will have its various
economic and even artistic interests
separately represented. Already the
trend Is unmistakable.
In the recent general elections We