The Irish Volunteer - Volume 2 - Number 5

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THE

BY EOIN

EDITED Vol. 2.

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No,'5,

(New Se,rieS'.)

N<>TES

SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 1915.

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" Sas a dheanta. chuimhuigh air." Those who are capable of ~ sharp curve are capable of · a.ny amount of sharp curves. It comes easier by practice. Men who aa:e not expert in the sharp curve may after all be just as " safe hands'' as any . Our line is a straight line. We mean to go on with organising, training, instructing, and a.rming, until the whole manhood of the Irish Nation is no longer at the mercy of the plotters of unconstitutional violence at the Carlton Club, the Kildare Street Club, or the Cnrragh Camp. 1W e are not in a hurry. We have never promised that this year of grace and other things, 1914, would be the Home Rule Year. For my own part, long before trouble was forced upon us, instead of promising rash things, I have told Irish Volunteers and those whom I asked to become Irish Volunteers that they had to build up from the foundations, and that they ought to be well satisfied if they succeeded in building something solid and invincible within three years, or ten years, or even twenty years. The man that cannot face· whatever length of time is necessary for sure and steady constructive work is no man for Ireland. We have to plant a hardy tree, not a hothouse ornament to be cut down by the first frost.

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MAC NEILLa

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The Imperia1 crisis has blotted out the' boundaries of English parties. H ere is an official announcement : " 111r. Balfour, Mr. Churchill, the Marquis of: Crewe, Sir Edward Grey, and Mr. Lloyd George joined the Premier at 10 Downing Street yesterday . (Dec. 16). They constituted a Sub-Committee of the themselv2s Committee of Imperial Defence . Mr. Churchill left the Admiralty, but the other Ministers remained in conference. Mr . Balfour, Sir Edward Grey, and the Marquis of Crewe, together with a general officer from the ·war Office, left together." Following this, we read a statement in the English Press to the e:ffect that a coaliti9n Government is in

contemplation; that is, a Ministry composed of Liberals and Unionists.

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The Irish people will be curious to know how their interests will be looked after. Mr. Balfour.is evidently recovering his position as real, if not acknow. ledged, leader of the Unionist Party . More than that, the Imperial crisis has given him a position of virtual power with the existing administration, and that position may at any time obtain formal and official recognition. 'l'he " SubCommittee of Imperial Defence" is no sub-committee. Sub-committees do not announce tha,t they have "constituted · themselves." 'l'his particular committee may be able to exercise even greater powers than the Cabinet. The London "'rimes," in a r ecent editorial, stated bluntly that Ireland is now under ' '' martial law.'' 'rhe Ca,b ine,t does not administer martial law. It looks as if, to all intents and purposes, the "Home Rule" Government has ceased to exist as the real Government. "While party lines are obliterated in E ngland, m1d while the Cabinet has obliterated its own lines of Irish policy, one party, the Unionist Party, has not been induced by the Imperial crisis and the dictates of patriotism to obliterate one letter or line of its hostility to Home Rnle and to Irish Nationality in every shape and form. On the contrary, every responsibie Unionist pronouncement with regard to Ireland since the crisis began has been as hostile to the Irish national position as if there were no war and no cns1s. Certain "Nationalist" organs have been so busy in denouncing mere Irishmen, reviling " Sinn Feiners," and demanding the head of the Gaeli~ League, that they h ave none of their choice language to spare for · the attitude of Unimiist lea.ders who are now hand in glove. with the "Home Rule'' Ministry and may shortly be hand in hand with them and the glove o:ff.

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What is Mr . Balfour's position? To him, as far as we know, the Irish Nationalist is still the Irish Enemy . H e has

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riot receded one inch from his support of the poliq_y of unconstitutional violence against Ireland. His last great pronouncement on Irish a:ffairs was his demand for the "clean cut," the separation of all Ulster from Ireland. He has not qualified that demand.. With tears in his voice, he admitted that the ·case aga·inst Home Rule for three-fourths of I reland was as good as lost, and his colleagues confessed that the decisive factor · in that conclusion was the rise of the ''new complication,'' the Irish Vohmteers. All the more eagerly Mr .. Balfour demanded the "clean cut," thfl. amputation . of Ulster, Nationalists and all, Patrick' s Armagn: Columba's Derry, Down of the Three in one gra.ve, Tyrone of th e O'N eills, all Ulster of glorious history, from Ireland, in duritatem odii, for the perpetuation of hatred and "discord. The Imperial crisis has not caused Mr. Balfour's patriotism to r ecant one syllable.

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If it is patriotism for English statesmen to lay aside their party differences, and .for some of them to shelve their most solemn compacts, during an Imperial crisis, what are we to say of the patriotism of the " Freeman's Journal " and its adjuncts? We are in the greatest crisis of Irish a:ffairs since the Famine, the greatest pur ely political crisis since the Union. In this crisis, while the antiIrish policy in its most aggravated form still holds the field unshaken and unrepentant, some of our patriots can find no enemy to attack but an Irish enemy. The Sinn Feiners, who .take their stand on an international treaty, the R.enunciation Act of 1783, and declare the Act of Union to be a violation of tha,t treaty: effected by fraud and force, never accepted _by the Irish Nation, and therefore held . to be null and void in respect of moral obligation-these, we a:re told; and not the unrepentant anti-Irish oligarchy of Englar:.d, are the enemy. We can remember when it was still a point of honour with constitutional Nationalist~ to take the pa.rt .of the most extreme Nationalists against British statesmen, and when the ":Freen1an," even the ":Freeman," denounced Mr. Asquith, Home Ruler, for

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