French Opinion on the Irish Situation

Extract

Lady Sykes in her paper on The Deadlock in Ireland, in the April issue of Blackfriars, said that the Government, in its Irish policy, is treading a path that “will inevitably, if continued, end in the breaking-up of our great Empire.” A patriotic Irishman, faced with the present attitude of the Government towards Ireland cannot reasonably be expected to grow sentimental about the break-up of the Empire. Any Irishman who cares for the welfare of his own country would gladly assist in the disruption of the Empire if that were the condition of freeing his own land from the present regime of organized violence and persecution. The preservation of the Empire should be the concern of Englishmen : and it is well for Englishmen who are concerned about the Empire to remember that, all over the world, in the Dominions and in the United States, there are Irishmen, not only influential but numerous, who are being provoked by England’s present treatment of Ireland into the desire for active revenge. Englishmen may declare that Ireland is a purely domestic question, but they must realize that, if Irishmen scattered over the face of the globe refuse to stand silently by, it may easily become a world problem that men may try to solve by working for the disruption of the Empire.