ritish Government were prepared at
that time to bring the Home Rule Act of 1914 into immediate operation,
if the Nationalists had consented to exclude from its scope the
distinctively Protestant population of the North, who desired to adhere
to the Union. This compromise was rejected by the Nationalist leaders,
whose policy was thus shown to be one of "self-determination" for
themselves, combined with coercive domination over us.

It is because the British Government, while prepared to concede the
principle of self-determination impartially to both divisions in
Ireland, has declined to drive us forcibly into such subjection that the
Nationalist Party conceive themselves entitled to resist the law of
conscription. And the method by which this resistance has been made
effective is, in our view, not less deplorable than the spirit that
dictated it. The most active opponents of conscription in Ireland are
men who have been twice detected during the war in treasonable traffic
with the enemy, and their most powerful support has been that of
ecclesiastics, who have not scrupled to employ weapons of spiritual
terrorism which have elsewhere in the civilised world fallen out of
political use since the Middle Ages.

The claim of these men, in league with Germany on the one hand, and with
the forces of clericalism on the other, to resist a law passed by
Parliament as necessary for national defence is, moreover, inconsistent
with any political status short of independent sovereignty--status which
could only be attained by Ireland by an act of secession from the United
Kingdom, such as the American Union averted only by resort to civil war.
In every Federal or other Constitution embracing subordinate
legislatures the raising and control of military forces are matters
reserved for the supreme legislative authority alone, and they are so
reserved for the Imperial Parliament of the United Kingdom in the Home
Rule Act of 1914, the "withholding" of which during the war is
complained of by the Nationalists who have addressed your Excellency.
The contention of these gentlemen that until the internal government of
Ireland is changed in accordance with their demands, Ireland is
justified in resisting the law of Conscription, is one that finds
support in no intelligible theory of political science.

To us as Irishmen--convinced as we are of the righteousness of the cause
for which we are fighting, and resolved that no sacrifice can be too
g