d aim in
Ireland at that freedom of the ancient Athenians, who, as Pericles said,
listened gladly to the opinions of others and did not turn sour faces
on those who disagreed with them. A culture which is allowed essential
freedom to develop will soon perish if it does not in itself contain the
elements of human worth which make for immortality. The world has to its
sorrow many instances of freak religions which were persecuted and by
natural opposition were perpetuated and hardened in belief. We should
allow the greatest freedom in respect of cultural developments in
Ireland so that the best may triumph by reason of superior beauty and
not because the police are relied upon to maintain one culture in a
dominant position.

9. I have also an argument to address to the extremists whose claim,
uttered lately with more openness and vehemence, is for the complete
independence of the whole of Ireland, who cry out against partition, who
will not have a square mile of Irish soil subject to foreign rule.
That implies they desire the inclusion of Ulster and the inhabitants
of Ulster in their Irish State. I tell them frankly that if they expect
Ulster to throw its lot in with a self-governing Ireland they must
remain within the commonwealth of dominions which constitute the Empire,
be prepared loyally, once Ireland has complete control over its internal
affairs, to accept the status of a dominion and the responsibilities of
that wider union. If they will not accept that status as the Boers did,
they will never draw that important and powerful Irish party into an
Irish State except by force, and do they think there is any possibility
of that? It is extremely doubtful whether if the world stood aloof, and
allowed Irishmen to fight out their own quarrels among themselves, that
the fighters for complete independence could conquer a community so
numerous, so determined, so wealthy, so much more capable of providing
for themselves the plentiful munitions by which alone one army can hope
to conquer another. In South Africa men who had fiercer traditional
hostilities than Irishmen of different parties here have had, who
belonged to different races, who had a few years before been engaged in
a racial war, were great enough to rise above these past antagonisms,
to make an agreement and abide faithfully by it. Is the same magnanimity
not possible in Ireland? I say to my countrymen who cry out for the
complete separation of Ireland from the E