The Round Table for June has an illuminating article on
"The Military Effort of the British Empire," compiled from official returns. The percentage of the male population enlisted between 1914 and 1918 was for England 2402, for Scotland
2311, for Wales and Monmouth 2152, for New Zealand 1935, for Canada 13-48, for Australia 1343, for South Africa 1112— but for Ireland only 6'14. New Zealand with a male population of 580,000 sent 112,223 men from the ends of the world to fight against the Germans ; Ireland with nearly four times as large a population sent only 134,202 men. The plain man who is invited to sympathize with " oppressed " Ireland cannot and will not forget that the Irish in the Great War took the aide of the enemy. In an article on the Peace Conference we are urged to be magnanimous to Germany on the ground that she has become a democracy and shown a change of heart. But has she ? The available evidence points the other way, for Marshal Hindenburg, the old crafty diplomatists, and the old politicians like Herr Erzberger and Herr Scheidemann are still in the front of the stage.
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