12 MAY 1917, Page 2

If Ireland were, as the Sinn Feiners and the Nationalists—when

in Ireland—pretend, groaning under a tyranny worse than that of the Austrians in Italy in the ",thirties " and " forties, " is it possible that the Nationalists would refuse to free the 'major part of the country from such a horrible .tyranny, leaving out only the geographically small area which does not want to_go in ? -Mazzini .or Garibaldi -would have jumped at an offer such as. has „been :made to the -Nationalists, even if it involved leaving .out a city .and district which were bitterly pro-Austrian. The:-unreality of the whole Home Rule -movement is, in our opinion, proved by such a manifesto as that of the Archbishops and Bishops.