That was the outcome of Mr. Birrell's go-as-you-please regime in
Ireland. If we can forgive and forget such things, it is because Mr. Birrell might conceivably be acquitted as a " first offender." But if such things are allowed to happen again, there can be no plea of a first offence. The Government should remember that it is, after all, impossible to conciliate men whose cardinal principle is that they will never be conciliated. All the amiable talk about placating " unhappy Erin " breaks upon this rock. We cannot help thinking that a good many Americans who used to repeat the easy formulas about justice and consideration for Ireland must have had their eyes opened since they came across the Atlantic. We read lately a para- graph in the newspapers about Sinn Feiners hissing " The Star- Spangled Banner " when it was played in a Dublin place of enter- tainment. That gross discourtesy was openly committed although the sympathy between Ireland and the United States is supposed to be traditional, and although two American naval officers were standing at attention all the time. It is said that the American national song was hissed even more violently than " God Save the King." We fancy that Americans who have quite genuinely and sincerely supposed that the Irish difficulty was summed sip in phrases about " doing the fair thing by Ireland " must begin to recognize now that the question is complicated by the hatred of the Sum Feinera even for America, by a desire to restore the temporal power of the Pope, and by open applause of the Kaiserall ideas which cannot be expected to please American opinion at the present moment.
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