The Lord Mayor of Dublin has been requested to go
to Washington and present a statement on behalf of Ireland to President Wilson. If he should do this, we hope and- believe that he will get much more than he gives. President Wilson conceives this war as being fought
for a principle, and for nothing else, and is not likely to express -sympathy for those who are capable of " a- great refusal " in the face of the most dastardly-attempt -upon the liberties of the world that has ever been made. Professor W. Alison. Phillips points out in a letter to the Times of 'Tuesday that the message which the Lord Mayor has been charged to convey is based on a misunder- standing. But possibly the misunderstanding is deliberate. The message begins with these words : " Taking our stand on Ireland's separate and distinct nationhood, and affirming the principle of liberty than the Governments of nations derive their jest powers from 'the consent of the governed," &c. These words are taken from the American Declaration of Independence. But the vast majority of Americans have always regarded the question of Home Rule for Ireland as merely one of a demand for State rights. What the Irish Sinn Feiners, and the Nationalists who have allied them- selves with them, are now demanding is the recognition of a separate nationhood, a thing which neither Jefferson nor Lincoln ever recog- nized 'as existing in any of the States of America.
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