“The other reason is that Ireland, when she is once set free, and in the hands of the Federation, is to be made the basis of future operations. It is very necessary that the Federation should have some such headquarters, and in regard to size (too large a centre is not desirable), shape, situation, and compactness, Ireland possesses peculiar natural advantages for the purpose. An island, surrounded on all sides as by sentries, by the sea, no hostile force can steal upon her under cover and unawares. She is practically the key to Europe, and as a vantage-ground from which to commence operations upon England her position cannot be bettered. “Is there a single thinking man or woman who cannot see that monarchy and imperialism, peers, clergy, and class distinctions are doomed, and that their utter downfall is only a matter of time? Germany, Russia, Austria, Italy, France, and England are undermined to the very cores by Socialism and Anarchy. The mines which are to destroy society, as society now exists, are laid though they are out of sight, and at any moment the opportunity may come to fire the train. Such an opportunity once occurred in France; but what happened then, though it served to show what hatred of its rulers was seething unsuspected in the lowest stratum of society, was a mere accident. But if an accidental outbreak like the French Revolution could set rivers of blood running in France, what may we not expect from the Great Revolution which, when it comes--as come it must--will be the result, not of chance, but of long years of systematic propagation of socialistic principles among the masses, which will be the outcome of the most subtly-planned and gigantic scheme for the liberation of mankind which the world has ever known! “There are people who will say that what happened on the other side of the Channel can never happen on this. But those who know what is going on in London, Manchester, Birmingham, and all the largest towns, know that we are living on the edge of a volcano; that England is riper for revolution to-day than France was in 1789, though the danger is as little suspected now as it was then, and that what happened then, and worse, may happen at any time in England unless her councillors have the foresight and the wisdom to _give_ to the people what the people will assuredly otherwise _take_.