It is undoubtedly the opinion of every Irish American who possesses any real influence with the people of his own race in my country, that the rights and liberties of Ireland can only be effectually secured by a complete political separation from Great Britain. Nor can the right of Irish American citizens, holding this opinion, to express their sympathy with Irishmen striving in Ireland to bring about such a result, and with Englishmen or Scotchmen contributing to it in Great Britain, be questioned, any more than the right of Polish citizens of the French Republic to express their sympathy with Poles labouring in Poland for the restoration of Polish nationality. It is perhaps even less open to question than the right of Americans not of Irish race, and of Frenchmen not of Polish race, to express such sympathies; and certainly less open to question than the right of Englishmen or Americans to express their sympathy with Cubans bent on sundering the last link which binds Cuba to Spain, or with Greeks bent on overthrowing the authority of the Sultan in Crete. But for all American citizens of whatever race, the expression of such sympathies ceases to be legitimate when it assumes the shape of action transcending the limits set by local or by international law. It is of the essence of American constitutionalism that one community shall not lay hands upon the domestic affairs of another; and it is an undeniable fact that the sympathy of the great body of the American people with Irish efforts for self-government has been diminished, not increased, since 1848, by the gradual transfer of the head-quarters and machinery of those efforts from Ireland to the United States. The recent refusal of the Mayor of New York, Mr. Hewitt, to allow what is called the "Irish National flag" to be raised over the City Hall of New York is vastly more significant of the true drift of American feeling on this subject than any number of sympathetic resolutions adopted at party conventions or in State legislatures by party managers, bent on harpooning Irish voters. If Ireland had really made herself a "nation," with or without the consent of Great Britain, a refusal to hoist the Irish flag on the occasion of an Irish holiday would be not only churlish but foolish. But thousands of Americans, who might view with equanimity the disruption of the British Empire and the establishment of an Irish republic, regard, not only with disapprobation, but with resentment, the growing disposition of Irish agitators in and out of the British Parliament to thrash out on American soil their schemes for bringing about these results with the help of Irishmen who have assumed the duties by acquiring the rights of American citizenship. It is not in accordance with the American doctrine of "Home Rule" that "Home Rule" of any sort for Ireland should be organised in New York or in Chicago by expatriated Irishmen.