San Francisco, January 1, 1916. STOP RECRUITING IRISHMEN, PREACH PEACE, AND VOTE AGAINST CONSCRIPTION. Dear Sir: I understand that it is the intention of the British Government to introduce a bill for conscription. Since I left Ireland, I notice many strange changes have come over the National leaders of Ireland. They are not as fearless as they were in the days of Parnell and they completely lost or destroyed their independence. I suppose England will now want Irishmen to fight for her and therefore extend conscription to Ireland: My views are: 1. FOR PEACE, first and last. 2. NEUTRAL as between the leading nations responsible for the war, viz., England, Germany and Russia. 3. STRONGLY OPPOSED TO IRISHMEN being sent OUT OF IRELAND to fight. 4. England is not fighting to protect the nuns of Belgium from the ravages of the Germans, because the British soldiers destroyed the women of their own land by thousands before leaving for the battlefront. 5. England is not fighting for the protection of little nationalities, because that country was the greatest exterminator that ever appeared on the face of the globe. She put out of existence the two Boer Republics, as recently as 1902. 6. That the war is a mass murder of human beings carried on for greed. 7. Opposed to secret treaties or invisible governments, especially those binding the people without the full knowledge, consent and vote of the people of the contracting countries, especially treaties made in support of an unjust cause. The history of this war now raging in Europe is still in its making. To the one standing here it appears to be a monstrous mass murder of human beings who are made the victims of a scramble of European financiers, their rulers and supporters, for many years plotting to rob one another of trade profit and territory. It is plain to a child that each of the nations of Europe for many years were struggling to out do each other in building murderous equipment and forming compacts for the same purpose. The sudden killing of the Crown Head of Austria was like setting a lighted match to oil barrels already in position for the blaze. The plain leading facts as they appear to me are that Germany wants the expansion of territory and sea power, and England is jealous of the rapid growth of sea commerce of Germany, and therefore avails herself of this opportunity to destroy it for ages. I honestly believe that all the other arguments about militarian little nationalities, etc., ought to at once be rejected as manufactured excuses to justify war.