10,000 of the population--the highest proportion of all the towns in the United Kingdom. An Ulster Division appeared in the list of the new Armies at the end of the year. The vigorous and continued efforts of the Nationalist leaders to promote enlistment were unfortunately opposed by small and virulently hostile bodies of extremists--Sinn Fein (A.R., 1907, p. 266), the Irish Labour party, led by Mr. Larkin, and entirely separate from the Labour party in Great Britain, some of the original promoters of the Irish Volunteer movement (A.R., 1913, p. 267), and other small groups. These bodies published papers, among them _Irish Freedom_, _Sinn Fein_, the _Irish Volunteer_, and the _Irish Worker_, distributed them and quantities of leaflets gratuitously, posted up seditious placards, sent out emissaries to discourage recruiting, and started or spread a rumour that the Government intended to institute compulsory military service, which caused a considerable emigration of able-bodied men to America in the autumn from certain areas in the West. They attempted a counter-demonstration to the Premier's meeting in Dublin (p. 215); and Sir Roger Casement, an Antrim man and a Liberal Home Ruler, who had honourably served Great Britain as a Consul and had exposed the atrocities on the Putumayo (A.R., 1912, p. 489; 1913, p. 493), was reported in November to have gone to Berlin _via_ the United States, and to have obtained satisfactory assurances from the German Government, particularly with regard to the conduct that might be expected from a German invading force in Ireland. A prominent Irish American even stated that the Kaiser had promised Sir Roger that he would free Ireland if Germany were victorious. Sir Roger had previously tried to dissuade Irishmen from enlisting in the British Army. It was charitably suggested that, if these reports were true, his mental balance had suffered from his arduous and perilous work on the Putumayo. The extremists generally argued that the war was England's affair, that Ireland should be neutral, and that its Nationalists should co-operate with those of India and Egypt to exact favourable terms for themselves from Great Britain after her defeat, and join the Irish Volunteers against the day of reckoning.