The gradual growth of Sinn Fein and anti-English (which was only accidentally and not on principle pro-German) sentiment during the war, and the increasing difficulties found in the way of the recruiting campaign, were due mainly to a growing disbelief in the sincerity of English statesmen in their dealings with Ireland. The Government had gone too far in the direction of Home Rule to make Unionists sure that the promised Amending Bill would secure that they should not be "coerced": it had not gone far enough to make Nationalists sure that it really meant to do what it had promised. The result was the conviction upon all hands that their rights must be secured by their own efforts not by reliance upon the lukewarm sympathy of others. This conviction was not a matter of a sudden growth nor did it always find expression in the same way: it acted at once in favour of, and to the detriment of, recruiting: it was professed both by Nationalists and by Unionists. At first recruits joined because the war was just, because the Empire was in danger, because England had granted Ireland a "charter of liberty," because the civilization of Europe was threatened, because there was fighting afoot. Probably the majority enlisted for one or other of these reasons. But the theory of "a free gift of a free people" expounded by Mr. Asquith in Dublin fell more and more into the background. It began to be represented on both sides that the more recruits either party sent to the war the stronger would be the lien of that party upon the sympathy of the English Government. Unionists whose blood had flowed for England in Flanders could not be abandoned after such a sacrifice: Nationalists who had given their best and bravest to the cause of freedom could not be denied the freedom for which such a price had been paid. The official recruiting campaign wavered in its appeal between the two points. Its minor ineptitudes need hardly be taken into account. It was hardly politic to cover the walls of police barracks in Protestant villages in Ulster with green placards drawing attention to a few weighty words of Cardinal Logue: these follies did neither harm nor good. But it was different when appeals to the chivalry and bravery of Irishmen alternated with deductions from the famous phrase about "the rights of small nations." When Irish Nationalists were implored to rally to the defence of the Friend of Little Nations the size of Ireland was not likely to be forgotten. The inference that in fighting for the liberties of small nations Irishmen would be helping their own nation to secure the same liberty was the inference intended: but it was not always the inference actually drawn. The person who first conceived the idea of making use of that phrase for recruiting purposes in Ireland did the cause of recruiting an unforeseen but serious disservice. Was it, after all, really true (it was asked) that England could not recognize the freedom of