Whatever its motives or ideals, this party has only one panacea for all ills, and that is complete separation from "England." They aspire to none of the status of Canada or the other Dominions; they are out for secession, pure and simple--secession accompanied, if possible, by a mortal blow at the hated pride of England. In order to put their amiable intention into effect, the Sinn Feinners proceeded, on Easter Monday of 1916, to deal the British peoples, including some three hundred thousand of their own compatriots serving on the Western Front, a stab in the back in the shape of that grim medley of tragedy and farce, the Dublin "revolution." The farce was supplied by Germany, which deposited upon the western shores of Ireland, from a submarine, a degenerate criminal lunatic named Casement, who had already failed egregiously in a monstrous effort to seduce the Irish prisoners in the German prison camps from allegiance to their cause. Casement was promptly arrested by the local village policeman, and his share in the matter ended. But in Dublin there was no lack of tragedy. The forces of the "revolution" struck the first blow for Freedom by an indiscriminate massacre of such British soldiers as happened to be strolling about the streets, unarmed, in their "walking out" dress. The killing was then extended to a large number of innocent civilians, not all of the male sex; and the apostles of Freedom then settled down, with the able assistance of the slum population, to the unrestrained looting of the shops and houses of Dublin. Naturally the whole of Ireland stood aghast at the crime. Denunciations of the murderers poured in from every side, irrespective of political creed. The leader of the Nationalist Party publicly repudiated and condemned the occurrence in the House of Commons. Never did England and Ireland stand so close together as on that day. But one thing was morally certain from the start, and that was that when the first flush of indignation had died down, the old pernicious sentimentality and political animus would raise their heads again. And it was so. The "revolution" was crushed. Some twelve or fifteen executions took place, either of men who had been directly convicted of deliberate murder, or of those who had set their names to the outrageous document which authorized the same. It is difficult, considering the circumstances, to see how a conscientious tribunal could have done less, for to have condoned such a blend of black treachery and plain murder would rightly have been construed as an act of weakness. But it is even more difficult--nay, impossible--to conceive any handling of the situation out of which persons interested would have refrained from making political capital. The Oppressed English were booked for trouble, both "going and coming."