This differentiation between colonials, who are Britishers, and Irishmen who are not, does not lead to its corollary that Ireland is a nation, for it is not the Anglo-Saxon habit to admit unpleasant truths, unpleasant here, because the admission would weaken the "moral" case for conscription, so dear to the British heart. The brutal Hun may dispense with moral sanctions, he may admit his wrong-doing, when military necessity involves the invasion of neutral territory. The German sheep--for we are assured of his docility--may masquerade in the wolf's clothing of intellectual honesty, his adversaries must have some law (of "angary"), or preferably, some text of Scripture, enjoining them to act as they have decided. Their wisdom is justified by the universal execration of Prussianism which, under other names, smells quite sweet. Unfortunately, Ireland, like other small neutrals, has failed to be impressed by the ingenious variety of the Imperialist technique, whose results are monotonously the same. In the particular instance of the proposal to apply conscription to Ireland, it is hard to say which attitude in the Englishman is the more preposterous from the Irish point of view: that of the virtuosi of Imperialism, who insist upon their moral "right" to conscript, or that of the soothsayers of liberalism, who think it "inexpedient" to impose upon the Irish colony a claim which they dared not impose on Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada. Both are obnoxious in so far as they rest upon the "great refusal," the negation of Irish nationality. It happens, however, that a corresponding divergence of opinion has expressed itself in Ireland to meet the conditions of British politics. Constitutional Nationalists and not wholly degraded Unionists have met the argument of inexpediency by adopting it, obeying the law of their parliamentary being, which demands cohesion with political friends in England. This section protests, therefore, against the attempt to enforce a theoretical right which was not exercised in the case of the British colonies. If logic were any part of a politician's equipment this position would be untenable, since only the Unionists profess to regard themselves as Colonials. The Nationalists assert that Ireland is a nation, but they act as if she were a colony, thereby adding to the incongruity of their revolt against participation in a war which they have supported and declared to be just. But happily only their illogical opponents insist upon the logical weakness of the position, as is the practice in politics, where the beam in the eye of one party never interferes with its perception of the mote in the eye of the other. Their respective constituents are quite satisfied.