elements of human worth which make for immortality. The world has
to its sorrow many instances of freak religions which were persecuted
and by natural opposition were perpetuated and hardened in belief. We
should allow the greatest freedom in respect of cultural developments
in Ireland so that the best may triumph by reason of superior beauty
and not because the police are relied upon to maintain one culture
in a dominant position.

9. I have also an argument to address to the extremists whose claim,
uttered lately with more openness and vehemence, is for the complete
independence of the whole of Ireland, who cry out against partition,
who will not have a square mile of Irish soil subject to foreign
rule. That implies they desire the inclusion of Ulster and the
inhabitants of Ulster in their Irish State. I tell them frankly
that if they expect Ulster to throw its lot in with a self-governing
Ireland they must remain within the commonwealth of dominions which
constitute the Empire, be prepared loyally, once Ireland has
complete control over its internal affairs, to accept the status
of a dominion and the responsibilities of that wider union. If
they will not accept that status as the Boers did, they will never
draw that important and powerful Irish party into an Irish State
except by force, and do they think there is any possibility of that?
It is extremely doubtful whether if the world stood aloof, and
allowed Irishmen to fight out their own quarrels among themselves,
that the fighters for complete independence could conquer a community
so numerous, so determined, so wealthy, so much more capable of
providing for themselves the plentiful munitions by which alone one
army can hope to conquer another. In South Africa men who had
fiercer traditional hostilities than Irishmen of different parties
here have had, who belonged to different races, who had a few years