III
On this ground the Gael and Gall stand on footing of equality. That is the point many on both sides miss and we need to emphasise it. Some Irishmen not of Gaelic stock speak of Irish as foreign to them, and would maintain English in the principal place now and in the future. We do well then to make clear to such a one that he is asked to adopt the language for Ireland's sake as a nation and for his own sake as a citizen. If he wishes to serve her he must stand for the language; if he prefers English civilisation he should go back to England. There only can he develop on English lines. An Irishman in Ireland with an English mind is a queer contradiction, who can serve neither Ireland nor England in any good sense, and both Ireland and England disown him. So the Irishman of other than Gaelic ancestors should stand in with us, not accepting something disagreeable as inevitable, but claiming a right by birth and citizenship, joining the fine army of the nation for a brave adventurous future, full of fine possibility and guaranteed by a fine comradeship—owning a land not of flattery and favouritism, but of freedom and manhood. This saving ideal has been often obscured by our sundering class names. This is why we would substitute as common for all the fine name of Irishman.
IV
But in asking all parties to accept the common name of Irishman, we find a fear rather suggested than declared—that men may be asked in this name to put by something they hold as a great principle of Life; that Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter will all be asked to find agreement in a fourth alternative, in which they will not submit to one another but will all equally belie themselves. There is such a hidden fear, and we should have it out and dispose of it. The best men of all parties will have no truck with this and they are right. But on what ground, then, shall we find agreement, the recognition of which Irish Citizenship implies? On this, that the man of whatever sincere principles, religious or civic, counts among his great duties his duty as citizen; and he defends his creed because he believes it to be a safe guide to the fulfilling of all duties, this including. When, therefore, we ask him to stand in as Irish Citizen, it is not that he is to abandon in one iota his sincere principles, but that he is to give us proof of his sincerity. He tells us his creed requires him to be a good citizen: we give him a fine field in which he can be to us a fine example.
V
In further consideration of this we should put by the thought of finding a mere working agreement. There is a deep-lying basis of authority and justice to seek, which it should be our highest aim to discover. Modern governments concede justice to those who can compel justice—even the democracy requires that you be strong enough to formulate a claim and sustain it; but this is the way of tyranny. A perfect government should seek, while careful to develop its stronger forces and keep them in perfect balance, to consider also the claims of those less powerful but not less true. A government that over-rides the weak because it is safe, is a tyranny, and tyranny is in seed in the democratic governments of our time. We must consider this well, for it is pressing and grave; and we must get men to come together as citizens to defend the rights as well of the unit which is unsupported as of the party that commands great power. So shall we give steadiness and fervour to our growing strength by balancing it with truth and justice: so shall we found a government that excesses cannot undermine nor tyranny destroy.
VI
We have to consider, in conclusion, the unrest in the world, the war of parties and classes, and the need of judging the tendencies of the time to set our steps aright. With the wars and rumours of wars that threaten the great nations from without and the wild upheavals that threaten them within, it would be foolish to hide from ourselves the drift of events. We must decide our attitude; and if it is too much to hope that we may keep clear of the upheavals, we should aim at strengthening ourselves against the coming crash. We cannot set the world right, but we can go a long way to setting things in our own land right, by making through a common patriotism a united people. What if we are held up occasionally by the cold cries shot at every high aim—"dreamer—Utopia"; cry this in return: no vision of the dreamer can be more wild than the frantic make-shifts of the Great Powers to vie in armaments with one another or repress internal revolts. Consider England in the late strike that paralysed her. It was only suspended by a step that merely deferred the struggle; the strife is again threatening. All the powers are so threatened and their efforts to defer the hour are equally feverish and fruitless; for the hour is pressing and may flash on the world when 'tis least prepared. Let who will deride us, but let us prepare. We may not guide our steps with the certainty of prophets, nor hope by our beautiful schemes to make a perfect state; but we can only come near to perfection in the light of a perfect ideal, and however far below it we may remain, we can at least, under its inspiration, reach an existence rational and human: our justification for a brave effort lies in that the governments of this time are neither one nor the other. He who thinks Ireland's struggle to express her own mind, to give utterance to her own tongue, to stand behind her own frontier, is but a sentiment will be surprised to find it leads him to this point. Herein is the justification and the strength of the movement. Men are deriding things around them, of the significance of which they have not the remotest idea. Ireland is calling her children to a common banner, to the defence of her frontier, to the building up of a national life, harmonious and beautiful—a conception of citizenship, from which a right is conceded, not because it can be compelled, but because it is just: to the foundation of a state that will by its defence of the least powerful prove all powerful, that will be strong because true, beautiful because free, full of the music of her olden speech and caught by the magic of her encircling sea.