Germany, France, and America teach us that English economics are not fit for a nation beginning to establish a trade, though they may be for an old and plethoric trader; and therefore that English and Irish trading interests are directly opposed. Nor can our foreign trade but be served by foreign connections.
The land tenures of France, Norway, and Prussia are the reverse of England's. They resemble our own old tenures; they better suit our character and our wants than the loose holdings and servile wages system of modern England.
These, and a host of lessons more, will we learn if we study the books, laws, and manners, and cultivate an intimacy with the citizens of foreign states. We will thus obtain countenance, sympathy, and help in time of need, and honour and friendship in time of strength; and thus, too, we will learn toleration towards each other's creed, distrust in our common enemy, and confidence in liberty and nationality.
Till Ireland has a foreign policy, and a knowledge of foreign states, England will have an advantage over us in both military and moral ways. We will be without those aids on which even the largest nations have at times to depend; and we will be liable to the advances of England's treacherous and deceptive policy.
Let us, then, return the ready grasp of America, and the warm sympathy of France, and of every other country that offers us its hand and heart. Let us cultivate a Foreign Policy and Foreign Information as useful helps in that national existence which is before us, though its happiness and glory depend, in the first instance, on "ourselves alone." Ireland has a glorious future, if she be worthy of it. We must believe and act up to the lessons taught by reason and history, that England is our interested and implacable enemy—a tyrant to her dependants—a calumniator of her neighbours, and both the despot and defamer of Ireland for near seven centuries. Mutual respect for conscience, an avoidance of polemics, concession to each other, defiance to the foe, and the extension of our foreign relations, are our duty, and should be our endeavour. Vigour and policy within and without, great men to lead, educated men to organise, brave men to follow—these are the means of liberation—these are elements of nationality.
MORAL FORCE.
There are two ways of success for the Irish—arms and persuasion. They have chosen the latter. They have resolved to win their rights by moral force. For this end they have confederated their names, their moneys, their thoughts, and their resolves. For this they meet, organise, and subscribe. For this they learn history, and forget quarrels; and for this they study their resources, and how to increase them.
For moral success internal union is essential.
Ireland, through all its sects and classes, must demand Repeal before the English Minister will be left without a fair reason to resist it, and not till then we be in a state to coerce his submission.