Professor de Valera, addressing the convention of the Irish Volunteers on Oct. 27, 1917, said:

"By proper organization and recruiting we could have 500,000 fighting volunteers in Ireland. That would be a big army, but without the opportunity and means for fighting it could only be used as a menace. There already has been too much bloodshed without success, and I would never advocate another rebellion without hopeful chances of success. We can see no hope of that in the near future, except through a German invasion of England and the landing of troops and munitions in Ireland. We should be prepared to leave nothing undone toward that end."

On another occasion in January of this year de Valera said: "As long as Germany is the enemy of England, and England is the enemy of Ireland, so long will Ireland be a friend of Germany."

For some considerable time it was difficult to obtain accurate information as to German-Sinn Fein plans, but about April, 1918, it was ascertained definitely that a plan for landing arms in Ireland was ripe for execution, and that the Germans only awaited definite information from Ireland as to the time, place, and date.

The British authorities were able to warn the Irish command regarding the probable landing of an agent from Germany from a submarine. The agent actually landed on April 12 and was arrested.

The new rising depended largely upon the landing of munitions from submarines, and there is evidence to show that it was planned to follow a successful German offensive in the west and was to take place at a time when Great Britain presumably would be stripped of troops.

According to documents found on his person, de Valera had worked out in great detail the constitution of his rebel army. He hoped to be able to muster 500,000 trained men. There is evidence that German munitions actually had been shipped on submarines from Cuxhaven in the beginning of May, and that for some time German submarines have been busy off the west coast of Ireland on other errands than the destruction of allied shipping.

It will thus be seen that the negotiations between the executive of the Sinn Fein organization and Germany have been virtually continuous for three and a half years. At first a section of Irish-Americans was the intermediary for most of the discussions, but since America's entrance into the war the communication with the enemy has tended to be more direct. A second rising in Ireland was planned for last year, and the scheme broke down only because Germany was unable to send troops.

This year plans for another rising in connection with the German offensive on the western front were maturing, and a new shipment of arms from Germany was imminent.

An important feature of every plan was the establishment of submarine bases in Ireland to menace the shipping of all nations.

In the circumstances no other course was open to the Government if useless bloodshed was to be avoided and its duty to its allies fulfilled but to intern the authors and abettors of this criminal intrigue.

LANDING FROM SUBMARINE

On June 10 it was announced that the man who was put ashore on the west coast of Ireland from a German submarine on April 12, 1918, and who is now a prisoner in the Tower of London, was Lance Corporal J. Dowling of the Connaught Rangers. The collapsible boat in which Dowling was landed was made of canvas with a bottom of twenty-three wooden slats, each four inches wide, making the boat about eight feet long and two feet wide. The canvas sides, about twenty inches high, had an inner lining rubber fabric, to be blown up from a valve at the rear to give the boat buoyancy. There were loops along the sides in which short wooden braces or struts kept the boat from collapsing. The whole craft when rolled up weighed less than forty pounds. When the buoyancy chambers were pumped full of air the boat would easily support three men.

No effort had been made up to June 20 to put into execution the conscription law in Ireland, notwithstanding there had been a very meagre response to the call for volunteer enlistments.

Ireland's Food Shipments to England

A Limerick correspondent of The London Telegraph, on May 15, 1918, sent that newspaper the following table of Irish food exports to England, with other information not before made public:

Values of Foodstuffs Imported Into and Retained for Consumption in Great Britain from Undermentioned Countries. (Figures for 1917 are not available.)

1912.1913.1914.1915.1916.
MillionsMillionsMillionsMillionsMillions
£££££
Ireland3036374659
United States30304282116
Argentina3131274636
Canada1819232741
British India2217132220
Denmark2022232020
New Zealand99111618
Netherlands1416171413
Australia1315161210
Russia17151381