Whatever may be said with regard to the motives actuating me - I do not expect you will
look on them favourably - but, whether you agree or not with the views I put forward, I
claim 'as an elementary right of a citizen in a free state' the right to put forward these
opinions. It is clearly a matter of constitutional right to tell the people of Ireland that
they had a right to take no part in a war as to which they were not consulted. When I say
the people of Ireland were not consulted, I do not wish to imply that the people's of other
countries under the same rulers were consulted. It is notorious they were not.
To take that portion of the population which suffers most in war time - the women - no
pretense ever was made of consulting them. As regards the men who do the actual fighting,
there is a pretense that they were consulted; but that it is merely a pretense is proved by
the action of the Government. They found themselves quite unable to face an election in
their own constituencies and have passed a Special Indemnity Bill absolving Members of
Parliament who have been appointed to the Cabinet from facing their electors. So evident is
it that the war was brought on by oligarchs that even in Great Britain the cry has gone
out for the impeachment of Mr Asquith and Sir Edward Grey [sic].
In England a 'Stop the War' Society has been founded for the purpose of getting the people
of England to bring pressure to bear on the oligarachs to stop the war. If I lived in
England I should still deem it my duty to join such a society and to insist on the
propoganda to stop the war in the only way in which the people can stop the war, namely by
stopping recruiting, by ceasing to provide the food for powder. It is true that some
friends of mine, both in England and in Ireland, say that while opposed to enlistment in
the Army, they prefer to leave it to the free decision of the individual whether they
should join or not. I should agree, if it were really left to the free decision of
individuals; but in a time like this, when every force and influence both in the press and
on the platform, and every kind of social and economic pressure is being brought to bear
upon men of military age to join the army, it is the right and duty of every person of
articulate speech to do what he can to produce the contrary pressure so as to give real
freedom of decision to the people on the Question. So much is true even of England, and of
Ireland it is strengthened and intensified. Whatever may be said of the English people,
the Irish people never at any time gave the slightest mandate or authority to their
leaders, or representatives to commit them to a European war. No leader has any right to
pledge the Irish people without such a mandate...
You may think it necessary to add to the eleven days I have spent in prison a few days
more. If so I will serve them, provided I can do so under conditions suitable to a
political offender, but I wish it clearly understood that I will serve no long sentence
whatever which does not recognise my rights as a political prisoner. I am prosecuted not
for the attacks on recruiting, on voluntary enlistment in the Army - but for my attacks on
Conscription. In attacking Conscription not only were my moral right and my constitutional
right equally strong, but there was no breach of law whatever.
To say that 'if Conscription comes we will not have it' is no more a breach of the law than
it was treason for Sir Edward Carson to say that 'if Home Rule comes we will not have it.' In England an anti-conscription league has been formed whose members declare their intention to resist to the death. In this case you will not find it possible to condemn me for breaking the law. I have only advocated passive resistance, because I believe that that form of resistance is sufficient to smash any Compulsory Military Service Act that may be put into force.
It is because that I have advocated passive resistance and because as Conscription came
nearer, I have pledged an increasing number every Sunday to resist Conscription, it is
because of this that this prosecution is brought against me, after holding similar meetings
for forty weeks...
Whatever happens to me today the work is done. If those men keep their pledges the
enforcement of Conscription becomes impossible in Ireland. In doing this, I have done what
I regarded both as a duty and a right, both in opposing recruiting and conscription and in
the latter case I have broken no law.
This prosecution would be intelligible in a country run by an autocrat, in a country under
the iron heel of military despotism; in a country ruled by an narrow oligarchy fearing the
smallest breath of criticism. It would be intelligible above all in a country held by force
by another country, the rulers of which would fear to allow any expression of opposition
amongst the subject people. If you condemn me, you condemn the system you represent as
being some or all of these things. Any sentence you pass on me is a sentence upon British
rule in Ireland.
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