I hope you do not think that we Americas helped in these attacks on you' was often said to me in New York and other cities. And I would say 'No, our countrymen made that clear by throwing the national vegetablepotato; if you had attacked us you would have thrown pumpkins; we should have fot felt like Esops philosopher under the oak tree'.

I think the account I have given shows that the oppostion was planned and ordered even before we landed, and by a very small group working through a political organisation. As to the reason and meaning of that attack, it is for those who made it to make the set it out. that out. I think sometimes of Alexander Hamilton's words 'After this in Washington time "After this war is over will come the real war, the great battle of ideas;" and that the long political war in Ireland may be, and seems to be nearing its end. And I remember Laeg looking out from wounded Cuchalains tent and making his report at Ilgaireth 'I see a little herd of cattle brea^king out from the west of Ailell's camp and there are lads following after them trying to bring them back, and I see more lads coming out from the army of Ulster to attack them', and how Cuchulain said 'That little herd on the plain is the beginniing of a great battle'. ThisThe battle of ideas has been fought elsewhere and against other writers; was not Ibsen banished from his country and Moliere refused Christian burial?

Sometimes I think it isit seems to be like the old story, the two sides -f the shield. Some who are lovers of Ireland say we have lessened the dignity of Ireland by showing upon the stage countrymen who drink and swear and admire deeds of violence and are misers or covetous or thirsting after land. We who are lovers of Ireland believe that our Theatre with is whole mass of plays have very greatly increased theits dignity; and we are content to leave that judgment to the great Arbitrator, Time. And in amongst thi ts America it was easy to rouse feeling against us. Is not the new baby always the dis-turber in the household, and our school of drama is the newest product in Ireland, that Ireland which had become almost consecrated by distance and romance. An Irishwoman who loves her country very much said while I was in America 'I don't want to go back thereand see it again; it is a finished picutre in my mind'. But Ireland cannot always be kept as a picturesampler on the wall. It has refused to be cut off from the creative work of the intellect, and the other countries who are creating literature have claimed her as of their kin.

We were never stopped for a single night; our curtain was never lowered till the end of the act. I wish my countrymen before coming into the fight had known it to be so unequal. They had banished from the stage one or two plays they had found offensive, and no one greatly cared. But works of imagination such as those of Synge could not be suppressed even if they were burned on the marketplace. They had not realised the tremendous support we had, that we were not fighting alone but with the intellect of America as well as of Europe at our back.

There was another thing they had not reckoned with. It had been pub down in words by Professor william James. He said: "Democracy is still neither laws nor monuments, neither battleships nor public libraries, nor churches nor universities can save us from degeneration if the inner mystery be lost. That mystery, at onece the secret and the glory of our English speaking race, consists in nothing but two common habits, who inveterate habits, carried into public life. One of them is the habit of trained and disciplined good temper towards the opposite party when it fairly wins its innings. The other is that of fierce and merciless resentment towards any every mand or set of men who break the public peace'. The civic genius of America had decided it was notthat not we but our opponents had broken the public peace.