then it is necessary your subjects be disarmed, all but such as appeared for you in the conquest, and they are to be mollified by degrees and brought into such a condition of laziness and effeminacy that in time your whole strength may devolve upon your own natural militia.”  We think of the Arms Acts and our weakened people.  But while one-half is disarmed and the other half bribed, with neither need the conqueror keep faith.  We read:  “A prince who is wise and prudent cannot, or ought not, to keep his parole, when the keeping of it is to his prejudice and the causes for which he promised removed.”  This is made very clear to prevent any mistake.  “It is of great consequence to disguise your inclination and play the hypocrite well.”  We think of the Broken Treaty and countless other breaches of faith.  It is, of course, well to seem honourable, but Machiavelli cautions:  “It is honourable to seem mild, and merciful, and courteous, and religious, and sincere, and indeed to be so, provided your mind be so rectified and prepared, that you can act quite contrary upon occasion.”  Should anyone hesitate at all this let him hear:  “He is not to concern himself if run under the infamy of those vices, without which his dominion was not to be preserved.”  Thus far the philosophy of Machiavelli.  The Imperialist out to “civilise the barbarians” is, of course, shocked by such wickedness; but we are beginning to open our eyes to the wickedness and hypocrisy of both.  To us this book reads as if a shrewd observer of the English Occupation in Ireland had noted the attending features and based these principles thereon.  We have reason to be grateful to Machiavelli for his exposition.  His advice to the prince, in effect, lays bare the marauders of his age and helps us to expose the Empire in our own.

III

There is a lesson to be learnt from the fact that this book of Machiavelli’s, written four centuries ago in Italy, is so apt here to-day.  We must take this exposition as the creed of Empire and have no truck with the Empire.  It may be argued that the old arts will be no longer practised on us.  Let the new supporters of the Empire know that by the new alliance they should practise these arts on other people, which would be infamy.  We are not going to hold other people down; we are going to encourage them to stand up.  If it means a further fight we have plenty of stimulus still.  Our oppression has been doubly bitter for having been mean.  The tyranny of a strong mind makes us rage, but the tyranny of a mean one is altogether insufferable.  The cruelty of a Cromwell can be forgotten more easily than the cant of a Macaulay.  When we read certain lines we go into a blaze, and that fire will burn till it has burnt every opposition out.  In his essay on Milton, Macaulay having written much bombast on the English Revolution, introduces this characteristic sentiment:  “One part of the Empire there