OCR Text |
Show SINN FEIN By Louis J. McQuilland, TN the newspapers there has been printed much and not too much at that about the gallant gal-lant if' mistaken men of the Sinn Fein movement in Ireland, the poets and dreamers Pearso, Connolly, Con-nolly, Plunkett, Sheeery-Skefflngton and others but little about the movement itself. The movement move-ment was in its origin and purpose, as we say, "practical." Then it took on a poetic tinge, through alliance with the Gaelic League for the preservation of the Irish language. That is where the poets and. dreamers come in. It Is claimed for Sinn Fein that it is a legitimate legiti-mate successor of former patriotic native movements move-ments for Irish freedom. Sinn Fehiers assert that they are the legitimate heirs of all previous revolutionaries revo-lutionaries who fought for an Irish Ireland. Their leaders say they are the successors of Wolfe Tone, of Robert Emmett, of Lord Edward Fitzer-ald Fitzer-ald and other eighteenth century militant Irish patriots the (United Irishmen!, and of John Mitchell, Smith O'Brien, Thomas Francis Maegher, and Charles Gavan Duffy the Young Irelariders of the nineteenth century who, despairing of the Constitutional Repeal methods of O'Connell, took up arms against the English Government. Ostensibly, Os-tensibly, the Sinn Fein claim is a sound one; but and this is a great but circumstances alter cases. The United Irishmen and the Young Ire-landers Ire-landers and the men of 1848 and 1867 were fighting fight-ing against great wrongs and cruel tyrannies; they were 'fighting for an Ireland which was being bled and starved to death by its English rulers; they were fighti gnfor an Ireland which was being grossly misgoverned by a privileged and despotic caste on crushing every national tradition out of the country, and even of depriving her of the last solace of her religion. At the time when Sinn Fein (meaning "Ourselves") "Our-selves") was founded in 1905, practically all the old evil conditions had disappeared. England had ceased to rule Ireland as a conquered and alien colony. The Irish were allowed to worship God in their own way, the country was prospering, prosper-ing, and was well in the way of continued improvement. im-provement. Thanks to the sustained efforts of a pledge-bound Irish Parliamentary Party pledged not to take office in any English Government sweeping reforms had been thrust on the Tory Administration in the long period of power they enjoyed after the Liberal cataclysm. In 1898 the Local Government Act had been passed, which swept away the old oligarchical Grand Jury system, sys-tem, and gave the Irish people popular local control con-trol of their own affairs. In 1903, George "Wynd-ham "Wynd-ham had carried h'is great Land Purchase Act, which gave back the land to the people and provided pro-vided that the evicted tenants, "the wounded soldiers sold-iers of the Land war," should be restored to their holdings. The Act evaded in several ways, and notably as regards the evicted tenants;, but nevertheless never-theless the broad princple of giving the people back their land had been established. The Tories had been forcibly converted to the doctrine of Irish conciliation. They were even considering a scheme of modified Home Rule, Mr. George "Wyndham and Sir Anthony (now Lord) MacDon-nell MacDon-nell being the agents. At the instigation of the Orange Party Mr. Wyndham was recalled by Mr. Balfour, much to Mr. Balfour's discredit, as he was not only betraying a trusted colleague, but an intimate friend. Still, things were well in train for extended conciliation, as Sir Anthony continued to retain his position as Under-Secretary. It was just on the eve of the return of the Liberals to a long reign of power that the Sinn Fein movement was started. The National Policy of Sinn Fein was outlined in November, 1905, and was based on the principle, "that the Irish people are a free people, and that no law made without their authority or consent is, or ever can be, binding on their conscience." The Sinn Fein programme had for its .main features the assertion of the existence of an Irish Constitution, the denial of the legality of the Union incorporating the Parliaments of Ireland and England, the denial of the light of the Eng-lish Eng-lish Parliament to legislate for Ireland, the withdrawal with-drawal of voluntary Irish support from the armed forces of England, the advocacy of the establishment establish-ment of a voluntary Legislature comprising rep-lesentatives rep-lesentatives of the existent Irish Councils and Boards, agricultural, commercial and industrial in-terests, in-terests, and the Irish members elected to the English Parliament. The National Council laid down, in addition to these sweeping establishment and maintenance of an Irish consular system, there ostablishment of an Irish mercantile marine, ma-rine, the development of Irish Sea Fisheries and Irish mineral resources, the control and management manage-ment by an authority responsible to the Irish people of the transit systems in Ireland, and the creation of a National Civil Service comprising the employes of all bodies responsible to the Irish people." If there was any failure in the drafting of the Sinn Fein proposals, that failure was not due to want of scope, Colonel Lynch, M. P., points out that while many of their schemes were excellent, including propositions for reafforestation, arterial drainage and reclamation of waste lands, to carry them into effect would require the expenditure of many millions of pounds. In addition to this, the Congested Districts Board and other similar bodies are now devoting considerable energy to the promotion of such schemes in a sensible way, For the carrying out of "their programme of complete com-plete legislative independence, the National Council Coun-cil only asked for the pathetic sum of 800 a year; and so little confidence had their countrymen country-men in them or their projects that they did not get if. A salient feature of the Sinn Fein policy against the neighboring country of England was a boycott of all English imports and all English institutions. in-stitutions. No Irish Member was to go to Westminister, West-minister, but Sinn Fein was to have a self-constituted National Council in Dublin under the control con-trol of which a National Stock Exchange was to be established and National Arbitration Courts formed. for-med. The Irish Consuls at Foreign Ports, who were, of course, to be quite independent of the resident British Consuls, were to attend to the interests and the development of Irish trade. The fact that Ireland had not a single boat" for a merchant mer-chant marine was a detail beneath the lofty and godlike notice of the National Council. Sinn Fein, therefore, began as a Passive Re-sistence Re-sistence movement, and, failing to effect anything, any-thing, gradually developed into a physically miliat-ant miliat-ant movement. The Sinn Fein Council started by urging that Irishmen should pay no Income tax, but Sinn Feiners" continued to pay it. The Sinn Fein Council urged that all British institutions should be banned, but the Sinn Feiners still inflexibly in-flexibly continued to draw their salaries as members mem-bers of the Civil Service. Their idea was to establish es-tablish native courts of law; but they themselves appeared in at least one case as plaintiff and defendant in a case in the Sassenach Four Courts; and they generaly yielded on this point of trial by what they termed a foreign judiciary. The Sinn Fein Passive Resistence movement was a movement move-ment pour rire, and the exponents of Sinn Fein were promptly condemned at the national court of ridicule an unofficial but formidable judgment bench by their own manifest Inconsistencies. If however, the Sinn Feiners did not live logically, logi-cally, they died superbly. One cannot fail to have a generous measure of sympathy for real Conscientious Objectors-'-whatever they object to when they fall, rifio in hand, for a principle, or suffer the last rigor of the law for a doctrine. |