CHAPTER IV

THE SINN FEIN POLICY

"The policy of Sinn Fein purposes to bring Ireland out of the corner and make her assert her existence to the world. I have spoken of an essential; but the basis of the policy is national self-reliance. No law and no series of laws can make a Nation out of a People which distrusts itself."--ARTHUR GRIFFITH (1906).

While the immediate inspiration of the Sinn Fein policy may be held to be Mr. Griffith's study of Hungary, it is no less undeniable that the roots of the policy are already in Nationalist writings and proceedings. Swift, and the 1782 Volunteers, and Davis, and Mitchel, and Lalor, all had some one or other of the points which make up the modern Sinn Fein policy. And, had there never been a Hungary, yet the Sinn Fein policy would have come into being in or about the period at which it actually did. The Gaelic League had made it inevitable. Supporters of the Parliamentary Party have at various times accused the Gaelic League of being a political body, of being anti-Party, and have felt very sore over its alleged breaches of its non-political constitution. But the Gaelic League is actually non-political, and rigidly so. It and the Parliamentarian people do not mix, and cannot mix, because they represent totally opposite views of Ireland. It is an impossibility for a supporter of the Parliamentarian policy to be at the same time a sincere believer in Gaelic League policy. He will find that his Parliamentarian convictions will vanish, not because of any propaganda within the Gaelic League, but because the Gaelic League philosophy, its aggressive self-reliance, its faith in itself, and in Ireland, these create an outlook and a conviction which, without being political, are fatal to the Parliamentarian atmosphere and show it for the helpless, foolish thing it is. In the "Shan Van Vocht" for March, 1897, Dr. Douglas Hyde, who will not be accused by anybody of being a politician, has a poem in Irish, "Waiting for Help," of which the last verse is--

[Gaelic: Is mitid fior do beit Ag gac aon amadan Nac bfuil gais-faire Is fiu aon aire Ach ceann, Sinn Fein Amain!]

(It is time for every fool to recognise that there is only one watchword which is worth anything--Ourselves alone.) This contains the essence of the Sinn Fein policy.

Sinn Fein means ourselves, and the Sinn Fein policy is founded on the faith that the Irish people have the strength to free themselves without any outside aid of any description, if they will only use their strength. To the policy of building up the Nation from without it opposes the policy of building it from within, and against Freedom by Legislation it puts Freedom by National Self-Development. It takes the motto of Davis, "Educate, that you may be free," and it applies it to every Irish problem; it takes the Gaelic League principle of developing Irish distinctive features, and it declares war on everything imported, resurrecting Swift's dictum to "burn everything English save their coals." The nineteenth century, as I have pointed out, was a century wherein English civilisation attacked Irish civilisation at every possible point of contact: in the twentieth century the Sinn Fein policy reverses that process, and under its banner it is Irish civilisation which is the attacking party.

To regard the Sinn Fein policy as a mere political device is a grave mistake. It is more than politics: it is a national philosophy. Its purely political side has been most prominent because it attacked the existing dominant political party, and because before it can be generally effective it must establish dominance over every other political policy. Nationalists of all shades of opinion would subscribe to a great deal of its constructive programme, and these have often asked why does Sinn Fein not confine itself to those points upon which general agreement can be reached. The answer is that the political policy of Sinn Fein is an integral portion of its general national policy, and that its adoption by the majority of the Irish people is essential to the effective operation of its non-political constructive policy.

The case for the policy of Parliamentarianism, the policy of acquiescing in the Act of Union and sending Irish Nationalist representatives to sit in the English Parliament, must rest upon one thing, and one alone, upon its effectiveness. It has already against it the damning fact that the sending of Irish representatives to the English Parliament is a giving away of Ireland's whole case, is an acceptance of the Act of Union, and is a recognition of the authority of the English Parliament to legislate for Ireland. Of itself, argues Sinn Fein, that fact discredits the Parliamentarian policy, even if it were effective, but it is not, and it never has been effective. The "remedial legislation" which the English Parliament has passed for Ireland has been passed in response to agitation in Ireland, and not in response to agitation in Parliament. The only way to set the legislative machine working is to hamper the machine of government in Ireland, and the more effectively that machine is hampered the more drastic the resultant legislation. Instead of London being the lever to work Ireland, Ireland is the lever to work London. No measure of remedial legislation can be pointed to which was passed as the result, directly or indirectly, of parliamentary action. The Catholic Associations of O'Connell, culminating in the Clare election and the ferment it set up, passed the Catholic Emancipation Act; Carrickshock and similar acts of resistance to the collection of tithes passed the Tithes Act; Fenianism disestablished the "Irish" Church and passed the Land Acts; and the Local Government Act was passed by a Unionist Government which had a clear majority over all parties, avowedly as a sop to try and pacify Ireland, and not in response to any pressure of any kind in Parliament, or any Parliamentarian manoeuvres. In none of these things had action in the Parliament of England the least share. It is the agitation at home, and not the agitation in Westminster, that is effective. The only possible function which Irish representatives in London can fulfil is to record Irish opinion, to speak for it, negotiate for it, make it articulate; and that function can be performed much more effectively by representatives living and meeting in Ireland itself.

Sinn Fein thus scores two points against the Parliamentarian policy, that it is a betrayal of Ireland's case, and that it is totally ineffective. But it is not content with that. It scores yet another point. Not alone is the Parliamentarian policy totally ineffective, but it is hurtful to the Nation. It has turned the imagination of the people away from Ireland towards parliamentary happenings in a foreign Parliament: it has kept their minds on the one phase of activity, the oratorical phase, while language, traditions, and industries vanished from the land, while at every national artery English civilisation entered: it has gradually whittled down the national demand, as the Party gradually became less Irish and more English, until it was ready to accept any shameful settlement as a just settlement: it has been a force, unconscious perhaps but powerful, towards making London the capital of Ireland: under its sway in Ireland the population of Ireland has steadily decreased and the taxation of Ireland has as steadily increased.

That is the Sinn Fein case against the policy of Parliamentarianism, and it is an overwhelming case.

The Sinn Fein policy, on the other hand, reverses the policy of Parliamentarianism, and relies upon focussing the attention and the strength of the Irish people upon action within Ireland. As a first step towards the resurrection of Ireland it would deny the authority of the English Parliament to legislate for Ireland, and it would refuse to send any representatives whatever to that Parliament. It would assemble in Dublin a National Assembly, elected by the people, to act as a _de facto_ Parliament, which should take within its purview all Ireland and plan for the conservation and development of national resources. The Sinn Fein policy would

(a) Deny the legality of the Act of Union and refuse to send representatives to the English Parliament, thereby cutting the ground at once from under the Union.

(b) Establish Irish as the national language of Ireland; teaching through Irish only in the Irish-speaking districts, and bilingually in the non-Irish-speaking districts.

(c) Remodel the Irish educational chaos, and frame a system based upon Irish culture, and as national as the educational systems of other countries are.

(d) Establish an Irish mercantile marine.

(e) Establish Irish courts of arbitration, to supersede the Law Courts.

(f) Improve transit facilities, cut down internal rates, and overhaul and extend the canal system.

(g) Establish in foreign countries Irish representatives specially trained who would act in the same capacity as consuls.

(h) Direct the strength of the Irish people generally as that of one man in any given direction

(i) Build up Ireland's manufacturing arm by protection--voluntary or legal--developing also Ireland's mineral resources, especially her coal and iron.

The Sinn Fein Movement, as such, did not contemplate an appeal to arms, believing that its policy, with the majority of Ireland behind it, would be irresistible on a passive resistance basis. It was really composed of two sections--one, led by Mr. Griffith, wished to base the movement definitely on the Constitution of 1782 and the Renunciation Act of 1783, and the other composed of the Separatists was for independence pure and simple. As a compromise, the object of the movement was defined as "the re-establishment of the Independence of Ireland," which satisfied the Separatists, with an addendum committing it, as a minimum, to the "King, Lords and Commons" solution, which satisfied the others. Both sections were agreed as to the general lines of policy.

Upon every Irish question, and every possible development in Ireland, Sinn Fein would operate on the same lines as those I have enumerated above. It would build up Ireland from within, strengthening everything Irish and attacking everything foreign, eliminating everything which would send Irish thoughts wandering in search of foreign aid and teaching the people by precept and example that a Nation's salvation can only be worked out by itself and on its own soil. It would substitute for petitions and resolutions and manoeuvres in a foreign Parliament work and more work and still more work in Ireland. To the Irish people it says in effect: "Turn your eyes and your thoughts away from London and concentrate them on your own concerns. You are of right a free people, and no bonds can affect that right, though they may hamper it. Assert it, not by empty words, but by deeds, so far as you can within the limits of your bonds. Suffer Anglicising and anti-national things only when you must. You send representatives to the English Parliament, testifying to the world an acceptance of your bonds. There is no power that can compel you to send them. Withdraw them, and your honour is once more clean and your case becomes an International one, as of right, not a provincial one, which your Parliamentary manoeuvres have almost made it. Establish a National Assembly in Dublin and let it speak for you. You _need not_ speak English, you have your own language; you _need not_ base your education on English culture; you have your own culture. There is no law to compel you to have resource to English law courts, establish voluntary courts of arbitration; there is no law compelling you to buy English manufactures, buy your own; there is no law compelling you to carry on your trade in English ships, establish your own mercantile marine. Stand together, the whole people as one unit, stand up for everything native and reject everything foreign, and freedom is yours."

The Sinn Fein policy is not a policy that could be made effective by a minority, though even a minority, determined and well led, could make it felt: but if adopted by the majority of the Irish people there is no doubt of its effectiveness. It would make government impossible: for it must always be remembered that in modern times a subject nation remains a subject nation only because it accepts, in some way or other, its government. A nation which will resolutely and unitedly, on the lines of the Sinn Fein policy, ignore its Government and proceed to the formation of a voluntary (so to speak) Government, would force the occupying power either to give in or to provide an armed guard for every unit of the subject nation.

And, as a matter of historical fact, it was the unconscious application of the Sinn Fein policy that originated all the remedial legislation of the nineteenth century. The Catholic Association of O'Connell, for instance, was practically a Sinn Fein Association, and the records and memoirs of that time show that it had made the ordinary government of Ireland a nullity, and that it forced the Emancipation Act. But when Ireland accepted the Emancipation Act and recognised the Act of Union the process of degeneration set in.