Part 5

The war against the Transvaal Republics made the question of recruiting for the army a question of public importance in Ireland during the early days of the paper, and its articles on the subject first brought it into conflict with the Castle authorities. That Mr. Chamberlain's policy was directed to the extinction of Transvaal independence was self-evident and the war on that account was not popular in Ireland. In the Boers struggling hopelessly for the maintenance of their freedom was seen an analogue of the long Irish struggle for independence, and any Irishman who enlisted in the British army was denounced as "a traitor to his country and a felon in his soul." But it was not the crushing of Transvaal independence in which the army was employed that formed the only argument against enlisting. The official returns of the statistics of venereal disease in the British army were printed with a commentary of provoking frankness. The excesses of the British army in Burmah and the charges made against the soldiers for offences against Burmese women were insisted upon to prove that no decent Irishman could join the army. But in fact it was something more than the sufferings of the Boers and the Burmese which inspired this attitude. The British army was regarded as the instrument by which Ireland was held in subjugation, as the force which upheld the power to whose interests Ireland was sacrificed. One of the concluding numbers of the paper printed the text of an anti-recruiting pamphlet for the distribution of which prosecutions were instituted. It concluded: "Let England fight her own battles: we have done it long enough. Let her arm and drill the sickly population of her slums: the men of the hills and country places in Ireland will go no more. Let her fight for the extension of her Empire herself, for the men of the Gael are not going to be bribed into betraying themselves and their country again at the bidding of England." It was found difficult to obtain convictions against persons who distributed these pamphlets. Even in Belfast a jury refused to convict a man for this at the instance of the Crown: though the accused made no excuse or apology, and though his counsel said in his speech to the jury, "You are fathers and brothers, and there is not one of you who would not rather see your boys in hell than in the British Army."

The seizure of the _United Irishman_ by order of Lord Cadogan in consequence of its anti-recruiting propaganda served only to advertise its attitude, and secure for it some of the popularity which attends whatever is in conflict with the authorities in Ireland. It also urged the paper to further efforts in the same direction and from the time of Queen Victoria's visit in 1900, "who now in her dotage," as the leader on the subject ran, "is sent amongst us to seek recruits for her battered army," it was in constant conflict with the Irish police.

While the _United Irishman_ pursued its extensive and boisterous business, of which this full account is significant and pertinent, an organization of Irishmen who shared its views generally was being slowly formed. In one of the early numbers of the paper a contributed article on "A National Organization" had appeared (and been approved of in a leader), urging the formation of a party "with the openly avowed and ultimate object of ending British rule" in Ireland; such an organization should honestly acknowledge "its present inability to lead Ireland to victory against the armed might of her enemy" and confine itself "for some time to the disciplining of the mind and the training of the forces of the nation, whilst impressing on it that, in the last resort, nothing save the weapons of freemen can regain its independence.... It need have no secrecy about it whatsoever.... Such an organization should ... require only two qualifications from its members, one, that they declare themselves advocates of an Irish Republic, the other, that they be persons of decent character.... It should adopt no attitude of antagonism to the Parliamentarians; but point out to the people that Parliamentarianism is not Nationalism, and leave them, in their own judgment, to give it what support they pleased. Toleration, free impersonal criticism, and sympathy with every man seeking, after his own light, the welfare of our common country, should be distinguishing characteristics of the organization and its members." Discussion of these proposals, partly favourable, partly critical, followed and in October, 1900, the first steps were taken in the foundation of the Cumann na nGaedhal. Its objects were to advance the cause of Ireland's national independence by (1) cultivating a fraternal spirit amongst Irishmen; (2) diffusing knowledge of Ireland's resources and supporting Irish industries; (3) the study and teaching of Irish history, literature, language, music and art; (4) the assiduous cultivation and encouragement of Irish games, pastimes and characteristics; (5) the discountenancing of anything tending towards the anglicization of Ireland; (6) the physical and intellectual training of the young; (7) the development of an Irish foreign policy; (8) extending to each other friendly advice and aid, socially and politically; (9) the nationalization of public boards. Membership was open to "all persons of Irish birth or descent undertaking to obey its rules, carry out its constitution, and pledging themselves to aid to the best of their ability in restoring Ireland to her former position of sovereign independence." The _United Irishman_ commenting on this observes: "It comes to interfere with no policy before the people--it asks only the help and support of Irish Nationalists.... Let us be Irish in act and speech, as we pretend to be in heart and spirit, and a few years will prove whether the remedy is not better sought at home among ourselves than beyond the waters." While the association aimed at the cultivation of a spirit of self-reliance and the attainment of a moral independence, it was clear that the realization of its ideals would be a slow process and would leave the actual political situation much as it was. The whole Irish nation might talk Irish, play Irish games, support Irish industries, deanglicize their children, have their own ideas of foreign policy and love one another like brothers, and yet Ireland would not have regained independence. The ends of Cumann na nGaedhal were remote and, if attained, unsatisfactory to those to whom independence meant more than a mere lofty disregard of the truth that Ireland was as a matter of fact politically dependent on another country. Something more was needed to bring the new policy (if it could be called new) into more intimate connection with political facts. The link with current politics was supplied by Mr. Griffith in an address which he gave to the third annual convention of Cumann na nGaedhal in October, 1902, in which he outlined what came to be known afterwards as the Hungarian Policy. The new policy, instead of adopting a neutral attitude towards existing political parties in Ireland, boldly declared war upon the Irish Parliamentary Party. The Convention passed the following resolution: "That we call upon our countrymen abroad to withhold all assistance from the promoters of a useless, degrading and demoralizing policy until such times as the members of the Irish Parliamentary Party substitute for it the policy of the Hungarian Deputies of 1861, and, refusing to attend the British Parliament or to recognize its right to legislate for Ireland, remain at home to help in promoting Ireland's interests and to aid in guarding its national rights." With this resolution Sinn Fein may be said to have been inaugurated.

Though the policy of abstention from Parliament came to be known as "the Hungarian Policy" it was a policy that had been advocated, and to a certain extent practised, in Ireland long before the Hungarian Deputies adopted it. In 1844, the "Parliamentary Committee of the Loyal National Repeal Association on the Attendance of Irish Members in Parliament" presented a report which contained the following: "The people of Ireland, having in vain attempted to obtain from the Imperial Parliament detailed measures of justice, and with equal failure sought the restoration of their domestic Senate or even inquiry into the wisdom of that restoration, have at length sought to obtain those rights by agitation out of Parliament. They have to this end arrayed themselves into a Loyal and National Association to obtain the Repeal of the Union. They try to obtain strength by the reality and display of union and organization. They seek converts by their speeches, their writings, and their peaceful virtues. They are endeavouring to increase their knowledge and their power by reading, thinking and discussing. And to carry out their projects of organization, conversion and self-improvement, they subscribe large funds to a common treasury. Their efforts in the Imperial Parliament having then been so fruitless, and their undertaking at home being so vast, they, the people of Ireland, have consented that such of their members as seek with them domestic legislation, should secede from the Imperial Parliament and control the agitation, instruction and organization of the people at home." This report is signed by Thomas Davis. A correspondence between Thomas Davis and the Earl of Wicklow, to whom certain resolutions of the Repeal Association had been sent, debates the rival merits of the policies of parliamentarianism and abstention. The Earl, who had no intention of leaving Parliament, wrote: "I now believe that there exists amongst the British people an anxious desire to do justice to our country and to atone in every way in their power for the evils of former mismanagement." Lord Wicklow had formed this conviction before 1844. The "Hungarian Policy" of 1902 was framed for the same situation and in face of the same conviction.

It is difficult to understand why the credit of the policy was not claimed for Thomas Davis the Irishman instead of for the Hungarian Franz Deak: unless it be that the policy had in the case of Ireland never been put into actual effective practice and had remained fruitless of result, while in Hungary it had seemed to have achieved its object. Be that as it may, Mr. Arthur Griffith proceeded to contribute to the _United Irishman_ a series of articles on "The Resurrection of Hungary," reprinted in book form the same year and widely circulated. The preface represented the policy as an alternative to that of armed resistance: the body of the book gave a historical account of the struggle of the Hungarians under Deak for the restoration of the constitution of 1848 and its success, due (it was claimed) entirely to Deak's policy of abstention from the Austrian Imperial Parliament: the concluding chapter drew the parallel between Hungary and Ireland, claiming that by abstaining from sending members to Westminster Ireland could secure the restoration of the constitution of 1782. The book was interesting and able: the narrative was presented with vigour and spirit: but the accuracy of some of its statements and conclusions was open to question and as a piece of popular propaganda it was a failure. While many people read it, it produced no immediate or widespread response. Exception was taken to the view that Ireland ought to aim at the restoration of the constitution of 1782: exception was taken to the substitution of a peaceful for a forcible policy. "If the Irish members" (wrote a representative of the latter body of critics) "of the English Parliament withdrew from Westminster to-morrow the government of the country would be carried on just as it is to-day; and so it will and must be as long as the people forget they are Irishmen with a country to free from a foreign yoke. The protest would end in smoke unless armed men were prepared to back it."

Mr. Griffith, nothing daunted, continued his fight against on the one hand the traditional parliamentarianism and on the other hand the advocates of physical force and revolution and the members of the Republican Party. His claim to independence for Ireland was to be based not upon force but upon law and the constitution of 1782: his claim was not a Republic but a national constitution under an Irish Crown. He tried to show in a series of articles on "The Working of the Policy"--which from now on begins to be referred to as the Sinn Fein Policy--how his ideas might be put into practice. But to carry on such a policy as he had outlined, some political organization other than the Cumann na nGaedhael or the '98 Clubs was required. This was inaugurated at a meeting held in Dublin on November 28th, 1905, under the chairmanship of Mr. Edward Martyn. The policy of the new body, the National Council, was defined as "National self-development through the recognition of the rights and duties of citizenship on the part of the individual and by the aid and support of all movements originating from within Ireland, instinct with national tradition and not looking outside Ireland for the accomplishment of their aims." A public meeting held afterwards in the Rotunda passed the following resolution: "That the people of Ireland are a free people and that no law made without their authority and consent is or can ever be binding on their conscience. That the General Council of County Councils presents the nucleus of a national authority, and we urge upon it to extend the scope of its deliberation and action: to take within its purview every question of national interest and to formulate lines of procedure for the nation." Mr. Griffith, who was the main-spring and driving force of the movement, speaking in favour of the resolution, proposed the formation of a council of 300 to sit in Dublin and form a _de facto_ Irish Parliament, with whom might be associated all those members of Parliament who refused to attend at Westminster; its recommendations should be binding upon all County Councils and Boards of Guardians, whose duty it would be to carry them into effect as far as their powers extended.

With this meeting ends the preliminary stage, and Sinn Fein formally takes its place as a duly constituted political party with its own policy and aims. The _United Irishman_, the organ of its infancy, ceased to exist, and its place was taken by _Sinn Fein_.

THE EARLY YEARS OF SINN FEIN.

In the year 1906 Sinn Fein emerged from the region of ideals and abstractions, of academical discussion and preliminary propaganda, into the arena of Irish party politics with a fully formulated practical policy. Taking constitutional ground with the dictum that "the constitution of 1782 is still the constitution of Ireland," it proposed to show how the people of Ireland, keeping within the letter of a law which they could not otherwise break, might render nugatory the effort to hold the country in dependence upon England in pursuance of the Act of Union. It proposed to arrest the anglicization of Ireland by recovering for the Irish people the management of those departments of public administration in which the anglicizing process was working most markedly to the detriment of Irish interests and which might be remodelled without any actual breach of the existing law. In the first place it seemed necessary to take education in hand, and by the introduction of a system more in accordance with Irish needs and capabilities and characteristics, endeavour to train up a generation of young Irish men and women, imbued with a national spirit and national pride, capable of taking their part in the agricultural, industrial and administrative life of the country. County Councils might do much in this direction through their intimate connection with the administration and policy of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction; a wise use of the means placed by the Department at their disposal might in a few years revolutionize to the advantage of Ireland the entire education of the country. The young men and women thus trained might form the nucleus of an Irish Civil Service, if the County Councils could be induced to abandon their "patronage" in the positions at their disposal and throw them open to competitive examination; others of these trained Irishmen might be employed in an unofficial Irish Consular Service to the great advantage of Irish commerce, handicapped in foreign markets by English consuls in the interests of the English commercial houses. Pressure could be brought to bear upon the Irish banks to adopt a policy more in sympathy with Irish trade and industry. There was deposited in Irish banks a sum of L50,000,000, the savings of the people of Ireland; yet these banks invested this money in English securities (the Bank of Ireland during the South African War even lent money to the English Government without interest) while Irish industries were starving for lack of the capital which the banks refused to lend. The Stock Exchange, controlled by the Government, neglected to quote shares in Irish companies that might be formed for the furtherance of particular industries in particular districts, discouraging investors who were thus left unable to dispose of their shares in the ordinary way. It was hoped that public bodies as well as private persons could be induced to bring pressure to bear on the banks by withdrawing or withholding accounts until they should adopt a more patriotic policy, though it was more difficult to see how the Stock Exchange could be dealt with. The difficulties put by railways and their heavy freights on the exchange of commodities could be obviated by a development of the Irish waterways under the control of popularly elected bodies: the County Councils should see to this and to questions such as afforestation and the encouragement of home manufactures by specifying their use in the giving of contracts for institutions under their control. The Poor Law system should be remodelled in accordance with Irish sentiment and the money expended upon it spent in Ireland upon Irish goods. To ensure the advantage of foreign markets without English interference an Irish Mercantile Marine should be established, what could be done even by a poor country in this way being shown by the example of Norway, where nearly everyone was at least part owner of a ship.

But to stimulate and foster native industry and native manufacture was to Mr. Griffith (whose writings on economic matters formed a kind of gospel for Sinn Fein) an urgent and supreme duty. He was convinced that until Ireland became an industrial as well as an agricultural country her economic position was insecure. Thinking always in terms of national independence, which he interpreted to mean national ability to dispense with outside assistance, he looked forward to a time when Ireland should be able not merely to feed her population from her own resources, but to supply them with nearly all the other necessaries of modern life. Irish coal and iron existed in abundance to supply the necessary fuel and raw material; there was plenty of native marble and other stones for building; Irish wool and hides were once famous over Europe for their abundance and excellence. All that was required to make Ireland once more a prosperous manufacturing country was at her disposal within her own boundaries, and only waited for the policy that would call out her latent powers. In an independent State the encouragement required would be forthcoming in protective legislation, pursued until the protected industry became established and able to compete on favourable terms with similar industries in other countries, the work of protection being limited strictly to the task of building up a temporary screen to shelter a budding national industry from the wind of competition until its strength was established. The Irish Parliament in the days of its independence had adopted this policy, which had enabled it during its short life to secure to Irish manufactures an unprecedented prosperity. But Ireland, deprived of legislative powers, might fall back upon a less secure but still efficacious method of protection. Irish consumers might refuse to purchase English goods while Irish goods of the same quality were to be had, and be content to pay in an enhanced price their share of what under other circumstances the State might have expended in bounties to the industry; public bodies might insist upon the use of goods of Irish manufacture; port authorities should arrange port dues so that they should fall most heavily on manufactured goods brought into the country, and should publish periodical returns of the imports of manufactured goods at every port in Ireland; Irish capital should be invited and encouraged to undertake the development of the country on industrial and commercial lines, being assured, in the support of industrial and corporate public feeling, of encouragement and success in its enterprise.

In expounding this theory of protection and of the vital necessity to a country of developing its industrial life Mr. Griffith was confessedly following the economic doctrines of the German economist Friedrich List, "the man whom England caused to be persecuted by the Government of his native country, and whom she hated and feared more than any man since Napoleon--the man who saved Germany from falling a prey to English economics, and whose brain conceived the great industrial and economic Germany of to-day." A man with credentials like these might well be listened to with profit. The commercial policy that made the New Germany could not fail to make a New Ireland, and List made seductive promises. He foretold an increase in population by a combination of agricultural and industrial enterprise greater in proportion than by the development of either industry or agriculture by itself: he denied the possibility of intellectual progress to a country relying solely or mainly upon agriculture: culture marched behind the mill and the factory. But the chief merit of the policy undoubtedly was that it promised a self-contained and independent economic existence, serving as the basis of a distinctive national culture.