Part 2

Do we really think that a handful of Irishmen by merely talking can persuade eight times their number of Englishmen to take their grip off this country, to cease exploiting us, to give up their fat profits? Is it not, to say the least, more likely that the English majority, far cleverer and more powerful, will succeed in cajoling, bribing and fooling the few Irish flies who walk into the spiders' parlour? =In fact, was not the Act of Union specially designed for this very purpose?= To swallow a powerless Irish minority in an English Parliament, to give them facilities for talking and letting off steam that thereby the Irish people might be beguiled into doing nothing else. By providing a sham outlet for our energies, by diverting our attention into wordy warfare, the English Parliament has succeeded for 118 years in preventing us from seeing the obvious truth that the English Government can only be made unworkable =in Ireland=.

The very genius of Parnell has done us harm by intensifying the illusion. He succeeded for a while, where Butt failed, because he adopted unparliamentary methods in Parliament. For a time, by persistent obstruction, Parnell made Government unworkable, even in England. He was beaten in the end; obstruction is no longer possible; we have reverted to the mock debates of Isaac Butt. Things are even much worse; for the whole Party system has made Parliament a fraud and a farce. The House of Commons has lost its independence to a caucus which controls the jobs and the party funds. The latest development, whereby Messrs. Lloyd George and Bonar Law have arranged to wipe out the Opposition, makes the further presence of a few Irish Nationalists a jocose anachronism.

The English Coalition would, however, still like the eighty Irishmen to come and hobnob with them. England is far keener on their attendance than Ireland ever was. Those who oppose the Westminster policy are mostly in English prisons; absenteeism is treason felony. English aeroplanes drop leaflets printed (at our expense) by the English Government to denounce the policy of abstention, to show that it is folly. The English foreign propaganda tirelessly advertises the presence of Mr. Dillon and Co. in Westminster as the surest proof of England's kindness to us, and of Irish loyalty to the Empire. The Irish Party think that their attendance is good for Ireland, the English Government is quite certain that it is good for England, everyone agrees that it cannot be good for both. Which, do you think, knows the situation best: the English Government, whose policy of exploiting us has been hitherto so eminently successful, or the Irish Party which has been so often taken in, outwitted, bribed and duped? It is worth pondering over.

=THE ALTERNATIVE.=

Undoubtedly in most minds the great objection to the Abstention Policy is that it seems a mere negation; it seems to leave a horrible blank. What! No Irish Representatives at Westminster? Are we to allow Carson to represent us? And so on. Let us look at the thing calmly. Why do we want to be "represented" at all? We must first answer that question. For instance, we have no desire to be "represented" in Timbuctoo or in the Moon; but some Irish people find it consoling to feel that they are represented in England. If not, they feel something dreadful will happen: the income-tax will be trebled, we shall all be coerced and conscripted. Well, as things have hitherto been, the Irish Party have never succeeded in staving off a penny of our taxation. Twenty-four years ago an Anglo-Irish Commission found that England was plundering Ireland of two and three-quarter millions a year in excess of the amount of plunder sanctioned by the Union. From that day to this we have never secured the remission of one penny of this plunder; on the contrary, it has been increased tenfold. And all this time we have been strongly "represented" at Westminster. We have been paying heavily for the privilege! As for coercion--did the Party ever prevent it? For years past they might have got the Crimes Act abolished, they didn't or couldn't. Conscription was passed swiftly in spite of our "representatives"--but somehow it did not come off. Now, that is worth thinking on. Conscription, like Coercion Acts and Budgets, danced through our representatives, yet we ourselves beat it. How? By electing our own little parliament in Dublin (we called it the Mansion House Conference, of course, for decency's sake), by voting taxes to it (we called them the Defence Fund), by organising the country so effectively that the English-made law was seen to be impossible and unworkable. What an object-lesson if only we will learn from it. The anti-conscription campaign is Sinn Fein in a nutshell. Even the Party developed a momentary backbone; the members came back to Erin and actually left us "unrepresented" in London--and we hardly noticed the dreadful fact!

The Abstention Policy means, therefore, that we give up the sham battle and take up the real struggle in grim earnest. We cease to rely on talk as an effective economic or political defence, we begin to DO something, to rely on ourselves. There is only one way of putting an end to English tyranny in Ireland, and that is, not by scolding at it from the other side of the Irish Sea, but by making it unworkable over here.

Do we mean the use of physical force? This is a difficulty which at once arises in discussing the abstention policy. This is chiefly due to the hysterical asseveration of Mr. John Dillon, whose chief electioneering argument--apart from abuse--is that the only alternative to Westminster is Rebellion. It seems rather curious, doesn't it, that we cannot sit tight here in our own country and win independence as Hungary did under Deak. But perhaps Mr. Dillon means that if we were not distracted and bamboozled by the fighting on the floor of the House, we would not so tamely acquiesce in our oppression; and probably Mr. Dillon is right. But, after all, conscription was beaten without rebellion, and Mr. Dillon's adherence (however lukewarm) to the Mansion House Committee showed that he believed it could be beaten without physical force. And when Mr. Dillon signed the No-Rent Manifesto he was, though he knew it not, a staunch upholder of Sinn Fein:--

"Against the passive resistance of an entire population, military power has no weapons.... No power on earth except faint-heartedness on your own part, can defeat you.... The world is watching to see whether all your splendid hopes and noble courage will crumble away at the first threat of a cowardly tyranny.... Stand together in the face of the brutal and cowardly enemies of your race.... Stand passively, firmly, fearlessly by, while the armies of England may be engaged in their hopeless struggle against a spirit which their weapons cannot touch.... The Government will learn in a single winter how powerless is armed force against the will of a united, determined and self-reliant nation."

Would to God that this was the message which Mr. Dillon had for Ireland to-day! Michael Davitt's comment on the No-Rent Manifesto is interesting:--

"While I admit its great success as far as results were concerned, I think that it dulled a weapon which could have been used to give the final blow to landlordism in Ireland. Had the League waited until two or three hundred thousand tenant-farmers were ready to obey it, it would have involved the eviction of a million of people. That would have been a measure which the Government could not have faced, and the result would have been the downfall of the system of landlordism. Still, the results were immediate. The landlords offered the largest possible reduction of rents, and Mr. Gladstone offered to release the suspects and bring forward the Arrears Bill."

There, in Davitt's words, you have the central belief of Sinn Fein: reliance on the moral solidarity and economic power of a Nation. Even a small determined minority, if prepared to suffer, can effect enormous reforms. The English Suffragettes have won the franchise for women. It was certainly not by physical force--even the militant suffragettes did not rebel, though they burnt houses, broke statues, and harried politicians. A handful of determined women made government extremely difficult and thus they won the vote =in spite of Parliament=. If such is the power of a minority, how irresistible would be an entire nation. Secure even only one million determined adherents of Sinn Fein, and in six months English government will be at an end. That is our belief, and it is based on solid facts of history--Hungarian Independence, English suffrage struggle, Irish victory over conscription. There are limits to the possibilities of brute force. At this stage of the world it is impossible to slaughter a nation, it is impossible to cope with a nation of passive resisters. What is to be done with a million or so of people who refuse to pay taxes, who combine to secure the products of their own country, who repudiate the authority of the intruders? That is the problem which England does not want to face in this country. The only way for Irishmen to secure a government based on the consent of the governed is to withdraw all practical consent and concurrence from the present usurpation. There is no other way. To go on accepting the English government, co-operating with it as farmers, workers, tax-payers, policemen, etc., and at the same time to keep whining and petitioning--this is despicable folly.

John Bull is our boss, Ireland is his food-producing factory. The old idea of the workers was to do nothing, to form no combination, but merely to cringe for charity from their employers. That is the stage in which the Irish Party want to keep us; they are a century behind-hand. The workers now rely on themselves, on trade union organisation, on direct action; they have even lost faith in parliamentary tactics. At any rate, they never complain that they are not "represented" (by a small minority) on the Employers' Federation! The modern Labour movement is based on self-reliance, on the power and cohesion of large numbers, on the slowly built-up economic strength of great unions. Sinn Fein is merely the transfer of this faith from Labour to Nationality. That is what we are aiming at in Ireland: the formation of One Big Union, which will ask nothing from England =until it is ready to strike=. That is the task which lies before us: the organisation of the Irish People into a National Union. We must put ourselves into the position of taking over the whole national business of Ireland. The first step is the capture of the existing organisations--the parliamentary constituencies, the county and district and municipal councils, the boards of guardians, every single body which has a share in directing the national life.

=THE MORAL PRINCIPLE.=

Even from the purely practical standpoint, the case for abstention from the Westminster talking shop would be irresistible. But there is more than that at stake. We maintain that attendance at Westminster is immoral and dishonest, it would be a national lie and apostacy. The members of the Irish Party, when seeking re-election, have always indulged in an orgy of sedition and disloyalty. They talk of Emmet and Tone, they celebrate the Manchester Martyrs, they are not afraid to speak of Ninety-Eight, they are proud of the felons of our land, they sap every moral claim of the English Government in Ireland. (Had they not done so, they would never have been elected in the past.) And then they are carried off by mail-boat and express-train, and within a few hours they swear allegiance to the English King and draw their first instalment of L400 a year. What a bastard nationalism, what a monstrous Anglo-Irish mongrel mentality! English loyalty veneered with Irish martyrs' blood, damnable casuistry juggling with oaths and playing with rebellion, blood and thunder paid by a cheque.

Listen to what John Redmond said on 9th August, 1902:--

"Never for one single hour since the Union was passed has Ireland been a constitutionally governed country.... Never for one hour has the English Government of Ireland obtained the assent or approval or confidence of the people of Ireland.... Never for one hour since then has the English Government of Ireland rested upon anything but =naked force=. =No single reform, large or small, has ever been obtained by purely constitutional means....= We submit to the English usurpation of the government of Ireland, but we do so =only because we have no adequate means of successful resistance=."

On 4th September, 1907, John Redmond described the Act of Union, which gave him his seat in the English Parliament, as "a great criminal act of usurpation carried by violence and fraud," which "no lapse of time and no mitigation of its details can ever make binding upon our honour or our conscience." Resistance to this Union, he continued, is "a sacred duty, and the methods of resistance will remain for us merely a question of expediency," physical force "would be absolutely justifiably if it were possible."

Pretty strong, is it not? The English Government is merely an alien usurper with no moral authority whatever, to be resisted and fought by every effective means. Yet how did the same John Redmond take his seat at Westminster and draw his L400 a year? By taking the following oath:--

"I, John Redmond, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his Majesty, King George V., his heirs and successors, according to law, so help me God."

And so by means of this oath of loyalty to the "unconstitutional" usurpation of "naked force," the Irish member avails himself of that "great criminal act of usurpation carried by violence and fraud," he takes his seat with men from Lancashire or Bucks, he gets his cheque.

Is this playing the game? Is it honest and honourable? If the English occupation of Ireland is immoral and tyrannical, can we swear loyalty to it? If the Act of Union is a criminal fraud, can we accept and acknowledge it, by going to Westminster? Let every lover of truth answer this question with an emphatic No! Let us as a Nation answer No with an unanimous defiant shout.

To go to Westminster is not only unpractical and futile, it is a betrayal of the sacred cause of Irish Nationality and =it has been advertised as such by the English Government=. The great argument for deceiving the world with regard to Ireland is the presence of Irishmen in the English Parliament--why we are "over-represented" there! There is, therefore, only one way of making Ireland cease to be a "domestic" problem and of bringing it out into the full light of international affairs; and that is by making a full and final repudiation of the English Parliament. That would be an unmistakeable manifesto to the whole world, a proclamation that Ireland demands her full rights from a world which has definitely recognised the autonomy of small nationalities.

=THE PEACE CONFERENCE.=

That is how we can appeal to the Peace Conference, by fearlessly proclaiming our refusal to be swallowed up in England's Empire. There is no need, thank God, of arguing that we should strive to make the most of the Peace Conference. Even Mr. Dillon has come to admit the idea, though he is unfortunately so intent on scoring off opponents that he has tried to degrade the Conference into a contemptible set of unscrupulous Powers. Sinn Fein is in no way built exclusively on the hopes of the Peace Conference; the movement was founded by Arthur Griffith years before the war, if indeed it is not coeval with the Irish age-long struggle for freedom. Nor are we such sentimental fools as to rely merely on gush. We do indeed hope for the triumph of moral principles in international affairs, and especially we hope that democracy is coming into its rightful inheritance. But meantime we rely primarily on ourselves and our own determination. Still, we will see that no high-sounding principles shall be paraded before the world unless the voice of Ireland is heard. We will see to it that pharisaism shall be confronted by an Ireland clamouring for independence. And we shall not be friendless. Our race has power in America, in Australia. Ireland's freedom, too, is essential for the American conception of the freedom of the seas.

The issue is now before us. We are in the birth-time of big changes. Let us not lose the great chance of freedom. Let the Irish Democracy once and for all declare that Ireland is a Nation entitled to sovereign independence.

Mr. Dillon's attempt to degrade the Peace Conference to the level of the Westminster Assembly, where everything is settled by party pressure, bribes and private arrangements, is most astonishing testimony to the corrupting and demoralising influence of London on Irish members. His mind is still moving in the old rut of political trickery, huckstering and chicanery; instinctively and as the result of long experience, he reduces Ireland's claims to the condition of a man looking for a job or a vote. He regards our case not as a question of right and justice, but as one to be compromised and pared down in the good old Westminster fashion.

Something like real Democracy, however, is coming to stay. Great and sacred principles have been invoked, and the workers of the world are not going to let them be quietly buried. Nor will Ireland. We are determined to apply the acid test to these noble professions of faith. The President of the American Republic, who has espoused the cause even of little Schleswig, will be confronted with the case for an Irish Republic. There can be no League of Nations, no firm foundation of international justice, so long as Ireland is denied that freedom which Letts, Finns, Slavs and Poles have won.

On behalf of His Holiness, Cardinal Gasparri, Papal Secretary of State, issued a statement (24th August, 1918) in which we read:--

"History teaches us that a form of government imposed by arms does not and cannot live."

On 6th November, 1918, Pope Benedict XV. wrote to the Archbishop of Warsaw:--

"Thanks be to God, the resurrection of Poland is now finally dawning. Now that Poland has regained her Full Independence, it is our most fervent prayer that she may once more take her place in the community of nations and resume her career as a champion of civilisation and Christianity."

Surely our Holy Father is looking forward to the day when he can address similar congratulations to Ireland, the Island of Saints and Scholars.

Let every Irish man and woman who reads this vote for Ireland's Independence.

=FOR THE GLORY OF GOD AND THE HONOUR OF ERIN.=

Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.

Passages in bold are indicated by =bold=.