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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/36842-8.txt b/36842-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eeb3693 --- /dev/null +++ b/36842-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1156 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Issue, by Lector + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Issue + The Case for Sinn Fein + +Author: Lector + +Release Date: July 25, 2011 [EBook #36842] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ISSUE *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + NEW IRELAND PAMPHLETS · NUMBER THREE + PRICE TWOPENCE + + + THE ISSUE + The Case for Sinn Fein + + + BY LECTOR + + AS PASSED BY CENSOR. + + + NEW IRELAND PUBLISHING COMPANY, Limited + 13 FLEET STREET, DUBLIN + 1918 + + + + +THE ISSUE + + +=INDEPENDENCE.= + +Does Ireland wish to be free? Do we alone among the ancient Nations of +Europe desire to remain slaves? That, and that alone, is the question +which every Irish elector has now to answer. Let us put everything else +out of our minds as irrelevant claptrap. Let nothing distract us from this +single issue of Liberty. We must turn a deaf ear to sentimental whining +about what this or that man did, his length of service, his "fighting on +the floor of the House," and so on. Whatever may have been done in the way +of small doles, petty grants, and big talk, the =fact= is that we are not +Free and the =issue= is, Do we want to be Free? + +Why should we be afraid of Freedom? Would any sane adult voluntarily +prefer to be a slave, to be completely in the control and power of +another? Men do not willingly walk into jail; why, then, should a whole +people? The men who are =afraid= of national liberty are unworthy even of +personal liberty; they are the victims of that slave mentality which +English coercion and corruption have striven to create in Ireland. When +Mr. John Dillon, grown tremulous and garrulous and feeble, asked for a +national convention this autumn "to definitely forswear an Irish +Republic," he was asking Ireland to commit an act of national apostasy and +suicide. Would =you= definitely forswear your personal freedom? Will Mr. +John Dillon hand his cheque-book and property over to some stranger and +indenture himself as a serf or an idiot? When he does, but not till then, +we shall believe that the Irish Nation is capable of sentencing itself +cheerfully to penal servitude for all eternity. + +It was not always thus. "I say deliberately," said Mr. John Dillon at +Moville in 1904, "that I should never have dedicated my life as I have +done to this great struggle, if I did not see at the end of it the +crowning and consummation of our work--A FREE AND INDEPENDENT IRELAND." It +is sad that, fourteen years later, when the end is in sight, Mr. Dillon +should be found a recreant and a traitor to his past creed. The +degeneration of such a man is a damning indictment of Westminsterism. + +Parnell, too save for one short moment when he tried by compromise to fool +English Liberalism but was foiled, proclaimed his belief in Irish +Independence. + +This is what Parnell said at Cincinatti on 23rd February, 1880:-- + + "When we have undermined English misgovernment, we have paved the way + for Ireland to take her place among the nations of the earth. And let + us not forget that that is the ultimate goal at which all we Irishmen + aim. None of us, whether we be in America or in Ireland, or wherever + we may be, will be satisfied =until we have destroyed the last link + which keeps Ireland bound to England=." + +Were he alive to-day, when the last link is snapping, on what side would +Parnell be? Would he forswear an Irish Republic or would he proclaim once +more, as he said in Cork (21st Jan., 1885): "No man has a right to fix the +boundary of the march of a Nation. No man has a right to say: Thus far +shalt thou go and no farther. And we have never attempted to fix the _ne +plus ultra_ to the progress of Ireland's nationhood and we never shall." + + +=IRELAND AND SMALL NATIONS.= + +At New York 31st August, 1904, John Redmond declared:-- + + "If it were in my power to-morrow by any honourable means to + absolutely emancipate Ireland, I would do it and feel it my duty to do + it. (1904, not 1914!) I believe it would be just as possible for + Ireland to have a prosperous and free separate existence as a nation + as Holland, Belgium, or Switzerland, or other small nationalities. And + if it were in the power of any man to bring that result about + to-morrow by honourable and brave means, he would be indeed a coward + and a traitor to the traditions of his race did he not do so." + +If Holland and Poland and all the other little lands, why not Ireland? Put +that straight question to yourself and you must answer it as John Redmond +did in 1904. Are we alone among the nations created to be slaves and +helots? Are we so incompetent and incapable as not to be able to manage +our own country? Is a people of four millions to be in perpetual bondage +and tutelage to a solicitor and a soldier? Did God Almighty cast up this +island as a sandbank for Englishmen to walk on? Is it the sole mission of +Irish men and women to send beef and butter to John Bull? + +Look at the other nations and ask yourself, Why not? Why is not Ireland +free? Are we too small in area? We are double Switzerland or Denmark, +nearly three times Holland or Belgium. Is our population too small--though +it was once double? We are as numerous as Serbia, our population is as +large as that of Switzerland and nearly double that of Denmark or Norway. +Does the difficulty lie in our poverty? Are we too poor to exist as a free +people? The revenue raised =per head= in Ireland is double that of any +other small nation, seven times that of Switzerland! The total revenue of +Ireland is ten times that of Switzerland, three times that of Norway, four +times that of Denmark, Serbia or Finland. Yet all these countries have +their own armies, consuls, etc.; they run themselves as free nations at +far below the cost of servile Ireland. Why? Because there is no other +country pocketing their cash. + +Here are some figures:-- + + Area Population Revenue + (thousands of (Millions) (Millions £) + sq. miles) + Ireland 32-1/2 4-1/3 30 + Belgium 11-1/2 7-1/2 32 + Holland 12-1/2 6-1/2 18-3/4 + Denmark 15-1/2 2-3/4 7-1/2 + Norway 125 2-1/2 10 + Switzerland 16 4 3 + Rumania 53-1/2 7-1/2 24 + Serbia 34 4-1/2 8-1/2 + Finland 126 3-1/4 8-1/2 + +These figures would suggest that Ireland is a strong military and naval +power among the small nations. And so we are--only the army and navy we +support are not our own; they exist to keep us in slavery, not in freedom. +It is about time we started business on our own. + + +=DEPENDENT ON ENGLAND?= + +The most significant instance of English policy in Ireland is the creation +of the widespread delusion that we are economically dependent on England. +An elaborate network of fraud and deceit has been built up to hide the +truth from our eyes. We are secretly and systematically robbed and we +hardly notice it. The ordinary Irish worker pays at least four shillings a +week to England, he is hardly aware of the fact, so nicely is it done +whenever he buys tobacco or his wife gets tea and sugar, and so on. Though +the average income in England is three times what it is in Ireland, the +notoriously underfed Irish workers have to pay more than twice the English +proportion of indirect taxes on food, etc. We pay England 1/- on every +pound of tea, 1-1/2d. on every pound of sugar, 7d. on every oz. of +tobacco. There is no fuss about it: it is accepted as part of the laws of +nature that tea should be a shilling a pound dearer than it need be. As +for direct taxation--well, even the farmers know what the English +income-tax is. Where does it all go? To England as taxes, profits, rents, +imperial contributions, and trade. As a going concern Ireland is now worth +thirty million a year to its owner, John Bull. There are certain expenses +of administration--police, Castle, secret service, prisons, tax +collectors--and there are, of course, several items of hush-money, dodges +necessary to fool the people, such as "education." But the fact is that a +bigger and bigger profit is being made every year out of this island. More +agricultural materials and products are shipped to England, more Irish +brains are selected for running India, etc., more Irishmen are utilised +for gun-fodder. Sometimes, after much beseeching by resolutions and +deputations, we are graciously presented with a minute fraction of our own +goods. Is it not about time that we recognised in English "grants" our own +country's transmuted plunder? We are as dependent on England as a factory +is on an absentee society lady who is shareholder. + +In 1663 began the long series of English laws against Irish trade. Charles +II. closed the English markets to Irish cattle, meat, leather, butter, +etc. Ireland built ships and opened direct trade with Flanders, France, +Spain, the American Colonies. The Navigation Act and the Jacobite War once +more destroyed our mercantile marine and ruined our industries. Ireland +was practically confined by law to the English market. In 1782, 60,000 +Volunteers, with arms in their hands, won Free Trade--i.e., the liberty of +Ireland to trade direct with the world. In a few years, bad as our own +Parliament was, the country prospered exceedingly. The Union once more +destroyed our industries and even our tillage and turned Ireland into a +cattle-ranch; our mercantile marine was destroyed. All our trade is in the +hands of English middlemen and we have to sell and buy at England's price. +We are dependent on England, not in the sense that we get anything out of +her, but in the sense that we have allowed her to capture our trade and +cut us off from the world. We have allowed England to become a parasitic +bloodsucker. And because we have done so, we fancy that England is our +sole customer. As if the whole world is not clamouring for meat and butter +and other foodstuffs! In 1912, when England placed her cattle embargo on +Ireland, the prices in the markets of Hamburg and Genoa--after deducting +import duty and the extra cost of transit--were more than 11/- per cwt. +higher than the price paid in England. Had Irishmen then had enough Sinn +Fein spirit, they would soon have discovered who was dependent on whom! + +There is no possible argument, moral or economic, against Irish freedom. +"Is Ireland fit to be an independent sovereign nation?" asks Dr. Cohalan, +Bishop of Cork. "Why should it not be, if Belgium is fit to be a sovereign +nation, if Serbia is so fit, if Montenegro--whose King is not much more +than a strong farmer in this country--is fit, all fit to be independent +nations? Then, when putting the question as to Ireland, I would really ask +everyone, men and women, in this country to cease speaking slightingly of +their own race and their own country. I would like every Irishman and +woman, Catholic and Protestant, to answer that question in the +affirmative." We are fit to be free, we have a God-given right to be free, +we mean to be free. But how are we going to get our freedom? + + +=HOW TO GET THINGS.= + +Let us see how we ever got anything from England. Parnell is much quoted +just now. What was his view? This is what he said at Manchester, 15th +July, 1877:-- + + "For my part I must tell you that I do not believe in a policy of + conciliation of English feeling or English prejudices. I believe that + you may go on trying to conciliate English prejudice until the day of + judgment, and that you will not get the breadth of my nail from them. + What did we ever get in the past by trying to conciliate them? Did we + get the abolition of tithes by the conciliation of our English + taskmasters? No; it was because we adopted different measures. Did + O'Connell in his time gain emancipation for Ireland by conciliation? I + rather think that O'Connell in his time was not of a very conciliatory + disposition, and that at least during a part of his career he was + about the best-abused Irishman living." + +There is no mistaking the view of Charles Stewart Parnell. Two years later +he repeated his assertion (Tipperary, 21st Sept., 1879):-- + + "=It is no use relying upon the Government, it is no use relying upon + the Irish members, it is no use relying upon the House of Commons.= + You must rely upon your own determination, that determination which + has enabled you to survive the famine years and to be present here + to-day; and, if you are determined, I tell you, you have the game in + your own hands." + +And at the St. Patrick's Day celebration in London in 1884:-- + + "I have always endeavoured to teach my countrymen, whether at home or + abroad, the lesson of =self-reliance=.... Do not rely upon any English + Party; do not rely even upon the great English democracy, however + well-disposed they may be to your claims. But rely upon yourselves." + +Sinn Fein means self-reliance. + +According to Parnell, then, the Irish people secured nothing through Irish +talk at Westminster. Whatever they got, they got by direct action. It is +easy to convince ourselves that Parnell is right. We got Free Trade and +legislative independence in 1782, without any Irish Party at Westminster, +with the help of 60,000 Volunteers. In 1829 Catholic Emancipation was won +by O'Connell in Clare, before he ever set foot in Westminster, because he +had the Irish people and the Catholic Association behind him. Yet a few +months before the English Government had rejected a Catholic Relief Bill +with scorn. Here are Peel's words:-- + + "In the course of the last six months, England, being at peace with + the whole world, has had five-sixths of the infantry force of the + United Kingdom occupied in maintaining the peace and in police duties + in Ireland. I consider the state of things which requires such an + application of military force much worse than open rebellion. If this + be the state of things at present, let me implore of you to consider + what would be the condition of England in the event of war. Can we + forget in reviewing the state of Ireland what happened in 1782?" + +The Prime Minister was evidently unmoved by all the eloquent appeals for +justice to Irish Catholics; he moved very rapidly when Irishmen showed +signs of =doing= something. The Duke of Wellington, in May, 1829, made a +similar confession:-- + + "If you glance at the history of Ireland during the last ten years, + you will find that agitation really means something short of + rebellion; that and no other is the exact meaning of the word. It is + to place the country in that state in which its government is utterly + impracticable except by means of an overawing military force." + +Not such a far cry after all from the Iron Duke to the Tin Viscount! + +Tithes were abolished in 1838, again not by a Parliamentary Party, but by +the people themselves after a bloody seven years' war. + +Then came Disestablishment in 1869. How did that come? When in 1868 +Gladstone proposed his Church resolution, a hundred Irish members +voted--fifty-five for and forty-five against! Obviously Disestablishment +was not carried by Irish representation at Westminster. Let Gladstone +himself tell us what carried it:-- + + "Down to the year 1865 and the dissolution of that year, the whole + question of the Irish Church was dead. Nobody cared about it, nobody + paid attention to it in England. Circumstances occurred which drew + attention of the people to the Irish Church. I said myself in 1865, + and I believed, that it was out of the range of practical politics." + +In other words, Fenianism secured Irish Church Disestablishment. Lord +Derby, writing from the opposite camp, agreed with Gladstone:-- + + "A few desperate men, applauded by the whole body of the Irish people + for their daring, showed England what Irish feeling really was, made + plain to us the depth of a discontent whose existence we had scarcely + suspected, and =the rest followed, of course=." + +Let us hear the same two unimpeachable witnesses concealing the Land +Question. "I must make one admission," said Gladstone, "and that is that +without the Land League the Act of 1881 would not at this moment be on the +Statute Book." "Fixity of tenure," said Lord Derby, "has been the direct +result of two causes: Irish outrage and parliamentary obstruction. The +Irish know it as well as we. Not all the influence and eloquence of Mr. +Gladstone would have prevailed on the English House of Commons to do what +has been done in the matter of Irish tenant right, if the answer to all +objections had not been ready: How else are we to govern Ireland?" In +plain English, every concession wrung from England has been secured simply +by making the English Government otherwise impossible in Ireland. + + +=THE FAILURE OF PARLIAMENTARIANISM.= + +If this be so, what is the use of sending Irishmen over to talk at +Westminster? That is the question which we have to face squarely. In the +hand of a genius like Parnell, the parliamentary policy secured a +temporary success, because, with the help of Joe Biggar, the Fenian, he +played the game in his own way--by parliamentary obstruction--and because +he secured the co-operation of the anti-parliamentary Nationalists. But +even he only looked upon the experiment as a temporary expedient. "Have +patience with me," he said to a Fenian in 1877; "give me a trial for three +or four years; then if I cannot do anything, I will step aside." He made a +very striking declaration in November, 1880, when the freedom of Limerick +was conferred on him:-- + + "I am not one of those who believe in the permanence of an Irish Party + in the English Parliament. I feel convinced that sooner or later the + influence which every English Government has at its command--the + powerful and demoralising influence--sooner or later--will sap the + best Party you can return to the House of Commons. I don't think we + ought to rely too much on the permanent independence of an Irish Party + sitting at a distance from their constituencies and legislating, or + attempting to legislate, for Ireland at Westminster. But I think it + possible to maintain the independence of our Party by great exertions + and by great sacrifices on the part of the constituencies of + Ireland--while we are making a short, sharp, and I trust decisive, + struggle for the restoration of our legislative independence." + +There could not be a more striking condemnation of Westminsterism from the +lips of Ireland's greatest parliamentary leader. What would he not have +said could he have foreseen the Liberal alliance, the pledge-breaking, the +jobbing, the £400 a year! "If the young men of Ireland have trusted me," +said Parnell at Kilkenny, December, 1890, "it is because they know that I +am not a mere Parliamentarian." Ireland, young and old, has since then had +good cause to distrust mere Parliamentarianism. + +The test of any policy is its practical result. What has Westminsterism +got for us? For 47 years we have had an Irish Party, for 118 years Ireland +has been represented in the English Parliament. We have given the +experiment a fair trial; it is high time to take stock. When the Party +started in 1871 our population was 5-1/2 millions; since then over 2-1/4 +millions have emigrated; there are now only 4-1/3 millions in the country. +In 1871 there were 5,620,000 acres in tillage; now there are less than +4,900,000. In 1871 the poor rate was 2s. 6d. per head, now it is over 5s. +In 1871 the taxation of Ireland was £1 5s. 7d. per head; to-day it is +about £7. Apply any rational test you like, and find if you can any single +good we have got by sending Irish talkers to Westminster. The Irish Party, +of course, attribute everything to themselves. But this electioneering +dodge--never used by Parnell--is getting a trifle thin. Even Mr. Redmond +wrote in 1902: "Despite the efforts made by Isaac Butt and other Irish +members between 1871 and 1876, nothing was done in the direction of land +reform until the Land League came." The Local Government Act of 1898 was +drafted secretly by the Government and came as a surprise to the Party; it +was even opposed by John Redmond. The Party never asked for Old Age +Pensions, and when these were proposed they confined themselves to the +remark that if extended to Ireland half-a-crown a week would be enough. +Parliament has spent thirty-three years drafting Home Rule Bills; they +have all come to nothing. In three weeks Irish Conscription was passed in +spite of the Party. Where was Conscription defeated--in Ireland or in +Westminster? And if the organised opposition and resistance of the Nation, +especially of Labour, made Conscription impossible, does it not teach us +that our real power is here at home in Ireland? The Party made vain +efforts to secure justice for the Irish teachers. The teachers took the +matter into their own hands and won at once; had they been more +determined, they would have done better still. In 1847-'48, while Irishmen +talked in Parliament, Mitchel proposed to =do= something here in Ireland, +to keep our own food here for our own people. Ireland did not realise her +true salvation then, and the consequences were terrible. Seventy years +later the same gospel is being preached under a new name. Are we going to +listen to-day? + +Why, indeed, argue against Parliamentarianism at all? Its very adherents +have abandoned all defence of it. On 3rd December, 1917, Mr. Dillon said +in the English House of Commons: "Our position in this House is made +futile, we are never listened to." Next day Mr. Devlin declared: "I do not +often come to this House, because I do not believe it is worth coming to." +These men are merely re-echoing from their own experience the parting +words of Michael Davitt as he left the English Parliament (Oct., 1899):-- + + "I have for four years tried to appeal to the sense of justice in this + House of Commons on behalf of Ireland. I leave, convinced that no just + cause, no cause of right, will ever find support from this House of + Commons unless it is backed up by force." + + +=THE FUTILITY OF TALK.= + +Let us consider the whole policy in a sane, business-like way. John Bull +runs his Other Island purely as a lucrative investment; he makes a good +profit by the concern. Ireland is simply an Area for supplying beef and +mutton, oats and butter, timber and men. We, Irish men and women, exist +merely to be exploited. Well, we know it; what have we done? How have we +striven to oust this big profiteer who sweats and coerces us? We were once +an independent concern, we managed our own affairs. Then John Bull annexed +us; by means of bribes and promises and threats he turned out the Irish +directors. Arrangements were made by which 100 Irishmen were admitted to +the English Employers' Federation 600 strong. And for 118 years these +Irishmen have been talking there, making speeches and petitions and +harangues. And we? What have we been doing? Oh, yes, now and then the +Irish--that is, John Bull's workingmen--got restive and made things +unpleasant. So they got some concessions: Emancipation, Land Acts, etc. +But still they always turned again to talk; with 80 Irishmen talking to +600 Englishmen they were told that they would be quite safe. Weren't we +"represented" at Westminster? Whenever these, our representatives, +definitely proposed anything, they were, of course, beaten; but if the +majority against them was less than 200, they always raised a deafening +cheer. It is so nice to be beaten by only 150, whereas if we were not +"represented" we should be beaten by 230--which would be dreadful. Then we +were told that what was said in Parliament reached the world--as if Mr. +King had not told more truth about us in Parliament than the whole Irish +Party, as if Hansard is not censored, as if Dr. McCartan, Mrs. +Sheehy-Skeffington and others have not said more in America than twenty +Westminsters could convey--not to mention T. P. O'Connor's performances! +To what depths are we reduced, when Westminsterism is excused only as a +means of getting into Hansard! + +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 £400 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 £400 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=. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Issue, by Lector + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ISSUE *** + +***** This file should be named 36842-8.txt or 36842-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/8/4/36842/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/36842-8.zip b/36842-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ffcf9c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/36842-8.zip diff --git a/36842-h.zip b/36842-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7eadab2 --- /dev/null +++ b/36842-h.zip diff --git a/36842-h/36842-h.htm b/36842-h/36842-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e050781 --- /dev/null +++ b/36842-h/36842-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1226 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Issue: The Case for Sinn Fein, by Lector. + </title> + + <style type="text/css"> + + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + + body {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right; font-style: normal;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + .giant {font-size: 200%} + .huge {font-size: 150%} + .large {font-size: 125%} + + .blockquot {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + + .spacer {padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Issue, by Lector + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Issue + The Case for Sinn Fein + +Author: Lector + +Release Date: July 25, 2011 [EBook #36842] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ISSUE *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<p class="center">NEW IRELAND PAMPHLETS · NUMBER THREE<br />PRICE TWOPENCE</p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="giant">THE<br />ISSUE</span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="huge">The Case for Sinn Fein</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">BY<br /> +<span class="large">LECTOR</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">AS PASSED BY CENSOR.</p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">NEW IRELAND PUBLISHING COMPANY, Limited<br /> +13 FLEET STREET, DUBLIN<br /> +1918<br /></p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="giant">THE ISSUE</span></p> + +<p><br /><b>INDEPENDENCE.</b></p> + +<p>Does Ireland wish to be free? Do we alone among the ancient Nations of +Europe desire to remain slaves? That, and that alone, is the question +which every Irish elector has now to answer. Let us put everything else +out of our minds as irrelevant claptrap. Let nothing distract us from this +single issue of Liberty. We must turn a deaf ear to sentimental whining +about what this or that man did, his length of service, his “fighting on +the floor of the House,” and so on. Whatever may have been done in the way +of small doles, petty grants, and big talk, the <b>fact</b> is that we are not +Free and the <b>issue</b> is, Do we want to be Free?</p> + +<p>Why should we be afraid of Freedom? Would any sane adult voluntarily +prefer to be a slave, to be completely in the control and power of +another? Men do not willingly walk into jail; why, then, should a whole +people? The men who are <b>afraid</b> of national liberty are unworthy even of +personal liberty; they are the victims of that slave mentality which +English coercion and corruption have striven to create in Ireland. When +Mr. John Dillon, grown tremulous and garrulous and feeble, asked for a +national convention this autumn “to definitely forswear an Irish +Republic,” he was asking Ireland to commit an act of national apostasy and +suicide. Would <b>you</b> definitely forswear your personal freedom? Will Mr. +John Dillon hand his cheque-book and property over to some stranger and +indenture himself as a serf or an idiot? When he does, but not till then, +we shall believe that the Irish Nation is capable of sentencing itself +cheerfully to penal servitude for all eternity.</p> + +<p>It was not always thus. “I say deliberately,” said Mr. John Dillon at +Moville in 1904, “that I should never have dedicated my life as I have +done to this great struggle, if I did not see at the end of it the +crowning and consummation of our work—A FREE AND INDEPENDENT IRELAND.” It +is sad that, fourteen years later, when the end is in sight, Mr. Dillon +should be found a recreant and a traitor to his past creed. The +degeneration of such a man is a damning indictment of Westminsterism.</p> + +<p>Parnell, too save for one short moment when he tried by compromise to fool +English Liberalism but was foiled, proclaimed his belief in Irish +Independence.</p> + +<p>This is what Parnell said at Cincinatti on 23rd February, 1880:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“When we have undermined English misgovernment, we have paved the way +for Ireland to take her place among the nations of the earth. And let +us not forget that that is the ultimate goal at which all we Irishmen +aim. None of us, whether we be in America or in Ireland, or wherever +we may be, will be satisfied <b>until we have destroyed the last link +which keeps Ireland bound to England</b>.”</p> + +<p>Were he alive to-day, when the last link is snapping, on what side would +Parnell be? Would he forswear an Irish Republic or would he proclaim once +more, as he said in Cork (21st Jan., 1885): “No man has a right to fix the +boundary of the march of a Nation. No man has a right to say: Thus far +shalt thou go and no farther. And we have never attempted to fix the <i>ne +plus ultra</i> to the progress of Ireland’s nationhood and we never shall.”</p> + + +<p><br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span><b>IRELAND AND SMALL NATIONS.</b></p> + +<p>At New York 31st August, 1904, John Redmond declared:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“If it were in my power to-morrow by any honourable means to +absolutely emancipate Ireland, I would do it and feel it my duty to do +it. (1904, not 1914!) I believe it would be just as possible for +Ireland to have a prosperous and free separate existence as a nation +as Holland, Belgium, or Switzerland, or other small nationalities. And +if it were in the power of any man to bring that result about +to-morrow by honourable and brave means, he would be indeed a coward +and a traitor to the traditions of his race did he not do so.”</p> + +<p>If Holland and Poland and all the other little lands, why not Ireland? Put +that straight question to yourself and you must answer it as John Redmond +did in 1904. Are we alone among the nations created to be slaves and +helots? Are we so incompetent and incapable as not to be able to manage +our own country? Is a people of four millions to be in perpetual bondage +and tutelage to a solicitor and a soldier? Did God Almighty cast up this +island as a sandbank for Englishmen to walk on? Is it the sole mission of +Irish men and women to send beef and butter to John Bull?</p> + +<p>Look at the other nations and ask yourself, Why not? Why is not Ireland +free? Are we too small in area? We are double Switzerland or Denmark, +nearly three times Holland or Belgium. Is our population too small—though +it was once double? We are as numerous as Serbia, our population is as +large as that of Switzerland and nearly double that of Denmark or Norway. +Does the difficulty lie in our poverty? Are we too poor to exist as a free +people? The revenue raised <b>per head</b> in Ireland is double that of any other +small nation, seven times that of Switzerland! The total revenue of +Ireland is ten times that of Switzerland, three times that of Norway, four +times that of Denmark, Serbia or Finland. Yet all these countries have +their own armies, consuls, etc.; they run themselves as free nations at +far below the cost of servile Ireland. Why? Because there is no other +country pocketing their cash.</p> + +<p>Here are some figures:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td> </td><td><span class="spacer"> </span></td> + <td align="center">Area<br />(thousands of<br />sq. miles)</td><td><span class="spacer"> </span></td> + <td align="center">Population<br />(Millions)</td><td><span class="spacer"> </span></td> + <td align="center">Revenue<br />(Millions £)</td></tr> +<tr><td>Ireland</td><td> </td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">32½</span></td><td> </td> + <td align="center">4⅓</td><td> </td> + <td align="center">30</td></tr> +<tr><td>Belgium</td><td> </td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">11½</span></td><td> </td> + <td align="center">7½</td><td> </td> + <td align="center">32</td></tr> +<tr><td>Holland</td><td> </td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">12½</span></td><td> </td> + <td align="center">6½</td><td> </td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">18¾</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Denmark</td><td> </td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">15½</span></td><td> </td> + <td align="center">2¾</td><td> </td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">7½</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Norway</td><td> </td> + <td align="center">125</td><td> </td> + <td align="center">2½</td><td> </td> + <td align="center">10</td></tr> +<tr><td>Switzerland</td><td> </td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">16</span></td><td> </td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: -.8em;">4</span></td><td> </td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">3</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Rumania</td><td> </td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">53½</span></td><td> </td> + <td align="center">7½</td><td> </td> + <td align="center">24</td></tr> +<tr><td>Serbia</td><td> </td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: .5em;">34</span></td><td> </td> + <td align="center">4½</td><td> </td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">8½</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Finland</td><td> </td> + <td align="center">126</td><td> </td> + <td align="center">3¼</td><td> </td> + <td align="center"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">8½</span></td></tr></table> + +<p>These figures would suggest that Ireland is a strong military and naval +power among the small nations. And so we are—only the army and navy we +support are not our own; they exist to keep us in slavery, not in freedom. +It is about time we started business on our own.</p> + + +<p><br /><b>DEPENDENT ON ENGLAND?</b></p> + +<p>The most significant instance of English policy in Ireland is the creation +of the widespread delusion that we are economically dependent on England. +An elaborate network of fraud and deceit has been built<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> up to hide the +truth from our eyes. We are secretly and systematically robbed and we +hardly notice it. The ordinary Irish worker pays at least four shillings a +week to England, he is hardly aware of the fact, so nicely is it done +whenever he buys tobacco or his wife gets tea and sugar, and so on. Though +the average income in England is three times what it is in Ireland, the +notoriously underfed Irish workers have to pay more than twice the English +proportion of indirect taxes on food, etc. We pay England 1/- on every +pound of tea, 1½d. on every pound of sugar, 7d. on every oz. of +tobacco. There is no fuss about it: it is accepted as part of the laws of +nature that tea should be a shilling a pound dearer than it need be. As +for direct taxation—well, even the farmers know what the English +income-tax is. Where does it all go? To England as taxes, profits, rents, +imperial contributions, and trade. As a going concern Ireland is now worth +thirty million a year to its owner, John Bull. There are certain expenses +of administration—police, Castle, secret service, prisons, tax +collectors—and there are, of course, several items of hush-money, dodges +necessary to fool the people, such as “education.” But the fact is that a +bigger and bigger profit is being made every year out of this island. More +agricultural materials and products are shipped to England, more Irish +brains are selected for running India, etc., more Irishmen are utilised +for gun-fodder. Sometimes, after much beseeching by resolutions and +deputations, we are graciously presented with a minute fraction of our own +goods. Is it not about time that we recognised in English “grants” our own +country’s transmuted plunder? We are as dependent on England as a factory +is on an absentee society lady who is shareholder.</p> + +<p>In 1663 began the long series of English laws against Irish trade. Charles +II. closed the English markets to Irish cattle, meat, leather, butter, +etc. Ireland built ships and opened direct trade with Flanders, France, +Spain, the American Colonies. The Navigation Act and the Jacobite War once +more destroyed our mercantile marine and ruined our industries. Ireland +was practically confined by law to the English market. In 1782, 60,000 +Volunteers, with arms in their hands, won Free Trade—i.e., the liberty of +Ireland to trade direct with the world. In a few years, bad as our own +Parliament was, the country prospered exceedingly. The Union once more +destroyed our industries and even our tillage and turned Ireland into a +cattle-ranch; our mercantile marine was destroyed. All our trade is in the +hands of English middlemen and we have to sell and buy at England’s price. +We are dependent on England, not in the sense that we get anything out of +her, but in the sense that we have allowed her to capture our trade and +cut us off from the world. We have allowed England to become a parasitic +bloodsucker. And because we have done so, we fancy that England is our +sole customer. As if the whole world is not clamouring for meat and butter +and other foodstuffs! In 1912, when England placed her cattle embargo on +Ireland, the prices in the markets of Hamburg and Genoa—after deducting +import duty and the extra cost of transit—were more than 11/- per cwt. +higher than the price paid in England. Had Irishmen then had enough Sinn +Fein spirit, they would soon have discovered who was dependent on whom!</p> + +<p>There is no possible argument, moral or economic, against Irish freedom. +“Is Ireland fit to be an independent sovereign nation?” asks Dr. Cohalan, +Bishop of Cork. “Why should it not be, if Belgium is fit to be a sovereign +nation, if Serbia is so fit, if Montenegro—whose King is not much more +than a strong farmer in this country—is fit, all fit to be independent +nations? Then, when putting the question as to Ireland, I would really ask +everyone, men and women, in this country to cease speaking slightingly of +their own race and their own country. I would like every Irishman and +woman, Catholic and Protestant, to answer that question in the +affirmative.” We are fit to be free, we have a God-given right to be free, +we mean to be free. But how are we going to get our freedom?</p> + + +<p><br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span><b>HOW TO GET THINGS.</b></p> + +<p>Let us see how we ever got anything from England. Parnell is much quoted +just now. What was his view? This is what he said at Manchester, 15th +July, 1877:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“For my part I must tell you that I do not believe in a policy of +conciliation of English feeling or English prejudices. I believe that +you may go on trying to conciliate English prejudice until the day of +judgment, and that you will not get the breadth of my nail from them. +What did we ever get in the past by trying to conciliate them? Did we +get the abolition of tithes by the conciliation of our English +taskmasters? No; it was because we adopted different measures. Did +O’Connell in his time gain emancipation for Ireland by conciliation? I +rather think that O’Connell in his time was not of a very conciliatory +disposition, and that at least during a part of his career he was +about the best-abused Irishman living.”</p> + +<p>There is no mistaking the view of Charles Stewart Parnell. Two years later +he repeated his assertion (Tipperary, 21st Sept., 1879):—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“<b>It is no use relying upon the Government, it is no use relying upon +the Irish members, it is no use relying upon the House of Commons.</b> You +must rely upon your own determination, that determination which has +enabled you to survive the famine years and to be present here to-day; +and, if you are determined, I tell you, you have the game in your own +hands.”</p> + +<p>And at the St. Patrick’s Day celebration in London in 1884:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“I have always endeavoured to teach my countrymen, whether at home or +abroad, the lesson of <b>self-reliance</b>.... Do not rely upon any English +Party; do not rely even upon the great English democracy, however +well-disposed they may be to your claims. But rely upon yourselves.”</p> + +<p>Sinn Fein means self-reliance.</p> + +<p>According to Parnell, then, the Irish people secured nothing through Irish +talk at Westminster. Whatever they got, they got by direct action. It is +easy to convince ourselves that Parnell is right. We got Free Trade and +legislative independence in 1782, without any Irish Party at Westminster, +with the help of 60,000 Volunteers. In 1829 Catholic Emancipation was won +by O’Connell in Clare, before he ever set foot in Westminster, because he +had the Irish people and the Catholic Association behind him. Yet a few +months before the English Government had rejected a Catholic Relief Bill +with scorn. Here are Peel’s words:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“In the course of the last six months, England, being at peace with +the whole world, has had five-sixths of the infantry force of the +United Kingdom occupied in maintaining the peace and in police duties +in Ireland. I consider the state of things which requires such an +application of military force much worse than open rebellion. If this +be the state of things at present, let me implore of you to consider +what would be the condition of England in the event of war. Can we +forget in reviewing the state of Ireland what happened in 1782?”</p> + +<p>The Prime Minister was evidently unmoved by all the eloquent appeals for +justice to Irish Catholics; he moved very rapidly when Irishmen showed +signs of <b>doing</b> something. The Duke of Wellington, in May, 1829, made a +similar confession:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>“If you glance at the history of Ireland during the last ten years, +you will find that agitation really means something short of +rebellion; that and no other is the exact meaning of the word. It is +to place the country in that state in which its government is utterly +impracticable except by means of an overawing military force.”</p> + +<p>Not such a far cry after all from the Iron Duke to the Tin Viscount!</p> + +<p>Tithes were abolished in 1838, again not by a Parliamentary Party, but by +the people themselves after a bloody seven years’ war.</p> + +<p>Then came Disestablishment in 1869. How did that come? When in 1868 +Gladstone proposed his Church resolution, a hundred Irish members +voted—fifty-five for and forty-five against! Obviously Disestablishment +was not carried by Irish representation at Westminster. Let Gladstone +himself tell us what carried it:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“Down to the year 1865 and the dissolution of that year, the whole +question of the Irish Church was dead. Nobody cared about it, nobody +paid attention to it in England. Circumstances occurred which drew +attention of the people to the Irish Church. I said myself in 1865, +and I believed, that it was out of the range of practical politics.”</p> + +<p>In other words, Fenianism secured Irish Church Disestablishment. Lord +Derby, writing from the opposite camp, agreed with Gladstone:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“A few desperate men, applauded by the whole body of the Irish people +for their daring, showed England what Irish feeling really was, made +plain to us the depth of a discontent whose existence we had scarcely +suspected, and <b>the rest followed, of course</b>.”</p> + +<p>Let us hear the same two unimpeachable witnesses concealing the Land +Question. “I must make one admission,” said Gladstone, “and that is that +without the Land League the Act of 1881 would not at this moment be on the +Statute Book.” “Fixity of tenure,” said Lord Derby, “has been the direct +result of two causes: Irish outrage and parliamentary obstruction. The +Irish know it as well as we. Not all the influence and eloquence of Mr. +Gladstone would have prevailed on the English House of Commons to do what +has been done in the matter of Irish tenant right, if the answer to all +objections had not been ready: How else are we to govern Ireland?” In +plain English, every concession wrung from England has been secured simply +by making the English Government otherwise impossible in Ireland.</p> + + +<p><br /><b>THE FAILURE OF PARLIAMENTARIANISM.</b></p> + +<p>If this be so, what is the use of sending Irishmen over to talk at +Westminster? That is the question which we have to face squarely. In the +hand of a genius like Parnell, the parliamentary policy secured a +temporary success, because, with the help of Joe Biggar, the Fenian, he +played the game in his own way—by parliamentary obstruction—and because +he secured the co-operation of the anti-parliamentary Nationalists. But +even he only looked upon the experiment as a temporary expedient. “Have +patience with me,” he said to a Fenian in 1877; “give me a trial for three +or four years; then if I cannot do anything, I will step aside.” He made a +very striking declaration in November, 1880, when the freedom of Limerick +was conferred on him:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“I am not one of those who believe in the permanence of an Irish Party +in the English Parliament. I feel convinced that sooner or later the +influence which every English Government has at its command—the +powerful and demoralising influence—sooner or later—will sap the +best Party you can return to the House of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> Commons. I don’t think we +ought to rely too much on the permanent independence of an Irish Party +sitting at a distance from their constituencies and legislating, or +attempting to legislate, for Ireland at Westminster. But I think it +possible to maintain the independence of our Party by great exertions +and by great sacrifices on the part of the constituencies of +Ireland—while we are making a short, sharp, and I trust decisive, +struggle for the restoration of our legislative independence.”</p> + +<p>There could not be a more striking condemnation of Westminsterism from the +lips of Ireland’s greatest parliamentary leader. What would he not have +said could he have foreseen the Liberal alliance, the pledge-breaking, the +jobbing, the £400 a year! “If the young men of Ireland have trusted me,” +said Parnell at Kilkenny, December, 1890, “it is because they know that I +am not a mere Parliamentarian.” Ireland, young and old, has since then had +good cause to distrust mere Parliamentarianism.</p> + +<p>The test of any policy is its practical result. What has Westminsterism +got for us? For 47 years we have had an Irish Party, for 118 years Ireland +has been represented in the English Parliament. We have given the +experiment a fair trial; it is high time to take stock. When the Party +started in 1871 our population was 5½ millions; since then over 2¼ +millions have emigrated; there are now only 4⅓ millions in the country. +In 1871 there were 5,620,000 acres in tillage; now there are less than +4,900,000. In 1871 the poor rate was 2s. 6d. per head, now it is over 5s. +In 1871 the taxation of Ireland was £1 5s. 7d. per head; to-day it is +about £7. Apply any rational test you like, and find if you can any single +good we have got by sending Irish talkers to Westminster. The Irish Party, +of course, attribute everything to themselves. But this electioneering +dodge—never used by Parnell—is getting a trifle thin. Even Mr. Redmond +wrote in 1902: “Despite the efforts made by Isaac Butt and other Irish +members between 1871 and 1876, nothing was done in the direction of land +reform until the Land League came.” The Local Government Act of 1898 was +drafted secretly by the Government and came as a surprise to the Party; it +was even opposed by John Redmond. The Party never asked for Old Age +Pensions, and when these were proposed they confined themselves to the +remark that if extended to Ireland half-a-crown a week would be enough. +Parliament has spent thirty-three years drafting Home Rule Bills; they +have all come to nothing. In three weeks Irish Conscription was passed in +spite of the Party. Where was Conscription defeated—in Ireland or in +Westminster? And if the organised opposition and resistance of the Nation, +especially of Labour, made Conscription impossible, does it not teach us +that our real power is here at home in Ireland? The Party made vain +efforts to secure justice for the Irish teachers. The teachers took the +matter into their own hands and won at once; had they been more +determined, they would have done better still. In 1847-’48, while Irishmen +talked in Parliament, Mitchel proposed to <b>do</b> something here in Ireland, to +keep our own food here for our own people. Ireland did not realise her +true salvation then, and the consequences were terrible. Seventy years +later the same gospel is being preached under a new name. Are we going to +listen to-day?</p> + +<p>Why, indeed, argue against Parliamentarianism at all? Its very adherents +have abandoned all defence of it. On 3rd December, 1917, Mr. Dillon said +in the English House of Commons: “Our position in this House is made +futile, we are never listened to.” Next day Mr. Devlin declared: “I do not +often come to this House, because I do not believe it is worth coming to.” +These men are merely re-echoing from their own experience the parting +words of Michael Davitt as he left the English Parliament (Oct., 1899):—</p> + +<p class="blockquot"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>“I have for four years tried to appeal to the sense of justice in this +House of Commons on behalf of Ireland. I leave, convinced that no just +cause, no cause of right, will ever find support from this House of +Commons unless it is backed up by force.”</p> + + +<p><br /><b>THE FUTILITY OF TALK.</b></p> + +<p>Let us consider the whole policy in a sane, business-like way. John Bull +runs his Other Island purely as a lucrative investment; he makes a good +profit by the concern. Ireland is simply an Area for supplying beef and +mutton, oats and butter, timber and men. We, Irish men and women, exist +merely to be exploited. Well, we know it; what have we done? How have we +striven to oust this big profiteer who sweats and coerces us? We were once +an independent concern, we managed our own affairs. Then John Bull annexed +us; by means of bribes and promises and threats he turned out the Irish +directors. Arrangements were made by which 100 Irishmen were admitted to +the English Employers’ Federation 600 strong. And for 118 years these +Irishmen have been talking there, making speeches and petitions and +harangues. And we? What have we been doing? Oh, yes, now and then the +Irish—that is, John Bull’s workingmen—got restive and made things +unpleasant. So they got some concessions: Emancipation, Land Acts, etc. +But still they always turned again to talk; with 80 Irishmen talking to +600 Englishmen they were told that they would be quite safe. Weren’t we +“represented” at Westminster? Whenever these, our representatives, +definitely proposed anything, they were, of course, beaten; but if the +majority against them was less than 200, they always raised a deafening +cheer. It is so nice to be beaten by only 150, whereas if we were not +“represented” we should be beaten by 230—which would be dreadful. Then we +were told that what was said in Parliament reached the world—as if Mr. +King had not told more truth about us in Parliament than the whole Irish +Party, as if Hansard is not censored, as if Dr. McCartan, Mrs. +Sheehy-Skeffington and others have not said more in America than twenty +Westminsters could convey—not to mention T. P. O’Connor’s performances! +To what depths are we reduced, when Westminsterism is excused only as a +means of getting into Hansard!</p> + +<p>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? <b>In fact, was not the Act +of Union specially designed for this very purpose?</b> 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 <b>in +Ireland</b>.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>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.</p> + + +<p><br /><b>THE ALTERNATIVE.</b></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> 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:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.”</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.”</p> + +<p>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 <b>in spite of Parliament</b>. 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <b>until it is ready to strike</b>. 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.</p> + + +<p><br /><b>THE MORAL PRINCIPLE.</b></p> + +<p>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 £400 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.</p> + +<p>Listen to what John Redmond said on 9th August, 1902:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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 <b>naked +force</b>. <b>No single reform, large or small, has ever been obtained by +purely constitutional means.</b>... We submit to the English usurpation of +the government of Ireland, but we do so <b>only because we have no +adequate means of successful resistance</b>.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> “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.”</p> + +<p>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 £400 a year? By taking the following oath:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>To go to Westminster is not only unpractical and futile, it is a betrayal +of the sacred cause of Irish Nationality and <b>it has been advertised as +such by the English Government</b>. 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.</p> + + +<p><br /><b>THE PEACE CONFERENCE.</b></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>On behalf of His Holiness, Cardinal Gasparri, Papal Secretary of State, +issued a statement (24th August, 1918) in which we read:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“History teaches us that a form of government imposed by arms does not +and cannot live.”</p> + +<p>On 6th November, 1918, Pope Benedict XV. wrote to the Archbishop of +Warsaw:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“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.”</p> + +<p>Surely our Holy Father is looking forward to the day when he can address +similar congratulations to Ireland, the Island of Saints and Scholars.</p> + +<p>Let every Irish man and woman who reads this vote for Ireland’s +Independence.</p> + + +<p class="center"><br /><b>FOR THE GLORY OF GOD AND THE HONOUR OF ERIN.</b></p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Issue, by Lector + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ISSUE *** + +***** This file should be named 36842-h.htm or 36842-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/8/4/36842/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Issue + The Case for Sinn Fein + +Author: Lector + +Release Date: July 25, 2011 [EBook #36842] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ISSUE *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + NEW IRELAND PAMPHLETS . NUMBER THREE + PRICE TWOPENCE + + + THE ISSUE + The Case for Sinn Fein + + + BY LECTOR + + AS PASSED BY CENSOR. + + + NEW IRELAND PUBLISHING COMPANY, Limited + 13 FLEET STREET, DUBLIN + 1918 + + + + +THE ISSUE + + +=INDEPENDENCE.= + +Does Ireland wish to be free? Do we alone among the ancient Nations of +Europe desire to remain slaves? That, and that alone, is the question +which every Irish elector has now to answer. Let us put everything else +out of our minds as irrelevant claptrap. Let nothing distract us from this +single issue of Liberty. We must turn a deaf ear to sentimental whining +about what this or that man did, his length of service, his "fighting on +the floor of the House," and so on. Whatever may have been done in the way +of small doles, petty grants, and big talk, the =fact= is that we are not +Free and the =issue= is, Do we want to be Free? + +Why should we be afraid of Freedom? Would any sane adult voluntarily +prefer to be a slave, to be completely in the control and power of +another? Men do not willingly walk into jail; why, then, should a whole +people? The men who are =afraid= of national liberty are unworthy even of +personal liberty; they are the victims of that slave mentality which +English coercion and corruption have striven to create in Ireland. When +Mr. John Dillon, grown tremulous and garrulous and feeble, asked for a +national convention this autumn "to definitely forswear an Irish +Republic," he was asking Ireland to commit an act of national apostasy and +suicide. Would =you= definitely forswear your personal freedom? Will Mr. +John Dillon hand his cheque-book and property over to some stranger and +indenture himself as a serf or an idiot? When he does, but not till then, +we shall believe that the Irish Nation is capable of sentencing itself +cheerfully to penal servitude for all eternity. + +It was not always thus. "I say deliberately," said Mr. John Dillon at +Moville in 1904, "that I should never have dedicated my life as I have +done to this great struggle, if I did not see at the end of it the +crowning and consummation of our work--A FREE AND INDEPENDENT IRELAND." It +is sad that, fourteen years later, when the end is in sight, Mr. Dillon +should be found a recreant and a traitor to his past creed. The +degeneration of such a man is a damning indictment of Westminsterism. + +Parnell, too save for one short moment when he tried by compromise to fool +English Liberalism but was foiled, proclaimed his belief in Irish +Independence. + +This is what Parnell said at Cincinatti on 23rd February, 1880:-- + + "When we have undermined English misgovernment, we have paved the way + for Ireland to take her place among the nations of the earth. And let + us not forget that that is the ultimate goal at which all we Irishmen + aim. None of us, whether we be in America or in Ireland, or wherever + we may be, will be satisfied =until we have destroyed the last link + which keeps Ireland bound to England=." + +Were he alive to-day, when the last link is snapping, on what side would +Parnell be? Would he forswear an Irish Republic or would he proclaim once +more, as he said in Cork (21st Jan., 1885): "No man has a right to fix the +boundary of the march of a Nation. No man has a right to say: Thus far +shalt thou go and no farther. And we have never attempted to fix the _ne +plus ultra_ to the progress of Ireland's nationhood and we never shall." + + +=IRELAND AND SMALL NATIONS.= + +At New York 31st August, 1904, John Redmond declared:-- + + "If it were in my power to-morrow by any honourable means to + absolutely emancipate Ireland, I would do it and feel it my duty to do + it. (1904, not 1914!) I believe it would be just as possible for + Ireland to have a prosperous and free separate existence as a nation + as Holland, Belgium, or Switzerland, or other small nationalities. And + if it were in the power of any man to bring that result about + to-morrow by honourable and brave means, he would be indeed a coward + and a traitor to the traditions of his race did he not do so." + +If Holland and Poland and all the other little lands, why not Ireland? Put +that straight question to yourself and you must answer it as John Redmond +did in 1904. Are we alone among the nations created to be slaves and +helots? Are we so incompetent and incapable as not to be able to manage +our own country? Is a people of four millions to be in perpetual bondage +and tutelage to a solicitor and a soldier? Did God Almighty cast up this +island as a sandbank for Englishmen to walk on? Is it the sole mission of +Irish men and women to send beef and butter to John Bull? + +Look at the other nations and ask yourself, Why not? Why is not Ireland +free? Are we too small in area? We are double Switzerland or Denmark, +nearly three times Holland or Belgium. Is our population too small--though +it was once double? We are as numerous as Serbia, our population is as +large as that of Switzerland and nearly double that of Denmark or Norway. +Does the difficulty lie in our poverty? Are we too poor to exist as a free +people? The revenue raised =per head= in Ireland is double that of any +other small nation, seven times that of Switzerland! The total revenue of +Ireland is ten times that of Switzerland, three times that of Norway, four +times that of Denmark, Serbia or Finland. Yet all these countries have +their own armies, consuls, etc.; they run themselves as free nations at +far below the cost of servile Ireland. Why? Because there is no other +country pocketing their cash. + +Here are some figures:-- + + Area Population Revenue + (thousands of (Millions) (Millions L) + sq. miles) + Ireland 32-1/2 4-1/3 30 + Belgium 11-1/2 7-1/2 32 + Holland 12-1/2 6-1/2 18-3/4 + Denmark 15-1/2 2-3/4 7-1/2 + Norway 125 2-1/2 10 + Switzerland 16 4 3 + Rumania 53-1/2 7-1/2 24 + Serbia 34 4-1/2 8-1/2 + Finland 126 3-1/4 8-1/2 + +These figures would suggest that Ireland is a strong military and naval +power among the small nations. And so we are--only the army and navy we +support are not our own; they exist to keep us in slavery, not in freedom. +It is about time we started business on our own. + + +=DEPENDENT ON ENGLAND?= + +The most significant instance of English policy in Ireland is the creation +of the widespread delusion that we are economically dependent on England. +An elaborate network of fraud and deceit has been built up to hide the +truth from our eyes. We are secretly and systematically robbed and we +hardly notice it. The ordinary Irish worker pays at least four shillings a +week to England, he is hardly aware of the fact, so nicely is it done +whenever he buys tobacco or his wife gets tea and sugar, and so on. Though +the average income in England is three times what it is in Ireland, the +notoriously underfed Irish workers have to pay more than twice the English +proportion of indirect taxes on food, etc. We pay England 1/- on every +pound of tea, 1-1/2d. on every pound of sugar, 7d. on every oz. of +tobacco. There is no fuss about it: it is accepted as part of the laws of +nature that tea should be a shilling a pound dearer than it need be. As +for direct taxation--well, even the farmers know what the English +income-tax is. Where does it all go? To England as taxes, profits, rents, +imperial contributions, and trade. As a going concern Ireland is now worth +thirty million a year to its owner, John Bull. There are certain expenses +of administration--police, Castle, secret service, prisons, tax +collectors--and there are, of course, several items of hush-money, dodges +necessary to fool the people, such as "education." But the fact is that a +bigger and bigger profit is being made every year out of this island. More +agricultural materials and products are shipped to England, more Irish +brains are selected for running India, etc., more Irishmen are utilised +for gun-fodder. Sometimes, after much beseeching by resolutions and +deputations, we are graciously presented with a minute fraction of our own +goods. Is it not about time that we recognised in English "grants" our own +country's transmuted plunder? We are as dependent on England as a factory +is on an absentee society lady who is shareholder. + +In 1663 began the long series of English laws against Irish trade. Charles +II. closed the English markets to Irish cattle, meat, leather, butter, +etc. Ireland built ships and opened direct trade with Flanders, France, +Spain, the American Colonies. The Navigation Act and the Jacobite War once +more destroyed our mercantile marine and ruined our industries. Ireland +was practically confined by law to the English market. In 1782, 60,000 +Volunteers, with arms in their hands, won Free Trade--i.e., the liberty of +Ireland to trade direct with the world. In a few years, bad as our own +Parliament was, the country prospered exceedingly. The Union once more +destroyed our industries and even our tillage and turned Ireland into a +cattle-ranch; our mercantile marine was destroyed. All our trade is in the +hands of English middlemen and we have to sell and buy at England's price. +We are dependent on England, not in the sense that we get anything out of +her, but in the sense that we have allowed her to capture our trade and +cut us off from the world. We have allowed England to become a parasitic +bloodsucker. And because we have done so, we fancy that England is our +sole customer. As if the whole world is not clamouring for meat and butter +and other foodstuffs! In 1912, when England placed her cattle embargo on +Ireland, the prices in the markets of Hamburg and Genoa--after deducting +import duty and the extra cost of transit--were more than 11/- per cwt. +higher than the price paid in England. Had Irishmen then had enough Sinn +Fein spirit, they would soon have discovered who was dependent on whom! + +There is no possible argument, moral or economic, against Irish freedom. +"Is Ireland fit to be an independent sovereign nation?" asks Dr. Cohalan, +Bishop of Cork. "Why should it not be, if Belgium is fit to be a sovereign +nation, if Serbia is so fit, if Montenegro--whose King is not much more +than a strong farmer in this country--is fit, all fit to be independent +nations? Then, when putting the question as to Ireland, I would really ask +everyone, men and women, in this country to cease speaking slightingly of +their own race and their own country. I would like every Irishman and +woman, Catholic and Protestant, to answer that question in the +affirmative." We are fit to be free, we have a God-given right to be free, +we mean to be free. But how are we going to get our freedom? + + +=HOW TO GET THINGS.= + +Let us see how we ever got anything from England. Parnell is much quoted +just now. What was his view? This is what he said at Manchester, 15th +July, 1877:-- + + "For my part I must tell you that I do not believe in a policy of + conciliation of English feeling or English prejudices. I believe that + you may go on trying to conciliate English prejudice until the day of + judgment, and that you will not get the breadth of my nail from them. + What did we ever get in the past by trying to conciliate them? Did we + get the abolition of tithes by the conciliation of our English + taskmasters? No; it was because we adopted different measures. Did + O'Connell in his time gain emancipation for Ireland by conciliation? I + rather think that O'Connell in his time was not of a very conciliatory + disposition, and that at least during a part of his career he was + about the best-abused Irishman living." + +There is no mistaking the view of Charles Stewart Parnell. Two years later +he repeated his assertion (Tipperary, 21st Sept., 1879):-- + + "=It is no use relying upon the Government, it is no use relying upon + the Irish members, it is no use relying upon the House of Commons.= + You must rely upon your own determination, that determination which + has enabled you to survive the famine years and to be present here + to-day; and, if you are determined, I tell you, you have the game in + your own hands." + +And at the St. Patrick's Day celebration in London in 1884:-- + + "I have always endeavoured to teach my countrymen, whether at home or + abroad, the lesson of =self-reliance=.... Do not rely upon any English + Party; do not rely even upon the great English democracy, however + well-disposed they may be to your claims. But rely upon yourselves." + +Sinn Fein means self-reliance. + +According to Parnell, then, the Irish people secured nothing through Irish +talk at Westminster. Whatever they got, they got by direct action. It is +easy to convince ourselves that Parnell is right. We got Free Trade and +legislative independence in 1782, without any Irish Party at Westminster, +with the help of 60,000 Volunteers. In 1829 Catholic Emancipation was won +by O'Connell in Clare, before he ever set foot in Westminster, because he +had the Irish people and the Catholic Association behind him. Yet a few +months before the English Government had rejected a Catholic Relief Bill +with scorn. Here are Peel's words:-- + + "In the course of the last six months, England, being at peace with + the whole world, has had five-sixths of the infantry force of the + United Kingdom occupied in maintaining the peace and in police duties + in Ireland. I consider the state of things which requires such an + application of military force much worse than open rebellion. If this + be the state of things at present, let me implore of you to consider + what would be the condition of England in the event of war. Can we + forget in reviewing the state of Ireland what happened in 1782?" + +The Prime Minister was evidently unmoved by all the eloquent appeals for +justice to Irish Catholics; he moved very rapidly when Irishmen showed +signs of =doing= something. The Duke of Wellington, in May, 1829, made a +similar confession:-- + + "If you glance at the history of Ireland during the last ten years, + you will find that agitation really means something short of + rebellion; that and no other is the exact meaning of the word. It is + to place the country in that state in which its government is utterly + impracticable except by means of an overawing military force." + +Not such a far cry after all from the Iron Duke to the Tin Viscount! + +Tithes were abolished in 1838, again not by a Parliamentary Party, but by +the people themselves after a bloody seven years' war. + +Then came Disestablishment in 1869. How did that come? When in 1868 +Gladstone proposed his Church resolution, a hundred Irish members +voted--fifty-five for and forty-five against! Obviously Disestablishment +was not carried by Irish representation at Westminster. Let Gladstone +himself tell us what carried it:-- + + "Down to the year 1865 and the dissolution of that year, the whole + question of the Irish Church was dead. Nobody cared about it, nobody + paid attention to it in England. Circumstances occurred which drew + attention of the people to the Irish Church. I said myself in 1865, + and I believed, that it was out of the range of practical politics." + +In other words, Fenianism secured Irish Church Disestablishment. Lord +Derby, writing from the opposite camp, agreed with Gladstone:-- + + "A few desperate men, applauded by the whole body of the Irish people + for their daring, showed England what Irish feeling really was, made + plain to us the depth of a discontent whose existence we had scarcely + suspected, and =the rest followed, of course=." + +Let us hear the same two unimpeachable witnesses concealing the Land +Question. "I must make one admission," said Gladstone, "and that is that +without the Land League the Act of 1881 would not at this moment be on the +Statute Book." "Fixity of tenure," said Lord Derby, "has been the direct +result of two causes: Irish outrage and parliamentary obstruction. The +Irish know it as well as we. Not all the influence and eloquence of Mr. +Gladstone would have prevailed on the English House of Commons to do what +has been done in the matter of Irish tenant right, if the answer to all +objections had not been ready: How else are we to govern Ireland?" In +plain English, every concession wrung from England has been secured simply +by making the English Government otherwise impossible in Ireland. + + +=THE FAILURE OF PARLIAMENTARIANISM.= + +If this be so, what is the use of sending Irishmen over to talk at +Westminster? That is the question which we have to face squarely. In the +hand of a genius like Parnell, the parliamentary policy secured a +temporary success, because, with the help of Joe Biggar, the Fenian, he +played the game in his own way--by parliamentary obstruction--and because +he secured the co-operation of the anti-parliamentary Nationalists. But +even he only looked upon the experiment as a temporary expedient. "Have +patience with me," he said to a Fenian in 1877; "give me a trial for three +or four years; then if I cannot do anything, I will step aside." He made a +very striking declaration in November, 1880, when the freedom of Limerick +was conferred on him:-- + + "I am not one of those who believe in the permanence of an Irish Party + in the English Parliament. I feel convinced that sooner or later the + influence which every English Government has at its command--the + powerful and demoralising influence--sooner or later--will sap the + best Party you can return to the House of Commons. I don't think we + ought to rely too much on the permanent independence of an Irish Party + sitting at a distance from their constituencies and legislating, or + attempting to legislate, for Ireland at Westminster. But I think it + possible to maintain the independence of our Party by great exertions + and by great sacrifices on the part of the constituencies of + Ireland--while we are making a short, sharp, and I trust decisive, + struggle for the restoration of our legislative independence." + +There could not be a more striking condemnation of Westminsterism from the +lips of Ireland's greatest parliamentary leader. What would he not have +said could he have foreseen the Liberal alliance, the pledge-breaking, the +jobbing, the L400 a year! "If the young men of Ireland have trusted me," +said Parnell at Kilkenny, December, 1890, "it is because they know that I +am not a mere Parliamentarian." Ireland, young and old, has since then had +good cause to distrust mere Parliamentarianism. + +The test of any policy is its practical result. What has Westminsterism +got for us? For 47 years we have had an Irish Party, for 118 years Ireland +has been represented in the English Parliament. We have given the +experiment a fair trial; it is high time to take stock. When the Party +started in 1871 our population was 5-1/2 millions; since then over 2-1/4 +millions have emigrated; there are now only 4-1/3 millions in the country. +In 1871 there were 5,620,000 acres in tillage; now there are less than +4,900,000. In 1871 the poor rate was 2s. 6d. per head, now it is over 5s. +In 1871 the taxation of Ireland was L1 5s. 7d. per head; to-day it is +about L7. Apply any rational test you like, and find if you can any single +good we have got by sending Irish talkers to Westminster. The Irish Party, +of course, attribute everything to themselves. But this electioneering +dodge--never used by Parnell--is getting a trifle thin. Even Mr. Redmond +wrote in 1902: "Despite the efforts made by Isaac Butt and other Irish +members between 1871 and 1876, nothing was done in the direction of land +reform until the Land League came." The Local Government Act of 1898 was +drafted secretly by the Government and came as a surprise to the Party; it +was even opposed by John Redmond. The Party never asked for Old Age +Pensions, and when these were proposed they confined themselves to the +remark that if extended to Ireland half-a-crown a week would be enough. +Parliament has spent thirty-three years drafting Home Rule Bills; they +have all come to nothing. In three weeks Irish Conscription was passed in +spite of the Party. Where was Conscription defeated--in Ireland or in +Westminster? And if the organised opposition and resistance of the Nation, +especially of Labour, made Conscription impossible, does it not teach us +that our real power is here at home in Ireland? The Party made vain +efforts to secure justice for the Irish teachers. The teachers took the +matter into their own hands and won at once; had they been more +determined, they would have done better still. In 1847-'48, while Irishmen +talked in Parliament, Mitchel proposed to =do= something here in Ireland, +to keep our own food here for our own people. Ireland did not realise her +true salvation then, and the consequences were terrible. Seventy years +later the same gospel is being preached under a new name. Are we going to +listen to-day? + +Why, indeed, argue against Parliamentarianism at all? Its very adherents +have abandoned all defence of it. On 3rd December, 1917, Mr. Dillon said +in the English House of Commons: "Our position in this House is made +futile, we are never listened to." Next day Mr. Devlin declared: "I do not +often come to this House, because I do not believe it is worth coming to." +These men are merely re-echoing from their own experience the parting +words of Michael Davitt as he left the English Parliament (Oct., 1899):-- + + "I have for four years tried to appeal to the sense of justice in this + House of Commons on behalf of Ireland. I leave, convinced that no just + cause, no cause of right, will ever find support from this House of + Commons unless it is backed up by force." + + +=THE FUTILITY OF TALK.= + +Let us consider the whole policy in a sane, business-like way. John Bull +runs his Other Island purely as a lucrative investment; he makes a good +profit by the concern. Ireland is simply an Area for supplying beef and +mutton, oats and butter, timber and men. We, Irish men and women, exist +merely to be exploited. Well, we know it; what have we done? How have we +striven to oust this big profiteer who sweats and coerces us? We were once +an independent concern, we managed our own affairs. Then John Bull annexed +us; by means of bribes and promises and threats he turned out the Irish +directors. Arrangements were made by which 100 Irishmen were admitted to +the English Employers' Federation 600 strong. And for 118 years these +Irishmen have been talking there, making speeches and petitions and +harangues. And we? What have we been doing? Oh, yes, now and then the +Irish--that is, John Bull's workingmen--got restive and made things +unpleasant. So they got some concessions: Emancipation, Land Acts, etc. +But still they always turned again to talk; with 80 Irishmen talking to +600 Englishmen they were told that they would be quite safe. Weren't we +"represented" at Westminster? Whenever these, our representatives, +definitely proposed anything, they were, of course, beaten; but if the +majority against them was less than 200, they always raised a deafening +cheer. It is so nice to be beaten by only 150, whereas if we were not +"represented" we should be beaten by 230--which would be dreadful. Then we +were told that what was said in Parliament reached the world--as if Mr. +King had not told more truth about us in Parliament than the whole Irish +Party, as if Hansard is not censored, as if Dr. McCartan, Mrs. +Sheehy-Skeffington and others have not said more in America than twenty +Westminsters could convey--not to mention T. P. O'Connor's performances! +To what depths are we reduced, when Westminsterism is excused only as a +means of getting into Hansard! + +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=. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Issue, by Lector + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ISSUE *** + +***** This file should be named 36842.txt or 36842.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/8/4/36842/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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