The empire does not consider the cause of revolt.[1] But the republic is
interested not only in the cause but also in the remedy.
Relief, the republic has said, must come through Sinn Fein--ourselves.
Neither the Sinn Fein leaders nor the people believe in the power of the
Irish vote in the British House of Commons. At the last general elections
the Sinn Fein party pledged that if its members were elected they would not
go to the British parliament, but would remain at home to form the Irish
parliament, the governing body of the Irish republic. Dodgers explaining
why Sinn Fein had decided to forego the House of Commons were widely
distributed. These read: "What good has parliamentarianism been? For
thirty-three years England has been considering Home Rule while Irish
members pleaded for it. But in three weeks the English parliament passed a
conscriptive act for Ireland, though the Irish party was solid against it."
On this platform, Sinn Fein won seventy-three out of 105 seats.
If Sinn Fein is to relieve the social conditions in Ireland, it must, say
Sinn Feiners, find out the cause. So they have pondered on this question:
What is the cause of the unemployment in Ireland today? The answer to that
question was the one point that the sharp-mustached, sardonic little Arthur
Griffith, founder of Sinn Fein, wanted the American delegates from the
Philadelphia Race Convention to carry back to America.
It was revealed at a meeting of the Irish parliament specially called for
the delegates. Cards were difficult to get for that meeting, and as each
one passed through the long dreary ante-room of the circular assembly hall
of the Mansion House, he was subjected to close scrutiny by the two dozen
Irish volunteers on guard. In the civilian audience there was a sprinkling
of American and Australian officers. Up on the platform was the throne of
the Lord Mayor, in front of which sat the delegates--Frank Walsh, Edward F.
Dunne, and Michael Ryan. In a roped-off semi-circle below the platform were
deep upholstered chairs wherein rested the members of the Irish parliament.
Countess Markewicz was, of course, the only woman there. White-haired,
trembling-handed Laurence Ginnel, who is given long jail terms because he
refuses to take his hat off in a British court, sat forward on his chair.
The rich young Protestant named Robert Barton regarded the crowd through
his shining eyeglasses. Keen, boyish Michael Collins, minister of finance,
fingered the paper he was going to read. The last two men had recently
escaped from prison and were wanted by the police--both, as they say in
Ireland, were "on the run."
"England kills Irish industry," said the succinct Arthur Griffith as he
rose from the right hand of DeValera to address the delegates. "Early in
the nineteenth century, England wanted a cheap meat supply center. She
therefore made it more profitable for the landowners in Ireland to grow
cattle instead of crops. Only a few herders are required in cattle care. So
literally millions of Irish, tillers of the soil and millers of grain, were
thrown out of employment, and from 1841 to 1911 the population fell from
8,000,000 to 4,400,000. Today, Ireland, capable of supporting 16,000,000,
cannot maintain 4,000,000."[2]
What is the Sinn Fein remedy for unemployment? Industry. Plans were then
under way for DeValera to make his escape to America to obtain American
capital to back Irish industry. But money was not to be his sole business.
He was to work for the recognition of Irish consuls and Irish mercantile
marine. And inside Ireland the movement to establish industry on a sound
basis was going on. Irish banks, Irish courts, Irish schools are to sustain
the movement. At present the English-controlled Irish banks handicap Irish
entrepreneurs by charging them one per cent more interest than English
banks charge English borrowers; therefore, a national bank is regarded as
an imperative need. Decisions of British judges in Irish courts may hamper
Irish industry; so in parts of the country perfectly legal courts of
arbitration manned by Irishmen have been established. School children under
the present system of education are trained neither to commerce nor to love
of the development of their native land; accordingly a Sinn Fein school
fund is now being collected so that the Irish parliament may soon be able
to take over national education.
Sinn Fein could develop industry more easily if Ireland were free.[3] There
is hope. It lies in Ireland's very lack of jobs. British labor does not
like the competition of the cheap labor market next door. It rather
welcomes the party that would push Irish industry. For with Irish industry
developed Irish labor would become scarce and high. Already the British
labor party has declared in favor of the self-determination of Ireland, and
it is expected that with its accession to power there may be a final
granting of self-determination to Ireland.
As we were leaving the Mansion House--to which some of us were invited to
return to a reception for the delegates that evening--I found intense
reaction to the speakers of the day. I asked a young American
non-commissioned officer how he liked DeValera. He seemed to be as stirred
by the name as the young members of DeValera's regiment who besiege Mrs.
DeValera for some little valueless possession of the "chief's." The boy
drew in his breath, and I expected him to let it out again in a flow of
praise, but emotion seemed to get the better of him, and all he could
manage was a fervent: "Oh, gee!" Then I came across young Sylvia Pankhurst,
disowned by her family for her communist sympathies, and in Dublin for the
purpose of persuading the Irish parliament to become soviet. The Irish
speakers, she told me, were much to be preferred to the Americans. They
used more figures and less figures of speech. And when I repeated her
remark to Desmond Fitzgerald, a pink and fastidious member of parliament,
he smilingly commented: "Well, we Irish are more sophisticated, aren't we?"