not the method of its earlier years. This was frankly acknowledged by its
leaders. In an article on the Convention summoned by Count Plunkett to
meet in the Mansion House in Dublin after his election for North
Roscommon, _New Ireland_ (which was next to _Nationality_ the leading Sinn
Fein weekly) wrote as follows: "In the years 1903--1910 the policy of Sinn
Fein was a policy of self-reliance in the strictest sense of that term. It
directed us away from Westminster and towards Ireland. It was
revolutionary inasmuch as it sought to displace existing British
institutions and substitute Irish institutions to which the Irish people
would respond.... The newer Sinn Fein is not quite the same as the old: it
varies in one essential characteristic. Whereas the old Sinn Fein directed
the Irish people towards self-improvement as a basis of national strength
and made it quite plain to us that many sacrifices might possibly be
demanded, there is no trace in the newer Sinn Fein of these qualities. The
older Sinn Fein deprecated the reliance upon any external source of
strength and urged upon us the advantages of self-reliance and passive
resistance. The new Sinn Fein places some of its faith at least in
external bodies and does not inculcate the older doctrine of self-reliance
and passive resistance. It is not, however, Sinn Fein that has changed so
much as the world forces that condition such changes. The old policy
flourished in a period of world peace and was in consequence disposed
rather towards a long drawn out struggle: the new policy is specially
devised to take advantage of the present temporary state of affairs." This
may not be very carefully worded, and it is certain that Sinn Feiners as a
body would not have accepted it as a complete and accurate statement of
the change in the Sinn Fein programme: but it is a statement (although a
careless statement) by a Sinn Fein paper of an important fact--that an
appeal to the Peace Conference was not an exercise of "self-reliance" but
the adoption for the time of a totally different policy. It was in effect
an admission, not that the policy of self-reliance was a failure, but that
it had not yet been a success and was not so likely to be successful in
the immediate future as an appeal for outside understanding and sympathy.
The Parliamentarians had appealed to the sympathy and justice of England:
Sinn Fein had declared such an appeal to be futile and had refused to
join in it. It was now prepared to issue its own appeal for help and
justice not to England but to the Peace Conference. Ever since the Rising
the interaction of the two Nationalist parties upon each other's policy
had become more and more marked, though they still maintained to one
another an attitude of hostility and contempt. If Sinn Fein seemed to
change (at any rate for the time) its policy of strict self-reliance into
one of an appeal for outside assistance, the Parliamentary Party had shown
a disposition no longer to rely upon appeals to English parties and to the
English Parliament but to call upon a wider audience to judge its cause.
While they still differed upon nearly every other point, they were agreed
in this, that to appeal to the Government of 1917 was a waste of time. The
appeal to the Peace Conference was destined to fall upon deaf ears but
this was not at the time believed to be possible. The Allied statesmen
seemed to be committed beyond any possibility of denial or evasion to "the
rights of small nations," "government by the consent of the governed" and
other formulae of national freedom. In reply to cynical suggestions that
these formulae might possibly be discovered to be (to the regret of their
authors) inconsistent with the "realities" of politics, _New Ireland_
simply answered: "We frankly admit that we have faith and hope in the
force of the great moral principle of justice to the nations and in its
ultimate power of bringing back order to the chaos and tragedy of Europe
and of imposing itself upon reactionaries."
But as a matter of fact, in spite of the energy with which the idea of an
appeal to the Peace Conference was taken up and discussed, in spite even
of such sweeping statements as that quoted above from _New Ireland_, Sinn
Fein had at most agreed to graft a new and temporary policy on to the old
stem. It still inculcated self-reliance, the education of the Irish people
in questions of national economics, national finance and national policy:
it still urged the employment of all the means which could be employed by
Irishmen in Ireland to enforce and secure national independence. The
columns of _New Ireland_ itself make this perfectly plain; and even in
later references in that paper to the appeal to the Peace Conference and
the hopes founded upon it, the editorial language is much less sweeping
than when the idea was fresh in its fascination. The concentration of
thought upon the Peace Conference was also exercising in another direction
a modifying influence upon Sinn Fein. The old idea of the independence of
Ireland was being gradually enlarged. It was no longer confined to the
purely negative idea of freedom from foreign control: it assumed the more
positive form of an Ireland entering its place in a great community of
European nations, equally free and mutually dependent, bound to each other
for the preservation of liberty and civilization. It was hoped that the
appeal to the Peace Conference would result in the recognition of Ireland
not merely as a nation to which the Conference was bound to see justice
done, but as a brother and comrade in a new European Confederation for the
advancement of democratic freedom. In this, Sinn Fein (though the fact is
often obscured) merely represents the form, moulded by special conditions,
which an aspiration, common to many of the democracies of Europe, had
assumed in Ireland.
The winter of 1917--18 gave Sinn Fein an opportunity to show that the
policy of "self-reliance" had not been abandoned entirely. During that
winter the shadow of famine hung over Europe and every nation was engaged
in the effort to avert it from its own shores by rigid conservation and
economy of its food supply. From Ireland, under the final control of the
English authorities, food continued to be exported recklessly. Cattle,
oats and butter were shipped in large quantities to England, though it was
known that the food supply of Ireland would barely suffice for its own
necessities till the middle of summer. The independent and Labour members
of the Irish Food Control Committee protested against this: but, being a
purely advisory body and subject to the English Food Controller, the
Committee found that all their advice was overruled (as one of the members
put it) "by the man higher up." The independent members resigned in
disgust, leaving the work of the committee to the officials. Sinn Fein
began at once to organize an unofficial food census of Ireland: members of
the Sinn Fein Clubs were invited to put at the disposal of the central
organization their local knowledge of the food supplies of their immediate
neighbourhood. It was the first opportunity on a large scale which the
Republican organization had to show what its powers and capabilities were
and what body of real support it had in the country. The Chief Council
(Ard-Chomhairle) of Sinn Fein called upon producers of, and dealers in,
necessary foodstuffs to "co-operate in the imperative duty of saving Irish
people from starvation by selling only to buyers for exclusive Irish use":
it urged the workers in the country, on the railways and at the ports, to
refuse to co-operate in the exportation of food and called upon the public
to treat food exporters as common enemies. The Food Committee established
by the Sinn Fein Council sent circulars to the clergy of all denominations
soliciting their help both in conserving the food supply and in making
suitable arrangements for its distribution. It was not very easy either to
secure a food census or to induce those who made money by the export of
food to forego their profits. The principal export of potatoes was from
Antrim, Down, Derry and Tyrone, counties in which Sinn Fein had very
little prospect either of getting the requisite information from the
farmers or of inducing them to forego their profits. English dealers were
willing to pay large prices for Irish produce and Irish farmers were
apparently willing to go on selling until, as _New Ireland_ put it, there
would be nothing left in Ireland to eat except bank notes. The situation
was in all essentials what it had been during the closing years of the
eighteenth century when (as Arthur O'Connor pointed out) Ireland was
supplying the belligerents of Europe with food and leaving her own
population to starve, while the traders waxed wealthy. The only difference
was that, the inducement then being a bounty paid by Parliament on
exported corn, the inducement now was a bounty paid by the purchaser in
England in the form of an enhanced price. It was a situation which, as the
Labour Party was quick to point out, could not be met by any unofficial
organization however energetic, such as the Sinn Fein Food Committee, but
required official action. The Labour Party demanded that the Irish Food
Control Committee should be strengthened and vested with executive powers,
no longer remaining subordinate to the London Controller: until this was
done, private or unofficial advice or action was merely playing with the
question. Whether Sinn Fein exerted, any but a slight influence on the
export of food may be doubted; but it certainly managed the other part of
its task--the distribution of the available supplies--with a certain
skill. Measures were concerted for purchasing supplies in counties where
food was relatively abundant and sending it to agents in districts where
it was scarce. The usual abuses which attend attempts to supply food to a
poor population could not, of course, be entirely eliminated, but on the
whole the experiment seems to have been generally successful. In Ennis,
for instance, the local Sinn Fein Club established a Sinn Fein market to
which farmers brought their potatoes: the club purchased them at the
current price and distributed them to 150 poor families at cost: each
family was provided with a card endorsed with the quantity of potatoes
necessary for its needs and on presentation of the card received the
potatoes. The scheme was financed by some prominent men in Ennis who
advanced the necessary capital, the Sinn Fein Club being at the cost of
the working expenses of the scheme: there was "no credit and no charity."
Although this and similar schemes worked fairly well, and undoubtedly
relieved the situation appreciably in many districts, they were open to
the objection brought by the Labour Party that they were ineffective as
compared both with genuine co-operative effort on the part of the people
themselves and with official action taken by the County Councils or
municipal authorities. They were, besides, likely to give rise to the
question which _Irish Opinion_ (the Irish Labour weekly) put "Is the
object political or economic?" There is no doubt that the fact that Sinn
Fein was actively promoting measures of relief, while official action
tended to produce a situation approaching to famine, was used as an
argument in favour of the Sinn Fein policy in general. It was hardly to be
expected either that Sinn Feiners should not use the argument or that the
public should not think that there was something in it. The Labour Party's
criticisms were, from the economic point of view, perfectly sound. An
Irish Food Control Committee with executive powers, authority in the
hands of locally-elected bodies to conserve and distribute local supplies
of food, was ideally the proper scheme: but the proper scheme was, as
usual, unattainable and Sinn Fein was doing what was perhaps the only
thing that could be done under the circumstances. And though the Labour
Party urged its criticisms, it did not withhold its assistance and hearty
support to the Sinn Fein scheme.
The result was to increase the growing popularity of Sinn Fein. It was
seen that it had another than the purely political aspect, that its
principles of self-reliance were capable of being applied with a success
limited only by the amount of popular support which they could command. It
was, at any rate, plain that if the people who controlled the food
supplies were all believers in Sinn Fein principles there need be no
prospect of famine in Ireland, and the action of Sinn Fein (inadequate
though it may have been) at any rate contrasted favourably with the
indifference and inefficiency of the official bodies appointed by the
Government and with the helplessness of other political parties.
The popularity of Sinn Fein was further increased by the continued
activities of the Irish police authorities against its more prominent or
active adherents. If the Cabinet had decided to create an "atmosphere" for
the Convention by the release of the prisoners sentenced to penal
servitude for their share in the Rising, an opposite "atmosphere" was
being systematically generated by the Irish Executive. People were being
arrested all over the country for offences incomparably less serious from
every point of view than those committed by the people who had been
released. The conclusion was drawn that the Government, while anxious to
make a display to the world of impartiality and good will by a spectacular
act of clemency, was in reality determined to regard the active support of
Sinn Fein as a serious offence in the case of men too little before the
eyes of the world for their arrest to lead to widespread comment or
indignation. Their action was held to be an indication of their resolve to
prevent the spread of Sinn Fein principles until the Convention should
have presented a report palatable to the Cabinet: and Sinn Fein instead of
suffering by this action simply grew in its own esteem and in the eyes of
others.
The result of the South Armagh Election early in 1918, in which its
candidate was defeated, only spurred Sinn Fein to further exertions. The
election indicated more a desire "to give the Convention a chance" than a
deliberate judgment of the electorate in favour of the Parliamentary as
against the Sinn Fein policy. But a "chance given" to the Convention was
in reality an opportunity denied to Sinn Fein. The Convention was to
produce a scheme for the government of Ireland "within the Empire." A
tolerable and workable scheme produced unanimously (or nearly so) by the
Convention would undoubtedly (or so it was thought) have to be accepted
by the Cabinet; if such a scheme were accepted and put into operation, the
feeling of relief in Ireland would have been so deep and so general as to
deal to Sinn Fein, just when it was beginning to gain the ear of the
country, a blow from which it might take long to recover, if it should
recover it for a generation. It was felt that a Sinn Fein victory in South
Armagh would mean that the Convention might for all practical purposes
adjourn indefinitely, while a victory for the Parliamentary Party meant
that it was given the opportunity, so far as Nationalist Ireland
represented by this constituency was concerned, of producing a scheme of
self-government wide enough to win the support of all Irishmen really
desirous of a reasonable step in advance.
Sinn Fein decided in the circumstances to put the real opinion of Ireland
on the question of independence to a definite test before the Convention
should have time to report in favour of something attractive to moderate
men, if offered, but falling short of independence. On St. Patrick's Day
"monster meetings" were held all over Ireland, attended by the Volunteers
who mustered in force and by crowds which were certainly enthusiastic. At
all of these meetings the following resolution was put in Irish and in
English and, according to the reports, passed everywhere with practical
unanimity: "Here on St. Patrick's Day we join with our fellow-countrymen
at home and in foreign lands in proclaiming once more that Ireland is a
distinct nation whose just right is sovereign independence. This right has
been asserted in every generation, has never been surrendered and never
allowed to lapse. We call the nations to witness that to-day as in the
past it is by force alone that England holds Ireland for her Empire and
not by the consent of the Irish; and that England's claim to have given
the Irish people 'self-determination' is a lie: her true attitude being
shown by the recent ministerial statement that 'under no circumstances
could any English Government contemplate the ultimate independence of
Ireland'." In Dublin, Belfast and Clare these meetings were proclaimed and
could not be held--at least on the appointed day. In Belfast Mr. de Valera
addressed the meeting at 11 o'clock on the night preceding, but when
midnight struck the gathering was dispersed by the police. But a "monster
meeting" is a thing of varying dimensions: even "monster meetings" held
simultaneously all over Ireland may not be attended by more than a
fraction of the population. To put the matter beyond doubt it was decided
to institute a plebiscite in favour of independence and to publish the
numbers who in each townland declared themselves in favour of it. While
the plebiscite was being taken Sinn Fein had again an opportunity of
"testing the feeling of the country" at a parliamentary election. Mr. John
Redmond had died on the 6th of March. He had fought for his policy to the
last with tenacity and dignity: through a long life he had displayed the
courage which once led the small and faithful band who refused to betray
Parnell: he had come to accept the limitations imposed upon his policy by
English feeling with a pride which preferred to regard them as the
dictates of statesmanship: he never lost his courtesy, his confidence or
his belief in human sincerity. To Sinn Fein he had opposed an unbending
hostility, and the temptation to replace him in the representation of
Waterford by a Sinn Feiner was too great to be resisted. Sinn Fein
sustained a heavy defeat at the poll, and this second reverse within a few
months was taken to indicate the turning of the tide in favour of Mr.
Redmond's policy. It really meant no more than that the electors of
Waterford thought, what many other people thought with them, that the
attempt to oust Mr. Redmond's son from sitting for his father's
constituency was a breach of the decencies of public life. Certainly the
language which some of the party used in speaking of Mr. Redmond was
inexcusable and deserved the rebuff which it received.
But the report of the Convention, laid upon the table of the House of
Commons early in April, overshadowed plebiscites and the results of
contested elections. Upon its reception by the Government the whole future
of Ireland seemed to turn. But the report was difficult to master. The
Chairman of the Convention claimed that it had "laid a foundation of Irish
agreement unprecedented in history," but the actual record of the
proceedings seemed at first blush open to a somewhat different
interpretation. The Nationalists had, it is true, offered large
concessions to the Unionists, but they were themselves divided upon
questions of principle of the very first importance; and while some of the
Unionists were content to accept what was offered, provided the
Nationalists met the concession of this acceptance by a concession
infinitely greater, the Ulster Unionists appeared to have succeeded in
committing themselves to nothing. If the Government were to attempt to
legislate for Ireland on the basis of the report the Ulster Unionists were
certain to produce the "pledges" that they would not be "coerced" and too
many responsible people had given these pledges to make the prospect of
legislation for Ireland a comfortable outlook for anybody. But not only
was the report difficult to interpret, not only did its publication put
Ministers in an awkward position: it came at a most unfortunate time. The
military prospects of the Allies were clouded, and the Government had
decided to make a fresh call upon the man-power of the country. It was
known that in their perplexity they had considered the possibility of
extending Conscription to Ireland, and to do so, equally with refraining
from doing so, seemed to be a step of doubtful expediency.
The situation was complicated; but the handling of it by the Prime
Minister was more complicated still. He elected to treat the question of
Home Rule and the question of Irish Conscription concurrently while he
declared that they were not interdependent. He justified the application
of Conscription to Ireland on the merits: men were needed in France and
there were men to be had in Ireland: the Home Rule Act, accepted by the
Parliamentary Party and placed on the Statute Book, had given to
Parliament the right to legislate for Ireland upon matters of Imperial
concern. As for the Convention, he refused to regard the report as
disclosing that there had been "substantial agreement," nevertheless he
announced that the Government would bring forward immediately such
proposals for the future government of Ireland as seemed to be just. It
was common belief that so far as the Convention was concerned a failure to
arrive at "substantial agreement" absolved the Government from all
obligation to legislate upon its proposals; an intention of legislating
all the same appeared to be prompted by the desire to offer something in
the way of compensation for the unpalatable proposal of Conscription. But
the Premier insisted that any such interpretation of his proposal was
erroneous: the two measures had nothing whatever to do with one another:
each stood upon its own merits and each must be passed regardless of the
other. But, having elected to take Conscription first, and having
announced his intention of forcing it through Parliament in spite of
criticism and of putting it into operation in Ireland in spite of
opposition, he indulged himself in a glimpse at the prospects of a
conscribed Ireland: "when the young men of Ireland," he said, "have been
brought in large numbers into the fighting line, it is important that they
should feel that they are not fighting for the purpose of establishing a
principle abroad which is denied to them at home." But as if in fear that
this might imply some remote connection between Ireland's duty to fight
and Ireland's right to be given the benefit of the principle it was asked
to fight for, the Premier gave the most convincing proof of his sincerity
in saying that Conscription for Ireland and Home Rule for Ireland did not
"stand together"--Conscription was passed into law and Home Rule was
dropped.