THE SINN FEIN POLICY
"The policy of Sinn Fein purposes to bring Ireland out of the corner
and make her assert her existence to the world. I have spoken of an
essential; but the basis of the policy is national self-reliance. No
law and no series of laws can make a Nation out of a People which
distrusts itself."--ARTHUR GRIFFITH (1906).
While the immediate inspiration of the Sinn Fein policy may be held to be
Mr. Griffith's study of Hungary, it is no less undeniable that the roots
of the policy are already in Nationalist writings and proceedings. Swift,
and the 1782 Volunteers, and Davis, and Mitchel, and Lalor, all had some
one or other of the points which make up the modern Sinn Fein policy. And,
had there never been a Hungary, yet the Sinn Fein policy would have come
into being in or about the period at which it actually did. The Gaelic
League had made it inevitable. Supporters of the Parliamentary Party have
at various times accused the Gaelic League of being a political body, of
being anti-Party, and have felt very sore over its alleged breaches of its
non-political constitution. But the Gaelic League is actually
non-political, and rigidly so. It and the Parliamentarian people do not
mix, and cannot mix, because they represent totally opposite views of
Ireland. It is an impossibility for a supporter of the Parliamentarian
policy to be at the same time a sincere believer in Gaelic League policy.
He will find that his Parliamentarian convictions will vanish, not because
of any propaganda within the Gaelic League, but because the Gaelic League
philosophy, its aggressive self-reliance, its faith in itself, and in
Ireland, these create an outlook and a conviction which, without being
political, are fatal to the Parliamentarian atmosphere and show it for the
helpless, foolish thing it is. In the "Shan Van Vocht" for March, 1897,
Dr. Douglas Hyde, who will not be accused by anybody of being a
politician, has a poem in Irish, "Waiting for Help," of which the last
verse is--
[Gaelic: Is mitid fior do beit
Ag gac aon amadan
Nac bfuil gais-faire
Is fiu aon aire
Ach ceann, Sinn Fein Amain!]
(It is time for every fool to recognise that there is only one watchword
which is worth anything--Ourselves alone.) This contains the essence of
the Sinn Fein policy.
Sinn Fein means ourselves, and the Sinn Fein policy is founded on the
faith that the Irish people have the strength to free themselves without
any outside aid of any description, if they will only use their strength.
To the policy of building up the Nation from without it opposes the policy
of building it from within, and against Freedom by Legislation it puts
Freedom by National Self-Development. It takes the motto of Davis,
"Educate, that you may be free," and it applies it to every Irish problem;
it takes the Gaelic League principle of developing Irish distinctive
features, and it declares war on everything imported, resurrecting Swift's
dictum to "burn everything English save their coals." The nineteenth
century, as I have pointed out, was a century wherein English civilisation
attacked Irish civilisation at every possible point of contact: in the
twentieth century the Sinn Fein policy reverses that process, and under
its banner it is Irish civilisation which is the attacking party.
To regard the Sinn Fein policy as a mere political device is a grave
mistake. It is more than politics: it is a national philosophy. Its purely
political side has been most prominent because it attacked the existing
dominant political party, and because before it can be generally effective
it must establish dominance over every other political policy.
Nationalists of all shades of opinion would subscribe to a great deal of
its constructive programme, and these have often asked why does Sinn Fein
not confine itself to those points upon which general agreement can be
reached. The answer is that the political policy of Sinn Fein is an
integral portion of its general national policy, and that its adoption by
the majority of the Irish people is essential to the effective operation
of its non-political constructive policy.
The case for the policy of Parliamentarianism, the policy of acquiescing
in the Act of Union and sending Irish Nationalist representatives to sit
in the English Parliament, must rest upon one thing, and one alone, upon
its effectiveness. It has already against it the damning fact that the
sending of Irish representatives to the English Parliament is a giving
away of Ireland's whole case, is an acceptance of the Act of Union, and is
a recognition of the authority of the English Parliament to legislate for
Ireland. Of itself, argues Sinn Fein, that fact discredits the
Parliamentarian policy, even if it were effective, but it is not, and it
never has been effective. The "remedial legislation" which the English
Parliament has passed for Ireland has been passed in response to agitation
in Ireland, and not in response to agitation in Parliament. The only way
to set the legislative machine working is to hamper the machine of
government in Ireland, and the more effectively that machine is hampered
the more drastic the resultant legislation. Instead of London being the
lever to work Ireland, Ireland is the lever to work London. No measure of
remedial legislation can be pointed to which was passed as the result,
directly or indirectly, of parliamentary action. The Catholic Associations
of O'Connell, culminating in the Clare election and the ferment it set up,
passed the Catholic Emancipation Act; Carrickshock and similar acts of
resistance to the collection of tithes passed the Tithes Act; Fenianism
disestablished the "Irish" Church and passed the Land Acts; and the Local
Government Act was passed by a Unionist Government which had a clear
majority over all parties, avowedly as a sop to try and pacify Ireland,
and not in response to any pressure of any kind in Parliament, or any
Parliamentarian manoeuvres. In none of these things had action in the
Parliament of England the least share. It is the agitation at home, and
not the agitation in Westminster, that is effective. The only possible
function which Irish representatives in London can fulfil is to record
Irish opinion, to speak for it, negotiate for it, make it articulate; and
that function can be performed much more effectively by representatives
living and meeting in Ireland itself.
Sinn Fein thus scores two points against the Parliamentarian policy, that
it is a betrayal of Ireland's case, and that it is totally ineffective.
But it is not content with that. It scores yet another point. Not alone is
the Parliamentarian policy totally ineffective, but it is hurtful to the
Nation. It has turned the imagination of the people away from Ireland
towards parliamentary happenings in a foreign Parliament: it has kept
their minds on the one phase of activity, the oratorical phase, while
language, traditions, and industries vanished from the land, while at
every national artery English civilisation entered: it has gradually
whittled down the national demand, as the Party gradually became less
Irish and more English, until it was ready to accept any shameful
settlement as a just settlement: it has been a force, unconscious perhaps
but powerful, towards making London the capital of Ireland: under its sway
in Ireland the population of Ireland has steadily decreased and the
taxation of Ireland has as steadily increased.
That is the Sinn Fein case against the policy of Parliamentarianism, and
it is an overwhelming case.
The Sinn Fein policy, on the other hand, reverses the policy of
Parliamentarianism, and relies upon focussing the attention and the
strength of the Irish people upon action within Ireland. As a first step
towards the resurrection of Ireland it would deny the authority of the
English Parliament to legislate for Ireland, and it would refuse to send
any representatives whatever to that Parliament. It would assemble in
Dublin a National Assembly, elected by the people, to act as a _de facto_
Parliament, which should take within its purview all Ireland and plan for
the conservation and development of national resources. The Sinn Fein
policy would
(a) Deny the legality of the Act of Union and refuse to send
representatives to the English Parliament, thereby cutting the ground
at once from under the Union.
(b) Establish Irish as the national language of Ireland; teaching
through Irish only in the Irish-speaking districts, and bilingually
in the non-Irish-speaking districts.
(c) Remodel the Irish educational chaos, and frame a system based
upon Irish culture, and as national as the educational systems of
other countries are.
(d) Establish an Irish mercantile marine.
(e) Establish Irish courts of arbitration, to supersede the Law
Courts.
(f) Improve transit facilities, cut down internal rates, and overhaul
and extend the canal system.
(g) Establish in foreign countries Irish representatives specially
trained who would act in the same capacity as consuls.
(h) Direct the strength of the Irish people generally as that of one
man in any given direction
(i) Build up Ireland's manufacturing arm by protection--voluntary or
legal--developing also Ireland's mineral resources, especially her
coal and iron.
The Sinn Fein Movement, as such, did not contemplate an appeal to arms,
believing that its policy, with the majority of Ireland behind it, would
be irresistible on a passive resistance basis. It was really composed of
two sections--one, led by Mr. Griffith, wished to base the movement
definitely on the Constitution of 1782 and the Renunciation Act of 1783,
and the other composed of the Separatists was for independence pure and
simple. As a compromise, the object of the movement was defined as "the
re-establishment of the Independence of Ireland," which satisfied the
Separatists, with an addendum committing it, as a minimum, to the "King,
Lords and Commons" solution, which satisfied the others. Both sections
were agreed as to the general lines of policy.
Upon every Irish question, and every possible development in Ireland, Sinn
Fein would operate on the same lines as those I have enumerated above. It
would build up Ireland from within, strengthening everything Irish and
attacking everything foreign, eliminating everything which would send
Irish thoughts wandering in search of foreign aid and teaching the people
by precept and example that a Nation's salvation can only be worked out by
itself and on its own soil. It would substitute for petitions and
resolutions and manoeuvres in a foreign Parliament work and more work
and still more work in Ireland. To the Irish people it says in effect:
"Turn your eyes and your thoughts away from London and concentrate them on
your own concerns. You are of right a free people, and no bonds can affect
that right, though they may hamper it. Assert it, not by empty words, but
by deeds, so far as you can within the limits of your bonds. Suffer
Anglicising and anti-national things only when you must. You send
representatives to the English Parliament, testifying to the world an
acceptance of your bonds. There is no power that can compel you to send
them. Withdraw them, and your honour is once more clean and your case
becomes an International one, as of right, not a provincial one, which
your Parliamentary manoeuvres have almost made it. Establish a National
Assembly in Dublin and let it speak for you. You _need not_ speak English,
you have your own language; you _need not_ base your education on English
culture; you have your own culture. There is no law to compel you to have
resource to English law courts, establish voluntary courts of arbitration;
there is no law compelling you to buy English manufactures, buy your own;
there is no law compelling you to carry on your trade in English ships,
establish your own mercantile marine. Stand together, the whole people as
one unit, stand up for everything native and reject everything foreign,
and freedom is yours."
The Sinn Fein policy is not a policy that could be made effective by a
minority, though even a minority, determined and well led, could make it
felt: but if adopted by the majority of the Irish people there is no doubt
of its effectiveness. It would make government impossible: for it must
always be remembered that in modern times a subject nation remains a
subject nation only because it accepts, in some way or other, its
government. A nation which will resolutely and unitedly, on the lines of
the Sinn Fein policy, ignore its Government and proceed to the formation
of a voluntary (so to speak) Government, would force the occupying power
either to give in or to provide an armed guard for every unit of the
subject nation.
And, as a matter of historical fact, it was the unconscious application of
the Sinn Fein policy that originated all the remedial legislation of the
nineteenth century. The Catholic Association of O'Connell, for instance,
was practically a Sinn Fein Association, and the records and memoirs of
that time show that it had made the ordinary government of Ireland a
nullity, and that it forced the Emancipation Act. But when Ireland
accepted the Emancipation Act and recognised the Act of Union the process
of degeneration set in.