The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1916-06-03
THE IRlSHCR
CONTINUED from page 81

an advocate of physical force. Inc
reyersion to instruction methods Is
dine to the failure to have satisfac-
tory Home Rule Bill put in operation
in 1914-to the general stimulus OF
warlike-feeling the world over-to the
persistent recruiting for soldiers IN
country which had already so many SOL
diers at the front, and which in itself
was so bled by the famine and emlgra-
ton to escape poverty that in 20 years
Ireland alone of all the civilized ma
lions has seen her population fall from
100000 to 100000; this the Sim
Feins called the economic conscrip-
ton of Ireland" which had already
drained her of the young and fit ane
men of military age-and OF men and
women of an age to repopulate their
country.
Other driving factors toward the Ris-
ing were the anger at the threat OF
consumption, finally withdrawn be-
cause of the resolution of the Irish
Volunteers to oppose 1.-THE with
drawal of the grant of 100000 for
teaching Irish in the national schools
the sinister shadow of war-taxa-
ton burden similar to that for
lowing the Napoleonic war, (for the
Sim Feins were vociferously indig-
nant even in normal times about that
G2OO,OOO,O0O of taxes taken out of
Ireland over and above expenditures
there, and not yet returned to her, al
though the Indebtedness has been &C.
knowledged by an English Royal Com
mission.)
The most recent factors of insurrec-
ton have been the raids upon arms
and threats of disarming the Volun-
teers-the fact that Ireland last year
paid in taxes G8,OOO,0OO, sum much
above that needed for normal eXpendi-
ture; although the suspended Home
Rule Bill of 1914 refuses to the Irish
the administration of their own tinan-
ces because they could not raise
enough revenue to meet their expendi-
tures!-and final direct factor was
the numerous humiliations and annoy
ances of the Defence of the Realm Act
as administered in Ireland.
One slight instance is that while the
Dublin organ of the Parliamentary
Party two days before the Rising de-
voted much space and eulogy to the
former insurrectionist, Patriot and
Statesman Gas Premier of an Austral-
ian colony) Sir Charles Gavan Duffy
his daughter few weeks earlier
had been arrested in the West of Ire
land and put in goal for speaking
Irish! She was following her usual
custom of speaking Irish in Ireland
and refused to break her rule for a
constable, who likewise refused her
demand for an interpreter. Another
lady, Aileen MacMahon, Padraic
O'Conaire, brilliant Gaelic author
and Claude Chavasse, young Irish
tutor at Oxford, suffered imprison-
ment for various periods for the same
offence!
The Irish Parliamentary Party had
no influence upon the Sim Feins-not
any more than an older more cOnser-
vative party has anywhere on the
younger, more radical spirits who form
themselves into parties of opposition
and criticism. The Irish Party is in
intention-not in effectiveness. It's
leaders l didn't touch on here a bet
ter-than-the-average party as parties
go, and not more than ordinarily be.
clouded by parliamentary routine,
though unfortunately the routine OF
their lives keeps them very much away
from their own country and people.
They detested the perfectly natural
phenomena of criticism in the young
sters-and up to 1914 they simply
drifted apart. Since 1914-is another
story, shall not touch upon here.
In ante-war days the Parliamentary
Party had the steadfast unquestioning
support OF the older priests. The
younger priests frequently sympa'
thized with their critics, the normally
non-revoluntary Sim Feins.
merely state this fact because your