The Irish standard., 1917-08-11


of secrecy, but without the slightest
fear of government interference, the
national volunteers in real secrecy and
with "a success that baffled the eX-
tremely earnest and diligent efforts of
the authorities to stop them.
Mr.. Redmond and his party, who up
to this time had loudly protested that
the Home Rule bill must include all
of Ireland, now announced themselves
willing to accept compromise, to be
based upon referendum of the coun-
ties whereby each county might de-
eide for itself whether it would or
would not come under the authority of
the proposed Irish legislature. This
concession on Mr. Redmond's part at
once removed from the bill it's sole re-
deeming feature-its national charac-
ter. Feeble and unsatisfactory as it
was, it had at least offered to Ireland
the nucleus of a national assembly to
which the people of all of Ireland
might send their representatives; and
because of this alone, most people in
Ireland were willing to accept it pro
tanto-as a step, at least, in the right
direction. Mr.. Redmond now sacrificed
this sole remaining advantage and
thus finally alienated from his side not
only the nationalist element of the
country, but great mary of the mid
dle-ofthe-road people who up to this
time had really hoped for something
from his leadership.
There followed the episode of the
gun-running at Howth in June, 1914,
when British regular troops-the
Kings Own Scottish Borderers of un-
happy memory-ired into an unarmed
crowd composed for the most part of
women and children, killing five or
six and wounding many more. This
event greatly stirred nationalist Ire
land. The numbers of the volunteers
almost doubled within a few weeks;
Slim Fein, always strong in the ranks,
increased it's strength. Mr.. Redmond
and his followers attempted to gain
control Of the volunteer organization,
but succeeded only in splitting off a
small force; the majority of the men
aligned themselves with the Sim Fein
element, under the craftsmanship of
Eoin (John) MacNeill. This, in brief,
was the situation in Ireland when the
European war broke out.
The Home Rule agitation has been
described here only because of it's i'm
nortopoo in ,,ndorcto pd;po tho ox,oc+c
of the time which led up to the re-
bellion of last year. 1t is not of itself
important, and the entire Home Rule
movement, from its inception to it's
collapse, which we are now witnessing
in Ireland, has undoubtedly done the
Irish people more harm than good in
relation to the real Irish question.
Home Rule, as Patrick H. Pearse we'll
said is "only an episode" That real
question is the absolute independence
Of Ireland and her establishment as
as separate and distinct nation. The
various movements on which we have
touched here, Gaelic League, Sim
Fein, industrial and agricultural devel-
opment, literary and dramatic revivals,
the Irish people to re-establish their
own national life and civilization. The
vital and basic idea back of all Of
these movements is complete indie
pendence for Ireland; and they are all
but so many expressions of the same
idea. 1t is not new; it has persisted
during eleven hundred years of Brit
ish rule; it will continue to persist as
long as the Irish people remain.
To resume: The outbreak of the Eu-
ropean war had two notable results in
Ireland. In the first place, Mr.. Red
mond, with his fatal inability to judge
Irish public opinion, openly pledged
! his support to the British government
in the prosecution of the war, agreed
to the shelving of the Home Rule bill,
and attempted to recruit Irishmen for
the British army. Had he been desir-
GUS of deliberately weakening his small
remaining strength in Ireland, he could
not have adopted better means. The
second result of the war was that the
revolutionary organizations began to
grow in strength and to realize that,
since "England's difficulty is Ireland S
opportunity"-an aphorism that Mr..
Redmond himself once used to recog-
nize-this was the suitable time to
strike a blow. The passive resistance
theory Of Sim Fem was relegated to
the background in favor of belief in
an active armed uprising; and great
many of the followers of Sim Fein
Joined the secret revolutionary broth
erhood.
In the meantime, revolutionary doc
trines began to be openly preached,
and the authorities, with the usual
fatuous belief in coercion, became
more and more harsh in their meth.
DDS. Under the power conferred on
them by the defense of the realm act,
they arrested, deported and imprisoned
hundreds of men; suppressed dozens
of newspapers and severely censored
the rest; and conducted themselves