The Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1907. IRISH AFFAIRS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3759, 9 March 1907, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1907. IRISH AFFAIRS.

Apropos recent cables about the boycott in Ireland, and' about the apathetic attitude towards the Irish Parliamentary Party and the Home Rule funds, some articles have lately appeared in the London Daity Mail from the pen of Sydney Brooks. A movement which finds its clearest expression in the organisation “ Sinn Fein ” (pronounced Shin Fain; and meaning “ Ourselves Alone ”), is afoot; it aims—if these artices are correct—at an Irish nationalism independent of Westminster, and based on the boycott and passive resistance. The Sinn Feiners “hold that no Irishman should sit in the British Parliament. ’ ’ Why ? Because doing so is to countenance the usurpation by the British Government of the rights ,of the illegally-abolished Irish Parliament. Because representation at Westminster leads Ireland to look to London for relief, and encourages Irishmen to seek for assistance from outside —a tendency which Sinn Fein would eradicate root and branch. Because Irish Parliamentarians have won nothing that could not have been more cheaply won by passive resistance. Sinn Fein, the Gaelic League, and other organisations thus appeal to both practicality and idealism, and harness to their chariot wheels forces as divergent as the revival of the old Irish tongue and folklore, a native-born patriotic literature, revivification of Irish industries, co-operation and expert advice in dairying and vocations of the soil—all tending to a selfcontained Ireland. The newspaper organ, Sinn Fein, “ never lets a chance slip by ” of ridiculing Mr Redmond, Mr Dillon, and their followers. The policy, we are told, is “ not to fight England by force but to stay

at home in Ireland, ignore her. and quietly assume the administration of Irish affairs,” This latter, the material-constructive part of the programme, is to be arrived at by a curious process. Instead of going to Westminister,

members are to stay in Dublin, and foregather there with representatives of country and urban councils and local bodies, forming a National Council which, having no legislative or administrative powers of its own, will simply pass resolutions, which the local bodies will act on within their own jurisdiction, thus giving the unauthoritative National Council control of the local revenues and machinery. ‘‘ In this way nearly all the moneys annually dealt with by local elective bodies in Ireland over six millions—might be directed to a settled and national system.” In addition to the boycott and those other avenues of action which have been set out, a policy of discouragement of army and navy enlistment is afoot. “ The- Sinn Fein ideal is frankly a bi-liugual Ireland. ” Assuming the Daily Mail to be correct, the Irish Parliamentary Party and its lunds need expect no quarter trora Sinn Fein. “The only Act which stands to the credit of the Irish Party is the Land Act of 1903, which has added 33 per cent to the price of land in Ireland, undone much of the work of the Land League, and has created peasant proprietors only to make them bankrupts.”