could give them; whereas the Sinn Feiners had no money, no organisation in the county, which, up to Mr. Dolan’s conversion, did not contain a single Sinn Feiner, few speakers, no Press save the weekly “United Irishman”—in fact, they had nothing save logic and courage. Mr. Dolan polled 1,200 votes and his opponent some 800 or 900 more, a result which, considering that all the big-wigs of the Party had been sent down to the campaign, was a moral victory for Sinn Fein and heartened the movement immensely; but it undoubtedly set going a reaction against it in the country, and it arrested the flow of converts from the Parliamentarian policy.

A daily paper had long been a cherished project of Mr. Griffith, and during the North Leitrim election he became so sensible of the part played by the daily press in that election that after it was over he set about the establishment of a daily. By sheer obstinacy he talked over the Sinn Fein Executive, none of whom viewed the project with anything but apprehension, and an appeal for funds was made. It was an inopportune time for such an appeal, as the slender purses of Sinn Feiners had just been emptied in order to defray the expenses of North Leitrim; but enthusiasm was high, and sufficient capital was subscribed for the modest venture it was intended to be. The paper, however, never had a chance of succeeding, its slender capital being counted in hundreds instead of in thousands, and it subsisted for some months only by a periodical call on the purses of its readers, and then collapsed, with adverse results. Its failure not alone damned the chance of the Sinn Fein policy sweeping the country—which chance had looked a sporting one—but it damped the enthusiasm of the individual Sinn Feiners and arrested the movement. And it was followed by another fatal complication. Some individuals who were half Sinn Feiners and half followers of Mr. William O’Brien, one foot in each camp, set on foot the idea of a combination between the two forces, with a mixture of policies, viz., that there should be a Parliamentary Party but that it should be subsidiary, and should be controlled by a National Executive sitting in Dublin, which latter body should decide, as a matter of tactics, whether the Party should attend Parliament or withdraw from Parliament on any particular occasion. (This, it will be noticed, was the after policy of the “Irish Nation League.”) Mr. O’Brien was understood to be favourable to the project, and certain of the Sinn Fein leaders were also said to be not ill-disposed to it: but it was publicly exposed, and as the result the Sinn Fein Executive definitely repudiated it. The mischief had, however, been done: the Sinn Fein credit went lower and lower in the country, and the Fenian element, to all intents and purposes, withdrew their active support. Finally, when the General Election of January, 1910, gave Mr. Redmond’s Party the balance of power, and the Liberals promised Home Rule, the country definitely threw off the Sinn Fein idea and the organisation dwindled down to a Branch in Dublin, and perhaps two or three in the provinces. From 1910 to 1913 the skeleton of the Sinn Fein organisation continued in existence; the Dublin Central Branch met regularly; the paper appeared regularly; annual conventions were held; but no political work other than indoor educational and propagandist work was done. Even though most of the country branches were moribund, however, the framework of the organisation was still there: it merely marked time until there should be some issue to Mr. Redmond’s balance of power. The Sinn Feiners knew well that that issue would be unfavourable to the continued adhesion of the country to the Parliamentarian policy, and they marked time.

The movement was, properly speaking, the political expression of the spirit which was rendered permanent in Irish evolution by the establishment of the Gaelic League, and its distinguishing characteristic is in the permanence of its principles and of its policy. Its principles and its policy are applicable at any stage of the struggle for Irish freedom and under any conditions, and cannot be overwhelmed. They are based upon ideas rather than on rhetoric, and they appeal to the intellect rather than the passions. They emphasize the distinctive nationality of Ireland, not so much by talking about it as by producing and strengthening the evidences of that distinctive nationality: and in the brain of Mr. Griffith they evolved a comprehensive and unconquerable national policy, a policy to which all who believe in Ireland a Nation can subscribe without compromising either extreme or moderate degrees of that belief, a policy which, applied by a subject nation, gives the occupying nation three alternatives, viz.: (1) extermination; (2) a permanent army of occupation and the permanent suspension of all pretence at constitutional government; (3) evacuation.

From the beginning the movement was crippled for want of money. Its members, with the exception of Mr. Edward Martyn and Mr. John Sweetman, were all young men and women, earning low wages, whose shillings and sixpences, cheerfully given, only sufficed to keep the paper going, to defray office expenses, and to finance the solitary organiser the Organisation boasted in its best days. Had it had the money in 1907 or 1908, its two best years, to take the best of its young men and let them loose upon Ireland at the work which was nearest their hearts, even Mr. Redmond’s balance of power would not have deferred his eclipse. But its executive knew, and every member knew, that that day was only deferred, and that the Policy of Self-Reliance would hold the field some day.