SINN FEIN UNMASKED.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 16311, 11 December 1918, Page 7

SINN FEIN UNMASKED.

GLIMPSE IN IRELAND. NEW ZEALAND EDITOR’S OPINION. LONDON, Oct. 15. On returning from the visit of the overseas editors to Ireland the Hon. W. J. Geddie (Wellington) complied with a request of the Sunday Chronicle for some of his Irish impressions. This Mi’. Geddis gave in a very readable article on the 6th inst. Mr. Geddis is himself an Ulsterman, a native of Belfast, but he prefaces his remarks with the statement “that most of the visiting editors believed in each part of tho Empire governing itself Within constitutional lines,” consequently most of them were Homo Rulers, and a great deal of money had been subscribed in tho Dominions to assist the Irish cause. When they met some, representative Sein Feiners in Drfblih, Mr. Geddis says; “Wo realised for the first time that these people were not Home Rulers at all. They did not Home Rule. They said Home Rule was no use to them. They would not have it. They wanted a separate Republic. In other words, and they did not disguise the fact, they were prepared to make Ireland a second Heligoland. This we recognised as a grave danger to the United Kingdom. This came to us as a shock. To that extent it modified our views concerning the existing situation, but it did not change the views of the majority with, regard to the principle of Home Rule. Wo also met Mr. Dillon and Mr. Devlin. The Home Rule people, so far a s I could judge, are a class apart just now. They realise that the Nationalist cause has gone for the time being. Thev seem to have very little hope that they will win many seats when a general election takes place. Apparently tho Sinn Feiners are going to capture a large number of seats now held by the Nationalists, so that the Nationalist cause will be correspondingly weakened. Many of the Home Riders we mot had not the least sympathy with the Sinn Fein movement.”

CAN A SOLUTION BE FOUND? “If a solution to the problem of Ireland can be found-—a_nd after to the country one is inclined to doubt whether a solution satisfactory to' the South can bo found—we believe it will be in a* provincial form of government. Perhaps, however. I should sav that here I am sneaking for myself. - 1 think that not only should Ireland have a provincial form of government, hut also Scotland, and, possibly, Wales: that there should he a great Imperial Parliament, in which the oversea Dominions should have* a voice, F°t a very big voice, perhaps, and if that were acceptable to Ireland we should have responsible government in ol parts of the Empire instead of in 29 as at present. “In New Zealand the balance ot opinion is strongly that some such system as that would make for the solidarity of the Empire. In this war we have made tremendous sacrifices to Britain in blood and. treasure, and yet, to some extent, it has been a blessing in disguise. It now remains for the statesmen of ibis country to make the most of the situation and of the opportunities that the war has brought within their grasp, to create a British Confederacy of States under a united Parliament that will place the Empire in an unassailable position among th© nations of the world.”

SINN FEINERS’ REPLY. Mr. Geddis’ article seems rather to have upset the Sinn Feiners, specially the simile of Heligoland, and tho Standing Committee of Sinn Fein sent an official reply to the Sunday Chronicle. According to this the Sinn Fein deputation put before the oversea editors that the nationality of Ireland was recognised in civilised Europe before any of the present-day nationalities had taken definite form. Ireland had then a national type of education and a national language, and was a guidance and light in education and learning to Western Europe. It was the Irish, with their well-organised national life, who for three centuries checked the onslaught of the Norsemen and finally broke their power at Clontarf. “Our claim to the recognition of our status as a separate and independent nation is in accordance with the law of self-preservation. In 80 years, - while neighbouring nations have prospered, Ireland’s population has been reduced by one-half; with a birth-rate equal to them highest in any other European country the population has failed from 8i millions in 1941 to millions in 1911. Alien rule has driven from our shores millions of industrious people, tlie rich and fertile resources of whose country were closed to them. These people have shown in other lands, in the social, political, and industrial order, what they might do in their own country were they unhampered by foreign rule.”

CONSCRIPTION. Sinn Fein claims that the resistance of Ireland to the conscription of its manhood by an authority not its own is proof of moral courage and self-re-spect worthy of a free people. “It is Hhe holy duty of any nation, without respect to the merits of the war, to stand by the principle that thedrafiina: of the man-power of that nation shall be done only hy the will of the nation itself. Ireland from all points of view had a right to be accorded all the powers of a free nation. No other status befits Ireland. She asks for no more and will accept nothing less.’’ Mr. James O’Meara, who spoke on behalf of Sinn Fein, asked the editors what their attitude would be towards a Power that had sentenced many men to two years’ hard labour for reading the Sinn Fein manifesto of August 15; they had imprisoned more than 500 people in Ireland on charges ranging from singing a song written 70 years ago to giving their names in Irish when accosted by a policeman. Of seven members of Parliament elected by the Irish people six were interned in England on a trumped-up German plot. He assured the delegates that so far from handing over Ireland to Germany the Irish would fight as bitterly against a German Heligoland in Ireland as they were fighting now against what the British Navy League termed “England’s Heligoland of the Atlantic.”