Listen to what John Redmond said on 9th August, 1902:—
“Never for one single hour since the Union was passed has Ireland been a constitutionally governed country.... Never for one hour has the English Government of Ireland obtained the assent or approval or confidence of the people of Ireland.... Never for one hour since then has the English Government of Ireland rested upon anything but naked force. No single reform, large or small, has ever been obtained by purely constitutional means.... We submit to the English usurpation of the government of Ireland, but we do so only because we have no adequate means of successful resistance.”
On 4th September, 1907, John Redmond described the Act of Union, which gave him his seat in the English Parliament, as “a great criminal act of usurpation carried by violence and fraud,” which “no lapse of time and no mitigation of its details can ever make binding upon our honour or our conscience.” Resistance to this Union, he continued, is “a sacred duty, and the methods of resistance will remain for us merely a question of expediency,” physical force “would be absolutely justifiably if it were possible.”
Pretty strong, is it not? The English Government is merely an alien usurper with no moral authority whatever, to be resisted and fought by every effective means. Yet how did the same John Redmond take his seat at Westminster and draw his £400 a year? By taking the following oath:—
“I, John Redmond, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his Majesty, King George V., his heirs and successors, according to law, so help me God.”
And so by means of this oath of loyalty to the “unconstitutional” usurpation of “naked force,” the Irish member avails himself of that “great criminal act of usurpation carried by violence and fraud,” he takes his seat with men from Lancashire or Bucks, he gets his cheque.
Is this playing the game? Is it honest and honourable? If the English occupation of Ireland is immoral and tyrannical, can we swear loyalty to it? If the Act of Union is a criminal fraud, can we accept and acknowledge it, by going to Westminster? Let every lover of truth answer this question with an emphatic No! Let us as a Nation answer No with an unanimous defiant shout.
To go to Westminster is not only unpractical and futile, it is a betrayal of the sacred cause of Irish Nationality and it has been advertised as such by the English Government. The great argument for deceiving the world with regard to Ireland is the presence of Irishmen in the English Parliament—why we are “over-represented” there! There is, therefore, only one way of making Ireland cease to be a “domestic” problem and of bringing it out into the full light of international affairs; and that is by making a full and final repudiation of the English Parliament. That would be an unmistakeable manifesto to the whole world, a proclamation that Ireland demands her full rights from a world which has definitely recognised the autonomy of small nationalities.
THE PEACE CONFERENCE.
That is how we can appeal to the Peace Conference, by fearlessly proclaiming our refusal to be swallowed up in England’s Empire. There is no need, thank God, of arguing that we should strive to make the most of the Peace Conference. Even Mr. Dillon has come to admit the idea, though he is unfortunately so intent on scoring off opponents that he has tried to degrade the Conference into a contemptible set of unscrupulous Powers. Sinn Fein is in no way built exclusively on the hopes of the Peace Conference; the movement was founded by Arthur Griffith years before the war, if indeed it is not coeval with the Irish age-long struggle for freedom. Nor are we such sentimental fools as to rely merely on gush. We do indeed hope for the triumph of moral principles in international affairs, and especially we hope that democracy is coming into its rightful inheritance. But meantime we rely primarily on ourselves and our own determination. Still, we will see that no high-sounding principles shall be paraded before the world unless the voice of Ireland is heard. We will see to it that pharisaism shall be confronted by an Ireland clamouring for independence. And we shall not be friendless. Our race has power in America, in Australia. Ireland’s freedom, too, is essential for the American conception of the freedom of the seas.