ith the realities of modern Irish
problems, as because their leaders had, unable to assimilate them, taken
up an attitude of almost personal antipathy to them and their ideals.

It is certainly a most remarkable thing how John Redmond has lost the
old Parnellite grip upon the younger life of the country, and it seems
hardly credible that such an attitude should be due entirely to the
perversity of youth and in no way to the natural consequence of
tradition-loving age; but in any case the broad fact remains, and a tone
of persistent criticism seems to have taken the place of the meek
obedience of other days; and newspapers, dramas, novels, criticism, and
movements on all sides bear witness to it. The same, too, applies to Sir
Edward Carson, whose party has to recruit in England, witness Sir F. E.
Smith.

According to Mr. T. M. Healy, the whole movement was due almost entirely
to the "bankruptcy of Redmondism." No doubt the justice of the
accusation may be questioned, though I hold no brief for any relative,
but there can be no doubt that it was the Sinn Fein attitude, and we
want to see the Sinn Feiners as they saw themselves and as they saw
Redmond.

The Government trusted to Redmond almost entirely, but, as Mr. Healy
continues, they forgot that--

"New crystallizations were taking place. The jobbery of the official
party disgusted all earnest and unselfish minds amongst the youth of
Ireland. The forces of Larkinism were embittered; and the acceptance of
salaries by Irish members, after their formal declaration that they
would not accept them, sank deeply into the hearts of extremists.

"The Insurance Act, the killing of land purchase, and the founding of
the A.O.H., sapped the foundations of belief, and it became known that
'a high official achieved his ambitions on the judicial bench only by
becoming a professing Catholic and accepting initiation under the rites
of Mr. Devlin's brotherhood. The staff of the _Freeman's Journal_, the
official patriot organ, got endless jobs. At the same time Mr. Redmond
excluded from his party, without trial or grounds, a dozen leading
members opposed to this policy.'

"All that was sober, unselfish, self-respecting, and self-reliant
quitted his ranks and joined the Sinn Fein movement without thought of
rebellion or pro-Germanism.

"The courage of the Sinn Feiners atoned for much of their folly in the
mind of those who realized that their spirit was not pro-German, but, in
the