s if they took a leaf out of their
book and proceeded to act in like manner. And thus are the destinies
of people and the fate of nations decided. In preparing for civil war
Sir Edward Carson gave that spur of encouragement to Germany that it
just needed to rush it into a world war. And for how much else he is
responsible in Ireland every faithful student of current history
knows!

CHAPTER XXI

SINN FEIN--ITS ORIGINAL MEANING AND PURPOSE

Sinn Fein had a comparatively small and unimportant beginning. It was
not heralded into existence by any great flourish of trumpets nor for
many years had it any considerable following among the masses of the
Nationalists. It is more than doubtful, if there had been normal
political progress in Ireland, whether Sinn Fein would ever have made
itself into a great movement. It was, in the first instance, the
disappointments and humiliations which the debilitated Irish Party had
brought to the national movement and the utter disrepute into which
Parliamentarianism had fallen as a consequence that moved the thoughts
of Ireland's young manhood to some nobler and better way of serving
the Motherland. But it was the rebellion of Easter Week which
crystallised and fused all these various thoughts and ideals into one
direct channel of action and made Sinn Fein the mightiest national
force that has perhaps arisen in Ireland since first the English set
foot upon our shores for purposes of conquest.

Sinn Fein, as a political organisation, did not exist until 1905, but
the originator of it, Mr Arthur Griffith, had established in Dublin,
in 1899, a weekly paper called _The United Irishman_. This was
the title of the paper which John Mitchell had founded to advocate the
policy of the Young Irelanders and was, therefore, supposed to favour
to some extent a movement along those lines. Its appeal was mainly to
the young and intellectual and to those extremists who were out of
harmony with the moderate demands of the Parliamentary Party. Its
first editorial gave an index to its teachings and aims. "There
exists," it declared, "has existed for centuries and will continue to
exist in Ireland a conviction hostile to the subjection or dependence
of the fortunes of this country to the necessities of any other; we
intend to voice that conviction. We bear no ill-will to any section of
the Irish political body, whether its flag be green or orange, which