ching on the
subject, refused to pay income tax, the only tax resistance to which is
possible in Ireland. Those who hold Civil Service appointments under the
British Crown have not in a single instance, unless I am mistaken,
handed in their resignations. These are the criticisms which they
inevitably draw down on their heads by stooping to make imputations as
to men whose services to the country should put them above reach of
anything of the kind. Within the last few months two of the leaders of
Sinn Fein appeared, in the course of a few weeks--the one as plaintiff,
the other as defendant--represented by a Tory counsel, in the Four
Courts in Dublin, before a member of a foreign judiciary, which on their
fundamental axiom should be taboo. The reason is to be found, perhaps,
in the fact that they have not yet devised a means by which attachment
and committal for contempt of their proposed amateur tribunals will be
made effectual. The method by which the resolutions of the National
Council are to be carried into effect has not yet been explained, nor
have the means by which they will acquire a sanction in so far as their
breach will involve the offender in a punishment. We have yet to learn
what guarantee there is that the consuls in foreign parts, whom they
propose to establish and maintain by voluntary subscription, will be
given any facilities by the countries in which they are stationed,
without which their presence in those foreign countries would be of no
service whatever.

Half a century ago a great voluntary effort, which may well be called
Sinn Fein, was made in the foundation of the Catholic University in
Dublin. In spite of the glamour of John Henry Newman's name it was
crippled from the fact of the poverty of the country on the voluntary
contributions of which it had to depend. One may well ask if the
exponents of the new policy have any confidence that the same obstacle
will not stand in the way of more than a trivial fraction of their
extensive, and as I think Utopian, proposals. The No Rent Manifesto
fell flat in the midst of the very bitterest struggle of the land war.
Does anyone think it likely that we shall see behind the doctrinaires of
the Sinn Fein group a country united in cold blood to repudiate its
obligations under the Land Purchase and Labourers' Acts?

The Irish people are under no illusions as to the advocates of Sinn
Fein, and will, I am convinced, refuse to judge it on its own valuation.
If