The latest aspect which this anti-constitutional movement has taken in Ireland is what is known as Sinn Fein, which adopts a rigid attitude of protest against the existing condition of things, and which declares that the recognition of the status quo involved in any acquiescence in the present mode of government is a betrayal of the whole position.  The existence of this spirit, which is entirely negligible outside two or three large towns, is not surprising; although it advocates a passive resistance it is the direct descendant of the party which advocated physical force in the past, and in so far as it proposes to use morally defensible weapons it is likely to have the more driving power.  The consistent opposition which the Catholic Church offered to revolutionary violence and her sympathy with constitutionally-expressed Parliamentary agitation have resulted in an anti-clerical colour which this new movement has acquired, and to this, force is added by the measure of strength which it has gained among a certain number of young Protestants in Belfast, whose fathers must turn in their graves at this reversal of opinion on a question which was to them a chose jugee, a veritable article of faith.  The proposals of Sinn Fein include a boycott of all English institutions in Ireland, educational and of other kinds, the abandonment of the attendance of Irish members in the Imperial Parliament at Westminster, elections to which Sinn Fein candidates are, if necessary, to contest on the undertaking that if elected they will not take the oath at Westminster, but will attend a self-constituted National Council in Dublin, under the control of which a system of National education and of National arbitration courts, in addition to a National Stock Exchange, will be established.  To develop Irish industries this body, it is suggested, will appoint in foreign ports Irish Consuls, completely independent of the British Consular service, who will attend to the interests and the development of Irish trade.  Lastly, the most practical of their proposals lies in the discouragement of recruiting, a movement which, if applied on a large scale, would have a remarkable effect on the resources of the three kingdoms under a voluntary system of military service.

These proposals, which, until a Gaelic name was thought necessary for their acceptance in Ireland, were known as the Hungarian policy, are admittedly based on the success of the struggle for Hungarian autonomy which culminated in 1867, but the fact which the advocates of the application of this policy to Ireland omit to mention, is that Hungary was face to face with a divided and distracted Austria, defeated by the Prussians at Sadowa, while in the case of Ireland we are concerned with a united Great Britain, which has shown no great signs of diminution in her power.  A closer parallel than that of Hungary is to be found in the case of Bohemia, which, in respect of general social conditions and the proportion of national to hostile forces, bore a much stronger resemblance to Ireland, and which adopted in 1867 a policy of withdrawal of its representatives from a hostile legislature with results so disastrous that after a few years she returned to the methods which the Sinn Fein party are anxious to make an end of in Ireland.