The name of the last movement to be referred to sums up all the others, Sinn Fein.  Unlike the others, it had a purely political origin, and for that reason, probably, never made the same progress.  Yet the explanation is simple.  In pursuance of the general purpose of inspiring Irishmen to rely on themselves for their own salvation, economic and spiritual, Sinn Feiners, like John Mitchel and others in the past, and like the Hungarian patriots, attacked, with much point and satire, the whole policy of constitutional and Parliamentary agitation for Home Rule.  The policy, they said, had failed for half a century; it was not only negative and barren, but positively harmful.  Nationalists should refuse to send Members to Westminster and abide by the consequences.  Sensibly enough, most Irishmen, while recognizing that there was an element of indisputable and valuable truth in this bold diagnosis, decided that it was premature to adopt the prescription.  Public opinion in Britain was slowly changing, and confidence existed that this opinion would be finally converted.  If the Sinn Fein alternative meant anything at all, it meant complete separation, which Ireland does not want, and a final abandonment of constitutional methods.  If another Home Rule Bill were to fail, Sinn Fein would undoubtedly redouble its strength.  Its ideas are sane and sound.  They are at bottom exactly the ideas which actuate every progressive and spirited community, and which in Ireland animate the Industrial Development Associations, the Co-operative movement, the thirst for technical instruction, the Gaelic League, the literary revival, and the work of the only truly Irish organ of government, the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction.

Now, where do we stand?  Are the phenomena I have reviewed arguments for Home Rule or against Home Rule?  Do they tend to show that Ireland is “fitter” now for Home Rule, or that she manages very well without Home Rule?  These are superfluous questions.  They are never asked save of countries obviously designed to govern themselves and obstinately denied the right.  Who would say now of Canada or Australia that they ought to have solved their economic, agrarian, and religious problems and have evolved an indigenous literature before they were declared fit for Home Rule, or—­still more unreasonable proposition—­that their strenuous efforts after self-help and internal harmony in the teeth of political disabilities proved, in so far as they were successful, that external government was a success?

Yet these questions were, as a fact, asked of the Colonies, as they are asked of Ireland.  And misgovernment increased, and passions rose, and blood flowed, while, in the guise of dispassionate psychologists, a great many narrow, egotistical, and bullying people at home propounded these arid conundrums.  Where is our common sense?  The Irish phenomena I have described arise in spite of the absence of Home Rule, and the denial of Home Rule sets an absolute and final bar to progress beyond a certain point.