Page:Home rule through federal devolution.djvu/18

 inflame the fervour of the Sinn Fein leaders and their adherents.

In face of these happenings, the Act of 1914, which no one in Ireland ever regarded as viable, is now universally acknowledged to be hopelessly moribund; and the question is not, whether it can be resuscitated, but what is to replace it.

Amongst the most important of the vital changes brought within the region of practical politics during the course of the war, "votes for women" has become an accomplished fact, whether ultimately for good or evil who can say? I have always thought it more than doubtful whether the intelligent and energetic women who have brought this change about would not, in the result, find that, in obtaining access to the ballot-box, they had lost more than they gained; but the Democracy has decided the matter, and the results are for the future.

There can be no doubt that the sweeping majorities by which Sinn Fein has replaced Nationalism in Ireland were largely due to the enthusiastic votes of the women in the country constituencies, given in the belief that Sinn Fein had saved their men from conscription, in regard to which the old politicians were looked on as weak and untrustworthy. Having no knowledge of European history, the country people of Ireland—especially the women—were easily persuaded that Ireland was in no way interested in the causes or consequences of the war. The essential dogma of Sinn Fein is that the Irish are a nation apart, devoid of all fellowship or community with any other people, and this spirit of isolation is sedulously inculcated by the leaders, with the concurrence of the rulers of the Church, who dream of Ireland as an enclave of Faith in a desert of heresy.

The completeness of the bouleversement was further attributable to reaction against the inertness into which the Nationalist Party had sunk. John Redmond had been in bad health long before his death, and his vigour of leadership had been much impaired. The party was