The Impact of Sinn Fein
By BRIAN INGLIS A rumour was circulating in Dublin recently that when the police arrived to arrest one of the Irish Republican Army leaders, a few weeks ago, they found him being court-martialled for having failed in his duty on one of the Border raids. Whether the story is true or—as is more likely—put about for propaganda purposes, it fairly expresses the public atti- tude to the IRA. On the one hand, it is thought of as a serious, and probably a dangerous, illegal organisation, capable of causing a lot of trouble. On the other, it is regarded as something of a joke—and has been ever since the celebrated occasion in 1941 when a man was seen staggering along a Dublin suburban street, shoe- less, loaded with chains, and with ropes around his neck. He turned out to be Stephen Hayes, the IRA's chief of staff, escaping from being grilled by his comrades, who suspected him of being a police informer.
There appear to be three or four separate branches of the Irish Republican Army at present, and there is no reason to suppose that they care very much for each other. Each of them contains police informers, some of them busy informing both ways. Yet—for the first time for many years —they are being taken seriously; partly because their activities around the Border have been.
energetic enough to suggest better planning and control on the part of their leaders; but mainly because, for the first time for many years, the IRA appears to have collected significant sup- port in the South. Until recently the Northern Ireland republican groups despised the South's efforts; but if the IRA continues to gain ground in the Republic, a reconciliation may be effected, and the Easter lily—the emblem of the old IRA— may once again bloom in the open.
The degree of public sympathy, as distinct from actual recruiting, which the IRA has picked up in the South is hard to assess. Certainly it will be a mistake to try to assess it by counting the votes which Sinn Fein candidates get in the com- ing General Election. The bulk of the people who vote for Sinn Fein will be doing so less because of any sympathy with its policies, or the IRA's (they are not even the same), but out of dissatisfaction with the older political parties, which have between them run the country into grave economic difficulties.
The comparison is not exact; but the propor- tion of Irish voters who will be thinking of the IRA when they mark their ballot papers is probably much the same as the proportion of the electorate of North Lewisham who voted thinking of Suez. The Irish electorate will be more concerned with bread-and-butter issues- as-well they might be, with unemployment soar- ing, and business in its most decrepit condition for a quarter of a century.
This is not solely the responsibility of the present Government. It is a legacy of the policy embarked upon by Mr. de Valera when he came into office in 1932, and accepted now by all political parties, of economic self-sufficiency. Whatever were that policy's merits, it is easy now to see that the Government went about it in the wrong way. It tried to build up industries behind the shelter of a high tariff wall. This meant that the money which should have been spent on developing Ireland's one real asset, the land, was diverted away from its proper channels. And the industries set up are still, for the most part, unable to stand on their own feet without pro- tection. They are liable, as recent 'events have proved, to be shaken by any passing economiq storm. When I was in Ireland recently nobod5f was worrying about Bank rate: it was the bank• ruptcy rate that had them really scared.
What is needed there now is a reorientation of policy to make Ireland's agriculture efficient, and to allow industries to arise out of the resultant' prosperity, instead of continuing to subsidise inefficient industries out of taxation. But thc, trouble is that a hint of impending agricultural; reorganisation would lose any party the rural I vote. The farmers may not be efficient, but they, get by, and they do not want to be chivvied t Their sons and daughters, if they don't like 01( life, can emigrate—and are emigrating, at a ram', of over 40,000 a year, to Britain. There is littlit• serious discontent in the country districts, an(2 people will tend to vote as they normally vote The town voter, on the other hand, knows tha s. he is wasting his time voting. The Government policies are not going to be perceptibly differen whatever party gets in. He may well vote Si Fein, just to mark his disgruntlement, n because he knows or cares what Sinn Fein stan for. Or perhaps some electors will vote Sinn Fe when they see that its candidate is in jail f illegal activities. 'Your man,' they will tell ea other, 'is at least honest.'
The unknown factor of this dissident vo makes prediction unwise, but it is assumed th Mr. de Valera will regain some ground, perha enough to get the over-all majority he cove and that the smaller parties which kept M Costello's administration in power will contin to wither. The Labour Party appears to have r its course : the only member of its young generation of any promise, 'Young Jim' Lark has quit politics—in disgust with his colleagu it is generally thought—and only the gr loyalty of the Irish agricultural worker to ru, party saves it from extinction, now that it WI; abandoned everything its founders stood for.
Mr. Sean MacBride's party, too, may di appear. Curiously, it was the split in this pa n occasioned by the dispute between Dr. Bro and the Hierarchy that helped to push the integrating Costello Government out of office 1951; and this time, too, the disintegrati Costello Government was finally induced to to the country by the defection of Mr. MacBri Even if this election should see the final exti tion of his party, it has done enough to claim leader as the Grey Subsidence of Irish politi his departure will remove from the scene of Dublin's few political cosmopolitans- MacBride is much more esteemed at the Coun of Europe in Strasbourg than in Dublin. p h
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