SINN FEIN AND THE PEACE CONFERENCE.
ITo THE EDITOR OF 1HE SPOLTATOH. ") Ste,—From the very beginning of the war the Sinn Fein organs and leaders have represented that the atrocities in Belgium, France, Serbia, Montenegro, and Armenia have been the inventions of the British Government. They have found no word of sympathy for the victims. They have falsified his- tory, recent and remote, to show that the German government in Alsace-Lorraine was historically justifiable, and men/table to the people (Arthur Griffith, in Nationality). They slated that the tenni, exacted from the Ukraine were so oppressive that it ens inconceivable that the Germans could have imposed them, and that they must consequently be the slanderous inventions of the British Government (Ibid.). They have persecuted the soldiers who have been fighting on behalf of small nationalities, and their families. Soldiers on leave, alone or in small parties, have been molested, mobbed, beaten, sounded, thrown into the water and left to sink or swim. American sailors have been 'similarly molested: it was found necessary to put the city of Cork out of bounds for them. When the Allies were fighting on behalf of all the other small nations they did all in their poser to assist Germany materi- ally. They harboured and supplied the U '-boats in the numerous inlets on the south-west coast of Ireland, and spread the report that outrages on Irish fishing-boats were committed by British submarines! By intimidation they prevented recruiting in Ireland, bodies of " Volunteers " with loaded rifles attending recruiting meetings, and persecution of the families of recruits taking place. They raided houses for arms, and in cases of resistance wounded or murdered the resisters. They entered into an armed alliance with the Ger- mans, eventuating in the rising of Easter Week, 1910. This they claimed to be an " act of war," and arrogated to them- 'Area the quality of belligerents. They have cynically justi- fied this by the assertion that they would ally themselves with the Devil against Great Britain. Their motto " Selves Alone " Is a fitting match for "Deutschland Sber Allen." They have announced a policy of "compel linens to come in." If
Protestant Ulster does not like this, eo much the worse for Protestant Ulster.
Thus has Sinn Fein earned a title to the recognition of the friends of small nationalities—but what sort of recognition ? With this record to her credit, Shin Fein has tusked to be beard at the Peace Conference: in what capacity? The Peace Conference is to consist of the nations who have brought about peace by the overthrow of the Alliance of the Central European Powers who made war. "Ireland," as represented by Sinn Fein, was an independent State, with a population of over four millions, the ally of these. On her own showing, then, else has a claim to be heard, not as a participant in its deliberations, but as a beaten suppliant, to receive its judgment, on the same terms as the kingdom of Saxony. The Sinn Feiners cannot have it both ways.—I am, Sir, Sc., A HONE Roue.
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