Arthur Griffith, the son of a printer and himself a
compositor, was of Welsh extraction. For a time he lived in South Africa, where he was employed as a surface worker on the Rand, but while still a young man he returned to his native land and in 1905 started the Sinn Fein Movement. For inspiration he turned to Hungary, and in his pamphlet, The Resurrection of Hungary, which first brought him into prominence, he advo- cated national salvation through industrial revival He pointed to the advantages Hungary had derived from Daik's teachings of national self-help. Griffith was not possessed of oratorical gifts and he found his means of expression in the pen. He had great powers of concentration and a thorough. mastery of the subject which lay nearest to his heart, the economic development of Ireland. In the interminable debates in Dail Eireann subse- quent to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Peace Treaty, Griffith stood by his written word and refused to have anything to ray to the extremism and fanaticism of the irreconedlables. Whether the Provisional Government will be able to provide an equally sagacious leader to take his place remains to be seen.
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