21.05.1998

The Irish ‘plot’

From The Call, paper of the British Socialist Party, May 23 1918

The steps taken by the British government in Ireland last weekend could not have come altogether as a surprise to Ireland or to those who have been watching developments in the government’s policy of imposing conscription on the Irish people.

The militarisation of the Irish government and the military preparations; Sir Edward Carson’s letter to the press, in which he said that the government had “the clearest evidence in their possession that the Sinn Fein organisation is and has been in alliance with Germany”; ... Mr George Barnes’ representation of Irish nationalism as “pro-Germanism”, to be put down with a firm hand - were so many straws that served to indicate which way the wind was blowing. All were regarded in Ireland as attempts to throw dust in the eyes of her sympathisers in the Allied countries.

The arrest of the Sinn Fein leaders implies an accusation of complicity in the ‘German plot’ ... But what is the evidence? ... The Sinn Fein leaders have been arrested and deported, but there is nothing to show that any of them have had any connection with the alleged ‘plot’.

So far the government has not even charged them with complicity, and a semi-official statement suggests that such parts as can be published of the evidence on which is based the charge of complicity between the leaders of the Sinn Fein movement and the enemy are being prepared, and will shortly be issued to the press.

All this lends colour to the assertion that it is not the government’s intention to charge them or bring them to trial, but to use its unlimited and undefined powers under the Defence of the Realm Act to keep them indefinitely in custody under suspicion ...

The All-Irish Conference at Dublin, in the name of all sections of Irish nationalism - constitutional, Sinn Fein and labour - has issued a calm but determined protest against “an attempt to discredit and disrupt Ireland’s united resistance to conscription” and “to poison the English minds against the Irish prisoners”. It appeals

“to all friends of human freedom throughout the world to inquire for themselves whether the present attempt to force civil war upon Ireland on the transparently false pretext of military expediency does not really cover a wicked plot of English politicians to relieve themselves of their broken pledges, in view of their profession that they have entered the world war with the object of securing self-determination for every other small nation in Europe”.

We cannot believe that the British working class will be impervious to this appeal. Ireland is on the brink of the precipice. British labour can save her from ruin and disaster if it speaks and speaks now.