The Sacred Egoism of Sinn Fein

Excerpt

THE CULT OF ALTRUISM

In this age of sacred egoisms and oppressed nationalities the drama—or melodrama—of international politics has been enriched by a variety of distressed heroines, in the shape of small nations, whose salvation has inspired professions of altruism slightly incompatible with the previous records of the rescuers as revealed to the impartial observer. The shortage of paper and man-power notwithstanding, the printing presses of the Latin and Anglo-Saxon worlds have poured forth an undiminished stream of most enheartening and uplifting sentiment relating to the rights and virtues of subject races. Prior to August 1914 small nations were happy if they succeeded in escaping the attention of their powerful neighbours, but they have now been raised from the relatively obscure fame conferred upon the more unfortunate by those sympathetic or patronizing friends of liberty who have flourished characteristically in the English-speaking countries. What was once the hobby of select groups of forward-looking Liberals has become the prerogative of their erstwhile opponents, the orthodox imperialists and upholders of predatory patriotism. Indeed, in many instances, the professional gladiators of freedom find themselves deprived of their occupation, since their philosophy of domestic and international politics conflicts seriously with the current official dogmas. The rescuing of small nations has become a “controlled industry,” and appropriate literature is issued in the shape of Blue Books and White Papers, or in the less ostentatious, if equally suspicious, form of inspired press propaganda.

Ireland had long been a subject of melancholy reflection in those quarters devoted to international altruism of a not too personal kind. Even the British Liberal found an occasional tremor in his voice as he contemplated the state of Irish affairs, and remembered his own virtuous conduct of the case for self-government in Ireland. That voice, however, broke into sobs of indignation only when uttering judgments upon the iniquities of men further from home, and his enthusiasm for so proximate a victim of imperialism was checked by the tangible and daily proofs of his own futility, less evident where his plea concerned a more remote beneficiary. Distance lends enchantment to the Liberal view of international politics. For that reason it is natural to find the strongest expressions of commiseration for Ireland outside the precincts of the Island Race, and, in fact, the Irish people have been accustomed to derive considerable satisfaction from the manifestations of good-will which they have received from Continental countries. The sympathetic foreigner, when not an Englishman, is spared the suspicions which his ignorance of the actual facts might have earned for him, for both parties are likely to be at a mutual disadvantage in this respect. Moreover, the claim of a Frenchman, for example, is overwhelmingly reinforced by the knowledge of material assistance rendered, none being so introspective as to question the motive of those historic replies of the French nation to the call of Ireland....