Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition

The Manifesto of Sinn Féin as passed by the Dublin Castle Censor (Author: Sinn Féin standing committee)

p.921

The coming General Election is fraught with vital possibilities for the future of our nation. Ireland is faced with the question whether this generation wills it that she is to march out into the full sunlight of freedom, or is to remain in the shadow of [gap: censored/extent: 2 words] imperialism [gap: censored/extent: 45 words].

Sinn Féin aims at securing the establishment of that Republic.

1. By withdrawing the Irish Representation from the British Parliament and by denying the right
   [gap: censored/extent: 4 words]
   of the British Government
   [gap: censored/extent: 5 words]
   to legislate for Ireland.
2. 
   [gap: censored/extent: 26 words]
   
3. By the establishment of a constituent assembly comprising persons chosen by Irish constituencies as the supreme national authority to speak and act in the name of the Irish people, and to develop Ireland's social, political and industrial life, for the welfare of the whole people of Ireland.
4. By appealing to the Peace Conference for the establishment of Ireland as an Independent Nation. At that conference the future of the Nations of the world will be settled on the principle of government by consent of the governed. Ireland's claim to the application of that principle in her favour is not based on any accidental situation arising from the war. It is older than many if not all of the present belligerents.
   [gap: censored/extent: 105 words]
   

Sinn Féin stands [gap: censored/extent: 6 words] for the Nation; it represents the old tradition of nationhood [gap: censored/extent: 17 words] reasserting the inalienable right of the Irish Nation to sovereign independence reaffirming the determination of the Irish people to achieve it, and guaranteeing within the Independent Nation equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens.

Believing that the time has arrived when Ireland's voice for the principle of untrammelled [gap: censored/extent: 1 word] self-determination should be heard above every interest of party or class, Sinn Féin will oppose at the Polls every individual candidate who does not accept this principle.

The policy of our opponents stands condemned on any test, whether of principle or expediency. [gap: censored/extent: 22 words] Any attempt to barter away the sacred and inviolate rights of nationhood begins in dishonour and is bound to end in disaster. The enforced exodus of millions of our people, the decay of our industrial life, the ever-increasing financial plunder of our country, the whittling down of the demand for the ‘Repeal of the Union’, voiced by the first Irish Leader to plead in the Hall of the Conqueror to that of Home Rule on the Statute Book, and finally the contemplated mutilation of our country by partition, are some of the ghastly results of a policy that leads to national ruin.[gap: censored/extent: 170 words]

p.922

By declaring their will to accept the status of a province instead of boldly taking their stand upon the right of the nation, they supply England with the only subterfuge at her disposal for obscuring the issue in the eyes of the world.[gap: censored/extent: 62 words]

Sinn Féin goes to the polls handicapped by all the arts and contrivances that a powerful and unscrupulous enemy can use against us. [gap: censored/extent: 4 words] of Sinn Féin to secure the freedom of Ireland the British government would destroy it, Sinn Féin, however, goes to the polls confident that the people of this ancient nation will be true to the old cause [gap: censored/extent: 47 words] and whose demand is that the only status befitting this ancient realm is the status of a free nation.