He always splits his infinitives. In the years to come, when we his contemporaries and himself are all dead, the historian will attempt to analyse the rapid Anglicisation of Ireland in the nineteenth century, and the desperate struggle at its close to arrest and reverse that Anglicisation. He will give the greater praise to that small company of men and women who formed the Gaelic League in 1893 and by their hard work saved the language and arrested the tide of Anglicisation; but, without detracting from either, he will dwell perhaps most lovingly on the work of Arthur Griffith from 1899 to 1911, upon the brain that took the several strands of the Irish Ireland movement, took every constructive and quickening national idea there was, and wove them all into the most complete and comprehensive national philosophy that has been given to Ireland. CHAPTER VI THE SINN FEIN MOVEMENT--1905 TO 1913 The Sinn Fein movement may be said to have begun in 1905 with, the general adoption by the Separatist organisations in that year of the "Sinn Fein Policy" as a basis of operations, and with the combination of all the organisations into one, and a consequent more effective distribution of energy, it made rapid progress. Branches of Sinn Fein were quickly formed in all the larger towns, and more slowly in the smaller towns and in some country districts. But at first it did not cause much fluttering in the Parliamentarian dovecote, because its members were nearly altogether apart from the people, upon whom the Parliamentarians relied for their strength. Sinn Fein found its expounders and its followers almost wholly amongst young men and young women of the intellectual order, who were more or less in the general current set up by the language movement, which was then at full strength, and who, were it not for Sinn Fein, would not bother themselves with any political movement--save, of course, the Fenian minority. It made no attack upon the mainsprings of the Parliamentarian power, the daily press and the platform, and its propaganda was almost wholly educational, and was wholly carried on in rooms and debating societies, with an occasional public celebration of a national anniversary. It was, in effect, creating an atmosphere which would eventually have brought about the complete collapse of the Parliamentarian power, even without any direct attack, and Mr. Griffith was very much in favour of continuing the organisation upon that educational basis and refraining from any incursion into platform politics. Circumstances, however, proved too strong for him, and a beginning was made with municipal representation. In Dublin the tide ran very strongly in a Sinn Fein direction and some ten or a dozen seats were captured at the municipal elections. Some seats in the provinces were also captured, but in these cases I think the elections were not won upon a clear political issue, but upon the personal popularity of the candidates. Wherever