Now as a matter of actual fact Sinn Fein had nothing to do with the insurrection, which was, as even the Hardinge Commission evidence shows, a Fenian insurrection. Of the seven men who signed the republican proclamation only one was in any sense a Sinn Feiner--Sean Mac Diarmada--and most of the others would have objected very strongly to being identified with Sinn Fein. Of the Sinn Fein leaders proper, most were not out in the insurrection at all, nor were they, apparently, in the counsels of the men who directed it. Facts, however, stand no chance in modern times against journalism, and the Volunteers and the Insurrection were duly labelled "Sinn Fein"; and when public opinion swung over and that opinion coalesced in a new and formidable movement, the name which had been known as a reproach was taken up as a battle-cry, while the policy of deporting the old Sinn Fein leaders merely rehabilitated them in the public eye for their failure to be "out," and gave them the moulding of the policy of the new movement. It, in fact, provided what was an emotional impulse with a policy ready-made and adaptable to the new conditions, a policy moreover which had already brains behind it. The policy of Sinn Fein to-day is the old Sinn Fein policy, outlined in Chapter IV, with two alterations. In the first place it is based frankly on separation, with no mention of the Constitution of 1782; and in the second place its immediate objective is the Peace Conference. Mr. Griffith believes intensely, and he has carried the movement with him, that it is possible to get the case of Ireland taken out of England's hands altogether as an international question. But whether that view be correct or not is immaterial, for Sinn Fein, in working for the Peace Conference, does not drop any portion of its constructive policy, and its main reliance is upon the Sinn Fein policy proper. The Peace Conference is, as it were, a temporary weapon forged by circumstances, which will be available, if at all, during a limited period, and which it would be folly to neglect; but the Sinn Fein policy is the permanent weapon and the main reliance of the movement. Sinn Fein represents at present a combination of forces. It represents the old Sinn Fein Movement, Fenianism, and the whole public opinion which has swung round from the Parliamentarian policy to the policy of no compromise. There are many sections in it, separated on minor points but agreed on the main point, that Ireland must work out her own salvation, and that so long as she concentrates within herself she is impregnable. It represents the culmination of the cumulative efforts of the Gaelic Athletic Association, the Gaelic League, the Sinn Fein Movement of 1905, and the Irish Volunteers. These were all manifestations of the national perception of loss of the essentials of nationality, and cumulatively they represent the evolution of a national philosophy rather than a political portent.