The Labour Party's criticisms were, from the economic point of view, perfectly sound. An Irish Food Control Committee with executive powers, authority in the hands of locally-elected bodies to conserve and distribute local supplies of food, was ideally the proper scheme: but the proper scheme was, as usual, unattainable and Sinn Fein was doing what was perhaps the only thing that could be done under the circumstances. And though the Labour Party urged its criticisms, it did not withhold its assistance and hearty support to the Sinn Fein scheme. The result was to increase the growing popularity of Sinn Fein. It was seen that it had another than the purely political aspect, that its principles of self-reliance were capable of being applied with a success limited only by the amount of popular support which they could command. It was, at any rate, plain that if the people who controlled the food supplies were all believers in Sinn Fein principles there need be no prospect of famine in Ireland, and the action of Sinn Fein (inadequate though it may have been) at any rate contrasted favourably with the indifference and inefficiency of the official bodies appointed by the Government and with the helplessness of other political parties. The popularity of Sinn Fein was further increased by the continued activities of the Irish police authorities against its more prominent or active adherents. If the Cabinet had decided to create an "atmosphere" for the Convention by the release of the prisoners sentenced to penal servitude for their share in the Rising, an opposite "atmosphere" was being systematically generated by the Irish Executive. People were being arrested all over the country for offences incomparably less serious from every point of view than those committed by the people who had been released. The conclusion was drawn that the Government, while anxious to make a display to the world of impartiality and good will by a spectacular act of clemency, was in reality determined to regard the active support of Sinn Fein as a serious offence in the case of men too little before the eyes of the world for their arrest to lead to widespread comment or indignation. Their action was held to be an indication of their resolve to prevent the spread of Sinn Fein principles until the Convention should have presented a report palatable to the Cabinet: and Sinn Fein instead of suffering by this action simply grew in its own esteem and in the eyes of others.