The new movement was the direct outcome of the Wolfe Tone Clubs. It was they who carried out all the work entailed by the publication of _Irish Freedom_. These clubs had just been founded "to propagate the principles and disseminate the teachings of Theobald Wolfe Tone and the other true Irishmen who in 1798, 1803, 1848 and 1867 strove for the complete independence of Ireland; to encourage the union of Irishmen of all creeds and sections in working for the freedom of their country; to promote the advancement of national thought and inculcate the spirit of self-sacrifice and self-reliance by which alone true liberty can be attained." The members pledged themselves to substitute the common name of Irishman for that of Catholic or Protestant; no person serving in the armed forces of England was eligible for membership. This new branch of the Sinn Fein movement attempted to do what the old Sinn Fein had not as yet done, get into direct touch with labour questions and the labour movement, though perhaps not very successfully. The first number of _Irish Freedom_ had an article on sweated industries, pointing out that though Nationalists talked as if Belfast were the only place in Ireland where workers were underpaid, many Nationalists were open to the same reproach. It pointed out the duty of the universities in the matter, pleading for a really scientific study of Irish economic problems, including (besides the wages system) such questions as the working of the Land Acts, Co-operation, the conditions of the Congested Districts. It welcomed with enthusiasm the Co-operative Movement. "The co-operative spirit," it said, "is perhaps the greatest asset in modern Ireland and it will require a stronger flame than the speeches of political firebrands to melt it away." On the occasion of the strikes in Belfast, Dublin, Cork and other towns in 1911 it took sides with the strikers, in marked contrast to Mr. Griffith's _Sinn Fein_, which preached something approaching "abject surrender" on the part of the workers. It induced Mr. George Russell to contribute an article on the Co-operative Commonwealth. This undoubtedly went a certain way to bring about a friendlier feeling on the part of Labour towards Sinn Fein, but it was long before the attitude of strict Sinn Feiners was forgotten by the workers. Its attitude towards Ulster was more outspoken and definite. In 1910 the objection of Ulster to the approaching Home Rule policy of the Liberals began to harden into a threat of extreme militancy. A section of Ulster Unionists announced their intention not to submit under any circumstances to the Home Rule Bill even if it should become law and receive the Royal assent. To the Republicans this seemed "tantamount to an admission of the whole Irish case for self-government. If it means anything it means that Ireland, north as well as south of the Boyne, refuses to recognize any inherent right of the electors of Great Britain to decide how it shall be governed." The