Arthur Griffith condemns British repression
Dublin, 24 December 1919 - Arthur Griffith, MP and founder of Sinn Féin, has accused the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, of presenting an appearance of placating Ireland for the benefit of American public opinion, while practicing repression on the ground.
Speaking to reporters, responding to the announcement of the government’s new home rule scheme, Griffith said: ‘Since the end of the war his government in Ireland has acted as Russia has never acted in Poland. It has declared that the duly elected representatives of Ireland form an illegal body and it has arrested and imprisoned the majority of them.’ National and cultural organisations have been declared illegal, public meetings and the press have been suppressed and the collection of money for language and industrial purposes has been deemed punishable with imprisonment.
According to Mr Griffith, there were a total of 719 acts of aggression against the Irish people in 1917. Whereas in the last six weeks of this year there has been 3,187 such acts.
These have included 2,829 raids on private houses, 162 arrests, 126 sentences of imprisonment, 27 armed ‘militaristic attacks on peaceful gatherings’, and four deportations without charge or trial.
‘This shows’, Griffith elaborated, ‘the intensified provocative manner in which Mr Lloyd George’s government is treating the country which it seeks to make America believe it is anxious to conciliate. While the English government thus seeks to pose before America it halloos on its dogs in Ireland.’
Mr Griffith added that if the British government sought a settlement with Ireland it could have done so in the manner suggested by Éamon de Valera, Sinn Féin President, when he stated that he was willing to leave it to the arbitration of the United States.
[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]
