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  NEW IRELAND PAMPHLETS. NUMBER THREE
  PRICE TWOPENCE


  THE ISSUE
  The Case for Sinn Fein


  BY LECTOR

  AS PASSED BY CENSOR.


  NEW IRELAND PUBLISHING COMPANY, Limited
  13 FLEET STREET, DUBLIN
  1918




THE ISSUE


=INDEPENDENCE.=

Does Ireland wish to be free? Do we alone among the ancient Nations of
Europe desire to remain slaves? That, and that alone, is the question
which every Irish elector has now to answer. Let us put everything else
out of our minds as irrelevant claptrap. Let nothing distract us from this
single issue of Liberty. We must turn a deaf ear to sentimental whining
about what this or that man did, his length of service, his "fighting on
the floor of the House," and so on. Whatever may have been done in the way
of small doles, petty grants, and big talk, the =fact= is that we are not
Free and the =issue= is, Do we want to be Free?

Why should we be afraid of Freedom? Would any sane adult voluntarily
prefer to be a slave, to be completely in the control and power of
another? Men do not willingly walk into jail; why, then, should a whole
people? The men who are =afraid= of national liberty are unworthy even of
personal liberty; they are the victims of that slave mentality which
English coercion and corruption have striven to create in Ireland. When
Mr. John Dillon, grown tremulous and garrulous and feeble, asked for a