" COMPLETE INDEPENDENCE, OR EXTERMINATION."

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 193, 13 August 1920, Page 7

" COMPLETE INDEPENDENCE, OR EXTERMINATION."

N. McMULLEX. |

(To the Editor.) Sir. —Mr. Thos. Tarren, an Iri-h trade union leader, is to be congratulate.) upon his clarity of vision and candour of speech with regard to the Irish problem. He declared at Cork the other day that Iriehmon must citlwr have complete independence or extermination. This is the old cry of many a noble patriot— "Hive mc Liberty, or give mc iDeath!" It is a cry well calculated to inspire a peo<pta to j deeds of daring heroism—ahvavd assuming that said people are really the victims of tyranny and not of an insane hallucination. Personally, I have been an advocate of Home Rule for Ireland for nearly fifty years; but must confess I have never been able to see that the had "wrongs" calling for such heroic I?) measures as are now 'being adopted. B-ut what lavish to emphasise is the de | fin'.t'>ncrs of the isene as Mr. 'Farren sees it. He says Ireland does not want Home Rule;'she wants "complete independence." If her people do not obtain this, they are invited to accept "extermination." Mr. Lloyd George (with, say, sixty millions of loyal "Britons nehin-i him) declares in equally unambiguous terms that Britain will, if necessary, exterminate the Irish before ehe will grant them the independence they asfc. As a lover of the pood, kindly, cheerful, : humoroue Irish people, I earnestly trust , they will pay heed to the issue so clearly ■ put before them. Believing, as I do, that the British are Israel, and th% Irisa a i remnant of the 'Philistines, I ask my . Hibernian friende to take warning from i the inspired Word, which states that the • nation and people that will not eerve Israel shall perish! I do not believe that the Irish are doomed to extermination; it is not so prophesiaed. But the alternative is clear and emphatic—they must submit to British rule; and the sooner ' they do so, the better will it be for them I • and their children and children's children. When Hebrew prophets of over 2500 years ago and a trade union leader >of to-day agree, the conjunction is 1 ominous.—l am, etc., J. LIDDELL KELLY.