IRISHMEN PROTEST.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 15454, 6 December 1915, Page 9

IRISHMEN PROTEST.

THE MOAN A .SHIRKERS. TACTS ABOUT THEM. (SPECIAL TO "THE FULSS.") WELLINGTON. December I. Considerable indignation exists among Irishmen in Wellington concerning the publication in tho New Zealand newspapers of the cable message from America concerning the arrival of "a party of 70 Irishmen - ' who had fled from New Zealand to avoid military service. The message was apparently built Up out of the loquacity 41 f one Irishman, and the imagination, perhaps, of an American newspaper man. In the first place, as prominent Wellington Irishmen argue, there was no ! party of Irishmen on the Moana. It may bo- true that men left 011 the Moana to evade their proper duty of defending the Empire, but to say that they constituted "a party," and to infer thereby that it was an organised affair among tho Irish, is wrong. 7t is not true that there were 70 Irishmen on the ship. There wore in all j ?on:o ot) persons about whose motives for leaving there could be suspicion Among these- were iK) men with Irish names, and there is no evidence that many of these had not good reasons for leaving. Two men at least, named McGrath, had come to Nov.' Zealand only a few weeks previously, ai.d their original intention, which they carried I out. was to go to California. It is | argued, with some justification, that | Irishmen all over the Empire have not boon failing in their duty to the Empure, that in Wellington never a daily list of recruits is pub.ished but contains Irish names, and that in patriotic work hero Irish men and women 1 have taken an active part. They take j strong exception to the publication of | messages insulting the nation generally at. a time when unity of ail the peoples of the Empire matters so much, and they suggest also that just as there are doubtless Irishmen who are laggards, there are also laggard Englishman. laggard Scotchmen, and laggard colonials. \ A meeting of representative Irishmen to-day unanimously tesolved that statements such as those cabled from San Fram.iseo ought not to be published at the present time when the unity ot all the nations of the Empire is preeminently to bo desired. It wag pointed out that the Irish wore doing as much, if not 11101 e, than other parts of the Empire. Of those on the jloar.fi several had Irish names, but it was agreed that they could not have been true Irishmen to have left this country at the present time. The Wellington "Post"' says of tho cable message:— The message is somewhat inaccurate. There were altogether over 50 men, all eligible for military service, most of thcni single, who booked steerage by too Moana, which left Wellington for .San Francisco on the 11th of lost month. Out of this number, as iar as a "Post" reporter, bv careful investigation, was able to ascertain, aixvjt a dozen were New Zealanders, another five were Englishmen born (one of whom was over GO and another a cripple going home for treatment), one was a Dana cr Scandinavian arid one a Mormon. Over thirty were native* of Ireland, mostly from Donegal, Antrim, Keny, and County Cork. The greater portion of the Irishmen who were leaving would only mention San Francisco as their destination. The majority of them were men apparently tinder thirty years of age. many of them residents of New Zealand for only a few year-. Most of them were of the labouring class, and one or two

had been working on railway construction. while others had boon engaged in similar work in the; country. One young fellow of about- twenty-five said quite candidly that lie was not going to tight. Ho had had to work like a slave at ten years old in Ireland, and keep his mother on a shilling a day, and lie felt no cause now to and fight. Another said ho -was going away to join the "Irish brigade." The great majority nioroly said that they were either going for a run homo or were going for a look round. Most of thorn said they had filled in and posted their National Registration papers before leaving.