OLD AND NEW CONDITIONS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 91, 17 April 1923, Page 7

OLD AND NEW CONDITIONS

MR. DILLON'S CONTRASTS

Mr. John Dillon, who succeeded the late Mr. John Redmond as leader of the Irish Nationalist Party in the House of Commons, writes to a well-known Melbourne Irishman as follows, the letter being published in the Melbourne "Argus" :—

"It was, of course, impossible for me to hear of the dissolution of the old league {United Irish League of Australia) without a certain feeling of sorrow, or without the awakening of many memories. It called up in my mind a vivid recollection of the vast services which had been rendered to the Irish cause— as represented by the Parnellite .movement —during nearly 40 years, 'and of my own visit to Australia and the happy months. I spent there in 1899,. when, under the auspices of the old league, I travelled through South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland, and met everywhere hosts of very kind ' friends. And, looking back on those years, I am irresistibly tempted to contrast the results of that movement, in which the Australian League co-opera-ted with the Parnellite Party in Ireland, with the results of the policy which has dominated Irish public life for the past four years. In 1879, when the Land League was founded, and the Parnellite Party was formed, we found Ireland in rags, famine-stricken, disarmed, coerced, and quite, at the mercy of her masters. After 39 years of patient labour, every stage of which was marked by some substantial gain for the people, we loft in 1918, when control passed from the hands of the old party, an Ireland in possession of all the reforms mentioned in the programme of the Land League, and many others not mentioned in that programme, with a settlement of the National demand on the Statute Book, which, had it been allowed to stand, would undoubtedly have united Ireland, and which was unquestionably in all essential particulars a. much better settlement than that acquired under the treaty signed on 6th December, 1921. All this had been achieved with a minimum of sacrifice and suffering to the people. In fact, I do not believe that there is another case recorded in history in which so great an emancipation has been wrought for a people, in face of great and powerful interests and desperate difficulties, at so slight a sacrifice of blood and wealth. In 1918, after 39 years' control of the old party, Ireland was, with the possible exception of Holland and Sweden, the most prosperous nation of Europe, having been raised to that status from an age-long condition of chronic pauperism and frequently recurring famine. She had in her hand a settlement of the national question substantially better than the Home Rule Bill of 1886, which had been received with gratitude and enthusiasm by the Irish race throughout the world, a settlement which I shall always be prepared to maintain was a much better settlement than that which at such fearful cost has been effected under the treaty of December, 1921. And during those 39 years of successful struggle, we had succeeded in securing for Ireland the sympathy, and friendship of nearly every civilised nation throughout the world, an invaluable asset which has now to a large extent been lost.

SINN FEIN CONTROL.

"Contrast that record with the record of the last four years, since, in December, 1918, the control of the Irish movement passed into the hands of the leaders of Sinn Fein. In four years more ■: than twice as much money has been spent on the conduct of the movement as Was i spent by the old party during 39 years. Many hundreds of valuable'lives kave been lost, civil wars have continuously devastated and demoralised the country, and between direct destruction j of property and consequential destrucj tion of trade and industry the loss inI flicted on the country cannot, I think, ! bo estimated at less than 150 millions sterling, a sum in proportion to the resources of the Free State equivalent to a loss of six thousand millions to Great Britain. I say nothing of the widespread demoralisation, the inevitable result of ' civil war, though in my judgment the ■I demoralisation caused in Ireland by the i events of the last four years is a more I grievous injury to Ireland than even the ' huge material loss. And What has been : the result of all this colossal sacrifice. | A settlement less satisfactory than tha> 1 which has already been won by peaceful ' means, and without any of these terrible sacrifices, the signing of a solemn treaty with Great Britain which recognises the permanent partition of Ireland, and sets ip an Orange Parliament for 'North-East Ulster, which has, I fear, aaddlod this country with aft impossible financial buri den; which has started a new civil war

in Ireland, led to the most ferocious and sanguinary split among the Nationalists of Southern Ireland that has occurred for many generations ; has alienated the sympathies of foreign nations, and given to all the critics and enemies of Ireland an unparalleled opportunity of piling insult and contumely on her; and; finally, has dug wider and deeper than ever aince 1641 the gulf b9tween~the South a-nd the Protestants of -North-East Ulster. A gulf which, during. 39 years of patient effort, we had nearly succeeded in obliterating. A poor result it seems to me of all th o Woodshed and ruin of the last four years.

"Personally nothing would have induced me to sign the treaty of 6th De-' cember, 1921, or to accept any share of responsibility for the policy which kd up to it. And the members.of the old league in Australia, who, in the most difficult circumstances, remained faithful to the Pa-mellite policy,' have, 1 i think, good reason to feel grateful that I they also are free of responsibility for all ] that has happened in Ireland during the last four jears. Since the election of 1918 I have taken no part in Irish politics. I never admitted, and I do not now admit, that the result of that election was a free decision of the Irish people. Nevertheless, having seen, in the course of my public life so much of the horrors of Irish faction, I decided that the best course "was to accept the i verdict of the election in apite of the | methods by which the verdict had been | secured, and to place no obstacle in the i path of the party that had won. I have adhered to that decision, and have remained silent for. four years, leaving, so far as I was concerned, the country absolutely in the hands of the Sinn Fein leaders. And neither by word nor act have I done anything to embarrass them or increase their difficulties. I cannot pretend that I think they have made good use of their opportunities, GOVERNMENT'S DIFFICULTIES. "But, you may ask me, what of the future? I have no responsibility for the present situation, and I do not know whether I shall ever again take any part in the public life of Ireland. But I give you my opinion for what it is worth. The treaty has been, signed on behalf of Ireland by men who were, at the time, recognised without protest as the representatives arid plenipotentiaries of the Irish race. And there ca-n be no doubt that the majority of the Nationalists of Ireland approved their action in signing the treaty in the circumstances ! obtaining in December. 1921. Much, there- [ fore, as I dislike the treaty, I am of i opinion that the only hope for Ireland, in face of all that has occurred during the last four years, is to accept the treaty, work it loyally, and extract from it whatever good it contains. As for the present Government I cannot say that I am favourably impressed by the results of its rule up to date, or that I approve of all its methods. But it must be recognised that it is faced by terrible difficulties. It has been compelled to set up its government in the midst of fierce civil war. Its Republican opponents are brave and fanatically devoted to their ideals, and in fighting them . the members of the Government are desperately handicapped by their own past. The finances of-the country are in confusion; a deficit of twelve millions on this year's Budget, without taking into account the payments contracted by tlie treaty, for Ireland's share of the war debt—and every prospect of a larger deficit next year; trade nearly ruined by the civil wars; the country sinking into poverty as a result of the losses inflicted on it during the last four years; the credit of the ,country .is' utterly ruined, the whole machinery of law and police i smashed and thrown away, leaving to the | Government the task of creating a new system in the midst of a civil war. No I Government surely was ever up against more terrible difficulties. Sometimes 1 think, that .they are insuperable. But so far as I am concerned, I think tfeat the Government should get a fair show, arid I shall certainly be no party to any attempt to weaken it or increase its difficulties: You will say that this is rather a disheartening estimate of the present i situation in Ireland and that I am a pcsI simist. That is true. lam not, and never was, a believer In the treaty settlement, and I am not sanguine as to the I outcome of the present situation. But ; time is a great healer, and doubtless time will mend the ills of unhappy Ireland. ! And when that healing comes I nm convinced that Irishmen will look back on the four years from December, 1918, to December, 1922, as one of the darkest and most, unhappy periods of aIV her tragic history."