IRELAND'S PRIDE CUT TO THE QUICK

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 2, 3 July 1933, Page 9

IRELAND'S PRIDE CUT TO THE QUICK

It represented'poor Johu Redmond's fast effort to bring Ireland effectively into the war. He addressed recruiting Imeetings throughout Ireland, and his eloquence brought thousands of young jlrisli' Nationalists and. Catholics to .light under the standard of justice und freedom raised by the British Empire. Ilis brother, William Redmond, one of jthe best-loved members of the House jof Commons, took a commission in this mow unit,' and he subsequently fell fighting under tho British flag in France. But Lord Kitchener did his best to 'damp the ardour, of the Redmonds. He refused commissions to educated young irishmen' of the class and type who were being made officers in England, Scotland, and Wales, for no conceivable treason except that he distrusted and jrlisliked their nationalism. • And when ■ Nationalist ladies embroidered a silken flag with the Irish harp emblazoned upon it, and presented it to the'lrish Division, Kitchcnor ordered it to be taken away, while allowing the Ulster flag, blazoned with tht Red Hand, to fly gloriously over Ihe heads of the Orange soldiers of the Protestant North. .-■ Ireland was deeply hurt. Her pride was cut to the quick, her sense of fair play wa3 outraged, her sympathy •with the Holy War against the military dictatorship of Europe was killed, pind John Redmond's heart was broken. He ought to have appealed to Par3iament, but he probably knew it was too Jato then to avert tho evil. Prom jlliat moment, the effort of, .Irish-Nation-.-. Vlisin to reconcile England and Ireland liy uniting the two peoples in a com-

nion effort for the oppressed of another land failed, and Lord Kitchener's sinister order constituted tke^ first word in a new chapter of Irish history.

Kitchener's was a hypnotic personality, arid the impulse of his magnetism moved multitudes of men to willing action. '".:'■ . _ ■ . Was he a great organiser? I cannot toll, even though I saw his greatest tasks. He undoubtedly possessed some of the rarest qualities of the great organiser—the gifts of improvisation, of drive, of leadership. Bnt he had two patent defects, a reluctance to delegate, and—more serious still—an inability to choose the right ntan. Lord Kitchener was one of the first to realise the magnitude of the war. When most men talked of peace before Christmas, he predicted a three years' struggle, and set out —as far as men •were concerned—to prepare for it. He made a call first for half a million, and then for a million more. He knew that with the means at his ( disposal not one-half of them would be available for the field for a full year. As a ; matter of fact, the first battle of the first division of the "X" army was fought in September, 1915. His views as to the duration of the campaign'changed somewhat from time to time, and in the spring of 1915 ho predicted that the German reserves; would be exhausted by September. But nothing can rob him of the credit for the vision that foresaw in August, 1914, a, throe years' campaign, and for the energy and wisdom with ■which he set | out at once to prepare for it.