IRISH SITUATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16848, 13 May 1918, Page 6

IRISH SITUATION.

THE ONE-DAY STRIKE.

ACTION OP THE HIERARCHY.

LONDON, ipril 23. The Times correspondent at Dublin states that the conference of Nationalist leaders expressed satisfaction at the success of the one-day strike. The Lord Mayor was requested to convey to Archbishop Kelly their appreciation for the Australian hierarchy's message. The Lord Mayor applied for passports for himself and his secretary to go to Washington and New York. The Times states that it would be impossible for President Wilson to receive the Lord Mayor of Dublin, who probably would not be allowed to land. Nine-tenths of Irelandemployers and men alike—shared in the strike. The crowds were good-tempered and orderly, and spent their time signing the anti-con-scription pledge. Dublin, Limerick, Cork, and Watirford were quieter than on a Sunday. It was impossible to buy even a cigarette. A few Great Northern trains ran, connecting Dublin and Belfast, but elsewhere all sorts of locomotion was suspended. Travellers were held up in Dublin. Hotels were tilled with fashionable people and turf followers were unable to reach the Punchestown races, 25 milea away. The catting off of electricity from • the hospi-' tals was a serious hardship to hundreds of wounded soldiers needing Rontgen rays and massage. » Several additional thefts of gelignite are reported. The Times, in a leader referring to the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Ireland placing themselves at the head of the anticonscription movement, says:—" It says much for the forbearance of the British people that so little protest is made by the public against this action, which raises an issue of tremendous gravity. It j foes far deeper than a mere question of the expediency of enforcing military ser- i vice on Irishmen. It is nothing less, at j the bottom, than the old claim of a powerful religious organisation to defy the law of the land in a matter which is not even remotely religious. The responsibility of the Irish Catholic bishops is incalculably serious, and must not be forgotten. In throwing down a challenge to the Imperial Parliament the Roman hierarchy has done far more than repeat their old obscure interruption as individuals in the Home Rule controversy. They have openly assumed the right to interfere as a church in politics, and so doing- they have shaken to its foundations the whole edifice of re- I ligious toleration in these islands." !