DISCORD IN IRELAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18275, 16 December 1922, Page 1 (Supplement)

DISCORD IN IRELAND.

THE FUTILITY OF FORCE.

BY MATANOA.

Some mystery attaches to the harp that appears on Irish flags. Three golden crowns were used once, on both Irish emus and bunting, as the national badge. Henry VIII. changed the three crowns for a harp—many a king in even later days would have been glad to forego his one last crown for the chance to go aminstreling.

Why Henry made the exchange has never been explained; perhaps the most feasiblo explanation is that, having been presented with a harp supposed to have belonged to Brian Boru, he put a representation of this relic on the coins in order to honour the ancient chieftain's memory. Incidentally, it may be said that the Tudor King was misled about that particular harp—he was more experienced in selecting a prima donna for the court than in collecting instruments for an orchestra: it has turned out to be "brummagem" made later than the fourteenth century. Another explanation was put forth by a certain Earl of Northampton, who wrote in James I.'s time—"Tho best reason that I can observe for the bearing thereof is, it resembles that country in being such an instrument that it requires more cost to keep it in tune than it is worth."

The noble ear], being a mere Englishman living in a time when a Scots King had found England an easy victim in a bargain, should perhaps not be taken too seriously. His stricture is simply another injustice to Ireland. Nobody can reasonably contend, in the light of history, that Ireland is not worth owning, whatever may be the case with a harp. Have not all tho centuries shown that Ireland is rather a possession in <reat demand? For even an acre or two of the green isle men have fought to the death. Landlords have always been more or less a grievance, because all the other folk wanted to be landlords. Tho lave has never been mora than nine-tenths of possession in Irish land; there has ever been a risk of a vulgar fraction of those interested, operating with a shot-gun or an eviction writ, dispossessing tho ostensible owner. So much worth owning has this country been thought that wealthy Americans, not usually mistaken about land values, have paid big sums to get little bits of it for taking away; the Giant's Causeway, for instance, has evoked keen competition among such bidders. Different Tastes in Government. As for keeping in tune, there are wide>different tastes in music. You will not get a Scotsman and a Fijian to agree about it, nor a classicist and a vxuueviUist—or should it be a vaudevillain? What is one man's music is another man's discord. A visiting chief of some cannibal island was treated in England to a programme of orchestral selections, and was given a choice, at the end of the programme, of a piece for repetition. Ho was understood to "request" the first selection. It was played again. His disappointment was oovious; he was even displeased. It transpired that he wanted, for his encore, the timing up with which the performance began. So with government. It is a. matter of taste.

Many folk's idea of good government is merely the keeping of other folk in their plac*. We have made free in these days with such words as "monarchy," "republic," 1 ".democracy," "autonomy," "home rule," without being very scrupulous over their precise meanings. Some of them have been robbed of precise meaning, so variable have been our points of view. To a typical socialist, government is incomplete without absolute ownership of "the means of production, distribution and exchange;" that is to make it one with property. To Mr. Bernard Shaw, property. and lawlessness are identical. fo a Bolshevik, government is the dragooning of people into subjection. To an Irishman, seemingly, any sort of dragoon is an enemy of his kind, and ought to have no say at all in government To bs " agin the government " is not, however, for an Irishman the same as being against government. He is law-loving, but he instinctively objects to have law forcefully imposed on him; and when anv semblance of forcible rule appears he will die, even by his own hand in a hunger strike, rather than yield. You can drive a horse to tho water, but you can't make him drink. You can't drive an Irishman, even to whisky. A Settlement Under Suspicion. To-day's trouble in the " distressful country " arises from the suspicion of many Irishmen that the settlement reached by the Government of Ireland Act is one that somebody or other is forcing on them. " Consent by the governed" has been the watchword of Ireland in all negotiations for tfliat settlement. "On the basis of the broad guiding principle of government by the consent of the governed," ran an outstanding phrase in one of! the official communications of leading Irishmen to the British Prime Minister last year. Again and again the point has been made. This has mattered much more than trifles like peace and happiness. Better to gallop to hell without bit and bridle than to be driven to heaven with curb and kicking strap. To be free to do what one likes is, on this view, worth infinitely more than to like what one does. In the pacification of Ireland, force has been, and will be, unavailing. It may desolate the land, but it cannot win its peoplel In a crisis, as an expedient to protect interests suddenly jeopardised, it may have justification—that is the utmost that can be said in favour of a policy of military repression; but, as part of a studied scheme of government, force is futile. Drogheda's garrison, put ruthlessly to death by Cromwell, has come to life ajrain and again in a long succession of defiant patriots. In our time we have seen the Dail Eireann under ban, its members nearly all in gaol, and martial law burning and slaying with extreme seventy. Yet the Republicans, meeting force with force, destroyed courthouses and barracks and killed police and soldiers in desperate resistance. Balbriggan was demolished, the heart of Cork was burnt, Belfast was made awful by faction fights', and murder was so rife as to horrify the world. Who began it was not worthy of discussion; who was primarily to blame hardly mattered. Somebodv's gauntlet was down —there was nothing for it but to fight. ». The Way to Feace. How different was the effect of the King's plea, when opening the Ulster Parliament, to " all Irishmen to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and forget and join in making for the land which you all love a new era of peace and contentment and goodwill." That was the word to reach an Irish heart. It opene r ] the way for conference and understanding. The understanding is not yet complete. It will not be, s* long as there remains an Irishman unconvinced that his co-operation, and not his subdual, is being sought. When that conviction is universal, —it will come with a continuation by the Free State Government of tho patient policy that other Britishers of late have favoured—lrishmen will wonder why the difference between a Republic and Dominion status was the subject of any pother at all. and laugh at themselves for insisting so fiercely on being left to mate their own arrangements to fight other lout.