REDMOND'S "ROTTERS":

NZ Truth, Issue 106, 29 June 1907, Page 1

REDMOND'S "ROTTERS":

PINCHBECK PARNELI.S POSTURE AND PRATE.

The cablegrams puKjshea In the , N.Z. Press- relating to'i-Irish anairs | make it clear that the position o£ tto true friends of Irish Nationalism •is one that is 'gloomy and forbidding. .There is m power again, m England, the-Li'beral-PariKy,, the party of hypocrisy and of paiidering to Puritanical .": sects of "No Popery" fanatics ; and , the party of the Irish people is led, > not Jby a nian i of tSi© political -genius Vof Charles Stewart Parnell, but by v a man like John Redmond, a_ man who is, every day, proving himself more ahd inore,:out of touch with' tbe best National el.sments among the Irish people "both, at Home and abroad, and who is also, most lamentably lacking m that tact, m that kn.qwdedg«! of men, and of the hidden springs vOt^heir conduct, -that made 'Parnell so'grsat and dreaid'Dd v apower. As to how much Redmond has ' : blundered,: or worse, fet the facts show. r Hs entered into a sort of alliance witil-'the Liberal Party., m vgpite d f the fact that the leading). 1 members, of that party were bitterly opposed C to. : legislative, dudepepience for Ireland \ aad, what is more, as 1 one of the consequences of this somewhat mysterdoiiß alliance, he actually supppxted—and declared, m his CApVca'ity i ."as a represientative of the "'lrish people, that Irishmen would ac--cep-t—the wretched abortion called the 'Irish Council Bill, as outrageous and odioUs-ii travesty of Home Rule as -r-fias ever been attempted to be foist,ed upon the people of Ireland by, the sinister sctkorers of Ddwmingrstreet and. Dublin Castle. What the Irish i>eople, as distingu'tsbed from the. political carpet-Jbaggers and perpetual' parasites' of Irish politics;, really *hink of this pretehdedi and • hypocritical alleged '•'instalment of Home Rule" from the party of Hypocrisy is shown by the fact that the National Convention m Dublin absolutely ren ♦jected the Bill, and ;that the British Government, thus finding that it is " unable to humbug the Irish people with such an .abominable abortion, has, consaciuently, abandoned the Bill. ■ ''.': l .*.■■■ ' .* ' • * ■ Thus .we see, that, not onlyi has ■Redmondr. played the fool T>y : accepting on. behalf of the Irish people a measure .rejected by the' people of 3relanij,' and their real representatives — as distinguished, from the political 1 parasites that persistently knd pestilently attach themselves to the cause for which Irish patriots have fought and laid -d&wn their lives—but they have also Adopted tactics likely to alienate from Ireland's cause an extremely large and powerful foody Qf electors m -Great Britain, body that is growing, and is certain to I • continue to . grow; aM that is. more favourably disposed towards the political demands i>f Irish Nationalists than the members of any .other piolitioal pafty v m Gireat Britain. We w ier to the.memibers of theLahox Par,tv, which entered the arena of politics at the 1 ast British . election -with much dramatic effect., '••■.' ■ » « (As we have ! formerly, .pointed 1 ou^ \ m these columns, the | Redmondites have seldom manMested any sympathy with' the movement for the amelioration :of the. lot of the toiling iWage-earnier to which Irishmen m tAustrala'siaiaflid 1 m other countries give much valuable support. Michael Dajvitt, alone, ha^ distinguished himseK by raising his voice on behalf' of the shockingly, oppressed Irish laborer, iwho, m .Ireland^ is m quite as wretched a condition as the farm laborer of any other country. All Redmond and Company. have appeared to want is an Irish Parliament— an excellent, ffraiseworthy, ana patriotic thing m Itself : but if that Parliament were packed with peasant farmers who, regarded it as %i perfectly proper thing to plunder and oppress their laborers or with shark-solicitors who found tltalt a profession patriotism i"paid," or with political limpets of tee Redmond type, Redmond's ideal would, -apparently, be realised. This sort oi th^ng. however, does not excite the enthusiasm of men Hke.Lar " bor-memljter CiGrady, or like Laborcandidate Pete Curraaii * ■ • ,;■■* , ■ Tt 'ia -regard - ffco tKe caaiiuaiaa* ' [ture of Pete Curran . that Redmond and- his Bourgeois backers tare recently most badly blundered. 'This t Pete Curran is said to b« a caodTidate J^ftt^arro^v and was a candidate at *>mst .general el«cfcio% winm lie

polled an exceedingly large voi& a-, gainst the successful. Tory candidate. This time his candidature would al-. most certainly be successful, and his election- would be a gain to the oausti of Irish Nationalism; for there is not a firmer friend of ; legislative independence for Ireland than .Pete Curran. What, then, have the Redmondites done ? Have they advised the Nationalists of Jarrow to vote for Pete Cur ran ? Nothing of the sort. They, have put up" a Refrmondite candidate, 'who cannot win, and the only .result of whose candidature wall! be to put m power a Tory instead of the Nationalist Pete Curran. . It is not surprising that this . is looked [upon by many' Nationalists, and by the entire -body of Labor'eflectors, as ja. dastardly blow by political Tamimamyates and bbodlers at their own [friends' and thieir own causo. Possibly people like William O'Brden., one of tlie best of latter-day Irish Nationalists, are beginning *to ask whether this' timely assistance to Toryism is being rendered as the result of an equally ' timely .'hypothetical gift, to the funds of i'he Redmond Tammaayites.j The immediately prejudicial ; effieot of this Jiarrow move is seen m the passing- through the House of Comn mons of the Tory Coribeitt's Bill for the appointment of a Commission 'to inspect monastic and conventional institutions. This has been regarded as an Orange and Tory move, to annoy Catholics, and, m particular, those Catholics who had devoted tbsmselraes to a purely religious- life. The members of the British. Labor . Par^y had, therefore, voted! against the Bill. Aftei? the conduct of the Redmondites With regard to Jarrow, however, ths Labor Party determined to punish them, and they voted solidly for Corbett's Bill. For thds the Redmondites ought to i<blame nobody but themselves and their conduct at Jarrow, but, instead of this, they pretended: to be shocked and indignant at the conduct of certain Liberals, who, probably because they • sympathised * with the Labor Party, and reprobated the . Jarrow business,' voted, for the first time, for Corbett's Bill. Themenvbißr for Clare (Mr W. H. K. Redmond) said .- "That ends the Liberal alliance," and similar interjections were made by other vociferous ' members of the Redmond faction.] ■'.»•■ •'• .■ ■ ''•"Thai; ends the Liberal alliance," indeed ! This' "allaanoe" is one that should never -have been entered into, and that .has reflected discredit upon every Irishman connected therewith.. A) pretty fellow is John 'Redmond, ob any of the Redmonds, to prate of •following m the footsteps of the great 'Parnell •!( Had Par-hell been offered such a thing as. the Irish Council Bill we should not have had him getting up m the House of Commons,, and- on behalf of the Irish Party,,proclaiming that the people of Ireland would accept the Bill : we should haive seem Parnell contemptuously throw the,. Bill m ike faces of the | Liberal wire-pullers. There should have been nothin©*approacliing to an alliance with the Liberal Party until it was clear that the Liberal Party was determined to carry, through both Houses of the Imperial , Parliament, a Bill providing for real Homo Rule for the people of Ireland^ m ' * ■■..*'. There. is,, as .we.nave •mentioned, considerable dissatisfaction among Irishmen m Ireland and m America with the policy and personnel of the Redmond faction. Many, Irishmen are beginning to believe that there is more m the policy of the Sinn Fein party than m that of the Redmondites.. The Sinn Fein party— "Sinn Fein" means "for ourselves alone"— are carrying out a policy of encourag!em|eh!t of averything Irish by pledging Irishmen to buy and support only things Irish. With regard; to the . British, the advocates of the "Sinn Fein*/ policy would appear to be desirous of adopting a policy of "leaving them severely alone" until the 'goVierooang of the Irish, people from Downing-str-ept and Dublin Castle shall have become so unprofitable to the bourgeois boodlers running the British Empire, that, merely for the purpose of putting more pelf m their pockets, they will grant legislative independence to the Irish people. This-,may seem Utopian to some people, bu\ appears quite as practicable as the Vattainmenit of

tactics of the Rsdmondites. In the United' States, the -test friends of Irish. Nationalism, the revolutionary; $rj:Sh i: who-iTrADl'graca^have .feefeii '&s&' Most liberal contrihutors pf inen and in'ohey , fdri, the r support- of the" Wish Nation#§ts;" m the British Pailianxeiat, a'^expressihg their disgust with Ke9lhoQdisin. 7 **y^ • ■• ■■■ v; ■■-. •The Ifishj •movsMtfent. must &o purged of the men wh6 are m it merely for what they 1 can "make.'' No propagandum, party, pr organisation ever ■flourished that was composed merelyof ''men on the make." These are not the days of such heroes as Lord Edward- Fitzgerald, Robett Bmmett, and Wolfe Tone, it is tr/ie ; but" if Erin could not produce better men than the Irish,. political 'adventurers Who show themselves xjuite callous to the sufferings of the toiling; wager earners of Ireland, and who, Hlc© Kil--bride of Kildare,', exultantly, predict for. the Britisili people. ; sixteen more, years of Tory rule, .Ireland's /condition wouiti be, indescl, hopeless. . The Irish Nationalists will nev«r succesi. m getting from tjhe - peoplve of Britain the Parliament meatiiig upon College Green that is the '. hope pf every Irish patriot until they have\ the active support and corope'rati oh of the toiling masses of the British . people^