REDMOND'S "RACKET."

NZ Truth, Issue 111, 3 August 1907, Page 7

REDMOND'S "RACKET."

Jarrow Jettisons a Redmondite. THE STORY OF THE JARROW BUSINESS. Devlin's West Belfast Seat Endangered.

Some weeks ago we commented, m an article entitled "Redmond's Rotters," on the folly,, or worse, of the Redmondites m- "running a so-called "Nationalist' Labor" candidate against Pete Curran, the Irish Labor candidate at Jarrow. As the' cablegrams have since shown, Pete Curran went, with a bound, to the top of the poll. In the course of a "scene" m the House of Commons, before the election had taken place, Mr M. Joyce,, one of the Redmondites, said, "We shall show you what Irishmen can dp at Jarrow." Irishmen 'did show what they could do .; for very many of them contemptuously disregarded the Redmondite, and voted for Pete Curran. The Redmondites irritated the best British friends of Irish Home Rule, the Labor members, by running a .Redmondite for Jarrow ; and they caused the Labor party— which had hitherto ■; ■ . VOTED AGAINST CORBETT'S BILL for the appointment of a commission to take evidence as to the alleged need for the inspection of monastic and conventual institutions — to vote for the first reading of this Billentirely as an act of retaliation for the Redmondite opposition to Fete Curran at Jarrow. It now appears, that there is a danger of the Redv mondite's Jarrow caper causing Devlin to lose his seat for West Belfast. The London "Clarion" for June 14 says :— ■ ' • ■•■ ■ At a special meeting of the Belfast I. L. P. on Tuesday last a resolution condemning Nationalistopposition to Pete Curran, and callin^ upon Irishmen m the Jarrow Division to work and vote for him, was unanimously passed. • Joseph t . ( . . DEVLIN OWES HIS ELECTION ■ for Vv'est Belfast to Labor support.. In the event ,of opposition to Cur-' ran being persisted m, it was decided that the. brunch should offer strenuous opposition to Devlin's reelection. ■ The "CLirion" had no little to do with the success of Pete Curran, for it issued a special election number, which was distributed -from' houss to house, and which contained the following article on the Jarrow contest :— The United Irish League at Newcastle have decided to nominate a "Nationalist Labor" candidate for Jarrow, where- the Irish vote is said to be betwe.h three, and four thousand. , There will, 'therefore, be four candidates for the electorate to choose from— Mr Rose Inncs, who stands for the Sacred Rights of Property ; Mr Spencer Leigh Hughes, the champion of Manchester economics and '. oolwich discharges ; Pete Curran, AN IRISH HOME RULER, of alert intelligence, . fiery ; energy, and unflinching courage, who has spent his life m fighting for Labor ; and— a "Nationalist Labor" candidate ! We shall not imitate the traditional Liberal attitute towards Labor by "questioning" the right of the Irish League to shape its political , course m its own way. . Nor have we occasion to echo" the customary Liberal maxim that, "half a loaf with us is better than no bread," for, m the matter of , Ireland's ' claims, Pete Curran is more Irish Ihan the Irish, and THAN MR REDMOND HIMSELF. Indeed, the real difference between Pete. Curran and the "Nationalist Labor" nominee is that the : former demands more for Irish La--1 bor than the latter. He claims for the mass of the Irish workers, not only the" right to govern their country, but also the right to own it. Peter Curran'. points out to the Irish workers of Jarrow that their English fdlow-warkers .already possess the privilege of Home Rule. And he asks THE IRISH WORKERS to consider what it avails the English wqrker to have . a ParliaT ment of their own, while their land, their houses, and the very tools they work with, belong to grasping, grinding exploiters of their labor. , ■ The English workers have their own Parliament, ' but thousands of their best are driven to emigrate yearly. The English workers have Home Rule, yet there is m England always an army « of. workers for whom there is no work. Even assuming, that the cstab-

lishment of a Parliament at College Green produced an awakening; of Irish trade and industry— which is BY NO MEANS SUREwhat would the mass of the Irish workers gain by the building of hideous factories m the sweetest spots of their beautiful country, by making an lrwe.ll of the Shannon, a Jarrow of Skibbereen, or a Woolwich of Killarney ? When the trees refuse to grow m the groves of _ Jlallow, when the green meadows of Tipperary are paved with ashes, when the laughing waters of Kenmare are filled with gloom, grime, and stench, when the sweet skies of Wicklow have grown slatey and sullen, when Bandon and Clonmel are poisoned with smoke and fog, when Queenstown Harbor is filled with hungry swarms of Polish and Russian immigrants, and the grasping Limerick land agent has given place to the grinding Jewish sweater-. WHAT WILL BE THE GAIN to the peasantry of Ireland ? ; The discharged expert workers from the Woolwich Arsenal are worse oft than the poorest Irish farmer on the bleakest of the Kerry hills under the harshest of rack-renting landlords. The poor' slaves of l he cities of Great Brit--1 am—t welve millions living, according to the Prime Minister, on the borders of starvation— have all that Home Rule implies, and yet ( their lives sicken and droop under a weary load of squalor, wretchedness, and want. I have seen poverty m the MUD HUTS OF COUNTY CLARE, but every day as the South-end train crosses the East-end of London, I catch glimpses through sarret windows of misery more appaling than the worst I saw m Ireland. Whitechapel has Home Rule. Is Wliitechapel, then, the Promised Land to which Irit-h reformers aro steering ? Is Wliitechapel an ideal to work for and fight for ? Nay, 'we will bring the qestion nearer home to the Irish workers of Tyneside : Is Jarrow the sort of "little heaven below" they want Ireland to become ? Jarrow stands m a country that' enjoys the blessings of Home Rule. Is it not clear to the IRISH WORKERS OF TYNESIDE that their social salvation needs something better than Jarrow ? Is it not evident to them that what they need is precisely the same that their English fellow-workers need— security of tenure m work, decent conditions of life, enjo3rment of the fruits of • their own labor ? These are the ideals for which Pete Curran stands. He stands for Home Rule and more, thfia Home Rule. He stands for the Right to Work, the Right to. Live, the Right of the People to their own country! • HIS IDEA OF HOME RULE is not Mr Birrell's "Home Rule with a string on it" ; nor Mr Redmond's "self-government which will •give the Irish people complete control of their domestic affairs"; but Home Rule which would rid Ireland of those snakes, the exploiters of her toil and sufferings, 1 and, m short, give Ireland to the Irish. Pete Curran won ,by a majority oi 768 votes, and there is no doubt that every one of those votes was an Irish vote. The fuir figures are as follows :— P. Curran .... 4698 P. Rose Innes (Conserva- • tlve) ..... 3930 Hughes (Liberal) 3474 O'Hanlon (Rcdmondite) 2124