The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1919. THE IRISH REBELS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 11760, 20 February 1919, Page 4

The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1919. THE IRISH REBELS.

IN producing the appearance of an united people, the Irish rebels have outwitted themselves. The unanimity is too prunoucced Even those who began by having some sympathy with nationalist aspirations now reflect that if “when they do agree on the stage, their unanimity is wonderful”; a similar unanimity off the stage is only attained by terrorism. There must be a difference of opinion on many poin'iS.and unless we hear a minority speaking freely, we cmciude that there is a minority which finds i t safer to be dumb.

And, indeed, one would he sorry to think that there was not a large minority of Irish who resented the insults to their country and their church coming from the loud-voiced majority. Ireland has taken her part in the glorious history of the British Empire; she has supplied thousands of our bravest soldiers, and many cf our greatest generals. The Sian Fein wish to divorce her from her glorious past in which tbey had no share: the Irish who ought for the Empire are to be looked upon as slavish minions of English tyranny; Ireland’s William Telia are the men who mcim cattle, get lire to farm-houses, and shoot i

men they dislike from behind hedges. Or rather Ireland’s heroes are to he the men who incite others to these crimes, while themselves avoiding the risks incidental to such deeds of violence. One is glad to believe that many Insfamen are loth to renounce snch glory and embrace such infamy. Probably nothing to-day is creating such a prejudice against the Roman Church as the Irish question. English Protestants had begun io outlive that distrust of £the Papacy in which their ancestors were bred. But from how many people one hears that the priests are at tne hack of the Nationalist movement! Ireland consists of a well-to-do, manufacturing and Protestant minority, with a poor, agricultaral Roman Catholic majority. Ask why the Nationalists should demand the inclusion of a determinadly unwilling Ulster —in contravention of their principle of self-government—-and in nine cases out of ten yon will be told pityingly that the case la clear: The priests want the plunder. On the whole it seems a very dangerous thing not to be a proclaimed enemy of these theatrical Irish patriots.