A REAL IRISH GRIEVANCE.

Taihape Daily Times, 20 February 1918, Page 6

A REAL IRISH GRIEVANCE.

A REAL IRISH GRIEVANCE. 30,000 SHIRKERS FROM ENGLAND j SEEKING “MOUNTJOY DIET.” . ‘ The following witty and illuminating article is from the pen of Canon James Hannay (“George A. Birmingham”), the famous Irish novelist and playwright: — Ireland has a grievance, genuine this time, and, a very rare thing, the Government is not responsible. In fact, the blame rests on the shoulders of the Sinn Peiners, the Government s most implacable enemies. What evil spirit induces Mr. de Valera and his friends to advertise Ireland just now? No one was taking any notice of us until-"they drew attention to us by rebelling and making picturesque speeches. Now the country is flooded with the whole world has hearu. about us. It is a great pity. We could have gone oh very well as we were. We are not compelled to be soldiers. "Ws have more food than any other country in Europe, We can say pretty nearly anything we like. We smile at the restrictions of personal liberty which -worry other people but do not affect

Then, like fools, we drew public attention to our Unfortunate position. The inevitable result followed at once. Englishmen began to come over here in large numbers. It is estimated that there are now 30,000 of them in Ireland, young men with good appetites. We do not want them. They are filling up our houses, eating our food, and corrupting our morals. But the original blame does not rest witn the Government. We ourselves —or the Sinn Feiners among us—practically invited these people to come here. If we had not fussed on until we got ourselves into the newspapers the English would never have known that Ireland was the one country in Europe for people who hate fighting and like eating.

But that is not the whole of our grievance against Sinn Fein. Not content with advertising Ireland, a prominent Sinn Feiner has now given away our most cherished secret. We knew* but nobody else did, how prisoners are fed in Mountjoy Prison. Mr. Joseph McDonagh, emerging from Dundalk Gaol, gave an interview to a reporter, which, of course, was published. He said that an oflicer of the Prisons Board has offered the prisoners in Dundalk “Mountjoy Diet.” He offered it apparently, as a concession. The prisoners, like self-respecting men, demanded it a s a right. “If the Government,” Mr McDonagh is reported to have said, “wished to keep them in prison against their will, they ought to provide them with the food necessary to keep them in good health.’ ’ Of course they ought. But why publish the menu? That is where Mr McDonagh made his mistake. The “Mountjoy Diet” provides an egg for breakfast, one and'a-half pounds of bread during the day, ten ounces of meat, a pint of porridge, two pints of tea, a pound of potatoes, butter twice a day, and two and a-halr pints of milk. So Mr. McDonagh told the interviewer. Nobody grudges the food to him or his friends. If they are kept in prison against their will they ought to get that" and more. But consider the effect of these revelations. I am not thinking for the moment of all the babies in Dublin who are badly in want of milk. They, poor things, are not old enough to carry hurley sticks through the streets or do anything else which would get them into Mountjoy Prison, They may die, but they will not complicate the situation. The real trouble is the Englishmen in Ireland, those thirty thousand—if there are thirty thousand. They know now, thanks to Mr. McDonagh’s expansiveness, that they have nothing to do but get into gaol in order to enjoy the “Mountjoy Diet,” won for them, not by their own exertions, but by the desperate hunger strikes of our Sinn

Feiners. Think of the amount of Inconvenience which will be caused by thirty thousand Englishmen all trying to get sent to prison' at once! And fEey will do it. Each one of them ifiust Commit a crime, ' political or other. 'Otherwise he cannot be arrested. And we, poor Irish, will have to endure the things these men do. Our police, magistrates and judges will be overworked Our gaols will get crowded. We shall probably have to enlarge them at great expense. There will not be room in them for us when we want to go to prison ourselves. It is most unfair.