THE PROPOSED RIVAL IRISH MISSIONS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 26, 27 March 1891, Page 31

THE PROPOSED RIVAL IRISH MISSIONS.

(Sydney Freeman's Journal, March 14.)

The most deplorable consequence of Mr. Paruell'a " rash and fatal course" and the gravest charge for which soms day he will be held to account is the division it has caused, not only in the Irish Parliamentary party, but amongst Irishmen themselves. la tin face of the common enemy Ireland is divided to-day into two hostile camps, fighting or preparing to fight each other more fiercely than they ever did together the common foe. That battle, we suppose, is now inevitable. The desperate lost leader has put his " last cast upon the hazard of this die," the coming general election, aad it will be fought out on every hustings in Ireland to the bitter end. There is neither help no hope for it. The fast vial of Ireland's wrath, it seems, has haß not yet beea opened, and she must pass to liberty, if she piss at all, through the flame of civil war. It was natural, doubtless, that, entering upon such aa issue, both eide9 should look to their countrymen beyond the seas for sympathy and aid, and hence no soonor had we heard that the one side were sending out delegates to Australia to claim both, than we also heard that they would bz followed by delegates from the other, with the same object. It was sad that tbe day should ever come when any visitors from Ireland to Australia should have to be told that they were not welcome, or rather — for welcome of course these visitors would be for themselves in any case have to be asked to defer their visit, but iv this case it was imperative. We may all have our individual opinions on the question that is now rending Irishmen in Ireland, but it is preposterous to say that there is or ought to be anything like the same strojg feeling on either side amongst Irishmen in Australia, or if there were that it should be permitted to be worked upon by rival emissaries from both sides till there might be tsvo hostile Irish camp 3 also on Australian ground, and a happy unanimity which has done much both for itself and for Ireland be broken up for ever. And there are others than Irish Australians concerned ; there are the whole Australian people. Surely their sympathy for Ireland has gone out strongly enough while yet there was but one Ireland asking their aid. Should they now be asked to put their hands into both pockets for two Irelands or Bee their country made the battlefield of two rival Irish parties, as if in very mockery of their former generosity / No, these things should not be, and so it was a wise and a patriotic act on the part rof the National Leagues both of Sydney and Melbourne at once to telegraph home countermanding, bo to speak, the proposed missions from either side, though whether their good advice will be acted upon is, perhaps, doubtful. A similar course was taken at a meeting of several of the Australian Bishops the other day at Moss Vale, when in view of the serious disunion likely to arise in the ranks of IrishCatholics and for the guidance of their flocks in this crisis, they unanimously resolved, while expressing every sympathy with the National cause, " not to extend their support to the representatives of either of th» rival parties, so long as the present unhappy differ-

ences remain unsettled in Ireland." Unquestionably this should be tbe coarse of all Irish-Australianß in this crisis— whatever their opinions as to the rival parties, beyond their free expression an absolute neutrality. The battle of which the stake ib the Irish cause mast be fought out on Irish ground by Irishmen. Here we can be but onlookers, deeply interested, but neither called upon to interfere nor competent, unless, indeed, we choose to make ourselves ridiculous and matters worse than they art by falling out and fighting amongst ourselves. The one service Irishmen here can do Ireland in this extremity is to keep themselves together, free from this wretched quarrel, reserving and husbanding their means effectually to aid her when she shall once more be free from it herself.