IRISH LOYALTY.

New Zealand Tablet, 1 July 1915, Page 45

IRISH LOYALTY.

To the Editor. Sir,With satisfaction and pride I read your merited castigation of the Christchurch Press, and then congratulated our community in their possession of a champion like the old Tablet. The cause of the hubbub in the editorial sanctum in the City of the Plains was the objection raised by the Irish Parliamentary Party to the appointment of Mr. J. IT. Campbell to the position of Irish Lord Chancellor. Sir Edward Carson’s appointment, the London Daily Chronicle termed ‘ a deplorable scandal,’ but Mr. Campbell’s suggested appointment merited severer condemnation— it was ‘ a deplorable outrage.’ To the former appointment the Irish Party, so far as the cable news goes, made no objection, but the limit was reached when it was sought to impose Mr. Campbell upon the Irish people in such' a high and important office as the Lord Chancellorship. His ability, energy, and eloquence are unquestionable, and these qualifications, when put to the uses to which the member for Dublin University generally applied them, made him at once objectionable to the majority of his countrymen both inside and outside of Parliament. When a pane of glass was broken in the window of a house in an obscure village in Ireland, a policeman’s helmet knocked off, a hayrick burned, a cattle drive carried out, an agent boohed at, a process-server barred—in fact, when any of the countless items in the litany of ! offences ’ against the law in Ireland, whether real or imaginary, occurred, Mr. J. IT. Campbell, like a sleuthhound, pounced upon it? Under his dexterous hand they were catalogued, and presented a formidable array. From public platforms in Great Britain, and in the House of Commons, these vile charges were delivered with eloquence and forensic skill. Clever lawyer that Mr. Campbell is, he invariably dealt in generalities, rendering himself immune from that nemesis which has now happily overtaken him. His mission in life appeared to be to brand the people of Ireland as lineal descendants of Cain, and worthy imitators of the more modern Bill Sykes; in other words, to verify the opinion, so elegantly expressed by his former political chief, Lord Salisbury, who described the Irish people ‘as a nation of hottentots.’ In the House of Commons on one occasion Mr. Campbell as particularly offensive to the people of Ireland, and quoted largely from his prepared statistics. On Mr. Campbell resuming his seat, one of the Irish members stood up, and said : ‘ Mr. Speaker, what has fallen from the Bight Hon. Member for Dublin University just now concerning the Irish people, together with his fondness for such statistics, will be discounted in this country, and by this House, when I inform them that this persistent calumniator of Ireland and the Irish people is the son of an Irish policeman.’ On another occasion in the House of Commons, his hatred of his countrymen brought about, at the hands of his, own constituents, a humiliation at once severe as well as merited. It was when the last Home Rule Bill was in Committee of the House. Eager for its mutilation, Mr. Campbell moved that ‘ Trinity College shall be excluded from the operations of the Better Government of Ireland Bill.’ Mr. Asquith with reluctance accepted the amendment, while Mr. John Redmond, with evident emotional regret, concurred with the Prime Minister. Mr. Campbell had inserted the dagger, and the Tories roared with delight. When the news reached Trinity College, the then Provost and his professorial colleagues, Unionists though they were, declined to be divorced from the Irish Parliament, and at once directed their indefatigable, though blind partisan member, to withdraw his amendment, which, to the discomfiture of his friends and the delight of his political adversaries,' he was compelled to do. This, then, is the gentleman to whom the Irish Party objected when it was sought

to impose him upon Ireland as its Lord Chancellor. To have permitted the appointment would have been a dereliction of duty by the Irish Party, and an outrage on the feelings of those whom that party represents. Like many other Irishmen of days that are gone, Mr. Campbell preferred the plaudits, and good opinions of those who would rule Ireland, not according to Irish ideals, but according to the ideals of the dukes and the lords. Mr. Campbell, like those foolish Irishmen of old, will assuredly learn, as they did, that no greater recompense can be bestowed upon, a public man than to know that he lives and survives in the great, generous hearts of his people. — am, etc., M. J. She ah an. Auckland.