The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 1916. STILL IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 1 June 1916, Page 29

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 1916. STILL IRELAND

, '—- ♦ 1 HE Hardinge Commission is still sitting, but yf {ln'* it has now reached the beginning of the jL» end, and it is not difficult to see what its conclusions are likely to be. . A story is r* told of how an inspector, on one occasion, j&LStg when examining a country school prov tsT- pounded the time-honored question : ‘ Who < discovered America?’ There was dead silence for a time, until at last a trembling urchin whimpered out, ‘Please, sir, it wasn’t me The evidence before the Commission has been all of the ‘Please, sir, it wasn’t -me ’ style. The political side of the Administration has tried to edge the responsibility on to the military, -and. the military authorities have with equal emphasis pushed it back on to tho

politicians ; and the one point on which every witness has been perfectly clear is that it was the other fellow who was to blame. . What is apparent to the public and must ,be so also to . the Commissionis that between them the civil and military authorities have made an appalling mess of things, and that in the face of the most open and palpable warnings. More than a month before the rebellion was launched an article appeared in a Dublin Sinn Fein paper. The Gad , entitled ‘ The Work Before Us,’ of which. the following is a portion: ‘The time has come for a, strong and determined offensive against all the entrenchments of the enemy in this country. The effects of such, an offensive will be •far-reaching. ... It will cause an upheaval at home, the news of which will quickly reach our captured brethren abroad. If they have a trace of patriotism in their veins, and many of them have, they will not help the enemy that is shooting down their kith and kin at home. . • . ' . The longer we delay, the better it - is for our enemies. They want no disturbance in Ireland, and will we help in their desire ? ' Defeat in Ireland means more for the enemy than any defeat she may sustain in Flanders or elsewhere. We are here at her very heart, and injuries to the heart are of more consequence than injuries to any other part of the body. Will we strike the decisive blow, or are we afraid to do so lest the enemy reply with another. ... If we want the revolution, we must make it, and we must realise that such cannot be accomplished without bloodshed. We are at war, and war justifies the removal of our enemies in the most expeditious mariner. . , . Either we or they must fall in the fight.’. After such a clear and undisguised intimation of what was coming, it is to the lasting discredit of the Irish Administration that anything in the nature of a concerted rebellion should have been possible—and the Commission will doubtless plainly say so.

A feature of interest in the later evidence given before the. Commission is the, correction which it makes in regard to the alleged attitude of the Irish clergy towards the Sinn Fein movement. At an earlier sit-, ting of thev Commission Mr. Birrell is reported as having said: ‘The constabulary reports enable us to form a correct estimate for each locality. These vary much according to the character of the priests. If the priests are anti-Sinn Feiners, Sinn Feinism dies out, but if the clergy foster Sinn Feinism, it is promoted and extended. He did not care to say how many turbulent priests there were, but there was a considerable number.’ Apart altogether from the evidence given at the Commission the attitude of the Irish clergy t has also been misrepresented in some of our New Zealand papers. Thus the Dannevirke Evening News , in its issue of May 2, after taking an altogether exaggerated view as to the extent of the rebellion, went the length of declaring that ‘the' clergy are , almost as divided as the Irish people,’ and made the further statement that the Bishop of Limerick, Dr. O’Dwyer, flattered the hopes of the Sinn Feiners ’ —the reference being, presumably, to Dr. O’Dwyer’s Lenten Pastoral. Such a statement is absolutely and wholly incorrect. The aim and intention of Dr. O’Dwyer’s Pastoral is in precisely the opposite direction. He denounces the motives of all the belligerentsas. being, in greater or less degree, those of aggrandisement—and warns the Governments of all the great Powers of the danger of a social upheaval in Europe after the noise of battle shall have died down. His object is not to foment social upheaval but to prevent it, by persuading the belligerents to hearken to the Pope’s repeated appeal for peace. One may or may not agree with Dr. O’Dwyer’s view as to the feasibility; of a peace settlement at the present time, but it is a gross misrepresentation of his position to suggest that he has the faintest sympathy with the gospel of strife by whomsoever it may be preached. With regard to Mr. Birrell’s evidence, we may observe: (1) That it was given under ‘ severe cross-examination,’ when.his words could not be so carefully weighed and measured as in hia written statement. (2) His expression, * a con-

siderable number —used in reference to the disaffected priests—is in the last degree vague and indefinite, and may mean anything from a score to one or two hundred. (3) If Mr. JBirrell really knew how many ‘turbulent priests ’ there were— there is a strong presumption that he did —it is greatly to be regretted that he did not give the figures, and sd- enable his statement to be checked. (4) All our information on the subjectderived from priests who have recently arrived from Ireland—goes, to show that Sinn Fein sympathy amongst the clergy, in regard to the later developments of the movement, is strictly confined to a handful of the younger priests. This has now been made clear by the later statements .made before the Commission. ‘Evidence given at the Hardinge Commission,’ says a cable in Monday’s papers, ‘ set out that although some of the younger priests sided with the Sinn Feiners; the great bulk were opposed to the movement.’ * With regard to The proposals for a change of government in Ireland the cables do not . carry us any further, except to indicate that, under the tactful direction of Mr. Lloyd George, the parties to the settlement are being brought together, and that, while for the immediate present a Provisional Government may be established, the ultimate solution will be along the lines of Home Rule. That, as we pointed out last week, is the only possible permanent solution. All shades of political opinion, we are told, are hopeful of a settlement being arrived at. Certainly the principles upon which negotiations ought to proceed are simple enough. Satisfy, so far as may be, the national aspirations of the Irish people ; give them scope and opportunity to frame and execute laws in conformity with their wants and their legitimate desires seek to unite the contending Irish factions for these great ends and the real Union which will result will confound the enemies of the Empire, and will usher in that era of peace, good-will, and common sense for which oppressed and persecuted Ireland has labored— and suffered long.