Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 17 May 1917, Page 19

Current Topics

Those Irish A sense of humor is a saving grace nowadays. When we see the plight of those who are without it an ineffable pity touches us. Now it is quite true that outrages of all sorts are detestable. Tyranny is hateful to normal men. The oppression of small nations is a crime that calls for vengeance. But there are in this Dominion a vast number of people, supported by a certain section of the press, who become raging maniacs if we dare to suggest that there should be no special treatment for tyrants. The Y.M.C.A. As .Sir James Allen said, the Y.M.C.A. has done good work for the soldiers, and continues to do it. But Sir James was very much surprised that people who contributed to the new club objected to have it handed over to a sectarian body. For the Y.M.C.A. is a sectarian body notwithstanding its professions. We know from the priest who was chaplain to the Main Expeditionary Force while it was in camp at Awapuni that anti-Catholic pamphlets were offered as reading matter in the Y.M.C.A. tent there. These pamphlets were brought under the chaplain's notice by a young Catholic soldier. In that instance the chaplain had only to call the attention of Colonel Malone to the matter. But if even the possibility of such an offensive procedure exists surely Sir James Allen ought to have no difficulty in seeing that to -a large section of the men the control of the Y.M.C.A. must be objectionable. What the men want is a club. Why not let them have it without taking steps to impair its utility The Welsh Mountebank Lloyd George, of "scrap of paper" fame is attracting some notice by his reckless disregard for truth and honor. Lately John Redmond issued a manifesto to the nations calling their attention to his knavery. The Irish Leader had no hesitation in telling the world that the Premier of England had uttered a tissue of falsehoods. We have at hand an American monthly, strong in support of the Allies. This is what it says concerning the Welshman's perfidy: "England, through her present Prime Minister, has announced that she will not keep faith with Ireland. Lloyd George declared that the present Parliament considers it impossible to impose by force on any section of Ireland a form of government which has not their consent. Coming from such a source there are few sentences in the history of governments more hypocritical. England has not hesitated for centuries to impose with all the physical force and power at her command a form of government to which the vast majority of Ireland, all Ireland one might truly say, never gave its consent."

Hypocrisy in Excelsis The same publication says, " The purpose of the Prime Minister's speech was to give the impression that the whole fault lay with Ireland herself, and that if Ireland would come to an agreement the English Government would grant what she asked. But no one with the slightest knowledge of history will be misled in this way. Ireland is a nation, and as such demands self government." It is the law of England that Ireland should have Home Rule: the Bill is on the Statute Book. And in the face of this crying injustice if we protest, and tell our readers how England is trampling on the rights of humanity in Ireland we are afflicted with "spasms of Anglo-Phobia"! As a matter of fact we do not care two straws for the opinions of papers of the type of the L.O.L. organ, or the Sun, but we think that even to their limited intelligence it might be clear that we do care very much about Ireland, and further, that we have a duty to expose the crimes of England against her at a time

when so much is being made of the rights of small nations. We see clearly that these papers, and the people who batten on their columns, hate Ireland as much as we love her. It is a grand tribute to her that they do. As G. B. Shaw pointed out in the London press, England has exactly the same right in Ireland as Germany has in Belgium; and Irish rebels are as much rebels as the Belgians. This is hard hearing for some people whose blind resentment is the best proof of its truth. They cannot deny it; they revile us instead. Precisely the same thing occurs when we express our views—far too mildly—of the efforts of Elliott to arouse universal hatred against the Catholics of New Zealand. Dignified journals, worthy successors of those who used to refer so beautifully to " Bishop Moran and his Irish pigs," are worth hearing when they rebuke us. Mention of that great bishop reminds us to point out to those who do not specialise either in history or common-sense that he founded this paper to defend religion and the honor of Ireland in days when the cultured and dignified press of New Zealand would not give him a hearing. And we take it as the highest compliment that could be paid to us that one whose scholarship and experience qualify him to speak has told us that we are at present in living continuity with the Tablet of the first Bishop of Dunedin.

Mr. Stead on Belittling our Foes Mr. Stead finds that one of the most extraordinary things about this war is the manner in which many of us consistently belittle our enemies. Even after three years’ proof of the prowess of the Central Powers, correspondents tell us that the enemy cannot shoot, that he is terrified by our bayonets, that he screams in despair when caught by our machine guns, that he holds up his hands and cried Kamerad as soon as our men enter his trenches, that he is under twenty or over fifty, and a very poor specimen of manhood. Moreover, our guns outrange his, we have far more artillery and better shells ; he is ill-fed and so cowardly that he has to be whipped to fight by the officers. If all this stuff served out by our enlightened press is true why is the war not over in face of the undeniable bravery of our own men ? So long as a thing pays truth does not seem to matter. It would be a far greater tribute to our boys to admit candidly that they are fighting against foes worthy of their steel. We recall what the General who was retired from South Africa for telling the truth said on this subject. The following paragraph from the current number of Stead’s bears out the truth of statements ascribed by the yellow press to our anti-British bias; “So many things we have been told about them have later been proved false that anyone who has kept a careful record of these statements now reads all similar reports with the utmost scepticism, and places little credence in the most detailed accounts of the desperate straits to which the enemy forces are reduced, of corpse factories, wild orgies, and the like. . . . Some letters from our troops in France show that they have no illusions on that score. They frankly admit that they have opposed to them a brave, resourceful enemy, and individual fighters every bit as dangerous to meet as an Englishman or an Anzac. It is absurd to belittle the doings of our men by pretending that those they are fighting are their inferiors in those qualities which go to the make-up of a formidable soldier.” What a compliment to the intelligence of their readers papers which publish such stuff as Stead’s alludes to pay.

A Real Achievement We have said, under the inspiration of common sense alone, that it was a mistake to make too much of our taking up the territory from which the Germans had retired; and in defiance of common sense that section of the press which belittles our men consistently by saying that they are fighting against ill-fed, ill-armed cowards, has told us that we minimised the value of the advance. We do not think so— we had no other

reason the assertion of these people who are often proved wrong but never apologise, is warrant enough to induce us to believe that if they contradict us we must be right. But beyond taking over evacuated ground the Allies have now accomplished what cannot be described as anything but splendid results. " The arrival of the Germans at the position prepared by them was followed by a fierce Allied attack against the sections of the German defence at both ends of a new line. Here it was no fight with a retiring foe. It was a real offensive against a furiously resisting enemy who contested every step of the Allied advance. A feature of the advance was the heroism of the Canadians, who are said to have lost 12,000 men in storming Vimy ridge. Two Australian divisions took part in the fight at Lens, where they added new laurels to their crown. At their end the French have been launching tremendous offensives against the enemy, and are forcing their way steadily to Laon. It was between the scenes of these battles that the German line swung back and for the time being disorganised the preparations for an Allied offensive against their old lines. The offensive has been carried out at the ends of the broken line, and the success which crowned it is perhaps the most important the Allies have yet had. It is simply marvellous with what elan the French are fighting after their tireless campaign of three years ; and of their heroic courage and dauntless spirit there can be no question at all. They have eclipsed the proudest records of a nation famous in history for its chivalry and fearlessless. The old omard never rallied round their petit cnpornl more bravely than these men of France, 'hurrying from shops, desks, studios, or farms at the call of the trumpet, have stood to their colors against the most powerful foe that ever marched to battle.

Irish Waterways Reviewing a book by Father Fitzgerald a few days ago we came on an essay on the canals of Ireland which threw open again the long closed gates of dreams—the ivory gate through which enter the dreams that never come true, and the horn gate at which the visions that materialise go in. It was given to us in large measure to know these slow, shining highways of easy traffic which wind between the four seas of Erin, linking the Irish Sea to the Atlantic, and stretching from the Capital to where the breakers of St. George's Channel fling their spray as high as the Hook Light, and then inland through the Golden Vale, past the 'lntact City,' and amid the green fields and fragrant hedgerows of Munster. Few avail themselves of the opportunity for a perfect holiday amid unrivalled scenery afforded by the Irish canals and rivers. The writer has wandered by rivers and among mountains that draw tourists in thousands every year and now when the memory of the lovely Rhineland, and of glorious spring days by Italian lakes, -- and of visits to the old-world cities of Europe fades and grows dim beneath the dust of the passing years the recollections of those days of boyhood—each as long as twenty days are now—keep as green as ever. Through Tipperary and Waterford one may glide by scenes of rare pastoral beauty, passing many a dreamy old Irish town until the grey Norman tower in which the cannon ball fired by Cromwell still clings announces the nearness of Waterford, the Urbs In tact a. Beyond Waterford there is scenery to delight the heart of a poet. Nowhere else in the world is there such pageantry of color as that which autumn lends to the woods which dream above the silver Suir as it broadens to the sea. Who that has ever seen the woods of Faithlegg and Snowhill on an August evening can forget their wonderful scale of greens and golds above the bosom of the river which-winds to the ocean like a chain of lakes stolen from fairyland ? At Checkpoint the majestic remains of the stately Cistercian Abbey of Dunbrody appear on the Wexford shore, and soon after the way leads up the river Barrow, out of Munster into Leinster. Twelve miles from the confluence of the Suir and the Barrow the ancient walled town of New

Ross rests among its wooded hills, its spires and ruins keeping silent ward over the river. A little farther on, the Nore appears, and if you follow it you will soon find yourself surrounded by the romantic beauty of Woodstock, and then, past singing weirs, and quiet towns, and green fields, it will bring you to the City of the Confederation, where the Castle of "Erin's high Ormond " looms above its clear stream. Shortest and shyest of the three sister rivers of Ireland, the Nore*. is the loveliest as well, and one could linger for a life- * time beneath its banks where the old immemorial woods dream above quiet backwaters hardly stirred by the lapsing waters. But the Barrow is the main thoroughfare, and its stream will bring us past the old castle where the most haunting of Irish airs, "Aileen Aruin," was first sung, and by the tomb of the Leinster Kings at St. Mullins, through .Ba<malstown, and Carlow, and Athy, and Portarlingtori, while the scene changes from the wooded hills of the South to the vast plains and open spaces- of the Midlands. The Grand Canal will bring you from the Barrow to Dublin; and from Dublin you can go by the Royal Canal across the breadth of Ireland into the far land of Connacht, where history tells us that Cromwell sent all the Irish whom he did not send farther. And on the Royal Canal you will find scenery that has a charm all its own, unlike anything else in the world. The brown boglands where the white ceannaban grows wild, and above which the lonely call of the plover sounds incessantly reveal secrets of rich color that would enchant an artist. The rivers have their own poets, but William Byrne is the poet of the Midlands. Whenever we open his all-too slender volume of poems we see again the wondrous browns and golds and greens, and the low level skies, and the glorious sunrises and sunsets, of those lonely moors. The sound of the lark above the heath, of the corncrake in the long grass, and of the bell ringing the Angelus comes back to us once more ; and with it the calm and repose of that land loved in the bygone years by that Brigid whose name is music still among the children of Ivildare. Here are a few random verses from the poet into whose heart the charm of these scenes entered in his dreamy boyhood : —• The Purple Heather. The purple heather is the cloak God gave the bogland brown, But man has made a pall of smoke To hide the distant town. Our lights are long and rich in change, Unscreened by hill or spire, From primrose dawn, a lovely range, To sunset's farewell fire.

And we have music, oh, so quaint! The curlew and the plover, To tease the mind with pipings faint No memory can recover. And prayer is here to give us sight To see the purest ends ; Each evening through the brown turf light The Rosary ascends. Homesickness. I long once more to see the bogland dark, The heart's one resting place, , And light again my little cabin spark, And rest me for a space. I cannot bear the look of alien eyes Grown cold with greedy strife The wistful moorcock starting in surprise Is lacking to my life. I want the lark's fresh nourish in the wood To ease my weary mind, And all those careless birds of solitude j That I have left behind..

r Across the Whinland. I went across the whinland amid the yellow light, And heard a blackbird fluting upon a bramble-bough. A blessing on the bird said I that makes such pure delight! I*made another blessing on my brow. You'd think I was a warrior come back amid the peace, He made such mighty music, while I was passing there; A blessing on your beak, I said, and may you never ceaso Your whistling in the brambles of Kildare.