IRISH NEWS

New Zealand Tablet, 31 October 1918, Page 39

IRISH NEWS

GENERAL. In the report of the Committee on National Expenditure dealing with propaganda it is stated that .£3l was spent on drink and £5 on cigars for the entertainment of oversea journalists during two days in Dublin. So far as he was able to obtain information, Mr. Shortt; Chief Secretary, told Mr. Field in Parliament, it was believed the Ulster (Carsonite) Volunteers were in possession of 50,000 rifles of different patterns and 11 machine guns. Speaking in the House of Commons recently, Mr. Devlin pointed out that the Propaganda Department had sent lan Hay’s book. The Oppressed English, for circulation in the United States. He read several quotations from the book, remarking, “This is the sort of stuff the English Government is paying for.” On August 12, at Dublin, the house of Mr. J. D. Nugent, M.P., National Secretary of the A.OH. (8.0. E.), was raided by the military. Desks and' drawers were searched, but nothing was seized. The party behaved with courtesy to Mr. Nugent and his family during their stay, which lasted over two hours. “Only one conclusion can be drawn,’ - rays “Wideawake,” of the London Pco/i’r from Mr. Short! s statement, and that is that the Government arc afraid to enforce conscription in Ireland, and are seeking by devious dodges to shelve it. It is a cowardly and dishonest policy, but it is the usual one. It will be far more honest to drop the whole business and get on with the war without Ireland. All this humbug is nauseating.” A national music being essential to the full development of the national idea, and a school of traditional music being an absolute necessity for the life of music in Ireland, a committee, representative of the intel'ectual life of Cork, has been formed to raise an endowment of at least £IOOO to establish a department of Irish traditional music in the Cork Municipal School of Music, whose committee will appoint the Professor of the Irish department as headmaster of the whole school in order to diffuse our national music into all phases of the instruction imparted. Concerning the arrest of Mrs. Sheehy-Skeffington on her return from America, the London Daily Mews says : “Suppose a German Government in England. A rising is sternly suppressed. A well-known English pacifist is murdered in cold blood, with every circumstance of brutality by a German officer. Then suppose this officer, found insane, is put under restraint, and almost at the same time the English people are told the officer had been released and that the widow of his victim had been arrested. Of what avail would it be after that to talk to them of the justice of their rulers ?’* JUSTICE IN IRELAND. INTERESTING CORRESPONDENCE WITH LORD CHANCELLOR. (As Passed by Censor.) A copy of interesting correspondence which has passed between the Lord Chancellor and Mr. P. W. Kenny, J.P., Kilmeadon House, Waterford, in connection with a speech by Mr. Kenny at a meeting of the Waterford Corporation on a motion to rescind a previous order inviting Serjeant Sullivan, K.C., or another member of the Recruiting Council to Waterford, has been sent to us for publication (says the Irish Independent'). On August 6 the Lord Chancellor (through Col. Campbell, private secretary) inquired of Mr. Kenny if the report of his speech as published in the Irish Times of sth inst. was correct, and if so, whether he

desired *to forward any explanation. t On 14 th inst. the Lord Chancellor forwarded an extract from the Irish Times and a typed copy from a report in the Waterford ' Evening News. On 16th inst. Mr, Kenny, in reply, said the typed copy was a fairly correct representation of his remarks, but adds; — J 5 “There is one obvious error in the third page of the typed copy. The words ‘ before she (England) conquered this country,’ should read ‘ before she (England) controlled this country.’ . Ireland, as his lordship well knows, was never conquered by England.” Reasoned Convictions. Mr. Kenny further stated that the language he used expressed clearly his reasoned convictions, and as a reason for holding those views he submitted for his lordship’s perusal the case for Ireland recently drawn up by the Mansion House Conference and forwarded to the President of the United States. Mr. Kenny then proceeds to quote from the Conference declaration with regard to the results of the Union, including the following: “To obstruct the recent Home Rule Bill it allowed its favorites to defy its Parliament without punishment, to import arms from suspect regions with impunity, to threaten to break every law to effectuate their designs, to infect the army with mutiny, and set up a rival Executive, backed by military array, to enforce the rule ol a caste against the 'vast majority of the people. The highest offices of State became the guerdon of the organisers of rebellion, boastful of aid from Germany. To-day they are Pillars of the Constitution, and the chief instruments of the law'. The only laurels lacking to the leaders of the mutineers are those transplanted from the' field of battle. Are we to fight to maintain a system so repugnant, and must Irishmen be content to remain slaves themselves after freedom for distant lands has been purchased by their blood ?” Matter for Elucidation. “As one of the Pillars of the Constitution,” adds Mi - . Kenny, “and chief ‘ intruments of the law,’ certain of these pointed allusions would seem to call for both personal and official elucidation at the hands of his lordship. -To the ordinary intelligence it is difficult to comprehend how the apparent conflicting duties of Legal Assessor to the Ulster Provisional Government (an admittedly rebel and illegal organisation) can be reconciled with the duties of the exalted office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland and brought under one head. “1 do not know that I can add for his Lordship's better information anything to 4 The Case for Ireland ’ so fully and so ably stated except, perhaps, to call his attention to the fact that since its pub’ication the trial of the man Dowling, who was the pivot of the 4 German Plot ’ fabrication, has taken place, and, strange to say, not only was he not charged with his connection with the plot but not’a word was said at the trial about it. “Notwithstanding this virtual breakdown of the Government case, many of our fellow-countrymen are still interned in Eng'ish prisons on political charges which, as stated by eminent counsel, could not be sustained in any court of .Jaw, and the trial to which they are entitled is being withheld. Prison Treatment. • “Meantime, evidence is not wanting that others of our countrymen (political prisoners in Irish gaols) have been subjected to the most brutal treatment at the bauds of Government officials. His Lordship, as a member of The Irish Executive, cannot be unaware of the cruel harrying process by which Mrs. SheehySkeffington is now being tortured, even while the hands of some of her persecutors are still imbrued with the innocent blood of her murdered husband. “In conclusion, I would ask if his Lordship knows of any portion of, the British Empire where so many repressive enactments against natural justice and liberty are in force as they are in Ireland to-day.”