The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1918 IRELAND AND THE PEACE CONFERENCE

New Zealand Tablet, 5 December 1918, Page 25

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1918 IRELAND AND THE PEACE CONFERENCE

FEW clays ago Sir John Findlay said in W/l&Nm Wellington that the man who spoke of the JrSdXvy wrongs of Ireland nowadays had the prison gates open in front of him. Not a few of our countrymen have gone in at the gates of British prisons because they have r dared insist that England keep her own Atr solemn pledge that Ireland should be governed by Irishmen alone ; not a few have died because, when pleading in the name of reason and justice failed, they lost all patience and strove in vain to right their country’s wrongs in foolish and hopeless fight ; and there are in every part of the Empire to-day thousands and thousands who love right and justice too well to be prevented from advocating the freedom of ligand. Lately we began mafficking on a false report that the war for small nations was over. Later the cables told us that the war for small nations is not over by any means, and that Bonar Law and Carson are as much as ever bent on oppressing the oldest small nation in Europe, which had England’s solemn pledge that she should be ruled by her own people alone. Once again, in the moment of victory, the Orange gang have given the lie to England’s war-aims and proclaimed to the world in fact that they care little indeed about small nations or scraps of paper. The English people do care: it is the Government that does not care ; and the Government is composed of men among whom are a German and one who boasted of having the aid of the Kaiser in his efforts to kick the King’s Crown into the Boyne four years ago.

A cable received! here in November,shews us how deeply .interested in the ; fate,,of small .gabions| these people are at present—“ln the House of. Commons ; Mr. T. P. O’Connor moved .that Britain should not,.attend the Peace Conference until it. applied to; Ireland the principle of the self-determination of small nations. Mr. Asquith said it was urgent that before Great Britain, entered the conference it should, give an assurance that Ireland would not be behind any of our selfgoverning Dominions. “Mr Shortt (Secretary for Ireland) said the } failure in Ireland was shared ,by the Irish as well as the English. He asked the Nationalists,to tell the House what settlement they would accept. “Mr. Bonar Law said, he had listened, to Mr. Asquith with amazement. It was preposterous. to claim that the British Empire should not take part in the Peace Conference until it had settled the Irish Question. The Conference had no right to deal with the matter. “The motion was altered to. read: ‘ln , view ,o r the approach of the Peace Conference .the Irish Question should be settled in accordance with Mr. .Wilson’s principle of self-determination, for which the Allies .were ostensibly fighting.’ ” * With all his weakness Mr. Asquith’s heart remains true still. He has brains, at least, and he sees what a mockery the Orange gang have made of, England, and how the world laughs at her protestations that she fights for small nations while she persists in refusing to allow four-fifths of the population of Ireland to govern their country. Bonar Law, the most stupid of all the stupid politicians foisted by party politics on England, remains true to the Orange type which has no other aim than its own selfish, ends, and is the. same to-day as when the Irish Churchman boasted, in November, 1913, of the friendship of the Kaiser: — ' “It may not be known to the rank and file of Unionists that we have the offer of .the aid of a powerful Continental Monarch who, if Home Rule is forced on the Protestants of Ireland, is prepared to send an army sufficient to release England of any further, trouble in Ireland by attaching it to his dominion. . . . And should our King sign the Home Rule Bill, the Protestants of Ireland will welcome this Continental deliverer as their forefathers under similar circumstances did once before.” It is quite clear, that as long as the Orangemen govern the Empire there is no hope for Ireland. We have seen how little they care about either England or the Empire, and how ready they were to join hands with the Kaiser four years ago, and we can have no doubt that the speeches of Carson, Bonar Law, and several Ulster preachers of Christian charity, had no little influence with the Kaiser when he was debating whether he should declare.war,or, no. Still the fact remains that three times the people ,of Britain declared that it-was their will that the people of Ireland should have self-government. So that it is not only the will of the Irish people the Ulster-rebels, now aided by Lloyd George, defy: they . also set .at naught and mock the wishes of the English Democracy; and they do it, as we have seen, even while they , are mafficking over the termination of a war which they professed to wage for the freedom of small nations. That is English statesmanship. Is there any need of comment on it * The question has a present interest for ourselves in this way. It is our shameful record here in New Zealand that we are the only self-governing Colony that did not, during the .war, call on the English Government to prove the truth and honesty of their assertions by giving to the Irish people the right they claimed for small nations under German or Austrian rule. That is our record, make what we. like of it. Why is this the case? We believe that there is no doubt that if Parliament were given a chance of expressing its opinion on the case the verdict would be in accordance with that of Australia, South Africa, Canada, the British Democracy, the United States,

and all decent men of no matter what race or creed. Is it because Mr. Massey has not the will or the courage to do his duty He was told in the House by a member that the said member believed that the Premier was an Orangeman. It is a common belief. If he is not an Orangeman let him prove it now by doing his duty to this Dominion and voicing the feeling of the people. If he will not do so willingly let Sir Joseph Ward compel him to do it. They are going Home. It is nob our province to say why or wherefore they are going, or whether they ought or ought not go. But it is our duty to say that neither of them will find a warm welcome back here, as far as the majority of the people are concerned, if neither of them has the courage to advocate in the proper place that England be compelled to keep her own pledges to one small nation. Further, it is the duty of all those who care about the Irish cause, or about England's honor for that matter, to make it perfectly clear to Mr. Massey and Sir Joseph that they leave this Dominion now with a duty upon them io urge the Home Government to prove to the world that the talk about the right of self-determination and the sacredness of scraps of paper was not hypocritical nonsense.