IS IT NOTHING?

New Zealand Tablet, 13 March 1919, Page 29

IS IT NOTHING?

v the government of a country is unrepresentative, as ours, things will be done, good and,bad,, which are entirely foreign to the spirit of the nation (says the New Witness). Particularly when the policy of that- government is dictated largely by .. foreigners will t those things be most, frequent . and most foreign. Thus it is that many things are oeing done to-day .in the name of England which are in, the truest sense un-English. When evil things are being. done in our name, silence gives consent. Unless we do all in our power to prevent those things being done, by our very silence and inaction we make the evil-doers, the more representative and the crime the more nearly.ours At present we can only protest and it is our duty now to protest very vigorously, or sell our birthright in silence and for ever hold our peace. More than six mpnths ago, some hundred Irishmen and a few Irish women -were arrested suddenly on a very vague charge, and without trial they were deported from their own country and imprisoned in England, where they remain imprisoned to-day. They were not tried, so we are told, because we were at war and the evidenc3 might give information to our enemies. If that was an honest excuse, which is doubtful, it is no longer valid. ° ■_, In our own law we admit a man innocent until his guilt is proven, and we hold the innocent to be undeserving of punishment. These Irish men and women, charged with we know not what crime, unconvicted, and even untried, are ruthlessly deprived of their liberty. If they are guilty, by all means give them the punishment they deserve, but if they are to be punished by England for England's sake it is our urgent duty to demand that their guilt be proven by due evidence in a fair trial. If we Englishmen can

suffer, without protest, the continued imprisonment of these, so far innocent, Irish people, then all the wars, including this last long and bloody nightmare, y¥ c £.J e £ ou gtot * n defence of liberty, have been are confirmed hypocrites and fools. y e speak and write the word Liberty make it an indelible brand of our hypocrisy arid .... Many base and unworthy things have been done °l England, but none baser than this V“*ug ? ? or it eats as a canker at the very roots of bur Liberty. • , ■ , ■ ■