The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, JULY 24, 1919. ULSTER BLUSTER

New Zealand Tablet, 24 July 1919, Page 25

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, JULY 24, 1919. ULSTER BLUSTER

HE twelfth of July in Belfast was marked *HE twelfth by a characteristic fire-eating this year by a characteristic fire-eating Wm speech from King Carson, who in his old j cloak and dagger style hurled defiance at tjurae: the whole round world and threatened to call out the Orange Volunteers and if ' IP* necessary to burst up the British Empire rather than allow England to keep her war pledges. As we read the summary of his speech we could not help comparing the bluster with the reality, of Ulster’s Orange army’s achievements in the late war in which they had every opportunity to fight to their hearts’ content and to which they did not flock with anything like the readiness one would expect from such blood-and-thunder heroes. Indeed on one occasion it is certain that it would have been far better not only for England’s honor but for the whole Allies’ cause had they stayed at home and drilled with their wooden dummies in Belfast. When they talk of fight in future men will remember General Gough and his valiant warriors and the disaster which only the. bravery' of the French and Colonial troops averted. » Carson’s speech sounded two clear notes : one was a note of selfish determination on the part of the Orange minority to hold fast that which they unlawfully possess; the other was a reference to “great Catholic funds” behind the American movement for Irish . freedom, and a tacit appeal to the ancient and inveterate spirit of Orange bigotry. Is there any need to remind our readers of what he and his followers stand for They say they speak for Ulster, but they would not dare allow an Ulster plebiscite to settle the question of self-determination, knowing well that Ulster has again and again voted solidly for self-govern-ment for all Ireland. They speak of loyalty to the Empire while in the same breath they make if clear that they are ready to sell the Empire for the sake of their own interests, as they did when they trafficked with the Kaiser and imported his guns and his -drill- :

sergeants to add color to. the game of bluff. which brought on the war. As long as the Marconi jobber, George, and the sedition monger, “Galloper” Smith, are in office, and as long as two brainless bigots like Walter Long and Boxxar 'Law are allowed to represent English interests Carson and his gang are quite -safe, and their treasonable utterances only go to prove all the more that under the English misrule in Ireland there is one law for Orangemen and another for Catholics. But the day will come, soon or late, when the English Democracy will free itself from autocracy and plutocracy and see the Orange faction as the baneful, poisonous thing it really- is. At the end of the eighteenth century the persecution of Catholics at the hand of the Orangemen in Ulster , began. Later, the sexual filth of the same horde drove the Catholics of Wexford into hopeless rebellion. Orangeism was from first to last a movement to secure the maintenance of the ascendancy of a small Protestant minority in Ireland. It . has consistently opposed every political action aiming at justice for Catholics. Orangemen have become synonymous with black and bitter persecution of minorities whether in Ireland, in Australia, or in Canada. In 1835 a select committee was appointed to inquire into the doings of a society which had in fifty years left a stain of shame on the pages of English history, and, although every conceivable opposition was offered to those to whom the task was entrusted, the result of the disclosures was that the House of Commons prayed King William IV. to stop the mischief. The King was compelled by public opinion to call upon his subjects for aid towards the effectual discouragement of Orange societies, and a Treasury Minute (March 13, 1836) threatened with dismissal any civil servant who should become or continue to be an Orangeman. What the society was then it still remains, a cancer and a mass of foul corruption in the Empire, a relic of barbarous savagery and a monumental reproach, in the eyes of the civilised world, to the British Empire. It was justly abolished as pernicious and wicked, and if it flourishes to-day it is not because it has changed but because the English Government is in the hands of unprincipled men who are nothing less than the hirelings of those who beat the Orange drum for their own ends. * * Carson’s speech is a significant thing just now. At the end of the war, which Lloyd George and his peers told us was fought for freedom and justice, the Belfast utterance gives the lie direct to such insincere rhetoric. It is proof positive that to-day the tyranny of a Protestant minority is supported and abetted by the very men who called on Irish Catholics to fight for liberty and the right of peoples to determine their own form of government. That he should be allowed to make such a speech and go scot free does not astonish anybody who knows what shameless pledge-breakers English Ministers have become. The Orangemen defend their own selfish interests at the cost of the Empire ; ■but the Lloyd Georges and the Isaacs have made for themselves such a reputation for jobbery and trickery that justice and an honorable policy would be the last things any sensible man would expect at their hands. Therefore the speech is indeed significant; and its significance is terrible; it means that the war has been fought in vain, that the blood that was shed by brave men has but given a new lease of life to a despotism as evil as ever was that of the Kaiser before whom an Orange General fled when disaster threatened Amiens. As far as the English Government is concerned there is no hope for Ireland, because there is no hope for honor and justice. But shall we say that hope does not lie elsewhere ? On the contrary, every fresh act of injustice, every new atrocity, every broken pledge is building up, in Britain, and in America and Australasia, a democratic movement which will one day retrieve the lost war-aims and free not Belgium but this Empire from the tyranny of the Huns. When that day comes, and not till then, "the people of every country will celebrate peace; not to order, but of their own accord. We have not been celebrating peace these days past. •Carson’s words are the best proof of that fact. V