SELF-DETERMINATION.

New Zealand Tablet, 21 August 1919, Page 13

SELF-DETERMINATION.

If self-determination is good for the Jugo-Slav, If self-determination is right for the Pole to have, If self-determination bo given the Serb and the Jew, Shall self-determination not go to the Irish too? Oh, you who have fought for the feeble, for Belgian, Serb, and Czech ; .Who loosed, from their limbs the fetter and the yoke from their bleeding neck ; Will you leave the links unbroken of the chain that for ages long Has hindered the hand of Erin and saddened her olden song ? Will you call to your council table the wretched of every clime Will you give to their cause a hearing and ; make for their pleas a time ? Yet bar the door on a people who never have failed you yet , _ Whatever the task ’twas yours to ask, and wherever your foes they met! Will you bid to your court the victims from the world’s far-sundered ends, Yet deafen your ears and harden your hearts' to the message poor Ireland sends ? Will you list to the down-trod races whose names you have hardly known, And leave to her lot the nation whose blood is so much your own? Oh, you who have fought for the feebleOh, you who have wrought so well To strike from the grasp of the rulers a rod that was forged in hell• ■ ' J ITT-* 11 t j 4-V* .c„4. J ,VV ill juu leave iui lino vujinc ui xictauu hid ii a u v/x urn to stand V\. Which makes the will of the greateb the law of the lesser land? . ' :

Ah /no'!' You have given the nations a trial-word and ; c v: ' a test. /v 5 ~ 1 '•••- And well have the Irish answered. ' They look to you . ;j . . for the ■ rest. •,, ; _ : Whoever may shift or shuffle, whoever may twist and ~; lie, "; , ■ ’ You’ve spoken the word that the world has stirred ; how then can you dare deny ~‘ ; l ' For.self-determination is - all that the old land craves. For self-determination the stake and the rack she braves. If self-determination were ever a people’s due, Then self-determination must go to the Irish too! —Denis A. McCarthy.