The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1919. IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 18 September 1919, Page 25

T he New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1919. IRELAND

SVEN allowing as much as .possible for the unreliability of the manufactured fablegrams sent to our press by the Propaganda there is reason to think that affairs are serious in Ireland. After four years’ experience of calumnies, we have learned to discount every single item of Irish news sent out here. We know that the people who invented pro-German plots and staged them with collapsible boats of the type supplied to the Allies, who repeatedly broke pledges and promises and displayed an utter disregard for honesty, are not likely to tell us much of,, the truth at present..; The men who assured Carson’s party that they had only to hold out and the Government would defend them, and who rewarded Ulster rebels by high places in the British Government, are in charge of the news-factory, and we can readily guess how they will manipulate it. A vigorous effort has been made by “Moralist” Macpherson and by the incompetent French, both tools of the Tory gang, to drive the. Irish people to desperation in order to give, Huns a chance of exercising against unarmed men and women their resources of brutality. A people treated as the ; Irish have been recently could not . be expected to refrain from all acts of violence, however to be deplored such acts are; and it now appears that the conspirators have made up their minds that the time has come to crush a people’s demand for self-deter-mination by what our press used to call ‘‘Prussian methods.” •,77.- '-!■ V• . ... 7 * f ' : V‘A perusal of the long list of British:atrocities committed in Ireland will have enlightened readers of last

week’s issue of the Tablet as to the nature of the provocation the people have had to endure. 'The report of the American Envoys concerning the destruction of private property and the brutal treatment of men : and women in gaols is another illuminating document which ought to be remembered. Macpherson was challenged to face an impartial investigation as to these charges. His reply was, on the one hand, a bare-faced denial of* the facts, and on the other a hurried arrest of persons who might be able to substantiate the report.. Even the English press admits that he has put England in the wrong and done nothing to defend her from the terrible indictment levelled against her by men of such standing as the Americans. The long rigmarole now published in our press by the Propaganda does not help him out of his awkward corner. He puts forward a few cases of violence, usually provoked by his own blundering. He publishes a document which is without doubt the concoction of a Sergeant Sheridan. Nothing that he can allege is at all to be compared with the long roll of crimes committed by his minions on the Irish people. He came to Ireland with a record for stupidity as French came with a record for failure and with a reputation which his recent vile attack on a dead brother-officer has not improved in the eyes of the English people. Between both of them they have now set themselves to drive Ireland to rebellion, and it will require heroic patience on the part of the people to preserve the peace under the injustices heaped upon them. We earnestly hope there will be no rebellion, and that the clergy and the leaders will restrain the multitude. , A rebellion at present would be exactly what Carson and his clique are angling for, and it would give occasion to further manifestations df the devilry that took place in Dublin in those days when Colthurst went about murdering innocent men and other heroes fired into houses in which there were only women and children. With patience Sinn Fein will win. The very knowledge that Sinn Fein has beaten them and exposed the hypocrisy of their war for the freedom for small nations is at the root of the present efforts of the British khaki Cabinet. No platitudes of omynress can obscure the fact that Lloyd George broke faith with Ireland twice during the war, and that even the sham Home Rule Bill was held up to please the Orangemen ; neither can they explain away the fact that Ireland has declared for self-determination and that the British government there is founded on Prussian force. * The Otago Daily Times in an editorial speaks of the “dastardly methods encouraged by Sinn Fein.” We have already exposed too many of the dastardly methods of a forger who writes for the Otago Daily Times to make the rag worth bothering about, and it is because we do not expect either fairness or knowledge of the commonest kind about Ireland from that quarter that we pass then\ by while reminding them of the days when they spread foul calumnies about enemies with chivalry characteristic of the Harmsworth Propaganda. The Hooligans who went on lying about German plots in Ireland even after the highest authority had given the statement the lie in the House of Commons could stoop to anything. When “Civis” wants lies about Ireland he forges them if his Spectator has not a stock to hand. On one incident of Macpherson’s tirade we dwell: from it judge the rest. He says that Sinn Feiners murdered policemen in Knocklong. At the inquest, whenever a policeman was asked a question likely to bring out the truth, the Inspector stood up and said, “You must not answer that.” An Irish account says that a police-rif bullet was found, though the “evidence” swore the police did not fire. No chance was given the jury to obtain a fair inquiry. Naturally, then, the jury would not bring in a verdict of wilful murder according to instructions, and not according to evidence. Macpherson is angry at this, all the more so as juries have repeatedly brought in verdicts of wilful murder against the police after full inquiry. The policemen in most cases were . promoted ' instead of hanged. . That ,is British , justice:: in- Ireland to-day!

.From that judge the value of Macpherson’s Propaganda screed which is now circulated here by the vile rags that never gave a hearing to the other side. That is British justice,in New Zealand! Dastard dailies call the Sinn Fein methods dastardly because dastard Brithuns drove individuals in a few instances to violence against the wishes of the leaders. Common sense tells us who are the real dastards in the case. , * Whether from ignorance or from malignity, the New Zealand dailies steadily deny the real facts at’issue and waste words in talking about the Home Rule Bill on the Statute Book, which Carson constantly told the Orangemen would never become law. They ignore what impartial inquirers like Erskine Childers and Lord Arran say about the situation, and instead of trying to face the problem honestly and squarely’ they dance like puppets to the tune of the Propaganda. They gave us very little of the American report, and they tell us less of de Valera’s reception all over the United States, where not only the whole Catholic body, from Cardinals down to the laity, but also judges and Senators are proclaiming that England stands to Ireland to-day exactly as Prussia stood to Belgium four years ago. They conceal the murders committed by soldiers and policemen, and the revelations concerning “faked” documents sent through the post by Government agents and followed by soldiers to search for what the agents. planted. But all their tactics do not deceive a public now accustomed to press calumnies that are never atoned for when exposed ; and we have only to hear our own soldiers who have been to Ireland to know how false are the press reports and how true it is that Sinn Fein represents a united- people asking England to be true to her own pledges and to give a small nation selfdetermination. When all is said, one remembers that a few Tory papers never concealed the true Prussian reason for all the lies and all the chicanery : Ireland is useful to John Bull, and John’s religion is to hold fast to what is useful to him, no matter whether he, in doing so, outrages justice and charity or not. Years ago, English Ministers made no secret of this fact. They openly urged the Government to drive out the - Irish because Ireland was rich in resources. To-day the radical cause is the same. Prussianism—-the doctrine of might against right —is at the root of all the Irish trouble. And Ireland will never be free from her present despots until either a Labor Government kicks the jobbers out of office, or else an angry world forces the last bully of Europe to do penance. In the meantime, let us hope and pray that there be no repetition of Ninety-Eight, when the sexual filth and brutality of the army of occupation drove a defenceless people to cruel slaughter at the hands of Hessians, Englishmen, and Orangemen. For in those days the champions of small nations did hire German mercenaries to kill the Irish.