WHO’S THE LIAR: MACPHERSON AND HIS MINIONS.

New Zealand Tablet, 18 September 1919, Page 35

WHO’S THE LIAR: MACPHERSON AND HIS MINIONS.

The London correspondent of the Manchester Guardian writes: “One gathers 5 that the opinion in Irish political quarters i here oh Mr. Macpherson’s reply to the Irish-Ame-rican'delegates’ report on Ireland is that it is a political boomerang likely to return and hit him. It is pointed out that an official document drawn up, avowedly to influence American public opinion in favor of the present ' Government, in Ireland, is scarcely likely to have that effect when it contains such damaging admissions as that Ireland is held by an army /equipped with the latest engines of war and by an armed police; that; numerous prisoners are in the gaols; that a considerable number of people have been * arrested and . interned": without trial 'or charge, that frequent police raids and searches are made on- private houses, that private property is seized and confiscated on the plea that it is articles kept or used for seditious purpose. All that the Irish-American delegates need is to select and collate Mr. Macpherson’s admissions and present them to their fellow-countrymen in the United States with the comment: ‘That, gentlemen, is our case.’ It would be a very distinct improvement on their own story.” Macpherson denied that men are shot down by the military in Ireland without just cause. A coroner’s jury has found that Michael Murphy, the commercial traveller who was recently shot dead by the military near Dundalk, was virtually a martyr to militarism. The military held up the motor car in which he was travelling and examined his permit. Further on another posse of soldiers say they ordered the car to stop. Neither chauffeur nor passenger heard the challenge, and the military fired, killing the passenger, who was on the King’s highway in lawful pursuit of lawful business. At the inquest the military, were obliged to admit that a few yards further on they had a motor lorry drawn across the road which (they admitted) sufficed to prevent the passing of any vehicle. Such unwarranted homicide proves the existence of a militarism in Ireland of which Zabern was but a faint echo. And incidentally it proves Macpherson a liar or the mouthpiece of liars.