THE IRISH RACE CONVENTION

New Zealand Tablet, 30 October 1919, Page 19

THE IRISH RACE CONVENTION

MEETING AT INVERCARGILL. A meeting of Irishmen was held at St. Mary's on October 26, to link - up with the spirit and purpose of the Irish Race Convention to be held in Melbourne on November 3. When the chairman, Dean Burke, had explained the object of the meeting Mr. Sheehan proposed and Mr. Condon seconded t J he following resolution: —"This meeting, representative of the people of Southland of Irish birth and Irish descent, declares its heartfelt sympathy with the Irish people at Home in their present intense struggle for self-government; the meeting expresses the hope that those efforts will soon attain fruition, and that the great democratic principle of national self-determination, for which so many men of the Irish race recently fought and died on the battlefields of Europe, will be speedily and fully realised in their own Homeland." In proposing the resolution, Mr. Sheehan said that Ireland's history since the English invasion in the twelfth century has been a record of tyranny, oppression, and plunder. Edmund Burke compared the sufferings of the Irish people under English misgovernment to the early Christian persecutions. But the persecutions of the Christians had an end in pagan Rome; the persecution of the Irish people has gone on for over seven centuries, and to-day, in the full light of the 20th century, it goes on as cruelly", bitterly, and meanly as before. True, the methods have changed. The. Castlereaghs and Beresfords and the pitchcaps and triangles have gone; but the Frenches and Macphersons and the handcuffs and machine-guns and even aeroplanes remain ! The thought of barbarities in the distant past makes us shudder. The thought of oppression and military dragonades amongst a peaceful people at the present timethings done to rouse them to retaliation and rebellion in order to give excuse for shootings and massacre— is revolting to the sentiments of the masses of the people of our time. All they need is to know it, and the-public opinion of a democratic world will end it. The great meetings held at present by de Valera in the United States will rouse the liberty-loving people of America and the great Convention to bo held in Melbourne in a few days is already moving Australia. Lloyd George and the dukes and the landlords with their batons, rifles, and mach'ne-guns, with their wealth and financial influence, will get something to think about from this rising mass of enlightened popular opinion. With all their power, it is not the dukes and landlords, but the great masses of the people, who will in future rule. Mr. Collins proposed and Mr. J. Maher seconded: "That this meeting declare its full sympathy with the aims of the Convention of the Irish Race to bo held at Melbourne on November 3, and pledgo its moral and financial support to the decisions of the Convention." Mr. Collins said "that it was sad to think that the old, old story was still being acted out in Ireland. The Irish people had had hundreds of years of it, and still it goes on red-handed, savage, revolting. Mr. Lloyd George is but a repetition of the English Prime Ministers who have preceded him and who have been tho tools of dukes and landlords, of religious bigots, and wealthy reactionaries. Lord French may appear wanting in humanity, tact, common sense, and regard for the nation over which he is placed; but he is only the same as the Viceroys who went before him, playing the game appointed for them mere tools of the Carson crowd — mere tools of the duke and landlord interest. Four years ago the British Government passed a miserable Home Rule Bill ; later there was a Convention, to setitlo Irish difficulties; now there are more promises;' but all these moves are mere camouflage. The present British Government could not keep its promises, even if it wished to, for Carson and the dukes and the blind and stupid bigots of Belfast stand in the way. They must be supported, and that at huge expense to the country. Ireland is made to pay for her own disappointments and oppression ! Troops have been poured into the land at the request of the Carson crowd. The army of occupation is now one hundredthousand ! Between raids and arrests, threats by armed police and soldiers, the shooting of harmless peasants, imprisonment even of ladies and children, proclamations of towns and whole districts, prevention of meetings and even innocent country sports, the maintenance of a brigade of spies, eavesdroppers, and traitors, why! such a state of exasperated feeling must exist as that which prevailed in Russia under the Czar and his grand dukes and liveried officials. Now, it is high time to end this state of things, and who are to do it but the Irish race all the world over by their loud, emphatic protests, by their material aid, and by their appeals to the sympathy of the liberty-loving democratic: popular masses of the world? ■". v • Mr. Brogan proposed and Mr. . Stephen ; Shepherd

seconded a motion? that cablegrams declaring the readiness of the Irish- people.^ofi.Southland;- to support the. aims of the great , Convention be sent from the meeting to Archbishop Mannix ; and Premier Ryan. These resolutions were all carried , with one voice.