IRISH NEWS

New Zealand Tablet, 13 May 1920, Page 31

IRISH NEWS

IRISH LOAN IN THE UNITED STATES’; ■*. ' American exchanges to hand show the extraordinary success of the Irish Loan y subscription, - started on January 17. iNv-Vy-N/ New York City’s quota was £480,000, but £513,200 was put up on the first day, .while Brooklyn, with a £IOO,OOO quota, gave £50,000 on the /first day. .The New York State quota was £600,000, which was . expected to/ bo Realised forthwith. All . over the States there was the keenest rivalry between counties, district wards, and parishes, with a common;, intense desire to bo “ahead,” and to exceed the quotas assigned. " ' /./ ./' Bishop T. J. Walsh, Trenton, N.J., subscribed £2OO, and Mayor F. Hague, Jersey City, £IOO. A Jersey. City ’ man is stated to have given the highest individual donation in the whole of the' States. , The National Board of Directors of the American Order of ! Hibernians ended its session at Buffalo by subscribing, with the women's -auxiliary of the order, £3OOO. Every bona-fide Irishwoman in New York, wrote the Evening World , was a subscriber— “and that means two or three certificates in every family.” The movement, it asserted, was from the outset “on the top wave, rolling strong.” • The.,- announcement at a great meeting in the Lexington Theatre that New York City had gone “over the top” ■at /once, filled Mr. do Valera, who was present, with astonishment;' and Created ‘ wild enthusiasm. An incident of the meeting that evoked tremendous cheering was when Commander-in-Chief Warren Shaw Fisher, of the United War Veterans; on* behalf of his organisation presented Mr. de Valera with a large Irish silk flag, and pledged, the support of-, “his comrades to the cause of Ireland.” {-1;/./ In Brooklyn all classes, creeds, and races were deeply ; interested in the Loan drive. Many speakers of local and -.international _ fame (says the Jirobldyn. Citizen), gave their time and talents, to, the cause. They ' included Sen-, ators, Congressmen/, city - officials, j edges,'/lawyers/- : doctors,.;; • and other professional men. Several Protestant ministers /and., Jewish rabbis were , among the most fervent exhorters in- making appeals for justice in' 'lreland. Judge Jacob Strahl , and ' a few friends got £6OO in 10 ; minutes, says another report, and Several Protestant . ministers made -. pulpit appeals. 1 //■//-,./■ • ' ; / ‘ /- r ' , : The : .Hoboken (N.J.) Gbscrrcr remarks that one of the', features', disclosed the drive was the eagerness with which/ the . poorer classes of the Irish race denied themselves even/ necessaries in order to buy a £s,bond. In fact, the smaller amounts made up the groat bulk of the subscriptions there. On the- occasion of his visit to Albany, the Now York State capital, Mr. de Valera was welcomed by the State Assembly, which wished him “God-speed on behalf of that race which has established itself in the hearts of the world,” and a “mass, meeting of the inhabitants afterwards urged the United States „ Government to recognise the Irish claim, and “to' withhold all loans to nations holding peoples in bondage.” . When the Worcester (Mass.) City Council formally refused official welcome to Mr. de Valera, Mr. Edward -L. Moore, President of Padraic Pearse branch, Friends of Irish Freedom, declared that the Irish leader’s welcome /would be one of the, really notable receptions of his American tour, arid 1 that hundreds of American former soldiers and sailors would be proud to march in his escorting column. .

-THE LLOYD GEORGE HOME RULE BILL. Bishop McHugh of Derry. denounces the injustice of Lloyd-- George’s proposals in his Home Rule Bill and appears" to believe that the Prime Minister is lacking in sincerity. Dr. McHugh proceeds as follows (says America) - ' One need only read the introductory remarks of the Prime Minister when propounding his partition schemfe in the -Hbhsc of Commons to see that he is .conscious! that there is fieith : £i‘ reality nor —behind it. “I cannot” (lie says) u think '“of any proposals that you can put-forward from this House, which .would be in the least practicable or ; acceptable to British 'opinion at the present moment, or which would have any chance of acceptance now in the present condition of Ireland.” The want of reality 1 behind the whole show becomes still-more evident when ,we find Mr. Macpherson . introducing an Education’ Bill for an undivided Ireland, while Mr. Lloyd George at the same time sets forth his scheme for carving the country so as to meet the wishes of the Covenanters, without the least regard for the sentiments of the}. Catholics of Ulster. v i : I .... . - v'-'-r . -

And that - Mr. Lloyd George is conscious. of the injustice of his proposals : may be seen ' from the following pronouncement..:.: “Settlement will not be found in the" enactment, but in the working of it.” ' - :: :- - How different *is the - Lloyd George of to-day from what he ß^ds;i when -trying to climb > into office.’' - Iff, ho said “Recent by-elections prove that the country... is! sick and tired of Mr. Balfour’s baton and bayonet, rule . in Ireland, and of his desperate attempt to repress the legitimate aspirations .of a /generous nation. I come before you as a firm believer • and' an admirer of Mr. Gladstone’s noble alternative of justice to Ireland.” After pointing out another glaring inconsistency- in the Premier’s policy, the eloquent prelate continues:In his labored effort to clear the way for partition, the Prme' Minister says that there are- two fundamental - facts which must bo taken into consideration. One, he says, is that “Irishmen claim the right to control their own concerns without interference from Englishmen, Scotchmen, or Welshmen. They have fought for it for ’ hundreds of years. They have never held it so . tena-- 1 ciously as they do to-day” and the other is that “a considerable section of the people of Ireland :are just as opposed to Irish rule as the majority of Irishmen are to British rule.” And, strange to say, after stating- these “fundamental facts,” as ho calls them, he brushes, aside the first, which, on his own acknowledgment, includes the “majority of Irishmen,” as if it were of no importance; and then he goes on to make a case for . the minority by ' a false and distorted representation of the situation. “In the north-east of Ireland;’’ he says, “you have apopulation, a, fairly solid population, a homogeneous population, alien in race, alien in sympathy, alien in religion, alien in tradition, alien in outlook ‘ from the rest of the population of .Ireland,, and it would be an outrage on the principle of : self-govern-ment to place them under the same rule as the remainder of the population.” To me this statement seems an outrage on truth. Mr. Lloyd George is reported to have said to the delegation of , nine from the Irish National -Convention that waited on him in London on February 13, 1918; “It is quite clear to our mind; that no settlement would be acceptable to Ireland upon any basis of the: division of the country. It is idle to propose partition- now. We must accept the unity of Ireland as a whole. Anything else would lead to failure.” • .

It is difficult to know where we stand with a gentleman who can give public expression to such ,contradictory statements. 1 wonder is he aware of the following facts: (1) That according to the census of 1911, leaving out Belfast. the Catholic population of Ulster exceeds that of all other denominations combined by 397 souls. (2) That in the -counties of Tyrone, Armagh. Fermanagh (three of the six homogeneous counties) and Derry City there is a Oatholico majority of 16,836 individuals; and (3) That in four of the so-called homogeneous- countiesviz.,. Tyrone, Armagh, Fermanagh, Derry County, and Derry ; Citythe Catholic population is in a minority of only 53. The sum total for the four counties mentioned, together with Derry City, is Catholics 232,682, and non-Catholics 232,735. - Air; Lloyd George must then confine his attention to the counties of Antrim and Down and the city of Belfast if ho is to find the homogeneity of which he speaks. But even here facts are against the discovery he is so anxious to make, for in Co. Down he will unexpectedly knock tip against 64,485 Catholics, in Antrim 39.751 Catholics, ' and in; the city of ; Belfast no less than 93,243 Catholics. The Bishop’s conclusion is that Lloyd ’George is aiming at an “Orange Free State” carved out to meet the wish of the minority, an outrage to which Ireland will not submit. ■ '