Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 5 August 1920, Page 14

Current Topics

Irish Self-Government Fund ' We have received notification of the results of the collection for this fund in many parishes. We would be obliged, if those, who have not yet let us know how they have done will do so immediately. We particularly want Hawke’s Bay and Taranaki results. We know that collections have been made in the former district, but have heard nothing from Taranaki. Have all the Irish people died in that province ?

A Suggestion The Council of Churches, having exhausted the provinces of theology, ethics, politics, and Papishness, have turned their attention to discussing the proper scale of racing weights. We suggest that, in return for their kindness, George Price, Pat Hogan, and F. D. Jones formulate a scheme for the restriction of Sunday services in the churches appertaining to the said Council. Arthur Olliver, Jack O’Shea, and Frank Flynn might be selected as travelling inspectors to see that the various congregations were not persecuted by longwinded discourses on Rome.

The Voice of Ireland It is surprising with what ingenuity our press tried to prove to its own satisfaction that the election of eighty per cent, of Republican representatives did not show that the Irish people wanted a Government absolutely their own. The municipal elections since confirmed the Sinn Fein victory at the general election. Further confirmation comes from the County Council elections recently held. According to cablegram, Sinn Fein has secured 525 seats as a distinct party, and 566 with the Republican Labor Party, and 590 with Labor and Nationalists. Against this score the Unionists count only 96. In Ulster it is claimed that Sinn Fein, Labor, and Nationalists have captured 106 seats and the Unionists 82. All over Ireland Unionists have secured only 12 per cent, of the seats. And still the press liars and politicians will say that Ireland cannot agree, and that Ulster is opposed to a Republic! British intelligence is a queer thing; but British honesty is queerer still. If the foregoing figures do not represent an united Ireland in favor of a Republic we do not know what union means. The truth is that Britain has thrown her pledges to the winds and holds fast by the Prussian policy that might is right, and that because Ireland is useful Ireland must submit.

Cut Out This Among the fablegrams in the Otago Daily Times, July 30, we find the following: “Archbishop Mannix states that he had hoped to visit Ireland en route to Rome, but he must abide by the British Government’s decision not to permit him to set foot in the British Isles.

“MANNIX DEFIANT. “New York, July 28.—Mannix lias stated: ‘ I do not mean to alter my plans because of threats of what may happen to me if I land in Ireland.'” We advise our. readers to cut that out and keep it always. If you searched for a century you could not find a more striking example of the utter idiocy of the sort of cables published about Ireland in our “day ! ies ; t We note that the forger, “Givis," is still paid to _ spit out dirt,” as Sir Edward 'Carson would have it in his cultured Protestant-Orange manner. Why does he not get hold of the cablegrams and by a little forgery try to make some common sense out of them? It would much more profitable • than corrupting the text of a well-known work on Irish History But as rt would also be more decent it is not work for “Givis ” The Dunedin forger does not believe in liberty for small nations, and he-is precisely the sort of tool the enemies

of Ireland have always found ready to hand. There is no healthier sign at present than the fury that finds expression in the wailing of the Council of Churches and in the abuse of such satellites as the numerous Church organs and the exposed forger.

Wanted : An Order-In-Council From a contemporary we learn the following:“London, May 15.—The Sinn Fein colors are now part of the uniform worn by Irish footmen at BuckingPalace, by special permission of King George. Sons of Erin who guard the private corridors leading to the King s apartments reported for duty yesterday morning with the Republican colors on their sleeves. Lord Stamfordham, private secretary to the King, was deeply shocked and ordered the. instant removal of the badges, but when King George heard of it he smilingly gave permission to the men to wear the green, white, and orange of the Irish Republic.” But of coui’se it goes without saying that our Government is ten times more loyal than the King, just as the P.P.A. Privy Councillors who run New Zealand are higher and holier mortals than a poor Prince who bets.

In the anxious months before the war, Sir Hubert Gough was in command of a regiment on the Curragh. He then made himself notorious for refusing to march against Ulster, or rather for signifying that he would not march if the occasion should crop up. Now we find him in Common Sense defending Ireland and arguing for a settlement if it is to be a Republic. He insists that : We Irishmen have developed a very strong desire to govern ourselves, to be free to extents which differ in various minds, but to be free to govern ourselves we are as a people quite determined. We Irishmen are confident that given a fair chance, we are able to govern ourselves as well as most other people, including even the English.” He goes on to state the case of Ireland very clearly, and to condemn military repressions of the people as useless and mischievous. And here let us note that the Speaker of the illustrious Parliament of New Zealand almost stood on his head when Mr. Holland said almost the same as General Gough has expressed in his article to Common Sense. General Gough wants a settlement which while safeguarding minorities and ensuring friendship with (not dependence on) England will give the Irish people a Republic if they want it. The remarkable fact about this is that it is exactly the sort of talk that P.P. Asses and their pet politicians would call treason. Of course nobody minds them : they know much less than the meaning of words, and treason in their minds is synonymous with fair play for Ireland. Imagine it, all ye holy tin-templars ! Your erstwhile champion says that all that justice requires is safeguards for Ulster and some concessions with regard to the use of Irish ports for England. Then he would have England say: << “Subject to this, you can discuss any form of government, including even a Republic, if you really wish.” j j In all that he is only saying what the average intelligent and honest Englishman is saying nowadays. But average intelligence and honesty—where Ireland is concerned— is a long way from New Zealand’s political marionettes still.

The Curse of Ignorance Apropos of the buzzing of gnats and flies, as manifested by a swarm of foolish anonymous and signed letters in the Wellington Post, in comment more or less stupid on Archbishop O’Shea’s speech, it strikes us that a deal of paper would be saved if editors made it a rule to exclude all letters by persons who do not understand the meaning of ordinary words. For instance, most of his Grace’s critics write glibly of sedition and loyalty, with every indication that they have not the remotest idea of what they are talking, about.

For an example take a concrete case. It was solemnly announced by President Wilson, Mr. Lloyd George concurring, that the war was fought for the right of self-determination for all peoples, no matter whose selfish interest is crossed. Now any man who knows anything of Sinn Fein is aware that what Sinn Fein wants is the right of self-determination for the Irish people. In other words Sinn Fein wants what we were told the war was fought for. Now, because a gang of Orangemen in one corner of Ireland do not want that, P.P. Ass. spouters and scribes shriek and foam and tell us that it is seditious and disloyal to ask the British Government to keep its pledges. Which is altogether in accordance with the reputation of the P.P. Ass. for fair play and common decency. But what about the Republic? they may say. Well, what about it? There are advocates of the Irish Republic in the British House of Commons, in the British Army, and in the British Navy, and nobody tells them they are seditious or disloyal. When a writer was prosecuted in Australia a few months ago for advocating an Irish Republic, the judge discomfited the parsons and howlers by stating that every man had a perfect right to advocate a Republic if he wished and that there was no sedition or treason in working for that end on constitutional lines. Ah, but is Sinn Fein constitutional ? Sinn Fein is constitutional. It was the British Government that first broke its own laws by throwing men into gaol for nothing, and by pouring armed soldiers into peaceful houses in a mad effort to defeat a purely constitutional agitation. So much so, that not only Irish juries but English newspapers have said that every death and every drop of blood spilled in Ireland is on the head of David Lloyd George. If the stupidity and the bigotry were not so nauseating it would be amusing. In a word the case is this: our gallant parsons, our P.P. Ass. ranters, and all their men-folk and all their women-folk raved about Belgium and Poland and told us what a noble war was being waged for the noble ideals of the Allies. The noble ideals of the Allies were, as we have said, freedom of small nations, destruction of despotism, the right of a people to choose their own form of government, no matter whose selfish interests were crossed. Now the Irish people, by an eighty per cent, majority, have put this into practice, and every tin-templar and every parsonical Damuuisans domestic us in the country sputters and curses about Sinn Fein treason and disloyalty. It is indeed sickening to think that ministers of what they call the Gospel should be so dead to all sense of decency, all sense of honor, truth, and justice, and so entirely under the domination of that immoral secret society whose whole ritual is expressed by the words, To hell with the Pope; which is as ready to curse the King as tho- Pope on occasion; whose loyalty is altogether a thing of selfish interest.

Parliamentary Rottenness Those who have lived in New Zealand in election time ought to be aware that as a rule the electors are more concerned with electing a Party man than a good man. Not fitness, not integrity, not education count with the profanum viihjns : prejudice, and often bigotry and hatred are the grounds on which the country legislators are chosen. The P.P. Ass. claimed that, as a result of its campaign of lying and calumny, it has secured the rejection of certain members and the election of certain others. A prominent Labor man told us that sectarian bigotry and hatred of Catholics had moved many laborers to vote against their own principles. It is no wonder that our Parliament is an incompetent, stupid business and that absence of principle and general disregard for the true welfare of the Dominion are its leading characteristics just now. The main consequences of the rot due to the Party system are thus summed up by Belloc and Chesterton, in their illuminating work on that evil of present-day Eng1. It puts the responsibility for public affairs on men who are not fitted to bear it.

2. It defers reform in institutions and the uptaking of new weapons in defence and r hew methods in life at a rate progressively less than the change in the modern world around us.

3. It permits minor legislation, intensely provocative and unpopular, and therefore causative of intense friction in the public working of society. 4. It produces, through the financial corruption of that class which not only legislates but administrates and judges, an increasing crop of effects, wasteful, impoverishing, or directly harmful to the community.

5. It prevents the nation as a whole from ordering matters in which an active national opinion is of first concern: to wit, defence, finance, and foreign policy. Commenting on this indictment, the authors say;’ 1. The type of man who normally succeeds in obtaining office under the rules of the Party system is not fit to administer the affairs .of State.

2. The effect of the system is degrading for good men, if they chance to find their way among the rest. The inbecilities which even good men utter after a course of Parliamentary training is proof of this fact. 3. There is the evil that legislation of an intensely unpopular sort passes without comment. (Thus Mr. Massey is able to issue Orders-in-Council and similar fool-stunts which seem directed exclusively towards the end of pleasing a howling gang of bigots. Conscientious objectors, whom we all know now were right from every point of view, _ are still punished and the community does not use the hose on the politicians). 4. The system lends itself to jobbery of every kind. (A proof of what this leads to may be had in the political protection of the profiteers during the war.) 5. The Parliamentary machine carefully excludes the discussion of really vital policies. Instead of having the matters discussed frankly and candidly, hole-and-corner methods are encouraged and third-class politicians are permitted to impose their views on the people. -v Once upon a time, Carlyle asked the Duke of Wellington, whom he met near Westminster, “When will you take a regiment of soldiers down and clear out that talking-shop?” More than once during the past five years we have often asked ourselves how long the common sense of the people of this country will stand the footling politicians whose sole achievement seems to be that they have bled New Zealand to the heart and piled up a debt that is a world’s record.