Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 2 September 1920, Page 14

Current Topics

Archbishop Redwood ; ‘During the week we received from our Metropolitan two articles which his Grace found time during his travels to write for the readers of the Tablet. “They will prove;” he said, “that I am alive and active, and. that I take a deep interest in the Tablet and its readers.” The Archbishop, when writing, proposed to spend August in Ireland, where he is sure of a warm welcome from the Irish priests and people, who have not forgotten his magnificent plea for justice for Ireland, delivered at the Melbourne Convention. He leaves England for New Zealand about the middle of September, and is due in Wellington towards the end of October. In all human probability it is the last time we shall have a chance of welcoming home our “Grand Old Man,” who has so endeared himself to all during his long pastoral career as Bishop and Archbishop of Wellington and Metropolitan of New Zealand. After his eightieth year, when other men would have retired from the fight, he came forward and in the interests of truth and justice delivered the finest speech ever made on behalf of Ireland by an Englishman. All things considered, it is right to suggest that every Irishman in the whole Dominion should join in a grand welcome to his Grace. A testimonial and presentation on behalf of us all, from Bluff to North Cape, would be an effective way of expressing our recognition of his services and of our esteem for a great Churchman.

P.P. Ass. Nonsense The calumniator of the dead and that egregious person who once quoted , from a copy of a Tablet that was never printed were billed to speak in Auckland. For some reaason or other the man of accurate quotations did not speak, but the calumniator kept up the standard of the P.P. Ass. for falsehood. We mention a few of his “facts.” He said that Sinn Fein means, in the Irish language, Ourselves Alone. Everybody knows that it means no such thing, but that was good enough for the P.P. Asses who heard him. Again, he said that it was a “fact” that about £20,000 had been sent out of this country to de Valera in Ireland. The only thing wrong about that “fact” is that there is not a word of truth in it from beginning to end—and more’s the. pity. In the first place de Valera is not in Ireland, and in the second nothing like £20,000, not even a third of it, was subscribed. However an inaccuracy of two or three hundred per cent, is nothing for a P.P. Ass. orator, and these people are not paid for telling the truth. As we have mentioned the Irish Fund we will here inform our readers what the diocese of Dunedin has done in the matter—of the other dioceses we cannot speak yet: ,„ Dunedin and burbs, £382 3s; Invercargill, £228 2s ; Oamaru, £l5O ; Riverton, £126 5s 6d • r no * S P USh ’ 107 7s; Gore ’ £lO2 18s 6d; Waikiwi’ £100; Queenstown, £BO 15s 6d; Ophir, £39 Is • St. athans, £223 3s ; Hyde and Palmerston, £46 10s; c?? mil 1 " 61 " 8 ;/ 54 15s Mos S £35 7s; Ranfurly, £33; Milton, £32 8s Gd ; Balfour, £2B 12s 6d; Alexandra, £l6 Is 6d ; Cromwell, £l4 15s; Roxburgh, £8 • one individual subscription of £1 Is. Total for Dunedin diocese, £1596 18s. .fl. o Later we may be able to publish the totals for the *he Southey 6 ! 8 ’ l ’° r the - Pr6Sent we wd l only say that win- ? x f and has raised weß over £3OOO, and that Wellington has done well so far as it has gone. AuckJurther" ° 7 reached £4O0 > and is likefy to get no

An Old Prophecy th« f n n S rave En gen have solemnly . warned ruin S 1 \ ( lOVTmenfc 1 OV T menfc that th€ir b ™tality isVing „g rum to the Empire. In this connection it is worth

while recalling a very old Irish prophecy, attributed to St. Malachy: '?i<jf : ccaiX . u\: ..-.' . "Be of good heart, my son, the- Church of God in Ireland shall never fail. .With terrible- discipline long. shall she be purified, ■ but afterward, far : and wide, shall her magnificence shine forth in cloudless* glory.. v. ': t«j -• : ': • •;' : *' ' : ." : \- "And, O Ireland ! do thou lift up thy head. Thy* day shall come—a day of ages— week of centuries equally the seven deadly sins of thy enemies shall be numbered to thee. Then shall thy exceeding great merits have obtained mercy for thy terrible foe—yet though as great scourges— and enduring—thy enemies who are in thee shall be driven out and humbled, and their name taken away.

"But inasmuch as thou art depressed, in so much shalt thou be exalted. Thy light shall burst forth as the sun. Thy glory shall not pass away. "There shall be peace and abundance within thy boundaries and beauty and strength in thy defences. "The Church of God in Ireland shall never fail, and, though long shall it be desired, my country shall one day stand forth in its might and be fresh in beauty like the rose. Amen."

During many long nights of sorrow, that ancient message has given comfort to millions of exiles. One form of the prophecy contains the promise that the end of the passion of Ireland would come after seven centuries and that England's downfall would also follow Ireland's exaltation. Seven centuries have passed, and it looks as if events to-day are rapidly proving the truth of the prophecy. Ireland is winning, and England can scarcely be said to be flourishing at home or abroad. Even Englishmen who visit Ireland bear witness to the fact that the Sinn Fein Government is the real government, and that the nation has begun to arise. Other Englishmen hurry home from the United States to tell the gang in Downing Street that they are playing havoc with British prestige,. British finances, and British welfare in general. It is very, very sad. A Sinn Fein writer said the other day: "We risk our lives but we do not risk Ireland. Lloyd George, for the sake of preserving his reddishness on the map risks England." That sums up the situation neatly. All the present Sinn Feiners can be killed by the British tanks, but their wives and sisters and children, if not all killed also, will carry on the fight to the bitter end.

A Split in the Ranks A cable in the Dunedin Star, August 25, tells us that a number of the police in Dublin have revolted against the Castle Government. This is , the first tidings of revolt communicated to. us by our press, but it is not by any means the first time-that revolt has occurred among the rank and. file of the army of occupation in Ireland. Writing from London on July 9, the correspondent for the Irish World said that the police in the South-West of Ireland were defying their superiors, and that there was ; likelihood . that the trouble might spread to the headquarters at Dublin. In Listowel, Killarney, and Cahirciveen the - men openly repudiated the authorities. The trouble first arose from the fact that English soldiers were allowed to molest Irishwomen without being punished; - The Killarney police told their officers that they would obey no orders until the soldiers were sent away. In-spector-General Smith and two high officials sped down from Dublin and harangued the men on their attitude. Smith seems to have made the mistake ■of thinking that the police were afraid of Sinn Fein,- and he told them that the Castle people were now devising a new plan for the defeat of all Irish rebels, and that everything in the garden was looking. lovely. - He got "a surprise to find that he was on the wrong tack. The men listened in sullen silence to his . virulent , abuse of 'Sinn Fein. He angrily asked a young constable what grievances he had. The constable coolly- replied, “Sergeant McNamee is. our v spokesman,” The sergeant stepped forward and said,

"I gather, J sir, from your name and -. accent ; that you are an Englishman. It is clear that you forget that ; we ; are-;lrishmen.'' "V , \- :/ , u t

The sergeant then condemned the soldiers in strong terms and declared that the police would no longer assist in the Castle's persecution of the Sinn Feiners. Smith, frantic with rage, cried out, "Arrest that man." A constable stepped forward with his hand on his revolver, and said, "If you or anyone lays a hand on McNamee you . will have your blood in this yard.'' .. "•; ..-';■..■

Noticing that the other men were significantly handling their revolvers, Smith beat a hasty retreat, returning to Dublin by motor. The men received assurances of support from the police in the other towns of Kerry. They said that in the event of the soldiers being called out against them they would fight to the last man. They drew up a written report of the remarks made by Smith and a statement of their general case, which was submitted to Bain Eireann.

It is over a month ago now since the foregoing events related by the London correspondent occurred, and the first tidings we have had in our press of any such trouble was the cable appearing in the Star of August 25. Taken in connection with the foregoing details that little cablegram may be very significant. There could be no more eloquent comment on the doings of the Huns in Ireland than that remark made by the sergeant, "You forget we are Irishmen." If the malign stupidity of the authorities drives even the police to revolt things must have come to a pretty pass. It is quite evident that the belated cables that reach us leave us very much in the dark as to the real state of things. While the ranks of the army of occupation are splitting, the great victory of Sinn Fein in the County Council elections has effectively given the lie to the statements made by our press that the results of the Parliamentary elections did not prove that the whole Irish people were with Sinn Fein. In the Ulster County Councils Carsonites have been defeated and are in a minority, while Sinn Fein has swept the rest of the country. Note that these elections of over 700 representatives were conducted under the system of Proportional Representation, thus putting it beyond a doubt that the Irish people know what they want agree as to what they want, and that they want selfdetermination. Thus another press lie is nailed

Attacks on de Valera Last week under a vulgar heading the Dunedin Lvemng Star published a cable telling of a split between the Friends of Ireland in America. The new* which inspired the Star headliner to become coarse Has the freshness of being several months old now. it has also the fatuity and nonsense which we are accustomed to associate with alleged Irish news in our lies. The fact is that a very small section of the American friends of Ireland did attack de Valera bewTtw f r p fUSed 10 become their tool, and the result was that they -were repudiated and condemned all over f e United States, while the occasion was seized upon tor a grand renewal of confidence in the Irish leader were P L;d!. m nT S i “ th ®^ ampaigli against de Valera were Judge Cohalan and the : editor of the Gaelic American. And when they saw how the cat was jumping shouldT r 7 what they said and did should ■ be forgotten. But the vast majority of the Irish insisted on giving full publicity to the charges such 111 t t 0 f ° r the P resent and f or the future such ill-tempered and unworthy attempts against the refuting th ““i « f be rtmw “ bor «l that, when lefutmg the charge t‘. England’s security would be ngered by Irelands independence, de Valera said ZlrifaTmdT "f 6xisted Cuba ltd as™fed hTri„d meet th n C f e full y- His onemiee then Sng ™,n d Spre abroad th ® ”« that he was 7™mL (l Lf°'7 * h6 -, flaß ' “d, accept a dependent p ition for Ireland, similar to that of Cuba with re-

gard to America. That attack failed and the Dail Eireann proclaimed its trust and confidence in its elected chief, while the Irish papers made it clear from the beginning that they perfectly understood how - far de Valera meant the analogy to go. •>-,- Later the plotters wanted to induce de Valera -to ask from the Chicago Convention a mere resolution of .sympathy instead of recognition, and; because he refused to fall in with their views which were • inspired by considerations based on American politics, they again attacked him, this time \ accusing him of wasting the funds. Naturally, de Valera made it plain -to the American people that he was responsible to Ireland and not to any group of Americans, that he was in the United States to speak as the Irish people wished him to speak, and that he would not allow Judge Cohalan or anybody else to dictate to him on that subject. Sympathy (jo leor had been expressed for Ireland before, and he was not wasting his time there in looking fcr empty votes such as the plotters would suggest in order not to embarrass their friends. Again, Dail Eireann pledged its support for de Valera and refuted all charges against him by making it clear that all he' had done and said in America had the full approval of the Irish executive at home. Strong expressions of condemnation of the would-be dictators then poured in from all sides, and the entire country pledged its fealty to the Irish leader. Father Yorke, in the San Francisco Leader, speaks for the Friends of Ireland when he says : '

"At this moment what Ireland requires from America is an act of justice. Sympathy has already been expressed for Ireland. The Irish President in requesting action by this country, is but .fulfilling the wishes of the people whom he represents. No person, or group of persons, in this country can profess to speak directly for Ireland. If the Irish movement is not to become a piece of political machinery for the benefit of political office-seekers, it must be directed in accordance with the wishes of the Irish people, as long as those wishes are in accordance with the principles for which Ireland has stood for seven long centuries. In asking for Ireland [as was done in the second plank presented in Chicago by Judge Cohalan and his friends] less than what the people of Ireland demand, those responsible stultified the Irish movement in America, and, consciously or unconsciously, laid open the way for the tremendous sacrifices of the Irish people being used for other than Irish interests. . . . The attempt made to undermine President de Valera, both in this country and in Ireland, by those who pose as friends of the Irish cause, have met with ignominious failure. The outpourings that greeted him in Chicago and San Francisco, as well as the resolutions that are being passed by every Irish organisation in America, show that Ireland's sympathisers in this country are solidly behind them. Of the attitude of the people of Ireland there could be no doubt, but the action taken by Dail Eireann on last Tuesday [June 29], in which it expressed complete satisfaction with de Valera policy and .work in America, makes assurance doubly sure. ; There is no split in the Irish ranks at home or abroad. Ireland remains firm in its allegiance to the Republic, and American symmpathisers stand solidly behind it; demanding its recognition."

iSo the attempt to harness the Irish movement to a political chariot was defeated ignominiously, and de Valera's position was made firmer and more assured by the exposure of the false charges made against him. The views of the friends of Ireland were well expressed by his Eminence Cardinal O'Connell, whose verdict was, "Whom else would we follow but de Valera?" Already news from America tells us that the discomfited persons are now protesting that the dispute was a matter of little importance and that their criticism was based merely on a question of tactics. - They have learned a lesson, and in future will not be likely to forget that they are dealing with a man who will not abate one whit of his demands, made in his cap-

acity r of spokesman for the Irish people, in : order to win favor from any American political clique. 5 -'- All this throws some light on, an' incident which occurred over a year ago. When the Friends of Ireland sent a deputation to wait on President Wilson, the President made it clear that while willing to meet them he must insist that Judge Cohalan be excluded from the deputation. Clearly it was"' not because of the Judge's Irish sympathies this protest was made by President Wilson. Unscrupulous political tactics like those which caused the attacks on de Valera were very probably the cause of the President's objection. At any rate Cohalan's effort to trap the Irish leader and make him a tool of a political American party has been defeated.