THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE.

New Zealand Tablet, 7 October 1920, Page 32

THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE.

Out of comic opera could one imagine a more farcical situation than that created by Mr. Lloyd George's treatment of Archbishop Mannix (comments the London Catholic Times of August 14). The great liner bringing him to our shores is met by a British destroyer and his Grace is spirited away by our dauntless tars to be landed stealthily on the shores of Cornwall. Cornwall is the home of those patriotic smugglers who traded with the French, while Nelson was engaged in gaining renown by defeating their flotillas at sea. While we are patriotic enough to be proud of being Englishmen, we ought to have grace enough, whatever our political predilections, to be not merely ashamed at our Government's stupid act of piracy but ready to express our resentment at it. The tardy correction of the Premier's statement that Archbishop Mannix would not be allowed to land in England is significant of much. The direct inference is that the absurdity of the position, to say nothing of the question of the legality of such action, was pointed out to him. Hence the correction later that he meant to say Ireland instead of England. The fact that the Government can perpetrate any stupidity, or, to use Mr. George's expression, malignity, which it likes in Ireland afforded an escape. Now that the navy has captured the Archbishop from the Baltic we suppose it will be able to concentrate against Russia. The American and Continental comic press will not minister to our conceit for some little time. In the meantime the Government acts as Sir Edward Carson wills and the British public pays the bill.