Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 24 February 1921, Page 14

Current Topics

“ I Am Sir Oracle” ! ' i; 1 The other evening the editor of the Dunedin Star emphatically assured us all that although he knew there were other opinions he had no hesitation in asserting that New Zealand was out by itself in matters educational. Of course one has but to read the Star for a few evenings to be quite convinced that its editorial opinion on culture and education is final. We agree that New Zealand stands by itself, but we do not agree that its position is in the van. There are more ways of being conspicuous than one. A Forger’s Opinion _ According to the forger “Civis,” Ireland is not a nation, and her people are ungrateful because they do not allow the English* to rob them in consideration for the aWyndham Land Bill. He also waxes angry with the brave men who are defending their country against the murderers of women and children and aged priests. One would hesitate to adduce decent authorities against a forger, but there need be no hesitation in refuting him on the authority of the Lloyd George Government which employs blackguards like the Dunedin Piggott. When Lloyd George was in fear of the Prussians he circulated through Ireland a recruiting poster promising the people that the Allies would, see that Ireland got her rights, like the other small nations. As for the Land Bills, they were wrung from England by force. The bullets that lodged in the filthy Leitrim and in others like him were the main arguments that brought them about. They made no gift to the. Irish people. They made them Joorrow money at interest in older to buy the land that was stolen from their fathers. Generosity? Well, yes, British generosity, if you like. We note also the ill-bred references to Mr. Fraser, M.P. Is it because Mr. Fraser is a Labor man that,such sneers are aimed at him? Why does not “Givis” rub it into Anglican D.D.’s in the same fashion ? Mr. Fraser did not change his coat to become an M.P. ’

Day-Lies Again We i pointed out last week that the fableurams had killed Michael Collins many times and that he still lived. Of a similar trustworthy nature is the alleged reference by Dr. Cohalan to the fact that the Pope did not recognise the Irish Republic. Dr. Cohalan may not be gifted wicn a ; great deal of common sense but we refuse to believe that he is such a fool as our fablegrams ™ ake him. Having longer memories man the fabiegrammers our readers will readily recall that the ( Pope did at least indirectly . sanction the - Irish -Public when he laid down the sound doctrine that government by the consent of the governed ‘ ought to be the basis of that peace which our bosses promised we were fighting for. If you read Dr. Mannix’s speech m last week s Tablet- you will find that once he found e Irish people had elected their own government the matter was settled’ for him, and there was nothing for im to do but support that government by every lawful means in his power.; One more bull’s eye goes to our ay-lies We had vivid descriptions of interviews between Mr. George and Dr. Chine. -Now Dr. Clime says ( there was not a word of truth in them. One of these days the man who quotes a May-lie as an auth*lf y f Wl i be able to make a fortune by exhibiting himself at Fuller s as a survival, of the. simple people who —p/ Ponderous ,' platitudinous, illcontinue HpL dlSh^ 6 f > ? Ur press-propagandists still fWl?n' ?j ga at J tacks on a small nation.'' When which nfilT da y -I ! es dlscusa Ireland it l is hard to decide which of the two is the more ludicrous. " But it makes one sick to look back, to - the -.days when both were so hysterical on behalf of small nations and so angry against brutal oppression 'of the weak by the strong 7 Phem present attitude, in the face of the war on women and children carried on by John Cow, is sufficient proof

i of their abject worthlessness. What an Empire it must be that needs the support of such contemptible tools. Probably both the editors will soon be rewarded by promotion :to the Upper House or by .decoration with an 0.8. E. We-i could not think of any more suitable treatment for them. IT

Limavaddy and His Press i ■ One would think from reading Dunedin’s day-lies that Lord Limavaddy had a good time all the time while he was in Dunedin recently. As one more instance of how the press deludes the public compare what the papers said with what happened in reality. First of all, Lord Limavaddy arrived in Dunedin, standing out on the platform as if expecting a warm welcome, a cheer, or some sort of demonstration. : He got nothing of the sort. Then, during his stay in the town less notice was taken of him than if he had been one of the gee-gees come hither for the races. But it was when, the delegation of gold miners met him that the band began to play. They gave it to him hot and strong. They told him what they thought of himself and his Muddlement, and of their opinion of the morality of profiteering at their expense. They tangled him up in economics about which he knows nothing; they refused to be bamboozled by his politician’s tripe; they stripped him of his smugness and goaded him to bad-temper,* just as the Wellington people did on that famous day when a New Zealand Prime Minister made himself notorious for ever by his corner-boy gesture; and it was a babbling, storming, nonsensical poor Limavaddy he was by the time the meeting was ended. By all means send him Home and make him Prime Minister of Orange Ulster’s little fool-parliament, but do not send him Home to represent New Zealand. It is high time that New Zealand got a man with brains to pull her out of the mud. Who knows but that the Orange drummers, might make him another King William ? And, then, in his learned leisure, he could sit down by the waters of the Lagan and write his autobiography. If he writes- if himself he will see that his election by a calumniator of dead women, and other little incidents that might prevent his burial in Westminster Abbey, are carefully kept out. Poor Lord Limavaddy! How the servile press cloaks the man’s stupidity and incompetence on every occasion ! We have ,another instance of it in the attitude of our dailies towards Mr. John Brown’s sane and acute criticism of the Massey Muddlement. Mr. Brown knows what he is talking about, but the press, unable to answer his reasoning, helplessly implores the public to rely on the superior wisdom of the head of the most deplorable and' incompetent Government that New Zealand has seen since the days of Sir Julius Vogel. Happily, there are many people whose memories are long enough to recall how the press -lied during the War and to discount for ever more the sapient utterances of writers whose lack of principle no longer needs - demonstrating. One day the paper —whether ' the day-lies or the paper money— lie torn away, and poor Mr. Massey will have such a fall that, like Humpty-Dumpty, he will be beyond repairing by all the King’s horses and all the King’s men.

What is Behind the Orange Orgies ? • Last week we pointed out that bigotry is used, as a tool for similar ends both here and in Ulster. Here we have the P.P.A., and its horse-whipped organiser, and its rabid parsons, and its rag-tag-and-bobtail among the ignorant masses, exploited for the purpose of divide ing Labor and enabling the capitalists to fool all the people all the time. ' On foundations ; of bigotry and sectarian strife the Massey Muddlement has been erected, although a large majority of the .votes -.of the people' was cast against ; it. ; ; Mr. Massey, who in his ill-temper admitted that he was .an Orangeman and a Mason, permits the P. P. Ass. organiser to, boast openly that he and his (Cabinet are the political creatures, of a ■ disreputable gang of strife-mongers, ( and , it is not dong ago that the same gang exacted from the same Muddlement its pound l of flesh .in the shape of legislation which has made New Zealand a synonym for religious per-

secution and injustice. In Ulster we have precisely the ; same ! sort of conditions. • The British champions of small nations now make no secret of the fact that they never believed in their professed war-aims: they avow openly that selfishness is their sole guiding principle and that considerations of justice '/■• and fairness mean nothing to them. They go further than the Huns ever went in their eagerness to maintain their stranglehold on a nation which" they ; have plundered and exploited for centuries, and they stop at nothing• not.even at war on women and childrenin order to secure the poverty of the Irish people and the domination of the .Orange plantation which is the sole pledge of English rule in Ireland now. . It is not long since it was becoming clear that the misguided laborers of Belfast were beginning to realise that their real foe was Carson, or rather the capitalist interests for which he stands. Orange Labor - was getting out of hand, and showing signs of independence. When the Belfast workers struck in January and February,. 1919, the Ulster leaders saw that a democratic •, movement that meant disaster for them was growing, and at once they set themselves anew to the old game of kindling the fires of sectarian strife in order to divide the fast uniting ranks of Irish Labor. Unscrupulous propagan-dists—true-blue British liarsspread the story that Sinn Fein was the enemy of Ulster Labor. The rumor became an article of faith. The Orange mob forgot its real interests once more and proceeded to burn the homes of Catholics and to kill and beat inoffensive men. and women, while chivalrous British troops stood by and smiled. If the rank and file of Orangemen are to blame for this brutality and bloodshed, the true culprits are their masters who urged them on deliberately for their own ends. British Labor also stood by and watched the. infamous slaughter. British Labor-Leaders who were eloquent in the cause of Russia did nothing for the Irish women and children who were burned out of house and home by the Orangemen. Here and there, an honest man raised a solitary voice of protest, but the majority condoned the crimes by their cowardly silence, proving once more to Sinn Fein that the only hope of freedom lay with the Irish people themselves. Henderson, Thomas, and the rest of the English spouting-men, were broken reeds when the time of proving themselves came; and British Labor filled the ranks of the "Black-and-Tans" that murdered priests, old men, young women, and boys all over Ireland. Remember that until Macpherson and Greenwood and Lloyd George invented their bogus plots and arrested without trial or shot and ill-used, the leaders of a peaceful political movement, retaliations by the Sinn Feiners were unknown and Judge after Judge testified to the absence of crime in Ireland. Remember it now when our day-lies are aiding and abetting the Brithuns just as eagerly as they lied during the War. Remember, further, that all the brutality and all the persecution are the fruit of a capitalist plot for the further exploitation of a small nation to which, in the day of his terror, David Lloyd George promised the rights of nationhaad which he now brazenly denies. If the British boast, "Women and children first," has a shameful meaning .to-day, blame the capitalists for it. .'■.. . '

The Crucifixion of Ireland ; - However apathetic or eyey, hostile the . rank and file of New Zealand Labor on the-east side of the Otira may be there is no coldness about the men whom straight Labor (without any hyphens) has chosen to represent it in Parliament. When,.others,by a shameful silence became accessories to the murders committed by Lloyd George/ hirelings in Ireland, Messrs. Holland and Fraser could be always trusted to stand up and speak out for one of the small nations for which so many brave boys were sent to die. If we have-not commented oftener on what they have done for the Irish cause it is not due to , a&y lack of appreciation and gratitude. We are their debtors, as is . every Irishman, and every.man of Irish blood in New Zealand, and we do not forget it. 1 By his address on the Crucifixion of Ireland, in Dunedin,, on February 17, -Mr.

Fraser. has added 'another title to those whereby he was already our creditor, and in the name of Ireland we thank him for his brave words. He made it clear that in the opinion of the leading papers of Great Britain and of the leading public men of England, the Lloyd George Government was carrying on against the Irish people a campaign of frightfulness on the lines of the schrecklichkeit that the same Government denounced so vehemently during the War. He brought forward proofs to show that the murders and the burnings in Ireland were due to Lloyd George and his Ministers who are grinding down a small nation in brazen opposi" tion to all their own pledges : to our dead. And he advocated fearlessly that right to self-determination which Ireland claims by the voice of over eighty per cent, of her population. The. respect and attention with which Mr. Fraser was heard by the large assembly prove that his words fell on good soil. At the present time a decent man has only to know the truth about Ireland in order to become her supporter. It is only " politicians and the editors of our day-lies who are so bereft of every chivalrous t impulse that they can support the abominations of Brithun Government in Ireland " to-day. It is certain that Ireland is winning friends as time goes on. There is enough decency (outside Parliamentarians like Massey and Bell, and outside newspaper offices that protect forgers) to warrant that humanity will still be as a whole on the side of the oppressed and the plundered; and as long as there is, addresses like that of Mr. Fraser will be of incalculable aid to suffering Ireland. Let us hope that there will be many more of them. Let us hope that every man and woman and child who was in any way a sufferer through the New Zealand Conscription that drove our boys away on the plea that they were going to fight for small nations will be moved to demand from the Massey Government a proof, in the shape of a condemnation of Brithunnism in Ireland,, that our Militarists were not liars and that, whatever about England, New Zealand was no hypocrite. It is certainly time that public opinion was organised. We raved and foamed about ' Belgium and Poland. Have we no thought for our own kith and kin Thousands of us have friends in Ireland who have by this time known what a -visit from the murderous "Black-and-Tans " means very many of us have lost relations and acquaintances through their brutality; and as time goes on we shall lose more if we do not do something. It is not too late to make it plain to Mr. Massey that New Zealand is not with him in his calm and speculative contemplation of the atrocities done in Ireland in favor of his Orange friends. We have not done half as much in the way of organising and agitating as we should have done. In God's ' name, let us make amends for our past negligence now, and let St. Patrick's Day not pass without a determined resolution being sent forth from every Irish gathering in the Do- • minion. ; Ireland is more to us than ; either Belgium or Poland, and we must not stand by idly now that those who pretended they cared about small nations ; have shown that•.* they had other ends in view during their patriotic fever. Do not forget St. Patrick's Day. And make it plain to Mr. Massey that we are in earnest."