THE BOGUS PLOT AGAIN

New Zealand Tablet, 17 March 1921, Page 17

THE BOGUS PLOT AGAIN

Our Dunedin Day-lies published Lloyd George’s absurd story about the German plots in Ireland recently. They did not have the common decency to publish the other side of the story. They seem incapable of doing an honorable thing. The Manchester Weekly Guardian of January 14 publishes Mr. de Valera’s refutation of the . British Government and also the following editorial comment on the whole incident MANCHESTER GUARDIAN’S COMMENT. The Irish Documents.—The German-Irish plot, which has figured with tremendous insistence in the Irish debates and at the hustings, has been embodied at last in a White Paper. It contains little information that could not be found in the Crown brief in the Casement case and in the report of the Commission of Inquiry after the Dublin Rising. For the rest, there needs no publication at public expense to tell us that Germany sought as late as 1918 to turn to her advantage our failure to hold the friendship of the Irish people with which we started the war. At this point the documents grow vague on the complicity of the Sinn Fein leaders, whom Mr. Shortt rounded up and deported to British gaols, while the world was told that they were hand-in-glove with Germany. The date is significant, for up to the arrests by Mr. Shortt political murder in Ireland was virtually unknown. It has to be remembered, too, that the plotters of 1916 were but a minority' group, while to-day Sinn Fein is the political faith of the majority, and the Premier has expressed his anxiety to get into touch with these same bloodthirsty fellows. An Irish administration that can talk of peace and publish hate propaganda in the same hour is a ready subject for the bitter remark of Mr. de Valera: “We who see how deliberately these gentlemen distort the truth do not forget this fact when estimating the probable honesty of so-called offers and proposals emanating from them.” It is not fair, but it probably expresses the Irish mind as well as the publication of the White Paper -at the peace moment expresses the police mind in Irish government, p. 31) DE VALERA’S REPLY. Mr. de Valera in a statement to the Irish Bulletin. replies to the Government’s allegations about the socalled German plot of 1918. The text of his statement, which is headed “Dail Eireann Official,” is as follows: —, There was no such'.thing as this German plot of

1918. I have asserted this in America time after time. «I now repeat it here. From July, 1917; I was intimately in touch with all the major activities both of the Sinn Fein political orani cQ^ ' rm anrl nf rbo Trish Volunteers, and so I speak with knowledge and authority. Lord Wimborne, not Lloyd George, told the truth on this matter. • The character of this “report,” its total untrustworthiness, and its obvious purpose to bring to play on the side of the authors of the present military frightfulness in Ireland all the prejudices and hatreds of the past war, can be inferred from the portions that have reference to me personally. For example, the document on “Army Organisation” attributed to me and, according to the summary in the press, said to be in my handwriting, is not in my handwriting, as they could easily have seen. Further, it was neither composed by me nor composed at my suggestion ; nor was it on my person. I suggest that representative American or Continental pressmen ask Lloyd George to let them see the original document or the photographic copy of it. It will not need an expert to decide that the writing is not mine. When that is done I will give a full history of the document and supported by proofs that will be conclusive. The way the British Cabinet has impressed this document into its service might be taken as a standard illustration of how such plots are manufactured to meet the British Government’s needs.

The press has already commented on the fact that, although names are given without reserve throughout the report, a letter found in my possession is referred to as from "a known member of the Irish Republican Army."* It will be interested to know the reason for this. This letter was handed to me when presiding at a meeting a few hours before my arrest. (It might have come from Lloyd George himself or from the original discoverer of the German plot, Sir Edward Carson.)

I glanced through its contents and later— though the document seemed of no particular consequence, being, if genuine, nothing more than the writer's own views on the situation as regards conscription and the steps that were being taken to meet it—as a safeguard to the writer from the attentions of the British, should they get the letter, I pinched off the signature. This can be seen if the original be examined. As for the document on communications, it was given me as a basis from which I might start to work up: a system of communications which was needed by the Mansion House Conference in connection with their work in view of the threatened enforcement of conscription. In all probability I would have altered it so much that the system when actually set up would have but slight relation to the scheme outlined in this proposal .

In so far as this whole report has reference to incidents subsequent to the 17th July I know that it is simply of a piece with the same sheer audacity in lying which the present British Ministers have given evidence of in respect to Ireland in their public statements day by statements which are designed to deceive their own people no less than the peoples of foreign nations. We who know the truth and see how deliberately these gentlemen distort it do not forget this fact when estimating the probable honesty of so-called offers and proposals * emanating from them. The case of Cotter Brothers is another instance of how eagerly, in the absence of evidence of any real plot," British Government press into their service every chance occurrence and document that comes their way if it can at all be made suitable for their purpose. , ■ Eamon pp Vat,fra.