‘WHAT’S THE MATTER? FRIENDS WE DO THEE NO WRONG ”

New Zealand Tablet, 14 April 1921, Page 9

‘WHAT’S THE MATTER? FRIENDS WE DO THEE NO WRONG ”

(By T.J.McG., in New York Truth.)

; vltis a fact well known to all students of history that the statesmen of England have always been in the habit of sympathising with the oppressed, the quarrelsome,* and the discontented of all the earth. “Our armies are on the march —-our fleets under weighthe long reach of our diplomacy must perplex where it does not absolutely control the councils of all other States— cannot afford to lie still,”, is their language, and Divide et Imp era has been their rallying cry for hundreds of years, - whenever called upon, by interest, by a meddlesome, a watchful, or an ambitions temper, by a thirst for wealth, or a love of power, to make themselves busy with the affairs of other nations. The more of a domestic or household nature, the more personal and private the better. Recall England’s movements in the East, among the great household of princes; behold her inter-meddling with their laws, their religion, their government, and with the very sanctities of the domestic hearth. And when the right and justice of such- a policy has been questioned, England’s statesmen have always asked: “What’s the matter? Why complain ? Friend, we do thee no wrong.” Follow her step by step, and age after age, through all Northern and Southern Europedividing empires upsetting thrones —blowing trumpets in the ears of the people and moving her fleets and armies in every direction over the face of the earth; and always, if we may believe Ber own story, always on the side of liberty. And? what kind of liberty ? The liberty of wearing English clothes and shaving with English razors, and the liberty of allowing some millions of men to poison themselves with opium. Behold her at work everywhere, and everywhere at the same time; at home and abroad, in the north and in the south, in the east and in the west; now occupying Spain, now Portugal, and now France; now strengthening Hanover and now helping to overthrow Saxony; to-day warring that the people may be at liberty to govern themselves; in other words, to choose their own masters, subject, nevertheless, to the approbation of England’s statesmen, and to-morrow that thrones and monarchs may be safe Poland —Austria re-established foreverand France alike helpless and harmless; the next day freeing Greece from the intolerable oppression of the Turk; then seeing that Turkey herself will not be -trampled and crushed under foot by the power of Russia; and next that Russia may not be swept from the earth by the legions of France. Then you see her take the field, as a sympathiser, on account of the Spanish possessions in the New World— some three-quarters of all North and South America may be enabled to govern themselvesand wear the products of English mills; and then insisting that Belgium shall not be obliged to wear the manufactures of Holland. During the trying years of our Civil War we find her statesmen opposing the cause of the Union and denouncing Abraham Lincoln —whose praises they are now chanting. In 1870 we see her rejoicing at the victory of “dear Protestant Prussia” over “Catholic France,” and later we see her allied with France against Germany and Austria. In the nineties of the last century we see the Boer Republic being thrown into the scrapheap of nations by the power - of England’s 'might, and President 1 Kruger greeted with the old-time query, “What’s the matter? Why complain? Friend, we do thee no wrong.” It is an old, old story. It has been told year after year, from the days of Marlborough to the days of Lloyd George, and no people on earth are allowed to ask, “ Why do ye so?” /" But the moment we dare talk of sympathy for . oppressed Catholic Ireland on this side of the water, then, as the jingo poet, Kipling, says, “That’s another story.” Let us but dare express our sympathy for Ireland breeding place of the —the warm-hearted, brave, unconquered Irishheavens! what an explosion of hate there is in certain circles on both sides of the big, salty pond! A few years ago the English press chided us for not entering the war; on “behalf of humanity.” Now when we dare _ express our sympathy for the “humanity” of Ireland we ” are flayed by J. L. Garvin in the London Observer for, as the Sun-Herald of New York puts it,-“mixing in Irish rows.” Let us but dare our voices and open Our purses in behalf of Ireland and immediately Munsey of the Sun- • Herald, of the Times, Pulitzer of the World, Reid of the , Tribune, and the subsidised -Anglo-American press throughout the United States become perturbed because of our so-called intermeddling with England’s affairs; the editorial rooms of our moulders of public opinion rock with indignationat so much a column. _.. - ~.. .. How can writers be so foolish, and so forgetful? Or,

rather, how can they hope to make believe so absurdly, with any advantage to themselves or others? Stripped of all its camouflage, the question is a very simple one. Jt is onlywhether the Irish are, or are not like every other civilised people upon the face of the earth, entitled to judge for themselves of that which most nearly concerns themselves — right to self-determination. Many of England’s fair-minded statesmen and writers and thousands of -loving Americans say they are. Lloyd George, Sir Edward Carson, who seems to be the real ruler of England, and certain English and American (?) editors say they are not; and that we have no business to encourage the “lawless Irish” in such a belief. ■ ’ If the Irish are not, then we are wrong, and our .sympathy sheer wastefulness and mischief, and we have no more business to meddle with Ireland than we have to force prohibition on the English people or to tamper 'with the crown jewels of the present royal family of England. But if the United States went to England’s assistance in her hour of need to “make the world a decent place to live in;” if our boys died “to make the world safe for democracy ’ and not hypocrisy ; if “safeguard small nations” and “freedom of the seas” were not mere catch •cries; if the Irish are men, if as men they are entitled to think for themselves, to judge for themselves, and to decide for themselves as they have already done, then, with England herself to justify us, alike by her encouragement, and her example, we ask our critics; “What’s the matter? Why complain? Friend, we do thee no wrong.” But our sympathy, unlike that of the English, is not a war sympathy. Do not the duly elected representatives of the Irish Republic say— do they not declare that not a drop of blood,shall be spilled? That they rely altogether upon the righteousness of their cause—the might of public opinion and the blessing of the God of Nations? Are the oppressors of Ireland afraid of this? Do they see in this boding tranquillity some terrible disaster If not, then why such alarming threats and outcries? Why the mustering of troops and the muttering of Carsonian thunder throughout England, Ireland, and our own country? Why is an army of occupation in Ireland, with Major-General Sir Nevil Macready at the head upon his war-charger? Of course, to frighten the “lawless Irish.” But the , Irish are not to be frightened, and though the English and Orange . hordes may be ready for strife, still if the Irish are not, nothing can come of nothing, and no quarrel can happen. If the Irish are determined not to spill the blood of the English, how are the English to spill their blood, otherwise than as they spilt that of Emmet and Pearse —by a miscarriage of justice? If ever a government exhibited indications of downright madness or utter stupidity the symptoms may be easily recognised in the measures that have been brought forward by the George (or is it Carson ?) Administration. Lloyd George, like most of the Bourbons, never seems to learn anything but cruelty and oppression. For seven hundred years England has been trying to govern Ireland by the bayonet, the rack, by burning, murder, and all the methods of brutality that have recently been used by the notorious “Black-and-Tans.” In her madness she now proposes to enact penal and brutal laws that one hundred and fifty years ago were denounced by English statesmen and the enlightened world as disgraceful to any ae Ireland is again overrun with English' troops as in the days of Cromwell; the trial by jury is abolished; judges hankering for the blood of Irishmen are appointed and English gold is employed to secure informers, as in the days of the United Irishmen and the Land League, to swear away the lives of innocent men. The boasted English doctrine, laid down by Coke three hundred years ago, that ‘a man’s house is his castle,” has been abrogated throughout Ireland. Before our country’s entrance into the World War H ie iTr m n riCan pe ° ple ™ fed 11 P on the alleged atrocities or the Germans in Belgium. Have you read anything in your powerful daily or small town weekly about the murder of one Patrick Lynch of County Limerick? Archbishop Marty of Cashel, Bishop Cohalan of Cork, and Bishop Hallinan. who aer not paid propagandists, ; vouch for the truth of • the following; statement : . Saturday night, August 14, the eve of the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Patrick Lynch was reciting the Rosary with his sisters - and aged father_ before retiring to bed in their humble home in Hospital, a small town in County Limerick, when a knock whSf th ffi d °° r ‘ i H j ?P ened the door and seven soldiers ith an officer rushed J n : They appeared to be excited, ms sister states, and some appeared to be under the influence of drink. They carried rifles, revolvers and fixed : Molonv s'Jfl 5 'Jfl fi y^- mq T ed ab °' ,t a yolm£ ma „ JU,] Molony, and, finding he was not there,- they . left.-> The family then finished the interrupted Rosary. ‘ A quarter

of an hour' later there was another knock at the .-door; Patrick again opened it. A soldier was outside. ‘The sergeant wants you,’ said he. Patrick went out with the soldier. One of his sisters went to the door after him; “Keep ; in, shut the door,’ said a soldier on guard outside. Shortly after the family heard shots. Neighbors found Patrick lying on the road with three bullet wounds in his head. He was quite dead. A bullet mark on the road showed that Lynch was fired at on the ground after falling.” All this is but a return to the old system by which England has forced every true Irishman and intelligent, fair-minded American to detest the iron heel of the oppressor. England has lessened the respect for human life in Ireland, and Irish men and women are regarded as unpossessed of the common rights of human beings, and they are shot like foxes. Her soldiers and police act there to-day as they did in the days of Elizabeth, when, according to James Anthony Fronde, who certainly bore no love for the Irish; “The murder of women and children appears to have been the everyday occupation ’of the English police in Ireland in the reign of Elizabeth, and accounts of atrocities fully as bad as'that at Glencoe were sent in on Half a sheet of letter paper and were indorsed, like any other documents, with a brevity which shows that such things were too commom to deserve criticism or attract attention.” — (Frazer’s Magazine, March, 1865.) There is not a page of the history of English rule in Ireland, even as told by the anti-Irish Fronde, that is not stained with the blood of famished or murdered Irish--famished and murdered by the English garrison in the island of smiles and tears. So early as the year 1309, in the reign of Edward 11., we find it mentioned by Sir John Davies that “the mere Irish were not only accounted aliens, but enemies, and altogether out of the protection of the law, so that it was no capital offence (for an Englishman) to kill them.”— (Hist. Tracts, page 82, Ed. Dublin, 1787.) And, most likely, when the Irish of the fourteenth century questioned the justice of such infamous statutes they were asked, as we are in the twentieth, “What’s the matter? Why complain? Friend, we do thee no wrong.” For seven centuries Ireland has worn the yoke of political bondage. During all that time, except one short interval, she has not been permitted to make any laws for the protection of her own people in their persons or property. Their affairs have been entirely directed by another power, whose orders have been executed by agents and overseers sent upon them for that purpose. Enemies and strangers so fastened upon a community will certainly rule for their own pleasure, advantage . and profit. Any person who does not know this to be a great fundamental fact, established by all human experience, and underlying the whole science of government, is not fit to consider this subject, and he had better give no further attention to it. But if he understands that much, he also knows that Ireland and England are not “united kingdoms.” There is no real union, and there never was. There is a. connection made by force; they are “ pinned together by bayonets.” The British Government, which is a limited monarchy at home, becomes an unrestrained and absolute despotism when it crosses the Channel; and the exercise of this unbounded power through all the centuries of its existence has been marked with the coarsest cruelty and the most heartless* oppression that this world has ever witnessed. And to-day, in this “world made safe for democracy,” the hands of George and Carson are heavier on the heart of Ireland than the sword of Henry 11. and the rack of Elizabeth. And if we but dare denounce this mixture of feudal barbarism and Oriental duplicity the Uriah Keep of the nations asks us: “What’s the matter? Why complain? Friend, we do thee no wrong.” It is with Englishmen now (there are, however, some noble exceptions) as it was during the efforts to repeal the odious penal laws and to secure Catholic Emancipation. The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned the average Englishman (seemingly a gentleman in other respect) bids adieu to common feeling, common decency, common prudence and common sense, and acts with the barbarity of tyrants and the fatuity of idiots The likes of George and Carson and . their venal ‘ slaves of the American ( ?) press do not seem to understand that while they have been standing still Irishmen', and the sons and daughters of . Irish men and Irish women, have been marching and making wonderful progress. They ignore the fact that during the last hundred years Ireland has given a population to the United States of millions of active, irrepressible, v, and; until Right succeeds Might, irreconcilable sons that will continue to be an annoyance to the British Empire. A nation that has been ground ,down by oppression, murder, poverty, famine, misery, and persecution for love of country and the Catholic Faith, and lived through it all, cannot and will not be conquered r S ? ** V? '..f-Jt .h » - ,-r.- - - ... . .?

She will have .« her v rights gas,a % people, and the patience, courage and order of Ireland’s^ men and'' women will show to the world that she , is. entitled ; to , justice and fair play. Surely, in championing - such’ ‘a | cause, I we are entitled' to ask fault-rest of the world; 1 “What’s the matter? Why complain? Friend, we do thee no'- wrong.” 1 wi u o >au»rc

' - But we are told “Out of -. ; a11.-this „war may come.” Granted. Then we are told, “If the Irish persist, ' war will come.” Very well, granted. “And 'if war • should come, Ireland will be overswept by ; English soldiery—the Irish leaders murdered and the ‘ whole ) country; heavily garrisoned for another 700 years.” Admitting that every word of this is true — then ? . Are- we to say that the Irish people are not to be allowed to select their own form of government? Are we Americans to be denied the. liberty of speech by a bigoted, un-American venal press with no ideals beyond the cash box Must we not be suffered to think for ourselves in this country, lest our thoughts may run loose among the liberties of the oppressed people of Ireland ? May we not say to our friends, the English, even as they say to the rest of the world ; “What’s the matter? Why complain? Friend, we do thee ho wrong:” No, those very persons who would : deny us the right, to speak a word in favor of Ireland .are themselves loud in their slanders of Ireland. - If Irish questions should not be. ventilated in -this country, why, in the name of common. sense, do these people drag in their calumnies of Ire-Tandy-oh every possible occasion ? :,.- Are we to stand by callously,; without uttering the slightest protest, and witness a chivalrous nation vilely , slandered ? In concluding, let us quote the words of the Father of Our Country ; - ; ••“Patriots of Ireland! Champions of liberty, in all lands! —be strong in hope! Your cause is identical with mine. You are calumniated in your day; I was misrepresented by the loyalists of my day. Had I failed, the scaffold would have been- my doom. But now my enemies pay me honor. Had I failed, I would have deserved the same honor. I stood true to my cause, even when victory had fled. In that I merited success. You must act likewise.” —George Washington (at Mount Vernon, 1788). ’ We , “must act likewise”, and continue to ask our critics: “What’s the matter? Why complain?—Friend, we do thee no^wrong.