Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 28 April 1921, Page 14

Current Topics

-The Kaiser Acquitted i iiV -f‘/w '-j li! P r When Mr: Lloyd George wanted to get back into power he swore that he was the right man to hang the Kaiser. * Now he says it is nonsense to talk about hanging the Kaiser and that it is a great mistake to think Germany - was responsible for the war after all. With 1 that consummate cheek, and with audacity' founded bn his knowledge of the ignorance and patience of the English people, he proclaimed what the Nation calls his “peace truth”: that none of the heads wanted war and that “we just stumbled into it.” Think of that and compare it with the press and politicians that made it an article of faith that Germany was preparing for the war for years and that the Kaiser deliberately drew the world into the Armageddon from which we have emerged broken and bankrupt. Personally we never believed that Germany was 1 responsible for the war, but it is a consolation to know that Lloyd George thinks so as well as ourselves, or, at any rate, that he says he thinks so, which is not quite the same thing. So, the Kaiser is acquitted and the Welsh mountebank performs another acrobatic feat in presence of a disgusted world, already tired of his tricks and contortions. We wonder if some day he will also tell us that he was not responsible for the murder of Canon'Magner, for the shooting of Mrs. Quinn and her unborn child, for the destruction of Cork, for .plunder of Irish churches and for the raiding of Irish vconvents. Will he assure us that he just stumbled into these crimes

Ireland Hopeful Ireland has never lost hope under the burden laid upon her by her tyrants. They beat her to the earth and they broke her bones bub they never conquered her soul. The Wexford Rising was the response to the atrocities of the filthy Orange and English soldiers in ’9B; the “Forty-eight men” proved that the organised terrors of the famine failed; the Fenians and the Republicans carried on the tradition of armed protest during the past fifty years, and to-day the whole people are fighting for their rights as a nation. Inspired press messages tell us, time and again, that Britain’s brutal policy is cowing the Irish and that the methods of Greenwood and his thugs are beating Sinn Fein. Nothing could be farther from the truth. There is no weakening and no sign of any weakness in Ireland to-day. We read cables that tell us of Sinn Fein attacks on soldiers, all of whom escaped after several hours’ firing ; we read of barracks besieged for a whole night without injury to the Crown forces. And we smile at the simplicity of the fools who send out such stuff and of the Colonial editors who publish it, for we know what happened -at Kilmallock Barrack and how the “Black-and-Tans” 'were received when they went to murder the women and children in a little town in the midlands which the Sinn Feiners had occupied in expectation...of the visit from the English gentlemen. Ambushes, raids, arrests, murders, burnings have failed. Greenwood lied once more when he boasted that his. frightfulness was succeeding. The Irish papers are not allowed to publish the whole truth, but they assure us that the result of the fighting during recent months “need not have a disheartening effect on the people.” Old Ireland says : “It is necessary to not© from time to time that the daily papers cannot attempt to give l a full account of current events from the Irish point of view. On the whole events last week were far from discouraging.” As for the effect of Brithunnism on the moral of the people, we are told that the average man or woman in Ireland to-day is. proud to be able to show that he or she has suffered for the cause With good reason apparently did de Valera declare that the only change he found in the people on his return from America was that they were more united and more earnest than ever.

Who Began It ? H:- Although most people {know the truth, Greenwood and his 7 servile slaves,-- our I Colonial* journalists, ,still repeat the old lie that the “Biack-and-Tan” ; thugs were sent to Ireland “to; suppress crime.” -. Once more we give our readers a brief refutation of that British falsehood, and ; this time; we > recommend- these correspondents who have been asking us about it to cut'out and keep the page, as we will not return to it, again. m v i In 1917 no police killed in Ireland. But, Irish bouses were raided 250 men, and women arrested 24 political leaders hauled out of their country without trial meetings suppressed, men, women, and children beaten ;- newspapers ‘Suppressed; savage sentences . for. “seditious” speeches, etc. ; two civilians murdered; five died in prison- from ill-treatment. Not one of the Government criminals brought to justice. - In 1918 no police killed in Ireland. But, 260 private houses raided .by night; 1100 Irish men and women arrested for their Irish politics ; meetings suppressed; men, women, and children wounded; many of the 1100 political prisoners maltreated in prison; one died of the maltreatment; five civilians murdered by military; fairs and markets suppressed. No punishment or even reproach for the murderers. The Irish in 1917-18 showed what a distinguished foreign visitor called “an almost criminal patience.” They devoted themselves to preparing English form of law, under the English constitution—for the election of December, 1918, to show the English and the world, peacefully and “constitutionally,” what they asked. They had their reward— worse persecution. Therefore, in January, 1919, the first policeman, as persecutor and spy, was shot; and throughout 1919 sixteen, most of them in conflict with men less wellarmed than they. ; ; r - In 1919 14,000 houses were raided at night by armed soldiers and police; 335 meetings suppressed, The elected Government and every other national organisation declared illegal; 476 armed attacks on orderly gatherings; > 260 men, women, and children wounded; 959 arrests for politics; 20 more leaders deported; 25 papers suppressed; eight civilians murdered. In 1920 more arrests, deportations, raidings, lootings, and wrecking of houses. Sacking of towns and murders of .civilians more frequent; mills, factories, creameries wrecked in an attempt to starve the people into submission to English rule in practice against English theory. Those were the answers to the municipal elections of 1920 repeating: the “constitutional” demand’ of the Irish people for self-determination. In June, 1920, at the rural elections, 83 per cent, of the people declared for Independence. Therefore, in the following three months 74 towns were sacked and burned and 43 innocent men murdered by police and military. Flogging of men and boys, and torturing prisoners, and attacks on women and children became a regular part of England’s military terrorism in Ireland. , ' - v. ■ • Absurd, therefore, to say that murders of police caused the policy of which they were the result It was Gessler “began it,” not William Tell. (And if there have been 100 armed police killed there have been hundreds of unarmed Irish ; killed.) ■ The plan of the so-called Government : is not to suppress murder and restore law and order, but to suppress a people, and to restore over them a lawless domination whose infamies they hate and whose spirit they despise.

• * ...... w. ;. ,r—• ,/A ... , ~.4 J Greenwood’s Disgrace : k ; , 7 ...” • .... Macpherson s career of prevarication - and equivocation | secured -his . dismissal from the- office of'Chief Secretary for . Ireland. He , was succeeded by the Canadian bounder, i Greenwood, whose one iperit seems to have been that ,he was a . Freemason. ;, - Irish . papers to hand now make it quite clear that while every decent man m England is sick and disgusted with the policy of Frightfulness which Greenwood is responsible for even Tories and Coalitionists are furious because their »A.rin a ft & Mtm

, 1 ■ , «iwsAT?wa unscrupulous tool has been so clumsy and so economic of truth”. that he has been utterly discredited, in the} eyes of the entire English people. Speaking at Plumstead on February 28, Bishop Gore voiced the senti- * ments of every 1 honest English gentleman when he ; asked! ’* his hearers “'to take a great ? oath, viz., ’ not to allow military' authority to » ride rough shod i over civil s auth- : ority and ' liberty:” »■ He charged the Government with r being engaged in the * perpetration of crime in Ireland, ; and said the accursed - policy of reprisals .? must ■be stopped at once. • Greenwood told the people, that , the Sinn Feiners had f burned Cork and was afraid to publish- the report issued s by General Strickland on the matter. Dr. Gore had I no doubts as to the value of Greenwood’s word and he told his audience that Cork was deliberately burned down as a part of the remorse- ■ less system of indiscriminate destruction practised also on other places. The following extracts from English papers will show how completely the Canadian bungler ' has brought lasting disgrace on the name of England: “That Sir Hamar Greenwood must go before long may be taken for granted. But he will not go as a penalty for the reign of i terror in Ireland which his miserable colleagues: and supporters have approved, but because he is now become a laughing ; stock even to his own side. The way of the transgressor is hard, and we doubt if anybody will be particularly anxious to step into his shoes.”- Herald, .February 28. “A large body of Unionist members, while in no way deprecating the reprisals in Ireland, is furious with Sir Hamar Greenwood for allowing certain awkward facts to leak out.” — Herald's Lobby Correspondent, February 28. ■ "Within four months of his arrival in Ireland he was exercising all the arts of prevarication at his com- : mand in order to conceal his knowledge of the illegal and insubordinate violence of the force under his control Within less than a year he has become the official- exponent and director of a reign of terror unequalled even, in the history of Ireland”— Daily News. The government of Ireland was of prime concer to all who believed in justice and humanity. Crime and outrage could never be justified, but how much less could they justify MURDER IN THE CAUSE OF LAW AND ORDER? < The policy, of terror in Ireland was similar to that practised in Belgium by Germany, and has brought discredit on the British name.” Mr! Runciman, February 26. . “Sir Hamar Greenwood, once the darling of the Unionists, is scoffed and despised as a clumsy blun- - Liverpool Post London Correspondent. ■ Sir Hamar Greenwood has failed, but he has done what is far worse in the eyes of the present House of. Commons. HE HAS BEEN FOUND OUT. THAT IS WHAT NINE-TENTHS OP EVEN THIS HOUSE OF COMMONS ARE SECRETLY SAYINGGREENWOOD MUST GO:”— Daily News. . } L "Spokesmen of the Government in the House of Commons never meet squarely the case made against , their irregular , forces in Ireland. . . We are destroying whatever respect remained for law and order • • • Neither can we : afford to ignore the public opinion of other countries.”— d Bryce, in the JL ITfhC'S• "Prominence is given to the assertion that the opponents of the Government stand for the right to , murder. I DETEST YOUR SYSTEM OP REPRISALS AND, A POLICY WHICH GRAVELY, AND IN ALL PARTS OP THE . WORLD COMPROM ISES THE FAME OP GREAT BRITAIN FOR JUS TICE AND COMMON SENSE,”-A^XS on Greenwood s Weekly Summary. - , i w U I 7 an u f T 1 l tory> and the whole of it has not yet been told We have, yet to learn how far General Crozier was justified in the reasons he gave for his 1 resignation and what was the understanding between i General i Tudor and the Cadets who seem to have S turned A so obediently to their trial in Ireland ' " / * t A charge of looting money and whisky, wine and fowls,.pictures and other property, has been made j against * men, who certainly had been English officers and ought to /be English gentlemen. u - -; n - |

u y&'T&m T ~— • General Tudor holds it is an unfortunate time to do anything ‘that looks panicky.’ General Crozier cannot ‘ honestly associate .. himself ■ with a force ,IN WHICH SUCH ACTS ARE CONDONED.’ Yet while Sir Hamar Greenwood loudly protests his solicitude for discipline, the public awaits fuller information with an uncomfortable feeling that something is wrong. ; If ever a case demanded full and impartial inquiry : this is it. .! ‘ ; "/7 :V 1 J , “Perhaps, when Ministers have pondered their own position during the week-end they will ' realise that this is something far greater than a departmental affair, 1 and that it involves not only their own , credibility but also , their authority to continue the present policy in ka aS’A MONTHS - THE government PtPPP AMBLED WITH THE honor op the . NATION. THEY THOUGHT, THEY WOULD SUCCEED IN THE FIRST FEW WEEKS iOF R??mSA I TT° RA B L TT . POLICY 0F UNOFFICIAL . BUT, as MONTH FOLLOWED AT THE CHANCES ACCUMULATED AGAINST THEM. NOW THAT THE COUNTRY ;L® PEGINNING TO LEARN THE TRUTH THEY PE FORCED Y PUBLIC OPINION IF NOT BY FEAR OF IT TO RESTRICT ACTIVITIES WHICH COULD ONLY BE PROGRESSIVE IN EFFECT AS LONG AS THEY WERE UNGUES ™ NED AND UNTRAMMELLED.” The February 26, ’ Whether by commission or omission the Irish Office has incurred reproaches of the plainest and most serious kind. . . That vindictive outrages upon either life or property should be officially treated as venial offences and that practical impunity should be granted for what the Government of Ireland and its representatives profess to condemn, is a DEGREDATION OF PUBLIC AUTHORITY AND SPFT To. RUIN IN EFFICACY AND MORAL IN THE S WI C « EXIST | , UNDER SUCH A REbriME. —The Observer, February 27. • , Wo have thought it worth while to put before our readers the foregoing extracts from , English papers Whi S , hades of opinion as a proof that Greenwood’s barbarity and _ shameless prevarications have turned public opinion in England against the policy for which himself and Lloyd George stand. These united testimomes are a clear verdict that Frightfulness has not only failed in Ireland but that it has had the unforseen effect of arousing, honest public opinion in England against the Brittains. who are responsible for 4rlk kUgh _of a . small nation. The fact that such tl« y expressions of condemnation are widespread in the English, press is nothing less than a great victor for Sinn Fein, perhaps the greatest victory it has so tar, won. During the month that has elapsed since the h o i ing exacts appeared Greenwood has managed to hold l Ins Potion, and that is., in itself , another gain. of h M on^ r he holds R the greater will be,the complicity of Mr George m his shame. Sonar.. l Law has P cone doubt the extracts were published, and we . have little trickstowin b' me | f. C , ail , adian Mason and the Welsh trickster will be also kicked out of public life If the s Ue houe : w « e . n , ot a farce one could utter a , pious hope that they might be brought to justice for WlandH S ’ aS " n u ” anity - T ho Latent fact that thefr guilt! ' r6VO t agam ’ t them * some measure of