IRISH AFFAIRS: ARCHBISHOP BARRY’S VIEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, 16 June 1921, Page 18

IRISH AFFAIRS: ARCHBISHOP BARRY’S VIEWS.

Interviewed at Burnie by a World representative on the Irish situation, and the new Home Rule Act, Archbishop Barry said that as it was his own opinion that was asked, he Avon Id express it. For the people the Act was absolutely the worst measure offered by England to Ireland, and as it was it was neither acceptable to the majority of the Irish people nor to the Orangemen of the North-cast. Its main purpose was to give an opportunity for the Government to take the Act of 1914 off the Statute Book.-. The Act had been promised to Ireland as an inducement for Irishmen to volunteer for the War, as England could not logically ask the Irish to fight for the liberties of small nations when they themselves did not enjoy them at home. Mr. Asquith had gone to Dublin, and in appealing to Irishmen to join the forces, he asked for volunteers as a free gift of a free people. Ireland, he was proud to say, had fulfilled her part of the contract, but the Asquith Government had broken its word, and as this was only another of many betrayals, the Irish people lost all hope of having their just, reasonable, and acknowledged claims granted. That threw the Irish people back on themselves, with the result that they elected their own Parliament in 1918 by a majority of 90 per cent, of the nation, making it the most unanimous Parliament in the world. In adopting this course the Irish people had put into practice that principle of self-determination for which the war had been fought. England refused to acknowledge that principle in Ireland, with the result that physical force and militarism, which were supposed to have been overthrown for ever in Europe, were now in full force with the most lamentable consequences in Ireland.