PROGRESSIVE AND INTENSE REPRESSION; MR. ASQUITH'S INDICTMENT

New Zealand Tablet, 28 July 1921, Page 13

PROGRESSIVE AND INTENSE REPRESSION; MR. ASQUITH'S INDICTMENT

Mr. Asquith made another attack on the Irish policy of the Government in a speech which he delivered on April 9 at a meeting of the Women's National Liberal Federation at the Central Hall, Westminster. Mrs. "Walter Runeiman presided.

The resolution moved by the Liberal leader was "thai; this meeting declares its abhorrence of the British Government's policy and methods of coercion in Ireland. It calls foi- an immediate truce and amnesty, and tor the withdrawal of the Auxiliary forces from Ireland, and urges the Government to enter into immediate negotiations with the elected representatives of the Irish people."

For nearly a year, said Mr. Asquith. the Government's policy of progressive and intensive repression had been in full operation, and by every test that could be applied, and by their own confession it was a complete, abject, and humiliating failure.

Lucid Intervals.

There had been lucid moments when the Government had brought themselves to see that what confronted them was not a more conspiracy of cut-throats, but a formidable, growing, and authentic national movement. There was the nebulous adventure of "Mr. Edwardes," whose precise relations with his official patrons Mas still a matter wrapped in the obscurity of night.

Quite recently there had been an interview which he regarded as more important because it was more hopeful of potential result—an interview which must have taken place with the presumed connivance of the Government between Sir James Craig and de Valera.

These comings and goings and interchanges were somewhat difficult to reconcile with the murder' gang theory. Mr. Asquith referred to the burnings, lootings, and other crimes,, and said these things were denied, condoned, and then deplored. Reprisals now were officially recognised and regularised.

A Foul Stain.

"What is the result?" asked Mr. Asquith. "The name and fame of Great Britain has been smirched with a fouler stain than has ever rested upon it before. The Sinn Fein movement is stronger than ever, and in the course of this very month, by universal acknowledgment, it is going to carry all the seats in a Parliament in which the members elected will contemptuously refuse to sit."

It was a situation that called not only for heart-burn-ings and heart-searching, but for action. Even now it appeared to "him that if' the Government were frankly and openly to proceed on the lines of the resolution before the meeting a way of escape would be found.

Let there be a complete, reciprocal, and unqualified truce —and after that amnesty. If over there was.a case for amnesty it was this case of Ireland. What would then follow? (A voice: Justice.)

Something more than justice was to follow. They were to give to Ireland— they would then have in these two bodies which were being called into existence people who had gone through the form of popular election—that same status of nationhood, self-government, and Dominion autonomy which had been in every quarter' of'the globe the real nexus of our imperial unity. .