THE AMERICAN COMMISSION ON CONDITIONS IN IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 15 September 1921, Page 7

THE AMERICAN COMMISSION ON CONDITIONS IN IRELAND

INTERIM REPORT (Continued from last week.) CHAPTER IV—(Continued.) Destruction of Property In examining the evidence relating to crimes committed against life by the Imperial British forces, we have been continually confronted with the question of provocation; but in the destruction of property the question of •'provocation cannot enter and the prohibitiens of law, both domestic and international, are precise. If Great Britain is not at war with Ireland, there is no conceivable condition that would justify the Imperial British forces in destroying the public property of Irish cities and towns or private property of Irish citizens—except after due process of law, or with the consent of the owners and proper provision for damages.

If a state of war does exist in Ireland, the situation as regards wanton destruction of property is unchanged. The Laws of War, as set forth in the Hague Convention of 1907, to which the Government of Great Britain is a signatory, positively forbid the destruction of property, except as necessary and unavoidable consequence of military operations. The prohibitions are particularly explicit as regards private property. Article 23 of the Hague Convention declares:

In addition to the prohibitions provided by special conventions, it is especially forbidden—

(g) To destroy or seize the enemy's property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war.

Burning of Towns t

We have heard testimony of eye-witnesses to the burning of considerable areas of the following Irish cities, towns, and villages: Cork, Balbriggan, Mallow, Galway, Tuam, Feakle, Limerick, Templemore, Ennistymon, Laliinch, and Milltown-Malbay—all except Cork incontestably burned by Imperial British forces. There lias also been placed in evidence a document listing all Irish cities, towns, and villages alleged to have be«n destroyed in part by the Imperial British forces. This list includes towns and cities named above, but, except as to these, there is no testimony of ! eye-witnesses before us.

Save for the doctrine of "reprisal" which has no sanction either in the laws of civilised nations defining police power or in the code of war of civilsed nations, ni military necessity has been urged, so far as we have been able to discover, in justification of the burning of any of the Irish towns regarding which we have had evidence. It is difficult to characterise the doctrine of "reprisal" in any other manner except as a relic of barbarism. Yet we have had presented to us evidence that this policy was condoned at Balbriggan, commended at Galway, and planned at Mallow by officers of the Imperial High Command.

Official Sanctions for Destruction of Property

A memorandum submitted to us by counsel for the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic states:

The official sanction for these reprisals is complete, consisting of:

"(1) Typewritten notices signed by Brigadier-General Higginson served on the occupants of the "marked houses." The text of these notices is not available, but their substance is sufficiently indicated by the official statement ©f the reprisals."

"(2) The official statement published by order of the Brigade-Major at Cork in the Cork papers. This statement is published in the Cork Weekly Examiner, January 8, 1921, as follows:

OFFICIAL STATEMENT.

We have received the following official statement for

publication, which was telephoned by the Brigade-Major at Cork: ■ ■ s

"As a result of the ambush and attack on the police at Midleton and the Glebe House it was decided by the military Governor that certain houses in the vicinity of the outrages were to be destroyed, as the inhabitants were bound to have known of the ambush and attack, and that they neglected to give information either to the military or police authorities.

"The following houses were duly destroyed between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. on January 1: Mr. John O'Shea's, Midleton; Mr. Paul McCarthy's, do.; Mr. Edward Carey's, do.; Mr. Cotter's, Ballyadam; Mr. Donovan's, do.; Mr. Michael Dorgan's, Knockgriffin; Mr. Ahern, do.

"Previous to the burnings Notice B was served on the persons affected, giving them one hour to clear out valuables, but not furniture. No foodstuffs, corn, or hay were destroyed."

(3) An official communication issued by General Headquarters in Dublin on January 1, 1921/ the text of which, as reported by the Weekly Irish Times, January 8, 1921 (page 1), is as follows:

The following communication was issued by General Headquarters in Dublin on Sunday evening:

"As a result of an ambush of police on December 29 at Midleton, Co. Cork (a martial law area), in which one policeman was killed and eight wounded, two of whom have since died, the houses of seven inhabitants living in the vicinity, and who were bound to have known of the ambush, were destroyed on Saturday by order of the Military Governor.

"The occupants were given one hour's notice to remove their belongings."

Industrial Destruction

It is worthy of note that while the primary motive for the destruction of lives and towns seems to be to strike terror into the hearts of the civilian population, this motive is mixed with anotherto destroy the principal industries, presumably for the purpose of reducing to destitution and starvation the working classes which are mainly Republican in sympathies.

Destruction of Hosiery Factory.—The destruction of the principal hosiery factory at Balbriggan was testified to by Mr. John Derham, a member of the Urban Council of Balbriggan:

"The factory would be about 500 yards from the nearest burned dwelling. There is a railroad embankment passing through the town, about 10ft. to 15ft. high, and it is on the sea side of the embankment that the factory is situated. You cannot see it from the town. It was burned next morning. Totally destroyed; one hundred thousand pounds loss. It is owned in London. The manager is an Englishman. There is nothing in a political line there. Only to leave destitution in the place. One hundred and twenty people worked in the factory and 300 more in their homes."

The burning of this factory would seem to have been a deliberate act, as was the burning at Mallow, where the troops, equipped with gasoline sprays, marched a considerable distance from the main portion of the town in order to burn the condensed milk factory. No military necessity for the destruction either of the Balbriggan hosiery factory or of the Mallow condensed milk factory appears in the evidence.

Burning of Creameries. —In addition to the burning down of factories situated in or contiguous to towns that were burned, the evidence indicates that there has been a persistent and concerted attempt on the part of the Imperial British forces throughout Ireland to destroy her one distinctive industry, the co-dperative creamery. A majority of the witnesses before the Commission presented evidence relative to the destruction of creameries, from which we select a statement sent to us by Mr. George Russell (A.E.), the celebrated writer and one of the leaders of the Irish Co-operative Movement, and quote from it: "The co-operative movement in Ireland has gained world-wide recognition as one of the sanest and most beneficial of national movements. Its membership included men of all parties and creeds in Ireland, and it is as popular and widely spread in Ulster as in other pro-

vinces. Its constitution and the rules of its societies forbade the discussion of political and sectarian matters. On this basis many thousands of Unionists were able to join with their Nationalist fellow-countrymen in an all-Ireland movement for their mutual benefit. Over 1,000 societies have been created, with an annual turnover now exceeding £11,000,000. The . creameries, bacon factories, mills, and agricultural stores created by co-operative societies are a familiar feature in the Irish countryside. Up to the moment of writing, forty-two attacks have been made on co-operative societies by the armed forces of the Crown. In these attacks creameries and mills have been burned, to the ground, their machinery wrecked, agricultural stores have also been burned, property looted, employees have been killed, wounded, beaten, threatened, or otherwise ill-treated. Why have these economic organisations been specially attacked? Because they have hundreds of members, and if barracks have been burned or police have been killed or wounded in the lamentable strife now being waged in Ireland, and if the armed forces of the Crown cannot capture those actually guilty of the offences, the policy of reprisals, condoned by the spokesmen of the Government, has led to the wrecking of an enterprise in the neighbourhood, the destruction of which would inflict widespread injury and hurt the interests of the greatest number of people. I say this has been done without regard to the innocence or guilt of the persons whose property is attacked. [ln other paragraphs Mr. Russell effectively and completely disposes of the allegation that these creameries or any of them were Republican arsenals.] Destruction of Crops and Animals.— is an agricultural country. The destruction of the creameries has crippled, if not ruined, one of the principal Irish industries, forcing farmers to kill or to sell for slaughter or export their milk cattle, under most unfavorable conditions at whatever the market would bring. An equally serious blow has been struck at Irish agriculture by the Imperial British forces through 'the destruction of crops and the indiscriminate shooting of live stock. Miss Ellen G. Wilkinson, an English woman who made a tour of inspection over a large part of agricultural Ireland on behalf of the Women's International League, testified as follows:

"When I was in West Clare and Limerick there was a wholesale burning of hay ricks. That was extremely important, because on the hay ricks depended the cattle, and hence the creameries. And, of course, in burning the hay ricks you destroyed the very foundations of Irish agricultural prosperity. It was said by the British military authorities that these were reprisals against Sinn Feiners; but that was not so, because in Pallan and Kenry (sic) in Tvildare, which are Protestant settlements, their ricks were 'burned, too.

"When we went to Limerick we were taken to Brennan's farm, five miles out of Limerick. It was owned by a widow. Her two sons were heroes in the countryside. One of them, Michael Brennan, is chairman of the Clare County Council. , Of course, they are both on the run. And the English officers, rightly or wrongly, put down many of the occurrences in this community to them. So the English officers went to the house, told Mrs. Brennan to get out immediately, and burned the house and the hay."

r In another section of the report we have called attention to testimony that soldiers passing through the country in motor lorries have made a practice of shooting at farm animals along the way. And the testimony of John Charles Clark and others shows that consderable numbers of livestock have been destroyed by the burning of barns and cattle sheds. j

(To be continued.)