IRISH NEWS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 1, 5 January 1922, Page 35

IRISH NEWS

THE PRESIDENT AND YOUNG IRELAND.

The October issue of Our Boys, the organ of the Institution of the Christian Brothers of Ireland, publishes the following message from President de Valera to the boys and girls of Ireland:

“Dear Boys and Girls: The message of counsel that your editor has asked me to write is, I feel, unnecessary. You are the children of a noble race and an ancient nation. You will, of yourselves, aspire to prove worthy of them. The heirs of love and of sacrifice, the issue of generations devoted to the service of truth and right—of God and of mankind, purified by the sufferings endured and ennobled by the endurance, it is hereditary in you to be true, and just, and noble. You have but to respond to the higher promptings within —be the better selves that these promptings urge you to be, and you will need no other counsel or inspiration. “Do not be content to dream merely; strive hard to make all your dreams come true. Dreams that do not find expression in noble deeds are vain and unworthy. “Do not wait until you are grown up. If you wait, the greater opportunities when they present themselves will find you unprepared. A Kevin Barry or a Terence McSweeney is not made by the impulse of a moment, but by the faithful daily living in accordance with a rule based on conviction and an ideal constantly in mind and • constantly cherished. Read McSw’eeney’s book Principles of Freedom. Years before the ordeal of Brixton Gaol he wrote “‘. . . the single test. ’Tis the bravest test, the noblest test, and ’tis the test that offers the surest and greatest victory. For one armed man cannot resist a multitude, nor one army conquer countless legions, but not all the armies of all the Empires of earth can crush the spirit of one true man,’ “This was the faith in which he died. But it was not in Brixton alone that he was true to it. He lived it in his daily life in the smaller tilings, and the habit acquired of living thus made possible the grandeur of Brixton. So if you would be ready for the great moments of the future, prepare and exercise yourselves in those of the present. Be unselfish and generous and true at all costs to what you are convinced is right. Learn to face and to stand the ‘ single test.’ Be your best selves. Be heroes and heroines now, and later you will bo the glory of the nation whose ‘ high duty ’ it is “ ‘To show the world the might of moral beauty.’ “(Signed) Eamon ok Valkra. “September 27, 1921.”

THE FEARS OF BELFAST: TREATMENT OF CATHOLICS BY NORTHERN GOVERNMENT. The Belfast correspondent of the Manchester Guardian writes: —The promise of additional powers for the Northern Parliament made by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons has removed some of the discontent and doubts which have lately showed themselves in Ulster. Nevertheless in public, Ulster remains the same, demanding the same conquest of ‘ ‘rebels” and the same disregard of everybody’s feelings except its own. Presumably Mr. Lloyd George had a plan when ho guaranteed the granting of these powers, which, one presumes, would be mostly financial, and one hopes that between now and the fulfilment of the promise the Ulster Parliament will devise some sort of home policy. At the moment it has forgotten, for instance, that it has any responsibility whatever to the Catholic portion of the population, about 42 per cent. Some weeks ago a Sinn Fein member of the Corporation proposed that a conference of members from all sides should inquire into measures to secure the peace of Belfast. After long delay the conference met and adjourned for a brief period. When it reassembled the Lord Mayor, after consultation with the Commander-in-Chief in Belfast, told the committee that

the state of the city is satisfactory, and the conference adjourned sine die.

The city most certainly is quiet just now, but one feels regret that it was not considered necessary to safeguard the future. The city could very well do with a little douche of honest cold water. It believes still, apparently, in rumors that the I.R.A. is on the point of blowing up the City Hall, or that hundreds of Cork and Tipperary men are planning a general attack on it.

There are, however, some signs that Belfast is beginning to look more honestly outside the bewitched circle of Protestant Unionism. In the Belfast Telegraph there is a leader which, though distressed in tone, shows a considerable and perhaps significant advance. Unionists dislike, it remarks, many things that are happening now, but it is necessary that the political issue should be regarded from every standpoint.

We ask ourselves (it goes on) what would the position of Ulster be to-day if the censure motion had been carried. The Government w T ould have resigned, the Coalition would have been rent in twain, and there would then be no question of Ulster getting powers immediately or at any time, because a hostile Government might be in power. At the least this is a recognition of Parliamentary preponderance, or perhaps an admission that public opinion in England is divided on the cause of Ulster. Whether the sentences are based on particular knowledge of policy or on general principles is uncertain. In either case they are important as the pronouncement of a journal whose opinions are read and discussed throughout the whole of Protestant Ulster. WWW

THE FINANCES OF CARSONIA: AN AWAKENING, The statement made early in October in the Northern Parliament by the Minister of Finance as to the financial position of Carsonia has come as a bolt from the blue upon Ulster Unionists. At the passing of the Act there was calculated to be a surplue of £1,920,000 per annunm, and it is now found that almost a million of that has disappeared, and further inroads upon the surplus will reduce it to vanishing point. A financial expert well known in Ulster has already stated that the Northern Parliament cannot launch any new scheme — example, an Education —without imposing a tax upon the already overburdened taxpayers of Carsonia. The Northern Minister of Finance practically corroborates this. The local taxes have gone up 50 per cent, this year, and this does not include the cost of the burnings in 1920-21. When these are added, it is expected that the rates will be about £1 5s in the pound. Already almost half a million has been awarded in the Recorder’s Court, and only a little over the half of the claims have been heard. The Unionist press return to the financial aspect this week, and the anticipations are not pleasant. The official Tory organ declares that the—“ Finance Minister and his colleagues are not satisfied with the finance of the Act, and the position is much worse than when the Act was passed”— Imperial contribution is objected to, and the Tory journal says that it “has never seen a satisfactory explanation of the principle on which it is based. “The Government over-estimated the revenue and un-der-estimated the expenditure, and persisted in this view.” Considerable uneasiness exists as “to the cost when the Sinn lein attack on Ulster develops,” and it is pleaded that the Imperial Government should bear this. The “Whig” advocates economy and doing with fewer officials, and it fears bureauracy; while another journal says that “several of the salaries fixed will not bear examination.” All the journals recognise that there will be practically no surplus, and that the Parliament of Carsonia must either impose additional taxation, or go bankrupt. The prospect is a gloomy one, and the Ulster taxpayer will eventually become vocal. Ulster Ascendancy has been hoist with its own petard, and soon the bubble of Partition will be pricked.