IRISH NEWS

New Zealand Tablet, 19 January 1922, Page 35

IRISH NEWS

' BELFAST SQUEALS. The quarterly meeting of the Wholesale Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association in Belfast, on Thursday, October 27, devoted itself to the utterance of plaints concerning the boycott of Belfast goods (writes J. F. Boyle in the London Catholic Times). For a time the bigots of Belfast thought they could silently defy the boycott, but it has been causing them greater and greater loss of trade as the time passed, and at length they found it necessary to cry out in order to relieve their feelings. Mr. John McCaughey, the chairman, deplored the position of the people in the South and West, who had to pay exorbitant prices for their goods and could not avail of the liberality and cheapness of Belfast. The Northern Parliament, to which the Government had not yet transferred the powers it is to possess and which is struggling with financial difficulties, was unable to help them, and therefore all they could do was to call upon the Imperial Government, through the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, to extend to them as traders full protection in the discharge of their legitimate business. Mr. A. C. Marshall said their backs were to the wall. They all knew the extent to which the boycott had been carried. “We have been invaded in the North,” said he, “and the boycott is coming nearer to Belfast day by day, so that we must do something.” Only that day a merchant had told him that he had recently sold a quantity of flour and that after one delivery he had received a letter from his customer saying, “I cannot take another bag of that flour. The Belfast stamp is on the bags and they won t bake it in the bakeries here.” The consequence was that the merchant lost £3OO on the transaction owing to the fall in prices. The resolution would at least show that they thought the Government treated them badly. Mr. James Thompson spoke of retaliation. But retaliation will not bring back the lost trade of Belfast; nor is there any other method of doing so, save by contrition and a promise of amendment. The appeal to the Government, it is quite evident, is perfectly useless. People cannot be compelled by law to deal with certain traders; they can expend their money as they wish, and Mr. Lloyd George, speaking on the subject in Parliament, intimated that except in cases where the law was distinctly violated the Government could not interfere. Some of the speakers at the meeting expressed regret that political considerations should have entered into the question of trading. But Belfast, by its anti-Irish action, challenged the people of the South and West to resent its tactics, and our only surprise is that they were so slow to lie influenced by the provocation. Nothing was said at the meeting of the Wholesale Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association as to these anti-Irish displays and the intolerance displayed towards the Catholics of Ireland, but the Irish Catholics do not forget them. Dining the long years of the Home Rule movement, when Belfast was bitterly persecuting the Catholics of the city and indulging in riots of which they were the victims, not a single proposal was put forward to punish the city for a policy which was inexcusable. It is only when “Sinn Fein, which meant business and was determined to secure justice for people of all creeds and classes, took the matter in hand that the boycott was seriously enforced, and then Belfast was guilty of a crime the iniquity of which was never surpassed by any city. Thousands of workers were forcibly driven from the shipyards and by an unparalled system of tyranny have been prevented from earning their living.

“SOUTHERN UNIONISTS” : A REPLY TO THE EARL OF ARRAN. The Irish Bulletin, replying to an article by the Earl of Arran in the National Review, in which he suggests that the British Government should subsidise the Southern loyalists to enable them to leave Ireland, points out that “During the last two years it has been necessary to distribute certain lands amongs the occupiers of uneconomic

holdings. This has been done without confiscation. Dail Eireann arbitrated between landlords and claimants to land. The landlords were paid for this land at its market price, estimated by expert valuers, ■ - “What small number of Southern Unionists may be moved solely by hatred of their native land should certainly follow the Earl of Arran’s advice, and leave their country lor their country good; but Ireland will not willingly expatriate any class which goes to make up the Irish nation.” Dealing with the suggestion that the Irish army would bo used to attack Ulster, the Bulletin says: “Ireland has no intention of conscripting an army to wage war on Ulster, and on the question of taxation, it is pointed out that the taxation which has gone to ruin the Earl of Meath financially was imposed by the British Government. The wealthy man in a free Ireland will certainly pay more taxation than the poor man; but both poor and rich "ill P a .V less in taxation to the Government of a free Ireland than they pay now to maintain the extravagant misgovernment of their country and subsidise the British Imperial Government. DEVOTION OF IRISH PEOPLE. Few realise fully the importance of . the Irish race in the Catholic Church (says an exchange). Ireland itself is, of course, one of the most Catholic countries in the whole world. In this small island there are 3J million Catholics or 74 per cent, of the whole population. What is more they are practising Catholics. There are no nominal Catholics in Ireland. Almost every other civilised land includes in its population a large proportion of Irish Catholics. Putting aside the United States to which Catholics from Ireland have emigrated in millions, what is the situation? Jhe British Empire comprises possessions in aIP parts of the globe. It is computed that 48 per cent, of the Catholic bishops of the British Empire are Irish. In Great Britain and her possessions abroad there are 13* million Catholics. Of these 6,50,000 at least are Irish, that is to say very nearly halt. In Great Britain itself, as well as in Australia and Canada Irish Catholics are the backbone of the Church. In truth sedition has its rewards and compensations, through penal laws devised to kill Catholicity, and oppressive political measures, millions of the Irish race were driven from their native land. This emigration was not a oss lilt a gain to the Church. In many lands the emigrants have become pioneers and pillars of the faith. IRISH NATIONAL EDUCATION: VIEWS OF MOST REV. DR. FOGARTY. Writing to a representative conference in Ennis, to consider the national education programme sanctioned by Dad Eireann, Mr. de Valera said the cause of the Irish language was near his heart, and children should have an opportunity of getting a thoroughly Irish education. Most. Rev. Dr. Fogarty sent a message of approval o io 'piogiamine, and it was his desire that managers and teachers in the diocese should take immediate and earnest steps to carry it out. “It is time,” declared his Lordship, to give up complaining about defects in our school programme, for which, I fear, we ourselves are in no little, . egreo responsible. We have the making of the programme" in our own hands, even under the National Board. It is time to make it efficient, practical, and worthy of Ireland. “The schools of any country should reflect the spirit and culture of that nation; otherwise they are not schools of education and light, but of destruction and darkness, and if the schools of Ireland are not as Irish as they should ie so Irish that a foreigner entering one of them would feel that he was in a distinctly Irish school, laden *with its Irish atmosphere and cultivating at the same time all subjects useful and suitable for the proper education of young boys and girls-the fault is, I believe, not entirely, indeed, but a good deal, in our own apathy by manager and teacher. i “The door is now open for the introduction of this new programme, which has been completed by .the most competent educationists in the country, neglecting nothing practical and useful, and giving the Irish language and history their proper prominence.” -