IRISH NEWS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 20, 18 May 1922, Page 35

IRISH NEWS

SHOT FOR HIS RELIGION: THE ORANGE INQUISITION. The murder of Augustus Orange, a Catholic young man, while returning from a St. Patrick’s night dance in St. Mary’s Hall, is described in detail in the Irish News. At the corner of Ravenhill Road, or a short distance down that thoroughfare, he was seized and questioned. “What is your religion was the first question, followed by an order “to curse the Pope.” “If you are a Protestant curse the Pope,” yelled one of the mob, and another added: “Don’t be afraid. We are the right sort; we are all good Orangemen.” Still another interjected: “Do him in, and quit gabbling.” The victim adopted a non-committal attitude, and said “he would curse no one.” “Do you belong to the Church of Ireland?” one of the mob queried. “Yes,” said Orange, “I belong to the Church of Ireland.” “Ah, do him in and bring the clergy,” shouted out another in a guffawing, sarcastic tone. “Are you a Sinn Feiner?” he was asked finally, and the youth was understood to reply in the negative. The murderers were not satisfied. He had refused to curse the Pope, and so must be a Catholic. The last seen of the poor fellow was when he was being marched to his death between four men. He was taken, up Empress Street, or one of the side streets leading to Woodstock Road, and marched into Clermont Lane, where he was shot dead. His lifeless body was dragged some distance and left lying at the street corner^ •'/WWW UNIONIST DENOUNCES BIGOTS : WORKERS FOOLED Councillor Thomas E. Alexander (solicitor) a prominent Unionist member of Belfast Corporation, startled that assembly by a frank Speech on February 24. He had been asked, he said, by a gentleman* the previous day, “What is the difference between Dublin and Belfast?” And thinking to be clever, he replied that it was 112 miles. “No,” said the man, “Dublin is in the Free State- and Belfast is in a damned bad state.” (Laughter.) Such a statement set them a-thinking as to what was the cause of the state of things which they found in the city. “It is,” he said, “this long-continued vendetta, which is becoming a social plague, and has brought discredit upon our city, “I don’t disguise the fact,” continued Councillor Alexander, “that during the past two years I have been a sadly disappointed man. Two years ago I thought that the workers of this city had at last, irrespective of creed, seen the wisdom of joining hands, and thus combining, steadily progressing to a higher and better state of civic life. ' “I know we all deplore the lawlessness which has existed in this city during the past two years, and everyone here, I am sure* longs for its speedy termination. But the deplorable state of the city is made all the more vexatious by the fact that, as I believe, much of it could have been avoided. “If the Spirit of toleration had been properly encouraged, I believe Belfast would have, been saved the scenes which have gone far to disgrace it in the eyes of the civilised world. “There should be no difficulty in men of different creeds working together in harmony. It is childish and absurd that you should maltreat a fellow-man because he worships in a-different church, perhaps in the same street. “They have to pay for it, but in my opinion they don’t know that. .It has not been pointed out to them as it should have been, but my opinion is that in a. very short time they will find out how they have been fooled, and they will find out the men who have fooled them,, and chase them out of the city of Belfast once they have found • them out.” i

Alderman Campbell (Labor), expressing approval of Alderman Alexander’s remarks, said his party deplored that such sentiments had not been expressed long ago.

He (Alderman Campbell) was sorrowful to think that some people approved of what was going • on, but they did not take part in it. He thought the greater criminals were those who sat easy and comfortable and allowed the thing to go on without a protest. He knew from' conversation with otherwise admirable individuals, that they approved of this sort of thing. Ho was a most despicable coward who approved of the thing and was not prepared to go out and take his share. As one who did not believe in converting people to his views by means of the pickaxe and paver, ho held that every citizen was equally culpable who had not the courage to express disapproval of what was going on.

THE BREAKING-UP OF LAWS. ' The latest crimes reported from Belfast are also the ugliest (says the London Daily Herald). Belfast is probably at this moment the most lawless city in the world. Why? For three reasons. The first is that the Ulster leaders, for their own base purpose of keeping the rest of Ireland in subjection to the alien British domination, have in the past so encouraged the spirit of religious and political hatred that now it has got beyond all bounds. The second is that the Tory Die-hards, who \so long succeeded by their manipulation of the Ulster problem in preventing any freedom for Ireland, still hope to take away -the freedom that has been won, and, therefore, still intrigue against that co-operation between North-East Ireland and the rest, which alone can restore Ireland to unity and peace. And the third is that the murderers in Belfast always have at the back of their minds the knowledge that the Orange power is maintained, in the last resort, by British bayonets, and that, whatever atrocities they commit, and whatever provocation they extend to the rest of- Ireland, the British Army will always bo on the “Ulster” side. The first step to Irish peace, then, as we have always maintained, is the total withdrawal of British troops from every part of Ireland. That would show Ulster that it must, whether it wants to or not, behave itself, and once that point is established, the inevitable' economic necessities of the situation would tend to draw the whole of Ireland together into a single Free State. But though this step on the part of the British Government is necessary, it is by no means sufficient. In all these matters of conflict and crime, we are driven back in the last resort to the platitude that nothing will stop war except peace. And nothing will bring peace except the spirit of peace. the “BLACK-AND-TANS” IN LONDON. There are a considerable number of the demobilised “Black-and-Tans” in London. The Irish Office in Westminster was their paymaster, so they have come back to worry Sir Hamar Greenwood about the promised pensions, which so far seem not to have reached the payment stage. Many, too, have come under the influence of the drift that brings out-of-works in general to London. 'They have fallen on evil days and they do not meet with much sympathy from the Londoners. A few days ago they held a mass meeting in Hyde Park. It was a depressing affair. The “Black-and-Tans” mustered to the number of some hundreds and a few onlookers joined the crowd, but evidently were not particularly friendly to the disbanded irregulars. Hardly one of the newspapers even mentioned that the meeting had been held. None of them reported the speeches in which the veterans of the campaign of arson, murder, and pillage set forth their,grievances. It had been a disappointing business for them, they confessed. They complained of the slowness of the Government in settling up their claims, and still more, of the difficulties they found in getting employment of any kind. One speaker told how the moment it came out that an applicant for work had served,in the “Black-and-Tans” the , interview came to an unsatisfactory end. Employers did not want them. There are some strange tales of loot from Ireland being sold in London since the disbanded “Black-and-Tans” and Auxiliaries arrived. In one case the evidence of loot was an engraved inscription on a gold watch, which showed it had been the property of an Irish Mayor who was murdered by the forces of the Crown. Another piece of loot—now happily restored to Catholic v keeping—is a beautiful cross with five reliquaries set in it. '