The “Freeman” Incurs Wrath of Sir. J. Craig

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 41, 19 October 1922, Page 13

The “Freeman” Incurs Wrath of Sir. J. Craig

SUPPRESSION ORDER, v A Belfast message circulated by the Press Association says;— ; • ' A “The Ulster Home Office announces that in view of gross attacks of a highly criminal character which have been made in recent issues of the Freeman's Journal and Dublin Evening Telegraph on one of his Majesty’s Judges of the Northern High Court, the Northern Government have prohibited the circulation of these papers within the area.” What the Freeman Said. The following, which appeared in the Freeman, was evidently unpalatable to Sir James Craig’s friends: “The Northern flogger is a .portent of evil. “Amongst civilised men now the lash expresses not the spirit of civilisation, but the spirit of the brute in the law that inflicts it. . “In Ireland the pitch-cap and the triangle were the instruments of Orange torture in the days of the Yeomen’s ascendancy. “That the Orange Government should have brought back the triangle, though they hesitated at the pitch-cap shows that the old spirit of bestial brutality is not dead. , “It was at first believed that the law was only a threatening gesture, and that no judge could be found who would disgrace the ermine by the actual infliction of the lash for a political offence. But people counted without those Covenanting judges those rebels turned torturers, whose horse-hair treason has now been substituted by the animus of vindictive revenge. “Judge Andrews, Convenanter, is for the lash, “The fact does not imply any super-blackness in the offenders’ guilt; it merely reveals Judge Andrews’ own soul and psychology. , ' . “Hence Mr. Churchill’s optimism is unfortunately to be discounted. “The hand that wields a bloody lash on a political offender cannot help the cause of peace in Ireland, North or South.” Judges Tools of Government. According to a statement issued by the Belfast Ministry of Home Affairs, the ban on the circulation in the SixCounty area of our newspapers is due “to their criticism of the imposition by one of his Majesty’s judges of flogging sentences.” , • e The statement adds that “the decision to inflict sentences of birching upon persons found in" possession of firearms and explosives, or engaged in robbery under arms, was taken recently by the Government of Northern Ireland, and was solely actuated by the determination of the Government to maintain law and order impartially.” Copies of the Freeman's Journal were seized by the Ulster Specials at Strabane Station. They had a hearty read of the day’s news in the —Correspondent. Bundles of the Freeman’s Journal were seized at Ballaghaderreen Railway Station by Irregulars and burned. —Correspondent. Truth About Flogging Judges. The Freeman's Journal in the course of an editorial says:— “Our real offence, of course, was not that we objected to .the flogging sentences. It was that we have , let in a little light upon the record of the men who impose them. We have shown these upright judges as ferocious political partisans. Lord Justice Andrews sentences a Catholic to be flogged for carrying arms for his own protection after his brother had been shot- dead by an Orange murdergang. Lord Justice Andrews, like the majority of his judicial brethern, was one of the Larne gun-runners. Had the justice he metes out been meted out to him and his colleagues . they would have known a good deal more about flogging than they do. While ex-gun-runners and conspirators man the Bench, and use their position to penalise and punish political opponents, it is idle to talk of impartial administration of the law. ’ Sir James Craig may prohibit the Freeman?s Journal for telling the truth. But the truth about his flogging judges is now known to the world. And world opinion and!world. contempt cannot be suppressed by the edict -of the Orange Lodges.”