30,000 SHIRKERS FROM ENGLAND

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 112, 29 January 1918, Page 6

30,000 SHIRKERS FROM ENGLAND

A "REAL" IRISH GRIEVANCE (By George A. Birmingham—Canon James Hannay, the Distinguished Irish Novelist and the "Daily Mail.") Ireland has a grievance, genuine this time, and, a very raro thing, the Government is not responsible. In fact, the blame rests on the shoulders of the Sinn Feiners, tho Government's most implacable enemies. What evil spirit induces Mr. do Valera and his friends to advertise Ireland just now? No one was taking any notico of us until they drew attention to us by rebelling and making picturesque speeches. Now the country is flooded with journalists, and the whole world has heard about us. It is a groat pity. Wo could have got on very well as wo were. * Wo arc not compelled to be soldiers. Wo have more food than any other country in Europe. We can sny pretty nearly anything we like. Wo smile at the restrictions of personal liberty which worry other peoplo but do not affect us. Then, like fools, we drew public attention to our fortunate position. The inevitable result followed at once. Englishmen began to como over -hero in largo numbers. It is estimated that there are now 30,000 of them in Ireland, young men with good appetites. We do not" want them. They are filling up our houses, eating our food, and corrupting our morals. But the original blame does not rest with tho Government. Wo ourselves—Kir the Sinn Feiners among us—practically invited these people to com© here. If we had not fussed on until wo got ourselves into the nowspapers the English would never have known that Ireland was the ow? country in Europe for people who hate fighting and like eating. But that is not the wholo /if our grievance against Sinn Fein. Not content with advertising Ireland, a prominent Sinn Feiner has now given away nur most cherished SPcrot. _We knew, butinobody else did, how prisoners are fed in Mountjoy Prison. Mr. Joseph M'D.onagh, emerging from Dundnlk Gaol. gave an interview to a rpporter, which,"of course, was published. _Ho said that an officer of the Prisons Board has offered the prisoners in Dundalk "Mountioy diet." He offered it, apparently, as a concession. The prisoners, like eelf-resoecting men, demanded it as a right. "If the Government," Mr. MjDonagh is reported to have said, "wishecj to keep them in prison against their will, they ought to provide them with the food necessary to keep them in good health." Of course they ought. But why publish the menu? That is where Mr. M'Donagh made his mistake. The "Mountjoy diet" provides an egg for breakfast, one and a half pounds of bread during the day, ten ounces of meat, a pint of porridge, two pints of tea, a pound of potatoes, butter twice a day, and two and a half pints of milk. So Mr. M'Donagh told tho interviewer. Nobody grudges the food to him or his frionds. If they are kept in prison against their will they ought to get that and more. But consider the effect of these revelations. I am not thinking for the moment of all the babies m Dublin who are badly in want of milk. They, poor things, are not old enough to carry hurley sticks through the streets or do anything else which would get them into Mountjoy Prison. They may die, but they will not complicate , the situatiou. The real troublo is tho Englishmen in Ireland, those thirty thousand—if there arc thirty thousand. They know now, thanks to Mr. M'Donagh's expansiveness, that they have nothing to do but get into gaol in order to enjoy the "Mountjoy diet," won for them, not by their own exertions, but by tho desperate hungerstrikes of our Sinn Feiners. Think of the amount of inconvenience 1 which will be caused by thirty thousand Englishmen all trying to get sent to prison at onco! And they will do it. Each one of them must commit a crime, political or other. Otherwise ho cannot be arrested. And we, poor Irish, will have to endure the things these men do. Our police, magistrates, and judges will be overworked. Our gaols will be crowded. We shall probably have to enlarge them at great expenso. There will not be room in them for us when we want to go to prison ourselves. It is most unfair.