LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 95, 16 January 1919, Page 6

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION AND IMPERIAL ISSUES. Sir,—Mr. Thomas M. Milligan has through your columns courteously offered some explanation by way of reply to my letter of .January C. Like a true Ulstermaii, he is silent on nearly all the issues raised except the Homo Rule issue, upon which we are treated to the usual high falutin , expressions. Alight I ask tlio .question of Sir. Milligan: How does a political leader feel when liis position is being made too hot for him by his followers? If ho can ansVer correctly lie will be ;ible to understand why "Mr. Balfour wished to drop out of the leadership," to use his own words. Has he liot heard of the. cave in the Unionist Party which adopted the letters B.M.G. (Balfour Must Go) as their war-cry, and succeeded in obtaining the scalp they were after? In regard to my reference to Gladstone's defeat, it is a concidencc that he was a member of the House of Commons for exactly the same number of years as Sir. As(juith when he suffered defeat for Oxford University.

Mr. Milligan's information'/regarding the results for South Derry and Londonderry City is interesting so far as explaining the muddle of the cable reports is concerned, but it is not at all surprising for me to learn that Mr. Henry, tho elected of South Derry, is a Roman Catholic, though a strong Unionist. It is one of those cases which serves to illustrate the hollowness of the opposition to Home Rule for Ireland. The quarrel is fomented on religious grounds, but. at bottom the reasons are purely political. A Roman Catholic is quite n good fellow so lonp; as he is a Unionist. According to your correspondent: "AVlien Mr. Denis Henry, K.C., stood for tho division some years ago, the Unionists supported h'im to a man." Politics first, religion , second; but religion is the trump card when it comes to wining converts to the Ulster par.ty. ■ Being n Protestant, I can quote without being "hoist with my own petard" a case as a set-off to Mr. Henry's. During the heated controversy on the Homo Rule Bill, I think in 1912, the Marquis'of Hamilton, M.P. for Londonderry, died. He sat as a Unionist, and the seat was considered a safe one; so much so, that in 1906 the Unionist) was returned unopposed. At the by-election the seat was gained for the Liberals by Mr. Hogs, who stood as a Protestant Home Ruler. The North of Ireland is perhaps a strange part of tlio world to live in. But the fight lis to go ou, for Mr. Milligan says "that Ulster preferred to remain under the British Parliament, and to bring 'Lower Hall's' memory up\ to date, the resolve of Ulstermen still holds good." Why? Has .A; G. Gardiner not summed up,the position? "For a century or more the Orangemen have had Ireland under their heel. 'The crown of the Causeway in market or street, and the rascally Papishes under our feet. . With th& Castle at their back, they have held Ireland like a conquered province. They have held it as the British hold India. They have planted their nominees in every fat job; they have controlled the administration; the. police have been an instrument in their hands; justice has been the tool of their purposes; the law has been' of tTieir fashioning and the Judges of their making."

In his "Short History of tlie English People," J. R. Green has some illuminating passages which Ulstcrmen might read to some- profit. "The history of Ireland, .from its conquest by William 111 up to this time (end of the eighteenth century) is one which no Englishman can recall without ehame. Since the surrender of Limerick every Catholic Irishman—.and there were five Catholics to every Protestant—had been treated as a stranger and a foreigner in his own country. Necessity, indeed, had brought about a practicnl toleration of their religion and their worship; but in all social and political matters the native Catholics—in other words' the immense majority of the people of Ireland—weia simply hewers of wood and drawers of water to their Protestant masters, who still looked on themselves as mere eettlers, who boasted of their Scotch or English extraction, and who regarded the name of 'Irishman' as an insult. Although the Irish Catholics were Jield down by the brute force of their Protestant rulers, he (Pitt) saw their discontent was growing fast into rebellion, and that one Becrct of their discontent at any rate lay in Irish poverty —a poverty increased,- if not originally brought about, by the jealous exclusion of Irish products from their natural markets in England itself."

An association of "United Irishmen 5, begun' among the Protestants of Ulster with a view of obtaining Parliamentary reform, drifted into a correspondence .with Franco and projects and insurrection. The Catholic peasantry, brooding over their misery and tlic-ir wrongs, were equally etirred by the netfs from France (the Revolution), and their discontent broke out in the outrages of "Defenders" and ''Peep-q'-Day Buys," who held the country in terror. For a s while, however, the Protestant landowners, banded together in "Orange Societies," held the country down by sheer terror and bloodshed. (Chap. X. Section' '

Lack of space forbids further quotation, but it appears tlint Ulster's ease is one of which no one can, boast. Tho Methods adopted by the anti-Catholic's are iu accord with the Prussian spirit over which truth and justice have just triumphed. "Will* Byron's lines be prophetic as regards Ireland?

For Freedom's battle, once begun, Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son, Though baffled oft, is over won. I It is' a matter for deei> regret that this sorry quarrel is going to bo reflected in New Zealand. Tho establishment of the P.P.A. shows once more how reljgion is bring, made the stalk-ing-horse for political ends: If there were any sincerity in the movement there would be more religion apparent fthsin there is at present. -The great bulk of the Political Protestants never seem to darken a church door. Catholics and Protestants need not fight each other; there are plenty of issues upon which they can join hands to lift' the world out of its sordid materialism. Tho Irish question, can only he settled by both parties resolving to work together for the good of the country, and surely, as has been before pointed out, if Catholic\nd Protestant soldiers fought side by side with equal gallantry to crush Priissianism, thoy can join to govern their country in accordance with truth and justice. Well might Wordsworth say: Who can reflect unmoved upon the round Of smooth and solemnised complnccncics By which, on Christian lords, from age to age, Profession mocks Performance ? Earth is eick, And Heaven is weary, of the hollow words Which States and Kingdoms, utter when they talk of truth and justice. I am, etc., LOWER HUTT.