IRISH FACTION DIFFERENCES.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 23 November 1901, Page 4

IRISH FACTION DIFFERENCES.

An Anti-British Demonstration

The Story of the Sword of Honor

London, Nov 12.

Major Mcßride, who commanded the Irish Brigade in the Transvaal, was presented with a sword in Paris. The subscribers were Celts. Violent anti-British speeches were made. The incident referred to in the above cable message is farther explained by the following extract from a late issue of the ■‘Pall Mall Gazette”:—The “sword of honor” which Miss Maude Gonne undertook to present to Major Mcßride,” of the “ Irish Boer Brigade,” is reported to be on the brink of presentation, and the funny little ceremony is announced for some day in November. “Major Mcßride” is one of the foreign auxiliaries of Mr Kruger whom the approach of Lord Roberts sent across the sea in such hot haste a year ago, leaving the redoubtable Irish-American “Colonel Blake” to continue the campaign, apparently minus his officers and soldiers. Why the “sword of honour” should not have been reserved for the gentleman “who kept on lighting” is one of those masteries of Irish Nationalism which leave the more Saxon intelligence in hopeless darkness. At any rate it may be surmised that the military exploits of the “Major” have very little to do with the matter, and an explanation is forthcoming which throws a piquant light upon the present condition of the Irreconcilables of Flrin. It is a contest between “United Irishmen” and “United Irish Leaguers”

It is net generally known that the Fenian organisations both at Home and in America have declared hot war against Mr John Redmond, Mr Michael Davitt, and especially Mr William O'Brien. Innumerable proclamations by the Home Fenians have called upon the American 0 an-na-Gaol “to stop dollars” which the Parliamentarians, in alliance with the o‘Brienito League, and so keen to demand, and on the other side of the pond the Clan-na-Gael has severely warned off even Mr Michael Davitt from the strongholds of the party. When Mr Davitt was expecting a “united welcome” at Chicago the other day, he found that o‘Donovan Basra had been specially engaged for a counter-demonstration at the same time and in the same town.

In all this warfare the name of “ Major Mcßride ” had a resounding place. And for this reason. When their was a vacancy last year in South Mayo, the Nationalists ran the “ Major ” then in Transvaal, as a protest against British action in South Africa,” but Mr William O’Brien personally proposed a man called John O’Donnell, who, ho claimed, had the superior merit of having been sent to gaol for three months for an assault on “ a grabbers ” family. The hero of the assault was elected over the hero of the Transvaal, and all the organisations of Fcnianism, always ready to pursue their old feud with the clerical agrarians, have ever since denounced “ the treason of South Mayo ” as an unfavourable sin. The project of giving “a sword of honour” to the Fenian Transvaalcr is thus contrived as a reminder, urbi et orbi, of Mr William O’Brien’s hostility to the Irish Transvaal Brigade.” It is true that the United Irish League in Parliament and out of it have since then done their utmost to convince their American paymasters that they are truest allies and champions of the Transvaal. But the black sin of South Mayo is still held uj) against them, and “the sword of honour” is one of the ways of manifesting this animosity.