THE GENTLE ART OF PROPAGANDA.

Southland Times, Issue 18851, 17 June 1920, Page 2

THE GENTLE ART OF PROPAGANDA.

To the Editor. Sir,—When in a discussion an editor shows indications of irritability there is usually only one construction put upon it. The closing line of your editorial to-day (Wednesday) gave signs of falling from your usual placidity. You want to have the discussion confined to matters as they stand in 1920. You have stated, that in your opinion the double parliament proposed for Ireland would be a solution of the troubles that afflict what you call “the distressful country.” I have told you already that the whole country is opposed to that solution with the exception of the followers, for the time being, of Sir Edward Gallon. I could give you quotations from Home papers to show that the country generally will have none of this dividing of the legislative power. But “cui bono.” Your mind is made up on the point and you have the guillotine in your hand. The opinion of the Editor of the Southland Times can’t reach those misguided people and so they continue in their perverse obstinacy. You ridicule the idea of Dublin Castle being a tyrannical and obsolete*/ institution, forgetting that Mr Asquith, while Prime Minister, on the occasion of his last visit to Dublin to see for himself, made up his mind that it should be abolished and proclaimed his conviction and determination in the House of Commons. The methods of the Castle have not changed for the better since, and Asquith is not in a position to carry out his threat. No sane person believes that the information given by the correspondent of the Sun newspaper that the Pope had condemned Sinn Fein has any foundation, but in the imagination of the said correspondent. The Holy See is kept informed of the real state of affairs and is not likely to offend the sentiments of the bulk of the Irish people, who are the most loyal of the adherents of Rome. The power of Sinn Fein is steadily gaining ground and recruits are coming from all quarters, as you can see by reading the London Daily News, the Nation and other papers. When a Sinn Fein mayor is shot in his house, under the most atrocious circumstances, another Sinn Fein mayor is elected in-his place. The Sinn Fein Mayor of Dublin retires in favour of a Sinn Fein prisoner who is detained without trial or charge in an English prison. The sister of the Lord Lieutenant attends Sinn Fein meetings and denounces in no measured terms the mockery of law as administered by her brother Lord French in Dublin Castle. You laugh at the idea of the Irish being unarmed, because, forsooth, their ingenuity and daring occasionally enables them to disarm groups of soldiers and police. What are these few guns and revolvers compared with the tanks, armoured cars, bombing planes, machine guns and artillery paraded every day in the cities and towns of Ireland. Bonar Law declared in the House of Commons that England is at war with Ireland, but it is a war of provocation one the one side and endurance and patience on the other, and as in ail such wars the victory is usually with the patient. I trust I have made it plain Ip your readers that your first editorial on" the subject has not been a judicious exposition of the state of affairs in Ireland, and as I am now satisfied there is a large amount of sympathy with Ireland in Southland, I think I can leave the matter in their hands with confidence. —I am, etc., lONA.