The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1915. ARMY RECRUITING IN IRELAND.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 16, 20 January 1915, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1915. ARMY RECRUITING IN IRELAND.

Recruiting in Ireland is discussed with outspoken frankness by Canon Hannay (better known to many of our readers under his pen-name of "Geo. A. Birmingham"), in a lengthy article which a London paper published at the end of November. He admits the existence of an anti-recruiting campaign and considers it is quite possible that a certain amount of Irish-Ameri-can money is passing through the hands of some of the minor and less reputable workers in the anti-British cause. It seems certain that Irish opinion, especially in country districts, has been very largely affected by the circulation of pro-German literature sent over to Ireland by -Irish Americans. At the first outbreak of the war the sentiment of the Irish people was, unenthusiastically but quite really, in favor of the Allies, Canon Hannay says, but in many places there was at the time of writing evidence of less enthusiasm, the change being traceable quite as much to the circulation of literature from America as to the influence of papers published in Ireland. Inquiring whether the antirecruiting campaign in Ireland is the real reason why recruiting amongst Irishmen was apparently going slowly, Canon Hannay concludes: "We must remember in the first place that when Irish Nationalists are called on to enlist they are called on to change suddenly their whole on things; to go back on what they have always been led to suppose was a root principle of Nationalism. We must also remember that the war has had little or no effect on employment in rural Ireland. The agricultural laborer and the small farmer are, so far no worse off because of the war. Even the laborers in the smaller towns are not feeling the pinch of unemployment severely. It is true elsewhere that unemployment and poverty stimulate recruiting. In rural Ireland this stimulus is wanting. It is. of course, true too, that many men in England, Scotland, and Wales enlist from the loftiest and most patriotic motives, deliberately sacrificing ease, comfort, and security for the sake of responding to their country's call. It has not yet been brought home to the conscience of Nationalist Ireland that it is patriotic to enlist. That motive, the highest and best, is not operating. Theso,- I think, are the real reasons why Irish recruiting is comparatively slow. I am inclined to think that the I success of the anti-enlisting propa-j ganda is due to the fact that the men I are not eager to enlist, rather than that the men refuse to enlist as a I result of the anti-enlisting propagan-| da. Men will readily read literature j

and cheer sentiments which make some show of justifying a course of action, or inaction, to which they are already inclined. The anti-British Nationalists have seized an opportunity rather than created a movement; and in view of the large number of | Irishmen, the proportionately v'ery large number, serving in the Army before the war broke out, together with the fact that a considerable, though unknown, number of Irishmen has responded to the call, it seems scarcely just, until we have the figures fully before us, to complain that the Irish are. doing less than their share' of the fighting that has to be done.