A REAL IRISH GRIEVANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 February 1918, Page 5

A REAL IRISH GRIEVANCE.

80,000 shirkers from tkglam sj;kkixg -mountjoy diet." ( The following witty and illuminating . article is from tlie pen of 1 Canon J»me»-' ( Hannay ("George A- Birmingham")> the famous Irish novelist and playwright:— , „ Ireland has a grievance, genuine this ' time, and, a very rare thing, the Government is not . blame rests on the shoulder of the Sinn ' Feinersi the Government's most im- \ placable enemies. ,'' .. What evil spirit induces Mr. de Valera and his friends to advertise Ireland just now? Xo one was taking any notice 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 hag heard about us. It is a great pity. Wo could have gone on very well as we were. We'are not compelled to be soldiers. We> have more food than any other country I in Kurope. We can say pretty newly. anything we like. We smile at the restrictions of personal liberty which , worry other people 'but do not affect us. ! Then, like fools, we drew public atten- [ tion to our unfortunate position. The inevitable result followed at once. Eng- ' • lishmen began to come over here in large 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, corrupting our J morals. But the original blame does ■ not rest with the Government. We ourselves—or the Sinn Fciners among us—practically invited these people to come here. If we had not fussed on until we got ourselves into the newspapers the English would never have known that Ireland was the one country in Europe / for people wh,o hate fighting and like cating. But that is not the whole of our grievance against Sinn Fein. Not content with advertising Ireland, a prominent Sinn Feiner has now given away our most cherished secret. We know but nobody else did, how prisoners are fed in Mountjoy Prison. Mr- Joseph McDonagh, emerging from Dundalk Gaol, gave an interview to a reporter, which, of course, was published- He said that an officer of the Prisons Board has offered the prisoners in Dundalk "Mountjoy diet." He offered it, apparently, as a concession. The prisoners, like self-respecting men, demanded it as a right. "If the Government,'' Mr. McDonagh is reported to have said, "wished to keep them in prison against their will, they ought to provide' thefn with the food necessary to keep them in good health." Of course they ought. But why publish '■ the menu? That is where Mr. (McDonagh made his mistake. The "Mountjoy diet" provides an egg for breakfast, one and a-half pounds of bread during {he 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. McDonagh the interviewer. Nobody grudges thefood to him or his friends- 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 in Dublin who are badly in want of milk. They, pjoor 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 situation. ,The real trouble is the Englishmen in Ireland, those thirty thousand —if there are thirty thousand. .They know now, thanks to Mr. McQwiagh's expansiveness, that they hav« nothing to do tout get into gaol in order to enjoy the "Mountjoy diet," won for them, not by their own exertions, but by the desperate hunger-strikes of our,Sinn Feiners. , Think of the amount of inconvenience which will be*cansed by thirty thousand Englishmen all trying to get sent to prison at once! And they will do it. Each one of them must commit a crime, political or other. Otherwise he cannot be jarroßtod. And we, poor Irish, will have to endure the things these men do. Our police, magistrates an J judges will bo ■ overworked. Our gaols will'get crowd- . - od. Wo shall probably have to enlarge, thrai at great expense. There will not be room in them for us when we want to ,-' go to prison ourselves. Is is moifc unfair.