THE IRISH QUESTION.
To the Editor. Sir, —It ia surprising how even men o> education and ability who have axes to grind throw discretion to the four winds in their endeavors and slander and libel a nation and a peopl> who even by their own admission they know little or nothing whatever about. The editor of the News in his leader of March 7 accused Irishmen with being disgruntled rebels through all ascs. .Tust so. We grant that is so. But where we think the learned editor of the Daily News proves that he is prejudiced, biassed and narrow is that he did not in justice to Irishmen give also (he reason that drove Irishmen into revolt on each of thos<> occasions, because it would be futile for the writer to plead ignorance of the facts that drove Irishmen into revolt on so many occasions. Allow me, please to give a few of the causes that led to the trouble. Tie editor goes into a viohnt storm of indignation in dilating on the perfidv of Germany in violating her treaty with Belgium, and holds up Be giuni as a paragon of all that is good, breve and nailant, for resenting thi.' violation with all the means in her power. So do I. At the same time, he condemns Irishmen for resenting the violating of a treaty that ought to be more binding because it was not written with peiishable ink or perishable paper, but chisseled or carved on the face of solid rock that will last as long as time itself That, is what the treaty of Limerick was written on. And the next question, how long did England respect this treaty? England acknowledged this treaty long enough, for the Irish soldiers to disperse to their homes, but as soon as this was done King Billy renounced every article of that treaty written on stone, and resorted to tyranny and confiscation, and employed such tyranny over the Irish people that the treatment of the Armenians bv the Turks pale into insignificance beside !». Then we shall leave Nil!) and take 1752. In this year of grace the English nation was in that tight corner with America, and other countries as well, that she had to withdraw every soldier from Irish soil, which left Ireland unprotected, but not for long. The Irish tlicmsehes came to the rescue. They raised 100,000 Irish volunteers to defend their own country. But they said, "We must have an Irish Government," which the notorious King George consented to prant them with his word of honor that it would never be questioned. But although this Irish Government was successful in every way, in fact the only and chief fault it had was that Ireland was getting too formidable a competitor against English manufacturers, and therefore that war, sufficient, excuse to scrap another treatv and cause the revolution of 1780. The revolution of 48 and 67 was also the outcome of scrapped treaties. The revolution of Kill is fresh in everybody's mind. Admiral Carson threatened the Government that if they did a certain thing that he would appeal for German assistance against the British Government, which he absolutely did. He bought German rifles. He got a German officer to drill his volunteers, and he had Khulman, the chief German, as his honored Sliest. He got the army at Cnrro to mutiny, and was he punished? Yes, he was made a Cabinet Minister. But it was different with the Irish volunteers who were armed. They decided to disarm them straight away, which was the chief cause of the 1010 rebellion. But our noble editor makes another wild charge, but not the charge of the Light Brigade. He charge-) the Sinn Feiners with being "ignorant criminals," which proves that he is at sea without a compass once more. T beg to be permitted without ofTence to inform him thfit those men whom he classes as ignorant: criminals, that far from being ignorant or criminal, they are in every way his own equals, if not. his superiors, because they are no less tlian college professors of the highest grade, school teachers and highly educated clergymen.—l am, etc., JOHN. BIGGINS. Lepperton, March 13. [We beg to apologise to our readers for inflicting the above upon them, our only reason being that it is an attack upon views we are supposed to have uttered. Our correspondent takes certain passages from their context and gives them a meaning never intended. The article was in no way an attack upon Ireland as a nation, nor a denunciation of Ireland':; legitimate aspirations, with which, in common with most colonials, we are in hearty sympathy. We dealt with the lawless element —the Sinn Feiners—which was responsible for the, "revolution" that broke out on Easter Monday of 1010, and which has been mainly responsible for the failure up to now of an agreement regarding the basis of home rule. Sir Edward Carson, in taking —■• a bellicose attitude in ( 1014, acted, ■ubt. unconstitutionally and provoc- , ituvely, but at the first sign of trouble with Germany lie at once did the patri-
otic thing, and lent nil his support to the national cause. So did the National Party, for that matter, but that course never suited the extremists, who, later, secretly intrigued with the Germans for assistance to gain separation from Britain and give her a slab in the back. What transpired is recent history. DoesMr. John Di;j;giiifl wish to justify such disloyalty? If ho does, we are not going to ail'on! him space to justify it in these columns. As for breaking faith with Ireland, wW does he and other firebrands of his iIL" K ;vr us some ancient history? Wrongs Ireland has in the days gone by suffered, we all know, but England has, for the past twenty years at least, Bet herself nobly to redress them. Take the Wyndhanr Land Purchase Act, which enabled the tenant-farmers of Ireland to buy their farms from the landlords on practically their own terms, the British already having found £100,000,000 to make up the difference. Eviction is a thing of the past. Every peasant who wants to be is his own proprietor. The land laws are the most liberal in the world. Ireland is exempt from the Land Valuation Act and the National Insurance Act, and while in the rest Of the British Isles conscription is imposed upon able-bodied man between nineteen :,: .1 forty-one, Ireland is once more exempt. The extremists' panacea for all ills is complete separation from England. Tf a spirit of sweet reasonableness prevailed amongst the Irish people, Ireland would have home rule to-day. As lan Hay puts it: "The chief bar to a complete and speedy settlement of the question is, and always has been, the inability of a lovable but irresponsible people to agree among themselves as to what they really want." An agreement as the result of the present convention would be hailed with satisfaction by everyone in the colonies, but the highhanded and openly disloyal behaviour of the Sinn Feiners will never bring about a settlement. That attitude will alienate sympathy for a worthy cause, and postpone a settlement, if not render it impossible. The fact that highly educated men are associated with the Sinn Feiners only makes their behaviour worse.—Ed.]
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Taranaki Daily News, 15 March 1918, Page 6
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1,216THE IRISH QUESTION. Taranaki Daily News, 15 March 1918, Page 6
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