TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 December 1919, Page 10

TRUTH ABOUT IRELAND.

FROM AMERICAN' STANDPOINT, BRITISH JUSTICE VINDICATED. "I saw things in prison which, photographed, would knock every punctuation mark out of the Walsh-Dunne report, and leave it an incoherent mass of meaningless verbiage." These words were written a few weeks ago by the well-known American journalist, Mr. Truman H. Talley, who was commissioned by the New York Herald to "make an independent, impartial inves:tigation into conditions in Ireland." Allegations in. the report of the American commission on Irish Independence (the Walsh-Dunne report), that" the British Were wilfully committing many atrocities in Ireland, especially in the handling of persons charged with political offences incarcerated in the prisons, called forth an emphatic denial by the British Government. Many thousandsof persons in the United States, including those of Irish blood and thoatt wno insist that every people shall have its just deserts, were shocked by the \ValshDunne charges, and later were puzzled and unconvinced by the British denial. It was to find the exact truth that the New York Herald sent Mr. TalWv to Ireland for a month, the terms of his commission reading: "America wants only absolute, substantiated, and unprejudiced facts, no matter who is hurt"

Mr. Talley says that upon his statement to the responsible officials of the Irish Government that he desired to ascertain and present the literal trutn about conditions in Ireland he was informed that so far as the Government was concerned he could go wherever he wanted to go and see whatever he wished to see. Every possible facility was afforded him. He had the freedom of Ireland. He wrote afterwards:— "I devoted the most intense month of ray life to this study. I have to the best of my knowledge left no stone unturned in my survey. I have observed conditions in all walks of Irish life, and canvassed all conceivable shadeß of opinion from the bustling wharves of Belfast Lough to the barren wastes of Bantry Bay, from Protestant Londonderry to Catholic Cork, and from I'moerialist Dublin Castle to Republican Hareonrt Street. I have re-traced the path followed by the Iri3h-American (Walsh-Dunne) delegation. I have seen the inside of enough prisons to last me a lifetime. I have talked to alone to all classifications of prisoners, from the untried, ones to those in solitary confinement. Every avenue for the study of prison history and present-day administration lias been opened for nie. "I have lived in troublesome areas under military restriction. I have observed how military and police regulations operate. I'have talked to the people affected by such measures. I have witnessed riots and arrests. I have attended courts and studied crime conditions and legal procedure. "I have gone thoroughly into the labor situation, and have talked to employers and employees in the industrious ftortn and indigent South. "In brief, I have seen every side of the political, religious, and 'economic phases of the seemingly eternal Irish question. I went to Ireland as an important American seeking the truth."

There waa only one real restriction put upon him, the matter of taking pictures of prisoners. He was permitted to take any pictures of the cells or recreation grounds or building's as long as he refrained from "snapping" prisoners. There is a law in England which specifies that all pictures of persons in prison must be returned to the individuals upon their release or destroyed; and rather than run the risk of. having newspaper pictures in circulation after the present crop of "political" prisoners is free, the prison authorities denied Mr. Talley the privilege. Commenting unou this, he wrote:—

"I saw things in prison which, photographed, would knock every punctuation mark out of the Walsh-Dunne report, and leave it an incoherent mass of meaningless verbiage. But the Prison Board stuck stoutly to its rule, and, while admitting the forcefulness of photographic evidence, insisted that the prisoners' rights were greater than the moral value of trespassing upon them. No single incident in my study of prisons struck me so forcibly as indicating the fairness and high sense of obligation of the Irish prison administration." When his inquiries had led him to cover nearly the whole of Ireland, Mr. Talley, writing of his new-found knowledge, said: — "There have been punishments of political prisoners in Ireland. Some have been drastic. The fractio-al portion of punishment that has been meted out however, has been inflated into one of the strongest tirades in the annals of politics. "Before proceeding further, however, I want to make an important distinctionIt is true that all of Ireland represented by Sinn Fein—a very considerable portion—is united in its bitter cry against alleged British cruelty in prisons. It is not true that all these protesting voices are knowingly in this campaign of misrepresentation. It is by that very misrepresentation on the part of the leaders that the republican element has been solidly enlisted in the chorus of protest. There are thousands of Sinn Feiners in Ireland who. complain of prison cruelty, yet know nothing about the truth of the situation. The leaders have delued their immediate followers as well as those in other countries. The republican population has been fed with stories of prison barbarity until it is part of their creed." At the end of his visit, and on his return to London, Mr. Talley, reviewing his experiences and impressions «f that month spent in Ireland, wrote:— "The belief doubtless exists in America to-day that the Sinn Feincr is really the true Irishman. He is not. One of the first things you see and learn in Ireland is that Sinn Fein is not Irer land.