SIR IAN HAMILTON.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 January 1921, Page 6

SIR IAN HAMILTON.

AS A CANNY SCOT. London, Dec. 1 1920 General Sir lan Hamilton, speaking at a St. Andrew’s Day dinner in Bradford said that “war remained a great laboratory of human ideas. The Crimean War emancipated millions of Russian serfs ; war had hatched out the Bolsheviks like a swarm of blowflies from the corpse of the murdered Czar. So the next five years were bound to see some new things happen—some organic changes in our social structure. But he wished very earnestly to say of Scotland that if left to its own devices the changes would come quietly ; Scotland did not want outsiders meddling in its affairs.” Touching Ireland, he said that St. Patrick never had any use for compromise ; the Saint had always been out for ‘direct action,’ but he (Sir lan) had no wish to elaborate the subject, because he did not want to be shot in his bed unless he was paid for it ; but they all knew what St. Patrick meant when he recommended ‘direct action.’ His intentions were no doubt highly honourable. He firmly believed himself a patriot, but to them there would be a want of tact about his method which would be Annoying if it were not that some of them remembered the Munsters, the Connaughts, and Dublin Fusiliers at the far-off Dardanelles.”