THE IRISH AND “FOREIGNERS.”

Taranaki Daily News, 8 April 1922, Page 6

THE IRISH AND “FOREIGNERS.”

(To the Editor.) Sir, —If one did not know the election was approaching, there would be no difficulty in guessing it from the furore raised by Mr. Gunson over Bishop Liston’s speech. One does not need to be a Sherlock Holmes to deduct that Mr. Gunson and all Tory “heads of affairs” have lately been on the look-out for just such an opening as that provided by Bishop Liston’s speech. It is ridiculous for Mr. Gunson to be up in arms about the statement that British soldiers are murderers. Of couse they are not, not all of them, otherwise there would be wholesale murder, allowing one murdered person to each soldier, but some British soldiers have been murderers in Ireland, as facts will prove. As to the use of the word “foreign,” to which Mr. Gunson took such exception, all persons residing outside Ireland, to the Irish, are foreigners, whether they belong to the British Empire or any other old Empire. In 1910 I went with my father to Ireland to see his people, and the place where he was born. When we landed there word was sent to the neighbors that the foreigners had arrived, ami during our stay there—some three months—we were always referred to as “the foreigners.” So that the word foreign or foreigner (to the Irish anyway) is applicable to other than Germans and such like. In all probability Mr. Gunson, behind his mask of insulted dignity, is “laughing up his sleeve,” and is highly gratified at haw-

ing another chip out of the old chopping block, viz., The Catholic Church.— 'I am, etc., READER. Puniho, April 4. [Other letters are in type and will be inserted as space permits. —Ed.]