A CHASTENED DAILY

New Zealand Tablet, 17 June 1915, Page 34

A CHASTENED DAILY

The Christchurch Press struck a good deal more trouble than, it bargained for in its ill-advised, unjust, and utterly uncalled-for attack on Mr. John Redmond ; and it is now quite obviously sorry that it spoke. Following on the article to which we made reference in our issue, of a fortnight ago came a further virulent Press attack on the Nationalist Party because of the attitude taken by Nationalist members, as well as by the Radicals and a large number of Liberal members in the House of Commons, on the subject of the proposed inclusion of Mr. Campbell in the Coalition Ministry. Then the N.Z. Tablet article and a letter from Mr. J. M. Twomey appeared on the scene ; and the Press now writes in a very much subdued tone. It desires ‘ that there shall bo as little dissension as possible at home ’ ; it is full of admiration ‘ for the thousands of loyal Irishmen who give to the British Army some of its finest characteristics’ ; it ‘ does not intend to dwell on the subject’ ; and it is unwilling to open its columns to a correspondence ‘ calculated to arouse racial and sectarian differences at a time when the whole Empire ought to be united as one man against the most relentless and unscrupulous foe that ever threatened the liberties of the world.’ These are excellent sentiments; and we are naturally pleased to note that the lesson which we endeavored to read our contemporary has evidently been driven home. We are accused of ‘ abuse and misrepresentation ’ in our comments on the Press article; but our contemporary very prudently makes no attempt to show where the misrepresentation lay. As to ‘abuse,’ the charge comes very badly from a paper which roundly accused the Irish Nationalists of treason,’ of ‘active or passive disloyalty,’ of ‘ criminal folly,’ of being ‘ very like traitors,’ of ‘wicked and unpatriotic action,’ etc., etc. A paper which is so prodigal of expletives , ought to be the last to complain if it is itself in turn subjected to a little vigorous handling. It is little short of scandalous, at a time when Irishmen and people of Irish descent in this Dominion are poring over lists containing the names of loved* ones who have, given their lives for the Empire, that a reputable daily can find nothing better to do than to make mischief and stir up strife by bandying silly charges about Irish treason and

a * A disloyalty. v How . silly those charges v are was shown by the rapid solution of the *5, • Campbell |' difficulty, , proving that the ‘ disloyalty ’ r which the Press so eagerly scented " , and " so ;• prosily : descanted upon was the veriest ' p ban /' ; The time has gone by for coarse and reckless abuse of that kind and our Christchurch; contemporary may as well ; understand once 7 for ■ all that Irishmen,, who . are making sacrifices second to none in the present.crisis, are not going to take that sort of .thing without hitting back.- ‘With the enemy at . the gates/* writes the Press in its latest article, ]‘ it is essential that there shall' be as little;dissension as possible at home.’ , Had our contemporary acted on that excellent principle in the first instance, its offensive article, which has caused such keen and widespread indignation amongst the loyal Irish people of Canterbury, 7 would* never have seen the light. >: .