Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 1 July 1915, Page 39

Irish News

GENERAL. Mr. James P. O’Sullivan, of Athlone, who is married to the sister of Mr. T. P. O’Connor, M-P-, has enlisted as a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps. The frontier town of Newry, the great citadel of Nationalism in the North, may well be proud of its record in the war. A roll of honor recently presented to the chairman of the Urban Council, Mr. IT. J. McConville, J.P., contains 867 names of men who are fighting in the Army and Navy for the rights of small nations. The visit of the Irish deputation to Cardinal Amette (says the Paris correspondent of the Morning Post) made it possible for the Catholics of France and Ireland to show to the world that, despite German misrepresentation, the Catholics of both countries are working with all their energy for the cause of the Allies, and that Ireland regards the war as one of justice and national right, MR. REDMOND AND TERMS OF PEACE. Mr. T. P. O'Connor has an article in some of the leading New York papers in which he quotes a number of opinions on the question of peace terms which he has gathered from representative men. Amongst these Mr. John Redmond writes as follows: 'I hope we shall have no talk of peace so long as there is a single German soldier left on the soil of Belgium, France, or Alsace-Lorraine.

BURIED IN QUEENSTOWN. The funeral of 92 victims of the Lusitania tragedy took place in Queenstown. The dead had all been collected in four mortuaries before daylight. Around those who had not been identified had been placed every relic, every possible thing that might aid in an identifier cation, and in addition all had been carefully photographed. At ten o’clock at St. Coleman's Cathedral, Bishop Browne of Clovne celebrated a Solemn Requiem Ma in the presence of Admiral Coke, representing the Admiralty; General Mill, representing the Army, and official representatives of the cities and towns of the district. The bodies were interred in the Sailors’ Cemetery outside the town. Services at the grave wore conducted by Bishop Browne. IRELAND'S AGRICULTURAL 1 NCOME. Speaking at the annual meeting of the Council of Agriculture in Dublin, Mr. T. W. Russell, M.P., in analysing the figures of the census of production available, pointed out that for the first time, the estimated the agricultural income of Ireland was £56,309,000, of which £25,614,000, or 45A per cent., was received in respect of butter, milk, eggs, poultry, and pigs. This represented the income which farmers derived from what was termed breakfast table commodities, and more than half of them were consumed in Ireland. The estimated value of butter, eggs, poultry, live pigs, bacon, and hams exported from Ireland was £12,280,000 in 1910 and £13,900,000 in 1914. He held, however, that the surplus for export, after providing for home consumption, should be doubled. This could be done by providing twelve cows, thirteen pigs, and 237 poultry to the hundred acres of productive land, the stock being no better or worse than they had now. At present they had only nine cows, eight pigs, and 148 poultry to the hundred acres. CATHOLICS AND IRISH JUDGESHIPS. In connection with the death of Lord Justice Moriarty-—by which the Irish Bench has suffered a severe lossthe fact has been brought out that from the time at which he joined the Bar in Ireland until the Liberal Governmenut came into office in 1906, though, over forty judges were appointed to the^High

Court Bench, barely five of them were Catholics. The Freeman's Journal considers it somewhat of a creditable contrast that of ten judicial vacancies which have been filled since 1906 five have been .given to Catholics. So it is (remarks the Catholic Timex), but it leaves it still manifest that full justice is not done to the Catholics in Catholic Ireland. Doubtless the present Government desire to do it, but it is hard to break through long-standing traditions, and it is a well-known tradition in Ireland that all he best posts under the Government should be reserved for members of the Protestant minority. Of course it was necessary to find some sort of an excuse when objections were raised to this policy. The common excuse was that Catholics who were competent to fill the vacant positions could not be found. In the case of vacancies on the Bench, however, the pretext was ridiculous, because there has been no lack of able Catholics at the Irish Bar. It is to be hoped that the Government will follow the course upon which it has entered until complete justice is done. ~ LORD JUSTICE MORIARTY DEAD. ' After a lingering illness watched with alternating hopes and fears by innumerable friends in Ireland, Lord Justice Moriarty passed away at Birmingham om Sunday, May 2. Some time ago he was seized with an illness while in England, and underwent an operation. The late Judge was called to the Bar in 1877, From that date until-the Liberal Government came into office in 1906, though more than forty, judges were appointed to the High Court Bench, only five were Catholics. Mr. Moriarty took silk in 1904, and from then his advance was rapid and his career brilliant. He appeared in all the Irish causes rel eh res of the last decade, including that of Bishop v. Dulap and Ussher v. Ussher, in which he delivered a masterly argument, accepted by a strong Court, in which he traced the marriage law of these countries from the earliest times, and with wonderful research examined a series of early marriage rituals in the light of the English common law and medieval and modern Church legislation. In the result he demonstrated that, while the English modern marriage laws corresponded with those of the Catholic Church, the marriage law of Ireland, in certain respects, remains in the same condition as it was left by the canon law and the common law before the Reformation. In 1908 Mr. Moriarty became Chief Serjeant-at-law. By the retirement of Lord O'Brien in 1914 a judicial vacancy was created, and Lord Justice Cherry having been promoted to his place, Mr. Moriarty, who had become Solicitor-General the year before, and a little later Attorney-General, was promoted to his place. Socially the late Judge was the most popular lawyer who appeared at the Irish Bar or sat on the Irish Bench for many years.

A STRONG PROTEST. Preaching after Confirmation in the Cathedral, Ennis, on Sunday, May 2, Most Rev. Dr. Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe, said that the evils arising from excessive drinking had been gradually but very substantially diminished. But zealot or zealous as his Lordship was for total abstinence amongst the young and middle-aged of our people, he said he had read with dismay and bewilderment of the new taxes which the English Government now proposed to lay on Irish beer and spirits. Destructive legislation of that kind, suddenly dislocating the economic conditions of a whole nation, was not the way to make a people sober and prosperous. The immediate result of these new taxes, if they came into force, would be to practically destroy the one big manufacturing industry which the English legislation of the past had left us in- three-fourths of Ireland. Irish beer and spirits were known all over the world for their excellent quality. The trade in them reached far beyond the British Isles. , The Irish interests depending on the trade were enormous and widespreading. But now all . these interests were to be extinguished by one ‘ grand gesture ’ of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. ■ And for what reason or purpose ? Was it to eradicate or remedy any Irish abuse? No,

but to make up for the want of patriotism in a section op the English people. It was the old story over again. Ireland was to be sacrificed, her trade to be crushed under the heavy wheel of English interests. A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER. ' Nothing could better illustrate the marvellously beneficial results of the magnificent work done for Ireland by the Irish Party than a letter published in the Chicago Citizen by Father James Corbett, P.P., Partry, Ballinrobe, and which had been addressed to a friend in New Orleans. This friend has been for years sending Father Corbett a remittance at Christmas to help some poor persons to have a cheerful time on the occasion of the great Christian festival. Father Corbett recalls how he used to dread a Christmas—the poverty as so great, the means of alleviating it relatively so small. But what a change to-day ! ‘ Here lam now,’ writes Father Corbett, ‘ and looking all over this extensive parish, I do not know a single family that had a bad Christmas for the want of an American dollar. It is a glorious change, and may the Lord be praised that I have lived to see it, and am sure it will delight the hearts of both of you to hear of it. Outside the providence of God the great secret of it all was the sweeping away of landlordism.’ What a convincing testimony to the wonderful transformation wrought through the instrumentality of the Irish Party. WAR TAX PROPOSALS.

In the course of his speech in the House of Commons, opposing the extra tax on beer and spirits, as outlined in the Budget, Mr. John Redmond said he had received communications not merely from the licensed trade, from brewers and distillers, but from every conceivable public body in Ireland—from County Councils, District Councils, Chambers of Commerce, and public bodies everywhere. Some of the strongest protests received came from teetotallers, and only that day the Catholic Bishop of Killaloe, Dr. Fogarty, in a speech reported in the Dublin papers, spoke of the dismay and bewilderment with which he read the proposals of the Chancellor ; and he added that, jealous as he was for the total abstinence cause, that was not the way to make people sober and he was afraid it was the old story of crushing Ireland’s trade under the wheel of English interests. That was the kind of feeling these proposals were arousing in Ireland amongst all classes and kinds of men. As he had said, so far as the Bill was concerned, he and his friends were willing to give (he most complete powers to right hon. gentlemen ; but so far as the taxes were concerned, they contended that they were absolutely uneffective as a remedy, and that they differentiated unjustly against Ireland.' '

In Ireland, as (he right lion, gentlman was aware, they had very little of (he manufacture of the munitions at all : but he would be the first to admit that the workmen in Belfast were doing their work well. There was no excessive drinking there, and no necessity whatever to impose any penalty upon them. The same thing applied so far as the transport trade was concerned in the City of Dublin and elsewhere. The same thing also applied in Arklow, where they were manufacturing explosives. If these places were left out, and admittedly there was no case, there was no spot in the whole of Ireland where they were making munitions of war at all ; and to tell him that the Government could go to the Irish people down in Tipperary or Limerick, or anywhere else where they were flocking to the recruiting sergeant and filling up the requirements, and say to them : ‘ We admit you are doing your duty : we admit that you are temperate : we admit that there is no excesses in drinking, and that you are not standing in the way of the output of the munitions of war ; but there are a few men in the Clyde and elsewhere who are doing it therefore, you must be punished-’—to say that that was either just or wise, or that it was a reasonable and patriotic thing to do, passed his comprehension. Ireland to-day, and from the day war was declared, had done, and was doing, her duty in sobriety, hard work, recruiting, and in gallantry on the field.