ORANGEMEN AND THE CONVENTION

New Zealand Tablet, 2 August 1917, Page 28

ORANGEMEN AND THE CONVENTION

Though nobody who has anything like an accurate knowledge of the history of the division that has for so many years separated the Ulster Unionists from the Irish Catholics and Nationalists can be in doubt as to the difficulties to be laced at the Convention, there are, despite some Belfast Cress utterances of the old kind, symptoms of a wholesome change even amongst the Orangemen, the vanguard of the Unionists in the province. The Monaghan Grand Lodge had before them at their half-yearly meeting the Government’s proposals lor an Irish settlement, and passed a resolution which indicates that they are not inclined to play the part of obstructives. In the resolution they declared that, their attachment to the Union being understood, they were unwilling at this crisis to place any obstacle in the way of Irishmen of all creeds and classes meeting together to discuss the subject of the future government of Ireland, and that if, at such a meeting, any scheme could bo suggested which would be acceptable to their Nationalist fellow-countrymen, and would, at the same time, adequately protect the rights and liberties of the Irish Orangemen and their position as citizens of the British Empire, they were ready to consider it. Moreover, they protested against any partition of Ulster, falling quite into lino with the Nationalists in regard to this aspect of the question.