IRISH PETITION IN U.S. SENATE

New Zealand Tablet, 20 February 1919, Page 15

IRISH PETITION IN U.S. SENATE

Last week (says the Brooklyn Tablet of January 4) Senator Phelan, of California, introduced a joint resolution in the Senate, requesting the commissioners plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the International Peace Conference to present to the said conference the right of Ireland to freedom, independence, and self-determination, predicated upon the principle laid down by the President in his plea for an international league that “all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Senator Phelan also had inserted in the Congressional Record, a petition for self-determination for Ireland signed by numerous American citizens, and an address to the President of the United States from the people of Ireland, which read in part as follows: “It was John Mitch el who said that England won her greatest victory over Ireland when she got control of the ear of the world. She has control of the ear of the world still, and, now as always, pours into it whatever poison she can against the Irish people, whom she evidently proposes to destroy. She is constantly ringing the changes upon the atrocities committed against other small nations while very careful to cover up the worse atrocities committed by herself against the small nation that lies at her door. Whatever happens to Ireland will, if England can possibly help it, remain a sealed book, and unless the Irish people everywhere do their duty, the real facts relating to Ireland will not be made known. “When it was sought to have a delegation representative of every phase of Irish life come to Washington to present the address adopted by the Mansion House conference to President Wilson, England stepped in and prevented the delegation from coming. The address then had to be presented through the American Ambassador at London. The Associated Press and the United Press were careful not to publish this vitally important document, though they printed in full the appeal sent to President Wilson by Sir Edward Carson and his Orange confreres. “Referring to this address from the people of Ireland the London Nation said: ‘No such bitter indictment of British policy has been framed for over a hundred years, and no British Minister since Castlereagh has come nearer than Mr. George to deserving it. The country which stands for an independent Bohemia governs Ireland by military law.’ “The address, which is printed in full in the Record, covers every phase of the Irish question, and closes as follows:

Hope in President Wilson. "In every generation the Irish nation is challenged to plead to a new indictment, and to the present summons answer is made before no narrow forum, but to the tribunal of the world. So answering, we commit our cause, as did America, to'the virtuous and humane,' and also more humbly to the Providence of God. ~,-tT 11 -1 Z. ™~ J-1,,,4- -rrnil TVT».. T>*.«nJ An-nt-til aSSUICU CllO WO mou • J""*, -■-'-" . J. imiuUui whose exhortations have inspired the small nations of the world . with fortitude to defend to the last their liberties against oppressors, will not be found among those who would condemn Ireland for a determination which is irrevocable, to continue steadfastly in the course mapped out for her, no matter what the odds, by an unexampled unity of national judgment and national right,'.'J .-..: . '.:[-