Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 27 February 1919, Page 14

Current Topics

To Hell or to Connacht The Christchurch Sun, in an article on Mr. Semple, reveals to those who can read between the lines what the editor thinks of Sinn Fein. Cromwell would send all the turbulent Irish to Hell or to Connacht, The Sun proposes sending Mr. Semple to Clare. He will be safer there than in Orange Belfast where Catholic prisoners were recently‘treated with a cruelty from which the Hun might learn much. And if Mr. Semple is a Sinn Feiner he will be glad to know that Cardinal Logue and Archbishop Walsh voted for Sinn Feiners at the elections. What Mr. Semple said to make the Sun angry does not concern us here. The sneer of the journalist at the cause approved by Cardinal O’Connell, Archbishops Walsh and Mannix is sufficient evidence of the worth of his opinions. Whether or no Mr. Semple is a Sinn Feiner we do not know : but if he is he is in such good company that the praise or blame of the Sun need not worry him.

The Religion of General Foch Moses, who as the meekest of men, lost his temper when he came down from the Mount and saw his people making fools of themselves. They were his own people, and that made all the difference. There is always a certain amount of pain in seeing the folly of others, but when one has a sense of humor it is possible to derive some amusement from it when the fools are the “others.” We have had no little entertainment of this kind during the war, and now that the war is over we are likely to have more. Just for the sake of keeping things going the humorists are at present engaged in solemnly pretending that they believe that General Foch is a good dour Presbyterian. We are told that Colonel Beattie, a chaplain in the Canadian forces, said so, and that it is hardly credible that he would say so before a body of intelligent men if the statement were not true. Having a little experience of the sort of things said to “intelligent” men, even by professors, especially about the Twelfth of July, we refuse to take it as certain that the great Marshal is “an elder in the Presbyterian Church of France.” And we are not much moved by the commentmade by a certain paper which on its first issue distinguished itself by defaming a Catholic chaplain. The Southland Times is inclined to think that the religious convictions of Foch are not a thing to get excited about, and concludes that “Protestants and Catholics may well claim Marshal Foch as a noble example of our common Christian faith.” “Common Christian faith” is good. Christian faith is not a common thing ; it is one and indivisible, and found only in the true Church, to which Marshal Foch belongs. We have heard a member of the French Mission speak of the Marshal’s visits to the Blessed Sacrament; and we have yet to learn that there is anything in common with Protestants in that. However, we will be told that people like Colonel Beattie know more . about the General than his own friends ; and at v any rate those who want to believe that he does will go on doing so. Recently a sapient Scot was heard supporting the Presbyterian claim with philological reasons : Foch is but a corruption of Fox, and what could be ■clearer! As a correspondent points out, we may now look for an announcement by a Colonel who will tell an intelligent body of men that Cardinal Mercier has become a Presbyterian parson, and that we may hear any day of a service at which he will expound the Confession of Faith, while Marshal Foch will take round the plate! And “what will the editor of the Tablet say to that?” One thing is certain: he will not admire the veracity of the P.P.A. organs a bit more than he does at present.

Sinn Fein We have taken some time here to realise that the Irish people did not change when they helped Sinn Fein to its sweeping victory at the polls. What did change was the Irish Party which had degenerated into a tail of an English Party, false to all its old traditions, blind to all the lessons of history. It may be said, and we say it ourselves, that John Redmond’s trust was that of a gentleman dealing with unprincipled tricksters, and we may pity the man for the great mistake he made, but the truth remains that he and his followers sold Ireland and were false to the principles they had learned from Parnell. If further evidence be needed let us read the following words, spoken by Redmond and Dillon before they were contaminated and corrupted by English influence: “We tell England plainly that we believe this land is ours. We believe that England has no moral right to oppress Ireland or to rule Ireland at all. ‘lreland for the Irish’ is our motto, and the consummation of all our hopes is, in one word, to drive English rule, sooner or later, bag and baggage out of this country.” John Redmond, December 8, 1895. * “I say to you, men of Tipperary, that we would be untrue to our country, and untrue to those who begot us, if we rested content until every vestige of English rule was swept from the fair face of Ireland.” —John Dillon at New Tipperary, 1888. “We specifically deny the moral or legal and constitutional right of the English Parliament to legislate for Ireland.” John Redmond at Dublin, August 9, 1902. “This fight will go on, and we tell England frankly that we to-day hate her rule just as bitterly as our forefathers did. We tell her that we are as much rebels to her rule to-day as our forefathers were in 1798.” —John Redmond at New Ross, June 23, 1907. What do these words stand for but the principles of Sinn Fein —the principles of Parnell and Grattan ? What do they prove if not that the Sinn Feiners and the people behind them are true to Ireland and the Party false ? It needed the Easter Rising and the sacrifice of heroic me(n to awaken Ireland and to convince the whole nation that it was being betrayed and misled. William O’Brien, Tim Healy, Dr. O’Dwyer, and Archbishop Walsh saw it long ago ; but the people did not see it until the light kindled by patriots made it clear for ever.

Cardinal Mercier and Ireland Those good people who were busily engaged in practising Prussianism on Irish men and women for years past, and then holding up their hands in hypocritical horror that the persecuted people were not ready to rush to be slaughtered for an ungrateful and unfaithful gang of tyrants, used to say, among other lies they told, that the Belgians and the Americans would turn their backs on Ireland because her sons did not believe the promises of men who never yet' told the truth and never will tell it if they can help it. Well, we have ! seen how America falsified their prophecy ■ and how mass-meetings were held all over the United States to protest against the brutal Prussianism of the English and Orange Huns who were responsible for such little peccadilloes as the murder of Sheehy-Skeffington and the persecution of his wife, not to mention also the maltreatment of the wife of poor Tom Kettle who died fighting for the pledge-breakers. Here now comes an opportunity for us to learn how Belgium regards the Irish question and whether she forgetsas the British forgot—that forty thousand Irishmen gave their lives in the ranks of the oppressors of their own country because they believed they were breaking her fetters as well as those of Poland and Belgium. In a letter to Cardinal Logue, Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Mercier says: “It is inconceivable that Ireland’s right to selfdetermination and nationhood be not recognised by the ! free nations of the world at the Peace Conference.

I ’Ml Your- country, the most faithful and venerable daughter of the Church, deserves justice from all mankind, and must surely receive it. The. Irish people are the oldest and purest nationality in Europe, and their noble adherence to faith and nationality the most glorious record in history.” There we have a splendid echo of the words of the American Cardinal who tells _us that it 'was exactly because of her fidelity to faith and nationality the English oppressors persecuted Ireland and tried to exterminate her people by unspeakable tyranny, cruelty, and fraud ; and there, too, we have, in vibrant words that no Irishman should forget, a magnificent proof of the manner in which the noble people of the Continent regard the heroic sufferings of the sons of the Gael, who are insulted and calumniated by the rulers who boast that they are fighting for justice and for the freedom of small nations. Cardinal Mercier has given them the lie. Because liberty is her birthright, because it is right and just and a nation’s divine gift, he claims it for Ireland ; and his words are as strong a condemnation of Brutish injustice and perfidy as have ever been written. When President Wilson was pulling England’s chestnuts out of the fire we were told what a great man he was ; when President Wilson demanded that right and justice should be the basis of the Peace Conference our press howled at him like a kennel of axxgry puppies. Now that Cardinal Mercier has raised his voice in direct appeal for the rights of Ireland will the champions of small nations attack him as they attack President Wilson, forgetful of the past, unmindful of their shame and their abasement ? Does it matter much ? Does one more somersault make any difference at this stage, whexx in spite of perjury and faked plots Sinn Fein has beaten John Bull to the ropes? And, by the way, what do those seonini and others who attacked ns for our support of Sinn Fein think now when the Irish papers report that Cardinal Logue and Archbishop Walsh two Primates—voted for Sinn Fein candidates at the elections ? Do we, or for that matter the cause of Sinn Fein, need further commendation? No matter; Ave suppose the infallible people who told us so often that we were wrong could not help it. Infallibility of the sort that springs from an ignorance so hopeless that it excludes from the imagination the possibility that other people know things is so common here that pity is the correct attitude towards it. We think of one wellpaid official who ventured to lecture us on our policy and to tell us things about John Redmond whom we knew from childhood, and we wonder if he will now write an indignant letter to the Irish Hierarchy and protest against their foolishness. In New Ireland there will be no room for seonini; but we know some of that class who will develop wonderful agility whexx Ireland comes into her own : watching the cat jump will tickle their imitative faculties. Is it any woxxder that the London Daily News calls on Englishmen to realise whither the persecution and the pledge-breaking are leading them; to see squarely the menace of the Irish situation, and “to use all their influence to avert fixe disaster to the world which this threatens” ? The Conference is not yet over. The Example of America We have already referred to the whole-hearted manner in which the United States has taken up the cause of Ireland. The demands of mass-meetings in the great cities have been confirmed by Congress and the American Government has called on the champions of the Jugo-Slavs and the Poles to do common justice to the Irish people who have been persecuted by the -British for centuries. It is more than an appeal to justice and honesty. It amounts to a threat. America ;is tired of the disgrace brought on the Allies by them who, while calling on men to fight for the right of selfdetermination, are denying it to the oldest, nation in Europe, v and America will not tolerate such hypocrisy. - The words of Cardinal O’Connell could not be stronger:

“There is no legitimate length within Christian law to which I and every prelate and priest of America should not be glad and happy to go when the cry of the long-suffering children of the Gael comes to us* and when, as now, before the tribunal of the whole world, the sacred cause of justice to every nation ~is to be given a public hearing.” And he, speaking at that great concourse of freemen, was not afraid to stigmatise openly the bigots who are responsible for the crimes of England against the land of his fathers: ' “It is because the people of Ireland have solemnly kept their sacred word, given to their great apostle, to be faithful to Peter’s successor as they would be faithful to Christ, that they have felt the very dust of humiliation. Yes, let us say it frankly and openly, for it is the truth: it is the fidelity of Ireland to all that she holds most sacred which has been the chief cause of her suffering. Are we whose very lives are dedicated to the eternal principles for which Ireland has become a martyr among the nations, so bitten by mere worldly interests as to be mute in this day when all the world of national wrongs and of brutal might is summoned into court? God forbid! In God’s name let us speak out fearlessly for God's cause, for the cause of justice to all, weak and strong, small and great, or let us forever be silent.” There, in the words of a great American, is a call for us. America has spoken; Canada has spoken; South Africa has spoken ; Australia has spoken. We have allowed William Massey and his associates in the Government of New, Zealand to put upon us the dark shame of silence when the cause of justice and truth demands that we should speak. Is it because we want to have a part in the crime committed against a small nation, or because we have no sense of honor and no idea of the meaning of pledges ? Or is it because we have fallen so low here that we have not souls of our own, and that we care nothing so long as we can make money ? We have good reason—more reason than any people of the world to-dayto ask ourselves these questions and to weigh well the words of the American Cardinal. There is a principle in law that silence gives consent when it is a duty to speak ; it was our duty to speak, and still is, as much as it was the duty of those other . freemen who believed that there should not be one law for British Prussians and another fox* German. And if we do not speak out now and at least protestwe will go down to our graves under the shame and the dishonor in which our cowardly silence makes us participate. Ireland will win without us ; but will that lesssexx our disgrace? Very rightly we may be told some day that when our Government kept silent, and by its silence approved of the Orange orgies in Ireland, we had no protest to make and were apparently satisfied. Perhaps we can bear to be told that ; perhaps we are of the breed to whom scraps of paper mean nothing and who see nothing wrong in the fact that a notorious pledge-breaker is the Prime Minister of England. Well, if so,' we ax-e not of the race of those who suffered because they kept the faith of Patrick in spite of . the Penal Laws who were faithful when their priests were hunted by bloodhounds ■ and their chapels burned down ; we have nothing in common with the soldiers of Sarsfield who kept faith and sailed away, leaving the English to violate the Treaty of Limerick ; nothing in common with all those men and women of the past and present to whom fidelity and truth were more than riches and the favors of kings. And if we have fallen to that level Ireland does not want us and will not have us. We know that there are among us some of that type seonini, demoralised Irishmen, people who have sold their Celtic heritage for a mess of potage. They will do nothing for Ireland and Ireland can do without them. But there are others; and it is to them we appeal to make our voice heard in unison with the voices of the freemen of our race all over the world, and to protest against the Prussianism of that Government which called on us to fight for the very rights which it denies to our own kith and kin.