OUR PLEDGE TO IRELAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLVI, Issue 18, 1 May 1919, Page 38

OUR PLEDGE TO IRELAND.

oi -wAt a great mass j meeting t:held recently in H West Philadelphia d to ' demand America's recognition of the Irish Republic;; Rev. i James Grat tan? My then, an Episcopalian clergyman i of Baltimore, 5 made the following strong statement: - iov "The Irish issue is not a religious issue, but: one of justice. England is trying now to suppress' the Irish. people, as she has done in India. She is trying to pretend > that the fight in Ireland is :• Protestantism against Catholicism , whereas the history; of several generations proves that the leaders of Irish freedom have been mainly members of the Protestant Church Charles Stewart Parnell, Robert Emmet, Henry Grattan, John Mitchel, Ernest Blythe, and Darrel -Figgis. The only great Irish statesman - who ever in any way challenged the political control of the Church in Ireland was Daniel O'Connell. .-. . "We Americans would have been lying bitterly and traitorously if we fought against the infant imperialism of Germany without taking into consideration the age-long imperialism of Great Britain. We Americans fought against imperialism—both Anglo-Saxon and Germanic." Dealing, with anti-Irish propaganda, the speaker said : "Many of our great newspapers are controlled by Great Britain. Your Irish news gets to you in British bottles. If you are a hundred per cent. American, then under God and man you cannot be any less than friends of Irish freedom. But we must see to it that we live up to the principles for which we went into the war. Ireland was fighting for free-

doin' before Columbus discovered America. Cs Benjamin Franklin told the Irish of his time: ‘ Help ■us, i and we in turn will help you? We of this generation are in duty and honor bound : to ; redeem that pledge.”