The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1921. SUPPRESSION OF TRUTH

New Zealand Tablet, 29 September 1921, Page 25

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1921. SUPPRESSION OF TRUTH

r-A HERE are more ways of conveying a false [I impression than by telling a direct lie. ■j And the indirect methods of suggestion of Sp falsehood and suppression of truth are as 3 shameful as the direct. Sometimes we fin’d our New Zealand daily papers guilty fAffWjT °1 helling the plain lie, as for example * . when a certain truly British organ of capitalism announced that certain crimes committed by Orangemen were done by Sinn Fein. But as a rule the underhand way is the one dear to the average New Zealand editor. The record of our press during the war was shameful and there was no keeping account of the falsehoods told and the truths suppressed by the knights of the pen who, like beagles on the scent, were panting after an 0.8. E. or a place in the Upper House. Since the war ended, the long training continues to assert itself, and -Ireland is attacked now by the frothy champions who helped to hunt so many men to death in a so-called war for the freedom of smalt nations. In all the ignoble campaign there has been nothing more vile than the suppression of the facts concerning Ulster, which, of course, is still used as a means of protracting to the latest hour the exploitation of Ireland in the selfish interests of England. The editors of our napers must be presumed to have some slight acquaintance with the British press, even if they make it quite clear that an intelligent view of the Irish question is beyond them yet, with a servile silence, and with a slavish eye to their own interests, they take good care that so far as they can prevent it the public shall not be informed of the'treacherous gerrymandering of the corner of Ireland which they persist in calling Ulster, or of the inhuman atrocities committed during the past year on a Catholic minority by the Orange hordes whose safety is the one tenuous excuse to which Lloyd George clings for ! a defence of his injustice. * ‘ ,

;,' It is significant that the one item in which Ulster's imports for the year show an increase is that of firearms and explosives—the arms and ammunition used deliberatelywithout r ; a remonstrance from Prime MinJ , : . ister Craig,'or from any. of . our daily editors, for.the purpose of killing Catholic \. men and women. It is significant that while Valera's men kept the Truce* Ulster was unable,to keep it; and July, this year saw

..-.,' :■ ■;:;■•;-r■"■■■:■., ,:. *::•:■; :.l:: ys -->j >.'..••':■■'.'■.:■ : .:;-..■:"" .:•■ '.-■■:' the Belfast streets; lighted by blazing Catholic homes and running red with-warm Catholic blood. And nevertheless) our humane and honorable daily editors are bound in self-interest to suppress all accounts of the s awful deeds done in that corner of Ireland which gave to New Zealand its Prime Minister, the god of the pressmen, William Massey of Limavaddy. Have the dailies ever commented 'on the fact that the King's appeal for peace was answered by the same Orangemen, who in bygone 1 years would - not have Queen Victoria as : their Sovereign with an orgy of murder and arson? Have they told the public how members of the new Carsonia Parliament have celebrated their arrival and pro/ed their contempt for the King by breathing forth senseless • fury against - "Rome" and "Papists"? Have they showed how the tirades of Coote and McGuffan were backed by the drive on Catholic workmen and by the riots that rendered nearly 150 Catholic families homeless in honor of Kins" William of Orange? Have they even expressed a mild wonder that the British Government, Which pretends to be concerned about the safety of its Orange pets, has not been able to protect a Catholic minority from their fury? Concerning all these things the New Zealand daily press has been silent. The papers that were wet with editorial tears over infants that were never maimed and over atrocities that existed only in the imagination of rabid jingoes, look on with apparent pleasure, or condone by their silence, cruel murder, wholesale arson, and an unrestrained war on women, as long as these crimes are, done to Catholics by Orangemen, by the savages used by the British Government as tools for the oppression of a small nation. x . - •

The Carsonian, Coote,' apparently a creature after the hearts of Messrs. Hutchison and his fellow British gentlemen, celebrated the "Glorious Twelfth" by uttering the following characteristic pronouncement: "The Sinn Feiii upheaval is no.t confined to Ireland, —it is world-wide and organised as only Rome can organise. It is trying to break up the free principles of Christian government enjoyed by nations holding to the truth of God it is anti-Christ in action it is opposed to every code of Christian morality; it is dishonoring God and will fail . . . poor Ireland is duped, drugged, and made to drag the Church's

juggernaut car." And, over the Irish Sea, another British gentleman, no other T.han^ the Duke of Northumberland, broke out in a like, strain, while the Morning Post gave us the following—capitals and all:-

"PREPARING FOR 1 ANTI-CHRIST. OUR JUDAIZED PRIME MINISTER embraces alien de Valera, heeding not the cry of MARTYR'S BLOOD." And from America comes the news that the Rev. Mr. Irvine, who was associated with Coote in the at-tacks-on the Irish Catholics, refuted by a decent Ulster clergyman, has been deprived of citizenship on account of his immoral conduct. Such are the tools that our pressmen, our editors who were so sorry for Belgium, who were so angry about German crimes that were often only imaginary, protect and defend by the most cowardly and ignoble kind of lies: suppression of the truth and suggestion of falsehood. Bear well in .mind how our editors have protected the Ulster murderers, and you will be able to judge of the wordlessness of their frothy editorials concerning the situation in Ire-' land from day to day. Apart altogether from their shameful record , during the • war, this conduct with, relation to the murder and arson campaign of Carsonia brands the New Zealand , editors j as, a very dishonest and .very vile set of. day-liars.y, t What hope is there for a country that tolerates a prostitute press? There l is little consolation in remembering that in no other land on earth is there such unanimity in degradation, such utter lack -of ; honor, such unconcern for the truth, as we find among New* i Zealand's ; men. ~ As -we said before, we have good reason to be glad ; that I such ■idebased tools are not oh the side of Ireland at present. "jye.cah leave them with equanimity to their task of hiding the crimes of their Orange friends. %: •> T ; "