THE AMERICAN COMMISSION ON CONDITIONS IN IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 3 November 1921, Page 7

THE AMERICAN COMMISSION ON CONDITIONS IN IRELAND

INTERIM REPORT

(Concluded.) SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT The Religious Issue in Ireland No examination of the Irish situation can ignore the religious issue. The Commission has, however, not included and detailed discussion of it in the main body of its report; first, because evidence of religious controversy bulks much smaller in the testimony presented to it than in popular opinion; and secondly, because it seemed peculiarly appropriate that the Protestant members should deal with the subject in view of the Overwhelming predominance of Roman Catholics in Ireland and the charge sometimes heard in Protestant circles that Republican sentiment has its chief origin in ecclesiastical agitation. Ulster Pogroms.—The only evidence before the Commission concerning serious religious controversy resulting in the destruction of life and property dealt with the Ulster riots of the summer of 1920. Unfortunately our efforts to secure testimony on these occurrences from eyewitnesses prc/Ved unavailing; neither did we have direct testimony from any member of the Orange —societies devoted to the cause of Protestant ascendancy in Ulster. We did, however, have testimony from Mr, Francis Hackett, Miss Singe Toksvig, and Mrs. Annot Robinson, who visited Ulster soon after the riots. None of these is Catholic in religion; the first two are American citizens, the third is a British citizen of Scotch Presbyterian stock only Mr. Hackett is of Irish blood. Londonderry.—The first of the riots occurred in Londonderry. This famous old Protestant stronghold is divided about evenly between Unionists and Republicans; the council is evenly divided and the Mayor is a Sinn Peiner. Concerning the riots hero the Commission received . little testimony. It was alleged that although the Orangemen were the aggressors the Imperial British forces were benevolently neutral toward them and that order was restored by the Republican Government which sent in Irish Volunteers. Belfast. —More serious rioting occurred in Belfast beginning July 21. Mr. Hackett and Miss Toksvig testified that by the end of August in recurring riots at least fifty-six people were killed. These riots between Protestants' and Catholics in which Protestants were the aggressors partook of the character of Russian pogroms against the Jews. In October, 1920, Mrs. Robinson visited ►Ulster and found that “more than 20,000 expelled workers and their families” were existing on relief. Some of them were expelled not only from their jobs, but from their homes. The victims were predominantly Catholic though among them were Protestants suspected of “labor, socialist, or Sinn- Fein sympathies.”* It was testified that the occasion for the outbreak of rioting was the killing of District Commissioner Smyth in Cork. Mrs. Robinson believed that a more fundamental cause for the resurgence of bigotry was the election of twenty-five men who “were not Orangemen” to the Belfast City Council whose total membership is sixty. After the election “open threats of retaliation were made by Orange leaders. . . On July 21 'inflammatory speeches were made at the gates of the shipyards and immediately after that the Orange .workers turned upon their nationalist fellow-workers and • expelled something like 4000 of them from the yards. Some of the men tried to swim the channel [Belfast Lough] but were met by stones on the other side so that they could not land and had to come back. Some of them spent hours in the water, some of them, of course, were killed.” Orange, workers refused to work with their nationalist comrades. They had the sympathy of the employers. The result was general expulsion of Catholic and Republican workers from the shipyards and linen mills which were then approaching a period of depression. f ; /

Lisburn. —One of the worst sufferers from the Ulster pogroms was the prosperous linen town of Lisburn just outside of Belfast. To this city Inspector Swanzy had been transferred from .Cork* after the death of Lord Mayor Mac Curtain. As he came out of a Protestant church one(__Sunday in September;the evidence is Mrs. Robinson’s — “three motor cars came up filled by men who were veiled, by men who were strangers to the district. They held up the congregation and District Inspector Swanzy was’ shot dead. The Orange population rose against the Catholic of the town and the Sinn Fein and Nationalist leaders and burned their houses; although the murder was admittedly committed by men who were strangers in the town. The town burned Sunday night and a large part of Monday, and no attempt was made to extinguish the flames, although Lisburn is quite near to Belfast, and the skies were lit up for miles around.” As a result of her investigation Mrs. Robinson estimated that one house out of three bad been destroyed. i'The picture was one of absolute devastation.” The plight of the homeless was pitiable. In a Catholic charitable institution she saw numbers of women refugees, driven out of their homes in Lisburn. “I saw the Belgian refugees who came to us in Manchester. But those people were absolutely the most hopeless looking lot of people I have ever seen. You see, in the north-east it is almost impossible for a boy who wants to enter a skilled trade to get a place if he is known to be a Catholic. . . And, of course, these women were the wives and mothers of unskilled laborers; and it has been very difficult to get a home together. Now they saw the effort of long years of toil swept aw r ay. They lacked life. And then the children. They were absolutely without anything to do. . . The misery in that hall was very, very depressing.” Economic and Political Cause of Religious Strife.— While on the face of it this is an appalling record of a revival of religious strife, all the witnesses who appeared before us agreed that the Ulster pogroms were not primarily due to a spontaneous flare-up of smouldering bigotry, but were rather promoted by those whose economic and political interests were opposed both to strong labor unionism and to Irish Republicanism. Certain manufacturers and Unionist politicans, it was alleged, had taken alarm at the solidarity of labor, Protestant and Catholic, shown in the great shipyard strike of 1919. The result of the urban and county council elections held under proportional representation had evidenced the present strength of labor and of Sinn Fein in Unionist strongholds. Miss Toksvig, who made especial inquiry into the Belfast situation, quoted a large manufacturer as follows: “I know, and all the manufacturers in this city know,v that the trouble ( is not a religious trouble except as it has been fostered by them to serve' their political and their economic interests. ... I warned them a long time ago that they were rousing up a monster they could not control and which some day might turn upon them. The large manufacturers have worked together to keep, up strif§. between the workmen, using the religious issue as a means ... to prevent agitation among laborers to improve their conditions and wages, and [to prevent] Home Rule agitation. ' This statement, Miss Toksvig said, was corroborated by others. In effecting this division among the workers, the politicians and manufacturers have'bad the aid of a large section of the piess and of the clergy.* As illustrating.the groAving alarm of the employers over the economic issue, Mrs. Robinson called attention to features of the -Home Rule Bill, recently enacted by the British Parliament, intended to secure the capitalist interests of \llster against •labor legislationthe parliment to be set up for the six Ulster countiesthree of which, several witnesses alleged, are predominantly Republican in sentiment. The Problem Not Wholly Religious.—Even from Protestant Ulster comes evidence that its opposition to Irish Republicanism is not wholly religious. Sir Edward Carson w'ould seem to have accepted a Home Rule Act which gives

his party approximately what they want in Ulster, at the price of delivering / over the Protestant minority in the rest of - Ireland to the majority rule of their Catholic neighbors. If the bond of unity were the Protestant Faith rather than the tangle of interests which supports the feeling of the dissimilarity and superiority of Ulster to the rest of Ireland, no such agreement., would have been made, “Ulster Superiority,”—Limited as was the evidence placed before us, the Commission was made aware of the strength of the Ulster feeling of superiority in which condemnation of Catholicism, is one element. This conclusion is borne out by a careful examination of the statements of the Ulster to the United States embodied in the pamphlet, Facts About Ireland, put in evidence before us. Whether or not that sense of superiority is well grounded in fact has. been scientifically examined by W. A. McKnight, whose pamphlet Ireland and, the Ulster Legend was introduced in evidence. The author undertakes to show the truth about Ulster conditions by careful tables compiled from Imperial British Government Blue Books and other records whose accuracy is certified by a public accountant. These tables deal with taxable wealth, immigration, money expended bn education, public health, illegitimacy, illiteracy, etc. They would appear to demolish the widely spread view that the average ,of material prosperity and social wellbeing is higher in Ulster than in the rest of Ireland. In many respects other provinces made a better showing. Sinn Fein’s Conciliatory Policy. — So far as the Commission could judge the Irish Republicans do not seek to -•demolish the “Ulster legend” by direct attack. They desire to win, not alienate, Protestant Ulster. They have offered her guarantees as to not only religious freedom but the protection of her economic interests. Mr. Laurence. Ginnell, a member of Bail Eireann, himself a Catholic, testified: “We want the Orangemen. We know they will be one of the strongest elements in our new constitution. If English power were out of Ireland the south and the nest and the midlands would harmonise with the people of the north within twenty-four hours.” He pointed to certain concrete evidence of the growth of Irish national feeling in Protestant dirtricts of Ulster, and in particular adduced the election of Louis Walsh, of the Ballycantle district in County Antrim a Protestant —although Mr. Walsh was a Roman Catholic and a Republican. Miss Toksvig less optimistically believes that although the intense religious feeling in Ulster “was started artificially . . . the present generation is not going to forget about it soon.” * Ireland Outside Ulster. regards the rest of Ireland outside the region immediately about Belfast, the Commission was impressed by the evidence of lack of any religious strife. In Ireland there were, according to the census of 1911, 1,147,594 non-Catholics as against 3,242,570 Catholics. 890,880 of these non-Catholics (as compared with 690,816 Catholics) are in Ulster, leaving 256,714 nonCatholics (as compared with 2,551,754 Catholics) in all the rest of Ireland. This small minority is, of course, physically at the mercy of the Catholic majority. Yet there is on record not one single case of attack upon the life and property of any Protestant on account of his religion. The Catholics were aware of the Ulster pogroms, they suffered under Imperial British forces predominately Protestant in religion who did not spare their priests, convents,* and churches, yet they were guilty of no reprisals of any sort upon their Protestant neighbors. And the evidence as to religious peace is positive as well as negative. English, Irish and American witnesses with one voice denied that religious differences made for confusion or discord outside of Ulster. Religious Peace.—Constable Crowley, formerly of the R.1.C., expressed an opinion unanimously held by the witnesses before us, when he said that “Religious peace was very great. ,k Perhaps the most striking evidence on this whole subject is to be found in the testimony of Miss

Wilkinson, who said that the Wesleyan ministers in Ireland to whom'her brother, himself a clergyman, gave her introductions, “entirely ridiculed the idea that the southern Unionists were in any danger from the southern population.” A clergyman in Limerick assured her that many of the most prosperous business places in that city /were owned by Protestant Unionists. This minister said that “generally speaking the Irish people trusted them completely and they had no trouble at all; . . . they were much more fearful of what the Crown forces would do than of what the Sinn Fein forces would do.” This same clergyman proceeded to assure her that “the policy of the Government is turning many of the Unionists against it.” Miss Louie Bennett and Miss Townshend, Irish Protestants, corroborated the statement of the clergymen quoted by Miss Wilkinson to the effect that the excesses of the Imperial British forces were tending to dispose southern Protestants favorably toward the Republican Government. Protestant business men, clergymen, and farmers resort to Republican courts. Testimony already set forth in our main report calls attention to the significant fact that the condensed milk factory at Mallow destroyed by the Imperial British forces in reprisal was owned by Mr. Cleeve, a Protestant. In the same town the Episcopal rector and the Presbyterian minister co-operated with the Catholic priest in an appeal to the British Commander to prevent, a reprisal. Miss Townshend introduced in evidence a letter from Miss N. O’Brien, organiser of the Gaelic League, herself a Protestant, who testified that the rising spirit of Irish nationalism was uniting Catholic and Protestant in a common bond of unity. She illustrated this by citing St. Brendan’s School near Dublin, where Catholics and Protestants had united in an interesting educational experiment. Protestant Patriots. Miss Mary McSweeney and other Irish witnesses called to our attention the fact that Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet, Charles Stewart Parnell, and many other of the patriot leaders in Ireland’s history were Protestant. In 1798 the strength of the insurrectionary movement was in Protestant Ulster, It was further testified that at the present time such prominent Republican leaders as Mr, Ernest Blythe, of Dail Eireann, Capt. Robert Baiton, Mr. Erskine Childers, and others are Protestant. These leaders have held the suffrage of their fellow' countrymen despite the fact that they belong to a religious minority. Miss Bennett, who is organiser of the Women’s Trade Union League, found that her Protestantism in no way interfered with her. work among Dublin working girls, almost all of -whom are Catholic. • / Miss Bennett and others made it clear that not only were some Protestants Republican in sympathy but also that there were Catholics who ere anti-Republican. Miss Bennett testified that among the Catholic clergy were those who at best ere decidedly lukewarm toward Sinn Fein. She cited the case of one priest who refused to lead his flock in prayers for Terence Mac Sweeney during his heroic hunger strike. While the" Commission wished for fuller evidence upon some of the points we have here discussed, we felt warranted in the following conclusions: —• 1. Outside of a part of Ulster, Catholics and Protestants live in peace and harmony and their political opinions are not primarily a matter of religion. 2. Even in Ulster religious bigotry is not by any means wholly spontaneous, but is artificially stirred up by those whose economic and political interests are served by dividing the people. 3. While it obviously lies beyond our province to pass final judgment upon the various aspects of the Ulster issue, we have not only a right but a duty as American Protestants to denounce the degradation of religion by such pogroms as occurred last summer. Upon this subject we owe it to our fellow religionists .both in America and in Ulster to speak plainly. ' * Sighed by , .. Jane Ad dams. . Frederick 0. Howe. £> James H. Maurer. . '/ . i - v % Oliver P. Newman. . ;j : , George W. Norris. . ■■■./. 'Norman Thomas. ' - yyfr . li. Hollingsworth Wood.

* The terms are, of course, not synonymous.

*Of course not all of the clergy. The Rev. J. A. Irwin, a prominent Presbyterian clergyman of Republican sympathies, was recently sentenced to one year’s imprisonment' by the British. - / .

t The tour of this delegation was in itself evidence that Ulster Unionists do not regard the Irish issue as merely a British “domestic problem.” *On this point we have evidence from Miss Bennett, a Protestant. . V