Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 45, 25 November 1925, Page 47

Irish News

GENERAL—THE BOUNDARY COMMISSION THE COMMISSIONERS THE EREE STATE AND THE LEAGUE— AND IRISH FARMING METHODS COMPARED.

The Tuam Town Commissioners have passed a resolution requesting the Government to introduce drastic legislation against evil literature. Similar resolutions have been passed by other local bodies.

Rev. Gerald O’Collins, a native of Victoria, Australia, and Rev. F. McDonald have left Dalgan Park, Galway, to take up missionary work in China. Father McDonald gave up a medical practice to study for the priesthood.

Most Rev. Dr. Curley, Archbishop of Baltimore, with his secretary, Very Rev. Dr. Keely, and Rev. D. O’Dwyer, Denver, have been the guests of Most Rev. Dr. Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe. They visited many places in the county and in Limerick, Kerry, and Galway.

The Most Rev. Dr. McKenna, Bishop of Clogher, recently laid the foundation stone of a new church which is being built by the Very Rev. Canon Hackett, P.P., in the parish of Killanny, near the Louth-Monag-han border. A collection after the ceremonies realised £IOOO. The church will be of Hi-berno-Romanesque style, and is dedicated to St. Enda, who is the patron of the parish and who founded the great monastic school on the Island of Arran.

Presiding at a meeting of the Protestant Synod of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh, at Ballinasloe, Right Rev. Dr. Patton paid a striking tribute to his Catholic fellow-country-men, recording an incident last year when the Catholics of Toomevara. at great personal risk, rendered signal assistance on the occasion of a fire at the church of Aghnameadle. “There was not a single member of our Church resident in the village,” said Dr. Patton. “But the Catholics, its sole occupants, held the rector, Archdeacon Daly, in regard, and lived in harmony with those of pur Church people who worshipped within its walls. When the fire was first discovered our Catholic fellow-countrymen came to the rescue, and forced their way into the blazing building, where the flames at the cast end were so fierce that they blistered the western door. In that burning church, at imminent risk to their lives, these neighbors, of a different faith, cut off portions of the burning fabric from the rest, and did their utmost to save all that was possible, amid the fumes and the falling of masonry and timber. People inside and outside the Free State may well ponder on the value of %uch an incident as this, and I desire to express our heartfelt thanks to the people of Toomevara for their magnanimous and courageous assistance at a time of grave urgency and peril. They did more than save the building. Such an achievement helps to build up a. brotherhood of mutual confidence and willing service in the district wherein it is wrought.” »

The Yorkshire Evening News has a Political Correspondent in London; and this

seer announced recently “on authority” that

"The three members of the Irish Boundary Commission have reached agreement.”

It was good news; and the P.C. added afew rather indefinite particulars, saying:

“The work of the Commission is practically finished, but details in regard to the frontier lines and Customs Houses are being decided before the Report is published.”

He remarked right at the end: “The Report of the Commission will be a, legal and binding judgment, which can only be set aside by an Act of Parliament.” There this hardy Yorkshire “tyke” in London daringly disagreed with Sir Dawson Bates. But (comments the Belfast Irish Weekly), despite our natural desire to stand by a man of Ulster against Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Timbuotoo, we must confirm the P.C.’s statementwith a reservation. It is true that the Report, whenever it is issued, “will be a legal and binding judgment”; but the correspondent should have said that it can only be set aside with the assent of two Parliamentsthe Assemblies in Dublin and London.

So far so well. But there are more Jack Barrys wo mean Political Correspondents than one in the great city of the Thames and the Tower, Bow Bells, Mr. Baldwin, and Mr. Saklatvala. Correspondent No. 2 heard of his Yorkshire rival’s roup; he rose up and wired to Belfast the information this time "from a good source”that “There is nothing whatever in the report published in a Yorkshire newspaper of an agreement of the Boundary Commission; the Commissioners have not even begun to consider the terms yet.” * V. « Since Octavian (Augustus) Mark Antony and Lepidus dissolved partnership, there has been no more wonderful triumvirate than Air. Justice Feetham, Professor Mac Neill, and Air. J. R. Fisher. So much has been said and written, guessed and invented about their powers and shortcomings, movements and indolences, agreements and dis* agreements, meetings and separations, that they have already been invested with the. attributes of remote legendary heroes—villains, as the humor of the observer guides his mind. If they seclucfe themselves fro n the public gaze until the nights grow long and marvellous tales begin to circulate around winter firesides, people will classify them with Cuculain and Conal Cearnach, Finn and his Companions, the followers cf Cid Campeador and the Knights of Artnur who sought for the Holy Grail. Men of whom it is said within the space of a few hours (1) that they have reached agreement, and (2) that they have not even begun to consider the terms of an agreement, mint, move in, a realm of mystery dim, dark, and impenetrable to the average intellect. Still, the Commissioners’ actual existence can be

demonstrated; and that is all the Man in the Street knows about them. 9 9 9 Journalists and others returning from Geneva bring entertaining gossip about the most prominent personalities. Mr. Chamberlain, it would appear, made less of an impression than any chief British delegate since the foundation of the League. Mr. Amery has at least left the memory of a vital and energetic politician with an incisive gift of' speech. As second delegate Lord Cecil inevitably suggested comparisons with the two years when he seemed to embody in himself the purpose of the League. The personal triumph of the Assembly was the oration of M. Paul Boncour. “It was everything,” said a well-known American publicist, “that a. speech should be.” Old Count Apponyi’s appeal on behalf of the defeated peoples, the same observed says, was most impressive, and it was extremely well received by the French. Air. Desmond Fitzgerald and his colleagues from the Irish .Free State are said to have made an admirable delegation; ~ .a z they won cordial approval all round. *

The Danish system and Danish methods have obviously made a deep impression on • the party of Southern Irish farmers, creamery owners and industrialists who are presently travelling through the model agricultural country and taking notes as they move from point to point. On the way to Denmark they saw a friendly arrangement between the German and Danish passport officials. The Germans stamped a “discharge” out of the German territory and passed them along to the Danish officer at the other end of the desk, who stamped them for entrance to his territory. They passed along, and were next “held up” by Danish Customs at the entrance to their steamer, which also acts as a train ferry. The Customs examination was cursory there. When the explorers return they will be thoroughly searched at the port of arrival in their native country. A correspondent who is chronicling the events of the tour reports the opinion expressed by one of the investigators after he had travelled through 50 or 60 miles of bleak Danish territory. “As a race,” he said, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. If any of our people got even a bare existence out of that land we saw we would say they were wonderful. Here not only are they getting a living, and a good living, but they are making wealth nut of soil which in Ireland would be, and is, allowed to go to waste.” The Danes are intelligent people; their education has been acquired on sound practical principles: they work hard as individuals; they work cordially and honestly together as co-operators. These are the only secrets of their success. «