EDITED BY EOIN MAC NEILL. V o l. 2.
I.
No.· 1~7.
(New Series.)
NOTES.
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The armed and trained milit~ry force, which goes by the nime of a police force in Ireland, is manned for the most part by the sons of
genuine Irish parents. But the discipline is so thorough and the training, especially the mental training, is so systematic that our Continuity Government always relies on being able to use . these men in any way desired for the suppression of liberty among their own kith and kin, the people from whom they spring. The divine law forbade the H ebrews to boil a kid in its mother's milk, but the Thing that rules in Ireland has no regard for any law, divine. or human. The Continuity, however, learned at Clontarf on the 26th of July, 1914, that there 1'ere limits to the violation. of decency even when the victims were its own trained policemen.
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These thoughts come uppermost when now and again complaints are heard about the action of the police. vVe fall into the snare of our wouldcbe conquerors and exploiters whenever we lose sight of the real crim1nals and vent our anger on their instruments, whether those instruments be played upon through appeals to hatred for the love of God or controlled by a disciplinary system, by hopes of reward or fears of punishment. No sane man, finding a bur(flar on his premises, - o. . . will attack or scold the burglar's·- tools, while he - allows the burgla r to · go free . . We have read how travellers pursued .bv wolves, having spent all their ammunition,~·have - thrown away their guns, aI~d how the wolve~ __l:1ave stopped from the pu):'imit to break their -te~th .on the discarded weapons. We a;~ . ;pa,pded tog~ther, iiot to fi y from a barbarous and ~degrading reg ime, but to put .it ·';i11d our attack will not be diverted: to fiirrht ...~ .-·,- ' _~., . ,,._.. - .
SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1915.
most of its time at present to facilitating the crime of alien misgovernment in Ireland. I have heard some speak indignantly about this sort of police activity, but what are people to expect? . Do they imagine that the evil tree can bear good fruit? As for the police themselves, uniformed and otherwise, they show me that trainedl and disciplined Irishmen are the equals of any men and superior to most. I look forward with confidence to the time when such men will be the imincible guardians of Ireland's honour as weli as Ireland's peace.
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Mr. Dillon and Mr. Devlin have held a private and a public meeting at Castlebar to ward off danger from the political machine~ It is now plainly confessed that the political machine has still a difficult task to aecomplish, that .the mandate of the Irish Party .is still tinfulfilled and cannot be folfilled without another tight. Mr. Dillon again· insisted on a hearing for his grievance against "cranks and soreheads," but a fe\V mcmths ago, when Mr.
Redmond was going ·round the countr_y , pro~ claiming that we had now got H ome R ule and the best Constitution we ever had-a kind of language that has. got a rest l.atel.y., .-1.i.ke Nlr.. * '* * Redmond and the votes of confidence-any•.. . The·;.e.. i's a"br.a nch of the p· olice that is not . k nd ·1 • • body who said the contrary was a cran a • uniformed, and is supposed to be niainl y * * * . ·· engaged in the detection and .P-revention of sorehead: · Mr. Dillon also returned to . t he subject qf. crime. A s Ireland is comparatively crm1eless, · f · h I · l :p ti this branch of the police is compelled t0 ctew,t<.. 1he thirty-five yea.rs'.. sennces o t· e r!s i · ar ~: . "."
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What about the thirty-five years' services of the Irish people? Let the Party get all the cre&t · they are entitled to. Let thei r services be engraved on brazen tablets, and i f gratitude should take any other form, let it be so. But ·· Jet us, r~lise that the present and the .. f uture · are our concern.
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Without a clear issue and a. clear programme, all the efforts to hold the political ~ac]:i}.ne together will only help to clog it and jam it until it breaks down completely. ·X-
Ireland has been restoreJ to a normal state of as good health as a country under the rule of external force can expect to have. For some time back, she had been living in . state of stupor, stupefied by Liberalism, doles, jobs, and trust in the British D emocracy. Now ire cannot open a daily paper without reading about prosecutions, fines, imririsonments, suppressions, all arising out of discontent with the suspension of our national rights and liberties : That is one of many signs that the reign of stupefaction has come to an end. And not one hundredth part of the evidences of restored vitality finds notice even in small print in the inconspicuous corners of the newspapers.
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The ;\!' ation's will is not doubtfuL Let i¥, . be embodied in a well-defined dema nd : I. National self-government and a complete ren unciation by British politicians of the policy of interference in Irish affairs and infiammation of Irish quarrels . 2 • ~o surrender on the partition question . . The six years' concession, which should never base been offered, was offered as the price of agreement and was rejected. Let it therefore be c.Jefinitely withdrawn. 3 . The complete emancipation of Irish land and tmvn tenants. from the remains of English feudalism. . This will have to be a drastic measure. All prospect of c.ompleting the extinction of feudal landlordism by the means hitherto provi~le d has been extinguished by _the finance of the war. 4 . The complete exemption of Ireland from any ad ditional burden of taxation in consequence of the war. . These demands should not be p ut forward as a programme of all-round reform, but matters of vital urgency arisi ng out of the actual situation.
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Let us hear no namby-varnby about a political t ruce. Neither the Governinent nor the Opposition have obser ved any political - truce 111 Ire]an:d, and if a 1:io1itical truce · mea~s · :. the .§tr~rigfo~g of Irelar:id during an I~peri~tl.: . d . lf crisis, then_ Ireland's fi rst ·· uty 1s ~e ~ presen:atipn.. .The return of Eur~pean .Peare II!Us.t:. .not . find this nation a political -:an~ ~or;;mi~ EoIN M.Ac N~II.L. . , , , wreck .