·TH·E
: EDITED BY EOIN MAC NEILL .. Voit, 2.
NOV~M·BER
SATURDAY,
No. 50 (New Series).
the Castle official~ The meeting was in County Cavan, the "trial" in Belfast. * * * The same tactics were adopted in the case of Desmond Fitzgerald . He was Dublin Castle ha.s adopted a secret arrested for disobedience to a deportapolicy towards the Irish Volunteers, and tion order, and was tried for a speech. has instructed its subordinates accord- The., Castle lawyer who conducted the ingly, At all costs, evidenc~ is to be prosecution hai;i not, so far as. I have · procured to show that the Irish Volun- learned, complained of any i~accuracy teers are actively and deliberately inter- or injustice to himself in the Dublin. fering with "recruitment." This new "Evening Mail's" report of the proceed., word in the English language 'appears to ings. According to ·that report, this have b,een coined in the official mint, and gentleman from the Chief Crown Solici. its adoption in documents issued by vari- tor's Office, Dublin .Castle, in his stateous and unconnected departments in ment of the case, gave, as a quotation Driblin bears witness to the unparaded from Desmond Fitzgerald's speech, a paszeal and energy of o_ur ~ew Home Rule . sage which ·does not appear at all in the satrap. Even the Commissioners of report of the speech put in evidence. The N a.tional Education, whose reverence for passage in question was " hostile to rethe English language is beyond admira- cruitment." · tion, have adopted the newfangled word ''.recruitment." Aga:in, the same tactics are found in • the proceedings against Mr. Dalton, SecThe remarkable feature common to all retary of the Limerick Irish Volunteers. the · recent proceedings against Irish . The prosecution'inthis case,was corldncted Volunteers is the eagerness of the Castle by Mr. Gaffney, Crown Solicitor, who, I agents to provide "proofs" of some- · am told, is a brother of the late American thing said in hostility to "recruitment," Minister at Munich. The case was based This plan of campaign, it is calculated, on a speech, and the words relied on by will save the faces of Mr. Redmond and the prosecution, and given in Mr. GaffMr. Devlin and the others who have ney's statement were:-" Those who· have passed resolutions and written letters volunteered or would volunteer to fight about the ·"senseless prosecutions." £or England a.re only traitors, cowards, or prostitutes." Mr. Gaffney said "he Accordingly we find that, ha.ving de- would produce evidence to show that cided to prevent Alfred Monaghan, now these we1re the words used." We can in jail, from organising Irish Volunteers almost read. his instructions from the in Ulster, the Castle first tried a deporta- Castle. ''He did not want to make a tion order, which the competent military speech a.bout, the case or giye it the imauthority, acting in tne police capacity portance it did not deserve, but a: serious imposed on it by Mr. Birrell, proceeded view taken of it by the1au~horities." to enforce. But this was what Mr. The entire "notes" produced by -the Devlin calls a senseless prosecution, so the Castle mended its hand, and brought police witness amounted to eight lrnes a new charge founded on " notes " of an of print. Mr. Moran, for the dealleged speech, the said " notes " having fence, showed that, even .so, certain been prepared by a policeman who was words had been inte;lined with the not in the room where the speech was effect of g1vmg the· rest a. closer said to have been made. The police- bearing on "recruitment/' Three o.ther ma.n' s evidence was contradicted by those police witness.es corroborated number who were in the room and heard . the one. The police evidence was contraspeech, but the magistrates accepted the dicted by · a 1arge number of witnesses. independent and unbia.ssed evidence of In particular, it was testified that the
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PRICE ONE PENNY.,
20, 1915.
phrase "traitors, cowards, or prostitutes" was not spoken -by Mr. Dalton. The magistrates acquitted Mr. Dalton, the Chairman saying: "'l'he majority of the. Bench are not satisfied bey9nd reasonable doubt that the wqrds relied on m the s11mmons were used." *
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The.re was still ·better reason for acquitting Mr. Monaghan, for the witnesses against him were not even among' the audience. Why cannot the Castle have the courage of its con'victions and have all Iris,h Volunteers tried in Belfast? Mr. Birrell would in this way supply fresh proof -that he prefers the coercion of Mr. Devlin's constituents to the coercion of '' Ulster.''
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At the L6n4on Lord· Mayor's banquet, Mr. Asquith made a. speech which wound up with this peroration: "Be the journey long or short, we shall not pause or falter till we have secured for .the smaller States of Europe their charter of independence, and for Europe itself and for the whole world at large its final emancipation from the reign of force ." This declaration was rec&ived with "loud cheers " by the Englishmen of all parties who sat at the banquet. Shall we take them at their word,. and assume that the .Charter of Independence has been restored which was set aside by force a.Rd fraud in this country?
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An accurate record should be kept of all employers who in these time$ are attempting in any way to .coerce men out of t]le Irish .volunteers or to enforce any sort of conscription on their own account. · Such employers are thE? most cowardly of cowards . l£ theye was law in Ireland; they would be in the dock. There is a whole plan of campaign on foot now, . u~der the high~st political sanction, , which o~ght properly to come under the law of conspiracy, compelling men to do that which they have a legal right not to do . We can remember how our upright and unctuous judges interpreted that law for men who were struggling to obtain the position of freemen on the land . We heard some time ago that Mr.
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