EDITED Vol. 2.
I
No. 71i (New Series).
NOTES
The following, says the "Daily Independent,'' are the figures of Irelau.d's taxation:. 1913-14 ... £11,134,500 1914- 15 12,389,500 18,185,420 1915-16 (approximate) 26,722,000 1916-17 (estimated) '!'hat is ..a,ll ~t. We are safe in the hands of the IFish Party. They have watched over the increase and will go on watching over the future increase. Let nobody attempt -to stab them in the part turned towa~rds Ireland.
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The Irish ·Party ha.s accepted. the Budget resolutioIJ,,S imposing · the last increase. Sir Thomas Esmende spoke on behalf of the Party. What _he said I don't know till I meet somebody who has ·seen a ". Freeman's Journal." The " Daily Independent" did not report the converted Sinn Feiner~ but that was to be expected from a ProGerman organ of Bogus .Agitation. I looked up the Pro-Russian " Irish Times." "Sir Thomas Esmonde ," it said, " also spoke." That was all. The record of the frish Party in regard to an estimated annual t;axation of Twenty-six or Twenty-seven Millions from Ireland may be summed up in the words ".Also ran ." · ··
BY EOIN MAC NEILL. SATURD'AYL~PRJL
15th, 1916. ·
Bangor Poor Law Board lono- a&o, a Guardian complained to the Chairma~ t .nat a brother Guardian had called him- a swindler. · "I r~it,~rat~ it,'' said the other.". " Oh, very we_JI, su-, said the offended one, " if he reiterates it, I'm satisfied to forget all about it. " Mr. Healy reiterated Mr. O'Brien. · Mr. Chancellor lVIcKenna said his honour was satisfied. " IreJ~nd,'' he said, "had no special claim for exempt10n from taxation, which did not hit Ireland more hardly than any otheT part of the country. In the second pla:ce, Ireland was whole-heartedly in sympathy with the cause wliich the United Kingdom and he1' .Allies l'epi:esented." That'll larn her! So, according to tl;te Government, the extra taxes on Ireland are imposed on the luxury of the Sharp Curve . " If there a re grievances," said Mr. McKenna, "this is not the time to investigate them." Quite so. We are now looking after Belgium and Serbia. "If there are grievances P-Mr. McKenna soon recovered from this slip of the tongue and gave Mr. O'Brien a slap in the face: "If he were to -deal with the matter now, he would · say that, having regard to the prosperity of Ireland, no case had been or COl!.ld be made out." After that, let Mr. Redmond and Mr. Dillon think twice before they attempt to make out a case. .A more insolent defiance could harC!ly be ima<>ined. Mr. Chancellor l\1cKenna knows we]J that what he calls " the p1·osperity of Ireland,'' meaning the temporary _rise in agricultural pric·e s, will collapse altogether in a very short time, and that the taxation will not collapse.
M:r. Redmond~ under - Government auspices, has supplied the .American Press w,ith another * * interview. If the interview was not pleasing to It is nothi1ig short of silliness, from the Irish the Government, it would not reach .Amei·ica. standpoint; to base any argument at present on If I sent my views, the Government would inter·fere . But for the first time Mr. Redmond is the relative taxable capacity of Ireland. There forced t-0 admit that, the frish in Ame1'ica are not "'is such a thing as absclutE; taxable capacity, and with him. "My message to the Irish in there is an unfailing test for it. When the drain America," says :f!:is Imperial Maje!>ty, "is that of wealth from a country is such that the poputhey should extend t;o Ireland what Ireland has lation is decreasing, then that country has ever demanded from England- Home Rule leav- reached the limit of its taxable capacity, and ing ~reland to decide the questions of to-day as any further increase of taxes must necessarily she sees fit and for herself." Why does not Mr. diminish the population and the prosperity of :Redmond set the example? He has just inter- the country. Ireland has been submerged below fered publicly .to prevent Ireland deciding .as she the taxable limit for three ·quarters of a century sees fit, and has plainly told his SUP.porters that before the l!·ar. Depopulation at an increased he · is their• cons-eienee and the master of their rate and general impoverishment are the certain \\'hat rights to decide, and that they must decide as consequenees of the present taxation. he sees fit-which means as the G·o vernment sees advantages can Ireland hope to gaii:J. to compenfit . Still I ·do not quarrel with the latest defini- sate her certain loss? ferh aps the "Irish tion of Home Rule. It is not Home Rule on the Times " could tell u s. Statute Book . The Home Rule .Act expressly * * forbids Home Rule according to Mr. Redmond's The only motive that Messrs . ·Redmond and · definition, and if the Irish in .America were to . Dillon can see in demanding immunity from . propose to place any sucn restrictions on Irish ruinous tax_ation is a desire' to break up the autonomy as that .Act proposes, all Ireland would Irish Party. .Accordingly, every possible wire protest much more v.igorously than Mr. Red- . is being pulled to prevent people saying what mond · is now protesting against the men who they think, or to make them unsay what they sent him and the Irish Party 750,00U dollars . have said. 'l'his all arises from a morbid sense "Ireland,'' says Mr . Redmond, "is nO\\'. a self- of the unsound position of the Irish Party. So governing portion of the British Einpire, with far as I am aware, except the typical unconall her interests bound up in the future of that verted Unionist, nobody in Ireland is particularly Empire." li. Ireland is now self-governing, then anxious to see the country littered with the reIreland is 'now of her · own free will imposing mains of the Irish Party. For. my part I am £27,000,000 of annual taxation on herself. Ire- willing to subscribe to buy as much twine as will la;nd also, in that case, has entrusted .£he liberty hold the Party together until the Liberals have of Irishmen to the private counsels of ex- the opportunity, which they are no doubt dying Inspector Major Price and ex-General Harrell. for, to redeem their pledges. Ireland directs the operations of " Ireland's * * Army" in a manner which, as Mr. Redmond h as The great champion of liberty and so on for said in the Imperial Parliament, gives Mr. Redmond a nightmare. "In the future of that all .countries in which the suppression of liberty Empire,'' the. Irish in .America are told, "all her is not an imperial necessity has pounced a interests are bound up." Let us hope that care second time on Ernest' Bly eh~ and Liam .\11ellows has been previously used to apply an antiseptic and carried them off to England. .As a provincial dressing. There is danger of gangrene in the paper points out, when sending them to iail bandage material. 'l'he " message " to the Irish proved a failure, some · place worse than jail had to be chqsen for their punishment. This is a in .America is equal to saying: " Good-bye, I have no more use for you. Busy atoning for past particularly brutal and want_on· outrage on Irish disloyalty and piling up a debt of gratitude. liberty. While Mr. Redmond is· encouraging this sort of ·thing in order to pile up the debt of Goodbye!" gratitude, there is another debt also piling up, * M:r. William O'Brien and Mr. T. M. Healy and the account.of it is being kept. Questioned ra.ised a sort of protest against· the overtaxaiion as to the reason for depriving Blythe and of Ireland. Mr. O'Brien came near to making Mellows of their liberty without trial, Mr. Birrell the main point clear, as it has been made clear · alleged "sedition and prejudicing recruitment." by M:r. Thomas Sexton. The main point is that But these crimes have already been brought to there is now no question · of relative taxable trial, and tribunals · have been gqt to convfot capacity. The absol ute taxable capacity of Ire- against the weight of evidence. We may, thereland has been exceeded and far exceeded. But fore, conclude that the pious and conscientious with this point in view, Mr. O'Brien only Castle has resolved to turn over a new leaf and weakened his case by raising a variety of other to give up prostituting its witnesses and its points that are insignificant in comparison. He · tribunals. That is a distinct gain for public · ended his statement with the extraordinarily in- . decency. For a while, too, the pretence was kept .effective prediction that " the .All-for-Ireland up that the Castle was nqt governing Ireland ·Party would have to consider very carefully under martial Jaw. N·ow that pretence also is whether it would not be their, duty to restate abandoned, and ·a nother ·victory for the truth has the claims of Ireland again and again:'' If that been wrested from the hypoc1·ites . On a former is all, Mr. l\1cKenna will not resign. .At the occasion, Mr. Devlin, _lVLP., demanded that these
PRICE ONE PENNY. very _men, Blythe and Mellows, should be brought to tnal for some stated c:liarge. The Irish Party passed some resolution' about it that never wae published. We can see how much importance the Government attaches to Mr. Devlin and the Irish Party, and who are the peQPle really engaged in bringing tli.e Irish Party into contempt •
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"Spreadi.Ilg Disaffection."-At Sixmilebridge, Co. Clare, Michael Brennan, Captain of Irish Volunteers, has been sentenced to three months' imprisonment with hard labour fo1, "endeavouring to spread disaffection among His Majesty's subjects." The evidence showed that his endeavour to spread disaffection consisted in telling the Irish Volunteers, what l have repeatedly to~'ll them, to · resist any attempt at disarming . them. The Gove1:nment evidently does not be· lieve that armed Irishmen, not ··under its own control, are capable of any affection towards it. " Spfeading .Affection." .,.-.At a Government recruiting meeting at Gurteen, Co. Sligo, the sight of some men in the crowd wearing the Irish tricolour-green, white and orange, drew the oratorical fire of a recruiting officer. He called the men " swine," "idiots," and "cross-bred bastards." He said "men .were not aslled to· fight for England but for Ireland, and whoever were preventing the Germans from coming here, it was not the Sinn Feiners: It \\'f!S the duty' of Irishmen to -fight for their dirty little mud-heaps of. ho.uses amf tlTeir dirty little shOps." I hope this is up to the standard of Mr. Birrell's new lmperii;tlist patriotism, which is to take the place of our local prejudi_ces. .A century of Predom!iiant ,Partnership has left' us these glories to fight for. .A few years of Iml'.erialist taxation will replace the dirty little mudheaps of house& and the- dirty little shops of Gurteen and .such places by nice picturesque wallsteads. In the meantime, observe the candid description of Chan.c ellor l\1cKenna's Irish prosperity in the neiglibourhood of Ballaghadereen. . . * * * The " Irish Times," in a leading article on Mr. .Asquith, makes little or rather nothing of th~ appeals continually addressed to us on the silbje'Ct of Ireland's .war and our duty towards other small nationalities. The editor disdains the· pretence that the war was caused by or is being fought about anything that 11appened or is alleged to have happened since the war began .. It dates Mr. Asquith's preparations for the war back to 1909, five years before the war. "Two· years later,'' it goes on, that is, in 1911, three· years before the war began, "it must have become plain to him (unless- which is incrediblehe was kept in the dark .by' his colleagues) th:at a war between Germany and France could not be long delayed , that, in view of our genetaJ policy and our specific commitments, we should probably. be obliged to take part in it, and that our part would include the despatch of a considerable force abroad." It is hardly likely, indeed, that Mr . .Asquith was kept in the dark, but if the " Irish Times " wishes to know what amount of keeping colleagues in the dark wasindulged in, it might endeavour to draw knowled&_e from such members of the former Ministry as i\fr. John Burns. Mr. Redmond was also adroitly handled, and, as I pointed out last week, his statesmanship never became aware of the German menace to Ireland until lie received his orders from the Government just at the outbreak of the war. "We cannot deny;" says the· • ' t0". "the adroitness with which he (Mr. .Asquith) managed to give to everyone in turn ' (of the groups on which the existeuce of th:eGovernment depended) the necessary Sllp to' retain its allegiance, yet never let any of them feel tliat, having obtained its immediate object, · it was now free to turn and bite its benefactor." Here is disclosed the true estimate in which typical well-informed Unionist circles nold the value of - Mr. Redmond's services. .A Colonial Pi·emier can drive the hardest bargain for hiscountry both in the form of present advantages and of .a rrangements to follow the war, but Mr .. Redmond is afraid of the consequences if he· should allow himself or anybody else under 'hie august command to face honestly the question of the· ruinous effects of present taxation on Ireland. Ireland must pay " her fair share " towards the expenses of "policy and commitments " years older than the Home Rule Bill, and towards the la vish loal].s of millions by theaid of which the self-governing dominic;ms "present a united front," and Mr. Redmond refuses to consider whether economic ruin. and depopulation on a grand scale can be properly included under the Free Gifts of a Free People. His sole