The Irish standard., 1900-02-24
The DUTY OF PRIESTS AND PEOPLE
A Strong Protest Made Against
aCrime Of Infamy.
BY A FEARLESS IRISH NATIONALIST
Acts Of Government Tyrants and
Financial Thieves.

In recent issue of "The United
Irishman" of Dublin, Mr. Frank Hugh
O'Donnell has a three-column article
OH the kidnapping of the Irish militia
for the South African war in fragrant
violation of British law. He says in
part:
This is no time for mock heroics. We
know that the poor Irishmen who ell
ter the militia might have followed
decenter trade. But trade is slack, and
English misgovernment makes poverty
perpetual, and poor men seek for shil-
lings almost any way. And there they
are in the regiments of the Irish militia,
and Chamberlain, Rhodes, Roseberry
& Co. want their lives for the work of
robbery want their bodies
to screen the Scots Guards and the
Grenadier Guards, want their corpses
to level the trenches for the pirates as
saulting columns. And these poor
Irishmen are Our countrymen, and their
widows and orphans by-and-by, will
stand begging and starving i'll our
streets.
1t may be we'll asked where are the
Irish priests and Irish lawyers? Where
are the parliamentary jurists? Where
are the four archbishops? Where is
Redmond? Where is Healy? Where
is Blake of Canada and Longford? We
know-and every Irishman honors him
for it-that the Archbishop of Dublin
missed the red hat of the Roman Car
dinals through the anti-Irish intrigues
of English tools at the Court of Rome
Surely he will defend his poor from
England's slavefunters? Is it possible
or credible that the Cardinal Archbisl1-
op of Armagh will still sit inactive on
his primatial throne? Were the Arch
bishop of Cashel still in the fire of his
patriotic manhood, we are quite certain
of his course. Does he not still lift an
aged hand above his people? We
know, too, right we'll what the ancient
John of Tuam would say against the
man stealers, when the Lion of St.
Jsrlath's still guarded the honor of the
West.
This is no time for mock heroics. Act
according to the law, until the re-
sources of legality have been exhaust
ed. Constitutionalism may be rotten
lie, but the man who hates English tyr
amy has as good right to the admin
istration of the law as the sleekest
sneak who bootlicks for the privy coun-
cil And our poor countrymen in the
militia are ignorant of the law, are ig-
norant of their rights, believe them
selves, and with too much reason, to be
abandoned by priest and layman. There
are dozens of North Cork men still in
hiding, trembling for the grip of the
detective, trembling for the sentence of
the courtmartial. And all the time it is
the detectives and the courtsmartial
who have no right or law to violate the
Habeas Corpus Act, to twist the letter
of the law into a snare for men, who
have right to the strict observance of
every letter of the army acts and the
militia acts. But without counsel or
witness, without priest or layman, the
poor Irish militiaman is made drunk,
and duped, and bullied; is locked in
barracks and railway carriages; is lille
gally shut off from friends and family;
is herded in closed barracoons like a
Congo slave; is driven under armed es-
cort aboard an armed transport; is kid
mapped to die in misery and torture, in
an unrighteous war, amid ten thousand
other Chamberlain corpses.
The trap, in which the English man
stealers seek to take the poorest of the
Irish poor, was set less than two years
ago. During all the years in which
militia acts have existed, there was no
ghost, or semblance, of power to ex-
pend the militia in foreign service until
the other day. Down to 1893 the mill
tia could not be sent to foreign war.
The change was only made on the pass
ing of the reserve forces and militia act
two years back. That was how Eng
land celebrated the centenary of nine
ty-eight, while the parliamentarians
were talking blether. have before me
Gunter's "Outlines of Military Law" in
the edition of 1897, but this authorita-
tive exposition of the subject is clear