The Irish standard., 1916-11-11

ization has been suppressed, but not
| broken up. Before the insurrection
| of Easter there was in the country q
fairly good supply of rifles, shotguns,
bayonets and pixies. Under martial
law certain proportion of these
munitions have been taken up by the
authorities. But still, in hundreds of
places, there are hidden stores of
munitions. The military authorities
have had to rely upon the reports of
the constabulary as to what arms
were in a district. The constabulary
have not always given strict ac-
count. They, too, are against con-
scription measure that would send
many of them to the battlefronts in
France or Macedonia and they know
that their immunity depends upon the
resistance that the people are able to
show. Besides the munitions that can
be discovered or improvised there are
"siS'>S' 'eoiSo' Doii1llS WdIei-dll very
useful still in defending streets or
houses against forces who want to
capture and not to kill.
For it must be always borne in mind
that the conscriptionists do not want
dead Irishman-they want a live
one. And it is difficult to impress a
man if you have to go for him to a
lonely farmhouse with the chances of
getting shots from behind hedges on
your way and the surety of attack by
father mother, brothers and sisters
when you get there. AS foreshadow-
ing what may happen all over Ireland
this winter shall relate the story
of the resistance offered by the Kent
family in their farmhouse near Cork
in May last
One of the young men of the house
hold had been implicated in the upris.
ing of Easter. The constabulary went
to arrest him. In the early morning
of May 2 they surrounded the house.
The family within had guns and con-
fict ensued. The police fired hun
dred shots and one of the Kent
brothers was seriously wounded. Then
head constable was killed and the
constabulary sent to Fermoy for mill
tary assistance. A body of soldiers
with machine gun came up, and at
about Z p. IN. latter about twelve
hours fighting) the whole family. in
Guiding the mother, aged over eighty,
were forced out of the besieged house
and were put under the arrest of an
armed guard. Two of the brothers
were dangerously wounded.
In thousands of houses through the
length and breadth of Ireland some
such resistance will be offered. And
this household fight against conscrip-
ton will have the support of that part
of Ireland which English and Amer
lean papers designate as ulster"
For the Protestant and Presbyterian
farmers of the northeast do not want
CONSUMPTION. 1t is significant that
during the late Home Rule negotia-
tions the plan of excluding certain of
the northeast counties from the juris-
diction of an Irish parliament met an
unexpected resistance from the anti
Home Rulers of the north. This re-
sistance developed when an Orange
newspaper, the Belfast Evening Jour-
nal, in pleading against exclusion. re-
minded its readers that the northern
counties. if not part of an Irish state,
would be part of Great Britain, and,
as part of Great Britain CONSUMPTION
could be applied to them at days
notice. The official Ulster party may
advocate CONSUMPTION in the British
House of Commons. but they will not
recommend such measure in the
Ulster countryside.
Meantime. what the Irish people
have to organize against is not the
enactment of a measure Of conscrip-
ton. but the operation of the militia
ballot act.