Republican farmer., 1919-10-24
IRISH RESENT
 BRITISH CLAIMS OF WAR RECORDS
Claims Persistent Propa, ganda Has Finally Reach
 ed Members of Congress.


 | Washington, D. C., Oct. IT - The 1 following statement was issued last night by Daniel T. O'Conneu, director of the Irish National Bureau: | When British propaganda is so per sistent and so subtle that it reaches , to the hearts and minds of members 1 of the United States Congress, and SC vicitnizes Q distinguished representa- tive as to bring from him the state ment that Ireland had not done her 1 share in the war against Germany, | the Irish National Bureau can nc l longer allow this false impression to go uncorrected.
 The Congressman from Texas who made that statement recently to an active worker in the cause of Irish freedom made it in good faith He had read it, or heard 1t, somewhere.
 He was anxious to have the Irish Ma tional Bureau give him the truth of the matter, ''so that he might go home ! and hold his head high. for he had Irish blood in his veins.'
 This, then, is the truth:
 Ireland not only did her full share in the war against Germany. but did Q greater share of the work than might justly have been apportioned her. France and Belgium were her traditional friends, and she sprang to their defense.
 When, in 1914, Asquith went to Dublin on a recruiting tour, the stand from which he spoke was decked with the ancient colors of the Irish nation, and the appeals to the people were printed in Gaelic. Asquith gave as surance that England's sword would not be sheathed until the rights of small nations were assured - and then, in the same fall. denied to Ire land the Home Rule which the Brit ish Parliament had pledged to her.
 Yet, in spite of this perfdy on the part of the British governing ring, 6 F per cent. of IreIand's total popu- lation enlisted under the British flag to offer their lives for the freedom of the oppressed and the destruction of the doctrine that Might is Right.
 The full significance of this record of Ireland's service can best be un- derstood if compared with the record of America. Available figures show on Nov. l, 1918, the total stren gth of the United States army and navy, including naval reservists and about 5000 yeOmen CD, to be 4,203, ,6SS. This is fraction under 1 per cent. of the total population of the country for 1918. So far as the Irish National Bureau can ascertain, the men under arms, at home and abroad, at no time comprised 5 per cent. of our popula- ton.
 The statements regarding Ireland's war service are based upon official ut terances of the British authorities.
 Lord Wimborne, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, reported to Lord Kitch- ener on January II, 1916, that there were 1.046 Irishmen serving as reg ulars and reserV;sts in the British army in August, 1914. According to Sir Eric Geddes, in the House of Commons, there were up to 1918, 170,000 enItstnaents in Ireland. Ac- cording to the statement of T. P survey, there were more than 35.0O0 Irish boys temporarily employed away from home who enlisted in English and Scotch regiments in 1914-1915. According to Vim bu~ne's report, there were 8,546 Irishmen in the English navy. In 1918 there were more than 1000 ad- ditional enlistments in Ireland, and conservative estimate gives an addi- ton of 1000 navy and navy reserve enistments This gives us a total of 275,592 1rishmen from Ireland fight ing in the English army and navy in the war.
 Even Lord Morris, late Prime Min ister of Newfoundland. who is not in favor Of the Irish Republic, recently wrote: Nothing could be more splendid than the part played by the Irish at the start. The Victoria Cross proudly worn on the breasts of Irish soldiers shows that this is no boast, and the subsequent failure of Ireland to take her place, as she has always taken it, on the battlefelds of the empire was due to that fatal pol icy pursued at the War OfIice-A pol icy in which everything humanly possible was done to make recruiting more difficult"
 But it was not alone the War Off, fee tactics that checked recruiting after the first response. It was a matter of far deeper concern to the Irish Nation.
 The latest statistics (1911) show ] that only three years before the war began there were in Ireland only i T76,000 men married and. unmarried, ! fit and unfit, of military age. And in | January, 1916, Lord Wimborne re- l ported that there were then only i 100000 single men of military age 1 in Ireland. and that of this total at