The Irish standard., 1919-05-03
Prsslelinl ting lreland's $ Case
81 cathai o's Shannon.

\ Irsst Labours Delegates to Socialist
sS International Receive 4 Hearty Wei
come From World Renowned Lead
ssS ss Correct unsatlsfactory State
ssss ssss IIs.snts Of British Labour Party
IssS Fratsrnlxe with indian and Egyptian
Rsbsis. The Results Of Sean Z.
o'ksily's Labours.-Ths "Papsr
MS NJ yvalln q ereacl1ed at Last. @
.The Voice Of Labour," Dublin. Ire
sS land.)
III Founded BY James Connolly
CAS- passed by Censor.)
AT last the paper wall which shut
ireland out OF the world has breaches
I III it, and Labour has proudly broken
Y through one of the first Of them. The
\ European connection has been made
1 again, and we are in contact once more
4 With the world The whole Continent
u knows now something at least Of the
truth about Ireland since we were cut
on from the main stream Of European
4 Slife and thought and politics in Aug
4: :ust, 1914.
s5 The beginning was made when Tom
Il johnson and left Dublin as the ad-
vance guard Of the Irish delegation to
3 the International Labour and Socialist
Conference at Berne. We hurried to
4 London to find ourselves held up al
4 most week until the British. French,
\ and Swiss had granted us visas for our
passports after satisfying the Swiss
4 police (and more than the Swiss, from
{ ali, / could guess in London) that we
d were respectable enough and inoffen.
( sive enough to enter Switzerland,
A The delay made us lose the opening
Ii days Of the Conference, which met on
March 8. We did not get away until
u the 4th, and then 1t was helter-skelter
n until we reached Berne on the night
\ Of the 9Th. On the 9TH we attended
the Conference, but although there
was. no objection taken to them and
we were welcomed warmly, our ere
D dentials were not passed until that
night. The following morning, Friday
S3 the 8th, Ireland had entered the Inter
4 national as a distinct national entity
n and we were full and accepted mem
\ bsrs.
ss3SS3t Just in Time.
We were just in time. Had we been
even a day later we would have lost
81 one OF the two great opportunities we
were able to grasp for putting the
Irish case in the clearest and most
uncompromising manner before the
4 delegates in full session and the Prest
- sof every important country in the
world. AS It was our unavoidable de
\ lay in London had deprived us of rep
resentation on the Commission on Ter
4 #ritorial Questions but we were luckily
able to make up for that In full. The
territorial questions had been debated
4 vigorously for two days, and as ma
tionality and national frontiers are
& burning questions on the Continent
S and played a large part in the war and
u are primary sources Of the wars still
raging in Eastern Europe, the discus
sion was both lively and comprehen
Il sive, and the interest of most Of the
delegates was intense. need not say
4 that as speaker after speaker put his
u case on the Friday, and especially
when the apparently never to end
stream Of speakers from the smaller
/ and until recently subject nationalities
+. furnished us with quite round dozen
Of stories similar in the main to Ire
d lands, we followed the debate with
4 the keenest attention. On Saturday
morning, the concluding day Of this
81 debate, we sailed into the ken of the
& Conference under the most favorable
4 circumstances, in time to correct, from
the Irish point Of view, the British
delegations declaration on its position
on self and the nation
u atty question under British rule
Ramsay At Sea.
It was obvious and the British dele
D cation did not deny it-that the Brit
& & ish felt that it was up to them to make
their position clear, and this, have
no doubt at all, both because they saw
u that the various delegations had tax
en- up q distinctly advanced position
on the question and because they fell
the very presence of the Irish >delega
ton. Ramsay Macdonald spoke fol
s hem, and expressed the unsatisfactory
soficial view Of the British Labour Par
81. q view for which we were quite
prepared, but which. % my colleague
Tom johnson, notes elsewhere. falli
!; below. the highly important and
asonable general declaration of prin
~