The Irish standard., 1919-05-03

Gas passed by Censor.)
At last the paper wall which shut
Ireland out of the world has breaches
in it, and Labour has proudly broken
through one of the first of them. The
European connection has been made
again, and we are in contact once more
with the world. The whole Continent
knows now something at least of the
truth about Ireland since we were cut
off from the main stream of European
life and thought and politics in Aug
ust, 1914.
The beginning was made when Tom
johnson and left Dublin as the ad-
vance guard of the Irish delegation to
the International Labour and Socialist
Conference at Berne. We hurried to
London to find ourselves held up al
most a week until the British, French,
and Swiss had granted us visas for our
passports after satisfying the Swiss
police land more than the Swiss, from
all l could guess in London) that we
were respectable enough and inoffen-
sive enough to enter Switzerland.
The delay made us lose the opening
days of the Conference, which met on
March 3. We did not get away until
the 4th, and then it was helter-skelter
until we reached Berne on the night
of the 9Th. On the 7th we attended
the Conference, but although there
was no objection taken to them and
we were welcomed warmly, our Gre
dentials were not passed until that
night. The following morning, Friday,
the 8th, Ireland had entered the Inter-
national as a distinct national entity,
and we were full and accepted mem
bers.
Just in Time.
We were just in time Had we been
even a day later we would have lost
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
delegates in full session and the Press
of 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.
ritorial Questions, but we were luckily
able to make up for that in full The
territorial questions had been debated
vigorously for two days, and as ma
tionality and national frontiers are
and played large part in the war and
are primary sources Of the wars still
raging in Eastern Europe, the discus
sion was both lively and comprehen-
sive, and the interest of most of the
delegates was intense. I need not say
that as speaker after speaker put his
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 a round dozen
of stories similar in the main to Ire
lands, we followed the debate with
the keenest attention. On Saturday
morning, the concluding day of this
debate, we sailed into the ken of the
Conference under the most favorable
circumstances, in time to correct, from
the Irish point of view, the British
delegations declaration on its position
on self-determination and the nation.
ality question under British rule.
Ramsay at Sea.
1t was obvious-and the British dele.
cation did not deny it-that the Brit
ish felt that it was up to them to make
their position clear, and this, l have
no doubt at all, both because they saw
that the various delegations had TAX
en- up a distinctly advanced position
on the question and because they felt
the very presence of the Irish >delega'
ton. Ramsay Macdonald spoke for
them, and expressed the unsatisfactory
official view of the British Labour Par.
ty, view for which we were quite
prepared, but which, as my colleague
Tom Johnson, notes elsewhere, falls
far below. the highly important and
reasonable general declaration of prin
{ ciple made by Arthur Henderson at the
4 opening of the debate. The British
3 sLabour Party, Macdonald said, stands
now, and has always stood, for the
q fullest possible measure of Home Rule
for Ireland, its candidates have put
Home Rule in their election addresses,
and its members in Parliament have
always voted for Home Rule. That
was as far as the mandate of his dele.
cation went, and it was in accordance
with the demand in the past Of the
elected representatives of the majority
sof5 the Irish people. In other words,
&c may paraphrase MacDonald's g
statement the British delegations g
3xnAwAa&n zoe am<oran,p IN fho Nonara1