New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-08-01
From q Special Correspondent

From a S1eCi0i correspondent
BELFAST, July 12.-The difference
between Belfast and other parts of
Ireland is impressed upon one as soon
as one sets out to get there from
Dublin. If you are going to any CEN
ter. south or west from Dublin, you
think twice before you embark upon
your journey. You may or you may
not get to your destination-the rail
way company issues you a ticket at
your own risk; you may arrive at your
destination only to find the railway
communications cut behind you and be
left to depend for your return Journey
upon the doubtful chance of hiring a
motor. But you may take your return
ticket to Belfast from Dublin with
every confidence that you will get
there and back without risk of an
interruption of services.
There has never been anything quite
like the railway strike. 1t is called
strike for convenience. but strictly
speaking, it is not strike; nor is it
exactly a lockout. What happened was
that the Dockers' Union in England
refused to handle at certain ports
munitions of war destined for Poland
The lockers at Irish ports, following
this example. refused to handle NUM-
tons coming into Ireland, on the
ground that such munitions were to
be used for the military subsection
OF Ireland. This lead in turn was
followed by Irish railwaymen. who on
the same ground refused not only to
handle munitions. but also to work
trains carrying armed troops or armed
police.
Men Are Dismissed
The government thereupon decided
to enforce the railway companies obi
CATION as common carriers, apparently
in the expectation that the railwavmen
would at once join time on the CUES
ton On the contrary, the railway
men 5 executive preferred to leave the
responsibility of forcing dislocation
OF train service upon the government.
thus rallwaymen, when armed soldiers
or ponce entered a train or when thew
were required to handle munitions, re-
fused to work the train in question.
The men concerned were promptly dis
missed, but no general strike in SYM
patty followed their dismissal and
any train occupied by armed soldiers
or ponce was at once worked again
If the armed party left it.
1t is thus in the power of the gov
eminent to suspend railway service
Wherever and whenever it pleases by
SIMPLY ordering military or police
parties 10 board train. For some lit
tie time the government adopted this
course as a deliberate policy. but lat
terry 1t has not pressed the point with
thu same determination, presumably
because, though nearly 1000 out Of
10000 railwaymen have already been
dismissed, there is no sign of weaken
ing IN the rallwaymen's general asti-
tude. 50 the situation stands doubt
fully all over the south and west of
Ireland
But on the Great Northern line,
which links Dublin with Belfast and
the north, the organized railwaymen.
who 10 man would stand by their
comrades in the south in any Industrial
dispute, have held scrupulously aloof
from this political dispute. For the
Greaf Northern line serves the Unionist
territory of the northeast and is
manned mainly by railwymen Who are
On-onsts first and railwaymen after
ward
Orangemen Celebrate
90 'he very circumstance that one is
an to take ones seat in the Grain for
Belfast in complete security empha-
sizes the fact that one is travelling to
an ireland world away from the Ire
land down South
The great Orange demonstration.
winch visited Belfast to witness, ccle-
brated the 230th anniversary Of the
Battle of the Boyne One crosses the
Boyne little more than a quarter of
the way from Dublin to Belfast, but
one has to go nearly three quarters of
the three hours journey before there
Is V Die evidence o. the TRANCE Ire
land Of the North. Near Ncwey, which
lies on the main road from Dublin tc
Belfast, but in a valley some little dis
tance from the railway track, one
catches ones first glimpse of "the
Twelfth" a Union Jack floating from
farm homestead. Nowhere further
south, except from government build
lings. does one see any Rag flown but
the tricolor of the Irish republic"
And as the express runs from the
North, and the Union Jacks multiply