The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1921-10-08


If the British Cabinet does not give
the signal for slaughter are the Irish
likely to do SO? ] know few of the
Sim Feiners, but would fain believe
that understand my countrymen in
bulk, in spite of my long experience.
They will not allow the truce to be
lightly disturbed, writes Tim Healy
in the Dublin Independent.
We had no such self-sacrifcing
| death defying lads as the Irish Repub-
lican Army in the Land League strug-
/ gle:f Farmers then were fighting for
material advantages, and while will
ing to risk eviction and the loss of land
[ and home they would not readily have
faced death. The youths of the new
generation are loftier-minded and bet
| ter bred than the mature material we
had to handle forty years ago, but
they do not love fighting for fighting
sake, as some seem to imply.
Meanwhile, there is long leeway
| of mistrust to be caught up on. To
clean the slate will take time 1t is
no. marvel that each side distrusts the
other. The Archer-Shee angel and
the De Valera devil are inevitable
products of political romance. Eng
lish statesmen can go certain length
to meet the Irish claim; but they are
riding at an anchor moored by the
state of public opinion as fxedly as
Gibraltar. &c hn n
adversaries; and to like bollard are
the Orange leaders tied.
No mathematical formula will af-
ford solution. Better lads never
died for an ideal than the fallen of
the l. R. A, and they have left many
too, must learn to taste the posset of
compromise, much as they dislike the
| medicine. For the moment no way
| out seems practicable, but it will not
be always so. Patience will bring last
ing peace, if Ministers do not weary in
well-doing.
Well, but how can the latch of the
postern gate be lifted? Not, certain
ly, by such a gesture as that of Gen
eral SHUTS. To enlist the great Boer
statesman to string the government
proposals into nursery rhymes set to
crudely inartistic. I yield Mr.. Lloyd
George full credit for the advance he
has made, but it no more amounts to
Dominion Home Rule, as General
SHUTS alleged, than it proffers re-
public.
The Irish leader l met in 1918 only
for a few hours, and have not seen
since; but it was easy to discern that
in his nature there was a strain of
simplicity and candor quite lacking in
the Irish politicians, with whom Mr.
Lloyd George was familiar.
Answering his own query as to what
is to happen, Mr.. Healy says: First,
| must pay the government (of which
| am no friend), this tribute. In my
judgment it's procedure, tardy though
it was, in retracing its steps from the
quagmire of coercion, and the magnan-
imous admission of mistake made by
the Lord Chancellor, were worthy of
the rulers of a great nation.
Next, let me try, as one who has no
share in the counsels of Sim Fem, to
forecast it's courses. Necessarily il
must put before the British cabinet
alternative or amended proposals. To
frame them will need leisure i-a
Englishmen are not Northern" OF
Southern" Englishmen. They are
| English through and through Let
them gauge Irish sentiment by their
own if the sundering of their island
| were attempted
The enactment of a mock ULSTER
in which two great counties (Tyrone
| and Fermanagh and one chief town
Derry hold large Catholic majorities
| should make Silesia smile.
No freak Ulster can have any save
| abhors freaks in Poland so much that
he risked amity with France to sweep
them off the map. Korfantys or De
Valeras. do not spring up like mush
rooms in autumn. They are not the
creatures of the whirlwind, but are
storm-bred.
England's interests are not Orange
| interests. While, therefore, welcom
| ing cheerfully the forward step taken
by Mr.. Lloyd George, l must record
| an equal approval of the cautious tao
| tics forced on Mr.. de Valera by the
implications latent in the message OF
| the Prime Minister.