Galway In Days Gone By

1920

Settling the Irish Question

Frankly we do not believe the present British Government will ever make a serious or sincere effort to settle what it terms the “Irish Question.”

In the circumstances of British relations with Ireland to-day as revealed by the attitude of Mr. Lloyd George satellites, we quite sympathise with the little remnant of the Constitutional Irish Party in shaking the dust of Westminster off its feet during the elaborate farce that is now being enacted.

The bulk of legislators in that assembly have no real sympathy with Ireland, and act as if the terrible tragedy across Irish Sea did not exist.

But there is one important exception. Labour opinion in England in recent years has made wonderful advances in regards to Ireland. And we do not believe the Labour Party fully represents or expresses these advances.

During the week we beheld Labour in the country telling its representatives in the House of Commons that they did not go far enough on the Irish issue; that men must not be jailed without just cause and fair trial and conviction by ordinary process of law; that the nightmare of militarism must be lifted from our unhappy land, that Ireland must be free.

If Labour were in power to-morrow, Ireland would undoubtedly get all that she might reasonably demand; and the present majority at Westminster knows it, and strains every nerve that the truth about Ireland may be concealed from the English masses.

Saturday’s demonstrations at Hyde Park revealed as nothing else could the strength and the solidarity of Labour. It was a significant portent that the greatest gathering in all that vast assemblage of workers stood around the Sinn Féin platform.

In the heart the Empire ten thousand workers showed a desire to be told the truth that is so diligently hidden by a politically-minded Press. And let there be no mistake about it, the English politicians and the Press fear Labour.

For years, it has toiled at their terms. It has had no share in the good things of the wealthiest country in the world. To-day Labour dictates its own terms; and the politician looking abroad sees unrest everywhere, and fears that his days are numbered. He does not want to have to answer to Labour for the state of Ireland.

Rising prices

The prices of the mere necessaries of life still continue to soar (writes our Tuam correspondent), and the wage-earners in the town are hard hit.

Mutton and beef have advanced 4d. per lb. within the last week to 2s. 6d. per lb. No potatoes were brought into the market last Saturday because, apparently, the farmers do not wish to sell them below their own price.

Similarly, the turf is being held back. The Town Commissioners might be able to take the matter up and relieve the unfortunate people who are suffering most by reason of this action. If a committee met the Farmers’ Organisation a settlement of reasonable prices might be come to.

At the meeting of the Tuam Town Commissioners on Tuesday evening, Mr. M. Dwyer presiding, Mr. Byrne asked if the board was going to do anything about the present disturbed state of the market.

The townspeople were complaining owing to the starvation of the markets if the country people did not bring in potatoes. Mr. Burke: The Saturday before they were controlled a workman could not get a bag of potatoes, and the workmen of Tuam came here and organised themselves and made an effort to control the potatoes but they didn’t go the right way about it.

The land sharks kept the potatoes out last Saturday and they should be made toe the line. – Mr Burke: Hundreds of tons are exported from Ballyglunin, while the poor of the town starve.

Mr. P. Walsh: The shopkeepers and Town Commissioners are blamed for it. – Chairman: The price was reduced to 1s. a stone, and the Transport Workers thought they were doing a good turn for the people of the town, and, unfortunately, it turned out the reverse, and created a lot of dissension. – Mr. Coogan: it is the exporters they should get at, and the matter would settle itself.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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