SIR,—The caption which you put on your correspondent's reference to my lecture in ripperary, i.e., " Ban All Imported Papers! —Says C.T.S. Speaker," would have looked as well without the exclamation mark. But it would not have been as expressive.
That exclamation mark said as much as a whole article denouncing me as a fellow with a slate off. I cannot, however, blame the captionwriter; it was a fair enough caption for your correspondent's paragraph.
I did not recommend, as the paragraph alleges, that all imported papers should be allowed to circulate only by license. I did no more than refer to " Christian standards of decency," for the purpose of warning my aedience that in my approach to the subject of imported newspapers I was not concerned with what concerns the shepherds of the flock.
I spoke not as a Catholic concerned with the defence of Faith and Morals but as a Nationalist concerned with the defence of the spirit and traditions of the Irish people.
The problem of the imported Press is, of course, the problem of the British Press. As a Nationalist, I object to the unrestricted circulation of the British Press in Ireland--not because it is British (I should have contempt for it If it were not British), but because it Is not Irish. The British Press enjoys its circulation here because British violence broke down the natural barrier of language which protects, say, Spain from the undue influence of the French Press. We have undertaken the reconstruction of the natural barrier, but I see no prospect of Irish ever overwhelming English as the language of Ireland
(nor does our Constitution). For as long as we can imagine, English will always be commonly spoken in Ireland. So, in substitution for the natural barrier which should exist between Ireland and England we must have an artificial barrier. I advocated the prohibition of all foreign newspapers and periodicals printed in English, with the provision that any individual might Import for his own use any publication he might desire.
If my proposal deserves an exclamation mark, Irish in the schools deserves three.
The mortar of Irish freedom is mixed with blood, like that of Poland and Finland. We did not spill our own blood, or your English blood, wantonly; we spilled it to make Ireland Irish. We have lost sight of that fact, I am afraid. owing to our preoccupation with the lesser things, e.g., political status and industrialisation, but not for long has Ireland ever neglected the things of her
Home P. ALLEN.
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