From Our Own Correspondent.
DUBLIN
The Cardinal Primate of Ireland, in his Lenten Pastoral—issued from the Primatial See which still is cut off from the nation to which it belongs and which spiritually it leads—asked for prayers for the success of the London negotiations.
"I would ask you to pray for our own dear country." said His Eminence, "that the negotiations which are taking place these days in London may issue in a just settlement compatible with our national rights, and leading to enduring peace and even friendship both here at home and with our neighbours across the Channel," The Bishop of Down and Connor, in his pastoral from Belfast, " of the Pogroms " also dealt with the crisis of Partition.
"WHILE WE REJOICE IN COMMON WITH OUR FELLOW-IRISHMEN THAT FIRE IN HER NEW CONSTITUTION MADE A PUBLIC PROFESSION OF HER CHRISTIAN FAITH AT HER ENTRY AMONG THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD," DR.. MAGEEAN SAID," WE VIEW WITII CONCERN THE DANGERS THAT THREATEN US HERE IN THE SIX COUNTIES, AND WE SHOULD EARNESTLY PRAY THAT GOD MAY AVERT THEM.
"Sixteen years ago the British Government forced a parliament upon six of the nine counties of Ulster. That parliament is imposed on us against the wishes of all Irishmen; not a single Irishman voted for it. The partition of our Motherland was resented by the whole Irish nation, at home and abroad, as an attempt to frustrate our national aspirations.
PROTESTERS v. BOASTERS
"The history of that Parliament is one long record of partisan and bigoted discrimination in matters of representation, legislation and administration, and no attempt tvss made to cloak these repeated violations of distributive justice. They were flagrItt: the head of the Government boasted on more than one occasion that this was a Protestant Parliament for a Protestant people.
" Where can we find evidence of a desire to implement paragraph 16 of the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty, sigued on December 6, 1921, by the representatives of the British Government?
The Disgrace of the Pogroms
"Have we not on the other hand, definite evidence in the repeated pogroms against Catholics of the determination to maintain ascendancy. and to keep alive those religious animosities that have so long disgraced the North-East corner of Ireland in the eyes of the civilised world?
" But the coercion exercised by the Six Counties Government is not confined to Catholics. The liberty of the citizens, no matter what their creed, has been circumscribed to an extent unknown elsewhere in the British Empire, and some of the fundamental rights of citizenship filched from them by the Special Powers Act of Northern Ireland.
Britain is Answerable
" The British Government imposed this Parliament upon us; and they are ultimately responsible for its acts. The Government that imposed it is the Government to abolish it. By doing so they will do a service to the cause of justice, and at the same time remove one of the greatest obstacles to those peaceful relations that should exist between countries that claim to be Christian.
" The opportunity for agreement now offers, and it should be our earnest prayer during the next few weeks that God may bless the efforts of the negotiators, and grant that they may deal with the situation with the vision and courage of Christian statesmen."