HC Deb 17 June 1920 vol 130 cc1422-3
9. Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to the statement of the new Moderator at the annual general assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, held at Belfast on 7th June, 1920, in which the right reverend gentleman, while denouncing lawlessness, said that nowhere had a hand been raised against one of the isolated church buildings nor against a single individual Presbyterian, as such, in the south and west; and will he give this statement the same publicity as the other news given out by his Department?

Mr. HENRY

The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The statement has already received wide publication in the Press, and the Government does not feel called upon to comply with the suggestion in the second part of the question.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

Do the Government intend to drop all pretence of there being any religious question at the bottom of the Sinn Fein movement?

Mr. MOLES

Is it not a fact that more than 1,000 police serving in the South and West of Ireland are Presbyterians who go hourly in peril of their lives, and is it suggested that, so long as you do not murder a Presbyterian, you may murder anybody else you like?