IS IT PEACE?

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 291, 6 December 1920, Page 4

IS IT PEACE?

In his latest reply to Mr. Asquith about Ireland the Prime Minister evades the point. He attacks Mr. Asquilh and hid friends for not supporting the Government in its struggle with Sinn Fein, and for "'denouncing gallant, men «s Bashi-Hazoukri." On the same day a meeting addressed by Mr. As(iiith carried a resolution denouncing both I Sinn I'Vin murders and loynlist, reprisals. ' The grave«t charge against the Government is that it has condoned reprisals, unci thereby besmirched the honour of England in the eyes of Englishmen and of the world. There has been no satisfactory answer to this charge. Think what one likes about the murders of the Terrorists —and no one could view them with deeper horror than we do —condonation of organised reprisal is inexcusable. When decent Britons in any part of the word find tho scenes at Balbrifjgan compared with the excesses at Louvain they muet feel sick at heart, fn fact, the whole Irish situation, with its criminal • blunders, its lost opportunities, its hatred sinking into abominable crime and counter-crime, is enough to tempt a Briton to despair of his country or his mother-country as the case mny be. Did wp succeed in the greatest crisis of our i fate, in which we had every moral right on our side, to fail in a domestic til Hiculty? Fortunately, while matters I have been going from bad to worfe in Ireland, and reaching depths of hntri'd and crime that were undreamt of a year or two ago, there is a little light on the j landscape. It mnv be only a false lig'H. but there it i«— the reports that Hnn Fein desires a truce and that Mr. Arthur j Henderson is to act as intermediary, the j attitude of the Archbishop of Dublin and of "Freeman's Journal,' and tne -suggestion of peace that comes from so thoroughly a Republican body act Ute Galwny County Council. Recent developments may have paved the way to peace. They sliould have convinced the leaders of Sinn Fein that Britain will never give them all they want, «nd that , they cannot hope to prevail against her j might. If Sinn Fein is ready for compromise, and can convince the Government that it sincerely desires peace, tho Government may be able to loosen its grip on Ireland and modify its methods.) Much would depend on the attitude of j the Terrorist*: even if .Sinn Fein were! conciliatory it might, still be necessary i to take elaborate precautions against them. In th% meantime the Government ■ could show its good faith not only by t condemning reprisals, but by punishing those who conduct them. There ia reason to believe that its present policy is alienating men in lrelana whose loyalty has hitherto been beyond suspicion. l£ it cannot prevent the Terrorists' crimed it can do its best to prevent the situation being etill further inflamed by counter methods of the same kind. After all, some kind of Home Rule ie inevitable, and its success will depend largely upon the mutual relations of the English and the Irish. There is no doubt that these relations have been embittered to an immeasurable degree by the policy of reprisals and the suspicions it has endengedered.