The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATES The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, JULY 10, 1922. TOWARDS IRISH PEACE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 161, 10 July 1922, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATES The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

MONDAY, JULY 10, 1922. TOWARDS IRISH PEACE.

' For the cause, thai lacks assistanoe, I Fur the. ivrong that -.ceds resistance, j For tlu: future in the distance, And ihe good that -we can do.

■\Ye may take it that the rebellion against the Irish Government and the j will of the Irish people is practically I dead. It never had a chance of ultimate j success, but it might have grown into J something formidable, which wouid have j required long and large-scale operations ! for its overthrow, and thereby seriously I retarded the progress of the country. ;It ha-, however, collapsed quickly at i the touch of a Government that knowa I its own mind, and is prepared to act j with resolution. We have no doubt that history will judge that in acting as they did between the signing of the Treaty and the elections. Meeers. j Griffith and Collins took the course beet I calculated to serve Ireland well in her i dire need. Once they had a mandate J from the people—and there could be no i doulit about its clear call—they i asserted the authority of the Governi incut. But what is one to say of those ! misguided men who persisted in plungj ing the country afresh into civil waT, i and adding without reason to the tragic-death-roll of those who have died in the long quarrel about Ireland? Their J offence was heavy indeed. Charity, remembering Irish history, may plead for a more merciful verdict than most people j will be disposed to pass. These men. it may say, were the product of centuries of strife, which culminated in a period of rule by the gun: if you allow ! judgment to pass over to forco. you J must not be surprised to find that you cannot recover it just when you wish. Besides, Cathal Bruga, de Valera, and their fellow Republicans, exhibit a degree of fanaticism that seems to be not far removed from insanity. Discussing this point three months ago, the "Manchester Guardian" said that when men and women regarded themselves as an "elect bodyguard or a divine purpose,' , commissioned to achieve that purpose without jot of abatement, and then passed through the strain of war, one might expect to gee "the utmost fantasies of sincere fanaticism." The long-delayed freedom had come, but for some 'patriotism and honour consist in j fighting still the shadow, or the fancied i shadow, of the tyranny that is gone: and Ireland ie debased in their eyes if she embrace her own release from martyrdom. Consciously or not. their i minds have passed into the last of the narrow and gloomy chambers of fanaticism. In their wilful wrecking of Ireland's wealth, their disablement of her system of law, their indifference to the fate of her finest buildings, their contempt for the lives of her people, one scents the terrible madness which begins to find intrinsic worth and moral beauty in 'sacrifice' for no substantial end." The events of the pa.«t weels or two have given this catalogue of manifestations of criminal madness a starker 1 significance. These rebels have in an I unjustifiable and hopeless cause spilt the ! blood of Irishmen who were once their J comrades. They have destroyed with a debased theatricality and a senseless fury not only much valuable property, but thing* that should be precious to every Irishman. The extent of the damage inflicted on the Four Courts has not been stated, but it must be considerable. Now, one of the features of the j movement for freedom in Ireland has j been an insistence on the continuity of I Irish history, and the value of links I with the past. England, Said Nationalists and Sinn Feiners with too much truth, had striven to sever modern Ireland from the Ireland of the days before Henry 11., and had tried to strangle lri~h culture. The Irish freedom movement has been cultural as well as political. Irish history ha-s been studied, the Irish language has been revived—the Gaelic League may be aaid to have been tho mother of Sinn Fein— i and a notable literary movement, ; typified by Mr. Yeats' imaginative excursions into the remote past, has de- . veloped. Yet men who have been prominent in the Ireland-for-the-Irish niove- , ment permit what may prove to be j irreparable damage to be done to a I building that is not only, architecturally, 1 one of the iineet in Ireland, but is closely ' associated with a hundred and fifty years of Irish history, and contain* official records that go back several centuries. We see thi-s spirit of destruction exhibited on a smaller scale in today's message about the burning of a i library. <Jne feels keenly the senseless j waste involved in such demonstrations of perverted patriotism or criminality— call it what you will. Ireland needs every ounce of her material, moral, and cultural strength for the tasks before her. Fortunately while such things are happening the party of peace and progress is winning, and gaining strength from the very madness of its opponents. There can be no future in Irish politics for men who have' pushed their opposition to the Treaty to such lengths of offence against God and man.