OUR IRISH LETTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 224, 20 September 1924, Page 15

OUR IRISH LETTER.

A GLOOMY OUTLOOK. POVERTY AND REPUBLICANISM (From Our Own Correspondent.) BELFAST, August 6. At time of mailing, the muddle over the Boundary Commission seems no nearer a clearing up. On this side of the border, no chances are being taken by the Loyalists. The entire line ie Well guarded, experts in machine-gun ■work occupy the strategical points, and the special constabulary, as well as the regular force, is constantly patrolling by day and night. In the past few weeks, specially trained machine gun parties have been placed near weak spots, or places very difficult to place permanent barriers over, and on the Fermanagh border temporary roads and bridges are being hastily constructed to prevent the cutting off of the Loyalists of certain areas after the regular troops have been withdrawn by the British Government from the Beleek section of the border. Altogether the situation is grave. Apart from the Ulster boundary que»tion —in which lie the germs of a fierce civil war between North and South— the general condition of the South and West at the moment of mailing is very far from reassuring. Since the release Of Mr. De Valera, he has flitted about from South to West and from West to South, preaching a kind of "Holy War" against Ulster, which he declares must be "blasted out of the way" of Ireland's progress to a republic. He declares the republic will be in full operation in 1925. Unfortunately, tho economic conditions of the South and West are so desperate that tlin youth of the country will readily listen to any schemes which will give them money, food and excitement. The farmers arc faced with a big failure of their crops, consequent on the cold and wet spring and the wettest summer on record; the turf crop has been practically lost in the flooded bogs; potato blight has set in very early, and already food prices are soaring in anticipation of a shortage in flour, meal and potatoes. Honey is very scarce, unemployment has one-third of the male population in its grip; the cry of "starvation" is already heard from the West and Donegal. . All round the prospects of the winter of 1924-25 are black and grim. And there is now no charitable England to stand between the people and their poverty with doles, food and cropping seed in times of scarcity. The Government loan was only a drop in the bucket, and at least the sum of £100,000,000 is needed to set Ireland—that is, the South and ■West—financially on her feet. Where is it to come from? ' Already the population are groaning under a taxation very much heavier than their Ulster neighbours, who are bearing it lightly, paying their way, and saving money on their estimates. The contrast is so marked that it has roused the deepest hatred on the Southern side of the border. Hence, De Valera is driving Cosgrave, Cosgrave is driving jUaeDonald, and Mac Donald is driving Parliament for the amending legislation that will give the Irish Free State, nearly 2,000,000 additional acres- for taxation purposes,.and "under the economic condition to be thus raised, to.eventually drive all North-East Ulster under the rale o£ the Dublin Parliament. can livewell and prosper with si* counties; she could not with only four. The loss of Tyrone and Fermanagh would leave her ruined in population and finance. This very week Coegrave informed the British Cabinet that if the Irish Free State demand for the inclusion of Tyrone and Fermanagh were not conceded the South and West would go republican. As it is already that, the fact of it going officially so would ndt alter matters :one jot. . -The question, however, that would arise would be: Can England afford to have a hostile republic on her most vulnerable flank? Meantime, everything points to an armed outburst against Coagrave in the South and West in the near future. Since the release of De Valera, who was spared by both the British Government and the Irish Government, when both executed with unsparing hands his dupes and tools, the youths of the West and South have taken to drill openly, well armed with rifles and bayonets and equipped ■with machine guns, too. In Mayo, Galway, Koscommon, Chirk, Cork, and Kerry and as near Dublin as Meath, thousands of young fellows, who would be better employed saving the remnants of" the crops, may be seen daily chilling under the very noses of the Free State troops. The "insurgents, for that is what they really are, are making no secret of their intention to overthrow Cosgrave's Government and declare an All Ireland Bepublic, and to' follow that up with, a combined attack on the North.