The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1923. THE IRISH BOUNDARY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 289, 7 December 1925, Page 6

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

MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1923. THE IRISH BOUNDARY.

For the cause fhqt lacks ansiktantm, For the wrong that needs resistance, for the future in the distance, And the good that toe can Ho.

The more carefully the conditions of the new Irish settlement are examined the more clearly it becomes evident that some such expedient as this was the only alternative to further serious trouble in Ireland. The best that could have been expected from the Boundary Commission was that its report would be in the nature of a compromise. Now compromises are notoriously objectionable to both parties engaged in a dispute, and neither Ulster nor the Free State was in a frame of mind to accept peacefully any serious diminution of what it believed to be its rights. But it is generally understood that the Boundary Commission's report favoured Ulster at the expense of the Free State; and its acceptance by the Dail would therefore certainly have been the signal for a renewal of the strife that has so lately died down in the South. Under the circumstances the only practicable way of maintaining peace in that distracted country seemed to be to shelve the report and to drop the attempt to delimit the frontier between the two sections of the country. And fortunately it was possible to do this on terms which, while they involve much disappointment and some humiliation for the Free State, at all events supply to the South a substantial material recompense for its loss.

Of course it would be too much to expect that the extremists on either side would be prepared to fall in with the agreement without vehement protest and remonstrances. The most violent journalistic exponent of whnt has come to be known colloquially as "Ulsteria"' declares that "Britain has again surrendered to the Sinn Feiners," who have been bribed heavily for agreeing to let the boundary question drop. On the other hand, the Labour party in the Dail denounces the new agreement aas "an unmitigated betrayal," while Mr. de Valera, whose republicanism seems particularly palatable to the Labour revolutionaries, asserts that the Nationalists of the North have been handed over to their enemies without a single safeguard to protect them. It was, of course, inevitable that De Valera and the Republicans would endeavour to mako capital out of the boundary, whichever way the decision of the Commission might go; and in this abandonment of the hopeless effort to solve this difficult problem actively and promptly and safely, they naturally see an opportunity of stirring up trouble for Mr. Cosgrave and the Free State Government. But wo think that these insidious tactics will fail once more, because, behind the bitterness and disappointment that the, collapse of the Commission must cause, we believe that in the minds of the great majority of the people of Ireland there is a clear consciousness that now at last the way is opened for unity and peace. It is easy to make out a plausible case for either Ulster or for the Nationalists in regard to the disputed points in the boundary problem. What is difficult, indeed impossible, is to conceive a settlement that would have been accepted by both sides, or could have been forced upon either without plunging Ireland back into a welter of chaotic misery once more. Recognising all this, we believe that Mr. Coagrave and his colleagues have done rightly and wisely in agreeing to waive the boundary question altogether; the more so because, in our opinion, if once this insoluble difficulty is allowed to drop into oblivion the natural destiny of Ulster and the Free State will be to draw continually closer and closer together. The Nationalists have always looked forward to the unification of Ireland as their ultimate goal. This was the doctrine preached by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, by far the greatest statesmen that Ireland has produced in recent years; and Air. Cosgrave is proving himself a worthy heir to their policy. He has just told the Irish people that in the new era now inaugurated he expects to see North and South "make a united effort for the betterment and development of the whole country"; and there is little doubt that if British politicians refrain from inciting and stimulating racial and sectarian prejudices in Ulster the economic needs of the North dependent as it always must be upon the markets of the South for much of its industrial prosperity — will inevitably draw it into closer and more friendly contact with the South. The rights of minorities must everywhere be safeguarded. But if once the boundary question is allowed to drop, the outcome of the new agreement will surely and speedily be a close approximation to that unity and peace for which Ireland has yearned so long in vain.