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Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16407, 30 December 1918, Page 6

Successive German Governments seem, to have ii penchant for Baron von der Lancken. He was selected in October to act as head of a neutral commission' appointed by Germany to investigate the devastations by German troops during their retreat. The subject offered a wide field for enquiry, but if the commission had been anything but the sham that the appointment of the ex-Civil Governor of Belgium to the chairmanship proved it to be, it could have reported before now, for there was plenty of evidence and it was readily available. Now the Burou has been appointed, ■with another, to negotiate with Mr Hoover, who has the task of feeding Central Europe upon his shoulders, regarding food supplies for Germany. Mr Hoover, who will best bo remembered for his admiraolo work on behalf of tho Belgian Relief Commission, in feeding Belgium during tho first two and a half years of the German occupation, has quite naturally refused to have any dealings with the man upon whom must rest much of the responsibility for the gross oppression endured by the unhappy Belgians. Quite ; v art from any share he may have had in tho official murder of Nurse Cavell the record of his harsh and cruel rule in Belgium is quite sufficient reason for no citizen of any of tho Allied nations having anything to do with him.

Tho defeat of I>e Valera, the Sinn Fein loader, by John Dillon is ono of the surprises of the general election at Home, for a week or two ago Mr Dillon's seat was regarded as likely to be one of those wrenched from the Nationalists by the Sinn Fein wave that! it was believed would sweop Ireland. The Sinn Fein was said some three months ago to be better prepared for the election than any other political party in the United Kingdom. All the Nationalist seats were to bo contested, Sinn Fein clubs were being founded every week to stimulate electoral activity, and great attention was being paid to women voters. Funds were plentiful, for besides the money believed to come from foreign sources, tho fund of a quarter of a million raised for tho purpose of fighting conscription was believed to be intact and largely in Sinn Fein hands, though it had. been raised with th© help of the Nationalists and the Roman Catholic hierarchy. The Nationalist party, on the other hand, was said to have no election fund, the American sources of supply having dried up.

To-day's cables mention that tho Sinn Fein Party aro placarding Ireland with announcements about the coming Irish Republic, and intend to establish an Irish Parliament in I)ublin. It has been known for some time that tho party's programme, after tho success at th 0 polls which it confidently anticipatedj included an interval ''to demonstrate to the world that Iroland cannot be governed under the Act of Union or by any other method that does not involve national self-government of tho most unlimited kind." It was novor intend--' ed that the 'newly-elected Sinn Fein M.P.'s should take their seats at Westminster. They wero to stay in Iroland and form a Parliament which would administer such matters as could by any stretch of imagination be regarded as coming within their scope. If they conflicted with tho Imperial Government they would not fight but would "devise ingenious ways of dislocating tho machinery of the law," and to that end might promote a general strike. "The idoa is to mako Ireland ungovernable by a British Parliament." They may succeed in doing so for a time, but that would not necessarily provo that they wero fit to govern Ireland themselves. Some of tho reccnt diminution in organised lawlessness on tho part of the Sinn Fein may be credited to Viscount French's administration.