AN UNPLEASANT EPISODE.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17393, 2 March 1922, Page 9

AN UNPLEASANT EPISODE.

INSULT TO PRINCESS MARY. MICHAEL COLLINS'S CRUSHING REBUKE. (trom our om cowtaroKnxNT.) •LONDON, Jan. 10. Countess Markievica has probably gained as much notoriety as any other IriHi extremist in the past, but never so much as she has guined from her coftjßo knd insulting remark concerning Princess Mary.' She is a, Sligo woihaii who married a- Polish artist, and' is now Minister, for Labour- in the Dnil. One of* the first to sVjeak in the returned debate on the ratification of tJie frish Treaty, she wanted it clearly understood thai she was for a- co-ojtera-tive corhmonwealth, and the ratiners were for c.mitilistir oppression. Countess Markievicz was mijch angered too, at the olive branch tendered to the Southern Unionists. By a familiar device of omtorv she assumed all 'sorts of powers conferred upon this "packet of traitors and oppressors, and then Assumed that by. the exercise of these powers they would block all progressive .legislation. And tnen, there fancies having apparently taken n the speaker's brain the lmeamwits of facts, shf turned upon Mr Griffith for "Ws deliberate effort to set up a privileged clats." She was very ivsty aboub the Empire, which she atlle'd "a thing," and warned tho House that the British Government, m&de treaties but did not keep them. The new oath, she said, embodied in the Treaty was dishonourable. It cot'ld be twisted in any form. Personally she would sooner than mak«"a declaration of fidelity George and to the British Empire. It mejvnt pledging allegiance to the xiing and the people who were trcaqing down the neooles of Ireland, India, and Egypt/ England wanted l>cace m Ireland m order- that sho ringht be iiblo to send her troops to India and Egypt. England' wanted the Kopiu)lican ftrmy to be turned into a Free State aunv under the represeaitatue of the King, who was the head of the nrtiiv, in order that the Black liiid Tans might be sent to India. There were some who might want to send the Black, and Tans to India. "You know that my family came ovier mith Henry V1J1.." continued Countess Markievicr,, "and by the black drop of English blood m pic 1 know tho" Uritish w'ays and can ideal with them.. Ah.! Why didn't you send me over as a. delegate to _London*'" The House laughed and applauded. ' Mr Collins was absent, for <ome strange magnetism seems to draw Mr Collins from the room when the women speak, and so he missed a very eharacteiistic passage. It was reported, she sneered, that Lord Lascelles was to be GovernorGeneral of the. Irish Freo State. It wds also reported that the engagement between Princess Mary and Lord. Lascelles was'to bo broken off, arid that Princess Maiy was to marry Michael Collins. There vas some laughter, but thr-re would not have been if Michael Collins had been present. There wtts nono when be was present later. ATr Collin?, .as soon as the Spanker had taken the chnir, rose, with a not-; or two in his hand, to make what he called a nersonal explanation. "I. understand/' lie caid. "that while I was not present a deputy for Dublin made a tefcrence to n'y name arid to the name of a lady belonging to a foreign nation which I cannot allow to pass. Homo time in our history as a nation .A girl went through Ireland and was not insulted by the people of Ireland, i do not onie 1 rora tho class that Countess Markievicz comes froiii. I come from the plain people of Ireland. | The Jady whose name was mentioned is, I understand betrothed to some man. 1 know wthing of her in any way whatever, but tho - statement might cause her pain, and it may cause pain to the lady who is .betrothed to me, and I stand in a plajn way, and will not allow without challenge any deputy of tho Assembly of :nj nation to insult any lady, either of tjiip nation or of any other, nation." It was a Siting, effectiva rebuke. Mr Collins wt down, snapped pis jaw square,' glanced round with; challenging eye, qnd waited for comment, which ne\er came. The reference to "the girl who went through Ireland" was to the maiden about whom Moore wrote thus poeni, "Rich and rare were tho genis she wore." She undertook a journey alone from one end of Ireland to the other in the days 6f Brian, and so faithfully were tho laws of that monarch obeyed that she was never 1 molested.