BERNARD SHAW ON IRISH IDIOTS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3141, 30 October 1922, Page 7

BERNARD SHAW ON IRISH IDIOTS.

The Irish Times prints an interview with Mr George Bernard Shaw, who has just returned to England after spending a fortnight at Uosslarc. Mr Shaw discusses Ireland in characteristic stvle. Asked for his opinion on the Irish situation, ho replied: "Well, what can anyone say that has not been said already until people are so tired of it that the words have lost all meaning?" "If you ask me what on earth Mr de Valcra' and Mr Erskine Childers arc driving at. 'what they think they aro doing/ as the English say, I can only sav that I don't know," he told an interviewer, "and that is the weakness of their position. from the moment when the elections went against them so completely that the members the.\ were allowed to return by arrangement could not pretend to any representative character, they had either to accept the popular verdict and (set to work to convert the Irish people to their view or to choose between the two other courses open to them. One was to subdue the country by armed force, British fashion, and coerce it to become an independent little republic whether it liked it or not. The other was to take to the mountains and live more or less merrily by brigandage in the manner of Robin Hood. "What has happened is that Mr de Valcra and Mr Childers have attempted the first alternative, but, having no war chest and apparently no programme beyond calling Ireland a republic, they have been forced to tell their troops on pay-day that they must live on the country, which means, in practice that the leaders are to be Republicans contending for a principle, and their troops are to be brigands. This is an impossible situation. No community can tolerate, brigandage, even when it is good-natured brigandage. The existing brigandage is not good-natured, and Ireland is obviously on the point of losing its temper savagelv with Robin Hood. Alan A'Dale, Friar Tuck, and all the rest of them. When the explosion comes General Collins will be able to let himself go in earnest, and the difficulty of the overcrowded gaols and of the disbanded Irregular who takes to the road again the moment the troops have passed on wNI be solved, because there will be no prisoners; the strain will be on the cemeteries.

"General Collins beat Sir Haniar Greenwood at the wrecking game because he had the people behind him. What chance against him has .Mr de Yalera. without military aptitude or any of Sir Hamar Greenwood's enormous material resources? Of course. he can enjoy the luxury of dying for Ireland after doing all 1 the damage he can. 'What matter if for Ireland dear we fall 1 is still the idiots' battle-song. The idiocy is sanctified by the memories of a time'when there was really nothing to be done -for Irish freedom but to die for it, but the time has now come for Irishmen to learn to live for their country, instead of which they start runaway engiueis down the lines, blow up bridges, burn homesteads and factories, and gain nothing by it except such amusements as making my train from AVaterford to Rosslare several hours late. Ireland would be just as free at this moment if I had arrived punctually. Yon see, the cause of Ireland is always dogged by the ridicule which we have such a fatal gift of provoking and finch a futile gift of expressing. "I suppose it will have tb be settled, as usual, by another massacre of Irishmen by irishmen. Tf Mr de Yalera had any political genius he might avert it, but with the strongest sentimental bias in his favor I cannot persuade myself that he has any political faculty at all. He has literary talent, and that very dangerous plaything. an amorphous ideal, but ever since Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins left him behind when the Treaty was to be negotiated with Mr Lloyd George, and be himself consented to be left behind, it has been evident that all the three were agreed that political negotiation is not his job. 1 have a friendly personal regard for Mr Erskiue Childers. but, like all genuine Englishmen, be is a born anarchist, and will smash heaven and earth to have hia own way unless there is a policeman standing over him. "I am returning to England because I can do no good here and because the postage is a halfpenny cheaper. I was a Republican'before Mr de Yalera. was born, and could never bring myself to take any interest in Parnell because lie seemed to me a whole epoch behind his time. I objected to the old relations between England and Ireland as I object to the present ones, because they were not half intimate enough. I am a Superiiationalist and a Socialist. and all I have to say to an Irish carpenter, for instance, is that as long as he hates an English carpenter he will be a slave no matter what (lag he flies. I cannot stand the stale romance that passes for politics in Ireland. I cannot imagine why people bother so much about us. I am sure we don't deserve it. Look at Russia. Xow there is a really interesting country politically. The bottom has fallen out of the centre of Europe and England is on the brink of the abyss, but. what matter 'if for Ireland dear we fall.' It is too silly. I must hurry back to London. The lunatics there are comparatively harmless.'