EFFECT ON IRISH TRUCE

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 34, 9 August 1921, Page 7

EFFECT ON IRISH TRUCE

SENSATIONAL REPORTS DENIED BY SINN FEIN

IMPRISONED MEN RELEASED.

VVMIVnt MIISB ASSOCIATION.—COMRTWIT.)

(AUSTRALIAN - NEW ZBALAXB CAUI ASSOCIATION.) * \ (Received August 9, 9 a.m.) _^LONDON, Bfch August; Eleven 'members of the Dail Eireann were released to-day and^ proceeded immediately to Dublin to see? Mr. de .Valera. LONDON, Bth August. ' The Dublin correspondent of the Daily Express^, says that . the Dail Eireann Cabinet states authoritatively that if John Mackeown is not released the truce will be terminated. Telegrams have been exchanged between the Sinn Fein* authorities and the British Government, and a special courier has been despatched to Mr. Lloyd "George. A prominent ' member of the Sinn Fein Cabinet says: '.'The English Government has taken this .opportunity of raising a test case in the most pointed fashion, calling Mackeown a convicted murderer. The evidence at the trial did" not furnish a reason for describing him as a murderer. On the contrary, members of the Crown Force testified to his chivalry to the foe." The Daily l/ews says: "It is true that Mackeown is the only member of the Dail Eireann who has been convicted of murder, ,yet it is impossible-to deny that- others now being released could have been charged with-murder instead of being charged with being concerned with'ambushes. The point is that the truce and the circumstances undei which it was arranged between Genefiil Macready and the chiefs of. the Irish Republican Army involved full* recogni (ion of the statns of the Republican forces ns a comljatant army. The Government's : insistence on the right to hang Mackeown is a reversion to the theory of the murder gang in its crudest form. Somebody' has blundered. There is no time now to inquire who or v;Uy. Events may soon be swept beyniul the power of our control. the lilu'n(Jer be ' admitted' and the thunder cloud will be dispersed. Mackeown was sentenced' to' death on 14th June,' and the serttence. is still unconfirmed." .

(Received , August 9, 9 a.m.)

LONDON, Bth August.

The Sinn Fein organisation denies the reports that unless. Mackeo'vyn is released the Sinn-Fein will end the truce, or that the Dail Eireann will not meet to discuss the proposals: . <

(Received August 9, 10 a.m.) LONDON, Bth August. Mack'eown has been .released.