Evening Post. MONDAY, MAY 29, 1922. THE IRISH CRISIS

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 124, 29 May 1922, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, MAY 29, 1922. THE IRISH CRISIS

After the pessimistic conclusions of The Times and the Observer, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Chronicle, regarding the agreement made by the Free State Government and Mr. de Valera, and the still more damning evidence supplied by the agreement itself, the announcement of the Daily Express came as a pleasant change. To some, it may have carried the solid comfort of conviction; for the sceptics it may at least have served as .comic relief. The Daily Express declares that " it is in a position to state " —in other words* .has it "straight from the horse's mouth," as the saying is—that-Messrs. Collins and Griffith are determined to stand by the Treaty. Their contention is " that Mr. de Valera, in signing the agreement, has accepted the Treaty,'V and that in the difficult situation with which they are confronted the Sinn Fein leaders " should be permitted to carry out the obligations of the Treaty in their own way." This plea for tolerance and latitude* is quite reasonable. The difficulties of the Irish leaders are sufficiently obvious even to the casual observer, but their full extent is only realised by the men themselves, and these men alone can say how the difficulties may from time t,6 time be,- best dealt with. A frontal attack, which looks such a simple business to the armchair critic, is not always the best method of approach, and often a competent observer on the spot can see at a glance that it is so dangerous as to be practically impossible. But when over a long period of time every strategic and tactical move has a rearward tendency, and an enemy who at first was on the run with obviously inferior forces is allowed to consolidate his original positions and the new ones that are continually falling into his hands, and to increase the numbers, the moral, and the efficiency of his troops, uneasiness on the part of an interested onlooker is inevitable. ;

The contention that "Mr. de Valera in signing the agreement has accepted the Treaty " is one on which Mr. de Valera is entitled to be heard before the faintest credence can be given to it. But there is really uo reason to suspend judgment until he deems it worth while to reply to the inspired statement of the Daily Express. The agreement speaks for itself in such a way that Mr. de Valera is really not called upon to answer, and, if any comment is needed, we have it in the speed} of Mr. Collins himself when he, seconded Mr. de Valera's1 motion for the adoption of the agreement by, the Ardfheis High Council.. The purport of that speech was that the acceptance or rejection of the Treaty was a trivial issue in comparison with the calls that' were made for the unity of Southern Ireland by its own distracted condition and by the recalcitrance of Ulster. "If this agreement imperils J>he Treaty." said Mi'. Collins, " we have made an agreement which brings stable conditions, and we must face what these stable conditions will enable us to face," After referring to the need for a " united national voice" which Ulster could nbt ignore, ho aided, that " iu speaking Mtith that

national voice it does not matter whether we support the Treaty or not, we support anti-partition." The man who supported the ratification of the agreement on t'he ground that it united the opponents and the supporters of, the Treaty on the higher issue of opposition to Ulster and partition, cannot now be heard to say 'that the opponents of the Treaty-be-came supporters of it by signing the agreement. The question is not one of legal quibbles, but of the plain intent and substance of the arrangement made, and as) to this it is not Mr. de Valera but Mr. Collins who has put the matter beyond' a doubt. The. legal question which is said to be perplexing the British Government does not appear to touch this bedrock matter of substance and intent, but merely one of the subsidiary, though highly important, provisions.

It is understood, we are informed today, that tho British Ministers are satisfied that there is a sincere desire on the part of Messrs. Griffith and Collins to adhere to the Treaty, but a divergence of opinion exists as to the legal interpretation of the. terms of the Collins-de Valera agreement regarding the elections as affecting the Treaty. The nature of this legal difficulty is not indicated, but it does not appear possible that there can be any . such conflict between the agreement and the Treaty as would invalidate' the former or entitle the British Government to regard it as a breach of the Treaty. The main object of the Treaty was to put the Government of Southern Ireland into the hands of its people, but it is for the Free State, which has thus been brought into being, and not for the British Government or Parliament,- to say how the voice of the Irish people is to be heard, and how their elections are to be run. A General Election: on the lines proposed by the agreement will, of course, be a farce. It will avoid the very thing that the country most urgently v needs —the free expression of popular opinion dealing with the present and the future rather than with the past, and creating a Government with both the constitutional and the moral power to establish a strong and stable Administration. The conditions established by the world's war and the guerrilla war that followed it will be jjerpetuated by the agreement, and there will be no free expression of the popular will'at-'all. But it would be impossible'■-,for any Court to say that the election will not be an election.

Does not, the agreement expressly provide in its fourth clause " that every and any interest is free to contest the elections with the national Sinn Fein panel " 1 It is even possible that an independent candidate and his supporters will have a better chance of not being shot than if the agreement had not been made. And as to the panel itself, a Government which rushed the 'British General Election through under the stampeding influences of the Armistice, a^nd ran it on the coupon system, will have to be careful in its criticism. The' Sinn Feiners • may plausibly argue that "panel" is only the Gaelic for " coupon."