Evening Post. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1923. NEW GROUND FOR HOPE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 35, 12 February 1923, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1923. NEW GROUND FOR HOPE

The week-erid brought a faint ray of hope to relieve the black darkness of the Irish chaos. The amnesty which was previously offered to the rebels came to nothing, but the offer has now been renewed under conditions which are more favourable in more respects than one. It is not merely that every week that has passed since the original offer was submitted has revealed with increasing clearness the military weakness of the rebels, their incapacity for anything better than isolated acts of murder, .loot, and destruction, and the deepening hostility of public sentiment. Tactics which, through the. inadequacy of both the police force and the army of the Free State, have been able to establish a reign of terror on a scale far wider than Britain ever tolerated, have nevertheless failed to intimidate the Irish people as a whole or to indicate even a remote possibility of success along those lines. Though this has been obvious for the last five or six months, the new ground for hope is that the rebels seem at last to be beginning to realise it. The essence of victory in war is not beating the enemy but persuading him that «c is beaten. That the Irish Republicans were beaten was obvious to the world months ago, but they can see it themselves they will not lay down their arms. There is more hope in the amnesty now offered than in its predecessor, because the truth seems at last to be dawning upon the minds of the rebel leaders.

In the present case the initiative has actually come from the side of the rebels, nor is its significance destroyed by the fact that the man who has made it is a prisoner under sentence of death. Before his arrest Mr. Liam Deasy was chief of staff of the rebel army, though the assumed name under which he has been living suggests that his military duties may have been recently in abeyance. After sentence, his request for an interview with the commander-in-chief of the Free State forces was granted, and the result was that he was " allowed to send a communication to his rebel associates, including de Valera, to the effect that he had undertaken to aid in the immediate unconditional surrender of arms and men as required by General Mulcahy." In this communication Mr. de Valera and the other rebel leaders were requested to give similar undertakings. General Mulcahy thereupon issued a proclamation offering a new amnesty to all persons armed against the- Government who surrendered with arms on or before the 18fch February, and the execution of the death sentences passed upon Mr. Deasy and other rebels was suspended.- If the success of the'negotiations depended upon the assent of Mr. de Valera the outlook would not be hopeful, for his communication to the "Daily Mail " a week ago showed him to be just as irreconcilable as ever. But signs are not wanting that the desire for a settlement finds much more favour in the ranks of the Republicans tliau when the issue was last raised.

In Cork, which has always been a hotbed of Republicanism, many rebels are said to have already laid down their arms and surrendered. In Limerick 600 rebel prisoners have asked leave to send a deputation to the rebel leaders with a similar appeal to Mr. Deasy's. -The sunport thus given -to Mr. Deasy's proposal in Cork and Limerick will certainly make it much harder for his associates to resist than ,any previous proposal of the same kind. That many of those who back the appeal are, like Mr. Deasy himself, under sentence of death might be held to bias their judgment, but for their comrades it must surely increase the weight of the appeals, nor does the moral of the surrenders in Cork appear to be liable to any discount. If Cork is wearying of its stubborn opposition to the Government there is certainly good reason for the rebels in places where they are not so strong to hasten to accept the offer of the Government before it lapses on the 18th. Though the proclamation stipulates for an unconditional surrender, General Mulcahy has supplemented it by a declaration in the Dail Eireann that breathes the true spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation. The acceptance of the Government's offer would, he said, restore the Republicans to the affection of the people and provide " such an unexpected relief that thescores of the last eight months would be closed in a month." If the majority are prepared to close the account as rapidly as that, it would be madness on the part of the rebels to throw the chance away.

But to say that a course is mad is not to say that Mr. de Valera isnot prepared to follow it. According to the " Sunday Express," his intention is to accept the terms proposed, but with the condition attached that - a General Election shall be held on the single issue: "Whether Ireland.shall be a Free State or a Republic?" If Mr. de Valera really comes as near to a settlement as this, he will surely be unable to restrain a large majority of his party from making peace unconditionally. But whether tlie forces behind Mr. de Valera are smalt or large, the condition is one to which the Government would be

very unwise to assent. The electors declared emphatically for the Free State in June, but Mr. de Valera's answer was to fly to arms, and there is no reason why a second defeat at the polls should not provoke him to a similar retort. Moreover, the issue would put the Government in a false position, and could have no decisive practical effect. Mr. Griffith and Mr. Michael Collins both professed to favour,the Republican solution as the ultimate ideal just as strongly as Mr. de Valera himself, but they considered that the only practicable approach was by way of the Treaty and the Free State. On the abstract issue which Mr. de Valera proposes, President Cosgrave and his colleagues might have to give him their support. They would surely be better employed in fighting to a finish the practical issue on which he plunged the country into civil war.