Evening Post. FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 1923. HOPE IN IRELAND

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 88, 13 April 1923, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 1923. HOPE IN IRELAND

It is too early yet to count the casualties of the Irish rebellion,- iqr who would be so bold aa to do more j than hope that Dublin opinion is right when it believes that the latest captures have sounded the death-knell of the insurrection ? But, without exact calculation, it can De said that no period in recent Irish history has been more disastrous than that which appears now to be closing. No strife has been more deadly than the internecine war fomented by an Englishman and by a leader whose claims to Irish descent were scarcely more substantial. The Englishman has paid the- penalty, and it now seems possible that de VaJera cannot elude the Free State forces much longer. The wonder is that he should have been at liberty so long, issuing his decrees and being interviewed in luxurious apartments, to which access was gained by mysterious knockingß. The circumstances rather suggest that the Free. State leaders might have captured him before had they been keenly desirous of doing so, but that their desire was tempered by I the hope of an eleventh-hour reconciliation, and possibly also by the thought that this romantic leader would be, in captivity, a source of more, trouble than when ha was at large. But the romance has now been overlaid with so much brutal crime, for which the leader cannot escape responsibility, that this possible plea could no longer hpld. . It is fo.r an idea, not an ideal, that the blood of Irishmen has been shed by Irishmen; for an idea that made no appeal to the great majority of the people, and which was discarded by the greatest of those whose courage -and patriotism placed them in the forefront of Irish leadership- The Catholic Hierarchy in their Lenten pastorals, denounced the excesses and condemned the folly of the conflict. Never before in the world's history, wrote Cardinal Logue, did such, a wild i and destructive hurricane spring from such, a thin, intangible, unsubstantial -vapour, the diffierence between some equivocal words on an oath, the difference between external a.nd internal connection with the British Commonwealth. This is the. only' foundation I have ever seen alleged. Men versed in the subtleties of the schools may understand them. Men of good, sound, practical commonsense hardly succeed. For this idea, de Valera and his followers, estimated this week at not more than 2500, have been doing their best to wreck the Free< State, which satisfied the aspirations .of 99 per cent, of the Irish people. Northern Ireland has ended the* era of crime and disturbance, and has passed the troubled period so completely that even financial stability has been attained. But the South has fcoen denied thafc peace which,

would have enabled her to set her house in order. Murder, pillage, and destruction have been her portion . and her Budget deficit is estimated at £20,0(10.000. Nor is this the full taJe of the loss to Irelandcaused by these few men who would be more Irish than the Irish.

The Lenten pastorals emphasise the great moral wrong that is being done. The rebels have sown the wind and Ireland is reaping the whirlwind. It may be, as some correspondents allege, that lawless elements—the. camp-followers of any insurrection—are> responsible for some of the crime debited to the Republican forces, but this cannot dispose of all the outrages. Cardinal Logue condemned " those who put firearms into the hands of mere schoolboys,- beguiling their youth and inexperience by false principles of .patriotism"; and Mr. Kevin O'Higgins spoke of " eight thousand young fools, male and female, rUshed into this criminal outrage." Even more telling was the indictment in the pastoral of Dr. Kelly, Bishop of Eoss :

The crop of crime \ve deplore in Ireland to-day could not spring up suddenly. The soil had to be prepared long beforehand, the seed sown, and the growth was slow and gradual. The soil is the hearts and minds of the population, and the seed the thoughts, opinions, and desites scattered about among them, gradually striking root in their hearts, growing up faster or slower, and in some cases already ripened into the fruit of wicked and unspeakable deeds. That process was a slow one, went on for several years, and few, if any, of us can hold ourselves guiltless of'having shared in the process. To-day there appears some possibility of the near fulfilment of the prediction, made by Mr. Stephen Gwynn in December: that within three months the country road should be safe for the peasant and his cart and the streets of Dublin safe for the President and Com-mander-in-Chief of the Free State. President Oosgrave and the Gov-ernor-Genera] have spent two days at the races; and de Valerais a hunted man. Yet when de Valera's power for evil fails, and when the last of the rebels. has surrendered, there remains the moral ha.rm. Erskine Ohilders and de Valera sowed much seed, from which grew a crop of lawlessness; but they were not the only sowers. Already the crop has been terrible, including the lives of men who had worked long for their country; but it may be years before the ultimate harvest is reaped and the noxious growth finally exterminated.