WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1931.

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 97, 21 October 1931, Page 8

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1931.

A DESPERATE REMEDY

Ten year's ago a conference was being held in London between representatives of Great Britain and of Southern Ireland respectively

with a view to ascertaining how the association of Ireland with the community of nations known as the British Empire niny beat be reconciled with Irish national aspirations.

After the Pope had congratulated the King upon the fact and received a very cordial reply, Mr. de Valera. while professing himself "confident that the ambiguities in the reply »ent in the name of King George will not mislead you, as it may the uninformed," thought it just as well to treat the Pope as uninformed and to enlighten his ignorance. Accordingly on the 20th October, 1921, Mr. de Valera sent his Holiness a telegram in which the issue was stated as follows :— The independence of Ireland has been formally proclaimed by regularly elected representatives of the people of Ireland and ratified by subsequent plebiscites. The trouble is between Ireland and Britain, and its source that the rulers of Britain have sought to impose their will upon Ireland, and by brutal force havo endeavoured to rob her people of liberty which is their natural right and their ancient heritage. |

On the tenth anniversary of the publication of that message the British people may well be thankful that their rulers have abandoned the attempt lo impose their will upon Ireland; that the risks of the great struggle in which they are engaged are not aggravated by any cross divisions upon the Irish question; that, though "brutal force" is still needed for the settlement of that question, it is being applied by Irishman to Irishman, with Britain standing by as an important spectator; and that if, as Mr. de Valera may infer from the attitude of his Church, the Pope is still seriously misinformed, the responsibility can no longer be placed upon any misleading ambiguities in a message from the King. But the congratulations to which Britain is moved by the troubles of Ireland are not wholly of this selfish character. Though it is distressing that the close of the tenth year since the signing of the Irish Treaty which gave the Free State its charter should be darkened by a recrudescence of the violence which nearly wrecked it at the outset, and though according to British standards the remedy may appear to be almost as bad as the disease, the courage and the promptitude with which both the Government and the Parliament have faced a baffling and perilous position cannot be praised too highly. And it is pleasant to add that, with powerful support from the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, for the negotiation of which President Cosgrave had received great credit, the immediate reaction is distinctly favourable.

By the nine years of service which it completed on the 9th September Mr. Cosgrave's Government had already established a very remarkable record—a record which would have seemed highly improbable when the Free State began its experiment in self-government, and.after the orgy of bloodshed in which it was nearly drowned almost impossible.

It has established law and order, writes the "Round Table's" Irish contributor in the September number, immensely improved our economic condition, completed land purchase, doveloped our agricultural industry and our natural resources, and placed our national finances upon a firm and stable basis.

But this summary of a great achievement was. merely mentioned by the "Round Table's" contributor as likely to delude a superficial observer into the belief that complete stability had been reached in the Free State. There was, however, evidence to show that "the old demon of political unrest is still alive," and that certain disgruntled elements would be glad "to revive the rule of the gun" if they got a chance.

It is notorious, the article proceeded, that in some parts of the country there has lately been a, renewal of drilling, a reorganisation of the so-called Irish Republican Army, and that arms have been imported along our south-west coast. Quite recently two students were fired on and. wounded in the Dublin mountains, and, as a result, an armed post of the detective force was established at Killakea House, above Rathfarnham. Whilst searching the vicinity they discovered a carefully concealed cave containing many hundreds of rifles, two Lewif guns, thousands of rounds of ammunition, automatic pistols, fuses, detonators, and military literature, "An Poblacht," the extremist weekly, boasts that this is only on© of a hundred similar dumps scattered over the country.

Nor was the operation of ihis dangerous spirit entirely secret. Wolfe Tone, ihfi Protestant lender of an Irish rebellion at the end of the 18th Century, has, it seems, become a sort of patron saint for both the principal parties, and their rival graveside celebrations would surely

have clashed with disastrous result? if lliey liad not been limed for different hours of Lhu day.

The remarkable feature of this yciir's demonstration, says the "Round Tablo" writer, was that Mr. do Valcra's followers apparently arranged to hold a joint procession with the more extreme . Republican Army. Military orders were published in the papers, special trains wero arranged to «onvey the various commandos from different parts of the country at reduced fares, and a march past worthy of the occasion would no doubt have taken place. But the Government cancelled llie special trains at the last moment, and the number of those who turned up was so small that the Civic Guard was strong enough to prohibit (hem from carrying out the military programme. One would have thought, is the writer's comment, that Mr. do Valera hud already suffered sufficiently from association with military conspiracies over which ho has no control, but, like the Bourbons, ho apparently loams nothing and forgets nothing. His action ou this occasion illustrates only too well his fatal weakness in dealing with the threats of armed men, no matter how small or impossible the- clement they represent.

This comment seems to fit the altitude of "An Poblachl" to (he present emergency equally well. In the struggle of the Government with organised and armed crime an organ which presumably represents the views of Mr. de Valera

urges Republicans to stand fust and adopt a policy of passive endurance. What they will have to endure if they do not indulge in a more active co-operation with the forces of disorder than they attempted on Wolfe Tone day is not clear. But that Mr. de Valera dare not disavow those impossible allies seems to be beyond a doubt.

It is certainly a very desperate measure which establishes military Courts to try political offenders, and may make them censors of the Press. In any British community a Constitutional Amendment Bill of that kind would probably be denounced as a Constitution Repeal Bill. But what British community has ever had to face such an ordeal as that which the Irish Free State has been facing?

Bayonets were flashing by tho Irish Free State Parliament House, we were told on Thursday, armed police wore squatting on the floor in the lobbies, and a police cordon was around the Dail when the Public Safety Bill was introduced by President Cosgrave. Members of the Dail arrived, each attended by a couple of detectives, with revolvers in their pockets. All visitors were examined for arms by the newly-recruited plain-clothes branch of the Civil Guards.

If Mr. Cosgrave and his colleagues were novices at the game we might well suppose that some element of panic had contributed lo such a startling display of force, but instead of being novices they are veterans with apparently the largest record of continuous service in the Empire. During that long period their courage has repeatedly been submitted lo such tests as no oilier Government in the Empire and few Governments outside of it have had to face, and they have never failed. They know their own countrymen better, and they know the present danger better, than any outside can know them. It would therefore be grossly unfair on the available evidence to condemn such a Government for applying a desperate remedy to a desperate disease.