IRISH TROUBLES.

Evening Star, Issue 18044, 11 August 1922, Page 4

IRISH TROUBLES.

There must be optimists still in Ireland, despite all that has passed, when reports can' ho circulated that a settlement is imminent between the Free State and Ulster. The British authorities and the Publicity Department of the Free State Government both declare that they have no knowledge of any negotiations with that intent, and Mr Michael Collins must bo something of a wonder if he has had any time for such discussions in the last six weeks. 'He seems to have had very fair success in keeping his rebels on the run during that period. His own base may now be accounted secure, since the impudent attempt made to isolate Dublin by forces brought together by sea from Cork and Liverpool was foiled with the loss of 180 prisoners; but the Free State authorities could not. regard the position with equanimity while Cork, the second city of the South, remained in the Republicans’hands, and there are western fastnesses where they might conceivably hold out, though not probably in the strongest force, for weeks to come. The natural effect in any country of conditions of civil war is to make mere questions of external relations, when no issue of intervention on either side can bo involved, slide very much into the background, and the absence of an experienced Civil Service to assist his Government must ho not the least of Mr Collins’s disabilities.

The time, however, would be inopportune for negotiations with the North if ||io .Southern rulers wore at liberty to make them. The North pretty certainly will require not only to see Mr Collins conquer his rebels, who arc the Ulstermen's worst.enemies as well as his, but to see how he intends to deal with them after they are conquered, before it can discuss suggestions for a closer union. They have been such good friends only recently, the armies that are now shooting each other, that the question of what to do with prisoners may be one of the hardest problems. Mr Collins must have hundreds of them by this time, if the number does not run into thousands. One dilemma seems to have been spared him; we have not heard of any of them hunger-striking. Armed rebellion is a crime, however, which carries heavy penalties—and for the best of reasons—in all normally constituted Suites. In Ireland it has been a virtue up till now. Will the Free State Government have the hettrt to punish even the ringleaders of Its rebels? There will be more trouble certainly if they are released, Could Mr De Valera be even banished—transported! might be too ugly a' word—if he were captured? For the good of his adopted country it were much to bo desired, but it will not be strange if the Free State Government chooses to escape that difficulty by talcing the best of till possible care that he shall never be apprehended. Ulster probably has been forming a new respect for the Southern Government from the energy with which it has dealt recently with its revolutionaries. If reports which come from Dublin are not too sanguine their powers for posing as an array may in a few days be at an end. But while a new confidence can bo felt by loyal Northerners in the bona tides of the Sbut&ern Government, which has the support of the great majority of its people behind it, the best prospect for closer relations between the two States can only bo afforded when the war in the South is not merely ended, but ended in a way that will give security that the Republican extremists will not be free to renew their pernicious activities as soon as, they have acknowledged one defeat. The most significant fact about the history of Ireland since tl« civil war in the .South began with the attack on the Four Courts on June 28. is that scarcely one outrage has .hcea reported ii\ that

period from the Six Counties, though immediately before it, in addition to raids and fighting on tho western frontier, the campaign of murders and reprisals, in Belfast more particularly,' was in full blast. For the last six weeks, while tho South has been rent with internal warfare, tho experience of Ulster,''including Belfast, if wo can judge from the cables 1 , has been that of the happy chunky which has no history. Tho peace and order which have reigned there give tho strongest suggestion of the extent to which previous troubles were provoked by the Southern extremists, who have had no time for such machinations since they have been “on the ran.” If Mr Collins can control those disturbers, differences that exist at present between the two parts of Ireland should not be very difficult to overcome. Sir James Craig has given his assurance that he “ will not obstruct any efforts which may bo made from any "quarter to produce good feeling.’ The Southern Government will have no real incentive to claim great concessions from a boundaries readjustment, which might bo a cause of trouble. If its moderation is displayed in that regard, and its power shown to make a prosperous' and peaceful country of the new Free State, the day should not be very distant when there will be no need of political boundaries between Northern and Southern Ireland.