The Evening Star SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1922. THE IRISH AMNESTY.

Evening Star, Issue 18093, 7 October 1922, Page 4

The Evening Star SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1922. THE IRISH AMNESTY.

Generosity could hardly go further than it does in tho proclamation of tho Free State Government offering a complete pardon to all rebels who shall surrender their arms within tho coming week. Since tho amnesty is described as unconditional, presumably they will not oven bo required, in return for such signal clemency, to give a pledge that they will not renew their violent opposition to the Government when they can obtain arms again. The pledge would) bo quite valueless in any case if it were interpreted by tho rule which Mr O’Higgins, the Free State Minister of Home Affairs, has laid down as governing such commitments, The rebels would only have to say that at was given by them “under duress,” and' they would be morally as well as otherwise freo to break it. Apparently Mr De Valera, General Rory O’Connor, Mr Erskino Childers, and all the other leaders of a campaign which, for weeks past, has been no more than ono of organised brigandage and sabotage are included in this' amnesty. In that case it can bo compared ,to nothing elso than tho pardon extended by Majorgeneral Stanley to tho pirates in the opera:

Peers will bo peers, and youth will have its fling. Resume your ranks and legislative duties. And take my daughters, all of whom aro beauties. Tho Free State Government, being prepared to show so much corskleration to rebels who are still troubling it, can scarcely be less kind to rt-s prisoners, whose numbers by this time must run into many hundreds, if not thousands. There will bo plenty of wild men free to make new troubles in Ireland, should they desire, when all these have been released; but the clemency of the Government, so far as it applies to ordinary offenders, may be tho best policy. Its wisdom must bo judged by its results. There are some fanatics, it is natural to believe, whose influence will be used for nothing else but to make disturbances in Ireland so Jong as they are permitted to remain in it. A letter written by three Irregular officers, who a few weeks ago were prisoners in Athlone, shows that there are others who possess sufficient sense to bo thoroughly repentant by this time of their folly. The letter declares that the policy of the Irregulars has proved wrong “militarily, politically, and socially”; and that “we soldiers of the Executive Headquarters have become blind and more blind on the way leading not to a thriving republic, but to utter and barren destruction.” After referring to tho military hopelessness of the campaign, the letter goes on to state: From tho political point of view our attitude was utterly senseless. Wo thought we were trudging along the hard, straight road to a republic, whereas in reality we wore wandering aimlessly through a maze of folly, with our blind Headquarters dangling a revolver before us, as one dangles a carrot before a wintered ass. They wore not politicals, they said; they were soldiers. Soldiers! —“ Sugan ” Napoleons who committed us to an unnecessary civil war without arms, without money, without an atom of true intelligence about the army wo were to fight, without tho slightest sympathy or approval of the civil “ flock of sheep.” Men who did this were not soldiers. Their military policy showed them possessed of tho mentality of a dbuble-holstored Wild West cowboy. They thought, spoke, and acted in terms of explosives, bullets, and bombs.

That is a severe judgment, but it is not too severe for the -policy of Mr De Valera and his colleagues. The response to the amnesty proclamation, wo can expect, will either bo something like a general one or very small. Many who would be glad to tako advantage of it will bo likely to be restrained by fears of the irreconcilables, who have their own way of dealing with seceders-. The blunderbuss behind a hedge is Very much of a power in Ireland.