REPRESSION IN IRELAND.

Evening Star, Issue 18136, 28 November 1922, Page 4

REPRESSION IN IRELAND.

It is a caustic comment which Mr Stephen Gwynn, an Irishman, makes on the attitude of a proportion of his countrymen, not confined to the Republican irresponsibles, whose deepest feelings have been outraged by the execution of Mr Erskino Childers. “So far as opinion in Ireland expresses itself,” bo has said, “it objects to the execution of Irishmen, but it does not raise any objection against Irishman killing one another in any other way.” Ho might have found another cause for wonder in the fact that Irish critics of the (Free State Government in Ireland and 'America are making more fuss over one ■Englishman 'lain in Ireland than they have done over all tho Irishmen killed there, with one or two exceptions, since tho ending of the conflict with England brought its so far delusive promise of peace. That, on the face of it, presents a paradox surpassing 'Sir James Barrie’s conception of the English philanthropist whose lifelong ambition it had been to “do something for the dear Irish.” But there is no end to the paradoxes of the Irish situation, as unfortunately there has been no limit thus far to its tragedy. The climax of inconsistency was surely shown’ by the Republicans in thebf-efforts to save this particular loader from the fate ho had courted. In accordance with their persistent endeavor to make the civil feud once more _a racial one, they attempted first to represent his trial as a surrender of the Free State Government to British dictation and vindictiveness. Tien the fact that the prime object of their struggle, as they themselves have represented it, has been to prevent the exercise by an alien country of any shadow of authority over tho lives of Irishmen did not deter them from appealing to British law to rescue this arch-rebel from the court martial, and so override the proceedings of an Irish Administration. It is not surprising that Air Childers himself refused to give any sanction to that appeal. Englishmen as well as Irishmen can regret that his death should have been required to give peace to Ireland, if anything oa-n give peace to her in present conditions. It was a sorry end to what promised once to bo a particularly bright •career. Childers was the son of a former (British Minister, and he did good service for his own country by the fascinating book, written before the World War, which exposed the plan of Germany for landing a fleet of flat-bottoms on the British coast. The effect of books, purporting to be works of fiction, on national policy is apt to be exaggerated; but it is said that Childers’s ‘ Riddle of the Sands ’ and investigations, fraught with 'uncommon danger, that preceded it had 1 no small part in prompting the Admiralty’s decision for that concentration of the Navy’s chief strength in northern waters which made a Hirst precaution, one whose importance could scarcely be over-estimated, against a coming peril. The courage of Childers never was in doubt, and his mind was as resourceful as it was adventurous. It was a perverse whimsy of the brain that made such a man espouse the Republican cause, and set himself to spread destruction and carnage in Ireland after an overwhelming majority of its people had declared their rejection of .the fanatics’ impossible programme. The Irish Government -has shown its courage in asserting the law without fear or favor against ‘Childers. It is unfortunate that it was martial hw which had to be asserted ; but it was law approved by the Bail, and it was the actions of the extremists themselves, including Childers, which caused military courts, when civil ones were rendered a farce by terrorism, to become a necessity. The execution of one man may save many lives if it makes Mr Do Valera. and his wild associates reflect what may happen to them in the event of their mad courses being continued. There will •be no peace in Ireland till thousands who have been demoralised by the long progress of violence and disorder are led 'to understand 'that murder; and destruction aud aimed resistance to tho rule of the majority make tho same crimes there, carrying the same penalties, as in other lands. It will be well if this act of firmness by a Government which must have sacrificed all its own feelings in performing it proves tho beginning of a happier day for Ireland.