IRISH POLITICS

Evening Star, Issue 19637, 17 August 1927, Page 5

IRISH POLITICS

FREE STATE GOVERNMENT DISCUSSING THE CHANCES. Press Association—By Telegraph-Copyright. LONDON, August 10. It is still doubtful whether Mr emsgravo’s Ministry will sull'er defeat or emerge successfully from the debate at the opening of Dail to-day on Mr Johnson’s motion of want of confidence. Everything depends on the accident of a few votes. Captain Redmond’s policy remains unrevealed. There are those who think that the National Party will abstain from voting, in which event Air Casgravc, though triumphant in the face of Air lie Valera's attack, would nevertheless hold office by a slender thread. There remains the possibility that the Laborites and their allies will secure the Government's defeat, and in that case Air Johnson’s administration will be similarly numerically weak, and at the mercy of the particolored groups now composing Air Cosgravo’s Ministry. Even were Air Johnson an experienced .statesman, which no one claims him to bo, it would be impossible for him to carry on long, much less to tackle the thorny question of the oath in the face of Lord Birkenhead’s uncompromising pronouncement as draughtsman that it must stand. Mr Johnson himself appreciates this point, and has issued a statement that Ireland needs a non-contentions Government, upon which the ‘ Morning Post ’ comments • “If a non-contentions Government can bo imagined in Ireland in any circumstances, the Irish character must have been radically changed since the treaty. But the new Government cannot he non-contentions if it wants to be, for Air Do Valera has now swallowed the oath, even with the dispensation that it is merely in order to put Air Johnson in office.” AIR JOHNSON’S STATEMENT. LONDON, August In. The Dublin correspondent of ‘ 'flic Times’ says that Mr Johnson, in a statement, said: “Labor is not in the market, either as a buyer or ns a seller. It is unwise radically to alter a law, unless it is incapable of translating the people’s will, and party interest must give way to the country’s need that Parliament should bo fully representative. Tho treaty must be honored, but the people must not be denied tho opportunity of expressing their will. We oppose public safety bills, which are bad for a country’s peace and welfare. The powers of safety bills ought not to bo placed in the hands of a Minister, as the temptation to use them might he irresistible. These Bills should bo repealed.”