DAIL EIREANN

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 208, 17 August 1927, Page 6

DAIL EIREANN

WILL COSGRAVE SURVIVE? LABOUR NOT IN THE MARKET. AS BUYER OR SELLER. London, August 15. “The Times’ ” Dublin correspondent says Mr Johnson, in a statement, said: “Labour is not in the market, either as a buyer or as a seller. It is unwise radically to alter a law unless it i s incapable of translating the people’s will. Partv interest must give way to the country’s need that Parliament should be fully representative. The treaty must be honoured unless the people desire otherwise, but the people must not b 4 denied an- opportunitv of expressing their will. We oppose the Public Safety Bills, which are bad for the country’s peace and welfare The Safety Bill’s powers ought not to be placed in the hands of a nossible Labour or Republican Minister. The temptation to use them might be irresistible. These bills should be repealed.” It is still doubtful whether President Cosgrave’s Ministry will suffer defeat or emerge successfully from the debate at the opening of Dail to-dav on Mr Johnson's motion of want of confidence. There are those who think the National party will abstain from voting, in which event Mr Cosgrave, though triumphant in the face of Mr de Valera’s attack, would, nevertheless, hold office bv a slender thread. There remains the possibility that the Labourites and their allies will secure the Government’s defeat. In that case Mr Johnson’s administration will be similarly numerically weak and at the mercy of partycoloured groups now composing Mr Cosgrave’s Ministry. Even were Mr Johnson an experienced statesman, which none claims him. it would be impossible to carry on for long, much less 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-con-tentious Government, whereon the “Morning Post” comments: “If a non-contentious Government can be imagined in Ireland in any circumstances. the Irish character must have been radically changed since rhe treaty. But the new Government cannot be non-contentious if it would, for Mr de Valera has now swallowed the oath even with a dispensation that it was merely to put Mr Johnson in office ” —(A. and N.Z. and “Times” cable.)