IRELAND

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 16, 16 December 1932, Page 13

IRELAND

In a recent editorial, the Irish Times, Dublin, writes as follows: There is no longer any ground, ior hope of an agreement between President de Valera and the British Government. If any doubt remained on this point, it has been dispelled by the issue of the AVhito Paper on the recent negotiations in London. Mr de Valera had his opportunity to make a fruitful and honourable peace; he let it slip, and the Free State must reconcile herself to the drastic consequences of his failure. He went to London, presumably, to effect an arrangement that would end. an economic struggle which is bringing discomfort on the English people and ruin on the citizens of the Free State. There he not merely reiterated demands which the British Government had rejected in positive terms on several former occasions, but complicated the issue with a cloud of fantasy. One subject really mattered —the payment or withholding of the land annuities. Mr de Valera so conducted. his case that this subject seems to be negligible in comparison with some of the Gargantuan issues involved. He must have realised from the beginning that such a method of' approach to the Loudon negotations was bound to fail, however impressive it mi'iht have been in a Savoy opera. It is clear now that there can be no agreement until the Free State Government is willing to negotiate or to accept an imperial arbitration on the subject of the land annuities, undistorted by incidental issues. It is equally clear that this stage cannot be reached while the present Govern-

ment remains in. office. During the past two months the Free State has begun to realise what a tariff war really means. She will be very tired of Mr de Valera, his ambitions and his extravagances, before her education is complete—and. its completion will not require a long time. Mr do Valera has taken many steps to allay criticism of his general policy. He has raised the level of some pensions, and is creating others; he has earned the gratitude of all the little industries whose work he is willing to protect at the cost of the general public; he is making the Free State a paradise for “profiteers.” How long the beneficiaries, of all kinds, will remain grateful to him is very questionable ; but there are abundant signs that they have begun to realise that what is given bv one hand easiiy can be taken away by the other. For all Mr de Valera’s beneficence, the streets of Dublin and of various provincial towns have seen wretched oolumns of hungermarchers —a phenomenon which hardly coukl have been contemplated six months ago. The discontent of the workless is a formidable thing, and as yet it has only begun to ma.nifest itself. Hungry people are appealing to him to redeem his promises of employment for everybody, while daily he disemploys additional hundreds. If the farmers were prosperous, there coukl be no real distress in the Free State. The fact that they must endure the direst rigours of tile economic war is the clearest commentary on Mr de Valera’s misguided polities. They have watched their livelihood shrink to a pitiful level as the British duties gradually crush the Irish cattle trade out of existence. At any mo-

ment Britain, if she pleases, may apply the final twist to the screw. The sjjecial duties on Irish cattle may be raised from 20 per cent, to any figure; and where will Mr de Valera’s export bounty be then? Apart from cattle, numerous classes of Irish exports will l>e affected by the new duty of 10 per cent., which will be imposed from the 15th November on goods from those countries which did not, or could, not, seize the advantages of Ottawa. Butter, eggs, cream, poultry and game will pay 50 per cent, of their value as they enter England. Biscuits, appa.r- J ently. must pay 10 per cent. ; and Britain has the right at any time to raise any tariff imposed under the Import Duties Act to a level of 100 per cent. Even if she refuses to exercise that right, the prospect for Irish producers is almost hopeless. Mr de Valera has filched their only market from them, and lie has given them none to take its place; yet lie asks the country to “stand behind” his fatal policies. Ireland never has been brought so close to ruin by the obstinacy of any other citizen.