FREE STATE LEGISLATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19720, 20 August 1927, Page 11

FREE STATE LEGISLATION.

PUBLIC SAFETY MEASURE. IMMEDIATE ENFORCEMENT. ELECTORAL ACT HELD UP. PETITION FROM OPPOSITION. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received August 19, 5.5 p.m.) Times. LONDON, Aug. IS. The Dublin correspondent of the Times says the Executive Council of the Iris!) Free State intends immediately to enforce the Public Safety Act. Many Government supporters have advised it not to take this course because (hero is 110 longer a Parliamentary majority in favour of the Act, However, the President, Mr. Cosgrave, and his colleagues, consider that if the Act was sound last week it is sound to-day. Therefore they say they must endorso its provisions. If this vibw should prevail, says the correspondent, the Republican army and the Fianna Fail Boy Scouts may be proclaimed illegal organisations in the near future. Military courts cannot be established until the Dail sits again. The Governor-General of tho Free State, Mr. Timothy Healy, has withheld his signature from tho Electoral Amendment Act which compels candidates to declare, before their nomination, that they will take the oath of allegiance if they are elected to either House. ' Mr. Healy's action is due to the fact that tho members of tho De Valcra, Labour and National League Parties, who constitute two-fifths of the membership of the Dail, have submitted a petition asking for a suspension of the Act. For this reason the measure cannot become law until the fulfilment of the constitutional provision for its suspension for 90 days pending an arrangement for a referendum. The effect of this delay may be that candidates will not have to make the declaration before nomination at the next general election.