SAVED FROM CHAOS

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12315, 9 December 1925, Page 7

SAVED FROM CHAOS

MR COSGRAVE APPEALS FOR THE IRISH SETTLEMENT “PROSPERITY AND PEACE” BOUNDARY AWARD MEANT “DISTRUST, HATE, AND DISORDER” Australian an d New Zealand Cable Association. ' (Received December 8, 5.5 p.m.) ’ LONDON, December After a Heated debate in the Dail Eireann, on the Irish agreement, the Government defeated a motion for the adjournment of the debate by 55 votes to 26, thus practically ensuring the ratification of the Irish agreement. Reuter’s Telegram. The debate was adjourned, after a heated discussion lasting two hours. Mr W. T. Cosgrave, President of the Executive Council, in moving the second reading, said: “When- Professor Mac Neill resigned, the Irish Executive was faced with perhaps the most serious situation with which it has had to deal. The award of the Boundary Commission was then imminent, and would have sown the seeds of distrust, hate, and disorder. We were faced with two alternatives, namely, carrying out the award, or resorting to arbitration or force- Either alternative pointed straight to disaster and chaos. “The agreement will mean a turning-point in Irish history. It has removed the main outstanding sources of dispute between Britain and the Free State. The Executive strongly recommends the deputies to accept it in the interests of prosperity and peace.” Professor W. Magennis strongly opposed the agreement, declaring that .Ulster had got all its own way, and was in a fair way to become a Dominion. It was culpable and wilful ignorance for the Executive to allow Professor Mac Neill to proceed until there was no way out. At a meeting-of the Nationalist members of Parliament and the leaders of Tyrone and Fermanagh, held at Omagh this evening, it was declared that the Nationalists in the border counties had been callously betrayed. They were neither morally nor legally bound by the new agreement, as the Free State representatives had not been authorised to alter the Treaty.