AN OPERA BOUFFE REPUBLIC.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17532, 25 January 1919, Page 6

AN OPERA BOUFFE REPUBLIC.

It is probable that the Imperial Government has indulgently resolved to allow the Sinn Fein leaders a good deal of latitude at the present, time in the pursuance of their ,crazy designs. If it gratifies these people to proclaim what they call a republic in Ireland and to hold what they describe as a national assembly in Dublin, it does not seriously disturb the loyal British public, evert if it does not greatly amuse them. The whole of the Sinn Fein proceedings at the present time constitute a grotesque piece of make-believe. As Irishmen are not usually devoid of a sense of humour, those who are - the members of " the national assembly" must themselves be irresistibly .impressed with the \bsurdity of their, pretentious conclusions. There can never have been in .the United Kingdom anything quite so farcical, outside the walls of a mental hospital, as the assumption on .the part of the delegates to the "national assembly" of the power to establish an Irish Independent Ministry and to set up the machinery of. government. Yet they must go on with the ludicrous business in apparent- seriousness if they are not to .discredit themselves completely in the eyes of their deluded followers. Consequently they have solemnly elected delegates to the Peace Congress at which they have no standing and to which _ their representation will not be admitted. They have also . decided upon the composition of thefr Sinn Fein Ministry, which is to include a Minister of Finance, a Minister of Home Affairs, a Minister of Foreign Affairs, and a Minister of National Defence. It> will contribute vastly to the gaiety of the nations if this ponderous mockery is continued to the point at which the Sinn Fein Minister of Finance will fruitlessly undertake- the levying of Customs duties at Irish ports and the collection of income tax from settlers in Ulster; at which the Sinn Fein Minister of Home Affairs'will establish Sinn Fein courts that will lack the .authority to enforce. their decrees; and at which-the Sinn Fein Minister of Foreign Affairs will despatch his ambassadors to cool their heels in the corridors of the Foreign Office in London, Paris, and capitals of the world. When this point has been reached the Sinn Fein sympathisers will begin to realise the measure of the imposture that has been practised upon them by the leaders who have persuaded them that the creation of an Irish Republic is a practicable as well as a patriotic enterprise.