AFFAIRS IN IRELAND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18899, 27 June 1923, Page 8

AFFAIRS IN IRELAND.

DE VALERA’S STRANGE OFFERS. REPUBLICANS TRY TO SAVE THE lit FACES. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, May 18. Negotiations with Mr de Valera have reached an end. He has again clouded the issue with a mist of phraseology. He has now agreed to admit (says the correspondent of the Observer) that the majority of Ireland, as in other democracies, have a right to decide action, and by inference he admits .that those who under his leadership (actual not nominal) sought to drive the majority into surrender by acts of what was called war did what was unjustifiable. Secondly, ho proposes that, to conciliate those who did this unjustifiable thing, and squandered muclr Irish life and untold Irish money by doing it, the Free State Government should dispense these patriots from tho necessity of taking an oath before they sit in Parliament. This oath being an essential part of the Treaty with Great Britain, the Free State can only oblige Mr de Valera by persuading the British Government and Parliament to alter the treaty. In other words, the Government which represents the majority in Ireland must humiliate itself by abject supplication to the British in order that Mr de Valera and the others, after 10 months’ attempt to disable Ireland, may come proudly and on privileged terms into an Irish Parliament. A POINT OP HONOUR It has not been sufficiently remarked that these “Republicans” are throughout propos. ing to save their own faces at expense of the national honour. The treaty was a covenant accepted in due form by tho chosen persons in Ireland, by an assembly in which Mr de Valera has immense influence, and which wan largely of his selection. It was a covenant on 'which England acted fully and frankly, in such fashion that Ireland was left in a position to claim victory. England put up with that. The tradition established by Parnell taught Irish representatives to-be scrupulous in holding to any bargain, whether they liked it or not. Mr do Valera wants Ireland now to behavo like some cheating peasant who, having got the goods, tries to withhold a part of tho price agreed upon. He thinks Mr Cosgrave a very hard man for his “rigid insistence.” ‘My offer,” he says, “generously embraced every principle of national value that I could conceive oar opponents to bo honestly fighting for.” Keeping your covenants is a principle of national value, though Mr de Valera may not be able to conceive of it.

Thirdly, it is admitted in the document sent in through Senators Jameson and j-ioug-laa that “tho people are entitled to have all lethal weapons within the country in the effective custody or control of the Executive Government responsible to the people through their representatives.” In order to give “practical effect” to this. Mr de Valera’s pro posal is that “barracks and arsenals” shall be provided in each province "where Republican arms shall be stored, sealed up and defended by a specially pledged Republican guard,” until after the general election, and the constitution of a new Government ; This precious offer denies by implication tho title of Mr Cosgrave’s Ministry to have an “Executive Government responsible to the people,” or else it claims that Mr do Valera’s partisans shall bo for Chis purpose the ‘•representatives” o! the Government against which they have been in rebellion.