THE IRISH PROBLEM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19249, 13 August 1924, Page 6

THE IRISH PROBLEM.

Mr Cosgrave's statement in Dail Eireann concerning his negotiations with Mr Thomas, Secretary of State for the Colonies, in relation to the Boundary Commission Ik expected to give the signal for a fateful debate. The British Government proposes to reassemble the imperial Parliament at the end of September—reducing the recess by a month—for the consideration of the Bill whicn has already been introduced with the object of rendering the constitution of the Boundary Commission possible. It is anticipated that there will be vehement party opposition in the Dail to this arrangement. If so, the stability of the Cosgrave Adminthe President has made the growing difficulty of its position a ground for pressing for prompt action on the part of the Imperial Government —is likely to be severely tested. If the Cosgrave Government be entitled to sympathy, its representations are nevertheless a somewhat plaintive confession of weakness. It is idle to suggest that there is any question at issue between the Free State and Great Britain that offers any real excuse for a disposition or a threat on the part of the people of the Free State to repudiate the Irish Treaty. A postponement for a few weeks of Mr Itamsay MacDonald's attempt to carry through a measure to legalise the Boundary Commission should not be of very great moment, and the bona tides

of the Imperial Government in thia matter is not in doubt. Republican propaganda has been very active, however, in the Free State in the creation of opinion to the contrary, and the authors of it have found in the Boundary Commission impa-ssc an opportunity entirely to their liking to promulgate their Inischiovous gospel. Upon the point whether the Free State Government has been disposed to exaggerate its difficulties, and whether the situation is really getting beyond its control, the discussions in the Bail are likely to be illuminative. The plea of pressure advanced by the Cosgrave Administration does not, of course, affect its identification with the hope of the Free State to annex a large portion of Ulster through the operation of the machinery of the Boundary Commission. Its deep concern for the fulfilment of the provisions of tho Treaty in respect to the boundary question is inspired by its territorial expectations. But it does not appear that the Free State Government has itself been, after all, very punctilious in the discharge of certain of its obligations under the Treaty. A writer in the National Review does not hesitate to assert that the greater part of the Treaty has been ostentatiously disregarded by the Free State rulers. Casas in point to which he makes specific reference are the articles which provide that the Free State military establishments should “not exceed in size such proportion of the military establishments maintained in Great Britain as that which the population of Ireland bears to the population of Great Britain,” and that tho Freo State should assume a certain liability for the service of the public debt of the United Kingdom. A reason for the acuteness of the boundary issue is not discoverable in injustice done the Free State. But, however excellent its intentions in tackling the boundary problem, the British Government would seem to have played into the hands of the forces in Southern Ireland which are bent upon causing trouble. “The real reason why this boundary question is being pressed,” the writer in the National Review says, “is that, through it, the Irish Republicans and enemies of Great Britain hope to destroy Ulster by making it too small for self-government, and too weak to stand against the attack which sooner or later they intend to direct upon it." The existence of a measure of justification for such a statement need not be doubted. , If the Cosgrave Government were capable of more self-assertion than it seems able to exhibit in the role of champion of the integrity of the Free State, the situation would appear less fraught with highly disturbing possibilities. As matters stand, it is impossible to see that the attempt which Mr Ramsay MacDonald considers his Government bound to make to establish the Boundary Commission contains promise of doing more than heap one problem upon another. Mr Austen Chamberlain’s comment upon the need of “great wis dora,” if a national disaster is to be avoided, seems to be amply justified in all the circumstances.