PROPAGANDA WAR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27082, 17 May 1949, Page 5

PROPAGANDA WAR

POSTERS APPEAR IN DUBLIN

OPPOSITION TO IRELAND BILLy NZPA—Copyright

Rec, 10 p.m. LONDON, May 16. Red-lettered posters on walls and hoardings in Dublin flaunt this provocative message to Southern Irishmen: “Arm now to take the north,’’ says the Daily Herald correspondent in Newry. The posters are concentrated mainly near the Amiens Street Railway Station, from which trains leave for Belfast and the north. Other posters urge the people to boycott British publications.

These posters are the first phase in the cold war of propaganda which was ordered by Irish anti-partition extremists to follow the introduction of the new Ireland Bill to the House of Commons.

The correspondent said he was present at the first coat-trailing rally at Newry, five miles inside the Northern Ireland border, where imported speakers vilified the British Government.

The committee stage of the Ireland Bill will be taken by the British House of Commons to-day. The parliamentary correspondent of The Times says various groups of Labour backbenchers will, during the debate, try to emasculate the sub-clause which confirms the constitutional position of Northern Ireland as a continuing part of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. One expected Labour amendment aims to leave out that part of the sub-clause which would make any change in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland dependent upon the consent of its Parliament. Another amendment sets out to make any change depend upon a decision of “ the people ” instead of “ the Parliament ” of Northern Ireland.

Scotland Yard will take additional precautions against any disorders which may occur during the two-day debate on the Bill.

In addition to routine measures by the police on duty at the Houses of Parliament and precautionary measures operating at the War and Admiralty Offices, a 24-hour watch will be kept on Downing Street, the Home Office and the Foreign and Colonial Offices.