The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 1922. A BRIGHTER OUTLOOK.

Southland Times, Issue 19480, 1 April 1922, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 1922. A BRIGHTER OUTLOOK.

In spite of the cleavage on the south, the position in Ireland is brighter than it has been since the day the signing of the treaty , was announced. The Free State is faced with a difficult problem, but one which it can overcome directly it gets firmly to work under a constitution, aud the mutinous army is not likely to tear down the structure that has already been raised. Buttressed by the full weight of Imperial authority, the Free State cannot fail, and it has a better chance of succeeding than was vouschafed to Dublin Castle, because it is not dealing with a countryside united in one cause. De Valera has split Southern Ireland into- two factions, and in taking that step he has accepted the responsibility of dropping Irishmen into the bitterness of fratricidal w’arfare. The attack on Freeman’s Journal shows that the extreme Republicans do not mean to mince matters in the fight with the Free State group, but as long as the Provisional Government can keep the rebel army away from Dublin the future is assured, and friends of Ireland can console themselves with the knowledge that the Republican offensive is driving the Free State supporters and the Northerners into each others arms. Without intending to effect a junction between North and South, Mr De Valera has contributed largely to the agreement that has been effected in London. It will be seen that the agreemnt does not go very far along the political highway. The amelioration of industrial suffering and the denuding of street brawls and assassinations of the dignity of patriotic effort form the chief items of the arrangement come to, but these two things are enough to suggest that the North and the South are drawing closer together as the danger of terrorism becomes more apparent. The Irish Republican Army is a menace to the future of Ireland, because its break away from the authority to which its discipline entitles it to answer means that the worst features of mob fighting may burst

upon the countryside, inflicting suffering beside which the worst features of the preTreaty combat would be child’s play. In Belfast the extremists have carried their hatred to such an extent that no civilised community can contemplate a continuance of the recent outrages with anything but horror, with anything but a feeling of disgust that men calling themselves Irish could encompass the death of innocent women and children in the name of patriotism. The shocking affairs in Belfast have done much to bring the moderate leaders of the North and South to a realisation that Ireland’s hope lies in a sympathetic understanding between the two sections, a mitigation of religious feelings, and a definite gesture in the direction of ultimate unity. All along this has been the fond wish of those who supported the two government system. No one suggested that the system was perfect, that it could bo justified by any other argument than expediency, but events have shown that the settlement of Ireland’s ancient problem was based on the creation of two governments which sooner or later would be compelled by circumstances to work together in harmony. One of these “circumstances” is the extremists who are standing in the shadow of Mr De Valera, ready to plunge their country into civil war for the sake of something that will give them less than they have at the present moment. No matter what amount of argument Mr De Valera uses, the world cannot forget that the discussion in Dail Eireann disclosed that his bitter opposition to the treaty was based on an arrangement of words, that his offer to the Treaty supporters, disclosed in the famous Document Two, was an abandonment of the claim for a republic. Where the ground between the two parties was so narrow, where the leader of the republicans has shown that he was prepared to accept the Free State status, there can be no justification for the blood-curdling speeches to which he has given utterance since the cleavage. Although it is not set out in actual words, there is enough in the agreement to suggest that the Republicans are facing the possibility of a combination of North and South This is actually proposed for the suppression of violence in Belfast and its neighbourhood, but after all it is only a step from that to r.n understanding to march against those forces which would bring to nothing all that Ireland has gained in the last twelve months. That is what Mr De Valera is facing now. If the step is taken, it will mean a short and a sharp termination to the movement that is a rebellion against the Free State and against the Empire.