IRELAND

Southland Times, Issue 19509, 8 May 1922, Page 5

IRELAND

MILITARY LEADERS CONFER EXTENSION OE THE TRUCE CONTINUED OUTRAGES IN ULSTER. (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, May 6. (Received May 7, 5.5 p.m.) Commandant Rory O’Connor and Messrs Mulcahy and Collins attended a conference of the higher officers of the republican army to-day. Hopes are high that progress towards unity is being made. Dail Eireann’s peace committee adjourned till Monday after making a statement that the commanders on both sides had been instructed to arrange for the prolongation of the truce. Notwithstanding the heavy sentences, including the cat, imposed on armed robbers at Belfast, the raiding of offices continues. The military are stopping all traffic in and out of Belfast and searching everyone. Several armed men drove up in the early morning to an hotel at Dungat, Tyrone, and shot dead the proprietor, John McCracken, a former district councillor. Armed men removed John Carolan, a schoolmaster, and Denis Kilmartin, his nephew, from their beds in Dungarven, Derry, shot them on the roadway, and threw them into a flax hole, from which Kilmartin crawled dying from five wounds. Neighbours later recovered Carolan’s body. An armed party held up John Mcßride, a former I.R.A. officer, on the roadside at Donemana, Tyrone, and shot him and left him dying. CLASH BETWEEN MUTINEERS AND REGULARS LONDON, May 5. Mutineers and Free State troops clashed at Newton Cunningham two hours after ths truce was signed. The Free Staters were aware of the truce and halted their motor lorries in the village. Suddenly a murderous fire came from behind the walls of houses commandeered by irregulars. Three Free Staters were shot dead and others wounded. The Free Staters returned the fire. BANK RAIDS IN CAVAN. LARGE SUMS SECURED. LONDON, May 6. (Received May 7, 11.5 p.m.) Armed men in motors raided banks at Baillieborough, Kilnaleck, and Ballyjamesduff, all in County Cavan, and escaped with a large sum in each case. A similar bank raid was carried out at Pontypass, County Armagh. IRELAND’S FRIENDS ABROAD APPEAL BY MR COLLINS WASHINGTON, May 5. Mr Michael Collins has sent a message through the Irish diplomatic mission, appealing to Irish friends abroad to take no part in assisting or encouraging the element in Ireland whose object is to destroy the rights of free speech, fr«.e assembly, a free press, and free election. IRELAND’S CHOICE. “No one pretends that thia solution is an ideal solution, or that it has been brought about in a way which, if we had had an absolutely unchallenged direction of affairs, we should have chosen,” eaid Mr Winston Churchill, in closing the third reading debate on the Irish Free State Bill. “You must not look at this settlement as if it were your ideal; you must look at it in relation to the possible alternative. It was because we found we were being drawn into action increasingly, and had to face action on a greater scale of a kind which Britain cannot effectually carry through, not because of her weakness, but because of her strength, that we were brought in a grave atmosphere of national feeling to an attempt to make a settlement by peaceful means under the most unfavourable circumstances.” Referring to a suggestion that the Irish people might reject the treaty, Mr Churchill continued: “I do not wish to dwell too much on the ugly hypothesis which might arise in these circumstances, but I do ask members to measure up in their minds the enormous power, wealth, and strength of Britain and the British Empire as compared with the resources of Ireland. It is also necessary to bear in mind the economic relationship. Ireland exported last year £205,000,000 of produce, and of this Britain bought £203,000,000. Ireland bought from abroad for her own needs £203,000,000, and of that £161,000,000 from Britain. Broadly speaking, we are the sole market of Ireland, end we are also the sole source from which she obtains the coal to manufacture her vital needs. If you strip Ireland of her grievance, if, by acting in strict, inflexible good faith, you place Ireland in a position, where if she breaks the treaty, she is in the'wrong and you are m the right and she is absolutely isolated in the whole world, then the strength of your economic position emerges in its integrity. Ireland will be revealed to have been strong only in her grievance, and England is weak only in her assertion of power in the interior of Irish affairs.”