GUNMEN IN IRELAND

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3813, 25 September 1936, Page 8

GUNMEN IN IRELAND

TRIAL BY JURY A FARCE. It is high time (says a writer in the Irish Times) that the Government should prove to its unconstitutional opponents that it is in earnest. There has been far too much temporising, and far too much consideration for the man with the gun. We know that the Public Safety Act is not an ideal measure. In normal circumstances we should be opposed vigorously to its principle; but the circumstances in this country are anything but normal. The veneer of respect for the law in the “Saorstat” is perilously thin. Throughout the country young men have been encouraged to impose their will on the populace by means of the gun. Trial by jury has been reduced to a farce. Witnesses are terrified to give evidence in any case that savours of “politics”; an<j a refusal to recognise the court, with a shout of “Up, the Republic!” from the dock, is beginning once more to be a passport to a “national” reputation. Doubtless, this kind of thing is largely humbug; but there is a sinister element in it that cannot be ignored. If the Government yields to the pressure of armed threats, if it fails in its duty to administer the law without fear or favour, then it inevitably will abdicate its position.