ENGLAND AND IRELAND.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1933, Page 4

ENGLAND AND IRELAND.

Judging from the latest statement of Mr. de Valera to the Parliament of the Irish Free State nothing has come of the suggested mediation by General Smuts between Great Britain and the youngest self-governing Dominion. Englishmen, to one of Mr. de Valera’s curious mentality, are still invaders and intruders in Southern Ireland, and he will make no overtures for a better understanding so long as Northern and Southern Ireland are not politically united. The Free

State Premier will not negotiate with Great Britain any more. He has withheld land annuity payments that Britain considers legally due, and has applied the funds to local purposes. In order to keep faith with English investors in the Irish land annuities the United Kingdom placed duties upon imports from Southern Ireland, and this action Mr. de Valera now characterises as rank aggression. From a purely selfish point of view New Zealand might desire the misunderstanding between England and the Irish Free State to continue indefinitely, for the two Dominions are competitors in the dairy and meat markets of Great Britain, and the longer heavy duties are imposed upon supplies from Ireland the less will the competition be felt by New Zealand. But from the point of view of Empire co-operation the position is very regrettable. Great Britain has offered arbitration, provided it is confined to umpires who are citizens of the Empire, but this was declined by Mr. de Valera, who claimed the right to choose a foreigner as umpire if he so desired. In anywhere but Ireland Mr. de Valera s latest pronouncement would seem to have shut the door with a clang upon any further negotiations. Irish history, however, has shown on more than one occasion that when assertion was loudest a change of opinion might be near at hand. For the sake of the Empire it is to be hoped that in this regard history may repeat herself once more.