IRELAND TO-DAY.

Waipa Post, Volume XX, Issue 1244, 18 May 1922, Page 6

IRELAND TO-DAY.

GOOD PLACE TO BE OUT OF. ■LAWLESSNESS EVERYWHERE. WELLINGTON, Wednesday. " If I thought there was any chance of there being a settlement of the trouble at Home, I would not have left," said a Belfast draper, who arrived by the R.M.S. lonic. " For many months I have had to have my shop barred up during the night. Every time you go out, you must be continually turning round, as you are never sure but what someone will shoot you from behind. There is not enough police protection. Goods are constantly stolen in transit. The shops are empty. In fact, there has been no steady trade for six months past, since the situation became acute. I have been just out of the way of flying bullets three times lately, and the walls of my shop are pitted with shotholes. I am prepared to take any kind of work, and intend, as soon as I can get a.living, to send for my wife and a son who was in the Flying Corps, in the Army. " Dublin is no place for me, because I went to the war," said another exhibiting a Mons medal on his watchchain. " When I left Home, de Valera was the chief disturbing element. There is a three-cornered fight between him and Craig, representing the North, and Collins, representing the Irish Free State. There 'is no trade or business whatever in Dublin. One does not know what buildings will be commandeered next. 'All the leading business folk have left the city. Ireland is losing some of the best of her people by emigration." A more hopeful picture was painted by a man from Tipperary, who said that South-Wesitem Ireland was becoming quieter. That the Free State' party would triumph at the forthcoming elections, in June, was, this man's firm belief.