PEACE IMPOSSIBLE

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIII, 5 February 1923, Page 5

PEACE IMPOSSIBLE

DE VALERA’S COMMENT ON THE TREATY. (Per Press Association—-Copyright). London, February 4. “Peace based on the so-called treaty is impossible. The Republicans will never consent to surrender their national independence and sovereignty to threats. They will fight to the last against the recognition of foreign authority, direct or Indirect.” * ’ * This is the considered opinion of De Valera, obtained by a Daily Mail correspondent. Mr De Valera declared that the Irish Goverhment “Must be determined by- the people and not dictated from outside. We are in arms for resisting exactly what the nation resisted from 1919 to 1921. The only, difference is that England was then maintaining the claims directly and npw she is maintaining the mthrqugh Irishmen. This is a of the former fight against foreign aggression.” Six death sentences of Republicans have been confirmed, and the executions are expected to take place during the week-end. By means of arson, bombs, and mines, Republicans continue to fight the Free State Government. Ten armed men laden with petrol, smashed the door*of the historic mansion Artane, near Dublin, They said they were going to burn it, as a reprisal for the execution of republicans. The building was soon in ruins.

The*House of the Senator, Maurice Moore, brother of George Moore, the novelist, has been similarly destroyed, including the rare furniture in the house where the independence of Connaught wai signed in 1798. Senator Linatam’s house, at Whitechurch, Cork, was also destroyed, and several houses at Dundalk, as a reprisal for the death of Dundalk rebels.