Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] TUESDAY, 26th SEPTEMBER, 1933. TURMOIL IN IRELAND.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 26 September 1933, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] TUESDAY, 26th SEPTEMBER, 1933. TURMOIL IN IRELAND.

The world has been waiting for some proof of constructive policy on the part of Mr d£ Valera and his advisers —if advisers he has. Not that the Irish problem is in any sense so important as the German, concerning which the same vain hope has long been felt. But even the most detached thinker would fain see fruits of prudence, whether at Dublin or Berlin. Instead, they see little save reminders of the words of St. Just, Robespierre’s colleague: “He who stops half-way in revolution digs his own grave.” Seeing that all rebel leaders desire, sooner or later, to stop at what they, but not others, consider to be half-way, the verdict is simply a general one. It was certainly exemplified in the case of Michael Collins, whose name has been so strangely dragged into the present dispute. There seems to be no self-evident reason why the graves of Glasneven should be virtually closed to admirers, or why the Government should profess its fear, of an unarmed organisation the aims of which do not appear to differ fundamentally from its own. General O’Duffy hopes to “persuade” Ulster, whereas Mr de Valera’s associates long to coerce her. Otherwise, they mainly think alike. Little more here, one would think, than a Whig and Tory divergence, not much to riot about in the streets of Dublin. But personal and partisan . antagonisms are at work in the background, aggravated by a general sense of the harm and hardship caused by, the economic war with England, in which Mr de Valera himself boasted: “We fired the first shot.” Those who did so have since felt the recoil.