A brutal murder was committed at Newry last Sunday, when
Mr. J. W. Flanagan, a Roman Catholic Resident Magistrate, was shot dead by three assassins as he was leaving the cathedral. The Dublin Coalition, which came into being under the unholy pact between the Provisional Government and Mr. De Valera, issued on Monday an appeal designed "to reduce the coming electoral contests to a minimum." It urged that " the forces which have constituted the national resistance in recent years should be kept intact." In other words, the Coalition wants the free and independent electors of Southern Ireland to be neither free nor independent. The results of the election are to be dictated to them in advance. The electors are to be terrorized. It is at least satisfactory to record that there has been some resistance to this blatant tyranny. Many indepen- dent candidates have come forward, but whether they will actually go to the polls, or whether many people will dare to vote for them if they do, cannot yet be known. We notice that one farmer, a Mr. Greene, immediately after announcing
that he would stand as an independent candidate in favour of the Treaty and in the farming interest, received four bullets in his body. No wonder_ that most of the-candidates supported by the Farmeremtlnion have withdrawn.
