NEWS OF THE WEEK.
ON Monday was published a letter from Lord Birken- - head to Lord Balfour,. written in March, 1922, to reassure Lord Balfour, just returned from the Washing- ton Conference, as to the intention and effect of the Boundary clause in the Act establishing the Free State. Lord Birkenhead makes it clear that rectification of the frontier line and not any radical alteration of the area was intended. We shall, not dwell in detail at present on the letter. To, do so might do more harm than good. We desire, however, to express our agreement with the letter by Lord Carson in the Morning Post of Tuesday, in which he says : " I do not think it is possible to exag- gerate the importance of Lord Birkenhead's letter." We' have a specific suggestion to make which we trust will be • considered. We believe we arc right in saying that at the Buckingham Palace Conference in 1914, which, was broken up with its work unfinished by the advent, of the War, a map showing a rectified frontier was produced by the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, or on his behalf, and that it earne very near to satisfying Ulster. Why should not that map, which is,_ we understand, extant, and in the possession of the Government Depart- ment concerned, be called for, aulhe adopted as a kind of " Barrier Act " against that virtual destruction of the Northern Province so greatly feared by Ulster, and so urgently demanded by the Free State extremists? Let the new Act be subject to -a proviso that the rectification made by the Commission shall in no -case be more exten- sive than that set forth in the map aforesaid. The advan- tage of this plan would be that there would be an appeal to a scheme of rectification not poisoned for either side by the double-faCed promises made to both the Free State an- &the Northern Province in December, 1921. The map of which we speak is as near a neutral decision as it is possible to reach. • •
