15 APRIL 1922, Page 2

Mr. Collins himself seems to have had a narrow escape

on Sunday. The train by which he was to have travelled to address a meeting at' Wexford was stopped in County Wicklow by armed men who had-removed the rails and forbade the railway workmen to repair the' line. Mr. Collins, who had taken the precaution of going the day before to Wexford, made his speech, imploring Mr. De Valera to be reasonable and declaring that " unless there is an immediate change of tone and tactics it looks as if civil war can only be averted by a miracle." Mr. De Valera, for his part, says that, even if the majority of the electors vote for the Treaty, " Mexican politics "—the rule of the gunman— will continue to prevail in Southern Ireland. Like the Bol- sheviks, he has no use for old-fashioned Democracy.