19 JANUARY 1924, Page 3

We desire to call .attention to an article of very

real! importance in last Sunday's Observer by Mr. Stephen Gwynn, the well-known Irish Nationalist. After pointing out the risk to Ulster of the Labour Government being pressed by Roman Catholic Ireland for a settlement of the Boundary question " strictly on the terms of the Treaty clause," Mr. Gwynn proceeds :-- " If the thing were simply an action at law, this would be sound tactics. But it is not. It matters a great deal more to maintain peace in Ireland than to alter the Ulster boundary, oven in the sense most favourable to Free State claims. Both sides in Ireland claim to have succeeded by an appeal to tho rifle, and neither side is likely to relinquish the idea of renewing that appeal. I do not know whether it would be possible to persuade a British Labour administration to impose a settlement of the boundary by force. I am convinced that nothing worse could happen to Ulster, to the Free State, and quite possibly to Great Britain, than that a Labour Government should indicate any such intention. To expect that Englishmen can settle the Boundary question, either by force or by threat of force, even if used to carry out an agreement made by England, is to ignore all the teachings of Irish -history, especially the most recent."