It may be that they are now acting too late,
but at all events they are acting. it is devoutly to be hoped that they mean business and that they will succeed in suppressing the fanatics who would keep Ireland in a welter of blood for the sake of an impossible formula. Mr. Churchill in the debate on Monday had, of muse, warned the Provisional Government of what was expected of them as regards restoring order and suppressing murder, but the decision of Mr. Griffith and Mr. Collins to move against Mr. Rory O'Connor and his bandits in the Four Courts seems to hnve been arrived at as the result of circumstances and quite independently of Mr. Churchill's warning. Mr. Churchill himself has stated that the Provisional Government had made their plans before his message had reached Ireland. We hope that his statement is not in the nature of an excuse for what ho said. He was, of course, perfectly right to point out that a continuance of a regular system of murder and pillage could not be allowed to continue in these islands. He could not possibly have said less.
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