Lord Carson, in the House of Lords on Thursday, May
11th, invited the Government to say what they proposed to do for the unhappy victims of the anarchy in Southern Ireland. The Lord Chancellor, in reply, admitted the facts, though he tried to suggest that Protestant Ulster was as bad as the South and treated the seizure of the Four Courts by armed banditti as a comic episode. The Provisional Government, he said, was steadily gaining support. They had made a. mistake in post- poning the elections, but they would get a large majority. He was assured that they would soon make " a resolute and organized attempt to assert the forces of authority." If we did not tear up the " Treaty " and reoccupy Ireland, thus pleasing all our enemies and "flinging away what hope there was of the sub- stance for all that was certain of the shadow," we must await the result of the elections. The Southern Irish Government, when established, would be under an obligation to compensate tho who had been robbed and expelled from the country. If that Government failed to relieve sufferers, we might, perhaps, do something for them. Lord Selborne justly remarked that the Lord Vhancellor's hopes were based on the hypothesis of a free election, which seems daily more and• more improbable.
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