20 MAY 1922, Page 2

The Sinn Fein gunmen continue to terrorize Belfast. A Protestant

postman on his rounds was murdered last Saturday. When his funeral was passing to the cemetery on Tuesday, the Sinn Feiners fired on the mourners, who had to be protected' by armoured cars from these inhuman assassins. Infernal machines have been left on tramcars in the hope of killing Protestant workmen on their way home ; one machine blew up, killing the conductor and wounding three other men. By day and night the streets are made unsafe by Sinn Fein snipers, who have claimed numerous victims. We look in vain for any repudiation of these ruffians by Mr. Collins or Mr. De Valera, or for any condemnation by the Roman Catholic clergy in Ulster of the murders of Protestants. The true temper of the Irish Roman Church is shown in a letter to the Irish Independent from the Rev. Patrick Nolan, O.S.B., who states that his Church alone is not a " sect " but that all the Protestant bodies are " sects." He ignores all the Sinn Fein outrages in Ulster and, in deprecating disputes between Roman Catholics, declares that " the common enemy in the North, the real ' sectarian ' and most deadly enemy of our country, is allowed a free. hand to carry on his unholy, unpatriotic, murderous work."

While the Roman Church inculcates such bitter intolerance, there can be -no question of any real co-operation between Protestant Ulster and the South.