24 APRIL 1920, Page 12

THE STATE OF IRELAND.

[To THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—We are in the most deplorable state over here. God only knows what the next movement will be. We are absolutely unprotected, the unfortunate police guarding their barracks behind sandbags and barbed wire, while all the might of the great British Empire is defied by these Sinn Feiners, who have just scored another triumph in forcing the Government to release their prisoners. They are apparently absolute masters now in Ireland, and may any day order the massacre of every Protestant or Unionist, when it would certainly be carried out. I have lived through pretty bad times in Ireland since 1879, but it was all child's-play to what is going on at present.—I