TIIE PLIGHT OF SOUTHERN IRELAND THE rioting in Cork on
the Monday of last week, the fatal shooting by plain-clothes police, and the subsequent demonstrations of mourning and bitter accusations against the Government may well prove to be the beginning of a new phase in the troubled life of Ireland. The Free State Government has been moving nearer and nearer to an economic precipice which hitherto the mass of the people have not seen. If obstinacy were a synonym for strength, the Government would have shown itself strong indeed in its persistence in challenging economic laws. Determined on political grounds to pursue its economic war with Britain, or at least refuse to take the steps which would end it, it appears to have believed that by sheer will power it could make water run up-hill and maintain trade while destroying markets. The long-delayed moment seems now to be approaching when the sufferings hitherto experienced mainly by the farmers must be felt by the rest of the community. The Free State is moving steadily towards bankruptcy, and in distraught efforts to make both ends meet is winning an unenviable reputation as an unjust and relentless creditor.
No doubt Mr. Lemass, the Minister for Trade and Commerce, has persuaded both himself and Mr. de Valera that his policy of complete economic nationalism is a feasible one. The fact that it was started with no other purpose but to make a gesture of defiance towards Great Britain has not prevented them from adopting it as if for its own sake, " burning their boats," as Mr. Lemass puts it, in committing their country to a policy which presupposes no exports and no imports. It may be admitted that they have perseveringly and with some success endeavoured to stimulate home manufactures, as has recently been pointed out in the course of some very well-informed articles by a Special Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph ; and no doubt carefully laid plans pursued step by step over a long period of years might have enabled such a country as the Free State to build up gradually a means of subsisting independently of the outside world. But Mr. de Valera has not been content to pursue a gradual method. He has begun by destroying the outside markets and thereby strangling production for export, swiftly, almost at a single stroke, and with apparent indifference to the suffering of the farmers.
Hitherto the real significance of his policy has been hidden from the majority of the workers by the fact that Irish products, deprived of a market abroad, have been sold cheaply for home consumption ; cheap food has blinded them to the ultimate consequences. But this could not go on for ever. Irish exports which four years ago were worth over £49,000,000 had sunk in the year just concluded to little over £19,000,000. The new home industries could not go far to make up that difference. The adverse balance of trade has nearly doubled since 1930. This is the result, direct and indirect, of the blow aimed at a staple industry of the country, that of cattle and other farm produce, by persistence in the tariff war. Whilst on the one side the farmers were left with a great part of their cattle, pigs and dairy produce on their hands, they were also compelled to pay more for their agricultural implements. They have exhausted their credit, they have no means to repair their buildings, and their land iv deteriorating. A fresh burden has been piit on the county councils in the increased demand for relief, and the farmers, bankrupt or on the verge of bankruptcy, have seen their cattle distrained on for arrears of rates. - - On the top of this has come the demand for payment of the annuities, an amount, they maintain, far exceeding what they have already lost by Britain's attempt to collect her due in the form of customs. The Government's insistence on this payment has aroused the bitterest sense of injustice. It has had the effect of -rallying the farmers to the Land Annuitants' Defence Association, and caused the recent demonstrations and rioting in County Cork. Nor is the distress any longer confined to the rural districts. The inevitable rise of prices is now being felt in the towns. Industrialists and bankers alike are feeling the pinch, and unemployment is increasing. Whilst the County Councils are unable -to collect their rates and are themselves running into debt, the central Government itself, already embarrassed by the need of financing work to maintain the unemployed, will be called upon to come to the rescue of the local authorities. And the outlook for the future is further darkened by the news that the firm of Guinness, the greatest manu- facturing business- in Southern Ireland, has been taking the self-defensive measure of providing new equipment for the production of stout in England.
It would be a vain hope to suppose that the new industries which the Government is feverishly endeav- ouring to stimulate can be so built up in a short time as to stave off the disaster arising from the destruction of the greater part of the Free State's foreign trade, and the consequent impoverishment of the farming com- munity and all those who depend on their purchasing power. It has been possible hitherto to conceal from the majority of the people the dangers to which the Govern- ment's obstinate policy was leading. But all are now becoming involved, and the imagination of the people is beginning to be affected by the now palpable sufferings of the farmers and the fight they are making against the unjust collection of annuities. It remains to be seen how long Mr. de Valera can divert the indignation of the people and direct it against the British Government. His agents have played into the hands of the opposition by providing them with a martyr and an occasion for public mourning.
We in this country cannot conceal from ourselves the fact that these sufferings are due in the main to the senseless tariff war with Britain, though Mr. de Valera has not made it easy for this country to take any fresh steps to end it. Mr. Cosgrave and General O'Duffy are right when they say that if they were in power they would find it a simple matter to open negotiations which would solve the problem. But it is equally within the power of Mr. de Valera if he is willing to approach the question in a conciliatory spirit of give and take, and if he will refrain from raising other issues which at this critical moment he could surely afford to defer. But there are few signs that the politicians in power in Dublin-are willing to abate one jot or tittle of their political pretensions to save the economic situation, or that the victims of their policy have any hope of redress except by a change of government. Yet it will not be to our advantage if Southern Ireland is driven to the point when she must " lose " the tariff war. Her losses will not be our gain. It could be wished that the British Government would make a declaration leaving no possible room for doubt that it is prepared to negotiate on the tariff issue at any time, without prejudice to other political issues.
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