The Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the shooting of
Mr. Sheehy Skeffingtaon, Mr. Dickson, and Mr. MacIntyre, began its sittings in Dublin on Wednesday. We cannot find space to summarise the evidence here, but we may say that the fact, good in itself, that the evidence L9 to be given in open court, punctuated by the caustic comments of Mr. Healy, and will so obtain the widest possible publicity, adds strong support to what we have said in our leading article on "The Great Comedy." Owing to a mixture of "the desire not to give pain to our Irish fellow-subjects" and general muddleheadedness, we have reached the following situation. All the-evidence which shows the base, bloody and brutal behaviour of the rebels has been carefully shrouded and kept from public view until the world has really begun to believe that we made an un- provoked attack upon the gentle and kind-hearted Sinn Feiners of Dublin. The only enquiry which has been conducted in publio is the one which concerns the lunatic acts of an officer whose mental equilibrium had been completely destroyed by shell-shock at the front. As a cynic might say, the British Government only allow publicity when it may do them an injury. When it would help them they invoke impenetrable secrecy. We say this not as advocates of secrecy. We are strongly in favour of publicity. All we ask is that the secrecy should not be so entirely one-sided.
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