Mr. Bernard Shaw's interview with the representative of the Irish
girlies, published here in Tuesday's papers, reads strangely and uncannily in view of the murder of Mr. Collins. It adds a poignant touch to Mr. Shaw's lament over the futility of Irish faction fights and to the malignant Fate which hangs over Ireland. After saying that he does not know what Mr. De Valera and Mr. Erskine Childers are driving at, he tells us "what has happened," and so goes very near to answering the questions which he inferred he could not answer. Mr. De Valera and Mr. Childers, we are told, "having no war chest, and apparently no programme beyond calling Ireland a republic, have been forced to tell their troops on pay-day that they must live onthe country." This means in practice that the leaders are to be Republicans contending for a principle and their troops brigands. Mr. Shaw then goes on to state some general considerations with regard to this brigandage. He very properly says that no com- munity can tolerate such a thing, even when the brigandage is good-natured. But it is not good-natured. And then comes the blunt statement, "When the explosion comes, General Collins will be able to let himself go in earnest, and the difficulty of the overcrowded gaols and of the disbanded Irregular who takes to the road again the moment the troops have passed on will be solved, because there will be no prisoners. The strain will be on the cemeteries."
