An Anti-de Valera Combine ?
The attempt to form a new non-republican party in the Irish Free State has special interest in view of the fact that four by-elections are pending. Mr. Frank MacDer- mott, an Independent Member of the Dail, has made the National Farmers' League, which he founded, an organi- zation to reckon with, but as Senator Arthur Vincent, also an Independent, now points out, neither it nor Mr. Cosgrave's party embraces all the non-republican elements in the State. Hence the demand for a new party that will. The suggestion is that Mr. Cosgrove and Mr. MacDermott should join forces, sinking whatever secondary differences divide them and uniting on the capital issue of republi- canism. If that did happen, there is little doubt that Mr. de Valera would be beaten at the next general election. He may even be beaten before that, for there are signs that his Labour supporters are growing in- creasingly restive, particularly over the impending Civil Service cuts. It is in the power of Labour to force an election by voting against the Government, and it would be in the power of Mr. Cosgrove and Mr. Mac- Dermott, if they could work together, to win it.
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