31 JULY 1920, Page 2

The British public have not even now, we think, realized

the full horror of the circumstances in which Colonel Smyth was done to death at Cork. As we pointed out last week, lying reports about a speech which he was supposed to have made to the police ander him were used as the j ustification, and were probably indeed the sole cause, of his murder. Yet according to the account of Colonel Smyth's speech given by Sir Hamar Greenwood in the House of Commons on Wednesday week, the speech was proper from every point of view. Colonel Smyth made it very clear that he would never tolerate reprisals on the part of his men ; he said just what a conscientious and highly-disciplined soldier ought to have said. Sir Hamar Greenwood was too late.