The Outlook in Ireland The vote of censure to be
moved by Mr. Cosgrave in the Irish Dail next week will result in plain speaking if it results in nothing else. It might quite well result in something else, namely, the fall of the Government, if the increasingly desperate economic condition of the country led the seven Labour members to transfer their allegiance. On the whole that seems improbable, but Mr. de Valera is creating for himself problems which, when they become finally insoluble, he may be glad enough to hand over to someone else. The Government, apart from the sums it has to find as unemployment relief, is itself paying in the form of subsidies the duties levied by this country on imports from Ireland. That Manifestly cannot continue. Whether in the long view the Sinn Fein ideal of Making Ireland self-sufficient is economically practicable or not, it is out of the question to upset the whole industrial and agricultural system of the country in a week, which is What has happened as a result of the dispute over the annuities, without inviting a disaster of the first order. The annuities difficulty might still be settled if both sides, Particularly Mr. de Valera, could drop legalities and consider what composition Ireland can be considered competent, in the light of the actual situation, to make. But the account of the recent London conversations, as recorded in the White Paper published last week, gives no indication that the Irish President is prepared to stand on any but the narrowest legal contentions. . . _
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