THE NEMESIS OF CRIME.
WE cannot deal with the subject of Ireland without noting what can best be described as the Nemesis of crime. Look at the difficulties with which the Pro- visional Government are now surrounded ! Look at the state of anarchy in the South and the predatory instincts that have been let loose ! Take, for example, the recent case where a family was massacred, including two girls, one deliberately killed and the other dangerously wounded, not for any alleged political reason, but because the father was in possession of land which stronger people desired to take from him. Look at the way in which 'the Irish Republican Army held its Convention in Dublin, in direct defiance of the Provisional Government ! Look at the wreckine of the Freeman's Journal I Look at the state of Donegal ! Look at the seizure of the Admiralty vessel laden with arms off Queenstown ! Look at a dozen other acts of political brigandage perpetrated against the Provisional Government in the South ! Look at the way in which the Provisional 'Government has been hampered by provocative acts, on the part of the I.R.A., along the Northern boundary ! Finally, look at what has happened and is happening in Belfast 1 As we can by the nature of the case give no proofs, we are not going to assert that the murder of the Roman Catholic family of the McMahons was the work of Sinn Feiners, but we desire to draw the attention of our readers to the following very remarkable statement made in Tuesday's Morning Post by a Belfast correspondent :- " Too much has been taken for granted in connexion with the McMahon murders. Because Sinn Fein gunmen had murdered two Special Constables the previous day, it was insinuated too readily in certain sections of the Press that the shooting of the members of the McMahon family was a reprisal. This was not the case. It is more likely that the McMahons were shot by members of the so-called Irish Republican Army. It is known Mr. McMahon was opposed to militant -Sinn Fein, and when His Majesty visited Belfast on the occasion of the opening of the Northern Parliament, his son Frank, who was killed, and Edward M`Kinney, the barman, who was murdered at the same time, were amongst the cheering crowd that greeted the King in High Street. The McMahons were popular with all Loyalists who knew them. The fact that the murderers are stated to have worn police uniform is not worthy of consideration. Is a policeman about to commit a murder likely to wear his uniform ? When St. Mary's Hall, the Sinn Fein headquarters in Belfast, was raided some days ago a considerable amount of R.LC. equipment was discovered, and during their recent ` war ' on Crown forces the rebels must have captured or stolen as much police uniform as would equip half the I.R.A. The crime bears the stamp of the Tipperary gunmen, and, as dozens of their fraternity have arrived in Belfast during the past few months, it is not unreasonable to saddle them with it."
This paragraph was supplemented on Wednesday by the following letter :- " Sra,—I am in a position to give you the facts regarding the murder of Mr. McMahon, his sons, and his employee, out of which enemies of Ulster are attempting to make political capital, by suggesting that because the victims were Catholics their assassins must have been Unionists. It is notorious that the murder gang in Ireland prefer to kill loyal Catholics. In the case of the McMahons, it now transpires that they were presented with a Republican pledge, and ordered to sign it. They refused. They were then ` tried ' by a Republican Court,' and ordered to pay a fine of £100. They promptly refused to pay, and as a result of their refusal they were ' executed.' Nothing comes amiss to the Republican propagandist ; and both Free Staters and Republicans have used the victims of their criminal policy as weapons to hurl at the 'good name of loyal Ulster. I may say that a near relative of mine knew Mr. McMahon. The family were on very friendly terms with their Ulster Protestant neighbours.—Yours, &c., HERBERT MOORE PIM. 74 Clarendon Road, W., April 3rd."
These are most important facts. We niay take this opportunity of once more thanking the Morning Post for the fairness and boldness with which it collects and publishes the news, and the whole news. It is essentially an honest trader. It recognizes the implied contract of honour, if not of law, between the newspaper and the public. When a man buys a paper he does so to get the news and not merely the news selected in such a way as to support a particular view. But whether this view of the McMahon massacre is or is not maintainable, it is clear that the extremists are delighted to see anarchy prevailing in Belfast, and are quite willing to help it on. At the moment, too, the desire is not so much to hurt the Protestants of the North as to embarrass and distract the Provisional Government. Nothing will help the Republicans more at the elections than talk about massacres of Roman Catholics in the North to which the Provisional Government is a consenting party.
That all these dangers and difficulties arise from the deliberate toleration of cold-blooded murder cannot be doubted. Neither' is it doubtful that members of the Provisional Government assented to the policy of using murder to make the continuance of the Legislative Union impossible. Even if not directly concerned they did nothing to stop the murder campaigns, but instead took advantage of their results. No word of horror or condemnation was said by the Sinn Feiners in regard to the terrible Sunday massacre of the English officers in front of their wives; or of the countless assassinations m cold blood, kidnappings, and executions of officers, soldiers and policemen. When the gang-murder of McMahon and his family took place in Belfast the other day the Government did everything they could to discover the murderers, including the offer of a large reward. No such effort was made by the Sinn Fein Executive to show its detestation of massacre either when they were a fighting Government or when, as now, they are a Pro- visional Government recognized by the British Govern- ment and Parliament. When, then, we see the Pro- visional Government struggling with its cruel and relentless foes, how is it possible to suppress the thought : " You taught them the methods of the assassin. You applauded them when it was convenient to your own policy. What right, then, have you to complain when those methods are turned upon yourselves ? You dare not expose their cruel and treacherous methods and hold them up to the obloquy which they deserve. If you did, who knows but that they would retort in kind ? "
We shall, of course, be told that it is very wrong, very provocative, and very unstatesmanlike of the Spectator to rake up the past in this disagreeable way. By doing so we are, it will be said, preventing, not helping the settlement which we fully admit that we so strongly desire. We are unrepentant. .We are not going to pass over an essential fact merely because it is for the moment convenient to do so. This is not the only occasion when men will be tempted to do evil, unspeakable evil, in order that what they happen to think good may come. Unless the world will put the stamp of Cain upon revolution, or reform by murder and secret killing, civilization must cease to exist. It is the merest sophistry to pretend that there is no distinction between murder and war.
There is a distinction as wide as between North and South. It is, indeed, on that distinction that human society is built, and that we are able to sleep in our beds.
By ignoring the distinction which we all feel in our hearts Other sins only speak ; Murder shrieks out "—men deal human society a death-giving blow. Once more we had better be plain. Though we as a nation have been terribly weak in making concessions to murder and in refusing to prosecute our campaign against murder to the bitter end, we are not nearly so much to blame as the people who did this great evil in order that good might come. It is there that the supreme crime is to be found.
Provided that the people of Britain had come to the conclusion that they had been wrong in not long ago dissolving their bond of union with the Southern Irish, they were probably right not to make the crimes of the past an obstacle. Any other view would make con- cessions impossible. We are not profiting by crime. Once more, it is on those who have done evil that good may come that the guilt and the punishment of guilt must fall, nay, are falling, at this moment. Yet, in spite of all this, we can only hope, for the sake of the Irish people as a whole—they, the people as a whole, as must always be the case, are far more sinned against than sinning—that the Provisional Government may win in their struggle with Mr. De Valera and make themselves secure. We will go further, and say that we hope devoutly, that while claiming liberty for them- selves, they will learn to tolerate liberty in others and will show themselves good and loyal neighbours to the North. If they do, we shall never deny them the right to unification by agreement, nay, we should be delighted to see it take place. Again, though the Nemesis of murder will, we believe, fall on those who have used it or connived at its use, we do not want to see the Provisional Govern- ment treated as lepers. It is not for the British people to punish them. Their condemnation must come from their own countrymen or from themselves as they look into the face of the demon they have raised or note the devastation that is falling on their own unhappy land.
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