THE NEW DIRRELLISM.
[To THE EDEMA or run " Serceraroa."]
Sta.—Every Unionist in Ireland, and indeed all who abhor anarchy anywhere, meat be grateful to the Spectator for its recent Irish articles, and especially for that on " Tho New Birrellism" in your issue of the 3rd inst. is everything in this distracted island to be sacrificed to the attempt to create it " favourable atmosphere " for the Convention? And do our milers really believe that an atmosphere favourable to anything that deserves favouring can be created by allowing sedition and civil war to be openly preached, and thousands of troops, even though, as yet, unarmed, to be enlisted and drilled with rho avowed object of "driving out the (English) invaders" ? And this while the British Empire and its Allies nro fighting for their lives! It is true that a few obscure Sinn Feiners have been arrested for :Hegel drilling, or for stoning the police, or for attacking monition workers, but their leaders seem to enjoy complete liberty of -leech and action. Surely if there is any truth in history the fight mode of dealing with organized sedition is to be merciful to the rank-and-file and stern with the organizers and ringleaders. In Ireland this wholesome rule appears to be reversed. It seems, in short, hardly unfair to say that new Duke is but old Birrell " writ large," or, in a phrase ascribed to a well-known member of the present Government, that Birrell has been made a Duke!-
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