We cannot think that people in this country who, out
of humanity or sentiment—feelings which for their own sake we should all naturally wish to share—advocate the release of the Lord Mayor of Cork have sufficiently appreciated the nature of his crime. There is in Ireland a regularly organized system of murder. It is not as though individual Sinn Feiners went of their own volition and fired at the constabulary. The victims are regularly sentenced to assassination or, as it is euphemistic- ally called, " execution " by definitely constituted courts of rebels. A death sentence is signed in due form. The execu- tioners are members of the Irish Republican Army, working, of course, under the control of their officers. Mr. MacSwiney was an officer in high command in that army. Whether he ever signed a so-called death warrant with his own hand we do not know, but it was in this work that he was actively engaged. Colonel Smyth, a splendidiy brave and upright servant of the Crown, was one of the victims.
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