The Freedom of the Free State Mr. de Valera has
recently referred more than once to the occupation of certain Free State ports by British maintenance troops, in accordance with the provisions of the 1921 Treaty, and has spoken of this as a denial of one of the fundamental rights of a free nation. But a British garrison at Queenstown no more threatens the freedom of Southern Ireland than the garrison at Gibraltar threatens Spain. Queenstown and Gibraltar are not unreasonably regarded as essential links in British com- munications, as the Panama Canal is for the United States. The use of Queenstown as a base for enemy submarines in time of war is a possibility which British Governments cannot ignore ; and if ever the control of this harbour is handed over to the Free State it will only be to a Free State of whose friendliness we are assured. Mr. de Valera's words and actions scarcely tend to promote any such assurance. As it is, the presence of British troops at Queenstown is a convenience to him, affording him a specious but essentially unreal excuse for denying that Southern Ireland is free.
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