The second point with which we may deal without imperilling
in any way the course of the negotiations is the extraordinary delay shown by the Government in setting forth the true facts of the Sinn Fein rebellion. That they have imposed silence on other people makes it all the more necessary that they should themselves set forth the true facts, and show the essential characteristics of the revolt. In the absence of a clear statement another myth is growing up and flowering with special luxuriance in America. People are being told, and actually beginning to believe, that the eruel and brutal Saxon soldiery turned upon the peace-loving, nnoffending Irish and slaughtered them unprovoked in the streets of Dublin, decoyed them into surrendering as prisoners of war, and then after " mock trials " shot them in regiments and platoons. ° It was British brutality, pushed beyond the limits of human endurance, that goaded the gallant Irish into defending them- aelves.' That is what the legend is fast becoming.
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