It would be amusing if it were not tragio to
notice time after time how English people fall into the way of arguing on the assumption that Irish patriats behave in a perfectly rational manner. " Why," they say, " should Irishmen burn down their own buildings-? Such a thing is incredible. It would be madness Evidently the buildings in Cork must have been burnt down by the enemies of Rim) Feiners, and that means that they were almost certainly burnt down by the police or the soldiers." As an inquiry is to be held, we must wait for the result of that inquiry before assigning the guilt. All we want to do now is to protest against the assumption that there is something inherently improbable in Irishmen burning their own buildings. On the- contrary, all past experience suggests that that is just the kind of thing they would be capable of doing. The burning followed hard upon the ambush, and all that we know of the workings of the Irish mind make it quite conceivable that Sinn Fein criminals ingeniously staged a plan which, while staggering the world, would cover up their own-tracks andimpose upon observers in all other countries, and especially in England. The very fact that the infamous affair in Cork has been used as propaganda for all it was worth proves that such an oblique plan of campaign might have been oonsidered well worth the money it cost.
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