A committee of Dail Eireann, after sitting and arguing for
a week, has failed once more to arrange a compromise between the Free State and the Republican factions. Both were, it seems, prepared to hold " an agreed election without contests," so that the electors should be debarred from expressing an opinion ; but while the Free State party wanted the popular approval of the Treaty to be taken for granted, the Republicans insisted that the " election " should decide nothing. The English mind cannot appreciate these Jesuitical distinctions. Mr. Collins has told an American journalist that he will make no further efforts at a compromise but will proceed to restore order. It is high time. Last Saturday the Transport Workers' Union seized . seven condensed milk factories in the South, hoisted the red flag and declared that the factories would henceforth be managed by and for the workers. As the so-called Government did not interfere, the Bolshevik tactics may be applied elsewhere, and, if so, the few industries in Southern Ireland will be ruined. An unarmed British soldier was wilfully murdered in Dublin last week ; the coroner's jury returned an open verdict. The British troops evacuated the Curragh on Tuesday and are now concentrated in Dublin.
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