The Irish-American Sinn Feiners, who were permitted to make a
tour in Ireland last month, drew up a Report " cover- ing the facts" which was published- on- Friday week. Their German friends have shown us during the war how far the truth can be perverted for political purposes, but Messrs. Walsh and Dunne would deserve high office even among the propagandists of Berlin. Their Report is, from beginning to end, a medley of wild exaggeration and utter falsehood. Mr. Macpherson pub- lished on Wednesday a detailed refutation of every statement in this Report. The Irish-American delegates charged the Irish police and prison officials with gross inhumanity to Sinn Fein prisoners. They said that they had witnessed a "brutal assault" on Professor John MacNeill, the truth being that this man was not permitted to paw- a military cordon. They said also that they "witnessed numerous assaults- in public streets and high- ways with bayonets and clubbed rifles upon men and women known-to be Republicans"—a statement which Mr. Macpherson politely describes as " utterly untrue." They had the audacity to declare that the land laws had not decreased poverty in the rural districts, despite the well-known fact that Ireland has never been so prosperous as she is to-day. We are sorry that any persons enjoying American citizenship should have perpe- trated such an-outrageous libel at the expense of Great Britain.
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