Mr. Cosgrove, the President of the Free State, contri- buted
a very remarkable article to the Daily Express of Thursday. He begins by pointing out that the present deplorable condition of Ireland is due to the fact that Mr. De Valera has not adhered to the principle which he laid down a year ago. Mr. De Valera at that time insisted that the people of Ireland " have a constitutional way of settling our differences, and we should not depart from it." Mr. Cosgrove goes on to state that, after the Irish people had decided to accept equal status with the other members of a Commonwealth of free nations, " a small armed faction, with the moral backing of less than 2 per cent. of the population," had denied their right to do this. These people are trying " to produce chaos by pillage, arson and assassination, in the hope of preventing the Free State now established from functioning." This is a true bill, even if it can be said— as it can be—that many of those who now decry these methods were, not so very long ago, ready enough to teach them to the Irish people.
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