Mr. Acland, for the Independent Liberals, raised a debate on
Ireland in the House of Commons on Wednesday, March 23rd. Mr. Asquith said that the campaign against crime had failed ; after repeating some of the Sinn Fein propagandist stories about outrages by the police, he expressed the belief that the Sinn Feiners did not mean what they said when they asked for a Republic. The Prime Minister in reply regretted that Mr. Asquith should have libelled the forces of the Crown. The six men hanged the other day were either murderers or would-be murderers, armed with bombs and expanding bullets. Wo could not solve the problem by surrendering to the " gun-men. The Government would gladly negotiate with any responsible Irish leaders, except criminals, but no such leaders presented
themselves. The Home Rule Act would be put in force. If the Southern Parliament were elected and chose to sit with the Northern Parliament as a Constituent Assembly, it could do so. The Irish people had their opportunity. The Prime Minister said that the news circulated from Ireland was often untrue, and instanced the account given by Mr. J. H. Thomas of the murder of an inspector's wife at Mallow and the shooting of some railwaymen. He appealed for public support in his efforts to restore order in Ireland, where, as he truly said, an outbreak of crime was no new thing.
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