Letters to the Editor
j In ride of the length of naaty of the letters which we receive, we would remind correspondents that we often cannot give space for long letters and that short ones are generally read with more attention. The length which we onsider most suitable is about that of ontof oar paragraphs on "News of the Week."—Ed. SPE:era-road
IRELAND
[To the Editor of the ScnerAron.] Stu, A good many years ago, while Lord French was still Viceroy of Ireland, you were good enough to publish a letter of mine, written in connexion with a successful attack by rebels on the Police Barrack at Cloyne, in which I used the following words : . _
" We in Ireland are tired of hearing one Minister in the House of Commons saying that law and order most be enforced, and .another Minister in the House of Lords saying the government- will never surrender to Slim Fein. We know the former statement is falsified ;
we fear the latter will be also.'' •
I am not Writing now to say " I told you so," but rather in the hope that 1 may help to open the eyes of English people to realities. Some may call me a die-hard. I give myself no label. I ant an Irishman born, sincerely desirous of the welfare of my native land, and, at the same time, proud of being a citizen of the great British Empire, in the building of which loyal Irishmen took no mean part.
I, and the thousands who think with me, never had any illusions as to the disastrous result of the surrender to treason, in 1921, an act of cowardice which is one of the main causes of the trouble in Ireland to-day. Mr. de Valera and members of his Cabinet are very frank in their avowals. The solemn agree_ • melds made between the Government of the then United Kingdom and the rebels are, as soon as it suits the latter, to be treated as scraps of paper.
What is the British Government going to do now ? Are we to have more brave words and meek Performances ? For the last ten years British politicians have been deluding them_ selves with the idea that all was going well in Ireland. This was nonsense. The arrival of Mr. de Valera is merely an inteli- silicatiOn of the anti-British, anti-Imperial movement that has been going on, and which has shown itself in many petty ways, such as the obliteration of the beautiful royal arms that were sculptured over the portico of the General Post Office, and the like treatment of similar arms on tin' Four Courts, though those arms had been put there by the old native Irish Parliament.
Unless the Empire is to crumble to dust a strong stand must be made. Are the loyal Dominions and Colonies to be told that they arc to be treated exactly on the same footing as a part of the Empire that flouts at everything sacred to loyal subjects ? Surely such a course Would be monstrous. The simple waY open in 1921 is now closed ; but one way remains. Those who rule the Irish Free State must be told that there is to be no whittling down of solemn agreements. They must be either loyal subjects of the King or get out of the Empire. The presence of Free State delegates at Imperial Conferences has been no benefit to the Empire. Bather have these delegid6s been workers of mischief. If the Free State is excluded front the Empire, with the consequential result as to tariffs, the Irish farmers and industrialists would soon fetid out what they had lost, and would come to the conclusion that a green, white and yellow flag was not worth their lost nutrkets: All of us who have property and interests in Ireland would suffer during this lessim : but I believe it Would be "effectiverin restoring the unity of t he British Isles and the prestige of the British
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