It is particularly necessary that while reprisals are ruled out,
the disciplined tracking down of Shin Fein murderers should be encouraged in every way, because it is unfortunately true that the general population of Ireland—that part at least which' is not absolutely terrorized—has taken up an attitude of neutrality between the Government and Sinn Fein. Hence the universal difficulty of obtaining evidence. It is said that when Mr. Alan Bell was murdered on a Dublin tram-car two legal officers who were actually on the car refused to give evidence because " they had never had anything to do with politics." If excuses are to be found at all, they are surely to be found for those who carry out the reprisals. It can at least be said for them that they have taken the law into their own hands because they know that the weapons of law have dropped from- the hands of the Government and are never used. It may well be that in such circumstances brutalities have been committed by the police and soldiers, but we imagine it to be also a fact that in Irish villages and small towns the real authors of Sinn Fein assassinations are quite well known to the police and the soldiers, and it is mostly these persona who are marked down to suffer lees of property or even death.
Previous page
