4 JUNE 1921, Page 2

The Simi Fein leaders made it clear last week that

the burning of the Dublin Customs House was a deliberate outrage, ordered by "Dail Eireann" in the vain hope of making British govern- ment "impossible." "The destruction of the Customs House," they said, "reduces the most important branches of the British civil government in Ireland, already gravely disorganized, to virtual impotence." The crime was therefore "an unavoid- able military necessity." If the Sinn Fein leaders really believe what they say, their folly is as glaring as their wickedness. Murder and arson will avail them nothing. Southern Ireland is offered a full measure of self-government in the Act now in force. If the Sinn Feiners prefer to go on murdering and burning, they must take the consequences.