The Press. Monday, April 3, 1922. The Irish Situation.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17420, 3 April 1922, Page 6

The Press. Monday, April 3, 1922. The Irish Situation.

In his reference to the new Irish agreement, Mr Churchill told the House of Commons that tho.se who wore fighting for the Treaty were "loth to encour'•'nge optimism." It was better, ho said, to face the facts quite brutally, and not nourish illusions. Optimism is,, indeed, difficult. The signing of the Treaty was welcomed with joy everywhere, and in the first rush of relief many ordinarily careful and'judicious observers boldly declared that the Irish problem had been solved at last, and that tho days to follow would be days of peaceful progress towards a final laying of tho spectre of Irish disaffection. In January, when it was cruelly clear this judgment did not take due account of the depth and bitterness of extremist feeling and its power for evil, flagging hopes were revived by an agreement between Sir James Craig and Mr Collins, touching the crucial difficulty of the boundary. Since then there/ has been a frightful outburst of crime, for which tho extremists are jointly responsible. Both Sir James Craig and Mr Collins have given ample proof of the sincerity of their desire to co-operate for the establishment of peace between the North and South, and no better evidence of this can be required than their willingness to meet the Imperial Government with the object of devising some practical way out of the civil war in the unsettled districts. The actual agreement which has now been arranged breathes in every clause an earnest desire to mako the co-operation of the Northern Government and the Government of the Free State really effective. Whether it will achieve this nobody can at present tell. . But that much may be hoped for it is clear enough from the comments of men and newspapers who have had ample reason, since December, for distrusting even the brightest hues of promise in the Irish sky. Mr Arthur Griffith believes that if the document is carried out in the spirit in which it was signed, "it " will give ns later a united Ireland, 18 which every honest and sensible Irish- " man, whatever his creed, desires." The voice of the Ulster politicians is mild and conciliatory, and the great organ of Ulster opinion, the "Northern Whig," although as doubtful of Mr Collins's power to control the Republican element as it is certain of his good faith, is manifestly full of goodwill. The "Irish Times," the stoutest organ of Southern Unionism, goes further than any other critic in praise and optimism. "Good Irishmen,'.' it says, "will thank God for this agree"ment," which.it regards as "a large- " minded, courageous effort to remove " the causes of the strife between the "North and the South, and to lay " the foundations for a national settle"ment."

The Treaty of December and the CraigCollins agreement of January have not availed to bring peace, and it would be unnatural not to fear that even this new arrangement may not save Ireland from further crime and disorder. Yet there are solid grounds for optimism. The first of these is the fnet that Sir James Craig and Mr Collins are both conscious of their duties, and are bent upon making peace a real thing. ■ That, surely, is an immeasurable gain. The second is the undoubted fact that an overwhelming majority of Irishmen desire the carrying out of the Treaty and the peaceful development of the two Irelands side by side. The outrages and counter-outrages in Ulster cannot but put a strain upon the tempers of the peace-loving majority in the North and in the South, but it is hardly possible that the extremists will succeed in exasperating the majority into playing the extremist game. It will perhaps become necessary for the Free State Government to rc-aort to severe measures against the Republicans, for although the co-operative activity against disorder in the border districts may bring peace there, we may sec war in the South between the Free State and the lII.A. Such a war will be less perilous to the interests threatened by the Irish disorders of recent years than war between the North and South, and the Free Stuto Government ought to know how to deal with the Republican enemy.