RELEASE REFUSED

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 298, 10 September 1920, Page 7

RELEASE REFUSED

CABINET'S DECISION IN M'SWINEY CASE POLICY OF LENIENCY TRIED TWICE REPUBLICAN ARMY'S MEAN WARFARE By Telegraph-Press Association-Copyright London, Soptember 8. It is officially announced that the Cabinet has decided not to release M'Swinoy.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. London, September 8. ■Some quarters aro publishing denials of Mr. Lloyd George's offer to M'Swiney. Others repeat and amplify it.

In the course of a statement to British journalists, the Prime Minister stated that M'Swinoy was undoubtedly concerned in a conspiracy against the Government, which resulted in the murder of 83 brave and devoted men, and the shooting of 17S others. He differentiated betwoen tho Sinn Pein, which was not a criminal organisation, and tho so-called Republican Army, striving to dismemlwr the Empire. The Government either mu6t protect its forccs in Ireland or withdraw them. A policy of leniency already had been tried twice, but tho very men released immediately engaged in fresh conspiracies and recommenced murders of police in Ireland Mr. Lloyd George strongly emphasised that the Republican Army was engaged in a'ftnean and murderous warfare upon British forces, seeking by carefullyplanned anarchy and murder to bring about tho secession of Ireland from tho Empire. Peoplo all over the world must realise that tho British Government was. face to face with tho same problem as was Abraham Lincoln before tho American Civil War, although the Southerners fought openly and cleanly for secession, whita tho Irish sought it by murder. If the Republican Army conspiracy in which M'Swinoy was involved had existed in war time it probably would have been impossible to overcome the submarine menace, with the result that the Empire would have been destroyed.—Router. THE POPE INTERCEDES. (Uec. September 10, 0.45 a.m.} London, September 9. The Pope has interceded on behalf of M'Swiney —Renter,