DAIL EIREANN’S REPLY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 284, 25 August 1921, Page 5

DAIL EIREANN’S REPLY

A FORECAST FROM DUBLIN REPUBLIC NOT INSISTED ON DOMINION STATUS NOT CONFERRED IN OFFER By Telegraph—Press Association —Ooprright (Rec. August 24, 8.20 p.m.) London, August 24. The Dail Eireann, after considering the reply to Britain, adjourned. A further private sitting will be held on Thursday. The "Daily Chronicle’s” Dublin correspondent, forecasting tho reply, says:— “Tho Dail Eireann will reaffirm its adherence to the republican principle, but will not insist upon it. in view of the enormous cost in lives and money entailed. Th© Dail Eireann will suggest that Mr. Lloyd George, by issuing General Smuts’s letter, has tacitly adopted General Smuts’s interpretation of the British offer, and will point out that in the opinion of the Dail Eireann the offer does not confer Dominion status. It will enumerate the objections thereto and invito Mr. Lloyd George to reply in order that no ambiguities may remain to cloud the issue. The Dail Eireann will probably suggest that if tho Ulster difficulty cannot be composed, Ulster should be excluded from any benefits and privileges granted to tho south, opart from those she already holds. The Sinn Feiners believe that if this is done Ulster will soon be tempted to join the south.” —Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.

LEADER OF THE EXTREMISTS

LIEUT.-COMMANDER CHILDERS

THE POWER BEHIND THE PRESIDENTIAL CHAIR. (Rec. August 24, 8.20 p.m.) London, August 24.

The "Daily Express” reveals that the leader of the Sinn Fein extremists who are standing out for full and final separation is I.ieut.-Commonder Erskine Childers. He is not an Irishman, but his fanatical temperament has found full scope in. republicanism. He is seconded by his wife, a native of Boston, United States, who, though a confirmed invalid, spends days in a sick bed in. a relentless search for material for Sinn Fein propaganda. Tho success of her husband’s editorship of the "Sinn Fein Bulletin” is largely duo to her zeal. Childers got his chance when Mr. do Valera returned from America to find Mr. Griffiths in prison and other leaders on the run. He quickly gained an ascendancy. His faction in the Dail Eiroann numbers about fifty and contains some of the best, brains in the movement. Mr. Desmond Fitzgerald, the former editor of the "Bulletin,” was a moderate. When he was sent to prison, Childers took up tho work and spread his gospel of hate against England into every column. Tho great danger is Mt. do Valera's great misplaced confidence in Childers’s political judgment. In short, Childers is tho power behind the presidential chair—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.

[Lieut.-Commandcr Childers served in the European war, and received a Distinguished. Service Cross. He is tho author of "In the Ranks of the C.1.V.," "The Riddle of tho Sands,” and other works.]