ANTICIPATIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 96, 20 October 1926, Page 9

ANTICIPATIONS

WHAT WILL MR. COSGRAVE DO?

IRISH FREE STATE ASPIRATIONS.

LONDON, 18th October. Unless the Imperial Conference, after Mr. Baldwin's welcome to-morrow and the Premiers' brief replies thereto, decides otherwise, it is expected that matters connected with the Dominions and tho Colonial Offices will engage attention till, the foreign relations debate later in the week. ■ Most of the political writers have been basing their preliminary conference comments on the assumption that the Irish Free. State and South Africa intend raising the issue of the Dominions' independence in an embarrassing, even a separatist, form. It is now reliably stated that as far as Ireland is concerned an extreme policy is not contemplated. Ireland, it is said, has learned, since she was granted a constitution with the right of inter-Empire intercourse, that there is a most tactful way of asserting her rights more likely progressively to yield small results which in the ultimate bulk will satisfy Ireland's aspirations. Her aspirations are said to consist chiefly of a desire for autonomy, with the widest degree of independence, but within the British union, both for geographical and international reasons. Furthermore, Ireland appreciates as much as the other Dominions the delicate possibilities of •an independent course in foreign affairs, which critics agree is going to be one of the most difficult problems of the Conference.