The Guardian (And Evening Star, with winch is incorporated the West Coast Times.) FRIDAY, APRIL 20th, 1923. REBELS IN IRELAND.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 April 1923, Page 2

The Guardian (And Evening Star, with winch is incorporated the West Coast Times.) FRIDAY, APRIL 20th, 1923. REBELS IN IRELAND.

Israel Zangwu.l, in a recent article on the Fascismo movement in Italy, remarks the Lyttelton Times, terms it contemptuously “Boy Scout writ in blood.” Mr Zangw ill, of course, knows more about Italian polities than he does about tire Boy Scouts. The organisation sponsored hv Baden-l’owell v, the outcome of a sincere desire to train British hoys in the way they should go, and it is so far from being a hot-bed of revolutionary propaganda that Socialist organisations of the reddest hue in the spectrum have found it- necessary to invent hoy scout organisations of a kind different to the original brand. But Zangwill is right- in halt of his terminology. Fascismo L above all things an organisation, which manufactures, utilises and trades upon' the immature judgments of hoys. These hoys, these impulsive Italian youngsters of from 16 to 21, are never allowed to know—do not care to know—The real .sources of their inspiration; the wicked old politicians who sit somewhere in the hidden hack-ground brewing their* witches’ spells against the ideal of democracy. And so it. is in the ca.-e of Southern Ireland and its pitiful rebellion against a government by Irishmen for Irishmen. Many of the hoys and young men, actuated hv the hot temper of the Celt rather than by reason and spurred on hv the eloquence of do Valera and his colleagues, have devoted their lives fur many months to a guerilla warfare against the Free State. Thoy do not know, or if they do know they are bigger fools than they ought to he, that the funds for this warfare are mostly supplied by people in the United States who spend their dollars, but do not risk their hides, in order to satisfy an ancient grudge. Hence it- is that we find in the cable news the announcement that “Austin -Slack, the fiercest rebel,” has been found cowering in a ditch, and that the members of the “Special Section” of the Rebel Army, operating in London, comprised boys between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. Slack had a “document-” upon liis person—was there ever a bay conspirator who was found without a document ? Slack’s document was fairly sensible, since it admitted the futility of future conflict, and a great deal cf attention has been paid to it, but the concluding sentence betrays the extent to which the youngsters who bear the brunt of the fighting pre deluded by the old Ih e U who

keep them supplied with grievances and rations. ‘'Volunteers are requested to hand in their arms pending the election of a Government which will he trie free choice of the people," is the ..elocution of the document, and nil the world now knows that the lust election conducted in Ireland was held under the system of proportional representation, the fairest system of election yet devised, and that the only interference with that election was comprised in the exploits of some of the voung hoys who follow do Valera. The verdict was overwhelmingly in favour of the Free State, and the vcidict would have been accepted but lor the mischievous machinations of such fanatics. as F.rskine Childers, who has paid the penalty, and do 4 a lorn, the recipient and custodian of funds from Amoiica. This is a phase in Irish history which cannot long continue. President 0- “grave has asserted, with a mixture of the heroic and the practical which would he comic were not the circumstances so horribly tragic, that “the defence of the people’s liberty’’ is well within the Free Slate’s iiiuuirial resources. Although the Free State has a deficit it is not a very large one, alul the restoration of peace to Ireland is so essential an undertaking, ill the circumstances, that we hope the Free State will mortgage its resources till the result is attained. We shall ;i 11 he very sorry for the hoys on the rebels’ side who fought and polished over the quibble about a republic and a free State, and equally sorry for the hoys and men on the Free State side who fell that Ireland might have peace. Hut the question is one which brooks no pcaeolul issue. There are too many outsiders rooking this particular kettle of simp, and until alien interferences in the r.flairs ol Southern Ireland are proved to tie utterly ineffective there is no possibility of a .settlement. We ho] e that the Free State will deal net too harshly with the boys which it captures.