WAR ON "COERCION"

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 92, 9 December 1931, Page 2

WAR ON "COERCION"

IRlSH SITUATION FREE STATE GOVERNMENT'S STRINGENT NEW POWERS. REBEL-S' MISTAKE. It is not easy to get rid of a heritage, and Ireland learnt through centuries to regard the law and its agents as hostile powers (writes Stephen Gwynn in the London .Observer). For the last eight years the Irish Free State has made and administered its own laws under an ultra-demo-cratic constitution; but it has not escap'ed from the mentality produced by generations when every secret society claimed to be Ireland's champion against the law. There is nothing to be surprised at. Ireland's j freedom was ohtaxned hy the operatipns of a secret society which paralysed the law and paralysed government; England had its full share in creating the mentality which is at ! present the worst disease of Ireland. For thousands of Irishmen and Irishwomen it is still enough to call a measure "coercion" to convince them that it is tyrannical. But these" some thousands do not regard it as "coercion" when a secret society threatens jurors that if they bring in a verdict according to their oath penalties will be incurred. Mr. de Valera's 'new paper, the "Irish Press," which gives a full report of President Cosgrave's speech when the Dail opened (the "Irish Press" has so far reported very fairly) makes the comment that the

speech makes no new disclosures. Broadly, that is true. It simply marshalled facts of which all Ireland was aware. They included those political murders within the present year. What it did disclose was the proposed action. Trial by jury is to go by the board, for political offences. Military courts will replace it. Nocturnal Visits. Let me reeall what happened recently. Senators and members of the Dail received visits from persons, asking them how they proposed to vote on the measure which has now been produced. In some cases the visitors came at night in large numbers In others they came in military formation. It looks as if the word had been passed that Fianna Fail would not stand over this, for later the visits were less overtly menacing. But the menace was there, and public memory is not so short as not to remember what happened when the Free State Parliament first met after the Civil War. Two of its leading members were shot in the street as they got on a car to drive down to the House. The answer was prompt — and lawless. Four leading prisoners of the Irregulars, with Rory

O'Connor first on the list, were shot that afternoon by Government orders. The action was deprecated at the time for its lawlessness Ixy some of the Government's best supporters. But Mr. Mulcahy, then, as now, a leading member of the Government, when reference was made to it in debate some months later, answered grimly that it had been efficacious — as it was. To-day Government is taking steps that will probably enable them to repeat such action, but with legal warrant. Meantime, they keep armed guards over members of the Government party, and more especially over the Minister for Justice, who will be chiefly responsible for the working of the new Act. An Error in Psychology. It looks as if the challenge to authority had made an error in psychology. They had established a general intimidation of the public; no one would give evidence; juries would not convict. But when they publicly sought to cower individuals in public positions, they made it impossible for such men to evade their duty without apparent cowardice; and consequently every Government supporter was in his place, all the Independents came also, and two leading Lahour men separated themselves from their party and stood for the Bill, which had a majority of eighteen for its introduction — equivalent to eighty at Westminster. It is quite possible that Mr. Cosgrave may achieve his end without a single infliction of the death penalty; for he will be able if murder is attempted to strike at those who are responsible, and not merely at the gunman employed for the oecasion. But for many months he and every man who supports will have to live under the constant threat of assassination, a danger much more depressing than the risks of modern war. That is the best we can hope for. There is also the chance ,of a period of outrage and bloody penalties. This is the pass that the patriots who killed Kevin O'Higgins, unarmed on his way to Mass, have brought Ireland to. The one good thing I see in the picture is that this organised system of threats has at last roused a sufficiency of public men in Ireland to determine that neither they, nor Ireland, shall be coerced by any secret society. They will win, on one condition. England's campaign of repression in 1920-21 was defeated beeause it became known that the Government's agents were doing things which the Government could not avow, and did not prevent. For a period after the Civil War, Mr. Cosgrave's Government was, to say the least, suspected of using methods like those attributed to the Black-and-Tans. Nothing has so much weakened it. Under this Bill they have great powers and can use them without loss of credit But they must be prepared to stand publicly on any action that is taken by their police, and to enforce the most drastic disciplinary penalties for what they cannot approve.