COSGRAVE MINISTRY

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 128, 20 August 1927, Page 9

COSGRAVE MINISTRY

PUBLIC SAFETY ACT IMMMEDIATE ENFORCEMENT By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyriyh LONDON, Thursday. The Dublin correspondent of “The Times” says the Executive Council of the Irish Free State intends immediately to enforce the Public Safety Act. Many Government sup; have advised it not to take this : . e because there is no longer Parliamentary majority in favour o: the Acti However, the President, Mr. Cosgrave, and his colleagues, consider that if the Act was sound last week it is sound to-day. Therefore they say they must endorse its provisions. If this view should prevail, says the correspondent, the Republican army and the Fianna Fail Boy Scouts may be proclaimed illegal organisations in the near future. Military courts cannot be established until the Dail sits again. The Governor-General of the Free State, Mr. Timothy Healy, has withheld his signature from the Electoral Amendment Act which compels candidates to declare, before their nomination, that they will take the oath of ailegience if they are elected to either House. Mr. Healy’s action is due to the fact that the members of the de Valera, Labour and National League Parties, who constitute two-lifths of the membership of the Dail, have submitted a petition asking for a sutpension of the Act. For this reason the measure cannot become law until the fulfilment of the constitutional provision for its suspension for 90 days pending an arrangement for a referendum. The effect of this delay may be that candidates will not have to make the declaration before nomination at the next general election.—Times.

JOHN JINKS LEAVES PARTY FIANNA FAIL LOSES MEMBER LONDON, Thursday. Mr. John Jinks, who absented himself from the Dail when the vote on Labour’s no-confidence motion was taken earlier in the week, has written to the Leader of the National League Party, Captain Redmond, from that party. Mr. de Valera has also lost a prominent supporter, namely, Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington, whose husbancj was shot in the last rebellion. Mrs. Skeflington has left the Fianna Fail because the de Valeraites have taken the oath of allegiance.—A. an’’ N.Z.