SHEER LUNACY.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 May 1916, Page 5

SHEER LUNACY.

A TOUR THROUGH GALWAY. FURTHER IMPORTANT ARRESTS. Received May 7, 3.5 p.m. London, May C. A Daily Chronicle correspondent who toured the West of Ireland left with the impression that the action of the rebels was sheer lunacy. He says he watched tho rebel prisoners brought in from Galway Hills, which parties of armed police, in motor charabancs, had been scouring. Many peasant farmers, he says, through the assistance of the Congested Districts Hoard were beginning to taste prosperity. Tliev had new homesteads, the latest agricultural appliances, and excellent breeds of cattle and sheep, yet these men, by desperate gambling, are thrown back to the old days by their crime.

The rebel army was about one thouaiul strong, of whom two hundred had firearms, and the rest were armed with picks and pitch-forks, and home-made bombs.

They were under command of Captain Mellows, who was recently deported from England as a dangerous conspirator. He immediately purchased priest's clothes and returned to Ireland in disguise. Directly the rebel scouts announced that the military were approaching the rebels retreated and took refuge in the mountains. The arrests include Professor Steinberger, a German teacher, at the University, Professor Walsh (a coroner), and Nicholls, af the New York World.

SHOOT OR BE SHOT. DELUDED REBELS. PAPERS DEMAND THAT EXECUTIONS CEASE. Received May 7, 5.5 p.m. London, May 6. Ireland is relieved at the Government sternly with the leaders. The pulil.:'' ore insistent that steps should be taken to end the menace.

It is clear that although many rebels who were summoned to headquarters did not suspect trouble. They were told that a republic had been proclaimed, rifles were thrust into their hands, and thev were ordered to fight, under the penalty, for disobedience, of death. The' Daily News hopes that we have heard the last of the Irish executions.

The Daily Chronicle warn* the Government not to carry the shooting of the rebels over far, as this will make the rebels martyrs.

The Manchester Guardian says: "The death sentences ought to cease. There have been enough for an example, and warning, and the occasion is not needed for another "Blood v Assi/.c." Mr. Redmond and Sir Edward Carson had pleaded for the rank and file, but where is the line to be drawn? It is monstrous that a military tribunal, sitting in secret, is allowed to determine in a grave and critical matter in hot blood."

[The "Bloody Assize" was conducted by Chief Justice Jeffreys in July, IS(>5, alter Monmouth's failure at Sedgemoor, when he ordered 320 executions for high treason.]

LOYAL IRISH IN THE TRENCHES. GERMAN PLACARDS. Received May 8; 7.30 p.m. London, May 0. Mr. William Redmond, who is serving ivt the front, writes to his brother as fallows: "Germans in the trenches opposite the Irishmen raised placards, with the words: "Revolution in Ireland. English firing on your families. Military Bill rejected. Casement being persecuted. Throw away your arms. We are Saxons, and if you do not fire we will not." The Irishmen replied with Irish airs and "Rule Britannia."