IRELAND

Taranaki Daily News, 21 April 1921, Page 5

IRELAND

ARMY REPRISALS. PREMIER REPLIES TO PROTEST. SINN FEIN’S REIGN OF TERROR. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received April 20, 5.5 p.m. London, April 19. Mr. Lloyd George, in a lengthy letter in reply to bishops and other churchmen who wrote condemning reprisals by the Crown forces, says it is utterly untrue that there has been any authorisation or condonation of the policy of meeting murder by unchecked violence. Acts of indiscipline are now increasing, but they are infrequent in the general record of patience and endurance displayed by the sorely tried police, who will command the admiration of - posterity. The Premier says Sinn Fein has inaugurated a reign of terror and has murdered its opponents ruthlessly. The present quarrel is not about the Home Rule Act, but secession. The Government would never give way on this fundamental point. To abandon the use of force would be to surrender to violence, crime and separation, “which?* he added, “I am not prepared to do.”— Aus-N.Z. Cable Assn. A DISASTROUS MISTAKE. TOWNSHIP BOMBED. London, April 18. Mistaking each other for Sinn Feiners two parties of soldiers in mufti engaged in a revolver duel at a hotel at Castle ContfelL Before they realised the error the landlord and two soldiers were shot dead and a number of others seriously wounded. Extraordinary scenes were witnessed at Balliria, following the wounding of two constables. An armed party entered the township and commenced shooting indiscriminately and bombing houses and business places.