THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 1908. MR BIRRELL AND DISTURBED IRELAND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9043, 31 January 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 1908. MR BIRRELL AND DISTURBED IRELAND.

The unrest in Ireland, and the attitude of the Chief Secretary for that unI happy country has been the subject of many cable despatches to the Press of Australasia, and of much criticism in the British Presp, for several months past. In our yesterday's issue appeared a message recording the salient features of a speech made by Mr A. Bin-ell, at North Bristol. In that the Chief Secretaiy emphasised his difficulties in the face of a population bent upon getting Home Rule. The whole trouble, he said, arose over the land, and the impos sibilitj of settling the land question he attributed to the House of Lords, who, being parties »o the dispute, had mutilated the Government's land bills, and thus increased the discontent. There is doubtless a good deal in this contention; but Mr Birrell seems to be a political square peg in

a round hole, and, according to an influential section of the Press of Great Britain, is largely responsible for the prtsent very serious state of affairs in Ireland by his vacillation and ineptitude in dealing with the cattle-raiders. Mr Ginnell, Irish M.P., and a Justice of the Peace, was the organiser oi the cattle-driv-ing movement as a step in the direction of securing Home Rule, and, of course, ought promptly to have been indicted for a breach of the law; but the Chief Secretary, speaking in November last a*- Belfast, gave the most extraordinary reason why Mr Ginnell should not be placed under lock and key. The recalcitrant M,P. wished to be sent to prison, and Mr Birrell preferred to let him run riot rather than gratify the Nationalist member's desire. "The passion of Mr Ginnell's life" said Mr Birrell to his Belfast audience, "was to go to prison, and if he were there for four or six weeks he would come out all the more powerful and influential to engage in that kind of work." Therefore, "the Attorney-General and he had confined themselves in their prosecutions to the [people actually engaged in these illegal and reprehensible operations." Referring to this most extraordinary explanation, the "Yorkshire Post" remarks: — "If there is no justification for the action of Mr Ginnell and his Nationalist colleagues, there is less for the inaction of Mr Birrell. To beg and pray that they will not inconvenience the Government merely proves their strength and his own pusillanimous incapacity." That staid and judicial paper, the "Spectator," dealing with the whole question, says:—"We are compelled to say—and we say it with a full sense of responsibility- that the state of Ireland is rapidly drifting into a condition of social disorder of a kind which inflicts the upon individuals, and is a menace to the prosperity, moral and material, of the whole community. To put it shortly, the Irish Nationalists have come to the conclusion that agrarian agitation—i.e., agrarian outrage—must be employed as the locomotive to drag the political trucks and carriages of Home Rule: or national independence. Mr Birrell must explain to the Nationalist Members in unmistakable terms that though they have every rignt to be Home Rulers, they must remember so to be Home Rulers as not to forget that they are citizens of a civilised country who are required to obey the law of the land. If Mr Birrell is not willing to face the facts and retrace his steps, then not only will he do irreparable injury to Ireland, and inflict untold miseries upon hsr people, but he will also inflict a blow of the severest kind upon the Liberal Party, and upon the Government of which he is one of the most prominent members." This was written on November 23rd, but it does not appear that the Chief Secretary has "retraced his steps" or done anything to pacify the country which to-day is as much the victim of agrarian aggression as it was when Mr Ginnell 'incited his disaffected countrymen to start upon a campaign of cattle-driving and other' open and flagrant breaches of law and order.