EIRE’S STATUS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 October 1939, Page 4

EIRE’S STATUS

DECLARATION OF NEUTRALITY. MANY GERMAN RESIDENTS LEAVE.. LONDON, October 5. The departure is reported from Eire of most of her German residents, including men well on in years who had a substantial stake in the country; only the German Minister and his small staff, and one or two families, have not returned to the Fatherland. Eire has announced her neutrality in the war, but that has not prevented this general exodus of Germans; nor has it prevented the large majority of the people of Eire from sympathising with the Empire’s cause. A story is going the rounds of an Irish harbour official, making no move to detain the crew of a British seaplane that had made a forced landing (who, if their craft had landed in a neutral foreign country, ought by international law to have been interned) said, “Sure we are neutral! But who are we neutral against?” In the meantime the British Government has decided to appoint a representative in Eire, and Sir John Maffey has been chosen for that post. There are numerous questions concerning the economic, commercial and political relations of the two countries which require close and constant discussion, and, as “The Times” says editorially, “The neutrality of Eire need not prevent that country from maintaining close touch with the larger Islands; the links of commerce and finance in particular require to be well guarded and strengthened in the present crisis.”