POISONING THE WELLS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLVIII, Issue 35, 1 September 1921, Page 17

POISONING THE WELLS.

Sir,- friend sent me a copy of the Auckland Weekly News for August 18. I wish to call attention to its comments on Irish affairs and to give one sample. In Mr. de Valera's reply to Mr. Lloyd George's offer of (what he called) Dominion -Government, the Sinn Fein leader said: "We cannot admit the right of the British Government to mutilate our country either in its own intersts or at. the call of any section of our population. We do not contemplate the use of force. If your Government will stand aside we can effect a complete reconciliation." Mr. Lloyd George's rejoinder contains the following words: —• "I am profoundly glad to have your agreement that Northern Ireland cannot be coerced." In an article too long for any ordinary New Zealand reader to wade through, the following comment is made by the Auckland Weekly News (probably copied from the associated morning paper). It is in that portion of the article which may be read before an uninterested person gets tired. "To an invitation to the Irish people to adjust their differences he [Mr. de Valera] replies that the British Government must stand aside and allow him to coerce Ulster." * I do not think it necessary to make any comment beyond saying this is "a poisoning of the wells." Indeed I would have not troubled you with a letter at all, but I wished to point out that we Irishmen must be prepared to see a good deal of this kind of stuff in the New Zealand newspapers.—l am, etc., —C. Ua Laoghaire.