Arizona republican., 1919-10-06
IRELAND ARMS FUR CIVIL WAR
 WITH BRITAIN
Special correspondence)

special NOiTeSFohuCHSSI
 DITRIIN. Sept. 20.-(By mail.)-f the troubled waters of Irish politics seemed, when 1 last wrote, to De threatened with stagnation since then they have been once more profoundly stirred The reply to the Castle to series of onslaughts on the police, and at Fermony on soldiers, was to pro claim Dail Eireann the republican par liament as an unlawful body, and to forbid the holding of meetings under it's auspices The intention IS quite obviously to convince the world that the members of the Dali are responsible for instigation to murder and outrage, a thing which even the Irish Times
 the organ of reaction in Ireland admits to be unthinkable. The effect of the proclamation, if it is taken se- riously at all can only be to increase the tendency to violence; the first fruits indeed were seen in the assassination of a detective in Dublin within fifty yards of the police station where the proclamation had been posted only a few hours.
 Thus once more we have come face to face with situation in which no man knows what to fear next. The | people on the one side, the military and i police on the other, have settled down to look upon one another as possible murderers, and we none of us know when one side or the other may burst 1 into violence. There are those who 1 predict that the garrison in Ireland will shortly reach a point when they will repeat on large scale all over the ! country the reprisals upon the populace which have taken place in F'ermony. i It would not be surprising if this were so the ordinary English soldier. who l goes to Ireland obeying orders and 1 finds himself and comrades a target l for insult and attack. cannot well be expected to submit tamely for an in 1 definite period. For those whose | memories have not been swept clean i of all pre-war things the lesson of 1 Bachelors Walk should still be sig | nificant. On the other side, no one has any hope that the campaign of assas- sination, which everyone whom one meets deplores will be brought to an end by an increase in the severity of military rule; on the contrary such a course of action must result in giving to such assassination a measure of eX- cuse and even a semblance of patriot ism. Many people fear that collision | on a large scale may take place, and it is clear that a certain section of ex- 1 tremists-that section one suspects | which has the closest affiliations witt America-is sufficiently well equipped with explosives, arms and money tC cause infinite damage before beins crushed. Most of all. however, the average thoughtful Irishman fears tha'
 an insane Prussian spirit is at worl
 within the Castle gates, planning t
 bring about situation in which thous
 ads of Irish people may be massacreC
 under the pretense of preserving tn
 peace.
 It is essential that the Americal
 public should know that these view
 are not the exaggerated views of fan
 aticism or even the special pleading o
 blind partisanship. They represen
 the actual facts of the situation as it i
 seen, with nothing more than a sligh
 modification of viewpoint between on
 individual and another, by nine out c
 every ten lrishmen at the present mo
 ment. So deep has been the impressio
 of Prussianism, both actual and fore P shadoWed, created by the methods ( ], raiding and espionage now in fore | that we find even Protestant Ulster
 men casting off their age-long loya'
 ism to join in the protest. Sir AlgeI
 non Coote, holding his Brittanic ma e jesty's commission at lieutenant of D county-a position corresponding e theory, though not at all in fact. [ f that of governor of a state-and We
 known as member of the souther unionist aristocracy, has renounce [, that commission in the public colum
 of the Times as protest against thes q methods. Sir Horace Plunkett, befol
 all things a constitutionalist and :, statesman who shrinks from a gosp Y of hatred, has written to the san
 paper his vigorous and unqualified dis