The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-04-13

Dublin, March H.-It seems to be one of the inevitable disadvantages of parlia- mentary government that an executive finds it extremely hard to admit that it has made mistake. A despot may com init endless blunders, but when con- vinced of the fact nothing stands in the way of his redressing them. There is, however. a tremendous force compounded half of inertia, half of amour propre, which prevents a parliamentary ministry from acknowledging a mistaken policy and retracing it's steps, so as to avert dis astrous consequences. This force has been strikingly in evidence in the case of the Sein Fein leaders who have been interned in English prisons, and whom the British government has at last begun to reelaSe.
 After the Dublin rebellion in April 1916, , the most prominent of its leaders were executed, but others, among whom was De Valera, though condemned to death. had their sentences commuted to penal servitude, some for a life term, others for five or ten years. Whatever the term was none of them served it, for in June, 1917, little more than year after they had been fighting against the British government, that government made an attempt to reconcile Ireland by leniency and released all the prisoners uncondi- 
 proved futile; the released prisoners set themselves at the head of a formidable agitation, which by working for the es- tablishment of an Irish republic by force of arms tended to weaken Great Britain s effort in the war. They also threatened forcibly to oppose the enforcement Of conscription in Ireland, and with the help of the Roman Catholic church, they raised a large sum of money and created 1oh nj inr fhiS r. pose. Their activities were so embarrass- ing to the government that on May 20, 1913, 1t was announced that De Valera and many of his leading followers had beer arrested under the Defense of the realm act" Ca measure passed for war purposes to strengthen the hands of the executive by giving them power to override the usual legal rights of individuals.) It was further announced that evidence had been discovered of a plot between Ger many and the Sim Fein party and a sum- mary of this was subsequently, published. It did not carry much conviction in Ire hand, thought it was quite possible that the Sim Feiners had been in commumi' cation with the Germans (whom they had once described as "our gallant allies in Europe') and while 1t was obvious that their activities tended to benefit Ger many, yet men of all parties agreed that Ino StdIefncHt iSsSueu py 6oNoi hiiiohe NoAA tained nothing that gave legal proof or khe existence of a plot and very little that had not been known for six or eight months previously. It was felt that tno government was unable to publish much of it's evidence because it did not wish to reveal the sources from which 1t had been obtained and this feeling was in tensified by the fact that instead or bringing the prisoners to trial, it ordered them to be interned for an indefinite period on the ground that the safety or the state required it.
 The prisoners were not treated as crfm- finals: indeed, Mir D. Mccarthy, the Sim Fein director of elections, has testified to the courtesy he received from all the prison officials, but none the less they resented the restrictions placed on theF liberty of movement and the censorship imposed on their correspondence. From