Irish Distress

The news went abroad: Ireland is starving.

The west of Ireland suffered for lack of potatoes (its staple food) for the lack of peat (its staple fuel). The Free State Government rushed aid to the stricken area, fed daily 18,000 persons, distributed much free coal.

The significance of the famine, which William T. Cosgrove, President of the Free State Cabinet, called "much exaggerated," and which Eamon De Valera, Anglophobe Republican leader, declared was an "English press scare," is to be found in the fact that hungry men stir the most dangerous political discontent.

President (Premier) Cosgrave, who has recently returned to Ireland from the south of France, where he basked in the sunshine for his health's sake, finds himself in a difficult situation. Bye-elections for ten constituencies must be held, and this in the face of Republican attacks and adverse criticism from his own party has given Mr. Cosgrave food for grave reflection.

He is criticized adversely for extravagance, for maintaining a larger army than conditions warrant, for costly foreign embassies. But more striking than this are comments from Mrs. Casement, widow of the notorious Roger Casement, executed during the war for treason, from St. John Ervine, famed Irish novelist and dramatist, from John Dillon, onetime leader of the Home Rule Party.

Mrs. Casement, who certainly has no reason to love the English, described the depths to which Ireland has sunk since the establishment of the Free State with horror; Ireland's former troubles seem like pale grievances. Mr. Ervine, traveling between Kingston and Cork, said he discovered among the people "bitterness of disillusion, great discontent, deep pessimism about the future, frequent lament over the departure of the British." Dillon declared expressively: "The old Irish Party has been accused of bossing, but, my God! I never thought that I would live to see what is taking place today under an Irish Government. When we look back on the days when we were oppressed by England, it would seem like Paradise if we could get the same kind of oppression now."

The so-called famine has come, therefore, at a time when Mr. Cosgrave's troubles are perhaps greatest, but by no means insuperable.