Majority of One

The last bonfire died down, the last reeking kerosene torch guttered, orators retired to soothe their hoarse and reddened throats with hot whiskey and lemon. Then for four anxious days last week the Free State waited while election returns dribbled in. In Dublin Under-Sheriff Lorgan G. Sherlock emerged from the counting room to say: "I pick up 20 ballots and ten of them's for Cosgrave's men and ten for de Valera's. It's the closest election I've ever seen and I've been Under-Sheriff of Dublin since 1915." Slowly it grew obvious that scrawny, rebellious Eamon de Valera was gaining, contrary to the hopes and prophesies of the British Press. Final results:

Fianna Fail (de Valera) 77 seats

Cumann na nGaedheal

(Cosgrave) 48

Centre Party 11

Labor 8

Independents 8

Independent Labor 1

President de Valera has kept his Cabinet in power for the past year only with the support of the Irish Labor Party. He went into the election fortnight ago with a demand for a clear majority for his own party. He got it last week, a majority of one, but still a majority. To U. S. citizens, especially Irish, he sent a message:

"The victory was due to the persistence of our people and the moral support of Americans of the Irish race. The Irish people have declared with renewed emphasis their desire for the complete unity and freedom of their country."

Now that President de Valera had his majority, what would he do with it? He seemed loth to try anything so drastic as proclamation of an Irish Republic, indicated that his first objective will be abolition of the oath of allegiance to the Crown by a measure which he forced through the Dail once, only to have it defeated by the Senate. Next President de Valera will bend every effort to secure union of Northern Ireland with the Free State. Such efforts Viscount Craigavon, Premier of Northern Ireland, attacked violently in Belfast last week. Said he:

"No matter what sacrifices and inconveniences are entailed, the people of the North will rise in their wrath and spurn any attempt to suborn their allegiance to the Crown and the Constitution."

Not all the people of the North did that last week. More than 3,000 of them paraded up and down Clonard St. and Falls Road in Belfast singing the Free State anthem and shouting "Up de Valera! Up the rebels!"

Said Eamon de Valera: "I consider Craigavon's statement a vain and foolish one for any mortal to make."

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