"Dev" Appeased

Britain has too many pots on the European fire just now to stir up an Irish stew. Moreover, the British public's appetite for the age-old Irish question has vanished. Of late Britain has been of a mind to let the Irish have anything within reason.

Knowing this, Prime Minister Eamon de Valera of Eire was able to get tough with Britain last week over the project of conscripting Irishmen for the British Army in the six counties of Northern Ireland (TIME, May 8). He warned: "We claim the whole of Ireland as national territory, and conscription of Irish in that portion of the country [Northern Ireland] we will regard as an act of aggression."

Although British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had promised that recently inaugurated conscription measures would be applied in Northern Ireland only in time of national emergency, Mr. de Valera demanded that it be forsworn completely. Even the imperialist London Times observed editorially that this sort of fight was just "the kind which Irishmen love" and urged that it be settled "before it gives serious trouble." Result was that last week Mr. Chamberlain backed down completely, announced that as a "recognition of Northern Ireland's patriotism" recruits for the British Army there would be limited to a volunteer reserve tank unit. Eire was again appeased.

Most Irishmen were jubilant at another of "Dev's" diplomatic victories and saw in it a trump to take the final trick in the Eire-Britain game--rule of Northern Ireland.

As for Northern Ireland, the people there have two minds on the subject. One-third of the population is Catholic (although there is no Catholic in the Government) and looks upon union with Eire as a deliverance from the fanatically Protestant rule of Lord Craigavon's Northern Ireland Government. Industrial (and very much depressed) Belfast would, moreover, be a natural complement to agricultural Eire.

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