The High Court of Appeal for Ireland ceased to exist. Cases which would have been reserved for the High Court of Appeal for Ireland would, in the North, be heard by the Court of Appeal for Northern Ireland. There were provisions dealing with the retirement of Irish judges, and the determination of pensions and allowances to be made to them. The office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland was abolished. The Irish Land Commissioners were also superseded. There was established a Trust, called the Irish Sailors and Soldiers Land Trust, for the purpose of providing in Ireland cottages for the accommodation of men who served in the Naval, Military, or Air Forces during the war. The Trust was to have five members, and was to be financed by a provision of 1,500,000l. The Bill also proposed to give the Commissioners of Customs and Excise power, if necessary, to make regulations with reference to the importation and exportation of goods into and from Northern Ireland across the frontier. There was a provision as to relief from double Income Tax. A number of other adjustments were made. between Great Britain and the Free State, and comprehensive powers were included in the Bill.

In moving the second reading of the Irish Free State Constitution Bill, Mr. Bonar Law said that Ireland wanted peace, and this appeared to be the only way. The only question for the House was whether the Bill complied with the Treaty or not. The late law officers of the Crown had advised that it did, the present law officers of the Crown confirmed that view, the Lord Chief Justice supported it; what, therefore, was left? The Prime Minister, with his appreciation of the past, with his knowledge of the difficulties of the future, and with confidence in the men who were controlling the destinies of Ireland, recommended the Bill without any fears as to the result, and without any expression of exaggerated hopes. Even demonstrations of sympathy he recognised might be dangerous to the fulfilment of the hopes of Ireland and of this country. One hope he had, that there would be moral support behind the new Government, which had not obtained during several hundred years, and that there would be good relations between the two countries. Mr. Bonar Law pointed to the unwritten Constitution of the British Empire, and said that any attempt to define by statute what the relations of the Dominions were, would not be merely a question between this country and Southern Ireland, but one of far-reaching importance. The whole country, he claimed, would feel that we must not give any excuse to people in Ireland for thinking that we were not fulfilling our part.

Mr. Ramsay Macdonald supported the Prime Minister, saying that to criticise was useless, and to sympathise was dangerous. He deprecated any attempt to define rigidly the relations between the Dominions and the mother-country. He welcomed the extraordinary number of new experiments that

the Irish Government proposed to make. He shared the hopes of the Prime Minister that this was going to bring a spirit of happiness and a spirit of co-operation that all our past experiments of government in Ireland had failed to give us.

Colonel Gretton, the leader of the Diehard group in the late Parliament, then made a last effort to avert what he regarded as the disaster of conferring dominion rule on Southern Ireland, but the men to whom he looked for support were now in the Government, and consequently committed to the new state of affairs. Even he felt that he could not counsel the House to throw out the Bill, but he quoted instances of outrage for the purpose of showing that the state of Ireland at the present time was worse than it had been before the signing of the Treaty. This was denied by Sir John Simon, who expressed his belief that it had improved. He said that Southern Ireland had been consolidated to a great extent in favour of the Treaty by the tragic deaths of Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins. By passing the Irish Free State Constitution Bill the Imperial Parliament was definitely abandoning the attempt to govern Ireland from Westminster, and was declaring for a solution on the basis of dominion home rule. Mr. Ronald McNeill followed by expressing his belief that, while the Irish Treaty was an indefensible transaction, the mischief had been done. beyond repair, and Parliament had no choice but to carry it out to a conclusion.

The rejection of the Bill was moved by Mr. Saklatvala, the Parsee member for North Battersea. The aim of Labour in Ireland, he said, was the establishment of the Workers' Republic. It was clear, however, that he was not expressing the views of the Labour Party as a whole. The Attorney-General gave a survey of the arguments advanced against the Bill, and replied to them. He pointed out that if the Bill was not passed the Provisional Government would cease to have any power in Ireland on December 6; the House should not refuse its consent to the Constitution unless it was absolutely certain that it contained something vitally inconsistent with the Treaty. The Bill was then read a second time without a division.

During its third reading in the House of Lords, Lord Lansdowne spoke with regret of the curtailment of the powers of Parliament in regard to the measure. There had never been a case, he said, in which Parliament had been so completely denied all opportunity of shaping or modifying the contents of a great Bill. He complained that too little care had been taken to protect the minority in the South of Ireland, and he regarded the Bill as a very unsatisfactory and very imperfectly conceived measure. He believed that it had been accepted by a considerable number of people, including several of the Irish Ministers, as the starting-point from which to obtain further concessions leading in the direction of a Republic. It had, however, the

merit that it gave an opportunity to both Northern and Southern Ireland, after they had had some years' experience of the working of the Constitution, of considering whether it would not be best for the whole country that they should join hands in seeking to create a prosperous and united Ireland. Lord Carson also spoke. He said that he saw no hope ahead, and that his vision was clouded by past disappointments. He believed that if the Irish started a Republic forthwith there would be another Treaty on the field of battle. A grave responsibility, he declared, rested on the Government to see that there was immediate relief for those men who, in the past, had been their best friends. The Government ought to set up a Statutory Commission to deal with the cases of people who were in want because of the destruction or confiscation of their property in Ireland. The Duke of Devonshire expressed his conviction that the Irish Government would do their best to carry out the Treaty, not merely in a formal sense, but in the full sense and true spirit of the Act.

On December 5 the royal assent was given to the two Irish Acts giving effect to the Treaty and the Free State Constitution. On the 6th the King held a Council at Buckingham Palace at which he signed the Proclamation announcing the adoption of the Irish Free State Constitution. At the same time Mr. Timothy Healy, K.C., was sworn in as Governor-General of the Free State.

In Dublin the first Parliament of the Free State held its opening session the same evening. Mr. Hayes was elected Speaker, and Mr. Cosgrave was re-elected as President. On the following day Dublin was shocked by the news that two of the Irish Free State deputies had been shot in the streets of Dublin, one of them being mortally wounded.

The Parliament of Northern Ireland did not delay in voting themselves out of the Irish Free State, of which they had technically formed a part since December 6. In the Commons Sir James Craig made it clear that the condition of peace and happiness for Ireland as a whole was the continuance of partition. Ulster and the Free State would co-operate, but as co-existing entities, the independence and autonomy of the northern area being secured and assured in any joint effort. Sir James Craig declared that he would have nothing to do with the Boundary Commission. Both Houses of the Parliament of Northern Ireland were unanimous in the Address which they voted to the King, praying for the exclusion of the six counties area of Ulster from the Free State, and Sir James Craig then immediately left Belfast to carry the Address to London.

The Free State Government was not slow in avenging the murder of the deputy on December 7. They immediately adopted a policy of reprisals, and executed Rory O'Connor, with three other persons who had been taken in arms against the

Irish Government. Such drastic measures had never been adopted by the British Government, and the new policy of reprisals was criticised severely by the Labour Party in the Free State Parliament. It was clear, however, that the Government was resolved to suppress revolt and assassination by the sternest measures. They were driven to this course by the continuance of rebel outrages in various parts of Ireland. On December 9 about 100 Irregulars overpowered the guard at the National Army barracks at Carrick-on-Suir, and took possession of the building. They made prisoners of the garrison and other National troops, while they seized the ammunition at the barracks and put it in a commandeered car and lorry, then released the garrison and set fire to the barracks and hospital buildings. During shooting in the streets a sergeant of the National Army was mortally wounded, and two other soldiers and a woman were also hit.

About the same time a party of armed men entered the locomotive shed at Kildare Station, and took possession of three engines which were under steam. One engine was sent at full speed into the buffers, another was sent down the line and stopped, while the third was sent after it at full speed, and both engines were wrecked and the line blocked. Armed incendiarism also occurred in Dublin. On December 13 an official report announced that troops operating in the Curragh district had discovered a dugout underneath the floor of a cottage kitchen. It contained ten men with rifles, a quantity of ammunition and about three tons of food-stuffs.

On December 12 the Duke of Abercorn was sworn in at Belfast as the Governor of Northern Ireland. The Governor afterwards appointed a number of members of the newly constituted Privy Council for Northern Ireland. On the same day the Northern Ireland House of Commons passed the second reading of the Bill authorising the Ministry of Finance to guarantee the payment of loans to be applied in connexion with the carrying out of capital undertakings calculated to promote employment in Northern Ireland. It was proposed that the aggregate capital amount of the loans to be guaranteed should not exceed 2,000,000l., and the Bill was to remain in operation for twelve months.

On the same day the new Governor-General of the Irish Free State addressed both Houses together for the first time. He read the text of a message from the King, which expressed the hope that, by the faithful observance on all sides of the compact which had been concluded, the peace and prosperity of Ireland might be secured. He then read the Speech from the Throne, in which he outlined the legislative proposals of the Government, which included an amnesty for all British forces engaged in Ireland before the truce. The Senate of the Free State Parliament appointed Lord Glenavy as its Chairman, and declared an amnesty in all matters of ancient politics. The

final stage of the evacuation of Southern Ireland by the British Army began in Dublin on December 14, when a number of barracks and public buildings, including the Viceregal Lodge, were formally transferred to the Free State Forces.

The British troops in the Free State were removed during December, but the state of the country continued to be very unsettled up to the end of the year. On December 17 a party of National troops raided a hall near Naas while a dance was in progress. As the soldiers were leaving the hall some shots were fired at them and a Lieutenant was killed. About the same time a band of armed men attacked the village of Blessington, outside Dublin, and spent several hours in looting the shops. British forces remained in Ulster, forming a separate Command directly under the War Office, and the coast defence garrison in the Irish Free State was placed under the Western Command.

On December 19 two bombs were thrown in Dublin at a car containing an officer of the National Army, but the occupants of the car escaped injury. Seven executions were announced on the same day; these were not in the nature of reprisals, but were designed to stop the deliberate campaign against the Irish railways. Four of the executed men were railway workers. On the following day Mr. James Dwyer, an ex-member of Dail Eireann, was shot dead in Dublin, and the murderer succeeded in making good his escape.

The worst of a long series of attacks on the Irish railways took place on December 20, when a mail train from Belfast was stopped near Dundalk and set on fire after the passengers had been forced to alight. The burning train was then sent down the line until it collided with a goods train which had also been derailed.

At the end of the year a widespread effort was being made to bring about peace. The Tipperary Board of Guardians requested Cardinal Logue to use his influence with the leaders on both sides to put an end to the warfare which was devastating the land. In Thurles a number of ex-officers of the Irish Republican Army called on the Government and the Republican leaders to meet together in conference, with a view to ending the internecine warfare that was going on in Ireland. They also appealed to the Government to suspend all executions pending the holding of the proposed conference. There was, however, no sign of any change in the attitude of the Government; it was willing at any time to declare peace with its enemies, but only on the essential condition that all arms were surrendered, and that the operations against the State should come to a complete end.

Several debates of agricultural interest took place in the House of Commons before the prorogation of Parliament. Mr. Lloyd George made his first speech in the new Parliament on December 5, on an amendment to the Address dealing with this subject. The amendment called for an inquiry for the purpose