Feb, 'The motion passed by the Trish Free State Senate urging Mr. de Walera's government to approach Whitehall with a view appointing a joint commission to end the economic war is not likely' to lead to. any important! development in the situation it exists at present between the ties to this very unpleasant jpute over the Land Annuities, Beyond the fact that it is the expression ty a comparatively small majority of the Senate of the opinion of a body, which hi not as a whole approved of Bf de Valera's policy, it has no parti. cular significance, and the fact that it emerges from the deli-Iberationa of such a body is a factor more likely to snilitate against it than to lead to its adoption. It is necessary to remember that while the Dail, as a it of the last general election, controlled by a party support: ing Mr. de Valera in all the extravagances of his declared policy to tear down what the younger Pitt accomplished, the Serate is dominated by "his opponents, and the result has been that every measure designed by the Free State leader to implement his policy of a complete divorce from the United Kingdom has been passed, despite the Sbnate's opposition, by the flux of time under constitutional provisions. The ecomnomic war has proved disastrous to the agriculturists of the Free State. They have failed to find for their produce markets sufficiently important to recompense them for what they have lost through the decision of Whitehall to recover what is due under the Land Annuity Scheme by duties levied on imports from southern Ireland. Consequently, while foodstuffs are cheaper in that part of the British Isles than they have been for a very long time past, there fs an. increasing shortage of money with which they can be bought.
At the same time it has to be admitted that the duties levied in the United Kingdom have not brought in all the desired revenue, for even though the Free State government has been assisting exports to England by means of subsidy, the trade has Met recovered sufficiently from the blow to be on a level with what it was before Mr. de Valera took his disastrous step. It is probably typical -of ar. Valera's political mental processes that he fails to see that the more he encourages Irish export trade to England by means of subsidy, the more the Free State is paying in a round-jabour method what, after all, is perfectly honourable obligation. But whether or not the greatest importance is to be attached to the motion passed by the Senate, there is evidence that a rapidly growing section of the population of the Free State is watching with dismay the ruin which is being wrought to its key industry. It is, however, difficult to see how such
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.