Mr. Eamon de Valera's intervention with the British Government in behalf of two Irishmen sentenced to death for the murder of a girl, one of five victims of the explosion at Coventry on August 22, was in the circumstances a natural move, though it will be interesting to see what response the British Government will make. The Middleton (County Cork) Urban Council asked the Free State Prime Minister to seek the commutation of the men's death sentences to penal servitude for life. The request has now been complied with. Mr. de Valera has made representations to Whitehall on the subject, and it remains. to be seen what advice the Home Secretary, with whom the final decision lies, will give to the King. So far as the law is concerned, there cannot be the slightest doubt that the two men in question, by creating the explosion, are fully responsible for the death of the unfortunate girl It is a well-known doctrine of law that a man committing a felony is responsible for any and every result emanating therefrom, and though the condemned men may have had no intention whatever of killing anyone, the fact that they did so in the course of committing a felony makes them answerable with their lives to the law. The decision which the British Government will have to make is one of considerable difficulty. Already in cases where men found guilty of planting bombs which exploded doing damage, heavy, exemplary sentences have been inflicted upon them. These cases involved no loss of life. There is something for the argument that it is the original offence which counts, and not its results, that the amount of money stolen by a man should not influence the duration of his sentence which is, when all is said and done, merely inflicted for the crime of theft Followers of that particular school will undoubtedly support the contention that the infliction of the death sentence cannot bring the unfortunate girl back io life, and that punishment, no matter how severe, should go no further than inflicting penalties for criminal bombing. Against that there is the argument that the law has at all times to be vindicated, and that where a felonious act, one of an epidemic, has brought about the death of an innocent person the doctrine of lex talions should apply. There will undoubtedly be in the minds of the Government a desire to do as much as possible to meet Mr. de Valera's wishes, so that between the three stools the Government is likely to be placed in a quandary.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.