THREAT OF CRISIS ACROSS THE CHANNEL

The eternal Irish question is submitted to the Parliaments
If the Cabinet is defeated it will dissolve

The English Parliament, which meets today in a short extraordinary session, is going to live some feverish days.
What it is going to discuss once again is the Irish question which was thought to be resolved three years ago, and which is now reappearing in a new form.

The agreement of 1921 had recognized, in the sister island, two States: the Free State, whose capital is Dublin and whose government is currently led by Mr. Cosgrave, and Ulster, whose Parliament sits in Belfast and whose Prime Minister is Sir John Craig. But the boundaries still had to be demarcated, and the Free State immediately claimed six of the counties of Ulster, which, it added, were populated by nationalists anxious to incorporate themselves into it.

A joint commission composed of a delegate from Ulster, a delegate from the Free State, and a delegate from the English government, was to decide. Ulster refused to appoint its representative. Everything was settled.

The Free State addressed itself to the London cabinet. Mr. Cosgrave declared that he could not avert a bloody conflict if the matter was not settled quickly. It was then that Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald decided to ask the English Chambers for permission to appoint the third delegate himself, in the absence of Ulster.

The conservatives will oppose the project violently, because they have always been linked, for political reasons, to Ulster. If the liberals, as a whole, vote for the government, it will have a majority. Failing that, it will have to resort to dissolution.

The debate therefore singularly overflows in itself the question of Ireland properly speaking.