ineffective, at a British gunboat in the harbour, drove off at top speed. The crime was denounced by all political sections, including the Republicans, but though the Government offered a reward of 10,000l. and later as a result of their investigations published the names of four men who are said to have been responsible for the outrage, they failed to make arrests, and the murderers were by the end of the year still at large.

The surprise of the Budget which was introduced on April 25 was the decision of the Minister of Finance to inaugurate a system of tariff protection with the object of benefiting Free State industries. Amongst the articles upon which import duties are now levied are boots and shoes, confectionery (including jam), glass bottles, cocoa preparations, and soap and candles. It was evident from the comments of the Farmers' Party in the Dail that the scheme is not looked upon with much favour by the agricultural interest. A sixpenny tax for delivering parcels posted outside the Free State created more friction. and discontent than the tariff experiment. Whereas the annual expenditure was 36,340,000l. the revenue amounted only to 27,687,000l., but, according to the Minister of Finance, had the payment of compensation claims which are a non-recurrent charge been excluded, the deficit would have been limited to half a million sterling.

As with Northern Ireland one of the main political issues in the Free State during the year was the Boundary difficulty. After the breakdown of the abortive London Conference on April 24, Mr. Cosgrave demanded that the British Government should carry out the Boundary provisions of the Treaty. This was followed by the appointment as Chairman of the Commission of Mr. Justice Feetham, who arrived in England on June 30. Having consulted the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on the legal position, Mr. MacDonald decided that legislation would be necessary to appoint a member of the Commission to represent Northern Ireland in default of an appointment by its own Government, and it was agreed that concurrent measures to give effect to this provision should be passed both by the British and Free State legislatures. There was sharp criticism in Dublin of statements by British exMinisters who had signed the Treaty as to the interpretation placed by them upon Article XII., but in spite of the Labour Party the Confirmation of Agreement Bill was passed rapidly through all its stages in the Dail and the Senate, and became law on October 24. In addition the Senate, on the motion of its vice-chairman, Senator Douglas, adopted a resolution to the effect that the interests of the country would best be served by an agreed solution of the outstanding problems affecting the relations between the Irish Free State and the Northern Government. This is an endorsement of the powerful appeal for appeasement issued a few months previously by the veteran Fenian, John Devoy, in the course of which he declared that a settlement by

consent was the only solution, adding that force was now out of the question and would be equally disastrous to North and South. The first meeting of the Boundary Commission was held in London on November 6, and a few weeks later the members made a tour of the border areas. While this tour was in progress a letter addressed by Mr. Chamberlain to the League of Nations was published which stated that the British Government did not consider that the Anglo-Irish Treaty which had been registered at Geneva by the Free State comes under Article 18 of the League Covenant. The Free State has officially replied that the registration of the Treaty is strictly in accordance with its obligations as a member of the League.

When the year opened nearly 2,000 Republican prisoners were still held in jails and internment camps. As conditions improved releases became more frequent, and by the middle of July, when Mr. de Valera and Mr. Stack were liberated, only a few hundreds remained against whom charges of specific breaches of the criminal law were pending. Many of these men were tried and found guilty by civil juries, but finally on November 8, the Government declared an amnesty for offences committed during the period between the signing of the Treaty and Mr. de Valera's "Cease Fire" order of April, 1923. amnesty was issued on the eve of a series of five by-elections which resulted in the capture by Republicans of South Dublin and North Mayo, though the victory was due less to any notable increase in their voting power than to apathy in the ranks of the Government supporters.

The

Bills

The Oireachtas has been for the most part engaged with schemes of social reform and economic development. Good results have already been achieved by the operation of the Court of Justice Act which remodelled on new lines the Judicial system; and the amalgamation of all railway undertakings whose lines are wholly within the Free State was concluded, and came into force with the New Year (1925). for the grading of butter and the stamping of eggs have been passed, and the Government are contemplating a considerable scheme of water-power development from the Shannon, plans for which have been drafted by the German firm, SiemensSchuckert. Irregularities led to the dissolution of the Dublin and Cork Corporations together with many local bodies. For the present the duties of these bodies are being discharged by Commissioners appointed by the Central Government.

The outstanding feature in the Labour situation was the struggle between the Irish Transport and General Workers and Mr. James Larkin's new organisation, the Workers' Union, for the control of Dublin labour. On his return from Moscow in the autumn Mr. Larkin developed a new plan of campaign by ordering his followers in certain industries to withdraw their labour as a protest against the employment of members of the rival society. The Transport Union retorted by supplying

workers to fill vacancies in firms where no question of wages or conditions of labour were in dispute, and when finally it met and defeated the threat of a dock strike intended to hold up the Christmas trade the Larkinites for all practical purposes were beaten out of the field.

Agricultural depression was accentuated by a wretched harvest. Though the whole country suffered heavily, and the adverse trade balance assumed formidable proportions, the calamity affected most severely the poverty-stricken areas of the western seaboard where even in normal times the majority of the inhabitants have a difficult struggle to make ends meet. To add to their misfortunes the wet weather made it impossible this year to save the turf, and many districts found themselves in mid-winter not only on the shortest of short commons but without the means of keeping their cabins warm. The Government provided supplies of coal and turf for the worst areas, arrangements were made to supply food to school children, and schemes of relief work were organised, but the plight of large communities in Connaught and Clare was more critical than it has been since the disastrous shortage of 1879.

CHAPTER III.

FRANCE AND ITALY.

FRANCE.

EVERY year since 1914 has been heavily charged for France from the political point of view, but few years have seen so many momentous changes as must be registered in 1924.

At the beginning of the year M. Poincaré was in power, and he appeared to have every chance of winning the elections for the renewal of the Chamber which were to take place in May. The elections for the renewal of a third of the Senate, which were held in January, showed no material changes either on the side of the Right or of the Left.

The French troops were solidly settled in the Ruhr. General Degoutte, their commander, had declared that if necessary they would stay there for a thousand years. Certainly there seemed to be little prospect of an evacuation. The Germans in the autumn of the previous year had abandoned passive resistance without producing any alteration in French policy. The country appeared to be almost unanimously supporting M. Poincaré in his demand for full reparation payments, and in default, the working of the Ruhr on behalf of the Allies.

The Radical Party in Parliament, it is true, had made certain reservations, but on the whole had never ventured to oppose the main thesis of the Government. The occupation of the Ruhr in these circumstances was producing a state of mind in

Germany which might have expressed itself in an outburst of violence. There was an international uproar about the misguided attempts of local officers and officials to foster a Separatist Movement in Rhineland and in the Palatinate, and M. Poincaré refrained from any condemnation of these blunders.

The relations between France and England were as bad as they could be. The Baldwin Government, in which Lord Curzon was Foreign Secretary, had exchanged a voluminous correspondence with the Poincaré Government, and this correspondence had in the end assumed a somewhat acrimonious character. But at the beginning of 1924 the Baldwin Government was about to resign. It had been beaten in the elections and was only awaiting the assembling of Parliament to give way to its successor.

It may be taken, in the light of subsequent events, to be a most fortunate fact that the Conservative Party was for several months in 1924 out of office in England. Without any reference to party prejudices, one is bound to say that the unpleasant relations between M. Poincaré and Lord Curzon had resulted in a diplomatic deadlock. The coming of the Labour Government relieved the situation. The tension was broken and it was possible to begin to reknit the Franco-British Entente. Poincaré immediately received from Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, who succeeded Mr. Baldwin and who became his own Foreign Secretary, assurances of friendship, and M. Poincaré replied in a guarded but friendly manner. It was clear that the two men could work together.

M.

At the same time, Mr. MacDonald was counselled by the French Socialists to proceed slowly and cautiously, and to await the French Elections, which were due in May, before pressing for a settlement of the vexed reparations problem which, after being discussed in conference after conference, after being the subject of innumerable diplomatic communications, seemed as far from even a provisional solution as ever. Mr. MacDonald took this advice and, broadly speaking, confined his diplomatic action to the improvement of relations between France and England.

It had been agreed during the latter part of 1923 to refer the "eternal question" to an international group of experts, and on January 14 the Commission met. This date is undoubtedly one of the most important of the year. The Commission worked uninterruptedly until April 9 at the headquarters of the Reparations Commission in Paris. Its main Report is signed by two representatives of each of the following countries: America: General Charles G. Dawes and Mr. Owen D. Young; England: Sir Robert M. Kindersley and Sir Josiah C. Stamp; France: M. J. Parmentier and M. Edgard Allix; Italy: Signor Alberto Pirelli and Signor Frederico Flora; and Belgium: M. E. Francqui and M. Maurice Houtart.

The main committee was known as the Dawes Committee

and the report as the Dawes Report, although in point of fact, if any one man should have given his name to it it was the English representative Sir Josiah Stamp.

A second Committee of Experts met at the same time to consider the means of estimating the amount of Germany's exported capital and of bringing it back to Germany. This Committee was composed of Mr. Reginald MacKenna (English), Mr. Henry N. Robinson (American), M. André LaurentAtthalin (French), Signor Mario Alberti (Italian), and M. Albert E. Janssen (Belgian).

The Dawes Plan, as it was called, may be summarised as follows: Its purpose was to provide for reparation payments and, at the same time, to balance the German Budget and stabilise German currency. The method was to be co-operation between the Allies and Germany based on mutual interest. The Plan provided for an International Loan of 800,000,000 gold marks, to establish a new Bank of Issue in Germany, to stabilise the German currency, and to enable Germany to meet the first year's reparation payments. The Bank of Issue was to be established with a capital of 400,000,000 gold marks in shares of 100 marks each, one million shares to represent assets of the Reichsbank and three million shares to be subscribed in Germany and abroad. The Bank was to be the fiscal agent and depository of the German Government but to be free of Government control. Its administration was to be undertaken by a German President and Managing Board, but it was to be supervised in matters affecting the creditor nations by a General Board of seven Germans and seven foreigners, one of the foreigners being the Bank Commissioner. The Bank was to have the exclusive right to issue and circulate Bank notes in Germany during the period of its charter, namely, fifty years. Neither the German Government nor any German State Bank was to have the power to issue paper money with the exception, to a limited extent, of the Banks of Baden, Bavaria, Saxony, and Würtemberg. The gold reserve of 333 per cent. was to be maintained.

As for reparation payments, they were under the Dawes Plan to be made through the Bank of Issue. The sources of revenue for these payments were to be: (1) In part the International Loan; (2) a mortgage on German railways; (3) a mortgage on German industries; (4) a transport tax and revenues from the General Budget guaranteed by certain "controlled revenues." The experts estimated that the Plan should produce for reparation payments one milliard marks the first year, and 220,000,000 marks more the second year. In the third year 1,200,000,000 marks should be forthcoming, and in the fourth 1,750,000,000 marks. In the fifth year a maximum annual payment of 2,500,000,000 marks should be obtained. Thereafter payments were to be on a sliding scale and subject to addition r reduction in certain contingencies.