NORTHERN IRELAND: NORTHERN IRELAND Member from South Down

Member from South Down

In smoky Belfast last week hulking Premier Viscount Craigavon, who looks like an oldtime hotel detective and stands solidly for the allegiance of Northern Ireland ("Ulster") to the British Crown, rumbled: "Ulster again is assured of five years of a resolute and settled government. I shall carry on, encouraged by the victory over the destructive elements arrayed against our imperial stronghold."

Not only had Craigavon's Unionists won a thumping majority in Parliament but they had won it before Election Day. Of their candidates 27 had no opponents in their constituencies, were elected "by acclamation." But last week through this hymn of acclamation came one loud, jarring noise.

None other than Craigavon's bitterest enemy, President de Valera of the Irish Free State (Southern Ireland), was elected a member of the Northern Ireland Parliament by the constituency of South Down. This kar-rumpf in his own puddle by a frog bigger than himself immensely shocked Craigavon. But it was no new thing. Favoring de Valera's croaking for a union of Northern with Southern Ireland, in 1921 and 1925 South Down elected him their member. Then a private citizen, he was barred both times from crossing the border. Now the head of a neighbor state, he could have made trouble by trying to take his seat. But he stayed in Dublin, calling his election "a gesture against the partitioning of Ireland."

Last week President de Valera was trying to hop out of that big puddle, the British Commonwealth of Nations. Replying to a warning by British Secretary for the Dominions Jim Thomas that the Free State would lose its Dominion privileges if it continued to repudiate its duties. President de Valera wrote Mr. Thomas last week that he planned to lead the Free State rapidly toward complete independence. Mr. Thomas had a handy reply. If the Free State becomes a republic, he declared, the 300,000 Irishmen living in Britain must choose between Irish and British citizenship. If they choose Irish, they will become "aliens," must register with the police, may lose their jobs. London buzzed with rumors that His Majesty's Government would tell De Valera that they will not oppose creation of a South Irish Republic on condition that a majority of Free Staters freely vote in favor of secession from the Empire.