[The Church Times was in an extended spat with the Morning Post, which it regarded as an apologist for the Black and Tans’ atrocities in Ireland.]

EVEN after the four or five days which it usually allows itself for reflection upon our misdeeds, the Morning Post — that femina furens of the morning Press — remains much too angry to do justice to itself. We are grateful to our contemporary for reprinting on Tuesday our paragraph of the preceding Friday. The chief point of its reply is the belittling of two, and two only, of the witnesses whom we adduced. It throws over Lord Denbigh altogether, on the strength of some criticisms of Lord Denbigh by the Lord Chancellor. It is unfortunate for the argument of the Morning Post that in the very same column it quotes two passages from the Lord Chancellor’s speeches on Ireland for the express purpose of showing that the Lord Chancellor is so inconsistent with himself as to be wholly untrustworthy on the subject of Ireland. Our contemporary proceeds to say of Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Lawson that it is many years since he held a commission in Ireland, and that his opinion is of no more value than that of any private Irishman with strong native sympathies. That is not particularly ingenuous, if the Morning Post knew, which we suspect that it does not, that Sir Henry Lawson undertook two missions to Ireland last winter to collect evidence and make observations, and that it was the second of his reports that we quoted. Something may be forgiven to a paper which, as the Observer pointed out last Sunday, finds itself absolutely alone in denouncing the only course which can hold any hope of peace with Ireland, and alone also in joyfully expecting that the Dail will refuse the British offer. But the continual repetition of the charge that we excuse murder may not be forgiven it.

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