GENERAL O’DUFFY’S WARNING.

The numbers of men of the I.R.A. who are loyal to the General Headquarters of the Free State Army are given in a long detailed statement published on the authority of General O’duffy, Chief of Staff, in An t-oglach, the official army gazette, which appears to-morrow. The statement is an important one and disposes of Mr. Roderick O’connor’s claim that he has 90 per cent. of the army on his side. General O’duffy’s summary is that in twelve out of the sixteen divisions, General Headquarters has 75 per cent. of the army, and in the remaining four divisions between 30 and 50 per cent. General O’ Duffy says:

In some organisations the organisers and loyal officers are arrested on no other charge than that they have the courage to stand by G.H.Q. Those officers who have not gone on hunger strike are still detained. How different is the treatment meted out by G.H.Q., who have released mutinous troops found carrying arms in the vicinity of attacks and found in possession of stolen motor-cars. G.H.Q. was never in a stronger position than now, enjoying as it does the loyalty and confidence of a fairly equipped, well-trained, and welldisciplined army, which has the respect and devotion of our grateful people.

General O’duffy cites many attacks made on the army controlled by General Headquarters, Beggar’s Bush, and says: The lives of our officers in some parts of the country have been threatened. They have been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and a treated unmercifully, and at the present moment, in the South and West of Ireland, several officers are on the run and cannot return to their homes under penalty of being shot. Banks have been robbed and foodstuffs confiscated under the guise of the Belfast boycott. The Fowler Hall, presumably the headquarters of the Belfast Boycott Committee, is closely associated with the mutinous section of the army.

The above will indicate how very little hope them was for an agreement at a convention, the demand for which was signed by the principal officers of the present mutinous executive. Under no circumstances could General Headquarters, or those who stand by them, agree.