The passage in Mr. Churchill's broadcast of Sunday, May 13 to which Mr. De Valera replied reads:

The sense of envelopment, which might at any moment turn to strangulation, lay heavy upon us. We had only the north-western approach between Ulster and Scotland through which to bring in the means of life and to send out the forces of war.

Owing to the action of Mr. DeValera, so much at variance with the temper and instinct of thousands of southern Irishmen, who hastened to the battle front to prove their ancient valour, the approaches which the southern Irish ports and airfields could so easily have guarded were closed by the hostile aircraft and U Boats

This was indeed a deadly moment in our life, and if it had not been for the loyalty and friendship of Northern Ireland, we should have been forced to come to close quarter with Mr. De Valera, or perish forever from the earth.

However, with a restraint and poise to which, I venture to say, history will find few parallels, His Majesty's Government never laid a violent hand on them, though at times it would have been quite easy and quite natural, and we left the de Valera Government to frolic with the German and later with the Japanese representatives to their heart's content.

When I think of these days I think also of other episodes and personalities. I think of Lieut. Commander Esmonde, VC: L/Corporal Kenealy, VC; Captain Fegan, VC, and other Irish heroes that I could easily recite, and all bitterness by Britain for the Irish race dies in my heart.

I can only pray that, in years which I shall not see, the shame will be forgotten and the glories will endure, and that the peoples of the British Isles and of the British Commonwealth of Nations will walk together in mutual comprehension and forgiveness.