Misfortunes of War

Ireland, which occupies a strategic spot on the battlefield of the Atlantic, has long feared a Nazi invasion. Last week she was caught by another invasion, equally mimical to Britain.

Minister of Agriculture Dr. James Ryan announced a serious outbreak of foot-&-mouth disease in Eire, said there is grave danger that the disease may become an epidemic. Promptly banned by Eire's Government were all horse races and horse shows, dog races, hunts and polo matches, to keep the disease from spreading. Public horse sales were stopped in 16 counties.

For England this was as bad news as the sinking of a convoy. It meant the loss of meat supplies from Ireland. Worse still, the same invading plague was already entrenched in Britain. In England this week there have been the worst attacks of foot-&-mouth disease in years and the public has begun to clamor against the Government's policy of slaughtering all infected beasts to prevent its spread. Reason: cattle are scarce, and the disease, though highly contagious, is rarely fatal to animals.

The Irish smuggling organizations which used to smuggle cattle into North Ireland in pre-war times, when England forbade the traffic, have taken a new lease on life. In an effort to cripple luxury trades, convert them to war needs, Britain has barred all imports of cosmetics from Eire into Britain or Northern Ireland. Last week not only were women commuting across the border to smuggle in paint and powder, but the old cattle smugglers were busy taking cosmetics over the border.

At dawn one morning customs officers gave chase to a car, ran it to earth near Scotch Town in County Tyrone. They seized 1,000 powder puffs, 3,245 hair nets, 900 combs, 63 dozen handkerchiefs, hundreds of bottles of perfume. Other booty: lipsticks, nail files, cigaret lighters, 30,000 clothes pegs, onions, a crate of chocolates smuggled over the border in a lorry loaded with chicken crates.

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