DAVE MANSElLL aims immediately created a crisis of authority which remains until this <lay by agreeing to repudiate the new Parliament and take no part in its proceedings. Unhampered by any opposition the new government hastened to impose "peace" as quickly as possible by establishing a viable política! system. It passed three measures to ensure its control over the local authorities and the peace maintaining forces - apart from the British troops. A Special Powers Act made it virtually possible for the Minister of Home Affairs (at this time R.D. Bates) to suspend all rights of detainees. A new police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary was set up which took the Special Constabulary under its control, and then severa! measures aimed at making gerrymandering of local elections easier. This was essential from the Unionist point of view since they had to regain control of the local authorities in West Ulster, three of which - Londonderry, Tyrone and Fermanagh - had already opted to joint the Irish Free State. The separatists in the South had rejected the 1920 Act, they were not satisfi.ed with the qualified autonomy the Unionists had ironically, given their public stances, accepted. Although Sinn Fein candidates won 124 of the 128 seats in the election for the proposed Southern Parliament since no one had dared to stand against them, except for the seats allocated to the predominantly Protestant Trinity College, Dublin, they <lid not attend the opening of the parliament, which was thus still-born. The military struggle in the South between the I.R.A. and the British ceased in June 1921 when the British government were forced by public opinion to attempt a peaceful settlement. I.R.A. aggression against the North however continued and it was not until the acceptance of the AngloIrish treaty of December 1921 (which conferred dominion status on the whole of Ireland but allowed the Northern Ireland parliament to opt out within one month of April 1922 - which they did) by Collins and Griffith and its rejection by De Valera precipitated a civil war in the south starting in June 1922, that the need for the anti-treaty section of the I.R.A. to concentrate on its struggle with the provisonal government headed by Collins and Griffith took the pressure off the Unionist government in Ulster. Eventually in May 1923 De Valera accepted military defeat and told his supporters: " ... military victory must be allowed to rest for the moment with those who have destroyed the republic". 54
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