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Debate on the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, signed in
London on the 6th December 1921: Sessions 14 December 1921 to 10 January 1922:
Author: The Deputies of Dáil Eireann
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION Wednesday, December 14th, 1921
The meeting of Dáil Eireann to deal with the Peace Treaty began in the
Council Chamber, University College, Dublin, on Wednesday, December 14th, 1921.
The Speaker (Dr. Eoin Mac Neill National University and Derry) took the Chair at
11.30 a.m., and immediately opened the proceedings by saying:
SPEAKER
In ainm De, glaodhfaimíd an rolla.
The Clerk to the Dáil, Mr. Diarmuid O hEigceartuigh, called the roll.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA said:
Tá fhios againn go leir ce an fáth go bhfuilimíd anso iniu agus an cheist
mhór atá againn le socrú. Níl mo chuid Gaedhilge chó maith agus ba mhaith liom í
bheith. Is fearr is feidir liom mo smaointe do nochtadh as Beurla, agus dá bhrí
sin is dóich liom gurbh fhearra dhom labhairt as Beurla ar fad. Some of the
members do not know Irish, I think, and consequently what I shall say will be in
English. The question we have to decide is one which ought to be decided on its
merits, and it would be very unfortunate if extraneous matters such as what I
might call an accidental division of opinion of the Cabinet, or the causes which
gave rise to it, should cut across these considerations. I think, therefore, it
would be wise to give a short narrative of the circumstances under which the
plenipotentiaries were appointed, and to explain the terms of reference, if I
might call them so, or directions given to them, and to explain them in so far
as I can do so, consistent with public interest. If anybody wants a mere
detailed explanation, or wants to probe into the difference of opinion more
deeply, we can do so at a private session. We can easily resolve ourselves into
a private session and go fully into the matter. Really there is nothing
extraordinary in the division of opinion, for this reason, that when the
plenipotentiaries would report, it was obvious the Cabinet would have to take a
policy. Either the whole Cabinet would have to go over-if the possibility of
division was to be eliminated, the whole Cabinet should take responsibility for
the negotiations, which was a thing that would not be desirable for other
reasons. Even if they did there might be divisions. You could scarcely eliminate
differences of opinion. It was necessary then either that the plenipotentiaries
should be a whole Cabinet or that there should be other persons than members of
the Cabinet. What we did was, we selected three members of the Cabinet with two
others and it was obvious if these plenipotentiaries were to be in a position to
do the work given to them they should have full powers of negotiation. At the
two meetings of the Dáil at which they were appointed I made it quite clear that
my own point of view, and the point of view of the Cabinet as a whole - at least
I took responsibility for saying it was the view of the Cabinet- was that the
plenipotentiaries should have full plenary powers to negotiate, with the
understanding, however, that when they reported, the Cabinet would decide its
policy, and whatever arrangement they arrived at, it would have to be submitted
to the Dáil for ratification. The question of committing the country completely
without ratification by the Dáil was of course out of the question. This
assembly would not have sent any five men to negotiate a treaty which would bind
the nation without some chance of a larger body of representatives of the nation
having an opportunity of criticising and reviewing it, and, I would say under
the circumstances, of the nation itself reviewing it. Now, that was quite a
common sense understanding. They had to have the plenary powers in order to be
able to do their work. If there was a definite difference of opinion, it was the
plenipotentiaries had the responsibility of making up their own minds and
deciding on it. we had ourselves the right of refusing to agree with them, if we
thought that was right. It was also obvious that the Cabinet and the
plenipotentiaries should keep in the closest possible touch. We did that. We
were in agreement up to a certain point. A definite question had then to be
decided and we did not agree. I do not know if the Chairman of the Delegation or
the plenipotentiaries would have any objection---it would not in any way
interfere with public interests---if the Cabinet instructions were given. Is
there any objection? I do not think there is.
Mr. ARTHUR GRIFFITH (MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS):
No.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Here is the actual text of the instructions which I wrote with my own hand at
the Cabinet meeting on the 7th October:-
¶1] The Plenipotentiaries have full powers as defined in their credentials.
¶2] It is understood before decisions are finally reached on the main
question, that a dispatch notifying the intention to make these decisions will
be sent to members of the Cabinet in Dublin, and that a reply will be awaited
by the Plenipotentiaries before final decision is made.
¶3] It is also understood that the complete text of the draft treaty about
to be signed will be similarly submitted to Dublin, and reply awaited.
Now I want you to pay particular attention to that particular paragraph. The
instructions proceed:
¶4] In case of a break, the text of the final proposals from our side will
be similarly submitted.
¶5] It is understood the Cabinet in Dublin will be kept regularly in-
formed of the progress of the negotiations.
That was all done with the exception of paragraph three. It is obvious that a
treaty which would be a lasting agreement between two nations, and which may
govern the relations of nations for centuries, is a document which, even when
you have agreed upon the fundamental principles, should be most care fully
examined. My idea was when the plenipotentiaries had arrived at an agreement on
the treaty, and had a rough copy of a document which they were prepared to sign,
that document, in its full text, would be transmitted, because in the case of a
treaty, even verbal, the exact form of words is of tremendous importance. I have
only to say with respect to paragraph three that the final text was not
submitted. When the previous draft, which considerably differed from the final
text, was submitted, that I said I could not sign, and I do not think the other
members of the Cabinet, whose views on a vital question we had to determine for
ourselves earlier, would sign. With the knowledge that we could not accept that,
the plenipotentiaries, acting in accordance with their rights, signed the
treaty, and as far as the relations between the Cabinet and the
plenipotentiaries are concerned, the only point is that paragraph three was not
carried out to the letter. This was most important, and I feel myself, had it
been done, we might have got complete agreement between the Cabinet and the
plenipotentiaries. I say that in order that everyone may realise that this is a
case of a difference of opinion between two bodies, which in a case like this
would naturally and did naturally arise, and therefore I am anxious that it
should not in any way interfere with the discussion on the treaty which the
plenipotentiaries have brought to us. We are to treat it on its merits. Just as
you probably will hold different opinions on the merits of it, so we in the
Cabinet hold different opinions on it. The main question at issue as far back as
the third week in October was decided by us, and, those who were in favour of
the decision on the side I am taking were certainly a majority of the Cabinet,
though the whole Cabinet was not present at the meeting. I am ready to answer
any questions about the conduct of the negotiations that may be in the public
interest, and if there are any questions, or any matter which you wish to probe,
further that is not in the public interest, I would be glad to answer it in a
private session so that you may understand it thoroughly.
Mr. P. O'KEEFFE (Cork):
Chím anso rún ar an gclár ón Dr. de Faoite. Ba mhaith liom fhios a bheith
agam an bhfuil se chun an rún san do chur os cóir na Dála iniu What is to be
done in regard to Dr. White's motion that the session be held in private? I want
to know is Dr. White going to move the resolution in connection with the notice
of motion on the agenda to-day.
MR. A. GRIFFITH (MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS):
I wish to say as regards any suggestion that the plenipotentiaries exceeded
their instructions, that I, as Chairman of the Delegation, immediately
controvert it.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It will settle nothing if one says one thing and another says the other. What
I said, and I think it will be made evident by an examination, if anybody wishes
to appoint three or four independently to look into the matter, it will be made
evident that paragraph three of the instructions was not exceeded; but paragraph
three was not carried out. The Treaty was signed in the small hours of the
morning after the text---after certain alterations had been made, and we never
saw the alterations. Had I seen it, I would have used any influence I had to try
to secure unanimity in the matter, and then if we could not secure unanimity, we
knew where we were. The chance was lost by the fact that after certain
alterations had been made, instead of sending the final draft to us, and taking
time over it, so that matters could be fully considered, it was rushed
unfortunately. That is all I have got to say about it.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER FOR FINANCE):
The original terms that were served on each member of the delegation have not
been read out. The thing has already taken an unfair aspect and I am against a
private session. I have no particular feeling about it. I suggest that a vital
matter for the representatives of the nation, and the nation itself, is that the
final document which was agreed on by a united Cabinet, should be put side by
side with the final document which the Delegation of Plenipotentiaries did not
sign as a treaty, but did sign on the understanding that each signatory would
recommend it to the Dáil for acceptance.
DR. V. WHITE (WATERFORD):
I formally propose that this meeting of the Dáil, and, if the Dáil approve of
it, subsequent meetings also, be held in private. Of course this does not
preclude having a session of the Dáil, so approved, public. I do move this
resolution as an humble member of the Dáil, because I for one respectfully
submit to all concerned that certain points---if I might say so, certain
obstructions---require to be cleared away before this all- important, this
terrible question, is decided one way or the other. My chief reasons for
suggesting to the Dáil a private meeting at first are these. These points must,
I respectfully suggest, be cleared up, and secondly, in a private meeting I
think it will be generally conceded that members of any assembly where such an
important question arises will talk more freely and will ask questions with
greater facility. I will not weary the Dáil further, but will formally move that
this meeting of the Dáil and, if the Dáil so approves, other meetings, be held
in private.
Mr. P. O'KEEFFE (CORK):
I beg to second Dr. White's motion.
Mr. D. CEANNT (CORK):
I move that this session and other sessions be held in public. I am
thoroughly dissatisfied with the information we are getting here from time to
time. During the last five or six months---during the truce---my constituents at
home could tell me that letters have been received from members of the staff
that the whole question was settled up two months ago. And yet we are going
around the country without knowing a thing about it. What I want to say is to
repeat what I have been saying to my constituents for the last five or six
years. What I am now about to do and say I am quite prepared to do publicly. I
move that this and all other sessions be public.
Mr. J. O'DWYER (CO. DUBLIN):
I think nobody in this Dáil has the slightest reason to fear publicity. There
is this to be feared, that we here with this enormous responsibility cast upon
us may be slightly over-awed in the first place by the presence of people who
have not got the responsibility that we have. Number two, I feel that we are all
young men and young women in this very important departure in our national
affairs, and it is quite possible that with the best intentions in the world
that we will say things which will bear a construction that we do not intend.
For that reason more than for any other reason, not because I personally fear
publicity, but to secure in the first place a full and free discussion and in
the second place to secure that afterwards we will not be misunderstood, I
support very strongly Dr. White's motion.
MR. R. J. MULCAHY (DUBLIN):
I propose as an amendment that whatever explanations may be required as to
the genesis of the present document, and the present situation, be conducted in
private session but that the motion for the ratification of the Treaty be
brought forward and discussed, and all matters in connection with it dealt with
at the public session.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I second that. It is obviously the reasonable way of dealing with it. This
question of finding out how differences of opinion arose is the only question
that cannot be probed except in private, whereas the big question is a matter
for the whole nation obviously and it should be held in public. The reason for
introducing the explanation at the start on my part is that I want to try to get
rid of any misunderstanding that might be caused by a division of the Cabinet.
There are rumours of various sorts going about and statements being made, such
as, for instance, the statement made by one of the members of the delegation
just now, which are not really a fact. That can be decided only in a private
session satisfactorily. I am very glad to support the motion of the Member for
Clontarf.
MR. SEAN MCENTEE (CO. MONAGHAN):
I am sorry that I find I have to differ from the President in this matter. It
is quite obvious one of the factors which must determine the position of the
Dáil is whether the Dáil is in honour or otherwise bound to ratify the treaty
proposed to them. You cannot, no matter how you try to do it, disassociate the
question from the question of whether plenipotentiaries have exceeded the powers
or instructions given to them. There are some of us to-day who may be called
upon later to justify the positions they are taking before the country. Every
factor that determines the position ought to be made plain to the public and we
ought to be able to say to ourselves, and to say it without fear of
contradiction---and there are the public facts to prove it---that we were not
bound to ratify the treaty which the delegates proposed to us. For that reason
there ought to be no private session of the Dáil except upon one subject---that
which relates to our military, financial or other resources. Remember the Treaty
is not yet ratified. Anything like that which would give information to the
enemy or would be helpful to them in the subversion of Irish liberties should be
private; but all other matters---any matter in which every person in this island
is fully interested---ought to be decided openly and in public.
MR. SEAN MCGARRY (DUBLIN):
I agree with Mr. McEntee. There are one or two little points that ought to be
decided in private session. I wish this session of the Dáil could be held on the
Curragh, so that every man, woman and child in Ireland could hear us. We are
entitled to tell the public what the difference is, and what difference has
been. We have a responsibility to the public that elected us without question.
MR. J. J. WALSH (CORK):
I must say I am in entire agreement with Mr. McEntee. There is nothing which
I am entitled to hear at this meeting which every member of the Irish nation has
not an equal right to hear.
MR. SEAN ETCHINGHAM (WEXFORD):
I agree with the Member for Monaghan. There are matters that should be dealt
with in private, but apart from these, I am anxious that these proceedings
should be conducted before the representatives of the world's Press in the
manner in which the Irish Parliament should be conducted. The country has been
kept in the dark and the people are saying so. The liberty and interests of
Ireland are the concern of every man and woman and boy and girl, and they should
be as conversant with it as any of us. Let us have all the public discussion we
can. The Member for Dublin says he would like to have this meeting at the
Curragh, but we could not be heard down there (laughter). It would be just like
the remark of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, which we would not hear down
here. Let us have a public session ; let us thresh this thing out. We have
nothing to fear, any of us. I believe we are all here in the interests of
Ireland.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER FOR FINANCE):
I am not in favour of a private session in so far as anything that the Dáil
has a right to know, and in so far as anything that the Irish people, who are
our masters, have a right to know. There may be differences of opinion between
some of us---differences as to past and future action---that members of the Dáil
would be ultimately concerned in before they would make up their minds whether
or not there would be a private session or whether or not the terms should be
ratified. I must again protest against what I call an unfair action, and I do
not call it unfair except from this point of view. If one document had to be
read the original document, which was a prior document, should have been read
first. I must ask the liberty of reading the original document which was served
on each member of the delegation of plenipotentiaries.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Is that the one with the original credentials?
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER fOR FINANCE):
Yes.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Was that ever presented? It was given in order to get the British Government
to recognise the Irish Republic. Was that document giving the credentials of the
accredited representatives from the Irish Government to the British Government
presented to, or accepted by, the British delegates? Was that taken by the
British delegates or accepted by them?
MR. A. GRIFFITH (MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS):
We had no instructions to present it.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am asking a question.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER FOR FINANCE):
May I ask that I be allowed to speak without interruption?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I must protest.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE (CORK):
The House has a right to decide the motion that is before it. The Irish
people are our masters and we are the masters of our Cabinet.
THE SPEAKER:
Order; we must have order.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER FOR FINANCE):
I only ask that I be allowed to speak without interruption. I am not going to
interrupt any speaker and that is a small right to ask.
The original credentials
were presented and they read:
In virtue of the authority vested in me by Dáil Eireann, I hereby appoint
Arthur Griffith, T.D., Minister for Foreign Affairs, Chairman; Michael
Collins, T.D., Minister for Finance; Robert C. Barton, T.D., Minister for
Economic Affairs; Edmund J. Duggan, T.D.; and George Gavan Duffy, T.D. as
envoys plenipotentiaries from the elected Government of the Republic of
Ireland to negotiate and conclude on behalf of Ireland, with the
representatives of his Britannic Majesty George V. a treaty or treaties of
settlement, association and accommodation between Ireland and the community of
nations, known as the British Commonwealth. In witness hereof I hereunder
subscribe my name as President.
Signed
EAMON DE VALERA
and that was sealed with the official seal of Dáil Eireann and dated the 7th day
of October, 1921. Then there were five identical credentials. Now I do not
object to the second document being read, but the prior document should have
been read first and we have agreed, those of us who differ---those of us who
take one stand---to make no statement which would in any way prejudge the issue
until this meeting of Dáil Eireann. Publicly and privately we did not prejudge
the issue; we even refrained from speaking to members of the Dáil. I have not
said a hard word about anybody. I know I have been called a traitor. [Cries
of `no, no'].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
By whom?
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER FOR FINANCE):
If I am a traitor, let the Irish people decide it or not, and if there are
men who act towards me as a traitor I am prepared to meet them anywhere, any
time, now as in the past. For that reason I do not want the issue prejudged. I
am in favour of a public session here now. I understand that members of the Dáil
may differ as to the advantage to be gained on one side or the other by a
private session. If there is anything, any matter of detail, if, for instance,
the differences between plenipotentiaries, and the differences as they arose
from time to time, should be discussed first in private, I am of opinion that
having discussed it in private, I think we ought then to be able to make it
public. I am willing to go so far as that; that is only detail. But on the
essentials I am for publicity now and all along. May I just put one point right?
It is important that it should be stated because it rather puts us at a
disadvantage. I agree with what the President said that the honour of Ireland
was not involved in accepting this document. Ireland is fully free to accept or
reject. Many a parliament of a country has refused to accept decisions of
plenipotentiaries even if these decisions might be considered legally and
morally more binding than the present decisions. I can only make plain again
that the document is agreed to by the signatories and recommended to the Dáil
for acceptance. If the Dáil do not accept it, I as one of the signatories will
be relieved of all responsibility for myself, but I am bound to recommend it
over my signature and of course we are bound to take action---whatever action
was implied by our signing the document. The Dáil is perfectly free to accept or
reject, we are only bound to recommend it to the Dáil for acceptance. The
Articles of Agreement are put forward on our recommendation. That ought to be
quite clear here, and ought to be equally clear to the public of this country,
and the other country, the representatives of which have their signatures on the
document also.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The main point is settled. By the admission of the delegates themselves, and
it is the only thing we are concerned with here, we did not send them, and it
would be ridiculous to think that we could send five men to complete a treaty
without the right of ratification by this assembly. That is the only thing that
matters. Therefore it is agreed that this Treaty is simply an agreement and that
it is not binding until the Dáil ratifies it. That is what we are concerned
with. Now as to the differences that have arisen. I did not read out that first
document because I was informed that it had not been accepted, in other words it
had not been presented. It was given to safeguard the plenipotentiaries going
over in case they should be asked by one Government from another: `Where is your
authority to negotiate a Treaty with us?' I am very glad to know that the Prime
Minister has accepted that document from the Irish Republic. Now we all can go
back to meetings of the Dáil. At these meetings I made our position perfectly
clear, that the plenipotentiaries were to have the fullest freedom possible. It
would be ridiculous to send them over if we were all the time to interfere with
them from Dublin. There was an understanding that certain things would be done
so that we in Dublin would be in a position to help in so far as we could help
to come to an agreement or explain disagreements. The most important paragraph
in these instructions, and its importance will at once appeal to every
reasonable person, was paragraph 3, which laid down that a complete draft of the
Treaty should be submitted to Dublin and a reply awaited. That is a document
every line of which was going to govern the relations of two countries for
perhaps centuries, and it was important that that document should not be
hurriedly signed and that there should be a certain delay. In fact one of the
reasons I did not want to be a member of the delegation was that the delegation
should be provided against hasty action. I do not mean to say that if we had
signed finally the document it would have mattered. There would have probably
been a division. I would not have referred to it at all but all sorts of
misunderstandings have been created in the minds of the people about it. I want
to get rid of that as a disturbing factor in your minds when making out the
merits, or not, of the agreement; we hold one view, the delegates another.
MR. M. HAYES (NATIONAL UNIVERSITY):
There is a motion before the House, and the motion distinctly provides that
the ratification should be moved in public, and therefore it seems to me that
members who desire to speak will get ample opportunities for stating their views
in public. I think that every member of this House should state his or her views
for or against the ratification of this treaty in the most public manner
possible. The motion before the House provides for that---that a public session
shall be held on the motion for ratification. In regard to other matters---our
resources, military, financial or otherwise---questions relating to matters of
this kind should surely be dealt with in private. I think, therefore, you should
begin with a private session, on the understanding as clearly defined by the
motion, that when the question of ratification comes up it should be discussed
in public.
THE SPEAKER:
I suggest that Dr. White's motion and the motion of the Member for Clontarf
Division might be reconciled in this form---that the Dáil go temporarily into
private session.
DR. WHITE (WATERFORD):
I am quite agreeable to that suggestion.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA (MINISTER FOR DEFENCE):
Táim-se na choinnibh sin. Do reir a bhfuil ráite ag sna daoine atá i
bhfabhar an tsocruithe níl einní acu le ceilt. I object to a private
session.
MR. J. J. O'KELLY (LOUTH):
On a point of order there is one important matter I would like to clear up.
The President has stated on the authority of the Minister for Finance that the
original document read by the Minister for Finance was presented to and accepted
by the British Premier. Now I would like anyone here to have impressed on him
the importance of that statement and of that position. I would like to put that
question for a final and authoritative answer as to the document referred to
having been presented to the Prime Minister and accepted by the Prime Minister
as the original credentials of our delegation.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER FOR FINANCE):
I do not wish to create a wrong impression. I did not say accepted, I said
presented.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is very important on the question being bound. We are dealing with other
people who have signed the Treaty. If these people were led to understand that
the signing of that Treaty ended the matter, then we have nothing here to do. If
any document was presented to them that would give them the impression, and if
they accepted that document and wished to interpret into the word conclude
that ratification was not necessary, that would be in despite of the fact that
we here in appointing plenipotentiaries in two sessions made it clear
ratification was necessary.
THE SPEAKER:
We must dispose of the motion.
MR. A. STACK (MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS):
Clear up the point.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
This is a most important matter. In the original credentials, in order to
give them the fullest powers, they were empowered---using the technical
term---to negotiate and conclude a Treaty. Evidently the Minister for Finance
wishes to lay stress on the word conclude .
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER FOR FINANCE):
No, sir.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
What is the point then of raising the original credentials, if the word
conclude did not mean that when you had signed it was ended. I want to know
whether the delegation of the British Government accepted these credentials as
the basis.
MR. M. P. COLIVET (LIMERICK):
There is a motion before the House that we go into private session.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is most important that we should know where we are in this matter. The
honour of this nation, which is dear to us, is at stake; I say it was never
intended that the plenipotentiaries---that the five people sent from this
nation---should have power to bind this nation by their signatures irrevocably.
There is no sense making a point of my original credentials unless it means
conclude . The whole bearing of that would have to be considered from a very
technical point of view. It is a technical term. Lest there should be any
misunderstanding about it I want to know whether the British Government accepted
the credentials as the basis on which they accepted you as plenipotentiaries to
negotiate a treaty or not.
Dr. MCCARTAN (LEIX AND OFFALY):
I do not think the question arises. The delegates had full powers to conclude
a Treaty, and that treaty has to be submitted to the Dáil as it has to be
submitted to the British Legislature. The Delegates had power to conclude a
Treaty. They had plenary powers and it is for us now to accept or reject what
they have agreed to. The argument about the word conclude does not arise.
MR. SEAN MCGARRY (DUBLIN):
I think that the question of the right of the Dáil to ratify or reject the
agreement has never been questioned.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It was suggested that I was hiding something from the House.
THE SPEAKER:
The House is really discussing Motion No. 2.
MR. A. GRIFFITH (MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS):
There will be no wrong impression at all events in the minds of members who
have to vote. These credentials were carried from President de Valera. We were
instructed if the British Delegates asked for credentials to present them.
MR. A. STACK (MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS):
They were not presented.
MR. A. GRIFFITH (MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS):
I believe Mr. Lloyd George saw the document. They were not presented or
accepted. The point President de VALERA wants to know about is as to whether we
considered that we had full power to make a treaty to bind the nation without
the Dáil being consulted. Now the British Ministers did not sign the Treaty to
bind their nation. They had to go to their Parliament and we to ours for
ratification.
MR. LIAM DE ROISTE (CORK):
As one who in previous sessions stood up for the rights of the private
members, I think that the motion should be put. I think the members of the Dáil
here are masters of the Cabinet as the Irish people are ours. I must ask you as
Chairman of this assembly to put the motion.
THE SPEAKER:
I made a suggestion to get the motion into satisfactory form. The motion in
Dr. White's name is that the session be held in private. That would mean the
whole session. The amendment by the Member for Clontarf Division is
unnecessarily long, I think. To my mind it would be sufficient if it said that
the Dáil was to go temporarily into private session, because when it does go
into private session you cannot limit the points the Dáil may discuss. Therefore
I suggest that it would meet the case that the Dáil should go temporarily into
private session.
MR. G. GAVAN DUFFY (CO. DUBLIN):
I hope the Speaker's suggestion will not be accepted. The amendment of the
Member for Clontarf restricts the public session. I have no objection to that as
long as the motion for the ratification of the Treaty will be discussed in
public.
THE SPEAKER:
I have not made any suggestion that would limit public discussion. In fact
the only point in my mind is to simplify procedure.
MR. D. O'CALLAGHAN (CORK):
Upon this question of a public session may I suggest that we are all vitally
concerned in the matter before us and that we will not be found lined up for or
against ratification, and that our attitude will not be for the justification of
one particular set of men or another, but having before us the unquestioned
patriotism of every man and woman in the Dáil, that the only concern of every
individual member of the Dáil or Cabinet is the best interests of the country. I
think, and I am not very optimistic in that, that the result will not be a
barren discussion one way or another, meaning naturally disaster to the country,
but will result in a decision which will be satisfactory from the point of view
of all concerned here and to the country as a whole.
MR. SEAN ETCHINGHAM (WEXFORD):
We have had the President's statement. Are we going to consider the
ratification of the Treaty?
THE SPEAKER:
The Member for Wexford has spoken already.
MR. A. STACK (MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS):
Would I be in order in making a further amendment?
THE SPEAKER:
Not until the amendment by the Member for Clontarf is disposed of. It is:
That any explanations as regards the genesis of the Proposed Treaty in the
present situation be given and discussed in Private session, but that the
introduction of the proposed Treaty itself and the discussion thereon take
place in public session.
The amendment was put and carried.
MR. A. STACK (MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS):
I move the further amendment:
That the session of An Dáil be held in public until such time as a matter
arises which the Dáil considers should be discussed in Private session.
COUNTESS MARKIEVICZ (MINISTER FOR LABOUR)
Seconded.
MR. COSGRAVE (MINISTER FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT):
May I respectfully draw your attention to No. 8 of the rules of debate by
members, which states that the subject under discussion should be kept to, and
another rule is that a member is not allowed to speak more than once.
The SPEAKER was proceeding to put the amendment to the House, when,
MR.D. MCCARTHY (DUBLIN):
Do you really think that in order? I do not think it is an amendment at all.
THE SPEAKER:
Oh, yes, it is a valid amendment?
MR. M. P. COLIVET (LIMERICK):
Is not the last amendment a direct negative to the previous amendment?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I suggest that some people think if we go into private session that we might
not come out in public session at all.
MR. M. HAYES (NATIONAL UNIVERSITY):
We must go into public session on the motion for the ratification of this
Treaty.
THE SPEAKER:
The difficulty with regard to the amendment is that it does not regulate any
time at which the private session should take place.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA (MINISTER FOR DEFENCE):
Whenever anyone thinks that we should go into private session let him say so,
and let him tell us the reason why we should do so.
MR. S. MILROY (CAVAN AND FERMANAGH):
I think so far as this last amendment is concerned it resembles something
like a Jack-in-the-Box as regards when we retire into private and come out into
public session.
THE SPEAKER:
Certainly, it would raise a great difficulty in regard to the order of
procedure.
MR. J. MCDONAGH (DIRECTOR OF BELFAST BOYCOTT):
The only thing I think that should be definite is that the question of the
ratification of the Treaty should be in public session. If it is definitely
decided that the question of the ratification has to be in public session I do
not think anyone objects to a private session before that---if it is absolutely
understood that the ratification of the treaty should be in public.
THE SPEAKER:
I take that to be the unanimous desire of the Dáil.
MR. R. MULCAHY (DUBLIN):
The objection I see to the amendment is that the question of private or
public session will cross the tracks of every single question requiring
explanation that comes before us.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA (MINISTER FOR DEFENCE):
Therefore do not go into private session.
THE SPEAKER:
It is the general wish that the motion for ratification should be discussed
in public session. In putting the amendment I do not see how I or anyone in my
place can regulate the order of procedure.
The SPEAKER put the amendment which was defeated and the previous
amendment was put as a substantive motion and passed.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER FOR FINANCE):
I suggest it is only right to the Press and public that we should give
definite times and state the limit of the private session so that they may be
facilitated.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I propose that we take the private session this afternoon and that we go into
public session at 11 o'clock in the morning. This means that we continue the
meeting this afternoon, and we meet tomorrow for the sole question of
ratification.
THE SPEAKER:
I suggest it would save trouble to retire now, if we adjourn until the
afternoon session.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I suggest we keep on until 2 o'clock. We probably could dispose of the points
of difference in an hour. If not we can meet again at 3.30. I propose we should
meet in private session until 2 o'clock and if not finished then we shall resume
at 3.30, and that when we meet to-morrow morning at 11 o'clock we shall take the
motion on the question of ratification.
This concluded the public sitting.
THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MAC NEILL) took the Chair at 11.25 a.m. The
Secretary, MR. Diarmuid O hEigceartuigh, called the roll.
THE SPEAKER:
The President informs the House that the document presented to the Dáil for a
certain purpose at the Private Session is now withdrawn and must be regarded as
confidential until he brings his own proposal forward formally.
MR. A. GRIFFITH (MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS):
Am I to understand, Sir, that that document we discussed at the Private
Session is to be withheld from the Irish people?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
No. But I don't want to have the debate interfered with, the direct debate on
the Treaty, by a discussion on a secondary document put forward for a certain
purpose in Private Session. That document will be put forward in its proper
place.
MR. GRIFFITH (MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS):
I want to know is the document we discussed as an alternative to be withheld
from the Irish people, or is it to be published in the Press for the people to
see?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I put forward the document for a distinct purpose to see whether we could get
a unanimous proposition by this House. That has not been achieved. I am going to
put forward the proposal myself definitely to this House as my own proposition
which I stand for. That was for a different purpose.
MR. SEAN MILROY (CAVAN):
Before that document can be regarded as private, I think the President will
have to get the assent of this House. We weren't informed it was merely for
private discussion. This is a matter that goes to the root of the whole issue
before this House, and I think it a rather curious point to raise now when the
Public Session has begun, that we should be informed that it is to be regarded
as a confidential document. I, for my part, refuse until this House assents to
that proposition.
THE SPEAKER:
We cannot have a discussion on this at this point. The only matter that
arises is that the President's request as read out by me has been expressed to
the House. We must now proceed with the orders of the day.
MR. GRIFFITH (MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS):
A Chinn Chomhairle, I submit I am here to move this. Are my hands to
be tied by this document being withheld after we were discussing it for two
days?
MADAME MARKIEVICZ (SOUTH DUBLIN):
I wish to say that when the document was given to me it was distinctly stated
it was confidential, and I have treated it as such.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I have no objection to the document going anywhere, except this, that I
wanted this House, if possible, to have a united policy. I was prepared to stand
on a certain document. It would cease to be of value unless it was a document
that would command practically the unanimous approval of the assembly. It was
given to the assembly distinctly on that understanding to get objections to it.
I intend proposing what I want to stand on as my own proposition before the
Irish people. That was not my proposal definitely; it was a paper put in in
order to elicit views. I am ready to put my proposition in its proper place,
both before this assembly and before the Irish nation. I have asked it to be
treated as confidential because there are other documents necessary to explain
its genesis. Unless you want all the confidential documents of the whole
conference proceedings published, then I hold you cannot publish that.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER FOR FINANCE):
I as a public representative cannot consent, if I am in a minority of one, in
withholding from the Irish people my knowledge of what the alternative is. We
have to deal with this matter in the full light of our own responsibility to our
people, and I cannot in my public statement refrain from telling the Irish
people what certain alternatives are.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is not proposed to withhold either that document or any documents from the
Irish people, if this House wishes it, in its proper place, but I hold it is
running across the course of the debate to introduce now for the public a
document which has been discussed in Private Session. It means that the Private
Session might as well not have been held.
THE SPEAKER:
I wish the members to understand that this is not a matter of the Chair's
ruling that this document is confidential. It is simply a matter of a request
made by the President and communicated by me to the Dáil, through the ordinary
courtesy of procedure, as the President's desire. I do not make any ruling on
it, but any discussion on it is out of order. We most proceed now with the
orders of the day.
MR. GRIFFITH (MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS):
It is not a question of courtesy; it is not a question of the rules of
procedure; it is a question of the lives and fortunes of the people of Ireland.
While I shall so far as I can respect President de Valera's wish, I am not going
to hide from the Irish people what the alternative is that is proposed. I move
the motion standing in my name---
That Dáil Eireann approves of the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland,
signed in London on December 6th, 1921.
Nearly three months ago Dáil Eireann appointed plenipotentiaries to go to London
to treat with the British Government and to make a bargain with them. We have
made a bargain. We have brought it back. We were to go there to reconcile our
aspirations with the association of the community of nations known as the
British Empire. That task which was given to us was as hard as was ever placed
on the shoulders of men. We faced that task; we knew that whatever happened we
would have our critics, and we made up our minds to do whatever was right and
disregard whatever criticism might occur. We could have shirked the
responsibility. We did not seek to act as the plenipotentiaries; other men were
asked and other men refused. We went. The responsibility is on our shoulders; we
took the responsibility in London and we take the responsibility in Dublin. I
signed that Treaty not as the ideal thing, but fully believing, as I believe
now, it is a treaty honourable to Ireland, and safeguards the vital interests of
Ireland.
And now by that Treaty I am going to stand, and every man with a scrap of
honour who signed it is going to stand. It is for the Irish people---who are our
masters [hear, hear] not our servants as some think---it is for
the Irish people to say whether it is good enough. I hold that it is, and I hold
that the Irish people---that 95 per cent of them believe it to be good enough.
We are here, not as the dictators of the Irish People, but as the
representatives of the Irish people, and if we misrepresent the Irish people,
then the moral authority of Dáil Eireann, the strength behind it, and the fact
that Dáil Eireann spoke the voice of the Irish people, is gone, and gone for
ever. Now, the President--- and I am in a difficult position---does not wish a
certain document referred to read. But I must refer to the substance of it. An
effort has been made outside to represent that a certain number of men stood
uncompromisingly on the rock of the Republic---the Republic, and nothing but the
Republic.
It has been stated also here that the man who made this position, the man who
won the war---Michael Collins---compromised Ireland's rights. In the letters
that preceded the negotiations not once was a demand made for recognition of the
Irish Republic. If it had been made we knew it would have BEEN refused. We went
there to see how to reconcile the two positions, and I hold we have done it. The
President does not wish this document to be read. What am I to do? What am I to
say? Am I to keep my mouth shut and let the Irish people think about this
uncompromising rock?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I will make my position in my speech quite clear.
MR. GRIFFITH (MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS):
What we have to say is this, that the difference in this Cabinet and in this
House is between half-recognising the British King and the British Empire, and
between marching in, as one of the speakers said, with our heads up. The
gentlemen on the other side are prepared to recognise the King of England as
head of the British Commonwealth. They are prepared to go half in the Empire and
half out. They are prepared to go into the Empire for war and peace and
treaties, and to keep out for other matters, and that is what the Irish people
have got to know is the difference. Does all this quibble of words---because it
is merely a quibble of words---mean that Ireland is asked to throw away this
Treaty and go back to war? So far as my power or voice extends, not one young
Irishman's life shall be lost on that quibble. We owe responsibility to the
Irish people. I feel my responsibility to the Irish people, and the Irish people
must know, and know in every detail, the difference that exists between us, and
the Irish people must be our judges. When the plenipotentiaries came back they
were sought to be put in the dock. Well, if I am going to be tried, I am going
to be tried by the people of Ireland [hear, hear]. Now this Treaty
has been attacked. It has been examined with a microscope to find its defects,
and this little thing and that little thing has been pointed out, and the people
are told---one of the gentlemen said it here---that it was less even than the
proposals of July. It is the first Treaty between the representatives of the
Irish Government and the representatives of the English Government since 1172
signed on equal footing. It is the first Treaty that admits the equality of
Ireland. It is a Treaty of equality, and because of that I am standing by it. We
have come back from London with that Treaty---Saorstát na hEireann
recognised---the Free State of Ireland. We have brought back the flag; we have
brought back the evacuation of Ireland after 700 years by British troops and the
formation of an Irish army [applause]. We have brought back to
Ireland her full rights and powers of fiscal control. We have brought back to
Ireland equality with England, equality with all nations which form that
Commonwealth, and an equal voice in the direction of foreign affairs in peace
and war. Well, we are told that that Treaty is a derogation from our status;
that it is a Treaty not to be accepted, that it is a poor thing, and that the
Irish people ought to go back and fight for something more, and that something
more is what I describe as a quibble of words. Now, I shall have an opportunity
later on of replying to the very formidably arranged criticism that is going to
be levelled at the Treaty to show its defects. At all events, the Irish people
are a people of great common sense. They know that a Treaty that gives them
their flag and their Free State and their Army (cheers) is not a sham Treaty,
and the sophists and the men of words will not mislead them, I tell you. In
connection with the Treaty men said this and said that, and I was requested to
get from Mr. Lloyd George a definite statement covering points in the Treaty
which some gentlemen misunderstood. This is Mr. Lloyd George's letter:
10, Downing Street, S.W. 1 12th December, 1921.Sir,---
As doubts may be expressed regarding certain points not specifically
mentioned in the Treaty terms, I think it is important that their meaning
should be clearly understood.
The first question relates to the method of appointment of the
Representatives of the Crown in Ireland. Article III. of the Agreement lays
down that he is to be appointed `in like manner as the Governor-General of
Canada and in accordance with the Practice observed in the making of such
appointment'. This means that the Government of the Irish Free State will be
consulted so as to ensure a selection acceptable to the Irish Government
before any recommendation is made to his Majesty.
The second question is as to the scope of the Arbitration contemplated in
Article V. regarding Ireland's liability for a share of War Pensions and the
Public Debt. The procedure contemplated by the Conference was that the British
Government should submit its claim, and that the Government of the Irish Free
State should submit any counter-claim to which it thought Ireland entitled.
Upon the case so submitted the Arbitrators would decide after making such
further inquiries as they might think necessary; their decision would then be
final and binding on both parties. It is, of course, understood that the
arbitrator or arbitrators to whom the case is referred shall be men as to
whose impartiality both the British Government and the Government of the Irish
Free State are satisfied.
The third question relates to the status of the Irish Free State. The
special arrangements agreed between us in Articles VI., VII., VIII. and IX.,
which are not in the Canadian constitution, in no way affect status. They are
necessitated by the proximity and interdependence of the two islands by
conditions, that is, which do not exist in the case of Canada.
They in no way affect the position of the Irish Free State in the
Commonwealth or its title to representation, like Canada, in the Assembly of
the League of Nations. They were agreed between us for our mutual benefit, and
have no bearing of any kind upon the question of status. It is our desire that
Ireland shall rank as co-equal with the other nations of the Commonwealth, and
we are ready to support her claim to a similar place in the League of Nations
as soon as her new Constitution comes into effect.
The framing of that Constitution will be in the hands of the Irish
Government, subject, of course, to the terms of Agreement, and to the pledges
given in respect of the minority by the head of the Irish Delegation. The
establishment and composition of the Second Chamber is, therefore, in the
discretion of the Irish people. There is nothing in the Articles of Agreement
to suggest that Ireland is in this respect bound to the Canadian model.
I may add that we propose to begin withdrawing the Military and Auxiliary
Forces of the Crown in Southern Ireland when the Articles of Agreement are
ratified.
I am, Sir, Your obedient Servant,
D. LLOYD GEORGE.
Various different methods of attack on this Treaty have been made. One of
them was they did not mean to keep it. Well, they have ratified it, and it can
come into operation inside a fortnight. We think they do mean to keep it if we
keep it. They are pledged now before the world, pledged by their signature, and
if they depart from it they will be disgraced and we will be stronger in the
world's eyes than we are today. During the last few years a war was waged on the
Irish people, and the Irish people defended themselves, and for a portion of
that time, when President de Valera was in America, I had at least the
responsibility on my shoulders of standing for all that was done in that defence,
and I stood for it [applause]. I would stand for it again under
similar conditions. Ireland was fighting then against an enemy that was striking
at her life, and was denying her liberty, but in any contest that would follow
the rejection of this offer Ireland would be fighting with the sympathy of the
world against her, and with all the Dominions---all the nations that comprise
the British Commonwealth---against her.
The position would be such that I believe no conscientious Irishman could
take the responsibility for a single Irishman's life in that futile war. Now,
many criticisms, I know, will be levelled against this Treaty; one in
particular, one that is in many instances quite honest, it is the question of
the oath. I ask the members to see what the oath is, to read it, not to
misunderstand or misrepresent it. It is an oath of allegiance to the
Constitution of the Free State of Ireland and of faithfulness to King George V.
in his capacity as head and in virtue of the common citizenship of Ireland with
Great Britain and the other nations comprising the British Commonwealth. That is
an oath, I say, that any Irishman could take with honour. He pledges his
allegiance to his country and to be faithful to this Treaty, and faithfulness
after to the head of the British Commonwealth of Nations. If his country were
unjustly used by any of the nations of that Commonwealth, or its head, then his
allegiance is to his own country and his allegiance bids him to resist. [hear,
hear]
We took an oath to the Irish Republic, but, as President de Valera himself said, he understood that oath to bind him to do the best he could
for Ireland. So do we. We have done the best we could for Ireland. If the Irish
people say `We have got everything else but the name Republic, and we will fight
for it', I would say to them that they are fools, but I will follow in the
ranks. I will take no responsibility. But the Irish people will not do that. Now
it has become rather a custom for men to speak of what they did, and did not do,
in the past. I am not going to speak of that aspect, except one thing. It is
this. The prophet I followed throughout my life, the man whose words and
teachings I tried to translate into practice in politics, the man whom I revered
above all Irish patriots was Thomas Davis. In the hard way of fitting practical
affairs into idealism I have made Thomas Davis my guide. I have never departed
in my life one inch from the principles of Thomas Davis, and in signing this
Treaty and bringing it here and asking Ireland to ratify it I am following
Thomas Davis still. Later on, when coming to reply to criticism, I will deal
with the other matters. Thomas Davis said:
Peace with England, alliance with England to some extent, and, under
certain circumstances, confederation with England; but an Irish ambition,
Irish hopes, strength, virtue, and rewards for the Irish.
That is what we have brought back, peace with England, alliance with England,
confederation with England, an Ireland developing her own life, carving out her
own way of existence, and rebuilding the Gaelic civilisation broken down at the
battle of Kinsale. I say we have brought you that. I say we have translated
Thomas Davis into the practical politics of the day. I ask then this Dáil to
pass this resolution, and I ask the people of Ireland, and the Irish people
everywhere, to ratify this Treaty, to end this bitter conflict of centuries, to
end it for ever, to take away that poison that has been rankling in the two
countries and ruining the relationship of good neighbours. Let us stand as free
partners, equal with England, and make after 700 years the greatest revolution
that has ever been made in the history of the world---a revolution of seeing the
two countries standing not apart as enemies, but standing together as equals and
as friends. I ask you, therefore, to pass this resolution [applause].
COMMANDANT SEAN MACKEON (LONGFORD AND WESTMEATH):
A Chinn Chomhairle I rise to second the motion, as proposed by the
Deputy for West Cavan (Arthur Griffith) and Chairman of the Irish Delegation in
London. In doing so, I take this course because I know I am doing it in the
interests of my country, which I love. To me symbols, recognitions, shadows,
have very little meaning. What I want, what the people of Ireland want, is not
shadows but substances, and I hold that this Treaty between the two nations
gives us not shadows but real substances, and for that reason I am ready to
support it. Furthermore, this Treaty gives Ireland the chance for the first time
in 700 years to develop her own life in her own way, to develop Ireland for all,
every man and woman, without distinction of creed or class or politics. To me
this Treaty gives me what I and my comrades fought for; it gives us for the
first time in 700 years the evacuation of Britain's armed forces out of Ireland.
It also gives me my hope and dream, our own Army, not half-equipped, but fully
equipped, to defend our interests. If the Treaty were much worse in words than
it is alleged to be, once it gave me these two things, I would take it and say
as long as the armed forces of Britain are gone and the armed forces of Ireland
remain, we can develop our own nation in our own way. Furthermore, when it gives
us this army it simply means that it is a guarantee that England or England's
King will be faithful to us. If he is not, if the King is not faithful to us,
well, we will have somebody left who will defend our interests and see that they
are safeguarded. It may seem rather peculiar that one like me who is regarded as
an extremist should take this step. Yes, to the world and to Ireland I say I am
an extremist, but it means that I have an extreme love of my country. It was
love of my country that made me and every other Irishman take up arms to defend
her. It was love of my country that made me ready, and every other Irishman
ready, to die for her if necessary. This Treaty brings the freedom that is
necessary, it brings the freedom that we all were ready to die for, that is,
that Ireland be allowed to develop her own life in her own way, without any
interference from any other Government whether English or otherwise [applause].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think it would scarcely be in accordance with Standing Orders of the Dáil
if I were to move directly the rejection of this Treaty. I daresay, however, it
will be sufficient that I should appeal to this House not to approve of the
Treaty. We were elected by the Irish people, and did the Irish people think we
were liars when we said that we meant to uphold the Republic, which was ratified
by the vote of the people three years ago, and was further ratified---expressly
ratified---by the vote of the people at the elections last May? When the
proposal for negotiation came from the British Government asking that we should
try by negotiation to reconcile Irish national aspirations with the association
of nations forming the British Empire, there was no one here as strong as I was
to make sure that every human attempt should be made to find whether such
reconciliation was possible. I am against this Treaty because it does not
reconcile Irish national aspirations with association with the British
Government. I am against this Treaty, not because I am a man of war, but a man
of peace. I am against this Treaty because it will not end the centuries of
conflict between the two nations of Great Britain and Ireland.
We went out to effect such a reconciliation and we have brought back a thing
which will not even reconcile our own people much less reconcile Britain and
Ireland.
If there was to be reconciliation, it is obvious that the party in Ireland
which typifies national aspirations for centuries should be satisfied, and the
test of every agreement would be the test of whether the people were satisfied
or not. A war-weary people will take things which are not in accordance with
their aspirations. You may have a snatch election now, and you may get a vote of
the people, but I will tell you that Treaty will renew the contest that is going
to begin the same history that the Union began, and Lloyd George is going to
have the same fruit for his labours as Pitt had. When in Downing Street the
proposals to which we could unanimously assent in the Cabinet were practically
turned down at the point of the pistol and immediate war was threatened upon our
people. It was only then that this document was signed, and that document has
been signed by plenipotentiaries, not perhaps individually under duress, but it
has been signed, and would only affect this nation as a document signed under
duress, and this nation would not respect it.
I wanted, and the Cabinet wanted, to get a document we could stand by, a
document that could enable Irishmen to meet Englishmen and shake hands with them
as fellow-citizens of the world. That document makes British authority our
masters in Ireland. It was said that they had only an oath to the British King
in virtue of common citizenship, but you have an oath to the Irish Constitution,
and that Constitution will be a Constitution which will have the King of Great
Britain as head of Ireland. You will swear allegiance to that Constitution and
to that King; and if the representatives of the Republic should ask the people
of Ireland to do that which is inconsistent with the Republic, I say they are
subverting the Republic. It would be a surrender which was never heard of in
Ireland since the days of Henry II.; and are we in this generation, which has
made Irishmen famous through out the world, to sign our names to the most
ignoble document that could be signed.
When I was in prison in solitary confinement our warders told us that we
could go from our cells into the hall, which was about fifty feet by forty. We
did go out from the cells to the hall, but we did not give our word to the
British jailer that he had the right to detain us in prison because we got that
privilege. Again on another occasion we were told that we could get out to a
garden party, where we could see the flowers and the hills, but we did not for
the privilege of going out to garden parties sign a document handing over our
souls and bodies to the jailers. Rather than sign a document which would give
Britain authority in Ireland they should be ready to go into slavery until the
Almighty had blotted out their tyrants [applause]. If the British
government passed a Home Rule Act or something of that kind I would not have
said to the Irish people, `Do not take it'. I would have said, `Very well; this
is a case of the jailer leading you from the cell to the hall,' but by getting
that we did not sign away our right to whatever form of government we pleased.
It was said that an uncompromising stand for a Republic was not made. The stand
made by some of them was to try and reconcile a Republic with an association.
There was a document presented to this House to try to get unanimity, to see
whether the views which I hold could be reconciled to that party which typified
the national aspirations of Ireland for centuries. The document was put there
for that purpose, and I defy anybody in this House to say otherwise than that I
was trying to bring forward before this assembly a document which would bring
real peace between Great Britain and Ireland---a sort of document we would have
tried to get and would not have agreed if we did not get. It would be a document
that would give real peace to the people of Great Britain and Ireland and not
the officials. I know it would not be a politicians' peace. I know the
politician in England who would take it would risk his political future, but it
would be a peace between peoples, and would be consistent with the Irish people
being full masters of everything within their own shores. Criticism of this
Treaty is scarcely necessary from this point of view, that it could not be
ratified because it would not be legal for this assembly to ratify it, because
it would be inconsistent with our position. We were elected here to be the
guardians of an independent Irish State---a State that had declared its
independence---and this House could no more than the ignominious House that
voted away the Colonial Parliament that was in Ireland in 1800 unless we wished
to follow the example of that House and vote away the independence of our
people. We could not ratify that instrument if it were brought before us for
ratification. It is, therefore, to be brought before us not for ratification,
because it would be inconsistent, and the very fact that it is inconsistent
shows that it could not be reconciled with Irish aspirations, because the
aspirations of the Irish people have been crystallised into the form of
Government they have at the present time. As far as I was concerned, I am
probably the freest man here to express my opinion. Before I was elected
President at the Private Session, I said, `Remember I do not take, as far as I
am concerned, oaths as regards forms of Government. I regard myself here to
maintain the independence of Ireland and
to do the best for the Irish people',
and it is to do the best for the Irish people that I ask you not to approve but
to reject this Treaty.
You will be asked in the best interests of Ireland, if you pretend to the
world that this will lay the foundation of a lasting peace, and you know
perfectly well that even if Mr. Griffith and Mr. Collins set up a Provisional
Government in Dublin Castle, until the Irish people would have voted upon it the
Government would be looked upon as a usurpation equally with Dublin Castle in
the past. We know perfectly well there is nobody here who has expressed more
strongly dissent from any attacks of any kind upon the delegates that went to
London than I did.
There is no one who knew better than I did how difficult is the task they had
to perform. I appealed to the Dáil, telling them the delegates had to do
something a mighty army or a mighty navy would not be able to do. I hold that,
and I hold that it was in their excessive love for Ireland they have done what
they have. I am as anxious as anyone for the material prosperity of Ireland and
the Irish people, but I cannot do anything that would make the Irish people hang
their heads. I would rather see the same thing over again than that Irishmen
should have to hang their heads in shame for having signed and put their hands
to a document handing over their authority to a foreign country. The Irish
people would not want me to save them materially at the expense of their
national honour. I say it is quite within the competence of the Irish people if
they wished to enter into an association with other peoples, to enter into the
British Empire; it is within their competence if they want to choose the British
monarch as their King, but does this assembly think the Irish people have
changed so much within the past year or two that they now want to get into the
British Empire after seven centuries of fighting? Have they so changed that they
now want to choose the person of the British monarch, whose forces they have
been fighting against, and who have been associated with all the barbarities of
the past couple of years; have they changed so much that they want to choose the
King as their monarch? It is not King George as a monarch they choose: it is
Lloyd George, because it is not the personal monarch they are choosing, it is
British power and authority as sovereign authority in this country. The sad part
of it, as I was saying, is that a grand peace could at this moment be made, and
to see the difference. I say, for instance, if approved by the Irish people, and
if Mr. Griffith, or whoever might be in his place, thought it wise to ask King
George over to open Parliament he would see
black flags in the streets of
Dublin. Do you think that that would make for harmony between the two peoples?
What would the people of Great Britain say when they saw the King accepted by
the Irish people greeted in Dublin with black flags? If a Treaty was entered
into, if it was a right Treaty, he could have been brought here [No, no].
Yes, he could [cries of `No, no']. Why not? I say if a proper
peace had been made you could bring, for instance, the President of France, the
King of Spain, or the President of America here, or the head of any other
friendly nation here in the name of the Irish State, and the Irish people would
extend to them in a very different way a welcome as the head of a friendly
nation coming on a friendly visit to their country, and not as a monarch who
came to call Ireland his legitimate possession. In one case the Irish people
would regard him as a usurper, in the other case it would be the same as a
distinguished visitor to their country. Therefore, I am against the Treaty,
because it does not do the fundamental thing and bring us peace. The Treaty
leaves us a country going through a period of internal strife just as the Act of
Union did.
One of the great misfortunes in Ireland for past centuries has been the fact
that our internal problems and our internal domestic questions could not be gone
into because of the relationship between Ireland and Great Britain. Just as in
America during the last Presidential election, it was not the internal affairs
of the country were uppermost; it was other matters. It was the big
international question. That was the misfortune for America at the time, and it
was the great misfortune for Ireland for 120 years, and if the present Pact is
agreed on that will continue. I am against it because it is inconsistent with
our position, because if we are to say the Irish people don't mean it, then they
should have told us that they didn't mean it.
Had the Chairman of the delegation said he did not stand for the things they
had said they stood for, he would not have been elected. The Irish people can
change their minds if they wish to. The Irish people are our masters, and they
can do as they like, but only the Irish people can do that, and we should give
the people the credit that they meant what they said just as we mean what we
say.
I do not think I should continue any further on this matter. I have spoken
generally, and if you wish we can take these documents up, article by article,
but they have been discussed in Private Session, and I do not think there is any
necessity for doing so. Therefore, I am once more asking you to reject the
Treaty for two main reasons, that, as every Teachta knows, it is absolutely
inconsistent with our Position; it gives away Irish independence; it brings us
into the British Empire; it acknowledges the head of the British Empire, not
merely as the head of an association, but as the direct monarch of Ireland, as
the source of executive authority in Ireland. The Ministers of Ireland will be
His Majesty's Ministers, the Army that Commandant MacKeon spoke of will be His
Majesty's Army. [Voices: `No'.] You may sneer at words, but I say
words mean, and I say in a Treaty words do mean something, else why should they
be put down? They have meanings and they have facts, great realities that you
cannot close your eyes to. This Treaty means that the Ministers of the Irish
Free State will be His Majesty's Ministers [cries of `No, no,']
and the Irish Forces will be His Majesty's Forces [`No, no'.]
Well, time will tell, and I hope it won't have a chance, because you will throw
this out. If you accept it, time will tell; it cannot be one way in this
assembly and another way in the British House of Commons. The Treaty is an
agreed document, and there ought to be pretty fairly common interpretation
of it. If there are differences of interpretation we know who will get the best
of them.
I hold, and I don't mind my words being on record, that the chief executive
authority in Ireland is the British Monarch---the British authority. It is in
virtue of that authority the Irish Ministers will function. It is to the
Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Army, who will be the English Monarch, they will
swear allegiance, these soldiers of Ireland. It is on these grounds as being
inconsistent with our position, and with the whole national tradition for 750
years, that it cannot bring peace. Do you think that because you sign documents
like this you can change the current of tradition? You cannot. Some of you are
relying on that cannot to sign this Treaty. But don't put a barrier in
the way of future generations.
Parnell was asked to do something like this---to say it was a final
settlement. But he said, `No man has a right to set...'. No man can is a
different thing. `No man has a right'---take the context and you know the
meaning. Parnell said practically, `You have no right to ask me, because I have
no right to say that any man can
set boundaries to the march of a nation'. As
far as you can, if you take this you are [cries of `No' and `Yes']
presuming to set bounds to the onward march of a nation [applause].
MR. AUSTIN STACK (MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS):
It happens to be my privilege to rise immediately after the President to
support his motion that this House do not approve of the document which has been
presented to them. I shall be very brief; I shall confine myself to what I
regard as the chief defects in the document, namely, those which conflict with
my idea of Irish Independence. I regard clauses in this agreement as being the
governing clauses. These are Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4. In No. 1 England purports to
bestow on Ireland, an ancient nation, the same constitutional status as any of
the British Dominions, and also to bestow her with a Parliament having certain
powers. To look at the second clause, it starts off---`Subject to provisions
hereinafter set out'---and then she tries to limit you to the powers of the
Dominion of Canada. What they may mean I cannot say, beyond this, that the
Canadian Dominion is set up under a very old Act which considerably limits its
powers. No doubt the words `law, practice, and constitutional usage' are here. I
cannot define what these may mean. Other speakers who will come before the
assembly may be able to explain them. I certainly cannot. To let us assume that
this clause gives to this country full Canadian powers, I for one cannot accept
from England full Canadian powers, three-quarter Canadian powers, or half
Canadian powers. I stand for what is Ireland's right, full independence and
nothing short of it. It is easy to understand that countries like Australia, New
Zealand and the others can put up with the Powers which are bestowed on them,
can put up with acknowledgments to the monarch and rule of Great Britain as head
of their State, for have they not all sprung from England? Are they not children
of England? Have they not been built up by Great Britain? Have they not been
protected by England and lived under England's flag for all time? What other
feeling can they have but affection for England, which they always regarded as
their motherland? This country, on the other hand, has not been a child of
England's, nor never was. England came here as an invader, and for 750 years we
have been resisting that conquest. Are we now after those 750 years to bend the
knee and acknowledge that we received from England as a concession full, or
half, or three-quarter Dominion powers? I say no. Clause 3 of this Treaty gives
us a representative of the Crown in Ireland appointed in the same manner as a
Governor-General. That Governor-General will act in all respects in the name of
the King of England. He will represent the King in the Capital of Ireland and he
will open the Parliament which some members of this House seem to be willing to
attend. I am sure none of them, indeed, is very anxious to attend it under the
circumstances, but if they accept this Treaty they will have to attend
Parliament summoned in the name of the King of Great Britain and Ireland. There
is no doubt about that whatever. The fourth paragraph sets out the form of oath,
and this form of oath may be divided into two parts. In the first part you swear
`true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the Irish Free State as by law
established'. As the President has stated, according to the Constitution which
will be sanctioned under that Parliament, it will be summoned by the
representative of the King of England and Ireland and will acknowledge that
King. I say even that part of the oath is nothing short of swearing allegiance
to the head of that Constitution which will be the King. You express it again
when you swear, `and that I will be faithful to His Majesty King George V., his
heirs and successors by law'. That is clear enough, and I have no hesitation
whatever in reading the qualifying words. I say these qualifying words in no way
alter the text, or form, or effect of this oath, because what you do in that is
to explain the reason why you give faith, why you pledge fealty to King George.
You say it is in virtue of the common citizenship of Ireland with Great Britain
and the meaning of that is that you are British subjects. You are British
subjects without a doubt, and I challenge anyone here to stand and prove
otherwise than that according to this document. If ever you want to travel
abroad, to a country where a Passport is necessary, your passport must be issued
from the British Foreign Office and you must be described as a British subject
on it [`No, no'.] All right. If you are mean enough to accept this
Treaty, time will tell. You wind up by saying that you further acknowledge that
King in virtue of Ireland's adherence to and membership of the group of nations
known as the British Commonwealth of Nations, and all that, of course, is really
consistent with the whole thing. You will become a member of the British Empire.
Now this question of the oath has an extraordinary significance for me, for, so
far as I can trace, no member of my family has ever taken an oath of allegiance
to England's King. When I say that I do not pretend for a moment that men who
happened to be descended from, or to be sons of men who took oaths of allegiance
to England's Kings, or men who themselves took oaths of allegiance to England's
Kings are any worse for it. There are men in this assembly who have been
comrades of mine in various places, who have been fighting the same fight as I
have been fighting, the same fight which we have all been fighting, and which I
sincerely hope we will be fighting together again ere long. There are men with
whom I was associated in this fight whose fathers had worn England's uniform and
taken oaths of allegiance, and these men were as good men and took their places
as well in the fight for Irish independence as any man I ever met. But what I
wish to say is this: I was nurtured in the traditions of Fenianism. My father
wore England's uniform as a comrade of Charles Kickham and O'Donovan Rossa when
as a '67 man he was sentenced to ten years for being a rebel, but he wore it
minus the oath of allegiance. If I, as I hope I will, try to continue to fight
for Ireland's liberty, even if this rotten document be accepted, I will fight
minus the oath of allegiance and to wipe out the oath of allegiance if I can do
it. Now I ask you has any man here the idea in his head, has any man here the
hardihood to stand up and say that it was for this our fathers have suffered,
that it was for this our comrades have died on the field and in the barrack
yard. If you really believe in your hearts that it was vote for it. If you don't
believe it in your hearts vote against it. It is for you now to make up your
minds. To-day or to-morrow will be, I think, the most fateful days in Irish
history. I will conclude by quoting two of Russell Lowell's lines:
- Once to every man and nation comes a moment to decide,
In the strife 'twixt truth and falsehood for the good or evil side.
Applause
COUNT PLUNKETT (LEITRIM AND NORTH ROSCOMMON):
A Chinn Chomhairle, I rise to support the President in his motion to
reject the resolution put forward by Mr. Arthur Griffith. I have the greatest
personal respect and a recognition of the personal honour of those who went to
London in the hope, in the expectation, I presume, that they would bring back a
settlement that could be agreed to by the Irish people and ratified by them, and
that would be satisfactory to the conscience of Irishmen. But I am sorry to say
that Mr. Arthur Griffith, while he has kept the word of promise to the ear, has
broken it to the cup. I am in favour of the rejection of this Treaty on the
ground that it is not reconcilable with the conscience of the Irish people. I am
in favour of its rejection because I myself in conscience could not stand by it.
It proposes that all the schemes that have been brought up across our track
during our fight for liberty should be substituted for the plain intention of
the Irish people in inaugurating and carrying to a great point of success the
struggle for Irish liberty.
The scheme put forward by Sir Horace Plunkett and Captain Henry Harrison was
scornfully laughed at, because it was common knowledge that these gentlemen
could not deliver the goods. Accordingly Captain Harrison dissolved the Dominion
League. The schemes put forward at the Convention called by the English
Government were rejected with scorn, for no broad-minded Irishman would enter
that assembly. It was a manufactured assembly and did not express the views of
the Irish people; but to-day by a side-wind you are told that the only thing for
you to do is to accept these rejected things.
You were told that your national liberties will be secured by handing them
over to the authority of the British Government. You are told that the vile
thing that was rejected, not only by our generation but by past generations of
fighting men, that this scheme by which we will be put under the authority of
the Imperial Government, swearing an oath of allegiance to the English King,
that this is the means by which you will achieve your liberty. If you were to
achieve it by this means it would mean by treachery among our own, it would mean
that we are to be false either to one oath or the other, and if I take an oath
and devote myself to the fight for national liberty I am not going, whatever the
threat of war or any other device, to abandon the cause to which I have devoted
my life. I am faithful to my oath. I am faithful to the dead. I am faithful to
my own boys, one of whom died for Ireland with his back to the wall and the
other two who were sentenced to death. And I saw them afterwards wearing what
has been described as the livery of England during the beginning of a sentence
of ten years, penal servitude. Am I to go back now on the ingenious suggestion
that by some unexpected contrivance Ireland is to secure her liberty by giving
it away. No, I am no more an enemy of peace than Arthur Griffith. I am no more
an enemy of an understanding, an honest, straight understanding, between England
and Ireland than any man here, but I will never sacrifice the independence of
Ireland simply for the purpose of securing a cessation of warfare. Now look at
what has been already accomplished. The men of 1916 went out and fought the
whole power of the British Empire. Did they lose? They went down, but they went
down as victors. Instead of an irresolute body of people who had handed over
their judgment to a little group of politicians, they were a resolute nation
backing the little forces of Ireland, so that the power of Ireland was not in
the hands of a few hundred men, but in the hands of four-and-a-half millions of
people. That is the position which the men of 1916 secured, and that fight has
been carried on ever since not merely with the countenance of the Irish people,
but with the assistance and backings of the Irish people. To tell me that the
men who allowed their houses to be burned over their heads and still did not
relinquish their nationality, the men whose children were shot before their eyes
and who for the national good had given up all hope of success in this world,
were going to sign a document handing over these liberties to the English
Government in the hope that England in a fit of generosity will not take the
bond as binding. No. As men of honour we must respect our oaths, as men of
principle we must stand by the principle of liberty, and as men whose word is as
good as their bond we must see that no man takes an oath here with the secret
intention of breaking it. We have taken an oath of fidelity to the Republic, and
are we going to take a false oath now to King George? Under no conditions will I
sacrifice my personal honour in such a manner. I don't believe that the men who
foolishly imagine such a thing can be done can resist the corruption that
inevitably comes of dishonour.
MR. JOSEPH MCBRIDE (NORTH AND WEST MAYO):
I am standing in support of the ratification of the Treaty brought home from
London by the plenipotentiaries of Ireland. I support it because I consider it
will be for the best interests of this country. I support the ratification
because I know the people demand its ratification. I support the ratification of
it because I know that the ideals for which I have worked, and for which others
who are listening to me worked through many long and weary years, will be
quicker attained by ratification of this Treaty than otherwise. I have the
honour to know a number of men who suffered and laboured not only in this
generation but in other generations, and I know it would be the last thing that
they should wish that their labours and their sufferings should be used in order
to press an argument in a controversy such as this. Their labours and their
sufferings piled high on their country's altar will be as a beacon to the
generations that are to come. Unity seems to be a fetish with some people in
this assembly. They fear a split. I don't. Probably they have in their minds the
foul implications and the degradation of the Parnell split. But cannot we agree
to differ? I know nothing about the President except what the public know, but I
would be grievously surprised if he carried on any controversy that should arise
out of our differences here in any other than in a dignified and courteous
manner. Arthur Griffith I know for a good number of years. I know how hard he
worked and of his unselfishness. I am aware of his erudition and of his
consistent line in the political movement in Ireland, and I know that he would
not stoop to anything undignified. Who did you send to London?---a bevy of
foolish children without sense of responsibility? Who did you send to London?
Men of honesty and of ability, men of affairs, honourable men. You entrusted
your honour to them and they did not betray it. They went to London with
thorough and complete powers to make a Treaty. They arrived at a Treaty, an
honourable Treaty, and that Treaty I am prepared to vote for, because I know in
voting for its ratification I am serving the best interests of this country and
of my own people.
The House adjourned at 1 o'clock until 3.30 to enable President de
Valera to attend the ceremony of his induction as chancellor of the National
University. On resuming after luncheon, THE SPEAKER took the chair at 3.45 p.m.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER FOR FINANCE):
A Chinn Chomhairle, much has been said in Private Session about the
action of the plenipotentiaries in signing at all or in signing without first
putting their document before the Cabinet. I want to state as clearly as I can,
and as briefly as I can---I cannot promise you to be very brief---what the exact
position was. It has been fully explained how the Delegation returned from
London on that momentous Saturday to meet the Cabinet at home. We came back with
a document from the British Delegation which we presented to the Cabinet.
Certain things happened at that Cabinet Meeting, and the Delegation, on
returning, put before the British Delegation as well as they could their
impressions of the decisions---I will not say conclusions---arrived at at that
Cabinet Meeting. I do not want unduly to press the word decisions. I want to be
fair to everybody. I can only say they were decisions in this way, that we went
away with certain impressions in our minds and that we did our best faithfully
to transmit these impressions to paper in the memorandum we handed in to the
British Delegation. It was well understood at that Cabinet Meeting that Sir
James Craig was receiving a reply from the British Premier on Tuesday morning.
Some conclusion as between the British Delegation and ourselves had, therefore,
to be come to and handed in to the British Delegation on the Monday night. Now,
we went away with a document which none of us would sign. It must have been
obvious, that being so, that in the meantime a document arose which we thought
we could sign. There was no opportunity of referring it to our people at home.
Actually on the Monday night we did arrive at conclusions which we thought we
could agree to and we had to say `Yes' across the table, and I may say that we
said `Yes'. It was later on that same day that the document was signed. But I do
not now, and I did not then, regard my word as being anything more important, or
a bit less important, than my signature on a document. Now, I also want to make
this clear. The answer which I gave and that signature which I put on that
document would be the same in Dublin or in Berlin, or in New York or in Paris.
If we had been in Dublin the difference in distance would have made this
difference, that we would have been able to consult not only the members of the
Cabinet but many members of the Dáil and many good friends. There has been talk
about `the atmosphere of London' and there has been talk about `slippery
slopes'. Such talk is beside the point. I knew the atmosphere of London of old
and I knew many other things about it of old. If the members knew so much about
`slippery slopes' before we went there why did they not speak then? The slopes
were surely slippery, but it is easy to be wise afterwards. I submit that such
observations are entirely beside the point. And if my signature has been given
in error, I stand by it whether it has or not, and I am not going to take refuge
behind any kind of subterfuge. I stand up over that signature and I give the
same decision at this moment in this assembly [applause]. It has
also been suggested that the Delegation broke down before the first bit of
English bluff. I would remind the Deputy who used that expression that England
put up quite a good bluff for the last five years here and I did not break down
before that bluff [applause, and a voice, `That is the stuff'].
And does anybody think that the respect I compelled from them in a few years was
in any way lowered during two months of negotiations? That also is beside the
point. The results of our labour are before the Dáil. Reject or accept. The
President has suggested that a greater result could have been obtained by more
skillful handling. Perhaps so. But there again the fault is not the
delegation's; it rests with the Dáil. It is not afterwards the Dáil should have
found out our limitations. Surely the Dáil knew it when they selected us, and
our abilities could not have been expected to increase because we were chosen as
plenipotentiaries by the Dáil. The delegates have been blamed for various
things. It is scarcely too much to say that they have been blamed for not
returning with recognition of the Irish Republic. They are blamed, at any rate,
for not having done much better. A Deputy when speaking the other day with
reference to Canada suggested that what may apply with safety to Canada would
not at all apply to Ireland because of the difference in distance from Great
Britain. It seemed to me that he did not regard the delegation as being wholly
without responsibility for the geographical propinquity of Ireland to Great
Britain. It is further suggested that by the result of their labours the
delegation made a resumption of hostilities certain. That again rests with the
Dáil; they should have chosen a better delegation, and it was before we went to
London that should have been done, not when we returned.
Now, Sir, before I come to the Treaty itself, I must say a word on another
vexed question---the question as to whether the terms of reference meant any
departure from the absolutely rigid line of the isolated Irish Republic. Let me
read to you in full (at the risk of wearying you) the two final communications
which passed between Mr. Lloyd George and President de Valera.
From Lloyd George to de Valera. It is a telegram. In that way the word
`President' was not an omission on my part. Gairloch Sept. 29th, 1921
His Majesty's Government have given close and earnest consideration to the
correspondence which has passed between us since their invitation to you to
send delegates to a conference at Inverness. In spite of their sincere desire
for peace, and in spite of the more conciliatory tone of your last
communication, they cannot enter a conference upon the basis of this
correspondence. Notwithstanding your personal assurance to the contrary, which
they much appreciate, it might be argued in future that the acceptance of a
conference on this basis had involved them in a recognition which no British
Government can accord. On this point they must guard themselves against any
possible doubt. There is no purpose to be served by any further interchange of
explanatory and argumentative communications upon this subject. The position
taken up by His Majesty's Government is fundamental to the existence of the
British Empire and they cannot alter it. My colleagues and I remain, however,
keenly anxious to make in cooperation with your delegates another determined
effort to explore every possibility of settlement by personal discussion. The
proposals which we have already made have been taken by the whole world as
proof that our endeavours for reconciliation and settlement are no empty form,
and we feel that conference, not correspondence, is the most practicable and
hopeful way to an understanding such as we ardently desire to achieve. We,
therefore, send you herewith a fresh invitation to a conference in London on
October 11th where we can meet your delegates as spokesmen of
the people whom
you represent with a view to ascertaining how the association of Ireland with
the community of nations known as the British Empire may best be reconciled
with Irish National aspirations.
From de Valera to Lloyd George. 30th Sept., 1921.
We have received your letter of invitation to a Conference in London on
October 11th, with a view to ascertaining
how the association of Ireland with
the community of Nations known as the British Empire may best be reconciled
with Irish National aspirations.
Our respective positions have been stated and are understood, and we agree
that conference, not correspondence, is the most practicable and hopeful way
to an understanding. We accept the invitation, and our delegates will meet you
in London on the date mentioned, to explore every possibility of settlement by
personal discussion.
This question of association was bandied around as far back as August 10th
and went on until the final communication. The communication of September 29th
from Lloyd George made it clear that they were going into a conference not on
the recognition of the Irish Republic, and I say if we all stood on the
recognition of the Irish Republic as a prelude to any conference we could very
easily have said so, and there would be no conference. What I want to make clear
is that it was the acceptance of the invitation that formed the compromise. I
was sent there to form that adaptation, to bear the brunt of it. Now as one of
the signatories of the document I naturally recommend its acceptance. I do not
recommend it for more than it is. Equally I do not recommend it for less than it
is. In my opinion it gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom that all nations
desire and develop to, but the freedom to achieve it [applause].
A Deputy has stated that the delegation should introduce this Treaty not, he
describes, as bagmen for England, but with an apology for its introduction. I
cannot imagine anything more mean, anything more despicable, anything more
unmanly than this dishonouring of one's signature. Rightly or wrongly when you
make a bargain you cannot alter it, you cannot go back and get sorry for it and
say `I ought to have made a better bargain'. Business cannot be done on those
bases. I must make reference to the signing of the Treaty. This Treaty was
not
signed under personal intimidation. If personal intimidation had been attempted
no member of the delegation would have signed it.
At a fateful moment I was called upon to make a decision, and if I were
called upon at the present moment for a decision on the same question my
decision would be the same. Let there be no mistake and no misunderstanding
about that.
I have used the word `intimidation'. The whole attitude of Britain towards
Ireland in the past was an attitude of intimidation, and we, as negotiators,
were not in the position of conquerors dictating terms of peace to a vanquished
foe. We had not beaten the enemy out of our country by force of arms.
To return to the Treaty, hardly anyone, even those who support it, really
understands it, and it is necessary to explain it, and the immense powers and
liberties it secures. This is my justification for having signed it, and for
recommending it to the nation. Should the Dáil reject it, I am, as I said, no
longer responsible. But I am responsible for making the nation fully understand
what it gains by accepting it, and what is involved in its rejection. So long as
I have made that clear I am perfectly happy and satisfied. Now we must look
facts in the face. For our continued national and spiritual existence two things
are necessary---security and freedom. If the Treaty gives us these or helps us
to get at these, then I maintain that it satisfies our national aspirations. The
history of this nation has not been, as is so often said, the history of a
military struggle of 750 years; it has been much more a history of peaceful
penetration of 750 years. It has not been a struggle for the ideal of freedom
for 750 years symbolised in the name Republic. It has been a story of slow,
steady, economic encroach by England. It has been a struggle on our part to
prevent that, a struggle against exploitation, a struggle against the cancer
that was eating up our lives, and it was only after discovering that, that it
was economic penetration, that we discovered that political freedom was
necessary in order that that should be stopped. Our aspirations, by whatever
term they may be symbolised, had one thing in front all the time, that was to
rid the country of the enemy strength. Now it was not by any form of
communication except through their military strength that the English held this
country. That is simply a plain fact which, I think, nobody will deny. It wasn't
by any forms of government, it wasn't by their judiciary or anything of that
kind. These people could not operate except for the military strength that was
always there. Now, starting from that, I maintain that
the disappearance of that
military strength gives us the chief proof that our national liberties are
established. And as to what has been said about guarantees of the withdrawal of
that military strength, no guarantees, I say, can alter the fact of their
withdrawal. because we are a weaker nation, and we shall be a weaker nation for
a long time to come. But certain things do give us a certain guarantee. We are
defined as having the constitutional status of Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
South Africa. If the English do not withdraw the military strength,
our
association with those places do give us, to some extent, a guarantee that they
must withdraw them. I know that it would be finer to stand alone, but if it is
necessary to our security, if it is necessary to the development of our own
life, and if we find we cannot stand alone, what can we do but enter into some
association? Now I have prepared part of this which I am going to read very
carefully. I have said that I am not a constitutional lawyer. I am going to give
a constitutional opinion in what I am going to read, and I will back that
constitutional opinion against the opinion of any Deputy, lawyer or otherwise,
in this Dáil.
[Reading]: The status as defined is the same constitutional
status in the `community of nations known as the British Empire', as Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. And here let me say that in my judgment it
is not a definition of any status that would secure us that status, it is the
power to hold and to make secure and to increase what we have gained. The fact
of Canadian and South African independence is something real and solid, and will
grow in reality and force as time goes on. Judged by that touchstone, the
relations between Ireland and Britain will have a certainty of freedom and
equality which cannot be interfered with. England dare not interfere with
Canada. Any attempt to interfere with us would be even more difficult in
consequence of the reference to the `constitutional status' of Canada and South
Africa.
They are, in effect, introduced as guarantors of our freedom, which makes us
stronger than if we stood alone.
In obtaining the `constitutional status' of Canada, our association with
England is based not on the present technical legal position of Canada. It is an
old Act, the Canadian Act, and the advances in freedom from it have been
considerable. That is the reply to one Deputy who spoke to-day of the real
position, the complete freedom equality with Canada has given us. I refer now
not to the legal technical status, but to the status they have come to, the
status which enables Canada to send an Ambassador to Washington, the status
which enables Canada to sign the Treaty of Versailles equally with Great
Britain, the status which prevents Great Britain from entering into any foreign
alliance without the consent of Canada, the status that gives Canada the right
to be consulted before she may go into any war. It is not the definition of that
status that will give it to us; it is our power to take it and to keep it, and
that is where I differ from the others. I believe in our power to take it and to
keep it. I believe in our future civilisation. As I have said already, as a
plain Irishman, I believe in
my own interpretation against the interpretation of
any Englishman. Lloyd George and Churchill have been quoted here against us. I
say the quotation of those people is what marks the slave mind. There are people
in this assembly who will take their words before they will take my words. That
is the slave mind.
The only departure from the Canadian status is the retaining by England of
the defences of four harbours, and the holding of some other facilities to be
used possibly in time of war. But if England wished to re-invade us she could do
so with or without these facilities. And with the `constitutional status' of
Canada we are assured that these facilities could never be used by
England for
our re-invasion. If there was no association, if we stood alone, the occupation
of the ports might probably be a danger to us. Associated in a free partnership
with these other nations it is not a danger, for their association is a
guarantee that it won't be used as a jumping-off ground against us. And that
same person tells me that we haven't Dominion status because of the occupation
of these ports, but that South Africa had even when Simonstown was occupied. I
cannot accept that argument. I am not an apologist for this Treaty. We have got
rid of the word Empire . For the first time in an official document the
former Empire is styled `The Community of Nations known as the British Empire'.
Common citizenship has been mentioned. Common citizenship is the substitution
for the subjection of Ireland. It is an admission by them that they no longer
can dominate Ireland. As I have said, the English penetration has not merely
been a military penetration. At the present moment the
economic penetration goes
on. I need only give you a few instances. Every day our Banks become
incorporated or allied to British interests, every day our Steamship Companies
go into English hands, every day some other business concern in this city is
taken over by an English concern and becomes a little oasis of English customs
and manners. Nobody notices, but that is the thing that has destroyed our Gaelic civilisation. That is a thing that we are able to stop, not perhaps if we lose
the opportunity of stopping it now. That is one of the things that I consider is
important, and to the nation's life perhaps more important than the military
penetration. And this gives us the opportunity of stopping it. Indeed when we
think of the thing from that economic point of view it would be easy to go on
with the physical struggle in comparison with it.
Do we think at all of what it means to look forward to the directing of the
organisation of the nation? Is it one of the things we are prepared to
undertake? If we came back with the recognition of the Irish Republic we would
need to start somewhere. Are we simply going to go on keeping ourselves in
slavery and subjection, for ever keeping on an impossible fight? Are we never
going to stand on our own feet? Now I had an argument based on a comparison of
the Treaty with the second document, and part of the argument was to read the
clauses of the second document. In deference to what the President has said I
shall not at this stage make use of that argument. I don't want to take anything
that would look like an unfair advantage. I am not standing for this thing to
get advantage over anybody, and whatever else the President will say about me, I
think he will admit that.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I never said anything but the highest.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER FOR FINANCE):
Now I have explained something as to what the Treaty is. I also want to
explain to you as one of the signatories what I consider rejection of it means.
It has been said that the alternative document does not mean war. Perhaps it
does, perhaps it does not. That is not the first part of the argument. I say
that rejection of the Treaty is a declaration of war until you have beaten the
British Empire, apart from any alternative document. Rejection of the Treaty
means your national policy is war. If you do this, if you go on that as a
national policy, I for one am satisfied. But I want you to go on it as a
national policy and understand what it means. I, as an individual, do not now,
no more than ever, shirk war. The Treaty was signed by me, not because they held
up the alternative of immediate war. I signed it because I would not be one of
those to commit the Irish people to war
without the Irish people committing
themselves to war. If my constituents send me to represent them in war, I will
do my best to represent them in war. Now I was not going to refer to anything
that had been said by the speakers of the Coalition side to-day. I do want to
say this in regard to the President's remark about Pitt, a remark, it will be
admitted, which was not very flattering to us. Well, now, what happened at the
time of the Union? Grattan's Parliament was thrown away without reference to the
people and against their wishes. Is the Parliament which this Treaty offers us
to be similarly treated? Is it to be thrown away without reference to the people
and against their wishes?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
What Parliament?
A VOICE: The Free State
MISS MACSWINEY (CORK CITY):
Which Parliament?
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER FOR FINANCE):
I would like you to keep on interrupting, because I was looking at a point
here. I am disappointed that I was not interrupted more. In our Private Sessions
we have been treated to harangues about principle. Not one Deputy has stated a
clear, steadfast, abiding principle on which we can stand. Deputies have talked
of principle. At different times I have known different Deputies to hold
different principles. How can I say, how can anyone say, that these Deputies may
not change their principles again? How can anyone say that anybody---a Deputy or
a supporter---who has fought against the Irish Nation on principle
may not fight
against it again on principle; I am not impeaching anybody, but I do want to
talk straight. I am the representative of an Irish stock; I am the
representative equally with any other member of the same stock of people who
have suffered through the terror in the past . Our grandfathers have suffered
from war, and our fathers or some of our ancestors have died of famine. I don't
want a lecture from anybody as to what my principles are to be now. I am just a
representative of plain Irish stock whose principles have been burned into them,
and we don't want any assurance to the people of this country that we are going
to betray them. We are one of themselves. I can state for you a principle which
everybody will understand, the principle of `government by the consent of the
governed'. These words have been used by nearly every Deputy at some time or
another. Are the Deputies going to be afraid of these words now, supposing the
formula happens to go against them?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
No, no.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER FOR FINANCE):
I have heard deputies remark that their constituents are in favour of this
treaty. The deputies have got their powers from their constituents and they are
responsible to their constituents. I have stated the principle which is the only
firm principle in the whole thing. Now I have gone into more or less a general
survey of the Treaty, apart from one section of it, the section dealing with
North-East Ulster. Again I am as anxious to face facts in that case as I am in
any other case. We have stated we would not coerce the North-East. We have
stated it officially in our correspondence. I stated it publicly in Armagh and
nobody has found fault with it. What did we mean? Did we mean we were going to
coerce them or we were not going to coerce them? What was the use of talking big
phrases about not agreeing to the partition of our country. Surely we recognise
that the North-East corner does exist, and surely our intention was that we
should take such steps as would sooner or later lead to mutual understanding.
The Treaty has made an effort to deal with it, and has made an effort, in my
opinion, to deal with it on lines that will lead very rapidly to goodwill, and
the entry of the North-East under the Irish Parliament [applause].
I don't say it is an ideal arrangement, but if our policy is, as has been
stated, a policy of non coercion, then let somebody else get a better way out of
it. Now, summing up and nobody can say that I haven't talked plainly I say that
this Treaty gives us, not recognition of the Irish Republic, but it gives us
more recognition on the part of Great Britain and the associated States than we
have got from any other nation. Again I want to speak plainly.
America did not recognise the Irish Republic. As things in London were coming to a close I
received cablegrams from America. I understand that my name is pretty well known
in America, and what I am going to say will make me unpopular there for the rest
of my life but I am not going to say any thing or hide anything for the sake of
American popularity. I received a cablegram from San Francisco, saying, `Stand
fast, we will send you a million dollars a month'. Well, my reply to that is,
`Send us half-a-million and send us a thousand men fully equipped'. I received
another cablegram from a branch of the American Association for the Recognition
of the Irish Republic and they said to me, `Don't weaken now, stand with de Valera'. Well, let that branch come over and stand with us both [applause].
The question before me was were we going to go on with this fight, without
referring it to the Irish people, for the sake of propaganda in America? I was
not going to take that responsibility. And as this may be the last opportunity I
shall ever have of speaking publicly to the Dáil, I want to say that there was
never an Irishman placed in such a position as I was by reason of these
negotiations. I had got a certain name, whether I deserved it or not. [Voices:
`You did, well'], and I knew when I was going over there that I was
being placed in a position that I could not reconcile, and that I could not in
the public mind be reconciled with what they thought I stood for, no matter what
we brought back,---and if we brought back the recognition of the Republic---but
I knew that the English would make a greater effort if I were there than they
would if I were not there, and I didn't care if my popularity was sacrificed or
not. I should have been unfair to my own country if I did not go there. Members
of the Dáil well remember that I protested against being selected. I want to say
another thing. It will be remembered that a certain incident occurred in the
South of Ireland, an incident which led to the excommunication of the whole
population of that district. At the time I took responsibility for that in our
private councils. I take responsibility for it now publicly. I only want to say
that I stand for every action as an individual member of the Cabinet, which I
suppose I shall be no longer; I stand for every action, no matter how it looked
publicly, and I shall always like the men to remember me like that. In coming to
the decision I did I tried to weigh what my own responsibility was. Deputies
have spoken about whether dead men would approve of it, and they have spoken of
whether children yet unborn will approve of it, but few of them have spoken as
to whether the living approve of it. In my own small way I tried to have before
my mind what the whole lot of them would think of it. And the proper way for us
to look at it is in that way. There is no man here who has more regard for the
dead men than I have [hear, hear]. I don't think it is fair to be
quoting them against us. I think the decision ought to be a clear decision on
the documents as they are before us---on the Treaty as it is before us. On that
we shall be judged, as to whether we have done the right thing in our own
conscience or not. Don't let us put the responsibility, the individual
responsibility, upon anybody else. Let us take that responsibility ourselves and
let us in God's name abide by the decision [applause].
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS (KILDARE AND WICKLOW):
I think everybody will agree that we have listened to a most able and
eloquent speech. I most heartily agree to it, though I am in profound
disagreement with the conclusions of the speaker. He has said many things which
I admire and respect, he has said others that I profoundly regret. All of us
agree, I think, that we have listened to a manly, eloquent, and worthy speech
from the Minister for Finance [hear, hear].
I wish to recall this assembly to the immediate subject before us, one side
of which was hardly touched upon, indeed if it was touched upon at all, by the
Minister for Finance, the question whether Dáil Eireann, the national assembly
of the people of Ireland, having declared its independence, shall approve of and
ratify a Treaty relinquishing deliberately and abandoning that independence. I
must say for my own part that I missed in the speeches both of the Minister for
Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Finance some note, however distant, of
regret for the effect in significance of the step they were taking, and had
taken, in London, that is, they were asking this assembly, Dáil Eireann, to vote
its own extinction in history, which they more perhaps than anybody else had
done so much to make honourable and noble. There is one thing more I would like
to say, because I think the two speeches delivered by the leading members of the
delegation have left it still obscure. I hardly know, indeed, what impression is
left upon the minds of the delegates as a result of their speeches. It is the
question of what the delegation was entitled to do and set out to do when it
went to London as compared with what it has done. The Minister for Finance spoke
of an isolated Republic and said quite rightly that there was no question when
the delegation went to London of an isolated Republic standing alone without tie
or association with any other association in the world. No such question was
before Dáil Eireann or the nation. The sole question before the nation, Dáil
Eireann, and the delegation was how is it possible to effect an association with
the British Commonwealth which would be honourable to the Irish nation? And it
ought to be known and understood, for certainly the speech of the Minister for
Foreign Affairs was misleading, in my opinion, on the point. It ought to be
understood that that object was held before the delegation to the last, except
that last terrible hour, and that the counter proposals put up to the British
Government did, on the face of them, and in their text, preserve the
independence of Ireland while arranging to associate it with the British
Commonwealth. Until the last moment that proposal was before the British
Government. That should be understood by Dáil Eireann, and I hope other members
of the delegation will confirm what I have said.
There was no question in the action of the delegation in London of acting on
some subconscious or unadmitted resolve to betray the Republic and to commit
Ireland to an association which would forfeit her independence, none to my
knowledge, at any rate, and I was secretary to the delegation. The proposals on
our side were honourable proposals. They stated in explicit terms that they
demanded the preservation of the independence of our country, to exclude the
King of England and British authority wholly from our country, and only when
that was done, and Ireland was absolutely free in Irish affairs, to enter an
association on free and honourable terms with Britain.
That, alas! was lost in the last hour of the time the delegation spent in
London and the result was the Treaty. The Minister for Finance has spoken
generally of that Treaty as placing Ireland in the position of Canada, giving
her Canadian status-`equality of status with Great Britain' was the phrase used
by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and I think, too, by the Minister for
Finance. The Minister for Foreign Affairs used the phrase, 'a final settlement'.
'A settlement that is not final', was the phrase used by the Minister for
Finance. There was that broad and fundamental distinction between them. At any
rate the settlement is commended to you as placing Ireland in a position
virtually as free as Canada, although technically making her subject to the
control of the British Crown and of the British Parliament. Apart altogether
from the question as to whether this assembly shall, or even can, surrender its
own independence and declare itself subject to the British Crown and Parliament,
does the Treaty before you carry out what the Minister for Finance represented
that it does carry out? It does not. It should be understood clearly by Dáil
Eireann---by all here---that this Treaty does not give you what is called
Dominion status. The Minister for Finance passed lightly over this clause
concerning the occupation of our ports. He did less than justice to the subject.
You have read, all of you, no doubt carefully, Clauses 6 and 7 of the Treaty.
What is the actual effect of those clauses, and how do they affect the status of
Ireland if this Treaty were to be passed? It is not merely a question of
occupying ports. Clause No. 6 in effect declares that the people of Ireland
inhabiting the island called Ireland have no responsibility for defending that
island from foreign attack. Foreign attack can come only over the sea. This
clause declares that Ireland is unfit, or rather for we all know the real
reason---too dangerous a neighbour to be entrusted with her own coastal defence.
And, therefore, in that clause is the most humiliating condition that can be
inflicted on any nation claiming to be free, namely, that it is not to be
allowed to provide defence against attack by a foreign enemy. There is, it is
true, a little proviso saying that the matter will be reconsidered in five
years, but there is no guarantee whatever that anything will result from that
reconsideration, and the most the reconsideration will amount to is that she is
to be allowed to take over a share in her own coastal defence. Clause No. 7
declares that permanently and for ever some of
our most important ports are to
be occupied by British Forces. Here there is no question of Dominion status, no
question of constitutional usage---these qualifying words that are used in the
second clause of the Treaty. For ever that occupation is to continue, and in
time of war, says sub-section B., or strained relations with a foreign Power,
such harbour and other facilities as the British Government may require for the
purpose of such defence as aforesaid. In other words, when she pleases to
announce that there are strained relations with a foreign Power, or when England
is actually in war with a foreign Power, any use whatever can be made of this
island whether for naval or military purposes. I need not say that no such
conditions or limitations attach to any dominion, least of all Canada. Canada is
absolutely free to defend her own coast, to raise her own naval forces and
military forces, and, as the Minister for Finance truly pointed out, Canada has
a real and genuine share in the decision of those great questions of foreign
policy, and on peace and war upon which the destiny of a nation depends. Ireland
under this Treaty will have none. What is the use of talking of equality, what
is the use of talking of a share in foreign policy, what is the use of talking
of responsibility for making treaties and alliances with foreign nations which
may involve a country in war? Nothing is to be gained from a share in taking
part on decisions of that immense magnitude unless the country which has that
share has the power, if it pleases, to say `I will not be a party to that
Treaty, I will not be a party to that war'. If she has not that power she has no
power. She may discuss and discuss and no one will listen to her. And let me
point out to this assembly the very vital significance of that in the case of
Ireland. You speak of Canada, the conferring on Ireland of Canada's status.
Imagine that Ireland is on a par with Canada in regard to these powers. What is
Canada? Half a continent. The closest part is nearly 3,000 miles from Britain,
and the furthest part 7,000 miles, a great, immense nation, absolutely
unconquerable by England, and, what is even more important, attached to England
by ties of blood which produces such relations between them that there is no
desire on England's part to conquer---two great factors, the distance which
renders Canada unconquerable and the blood tie. Canada has a real share in these
great questions unquestionably. What is the position of Ireland? After 750 years
of war, lying close up against the shores of her great neighbour, what guarantee
has she, what equal voice can she have in the decisions of these questions, with
England actually occupying her shores, committing her inevitably, legally,
constitutionally and in every other way to all her foreign policies and to all
her wars? That governing condition England has, that Ireland under this Treaty
would have no real power to free action, independent action. Where English
interests are concerned they will govern and limit every condition and clause in
that Treaty now before you. It is useless to point to the words in Clause
2---`constitutional usage'. Supposing that these words either in these military
or naval matters, or in any other matter, are going to be construed as
conferring on Ireland the same power as is held by Canada, how can they be so
construed if a question arises as to the construction of a clause? Under the
Canadian Constitution Canada has always the power to say, `Very well, we differ
about its construction. I shall put my own interpretation upon it and I shall
give up my relation with you altogether'. That is the strength of Canada's
position. The blood tie with Canada which naturally produces loyalty and
sentimental affection to England cannot reasonably, cannot possibly, cannot
humanly be expected from the Irish nation after its 750 years. Now read your
Treaty in the light of those conditions. I suppose few people have any doubt as
to what legally the Treaty means. The Minister for Finance talked lightly, it
seemed to me, of the construction they would put on this Treaty, how they would
read it in their own way. The Treaty is a Treaty; it will bind Ireland, and the
Minister for Finance is bound to show that the Treaty which he and his
colleagues have brought back from London places Ireland in a position which she
can honourably accept as it stands at this moment, and can honourably carry out
with England, without afterthoughts, without any insincere reservations as to
what is possible, what is not possible, as to the meaning of oaths and matters
like that; he is bound to show that the Treaty as it lies before you establishes
a settlement of this ancient question. Now under what title will Ireland hold
her position under this Treaty? You are all told that this is a Treaty. It was
not signed as a Treaty. It has since been called a Treaty. I don't lay stress on
that distinction of words, but what I do lay stress on is this, that the
constitution of Ireland and the relation of Ireland to England are going to
depend, so far as Ireland is concerned, on the
Act of a British Parliament.
Nobody knew yet what form that Act is going to take, and it is one of the
surprising features of these negotiations that no undertaking or guarantee has
been obtained before the Treaty was signed as to exactly how it was going to be
carried out by the British Government; but that it must depend upon the Act of
the British Parliament is certain. Canada's Constitution depends upon the Act of
1867, and unquestionably Ireland's position will depend upon it too. What does
this assembly think of that? Do you, or do you not, think that the freedom and
liberties of Ireland are inherent in the people of Ireland, derived from the
people, and can only be surrendered by the people, or do you think your
liberties, your right to freedom, are derived from the act and will of the
British Government.
MR. HOGAN (GALWAY):
On a point of order, is a Deputy entitled to deliberately misquote one of the
documents in front of us? Here is the letter read by Mr. Griffith: `The framing
of that Constitution will be in the hands of the Irish Government'.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS (KILDARE AND WICKLOW):
The Deputy who has just spoken has made a very interesting interruption. He
quotes from a letter of Mr. Lloyd George, and with all respect to the Minister
for Finance, who objected very strongly to our quoting from Mr. Lloyd George,
the Deputy behind him is in agreement with him.
MR. HOGAN (GALWAY):
If there is to be quoting it should be actual quoting.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS (KILDARE AND WICKLOW):
`The framing of that Constitution will be in the hands of the Irish
Government, subject (of course) to the terms of this agreement' [applause].
Now I do seriously wish to warn the members of the Dáil if they are going to
take this tremendous and momentous step of ratifying this Treaty, not to do it
under any foolish and idle illusions as to the meaning of what they are doing.
Does the Deputy really suggest that Ireland is going to have freedom to form any
Constitution she pleases---'subject to the terms of this agreement' and every
limitation, and there are a hundred of them, that are in this Constitution of
Canada under the British Act of 1867, all the fundamental limitations as to the
authority of the Crown, and the authority of the British Government will
inevitably appear in the Irish Constitution if it is framed under the terms of
this Treaty. What will appear? The first thing that will appear will be that the
legislature of Ireland will be no longer Dáil Eireann, the body I am addressing;
it will consist of King and Commons and Senate of Ireland. The King will be part
of the legislature of this island, and the King will have powers there. If not
the King himself, there would be the King's representative in Ireland, the
Governor-General, or whatever he may be. The King, representing the British
Government, or
the Governor-General, will have power to give or refuse assent
to Irish legislation. Now I know very well---no one better than I do---I may
just say in passing, I, like all lovers of freedom, have watched and followed
the development of freedom in British Dominions, and Canada with intense
interest. No one knows better than I do that power is virtually absolute in
Canada. Do you suppose that power is going to be absolute in Ireland? How can it
be?
A DEPUTY:
40,000 bayonets.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS (KILDARE AND WICKLOW):
If Ireland's destiny is to be irrevocably linked with England in this Treaty,
if the association with her is that of a bond slave, as it is, under these
Clauses 6 and 7, do you suppose that that supremacy of England is going to be an
idle phrase in the case of Ireland? Do you? Don't you see every act and deed of
the Irish Parliament is going to be jealously watched from over the water, and
that every act of legislation done by Ireland will be read in the light of that
inflexible condition that Ireland is virtually a protectorate of England, for
under this Treaty she is nothing more. 'Under the Constitution of Canada, the
Executive Government and authority of, and over, Canada, is hereby declared to
continue, and be vested in the Queen'; that is to say now, the King. That
clause, or something corresponding to it, will appear in the Constitution of
Ireland without question. And here again what does the King mean? The functions
of the King as an individual are very small indeed. What the King means is the
British Government, and let there be no mistake, under the terms of this Treaty
the British Government is going to be supreme in Ireland [cries of `No!'].
It is useless again to refer to Canada. Canada is 3,000 miles away.
A DEPUTY:
We cannot help that.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS (KILDARE AND WICKLOW):
I know we cannot help it, but there was one way of helping it. That was to
have stood by the proposals that were made in London by the Irish Delegation to
the British Government, until the last moment. That was the way to avoid it, and
to declare, as they declared, that authority in Ireland---legislative,
executive, and judicial---shall be derived solely from the people of Ireland [applause].
That was a way out of it, and I hope and believe it remains a way out of it
still [hear, hear]. Establish that principle that authority in
Ireland belongs solely to the Irish people, then make your association, and the
rights of Ireland are safe. Pass that Treaty admitting the King to Ireland, or
rather retaining him he is in Ireland now, retain him while recognising him,
recognise the British Government in Ireland, and your rights and independence
are lost for ever. It should be remembered, too, that the King's representative
in Ireland, the Governor-General, will be there definitely as the centre of
British Government in Ireland. I do not know if it is realised what the full
significance the proximity of Ireland to England means. But you cannot have it
both ways. It is useless for the Minister for Finance to say certain things are
necessary because Ireland is nearer England, and at the same time to say that
Ireland would get all the powers of Canada which is 3,000 miles away. These two
proposals are contradictory. The Governor-General in Ireland will be close to
Downing Street. He can communicate by telephone to Downing Street. He will be in
close and intimate touch with British Ministers. Irish Ministers will be the
King's Ministers; the Irish Provisional Government that under this Treaty is
going to be set up, within a month would be the King's Provisional Government.
Every executive Act in Ireland, every administrative function in Ireland, would
be performed---you cannot get away from it---in the name of the King. And the
King and the Government behind the King would be barely 200 miles away, and
capable of exercising immediate control over what is done in Ireland. And if
anyone were to raise in any particular matter the status of Canada in connection
with the Government of Ireland, what would he be told? Canadian status? Why, the
King's Government is not only here in the person of the Governor-General,
exercising it on his behalf, but the King and the King's Forces are in actual
occupation of Ireland. It is useless for you to pretend that the King's
authority and British authority are not operative in Ireland, when it is
actually occupied by British Forces and you are forbidden to have Irish
defensive naval forces of your own. Follow on that point a little. The Treaty
promises Ireland to have an army, and a letter of Mr. Lloyd George's says the
British Army is to evacuate Ireland if this Treaty is passed, within a short
time. But do you suppose under this Treaty, your Irish Army is going to be an
independent army? Do you really suppose if British troops are evacuated from the
country in a short period, there is anything to prevent them returning under
full legal power? Constitutional usage would have nothing to do with the matter.
It has in Canada. The British Government would never dare to land a British
regiment in Canada without the consent of the Canadian Government. Do you
suppose that would be so in Ireland? [A Voice: `Why not?'] I will
tell you why not. Under Clauses 6 and 7 you abandon altogether and hand over to
the British Government responsibility for the defence of Ireland. There is
something about a local military defence force. If you place under a foreign
Power responsibility for the defence of the coasts of Ireland, inevitably and
naturally you place responsibility for the defence of the whole island on that
foreign Government. How can you separate the coastal defences of an island from
its internal defences? Are you to have two authorities? One saying what
garrisons are to be here, and the other saying what garrisons are to be there
along the coast, and how they are to be co-ordinated with some central armed
military body. Those matters can only be settled by one authority---Army and
Navy matters both---and that one authority will be obviously, and on the very
terms of the Treaty, the British authority. Then you will find the letter of the
law, the legal conditions, stepping in. What will be the Irish Army? It will he
His Majesty's Army, and, whether or not, or whatever character the Irish flag
takes, His Majesty's flag will fly in Ireland. Every commission held by every
officer in the Army of the Irish Free State will be signed either by His
Majesty, or by his deputy in Ireland. How are you going to prevent more troops
coming in? I do not know if it is really supposed that under this Treaty the
evacuation of troops now means that there is no power to re-occupy Ireland in
the future? How could you prevent it? Your ports and coasts belong to the
British Government. Of course they can land what troops they like to reinforce
their ports and coasts and of course it should be evident that the whole defence
of the island would necessarily and inevitably be under one authority. There
should be no illusions about this. That dependence upon England taints and
weakens every clause of the Treaty before you so far as it is possible to read
it. In its most hopeful aspect, and I do not wish to read it otherwise, it is an
instrument placing Ireland in the position of a Dominion of the British Crown. I
do not wish to be unfair about the Treaty. Clearly and on the face of it, it
gives Ireland powers never offered her before, and, in certain respects,
important powers. But about the fundamental nature of the Treaty, there should
be no doubt in anybody's mind who has to vote on it. It places Ireland
definitely and irrevocably under British authority and under the British Crown.
Now, I know there are various ways adopted by various members regarding an
instrument like that, and I am quite sure in the mind of the Minister for
Finance there is a genuine open feeling, which he has expressed, of making the
most of a Treaty which, in his view, though I was not quite clear as to his
exact view on the subject, represents the very utmost that Ireland could dream
of obtaining at this moment of history. But I beg him, and I beg all others who
are inclined to agree with him, to reflect upon the significance of the step
they are taking, and the question whether the view that this Treaty would be a
step to something better, could be reasonably entertained. Apart altogether from
the right or wrong of the subject, is the question of principle; the question of
principle, I hold, rises above all others. This is a backward step. Parnell once
said that no man has the right to set a boundary to the onward march of a
nation. Parnell was right. Parnell spoke in a moment when Ireland was still in a
subordinate position in the British Empire. Since that time Ireland has taken a
step from which she can never withdraw by declaring her independence.
This
Treaty is a step backward, and I, for my part, would be inclined to say he would
be a bold man who would dare set a boundary to the backward march of a nation
which, of its own free will, has deliberately relinquished its own independence
[applause]. I do not believe there is any need. I profoundly
regret this Treaty was signed. I profoundly regret it was signed and that the
alternative proposals of the Irish Delegation were not adhered to. There should
be no question now of any hopeless dilemma in which the nation is placed. There
should be no question now that it is possible to associate Ireland with the
British Commonwealth on terms honourable to Ireland. I am glad to know that the
specific proposals prepared by the President will at a future time have your
consideration. It will be disastrous, I think, if now this assembly were to
declare that there is no chance of making peace with England. There is a chance.
There was a chance; there is a chance. And it rests with England to understand
that Ireland is genuinely anxious to hold out the hand of friendship if only
that hand can be grasped on terms that will leave Ireland standing as a free
nation and England honourably recognising that freedom, not treating Ireland
with suspicion and distrust, occupying her ports, refusing her powers of defence,
and so on. England has but to say frankly, `You desire to be free, we recognise
you must be', in order to enter into a friendship that shall be truly lasting
with us. That, I hope, can still be done. But in any case, in the last resort,
every one of us here, when we have done with considering the Treaty before you,
and when we have considered the other question of an accommodation with England
on honourable terms, beyond and above all these questions there lies the
paramount and overmastering consideration of all: Are we, by our own act, to
abandon our independence? I hold that is impossible.
I hold this assembly neither will nor can do that.
No such act was ever
performed before, so far as I know, in the history of the world or since the
world became a body of democratic nations. Certainly no such act was ever taken
before in the history of Ireland, and I, for my part, believe you here will
inflexibly refuse to take that step (applause).
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS (ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT:
I rise in support of the motion that the Treaty of Peace with Britain, signed
by our plenipotentiaries in London and now before us, be approved by An Dáil. I
would like, before entering upon argumentative or controversial matter, to say
to those with whom I find myself at variance on this matter at issue, and to the
great hearted man who leads them, how bitterly I feel this separation. It has
been the purest pleasure of my life to work in comradeship with them. It has
been my proudest privilege. I do not anticipate that I shall ever experience a
keener pang than I felt when I realised their judgment and conscience dictated a
course which mine could not endorse. If in Private Session I have been
over-vehement in pleading a case, I think the President will be the first to
understand and make allowances. I pay willing tribute to the sincerity and to
the lofty idealism of those who hold different views from ours on this issue.
Now I wish at the outset to make it clear that, in my opinion, this discussion
should not centre round the question whether or not our plenipotentiaries should
have signed these proposals. They are within their rights in signing; no one, I
think, questions that. We could have given terms of reference to the
plenipotentiaries; we gave none. We selected five men from An Dáil---men of
sound judgment, conspicuous ability; men whose worth had been tested in four
strenuous years. They were men capable of sizing up the situation. They were men
who knew our strength and men who knew where and how we were not strong. They
were men who knew the present situation and knew the future prospects, and we
sent these men to London, trusting them, and they have brought back a document
which they believe represents the utmost that can be got for the country, short
of the resumption of war against fearful odds---a war which could be only one
more test of endurance on the part of a people who have endured so gallantly---a
war in which there could be no question of military victory. They have brought
back a document which they believe embodies all that could be got for the
country short of such a war. They signed, and they would have been false to
their trust did they fall short of their responsibility for signing, and they
are here to answer you and the country for signing. I have said they were
entitled to sign. They did so on their individual responsibility. They were
nominated, it is true, by the Cabinet, but they were appointed by An Dáil, and
their responsibility was through An Dáil to the Irish people. Their mission was
to negotiate a treaty of peace with Great Britain which on their individual
responsibility they could recommend. Now this cannot be too much emphasised.
They could not produce this final document here for discussion and consideration
otherwise than over their signatures, and backed by their recommendation. At the
last moment there were terms put up, not for bargain, but as the price of the
signatures. There were big improvements on the final document---improvements
affecting Trade, Defence, and North-East Ulster---and they were not put up to be
brought back for consideration. The plenipotentiaries turned the matter over in
their minds and they decided they ought to sign. They decided they would be
cowards if they did not sign [applause]. They signed, and this
document is theirs and not yours. It is perfectly open to you to reject it. It
was perfectly free to the Cabinet to refuse to endorse it as Government policy.
They did so. The President and two Ministers recommend its rejection. You are as
free to reject this document; the English Government, if it so decided, was also
free. Anything the English Government has done since, such as releasing
prisoners, was done with full knowledge of the fact that the Parliament of each
Nation had yet to declare its will, and without the endorsement of both
Parliaments this instrument was null and void. It is not true, as has been
stated by some newspapers, that there would be any element of dishonour in a
refusal on your part to ratify these terms. The fateful decision lies with you,
and with due appreciation of the gravity of the issue we should endeavour to
keep this discussion on lines that are severely relevant. It is not, as I have
intimated, a question as to whether the proposals should or should not have been
signed. It is not a question as to whether you and I, similarly situated, would
have signed them. It is not a question of our keen desire for better terms. It
is a question of whether you will accept or reject the proposals which the five
men whom you selected to negotiate have brought back for ratification. For God's
sake, let us not waste time in irrelevancies respecting our keen desire for
better terms. We would all desire better terms, and what we have to decide is
whether we are going to take our chance of securing them if we reject these.
Deputy Childers, to my mind, took a lot of unnecessary time and trouble in
explaining how much nicer it would be to get better terms than these. He did not
tell us, as an authority on military and naval matters, how we are going to
break the British Army and Navy, and get these better terms [applause].
A sovereign, independent Republic was our claim and our fighting ground, and I
think we will all admit that men who decided to fight would be fools to fight
for less than the fullness of their rights. But the fact that we were willing to
negotiate implied that we had something to give away. If we had not, we should
have stood sheer on unconditional evacuation, adding, perhaps, that when this
had taken place, we would be willing to consider proposals for treaties on
trade, or on defence. We did not do so. We selected five men to negotiate a
treaty and there was a clear implication, I contend, that whatever, in view of
all the circumstances, these men would recommend, would receive most careful
consideration here. As I have said, we could have given terms of reference; we
gave none. The men we selected were well qualified to judge our position and
prospects. We would do well to scrutinise carefully the document they have
produced, not so much in relation to the inscriptions on our battle standards,
but rather in relation to our prospects of achieving more. As the negotiations
developed and the rocks began to appear, our team was advised by the Cabinet to
work towards an objective which would give to Ireland the status of an
external
associate of the Commonwealth of Nations known as the British Empire. This
phrase external associate has caused some trouble. In explanation of this phrase
someone used the simile of the limpet and the rock. Ireland would be outside and
attached, not inside and absorbed. We were prepared to enter as a free and equal
partner into treaties on such matters of common concern as trade and defence. On
the question of the Crown, the Cabinet, as its last card, was prepared to
recommend to the Dáil a recognition of the King of England as the head of the
group of States to which the Irish Free State would be attached, and as the
outward and visible sign of that recognition, to vote a yearly sum to his civil
list. These recommendations were made to the plenipotentiaries many weeks before
negotiations reached a crisis. On the Saturday prior to the signing of the
proposals the plenipotentiaries were home with the draft Treaty from the British
representatives, which, besides other objectionable features, rejected the
external associate idea, brought Ireland definitely within the British Empire,
pledging the members of her Parliament---
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Are Cabinet matters to be discussed here in Public Session?
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS (ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT):
I think so; I think the Irish people are entitled to hear the genesis of the
present situation [applause].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I hold Cabinet matters are matters for Private Sessions of the Dáil. I do not
care what the Irish people are at liberty to get of communications and
documents; but as responsible head of the Government, I protest against Cabinet
matters being made public.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS (ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT):
I think the President, and the dissenting minority, if I might put it that
way---the two Ministers who stand with him for rejection of the Treaty---should
be prepared to let it go to the Irish nation that they must take their stand not
between those terms and a sovereign Irish Republic but on the very much narrower
ground as between what they were to recommend to the Dáil and these terms [applause].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am quite ready that should be done. I protest still on principle against a
member of a responsible Government speaking in public in reference to the
negotiations.
MR. J. N. DOLAN (LEITRIM AND NORTH ROSCOMMON):
We are deciding the fate of the nation and everything should be told.
MR. D. CEANNT (EAST CORK):
From what Mr. O'Higgins is after suggesting---that he will go through all the
private documents from the Cabinet---is every member in the assembly entitled to
produce every letter he received from London about this business?
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS (ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT):
Is Document No. 2 Cabinet matter?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
As regards Document No. 2, I requested the House that it would be considered
confidential, seeing the circumstances under which it was given to the House,
until I brought forward a proposal that I was to put before the House. No
responsible member of any Government would stand for one moment in my position
after matters of this kind had been made public.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS (LONGFORD AND WESTMEATH):
How are we to debate if we have not the articles brought out?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
If all the articles are to be produced, let them; but any references on parts
are not fair.
MR. GRIFFITH (MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS):
Is there any objection to producing a document that has been discussed in
Secret Session for three days: are the Irish people not to be allowed to see
that document?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It was a proposal on my own initiative for the distinct purpose of trying at
the last moment to remedy what I considered a serious mistake for the nation.
MR. FINIAN LYNCH (KERRY AND WEST LIMERICK):
How does the President stand by that, seeing it was discussed for three days?
THE SPEAKER:
That is not in order.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY (MID-DUBLIN):
Were not certain documents submitted with the request that they be considered
as confidential? Is not our President to be allowed at least equal courtesy?
MR. GRIFFITH (MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS):
We submitted no documents. The members wished to see some documents; that is
not the same thing. This is a document submitted by the President as the
alternative to us. That is the document submitted from one side to the other,
and the Irish people ought to see it [hear, hear].
MISS MACSWINEY (CORK CITY):
I say the question about the reading of documents which are relevant to the
Treaty was decided in Private Session, because the Delegates said you could not
possibly offer an amendment---that it was the Treaty or nothing. I think all the
plain honest members realised it could not be offered in connection with the
Treaty. The Treaty ought to be decided on its merits and its merits alone.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER FOR FINANCE):
With regard to the documents affecting the Delegation, which were handed in
by the Irish and English Delegations, the Irish Delegation must be understood to
be perfectly clear on this thing. We entered into an arrangement with the other
side that neither side would publish anything without agreement with the other
side. If we make that agreement we have no objection to publish; we are only
refraining from publishing because we have given our word.
THE SPEAKER:
The question is whether the proceedings of the Cabinet could be discussed
here. The proceedings of the Cabinet could be only discussed with the consent of
the Cabinet; that's plain. With regard to the other document. That question was
brought before me earlier, and I ruled I cannot declare a discussion on that
document out of order. It depends on the members' sense of propriety. They were
requested by the President to regard the document as confidential. It is not a
question of order; it is purely and simply the President's request.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS (LONGFORD AND WESTMEATH):
I understand the Dáil is the master of the House and it is master of the
Cabinet. Am I not in order in producing a motion that the document be brought
in? It is a funny debating society, this.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA (MINISTER FOR DEFENCE):
It is not a debating society.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS (ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT):
I would have wished to examine the difference between the Treaty and the
proposals a united Cabinet would have proposed. I would have asked to what
extent it affected the lives and fortunes of the plain people of Ireland, whose
fate is in our hands. I would have asked you to consider the prospects the
rejection of this Treaty opens up and come to a decision with a view to your
tremendous responsibility. I do not wish to be forced into a stronger advocacy
of the Treaty than I feel. I will not call it, as Mr. Devlin called the Home
Rule Act of 1914, a Magna Charta of liberty. I do not hail it, as the late Mr.
Redmond hailed it, as a full, complete, and final settlement of Ireland's claim.
I will not say, as Mr. Dillon said, that it would be treacherous and
dishonourable to look for more. I do say it represents such a broad measure of
liberty for the Irish people and it acknowledges such a large proportion of its
rights, you are not entitled to reject it without being able to show them you
have a reasonable prospect of achieving more [hear, hear]. `The
man who is against peace' said the English Premier in presenting his ultimatum,
`must bear now and for ever the
responsibility for terrible and immediate war'.
And the men there knew our resources and the resources of the enemy, and they
held in their own hearts and consciences that we were not entitled to plunge the
plain people of Ireland into a terrible and immediate war for the difference
between the terms of the Treaty and what they knew a united Cabinet would
recommend to the Dáil. Ireland, England, and the world must know the
circumstances under which this Treaty is presented for your ratification.
Neither honour nor principle can demand rejection of such a measure in face of
the alternative so unequivocally stated by the English Prime Minister. Neither
honour nor principle can make you plunge your people into war again. What
remains between this Treaty and the fullness of your rights? It gives to Ireland
complete control over her internal affairs. It removes all English control or
interference within the shores of Ireland. Ireland is liable to no taxation from
England, and has the fullest fiscal freedom. She has the right to maintain an
army and defend her coasts. When England is at war, Ireland need not send one
man nor contribute a penny. I wish to emphasise that. This morning the President
said the army of the Irish Free State would be the army of His Majesty. Can His
Majesty send one battalion or company of the Army of the Irish Free State from
Cork into the adjoining county? If he acts in Ireland, he acts on the advice of
his Irish Ministers [applause]. Yes, if we go into the Empire we
go in, not sliding in, attempting to throw dust in our people's eyes, but we go
in with our heads up. It is true that by the provisions of the Treaty, Ireland
is included in the system known as the British Empire, and the most
objectionable aspect of the Treaty is that the threat of force has been used to
influence Ireland to a decision to enter this miniature league of nations. It
has been called a league of free nations. I admit in practice it is so; but it
is unwise and unstatesmanlike to attempt to bind any such league by any ties
other than pure voluntary ties. I believe the evolution of this group must be
towards a condition, not merely of individual freedom but also of equality of
status. I quite admit in the case of Ireland the tie is not voluntary, and in
the case of Ireland the status is not equal. Herein lie the defects of the
Treaty. But face the facts that they are defects which the English
representatives insisted upon with threats of war, terrible and immediate. Let
us face also the facts that they are not defects which press so grievously on
our citizens that we are entitled to invite war because of them. I trust that
when we come to cast our votes for or against the ratification of this Treaty,
each member will do so with full advertence to the consequences for the nation.
I trust each member will vote as if with him or her lay the sole responsibility
for this grave choice. I would impress on members that they sit and act here
to-day as the representatives of all our people and not merely as the
representatives of a particular political party within the nation [hear,
hear]. I acknowledge as great a responsibility to the 6,000 people who
voted against me in 1918 as to the 13,000 who voted for me [hear, hear].
The lives and properties of the former are as much at stake on the vote I give
as the lives and properties of the latter. I cannot simply regard myself as the
nominee of a particular political party when an issue so grave as this is at
stake. To ratify this Treaty, it has been said, would constitute an abandonment
of principle, and it has been said that to ratify the Treaty would be a betrayal
to those who died for Irish independence in the past. I said in Private Session,
and I say here again now, principle is immortal. If the principle of Ireland's
nationhood could be vitally affected by the action of a representative body of
Irishmen at any time, it has died many deaths.
The chieftains of the Irish clans
swore allegiance to Henry VIII. The members of Grattan's Parliament were pledged
in allegiance to the King of England. From 1800 to 1918 we have been sending
Irishmen to Westminster, pledged in like allegiance. And yet when men, realising
there was always a mandate for revolution because the people's will could not be
interpreted as it should be---when men went out fighting for a Republic---no one
ever suggested that they acted dishonourably because of the allegiance given to
Henry VIII, by the chieftains, or of the allegiance given to his successors by
those Irishmen who sat in Irish and English Parliaments. There has been too much
talk of what the dead men would do if they were here and had our responsibility.
There are men here, many of them, who carried their lives in their hands for
Ireland during the last four or five years, men who but for a fortunate accident
might well be dead; they are here to speak for themselves. When I hear it quoted
'What would so and so do if he were here?' I think of the men who risked daily
for the last three or four years and who will vote for the Treaty. The men who
died for Irish independence never intended that the country should be sentenced
to destruction in a hopeless war, if all its rights were not conceded. The men
who died, died for the welfare of the Irish people, and when I see men like the
Minister for Finance, the Chief of Staff, the Adjutant- General---
MR. R. MULCAHY (CHIEF OF STAFF):
Let them talk for themselves.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS (ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT):
Some of them have talked for themselves, and in support of the Treaty. I
realise if these men had lost their lives in the war there would be people
getting up and saying, `If they were here they would not support the Treaty.'
Now I come to King Charles' head---the Oath of Allegiance. Some call it an oath
of allegiance. I do not know what it is. I can only speak of it in a negative
way. It is not an oath of allegiance. There is a difference between faith and
allegiance. Your first allegiance is to the Constitution of the Irish Free State
and you swear faith to the King of England. Now faith is a thing that can exist
between equals; there is if I might coin a word, mutuality, reciprocity. It is
contingent and conditional, and I hold if you had sworn allegiance to the
Constitution of the Irish Free State anything that follows on that is not
absolute but conditional on your Constitution being respected, and conditional
on the terms of the Treaty being adhered to. In the second clause of the Treaty
you have two words of which Deputy Childers took very little stock---he waved it
aside: `The position of the Irish Free State in relation to the Imperial
Parliament and Government and otherwise shall be that of the Dominion of Canada
and the law, practice and constitutional usage governing the relationship of the
Crown or the representatives of the Crown, and of the Imperial Parliament to the
Dominion of Canada shall govern their relationship to the Irish Free State.' .
Now, those two words `practice' and `usage' mean much more than Mr. Childers was
prepared to attribute to them. They neutralise and nullify `law'. They were put
in with that purpose. The English representatives offered to embody in the
Treaty anything to ensure that the power of the Crown in Ireland would be
exercised no more than in Canada---in other words, that there would be no power
of the Crown in Ireland. Mr. Childers says who is to be the judge, who is to
decide, where is your court?
Everyone knows we will be represented in the League
of Nations. That's the Court. For another thing, I take it we ourselves will
decide. If we consider our rights are infringed, then we stand solely on our
allegiance to the Constitution of the Free State, and nothing else [hear,
hear]. I have said we have responsibilities. We have responsibilities to
all the nation and not merely to a particular political party within the nation.
If I felt that by resuming war we had even an outside chance of securing the
fullness of our rights, that consideration would scarcely deter me, but I am not
prepared to sacrifice them for the sake of handing on a tradition to posterity.
I take it that we are the posterity of the generation that preceded us, but they
do not seem to have worried much about handing on a separatist tradition intact
to us---we had to go back to '67 to dig it up. We may rest assured that if this
political experiment fails, and if the shoe pinches, posterity will take its own
measures of alleviation and will do so in circumstances infinitely more
favourable than those which prevailed when this generation grappled with the
task. It is possible to be over solicitous about posterity. If we were to tell
the man in the street that we proposed to sacrifice him in order to hand on a
tradition to posterity he would probably complain that he was being forced to
carry an undue burden because he had the misfortune to be alive to-day instead
of to-morrow, and ask plaintively what had posterity ever done for him. I do not
wish to be flippant about what has been a sacred ideal to us, a thing for which
we have fought and worked and prayed for years, to which we have given liberally
the best service of body and mind and soul, an ideal sanctified by the best
blood of our countrymen and ennobled by the sacrifices of a gallant people; but
I do ask for a frank admission that in face of tremendous odds we have gone as
near the attainment of that ideal as is possible in the existing circumstances.
I do ask for a frank and fearless recognition of political realities. I do ask
for an endorsement of the view of our plenipotentiaries that embodied in this
Treaty you have a measure of liberty that may honourably be accepted in the name
of our people, not indeed a complete recognition of what we have held, and still
hold, to be their right, but at least a political experiment to the working of
which we are prepared to bring goodwill and good faith. I think it unwise and
unstatesmanlike that England's representatives have thought fit to insist under
threat of war on certain clauses of that Treaty. I do the English people the
justice of believing that they would gladly have endorsed a more generous
measure. I hardly hope that within the terms of this Treaty there lies the
fulfilment of Ireland's destiny, but I do hope and believe that with the
disappearance of old passions and distrusts, fostered by centuries of
persecution and desperate resistance,
what remains may be won by agreement and
by peaceful political evolution. In that spirit I stand for the ratification of
this Treaty---in that spirit I ask you to endorse it. I ask you to say that
these five men whom you sent to London, and pitted against the keenest diplomats
of Europe, have acquitted themselves as well and as worthily as our army did
against the shock troops of the British Empire---both they and our army have
fallen somewhat short of the ideal for which they strove against fearful odds.
But I ask you to say that in this Treaty they have attained something that can
be honourably accepted. The welfare and happiness of the men and women and the
little children of this nation must, after all, take precedence of political
creeds and theories. I submit that we have attained a measure which secures that
happiness and welfare, and on that basis and because of the alternative and all
it means for these our people, I ask your acceptance of and your allegiance to
the Constitution of Saorstát na hEireann [applause].
MR. SEAN MACSWINEY (WEST, SOUTH, AND MID- CORK):
I cannot say that any of the arguments advanced by any of the delegates or
their supporters would change me. I think, on the whole, that their arguments
are the arguments of despair. Mr. Arthur Griffith said that, in his opinion,
this was a final settlement and a satisfactory settlement, the Minister for
Finance says it is not a final settlement, and Deputy Kevin O'Higgins says he
hopes for better terms. Mr. Arthur Griffith said the Treaty would be accepted by
95 per cent. of the people. I do not know exactly what percentage of the
population of Ireland I represent, but I have my instructions in my pocket to
vote against the Treaty. I do not refer to the military men in my constituency;
I refer to the civil population. I hold against the Chairman of the Delegation
that any one man won the war. The war is not won yet. This is only a period of
truce. That is what we had always impressed on us in the South so as not to let
ourselves get soft, and I hope we have not done so. He also said if we are going
to go into the Empire, let us go in with our heads up. We cannot, and we never
intended to go into it at all. I think the contention that has been made by
speaker after speaker in favour of the Treaty that we are endeavouring to put
the delegates in the dock, is wrong. I hold when the delegates came back we were
entitled to know what led up to the signing, and not have it hurled at our heads
like a bomb---and, I hope, like a dud. The Chairman of the Delegation says the
Treaty was signed on an equal footing, equal speaking to equal. The Minister for
Finance says there was no threat used to make them sign it. Deputy Kevin
O'Higgins says they were threatened with immediate and terrible war and that the
man who would refuse to sign the Treaty would go down to posterity as being the
man who brought immediate and terrible war on the country. Other members of the
delegation have not spoken yet. If they were threatened in private they will let
us know. Deputy O'Higgins seems to have some inside information on the matter. I
note all the Deputies speaking are vastly concerned with the civil population. I
wonder if they have all their mandates from the civil population to accept? I
doubt it. All I know is that the men who sent me up here instructed me to vote
against it. They expressed the opinion that such advice or instruction was not
necessary, but in case I might go wrong, they issued the instructions. The
peculiar thing about this Treaty, and the move that's being made to ratify it,
is, I don't quite know how to term it. But I will say one peculiar point about
it is that seconding of the motion of acceptance by Commandant MacKeon.
Commandant MacKeon is a brave soldier, whose bravery was acknowledged by the
enemy as well as by his own [hear, hear]. None braver. And I hold
when he was asked to second the motion, it was taking an unfair advantage of the
rest of us [cries of `No']. The Press of the country, as we know,
is against us; it always has been. The Minister for Finance accepted
responsibility for some of us being excommunicated. The last ban has not been
lifted yet, but it does not worry us. Are the members serious about unanimity?
We know people would stand solidly behind us again. I can always speak for my
own in the South. Probably the men saying `No, no' could never speak for their
constituents. I am sorry Commandant MacKeon seconded. I can answer for the Army
of Munster. I am not a Divisional Commandant, but I can answer for the Army of
Munster, and I have been empowered to answer for them [cries of `You
cannot'].
MR. P. BRENNAN (CLARE):
You cannot.
MR. SEAN MACSWINEY (WEST, SOUTH, AND MID-CORK):
If I cannot, I will probably be directed in the morning by officers in a
position to direct me. I am sorry to see Commandant MacKeon putting himself in
the position in which I have got the assurance that we of the South do not stand
with him. I do know if we go back to hostilities that he will be there as he was
before. I am just using that point because I believe unfair tactics were brought
to force the ratification through. It was unfair to him and everyone else in the
Army to put him in that position. I do not know that I have got much more to say
in the matter. I have sworn an oath to the Republic, and for that reason I could
not vote for the Treaty. In my opinion any man who has sworn an oath cannot
accept the Treaty. The people who want the Treaty can vote for the ratification,
but that will never defeat the Republican idea [applause].
MR. R. C. BARTON (KILDARE AND WICKLOW):
I am going to make plain to you the circumstances under which I find myself
in honour bound to recommend the acceptance of the Treaty. In making that
statement I have one object only in view, and that is to enable you to become
intimately acquainted with the circumstances leading up to the signing of the
Treaty and the responsibility forced on me had I refused to sign. I do not seek
to shield myself from the charge of having broken my oath of allegiance to the
Republic---my signature is proof of that fact [hear, hear]. That
oath was, and still is to me, the most sacred bond on earth. I broke my oath
because I judged that violation to be
the lesser of alternative outrages forced
upon me, and between which I was compelled to choose. On Sunday, December 4th,
the Conference had precipitately and definitely broken down. An intermediary
effected contact next day, and on Monday at 3 p.m., Arthur Griffith, Michael
Collins, and myself met the English representatives. In the struggle that ensued
Arthur Griffith sought repeatedly to have the decision between war and peace on
the terms of the Treaty referred back to this assembly. This proposal Mr. Lloyd
George directly negatived. He claimed that we were plenipotentiaries and that we
must either accept or reject. Speaking for himself and his colleagues, the
English Prime Minister with all the solemnity and the power of conviction that
he alone, of all men I met, can impart by word and gesture---the vehicles by
which the mind of one man oppresses and impresses the mind of another---declared
that the signature and recommendation of every member of our delegation was
necessary or war would follow immediately. He gave us until 10 o'clock to make
up our minds, and it was then about 8.30. We returned to our house to decide
upon our answer. The issue before us was whether we should stand behind our
proposals for external association, face war and maintain the Republic, or
whether we should accept inclusion in the British Empire and take peace.
Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins, and Eamonn Duggan were for acceptance and
peace; Gavan Duffy and myself were for refusal---war or no war. An answer that
was not unanimous committed you to immediate war, and the responsibility for
that was to rest directly upon those two delegates who refused to sign. For
myself, I preferred war. I told my colleagues so, but for the nation, without
consultation, I dared not accept that responsibility. The alternative which I
sought to avoid seemed to me a lesser outrage than the violation of what is my
faith. So that I myself, and of my own choice, must commit my nation to
immediate war, without you, Mr. President, or the Members of the Dáil, or the
nation having an opportunity to examine the terms upon which war could be
avoided. I signed, and now I have fulfilled my undertaking I recommend to you
the Treaty I signed in London [applause].
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER FOR FINANCE):
I move the adjournment until to-morrow morning at 11 o'clock if the President
is agreeable.
MISS MACSWINEY (CORK CITY):
Before the adjournment is put to the House, may I ask the Minister for
Publicity whether the Press understand they are here by the courtesy of both
sides to act impartially, and whether it is clearly understood that this is a
very serious matter which has to go forth impartially to the nation, and whether
it is part of the compact of the Press that they should report the speeches on
one side in full and take all the arguments out of the President's speech,
leaving nothing but plain conclusions, and whether he will interview the Press
on this matter and see that they will report impartially, or whether, in the
event of such a promise not being given by the Press, we shall ask this House to
request the Press to withdraw. This is a very serious matter for our people. We
would like to hold this meeting where the whole people of Ireland could hear it,
but since that is not possible, we are at the mercy of the Press. I do think the
Press ought to act honourably in this. I think it is well to bring this matter
before the Minister for Publicity, in order that the Press give a guarantee, or
we shall ask them to withdraw.
MR. DESMOND FITZGERALD (MINISTER FOR PUBLICITY):
I do not think the last speaker understands the circumstances of bringing out
early editions. The last speech to appear was the President's, of which a resume
was given. I have seen the chief reporters of the chief Dublin Press and they,
to my knowledge, issued instructions to the reporters to report both sides
fully. I am quite satisfied that when you come to see the later editions of the
evening press you will see the President's speech absolutely verbatim. We have
an arrangement which guarantees that as far as the Press which reaches most of
the Irish people is concerned, the reports will be quite fair.
COUNTESS MARKIEVICZ (SOUTH DUBLIN):
With regard to the Press, could we not arrange to hold a Session to-morrow in
the Mansion House where our friends would get a chance of hearing the arguments
on both sides?
MR. SEAN MCENTEE (MONAGHAN):
With regard to the Director of Publicity's statement, I would like to refer
him to the Evening Herald 5.30 Edition. The account there is
absolutely disconnected, and it conveys an altogether wrong impression of the
effect of the speech on the House. Further on I look at the speech of the
Minister for Home Affairs, who seconded the rejection. Again the speech is very
badly reported. Look, then, at the speech of Count Plunkett: it is altogether
omitted. I quite understand that the gentlemen of the Press labour under great
difficulties in the House, but in a paper issued at 5.30 there is no reason why
the report of a speech delivered before 1 o'clock has not appeared.
THE SPEAKER:
We cannot have a general discussion on these things.
MR. J. J. WALSH (CORK CITY):
It may be taken by the Press and public that we are in favour of a partial
presentation of reports. I would certainly appeal to the Press, and I would
inform them that as far as I am concerned---and, I suppose, everybody else who
intends voting for the Treaty---that we desire every point essential to the
information of the Irish people should be included in the reports.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY (NATIONAL UNIVERSITY):
I beg to second the motion for adjournment.
MR. SEAN MCGARRY (MID-DUBLIN):
There has been a suggestion made by one of the Deputies from Cork that there
was a compact between one side and the Press [cries of `No---sit down'].
I will not sit down. There was a suggestion of a compact [cries of `No,
no'].
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS (MINISTER FOR FINANCE):
I think the Deputy from Clontarf misunderstands what the Deputy from Cork
said. The Deputy from Cork was quite clear, but was going on an earlier edition.
The late edition of the Telegraph has the speeches up to a certain
point. They are given in full. Mine is not and I have no grievance [laughter].
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA (MINISTER FOR DEFENCE):
The Government is still in office, and as one member of it I will certainly
use my influence to prevent the Press from being present tomorrow if the
speeches are not fairly in tomorrow's papers [hear, hear]. With
regard to the suggestion of the Dáil meeting in the Mansion House, the original
decision of the Cabinet was that a public meeting would be held at the Mansion
House, but owing to the Aonach being held there---a fact which we
overlooked---we had to change that decision and come here. The Aonach is
over now and I understand the exhibits are removed. Consequently, with the kind
permission of the Lord Mayor, there is no reason why we should not have a
meeting at the Mansion House to-morrow [hear, hear].
ALDERMAN W. T. COSGRAVE (MINISTER FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT):
If a decision on the matter were already given at the Secret Session, are we
to be like a Board of Guardians, passing a resolution one day, and rescinding it
the next day? [laughter].
THE SPEAKER:
There is a motion for adjournment.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA (MINISTER FOR DEFENCE):
I move that the Dáil meet at the Mansion House to-morrow at 11 o'clock.
MR. GRIFFITH (MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS):
Is that a motion?
COUNTESS MARKIEVICZ (SOUTH DUBLIN):
I second it.
MR. GRIFFITH (MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS):
Before that is put, I may mention that President de Valera said to me that at
a Public Session you will have partisans on both sides. The task of keeping
order will be impossible and the selection of people to be allowed to the
meeting will be impossible. Only a thousand can get in, and as the secretaries
know, you will have all kinds of blame that this person was there, and that
person was not. Every person who is not allowed in will say it is on account of
the political issue. You will be speaking to a public meeting, not to a Session
of Dáil Eireann.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I agree absolutely with Mr. Griffith in the matter [applause].
BRUGHA (MINISTER FOR DEFENCE):
In deference to the President, I would be willing to have a meeting here, but
seeing what has been already said with regard to the obvious partiality of the
Press, it is quite clear that we should go to a place that will hold the biggest
number of the Irish people, so that they will hear the whole case. They won't
hear our case if the statement in regard to the speeches published today is
correct. The Irish people should know the whole case. Unfortunately up to now
there are two sides; please God in the finish there will be only one. I presume
the other side do not fear publicity [ `No, no']. Then why not
have the meeting there? Of course if the President insists---
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I do not want to insist, but the reasons given are cogent. It would be unwise
on short notice like that to have a meeting in the Round Room. Such a course as
is suggested would be a corrective to the partiality of the Press. It is simply
as a corrective. If we cannot get fair play from the Press we must have to think
of it. I would certainly not be glad to be forced to that sort of thing at this
stage.
THE SPEAKER:
I declare the motion for the adjournment of the House until to-morrow morning
carried.
The House rose.
The DEPUTY-SPEAKER (MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS) took the Chair at 11.35 a.m.
and said:
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS
The business for to-day is the continuation of the discussion on the motion
put before the Dáil by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Chairman of the
Delegation to London. The first speaker is Teachta Seán Etchingham.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Just a moment, before you proceed with the discussion. This is the first time
that I saw this document [(the Agenda for the day)]. Now according
to this I am to move my motion again and President de Valera is going to move
something else. I want to know why I was not consulted about this new procedure?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Yes, I gave notice that when the vote for ratification---I hope that word
will not be misunderstood. We have said from the start that there could be no
question of ratification of this Treaty. It is altogether ultra vires in
the sense of making it a legal instrument. We can pass approval or disapproval.
I again say when the vote is taken on this resolution of approval and decided,
that I shall move No 2. This is simply to be the order of the day---to provide
for the possibility of a vote being taken to-day, so that my motion would be in
order.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Am I to understand that the first vote has to be taken on approval or
disapproval of the Treaty?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Yes.
MR. SEAN ETCHINGHAM:
I was one of those who at the first Public Session, and during the Private
Session, tried to have all our business transacted in public. I thought that
some of those who were opposed to us in this matter conveyed the idea that we
wanted to have it in private, that we were afraid to face the Irish people. Well
now that is not so. I know, and we have not very many politicians on our side or
in this assembly, that everything that has been done has been in the interest of
Ireland. But the most tragic thing of all was not that the Delegates did not
return to Dublin, but that they published that Treaty, and that the Minister for
Foreign Affairs gave an interview and said to us and to the people of Ireland,
`The end of the seven-and-a-half centuries of fight is over and Irish liberty is
won'. Our people have been stampeded. Our people, while they may know something
about it to-day, knew that the entire Cabinet sent the Plenipotentiaries back on
that particular Saturday, and they felt that they signed with the will of the
entire Cabinet: that is what had been conveyed to the country. Now I wanted
everything in this matter, every document presented to the Irish people---they
will be in time. I wanted all our discussions out in public, before as many
people as can attend, for I knew that we had no Press. I told you here in
Private Session, and I reiterate it here, that we have not even the mosquito
Press, we have not a Scissors and Paste; we have not A Spark.I
have discovered that we have one provincial paper, The Connachtman.
That is the position we are in, and we are not afraid to face the public, and we
are not afraid to have every document published. The Delegates have given their
word of honour to the English Government that they won't publish these documents
unless the English Government agree, and we have to hold to that word in the
interests of the honour of our country. So we are told. But I say here we want
everything in the open; we want the Irish people to
know everything that happened, and the Irish people will, and then they can
judge. We heard swan songs yesterday evening, songs I never thought I would have
heard in the Parliament of the Irish Republic. The Assistant Minister for Local
Government said things yesterday. No speech delivered on our side could bear the
same strength to carry out our purpose, and that is the rejection of this
Treaty: this Treaty of terror; this Treaty that will ensure the perpetual
subjection of our people. He even said---I was sorry to hear him say so---that
young men in the streets of this city would be sorry they would be born in the
time when the war was waged. I don't believe that is so. I was in this city
during all the time of the terror, and I never heard a young man or a boy
express terror. I don't believe it is so. I did feel assured that the future of
Ireland was safe because the young men had the idea, the boys had the idea, the
children had the idea. I have heard young men here express different sentiments,
but I do hope it is only a temporary obsession. I believe that England will
never again get a grip on this country, because this Treaty will be rejected.
Now I will come to some points in this Treaty. I heard yesterday from my old
friend, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, that he was a disciple of Thomas
Davis, a disciple of Thomas Davis who had brought Young Ireland through the
papers he had edited to what he held, and to what, thank God, a great number
held, the idea of separatism, complete separatism, from the British Empire. He
may not have intended it to, but, thank God, it had that result. I have heard
him state, and I think I heard the Assistant Minister for Local Government
state, and during the Private Session I heard another Member state---I think it
was he gave them the idea---that they would march into the Empire with their
heads up---`March into the Empire with their heads up'. They are brave men who
say so, in the Parliament of the Irish Republic. Even though we see on the walls
`Up the Republic' obliterated, I say they are brave men to say so here, and I
admire brave men, even though I believe them to be wrong. Into the Empire with
their heads up! Rather into it with their hands up. Yes, they might hold up
their heads, but they are holding up their hands, for this is a Treaty of
surrender of the principles they are here to uphold. I have heard gentlemen
speak of the dead---let the dead rest. I can well understand that, for the boy
Kevin Barry marched to the gallows with his head up, but his hands were pinioned
to his side, and other men faced the firing parties, and other men faced the
hangman with their heads up but their hands pinioned to their sides. Now we are
told by suggestion, and we will be told openly before this closes, that these
men faced the firing parties, and walked to the gallows, having fought bravely
as soldiers for Colonial Home Rule. My God! I say this is defaming the memory of
the dead. I will always hold an admiration for Commandant MacKeon, but it will
be an admiration as a soldier, not as a politician. There is a great difference
between the two. I was sorry, very sorry to hear the statement he made
yesterday, and he too when, as the Minister for Home Affairs says, time will
tell the result of this, will be sorry for this. As the brave soldier, the
Blacksmith of Ballinalee, Ireland will remember him, not as the politician who
seconded that motion to ratify this Treaty. No, I say here that the men who
fought and had the Fenian tradition, the men who are in their graves, it is
unfair to their memory, a defamation of their memory, ever to say that they died
for Colonial Home Rule, that they died to have us to march with our heads up
into the British Empire. I have heard from all sides many arguments about this
oath, and I have heard that this Treaty is one that should be ratified, but
truly, men, every one of you that have spirit, you must remember this statement
made by the Minister of Economics (Riobárd Bartún). That statement will be
recorded in history as one of the most momentous ever made. It was a human
address---[hear, hear]---but it told a terrible tale. I have
called this a Treaty of Terror. Somewhere yesterday, I think, the Minister of
Finance referred to a Coalition, but what it conveyed to me was, and I would
like to have that cleared up before the Session closes, was there a coalition of
pressure, of terror, between the three members of the Delegation who were in
favour of signing and the members of the British Cabinet who urged them to sign?
Was there a coalition between these three members and the British Government to
compel Riobárd Bartún and Gavan Duffy to put their names to that? I would be
sorry to be told there was, even though the claim is to be put forward that it
was in the interest of Ireland. But that is a tragic story, the story of black
Monday night, the 5th and 6th December; we were immovable on the Saturday, and
our course was undermined on the Tuesday. You know what happened. There are more
particulars---and we know them, you Members of the Dáil know them, and the
people of Ireland must know them---of the story of that black Monday night. I
admire the Minister of Finance. He has told us, and it is true of not alone him,
but of the greater number of us, that he went over to get things, not words; he
went over as a plain man to get things, and he knew little or nothing, and
didn't want to know, of legal phraseology. That is a manly statement, and what I
would expect from him. But Treaties---what are they? The words of a Treaty are
translated by international lawyers, and a lawyer of repute has said that that
agreement that is now presented to us is couched in the very same language that
Lloyd George mesmerised Wilson, the President of the American Republic, with. If
he mesmerised Wilson, with all the power of the American Government behind
him---the power of the United States---ah, I cannot wonder that he mesmerised
our people when he shook the papers in their faces. Perhaps there was some
powder on the paper [laughter]. He certainly threw dust in their
eyes. He doped them, and the result was their signatures. And he not alone did
that, but listen to the words of Riobárd Bartún: `That they should undertake to
go back and recommend it'. To me this is a sad, one of the saddest things I have
ever met in my life, for I fear that I never will again get the chance of seeing
my country in the position she was in on the 3rd of December. No, some of the
young people may if you do your duty, if you act as men, if you are true to the
Irish Republican Oath. I know how some of you young men have got the idea that
you are doing the right thing. You interrupted the President when he was
speaking yesterday to you of a welcome to the King of England, but for God's
sake get that idea out of your heads that you are going to do this thing. If you
are going to vote for this treaty, go right into the British Empire, go in with
your heads up, do not have a mental reservation about the terms of that oath, do
not have any illusions about having a Republic inside of the terms of that
Treaty; do not have the idea that in one year, or two years, or five years, or
ten years you are going to have your country free, for if the iron of the truce
has entered your souls, after six months of it, and you are not prepared to
fight, you will not do so after one year, two years, or ten years, when you have
Colonial or Free State fat in your bodies. No; let us be true and let us be
straight. I am, as I told you here in Private Session, a Republican by
conviction. I am, as I said, a Separatist. I never was, and never could be, what
some men openly have avowed here they are, a compromising opportunist. When I
took the first oath in the present Parliament I took it without mental
reservation and I mean to keep it. I am now asked to forswear myself. And for
what? To give my country, my dismembered country Colonial or Dominion status. In
short, what is it to be?---an Irish Dominion or Free State if you like---a bow
window in the western gable of the British Empire. I will never agree to it, and
I say it has been proved here, and let it be disproved by the Minister for
Foreign Affairs, that this Treaty was a Treaty forced upon them, a Treaty of
terror; and he comes back here, and, I hope in God, in his concluding speech
that he will do something better than in his opening speech; for as an old
friend, and as one who has had the greatest respect, and still holds the
greatest respect for him, no matter what happens, I was sorry to hear that
statement. I thought of the fine virile voice in which he spoke to his
opponents, and I was saddened at heart. But there is one thing I will ask him to
explain as a disciple of Davis. Davis says a treaty to be binding must be
voluntary. Was it voluntary upon the part of Riobárd Bartún? We have not yet
heard anything from Gavan Duffy. England never made a treaty which she did not
break. He knows that I have read that in his writings in the United
Irishman and elsewhere. He knows all that, England has never made a
treaty she did not break. I wished to God that Arthur Griffith had remembered
what Terence MacSwiney has written about the final effort. He has quoted Terry
MacSwiney, and he has told the people of Ireland to endure, and his words will
go down to history: `It is not they who can do the most injury but those who can
endure the most who will win'. `Tell them nothing matters if they don't give in,
nothing, nothing. The last moment, that is the important time to grip. Then what
is the good of being alive if we give in'. That was the philosophy of Terence
MacSwiney's life, and he proved it in Brixton. Now we are told it is an
impossible fight, and we are told we must give in. I hold we cannot in honour
give in, and I repeat what I said the other day: there is a dual honour involved
in this, the honour of our country and our own personal honour. Any of you who
have taken the oath of allegiance to the Irish Republic, I hold that before you
do this thing you should be, as a good number here are, prepared to die. Your
country's honour demands it. We have heard a lot about this oath, that it is a
simple thing that anybody could take, that it only means to be faithful to King
George of England, and that it means nothing at all. We have read in the Press
quotations from Webster's Dictionary with regard to the Plenipotentiaries, and I
went to the trouble of looking up Webster. I heard some legal gentleman in this
assembly discussing this thing the other evening; I have been used to them,
listening to them at Petty Sessions and other sessions and courts, and I know
how they twist words, and I know what they mean by them---good men, some of
them, but very few [laughter]. Now the word faithful ---according
to Webster, and he is a classic in this question of settling the fate of a
nation---means `
firm adherence to the truth and to the duties of religion;
firmly adhering to duty, true fidelity, loyalty, true to allegiance;
constant in the performance of duties or services, exact in attending to
commands;
perseverance to compacts, treaties, contracts, vows or other engagements,
true to one's word;
true, exact conformity to the letter and spirit, faithful performance of
contracts;
conformity to the truth;
constant, not fickle, as a friend
'. Now we have the Scripture brought in even in Webster---`True,
Timothy, second chapter, eleventh verse'---and what to all of us is far more
important to remember: Be thou faithful to death and I will give thee the
crown of life''
---Revelation, chapter 2.
Ah, if you go into this thing, take this oath without any mental reservation
and go in, as the Minister for Foreign Affairs told you, and as the Assistant
Minister of Local Government and one of the Deputies for Tyrone told you, with
your heads up. I have seen dogs whipped, and I know where their tails are. Go
in, anyhow, with your heads up; go in and for the first time in the history of
this country be part and parcel of the British Empire. You know it perfectly
well. I noticed yesterday when the one man able to deal with this, who tried to
deal with it---Erskine Childers---got up to speak, there was a whole procession
left the hall. There were young men leaving the hall who even had hardly looked
at this Treaty and are going to vote for it. It was a grand demonstration of
indifference. Oh, the agony of heart that anyone must feel, after the glorious
fight that was put up, that men would do such a thing as that and would not
listen to the one man who is equal to it here in this assembly. I have never
heard it really touched by any man that wants to have it pushed down the throats
of the Irish Nation. I even heard a Member of this assembly actually trying to
pass a joke about that statement of Riobárd Bartún. That is terrible. Do we
realise what we are doing? Ah, I am afraid we do not---some of us---
MR. COLLINS:
I am afraid ye don't.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
We may be honest in this matter. We may say it is the very best thing for
this country, but let us not have any illusions about it, let us remember that
we are going into the British Empire and putting our people in it. Every child
born in this country, if this thing is ratified, will be a citizen of the
British Empire. Can any of you deny that? Can any of you who left the House and
did not listen to Mr. Erskine Childers, try to deny that? The children will be
born into allegiance to the King of England; that is implied by birth in any of
his Dominions. And this is to be a Dominion, this old Irish Nation. The Minister
of Home Affairs challenged you to contradict him that you cannot leave this part
of the British Empire in future without a passport from the British Foreign
Office. There are none to contradict it. My God! then what is the use of having
this camouflaged Free State? They gave us a name, but my good friend, Commandant
MacKeon, is looking for substance. Has he even that? No, he has not. Another of
the men here in this assembly of my colleagues and comrades has been told he can
vote for this thing. I know some of them would rather tear the tongues from
themselves and cut their hands off than support and sign this. But they are told
they can vote to recommend it and then retire. I admire the Minister for Foreign
Affairs and the Minister of Finance. When they put their pens to this they
undertook to come here and recommend it, and, I am sure, administer it. We can
understand that. It is a manly attitude, but I say the most contemptible, the
meanest creature that ever trod a sod of Ireland is the man who votes for this,
but says that he would not swear or that be would not sign it. There are men
here who said that they could do that. I hope I will live, and that I will have
the opportunity and the strength afterwards to tell them what I think of them.
There are members here of the G.A.A. Some few years ago---two years ago---they
expelled from the Gaelic Athletic Association Civil Servants who had taken the
oath of allegiance, men who had helped very much to build it up, men with large
families and a great number of dependents. But they went out, they were driven
out, and I agree with it, because I held then I had done something in the past
to have the Gaelic Athletic Association in conformity with the Fenian tradition.
Now I ask the men of the G.A.A., of which I am a member, if they vote for this
thing, to go into it with their heads up, and if the athletic games are held in
Croke Park let Lord Lascelles, who is to be called the Duke of Dublin, throw in
the hurling ball. Let us go in with our heads up, but this I say to you finally,
if you do vote for this thing, that posterity---the Assistant Minister of Local
Government says he does not mind posterity---will denounce you, for if you do it
it will be a renunciation of your principles, of your allegiance to the Irish
Republic. Nay, it is more, it is the burial service over the grave of the Irish
Nation, and there is to be no firing party [applause].
MR. FINIAN LYNCH:
A Chinn Chomhairle is a lucht na Dála, tá fhios agaibh go leir cá
seasuighim-se ar an gceist seo. Dubhart libh cheana fein sa tsiosón
príomháideach go bhfuilim-se go dian ar thaobh an Chonnartha so. A Chinn
Chomhairle, before I pass on to say the few things that I have to say about
the Treaty itself, I would like to refer to a few things in Deputy Etchingham's
sermon. With regard to publicity, he seems to suggest that those who are for the
Treaty are afraid of publicity. Every document that this Dáil wanted, a
committee was appointed to provide them with, and we more than once expressed
our wish that every document should be published to the Irish people, including
Document No. 2. Deputy Etchingham is trying to tell this House and trying to
tell the people of Ireland that Lloyd George, shaking a paper in front of the
face of Michael Collins was able to put the wind up Michael Collins. Let the
people of Ireland judge whether it is so easy to put the wind up Michael
Collins. That kind of eyewash is not going to go down with me or with any man
who has soldiered with Collins, or with any person in Ireland who knows what he
has done. As regards the statement that we will have to get a passport from the
British Government to travel out of Ireland after this, what have you got to do
now? Have you not to get a passport signed by them now, or else you have got to
go to Michael Collins to get you out of the country [hear, hear].
Now we have had a great deal of emotion here and a great deal of emotional
speeches about the dead. I say for myself that the bones of the dead have been
rattled indecently in the face of this assembly. Now I am alive, and I took my
chance of being killed as well as any white man in this assembly, and I
challenge any man to deny that. Now I am here to interpret myself, and I stand
for this Treaty; if I were dead, and if I were to be interpreted, I should ask
to be interpreted by the men who soldiered with me, and by the men who worked
with me in the National movement. It has almost become the custom here in this
debate for every man getting up to throw bouquets at his own head. It started,
as far as I well remember, with a tale of boy heroism from Belfast, and it
permeated south through Louth, Kildare, and Tipperary. I am not going to throw
any bouquets at my own head, and I want no one else to throw bouquets at my
head. I did my share as I could , and I don't want anyone to thank me for it. I
would ask to be interpreted by comrades who have stood with me, men like Gearoid
O'Sullivan, Piaras Beaslai, or Austin Stack, with whom I campaigned a good deal.
Now I stand for this Treaty on four grounds, and the one I mention last is the
one that will mean the most to me. I stand for it because it gives us an army,
because it gives us evacuation, because it gives us control over the finances of
the country, and lastly, and greatest of all to me, because it gives us control
over our education. I believe the gallant soldiers of this assembly stand for it
because of the army and because of the evacuation it gives. They have a far
greater right to speak on that line than I have, although I too can claim to be
a soldier. I stand for it because of the fact that it gives us control of
education. Somebody interjected here yesterday, and I did not like the
interjection, `What about the Councils' Bill?' Now I knew Pádraic Mac Piarais,
as every man who worked in the Gaelic movement---in the Gaelic revival---knew
him, and, as regards that interjection about the Councils' Bill, all I can say
is that the only reason that Pádraic Pearse stood for the Councils' Bill was
because it gave some control over education, and he was an educationist. Now
this Treaty gives us far more control over education than the Councils' Bill,
and I think the people of Ireland would be well advised to consider before they
sling it back. I, like many others, started in the National movement by going
into the Gaelic League; now if the object of the Gaelic League, as I understood
it, was not to get control over Irish education, then I don't know what we were
doing in the Gaelic League. There was a hardy annual at the Ard- Fheis,
resolutions condemning Starkie and the Board of Education. This gives control
over your education, and you can get rid of the Gaelic League's hardy annual
before the Ard-Fheis, which will save a lot of us at least a great deal of
boredom. One argument that has been made against this Treaty by the other side,
or at least dope that has been served across, is that this thing was signed
under duress. It is an insult to the men who signed to say so, and it is an
insult to your intelligence to try to make you believe it, and the people of
Ireland are not going to believe it. The man who does a thing which he has no
right to do, whether it be under duress or otherwise, is a coward. I knew office
boys here in Dublin---out of offices of the Dáil---who with a pistol to their
heads refused to give any information about their offices or the people in the
offices---[hear, hear]---and Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith
would be less courageous than these young boys---boys in their teens---if they
did such a thing. I say it is an insult to your intelligence to ask you to
believe it, and it is an insult to the men who signed it. A point has been made
by Sean MacSwiney. I am sure he can speak for his constituents. I can speak for
mine just as well as Sean MacSwiney can speak for his; I know what the people
want; I know that I can speak for my own people---for the people of South Kerry,
where I was bred and born.
A Voice from the body of the Hall:
No.
MR. LYNCH:
With one exception. Yes, a minority of one against, an Englishwoman. Well, if
I am interrupted from the body of the Hall, I will reply. I say that that person
should be removed from the Hall, a person who interferes with a speaker in this
assembly, and I ask the chair to protect me. I have said that we are not afraid
of publicity, because we are not afraid to show the Irish people that it is not
a difference between this Treaty and the Republic. It is as between this Treaty
and a compromise which is less than the Republic. I hold, anyhow, as one plain
man that it is a choice of compromises, and I will have the compromise that
delivers some goods and not the compromise that takes you back to war---takes
the Irish people back to war. I will swallow the compromise that gives
something. I will have none of the compromise that drives this country again
into a welter of blood. I, too, am no constitutional lawyer. There has been a
suggestion that the Provisional Government or Transitional
Government---presumably the Government that is provided for under this
Treaty---if set up by this assembly would be a usurpation. I would like to know
then where constitutional Government begins. If a Government set up by the
majority of the representatives of the people of a country is a usurpation, then
what in the name of God is constitutional Government? Somebody has said, `Time
will tell'. Yes, I say time will tell, and I have my right to interpret what
time will tell just as much as the person who made the remark. I say that time
will tell, if this Treaty is rejected, that we through desperate
gallantry---that is throwing bouquets at ourselves---brought about a certain
situation, but that we had not enough common sense to see who had that situation
when we had brought it about. That is what time will tell, according as I see
it. I have very little more to say---I am speaking longer than I intended, as a
matter of fact. But mind you when you are casting your votes what you are doing.
Mind you that you are going to bring the people back to war, and make no mistake
about it; and when a situation like this will come after more blood, and when
you come up here to discuss the terms of surrender and to appoint
plenipotentiaries---if you go back on what is now signed---there is no country
or no Government in the world that would receive any man you send over, because
they can always say: `You sent them before and you threw them over when they
went back; well, keep them at home'.
MRS. O'CALLAGHAN:
A Chinn Chomhairle is a lucht na Dála, ba mhaith liom labhairt ar an
gceist seo, ach ós rud e ná fuil an Ghaedhilg ag na Teachtaí go leir ní mór dom
labhairt as Bearla. A Chinn Chomhairle, I rise to support the President's
motion for the rejection of these Articles of Agreement, and, lest anybody
should afterwards question my right to stand here and criticise and condemn this
Treaty, I want it to be understood here and now that I have the clearest right
in the world. I paid a big price for that Treaty and for my right to stand here.
The last Deputy talked about indecent rattling of the bones of the dead in this
assembly. Since I came up to Dublin for this Session I have been told, with a
view to changing my vote, I suppose, that my husband was never a Republican. I
challenge any Deputy in this Dáil to deny my husband's devotion to the Republic,
a devotion he sealed with his blood. I would ask the gentlemen who say he was
never a Republican, but who say they are Republicans, and intend to vote for
this Treaty, to leave my husband's name out of the matter. I have been told,
too, that I have a duty to my constituents. They, I am told, would vote for this
Treaty, and I ought to consider their wishes. Well, my political views have
always been known in Limerick, and the people of Limerick who elected me Deputy
of this Dáil two months after my husband's murder, and because of that murder,
know that I will stand by my convictions and by my oath to the Irish Republic.
There is a third point I want to clear up. When it was found that the women
Deputies of An Dáil were not open to canvass, the matter was dismissed with the
remark: `Oh, naturally, these women are very bitter'. Well, now, I protest
against that. No woman in this Dáil is going to give her vote merely because she
is warped by a deep personal loss. The women of Ireland so far have not appeared
much on the political stage. That does not mean that they have no deep
convictions about Ireland's status and freedom. It was the mother of the Pearses
who made them what they were. The sister of Terence MacSwiney influenced her
brother, and is now carrying on his life's work. Deputy Mrs. Clarke, the widow
of Tom Clarke, was bred in the Fenian household of her uncle, John Daly of
Limerick. The women of An Dáil are women of character, and they will vote for
principle, not for expediency. For myself, since girlhood I have been a
Separatist. I wanted, and I want, an independent Ireland, an Ireland independent
of the British Empire, and I can assure you that my life in Limerick during
1920, culminating in the murder of my husband last March---my life and that
event have not converted me to Dominion status within the British Empire. I
would like to say here that it hurts me to have to vote against the Minister for
Foreign Affairs. He was a friend of my husband. Every night in my home, as in
most Irish homes, prayers went up for him, and for the President, and for all
who were standing by the country. I have the greatest admiration for him, but
this is not a matter of devotion to a leader, or devotion to a party, it is a
matter of principle, and you may sneer at principle, some of you. It is a matter
of principle, a matter of conscience, a matter of right and wrong. From a study
of the private documents, and from what happened at the last Dáil meetings in
August and September, I have no hesitation in admitting that the delegates who
went to London had full powers to negotiate and conclude a Treaty, but---and I
am only a plain person, a person of plain intelligence---I understood they were
to submit the final draft to the Cabinet and the President before signing. That
was not done, and we know why it was not done. The Minister for Economics
explained that last night. The delegates were---I don't like to use the
word---but still the delegates were bluffed by the threat of war into signing
that Treaty. Well, it cannot be helped; they did their best. But I do resent
some of the delegates and their supporters in this House trying to use the same
bluff on us here to get us to vote for that. I cannot see what war has to do
with it. You will say that is a woman's argument, but we know on whom the war
comes hardest, and I repeat I don't see what war has to do with it. If we had
not a soldier or a gun in the Irish Republican Army I would vote against that
Treaty, and I will tell you why. I read and studied by myself the Terms of the
Treaty when it was published and boomed in the Press on the Wednesday, and, I
admit, and who could blame me, with a mind sharpened by sorrow, I came here for
the last five days, and I listened to arguments which left my attitude
unchanged. I am, as I said, a Separatist, and my objections to the Treaty are
fundamental. This Treaty, which we are told gives us the substance of freedom,
to my mind puts Ireland definitely on a Dominion status within the British
Empire. Now what have all these hundreds of years of struggle been for? What has
it been about? What has been the agony and the sorrow for? Why was my husband
murdered? Why am I a widow? Was it that I should come here and give my vote for
a Treaty that puts Ireland within the British Empire? Was it that I should take
an oath to be a faithful citizen of the British Empire? I tell you if you
approve of this Treaty the Republic of Ireland, which I swore a solemn oath to
uphold and honour, will sink in the world's eyes to less than Dominion status
within the Empire. Now as to this question of the oath---I am afraid it was I
raised the question of the nature of the oath in Article 4 of the Treaty. When I
asked the question as to the nature of the oath, every legal man in this
assembly, and many who were not legal or logical, tried to explain it. I still
fail to see how in swearing an oath of allegiance to the Free State I can avoid
King George. To my mind---and, as I said before, I am only a plain person---in
swearing to the Constitution of the Irish Free State I cannot avoid him. He is
in the Constitution. Anybody can have another try to convince me yet---I am open
as long as I am alive. May I say here, too, that if I had found the terms of the
Treaty satisfactory and consistent with National honour, the joy in the British
Press would have made me suspicious. There has been much talk about the splendid
gesture of England in settling this centuries' quarrel with Ireland. If the
settlement were all that the papers maintained it is, it would be an admirable
thing, and it would help to raise British credit throughout the world, but this
Treaty will not make for peace, because it does not recognise the sovereign
independent status of Ireland, and, to my mind, it is a mean thing to try to
patch up the wrongs of the Empire by a pretended gift of freedom to us. It is
more than mean; it is a crime, for it leaves England's hands free to deal with
places like Egypt and India, and in the name, I suppose, of our common
citizenship. Those who know me and my sorrow, if I may refer to that again, know
what little bitterness I feel against the actual murderers of my husband. I can
claim that they walked the streets of Limerick after he was shot, and I never
asked, as I might have done, to have him avenged by Irish Republican Army
bullets. But I do feel bitter now that the thing he and I cared about and worked
for, the thing I lost my happiness for, should be voted away by young men, the
young soldiers in whom we had such hope. He lies in Limerick in the Republican
Plot, and though you Deputies of An Dáil bring Ireland within the Empire, there
are points of it which your suffrages cannot touch. Where he lies is Republican
ground, and I defy you to violate it. In this I speak for the other women who
are careful for the honour of their dead. We are making history here to-day, and
our decision will have a far-reaching effect. If there is any Deputy here who
has not yet made up his mind, I would ask him for God's sake, before he does, to
think well and stand for principle and against the Treaty.
MR. P. HOGAN:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I rise to support this motion, that Dáil Eireann
approves of this Treaty, and, before coming to the Treaty itself, I want to
repeat here again a point which I think could never be repeated often enough.
The time-honoured authentic demand of Ireland is for independence, and in
comparison with that the form of the independence, the form in which that
independence should clothe itself was no more than a secondary consideration. I
think that without exception---I don't know whether I should say that, but I
will say that that definition of Ireland's historic time-honoured demand is a
fair definition. And it is in the light of that definition that this Treaty must
be examined. For many hundred years Ireland has been struggling for existence,
spiritual and material; for many hundred years the iron has entered her soul,
and during those long years of struggle Ireland's statesmen had at no time shown
an inclination to be meticulous about the form, and Ireland had never perhaps
less inclination than at this moment. There are men and women in the Dáil who
are Republicans first, last, and all the time; there are men and women in the
Dáil who bear great names, who consider themselves, and rightly consider
themselves, the heirs to a great tradition, and they consider that tradition
binds them to vote for nothing less, and no other form of government but the
Republic. But I have only this to say: I am a private Member here, and I am in
the same position as a great many other private Members here and those people
whom I have just spoken of cannot complain of us if we take up the attitude that
the only tradition we can recognise is the tradition of the rank and file of our
constituents, and that is no mean tradition no matter what county we come from.
I have this further to say, and it is just to add a word to what was said by the
Minister of Finance: there is one tradition or one principle---whatever you like
to call it--- absolutely certain; there is one principle that has no conditions
or no limitations, it is the principle on which the Republic rests and that is
the principle of `government by the consent of the governed' [hear, hear].
And I say that any Deputy here who votes in favour of this Treaty, knowing that
his or her constituents---I am speaking to anyone who is in that frame of
mind---are against that Treaty, is doing wrong. That may be a bitter thing, but
it is democracy. There is an attempt made to meet that claim, that principle, by
the argument, which I do not agree with, that the Irish people at the present
moment are war-weary and unnerved, anxious for peace; in other words, that we
must save them from themselves. That is a false argument, a specious argument,
it is false in a double sense. If the Irish people were war-weary, and if they
wanted peace, they are entitled to have it. That is the principle. I heard a lot
of passionate talk about principles. I don't want to be cynical, but it is
forced home on me, that all the passion is reserved for the principles that suit
the argument for the moment. I say it does not lie in the mouth of any
Deputy---I don't care who he or she is---here to make excuses for the Irish
people at this stage. The people who stood up to the terror of the last two
years, the people who all the time kept honour before interest, are not going to
be false now. And that consideration applies straight and direct to any Deputy
here who is voting against his constituents. Now Deputy Etchingham stated that
there is no meaner, no more despicable man than the man who was going to vote
for this Treaty feeling that he ought to vote against. There is, and that is the
man---and I know no-body will misunderstand---who is going to vote against this
Treaty, but hopes it will be ratified. Now I come to the Treaty itself, and I am
not going to make any apologies for it. I don't like to take up the
position---as a Deputy here who happens to be a lawyer and who makes very little
pretension to any knowledge---of expounding constitutional law on this question,
but whether I am a lawyer or not, it is my duty to myself, and it is the duty of
every Deputy here, as far as his ability enables him, to clear up those points
on which we are going to take a most momentous vote. In what I am going to say
now I will only justify myself by saying that I have done my best to discover
what exactly is the meaning of the provisions of the Treaty, and that I don't
propose at this great moment to make any debating points on one side or the
other. Now in this Treaty Clause 2 states that in fact the relation of the Crown
with Ireland---of King George V. with Ireland---shall be the relation of King
George V. with Canada, `subject'--- now mark this well---`to the provisions
hereinafter set out'. What is the relation of George V. to Canada? He is not the
King of Canada, and consequently he is not the King of Ireland. That is
constitutional law which I don't know can be challenged by anybody. He is not
the direct Monarch of Ireland, as the President stated yesterday. The King of
England exercises certain rights in Canada as King of England. And now I will
come in a moment to the question of whether he exercises certain rights in
Ireland as King of Ireland. He certainly exercises rights in Canada as King of
England. He exercises them not by virtue of statute or by anything else, but by
virtue of something which is behind all statute law, and which is summed up in
the oath of allegiance which the Canadians take. The oath of allegiance which
the Members of the Canadian Legislative Assembly take is a very simple oath---it
is the same in South Africa---`I
[gap: blank to be filled/extent: 2/3 words]
do solemnly swear to bear true faith and allegiance to King George V., his heirs
and successors'. It is by what is summed up in that oath that King George V.
exercises his rights in Canada. That is what is behind it, and that sums up all
the constitutional usage and all the constitutional theory that George V. has in
Canada. Now, coming to Ireland, I come back to remind you that the Canadian
position, as far as we are concerned, is modified by the words `subject to the
provisions hereinafter set out'. The provisions hereinafter set out, as far as
the Irish Free State is concerned, are in the oath. Now this is the oath: `I
[gap: blank to be filled/extent: 2/3 words]
do solemnly swear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the Irish
Free State'. And the point is made here that the true faith and allegiance to
the Irish Free State implies true faith and allegiance to the King---not the
King of Ireland, remember, because he is not King of Ireland by law, by that
Treaty or by anything else, but King George V. I may be wrong. It is not a very
important point, but I never yet heard of an oath of allegiance, meant to be an
oath of allegiance to a King, that did not expressly mention that King. I think
that is good principle of interpretation of constitutional law. Further you have
the second clause of the oath: `And that I will be faithful to his Majesty King
George V., his heirs and successors by law, in virtue of the common citizenship
of Ireland with Great Britain and her adherence to, and membership of, the group
of nations forming the British Commonwealth of nations'. Now there is another
principle of constitutional law which we must apply to that. It is this---that
where a king or monarch is mentioned in the oath the full relations between him
and the person who is taking the oath must be fully defined around his name and
cannot be added to or subtracted from in any other part of the document. That is
a well-settled principle of constitutional law, and I say that by this it is
perfectly clear and perfectly plain that the only relation which we have---you
may quarrel with it if you like---with King George V. is this, to be faithful to
him as head of the British Community of Nations. There are Deputies here in this
House who won't agree with that. That is a matter for themselves, and it is a
matter for every one. That is what I want to get cleared. I don't know whether
after Mr. Etchingham we should have any further definition of faithfulness, but
in any case faithfulness in law by any Constitution implies equality, and so far
as the relationship between Ireland and Great Britain is regulated by that oath,
Ireland is an equal under the letter of that Treaty with England, and if England
is a Sovereign State so is Ireland under the letter of that Treaty; I believe
that to be good constitutional law. Now Mr. Erskine Childers pointed out, quite
rightly, that constitutional law is not the same definite thing as statutory
law. There are questions of opinions, questions of difference arising out of
that, and you have authorities on both sides of the question. That can be
carried perhaps too far, but up to a certain point it is correct. But my point
is this, that under that Treaty you may get reactionary lawyers who, to keep up
their briefs, will argue one way, while others, who have no such object in view,
will argue the other way; but I say the weight of constitutional law is on the
side of that interpretation. I say this, which is more, that that Constitution
contains legal sanctions which give Ireland a sovereign status, if we have only
the nerve to grasp it. I believe that firmly about that Treaty. That is the
constitutional position as I see it. Another thing, you cannot discuss this
question of constitutional status; you are constantly mixing it up with the
question of the powers you have under the Treaty. I heard in one and the same
breath criticism of Ireland's status and these other matters I have also
mentioned brought in. Nobody knows better than some of the men who used these
arguments that the one thing has nothing to do with the other. France could
arrange by Treaty to give England control of every port she has if she so wished
it, and it would not take one iota from her Constitution. I also heard the words
for ever and permanent bandied about by Mr. Childers, by the
President, and by the other people who were expounding constitutional law in
connection with the Treaty. The words for ever and permanent are
words that should not be used in connection with the Treaty. The Treaty is a
bargain between two Sovereign States, and our delegates in making that Treaty
made the first Treaty that was ever made by Ireland with England and went
further to get recognition of Ireland's sovereign status than all that has been
done in all our history. Now that is all I have got to say about status. I say
again under the letter of that document we have legal sanctions for sovereign
status if we have the pluck and nerve to go and take it up. I ask are we going
to throw that away, and for what? Now I might be wrong. I am not infallible, but
it is the duty of every Deputy who is going to vote against the Treaty to
convince himself honestly that I am wrong. Now with regard to the powers you
have under the Treaty, we found Mr. Childers talking yesterday that you have not
got such and such under the Treaty, and then that even if you had you would not
get it. You cannot do business and you cannot clear up anything on these
slippery lines. I don't mean slippery in any dishonest way, but confused
thinking of that sort. Let us first of all consider what the letter of that
Treaty gives us. It gives us complete financial control, it gives us as much
financial independence as England has, as France has, and a lot more than
Germany has. Education was mentioned, and somebody said it gave us more powers
for education than the Councils' Bill. It does; it gives us complete,
untrammeled control over education, as much as England has, and as much as
France has. I want to know if anybody will deny that, and I do not want to have
any confusion about it. It gives us the right to raise an Army, and I could
furnish a series of arguments in this respect, but I do not think it necessary
to do so. It gives us after five years the right to provide for our own coastal
defence. [Cries of `No' and `Yes']. Now I want to clear up this
point:
Until an arrangement has been made between the British and Irish
Governments whereby the Irish Free State undertakes her own coastal defence,
the defence by sea of Great Britain and Ireland shall be undertaken by his
Majesty's Imperial Forces, but this shall not prevent the construction or
maintenance by the Government of the Irish Free State of such vessels as are
necessary for the protection of the Revenue or the Fisheries.
The foregoing provisions of this Article shall be reviewed at a conference
of Representatives of the British and Irish Governments to be held at the
expiration of five years from the date hereof with a view to the undertaking
by Ireland of a share in her own coastal defence.
I was wrong [applause]. I want to be perfectly honest with you. I
said that after five years Ireland will have the right to have her own coastal
defence. It turns out to be a share.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
She won't have that either.
MR. HOGAN:
I will make a present now to anyone here of that point. We have the right
under this Treaty to have ambassadors in every country in the world---a legal
right; Canada has the right and we have it. We have the right under this
document to sign any Treaty we like, and to refuse to sign any Treaty we like.
We have the right to see, before we are directly or indirectly, or in the
slightest way committed to anything that may lead to war, that we be fully
consulted, and that our consent be given. That is the letter of that Treaty. In
fact Mr. Erskine Childers described the Canadian powers as `virtual
independence'. We have virtual independence under the letter of that Treaty. We
have it on the admission of Mr. Childers---
MR. CHILDERS:
Not on my admission.
MR. HOGAN:
Under the letter of that Treaty, if we have Canadian status we have virtual
independence. We have more, we have a far wider status than Canada, because, as
far as our sovereignty is concerned, we are a long step in front of the most
forward and powerful nation in the British Commonwealth of Nations. I believe
that to be strictly true. We have powers for everything. These are the powers
which we have under that Treaty. Now we will come to the question of whether we
can get these powers or whether proximity or the possession of three or four
harbours is going to prevent us. I heard the proximity argument used also
and used in the most extraordinarily confused sense. The proximity
argument apparently applies to this Treaty, but to nothing else. If the
delegates brought back a Treaty on the lines of the recognition by England of an
isolated independent Republic the proximity argument would be there, and
there in full. I am not going into the question now as to whether the possession
or the occupation by a few marines under the guns of our Army of a few ports of
Ireland as a military proposition makes a terrible difference. I will leave that
to Commandant MacKeon and Mr. Childers. I won't go into it. What I want to know
is: is our position that we are getting from England under a signed document all
these powers and that we have not the pluck to come forward and take them? That
is where you land yourself with that argument; that is the position. Now there
is just one other point. We heard a lot about a final settlement. It honestly
seems to me that we are taking ourselves too seriously in that matter. If every
Member of this Dáil---and we are not unanimous, I am sorry to say---got together
and unanimously agreed to come to some settlement, England being ready to
consent to anything which would be a final settlement, they would not succeed.
If we got an isolated Republic to-morrow morning our political developments, our
development amongst the nations is only beginning. That, I think, is clear, and
the question for us now is this: the Minister for Finance said, and rightly
said, that for 700 years we are fighting, but we are up against a cancer in our
midst; we are up against peaceful penetration; we are up against the fact that
our population is draining away from this country and her resources are dying;
that the invader is with us, and are we never going to start for ourselves? Are
we always going to take up the attitude of seeking something that is a little in
front of us while the world always moves on. I say that is the real point. Now
finally we sent over our Plenipotentiaries, and I think everyone will agree with
this, to do the most difficult task that any Plenipotentiaries in history were
ever set to do. I say they have brought you back peace with honour. I say they
have done their duty and that our time comes now [applause].
MR. SEAN T. O'CEALLAIGH:
A Chinn Chomhairle is a lucht na Dála, nílim-se chun mórán a rá, agus an
meid atá agam le rá b'fhearr liom go mór e go leir a rá as Gaedhilg. B'fhearr le
n-a lán againn e is dócha. Ach ós ceist tháchtach e agus ná tuigeann mórán des
na Teachtaí an Ghaedhilg caithfead labhairt as Bearla. B'fhearr liom dá
labhartaí níos mó Gaedhilge anso agus is ceart dom an míniú so. a thabhairt anso.
A Chinn Chomhairle, there is no need to rehearse for you the articles of the
so-called Treaty. Every Member knows them by heart, and all are agreed that what
makes the Treaty so objectionable---to those who find it objectionable---is that
it brings us into the British Empire, whether with our heads up or our hands
down. We are to become West British by consent after 700 years. That and the
loss of part of our territory, which I will touch upon afterwards, is my
principal objection to the ratification of this Treaty. The first two clauses of
the Treaty stereotype us as British subjects. Whatever material advantages we
might gain from accepting this, the price paid is too high. If this is not true,
can the supporters of this Treaty tell us why offers of Dominion status were so
scoffed at by all of us on former occasions. A Dominion status is honourable in
the case of Canada and Australia. Canada is free because she wills to be united
to England, and Canada and Australia and New Zealand are in the great majority
peopled by Britons. Ireland as a Dominion is not free because she does not will
to be united to England or to the British Commonwealth, if you like, except, of
course, for those who are marching into the British Empire with their beads up.
And, moreover, Ireland is not peopled by Britain. Ireland is the old historic
Celtic nation that for so many centuries had struggled for her existence and her
national ideals next door to the race described by Jefferson in the graphic
phrase `bloody pirates'. We have survived until to-day, and by heavens, in spite
of this Treaty, we will survive. Even if it is ratified, before one year is out
the Irish people will of themselves burst up this Treaty. They will turn their
backs upon the men who have foisted it upon them and repudiate a document so
radically opposed to all they thought worth living and dying for. Let me
earnestly appeal to all assembled here to reject this Treaty unanimously. It
cannot be worked in Ireland. All our traditions are against it. The Irish people
will grow sick at the thought of common citizenship with their old, cruel and
insidious enemy. With what feelings of despair will they see installed a
Governor-General acting in the name of the King of England and representing
British authority in Ireland for the first time with the consent of their
elected representatives. I cannot bear to live to see such a man as Arthur
Griffith, who has been an inspiration to us all, or even younger men who have
won fame the wide world over for a heroism that is peculiar to Ireland, men such
as Michael Collins, Dick Mulcahy, Seán MacKeon, and many, many of their
associates---I cannot bear to see these men acting as Ministers and Generals in
the name of his Majesty King George V. in Ireland supported by time-servers,
surrounded by shoneens, West Britons, and all the shallow toadies and
place-hunters that Ireland produces in as much abundance as any other country.
For it is not making much of a prophecy to say that the loyal true-hearted,
genuine Irishman will not rally round them. the Irish Ireland in which they grew
up, for which they fought so valiantly will soon know them no more. We should
all throw back at England this instrument of our subversion. We should all stand
shoulder to shoulder in this act as we did in the fight. There should be no two
sides on this vital question. So far I have dwelt upon the practical aspect of
the case, but on a day like this a man must affirm his principles. Clause 4 of
this Treaty lays down the form of oath that must be sworn by each individual
Member of the Parliament of the Irish Free State. That oath I cannot give a
willing vote in favour of. I am not a British citizen or subject, and I could
not, without injury to my own self-respect, willingly subscribe to an oath or
declaration of fidelity to which I did not agree. In justification of my refusal
to subscribe to the oath, I claim that it is a contradiction of the Constitution
of the Sinn Fein Organisation to which we are all supposed to belong. It is a
violation of our Manifesto.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
On a point of order, is this assembly concerned with whether the Deputy who
is speaking will or will not be a candidate for the Parliament of the Free
State?
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
That is not a point of order.
MR. S. T. O'CEALLAIGH:
I believe that it is a violation of the Sinn Fein Constitution, and also a
contradiction of the Manifesto issued by the Sinn Fein Executive to the
electorate before the General Election of December, 1918, and to me a distinct
violation of our Declaration of Independence made at the first meeting of the
Dáil in January, 1919. The documents I have here leave no doubt about that. I
know that it will be claimed by other speakers that this oath is not an oath of
allegiance to the King of England. For me, whether you describe it as an oath of
allegiance or fidelity, or my word of honour, or even the vaguest undertaking,
it is all the same, because the important thing is not so much the form of
expression or declaration but the system of government which they are meant to
typify. Government by Governor-General! Dominion status for Ireland! England
imagines that she puts her finger in the eye of the Irish by attenuating an
objectionable expression. She must laugh to think that while we pay with words
she gets adopted the system of Government she ever wished to impose upon us. Let
me remind you that we have not got Irish unity in return for this oath. The two
great principles for which so many have died, and for which they would still
gladly die---no partition of Ireland and no subjugation of Ireland by any
foreign power---have gone by the board in this Treaty, and some good men are
thinking of voting for it. Of all the things I have heard President de Valera
say, I have never been in more thorough agreement with him than when he said in
his speech last August, `Whatever may come of these negotiations, however we may
come out of them, after our appalling history, one thing we cannot be excused
for, and shall not be excused for, is to be fooled by England'. This brings me
to my contention that there is no new situation in Ireland. England has fooled
us to believe there is. To my mind, the difference between the form of
government that will be set up in Ireland if we decide to ratify this Treaty is
only a difference in degree, but does not differ in kind from the various forms
of government adumbrated in Home Rule Bills put before the country at intervals
in the last century. All the arguments that are used by supporters of the motion
for ratification of this Treaty are arguments that have been used, and justly
used, by supporters of the policy of the late Parliamentary Party. The late Mr.
John Redmond and his followers maintained that their Home Rule Bill was but an
installment of freedom and could, after acceptance, be improved. I see no
difference in principle between what that party stood for and what we are asked
by supporters of this Treaty to sign in the name of Ireland to-day. All I see in
this offer is that the temptation is greater. The temptation, the bait offered
by England, is not great enough; and nothing she offers short of independence
would justify us asking our men to die and our people to make the sacrifices
they have made, particularly in the recent past. Look down the long, the
glorious, history of our struggle; read the lives of any of our great patriots;
select any period you wish in the last three hundred years, and you can easily
find in each century occasions upon which Ireland was asked to face such a
crisis as the present. We have had put to us over and over again the same
choice. It has always been as it is to-day the choice of self- sacrifice and
death---extermination if England wills versus compromise, the imagined
safe course and accommodation. What are we going to stand for to-day? May I
earnestly beg and appeal of you to throw your minds back a few years and think
of the choice that was given to our nation at the outbreak of the European war;
think of the choice that was given to us when the threat of Conscription by a
foreign Power was held up to us. I ask a number of my friends here to think of
the choice that was made by beloved comrades of ours on the Easter Morning of
1916. They had exactly the same choice to make on that occasion that we are
asked to make now. They chose the hard path, but they chose the honoured path.
They and you and I who stood with them were hailed as fools, but the history of
the last few years has shown that not alone were those men the most sincere
patriots---which, of course,nobody in this assembly ever doubted---but that they
were, and, this is what I want to emphasise, the wisest politicians of their
time [applause].
THE SPEAKER:
Before we adjourn. Sean T. O'Ceallaigh has moved this motion: `That on
re-assembling after the luncheon interval, the Dáil will go into Private Session
for half-an-hour to hear the reply of the Minister of Defence to a statement
made in regard to military affairs'.
MR. O'CEALLAIGH:
There were statements made at the Private Session which the Minister of
Defence wishes to reply to. He has reported to me that he has the official
reports now to put before the House, and if the House agrees to go into Private
Session immediately after they return from luncheon, he would be very glad to
have an opportunity of placing them before them.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I thought I heard the Minister of Defence asking for publicity. Now there is
a request for a Private Session. We want everything fully known in public. We
are now asked to go into Private Session again after being in Private Session
for four days, and during which the Minister of Defence did reply on more than
one occasion. Now I want to know whether the public are going to be fooled or
not to be fooled?
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I was going to rise on a point of order to second the motion.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Everything has been fully discussed privately, and nothing has been stated
here by any Member that requires a private reply.
MR. CEANNT:
I rise to support the motion. I see a great necessity for having a Private
Session. I don't see why the English garrison in Ireland should be made aware of
our preparations for the future. I think the Minister of Defence knows his
business, and I think it would be a betrayal of the people of Ireland if we were
to tell England what amount of ammunition or stuff we have.
MR. R. MULCAHY:
I would like to support the motion. If the Minister of Defence wants to give
the answers in private, there is not the slightest difficulty I see from the
point of view of routine. I am sure there is no Member of this House who cannot
listen to anything that can be said on either side at a private meeting.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I would like to say this, that I think it is most unworthy of certain Members
of the house who know so well the whole circumstances to suggest we want
secrecy. I think something else besides the Treaty has come from Downing Street.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I don't know what the President means by something else. [Cries of
`Withdraw'].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It means simply this: I think it most unworthy, considering all the
circumstances, and the knowledge that the Minister for Foreign Affairs has of
the matters that are under discussion, that a suggestion should be made that we
want to keep anything from the public.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I want to know if these are private military matters that were discussed for
three days. If the Minister of Defence wants to make a statement on anything
that has been said in Public Session, there is no reason why he should not do so
in public.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA (MINISTER OF DEFENCE):
It should be quite obvious to everybody who knows the business end of a gun
that there are things which may be necessary to be known by this House in regard
to military affairs that might do serious injury to us, if when this Treaty is
turned down, war be started against us, should they now be disclosed to the
enemy. There were certain statements made late on Saturday evening to which I
could only make a general reply. Those statements obviously were intended to
frighten nervous people here in the Dáil, if there are such. Apparently the
people in favour of this Treaty think there are such.It remains to be seen
whether there are. In any case, I could not see the heads of the various
sections into which I have the Department of Defence divided to enable me to
refute the statements which really impugned the industry, the efficiency, or
honesty of these heads of these sections. I have seen them since, and what I
purpose doing is making a short statement myself and reading a short statement
from them with regard to the charges---because they were charges---made late on
Saturday night. It is for that reason I want a Private Session. It will not take
me more than ten or fifteen minutes to say what I have to say.
MR. GRIFFITH:
That proposal is different from what I understood it. I understood the
Minister of Defence wanted to go into Private Session to reply to anything that
was said in Public Session. Do I take it that when the Minister of Defence makes
this statement, he does not mean to suppress criticism of that in Private
Session from other members?
MR. BRUGHA:
Certainly. It will not require more than half-an-hour.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I agree.
MR. NICHOLLS:
I would like to know if there would be any chance of this assembly meeting
punctually. I think every man and woman here have made up their minds by this. I
don't see the object of debating outside before coming in here.
MR. M. COLLINS:
In regard to this question of punctuality, everybody here knows that I am in
my place every morning. I suggest that we ought to appoint somebody who would do
duty as Sergeant-at-Arms and get the Members in. If we don't start punctually,
it shows we don't mean business.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
I suggest that the chair be taken at the hour fixed.
The House then adjourned.
On resuming after the Private Session,
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
A Chinn Chomhairle, before the regular work of the Session begins, I
would like to withdraw a remark I made at the end of the last Session. As you
all know, I have not a hot temper, that it does not as a rule betray me, but the
remark which I made is open to a construction certainly I did not want anybody
to put upon it. It is serious on account of the fact that I put a certain
document before the House at the Secret Session. I put it in for the purpose of
eliciting the views of the Members and seeing the general feeling with respect
to it. Reference to that document appeared in the public Press, and I felt that
the Minister for Foreign Affairs was taking a tactical advantage of it to create
an impression in the public mind that we had something to conceal. It put me in
mind of one occasion in Downing Street when I remember I met with similar
tactics. It was simply the reminiscence of that that made me suggest that he had
brought something else besides the Treaty from Downing Street. I thought that an
effort to make it appear that I was trying to conceal something from the public
was unworthy of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I am afraid my reply was still
more unworthy and I apologise and withdraw it [applause].
MR. GRIFFITH:
I am quite satisfied with what President de Valera has said. It is quite
worthy of him [applause].
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS:
As we are on a matter like that, it might be well if another Deputy would
withdraw the remark he made with regard to the coalition between Downing Street
and the Delegation [hear, hear].
THE SPEAKER:
I have received a telegram signed `Ginnel' and addressed to the President. [Reading]
`I vote against ratification. Ginnell'.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I believe every Member of the assembly knows upon
what side I stand. If they have any doubts as to what is the reason or reasons
why I take that stand, there will be no doubt left in their minds when I sit
down. This assembly is the sovereign assembly of the Irish Nation, the sovereign
representative assembly, and if it is not a representative assembly it has no
purpose whatever [hear, hear]. Being a representative assembly, we
are here endeavouring to give expression to the will of the people. If we resist
the will of the people we are false to the trust imposed in us [hear, hear].
The will of the people to-day is that this Treaty shall go through, that this
Treaty shall be ratified [hear, hear]. I am going to take off the
gloves in this fight. There are men who to-day are resisting the will of the
Irish people. Can they deny it? [Several Voices: `Yes!'] You deny
that? [`Yes!'] Very well, then, if you gain the majority in this
assembly, are you prepared to put before the people of Ireland the issue where
the people will decide? [`Yes!']. Very well, the people will
decide. President de Valera in the course, not only of the Private Session, but
of the Public Session, declared that he believed the Irish people would ratify
this Treaty if it were put to them.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Yes, at this moment, but not after a campaign when it would be explained to
them.
MR. MILROY:
Who would sit in judgment upon the Irish people?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Themselves.
MR. MILROY:
Is it the majority of the Cabinet of Dáil Eireann? Where has vanished that
principle of self- determination of the Irish people? [hear, hear].
What has become of the principle upon which we fought the whole of the bye-
elections since 1908, since 1916, which is the principle that all just
government rests upon the consent of the governed? [hear, hear].
Very well, then, before you can vindicate your assertion that you are not
resisting the will of the people, you will have to take a decision of the people
upon this grave issue with which the nation is confronted [hear, hear].
That is not all with which I am concerned. What I am concerned with is, in this
decision upon this question affecting not only this generation but many
generations---probably the whole future of our nation in this question---that it
shall not be decided over the heads of the Irish people. I tell you if you
attempt to do that, if you attempt it in your idea of the autocratic superiority
of the Irish nation, when you have taken your decision the fury of the Irish
nation will sweep you aside just as it swept aside the Irish Parliamentary Party
[applause]. The only member of the Cabinet who is opposed to this
Treaty that I can really understand is the Minister of Defence. He does not like
this Treaty because he does not like peace. Peace does not agree with his
temperament. I thoroughly believe that if the Delegation had brought back a
Sovereign Independent Republic, he would have dreamed then of sending an
expeditionary force to conquer the Isle of Man. Though my friend the Minister of
Defence may be a potential Napoleon, that is no reason why there should be a
gamble with the greatest and most sacred interests of the Irish people. We are
not going to make the Irish nation a pedestal for any man to elevate himself
upon to gratify his own peculiar proclivities. [Voices:`Oh! Oh!']
I mean nothing offensive, nothing whatever. As I said before, I am going to take
the gloves off in this fight, and say what I have to say, and what I think the
Irish nation thinks. It is not matters of courtesy nor the paying of compliments
should concern us now. It is a question of what is the truth about this matter,
what are the facts about this Treaty which is before us, whether it is something
that Ireland can honourably and honestly take, or something that meets with the
extraordinary contempt of Mr. Erskine Childers. Mr. Erskine Childers should
surely be an authority on the question, because a few years ago, in his very
interesting book, The Framework Of Home Rule, he said something to
this effect, that no sane person could seriously consider the idea of an Irish
Republic. That was in 1911. Is the man, who in 1911 had that view about
Ireland---is that the man to get up here and sit in judgment on the men who have
been working for the last twenty-five or thirty years for this thing he has
spoken about? I have no objection to the enthusiasm of converts, but what I do
object to is that they should endeavour to excommunicate those who were working
for the old national cause in the days when they were doing something which had
a very reverse effect. A little modesty, a little reticence in these matters
would be more becoming than the sweeping condemnation of which Mr. Erskine
Childers has delivered himself. Now I stand wholeheartedly for the ratification
of the Treaty. I do that without misgiving, without doubt or equivocation. I
believe that this Treaty is one which brings to Ireland peace with honour [hear,
hear]. I believe it is one that gives Ireland real power, real
authority, and real freedom. [Voices: `No!' and a Voice: `Not real
freedom!'] I believe that it is one that gives Ireland real power, real
authority and real freedom. [Voices: `No! No!'] I believe it is
one that gives Ireland real freedom [No! No!]. I am going to
attempt to establish what I have to say. I believe it is one that shatters for
ever the alien domination that has blasted and wasted generations of our people.
I believe it is one that terminates definitely the havoc, the agony, the waste
and desolation of seven disastrous centuries. Now I was really astonished
yesterday listening to the President's impassioned words. That President de
Valera is a man who can without the aid of argument or logic deeply move an
audience was quite obvious yesterday. With wild, impassioned tornado of
denunciation he stalked across the prostrate remains of the Treaty [applause].
But it was not a display of statesmanship, it was not a display of logic, or
argument. It was more like some wild fury which had run amok. I want to refer to
something that is not quite so jocular. I have no intention of introducing into
this assembly anything in the nature of merriment---none whatever. I have
something to say which is the very reverse of that. It is a curious procedure we
were treated to at the beginning of yesterday's proceedings. I refer to the much
disputed document. I am not going to disclose it yet. It is a dead secret we
have locked up in our bosoms, wrapped in mystery. The thing I want to get at is
this---the purpose to which that document was directed, and I was amazed to
think that President de Valera would have resorted to such tactics. [Voices:
`Oh!'] I am in possession; let me say what I have to say. I am not
saying anything offensive. Let me say what I have to say.
MISS MACSWINEY:
You can speak later on.
MR. MILROY:
When the first Session of this Dáil met, President de Valera intimated to us
that he was going to formulate alternative proposals. I asked him if he would
give them to us. He said he would. We discussed these for three days; we
finished the Private Session without any intimation from him that it was to be
regarded as a confidential document. When the Public Session commenced, the
first word of the President's was that it must be considered a confidential
document, and must not be referred to. At the same time he was bringing forward
another set of alternative proposals. What are we to deduct from that save this,
that he kept us talking for three days about a set of alternative proposals
which went to the very root of the issue that is now before this assembly; that
we came to discuss---
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Would I be in order? I think---
MR. MILROY:
I beg your pardon---
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think, at least, these statements should be substantiated. It is quite a
wrong construction to put on this. Everybody in this House knows it is a wrong
construction.
MR. MILROY:
I do not know what construction Members of the House put on it. I only know
the construction, the obvious construction, that comes home to my mind, and I am
expressing that. If, when I have finished, it can be shown it does not bear that
construction, I am quite prepared to let the matter pass and apologise if the
circumstances warrant apology. I want to say how it appears to me, and how it
appears to many others. When the Public Session began, we were not allowed to
discuss the second document, but were promised that a second set of alternative
proposals would be brought along. What object could that have save to make
Members withhold their support of the Treaty in the expectation that something
better would follow when the next set of alternative proposals was brought
along? I may be wrong, but that is how it strikes me. Now, the value of this
particular document, the only value for my purpose, is this, that the only
reason that I regret it was not available for this discussion is this, that it
does put before this assembly of the Irish people, it does disclose what is the
issue which is agitating this Dáil at the present time. That issue is not the
Treaty versus the Irish Republic.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is.
MR. MILROY:
It is not the Treaty versus the Irish Republic. The issue that we are
faced with here in this Dáil is the issue of the difference between the Treaty
and Document No. 2.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA AND OTHERS:
No! No!
MR. MILROY:
It is the issue, and no amount---I do not want to use an offensive word, I
will use the word manoeuvring---and I say no amount of manoeuvring is going to
obscure this Dáil or confuse the minds of the Irish Nation. The issue which this
Dáil has to decide is between two forms of association with the British Empire [hear,
hear]. Deputy Etchingham this morning said that this Treaty had the
effect of putting a bow window in the western gable of the British Empire. Now I
think it must have been Document No. 2 he was thinking about, because a bow
window is very like external association [applause]. Another thing
I want to say is this, and I wish all Ireland could hear me saying it, and I
wish Mr. Ginnell could have heard me saying it before he sent that telegram.
This is what I want to say. Mr. de Valera [A Voice: `President']President
de Valera, I beg his pardon; President de Valera said that the difference
between the two documents was only a shadow.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I will speak of that document when the time comes.
MR. MILROY:
The difference between the two documents is only a shadow.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Why would Britain go to war then?
MR. MILROY:
I am not quoting the words of any Englishman, I am quoting the words of
President de Valera himself, that the difference between these two documents is
only a shadow. Are we going to send the young men and young women of Ireland to
the shambles for a shadow? Send them in a great and glorious cause and they will
respond, they will die gladly, but send them to their death for that shadow!
Will President de Valera, will the Minister of War, will the Minister of Home
Affairs take the responsibility before humanity, before all history, for sending
the young men and young women of Ireland to their death for a shadow?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is not for a shadow.
MR. MILROY:
It is time we realised where we are drifting to. I heard to-day passionate
speeches. I heard to-day speeches that did not make people smile. I heard from
Mrs. O'Callaghan to-day one of the most pathetic stories I ever listened to. It
is not a thing to smile at, but a thing that cut to the heart of anyone
listening to it. We don't want these tragedies multiplied a thousandfold in
Ireland if we can help it [hear, hear]. I am not going to appeal
to anything but your real and clear conception of what Ireland's national
interests are. President de Valera said that in this Treaty we were presuming to
set boundaries to the march of the Irish Nation. So far from that being true, we
are smashing down the barriers that obstruct the march of the Irish Nation. He
said that if this Treaty were passed the subsequent history that followed would
be the same as that which followed the Act of Union. Whether you accept or
reject our definition of this Treaty you cannot question the fact that it does
give the Irish Nation great, tremendous, national powers. That is the difference
between the Act of Union and this Treaty. The Act of Union took away from the
Irish people their right, such as they had, to direct, mould and control their
own land. This Treaty brings back to Ireland these powers [hear, hear].
There are other things that the President said I can only attribute to the
impulse of the moment. He described the Treaty which, as I have said, brings
back these powers to Ireland as the most unparalleled surrender in history. I
think he must have been thinking of the surrender of these things on the part of
the British Government [hear, hear]. He spoke of this as the most
ignoble document that Irishmen could put their hands to. I can only put that
down to some wave of eccentricity or distraction of mind when he was carried
away with the flood of his own fury. I don't think that it can be denied, as I
have already said, that this Treaty gives Ireland great and comprehensive
powers, that it gives to Ireland these powers to direct and mould its own
destiny of the future life of the nation. It eliminates from Ireland the British
Army and gives to the Irish people the power of creating an army of their own to
defend their country. Various definitions of the powers that this Treaty gives
to Ireland have been given. I will quote another---Professor O'Rahilly of Cork.
He says: `We have all the really important powers required for our normal,
political, social and economic life. We have unfettered freedom in forming our
political constitution, in social legislation, in education, in developing our
national resources, in fostering our agriculture and industries, in framing our
tariff policy, in regulating our taxes, our currency laws, our finances, in
appointing consular agents abroad, in concluding commercial treaties with other
countries'. I want to know if that is not the substance of real national power
and national authority, what is it? Is this result going to produce the effects
on Ireland's future the same as the Act of Union which President de Valera
predicted? If these things are not going to produce a healthy state of life in
the Irish Nation, then in God's name will President de Valera tell us what will?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I will. Go on.
MR. MILROY:
What I have to say is that this is the most stupendous achievement that
Ireland has gained for centuries. I will tell you another thing. This Treaty, as
I have already said, provides for the evacuation of Ireland by the British Army.
If war breaks out again on the rejection of this Treaty, that war will be fought
to keep the British Army from evacuating the country. Is that a policy, again I
ask, that recommends itself? Would it recommend itself to a lunatic? Would
anybody but a lunatic turn aside a policy that should recommend itself to a
sovereign assembly of the Irish Nation, to the men and women of Ireland who have
the future destinies in their hands? I say if it is, then it is a policy that if
they put it to the country they will bring about a great disillusionment to
those who are in love with that policy. We have been told to disregard the
horrors of war, that it is the women who suffer most in these things. That is a
truth I for one will never question. We have listened to a deep and passionate
story, and it is easy to know that it is the women who suffer most. Do they
think we are callous about these things that they should fling it in our faces
because we try to save the nation from what we think is disaster, that it is
sufficient to close our mouths to say that it is the women who suffer most? It
is the women that suffer most, and if war breaks out again, and we have a
repetition of the raids and burnings and horrors of the last couple of years,
will not the women who suffer most, will they not be somewhat bewildered when
these things overshadow the land when they recollect that ratification of the
Treaty might have averted all this? Will they not think it curious and
inexplicable that though this Treaty provided a means by which the British Army
would have voluntarily left Ireland, that those who held Ireland's fate in their
hands decided upon a policy which had the effect of keeping that army here in
order that the brave fighting young men of Ireland might earn an undying renown
in a vain effort to eject them? Is this patriotism or folly? Is this
statesmanship or criminality? Is this sanity or imbecility? [hear, hear].
Yes, it is the women of Ireland who will suffer most if the war breaks out in
order that Ireland may attain President de Valera's shadow.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Shame!
MR. MILROY:
I am speaking what are facts. It is a shame. The whole nation will cry shame
upon men and women and the policy that sent the nation to its doom for such a
thing as that described by President de Valera as a shadow. We are told another
thing, that we dishonour the memory of the dead when we speak in support of this
Treaty, that we have forgotten the memory of the dead. It is not because we have
forgotten, but because we remember the dead who died for Ireland that we stand
where we do to-day [hear, hear]. It is because we want to ensure
their sacrifices shall not have been in vain [hear, hear]. Now I
come to the question of the oath of allegiance. We have had great denunciation
of this oath of allegiance. I wonder would Members of the Dáil like to have the
alternative oath of allegiance? How would the Members of Dáil like to have this
form of oath:
I [gap: blank to be filled/extent: 2/3 words] do swear to bear true
faith and allegiance to the Constitution of Ireland and to the Treaty of
Association of Ireland with the British Commonwealth of Nations and to
recognise the King of Great Britain as Head of the Associated States.
Now, I suggest, would that be more acceptable than the other? [Voices:
`Yes!' `No! No!'] I am surprised that it would not, because it is the
difference between the oath of the Treaty and that oath is the issue before the
Dáil to-day [applause]. There, the cat is out of the bag now [hear,
hear].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think this is most prejudicial. I think it is a shame that in a case like
this that a matter should be dragged in which is not relevant to this issue.
MR. MILLROY:
Not relevant? It is the whole issue.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I say it is most unfair treatment. It is not in the document---these secret
documents which have been withheld from the public as a whole. If all the
documents are published, I am quite ready and content. Let them all be published
by all means. I say it is an attempt to prejudice not this body, because you
cannot prejudice it. You all know all the facts, but to prejudice the public [hear,
hear].
MR. MILROY:
Is this a point of order or a speech?
MR. GRIFFITH:
It is right that the Irish people should know that is the difference between
us. I stand here and demand that the Irish people shall know the truth [hear,
hear].
MR. MILROY:
I trust that what I have said will not unduly disturb the tranquillity of
this assembly. I am here. I represent at least twice as much of Ireland as a
good many Members of Dáil Eireann. I represent two constituencies, one in
Northern Ireland, and one in what is called Southern Ireland. I have a great
responsibility in this matter.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
So have we all.
MR. MILROY:
I, for my part, am not going to forget that I have to study the dispositions
of those who sent me here, and the interests of those people and the interests
of the Irish Nation are higher to me, greater to me, than the susceptibilities
of any man or any body of men. We are fighting for the life and security of the
Irish Nation. I told you when I began I was going to take the gloves off, and I
don't mean to be prevented from fighting this battle to the end, because it is
not convenient to some people that the whole truth about this matter should be
told.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
That is not so.
A DEPUTY:
You are down and out.
MR. MILROY:
A gentleman has said---he did not think I overheard him---that I am damning
myself. I don't care what the personal consequences to me are.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is not suggested by anybody.
MR. MILROY:
I don't care what the personal consequences are to me as a result of the
attitude I am taking up and the vote I will give. I am thinking of the Irish
Nation and the Irish Nation only. Now many people are susceptible about this
particular oath in the Treaty, and if I adopted a procedure which one Member
here seems to have assumed a monopoly of, and challenged this assembly to have
it put to a show of hands of those Members who have already taken an oath of
allegiance to England, I think there would be very few on the side of those who
are standing for the Treaty. I am not going to put that challenge, but I do
think we ought to realise what is the truth about this oath. This oath is
distorted and mispresented. It has been clearly defined and explained by Deputy
Hogan to-day, and I venture to think that even Mr. Childers will not be able to
shatter one iota of his arguments. I want to say a word about Ulster. I have
some responsibility, or at least some work in connection with the question of
Ulster. Of late I am keenly interested in this matter. My two constituencies are
both Ulster constituencies. I understand also that one of the Members for
Monaghan is preparing, or has prepared, a fierce onslaught on this Treaty in
connection with the question of Ulster. But I do think that his thunderbolt
should have been reserved for the head of the President, because President de
Valera stated that we would not coerce Ulster. He committed us to the task of
finding some way out and making some arrangement without sending the troops of
the Irish Republic to overawe the people in the six counties [hear, hear].
I think many of those who criticised the delegates must have been under the
impression that when they left Dublin to go to London they set out as miracle
workers. Did they expect---did the Deputy for Monaghan expect---that when they
went to London they would be able to soften or destroy the asperities of
centuries? Did they expect that they had more power there than Lloyd George and
his Coalition Government? Did they expect that the five men who went there would
be able to bring back an arrangement that was at variance with the declaration
of President de Valera that we were not going to coerce Ulster? The fact is that
the provisions of the Treaty are not Partition provisions, but they ensure
eventual unity in Ireland. But, as a matter of fact, whether there were
Partition provisions or not, the economic position and the effects on the six
counties, area is this, that sooner or later isolation from the rest of Ireland
would have so much weight on the economic state of these six counties as to
compel them to renew their association with the rest of Ireland. That trend of
economic fact will be stimulated by the provisions of this Treaty, and the man
who asserts that Partition is perpetuated in that Treaty is a man who has not
read or understands what are the provisions in the Treaty. Now I want to know
before I sit down what is the alternative? I will not take as an answer another
document. If another document were able to save this situation which will be
created as a result of this possible rejection of this Treaty, if another
document was sufficient for that purpose, we could pack this House with
documents, but another document will not save the situation. We have had the
Treaty before us. We have had the President putting forward what were termed
counter-proposals and presented to us and discussed by the supporters of
President de Valera as if they were documents on the same plane and had the same
value, as if the British Government had agreed to both and we could take
whichever we liked. The difference is this, and the difference is vital, the
Treaty is signed and ready for delivery, the other is only mere
speculation---what is likely to be a wholly impossible contingency. What is the
answer--- what is the alternative? Reject this Treaty whether there is war or
not. I do not raise the idea of war as a bogey to frighten the men and women of
Ireland. They will not be intimidated by the spectre of impending war, but if
war can be averted, is there a citizen of this State, is there a man or woman
with any sense of their responsibility who will not endeavour to avert it if it
can be honourably done? That is all we stand by---this Treaty. Reject this
Treaty, you bring confusion and chaos throughout the whole of Ireland, and the
sign to the bigots in Ulster to start with renewed vigour pogroms on the
helpless minority [hear, hear]. Are you going to take the
responsibility for that?
DR. MACCARTAN:
They can take care of themselves. You have sold the North in making this
Treaty.
MR. MILROY:
That is an allegation the Deputy who made it will have an opportunity of
proving, when he rises to speak, and I think he will have great difficulty in
proving it. We have sold it. What have we sold? Do you suggest that any of the
delegates who went over there were bribed?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Oh, no.
MR. MILROY:
What is the meaning of that word sold ? Is that the opinion of one set
of Irishmen of another in this very grave crisis in the Nation's destiny? I
think the Deputy who says that may not have much respect for me. I think he has
less for himself or he would not have resorted to such a word.
DR. MACCARTAN:
I substitute the word betrayal .
MR. MILROY:
I do not think it would be becoming of me to take any further notice of his
opinion. If the Deputy holds a doubt about me I am quite satisfied. I am taking
the stand in this matter which my conscience dictates, and which I think the
nation requires to-day. I believe by this Treaty Ireland's freedom can be won.
Ratify this Treaty, and I believe you have Ireland in control of all that is
vital in the nation's life; reject it and you may shatter any chance that
Ireland may have for generations. Ratify this Treaty and the British Army
vanishes from Ireland. Reject it and you will have the dread of this militarism
stalking again through Ireland carrying disaster and woe in its march. Ratify
this Treaty and you give to the people of Ireland control over their own affairs
and you strike impotent the hands of those who have blasted and wasted Ireland's
life for generations. I do not know what this assembly is going to do. I believe
each man and woman will consider carefully the vital issues involved before
them; they will act in accordance with what they believe to be the real
interests of Ireland. In speaking as I have---I have simply one particular view
point of this Treaty---I have tried to present what, in my judgment, are sound
and staple reasons for holding that view, hoping it may influence some of those
who have not finally made up their minds---whether they have or not I do not
know. Whatever be the result, at any rate I am quite satisfied I have done what
I conceive to be my duty, and I trust others will do theirs likewise.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I want to refer to a statement about manoeuvring. It certainly would be an
infamous manoeuvre---no other epithet could be applied to it than infamous---if
I tried to get anybody here to reject the Treaty in the belief that some other
document which was forthcoming was able to be used as a substitute. It was on
that account, amongst others, I presented in the Private Session in advance a
document which I could not bring in here as an amendment to the motion. No such
amendment could be received. I wanted to have that document in your hands. You
have had it put there for the purpose which you know. Every one of you know
there is no skeleton here. It will be brought out to the Irish people in its
proper place. All I can tell you is that in the form in which it will come, it
will be exactly the same in substance, slightly changed in the form from the
document you have had before you.
MR. GRIFFITH:
We have been speaking from the beginning with our hands tied by President de
Valera's request. Is that document in its entirety going to be given to the
public Press?
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I want to ask on a point of order, is it in order that reference should be
constantly made to a document which is not put in and which is not before the
House? Is it in order that this discussion has been brought forward, and this
document is alluded to? I want an answer to that.
THE SPEAKER:
References are not contrary to order. I ruled that already.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Every one of us here is under a handicap.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
We do not admit it.
MR. GRIFFITH:
We have been here under a handicap. We got certain instructions from the
Cabinet, which we used and acted upon. Now an attempt is made to represent we
were to stand upon the unchangeable and uncompromising rock of the Irish
Republic.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
No such attempt is made.
MR. GRIFfITH:
We want that brought forward.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
In order that the public might know, as the House perfectly well knows, the
delegates went over to London for the purpose of trying to get reconciliation
between Irish National aspirations and the Association known as the Community of
Nations, known as the Commonwealth of Nations of the British Empire; and the
fact that this Treaty does not reconcile them is the reason it is opposed by, I
hope, the majority of the Dáil. The other document is one that the Delegation
would have accepted had they been able to put it through in London.
DR. MACCARTAN:
As one who stands uncompromisingly for an Irish Republic, I am not for
document No. 2.
MR. GRIFFITH:
We got on the 25th November certain instructions from the Cabinet which are
being withheld now.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I deny that.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Will you allow them to be published?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The whole documents, every particle of correspondence between the Cabinet and
the Delegation, and every particle of correspondence in London and with the
Delegation can be made public.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I quite agree with the President, the sooner the better. It is perfectly
fair---that is all right.
ALDERMAN J. MACDONAGH:
Mr. Milroy, in the beginning of his speech, said he was going to take off the
gloves. Nobody objected to him for that, I am sure, but what the great majority
of the House objects to his having done is hitting below the belt. The question
at issue before the House is not document No. 2, but the question of Dominion
Home Rule versus an Irish Republic [`Question'].
MR. GRIFFITH:
Produce Document No. 2. Let the Irish people see that document.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I will produce it when this question, which is the only one before the House,
the question of ratification or non-ratification, is finished.
THE SPEAKER:
We must have order.
ALDERMAN MACDONAGH:
I am afraid that those who are going to ratify the Treaty are losing their
tempers, and from what I gather they must know the Treaty is going to be
rejected. I heard one of the Members state that if it were a question of the
Treaty versus an Irish Republic he would vote for an Irish Republic. The
question at issue is the Treaty versus an Irish Republic. [`No!
No!']
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is no document No. 2 before the House.
ALDERMAN MACDONAGH:
Deputy Milroy spoke of Mr. Erskine Childers as a recent convert to
Republicanism because he wrote a book in 1911. Well, I had the pleasure of
listening to Mr. Milroy in Liverpool and Manchester and many English towns, and
throughout Ireland, and be said before the Irish Republic would go down
practically every man, woman and child would die. Does he stand for that now?
MR. MILROY:
I never made such a statement in my life.
ALDERMAN MACDONAGH:
I am afraid he must have forgotten. And we have a more recent convert to
Dominion Home Rule, the Chairman of the Delegation. This is what he wrote in
June, 1917---at least it was in the leading article in Nationality,
headed by Arthur Griffith, and is what he stands for. This is one part of the
text beginning a paragraph. It reads:
` The Home Rule Act, 1914, Exposed' by Mr. Wm. Martin Murphy,
is a clear and trenchant exposure of that fraud upon a people. Mr. Murphy
would settle the Irish question in the same way as the Canadian, South
African, and Australian questions were settled. This assumes that the element
of nationality and the status of nationhood do not enter into the Irish
question. Australia, for instance, possessed no rights except those it derived
from England. England founded it, England fostered it, and England possessed
the undoubted right to rule it. Ireland does not derive from England.
He said that in 1917.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I say it now again.
ALDERMAN MACDONAGH:
reading
`She is not a colony; she has never been a colony. She can claim no colonial
right such as Australia, Canada, and South Africa assert. If she be not a
nation, then she has no more title to independence of English government than
Kent or Middlesex, or Lancashire or Yorkshire. If there be English politicians
who really believe that they can settle the Irish question on colonial or
semi-colonial lines they live in a fool's paradise.'
MR. GRIFFITH:
I stand over every word of that statement. This is a Treaty between two
sovereign nations.
ALDERMAN MACDONAGH:
`The first step to a permanent Irish settlement is the recognition of the
Irish Nation' [cheers]. I am glad the ratifiers are at last coming
around to our point of view. Well, at any rate, we are out in the open now, and
those who are for this Treaty have definitely said they were out to go into the
British Empire. I do not think that Irish Independence and Irish Nationality can
run alongside going into the British Empire. Terence MacSwiney said our country
was full of examples of abandonment of principles by public men who got into
public life to defend these principles. I think that the men who spoke about a
Republic in 1917, and who were responsible for the war that has happened since,
that these men should not now run away from the Irish Republic. Mr. O'Higgins,
the Deputy for Leix, yesterday spoke about his duty to the 6,000 people who
voted against him. Well, I submit he owes also his duty to the 13,000 people who
voted for him. He went up there as an Irish Republican---he did not go there as
a Dominion Home Ruler. I venture to think that if he went there as a Dominion
Home Ruler he would not now be a Member of this House [hear, hear].
There are other groups: the real coalition, those who say this is absolute
freedom, and those who say it is an instalment of freedom. Well, those who say
it is absolute freedom are proud of going into the British Empire with their
heads up.
A DEPUTY:
The Community of Nations.
ALDERMAN MACDONAGH:
Others say with their hands up. Whether it is with their hands or their heads
up, they should know what the British Empire has stood for in the history of the
world. The British Empire has stood for every rotten thing in the history of the
world. The history of the world has shown practically wherever the British
Empire is, there you have cruelty, you have oppression of every description. By
the treaty Ireland will take part of England's public debt as well as England's
oppression of every subject nationality under her sway [`No! No!'].
We are told it is a great Treaty, but we have had very little elucidation from
those in favour of the Treaty as to what is good or what is bad about it. We
heard a lot about the oath of allegiance and the oath of faithfulness. One
Deputy from Galway said that faithfulness meant equality. Well, I think that
faithfulness does not certainly go so far, for in the Catholic Church when you
make an act of Faith in God you do not claim equality with God.
MR. MILROY:
John Bull is not Almighty God.
ALDERMAN MACDONAGH:
You have a body of men saying allegiance is greater than faithfulness, but by
the treaty oath you acknowledge the Crown and go into the Empire. I do not think
Mr. Griffith has made any of his points. Ulster is definitely partitioned from
the rest of Ireland [`No! No!'] There are a good many Irishmen and
a good many Republicans in Ulster, and you are giving them up to their
inveterate enemies.
MR. GRIFFITH:
What about document No. 2?
ALDERMAN MACDONAGH:
I heard Mr. Griffith say a good deal in South Longford about what partition
meant for Ireland. I also heard Mr. Milroy on the same subject. Instead of being
on the Republican platform they ought to have been with Mr. Joseph Devlin in
that respect. Another point in the Treaty, in addition, is you will have to
afford to his Majesty's Imperial Forces `in time of peace such harbour and other
facilities as are indicated in the annex hereto, or such other facilities as may
from time to time be agreed between the British Government and the Government of
the Irish Free State, and in time of war or of strained relations with a foreign
Power, such harbour and other facilities as the British Government may require
for the purpose of such defence as aforesaid'. What does that mean but that
every time England goes to war, or is threatened with war, she may take over all
the resources of this country. Are you prepared to stand that? If you are not,
then you must keep an army of 40,000 men in the country that you are after
hearing such a lot about in the past few days. If you are going to have an army
of 40,000 men you will have to pay for them. Compared with the number of big
material advantages there are drawbacks, because if you have a standing army of
40,000 men you are going to pay at least twelve millions a year for that army.
With regard to this Treaty, there is one thing not made clear, that is, that the
country was said to be stampeded into the acceptance of this Treaty. Before
President de Valera received the particulars of this Treaty, it appeared in the
London evening papers. I do not think that was a fair proceeding on the part of
the Publicity Department or whoever was responsible for it. We are told we are
going to lose the ear of the world if we turn down this Treaty. Certainly the
ear of the world is here now, and we hope it will listen to the turning down of
the Treaty, because it will hear one thing, that is, that this small nation
which has stood for principle for the last four or five years, and has won the
admiration of the whole world---it will realise that this small nation still
stands for principle and not for expediency. We are told we should be practical
men. In the common view John Redmond was a practical man and Patrick Pearse was
a visionary. We all know now who was the practical man and who was the
visionary. A good many precedents in Irish history can be remembered in
connection with this. There are some who are going to vote for this Treaty who
say they will never take the oath of allegiance. That reminds me of the
sixty-three men who would not vote for the Union but gave up their seats and let
other people vote for the Union.
MR. MACCARTHY:
On a point of order, can a Deputy refer to remarks used in a Private Session?
ALDERMAN MACDONAGH:
I am not referring to anything said at the Private Session. Sixty- three men
would not vote against the Union but gave up their seats so that others might
vote for the Union. If the men are honest who vote for the Treaty the very least
they can do is to take the oath of allegiance which is the natural result of
that Treaty.
I will not insist on the matter any longer. I will give you one quotation from
Pádraig Pearse who asked Joseph Devlin one thing. He asked him this: `Will you
be loyal to the English Crown under the new Parliament in Dublin? I do not think
you will. Reflect on it'. I want to ask those who vote for the Treaty whether
they are going to be loyal to the English Crown or whether they are not. That is
a question those who will vote for the Treaty will want to answer.
MR. SEAMUS O'DWYER:
Were it not for the duty which I feel of having to convey to the public as
well as the Members of this Dáil precisely what I propose to do and very shortly
why I propose to do it, I would not trouble the House or Dáil at all. I have
nothing new to add to the debates we have been attending here for the past six
days. No new light has been shed on this problem during all that time. I
personally was bothered the moment I saw this document about one thing in it;
that one thing was the oath. The oath in this document, the oath of the Irish
Republic, had been before you for a long time before we saw the document. I want
to be perfectly honest with the House and with the Minister for Defence. I am
one of those who realised at the very first Session I attended at this Dáil,
that realised at that Session for the first time that an isolated Republic was
not achievable by us now. I listened carefully, I discussed carefully with
Members of the Dáil this question. I took my final lesson from the President
himself. The President told us that he understood his oath to mean to be the
oath to the Irish people. I have searched that out, and I have satisfied myself
absolutely that this is an oath I can take, that it is an oath I will keep. I
have satisfied myself further that nothing which we say, nothing we can do, will
alter one iota the fact that the destiny of the Irish people is to be free, and
that they will realise that destiny, and I want to say right now I am going to
vote for the Treaty and support the Delegation in their efforts to carry it,
because I believe it leads direct in a straight line to the realisation of
absolute freedom, of Irish independence. I have listened here. I tried to listen
carefully to the statements made here, and I have not the slightest hesitation
in saying that the Government of this country which the Minister of Defence
warned us last night is still in existence, has treated me as a Member of this
Dáil, not me personally, but I feel keenly that the ordinary private Members of
this Dáil are not treated by the Government of the country as they ought to be.
I think that particularly in reference to this document but I am not going to
raise the question. I feel particularly with reference to this document that
although the question was long considered, nothing has been said by the leaders.
My feeling is that this DáiI was done a distinct injustice not by the
preparation of the document, but by its withdrawal. Now as to the Treaty itself,
I am going to vote for this Treaty because I believe it is leading straight to
the ultimate realisation of freedom, which is in the heart of every Irishman. I
am going to vote for it because it contains the real substance of freedom. We
have got under this Treaty a status in the League of Nations. Ireland will take
her place in the League of Nations, and it depends on our energy, it depends on
our ability, on our courage, what sort of place in that League of Nations we are
going to take. Ireland will take her place in an impartial League of Nations---a
Community of Nations, a Commonwealth of Nations known as the British Empire. She
is taking that place. I had made up my own mind before coming here subject to
what I might hear here. I made up my mind to say something about what that
means. Later on Ireland is going in not with Great Britain wholly, but entering
into a community of nations which is comprised---95 per cent of them---that
proportion, of course, is wrong; at all events five or six of them are young
nations, not old empires brought up and living on the greed of Empire, but that
commonwealth will be composed of nations now young, vigorous nations rapidly
becoming populous, rapidly becoming wealthy, rapidly becoming important in every
single department of the world's affairs, and these nations have demonstrated
that where their national interests are concerned nothing counts for them but
their right to develop. You ask Lord Milner; he will tell you they are
developing into full free nations in the world of free nations. It gives us a
thing which we hope sincerely that this country will produce the men able to
deal with. It gives us the power to get at the cancer that is eating into the
heart and soul of the Irish nation. We do not realise here in this Dáil the
horrible cancer that eats into the body politic of Ireland. The Minister of
Finance told us yesterday of the little oases of the British Empire that are
being established all over the country. I know; I am a trader, a very humble
trader too. I know it more significantly than a number of people seem to realise.
When a foreign firm comes to Dublin you can see the people who come in with
them. I think this Dáil does not realise that at this moment the economic
structure of Ireland is in the hands of the enemies of Ireland, and that we
under this Treaty have got it in our power, if we have the brains, and the
ability, and the energy to use it, to put these people where they will be
safest, and that is outside Ireland. We know that England officially has
captured, or almost captured, the entire coastal marine in this country. I
wonder do we know what it is for? Now the capture of this coastal marine is for
nothing else but this, that the produce of Ireland should be brought direct to
England in English bottoms and transferred to other English bottoms to go across
the world and to wipe out here the slightest chance---if they can do it---of our
developing the trade in Irish bottoms, to wipe out not alone our coastal trade,
but to grip the sources of supply and capture Irish manufactures. I don't want
the Dáil to imagine that I feel myself competent to deal with this question, but
I am in agreement with the Minister of Finance that if we have got enough
courage and ability to grasp this instrument it will be a mighty weapon in our
hands yet. We have got under this Treaty the power of control absolutely from
the beginning of the education of our people. This is an enormous power if
properly used. We know what an enormous influence the English system of
education has been both in the primary and secondary schools; aye, and in the
university schools too. We have the power under this Treaty to bring back the
Gaelic tradition and plant it in the hearts of our young people. They will,
under a very different set of circumstances, be quick at gathering together the
strands of that civilisation. The national spirit was never so strong as it is
now. The people have seen the marvellous work of the last five years, and they
know the men that did that work are no unreal heroes. That power, too, is of
enormous value. The army is a guarantee to us that the constitutional usage
contemplated under that Treaty shall be constitutional usage as interpreted by
us and not as interpreted by the British Government. I know a great deal has
been made of the fact that Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand are
anything from 3,000 to 9,000 miles away, but there is a thing here which is of
more value than that, and that is that we are a composite nation with a national
tradition, and we know how to get that national tradition interpreted in our own
institutions, and that it depends on ourselves, as Deputy Hogan said, if we have
the courage and the energy to take what is offered to us. Now I am not going to
delay the Dáil any longer. What I have said very largely is a duty I owe to my
constituents. I want to let them know what stand I take, and I want them to tell
me if they disagree with it. I know distinguished citizens in the district which
I have the honour to represent who are against the ratification of this Treaty.
They are people whom I respect very deeply, not a mere personal respect at all,
but a respect that is due to them for the work they have done. I know too that
the majority of the people of Co. Dublin are as good Irish people as there are
in the length and breadth of Ireland. I know that the National tradition and the
will to be free is as strong in the constituency I represent as it is in any
part of Ireland, and I know that they have made up their minds in an
overwhelming majority that this Treaty does not mean the absolute fulfilment of
their national ideal, but that it may be the means to help them to realise all
their national ideals. For that reason I have no hesitation at all in lending
what little aid I can to the Dáil and to the country to get this Treaty ratified
[applause].
DR. MACCARTAN:
It appears to me, since the opening of the Session, there has been a
deliberate attempt to shirk responsibility for the way we find ourselves to-day.
The people elected us to direct the destinies of Ireland at this period and we
elected a Cabinet. I submit it was their duty in all conditions, in all
circumstances, to lead us, the rank and file, in the best possible way. I submit
that they have failed one and all---the Minister of Defence and others. They are
divided; we are, therefore, divided. I submit it is a mock division. They all
went into full Imperialism---British Imperialism. They were afraid to call it
the British Empire, they called it a Commonwealth of Nations. Most of the people
know what Empire and Imperialism mean to the people of Ireland. When we sent
representatives to London to see how Irish National aspirations could be
associated with the British Commonwealth of Nations, the Minister of Defence
went into it with the others, and I submit the whole Cabinet were equally
responsible for the position in which we find ourselves to-day. The Republic of
Ireland has been betrayed, if not sold; they know well it was not betrayed in
London; it was betrayed here in Dublin at the last Session when the pistol of
Unity was held at the head of every Member of the Dáil. Some of them said they
were not doctrinaire Republicans; if they are not doctrinaire Republicans, they
must be either Monarchists or Bolshevists. They can choose which they wish to
be. If we do swear faith and allegiance to the King of England, there is no King
of Ireland to be faithful to. As a Republican I would be in opposition if the
Ministry were to choose an O'Neill from Tyrone or an O'Donnell from Spain and
make him King. I submit kings are out of date. I am opposed to any King, either
English or Irish, as I am opposed to Imperialism in Egypt, in Korea, or in San
Domingo. When we went out for association, when we sent delegates to see how
Ireland could be associated with the British Empire we did it with our eyes
open. See how we can assist in oppressing the people of Egypt and the people of
India, and other weak peoples oppressed at the present day by the British
Empire. At the present moment there is a quibble, and nothing but a quibble,
between the two elements in the Cabinet, and if they had the decency they would
have resigned before they brought us into this position. An attempt has been
made to place the responsibility on the Delegation that went to London. I submit
that every member of the Cabinet is equally responsible for the Treaty that they
signed in London. [`No! No!'] When I am through you can answer me.
What are the objectionable features of the Treaty? That the Republic was
betrayed. It was betrayed when it was publicly stated we were not doctrinaire
Republicans. Another objectionable feature is Partition. Partition was agreed to
when it was said we were willing to give Ulster the same powers, or more powers,
than she had under the act of 1920. when that was said Ulster was betrayed. The
Nationalists of Ulster were betrayed before the delegates ever went to London,
and the Cabinet, one and all, are responsible. What are the other objectionable
features in it? The two Gibraltars in the South of Ireland and the two in the
North. I submit that these positions were given away when it was stated publicly
we were willing to give England guarantees regarding the security of England and
the British Empire, that we were willing to enter into a Monroe Doctrine for the
British Isles. I am hitting from the shoulder I believe the rank and file have
kept silent too long [hear, hear]. Something has been said about
the men who died. I knew many of them. One I knew intimately, and I knew what he
died for. I knew what I stood for; I knew what he suffered imprisonment for, and
I knew that he was the noblest of them all---Tom Clarke [applause].
I know, and I am sure his wife will bear me out, he did not die for this Treaty,
nor did he die for document No. 2, nor for any association, external or
internal, with the British Empire. We are afraid, it seems to me, to face the
situation as it is. We prefer to nurse our wounded pride rather than as
statesmen to face the situation that really exists, the situation that confronts
us to-day. Some of us feel bitter about it. the Republic of which President de
Valera was President is dead [`No! No!'] You can contradict me
when you rise to speak. I submit it is dead, and that the men who signed the
document opposite Englishmen wrote its epitaph in London. It is dead naturally
because it depended on the unity of the Irish people. It depended on the unity
of the Cabinet. It depended on the unity of this Dáil. Are we united to-day as a
Cabinet, united as a Dáil? United? Can you go forth after the decision is taken
and say the people of Ireland are united? Can you even say the Irish Republican
Army is united? You may say it is. I have my doubts. I think any thinking man
has his doubts. What will many of them say? They will say `What is good enough
for Mick Collins is good enough for me'. Personally I have more respect for
Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith than for the quibblers here. Internationally
the Republic is dead. We were looking for recognition of the Republic in foreign
countries. Michael Collins said we were not recognised in the United States.
That is true. The United States thought we were in the same position as they
were before the Treaty was signed and they were not immediately recognised when
they sent delegates to France seeking recognition by the statesmen of France;
they were confronted by the fears that England would not give the United States
all that the Continental Congress originally asked, and France was afraid to
extend recognition. In like manner, I submit, the Government of the United
States were equally afraid we would make the compromise we have at the present
time. I submit you would not have recognition for some time. They did not
recognise the South American Republics, even though it was in the interests of
the United States, until the question was debated year after year in the
Congress of the United States. That is what has taken place. You cannot go to
the Secretary of State of any foreign Government and ask him to recognise the
Republic of Ireland, because I submit it is dead. It would take five years'
fighting at the very least on the part of the Irish Republican Army, with all
their gallantry, to get back to the position we were in two or three months ago.
Therefore, I submit, as a political factor the Republic is dead. In fact
internationally you can all see that the example of the members of the I.R.A. is
being followed, and even their policy adopted in India and Egypt. Recently Egypt
rejected proposals which were regarded as compromising. I accept responsibility
with the men who signed the Treaty in London because I did not protest. I accept
it with the whole Cabinet because I remained silent. I take my share of the
responsibility. We were an inspiration to the patriots of India and the patriots
of Egypt. To-day we give heart to the compromisers in India and Egypt as well as
the compromisers in Ireland. I say, therefore, the Republic of Ireland is dead.
That is the issue. We had a bird in the hand and a bird in the bush. Let those
of you who can conscientiously do as Robert Barton has done boldly---be false to
your oath. Let you vote for a bird in the hand. I tell you that the bird in the
bush that we have seen is not worth going after, thorny though the bush may be.
I feel myself in the position of a man landed on an island without any means of
escape, who was asked to vote if he will remain or vote if he would leave it.
You have no means of leaving, there is no escape from the Treaty that has been
signed, because, as I said, you have not a united people, you have not a united
Dáil---I question if you have a united Army. Internationally the Republic is no
longer a factor in politics. Personally I see no way out. I submit it was the
duty of the Cabinet to submit to us a policy, even though they were in a
difficult position. They have failed; they have failed miserably, and instead
they nurse their wounded pride. They hope to save their faces by putting the
issue to the country, suggesting that there was a constitutional way out, some
of them, that there was a constitutional way of saving their faces before the
public and the world---a constitutional way of getting away from the oath of
allegiance to the Republic, but there is no constitutional way of getting back
to the position we were in two months ago. If there is, I for one cannot see it.
I have been anxious to see it, anxious to get somebody who sees it to put it
before me. So far I have met no one to put it before me. I see nothing for us
then. I see no glimmer of hope. We are presented with a fait accompli and
asked to endorse it. I as a Republican will not endorse it, but I will not vote
for chaos. Then I will not vote against it. To vote for it I would be violating
my oath which I took to the Republic, that I took to the Irish Republican
Brotherhood. I never intend violating these oaths. I took these oaths seriously
and I mean to keep them as far as I can. I believe just the same rejection means
war. I believe every man who votes for it should be prepared for war. But you
are going into war under different conditions to what we had when we had a
united Cabinet, a united Dáil, and a united people. England's blunders, gigantic
blunders, may again save us, it is not any statesmanship we have seen here.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
On a point of order, before we proceed further. I don't wish to take any
grave exception to what the last speaker has said, but I think it would be
advisable on the part of speakers not to use the word quibble where President de
Valera is concerned.
THE SPEAKER:
It is not a point of order.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I will appeal, then, to the Members.
THE SPEAKER:
If you have no point of order you must sit down.
MR. SEAN HAYES:
Both at the Private Session and the public Session I listened to many
eloquent addresses on this grave matter before the House. I do not feel myself
competent to go into details of the merits or demerits of this Treaty, but it
did occur to me that we are getting much of what the Irish people had been
looking for. We get control of our own finances; we get control of education,
which I regard as a most essential thing we should have; we secure that the
British forces evacuate this country, and we have the right to raise and
maintain our own Army. These provisions lead me to the opinion that I should
vote for that Treaty because I see no alternative but war. And I do not think
for a moment that the British Government would hesitate to make war on this
country if we reject that Treaty. It is well known in Ireland, and outside
Ireland, that the Irish Army fought with great bravery. It is also well known
that our civil population gave all the support that they could have given to
that Army and we fought with the moral authority and moral support of the world
behind us, not that I attach great importance to that moral support. When we
were looking for recognition of our Republic, that moral support was not
sufficient to get it for us. That is the test that I apply to it. If we are to
look at the question before us, and apply the logic of pure justice, I should
vote against that Treaty, but I recognise, and we must all recognise, that the
world is not yet ruled by the logic of pure justice. I have instead to apply the
logic of common sense to what I believe the Irish people want at the present
time. When we agreed to a truce with the British Government, we created in the
minds of the people an idea that we were going to make a bargain with the
British Government, and we cannot get away from it. I believe, and in this
matter I speak particularly for the district which I represent, that is the
constituency of West Cork; I speak for these people, perhaps about 17,000, and I
am prepared to say that the majority of these people would accept this Treaty,
and, whatever I may think personally of it, I feel that it is my duty to give
expression to their views, so far as I can [hear, hear] because I
hold that if I were to do otherwise, I would be acting against the principle of
government by the consent of the governed. That is a principle which we have
always held before us, and I feel it is my duty to act upon it now, and I think
that in casting my vote for the acceptance of the Treaty I am expressing the
people's will as I know it. Now, the dead have been referred to, and I do not
want to refer to them further than to say that I agree with those speakers who
say that we owe a duty to the dead, but I maintain that if we owe a duty to the
dead we also owe a duty to the living, and I, for one, cannot see how I could
cast a vote that would expose the Irish people to the risk of war. If anybody
tells us, or tells me, that the British Government will not make war upon this
country again, then that is a matter I can consider. I think the Irish people
should be told what the alternatives are in this matter. If we go to war, if we
expose the people of the country to the risk of war, then the Irish people
should be told we reject this Treaty because we want a Republic. Let the issue
be clear and definite, and then we know where we stand. I will say nothing
further than to throw out a suggestion. I do not know what it is worth. It may
not be well received, but, seeing that there is this division of opinion in the
Cabinet as well as in the Dáil, I throw out the suggestion that if this great
issue was placed before the people in, say, two constituencies in Ireland, and
have the views of the people there upon it, and if you agree to accept their
decision, it might save us a lot of trouble. I suggest the two constituencies of
East Clare and South Cork [applause].
A DEPUTY:
A way out.
MR. COLIVET:
Could the House get any idea of when a vote will be taken? I do not think we
want to sit here listening to speeches. I think we should have some idea of when
a vote will be taken.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Those who wish to speak further should give in a list of their names.
MR. SEAN T. O'CEALLAIGH:
I have a list of twenty speakers already.
MR. GRIFFITH:
It should not be past Thursday.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think so. I think we should have it by all means on Thursday.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I suggest we should agree on the adjournment; on the time when the closure
will be.
MISS MACSWINEY:
There should be no closure on a matter like this.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Excuse me, I was only making the suggestion that if we cannot agree to a
closure at about mid-day on Thursday, then we should, if necessary, adjourn over
Christmas. The point is that if we are to have twenty, thirty or fifty Members
speaking they are entitled to speak; then I was simply making the suggestion to
facilitate the Dáil. That is why I said that if we cannot fix one o'clock on
Thursday, or one o'clock on Friday, let us agree to have an adjournment for a
definite period.
ALDERMAN DE ROISTE:
In the meantime the Cabinet will continue to rule the country [applause].
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
I second the motion.
MISS MACSWINEY:
I think since the matter concerns the country so vitally, and since the
Members who will speak here, and who will vote here, will stand before posterity
for the part they take, that it would not be right that a single one, if they so
desire, should not record his opinion.
MR. M. COLLINS:
There is no such suggestion. To-morrow evening to adjourn until after
Christmas would be the wisest plan.
The House adjourned until eleven o'clock next morning.
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION Wednesday, December 21st, 1921
THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) took the chair at 11.5 a.m. and called
on Mr. Gavan Duffy.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I rise to stand over my signature to the Treaty
and to recommend it to you in pursuance of the pledge I gave. But in giving that
pledge I did not pledge myself to conceal from you nor from the people of
Ireland the circumstances under which that pledge was extorted from me. Let me
make it clear that I am not here to make any apology for the action I took,
believing then that it was right, and believing now it was right, but I am here
to give the Irish people the explanation to which they are entitled, and I think
it is necessary that the circumstances should be driven home and impressed upon
the minds of the Irish people, even at the risk of reiterating a good deal that
Deputy Barton has said, for two main reasons, one in order that the historic
record of this transaction might be clear beyond all possible doubt, and two in
order to impress upon you the solemn warning that it gives us. I wish it to be
understood that I speak absolutely for myself, without desiring to commit any
other member of the Delegation. I am going to recommend this Treaty to you very
reluctantly, but very sincerely, because I see no alternative. I have no
sympathy with those who acclaim this partial composition as if it was payment in
full, with compound interest; nor have I any sympathy with those who would treat
this agreement as if it were utterly valueless. Indeed at the risk of being
accused of having a slave mind, I cannot help enjoying such a statement as that
which I find in the Morning Post---the best friend that Ireland
ever had in England---of yesterday. It begins its leading article: `Like humble
suppliants on the doorstep waiting for an answer to their plea for charity, the
Government and people of this once proud and powerful country are now hanging
expectant on the discussions of an illegal assembly, self-styled Dáil Eireann,
to know whether or not that body will graciously condescend to accept their
submission'. I think it is difficult for any of us to look at this matter
perfectly fairly, because when you feel jubilant your feelings are apt to run
away with you. I tried to look at it fairly, and it must be realised that the
Irish people have an achievement to their credit in this respect at least, that
this Treaty gives them what they have not had for hundreds of years; it gives
them power, it puts power of control, power of Government, military power in the
hands of our people and our Government. And the answer to those who assert that
that power will be filched from us by dishonest Englishmen across the water, is
that that will depend upon us, that we shall be in a far better position to
resist aggression and to maintain and increase that power than ever we were
before. The vital defect of this Treaty is that it inflicts a grievous wound
upon the dignity of this nation by thrusting the King of England upon us,
thrusting an alien King upon us, with his alien Governor, and I do not want to
minimise for a moment the evil of that portion of the Treaty, On the other hand,
I do not like to hear people whose word has weight overstating their case and
asking you to believe such things as that the Irish Army will be governed by his
Majesty's officers, a statement that seems to me to be just as true as if you
were to say that the Irish Flag will be the Union Jack, or that because the
Canadian "bucks" bear on their face Georgis Rex, Defender of the Faith
that therefore we shall have coins of the same description. The argument upon
which such suggestions as that are founded is an argument which would justify
the assumption that the Union Jack will be the flag of this country, and it is
not fair to attack the Treaty on such grounds as that. It will be the duty of
those who frame the Constitution to frame it in accordance with the wishes of
the Irish people so far as the Treaty allows them; it will be their duty,
therefore, to relegate the King of England to the exterior darkness as far as
they can, and they can to a very considerable extent. It has not been
sufficiently affirmed that the Constitution is left to us subject to the Treaty.
I admit that his Majesty is not written all over the Treaty. The first clause
deals with our status in the community of nations known as the British Empire,
the second with our relations with Great Britain. All our internal affairs so
far as the Constitution is concerned are left to our fashioning and any
Government worthy of the name will be able to place that foreign King at a very
considerable distance from the Irish people. Now I am trying to be fair about
the matter. That does not take away the objection to the Treaty. You are still
left with the fact that his Majesty's Minister will be here; you are still left
with the fact that the Irish people are to pledge themselves to a gentleman who
necessarily symbolises in himself the just anger and the just resentment of this
people for 750 years. Therefore it was that when this Treaty was first presented
to me as a proposal for peace with power on the one hand, but national dignity
the purchase price on the other, I rejected it, for I could not forget that we
in London had done our best in our counter proposals to maintain Irish
independence in connection with the association that we were offering. I could
not forget that this nation has won the admiration of the world by putting up
the noblest and most heroic national fight of all history and that it is
unconquered still (applause). I did not forget these things, and yet I signed. I
will tell you why. On the 4th of December a sub-conference was held between the
two sides at which Lloyd George broke with us on the Empire and broke
definitely, subject to confirmation by his Cabinet the next morning. It might
have been, or it might not have been, bluff. At all events contact was renewed
and the next day a further sub-conference was held, attended by Messrs. Arthur
Griffith, Michael Collins and Robert Barton, and, after four-and-a-half hours of
discussion, our delegates returned to us to inform us that four times they had
all but broken and that the fate of Ireland must be decided that night. Lloyd
George had issued to them an ultimatum to this effect: `It must now be peace or
war. My messenger goes to-night to Belfast. I have here two answers, one
enclosing the Treaty, the other declaring a rupture, and, if it be a rupture,
you shall have immediate war, and the only way to avert that immediate war is to
bring me the undertaking to sign of every one of the plenipotentiaries, with a
further undertaking to recommend the Treaty to Dáil Eireann and to bring me that
by 10 o'clock. Take your choice'. I shall not forget the anguish of that night,
torn as one was between conflicting duties. Again, this ultimatum might have
been bluff, but every one of those who had heard the British Prime Minister
believed beyond all reasonable doubt that this time he was not play-acting, and
that he meant what he said. It is, I think, worth while recording that the
semi-official organ of Mr. Lloyd George---the Daily Chronicle
confirmed that attitude. The next day it stated quite openly in the most
shameless manner:--- `Before the delegates separated for dinner the Prime
Minister made his final appeal. He made it clear that the draft before them was
the last concession which any British Government could make. The issue now was
the grim choice between acceptance and immediate war'
I wonder do you realise the monstrous iniquity. An ingenious attempt has been
made on behalf of the British Government to refute what Deputy Barton told you
the other day in what is called a semi- official denial issued through the Free
Association. I make no apology for reading it, for the matter is of importance.
They say:---
The statement by Mr. Robert Barton, one of the Irish Peace Treaty
signatories, that the agreement was signed under duress, and that Mr. Lloyd
George threatened war in the event of a refusal occasioned no undue
surprise in authoritative quarters in London to-day. It was pointed out that
the Irish Envoys, who, it must be remembered, were Plenipotentiaries, had
negotiated during the preceding weeks with full knowledge of the alternative
in the event of a final rejection of the terms.
`They accepted the proposals under duress of circumstances or duress of
their own minds and not because of any eleventh hour declaration on the part
of the Prime Minister', declared an authority this (Tuesday) evening. `In so
far as it was well known that the alternative to acceptance was war, there is
an element of truth in the statement'.
The complaint is not that the alternative to signing a Treaty was war; the
complaint is that the alternative to our signing that particular Treaty was
immediate war; that we who were sent to London as the apostles of peace---the
qualified apostles of peace---were suddenly to be transformed into the
unqualified arbiters of war; that we had to make this choice within three hours
and to make it without any reference to our Cabinet, to our Parliament or to our
people. And that monstrous iniquity was perpetrated by the man who had invited
us under his roof in order, moryah, to make a friendly settlement. So that the
position was this, that if we, every one of us, did not sign and undertake to
recommend, fresh hordes of savages would be let loose upon this country to
trample and torture and terrify it, and whether the Cabinet, Dáil Eireann, or
the people of Ireland willed war or not, the iron heel would come down upon
their heads with all the force which a last desperate effort at terrorism could
impart to it. This is the complaint. We found ourselves faced with these
alternatives, either to save the national dignity by unyielding principle, or to
save the lives of the people by yielding to force majeure, and that is
why I stand where I do. We lost the Republic of Ireland in order to save the
people of Ireland. I do not wish to sit down without emphasising the warning
that one cannot but take away from that transaction. We cannot look without
apprehension to the true designs of these people in the working out of the
Treaty, for we cannot have confidence in men who make the bludgeon the implement
of their goodwill. If they had been statesmen they would have recognised and
proclaimed that the tie of blood which truly unites the British Dominions to
England is no tie between Ireland and England no more than between the
Englishman and the Boer, the Englishman and the Egyptian, the Englishman and the
Indian, or the Englishman and the French Canadian. They would have realised that
the tie of blood is a bond of steel and that such a bond can stand any strain.
The truth is they were afraid; they knew well how much to give, but they were
afraid to make full atonement and sought to justify themselves by professing to
believe that they did make full atonement. If they had kept their King out of
Ireland an honest settlement would have been easy. Instead of that they have
chosen to give us once more grave reasons to doubt them by showing us over again
that for all their canticles of peace and goodwill and atonement the British
Bible is still the cover for a British gun. That is what they call statesmanship
across the water; that is the state craft before which the world bows low; that
is the state craft which throughout the history of the British Empire has spread
mistrust, enmity and war. There is another statesman, and he was heard at
Manchester a week ago, when one of the greatest English statesmen, Lord Grey,
proclaimed that no peace with Ireland was any use unless it was a peace made
upon equal terms. I subscribe to that, and it is well for the British people to
know that they can have peace, solid peace, lasting peace with this country on
the day that peace is made between our Government and theirs on equal terms, and
not before. I do not love this Treaty now any more than I loved it when I signed
it, but I do not think that that is an adequate answer, that it is an adequate
motive for rejection to point out that some of us signed the Treaty under
duress, nor to say that this Treaty will not lead to permanent peace. It is
necessary before you reject the Treaty to go further than that and to produce to
the people of Ireland a rational alternative [hear, hear]. My
heart is with those who are against the Treaty, but my reason is against them,
because I can see no rational alternative. You may reject the Treaty and gamble,
for it is a gamble, upon what will happen next. You may have a plebiscite in
this country, which no serious man can wish to have, because after what you have
seen here it is obvious that it will rend the country from one end to the other,
and leave memories of bitterness and acrimony that will last a generation. You
may gamble on the prospects of a renewal of that horrible war, which I for one
have only seen from afar, but which I know those who have so nobly withstood do
not wish to see begun again without a clear prospect of getting further than
they are to- day. We are told that this is a surrender of principle. If that be
so, we must be asked to believe that every one of those who have gone before us
in previous fights, and who in the end have had to lay down their arms or
surrender in order to avert a greater evil to the people, have likewise been
guilty of a breach of principle. I do not think an argument of that kind will
get you much further. No! The solid principle, the solid basis upon which every
honest man ought to make up his mind on this issue, may be summed up in the
principle that we all claimed when it was first enunciated by the President, the
principle of government by the consent of the governed. I say that no serious
person here, whatever his feelings, knowing as he must what the people of this
country think of the matter, will be doing his duty if, under these
circumstances, he refuses to ratify the Treaty. Ratify it with the most
dignified protest you can, ratify because you cannot do otherwise, but ratify it
in the interests of the people you must.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I ask leave to make a personal explanation regarding a very serious
allegation that has been made by this paper, the Freeman's Journal,
this morning in respect to a statement I am supposed to have made last night.
The Freeman's Journal says: `Mr. J. J. Walsh said, arising out of a
speech made by the last member, he felt bound to remark that all those speakers
addressing Mr. de Valera should not use the word President in future'.
MR. STACK:
Just like the Freeman.
MR. COLLINS:
It is in all the papers. Somebody must be responsible for it.
MR. STACK:
The Freeman never said President yet to him.
MR. NICHOLLS:
It is in the Independent as well.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Now, sir, every member of this House knows very well that at the conclusion
of Deputy MacCartan's speech last night, I rose and expressed regret at the very
general use of the word quibble in respect of the conduct of the
deliberations and of the negotiations by our President. I did so because of the
very great regard for the honour and integrity and ability of the President and
his great patriotism and sacrifice for his country. Not only would I not use
this remark, but I certainly would take the greatest possible exception to
anyone using it, and I think that is the case with every member of this House. I
suppose I can ask the Press generally in the name of the President and of the
House to make suitable correction and apology for this great error.
THE SPEAKER:
Deputy Walsh's statement is absolutely correct, and the report, which I have
also seen in the Press this morning, is a very grave and serious error, and the
correction of that error is due, I won't say to this assembly, I won't say to
the President, but it is due to the Irish people who have placed us here.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
The remarks of the last speaker have added to the impression we had, and
which I felt deeply, and I think everybody felt it deeply, after the speech of
Mr. Barton, and I won't say entirely, because I should not like to subscribe,
perhaps, to everything that the Minister of Finance said, but I felt impressed
strongly after his speech. I am not here to speak in a sentimental fashion, and
suggest that we all agree here, but I do maintain that after these speeches, and
notwithstanding all these distressing circumstances of this
debate---notwithstanding the wretched outlook in many ways---I maintain that
these speeches show an extreme unity of sentiment and an extraordinary
determination of this assembly as representing what we may call indeed, without
any lack of hope, but in a very real sense, our unhappy people. And to whom is
this unhappiness due? Before I came here I got a telegram asking me to vote for
this Treaty and against this insensate hatred of England. I maintain that those
who would vote against this Treaty are perhaps less filled with that hatred than
those determined to vote for this Treaty. I do not ask anyone to give up what
they think is right because of that, but I can assuredly appeal to anyone's
heart here or in the world who has a spark of generosity, if the treatment meted
out to Ireland in this last disgraceful act of England is not a fitting climax
and one of the worst examples of the abominable treatment of this country by
England. How could anyone not have shame in their hearts? I perhaps have more
responsibility because of those whom I belong to than anyone else. I say if
there was an Englishman present in this chamber, he must feel covered with a
sense of shame after hearing these declarations. Now the Minister for Foreign
Affairs---the Chairman of the Delegation---said rightly that he did not want
pity from other people. Surely the answer to what has been said to me that you
must not be full of insensate hatred of England---surely the answer is what has
been suggested in the speech you have just heard. I was going to say that if it
had not been for some words in the end that is the speech I would like to have.
Surely it was more than true without any sentimentality that there was an
opportunity for a peaceable feeling and a right feeling between these countries.
It is not true to say that there are no principles and nothing to govern man
except abominable self-interest. There are many people here and in Britain
anxious that there should be a basis of agreement between these countries, but,
as you have heard, it is not with the fair and honest intention of bringing
about such a peace that the late action of the British Government was taken with
regard to Ireland. Now I am told you must not expect too much when you are
beaten. What was the word sent to our people? That they were beaten? No, but
that they were to come and discuss this matter with England, and to come to a
decision with them. You have here now an example of the generosity of England.
There was no question whatever of saying `You are a beaten people and will have
to take whatever we like' but it appears that that was in the document, and the
action taken with regard to us. Mr. Duffy has also reminded us that in that
Treaty there are several provisions or restrictions or modifications put in. Put
in by whom? They are put in by the people who, as I think, we learned to say
from the writings of the Minister of Foreign Affairs---who taught us how to look
on these actions of the English Government, and taught us not to be deceived by
the words that were put in by the people who used to keep the Home Rule Bill
before them like a carrot dangling before the nose of a donkey. They were put in
by the people who got up the Convention and pretended to us that it was a
declaration to the Irish people in order to increase the sympathy of America
with England and take away sympathy from Ireland. They were put in by the people
who got up the German Plot and by the people who published a circular lately
that they were going to arm enemies against us, while they were smiling in the
face of these men on whom they have put this terrible responsibility, and these
men, when they put in those restrictions in the name of common sense and in the
name of self-protection, must be suspected, not because we have got any
insensate hate of England, but acting like prudent men on the evidence they have
given us. Not even Mr. Gavan Duffy has said---in fact he has said the
contrary---that the claim made---and I would like to say it with regard to my
present intentions on this Treaty---that the claim made that representatives of
the people are incidentally to lose their own identity as it were---their own
responsibility---and be no longer independent men because their constituents
think something else---is, I think, a claim that cannot be made, and I never
heard it being so absolutely made to any assembly as this on behalf of any
people. The constituents may have succeeded in expressing a certain point of
view in sending representatives here, but once sent here---as the great Irishman
who has been once alluded to here, Edmund Burke, said---surely they must be
respected as independent men, nor would they for an instant take up the position
that a man must find out from day to day what the majority thought about him.
Surely the case of 1914 must remain in our minds, where the people were wrong,
and if I may say so, papers like Nationality were right, and they
told the people `we will not give in to them in what is an hallucination'. It
seems to me that the arguments used for the Treaty are largely these two, that
there were very excellent and honourable men sent there to carry out certain
ideas at least and that we should follow them implicitly. I think that is a
mistake in the same way as I should not follow implicitly the constituents if I
thought they made a mistake. While perhaps I know less personally than most
people here about the men who carried out these negotiations, I should like to
subscribe to everything that has been said about their admirable actions. The
second argument used so strongly is that they have got a great deal by the
Treaty. Now Mr. Gavan Duffy has reminded us how far this Treaty has taken us.
Education. That has appealed to us. Why not? Then, above all, it provides the
possibility of protecting ourselves. That has appealed to us. And then, above
all, the carrying on of this country according to the wishes of the people of
this country has appealed to us. And when you look at these in the Treaty and
hear what has been said by those who support the Treaty, well, I feel carried
away, not only in heart, as Mr. Duffy says, but to a large extent, also in my
head. But it seems to me to be the old story. You might have got rid of the
English Army out of this country in the time of Queen Elizabeth by giving in to
everything she wanted. You might have got rid of them in the time of Owen Roe by
falling in with all the claims made by the English. You might have got rid of
them at any time by giving way to the tyrants. I cannot help feeling that that
is not an argument to use, because of course you could have got rid of the Army
at any time by agreeing to the conditions. Well, frankly, I don't think it is
possible for a person to subscribe to that oath. I don't wonder that men, young
men and brave men, put it aside and say, `I don't care anything about it' but,
believe me, that is a dangerous thing to do, not only for yourself, but also for
your country. Let us be frank about this matter, and don't let us be saying we
have got something if we have not got it. I will say this, that I don't think
that we wasted our time at the Secret Sessions or at the Private Sessions, for I
got more clearly into my mind that to say that you allied yourself with another
people is not the same as to say that you swear allegiance to another people. I
don't think that in any circumstances whatsoever would the French of 1870 have
felt that they could exist as an independent nation if they had said, `I swear
to be faithful to the Federation as such of a commonwealth consisting of France,
Germany, and some other States'. Now there was in the South of Germany not long
ago a Federation of States, and these States were independent States. Austria
was one, Bavaria was one, and Saxony was one. These States were independent
States, and I think you might say, if not in actual words, that they had to
acknowledge the Emperor of Austria as he then was, as the head of the South
German Federation, but it never occurred to anyone in Bavaria that he had to
swear allegiance or fidelity to the Emperor of Austria as the person who was to
play the part of the Governor of Bavaria. I have got quite clearly into my mind
that if I am asked to recognise the head of an association of nations like the
League of Nations, I am not doing the same thing as if I took an oath of
allegiance. The two things seem to me different, and I would say on the other
side in answer to the bitterness of Dr. MacCartan's speech that I don't wonder
he has Republican feelings when he spoke so. But I cannot agree---I cannot call
myself a Republican in that sense. I never was when called on to speak publicly,
for two reasons. For one thing, I felt the sword was hanging over my head, as it
might be now, and, secondly, I felt that if the Irish chose to have a King,
Emperor or Republic, it was not my business, nor did I feel any particular
interest in a Republic as such, and, to quote Burke again, it seems to me that a
Republic could be just as capable of cruelty as the most absolute Monarchy. I
certainly feel strongly that the dilemma in which Ireland is placed by this
Treaty is the climax to the treatment of a weak nation by the strong and the
bully. May I read a letter from Mrs. Terence MacSwiney:
WIESBADEN 9th December, 1921 A Chara Dhil
I have read everything from all nationalities except our own regarding
present affairs, and I have no hesitation in saying that from the purely
practical point of view it would be the greatest possible political mistake we
have ever made (greater even than 1783) if we agreed to the present terms; it
would probably also be the greatest triumph that the enemy has ever had.
I should not have thought myself important enough to have written to you
anything at all if I did not represent one who is greater than any of us. I am
absolutely certain that Terry would have said what I am saying, and would have
refused.
If you think well of it, will you send a message from me in the above terms
to the Dáil? Da gcuirfinn fein e ní bhfaghadh siad e.
I cannot believe it will be taken. Le súil go mbeidh sgeal níos fearr
againn sara fada.
Is mise do chara
MUIRGHEAL, BEAN MHIC SHUIBHNE
Mr. M. COLLINS:
Out of the greatest respect for the dead we have refrained from reading
letters from the relatives of the dead. We have too much respect for the dead.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
May I say that I asked permission from the Speaker to read that letter?
MR. GRIFFITH:
We have not read letters from the women whose sons have been shot, whose
husbands have been killed, supporting us.
PROFESSOR WHELEHAN:
I am sure that this Dáil has listened with the greatest interest to the
speech of Professor Stockley. He told us at the opening of that speech that an
appeal to passion had little to do with the present crisis, and he was right.
But I submit that the major portion of his speech was, as he himself admitted,
not an appeal to the head or to the reason, but to the heart. Like him, all of
us Irishmen have our hearts, and wherever our hearts may be in a crisis like
this when the country is faced with, I submit, the greatest trial that has ever
confronted it, appeals to passion and sentiment are altogether out of place.
There is no use in going back on what was or what has been. We have to deal now
with what is. I submit that the business of this House is to deal with the
situation which confronts it, and I submit that the people who are most
competent to interpret the situation which confronts it are the people whom the
Dáil sent to London, not as Republican doctrinaires but to negotiate association
with Britain in one form or another. These men have come here and have told you
the situation as they say it seemed to them, some of them not liking the Treaty.
The two speeches that weighed most with me are the expression of the sincere
convictions of Mr. Gavan Duffy and Mr. Barton, and they left no doubt as to what
the situation is. It is this Treaty or the plunging of the Irish nation into
war. Professor Stockley say he does not consider himself bound by the opinion of
his constituents. He represents a university. Well, if that is the political
principle on which he stands, it is not the political principle, nor any
principle on which I stand, or will ever stand, and if there are any people in
this House who are standing for principle, I submit to them that since they
agreed, and they did agree with the only terms of reference these delegates were
given going to London---when they agreed they were not Republican doctrinaires,
then I submit they have given away the Republic, and they have got to deliver
the nation from the great dilemma in which it has been placed. We cannot shirk
responsibility---we cannot get rid of our responsibility after allowing these
men to give our Republic away. I am in the position of one whose speech has been
literally delivered by Dr. MacCartan. It is written here, but it is no use to
me. But, in a crisis like this, I will submit that while I agree with what Dr.
MacCartan has said, there is one point in which I totally disagree with him. He
says he is a Republican doctrinaire, and as such that he will not vote for the
Treaty. He says that the alternative to this Treaty is chaos, and that he will
not vote to place the country in a state of chaos. I submit to him as a man of
principle and conscience, that he is bound to vote to deliver the country from
chaos. Professor Stockley does not consider the rights of the people he
represents in the present circumstances. Don't let me do him an injustice---that
is what I understood. I should not wish to do any man an injustice, and I hope I
am not misrepresenting. He does not consider that he is bound to represent the
views of the people in the present circumstances. I submit, sir, that we are
bound to represent the views of the people in the new state of circumstances
which has come about by our own free choice in assenting to the terms of
reference---the only terms which these men got in going to London.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
Would you like me to say anything?
PROFESSOR WHELEHAN:
With pleasure.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
What I meant to say is, I don't think you can change about your own personal
responsibility by casting it on the constituents. May I read something which I
have been handed?
SEVERAL DEPUTIES:
Order, order.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
It is entirely against myself.
PROFESSOR WHELEHAN:
I have no objection to anything Professor Stockley reads, as I do believe he
is an honest man. I believe every member in this House is honest, and I believe
they will do what they feel themselves conscientiously bound to do. I have no
objection to him reading anything. I submit, sir, that a new series of
circumstances have brought about a new situation. The situation now is not a
Republic versus Association with Great Britain, but the question is,
shall this Treaty be approved of, or shall we commit the country to war? I
accept the interpretation of the Treaty or the impression given us by the
delegates in supporting the approval of the Treaty ---and why? In the first
place, Britain has pledged whatever honour remains to her before the world to
evacuate the country. That, sir, we have been fighting for, and I submit that
you have been successful in attaining it, and the Crown Forces, in the words of
a distinguished Irishman, are to scuttle out of Ireland. This Treaty gives us
full fiscal autonomy. It gives us control of the purse; it gives us control of
trade and commerce and industries. This Treaty gives us an equal voice with
other countries in the League of Nations. By this Treaty the Irish people have
the right to frame their own Constitution, and under this Treaty an army under
complete Irish control is given us to defend our Constitution and to uphold,
and, I submit, to defend, our rights. But some will say, `For this you would
give away the soul of the nation'. Now, sir, the soul of the nation has not been
given away at the point of thousands of British bayonets, and with these gone
out of the country, and with the guarantee that the soul of the nation shall be
right, I submit we are not likely to lose it now, for by this Treaty we have
complete control of our education, and education, not oaths of allegiance of one
form of freedom or another, is the great factor in conserving the soul of any
nation.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
What are the bases of it?
A DEPUTY:
Your own language.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear. Education based on dishonour.
PROFESSOR WHELEHAN:
Education based on dishonour, the President says. I have great respect for
the President's opinion, and I had hoped not once to have to allude further to
what I hold to be the terms of reference given to these men.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
To take an oath you don't mean to keep is dishonourable.
PROFESSOR WHELEHAN:
I am not going to keep to the question of the oath.
MR. STACK:
To break an oath that you have taken is dishonourable.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Are our speakers to be continually interrupted from the other side of the
table? We don't interrupt them. Are we to be interrupted?
PROFESSOR WHELEHAN:
I have been challenged about this oath. I will submit the interpretation
given to the oath by a distinguished Member of the House. The oath was approved,
and we were bound in conscience to do whatever we conceived best for the
interest of the Irish people in whatever circumstances might arise. The
interpretation was given in response to what has come to be the famous challenge
of a very respected Member of this Dáil, and there was no dissent, as well as I
can remember, with the interpretation of the oath. I stand by that. Each one is
bound to do---and I have no doubt about the Members of this House, that each
Member will do---what he feels bound by his conscience to do in the present
circumstances. I certainly shall do that. I did hope not to have to emphasise
that question at all, but perhaps it is just as well that I have had to do so.
Now, for this question of principle that we hear so much talk about---the
question of giving away the Republic. I have submitted, sir, that the Republic
was given away when we assented---and I blamed myself for it then---when we
assented that we were not Republican doctrinaires. That was the beginning of
compromise, and it has come now to a question of one degree of compromise or
another. That is where we landed. Now, sir, I have to cut out several things
because of Dr. MacCartan. I have not heard one argument against evacuation or
against the fact that fiscal autonomy is given; not one argument against the
fact that education is under our control; not one argument advanced in this
House against the fact that we have complete control of trade and industry; and
I submit that the appeals against this Treaty have been appeals to the heart and
not to the reason or to the judgment. I submit that, and often I found that my
heart was touched by several personal appeals here, and that I had to urge my
judgment to do what was correct. This Treaty then gives us evacuation, control
of the purse, of trade, industry and education, and an army which I say shall
secure the nation's right to free development, and I hold, sir, that this
nation's right to free development is not determined by that Treaty, but, like
other nations, it shall continue to develop, aye, even against that Treaty,
until, as Canada has the right---it has the right---the right which it holds at
this moment, to declare itself free. The ex-Leader of the British Commons says
that in the process of time Canada has got the right to declare itself
independent of the British, and I hold that our rights under that Treaty are not
less, at any rate, than the rights of Canada, but rather more. We have all these
things, and no one can guarantee that a war will bring us any of these things.
Can the people who urge the rejection of this Treaty guarantee that war will
bring us one of these things? They cannot. What are the facts? I submit that the
facts in the case and the realities of the situation have been submitted to this
House, not by Ministers on either side, but by individual Members of the Dáil.
If we assent, as we all should assent, that government at any time must be by
the consent of the governed, then I submit we are bound to stand for the Treaty.
It is a grand thing, a noble thing, a heroic thing in a crisis to stand by every
principle, but, sir, I submit that it is not for principle our Cabinet had been
standing, but rather between one degree of compromise and another. It is a grand
thing and a heroic thing in a crisis to realise what we can lawfully call upon
our countrymen to do, and in face of great difficulties ask them to do it. It is
a grand thing to stand by principle. We have not stood by it.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
We deny that.
PROFESSOR WHELEHAN:
I submit that in the circumstances, and on the verge of chaos to which this
country is being plunged, men realising their duty will find themselves urged,
at any rate, if not to fight for the Treaty, to vote that the country be
delivered from chaos.
MR. DAVID CEANNT:
I don't know whether I can address you as a Republican, because I have been
listening for the last few days to so many quickchange artists, that I cannot be
sure whether it is in Canada or in Ireland I am standing, but I want to make
sure of my position. This I am sure of, that I am here as a Republican
representative of the people of East Cork, who sent me by their free will and
choice as the representative of the Republic that was established by the people
of Ireland by their own free will and choice, and here I will remain until the
people of Cork by their free will and choice vote that they don't want me any
longer. I have listened to some silly arguments put forward why we should sign
this Treaty. The chief argument seems to be what Commandant So and So did. I
submit a good deal of the time of this House has been wasted by such nonsense. I
suggest that we could easily have put all these arguments into pamphlet form,
but I would not like to be the person who would undertake it. I heard a very
peculiar speech a few evenings ago from the Deputy from Waterford, Dr. White. He
told us solemnly that before England would give up Ireland she would give up
India and Egypt, and she would lose her last man, and spend her last cartridge
before she would evacuate Ireland, while at the same time we are led to believe
that this precious document we have in our hands is going to do so. Now, sir, I
have listened to many Members speaking of representatives here---some of them
sneeringly, too, but I assure you some of them were not sneering at it when we
asked the public to subscribe to Republican Bonds---some were not smiling at it
when we were fighting for it. I am carrying you back because I want the people
of the country to know what we have been doing for the last couple of years. I
will carry you back to the election of 1918. We went before the country then on
the declaration that we were out to establish the Republic that had been
proclaimed by Patrick Pearse and his associates in 1916. He proclaimed a
Republic and appointed his Ministers. We went before the country, and I went
before my constituents in East Cork. It was not the constituency I was selected
for. I was first approached by a deputation from North-East Cork, and they
forced upon me that I should be their candidate, and, after great persuasion, I
gave my consent on these conditions. I told them I would on one condition, that
is, if I was wanted in any other constituency that there was a chance of putting
up a sporting fight I would go there, but that I would have in my place at least
a soldier. I went down to East Cork and went before the people of East Cork and
told them what my views were, that I was a Republican, and I said: `Now is your
time; if you are not satisfied with me, get another'. I went before them in
1918. The majority of the members here present were in jail---some of them at
least. I was not exactly on the run, but they wanted me. I put my views before
these people, and I told them what I was doing for them, and they agreed, at
least, that I was only proclaiming my principles, and I came into this House at
the first session. I was sent here in 1919, when one of the delegates who went
to London, Eamon O'Duggan, read out the following Declaration of Independence
before the Dáil:
Whereas the Irish people is by right a free people: And Whereas for seven
hundred years the Irish people has never ceased to repudiate and has
repeatedly protested in arms against foreign usurpation: And Whereas English
rule in this country is, and always has been, based upon fore and fraud and
maintained by military occupation against the declared will of the people: And
Whereas the Irish Republic was proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday, 1916, by
the Irish Republican Army acting on behalf of the Irish people: And Whereas
the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its complete independence
in order to promote the common weal, to re- establish justice, to provide for
future defence, to insure peace at home and goodwill with all nations, and to
constitute a national polity based upon the people's will with equal right and
equal opportunity for every citizen: And Whereas at the threshold of a new era
in history the Irish electorate has in the General Election of December, 1918,
seized the first occasion to declare by an overwhelming majority its firm
allegiance to the Irish Republic now. Therefore, we, the elected
representatives of the ancient Irish people in National Parliament assembled,
do, in the name of the Irish Nation, ratify the establishment of the Irish
Republic and pledge ourselves and our people to make this declaration
effective by every means at our command. We ordain that the elected
representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on
the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to
which that people will give its allegiance We solemnly declare foreign
government in Ireland to be an invasion of our national right which we will
never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation of our country by the British
Garrison: We claim for our national independence the recognition and support
of every free nation of the world, and we proclaim that independence to be a
condition precedent to international peace hereafter: In the name of the Irish
people we humbly commit our destiny to Almighty God, who gave our fathers the
courage and determination to persevere through long centuries of a ruthless
tyranny, and strong in the justice of the cause which they have handed down to
us, we ask His divine blessing on this, the last stage of the struggle we have
pledged ourselves to carry through to Freedom.
Following that Mr. Barton read a message to the nations. Following that, sir, at
a meeting held in the summer of that year the oath of allegiance was handed to
every Member. A discussion had taken place on it. There were some objections,
but the majority, if not every member, signed that oath. Then we framed our
Constitution, and, following that, we went before the electors. In this present
year, last May, we put the issues clearly before them---that we were a
Republican Government, and we asked them were they going to stand by us, and the
result is what we see here to-day. At a meeting in the Mansion House there were
thousands of people and the Press of the world before us, and each and every
member read the declaration and signed it, and some may have signed it on the
blind side, but I did not. We promised to be true to the Constitution and to the
Republic. I wonder was it all for the benefit of the cinema companies? I saw a
formidable number of cinema operators there. They have the records yet, I am
sure. A few days after that by the free will and vote of every member we elected
as our President President de Valera as legal successor to Patrick Pearse, the
first President of the Republic, and now, sir, after four months we, who elected
him freely, are told that we must turn him down and relegate him to the scrap
heap and make room for some English Lord who will come over, not as President of
the Republic, but as Governor-General from England. Now, sir, I wonder will the
mover of this resolution before the House consider what it cost this country to
bring the Republic into being; consider what it has cost the country to place
the Dáil and every Member from the President down in the proud position we
occupy of being able to make laws for the people who sent us here, and for the
country which we love and respect. Does he know what the people had to witness
through all these times? They had to witness the best blood of the country
poured out so that the Republic might exist; their country devastated; their
towns and villages destroyed. There are hundreds of widows and orphans mourning
for the loss of their fathers and husbands. There are thousands of parents
mourning the loss of their beloved sons. Look at the persecution and tyranny,
and yet we are told here that after all these sacrifices we are going to give up
the Republic. I say no, and I know what the result will be. This Treaty, this
so-called Treaty is dead already, and it only awaits a decent burial because it
is not worthy of anything else. Coming to the Treaty itself, so much has been
said of the Treaty and the clauses of it, that I need not trouble dealing with
it, but I want to make my ground sure. This country is already groaning under
severe taxation, and I have not been told what approximately is the amount we
are going to pay; whether it is going to be a yearly contribution. If so, and if
it is going to be decided by arbitration, who are to be the judges? I know that
England is going to trick us again if we are not going to take care of
ourselves. We are standing on the brink of a precipice, and if we do not take
care we will plunge our country into it. The mover of the resolution told us
that this is going to be a final peace. Another distinguished man, whom
everybody will remember was no friend of Ireland, Lord Birkenhead, declared in
the House of Lords that on the ratification of this Treaty by both Houses of
Parliament in Westminster and Dublin, he will consult the Southern Unionists. I
wish to say I am sorry that we have not some of the Southern Unionists in this
assembly. I say, sir, that every clause of the Treaty wants revision, and not
alone does it want revision, but complete obliteration. Mention was made of
shadows. Yes, sir, there will be shadows haunting the men of this assembly who
will try to filch away the nation's rights. Even shadows of their own selves
will be haunting them. I have done my duty to my country for forty years. I make
no boast of it. Perhaps I was wearing the prison uniform before some of these
men were born, but while I often had to surrender, I never lowered the flag. The
mover of the resolution said that with this Treaty he has brought back a
flag---I suppose the tricolour. Yes, but with an addition, with the Union Jack
in the corner to show the base betrayal. I have done my duty. I will remain in
this assembly, and to this assembly only give allegiance, and no matter what
pretended Government will be in power here, until this assembly is dissolved by
the people of Ireland I will give my best services honestly and faithfully, and
I will give my vote to reject this miserable Treaty.
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
I think it is right at the outset that I should state the circumstances under
which I signed the Treaty. I was not in Downing Street at this fateful
conference you have heard so much about. I was not threatened by Lloyd George.
He did not shake papers in my face. I signed the Treaty in the quiet seclusion
of 22, Hans Place. I signed it deliberately with the fullest consciousness of my
responsibilities to you who sent me there, to the country, to the movement, and
to the dead. I stand over my signature. No argument or criticism that has been
directed against the Treaty has affected my views as to the attitude that I then
took up. I recommend the Treaty to you for your acceptance, and in doing that I
am acting in accordance with the wishes of the people who elected me and sent me
here. It has been suggested that those who were in Downing Street were bluffed;
that they were intimidated; that Michael Collins was threatened and cowed by
Lloyd George shaking a piece of paper in his face. Well, Lloyd George for two
years tried very much more effective means of cowing Michael Collins than that
and he did not succeed. It has also been suggested that two months' residence in
London demoralised us to such an extent that we forgot our duty to the people
who sent us to London, and it has been suggested, and actually stated, that it
was as a result of some influence or pressure of some kind or other that was
brought to bear on us there that we signed the Treaty. Now, there was one
dominating fact in my mind at the time that I signed it, and it was this, that
Britain militarily is stronger than we are. Now, I did not need to go to London
to find that out. I knew it before I went to London as well as I knew it in
London or know it now. I have known it as long as I have been old enough to know
anything. I suppose everybody admits that that is a fact, and we are not giving
away any military secret when we state that. Now, before I proceed to deal with
this vexed question of who compromised and who stood on the rocks, I should like
to say that I shall not indulge in personalities of any kind. I shall confine
myself entirely to facts. There is no monopoly of patriotism on either side of
this House. There are men on both sides here who have faced death together.
There are men who have walked together in times of stress and storm, and there
are men who have trusted their lives to each other in times of danger. It should
be quite easy for us to discuss this momentous issue in a manner consistent with
our own dignity and the honour of our country. That I shall endeavour to do.
What were we sent to London for? Does anyone here seriously suggest that the
Dáil appointed five plenipotentiaries with their staffs and all the rest of it
to go to London to ask the British Government to recognise the Irish Republic.
Did it, or did it not?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Act in association.
MR. DUGGAN:
We either went to London to ask for recognition of the Irish Republic or we
went to compromise. There is no other alternative.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is.
MR. DUGGAN:
I know what is in the President's mind---external association. External
association if it means anything means this, that you go to England and you say,
`If you recognise the Republic, we will enter into some kind of alliance with
you'
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. DUGGAN:
That brings me back to what I said. You sent us to ask recognition of the
Irish Republic or you did not---you did either one or the other. Now the
President, when he gets up and makes one of his impassioned and eloquent
speeches, creates a kind of smoke-screen of words, so that it is almost
impossible to see out of it into the world of fact. Now, I am going to try to
get to the facts. Who was responsible for the compromise? The whole Cabinet and
the whole Dáil and the plenipotentiaries. We were all in the one boat. There is
no use blinking the facts any longer. You, the Members of the House, have seen
the Cabinet minutes. You have seen the alternative oath. You have seen certain
documents which I cannot refer to in public. You have seen document No. 2. Now,
there is nothing like documents. You know who compromised, and so do I, and so
do the public.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
May I interrupt for one moment? If I am in the same boat---let us say I
am---with our friends on the other side, has it anything to do with the question
of whether this is a Treaty this nation ought to accept or not? That is the
question.
MR. DUGGAN:
I am coming to that. We have been more or less put in the dock as
compromisers, and we are entitled to defend ourselves. Now, another charge that
was made against us was this---that we disobeyed our instructions by not coming
back from Downing Street on that Sunday night and submitting the draft Treaty to
the Cabinet before signing it. Now, that is unfair. The Cabinet knew, and we
knew, because we had got a week's notice, that we would have to give a yes or no
answer on a certain day. We came to a Cabinet meeting on a Saturday. We spent a
whole day at it; in fact it was scarcely finished when we had to rush away to
catch the boat back. We put up the proposals that the Cabinet said we should put
up. They were turned down, and had been, two or three times previously. We told
the Cabinet they would be turned down, but we carried out their instructions.
Negotiations were re-opened, and finally on that last Monday night we in London
got two hours to give a yes or no answer. Now, you cannot get from London to
Dublin and back in two hours. We were plenipotentiaries, we were responsible to
you and to the country, not to the Cabinet. If we had given the answer No
that night, and if this country was now in the throes of war, it would be no
answer for us to come back to the country and say, `We had to do it because the
Cabinet told us to come back and do it'. We could not avoid our responsibility
that night, and the responsibility which was ours that night is yours now. We
have had to come back and answer to you and you will have to answer to the
country. We are all equally responsible. There is another point which I don't
think anyone mentioned. If we did not sign that Treaty, it would never have come
before you for discussion, because negotiations had ended, and there was no more
about it. Some people think that when we signed the Treaty we were allocating to
ourselves the right to force it down the throats of the Irish people. We did
nothing of the kind. Our signature is subject to your ratification, and it is
for you to say whether you will ratify it. Our signature has bound you to
nothing. Now some people in their criticisms of the Treaty speak as if we had
brought home a bag full of sample treaties and that they could choose whichever
one they liked. I dislike the Treaty as much as any man or woman here, but that
is not the point. The point is you can either take it or refuse it and take the
consequences, and I have my own ideas of what the consequences are. Now, what
does the Treaty give you? You have been told all the nice things it does not
give you. The Treaty gives you your country. The Treaty rids your country of the
enemies of your country. You get rid of the Army, you get rid of the whole
machinery of Government, you get control of your own money, you make your own
Constitution, and you have complete and absolute control of everything within
the four seas of Ireland. About the flag? Who is to tell us what flag we shall
have? Ourselves. No one else has the right. Who has the right to say what our
Ministers are to be called? Ourselves. No one else has the right. Surely we are
not going to become slaves when we are free?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
That is just it.
MR. DUGGAN:
Who is to say what oath our Army is to take? Ourselves. The Minister of
Defence has told us a lot about the discipline of the Army, but I greatly fear
if the Minister of Defence asks the Army to take the oath of allegiance to the
King he is going to put the discipline of the Army to a very severe test. Just
one point---my friend Mr. Kent referred to the Governor-General. Under the terms
of the document the Governor-General can only be appointed in consultation with
the Irish Ministry. There is a lot of talk about the oath. I know the people are
sick of lawyers, interpretations of the oath. What I suggest is that any plain
ordinary man of average intelligence reading the oath can see there is only one
oath of allegiance and that is to the Free State, and the only other thing in
the oath is that you pledge yourself you will be faithful to the bond you are
entering into, and that you recognise the King as bead of the Commonwealth you
are in.
MR. STACK:
Quote the words.
MR. DUGGAN:
Now, another thing I have heard, and it surprises me to hear it from people,
notwithstanding the extraordinary things we have been able to do under the
leadership of the very men who have been saying these things, notwithstanding
the wonderful things we have been able to do with the enemy in our country, and
in control of the resources of our country and the finances of Government, they
seem to suggest that when you get rid of these things and have absolute control
of your own country, that we are all going to become demoralised slaves. I say
under the terms of that Treaty that if the Irish people cannot achieve their
freedom it is the fault of the Irish people and not of the Treaty. I have more
faith in Ireland than the people who put forward the other point of view. Now
another thing that has been said---and it is a hard thing is, it has been
suggested that those who are in favour of the ratification of the Treaty are in
some way or another betraying the dead who died for Ireland. Now, I am not going
to mention the names of any of the heroic dead who died for Ireland. I do not
think this is a fit place to call down their names, but I will say this, that
before I put my name to that document I went back in my mind over the last six
years. I went back to Richmond Barracks and to Kilmainham. I went back to that
morning in Mountjoy when I saw the hangman who was to hang our young lads there.
I went back in my mind to the conversations that I had with some of those with
whom I had the honour to be associated, whom I knew intimately and well, and
amongst these were some of the bravest and ablest soldiers Ireland has ever
produced. I say that I shall interpret for myself what their views were and
would be if they were here to-day, and that no other man or woman has the right
to interpret them for me. Let no man or woman say that I would betray those whom
I knew and love and revere. As we are talking about the dead, let us look at
that from another angle. Why did England under this Treaty agree to clear out of
our country and hand it over to us? Was it because of the efforts of the
plenipotentiaries in London? Who was it that won that for Ireland, and that
Treaty represents the fruits of the sacrifices of those who have died for
Ireland.
MISS MACSWINEY:
No, it does not.
MR. DUGGAN:
It may not give you everything we would like, or they would like, but it
represents the fruits of their sacrifices. Let us think seriously before we take
it up and throw it back in the faces of the dead, and say it is not good enough
for us. Now, we have had a lot of talk about principles. Every man and every
woman here is perfectly entitled to go out and fight and die for his own or her
own principles, but no man or woman here, or combination of Deputies in this
assembly is entitled to sentencee the Irish nation to death.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Hear, hear.
MR. DUGGAN:
As far as I am concerned, my principles will not force me to deprive the
people of the measure of freedom that Treaty gives them. Neither will they
compel me to force the young men of Ireland out to fight---for what? Not to
drive the British Army out of Ireland, but to force it to stay in Ireland. Let
us keep to the facts. As I said before, the responsibility that rested upon us
that night in London has now devolved upon you. It is a personal responsibility.
We are not here to vote for the President on the one side, or Mr. Griffith or
Mr. Michael Collins on the other. We have to vote in the interests of Ireland.
Each man here has the same responsibility as the President has. If each man and
each woman honestly and conscientiously faces the issue and gives his or her
vote according to their consciences, I am quite satisfied with the result,
whatever it may be. I signed the Treaty, I stand over my signature, and I
recommend it to you for acceptance [applause].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
While we are waiting for another speaker, as this matter has been drawn in so
much at the Private Session on the question of the alternative---I protested
several times, but of course it is no use---it is useful as a red herring. The
specific question that is here before us is the question as to whether we should
or should not ratify the Treaty. It does not matter what I said, I am but one
person here. The terms of the Treaty are in cold print, and it is that we are
discussing. With reference to this oath, it is printed in the morning papers as
the alternative oath to the oath that was there. That oath was a verbal
suggestion by me when we were criticising not this oath, but another oath that
had come up on another occasion. I said that oath as an oath to the King of
England as the head of the Commonwealth was inconsistent with our position. I
verbally tried to use something that you could take. The word Constitution
occurred in both these oaths. In one there was not a vestige of British
authority left in Ireland, and in the other case, this oath of the Treaty is the
oath in which the British King must be recognised as head of the Irish State.
There is a tremendous difference, although the same words are used in both.
MR. P. J. RUTTLEDGE:
I as a private Member of this House have refrained during the grave moments
of discussion from identifying myself with one side or another in Private
Session or Public Session up to the moment. I had two main reasons for
sustaining myself in that attitude, and they were these: The first was that in a
grave issue such as this no Member could take a definite stand on one side or
the other until he had heard every tittle or iota which would help to clear his
mind and decide the stand he would take. And the other was lest I might
contribute one tittle or iota to widen the gulf that I could see was gradually
opening up in this House. Now, before I cast my vote I feel that the duty
devolves on me, a duty I owe to the people I represent, to express here publicly
and plainly my position. I take my stand against that Treaty. I take it not on
sentiment as I am not a sentimentalist, but I take it on principle. I will
always stand on principle to my own conscience. I do not suggest, far be it from
me, that the men on the other side or that there is anyone who would deviate
from principle according to his conscience, but I have satisfied my own
conscience clearly, definitely and positively that the principle that I must
follow, and that I have always consistently followed, is the Irish Republic. I
challenge anyone to say that in the document that is put before the House that
there is not an inconsistency and that there is not a compromise. Now I regret
to say that in this Dáil two attitudes are being taken by what I will for the
moment call the other side. First they have said that it means freedom and
independence, and again it is stated that it contains reservations. If it was
stated in this House that it was a step to freedom I would be with them in that
belief, but to try to convince me as a private Member of this House that this is
either freedom or independence, great as is the respect I have for those with
whom I have worked in the past, I say I do not admit it. Now, in the few words I
desire to contribute to this debate, I will not adopt the attitude which I
regret was adopted last evening by a respected Member of this House. The
attitude he had taken up was this---that it was apparent that perhaps arguments
might not convince the House, but personal attacks might. There was the cold
argument, but to me it appeared an illogical argument---unfortunately I am a
legal man. Cold argument was put up and that based on facts, and the facts stand
and they have not yet been turned down, and that was the argument of Mr. Erskine
Childers. If anyone seeks to turn that argument down, let them do it, not by
personal attacks, but let them meet the facts by argument. Now, one of the
things that strikes me in this Treaty before the House---as I heard it described
last evening in some degree---in an analysis with the Act of Union---I say
comparing it with the Act of Union, there is one ingredient, one characteristic
in this Act that was in the Act of Union, and that is that it was obtained by
force. I do not wish to say or to quote anything but on the facts that have been
set out in this House. We have Deputy Barton's explanation, and what can I or
any man deduce from it but that there was force, the threat of a terrible and
immediate war. For 120 years we have been discussing and criticising that the
act of Union was obtained by fraud and corruption. This was not obtained by
fraud and corruption, but it is absolutely conclusive on the evidence that it
was obtained by force. I must pay a tribute to the honest speech of Mr.
O'Higgins, the Assistant Minister of the Local Government Board, on the other
side. He faces the facts. The facts were, he said, that it was a measure of
liberty, and he said that the Ministers of this country would be his Majesty's
Ministers. That is the way to face the facts and have no quibbling about them. I
like the man who faces what is before him in that light rather than the man who
tries to treat us as a lot of schoolboys, because we are not. He told the House
honestly that the Ministers of the new Government of the Irish Free State were
his Majesty's Ministers. About that there is no argument, and I am glad to hear
it stated from the other side, as I am, unfortunately, obliged to call them.
There has been a lot of reference to the oath. To my mind the oath presents very
little difficulty for anyone to argue upon. It has been dealt with at length by
Deputy Hogan. I will deal with it in this way. First you have an oath to the
Constitution of the Irish Free State, and that Constitution is formed in the
four boundaries of that Treaty, and the oath to the Constitution of the Irish
Free State is within the boundaries of that document. It has been stated in this
House that you can call the Constitution what you like and that you can draft
the Constitution any way you like. Can you? Is there a veil or fog tried to be
thrust over our eyes? Do you think, or does any man think, that you can call
this new Constitution the Irish Republic? You cannot call it an Irish Republic,
and that is what we are longing for and looking for. I challenge you to do it
within the four boundaries of that document, and it must be within the
boundaries of that document. I say that your oath to the Constitution of the
Irish Free State is an oath to Great Britain. The next argument I put forward is
as regards the second part of the oath---`And that I will be faithful to his
Majesty King George V., his heirs and successors'. Now in that there is a
quibble. I do not say that these quibbles are not sincere. I am prepared to
stand before any court or constitutional lawyers that try to make out there is a
difference between faithfulness and fidelity as against allegiance which occur.
Those lawyers who try to make out the difference between faithfulness and
allegiance should go back for a moment to the Brehon laws, and they will find
what fealty means there. In Roman law it will be found that fealty was the thing
that a slave had to give to his master. I am open to meet any constitutional or
would-be constitutional lawyer in this country on that point, that fealty was
exacted on the manumission of a slave by his master. Where is there now the
difference? At what time did fealty change? When did the transformation take
place? I am not aware of it. I think, and I challenge anyone to prove to the
contrary, that fealty was not the position under which a slave was faithful
under the Roman law, which is the foundation of the British law. That is the way
I account for the oath. I look at it like this from a thoroughly conscientious
point of view, and no matter how it is argued, nothing will convince me that I
should put my conscience under my own heel in order to grasp some transient,
ephemeral interest. The facts are there. I do not take up a sentimental
attitude, and for that reason I agree with those on the other side who object to
dragging in here the bones of the dead. Many of the men who are dead would have
taken their stand, some one side, and some probably on the other. There is no
good in an argument based on such a thing. It is only the merest chance that the
Minister of Finance, the President, or other prominent Members are not dead, and
then, too, I suppose if they were dead it would be asked would they have done
such a thing. I think that argument is not an effective one. It is begging the
question. It is one of these arguments given to the House based sometimes on
sentiment and sometimes on reason---that the major premises were one thing, and
the minor premises another thing---that leads to no conclusion. There is no use
in following them up and pursuing them because you cannot get to anything
definite. Another point made by Deputy Hogan was that he said France could give
away parts of her territory and not take away from her Constitution.
MR. HOGAN:
On a point of order, I did not.
Mr. RUTTLEDGE:
Well, I put down the exact words at the time.
Mr. HOGAN:
What I did say was that in a Treaty with England she could give her control
of certain ports without taking one iota from her status.
MR. RUTTLEDGE:
There was another matter in the debate. We have heard arguments that there
was no real difference between the two documents. We had it spread in
circulation in the Press that there was no difference between the two documents.
Well, Deputy Duggan has admitted that one meant a Republic and the other did
not. I hope there will be no more of this quibbling. I do not see why there
should be such a terrible effort to obscure the issue.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Mr. Duggan is not here and he made no such statement as that.
MR. RUTTLEDGE:
I do not want to take advantage of any Deputy. I take it that Deputy Duggan
in his statement put it forward that external association meant recognition of
the Republic. I am speaking subject to contradiction. This is a grave matter. I
will not try to take advantage of any man. Everyone here is able to answer for
himself, but Mr. Duggan is not in the room. There is a lot of talk about
sovereign status---I refer to constitutional lawyers or would-be constitutional
lawyers. I am not trying to drag legal matters into this if I could avoid them,
but they have been dragged in, and that is why I am trying to remove any
misapprehensions in the mind of the Dáil. They talk about sovereign status, and
they try to make out they could prove it, but at any rate did not prove
it---that Canada was independent practically, and that she had sovereign status.
Very well. Let us take Canada for a moment. Now Canada has appointed by the
British Crown a Governor-General, and Canada's Constitution is embodied in an
Act of the British Imperial Parliament. There is no getting away from that fact.
No one here will try to argue away the character of that status. According to
statements made in support of the Treaty we are to be put on the same basis as
Canada. The Governor-General of Canada is appointed by the British Crown in
accordance with an act of the Imperial Parliament. Where, I ask, does the
question of equality come in there? No more than it comes in in the question of
master and slave, of fealty and faithfulness. It was not made clear to the House
on the first days what we were doing or what we were accepting. We had full
freedom and independence subject to nobody we were told, but now it has been
cleared up in discussion, and we know that we go into the British Empire as
British subjects and that the Army of this country is the Army of Great Britain
and that our Ministers are his Majesty's Ministers. If these facts were stated
at first it might have saved a lot of useless argument. It is better to face the
facts as we have them than to try to get away with something we cannot prove.
There are two forms of authority, and I will state them, and no constitutional
lawyer, or would-be constitutional lawyer, would differ with me in this. There
is an authority that comes down and an authority that goes up. One comes from
the King down, and the other goes from the people up. Now, I challenge
contradiction on that---that there are those two forms of authority, one that
goes from the King down, and the other that goes from the people up. If you try
to establish that you are a Sovereign State you must derive your authority from
the people up. But under this thing, call it a Treaty or Articles of Agreement,
it comes from the King and through the Governor-General down. If I were arguing
on document No. 2 that would be made plain. It does not permit of one moment's
argument that authority comes from the King down and from the people up. That is
admitted by every constitutional authority. Here we are standing on the
authority that comes from the King down. I would have much preferred to see that
everyone faced the facts as they were before him, and that there was no drawing
of red herrings across any discussion. I know well that every Member of this
House realises to the full the responsibility on his shoulders, and that it is
no time for a quibble one way or another. Now I always understood---a
misconception, unfortunately, on my part---that Treaties were always concluded
after war, but apparently this was a Treaty concluded on the opening of war, a
really intensified, terrible, and immediate war. For that reason this Treaty has
no precedent. I do not know of any, I am sure. Some Members of this House may be
better informed, but I have not come across any such case. That makes this
Treaty very different from anything that I have come across. What the country
wants is peace with honour. I have judged the people of this country very badly
if they would take any peace, a peace with dishonour. Now I am not making any
reflection on anybody. What can I go on but the evidence of Mr. Barton, when he
clearly explained that his signature was put to that document by force. Is it to
be suggested that a Treaty got by force is honourable? If it was honourable the
element of force---the threat of war---could not have been in it. We heard a
good deal in the discussion here about the people we represent. I am conscious
of the responsibility that rests on me as a Member of this House in representing
a western constituency. I am prepared to go to the people and tell them, `You
elected me on the declaration I made to you that I was a Republican and nothing
else', and I will say to them that my honour is at stake, and that my own
conscience will not allow me to do this thing. No matter bow I struggle with my
conscience, it would not let me do that---to deviate from the straight
uncompromising path of an Irish Republican. If the people desire to withdraw the
confidence they gave me, they may do so, and my good wishes with them, but
whatever influence that any section of the people may have, I do not think they
would exert it against any person who tries to justify his action on the grounds
of conscience. Peace with honour to me means peace between two equals, and if it
is peace between equals there cannot be an element of force. We should face
facts, and the facts are these. My contention is that you may compromise on
unessentials, but on essentials you cannot compromise. On the matter of this
Treaty you were asked to compromise on what is essential. I cannot construe it
as anything else but essential, and I stand over principles, uncompromising
principles, against compromise and expediency.
Adjourned to 3.30). On resuming after the adjournment, the SPEAKER took
the chair at 3.45.
Mr. M. COLLINS:
There have been references made to inaccurate reporting in the Press, and for
the facility of the Press I suggest that any Members rising to speak should come
up to the table, because the Press cannot hear them. I have been at the back of
the hall and you cannot be heard from these corners. It is only fair to the
Press and fair to the assembly that that should be done.
THE SPEAKER:
I already intended to do that---to ask each Deputy as he spoke to come up to
the end of the table.
ALDERMAN W. T. COSGRAVE:
We have been listening for some days to various and varying opinions---legal
opinions, I should say---from both sides of the House as to what this means or
what that means. And latterly these opinions have been centering around the
relative distinctions as between faithfulness and allegiance, and we have
learned to-day that faithfulness is from a slave to a master, and that
allegiance is only from a subject to a king. That is not the interpretation the
man in the street puts upon it, and that is not my interpretation. A Doctor of
Divinity in explaining this matter to me in connection with the oath points out
that one can be faithful to an equal. And it is in that sense that I interpret
this oath, and I believe I gave expression in the Cabinet to the opinion that
this oath could be interpreted whatever way you looked at it. If you were
sufficiently prejudiced on the one side to say that it was an oath of
allegiance, you were entitled to do so, and if that be the interpretation of
those who are against ratification of the Treaty, I make them a present of it.
My interpretation of it is that in this commonwealth or association each of the
members is equal; and if that be wrong, I think we will find ourselves in the
company of some distinguished constitutional lawyers. Now practically every
possible phase of this Treaty has been discussed, and there is very little for
those who are taking part in this debate now to deal with except statements or
interpretations of this instrument that have been made before. I concern myself
with one or two of these. We were told that we of Dáil Eireann `having declared
its independence should approve of and ratify a Treaty deliberately
relinquishing and abandoning it'. That is the Press quotation of a man who has
been looked upon, I believe, by those who have been against ratification as one
of the ablest exponents of the reason why it should not be ratified. We have
declared our independence. If x be absolute independence and y be independence,
we are told that we are abandoning what is the relative value of x and
y to one another. X, in my opinion, would equal y if you put minus
£42,000,000 per annum and 60,000 English troops and a foreign judiciary, or,
what was worse, a venal local one with venal professions, and people who are
aping English customs and practices, with raids and seizures on public and
private buildings, the opening of private correspondence, and so on. That is, in
my opinion, the real difference between x and y [applause].
We are told that we are abandoning a declaration of independence. Well,
everybody who has taken part in this struggle knows what it meant, and knows
what it involved, and what it cost the people of this country. It means the
arresting of every national development and improvement in this country. It
means that the English Parliament has got the power that it has of 60,000 troops
behind it to put its authority into practice. We have resisted it magnificently,
and some of the best of those who resisted it are in this House for the
ratification of the Treaty. Criticism has been made of the statement that was
made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, that this was a final settlement, and
it was contrasted with the statement that was made by the Minister of Finance,
who is reported or criticised to have said `a settlement that is not final'.
Now, what are the words of the Minister of Finance, because he at least cannot
be charged with any unfairness in connection with this debate; or anything in
connection with these proceedings [hear, hear]. And here let me
say that he is reported to have said that `in my judgment it is not a definition
of any status that would secure us that status; it is the power to hold and to
make secure and to increase what we have gained'[applause]. Does
any man who is against ratification take exception to that statement? Is he
entitled in honour to make that statement? He is, and, in my opinion, the people
who are for that Treaty are entitled to carry out to the letter every syllable
that is in that document. I listened with great patience to some very long
speeches this afternoon, but you have set the example yourselves. Now, I think
we have examined that declaration of independence that was given to us, and I
think that even those who have made that statement cannot challenge those who
are voting for the ratification of the Treaty as having abandoned any vital
issue in connection with that declaration. We were told that we did not make it
plain at the elections that we stood for Dominion Home Rule. Was it made plain
to the people that we were standing for association, either external or
internal. Did anybody stand up before any audience in Ireland and say: `I am
standing for association with the Commonwealth of Nations, and to associate with
it the national aspirations of the Irish people'. I think that it is only right
that the people should understand what the position is. Now just before the
adjournment I heard a very able speech---I regret that I was not in for the
whole of it---and exception was taken to the position of the King and the
position of the Governor-General under this instrument. The Canadian law was, I
believe, quoted. Well, I have a document here before me which states: `The
status of Canada in law is that it is a subordinate dependent of Britain holding
her self-governing rights under a British act of Parliament which can legally be
repealed or amended without Canada's consent' `
hear, hear
'. That is the law. This is the fact, and it is written immediately underneath
it: `Canada is by the full admission of British statesmen equal in status to
Great Britain and as free as Great Britain'. Do you say `hear, hear to that?' [applause].
In Mr. Bonar Law's words, she has complete control over her own destiny. Now I
hope I am not contravening any of our own regulations when I am reading from
this document, but I think there is nothing in it which would leave me open to
exception. `In law the British Parliament can make laws for Canada with or
without Canada's consent, and in law British acts in Canada over-ride Canadian
acts where there is any conflict between them'. That is the law, and immediately
underneath it is written: `In fact Canada alone can legislate for Canada'. `Veto
on legislation. In law the British Government, through the Governor-General of
Canada, and in the name of the Crown, can veto Canadian bills. In fact', is
written underneath it, `it cannot. Canada's Constitution. In law it can only be
altered by the British Parliament', and underneath is written: `In fact this is
a pure technicality. Canada, and Canada alone, can alter her Constitution'. `No.
5.---The Crown in Canada. In law the Crown is the supreme authority in Canada.
In fact the Crown has no authority in Canada. It signifies sentiment only. In
law there is an Oath of Allegiance to the Crown in Canada. In fact the Canadian
owns obedience to his own Constitution only'. Now that is the dope that the
delegation had to make up the medicine that they have given to us. I think they
did rather well. `The Governor-General of Canada in law is the nominee of the
British Cabinet only. In fact he is the joint nominee of the Canadian and the
British Cabinets'.
A MEMBER:
Who wrote this?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I stated that the authority was a remarkably good one. I am quoting from a
document that I believe will not be---
MR. CHILDERS:
Whose is it?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
It is tabled by `E. C. November 29th, 1921'[applause]. Mr.
Childers, I understand. Now I hope we have made that point clear.
MR. CHILDERS:
I thought the Deputy was going to proceed, but he is not. Might I ask him to
hand me the document for a moment. I daresay all present here will recognise
that what be read out is precisely what I said in my own speech the other night,
pointing out that Ireland could not possibly be in the same position as Canada.
That memorandum began thus: `Ireland has been offered the position of a
dominion, subject, however, to conditions in connection with defence and tariffs
which are inconsistent with dominion rights. Ireland is not a British colony,
but an ancient and distinct nation with an inherent right to independence.
Nevertheless, supposing an offer of full and complete status was made, what
would be the effect upon Ireland? Take Canada, for example. Canada has a legal
position and a constitutional position, two wholly different things'.
MR. M. COLLINS:
On a point of order.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Leave him alone. He is making it as clear as mud.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I want to make the House appear like an assembly of legislators before the
public. I don't want men jumping up every minute when their statements are
challenged.
THE SPEAKER:
What is the point of order?
MR. M. COLLINS:
The point of order is this: the Deputy for Wicklow has already spoken in
this. Some of my statements are challenged, and if he rises to reply, I have
equally the right of reply. For goodness' sake let us conduct this discussion
properly. The interruptions are all from the other side.
THE SPEAKER:
I might be allowed to do my best to conduct this discussion properly. I
understand that the Deputy who was speaking gave way to Mr. Childers to explain
the document, and it is for that Deputy if he likes to object.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Statements have been made about me and what I said, and I have not replied to
them. I want to know is Mr. Childers allowed to discuss his own document which
he handed to us, when he has already spoken, and if we are to be gagged from
replying to Mr. Childers' associates?
THE SPEAKER:
Am I right in taking it that the Deputy who was speaking has given way to Mr.
Childers to speak concerning the document that was quoted?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
To tell you the honest truth, I wanted a moment or two. I don't know whether
if we are going to discuss all those documents and read them all at such length
we will ever get to the business. I believe I was right to extract from
documents any relevant matters affecting this question I was dealing with. It is
for you to say whether the Deputy is in order or not.
THE SPEAKER:
The Deputy was not in order in interrupting your speech unless you gave way
to him.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I will give way to him.
MR. CHILDERS:
It is a matter of universal fairness in all the assemblies of the world that
when a part of a document is read that the writer can demand that the whole of
it be read. I have six lines more: `Take the legal position and the
constitutional position---the Law and the Fact---in turn, remembering that in
Ireland, lying close to English shores, there would be nothing to prevent legal
controls being enforced, and the Law made the Fact'.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I was not paying very much attention to the deputy when he was speaking, but
I am concerned with one or two words in the paragraph of this instrument which
refers to what is called `The practice of Constitutional Usage'. I am banking
upon that, and I think I am entitled to do that. He complains that the Minister
of Finance passed lightly over the clause concerning the ports, that he did less
than justice to the subject. I believe there are something like ten or twelve
lines from the Minister of Finance dealing with this matter, and he certainly,
in my opinion, did justice to it. But I go on and I find that the Deputy said
further that the clause in question said that Ireland was unfit to be entrusted
with her own coastal defence. `In that clause was the most humiliating condition
that could be inflicted on any nation claiming to be free'. Now I didn't read
into that clause that Ireland was unfitted to be entrusted with her own coastal
defence. I believe in another place the Deputy for Wicklow stated that the
coastal defence was to be settled permanently---for ever and ever.
MR. CHILDERS:
I said occupation of ports under Clause 7.
Alderman COSGRAVE:
I cannot find exactly the words, and I wish you had interrupted me a little
longer. `Clause 7 said', Mr. Childers declared, `that permanently and for ever
some of the most important ports were to be occupied by British troops'. Now I
am not going to read this particular instrument, but Clause No. 7 says: `the
Government of the Irish Free State shall afford to his Majesty's Imperial forces
(a) such harbour and other facilities, etc'. and neither the words `for
ever'nor `permanently'is in either part of that document. Now we are dealing
fairly with one another, and we had better have the truth out. That statement is
certainly not in accordance with the facts, and the Deputy for Wicklow is an
honest man and he is reported here as having said that `permanently' and `for
ever'were included in that clause. They are not. I will tell you the particular
instrument that they were possibly included in---the Act of Union, and this
instrument wipes that out `permanently' and `for ever' [applause].
Now this Treaty has been criticised, belittled, and, I believe, slandered to an
extent that certainly surprised me. It represents work that has been done in
five years; greater than was accomplished by Emmet, O'Connell, Mitchell, Davis,
Smith O'Brien, and Parnell, down even to Mr. Redmond with a united country
behind him. In five years it has accomplished more than the best of those people
hoped for. References have been made to Grattan's Parliament at the Private
Session and the public Session. What was Grattan's Parliament? Did these people
who spoke of Grattan's Parliament think that it was an injustice to this country
to be deprived of it, and did the honourable and gallant---and I believe he has
some claim to the title of rev.---Deputy from Wexford think it when he was
addressing this Congress here yesterday. I recollect when I was very young in
the Sinn Fein movement he was in it. I believe our Ambassador from Paris was in
it too, but I think that the basis of the Sinn Fein movement at that time was
the restoration of that Parliament of the King, Lords and Commons of Ireland.
The gallant Deputy at that time was evidently a Royal Republican [applause].
A Republican from his boyhood I believe he told us he was. He must have omitted
this particular period when he was a member of the Sinn Fein movement.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
I wish you had to come to confession to me [laughter].
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Now the Deputy from Wicklow made a statement with which I am in entire
agreement, that the freedom and the liberties of the people of Ireland could
only be given away by the people of Ireland. We represent the people here---at
least we think we do---and the people certainly have got a right to be heard on
this question. Is there any fear of putting it up to them? [`No'].
They have the right to get it put before them. [`Yes']. And they
have the right to decide it? [`Certainly']. I think they have. Are
you going to object to their having a decision on it? [`No, no'].
And you will abide by it? [`Certainly']. Now, if we get that far,
I think there is a great chance of healing up the difference between us. For
over two-and-a-half years this Cabinet has worked loyally and well together and
I certainly can pay a tribute to every member of it. I have known them to work
night and day in the interests of the nation, men who thought no trouble too
great to take at any time, and I should say that the two men who typified the
best type of Irishmen I have ever known are the President and the Minister of
Finance [applause]. I recollect four or five years ago the
President spending six, seven and eight hours a day at meetings bringing people
together and getting them to see common ground upon which they would work
together: and would it not be a lamentable thing that, having come to this
crisis, that we should now separate. I think the nation is deserving of the
support of every one of its sons and daughters and that there should be no
division with the people or with one another. Let us do what we can to let the
people have their way. Now great exception was taken to a name---the name of the
King and the Governor-General. Well, they are here now. The courts are
functioning in their names.
MR. STACK:
What courts?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Their courts. They are functioning. They may not be doing much business, but
they are there for a very long time.
MR. STACK:
Whose courts?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Their courts. There is not much terror in the name, even when it is backed up
by armaments and equipment and motor lorries and tanks; and we are told to be
terribly in dread of this new man who is to come as Governor-General. Now, I ask
any man who votes for the ratification of the Treaty, does he really care a damn
about the Governor-General? I don't believe that he does. We are told by the
Deputy from Wicklow that we cannot prevent them landing troops if this
instrument is ratified. I wonder could we prevent them now.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well, we tried it a few times.
THE PRESIDENT:
An agreement is an agreement, and this agreement is before the world and has
attracted universal attention.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
The President is surprised. He would like to get up and say a few words. The
Minister of Finance lays special stress upon the fact that what was felt more
deeply than anything else by this country was the peaceful penetration of the
enemy. It is typified in every walk of life in the country. The best colleges
play the foreign games. The President can bear me out in that [applause].
At the race meetings one sees the Union Jack. I believe the Minister for Home
Affairs can bear me out in that. I don't know what the Minister of Defence does
in his idle moments. I cannot get him to bear me out in anything. All I knew him
to be interested in was in shooting, and even in the rifle-clubs that were
established before the Volunteers the Union Jack floated over them. So that we
have evidence that the peaceful penetration of the enemy was right in every
fibre of our national life. Now, sir, if there is one thing more than another
which this movement has done it is that it has captured the imagination and
support of Southern Unionists as they have been known. I believe that there is
no such thing as a Southern Unionist at all, and if there is any he is only fit
for the Museum. This instrument gives us an opportunity of capturing the
Northern Unionists and that is a proposition worthy of our best consideration;
and with a generous invitation to cultivate and recognise our national identity,
and to help us in putting this country in its proper place, I believe that we
would effect a united country in a way that was never done before. They are
great citizens of this nation even though they differ from us, and it must be
said whatever the Delegation has done no one here has suggested any better
method of dealing with them than that laid down here. Criticised it may have
been, held up to public odium, but no alternative was suggested, and, as far as
that was concerned, even their critics must, to use an Americanism, `hand it to
the Delegation'. One question that has not been put at all is this: If you could
have a choice for a Republic with twenty-six counties, would you have it or a
Dominion for the whole of Ireland? If such a choice were put up my money would
be on the Dominion, not per se on the Dominion, but because it would
effect that unification that ought to be effected in Ireland, to make the North
realise that they are noble citizens of the country and to make them realise
that they should devote their energies to what it should be. I would like to
know from the little Deputy from Monaghan what he has got. He certainly has
neither one nor the other. I don't believe that he has even got Document No. 2.
Now, sir, one simple incident that may not be known to the Members of this
House---Members of Dáil Eireann, I should say---Pro- British firms who have
never been in sympathy with the National movement, who have always opposed it,
and who dismissed men who took part in the Rising of 1916, and men who have been
imprisoned since then, have within the last few weeks sent for every man knocked
off their list by reason of they being connected with the movement since 1916.
That shows the change that has taken place in the minds of those conducting
business in Ireland, that they must bow before the will of the people, and that
the will of the people has come to stay. I notice on the hoardings outside
occasionally some criticism of the Irish Free State. I believe we are
responsible for the name ourselves, but now that the English Government has
agreed to give it to us we don't like it. Saorstát na hEireann , a title
and term honoured in July, now is a term of reproach. It is an extraordinary
thing---what Mr. Dooley would call `a reversal of public form'. Now I was rather
struck by the speech of the Minister for Finance, and I would personally hand it
to him for his speech in this assembly. It was a remarkable contribution to the
subject we are discussing. two words he mentioned were of vital importance,
`security' and `freedom'. Those who are criticising the ports being left for a
period of five years in the bands of the British should realise that, after all,
there must be some defence of them. We have not yet come to that period in which
we could say, `Let there be a submarine', and that it would come forth at once.
While we are getting fitted up we must have something, and I consider that
clause a reasonable inclusion in the instrument, in my opinion. We have been
told that there was a 750 years' war. I am neither a young nor an old man, and
if my recollection is quite correct the war has only gone on for five years
during the last forty years, and then during the whole of that period it was not
in operation. There was what you could call `a suspension of hostilities' now
and then, and, if my recollection is correct, we were criticised for bringing
about war at all five years ago by some people. Now, sir, if the alternative to
that document means war, there are one or two things that we ought to keep
before us. One is that well-equipped armies may not win a war. That is one for
John Bull. And one for ourselves is that the economic situation is not such in
this country at this moment that would justify us in taking the risk of
precipitating war. The Minister for Economies or his substitute Minister had not
during the Private Session or up to this referred to the economic situation in
bringing about war. Here in the capital of Ireland there are something like
20,000 families living in single-room tenement dwellings, and are these the
people you are going to ask to fight for you? It is not fair, I submit. To my
mind, when I first saw this instrument, it appeared that there were
potentialities in it undreamt of in this country up to this time. If as a result
of the successful working and administration of this act that that gradual
improvement that has been outlined in a semi-prophetic fashion by the Minister
of Finance was brought about and the ideals this country struggled for
generations should come to pass, it might possibly be within the bounds of
certainty that a reconciliation would be effected between the new world and the
old; that these two great countries would be able to keep the peace not only of
themselves but the world, working for the best interests of Humanity, assisted
by the civilisation and culture of this country, improved by people who have
never had an opportunity in their lives of developing their own nation in their
own way and effecting world improvements in problems that have never been solved
and that are not even in the way of being solved. Some American jingoes, or
whatever they are, very much fear that that sort of thing will come to pass. It
may even be possible from the influence that would be exercised by the Irish
Free State to effect improvements in these down-trodden nationalities such as
Egypt and India.
MESSRS. COLLINS AND GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
And any matter in their state would be a matter of security to the Irish Free
State. Now, I think it is right that the point that was made by the Minister of
Finance should be emphasised, and that is that if they did not agree to sign
this Treaty this is not the instrument that would be put before you. When they
went back to London on that fateful Saturday, four remarkable improvements took
place in the document that they brought back. The first is absolute and entire
control over the taxation of commodities coming into the country. Personally I
don't believe that there will be much taxation on these things, but, at any
rate, you have got the right---the right was admitted. The second item was in
connection with the oath. Well, I suppose everyone has his own conscience, but
some people say they are more conscientious than others. As an ordinary common
or garden man---may I accept that interpretation of it?---I have not got the
constitutional lawyer's mind, the solicitor's mind, or even the mind of an
idealist, but an ordinary business man's mind, and I see nothing objectionable
in it, absolutely. And all the oratory I have heard on the other side has not
convinced me that it is objectionable. I believe I heard the President on one
occasion state if you are prepared to make a bargain, why would you not be
prepared to be faithful to it.
THE PRESIDENT:
Hear, hear.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Very well, then. Is this a bargain or is it not? It is a bargain.
THE PRESIDENT:
It is not.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Very well, then, the objection is not to the oath at all but to the bargain.
I am fair at making bargains myself. I believe on one occasion, Mr. President,
when you said to me that you were sure Lloyd George was a tricky man, I said to
you, `I suppose if he were not you would be very honest with him'.
THE PRESIDENT:
I don't remember the conversation, I must say.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I suppose it is right to say that you would not try to get the better of him.
I think that is about all I have to say. I believe, sir, the loss of the
President to the Free State should this instrument be approved would be a
terrible loss. I believe the loss of the Minister for Home Affairs and the
Minister for Finance would be equally irreparable. I know the Minister for
Defence. My own conviction is that except for war he is not worth a damn for
anything else, but that he is a great man for war I bear witness to, because
even when the spark of life was practically gone out of him he was as full of
fight as when be was going into it. Whether I have made a ease for signing the
Treaty or not, I think that Dáil Eireann is in better humour now than when I
started, and I now formally approve, recommend, and support the Treaty.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
It has been said by many Deputies when they rose to speak that they would try
to keep the House as short a time as possible. I, too, shall do that, but I am
sorry that I cannot promise that it will be very short, for I rise to speak with
the deepest and fullest sense of my responsibility, not only to those who sent
me here, but to the whole Irish nation which now is to make a decision
fateful---far more fateful than was the decision made in 1800, for with all the
allusions made to Grattan's parliament, one thing has not been said: that is
that it wasn't the Parliament of the people. It was a Parliament representing,
or supposed to be representing, only one-fifth of the people of Ireland, and
even then by means of undemocratic elections. It did not faithfully represent
even 20 per cent of the Irish people. But this Parliament represents in a very
real sense the Irish nation, and it was sent here to represent to the world
their demand for a free and unfettered government of their own, the ideal of
self-determination, of which we had heard so much in recent years. Many Deputies
have got up in their places and spoken here---Ministers and ordinary
Deputies---as if we, who stand for what the Irish people want in their heart of
hearts, want to choke the voice of the Irish people. That is an absolutely wrong
and wicked statement, and in their heart of hearts they know it. We have no
reason to fear the people, for we are true to the ideal which they sent us here
to represent. On the 24th of last May the re-elections took place for this
assembly, and whatever the Members chosen in December, 1918, may have to say for
themselves, the new Members were chosen because the people who sent them here
believed that on no account whatever could they he brought to compromise. I say
that to the young soldiers and others who stand here since last May as I do;
they were elected, as I was elected, because the people who sent them here
believed that they would never compromise. Dr. MacCartan---and I am sorry that
he is not here to listen to what I have to say, but it is the custom at the
other side of the House, as soon as a speaker stands up against ratification of
the Treaty, the young men walk out with their heads up, like their going into
the British Empire. There is talk of your duty to your constituents. The most
reasoned, the most excellent statement on the good and bad points of this Treaty
presented to you was given by Mr. Erskine Childers, and the young Deputies who
of themselves cannot possibly know the pros and cons did their duty to their
constituents by walking out and not listening. Their minds were already made up.
Is that your duty to your constituents? I maintain it is not. Deputies here have
alluded to the will of the people with dramatic force. I stand here for the will
of the people, and the will of the people of Ireland is for their freedom, which
this so-called Treaty does not give them. The will of the people was expressed
in December, 1918. The will of the people was expressed in the manifesto which
sent every one of you here. And I ask any one of you voting for this Treaty what
chance would you have if on the 24th of last May you came out for Dominion Home
Rule. If Sir Horace Plunkett stood against Mr. Kevin O'Higgins last May, what
chance would he have? None whatever. There is the will of the people, and well
you know it. Here in this assembly, if it could be possible for you, would you
representatives of the people do what the wicked, unscrupulous people in the
Parliament of 1800 did, and sell the rights of the people as you alone can do?
That does not mean to say you have taken money for them, but sell them for the
mess of pottage in that so-called Treaty. Control of your money: you say you
have control of your purse, control of your army, control of your finance, your
education, and the evacuation of the army out of Ireland. Mr. Churchill, whom we
all know is the enfant terrible of the British Government because he is
always giving away what they mean but don't choose to say, has declared that the
grant of fiscal autonomy did not matter, because Great Britain held Irish
prosperity in the hollow of her hand. You are getting an army, you say. Mr.
Churchill assures the English people as to the right given to Ireland to raise a
defence force, that he was certain the force which was raised by Ireland would
not be beyond the power of the British Empire to control. On the contrary, and
make no mistake about it, if you sign that Treaty Mr. Churchill is right. You
talk about evacuation of our territory by the British forces as soon as the
Treaty is ratified. I have not got anybody to tell me whether this is a Treaty
or whether it is articles of agreement. You call it a Treaty. Not a single
official of the British Government has called it a Treaty anyhow, but let that
pass. We will call it a Treaty anyway. Mr. Lloyd George has said in his letter
to Mr. Arthur Griffith: `We propose to begin by withdrawing the military and
auxiliary forces of the Crown in Southern Ireland when the articles of agreement
are ratified'. Therefore they will be kept in Northern Ireland if Britain
so wills. And take that statement `when the articles of agreement are
ratified'in connection with Article 18 of the Treaty: `This instrument shall be
submitted forthwith by his Majesty's Government for the approval of
Parliament'---not ratification you will notice---`and by the Irish signatories
to a meeting summoned for the purpose of the Members elected to sit in the House
of Commons of Southern Ireland, and, if approved, shall be ratified by the
necessary legislation'. Therefore this assembly is not, as has been already
pointed out, competent to deal with the matter at all. We are not the Members
elected to sit in the Parliament of Southern Ireland. We are the Members elected
to sit in the assembly of the Irish Republic.
MR. MILROY:
Under a British act of Parliament.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Yes, under a British act of Parliament, for until our Government was
functioning we had no machinery to act otherwise. The Deputy who has spoken
knows perfectly well, as well as every intelligent man listening to me knows,
that if we had refused to use that act of Parliament against the enemy himself,
what would have happened was that all the Southern Unionists, gombeen men and
other good-for-nothing, soulless, characterless men would have gone up for that
Southern Irish Parliament and legalised partition. Moreover, in this assembly
there sits at least one Member who holds a seat for Northern Ireland and has no
seat in Southern Ireland at all, and, therefore, this assembly is not legally
entitled, even by that instrument, to approve or disapprove of this agreement.
But, allowing that we approve of it. If approved, it will be ratified by the
necessary legislation, and Lloyd George says the Army will go out when it is
ratified. Now, watch Lloyd George. He will take some watching. He is known in
every Chancellory in Europe as the most unscrupulous trickster that has ever
occupied an honourable office. As far as we in Ireland are concerned, the office
which he holds never has been an honourable office, but in his own country it is
supposed to be so. And never has a more unscrupulous scoundrel sat in the seats
of the mighty than Lloyd George. There is no Government in Europe that trusts
his word. Will you do it? It has been said here, moreover, that the people would
rush at this, that the people would ratify it. That I deny. The people might
have last Thursday morning, because the people had not read or studied it. I
know myself of several instances where people seeing the names of those
signatories to that document threw up their hats in the air and cried, `Hurrah,
peace at last', without ever knowing that there was an oath to the English King
in it. In trying to make some amusing points---some flippant points against one
of the Members of this assembly---the last speaker mentioned Sinn Fein, that
they were members of Sinn Fein once together, and all Sinn Fein stood for then
was the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland. That is perfectly true of many
Members here---I for one say it has never been true of me, or anyone belonging
to me. We absolutely refused to join Sinn Fein until Sinn Fein became
Republican. It is absolutely true to say that that Treaty as it is given to you
was the be-all and the end-all of Sinn Fein's existence up to 1918. It is the
darling and the pet of Mr. Arthur Griffith's life. He has talked to us; he has
shown how the Irish Party were fooled by Lloyd George or Lloyd George's
predecessors. He has talked about 1782 and getting back to it. Some of us in
1917 had some trouble to make him use the word Republic . He did not
believe in a Republic. He is the one man of the five delegates who has shown
that he does not believe in a Republic. Now that is to him an honest document
Sinn Fein up to 1918 was not Republican, and in 1917 some of us were wondering
very strongly whether we ought or ought not adopt another organisation
altogether which would be definitely Republican, but we preferred to make that
one that was in existence, and all the common members of which became definitely
Republican after 1916 the organisation, if the founder and advocate of it would
stand for complete independence. We wanted to get done with 1782ism, and we will
not go back to it. And it is absolutely true to say that many men here who are
now honest Republicans in spite of the sneers, joined Sinn Fein and were good
members of Sinn Fein, while half-measures were possible. Half-measures are no
longer possible, because on the 21st of January, 1919, this assembly, elected by
the will of the sovereign people of Ireland, declared by the will of the people
the Republican form of Government as the best for Ireland, and cast off for ever
their allegiance to any foreigner.
The people of Ireland will stand by that and refuse to take it up again. One
eloquent speaker on the side of Dominion Home Rule talked about the Army, the
evacuation, and the financial control, which Mr. Churchill tells you he holds in
the hollow of his band, and which even if it were a reality you are not entitled
to sell your own souls and the souls of the people for. He came at last to
education. He, too, is not here, but those of you who heard him qualifying our
chances of education under this so-called Treaty can hear me. I doubt if there
is anyone in this assembly more entitled to give views on educational matters
than I am. I have been engaged in education for a very long time, and I tell you
that whereas the education under the English Government in this country was bad
and recognised as bad, we were able to fight against it, but the education under
the Irish Free State, when we teach that that is wrong---and I shall never teach
anything else---we shall be teaching rebellion to the established government of
the country. If this country should be so false to itself as to adopt the
so-called Treaty, I have already told some of the Ministers on the other side of
the House that I will be their first rebel under their so-called Free State,
that they will have the pleasure or the pain, as it pleases them, of imprisoning
me as one of their first and most deliberate and irreconcilable rebels. Up to
this we have never been rebels. You can only rebel against a lawfully-
constituted authority. The authority of England in this country of ours has
never been lawful and has never been recognised by the Irish people. But I
recognise, as the Minister for Foreign Affairs told me the other day, that the
will of the people is sovereign. I recognise perfectly well, if the people, if
the majority of the people in this country, set up this Free State Government,
that it will be the Government of the country, and I will be a rebel, a
deliberate rebel, for the first time in my life. Though I have been a teacher
all my life, and longed and prayed for the day when the Irish Government would
take over the education of this country, I tell them here and now I would never
teach in a school under their control---that I would still take a school and
teach that the adoption of that treaty, if it should be adopted by this Dáil and
by the people of the country, is the greatest act of treachery in history. That
I shall teach to every child that I have control of, and I shall teach the
Republican doctrine in any school I teach in, and if I have only two pupils
instead of 200, it does not matter; I shall keep their souls clean at any rate.
I shall be a rebel to their Government, and I shall be a rebel to their
education, for it will be false, utterly false education. What will you teach
the children in these schools? [`Irish'] Irish! Yes, but not Irish
alone. To teach through the medium of Irish you must teach the history of their
country. And the greatest trouble of education in this country is that we were
never allowed to teach until recent years Irish history at all, and then it was
not Irish history, but the history of England in Ireland. You must teach
history, you must teach the names of the great ones of the past, you must teach
the history of Grattan's Parliament and the people that gave it away. Then you
will come to the history of Dáil Eireann, the history of the Parliament set up
in 1919 by the will of the people, the history of a movement that made our
country great throughout the world, the history of a movement that brought on us
the admiration of the world, the history of those who commanded the admiration
of the world for qualities of soldiers and statesmen that six years before no
one would have believed them capable of. You will have to teach them that the
eyes of the world were turned on our country wondering and uplifted because in
this day of materialism a little nation, a gallant little people, fought against
a mighty foe and refused to acknowledge itself conquered. You will have to teach
them that when the eyes of the world were on that little gallant nation, when
the hearts of free people everywhere were beating high in expectation that at
last government by the people for the people should be really understood, that
the mighty foe that had crushed us so mercilessly when it was powerful, that
mighty foe, with its arms and its legions, yet unable to conquer us, was forced
by the public opinion of the world to come to terms. You know perfectly well
that if England wanted to conquer us, if she wanted to exterminate us, she would
be able to turn armies in on us and do it. We know that we cannot, a little
people like us, stand up against the mighty legions of England. We were not
standing up alone and England did not have to fight us alone; she had to fight
the aroused conscience and the public opinion of the whole civilised world.
England, faced with trouble all over her Empire, faced with financial
difficulties, faced with the fact, and it will be a fact still, and mark it, you
pressmen of England, who are so unfair to the justice of our cause, mark it
well. England was faced with Irish agitation in every corner of the world
against her, and that agitation she thinks she will kill by that instrument. I
tell her she will not. Wherever her power is over the world, there we shall be
uprooting it; wherever she is looking for a friendly alliance, there shall we
Irish rebels be, regardless of this Free State, to destroy her chance of
friendship. She thinks that she will settle America and put America in her
pocket as soon as she has passed this Free State. She will not, for the same
unconquered and unconquerable Irish Republicans who stood by Tone and Emmet and
Mitchel and the men of 1916 will still go abroad to America and to Europe and
undermine the friendship of England. Therefore, make no mistake about it,
England, you are not buying Ireland's friendship with that document, you are
killing it irrevocably. The President has told you that that document does not
make for peace. It does not. Go back to 1914 and remember how the then leader of
the Irish race, as he was called, tried to stampede this country into the war
for the freedom of small nations. England's difficulty, we were always taught,
was Ireland's opportunity. Mr. Redmond said England's difficulty now was
Ireland's opportunity to be generous. If Mr. Redmond, at that moment, the
greatest moment of his life, as it could have been, had turned around to England
and said not one man, not one penny will you get for this war until we are free,
Mr. Redmond could have got and could conscientiously have accepted this
so-called Treaty. If Mr. Redmond, in 1914, had stood out, he could have got
that, and then there would be no dishonour to the Irish Nation to accept it. But
the 21st January, 1919, bars such a bargain for ever. The country was stampeded
into approval of the war. I was in England when the war broke out. I could not
tell you the anguish of soul I experienced when I came home and walked down the
streets of Dublin and of Cork and saw the friends of my lifetime sporting the
Union Jack. We are all British now, but even then we were not British by the act
of our own people. Even then we had not declared common citizenship, with
fidelity to the King of England. A small minority of the people of Ireland
realised that they had to strike, and strike at once, that if they waited for
the war to be over England would have her countless legions turned against us.
They decided on rising; that rising was largely rendered futile by the acts of
people at the last moment who tried to stop it. Yet the battle was fought, and
Easter Week, 1916, stands out in the annals of the world. What will your new
Free State educationists teach about that? It was a minority that fought in
1916; it is always a minority that saves the soul of a nation in its hour of
need. But the leaders in that fight---Tom Clarke, Padraig Pearse, Sean
MacDermott---whom we had all loved, they dared greatly. They did lose that
battle. As one of them said---Tom Clarke or Padraig Pearse---`we have lost this
battle, but we have saved the nation's soul'[applause]. And in two
short years from that the nation's soul expressed itself, once and for all, in
the form of the Irish Republican Government which they had proclaimed. You
cannot get back from history like that. That Government is there; you cannot
vote it away. The people can. Yes, but they will not. I believe in the people. I
believe in their sincerity. You will get votes for that. I doubt though that you
will get as many as you think, for the heart of the common people is true, as it
has always been. The men with the stake in the country ---we know the
phrase so well---will vote for that, perhaps, but don't count on it too much.
The men with the stake in the country know that the worst thing that can
happen the country now is a split, and that split is inevitable if the people
who stand on principle only declare that they cannot give in. You, who stand for
expediency, you who stand for the fleshpots, for finance, for an army, you can
give in. We cannot. One man or one army cannot stand up against mighty legions,
but not all the armies of all the peoples in the world, or all the Empires in
the world, can conquer the spirit of one true man. That one man will prevail,
but with that one man many will stand. It is not one man or a hundred men, or
one thousand men that will reject that Treaty as selling away their nation's
rights. The men with the stake in the country know well that it was not love of
us, love of justice, or an acknowledgment of her iniquity that brought England
to the pass of asking for negotiations. The men with the stake in the country
know that England made the negotiations because she dare not any longer face the
opinion of the world. The men with the stake in the country know perfectly well
that as long as we Republicans stand out and say this is not peace, and it will
not make peace, there will be no peace, and the men with the stake in the
country will know perfectly well that unity alone can defeat this awful breach
now. The Minister for Local Government has spoken of unity, of all coming
together. I appealed with all the force that I knew for unity a few nights ago.
I am not going to make that appeal again. I have appealed in public to this Dáil.
I have appealed in private to the individual members not to commit this fearful
crime of disrupting our nation again. I say unity can only be had while we stand
firmly on principle and on nothing else. There have been unfair remarks passed
across this House; there have been political tactics used here which have made
me ashamed of Members of this House. I thought that these tactics had passed
with the bad old days of the Mollies and the O'Brienites. I am sorry to see them
brought up again. An unfair use has been made of the President's name in this
matter; an unfair use has been made of a so-called document No. 2. The President
asked that that document might be kept out of this discussion for one reason,
and for one reason only. Everyone of those who have thrown insinuations across
the House knows the President's personal honour as well as I do, as well as the
country does. There was a document suggested with the hope of getting unity,
realising that unity of the Dáil would mean a united people. But it was said by
every one of the Delegation, or rather by the principal speakers of the
Delegation--- those who stand whole- heartedly for this child of theirs---that
no amendment to this Treaty was possible, that it was the Treaty, and nothing
but the Treaty, or war. It was said that the President was trying to draw a red
herring across the track of the discussion, and the President took what, to my
mind, was the only straight and honourable course. He withdrew the document
entirely and let the Delegation have their way---no amendment, the Treaty on its
merits or the rejection of it---which was an honourable action. It has been
tried to be proved here to be a dishonourable one, but dishonour lies with those
who suggest it. This document, you have been told, is a charter of freedom. It
could only be a charter of freedom if you smash every clause of it, and on this
point I find that the Delegation are far more divided than the Dáil at present.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Arthur Griffith, advocates that Treaty
whole-heartedly and honestly. It embodies what he stood for all his life. We
thought that in the last two years he had given up that doctrine and stood for
Republicanism, and I maintain here that if he had not done so he would not have
been elected to sit for the Republic against his old constitutional doctrine. He
has reverted to his original allegiance. That document contains all that the
constitutional Sinn Feiner stood for up to 1916. The majority of the
constitutional Sinn Feiners after the Easter Rising in 1916 became whole-hearted
Republicans, and that document does not represent their present convictions. We
thought that when Mr. Arthur Griffith took an oath to the Republic he meant it.
He says `No' and others, I know, think with him. They state they took their oath
to do the best for Ireland, but that is not the best for Ireland, and, in spite
of their ablest speakers, not one of them has tried to prove it is. The only one
that has spoken honestly in favour of that is Mr. Griffith himself.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I protest against such a statement, that the only one who has spoken honestly
is one man. It is an implication of dishonesty against every other Member---
MISS MACSWINEY:
I will let the public decide.
MR. GRIFFITH:
It is for the Speaker to decide whether such an expression should be used.
MISS MACSWINEY:
If I have used a word which is unworthy of this Dáil I withdraw it, but Mr.
Arthur Griffith---take it this way---is the only one of the Delegation who has
supported that Treaty whole-heartedly. The Minister of Finance, Michael
Collins---his name alone will make that thing acceptable to many people in this
country, as he made it acceptable to many of the young men of this Dáil---`What
is good enough for Michael Collins is good enough for me ' [applause].
If Mick Collins went to hell in the morning, would you follow him there? [Cries
of `Yes' and `No']. Well, of course I frankly acknowledge I have
absolutely no answer to the Deputies who declare that they would transfer their
allegiance from God to the devil at Michael Collins' behest. But he, at all
events, has been honest about this document, and he has said it is not the
be-all and the end-all of his existence, but that it is a step towards the
Republic. He believes that. I know he believes it. I know other young men who
vote with him here believe it; I am not impugning their honesty; I am impugning
two things: first, their intelligence, and secondly, their knowledge of history.
How any Irishman can stand up and say that if you accept that thing from Mr.
Lloyd George he is going to stick to it, and will tell you you are men of
intelligence. Go and read the pages of the history of your country, and then you
will go back to consider the Treaty sadder and wiser men. Mr. Barton has made a
statement about this, and his attitude to it, which has moved our admiration,
but the sentence in his statement which stands out is this: `The Irish Republic,
to which I swore allegiance and which is my faith'. Mr. Gavan Duffy has agreed
with Mr. Barton as to the signing of the Treaty and the duress under which it
was signed. He has given weak support to it, but he has acknowledged it is a
very pitiful instrument indeed, but that it is better than war. That is the most
he can say for it. Mr. Duggan---well, I need not remind you what he said. He
only spoke a few hours ago, and all that I can say is that his arguments were
distinctly unconvincing. I have not heard from any of the spokesmen of those who
stand for the Treaty one single argument which you could point out before the
world as worthy of this country and what it has stood for for the last three
years---not one. You might have had that long ago if you would have taken it.
There are two points in this Treaty with which I would like to deal
particularly---the oath and the Governor-General. The oath has been flippantly
spoken of here---very flippantly spoken of indeed. It evidently does not bind
the mind and conscience of those who are going to vote for the ratification of
this Treaty. Some of them, I know, are excusing themselves in this way: `I will
vote for the Treaty, but I will never take the oath'. That I call cowardice. Why
do you bind your constituents as far as it is in your power to bind them, if you
are not willing to stand by what you do. If you vote for that Treaty, then you
have no excuse not to take the oath, and the only manly stand you have is to
refuse to ratify or approve of that instrument. But many of those who are voting
for it, vote for it meaning to evade every article in it, if they take the oath.
They spent hours both in Private Session and in public Session discussing when
is an oath not an oath. I am ashamed---I stand and say it here before the public
representatives in the persons of the Press---of that doctrine, that a country
like ours that has stood on a noble and spiritual ideal for the last three years
should so degrade itself by the arguments that have been heard about the oath.
You cannot at the same time be faithful and unfaithful. You say you take first
and foremost an oath to the Constitution of the Irish Free State. Do you realise
that it is an Irish Free State `as by law established', and that that law is to
be made in England? You make up your Constitution, but the act of Parliament
ratifying your Constitution has to be passed in London. It is made in Dublin,
but it can be unmade in London, every line of it that interferes with the King's
authority. Do not fool yourself if you are going to walk into this thing that
you are going in with your heads up, as you say. For God's sake, and for
Ireland's sake, don't fool yourself beforehand. If you draw up a Constitution
which will ignore the King, the English Parliament, which has to ratify your
Constitution, will carefully put a clause safeguarding themselves. Do not be
fools, anyhow. The one thing that was quoted about the President yesterday was
this: `We may be beaten by England, but there is no excuse for us now being
fooled by England'. There is no excuse for the Delegation trying to fool us or
the people of Ireland, and fooled we would be, and they would be, if you take
the Constitution of the Irish Free State `as by law established', and try to ram
down our throats any such absurd nonsense as that you can leave the King out of
the Constitution and fool the young people of this country into believing you.
Be honest with them, you who are forcing their votes or coaxing their votes, or
persuading their votes, be honest with them. They will not be able to ignore the
King in the Irish Free State `as by law established'. We are all to be British
citizens with a British passport, with the seal of the Foreign Office for anyone
going out of the country. Deputy Hogan told us yesterday we are entitled to
foreign ambassadors. If be has read the Treaty he must know that we are not
entitled to foreign ambassadors. Perhaps he will say we are entitled to
everything Canada has. Two years ago I think, Canada was told she was entitled
to a foreign representative. Canada wanted it, particularly in Washington,
because Canada and the United States lie side by side, and Canada's interests
are not England's interests, and she got permission because she took it [hear,
hear]. That is quite right. I am in perfect agreement with everything
you have said about constitutional usage and the law and the fact, and that is
why I resent those young men who have not thought deeply about these things, who
have not gone into constitutional questions and have not, perhaps, read history
as deeply as some of us, walking out of the room whenever an argument is being
advanced against this so-called Treaty. The young soldiers who are voting for it
blindly, when it was being explained what the Treaty was to be in law and in
fact were in the corridor cliquing somewhere outside, but not doing their duty
to their constituents. Constitutional usage in Canada is established by Canadian
constitutional usage, and if you believe constitutional usage in the Irish Free
State will be the same, what will Lloyd George say to you? He will say
constitutional usage means the usage of your Constitution, not Canada's. You
will be guided by law and fact, and fact alone brings you sixty miles from
England, whereas Canada is 3,000 to 7,000 miles away. Again I ask of you for
God's sake, and for Ireland's sake, don't fool yourself. If you vote wrong, vote
wrong knowing that you will be voting wrong, and don't allow others to fool you
either [hear, hear]. Canada got permission to have a foreign
representative. Would Deputy Hogan tell me why she has not yet got that foreign
representative?
DEPUTY HOGAN:
I don't know.
MISS MACSWINEY:
I will tell you, and I will tell you not from my intimate knowledge of
Canadian law, not from my intimate knowledge of Canadian constitutional
practice, not from any personal acquaintance of Lloyd George or Chamberlain or
Churchill, but from my knowledge of English history, English practice, English
fact and English trickery as applied to our own country. She has not got it for
the very same reason that Washington did not yet recognise the Irish Republic,
because of English intrigue at Washington. Don't make any mistake about it. What
is the use of Canada being told in the Colonial Conference that she may have a
foreign representative if she doesn't get one? `A bird in the hand is worth two
in the bush' [applause]. But Canada's representation is still in
the bush and likely to remain there.
A DEPUTY:
And so will document No. 2.
MISS MACSWINEY:
And Irish freedom will never be further away in that more intricate bush than
the day you adopt that instrument. Again, take the representative of the Crown
in Ireland. We were told the representative of the Crown would not, by the
gracious kindness of Lloyd George, be called a Governor-General unless we liked
the name. What does it matter what he is called, or whether you have a Viceroy,
a Governor-General, or a representative of the Crown pure and simple? What on
earth does it matter what he is called as long as he is head of a thing to which
we cannot agree? What will that representative of the Crown mean? It has been
said and contradicted that it will mean his Majesty's Army, his Majesty's
Ministers. It may be that the Irish people will avoid the name `his Majesty's
Ministers' in exactly the same way as they will avoid the name
`Governor-General', but they will be the thing And you young men of the Irish
Republican Army, where are you to be? What will you do with the Republic? What
will you do with the I.R.A. that you are so proud of? With the I.R.A. whose
reputation has gone abroad through the world? There will be an end of your I.R.A.
in this Treaty. How do you think the people will take that? Whatever you call
his Majesty's Army, every officer that gets a commission in that Army will have
the official seal of his Majesty's representative on his commission. Every stamp
will be a Free State stamp if you like, but the ensign of the Governor-General
or the representative of the Crown will be there as well. You will get that out
of your Constitution if you can I have no doubt, but again `wait and
see'---`wait and see'. Leaving official documents out of the question, let us
come to the social side, the social structure we were told we would have power
to build up. Some of you will realise what a hard and terrible fight it has been
for our people to destroy the evils of shoneenism in this country. Here under
this instrument you will have shoneenism rampant. All the worst elements of our
country will gather around that Governor-General's residence.
A DEPUTY:
He is welcome to them.
MISS MACSWINEY:
I love my people, every single one of them; I love the country, and I have
faith in the people, but I am under no delusions about any of us. We are not a
race of archangels, and you allow that Governor-General's residence, with
drawing-rooms, levees, and honours and invitations to be scattered broadcast to
your wives and your sisters and your daughters, and mothers even, with all the
baits that will be held out to them to come in for the first time by consent of
the Irish people in the social atmosphere of the Governor-General's residence.
Remember that there will be functions there which will be partly social and
partly political, which will be Governmental functions. The Ministers of the
Government of the Irish Free State---I will omit for the sake of argument the
offensive words `his Majesty's Ministers'---will be obliged to attend the
Governor-General's functions and he will attend theirs. Wherever the
Governor-General is, or the representative of the Crown in Ireland is, there you
will have the Union Jack and `God Save the King' and you will have the Union
Jack and `God Save the King' for the first time with the consent of the people
of Ireland. You may say to me, some of you, that there will be, perhaps, a
self-denying ordinance clause which will prevent the Ministers of the Irish
Government, or any person belonging to the Irish Government, entering the
portals of the Governor-General's house. You cannot. You will have to have him
there as representative of the King with certain functions to perform. You
cannot exclude him. You cannot stay away from him. You will have to get his
signature to documents. You will have to get his signature to every law that is
passed by the Irish Free State Government, and if the Minister for Foreign
Affairs stands up and contradicts that, if he says we can make a Constitution
which will take care that the Governor-General does not have to sign any such
document, again I say, `wait and see', wait until your Constitution has come
through Westminster, wait till the English Government, by means of this
instrument of theirs, signed by the Irish Delegation---they have demoralised the
people of this country as they had already demoralised some of the men in this
assembly by their specious arguments. Your Constitution must be `as by law
established'. Wait and see whether it will get you out of the English
representative's domicile in Dublin. You may tell me that the
patronage---abominable word---think of the word patronage being used to an Irish
Republican Assembly---`his Majesty's patronage' will be under the control of the
Irish Government. I have no doubt, none whatever, but that any Minister of the
Irish Free State, any one of those advocating support of this Treaty in the
present Dáil, would refuse a title from his Majesty's Government, but wait a
little while until the first fervour of the Irish Free State is worn out, wait a
little while until a stage is reached when the demoralisation has eaten into the
soul of the people of this country, and the next Parliament won't be so very
self-denying with regard to honours and patronage. And remember what you are
doing to the young girls growing up into this so-called Irish Free State. Many
young girls of my own personal acquaintance, not very many, because very many of
that type, I am sorry to say, have not been on our side; but some few, at all
events, who had what we know as an entre into vice-regal circles have
been cut off from many social functions that their age entitled them to, that
their position entitled them to, because they could not consistently with
Republican principles go to a dance at the vice- regal lodge, or go to a dance
in any place where the English military influence was uppermost. But in the
Irish Free State these brave young girls who stood up against temptation can
walk in unchecked. Under the Constitution of the Irish Free State you have no
right to call any girl a shoneen because she walks into a dance at the
vice-regal lodge. You men may sneer, some of you, at these points. Believe me
they are no matters to sneer about. Those of you who are thinking men, and who
are out to do the best for Ireland, know perfectly well what a hard fight we
have had against that sort of thing. This you say will be sentiment, but for the
first time in the history of this country you have Irish sentiment and Irish
demoralisation and Irish Government all on the one side. Do you realise what
that means? The papers have told us that a royal residence in the Irish Free
State will be an admirable thing in Ireland; it will conduce to loyalty among
the people of Ireland. It may and it may not, but if it does not it will not be
the fault of the Irish Free State `by law established', if it gets established,
but it will he because we Republicans will keep up the very same plan of black
flags and boycotts that we kept up until they place us where we are to-day, or
rather not where we are to-day, but where we were on the 4th of December last.
And, mind, when we put up black flags in the streets of Dublin, either for the
Governor-General or the representative of the Crown or Viceroy, or whatever you
like to call him, or the King himself, his Majesty's representative will send
word to the Prime Minister of the Irish Free state and make a complaint and get
us arrested. And who is going to arrest us? I have already told Michael Collins
that I will be the first rebel he will have to arrest. And mind, we Republicans
are going to carry on this fight with the gloves off, if this thing is passed.
The Minister for Local Government said---and he hoped he was going to get a
majority in this matter---that he hoped the minority was going to abide by the
will of the Irish people. If I am in a minority, I am one of those who will
advocate that this matter shall be put to the Irish people, and it is not those
who stand with me on this that dread the judgment of the Irish people. Make no
mistake about it. Last Thursday morning the Irish people would have taken that,
but not after the debate that has gone on in this House. The Irish people would
have taken that on the cry, `What is good enough for Michael Collins is good
enough for me'. Last Thursday morning I thought, like the country thought, that
this document, which we consider a dishonour to our country and to our cause,
was backed by a united Cabinet, and on last Thursday, too, some of us
irreconcilables asked ourselves what choice had we, a handful, against the name
of de Valera, but not one of us said, `What is good enough for de Valera is good
enough for us'. Not one of us said, `What is good enough for Michael Collins is
good enough for us', and there has been no belauding of personalities on our
side of the House. We stand on principle, and if the President and a united
Cabinet stood for that instrument, we should still stand against it [applause].
Personally I must say that I was grieved to the heart when I thought a united
Cabinet stood on that. I want to allude to that, but before passing to it I want
to say one word more about that oath. It is no use for you to look at your
watches. Go out if you like, but this is probably the last time that I shall
ever speak before you in public, in an assembly like this; certainly and most
emphatically the last time until the Irish Republican Government comes back
again with the full consent of the people, and I care not, and apologise not, if
I take more of your time than you are willing to give. Those who want to hear
the Treaty will stay and listen: those who are afraid of the Treaty can go out.
One thing more I want to say about that oath. I have said that I am ashamed of
the arguments that have been brought about it. I am ashamed of the efforts that
are being made on the other side of this assembly to show the people of this
Dáil how they can drive, not one coach-and-four through it, but a coach-and-four
through every line of it. That, I maintain, is not consistent with the honour of
our people; it is not consistent with the attitude we have adopted towards the
world and on which we have got the sympathy of the world. What use, you will
tell me, is sympathy? It is this use, that it is the sympathy of the world and
the judgment and conscience of the world that brought England to her knees in
these negotiations. She has the military. I know that, but she cannot win this
battle, for if she exterminates the men, the women will take their places, and,
if she exterminates the women, the children are rising fast; and if she
exterminates the men, women and children of this generation, the blades of
grass, dyed with their blood, will rise, like the dragon's teeth of old, into
armed men and the fight will begin in the next generation. But I am concerned
for the honour of my country before the world, and I tell the world that it is
not the true voice of Ireland that has spoken so flippantly about oaths and
their breaking. It is not the true voice of the people of Ireland that has
spoken to you. Have no doubt about it whatever. This fight of ours has been
essentially a spiritual fight; it has been a fight of right against wrong, a
fight of a small people struggling for a spiritual ideal against a mighty
rapacious and material Empire, and, as the things of the spirit have always
prevailed, they prevail now. Up to last December we had won the admiration of
the world for our honour, and I tell the world that the honour of Ireland is
still unsullied, and that Ireland will show it, and will show that Ireland means
fidelity to the Republic and not the driving of a coach-and-four through the
oath which she will never consent to allow her Ministers to take. This is a
spiritual fight of ours, but though we are idealists standing for a spiritual
principle, we are practical idealists, and it is your idealist that is the real
practical man, not your opportunist; and watch the opportunists in every
generation and you will see nothing but broken hopes behind them. It is those
who stand for the spiritual and the ideal that stand true and unflinching, and
it is those who will win---not those who can inflict most but those who can
endure most will conquer. The war of 1914 has left the world in a very different
position from what the world was in before. It was thrown yesterday at Mr.
Childers that he wrote a book in 1911 showing that he did not believe in the
Irish Republic. I stand here, and nobody will tell me that I am not an Irish
Republican, but I can truthfully say, and I challenge any Member in this
assembly to say otherwise, that in 1911 I did not believe that I would see an
Irish Republic established in my generation. The war brought many changes; the
war brought forth idealists and the self-determination of small nationalities.
Their right to express their freedom in their own way was bandied about from one
Government to another, and every Government in the world has been false to it
but our own. Still, all the peoples of the world have not been false to it. The
peoples of the world, including a growing number of the people of England, are
true to that ideal; they want peace, and they know that peace can never be
established except on the basis of truth and justice to all alike. Therefore our
fight to-day has a chance of victory. You have told us it is between the
acceptance of that document and war. If it were, with every sense of deep
responsibility, I say then let us take war. I am not speaking as a young, ardent
enthusiast. I am speaking as a woman who has thought and studied much, who
realises, as only a woman can, the evils of war and the sufferings of war.
Deputy Milroy yesterday in a speech to which I shall not allude, for it made me
ashamed to think the public was listening to it, acknowledged that the women are
the greatest sufferers of the war. I would ask him, if it were a democratic
proposition, to let the women of Ireland judge this, and I have no doubt what
the issue would be.
MR. MILROY:
I will answer that question if the Deputy wishes an answer to it.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Yes, I don't mind, if the Speaker thinks it is in order.
MR. MILROY:
I take it the question is: `Am I prepared to let the women of Ireland judge
whether this Treaty should be ratified or not?' Yes, and accept their decision
too.
MISS MACSWINEY:
I am glad, but as I prefaced my statement by the words `if it were a
democratic proposition', I suppose that the answer, as well as the question,
will be considered rhetorical.
MR. MILROY:
You are not prepared to take the decision?
MISS MACSWINEY:
I am prepared. I would take a plebiscite of the women of Ireland gladly, and
I know what the answer would be.
MR. GRIFFITH:
So would we.
MISS MACSWINEY:
This matter has been put to us as the Treaty or war. I say now if it were
war, I would take it gladly and gleefully, not flippantly, but gladly, because I
realise that there are evils worse than war, and no physical victory can
compensate for a spiritual surrender. But I deny that the alternative is war, as
I deny that the alternative would have been war on the night of the 5th of last
December. I will come to that presently, but this I say: You show the people of
England that we are prepared to make peace with them on honourable terms, giving
them even guarantees that they are not in justice entitled to, giving them even
the money to which they are not in justice entitled in exactly the same spirit
that I would give a robber a reward for giving me back my purse and part of its
contents---show the people of England that we want peace, if we can get an
honourable peace, and I have no doubt they will not vote £250,000,000, which
Lloyd George says is the price of exterminating Ireland. I don't deny that there
is a danger that England will go to war. I do deny that there is a danger that
she will be allowed to exterminate the people of Ireland, for the conscience of
the world is awake, and I would like to quote one sentence to you from a man
whose name I am not going to mention: ` The rulers of the World dare not look on
indifferent while new tortures are being prepared for our people, or they will
see the pillars of their own Government shaken and the world involved in
unimaginable anarchy'. That is the answer to the threat. The rulers of the world
dare not allow Ireland to be exterminated. If they do, Ireland must choose
extermination before dishonour, and Ireland will choose. I have no dread
whatever of the verdict of the Irish people. I come to one more thing. That is
the insult to the people of Ireland by the Deputies who have taken it for
granted that the Irish people are going to jump at their own dishonour. With a
definite Republican Manifesto in your pockets, How dare you say your
constituents have changed until you have gone and asked them? I come now to a
very important point---for me one of the most important points that has to be
dealt with here. I raised it in the Private Session, and, judging by the
speeches I have heard in the public Session, I may as well have talked to the
wall: that is the negotiations themselves. I am sorry that Mr. Michael Collins,
Minister for Finance, and Dr. MacCartan have chosen to abstain at this
particular moment, because I must use their names, and I dislike using any man's
name in his absence. Negotiations, we are told, meant surrender. As one of those
who has taken throughout this whole conflict, throughout the whole of our stand
since 1919, and much further back, an absolutely uncompromising and
irreconcilable stand, if you like to so call it, I deny that absolutely. People
here present who want to compromise have told me that if I did not see that
compromise was intended I must have been either a fool or wilfully blind. I do
not think I am a fool. I know I was not wilfully blind, and, being utterly and
entirely uncompromising in my fidelity and allegiance to the Republic, I stand
here before Ireland to-day to tell the truth about these negotiations as a
Member of the Dáil that sent the Delegation. The public know perfectly well how
Mr. Arthur Griffith, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, has told us again and
again in years past of the paper wall which England built around Ireland. On the
outside of that paper wall England wrote what she wanted the rest of the world
to believe about Ireland, and on the inside of the paper wall she wrote what she
wanted Ireland to believe about the world. It is largely due to the strong and
determined and honourable efforts of Mr. Griffith himself that the people of
Ireland did not believe the fairy-tales written on the inside; but the world
outside did, and only this great fight of ours and all the publicity which
attended every single thing about it, and the publicity that went abroad
throughout the world---because of certain incidents in that fight, the world
began to see something of the truth for which Ireland stood. But the world did
not see it all and English propaganda was powerful still. Enough was seen to get
the conscience of the world up against England, and then England tried to tell
the world these people are only a handful, a murder gang, a handful of
extremists, Sinn Fein is split in two, the moderate party wants this, the
extremist party wants something else, and so the world was still questioning.
Lloyd George sent out negotiators in different forms, clerical and lay, since, I
believe, last December. I was not here then. I think they began with Archbishop
Clune, but I am not sure, because I was in America and I did not know what was
going on very clearly, being dependent on the pro-English American Press. Time
after time negotiators came---Lord Derby came as Mr. Edwards---another and
another came---and they all tried to trap our President or the members of the
Cabinet into declaring that Ireland would take something less than the Republic.
And I say here and now that the members of the Cabinet, one and all, have to be
judged on their public declarations and not on the private meetings of the
Cabinet. If between themselves they bandied words and tried to find agreement by
common consent that is their affair, and they were perfectly justified in doing
so. I ask any sane man here does he believe that Lloyd George, Churchill,
Chamberlain, Worthington Evans, Hamar Greenwood, Gordon Hewatt, and I don't know
how many more of them---do you honestly and truthfully believe that these men
sit down in Cabinet and come to unanimous decisions without good, long, straight
arguments first? What the English Cabinet is to be judged by is the public
expression of the Cabinet in the person of one of its Ministers. I defy any
single man here or anywhere throughout Ireland to take any Cabinet statement,
any Ministerial statement of the Republican Government from January 21st, 1919,
to December 6th, 1921, until that document was issued, which was subversive of
the Republican doctrine that the country stood for. Now, let us have no nonsense
about this, let us have no unworthy insinuations thrown across the floor of this
assembly. Take these public men, every one of them, and judge them by their
public statements up to the 4th of last December, and I maintain that the first
public statement issued by any Cabinet Minister which was subversive of the
Republican doctrine was that so-called Treaty signed on the morning of 6th
December. I don't care if the Cabinet were fighting like cats among themselves.
What I do care is what they said to us, and what they said to the world. That is
what matters; that is what will go down to history, make no mistake about it.
Lloyd George and Lord Birkenhead as cooing doves outside must have had many and
many a scrap inside the Cabinet before they came out with a united consent to
that document. What was the use of entering negotiations? The use of entering
negotiations, I say here as an ardent and uncompromising Republican, was to show
the world that we were a reasonable people, as well as a people clamouring for
right; that we realised that our propinquity to England was the source of many
justifiable fears on England's part. England knew, and the world knew, that no
nation in the world has reason to hate another as we have to hate England, and
she had good reason to fear that hate. We wanted to show her in these
negotiations that we were willing to forgive, aye and forget. We were willing,
and I say it here, even I, and all those women who have suffered from English
tyranny say it too, we were willing to forgive and forget. I maintain that the
attitude of Ireland, the magnanimity of Ireland, the generosity of Ireland in
that act of willingness to forgive and forget would have won us the last ounce
of sympathy of the world, away from England. That was the value of the
negotiations, to show the world, as we could have shown them, what we were
willing to do, as I hope we will show them yet; to show the English people what
their Government was going to war for for they were going to war, too---and
going to drag the English people and the English taxpayer and the English
workman and labourer into war, on what? On a desire to subjugate an old, a free
people, to their own individual freedom. That was the value of the negotiations.
Now I am going to deal with the charge that the Delegation were turned down by
the Cabinet and by the Dáil. Again I must say I am sorry that I had not a united
opposition to listen to me. The public is listening, and if the Press can even
bring itself to be fair about this matter, it will be well for the public. The
Press is not yet fair in spite of our protests; the American Press represented
here is not fair in America, and I have had a cable this morning from America
protesting against even the Hearst papers as being utterly unfair. I will say to
the Irish people without the Press, if I cannot say it through the Press, the
truth about these negotiations. It came to be decided that we were to send a
delegation to Lloyd George. We sent it. That delegation claims that they went as
plenipotentiaries, that they went without terms of reference, that they went
with full power to sign any document which they thought would be acceptable and
to bring it back. Let me go back to the day the delegation was appointed. On the
14th of last September there was a meeting of An Dáil. Much talk had been going
around that there was compromise coming. From the 21st August to 14th September
I kept my eyes and my ears open to see if compromise was intended. I spoke to
the President and I gave him my opinion. I spoke to various Members and I gave
and elicited opinions. On the 11th September, I think it was, or on the Sunday
before the Minister of Finance spoke in Armagh. On the Monday morning I read his
speech, and on the Monday evening, in writing to a friend and colleague of his,
I wrote this sentence: `I do not care for your friend Mick's speech, for the
Republic is not mentioned in it from beginning to end'. That friend of his must
have shown him that letter, because on the following Wednesday, September 14th,
when the Dáil met---it is not my fault that I say this without Michael Collins'
presence, it is his fault---Michael Collins passed me in the Oak Room of the
Mansion House, and in response to my `Dia's Muire dhuit', be said: `I
hear you think I am a compromiser. Well, I am not, then; and I tell you that'. I
declare here solemnly that I was glad his name was on the Delegation, and from
that day,September 14th, in spite of his speech in Armagh, in spite of anything
I heard to the contrary, when Michael Collins said to me, `I hear you think I am
a compromiser. Well, I am not, then; and I tell you that'. I never doubted
Michael Collins until I saw his signature to that document, nor did I think it
necessary to write to London to him to ask him to stand firm. On that 14th
September I felt bound to rise in my place and say that there had been a good
deal of talk of compromise, and that I wanted to announce my position. I knew
there were compromisers in the Dáil, and I called on those who believed in
compromise to stand up then and there, or for ever more hold their peace. Not
one stood up. Deputy Hogan in a superior voice the other day---
DEPUTY HOGAN:
On a point of order, I don't want to allow Miss MacSwiney to proceed under a
misunderstanding. I did stand up; I did not mention this before. I stood up and
said I approved of the conference and reserved my right to say what I had to say
until the delegates came back.
MISS MACSWINEY:
I am glad that Deputy Hogan agrees with me. That was my attitude. I approved
of the conference with all my heart and mind and strength because I believed it
was the last plank of English propaganda and that we had broken it. Now to come
back from that. One Member, who has since, like Deputy Hogan, supported
ratification of this document, declared that even if he had nothing left but the
island of Arran, he would dig himself in and hold it for the Republic. In view
of the still undoubted strength of the British Fleet, I would say the island of
Arran was the worst spot to choose. The last speaker who stood up was Mr. Kevin
O'Higgins, and he also, in a slightly superior voice, which he has maintained
throughout this debate, suggested to me, and those who spoke also, that the
discussion was a little too previous, that we had all sworn an oath to the
Republic, and that when the Delegation came back from London with something less
than the Republic it would be time enough to talk. He has talked since, not
effectively, for there has not been an effective argument made on what I call,
without fear of opposition, the material side of this House. He has talked
flippantly of posterity, and I do not like to see a young man of Deputy
O'Higgins, intelligence and his youth talk flippantly of posterity. Rather would
I like to hear him stand and say, as was said about Tone on another fight of
liberty: `Bliss was it not with Tone to be alive, but to be young was very
heaven'. I consider it was bliss to be alive up to the 6th of this month. I do
not yet agree with Dr. MacCartan that the Republic is dead. It cannot die. But I
should like to be as young as Deputy O'Higgins is now, to carry on the fight for
posterity. It is sad to find young men in this assembly speaking against all
that is noble, all that is great, all that is magnanimous in the people of our
nation; speaking against the one and only stand for principle that has won for
our people the admiration of the world. No compromiser spoke or said that he was
a compromiser on last September 14th. Then the Delegation went over, and let me
tell you another thing about that Delegation and its value to us. Do you realise
what it means to the world for us that a man called the head of a murder gang
should sit at the same table with Lloyd George as a representative of the Irish
people? If he had not signed his name to that document, the mere fact that he
sat there---the so-called chief of the murder gang---was inestimably effective
for us. Do you think it was no victory for us that the English Government were
obliged to allow Sean MacKeon and others to walk out of jail, even though some
of them were under sentence of death, to sit in this assembly? You cannot get
over the immense value to Ireland in the eyes of the world of these two facts,
plain, bold facts---and I am dealing with nothing else---that those men were
allowed out of prison. Commandant Sean MacKeon seconded that abominable
document, I am sorry to say. I know that he would fight to the death for the
Republic of Ireland still, but he does not realise what he is giving away. I am
glad that he is here alive to-day to fight for the Republic again, but if he
were my brother, I would rather he were with Kevin Barry. The Delegation went to
London, and their going to London was magnificent propaganda for us. The
Minister of Publicity went with them. He also is absent. Would any member of the
Cabinet, or any Member of this Dáil, tell me what took the Minister of Publicity
to London? What was he doing there? Nothing. He deserves the reprimand of the
Cabinet and the Dáil for allowing every single thing we gained in propaganda to
be given away by the English Press. From the day he went to London be never
counteracted by any word that we could see the efforts of the English Press to
misrepresent us. He had a duty to the Republican Members of this assembly
whatever his own views were. Non-publication was promised on both sides, but the
very first morning after the first conference the English Press had
information---inside information---and our Delegates protested, and it stopped
in a few days. But when the English Press began again, and when suggestions were
made that the Delegation had given up the Republic for Dominion Home Rule, I
maintain that the Delegation and the Minister of Publicity were grossly wanting
in their duty to An Dáil not to put a stop to it. Lloyd George may have said to
them as Mr. Griffith said to me: `We cannot help the Press'. I maintain it was
their business to help the Press. What in the name of heavens had we a Minister
of Publicity in London for? Much will be made of the fact that they kept their
promise of secrecy and that the English did not. My answer to that is this, they
should have gone to Lloyd George and they should have said to him: `Now look
here, no ráimeis, if you please'. They might have shaken the Daily
Express in his face and said: `It is no use for you, sir, to tell us that
you are not responsible for the Press. You have as much power to stop the Press
now as you had to stop it during the war, and if you allow that propaganda
against us to go on, we break our promise here and now and we will put out
propaganda'. If our Minister of Publicity and our Delegates know what they were
about, and were in earnest about it, they should have done that. I maintain
there was gross negligence, as far as the Press was concerned, in this matter. I
wrote to Mr. Arthur Griffith late in the negotiations, and I tell you honestly
now the reason I did not write and pester him with letters, as I pestered the
poor President, was that I trusted them all too much. I did write one letter to
him, and only one letter. I pointed out the iniquity of the things that they
were allowing the English papers to say with impunity. I pointed out to him that
the Daily Express in particular gave what is tantamount to the very
things that are given in that document: the oath of allegiance, the partition of
Ulster, and the control of our purse, and I said to him: `It is not fair to us
that that should go on, and you know that if by any chance you came back with
such a compromise, the only result would be a split in the country'. He knew
then, as he knows now, that those of us who stand for principle cannot yield to
expediency; that we, at least, will not sell our national rights for a mess of
imperial pottage. And my conscience is perfectly clear about these negotiations.
They were valuable, valuable beyond all computation up to the 4th of December.
Mr. Griffith wrote back to me that they should have the entire confidence of the
people if they were to be successful, and that he was quite confident that he
would not bring back anything which the Irish people would not accept.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Mr. Griffith has brought back something that he thinks the Irish people will
accept. They will not, and, if a majority of them do, Mr. Griffith will find
what I warned him of is true: a split in the country with half, or nearly half,
of the country rebels to his Government. Mr. Griffith knew that we, Republicans,
could not stand for that. So much, so far. I would like to ask another question,
to which I hope some Minister will reply before this Session closes. Did we not
have in London a representative of the Irish Republican Government, a man who
knows London well, and who for the last three years has been closely associated
with the Republican Government as its representative? Was he consulted in this
matter at all? I wrote to him also about this matter of the Press, for I know
that he realises the value of the Press and the terrible crime against Ireland
which it was to allow the Press of the world to get away with the idea that we
meant compromise. He wrote me back that he believed it was a fatal mistake to
let the Press get away with this English story, and that he had told the members
of the Delegation so. Our representative in Paris has told us already in his
speech that he left Paris and came home to protest, and that he also protested
in London en route. So they did not sin without knowledge, and I maintain
it was a crime to our cause to allow all that unfair propaganda to be used
against us. Another thing I would like to know is this: in those fatal two
hours, from 8.30 to 10.30---allowing that from 10.30 to 2.30 a.m. they were in
the fatal atmosphere of Downing Street with terrible or immediate war hanging
over their heads, and I realise the responsibility that lay on them about the
signing of that document---did they consult the representative of our Government
in London? He knew London better than any of us; he knew Lloyd George as well,
if not better, than any of them, and he knew the mind of the English people
better than any of them. Did they consult him as to whether Lloyd George was
bluffing or not? I think his opinion would have been worth taking in the matter.
Did they consult anybody they were entitled to consult? They were absolutely
entitled to consult the representative of the Irish Republican Government in
London, just as much as in any conference in a foreign country the Ambassador of
England would be consulted. I maintain that our cause was not lost when we sent
negotiators to London. Our cause was not lost, and is not lost yet [hear,
hear]. Our cause was injured by the mismanagement of the Press in
London; by the carelessness, the inexcusable carelessness of the Minister of
Publicity. What on earth he was there for I cannot see. And lost by the fact
that the Delegation completely ignored the feeling which they knew existed
amongst the out-and-out Republicans in this assembly. That feeling was
perfectly, strongly and plainly expressed before one of them went to London. You
are told they got no terms of reference. I maintain they did, and those terms of
reference are three. There is first the last published statement made by this
Dáil; there is secondly the credentials given to them by the President; and
there is thirdly their instructions. If those were not credentials, if those
were not terms of reference, I do not know what are terms of reference. It is
absurd to say that terms of reference should be given and accepted by both
Governments. You know that was impossible. In our case you know there was a
mental reservation that the Republic is what we meant and that we would take
nothing but the Republic. The President expresses that in his final telegram to
Lloyd George, quoted by the Minister of Finance. Our last word to these
delegates was this: `In this final note we deem it our duty to reaffirm that our
position is, and can only be, what we have been fighting for throughout the
correspondence. Our nation has firmly declared its independence and recognises
itself as a Sovereign State and it is only as the representatives of that State
and its chosen guardians that we have any authority or powers to act on behalf
of our people'. They went there as the elected representatives of the Republican
Government, and it was only as the elected representatives of the Republican
Government that they had the authority of Dáil Eireann or the people to
negotiate at all. As regards the second document, the credentials given them for
presentation to Lloyd George, no such credentials were asked for and they were
not asked to present them, because both sides knew there were mental
reservations. Both sides thought they would like to get talking in the hope of
seeing each how far the other would go. The credentials stand for history, the
credentials stand for posterity, and posterity will not be flippant about them.
They were sent and appointed by the President in virtue of the authority vested
in him by Dáil Eireann as Envoys Plenipotentiary of the elected Government of
the Republic of Ireland. There is Credential No. 2; there is Term of Reference
No. 2. None of those men with those documents can say they went there without
terms of reference. And without that last document given them by An Dáil I, for
one, would have protested throughout the country while the negotiations were
going on, instead of holding my tongue in deference to my trust in their
absolute Republicanism. The next term of reference lies in the instructions
given to them by the Government, and the kernel of this lies in Paragraph 3.
Paragraph 2 gives them powers, full powers, as defined in their credentials, and
their credentials were `Envoys Plenipotentiary of the elected Government of the
Republic of Ireland'. The Envoys had full powers as defined in their
credentials: `It is understood, however, that before decisions are finally
reached on the main question that a dispatch notifying the intention of making
these decisions will be sent to the members of the Cabinet in Dublin, and that a
reply will be awaited by the Plenipotentiaries before a final decision is made'.
And Paragraph 3, the kernel of these instructions: `It is also understood that a
complete text of the draft Treaty about to be signed will be similarly submitted
to Dublin and the reply awaited'. The Delegates told us they did not get time.
You cannot go from London to Dublin and back between the hours of 8.30 and 10
o'clock, I agree. They should therefore have kept to the instructions given to
them by their own Cabinet, not to the threats of Lloyd George. And think of
Lloyd George's excuse. People of Ireland, think of Lloyd George's excuse. He had
promised to give an answer to Sir James Craig by Tuesday, and that is actually
told us seriously by the members of our delegation. They maintain that they told
that in the Cabinet the preceding Saturday. They did, and they got their answer
from the Cabinet: `Go back and break'. They did not break. They took it on
themselves to sign. I do not agree with one of them, not even with those who
signed under duress, who signed and are still honourable men; I do not agree
with one of them that they should have signed that document, no matter what the
consequences. Sir James Craig should have an answer; we waited for 750 years,
and Sir James Craig could not wait for forty-eight hours. Of all the idiotic
excuses given for a deliberate betrayal of their instructions, a disobedience of
their instructions, I never heard anything so idiotic in my life. The threat of
immediate war is not idiotic; there they were bluffed. They know now, if they
did not know it then, that they were bluffed. Again, I ask, why did they not
consult the man who should have been consulted and who knew England, as to
whether it was bluff or not? Bluff or not, they should have obeyed the
instructions they got on Saturday, to break rather than come back with a signed
document. Let it be that that document is signed at the point of the cannon's
mouth, as Deputy O'Higgins said; with free knowledge and consent, as the
Minister for Foreign Affairs said; with duress as other delegates have said; let
it be that it was signed at that fatal hour on Tuesday morning. Again I maintain
that the delegates had no right to allow that document to be published. Again I
maintain that they had no right to allow that to be sent to the world, and if
Lloyd George insisted that it should go to Sir James Craig, they could have said
to Lloyd George: `Very well, we have signed rather than risk immediate war; but
if you publish that document with our signatures till we have time to refer to
our Parliament, then we will tell the world that we do not recommend that
document'. If they had said that to Lloyd George the position would be saved for
Ireland. Lloyd George knew there were people in this country who would not
accept that right off. He believed that he knew that the majority of the people
would agree to accept it and that he would get the willing and selfish people on
whom he could wreak his will, and that the Government of the Irish Free State
could be safely left to deal with the minority of rebels. That is what our
delegates have got by allowing that document to be published to the world and
allowing the world and Ireland to say: `What is good enough for Mick Collins is
good enough for me'. Oh, people of An Dáil, people of Ireland, do not allow
yourselves to be tricked in this the last, the greatest moment of this wonderful
struggle of ours. Dr. MacCartan pitifully said last night the Republic was dead
and the signatures were the epitaph. Again I am sorry Dr. MacCartan is not here
to listen to my opinion of his speech. A doctrinaire Republican he calls
himself. I too am a doctrinaire Republican for Ireland. I am as uncompromising a
Republican as Dr. MacCartan, but I should not make the pitiful speech he made
last night. The Republic dead! No, not a thousand such documents could kill it.
The Republic dead, and he stands there as a doctrinaire Republican and caoines
over it. It is not dead while there is a woman or child in Ireland. It is not
dead if every man in Ireland turned his back on it. The Republic dead! What is
that but a cowardly speech, the gospel of despair of this country of ours which
had won the admiration of the world. I tell the world as I tell Dr. MacCartan,
it can be dead if he likes, but we are alive and we shall show it. And Dr.
MacCartan says he will not vote for the Treaty as a Republican, and he will not
vote against it because it means chaos. Again I say it does not mean chaos, but
if it does not, it is due, and will be due, to the Republican Party of this
country. All that our delegates and their supporters could do to create chaos
they have done, and they have done it knowing that it would create chaos, for
every one of them was told it would mean a split. It was not only in my letter
to Arthur Griffith that I said this would mean a split. I said, as you will all
remember, on the 14th September in the Session of An Dáil, this means a split;
it means that we are back again where we were in 1914 to begin the fight all
over again. We are back, but we are back with a difference, for if this goes
through we are back with the dishonour of having once established the Republican
Government in this country and turned our back on it. Oh, it is true what Mr.
Childers said, as `no man can put bounds to the onward march of a nation', so no
one can put bounds to the backward march of a nation once that nation lets go of
the spiritual ideal which has kept it alive through seven centuries of torture
with brief intervals of repose. No one can put bounds, and surely you will agree
with me the English nation and the English Government will not try to put bounds
to the backward march of that nation, and it will be a backward march for a long
time, I am afraid, if this is now accepted by the people of Ireland; not quite
so backward as perhaps Lloyd George counts on, for the Army is at heart
Republican, and the Army is still the Irish Republican Army, and it will be that
until the people of Ireland set up a Government which is not the Irish
Republican Government. The Irish Republican Army stands true and disciplined not
to the Irish Dominion Free State, but to the Irish Republican Government. I have
kept you a long time. I make no apology for it, nor will you seek one. You may
be tired, so am I. Let me tell you this. As you have faced, some of you, the
enemy's fire, as you have faced the torture of his jails, as you have faced his
sentences of death, you must face this act of yours in its every detail, and
this is what the young men of this Dáil---and I tell their constituents
so---many of them have not done. They have not listened to the arguments against
this Treaty they are voting for. They came in with their minds closed as in a
vice. Some of them have told us so; some of them have said they are going to
vote for this Treaty, and nothing we say can change their minds. All I can say
is God help them, because the man who will not change his mind for a reasonable
argument proves one thing only, that he has no mind to change. Not one proof can
be adduced for this Treaty which is logical, which is worthy of the Irish people
who sent you here. Every argument against it is consistent with the promises we
gave to our constituents. We have no right to presume that they have changed.
There are men in this assembly who are voting against this Treaty who have the
approval of their constituents expressed. There are men in this assembly who are
voting against this Treaty who have the disapproval of their constituents
expressed. The answer for these latter to their constituents would be---and it
would be my answer if my constituents dared to suggest to me the unworthy course
that, having taken an oath to be faithful to the Republic which they
established, I am going to be false to it---my answer would be: `You knew what I
stood for when I came here. I have not changed, and, if you have, you can tell
me so the next time I come to you'. There are men in this assembly who are
voting for the Treaty and they have the approval of their constituents
expressed; there are men in this assembly who are voting for the Treaty and they
have the disapproval of their constituents expressed and they cannot say to
them: `You sent me here for a specific purpose, and I am going to be true to
that purpose'. Their constituents are calling on them to be true to the purpose
for which they were sent here. What answer will they give to their constituents
when they go back, and what answer will they give to posterity? Once more I beg
and implore of you to think deeply before you sign this Treaty. It is an act of
dishonour to our nation. Those who have spoken for it, I know, do not mean
dishonour. One of them, and one of them alone, has declared he means to keep it.
Others have shown us various measures for driving a coach-and-four through it.
That, I maintain, is not an honourable stand. Long ago in Ireland's history, in
the time of Fionn MacCumhail, they had truth in their hearts, strength in their
arms, and what they said, that they would do. We said a Republic. In God's name
let us mean it. Do not sign your name to that Treaty meaning to break it, and
think that you can get the better of that wizard trickster in Downing Street.
You are braver than he is. You are more honourable than he is. You can beat him
in the field by the same tactics that you beat him with before; you can beat him
in the opinion of the world, but do not be such fools as to think that you can
beat him in trickery. You are not made like that, thank God, nor is any
Irishman; none of us can beat Lloyd George in trickery, in meanness, in
scoundrelism, for I maintain, great man as he is to-day, he is the most
unprincipled scoundrel in history [applause]. Do not be led away
by that unprincipled trickster. He has tried over and over again in this fight
of ours to put us in the wrong with the world. he has tried over and again to
fool us before the world, and we have stood on the rock of principle and we have
refused to be fooled. Now the very men that taught us, that taught many and many
a one among us anyhow, how easily Irish politicians are fooled by Lloyd George,
have been fooled themselves and have come back to fool the country like
ourselves. They don't mean to fool us. One man means to keep the Treaty; four
have shown us how to break it. I ask you do you think that trickster in Downing
Street is less clever than you are, that he will not take care to drive a
coach-and-four through your Constitution, if you are going to drive a
coach-and-four through his Articles of Agreement. You cannot beat the English in
trickery. Don't think it. For the last two days, for the last week, since this
Dáil opened, I have wondered as I listened to the speeches of those in favour of
the Agreement or Treaty---call it what you will, I will make you a present of
the word Treaty , though his Majesty doesn't---have they already learned
one lesson from England, the art of self-deception? There is nothing in which
the Englishman excels more than in the art of self-deception. It looks as if the
Irish Free Staters have already learned that lesson. I have finished; I have
said, not all I could say, for I could take these articles one by one and give
you many more details against them. I have said all that is necessary to say for
the honour of myself and for what I stand for, and for the honour of the
Republican Members of this Dáil. I do not speak for those who spoke last night
of a dead Republic and sobbed a pitiful caoine over it. I speak for the
living Republic, the Republic that cannot die. That document will never kill it,
never. The Irish Republic was proclaimed and established by the men of Easter
Week, 1916. The Irish Republican Government was established in January, 1919,
and it has functioned since under such conditions that no country ever worked
under before. That Republican Government is not now going to be fooled and
destroyed by the Wizard of Wales. We beat him before and we shall beat him
again, and I pray with all my heart and soul that a majority of the Members of
this assembly will throw out that Treaty and that the minority will stand
shoulder to shoulder with us in the fight to regain the position we held on the
4th of this month. I pray that once more; I pray that we will stand together,
and the country will stand behind us. I have no doubt of that. I know the women
of Ireland, and I know what they will say to the men that want to surrender, and
therefore I beg of you to take the decision to throw out that Treaty. Register
your votes against it, and do not commit the one unforgivable crime that has
ever been committed by the representatives of the people of Ireland [applause].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am afraid we will have to sit to-morrow night. We wish to try to have the
debate ended before Christmas.
MR. COLIVET:
Is it necessary for every Member here to make a speech? I think it is not if
the Whips on both sides would collect the names of those who really do wish to
speak and arrange them. Since the division list will be published, and the
people made aware of our attitude, it is not necessary for all to speak. If
every Member speaks we will be here for a fortnight. When all who announce to
the Whips their desire to speak have spoken, the closure could be moved.
MR. ARTHUR GRIFFITH:
I feel that every Member will not speak for three hours. The whole business
was held up this evening by one Member who spoke for two hours and forty
minutes. Any person in this assembly can express what he wishes to express in
from ten to fifteen minutes.
The Dáil adjourned till 11 a.m. next day.
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION Thursday, December 22nd, 1921
THE SPEAKER took the Chair at 11.5 a.m.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
At the outset of the proceedings I would like to again draw the attention of
this House to the fact that one grave misrepresentation of my remarks on the
evening before last did not get that correction which I demanded and which you
supported yesterday as fur as the English and, I understand, the other foreign
Press is concerned. I would like the Pressmen here to remember that I regard
this as a most serious misrepresentation, and any failure on the part of any
newspaper, no matter where, will be made accountable by me [hear, hear].
PROFESSOR M. HAYES (NATIONAL UNIVERSITY):
Ní fheadar an ceart domhsa labhairt anso indiu, mar fear óg iseadh me agus
ní bhfuair me bás fós. Do reir mar a dubhradh linn ine is mór an locht ar
fhearaibh óga bheith beo. Is ceart dúinn ar ndícheall do dheanamh chun an cheist
seo do shocrú do reir mar a chítear dúinn e, agus do reir mar is dóigh linn is
ceart e a shocrú. Ni thógfad ró-fhada chun an cheist seo do phle agus do
thabhairt amach go soileir.
A Chinn Chomhairle, I wish to say here that in going to vote for this
Treaty I rise under the shadow of an indictment made here yesterday according to
which the young men who have made speeches on this side of the Dáil have a
number of very serious defects, and since I suppose I am one of the youngest of
these men the defects may be all the greater in my case. We were told that the
young men who spoke for this Treaty are dishonest, unintelligent, ignorant of
Irish history, negligent of their duties to their constituents, knowing nothing
of living constitutions or constitutional law, and finally, unable to think. Now
it is a serious thing to have to make a speech when you reflect that you have
been indicted in that way. We sent over plenipotentiaries to negotiate on this
to negotiate a Treaty or treaties of association with the British Commonwealth
of Nations. They have brought back a Treaty and the President has told us that
in signing it they were within their rights. On their last visit to London they
did their best to interpret not the view of the Cabinet, but the divergent views
of the Cabinet at home in so far as these divergent views could be brought
together in any agreed document. Now the position surely is this, that this
country had fought but did not win out; that is to say we had not driven out the
enemy. Now our plenipotentiaries, who were chosen for their judgment and their
courage, having weighed up all the contingencies, approved of the Treaty, and
not one of us can run away from the responsibility of deciding whether he is for
or against that Treaty. A lady in this assembly has given us a very noble guide,
a very noble sentiment to guide us when we are making up our minds. The member
for St. Patrick's Division (Madam Markievicz) told us in Private Session that in
voting for or against the Treaty we should decide according to the conscience
and judgment that God has given us. The problem is there and it would be
cowardly to shirk it; and according to the judgment and conscience God has given
me I have made up my mind [hear, hear]. In judging this Treaty I
take two standards, first the question of our honour, and the second question is
whether under this Treaty we have the substance of freedom. Our representatives,
the representatives of the historic Irish nation, negotiated in London for two
months with the representatives of England and with the eyes of the world upon
them. Now I submit, in spite of any legal quibbles, that fact in itself went a
long way towards recognising the status of the independent national entity which
we call the Irish Nation [hear, hear]. Further, a Treaty was
reached between them and published before the world, and that Treaty in itself
gives us an international status. I will not imitate the member for Wexford by
quoting, Webster's Dictionary on the word Treaty . The meaning is fairly
well known. I may be ignorant of Irish history, but I submit that since English
domination became effective in Ireland, that is to say since Kinsale and the
flight of the Earls , the Irish Nation has never got as much recognition as a
nation in the eyes of the world as it got while these negotiations were going
on, and as it gets by this Treaty [hear, hear]. We were told
plainly and distinctly by our ambassadors in foreign parts that no nation in the
world recognises an Irish Republic, and more recognition has been given to
Ireland by England than has been given by any other nation in the world; and if
we have the courage to grasp that and act in the light of that achievement we
will be doing right [hear, hear]. The agreement is embodied in the
Treaty and therefore it seems to me that our national status is vindicated; and
further, the Constitution of the new state is to be drawn up by the Irish
Government, and I trust that Government and I trust the Irish people to see that
it will be drawn up properly. In this connection much has been made of the words
`subject to the Provisions of the Treaty'. But why did we go to make a Treaty at
all if we object to the words Provisions of a Treaty ; occurring in it.
The provisions of this Treaty make no restrictions on the Irish Constitution.
The Irish Constitution will derive, not from this Treaty, not from any Act of
the British Parliament, but from the Irish people. As far as I can see in it it
makes no mention of any country but Ireland. Why should it? This Treaty defines
our relations with the British Commonwealth of Nations. It is not a concession,
not a Home Rule Bill, but an international instrument, not granting us rights
but acknowledging rights that have long been questioned and are now admitted in
face of the world by England. Now so far I think the Treaty recognises our
National status, and the Minister of Finance speaking in Armagh in September,
and then I suppose representing a united Cabinet, stated we were out for the
substance of freedom. I submit that in this Treaty we have the substance of
freedom if we have the courage to take it; and when we are asked `Is this what
has been fought for?' I say that if the words of the Treaty give you the right
to say that England must get out of Ireland then that is what was fought for [hear,
hear]. Now, my friend, Deputy Etchingham, told us there was only one man
in this assembly who can interpret the Treaty. That gentleman was Mr. Childers.
I don't know whether that is an example of the slave mind or not, but anyhow I
will quote you Mr. Childers on the Treaty. Speaking about Article 2. which
defines our relations with the Imperial Parliament, he told us that if the
Dominion of Canada wished to defy the law by constitutional usage, Canada and
the other nations have acquired virtual independence, they are virtually
independent nations, exercising full executive and legislative rights. Now if a
nation exercising full legislative and executive rights is not free I don't know
what freedom is. We have been given numbers of arguments. I may summarise them
in this way: ---first, the substance of freedom cannot he found in the words of
the Treaty. Well then the definitions that we had of the powers of Canada are
wrong. Secondly, these powers---the substance of freedom---are in the Treaty,
but you cannot get them because you are too near England. I am one of the young
men who did not go out with my head up when Mr. Childers was speaking. I
listened to him very carefully and the idea I got---it may be a
misunderstanding---but the impression left upon me was this, that he was
indicting the historic Irish Nation for having chosen this island for its
habitation instead of some island in the Pacific. But we cannot help that. It is
a defect in our world position. It is nothing short, to my mind, of absurdity,
nothing short of expressing a complete distrust of the Irish people, to argue
that you cannot get the things you want through the Treaty because you are too
near England. It is our business to see that we get them. A further argument was
put like this:---This Treaty does contain the substance of freedom; you will get
all the provisions of the Treaty carried out, but then, when you have all
that---I quote my old friend Mr. Etchingham again---when you get this
independence, when the Irish people get this independence, and the control over
their own affairs they will decay and lose their national ideals. Now I agree
with Deputy Miss MacSwiney. When speaking yesterday she said the heart of the
Irish people is sound. I do not believe in the argument that when they get
freedom and get control they will become simply and solely materialists. Some
Deputy stated that under a Free State there would be more rebels than ever. You
cannot have it both ways. The position of the Irish Free State in regard to
England's wars was defined thus: `That in the ease of war the States of the
British Commonwealth will take such concerted action founded on consultation as
the several governments may determine'. That means that a majority of votes will
not carry them all into war; each and every one must decide on a question of war
for itself. This is governed by a pact made in 1917. The interpretation of that,
if I mistake not, is the interpretation of Mr. Childers himself. We were told
that if we were dragged into England's foreign wars we would be bound by every
treaty she makes. In the Treaty of Versailles there is an express stipulation
that none of its provisions would bind any nation of the British Commonwealth
unless signed by the representatives of that nation. At the Washington
Conference South Africa and the other nations of the British Commonwealth
vindicated their right to representation on an equal footing with France, Italy
and Great Britain; and if that is not the status of nationhood then I don't know
what is. Another argument that was used yesterday evening was in reference to
the fact that this Treaty gives us absolute and complete control of our own
trade with the right of putting up tariffs if we please, against England. We
were told this was no use because, forsooth, Mr. Churchill says that England has
got an economic grip on Ireland. She has got an economic grip on Ireland and it
is precisely to lessen that economic grip and increase the strength of Ireland,
relative to the strength of Britain, that those for this Treaty are anxious for
the Treaty to be passed. Now I have great temerity in touching upon one other
subject. Perhaps I am ignorant of it, but at any rate I have been in touch with
it all my life. This Treaty gives Irish men and women in Ireland absolute and
complete control of Education. The Minister for Finance, in his speech on the
Treaty said that British domination in Ireland is effected by an economic cancer
that eats into the very heart of our nation. Besides that economic cancer there
is another cancer even more important eating into the very heart and vitals of
the Irish nation, and the spiritual penetration, the sway of English manners and
customs, of the English tongue, English ideas and English ideals in Ireland is
the most dangerous thing to the undying spirit of any nation, and I say that
with control of education in an Irish State that rot could be stopped. The
President yesterday with another Deputy was speaking on this subject interjected
that it would be education with dishonour. I wonder is it because so few of us
are native speakers of this English language that we throw our words about in
such a fashion?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I say fundamentally, based upon this Treaty, it is dishonourable.
PROFESSOR M. HAYES:
I submit that it is not dishonourable. It passes to our hands, and education
in an Ireland where there would be no interference whatever from England would
certainly be Irish Education. There is no use in denying that it certainly would
be Irish education; and at the moment practically every child in Ireland is
being educated in the most deplorable way you can imagine, under an English
system guided by English ideas, and interpreted in an English way; and the
Government of the Irish Republic, in the Educational Department of which I have
worked and done my best is utterly powerless to do anything---even under a
truce---to do anything to stop it. I speak exactly and precisely of what I know.
Anything that has been done for the last few months has been based on the
supposition that we were going to get control of Education; and if we have to go
back to fighting again, back to war or chaos, or go back to any form of
agitation, then our power in education is practically nil. Whereas this Treaty
certainly gives us power to direct all the spiritual activities of our people in
the right way, and a propos of this I will quote a statement the
President, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Defence and the President of
the Ard-Fheis made at a meeting of the Keating Branch of the Gaelic League, that
they would take an Ireland with the Irish language and having no freedom rather
than a free Ireland without the Irish language [hear, hear]. I
understand exactly what they meant. They meant, I am sure, not only the Irish
language, but Irish ideals. I am sure I am right.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Yes and you are killing them with this.
PROFESSOR M. HAYES:
Under this Treaty you can get the Irish language and get Irish ideals with
freedom; and it seems to me the only argument against that is, that when the
Irish people get control of Irish education themselves they won't be able to
manage it. That seems to me to be the fundamental argument against. We are told
we cannot teach Irish history. We certainly can. We were asked how would we
teach the history of 1916 under a Free State. We would teach it as it ought to
be taught and as it cannot be taught now. Now I believe that we are going to
agree to a cutting down of these speeches. I hope we are, but I have done my
best to explain to you on what ground I have come to a decision. We have fought
against English domination and within the four corners of that Treaty English
domination in Ireland can be got rid of. We were asked yesterday evening to
consider the horrors we were going to inflict on the young girls of Ireland by
establishing a representative of the King in Ireland. I do not know really, for
personally I never came into contact anywhere with people who had been to the
Viceregal Court in Ireland. But I do know this Treaty will remove from Ireland a
more immoral influence on the young girls of Ireland, that is, the English
Garrison [applause]. I have done my best with my own poor
intelligence to form an honest opinion of this Treaty and I have given it to
you. Further, I have not formed my opinion on the Treaty because I think the
alternative is war. I formed my opinion independently, but no alternative has
been offered here. Further, I believe that my view represents the views of my
constituents, and I would be quite prepared to go before my constituents to give
my views as I have stated them, and even go before the women graduates of the
National University whom I represent and give them any opinion, and I am sure
they would stand by it. I have come to this opinion honestly, and whatever the
decision of this House will be, one way or the other, I shall abide by it. I
will not run away from it one way or the other. The decision I have come to
honestly is to vote for this Treaty. I have come to it and I am neither ashamed
nor afraid of it [applause].
MR. SEAN O'CEALLAIGH:
A Chinn Chomhairle, agus a lucht na Dála, is truagh liom sinn a bheith
deighilte mar atáimíd fós, agus is mó de thruagh liom oiread so easaontais do
bheith eadrainn toisc gan ár dteanga dhúchais ar leithligh do bheith ar siubhal
againn anso. Dá mb'í ár dteanga dhúchais a bheadh ar siubhal againn is lú beann
a bheadh againn ar na daoine iasachta atá ag faire orainn is ar na páipeirí
nuachta atá go nimhneach 'nár gcoinnibh. Tá súil agam nuair a bheidh deire le
cúrsaí an chóthionóil seo go gcuimhneochaidh lucht na Dála ar an rud is dual
dóibh uile agus go mbainfid feidhm arís as teangain ár dtíre; agus na daoine
nách feidir leo san a dheanamh, no nách mian leo san a dheanamh go dtuigfe siad
feasta nach áit oiriúnach dóibh Dáil Eireann. Before I proceed to examine in
my own inexpert way the proposals of this pact, I should like through you, Mr.
Speaker, to express my sense of gratitude to Deputy Erskine Childers, for his
lucid and informing analysis of that scheme, and I want to say if every one in
this Dáil approached the discussion in the same spirit as he has done, the
people of Ireland would be in a better position to form a just judgment of the
proposals before us; and I would also like to record my high appreciation of the
superb address we heard last evening from Deputy Miss MacSwiney [hear,
hear]. To my mind that address not only vindicates the far-flung
movement for women's rights, but places Miss MacSwiney in the highest ranks of
the greatest orators of our race. I was ashamed to hear the reference made to it
from the bench opposite. My acknowledgments are due also to the Minister of
Finance---I am sorry he is not here to hear me---not for any light thrown by him
either in Private Session or in public on the financial clauses of the pact, but
because in his admirable and characteristic address he thought fit to refer in
seeming resentment to some words used by me, when in Private Session I addressed
an earnest appeal to the contending parties in this struggle to close up their
ranks in God's name. I suppose I may compliment the Minister of Finance on the
efficiency of his Intelligence Department, for unless I have the Nelsonian eye
so much referred to in the course of that Private Session---and surely a speaker
may sometimes have the Nelsonian eye---I did not have the privilege of numbering
Mr. Collins among my auditors when I made my appeal for unity to the Dáil. My
reference to `slippery slopes' was not accurately conveyed to the Minister of
Finance. What happened, as you will remember, was this: I pointed out that the
action of our Delegates in signing the proposed Treaty in London under duress
and giving it to the world was a departure from the spirit of the understanding
reached at the Dáil itself on the day they were appointed [`No! No!']
and further a departure, however unavoidable, from the instructions given to
them by the President and his Cabinet [`No! No!']. I have no
desire to labour the point. I am content to place my conviction on record. The
result of the visit to London was that the whole Cabinet had drifted from the
high plane it previously held to a slippery slope, and I appealed to the
contending parties to turn their gaze towards heaven once more and, hand in
hand, to assist each other towards the exalted plane to which our cause had been
brought by untold sacrifice of precious life and blood and treasure. Is it too
late to repeat the appeal on the threshold of the approaching season of peace
and good will on earth? The Minister of Finance in that connection asked why was
it that we who talked of slippery slopes did not sound the warning earlier? No
one should know better than the Minister of Finance that from the very beginning
and again and again I warned the Cabinet; that I resisted strenuously the
proposals to send delegates, and I warned the Cabinet, every member of it, to
guard particularly in every step they took and every line they wrote against the
danger of giving the British Premier the opportunity or the gratification of
dividing our people. I think I am giving away no secrets in saying I took up
that position from the outset. I opposed strenuously the proposal to send a
Delegation to London. I opposed it until it became only too obvious that the
insidious counsel of Cope of the Castle had permeated our whole body politic,
and until subsequently I felt oppressed by the sheer weight of the tinsel of our
own militarism---Commandants for Inverness, Commandants for Gairloch,
Commandants for London, swaggering up and down the country in the company of the
enemies of our country; leading the people to believe there was an enduring
peace when there was no peace, telling them with great show of authority that we
had already been offered `the substance of the Republic'---and let those
responsible take the responsibility---so behaving generally that the average man
could only conclude the whole surrender was dictated by military necessity. It
would have been better, I often felt, not to have dragged the soldier's trade
down to the lowest sordid level of the politician's. Now I am not going to
labour that point. I think those who run may read. Now I come to King
Charles's Head ---to quote a previous speaker---the much discussed Oath of
Allegiance involved in the opening Clause, and crystallised in Clause 4 which
reads: `I, J. J. Walsh'---if I may take the liberty of using the name of my
honourable friend in illustration---`do solemnly swear true faith and allegiance
to the Constitution of the Irish Free State, as by law established, and that I
will be faithful to His Majesty King George V., his heirs and successors by law,
in virtue of the common citizenship of Ireland with Great Britain, and her
adherence to and membership of the group of nations forming the British
Commonwealth of Nations.' `This', said Mr Griffith, in introducing his motion,
`is an oath of allegiance to the Free State of Ireland and faithfulness to King
George V. in his capacity as head, and in virtue of the Common Citizenship of
Ireland Britain and the other nations comprising the British Commonwealth. That
is an oath which, I say any Irishman may take with honour'.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
On a point of order, as you mentioned my name I would like to know which Oath
you are reading.
MR. O'CEALLAIGH:
I have read the Oath in the Pact, and only I felt I had the permission of my
distinguished and honourable old friend I would not take such a liberty with his
name.
A DEPUTY:
Give us the other one.
MR. O'CEALLAIGH:
I only used my friend's name in illustration, and I read the interpretation
of the Oath given by the Chairman of the Delegation. Now I differ radically from
the Chairman of the Delegation in regard to this Oath. I am opposed to it
because to pledge unborn generations of our people `to be faithful to King
George, his heirs and successors' as it does, is to do violence to the most
elementary principles of democracy, and to be democratic surely---not to declare
for hereditary rule---should be a prime aim of our newborn native Government. I
tell everyone here to-day you must take note of democracy, genuine democracy, in
the new Ireland growing up around us. I am opposed to the Oath because, instead
of ensuring the distinct citizenship for which we have ever clamoured, still
clamour and shall continue to clamour, and to fight for, if necessary, this Oath
professes to make a virtue of `common citizenship with Great Britain' involving
common responsibilities, and intensifying the accursed union against which we
have never ceased to protest and which we shall never cease to detest and to
loathe. I am opposed to the restoration of this alien declaration of fidelity
because I am reminded by the presence of a friend in the audience---only the
other day some of the men who here signed the proposed agreement helped to
render civil servants who took a similar oath of allegiance under duress,
ineligible as teachers in the Dublin Trade Schools, while for the same reason
other civil servants were driven out of the Gaelic Athletic Association which,
to my personal knowledge, they had done much to build up and restore to
popularity. I am far from desiring `to indecently rattle the bones of the dead',
but I say here now that the rattling of the bones of the dead was rendered
inevitable by those who put Commandant MacKeon in the false position of
seconding this motion.
MR. MACKEON:
Who did so? I wish to say that I seconded the motion of my own free will and
according to my own free reason [applause].
MR. O'CEALLAIGH:
Well, I accept the correction with pleasure. I am opposed to the Oath no
matter what is said about it. I am opposed to this declaration of fidelity to an
alien King because it is an outrage on the memory of our martyred comrades, and
in the circumstances in which we find ourselves here today, I say this is an
open insult to the heroic relatives they have left behind. I am opposed to it
because its inclusion in this proposed agreement, in flagrant disregard of the
published correspondence between our President and the British Premier and the
Pope, is an unauthorised departure from the spirit of the instructions given our
Delegates at the meeting of Dáil Eireann which appointed them. I am opposed to
it finally because to support it or even condone it would be tantamount to
perjuring myself and would contribute, in my humble opinion, towards perjuring
the sixty or more colleagues to whom, by your authority, I have administered the
Oath of Allegiance to the Saorstát.
MR. M. STAINES:
The oath a man takes is a question for his own conscience and I certainly
will not be dictated to by anybody as to what oath I will take.
MR. O'CEALLAIGH:
Mr. Speaker. I want to say to you, or such of you as were members of the
original Dáil, in unanimously electing me as your Chairman during the long
absence of my friend, Mr. Sean T. O'Kelly, imposed upon me the obligation of
administering to every one of my colleagues this Oath of true faith and
allegiance to the Saorstát. Now this is the Oath I administered to them: `I
[gap: blank to be filled/extent: 2/3 words]
do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I do not yield a voluntary support to any
pretended Government or authority within Ireland' `
interruptions
MR. M. COLLINS:
I would appeal to Deputies not to be interrupting. Do not copy the tactics of
the other side.
MR. O'CEALLAIGH
reading:
`I
[gap: blank to be filled/extent: 2/3 words]
do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I do not and shall not yield a voluntary
support to any pretended Government authority or power within Ireland hostile
and inimical thereto, and I do further swear (or affirm) that to the best of my
knowledge and ability I will support and defend the Irish Republic and the
Government of the Irish Republic, which is Dáil Eireann, against all enemies,
foreign and domestic, and I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and
that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of
evasion. So help me God'
Now with all due respect to the President, with all due respect to the
Chairman of the Delegation, with all due respect to the experts in the Hall, and
to the Professors of Ethics who equivocate in the Press, I interpreted that Oath
of Allegiance---both in taking it and in administering it to scores of my
colleagues---as a solemn vow consecrating my whole future life to the service of
the Republic, and I would not have administered it if I thought my colleagues
did not interpret it in a similar spirit. Solemnly on the Testament, with this
tongue and by this hand, I administered that Oath to our immortal comrade,
Terence MacSwiney. Am I now to pollute hand and tongue by subscribing to an
alien allegiance? Am I so soon to forget the outstanding martyr of the human
race, who, to restore us our freedom, suffered his young life to ebb away gasp
by gasp, for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, aye, seventy-four
weary, dreary days of unending agony---to the eternal disgrace of England and
the undying honour of the race he has exalted for ever---and whose last
articulate gasp was a request that he be buried in the uniform of a soldier of
the Irish Republic? Have you forgotten it already? I apologise to Deputy Miss
MacSwiney, Deputy Seán MacSwiney, and the others who mourn with them here, for
recalling those days of anguish, but it is an anguish, thank God, that has
eventuated in pride and in national glory. That uniform in which our colleague
was buried is, to me at least, a sacred thing nothing less than the habit of a
martyr, with a truer title to be so regarded than the purple or scarlet of
Bishop or Cardinal the habit of Francis or of Dominic. You soldiers of the
Republic who are here robed in that garb, never let the heritage entrusted to
your honour by a martyr be sullied by being dragged into the sordid arena of
politics, and never forget the martyr's counsel that `victory will be not with
those who can inflect most, but with those who can endure most'. Before I heard
Deputy Barton's story of Lloyd George's big stick, corroborated by Mr. Gavan
Duffy, I had been wondering what wizard's wand, what druidic draught so
confounded our trusted Delegates in London, that they could have been oblivious
even for one moment of the position in which this ignoble settlement to which
they had put their hands would place us---the renunciation it would imply of the
Republic constitutionally proclaimed three years ago in the face of Ireland and
the world by the gallant soldier who, as we were informed yesterday, fought on
in 1916 even after his last drop of blood seemed to have been shed, and survived
in the providence of God to baffle the bloodhounds of Britain---Cathal Brugha.
No one here holds Doctor MacCartan in higher personal esteem than I do, but I
deplored his speech last evening in which he said the Republic to which he had
sworn allegiance was dead. As a past Chairman of this assembly I tell you, Mr.
Speaker, that hence forward no one must he allowed to say with impunity in the
Parliament of the Republic that the Republic is dead. The Republic, whose birth
certificate was written with steel in the immortal blood of martyrs in l916, was
constitutionally proclaimed in 1919, and is now six years in existence almost as
long as Grattan's Parliament. It is not dead---or even slumbering: it is alive
and functioning, and will continue to function in spite of the wiles of the
wizard from Wales and the partition Parliament of Southern Ireland in which it
is proposed to have it merged. I was disappointed, too, when I heard the
President say he devoted himself, in the interests of unity, to pulling down the
walls of the Republic.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I said `isolated Republic'.
MR. O'CEALLAIGH:
On reflection I interpreted the President's words to mean that the wise
architect, soldier and statesman, seeing the breast-works of the rising national
edifice grow somewhat irregular, pulled them down here and there to preserve the
symmetry of the structure, enable the halting to keep pace with the eager and
the earnest, and thus lead the whole people steadily to the consummation of our
highest hopes.It has been said that the only alternative to approval of this
Treaty is war. Not necessarily. The rejection of the Treaty may bring war, but
to my mind it would bring us back to the position we occupied before the
Delegation went to London, and in that case it would be a war on a united
Ireland. If the pact be approved I am equally afraid it may be war because the
young men of Ireland will not have the pact, and in that case it may be war on a
divided Ireland.To my mind---and being a man of peace I have considered it as
carefully and as anxiously as anyone---we are less likely to have war by
disapproving the pact than by approving it. And if England will make war on us
then, because we refuse to perjure ourselves or betray our heroic dead, let the
responsibility be hers and hers alone. For my own part, war or no war, having
taken an Oath of Allegiance twice over to the Republic, and administered it, in
the face of heaven and by your command, to scores of my colleagues, no
consideration on earth will induce me voluntarily to declare allegiance or lip
fidelity to the King of a country whose instruments of Government have oppressed
and traduced our people for seven centuries and a half. Before passing finally
from the Oath let me say that several clauses of the Treaty conflict with it.
Clauses 17 and 18 will suffice in illustration: `By way of provisional
arrangement for the administration of Southern Ireland during the interval which
must elapse between the date hereof and the constitution of a Parliament and
Government of the Irish Free State in accordance therewith', says clause 17,
`steps shall be taken forthwith for summoning a meeting of members of Parliament
elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland since the passing of the
Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and for constituting a Provisional Government;
and the British Government shall take the steps necessary to transfer to such
Provisional Government the powers and machinery requisite for the discharge of
its duties provided every member of such Provisional Government shall have
signified his or her acceptance of this instrument. But this arrangement shall
not continue in force beyond the expiration of twelve months from the date
hereof'. And Clause 18 provides that `This instrument shall be submitted
forthwith by his Majesty's Government for the approval of Parliament and by the
Irish signatories to a meeting summoned for the purpose of the members elected
to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and, if approved, shall be
ratified by the necessary legislation'. I am afraid it is but too obvious our
Delegates did not keep our Oath of Allegiance clearly before them while
discussing these clauses in London. I say that unwittingly---
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS:
The Delegates are prepared to answer that before any tribunal in Ireland or
in any part of the world---at least, some of us are [applause].
MR. O'CEALLAIGH:
I am a Minister of this House and I hope my conduct has not been unworthy.
What a nice culmination for Dáil Eireann to abdicate in favour of a provincial,
provisional, partition assembly which was laughed to scorn when called into
being in Dublin some months ago. But, of course, the chairman of the Delegation
says he has brought us back a Treaty of Equality , and the flag and
freedom, and I forget how much else; and accordingly he asks the Dáil to pass
his resolution and he requests the people of Ireland and the Irish people
everywhere to ratify his Treaty. I am sorry to see, Mr. Speaker, that we are not
sufficiently jealous about the prerogatives of this Dáil. We were irregularly
summoned here, in the first instance, to discuss the ratification of the Treaty
in Public Session. Later, in Private Session, we found it was ultra vires.
We next assembled in Public Session to find the Treaty on retreat from
ratification to approval. I insist, Mr. Speaker, the whole discussion is
irregular.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
What about Document No. 2?
MR O CEALLAIGH
I have not referred to that document. The man who is concerned with it, when
this whole business is over, will be respected throughout Ireland and throughout
the world, and I leave to him the elucidation of the document referred to. I
submit further, Mr. Speaker, that I have kept within the rules of debate, and
applied myself to the question before the House. Asking the Irish people to
ratify the Treaty seems to me like challenging an election and we are tired of
the clamour in the newspapers in this connection. I have as much respect as
anyone for the rights of the people. What are they, and what are ours? My own
case is typical, and it is this. In November, 1918, I was invited to contest the
doubtful constituency of Louth in the Republican interest. I declined---as I did
other invitations---urging those who waited on me to select a local
representative. Finally I yielded to a combination of influences and entered the
contest. From the day I entered the constituency until I left it six weeks
later---and I speak in the hearing of comrades who, sleeplessly and selflessly
helped me to win it---I never once lowered the Republican standard or shirked
the Republican issue. In due course Dáil Eireann was convened and the Republic
constitutionally proclaimed. The newly elected members swore allegiance to the
Republic and, one after the other, the Public Boards of the country declared
similar allegiance. Departments of Government were set up, and the Republic
functioned to the satisfaction and with the co-operation of the nation. Early
this year there was a general election. Again I was asked to contest the
constituency, and again I urged that local men be nominated. I was elected
unopposed. The new Dáil was convened in due course, and the Oath of Allegiance
to the Republic renewed. Herein is my mandate, and I say, if, in response to the
clamour of the newspapers, I got a thousand resolutions and fifty thousand
telegrams from every public body within my constituency, I would still interpret
my Republican mandate by voting against this Treaty of surrender. I was pained
to hear it stated that the people of my native Iveragh favoured this pact. I
take the liberty to doubt it. Equally do I take the liberty to doubt the
statement that,in the event of a renewal of hostilities, the people of East
Kerry could not be relied on to sustain the army of the Republic. The people of
Kerry, if I know them, will remain true to the Republic. Whether they do or not,
I am glad, and I am very proud that in this matter I see eye to eye with Austin
Stack. We did not hear so much about the rights of the people in the old days
when, heedless of an unheeding world, the Chairman of the Delegation ploughed
the lonely furrow and was not less sound than he is to-day. I respected and
trusted Arthur Griffith ploughing the lonely furrow; I have lost confidence in
Arthur Griffith, the plenipotentiary. Now though I do not wish to make undue
claims on the time of the House, I cannot help expressing my regret that we got
no information on the financial clauses of the Treaty. `The Irish Free
State',says clause 5, `shall assume liability for the service of the Public Debt
of the United Kingdom as existing at the date hereof, and towards the payment of
war pensions as existing at that date, in such proportion as may be fair and
equitable,having regard to any just claims on the part of Ireland by way of
set-off or counter-claim, the amount of such sums being determined in default of
agreement by the arbitration of one or more independent persons being citizens
of the British Empire'. This does not look rosy. I take it the public debt had
been incurred very largely through the cost of war, the outlay on warships and
on the appliances and the appurtenances of war. Ireland, hitherto, has paid more
than her share towards procuring all these engines and instruments of war. Do
they all now remain the property of England, to be used for our destruction when
it suits her, and must Ireland saddle herself with a load of taxation to meet
their cost? And where within the Empire is the expert arbitrator to be found who
will be proof against a ducal coronet? Of course we get some compensations---the
world is regulated by compensations---for clause 6 provides---`Until an
arrangement has been made between the British and Irish Governments whereby the
Irish Free State undertakes her own coastal the defence by sea of Great Britain
and Ireland shall be undertaken by His Majesty's Imperial Forces, but this shall
not prevent the construction or maintenance by the Government of the Irish Free
State of such vessels as are necessary for the protection of the Revenue or the
Fisheries.' All the comment I am going to offer on this nucleus of a fleet is,
that the destruction of the Fisheries on our South-West coast, with the
connivance of the British Government, is a crime against humanity. Clause 10
also calls for a words of comment: `The Government of the Free State', it lays
down, `agrees to pay fair compensation on terms not less favourable than those
accorded in the Act of 1920 to judges, officials, members of police forces and
other public servants who are discharged by it, or who retire in consequence of
the change of Government affected in pursuance thereof'. The Act of 1920, which
we have hitherto avoided as an unclean thing, seems to regulate everything. I
have been wondering whether compensation is to be given to the judges who were
held to have judicially murdered our soldiers, and whether our surviving
soldiers are to go entirely uncompensated; whether also the full benefit of the
1920 Act is to be given to the bigots in the Government offices who, these days,
are having their salaries specially increased in anticipation of enhanced
compensation. We next come to the question of evacuation. To my mind England's
world- position, her need for troops in the East, in Egypt and in India,
explains her eagerness for the evacuation of Ireland. But, with her accustomed
hypocrisy, she would have the world interpret her own military exigencies as an
act of magnanimity towards us. What does the Treaty ensure her? According to
clause 7:
The Government of the Irish Free State shall afford to His Majesty's
Imperial Forces:---
In time of peace such harbour and other facilities as are indicated in
the annex hereto or such other facilities as may from time to time be agreed
between the British Government and the Government of the Irish Free State,
and
In time of war or of strained relations with a Foreign Power such harbour
and other facilities as the British Government may require for the purposes
of such defence as aforesaid---
regardless of whether the Irish Free State so willed or not. I was discussing
what Mr. Griffith calls a Treaty of Equality. I call it, with the President, a
Treaty of surrender. Let us see what are the specific facilities indicated in
the annex:
Dockyard and Port at Berehaven. Admiralty property and rights to be
retained as at the date hereof. Harbour defences to remain in charge of
British care and maintenance parties.
Queenstown. Harbour defences to remain in charge of British care and
maintenance parties. Certain mooring buoys to be retained for the use of His
Majesty's ships.
Belfast Lough. Harbour defences to remain in charge of British care and
maintenance parties.
Lough Swilly. Harbour Defences to remain in charge British care and
maintenance parties.
Aviation. Facilities in the neighbourhood of the above ports for coastal
defence by air.
And yet this is called a Treaty of Equality. I repeat it is a Treaty of
surrender and subjection. A midland or frontier Deputy no doubt consoled us
yesterday with the assurance that the British warships in our ports would be
under the range of the guns of Commandant MacKeon. The frontier estimate of the
futility of the naval gun must have fairly bewildered Deputy Erskine Childers.
MR. O'KEEFFE:
I protested against an Englishman being employed as a servant of this Dáil.
MR. O'CEALLAIGH:
Last evening, also, Deputy Miss MacSwiney in her moving address referred to
Mr. Arthur Griffith's old-time theory that England placed a wall of paper around
Ireland on the outside of which she wrote what she wished the world to believe
about Ireland, and on the inside of which she wrote---well it really does not
much matter. This Treaty would perpetuate the wall of paper for the annex
provides for a convention to give effect to the following conditions:
(a) That submarine cables shall not be landed, or wireless stations for
communication with places outside Ireland be established except by agreement
with the British Government, that the existing cable landing rights and
wireless concessions shall not be withdrawn except by agreement with the
British Government, and that the British Government shall be entitled to land
additional submarine cables or establish additional wireless stations for
communication with places outside Ireland.
And yet we are told this is a Treaty of Equality. A Treaty of Equality! Of
course it has to be admitted that the annex in the next clause gives us the
privilege `that light-houses, buoys, beacons, and any navigational marks or
navigational aids shall be maintained by the Government of the Irish Free State
as at the date hereof, and shall not be removed or added to except by an
agreement with the British Government'.
In short, England, by this Treaty of Equality , retains her Pale as a
nursery of discord in the North, four Gibraltars round our coast, as a challenge
to the United States, and associated with them four Air Stations, which, to
anyone who can see beyond his nose, will be the real bases for the war
operations of the future, and a standing invitation to every enemy at war with
England to lay our land in ruins. This, then, I say finally, is not a Treaty of
Equality. It is a Treaty of surrender, subjection, servitude, slavery, and as
such, I appeal to you not to be content with its retreat from ratification to
approval, but to drive it from approval to rejection and from rejection to the
oblivion from which it should never have emerged [applause].
THE SPEAKER:
I would ask the members not to make interruptions. One effect of the
interruptions is to lengthen the speeches with the inevitable result of taking
up more of your time.
PADRAIC O MAILLE:
Is maith liomsa labhairt ag an nDáil seo, agus mo ghuth do thabhairt ar
son an Chonnartha so, agus se an fáth atáim a dheanamh san mar, sa chead áit, tá
fhios agam im' chroidhe agus im' aigne gurb e an rud is fearr e ar son na tíre
agus muintir na hEireann. Táim a dheanamh san mar tá fhios agam go dteastuíonn ó
mhuintir na Gaillimhe go ndeanfaí san. Bheadh náire orm dul thar n-ais dá
ndeanfainn rud 'na aghaidh sin. Dheanfainn tubaist mhuintir na hEireann agus
mhuintir na Gaillimhe. Tá mar oblagáid ar dhuine a thír a chosaint. Rinneas san
chó maith is d'fheadas. Sa dara aít, seasóidh me agus labharfaidh me ar son an
Chonnartha so mar níl a mhalairt le fáil, ach caismirt ar fuaid na tíre agus
cogadh agus scrios ar na daoine. Tá daoine ag caint anso mar gheall ar ean agus
dhá ean. Ní leir dom ca bhfuil an dá ean. Neosaidh me sceal beag díbh. Chuaidh
roint daoine amach ag fiach, agus dubhairt fear leo go raibh scata mór
giorfhiaithe le fáil. Ach ní bhfuaireadar tar eis an lae ach triopall deas
raithinighe. Sibhse atá ag leanúint ghiorfhia anois, beidir ná beadh ann ach
triopall deas raithinighe. Tá daoine anso do rinne mórán tróda le dhá bhliain
anuas. Ach ce gur throideadar go calma agus go glic níor fheadadar an rud do bhí
uatha do dheanamh. Ní raibh leigheas air sin. Anois nuair atá an namhaid ag
imeacht uaidh fein tá daoine anso agus teastuíonn uatha a thuille cogaidh agus a
thuille troda do chur ar bun chun go mbeadh caoi ag na fir óga ar bhás d'fháil
ar son na hEireann. Is breá agus is uasal an rud e bás d'fháil ar son na
hEireann. Sin ceann des na hargóintí do chualamair uatha so atá i gcoinnibh an
Chonnartha. Ta daoine anso gur mian leo sa chogadh nua so bás d'fháil ar son na
hEireann. Tá cead ag gach uile Theachta san do dheanamh ach níl cead aca daoine
eile do chur amach. Sin e an deifríocht atá eadrainn do reir mo bharúla-sa. Bhí
deifríocht den tsórt ceadna idir an dá Aodh ag Cionn tSáile. Bhí Aodh Ruadh O
Domhnaill ar aon taobh amháin agus e go díreach ach go rótheasuidhe. Bhí Aodh O
Neill ar an dtaobh eile agus e go ceillidhe staidearach, ciallmhar. Do glacadh
le tuairim Aodh Ruaidh Uí Dhomhnaill agus do mhill se an tír. Sin e atá sibhse
do dheanamh inniu; sin e mo bharúil. Teachta ó Cho. Lughmhuighe, dubhairt se go
mba mhaith leis da mba ná labharfaí aon Bhearla agus móimead nú dhó 'na dhiaidh
sin dubhairt se ná raibh einne ach Erskine Childers agus Máire Nic Shiubhne a
thuig an sceal so.
p.140
Dá mba coiníoll e na feadfadh ach Gaedhilgeoirí bheith anso ní bheadh seans ag
Erskine Childers na ag Maire Nic Shuibhne bheith anso, mar nuair a labhras i
nGaedhilg ag an nDáil seo tráth níor thuig einne den bheirt seo focal dá
ndubhairt me. Ní dóigh liom gur cóir do dhaoine bheith ag rá nár cheart dos na
Teachtaí a n-ainm do chur leis an gConnradh. Ní deas an rud bheith ag rá go
ndeárnadar so is súd. Dá mbeimís go leir ag labhairt na Gaedhilge anso ní
bheimís trí cheile fe mar atáimíd. Níor chaill m'athair ná einne dem' shinnsear
an Ghaedhilg. Ní dheárnadar súd ná ní dheárnas-sa troid ar son Shasana, ach
nuair a bhí troid le deanamh ar son na hEireann níor loirgeas Connradh ná níor
ritheas ón gcath. Anois a cháirde tá a lán daoine sa Dáil seo na tuigeann an
Ghaedhilg agus dá bhrí sin caithfe me labhairt i dteanga an tSasanaigh, agus tá
súil agam go nglacfa sibh liom go reidh mar ní cainteóir Bearla me. Níor
cuireadh anso me chun Bearla do labhairt. Do cuireadh anso me chun toil mhuintir
na Gaillimhe do dheanamh agus táim á dheanamh san. Tá cheist mhór os cóir na
tíre, agus aon Teachta ata ar aigne guth do thabhairt i gcoinnibh an Chonnartha
so agus fhios aige go bhfuil an mhuintir do chur anso e i bhfábhar an
Chonnartha---ba cheart do eirghe as an nDáil agus an sceal do chur os cóir na
ndaoine, ach ní ceart do troid do chur ar bun ar son daoine eile agus beidir gan
beith sa troid e fein.
Now, my friends, I don't wish to detain you very long. There are a few things
wish to say in reference to this Treaty. I am supporting the Treaty for what is
good in it, and I believe there is a good deal of good in it. The speaker who
has just sat down, my friend the Deputy for Louth, Mr. J. J. O'Kelly, spent
forty minutes of his speech in denunciation of the Treaty. But he has not
uttered one word as to what will be the alternative if that Treaty is rejected.
There is a policy of destruction on one side and a policy of construction on the
other side. I support this Treaty because I feel in my heart and soul that the
supporting of that Treaty is the best thing for Ireland. I support it on other
grounds. I support it because I know that it is what the people of Galway who
sent me here want. I live in Galway. I go among the people every day and I know
their feelings on the question, and I would not be true to the people of Galway
if I held opinions on this matter contrary to theirs, and if I were to stand up
here and give a vote on such a vital issue as this which threatens the very
lives of the people of Ireland and the people of Galway. You are told that a
bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Well I agree with that, and I have
looked around and I can't see two birds, or even one bird itself, in the bush.
There is no bird in the bush. Our respected President stated that he would
prefer the Irish language without freedom than freedom without the Irish
language. I say that under this Treaty you have the one last chance of saving
the Irish language. As Seán O'Kelly, the Deputy for Louth, and President of the
Gaelic League, well knows, we are in the last ditch in the fight for the Irish
language; and as I said to you in Irish about the Battle of Kinsale, the
historic Irish nation was shattered at the Battle of Kinsale, and I say that if
you defeat this Treaty by your votes here, you will be blotting out for ever the
historic Irish nation. It is you who are putting bounds to the march of the
nation, because if you defeat this Treaty there will be no nation left to march
forward or backward. To me, personally, it is not a question of Arthur Griffith
or Mícheál O Coileáin on one side, and President de Valera and Cathal Brugha on
the other side. I put Ireland first, last, and all the time. An incident
happened here over four years ago down at the Mansion House. There was a
Convention held, a Convention of Sinn Fein, and there were two names before the
meeting---the names of our President, Eamonn de Valera, and Arthur Griffith. A
delegate came to me on the outside, and he asked me what I was going to do and I
told him. `Well', I said, `I am a life-long friend of Arthur Griffith, but I am
voting to-day for Eamonn de Valera because I believe he is the man Ireland
wants.' I did not cast that vote against my old friend---he did not know of it
until now---I did not cast that vote because Arthur Griffith put Ireland before
himself, and he won for himself that which has won him the admiration and
respect of every man and woman in the whole gathering.I say here that those on
the other side, those who are opposing the Treaty, that they are playing to the
gallery. And I don't mean that in any offensive sense. They have no gallery
outside in Ireland,but they are acting here to see what will history say of
them. We are not afraid to go before the bar of history, because when history
gives its verdict, I have no doubt on which side the verdict will be. It will be
on the side of those who are acting as Hugh O'Neill acted at Kinsale, and not on
the side of those who took Hugh O'Donnell's side. Now I would appeal to every
one of you to consider this matter carefully and well, and that you will give
your vote as you think in the best interests of Ireland. It was sneered at here,
the saying: `That what is good enough for Mick Collins is good enough for me'.
Well, what is good enough for Michael Collins is good enough for me because I
believe it is the best for Ireland [applause].
MRS. T. CLARKE:
I rise to support the motion of the President to reject this Treaty. It is to
me the simple question of right and wrong. To my mind it is a surrender of all
our national ideals. I came to the first meeting of this Session with this
feeling strong upon me, and I have listened carefully to all the arguments in
favour of the Treaty. But the only thing I can say of them is maybe there is
something in them; I can't see it. Arthur Griffith said he had brought back
peace with England, and freedom to Ireland. I can only say it is not the kind of
freedom I have looked forward to, and, if this Treaty is ratified the result
will be a divided people; the same old division will go on, those who will enter
the British Empire and those who will not, and so England's old game of divide
and conquer goes on. God, the tragedy of it! I was deeply moved by the statement
of the Minister for Economies on Monday. Listening to him I realised more
clearly than ever before the very grave decision put up to our
plenipotentiaries. My sympathy went out to them. I only wish other members of
the Delegation had taken the same course, having signed the document, bring it
home and let An Dáil reject or ratify it on its merits. We were told by one
Deputy on Monday, with a stupendous bellow, that this Treaty was a stupendous
achievement. Well, if he means as a measure of Home Rule, I will agree it is. It
is the biggest Home Rule Bill we have ever been offered, and it gives us a
novelty in the way of a new kind of official representing His Majesty King
George V., name yet to be decided. If England is powerful enough to impose on us
Home Rule, Dominion or any other kind, let her do so, but in God's name do not
accept or approve it---no more than you would any other Coercion Act. I heard
big, strong, military men say here they would vote for this Treaty, which
necessarily means taking an Oath of Allegiance, and I tell those men there is
not power enough to force me, nor eloquence enough to influence me in the whole
British Empire into taking that Oath, though I am only a frail scrap of
humanity. I took an Oath to the Irish Republic, solemnly, reverently, meaning
every word. I shall never go back from that. Like Deputy Duggan, I too can go
back to 1916. Between 1 and 2 o'clock on the morning of May 3rd I, a prisoner in
Dublin Castle, was roused from my rest on the floor, and taken under armed
escort to Kilmainham Jail to see my husband for the last time. I saw him, not
alone, but surrounded by British soldiers. He informed me he was to be shot at
dawn. Was he in despair like the man who spoke of him on Tuesday? Not he. His
head was up; his eyes flashing; his years seemed to have slipped from him;
victory was in every line of him. `Tell the Irish people', he said, `that I and
my comrades believe we have saved the soul of Ireland. We believe she will never
lie down again until she has gained absolute freedom'. And, though sorrow was in
my heart, I gloried in him, and I have gloried in the men who have carried on
the fight since; every one of them. I believe that even if they take a wrong
turn now they will be brave enough to turn back when they discover it. I have
sorrow in my heart now, but I don't despair; I never shall. I still believe in
them.
MR. R. MULCAHY:
Dubhradh anso ar maidin go mbeidir na raibh an gnó a bhí a dheanamh anso i
gceart. Deirimse, pe ceart nú mí-cheart atá ann ná fuil leigheas air. One of
the Deputies here this morning said he wondered whether the proceedings were
regular or not, and I say whether regular or not there is no help for it. The
Deputy complains that when he made a proposition asking some way would be found
by which the members for the Treaty and those against it would be brought
together to find a way out he got no support. Others have endeavoured to work
along these lines, but my recollection is, that when I made a suggestion from
the body of this House to those who were responsible people---masters of the
House---that a small liaison group would be setup to link the members on both
sides, in order to examine our broken ground and see whether some joint plan of
co-operation could not be agreed to; and in the second place, if that could not
be agreed to, to hold the reins of the situation for the House so that that
split could not occur, there was no response. Another proposition was made that
the rank and file of the House would meet together and would, of themselves,
discuss the situation and weigh the alternatives on both sides; and there was no
support for that proposition, and there was opposition for both of them. My
recollection was that it was not from Deputy O'Kelly, that it was not from him
that either of those propositions was getting any support. What we are looking
for is not arguments but alternatives. None of us want this Treaty. None of us
want the Crown. None of us want the representative of the Crown. None of us want
our harbours occupied by enemy forces; and none of us want what is said to be
partition; and we want no arguments against any of these things. But we want an
alternative. We want the road open to us to show how we can avoid this Treaty.
The only alternative put before us is the alternative put forward by the
President, and I want to say that that alternative has not been treated fairly
on the side who are for the Treaty. I have to admit that, and on the President's
side it has not been treated fairly. If this alternative---if it does get us a
way out of those things that are so essentially horrible to us, all the passion
of the President, and all the passion that could be gathered on the presidential
side should be put towards pointing out to us what roads lead to the
alternative, and to what objective they lead. The unfairness on the other side
is, that these roads have not been pointed out to us in a way that, considering
the momentous circumstances of our position, they should have been. I,
personally, see no alternative to the acceptance of this Treaty. I see no solid
spot of ground upon which the Irish people can put its political feet but upon
that Treaty. We are told that the alternative to the acceptance of the Treaty is
war. I don't know whether it is or not. I say that you either have political
chaos in the country without war, or political chaos with war. Personally, I
would rather go into political chaos with war, than to go into political chaos
in Ireland at the present time without war. As I say, none of us want the Crown.
I don't want to meet the English King until I have been able to have a couple of
days in the fresh air away from the bogies that have been put about me in this
assembly. I can realise the difficulties of those who can put their finger upon
the line and letter of the document which says that, in Ireland, all power of
the Executive and otherwise comes from the King, and will, under the
circumstances that will be created by the acceptance of that Treaty, come from
the King. I can understand the difficulties of that person. But the feeling of
my mind, and the instinct of my bones was, that the power of the Executive
Government to control and discharge the resources of this county lies in the
people. The 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, as far as we can hear, have brought
us constitutional usage and practice, and I take it that the arrangement has
been that when people took away their power from their princes, in order to
leave their princes down lightly, they said: `This is constitutional usage'. And
if these centuries have provided us with constitutional usage and practice, and
if the constitutional outlook of the King in Ireland at the present moment is to
be that Executive power and control come from him, I think it won't be very
long, under whatever arrangement is setup in Ireland---Treaty or
otherwise---until the Irish people show, both for the benefit of themselves and
perhaps for the benefit of others, that sovereign rights in this county lie in
the people, and that the sovereign rights in every other country do and will be
the same. With my understanding leading me in that I can see no other road to go
but the road of this Treaty, with the appreciation that this Treaty distinctly
states that it does secure to Ireland the control in Ireland with full executive
and administrative powers, and the Executive in Ireland responsible to that
control. I am not afraid of the influence of the King, or the influence of the
King exerted through some supposedly corrupt court of his representative here. I
am not afraid of that power interfering with the power of the Irish people;
because,if we have control, it is full control over legislation, over order,
over peace, over the whole internal life and resources of the country, and if we
have executive responsibility to that Parliament I don't see the way or in what
way pernicious to the Irish people, the King or his representative could
interfere with them. As to our ports, we are not in a position of force, either
military or otherwise, to drive the enemy from our ports. We have not---those to
whom the responsibility has been for doing such things---we have not been able
to drive the enemy from anything but from a fairly good-sized police barracks.
We have not that power; and with regard to the ports, I doubt if anybody in this
assembly at the present moment---visualising the necessity for coastal and
external defence---who, visualising the financial aspect of these things, would
be able to point to the mark we are aiming at as regards the necessity for
defence and the financial aspect of it. When we have established a police force
that will do the internal work of the county, and when we have established such
small internal defence force as is necessary, we shall probably---both
intellectually and from the ordinary, common understanding---we will becoming to
a point of intelligence at which we can decide what our external defences should
be like. With regard to partition,I don't look upon the clause with regard to
Ulster in this Treaty as prejudicing the Ulster position in any way. I see no
solution of the Ulster difficulty or of the Six County difficulty at the present
moment. On the other hand the Treaty leaves the Irish people that they will be
in absolute possession of their country's resources, and, in my opinion, with
full executive power and control over them; and---if in order to bring the Irish
people to the goal that they have always aimed at, and that we have always aimed
at with them---if we were given on one side this Treaty, and I on the other such
military power that we might reasonably equate with the enemy's power, and left
to decide by which of these two instruments we would bring Ireland definitely to
a status of equality with our old enemy, and if the responsibility of deciding
between these two instruments were placed in the hands of any one particular
person here, I think there would be very great searchings of heart and mind and
conscience before taking the alternative of the two instruments---the instrument
of war on one side, and on the other the instrument of this particular Treaty of
the Irish people battling upon their own powers, upon their own resources, to
bring the nation in power and equality with the enemy. We have before us to-day
in Europe the spectacle of France and Germany striving for supremacy over each
other with military force, and we see the internal unhappiness, the waste of
human life, sorrow, misery, and the degradation it all involved. The fact that
these two countries had elected to struggle for supremacy with one another,
involved, not only these two countries, but disturbed the peace of the whole
world, by the weapon of war we see what it has brought these two countries
to---not only these two countries, but the peace of the whole world was
disturbed---and we now stand at a time when we have it in our power to take our
choice. Shall we grow to equality of status with our old enemy by taking
complete control of our own internal resources? And, if at the present moment
there are disabilities with regard to ourselves in this particular Treaty,
whether we shall endeavour to outgrow these by taking our own resources, or
rather by taking the chances of war---not with anything like adequate military
forces, but with very small forces, sufficient to make our country resist force
for years, but certainly not able to win even a war of internal liberation? That
is one outstanding aspect of the situation at the present time. Are we going to
choose in the next onward march of this nation the weapons which will give us
dead in our country the Crompton-Smiths of England and the Potters of Ireland;
or, are we going to take our own resources and grow to manhood, in friendliness
and with some chance of avoiding that polarisation of mind and polarisation in
antagonisms with the English people that are have been forced into at the
present time? The alternative of the President---and the President can correct
me if I am wrong---the alternative is, whether we reject this Treaty, or whether
we do it or not, that he will put before the English people a statement of
Ireland's claim that he feels the English people will admit to be reasonable. I
don't know if that is a fair statement of the President's claim.
THE PRESIDENT:
I put forward that alternative as the objective we were looking for in a real
peace between the two countries. This will not bring a real peace, and that is
why I am against it.
MR. MULCAHY:
If we, by taking a line of action that will keep us out of conflict and out
of antagonism with the main mass of the English people---because, by living our
own lives in our own country, and developing our own resources there does not
seem to me any chance of our entering in direct antagonisms with the mass of the
English people---and if, by adopting a weapon which will allow us to be on terms
of friendship with the main mass of the English people, and by joint help,
spoiling the efforts of English politicians to keep Ireland in a state of
subjection to England---if we, by choosing this weapon, cannot do that, how can
we do it by choosing a weapon which will put the responsibility upon us of
killing, in self-defence, the Crompton-Smiths of England? As I say, these
proceedings are not helpful. They are not finding us a way out. I can't suggest
a way out: and therefore I don't want to say anything beyond what I have said.
There is the position. To some extent the honour of these people who have stood
for Ireland and who have sworn their Oath of Allegiance, sworn to put all their
service, all their strength of mind at the cause of the Republic---that is, at
the cause of the Irish people---their honour is being impugned because they
stoop to accept such a Treaty as this. Well there are men gloriously dead to-day
whose honour didn't go unimpugned at certain periods of their lives and there
are men living not ingloriously to- day whose honour was also impugned; and if
at this particular moment the honour of any one of us who endeavoured with
whatever intellect and whatever understanding the Lord has given us---endeavoured
to do our best for our people---well, we can only hope that we shall have the
same constancy in dishonour as those men of whom I speak while they were
labouring under such a stigma. Remarks have been made by Deputies who were in
disagreement with us with regard to this Treaty, which would lead us to imagine
that they were going to erect spears outside the door of this new Irish
Parliament if it ever comes into existence, and that they are going to make for
those who pass into this Parliament a Caudine Forks. I doubt that. I know that
the hand of no man who has worked in this assembly as we all have worked
together, and who has felt in any way the comradeship of that work---I doubt if
the hand of any man who has been useful here---I doubt if he will put his hand
to such a spear as would make of any other section of this House, under such an
Act of Parliament, a Caudine Forks. If there is, I would refer any man who
thinks like it to the advice of the General who told his sons to leave his
prisoners pass through with honour; otherwise the results that would accrue
would not be to the advantage either of those who would take such action, or
ourselves, or the Irish people. I do feel that we have suffered a defeat at the
present moment---but I do feel that the hour of defeat in any way is not the
hour for quarrelling as to how it might have been avoided. We have suffered a
defeat. But even in that defeat we have got for the Irish people, at any
rate,powers that I believe---if this Dáil passes away, if every bit of
organisation that is in the country as its result at the present moment passed
away with it---I believe that the Irish people would rise upon their resources,
if left untrammelled and unfettered in their hands, to the full height of their
aspirations and to the full vigour which has been so long lying undeveloped in
our people; and with the responsibility of peace, the responsibility of taking
their own materials and living their own lives and delving for their own
materials of subsistence, they would find in that work all those high influences
which in our war have developed---the character and manliness and their valuable
characteristics that our period of warfare has developed in the country.
MR. SEAN MOYLAN:
I am not very anxious to speak on this question which is before the House.
The question, to my mind, is approval or disapproval of this Treaty, and I have
been here more than week listening to speeches on various subjects, from
Relativity to Revelations, and I don't think that the Irish Republican
Government have got much further with the work of the Irish Republic during this
week. It has been said here that there are two sides in the House, and the
Minister of Finance has referred to the Coalition. Well, I think that there are
three sides now, and I'm the third. I don't belong to the Coalition. I am a
Republican. I don't flatter myself that, even though I am the third side, that I
am the hypotenuse; but as far as the fighting men of the South are concerned, I
think that I am. I was trying to keep to what I believe was the point. I have
been asked the reasons for my views on the question. My reasons are well known.
But I have been asked several times outside this House to give the reason for my
opinions. Well I have reasons, and the only reason why I decline to give these
reasons is because I am of a peaceful disposition and I dislike argument. It has
been said here during the week that the members of the Delegation are in the
dock. That is not so. These men went to London with a formidable task before
them. They did the best they could for Ireland. They brought us a document
signed for our approval. They recommend that document to us. That is a manly
attitude and requires no justification before this House or before the country.
In giving you my views---and I will try to be very brief---I will ask you to
accept them as I have accepted the work of the Delegation, as the views of men
who wish to do the best they can for Ireland. I start with the assumption that
every member of this Dáil has sufficient intelligence to know when a Treaty is
not a Treaty, when an oath is not an oath. To my mind it can't be said with
truth that Britain has entered this pact with perfect good faith. My idea is
that it is the old question of England's practised politicians throwing dust in
the eyes of our too trustful representatives. Our watchword has been the
extermination of British power in Ireland. It was the gospel preached by the
Minister of Finance. How long is the heresy---since when has he then shed
sentiment? This Treaty is a sham. Take the wrapping from it and what do you
find? A weapon fashioned, not to exterminate, but to consolidate British
interests in Ireland. Apply one simple test. As we stand here to-day in Dublin
we have driven the British garrison into the sea out of what was once the
inviolable Pale. We rule the land by the force of our own laws, our own
judicature, our own executive. We're independent---we are a Republic. Approve of
this Treaty, and you re-establish and re-entrench the forces and traditions of
the Pale behind the new frontier---the frontier of Northern Ireland. And you
abandon your own people in the North in the same loathsome way, for it is---if
they believe what they say, that we are a murder gang---it is a loathsome way
that they have abandoned their people in the South. The Minister of Finance has
said that the departure of the British is a proof, the chief proof needed,that
we have recovered our freedom, and that we have satisfied our national
aspirations. He also said that the terms of peace secured this result. The
Minister for Foreign Affairs said that the plenipotentiaries brought back the
evacuation of Ireland by the British troops. That is what the ambassadors have
committed themselves to. The enemy forces depart from the North Wall and Dún
Laoghaire, but they disembark on the Lagan and the Foyle. By virtue of the
option given to the Northern Parliament it is left open to the British Crown to
keep up its army establishment, to supply with funds its supporters; and at the
moment England has turned the corner economically to re-establish itself over
Ireland. There is the old Irish proverb---beware of dranntán madra nú gáire
Sacsanach---the snarling of a dog or the smile of an Englishman. Beware of
the Greeks even when they come with gifts. We are having a Christmas gift of
freedom. This is the time when children get dolls and wooden horses. Has it
struck any of those who are going to vote for this Treaty that this gift of
freedom is a wooden horse ready at any moment to vomit forth armed forces of the
tyrant? We are told that the Treaty gives us immense powers internally and
externally, and we are told if we reject the Treaty that we are challenging the
British Empire to war---mortal combat. We have a Republic, and because we are
seeking to retain it and maintain it, we are told that we are challenging the
British Empire to mortal combat. Before I give any further reason---the reason I
have said I am a third party---one of the principal reasons---there are men here
voting for the Treaty who have been talking about the army just as if the army
was what the British called it, a murder gang. The army, as an army even, is as
well entitled to its opinions as any member of An Dáil, and the scandalous way
the army has been talked about here in this assembly is a thing I would not put
up with anyway. I have tried to appeal to you, not from sentiment, and I have
not threatened you with war. In taking up that stand in the Dáil, in appealing
to common sense, I have followed my chief, Deputy Mulcahy---I was awfully
pleased with the way he handled the situation. Some of you here have been
talking about going into the Empire with heads up, and Deputy Etchingham spoke
of marching into the Empire with hands up; and now what I say is this: `Hands
off the Republic', and am I to be told this is a declaration of war on England?
No English statesman will take it so. It is a definition of our rights, and
Lloyd George if he wants war will have to declare war. If he is giving us
freedom he can do so without declaring war. All we ask of Lloyd George is to
allow us to carry on. There is just one point more. It is this. As I said we
have been fighting for the extermination of the British interests in Ireland. We
are told we have it. I don't believe we have it. If there is a war of
extermination waged on us, that war will also exterminate British interests in
Ireland; because if they want a war of extermination on us, I may not see it
finished, but by God, no loyalist in North Cork will see its finish, and it is
about time somebody told Lloyd George that. The terms of reference must be
interpreted in their broadest, and not in their narrowest, sense. For our
Republic we are offered
an Oath of Allegiance;
a Governor-General;
a new Pale;
an army entrenched on our flank;
independence, internal independence;
the Treaty to preserve and consolidate British interests in our midst.
The House adjourned at 1.30 p.m., to 3.30 p.m. On resuming, the chair
was taken by THE DEPUTY SPEAKER (MR. BRIAN O'HIGGlNS) at 3.40.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
I have just purchased a copy of New Ireland, and I find that the
editor of that paper asked for a Press ticket in order that he might report at
this Dáil meeting. He was told that the minor Press representatives could not
get tickets. Now I, as a representative of the people, protest against that. I
say that the editor of that paper and the Minister of Foreign Affairs are the
people that made this movement.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I wish also to protest against the exclusion of the representative of one of
these papers or any of them. We have a great many people here who have not the
permission of the Dáil to come here, and surely we can admit the Press, at all
events when we decided that they be admitted.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The enemy Press got special facilities to the exclusion of our own.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I move that we admit the representative of New Ireland or any
other paper that desires to come here.
MR. O'KEEFFE:
With a suitable apology.
MR. DESMOND FITZGERALD (DIRECTOR OF PUBLICITY):
When this meeting was first called, it was to have been held in the Oak Room.
For that reason I announced that only a few representatives of the major Press
could come in. When we came here first we had only room for representatives of
the Press that had to get out spot news. Since then we have allowed
others in, but at present there are so many members bringing in personal friends
that the major Press are being excluded, and in these circumstances there is no
room for anyone else. If it is agreed that there shall be no one here but the
Press the minor Press could come, but with friends of the members coming in
there is no room for anyone else.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
There is no resolution to admit friends of members. I have brought no
friends, and as one member I protest against the friends of other people being
here. Every tittle of information given the meeting ought to be reported, and
our first duty is to see that the medium through which the reports are
circulated is introduced.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
It was understood when the meeting started that none but the members were to
be here, and the Press, and members of the Standing Committee of Sinn Fein; but
we found for the last three or four days that members of the Dáil had relatives
and friends in. For the first time to day I have signed asking for two people
who applied to me to come in. Since the thing has been broken---not on our
side---
A DEPUTY:
Not on ours.
MR. A. GRlFFITH:
Well I don't know. The agreement made by the President with me was that the
Press and members of the Standing Committee of Sinn Fein alone should be here,
and we found for the last three days that other people were here, and I
therefore signed to-day an order for three people. But the Press must take
preference, and the exclusion of the editor of New Ireland or any
paper in support of us is indefensible.
PRESlDENT DE VALERA:
We are not in any way responsible for any such exclusion. The Director of
Publicity, if anything, I think will be found to be a supporter of the other
side. So it cannot be said that we---
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I should like to say this, that I myself am perfectly in agreement that as
many members of the Press should come in as possible, but I also think that
while there is room and our young people belonging to both sides want to come
in, I don't see why they should be excluded, or that, when they get in, they
should be turned out. I have been told that a wounded soldier of ours was turned
out by Mr. Fitzgerald yesterday, in the middle of Miss MacSwiney's speech: I
don't know if that is true---Mr. Fitzgerald can answer---but I myself would be
glad to see the Irish people here without asking which side they belong
to---without asking to whom they belong. I would like to see the members in
their turn bringing their friends in. I am glad to hear Mr.Griffith has done so,
and I hope the members of the rank and file of the Dáil, they have friends in
Dublin, will get facilities for them to come in.
MR. M. COLLINS:
On a point of order I suggest that the Deputy for South Tipperary be heard.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
You will take the motion before the House: `That the members of the Press
excluded be admitted'.
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:
It has not been seconded.
THE PRESIDENT:
I second it.
MR. DESMOND FITZGERALD:
I thoroughly agree with that, but I want the thing understood---
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:
Have you put the motion in writing?
MR. J. J. WALSH:
It is, in effect, that the members of the Press excluded be admitted.
The motion was put and agreed to.
MR. P. J. MOLONEY TIPPERARY:
It is with some diffidence I arise to address the members of this assembly.
Permit me, all you members of the Deputation, to address to you a tribute of my
good faith in the great efforts you made to bring back to An Dáil of the Irish
people a settlement of this very difficult, insoluble problem. I, as well as all
the other members of this Dáil, am asked to approve of your work. I cannot do
it. I don't want to inflict upon you my views. They are the views of a great
many members of this House. Permit me though to say that I will not willingly
consent to go back into the British Empire. I will not, willingly or otherwise,
vote myself into the British Empire, but I say `Damn the Treaty whatever about
the consequences'. There is my position. It is the position of a great many men
like me, men of average intelligence, men of average faith and principle, decent
Irishmen who love Ireland and who are prepared to make sacrifices for Ireland
every time, and through no fault of mine, and no fault of any of yours here,
they are put in the position---we have been manoeuvred into a position where we
have to choose between two hells. I refuse to choose between two hells. I ask
here now publicly our leaders, or some leader, to point out to me some path by
which a man such as I am---not pretending to be an orator or a statesman, but an
ordinary man---can leave these two hells behind him with the vestige of my
honour. I will not vote for the Treaty. I am waiting for guidance, and waiting
for the path. That is all I have to say.
DR. EOIN MACNEILL:
A Chinn Chomhairle, speaking to you before in private I brought on
myself a certain amount of obloquy by describing myself as an opportunist. Now,
as that has apparently given gratification to some who take a different view of
what is before us from the view that I take, perhaps it is as well that I ought
to explain. As an opportunist I mean that I claim the freedom to do the best for
Ireland in the circumstances that may arise. You heard these words before---all
of you. You heard them, not once, but I think twenty times. You heard them
enforced with every variety of argument and of emphasis. You heard them brought
before you in this form, that, holding a high responsibility---the highest
responsibility that at the present day could be put upon an Irishman---if a man
were not free in all the circumstances to do the best he could for Ireland he
would not hold the responsibility. Now that is my standpoint, and from those who
differ from it we have heard the challenge to speak or be silent. These
challenges were due, not now, but at the commencement of these negotiations,
and, to my mind, the great majority of the speeches that have been made here
against the resolution for the approval of the Treaty should have been made
then, and not now. The situation was quite clearly defined---there is no mistake
about it---and what is good for one man is good for another man, and everyone
charged with responsibility in these negotiations had the same freedom to do the
best they could in the circumstances for Ireland; and I think it is now admitted
that in the circumstances they did the best that, to their knowledge, in their
judgment, in their power, they could have done. Now, sir, there is no escape. I
am not going to use any rhetoric. I am not going to use any claptrap. I am not
going to force any argument. I am not going to take any advantages. I am not
going to make any debating society points, and if I do I shan't object to being
interrupted.I would speak to you---but I shall not speak to you---or at all
events endeavour to do it in language as lofty as any of the eloquence that you
have heard, if not, perhaps, quite as lengthy. I could go further. It would be
very simple for me; it would cost me nothing at all; I could do it as easily as
any man here, or any woman in this assembly---I could say this: `We will have
the Republic, the whole Republic, and nothing but the Republic---and to hell
with England'. There is nothing to prevent me saying that. It will cost me
nothing---
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Say it then.
MISS MACSWINEY:
And mean it.
DR. MACNEILL:
But it is perfectly plain to us that the difficulties that arise in the minds
of the great majority of those who find difficulties in this---and that is the
great majority of those present---arise over two questions, that is to say, over
two oaths. One of these oaths was quoted for us in full by the Deputy for Louth
as the Oath we have taken as members of Dáil Eireann, and the other oath is the
Oath that is proposed to be taken by future members of an Irish assembly under
the Treaty that is before us. Now, I take the second of the two oaths first. It
was dealt with by, I think, the Deputy for Mayo, Mr. Rutledge, yesterday. I was
glad to notice that Deputy Rutledge did not pretend, as various others in
speaking here to-day did, during the course of this discussion, they
pretended---I should not use the word pretended , it must be a mistake on
their part---they have not read the words, or, if they read them, they do not
understand them. Deputy Rutledge did not pretend that in the proposed Oath there
is a declaration of allegiance to the King of England. There is in it no such
declaration---
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Irish Constitution.
DR. MACNEILL:
I will come to that point. There is no such declaration. It is my right to
challenge all the members of this assembly, and it is compulsory on all the
members of this assembly to answer any challenge of a member speaking from his
place. I would challenge every member of this assembly to-day to say that the
proposed Oath contains a declaration of allegiance to the King of England. Well,
the Deputy for Mayo went on to the second part of it, and I must say he found
himself there in an evident difficulty, because the only conclusion he could
come to was, that fidelity meant slavery, and that the only person who could be
faithful to another person was a slave. I suppose if the other person was
faithful to that person he would be a slave too. Now, I am not going to deal
with any suggested other oath---any suggested alternative that has been before
you. I will suggest an alternative myself that will be a way out in case another
oath has got to be proposed, and that is this: `I swear to be externally
associated'. Now that is Oath No. 1. There is no allegiance in it except to the
Irish State. We heard a very complete and a very thorough explanation from the
point of view of constitutional law given to us by Deputy Childers with regard
to the construction of the Treaty, and with regard to the explanation he has
given to us I will say only this, that if that Treaty be ratified the
explanation which Deputy Childers has placed upon it---in case there is going to
be further trouble about the interpretation of it---the explanations Deputy
Childers has put before you are the explanations which will be insisted on
against Ireland from the other side. The Minister for Local Government read a
certain number of contrasts between what was so according to law or according to
constitution, and what was so according to facts. Now the facts are these---and
even if anyone should dispute them I say it is the standpoint of an Irishman not
to dispute them but to insist upon them---the facts are these, that the
component parts of the community of nations which is described in one part of
the Treaty as the British Commonwealth of Nations---the status of these
different component parts is this, that they are with regard to each other on a
position of complete equality, and also with regard to each of them to
itself---each of them is a sovereign state in its own domain; and if it fell
upon me, supposing this Treaty to be ratified in future, to declare the terms,
to declare the manner in which these provisions ought be and must be interpreted
and applied, I should say beforehand---taking the standpoint of an Irishman, and
not regarding myself as an Attorney-General for the British Government---I
should claim on the facts, and not on some antiquated theory, for Ireland's
equality of status with all the other members of that community and for the
right of complete national sovereignty in our domain; and I would hold that
every provision, every article, every term, every word of that Treaty should be
understood subject to these principles; and I believe that in placing that
construction upon the Treaty we should have the support---if not of Imperialists
in Great Britain---we should certainly have the support of South Africa, Canada,
Australia, and New Zealand, for it is to their selfish interest that that
construction, and that construction only, should be placed upon these terms; and
I would bear in mind that the status of Canada has been declared in what now
amounts to a constitutional definition---the status of Canada has been declared
to include the right of secession. But we will be told: `What is the use of the
right of secession to Ireland? It is only sixty miles from Great Britain, and
Canada is three thousand miles away'. That is a perfectly good and valid
argument, but it applies not only to that status, but to any superior status
that we could acquire under a Treaty; and it would apply with equal force to an
independent Irish Republic. Now, sir, I have not used, and I am not going to use
as a reason for voting for approval of this Treaty---I am not going to use the
argument of terrible war, and the reason I am not going to use it is because it
is an argument, if I may modestly say so---I want to make no boast about it---it
is an argument that does not appeal to me at all, and I don't think it is an
argument that appeals, at all events, to the new spirit of the people of
Ireland. An argument that appeals to fear is a bad argument and a dangerous
argument, because if one appeals to fear one gives, so to speak, encouragement
to fear, and I make no appeal here to fear at all. An appeal has been made in
different terms from both sides. We have had painted for us a terrible picture
of the future of Ireland under these proposed new arrangements. We are going to
have His Majesty's Ministers all over the place, and His Majesty's Officers all
over the army. Well, it is not for me to defend anything that any other member
has said. I am not here as a supporter of individuals, but if Deputy Kevin
O'Higgins thinks that the future Ministers of Ireland are going to be His
Majesty's Ministers, my belief is that Deputy Kevin O'Higgins will have to be
His Majesty's combined Minister of everything, though I am perfectly certain
that no man elected ever more---in the future---by the people of Ireland to
ministerial office will be described as `His Majesty's Ministers'. We will have
a Governor-General, and a Gold Stick in Waiting, and I don't know what else. An
appalling picture! We will be overawed by these people, perfumed, in uniform,
and dressed up in their court dress, and the rest of us will be all rubbing our
foreheads in the dust before them, as flunkeys. A terrible picture indeed! Well,
this personage who is alluded to in the terms of the Treaty---he is not named
the Governor-General. `What is in a name?' has been said to me. Well if the
Deputy insists on it I will call him the Grand Panjandrum. We will suppose this
important functionary to be here in Ireland. We have a second appalling picture
placed before us that he will set himself up somewhere or other and will hold
Drawing Rooms, and Levees, and Garden Parties, and give Balls and Dances. And
our poor girls! Their nationality will evaporate because they go to these
functions. Now it is difficult to believe that all this is seriously proposed to
us for our belief. There is a question of the Constitution. The Constitution
will have to be drafted by some Irish authority---by some elected Irish
authority---but Mr. Lloyd George has written a letter and it appears that a
letter from Mr. Lloyd George is now sufficient to make us all fall down on our
knees. He says in his letter that our future Constitution will have to be
drafted in accordance with the terms which he has forced upon us under that
Treaty. Sir, that Treaty deals with proposed international relations between
Ireland and the other component parts of the British Empire, but when an Irish
Constitution is fashioned and framed, there will be no mention in it of any
other country but Ireland. If any person---be he a constitutional lawyer or be
what he may---comes forward and insists that some other country but Ireland will
be mentioned in that Irish Constitution, well we know what will happen.
Moreover, I venture to predict---I am not a constitution maker or monger, but I
venture to predict that the first article of the Irish Constitution when it is
drafted, and by whomsoever it is drafted, will contain a provision to this
effect: `That the sovereignty of Ireland derived from the people of Ireland
holds authority over all persons and over all things in Ireland'. It won't hold
that authority in fact because it is impossible for us, as a matter of fact,
immediately to bring under the authority of Ireland all things in Ireland. That,
as things stand at present, is an impossibility. We all know it, but the Irish
Constitution will claim as a right for Ireland complete authority---sovereignty
based on the will of the Irish people and on nothing else---over all persons and
over all things in Ireland. And then what will happen us? We will be reduced to
our proper place by a Dominion Act---another terrible prospect! Dominion Home
Rule is dead. There is no such thing now in existence. I am glad we are
unanimous about one point. Well they will pass a Dominion Act. It is quite
within their competence as they interpret their competence---I mean the Imperial
Parliament as they call it, it is really the Parliament of Great Britain---it is
quite within their competence to pass an Act annexing Ireland to the Republic of
Guatemala. They have full power to do it, and if they do it we will have, I
suppose, Deputy Childers coming before us and explaining that, in future, we are
children of Guatemala. Let them pass their Dominion Act. We don't care a fig for
their Dominion Act. It is not so very long since they passed another Act that I
will remind you about. In the year 1917 we had in Ireland the largest British
Army that ever occupied Ireland. I believe it is true that at that time there
were 204,000 soldiers on the pay-roll of the British Army in Ireland alone; and
it may interest those who are concerned in foreign affairs to know that at that
time when Great Britain sent the S.O.S. out to America---when her back was to
the wall defending Belgium---she was holding down Ireland with the largest army
she ever had in Ireland, and she was asking America to come over quick and help
her to defeat the terrible Huns; and then in the middle of all that she passed
an Act for us---an Act making it compulsory for every young man in Ireland to go
out and help her to beat the Huns. Well she had her 204,000 men holding down
Ireland, and you remember all of you the circumstances of that time. We had not
then an Irish Republican Government. No. We had an Irish Parliamentary Party. We
had not then more than the nucleus of an Irish Republican Army. They had the
country overrun by their soldiers and their so-called police. Their police were
not withdrawn into the blockhouses at that time or travelling around in cages.
They were walking armed along the roads, uninterfered with---cocks of the walk,
ruling the country---and in the middle of all that they passed an Act of
Parliament with their 200,000 bayonets, and no Republican Army of any organised
kind to resist them, to compel the young men of Ireland to fight the battle of
Belgium. And what happened that Act? It is still on the Statute Book. Mr. Lloyd
George discovered a German plot and he went to Edinburgh to announce his
discovery, and in his speech in Edinburgh he called on the Irish people to
go---he did not say it, some of the others said it for him---to go before he
would take them by the neck---to do what? To set free the small Catholic
Nationalities that were groaning under the oppression of Austria. Well he passed
his Act. How many men did he get by it? How far did he succeed in enforcing it
against the sort of Ireland he had at that time, not united, not organised, not
armed, with practically no power of resistance---practically no power, except, I
might say, faith and prayer---and he failed to put this act in force. And if he
passed a Dominion Act now, conferring Dominion status on us, we will have no
conferred status; we will confer our status on ourselves and his Dominion Act
will remain as much a dead letter as his Conscription Act remained. The reason
why I ask you to ratify this Agreement is not because we are afraid, but because
we are not afraid. It is not because we are too weak to refuse it, but because
we are strong enough to accept it. Now I began with the one Oath. I will finish
with the other. I will not give you my explanation of it. I will give you the
President's explanation of it. The President, when he declared here for it,
declared he was free, and must be free, to do what was best in his judgment for
Ireland in the circumstances. He was then bound by the Oath that was read for us
by the member for Louth this morning---
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Let the circumstances as a whole be explained. It has been referred to a
number of times and I think it is only fair that I should explain. In Private
Session, the day before I was to be elected President, I informed the Dáil
because I knew, in the circumstances, that if there were to be negotiations, we
would have to consider association of some sort, and Document No. 2, which you
will see in its proper time, might be interpreted as a departure from the
isolated Republic; and having that in mind, and having in mind possible
criticisms, I told the Dáil that before they elected me they should understand
that if I took office as head of the State I would regard my Oath solely in the
light that it was an oath taken by me to the Irish nation to do the best I could
for the Irish nation, and that I would not be fettered if I were to be in that
position.
DR. MACNEILL:
I have not a word to add---not an i to dot nor a t to
cross---to what the President has said there now, but it has been put up to
member after member of this assembly that he is bound by the word and the letter
of his oath, and that his oath precludes him from using his judgment to do his
best for the country in these circumstances. I say that a person who takes an
oath to any formula---to any formula whatsoever---and places that formula, no
matter what it may be, above what the President has said---what is best
according to his conscience and judgment for Ireland---that person may be true
to his oath, but he is not true to Ireland. I will go further and say that his
truth to Ireland is binding upon him more than any oath---any political oath
that he has taken or possibly can take, and that if he takes a political oath
and that political oath is explained to him to tie his hands or otherwise in a
case in which he is called upon to act upon his responsibilities in a most
critical state of affairs, if he believes that by setting that oath aside, and
by acting in freedom from that oath he could do better for his country---then he
is bound to break that oath. He is bound to break that oath. Otherwise there is
a higher law for us than the law of conscience.
MR. DAITHI CEANNT:
The Law of God.
COUNT PLUNKETT:
An oath of fidelity to our own country.
DR. MACNEILL:
Yes, any formula you take. All these things are taken under reserve.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
What about the marriage oath?
DR. MACNEILL:
Well now, a Chinn Chomhairle, when I was in your position I said that
some of these interruptions led to speeches being longer instead of shorter, and
if I were at this stage to proceed to discuss the marriage oath---well there is
no more to be said.
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
Just to add a touch of symmetry to this discussion let me say, too, that like
the Deputy for Derry I also am an opportunist, but, Sir, here is a difference
between us. I am an opportunist, that is, one who would suit his tactics to his
opportunities. I am an opportunist who would use his opportunities to serve and
not to subvert his principles. I am one of those who would use this opportunity
to take care that those who come after them should have an opportunity to do in
their day what we have tried to do. It is a very true thing to say---as I am
going to say---that this is not a question of oaths. I know morally that England
can no more bind us with oaths than she can bind us with chains. But, Sir,
England is not seeking to bind us with the oath which everyone here takes with a
fixed idea in his mind of driving a couch and four through it at the first
opportunity. England is taking good care to bind us to her now with something
more than a mere form of words. I have not concerned myself at all in this
discussion with the question of allegiance. The attitude I have adopted
throughout is not what our relations to England might be now. I have adopted
throughout this attitude, that if those who were supposed to be the chiefs of
our army and represent the soldiers in it---if those who were supposed to
represent them come to this Dáil and said, as military men, `We are faced with
defeat and have now to negotiate and accept a Treaty of surrender', I should
have bowed my head and bided my time for another day to bring me another
opportunity. But, Sir, I would have taken good care that in surrendering now I
would, at least, leave to those who came after me a chance, another day to use
and do what we have failed to do in ours. I am opposed to this Treaty because it
gives away our allegiance and perpetuates partition. By that very fact that it
perpetuates our slavery; by the fact that it perpetuates partition it must fail
utterly to do what it is ostensibly intended to do---reconcile the aspirations
of the Irish people to association with the British Empire. When did the
achievement of our nation's unification cease to be one of our national
aspirations? Was it when Tone and MacCracken, Emmet and Russell died for Irish
Union? Was it when Davis, a Cork man, and Mitchell, a Newry man, worked for
Irish union? Was it when Pearse and Connolly died for Irish union? Was it when
Mr. Griffith and Mr. Milroy stood in Tyrone and Fermanagh six months ago for
Irish union---for the historic unity of our country---for this which has been
the greatest of all our Irish aspirations, this which brought to the services of
our country the man who first pointed the road to the Republic, this which
brought to the services of our country the service and the life of Tone. For
that historic principle of the Irish nation we are offered, it is true, a price.
Never was a nation asked to forsake its principles but it was offered a price.
The Scotch got Calvinism and a commercial union with England. The bishops of the
Union period got a promise---as we are getting a promise---of Catholic
Emancipation, and we in our day are offered, in the words of the Assistant
Minister for Local Government, this and this, and this and this, meaning fiscal
autonomy for four- fifths of the Irish people---surely an unsound and uneconomic
proposition---a tiny army that is for ever to be infested with foes, and a navy
of cockle-shells; and this is not for symbols or shadows, but for six or more
than the equivalent of six of the fairest counties in Ireland, and the only and
last chance we have of securing our freedom. The Chairman of the Delegation, in
concluding his speech moving the motion before the Dáil, said Thomas Davis was
the man whose words and teaching he had tried to translate into the practice of
Irish politics. He had made Davis his guide and had never departed one inch from
his principles. Will the Chairman of the Delegation find me one passage in Davis
by which he can justify the partition of our country? Mind you, I do not mean
one passage advocating decentralising within the national polity, nor one
passage advocating a confederation of united and equal States within the Irish
nation, but one passage which, on the plain and simple interpretation of it,
taken with and in its context, would justify this proposal to dismember our
country. Find me that in Davis, find me it in Mitchell, find me it in Tone, find
me it in the written testament of any man who ever stood firmly for Irish
liberty. You will not find it there. Far otherwise, you will find every man of
them, from the saintly bishop who first strove to unite the native forces
against the Norman invader down to those who died in 1916, every man who ever
sought to achieve Irish Independence seeking first to secure Irish Unity. In
this matter and upon this principle at least,and I trust he will believe I am
not saying it offensively, the Minister for Foreign Affairs is forsaking Davis
and the principles of Davis, and in forsaking them he is forsaking his own. In
saying that, I do not wish to make any vulgar insinuation against the honour of
the men who are recommending this Treaty---their past record is proof against
that---but is it not remarkable that not one has asked our approval for it upon
grounds of principle, though they are all men of principle! All men of
principle, they are asking you to vote for this measure upon grounds of
expediency. It was upon grounds of expediency that the Catholic Bishops
supported the Act of Union. It was upon grounds of expediency---and I ask the
Irish people to remember this---it was upon grounds of expediency that Parnell
was overthrown. It was on grounds of expediency---though there are some people
here who tell me that because the majority of the people ask us to do something
that is expedient that on principle we ought to support them---it was on grounds
of expediency that Redmond and the Irish people through him supported England in
the late war. It is upon grounds of expediency that we are asked to approve of
this Treaty and recommend it to the Irish people for acceptance. Ah! I tell you
that history is full of notable cases and great careers that were wrecked upon
the shifting sands of expediency. There are many men in this Dáil who, by their
valour and devotion, have won an honoured and glorious place in their country's
history. Some of them have declared that upon the merest grounds of expediency
they are going to vote for this Treaty. In Private Session I took the
opportunity to set before you one single instance in my life when I was driven
to act on grounds of expediency against my principles, and I told you there has
scarcely been a moment of my life when that single instance has not risen up to
confuse me and fill me with shame. Let those who have won fame and honour now in
a glorious fight for principle---let them hesitate before they do anything that
will make them bend their heads in shame---
MR. M. COLLINS:
Hear, hear.
MR. MACENTEE:
These things are not symbols and shadows for which we contend. These things
upon which you propose to turn your back are not symbols and shadows---they are
your very life and soul. Forsake them now, and everything that is good and true
in you is dead. You may not believe me, but I would ask you to take the view
that outside people take of your attitude in this Dáil. Every single one of you
who are going to vote for this Treaty, would you not be insulted if I were to
say to your face that you are forsaking the principles and example of Pearse and
Connolly and those who made the Republic and brought back the soul to a nation?
Is here one of you who would not be insulted? And yet there is a motion set down
for this assembly which may perhaps take the contrary view of things than was
held by those who died. Do the young men of Ireland---the Collinses, the
Mulcahys, and the MacKeons---wish once and for all to give decent and final
interment to the Ireland for which Pearse died? These are not dead phrases for
which they spoke, and these are not mummy phrases for which we stand. They are
the life and soul of this nation. Do you wish to regard them as mummies? Ah! I
hear some talk about an oath and men not seeing the difference between the two
things---that in one there lies the enshrouded mummy of a free Ireland, and in
the other they mean the preservation, inviolate against opposition or
compromise, of the living principles for which Tone and Connolly stood.
A DEPUTY:
Where is it?
MR. MACENTEE:
It is in this, Sir, that the Constitution of the Irish nation should depend
upon the will of the Irish people. Apparently in this assembly we have become so
many slaves already that we are not able to distinguish between the free will of
the Irish people and the wish of an English King. You who are going to vote for
the Treaty upon grounds of expediency, whether it be to get the English soldiers
out of Ireland; whether it be in order that Ireland may be allowed to develop
her own life in her own way without interference from any government, English or
otherwise as the gallant soldier who seconded the resolution said; or whether,
as the Minister of Finance said, because this document gives you, not freedom,
but freedom to achieve it---
MR. COLLINS:
Hear, hear.
MR. MACENTEE:
You who are going to vote for it on these grounds think well of it; examine
every word of it; weigh every clause of it, and see that it does what you say it
will do before parting with your principles and staining your honour in support
of it.
MR. COLLINS:
I am the exponent of my principles.
MR. MACENTEE:
For me I will put but one clause of this document before you, and it is the
clause which the Deputy for Tyrone and Fermanagh, Mr. Milroy, in one of his
rhetorical thunder-storms, glossed over. He began his speech by saying he would
take his gloves off. When he came to it he had not only his gloves but his
velvet slippers off and he strayed very quietly past it. I refer you to the last
clause in Article 12 of this agreement:---`Provided that if such an address is
so presented, a Commission consisting of three persons, one to be appointed by
the Government of the Irish Free State, one to be appointed by the Government of
Northern Ireland, and one, who shall be chairman, to be appointed by the British
Government, shall determine, in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants,
so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions, the
boundaries between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland, and for the
purposes of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and of this instrument, the
boundary of Northern Ireland shall be such as may be determined by such
Commission'.
I am sorry Mr. Milroy was not silent when he came to this clause in the
Treaty, but he walked past it singing a little song of salvation. Referring to
the Provisions of this Treaty he said, and these are his own words, that they
were not partition provisions, but were provisions which would ensure the
essential unity of Ireland, but whether partition or not, the economic
advantages and the facts connected with the six counties were such that, sooner
or later, they would be compelled to resume association with the rest of
Ireland. I traverse that in its entirety. First of all, within a month six
counties or more than six counties as it may ultimately turn out to be, have a
right to vote themselves out from under the operation of your Treaty, and you
are making no provision whatsoever to bring them in. Don't tell me that is not
partition. But, Sir, I will come to a higher authority than Mr. Milroy, and that
is the man who has the power and authority to make us violate our vows in order
to accept his document, and with all due respect to the Minister for Foreign
Affairs and the Minister for Finance, but following the excellent example set by
the Minister for Foreign Affairs, I will quote that gentleman's words. Mr. Lloyd
George, speaking on a motion in the English House of Commons approving of the
address to the Throne said: `We were of opinion, and were not alone in that
opinion, because their are friends of Ulster who take the same view, that it is
desirable if Ulster is to remain a separate unit, that there should be an
adjustment of boundaries . . . we propose that Ulster should have a
re-adjustment of boundaries which would take into account the existence of a
homogeneous population, and considering all these circumstances we think it is
in the interests of Ulster that she should have people within her who should
work with her and help her'. There you have the real purpose of that
clause---not to bring the six Counties into Ireland, but to enable them to
remain out of Ireland.
MR. MILROY:
I desire to ask this Deputy if he is prepared to coerce all these counties to
come in?
MR. MACENTEE:
I am not responsible for policy in this Dáil. If I were, I might be prepared
to lay a programme before you, but until I am sitting with a Government of the
Republic it is not open to any man to ask me what I would do in such a case.
There you have, first of all, the real purpose of this clause, which is to
ensure that Ulster---secessionist Ulster---should remain a separate unit; and
this is to be done by transferring from the jurisdiction of the Government of
Northern Ireland certain people and certain districts which that Government
cannot govern; and by giving instead to Northern Ireland, certain other
districts---unionist districts of Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal, so that not only
under this Treaty are we going to partition Ireland, not only are we going to
partition Ulster, but we are going to partition even the counties of Ulster, and
then I am told that these are not partition provisions. The Deputy for Tyrone
and Fermanagh says `Quite so', but I tell him that Mr. Lloyd George has given me
the real purpose of these provisions.
MR. E. BLYTHE:
Trust him.
MR. MACENTEE:
No, I don't trust him, but I never saw such guileless trust in any English
statesman as those who are standing for this Treaty are giving him. I take the
interpretation of the man who drafted this instrument, and this, remember you,
was not the Treaty, and not the draft of your Cabinet. The original draft was
the draft of the English Cabinet.
DR. MACCARTAN:
That is no fault of our Cabinet.
MR. MACENTEE:
I have nothing to do with that. I am thinking of the fate of my country, not
of the fortunes of politicians. I say I take the interpretation of the man who
drafted the instruments; and I have good grounds for taking it because he is the
man who forced these instruments upon the Delegation, and has forced them to
come back here and attempt to force it upon the members of this assembly and
even upon the people of our country; and I say that the man who has had power to
do all that, has the power and will have the power to force his interpretation
of his own instrument. But what is going to be the effect of this provision? I
am told it is not a partition provision. First of all, its effect is to remove
from Northern Ireland the strongest force that makes for the unification of
Ireland. It is going to remove from Northern Ireland the strongest force that
makes for the unification of Ireland. It is going to remove from under the
jurisdiction of the Northern Government that strong Nationalist minority which
every day tries to bring Northern Ireland into the Irish Republic. They, I might
almost say, are to be driven forth from their native Ulster and instead their
places are to be taken by certain sections of the population of Monaghan, Cavan
and Donegal; and that is being done in order that Carsonia shall secure a
homogeneous population which is necessary for her, in order to develop as
England intends, and as the Orange politicians intend it should develop into a
second state and a second people usurping Irish soil. Mr. Milroy stated that the
economic advantages of the case in connection with the six counties were such
that, sooner or later, they would be compelled to resume association with the
rest of Ireland. Does Mr. Milroy---whom I remember very well as a very agile
rainbow chaser and shadow hunter---does he tell me that material or economic
facts are the determining factors in nationality? Would he have said that when
we were asking the people of Ireland to risk their economical welfare on the
question of nationality three years ago? Ah! he would not, and if I had said
that to him he would have regarded it as insulting. I say there is more in
nationality and history than mere materialism, and I say because there are more
than these things in history and nationality, this Treaty is the most dangerous
and diabolical onslaught that has ever been made upon the unity of our nation,
because, Sir, by the very effort in it we are going to be destructive of our own
nationality---
MR. M. COLLINS:
You are.
MR. MACENTEE:
No, Sir, you are.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I was first of course.
MR. MACENTEE:
Exactly. I am not following you.
MR. M. COLLINS:
You never did.
MR. MACENTEE:
However, I say this, that the provisions of this Treaty mean this: that in
the North of Ireland certain people differing from us somewhat in tradition, and
differing in religion, which are very vital elements in nationality, are going
to be driven, in order to maintain their separate identity, to demarcate
themselves from us, while we, in order to preserve ourselves against the
encroachment of English culture, are going to be driven to demarcate ourselves
so far as ever we can from them. I heard something about the control of
education. Will any of the Deputies who stand for it tell me what control they
are going to exercise over the education of the Republican minority in the North
of Ireland? They will be driven in their schools to hold up the English
tradition and ideal. We will be driven in our schools to hold up the Gaelic
tradition and ideal. They will be driven to make English, as it is, the sole
vehicle of common speech and communication in their territory, while we will be
striving to make Gaelic the sole vehicle of common speech in our territory. And
yet you tell me that, considering these factors, this is not a partition
provision. Ah! Sir, it was a very subtle and ironic master-stroke of English
policy to so fashion these instruments that, by trying to save ourselves under
them, we should encompass our own destruction. But, Sir, to return again to Mr.
Milroy's economic conditions, which he thinks are everything in history, and
which I tell him are comparatively nothing, because if they were, Sir, we would
not have an Irish nation here today; I say that one of the immediate effects of
these instruments is to put Ulster in an economic position to defy you. What
will be the first consequence of it? Immediately there will be a revival of
Irish Trade which will have its secondary effect in Ulster in the revival of the
shipbuilding and linen industries, and remember these are the staple industries
of Belfast. We have been able to exercise comparatively great pressure upon
Belfast, simply from the fact that the linen and shipbuilding industries were in
such a state of absolute stagnation. It will be quite a different matter when 90
per cent. of Belfast trade is flourishing again and she is in a position to lose
her distributing trade with the rest of Ireland; and that is the reason I say
that the immediate effect of the passage of this instrument will be to put
Belfast in an economic position to defy you.You will say: `What of the heavy
taxation under this Act?' What, indeed? Show me anything in the bond that will
compel England to tax Northern Ireland more heavily than the Free State will be
taxed. Show me anything in the Treaty or in the Government of Ireland Act. You
cannot show me anything there, and I saw as England has found it profitable to
subsidise the Ameer of Afghanistan, she will find it much more profitable to
subsidise Northern Ireland to remain out and weaken the Free State: and that is
my answer to those who say the economic factors are going to bring about a
united Ireland under this document. I have heard men get up here and say time
after time that they will vote for this Treaty because it meant the evacuation
of the English forces out of Ireland, until one gallant member got up and said
that, as a matter of fact, it meant the evacuation of the British forces out of
Southern Ireland in order to get their winter quarters in the North. Until then
I had almost thought that there was no soldier of intelligence in this House. I
tell you this Treaty makes evacuation a mockery. Already the English Press are
declaring that Northern Ireland must be afforded every military protection she
requires or that England can give her. The North will be flooded with soldiers
evacuated out of Southern Ireland. Read Lloyd George's letter if you don't
believe me. They will be reinforced by hundreds of thousands of Orange
irregulars concentrated and held in one spot, as Napoleon used to concentrate
his forces, to launch them at the tiny units of your tiny army and smash them.
You who profess to be soldiers and who recommend this Treaty upon soldierly
grounds, tell me, with Ulster, as it will be under this Treaty, an armed camp,
and with your chief ports held by the enemy and your supplies of equipment and
munitions so controlled, where is the military advantage you are going to get if
you accept the Treaty? I have heard some say that they will vote for this Treaty
because it is not a final settlement. I might be disposed to commend them for
those statements if only for the reinforcement that their words give to the
President's attitude in this matter, for he has frankly declared he is voting
against it because it is not a final settlement, and because it will not give
peace. But, Sir, I am voting against it because I believe it will be a final
settlement, and it is the terrible finality of the settlement that appals me.
Under it I believe firmly that we are giving away our last chance of securing an
independent Ireland. Mark my words, under this Treaty Ulster will become
England's fortress in Ireland---a fortress as impregnable as Gibraltar, and a
fortress that shall dominate and control Ireland even as Gibraltar controls the
Mediterranean. I have heard much from those who will vote for it because it is
not a final settlement. I have heard much of our gradual growth to freedom under
this instrument---how we will encroach a little here and crawl a little there
until we attain the full measure of our liberties. I tell you that so long as
Ulster is in the position you are going to place her in under this instrument
you will not budge one inch. That is why she is placed there, and it is because
she is placed in that position that Lloyd George, on his own admission, has
given you this Treaty at all. Speaking of the conference and of the issue of the
conference---the Treaty---he says: `It could not have been done if you had not
faced Ireland with the accomplished rights of Ulster'---rights of the invader
and usurper within historic territory of the Nation. I tell you what England
propose to do. She has robbed you of your territory to settle it upon her new
Cromwellians and is asking you now to give her the title deeds. That is what
this document means. The Deputy for Derry some days ago spoke of an element not
being represented in this Dáil. I too will speak of them. Yet it occurs to me
that not I, but the Minister for Foreign Affairs, or the Minister for Finance,
or the Deputy for Tyrone, who is so strenuous and vociferous for the
treaty---that not I, but one of these should be their spokesman here. I ask
these Deputies if, when they were standing for their respective constituencies,
they had put forward this Article 12 of this Treaty as their policy, would they
have got one hundred votes of all the votes that returned them?
MR. COLLINS:
Certainly.
MR. GRIFFITH:
You got fifty- six votes.
Mn. MACENTEE:
I may have. That was no fault of mine.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Not mine surely.
MR. MACENTEE:
I admit the people judged me well, but I tell you they judged you worse if
they did. Yes, I got one hundred votes because on the official whip and the
official instructions sent out to the voters of Tyrone and Fermanagh Mr.
Griffith was placed first and got his huge plurality. Mr. Milroy was placed
third, and I fifth. Because the people stood for the Irish Republic and wished
to carry out the mandate of the Irish Republic they voted for any man, not upon
his merits, but as they were told to do. I say all those who are sitting for
Ulster constituencies, and all of those who vote for the acceptance of this
Treaty that they will be guilty of a double betrayal ---the betrayal of not only
our own rights but of the pledge to the Ulster people---a people who, under
conditions that those who have not endured them can have no conception of, have
stood for us and have suffered for us in the hope that in our day of triumph we
should not forget them. These days have not been our days of triumph. Some
Deputy has said they are our days of defeat, but whether they are our days of
triumph or defeat let us all remember our own suffering people and make them our
day of honour. The Deputy for Galway and a number of other Deputies have said:
`What is the alternative to our acceptance of this Treaty?' Apparently if the
people who are recommending this Treaty can have their way there will be no
alternative to it except `terrible and immediate war'. But, Sir, whether that is
really the alternative or not---and I don't believe it is the alternative---but
whether it he the alternative or not, all the responsibility for that
alternative rests, not upon us, but upon those who, in violation of their
election pledges and in defiance of their orders, signed that Treaty. The
Minister for Finance, referring again to the problem of secessionist Ulster,
more or less washed his hands of the whole matter when he said: `Well, after
all, what are we to do with these people?' Well I am not responsible for policy,
but of all the things I may have done, this one thing I would not do: I would
not let them go. I would not traffic in my nation's independence without, at
least, securing my nation's unity. I would not hand over my country as a
protectorate to another country without, at least, securing the right to protect
my countrymen. I would not do as this Treaty does---I would at least take care
not to do as this Treaty does---remove every chance and every opportunity, and
make it for ever impossible for those who come after me to secure it. I would
not do one of these things and because I would not do them I will not vote for
this Treaty.
ALD. LIAM DE ROISTE:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, seasuighim os bhúr gcóir chun mo
ghuth d'árdú agus chun e chur leo so tá tareis labhairt ar son an Chonnartha so.
Agus is mian liom leis a mhíniú cad na thaobh go bhfuilim á dheanamh. Duine
iseadh mise a cheapann gur feidir cúrsaí na Náisiún do shocrú go síochánta. Agus
dá leanadh Náisiúin an domhain an Chríostuíocht adeirid atá aca do socrófaí
cúrsaí na Náisiún agus a ndeifríochtaí go síochánta. Ach ní mar sin a dintear;
agus is baolach nách mar sin a deanfar. Is le lámh láidir is comhacht a fuair
Sasana an chead ghreim sa tír seo; agus an fhaid a theidheann mo thuiscint-se i
stair na hEireann, thuigeas riamh go mbeadh saoirse againn nuair imeodh arm
Shasana as an dtír; agus ní feidir liom einne adeir liom nách fíor e sin a
thuiscint. Fe mar thuigim-se an sceal sin e an teagasc a gheibhmíd ó gach duine
a thuig stair na hEireann. Táim ar aon aigne le Sceilg sa meid seo, gurbh fhearr
liom gur i dteanga na hEireann amháin a labharfaí anso. Táimíd ag caint i dtaobh
focal is abairtí anso le breis is seachtain. Dá mba Gaedhilg a bheadh á labhairt
againn ní bheadh aon cheist eadrainn i dtaobh brí na bhfocal fe mar atá sa
Bhearla.
One of the first things I want to say is this: I protest most solemnly
against anybody saying that I, for one, in supporting this Treaty, am making a
spiritual surrender [hear, hear]. If the Deputy for Louth had
to-day read the Oath of Allegiance to the Irish Republic which I took it would
be thoroughly understood by those who understand the language of the country
that I am in no sense violating that oath in what I am favouring to-day; rather
am I confirming it. I took an oath to Saorstát na hEireann, not to your
Dominion, Republic, or form of Home Rule; and by the oath to Saorstát no
hEireann I stand now. Yes, there are some now laughing at the oath. I mean to
keep the oath and not to break it.
MR. SEAN ETCHINGHAM:
What about the oath to the first Parliament?
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:
I must ask the Deputies to refrain from interrupting.
ALD. DE ROISTE:
I have risen to support the motion of approval for recommending the
acceptance of the Articles of Agreement of the proposed Treaty of accommodation
between Ireland and Britain to this assembly and to the people of Ireland.
However others may regard the matter, I view this assembly as the assembly of a
Sovereign Nation. I have been surprised to find Deputies in this assembly
doubting the sovereignty of the Irish nation.It is true the assembly is an
anomalous one, due to the circumstances of the revolutionary period through
which we have passed and may still be passing; in this assembly we have only one
party, the Republican party. If it were a normal assembly you would have
representatives of every party in the Irish nation. Now, though the assembly is
here, not by law established as in any normal country, it is here in fact; and
it is the fact I recognise and not the law established to the letter. I would
submit for the consideration of everybody that if we stood on what has been
termed---but which I do not admit---the uncompromising rock of principle, we
would not he here at all. It was by virtue of a British Act in 1918 that we
stood for election [hear, hear]. It is by virtue of British
Constitutional Law and practice that we got into the assembly then, and I
presume it was by the Act called the Partition Act which began: `Enacted by the
King's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice of the Lords Spiritual and
Temporal', or whatever you call it [laughter] that we got elected
here, and that we are here in this assembly. The very constituencies were
changed from 1918 to ]921 by virtue of the Partition Act passed in the British
Parliament. If we were to accept the letter of the law we would not be here at
all [hear, hear]. What we accepted was a fact and the will of the
Irish people. We are here because every one of us, acting according to common
sense, not in accordance with declarations or what is written in a
British Act, availed of the opportunity to mould in form all British Acts to the
benefit of the Irish people [hear, hear]. In that sense everyone
here, no matter what declarations are made, is an opportunist. We are all here,
no matter what theoretical distinctions are now made to divide us in dialectical
discussions, by virtue of the operation of English constitutional and legal
enactments in Ireland. Common sense tells us there was neither compromise nor
sacrifice of national principles in utilising English legal machinery for our
own purpose, as we utilise it for local government, for postal services, for
monetary values and other purposes. If I may say so, the most uncompromising
person here will pay twopence for the photograph of his Majesty King George to
put it on a letter. I hope when the Postmaster-General begins his functions the
photograph of his Majesty will be cheaper---if it is here at all [laughter].
The law and the phrases and the forms and terms of the Acts of Parliament mean
nothing as far as this country is concerned, when they are forms and terms of
the British Parliament. The fact means another.If I wanted to make debating
points I could say like others we were all compromisers in 1918, we were all
compromisers in 1920, we are all compromisers now, and not alone compromisers
but opportunists; for we all availed of the opportunities given us under English
legal forms to create this assembly itself. I have no desire to make debating
points. It matters not now what the phrasing and the form of words of the
Partition Act of 1920 were. I fancy it was called the `Better Government of
Ireland Act', and began with the usual fiction: `Enacted by the King's Most
Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal',
and so on. Such was the wording that established Dáil Eireann as it now exists.
The Wizard from Wales threw the dust in our eyes, but, faith! we cleared
the air and the fog is in his. I accept the fact, not the words. Ireland accepts
the fact now, and recognises this as the assembly of a Sovereign Nation, if it
were only by the intense interest that is evidently displayed in our
proceedings. The world accepts the fact, by the same test; and the English
Government I hold accepted the fact when it received our plenipotentiaries as
representing an established authority in this land. It accepts the fact in the
Articles of Agreement. They are only Articles of Agreement till approved by the
Parliaments of both countries. They have been approved by the British
Parliament. They await approval by us. If and when approved they become a
Treaty; and a Treaty is a bargain or an agreement between equals, not a
concession or a favour bestowed or conferred by a superior upon an inferior. The
status of Ireland as co- equal with Britain, or any other nation, is recognised
now even by Britain itself. That, to my view, is the fact, whatever the
phrasing. I do not mind what Lloyd George says, whether he recognises it or not.
The status of Ireland is recognised, and is there anyone here to say to me that
that is not a big victory for the Irish nation in this day? Whether the bargain
is a good or a bad one is another matter; and on that point, without any heated
controversies or violent disputations, we can all have our honest differences.
In the assemblies across the water, I believe there were differences too over
the interpretation of the forms of the proposals. I cannot say if they were
honest or not there. I know the differences here are quite honest. Some there
were violent enough in declaring this was a bad bargain for England, was a
surrender to Ireland in fact, a scuttling , a disruption of the Empire, a
breaking up of its heart, a betrayal---and it was even declared over there the
form of oath in the proposed Treaty was not an Oath of Allegiance at all; and
others there declared the proposed Treaty was quite the opposite. There are
those in this assembly who maintain quite the same thing; and as in their
assembly, so in ours, there are those who maintain that instead of England
scuttling out of Ireland, she is getting a firmer grip on the country. Now,
taking the view that I do---that this is an agreement between two sovereign
peoples, I look upon it simply as a bargain. We are not concerned with the
question whether the bargain is a good or a bad one for England. Our question
is, is it a good or a had one for Ireland, for the sovereign people of Ireland?
I came to this assembly thinking we were to discuss those proposals in that
light: just as the Deputies of the French Chamber, the Swiss Chamber or the
Italian Chamber or any other assembly might discuss proposals for a Treaty
between one sovereign nation and another.I did not think that anyone here would
raise a doubt as to Ireland's sovereignty; seeing that, in fact, as I viewed it,
the English themselves had admitted it. No dust of phrases was blinding me. I
accepted the facts and, as I thought, the victory. The fog of words has grown so
thick here it is difficult at times to see clearly. I came to criticise, to
scrutinise, to examine and weigh the proposals and find the balance. Not
withstanding the whirl of words I have done so, and on the balance of judgment I
favour approval of the proposals. I am convinced in my own conscience that it is
a good bargain for Ireland. I favour the Treaty. I do so as a Republican, which
term in my conception simply means a democratic form of Government, a form in
which the will of the people can be best expressed. I have a very great sympathy
with the views that were expressed by Deputy Dr. MacCartan, though my
conclusions are entirely different to his. I am convinced that the acceptance of
this instrument presented to us by our plenipotentiaries will enable the Irish
people to work out in peaceful development their own conception of state
organisation; while its non-acceptance would throw us back into a struggle that
would hamper every development of our national life. We have heard a great deal
of discussion about kings. In my view, as a humble student of history, the day
of kings and kaisers is almost ended and will soon be as obsolete as the theory
of their divine right to rule; and the day of the rule of the sovereign people
has begun, whatever the form in which it will take expression. Even some of the
English people themselves seem moving towards republicanism. It can take no form
in this land if we are plunged again into the welter of war or violent partisan
politics, as I, at least, am convinced we shall be if this Treaty be not
accepted. Rejection means giving the trick to the man none of us trust---Lloyd
George; for I do not trust the English Government---yet. Mistrust of English
rulers is bred in our bones from the reading of the history of our land. I would
not trust them if our plenipotentiaries brought back from London a paper
recognition of the Irish Republic. I think I would fear their intrigues more. We
can only begin to think them sincere when, in accordance with this Treaty, made
in the face of the world, their armed forces are withdrawn from this land, and
their armed aggression on the rights and liberties of the Irish people ceases [hear,
hear]. I also support the motion because I am sincerely convinced that
the acceptance of this Treaty by the people of Ireland makes possible, in the
natural development of world affairs with its ever changing relations between
states and nations and peoples, the accomplishment of an ideal I have had ever
before me since I was capable of forming ideals---that of the untrammelled
sovereign independence of a united Irish nation. Common sense tells me, however,
that its realisations will not be quite what I desire, for an ideal realised is
never quite as we visualise it. Principles and ideals, in the abstract, if based
on eternal things are immutable. Principles regarding the relations of states
and peoples and forms of government are not immutable. What is history itself in
one aspect but the record of the changes in the relations of states and nations,
in the powers of government, in national, political and social organisation?
Some changes have been violent,sudden: others have been the outcome of peaceful
endeavour over a long period. As the conflict of the past few years in Ireland
has rendered possible the making of this Treaty with Britain, so its acceptance
now may enable Ireland in peaceful endeavour to develop a new world conception
of the relations of peoples and states. As I view affairs, the imperialistic
conception with military domination and economic exploitation is dying, if dying
hard. The acceptance of this Treaty, in my view, is its death-blow in Ireland.
National and political policies should not be raised to the dignity of immutable
principles in a world that is ever-changing; a world of beings swayed by
passions and prejudices, by sentiments, and by illusions begot of ignorance;
beings that are not gods, not angels. Our acceptance of this Treaty, or of any
Treaty, whether such Treaty be above our personal ideals or fall below them,
cannot bind the future---notwithstanding the legal fiction so often inserted in
such documents that they are binding for ever. Had we before us a Treaty that
would satisfy the personal ideals of all still we could not say that there would
be peace for ever between the Irish nation and that other nation with whom we
make a Treaty. We can only take the one that is before us as a certainty that
its acceptance can lead to present peace, and a peace that is no way
dishonourable, under present circumstances, to the Irish people. Every Deputy
here has a double duty at the present juncture: the one to express, as far as he
is capable of expressing it, the mind, the intentions, the will of the people he
represents, the other to express if he so desires, his own personal principles,
ideas, feelings, opinions. I have no hesitation in saying that, so far as I have
been able to test it, the will of the majority of the people I represent is
overwhelmingly in favour of the Treaty. Only yesterday certain gentlemen of my
constituency who are able to gauge public opinion there, came to me to know what
all the discussion in the Dáil was about when the overwhelming mass were in
favour of acceptance of the Treaty [hear, hear]. True I have been
warned of possible speedy exit into the `infinite azure sphere' if I favour the
Treaty but I have also been warned that `bás gan sagart' awaits me if I
record a vote against it! For myself, I have common sense enough to know that no
Treaty in any form of words drawn up by other than myself would satisfy all my
ideals or conform to the principles I, as an individual, hold: and I doubt if I
myself could give adequate expression in words to my thoughts of what the status
of our nation should be; what its constitutional forms, what its political and
social organisation, what its attitude towards other states and peoples should
be. Language is the prerogative of man alone, but I have long since formed the
conclusion that no words, or phrases, or forms of expression can adequately
convey the thoughts and ideas, the ideals and aspirations that surge through the
mind and soul of a living human being. If my personal ideals and personal ideas
of national principles conflict with what is the manifest welfare of the people,
I should feel it my duty, on the still higher and greater principles of
Christianity, to subordinate my own conceptions to those higher, universal
principles; I should feel it my duty to sacrifice myself by what is, perhaps,
the greatest sacrifice of all, the suppression of my own personal conceptions
and theories for the welfare of the people [applause]. And instead
of that being dishonourable, I venture to assert it is in complete accord with
the highest ideas of honour and duty, national or individual [hear, hear].
`Peace on earth to men of good-will' is a higher principle and a nobler
conception than the pagan attitude of war and strife and conflict and revenge.
And it is partly because I am convinced that the acceptance of this Treaty
should bring peace to the sorely tried people of this country, to the poor, the
lowly, the humble, the timid, making possible the peace of God in many a home in
Ireland this Christmastide, that I favour its acceptance. We have prayed for
peace; the nation with one voice has called to God for peace; in many churches
and in many a home the people have lifted up their voices to Heaven for peace;
and, as I conceive it in my soul, God has heard the prayer. With the Bishop of
Killaloe I feel `This is God's gift' to the people. Here is an instrument of
peace that the people of Ireland can honourably accept, with trust in God to
guard the future destiny of the nation as they trusted in Him in the darkest
days of the Terror to ordain such an opportunity as this for peace. The struggle
of Ireland for centuries has been a struggle against armed aggression and what
followed in the train of armed aggression---economic exploitation and mental
servitude. The moral basis of Ireland's fight at any time, as during the past
few years, has been that it was defence of the nation's life against armed
aggression. When this aggression ceases, as by the acceptance of this Treaty it
ceases, there seems to me at least no present moral basis for an armed conflict.
If aggression be again resorted to by the rulers of England, Ireland can again
stand on the impregnable moral basis of defence of her life. That the people of
Ireland should sanction an armed conflict against aggression, at any favourable
opportunity, no matter how unequal the contest, there never was a doubt. But
that the people of Ireland now sanction a conflict in preference to acceptance
of an instrument that makes them masters in their own land, whatever the form
and phrasing of that instrument be, is a matter of grave doubt. Speaking for
myself, though I would accept the responsibility of advising war against English
armed aggression, I cannot, in conscience, accept the responsibility of advising
war as the alternative to the operation of this instrument. I am perfectly
willing to let the people whom I represent themselves decide in any ordinary,
peaceful, legitimate way in which the people can express their opinion freely,
and am perfectly willing to pledge myself to say not one word more in public
than what I say here to influence their free decision [hear, hear].
I am not a politician nor a partisan, and I never had an ambition to stand upon
political hustings or even to enter public life. It was with extreme reluctance
and under much pressure I accepted nomination at the 1918 election, and only
because it was shown to me to be a duty---a most painful and distasteful duty as
I felt it---to accept. At that election our hopes were high---as the hopes of
the plain people of all nations were high---that a new world order based, not on
force, but on moral right, would ensue from the conference at Versailles, and
the establishment of the League of Nations. We believed as all the world
believed, that American principles would become reality and not remain merely
fine expressions of ideal things, and that Ireland then, as a sovereign nation,
would enter into a world community of nations. Not alone our hopes, but the
hopes of the world were blighted at Versailles. But mark, even the solemn
compacts entered into there by the representatives of great and mighty powers
have had to go down before the solid facts of world forces that not even
statesmen nor politicians nor wizards nor theorists can control. It is a fiction
in the light of world history, even of the past few years, that any pact between
states has binding force for ever. We turned to America in the hope that
recognition of the Republic might come, as we turned to other countries. The
plain people of America and the plain people of the world sympathised with us in
our struggle for life; and I am convinced that a very great factor in forcing
the English Government to agree to this Treaty with us was the moral opinion of
the world which, though indefinite, is a powerful factor. But the Governments
moved not, and there is a limit even to the force of the moral opinion of the
world. Rightly or wrongly I believe we have got in this Treaty the limit to
which the moral opinion of the world will go on Ireland's behalf; and I have no
faith that the rulers of the great states will move in our regard to the
detriment of what they conceive to be their own interests. They met again at
Washington the other day, and a new pact has been entered into which, as I
understand, ensures the supremacy of Britain on the seas for a further period.
It is a pact for ten years; it may be broken or changed before then, such is the
mutability of the relations between states: but we have got to take facts as we
find them. We had the moral opinion of the world with us in a struggle against
armed aggression. We cannot expect the moral opinion of the world with us if, by
our own act, by the rejection of this Treaty we retain the armed forces of
aggression in our land. How can we honestly complain to the world in future of
atrocities of English armed forces in Ireland if it is by our own act we keep
those forces here? And what I sincerely feel is that no declarations, no words,
no assertions on our part can explain to the world, any more than to our own
people, why any Irishman, republican or non-republican, should vote to retain
the armed forces of English aggression in Ireland [hear, hear].
England has changed its policy. Whether it has changed in heart or not is
another matter. We have got to face the fact of that change of policy at least.
The election of this year in Ireland was a war election and, as would happen in
any other country, the people gave their confidence to those who, in their
opinion, were fighting for the nation's existence and meeting the Terrorist
policy in the only way in which it could be met. That election and the national
policy connected with it smashed the proposals of the British Government
contained in the Partition Act. As far as political policies went Mr. Lloyd
George's Government was beaten. A change became inevitable for England. The
British Prime Minister began exploring avenues for peace. By the skill, as we
all believed, of our united Dáil Cabinet this avenue for peace was blocked and
that avenue was blocked, until at last an avenue was found that was then at
least not considered dishonourable by any---the avenue of a Conference. The
Truce was proclaimed, its very terms, as many thought, being a recognition of
our national status as co-equal with England. We considered there was
recognition of our national status. In other words, what the English termed a
gang of murderers was now an army. I suppose no agreement ever entered into
between two nations ever fully satisfied one nation or the other. It is not in
human nature that it should. There are sections in England that are not
satisfied with the proposed Treaty which is before this Dáil. The England of the
Morning Post---the England of Imperial aggression and expansion and
of military domination, the only England we have hitherto known---is not
satisfied with it. It sees in this Treaty a cry of surrender to Ireland, to
rebels and gunmen . It sees in it a cry of surrender to Michael
Collins! And Lord Carson is not satisfied with it. Equally, there are men and
women in Ireland, and far be it from me to compare them to any section of
Englishmen or women, for they are thoroughly honest, thoroughly sincere,
thoroughly honourable, who consider the Treaty a surrender on Ireland's part. My
friends, I am sure, will give me credit for the same sincerity and the same
honesty of desire for the welfare of our common country when I say I do not
agree with that view. I consider the Treaty a victory for Ireland, a vindication
of our policy, a policy advocated by some of us during the past twenty years;
and, more particularly, I look on it as a victory for the heroic army of
Ireland. It is not a dictated peace---
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is a dictated peace.
ALD. LIAM DE ROISTE:
Even a dictated peace with its motto of Vae victis is not always
satisfactory to the victors, as the dictated peace at the end of the European
war proved. It is a negotiated peace, and in my view, in the balance of likes
and dislikes of its terms, it is a victory for Ireland, a victory made possible
by the world of the past three years [hear, hear]. The Treaty is a
recognition of Ireland as a national entity. The fiction of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is no more. The Kingdom of Great
Britain remains. Saorstát na hEireann emerges as a new state in the world
confederation of nations. The right of Ireland to national freedom is recognised.
The assertion of recognition of that right has been the basic principle of
Ireland's armed struggles with England during the centuries. A Government is to
be set up in this country by the will of the Irish people alone, by the will of
the plain people of Ireland, not by the will of English Ministers nor of select
classes; a Government that must draw its power from, and be responsible to, the
plain people of this country. An achievement this that never was in Ireland
since the Norman Barons got a grip on the land---for even Grattan's Parliament
was the Parliament of a class and not the Parliament of the plain people. This
Treaty gives the Irish people complete power over their own economic life and
over their social organisation. It gives us at last complete and absolute
control over education, and those who have control over education have absolute
control of the future destinies of the nation in their hands. The `Happy little
English child' of the schoolbooks disappears on the approval of this Treaty; and
the sturdy child of the Gaodhal takes his rightful place in the schools
and colleges and universities of the land [applause]. I am
convinced that acceptance of the Treaty and development in peace will save the
language of the nation; and one of my first thoughts when I read its clauses was
`Sábhálfar an Ghaoluinn anois'---The language will be safe now. With the
argument that instead of developing a virile civilisation in this country we
will all become shoneens, I have no sympathy. The language, as we have
proclaimed from ten thousand platforms during the last twenty years,is the soul
of the nation [hear, hear]. And with the saving of the language I
have no fear, no fear whatever, for the soul of the nation. Even here and now we
can get away from the obscurity and confusion of the English tongue: away with
your Dominion and your colony and your Free State terms: let us re-baptise our
nation---not a baiste úrláir now---as Saorstát na hEireann. You can get
immediate, full, complete, undisturbed control of the educational systems of the
land by acceptance of this Treaty; with that control you can save the language;
with the language and all it connotes you can save the soul and mind and
intellect of the nation---and your `most important fortress and strongest
frontier' will be rendered so impregnable that not all the shock troops of
England or of all the Empires can break it down. This Treaty gives us our own
flag---
MR. G. GAVAN DUFFY:
Which flag?
ALD. LIAM DE ROISTE:
The Irish flag. Take for a moment that the English troops---the English armed
forces---are out of this country, and I put on a tricolour on Dublin Castle, I
will dare anyone to take it down [laughter]. Now we have got the
flag. What we have been told here is this: that if Arthur Griffith puts it up in
Dublin Castle there are people here who would go and take it down.
MR. R. MULCAHY:
We will take the Castle down [laughter].
ALD. LIAM DE ROISTE:
It might be no harm to do away with the Castle altogether. However, this
Treaty gives us our flag and our men to defend it against English aggression,
should English rulers again seek to change their policy. Approve this Treaty and
the opportunity is given us for building up Irish civilization in the way that
we have dreamt of. Reject, and we are thrown back into a welter of which no man
can see the end, and where no building up can be possible. Even if the dictation
of peace terms should be the end of the welter, so much of our best blood would
have gone that the salving of our civilization may be well nigh impossible. We
can save it now, if we grasp the opportunity. I understand that references of
some deputies on the question of form of oath in the Treaty were evoked by a
remark of mine in Private Session. My attitude is quite simple I regard my word
of honour as binding as an oath when that word is solemnly given. If the
intention behind an oath is immutable I cannot understand how any man in honour
during life can break any oath of allegiance once taken. The form in the Treaty
I have examined by the light of my own conscience and intellect and, lest I
should err even in ignorance, I have consulted authorities on moral science and
theology. And in conscience I am satisfied that the form of oath in the Treaty
is not an oath of allegiance to an English monarch but is an oath of allegiance
to Saorstát na hEireann. That oath in my view admits no right of an English King
to be ruler of Ireland or head of the Irish State. Even if it did, the theory of
the divine right of rulers to rule the people is discarded by all, even by the
people of England themselves. I personally object to the mention of King George
V., his heirs and successors, in the terms of any oath that may be presented to
me, even though it be not allegiance I am asked to pledge myself to, but
recognition of a symbol of headship of a League of Nations. But after the most
earnest and scrupulous consideration I am satisfied in my own mind that that is
a personal prejudice due to the fact that the Kings of England have stood as
symbols of tyranny in this country, and that it is not a national or immutable
principle; and my personal prejudices, whatever they may be, are nothing
compared with the welfare of the Irish nation. If I were an English subject and
an oath of allegiance to a King were presented to me I should refuse to take it,
as I should refuse to swear personal allegiance to any rulers, but I should not
feel justified on account of that prejudice to plunge a country into chaos
because of my personal prejudices to such an oath. Everyone here, I feel sure,
will act according to the light of his own conscience. As a justifiable oath I
am prepared to swear I am acting in accord with mine. Now, whatever meanings we
may place on words, the very fact that we here are discussing this Treaty in
this Dáil as in the sovereign assembly of a nation is recognition of our own
national status. And the English recognise the fact too, recognise that the
Irish people have a right to set up a sovereign assembly with an executive
government responsible only to the will of the Irish people. To me the acts are
more than the words, and whatever construction they or we place upon the words,
the acts, as I view them, are a recognition of our national status. Let me once
more, as I did in Private Session, appeal to the Cabinet of Dáil Eireann, no
matter what the issue of this debate as a united body to take up the rule of
government in this country for the present, till the constitutional will of the
Irish people is expressed in a constitutional way; to maintain order, to
preserve discipline. There is a danger of fratricidal strife, or at least of
bewildering confusion, on an issue which honestly many of us cannot understand.
The united Cabinet will have the support of the whole country in any efforts to
maintain order, to prevent confusion. We have passed through a revolutionary
period as other countries at different times have passed through such periods;
and the lesson of all forces me to this appeal to our Cabinet as a united body
for the maintenance of order, the preservation of peace among ourselves, the
rule of law. I favour a referendum to the people. They are faced with changed
circumstances, changed policies, with alternatives that were not before them
previously. Let the people decide, and let our Cabinet evolve the mode of
procedure so that the people can decide freely and conscientiously. Our words
and our votes can only express our own personal views and recommendations now.
The people have a right to express theirs in a constitutional way, and it should
be for our Cabinet to give them the opportunity of expressing their views in
such a way. Yesterday I heard from a director of one of the Irish railways that
troop trains and transports were ready to take the British armed forces from
Ireland. In justice to the people who sent me here and in sympathy with the sore
hearts that their operations during the Terrorist policy have left in Ireland, I
cannot vote to keep the British armed forces in Ireland one day longer, or one
hour longer, than the changed policy of England requires; one day longer or one
hour longer than the people of Ireland wish them to stay. I appeal to you not to
let our decision be one that would keep these forces one day longer in our land.
Finally, as far as I can view politics I have said already I am not a
politician---the acceptance of these proposals is beating Mr. Lloyd George at
his own tricks. The rejection of the proposals is giving him the trick. I favour
the acceptance of these proposals on the ground of the welfare of the Irish
people, which to me at all events is supreme. I favour them also on the ground
that, as I think, they are quite in accordance with what we have been fighting
for, aiming at, and talking about, and I favour them on the ground that they are
a natural development of what has taken place in this country during recent
years. On the grounds of common sense I favour the acceptance of the proposals [applause].
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I would like to know the policy for the week-end---whether we will go through
the Christmas or adjourn. I understand there are a great many people like myself
who desire to speak and we all may speak for a pretty long time [laughter].
I am not going to give any guarantee that I am not going to speak for half a day
[laughter]. I do not see much possibility of getting through
before the end of January. It is better before we adjourn for tea to come to
some decision. I know on this side of the House there are at least fifteen or
twenty people anxious to speak. There is no prospect of these people speaking
tonight, and they will insist on speaking. It was proposed on our side that a
definite limit of time should be allowed to each side, and when that terminated,
no matter how many people spoke, there would be an end to the discussion. In the
absence of an agreement will we take the only alternative? I desire, and a great
many others desire, that this should be stated before the adjournment---whether
there should be a time limit or whether we should adjourn until after Christmas.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It has been suggested that an agreement could not be reached on our side. I
may say I have not heard anything about the matter. Of course everyone who wants
to speak has a perfect right to speak. Personally I think that on a question
like this we ought, having it discussed for a number of days, to be able to make
up our minds on it. I am sorry we did not have the Sessions over-night; it might
have shortened the addresses, perhaps. I think we should definitely sit through
the night and take on the debate again in the morning. If the other side would
agree, I propose we end this debate to-morrow.
MR. ARTHUR. GRIFFITH:
The President asked me a couple of days ago about winding this thing up and
agreed. Since then certain things have happened. A lady who spoke for three
hours stood up against any closure. She had a perfect right of course, but if
the people on the other side are going to speak for three hours, and insist on
doing so, I am not going to have any closure. We offered them choice of time or
a time limit for the speeches, but there was no agreement. Therefore, we are
going on. We may adjourn for Christmas, but we will have no closure.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I was not approached in regard to any agreement.I am sure anything suggested
to this side would have been referred to me, at any rate, but I was not
approached.
MR. D. CEANNT:
I would suggest that these members who have speeches written and have made
arrangements, send them to the Press. It would be just as well to send them to
the Press as make them [laughter].
MR. JOSEPH MACGRATH:
I had a talk with the chief whip on the other side and I suggested we were
prepared to put a time limit on each speaker. If that did not suit, I suggested
splitting up the Session to one-and-a-half hours in the morning and the same in
the evening, and we could put up twelve or thirteen speakers or ten speakers.
They could do the same. I could have gotten speakers in one-and-a-half hours
this morning. We understood the President was consulted. If he was not it was
not our fault.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
I tried to arrange the practical suggestion made, but I found such a
diversity of opinion among the people I spoke to that it was impossible to
arrange it amicably. Later on I made a suggestion with a view to having another
arrangement. There are a number of people who said to me they would speak if
they got a chance, but they are quite prepared to waive the right to speak. I
could see my way with the consent of these people to reduce the number of
speakers to eight or nine at the utmost, and these people would further agree to
have a time limit put upon them. If the other side would agree to that I think
we could get through the business by the lunch adjournment to-morrow, by going
on for a few hours to-night, and from 11 to 2 to-morrow.
MR. ARTHUR GRIFFITH:
That is closure.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
The other side claim that---
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:
I suggest that the whips find out definitely, the speakers who do not wish to
speak and we may be able to come to some arrangement.
MR. JOSEPH MACGRATH:
There are twenty-one anxious to speak on ourside.
MISS MACSWINEY:
May I appeal to the House generally against the sneers of Mr. Arthur Griffith
at my speech. I consider the fact that what I went through for seventy-four days
at Brixton gives me a right to speak for the honour of my nation now [applause].
MR. ARTHUR GRIFFITH:
I have not sneered at Miss MacSwiney's speech. I have stated the fact that
Miss MacSwiney said she was against closure and that she made a long speech. I
maintain we are entitled not to have any of our speakers closured.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I always held there should be no closure. Anyone who desires to speak has a
right to do so---has a right to the patience of the Irish people and the members
of the Dáil. I think any closure, or any suggestion that a person speaks too
long, is most unfair and undignified. We have not protested against the length
of any speech. I would be very glad indeed if they put forward such a person as
Miss McSwiney who gave such an eloquent and well-reasoned speech. It will go
down as a splendid oration on the fate of the nation, and her advice at this
great crisis should not be disregarded.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
Is not the conclusion obvious that, if the speaking is to go on, it cannot be
finished by going on to-night and to-morrow, and you must adjourn.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I suggest we come to a decision on this. I am prepared to stay here to
continue these debates throughout the Christmas until we finish them. We can go
on all night; we can go on to the time when Mr. Lloyd George is supposed to have
doped us. Late nights and all nights are nothing to me. We can go on all night
through Christmas, like last Christmas, and let us come to a decision [hear,
hear]. However, instead of doing that, I would move the adjournment of
the House to some date after Christmas.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Go ahead.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I beg to second the motion of the Minister of Finance to adjourn to some day
after Christmas. My reason for doing so is that the Minister for Finance went to
London to face Lloyd George, worn out and weary---
MR. M. COLLINS:
I was never worn out or weary.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Perhaps he is a man who can do without sleep or rest, but he admitted to
being somewhat befogged---
MR. M. COLLINS:
I did not.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
There are many of us who are not able to sit up night after night: we might
be more befogged than he ever was. For the sake of our own intellects, we could
not carry on Night Sessions. It would be very tiring.
MR. D. MACCARTHY:
The Minister of Finance has time after time said if he was befogged it was by
constitutional lawyers---
MR. M. COLLINS:
Alleged constitutional lawyers [laughter].
MR. D. MACCARTHY:
I do not see why seconding the motion should be availed of to insult the
Minister of Finance.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
If the Minister of Finance objects to my statement and feels insulted, I
apologise.
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:
Suggest some date for the adjournment.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I would say Tuesday week, January 3rd.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I agree to that. I second the motion.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think a decision like this ought not to be left pending. We ought to be
able to make up our minds. I think we ought to go on for another day at least
and try if we cannot, in the ordinary way, finish, and have this motion coming
on to-morrow night if it has to. I hope if we go on to-night and start again in
the morning we may not have people so anxious to speak. We should not leave this
question hanging over; we ought to be able to make up our minds on the matter.
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:
Is the Minister of Finance willing to move that we continue until to-morrow
evening?
MR. M. COLLINS:
It is obvious that we are not going to finish the debate to-morrow. Now, I am
not going to say anything about the length of speeches. I am anxious, for
reasons historical and otherwise, that the remarks of every member of the Dáil
should go on record. It is quite clear we cannot finish the debate on those
lines to-morrow or before Christmas, and it would be more convenient for the
country members and for the country---and I see very great national advantages
in it---to adjourn over the Christmas. It is obvious, that to facilitate the
country members, and for the country generally, it would be better to adjourn
this evening than to-morrow evening. As far as I am concerned we can go through
the Christmas; I am used to this.
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:
It has been proposed by the Minister of Finance, and seconded by the Minister
of Labour that the House adjourn to January 3rd. Is there any amendment?
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
I would move as an amendment that the House adjourns for tea and that the
debate be continued through to-night and to-morrow and so on until we finish,
and that there be no adjournment over Christmas. Instead of seeing any national
advantage I see a grave national danger in adjourning. Whatever our decision is
going to be let us take it here and now and not have the people's Christmas
clouded over with uncertainty. I don't see why we should put our personal
conveniences before the best interests of the nation.
MR. M. COLLINS:
We do not.
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
The longer we stay here, and the longer we adjourn for, the greater the
danger; and the people outside will misunderstand the controversy we are
carrying on here; whereas if we make a decision they may be inclined to follow
the majority---
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
We are sent here to express the opinions of our constituents, and we are
going to express them, even if this lasted to March, Mr. MacEntee.
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
All remarks ought to be addressed to the chair. It is not with the idea of
closuring any discussion or any deputies, that I have spoken.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
I beg to second the amendment of Deputy MacEntee. Everyone who wants to
speak, of course, ought to he allowed. We should stay on Saturday, Sunday and
Monday, if necessary.
The amendment was put to the House for the purpose of having a show of
hands taken.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
The issue is not clear. Are we to continue night and day?
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
I do not mean you to sit up all night and go on again the next day. You could
sit here until two or three in the morning or something like that.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
I suggest the amendment is not in order. The motion was not in writing.
MR. D. MACCARTHY:
The constitutional lawyer again [laughter].
Motion and amendment were put in writing. The amendment read: `That
this House continue to sit until 1 a.m. Friday, and that the House resume at 10
a.m. and sit until 1 a.m. the following day, with suitable adjournments, and
that this order be followed each day until the question be decided'.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
That means that we may go right through Christmas Day?
A DEPUTY:
Yes.
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:
We will now take a vote on the amendment.
Voting was being taken for and against the amendment when,
MR. SEAN MILROY:
I have a very important point to raise. The President, the Minister of
Finance, myself, and two other members of this assembly represent, each of us,
two constituencies, and we are not going to assert that either of these
constituencies should be disfranchised in the course of these proceedings. When
I attended the first meeting of this assembly I was asked to sign my name for
each constituency for which I was elected. Every time the roll has been called
my name has been called twice. That procedure has, I think, made it clear that
each constituency shall have representation in the divisions of the assembly [hear,
hear].
MR. D. CEANNT:
That is not adopted in any country in the world. Those members who have two
constituencies should have allowed some other person to take one at least.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
When I was Speaker that question was put to me, whether the members sitting
for more than one constituency could vote more than once, and I said no. I was
asked on a subsequent occasion and I decided---and others whom I consulted
concurred---that it would be unfair that any member, no matter how many
constituencies he represented, should have more than one vote.
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:
I am advised by the Speaker that that ruling is correct and he also has two
constituencies. I rule that only one vote can be given by such members.
MR. P. J. HOGAN:
If the Dáil allows a man to sit for two constituencies---
MR. SEAN MILROY:
I submit that the chair cannot decide this matter. We will have to have a
greater authority than the member for Dublin, or the Speaker, to decide this.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I believe this matter was decided at the very beginning of the Dáil, and it
is absolutely frivolous to be bringing it forward at this moment.
MR. P. J. HOGAN:
The Dáil has no particular procedure in this matter. The Dáil allowed a
Deputy to sit for two constituencies. That is not unusual and not a unique
proceeding. The Dáil allowed a man to sit for two constituencies, and, having
done that---and that is the only thing that can rule on this particular
point---are they now going to disfranchise one constituency, having no
particular procedure on the point? The only procedure that can be applied is
that they allowed the man to sit for the two constituencies. That is, I hold, a
precedent.
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:
This matter has been already decided in the Dáil and from the chair and has
not been questioned.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
It is questioned now; it has never been decided yet.
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:
As it was not questioned then, I must rule now but each man can only vote
once.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
Let us have the minute referring to, and the date of, that decision. We are
not going to be brow-beaten in this matter. It is too grave to be decided by any
casual recollection of any member of the House [cries of `Chair'].
I am speaking with perfect respect to the Chair. I want it made clear that in
regard to the constituencies I represent, the right of either constituency shall
not be bartered away by any member of the House who happens to hold different
views from mine. This is not to be decided in this fashion. If there was such a
decision the minute regarding it should be produced.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I could make a very good case for and against this business that would bear
examination by the foremost constitutional lawyers. Make no mistake about it. I
did submit this division could have gone on without this question having been
raised at all. We all know why it is raised. Well my own personal view is this:
we are not going to decide the fate of the Irish nation on two votes from me and
two votes from somebody else on our side, and two votes from somebody else on
the other side. We are not going to decide the fate of the Irish nation on any
kind of sharp practice as that [applause]. I am going to be as
fair on that matter as on any other matter. In regard to this business I can
make a good case.If you saw the constitutional case for it you would be
surprised, and if I saw the constitutional case against it I would be surprised
[laughter]. For the present we are going on with the motion
without making another vexed question.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Suppose it is decided to adjourn, there is a very serious matter to be
considered. That is in regard to the Cabinet carrying on the work. If we are to
work as a Cabinet we will have to come to a certain agreement about certain
things [voices: `And why not?']. That is the only thing I want to
make certain.
MR. M. P. COLIVET:
I think the House will insist on the Cabinet carrying on the work of the
country.
MR. D. O'ROURKE:
And sit according to the terms of the amendment [loud laughter].
The voting on the amendment was as follows: FOR
Seumas O Lonnáin
Eamon Aidhleart
Eamon de Valera
Brian O hUigín
Seán Mac Suibhne
Domhnall O Corcora
Seumas Mac Gearailt
Dáithí Ceannt
Seosamh O Dochartaigh
Bean an Phiarsaigh
Seán O Mathghamhna
Liam O Maoilíosa
Dr. Brian de Cíosóg
Próinsias O Fathaigh
Aibhistín de Stac
Conchubhar O Coileáin
Tomás O Donnchú
Art O Conchubhair
E. Childers
Riobárd Bartún
Seoirse Pluingceud
Bean Mhíchíl Uí Cheallacháin
M. P. Colivet
Seán O Ceallaigh
Saorbhreathach Mac Cionaith
Dr. O Cruadhlaoich
Tomás O Deirg
P. S. O Ruithleis
Seán Mac an tSaoi
Dr. P. O Fearáin
Seosamh Mac Donnchadha
P. S. O Maoldomhnaigh
P. S. O Broin
Cathal Brugha
Eamon O Deaghaidh
Seumas Mac Roibín
Dr. Seumas O Riain
Seán Etchingham
Seumas O Dubhghaill
Seán T. O Ceallaigh
Bean an Chleirigh
Máire Nic Shuibhne
Dr. Eithne Inglis
An t-Oll. W. F. P. Stockley
AGAINST.
Mícheál O Coileáin
Art O Gríobhtha
Seán Mac Giolla Ríogh
Pól O Geallagáin
Liam T. Mac Cosgair
Gearóid O Súileabháin
Pádraig O Braonáin
Seán O Lidia
Seán O hAodha
Pádraig O Caoimh
Seán Mac Heil
Seán O Maoláin
Seán O Nualláin
Tomás O Fiadhchara
Eoin Mac Neill
Seosamh Mac Suibhne
Peadar S. Mac an Bháird
Dr. S. Mac Fhionnlaoigh
P. S. Mac Ualghairg
S. O Flaithbheartaigh
Próinsias Laighleis
S. Ghabháin Uí Dhubhthaigh
Deasmhumhain Mac Gearailt
Seumas Mac Doirim
Seumas O Duibhir
Pádraic O Máille
Seoirse Mac Niocaill
P. S. O hOgáin
An t-Oll. S. O Faoilleacháin
Piaras Beaslaí
Fionán O Loingsigh
S. O Cruadhlaoich
Eamon de Róiste
P. S. O Cathail
Domhnall O Buachalla
Criostóir O Broin
Seumas O Dóláin
Aindriú O Láimhín
Tomás Mac Artúir
Dr. Pádraig Mac Artáin
Caoimhghín O hUigín
Seosamh O Loingsigh
Próinsias Bulfin
Dr. Risteárd O hAodha
Liam O hAodha
Seosamh Mac Aonghusa
Seán Mac Eoin
Lorcán O Roibín
Eamon O Dúgáin
Peadar O hAodha
Seumas O Murchadha
Seosamh Mac Giolla Bhrighde
Liam Mac Sioghuird
Domhnall O Ruairc
Earnán de Blaghd
Eoin O Dubhthaigh
Alasdair Mac Cába
Tomás O Domhnaill
Seumas O Daimhín
Próinsias Mac Cárthaigh
Seumas de Búrca
Dr. V. de Faoite
Próinsias O Druacháin
Risteárd Mac Fheorais
Pilib O Seanacháin
Seán Mac Gadhra
Mícheál Mac Stáin
Risteárd O Maolchatha
Seosamh Mac Craith
Pilib Mac Cosgair
Constans de Markievicz
Cathal O Murchadha
Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh
Liam de Róiste
Seumas Breathnach
Domhnall O Ceallacháin
Mícheál O hAodha
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:
For the amendment 44, against 77. The amendment is lost. I now put the motion
of the Minister of Finance that the House adjourn until Tuesday, January 3rd, at
11 a.m.
The motion was declared carried.
MR. M. HAYES:
Is there going to be a rest? Any speeches for Christmas?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is one thing which will be necessary. There must be a common agreement
that there will be no speech-making in the interval. [Hear, hear].
The House adjourned until January 3rd, 1922.
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION
At the resumption of The Dáil debate on Tuesday, the 3rd January, 1922,
DR. EOIN MACNEILL, SPEAKER, took the chair at 11.20 a.m.
MR. ART O'CONNOR
MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE:
I am going to try to set a good example at this renewed Session of An Dáil by
being very brief in what I have got to say. I shall not attempt any fire-works
in my speech, because if I were to pose as a bellicose individual I am afraid I
should be very much as a damp squib. All my activity and all my work has been
more or less of a civil nature. I know nothing about the military side of our
movement except what I have been able to judge by the results that were
achieved. And I must say that both at the Public and Private Session I was very
much struck by the statements of the soldier Deputies on both sides. I shall
direct myself solely towards the civil points of view. I must say that the
Treaty has suffered from its advocates both within this assembly and without it.
I have been listening to the debates for several days and I have been unable to
discover whether the Treaty is a Treaty by consent, or whether it is a Treaty
signed under duress. To my mind it would make a big difference to this assembly
if we knew definitely which was which---whether this assembly is being asked to
go into the British Empire with its head up or whether it is being forced into
the British Empire. I say, too, that it has suffered from its advocates outside,
because the people who, during the recess, have been howling at us and telling
us where our duty lay, were, for the most part, people who never did a solid
hour's work for the country, and were anxious to drop down on the right side.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Some of them were in ambushes with me.
MR. O'CONNOR:
There are some very good people in the country supporting the Treaty and
there are some of the very worst, and the people on the opposite side know it
too. It seems to me that we are very much like a spectrum as we went along
during the last two weeks. You know what a spectrum is like. When it is split up
into various fragments you see the different sorts of colours. Well, I think
Lloyd George has shown a spectrum here. The colours have veered from extreme
purple to extreme red, and those who wore the purple mantle now arrived at the
Royal Courts and were anxious to settle down there. Some professed Republicans
on the other side said: `We will rest a little while at the Royal Court and
furbish up our arms so as to be in a better position to advance'. And those on
the other side, extreme revolutionists, say: `If we linger at all there is
danger that we may be contaminated by Royalty, and there is danger that we may
not be able to advance at all'. If I could feel in my heart and mind that the
Republicans were only digging themselves in---
MR. M. COLLINS:
We never dug ourselves in.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
---that they were only going to use this business as a stepping stone or post
from which to advance, I might be able to step along with them. But I am afraid
it is not a matter like that---that it is a step backward and not forward. I
hold and agree with Connolly when he said that it is not the extent of the step
at all that matters, it is the direction of the step---
MR. M. COLLINS:
That's the stuff. Hear, Hear. Good for Connolly [cheers].
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Yes, you can applaud that because you think it suits your policy or is your
policy. Yes, wrap as much of that soft solder in as you possibly can because the
result will prove that it is a step backward. It is a step off the solid rock.
You are in the swamp, and you will be swamped.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I was often in a swamp and I did not get many to pull me out.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I would like to give you a long stick to pull you out, because I am sorry you
are in it, and going into it. Now it seems to me that this Free State is going
to be a very good and sweet thing for a class of people in this country who have
never been conspicuous for their love of country. The head of the Delegation
when in London wrote a certain letter, promising certain things to the Southern
Unionists. I would like to know exactly what these promises were.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Fair play.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Because Lloyd George stated that the Free State would be able to hammer out
its own Constitution, subject to guarantees given to Southern Unionists. I would
like to know what do these guarantees mean. I would like to know what it does
mean. Is it fair play? Because I can assure the head of the Delegation that if
it means more than fair play, if it means giving these people place and power,
and giving them a controlling influence in Irish affairs, and giving them more
than their heads or individuality entitle them to, the Irish people won't stand
for that. These people have been here as our previous enemies. These people have
stood in our way every time we tried to make a little advance, and it would be a
poor thing now for the Free State---if it was established---if these people are
to be put upon the necks of the Irish people. The people won't have them there.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. M. COLLINS:
No one suggested what the Deputy is alleging.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Why make promises? Why not be honest with them? Why throw out a bit of grain
to attract those fellows in? Why not say: `You will get the same treatment as
the people of the rest of the country'? We know where our duty lies. We knew it
before we heard a word from those Southern Unionists, and we will know it long
after they are heard of no more. And we will do our duty too, without any
directions from those new come-rounds, those new Free Staters. But anyone who
accepts the Free State will be a Southern Unionist, because you will all accept
the King. So far as I can make out it is only an exchange from one Unionist to
another. The old Union was a Union of force and this is a Union of consent. You
take the boot off the foot and put it on the other. I was amused here last week
listening to threats---to threats of war. Did the men who were trying to make us
believe so, really believe that bluff themselves? If they did it would not be
bluff. I have here a little clipping from a newspaper of the 28th November in
which Lord Birkenhead, one of the plenipotentiaries, made a rather interesting
statement in which he said: `If the only method of securing peace in Ireland was
by force of arms, it would be a task from which neither this nor any British
Government would shrink, but the question was this, when it was attained at
great expense of treasure and blood, how much nearer were they to a genuine and
contented Ireland? Therefore he expressed his earnest hope that their efforts
and exertions might not'---
MR. M. COLLINS:
It was I asked that question of Lord Birkenhead in Downing Street.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Was the Birkenhead of Downing Street so different from the Birkenhead of the
public platform? Why did he not show the cloven foot in Downing Street as well
as on the public platform, and not be trying to deceive the world by pretending
he was giving a genuine peace to the Irish, when he was giving them a peace
thrust down their necks with a bayonet? Why could he not be honest with us as we
would be with him?
MR. M. COLLINS:
Would you? [Laughter].
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I would, I can assure you I would. I have no desire to be at variance with
England or with the English people. Any English people I met were rather nice
decent people, but the English people in their political institutions are rather
a different proposition. But it is the English people in their political
institutions that I am thinking of. I would like to have a genuine and proper
peace between the Irish and the English people, so that we would be free to go
along and work out our own life in our own tinpot way, and have no fighting or
arguing with them.
MR. M. COLLINS:
The English people are more loyal than their King.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
It seems to me that some of the Irish people are more loyal than the English
people---otherwise where does the common citizenship come in? Since when did
Munster become as loyal as Yorkshire or Suffolk? And the fealty to King George
in virtue of the common citizenship---where did the common citizenship come in
between Cork and Yorkshire?
MR. SEAN MILROY:
Where do your constituents come in?
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Where do my constituents come in? I will answer that question. My
constituents gave me a definite mandate in 1918, and they renewed the mandate
last May. And my mandate was that to the best of my ability I should support the
Republican Government in this country. I have not changed. I told them they
could change. Perhaps they have changed, but I will not change. I told them a
couple of months ago when I spoke to them publicly that I would not change; that
they could change if they chose. I will vote against this Treaty because the
acceptance of it would mean the death knell of this Dáil and Republic. They are
perfectly entitled to change. But there is a new element being introduced into
Irish affairs which is not a good augury to the gentlemen of the Treasury Bench
opposite. If at any moment people in a certain locality find themselves out of
sympathy with one of their Treasury actions---and suppose they got a snow-ball
resolution going, and suppose they got a venal Press to support it, will you
obey the snow-ball resolution? Will they do what their honour and judgement
dictated to them not to do? I say that the heart and mind of the people is not
changed. I say that the heart and mind of the people is not reflected by the
resolutions from the Farmers' Union and people of that ilk---who never did an
honest day's or honest hour's work.
A DEPUTY:
They did; they supported us in the fight.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I have been rather surprised at some of the names I have seen presiding at
some of the meetings.
MR. M. COLLINS:
If you saw some of the houses I saw---the farmers' houses burned down all
over the place---as I have seen lately.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
The men I am referring to are not farmers at all. I wish to the Lord they
were; but they are masquerading as farmers. It is just like this Treaty
masquerading as a Treaty. It would be comic only it is likely to be tragic. It
was a masked ball---a masquerade. The pity of it all is there was a little grain
shook over the poor people. Lloyd George had set a trap very nicely and they
walked in, and he pulled the stick and got you all in. Not alone did he get you
within the crib, but he got some of us too [laughter]. When I say
this, I say it of our genuine Republicans.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Where are they?
A DEPUTY:
Here.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Instead of uniting their strength to lift off the crib and get free again,
they started to try and persuade themselves that, instead of being within the
crib, they have, genuinely, the grandest freedom that could be possibly enjoyed,
because they are going to be very well fed under it. Now I have nothing further
to say except that I hope that none of the Deputies in this assembly will be
swayed or misled by any of those extravagant resolutions that have been passed
during the last fortnight. Every one of us was sent here with a definite
mandate. If the people didn't mean the mandate---I say it with all sincerity and
fairness to the people---the people should never have given us the mandate. I
believe that the people mean us to work out for them an independent sovereign
state. Under this Treaty we have not got an independent sovereign state. We have
got three-quarters of a state. We have got a state with its principal ports
controlled, with a jumping-off ground next door to us, from which an army can be
jumped in at any moment; and, in a word, we have not got the essential thing for
which a struggle for the last 750 years has been going on. It has been contended
that it was necessary to accept this thing at the last hour, and the last minute
of the last hour, of the 5th December. I say it was not necessary. The struggle
that had lasted so long, the discussion that lasted a couple of months, could
have lasted a couple of days or hours longer; and I think that this assembly
would be dishonouring itself, and it would not be fair to itself, if, at the
bidding of Lloyd George or any of his minions, it votes to surrender the
sovereign independence of the Irish people.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, ós rud e go bhfuil a lán daoine
eile chun cainte, agus ná fuil a lán aimsire le spáráil againn, ce gur mhaith
liom labhairt as Gaedhilg is gá liom labhairt as Bearla ar fad, ach deanfad mo
dhícheall chun gan einní do rá a chuirfeadh gangaid im' chaint. I will do my
best to avoid introducing any element of bitterness or personality into this
debate. I am sorry the debate has gone to a considerable extent on the lines it
has gone. This is a debate of vital concern to the Irish nation. I don't think
it right to endeavour to make points against a man's reasoned statement on a
matter of vital national importance. I had hoped to hear from the opponents of
the Treaty something that showed a sense of realities, something of a vision,
something of sympathy for the poor, prostrate Irish nation, the great reality of
the situation, beside which we 120 odd members with our formulas and politics
pale into insignificance. I had hoped for some sign that they had considered
alternative policies of peace, or of war, that they had constructive ideas to
put forward, based on a robust faith in the Irish nation. No such note has been
struck by the opponents or critics of the Treaty. I have heard much talk of what
are called principles, but are really political formulas. Although the Irish
notion in its struggle for 750 years, to which the Minister of Agriculture
referred, fought for the one national principle, it adopted a dozen different
political formulas at different times. Members have entertained us with accounts
of their consciences and the political formulas which they call their
principles, as if those were more important than the solid reality of the Irish
nation. I have heard much high-pitched rhetoric and emotional appeals and
references to brave men who did what we all, I hope, were ready to do---and some
of us came very near doing---died for Ireland. As a contrast to this we have had
elaborate expositions of the marvellous value of words and phrases and formulas,
constituting the difference between internal and external association. In all
this flood of dialectics I have not been able to find what I anxiously looked
for---one hint of a suggestion of an alternative policy, one sign of
constructive statesmanship. None of the opponents of the Treaty have even given
an indication that they have even considered what we are to do next if this
Treaty is rejected. Some say airily that they do not believe that the rejection
of the Treaty will mean war anyway, as though that were a question to be gambled
on. But I have listened in vain for the slightest suggestion or hint as to how
they think war is to be avoided, how the impossible situation of an indefinite
truce with no objective can be maintained. Or how either we or the other side
could keep our armed forces for an indefinite period with their hands behind
their backs and governmental activities held up thereby. I cannot understand how
people entrusted with the fate of the nation can be so much obsessed by formulas
and so blind to realities. The opponents of the Treaty are not even united in
their formulas. With some the formula is isolation, with some external
association. Meanwhile the lives and fortunes of the Irish people are being
gambled with in the name of formulas. After all, the Irish people who have stood
to us so loyally and suffered with us have some rights. One would think, to
listen to some of the speeches, that we were solemnly asked to choose between an
independent Republic and an associated Free State. What we are asked is, to
choose between this Treaty on the one hand, and, on the other hand, bloodshed,
political and social chaos and the frustration of all our hopes of national
regeneration. The plain blunt man in the street, fighting man or civilian, sees
that point more clearly than the formulists of Dáil Eireann. He sees in this
Treaty the solid fact---our country cleared of the English armed forces, and the
land in complete control of our own people to do what we like with [hear,
hear]. We can make our own Constitution, control our own finances, have
our own schools and colleges, our own courts, our own flag, our own coinage and
stamps, our own police, aye, and last but not least, our own army, not in flying
columns, but in possession of the strong places of Ireland and the fortresses of
Ireland, with artillery, aeroplanes and all the resources of modern warfare.
Why, for what else have we been fighting but that? For what else has been the
national struggle in all generations but for that? The biggest guarantee of
England's good faith in this matter is the evacuation from Ireland of her army.
The problem all along for 750 years has been just this---the occupation of our
country by the armed forces of England. All our evils, all our grievances were
derived from this. The peaceful penetration of our Gaelic civilization, the
gradual demoralisation and denationalisation of our people were ultimately due
to the prestige derived by England from its superior force and its military. The
reason why we found it necessary to send out our young men half armed, half
equipped, to attack the enemy was not because we hoped to drive him from the
country by force of arms---we were not such fools---but simply to break down
that prestige which the enemy derived from his unquestioned superior force. That
was the true motive of the war, and now that the British forces are preparing to
evacuate our country without being beaten, some people want to fight again and
retain them here. They want to keep the Black-and-Tans here. They want to keep
2,000 Irishmen in British prisons---a number of them in the shadow of death.
They want the colleges and schools to continue manufacturing West Britons and
our language to die out and the thousand signs of British dominance which we see
on every side of us---to have all these retained, rather than to agree to a
certain formula. The trouble is that many of us, many Irishmen bred in this
hateful atmosphere of foreign occupation and foreign ascendancy, eternally
struggling against it, have never visualised freedom. They have not realised
what it means to our unfortunate country to breathe an invigorating atmosphere
of national freedom and security, backed by our own force. They have not dreamed
of the great work of national reconstruction, of healing the wounds, of
substituting healthy national food for poison. They have been accustomed to
think of a subdued, slavish and demoralised nation held in control by foreign
force, and requiring the efforts of a few stalwarts like themselves to keep it
right nationally; and they think that an Ireland from which the British forces
are gone will be just the same. They lack faith in the nation. They seem to
imagine that some shadowy representative of King George without a vestige of
real power or authority, or a soldier to back him up, will be a great deal more
formidable to the country than the 50,000 British troops and the 13,000 R.I.C.
who are here at present. I tell you when the British have evacuated our country
the Free State will be just what we make it; and we can make it a great and
glorious land, the home of a fine Gaelic culture, of a highly developed
agricultural system that will rival Denmark; with industries developed perhaps
as some people advocate, on co-operative, non-capitalistic lines; of brave and
beautiful ideas worked into practice. When I hear your dry formulists wrangling
over words and phrases, and enlightening the world as to their political formula
which they call principles, I find myself thinking on a line from Pádraig
Colum's play, The Land: `the nation, the nation---do you ever think
of the poor Irish nation which is trying to be born?' I have accused the
opponents of the Treaty of a lack of the sense of realities. I have accused them
of a lack of faith in the nation. But the worst of all defects I have now to
accuse them of is a lack of vision, a pitiable lack of vision. They don't
realise what this means to the nation. They are more concerned with their dry
political formulas than with the living nation. For a barren victory of formulas
they are prepared not merely to plunge the nation into chaos and bloodshed---for
that is only a temporary evil---but to check the one great opportunity God has
granted us for the work of national reconstruction. The President said the truth
when he said that the men who brought us back this Treaty from an unbeaten enemy
acted as they did from intense love for Ireland [hear, hear].
There are still some people who say they love Ireland. But to them it seems to
be a name an abstraction, a formula. To me, Ireland is the Irish people. Not the
pure souled Republicans alone, but the plain men and women that live in the
cities and on the hillsides of all Ireland, including North-East Ulster. Arthur
Griffith and Michael Collins have the national vision to sense that people. They
see and know the country as it is---the old women by the fireside, the young men
working in the fields and the girls in the shops, the Orange working-man of
Sandy Row and the Molly Maguire of South Armagh, the men on city tram cars, all
types and classes, good, bad or indifferent; and they stand for them all.
Remember those people are Ireland. Ireland is not a formula but a fact. You
cannot love Ireland without loving the whole Irish people, without
sympathetically considering the state of a people reared in slavery, a nation
that never got a fair chance in the world. [Hear, hear]. People
are trading in the names of dead men in an indecent fashion---saying they would
vote against this Treaty. Well, I won't presume to say how anybody would have
voted, but I will say this that my dearest friend Seen MacDiarmuda, loved
Ireland just as Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith love Ireland---with a love
the formulists can never understand. Like Griffith and Michael Collins---it
seems out of tune to call Mick Collins the Minister of Finance [laughter]---he
knew the plain people well, all types, sailors, fishermen, farmers, labourers,
shopkeepers, cattle dealers, as well as university professors and international
law experts [laughter]. I think I knew his mind well, and it was
just such a mind as Collins's and Griffith's. And I will not presume to say---I
can only have my opinion---as to how the issue would have presented itself to
him. A nation is not an arid abstraction. It is a living thing of flesh and
blood made up of men and women; and the tragedy of the Irish nation has not been
unsatisfactory formulas, but that she has been held in subjection by the
military occupation of a foreign nation. Think of the evacuation of Ireland by
foreign troops. Why, it seems like a fairy vision. All the old Gaelic poets sang
of the going of the foreign hosts out of Ireland as an unreal dream of far off
happiness. They did not sing of a Republic. They sang of a Gaelic monarch as
symbol of association between the three kingdoms. `Ní iarrfad ach trí
Ríoghachta le Móirín Ní Chuilionáin'. To see Seán Buidhe clear out of
Ireland, and the country handed over to us, that is the prospect offered to
you---and you object to the formula under which he goes out. So long as he goes
out, what does the formula matter? When a proud unbeaten enemy surrenders,
cannot we at least grant him the honours of war? Historically, the doctrinaire
Republicans have not a leg to stand on. The Irish people did not fight for a
Republic. They fought for Ireland for the Irish. They fought to have the British
forces out of control of Ireland. As John Mitchell said: `I do not care a fig
for Republicanism in the abstract'. A great many members have been entertaining
us with accounts of their consciences and the principles they stood for and
their national record. I can only answer for myself. From boyhood I have been a
worker in the Gaelic League, Sinn Fein, the Volunteers and other organisations.
I was one of the men who founded the Irish Volunteers, and I have served in the
army ever since. I have taken oaths to the army and the Dáil and I have always
been perfectly clear on the point, just as clear and emphatic as the President
himself has been. I can even quote his words---that in taking the oath I was
pledging my allegiance to the Irish nation, to the people of Ireland whom I have
always loved and served, to do my best for them. Like the President I was no
`Republican doctrinaire'. I only wanted to get the British out of Ireland, and
the country in our hands. But my thoughts went further than that. I hoped to see
a Gaelic Ireland, the home of strong and happy men and women in which a thousand
splendid things could be done. The dreams of Davis, of William Rooney, of Pearse---men
who saw Ireland with a prophetic vision and imagination---could be realised in a
Gaelic State unchecked by foreign influence. But the formulists have no vision,
no imagination, as they have no sense of realities. The reality of the situation
is our bruised and bleeding country in a state of economic ruin; our people
trained in slavery under the shadow of British force with all the demoralisation
it implies. As the Minister of Finance has said: `Is Ireland ever to get a
chance?' `The nation, do you ever think of the poor Irish nation that is trying
to be born?' I appeal to you---give it a chance. Who knows what the child will
be when it grows up outside the shadow of British force. The Minister of
Education told us recently that it would take twenty years to get Irish taught
in every school in Ireland------
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
I said ten years. I ought not be misquoted.
MR. P. BEASLAI:
Twenty years that is in this report of your speech. No matter, say ten years.
I tell you if you reject this Treaty it will not take ten years or twenty years
or forty years, for you will never see the day when it will happen. But if the
British Army clears out you will have a real Irish national education in twelve
months, and you can have all Ireland Irish-speaking in two generations. Pádraic
Pearse advised the Irish people to accept the Irish Councils Bill because he
considered it gave the Irish people control over education. But the finest
education of all will be the bringing up of our boys and girls outside the
shadow of the British armed forces. We can have our national theatres and
municipal theatres, music halls and picture halls redolent of a national
atmosphere in place of the demoralising institutions now influencing the
people's outlook. We can have a development under state protection of that
system of co-operative agricultural development that has already done so much
good. We can have our fisheries organised on a national basis so that the poor
fishermen of Ireland, in most cases the chief representatives of our historic
Gaelic Ireland, will be able to compete on fair terms with the wealthy, state
aided foreigner. We can have our marshes and waste lands turned into plantations
and our hillsides covered with trees. We can have our national sports and
pastimes developed under the aegis of the state. We can have industries built
up, not on the sweating system, but in accordance with our Democratic Programme
of the 21st January, 1919, on lines which will assure the worker of a fair share
of the fruits of his labour. We can make our land the home of the fine arts
which will rival the great big and the great small nations of the world. All
this we can do. And the poor Irish nation that is trying to be born, that never
got a chance before, is to be denied this chance because of a question of
formulas. I appeal to those opponents of the Treaty who have done great and good
work for Ireland in the past, are they going to be responsible for crushing this
frail and beautiful thing in the chrysalis? I am afraid that as a Dáil we are a
body of small people, dry formulists and politicians, and without imagination.
We cannot rise to a great occasion in a manner worthy of us. We have not the
vision. We have not the imagination. I have accused the opponents of the Treaty
of a lack of faith in the nation, of a lack of a sense of realities and of a
lack of vision and imagination. I have now to accuse them of a further lack of
sense of their own representative capacity and responsibility to the nation.
There is one thing that a great many of us seem to forget: that whatever
authority our present government possesses rests solely on the support of the
people of Ireland. If you act contrary to the will of the majority of the
nation, then you have lost their moral support and your effective authority is
gone. The President talked of a Provisional Government being a usurpation. Well
if this Dáil acts contrary to the will of the majority of the Irish nation its
continuance in office is the greatest usurpation of all. There were talks of
threats of war. Well, England has no need to threaten war. She knows that if you
reject this Treaty then the power and authority of Dáil Eireann, whatever it be
in theory, is gone in practice, for we will not have the big bulk of the people
behind us. It was that popular support that gave Dáil Eireann its strength in
the past, and even though you do not like the Treaty you must face realities.
There is no conceivable alternative to the acceptance of the Treaty but
division, faction and chaos. When we have a divided, chaotic Ireland, England
has no need to make war on us. She can just leave things as they are, and she
can dissolve Dáil Eireann any time she likes by simply dissolving the British
Parliament. If she does that you will have to fight a general election or go
under. And do you think you can win if you go against the national will? The
point of view of the non-ratifiers is so unreal, such a resolute attempt not to
face realities, that I find it difficult to understand it. We, the members of
Dáil Eireann, must realise that the nation was not made for Dáil Eireann, but
Dáil Eireann was made for the nation. I will go further and remind the
Republican doctrinaires that if there was an Irish Republic in the past three
years it consisted, not in an abstraction or a legal formula, but in the people
of Ireland. The state is the people organised in a coherent form, and no matter
whether you call it a Republic or a Free State, my allegiance is to the people
of Ireland and to the state which represents the national will. If we do not
represent the national will we are a usurpation, and your airy edifice of a
Republic crashes to the ground. I implore you to consider this point---that if
you reject this Treaty the people of Ireland, the poor nation that is trying to
be born, will never get a chance of considering it. If you reject the Treaty,
even by a majority of one, the British are no longer bound by it; and your
country with whose future you are gambling so unfairly, so recklessly, in the
name of political formulas which you call your principles, will not be able to
say yes or no to it. But the country will let you know what it thinks of you,
and what is left of our Gaelic nation in future generations will curse your
failure to rise to a great opportunity. There is no need to talk of the danger
of war. Perhaps even war would be better than division, and if this Treaty is
rejected you will have a helpless, prostrate country. Nothing more effectively
illustrates the unreality of our theoretic dialectics, our discussions of
principles and oaths, than a consideration of the actual position of
Ireland---Truce or War. The Minister for Home Affairs stated that if this Treaty
were signed the Irish Free Stater who went abroad would get his passport from
the British Foreign Office and be described in his passport as a British
subject. Deputy MacCartan says this is not so, that the Canadian is not required
to do this; but even if it were so, let me remind you of this---a great many
Irish men and women have left Ireland for America during the past few years.
Some of them went with passports from the Minister for Home Affairs, but all of
them went, had to go, with British passports in which they were described as
British subjects.
A DEPUTY:
Not all.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Some of them were smuggled out.
A DEPUTY:
By the Minister of Finance.
MR. P. BEASLAI:
A little fact like this is a douche of cold water on the idealists and on the
unrealities of the formulists [laughter]. Some of those who oppose
the Treaty have claimed to be idealists and take a superior pose against those
who speak of plain realities. I say it is those who vote for the Treaty that are
the true idealists. They have the vision and the imagination to sense the nation
that is trying to be born---the poor, crushed, struggling people who never got a
fair chance, the men and women of all Ireland, the Orangemen of Portadown, the
fishermen of Aran, the worker of the slum and the labourer in the fields, that
nation whose fate lies in your hands and whom you are dooming to another and, I
fear, a final disappointment if you reject the Treaty. Save that poor nation,
give it a chance to be born, have the courage to throw away the formulas which
you call principles. Seize this chance to realise the visions of Thomas Davis,
of Rooney and Pearse, of a free, happy and glorious Gaelic state. Do not have it
said of your work what was said of the doctors who performed an operation---`The
operation was a complete success, but the patient died'.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, táim im' sheasamh go láidir agus
go fíor anso iniu i gcúis Phoblacht na hEireann d'eirigh i Seachtain na Cásga,
cúig bliana ó shoin. I rise to-day to oppose with all the force of my will,
with all the force of my whole existence, this so called Treaty---this Home Rule
Bill covered over with the sugar of a Treaty. My reasons against it are
two-fold. First, I stand true to my principles as a Republican, and to my
principles as one pledged to the teeth for freedom for Ireland. I stand on that
first and foremost. I stand, too, on the common sense of the Treaty itself,
which, I say, does not mean what it professes to mean, and can be read in two
ways. I would like first to take the Treaty, to draw your attention to clauses
17 and 18 and to ask the delegates what limiting power England and the English
Parliament will have on the Constitution which they are prepared to draft. I
would also like to ask them what they mean by number 17: `Steps shall be taken
forthwith for summoning a meeting of Members of Parliament elected for
Constituencies in Southern Ireland since the passing of the Government of
Ireland Act, 1920'. What do they mean by that? Is that a meeting of the Southern
Parliament, or is it a sort of Committee which is to be formed, or what does it
stand for? It is not An Dáil; it is not called a meeting of the Southern
Parliament. It is called a meeting of members of Parliament elected for
constituencies in Southern Ireland. What power has England to set up such
elected representatives as a Government? She has power under the last Bill, I
believe, to set up Crown Colony Government, but I doubt whether she has power to
set up this as a Government for Ireland. That is a thing I would like to ask the
Plenipotentiaries if they have thought about it. Then I see in that letter that
Mr. Griffith quoted with regard to the setting up of this Constitution for
Ireland---discussing the Second Chamber, Lloyd George says---: `The
establishment and composition of the Second Chamber is therefore in the
discretion of the Irish people. There is nothing in the Articles of Agreement to
suggest that Ireland is, in this respect, bound to the Canadian model'. Well,
Mr. Griffith published the letter which he wrote to the Southern Unionists. It
was dealt with to-day by Mr. Art O'Connor. This is the letter: `Sir, I write to
inform you that at a meeting I had with representatives of Southern Unionists I
agreed that a scheme should be devised to give them their full share of
representation in the First Chamber of the Irish Parliament, and that as to the
Upper Chamber we will consult them on its constitution and undertake that their
interests will be duly represented'. Now I want to know by what authority the
Chairman of the Delegation said this? And I want to know also what it means.
Does it mean that the Chairman of the Delegation wishes to alter the form of
representation of this country by some syndicalist representation, or
representation by classes, or by trades unions, or by public bodies, or
something else? Mr. Griffith, surely, does not mean that they would merely get
their proper representation or the representation they are entitled to. It must
mean something special. Now why are these men to be given something special? And
what do the Southern Unionists stand for? You will all allow they stand for two
things. First and foremost as the people who, in Southern Ireland, have been the
English garrison against Ireland and the rights of Ireland. But in Ireland they
stand for something bigger still and worse, something more malignant; for that
class of capitalists who have been more crushing, cruel and grinding on the
people of the nation than any class of capitalists of whom I ever read in any
other country, while the people were dying on the roadsides. They are the people
who have combined together against the workers of Ireland, who have used the
English soldiers, the English police, and every institution in the country to
ruin the farmer, and more especially the small farmer, and to send the people of
Ireland to drift in the emigrant ships and to die of horrible disease or to sink
to the bottom of the Atlantic. And these anti-Irish Irishmen are to be given
some select way of entering this House, some select privileges---privileges that
they have earned by their cruelty to the Irish people and to the working classes
of Ireland, and not only that, but they are to be consulted as to how the Upper
House is to be constituted. As a Republican who means that the Republic means
Government by the consent of the people [hear, hear]. I object to
any Government of that sort whereby a privileged number of classes established
here by British rule are to be given a say---to this small minority of traitors
and oppressors---in the form of an Upper Chamber as against all, I might say,
modern ideas of common sense, of the people who wish to build up a prosperous,
contented nation. But looking as I do for the prosperity of the many, for the
happiness and content of the workers, for what I stand, James Connolly's ideal
of a Workers' Republic------
A DEPUTY:
Soviet Republic.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
------co-operative commonwealth, these men who have opposed everything are to
be elected and upheld by our plenipotentiaries; and I suppose they are to be the
Free State, or the Cheap State Army, or whatever selection these men are, to be
set up to uphold English interests in Ireland, to uphold the capitalists'
interests in Ireland, to block every ideal that the nation may wish to
formulate; to block the teaching of Irish, to block the education of the poorer
classes; to block, in fact, every bit of progress that every man and woman in
Ireland to-day amongst working people desire to see put into force. That is one
of the biggest blots on this Treaty; this deliberate attempt to set up a
privileged class in this, what they call a Free State, that is not free. I would
like the people here who represent the workers to take that into
consideration---to say to themselves what can the working people expect in an
Ireland that is being run by men who, at the time of the Treaty, are willing to
guarantee this sort of privilege to a class that every thinking man and woman in
Ireland despises. Now, there are one or two things that I would like an answer
to. It strikes me that our opponents in speaking have been extraordinarily
vague. We had Mr. Hogan, Deputy for Galway, before the recess talking a great
deal about the King, and he was rather laughing and sneering at the idea of the
King being head of a Free State. In fact his ideas about the King amounted to
merely one thing---an individual's ideas of a modern king. What he lost sight of
is this: that the King to-day in England---when you mention the King you mean
the British Cabinet. Allegiance to the King like that does not even get you the
freedom that is implied---a dual monarchy. The King to-day is a figurehead, a
thing that presides at banquets, waves a flag, and reads his speeches some one
else makes for him; which mean absolutely nothing but words put into his mouth
by his Cabinet. Also the same vagueness comes into the question of the oath. As
a Republican I naturally object to the King, because the King really stands in
politics for his Prime Minister, the court of which he also is the head and
centre, the pivot around which he turns---well it is not one of the things that
tends to elevate and improve the country. It tends to develop all sorts of
corruption, all sorts of luxury and all sorts of immorality. The court centre in
any country has never, in the history of the world, for more than a very short
period proved anything, through the centuries, but a centre from which vice and
wrong ideals emanated. Now, with regard to the oath,I say to anyone---go
truthfully and take this oath, take it. If they take it under duress there may
be some excuse for them, but let them remember that nobody here took their
Republican Oath under duress. They took it knowing that it might mean death, and
they took it meaning that. And when they took that oath to the Irish Republic
they meant, I hope, every honest man and every woman---I know the women---they
took it meaning to keep it to death. Now what I have against that oath is that
it is a dishonourable oath. It is not a straight oath. It is an oath that can be
twisted in every imaginable form. You have heard the last speaker explain to you
that this oath meant nothing; that it was a thing you could walk through and
trample on; that in fact, the Irish nation could publicly pledge themselves to
the King of England, and that you, the Irish people, could consider yourselves
at the same time free, and not bound by it. Now, I have here some opinions,
English opinions, as to what the oath is; but mind you, when you swear that oath
the English people believe you mean it. Lloyd George, in the House of Commons on
the 14th December said: `The main operation of this scheme is the raising of
Ireland to the status of a Dominion of the British Empire with a common
citizenship, and by virtue of that membership in the Empire, and of that common
citizenship, owing allegiance to the King---
Mr. R. MacNeill: Owning allegiance.
and swearing allegiance to the King'. For the moment I will confine myself to
the statement that there has been complete acceptance of allegiance to the
British Crown and acceptance of membership in the Empire, and acceptance of
common citizenship; that she Ireland has accepted allegiance to the Crown and
partnership in the same Empire. Mr. Winston Churchill in the House of Commons on
the 15th December, 1921, said: `In our view they promise allegiance to the Crown
and membership of the Empire.
Hon. Members: No, no.
That is our view. The oath comprises acceptance of the British Constitution,
which is, by Articles 1 and 2 of the Constitution, exactly assimilated to the
Constitution of our Dominions. This oath is far more precise and searching than
the ordinary oath which is taken elsewhere.
Hon. Members: No, no.
It mentions specifically membership of the Empire, common citizenship, and
faithfulness to the Crown, whereas only one of these matters is dealt with in
the Dominion Oath.' Now here is a curious thing. Sir W. Davidson asked why
should they not take the Canadian Oath, and the answer by Mr. Churchill is this:
The oath they are asked to take is more carefully and precisely drawn than
the existing oath, and it was chosen because it was more acceptable to the
people whose allegiance we are seeking, and whose incorporation in the British
Empire we are certainly desirous of securing. Sir L. Worthington Evans: What
does as by law established mean? It means that presently---next
Session---we shall be asked in this House to establish a Constitution for the
Irish Free State, and part of the terms of the settlement will be that the
members who go to serve in that Free State Parliament will have to swear true
faith and allegiance to the Constitution as passed by this House of Commons.
How is it possible to say that within the terms of that oath they can set up a
Republic and still maintain their oath?
Now here is one important extract I want to read to you on this point:
Sir L. Worthington Evans: `Then it was suggested by the hon. member for
Burton that this oath contained no allegiance to the Throne, but merely
fidelity to the King. I have not time to go into the history of the oaths
which have from time to time been taken in this Parliament, but I did have
time while the hon. member was speaking to look up Anson on Constitutional
Law, and I extracted this: `There were at one time three oaths. There was the
Oath of Allegiance'---and this is how Anson defines it---`it was a declaration
of fidelity to the reigning sovereign'. That is precisely what this is, a
declaration of fidelity to the reigning sovereign . . . But Anson's
description of the Oath of Allegiance is that it was a declaration of fidelity
to the throne, so that in this oath as included in the Treaty we have got
this: we have got the Oath of Allegiance in the declaration of fidelity, `I
will be faithful to His Majesty King George V., his heirs and successors by
law'. And we have got something in addition---a declaration of fidelity to the
Constitution of the Irish Free State as by law established: and in further
addition, we have the declaration of fidelity to the Empire itself'.
Now, personally, I being an honourable woman, would sooner die than give a
declaration of fidelity to King George or the British Empire. I saw a picture
the other day of India, Ireland and Egypt fighting England, and Ireland crawling
out with her hands up. Do you like that? I don't. Now, if we pledge ourselves to
this oath we pledge our allegiance to this thing, whether you call it Empire or
Commonwealth of Nations, that is treading down the people of Egypt and of India.
And in Ireland this Treaty, as they call it, mar dheadh, that is to be
ratified by a Home Rule Bill, binds us to stand by and enter no protest while
England crushes Egypt and India. And mind you, England wants peace in Ireland to
bring her troops over to India and Egypt. She wants the Republican Army to be
turned into a Free State Army, and mind, the army is centred in the King or the
representative of the King. He is the head of the army. The army is to hold
itself faithful to the Commonwealth of Nations while the Commonwealth sends its
Black-and-Tans to India. Of course you may want to send the Black-and-Tans out
of this country. Now mind you, there are people in Ireland who were not afraid
to face them before, and I believe would not be afraid to face them again. You
are here labouring under a mistake if you believe that England, for the first
time in her life, is treating you honourably. Now I believe, and we are against
the Treaty believing, that England is being more dishonourable and acting in a
cleverer way than she ever did before, because I believe we never sent cleverer
men over than we sent this time, yet they have been tricked. Now you all know
me, you know that my people came over here in Henry VllI.'s time, and by that
bad black drop of English blood in me I know the English---that's the truth. I
say it is because of that black drop in me that I know the English personally
better perhaps than the people who went over on the delegation. [Laughter].
A DEPUTY:
Why didn't you go over?
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Why didn't you send me? I tell you, don't trust the English with gifts in
their hands. That's not original, someone said it before of the Greeks---but it
is true. The English come to you to-day offering you great gifts; I tell you
this, those gifts are not genuine. I tell you, you will come out of this a
defeated nation. No one ever got the benefits of the promises the English made
them. It seems absurd to talk to the Irish people about trusting the English,
but you know how the O'Neills and the O'Donnells went over and always came back
with the promises and guarantees that their lands would be left them and that
their religion would not be touched. What is England's record? It was self
aggrandisement and Empire. You will notice how does she work---by a change of
names. They subjugated Wales by giving them a Prince of Wales, and now they want
to subjugate Ireland by a Free State Parliament and a Governor General at the
head of it. I could tell you something about Governor-Generals and people of
that sort. You can't have a Governor-General without the Union Jack, and a
suite, and general household and other sort of official running in a large way.
The interests of England are the interests of the capitalistic class. Your
Governor-General is the centre for your Southern Unionists, for whom Mr.
Griffith has been so obliging. He is the centre from which the anti-Irish ideals
will go through Ireland, and English ideals will come: love of luxury, love of
wealth, love of competition, trample on your neighbours to get to the top,
immorality and divorce laws of the English nation. All these things you will
find centred in this Governor-General. I heard there was a suggestion---there
was a brother of the King's or the Queen's suggested as Governor-General, and I
heard also that this Lascelles was going to be Governor. I also heard that there
is a suggestion that Princess Mary's wedding is to be broken off, and that the
Princess Mary is to be married to Michael Collins who will be appointed first
Governor of our Saorstát na hEirennn. All these are mere nonsense. You will find
that the English people, the rank and file of the common people will all take it
that we are entering their Empire and that we are going to help them. All the
people who are in favour of it here claim it to be a step towards Irish freedom,
claim it to be nothing but allegiance to the Free State. Now what will the world
think of it? What the world thinks of it is this: Ireland has long been held up
to the scorn of the world through the British Press. According to that Press
Ireland is a nation that lay down, that never protested. The people in other
countries have scorned us. So Ireland can bear to be scorned again, even if she
takes the oath that pledges her support to the Commonwealth of Nations. But I
say, what do Irishmen think in their own hearts? Can any Irishman take that oath
honourably and then go back and prepare to fight for an Irish Republic or even
to work for the Republic? It is like a person going to get married plotting a
divorce. I would make a Treaty with England once Ireland was free, and I would
stand with President de Valera in this, that if Ireland were a free Republic I
would welcome the King of England over here on a visit. But while Ireland is not
free I remain a rebel unconverted and unconvertible. There is no word strong
enough for it. I am pledged as a rebel, an unconvertible rebel, because I am
pledged to the one thing---a free and independent Republic. Now we have been
sneered at for being Republicans by even men who fought for the Republic. We
have been told that we didn't know what we meant. Now I know what I mean---a
state run by the Irish people for the people. That means a Government that looks
after the rights of the people before the rights of property. And I don't wish
under the Saorstát to anticipate that the directors of this and the capitalists'
interests are to be at the head of it. My idea is the Workers' Republic for
which Connolly died. And I say that that is one of the things that England
wishes to prevent. She would sooner give us Home Rule than a democratic
Republic. It is the capitalists' interests in England and Ireland that are
pushing this Treaty to block the march of the working people in England and
Ireland. Now, we were offered a Treaty in the first place because England was in
a tight place. She wanted her troops for more dirty work elsewhere. Because Dáil
Eireann was too democratic, because her Law courts were too just, because the
will of the people was being done, and justice was being done, and the well
being of the people was considered, the whole people were behind us. You talk
very glibly about England evacuating the country. Has anybody questioned that?
How long did it take her to evacuate Egypt? What guarantee have we that England
will do more than begin to evacuate Ireland directly the Treaty has been
ratified? She will begin to evacuate, I have no doubt; she will send a certain
number of troops to her other war fronts. Now there is one Deputy---not more
than one, I hope---who charged that we rattled the bones of the dead. I must
protest about the phrase of rattling the bones of our dead. Now I would like to
ask where would Ireland stand without the noble dead? I would like to ask can
any of you remember, as I can, the first time you read Robert Emmet's speech
from the dock? Yes, it is all very well for those who now talk Dominion Home
Rule to try to be scornful of the phrases---voices of men from the grave, who
call on us to die for the cause they died for. I don't think it is fair to say
what dead men might say if they had been here to-day. What I do think fair is to
read the messages they left behind them, and to mould our lives with them. James
Connolly said, the last time I heard him speak---he spoke to me and to
others---a few phrases that very much sum up the situation to-day. It was just
before Easter Week in 1916. We had heard the news that certain people had called
off the Rising. One man wishing to excuse them, to exonerate them, said: `So and
so does not care to take the responsibility of letting people go to their death
when there is so little chance of victory'. `Oh', said Connolly, `there is only
one sort of responsibility I am afraid of and that is preventing the men and
women of Ireland fighting and dying for Ireland if they are so minded'. That was
almost the last word that was said to me by a man who died for Ireland, a man
who was my Commandant, and I have always thought of that since, and I have
always felt that was a message which I had to deliver to the people of Ireland.
We hear a great deal of the renewal of warfare. I am of quite a pacific mind. I
don't like to kill. I don't like death, but I am not afraid to die and, not
being afraid to die myself, I don't see why I should say that I should take it
for granted that the Irish people were not as ready to die now in this year
1922, any more than they were afraid in the past. I fear dishonour; I don't fear
destiny and I feel at all events that death is preferable to dishonour, and
sooner than see the people of Ireland take that oath meaning to build up your
Republic on a lie, I would sooner say to the people of Ireland: `Stand by me and
fight to the death'. I think that a real Treaty between a free Ireland and a
free England---with Ireland standing as a free sovereign state---I believe it
would be possible to get that now; but even if it were impossible, I myself
would stand for what is noblest and what is truest. That is the thing that to me
I can grasp in my nature. I have seen the stars, and I am not going to follow a
flickering will-o'-the-wisp, and I am not going to follow any person juggling
with constitutions and introducing petty tricky ways into this Republican
movement which we built up---you and not I---because I have been in jail. It has
been built up and are we now going back to this tricky Parliamentarianism,
because I tell you this document is nothing else. Pierce Beasley gave us to
understand that this is the beginning of something great and that Ireland is
struggling to be born. I say that the new Ireland was born in Easter Week, 1916,
that Ireland is not struggling to be born. I say that the Irish language has
begun to grow, that we are pushing it in the schools, and I don't see that
giving up our rights, that going into the British Empire is going to help. In
any case the thing is not what you might call a practical thing. It won't help
our commerce, but it is not that; we are idealists believing in and loving
Ireland, and I believe that Ireland held by the Black-and-Tans did more for
Ireland than Ireland held by Parliamentarianism---the road that meant commercial
success for those who took it and, meaning other things, meant prestige for
those who took it. But there is the other stony road that leads to ultimate
freedom and the regeneration of Ireland; the road that so many of our heroes
walked and I, for one will stand on the road with Terence MacSwiney and Kevin
Barry and the men of Easter Week. I know the brave soldiers of Ireland will
stand there, and I stand humbly behind them, men who have given themselves for
Ireland, and I will devote to it the same amount that is left to me of energy
and life; and I stand here to-day to make the last protest, for we only speak
but once, and to ask you read most carefully, not to take everything for
granted, and to realise above all that you strive for one thing, your allegiance
to the men who have fought and died. But look at the results. Look at what we
gain. We gained more in those few years of fighting than we gained by
parliamentary agitation since the days of O'Connell. O'Connell said that
Ireland's freedom was not worth a drop of blood. Now I say that Ireland's
freedom is worth blood, and worth my blood, and I will willingly give it for it,
and I appeal to the men of the Dáil to stand true. They ought to stand true and
remember what God has put into your hearts and not to be led astray by
phantasmagoria. Stand true to Ireland, stand true to your oaths, and put a
little trust in God.
MR. J. WALSH:
Before I proceed to speak I think it would be well that the Dáil should
consider the advisability of adjourning for lunch. I intend to speak for perhaps
an hour---I may speak for two hours. It is entirely a matter for myself at the
moment. But if you desire I should begin now, very well.
The House signified its wish that Mr. Walsh should go on.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
A Chinn Chomhairle, agus a cháirde, is gá dhom focal nó dhó do rá in ár
dteangain dhúchais fein. Sílim gur cheart dúinn an díospóireacht so do dheanamh
go bre reidh agus gan aon duine do chur einní i leith aon duine eile anois ná as
so amach. I have been, perhaps, noted in the past for a certain amount of
bluntness and directness which has made me unpopular with a great majority of
the Dáil [cries of No! no!"]. Well, I certainly have interpreted
that feeling in my own mind, and I am now glad to hear that it is not the
feeling of my co-members. But I must confess that there were certain principles
on which we were all in agreement, and these principles, if I correctly
understand them, have been pretty sharply turned down by the members of the Dáil
in opposition here to-day. I have since my advent into the political arena
understood that we were here to express the voice of the people; that we were
here to typify the consent of the governed, that we were here to speak for the
majority of the people. Now, my friends, I have, unlike other people, made it my
business to visit my constituency in the interval since the adjournment over
Christmas. The City of Cork has played a not unimportant part in the events of
the last four or five years; and though I have not counted heads, nor taken a
vote of the people, I will honestly as a plain, honest man, say that I feel that
nine out of every ten people in Cork City are in favour of the ratification of
this Treaty. I have met prominent public men in my constituency and they assure
me that they themselves have not met one single human being in Cork City opposed
to the Treaty. Now I am stating what is an honest, straight fact. Some of you
assume that if you voted, or if you should vote for this Treaty, you are
violating your own conscience. I don't know that you have any right to intrude
your conscience on the question of the lives and the liberties of your people.
Your people have not asked you to take this oath, but they have asked you to
ratify the Treaty. And be very clear on these two points. You need not
necessarily take the oath if you don't want to; but you are certainly bound in
conscience, and more strictly bound than by any oath the British Government can
impose, to follow and execute the will of the people, the will that you swear
you can't carry out, when you were elected by the strongest oath you could take.
We hear a lot about unity. The majority of the Boards of the country have made
it clear that, regardless of unity, this Treaty must be ratified. [Opposition
cries of No!] I will venture to say that 95 per cent. of the people of
this country who have had an opportunity of expressing themselves have
definitely asserted that it is their view that the Treaty meets with their
requirements for the time being. [Opposition cries of "No!"] Yes [laughter].
It is not the Southern Unionists who have asked you to support the Treaty. The
Comhairlí Ceanntair are not Southern Unionists, the Sinn Fein Clubs are not
Southern Unionists, the County Councils of the country are not Southern
Unionists. The whole nation and all the public bodies of this country are not
Southern Unionists; but they are as good Republicans, and you know it. They see
an opportunity of expressing themselves on matters which mean the life and death
of the nation.
A DEPUTY:
Take the 1916 Rising for example.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Now we hear a lot about unity. The Cork City electorate in the Municipal
Elections of 1920 only voted 50 per cent. for the Republican
candidates---slightly over 50 per cent.--- twenty-eight or twenty-nine
candidates. If we were to ask the people of Cork to vote for or against the
Treaty we would have 90 per cent. voting for it. That is a unity that this
country, neither for a Republic nor at any other stage of its history, ever
enjoyed. I have met a number of men who have said that this Dáil has spent too
much time discussing oaths. I have met one man who reminded me of a certain
imperishable phrase which the predecessor of the present ex- Kaiser used with
regard to the lawyers in his country. Frederick the Great, on his visit to
France, was asked how many lawyers he had in Germany, and he said: `One, and
when I go back I will hang that one'[laughter]. Now, there are a
great many pro-Germans in Ireland to-day. The Irish people are thoroughly fed up
with this ju-jitsu exposition and things of that nature. I may tell you that I
have a very elastic mind on oaths. I do not say that oaths are not a very
forceful issue with me as between me and my country. If, for instance, a British
soldier during the last half-dozen years offered me a rifle on condition that I
would take this oath, I would take it. I assure you I would keep on taking it
for a month if I could get a rifle and ammunition by taking this oath. The
taking of a meaningless and harmless oath would not prevent me. Now, I hold my
own individual view on that, and I don't ask other people to hold that view. A
similar question arose at the G. A. A., a few years ago, and I expressed a
similar view. War knows no principles, and you who have lived through the last
half-dozen years will not deny the truth of that statement. There are certain
points troubling very seriously genuine friends of this Treaty---points which I
desire to deal with here to-day; but before I introduce that matter, I would
like to say in fairness to myself, and in fairness to my constituents, that
there is one thing in the Treaty that I dislike and that is the retention of our
ports. Now, nobody has told me how we are to rid ourselves of that. The British
Army and Navy alone dominate the situation. There are certain points which,
undoubtedly, are troubling genuine friends of this Treaty. One of them may be
summed up in this. They say now that when Ireland regains some material
prosperity, when she gets on her feet, when the people get rich, that they will
lose the grádh for independence. Now I heard the very same arguments when
I was very young. I heard it said---I happened to be a country boy---there are a
great many country boys here and the country boy differs very materially from
the city boy---and I remember when a youngster going to school being told by my
companions that the Land Legislation which was then being passed would mean the
downfall of the national ideal, and that the extension of the Local Government
powers would do the same. Now it was not the country boys said that, but the
London Times. Now, I ask you, did any of the farmers of Ireland
prove the truth of that? Were they not the back-bone of the fight through which
we have gone---notwithstanding that they have enjoyed a prosperity which they
didn't anticipate? Indeed, the well-to-do farmers were the great backers of our
fight. You may as well say that it is essential to reduce one's body to poverty
to save one's soul. I never heard any theologian advancing that argument, and I
don't suppose I would be an enthusiastic backer of it, nor do I suppose that
those who are opposed to me would follow it [laughter]. It is not
necessary to pauperise the body to save the soul, nor to pauperise the body of
this country to save the soul of this country. Others of those opposed to the
Treaty say that when the old feud would terminate our country would be drawn
closer to England. I say that instead of being drawn closer that we will be
drawn further away from England by virtue of being drawn closer to the universe.
If this Treaty is adopted this country, instead of being cut off, will be opened
up through its trade routes, its consuls and ambassadors, and through its
various means of communication through the whole world. So much for that point.
I have heard quite a lot of play with the unfortunate or, perhaps, slip phrase
used by the Deputy from Offaly some time ago. He said that this nation is going
into the Empire with its hands up. Well, I ask you, are we out of the Empire
under our Republic? [Cries of Yes!]. To begin with, my friends,
you talk of a Republic for all Ireland. Your Cabinet has told you by virtue of
the fact that you exclude North-East Ulster that you only recognise the Republic
for three-quarters of Ireland. Now let us keep to facts. You say that you are
marching into the British Empire with your hands up---you say that we who are
favouring the Treaty are doing so. Let us consider the position we are in
to-day. We have in this country been forced, under an ideal Republic, to utilise
the Postal and Telegraph service of the British Government. We have been forced
in order to get claims endorsed to go into their law courts, to carry their
soldiers, police and sailors on our railroads. We have come here under a British
Act of Parliament, and we meet here to-day with the consent of the British
Government. That is the position, and you call yourself a Free Republic. You
have an ideal, and an ideal only and anything provided in this Act does not rob
you of that ideal; and I say to you that you who oppose this Treaty are
inconsistent in this, because we propose to remove the inconsistency which I
have mentioned and make it consistent. It has been mentioned here to-day, and I
certainly felt very keenly when making up my mind with regard to the outlook of
the people in India and Egypt. We feel that because they have travelled a hard
road with us that it would be unfair to abandon them without just cause. Now,
have we abandoned them? Take your memory back to August last. How much fighting
had you in Egypt and India in those days? And how much to-day? It is not
disaster but success, and it is the success of the Irish Free State which has
made the position in India and Egypt which you find to-day. We have not heard a
great lot about Ulster since the opening of the proceedings. I wonder if any of
you Deputies ever thought it possible, under any set of circumstances as long as
the British Empire existed, to establish a Republic for Ireland? [Opposition
cries of Yes]. Well, I am sorry that in my highest flights of
imagination I can't come up to your level. Now, assume that you hadn't, and the
affirmative was lacking in that emphaticness which I expected---at any rate I
assume that the most you people had in your minds at any time was a Republic for
three fourths of Ireland. [Cries of No, no!]. Now that was what
you had in reality asked, and you have endorsed it by the fact that you have
thrown North-East Ulster overboard. Now, I assume there are individuals here who
don't agree. I am honest enough to admit that. But the one thing that you had to
face is, the alternative for a Republic for three-fourths of Ireland was the
unity of all Ireland, and you could never get that unity you insisted on. A
Republic would definitely alienate the North-East Ulster corner and divide our
unfortunate country into two separate and distinct areas and into two races for
all time. That's the programme you have brought forward. I hold that Ulster is
the very important clause of the Treaty which we consider, and to this our
opponents have not, in any single instance, given any consideration. They have
taken it for granted that our plenipotentiaries were jockeyed by the Prime
Minister into that position. I believe the situation was otherwise. Had I
believed that this Treaty would leave Ireland a permanently divided nation I
would vote against it. Now, some of you took sufficient interest in the Boer
War. Those who were rebels in those days took sufficient interest in the fate of
the Boer Republics. At their surrender they specified four conditions:
Foreign relations;
to accept a Protectorate of Great Britain;
to surrender the ports and territory of the South African Republics, and
to conclude a defensive alliance with Great Britain.
England refused to accept these rather humiliating conditions made on the part
of the Boers; and insisted on unconditional surrender. At the same time she gave
a verbal guarantee that, provided the Boers didn't resume the fight, their
nation would not be destroyed. Now, the Boer soldiers were in as good a position
to resume the fight as we are, and they could continue the fight and bring about
a state of hari kari, and submit to the inevitable. To save the nation they
accepted Britain's conditions. And what do you find to-day? You find the
hitherto divided states sealed up into a solid Boer bloc in South Africa, one
solid force in a position to re-assume the Republican ideal at any time they
like. What did the Germans do when pressed by the Allies in the late war? Did
the Germans say to the Allies: `Because of the principles which we have to
abandon by your occupation of any part of our territory, and by your limitations
on our finances, we refuse to come to any terms with you. We will continue to
resist your army through every part of Germany, even if it means the destruction
of every man and woman and house in Germany?' No, they did not. They said:`The
thing, the programme for us, is to save as much as we can of our territory, and
on that territory we are to rebuild and make the fatherland'. And what happened?
In the brief interval of three years Germany has brought about no less than
seven modifications of the Treaty of Versailles. That is what we ask you to do.
It has been mentioned here that our Parliament is to some extent like Grattan's
Parliament, and it was suggested as a very good thing that this Grattan's
Parliament was discontinued or abolished. Now, if Grattan's parliament with all
its limitations had continued in operation, would our country have gone through
the famine period? Would our country have suffered the humiliations of '48 or
'67, or would it have needed them? Or would our country have been lying
helplessly in its grave a few years ago when we took up the cudgels? No, it
would have saved the population, saved its industries, conserved its manhood,
and when the time came during the Crimean War, or the Boer War, or any other of
the shaky positions in which the British Empire found itself, the Irish nation
could have regained its liberty. That is what Grattan's parliament would have
done, and that is what this Treaty now provides and will do for the Irish
nation. Instead of that you propose that it should simply commit suicide---wipe
itself out and remain helpless for all time. You say: `Why should we follow in
the role of a Dominion?' There is no reason if we could help it, but we can't
help it. Is there any alternative? Will any member of this Dáil guarantee to me
that those Dominions at which some people have laughed so heartily during the
last fortnight---will anybody guarantee that they will still be Dominions or
that they won't be Republics within twelve years, and will anyone say to me that
Francis Feehily in Australia, or Laurier in Canada, are going to be definitely
deferred or dispelled by anything that you can enlighten us on to-day? And if
they can become Republics in our lifetime, what about us? I don't blame the
Cabinet for breaking away from the Republican position. Our country and England
had to face a definite situation, and this situation which is brought about by
the Treaty is purely the resultant of opposing forces. The feelings of the Irish
people are responsible for that departure, because the Irish people would not
resume war, nor consent to the resumption of war by anybody standing on the
bed-rock of the Republic. The opposing opinions here, though in no way
proportionate to the feeling of the country, are, in my opinion, based on a
frank and perfect honesty. We find ourselves as a body of men at the
cross-roads. We see the objective at the distance. One party determines to go
right through to that objective though a mighty and impassable gulf intervenes.
They say it does not matter, even though it does mean hampering, so that it is a
short road. The other people say:`let us take the long road; it is the surer.'
Similarly, if we proceed on the assumption that we are military tacticians---I
don't claim to be a military tactician---I have done very little fighting in my
life, but as an ordinary civilian I will put it this way to the military
tacticians. We found ourselves in 1914 with a dozen strong entrenchments
separating us from complete victory. In the interval we have brought down eleven
of these impediments, and we find that by rushing the twelfth and last one that
it means our annihilation, our defeat and demoralisation, and instead of those
of us who are voting for the Treaty---instead of submitting ourselves to that
demoralisation, we are entrenching here; we wait for reinforcements and we wait
for supplies, and at an opportune moment we march on. I was once in America on a
holiday. It cost me three pounds to get over and three pounds to get back. At
any rate I have seen the Continent of America. I found myself on one occasion on
the southern bank of the Niagara. Now I wanted to get across, there was a bridge
a little distance up, a Yankee who came along offered to enlighten me on the
best way to get there. `What's the best way to get across?' I asked. `Well',"
said he, `if you mean the shortest, the most direct way, jump in and swim'. That
is what the opponents of this Treaty proposed to the people of Ireland.
Adjourned at 1.30.
On resumption the SPEAKER took the Chair at 3.30 p.m.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I crave just a couple of minutes to make a personal explanation. When the
Deputy for a Division of Dublin was speaking to-day I was not present. She made
reference to my name and to the name of a lady belonging to a foreign nation
that I cannot allow to pass without making this reference to. Some time in our
history as a nation a girl went through Ireland and was not insulted by the
people of Ireland. I do not come from the class that the Deputy for the Dublin
Division comes from; I come from the plain people of Ireland. The lady whose
name was mentioned is, I understand, betrothed to some man. I know nothing of
her personally, I know nothing of her in any way whatever, but the statement may
cause her pain, and may cause pain to the lady who is betrothed to me [hear,
hear]. I just stand in that plain way, and I will not allow without
challenge any Deputy in the assembly of my nation to insult any lady either of
this nation or of any other nation [applause].
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
A Chinn Chomhairle, tá beagán agamsa le rá agus ní bhead ach cúpla nóimeat
á rá. As I have no doubt the other Deputies are as speech weary as I am, you
will be glad to hear that what I have to say will be said in a few moments. I am
not going to dictate to the Deputies on the duty they owe to their constituents
or any thing else like that. I am not going to charge any man with betrayal, or
impugn any man's honour, because I look upon every Deputy of Dáil Eireann as my
comrade, and no word or act of mine, either here or outside, will, I trust,
break that bond of comradeship [hear, hear]. I am against the
Treaty on principle, and on principle alone. I have heard it stated that we
should vote as our constituents wish us to vote because they are our masters. I
agree that they are the masters of our political thought but they are not and
can not be the captains of our souls. Is it seriously put up as an argument that
if, say, 90 per cent. of our constituents at any time during the past two or
three years were to have told us that the interests of Ireland could best be
served by our going across to the British House of Commons, we should have gone
there?
A DEPUTY:
They did not do that.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
If tomorrow or next week our constituents were to order us, with a view to
securing Ireland's material interests, to become Freemasons, are we to
immediately begin to save up the price of a trowel and apron? [Laughter].
I have as great a respect and as a deep a regard for my constituents as any
Deputy in this assembly. I admit they have a perfect right to deride me, to
repudiate any action of mine, and to kick me out at the first opportunity; but I
deny absolutely that they have any right to direct or command my conscience. I
have a few resolutions here in my pocket---just four from the whole County of
Clare---and I know how some of these resolutions have been passed.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Unanimously.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
I know this also: in my opposition to the Treaty I know that I am not
misrepresenting those who have the best influence in the constituency.
MR. PATRICK BRENNAN:
You are.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
I am not. I have made it my business to find out and I know what I am saying.
MR. P. BRENNAN:
So do we.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
Interruptions will not make me say one word more than this on that particular
point: I went down to Clare on Christmas Eve fully satisfied in my mind that in
opposing this Treaty I was doing what was right. A week later I came back from
Clare doubly satisfied I was doing right [hear, hear]. I am
against this on principle alone. I suppose that is a sentimental reason, a
hopelessly ignorant reason, a reason of the heart but not of the head, the
reason of a man without vision. Principle has been sneered at in every
generation by those who have abandoned principle, and earnestly I ask the
Deputies here not to sneer at those who stand for principle in these days,
because the history of these days has yet to be written.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I am for the Treaty on principle alone.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
When I speak of principle and conscience I must necessarily speak of the oath
embodied in the Treaty. In my sentimental, hopelessly ignorant attitude towards
it, I must be guided, not by lawyers or Doctors of Divinity, or the Press, or by
my constituents, but by my own conscience. My conscience tells me the oath
embodied in the Treaty signed in London is an oath of loyalty to the English
King; an admission that the King of England is King, also, of Ireland, that I am
a British subject, that my children are British subjects, and such an admission
I never intend to make so long as I have control of my will and reason, no
matter what material advantage it may be supposed to gain for Ireland. I am not
going to assert that the dead would do this or that. I have too much reverence
and too much love for the dead to make such an assertion, or to drag them into
this debate at all, But I will say one word about the men of Easter Week, living
and dead. It has been suggested it would be no more dishonourable for us to take
this oath and go into the British Empire than it was for the men of Easter Week
to surrender. When we laid down our arms in O'Connell Street on the Saturday
evening of Easter Week, we did so under duress, but we surrendered only our arms
and the military position we had taken up; we did not surrender the Irish
Republic, nor the historic Irish nation. We did not swear to be loyal subjects
to the English King, nor acknowledge him as King of Ireland. That was war on a
grand scale, in the Mount Street Bridge area, in Stephen's Green, at the South
Dublin Union in the General Post Office, and other places during Easter Week.
But when these positions were surrendered the Irish nation was not asked by the
leaders of the rising to swear loyalty to King George, his heirs and successors;
so it is an insult to the men and women of Easter Week to compare their
honourable surrender with the surrender proposed to us now. I should like to pay
a tribute to one Deputy in particular who has spoken here, Deputy Robert Barton.
He admitted he was weak in London, and broke his oath to the Republic------
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Did we? Answer me that question. Did we break our oaths to the Republic? [Cries
of Order, order!].
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
I am paying a tribute to Deputy Robert Barton.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Aye.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
When the threats of terrible and immediate war were held over his head------
MR. M. COLLINS:
We did not give damn for terrible and immediate war.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
If Mr. Barton was weak in London he has been strong here [laughter and
cheers]. He has revealed the strength of a true man [laughter].
And his statement will be the most thought-compelling page in the history of
these proceedings [hear, hear, and renewed laughter]. I cannot
claim to have done anything worth talking about for Ireland, but during twenty
years I have tried in a minor, fifth-rate way to convey to the common people of
Ireland---my own people---the message of the brave men and women of our race who
have stood for right against wrong. I shall continue to do so as long as God
gives me strength to do it, whether this Treaty be ratified or not. I have taken
only one oath in all my life, and I cannot now take another that, rightly or
wrongly---it may be wrongly---I believe would make me a perjurer. I won't
surrender the one ideal and dream of my life---an independent Irish Ireland, and
so I mean to vote against the Treaty. [Applause].
MR. ERNEST BLYTHE:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a cháirde, ní choimeadfad abhfad sibh. An chuid is
mó atá le rá agam tá se ráite ag na Teachtaí cheana. Ach is dócha nách díobháil
dom labhairt chun a innsint ce an fáth go bhfuil mo thuairimí fe mar atáid.
I would like to agree with the last speaker that it would be much more seemly if
there was no attempt to bring in in any way into these discussions, which are
rendered sometimes exasperating, the names of those who made the supreme
sacrifice for the freedom of Ireland. And I would like particularly to say that
I hate the phrase which has been used here---that of rattling the bones of the
dead. In this matter that is before us I recognise only one principle. That
principle is an obligation in making my choice here to choose that which, in my
judgment, will be best for the Irish nation both in the immediate future and
ultimately. I believe that I must exercise my judgment freely in that matter. I
believe that in making my choice I am not fettered by the oath I took as a
member of this Dáil. I believe that if I hold myself back from doing what I
believe would be best for the Irish nation because it conflicted with the terms
of that oath, it would be doing wrong, because I took that oath as President de
Valera took it---as an oath to do my best for the freedom of the Irish nation.
That was the purpose that I bound myself to by that oath, and I would be false
alike to the oath and the purpose of the oath if I held to the mere terms of it
against my judgment of what was best for the Irish nation at the present time.
Republicanism is with me not a national principle but a political preference. I
am against monarchy, because I believe monarchies in the world as it is to-day
are effete and out of date. I believe the Irish people, when they voted for a
Republican majority in this Dáil, and when they declared themselves for an Irish
Republic, were not thinking of constitutional privileges very much, but were
thinking of the complete freedom of Ireland [hear, hear]. I think
that is the ideal for which the Irish people have declared. I think that, like
myself, they have a preference for the Republican form of Government, because I
do not see how anybody could, at the present day, prefer any other form of
Government; but I believe the main thing that was in their minds was the
securing of the complete independence of Ireland. As far as I am concerned I
wanted the Irish Republic, as I believe the people of Ireland did, in order that
Ireland might be free. With me the Republic was a means to an end and not an end
in itself.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Hear, hear.
MR. ERNEST BLYTHE:
I believe in one sense the Republican form of Government which has been set
up was a machine for the securing of Irish freedom [hear, hear].
And I believe there is no more harm, if the interests of the nation demand it,
in scrapping that machine than there is in scrapping any other machine which may
be devised for securing the freedom of the country. I do not hold myself
fettered in making my choice either by the oath which I took as a member of the
Dáil, or by the fact that a Republic was declared, or that a Republican form of
Government was set up in this country. In point of fact, I believe that the
choice before us is not a choice between this Treaty and an Irish Republic, as
it is understood by the majority of the Irish people. In actual fact, I think
that the choice that has been before the Dáil, not only in this present Session,
but since the negotiations began, has been a choice between---at any rate, the
thing that has been before the Dáil since the negotiations began has been
practically, and certainly---or the majority of the members, the matter of
external association. I am sure a good number of the members of the Dáil stand
for nothing but the real Irish Republic---an isolated Republic. I think,
undoubtedly, when the process of battering down the wall of the isolated
Republic was begun, that by a majority of the Dáil the isolated, or as I would
call it, the real, Irish Republic was abandoned as being immediately
unattainable. For me there is very little difference between external
association and what we get in this Treaty. I realise very well how far short
this Treaty falls of the ultimate ideals of the Irish people, and what its
defects are. I stand for a Gaelic State. I realise the difficulties that are
before us in arriving at a Gaelic State. I know how far Anglicisation has gone
in this country. I know the close relationship there must be between this
country and England in any circumstances on account of Trade and Commercial
interests. I know our difficulties in arriving at a Gaelic State will be great
enough without any close, friendly and intimate political relationships with
England. It seems to me we will have practically the same amount of close
friendly and intimate political relationship with England under a scheme of
external association as we would have under this Treaty. It seems to me that,
while under external association we may retain the form of a Republican
Government, if not the name of a Republic, we would have under it abandoned as
much of the political control of the destinies of the Irish nation as under the
Treaty. In fact, people who are willing to agree to external association and
refuse to accept the Treaty seem to me to be the people who have swallowed the
camel and are straining at the gnat. We have before us the alternatives of
ratification and rejection. What would follow rejection is, I think, to a
considerable extent, a matter of speculation. We would have chaotic conditions,
certainly. If a bitter split on the Parnellite lines showed signs of developing,
I do not think we would have war. The British would prefer a split; it would be
better for them. If there were no split, or a split did not develop
sufficiently, we might have war. As this is largely a choice of alternatives,
more time might have been given to those who favour rejection of the Treaty to
framing some idea of what would follow rejection. As to what would follow
ratification that largely depends on the idea---on your interpretation of the
Treaty. I do not believe ratification would be followed by anything like the
split, or could be followed by anything like the split that would follow
rejection. I am not competent to expound the Treaty, or to interpret it from any
sort of a legal point of view. The Treaty has not been really sufficiently
expounded. Mr. Childers gave a very long and, as far as it went, a very fair
interpretation of the Treaty. We were blamed for not listening to him with more
avid attention. It seems to me that one of the reasons why he did not hold us
was that practically all of what he said was common ground; he explained what
the law was in Canada, and then, though with a good deal less emphasis, said
that was practically cancelled by the phrase `practice and constitutional
usage'. And the main part of his argument was not of a constitutional nature at
all, and not the sort of argument in which he could claim to have any sort of
particular authority. He was arguing that the British would not keep to their
terms of this Treaty, but of some other Treaty that might be signed.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Hear, hear.
MR. ERNEST BLYTHE:
That was really his argument, and I don't think it deserved---although it was
very good [laughter and applause]. Although not a lawyer at all
there is a phrase in this first clause which has not been mentioned by any of
the lawyers who have spoken, and it seems to me to be of considerable
importance. It is in the second last line and reads: `A Parliament having power
to make laws for the peace, order and good government of Ireland, and an
Executive responsible to that Parliament'. Now an Executive responsible to the
Parliament is more than, I think, in theory at any rate, they have in England.
It seems to me if we take that phrase in conjunction with the rest of the Treaty
it does away completely with the idea that the representative of the Crown could
take any action whatever except on the advice of the Ministry of the Free State.
I do not say he could not refuse formal assent to a Bill or anything of that
sort, but it seems to me to put the representative of the Crown in the same
position here, in regard to the Government, as the King of England occupies in
England with regard to the British Cabinet. It seems to me that there is some
ambiguity as to whether or not this oath is obligatory at all. It certainly, to
my mind, is not made obligatory by Clause 4, but it may be made obligatory by
Clause 2. Clause 4 only specifies the form of oath to be taken, and it quite
differs from the clauses you see in the Canadian and other constitutions, where
it says that every member of the House of Representatives, and the Senate and so
forth, before taking a seat, shall take oath in the following form, and the form
is then given. That has been departed from here. It may be held Clause 2 makes
the oath obligatory, but Clause 2 seems to me only to relate to the position of
the Irish Free State---`Subject to the provisions hereinafter set out the
position of the Irish Free State in relation to the Imperial Parliament and
Government, and otherwise, shall be that of the Dominion of Canada, and the law,
practice, and constitutional usage governing the relationship of the Crown or
the representative of the Crown and of the Imperial Parliament to the Dominion
of Canada, shall govern their relationship to the Irish Free State'. That clause
certainly states the relationship of the Crown to the Free State shall be that
of Canada, but it does not state that the Constitution of the Irish Free State
shall be the same as the Constitution of Canada, and it has been specifically
stated it need not be the same. It is straining that clause to say that it
specifies that a certain particular clause in the Canadian Constitution shall
also be in the Irish Constitution, or that the clause puts on a member of
Parliament a certain duty. Whether or not the oath is obligatory is certainly a
matter that could be disputed. In regard to the oath there has been a lot of
argument---and there have been some arguments, I think, not worthy of this
assembly. There was one Deputy from the West who made a long oration about the
manacles of slaves. That Deputy must have known that faithfulness was not the
same as fealty. He is a lawyer and if he found the word `vehicle 'in a document
he would not proceed to argue it was a gig or a rickshaw. There has been a good
deal said about the clauses in this Treaty in regard to NorthEast Ulster. I
think we abandoned the possibility of getting an absolutely united
Ireland---that is, getting it immediately---when the President's letter of the
1Oth August was sent. In it he stated he would not use coercion, and said we
were agreeable to outside arbitration. I did not like this, but I think in the
situation that had developed nothing better could have been got, and I am the
only member of the Dáil who comes of the people who are going to exclude
themselves, or may exclude themselves, from the Free State. I know them. I have
always believed that by suitable propaganda these people amongst whom the roots
of nationality still exist, although you might say the stem and foliage have
been sapped away---these people could eventually be brought to the side of the
Irish nation, as they were a hundred years ago [applause]. I also
believe that they might be coerced, and I would stand for it that we have the
right to coerce them, if we thought fit, and if we have the power to do so. But
you can not coerce them and comfort them at the one time. As we pledged
ourselves not to coerce them, it is as well that they should not have a threat
of coercion over them all the time. I have no doubt under this business and
under these arrangements, and the necessity they will feel for material reasons
for union, combined with propaganda, these terms will lead in a comparatively
short time to the union of that part of the country with the rest of Ireland.
References have been made to the circumstances under which this Treaty was
signed, and the fact that it was signed under a threat of war. I say these
circumstances and that threat of war are necessary to make the Treaty acceptable
to me, because, as I said, even external association is a good way short of our
full right. I believe even if a better Treaty than this had been forthcoming,
the plenipotentiaries would not have been entitled to sign it until it was clear
that the alternative was war. A reference has been made to Mr. Barton. I do not
want to be offensive at all, but it is as well that I should say what I have to
say. I believe that the plenipotentiaries should have realised all along that a
break might, and probably would, mean immediate war and the plenipotentiaries
should have made up their minds as to the exact point to which they would go
rather than face immediate war. And I think if any plenipotentiary was put in a
hole by the short time for making up their minds that was given on that last
night by Mr. Lloyd George, that plenipotentiary was in a difficulty only because
of his own negligence in making up his mind as to the distance to which it would
be right for him to go, and the place at which he was prepared to choose war.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Hear, hear.
MR. ERNEST BLYTHE:
Again I say I do not want to be offensive, but it was either that or the
plenipotentiary was so impressionable as to make him by temperament unfitted to
bear the responsibility of a plenipotentiary. That is really how the matter
stands, and I think the circumstances under which this Treaty was signed, except
in so far as all the plenipotentiaries were convinced that the alternative was
war, and no more was to he got, have no bearing on it at all [applause].
MR. FRANK FAHY:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht an Dála ba mhaith liom labhairt as
Gaedhilg toisc gurb í an Ghaedhilg teanga oifigiúil na Dála, ach tá a lán anso
ná tuigfeadh me agus tá beirt anso ná tuigfeadh me go h-áirithe agus ba mhaith
liom dá dtuigfidís sin me. Through many weary days of speech-making I have
listened with patience, sometimes with pain, to many arguments about this
Treaty. It grieved my very soul to hear some Deputies question the rights and
authority of certain of our colleagues to sit and vote in this assembly. Let us
recognise that we all have the same status here, and all are actuated by the one
great motive, our country's good, but that we may reasonably come to widely
different conclusions. We cannot get back to the position in which we stood on
December 5th, 1921. The signing of the Treaty has completely altered the
circumstances at home and abroad. Pity it is that these Articles of Agreement
bear the signatures of our plenipotentiaries. Had this instrument been submitted
unsigned to Dáil Eireann I feel convinced it would have been rejected by an
overwhelming majority. The signing of it does not make it more acceptable, but
we must base our arguments and our decision on a fait accompli. Let me
not be misunderstood. I do not wish for a moment to impugn the honour or
integrity of our plenipotentiaries. I feel that if I had been placed in their
unenviable position in London I would have signed the Treaty. Having signed, I
would, conscious of having done my best, bow to the decision of this assembly as
to whether the Treaty were acceptable or not. That, I take it, is the position
in which our plenipotentiaries find themselves to-day. Two problems have long
confronted the Irish people---North-East Ulster and the British occupation. Did
the Treaty offer a satisfactory solution of either problem with a probability of
settling the second in a reasonable time, I think it should and would be
accepted. The Treaty, however, does not conclusively settle either problem. It
will not make for peace, domestic or international. The terms violate our
territorial integrity; they make us British subjects and impose on us a
Governor-General whose social circle will militate against the restoration of
the Gaelic State which we must all endeavour to re-establish, if we are not to
become West Britons. Is not the declaration of the Republic also fait
accompli, or have we been playing at Republicanism? Were we not in earnest
when we sent ambassadors to claim the recognition of the world for the Republic?
MR. FINIAN LYNCH:
With British passports and under the British flag. [Cries of No
interruptions].
FRANK FAHY:
We are told that we have secured the flag. What flag? Would there not be
serious opposition to the adoption of the tricolour as the flag of the Irish
Free State? I much fear so. How is such opposition to be overcome, and if not
overcome, whither does it lead? Will such opposition, suppressed or unpunished
make for stability and that peace we all so earnestly desire? In many debatable
and vague clauses of the Treaty, especially the clauses relating to allegiance,
financial adjustment, and North-East boundaries, lie the fruitful seeds of
misunderstanding and strife. There is no use in disguising the fact that this
Treaty, if accepted, will he ratified because the alternative is the dread
arbitrament of war. I have been down among my constituents chiefly in South
Galway. The Comhairle Ceanntair of that Division at a recent meeting, at which I
was present, voted unanimously in favour of ratification. But the delegates
stated, one and all, that this Treaty does not meet the nation's demand and that
they so voted because they believed the alternative to be a war of
extermination. 'Tis hard to blame the war-weary people for clamouring for peace.
But it should be put clearly on record that such votes are given under duress.
Can a Treaty based on fear, naked and unashamed, be a sound basis for friendship
between the two peoples? It is my opinion that lasting peace and friendship
between the two peoples was feasible as we stood on December 5th. Whether such
peace is practicable now is, at least, questionable. The bond of brotherhood is
broken; the comradeship and unity that stood the severest test and won the
admiration of the world have been sundered through the machinations of the
cleverest of the British statesmen, Lloyd George. Can this national solidarity
be restored and restored without delay? Can Dáil Eireann again command the
unswerving loyalty of the people and their undivided support, moral and
material? We are told that Dáil Eireann can no longer hope for this. The people
have been stampeded. A venal Press that never stood for freedom and now with one
voice advocates ratification has, by suppressio veri and suggestio
falsi prejudiced the issue and biased public opinion [hear, hear].
I attended a meeting of the East Galway Comhairle Ceanntair at which the voting
was 18 to 8 in favour of ratification. The report in the metropolitan Press the
next day would give one to understand that there was a unanimous decision in
favour of the Treaty. Such sharp practice gives one furiously to think. The
Chairman of the Delegation and the Minister for Finance made a strong case for
ratification. This Treaty undoubtedly confers wide powers on the Irish people,
far greater powers than were ever even demanded by our former representatives in
the British House of Commons. But some of us believed that the time had gone by
for seeking concessions. Under the terms of this Treaty we can undoubtedly
develop the material resources of the country. But nations, like individuals,
may fill their purses by emptying their souls. What is the nation? It is of
yesterday, to-day and to-morrow. How the generations of our martyred dead would
act at this juncture it is vain to argue. Few in this assembly were as
intimately acquainted as I was with those who fell in Easter Week, '16. Of one,
and only one, of those heroic men could I confidently assert that he would
oppose ratification. I need scarcely state that I refer to Tom Clarke. Can we of
to-day, bowing to force majeure, accept this Treaty without dishonour in
view of our oaths and of the Republic declared before the world? Those Deputies
who have spoken in support of the Treaty maintain that this is not a final
settlement. Some of them advocate its adoption on the ground that it contains
the seeds of future development, that it will broaden slowly down from precedent
to precedent until we reach the goal of unfettered freedom. Their attitude is
comprehensible and their sincerity unquestioned. I might suggest to them that
this road under other guides may also lead rapidly to the sacrifice of
principles to the Imperial ideal, to smug prosperity, and obese content. Other
Deputies would use the powers obtained as an immediate lever to secure full
independence. Honour cannot stand rooted in dishonour, and I maintain that such
action is dishonourable even in dealing with England. Faith unfaithful to
England's King cannot make us falsely true to Republicanism. Let at least our
word be our bond. If we pledge our word, let us keep it in the letter and in the
spirit. Honesty in politics and in international relations will eventually prove
the better policy. We must, then, consider this Treaty on its merits, and as
affected by existing circumstances. The great majority of the people are in
favour of acceptance, lest worse befall. The views of our constituents should
certainly have great weight with us, for they are our masters, they are the
ultimate judges. There are, however, other circumstances to be considered. Had a
vote been possible prior to the Rising of 1916, does any Deputy imagine that we
would have received the sanction of l0 per cent. of our people? Yet the people
now admit that our action was justified. Then again should a demand inspired by
terror be hearkened to as the real voice of the people? It may be argued that in
obtaining this Treaty we have done sufficient for our day, that our action does
not bind coming generations. But then, can the path to freedom be thus
conveniently arranged by stages? Those best qualified to judge hold that the
economic situation makes it impossible for us to carry on the war for a year or
two longer, even with a united front and the moral support of the people. This
may be truly called a defeatist argument, but then the acceptance of this Treaty
is an admission that once again we have been worsted in the game, that material
might has vanquished moral right, that the weak must bow to the strong. We are
not called on to decide between the Treaty and Document No. 2. Incidentally, it
should be borne in mind that Document No. 2 was submitted to us in confidence,
for the specific purpose of achieving unity of action. This document contained
no oath of any description.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
The Cabinet Minutes do.
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
It is not signed by the British representatives.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
Document No. 2 contains no oath whatever.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
But the Minutes of the Cabinet do.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
There were no Minutes; they were never kept or signed.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
The many insinuations made to the contrary would awaken doubts as to the
virtues of the Treaty that has to be supported by such methods, neither should a
good Treaty need to be supported by revelations of verbal statements made at
Cabinet meetings, especially when these revelations are made by one who was not
a member of the Cabinet------
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Mr. Erskine Childers.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
Especially when these revelations were made by one who was not a member of
the Cabinet, but was admitted to certain meetings as an act of grace. Such
points, however cleverly put, are not relevant to the issue. We are concerned
with the release of our country from a dilemma, not with liberating a cat from a
bag.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
On a point of order. Reference has been made to a person being admitted to
certain meetings as an act of grace. I would like the President to say whether
that is a correct description of the reasons for my attendance at certain
Cabinet meetings.
THE SPEAKER:
It is not a point of order. That matter may arise afterwards as a personal
explanation.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
We are, as I said, concerned with liberating our country from a dilemma, and
not liberating a eat from a bag. The immense labour of the latter performance
may give us some idea of the task before us. As the eloquent Deputy for Tyrone
was speaking a few days ago I recalled the words of the Latin poet `parturient
montes et nascetur ridiculus mus'. I thought that, at least, a caterwauling
litter would have come forth. The liberated cat must have been a tabby, such a
chorus of welcome came from the supporters of the Welsh Wizard. The photograph
of the gallant liberator adorned the pages of the English illustrated papers,
and I scanned with disappointment the New Year's List of Honours. Let us eschew
such special pleadings and such party tactics reminiscent of other days, and
decide the question safely on its merits. Let no Deputy be influenced by any
outside associations, no matter how sacred such associations might be in other
circumstances. Guided by the light of conscience, the best interests of our
country and the honour of our nation, let us, in God's name, lay aside
personalities and do our duty fearlessly. [Applause].
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
What about the Welsh Wizard?
MR. F. FAHY:
I have been asked what about the Welsh Wizard. I may say what I like about
any English politician without offence to any member of the Dáil.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Mr. Frank Fahy has described me and others as followers of the Welsh Wizard,
and he has just sat down saying `lay aside personalities'.
MR. F. FAHY:
I never said anyone here was a follower of the Welsh Wizard.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
You described us as followers of the Welsh Wizard, and you won't get out of
it.
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
What do you mean, Mr. Fahy?
MR. SEAN MILROY:
We heard what you said, Mr. Fahy.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Yes, we heard all you said. Stand by your words.
MR. K. O'HIGGINS:
I desire to make a personal explanation in connection with a remark in Mr.
Fahy's speech; the reference could only be to me. He spoke of a person who
attempted to make disclosures of some thing that took place at Cabinet meetings.
That was more objectionable because the person was admitted to Cabinet meetings
only as an act of grace. I did not think it would be necessary for me to explain
why and how I came to attend Cabinet meetings, but as the question has been
raised I will now explain. At the first meeting of the Dáil following the last
election the President announced that he would have to have an inner Cabinet;
that the large Ministry that was formerly admitted could not deal with matters
of policy and the matters of these negotiations; and that therefore he would
have to have an inner Cabinet of seven. I was seated behind him, and he turned
to me and said: `I want you to attend Cabinet meetings and express your views on
a position of absolute equality with the rest of us. If, in the unlikely event
of a division, you, perhaps, had better not vote, but with the rest of us
express your views quite freely'. How does Mr. Fahy consider that as an act of
grace? I never asked the President why he made that arrangement, and did not
want to know, but I want to ask now is it fair to say that I was admitted to the
Cabinet meetings as an act of grace, when I attended on the instructions of the
President? [Hear, hear].
MR. GEORGE NICOLLS:
A Chinn Comhairle agus a lucht na Dála, I suppose I am in the
unenviable position of being the last lawyer that will speak in this assembly [laughter],
but if I am I will not give you much law, constitutional or otherwise. I have
often heard it said that the last leg of mutton is the sweetest. Well, I hope
this will be something sweeter than what you have got before [laughter].
I am not going to go into constitutional law, but I may say that I have been
down with my constituents, and they have been talking a lot about constitutional
law since the Dáil met. One of my constituents was speaking to me, and he used
these words to me: `We are bewildered and moidered with high faluting talk about
constitutional law. This constitutional law plus Magna Charta to whose rights as
British Citizens we were lately entitled, did not stop the Crown forces
from burning Cork and performing other acts into which we need not enter now,
but which were certainly against constitutional law and Magna Charta. But we do
feel certain of one thing; that is, if we once get the British forces out of
Ireland, it will require more than constitutional law to get them back'. [Hear,
hear]. I can tell you, speaking for one of the largest constituencies in
Ireland, that is how the people feel, and for that reason I made a solemn
promise that I would talk no constitutional law when I came here. But I will
talk common sense, and in trying to talk common sense I will try to be as brief
as I can. I won't quote any law or any constitutional lawyer, but I will
certainly say this: I am amazed at the tactics that have been adopted here by
the opponents of the Treaty who say: `Don't trust Lloyd George', `Don't trust
England or any English statesman', and, mind you, I greatly sympathise with
them, but when they want to overwhelm and crush us, they get up and read long
quotations from speeches of Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Worthington Evans,
and others I know nothing about. That strikes me as rather peculiar. I say here
as a lawyer that the slave mind seems very apparent there, where these men are
quoted, and their words apparently, regarded as binding on us, and that we
cannot go behind what they have said. I will certainly say this---I say I would
back the opinion of the Minister of Finance on constitutional law against any
Deputy who has spoken here, although one Deputy was held up as apparently the
only man who knew anything about constitutional law. I would stake the opinion
of the Minister of Finance before any tribunal, either national or
international. We are told that the English when they give us this Treaty will
humbug us, and that we won't be a match for them when it comes to framing a
Constitution. In my opinion the Treaty has brought us a complete surrender, or a
practically complete surrender, from England. Everything she said she would not
give she has given. The Constitution that will be framed under the Treaty will
be framed by Irishmen in Ireland, and the men who are able to meet Lloyd George,
Worthington Evans and the other English delegates over there, and beat them at
their own game, when it comes to framing a Constitution here I guarantee they
will be able to beat them at their own game again [hear, hear].
There was one point that was inclined to carry weight with me when I heard the
Treaty discussed. Great capital was made out of the fact that four coastal towns
would be reserved as naval bases. That is done in a clause of the Treaty. I
would like to know if the clause was not there what would be done. I have to
face my constituents again, although some people may never have to face theirs [laughter].
I want to know one bit of information, and part of it can be given by the
Minister of Finance, and portion by the Minister of Defence. The question I
would like to ask is: If we are to take over immediately all our own coastal
defences, I would like to know from the Minister of Defence whether and how we
are to raise the fortifications that will be necessary to defend the coast; and
what batteries, dreadnoughts, submarines, etc., will be necessary. When I have
got that information from the Minister of Defence I would like to ask the
Minister of Finance where the money is going to come from that is going to
provide them and carry on the work of the rest of the country [laughter
and applause]. This Treaty does not give us completely what we want, but
it brings us very near to what we want. I think that when division has come---
and there is no good in saying it has not come---when the Cabinet is divided and
the country is divided without any possibility of its being united in toto---where
you have 95 per cent. of the people wanting the Treaty---it is our duty and our
highest principle to accept the Treaty and work it. In a short time, by working
that Treaty, not only would 95 per cent. of the people be satisfied, but 100 per
cent.---the whole people of Ireland [applause].
MR. DONAL O'CALLAGHAN:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, is beag atá le rá agamsa. Leanfad
dea-shompla na ndaoine nár fhan abhfad ag labhairt iniu. Táimse, agus tá furmhór
na Dála, agus furmhór na ndaoine tuirseach de bheith ag eisteacht agus ag
leigheamh óráidí lucht na Dála. Nílimse chun óráid do dheanamh. Is beag atá le
rá agamsa ar fad. Like most members of the Dáil I am thoroughly wearied of
those speeches and appeals made on the question of the ratification or approval
of the Treaty, and I think so are the people of the country. For my part I shall
follow the example set to-day by, I think, most of the speakers, by being very
brief. I am not going to appeal to any member of the Dáil, or to seek to
influence the views of any member of the Dáil. I am concerned only with the
views of and the vote of one member of the Dáil, and that is myself. I rather
resent, myself, the series of lectures and appeals to which this House has been
treated by all, or both, sides in this matter. I take the view that every member
of the Dáil has sufficient brains and sufficient intelligence and a sufficient
conception of his responsibility from every point of view to decide for himself
or herself what the course of action to be taken is. There are just two things I
want to make clear, and I shall finish---my position for myself, and my position
with regard to the people I represent here. I may say, while I have deplored and
do deplore the keen difference of opinion--- the disruption---which has taken
place in our assembly, which was wont to be so harmonious, I deplore perhaps
still more the spirit in which it has been done. I deplore the fact that we, the
members of the Dáil, could not differ ---even on a question of the importance of
the present one---without introducing bitterness or ill-feeling, and without
charges or suggestions, either in public or in private. For my part, I take the
view, and I should be very sorry if I took any other, that every member of this
Dáil is actuated solely by a desire to do the best thing in the interests of
Ireland, and the best thing in conformity with his or her adherence to the ideal
of absolute Irish independence. I think it is perfectly clear that on no side of
this question is there a monopoly of patriotism, a monopoly of common sense. Why
we cannot here take different views without levelling charges at one another is
beyond me, and is one of the things I regret, at least as much if not more, than
the difference itself. To-day, while a member was speaking, I heard an
interruption from a member of the House near him. The Deputy was speaking
against the Treaty, and the member said: `The country will fix you, too'. Now I
say what my constituents will do to me is not a matter of indifference to me,
but it is not a consideration which can influence me in my action in this
matter. For my part, I am voting against the Treaty. I can not, in conscience,
do anything else. Now with regard to the result of that, and with regard to the
people whom I represent, I have had for some time the honour to represent the
people of Cork in more than one capacity. I represent them as the Lord Mayor of
Cork, and as the Chairman of their County Council, and I represent them here.
The people of Cork did not elect me to any of these positions because of any
ability of mine, real or supposed, or because of any statesmanship of mine, or
because of any political ability. They elected me simply and solely because I
believe in absolute freedom for Ireland, and because my views on that question
were well known and established. If the people of Cork have since changed their
minds---indeed I maintain the people of Ireland have not changed their
minds---but if they have decided, as is absolutely of course within their right,
that a halt may be made on the way, and that rather than hold out for the full
measure of Irish freedom, entailing as it probably would still further war and
suffering, I have no means of gathering that fact. I have no means, I repeat, in
the first instance, nor am I, no matter how my colleagues here may differ with
me, going to accept it, even if it were so available the people of Cork have the
right to decide that, and I here and now suggest, and I regret it has not been
suggested earlier, that the people of the country ought to be given a deciding
voice in this question. My position is probably, in this matter, the position of
many other members of the Dáil. I have no desire to record a vote if the people
who sent me here desire it to be otherwise; but if a vote be taken, and if no
other means be provided the electorate, I certainly, as an individual, cannot
cast my vote in any but one way. Then the electorate can only repudiate my
action and recall me or replace me. I, naturally, will be perfectly content to
abide by their decision, but that is my position. That is the position I state
to you and to the members of the House, and through you to my constituents. With
regard to my personal position, I regret the members of this House in favour of
the Treaty have not confined themselves to supporting the Treaty. I regret an
effort has been made pretty generally to establish the fact that this House as a
whole had agreed to accept something less than freedom. Now, a Chinn
Chomhairle,, it is of no importance, perhaps, to members of the House, but
it certainly is to me and to the people, or in my opinion to my constituents. I
want to make it clear here publicly at this Dáil that my views today---and in
this respect let me be absolutely fair to the members of this House who favour
the Treaty---are the same as when returned to this House. I do not mean to
suggest that the views of members who differ with me on this question are not
the same. I personally believe that they are in the main, if not entirely. At
all events my views are the same now as then, and nothing, a Chinn Chomhairle,
transpired at any meeting of this Dáil which justifies any other assertion. It
will be in the recollection of this House when, in the course of the
correspondence which preceded these negotiations, the British Prime Minister had
refused to accept the status which was laid down as necessary by our President
for our plenipotentiaries. When the President decided or suggested a particular
reply, before sending that reply a special meeting of the House was summoned,
and each member was supplied with a copy of the proposed reply. Furthermore, the
President himself read it, and directed the special attention of the House to
the now famous paragraph 2. He further impressed on the House before they agreed
that he should send that reply, that they should realise a possible and I think
he said a probable result would be the breaking off of negotiations and the
immediate renewal of war. There was not a suggestion that that reply should be
altered by even a comma. The House was unanimous. After deciding that, there was
a feeling of absolute relief in the House that there had been such a clear
decision taken. When at a later meeting of the Dáil the plenipotentiaries were
appointed, the one fact of all others which weighed with me was the possibility
of a compromise. In connection with the possibility of compromise was the
mention of one particular name. I mention it now without suggesting any
reproach---far be it from me---that was the Minister of Finance.
MR. M. COLLINS:
The Minister of Finance has not compromised.
MR. D. O'CALLAGHAN:
I do not mean a compromise in the sense of definitely deciding to change the
stand from the Republic, but to accept some thing less as a means to it. I want
to be absolutely fair to every man. I do not wish to suggest that any member
here has in any way acted in such a manner as would deserve reproach! I trust I
have said nothing that would in any way interfere with them. I certainly had no
intention of saying any thing that would hurt the Minister of Finance [hear,
hear]. I also make it clear that some of us in the Dáil have visualised
an independent Ireland. I have learned to-day, I must say with considerable
surprise, from one of my colleagues in the representation of Cork that he never
did. I can only say---
MR. J. J. WALSH:
That is not a correct interpretation of my speech.
MR. D. O'CALLAGHAN:
Very well, I withdraw it. For the rest, I regret very much the manner in
which public boards and other institutions through the country have been divided
up on this question. That there should be a division in this House is and would
be in itself regrettable. There was a hope that it might have ended there and
that division would not be forced through the country---but the country has been
lined up for and against. The people of the country, even those who desire the
Treaty ratified, are still keener about avoiding the return of days of internal
divisions and party turmoil. I think, and still hope, that such a result, which
would be so deplorable, may still be avoided, be the result what it may, for
some time at least. I would furthermore suggest to those in favour of
ratification that they should place it on record, saying that its acceptance by
those who favour it is based on the desire of the people that it be accepted,
and that their view also be placed on record in connection with it. That is,
formally, that they desire the ratification of the Treaty, not as a case of
absolute freedom, but that in view of the circumstances of the moment they
desire its ratification rather than embark at the moment again in war to secure
what remains, and what was withheld from them, of their liberty. I would ask
those in favour of ratification to place that on record because that is a fair
representation of those of our people who do desire ratification. For the rest I
will close by regretting the strained feelings which have been visible in this
House, and by hoping that when the vote has been taken here---if a vote be
taken, and if my suggestion for a plebiscite be not accepted---then at least the
bitterness and strained feeling and animosity that has so suddenly arisen in a
House where there was wont to be such friendship will end with the division [applause].
MR. M. COLLINS:
I will make a suggestion now whereby we can avoid a division. Rightly or
wrongly, Deputies or no Deputies, the Irish people have accepted this Treaty.
Rightly or wrongly, I say------
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
We do not know; how do you know? [Cries of They have, and counter-cries
of No, no; they have not.]
MR. M. COLLINS:
The noes are very feeble.
MR. D. CEANNT:
They are not.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I will make a suggestion which will not take away from the principle of any
person on your side------
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Is all this in order?
THE SPEAKER:
It is not. It can only be done by permission of the House.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I do not care whether it is in order or not. [Cries of Chair].
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I appeal to the Chair. Is it in order?
MR. M. COLLINS:
I have tried to do things for Ireland for the last couple of years; I am
trying to do this thing for Ireland now to avoid division [loud applause].
Are the Deputies going to listen to me or not? [Cries of Yes!].
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Chair, Chair.
THE SPEAKER:
If there is any objection------
MR. M. COLLINS:
My suggestion is------
MR. A. MACCABE:
In the interests of unity he should be heard, I think.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Quite so.
THE SPEAKER:
Members can only speak out of their turn by the courtesy of the Dáil.
MR. J. N. DOLAN:
I beg to move formally that permission be given to the Minister of Finance to
speak.
MR. D. O'CALLAGHAN:
I beg to second that. As something I have said may be taken differently, I
now wish to say that I have long since, before this House met, told the Minister
of Finance privately, and I now say it publicly, that when he arrived at the
point when he was satisfied to recommend the Treaty as the best thing in the
interests of Ireland, I quite realised the magnificent moral courage that
required from him. I told him that privately, I now say it publicly. I am not
aware of having said anything which would have riled him, or injured or hurt any
of his feelings.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I would suggest that you ask the President to give permission to the Minister
of Finance to speak.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
With all due respect, it is not the President can decide------
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
It is the Chair.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I have no objection, of course.
THE SPEAKER:
Permission is given, I take it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well, the suggestion is this: I have my own feelings about the Treaty. I have
feelings about it perhaps very much keener than Deputies who are against it.
Well, I believe that the Treaty was inevitable, and this is the suggestion: that
the men and women in the Dáil who are against the Treaty may continue to be
against the Treaty, but they need not cause a division in the Dáil, and they
need not cause it by falling in with this suggestion. We cannot be weaker if we
accept this Treaty, provided some of you---and I give you all the credit of
standing on principle and standing on nothing else against ourselves---as I have
said we cannot be weaker, and you cannot have compromised yourselves by allowing
this Treaty to go through; and I want to insist that, in my opinion, rightly or
wrongly, the Irish people have endorsed this Treaty. Now, if the Treaty is
rejected, what happens? The English are absolved from their bargain. You have
all said strong things against the English, but they will be absolved from their
bargain, and it is not a question of a Treaty or an alternative Treaty. There is
neither a Treaty nor an alternative Treaty in the circumstances, and I say the
opposition can redeem the country in that way, and they can take all the kudos.
They may have all the honour and glory, and we can have all the shame and
disgrace [applause].
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
What is the proposition?
MR. M. COLLINS:
That you allow the Treaty to go through and let the Provisional Government
come into existence, and if necessary you can fight the Provisional Government
on the Republican question afterwards.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
We will do that if you carry ratification, perhaps.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I thought you said ratification would be ultra vires.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is not ratification. There is a question whether approval is not in a
sense ratification. It is unfortunate that the papers of the country are taking
it up as ratification. It is a very strange thing we get a proposal like that
here, when it is obvious if you were to approve of the Treaty that very line of
policy could be followed, anyway; and when there is a suggestion to make a real
peace, a peace that we could all stand over, that simply because certain credits
were involved it should be turned down.
MR. J. N. DOLAN:
I rise to support the adoption of the motion by the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, and before going on to speak on the merits of the motion, I would like
to say that I am sorry our President has put the construction that he did on the
suggested way out---that way out that was suggested by the Minister of Finance.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
What way out?
MR. J. N. DOLAN:
He said that that course could be adopted when the Treaty was ratified; but
remember we are here faced with the possibility that this Treaty may be defeated
[hear, hear]. Then the point that the Minister of Finance makes
becomes a reality. The country has accepted the Treaty. [Cries of No!].
The country has accepted the Treaty, I say. [Cries of hear, hear, and No!].
What position then would this Dáil occupy? Where is your constitutional usage or
your democratic government? Where is your Republic? Where is government by the
consent of the governed?
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
Wait for the next election.
MR. J. N. DOLAN:
I have listened to all the arguments that have been advanced against the
ratification of this Treaty, and I must say they have all left me cold. I
expected when the Lord Mayor of Cork rose to support the rejection of the Treaty
that he, at least, would have some sensible alternative proposal. He had not.
There is no alternative to this Treaty, as all the speakers on the other side
have plainly pointed out, but chaos, and a gamble and a chance. There is a good
deal of good---there is very much good in the Articles of Agreement that are
embodied in this Treaty. I stand for this Treaty then, knowing all the
circumstances that I do, knowing what led up to the negotiations when we sent
our plenipotentiaries to London. I stand for it on its merits, and I say that in
the knowledge of all these circumstances our plenipotentiaries have done
exceptionally well. It is to the substance of what they have brought back I
allude; and I say when you examine this Treaty and visualise the possibilities
in working it, there is a big substance in it, and there are great possibilities
of developing it for the Irish nation. As some of the other speakers have said,
our ideal shall be a Gaelic State. There is nothing in this Treaty to prevent us
building up from within, and developing under our own constitutional usage to
the advantage--- and to the sole advantage---of the whole people of Ireland. It
is said we will be dominated by English interference in the working out of our
Constitution. It is said that certain things in this Treaty mean an advantage to
England. But what I say and believe is that the men who frame the Constitution,
and afterwards the men who work the Constitution, will say we shall interpret
all these things in the Irish way to the benefit of the people of Ireland that
we are serving here in this legislature. Now, it is said England is conferring
on us concessions by this Treaty. I say by this Treaty England is abdicating the
grip and the hold that she had on all our life here in Ireland, and she is
withdrawing her armed forces from our midst. I see big possibilities in the
carrying out of our Constitution, when our Irish soldiers are protecting that
Constitution within even the strict limits of the Treaty. In fact---I am not
speaking of law, I do not want to get up against Mr. Childers, because I am not
a lawyer---but in fact we have in the body of this Treaty sovereign status. It
remains for us to grasp the good that is in the Treaty. Have the courage to go
in and use it. Have the courage to undertake the development of our country, and
to make it possible for our country to advance still further to the goal that is
now before her. There has been great play made about the words internal and
external association. I see and realise the difference, but in the alternative
proposals where external association is mentioned it is not stated by those who
advance that argument that our delegates pleaded, worked, and worked
energetically for external association, and it was turned down, as the isolated
independent Republic was also turned down. Our plenipotentiaries had to face
facts, and facing these facts---I say it deliberately---they interpreted as
fairly as it was possible for ordinary human beings the instructions that we
know they got, those of us who have read the Cabinet records. There was great
play also made of the objectionable features of the Treaty. One of them that was
mentioned to me---I have not heard any speaker refer to it at all---was what a
terrible thing it was that we undertook to pay the pensions of the old R.I.C.
Well, I think when the Minister of Finance is the Paymaster of the old R.I.C.
they will be much safer in his hands than if they were paid by external
association.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. J. N. DOLAN:
Speaker after speaker on the other side has got up and stated they were
elected here on a particular mandate, and that so far as they were concerned
they had not changed, and that until the mandate was withdrawn from them they
could not see their way to make what they call a compromise on the Irish
Republic. It has been stated over and over again, and we all know that it is
ridiculous for those men to say that there was no compromise, that there was no
lowering of the mandate, or no lowering of our declared principles, so to say,
when we agreed to send plenipotentiaries to London to negotiate some kind of
association with the British Empire. One Deputy said his conscience was eased by
some particular clause in a formula that was read to him. It is not of formulas
I am speaking now. I wish to refer him to facts. Was not he a party, and was not
every man in the Dáil a party to the fact of sending our plenipotentiaries to
London to negotiate some kind of association with the British Empire? I do not
look upon this Treaty as final and everlasting. I recognise that all countries
are developing, and I look on this as only a stage in the development of
Ireland. I believe in the saying that `no man has the right', et cetera.
Now let us, in the name of God, lay aside all this talk of formulas and face
facts. Look at the facts and realise what facts will be staring us in the face
if the Treaty is rejected. Realise the chaos in the country, and realise the
possibilities of the future. Let us then go in and grasp this opportunity; use
it for all it is worth, and let no man here attempt to put a stop to the onward
march of the nation. [Applause].
MR. FRANK FAHY:
Just a personal point I would like to introduce. If any words of mine could
bear the interpretation that any of the plenipotentiaries were followers of the
Welsh Wizard, I beg to withdraw those words, and say I never meant any such
thing. I would be very sorry to say it of any member of the Dáil or of any of
the plenipotentiaries. I accept fully the explanation of the Assistant Minister
for Local Government that he was present at the meetings of the Cabinet by the
express orders of the President. I am sorry for the statement made that he was
there by act of grace.
MR. M. P. COLIVET:
I am going to be as short as I possibly can. If I wished I could spend about
two hours raising points about this Treaty, but, in the first place, I would
have you all bored to death, and, in the second place, there would be very
little chance of changing any man's opinion [laughter]. The
country seems to require that each of the Teachtaí should give some reasons why
he is voting in the particular way he thinks on the subject. Another reason why
I do not wish to go into debating points is this: there are, in the main, two
sets of interpretations to be taken of this Treaty. One is what I might call the
interpretation of the Irish point of view, and the other the Imperial point of
view. In debating against the Treaty it would be my business to examine how far
the imperialists could drag or interpret the points of that Treaty to their
views, and to point that out as the effect of the Treaty. In so doing I would,
in the possibility of this Treaty being passed, be piling up munitions for the
common enemy, and if this Treaty does pass it would be to our interest and to
our ambition to see, if there is any interpretation at all, the Irish
interpretation wins [hear, hear]. Much has been said about
constituents. As far as my constituents are concerned, what I do here is a
question between me and them, and concerns no other member of the Dáil, and I am
prepared to settle with them what I do here. I was selected on the principle of
the Republic. The Republic was formally declared three years ago, and for three
years has been functioning to such an extent that not only have soldiers and
policemen, but men of our own race, as spies, met their deaths on the moral
authority of that Government. I am now asked to throw out the Republican
Government and accept the status of a Dominion within the British Empire. Many
men can find it within themselves to reconcile such with their previous views
and opinions whether they were expressed in oaths or in any other form
whatsoever. That is their business. I am only concerned with mine, and my point
of view is, I cannot do that thing. I have declared myself a Republican, and
have been elected a Republican, and I will never willingly become a subject of
the British Empire. I do not put forward my conscience or judgment as
infallible. Probably the judgment and conscience of the plenipotentiaries and
those voting with them may, in history, prove to be sound; but sound or unsound,
I am only responsible for acting on my own, and I am not going to be swayed from
that by any cloud raised by the national Press as regards such words as
`government by the consent of the governed'. I thought we had left all these
catch-cries behind. `Government by consent of the governed'. Self-determination,
to my mind, means this: that the people will be asked to say what they want,
with the firm understanding that what they say they want they will get.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
Give them a chance.
MR. M. P. COLIVET:
It is a question now of `Will you have this or not? If you do not, you will
get a rap on the nut'. Is that self-determination? I do not regard it as such.
If the people say they want the Treaty because the result will be war, that is
not self-determination. Call a spade a spade, but that is not
self-determination. In reading over the speeches of the last Session there was
one reference in a letter addressed to the Chairman of the plenipotentiaries by
Mr. Lloyd George in which he referred to the pledge given in respect of the
minority by the head of the Irish plenipotentiaries. `The framing of the
Constitution will be in the hands of the Irish Government subject, of course, to
the terms of the agreement, and to the pledges given in respect of the minority
by the head of the Irish Delegation'. On reading that I could not remember of
any explanation being given. Perhaps it was given. I would like that, at an
early stage, the Chairman of the plenipotentiaries would inform us what these
pledges are. They may not be of any importance or relevant to what we are
discussing. I think we should know if there is anything else besides this Treaty
which we would be bound by. Let us know what are the personal pledges he has
given, and which, I presume, if the Treaty is passed, he will endeavour to point
out to a future Government. [Applause].
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
I have listened to this debate ever since it started, and I never heard
anything so unreal. There are three parties in the Dáil. There are the
uncompromising Republicans, the Treaty party, and the Document No 2 party. The
uncompromising Republicans can no more support President de Valera than us------
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Let them judge for themselves.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
I went to the country during the Christmas recess and consulted with my
constituents as to their views about the Treaty. I have got a unanimous vote
from my Comhairle Cennntair. They asked me what President de Valera's
alternative was, and I was tongue-tied---the President had me tongue-tied. I say
it is a grave injustice to the country that I and men like me, trying to argue
for the Treaty, are being tongue-tied. There was some opinion in the country
that President de Valera had some mysterious card up his sleeve. Every member of
the Dáil knows there is not.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
May I be permitted to give an explanation? I am ready at any time to move
Document No. 2 as an amendment.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
I am only pointing out------
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am ready at any time to make that proposition publicly, and then you will
see whether any uncompromising Republicans will support it or not. It is very
important that there should be no misrepresentation.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
I deliberately refrained from dealing with Document No. 2. I am giving my own
opinions as a member of the Dáil. I am not mentioning any clauses.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is to suit the will of the other side.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
It is not to suit the will of the other side that Document No. 2 was kept
from the public.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
You asked for a straight vote on the Treaty. I am ready at any time to make
my proposals in public in substitution for your Treaty.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
Our position in the country is absolutely artificial, because the country
does not know what we are rejecting as an alternative, and I have found that out
all along. We have had duress hurled at us. I say the real duress is that any
part of Ireland is left out of the Irish nation. The people in my county care
nothing about formulas or oaths; they do care a lot about Ulster being kept out.
That is the biggest question. Anything that ever mattered to the people of
Ireland was the unity of Ireland, and I was surprised to hear Deputies getting
up and talking about Mr. Griffith and the Southern Unionists. We want the
Southern Unionists and we want every Irishman [hear, hear]. I
never believed more in Mr. Arthur Griffith and never believed him to be more of
a statesman than when he sent his message to the Southern Unionists [hear,
hear]. The Southern Unionists are Irishmen, and, as Parnell once said,
we need every Irish man. These people have been in a false environment. They are
not English anyway, and it is for us to win them if we can, and if any man gets
up and tries to draw them nearer to Ireland he is a statesman and should not be
criticised [hear, hear]. I resent the remarks made by the Minister
of Agriculture that the opinion behind this Treaty in the country is
manufactured. The men I went to when I was down in Westmeath were the men who
gave me loyal support ever since I went on the run, and I can also say they gave
loyal support to Sinn Fein. They were men who suffered most---Volunteer
Officers, and not Southern Unionists or Nationalists either. They are all
Irishmen who believe in ultimate Irish freedom. They do not care a whole lot
about formulas. When I went through Westmeath we never talked about theoretical
Republics. We said we were out for getting Ireland into the hands of the Irish [hear,
hear]. We stood where we did to get Ireland into the hands of the Irish.
If the Mikado of Japan came over, it did not matter so long as Ireland belonged
to the people of Ireland. The people of Westmeath do not care twopence about
theoretical Republicanism, and neither do I. They had certain ideas in their
minds, but they had one great idea; they want England out and Ireland in; that
is their idea [applause]. And any man who comes along to them and
talks about about a Workers' Republic, a theoretical Republic, or the nebulous
Republic that we thought we had for the last two years, is talking foolishly.
They do not understand. What the people of Ireland want is getting the soil of
Ireland back to the hands of the people of Ireland, and they believe in getting
the foreigners out and our own people in. Nothing else matters to them or ever
did matter to them. That is what they always wanted. You would think by the talk
of some people that we had a Republic here for 750 years. Red Hugh and Sarsfield
were ex-officers of the British army. Tone was a member of the United Irishmen
which was at one time, and was all along, a constitutional movement, and he
became a Republican because he thought there was no other way out to freedom.
Owen Roe was prepared to make a Treaty with the Puritans. The Irish Federation
with Davis and Mitchell was prepared to accept the King, Lords and Commons of
Ireland. The Republic of Ireland is only two years old, and it was a very weak
infant all the time. I was working for it, and I know how it was able to
function. Some people think that because they got up in January, 1919, Ireland
was a Republic. For God's sake get back to facts. We were able to hold on by the
skin of our teeth, and we are taking this Treaty because we could not hold out
twelve months longer, and right well every man in the Dáil knows it. We have
never been offered an alternative to the Treaty. We are not told how we can
obtain freedom except by accepting the Treaty and making it better. Damn
principles, but give us Irish freedom by any road we can get it. That is my
view, and it is the view of the average man in the country. You would think we
were a crowd of theologians instead of Irishmen [hear, hear]. How
are we to win freedom except by taking the Treaty and making the best we can of
it? The people of the country have their own plain views about Irish history,
and I must say, with all respect to the Dáil, they have ten times the brains and
wisdom of the Dáil [laughter and applause]. They know the
realities of Irish Freedom. They know every time we rose in our history we were
fighting an all-powerful enemy with inadequate weapons. They believe we are
going to get an Irish Army and that we can make the best armed small army in
Europe. It is not often I agree with the Countess, but she said a thing I quite
agree with, and it was this: `England would not give this Treaty if she could
avoid doing so'. Lord Salisbury laid down a principle: `What England gives in
her weakness she takes back in her strength'. I myself have a dash of English
blood in me. I quite agree England will take back this if she can. I will give
my reasons why I vote for the Treaty. I do not care threepence about so-called
oaths. I believe in ultimate Irish freedom. I am voting for the Treaty because
we are getting an Irish army, and if we get an Irish army armed to the teeth, it
is for England if she wants to take it back to take back the Treaty by force of
arms; that is why I am voting for the Treaty. [Applause].
MR. EAMONN DEE:
I am against the ratification of the Treaty on several grounds, one of which
is that it is a permanent barrier against the unity of Ireland. I am a
Republican and I can not swear fealty or allegiance to the British King. I
object to the clauses in the Treaty pertaining to naval defence, submarine
cables, wireless stations in time of peace or war. I also oppose the Treaty
because of the partitioning of Ireland. As Deputy Sean MacEntee has said, it
leaves a permanent barrier against the unity of Ireland. I object to the Treaty
because of the liability for the British National Debt; but the main objection I
have to ratification is because of the fact of swearing fealty to the English
King. I believe and regard the Treaty as an ignoble document, unworthy and
inconsistent with our national ideals. Now the Anglo-Irish Conference, as you
are aware, sat in London. We understood that the two nations were going into
that Conference with a certain independent status, and for the express purpose
of a settlement of the age-long difference. This would have been achieved on
voluntary and reciprocal lines, but what happened was this: the Irish Delegation
signed the Treaty under a threat of force and under duress, a distinct
violation, to my mind, of the Truce, and that destroyed the hope of a friendly
acceptance of the Treaty by the people of Ireland. Much criticism has been made
of the Irish Delegation both individually and collectively. I am not going to
criticise them at all because I firmly believe they tried to do their best. But
what I will do is criticise them in conjunction with the British Delegation---criticise
the Anglo-Irish Conference as a body. I believe they missed the supreme
opportunity of settling the Irish question for ever. The blame for failure rests
on the shoulders of the English representatives in the Conference, for, instead
of rising to the plane of a voluntary and reciprocal agreement on which our
delegation stood, they succeeded in forcing our representatives down to
Britain's customary materialistic level where the hopes and the wishes of both
countries were wrecked in dishonour and disgrace. The next step was when the
Treaty, signed in London, was placed before you for consideration. The
pro-Treaty Deputies place eulogies upon it. They told you the reason they signed
it was because of the terrors of immediate and terrible war. The Press took up
the cry, and then we have heard the changes being rung on this threat of
terrible and immediate war. That went on until our Speaker, Deputy Eoin MacNeill,
went speaking from the body of the House and made reference to the fact that the
appeal to force was a bad argument, and then I noticed both the Press, the
country and the Deputies here dropped the use of this threat of war, and they
refer to it now as that it will bring chaos upon the country. Deputy Etchingham
gave us a very lucid description of the meaning of the word `fealty', and I
would suggest he would take up the meaning of the word `chaos', and search in
Webster's Dictionary for the various meanings of the word `chaos'. As regards
the reference to substance and shadow, I think Deputy Miss MacSwiney dealt very
clearly with that when she described one as expediency and the other as
principle. The next thing in connection with the Treaty was where they described
it as a bird in the hand, and praised it so highly, I thought it was a Bird of
Paradise with lovely green, white and gold plumage. Then the anti-Treaty
Deputies began to criticise it, and judging from what they said, they thought it
was not a bird at all---at least not yet. It was only an egg, originating in the
British Cabinet, and classified in accordance with the oath of fidelity as
belonging to the order of the O.B.E. The Governor General will assist at the
hatching-out process in the Irish Free State, and it might produce an ugly
duckling, not a game chicken anyway. The Anglo-Irish Conference missed the
greatest opportunity in modern history because they failed to give effect to the
principles of self-determination which the great war so clearly emphasised as a
world demand. A world conference is being held in Paris this month to uphold it.
The political philosophy of Europe to-day is Machiavelian and Troitsekean, which
means political cunning and bad faith combined with the unscrupulous use of
force, and England in Europe to-day is its outstanding protagonist as far as
Ireland is concerned. But England's day of reckoning is not distant. If she
wishes friendly relations with Ireland it must be on voluntary and reciprocal
lines. Britain will have to settle the Irish question according to the true
wishes of the Irish nation, or the Irish question, as General Smuts has said,
will settle the Empire. The Irish question is to-day a world question, a great
human question. For centuries we have been, and we are to-day, allies of all the
oppressed peoples of the earth. Our fight for freedom and against oppression has
given them heart and courage. We have no quarrel with any other nation but
Britain, and we owe no ill-will to any other nation. All Ireland wants, as
President de Valera stated, is to be allowed to live her own life in peace, with
freedom to accomplish her own destiny. With our national freedom will come power
to help to secure, in conjunction with other Christian countries, world peace
and prosperity for all the suffering peoples on the earth. Ireland's glorious
mission is to help to spiritualise and to civilise the world. When Ireland
secures true freedom she will rise to the spiritual and intellectual heights
which she attained in the 14th century, when she gave to Europe at her best, and
adopted from other countries that which she found worth adopting. This Treaty
will not bring peace. Fealty to Britain's King symbolises the shackles of
slavery. The manhood and womanhood of Ireland repudiates it. Fling it back in
the faces of those who falsely said they wished this age-long difference between
the Irish and the British peoples ended. The one vital issue---the right of
Ireland to full national freedom---they burked and declined to face though that
would have solved the difficulty for all time. They were not great enough to
trust themselves; they were not honest enough to trust Ireland; and now the only
thing for British statesmen to do is to play the role of political hypocrites
before the world and endeavour to still further fool Ireland and to fool the
world. Reject this ignoble document and keep the Republican flag flying and
refuse to fasten the chains of slavery and fealty on the proud spirit of the
unconquered Irish nation. [Applause].
ALDERMAN SEAN MACGARRY:
I am going to endeavour to make a record for brevity. I am supporting the
motion for ratification of the Treaty and I make no apology to anybody for doing
so. I did not wait until I became a member of this Dáil to become a Republican.
I have worked in the Republican movement for twenty years. I am a Republican
to-day and I will be a Republican to-morrow. I vote for the Treaty as it stands.
For that I do not need the opinion of a constitutional lawyer or a
constitutional layman or a Webster's Dictionary or a Bible to tell me what it
means. I put on it the interpretation of the ordinary plain man who means what
he says. I am not looking for any other interpretation from Webster's Dictionary
or anywhere else. I know what the Treaty means, and the man in the street knows
what it means. I vote for it as it stands. We all know what it is. I do not see
any reason for any argument, or making a pretence that it is less than what it
is. I realise what its acceptance means, and I also realise what its rejection
would mean, and it is because I realise these things that I am voting for it. If
I did not realise them I would probably be voting against it. I do not want to
make this an excuse for voting for it. Another thing is this: I feel as much
committed to the ratification of the document as if my signature were on it and
I will tell you why. I want to bring you back to the meeting of the Dáil when
the Gairloch correspondence was read, and when President de Valera gave us an
interpretation of what the oath meant to him, and Deputy Miss MacSwiney---she
will correct me if I am wrong---I can recall the impression she made on me. I
think, if I am not mistaken, she challenged the members of the Dáil that if
there was anything in the nature of a compromise, or some thing less than a
Republic contemplated, to say so, or else for ever more to hold their tongues.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
I think I said that outside the Dáil. I was told the negotiations meant
compromise and therefore, inside the Dáil, I begged to be informed if they meant
compromise. I did not think so, but outside the Dáil I was told they did mean
compromise; I was assured they did not.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
I did not hear any assurance given. She challenged the members of the Dáil to
speak then or for ever hold their tongues. The members did not speak then, but
God knows they made up for it since [laughter and applause]. If
talking would have got us a Republic we would have it last week [laughter].
What did we think we were sending to Downing Street for? Did any of us think we
were going to get an Irish Republic in Downing Street?
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Of course you could.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
A Downing Street made Republic? [Laughter].
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
No, a Downing Street withdrawal from Ireland.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
Downing Street are withdrawing from Ireland.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
No, they are not.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
Several Deputies protested very strongly and very loudly that they were
standing on the bedrock of the Irish Republic. A week before they were standing
on the slippery slopes---to borrow a phrase of the Minister of Finance---the
slippery slopes of Document No. 2. Document No. 2 was pulled from under their
feet and landed them with what must have been an awful jerk on the bedrock of
the Irish Republic. They will be standing on that until the proper time---I mean
the time when Document No. 2, or perhaps Document No. 3 will be given to us.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
You can have it immediately if you like---whatever your side agrees.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
There has been theorising in some of the speeches made here by Deputies about
Government by the consent of the governed---self-determination. You can have
government in Ireland to-day by consent of the governed with this Treaty. You
can have self-extermination without it; but you cannot have war without the
consent of the Irish people. And the only reason you carried on war for the last
two years was because you had the consent of the people. Several other Deputies
talk about going back to war. I put it to them now they believe they are not
going back to war. They are gambling, they know they are gambling, and they
think they are gambling on a certainty. I have done a little bit of gambling
myself---not very much---but I was never on a certainty yet that did not let me
down [laughter and applause]. They are quite right, they are not
going back to war; they are going back to destruction [hear, hear].
I think it was the President quoted the famous dictum of Parnell, that no man
can set bounds to the march of a nation. Parnell said a lot of wise things.
Parnell never said anything wiser than that. No man, or body of men, can set
bounds, or should attempt it. There were two factors in Ireland within the last
hundred years that set bounds to the march of the Irish nation---the British
Army and British control of every nerve of our national life, education,
finance, customs and excise. They set bounds to the nation's progress. Now it is
the people who vote against the Treaty are setting bounds to the march of the
nation's progress. I do not like talking about this question of oaths, because
you are tempted to say things which you might be sorry for. But I would like to
ask the Minister of Defence whether he has had, or has still in the l.R.A.,
people who have already sworn allegiance to the King, as soldiers of the British
Army? They have done good work, and we did not ask them when they were joining
up: `What about the other oath?'
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
And some of them are in their graves.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
I am sorry to have to refer to the dead. Several Deputies have come to me and
told me I was letting down the dead I worked with for very many years. One said:
`You worked with so-and-so for many heart-breaking years when to be called a
Republican was to be called a fool'. I say no man of all the dead who died for
Ireland was ever in this position. Would to God the men I worked with had to
face this proposition and I believe they would be with us to-day [hear,
hear]. The Deputy for Kildare, the Minister of Agriculture, quoted today
a passage from the work of James Connolly. I am sorry Deputy Childers is not
here because I wanted to ask him why he did not insist on the whole document
being read. The Minister of Agriculture read a passage from Labour in
Ireland------
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I did not read anything from Labour in Ireland.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
Well, I beg his pardon. He certainly did say that James Connolly said: `In
this, as in the political and social world generally, the thing that matters
most is not so much the extent of the march, but the direction in which we are
marching'.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Correct.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
These are words of James Connolly, the man who, twenty years ago, taught me
to be a Republican. He probably taught Republicanism from a different angle,but
he was always a Republican. But the Minister of Agriculture did not tell us
that, when Connolly wrote that, he was enthusing about the Local Government Act
of 1898. Is the Local Government Act of 1898 better or worse than this is now? I
am going to conclude. I think it was Charles Lamb told us about the Chinaman who
burned his house to roast a pig. He at least had something to say for himself.
After all it was his own house, and he got roast pig [applause].
Then again I heard about Samson. The Deputy from Wicklow might tell us more
about that [laughter]. It was Samson who pulled down the pillars
of the Temple. That was his funeral. I do not want to attend the funeral of the
Irish nation. [Applause].
The House adjourned until 11 o'clock on Wednesday morning.
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION Wednesday, January 4th, 1922
THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) took the Chair at 11.15 a. m.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
When speaking yesterday I made use of the words `the supporters of the Welsh
Wizard'. I admit that these words may bear the interpretation put upon them by
the chairman of the plenipotentiaries. I did not see it at the time. What I
meant by that reference was the supporters of the English Prime Minister in the
English Press. I did not for a moment mean to suggest that there were any
supporters or followers of the Welsh Wizard in this assembly, because if anyone
outside this assembly or inside it suggested such I would deal with them as
sternly as is in my power.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
I am quite satisfied that Mr. Fahy did not intend to convey the impression
that his words gave at the time.
MR. DONAL BUCKLEY (KILDARE):
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, I will begin by asking what
was the mandate we, the members of the Dáil, got from our constituents in the
last election ? I know the mandate I got anyhow was to look for freedom, to
strive for freedom for the country. When the plenipotentiaries left Ireland for
the last time I presume they had in their possession a document in which was
stated the minimum demand Ireland was to make on England, and coming up to the
last moment on the eve of the morning on which that document was signed there
was a threat held over the heads of these delegates. If there was a threat, the
object of it must have been to minimise that demand that they had in their
possession---that they were about to make. It is admitted that the threat was
made. Therefore I conclude that the minimum demand which they had in their
possession when they left Ireland must have been minimised before these Articles
of Agreement were signed. Therefore they must have been signed for something
less than freedom for Ireland to my mind. How can it be said that we have
freedom if we picture to ourselves John Bull standing four square in this
country of ours, with a crúb of his firmly fastened in each of our
principal ports? We are told that in each of these ports there will be what is
called a `care and maintenance party'---a very nice mild term. What does it
really mean---this care and maintenance party? It means a British Garrison in
each of these ports with the Union Jack---the symbol of oppression and treachery
and slavery in this country, and all over the world, in Ireland
especially---that this symbol of slavery will float over each of these
strongholds, blockhouses of John Bull. Yet we are told we are getting freedom in
these Articles of Agreement. I recall to mind one incident that happened during
the last election whilst I was addressing a meeting in my constituency. A few of
the khaki-clad warriors had fastened a Union Jack to a lamp post right beside
the platform from which I was to address the meeting, and I remember stating
distinctly to that assembly that I would not rest satisfied until every vestige
of that rag was cleared out of the country. The assembly agreed with me, and
before the words were scarcely out of my mouth a rush was made by half-a-dozen
boys from the crowd and although the flag was defended by seven or eight of the
warriors that flag was torn down. How can it be said that we are going to have
freedom with this document when the flag which symbolises slavery continues to
float all over the country, here, there and everywhere, not alone in these four
ports, but wherever there is a signal station or any other sort of station
belonging to the British? The people of Ireland at this juncture have been
stampeded by the rotten Press of Ireland. Lloyd George is rubbing the palms of
his hands and laughing, I doubt not, at the spectacle which is anything but
creditable to Ireland that has made such a fight up to this. To my mind the
country wants a tonic of some sort to set it thinking. The country is not
thinking. It has been stampeded and it now seeks to stampede its
representatives. Well there is one representative anyway that won't be
stampeded. I stand to-day for the same object for which I stood on the platform
through out my constituency and for the same object for which my constituents
elected me and I mean to continue so. I shall vote against the Treaty. [Applause].
MR. A. MACCABE (SLIGO):
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, tá níos mó ná beagáinín le rá
agamsa ar an gceist seo, agus caithfe me labhairt as Bearla. In saying that
I have decided to vote for this Treaty I think I should personally express my
regret at finding myself in opposition to many of the leaders who piloted the
national cause through the storms of the last five or six years. It is certainly
no pleasure to us on this side of the House to stand up and declare ourselves in
opposition to one especially who, in the eyes of the great majority of our
countrymen, symbolises a national ideal. But in this cause no feeling of
personal admiration, of personal animus either, can be allowed to influence our
judgment or prevent us doing our duty to the people that sent us here. My duty
at the moment I consider to be to examine the Treaty on its merits, and to
decide, quite irrespective of the circumstances attending its signature, whether
it was a settlement the country could honourably and profitably accept. I have
come to the conclusion that it is, and I am going to vote for it. My action in
doing so is governed by two considerations. The first is that the Treaty
represents goods delivered and not promised to us---goods that we all know were
never offered or, indeed, seriously asked for before. The second is that, as a
matter of expediency, it is better to take these than run the risk of war or
chaos and all that it means to our people and the prosperity of the country.
Now, before going on to discuss the value of the goods delivered, and the
advisability or otherwise of accepting them, which are really the only questions
that matter---or at least, should matter---I should like to explain my position
regarding the Republic. It is this: I regard the oath as a binding obligation on
me to use every endeavour to secure the realisation of the ideal. It never, in
my mind, barred any particular methods of achieving it, nor did it specifically
mention the methods advocated by the opposition. To me, recognition of Irish
nationality and the securing of practically complete control of our Army and
natural resources which this Treaty brings us, are things that no Republican in
his sober moments could or should refuse to accept. It will be said, of course,
that in voting for the Treaty we are abandoning our principles, that we are
breaking our oath, that we are betraying the Republic, that we, in fact, are
guilty of all the sins in the calendar. For my part I don't mind what anybody
says or thinks about me as long as I do my duty to the country, and my
conscience is clear. But the opponents of this Treaty should remember that there
are other principles and ideals involved in the issue besides Republicanism.
There is, for instance, the ideal of a peaceful and happy Ireland, or that no
less dearly cherished one of a united Ireland. There is government by the
consent of the governed on which we took our stand throughout this war. Then
what about the principles of Christianity? Are they worth any consideration?
After the sermon addressed to the sinners on this side of the House by my old
and, I must say, sincere friend, Deputy Etchingham, I take it; that his
disciples, including his no less ardent acolytes, are familiar with the
Commandments on which the principles of their religion are based.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
Arran Islands.
MR. MACCABE:
I surrender that to the opposition for external association in connection
with the Free State. How many of them, I wonder, could stand up in this House
and say they have never violated any of the Commandments? This is not a Webster,
nor a text-book of international law, but it is the law the opposition is
appealing to against this Treaty. The book has no high-sounding title. At school
we used to call it the "Halfpenny Catechism." I'll read out the Ten
Commandments, as by law established, as Moses would have added were he a
constitutional lawyer, to Teachtaí opposed to the Treaty, and any of them who
have never violated the principles for which they stand are at liberty to make
themselves seen and heard. I see none of you have stood up to protest your
innocence. It is as I thought: no one on the opposition side denies having
offended against fundamental principles of the law my friend, Deputy Sean
Etchingham, would have us, on this side, observe to the letter. I'm not saying,
mind, that it should not be the law, but I maintain that, in their attitude to
the Treaty, if they take the Ten Commandments as the law, they are no less
principled than we are. If they succeed in having the Treaty rejected, they set
aside every religious and political principle I know of, for they propose to
accept as final a settlement that will not bring us a Republic; they postpone
for generations, perhaps, the realisation of the ideal of a united Ireland, and
they gamble recklessly on the lives and welfare of four and a half million
people. As to the oath, all I can say is that it is unpalatable to me---it is, I
believe, to us all. Nor do I like the idea of being associated internally or
externally with a man eater; but I am prepared to take the Treaty for what it is
worth, and as a stepping stone to getting more. Now I candidly do not believe
that any of us are saints, not even my friend who gave the sermon a few days
ago. This world is no place for saints, and the Church wisely refrains from
canonising anybody whilst he or she is in this life. If the Commandments were
the principles upon which international relations were grounded the attitude of
the opposition to this Treaty would be the correct one, even though it might not
be the honest one. But the trouble is that nations like individuals have
different sets of principles, and interpret or disregard them just as it suits
their circumstances. The British for instance, murder Indians on principle, and
the great audience outside says "Amen." The Kaiser and his opponents sent armies
to the shambles for a principle. East Ulster refuses, at least for the time
being, to come into Ireland on principle. We could make a very plausible case
for decimating the population of the corner counties on principle but our
Christianity and the good sense of the President and his Cabinet forbid it. On
principle, too, Miss MacSwiney would have the whole population of Ireland wiped
out of existence, man, woman, and child.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
I beg your pardon. I never said anything of the kind. It is only on the
principle of which I spoke that you can avoid wiping them out of existence.
MR. MACCABE:
She would not leave us even a grasshopper [Laughter]. That is
the inference I drew from her speech, and I think most of the House drew the
same inference from her speech.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Then I say if that is so the intelligence as well as the principle is on our
side of the House [Laughter and applause].
MR. MACCABE:
Thanks. [Renewed Laughter]. We see here the abyss into which a
blind and reckless pursuit of one principle leads and the danger to any nation
of having people of such mentality in charge of its destinies. It may be that
Miss MacSwiney's mind and outlook are distorted by the terrible experiences she
has passed through. If so there is some excuse for------
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Again I protest against my name being used in that connection. I did not, and
will not, use it myself in that connection. I did not bring anything of my
personal experiences into my public speech here. I protest and ask the
protection of the Dáil against any member using my name in such a connection [to
Mr. MacCabe] and besides I assure you that I am quite sane on the point.
MR. MACCABE:
Am I in order, a Chinn Chomhairle?
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Not in using my name.
MR. MACCABE:
I just used the subject matter of your speech.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Leave out my experiences.
MR. MACCABE:
From the inference I drew from the speech I can regard it as her suggestion
that Ireland should fight to a finish even though half of the population were
wiped out. That is nothing less than a criminal incitement to national suicide,
whatever you (Miss MacSwiney) may think of it. I think it is quite evident to
anyone who studies history that principle plays a very small part in
international politics. And before we embark on a crusade to have the Ten
Commandments written into international law I'd suggest that we try to have some
of the Teachtaí whom we have heard speak against the Treaty converted to
Christianity. The awkward fact at the moment is, that despite anything we can do
or say in Dáil Eireann, the politics of the world are being, and will continue
to be, dictated by expediency. I am voting for the Treaty for reasons of
expediency and I consider, even though I were violating a principle, that it is
my bounden duty to do so. Most of us are new to politics, and we do not realise
the responsibilities of the office we hold. If we did the interests of the
country and the lives of our people would come first in our consideration, and
our principles and religious scruples long afterwards. There is another aspect
of the campaign that is being carried on against this Treaty which I would like
to refer to, while on this point of principle. It is the exploitation of the
dead; and for the sake of their memory as well as in the interests of truth I
beg to protest against it. I knew a number of these splendid men in their
lifetime, amongst them Tom Clarke, the first President-elect of the Irish
Republic. I agree with what Mrs. Clarke has said---that be would have voted
against it. But he could not be expected to do otherwise considering that he
worked almost alone for a lifetime to keep the flame burning. I also knew
Terence MacSwiney very intimately, and I knew him as a sound Republican. I don't
believe that he, or any of his comrades, would have died for Document No. 2, if
it came to a choice between itself and the Treaty, nor, what is more, do I
believe that he would sacrifice the whole population of Ireland on the altar of
his principles. Now, nobody objects to people voting against the Treaty because
they have a personal grievance against England, but I do suggest that it is
unfair asking other people to vote for their grievance, for this is what it
really amounts to. Is it not enough to have eight, nine or ten votes as the case
may be, but not sufficient anyhow to defeat the Treaty, cast on this personal
issue? Where does the country come in? I would remind all these Teachtaí who
have such grievances that they were not sent here to avenge the wrongs committed
in the war, but to secure an honourable peace, and I hold that this is an
honourable peace, for when the honours are counted up they are all on our side.
It is England that has surrendered, we have surrendered nothing. I would,
therefore, appeal to them to rise above their personal prejudices and think of
themselves, not as the sisters, or wives, or mothers, or brothers of dead
patriots, but as representatives of the people, with the fate of a country in
their hands. The earth belongs to those who are on it, and not to those who are
under it, and to the living and not the dead we owe our votes. I would ask them
also before they launch the country again into war, or worse, to think of the
millions of wives and mothers and sisters who are waiting expectantly for peace,
and to picture the disappointment and despair which the news of the rejection of
the Treaty will bring into their homes.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Don't speak for the women.
MR. MACCABE:
I know what the women want just as well as the interrupter.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
You are an old woman, I know.
MR. MACCABE:
Thanks very much. I know just as well, if not better, than Deputy Mary
MacSwiney what the people want in their heads and hearts, and I know it is not
war. I wonder is there one woman in this assembly who could rise to the great
opportunity, one woman who would sink her feelings, sink her cravings for
vengeance, sink her principles even, and, sacrificing her personality as others
sacrificed their lives, vote for the good of her country. Such an act of
self-elimination would, in my opinion, appeal to the whole world as an act
worthy of a country woman of Terence MacSwiney. I won't say any more on the
question of principles or on the question of Christianity. Perhaps I have said
enough; perhaps I have said too much. I did not mean to grate on anyone's
sensibility or insult anyone. I just spoke in the way I thought necessary in a
crisis like this when the issues should be placed straight before the country
and no personalities dragged into it [hear, hear]. Now coming to
the Treaty I'd like to say at the outset that I'm not enamoured of it. I don't
like the oath, I don't like the enemy in our ports, and I don't like the
Governor-General in substance or in shadow. But Document No. 2 is open to all
these objections for------
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
No, it is not.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I have several times said I will bring that document forward, and bring it as
an amendment. Unless it is here I do not think it fair to be referring to it.
MR. MACCABE:
It is most unfair to us and the country to suppress it.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am ready at any time to bring it forward if the other side agree to I
bringing it forward as an amendment.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Early in the proceedings the other side asked President De Valera to publish
it at the beginning of the Session and he refused.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Do you object to my bringing it here as an amendment and publishing it then?
MR. M. COLLINS:
Are we going to conduct a debate or are we going to have an old woman's
wrangle?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is no question of wrangling. This is an important matter. A document
has been referred to piecemeal and an attempt made to prejudice it. I am ready
to bring forward the document as an amendment to the Treaty. There is nothing
keeping it from this assembly or the nation except the fact that the other side
want a direct vote on the Treaty. Now I am ready at any time to move it as an
amendment.
MR. MACCABE:
I do not object to Document No. 2 but I object to No. 8, certainly, which is
being prepared for us.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is no document being prepared and I must be protected from these
references, or else allowed to bring forward the document. I must insist on a
vote being taken here in this assembly whether this document can be brought
forward as an amendment or not.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I have done my best in a few instances to try and have the debate conducted
without interruption, and I do think that speakers when making references ought
to have the protection of you, Sir. If we are to discuss Document No. 2 and not
the Treaty, let us discuss Document No. 2, and any speaker on our side and any
speaker on the other side is entitled to make due reference to the things that
have been said, and things that are possibilities.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I formally give notice that I am going to move to-morrow, and put it to a
vote in this House, that this document be brought forward as an amendment to the
Treaty.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
I suggest that President de Valera should hand that document to the Press as
we asked him a fortnight ago.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am giving notice insisting on my rights as a member to put forward this as
an amendment. I will do it to-morrow.
ALD. COSGRAVE:
A member is entitled to speak once. I understand the President has already
spoken once, and the President did not introduce any document, nor did he move
an amendment although the Minister for Home Affairs, who spoke afterwards, said
he seconded the President's amendment.
MR. A. STACK:
I beg your pardon.
ALD. COSGRAVE:
The official records will contain all that you said.
MR. A. STACK:
The official records will show your inaccuracy.
ALD. COSGRAVE:
A member having spoken once is not entitled to speak a second time---if my
interpretation of the Standing Orders is correct he is not entitled to speak a
second time. Consequently it is not open to the President to move an amendment.
I put that point of order to you.
THE SPEAKER:
That point only arises in the case of the President actually moving the
amendment.
MR. MACCABE:
Am I in order to------
THE SPEAKER:
I thought you gave way to the interruptions. If you held your ground you
would not be interrupted. You can continue. I will allow no further
interruptions.
MR. MACCABE:
As regards the Treaty in general I would ask consideration for it on four
main grounds: first, that it enables us to set to work at once building up the
Gaelic State with a distinctive language, culture, and civilisation. This will
be, in itself, the best bulwark we can have against that peaceful social
penetration, which is supposed to follow in the train of a Governor General
equally with a Republican upper ten. For my part I don't see how the Teachtaí
opposed to the Treaty, if they have as they say such faith in the spirit of the
Irish people, can maintain that their nationality or their morals will be
undermined by the presence of a Governor-General or a Viceroy. The important
thing is that the real governors of Ireland, the police, the military and the
auxiliaries, sixty or seventy thousand of them all told, leave us. For my part I
look on this Governor-General as a very useful bogey man. He will be to Irish
Nationalism and Irish Republicanism what the Pope is to Orangeism in Belfast [Laughter],
and until we have achieved complete independence I'd regard it as a disaster to
lose this tangible stimulus to work for it. We all know what nationality did for
the development of the language and for native culture, and we can imagine what
a driving force it would lose were there anything in the nature of a settlement
that the nation would be deceived into believing represented the attainment of
the ideal. A second ground on which I would recommend the Treaty is that it is
an official recognition of our status as a distinctive nation---the first ever
we got since Confederate days, and then it was only as an appanage of the
English Crown. Clause 1 says in plain language that we have the same status in
the British Commonwealth of Nations that the Dominions have. I think, even apart
from Mr. Lloyd George's letter, we can say that, as a Dominion, we are entitled
to enter the League of Nations. If not, I'm sure in their own interests the
British Dominions will have something to say about it. Now, Mr. Childers says
that certain facts, such as distance and inherent strength affect, or are likely
to affect, the status of the Irish Free State. Of course it is evident that the
argument of distance used against this Treaty is a two-edged weapon and cuts
both ways. I surrender that to the opposition for an experiment in external
association with the Irish Free State. How we are going to get an Irish Republic
set up further away from England's door than an Irish Free State I do not know;
but I know this, that distance did not save the South African Republics, even
though one of them was in external association with the Empire, when England
chose to attack them. As to strength, I think this Treaty makes it plain that
our powers of self defence will be such that no enemy, however long-ranged his
guns, will be in a hurry to return here once our army is organised, and I think
it will be conceded on all sides that a national army is in itself a guarantee
that our status will be at all times respected. And as far as the defence of our
coasts is concerned I see nothing in the Treaty which will prevent us making our
shores as impregnable against enemy attacks as were those of Suvla Bay against
the fleets of the world. And the experiences of the war go to prove that
assaults from the sea on well organised land defences are neither profitable nor
effective. But what puzzles me in regard to this question of defence is how the
opposition can say that we will be at the mercy of the enemy when we have
established government and a thoroughly equipped army, in view of the fact that
we were able to paralyse British Government in Ireland for a number of years
past without either. However, there are other guarantees we can rely on apart
from the army; the guarantees implied in the membership of the British
Commonwealth and the League of Nations. The British Dominions, for their own
sakes, will see that our status is respected, but we have a higher and more
impartial, if less interested, community to appeal to if we think our rights are
infringed, in the League of the Free Nations. Membership of this means
admittance to the family of nations, in other words, the international
recognition we sought so vainly in the early days of the Republican movement.
Was it not on this issue admission to the Peace Conference or, in other words,
admission to the comity of nations, what is known as the Plunkett election was
fought in North Roscommon? To-day a door is opening for us, but because it is
not the hall door we are too proud to enter. We must go in tall hats, with brass
dog chains across our vests, and our hands in our trousers pockets, just to
impress the hall-porter. It reminds me of an incident that occurred in my part
of the country during the Versailles Conference, when the question everyone was
asking was would de Valera be admitted to the Peace Conference. There, as
elsewhere in Ireland, the people take a very lively interest in public affairs,
and every night at the fireside, as most of us know by this, they discuss the
national question in all its moods and tenses. One very stormy night after the
East Clare election---when excitement was at its height---the ramblers in a
certain house decided to have a peace conference of their own to debate the
political situation. After the preliminaries were settled the question arose as
to who should play de Valera. It was, as I stated already, a wet, stormy night,
and when it was mentioned that de Valera would have to remain outside the door
knocking until he was admitted, no one was very anxious to play the role. As no
volunteer was forthcoming the assembly decided unanimously to give it to a
member who happened to be very careful of his health and not very popular. He
was therefore ordered out and, when the door was locked, told to keep knocking
until the Peace Conference had decided whether he should be admitted or not.
Needless to say, once the Conference started its deliberations it was not in a
very big hurry coming to a decision regarding de Valera's admittance. For
several hours he was left there at the mercy of the wind and rain, breaking his
knuckles on the door that would not open. At last, disgusted at the treatment
meted out to him by the Peace Conference, and realising the joke that had been
played on him, he delivered a few resounding on the door and left. He never
thought of the back door which would have admitted him and saved him from the
dangerous attack of pneumonia which he contracted as a result of his night's
exposure to the storm. Now this story, I think, has a particular application to
the issue we are discussing at the moment. We, in this assembly, have the option
of admitting Ireland to the comity of nations by a side door, or a back door if
you like, or letting her play de Valera at the hall door for God knows how
long---poor old Ireland in her threadbare shawl standing there in the rain and
storm for another long night with no certainty, even at the end of that night,
of getting in. We on this side of the House at least, will not be a party to the
joke, and I hope those opposed to the Treaty will consider before the vote
whether Ireland is a fit subject at the moment for either a gamble or a joke.
The third ground on which I would consider this Treaty worthy of support is that
it offers a solution of the Ulster difficulty which places us well on the road
to a united Ireland. I know there are members in this House who would advocate
the coercion of the Ulster minority, and other members who would not even stop
at that. Again I say that the land of Ulster belongs to those who are on it and
not under it, and I take this opportunity of complimenting our President on the
statesmanlike solution of the difficulty which appears in the Treaty. Minorities
have been forcibly brought inside the boundaries of a number of nations
liberated in the recent war, with results that should give us to pause before we
launch on a coercion campaign against the corner counties. The recent history of
some of these nations is well worth studying, and I'd specially commend it to
those Teachtaí who rail at the plenipotentiaries and the Cabinet for not
securing a united Ireland right off. Of course they do not realise that this
Treaty gives us just as much control over the destinies of East Ulster as the
British Parliament has and, what is still more important, an excellent chance of
getting complete control. The economic argument is all in our favour---the
railways, the markets, the customs---and this will always continue to be the
decisive argument in favour of unification. For my part I'd prefer to see East
Ulster stand out at first, so that our minorities may get a chance of having
justice done to them in the making of boundaries and for the additional reason
that I would not care to see a province of the size of North Ireland as it
stands come into the Irish Free State. The establishment of the Irish Free State
is, to my mind, not only a big step towards the ideal of an independent Ireland,
but also a big step towards the ideal of a united Ireland, for were we to set up
a Republic here in Southern Ireland I fear the unity which we all aspire to
would hardly come in this generation. On the other hand, I look forward with
confidence to the day when the demand for a Republic will come from a united
Ireland, and that day we can say with certainty England will not and dare not
refuse it. The fourth ground on which I consider the Treaty worthy of support is
that it gives us all the essentials of economic freedom. One item of vital
importance to Ireland has been almost overlooked in the discussion of the Treaty
and that is the question of trade and commerce. The delegates have succeeded in
bringing back full and complete fiscal freedom, thereby winning the right for us
to protect our industries against English or any other foreign goods, to trade
freely with the outside world, and to make commercial treaties with whom we may.
This power has always been regarded in Ireland as the acid test of freedom, and
we can only appreciate its importance properly when we remember that it was on
this principle the Volunteers of '82 took their historic stand for independence.
The picture of the Volunteers in College Green with the motto "Free Trade or
else" suspended from the muzzles of their guns is eloquent of the importance the
Irish nation has always attached to the right which our delegates have now once
and for all established by the Treaty. With this control I believe we will be
able to make Ireland economically strong enough to resist any aggression or
threat of aggression from without; and this economic strength is the first thing
we should aim at for it means a bigger and more vigorous population, a
self-contained country and, if you like to put it so, much greater fighting
potential. If we got a Republic of the Cuban type, for instance, we would in
return have to surrender some of our freedom on such vital matters as trade and
defence, for it too would have to be in the nature of a compromise and, putting
the Central American brand of freedom side by side with ours, I think
ninety-nine men out of every hundred, if it were a matter of choice, would any
day vote for ours. I'm not going to say war with England is inevitable if the
Treaty should be rejected. I think, in fact, there has been too much
exploitation of this bogey by people on the side of ratification. Lloyd George
would scarcely be such a fool as to declare war on us over the wording of an
oath. He might even be persuaded to go further and give us a Republic of the
Central American variety with all the forms of independence and none of the
substance. Any of these settlements would, of course, entail a compromise of
some kind on our part. What would we have to compromise? Nothing that I see
except some of the substance we have got in this Treaty---control of our
customs, control of our army, and probably another port or two. Where would the
independence that we say we are working for come in then? Where is it in Cuba,
for instance---the beau-ideal of some prominent members of the opposition?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Another misrepresentation.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Another interruption.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am entitled to interrupt when he makes a misrepresentation.
MR. MACCABE:
This is some of the substance of freedom that Cuba had to surrender for her
so-called independence:---No Treaty with foreign power, etc.; no debts that
current revenue will not meet; intervention in certain circumstances; Naval and
coaling stations; Reciprocal Treaty; Government by a Commission from 1906 to
1909. Now I put it to any sensible man or woman whether it is not better to take
the essentials of freedom first which we are undoubtedly getting in the Treaty
and look for the symbols afterwards, or plunge the country into chaos on the
chance of getting this shadowy independence, but with the dead certainty of
creating Mexican conditions in the country. Then there are other things to
consider which no one here has thought it worth while mentioning although, to my
mind, they are the real kernel of the situation. We are in a very backward
condition, socially and economically speaking. We have, in fact, as far as the
other countries of Europe are concerned, been practically standing still for
nine or ten years; the land question is still us far as ever from settlement; a
number of our industries are leading a precarious existence: labour is restless
and aggressive. Do the Deputies opposed to this settlement think that all the
elements interested in these vital questions will stand passively impracticable
at the moment? Do they for an ideal that to most of them seems by and let this
fight go on indefinitely think the farmers, the backbone of national Ireland,
broken and disheartened by the crash in prices, will stand idly by while we run
the country to ruin? For this is what rejection really means---not war. War
against England would probably unite the army if it would not unite the country,
but our enemies are too wily to force war on us. It is not war we are faced with
but disunion, internal strife, chaos, and a retreat, perhaps, to the position we
held when this war began. Finally there is this aspect of the question to be
considered: the moral effect of a prolonged state of war on the population. We
have already seen the effect it has had on such countries as Germany and Russia
and, to a lesser extent, on England---how it has put passions of every kind in
the saddle. Murder, robbery, arson, every brute instinct asserts itself when the
doctrine of force alone is being preached abroad. Life will become cheap. Men
will settle their quarrels with Webleys instead of their fists. The striker will
abandon the peaceful method of picketing for the bomb and the torch. The
landless workers will have recourse to more deadly weapons than hazel sticks in
attacking the ranches. I'm not painting the picture any blacker than it is
likely to be if this fight is to be carried on to a finish or until Document No.
2 is signed, sealed and delivered. For my part I stand by the goods that have
been already delivered. In case this House does not stand by them I'd make one
request to the succession Cabinet before sitting down. It is this: Give us
Dominion Home Rule, give us Repeal of the Union. Give us anything that will
stamp us as white men and women, but for Heaven's sake don't give us a Central
American Republic.
MRS. MARGARET PEARSE:
I rise to support the motion of our President for the rejection of this
Treaty. My reasons for doing so are various, but my first reason for doing so I
would like to explain here to-day is on my sons' account. It has been said here
on several occasions that Pádraig Pearse would have accepted this Treaty. I deny
it. As his mother I deny it, and on his account I will not accept it. Neither
would his brother Willie accept it, because his brother was part and parcel of
him. I am proud to say to-day that Pádraig Pearse was a follower and a disciple,
and a true disciple, of Tom Clarke's. Therefore he could not accept this Treaty.
I also wish to say another reason why I could not accept it is the reason of
fear. As I explained here at the private meeting, that from 1916---I now wish to
go over this again in public---from 1916 until we had the visits from the
Black-and-Tans I had comfortable, nice, happy nights and happy days because I
knew my boys had done right, and I knew I had done right in giving them freely
for their country, but when the Black-and-Tans came---then no nights, no days of
rest had I. Always we had to be on the alert. But even the Black-and-Tans alone
would not frighten me as much as if I accepted that Treaty: because I feel in my
heart---and I would not say it only I feel it---that the ghosts of my sons would
haunt me. Now another thing has been said about Pádraig Pearse: that he would
accept a Home Rule Bill such as this. Well he would not. Now, in my own simple
way I will relate a thing that happened, I think it was in 1915 or 1916. He sent
me into Dublin on a very urgent message, and when I came to Westmoreland Street
I saw on the placards Home Rule Bill Passed. At that time I knew very
little of politics. I was going on a very urgent message as I told you. I leaped
out of my tram, got into another and went as fast as I could up the roads of
Rathfarnham. When I went in I found him, as usual, writing, and he turned round
and said: `Back so quickly?' `Yes,' said I, `the Home Rule Bill is passed'. He
sat writing: the tears came into his eyes. He got up and, putting his arms
around me, said: `Little mother, this is not the Home Rule Bill we want, but
perhaps in a short time you will see what we intend to do and what freedom we
intend to fight for'. He then asked me about what he had sent me for, but I had
come back without it. `Never mind,' he said, `I will do it myself to-morrow; go
and get something to eat'. I said to him then: `What are you going to do?'
`Mother,' he said, `don't ask me, but you will know time enough'. Now, in the
face of this, do you mean to tell me Pádraig Pearse would have voted for this
Treaty? I say no! I am sure here to-day the man to whom Pádraig Pearse addressed
these words---I am certain he is present---he said that he could understand the
case for compromise, but personally rejected it. As an instance: when discussing
the now much-mooted question of Colonial Home rule he said that had he ever a
voice in rejecting or accepting such proposals his vote would be cast amongst
the noes. Well now my vote for accepting this is equal to his. I may
say just a word on the oath. Our friend Mr. MacCabe read out the Ten
Commandments. All I can say is what our catechism taught us in my days was: it
is perjury to break your oath. I consider I'd be perjuring myself in breaking
the oath I had taken to Dáil Eireann. An oath to me is a most sacred vow made in
the presence of Almighty God to witness the truth, and the truth alone.
Therefore that is another reason of mine. Now men here may think little of an
oath, and think little of a word of honour, but I repeat here a little incident
that happened twenty minutes before Pádraig Pearse was executed in Kilmainham,
and it will let you know what he thought of a word of honour much less an oath.
He, poor fellow, had something written for you Irishmen, and to-day I am ashamed
of some of you here. Had that note then come out from Kilmainham, I am sure we
would have had many more on our side in rejecting this Treaty, but the priest
whom he wished to take out that document had given his word of honour to the
British Government that he would take out nothing. Pádraig asked him to take out
the document---at least, to take it to his mother, because he knew that if his
mother got it, it would be put into the right quarters. The priest told him: `Pádraig,'
he said, `I have given my word of honour to take out nothing'. `Well, Father,'
he said, `if you have given your word of honour don't break it, but ask those in
charge to give mother this because she is bound to hear it sometime and I want
to get it out now'. If that document had been got out---it may be got yet, but,
alas! I am afraid it is too late---the people here would not have made up their
minds so willingly to go the wrong path and not the right path. People will say
to me: `The people of Ireland want this Treaty'. I have been through Ireland for
the past few years and I know the hearts and sorrows of the wives of Ireland. I
have studied them; no one studied them more, and let no one here say that these
women from their hearts could say they accept that Treaty. They say it through
fear; they say it through fear of the aeroplanes and all that has been said to
them. Now I will ask you again: there are some members here who may remember
what Pádraig Pearse said in the early autumn of 1916. He said it when he was
inspecting the Volunteers at Vinegar Hill. He told them there on that day: `We,
the Volunteers, are formed here not for half of Ireland, not to give the British
Garrison control of part of Ireland. No! we are here for the whole of Ireland'.
Therefore Pádraig Pearse would not have accepted a Treaty like this with only
two-thirds of his country in it. In the name of God I will ask the men that have
used Pádraig Pearse's name here again to use it in honour, to use it in
truthfulness. One Deputy mentioned here about rattling the bones of the dead. I
only wish we could recall them. Remember, the day will come---soon, I hope, Free
State or otherwise---when those bones shall be lifted as if they were the bones
of saints. We won't let them rattle. No! but we will hold what they upheld, and
no matter what anyone says I feel that I and others here have a right to speak
in the name of their dead [Applause].
MR. EOIN O'DUFFY:
I think too much time has already been wasted in idle recrimination, by
trying to fix responsibility for this error and that error. Now the
plenipotentiaries are accused of doing this thing, and the next moment the
Cabinet, or perhaps the President, is accused of doing that thing. Cannot it be
agreed that we are all out for the one thing---to secure the freedom of our
country and that if we differ at all we only differ in ways and means [hear,
hear]. Every one of us is entitled to our opinion. One side disagrees
with the plenipotentiaries. They disagree with Arthur Griffith and Michael
Collins on a point of policy. Another side disagrees with President de Valera on
a point of policy; but let not this disagreement blind us to the sterling worth
of these three men---these three men who, above all others, have done the most
to break the enemy's strength in this country. I still refer to England as our
enemy in the country. I hold that I, as a more or less silent member of the Dáil---this
is the first time I attempted to speak---that I am as much responsible for
everything that occurred as well as everybody else. I was present here at the
Session of the Dáil before our plenipotentiaries went across. I heard the
correspondence read from Lloyd George to the President, and heard the replies
from the President to Lloyd George. I heard what took place at the different
Cabinet meetings; certain documents were handed out to us, and on that data I am
in a position to make up my mind. I am sure everybody here is in the same
position. Let us, then, get away from all these things of trying to fix
responsibility and, even at the eleventh hour, consider the Treaty before us on
its merits. There is not very much to be gained by making flank attacks in a
place like this, how ever decisive they may be elsewhere. I think, too, it
should be agreed that no party---unfortunately there are two parties---that
neither party has the monopoly of patriotism, that neither party has the
monopoly of principle, and that neither party can claim to be the sole
custodians of the nation's honour. Now as regards the Treaty I am in favour of
it for two or more reasons. The first reason is that only one or two out of the
35,000 people I represent are against it; and the second reason is that I
believe the judgment of my constituents is correct on this occasion under the
circumstances. As regards my right to voice the feelings of my constituents,
that has already been threshed out here and in the Press. I need not labour it
except to say, in my own opinion, the will of a constituency should prevail
against the will of any one individual who may happen to be their mouthpiece at
this particular time. It cannot be denied that this Treaty has the support of
the country. The position is so grave that Deputies should weigh it very
carefully before they take the responsibility of flouting the practically
unanimous voice of the sovereign people of Ireland, before they refuse point
blank to faithfully voice their people's will, because the people's will is
mightier than the sword. I do not propose to go into the military situation. I
did that in Private Session and all I would say now is that I'd ask the Deputies
to bear in mind the facts I placed before them. The officers here who have the
courage to stand up and state what they know to be true from experience, stated
it also in Private Session; but now, unfortunately, in Public Session these same
officers have been called cowardly and dishonest, said to be lacking in military
knowledge, and I think some one said it would be better if some of them had
fallen in the fight. Well we cannot prevent any civilian who happens to be a
member of this House making remarks like this---intolerable and unseemly
remarks. We cannot stop that, but the people who fought with us officers know
us, and those people will not believe those remarks; and I hope, too, that if we
have to go to fight again, and if we have to fight along with these people, that
they will have no less confidence in us. I do not propose to occupy your time by
going into the merits of the Treaty, except very superficially. The principal
clauses that appeal to me are the evacuation of Ireland by England's forces,
civil and military, and the setting up of our own army, trained and fully
equipped. That, I admit, is not freedom, but as the Minister of Finance said in
his statement, it is freedom to secure it. Our comrades died, in my opinion, to
bring about Freedom, and I think it is towards freedom when a British soldier or
a British policeman, in uniform, cannot be seen in the streets of Dublin; I
think it is towards freedom when we will have our own National Army established
here to safeguard the liberty of our people. The deaths of our comrades, and
their deaths alone, brought that about [Applause]. Parnell was
quoted here as saying that no man has the right to set limits to the march of a
nation. No man has a right to try to make a nation travel faster than it is able
without replenishing it on its journey, if it finds it difficult to reach the
goal. I know that freedom is worth all the blood that has been shed for it; but
why to-day should we, fully alive to all the facts of the situation, why should
we sacrifice the manhood of Ireland, the young men that we require so much to
build up the future of the Irish nation? Have the young men of Ireland to be
sacrificed to get up a step on the ladder, and in order to secure what this
Treaty gets for us---to get the British forces out, to get the Irish forces in,
and to develop our own life in our own way, free from interference by England's
armed forces or, what is worse, by peaceful penetration. There are a number of
things in the Treaty that we do not like, but we must understand that liberty in
every country is restricted by treaties and mutual understandings in relation to
its neighbours. I think there is not a small nation in the world has secured so
much by physical force alone, without any outside support, as Ireland [hear,
hear]. Through the success of our arms and methods of warfare it has
been rendered possible for us to negotiate a Truce and later on a Treaty. On the
ratification of this Treaty Ireland passes from what was known all over the
world as a domestic question to a position of sovereign status in the League of
Nations. In practice, Ireland is invested with almost all the attributes and
essentials of nationhood. There is no longer any obligation on us to take part
in England's war or pay for it. We have full control in internal affairs and
full control of external trade and commerce. But, what is most important of all,
we have the language, because without the language I do not think we would be
qualified for full independence. Now we may assume the hustle for freedom is
only beginning; we have now our destinies in our own hands and if we do not
secure freedom then it is our own fault. I think we will secure our freedom; I
prefer to trust the Irish people. Let us, in God's name, go ahead and build the
Irish nation. I have confidence, whatever may be our decision here, whether the
Treaty be accepted or rejected, that every man and woman in this assembly and
every man and woman outside this assembly will work together harmoniously for
the freedom of our country. In South Africa the Boers had a Republic before the
South African War. They were beaten by force of arms and forced to submit to
more humiliating terms than this Treaty offers us. Would it be considered
dishonourable on the part of the Boers, if opportunity offered, if they tried to
secure back the Republic again? I hold there is no finality in this world, and
to secure the freedom of our country there is more surety by ratifying this
Treaty than by rejecting it. The position we occupy to-day has been truly won by
the living and the dead. It is not our goal, but I hold that it brings the ball
inside the fourteen yards' line. Let us maintain our position there and by
keeping our eye on the goal the major score is assured. I now come to the
North-East, and I want to say a little on that because very little has been said
about it up to the present. At the outset I should say that I am not very
enthusiastic over the Ulster clauses in this Treaty, and I think nobody is; but
no one in this House, I think, suggests now, or ever suggested, that Ulster
should be coerced. We are unanimous about that. It is all very fine to say, as
has been said by another Deputy, that the plenipotentiaries and those who
support them have betrayed Ulster. The people of Ulster will understand at once
that such idle statements as those, not followed by acts, will bring them no
farther. Only one Deputy speaking against the Treaty dealt with Ulster at any
length at all. He was interrupted and asked for his policy and he said that he
had none because it was none of his business. I hold it is the business of
everyone who has a policy with regard to Ulster to bring it forward, and surely,
above all, it is the business of a man who lives in Ulster and represents an
Ulster constituency to come forward with a policy . I say he is the man and not
the plenipotentiaries or the men who support them. If he has a policy I'd prefer
to have his opinion. I have spent the greater part of my life in Ulster. I know
it well. I know the business men of Ulster don't want separation because they
fear economic pressure---the boycott has given them a taste of that. In the
Gazette every week at least two or three of the principal men in Belfast
appeared there for bankruptcy. With bankruptcy staring numbers of others in the
face they will see that the Northern Parliament comes to terms with the rest of
Ireland, and if they refuse to do it they will kick them out. Though the present
war was between Ireland and England, Belfast has lost thousands of pounds in
business. Since the Truce they have made a desperate effort to bring back their
old customers again, and now of their own free will I am satisfied that they
will not cut themselves adrift from a prosperous Ireland. I could quote
instances we had of bitter dissatisfaction on the part of Ulster business men
with the policy of Messrs. Coote, McGuffin and Co. To put it shortly, the
business men of the North-East want to join up with the rest of Ireland. They
are in favour of this Treaty being ratified, but the Orange assassins are
against it. Personally I would prefer, and a number of Ulster Catholics agree
with me, that it would be better, perhaps, that Ulster should not come in with
the rest of Ireland for a time; that they should stay out just for a trial.
Later on they will find out that they have to come in, and they will be easier
spoken to. It was put up here also that part of Monaghan, part of Cavan and part
of Donegal would be included in the Northern Counties' Parliament. The man that
made that statement does not know anything about Monaghan. He paid one or two
flying visits to it and he is not going back. I know the people of Monaghan, and
I know the Unionists of Monaghan. The non-Catholics there are not fools. We made
it very clear to them that if they were prepared to join up with the enemy they
would get the same treatment as the enemy. Nine or ten of them have got the
treatment of the Black-and-Tans, and they admitted they did not get that because
of their religious belief, but the got it because they were part and parcel of
the enemy. The people of the six counties know that under this Treaty they will
be dealt with, as the Minister of Finance said in Armagh, not only justly but
generously. Now I may be asked how do I reconcile with that statement a
statement of my own at Armagh in which I said I was prepared to use the lead on
Ulster. I did not then, nor do I now, recommend the lead for the purpose of
bringing Ulster in with the rest of Ireland. What I said was that if the
Orangemen were to murder our people in cold blood as they had done in the past,
then they should get the lead. If they continue to do this my prescription
remains the same. Let us consider for a moment what will happen our unfortunate
people in the North-East if this Treaty is rejected. My opinion is that there
will be callous, cold-blooded murder there again. Of all the atrocities
committed in this country by the Black-and-Tans, and God knows there were many,
there was nothing to equal the atrocities committed on our Catholic people in
Ulster by the "A" and "B" Specials. We have instances of it in Belfast, Dromore,
Cookstown, and Newry. I could describe it to you but I do not want to do it.
Their action in each case was the same: they took out our people's eyes, put
sticks down their throats, broke their arms and legs, and then shot them. That
was the policy adopted, and it was the same everywhere; so it must have been an
agreed policy. That is the lot that is before our people there if we are not in
a position to defend them and ourselves. The Ulster Deputies who vote against
this Treaty must understand they have a very grave and solemn responsibility on
their shoulders if they throw Ulster back into the position it was in before. I
can see no way of avoiding it except acceptance of this Treaty. I know Ulster
better than any man or woman in this Dáil because I have faced Ulster's lead on
more than one occasion with lead, and in those places where I was able to do it
I silenced them with lead. I would have silenced them in very ease with lead if
I had as much lead as they had. A lot of people are talking about the
non-Catholics of Ulster but it was very little help and encouragement I got from
these people for the last two years I was trying to carry on the war against the
combined forces of Carson and England, and I can lay claim to as many successes
as any man in the country. If the fight should begin again I will, please God,
take my place in the fighting line, but I will take good care I will have with
me some of these men who are trying to make history for themselves---I will take
good care that they take a little risk also. One Deputy in referring to our army
officers said: `You who profess to be soldiers'. He said it very ironically and
sarcastically. I say, and I am speaking on behalf of our soldiers, we do not
profess to be anything but what we are. We are not, perhaps, qualified for the
positions we hold; we have no military training, but we are doing the very best
we can; and I thought no person chosen to be a member of this House would stand
up and criticise statements made by an officer in Private Session. I did not
think that day would come so soon. I do not pretend to speak for the dead. All I
will say is---`Lord rest the souls of those brave men who fell, and those who
fell under my command. God forbid that I would betray them'. At this very moment
there are over forty brave men awaiting the hangman's rope. Seven of these come
from my Brigade and I got a message from them. That message is: `Don't mind us;
we are soldiers, do what you think best for Ireland'. [Applause].
I rather think that would be the message a great many of our Volunteer dead
would give if they were able to do it [Applause]. That message
does not say they would accept this Treaty; that message does not say they would
reject this Treaty; it says they leave it to the Government of Ireland to do
what we consider as best. I do not want to keep you very much longer. As regards
the oath, I am no authority on these things, but I must say that my conscience
is at ease on the matter. Until we secure an isolated Republic there will be
some symbol or some form of connection with Britain. While there is there must
be some form of oath or recognition, and we should not be wasting our time over
any form of words which, when examined very carefully, will have more or less
the same meaning. There will be always some form of recognition of his Brittanic
Majesty until we get an isolated Republic. It was said here that the Treaty was
signed under duress, under threat of war. Well, I do not think, personally, it
was necessary that any threat of war should be made. I hold we are in a state of
war now; it is only suspended by the Truce. We have our liaison officers---if
there was peace we would not have liaison officers---and the enemy have their
liaison officers. If negotiations had broken down, or if at any time the Truce
broke, there would be a resumption of hostilities. The plenipotentiaries were
aware of that and they should have known a breakdown in the negotiations would
have led to a resumption of hostilities. I think that is what was in their minds
when they said they were signing under the threat of a terrible war. In
conclusion I want to say what I think might happen in the event of the Treaty
being rejected. It is only my own opinion. It is generally admitted here that
there will be either war or political chaos. Personally I would prefer war. I
agree with another speaker who said he would prefer war to political chaos. I
fear that political chaos would break the morale of our army in less than six
months' time. There would be unofficial shootings here, unofficial raids there,
indiscipline and, perhaps, disaffection. Should that happen, all our efforts are
in vain, for our only hope is in the army. For this reason I believe we must
renew hostilities if we are to keep the army knit together in a fighting bond. I
do not know would England declare war on us. I am not concerned with that or
have no fear personally. But I feel we must renew hostilities if we are to hold
the army together, and my opinion is that the army is our only hope. I am glad
that a Deputy from Cork, in speaking for his Brigade, said he was prepared. I
know he is prepared, and I know the army in my constituency is prepared; but I
know also they have a policy and I know a good many others here know what they
are going to do. But fighting on the field as a soldier is one thing, and taking
responsibility for it here is quite another thing. Personally I consider, and I
think I said it before, that the chief pleasure I felt in freedom was fighting
for it. But as a Deputy with a very big responsibility on my shoulders I have to
weigh the pros and cons very carefully. I might be asked, and probably would be
asked: `What about the army if the Treaty be ratified?' My answer to that is: we
are not bound to have an Army under this Treaty if it is ratified. It says `we
may'. But I say this: we can have an Irish Volunteer Army that will be a model
to the world in discipline and courage.
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
I have very little to say on this subject that is before us, because I stand
definitely against this so-called Treaty and the arguments in favour of
acceptance---of compromise, of departing from the straight road, of going off
the path, and the only path that I believe this country can travel to its
freedom. These arguments are always so many at all times and with all causes,
while the arguments in favour of doing the right and straight thing are so few
because they are so plain. That is why I say I have very little to say. An
effort has been made here from time to time by speakers who are in favour of
this Treaty, to show that everybody here in this Dáil was prepared mentally or
otherwise to compromise on this point during the last few months. I wish,
anyway, as one person, to state that is not so. I am speaking for myself now on
this, and I state certainly that, consciously or unconsciously, I did not agree
to any form of compromise. We were told that when the negotiations took place we
were compromised. We have been told that since this Dáil meeting. This is not so
because negotiations do not connote compromise. Entering into negotiations with
the British Government did not in the least presuppose that you were going to
give away your case for independence. When the British Government, following
upon the Truce, offered, as it did, to discuss this whole case of Ireland,
Ireland had no option but to enter into such a discussion. To refuse to have
done so would have been the worse thing for the Irish case, and would have put
Ireland very wrong in the eyes of the world. There was no surrender involved in
entering into such a discussion; and when the plenipotentiaries went on their
journey to England they went, not as the plenipotentiaries of a Republican Party
in Ireland, not as the envoys of any political creed in this country, but they
went as the envoys plenipotentiary of the Irish Republican Government, and, as
such, they had no power to do anything that would surrender the Irish Republic
of which they were plenipotentiaries. They were sent there to make, if they
could, a treaty of settlement---personally I doubt if it could be done---but
they were not sent to bring about what I can only call a surrender. I am not
placing the plenipotentiaries in the dock by stating this, but I am stating what
are plain facts. It is no reflection on them to state these things. In item 3 of
the instructions given to the plenipotentiaries it is stated: `It is also
understood that the complete text of the draft Treaty about to be signed will be
similarly submitted to Dublin and a reply awaited'. The Dáil had no chance of
discussing this Treaty as it should be discussed because the ground was cut from
under the feet of the Dáil with the publication of this Treaty to the world
before the Dáil had a chance of discussing it. The delegates, I repeat, had no
power to sign away the rights of Ireland and the Irish Republic. They had no
mandate to sign away the independence of this country as this Treaty does. They
had no power to agree to anything inconsistent with the existence of the
Republic. Now either the Republic exists or it does not. If the Republic exists,
why are we talking about stepping towards the Republic by means of this Treaty?
I for one believed, and do believe, that the Republic exists, because it exists
upon the only sure foundation upon which any government or Republic can exist,
that is, because the people gave a mandate for that Republic to be declared. We
are hearing a great deal here about the will of the people, and the
newspapers---that never even recognised the Republic when it was the will of the
people---use that as a text for telling Republicans in Ireland what the will of
the people is. The will of the people, we are told by one of the Deputies who
spoke here, is that this Treaty shall go through---that this Treaty shall be
ratified [hear, hear]. The will of the people! Let me for a moment
carry your minds back to the 21st January, 1919, and I am going to read to
you---I make no apology to this House whatsoever for the length of time I keep
them in reading it, or to the people of Ireland for the length of time they are
waiting while this thing is being discussed---I am going to read the Declaration
of the Independence of this country based upon the declared will of the people
at the elections in 1918, and ratified since at every election [Applause].
This is the official translation of the Declaration of Independence as contained
in the official report of the proceedings, of the Dáil on that date:
Whereas the Irish people is by right a free people: and whereas for seven
hundred years the Irish people has never ceased to repudiate and has
repeatedly protested in arms against foreign usurpation: and whereas English
rule in this country is, and always has been, based upon force and fraud, and
maintained by military occupation against the declared will of the people: and
whereas the Irish Republic was proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday, 1916, by
the Irish Republican Army acting on behalf of the Irish people: and whereas
the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its complete independence
in order to promote the common weal, to re-establish justice, to provide for
future defence, to insure peace at home and goodwill with all nations and to
constitute a national polity based upon the people's will, with equal right
and equal opportunity for every citizen: and whereas at the threshold of a new
era in history the Irish electorate has, in the general election of December,
1918, seized the first occasion to declare, by an overwhelming majority, its
firm allegiance to the Irish Republic: now therefore we, the elected
representatives of the ancient Irish people in National Parliament assembled,
do, in the name of the Irish nation, ratify the establishment of the Irish
Republic and pledge ourselves and our people to make this declaration
effective by every means at our command: we ordain that the elected
representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on
the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to
which that people will give its allegiance: we solemnly declare foreign
government in Ireland to be an invasion of our national right which we will
never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation of our country by the English
Garrison: we claim for our national independence the recognition and support
of every free nation of the world, and we proclaim that independence to be a
condition precedent to international peace hereafter: in the name of the Irish
people we humbly commit our destiny to Almighty God Who gave our fathers the
courage and determination to persevere through long centuries of a ruthless
tyranny, and strong in the justice of the cause which they have handed down to
us, we ask His Divine blessing on this, the last stage of the struggle we have
pledged ourselves to carry through to Freedom.
There, to my mind, is the will of the people. There is the Irish Republic
existing, not a mandate to seek a step towards an Irish Republic that does not
exist. The will of the people! The British Government has always sought, during
the last century of this struggle in Ireland, to get the consent of the Irish
people for whatever it wants to impose upon them. If the English Government
wanted to make concessions to Ireland it had the power to do so even though it
had not the right, and we could take whatever it was willing to give without
giving away our case. But this Treaty gives away our case because it abrogates
the Republic. The British Government passed a Home Rule Bill; it is still upon
the statute book of the British Government and was never put into force because,
when the time came to put it into force, the British Government found that the
Irish people did not want it. The British Government since then has passed Act
after Act and each time has been forced to overlook its own Acts, to forget
about them, and to-day through this Treaty the British Government seeks to gain
the consent of the Irish people to this measure. The British Government intends
to try and find a way out because it has more experience than ourselves of what
it means to have the people of Ireland with it---to get the assent of the Irish
people to whatever it wants to do with Ireland. The will of the people! Why,
even Lloyd George recognised the will of the people at one time. Speaking in the
House of Commons in April, 1920, he said: `If you ask the people of Ireland what
they would accept, by an emphatic majority they would say `we want independence
and an Irish Republic'. There is absolutely no doubt about that. The elected
representatives of Ireland now, by a clear definite majority, have declared in
favour of independence---of secession.' Now, when Lloyd George admits that, it
seems strange when we ourselves say that we never believed in the Irish
Republic; that it was only a myth, something that did not exist, and that to-day
we are still working towards the Irish Republic. To my mind the Republic does
exist. It is a living tangible thing, something for which men gave their lives,
for which men were hanged, for which men are in jail for which the people
suffered, and for which men are still prepared to give their lives. It was not a
question so far as I am aware, before any of us, or the people of Ireland, that
the Irish heifer was going to be sold in the fair and that we were asking a high
price so that we would get something less. There was no question of making a
bargain over this thing, over the honour of Ireland, because I hold that the
honour of Ireland is too sacred a thing to make a bargain over. We are told this
is a question as between document referred to as No. 1 and Document No. 2. At
this moment there is only one document before this House, and when that is
disposed of as I do hope it will be disposed of in the proper way, then we will
deal with any other documents that come up in the same way if they are not in
conformity with the Irish Republic. There is no question before us of two
documents or two sides, but there is a question of maintaining the existing
Republic of Ireland or going back on it, throwing it out and accepting something
in substitution for it with a view to getting back again to the Irish Republic.
Let us face facts as we did so often during the last few years. We are not
afraid of the facts. The facts are that the Irish Republic exists. People are
talking to-day of the will of the people when the people themselves have been
stampeded as I know because I paid a visit to my constituency. The people are
being stampeded; in the people's minds there is only one alternative to this
Treaty and that is terrible, immediate war. During the adjournment I paid a trip
to the country and I found that the people who are in favour of the Treaty are
not in favour of the Treaty on its merits, but are in favour of the Treaty
because they fear what is to happen if it be rejected. That is not the will of
the people, that is the fear of the people [hear, hear]. The will
of the people was when the people declared for a Republic. Under this
Treaty---this Treaty constitutes concessions to Ireland. It is, if you like, a
new Coercion act in the biggest sense in which any Coercion act was ever made to
Ireland. One thing you must bear in mind and make up your minds about: the
acceptance of this Treaty destroys the existing Irish Republic. Whether we like
it or not we become British subjects, British citizens. We have now a common
citizenship with the English people, and evidently there is going to be a new
citizenship invented---Anglo-Irish Citizenship. It is well known what you are
going to get under this Treaty. The very words `Irish Free State,' so called,
constitute a catch-phrase. It is not a state, it is part of a state; it is not
free, because England controls every vital point; it is not Irish, because the
people of Ireland established a Republic. Lloyd George may well to-day laugh up
his sleeve. What must his thoughts have been, what must his idea have been, when
he presented this document for signature? `lf they divide on this, we can let
them fight it out, and we will be able to hold the country; if they accept, our
interests are so well safeguarded that we can still afford to let them have it.'
Rejection, we are told, would mean war. I, for one, do not hold it would mean
immediate war at all, but I do hold that the unanimous rejection of this Treaty
would put our case in such a fashion before the world that I do not believe
England would, until she got some other excuse, dare to make war on the basis of
the rejection of that. The question is not how to get a step towards the
Republic. The question for us to decide here as the Government of the Irish
Republic is how we are going to maintain the Republic, and how we are going to
hold the Republic. Instead of discussing this Treaty here we should be
considering how we are going to maintain the Republic after that Treaty has been
rejected and put upon one side. We have acted up to this in the belief that the
authority for Government in Ireland has been derived from the Irish people. We
are now going to change that. If this Treaty goes through we are going to have
authority in Ireland derived from a British act of Parliament, derived from the
British Government under the authority of the British King. Somebody stated here
there was more intelligent discussion down the country on this Treaty. I agree
perfectly with him. I was in the country and I met the people at their
firesides. I met people in favour of the Treaty, but I found no one under any
delusion about it whatsoever. We have been told, presumably as a reason for
accepting this, that before in Ireland chieftains and parliaments, and
representatives of the people had admitted the right of the British Government
to exist here. We were reminded of King John visiting the Irish chiefs and we
know what happened the Irish chiefs when the Irish people realised what the
Irish chiefs had done: We know the day when you had the Irish O'Donnells the
`Queen's O'Donnells,' and the Irish O'Reillys the `Queen's O'Reillys.' I wonder
will we ever see the day when we have the Irish Republicans the `King's
Republicans.' The Parliament of 1782 did not represent the people of Ireland
because it admitted the King as its head. This is the first assembly in the
history of Ireland, since the British occupation, which is representative of the
people of Ireland. It is here because the people of Ireland wished it to be
here. The Parliamentary Party after years of efforts, when they in their turn
had done their best, they went the way that all compromising parties go.
Compromising parties may last for a time, may do good work for a time in so far
as they are able to do that good work, but inevitably they go the way all
compromising parties go. As it was with the Irish Parliamentary Party so it will
be with the Irish Free State Parties and I say that with all respect. The Irish
people have, thanks be to God, the tradition of coming out and speaking their
true selves no matter how many times they may be led astray. Has the whole
object of this fight and struggle in Ireland been to secure peace? Peace we have
preached to us here day in and day out---peace, peace, peace------
A DEPUTY:
Peace with honour.
MR. MELLOWES:
Yes! that is what we want. We do not want peace with surrender, and we do not
want peace with dishonour. If peace was the only object why, I say, was this
fight ever started? Why did we ever negotiate for what we are now told is
impossible? Why should men have ever been led on the road they travelled if
peace was the only object? We could have had peace, and could have been peaceful
in Ireland a long time ago if we were prepared to give up the ideal for which we
fought. Have we now to give it up for the sake of this so-called peace? If peace
is that which is to be the pursuit of the people then this Treaty will not bring
them peace because there will be restless souls in the country who will not be
satisfied under this Free State to make peace in this Free State possible. I use
no threats, but you cannot bring peace by compromise. You cannot bring peace to
a people when it does not also bring honour. This Treaty brings neither honour
nor anything else. It brings to the people certain material advantages, such, I
say, as they could have had long ago if they were prepared to sink their
identity as Scotland did. Ireland has never been prepared to do that, and I do
not believe she shall ever be prepared to do it. If this is a step towards the
Republic how can it be contended that it means peace? Under the terms of this
Free State are you going to be strong enough to say to the British Government
`Hands off'? You will have an army, it is true, but it will be an army in which
the incentive which kept the fight alive for the last few years will be lacking.
Who will tell the British Government, when the time has come to tell it, keep
its hands off? Will you be any more united then than you are now? Will all of
you in favour of this Free State look forward to the time when you are going to
say to the British Government: `You must not have anything more to do with us'?
You will not. Human nature, even the strongest human nature, is weak, and the
time will inevitably come, if this Free State comes into existence, when you
will have a permanent government in the country, and permanent governments in
any country have a dislike to being turned out, and they will seek to fight
their own corner before anything else. Men will get into positions, men will
hold power, and men who get into positions and hold power will desire to remain
undisturbed and will not want to be removed, or will not take a step that will
mean removal in case of failure. I only speak my mind on this matter. But to me
it is very clear there is only one road this country can travel. It is the road
we tried to travel together as best we could. It is the right road, and now if
there should be a parting of the ways some of us, if God gives us the strength
and courage, will travel it no matter what. Under this Treaty the Irish people
are going to be committed within the British Empire. We have always in this
country protested against being included within the British Empire. Now we are
told that we are going into it with our heads up. The British Empire stands to
me in the same relationship as the devil stands to religion. The British Empire
represents to me nothing but the concentrated tyranny of ages. You may talk
about your constitution in Canada, your united South Africa or Commonwealth of
Australia, but the British Empire to me does not mean that. It means to me that
terrible thing that has spread its tentacles all over the earth, that has
crushed the lives out of people and exploited its own when it could not exploit
anybody else. That British Empire is the thing that has crushed this country,
yet we are told that we are going into it now with our heads up. We are going
into the British Empire now to participate in the Empire's shame even though we
do not actually commit the act, to participate in the shame and the crucifixion
of India and the degradation of Egypt. Is that what the Irish people fought for
freedom for? We are told damn principles. Aye, if Ireland was fighting for
nothing only to become as most of the other rich countries of the world have
become, this fight should never have been entered upon. We hoped to make this
country something the world should be proud of, and we did not enter into the
fight to make this country as the other countries, where its word was not its
bond, and where a treaty was something to be struggled for. That was not the
ideal that inspired men in this cause in every age, and it is not the ideal
which inspires us to-day. We do not seek to make this country a materially great
country at the expense of its honour in any way whatsoever. We would rather have
this country poor and indigent, we would rather have the people of Ireland eking
out a poor existence on the soil; as long as they possessed their souls, their
minds, and their honour. This fight has been for something more than the
fleshpots of Empire. Peace! peace! is the consideration. Is this Treaty going to
bring you peace? No! Under Clause 7 you are going to be made a cock-pit of the
next naval war in which England is engaged, because your docks and coast-line
are given up, unfortunately, to the British Government to use as it sees fit. As
against that we are told if we do not accept this Treaty we are going to have
war. Every argument that I heard here to-day in favour of this Treaty is the
argument I heard years ago against the question of ever attaining an Irish
Republic. Every argument used here was the argument used by the Irish
Parliamentary Party when fighting elections in this country. Every argument I
heard here to-day was the argument everyone here had to answer in reply to those
who faced them years ago. War! we are told. Were the people of Ireland afraid of
war when they faced conscription in this country? They were threatened with
annihilation. It was a question then of whether they would fight at home or
abroad and they decided to fight at home. When the General Election came on they
were threatened with war again. They were told that the corollary to acceptance
of the Republican mandate or the Republican platform was war. The people of
Ireland did not flinch. They accepted the issue and the issue, as we have seen
since, was not war, but the people of Ireland did not flinch. This Treaty
reminds me of the Treaty of Versailles, of the miserable end up to that bloody
holocaust when the nations of the earth, after fighting supposedly for ideals,
parcelled out amongst themselves the spoils of the young soldiers. The misguided
young men who fought in that conflict were left disillusioned. Is this Treaty
going to be a Treaty of Versailles? Are the Irish people to be told that when we
spoke of a Republic we did not mean it? Are the Irish people to be told that
when we spoke of independence we meant to be inside the British Empire and that
when we spoke of ideals we meant morally? I say no! We did not mean that. You
could point out to me for all time, day after day as long as you like, the
material advantages to be gained under this Treaty, and it would remind me very
much of what I have read about our Saviour. Having fasted for forty days He was
taken by the devil to a height from which He was shown the cities, towns and
fair places of the earth and told He could have all those if, bowing down, He
would adore the devil. We are told to-day that we will get these things in
return for the selling of our honour. I say selling of our honour; others here
may not mean it; others here may not have the same view of it as I have, but my
view is that we are selling the honour of Ireland for this mess of pottage
contained in the Treaty. Under the future of this Free State, if it goes
through, when are we going to know when we will have sincerity in Ireland about
the Republic? After you get the Free State what will you take on hands, and what
do you mean, when you talk of something next? The Government of the Free State
will, with those who support it now liking it or not, eventually occupy the same
relationship towards the people of Ireland as Dublin Castle does to-day,
because, it will be the barrier government between the British and the Irish
people. And the Irish people before they can struggle on will have to do
something to remove that Free State Government. That, I think, has been the
history of this country most of the time, as it is the history of most countries
that go the way now urged by those who support the Free State. If the Free State
is accepted and put into operation it will provide the means for the British
Government to get its hold back again. It could not beat Ireland with force, it
did its best. No war the British Government initiated here could he worse than
the terrible mental strain imposed on the people during the last eighteen
months. And that war was not levelled so much against the Irish Republican Army
as against the people of the Irish Republic, because the British Government had
a surer view of the people than we had. They felt that if they could crush the
people of Ireland that would mean the end of things in Ireland until the next
necessity arose. The British Government did not, for very obvious
reasons---because of what it would mean on conditions abroad, and because of
what the outside world must necessarily conclude---allow this warfare, as far as
it could prevent it, to become one as between the British Army and the Irish
Army. But it tried to maintain the appearance of it being a warfare conducted by
no representative people, by people who counted for nothing against the forces
of the civil authority, and that is why the Black-and-Tans and the Auxiliary
forces were organised for special service here. The British Government still
keep up the pretended show of maintaining the civil authority in Ireland, even
though that civil authority had to be maintained by force of arms. And it was
because the British Government saw there was a tangible government here, that
the Irish Republic did exist, that it had its hirelings to murder its
representatives, to murder Lord Mayor MacCurtin, to murder Mayor O'Callaghan,
and to do to death Terence MacSwiney. The British Government recognised that
there was a Republic, even though some of our representatives now do not, and
the British Government recognised that it must be at the representatives of the
Republic that blow must be struck. It knows to-day that the people have the
Republic in their minds, in their spirit, and that any act they can do can not
crush it. We placed Ireland upon a pedestal for the first time in the history of
this country. For the first time in the history of this country we had a
Government established by the directly declared will of the people. That
Government rested upon the surest of all foundations and placed Ireland in a
position it was never in before, since its subjection. Ireland was put forth to
the world as a headlight, as a beacon beginning to shine for all time to guide
all those who were struggling. The whole world was looking to Ireland for a
lead. This downtrodden, this miserable country, as some of you called it, was,
during the last few years, the greatest country in God's earth. `Are we always
going to adopt the attitude of seeking something that is a little in front of us
while the world always moves on?' Ah! how little that Deputy knew of what the
world is. How little that Deputy knew that here in this country of ours is
contained the germ of great and wonderful things for the world. The world did
not move on; it is Ireland has moved on and Ireland has left the world far
behind. We can get very insular sometimes, but it is well for us sometimes to
see that we are not so downtrodden and miserable as some of us think we are.
This country was one of the best in the world. It has fought a fight that will
ring down through the ages, and maintained itself well against all the tortures
and inflictions that a foreign tyranny knows so well how to impose. It
maintained its way up to this stage, and now, not through the force of the
British Government, not because of the weight of the British armies, but through
the guile of the British Government, and the gullibility of ours we are going to
throw away the Irish Republic. Somebody talked about facts. These are facts. We
are told that we must have unity. Yes, we want unity, and had unity in Ireland
during the last few years, but we had it only on one basis---the basis of the
Republic. Destroy that basis and you cannot have unity. Once you take yourselves
off that pedestal you place yourselves in a position to pave the way for
concession after concession, for compromise after compromise. Once you begin to
juggle with your mind or conscience in this matter God knows where you will end,
no matter how you try to pull up later on. You can have unity by rejecting this
thing; you cannot have unity by approving of it. Rejection means that the Irish
Republic exists here, and that we are still the Government of the existing Irish
Republic. Accept it and there is no Irish Republic existing because you have
destroyed it, because you have abrogated the right of the Dáil, and this Dáil
exists here as the Republican Government. It did not exist here for the purpose
of changing its status. It was placed here by the people to work for the
recognition and the interests of the Republic not to take steps towards the
gaining or abolition of it. The Republic is here because it is in our wills.
Destroy that by accepting this Treaty and there is no Republic. And you will not
have unity and you will not have peace. You can have unity though you may not
have peace, but you certainly will have unity and honour by rejecting this
Treaty. Accept it and you will destroy the Republic, and even though you gain
for Ireland the material advantages---you point out control of our language, et
cetera---though you gain these things you throw away that which Ireland found
since 1916, that which, after all, imbued Ireland in this phase of the struggle.
1916 did not represent the will of the people; 1916 found very little support
from the people, but 1916 has been supported by the people since, and it has
been 1916 that based their ideal when they declared for a Republic. From 1916
down to the present day that struggle has gone on. Person after person has been
induced to come in and do his or her part. Now, if you accept this Treaty you
are going to establish in this country a Government that does away with the
Irish Republic. It is not a step towards the Irish Republic but a step away from
it. That Treaty admits the right of the British Government to control the
destiny of Ireland. Even though you have control of some of the material
resources of the country you are going to put yourselves in the position of
being within the British Empire, and outside, away from the rest of the world.
During the last few years we were beginning to occupy a unique position in the
world. As long as we looked upon ourselves as being independent we could appeal
to the outside world and so long were we certain of receiving sympathy and help.
Now you are inside the British Empire if you accept this Treaty, and, turn where
you will, you will be told you are a domestic concern for the British Empire.
The League of Nations---what does it mean to this country? The League of
Nations---the League of Robbers! We stand, some of us, where we always stood and
despite all that has been said in favour of this Treaty we mean to continue
standing where we stood in the past. Whatever may happen, whatever the road may
be in front of us, we intend, with God's help, to travel it. The time will come
yet---I hope it will come soon---when those who are going to depart from the
straight road will come back to it. Then we will be together to the end of this
fight. I am sorry to inflict such a long statement upon the Dáil. It was not my
intention to do so when I stood up, but ideas keep coming to your mind,
probably, when you feel so keenly on a matter which represents the ideals for
which one has struggled and fought, the ideals for which one is prepared to do
the same again, but for which one is not prepared to compromise or surrender no
matter what the advantages may be. [Applause].
[The House adjourned at 1.30 p.m. to 3.30 p.m.]
The House resumed at 3.45 p.m., the SPEAKER (Dr. Eoin MacNeill) in the
chair.
MR. DESMOND FITZGERALD:
I want to say at the beginning, with regard to the last speaker before lunch,
that I agree practically with every word he said. There is one thing I want
cleared up because it may be a very fundamental difference. During the speeches
in this Dáil there has been constant repetition of the words `Irish Republic,'
and it has given the impression that the declaration of the Irish Republic was a
declaration in favour of a form of Government as distinct from what I understood
it to be. I remember in 1917 a meeting at which the President spoke in the
Mansion House, where he said that he accepted the words `Irish Republic' as the
best means of making it perfectly clear to the world that we have stood for
absolute independence, whereas it seems to me during the course of the
discussion in the Dáil that a great many people are fighting for a Republican
principle rather than a national principle. Now the last speaker quoted from the
Declaration of Independence read at the time, in January, 1919. Now I have
always understood by a Free Irish Republic that we meant an independent Ireland,
and I think that is borne out by that Declaration of Independence which was read
by the member for Galway, and I think it bears out the point made by the member
for Monaghan yesterday, namely, that the Irish Republic was looked upon as a
means to an end, as one of the weapons used in fighting for the freedom of our
country. In the Declaration of Independence adopted by the Dáil in January,
1919, it says: `Whereas the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its
complete independence.' It says that, and it goes on to say---and it is before
you to-day---that `In order to promote the common weal, to re-establish justice,
to provide for future defence, to insure peace at home, and good-will with all
nations, and to constitute a national polity based upon the people's will with
equal rights and opportunities for every citizen,' et cetera. That was said to
be the object we had in mind by complete independence. Now, in reading the
present Treaty it seems to me that it tends to promote the common weal; to
re-establish justice; to provide, possibly to a limited degree, for future
defence; to secure peace at home and good-will with all nations, and to
constitute a national polity based upon the people's will with equal right and
opportunity for every citizen. It is because I see in this Treaty means to
attain those ends that I am supporting this Treaty. And in the declaration of
the Dáil in January, 1919, which ratified the establishment of the Irish
Republic, it ordained that `The elected representatives of the Irish people
alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, and that the
Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to which that people will give its
allegiance. We solemnly declare foreign government in Ireland to be an invasion
of our national right which we will never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation
of our country by the English Garrison.' Those things were laid down at that
first meeting of the Dáil, and I think that, without being worried by words,
including the words `Irish Republic,' there is only one thing to guide us here
now as ever, and that is the well-being of the Irish nation. I have always held,
and I hold still, that for the complete well-being of the Irish nation sovereign
independence is required. We are faced now with this Treaty, and with no
alternative to it as far as I can see. I propose supporting the Treaty, because
I am satisfied, looking at it, I think, as impartially as possible, that not
only does it make for an immediate improvement in the future of this country,
but, judging by the possibilities of what will happen by ratification or
acceptance, it seems to me that we shall be much nearer the ultimate goal at any
period such as I mentioned, by acceptance than by rejection. And I consider that
in accepting---for always the one basis as a guide for our actions in this
country is the welfare of the Irish nation---that we are not in any way breaking
any pledge or abandoning any principle by doing what we are doing. It seems to
me that we have one thing to rest assured of, the one thing that was made clear
by the last few years' history of this country, and that is, that the tradition
of Irish Independence and of Irish Nationality was too strongly embedded in us
to be overcome by British Terror or by the disastrous period which preceded
1916. And I say that, given the powers, limited though they be to some small
extent by this Treaty, there is no fear whatever of any going back. I look upon
the Treaty as an entrenchment of the position so far gained, and I don't see
that it is any abandonment of principle. Many things have been asserted about
this Treaty which I consider quite unwarranted by any ordinary reading, and I
agree with the speakers in this House that it will be the duty to read it in the
light most favourable to ourselves. The last speaker said that the Government of
the Free State would occupy the same position as Dublin Castle occupies now with
regard to the people of this country. That may be so, but there will be this
difference: our grievance with Dublin Castle is that it is there, and that it is
not in our power to remove it except by physical force, and we have not had, so
far, that force to remove it; but I cannot see how anyone can read this Treaty
in such a way as to think that any Government which is undesired by the Irish
people cannot be removed by the express will of the Irish people [hear,
hear]. The last speaker asked how would we know when the time would come
to fight again; how would we know when the time would come to strike for what he
called an Irish Republic. In the declaration that is posted around the walls now
which was made by the leaders of 1916 it was pointed out that in the last three
hundred years Ireland had risen in arms some six or seven times. We have no
reason to think that our generation or the generations coming after it will be
less worthy Irishmen than those who have gone before; and it seems to me that if
we accept this Treaty it will be worked by the people as well as they can,
always working as Irishmen, thinking of the well-being of their country and when
the time comes when they find that there is anything in the Treaty that comes
between them and the well being of their country they, by the very oath they
take in it, and by the whole tradition of our people, have only one course
before them, and that is to act for the well-being of their country without any
regard to anything else what ever. It has also been generally understood here
that a Treaty is a thing which is made for eternity. It is no such thing. It is
well recognised that a Treaty exists as long as it suits two parties to keep it.
The last speaker suggested if ever it was for Ireland's good that the Treaty be
abandoned we were bound in honour to keep to it. I think it is established the
world over that a Treaty exists only until such time as one of the parties to it
formally denounces it. I am satisfied that this Treaty bears that interpretation
better than any other. It means this, that we do allow a certain limitation of
our sovereignty by occupation of certain of our ports; that is to say, that we
allow our sovereignty to be interfered with to a rather less degree than the
sovereignty of Spain is interfered with by the occupation of Gibraltar. I would
ask the member for Cork, who stated his objection to it was that he would see
British ships from his house every morning, if he thinks at the present time
Spain, in its weak condition, is justified in not considering the feelings of
the people of Algeeiras, who also see British forces every morning when they
look out? Does he think that Spain is insulted and that she is bound in honour,
without any regard for circumstances, to declare war, and to declare war
continually on England until that one point is effected? I do not think so.
There are one or two points in the Treaty which have been laboured very much.
One was the Governor-General, as he is called. The first clause in this Treaty
says that the Executive shall be responsible to Parliament in this country. In
Britain the Executive is, in fact, responsible to the Parliament, but in form it
is responsible to the King. In Ireland, under the Treaty, it is clearly laid
down that the Executive is responsible to the Parliament. The opponents of the
Treaty contend that the King or his representative on the Council constitutes
the Executive. They quoted the Canadian Constitution, 1869, section 9. That may
be so if you like. In that case the King or his representative is responsible to
the Parliament according to Clause 1 of the Treaty, and the Parliament is
responsible to the people. Therefore I shall put the interpretation on the
Treaty that the representative of the King of England will be responsible to the
Parliament in Ireland which is responsible to the people. If the Crown or its
representative means anything more than a symbol of State as Mr. Childers
contends, he is the servant of and responsible to the Parliament and the people.
Thus we have in the Treaty itself the very demand of the President: `That the
legislative, executive and judicial authority of Ireland shall be derived solely
from the people of Ireland.' I am satisfied that this Treaty bears that
interpretation, and does recognise the sovereignty of Ireland. Sovereignty is of
the people and is unalienable, and for that reason I say that, having only one
formula to guide us---it is a formula which is not a mere formula, but
absolutely basic---that, as the servants of the Irish nation, without
abandonment of principle or without any breaking of oaths, we are doing a thing
it is quite feasible for us to do in supporting this Treaty. The Republic has
been spoken of as if it were a thing existing unchallenged. If that is so, I
don't know what we were fighting for. We were fighting for the independence of
our country, and that independence was interfered with because England still
held our country. Now we have England recognising---whether she agrees that she
is recognising it or not---this document in front of us is a recognition of the
sovereignty of Ireland, but there is still a limitation of the independence of
Ireland. That limitation is agreed to, say, under duress. I don't know of any
Treaty that is not signed under duress, and I am quite satisfied that the Treaty
was signed under duress not only by the plenipotentiaries, but by the
representatives of the British Government. Everyone agrees that it was never
love of justice or love of Ireland that induced Mr. Lloyd George to agree to
that Treaty. He agreed to it because it was in our power to make it worth his
while to agree to Irish independence to that extent. For that reason he signed
it under duress and we signed it under duress. By accepting it we have
sufficient belief in the Irish people that they will conserve their energy and
build up their country, so that at any future time, if it be found that England
is acting as the enemy of this country, we will be in a better position to deal
with her than we are now [hear, hear]. And I am quite satisfied if
at any time Ireland is in a strong enough position to challenge England with a
fair chance of success, if England still persists in acting as our enemy, that
she will receive final confirmation of the desire of the Irish people for the
complete independence of their country. [Applause.]
MR. SEUMAS FITZGERALD (CORK):
During the adjournment I took the opportunity to test my constituents, and to
the best of my ability during that short time I felt the pulse of my
constituents. I found the following: those individuals who, to my certain
knowledge were always against us favoured the Treaty. It was to be expected of
them. Those whom we brought with us in the present fight supported the Treaty
first because it was boomed in the Press as a great victory. Now they feel
compelled to accept it as a mere compromise. The sympathisers and the workers
themselves find themselves in a very curious position. They now, what they did
not at the beginning of this Session, understand what the Treaty actually is.
They realise that we have not won; that Lloyd George has won. They believe that
no matter whether you call this, Government of Dáil Eireann, Government of the
Republic, or call it the Government of the Saorstát that, for good and all, if
we accept this treaty sovereign independence is gone. They feel, some of them,
that they should accept the Treaty under duress, but if there is any possibility
of uniting and practically unanimously rejecting this Treaty they would prefer
that such would be done. Then there are those who bore the brunt of the fight
during the past two or three years. They are---and I have ascertained their
opinions ---almost unanimously against this Treaty, war or no war. Now one
argument that I had to meet that was a fairly serious argument from my point of
view; the Press boomed it and the country swallowed it: it was the point of view
expressed by Deputy Mellowes that we as a Dáil had, before we sent
plenipotentiaries to London definitely made up our minds to agree to compromise.
I do not wish to enter into details to controvert that statement. There is an
official publication of the Dáil containing all the correspondence that passed
between President de Valera acting in his capacity as President of the Republic
and Lloyd George; and I defy any single individual to show me throughout the
whole of that correspondence by letter and telegram where the interests of the
Republic were compromised. Now, the question of the mandate gives a good many
Deputies a serious trouble of mind. What is my mandate? The only mandate that I
ever remember having received was a mandate to come here to this second Dáil,
and to the best of my ability safeguard the interests of the Republic
established on the twenty-first January, 1919.
MR. M. COLLINS:
What about 1916?
MR. FITZGERALD:
Now that mandate is clear enough. The individuals who asked me to accept that
mandate have not asked me to change. I have in my pocket resolutions passed by
Sinn Fein Executives in my own area, and the most important Councils in my own
area---those resolutions have not found their way into the Press---reiterating
confidence in the Dáil, and expressing at the same time confidence that their
representatives will do what they think best in the interests of Ireland. That
is my mandate. But even so I find that, without considering the individuals whom
I have mentioned, that I have found out that I can also take from them a
somewhat similar mandate. Support of the Treaty by those who support it in my
constituency is based upon fear, and such a mandate cannot be a true mandate. I
have found that the thing that is uppermost in the people's mind is peace rather
than the Treaty. Everybody, including myself, is anxious for peace. The people
are longing for peace. All are not for the Treaty. It is discussed and it is
also cursed. Well, if I find that the people want peace rather than the Treaty,
and if I believe that the rejection of this Treaty will give us an opportunity
of establishing a real and lasting peace, I would be interpreting, to the best
of my ability, the wishes of those individuals who long for peace by voting
against the Treaty. The last Deputy who spoke seemed to imagine that England
does not mean that this Treaty will be binding. Why are Treaties made at all
otherwise? If treaties were not binding we could have war practically in every
decade. England would not put certain words in this Treaty unless she honestly
intended to see that they were carried through. We know that even upon certain
points in the Treaty that she even threatened war. I would imagine that she
meant what she said when she asked that this certain phrase or clause would be
inserted in the Treaty---if she threatened war. The Treaty is no empty formula
to her. She, and not us, has won on principle. The Deputy from Cork, Deputy
Walsh, gives an instance of how the provisions of the Treaty could be
circumvented, and he stated that Germany gained a few extra points out of the
Treaty of Versailles. I maintain that, as regards essential details, that
certain points may be gained from treaties from time to time, but I maintain
that on fundamentals treaties are essentially binding. They may alter in respect
of questions about finances and particular clauses, but I do not believe that on
such fundamentals as the questions of sovereignty or defence that England does
not recognise that that Treaty is binding. The Deputy who spoke before me
claimed that it was not irrevocable in so far as it was signed under duress.
What was the duress under which the Treaty was signed? All the plenipotentiaries
who signed were not there, and I hold that the duress to make that Treaty
invalid should be personal and immediate duress. I do not believe that any of
the plenipotentiaries were threatened with immediate death at that period, or
that they were threatened with immediate torture. The duress was not immediate.
If the matter was brought as a contentious matter before any International Court
of Law I believe that, irrespective of England's strength, England would win.
Now about the question of the alternative if this Treaty is not ratified. I give
those who are supporting the Treaty, or a majority of them, credit, in so far as
I believe them to be out for an ultimate Republic. Now I maintain that this
Treaty is irrevocable, and to secure an ultimate Republic---the only way we
could do it is to cast aside that Treaty, and that means a declaration of war
upon England. It is a matter of choice therefore with me as to whether war will
be immediate, or whether we must be prepared for war. Let the people understand
both alternatives. The alternative on our side is immediate war, and the
alternative on the other side, in so far as the Treaty does not satisfy the
aspirations of those who signed it, is future war. Some of the speakers who
support the Treaty do not believe that war will be necessary. They believe that
we could gradually encroach upon this Treaty and that we could take `this thing
and this thing and this thing,' as I heard it expressed. I do not believe that
that is at all possible. For instance, we will just conceive in our minds the
principal people who will work the Irish Free State if it does happen to come
into operation. They will be people, the majority of them---I do not mean those
who are supporting the Treaty, but I mean those who will come into the Irish
Free State Government from outside---whose purely material and sordid interests
will hamper your movements in that direction every way they possibly can. The
Deputy from Cork, Deputy Walsh, offered a parallel in South Africa. Does he
designedly forget the efforts that South Africa made during the period of the
great war in Europe to regain a Republic? She was faced with the bitter
opposition of her own people, and she lasted but a few months. What will happen
if in endeavouring to secure an ultimate Republic in the future, we try to take
the Opportunity of England's temporary weakness at such a period and attempt by
force of arms to re-establish a Republic? The chaos that you imagine will follow
the rejection of this Treaty will be nothing to the chaos that will follow such
a course if adopted at such a period. I maintain that our moral position is such
at the present time that we can better face war now than we can in ten or twenty
years' time. The people of Ireland imagine that it is only solely on the
question of the ratification of this Treaty that the alternative of war has been
spoken about. I think the members of the Dáil will readily admit that they
themselves faced war when they directed the President to transmit the reply he
did transmit to Lloyd George on the 24th August last. They will admit that there
was a probable break when our President refused to take as granted the letter
that he sent to Lloyd George at Gairloch on the 13th September as not having
been handed to Lloyd George when the open threat of war was contained therein,
and the Dáil accepted that and the country does not seem to have realised it.
Even the second last telegraphic communication sent by our President to Lloyd
George invited the alternative to open warfare at that time, and the warfare did
not come although it took ten full days for the British Cabinet to make up their
minds, from the 19th to the 29th September. They did open negotiations, and the
result was that our plenipotentiaries went to London. Therefore those who
imagine that the only alternative is war are not acting fairly towards the
country. If the Treaty is unanimously or otherwise rejected it is due to the
President and his Cabinet to formulate a policy, and with that confidence in him
that won so much for Ireland, I firmly believe that our confidence in him will
not be misplaced at such a juncture. The last speaker said that one of my
objections to the Treaty was that a British naval force would be in occupation
of Cork Harbour, and that from my residence I would see it evening, night and
morn. That was not my argument. My argument was that from my reading of the
Treaty I can see the British naval force not there for five years, but there for
ever. He pressed forward as an analogy the situation in Algiers. The situation
is somewhat different. Algiers is, in a different sense, de facto dependent on
France.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Algeciras, which is part of Spain---not `Algiers' which is the opposite side
altogether.
MR. FITZGERALD:
I don't know anything about that. I understood him to speak of Algiers. I
maintain that certain countries are de facto dependent on other political
bodies, but those other countries are better off than we will be under this
Treaty in so far as those countries themselves are sovereign. Deputy Fitzgerald,
I think, says he believes that Ireland will have sovereign independence under
this Treaty. Sovereignty is to me the complete independence of a state from all
other states, that the state derives its rights solely from itself and are
native to itself; that they are not delegated to it by another state; they are
not exercised by virtue of powers conferred on it by any other state or body,
that legally and judicially the state is not subject to any other political
body. The position that we find at the present time---the Government of the
Irish Republic functions on rights derived from itself and native to
itself---bespeaks the Government of the Irish Republic as a sovereign assembly.
Under this Treaty the authority of the Irish Free State is delegated to it by
the British Parliament as legally and judicially subject to the British Crown,
and as such, I maintain it cannot be accepted that Ireland under the Treaty will
be a sovereign independent nation. The only other thing that it can be is that
it will be a subordinate nation of the British Empire. I have heard arguments
brought forward here in regard to the sovereign independence of Canada and
Australia. In so far as their authority is derived from Britain and is exercised
under this superior jurisdiction of Britain I cannot accept it that Australia
and Canada are sovereign nations. After the great war the Allies imposed
obligations on Germany---and Austria as well---obligations which she could not
resist, but Germany still remains sovereign. Legally and judicially its
authority was its own and was derived from itself and was not delegated to it by
the Allies. I would really prefer this Treaty to recognise the fundamental of
Irish sovereignty and be prepared to sacrifice other considerations such as
financial considerations, truce clauses, aye, and defence clauses, but only for
a certain period. Persia, Afghanistan and others allow other nations to exercise
certain powers which are their's alone by right, but they are still sovereign.
The reason why I would prefer such is this, that the people at all times will
agitate for material concessions. The people as we know them will not at all
times agitate for the ideal. The people will be very slow indeed to agitate for
the idea of sovereignty which we have now lost under this Treaty if we accept
it, when war will be the only method of regaining it. I do not know of any
nation on this earth that does not claim that sovereignty as a natural attribute
of the state. Why do we not demand the same right? You call It the Irish Free
State. Fundamentally it is not so. Now about the clauses of the Treaty. I will
not debate them. The clauses containing the oath and the Governor-General, and
the point about common citizenship are repulsive to every individual whom I have
met in my constituency who has created the present situation or assisted to
create it. It is, undoubtedly, causing them great anxiety. The Deputy from Cork,
Deputy Walsh, said that if he thought the Treaty would bring disunity to Ireland
he would vote against it. From his inference I gathered that he meant Ulster.
Does he take into consideration a more grievous and a more disastrous disunity
than the one he spoke of? I speak of the disunity that is bound to come---the
disruption of the national movement. Deputy O'Duffy said that if he were offered
the alternative to war or chaos that he would prefer war. I believe national
chaos is bound to come out of the acceptance of this Treaty unless some
superhuman effort is made by somebody who has not yet come along to try and
retrieve the position that we have lost. The Deputy also stated that the
peaceful penetration of England is now at a standstill. I maintain that it is
now and now only that the peaceful penetration of Britain is percolating through
this country. He also mentioned about prisoners in Belfast awaiting execution. I
am much in the same position myself. There are several individuals from my own
constituency at the present time under sentence of death in Cork prison. At the
same time I well remember that a communication was sent to the Press by the
Brigade Commandant who at that time was responsible for the operation for which
those men were adjudged guilty, that those men were perfectly innocent. From
what I know of those men I do not believe that they would wish that their
predicament should be allowed to trouble my conscience in this matter, and I
firmly believe that they are quite prepared to stand by any decision the Dáil
would make. But I know the attitude of one, personally. He has been sentenced to
fifteen years and he is at present serving that sentence. He is well known to
practically every Deputy in the Dáil, and when visited last Christmas by his
sister it was natural that something should crop up about the Treaty. Now I
maintain that there is very little difference between a man under sentence of
execution and an individual who is condemned to fifteen years' penal servitude.
Some, I think, prefer to be shot straight away, but this individual said that he
wished it would he known that he would prefer to rot inside in jail for the
fifteen years than accept this Treaty [Applause]. There is, at
least, one opinion from an individual who has just as much to say as the
individuals who are under sentence of execution. Now, I think it was the
President who mentioned the point that if what is contained in this Treaty were
contained in a further act that England thought fit to impose upon the country,
that it is quite possible that we would seize upon the Act and work it to the
best advantage. Deputy MacGarry sought to bring an unfair inference from what
was contained in James Connolly's book admitting his acceptance of the
Government act of '98. There is a difference in going forward and going
backward. James Connolly, at that time, by seizing on that Act would be going a
step forward. In taking that step he would not have signed any treaty bartering
away the sovereign rights of the Irish people. In conclusion I wish to state
that the men in my area who count will never accept this Treaty. There is
nothing in the Treaty which binds England to remove the English Garrison out of
this country. There is stated in a subsequent letter sent by Mr. Lloyd George to
the Chairman of the Delegation, Mr. Arthur Griffith, that they will evacuate
Southern Ireland. I wonder where they will go to? Then again,there is nothing in
the Treaty that does not give England quite a legal right to bring her troops
into Ireland whenever she deems so fit.
MR. MILROY:
Except the Irish Army.
MR. FITZGERALD:
The men who count in my area, I say, will never accept this Treaty. They ask
that we should be united and refuse to accept it, because it will bring Ireland
no peace. I am of the one mind only, and I ask that this Treaty be unanimously
or nearly so rejected. After that we will put our minds together and try and
re-establish our own position and make one more try. Those men have asked me to
bring forward this suggestion here, that we should not accept this, and that we
and the whole nation should make one more serious effort to try and re-establish
the position that we had before December 5th.
DR. R. HAYES:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I have never at any time during the past three
years, at any of the sessions, taken up very much of the time of this assembly,
and now, at its last session, I certainly am not going to do so. In that respect
at least I will try to be consistent. I am voting for the Treaty and I also am
supporting its adoption; and although I recognise that it confers a status on
this country that it had never since the English invasion, at the same time I
recognise that it does not give us everything that we wish for. To me, anyhow,
it is a compromise, but surely there are times, there are occasions---critical
occasions---in a nation's history when it is justifiable to compromise,
especially when the object of the compromise is not an ignoble one. It is a
necessary compromise to me, anyhow, but it certainly is a compromise without
dishonour. Speaking of compromises, to me it seems that the signing of this
Treaty was the final result, the culmination of a whole series of compromises,
during the past four or five months---all necessary compromises. One of the very
first acts in the negotiations was a compromise. Our army was not defeated, it
had not surrendered, and yet the enemy capital was selected as the meeting place
for the two delegations. As a political proposition in relation to an immediate
settlement with England it seems to me that the Republic ceased to exist four or
five months ago. I agree with Deputy Mellowes that the real Republic, the
Republican ideal, still exists, and is still cherished in the hearts even of
those people who support this Treaty. I think that it has been unfair and unjust
the criticism that has been levelled at the Delegation over these negotiations.
They were selected by this assembly and by the Cabinet of this assembly to make
a bargain, not on the Republican basis, but on the basis of association with
Britain's Commonwealth. They made that bargain and they have brought back the
bargain, and I think, considering the governing circumstances, that it is a
pretty good bargain. I am firmly convinced of one thing regarding this Treaty,
and it is this: but for the oath contained in it, ninety-nine per cent. of this
Dáil would accept it, as a compromise at least. I say that the oath is just as
unpalatable to those who are voting for the Treaty as it is to those who are
voting against it. Some Deputies referred to the clash of the oath, the
incompatibility of the oath with the Fenian tradition. A night or two before the
adjournment I happened to be reading the recollections of a Fenian leader, and I
came across in it his opinion of the oaths to English monarchs. As a personal
explanation I may say here that I wrote out that opinion and showed it to a
friend out here in the lobby, and next day it appeared in leaded type in one of
the Dublin newspapers, surrounded with a frame. I want to make it clear that I
had nothing to do with getting it into the paper. The Fenian leader I refer to
was John O'Leary. I think every member of this assembly will agree that John
O'Leary, up to the day of his death was a consistent and unrepentant Fenian. I
have here this opinion. It is not taken out of its context. `Let England cease
to govern Ireland, and then I shall swear to be true to Ireland, and to the
Queen or King of Ireland, even though the Queen or King also so happen to be
Queen or King of England. It has never been with me, and never shall be, any
question of forms of government, but simply freedom from foreign control.' If I
may say so, while reading the book memory carried back to me the first occasion
in my life on which I saw the Fenian leader, John O'Leary, and the first
occasion on which I saw the Chairman of the Delegation, Arthur Griffith; they
were chatting together in a Dublin street. I think if John O'Leary were in this
assembly he would see eye to eye with Arthur Griffith on this question. I do not
intend to delay the House any longer. I shall finish up by saying this: If I
were convinced this Treaty meant the final reconciliation of Ireland with
England I would have very little hesitation in deciding upon which way my vote
should go. But it is not the end [hear, hear]. The adoption of
this Treaty will enable us, as the Chairman of the Delegation said in his
opening address to rebuild here in this country the old Gaelic civilisation that
went down at the Battle of Kinsale [hear, hear]. Its adoption will
mean the revival and spread of Gaelic culture. It will mean the leavening into
everybody's Irish life the old traditional and the old heroic memories. These
things are not mentioned in the Treaty clauses, but they are implied there, and
any one of them is just as important as, say, fiscal autonomy. Finally, a
Chinn Chomhairle, I support this Treaty because it places in the hands of
the Irish nation powerful weapons, material weapons and spiritual weapons, that
will enable it to achieve its full destiny. [Applause].
MR. JOHN O'MAHONY:
I, like other Deputies, have received several messages within the last few
days from my constituents, and one of those I received was this: `I have no
doubt but that eighty or ninety per cent. favour the ratification here, more
especially after reading de Valera's substitute oath.' Now, I have got friends
in this assembly as dear to me as my own life, but I certainly must say I never
read that oath in No. 2 Document.
MR. MILROY:
You know where it is.
MR. O'MAHONY:
I wish now to be as brief as possible. Like most other Deputies I have, since
the adjournment, received letters, telegrams, and resolutions from public bodies
and individual voters in my constituency requesting, in some cases demanding,
that I vote for ratification of this so-called Treaty. While I have every
possible respect for the individual opinions of my correspondents, I wish to
point out that they are, after all, only individual opinions. They are not the
opinions of the people. I would say the same of Councils. They are not the
people either. They are the elected representatives of the people just as we are
here, but our Republican mandate, our national mandate, from the people, is much
clearer and much stronger than the mandate given to any County Council, District
Council or Board of Guardians. I may be asked what about the Comhairle
Ceanntair of Sinn Fein which, by a majority, has called upon me to vote for
the Foreign Minister's motion. I am well aware---none better---of the weight and
importance of the Comhairle Ceanntair of Sinn Fein in my constituency. I
know its members and their worth. During the last three years they have worked
well and worked sincerely with me, and for me in the Republican cause. I have
always consulted the Comhairle Ceanntair, and have always paid the
greatest attention to its views where matters affecting my constituency were
concerned, but even it is not the people of Fermanagh. The Comhairle
Ceanntair---and I am deeply grateful for it---honoured me by selecting me as
a Republican candidate, but it was the people that elected me as a Republican
Deputy to Dáil Eireann; and I have yet to be convinced---resolutions, letters
and telegrams like those I have already received will not convince me---that the
people have turned down the Republic that seven short months ago they elected me
to maintain and uphold. If the people of Fermanagh gave me a mandate to vote for
this `fleshpots of Egypt' alternative to renewed war that the British Government
is seeking to force upon us, a mandate given in the same manner and carrying the
same weight as that which they gave me last May, I admit that I would feel bound
to consider it, I would feel bound to act upon it; I would feel bound at once to
place my resignation in their hands, because I could not, even at their bidding,
forswear my allegiance to the Irish Republic. But before I place my resignation
in their hands I would, as within my right and in accordance with my duty,
record my vote on the issue that is before us here and now. During the last
week's organised campaign---to stampede or try to stampede the Dáil Deputies
into approving of this Treaty in the British Government's ultimatum---we have
heard a lot in speeches and Press letters about precedents for our obeying, like
automatons, the alleged wishes of the people; and examples have been cited down
to Abraham Lincoln. None of these examples is, in my opinion, analogous to the
situation in which we find ourselves to-day. In all of them the questions at
issue were questions at best of domestic politics; with us the issue at stake is
the maintenance or surrender of our national independence. We can find a true
analogy to our present position in our own time in the case of the Boers. In
1902 the British Government presented to the Boers the same ultimatum as it has
now presented to us---take these terms or take a war of extermination. When the
representatives of the Transvaal and of the Orange Free State met in combined
session at Vereeniging to consider the terms it was found that, while one
section of the Deputies were given a free hand, another section had a definite
mandate from their constituents, and it was generally felt that such a mandate
would prevent a free exercise of their judgment by the Deputies who had received
it. The difficulty was alluded to in his inaugural address by the President of
the Transvaal Republic, and before the discussion opened, General Botha asked
for a direction on the matter. Judge Hertzog, the legal representative of the
Orange Free State, and an acknowledged authority on constitutional law,
stated---I quote his exact words: `It is a principle in law that a Deputy is not
to be regarded as a mere agent or mouth-piece of his constituents, but, on the
contrary, when dealing with public affairs, as a man vested with full
powers---with the right, whatever his brief may be, of acting to the best of his
judgment.' General Smuts, States-Procureur of the Transvaal, endorsed Judge
Hertzog, and their decision was unanimously accepted. The Deputies with a
specific mandate felt themselves as free to use their own judgment as the
Deputies without one, and the decision at which they eventually arrived was at
variance with the mandates that many of them had from their people. I am not now
concerned with the character of either the mandates or the decision of the
Boers. I cite their case simply to prove the principle that members of all
parliaments are, in their acts and votes, free agents. I quote it to show, in
spite of the campaign of intimidation being pursued by the pro-British Press in
Ireland, that we Dáil Deputies here in Dublin, are as free agents as were the
Boers at Vereeniging. In fact we are freer, because none of us has received from
our constituents any mandate of any kind on the question that is before us.
MR. MILROY:
Question?
MR. O'MAHONY:
I will answer you. If I leave this matter here some of our pro-British papers
will probably be asking: `If all this is true, where do the people stand?' I
answer that the people stand------
MR. MILROY:
For the Treaty.
MR. O'MAHONY:
Where they always stood and always will stand, as the moral source and fount
of all national authority. The Boers recognised this. While declaring their
Deputies to be free agents they also, in the words of the President of the
Transvaal, declared that the surrender or otherwise of their independence was a
question that must be left to the decision of their people. We declare the same.
We recognise the people as sovereign, we admit that their will is supreme, we
acknowledge them as the final court of appeal. But I wish to point out that this
so-called Treaty question has not yet reached that final court of appeal. It is
still before us---the Dáil---and it is for us, as free agents, to decide it to
the best of our judgment. If the people are not satisfied with our decision then
they can turn it down and turn us down too. But in the meantime, as free and
unfettered members of the Parliament of the Irish Republic, we are privileged,
nay, we are bound, by every principle of law, by every obligation of right, by
every canon of duty, to speak and act and vote as we individually and
conscientiously believe to be in keeping with our oath to the Republic. Now some
reference was made during the course of the debate to the Republican form of
Government as if that form of Government had ceased to exist or practically
never existed. We all believe that the Minister of Finance was a man who spoke
the truth according to his conscience, and spoke the words he meant to follow.
In the beginning of 1921 he stated in an interview with an American journalist,
when speaking of the Loan: `We raised 400,000. Of this sum we lost only 29,
which was taken by British authorities from one of our collectors. The
Government carrying on the Irish Republic to-day cannot talk of compromise.'
Now, the Treaty is objectionable to me for various reasons. I remember for many
years realising that a wall was around Ireland, and the voice of Ireland choked.
Now, the wall was pulled down by as great an Irishman as any who sits in this
House to-day and that is the Minister for Foreign Affairs------
MR. GRIFFITH:
It won't do, John.
MR. O'MAHONY:
I thank you Art, [Laughter].
MR. GRIFFITH:
John, you are the man that asked me to make peace at any price.
MR O'MAHONY
Yes, but not at the price of the Irish Republic.
MR. GRIFFITH:
It will not do, John.
MR. O'MAHONY:
Whatever my friend Arthur Griffith says, we can have our little jokes [Laughter].
MR. GRIFFITH:
It is no joke.
MR. O'MAHONY:
If that wall be built around Ireland, every submarine cable and all the
messages sent out to the world are choked; and if England has her hand on the
throat of the nation, how can you develop the foreign trade of the nation? Some
of our friends on the other side who are voting for this so-called Treaty seem
to have blinded themselves into the belief that they can be Free Staters and
remain good Republicans as well. They may so blind themselves but they can not
blind us, and they cannot blind the country or the world. No one knows better
than the plenipotentiaries that as far as those who voluntarily accepted are
concerned, this Georgian State is a final abandonment of the claim to
independence; and those who support this Treaty will very soon find also that,
on an issue of national principle like this there can be no such thing as
running with the hare and hunting with the hounds [applause and counter
cheers]. The two oaths are too fiercely conflicting to admit of either
reconciliation or approachment. Any attempts to compose them must fail now as it
failed before.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
What two oaths?
MR. O'MAHONY:
This oath and the oath to the Irish Republic. We had, as far as the oath is
concerned, the same situation in the days of the New Departure. No matter who
may talk about free Irish Constitutions there is no difference between this oath
that is before us now and the Westminster oath then, except this: the
Westminster oath was only a single-springed trap for unwary Irishmen, while this
new one that the plenipotentiaries want us to accept secures us for ever with a
treble spring. When the policy of the New Departure was proposed the Irish
Republican Brotherhood, which Mr. P. S. O'Hegarty described a couple of weeks
ago as the sheet anchor of Irish nationalism, promptly and absolutely turned it
down. Thus foiled in Ireland, Davitt and his friends sought to win the support
of the Clan-na-Gael; and the Supreme Council of the I.R.B. immediately sent the
veteran, John O'Leary, to America to counteract their efforts. Addressing the
Clan-na-Gael in New York, O'Leary denounced the proposal as immoral and
impolitic. `There is,' he said, `to be a pretence of loyalty but in reality
treason all along the line. I do not believe in a policy of dust throwing and
lying, but that is the policy of the New Departure. The Fenian Movement is
purely a national movement. Though I were to stand absolutely alone I would
resist this dishonest and unholy alliance. I believe in righteous means as well
us righteous ends.' What John O'Leary said of the New Departure Republicans in
1878 can, with even more force, be said of the self-deluded Free State
Republicans in the Dáil to-day [Applause]. In spite of all this,
Davitt, O'Connor Power, J. F. X. O'Brien, John O'Connor, and other members of
the Fenian organisation persisted in their policy and took the Oath of
Allegiance. When John O'Leary learned what they had done his only comment was:
`I wish the British Sovereign joy of the British oaths of turncoats who have
already taken and broken the Republican oath.' Would not the unconquerable old
Fenian leader, if he were here to day, use the same words? Would he not employ
even stronger language of those Dáil Deputies who are tumbling over each other
in their eagerness to break the Republican oath that they took in August last to
take this Oath of Allegiance to the British monarch and thereby to help the
British Government to enforce this, its latest Coercion Art in Ireland? Whatever
the result of the vote on this question, we who are against the surrender of our
national independence can face ourselves, face the people, and face the country
with the consciousness that we have done our duty to the Republic that we swore
to maintain and uphold.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Why not face Fermanagh, John?
MR. O'MAHONY:
I will go, and I will tell you how I will come out of it. I consider, a
Chinn Chomairle, you are not doing your duty [Laughter]. Is it
because there is a lasting friendship between the Foreign Minister and me that
you allow these interruptions? [Laughter].
MR. GRIFFITH:
It is because you came to me three times and asked me to make peace at any
price.
MR. O'MAHONY:
Do not lose your hair [Laughter]. We may find ourselves in a
minority as Pearse and his comrades were in a minority in Easter Week; but like
them we will have the satisfaction of feeling that we have saved the soul and
body of the nation from those who would wittingly or unwittingly kill it, for
the purpose of bringing ease and comfort to the material body. We can face the
future with hope, nay with confidence, because we have with us the two elements
amongst our people with whom the national future lies. We have the women with
us, and no cause that is backed by the national womanhood of the country can
ever fail, just as no cause that lacks their support can end in anything but
disaster and disgrace. We have the youth with us, too---the youth of the Irish
Republican Army---human beings endowed by God with the power of deciding what
was right and what was wrong; not mere goods and chattels to be carried off and
used as their absolute property by our anticipated Free State majority. For
opportunism, for supineness, for contemptibleness, the daily Press of Ireland is
unique in the journalism of the world. However, the young men of the army I am
proud to say, have proved themselves too straight, too true, too unselfish in
their love and loyalty to the Republic to be decoyed from the path of honour, of
righteousness and of duty, to be deceived into breaking their soldier oaths by
such transparent political expediency on the part of a majority of their
Headquarters Staff. We have the young men of the army with us, we have the
womanhood of the nation with us, and with these two elements on its side the
ultimate triumph of the Republic is assured; because, as Terence MacSwiney said:
Those who walk in old ruts and live in trembling may bend the knee and sign
their rights away; but one wronged man defrauded of his heritage can refuse to
seal the compact, and with one how many, thank God, will be found to stand,
for the spirit of our youth to-day is not for compromise.
[Applause]
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
I rise to support the Treaty. In what I have to say I hope not to hurt the
feelings of anyone. I am not going to follow on the same lines as the last
speaker. I have only this to say about that speaker: he has no right or
authority to speak for the Irish Republican Brotherhood---to speak in this Dáil---and
I doubt his authority to speak for the army either. He did not go to his
constituents to find out what their views were; he knew their views already. It
is all right to say the Press is stampeding the people; it is all right to
compare the Press of 1916, but the comparison does not hold to-day. The old
Boards who passed resolutions against the 1916 Rising have been wiped out. I
hold in my hand here a pamphlet; it is issued by Sinn Fein, and it gives a list
of the Republican Councils in Ireland: in Ulster there are forty-two
Boards---sixteen Republican, ten Republican-Nationalist, and sixteen Unionists,
in Leinster there are thirty-eight Boards and the thirty-eight are Republican;
in Munster there are forty-seven Boards and the forty-seven are Republican; in
Connacht there are twenty-seven Boards and the twenty-seven are Republican. Now,
these are different Boards to the Boards that passed resolutions in 1916. You
boasted of the fact that you had wiped out the old Nationalist crowd and a good
deal of the Unionists and elected Republicans in their places. When these
Republicans pass resolutions, Deputies like Professor Stockley and Deputy
O'Mahony tell the Deputies to go to the devil, and that they would do what they
liked in the Dáil.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
When did I tell the Deputies to go to the devil? [Laughter.]
MR. MACCARTHY:
I meant the electors.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
That the electors must go to the devil! When did I say that?
MR. MACCARTHY:
Not in so many words, but that is the meaning of what you said, anyhow.
MR. O'MAHONY:
I say the mandate given to me was given to me by the people, and I stand by
that mandate. The people are the last Court of Appeal.
MR. MACCARTHY:
I object to these interruptions. I think nobody will deny the fact that I
know something about elections [hear, hear], and I regret to say I
am responsible for having some of the members here to-day [Laughter].
The 1918 election was not fought on the issue of an Irish Republic. It was
fought for the principle and the right of self-determination. At that time we
had a cartoon about the vacant chair at the Peace Conference to be filled by
Count Plunkett. That is what the people voted on; not on what particular form of
Government at all. It is only right to say that. Members have no right to say
they were elected on the Republican issue and are not going to take the oath.
They were nothing of the sort. I am not going to debate this point of the oath.
As one of the Whips I have done my best to control the number of speakers and
the length of speeches, but I failed. I am not going to go over the oath. We
have lawyers on both sides who have made their cases. Some say they cannot take
it, while others say it is all right. I am going to make up my mind like Michael
Collins---as a plain Irishman. I see no allegiance in the oath. If there were I
would not take it. Every speaker who claims to have English blood is opposed to
this Treaty.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
Here is one who is not.
MR. MACCARTHY:
They do not understand the people. They put me in mind of the City Councillor
going up for election in the Dublin Corporation who went about for a drive in
the slum area and wept tears about the conditions of the people in the slums. He
knew nothing about it. We sprang from the working people. We know their lives in
the slums. We know them better than these people and we know what they want. We
have heard Deputies speaking about breaking an oath and what a dishonourable
thing it is. Was it dishonourable for the Fenians to send a major into the
British Army to corrupt British soldiers? Shame on men who speak like that! I am
out to do work for Ireland, and I do not give a damn where a man comes from so
long as we do good work for Ireland. Now, I stand for this Treaty, and one of
the principal things I see in it is the control of education. Again I say I am a
plain man; the education I got was not very much; it was a National School
education. On the map we were taught that `all the places marked red are British
possessions. Look at Ireland! A little spot in the Atlantic.' We had there a
singing chart to teach children to sing, in happy Christian days, about being a
happy English child. If that education produced men and women who would go to
the scaffold with a smile on their lips for Ireland, will Deputies tell me that
the education they will get under their own Parliament, when they are more
prosperous, will make them forget all about Ireland, and bow and bend the knee
in front of a great Governor-General? Men who say that do not know Ireland. They
do not know the people, and have no confidence in the people, and have no right
to be members of this Dáil [cheers]. I thought it was always a
motto of ours in Sinn Fein to try and unite all Ireland so as to bring freedom
in this country and give fair play to everyone. It is a disgrace for a Deputy to
get up and complain because the Chairman of the Plenipotentiaries offered fair
play to the Southern Unionists. They are our countrymen. We want them with us in
this fight as well as anyone.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I do not object to fair play.
MR. MACCARTHY:
I should like to ask when your Councils, working under your Local Government
Board, were making a tremendous fight against the British Local Government
Board, what happened? When the Dublin Corporation looked for a loan of 100,000,
and could not get it from their so-called popular banks, the Governors of the
Bank of Ireland, who were all Southern Unionists, granted that loan. If they
failed to get that loan they would go down, and if the Dublin Corporation went
down the rest of the local bodies went down. Make no mistake. The Governors of
the Bank are Southern Unionists and they have done that turn for you. It is well
known to the Minister of the Local Government Board and to the members of the
Dáil if that loan failed you would not be in the position you are in to-day. You
would have broken down. You ought to be perfectly honest in this matter. I do
not see in this Treaty the end, but it is an instrument put into our hands, and
we can use it for the benefit of Ireland. The alternative is war, or chaos,
which is worse than war. Why are we going to do all that? The Minister for
Fisheries gave an excuse and I wonder some member did not say that four years
ago he consulted his mother and she was against it [Laughter]. Is
it for that we are going to drive the Irish people to the shambles? Is it for
that reason we are going to break up the solid ranks we have behind us? One of
the great boasts of the Dáil was that they had the people behind them. It is
true. But should you reject this Treaty what are you going to do? Can you go to
England and the world and say the people are behind us? The President admits the
people want this Treaty, and he admits they would take it. Ninety-five per cent.
of the people are for it [`No! no!']. Well, the proof of that is,
anyone that likes to contest a seat---as far as mine is concerned, I would fight
the President or anyone in this Dáil and beat him a hundred to one.
MR. MILROY:
Here is another the same.
MR. MACCARTHY:
It is the same all over the country. We must face that issue. We could do
nothing if the people were not behind us. The good, brave fellows in the army
could do nothing were it not that the people were behind the army. The Dáil
could do nothing only that the people were behind it. The people are not behind
the minority in this issue. They are for this Treaty. They are our masters and
we must obey them. [cheers.]
DR. ADA ENGLISH:
A Chinn Chomhairle is a lucht na Dála, níl mórán agam le rá ach dearfa me
cúpla focal. A Deputy who spoke in favour of the Treaty wanted to know why
the young men should be sent to the shambles---I think that was the word he
used. I should be sorry to see young men or old men, or women, or children going
to the shambles, but when there is a question of right or wrong in it I would be
prepared to go to the shambles myself and I do not see why everybody would not.
I credit the supporters of the Treaty with being as honest as I am, but I have a
sound objection to it. I think it is wrong; I have various reasons for objecting
to it, but the main one is that, in my opinion, it was wrong against Ireland,
and a sin against Ireland. I do not like talking here about oaths. I have heard
about oaths until my soul is sick of them, but if this Treaty were forced on us
by England---as it is being forced---and that paragraph 4, the one with the oath
in it were omitted, we could accept it under force; but certainly, while those
oaths are in it, oaths in which we are asked to accept the King of England as
head of the Irish State, and we are asked to accept the status of British
citizens---British subjects---that we can not accept. As far as I see the whole
fight in this country for centuries has centred round that very point. We are
now asked not only to acknowledge the King of England's claim to be King of
Ireland, but we are asked to swear allegiance and fidelity [`No! no!']
in virtue of that claim. Perhaps not, but that is the way I read it. For the
last seven hundred centuries, roughly [Laughter]---I mean seven
centuries---time does seem to be long here [Laughter]. However a
jolly long time, any way, Ireland has been fighting England and, as I understood
it, the grounds of this fight always were that we denied the right of England's
King to this country [`No! no!'].
MISS MACSWINEY:
Yes.
DR. ENGLISH:
And we denied we were British subjects. We are now asked not only to
acknowledge the claims of the English King to be head of Ireland, and to
acknowledge ourselves as British subjects, but we are asked to give him a right
to legalise his claim by giving him a right, by our votes, to the
position---that is, as far as we could give him the right. We cannot---nobody
can---give him a right to the country, or the votes of anybody give him a claim.
It seems to me that the taking of those oaths is a complete surrender of our
claims. It is a moral surrender. It is giving up the independence of our
country, and that is the main reason why I object to this Treaty. I deny that we
are a possession of the British and this Treaty simply makes us one of the
British possessions. Various Deputies have said that we surrendered the Republic
as soon as we began to discuss any association with England. I cannot understand
that position. It is not surrender of the Republic---any arrangement for
association with any other country, whether England, or Germany, or Japan, or
any country in the world. That did not give away the Republic in the slightest
degree. That we gave up the position of an isolated Republic without alliance,
with England or otherwise, might be claimed, but certainly we did not compromise
in any way our claim to a Republic. We would negotiate association with England
but there was no compromise in it, and I am sorry Dr. MacCartan is not here,
because in his amazing speech he said he knew the Republic was being killed the
moment we began to discuss association. It was his duty, and the duty of any man
who thinks as he did then to stand up and tell us that, in ignorance or
innocence, we were trying to murder the Republic and kill it; it is not when he
sees the Republic dead. Why did he not warn us in the beginning if he thought
so? I hold that the Republic is not dead, and will not die, in spite of Lloyd
George and the other evil spirits who wander through the world [Laughter
and cheers]. We are told that the country is for this Treaty---it has
been told to us in various forms of words, in various ways. The country is not
for this Treaty, the country is out for peace. The country wants peace and
desires peace. So do we. We all want peace, but we want a peace which will be a
real peace and a lasting peace and a peace based on honour and on friend ship
and a peace which we can keep, a peace that we can put our names to and stand
by. That is the sort of peace the country wants, and it is only because the
country is misled into believing that this Treaty gives such a peace that the
country wants it. The country wants no peace which gives away the independence
of Ireland and destroys the Republic which has been established by the will of
the Irish people [hear, hear]. We have had painted for us in
various lurid colours the terrors of war and the desire of the people for
quietness and peace. Well, peace is a good thing, but in the days of the famine
the people were also told that they should be peaceful and submissive and quiet,
and accept what the English chose to give them---the rotten potatoes---and let
the corn and food be exported out of the country. There were people then,
Republicans and Revolutionists, who encouraged the people to fight for the
country in spite of the men with the streak, and free themselves and keep the
food in the country. But some of the influences that are working against the
country to-day were working against it then and advised peace. They got
peace---and death and famine. You can lose more men---their bodies as well as
their souls---by an ignoble peace than by fighting for just rights [cheers].
The evacuation of the English troops is one of the things that are being held up
to us as being one of the very good points in the Treaty. It would be a very
desirable thing, indeed, that the English troops evacuated this country, if they
did evacuate it, but I hold that Ulster is still part of Ireland and I have not
heard a promise that the British troops are to evacuate Ulster. They are still
there. I understand they are to be drawn from the rest of Ireland and, as I read
the Treaty, there is not one word of promise in it about the evacuation of the
British troops. There was, I think, a letter read from the man across---Lloyd
George---promising that evacuation would begin in some certain time, but I
should like to know was that promise part of the arrangement made between the
British Government on one hand, and the plenipotentiaries of the Irish Republic
on the other, or was it merely a private arrangement of Mr. Lloyd George? I
suppose that the English Government believe---if they were going, even to a
slight degree, to evacuate the country, it is probably because they thought that
the country would be held for them by the Free State troops. They are depending
on the acceptance of the Treaty. If this Treaty is going to be kept are we to
understand that the Free State will hold the country for England instead of the
British Garrison? I have heard, I have listened very carefully---I think this
afternoon was the first time I missed any of the speeches from the beginning, on
the 14th December---to those speeches in favour of the Treaty. I have listened
most carefully and attentively to see if I could find any way in which I could
reconcile my conscience to vote for the Treaty. My position is not the same as
when I came to Dublin. I came up opposed to the Treaty. I am ten times more
opposed to it since I have heard the speeches in favour of the Treaty in this
Dáil. We repudiate the Republic if this Treaty is passed; we repudiate it
absolutely. It is a complete surrender and we don't get peace by it, but we get
the certainty of a bitter split and division in this country, because we who
stand for the complete freedom---for the separatist idea---for the complete
freedom and independence of Ireland cannot sit down with our hands across. We
will work and fight for it, and so there is bound to be a split. The only chance
you could have of unity is by having the whole Dáil unanimously reject this
thing. Then you would have the country behind you. Unity is a good thing and I
am very sorry to see the unity which was in this Dáil broken up as it is at
present, but I would be very much more sorry to see the Dáil united in approving
of this Treaty, because unity in wrong-doing is no advantage to the country or
the cause [hear, hear]. What we have got in this Treaty---the
material point, I suppose---is a truncated form of Dominion Home Rule for
three-quarters of the country. If Dominion Home Rule were the thing we were
fighting for and are satisfied to get---as those in favour of the Treaty seem to
think---why, in God's name, did they not tell us that two years ago and not send
out all the fellows to fight and lose their lives for a thing they did not want?
On what authority did they send out, if the Republic did not exist and was not
in being, any poor fellows to shoot and kill any man of any nation? If it was
not for the Government of the Republic and the army why did they go out?
MR. P. BRENNAN:
They went out themselves.
MR. M. COLLINS:
They did.
DR. ENGLISH:
They will go again, I hope, as soon as this thing is thrown out.
MR. P. BRENNAN:
They might, then. I am from Clare [Laughter].
DR. ENGLISH:
There has been talk about compromise---that we compromised the position. I
think that is a most unworthy thing to say---a most unworthy thing to say. We
had lots of things to bargain about---you had lots of material things to bargain
about---questions of trade and commerce and finance and the use of ports; but
nobody ever suspected we were going to compromise on the question of
independence and the rights of the country. Mr. MacGarry mentioned yesterday
Land Acts taken in the past from England. There was no Republic in Ireland when
we took the Land Acts from England. That makes a very great difference. And the
Republic exists. You can take any Act you like that is consistent with the
Republic but you cannot take anything which gives away the Republic. It is not
in your power to give it away. I have been asked by several people in the Dáil
and elsewhere as to what views my constituents took about this matter. I credit
my constituents with being honest people, just as honest as I consider
myself---and I consider myself fairly honest---they sent me here as a Republican
Deputy to An Dáil which is, I believe, the living Republican Parliament of this
country. Not only that, but when I was selected as Deputy in this place I was
very much surprised and, after I got out of jail, when I was well enough to see
some of my constituents, I asked them how it came they selected me, and they
told me they wanted someone they could depend on to stand fast by the Republic,
and who would not let Galway down again [cheers]. That is what my
constituents told me they wanted when they sent me here, and they have got it [cheers].
This is---a Chinn Chomhairle , may I rend a letter which has been
received to-day from the Graduates of the National University of Ireland? It is
not to me, it is to Professor Stockley. `As our representative, we have perfect
confidence in your ability to represent us. We disapprove of any interference by
individual graduates in the free actions of our representatives. We disapprove
further of any attempt to stampede members of the Dáil to act in contradiction
of their considered opinions.---M. O'Kennedy.'
MR. GRIFFITH:
How many names to that?
DR. ENGLISH:
Cúig Cinn. I am only speaking about my own constituents. There is a
point I want to make. I think that it was a most brave thing to-day to listen to
the speech by the Deputy from Sligo in reference to the women members of An Dáil,
claiming that they only have the opinions they have because they have a
grievance against England, or because their men folk were killed and murdered by
England's representatives in this country. It was a most unworthy thing for any
man to say here. I can say this more freely because, I thank my God, I have no
dead men to throw in my teeth as a reason for holding the opinions I hold. I
should like to say that I think it most unfair to the women Teachtaí because
Miss MacSwiney had suffered at England's hands. That, a Chinn Chomhairle is
really all I want to say. I am against the Treaty, and I am very sorry to be in
opposition to [nodding towards Mr. Griffith and Mr. Collins. (cheers)].
ALDERMAN JAMES MURPHY:
I simply want to publicly define my attitude towards the position in which we
find ourselves. Not being a constitutional lawyer I do not possess the art of
saying nothing in a great many words. Consequently I can relieve the House by
assuring it that I will be very brief. I desire to carry away with me only one
memory from this Session of An Dáil and that is a remembrance of two very honest
speeches delivered, one of them delivered by Deputy Barton, and the other
delivered by Deputy Dr. MacCartan, whose speech expressed my own thoughts and
feelings. Like Dr. MacCartan I would refuse to vote at all were it not for one
consideration. The consideration is this: that although in my opinion, this
battle for the Republic is lost, one hope yet remains for the Republic in the
future. That hope is the people of Ireland. I for one, will not consent to
sacrifice the people for the purpose of saving my face, or for the sake of the
differences which exist in this assembly. If the Republic---as the plain man in
the street understands it---was not given away when the Truce was signed, in my
opinion the Republic was certainly given away when we sent plenipotentiaries to
London to negotiate a Treaty in which the Republic was explicitly and implicitly
ruled out by the British Prime Minister in practically every communication he
sent us on the subject. Since then the situation appears to me to have developed
into a hunt after a basis which, when viewed through Irish spectacles would look
like a Republic, and when viewed through English spectacles would assume the
appearance of Dominion Home Rule. The result is neither one nor the other, and
it only remains for me to congratulate all concerned on their acrobatic
performance which, to me, is quite the most remarkable exhibition of the kind I
have ever witnessed. As far as the Republic is concerned---and when I speak of
the Republic I do not refer to the `bow-window' Republic, or external
association which we have heard so much of lately---I refer to the Republic as
the plain man in the street understands it, and as he will always understand
it---as far as that Republic is concerned we have all walked into a bog, and the
desperate endeavours of each side of the Cabinet to try to throw all the blame
on the other side serve no useful purpose. We know perfectly well both sides are
to blame. We know perfectly well we ourselves cannot escape our own share of the
responsibility of what has happened, because in our child-like trust we did not
maintain sufficiently close control over the Cabinet, and invested them with too
much of our powers. Deputies who come here and talk about retrieving the
position which we held before this took place could see there is no way out, and
they know it, and it is only self-deception to suggest there is. Two
alternatives are forced upon me. Both of them I consider outrageous. I must
choose either, or do as Dr. MacCartan intends doing---refuse to choose at all. I
choose what I consider the lesser of the two outrages, and I choose it for the
reason I have given. I will vote for the Treaty, not because I consider it a
satisfactory---not to talk of a final---settlement. Neither do I consider it
binding if and when, the circumstances under which the Treaty was signed---the
threat of a war of extermination---have disappeared. But I will vote for the
Treaty simply and solely because I believe that this course contains the only
germ of hope for the realisation of the Republic in the future, that is, the
salvation of the lives of the Irish people. I will follow no leader except my
conscience, and this is the only attitude my conscience will permit me to adopt.
[cheers].
DR. BRIAN A. CUSACK:
I hope to establish a record for brevity. We have had this Treaty discussed
from every possible point of view, and every impossible point of view, so that I
do not think very much more can be said to throw any light on it with a view to
acceptance or rejection. One has only to make clear one's own position, and with
me, coming here and during the time I have been here, my idea has been always
the same. I accept Deputy MacCarthy's suggestion that the election of 1918 was
one of self-determination, but as a result of that election a Government was
formed and the Republican Parliament. So we have one fact to go on. There was a
Republic and there is a Republic [hear, hear]. Now, the people, in
the midst of stormy times---in the darkest days of the terror---backed the
Republican Government that was in possession of the country. That is the mandate
beyond which I cannot go, and until the people, by a plebiscite or General
Election, after that trust I have no hesitation in saying I will not vote for
this Treaty. `In virtue of our British Citizenship'! That is enough to stick in
the gills of any man who wants to discuss this. We are Irish Republican
citizens, and I certainly would not dare, without a mandate from my
constituents, to vote for an Irish Republic entering into English citizenship.
If they themselves accept the position of British citizenship, then we back
down. That is their look-out. They can; they are masters. The will of the people
is supreme. That will was expressed in 1921, less than nine months ago; and
unless a person had a sort of automatic record put up to hear his constituents'
opinions on every particular question discussed here, he could not know their
finally definite views [Laughter]. In 1921 they voted for the
continuance of the Republican Government, and until a General Election or
plebiscite is taken the Deputy so elected must vote for the Republic. This
Treaty does not guarantee that. Therefore we cannot accept it. We had happy
pictures painted as to the lovely things that would happen when the Free State
was established, and a Deputy from Cork told us that the old idea of British
education in Ireland will be altered---we will no longer thank goodness and
praise, with a smile, that we are peaceful, happy English children---our
children will be little Gaelic children. But the Treaty says they will be
British citizens!
MR. M. COLLINS:
It does not.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
It does.
DR. CUSACK:
I cannot read it in any other way. Many Deputies pointed out that this Treaty
was accepted under a threat of war, and the Deputy from the University said that
was not an argument---that it should not be used as an argument to get the
Treaty through the House. I agree with him. The country has been threatened, and
always had war more or less with England. We had got to a strong vantage ground.
I believe we should have held there. We have the Republic still and, in my
opinion, this Dáil cannot, and has no power to destroy it. The Irish people have
the right, and may do so as they will. But, as I say, there is no power in this
Dáil to destroy it. It cannot destroy the Government which it established. We
had Deputy MacCartan who has been appealed to from all sides of the House. He
talked of chaos. The people have gone through the terror, and this Government
did not allow the country to fall into chaos. Will the ability in this House be
less in future years than it has been in the past few years? Will the strain on
it be very much greater? And still chaos never came on the country. If we had a
united policy to-morrow, the people--- and they are gallant because they stood
the strain magnificently---they would stand behind the Dáil if it rejected this
Treaty, and we would still win through. We are getting very impatient that we
may see The Day. Better men than any here have hoped that God would spare them
until that day would come, but they never let the ideal fall until a separate
independent Ireland was achieved. It can never be independent if we are British
citizens. There is somewhat of a good resemblance between the position of things
now and that of the old Irish Parliament of 1782---Ministers trusting the honour
of the English, the others doubting that honour---and I remember reading the
Bill brought in by Mr. Flood that would place beyond question Ireland's power
and authority inside her own four shores. The Bill he moved made over the sole
and exclusive right of the Irish Parliament to make laws affecting that country
in all that concerned its external and internal affairs whatever. Some such
thing is necessary in any agreement we come to with England---to make sure that
the centre and source of authority will be the people of Ireland, and not any
foreign authority [cheers]. No King of England, and no Ministry of
England or Government of England, has any power to put that power here---that
power must be derived from the people alone. In this act it is not so derived.
The divisions that are at present existing are somewhat similar to the divisions
that then existed. British Ministers fostered those divisions, and that Bill was
voted out. We know the result---one hundred and twenty-one years we have gone
through. It is quite possible we may go through some more of it yet unless some
definite action is taken. The Dáil was, of itself, in unity. The best policy,
the only means of achieving that unity again, is by the rejection of this
Treaty. I do not believe the people would he very divided on the matter---they
certainly would not behind a united Dáil. The daily papers in Ireland are full
of `ratify the Treaty' resolutions---public bodies falling in one after another.
We saw the same before, and one gets suspicious. These bodies were elected as
Republicans and I say when they send any message to me to do other than carry
out the mandate I got, that they are false to the promise they made, because
they got a Republican mandate when they were elected. These are the views of
individual men, and not the voice of their constituents; and I say that until a
General Election or plebiscite it is not for anyone or any of these bodies to
say what policy should be adopted. One must do and act according to the lights
he has. In doing so I will carry out the mandate given me. I was elected to this
Dáil as a Republican and I will leave it as one. The people have authority to
alter; we have not. There are points in the Treaty perhaps, worth inquiring
into, but upon the essential parts of it---there is not a word guaranteeing the
evacuation of the troops, or, if there is, I would like to see it pointed out,
and even if there is a personal guarantee given as to when the evacuation will
begin, there is none as to when the evacuation will cease. The last British
troops only left South Africa during the past four or five months. That is a
long time. We heard a good deal of the penetration of British business
interests, but how can we prevent it in future? We will be British citizens
also, and will have `common-citizenship' with them. If we are into the thing let
us be honest about it. There is no mention either in the Treaty as to the
definite number of troops to be retained as maintenance parties in the various
ports. A communication written by a Minister has no binding force; it is only
his word, and we have had such good faith kept by British Ministers with this
country I do not think this word will carry very far. There is no mention
either, as to the definite number of British troops to be kept in North-East
Ireland. That is an important point. If the British troops are taken out of what
they are pleased to call `Southern Ireland,' and merely transferred to Northern
Ireland, I do not think we are much farther on. These are points which might
possibly be cleared up though it is doubtful. One of the greatest German
thinkers made use of the following sentence---it is a very pregnant sentence:
`Everything in this world depends on disinterestedness of ideal, and firmness of
purpose.' We have visualised this Republic far more clearly than we ever
visualised this Free State. We have the Republic. We have established it; we
have visualised it; we have held to the ideal. If we have sufficient firmness of
purpose I believe we never need let it go. [cheers].
THE SPEAKER:
You did not make a record after all, Doctor [Laughter].
MR. WILLIAM SEARS:
I would like to give it as my opinion that if this Treaty is rejected this
assembly will be guilty of as great an act of political folly as is recorded in
history. The plenipotentiaries that we sent over to London were selected by the
President himself and confirmed by this Dáil. There are no men in the Dáil
superior to those, if there are equals, in political foresight and judgment [hear
hear]. For two months they contended with the ablest diplomats of the
world, and they succeeded marvelously, in my opinion. They did not exceed their
rights, we are told, by one iota, and yet they are put in the dock. We know the
pains they went to, while in London, to keep in touch with Dublin; we know about
the daily couriers and the weekly crossings and even they went so far as to urge
the President himself to come to London to keep in closer touch with them. And
yet they are charged here as if they took the bit in their teeth when they went
to London and acted off their own bat. We sent them to London to make a
bargain---what are the terms?---a bargain, because we told the world that we
were not Republican doctrinaires. We did not expect them to bring home a
Republic, but this Treaty will put us on the shortest road to the completest
independence of the country. I will not compare the terms of the Treaty that has
been signed by England with the terms of the document that has been turned down
by England. I will not compare the attainable with the unattainable, the bird in
the hand with the bird in the bush---there has been too much time already wasted
in those comparisons. I will refer to some of the solid material advantages
already in the Treaty, and see whether there is any compromise in our accepting
them. For the first time in 700 years the English army is to march out of
Ireland. I see no compromise in that. There have been withdrawals in history, as
we know, and I never knew a withdrawal of the kind to be considered a
compromise. We get charge of our own purse, and our own internal affairs. Is
there any compromise in that? lf the delegates brought home the Republic there
are some gentlemen who, I think, would insist that England should surrender half
her fleet as well; and when we point out to them that we have a seat at the
League of Nations I think they will complain that the four great powers of
Washington do not include us [Laughter]. I think we should examine
the Treaty and if there are, within the four corners of the Treaty, provisions
that will strengthen our nation we should accept it, and I hold there are such
provisions. If, twelve months ago, the Minister for Defence was marching out to
battle he must have two objects---one, to drive the English army out of Ireland,
and a second, to guard and see that there was no further invasion. If some one
then told him that the British Army was being fumed out without firing a shot
would he not say: `Well, then I will devote all my energies to guarding against
another invasion.'? Surely he would not say : `Leave them there; I would rather
have the pleasure of putting them out myself.' And if anyone came and said: `You
will have an opportunity of equipping an Irish Army,' surely he would not have
refused it. Deputy Seán T. O'Kelly very rightly said here that whether this
Treaty is accepted or not the fight for the complete independence of Ireland
must go on. Certainly it will. And we have the opportunity of helping the nation
towards that ideal. If, instead of entering on a disastrous war, we took charge
of the schools and universities of the country, then we would be taking steps to
preserve that ideal. There is a great deal of doubt in the minds of some
Deputies as to the patriotism and the courage of the Irish race; I say we need
not put too great a value upon the courage of our day and generation. Bishop
O'Dwyer, of Limerick, said: `As long as grass grows and water runs there will be
men ready to die to advance the cause of Ireland.' And we need not think that
the breed of great reformers died with Pearse and Connolly. We need not trouble
about the future. Some men think that if every `i' in this Treaty is not dotted,
and every `t' not crossed, the future generations of Irishmen will be such
poltroons, with the example of the past five years before them, as not to be
able to preserve the rights which this Treaty puts into their hands. I call
attention to the Governor-General that will be placed here by England, and again
they think that the Irish people will be such pitiful snobs that this
Englishman, with only his own society to operate upon, will be able to do, in
teeth of the Irish Government, what a whole string of Lord Lieutenants could not
do when they had our whole national purse at their control, and the English Army
in the country. The thing is absurd. I will remind you of parallel case. Norway
and Sweden were in exactly the same position as England and Ireland are to-day,
and Norway was worsted in the war. She got an army and parliament, but she had
to accept from Sweden a Governor-General. And if the people of Norway were able
to resist the vice regal blandishments, and keep their independence, as they are
keeping it, will not the Irish people be able to do the same? [cheers].
I will admit with regard to the Gaelic ideal, that whether it is in a Free State
or Republic, as long as we have powerful British influences on our flank, it
will be a terrible uphill fight to spread the Irish ideal. We can do that if,
instead of the two parties in this Dáil wrangling with each other, they combine
to advance the Gaelic ideal; then they would be doing better work for the
country. All that was said about the Irish people here reminds me, as it must
remind others, of what was said about the Irish farmers. It was said that if the
Irish farmer got the land he would betray the country. Yet we know that the sons
of the Irish farmers and the Irish labourers were the back-bone of the I.R.A. [cheers].
Another point that must be emphasised here is: when those delegates from Ireland
met the delegates from England, on that terrible night---that strenuous night
when they signed that document---there was a deed done that rang around the
world. Deputy Etchingham well said that it was like a battle. It was, in this
way: you can not re-stage that Conference no more than you could re-stage a
battle. Since then much water has flowed under the bridge, and we are enjoying
advantages from what they did that night. Why did they sign, and why was the
Treaty published? These questions have been asked. I do not mind why it was
signed or published, but the Treaty was signed and published. You talk about the
Irish people as if they were fools, stampeded by the Press; but with the Press
against them in 1918 they returned the Sinn Fein Party to power [cheers].
The Irish people are the shrewdest people on God's earth. If you go down and
face them---farmer or labourer---he will tell you you are a fool if you throw
away these advantages [cheers]. You talk about 1918! The man who
would tell you he would stand by the Republic in 1918, what does he say to-day?
I say this: if you had that Treaty in 1918, and the alternative was war, you
would not get three per cent. of the people to vote for you.
A DEPUTY:
We had no Republic then.
MR. SEARS:
If you had the Treaty in 1921 you would not have three per cent. of the
people around you. A Deputy read the declaration of independence to-day. I was
proud to listen. And some of it said: `Basing our claim on the fact that the
people of Ireland are behind us.' Very well. You went on the platform and said:
`We have the people of Ireland behind us.' Look behind you now. They are not
behind you. You have not three per cent. of the people behind you. Are you going
to commit them to the shambles? What is that war going to be? From the other
side we got a hint. We are going to have a `march through Georgia' like Sherman,
when he burned every town and village and haggard on his path. You would have
thirty-two Shermans marching through Ireland for the difference between this
Treaty and Document No. 2. I say you have not the people of Ireland behind you,
because it is madness, sheer madness. There is no common sense in that madness.
The people of Ireland are a shrewd people; they know a good thing when they see
it, and they have got a good thing in this Treaty. Some men say: `Why, when they
pulled it so far, did they not pull it a little farther?' As if there was no one
at all on the other end of the rope! [Laughter and cheers]. You
want to hold up the two documents and see what is the difference between them.
The difference between this Treaty and the other document is that England's
signature is to the one document, and in our time it will never be to the other.
That makes all the difference in the world. Why not go one step farther? I will
tell you. That one step would bring you out of the British Commonwealth of
Nations and even Lloyd George, if he tried, could not carry his people that one
last step. Your delegates would not pull that off if they were there from that
moment until this. These are the realities of the situation. The men who came
out in 1916 were under no false pretence; they came out on their own individual
responsibility. I saw men going to fight for this ideal; I have not the
slightest doubt about it---whether you fight for it or not---I know men in this
room who would fight for the ideal of an Irish Republic. I do not agree with
Doctor MacCartan. I applaud the men---honestly applaud them for it---for it
would be a bad day if there were not `Die-hards' in the Irish nation. I say:
`God speed the Die- hards.' Let them fight on, but do not let them step in the
way of our country gaining the material benefits she is so badly in need of. We
are entitled to that. It is all very well to speak of the flame, but the candle
must be kept going too. Now I say this Treaty is a victory for the Irish
Republican Army. This Treaty is the fruits of efforts of the most gallant band
in history who fought against fearful odds here and suffered and it is the
fruits of the victory of the most patient and heroic people on God's earth---the
Irish people---and they want to consolidate what has been gained, and when the
day comes to make another advance. I share the hope of the Minister for Foreign
Affairs that, with a stronger Ireland, we will be able to bring about further
achievements with out another devastating war; and that we shall evolve and rise
to greater heights; and that our status will grow too. I am convinced that
Ireland will yet see the fondest dreams of Tone and Pearse realised to the full.
[cheers].
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I claim the indulgence of the House for a few moments. I do not know whether
I was the cause of those interruptions---whether I brought them on by my tone or
temper or by what I was saying---but the result is that one very material
portion of what I said in my speech yesterday is so disjointed and broken up it
may be misconstrued or misinterpreted by people in the country who read it. I
refer to the portion in which I was alluding to Farmers' Associations and
Farmers' Unions. I hope that no misconstruction will be put upon that. There is
no man in this assembly has a greater admiration for the work that the farmers
have done for the Republic. It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest. I am a
farmer's son. I come from farming people, and I hope and trust that the farmers
of Ireland and the farming members of this Dáil will not think that I was
attempting to throw dirty water on the farmers of the country. There's an old
proverb which says that there are three things that cannot be recalled: the
spoken word, the hunter's arrow, and the missed opportunity. The `spoken word'
was yesterday, perhaps the `arrow' that might have hurt the feelings of some of
the people of this country. The members of the Farmers' unions have helped me in
my work as Minister of Agriculture. So now I take this opportunity of making
this amende honourable, and apologising to the farmers for any of the
things that might be misconstrued in anything I may have said.
DR. CROWLEY:
I am going against this Treaty, and I am stating briefly my reasons for doing
so. I do so because I believe the people who elected me as their representative
in 1918 are, each and every one, in their hearts Republican, and I believe,
also, that if they were given a free choice between the Republic and this Treaty
they would without exception, vote for the Republic. I have no doubt whatever as
to the circumstances under which it was signed, and from the speeches and
arguments we have heard in this House, I cannot help thinking that if, during
the British Terror, the Irish Army gave the civil population the choice of
voting for the continuance of the Terror, or the Partition Bill of 1920, the
people would be then advised, as they are now, for the same reason, to vote for
the Partition Bill. For the same reason as they are now clamouring for the
ratification of the Treaty it would be said of those of us who would be voting
against the Partition Bill as is said of us now---that we were not carrying out
the wishes of our constituents. I can go down to those who are responsible for
my election and say to them that I have kept the pledges I made to them and, if
they so desire it, they can have back the trust placed in me, and I will give it
to them without blemish; but it would not be without blemish if I voted for this
so called Free State of Southern Ireland.
MR. JAMES BURKE:
I suppose because I happen to be a lawyer it is necessary to begin with an
apology. I shall do so in order to put myself in order. In case anybody here is
afraid, because I happen to belong to that profession, I am going to indulge in
a long and laboured dissertation on constitutional law, I shall set their minds
at rest on that question immediately. I may say in passing I am afraid that the
greatest offenders in this respect have not been the professional lawyers, but
the amateur lawyers. I think we have heard quite enough on this subject from
both sides of the House already. I do not think it has done very much to
elucidate the matter under discussion. I have been fighting English
constitutional law in Ireland since I was called to the Irish Bar in 1916. I
never held any position in a British court but in the dock, and I think if I
were now to take my stand on British constitutional law I would be going the
best possible way about justifying Deputy Etchingham's remark that we are
marching into the Empire with our hands up. Accordingly I am not going to say
anything about English constitutional law. Instead, I would want to state, as
briefly and concisely as I can, my reasons for the position I hold in regard to
this Treaty, and in particular those reasons which were not mentioned by the
other Deputies of this House. I was returned unopposed at the General Election
of 1918 for the constituency of Mid-Tipperary, on the Republican platform. In my
election speech on that occasion I laid stress on three policies which, I
believed, if judiciously combined, would have led to the independence of the
country. First, there was the old Sinn Fein policy as outlined by Arthur
Griffith; second, appeal to the Peace Conference, then sitting, for recognition
of our right to self-determination; and the third was the driving of the British
Government out of Ireland by armed force, backed by the moral opinion of the
world, particularly the United States. I did not tell the people of Tipperary on
that occasion that we were going to secure our independence by armed force
alone, and if I had told them that, I do not believe I would ever have been
elected; and that, in my opinion, is the only alternative that those opposed to
ratification of the Treaty have now to lay before the Irish people, since all
the other policies contained in that programme have now disappeared. And in
laying that programme before my constituents I did not consider myself a mere
visionary. I did not do it because I wanted to keep alive a tradition, or hand
something down to posterity. I did it because I believed it was practical
politics, and if I had not considered it was practical politics, I would
consider it criminal to induce the Irish people to vote for it. In justification
of my belief on that occasion, I want to state we were within an ace of winning
because of the heroism of the Irish people and the Irish Army, and because of
the reflection of that heroic effort in the unofficial pressure from the United
States brought to bear on the British Government. As you here appear to despise
it---the Minister for Finance has, on a couple of occasions, seen fitting to
make what I felt were, perhaps, unfair remarks about the United States. The
country that Lord Northcliffe felt worthwhile to spend 200,000 on propaganda in,
to employ ten thousand specially trained journalists for advocating the case
against Ireland and Germany, is not a country to be despised. I know from my own
practical experience in the United States that many of those who helped us,
financially and otherwise, did so in spite of pressure which, although of a
different kind, was just us hard to resist as that which was applied here to
those who stood for the Republican ideal. At the time of the election in 1918 I
believe that an international situation had been created such as would have
compelled the United States, in its own interests, either to declare war on
England, or to withdraw from her its moral and financial support, without which
her Empire would have become disintegrated; and I believe if things were kept
sufficiently hot---and were, in Ireland, further forced---those elements in the
United States who were naturally sympathetic to Ireland would draw in a lot of
other elements opposed to British influence from other motives bringing
about---at all events they would have been conciliated and made
sympathetic---bringing about from this war, or from this revolution of spirit on
the part of the United States, three things: First of all, the destruction or
the disintegration of the British Empire; secondly, the defeat or scrapping of
the British Fleet; and thirdly, Irish-Americans fighting all the time for
freedom as we here---for an Irish Republic. But I then maintained, and still
maintain, that no matter what you call it---an Irish Free Sate in external
association with the British Empire, or an Irish Free State in external
association, or, for that matter a nominal Irish Republic---so, long as it is
enclosed by the iron wall of England's Navy you never can have a real Republic.
There has been a lot of talk about slippery slopes, and the effort is made to
create the impression that the Irish Republic was standing as solid as a rock
until the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Foreign Affairs tore it away
from its moorings and dragged it over to London. In my opinion we first broke
away from the moorings when Judge Cohalan and John Devoy of New York---I feel
myself in some respect responsible also. I do not intend to cast any reflection
on any individual in the matter. I am not going to discuss the merits or
demerits of rival parties.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
On a point of order. What on earth have individual policies to do with our
Republican Government?
MR. BURKE:
I am discussing foreign policy, I believe. I am not going to enter here into
the merits or demerits of the rival parties in that policy; but I wish to
maintain that neither Mr. Devoy nor Judge Cohalan would ever hand over the
friendship of the Irish Race in America to the British Government for anything
short of an absolute independent Republic; whereas the men substituted in their
place wrote welcoming the Treaty or Pact before the signatories' names were dry.
We started down the slippery slopes when the President agreed to accept a
relation between Ireland and England similar to that between Cuba and the United
States.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Once more I must protest against these misrepresentations.
MR. BURKE:
I say so far as the Platt Amendment------
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
You know perfectly well the first article of the Platt Amendment was a
declaration of independence.
MR. BURKE:
That is a matter of dispute.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is not. You should read the article and let it go down before the House.
MR. BURKE:
That is my contention; I am giving my own reasons here. We went still further
down the slippery slopes when the President issued a manifesto to Ireland
departing still further from the separatist ideal.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
What is that document?
MR. BURKE:
A letter you wrote.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is very important, because I stand as the symbol of this Republic and
fifty times in this debate references have been made to this subject in one way
or another. I ask any member here to point to any thing I have said, publicly or
privately that bears the interpretation that is now being sought to put upon it,
If I did that I would deserve to be impeached.
.MR. BURKE:
As soon as I have done------
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I say it would be a matter of impeachment. If any member here------
MR. BURKE:
I am not saying you gave away anything so far. I am speaking at present. As
soon us we agreed to enter into negotiations with the British Government while
their troops were still in occupation of our territory, we took another step
downwards; and when, after a long series of letters, the Cabinet and President
appointed plenipotentiaries to enquire how Irish national aspirations could be
reconciled with the British Empire, we took another step down the slippery
slopes. I am quite prepared to admit from the position as left by the President
to the position as represented by the documents we are discussing was quite a
considerable slide; and in spite of what some members on our side of the House
said, I am quite prepared to admit it was a very material slide; but from the
position of an Irish Republic as I understand and define a Republic---when the
British Navy is at the bottom of the sea---was a still greater slide. Whereas
one slide was gradual, the other slide was taken in face of the valuable
considerations contained in the present document. I am not going to criticise
either party. I am very sorry the President took so much objection to my
remarks.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Because they are not true.
MR. BURKE:
I am only trying to make the position clear. I am not going to say one word
either for or against the Treaty. The Treaty is not sufficiently bad to prevent
my voting for it, and it is not sufficiently good to prevent my voting against
it if I saw any rational alternative. But none has been produced so far. It is a
slippery slope, but however, at long last we have reached a landing stage. The
people opposed to the Treaty say we are not to get off here, but put out again
in the expectation of getting back to the position from which we started. I
believe if we take these people's advice we shall be more likely to continue
sliding down than sliding up. That is why I am in favour of the approval of this
Treaty. [cheers].
MR. J. MACGRATH:
I move the adjournment.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I again, simply for the honour of the nation and the honour of the position I
hold, wish to say I regard my office as a sacred trust. I said when I took it
that I wanted it for the benefit of the Irish people, and that I should regard
my duty as looking after the interests of the Irish people. But I defy any
person in this Dáil, or in Ireland or in America, or anywhere else, to point out
where I have departed one tittle, or one iota, or one comma from the position of
the Republic as established by the Irish people, either in public or private.
The members of the Dáil know that one of the reasons why I did not go to London
was that I wanted to keep that symbol of the Irish Republic pure---even from
insinuation---lest any word across the table from me would, in any sense, give
away the Republic. [Applause].
MR. M. COLLINS:
There is a motion for the adjournment which I want to support. I also want to
say there was no suggestion on the part of the Deputy from Tipperary, no
suggestion that the President had done anything; but I do again, for the sake of
the Dáil, protest against any insinuation that I have given away anything. I
have been the custodian of the honour of the country, and I have given away
nothing. [Applause].
MR. DAVID CEANNT:
I would like to make a suggestion: that all Deputies making insinuations
against the President have the documents there read out to the House.
It was agreed that the House adjourn until 11 o'clock to-morrow.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I would like to give notice that I will move to-morrow the amendment. You
have got the proposals now.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I suggest that we should take `for' and `against' the Treaty first. The
document has been placed in our hands now, and I take it that it is a matter for
our consideration, and the circumstances, I take it, of the consideration will
probably be different from what they are. We ought to take, in my judgment, the
opinion---we ought to take the division on the Treaty and then take the
document.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think it will have to be decided by a ruling.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
Can you have an amendment to this Treaty? Must not the vote for or against
the Treaty?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
This a resolution. I do not propose to amend the Treaty. I propose to move an
amendment to the resolution.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I submit that a change has been made in Document No. 2 which has been before
us. It is not within any member's power to do such a thing without the unanimous
consent of this House, and I entirely object to it.
MR. COLIVET:
I cannot find anything in the Orders to prevent any member, any time, from
moving an amendment. I am not now supporting the idea that it should be moved.
MR. GRIFFITH:
A document has been put into our hands this evening that is not Document No.
2.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
You are quibbling. The Minister for Foreign Affairs is quibbling now.
MR. GRIFFITH:
A document has been put in which is not Document No. 2.
MR. MACCARTHY:
On a point of order. The President is a touchy man. He jumps up very quickly
when one puts his own interpretation on this document. Is it in order for the
President to call the Minister for Foreign Affairs a quibbler?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I say that the word `quibble' has been used here several times. If ever it
was once true it is in this case, because there is nothing changed but in the
setting up---a slight change to have it in final form.
MR. GRIFFITH:
This House has here the document placed in our hands Document No. 2 consisted
of twenty three clauses and an appendix. This new document consists of seventeen
clauses. Six clauses are omitted.
MR. COLIVET:
Are we right in discussing the matter before it is moved at all?
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
I would like to make this point. This document, so-called------
THE SPEAKER:
The only motion before us is for the adjournment of the House.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I have no objection to having this document discussed. I was simply putting
forward my idea for a course of procedure.
THE SPEAKER:
It is evident the course of procedure is not accepted by members on both
sides.
MR. MACCARTHY:
Is it in order for an amendment to be moved to the Treaty?
THE SPEAKER:
Not to the Treaty but an amendment can he moved to the motion for the
approval of the Treaty.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
This document embodies a post-rejection policy and it should be a matter for
the post rejection Cabinet if the Treaty is rejected.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am responsible for the proposals and the House will have to decide on them.
I am going to choose my own procedure.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I submit it is not in the competence of the President to choose his own
procedure. This is either a constitutional body or it is not. If it is an
autocracy let you say so and we will leave it.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
In answer to that I am going to propose an amendment in my own terms. It is
for the House to decide whether they will take it or not.
MR. MILROY:
The President says he he is not proposing an amendment to the Treaty, but is
not the effect of his proposal one which is a material amendment of the Treaty?
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
The amendment has not yet been proposed, and the only motion before the House
is the one for adjournment.
The House then adjourned.
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION, Thursday 5th, 1922
The Dáil resumed at 11.15 a.m. on Thursday the 5th January with THE
SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) in the chair.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
On a point of order I would like to bring this matter before the House.
Yesterday I was informed that one of the principal business houses in this city
received this letter:
Sinn Fein Headquarters, 6 Harcourt Street, Dublin, January 3, 1922.
Dear Sirs We have found that it will not be possible for us to obtain a
Union Jack of sufficient size in the event of its being necessary for us to
display one at the end of the session of Dáil Eireann when the Treaty will, in
all probability have been ratified. We are anxious to comply with all the
necessary courtesies, and propose to hoist the Union Jack beside the Green
Flag on the University Building as soon as the result of the discussion is
known. We would be grateful if you would give the bearer your largest flag. We
will, of course, return it to you as soon as the one which we have ordered
arrives.
We are, dear Sirs, Yours faithfully,
M. WHELAN, Secretary, Decoration Committee, Irish Free State.
We are here by the courtesy and consent of the University authorities of which
President de Valera is Chancellor.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
I am Chief Executive Officer in 6 Harcourt Street, and that is a forgery. It
never came from 6 Harcourt Street.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
I would propose a motion that this Session does not formally open till three
o'clock. There are a few private members, back benchers, who, in view of the
seriousness of the present situation, are discussing matters among themselves.
They have not had an opportunity of finishing their discussion and they think
they would finish between now and lunch time, and they would suggest that the
Session do not open until three o'clock. The members on both sides are concerned
in this.
MR. EOIN O'DUFFY:
I agree to this. I second the motion.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I have no objection.
THE SPEAKER:
Do I understand there is no objection?
MR. M. COLLINS:
I agree.
MR. SEAN O'MAHONY:
I wish to I make one or two remarks with the permission of the house.
THE SPEAKER:
I will take the motion for the adjournment now.
The motion was then put and carried.
MR. D. FITZGERALD:
There is a very important matter that I want to bring up. A very disgraceful
thing has occurred------
THE SPEAKER:
We won't take up any of these things at present
The House thereupon adjourned at 11.20 a.m., to 3 p.m.
The Session was resumed at 3.35 p.m. with THE SPEAKER (DR. MACNEILL) in
the Chair.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I have not consulted my friends about the leading article that appeared in
the Freeman's Journal. But I wish to express my own regret that an Irish journal
would publish such a leading article as that which appeared in a Dublin morning
paper to-day. I think that the Dáil has the highest respect for and confidence
in the President [applause], and I believe the people of this
country have the highest respect for the President also [hear, hear],
and it is not in the interests of the ratification of the Treaty that such an
article as this should appear in an Irish journal.
MR. SEAN ETCHINGHAM:
I think some steps should be taken with regard to this article this venomous
toad the Freeman's Journal has emitted from to-day's issue. The Minister for
Foreign Affairs, Mr. Griffith, often told us what the Freeman's Journal was. On
February 8th 1902, twenty years ago, he summed up the Freeman's Journal as
follows:---
The Freeman's Journal is a paper with an evil history; Lucas's honest
bigotry and Higgins' villainy mark its early years, the blood money of Lord
Edward FitzGerald filled its coffers, the Castle nourished it for a
generation, it gibed at the young Irelanders and spat venom on the Fenians; it
strove to kill Parnell in his early days by a forgery as infamous as the
Pigott ones, and afterwards crawled on its belly before him and begged for
pardon; it supported him when his followers mutinied because it thought the
country would support him, and it turned on him when it found it was mistaken.
In a word, the Freeman's Journal has opposed every National movement until the
movement became too strong for it, and it has assailed every Irish patriot
from Henry Grattan to Parnell---from Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Theobald Wolfe
Tone, to Thomas Clarke Luby and James Stephens.
That was written twenty years ago of the Freeman's Journal. It was then true and
it is true to-day. Now we want to take some action in the matter. There are also
some notes in the bottom of this thing about `How Long?' And I think that
concerns every member of Dáil Eireann; no matter what difference of opinion
exists between us we can, at least, be unanimous in this: that we will not be
insulted by the Freeman's Journal. I pass over what has been written about the
President of our Republic. The Republic still lives, and President de Valera is
more than a symbol; he is the head of that Republic. And President de Valera has
been truly described in recent years as the `man of destiny,' as the `Irish
Eagle,' and we are all proud of him as such; and the future will be proud of
him. We have not forgotten the hero of Boland's Mills, and he has since that
fight, proved his worth. But here is a thing, a Chinn Chomhairle, that
none of us can take---`How long?' That is an attack on the Dáil. `How long?'
they ask, and then it continues: `When will An Dáil cease talking? People are
sick of speech-making.' [`They are, hear hear.'] But are you going
to have the Freeman's Journal even though it supports you now, write the same
about you. You heard what Arthur Griffith said about it. It will write the same
of you in a month or two if it suits these parties. `We can't continue,' it
says, `to weary our readers with such futile iteration. If anything new is said
we shall be careful to report it, but otherwise we must exercise journalistic
discretion in our treatment of the speeches.' I know something of what the
representative of a paper feels; I pity them; I have great sympathy with them.
Just like the lawyers have to speak to order in Court, the poor journalist, the
representative of the Press, must write to order; it is a matter of bread and
butter for them. But if you want to get at the men who control the paper---and I
say that attack on Dáil Eireann, if that happened in any other country in any
time, that matter would be brought before the bar here. The Freeman's Journal
wants---before taking action it would be right to have a decision in the matter
before you. I should think we must see that this paper, that the representatives
of the paper as a protest be expelled from this assembly, from this House---it
has been suggested to me---
pending an apology. And in what form is that apology to be? I leave it to
you, my colleagues here. I say there is an insult to the Dáil in this. That was
a criminal action on the President of the Republic. I say it is a criminal
action. I have no enmity against the paper. I think I know the proprietor of the
Freeman's Journal. He is an all-round sportsman---Martin Fitzgerald. I think I
know him. That article is not his style. I have some experience of his literary
style [Laughter]. But that paper has insulted the Republic of
Ireland through its President. It has brought charges against him. Oh! it is the
old venom, the old poison. Mark you here, you cannot trust that paper any more
now than you ever could trust it, or than Ireland could trust it in the past. It
may join you now, but it follows the English Press. And you know what the
English Press are doing with those standing up for principle. I know their
denunciation of some of us. I need not go down before some of my countrymen
after what appeared in the Northcliffe journal. And we have some of the same as
the Northcliffe journal here. I say to you that the representatives, though some
may be friends of mine, be turned out of this House until, as it is suggested we
get an ample apology.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
I rise to second the motion---that the Freeman's Journal's representative be
turned out from this assembly and not re-admitted until the proprietors and
editors of the journal give an undertaking that they will report what happens
here. It is for us and the country to decide, and I consider that everybody here
knows---everybody here from Mr. Griffith down to the humblest member knows what
faith is to be put in any protestations of the Freeman's Journal. I consider
their statement that they will print just what they like is of a piece with the
rest of their journalistic attitude. I hope we will come to a unanimous decision
in this matter, and that they will be expelled from this House.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
I hope we will be unanimous in the protest. But let us make a protest on
proper grounds. The largest latitude must be allowed to fair comment by
newspapers. The Freeman's Journal is entitled to say whether we are talking too
long, and we are not entitled to turn out their representatives---they are
entitled to ask `How long?' The principal ground of complaint is that in this
morning's leading article in the Freeman's Journal the most infamous attack that
I have ever seen in an Irish newspaper was made on two members of this House.
That was not a matter of fair comment. But when you get one of the principal
newspapers in Dublin in its leading article starting out by declaring that the
President of our Government `has not the instincts of an Irishman in his blood'
and continuing through a series of venomous personal attacks upon the President
and Deputy Childers, ending up with this phrase: `when the fight was on Mr. de
Valera and Mr. Erskine Childers fell accidentally into the hands of the military
and were immediately released at the moment when there was 10,000 for the corpse
of Michael Collins'---an article like that is infamous. That is the ground, and
the only ground upon which we could legitimately protest against a newspaper
which is allowed by courtesy to come here and report the meetings of this Dáil,
abusing this privilege, and returning thanks for this privilege by insulting,
not merely the Dáil in this manner, but the Irish people. I need not say
anything about the President. But about Deputy Childers I must say this---as one
who was present in London. Much as I disagree with what Deputy Childers has said
about the Treaty, I think it should be known that there was nobody connected
with the delegation in London who worked so hard and so assiduously and so
untiringly as did Deputy Childers during the whole time. And whenever anybody
had any difficulty or any question requiring solution they went to him as the
natural authority on the subject. And to think that a man like that could be
attacked in the most infamous manner by the Freeman's Journal which has now the
audacity to put itself forward as the champion of Roger Casement; I think that
is beyond the bounds to which any newspaper should be allowed to go.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
I wish to associate myself with the protest against personalities. But I
certainly also wish to dissociate myself most emphatically from the subsequent
suggestion that any Press representatives should be turned out from this
assembly. Now I don't care if it was the representative of Dublin Castle was
here. I think we are not afraid to hear the worst or the best that they can say.
And if we want to comment against any particular journal, I have in my hand this
moment one paper which I think contains a reference equally reprehensible and
equally damning, unworthily suggesting baseness on the part of another section
of this House. We have been putting up standards for journalism. If one journal
is on its trial here to-day I am not going to take a brief for that particular
journal. But another journal that makes insinuations against the honour and
integrity of members should he equally open to impeachment.
THE SPEAKER:
Let it be done in the same way.
MR. MILROY:
I am not going to move that the representatives of this journal he expelled
from An Dáil. I think it is only fair to point out to those responsible for it
that they should see the unwisdom of it.
THE SPEAKER :
Let it be done in the to bring anything across what is being brought before
us.
MR. MILROY:
I think it would be most unfair to select any particular journal which
happens to make a suggestion that we resent. I resent it as much as any member
of the assembly. If the same suggestion were made about me---my honour is as
dear to me as the honour of the President is to him---I certainly would not feel
called upon to ask that the representatives of such a journal be withdrawn. We
want freedom of the Press, and we expect that the Press should be kept within
restraint. I think the protest against personalities is quite adequate.
MR. MULCAHY:
I agree entirely with Deputy Gavan Duffy as to the grounds upon which we have
to complain of the Freeman's Journal, and I would propose as an amendment to the
motion `that we delay action with regard to any representative of the Freeman's
Journal attending this assembly until to-morrow morning to see whether, in the
morning's issue of the Freeman's Journal we may not have an adequate apology for
the outrageous references and imputations contained in the leading article
against President de Valera and Mr. Childers.' I may mention as one of the three
names that have been dragged into the leading article, that I have already
written to the editor a very emphatic protest against the nature of its leading
article.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
I also wish to say what I hesitate to say. And I would like to support it.
But I think it is very unwise to base anything on what a journal said as to its
desire to publish a certain amount or not.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I beg to second Deputy Mulcahy's amendment. I may say that prior to the
Christmas adjournment I made it clear that I strongly resented those personal
attacks on President de Valera. I conveyed that information to both the Dublin
newspapers and I represent the feelings of those in favour of the Treaty as I do
my own. It has been said here---perhaps not meant---that those people in favour
of the Treaty are largely influenced by the Press of the country. Now we are not
in any way influenced by this Press or that Press or any other Press.
THE SPEAKER:
Better not go into this.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I beg your pardon. I am speaking [Laughter]. I don't think you
have a right to interrupt me for a moment.
THE SPEAKER:
I will ask the Deputy to confine himself strictly to the question before us.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
On every question on which I rise to speak here, except on the speech I made
the other day, you, for some reason or another, found it necessary to interrupt
me. Now, I don't think that is fair. I don't think I have departed from the
strict spirit of the amendment that was moved. It has been suggested here, and
it is right that it should be cleared up, that we men have been influenced in
our attitude towards this Treaty by the Press of the country. Everybody knows
that the Republican movement was created despite that Press, and that we have
not been influenced by it. We have no sympathy whatever with personal attacks
against anybody. And it would be unfair to attribute any semblance of sympathy
for that kind of matter on our behalf.
At this moment Mr. Harry Boland who had arrived from America, entered
the Chamber and was heartily applauded.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I understand that the matter under discussion is in regard to the leading
article in to-day's Freeman's Journal. My name was mentioned in it. It is not
necessary for me to say that it was mentioned without my authority. I object as
strongly to the form of to-day's feuding article in the Freeman as I have
objected here in the Dáil to any personalities of any kind, and that is my
position about it and I need not say another word about that. I don't approve of
the use of names in that way. I never have used them in that way and I hope
sincerely that I never shall.
THE SPEAKER:
An amendment as moved by Deputy Mulcahy and seconded by Deputy Walsh: `That
action against any representatives of the Freeman's Journal attending this
assembly be withheld pending an adequate apology in to-morrow's issue of that
paper for the infamous nature of the references and imputations contained in the
leading article against President de Valera and Mr. Childers in this day's
issue.'
MR. D. FITZGERALD:
Already action has been taken against a certain Pressman in a most dastardly
way, and I suggest that the words `action in the way of exclusion' should be
substituted for the word `action' in the resolution.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
As the proposer of the motion I don't want to press the thing to a division.
I only wanted to draw attention to it, and to get Dáil Eireann to register its
protest. But I will say the editor is guilty of treason and ought to be
impeached. That is the position. Personally, I would like to give him a dose of
Backwoodsman's laws.
THE SPEAKER put the amendment with the alteration suggested by Mr.
Desmond Fitzgerald.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I regard any motion of this kind as being an interference with the liberty of
the Press, and I stand as much for the liberty of the Press as I stood and do
stand against personalities.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
I would like to point out that the amendment, as it stands, involves a
principle that some of us don't accept. We could all agree if the words
`representatives of the Press' were deleted from it. The best way is to put it
in the form in which we could all agree to it. And when it comes up
to-morrow------
MR. D. FITZGERALD:
The Deputy for Wexford made a speech and he said he would like to give the
editor of the Freeman's Journal a dose of Backwoodsman's law. Well actually a
number of criminals in this country have already taken such action with regard
to another Pressman, and I want to make it clear that this House does stand for
the liberty of the Press. We may disapprove of that article. We are talking of
letting the Press in by courtesy. We do let them in because we want them in. It
is not through courtesy they are here. And the whole Press of the world
represented here is considering the taking of action in boycotting this Dáil
until the journalist who has been taken away is released; to show what they
think of the action of people in this country---criminals who have taken certain
action yesterday. If you want the Press here perhaps you won't have them after
this afternoon.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
I would second Mr. Beasley's proposal.
MR. GRIFFITH:
If you say you condemn the reference to President de Valera in that article I
am heartily with you. I think this is in the worst of bad taste. If you had to
put up with what was written about us by one of the Deputies here---what was
written about me in a recent paper---we could have raised these things. But we
ignore these things. The Press has a right to say what it likes about us. I say
the Press must be free to say what it pleases.
MR. DAVID CEANNT:
Is there any other assembly in the world where the King or President would be
attacked in this way? Would the editor not be tried immediately for high
treason? Now, it is not a question alone of President de Valera, but because he
is President of Ireland, and I think we are standing a little too much of this
abuse during the last four or five days. If the Press thinks they can intimidate
the members of the Dáil they are making, I tell them, the mistake of their
lives. If an apology is not published I think action should be taken.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The fact that I have been attacked prevents my speaking on this. I want to
say that I am for the fullest freedom of the Press. I agree with the Minister of
Foreign Affairs absolutely in this matter. The people of Ireland will deal with
their Press when they find that the Press has misled them. I am only anxious
that the people should not be misled. I think any action of ours which would
limit the freedom of the Press is a mistake.
MR. CHILDERS:
I endorse what the President has said.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
A protest has been made and I think the matter ought to end. I beg to move
that leave be given to withdraw it.
MR. MULCAHY:
I withdraw my motion dealing with the possible exclusion of any Press
representative.
THE. SPEAKER:
I wish to say myself that, had it not been raised by the Deputies here, it
had been my intention to raise it. We are unanimous in declaring that a most
scandalous abuse of the rights of the Press has been committed in this case;
that that abuse consists in a gross insult to those whom this assembly, and to
those whom the people of Ireland have placed in the highest positions of trust
that it was in their power to place them. The insult to the President is against
the President, against the Dáil itself, and against the nation; and I am quite
certain that the reprobation and condemnation of that insult which was
pronounced unanimously here to-day will be pronounced unanimously by the whole
people of Ireland.
MR. SEAN O'MAHONY:
I claim the indulgence of the House to reply to a statement I see to-day
attributed by the Press to the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the shape of an
interjection by the Foreign Minister [Laughter]. You may laugh. He
stated last night, according to the Press report, and I did not hear him making
that statement or otherwise I would have dealt with it--- the remark attributed
to Mr. Griffith was `You came to me two or three times before I went over to
London last August and urged me to accept peace at any terms. It won't do John.'
I never made such a statement and all I say is that that statement is untrue. I
take my honour that such a statement I never made. And he is reported as saying
this: `You are the man who, when I was going to London, told me to bring back
peace anyhow'. I said: `Art, bring back peace and the country will be behind
you!' The country would be behind him if he brought back peace with honour to
the nation.
MR. GRIFFITH:
All right, John.
MR. O'MAHONY:
Art and I are still friends.
MR. COLIVET:
I wish to make a personal explanation. The words which I used here on Tuesday
have been misinterpreted and have caused pain to some people. In referring to
spies I was taken by some to be referring to one particular incident. I now wish
to say as emphatically as I can that I had in my mind no one case or incident
whatsoever. There was nothing further from my mind. I intended a general
reference and nothing more. I had no intention of docketting or defining any
particular incident, and I regret if any words of mine were taken as meaning
such.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is another matter of privilege. In the Private Session I presented a
certain document, and I presented it for the same reason that I am presenting,
or intended to present, this other document. I put that draft before the House
for the purpose of finding whether we could not, on that, get common ground. It
was obvious to me then that the Treaty as it came was not at all likely to get
that degree of unanimity which would at all show that it was acceptable to the
Irish people as a whole. That draft should have no more interest for the public
in general then, for instance, the rough draft of a reply which I was preparing
to send to Lloyd George. It was of purely historic value and nothing else. I
kept it away from the public in order that it might not be brought as a red
herring across the track of the discussion here. I was prepared to put my motion
in definite form as an amendment at the proper time and let it be discussed.
There was an objection to that from the other side. The other side would not
have the amendment, and therefore, as I could not bring it forward that way I
wished to have it withdrawn altogether. Now this document is published in the
Press and there was a definite undertaking here at this Secret Session. I asked
that this document would be kept confidential. There is nothing in the document
that is not in the other except, as the public could see, a slight change of
form; and I want to say now that it is a great pity, when we are discussing such
tremendous matters, that questions of that sort should be made to assume an
importance which they really have not. My rough draft here was put before the
Dáil to try and get unanimity on it and not to be represented as if I was trying
to do something different from what I gave as my full considered motion; and I
think it is an absolute abuse of confidence to publish that document, not that I
am ashamed of it. That document was but as a rough draft of my reply to Lloyd
George. It was given to members of this House in confidence and it was revealed.
I think when one is trying to conduct the affairs of our nation and when the
workings of one's mind in these matters is definitely brought and shown to those
with whom we are dealing, I think it is very hard, indeed, to carry on the
national work. Now I protest therefore against the publication of this
confidential document. The next thing I want to say is this: last night at the
close of the debate the question of this amendment came up and I said I would
choose my own procedure. You will remember, a Chinn Chomhairle, and the
members of the House will remember, that that came in reply to a statement from
the other side that there would have to be an agreement. Now, I have been trying
to work in agreement with the other side, but it is obvious that if I am to be
hampered in what I wanted to do by agreement with the other side, I would simply
be doing what the other side wanted me to do. That was said with reference to
the other side and not with reference to the House as a whole. And that has been
definitely misrepresented or misunderstood, and the suggestion of autocracy has
been made. I have been working with the members of the House and I don't think
any of them in the Cabinet could say I am an autocrat.
MR. GRIFFITH:
As the President has spoken about Document No. 2 appearing in the Press, I
wish to say that I am responsible for it. I handed it to the Freeman's Journal
and the Independent representatives last night. If it was an abuse of
confidence, I may say that I sat here for days and heard myself described as
dishonourable. I heard ladies and gentlemen here talking about me. I have not
stood up. I have not complained about what the members said about me. I do not
mind; I am content to let my countrymen judge me. The President said it was a
confidential document. You will recollect that, at the first public sitting,
when I intended to speak on the document the President made a request to me. He
admitted that it was not a confidential document. I honoured that request and I
withheld what I had to say. I spoke as with one hand tied. Last night this
document here now was handed out as Document No. 2. I looked at it and I
observed that it ended with clause seventeen whereas the other document ended
with clause twenty-three. I called attention to the fact that it was not
Document No. 2 and the President stood up and accused me of quibbling. I
therefore handed it to the Press to let the Irish people judge whether I was
quibbling or not. I made no abuse of confidence. That document was not a
confidential document and I could have used it but for President de Valera's
request not to do so. I honoured his request. I was accused of quibbling last
night when I pointed out that this document had six additional clauses. I put
that to the Irish people to show whether I was quibbling or not.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The Minister of Foreign Affairs has the right if he wishes to put it in that
way to publish the document. I would have published the document myself but I
thought it would be putting a red herring across the discussion here. The
Minister for Foreign Affairs would not have been tied if I were allowed to move
my amendment. There is nothing in the second form in which it appears further
than that it was a considered form. The other document was put here in a hasty
way without consideration. I amended it as I would have done with any other
document. There are certain other verbal changes which are necessary in the
document to make it consistent with our position.
MR. GRIFFITH:
The President suggests that I objected to his moving an amendment. I told the
President that there could be no amendment to the Treaty and the President
agreed with me, and the form of words that were there I submitted to him at the
Mansion House and he approved of them. Any amendment to the Treaty destroys it.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
This is an amendment to the motion that is before the House. It is not an
amendment to the Treaty but to the motion before the House. The motion before
the House was that we approve of a certain thing. It need not have come before
the House at all because, as a matter of fact, in the body of the Treaty this
Dáil was not mentioned. I take it that the plenipotentiaries are simply
reporting back here the result of their work in London, and that we are
expressing our opinion on that report. And therefore, that when we have here
`approval' on something which a large number of members don't approve, that we,
as members of this House, have a right to say definitely on their report---to
express our opinion, and if there is an amendment to put the amendment. What is
at stake is this: that we as Dáil Eireann set out to make peace between Ireland
and Great Britain. I hold that was the primary object of the negotiations, to
have a definite peace, a lasting peace, so far as any human things we do to-day
can be regarded as lasting---something that would be built on a secure
foundation. If such a peace has not been made, then we have not done the thing
we set out to do. And it is with the hope that we might do exactly what we set
out to do, that is, to secure the basis of a lasting peace, that I wished to
bring forward my proposal as an amendment. This body is representative of the
Nation. The divisions that occurred here undoubtedly represent the divisions of
thought in the nation. The principles that have been expounded here, and the
sentiments that have been expressed, are an echo of the sentiments and
principles to be found through the people of Ireland. If we allow a chance like
this to pass without making a definite peace we are not doing our duty either to
the Irish nation, or to humanity as a whole. And I simply wish, as one human
being and not merely as an Irish man doing the work of a nation, but as a human
being trying to get peace, and to bring people who have been warring for
centuries to a basis of common understanding---I wished to bring forward my
proposal. It was ruled out on a technical point, but I feel I have done my duty.
MR. GRIFFITH:
This motion that stands in my name was brought by me to the Mansion House at
the request of President de Valera. There I asked him did he accept that motion
and he said: `Yes, we will have to vote on that motion.' That is the whole
matter.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is no question about that, but you definitely refused to agree to the
amendment being brought before the House as an amendment to the motion. That is
as far as you are personally concerned.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I think it is not open to the Minister for Foreign Affairs to answer that
question. An amendment to the resolution can only be made by omitting certain
words or adding certain words.
THE SPEAKER:
That does not arise yet; it will arise in due course.
The SPEAKER read the following
letter from Próinsias O Druacháin, Deputy for Waterford and Tipperary, East:
Do Cheann Chomhairle na Dála.
Is oth liom go g-caithfe me and Dáil d'fhágaint mar Theachta. Do reir an
meid rún a fuaireas ó Mhuintir Thiobtruid Arann Theas chím ná fuil na daoine
sásta liom, mar gheall orm a bheith i g-coinne an t-socruithe a dineadh le
muintir Shasana. Ní leigfeadh mo chroidhe ná m'aigne dhom mo ghuth do
thabhairt ar thaobh an t-socruithe shin ; ahus ós rud e gur cheap Comhairle
Ceanntair Sinn Fein iarraidh orm seasamh leis an socrú san, níl le deanamh
agam ach eirghe as ar fad, mar siad na daoine a thoibh me.
Le beannacht oraibh go leir, Mise,
Próinsias O Druacháin
Tiobruid Arann, Theas.
COMMANDANT EOIN O'DUFFY:
A number of us for some days past have been very anxious to find some common
ground for both sides out of the present grave position that we find ourselves
in. Last night a number of us got together; we were self-appointed; there were
nine in all to see if anything could he done. The names were: On the side of
ratification---Messrs. MacGuinness, Hogan, Professor Hayes and I.
Against---Messrs. Seán T. O Ceallaigh, Mellowes, O'Connor, Moylan and Rutledge.
A substantial agreement was reached on a number of very vital questions whereby
we thought it might be possible to retain the services of the President for the
nation and perhaps, avoid a split in the country. It was necessary for us to
report this morning to the leaders on either side and in order that we might do
that, this House was adjourned. We did that and, unfortunately, after some time
we found it was not possible for us to find an agreement and the position is as
we left it except that we are still here, and I don't know whether we will think
it worth while to again meet or not. I merely wish to let the assembly know
shortly what had passed. As regards the document that we discussed, I am not in
a position to disclose that now, by agreement with the other members.
THE SPEAKER:
We will resume now the orders of the day.
DR. MACCARTAN:
Are we to understand that this Committee agreed?
COMMANDANT O'DUFFY:
Oh yes! we got substantial agreement on a number of substantial matters.
DR. MACCARTAN:
Why not have a report from them?
MR. LIAM DE ROISTE:
I think in the interests of the nation that Committee should come together
again. A most important thing for the country is that some substantial agreement
should be come to. That Committee ought to come together again if it is possible
to come to any agreement.
THE SPEAKER:
I understand that the Dáil, recognising the efforts made by this Committee,
actually commissioned them to sit this morning------
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
No.
THE SPEAKER:
We adjourned for the purpose of enabling that Committee to formulate
something upon which we might possibly agree. So that I now ask the members of
the Committee whether they succeeded in formulating anything to lay before us?
COMMANDANT O'DUFFY:
I have just been discussing matters and we have decided that we should meet
again this evening after the adjournment, and we hope then to formulate a report
on what we have done.
MR. MULCAHY:
If that is so, I would move that the Dáil meets in Private Session to-morrow
at eleven o'clock and have the report from that Committee before us. Obviously,
if full agreement that can be of use to this House as a whole is not reached, it
might be inadvisable to report in Public Session the actual grounds upon which
fairly substantial agreement has been reached. But it is most important that the
House as a whole would know how far along the road to agreement the Committee
had been able to go.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I second that.
MR. E. DE BLAGHD:
In view of I what has been said I think that no good purpose could be served
by continuing the orders of the day at the present moment and I move now that we
adjourn till eleven o'clock to-morrow in Private Session.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
This Committee was a self-appointed one. Some people from both sides came to
me---some from the other side came to me last evening, and some from my own side
came to me and I said, of course, that I was at the disposal of anybody; that I
would be glad to join with anybody in discussing any possible or probable basis
of agreement that could be accepted with honour and dignity on both sides. This
Committee has no authority from the Dáil up to the present moment. If you want
to give it authority that is another matter.
A DEPUTY:
Let it go on.
THE SPEAKER:
You cannot give it any authority. It is a Committee that meets with the
approval of the Dáil, and the Dáil will receive a report from it.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
It is a very responsible work to put on the Committee. We might not have
chosen ourselves for such a responsible position if we thought that the
Committee's work was likely to be the basis of a report for the Dáil. However,
if the Dáil is agreed that we should undertake the work, I am prepared to adopt
the responsibility.
MR. LIAM DE ROISTE:
I propose if necessary that the Dáil approves of the meeting of this
Committee [`No, no!']
The motion to adjourn was then agreed to, and the House adjourned at
4.30 p.m.
DAIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION Friday, January 6th, 1922
The Public Session of An Dáil resumed at 3.20 p.m. on Friday, 6th
January, THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) in the Chair.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think it is not fair to the country or to this assembly that the anomalous
position which we have been in since the Articles of Agreement were signed in
London should be continued any longer. When these Articles of Agreement were
signed the body in which the executive authority of this assembly and of the
State is vested became as completely split as it was possible for it to become.
Irrevocably, not on personalities or anything of that kind or matter, but on
absolute fundamentals. Since then we have been trying to keep nominally as a
unified Executive, but the time has come when that must be ended. If I, for
instance, am to keep the Chief Executive authority here in the Republic, in duty
bound to preserve the Republic and to use all the means at the Republic's
disposal to preserve itself, I cannot be handicapped. I cannot have
responsibility without the right to use all the resources of the State to defend
itself and its existence. Very well, we have the position now in which I and a
certain section of the Cabinet stand for one fundamental policy, and another
section of the Cabinet stands for a fundamentally opposite policy. One side of
us means the preservation of the Republic and the existence of our country; the
other means the subversion of that independence. We have black and white so far
as we are concerned. Now I stand here as one who believes in ordered government.
I believe fundamentally in the right of the Irish people to govern themselves. I
believe fundamentally in government of the people by the people, and if I may
add the other part, for the people. That is my fundamental creed. Anything that
would take away the Executive or fundamental authority of the people, whether
executive, legislative or judicial, is absolutely against my principles and I
hold that would be a subversion of nationality as I understand it, for this
nation. Now, the position which has been created is this---a little history will
make the whole position clear to every member here and to the country---I
entered politics as a soldier, as one who stood for the principles of those who
proclaimed the Republic in 1916. I went down to Clare the first time I went as a
political candidate; I read the declaration of that Republic and I said to the
people of Clare: `I stand for that; and I hope to be able to establish this for
the world: that the men who proclaimed that, though they were said to be a
minority of the nation at the time, they truly represented the heart and feeling
of the nation.' And we proved it, thank God. Those who said we had no right to
`rebel' as it was called, because we didn't represent the views of the people,
were proved to have told untruths. Whatever may have been said about the chances
of success and other matters there is one thing that stands proved
historically---that these men did represent the hearts and souls and aspirations
of the Irish people. I say that no election taken under duress or anything else
will disprove that to-day. I say, therefore, that there will never be a peace
which neglects that fundamental fact because it is the fact of the whole
situation. The fundamental fact is that the Irish people want to live their own
lives in their own way without any outside authority whatever being imposed upon
them; whether it is the authority of the British Crown or any other authority
whatever. Now for the historical part. After my imprisonment, when I came out
after leaving Dartmoor---I came out and I found here on the one hand the old
chief of the Sinn Fein Organisation, at the time working politically---our
present Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Arthur Griffith---and I found at the
head of the Irish Volunteers the Minister for Defence, Mr. Cathal Brugha. I
found that they differed then as fundamentally as they differ to-day. I found
that I was a sort of connecting link between the two, and at the first
Convention of Sinn Fein, or a night or two before it, we devised a basis on
which we have worked so successfully for the past four years: the basis of the
Sinn Fein Constitution. Since then I have been the link between the two. On the
one hand the political leader at the time, as I might say, of Sinn Fein,
surrendered at the Convention his Chairmanship of the Sinn Fein Organisation,
surrendered it to me, and I was elected political head unanimously. Before that
time the Minister of Defence had surrendered to me, as Senior Officer in the
Army at the time, the headship of the Irish Volunteers. I combined therefore in
myself for the time being, the political headship and the military headship; and
it was the combination of these two---the military headship which represented
the true aspirations of the Irish people, the headship of those who stood
definitely for the Republic which was established in 1916 unequivocally, and the
political headship---which enabled the two sides to work together. When I went
to America to try to get recognition for the Republic that was established, I,
as it was my right, nominated as Acting President or as Political Chief the
Minister for Foreign Affairs. I should have said, in giving this little
historical summary, in order that it might make the position clear---I should
have said that when Dáil Eireann met at its first session and proclaimed its
independence, the Minister for Defence was chosen as the first Chief Executive
Authority. He formed the first Cabinet of the Republic and he surrendered it to
me when I came out of prison. Again I became the connecting link. In every
Cabinet I formed I took care to have those two sides properly represented. And I
felt that if I was to be of any use to the country, and if there was to be unity
in the country, it was by trying to harmonise these two voices as far as was
possible. I had a difficult task to play for four years, to try, so to speak, to
hold the balance even in public discussion, no matter what my own personal views
might be; and privately, and certainly in public never did I do anything which
would tend to lead to the disruption of these two forces. I felt that the unity
of these two forces was absolutely essential for national success; and until the
sixth December I succeeded in my task. On the sixth December a document was
signed which irrevocably sundered that connection. On October twenty-sixth I
think it was, I saw the danger on account of following the British negotiations
in London very carefully---I saw the danger and I found it my duty, dealing with
the Home members of the Cabinet, to send to London to the delegation what I
regarded as a warning. It was an expression of the views of the Home members of
the Cabinet who were five at the time, whilst three were away. There were at
home four members of the Cabinet and the Assistant Minister for Local
Government. Those of us who were here were the Minister of Defence, the Minister
for Home Affairs, the Minister for Local Government, the Assistant Minister for
Local Government and myself. We were a definite majority in the Cabinet and on
the twenty-fifth of October I wrote this:
I received the minutes of the Seventh Session and your letter of the twenty
fourth. We are all here at one that there can be no question of asking the
Irish people to enter an arrangement which would make them subjects of the
Crown, or demand from them allegiance to the British King. If war is the
alternative, we can only face it and I think the sooner the other side is made
realise that the better.
That was definite. On December second or the night before, I think, the
plenipotentiaries came back with a document which represented the proposals of
the British Government at that stage. That document was clearly one, to me,
inconsistent with our position. My position and the position of the Cabinet was
that which we expressed in the now famous paragraph two at Gairloch, which
caused a number of telegrams to be exchanged. That was that we had no right or
authority to act on behalf of the Irish people except as representatives of a
Government of a sovereign state. That is the only basis, and I hold that
anything that is inconsistent with that is ultra vires so far as we are
concerned. Now, I therefore rejected that document on that basis, and made it
quite clear, as far as I was concerned, to the Chairman of the Delegation that
that would be unacceptable and impossible for us in our position. At the Cabinet
meeting following a similar discussion arose and it was pointed out by the
Minister of Defence who represented, as I have said, the traditional view---the
fundamental Irish Volunteer view---it was pointed out that it meant definitely a
split in the country if such a document was signed. The Chairman of the
Delegation held that he would not break on the Crown. In view of the definite,
clear certainty of a split a promise was given that a document of that sort,
involving the making of Irish citizens British subjects and allegiance to the
Crown---that such a document would not be signed---whilst the Chairman of the
Delegation would not take the responsibility of breaking on that question---that
such a document would not he signed until it was submitted to this Dáil. So
certain was I of that promise being fulfilled to the letter that when I heard an
agreement had been reached I said: `We have won.' And when I saw in the
newspapers that the agreement that was reached was one absolutely incompatible
with our position---a subverting of the State as it stands---I knew that a step
which was practically irrevocable had been taken. There was but one way to try
to save that, and it was this: we had been working definitely for peace---for a
peace that would be consistent with our position, and I believe definitely that
such a peace was possible. I had pinned, personally, my efforts to get the idea
of any association whatever with the British Empire or the States of the British
Empire---to try to make that palatable, so to speak, to those who thought, not
merely of an independent Ireland in the sense of being a sovereign state, but
thought of Ireland as a sovereign state absolutely isolated, such as
Switzerland. I had attacked it as a political problem. I had kept myself
detached, so to speak, calmly, coldly I weighing the factors in the situation;
and I kept clearly in mind all the time the fundamental of all, that is, the
satisfaction of the aspiration of complete independent Irish nationality. I saw
nothing in the proposals which we had made that was inconsistent with that, and
when I made a rough outline of the proposals to the first Ministry meeting,
after the members came out of prison which was a sort of duplicate Ministry
meeting at the time, I got it unanimously accepted in the main outline. It was
difficult to work it in detail, but as the Conference went on and the British
proposals were made on the one hand and adjustments on our side, we made
something like a State arrangement to curtail power in a definite shape: and
when this document and Articles of Agreement with Great Britain were signed, I
got a document which was practically the last proposals which our
plenipotentiaries made---counter proposals. I put these together as quickly as I
could before the first meeting of the Dáil. I produced a rough draft document.
It was nothing else, and it was put before this House for the purpose of
eliciting views, not of those who had accepted the Treaty. Any man who stands up
and says he can object to the other document, I say he is not objecting on the
grounds of nationality, anyway. Therefore I take it for granted, and any fair or
impartial member of this House is entitled to take it for granted, that anybody
who agreed to the Treaty could not find objection to that document. The best
proof of that was that the plenipotentiaries themselves had already tried to get
these particular proposals accepted by the British Government. I therefore put
it before the meeting to get the views, not so much of those who stood for the
present---the Articles of Agreement, as of those who stood for the Republic in
its simplest form of isolation. The document was presented in the same way as I
would present it to the Cabinet. We had Private Sessions here during the war.
These Private Sessions were respected and no one spoke outside of anything that
happened at the Private Sessions. I put that document before them. It is only
when I have got general agreement that I look after it from the point of view of
form and wording. I didn't want the world to see it because I didn't want the
world or the Irish people confused. And I didn't want the British to see it
because I didn't want them to see the changes that would be made in it by this
assembly. I asked it to be kept as a confidential document. It was the first
time that confidence was broken. Therefore, as head of the State, I cannot get
further work done, as I cannot have that confidence in the members of the
Cabinet. The position, therefore, is this: at that stage my last effort to
secure unanimity and to secure co-operation was destroyed because that document
was treated most unfairly; and it was treated unfairly because then, at that
stage, I saw at once that we had for the first time in this Dáil got parties. I
withdrew the document. I saw it could serve no good purpose at the time to be
used as a red herring across the track; but still I see that through that means,
and through that means only, I could be of any use to this assembly or to the
nation; because it is only by combining these two forces that you can keep the
nation united. It is not personal, because that document was mainly evolved
through the delegates in London. I find very little to do except to take those
final results of their labours and the Treaty as it actually was presented, and
put them together. I was anxious to keep as close to the British Treaty as
possible; because, as we were genuinely anxious for peace, there was no reason
that we should make any changes that were not vital. I felt that I was doing a
big thing, a thing that was necessary not merely for Ireland but even a bigger
thing in a sense, and that was the reconciliation of two peoples. I believe that
that is possible still on one basis and one only, because as sure as this other
Treaty goes through so sure will there be rebels against British
authority---because they will not be British subjects. We will be living an
absolute lie. Neither technically or otherwise am I a British subject, and
please God I will die without ever being one. Now, I have definitely a policy,
not some pet scheme of my own, but something that I know from four years'
experience in my position---and I have been brought up amongst the Irish people.
I was reared in a labourer's cottage here in Ireland [applause]. I
have not lived solely amongst the intellectuals. The first fifteen years of my
life that formed my character were lived amongst the Irish people down in
Limerick; therefore, I know what I am talking about; and whenever I wanted to
know what the Irish people wanted I had only to examine my own heart and it told
me straight off what the Irish people wanted. I, therefore, am holding to this
policy, first of all, because if I was the only man in Ireland left of those of
1916---as I was Senior Officer left---I will go down in that creed to my grave.
I am not a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, but I hope when I die I
will get a Fenian grave. Therefore from that point of view I would be that; but
I would not let personal considerations of that sort have anything to do with
the situation. I am doing this and acting on this principle because I believe it
is the only policy that can save Ireland at this moment. I am coming therefore
before this Dáil to lay down now definitely my office and, as I have the right
to get from all the Ministers their resignations, I lay it down definitely here
in this House; and this House has got to decide before it does further work, who
is to be the Chief Executive in this nation---and it will have to do it
constitutionally---so that the Chief Executive Officer, if he is going to have
the responsibility of office, will also have the powers of the Government to
enable him to execute the duties of his office properly---it does not matter who
he is. There are two rival policies then, and you will have to decide between
them. One policy is this: I stand definitely for the Irish Republic as it was
established---as it was proclaimed in 1916---as it was constitutionally
established by the Irish nation in 1919, and I stand for that definitely; and I
will stand by no policy whatever that is not consistent with that. Now if you
re-elect me [cries of `We will!']---steady for a moment---I will
have to have the right to get a Cabinet that thinks with me so that we can be a
unified body. Next, I will have to have the full use of all the resources of the
Republic to defend the Republic---every resource and all the material that is in
the nation to defend it. If you elect me and you do it by a majority I will
throw out that Treaty---if we have a majority, if this Cabinet goes down. Next,
I will bring from our Cabinet a document such as that, and we will offer it to
the British people as a genuine peace Treaty---to the British peoples, not
merely Lloyd George and his government, but to all the States of the British
Commonwealth---of the British Empire. This is going further than any one because
I have spent years---because one of my earliest dreams, next to securing Irish
independence, was that there might be reconciliation between the people of these
two islands---this is a genuine offer of peace, a peace that can be as lasting
as human peace can be. We will offer them that, and if they turn it down, then
we will, as in the past, stick to the Sinn Fein Constitution; we will deny the
right, we will oppose the will of the British Parliamentary power to legislate
for Ireland; and we will make use of any and every means to render impotent the
power of England to hold Ireland in subjection by military force or otherwise.
Now, if you re-elect me that is our programme. We have not been afraid
notwithstanding---we started this even before 1919; we started in 1917 that
programme. If there was not a gun in Ireland we could carry out that programme.
If we were bound hand and foot we could still, by our voice and our will, stand
by that programme. Let the British put us in their jails and they can't stifle
our will. That human will of ours will stand up to Lloyd George and say, like
Terence MacSwiney: `No! we will not be British subjects.' [Applause].
Very well then, I offer to this House my personal resignation, and with it go
the Ministers. You have to elect the head of the Government. If you elect me I
will pursue the policy I have outlined. As to the policy opposed to it I propose
to let the Minister of Foreign Affairs tell you about it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
On a point of order I would like to know whether this statement involves a
discussion on Document 2 or on Document 3? Because I will put forward arguments
about that document that will stand against any thing. I want simply to know
whether this involves a discussion on that document, because I can't allow a
statement about that document to which there is an answer, a good answer, a true
answer, to pass unchallenged.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
What I do formally is to lay before the House my resignation. Definitely, as
Chief Executive authority I resign and with it goes the Cabinet. Do not decide
on personalities---on my personality. It is not a question of persons. That has
nothing whatever to do with it. As I say, it is not a question of persons
because where personality is concerned we are all the best friends. We worked
together as one team. Now we are divided fundamentally, although we had kept
together until we reached this Bridge. My object was that we don't part before
we come to this Bridge. We are at the Bridge. This House has got my Document No.
2. It will be put before the House by the new Cabinet that will be formed if I
am elected. We will put down that document. It will be submitted to the House.
MR. GRIFFITH:
The President referred to me. I want to make a short statement. I won't go
into the speech of the President now. The President and I agreed that this
motion should go on, and that a vote should be taken. Also he agreed that I
should wind up this debate. Now, I submit that the order of the day is that we
are discussing this motion: `that Dáil Eireann approves of this Treaty between
Great Britain and Ireland '; and I submit that until that is decided we can't
discuss the President's proposal. We are still on the orders of the day. And if
any attempt is made to bring in another issue it is an unfair attempt to bring
in another discussion, and to closure discussion on the motion before the House.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I can't take the responsibility of being defender of the Republic unless I
have all the material resources of the Republic at my disposal, and I won't take
the responsibility no matter what anybody asks me to do.
DR. FERRAN:
I have a serious statement to make. On a point of order no Treaty has been
made. The motion of the Minister for Foreign Affairs------
THE SPEAKER:
What's the point of order?
DR. FERRAN:
I submit that the word `Treaty' there is inappropriate.
THE SPEAKER:
That's not a point of order.
DR. FERRAN:
I submit that the Treaty is not yet concluded
THE SPEAKER:
Well, now, that is yet not a point of order.
MR. COLIVET:
Would it put matters in order if I moved a motion to suspend the Standing
Orders in order to discuss the President's resignation?
MR. GRIFFITH:
I submit until that motion before the House is disposed of we can't discuss
anything else.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I second the proposal to suspend the Standing Orders.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The Government can resign before everything else. There must be an Executive;
and you must have somebody to see that the work of the House is carried out.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
I want to say this: the nation is bigger than any man and bigger even than
the Dáil, and we ought to carry out the orders of the day.
THE SPEAKER:
The order is perfectly clear. The Dáil itself is the authority. That is to
say that this body is supreme, and any other body in the country is subordinate
to it; and especially with regard to the carrying on of its own proceedings, it
passes its own authority. The orders of the day is the motion that is before us
tabled here; that is the motion by the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I decline to take the responsibility for defending the Republic when I have
not got the ordinary means of doing it.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
Have you accepted the motion for the suspending of the Standing Orders?
THE SPEAKER:
The motion to suspend the Standing Orders is in order.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
On that point I submit that the order of the day is before you, and it is a
motion to discuss approval or disapproval of the Treaty. The Dáil is in session.
Remember the discussion on it, and every sitting or meeting of this body was a
continuation of one session, and not an ordinary meeting of the Dáil during
which questions to Ministers and ordinary business, and the discussions which
would arise at a single sitting would come up for consideration. This discussion
here is out of the ordinary. It is one whole and entire sitting and I submit
with great respect that it is not open to you to receive a motion---during the
middle of a discussion---to suspend the Standing Orders.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
As you have ruled, there is no going back of your ruling now.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I suppose we can discuss this motion on the suspension of the Standing Orders
[Cries of `No! no!']. I am in possession. I suppose we may discuss
the motion to suspend the Standing Orders?
THE SPEAKER:
There is nothing against it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well we will discuss the motion to suspend the Standing Orders. The position
is this. If you reject the Treaty the President of the Republic can, in ten
minutes, have a Government for the Republic. Now there is another way of getting
a Cabinet that will be a united Cabinet. As one member of the Cabinet I have
offered already to put my resignation into the President's hands and let it go
before the House. I have offered that and it was refused. Well, now, if the
members of the present Government who are opposed to the Treaty---if those
members, with the President at their head, ask for our resignations, well and
good, let them come before the House. This now is a second way to get a
Government to carry on. Let the President, having all the resources at his
command, ask for our resignations, and let our resignations come before the
House. There is a motion on now to suspend Standing Orders. That comes queerly
at this time. I asked a question as to whether a speech which the President had
made involved a discussion on document No. 2 or 3, I don't care which. I have an
answer to this document and I want to give that answer to the Irish people. Now,
under the motion suspending the Standing Orders I take it that discussion on
this document is ruled out. Is that right, sir?
THE SPEAKER:
Yes.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well, that is ruled out. The other side may say what they like, and they may
put in any motion that they like, and they may take any action that they like,
but we must not criticise them. That is the position that we have been put into.
That is a position I won't accept from anybody; and no matter what happens
to-day it won't be accepted by me. We will have no Tammany Hall methods here.
Whether you are for the Treaty or whether you are against it, fight without
Tammany Hall methods. We will not have them. A Committee was appointed by the
House and the House was prevented from receiving the report of that
Committee---it was prevented by three or four bullies [applause].
Are you going to be held up by three or four bullies?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Is that a proper thing?
THE SPEAKER:
I ask the Minister of Finance to withdraw that term.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I can withdraw the term but the spoken word cannot be recalled. Is that
right, sir? [Applause and laughter]. This motion to suspend the
Standing Orders is a motion to draw a red herring across our path here. And it
is because of that that I, for one, cannot agree to it. We can have what we have
been discussing for several days---we can have a straight vote for or against
the Treaty. Have a straight vote and I am satisfied, whichever way it goes;
because then we have shown that we can come to a decision. But don't try to
employ those methods. The meaning of the suspension of the Standing Orders is
nothing less than a red herring, On the motion before the House we can take a
vote on the Treaty, and then the President can have his Cabinet that will work
with him and for him.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Not for me.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I don't know whether or not we mean to have a discussion on the President's
speech---there are things in it which I can tear to tatters---but under the
Standing Orders I dare say we can. But on this, as on anything else, if you are
going to strike a person about anything I say strike, and strike hard and strike
and hear---hear first, anyway, the other side. This is an endeavour to put the
other side into a position that we don't occupy and this motion to suspend the
Standing Orders is simply a political dodge to put us in a false position.
MR. COLIVET:
As I raised the motion to suspend the Standing Orders I------ [Cries of
`Order.']
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
The Minister of Finance has made a statement that the result of a meeting of
eight or nine members of this body within the last twenty-four or forty-eight
hours was prevented from being brought before us, and that this was the work of
some bullies. He was asked to withdraw that. You have seen the way in which he
withdrew it. I don't know to whom he referred when he mentioned this word
`bullies.' Possibly he may have referred to me as being one of them. In the
ordinary way I would take exception and take offence at such a term being
applied to me, but the amount of offence that I would take at it would be
measured by the respect or esteem that I had for the character of the person who
made the charge. In this particular instance I take no offence whatever. Now,
the Minister for Finance says something about Tammany Hall methods. I know
nothing about them. Possibly he does. He says that on this motion for the
suspension of the Standing Orders he and his friends are precluded from
discussing the statement made by the President in the speech which you have just
heard. That is so. But when the Standing Orders have been suspended he and his
friends can discuss any statements that have been made by the President. That's
all I have to say.
MR. M. COLLINS:
In that case I am satisfied.
MR. COLIVET:
I would like to say I did not move it as a political dodge or as a red
herring across the track. But as a private member I am sorry the President has
resigned. I would prefer he had stayed until we had a vote on the Treaty.
MR. MILROY :
I don't think you can put the motion. We are not going to have the rules of
this House played and trafficked with to suit the political manoeuvre of any
Party in this House. There is a proper time for the step the President has
taken, but this is not the time.
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
By Standing Order 5 it is laid down that: `the Chairman shall, at the request
of a Deputy, suspend the orders of the day for the discussion of a special
matter of national importance provided that, on a show of hands, the request has
the support of ten Deputies.' I submit that it does not require that there
should be a formal motion to suspend the Standing Order. If any Deputy can
secure the support of ten Deputies.
MR. MILROY:
You have already ruled that the discussion upon the Standing Orders is
permissible, and I want to resist the suspension of the Standing Orders, and I
do it for this reason------
MR. MULCAHY:
It is not the suspension of the Standing Orders but the suspension of the
orders of the day.
MR. MACENTEE:
It is the same thing.
MR. MILROY:
The point I would make if I were allowed to proceed---if those authorities on
constitutional usage hadn't intervened---would be this: that the step that we
are asked to take seems to me entirely out of harmony with constitutional usage.
There is a time when it would be quite proper and quite opportune though,
perhaps, regrettable for the President to take the step. That moment would be
when he was defeated in this House upon the question which we are
discussing---on the major issue, not now. I presume, sir, that that is a
perfectly legitimate point to make. And therefore I suggest that to suspend the
Standing Orders to discuss an unexpected pronouncement of the President is
really an attempt to keep the Irish people still in the dark as to what is the
real mind of the Dáil on the issue that is before us [cries of `No no!'].
Well why was this intervention of the President---so unfortunate, so unhappy, so
regretted by every one of us, so premature---why was it made? He talks about
trying to keep unity. Is there any step more calculated to split not only this
Dáil, but to split the whole Irish nation and the whole Irish race than that
which the President has now taken up? Is there any step more calculated to bring
about that result? I think that this Dáil will be well advised now to refuse to
suspend the Standing Orders, and continue the discussion on the question---the
main point---whether this Treaty is to be ratified or not.
MISS MACSWINEY
I rise to support the suspension of the Standing Orders. I do it on exactly
the same grounds as the last speaker, and these are: that it is absolutely
essential for the Irish people to be enlightened once for all on this matter,
and that nothing will enlighten them so well as a direct policy on one side for
the Republic, and on the other side for the Treaty, and I think it most
essential that this motion should be put for that very purpose. The people in
the country with all this talk of Documents 2 and 3 and now of X have been
misled about the attitude of the President who, I think you will all agree with
me, is the one supremely honourable man in this Dáil. And I think it is just
because it is so muddled that a fair issue should be put before the people and
the country. And for that reason I think it better to have the President's
resignation with all it involves, with his clear statement of policy on the one
side and, on the other side---then if the House defeats that policy, let them
elect another President with a different policy, and then the issues are clear
before the country.
MR. P. BRENNAN:
Is it simply a question of policy---the question between the President and
the Treaty? Will it be a vote between the Treaty on the one side and President
de Valera on the other? [Cries of `No! no!']
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I will explain clearly. I don't like to be misunderstood. I have done this in
the interests of order both here in this House and all over Ireland. We can't
keep up a Coalition of that kind. It is impossible: because Cabinet documents
have been brought out. How could I carry on the Cabinet work if private drafts
were exposed to the public? I want, therefore, to safeguard the nation by having
a definite head and Government for the nation. We will have parties here if we
continue. I don't know whether I have the confidence of the House or not, but at
present I can do nothing.
MR. P. MAILLE:
I strongly protest as a private member against this motion.
MR. BOLAND:
I support the motion for the suspension of the Standing Orders. I presume the
remarks of the Hon. member for Cork were intended for me. I am sorry that he has
seen fit to make such a suggestion. I will say this:that I don't know anything
about Tammany Hall except this, that if he had a little training in Tammany
Hall, and reserved some of his bullying for Lloyd George we would not be in the
position we are in to-day.
MR. P. O MAILLE:
Lean leat.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
Now we are getting the dope.
MR. BOLAND:
If he had he could not have us in the position we are in to day. I came back
to this country to vote against the Treaty. I support the President of this
Republic, and I am particularly glad he has knit the issue. Either we are a
Government or we are not. If we are a Government we must have a head; and as we
have lined up now in parties, I think that the resignation offered gives this
House the opportunity to say whether it stands for a Government of the Irish
people---a Government that was created by the will of the Irish people, and a
Government that can only be destroyed by the power that created it---or whether
it stands with the men who have come back to this Dáil with a Treaty which
denies the existence of the Irish nation [`No! no!'] and denies,
in my opinion, the fact that we are a Government. We sent those
plenipotentiaries to negotiate a Treaty; we sent them from Dáil Eireann. They
returned with a document, not to Dáil Eireann, but to the Southern Parliament.
Here is their opportunity now to have the issue clearly knit. I maintain that if
the orders of the day be suspended, if the President's resignation be accepted
and if he goes forward for re-election on a definite policy which he has clearly
expressed, that that is proper and constitutional. As we are at present we are
divided and he has taken this opportunity to place himself where he belongs. An
attempt has been made and has succeeded in placing him, as the head of this
nation, in a position that he does not occupy. It has gone out to the world that
there is no question of principle dividing this House, and an attempt is being
made to place the head of this nation in a false position. By his statement
to-day he stands square on the Republic of Ireland ; and he comes before us now
for a vote of confidence. If he is elected the work of the Irish Republic will
go on; and if the men who maintain that there is no Government of the Irish
Republic, and that there never has been, want to knit the issue, now is the time
to do it.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
Is this in order?
MR. BOLAND:
If the men on the other side wished they could take this document to the
Southern Irish Parliament and not to the Parliament of the Irish Republic. At a
time like this I intended to move the re-election of President de Valera. I
can't do that now. I have just spoken in support of suspending the orders of the
day.
MR. P. O MAILLE:
Cuirim in aghaidh an rúin go dian. Bhíomair anso ar feadh trí seachtaine,
agus bhí an fáth ceadna ag an Uachtarán le h-eirghe as i d-tosach agus tá anois.
Cad na thaobh már dhin se an uair sin e? I am here to protest strongly
against the suspending of the Standing Orders; I think this attitude of our
present President is treating us unfairly. An effort is being made to put us in
the position of a lot of schoolboys, with us private members having no right
here at all. The very same situation for the resignation of the President
existed at the beginning of the Session as exists to-day; and why was it not
brought forward then instead of being brought forward now? Why it was not
brought forward then instead of now was to try and prejudice the issue on the
vote on the Treaty. This is a question placing the personality of President de
Valera on the one side and the Treaty on the other.
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
I want to interrupt on a point of order, that is, the regulations governing
the procedure of this House. Paragraph 5 of the Standing Orders says: `the
Chairman shall, at the request of a Deputy, suspend the Standing Orders for the
discussion of a special matter of national importance provided that on a show of
hands the request has the support of ten Deputies.' Now I submit that your duty
is to call for a show of hands and ascertain whether ten Deputies are in favour
of the suspension of the Standing Orders.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I would like to say one word on that. The position is this: that the document
has been under consideration since the 5th or 6th December last, and this
`matter of urgent national importance' has lasted successfully up to the 6th
January of the following year. This `urgent matter of national importance' is
just as urgent now as on the 6th December, and no more urgent now than then. We
are within, at most, forty-eight hours of a decision on the matter; and on the
orders of the day it can be decided here and now. That settles the point; and I
claim that this is not a matter of national importance within the meaning of the
words, and the debate should be continued without interruption.
MR. O MAILLE:
I maintain this motion is not treating the members of this Dáil fairly nor is
it treating the Irish nation fairly. When I spoke here on a previous occasion I
said that ninety five per cent. of the people of Galway were in favour of the
Treaty. Now I can speak definitely and I say that ninety-nine per cent. of the
people of Galway are in favour of this Treaty. Why should you here turn right
round against the country and ignore the people? The people have some rights in
this matter and they must be heard [`hear, hear'].
MR. PETER HUGHES:
We have been here now, as Deputy Cosgrave said, for a considerable number of
days and the question of the resignation of the President is no more urgent now
than it has been for a considerable time past. I think if anyone wants a vote of
confidence from this House he should have it, but let this debate proceed. We
must be treated as we have a right to be treated in this House; and I would
appeal to the Deputies to continue this debate or take a vote now, if you like,
with no further speaking, unless the Minister for Foreign Affairs should wind it
up. Let us have done with this wrangling---we are becoming a disgrace to the
nation. I am Chairman of a Board of Guardians and it this wrangling went on
there I would feel I was absolutely disgraced. The nation is tired of this
wrangling; and I hold if we proceed any further we will be the laughing stock,
not alone of Ireland but of the world. I appeal to the members and to the
President. Let us have a vote inside of an hour if you like.
THE SPEAKER:
I have been asked by one of the Deputies to decide---that I should call for a
show of hands as to whether this is a matter of national importance. My decision
is, that for many days we have been discussing a matter of national importance
and that that is the matter of national importance before us. I am not going to
give any decision that would interfere with the taking of a vote upon the issue
discussed up to the present. We will take a vote now on the suspension of the
orders of the day. The motion is as follows: `I beg to move the suspension of
the orders of the day to deal with the President's resignation.'
MR. GRIFFITH:
Before you put that I want, at least, the Irish public to know this:that the
motion here discussed for a month past is `That Dáil Eireann approves of the
Treaty signed in London by the plenipotentiaries.' The terms of that motion were
agreed upon between President de Valera and myself, and he agreed that I should
wind up the discussion. I have listened here for days---during all that
time---to arguments and attacks on my honour and the honour of my
fellow-delegates and I have said nothing. I have waited to wind up this
discussion. President de Valera now says he must have a Cabinet that works with
him, but at the end of the last session of the Dáil---before Christmas--- he
asked the Cabinet to stand and work together. We are standing together. There
has been no trouble so far as I am aware. I remained Minister for Foreign
Affairs, Michael Collins for Finance and Mr. Cosgrave for Local Government. I
want to know why this matter is sprung now instead of letting the motion of
taken in the ordinary course. If the vote is adverse to us, well and good. If it
is adverse to the President he can do what he suggests to do now. Why we should
be stopped in the middle of this discussion and a vote taken on the personality
of President de Valera I don't understand; and I don't think my countrymen will
understand it [`hear, hear'].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am sick and tired of politics---so sick that no matter what happens I would
go back to private life. I have only seen politics within the last three weeks
or a month. It is the first time I have seen them and I am sick to the heart of
them. Now I am told this is a special political manoeuvre. Mr. Boland came back
from America, and then there is talk of Tammany Hall; but I make up my mind for
myself, now and always. Mr. Boland didn't know anything about it until I myself
told him this morning. Only I see mean things. It is because I will not keep the
responsibility of doing things if I am not to work as in the past; and
therefore, if you decide to have a vote on this Treaty within forty-eight hours,
have it or have my responsibility for doing things that I can't do. For instance
there is the case in to-day's papers. Some one was kidnapped, and the Minister
of Finance sent some one to make enquiries. He had no right to send anybody.
There is a Minister for Defence and a Minister for Foreign Affairs. There should
be a Government where some one man would be responsible.
MR. COLLINS:
I sent these men off under the orders of my superior officer.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The persons responsible are the Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Defence.
These are the people responsible for that. There must be undivided authority and
undivided responsibility. I will not hold office with divided responsibility.
That is a matter that anybody who has done Executive work will understand. If
this House wants to take a vote on a straight issue I don't want to draw any red
herring across. It is because I am straight that I meet crookedness with
straight dealing always, and I have beaten crookedness with straight dealing. If
I tried to beat crookedness with similar methods we are undone. What matters to
the nation is, always to stand in that we are able to face the enemy. lf you
have crooked methods there is always the back door to them by which you will be
taken in the rere. Truth will always stand no matter from what direction it is
attacked. I detest trickery. What has sickened me most is that I got in this
House the same sort of dealing that I was accustomed to over in America from
other people of a similar kind---because, holding the position that I do, I
don't want to see it tarnished. If the people of Clare wanted me to resign they
could say so. I got telegrams telling me how these motions were passed and I
could read them to the House.
MR. BRENNAN:
Do read them.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Insinuations about me have hurt me---because every man and woman who has
dealt with me here knows that I am standing exactly where I stood. I tried to
reconcile very difficult things and tried to solve the problems as far as I was
able. I know what others didn't know: where the verge of the precipice was, and
nothing would have pulled me beyond it---not even Lloyd George and all his
Empire could have brought me over it. Therefore, I am straight with everybody
and I am not a person for political trickery; and I don't want to pull a red
herring across. If there is a straight vote in this House I will be quite
satisfied if it is within forty-eight hours.
MR. ARTHUR GRIFFITH:
President de Valera says a vote within forty eight hours. I quite agree. Let
us have a vote on Monday morning. [Cries of `To-morrow.')]I don't
want, as I said, to prevent anybody from speaking here, but let it be to-morrow
if the House wishes it.
MR. HUGHES:
I suggest that private members can get until lunch time to-morrow to explain
their views and after that that the discussion be wound up by the Ministers.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
By arrangement with the whips the Minister for Defence was to speak last, and
if you come to an arrangement to take a vote to-morrow, let the Ministers for
Defence and Foreign Affairs wind up the debate. Carry on till ten o'clock
to-night and take a vote to-morrow.
THE SPEAKER
I take it, in view of what the President and the other Ministers have said,
that the motion for the suspension of the Standing Orders is withdrawn and that
the discussion proceeds. [Cries of `Yes!']
DR. FERRAN:
I was out of order, it seems, when endeavouring to raise a point of order in
connection with this motion. The Point is this:I say distinctly that no Treaty
has been signed---that we have not signed a Treaty. If a Treaty has been signed
at any rate it has not been produced to us. We have seen a document which, as I
understand, is of the nature of practically an agreed agenda for a discussion
which is to take place in London between our plenipotentiaries and the British
plenipotentiaries if this Dáil approves. Now, I will read on that point an
authority of a sufficiently distinguished constitutional lawyer, with whom our
plenipotentiaries came into intimate contact in London.It is very regrettable, I
think, that we should have to go to Hansard for information of this kind. The
Irish people have been told that there is a Treaty before them when there is no
such thing. There is no such document in existence. There is such a document to
be prepared if this Dáil vote away its existence as the Government of the Irish
Republic and not until then. Lord Birkenhead,answering a question by the Earl of
Midleton on the 16th December, said:
`If and when the representatives of Dáil Eireann approve of these
Articles of Agreement it will be necessary that there shall be meetings in
order to deal with matters which are supplemental, and must necessarily be
added in order to make the document a complete one.'
Now, we have been instructed here that we have a complete and unalterable Treaty
before us. It is distinctly told us here that there is no such thing; that there
are to be further discussions and alterations in this Treaty over which this
body will have no control. These will be agreed upon after discussion between
the negotiators. Lord Birkenhead continues:
`I most sincerely hope, and have every reason to believe, that when
that part of the subject is reached which concerns the noble Earl (Earl of
Midleton) he and his colleagues will be consulted, and that which has been
agreed upon will, of course, be presented to Parliament in the form of an
agreed Treaty. Only then have we the Treaty in front of us.'
It is very regrettable that this Dáil hadn't that information at its disposal
and that we had to go to Hansard to get most vital points like this cleared up.
If any of you will take the trouble again to look over the Treaty you will find
that there are only three or four points definitely determined. One important
point is the oath; there are other subsidiary points, such as the ports,
religious endowments and one or two things of that kind, but the rest of the
body of the Treaty and signatures of the Treaty about the law and the
`subject'---all the rest is to be investigated and decided without the knowledge
of this House. Now, I want to make a personal explanation before going on to
speak on this matter. I heard, I don't say whether with regret or not, under the
very tragic circumstances, the President tendering his resignation as President
of the Irish Republic---nothing else could be done. I am ashamed to say that
during the Secret Sessions of this Dáil---in August I think it was---I heard
some whispers going round about the position of the President and I raised the
question, though absolutely raw and new to the House---I raised the question in
the form of a suggestion. I said, in reference to the motion brought forward by
the Minister of Defence, that if it came to a question between the President of
the Republic and the Republic that, much as we were attached to the President,
we were still more attached to the Republic. Now I want to make a most full and
complete apology for that. I have to say that, during the course of all those
discussions behind closed doors, I never heard a single word let drop by any
person on any side---we had only one side then---no single word was let drop
which suggested that the Republic was going to be turned down, and I, for one,
knew nothing about the possibility of the Republic being turned down until I
read in the newspapers the Articles of Agreement. Now, we have been united in
this Dáil in one of the most splendid comradeships---and before we met in the
Dáil---I have had very little part in it, but we have been united in one of the
most splendid comradeships in an unselfish endeavour of any fight for liberty
that was ever seen. It is the most tragic thing, I think, in all our history
that that comradeship should be broken as it has been. I heard a suggestion, a
horrible suggestion, that the President of the Republic was prepared to plunge
Ireland into a terrible and immediate war for a quibble of words. I think that
that is a most atrocious statement. A quibble of words! Now, there has been a
lot of talk about quibbles of words. I would like definitely, once and for all,
to pin down these anti-quibblers to one horn or to the other horn of their own
dilemma. They can't continue to sit between them. They say in one breath that
the difference between the two things is a quibble of words and then, in the
next, that it is so immense as to involve terrible and disastrous and immediate
war. Now that is a dilemma. I say that England does not fight for quibbles. She
fights for realities. If this thing is a quibble of words it is a folly to talk
of war, and if it is a reality it is dishonest to talk of quibbles. There are
times when antipathy to quibbles may be pushed too far. And I think it was
pushed too far when these Articles of Agreement were accepted in Downing Street
and presented to us as though they were Holy Writ itself or the Ten
Commandments, incapable of alteration or improvement. I don't want to labour
unduly the circumstances of the signing of these Articles. We are told that they
were signed, by some delegates at least under threat of immediate war. Now what
was the issue? The issue was not---it didn't lie between the acceptance and
rejection of these terms. The issue was simply this: that our delegates should
take twenty-four hours to go back and consult their Cabinet as they had promised
to do, before signing. Upon that issue we are told that Lloyd George was
prepared to hurl the thunderbolt of war, not only on Ireland, but on his own
people in England and on the world. I can't realise any man with a grain of
sense coming here and putting such suggestion before the people. It was said
that there was a plea of urgency, and that Sir James Craig was waiting in his
parlour for a letter from Lloyd George and he could not wait twenty-four hours.
Well, Sir James Craig had been waiting the Dáil's answer for more than twenty
four hours because, until the Dáil approves of the Articles he has to wait and
he is waiting for more than twenty four hours. The issue was not a bit more
urgent when the document was signed than it is now. But I say that if Lloyd
George endeavours to hasten the deliberation of this assembly by one hour under
threat of immediate war he will get his answer, or I don't know the temper of
this Dáil. Now, I am sorry---I probably should not speak at all because there is
really nothing to say. However, I hope to discuss the examination of the Treaty
in a new light afterwards. But it has been put up to that what is good enough
for Michael Collins is good enough for Ireland. Well, I don't know whether it is
good enough for him or not. But the real situation is if you pursue that line of
argument, that what is good enough for Lloyd George is good enough for
Birkenhead, and what is good enough for Birkenhead is good enough for the
Minister for Foreign Affairs, and what is good enough for the Minister for
Foreign Affairs is good enough for the Minister for Defence and, finally, good
enough for Ireland. Now, it was stated on the opening day by the Minister for
Foreign Affairs that ninety-five per cent. of the Irish people desire this
Treaty. Well, I say that there were more rejoicings in the camp of the enemy
when this Treaty was signed than amongst the Irish people. We never heard such a
clang of joybells of the Empire since Waterloo. Over there in Mayo---and God
bless Mayo as always---over there now there were no joybells. There were no
fires. There was not a candle lit to celebrate the Emancipation---the
Emancipation of the Irish nation after seven hundred years. But when one poor
prisoner who had been suffering was liberated and returned to the home that he
knew, the whole countryside would be ablaze. One was liberation, the other was
not. And when the people know---because the instinct of the people is always
sound, as some people may learn---perhaps I am not quite correct in the last
statement or in the penultimate statement. I said there were no fires. As a
matter of fact there was one bonfire lit in the town of Swinford, by the R.I.C.
and the Black-and Tans, to celebrate the victory for the wonderful liberty.
A DEPUTY:
Your old friends of recruiting days.
THE SPEAKER:
That is a most disorderly remark and it should never have been made.
THE DEPUTY:
I withdraw it.
DR. FERRAN:
I am very glad that that has been said here in this House. I heard it said
last night that I was on a recruiting platform. I am not going to contradict it.
There is one explanation of that. I presided in 1918 at Foxford at an
anti-conscription meeting. It was addressed by Mr. Griffith, and for presiding
there I got four months in jail. In addressing that meeting I said because I
knew the people to whom I was talking understood the reference, I said that the
last time I had been at a meeting in Foxford it was at a recruiting meeting.
They knew what I meant. They knew that a meeting which had been held outside the
Chapel gates, as we were leaving---held by the organisers sent down by John
Redmond---was the recruiting meeting I meant, and now I am taunted with being on
recruiting platforms.
THE SPEAKER:
Now I hope we will have no more interjections of this kind from any quarter
during the remainder of this discussion. They are most improper, and the points
which the people who are making these interjections are trying to make are never
worth making.
DR. FERRAN:
With all deference I say I have some respect for the men who go on making
insinuations here. But I have no respect for the men who are sending
insinuations all over the country through subterranean channels where they can
never be seen again.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
. FERRAN:
I am glad the Minister for Foreign Affairs agrees. I am quite sure he is not
responsible for any thing of the kind. Now, the people of Ireland don't like the
Treaty. They may acquiesce in it for a time, but when they learn---they don't
know what it is yet---but when they do find out I think that some people now who
have come here and told us that we must take this Treaty as Holy Writ, that
these people will find their constituents complaining that they didn't enlighten
them a little further about it before they got this unknown quantity. I would
like to believe, and I still do believe, that the majority of the supporters in
this House, of the Teachtaí supporting the Treaty, are only play-acting. Fancy,
if you can, Commandant MacKeon tolling the death knell of the Republic! And
fancy the Minister for Foreign Affairs coming here and in his opening speech
re-assuring this House on four separate vital points, re-assuring them on the
authority, of all persons, of Lloyd George. I wondered if he had ever read the
pages of Nationality or Young Ireland. The young soldier Deputies are supporting
the Treaty because they think they can equate it in terms of decimal .303. That
is grave play-acting. If you take the Treaty as a jumping-off point to give you
an opportunity of attacking England in the dark under cover of friendship, I say
it is unfair to the Irish people in pretend that this is a Treaty of peace. I
hold that it is not legitimate, as was suggested, to deceive your enemy under
all circumstances. I hold it is not legitimate now, but it is never legitimate
to deceive your own people. Now, the position is this:the Irish people are being
told that this is a Treaty of peace. The Army, some of them anyhow, are being
told that it gives an opportunity of striking again. The English people are
being told that it will bring an abiding peace. I think that it is pretty clear
that somebody is going to be let down. If you use the Treaty as an instrument of
war it will justify every brutality that England can inflict upon you in
crushing Ireland out of existence. You will go to war, you will go to fight,
self-confessed rebels, having sworn your fealty to your King. You will go to war
as perjurers having broken your oath: and I don't think that the world will have
much sympathy for perjurers, whatever treatment they get.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
We got a lot of sympathy up to this.
DR. FERRAN:
Well, I think we did. I think we got a lot of sympathy up to the 5th
December. I don't think we have much now. If you think you can reach a Republic
or liberty by a breach of this Treaty afterwards you will range the opinion of
the whole world for the first time on the side of Great Britain against Ireland,
and I think if you realise that the opinion of the world had, at least, a
deterrent effect upon England in the last fight---fight clean or don't fight at
all. We desire, and I am sure in reality all the parties in this House desire,
to walk if possible side by side with England in a real friendship. That, of
course, would be the simplest and most honourable and pleasant path for us all.
We don't want war with Britain either now or hereafter. We don't want war as an
alternative to the Treaty as has been suggested ; but we want an alternative to
this Treaty as an alternative to the inevitable war that will follow its
acceptance. The Treaty or immediate war has been used to stampede the Irish
people. I hold it was a dishonest threat. It was dishonest in its source from
the beginning at Downing Street; but people here in Ireland, some of them at any
rate, are using it honestly now. Now, in reference to the Treaty itself: we
couldn't be too careful in examining the document which, I hold, is in effect,
the assignment of the sovereign rights of Ireland to Britain. We owe it to
Ireland to examine at least what in left for ourselves. Even the Republicans
have a duty in that respect. If the Treaty is to be forced upon the people the
Deputies ought to make it the best possible Treaty. Now, I was going to suggest
a way out of this by which we can have some kind of unanimity. Since we have
been told---since we know definitely what these Articles of Agreement are---only
preparatory to the Treaty, I think that the Republican side of the House might
possibly be induced to refrain from voting against the Treaty on one condition:
and that is: that the acceptance should he given conditionally upon the Treaty
being, in reality, what it has been pretended by Lloyd George to be, and what it
has been represented as to the Irish people. They say that they give us the same
liberty as Canada. Well, in a sense, Canada is completely free, because she is a
daughter of the Empire; and she has complete internal freedom now. But I would
like to know are the supporters of the Treaty prepared to make it a condition of
their acceptance that Ireland shall have the same real freedom as Canada has
now? That we shall have complete freedom; that, in fact, all legislative,
Executive and judicial authority in Ireland shall spring from the Irish people?
I think that possibly there might be a way out by which some people might not
vote against the Treaty if they would put it forward in that conditional way.
But I am greatly afraid that they won't do so. I don't say that Britain would
necessarily accept it, but I think she might. However, that is only a suggestion
put forward, because I hold that if Ireland is going to be plunged into this
thing that she shall not be plunged any more deeply than is quite necessary.
Now, as to the Constitution of Canada. I want to examine the Treaty as briefly
as I can. We get the constitutional status of Canada. Now, that is a very
different matter from the liberty of Canada. Under that status, as defined in
the terms of the agreement, the British Parliament is supreme over the lives,
the liberties and fortunes of every Irishman and Irishwoman; and no Irish
Parliament that you can set up under the Free State can protect them. The
authority of the British Privy Council is higher than the authority of your
Government under these Articles of Agreement. That is not a very pleasant
predicament. We know something of the doings of the Privy Council in the past.
Why not insist, at any rate, before you put your names to these Articles of
Agreement that you see the Treaty? Why not postpone the motion until you would
have the Treaty put in front of you? We would know then where we were. You have
not done so. About the Governor-General---we have heard nothing about him. I
heard it suggested to-day that the Governor-General was to be called the Tanist
of Tara as a concession to Irish sentiment because we are such a sentimental
people. They brought back the flag---another concession to sentiment. They
brought back the substance of the flag---not a shadow, not a symbol. They left
the symbol behind in Downing Street where they had no authority to leave it.
They brought back a yard of calico and a couple of packages of Diamond Dyer.
That's the flag of the Irish Free State, but it does not stand for liberty. Now,
I wonder do all the Deputies by now realise that the Governor-General has the
full powers of the British Government in Ireland. It has been suggested that
under the saving clause of constitutional usage these powers, which are obsolete
in Canada, shall not be exercised in Ireland; but have we forgotten---we in
Ireland---have we forgotten how often has England dug deep in the debris of
centuries for obsolete weapons against the Irish people? She has never used them
against Canada. It will be poor satisfaction afterwards, when Ireland is stabbed
through the heart, to say that the weapon was rusty, obsolete, antiquated. Then
there is the oath---but if there is anything we are tired of it is oaths. I want
to view the oath in a new light. I am sure that we are all convinced now that
oaths are the lightest things on earth, and conscience the toughest thing in
creation. The Irish people don't care a word about conscience. All it concerns
them is the effect it has on themselves. It is not the people who take the oath
and break it. The Irish people are bound down within the four corners of this
oath and they can't escape from it. People come here and say they will drive a
coach and four through the oath but they won't release the Irish people from
their obligations. The metaphor is very appropriate. In the one case it is
really four-in-hand. You have the Oath of Allegiance to the Act of Parliament
which sets up the Irish Free State. You have the declaration or promise---a
provisional promise, somebody said---fidelity to the present King of England. I
never heard before of this kind of conditional partnership between a subject and
his sovereign. That is certainly a new constitutional state. Again, well you
have common citizenship. I would like to ask whether the Minister for Foreign
Affairs arranged with Lloyd George as to which was which; as to whether Mr.
Lloyd George became an Irish citizen or the Minister for Foreign Affairs became
a British citizen. You can't have a hermaphrodite citizen, partly one thing and
partly another. I wonder do the Deputies realise the obligations that are
imposed on Ireland by this British citizenship. The victory that we have won
after seven hundred and fifty years' struggle is to become citizens of Great
Britain. I don't like the odious phrase that has been used here: to rattle the
bones of the dead. But do we realise that, by declaring that the people of
Ireland are British citizens, that we declare also that every man who died for
Ireland is a rebel? That is a thing we never admitted before. Then, of course,
there is the four-fold allegiance to the King as head of the British Empire.
That is the latest of allegiances. To deny altogether this oath---that needs
some breaking. We are not to have any navy. I confess that was not such a
terrible grievance. I was not much moved by the complaint of Deputy Milroy that
President de Valera's proposal was worse than the Treaty, because he robbed us
of our submarines. I hold that the submarine is a mean and a treacherous form of
attack, and I hope that in our relations with Britain we shall have no necessity
for mean or treacherous action at any time.
MR. MILROY:
You have great faith in her.
DR. FERRAN:
That is a different thing from leaving Britain in permanent control of our
defences. I hold we have a right to absolute freedom to protect the people of
the country---by our land defences at least. Then there is the question of
taxation. I see that the Freeman's Journal said yesterday that the difference
between the two---the Treaty and Document Two or Three---was that Document Two
or Three did not provide for evacuation. Now I would like anyone to show me a
single line in the Treaty that compels the British Government to withdraw a
single soldier from this country. There is a promise read to the Dáil in
answer---a reply on the day of the first sitting---by the Minister for Foreign
Affairs that the evacuation will begin within a month. But there was no talk of
when it was ending. I suppose, as a matter of fact, it is wrong to quibble
between the beginning and the end. But it makes a very important difference to
the Irish people. It strikes me as one of the peculiar ironies of the situation
that the Ulster constituencies are proposing double-barrelled resolutions that
their members should have double-barrelled votes to shoot them out of the Irish
nation, for that is what it comes to. You believe that under the Articles of
Agreement you are to get a fair delimitation of boundary. I hold that England is
going to trick you in that article; that Sir James Craig will be left with an
equivalent of six counties and, as history stood here in Ireland, there is not a
single guarantee that that will not be so. You think the wishes of the
population, you think geographic and economic conditions will count. I know how
the map is read in England. We remember that argument well enough---geographical
propinquity. England can translate her geography as she pleases, but I say it is
a desperate thing that you should commit this Dáil to blindly binding themselves
to accept provisions which are capable of only one interpretation, that which
would mean a loss of hundreds of square miles. They are only entitled to
three-and-a-half counties on the basis of population. But those double-barrelled
members---I don't say they are anxious to do it but they will do it---they will
place these two-and-a-half counties permanently in the possession of Craig and
his successors---permanently in the possession of a hostile state, for he won't
be there for ever. I don't think I have any more to say, but I would, at least,
urge the supporters of the Treaty to insist, before they sign it, that England
shall not be allowed to put her own hostile interpretation upon the words of the
Treaty; that you will bind her down in some way or other in your resolution,
should it pass this House, to deliver the goods according to the specification.
That much, at least, you owe to the Irish people.
DR. WHITE:
I will be very brief. During the recess I went down to the country to my
constituency. Some people there said: `You are taking a long time to discuss
this matter.' Others said: `You are quite right in taking a reasonable time in
discussing this momentous question before coming to a final decision': and with
the latter I agree, only I would make a suggestion that perhaps it would have
been better at the very beginning if there had been a time limit to the speeches
of the various Deputies. However, as the cordon is about to fall, it does not
matter much now. Recently we have heard a lot about Press tyranny, about the
metropolitan Press, and one would imagine that the metropolitan Press of Ireland
had only to print anything, under any head or any article, and that the article
would be swallowed with avidity by the Irish public. Now I state that such is
not a fact, and I state this:that no Irishman or Irishwoman will venture to tell
me, I think, that during the last four or five years the Press of Ireland, the
metropolitan Press, have been unanimously with our programme. In view of the
fact that we have not had a daily Press---I know of only one provincial
newspaper, the Waterford Press, that has been Sinn Fein, though there may be
other daily newspapers---how can any man say that the country is being stampeded
by the Irish Press? Now, as regards the public Boards I think that the public
Boards have a perfect right to, express their opinions either for or against the
ratification of this Treaty, because, if the public Boards do not speak, how are
you going to get the opinions of the Irish people except, perhaps, by a
plebiscite or a referendum? I am not in ecstacies over this Treaty; at the same
time I consider that it deserves very careful consideration; and I go as far as
to say that it deserves ratification. We have heard a lot about birds. We have,
undoubtedly, a bird in the hand; the other day we had a bird in the bush but I
don't see him there now. There is a third bird there now, I have not as yet, had
a good look at him, hut if he is a good alternative to the ratification of this
Treaty then I am willing to consider him. Now, we have heard a lot about
accentuating feeling in this Dáil between the members, but I refuse to believe
that there is any undue acrimony or bitterness here, and I go so far as to say
that we are not in a state of strained relations. Now, the Treaty has been
discussed over and over again, clause by clause, then word for word; and it is a
very difficult thing to get any new ground to break. However, perhaps a very
brief look to see what conditions we derive from this Treaty will not be out of
place. I have, in Private Session, stated that I am voting for this Treaty and I
state publicly here now that I am voting for it. If first we look at the
financial arrangements, we get complete fiscal autonomy; we have complete charge
and complete powers; and it is not necessary for anyone to endeavour to point
out what a sympathetic native Government can do for the country and for the
people. There is one other point on the financial question which I don't
recollect any Deputy to have spoken about. Seventy years ago the population of
Ireland was, roughly, double what it is to-day. Our people had to fly the land,
because there was no work, because all the laws which may have been good in
themselves were unjustly administered---the people had to fly because there was
no work for them. Now each of these people who had to fly our land was of a
certain financial value to the country; I think that, roughly, the loss to the
country can be estimated at about one or two billion pounds; and I think that is
a point which will be recollected when the Financial Committee of England and
Ireland will meet. I think this Treaty deserves ratification and I support this
Treaty because there is some finality in it; and I support it because, when I
went to my constituents in Waterford during Christmas, they suggested to me that
it deserved ratification. Now, I have very carefully listened to the various
Deputies both for and against the Treaty and I must say, as has been already
said here, that neither side can claim a monopoly of patriotism. Many of those
speeches appealed to my heart and not to my reason. We have in this Treaty, not
the shadows, but the substance; and if any one can show me any other way out
which is better for the Irish people and the Irish nation I am ready and willing
to listen to him. We have complete control over our trade and commerce. We are
entitled, if we so wish, to have a standing army of between thirty-five thousand
and forty thousand men; and, finally, we have the evacuation of the British
forces, bag and baggage, from Ireland. I submit accordingly that we have in this
Treaty a solid foundation on which we can place a fulcrum and on which fulcrum
we can place a lever---a lever to self-determination---and I am sure as time
progresses we will have an opportunity of finally having an Irish nation as God
intended us to, and of being in the premier rank of the nations. I think it was
Parnell who said: `We fight for freedom and not for faction.' United we stand
and divided we fall. I wish to say, in conclusion, that it there is any
alternative that can lend us to better things than this Treaty forces upon us,
I, for one, will be very delighted and very glad to hear of it.
MR. SEAMUS ROBINSON:
In my own plain, direct, if not too lucid way, I would like to fire a few
shots at this Treaty---metaphorically speaking. To begin with, it seems to me
that the Republic is at stake. Ratifiers should remember that we poor, benighted
Republicans have not yet seen the light. They themselves did not see the light
two months ago. If we lose our tempers a bit and think terrible things of them
it should be charitably remembered that the ratifiers have changed, and it is
their duty to listen patiently to us and then try to answer our questions. The
Deputy for Clontarf, Deputy Mulcahy, sees no alternative. It is the Republic.
The Republic is at stake and I don't care a rap whose reputation is torn up for
bandages. This is the same man who often before declared to me that there was no
danger of compromise. To my mind this compromise has been lurking in the ante
camera of many a cerebrum for the past three years. It was conceived when
the Volunteers were denied a general convention three years ago; it passed
through the embryo form when the Volunteers began to be controlled solely from
Dublin Headquarters; it became a chrysalis when Dublin H.Q. became a
wage-earning business, when District H.Q. were set up by General H.Q. and paid
to control men who fought the war, aye, and won it, without any appreciable
assistance from Dublin Headquarters. One division in the South refused this
money and they were told that it would be made a point of discipline if they did
not accept. On the night prior to the Tuesday morning on which the Treaty was
announced in the papers, the Chief of Staff laughed at me for again expressing
to him and the Military Officer in Limerick, the fear that all these mysterious
goings-on in London foreboded nothing but compromise---for truth and
straight-dealing flourish in the light. Yes! Now we have got our beautiful
compromise hatched out---just like all compromises, like the mule---it is
barren. Our Chief Officer stated, and the Minister for Finance and others
maintained, that the acceptance of this invitation amounted to an attempt at
compromise. All I would say about that is this: that we trusted him, and it is
hardly fair for him to blame us for trusting him. Now, the appeal to humanity
is: are we going to give our moral or immoral support to England in her efforts
to crush Egypt and India which countries have given us the sincerest form of
flattery by imitating us? For my part I would give no support to any attempt at
association with England either politically or economically, while she is
suppressing with brute force any people---much less such splendid peoples as the
Hindoos and Egyptians. Men who call ideals and symbols shadows and unrealities
are, to my mind, defective human beings. I would ask the Irish people---yes, and
the English people, too---for our quarrel is with the few English ruling
families only---I would ask these peoples can you ever again trust these men,
shall you trust them now? I will say this to the English people: do you not
think that if you wish an honourable world peace, it would be better for you,
for us, and for humanity as a whole that you fix up a humane peace---if I may
put it like that---with all your present subject peoples. Why not call a
conference of these peoples and the British peoples and hammer out an entente
cordiale---a workable confederation of sovereign states into which other
nations could be invited if we saw fit. I think there are great possibilities in
that suggestion and I wonder it has not been suggested by someone who could
attract attention. What I am going to say now may appear on the surface to be a
contradiction of what I have just suggested---I wish to state emphatically that
no people have the right to go into any empire, much less an Empire that is
based on a big section of downtrodden humanity. They have no right because it
would mean slavery of some type; and no form of slavery is a fit state for
free-willed human beings; therefore, if we are in the minority of one, there
will be one to fight against it. I wish to state that this Treaty does not mean
peace, and I think that should be fairly obvious by this time. Chaos would be
better by far than degradation. It may not seem to be degradation to many
people, but it does seem so to some and these some may not have it. Those who
are breaking away can come back; we cannot change, we who regard ideals and
symbols as something worth while. I say that chaos can be avoided and peace will
be at least possible if those who have changed return to the Republic; if not we
will have chaos and war. This paper which I will now read for you will prove the
serious view that thousands of Volunteers take of this thing that appears to be
a betrayal. It is a copy of a letter received by me to-day. Here it is:
In view of the false rumours that have been circulated about Dublin to the
effect that we, the undersigned, have declared ourselves favourable to the
acceptance of the proposed Treaty of Agreement between the Irish
plenipotentiaries and those of Great Britain, we desire, first, to enter our
emphatic protest against the use of our Division of the Army to influence
public opinion and the opinion of members of Dáil Eireann in the direction
favourable to the Treaty; and we desire, secondly, to state that we maintain
unimpaired our allegiance to the Irish Republic and to it alone. The Divisions
comprise the following Brigades: 1st Southern Division: Cork, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4,
5 Brigade. Kerry, Nos. 1, 2, 3 Brigade; West Limerick Brigade; Waterford
Brigade. Dublin Brigade. 3rd Southern Division: Tipperary No. 1 Brigade;
Offaly No. 2 Brigade; Leix Brigade. Signed on behalf of the above mentioned
Divisions and Brigades, Liam Lynch, O.C. 1st Southern Division; Ernán O Máille,
O.C. 2nd Southern Division, Oscar Traynor, O.C. Dublin Brigade, Micheál
MacCormaic, O.C. 3rd Southern Division.
DR. HAYES:
That does not speak for East Limerick and I don't know that it speaks for the
other Divisional Commandants either.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think it is scarcely right for any officers to be using the name of the
army at all.
MR. SEAN MACGARRY:
It is done now.
MR. ROBINSON:
It may seem a terrible thing to do.
A DEPUTY:
Who signed for the Brigades?
MR. ROBINSON:
There is no signature.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I would ask that the army be allowed to keep its discipline.
MR. ROBINSON:
The army has always been regarded as the army pure and simple. I submit that
it is not so. If we had no political outlook we would not be soldiers at all.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I know that they are citizen-soldiers. The point is that bringing them up as
Brigades is not wise.
MR. ROBINSON:
I think the Volunteers have been very badly treated. The Volunteers demand a
veto on the change of our country's constitution. We are not a national army in
the ordinary sense; we are not a machine pure and simple; we have political
views as soldiers. For the purpose of this veto I here demand a general
convention of the Volunteers who are not True Volunteers. The Volunteers never
gave up their right to a general convention---the Oath of Allegiance in this
weak, in this changeable Dáil was not sanctioned by the general convention. If
this convention is granted I, with I am sure all Volunteers, would refrain from
certain terrible action that will be necessary if the Treaty is forced on us
without our consent as an Army of Volunteers. There is no fear of the outcome of
a renewal of war.
MR. MILROY:
Gambling again.
MR. ROBINSON:
Our war is not a war between two ordinary nations such as England and
Germany; England had no German subjects. Our position is unique; we can, and
will if necessary, strike the Empire where and how no other people could do
it---except the Scotch and Welsh if they should so choose. The English ruling
families know this well; one of their delegates declared our war to be a
peculiar war---enough said! We are not a definite objective to the British,
while they will always be a vulnerable objective to the Irish Empire, because
one thousand effective shots and one thousand effective fires in Britain would
ruin England for ever, while we could recover any damage in five years---we have
no debt and no great factories, comparatively speaking, and their destruction
would mean comparatively little to us. We could fight the English for three
years---the English themselves could not fight us for longer than six months,
especially if we took the fight up seriously in England as well as in Ireland
and India and Egypt. Perhaps we will be told again and again that we would be
exterminated. There will always be ten Irishmen who will even up matters some
day, should it be ninety years hence. Dr. White says England would lose India
and Egypt and England itself---every man---rather than lose Ireland. Does the
doctor, does not every Irishman care as much about Ireland as the English do?
Irishmen, are you working for your country? There are many people in the Dáil
and in the country and all over the world, who can not understand big questions
of such complication as this Treaty, and haven't time to form an opinion, and
who, naturally, will form their opinion on, or rather take their opinion from,
their pet hero. There are many thousand people enthusiastic supporters of the
Treaty simply because Michael Collins is its mother---possibly Arthur Griffith
would be called its father. Now, it is only natural and right that many people
should follow almost blindly a great and good man. But suppose you know that
such a man was not really such a great man; and that his reputation and great
deeds of daring were in existence only on paper and in the imagination of people
who read stories about him. If Michael Collins is the great man he is supposed
to be, he has a right to influence people and people ought to be influenced by
him. Now Dr. MacCartan said that he could understand many people saying: `What
is good enough for Michael Collins is good enough for me.' Arthur Griffith has
called Collins `the man who won the war.' the Press has called him the
Commander-in-Chief of the I.R.A. He has been called `a great exponent of
guerrilla warfare' and the `elusive Mike' and we have all read the story of the
White Horse. There are stories going round Dublin of fights he had all over the
city---the Custom House in particular. If Michael Collins was all that he has
been called then I will admire him and respect his opinions, if my little mind
cannot comprehend his present attitude towards the Republic and this Treaty.
Now, from my knowledge of character and psychology, which I'm conceited enough
to think is not too bad, I'm forced to think that the reported Michael Collins
could not possibly be the same Michael Collins who was so weak as to compromise
the Republic.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
On a point of order. Are we discussing Michael Collins or the Treaty?
A DEPUTY:
Or are we impeaching him?
MR. ROBINSON:
The weak man who signed certainly exists and just as certainly therefore, I
believe the reported Michael Collins did not ever exist. If Michael Collins who
signed the Treaty ever did the wonderful things reported of him then I'm another
fool. But before I finally admit myself a fool I want some authoritative
statement. I want, and I think it all important that the Dáil, the country, aye,
and the world, got authoritative answers to the following questions: (a) What
positions exactly did Michael Collins hold in the army? (b) Did he ever take
part in any armed conflict in which he fought by shooting; the number of such
battles or fights; in fact, is there any authoritative record of his having ever
fired a shot for Ireland at an enemy of Ireland?
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
Is this in order?
THE SPEAKER:
I don't want to interrupt but I think it is as near not discussing the Treaty
as possible.
MR. ROBINSON:
Now, so far as I know, Michael Collins came over from London as I came from
Glasgow to avoid conscription.
MR. BLYTHE:
That's not true.
MR. ROBINSON:
and to fight for Ireland instead of for England, and if Michael Collins
says---and he has said it here---that the fight that we have been raging for
two-and-a-half years is an impossible war, well it gives me furiously to
think---bluff, coercion, duress, treachery and the lot. Somebody used the word
`impeach'---well, that is true. Delegates are in the dock to some extent at
least; they have done something that at first sight, at least, appears to
be---well, treason. I maintain that they have been guilty of the act of high
treason and betrayal; I believe they were guilty deliberately but not
maliciously. In fairness to themselves they must clear themselves for they will
be judged through all the coming years. I'll try to confine myself to facts and
obvious points mostly. I will try to draw a few fair inferences: (1) Remember
Lloyd George is a past master in political stage craft. (2) Remember Wilson and
the London atmosphere. (3) Remember Arthur Griffith could hardly be bluffed nor
Michael Collins. Arthur Griffith is a match for Lloyd George and Lloyd George is
a match for Arthur Griffith. (4) Remember when these two men came together it is
possible that they both soon realised that if they fought neither would win; and
they realised also that there might be a way in which they could both win a
victory over their respective Cabinets. (5) There is clear proof that two
delegates signed under duress and that two delegates and one say that there was
no duress. (6) Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins declared they really did not
sign under duress though they speak of the time limit and the threat of terrible
and immediate war. By the way, let us take Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins
at their word and believe they were not forced to sign, then they must have done
this with, shall I say, malice afore thought; and must have sided by their
signatures and demeanour to bluff and stampede the rest of the delegation into
signing too---that is how the matter strikes me, anyhow. Arthur Griffith
declares he would not break on the Crown. I suggest Lloyd George knew this, too;
and our Cabinet knew it; and in order to safeguard themselves and the Republic
they gave the delegates instructions not to sign any final draft before
submitting it to the Cabinet. Remember that Lloyd George probably knew---must
have known---that the Republican Government would have rejected the Treaty as it
stands had it come unsigned. Remember Arthur Griffith would not like to lose the
child of former dreams of his life's labour, more especially when, as far as he
could see, there was no chance of getting his newer step-son or
foster-child---the Republic. I submit Lloyd George knew this, too; and that he
probably saw---I'd say he did see---the possibility of satisfying Arthur
Griffith and of making himself appear the greatest of British statesmen in eight
hundred years by giving us Dominion Home Rule. Would it be too much to say that
these two men came to an agreement to force, gently, this Treaty, down the necks
of their respective Cabinets---with Michael Collins a willing backer the thing
would not seem too difficult. Remember, Lloyd George and Arthur Griffith and
Michael Collins had meetings at which the other delegates were not present.
Remember that now these men---Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins---declare that
they want substance, that they are not idealists; could they not have been of
the same mind before, that is, previous to signing the Treaty? Remember that it
Lloyd George, Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins thought that if they had a
right to put their scheme on their respective countries---after all they could
say and justly so: `We know this is the only, and therefore the best way Irish
co-operation can be reconciled with the British Commonwealth of Nations'---they
would know also that it would not be a success unless it could be bluffed on us
and slipped on us; and would require very careful handling and a judicious
amount of realistic stage play---a chance for Lloyd George here. Hence I submit
this is the origin of the time limit, the immediate and terrible war threat, the
appearance of armed auxiliaries rushing around Dublin and the making of camps
all over Ireland just previous to the time for signing the Treaty. Look here,
all this was not arranged in a couple of hours. Remember that negotiations were
going on for eight weeks, was it. All the talks must surely have been on details
only, they must have been leaving essentials, i.e., the oath and status to the
end. It seems a strange way of doing business, and I'm afraid the Cabinet as a
whole are not altogether without blame for this. Again, I submit that to
recommend their scheme of Dominion Home Rule effectively to the country they
would naturally fix up details first. A decision on essentials too soon would be
disastrous---at least a decision on essentials would be disastrous if it were
known too soon. Then, when all would be ready, a time limit and an immediate war
stunt could be requisitioned to carry the remaining members off their feet.
Remember, they were carried off their feet by this, coupled with the sight of
the signatures of the two formidable men of the delegation. What is good enough
for Michael Collins is good enough for me---what is a terror to Michael Collins
ought to be a terror enough for me. Finally above all things considered, there
is a prima facie case, I think, for the charge of treason against the
delegates, Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins. No doubt they will give a
satisfactory explanation of their efforts; and I would be more than delighted to
withdraw any imputation that my words may unjustly convey. I think they should
thank me for saying openly what is in the minds of many. They will have a chance
to-morrow to answer this.
MR. GEAROID O'SULLIVAN:
I rise to support the motion for the ratification of this Treaty, and I, too,
will attempt a record in brevity. There are three reasons why I am inclined to
support the Treaty. The first is its own intrinsic value. I don't believe that
the acceptance of this Treaty by the people of Ireland is dishonourable. I don't
believe that when I recommend to the people of Ireland that they should accept
it that I am guilty of any act of national apostacy. We have heard a good deal
during the past few weeks of seven hundred and fifty years' fight with England.
That fight I take to be a fight of the Gaelic State against the foreign
sovereignty which was being forced upon it by England. That fight was not always
a fight for an isolated Republic or an isolated monarchy. In fact one of the
hardest fights in Irish history was made against that great Republican, Oliver
Cromwell. It was, as I say, an attempt, an effort of Gaelic Ireland to assert
its own right to live in its own way. Now, that sovereignty was not beaten; it
was not defeated; the Gaelic sovereignty is not yet defeated and never will be
defeated; it will not be defeated by the exponents of this Treaty. I hold that
it will be advanced and strengthened, not by the Treaty itself, but by the
amount of freedom and liberty which the Irish race has got to work out that
civilization in their own way. England did not control this country entirely by
her military or police forces or her judiciary. She has fifty odd Boards and
Departments which govern this country. These Boards and these Departments are
the inlets or outlets through which English civilization has been forced into
and forced through this country. The acceptance of this Treaty means the
withdrawal of these fifty-seven Departments---the fifty-seven swords which have
been eating into our Irish nation will be removed. They can be replaced, and
these boards which were working in Ireland for England and by England will be
working in Ireland for Ireland and by Ireland. That is why I say the Treaty
gives the Irish people a chance of living their own lives in their own way. Our
President said a few days ago that he was anxious, not only for the good of
Ireland but for the good of humanity that this strife should cease. I am also
anxious not only for the good of Ireland, but for the good of the whole human
race that this strife should cease; and I would like to draw your attention to
the effect of Gaelic culture and Gaelic civilisation on the world. What has it
done? The greatest Anglicisers of the world have been the Irish. We, the Irish
people, have been Empire builders for England all over the world. We have built
her railways and her roads; we have shot down troops who attempted to secure
freedom from that Empire; we have taken up, the whip and flogged the slaves for
England. Our people have done it, and remember, it would not have been so---we
would not have been turned in that direction if those many inlets through which
English and foreign civilisation was able to get at our people---if these inlets
didn't exist. The Irish people collected customs for the British Empire all over
the world. The Irish soldiers shot down the Indians in the Punjab: nobody can
say that Sir Michael O'Dwyer is not an Irishman; and Sir Michael O'Dwyer making
the Indians do the crawl is nothing for us to be proud of. [Referring to
an interruption by Deputy Miss MacSwiney, Mr. O'Sullivan said:]I would
ask that I be not interrupted, especially by the Deputy who is sitting so very
near to me. We can look upon him (Sir Michael O'Dwyer) with no less feeling of
bitterness because he is an Irishman any more than any decent Englishman would
look upon Maxwell. Another proof that the Gaelic races and people have been
stunted and stopped in their development to live their own lives in their own
way is this assembly. We have not been able to discuss the question before this
assembly in the language of our own country. I challenge the ablest speakers of
our language in this assembly, beginning with you, sir, and running down to the
last---I challenge them all to debate the vexed and intricate question of
constitutional usage and the other points raised in this debate to debate that
in our own language. All our thought has been running in the------
THE SPEAKER:
We would do it in three months' time if we started on it.
MR. O'SULLIVAN:
We will start on it when the Treaty is ratified, [a Chinn Chomhairle].
All our thoughts have been controlled have been directed by the English outlook,
by the English language, by the English sovereignty. The same can be said, not
only for our language, but for our music, and games, and Irish life. That is the
first reason I give for supporting the Treaty. The second reason is that those
who advocate its rejection have not, in my opinion, given me any reason why I
should conscientiously vote for its rejection. The Minister for Labour, I think,
objected to our association with England because England oppresses Egypt and
India. I have already said that there are many Irishmen at present oppressing
India; and if Ireland accepts this Treaty the opinion of the Irish people on
British rule in India and in Egypt will be expressed---not as it is expressed at
present by Ireland shooting down those people but by the representatives of the
Irish people speaking at the Councils of the League of Nations or at the
Imperial Conference of either the British Empire or the Commonwealth of Nations,
which ever they have decided to call it; and, furthermore, the world would have
the advantage of what, at least, is left of the mellow influence of the Irish
outlook, in having a representative of Ireland on the League of Nations. I would
ask the assembly to remember that England is not the only Empire that oppresses
small nations, though I believe she is the worst. The Minister for Agriculture
said that he was anxious that England would allow us to live our own life in our
own tin-pot way. Well, we have great ideals about old Ireland and about our
fighting race and about our great culture; and our hopes are not for a national
life in any tin-pot way. We believe that the Gaelic-Irish outlook of
civilisation and culture should permeate and influence the life of every nation
in the world. At present we are only the slaves of those nations; we are only
the tools of those nations. Though we are told that the Irish is a world-flung
race, remember that what really counts in it is being eaten away and sapped away
at the core here at home in Ireland by the terrible influence of the presence in
our midst of enemy troops, officials, police, judiciary, and everything enemy.
Thirdly: the reason I give in support of the ratification of the Treaty is that
I believe it is the wish of the people who sent me here that I should support
it; and I am sorry Deputy Stockley is not present because I want, as one of the
persons responsible for sending him here, to say that in doing so I did not
believe that he could flout the opinions of his electors. The constituency which
I represent has a population of one hundred and eleven thousand odd. Finally, I
would challenge my co-Deputies who do not agree with me---I challenge them to
any kind of plebiscite to that hundred and eleven thousand; and I believe and I
will lay any odds that I will best them five hundred to one.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
I propose that we adjourn until eight-fifteen p.m. and that we then continue
the debate until eleven o'clock to-night---what I would compare this debate to
is an old woman's wrangle on the Coal Quay of Cork---and that we take a vote
to-morrow at four o'clock. Now, the Irish people are just sick of us talking
about this thing and I think and tell you that I know the people of Ireland
better than any man or woman in this assembly---you can laugh at me if you like,
but I have Irish aspirations and Irish blood in my veins and I know the people
of Ireland as well as any man or woman in this country---and I say that we ought
to take this vote to-morrow evening at four or five o'clock and get finished
with it; and I say that we ought to adjourn now until eight o'clock. I move
that.
DR. WHITE:
I second it.
MR. J. MACGRATH:
There was a definite arrangement made that the Whips would conduct this
business; and the chiefs on both sides don't want to go on until eleven o'clock.
We can adjourn at seven and start at eleven o'clock in the morning.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
I am only a back-bencher, a plain member, but if I am I am sent here as well
as anybody else. [(Cries of `Order!']
MR. MACGRATH:
We can adjourn at seven and go on in the morning.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
I tell you that the back-benchers have been too long silent; and if we spoke
out in June 1920 we would be better off to-day. I am speaking and the member for
St. James' has interrupted me and I won't be interrupted and I won't sit down. I
am on the rock and I won't get off the rock.
THE SPEAKER:
I told the Deputy he is out of order. I call on the next speaker.
MR. CARTER:
I second the motion put forward by Deputy O'Keeffe that we adjourn until
eight o'clock and go on then till eleven.
The motion was subsequently rejected.
MR. THOMAS DERRIG:
A Chinn Chomhairle, is mian liom cúpla focal a rá i d-taobh na ceiste seo.
I have great respect for the wishes of Deputy O'Keeffe and I don't want to delay
the debate in any way. My views on this subject are homely. The situation is so
important that I think it is right for every Deputy to give his views. I cannot
vote for this Treaty because the unity of Ireland is not secured, and I can't
see any prospect in the future that we can get Ulster in. In the second place, I
feel, while it is absolutely necessary that we should take a step forward in the
direction of securing control of the government, that we might also take a step
backward; and I feel that in accepting this Treaty we are taking a step
backward. I feel that we are going over the cliff and giving away the
sovereignty of our country. Professor O'Rahilly says that we will regain it by
constitutional evolution; the Deputy for Carlow says that the Constitution will
develop a Gaelic State, I contend that within the British Empire we cannot have
a Gaelic State because the whole tradition of our people will have to be moulded
in an Imperial way. The interpretation of this Treaty is also to be interpreted
to safeguard the strategic interests of the British Empire. There are a number
of articles in the Treaty which are very vague and I think we cannot look upon
it as a Treaty. We are told that a Constitution must be drafted; and this
Constitution must be legalised by the British Parliament. In my view there can
never be an Irish Constitution until Irish unity is first secured. There has
been a good deal of talk about the question of military settlement. In 1881
President Kruger had a peace forced upon him and he accepted it with the
following reservations: `Eventually he understood the Treaty was accepted with
the reservations that we are yielding to force; and that we trusted that, in
view of this forced acceptance, the British Government would see their way to
alter the Treaty and to remove from it the points which made it unacceptable to
the Volkstrad; notably the imposition of the suzerainty and the unjust
curtailment of territory'. There is no proof that the people of the Republic are
taking the Treaty under these terms and the military situation is discussed here
in public and provided it does not give you sufficient power to accept it
without that reservation. There has been a good deal of talk about the material
advantages in this Treaty. Lord Birkenhead has already written in the American
Press; and our people are under the impression that the English Government has
agreed under the Treaty to pay for the damage done in this country for two
years. Lord Birkenhead and Winston Churchill have asserted that under the Treaty
England has us economically in the hollow of her hand---a most illuminating
statement. A gentleman is able to point out to me what the exact meaning of
Clause 10 is. It is---though I don't want to go into figures---that we shall
have to pay about two million pounds in order to get rid of the army forces. We
have to guarantee to pay off these but there is no guarantee in the world that
England will ever entertain our claim for over-taxation. I have an article here
by Harold Cox, who represents England in Financial interests the conclusion of
the article is this---it first stated certain facts that, in the opinion of
English business, men, make out a case that Ireland, instead of being owed money
by England, owes her a good deal; for instance, we owe her for the protection
she has afforded us for one hundred and twenty years:
When these and other facts are taken into account it will be found that the
Irish alleged over-taxation not only does not exist but that a heavy debt is
due from Ireland to Great Britain for subsidies paid out of the common
exchequer for purely Irish purposes such as, for example, Land Purchase,
Harbour Developments, Light Railways and so on. For several years during the
present century Ireland's contribution to Imperial expenditure has been a
minus quantity. Ireland has received the full naval, military and economic
advantages of her union with Great Britain and has, during these years,
received these benefits entirely at the cost of the tax-payers of Great
Britain, in addition to a contribution from them to her domestic expenditure.
By all means let us strike a fair financial bargain with the Irish Free State,
but the first step towards the attainment of equity is to get rid of the
baseless legend of Irish over-taxation.
We have a ways told our people that in any settlement we would make a claim for
over-taxation. I understand, however, from some Deputies who support the Treaty
that we are going to make a claim for two billion pounds. Well, the arbitrator
will not consider that claim and there is nothing in the Treaty to show that he
will consider any claim at all. The economies effected by the change of
Government will completely disappear in paying the interest on the sinking fund
created in the country. After all economies have been made the surplus in the
Irish Exchequer will be completely absorbed by the payment of the interest on
the sinking fund. In other words, anything that is left to us, supposing that we
maintain the high rate of taxation, I maintain, after all economies have been
made and all Irish services maintained, that the surplus will be absorbed by the
interest on our share of the national debt. We have not had, therefore, in this
Treaty, anything to show that the Boundary Commission or Financial Commission
means anything. Professor O'Rahilly says that some clauses in the Treaty mean
nothing and I believe they have left us nothing. There is not sufficient
difference between the Treaty as it stands and the proposals which were
unanimously rejected by the Dáil; there is not sufficient difference to show
that the negotiations have been successful; and there is not sufficient
difference for us to go back to the Irish people and tell them that the
difference was worth the losses which the Irish people have suffered during the
last two years. There has been a good deal of talk about evacuation and it is
dealt with in Lloyd George's letter and not in the Treaty. The second portion of
Clause 7 of the Treaty completely does away with the evacuation argument. In my
opinion it also completely nullifies our sovereignty. While I believe that the
Treaty would confer great material advantages on this country and that there
might be a serious effort made to develop the Gaelic State I realise that we
have completely lost our position before the world. After all, this movement is
not the Gaelic State. This movement ought to be based on the traditions of the
men of '67 and 1916: and I think these are the ideals we ought to stand for. I
came up here with an open mind; the mandate I got from my constituents was to
try and do whatever I could to bring about an agreement; I am afraid now that
there is no chance of substantial agreement. I know this: if there was an
agreement with regard to the immediate future we would ultimately have the
Hertzhog period and the Smuts period in this country; and I certainly would not
stand for anything which would bring the Republican Government down to that
level; we would be simply starting all over again. To my mind the alternative to
this agreement can be got; the only alternative that I can see is rejection. I
am very greatly concerned with the levity with which some Deputy spoke of
sending this question to the country; I have never heard a question like this
put to the people; the only issue that can be placed before the people is war on
the one hand and on the other hand you can do it by the consent of the Irish
people; but you are not giving the people their choice. Finally, I don't believe
that we can be in a better position in five years' time than at present; we had
attained a magnificent position throughout the world; the position throughout
the world does not demand that we should make a peace now that they did not
think fit and proper. I have great faith in Ghandhi and his two hundred and
fifty million people, and in Egypt; I don't think the Deputy from Cork is right
when he says the Free State is responsible for the movement in these countries;
I think it is the Irish Republic is responsible for them. If this question is
brought before the country it is not alone that it will cause a split in the
country but in the ranks of the army; and I earnestly ask very Deputy here to do
what he can to preserve the integrity of the Army. Whatever we do with this
Treaty let us do the best for the country.
ALDERMAN MICHAEL STAINES:
Since the fourteenth December I have listened to lectures, sermons and
speeches. Well, I won't lecture you, I won't preach; I will just say a few
words. I will be brief for two reasons. The first is that I don't want to import
any bitterness into this discussion; I want to have the DáiI and the country
united if possible, if they are not united I sincerely hope that no word or
action of mine will be responsible for disunion. The second reason is that there
are two thousand Irishmen in Irish and English jails; they have got to stop
there while we are talking and repeating the same things over and over again;
there are forty-one of these men in jails in this Republic of Ireland under
sentence of death. I don't want, and I am sure these prisoners don't want me to
bring up their case here in order that it would decide the vote one way or
another; I am speaking for myself; but anyway for their sakes I think we ought
to hurry up and finish this debate. I am declaring for the approval of the
Treaty between Ireland and Great Britain; and in doing so I do it in accordance
with the dictates of my own conscience; in accordance with the wishes of the
majority of my constituents; and in accordance with the wishes of the majority
of the people of Ireland. My conscience, my constituency, my country; these are
the three rocks---dove-tailed one to the other---these are the three rocks I
stand on. There are no slippery slopes and there is no betrayal; I never
betrayed my country; I am not doing it now and I never shall betray my country.
At the meeting of An Dáil at which the plenipotentiaries were appointed---they
were appointed by An Dáil at the suggestion of the President or the Cabinet;
they were sanctioned by An Dáil, anyway---at that meeting we gave them full
plenary powers; I think practically every member of An Dáil at any rate knew
when the plenipotentiaries were going over that they could not bring back a
Republic in their pockets. I think it was the President who stated that anyone
who expected them to bring back a Republic expected them to do something that a
mighty army and a mighty navy could not do, [hear, hear]. The
other side---I don't know what side to call it---according to orders of the day
the President is going to move a motion with reference to a document; that
document is not a Republic, that document is not signed; the Treaty is signed.
To-day the President made a statement in which he said he is going to stand by
the Republic; I am glad he is a Republican again, and I am very sorry he ever
left the rock of the Republic [Cries of `Shame!'].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
If that could be proved------
ALDERMAN STAINES:
President de Valera will understand me, he will admit that I don't want to
say anything to hurt his feelings or the feelings of anyone in this House; we
know each other a good many years; we have been always good friends, and I hope
we will remain good friends to the end.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Show where the document is inconsistent with the Republic.
ALDERMAN STAINES:
First, as to your leaving the British Navy in possession of some ports.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
For five years.
MR. COLIVET:
In discussing the Treaty we can't keep to it.
ALDERMAN STAINES:
At any rate what we have to do now is to decide what is best for the country.
This Treaty is before us; certain members want to turn it down; and what is the
alternative they offer? According to the President he is going to stand for a
Republic; he has admitted that a mighty army and a navy can't get us the
Republic. How is it going to be done then? Is it by political action or by
negotiations? Well, supposing the President goes to Downing Street and takes
four or five plenipotentiaries with him and asks the British Cabinet to give us
a Republic, what will happen? The negotiations will go on as they did before;
perhaps they may refuse to negotiate, but suppose they do, will the President
bring back the Republic? He will not. I say the only chance Ireland has to act
her freedom is to take this Treaty. This Treaty gives us a political weapon,
and, backed by the military and other resources, it is a weapon that, in the
hands of the Irish people, will get more freedom for them than a mighty army or
navy can ever do. One Deputy said that the Canadian form of Government is not
liberty; several Deputies said, in effect, that they did not give a fig for
self-determination; well, I will have to quote the President again. I am quoting
from the Irish Press of Philadelphia of December 3rd. In a message to the
Canadian Convention President de Valera sent the following through Mr. Harry
Boland:
President de Valera sends greetings to the National Convention. He is
certain that the people of Canada, who so much appreciate their own liberty,
will support the people of Ireland in their resolve to face extermination
rather than abandon the right of freely choosing the path they shall take to
realise their destiny [prolonged applause]. Ireland's freedom
cannot menace the freedom of any nation, but as the principle of national
self-determination is admittedly just, its denial will never be acquiesced in
[applause]. And in the case of Ireland the denial is a menace to
the peace of the world.
Still Deputies here don't give three straws about self-determination. We heard
from the last Deputy a good deal about the financial clauses of the Treaty;
well, I would remind this House that the same financial clauses are in the
President's document. Consequently whatever number of millions the Treaty is
going to cost Ireland the alternative is going to cost the same number of
millions.
THE PRESIDENT:
Hear, hear. That is right.
ALDERMAN STAINES:
We have heard from the legal gentlemen of the assembly.
A DEPUTY:
And illegal [laughter].
ALDERMAN STAINES:
Well, we heard from them several speeches on law and on international law,
constitutional law and common law. Well, as an ordinary common man, the only law
I was ever up against and made feel in this country---the law that every
Irishman has been made feel---was the law of force and the law of might,
constitutional law did not matter; international law did not matter; the thing
that is going to matter is that the country is going to get the evacuation by
the British Army and your own army is to be put in its stead. It depends on the
Irish people then what class of freedom they will have; they can have whatever
class of freedom they can make for themselves. I will vote for this Treaty
because it stands for Irish freedom against English oppression and Irish
sovereignty against English slavery.
MR. EAMONN AYLWARD:
I was elected by the people of South Kilkenny; and the people who elected me
know what views I had because at that time I was fighting for the realisation of
those views. I was elected a Republican to uphold the Republic of Ireland, and I
shall do that to the best of my ability. Should my constituents change their
mind then they can remove me at the next election and put in a politician; but
they cannot change my personal opinion or my principles. Those Deputies who are
supporting the Treaty, and some of the plenipotentiaries even, say they have not
compromised any principles; if they had not compromised their principles it must
be because they had no Republican principles to compromise; if their willingness
to become British subjects with a British Governor-General to look after them,
and to take their allegiance to the British Government and all that---if that is
not compromise I don't know what compromise is. Not only do they become British
subjects but they take an oath to a British King. I shall read an extract from a
leading article written by the Chairman of the Delegation in June, 19l7; it may
throw some light upon the present case:
`The Home Rule Act 1914,' exposed by Mr. William Martin Murphy is a clear
and trenchant exposure of that fraud upon a people. Mr. Murphy would settle
the Irish question in the same way as the Canadian, South African and
Australian questions were settled. This assumes that the element of
nationality and the status of nationhood do not enter into the Irish question.
Australia, for instance, possessed no rights except those it derived from
England. England founded it, England fostered it, and England possessed the
undoubted right to rule it. Ireland does not derive from England. She is not a
colony. She has never been a colony. She can claim no colonial rights such as
Australia, Canada and South Allies assert. If she be not a nation then she has
no more title to independence of English Government than Kent or Middlesex or
Lancashire or Yorkshire. If there be English politicians who really believe
that they can settle the Irish question on colonial or semi-colonial lines
they live in a fool's paradise. The first step to a permanent Irish settlement
is the recognition of the Irish nation.
[applause]. Well, the Chairman of the Delegation is trying to put
the whole lot of us into a fool's paradise now. If I had come up here to this
assembly undecided as to what course I should take, the very tactics adhered to
by the other side would make me vote against the Treaty. Deputies have tried to
misinterpret in every possible way the issue before us; they say the result of
the non-ratification of this instrument is war---terrible and immediate war. I
would like to know who endowed these men with the gift of prophecy? They say
that the difference between this Treaty and the President's proposals is only a
shadow. They can't have it both ways. Will Lloyd George go to war for a shadow?
The Deputy who first introduced this so-called alternative oath in Public
Session gave the impression to the public that this oath was contained in the
President's alternative proposals; and that Deputy knew absolutely and perfectly
well that there was no oath contained in the alternative proposals.
MR. LYNCH:
It is implied in paragraph six.
MR. AYLWARD:
Again it has been put forward that we all let down the Republic. I absolutely
deny that. I did not take it that the Republic had been let down at any time
until I saw the terms of the Treaty in the public Press, and then I knew it had
been let down by the delegates at least. These men who say that the Republic was
let down as soon as the Truce was proclaimed, and who seem so bitter about it
now, had a right to protest against it then. If they thought it was being let
down they were more to blame than anybody else. But the Republican ideal has not
died, nor will it die, even though there be but fifty men left in Ireland to
carry it on. Such misrepresentations as these would, I say, be almost sufficient
of themselves to make me vote against the Treaty, because it is a weak thing
which requires misrepresentations to keep it on its legs. Again I say I was
elected because I was a Republican soldier and I will remain a Republican and I
will vote against that Treaty.
ALDERMAN CORISH:
A Chinn Chomhairle, agus a mhuintir na Dála, I rise to speak in
support of this Treaty, not because it is entirely in accordance with the views
I held and expressed up to this, but because I think it is the best thing for my
country at the moment; and because the people of my constituency want me to vote
for it, and I think it would be a bad state of affairs in this country if the
representatives of the people were deliberately to flout the people's wishes [hear,
hear]. It would be an end, once and for all, to representative
government. Now, there has been much said about the plenipotentiaries sent to
London, they have been placed in the dock in this assembly from the beginning of
the Session. Now, they were in close touch with the Cabinet from the moment they
went to London until they brought back this Treaty, and if they were going wrong
they surely went wrong before the fifth or sixth of December; and it must have
been patent to everybody that they were going wrong---if they were going wrong;
and I hold that if things were not going better, or as they should go according
to the views of the people on the Cabinet, that Dáil Eireann is entitled to
regard all the views of the Cabinet---that Dáil Eireann is entitled to regard
what they did as the views of the people of the Cabinet. I hold that it is the
Cabinet that is to blame---the Cabinet that was left behind in Dublin that is to
blame for the state of affairs that exists to-day [hear, hear].
Now, a lot has been said about the mandate given by the people for the Republic.
To my mind the part the Republic played in the December elections of 1918 was
small. I took a man's part on behalf of Doctor Ryan here, in the South Wexford
Election in 1918, and, so far as I could see, that time the principle plank in
the platform of Sinn Fein was to get shut of the Irish Party---nothing more or
less---in May of last year Dáil Eireann declared its independence---it was
declared already in January, 1919--- but in May of last year our President
issued a manifesto asking the people to take part in the elections on behalf of
the Republic. Now, everybody might not have seen eye to eye with that document
at that moment; but it would have been an injudicious thing to question the
President's action because of the presence in our midst of our enemies, the
Black-and-Tans. So I think it should not he rigidly adhered to that the people
of Ireland have given a straight mandate for the Republic [hear, hear].
Now, I think it was the second last speaker on the other side who talked of
Egypt and India: and he said if we were to associate with the British Empire
that we would be responsible for the crushing of the Indians and Egyptians. Now
I hold that under the present state of affairs we are far more responsible;
because we are sending the Connaught Rangers, the Munster Fusiliers, the Dublin
Fusiliers, the Leinsters and other Irish regiments into India and Egypt year
after year to crush these peoples; and we are doing this under the Republican
Government. Now, if we are not able to stop that are we functioning as a
Government? I hold that we are not; and I believe, as I said before, that the
proper thing, at the moment, for this Dáil to do is to accept the Treaty. [Cheers].
Now the last speaker has spoken of the oath; he said it was not in Document No.
2. I know that the oath was not in Document No. 2, but we have it in another
record. The oath was mentioned at a Cabinet meeting and President de Valera
recited the oath to which he would agree; and one of the plenipotentiaries took
it down across the table; owing to President de Valera's position as head of the
nation I hold that the delegate had a right to interpret his views as to what
the oath should be; and he took down the exact oath and in the exact words that
the President used. Now I think that everybody will agree with that [hear,
hear]. Now, I have said practically everything I wanted to say. I only
wish to add that I hold that under this Treaty Ireland's national status has
been raised [hear, hear]. Ireland is entitled to representation at
the League of Nations and she will be there, of course, taking her place with
the other nations of the world. The fact is that she will be represented there.
These views are not in accordance with those which I held or expressed up to
this; but I believe the Treaty is the best thing for my country and I will vote
for it [cheers].
The House adjourned at 7 p.m. until Saturday morning
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION Saturday, January 7th, 1922
Dáil Eireann resumed its Public Session at 11.20 a.m. on Saturday, 7th
January, 1922, THE SPEAKER (DR. MACNEILL) in the Chair.
DR. FERRAN:
In the personal explanation which I made last night I believe I left the Dáil
in doubt as to my intention. I will now clear it up by saying that at the time
which reference was made I was engaged in recruiting but it was not for the
British Army.
THE SPEAKER:
The following Notice of motion has been received:---Notice of Motion by Eoin
Mac Neill, Deputy for the National University of Ireland and for Derry City and
County: To move that `Dáil Eireann affirms that Ireland is a sovereign nation
deriving its sovereignty in all respects from the will of the people of Ireland;
that all the international relations of Ireland are governed on the part of
Ireland by this sovereign status; and that all facilities and accommodations
accorded by Ireland to another state or country are subject to the right of the
Irish Government to take care that the liberty and well-being of the people of
Ireland are not endangered.'
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
Is that an amendment?
THE SPEAKER:
No.
MR. MILROY:
Might I suggest that that be handed to the Deputies?
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
I rise to speak against this Treaty because, in my opinion, it denies a
recognition of the Irish nation. I said yesterday, and I repeat here, that this
Treaty is not one for the consideration of Dáil Eireann, and not one for
approval by Dáil Eireann, but by the Southern Parliament according to Article
18. I object to it on the ground of principle, and my chief objection is because
I am asked to surrender the title of Irishman and accept the title of West
Briton. I object because this Treaty denies the sovereignty of the Irish nation,
and I stand by the principles I have always held---that the Irish people are by
right a free people. I object to this Treaty because it is the very negation of
all that for which we have fought. It is the first time in the history of our
country that a body of representative Irishmen has ever suggested that the
sovereignty of this nation should be signed away. We went before the people of
Ireland on a clear-cut, definite issue. We protested against the men who spoke
for the Irish people, and we said that if elected---in 1918---we would set up in
Dublin, the capital of the Irish nation, a Parliament that we selected for our
political ideal, and a Republic, and we said that if elected we would re-affirm
the independence of Ireland and seek international recognition for that. When I
went before the people of Roscommon I was in earnest when I said that I stood
for an Irish Republic. Since I have returned I have received scores of letters
from friends and constituents---men urging me in the interests of Ireland and of
the people of Roscommon to vote for this Treaty. I had a letter yesterday from a
reverend clergyman asking me to cast my vote for this Treaty, and this man gave
me great support when I was going through Roscommon seeking the suffrages of the
people. On one occasion, at a public meeting, this clergyman said: `Vote for
Harry Boland and the Irish Republic and you will get a good Home Rule Bill.' And
I got up immediately after he had finished and had to undo the work of my
clerical supporter. He is consistent to-day when he asks me to vote for the
Treaty; and I am consistent to-day as I was in Roscommon. We secured a mandate
from the Irish people because we put for the first time before the people of
Ireland a definite issue; we promised that if elected we would combat the will,
and deny the right of England in this country, and after four years of hard work
we have succeeded in bringing Ireland to the proud position she occupied on the
fifth December last. The fight was made primarily here in Ireland; but I want to
say that the fight that was made in Ireland was also reflected throughout the
world; and we---because we had a definite object---had the sympathy of
liberty-loving people everywhere, if we were denied the support of the
Governments. Most of my time since I became a member of Dáil Eireann has been
spent in another country. We were sent out to secure international recognition
from the Government of the United States, and to seek the support of the
liberty-loving American people on behalf of a nation struggling to be free---and
when we left this country Ireland was unknown---and people, liberty-loving
peoples, and peoples who are free, had no concern with a domestic question
between Great Britain and Ireland. They in America had been under the impression
for forty years that Ireland and England were one and that there was a domestic
squabble; and we found that the greatest barrier that we had to break down was
that Ireland had acquiesced in British law, and all the American people knew was
that we were fighting for something called Home Rule. As a result of the
magnificent fight put up at home by the men of the army and supported by the
people of Ireland, the American people soon realised that we were fighting for
our own God-given right to freedom; and if we were not recognised by the
Governments of the world we were recognised by the peoples of the world; and as
for the Treaty, I can say this: that the power of public opinion---outraged
public opinion---throughout the world, backed by the magnificent fight the men
and women of this country put up, had brought Ireland to the position that she
rightly occupied. We found Ireland in 1918 a domestic question of Great Britain;
by the work that has been accomplished since, she is now a burning international
question; and no one believes in this House that it is for any altruistic
purpose that Great Britain has changed her hand and called the Irish people into
conference. And I say that the tragedy of all this is that, while the men who
favour this Treaty have adopted a defeatist attitude and pointed out the
weakness of Ireland and asked how could it stand against the mighty British
Empire, I am afraid that they have not considered the weakness of that Empire. I
respectfully suggest that this conference was called because England found It
impossible to carry on her work in Ireland and to preserve and carry on her
Empire; and having failed to force British sovereignty on the Irish nation for
seven hundred and fifty years, she has done it now by diplomacy. If any member
of the opposite side can convince me that that is not an oath of allegiance---to
swear that oath and `that I will be faithful to His Majesty King George V., his
heirs and successors by law, in virtue of the common citizenship'-
MR. MILROY:
Which oath are you talking of?
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
The oath that you are asked to sign in the Treaty. I would like to take this
opportunity to thank the American people for the magnificent support they have
given us in the struggle; and I am doing this because in this House a few weeks
ago a statement was made by my friend the Minister of Finance which places us in
a very embarrassing position in America-
MR. M. COLLINS:
And which every true American appreciates.
MR. H. BOLAND:
We were sent back to America to strengthen the hands of the Irish
plenipotentiaries in London; we were sent back to carry on a propaganda to
demonstrate to Great Britain that should this fight be renewed we were prepared
to carry on; we were sent back to float a Bond Loan of the Irish Republic; and
we, knowing that negotiations were going on, decided that this Bond Loan should
not be floated in a national campaign, but should be confined to two states. We
selected the District of Colombo and Illinois because in Washington, D.C. were
meeting the Great Nations of the World; and we thought that the best propaganda
that could be carried on on behalf of the Irish nation, and a thing that would
give strength and support to our men in London, was to demonstrate to England
that if they wished to win the good-will of the American nation they must make a
just and honourable peace with Ireland. Very well. I must say now that whereas
in 1919, when we floated the First Bond Drive of the Republic in the State of
Illinois we collected three hundred and ninety-seven thousand dollars in twelve
months at a cost of eighteen thousand dollars---to demonstrate the feeling in
America this year---in three weeks in the State of Illinois they subscribed five
hundred and fifty-two thousand dollars at a cost of eighteen thousand dollars [hear,
hear]. No one knows better than my friend, Michael, that there were five
thousand men in America ready to come to fight in Ireland, and they couldn't
come as a foreign legion because it was against American laws [laughter].
MR. M. COLLINS:
Now you're talking.
MR. BOLAND:
But they were offered, and they came, and they fought. Just as President de
Valera got back to Ireland, these men got back, and many of them did get back
and they fought. I am only saying this, not in any way of finding fault with my
comrades on the other side, but simply to thank the American people for the
support they gave to us in the struggle. The cablegram that my friend Michael
Collins took such exception to was suggested by me to strengthen his hands, four
days before the Treaty was signed. I would be false to the position I hold from
Dáil Eireann if I did not say that the great public opinion of America is on the
side of this Treaty. I would be false to my position as a representative of the
Government if I didn't fearlessly state that here---that, just as it seems the
Press of Ireland has adopted a unanimous attitude in favour of this Treaty, so
too did the American Press adopt that attitude. The people who subscribed the
money to enable us to carry on look upon this as a betrayal; and it was only out
of love for Ireland that an order of restraint was not taken out against us---an
injunction against our raising money in the name of the Irish Republic. I know
something of the situation in India and Egypt from the men who hold the same
position in America for India and Egypt that I hold for Ireland; and while I am
casting my vote prepared for war, so far as I am concerned I am convinced that
there can be no war in Ireland. Allenby requires ninety thousand men in Egypt;
India is in flames; and we are called in to buttress up the British Empire, not
with the Connaught Rangers this time, forced by hard economic circumstances to
join up to earn a living, but by virtue of our common citizenship [hear,
hear]. I don't want to detain this House. I stand to-day exactly where I
have always stood. I want to ask a question of my friend opposite. Is this, in
your opinion, a final settlement of the question between England and Ireland?
MR. M. COLLINS:
It is not.
MR. BOLAND:
It is not. Well then we are asked to sign a Treaty. What was it that made the
fight in Ireland possible ? The sanctity of Treaties---the invasion of Belgium
that gave a great moral cry to the world that freedom was being outraged, and
the whole world flew to the side of the Allies. Some of the best blood in
Ireland fought with Great Britain in that war because Belgium had been outraged
and her Treaty violated. You have the statement that the allied powers gave to
the world---the moral cry which rallied all right-thinking people everywhere on
the side of Belgium. If this is not a final settlement we have lost the good
opinion of the world on the day we sign the Treaty with a mental reservation
that it is not a final settlement. I have taken one oath to the Republic and I
will keep it. If I voted for that document I would work the Treaty, and I would
keep my solemn word and treat as a rebel any man who would rise out against it.
If I could in conscience vote for that Treaty I would do so, and if I did I
would do all in my power to enforce that Treaty; because, so sure as the honour
of this nation is committed by its signature to this Treaty, so surely is
Ireland dead. We are asked to commit suicide and I cannot do it. We are asked to
annihilate the Irish nation. This nation has been preserved for seven hundred
and fifty years, coming down in unbroken succession of great men who have
inspired us to carry on. We were the heirs of a great tradition, and the
tradition was that Ireland had never surrendered, that Ireland had never been
beaten, and that Ireland can never be beaten [cheers]. And because
of that great spiritual thing we young men went out to follow our fathers, and
we have fought a good fight together, and I am sorry that we are now divided,
and I entertain personally nothing but the fondest memories of my old comrades;
and I am sorry that we are divided but I am glad that we are divided on
fundamentals. And so sure as we accept this Treaty and rise against it in
another generation, the whole nations of the world will be against us and as
they rallied to the support of Belgium so will they rally to the support of
England. You cannot compromise the nation's honour unless you definitely agree
in conscience that this is a final settlement. No man can speak for the dead.
Our concern is with the living and with those who may come after us, and I for
one am quite easy in my mind that those who will come after us will deal kindly
with the men who vote against this Treaty. Our leader, Pádraic Pearse, said that
liberty is eternal. It belongs to all. Liberty can't be bartered for trade.
Either we are entitled as a nation to the full unlimited control of our own
destiny or we are not. If we have common citizenship with Great Britain, then
the Union is good enough for me. If we are a nation this Treaty is the very
negation of nationhood and I vote against it. Our late leader, Pádraic Pearse,
said that this fight for Ireland was like a divine religion. It has come down to
us in apostolic succession. In his language, in his summing up he told us that
the veterans of Kinsale fought at Benburb, the veterans of Benburb fought with
Sarsfield in Limerick and the veterans of Limerick kept the fires of the nation
burning from Limerick to Dungannon; the veterans of Dungannon of '82 fought in
1798; Robert Holmes, the friend of Tone, was also the friend of Emmet; the man
who defended Emmet lived to be a young Irelander; three veterans of the young
Ireland movement founded Fenianism, and the veterans of the Fenian movement
stood with the Volunteers of 1916. We picked it up in 1916 and we brought the
Irish Republic out of the backwoods, away from the dark rooms of secret
societies, and preached the gospel before the Irish people; and we asked them to
stand for an independent Republic. Many Deputies in this House know that my
father himself had to fly from this country and suffer---as men in this House
who know him---he had to fly away because he believed in a Republic. His son was
privileged to stand on public platforms and to ask the Irish people to subscribe
to the Republic---and they did. Whatever else we do, let us not blame it on the
people. The people have proved in this fight as strong as their leaders, and so
long as the leaders remain strong no demand that you make on the people would be
denied. Don't blame it on the wife. If we are prepared to carry on this fight
the people of Ireland will support us. As we are divided so are the people of
Ireland divided, but as a Parliament, as we represent the real opinion of
Ireland and Ireland rallied to us, so surely will it come that the men who sign
this Treaty will regret it. Now, in closing I say that this tradition has been
handed down stainless; the national honour of Ireland has never yet been
compromised; and if that document is rejected---come weal, come woe---this
nation must survive; it can only be killed by the vote of its own
representatives. We stand, therefore, where our fathers stood before us. If that
Treaty is adopted we can never again ask the support of the world for our
struggles, because the sanctity of Treaties will be invoked against us; and all
honourable men everywhere will deny Ireland assistance. If I could accept that
Treaty as a stepping-stone to Irish freedom I would do it; but I know that I
would not be doing an expedient thing for Ireland, but doing what, in my
opinion, would forever debar Ireland from winning her ultimate freedom. If we
reject that Treaty England will not make war on us; if she does we will be able
to defend ourselves as we have always done.
MR. JOSEPH MACGRATH:
I am going to give a lead for the remainder of the day, if I can, with regard
to making a short statement. I want to state at the outset that I am now as I
always have been, an out and outer.
MR. BOLAND:
You mean a down and outer.
MR. MACGRATH:
I am not a Republican of a latter day, neither am I a Republican since I was
four years old; but I am one for the past fifteen years, when Republicanism was
very low in Ireland; when some others on the other side along with me in the
Dublin streets had to run from the population for attempting to do what we
thought fit, in our own way, to try and bring about the Republican movement. I
have been consistent all along, and I hope to prove by the few words I have to
say that in taking the action I am taking to-day in supporting this Treaty I am
still consistent. I was consistent when, as I said before, in the very early
days I went into the homes of all classes and asked them to support the
candidates that we put forward that time as Sinn Feiners, candidates who were
known to be the `Kings, Lords, and Commons,' men; and I remember well in the
slum areas meeting some of the poorer classes the constituency which I represent
is full of them I remember meeting people of the working class type and after
trying to convince those people that we were on the right track I had a man---I
should say a hungry man---saying to me: `Oh, you are the same as the others. If
you people get into power the workers will be just the same.' I thought
then---and I told them so---that, as far as I and those with me could do it, the
worker would be put on the level that I think he should he put on. Now one thing
that struck me when I came out of prison---and I suppose only because I was in
at the time I would not be elected a member of the Dáil---was the democratic
programme of An Dáil. It is stuck there all the time. I won't read it for
you---it is too long, and I want to keep to my word of making a brief
statement---but there is one passage I will read for you, just this one item in
the programme:
It shall be the first duty of the Government of the Republic to make
provision for the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the children;
to secure that no child shall suffer from hunger, cold, lack of clothing or
shelter, but that they shall be provided with the means and facilities
requisite for their proper education and training as citizens of a free and
Gaelic Ireland.
There you have it---our first duty. Now we come to the Republic that has been
established; and I worked for and fought for that Republic. It is held here that
a Republic was established in 1919; now, I did my best that week too, though I
knew well when going out that we were not going to get a Republic as the result.
I knew that thoroughly well. I am five years older to-day than I ever expected
to be; I thought I was going out to go down, but if I did, I knew what I was
doing; I went out to wake up the Irish people---as the men who died that week
did. The Republic is established! Now the Republic that I visualised has not yet
been established. I will tell you why. It takes a little more than a number of
meetings of men and women---having been put there, not as Republicans, mind
you---it takes a little more than their meeting and passing resolutions and
stating the Republic is established. It is held by the people on the other side
that the Republic was established in 1919, and we will take that year, when we
were being left alone and allowed to meet in public. If that is the Republic
they have worked and fought for it certainly is not the Republic I have worked
and fought for. What powers has that Republic? Could they or have they yet
carried out their first duty. Have they done so? Are they able to? I will tell
you in the very plain words of the President's own statement---I am going to
quote from the Dáil Eireann Parliament meeting in 1919. A question was asked by
one of the first citizens of Dublin, Alderman Tom Kelly, who, I am very sorry to
say, is not in a fit state of health as the result of the treatment he received,
and is not able to attend---Alderman Tom Kelly, by the way, wants to vote for
this Treaty; I have a letter from him in my pocket---well, at this Dáil meeting
in 1919 we find Alderman Kelly, who always looked after the workers,
particularly after the poor classes in Dublin, asking for
A statement from President de Valera regarding the social policy of the
Ministry. In the Democratic Programme outlined at the first meeting of the
Dáil it was stated that it would be the first duty of the Government of the
Republic to make provision for the physical, mental and spiritual well-being
of the children, to abolish the present Poor Law System; and to take such
measures as would safeguard the health of the people. He felt that if they
separated after that Public Session without making some reference to what
their Ministry deemed to be the right duty in connection with the social life
of the people, that they would have done a wrong. Let them take the city of
Dublin and see how its condition had been impoverished and demoralised from
the time that the rapacity of British Imperialism became the creed immediately
after what was known in history as Nelson's victories.
He goes on to talk about Ireland's prosperity years ago President de Valera's
reply was
that it was quite clear that the Democratic Programme, as adopted by the
Dáil, contemplated a situation somewhat different from that in which they
actually found themselves. They had the occupation of the foreigner in their
country and while that state of affairs existed, they could not put fully into
force their desires and their wishes as far as their social programme was
concerned.
That is quite correct. Under this Treaty, which I don't hold is all we fought
and worked for---I am using `fought' too often, but I didn't mean to use
it---under this Treaty every single thing in this Democratic Programme can be
put into force, and the democrats in this assembly know that well. Not one of
those on the other side have referred to this matter. They have taken up their
arguments against the Treaty, and not a single one of them has said that there
is any one clause in the Treaty that is good for Ireland. Not a head of a
department that has spoken has pointed out what could be done through their
department under this Treaty. It strikes me that they are all very well
disciplined; not a single one of them would say it. If they are against the
Treaty they might point out some thing that they object to; but they could, at
least, say it is good in some points---they could say to the plenipotentiaries:
`At least you have done well in some way or another'. As I said before, and as
Deputy Mrs. O'Callaghan said on the other side, it is perfectly clear that they
are well disciplined. With regard to the alternative proposals---if that
document were no one that had already been turned down by the people on the
English side, or if it did not contain clauses that had already been turned
down; or if it were here before us now signed by the plenipotentiaries on both
sides and we were taking a vote on it---my position would be this: as one who
took an oath fifteen years ago to establish an Irish Republic, I would have to
get up and say exactly what I am saying about the Treaty. My friends on the
other side know that very well, and that document that was put before us the
other day does not bring us any of the things mentioned. It does not help to
release them from the oath that they took along with me; let them be straight on
it; let them get up and say so; but no, anything at all to beat the Treaty. Now,
this is what I see wrong with that document: `That when acting as an associate
the rights, status and privileges of Ireland shall be in no respect less than
those enjoyed by any of the component States of the British Commonwealth', and
`that for the purpose of the association Ireland shall recognise His Brittanic
Majesty as Head of the association'.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Again I ask you is it fair to have that document discussed in detail when I
have been prevented from bringing forward that document and explaining it as an
alternative?
MR. MCGRATH:
I am not discussing it. I am only giving my reason why I would have as much
objection to that document as to the Treaty.
MISS MACSWINEY:
The oath is not in the document.
MR. MACGRATH:
It is there in the document. Now, I am swallowing a bitter pill in having to
vote for this Treaty; as I said before it is not what I want. I have had to
swallow bitter pills before; I will tell you things I had to do in my life;
perhaps some of you had to do similar things. This matter I speak of now
happened when the President was in jail. I was asked one night at twelve o'clock
by two men who came to my house---this is not a personal matter---the two men
asked me would I go and help in an election that was taking place at the time. I
asked them what was the intention of the man who was going up. They said that
they could not tell me and I said: `I am not going to work for a man who is
going to Parliament after what has happened, for I have been fighting these
people for ten years, and have been in the scrap, and have seen the punishment
that was meted out to my comrades.' They said they could not promise whether he
would go to Parliament or not; they had been sent to me to know whether I could
lend a hand. At the time I was something of an election expert. I said I
wouldn't go, and they said they were going up to Dan MacCarthy. I went up with
them. He put the same question. They appealed to us to go and we went. I worked
forfour days there, and it was the hardest election ever I was in. I worked then
for a man whose record at the time was one that I was not satisfied with. That
was a risk for us to take, and not till after the election, when a small
committee met with the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Foreign Affairs
present, did we find out whether the man elected intended going to Parliament;
we found out he was not going to Parliament; that was a big risk we had taken,
and I am going to take this in the same way. I believe in this Treaty; there is
in it sufficient power, there is in it sufficient freedom to work out the
ultimate freedom we all hope for. Well now, I am glad to see Deputy Harry Boland
here, I am glad he came back. I was not here to-day when he asked about the
`final settlement'. It was well known that Deputy Boland and myself went to
Gairloch on the famous last trip. I want Deputy Harry Boland to tell me now what
Deputy Boland meant when he told me he was going back to America on the
President's instructions to do an awful thing---to prepare the American people
for something short of a Republic.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Short of the isolated Republic.
MR. MACGRATH:
Something short of a Republic: that was what he was going back for, and now
he comes home to talk of sovereign status and giving away. When I saw the
President's first statement regarding the Treaty---I was in London at the
time---the very first thing I said was: `My God, what a position Harry Boland
must find himself in presently in America'. He told me, before we handed the
document to Lloyd George, that he was going to America to prepare the people for
something less than a Republic---I am deliberately not using the word
`compromise.' Well, consequently it surprised me to see Harry Boland's telegram
stating that he was against the Treaty. I won't say what happened in the
meantime.
DR. MACCARTAN:
He had another statement in America.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
Will I be allowed to explain about it?
MR. MACGRATH:
I am not charging you with the first one at all; what I know about the first
one is that the dope had not reached there at the time. There has been of late a
cry here regarding the people: `If the people have changed I have not!' reminds
me of a very similar cry a few years ago, that was exactly the swan song of the
Irish Parliamentary Party when we had not an opportunity of turning them out; at
meetings of their constituents they used to say: `If the people have changed, we
have not', when they knew that the people had changed from their old ideas. The
swan song of the Parliamentary Party of those days that `If the people have
changed we have not', is now the swan song of the people on the other side
to-day. One of the Deputies said here a few days ago that we were helping the
British Government to send troops to India and Egypt; and that has been referred
to in another way to-day. Such a statement, as I understand it, implies that we
should sacrifice Ireland to save India and Egypt [hear, hear].
Now, in conclusion, I would like to ask does that mean that, should a Republic
be offered to you---an isolated Republic---does it mean that you would stop the
British troops from leaving this country lest they should be sent to India and
Egypt? [Applause].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is something I cannot let pass because it is against the interests of
the nation, apart from anything else; that is the suggestion that has been made
with reference to Mr. Boland's instructions from me. Everyone knows that at the
first meeting of the Cabinet and Ministry that I proposed a plan as the only
chance I saw of getting, except by force of arms, an isolated Republic; and that
chance was the plan of external association. I pointed out definitely that that
was not an isolated Republic. I have not a face of brass as other people have,
and when I had to go for the absolute isolated Republic I said so. It was
because I was honest and wanted to be honest with the American people that I
said that an isolated Republic would have to be changed into some sort of
association, something that would be consistent with the position I was aiming
at. I know no sort of association is agreeable to the Irish people, and I know a
large percentage of the Irish people in America would not like to see Ireland
associated in any way with the English.
COUNT O'BYRNE :
I should not have wearied the Dáil by taking part in this debate, but the
matters at issue are so vital that I do feel in duty bound to state exactly my
reasons why I cannot accept the Treaty. I will do so in as few words as possible
and I hope for the indulgence of this Dáil if I should merely strike a personal
note in stating these reasons. I have not the temerity to say that anything I
should say would influence in the slightest way any Deputy here, nor do I intend
to criticise the actions of those who support the Treaty honestly, on the
grounds that it is a stepping stone to freedom. That may be so; time will tell.
For my part I feel some day they will have a very rude awakening; to my mind,
when you get on that stepping stone you must drop fundamental principles; I
cannot follow them, never more so than when that involves the sovereign
independence of my country. The last speaker complimented those who were against
the Treaty on the ground of their discipline, for he said that apparently none
of them would admit there was anything good in this Treaty. Well, I for my part,
follow no Party and no man; I follow my own conscience, and in this ease, even
if it be a breach of discipline, I will admit there are good things in this
Treaty and plenty of good things; but are we to accept these good things at the
risk of our own principles? I say we are not. Now, the point I go on is this:
that by the first clause of the Treaty we give away the, right of sovereign
independence; and we accept dominion status. I, for my part, always hated
politics; in fact I shunned public life. It was a maxim of mine that if you once
entered polities that, sooner or later, you would have to swallow your own
principles. In 1920 I was drawn into it because I was for a mandate to secure a
free and independent Ireland: I gladly accepted it. Had I been told that it
implied compromise I would have positively declined to go forward, and I would
have left the task to others. Subsequently in the Dáil, I took a solemn Oath of
Allegiance in accordance with this mandate, and without any mental reservations.
Am I now to be asked to break what I hold to be the most sacred oath, and that
on the ground of expediency? I could never do so; with me it's a matter of
conscience. Were I to vote for this Treaty it would be a cowardly act, done
merely through fear of incurring public disfavour, while all the time in my
heart I would feel I would have been wrong, and would have a sense of shame. I
may be an idealist perhaps I am super-sensitive; but I claim now---well, I claim
to be honourable. Were I to act in that way I feel that I would be false to my
conscience; that I would be false to the dead. I would be false to my country as
I would be giving away the birth-right of the whole Irish nation. Under these
circumstances I feel that I cannot possibly vote for the Treaty.
MR. P. BRENNAN:
I shall not say much because everything I wanted to say has been said by
either one side or the other. I might have said it better, but that does not
matter [laughter]. I support the Treaty for what it is; not for
more than it is, and certainly not for less. This Treaty gives us freedom to
achieve the ultimate liberty for which we all aim. That is enough for me. There
are a few other things I want to speak about. Doctor English of Galway made
certain insinuations against the Volunteers; she asked whether the Irish
Volunteers would hold Ireland for the British Empire. Now, that is an insult to
the Volunteers, who brought Ireland to its present position. The Volunteers will
hold Ireland for the Irish people. Deputy Brian O'Higgins stated that he went
down to Clare on Christmas Eve and came back with his mind unchanged; that the
views and impressions of the people who command the best influence in Clare, as
he stated, are against the Treaty.
MR. B. O'HIGGINS:
West Clare.
MR. BRENNAN:
Yes, right-o. I know all Clare, every bog and mountain; I don't know those
wonderful heroes whom Deputy Brian O'Higgins met. I would like to know who they
are? Is the Most Reverend Doctor Fogarty a representative of the worst influence
in Clare? Is the Chairman of the Clare County Council a representative of the
worst influence in Clare? Well, if they are they are the devil's children, for
they have the devil's luck to be alive to-day both the Most Reverend Doctor
Fogarty and the Chairman of the County Council. It has been stated that the
farmers have no right to express their opinion on the matters before the House.
I am myself a member of the Irish Clerical Workers' Union therefore I am a
Trades Unionist. I don't speak here for any particular class, but the farmers of
Ireland, of Clare, anyway, were never asked in vain by the army or the civil
organisation of Sinn Fein for any assistance, which they did not give, in money
and in men to the fight---they were never backward; these people have every
right to express their opinions. I, too, have old memories of the Minister of
Finance, I knew him twelve years ago in London, when he was an unknown, a silent
worker; I knew him up to the day when he came back to Dublin, and he did not
come back to avoid conscription; but he came back to take a man's part in the
Rising---and he did take a man's part---and if Seán MacDiarmuda was alive to-day
he would tell you why Michael Collins and the rest of us came from London to
Ireland. I don't suppose the old Michael Collins has changed, I think he is the
same Michael Collins, and I think he has only one aim and that is to achieve
Ireland's independence [applause].
DR. JAMES RYAN:
I beg to agree with the speaker on the other side, Deputy O'Duffy; I don't
believe that our side has a monopoly of patriotism; I believe there is
patriotism on the other side also. It is, as the President has said, a
difference in fundamentals, a difference in what both parties believe to be
right. The reason why I want to vote against the Treaty---the big reason---is
because in voting against the Treaty I am carrying out the principle of
government by consent of the governed. Now, I don't believe that the public
bodies in my constituency, who were elected on the same ticket as I was, have
any more right to speak for the people than I have. I can say a thing about my
constituency that very few would believe---it might not fully or fairly
represent the feelings of the people---I was five days in County Wexford and I
never met a person who was in favour of the Treaty; I don't think that it is
fair to the people of Wexford, for if I went to the trouble I could have met
many I was five days there and I never met a person who was in favour of it. I
did meet one---a certain person; he was a man who worked hard for me during the
election, and he came to me to ask was I going to vote for the Treaty and I
answered `No'. Then he said: `If I thought you were going to vote for that
Treaty I would never have worked for you, and I would be a very disappointed
man'. Now, a man like him, believing in my oath, would have a more genuine
grievance against me if I voted for the Treaty than the people who want the
Treaty; because the people who want this Treaty have absolutely no grievance for
they never had any reason to believe that our party were going to compromise in
any way. I don't want to find fault with the Treaty at all; I think that Deputy
MacGrath was wrong in saying we gave no credit to the Treaty; I believe our side
has given as much credit as possible and I think we have admitted the good
points in the Treaty as far as finance and our own army and education and those
things are concerned. They are all very good; but there is one big point that we
cannot get over and that is the point of common citizenship. I don't think I
have anything further to say. I think the most important thing of all at the
present time is the decision.
DR. ADA ENGLISH:
May I make a personal explanation? I never said what Deputy Brennan accused
me of: that the Irish Volunteers would hold Ireland for the English. What I said
was: If this Treaty be accepted, and a Government put in power---if a Free State
Government be in power---that they would have to use the army if they wanted to
keep the Treaty, and keep true to it; that they would have to use the army to
support the Treaty and to keep the Free State in power, which I consider is
holding Ireland for England.
MR. BRENNAN:
The same thing. Did I not also say to you `would go out and fight for the
Republic?'
MR. LIAM HAYES:
As a plain man, a soldier who has no claim to be a politician, but as one who
in the Irish Republican Army did his best, I have a mandate from the Irish
people to defend their rights and liberties. Which of our officers when making a
fight against desperate odds did not ask himself: `Am I justified in sacrificing
the lives of my men?' Well, he was justified, because he had authority then to
fight for the rights of his country. We fought for Ireland's freedom; we fought
to rid Ireland of the English Army of occupation; and we fought to secure for
the Irish people control of Ireland's destinies. I hold we have won; if we
accept the Treaty we have won these things. Now, we are asked to resume the war
by some who have never heard the bark of an angry rifle---to bring further
sufferings on the Irish race---and for what? Merely to alter a few words in the
Treaty, words which do not vitally affect the national position of our country.
This is rainbow chasing. I, for one, will not vote to sacrifice the lives of my
comrades; I am voting for the Treaty.
MR. SEAN NOLAN:
I have no desire to speak; I, feeling as one who always fought straight from
the shoulder, was anxious this House would come to an early decision, but I feel
that if I were to take the line that I would have otherwise taken here that I
would only add further to the difficulties there are, and the disunion that
exists. For that reason I mean to confine myself and be as cautious and careful
as possible. I was disappointed at, and I must say I resent the charge made by
the Deputy from St James', Deputy MacGrath, when he insinuated that we have been
disciplined in our speeches. Nobody has spoken to me as to what I have to say or
will say, and I resent any insinuation of that description. He has spoken of
dope; nobody has doped me, and I refuse to believe that our President has any
intention of doping anybody whatsoever. We have tried to be straight on this
question and why not be straight on all sides? We who are against the Treaty are
against it because we feel and believe, and conscientiously believe, that we are
doing the best thing for Ireland in rejecting this Treaty; and when we believe
that why should Deputies stand up here and charge the leaders of our side with
doping us or doping anybody else? A lot has been heard about the will of the
people. I will take the memories of those who are for years working in the
movement---I will take their memories back a few years, as far back as 1906. I
then, and those who worked with me, worked against the will of the people; the
will of the people then was Parliamentarianism and Home Rule. We worked then for
a Republic and all along to 1916; and the men who fought then fought against the
will of the people, it you might so call it, because the will of the people was
Parliamentarianism and Home Rule. I fought and worked against the will of the
people in those days because I thought the will of the people was wrong; and
should the will of the people go wrong to-day I will work against it also; but I
refuse to believe that the will of the people is in favour of the acceptance of
this Treaty. Self determination has been flung around here, and `government by
consent of the governed.' I have met men in Cork city and also in Dublin city
who are supporting the Treaty, and they have said to me: `For God's sake, why
didn't you throw it out in Private Session and the whole country would stand
beside you.' What does that mean? That these people are prepared to accept this
Treaty under duress, and that it is not the free consent of the people or
self-determination. Self-determination means that you have a free voice to get
what you select, and there is no selection in this Treaty. The question before
them is: this Treaty or terrible and immediate war. In this Treaty promises of
peace have been dangled before the people, and people have been intimidated by
threat of war, or attempts have been made to intimidate them, but I say the
people of Ireland are not afraid of war; the people of Ireland were never afraid
of war when that war was in defence of their own rights and liberties. Should
England force war on us again in consequence of the rejection of this Treaty,
the people of Ireland will stand as solidly, as unitedly as ever against the
common foe in order to achieve the liberty for which we have always been
fighting. I have listened with pain, and sometimes with disgust, to speeches
that were made here from time to time which endangered the fate of the nation
and gave our case away to the enemy. I had visualised when I first entered this
Dáil a Government composed of men who, come well or woe, would stand as firm as
the Rock of Gibraltar for the Republic to which we swore allegiance, who would
refuse to be disunited by any enemy, either from within or without this country.
I believed at that time that each Deputy had the same end in view as I had, that
he had the same thing in view as I had, that he had the same faith in the
established Republican Government as I had, and that we were all one on the
question of Dominion or Colonial Home Rule. But, alas! I have been mistaken. I
have heard Deputies declare here that the Republic is dead, that this Treaty
ends the seven centuries' struggle, that it gives us the freedom and what we
fought for. I have never in all my life suffered greater agony than what I have
suffered since this Session began. Charges have been made here against our noble
President, that he let down the Republic; we have all been charged with letting
down the Republic when we consented to negotiate. I deny that I ever deviated
from the Republican path; I deny that acceptance of negotiations meant the
surrender of our Republic, and the famous `paragraph two' in the President's
letter to Lloyd George speaks for itself. Deputy MacCartan's speech I deplore;
he told the enemy and the world that the Republic is dead, that the army is
divided. I deny that the Republic is dead or that the army is divided; the army
is as solid and as disciplined to-day as ever it was; it is as ready and willing
to repel the attacks of the common enemy now as it was in the past, and it will
defend Ireland's rights at all times with the same spirit, the same unity, the
same determination. I would like here to refer to a pamphlet issued by Professor
O'Rahilly of Cork; he said that fifteen-sixteenths of the army and the whole
population is in favour of the Treaty. That is false propaganda; it is false
propaganda and from honourable men we would expect better. The army, I say
again, is as disciplined to-day as ever it was; the Irish people are as solid
behind the national army and the national cause, no matter how they feel about
the present Treaty. I deplore speeches which declare our cause is lost such
defeatist speeches are not worthy of any member of this assembly; we are not
defeated; the Irish Republican Army is not and was not defeated; and why should
we surrender, as was suggested by a Deputy in this House, like the surrender of
Germany to the Alllies in order to save their country. We were winning, and we
will win. I am against this Treaty because it denies the existence of the Irish
Republic and the Irish nation: I will vote against it because if I were to do
otherwise I would do wrong, and the Chairman of the Delegation in his golden
moments says: `No Church, no religion admits that any man or woman is entitled
to do a wrong even that if they did not do it, somebody else would.' If the
people in Ireland in their stampeded condition to-day would do wrong, that is no
reason why I should. I will cast my vote for the Government to which I am
pledged, and the only Government which I recognise; to do otherwise would be to
subvert the Republican Government. We have been told by the Deputy for St.
James' that we did not admit what material or social advantages were in the
Treaty. The admission is contained in the other document; the good things in the
Treaty have been included in Document No.2, which is referred to, and I think
that was an uncalled-for remark. we have been told that we have got freedom,
immediate freedom, great freedom, and that through this Treaty we are to get
great and good things to build up a strong nation materially. But in order to do
that, to my mind, we must still have the spirit and soul of a nation; and again,
in reply to the material advantages that are to be gained through this Treaty, I
would refer you to the golden moments of Arthur Griffith: `Train up a child to
estimate what it learns by the amount of bread and jam he is likely to gain and
you train it by that to lose its soul. If he is taught that patriotism is to be
despised if it does not bring material advantages he will ask to-morrow what are
the material advantages of religion.' That is my reply in the words of Arthur
Griffith to the material advantages to be gained by this Treaty when we sell the
soul of the nation by its acceptance. We are told what the acceptance of this
Treaty means; and we are told that its rejection means that we challenge England
to war; we are told that this Treaty is giving us all we asked for. I say that
by the rejection of this Treaty we do not challenge England to war; we challenge
England's sincerity for peace, and we express our own abhorrence of war by
rejecting this Treaty because the Treaty means the perpetuating, the carrying on
of war; and by its rejection we challenge England to make a genuine and
honourable peace to which both the English nation and the Irish nation will
subscribe, a peace with honour to which both nations can subscribe---that is the
peace we desire. We all love peace, we pray for peace, and we are ready and
willing to make peace with England on honourable terms; let England recognise
our independence and we will be at peace; there will then be a definite end to
the struggle between the two peoples and we will live as friends and good
neighbours. We are anxious to live as good neighbours with the English nation if
they are prepared to do the right thing by us. [applause]
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, is le croidhe duairc eirighim
anso iniu. Do shaoileas bliain ó shin ná beadh a leitheid de sceal againn sa tír
seo agus sa Dáil seo choíche. Ba mhaith liom a rá fe mar adubhairt Seathrún
Ceitinn trí chead bliain ó shin: `Mo thruagh mar atá Eire'. Mo thruagh mar atá
Eire iniu: í deighilte, briste, cráidhte; a teachtaí ag cáine a cheile, ag
gearra a cheile, agus is eagal liom go m- beid ag marbha a cheile, sara bh-fad.
Tá mórán ráite anso cheana i d- taobh na h-Eireann agus anois táimse chun an
meid seo do rá: táim ag obair le fada im' shlí fein ar son na tíre; agus riamh,
níor dhineas aon rud i g-coinnibh mo thíre ach aon rud amháin---rud ná raibh
leigheas agam air---se sin gur chuas isteach i Civil Service Shasana. Se
an fáth go n-dinim an tagairt seo ná gur chuir fear nú bean eigin e seo chugham:
`Ratify the Treaty and Save the Empire. England wants Volunteers to join the
Free State Army to crush Egypt and India. Join up.' Masla dhúinne atá ag
cabhrú leis an g-Connradh iseadh e sin. Le dhá chead bliain anuas ná raibh einne
dem' mhuintirse in Arm Shasana, ná i Navy Shasana, ná i b-Píleirí Shasana. Tá
eagla orm, an bhean a chuir an `dope' sin chugham, ná raibh a fear ná a
mac ag troid ar thaobh na h-Eireann, ach go raibh se ag troid i g-connibh na
Gearmáine---tír nár dhin aon rud i g-coinnibh na tíre seo riamh. Tá a lán ráite
i d- taobh Seachtain na Cásca, 1916. Is cuimhin liom an oiche roimh an Cháisc
sin; bhí an Teachta ó Chathair Dhoire agus an Teachta ó Chathair Phortláirge ag
cur an sceil trí cheile an oíche sin; bhíos-sa ann mar `soldier of the
line'; ni raibh guth agam ach dubhart: `For God's sake go into action
together or declare it off together.' Chuas isteach sa troid; ní raibh mo
chroidhe an oíche sin sa troid, ach nuair a chuaidh na buachaillí sa chath
chuas-sa ann. Chuas isteach sa troid chun aigne mhuintir na h-Eireann do shaora.
I defy any Deputy here to say or state or write that we struck at the British
Army in Easter Week, 1916, for any other purpose than to save the soul of
Ireland. If we had what we get under this Treaty now---if we had that army out
of Ireland that week, what would be the result? We would not be fighting for one
week; we would be fighting them for six months, at least. Now I rise to support
this Treaty because it gives my country a chance to live; if we reject this
Treaty I believe that Ireland will be thrown into the wilderness for a hundred
years; and I make no apology to any man or woman in Ireland for voting for this
Treaty. We have not been given by our Cabinet a fair run. First of all we were
told that we are compromising, but I think that has been dealt with already. If
we sent any message to Lloyd George claiming a Republic we had a right to state
that in plain Irish or in plain English; but we did not do so. We sent over our
plenipotentiaries with an answer to this message `how the association of the
Irish people could be best reconciled with the group of nations known as the
British Empire.' There is no Republic in that to my mind. The plenipotentiaries
were over there for close on two months. They came back and whatever happened at
the Cabinet meeting I don't know---I don't know any of the Cabinet secrets---but
this much I do know, and the world knows it: that there were four members of the
Cabinet for the Treaty and two and the President against it. Now, I say we are
treated unfairly, and the people of Ireland are treated unfairly, and, as
somebody said here, we, the back-benchers, should have been called together to
discuss the situation; there was a serious division in the Cabinet, and we had a
right to be called in; it is for that we are here at all. Now we are getting
under this Treaty, control of education; and we are talking since 1893 about the
Irish language; what progress have we made in that time? All the speeches and
all the word-bandying and all our misunderstandings here are caused because of
our using the English language. Now, I say that under the Treaty we can revive
our own language in less than a dozen years. The President said on one occasion:
`B'fhearr liom Eire fe shlabhraí agus a teanga fein aici ná Eire saor gan a
teanga fein aici'. If the Irish language once dies, as you all know, we can't
bring it back; if freedom is lost we can bring it back. A lot has been said here
about war; but I believe a lot of people are talking war now and I couldn't find
these war merchants---I couldn't find them for the past two years [laughter
and applause]. And I make no apology for not being in the firing line
for the past two years, for I was put into a position by the President, and in
that position I carried out my duties to the best of my ability.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. O'KEEFFE:
In that time, while our soldiers were fighting, the men and women on the
civil side were helping the enemy. [Cries of `No! no!']. Do you
deny it? Well, now, I say you were; you were trading with the enemy; and during
that time you gave that enemy one hundred and thirty-two million pounds for
goods that could be purchased and produced in this country; and you tell me that
you were functioning as a Republic. Were there not English commercial travellers
swarming all over this country, while our men were executed after the Coachford
ambush? Were there any Englishmen in this country arrested, or did our Cabinet
or this Dáil arrest or execute any English traveller? Every door you entered in
this country---every shopkeeper in this country helped them [cries of `No!
no!']. I say yes. Well, now, we hear sneering remarks about joining up
in the Free State Army; but remember that we joined up in the English Army in
1912, in 1913 and in 1918; and we beat the Germans. Don't tell me that the
Munster Fusiliers, my own neighbours, didn't beat the Germans. Don't tell me
that the Dublins, the Leinsters and the Connaught Rangers didn't beat the
Germans. If you ratify the Treaty there will be no Dublins, no Leinsters, no
Connaught Rangers and no Munster Fusiliers. A lot has been said here about the
farmers of Ireland---
A DEPUTY:
The North Cork Militia.
MR. O'KEEFFE:
Don't mind about the North Cork Militia. I believe that some people have said
that the Republic was functioning from 1916 on, and that the people of lreland
were told we were Republicans; well if they were they should have kept their own
money in the Republic. Should they not? The Minister of Finance is not here.
Now, the Banks of Ireland lent to the British Empire during the war---to win the
war---fifty-and-a half million pounds. I want to go through the different
points. Somebody said here the other day that the Republic was dead, I deny
that; the Republic is not dead; the Republic is in the distance if we accept
this Treaty. I compare Ireland to a bather perpetually in togs, prepared to take
a dive. A lot has been said here about the will of the people, I don't think it
counts now; other methods will be used, I am afraid, to try and stifle the will
of the people [`No! no!']. I hope I'm wrong. Ninety-nine per cent.
of the people of Ireland---with the exception of the counties of Munster where
they would be about ninety-five per cent.---are in favour of the Treaty; I
certainly say that ninety-five per cent. of the people of Leinster are in favour
of that Treaty; and if they are not they are the biggest hypocrites I know of,
because when our men were fighting in Cork for six months, aye for twelve
months, I appealed to the Minister of Defence to take the pressure off Cork and
to bring it up to Leinster---to Rathdrum---and that was not done; and why was it
not done? Because Leinster wouldn't fight. Now, if we accept the Treaty we save
the nation---and I take the nation to be the men and women in it, the good and
the bad, the soldiers and the ex-soldiers. If we accept Ireland as the nation we
will have to accept with it the good and the bad. The population of the County
of Cork in 1841 was eight hundred and fifty-four thousand. In 1911 it was three
hundred and ninety-two thousand; so that we lost in Cork during seventy years
four hundred and sixty-two thousand, or fifty-four per cent. of its population.
The whole of Ireland lost in that period three and three-quarter millions of
people. We will save our population in future by accepting this Treaty. Now, I
am not going to give you any dope, I have no right to give it, and besides it's
no good; but I would appeal to Ireland, to Irishmen and Irishwomen, to do the
best they can in their day for our common country. The curse of this country
is---I will put it in the words of Geoffrey Keating:---
- Eigceart na n-Eireannach fein
Do threascair iad do aon cheim
Ag spairinn fá cheart ghear chorrach
Ní neart arm na n-eachtrannach
MRS. O'CALLAGHAN:
The Deputy for St. James' said that in Private Session I accused his side of
being disciplined. Am I in order in explaining what I did say? At the Private
Session on December 17th, certain Deputies who said they were army men got up,
one after another, and made certain statements about the army which I will not
repeat. I sat here all day and listened to them. I noticed, as they went on,
that every one of these soldier Teachtaí used the same three or four arguments,
in practically the same words; and at the end of the day I got up and said---it
was not in accusation of them, it was in praise of them---I said, whatever is
right or wrong, that the army, obviously, to judge by the members here, is well
disciplined. It was not an accusation; it was a matter for praise.
MR. MACKEOWN:
As every officer in the army is in the one boat and has the same facts before
him, consequently each and every one of them had substantially the same
statement to make and they naturally used the same words.
MR. MULCAHY:
I wish to make a certain explanation with regard to the army as the matter
has arisen here and is arising in other places
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The Minister of Defence is not here. He will be here in the afternoon and it
can be raised then.
MR. SEAMAS LENNON:
I don't intend to detain you long; I am just going to state in a few brief
sentences why I am going to vote against this Treaty. I, like a good many here,
have got sheaves of resolutions from public bodies in my constituency; some of
these have been mild and reasonable; others of them are undoubtedly very
strong---if I may so use the word. They have put it up to me in these words:
`ratify or resign' [hear, hear]. Well, I am here now to say that I
am not going either to ratify or resign. Those public bodies with whom I have
been in close touch for the past three years---those bodies were called together
to a public meeting last September and my co-Deputy, Gearóid O'Sullivan and I
were present on that particular occasion. Now, I consider his speech on that
occasion was, at least, a strong incentive to induce those public bodies to pass
the resolutions which they have passed during the past week; he declared to
those public bodies---and I am sure those men looked upon him in his dual
capacity, and the word he conveyed to them went home to them he declared that if
he were in charge of the English Army that he would smash the Irish Republic in
a fortnight here in this country. He used these words to the public
representatives of my native country. It is not wonderful then that the public
bodies in my constituency, and in view of the Press campaign that has been going
on since the Treaty appeared in public, it is not wonderful that these public
bodies would send me these resolutions. I have absolute respect and love for
these public bodies and for each individual in my constituency; but it is
because I have absolute respect and love for these people that I will not vote
for the ratification of this Treaty. To day the people of my constituency and
the people of Ireland are citizens of the Irish Republic. To-night at seven
o'clock if a vote is taken and if this Treaty is ratified by a majority of this
House, the people of Ireland will be no longer citizens of the Irish Republic;
they will be citizens of the British Empire.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Not quite so soon.
MR. LENNON:
I will not vote or cast my vote to bring the citizens of the Irish Republic
whom I represent, to bring these men into the British Empire, no matter how many
sheaves of resolutions I get to the effect---ratify or resign. My co-Deputy also
issued what I consider a challenge to me here last night, possibly it may also
be applied to my co-Deputy, Deputy Aylward; but I will deal with him in the
county---the county in which I have been born and reared, and in which I am
living and have lived all my life. I am prepared to take him up on that
challenge when he declares that they who speak for the ratification of this
Treaty in my county---that they would beat me five hundred to one. I am prepared
to accept that challenge, and I will stand on the principle of the Irish
Republic in facing my co-Deputy, Gearóid O'Sullivan, on that question: and I
further declare that if my co-Deputy had come down last May and declared and
called for the votes of the people of Carlow on the strength of the fact that he
was going to support this Treaty I doubt if he would have got the thirty-two
votes that he now declares that I would get in my constituency. I have a
resolution here from my Comhairle Ceanntair in which there was an amendment
carried on last Sunday by nine votes to six, and that amendment is this: `That
we, the members of the Carlow Comhairle Ceanntair call upon the members of the
Dáil for unity in the present crisis and that we ask all our members to use
their influence to bring about that unity which we desire'. There is the
Comhairle Ceanntair of Carlow though I am told that there are only thirty-two
men in the county who stand for an Irish Republic; yet the names of nine men are
there who stand firm on that principle. I went forward as a Republican in 1918;
I was elected as a Republican in 1921; and yet there are people here who say the
Republic is dead; I hold the Republic is not dead; and I say that when the
Republic sent plenipotentiaries over to London the Republic was, undoubtedly,
not dead, but I hold that the Republic never got right into its stride into the
hearts of the Irish people until the delegates went over to London. The people
looked to the Republic for guidance and for assistance; and I consider that if I
vote for the ratification of this Treaty that my life for the past three years
would be an absolute negation and an absolute lie. I am not going to vote for
the Treaty; I am going to stand on the principles I stood on in 1918 and 1921,
and I am going to vote solid for its rejection.
THE SPEAKER said he had received the following letter from Deputy
Thomas O'Kelly:
Dublin, 22nd December, 1921. To the Speaker of Dáil Eireann.
I am unable to attend the meeting and I wish my vote to be recorded for the
ratification of the Treaty.
Mise do chara,
Thomas Kelly.
MR. D. O'ROURKE:
I have very little to say; and what I have to say is rather by way of
personal explanation than in support of the Treaty. When I came here first I was
opposed to the Treaty, and on principle I am opposed to it still. I was elected
without my knowledge; the first thing I knew about being elected a member of
Dáil Eireann was to see my name in the public Press; had I known my name was to
be put forward I would have objected; I want to make that clear. Until I came
here I didn't know how matters stood; when I found out how things happened I
must say I did not like, and I do not like, the idea of the plenipotentiaries
having signed without having brought back the Treaty for consideration. That is
my opinion, although others who vote for the Treaty are against me in that. My
great ambition and prayer was that unity would be achieved by some means. I was
prepared to vote for Document No. 2 provided a substantial majority of the House
was for it; my reason for doing so was to secure unity; I am quite prepared to
do anything for unity because I realise that the curse of this country has been
disunion. I say I will do anything yet to achieve unity. If a division had been
taken before Christmas I say, undoubtedly, that I would have voted against the
Treaty. That is my position. I returned to my constituency at Christmas and I
went there to the people---not the resolution passers---to the people who had
been with me in the fight, the people whose opinion I valued, the people who
are, I believe, Die-Hards; and I consulted them about this question and I must
say that unanimously they said to me that there was no alternative but to accept
the Treaty. Everything that is personal in me is against this Treaty; I yield to
no man in my hatred of British oppression, and in my opposition to any symbol of
British rule in Ireland; but I say I would be acting an impertinent part by
putting my own views and opinions against the views of my best friends, the men
who are the best fighters with me. I have taken only one oath to the
Republic---that was the Republican Army oath: the oath to the Saorstát was not a
Republican oath. My oath to the army I will keep, I will not join the Saorstát
Army and I don't care who takes exception to that. I will join no other army but
the Irish Republican Army, when the fight begins for the Republic again I will
take my part in it. My only hope now is that when this decision is taken there
will be unity; that there will be a meeting afterwards; that the members of the
Dáil will come together and come to some common understanding to work our
country in the interests of the people. I say this for myself: that while I
would vote for the Treaty I am just as well pleased if the Treaty is thrown out;
but I will not take the responsibility of doing what I consider would be driving
the young men of the country, and all the country, into war for I know what war
has meant. I would not vote to bring war upon those people, but if this Treaty
is rejected, and if war is the result, I promise I will do everything I possibly
can to unite the people to fight the common enemy, and I promise to fight to
victory or death to secure the Republic [applause].
MR. GEAROID O'SULLIVAN:
On a point of personal explanation, I understand my co-Deputy from Carlow
made a statement here in my absence that I said a certain thing at a public
meeting in Carlow. I did not make that statement. All the time since the Truce
was established I spent in preparing, to the best of my ability, the country for
war; I worked overtime. I will not say---it is for others to say---what I did. I
wish to say now that the statement as alleged by Deputy Lennon was not made by
me; it is not true.
MR. LENNON:
I made that statement; I stand over it.
MR. COSGRAVE:
I was at the meeting at Kilkenny and my co-Deputy made no such statement as
Deputy Lennon has said---not a single tittle in the nature of what he has
stated.
MR. LENNON:
He made it at the public meeting---at a meeting of the public men at Carlow
that met in the Town Hall; I forget the day. The statement I made I stand by.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
Were you there?
MR. LENNON:
I was.
MR. CON COLLINS:
I hope that I will secure this record in brevity that is so much talked about
here but so little adhered to. Now, the very little that I have got to say on
this question at this hour of our Session will not, I believe, influence anybody
here. I do not think at this stage that it is possible to influence anybody, any
more than it would have been possible to influence myself even before this Dáil
came into session to consider this question. At the outset, therefore, I will
explain my own attitude to this Treaty or this so called Treaty. Immediately on
the publication of its terms in the public Press my mind was made up in an
attitude of direct and definite opposition to this so called Treaty, at that
particular time it was made up, I should explain, in this fashion: even if there
was not another single Deputy in the Dáil to oppose it, I would. In doing that I
had my own conscience to consider, and also the electors who sent me here. I
will come later to deal with the question of the electors; a good deal has been
said about them here because it is sometimes useful for us to discover that we
have got the like. Well, now, with regard to my conscience; I have been a
nationalist for a very long time; that nationalism took a definite form twelve
years previous to Easter Week; that definite form was Republicanism, as being
the most feasible form of Government in which our people ought to live. At this
stage I would like to refer to a remark made by one of the Deputies here some
days ago; Deputy Dan MacCarthy said that the 1918 election was not fought on
Republicanism, but on self-determination. Now that statement is true in a sense,
but it is true only in a sense. The electors in my constituency understood as
clearly as I did---and at that time I made it my business to explain to any of
them who might be in doubt---that our attitude was a definite one that we were
definitely following out the proclamation issued in Easter Week---the
proclamation to the public of the existence of the Irish Republic. Now, with
regard to the constituents, I have been a good amongst my constituents; I have
worked a good deal amongst them in all phases of this work, both civil and
military, under their Republican Government. They have done their share of work
in the last three years very well; they definitely understood that they were
doing that work with the authority of a Government that I and they had made up
our minds had come to stay; They subscribed to the Republican Loan pretty well
on that understanding; they subscribed to all other activities on that definite
understanding. Recently at the Christmas holidays I went amongst them. I will
not say, as some Deputies have said here---because I am not in a position to
say---that I got resolutions. I have got one---if I might so call it---a
resolution subscribed to by a few individuals whom I know, whose attitude
towards Ireland has been pretty well known for a long while; these people call
themselves members of the Farmers' Union, they have been known to us, and they
have been in reality members of this body about which we have heard a good deal
recently---the Southern Irish Unionists. These are the people who are calling on
me to ratify the Treaty: these are the people who have been working against us
in every step that wee have taken, and in all the different phases of our
activity in this Republic of ours. I did not get resolutions; I did discuss the
question with a number of my constituents; they did not think it necessary to
pass any resolution; they definitely stated to me that they knew what my action
has been from the very start, and they said that I and the other members of the
Dáil were the best possible judges of this matter, and to decide it without
interference. Now, at this hour of the day, at this hour of our Session, it
seems to me a very vain hope to expect that we can have on this question---that
we can have unity. For the sake of that unity I would be prepared to contribute
anything that I possibly could, consistent with my principles, but I wish it to
be definitely understood here that I would not, or could not, contribute one
iota to anything that would mean the lowering of our national standard; and if
there are people here who are really anxious, and disagree with my view on the
question of this Treaty, it is for them and not for us those who stand on
principle cannot and will not sacrifice---but those who stand here and on any
other platform on what I might call expediency---I hope I am not insulting
anybody when I call it expediency------
MR. MILROY:
You are.
MR. CON COLLINS:
It is for those to come up to our standard and then we can have unity. Now,
with regard to that Treaty itself, one Deputy, my friend for one of the Dublin
divisions here, stated this morning that nobody on our side had yet discussed
the Treaty on its merits. Well, I will attempt to discuss some merits of the
Treaty just as they appear to me. The first is this: there are some things in it
which we---which the Irish people might take if they got them from Lloyd George,
driven down their throats with a bayonet---they might take them then, but the
Treaty is not a thing for which we can sacrifice our national honour; it is not
sufficiently good; and no matter how good it might be, when it involves that
sacrifice of principle after our years of struggle here to try to drag this
country of ours out side the British Empire---are we now, as a willing
sacrifice, to come into it with its lovely history and tradition? If some of our
people are anxious to participate in that tradition and that history, we, at all
events, will do all in our power to save our country and our traditions---the
traditions that have given us strength to do all we have done in the last few
years. Now, just one other word, and one only, and I have done. We have learned
a great number of new words here and nice phrases, and one gentleman mentioned
visualising the future. I have attempted in my own peculiar way to visualise the
future; and, in a personal way, I must say I have taken rather a gloomy picture
of it, because under this future state there has come forcibly to my mind the
conclusion of my sentence received from a British Courtmartial, and the
conclusion of a number of other sentences of honest Irish Republicans---under
this Free State; we Republicans will probably spend the rest of our lives in
jail as rebels under the Free State, with this difference---that we will have a
greater difficulty in getting out under our native Government than under the
foreign one. Another, and a chief merit I have seen in the Treaty---the chief
merit that any body in Ireland can find in the Treaty---is to be discovered by
viewing it through Lloyd George's glasses, if you like; there is to be found the
chief merit of this so-called Treaty, and here in this assembly we find what
used to be regarded as a national assembly of the Irish people turned into a
semi-political assembly since this Treaty was introduced. Here we have the first
fruits of the Treaty; we have dissension, bitterness and malice for the first
time that I have seen any of these things displayed in this Dáil---we find these
have been introduced on the introduction of this so called Treaty. These are the
first fruits of it and they will be spread through the country no matter how we
try to prevent it, and that is the chief merit I see; and from the British point
of view it has done more for them and their power than all their bayonets and
all their military preparation has been able to do. Therefore, finally, if it is
not yet too late, I would make a last appeal for unity to these people to save
their country; and they can only unite on the basis on which I and a number of
Deputies in this Dáil stand and that is the basis of an Irish Republic [applause].
MR. JOSEPH MACGUINNESS:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, is beag atá agamsa a rá ar an g-ceist
seo, go h-áirithe tareis an meid atá ráite cheana. As I am, I think, to be
the last speaker amongst the private members I hope to make a record. It seems
to me that we have talked at great length on the merits and demerits of the
Treaty; but I believe that a good deal of that talk and a good deal of the
arguments used would be more appropriate on the hustings later on. The Treaty
has not been examined, and has not been given fair play for the good things that
are in it; and because of the good things that are in it I am in favour of it. I
have, during the past three weeks, done what I could in a private way to see if,
in any way, the two sides could be brought together, if any arrangement could be
come to that would preserve the unity of this Dáil; and on the Committee of
which I was a member we had almost succeeded in doing that. People who are
against this Treaty, for some reason which I cannot understand, refused to allow
that document which we had drawn up to come before yesterday's Private Session
of the Dáil. Instead of that a bombshell was thrown in by the resignation of the
President; that is the President's own business; but I can say as a member of
that Committee that the people on this side literally went on their knees to
President de Valera to try and preserve the unity of the country.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
One of the objections I had to that Committee coming along was that they were
bringing forward a thing that was impossible; and they were trying to put me in
the same position as was attempted in America.
PROFESSOR HAYES:
That's a very unfair attack on the Committee.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I did not mean it for the Committee. What I mean is when that proposition---I
do not care whether it is published or not---when it was being put to me it
simply meant that we would let the Free State take existence and take root, and
then try to pull it up again. That is the substance of what it amounts to.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
I move the adjournment now; and both sides have agreed that there should not
be more than two speakers, exclusive of what we might, in courtesy, call the
principal speakers. Mr. MacGrath has agreed that there should he two speakers on
each side---private members---and after that the debate will be summed up or
wound up by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and by the Minister for Defence;
after which the division will be taken.
MR. COSGRAVE:
Who will speak last?
MR. S. T. O'KELLY:
The gentleman who winds up the debate---the Minister for Foreign Affairs. You
will remember that Committee---which, unfortunately, I was not able to reach
agreement as to finding a way out---that Committee had certain notes and it was
agreed here in the Dáil---as there was no agreement come to by the Committee,
and as certain of us insisted that these documents were not before the Dáil---it
was agreed that they should not be published. Now, it has reached our ears that
some of these notes have been given by somebody to the representatives of the
Press; Mr. MacGrath and I have agreed that you ask the Press to regard these
documents as confidential.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I should like to say now, as it might be my last opportunity to speak in this
House, that an attempt has been made by the other side to try to make out that I
am trying to split the country when they did it themselves---when the Minister
of Foreign Affairs brought over the document that meant splitting the
country---and then trying to put on me, as was done in America, to represent me
as trying to prevent unity in the country.
MR. MILROY:
That statement should be made in the presence of the Minister of Foreign
Affairs.
MR. MACGRATH:
I met last night a representative of the Press outside, and he told me he had
got a copy of the decisions arrived at by the small Committee.
MR. MELLOWES.
There were no decisions arrived at.
MR. MACGRATH:
I told him in no circumstances was he to publish them; I reported this matter
then to the chiefs on this side of the House and we took particular precaution
and sent two men to tell them under no circumstances were they to be published.
THE SPEAKER:
Well it is understood that these documents and notes of that Committee which
met in private are confidential.
MR. MACENTEE:
I presume that the publication of these documents will be regarded by this
House as a breach of privilege, and that if they will be published------
MR. HOGAN:
I have been listening for five minutes to the debate which went on on the
assumption that some of the Committee are trying underhand methods to get out
these things---that somebody is trying to get out documents which are
confidential. Is that a fair statement?
THE SPEAKER:
That statement has not been made.
MR. HOGAN:
I say on behalf of this side of the Committee that we are doing our best to
the contrary.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I never made any remarks of the kind. I would have kept silent on it were it
not for the remark of the Deputy for Longford that they went down on their knees
to get unity.
MR. MACGUINNESS:
To anybody who was present yesterday it will be clear that what I have said
is absolutely true.
The House adjourned at 1.40 p.m.
The Dáil Eireann Session was resumed at 4.10 p.m. on Saturday, 7th
January, 1922, with THE SPEAKER (DR.MACNEILL) in the Chair.
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
On a point of information, there is a notice of motion here by Doctor
MacNeill. Is that in order?
THE SPEAKER:
In order? Well, it is.
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
Should we not get twenty-four hours' notice?
THE SPEAKER:
It is not put before you yet. Very likely you will have forty eight hours'
notice of it.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Is that a vote of confidence by the people who are voting for Saorstát na
h-Eireann?
THE SPEAKER:
It can't be discussed now.
At the request of the Speaker the Secretary, Mr. Diarmuid O'Hegarty,
called the roll, when 122 members answered.
MR. DANIEL CORKERY:
I rise to vote against this Treaty; I believe if I voted for this Treaty I
would be voting against the independence of my country; I am not prepared to do
that. I believe, also, if we go into this British Empire we will go in there as
a prop to hold up a rotten Empire. We have heard a lot here of the alternative
to this Treaty---terrible and immediate war. Well, I have the honour of
representing Mid-Cork in this Dáil, and I think this guerilla warfare was
started in Mid.-Cork; I believe the first lorry was attacked in Mid.-Cork; the
people have been with us all the time up to the Truce and they never flinched
though they often heard the angry crack of the rifle and machine gun. The people
down there do not want war, but they are not half as much afraid of war as the
people from other counties who have not fired a shot yet. I am against this
Treaty.
MR. JOSEPH MACGUINNESS:
I am sorry to admit that I have lost; this was the shortest speech yet.
MR. P. J. WARD:
All through this long debate I have listened to the arguments on every side
and, us one who has risen for the first time to speak in this assembly, I wish
to state the reasons why I am, going to vote for the approval of the Treaty; not
because I hope to convert even any one Deputy here, but for the purpose of
explaining to my constituents the reason for my action. I am in the position of
one of the Deputies who spoke before lunch---Deputy O'Rourke; and I make no
apology whatever to any man for changing my opinions. I came here to this
assembly opposed to this Treaty, as I believed then that the Dáil, by a big
majority, would be opposed to it. It was not what we were fighting for; it was
not the end---the ultimate end---of what I had in view when I joined Sinn Fein;
but, as I have said, I have listened here without interrupting any man, and I
have formed my opinion from what I have heard, and from what I know are the
facts of the situation. I have not been impressed by anybody on either side; nor
has my opinion been formed for me; I have formed it myself. Now, I was opposed
to the Treaty because it was not the thing for which we were fighting. I have
heard a lot here about the Republic as if it were not actually existing; about
what we fought for; and I have heard from various members that this Treaty gave
us what we fought for. I don't agree with that. The election of 1918 may have
been for self-determination; but when I stood for the election I had to fight a
bitter one; I stood for the complete independence of this country---total
separation from England---and the placards are still on the walls down in Tír
Chonaill. It was not for self determination I fought the election, it was for
independence; and it will come to pass yet that the Irish people, if given a
free choice, will vote for independence. Now, the fight was begun then, or in
1916, if you will, it has gone on since; we have had only one thing before us
and that is the independence of the country---complete and total separation. The
Republic was set up here in 1919; but we had not independence although the
Republic was set up; we were fighting for it; and that fight is going on yet,
and will go on in the future. Now, this Treaty, was signed but how it was
signed, or by what means it was signed, is a matter with which I have nothing to
do. It is here before us; and we have not to judge of this Treaty by how or why
or the manner in which the signature was obtained; we have to deal with facts,
with the facts of the situation as they are at the present moment. I believed
when I came to this Dáil, and I believe it now, that if this Treaty had been
rejected practically unanimously by the Dáil we could have obtained unity; in
this country and have the people behind us, and we could have won our case. I
was opposed to the Treaty up to Christmas; I went down to my constituency, and I
may say here that I know my constituents perhaps as well as any other man in the
Dáil; I have travelled throughout the length and breadth of my constituency; and
I have been in practically every Sinn Fein Club during the two months before
this Treaty was signed---we have twenty-four of them. At Christmas every Sinn
Fein Club debated this Treaty amongst themselves; I went to the Comhairle
Ceanntair and I endeavoured there---because I wanted to save them from
themselves---to prevent them passing a resolution against acceptance and the
Sinn Fein Clubs, by seventeen to three, asked that this Treaty be ratified under
protest; and they stated that they could see no alternative. Now, that was the
voice of my constituency; it was the voice of the best elements in that
constituency. I will not speak of what the army thinks---I know that the army is
prepared to fight as before---for it is the civil population that decides this
question now; and of the civil population that is the voice, and the answer they
gave to me. Now, I told them there at that Comhairle Ceanntair meeting that I
did not hold that I was necessarily bound to vote for the ratification, because
I held that the mandate they gave me was to secure the independence of Ireland,
and that if I thought it better and wiser to vote against this Treaty I would do
so; but what I did pledge myself to was this: that I would vote at this meeting
of the Dáil for what I thought was the best way to obtain that independence of
Ireland for which we were fighting. Now, those people down the country, so far
as I can understand, can see no alternative but to take this Treaty as a
step---that their voice. I have not met one man who was in favour of the Treaty
but was in favour of it only as a step to the independence to which we were
making. I have met some that were against it, as I have told you, but the
majority were in favour of it as a step towards that independence because they
could see no other way out of it. As I said, I could have seen the other way out
when I came to this Dáil, if this Dáil had made up its mind to stand for it; but
now, when it has come to the final day for decision I have to make up my mind as
to the wisest course and the best way to obtain the independence of my country.
Now, we have heard here members talk an alternative to rejection; some have told
me privately that they based their decision on the belief that Lloyd George
would not go to war with the Irish nation; I do not know what grounds they have
for that view; I can only form my own opinion on English politics and one point
in that matter is this: I do not know that any change has come to England since
after that final note came before the Dáil for its approval---when the answer
was being sent back to England that we would not accept her terms we were told
that rejection of them would mean immediate war. I am not aware that any change
has taken place since in Lloyd George's mind so that the rejection of this offer
might not mean war, too, I do know that it has been said here that at that
Session the members of the Dáil, when they let the plenipotentiaries go to
England, compromised. I only asked one question on that occasion; I asked the
President what he meant by association with the British Commonwealth of nations
in his letter to Lloyd George, and I did not receive any direct reply. Even if
this Treaty were rejected, and the President's document accepted by Lloyd
George, I hold there will not be a lasting peace with England until we are
absolutely separated from England and the British Empire. Now, the probable
consequences of rejection have a different light in every Deputy's mind here, I
suppose; but in my mind the consequences, if the Treaty be rejected, are that
now Lloyd George is in the position of knowing that this country is absolutely
disunited, and that he is in the happy position of knowing that if he makes war
now---if he only threatens war on this county---that the people of this country
do not want to fight. I know that may not be as it appears to you; but I have
talked with the people, and I know their minds, and I know the view point they
have; they are war-worn; they have come through a strenuous fight and they want
peace. Now they see the prospect of peace, and they have not the smallest
scruple about it; they are willing to take that prospect; and they, at the same
time, are willing to take it as a stepping stone. I have no scruples about it
either; I am willing to take it as a stepping stone, and I do not care how Lloyd
George views what Deputies say here; so far as I am concerned, I will only vote
for this Treaty as a stepping stone to put this country into such a position at
some future time--- when the opportunity does come---that it will claim the
total separation that it is entitled to as a separate nation. Some members have
said that this Treaty should be put to the people of this country whichever way
it goes, and some even have said that, so far as their constituents are
concerned, their constituents would support them in its rejection. I do not know
about their constituents, so far as my own constituency is concerned, I have men
there who are opposed to the Treaty, and I am glad these men are there; perhaps
if I were in their place I would be opposed to this Treaty: but I am here with
the responsibility of either accepting this Treaty or rejecting it, with the
consequences to the country. What these consequences are is in the future; you
may see them in one light, I may see them in the other, but I will not take the
responsibility of rejecting this Treaty with the probable consequences to the
country, because one thing that may happen if this Treaty is rejected is this,
and I regard it as the worst: we have got certain things here from Lloyd George
and from the British Government in this Treaty which, if utilised to the full
force, will benefit this country; but if this Treaty is rejected that gives
Lloyd George an opportunity of backing down from these terms. Now, there are
things in it that are not palatable to us and not palatable to Lloyd George and
his associates, and they would be only too anxious and too glad to get rid of
all this; and then, when he has an opportunity of backing out from the Treaty he
has signed, he can put worse terms before the people of this country; and what I
say is this, that the people of this country, in the state in which they are in
at present, would take worse terms. You may like that or you may not. It is
because the people of this country are disunited, because they have expressed
their views on this Treaty, that I am voting for the Treaty. I do not want the
Treaty myself; I do not like it; but I know very well that you will not be able
to wring anything more out of Lloyd George with the state the people are in now
in the country; you will wring no more, and you will have to take less. The
other consequences are that you will go on in this state for years to come
before you get as far as you are at present. Now, I have said nothing personal
on one side or the other; I regard it as disastrous that there should have been
such a split in the Dáil; if there had been unanimity the situation could have
been saved. However, that is my own opinion. I make this explanation for the
purpose of explaining to my constituents why I vote in this way, because some of
them know I was opposed to it, and strongly opposed to it, when the Treaty came
out first; I do consider that this Treaty, if it ever comes into operation, will
give a chance to the people at some future time to obtain full independence.
Now, I won't detain you very much longer. I am a lawyer, but I do not think I
have employed any argument on this, or legal quibbles, of constitutional law;
and I think if the lawyers who did speak first were to speak now they would not
use these arguments either, for this matter is too big for chess-playing. We
have to swallow a bitter pill in this; one Deputy has said that to-day, and
nobody likes to swallow pills; but if we honestly think that it is for the best
interests of our country I think we are doing then what our conscience directs;
and in taking this step I consider I am doing what is best for my country. I
will vote for the Treaty under protest---not under protest in a sense, because I
have a free will---but I will vote for it only as a stepping stone, and when the
time comes I will be just as ready to take a part in the fight for independence
as I have been in the past. After all, we here are split, as far as I can see,
on which is the better way; that is the only thing that divides us. I told my
Comhairle Ceanntair that I would vote for what I thought was the best way to
gain absolute independence in the end; I consider that if I voted for rejection
I would be putting back the fight for independence for years and years to come:
whereas if I vote and swallow the pill and take the Treaty I consider that I
will bring that absolute independence nearer by years, how many years I do not
know. I do know, however, that the people of this country have not changed their
national aspirations, and I consider that their national aspirations will be
brought nearer by acceptance of the Treaty.
MR. JOSEPH O'DOHERTY:
When I read the terms of the Treaty signed in London everything that was in
me that I can call good revolted against those terms. Like my co-Deputy from Tír
Chonaill I came to this Session of Dáil Eireann with a mind that was open to
conviction against these prejudices that I had; no argument that has been
produced by those who are for this Treaty has made any influence on me; I see in
it the giving away of the whole case of Irish independence; I see in it, not the
coming nearer of the day when liberty will be throughout the land, but the going
farther away from that day; and I can't be a coward, and I would be a coward it
I said anything else, and I can't be on the side of those who are swallowing
pills and taking the backward step in the hope that; in the near future they
will find themselves in a better position than they are to-day. Each man here
has to interpret the mandate he got from his constituents. I come from a
constitueney in Tír Chonaill; when I went into that constituency I went into it
on the invitation of the man who was then Secretary of the Comhairle Ceanntair,
and who now sits in this Dáil, I at first refused the invitation to stand
because I had no desire to enter public life. When he proposed me, the Comhairle
Ceanntair, he said, was in a hole, a difficulty; and he proposed me and I
consented to stand for the Republic. I went into the constituency, and you, a
Chinn Chomhairle, accompanied me to the first meeting; and the Chairman of the
Comhairle Ceanntair took me behind the wagonette and he said he and the
Comhairle Ceanntair wanted to win the election in North Donegal and that the
election could be won if there was no mention of the Republic. `Very good,' said
I, `you are entitled to your opinions, but you can get another candidate'. I am
prepared to admit that the mandate I got from the constituents of North Donegal
was one of self-determination; and it is a terrible thing and a terrible trial
to have men in this Dáil interpretating that sacred principle here against the
interests of the people
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. O'DOHERTY:
I know that the people in North Donegal at the present moment would accept
this Treaty, and I think it is fair to the people of North Donegal that I should
make that known; but they are accepting it under duress and at the point of the
bayonet, and as a stop to terrible and immediate war. It is not peace they are
getting; it is not the liberty they are getting which they are told they are
getting, and they know it; and I will tell them honestly if I go to North
Donegal again what they are getting. I have my ideals of the people's will; and
at this stage of the proceedings I have no intention of saying anything bitter
about any man or body of men in this assembly, but I hold that the people's will
was flouted in London when that document was signed. I have sufficient data for
my mind to prove that the men who signed it knew that there would be a split in
the Cabinet, that there would be a split in the Dáil and a split in the country,
and, notwithstanding that they accepted the document which embodies in it no
clause or phrase which enables them to bring it before the people whose will
they have such regard for. I say if they have the people's will, the sacred will
of the Irish people, before their minds, they, at least, knowing the
consequences of their signatures, should and could have demanded that if the
Dáil turned it down the Irish people could have a final word. They have not done
that. I am not afraid to go into my constituency and fight the question Free
State versus the Irish Republic against any man, from a Cabinet Minister down;
and my mind is not small enough to deny that there is a big difference between
Document No 2 and the Treaty that was signed; it is not a question of tweedledum
and tweedledee, as I was told the night before this Session opened, and as I
have heard repeated often since then. It is the great question of Irish
sovereignty, and as long us I have a weapon to fight for that cause I shall not
be a party to voting away the sovereignty of this nation [applause].
DR. MACGINLEY:
The claim is made by men who are opposing this Treaty that we have a Republic
established in this country. The delegates, in signing this Treaty with England,
could not vote away that Republic if we had a Republic in this country in the
sense in which they mean to convey. I, as one plain man, want to know why were
delegates sent to London at all? Was it to arrange for the evacuation of the
English forces out of this country? Was it to arrange an alliance with England?
Why were they sent to England at all? To my mind the isolated Republic was let
down when the reply was sent to the letter of Lloyd George to President de
Valera on the 20th September, in which he stated that:
In spite of their (the British Government's) sincere desire for peace, and
in spite of the conciliatory tone of your last communication, they cannot
enter a conference upon the basis of this correspondence. Notwithstanding your
personal assurance to the contrary which they much appreciate, it might be
argued in future that the acceptance of a conference on this basis had
involved them in a recognition which no British Government can accord.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I ask that my reply be read now.
DR. MACGINLEY:
The reply, no matter how carefully read---in my opinion the sending over of
the delegates was an abandonment of the isolated Republic.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It would be very important to have my reply read.
MR. COLIVET:
We all read the reply and we know it.
DR. MACGINLEY:
I don't want to read the reply. The point for me is this: we have not a
Republic functioning in this country; we have a paper Republic, the people of
Donegal are sick of this paper Republic.
A DEPUTY:
And paper Republicans, too.
DR. MACGINLEY:
If we have a Republic, how is it that the British institutions are
functioning in this country as well? Every honest man in this Dáil must admit
that; and are not British troops in Ireland and British institutions functioning
in Ireland? We have got no national recognition from any country in the world,
despite Harry Boland's talk. Their sympathy was not enough; the sympathy of the
people in other countries, even in America, was not strong enough to compel them
to recognise our Government. That was the test of it.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
The people recognised it.
DR. MACGINLEY:
It might be said that our men might have got better terms in London. Perhaps
they might, but I can tell you the people of Donegal, anyhow, have the very
greatest confidence in the ability of Arthur Griffith and the sincerity of
Michael Collins; and they believe that, taking all the circumstances of the case
into account, they did what was best for Ireland. Now, President de Valera has
stated that rather than sign this Treaty he was prepared to see the Irish people
live in subjection until God would redeem them. I may as well say at once that
that is not my creed; that is a doctrine that never was preached in the history
of the world before: that a country, if it could not get absolutely what it was
out for, should fight to the extermination of its people. I, as one man, can't
take the responsibility for committing the men and women who sent me here to a
war of extermination which, I think, would result if this Treaty were rejected.
I have no qualms about the oath which I took on coming into this assembly; the
people sent me here to get absolute separation if I could---I am for absolute
separation if I could see a way out---but they sent me here to use my own free
will, and if I could not get absolute separation at the present time I was to
take something by which we could work out our own independence in the long run.
I think in voting for this Treaty I am voting according to the mandate which my
constituents gave me when sending me here. That is all I have to say.
MR. THOMAS HUNTER:
I rise to say a few words; perhaps if I did not do so some people might say
that I had not the courage to voice my opinions in this assembly. I vote against
this Treaty because I am a Republican; I was elected on the Republican ticket; I
came here and took the oath to the Republican Government and I am not going now
to destroy that Government. If the people do not agree with me they can get rid
of me at any time and in any way that they like. Finally, as a Republican, I
could never recognise the Government of George V. of England in either internal
or external association.
MR. SEAN HALES:
I was not going to speak one word here in this Public Session, I spoke what I
had to say in the Private Session; I don't retract one word from that, nor have
I one word to add to it. I have travelled down this stormy road since 1916 and
it is conviction that leads me to vote for this Treaty; I know my friends and
fellow soldiers on the other side are equally convinced; but I can feel no other
way out at the present moment. I did not want to make a speech; I was not going
to say a word in addition to what I had said in the Private Session, but lest,
as my comrade here says, that some one might say that I had not the courage of
my convictions, I now state publicly that I am going to vote for this Treaty.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a cháirde Gaedhal, mo sheana-chara, an Teachta ó
Chiarruidhe Thoir, dubhuirt se i d-tosach an meid cainte do dhin se anso go
raibh socair aige gan aon rud do rá a chuirfeadh fearg ar einne. Tá socair
agamsa anois gan aon rud do rá a chuirfeadh fearg ar einne; ach tá socair agam
an fhírinne d'innsint agus deir an sean-fhocal go m-bíonn an fhírinne searbh;
ach nuair innsim an fhírinne má chuireann sí fearg ar einne ní h-ormsa atá an
locht. Ní chun fearg do chur ar einne a neosfad-sa an fhírinne anois; ní mór dom
an fhírinne d'innsint mar is leir go bh-fuil daoine ann ná tuigeann an sceal.
Níl einne is mó go bh-fuil meas agam air imeasc na n-daoine atá i bh-fabhar an
Chonnartha so ná mo sheana-chara ó Oirthear Chiarruidhe agus mo sheana-chara ó
Chontae na Gaillimhe---Piaras Beaslaí agus Pádraig O Máille. Iarrfad ortha
eisteacht go cúramuch le n-a bh-fuil le rá agam. Dubhairt Pádraig gur mheas se
gur gheill an t-Aire um Ghnóthaí Dúiche agus mise do Shasana sarar chuaidh an
Toscaireacht anonn; is truagh ná fuil se anso; ach dubhairt se, agus dubhairt
daoine eile atá anso gur gheilleamair do Shasana ag cruinniú den Aireacht le
linn na cainte do bhí ar siúl idir sinne agus an cúigear do chuaidh anonn.
Deanfad-sa a dheimhniú nár dhineamair agus iarfad ar Art O Gríobhtha an meid a
bheidh ráite agamsa a bhreagnú má's feidir do e. Now, my friends, there are
some people who---from a few questions that they put, some of them have written
them out for me---do not, apparently, understand the whole position at present.
My friend, one of the Deputies from Dublin, Seán MacGarry, put a question the
other night---I would have answered him, but I thought it a pity to interrupt
the flow of his eloquence---he asked what would the Minister of Defence say to
an ex-member of the British Army about the oath when that member would be about
to join our forces---what he would say to him about the oath he had already
taken to England. The only oath that concerns me is the Oath of Allegiance to
the Dáil, and as long as every member of the army abides by the oath which he
must take when he enters it I am satisfied; if he does not abide by it, as long
as I am at the head of the army, I will have him dealt with in the proper way.
My friend, the Deputy for one of the Mayo constituencies, sent a question in
here which, in effect, is this: If the Minister of Defence had been made an
offer two months ago to have the British forces clear out of Ireland would he,
instead of accepting that offer, say: `No! I prefer to drive them out?' That, I
understand, was in effect the question. Certainly not, I would let them go out.
I do not want any fighting unless it is absolutely necessary; but if the
conditions were that our people must become British subjects I would say: `I am
not going to agree to that; clear out if you like'. A Deputy from Tipperary and
Waterford, one of my own colleagues, has sent me in a question which I will
read. `In view of the fact that many members and several people are biased in
favour of this proposed Treaty because the Minister of Finance is in favour of
ratification, and in view of the fact that many of these people, and many of
these members, are of opinion that Mr. Michael Collins is a leader of the army
and has fought many fights for the Republic, I think it is of great importance
that an authoritative statement be made (a) defining the real position Mr.
Michael Collins held in the army, (b) telling what fights he has taken an active
part in, provided this can be done without injustice to himself or danger to the
country; or can it be authoritatively stated that he ever fired a shot at any
enemy of Ireland?'
MR. MILROY:
Is that in order?
MR. M. COLLINS:
Carry on.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
That is a matter which I approach with great reluctance; and I may tell you I
would never have dealt with it, and this question would never have been asked,
but for the statement made by the Chairman of the Delegation when he was
speaking here; he referred to Mr. Michael Collins as the man who won the war.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. FIONAN LYNCH:
So he did.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
And the war is won and we are talking here. Very well, I will explain to you
how that is done.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I would like to rise to a point of order. Are we discussing the Treaty or are
we discussing the Minister of Finance? I think we are discussing the Treaty.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
The Minister of Finance does not like what I have got to say.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Anything that can be said about me, say it.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Tá go maith.
MR. BRENNAN:
If things are to be said about the Minister of Finance are we at liberty to
say anything we know about other people? I mean it is becoming personal.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I think Cathal Brugha ought to respect the chair.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Táim chun rud eigin le rá anois; tá san socair im' aigne agam, agus má
chuirtear isteach orm táim canncarach, crosta, agus ní aingeal in aon chor me.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Ni chuirfeadh einne e sin id' leith.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
It is necessary for me to define Michael Collins' position in the army. Now,
I have my department divided up into sections. I have the ordinary Ministerial
part of it; the civil part of it; the liaison part of it; and then the Head
Quarters Staff. The Head Quarters Staff is divided up again; at the head is the
Chief of Staff; and at the head of each section of the Head Quarters Staff is
another man working under the Chief of Staff. One of those heads of the
sub-sections is Mr. Michael Collins; and to use a word which he has on more than
one occasion used, and which he is fond of using, he is merely a subordinate in
the Department of Defence.
MR. DOLAN:
Has he been an efficient officer?
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Leig dom anois agus neosfad san duit. While the war was in progress I
could not praise too highly the work done by the Head Quarters' Staff. The Chief
of Staff and each of the leaders of the sub- sections---the members of the Head
Quarters' Staff---were the best men we could get for the positions; each of them
carried out efficiently, so far as I know, the work that was entrusted to him;
they worked conscientiously and patriotically for Ireland without seeking any
notoriety, with one exception; whether he is responsible or not for the
notoriety I am not going to say [cries of `Shame' and `Get on with the
Treaty']. There is little more for me to say. One member was specially
selected by the Press and the people to put him into a position which he never
held; he was made a romantic figure, a mystical character such as this person
certainly is not; the gentleman I refer to is Mr. Michael Collins
MR. DUGGAN:
The Irish people will judge that.
MR. MILROY:
Now we know things.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
Now we know the reason for the opposition to the Treaty [applause].
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
During the war, on one or two occasions, people came to me and asked me why I
did not stop this kind of thing; here was a man being described as
Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Army, and on another occasion he was
Field-Marshal-General, I believe. My reply was that Mr. Michael Collins could
not be responsible for what people said of him in the Press: and consequently I
never took any notice of these things, and would not have done so only for what
the Chairman of the Delegation said; because it seems to me, when the Chairman
of the Delegation made such a statement as that, the people who were whispering
fairy tales into the ears of the Press correspondents must have been at the
Chairman of the Delegation too---that Mr. Michael Collins had won the war.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
The Chairman of the Delegation thinks the war is won, so far as he could win
it, for England.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Bravo, Cathal, bravo.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Go maith. Now, so much for what the Chairman of the Delegation said
about Mr. Michael Collins; but when Mr. Michael Collins was speaking here in
support of the resolution in favour of the Treaty, he told us that during the
war he compelled respect and also during the negotiations.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Well the modesty of that is such that I will not spoil it by comment; but it
is just a continuance of the other fable. He also referred to some mysterious
incidents that he says the people were excommunicated for, and he said he was
responsible for that; a lot of people applauded it; and I wonder what those
people who applauded thought they were applauding. I know of only two instances
for which people during the war were excommunicated; one was an ambush, it was a
fair ambush, and in charity to Mr. Michael Collins I will not repeat here what a
participant in the ambush said about Mr. Collins. His remark about his being
responsible for it---if it was to that he referred---suffice it to say---
MR. COLIVET:
I respectfully suggest that the Minister for Defence------
MR. SEAN MACGARRY:
Too late. Let him carry on now.
MR. BRENNAN:
The damage has been done.
MR. M. COLLINS:
No damage is done.
DR. MACCARTAN:
The damage is done.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
In any case you all understand now------
MR. J. MACGRATH:
We don't.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Well, what exactly am I going to say to you? [Laughter]. That
Mr. Michael Collins does not occupy that position in the army that newspaper men
said he occupied.
MR. MACGRATH:
I never thought he did.
MR. SEAN MACGARRY:
I think we have enough.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
I must protest against the Minister of Defence being interrupted. He is
making a good speech for the Treaty [applause].
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Deimhneochad e sin ar ball. Now, I finish with that, so far as Michael
Collins is concerned. Now, in the article which appeared a few days ago in the
Freeman's Journal, the one in which a most dastardly attack was
made on our President and on Deputy Childers, Mr. Michael Collins was also
referred to: and it was stated that when our President was arrested and released
there was a reward of ten thousand pounds offered by the British Government for
the corpse of Michael Collins.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
I wonder how the Freeman's Journal got that information?
MR. GRIFFITH:
Public notoriety.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Because it is not in accordance with the tale that was being circulated at
the time by a very intimate friend of Mr. Michael Collins. He told it to me, and
I asked him where he got it, and he said he got it from Mr. Michael Collins
himself, and he told him that it was forty thousand pounds.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
He was worth it.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Now, Deputy Childers was attacked in the same article, and you know the way
he was attacked. It is only fair for me to say now that I know, of my own
personal knowledge, that Deputy Childers, amongst other work that he did for
Ireland, has done as much as most men, and more than nearly all men who are
working for Ireland, to arm the people of Ireland. I will turn now to what was
said---some of the nice things that the Deputy for Tyrone, Seán Milroy,
said---about the Minister for Defence; he said, amongst other things, that the
Minister for Defence did not want peace. Now, I don't like to refer to anything
that was said by a member of this House as being nonsense; but I ask you this:
does any man contemplate with equanimity a renewal of the conditions in this
country in which his wife will be dragged in the dead of the night out of her
house, hustled along through the garden, and put into a motor lorry, and kept
there in order that she will not be present while her husband is being murdered
if the English cut-throats can get him? Does any man look forward with pleasure
to having his little children frightened out of their lives by the spectacle of
armed men rushing in and running through the house, some of them breaking their
way down through the ceilings? But apparently the Minister of Defence does not
want peace, but prefers that kind of thing. I am against this resolution because
I know this Treaty can't achieve peace. You know how those who are opposed to
it, how keenly they feel the thing, and how much they are against it; but some
of the best men on the other side, the men who count, some of the fighting men,
have said that the reason that they are in favour of it is that they will be
able to get in arms. Deputy J. J. Walsh told us the other day---and he is in
favour of this Treaty---that if he got a rifle and ammunition each time he would
take this oath that he would keep on taking it.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Hear, hear; I would.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
And what is Deputy J. J. Walsh going to do with the rifle?
MR. J. J. WALSH:
What I did before. I said I would take indefinite oaths for indefinite rifles
and ammunition. I stand over what I said.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Yes; and this gentleman is in favour of the Treaty. Now, we are told that
this Treaty, if passed, is going to achieve peace. Well, when people who are in
favour of the Treaty are going to get rifles, and take oaths to get rifles, and
going to make use of them, we will say that we have little to say against this
Treaty but to answer where will the peace come in? And it is because I know that
you are not going to have peace that I am against the Treaty. Now, another
statement made by this gentleman, the Deputy from Tyrone; he said he was taking
off the gloves; he said that he had let the cat out of the bag when he made
reference to the oath. Now, it is in keeping with some of the tactics referred
to by our President yesterday that this use should be made of an alleged oath, a
second oath. Mr. Deputy Milroy could only have heard about the discussion on
that oath from some member of the Cabinet, because there was absolutely no note
taken of it, because there was no decision come to on oath. Our friends on the
opposite side now know that since the start of these negotiations on all vital
matters we found it necessary to have unanimity in the Cabinet; and when we
found we could not have unanimity the particular matter was dropped. Now, this
oath question came up before us and it was clear from what was said that we
could not have unanimity on it. Therefore, so far as the Cabinet was concerned,
it was dropped; and the President, so far as my recollection went, said
something to the effect that, if nothing else was between us, he would be in
favour of taking a certain oath and he spoke out some words. However, that was
only his own personal opinion; so far as the Cabinet were concerned there could
not be unanimity; and it was dropped. The ungloved orator from Tyrone said he
let the eat out of the bag when he made reference to the oath.
MR. MILROY:
The oath is on the Cabinet minutes.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
There are no records.
MR. MILROY:
There is such an oath on the Cabinet records.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
There was no such oath agreed to by the Cabinet; and anybody who knows
anything about it knows that. This Deputy from Tyrone made another very personal
remark to which I will not refer here as it is beneath contempt; consequently I
will take no further notice of it. I will now turn to the Deputy from Offaly, he
told us that the Republic was betrayed, he said it was betrayed when we decided
to send delegates to England; nevertheless this delegate was present at the
meeting of the Dáil at which this decision was come to and he sat silently by
and he allowed us to betray the Republic. Of course you all know, everybody with
the exception of this Deputy, that by sending delegates across to England. The
Republic was not betrayed. This Deputy also said that the Republic was dead.
Well, I tell him that if it depended upon faint hearts to keep it alive it would
have died long ago, and if it depended upon faint hearts to bring it into
existence it would never have been born. He tells us he will not vote for it or
against it; that's a nice position for a man who has taken upon himself a
certain responsibility---that's a nice position for him to adopt. Now, this
Deputy and another Deputy, the Assistant Minister for Local Government, both
took it upon themselves to speak for the army---as to the condition it was in
and what would happen. They are both men of military age, and when they make a
closer acquaintanceship with the army by joining its ranks, and putting
themselves into the position of fighting, they may earn the respect of military
men; and if their merits ever raise them to the position in which they would be
entitled to speak for the army, I hope they will have learned sufficient sense
then to keep silent about army matters when it is not necessary to refer to
them. We come now to the jocular gentleman who represents Kilkenny, were I in
the vein I might follow his jokes. However, I am not in that mood; but I suggest
to him that this is too serious a matter to be dealt with by flippancy and
levity. Now, the Deputy for South Kerry, Fionán O Loingsigh, stated here that he
spoke for the people of South Kerry.
MR. FIONAN LYNCH:
And I still maintain it.
MR. BRUGHA:
There was an interjection from the body of the House telling him `No!' and he
answered: `Yes, a minority of one'. I had in my pocket at the time, only I did
not wish to interrupt him---just the same as on the contrary he has again now
tried to interrupt me---I had in my pocket---
MR. FIONAN LYNCH:
If you use personalities you will be interrupted.
MR. BRUGHA:
I had in my pocket a document signed by people who are entitled to speak for
the young men, the fighting men, the men who count and who are ready to make
sacrifices in his constituency, and that is the Brigade Commandant in his
area---the two Brigade Commandants that cover the area in which his constituency
is in. In this they say very respectfully to the Government that they are
absolutely against the Treaty. Since Deputy Lynch has made that statement he has
been repudiated in the papers.
MR. LYNCH:
Oh!
MR. BRUGHA:
I will come now to the distinguished Chairman of the Delegation, and I don't
refer to him sarcastically as the distinguished Chairman of the Delegation, for
I, as much as anyone in this House, appreciate the political sagacity and
patriotism of the Chairman of the Delegation, and I considered he was an
acquisition, too, when those who were called the physical force movement joined
with him four years ago. I considered it was an acquisition to have such a man
with us. Now, he has said he has been a student of Thomas Davis all his life. So
was I but I take different lessons from the teaching of Davis, and I must remind
him that when Davis wrote it was for an Ireland enslaved and demoralised after
forty years of the Union, but, anyway, those of you who saw the first edition of
the new paper, the Republic of Ireland, saw the quotation in it
from Davis in which he says: `in a just cause a nation is justified in going to
war'. Now, I will defy the Chairman of the Delegation to point out to me in any
readings of Thomas Davis where he advocated the sacrifice of principle in favour
of expediency. In the Secret Session, in some interchanges that there were
between Arthur Griffith and myself, he asked me to repeat at the Public Session
the answer that I gave to him at a Cabinet meeting that was held on the Saturday
before the plenipotentiaries went away to England for the last time: and he told
us at that Cabinet meeting that he would not break on the Crown. There were some
rather heated passages between us and he put the question to me: Could I, or
could we, could I with the army which we had here in Ireland, drive the English
Forces out---I am not exactly certain if he added something about the navy. I
answered that I could not undertake to do anything of the kind; I did not think
it was necessary; and I do not think it is necessary for us to be able to beat
all the resources in the shape of an army that England can put into Ireland in
order to maintain our independence. We maintained it when we had not an army at
all, it is not necessary. Now, Mr. Griffith has referred to the difference
between this Treaty of his and the alternative that we have as being only a
quibble; and yet the English Government is going to make war, as they say they
will, for a quibble. The difference is, to me, the difference that there is
between a draught of water and a draught of poison. If I were to accept this
Treaty and if I did not do my best to have it defeated I would, in my view, be
committing national suicide; I would be breaking the national tradition that has
been handed down to us through the centuries. We would be doing for the first
time a thing that no generation ever thought of doing before---wilfully,
voluntarily admitting ourselves to be British subjects, and taking the oath of
allegiance voluntarily to the English King. Now, I hope it is admitted by
everybody in favour of this Treaty that that oath constitutes an Oath of
Allegiance to the English King [`No! no!']. Well, then, it is not
admitted [`No! no!']. Well, I will prove that it is; it has been
proved before and I thought that was sufficient.
MR. DUGGAN:
It was not proved.
MR. BRUGHA:
You swear to bear true allegiance to the constitution of the Free State of
Ireland as by law established; that is, in itself, if there was not a word about
the King to follow, and there is---that, in itself, would be an Oath of
Allegiance to the English King, because he would be the head of that
Constitution.Agus tá se sin maith a dhóthain. Now, the third
objectionable feature, the fundamental thing, even if there was no question of
becoming British subjects and taking the Oath of Allegiance, this third
objection would be so fundamental that I say it would be equivalent to my taking
poison if I accepted it: that was allowing the British to say to us, `We will
not allow you to carry out your coastal defence, you will not have permission to
do so until we are satisfied, we must first agree to it'. That is putting us in
a humiliating position. Now, no matter what happens we would not agree to the
Treaty in which these three fundamentals are included. There has been a body of
opinion in this country, as I had occasion to write a week ago in Irish, that
has always repudiated English authority in this country. Each generation had
that body of opinion in it, and whenever they found themselves strong enough
they went out in insurrection against England and English authority here. The
last one, as you know, was in 1916 when we established our Republic; it was
ratified in January, 1919, and we have carried on our functions with a de
jure and de facto Government since; and here, when we are in so
strong a position and we so strong and England so weak and with so many enemies
as she has now more than ever, we are asked to do such a thing as this. Why, if
instead of being so strong, our last cartridge had been fired, our last shilling
had been spent, and our last man were lying on the ground and his enemies
howling round him and their bayonets raised, ready to plunge them into his body,
that man should say---true to the traditions handed down---if they said to him:
`Now, will you come into our Empire?'---he should say, and he would say: `No! I
will not'. That is the spirit that has lasted all through the centuries, and you
people in favour of the Treaty know that the British Government and the British
Empire will have gone down before that spirit dies out in Ireland. Now, how are
we going to reconcile an agreement between the people who have that spirit in
them and those who are in favour of the Treaty. We have in this alternative of
ours the means of doing this. Now, seeing that some people are in doubt as to
what our alternative is, especially one man for whom I have great
respect---though, unfortunately, he made an error in a statement he made in his
speech---who said our alternative had not been treated fairly and that he did
not understand it---that is Deputy Mulcahy---I presume that those in favour of
the Treaty have no objection to my explaining briefly what our alternative
means. We are prepared to enter into an agreement, an association with the
British Commonwealth of Nations as it is generally called, on the same or
similar lines as that on which one business firm enters into combination with
another or several others. The thing is not uncommon now; such combinations are
made for certain specific purposes; the combination appoints a managing-director
to carry out the business of the firm but it is only for a specific purpose;
each firm remains independent except for this one particular business. Say the
purpose would be to do foreign trade; each firm would carry on, independently,
its own internal trade; and the combination would, under this managing-director,
carry out its purpose for foreign trade; each firm would give a stipend to the
managing director. Now, by entering into combination no firm sacrifices its
independence as a firm. We are prepared, on the same terms, to enter into an
association with the British Commonwealth of Nations, and for the purposes of
that combination we are prepared to recognise the English Government as the head
of the combination [cries of `Oh!'].
MR. GRIFFITH:
A managing-director.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Now, by entering into such arrangements we are not going into the British
Empire; neither do we take any oath whatsoever; and there will be no
representative of the British Crown in the shape of a Governor-General in
Ireland. We are entering into that arrangement, into this association as
external associates. Now, what does that mean?
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. BRUGHA:
Tá go maith, ní thuigean tú anois e do reir dheallramh.
Míneochad duit e. Now, instead of becoming British subjects or British
citizens we will have reciprocal citizenship, that is, an Irish citizen or
British subject will have the support of this group in any part of the world
where he may find himself where he will require help. He will have the power of
the new group behind him.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Common citizenship.
MR. BRUGHA:
Reciprocal citizenship. Apparently the Chairman of the Delegation does not
understand the difference between common citizenship and reciprocal citizenship.
Common citizenship will mean that we are British subjects, and reciprocal
citizenship will mean that we will remain Irish Republicans. There is no letting
down the Irish Republic there, and I defy the Chairman of the Delegation, when
he is speaking after me, or anybody else after him, on any platform in Ireland,
to prove that we have deviated by one hair's breadth from the Republican
position by making such a proposal. Now one of the greatest fears that the
British Government have from the Irish people is, that at any time they would be
in a position, were England at war, to interfere with the food supplies of the
population of Great Britain; they must safeguard the food supplies of forty
millions of people; we appreciate that fear, and we realise how necessary it is
for them to safeguard the food supplies of the English people. Consequently, we
are prepared to agree not to build submarines unless in agreement with the
British Government; the only use that submarines would be to us would be to
attack English transports or food ships if England were at war; they would not
be of very much use to us. Now, we are willing to give England that safeguard
that we will not attack her food ships, and that we will not put ourselves in
the position to do so. We are prepared to give her certain facilities in our
ports for a period of five years; and at that time, or any other time, that we
here consider that we are in a position to carry out our own coastal defence,
then we take it over; but for five years we give her certain facilities in our
ports. Those are fundamentals. There are other details which appear in our
proposals, but it is not necessary for me now to go into them. The things that
really matter are the fundamentals; upon these fundamentals we can make a free
peace with England. Now, why can we not be unanimous in this matter. So far as I
can see, at the start when this document was signed there was only one man
really in favour of it and that was the Chairman of the Delegation; there might
have been a couple of others favouring it, but the man who really wanted it was
the Chairman. Our President yesterday narrated to you a little modern history; I
will supplement what he said; and I might say that when he spoke before---early
in this Session---before Christmas, he stated that if Arthur Griffith had told
the electors of East Cavan that he was not going to stand by the principles that
were enunciated by the speakers at that election, that he would not have been
elected. I tell Mr. Griffith that only for a certain arrangement that he made in
1917, that he would not be now in public life any more than he was in 1916. I
have here the Sinn Fein Constitution as passed by the Ard-Fheis held in October,
1917; there is a clause in this resolution which took us three nights to get
passed---to get Mr. Griffith to agree to it---this is the Clause: `Sinn Fein
aims at securing the international recognition of Ireland as an independent
Irish Republic'. Mr. Griffith objected to that, but eventually we came to an
agreement by adding this: `Having achieved that status the Irish people may by
referendum freely choose their own form of Government'. These are the vital
clauses in the Constitution of the Sinn Fein movement. In that Constitution we
forged the weapon by which we produced the Dáil. If Mr. Griffith had not agreed
to that, and it took him three nights before he would agree, I say he would not
be in public life to-day any more than he was before 1916. Mr. Griffith, in
1916, was in prison for some time; he was released in 1917, we came together
some months before that Ard-Fheis---and Mr. Griffith himself, now this is some
modern history, will correct me if I make a mistake---Count Plunkett held a
conference in 1917 and, as a result of that Conference, there was a Committee
brought into being to form a new political party; I was asked to go on that
Committee; I had never been in politics before; the work that I had done, so far
as I was able to do work for Ireland, was, in addition to my little efforts to
revive the language, preparing for Easter Week for years before. Now, I
consented to go into this, to go on that Committee that had been selected, with
Mr. Griffith. I put the question to him `Suppose the League of Nations agrees
that Ireland should be independent, and that England should say I will not give
her her independence, would you then', said I to Mr. Griffith, `would you then
be against our going out and fighting?' And he said: `No! I will not'. `Very
well, then, we will', said I, `go into it, and the fighting men will go into it,
and the men who are prepared to make sacrifices will go into it, too'. If he did
not give that undertaking, we would have to form Republican Clubs; he gave the
undertaking, and then agreed to that Constitution. Now, instead of abiding by
that, Mr. Griffith has come back from England with this Treaty, instead of
abiding by this which he undertook---we see that instead of the Republic he
brings back that Treaty. He tells us now the war is won. The men who are
prepared to make sacrifices would never have come into this movement; they would
have formed a party of their own. Mr. Griffith's policy was a well-thought out
policy but it would not work; we know what little progress it made until 1916;
but for these men who have been with us in every generation that policy would
never have succeeded. It was the fact of these men working with their own ideals
and on that policy, it was only on that fact that we were able to bring the Dáil
into existence, and function as a Government; though not recognised it is, de
facto and de jure, the Government; it is that up to now and, please
God, it will remain so. Now, why can we not regain the position that we held
prior to the signing of the Treaty? It can be done if Mr. Griffith, for one,
will consent to it---I may tell you that. A lot of you Teachtaí, already know
that I was against ever sending men across to England, not that I considered
that we were giving the Republic away by doing so, but that I knew the terrible
influences that would be brought to bear upon them there---influences that I
thought might be too much for them--- but I hoped, especially when there were
certain instructions drawn up, that the influences would not be too strong to
get the better of them, and that they would abide by those instructions that
were drawn up for them and to which they consented before they went. I, at any
rate, was against these negotiations because I considered they were part of a
manoeuvre on the part of Lloyd George to get the better of us; Mr. Lloyd George,
in the autumn of 1920, told us at Carnarvon, and told the world, that he had
murder by the throat in Ireland; and he told us what he was going to do with us.
He had no sooner made that declaration than his Black-and-Tanism and militarism
started here in the country; it was not long after when he had Balbriggan
sacked, the people taken out of their houses and murdered, the revered pastor of
that parish in a public statement said that the two men who were murdered
presented the appearance of people who had been done to death by wild animals
instead of human beings. This campaign of terrorism went on round the country;
there is no necessity for me to go into details; one of the worst---worse even
than Balbriggan---was the massacre at Kerry Pike, outside Cork, in which six men
who had surrendered were done to death; during the inquest the bodies of some of
them had to be kept covered so that the way that they were mutilated would not
be exhibited; these men were under torture before they were killed for two or
three hours. In spite of all that terrorism Lloyd George could not beat the
Irish nation, and when he found he could not do so, he resorted to wiles and
manoeuvres; he came along with the suggestion of negotiations. Now, we agreed to
send our delegates. As I have said, and as has been said already here on a few
occasions, certain instructions were drawn up to which they agreed, one of which
was that they were not to come to any decision without notifying us here---the
remainder of the Cabinet at home here---and waiting for the answer from us;
another was that they were not to sign any Treaty without first submitting it to
us. You know how these instructions have been carried out. I may tell you that
when the negotiations were about a month in progress some of us became very
suspicious when we saw what was going on; we found that the five men, the five
delegates, the team of five that we had selected, was being divided up; that two
members of it, and two only, were being brought into what they call a
sub-plenary conference. For more than a month before the signing of this Treaty
there was, I think, something between fifteen and twenty sub-conferences. Our
team of five men was divided up and only two consulted when important things the
vital things were discussed, there was not even a secretary allowed to be
present. Some of us became suspicious; I did; I became very suspicious and I
drew attention to this. I was told that there were certain instructions given to
them, and surely there was no use in causing friction by supposing that they
would not abide by those instructions; consequently I was satisfied. Now they
came back on that fateful Saturday. When Mr. Griffith told us that he would not
break on the Crown I made what he might consider some rather heated remarks; I
asked how it was that our team of five had been divided up? Who was responsible
for it? His answer was---the British Government, the British Government had
divided up our team. I asked him, who was it that selected the two particular
members---the two particular members were Mr. Griffith himself and Mr. Michael
Collins---who was it that selected them? What was his answer? The British
Government. I then made an answer which he insisted should be put down on the
minutes, and I said: `Yes, the British Government selected their men'. In saying
that I did not mean to cast any reflection on the honour of those men; but
before these men were selected at all I told them---at the Cabinet meeting at
which their names were suggested to be put before the Dáil---I told them what I
thought of their ideals of freedom from the utterances that I had heard from
them; and I said at this Cabinet meeting on that fateful Saturday: `Yes, they
selected their men'. My meaning was this: because they knew they were the two
weakest men we had on the team; and Lloyd George and his friends pretty soon
discovered that, and that is how they came to select them out of the five; and
they allowed the British Government to divide them up and select their own men
to carry on an important Conference with them. They had the thing, apparently,
settled with these men and they knew what they would agree to: and until the
last hour they did not call in the other two men when they intimidated---on the
admission of the other two---the other two men into it. As far as the third man
is concerned I will make no reference to him whatsoever; I prefer not---charity
above all things. In any case you see the result---you see the result of this
manoeuvre. Negotiations were suggested after terrorism had failed, they find out
who are the weakest and they select them to carry on important negotiations; and
they intimidate the other two, and then there is this Treaty. No wonder there
was jubilation in London when it was signed, and congratulations from the
English King to Lloyd George. This was the end of the fight, and Ireland, at
least so far as these men could help it, anyway, had consented to go into the
British Empire. Now, I hope that you members of the Dáil will see through this
manoeuvre of Lloyd George, and that you will not consent to be a party to it. I
put it up now to the five men, the five members of this Delegation, that they
are not to vote at all for this Treaty. They gave a certain undertaking to Lloyd
George and his friends when they signed that they would recommend: that
undertaking went no further, and in honour they need not go any further; and
this is such a vital matter that I think it should not be necessary for them to
go out of their way by voting for it. I put it up to them that they should leave
it to the Dáil--- that they should not vote for it, and I put it up to you,
members of the Dáil that you ought not to allow yourselves to fall into the trap
that was laid for Ireland by Lloyd George, and that you should not fall into it.
Finally, I put it up to Mr. Arthur Griffith to fall in with this course; and I
tell Mr. Arthur Griffith that when in 1917, at the Ard-Fheis, he stepped down in
favour of Eamonn de Valera as President of the Sinn Fein Organisation of which
he had been head since its inception---certainly for years--- I tell Mr.
Griffith that when he did that, he earned the respect of men to whom his name,
prior to that, was no more than the name of any other man. However, when he did
that, and since that, these men have respect for Arthur Griffith second only to
Eamon de Valera. If Arthur Griffith will fall in with this suggestion now tell
him---and I need not take upon myself to be a prophet to foretell it---I tell
him if he does this his name will live for ever in Ireland [applause].
MR. M. COLLINS:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I crave your leave to make just one personal
reference. It has been suggested by the Minister for Defence that I, in my
statement, said I was responsible for a certain ambush. I did not say that, sir,
I said I took responsibility for a certain incident, I took that responsibility
as a member of the Government.
The House adjourned for tea at 6.25 p.m., and resumed at 7.15 p.m.,
with the SPEAKER (DR. MACNEILL) in the Chair.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
With your permission I wish to raise one small point; the front public bench
was reserved for the members of the Standing Committee of Sinn Fein; a member of
the Standing Committee who came in and took his seat there a while ago was
ejected to make room for a person who is not a member of the Standing Committee;
and the member, the gentleman who was ejected from his seat, has left his seat
under protest. I think the seat should be vacated and he should be invited in.
THE SPEAKER:
Give instructions to the officer in charge of the door.
MR. STACK:
Call in Mr. Little.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
Immediately following my speech to-day my colleague, Mr. MacGrath, thought
fit to bring a personal conversation into the debate; and in order to clear my
record I will take this opportunity to state that I was the servant of this
Government, representing it in America, and when I was recalled to Ireland on
the peace discussion I was informed by the President that the very minimum would
be external association. I was instructed to go back to America with this
definite objective in view; and I made whatever provision was possible, so that
in the event of Ireland's minimum being accepted we would have no trouble from
our friends in America. Now, with that in view, on the Tuesday night on which
the Treaty was signed in London I stepped off the train at Washington, and when
I read that the Treaty had been signed I understood that the men who went to
negotiate for Ireland had followed out the instructions of their Cabinet, and
that the minimum had been achieved. I thereupon issued a statement in which I
said that Ireland had come within the comity of nations, On the following
morning, Wednesday morning, the Treaty appeared in the American Press; and when
I read the terms of the Treaty I was opposed to it. On the following Thursday
night Mr. Stephen O'Mara, the fiscal agent to this Government, and myself
attended a meeting in Washington where invitations had been sent out to wealthy
Americans inviting them to subscribe to a million dollar Bond Drive---or the
Republic; and the men turned up, and we cancelled the Bond Drive, and they
turned the meeting into a meeting of rejoicings. Senators were present and they
sang hallelujahs: and I, myself, spoke against that Treaty. On the following
morning my speech was reported in the Manchester Guardian because
their representative in America was among the invited guests; that was on record
five hours before President de Valera came out against the Treaty. Apart from
the propriety of introducing a private conversation I find it necessary to make
a personal explanation; I certainly hope we won't reproduce any more private
conversations.
MR. M. COLLINS:
You cannot stand them, Harry, you stood for the Treaty first. [`Order,
order'.]
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
No! and you know it, Michael [laughter].
MR. ARTHUR GRIFFITH:
I cannot accept the invitation of the Minister of Defence to dishonour my
signature and become immortalised in Irish history. I have signed this Treaty;
and the man or nation that dishonours its signature is dishonoured for ever; no
man who signed that Treaty can dishonour his signature without dishonouring
himself and the nation [applause]. As to what the Minister of
Defence said about myself I have nothing to say; it may be that I was unknown in
public life before 1916; and it may be that I am only known in public life since
through the Minister of Defence. That is not a matter I am interested in. There
is one thing I want to say; a suggestion was made that my colleagues and myself
are going to be immortalised if I take a certain course---to dishonour my
signature and the nation. It was said that I was a weak man in the negotiations
in London, and that I and that my colleague and friend, Michael Collins, held
back our conversations with the English Ministers and gave something away. We
were asked why we went to see these Ministers without the full body of the
plenipotentiaries? For the same reason that President de Valera met Lloyd George
alone when he went to London; and because there are certain things that are
better discussed by two or three men than by eighteen men; and we both agreed on
that. One other reference will I make to what the Minister of Defence has said;
he spoke of Michael Collins, he referred to what I said about Michael
Collins---that he was the man who won the war. I said it, and I say it again; he
was the man that made the situation; he was the man, and nobody knows better
than I do how, during a year and a half he worked from six in the morning until
two next morning. He was the man whose matchless energy, whose indomitable will
carried Ireland through the terrible crisis [applause]; and though
I have not now, and never had, an ambition about either political affairs or
history, if my name is to go down in history I want it associated with the name
of Michael Collins [applause]. Michael Collins was the man who
fought the Black-and-Tan terror for twelve months, until England was forced to
offer terms [cheers]. That is all I have to say on that subject.
Now, we have been in London as plenipotentiaries, and when we were going across
it was stated to us that there might be scapegoats, and I said I was prepared to
be a scapegoat if one per cent. more could be got for the Irish nation. We came
back. We thought, at all events, we had done something that was very good for
the Irish nation. We were indicted here from the day we came back; we were told
that we let down the Republic; and the Irish people were led to believe that we
had gone there with a mandate to get a Republic and nothing but a Republic, and
that we had violated that mandate. Sir, before I went to London I said at a
Cabinet meeting---when every member of the Cabinet was there---that: `If I go to
London I can't get a Republic: I will try for a Republic, but I can't bring it
back'. And we tried for a Republic, though I knew we could not get it. One
Deputy here said yesterday that we were guilty of treason against the Republic.
Well, if we were guilty of treason against the Republic let us be tried for
treason. I, at all events, have nothing on my conscience; what I did, I did for
the best interests of Ireland; I believed I was doing right; I believe now I did
right, and I would do the same thing again [cheers]. Now, we have
been told, and we were told after we came back, that we were in violent conflict
with what the Irish people had expressed in the three elections; very well. The
documents and letters that passed between our President and the Premier of
England are all before the public; in which one of them was a demand made for
the recognition of the Irish Republic as a condition before we went to London?
If we were to get a Republic, and nothing but a Republic, the thing could have
been dismissed in six lines by writing to the Premier of England and telling him
that we would meet him on the condition that he recognised the Republic. We were
sent to make some compromise, bargain or arrangement; we made an arrangement;
the arrangement we made is not satisfactory to many people. Let them criticise
on that point but do not let them say that we were sent to get one thing and
that we got something else. We got a different type of arrangement from that
which many wished; but when they charge us or insinuate that we went there with
a mandate to demand a Republic, and nothing but a Republic, then they are
maligning us; if we got that mandate we would have finished up in five minutes
in Downing Street. Now, after the General Election, at a meeting of the Dáil in
August last, President de Valera made a speech which covered the ground on which
we went there; he said, speaking on the General Election: `I don't take it that
the answer was for a form of Republican Government as such, because we are not
Republican doctrinaires as such; but it was for Irish freedom and Irish
independence'. [Hear, hear]. We went there to London, not us
Republican doctrinaires, but looking for the substance of freedom and
independence. If you think what we brought back is not the substance of
independence that is a legitimate ground for attack upon us, but to attack us on
the ground that we went there to get a Republic is to attack us on false and
lying grounds, and some of those who criticise on that ground know perfectly
well the conditions under which we went. `We are ready,' said President de
Valera---`We are ready,' he said---`to leave the whole question between Ireland
and England to external arbitration'. What did that mean? Need I comment on it?
Is that saying you will have a Republic and nothing but a Republic? Is not that
America or any other country might decide between us whether we would have a
Republic or not?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
By justice.
MR. GRIFFITH:
In another letter he said: `We have no conditions to impose, no claim to
advance but one---that we are to be free from aggression'. I hold that what we
brought back from England frees us from aggression. It gives us the power to
mould our own life, and it frees us from the only permanent form of aggression
we can have---the occupation of Ireland by the army of another country. I have
listened here for days to discussions on the oath. If you are going to have a
form of association with the British Empire, call it what you will, you must
have an oath; and such an oath was suggested and put before us and not rejected,
and put before the plenipotentiaries when going back to London. The difference
between these two oaths is the difference in the terms. I am not going to speak
in terms of theology or terms of law about them; we have had quite a
considerable discussion on that point; but what I am going to speak about is
this: that in this assembly there are men who have taken oath after oath to the
King of England; and I noticed that these men applauded loudly when insulting or
slighting references were made to the young soldiers here on account of the
oath. If a man considers an oath such a momentous thing, what did these
gentlemen who took the oath to the King of England---what; I ask, has become of
their oath at the present time? I have an arrangement of oaths here, seven
different oaths taken by different members of this assembly to the King of
England. These were the gentlemen who unsheathed their swords against the
liberties of the people---these gentlemen sat on English benches---all of whom
are going to vote against this Treaty because they will not take the oath. Ah!
this hypocrisy that is going to involve the lives of gallant and brave men is
damnable---the hypocrisy of the men who hung their flags out when the King of
England came to Ireland, the men who received him, the men who fought in his
army, the men who sat on his benches, the men who try to cut down the brave
young men of Ireland---this is damnable hypocrisy. When we came back with this
Treaty that has been called by many names---we have heard a selection of
adjectives for that Treaty that have not been parallelled since the days of
Biddy Moriarty [laughter]---when we came back with that Treaty
there was, at least, one thing that might have been done. Our colleagues in the
Dáil who disagreed with us might have met and discussed that Treaty on its
merits. The President and myself made an appeal that no personalities be
indulged in. I have been sitting here for days, and the more I sat here the more
I wondered at the smallness of my imagination that I had never been able to
realise the heights of my own villainy [laughter]. Well, that
Treaty could have been discussed on its merits; it could have been dealt with
without any reference as to whether the men who brought it were honourable or
dishonourable men---tell us what you like. You say we are dishonourable men,
this does not affect the fact of the Treaty which has been discussed on the
basis of the failure, at least, of the plenipotentiaries and not discussed on
what was in it. It has been discussed in the way that Carlyle once
described---and I have thought of this many times while listening to the
criticism of the Treaty---he describes the fly that crawled along the front of
the Cologne Cathedral and communicated to all the other flies what a horribly
rough surface it was, because the fly was unable to see the edifice. Now, as to
that Treaty, an effort has been made to put us in the position of saying that
this Treaty is an ideal thing; an effort has been made to put us into a false
position. That Treaty is not an ideal thing; it has faults. I could draw up a
Treaty---any of us could draw up a Treaty which would be more satisfactory to
the Irish people; we could `call spirits from the vasty deep', but will they
come when you call them? We have a Treaty signed by the heads of the British
Government; we have nothing signed against it. I could draw up a much better
Treaty myself, one that would suit myself; but it is not going to be passed. We
are, therefore, face to face with a practical situation. Does this Treaty give
away the interests and the honour of Ireland? I say it does not. I say it serves
the interests of Ireland, it is not dishonourable to Ireland. It is not an ideal
thing; it could be better. It has no more finality than that we are the final
generation on the face of the earth [applause]. No man is going,
as was quoted here---I have used it all my life---`no man can set bounds to the
march of a nation'. But we here can accept that Treaty, and deal with it in good
faith with the English people, and through the files of events reach, if we
desire it, any further status that we desire or require after. Who is going to
say what the world is to be like in ten years hence? We can make peace on the
basis of that Treaty; it does not forever bind us not to ask for any more.
England is going beyond where she is at present; all nations are going beyond
where they are at present; and in the meantime we can move on in comfort and
peace to the ultimate goal. This Treaty gives the Irish people what they have
not had for centuries; it gives them a foothold in their own country; it gives
them solid ground on which to stand; and Ireland has been a quaking bog for
three hundred years, where there was no foothold for the Irish people. Well,
reject this Treaty; throw Ireland back into what she was before this Treaty
came---I am not a prophet, though I have listened to many prophets here, and I
can't argue with prophets; but I know where Ireland was twenty or thirty years
ago, I know where Ireland was when there was only a few dozen of us up in Dublin
trying to keep the national ideal alive, not trying to keep it alive, because
the Irish people never deserted it, but a few of us who had faith in our people
and faith in our country, stood by her---you are going to throw Ireland back to
that, to dishearten the men who made the fight, and to let back into Irish
politics the time servers and men who let down Ireland before and who will,
through their weakness, if not through dishonesty, let down Ireland again. You
can take this Treaty and make it the basis of an Irish Ireland. You can reject
this Treaty and you can throw Ireland back into where she was years ago, into
where she was before---well I do not like to speak about the dead---before the
sacrifice that the dead men have made raised her up; the men who died for the
last four or five years made this Treaty possible; without them it could not
have been done. You are going to give away the fruits of their sacrifices, and
to condemn the other young men of Ireland to go out on a fruitless struggle.
Certain disclosures have been made here about what happened at Cabinet meetings;
well, there was a certain Cabinet meeting at which I asked a question as to what
the alternative was as nobody held that we could, by military forces, drive the
English out of Ireland---I would not refer to this except that it was already
referred to this evening, and part of the conversation was reported---and I was
told: `No! This generation might go down, but the next generation might do
something or other' Is there to be no living Irish nation? Is the Irish nation
to be the dead past or the prophetic future? Have we any duty to the present
generation? I say we have. I say it is the task of political leadership, and
statesmanship, or whatever you like to call it, to adopt the weapons and
circumstances of this time to achieve the best possible result for the country
while keeping the honour of the country safe; and I say if leadership does not
devote itself to that task it is not leadership. We have a duty to our country,
and our country are the living people of Ireland; we have a duty to our people;
we have a duty at least, so far as our judgment goes, not to lead them astray,
not to tell them something will happen `if you do this'---when you know they
cannot do it---in order to save our faces at the expense of our countrymen's
blood [hear, hear]. I have preached this Sinn Fein doctrine in
years past; at that time the leadership of Ireland was in the hands of the
Parliamentary Party; I felt the doctrine I preached was the right one; but I
felt also a duty to the nation in that if anything could be got through these
leaders I thought it was not my right to obstruct the way. In 1912, when the
late Home Rule Act came in, I had a certain support in the country; I could have
embarrassed Mr. Redmond if I wished; but I could not have effected any good for
the country by so doing, because the country was overwhelmingly against us, and
I said to my colleagues in Sinn Fein `The country has declared for that thing;
it is not what we want; but we have no right to stand in the way of the country
when we are not able to get them better'. We of Sinn Fein stood down; and we
tried to help Mr. Redmond to get his Home Rule measure. He got it. It was not
our duty to obstruct. If he and his party failed to get it they failed to get
it, and the failure did not lie with us. I say to-day that any man or body of
men that obstructs what the nation wishes, or what the nation desires, no matter
though they might think themselves right, no matter though they were right, are
culpable against the nation unless they can show as quick and as good a way. I
can see no better way than this Treaty; no better way for the Irish people. If
the Irish people are to have an alternative let the alternative be put down
straight before them. Now, many questions were raised, many questions were asked
me or referred to me; one by Madame Markievicz, who was perturbed over the
letter I wrote about the Southern Unionists; she drew from that letter the idea
that I was going to treat them as a privileged class; she wanted to know why I
met these men. I met them because they are my countrymen [applause],
and because, if we are to have an Irish nation, we want to start with fair play
for all sections and with understandings between all sections [applause].
I would meet to-morrow on that basis the Ulster Unionists, to seek to get them
to join in the Irish nation [hear, hear]. I met these gentlemen
and I promised them fair play; and so far as I am concerned they will have fair
play [applause]. I met them in the same spirit that the President
met them, when he invited them to meet him at the Mansion House, because they
are members of the Irish nation, and their lives and fortunes are as much at
stake in the settlement of this Irish question as are our own and those of the
people who are supporting us. If we are to start as an Irish nation we went to
start on these lines, obliterating all that kept us apart before. We are to have
different parties in the Irish nation; we do not want these parties ranged on
the lines of pro-English versus pro-Irishism, we want them ranged on national
lines, and the person who thinks that you can make an Irish nation, and make it
successfully function, with eight hundred thousand of our countrymen in the
North up against us, and four hundred thousand of our countrymen here in the
South opposed to us, is living in a Fool's Paradise. You want every Irishman in
this Irish nation; you want all of them, and the way we are going to get them is
to ensure them that they are to have absolute justice and absolute fair play in
the Irish nation [applause]. Now, I might go into many things. I
do not wish to go into things that would arouse any personal contention; I will
merely go into certain statements about another document, Document 2---the
Minister of Defence gave a description of another alternative doctrine---well,
all I can say is: these proposals, so far as they differ from what we signed,
were put up by us---they did not emanate from us---we put them forward and they
were turned down; we put them up again and they were turned down absolutely. The
alternative proposal was simply to put up a third time what had been turned down
twice. But it appears that from these alternative proposals some extraordinary
measure of greater freedom accrues to Ireland than from the Treaty; that
Ireland, somehow, is not to connect with the British Commonwealth of Nations;
that Ireland is outside it; that it is not a question of Dominion status. Well,
here they are:
That for purposes of common concern Ireland shall be associated with the
States of the British Commonwealth viz., the Kingdom of Great Britain, the
Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of New
Zealand, and the Union of South Africa.
It that is not a claim for Dominion status I do not know what the meaning of
words is. Here is the next paragraph:
The rights, status and privileges of Ireland shall be in no respect less
than those enjoyed by the component States of the British Commonwealth.
The next paragraph says:
That the matters of common concern shall include defence, peace and war,
political treaties, and all matters now treated as of common concern amongst
the States of the British Commonwealth and that in these matters there shall
be between Ireland and the States of the British Commonwealth such concerted
action founded on consultation the several Governments may determine.
We are outside the British Empire according to this explanation in this
document, but we happen to be inside for peace, war, defence, treaties, and for
all vital concerns. Again:
That in virtue of this Association of Ireland with the States of the
British Commonwealth, citizens of Ireland in any of these States shall not be
subject to any disabilities which a citizen of one of the component States of
the British Commonwealth would not be subject to and reciprocally for citizens
of these States in Ireland.
I have heard about common citizenship; what is that? Reciprocal rights? Is that
over a change of words? And then we have this:
That for purposes of the association Ireland shall recognise His Britannic
Majesty as head of the association.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Why did Lloyd George turn it down?
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
It is not allegiance.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Is that a Republic or is it not? I say it is not a Republic. Is that
allegiance or is it not?
MR. MACGARRY:
That's a Constitutional Republic [laughter].
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
That's a Republic.
MR. GRIFFITH:
There is a little item left out of that which we were empowered to put up in
London---an annual payment to the King of England. The Irish people have been
told that we let down the Republic; and that that document is a Republic. I say
that is not a Republic. You said you were elected for a Republic; were you
elected for that document? Well, that document is the question between us and
our colleagues on the opposite side. Now whatever the difference is between us
this thing is too grave for the Irish people to have them befogged by words. If
they are going to be asked to go out and put their lives and fortunes in danger
and lose their lives; and again go through what they have already gone through;
let them know that what they are going out for is the recognition of His
Britannic Majesty---for a payment to His Britannic Majesty---and for
association.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is no oath.
MR. GRIFFITH:
The document is there. It is on the Cabinet records. [Cries of `No!
no!'] No! you kept it out of that record---out of that document.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I have been prevented by the Minister for Foreign Affairs bringing forward my
amendment. The people in this assembly do not understand what is contained in
the Treaty. We have got no opportunity.
MR. GRIFFITH:
If the people in this assembly do not understand what is in the document they
are not fit to be representatives of the people of Ireland [applause].
Now, the Irish people are going to know, so far as I am concerned, what is the
difference. I belong to the Irish people; I have worked for them because they
are flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone [cheers]; I have never
deceived them, at all events, whatever I have done; I may have misled them or
given them bad advice; but I have never concealed from them anything that is
vital to their interests. It is vital for them to know what we are up against
and not to be misled and not to believe that we, plenipotentiaries, went away
with a mandate for the Republic and came back with something else. I have heard
in this assembly statements about the people of Ireland. The people of Ireland
sent us here---we have no right and no authority except what we derive from the
people of Ireland---we are here because the people of Ireland elected us, and
our only right to speak is to seek what they want. I am told that the people of
Ireland elected us to get a Republic. They elected us in 1918 to get rid of the
Parliamentary Party; they elected us in 1921 as a gesture, a proper gesture of
defiance to the Black-and-Tans; they elected us, not as doctrinaire Republicans,
but as men looking for freedom and independence. When we agreed to enter into
negotiations with England with the object of producing a Treaty we were bound, I
hold, to respect whatever the Irish people---the people of Ireland---thought of
that Treaty. I have heard one Deputy saying here that it does not matter what
his constituents say. I tell him it does. If representative government is going
to remain on the earth, then a representative must voice the opinion of his
constituents; if his conscience will not let him do that he has only one way out
and that is to resign and refuse to misrepresent them; but that men who know
their constituents want this Treaty should come here and tell us that, by virtue
of the vote they derive from these constituents, they are going to vote against
this Treaty---as that is the negation of all democratic right, it is the
negation of all freedom. You are doing what Castlereagh and Pitt did in 1800;
you are doing what these two men did when they refused to let the Irish
Parliament dissolve on the question of the Union, and to allow the people to be
consulted. You are trying to reject this Treaty without allowing the Irish
people to say whether they want it or not---the people whose lives and fortunes
are involved.
PRESIDENT DR VALERA:
No! no!
MR. GRIFFITH:
You will kill Dáil Eireann when you do that [`No! no!']. You
will remove from Dáil Eireann every vestige of moral authority, and they will no
longer represent the people of Ireland. It will be a junta dictating to the
people of Ireland and the people of Ireland will deal with it. When our
President was in America he honoured the memory of Abraham Lincoln; and Abraham
Lincoln was one of the greatest men of the last century---he was one of the men
who upheld the rights of the people---and Ahraham Lincoln's words are words I
recommend to you now. When Abraham Lincoln was elected as representative of the
American people he said: `If elected, I shall consider the whole people of
Sagamon'---the constituency he represented---`my constituents, as well those who
oppose me as those who support me. While acting as their representative I shall
be governed by their will on all such subjects on which I have the means of
knowing what that will is' [applause]. You know what the will of
the Irish people is [cries of `No!' and `Yes!']. There is no man
here who would go down to his constituency and stand on a platform before his
people and say he is against this Treaty.
MR SEAN T. O'KELLY:
I would do it; and will, and so will others.
SEVERAL DEPUTIES:
We are prepared to do it.
MR. GRIFFITH:
They had an opportunity during the recess; I have not read of any of those
who stood up now having gone before their constituents.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
There was an undertaking we were not to do it.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
We were forbidden by an undertaking with Mr. Griffith.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Therefore you did not do it. You may interrupt me as much as you please, but
there is no power in the junta to intimidate me. The people of Ireland are, you
know---every one of you---ninety-eight per cent. for this Treaty [`No!
no!' and `Yes! yes!']. Now, everyone of you knows it; they have told you
to vote for it.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
They did not tell me. They told me to vote against it.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Your constituents told you to vote for this Treaty. The Irish people will not
be deceived. They know. They have made their voice heard. Some of you will try
to muzzle it; but that voice will be heard, and it will pierce through. The most
contemptible references I ever heard made to the people of Ireland have been
made this Dáil, I have heard people in this Dáil say that if the people of
Ireland had been able in 1921 to accept the Southern Parliament and get rid of
Black-and-Tannery they would have done so. Now, I say that is the falsest libel
ever uttered the people of Ireland: the people of Ireland stood, throughout,
against that terror, and against the terrorism which would seek to suppress
their nation; they will stand again [applause]. But they are not
going to stand for a fight against what gives them the substance of freedom. If
an attempt be made to mislead the Irish people on this question---a Deputy here
said something me about last night, and about treason. But I tell you the people
who commit treason are the people who try to prevent the Irish people, by force
or otherwise, from expressing their opinion [hear, hear]. Distrust
the people, muzzle the people, where then is gone self-determination for the
people? Where is gone the platform on which we were elected to this Dáil? [hear,
hear]. Ah! democracy is, to some minds, very good in theory when
democracy fits in with their own ideas; but when democracy bends the reins
contrary to their own ideas they get back into a casuistic vein. Now, this
country is going to be governed by the Irish people or by the English
Government. I am equally opposed to my countrymen being governed by any body of
men who flout their wishes and opinions as I am opposed to their being governed
by Dublin Castle. We have heard of usurpation. The usurpation that would set
itself up against the will of the Irish people is as great a usurpation as
Dublin Castle and, so far as I am concerned, my voice and power will be used
against that usurpation. You have heard expressions in this Dáil that were
rather unfortunate, perhaps. We have representatives in different countries---I
happen to be Minister of Foreign Affairs---two of these representatives,
immediately this Treaty was signed, started out on their own behalf and made
public statements about the Treaty; they did not communicate with me; they
thought it right that they should publicly state their views before either the
Dáil Cabinet or the Dáil had the power to consider it. They have also
represented that the opinion of the world was with them against that Treaty; I
say the opinion of the world is that this Treaty constitutes a victory for
Ireland, and while I am Minister for Foreign Affairs---perhaps I may not be
there much longer---I take the liberty, since these gentlemen took it on
themselves to attempt to jump the decision of the Dáil, to read the views of
another of our representatives. He may, of course, be dismissed, but he has told
me he does not mind; he is a man who has done more for us on the Continent than
any other man---Captain MacWhite of the French Army, now representing us in
Geneva------
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
When was he made a Captain? He is a Sergeant-Major in the French Army.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Mr. MacWhite is our representative in Geneva. He wrote me a letter on this
subject and he told me I might use it if I wished. In this letter he says:
To refuse to ratify the document which you brought back from London would
be to put a millstone on the neck of posterity, and to condemn unborn
generations to perpetual slavery and poverty. To pretend that we could again
revive the sympathies which were so ardently expressed in favour of the Irish
cause during the past few years throughout the whole civilised world is
nothing less than a monstrous imposition on the credulity of the Irish people.
All the sympathisers which we had in France---and they were legion---look upon
the opposition to the Treaty as nothing less than insanity. Those French
newspapers which, through thick and thin, fought the battle for Irish freedom
believe that in wringing such a Treaty from the powerful British Empire you
achieved the inachievable. In Italy our most enthusiastic supporters---and in
no other part of the world was there so much popular enthusiasm behind our
cause---are of the opinion that we have won a magnificent victory, and there
deception will be nil the greater if we do not exploit the victory as any sane
people should. Amongst our friends in every other country in Europe the same
opinion prevails. Only a few days ago I read of a society at Zurich `Pro
Irelande,' whose object was the advocation of Irish liberties, being dissolved
as the raison d'etre for its existence had disappeared. Should Ireland,
through the fault of her elected representatives, revert to disorder and
chaos, then it will be said again---with some foundation this time---that we
are unfit for freedom and that we handsomely deserve whatever fate England may
reserve for us in the future. The Treaty admits Ireland to membership of the
League of Nations. In order to give that document its true international
character I do not see any reason why it should not be submitted to the League
once Ireland's membership is officially recognised. The Constitution of the
League requires that all Treaties entered into by its members or between one
of its members and an outsider should be notified to it. Of course England may
protest that the Irish Free State did not exist until after the ratification
of this Treaty, but once ratified she cannot any longer pretend that is not an
international instrument. In future any modification of that document should
likewise be submitted to the League and its intervention could be solicited
for the regulation of disputes which are not specifically reserved under the
articles of the Treaty.
I quote that simply to correct the idea that some of our representatives abroad
gave as to the Treaty, that it was their view was held by the European nations.
Now, you have heard all that might be said against this Treaty; you have heard
even that it is not a Treaty at all. You have been spoken to as if you had a
Republican Government functioning all through Ireland, and that you were asked
to give up this Government and functioning Republic for this Treaty. You all
know here that, instead of governing through Ireland, the most we could do was
to hold, and to barely hold, the position we were in. I heard it said in this
assembly that we had driven the British Army into the sea but I walked down
O'Connell Street and I saw them there in hundreds afterwards. What is the use of
so deceiving ourselves? The British Army into the sea; but I walked country; and
the British Army can be got out of this country to-morrow by the ratification of
this Treaty; those who vote against it are giving a vote to keep the British
Army in Ireland. If you expect that when you reject this Treaty you will drive
the British Army out, then you are even more credulous than I believed you to be
all the time [laughter]. You have got to give the Irish people
something substantial if you reject this Treaty; you have got to tell them where
you are going to lead them. But you are not leading there anywhere; you have no
objective. You have as I was told---as one very prominent man told us---you have
been told that this generation is going to die but that the next generation will
get something, that is not sanity; that is not politics; that is not
statesmanship. Any of those who come and tell the Irish people: `Let this
present generation immolate itself and, please God, the next generation will get
something', are not talking in the voice of sanity. This generation in Ireland;
and this generation has got the right to live for itself as past generations had
the right; and future generations will have the right to live for themselves.
We, as I said, have been put into the position of defending this Treaty, of
making this Treaty appear as if it were a bigger thing than it is; the attacks
on us have been designed to force us into the position of saying that this
Treaty is an ideal Treaty. Well, it is not. It is the utmost Ireland can get;
and it is a Treaty Ireland can honourably accept; it gives a way of working up
to our fullest development. We speak here---some us speak here---as if there
were no Irish people outside of these doors as if there were no economic
questions; as if there were not tens of thousands of unemployed; as if there
were not tens of thousands of struggling farmers and labouring people through
the country; as if we could go on indefinitely making this kind of fight against
England. I tell you what is going to happen to you if you reject this Treaty.
The Irish people are going to sweep you out as incompetent. We have got to deal
with the people; we have got to believe that we are not superiors; we have got
to remember that they are our flesh and blood, we have got to remember that we
are not sitting at a table playing chess with Lloyd George. It is our countrymen
and country women whose lives and fortunes we are dealing with. As John Mitchell
said: `One Irish peasant's life is as dear and as sacred to us as any other
man's life in the country is, be he who he may'. We want to see this country
placed on its feet; we want to put the English tax-gatherer out of the country;
we want to hold our ports and harbours and commerce; and we want to have the
right and power to educate our people as they ought to be educated. We have got
all this in the Treaty. Reject the Treaty and what have you got? A few years ago
I found, when I saw the misery and degradation and poverty of my country---when
I saw her name forgotten in Europe---I found that the cause of all that was the
infamous Act of Union. From the day that Act was passed Ireland became a chaos.
In the one hundred and twenty years since that was passed we have lost twelve
millions of our people, our country has been ravished and ravaged; we have had
the emigrant ship and the famine and the prison cell and the scaffold all
through that one hundred and twenty years, because you have had the English Army
in occupation here; and by your vote are you going to keep the English Army in
occupation here, because that is what it means? Are you going to put out the
English Army, the English tax-gatherer, the English West Britons; to build
yourself up as a nation again and stand as this Treaty gives you power to
stand---on equality with the other nations once again---and get your fair name
in the world? Or are you going back, without hope of success in this generation
at least, to the position in which we were until the heroism and capacity of
these young men made England offer terms in July last? That is what you have got
decide; and I say that any man who is going to ask the young men of Ireland to
go out again, and fight and suffer as before, has got to tell them where they
are going [applause]. Here a few days ago, reference was made to
Michael Collins and to the young men who would follow him to hell. Well, I know
young men who went through hell with him; and because they went through hell
with him you are here this evening; and this assembly would not be here, and we
would not be discussing these terms with England unless the army---unless these
young men had gone through hell with Michael Collins. Well, so far as my
strength and voice and vote are concerned, I will not let my countrymen be led
on a false track; I believe they will be led on a false track if we reject this
Treaty; I believe they will be led on a straight track if we accept this Treaty.
My colleagues and I have tried to meet the difficulties in the way, we have
tried to get a united Dáil. Michael Collins made a suggestion. I regret that
suggestion was not adopted, I believe we could have kept united if that
suggestion were adopted; and if people had difficulties in their minds over what
they considered principles I believe these difficulties could have been solved.
I regret that that suggestion was not accepted; I regret it because I believe we
could honourably have peace on this.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
What is it?
MR. GRIFFITH:
Mr. Collins' suggestion that you had before you recently.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Please read it so that we may all know it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
It was in the Press.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
That we should let this Treaty pass and hold the views we had. What would it
mean for Ireland?
MR. GRIFFITH:
I do not mind reading it if President de Valera wishes.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I do not want to ask anybody to break any confidence. I simply want to know
if a suggestion was made by Mr. Collins, if it was in the Press?
MR. GRIFFITH:
What I thought you wished me to read was the decision the Committee came to
the other night.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Anything that should go to the Irish people let it go. Please let us hear the
whole thing now. I did everything I did for unity. If there is anything else
read it out then, if it is agreeable.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
I am not agreeable.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Very well. I am not going to read any document so.
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
What about Mr. Collins' offer?
MR. M. COLLINS:
It was in the public Press.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Well, I regret, therefore, that we cannot go into that. I regret we are not
going to have unity; but there is true unity and false unity. I will not
sacrifice the Irish nation on the altar of false unity; I will not agree, in
order to preserve the semblance of unity in this Dáil, that we should flout the
people of this country; I will not agree that the people of Ireland should be
sacrificed on a formula.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. GRIFFITH:
We had much talk of principles, of honour, and of virtue here. It seemed to
me all on one side; we on this side, had lost all the effulgence of virtue that
emblazoned the faces of the people on the opposite side. Well, I have some
principles; the principle that I have stood on all my life is the principle of
Ireland for the Irish people [hear, hear]. If I can get that with
a Republic I will have a Republic; if I can get that with a monarchy I will have
a monarchy. I will not sacrifice my country for a form of government. I stand in
this exactly where every leader of the Irish nation stood from the time of
O'Neill to Patrick Sarsfield. Owen Roe O'Neill said: `I do not care whether the
King of England is King of Ireland so long as the people of Ireland are free'. I
do not care whether the King of England or the symbol of the Crown be in Ireland
so long as the people of Ireland are free to shape their own destinies. We have
the means to do that by this Treaty; we have not the means otherwise. I say now
to the people of Ireland that it is their right to see that this Treaty is
carried into operation, when they get, for the first time in seven centuries, a
chance to live their lives in their own country and take their place amongst the
nations of Europe [applause].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Before you take a vote I want to enter my last protest---that document will
rise in judgment against the men who say there is only a shadow of difference---
MR. MILROY:
Yes, that's all.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
If every thing is in this Treaty that seemed to be covered by it---but it is
not---I say that the Irish nation will judge you who have brought this
Treaty---if it is approved they will judge you by comparing what you got for the
Irish people out of it with the terms of an explicit document where there is
nothing implied but everything on the face of it. It is the same position
exactly as in the case of Grattan and Flood; and I suppose the Irish Volunteers
are to be disbanded next.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Let the Irish nation judge us now and for future years.
THE SPEAKER:
We will take a vote now in the usual way by calling the roll. The vote is on
the motion by the Minister for Foreign Affairs that Dáil Eireann approves of the
Treaty.
THE CLERK then proceeded to call the roll.
MR. M. COLLINS:
[on being called for the second constituency] The people on the
other side need not have objected. I have already voted.
THE SPEAKER:
[on being called]I can only give a casting vote.
MR. GRIFFITH:
[on being called for the second constituency]I wish to register
my protest against any constituency being disfranchised. I understand that is
your ruling. There are five members here who represent two constituencies
each---the President and four other members. Those constituencies that the five
of us represent are disfranchised.
THE SPEAKER:
The question of what happens the constituency is not the question for me. I
can only rule that each deputy present shall vote once.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
I wish to enter my protest against the County Tyrone being disfranchised.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
at the conclusion of the Roll call
I claim the right to speak first after the figures are announced.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I want to make a statement, too.
THE SPEAKER:
The result of the poll is sixty-four for approval and fifty seven against.
That is a majority of seven in favour of approval of the Treaty.
FOR:
Micheál O Coileáin
Art O Gríobhtha
Seán Mac Giolla Ríogh
Pól O Geallagáin
Liam T. Mac Cosgair
Gearóid O Súileabháin
Pádraig O Braonáin
Seán O Lidia
Seán O hAodha
Pádraig O Caoimh
Seán Mac Heil
Seosamh Mac Suibhne
Peadar S. Mac an Bháird
Dr. S. Mac Fhionnlaoigh
P. S. Mac Ualghairg
Próinsias Laighleis
S. Ghabháin Uí Dhubhthaigh
Deasmhumhain Mac Gearailt
Seumas Mac Doirim
Seumas O Duibhir
Pádraic O Máille
Seoirse Mac Niocaill
P. S. O hOgáin
An t-Oll. S. O Faoilleacháin
Piaras Beaslaí
Fionán O Loingsigh
S. O Cruadhlaoich
Riobárd Bartún
Criostóir O Broin
Seumas O Dóláin
Aindriú O Láimhín
Tomás Mac Artúir
Dr Pádraig Mac Artáin
Caoimhghín O hUigín
Seosamh O Loingsigh
Próinsias Bulfin
Dr. Risteárd O hAodha
Liam O hAodha
Seosamh Mac Aonghusa
Seán Mac Eoin
Lorcán O Roibín
Eamon O Dúgáin
Peadar O hAodha
Seumas O Murchadha
Saerbhreathach Mac Cionaith
Seosamh Mac Giolla Bhrighde
Liam Mac Sioghuird
Domhnall O Ruairc
Earnán de Blaghd
Eoin O Dubhthaigh
Alasdar Mac Cába
Tomás O Domhnaill
Seumas de Búrca
Dr. V. de Faoite
Risteárd Mac Fheorais
Seán Mae Gadhra
Mícheál Mac Stáin
Risteárd O Maolchatha
Seosamh Mag Craith
Pilib Mac Cosgair
Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh
Liam de Róiste
Seumas Breathnach
Micheál O hAodha
AGAINST:
Seumas O Lonnáin
Eamon Aidhleart
Eamon de Valera
Brian O hUigín
Seán Mac Suibhne
Seán O Maoláin
Domhnall O Corcora
Seán O Nualláin
Tomás O Fiadhchara
Seumas Mac Gearailt
Dáithí Ceannt
Seosamh O Dochartaigh
S. O Flaithbheartaigh
Bean an Phiarsaigh
Seán O Mathghamhna
Liam O Maoilíosa
Dr. Brian de Cíosóg
Próinsias O Fathaigh
Aibhistín de Stac
Conchubhar O Coileáin
Eamon de Róiste
P.S. O Cathail
Tomás O Donnchú
Art O Conchubhair
Domhnall O Buachalla
E. Childers
Seoirse Pluingceud
Bean Mhíchíl Ui Cheallacháin
M. P. Colivet
Seán O Ceallaigh
Dr. O Cruadhlaoich
Tomás O Deirg
P. S. O Ruthleis
Enrí O Beoláin
Tomás Maguidhir
Seán Mac an t-Saoi
Dr. P. O Fearáin
Seumas O Daimhín
Próinsias Mac Cárthaigh
Seosamh Mac Donnchadha
P. S. O Maoldomhnaigh
P. S. O Broin
Cathal Brugha
Eamon O Deaghaidh
Seumas Mac Roibín
Dr. Seumas O Riain
Seán Etchingham
Seumas O Dubhghaill
Seán T. O Ceallaigh
Pilib O Seanacháin
Bean an Chleirigh
Constans de Markievicz
Cathal O Murchadha
Máire Nic Shuibhne
Domhnall O Ceallacháin
Dr. Eithne Inglis
An t-Oll. W. F. P. Stockley
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It will, of course, be my duty to resign my office as Chief Executive. I do
not know that I should do it just now.
MR. M. COLLINS:
No.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is one thing I want to say---I want it to go to the country and to the
world, and it is this: the Irish people established a Republic. This is simply
approval of a certain resolution. The Republic can only be disestablished by the
Irish people. Therefore, until such time as the Irish people in regular manner
disestablish it, this Republic goes on. Whatever arrangements are made this is
the supreme sovereign body in the nation; this is the body to which the nation
looks for its supreme Government, and it must remain that---no matter who is the
Executive---it must remain that until the Irish people have disestablished it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I ask your permission to make a statement. I do not regard the passing of
this thing as being any kind of triumph over the other side. I will do my best
in the future, as I have done in the past, for the nation. What I have to say
now is, whether there is something contentious about the Republic---about the
Government in being---or not, that we should unite on this: that we will all do
our best to preserve the public safety [hear, hear].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Now, in all countries in times of change---when countries are passing from
peace to war or war to peace---they have had their most trying times on an
occasion like this. Whether we are right or whether we are wrong in the view of
future generations there is this: that we now are entitled to a chance; all the
responsibility will fall upon us of taking over the machinery of government from
the enemy. In times of change like that, when countries change from peace to war
or war to peace, there are always elements that make for disorder and that make
for chaos. That is as true of Ireland as of any other country; for in that
respect all countries are the same. Now, what I suggest is that---I suppose we
could regard it like this---that we are a kind of a majority party and that the
others are a minority party; that is all I regard it as at present; and upon us,
I suppose, will be the responsibility of proving our mark, to borrow a term from
our President. Well, if we could form some kind of joint Committee to carry
on---for carrying through the arrangements one way or another---I think that is
what we ought to do. Now, I only want to say this to the people who are against
us---and there are good people against us---so far as I am concerned this is not
a question of politics, nor never has been. I make the promise publicly to the
Irish nation that I will do my best, and though some people here have said hard
things of me---I would not stand things like that said about the other side---I
have just as high a regard for some of them, and am prepared to do as much for
them, now as always. The President knows how I tried to do my best for him.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well, he has exactly the same position in my heart now as he always had [applause].
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
I claim my right, before matters go any further, to register my protest,
because I look upon this act to-night worse than I look upon the Act of
Castlereagh. I, for one, will have neither hand, act, nor part in helping the
Irish Free State to carry this nation of ours, this glorious nation that has
been betrayed here to-night, into the British Empire---either with or without
your hands up. I maintain here now that this is the grossest act of betrayal
that Ireland ever endured. I know some of you have done it from good motives;
soldiers have done it to get a gun, God help them! Others, because they thought
it best in some other way. I do not want to say a word that would prevent them
from coming back to their Mother Republic; but I register my protest, and not
one bit of help that we can give will we give them. The speech we have heard
sounded very beautiful---as the late Minister of Finance can do it; he has
played up to the gallery in this thing, but I tell you it may sound very
beautiful but it will not do. Ireland stands on her Republican Government and
that Republican Government cannot touch the pitch of the Free State without
being fouled; and here and now I call on all true Republicans; we all want to
protect the public safety; it is ouR side that will do its best to protect the
public safety. We want no such terrible troubles in the country as faction
fights; we can never descend to the faction fights of former days; we have
established a Government, and we will have to protect it. Therefore, let there
be no misunderstanding, no soft talk, ráimeis at this last moment of the
betrayal of our country; no soft talk about union; you cannot unite a spiritual
Irish Republic and a betrayal worse than Castlereagh's, because it was done for
the Irish nation. You may talk about the will of the Irish people, as Arthur
Griffith did, you know it is not the will of the Irish people; it is the fear of
the Irish people, as the Lord Mayor of Cork says; and to-morrow or another day
when they come to their senses, they will talk of those who betrayed them to-day
as they talk of Castlereagh. Make no doubt about it. This is a betrayal, a gross
betrayal; and the fact is that it is only a small majority, and that majority is
not united; half of them look for a gun and the other half are looking for the
fleshpots of the Empire. I tell you here there can be no union between the
representatives of the Irish Republic and the so-called Free State.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
All those who have voted on the side of the established Republic, I would
like to meet them say at one o'clock to-morrow, the sooner the better; perhaps
we could get the use of this building or of the Mansion House, say twelve-thirty
to-morrow.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Whatever we may say, whatever we may think, I do believe that some kind of an
arrangement could be fixed between the two sides. Even though our physical
presence is so distasteful that they will not meet us,I say some kind of
understanding ought to be reached to preserve the present order in the country,
at any rate over the week-end.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I would like my last word here to be this: we have had a glorious record for
four years; it has been four years of magnificent discipline in our nation. The
world is looking at us now---
The President here breaks down.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
So far as I am concerned I will see, at any rate, that discipline is kept in
the army.
The House then adjourned at 8.50 p.m., until 11 o'clock a.m. on Monday,
the 9th January.
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION Monday, January 9th, 1922
The Session wa resumed at 11.30 a.m., on Monday, 9th January, 1922, THE
SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) in the Chair.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
In view of the vote that was taken here on Saturday and which I had
definitely to oppose as one that was tending to subvert the Republic which I was
elected to my present position to defend and maintain; and as it appeared to me
also to be a vote which would tend to subvert the independence of the country, I
could no longer continue---as I was beaten in that---I could no longer continue
in my present office feeling I did not have the confidence of the House. I
therefore wish to place my resignation in the hands of the Assembly; and I think
it is not necessary to say any further words in doing so, but simply to resign
my office and the responsibilities of it and the members of the Cabinet all go
with my resignation.
THE SPEAKER:
In that case is it your intention to proceed with the business?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
No! I think the State cannot get on without definitely having somebody to
deal with it. The first business would be to make arrangements for the business
of the Government of the State and for its continuance.
MR. M. COLLINS:
In view of that, I suggest that my previous suggestions about forming a
Committee would be put. My belief about the thing is this: that no one here in
this assembly or in Ireland wants to be put in the position of opposing
President de Valera. Well, the practical step in my estimation is to form a
Committee, if necessary on both sides for some kind of public safety, as I said.
Now, on our side we would form our own Committee to get on with the work, and in
my belief what I said on last December twelve months applies now---to stop
sulking and get on with the work. We are faced with the problems of taking
Ireland over from the English, and they are faced with the problem of handing
Ireland over to us, and the difficulties on both sides will be pretty big; and
it does not matter what happens so long as we are assured that we are taking
over Ireland and that the English are going out of Ireland. My suggestion means
that we form a Committee on both sides, if necessary, for the preservation of
the public peace, and that on our side we form a Committee to arrange the
details and to do all the dirty work---all the difficult work that has to be
done. In other words, that we take upon ourselves the burthens of the practical
difficulties; and practical people will know what these difficulties are, and
they will understand them---they will understand all these things and we will
try to do the best we can [hear, hear].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
As far as I am concerned I think we will have to proceed constitutionally in
this matter. I have tendered my resignation and I cannot, in any way, take
divided responsibility. You have got here a sovereign Assembly which is the
Government of the nation. This assembly must choose its executive according to
its constitution and go ahead.
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
I altogether fail to see how this House could assent to the suggestion of the
Minister of Finance. The formation of such a Committee and the participation in
it of those of us who opposed the Treaty would mean that we acknowledge and have
become willing to join in the subversion of the Republic for which we stand [hear,
hear]. It is absolutely and utterly unconstitutional to do what the
Minister of Finance has suggested, for those who voted for this Treaty declare
that they are going to pull down with their own hands the Republic they set up,
or else they must stand with us---go back on the Treaty now and stand for the
Republic.
MR. GRIFFITH:
This body, a representative body of Irishmen, on Saturday evening approved of
the Treaty. In doing so they expressed the will of the people. That approval is
going to stand, and that will of the people is going to be maintained. Now,
President de Valera said, when he called this body together, there was a
constitutional way of settling this question of the Treaty. It has been
constitutionally settled; and now nothing is going to prevent that vote from
being carried out and the people from having their will expressed.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. PETER HUGHES:
Since President de Valera has signified his intention of not having anything
further to do with the Government, and the Deputy for Monaghan says he cannot
enter into any arrangement except on their ideas, I think the obvious thing for
this House is to appoint a Premier or somebody else and try and get on with the
work. There is no use in wasting two or three days over this. It is only for us
to do the obvious thing and appoint someone to carry on the work we began on
Saturday. May I ask that somebody responsible would propose some motion to this
effect. I will not take the responsibility of making the proposal, but somebody
must do it. If we start to make speeches again we will be here for three or four
days. The country does not want that.
ALDERMAN MRS. CLARKE:
I wish to propose the re-election of Eamon de Valera, President of the Irish
Republic, for the same position, for this reason: he is the one man, to my mind,
who has maintained in act as well as in mind, the Republic. I have great
pleasure in proposing him for re-election as President of the Irish Republic.
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
I second that. On this occasion it is with great pleasure I rise to second
the motion of Deputy Mrs. Clarke. President de Valera has stood to us. He
believes in the Republic and is the symbol of the Republic. As that symbol he
stood forth at the head of this nation---this nation which has gained a unique
position within the last few years. As to President de Valera, there is no need
for me to say anything about his qualities. President de Valera stands for us at
the moment as the symbol of the Republic, and it is as such that I take pleasure
in seconding the motion for his re-election.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
Might I ask if this motion of Deputy Mrs. Clarke is in order? Certainly there
is no motion on the Orders of the day for the election of anyone and I would
like to have your ruling before proceeding with this very serious matter which
has been so suddenly sprung on the Dáil. I ask you to say whether it is in
order?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I gave notice that I was going to resign; and it followed as a matter of
course, having been defeated on a vital matter of that sort, that I should
resign. I gave notice at the last meeting that I was about to resign.
MR. P. O MAILLE:
I think to spring a matter of this sort on the Assembly not fair, because in
a grave matter of this sort there should be due notice given and a time
specified. I understand these was a meeting of one party held here yesterday.
MR. MACENTEE:
Two parties.
MR. P. O MAILLE:
Even if there was---
MR. M. COLLINS:
We met in the Mansion House.
MR. P. O MAILLE:
We did not know, nor did we get notice that you were going to spring this
matter on the House. It is treating the Irish nation very unfairly---we are as
strong for Ireland and as much for helping Ireland---and the country will not
stand this kind of procedure.
MR. M. COLLINS:
It is only fair to say that we expected something like this; and that we
discussed it; and that we would have been fools if we had not anticipated it.
Naturally we expected it; otherwise we would have been mere children.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well, the way I propose---or I should say---the way we propose to meet it is
that we should have a Committee. We do not know what the opponents of the
Treaty---I refrain from calling them the other side because some of them are
more for than against us, and some of us are more for than against them---
A DEPUTY:
Why do you not come over?
MR. M. COLLINS:
Why do you not come over? If you elect President de Valera President of the
Irish Republic I have no objection whatever to it but let me say this much:
everybody will regard us as being simply a laughing stock. [`No!']
Yes they will, and the people are already regarding us as a laughing stock; and
people are getting impatient at our talking here day after day. If we are going
on this way much further the people will come in and turn us out or they will
ignore us and we can sit on here and talk as much as we like. What I feel like
doing is to get a few people on our side to meet a few people on the English
side and go on arranging for the taking over; and you go on here---remain here
talking and watching us doing the work [applause].
MISS MACSWINEY:
With regard to the statement that the President's election is not in order.
MR. MILROY:
I merely asked was it in order---
MISS MACSWINEY:
On that point I would like to say a few words. We believe, and we have given
evidence of our belief, in the existence of the Irish Republic. That Republic is
not dead. It was absurd for the other side to say Mr. Michael Collins has just
acknowledged, that they did not know this was coming. On last Thursday or Friday
the President wanted to resign and put one policy against the other in order to
show the country how they stood. On Saturday he gave notice of surrendering his
office this morning. In view of the vote on Saturday night there was no other
course open to him. Now, let us be honest with each other. We have got to carry
on the Republican Government of Ireland until this Government is disestablished
by the Irish people. The vote of a majority of seven did not disestablish the
Irish Republic. The suggestion from the other side, or whatever Mr. Collins
likes to call his side, that there should be a joint Committee to carry on the
work of the country is out of the question. No more could there be a joint
committee with them to-day than we could have a joint committee with Castlereagh.
We cannot have any working connection whatever which would be tacitly
acknowledging on our side that they are in a position to subvert the Republican
Government of Ireland---as they have shown by their vote they wish to do. The
President was perfectly right in resigning because he was in minority; and as he
was not only the President of the Republic, but leader of the House, he had to
resign being in a minority. We have to re-assert here to-day that this is a
Republican Government and the Parliament of the Government of the Irish
Republic, and we must have a President for that republic. If the other side wish
to elect somebody in opposition to President de Valera let them do so; but how
can they be at the one time, or how can any man from their side be President of
the Republic and supporter of the Free State? I maintain that and I take great
pleasure in supporting the re-election of the President. We must have that
symbol of office until the people have disestablished the Republic and it is as
clear for the other side as it is for us if they face the question straightly
that that must be so. It is not a question of springing tactics on the country;
that sort of thing has not been done. We believe in the Republic established by
the people of Ireland; we believe that only by the people of Ireland can that
Republican Government be disestablished; your majority of seven the other night
could not disestablish the Irish Republic; and we, believing that the Republic
still exists must have a head to that Republic, and therefore I have much
pleasure in supporting the re-election.
MR. D. O'ROURKE:
I feel, in the circumstances that the only alternative is a General Election
[hear, hear]. I see no other way out of it as there cannot be any
working agreement. It would be impossible, apparently, for this Assembly to
carry on---being almost equally divided---and the only way to settle the
question is a General Election.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
I should have great pleasure in supporting that President de Valera be
re-elected President on one condition, and that is that he tell us clearly that
he has at last seen the error of his ways [laughter]. In any case
it is absolutely essential that when a gentleman is proposed for election as
President that he ought to tell the people who are to elect him exactly what his
policy is. I think the House is entitled to know from the President where, and
to what extent he proposes to give effect to the vote passed by the House on
Saturday. We should not be asked to vote on this matter in the dark, and I
should therefore ask the President to tell us what is the policy which he
proposes to carry out in the event of his being reelected?
THE SPEAKER:
I have asked that the terms of the motion be given in writing.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think that is a fair question and no matter what anybody thinks to the
contrary it is only right to the House that I should say distinctly where I
stand. My position is distinctly this, and has always been this: I have regarded
this House as the Sovereign Assembly, the sovereign Parliament of the Irish
nation. You have even definitely called it the Government of the Irish Republic.
Now, we need an executive here. The Executive must have the confidence of the
House as a whole. It must have, at least, a majority. If the Executive is beaten
on an essential question it must go out and the other side is the proper side to
take authority; and if the other side has a definite policy that side should
choose, in accordance with the Constitution, its President and so on. The
difficulty I see is this: the Republic must exist until the people have
disestablished it. So far as I am concerned my position is this: action was
taken here which, in my opinion, tends to subvert the Republic. I should feel in
my conscience compelled to take every step I possibly could to prevent that
subversion; but I recognise that at the present moment, not understanding, to my
thinking, what that Treaty means for the Irish people, for the nation, they have
been passing resolutions and think that this Treaty should be taken for the
moment. I do not think---I do not believe that the Irish people if they
thoroughly understood it would stand for it. In the meantime, until they are
consulted in a way in which the issue can be explained to them, the Government
of the country must go on. I am quite ready to do everything possible to do this
fundamental thing---to maintain the independence of Ireland during the interval
I would say, should you as the result of the vote wish to keep me on, that the
result would be this---I was beaten on a point of policy, but it was a
particular point only though a fundamental one---that if the House wished I
would carry on the Executive work and that the terms of that Treaty with the
particulars---that the further steps have to be taken by those who came here and
reported to this House---that those steps be taken by them, that we do not
actively oppose, though in conscience I should actively oppose; but I am looking
beyond my own personal feeling and seeing what the people of the country
want---I have perfect confidence in the people of the country that when that
Treaty is worked out in legislative form and put before them that then they will
know what they have got, that then they will understand what they are doing by
accepting this Treaty and not till then---that therefore these plenipotentiaries
and others take the further steps necessary to have that Treaty seen to, that we
carry on here in Dáil Eireann; that the resources of Dáil Eireann be here still
invested in this House, and that we be entitled to use the funds and everything
else for the preservation and independence of Ireland and for the maintenance of
the Republic until such time as the Irish people have decided otherwise, and not
decided on a vague and indefinite thing like the terms of this Agreement; but
when they will have that Act to vote upon, and when they cannot be fooled, that
then the Irish Republic can be disestablished if the people want it; but until
then we go ahead. This House, by a majority vote, determined what the policy is
definitely to be. Let the others go ahead and present the Irish people with that
document completed. It is only a vague promise and when the people can see that
worked out in black and white they will not have the general impression that is
in their minds at present---that we will be all as free as in Canada. When the
Irish people will see how much freedom they receive exactly, how much British
authority they are going to root in this country, then they will have a definite
issue to vote on.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
How do you propose the power to be handed over?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
We are finished with that Treaty as far as we are concerned. It has nothing
further to do with this House. We have not passed any Act of Ratification of
that Treaty. We have simply passed a resolution of approval which means that the
Government of the Republic is not going actively to interfere with those who are
to complete that Treaty. When they have completed that Treaty then they will
have a definite issue before the Irish people, and not till then, and I
challenge them on that.
MR. P. J. HOGAN:
I want to say how the position exactly strikes me as one Deputy, to say
honestly what we mean, and honestly attempt to be frank. When it is all boiled
down it means this: that President de Valera's policy is, in fact, that this
Treaty is going to be fought in all details. That is what it means. Well, now,
where exactly are we? What is the position? There was a resolution passed by
this House on Saturday and I take it that it is a common case that that
resolution was not a resolution for the dissolution of the Republic; but the
resolution itself was in order, and it was regarded as a fundamental question of
policy, and the House divided on it after a most elaborate and exhaustive
debate. It was not a snatch vote; nothing like that; and they divided on it. The
President, as Chief Executive Officer---his policy was beaten, and that is the
position.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. HOGAN:
Now, we are asked to re-elect the President after he has stated, as I have
said, that he is going to fight absolutely against the majority will as
expressed last Saturday. Well, I do not care how the President is elected, or
for what reason he is elected; I say that is tyranny, that is dictatorship; it
is the same sort of dictatorship as we have been used to in history. That is
what it comes to. Let us be honest the whole time. If you elect the President
again on a policy of fighting the Treaty after the resolution that has been
passed by this House, let us have no more talk of constitutionalism. Let us be
honest about it now on each side of the Treaty. It is not a fair way to get out
of it to say that though the people are in favour of it now that they will not
be in favour of it when they see the details worked out, and when they see the
Treaty in operation. The idea of that is plain; it is to enable this House to
carry on under a minority for the next year. That is the idea of it. The people
are entitled to be consulted on the issue now---absolutely. If, instead of doing
that, this House elects a President who, on his own showing, is going to fight
the Treaty that was approved on last Saturday night, then I say we are setting
up a dictatorship, and in decency we should not talk of constitutionalism.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am not offering myself to this House in the sense that I am not asking the
House to re-elect me. I am thinking of it as the better and the constitutional
and the right and proper way to do the work. This House can elect its President
and can act constitutionally. Let the majority work it; I am handing over
responsibility to the majority party. The majority party say they do not want to
oppose my re-election. I was asked the question what would I do if elected and I
gave you definitely what I would do: carry on as before and forget that this
Treaty has come. Let those who wish to work it go on; the majority vote at any
time can defeat any proposition I put up.
MR. DAVID CEANNT:
It is quite evident that any assembly could not carry on without a recognised
head. We are at the present time in what may seem to some a transitional state.
We want to have this issue placed before the public of Ireland in a fair and
clear manner. That cannot be done until it can be given to them in black and
white, when the Act comes back from the British House of Commons---if it will
come back at all---authorising the setting up in this country of a Free State
Parliament. Then the people will have a right to decide whether they will have a
Free State or remain a Republic. In the meantime it will be the duty of the
Government of the nation to see that law and order must be maintained, and that
we must function as a Government until such time as the people will say of their
free will just that they do not want us any longer. If we were to go to the
country in the morning to put a definite policy before the people it would be
this: `Do you want a Republic or what is in this paper, which is not a Treaty at
all?' I heard people saying, in effect, that when we voted on Saturday for this
piece of paper that we converted ourselves into a Free State. That cannot be
done. And it is only just, I hold, in order to maintain the liberties of the
people and to safeguard them and every interest in the country, and to prevent
fighting and bloodshed that we will have a President who will be the Chief of
the State and who will have the power of the State behind him to carry on the
Government.
MR. W. SEARS:
On Saturday night we took an important division here after a long Session and
many speeches on each side; and it was put up to this Dáil that in that division
they were either to accept the Treaty or not---that they were then deciding
between a Free State on the one hand and a Republic on the other hand. I
hold---and all Ireland holds---that that division accepted the Free State, and
the world will take that view of it. We came to the parting of the ways on
Saturday night, and we solemnly decided by sixty-four votes to fifty-seven to
take the Free State road. And now we come in here this morning and we are asked
to go to work as if we never made that decision at all. Is that vote to be
regarded as inoperative and to have no results flowing from it, or are we to
proceed and act on the decision arrived at on Saturday night? If our side were
defeated, and if we decided to go on with the Republic, then I could understand
that we met here to-day to see what we were to do. I say that if we mean
honestly to act on the vote that we took on Saturday night we are to proceed to
put the Treaty into operation and to act on it. I could understand the
opposition here in taking the part of General Hertzog and his supporters in
South Africa. I could understand them watching developments of the Free State,
and if our party falls into the mistakes that they predict for us I could
understand them going to the country and saying: `This is the failure we
predicted; you voted for the Treaty and you got it; you now see it is a fraud'.
But as we decided to take it, let us honestly take it before the world and work
it. Let the other side criticise it. Do not let them come in here and say on the
one hand, `Take the Treaty,' and on the other, `Give us a weapon to destroy and
defeat it'. If we proceed on that policy we will be making ourselves a laughing
stock before the world [applause].
MR. MACENTEE:
It appears to me that if I were on the side of those who voted for the
approval and recommendation of the Articles of Agreement that on behalf of the
Irish people I would be prepared now---
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Is a member entitled to speak twice?
THE SPEAKER:
This is the first time since this motion was moved.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
The second time.
MR. MACENTEE:
I am in opposition still.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I am sorry that you have not resigned like a manly man.
MR. MACENTEE:
It appears to me that if I were on the side of those who stand for the
ratification of this Treaty, and with my knowledge of Irish history, I would be
prepared to support, merely as a precaution against English treachery, the
policy which the President has declared he stands for in this House. We have not
yet got the Treaty with England. We have got the heads of the proposed agreement
which England may not honour when the act is drawn up. We have not got the
Constitution of the Free State. That Constitution has yet to emanate from the
English Parliament; and with a prospect of a General Election in England within
a very short period, when the man who is the chief signatory to these Articles
of Agreement may quite possibly be defeated, or may decide, if it suits him, not
to go forward at all---as Pitt did after he got the Union, and dishonoured his
promise to give us Catholic Emancipation for the act of Union---I certainly feel
that if I had the interests of my country at heart, and if I did believe that
our future depended upon the actual establishment of the Free State, I would
consider the suggestion of President de Valera a very necessary act in order
that the army of the Republic, the finances of the Republic, and the Government
of the Republic could be maintained to take up Ireland's case again if need be.
Now, I heard a Deputy---and it is an amazing thing to me that a man of the
intelligence of Deputy Hogan should get up in this House and deliberately mis-state
what President de Valera said. President de Valera did not say that he was
asking this House to re-elect him to the Presidency in order that he might fight
this Treaty detail by detail.
MR. HOGAN:
I do not want this debate to proceed on the assumption that I said something
that I did not say, I did not say that he asked to be re-elected.
MR. MACENTEE:
You said that the President's suggestion was that the Treaty should be fought
detail by detail. He said if he were elected he would give those who stood for
the Treaty a free hand in order to secure that that Treaty should receive some
concrete expression of form, and then that when they and the English Parliament
had evolved it he would challenge it in the country as he was perfectly entitled
to do; and no doubt it will, in due course, be challenged in the country. It
appears to me that the proposal of the other side that a Committee of Public
Safety be set up and their refusal to nominate any candidate for the Presidency,
and their attempt by a disgraceful manoeuvre to prevent the re-election of the
President---it seems to me that the other side are already afraid of the
consequences of their act. I would suggest to them that the reason for that fear
is this: that they see already a prospect of English treachery, and that like
the old Irish Party and every other party that ever depended on British
promises, rather than acknowledge manfully the shaky ground upon which they
stand they would wish to bring us all into the bog with them. I suggest that
there is a nobler and more honourable way than that. The President has said that
if elected by this House he will ask for the control of the resources of the
Republic I think it would be a very good thing if the resources of the Republic
should be at the disposal of a man like President de Valera, who, if this
proposed bond should be dishonoured, will still stand with the Irish nation
behind him to fight for Ireland. And I would suggest that, in their own
interests, in order that they themselves may not be publicly betrayed, that they
would support the re-election of President de Valera.
MR. BRENNAN:
Does the Deputy who has sat down think that if England does not keep her
promises that we are going to sit down and are going to fall in with England
against Ireland?
MR. MACENTEE:
No! but I wish you to maintain the machinery and the organisation and the
finances in order that you might be able to fight England if England does let
you down.
MR. MACKEOWN:
We will.
MR. M. COLLINS:
We will, not they.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
I would suggest earnestly to the gentlemen on the other side that they would
be doing the best thing to promote the interests they have at heart by keeping
the Republic established as long as these negotiations are to go on with England
at least. A certain number of men on the other side---I give them credit for
being as good Republicans as on our side and I believe the declaration of these
men that their ultimate aim and object is a firmly fixed Republican form of
Government in Ireland. They claim that by voting for this Treaty they are taking
a good step in that direction. On that point we differ but I think they will
agree with me that it would be a very unwise step now on their part to
disestablish the Republic and all its machinery at this moment and that is what
it would amount to if the re-election of President de Valera were not carried. I
would urge upon them ---on those who are Republican at any rate---to re-elect,
if possible unanimously, President de Valera and by that gesture show to England
that they are determined to keep the machinery of the Republic safe and in good
order to use at any moment---that they are rigidly determined to secure that
every possible ounce that is in that Treaty will be got out of it. If they
dismantle the machinery of the Republic they are leaving themselves without any
weapon to be used against that enemy if it should act, as it has always acted
towards us, in a treacherous manner. I appeal to them to stand by the Republic
and re-elect President de Valera, and give him the resources to make their fight
for them and to secure that the enemy will not let us down and let Ireland down
as she has so often done in similar circumstances in the past.
PROFESSOR WHELEHAN:
May I ask through you, Mr. Speaker, if the President, in the selection of his
Cabinet, will select from the majority or the minority of the House, or form a
combined Cabinet?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is quite obvious that a combined Cabinet will be out of the question,
because no effort of mine could secure a combined Cabinet. It is also equally
obvious that a Cabinet from the majority is out of the question. So that it
would mean, in effect, that in that case you would have a Cabinet that would be
composed for the time being of those who stood definitely by the Republic; that
you would here in this House control the Cabinet and all its acts; that it would
be responsible to you, and that the effect would be that those who brought this
document would take the necessary steps to complete it, and that they would come
here to this House if they wished to get any sanction for any act and tell the
House what they wanted. If the House agreed with what they wanted well and good.
For instance, if there was something that would be held by the members of the
House to be against it you might have a crisis in certain cases. But I am
thinking only of the best way to do two things---to carry on over the interim
period, and to do what I told this House several times I would like to see done.
We came together to a certain bridge. At that bridge for years I thought we
might part. I am anxious at least that we should never be driven back beyond
that bridge; that we should entrench ourselves on that bridge and leave the
final decision to the Irish people; and that in fairness to the Irish people we
do not play party polities now any more than in the past. In fairness to the
Irish people we will present them with an issue which will be so clear-cut and
definite that they will not have any doubt on it. None of us would wish to see
the Irish people giving away anything that they do not want themselves to give
away; and therefore I hold, from the point of view of definitely safeguarding
the nation, that the proposal I have made, and I would not have mentioned it,
nobody here on my side knew anything about it---so that let nobody think it was
a concerted plan. Every one of you will remember here at the Private Session
that I said the same thing practically. Therefore you can see definitely that my
proposal now is practically what it was before. I quite admit that there is a
lot involved on the other side. If they do not want to take that risk they will
have to choose their own Executive.
ALDERMAN W. T. COSGRAVE:
There is no doubt the older we are getting the more information we are
getting. The latest interpretation of Constitutional practice is that the
minority in an assembly is to form the Government and to carry out the various
functions of Government in the country.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Remember, I am only putting myself at your disposal and at the disposal of
the nation. I do not want office at all. Go and elect your President and all the
rest of it. You have sixty-five. I do not want office at all.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
We are here now an hour, and the President has spoken four times, and the
little Deputy from Monaghan twice.
MR. MACENTEE:
Once on the resolution.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
And the first thing he has stated was we have got to take great care that the
English will honour the Treaty. And he is himself taking the greatest possible
care that we will not honour it. Now, I do not know whether I read in the paper
that the deputy from Monaghan was talking about resignation---first that he was
going to resign before the vote, and secondly that he would resign after the
vote.
MR. MACENTEE:
On a point of order I never said I would resign before the vote was taken.
The Deputy has stated a deliberate falsehood.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Did you say you would resign afterwards?
MR. MACENTEE:
I said I would resign in due course when I had discharged my obligations to
the nation. My public utterances are on record. I said that when I fulfilled my
obligations I would resign. I never said I would resign when the vote was taken.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
As I said before, the Deputy for Monaghan can speak until he is understood
and, of course, it will take me a long time to understand him. Now, this is
certainly the most unconstitutional procedure I have ever known. I am getting
old; I am thirteen years in public life; I have never heard a proposition the
like of which has been put before us this morning, and it is certainly the most
exceptional procedure ever proposed. I think the President realises it too, and
appreciates it---that the minority of this House takes over the Government of
the country and takes over the resources of it.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Select your President.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
The President dictates to the House what the policy is regardless of the
decision of this House. The minority is to regulate whether a decision of this
House is to be put into operation or not.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
That is a deliberate misrepresentation, and you know it.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Let us have the exact representation.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The exact representation is this: I resigned. The minority can go and take
over the machinery of the Republican Government as it is. The proposition was
made that I should take office. I was asked by the Deputy for South Dublin that
it was only fair to say what the policy was I have given it to you. I do not ask
you to elect me. Therefore I am not seeking to get any power whatever in this
nation. I am quite glad and anxious to get back to private life.
DR. MACCARTAN:
Is the President withdrawing his candidature?
MR. A. STACK:
You are not his agent.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
As an ordinary man who has been in public life, and who has generally managed
to understand what people have said in public, it is this way: this is the
interpretation I gather. I take it that the President does not want to be in
this position where his advisers want to put him. He has stated he has no
advisers.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I said I was not consulting anybody about it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Strange I have heard these arguments before, and I know where------
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
In Private Session he stated so.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I have heard them before the Private Session.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
It may be my own stupidity in the difficulty of understanding this. But, as I
think anyone is aware, the position is---as it will appeal to the people of
Ireland---that the advisers of the President seek to take advantage of his
personal popularity and the respect in which the people of this Assembly hold
him---that they desire to establish here an autocracy. Last week the vilest
abuse was poured upon us. We were held up to public scorn and hatred. We were
described as only babes could be described. This morning we are getting cheap
advice. We are told that everything possible on the other side is being done in
our interests---that it is our interests they have in view.
A DEPUTY:
The interests of the nation.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Well we are just as anxious to do the best for the nation as the loudest
spoken amongst you. We have been only able to give whatever was in us. And we
gave that and we are prepared to give it again. I made it a point at the
commencement here not to interrupt anyone. And I regret that those young people
here have not been able to appreciate that good example [laughter].
I have shown you an excellent example. Now, the people who do not want to see
this Treaty carried out---and that is really the essence of the position of the
other side---the people who do not want to see this Treaty carried out desire to
have the resources of the Republic.
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
The people who are true to the Republic.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
And the army and the finances of the Republic. That is what they want given
them---that and you can blaze away. I have never heard in my life a
constitutional proposition of that kind being put up in any assembly by the
minority. It may be a new axiom. And I submit that the resolution for the
re-election of the President is out of order, having regard to the fact that the
majority party in every assembly in the world moves the motion. I do not know
whether that is objected to or not. The new apostles of the new system of
government may object to it. There was one other matter that I would like to
refer to. Those who have taken on themselves the right to speak and censure the
utterances of others have interpreted it that under the Treaty we become British
subjects. I deny that, and I say positively that they knew they were not
speaking the truth when they made that statement. I was reading last evening an
American paper, the Boston Post, sent me by a friend a few days
ago, and that paper stated that under the Treaty the Irish people are Irish
citizens and not British subjects.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Prove it.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Of course some people would not agree to that. I can tell you that it would
take a lot to prove a thing to you that you do not want to understand or do not
want to see. I did not interrupt you. It is not a thing that can be proved, as I
said before, to a man who will not see the proof.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Prove it to the Dáil.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
The Dáil understands it. There are sixty-four sensible people in the Dáil,
and the Dáil realises that [applause and laughter], and if you are
the apostle of constitutional Government you will accept their decision, because
it is a majority decision.
THE SPEAKER:
Deputies when speaking should address the Chair.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
It happens that some delegates or Deputies are more bellicose than others,
and that consequently some Deputies when speaking are subject to interruption. I
did not interrupt the Minister for War [laughter]. I submit that
the motion for the re-election of the President is unconstitutional, and that it
is out of order. That motion can only come from the majority party. I submit
that the decision which has been taken here on Saturday cannot be rescinded on
Monday. I submit that the President himself sees the position and appreciates
it, and his own statement that he did not desire to set up a minority to run the
country is evidence of the fact that he appreciates it. And I submit to you,
sir, that the resolution is out of order, and that the only motion that can be
in order is one moved from the other side---the majority party---to set up a
joint Committee in order to carry into effect the resolution adopted by this
Assembly on Saturday in accordance with every known axiom of constitutional law.
That motion suggested by the Minister of Finance and supported by the Minister
of Foreign Affairs is the only one. Now, I was looking up the Constitution of
the Dáil, and I was not dismissed yet by the President, and I say under the
rules it is only by dismissal you can be put out of office.
THE PRESIDENT:
Well, I dismissed you by my resignation.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I want put this position before the Dáil---that there are letters going out
from my department with my name on them. Is that stopped? Because if so I must
stop work. I will send over to tell them besides, that no further letters are to
go out to the country. What then is the position to be? Is my department
dissolved?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is to-day.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Well, then, I suppose I must send to my office to stop further communications
going out. If the President is re-elected, and if the Ministers he puts up are
defeated, where are we landing ourselves? We were warned by the Deputy from
Monaghan that we will be in a bog. I think the only member of the Assembly who
is in a bog is himself. Now, I put that position to you, sir, because you have a
very responsible position as Speaker of this House. The Government of the
country must go on. Nothing can change the vote that was taken here on Saturday
last [cries of `No! no!']. There is a constitutional way of
dealing with them. Are you afraid of the people? [Cries of `No! no!'].
I am glad to hear that because one of the Deputies said here that the fear of
the people would get this Treaty ratified. I know them, and the are not afraid;
and I know it is not the ear but the sense of the people that made them favour
the Treaty. There was never as much fight in the people as when the terror was
highest. The people of this country are not going to be coerced into accepting
an instrument of this kind [applause].
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
You know they were coerced at Downing Street.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
You were in the Chair a long time and you know what the order is. I am sorry
I have been interrupted so often. I am interested in doing things in a proper
way, and I am interested in this assembly as the first assembly of the nation.
The one fact remains that we have the destinies of the country in our hands, and
that we are responsible for restoring normal conditions. The enemy are now
willing and anxious to clear out, and I believe they are making preparations to
clear out. Are there to be no facilities on our side to get them out and to
restore normal conditions? Is that an honest state of affairs? Are we to get
away from the page of party politics and the page of party suspicion and party
speeches and realise that this nation did not elect us to go on with this
nonsense? And if the Government of the country is to be maintained it could only
be done by establishing majority rule; and I believe the majority here would
willingly get out tomorrow if you can get better men, and if those who are
interested in the Republican form of Government---and I am not ---I don't care
what form it is so long as it is free, independent, authoritative, and a
sovereign Government of the people, an that it will be respected. If they wish
to put up this Republican programme of theirs I warn them that they are not
taking the best methods. And those people to whom I have been speaking outside
about the proceedings here are not impressed by the attitude nor by the
bitterness of those opposed to the Treaty. It is not by bitterness that we
succeed. Upon our shoulders rests more responsibility than any body of Irishmen
ever had to bear. The world is looking at us now, having approved of this
Treaty, and it is expecting some results from it. It is expecting ordered
government from it and if you cannot have ordered government if you re-establish
and reconstruct the government of the minority. Therefore I submit to you that
it is not in order to receive the motion.
DR. FERRAN:
We have listened to the most extraordinary constitutional procedure that was
ever listened to. I will state the case in a few words. The government of the
Irish Republic entered into negotiations with the British Government. They
carried these negotiations up to a certain point. But Lloyd George chose to say
that they were finished when he negotiated the Treaty. We know that they are
not. We have reached a stage in the negotiations. Now, it seems the best way to
continue the negotiations is through the Republican Government. The British
Government is out to smash the Republican Government.
MR. R. MULCAHY:
This assembly here carried on for a very long time---as far as my
recollection goes---without having a President of the Irish Republic. We carried
on here in the Dáil---as far as my recollection goes---until the re-assembling
of the Dáil after the re-election for what was called the Parliament of Southern
Ireland. We carried on to that date without a President. The suggestion is being
made here that we cannot carry on the work properly without a President. Now, I
could say that I feel that the future is with those people who are supporting
the Treaty, or that the future is with those people who are opposing the Treaty,
that is the future is with ideas which demand its opposition, its rejection. But
I would not be helping our work here. The job for the day, in my opinion, when
we supported here the approval of the Treaty---our job was that we should lay
our hands on those resources that were put within our reach under the Treaty,
and that we should utilise those resources to strengthen the position and build
up the Irish nation. The vote on Saturday evening confirms me in that opinion,
and gives me constitutional authority for going ahead to the absolute best of my
ability in getting Irish hands on these resources. Now, this Assembly, it has
been stated, is the Government of the Irish Republic. It is the Government of
the Irish people. And I agree with the statement that it remains that Government
until the Irish people have set up another Government. Now, in the opinion of
the majority of this Assembly, and in the opinion of the majority party which
forms the Government of Ireland, our immediate job is to lay hands on those
resources which are put within our reach by the Treaty. And I believe we would
be false to our realisation of what the next job to be done by us for the
benefit of the Irish people is if we did not use our whole weight and the whole
resources and the whole constitutional position of this body for the carrying
out of that end, and it is for that reason---however much I regret it---that I
am opposing the proposition that President de Valera should be re-appointed
President of the Irish Republic and President of this Assembly. It is for that
reason that I must oppose such a proposition because we would be taking from the
majority of this House, which realises it has to do a certain work, a
considerable portion of the resources, if not all the resources that should be
at its disposal for the carrying out of that work and placing them in the hands
of other people who, no matter how they feel disposed to us, and no matter how
they feel that we do not run on parallel lines ultimately---by taking the line
that we take to-day we may not converge upon that point upon which, in our
hearts we all desire to converge. No matter how they feel with regard to us, or
how we feel with regard to them, we would be putting ourselves in the position
of handing over these resources to people who, at the present moment, from their
own point of view cannot co-operate with us in helping us to do the job which
lies immediately at our hands, and which we are determined to do, just as in
those days gone by we tackled one by one the different jobs that came in front
of us.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
I think when the public read in the Press this discussion and understand its
full bearing the feeling of the public will be one of sheer exasperation. We
spent a number of weeks in Public and Private Session discussing a grave
national issue. And we decided it last Saturday night after exploring every
vestige of that Treaty, and after the public mind of the country has pronounced,
as far as it was possible for the country to make itself articulate. Now, this
morning we are confronted with a proposal, a motion, a situation which has, I
think, no other object and can have, if carried, no other consequence than to
reverse or nullify the decision of last Saturday. The President has emphasised
the fact, from his point of view, that he is trying to end what appears to be an
impasse by strict adherence to constitutional methods. I submit that he is not
quite accurate or exact in his conception of what constitutional methods should
be in this matter. The constitutional method for a party who is defeated in an
assembly like this is to resign their power and let the majority take control [hear,
hear]. I notice there is great jubilation amongst the supporters of this
motion, and I take it that they strongly dissent from this statement of the
President that there can be no question of a Cabinet being selected from the
majority of the House. Now, I suppose I am guilty of as many interruptions as
anybody else, and I need not grumble. But when I was coming in during the course
of this discussion I heard the Deputy from Monaghan speaking about a shaky
ground. I do not know whether it was the shaky ground of his in Monaghan or the
shaky ground of the President in this position that he was referring to. But it
certainly is a most precarious position to stand in. President de Valera and
those who stood with him were defeated on last Saturday night in this House. I
submit that the constitutional procedure is that those Ministers who were
defeated should hand in their resignations. Now, I know what the move is. the
President says that he does not wish to go forward. If President de Valera will
stand down on this question he will show you the majority. Do not let us confuse
the issue that is before the Assembly with a personality---the great and
honoured personality of President de Valera. Let us know where we stand. Are you
who are opposing the Treaty that was approved of on Saturday night, are you
trying to play the personality of President de Valera as a trump card to try and
kill the Treaty? [`No!'] It will take as much evidence and a good
deal more evidence to prove that as it will require to prove the contention of
the Minister of Agriculture that we are to be British citizens under this
Treaty. I listened to President de Valera here one evening at the Private
Session. And I suppose it is not proper to make anything like detailed allusions
to what occurs in Private Session, but I gathered from him on one occasion---
when asked what would be his policy in the eventuality of the Treaty being
rejected, and in the eventuality of its being approved. The President made a
lengthy and, I thought, a carefully calculated speech suggesting what would be
the outcome of all these eventualities. And, so far as my recollection serves
me, President de Valera stated then that he would regard the will of the
majority in this House as the sovereign and binding authority in this House. The
majority spoke last Saturday night.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
On the Treaty.
MR. MILROY:
On the Treaty. Are you going to honour the decision of the majority or are
you going to make us, not merely a laughing stock, but something that is beneath
contempt in the civilised world, by giving a decision one night and two days
after reversing that decision? [`No!']. Very well, do not be
playing the personality of President de Valera against the real sense of this
house. I find it hard to speak with patience about this matter. We regarded
decision on Saturday night last---at least, I regarded it---as terminating a
long and serious controversy. We regarded it as coming to the end of one stage,
and that when that stage was reached we would begin subsequently to carry out
what was the effect of that decision. If this motion is persisted in, if the
policy connected with the Government is persisted in, it means that you are
deliberately and with malice aforethought endeavouring to nullify the decision
come to last Saturday night, endeavouring to reverse the decision of the House
and to nullify the efforts made to bring some kind of independent staple
government to Ireland. Now I would ask you who voted for the Treaty on last
Saturday night to realise what you are faced with. Those who voted against it,
of course, have not the responsibility that those who voted for it have. But
every Deputy here who voted for that Treaty last Saturday night is as much bound
to honour his vote as the plenipotentiaries were to honour their signatures. And
I tell you, the man who votes to-day for the motion which will have the effect
of destroying the motion voted for on last Saturday night---that Deputy will be
as guilty of ------
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Treason.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
To the Republic, mar dheadh.
MR. MILROY:
I prefer to choose my own words
MR. A. STACK:
And your own crimes.
MR. MILROY:
I will be responsible for my own crimes. I will not ask any Deputy here to
take responsibility for them. And I say that every person here who voted for the
Treaty last Saturday night and who votes for the motion to destroy the Treaty or
to nullify its effects to-day is as much guilty of cowardice---I will say moral
cowardice---it is, perhaps, a less reprehensible word than the Minister for Home
Affairs selected for me---he will be as guilty of moral cowardice as the
plenipotentiary who signed in London and will come back and vote against the
Treaty here. This is no time for playing party politics or trying to score [laughter].
I cannot understand the laughter that comes to the face of the Holy Roman Deputy
from Tipperary. It may be a laughing matter to him if this Treaty is destroyed.
But I tell you it will not be a laughing matter to Ireland, and there will be no
smile on his face when Ireland calls him to account. This is a serious, a grave
matter. And I ask every man who voted for the Treaty last Saturday night to
remember, to realise, that the motion to-day to secure minority rule in this
House is a motion intended to kill the Treaty, and to throw us back to the
wrangling we were in before we came to the decision on last Saturday night [applause].
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I want to get back to common sense and plain facts. The President offered to
resign. He resigned on Saturday. It was at the suggestion---or almost
request---of the opposition he withdrew his resignation until this morning, and
I strongly resent then that he should be accused of any political trick.
Mr. MILROY:
Not by me.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Surely when the President's policy is defeated the obvious course is for the
President to resign. Now, we want order and peace in the country. We do not wish
to see disruption and disagreement which may lead to very serious results up and
down the land. We listened to Mr. Collins' suggestion of a joint committee that
from the President's point of view and from my point of view is an
impossibility, because we disagree on fundamentals, that is, on the Treaty. Mr.
Michael Collins stands for Saorstát na h-Eireann, and I stand for the Republic.
As a person who stands for the Republic I cannot consider anything less, nor
will I work with anyone who considers the case of Ireland from a lower standard
than my own. Now, the President's name was put forward for re-election. Now, I
ask, what do the opposition mean? Why do they not put up a man of their own as
President---which I would consider the honourable way out of this? I myself
believe that, except on the one question of the Saorstát as against the
Republic---that is, the Free State or Cheap State, as the other Irish
translation has it---there is a majority in favour of the Free State in this
House, but I do not know that on any other of the points of President de
Valera's policy that there has ever been any disagreement in this House. And, of
course, the opposition are pre-supposing that this House is definitely divided.
One of our party proposed President de Valera as President of this assembly. And
I conclude Deputy Mrs. Clarke proposed that because, when the President
resigned, the opposition did not, in their turn, propose a President. They,
apparently, did not stand for the Republic. We then, as Republicans---or a
member of our party---proposed our much loved and much respected President, the
man who carried out the great fight in Boland's Mill with a gun in his own
hands, as a Commander, in Easter Week; the man who fought elections, the man who
went to jail, the man whom we have all known as the straightest, truest and most
honourable man we ever had anything to do with. Even his opponents will admit
there could never have been a criticism of the President's bravery, courage or
honour. We proposed the President and they are refusing to elect the President.
They are trying to overthrow the Republic. This is what I would put to them: we
established our Republic; they have this Treaty. This Treaty has been passed by
the House. They have a clear road in front of them. They go over---they take up
the negotiations, they form a Constitution and then go on. But I say: why should
our side be supposed to end our opposition to the destruction of the Republic?
Now, the members of the opposition here blame the President because, when he was
put forward as President to be elected, he simply and frankly and honestly
stated that, as President, he would continue his work as President of the Irish
Republic---a protector and fighter for the Irish Republic. That was an
honourable line, and a thing for which I respect and value him. We know to-day
that England is in the tightest corner she was ever in. We know there is a paper
wall around India and Egypt as big as there had ever been around Ireland before
Easter Week. We do not know what straits England is in. We don't know what may
happen in the coming year while the Provisional Government which Mr. Griffith
and Mr. Collins are going to set up is functioning, and I say now it is
necessary that the Republican interest should be held and the situation watched.
And I say now: let this vote be a straight one. The Republic exists to-day. Let
the President be elected and let him stand by his ideals and the world will know
the man he is. I would say that those who stand for the ultimate Republic in
Ireland, who believe in the Republic, and who work for the Republic, must
support the President. What matters is that the Republic is not allowed to be
overthrown to-day by any side-tracking, personal allusions---petty and
mean---against brave and honourable men, and also by juggling and tricks. Again
I repeat---it is very simple the outlook to-day---the state and condition at the
moment is this: the President has resigned because he considers it his duty. The
members of our party who wish for the re-affirmation of the Republic are
supporting him. Let those who wish to overthrew the Republic vote that there
ought be no President from this day in Ireland; and let them realise that they
are using the little bit of authority, the one little piece, to pull down what
Ireland has gained by centuries of fighting of misery and of suffering. And that
is the position to-day.
MR. LIAM DE ROISTE:
Is not this the present position before us? The English are willing to
evacuate the country at the moment that we set up the Provisional Government.
Their forces are ready to leave as soon as the Provisional Government is set up.
All their Departments of Government to the number of fifty-six are to be handed
over to the representatives of the Irish people. Now, is it not common sense
that in the interests of the Republic of Ireland---which to my view is not a
minority or a majority party; not this Dáil itself, but the people of
Ireland---is it not common sense that in the interests of the people of Ireland
that the sooner we give facilities to the British to clear out of the country
the better? And the only way in which we can give these facilities at the
present moment is by setting up a Provisional Government here. Those who are
opposed to the setting up of the Provisional Government in this country are, as
I said and as I consider it now, in favour of retaining, not alone the British
Army and the armed forces in this country, but the thing which is an abomination
in Ireland---Dublin Castle Government. That, I maintain, is the position, and we
ought all to take the same view.
DR. CUSACK:
There is a way out, and a very clear way out. This is the Dáil---the
Republican Parliament for all Ireland. The members who were elected to the
Republican Parliament know that the Republican Parliament will exist until the
General election will remove it.
A DEPUTY:
And remove you, too.
DR. CUSACK:
That has nothing to do with this point. And by Article 17 of the Treaty we
see:
By way of provisional arrangement for the administration of Southern
Ireland during the interval which must elapse between the date hereof and the
constitution of a Parliament and a Government of the Irish Free State in
accordance therewith, steps shall be taken forthwith for summoning a meeting
of members of Parliament elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland since
the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and for constituting a
Provisional Government, and the British Government shall take the steps
necessary to transfer to such Provisional Government the powers and the
machinery requisite for the discharge of its duties, provided that every
member of such Provisional Government shall have signified in writing his or
her acceptance of this instrument. But this arrangement shall not continue in
force beyond the expiration of twelve months from the date hereof.
We have not got these members here. This is not a Parliament of Southern
Ireland. Now, our Government must go on---the Republican Government must go on.
There is no reason why the members elected to the Southern Parliament should
not, if they wish, form a Provisional Government as this instrument says, and
proceed to take over. There is no reason why that should not be done and end our
discussion and end the flight of oratory.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
Mr. Mulcahy seemed to suggest that instantly we should enjoy the advantages
given in the Treaty. Evidently that is not so. There has to be negotiations,
conferences, and ratification of this Treaty in connection with England, and it
is now what you mean to consider what views Ireland is to put before the world,
and how she is to show herself an existing entity. Something should be done to
show that we have not given up our separate existence, nor what we wish to get,
an independent country. Therefore it seems to me a sort of misunderstanding to
think that you can instantly now go and take the advantages of this Treaty. This
has all to be settled.
MR. DOMHNALL O CEALLACHAIN:
I feel bound to contradict and resent one thing that I may safely describe as
deliberate misrepresentation. I have listened to one of my colleagues from Cork
seek to make a case. He said that those who maintain here to-day a particular
line of action---that some members of this House desire to retain in Ireland the
British Government and the British Army and British Departments. Now, I am
satisfied that neither of us here nor any member of this House can believe that
that is true. Consequently, I may safely call this deliberate misrepresentation.
I hope this is not going to develop into a series of speeches. The central fact
is that there must be a Government until such time as a certain form of
negotiations has taken place. There must be a Government. It is also clear from
certain statements that that Government must come from one side or the other.
Now, the House is here and I think the House should decide now.
MR. LIAM DE ROISTE:
I am one of those who utterly dislike making any personal explanations. I
rather agree with the motto `never explain'. But in regard to my friend, the
Lord Mayor of Cork, I did not mean that that was the intention of those
supporting the election of President de Valera, but that it will be the effect
of their action in opposing the setting up of a Provisional Government by
delaying the evacuation of the British Forces.
MR. SEAN ETCHINGHAM:
I hope this will not descend into politics. My good friend, the Deputy for
Tyrone, referred to me. He used to consider himself a Party politician. What we
want to do is to salve as much as we can out of the wreckage, and to do it for
Ireland. He said I would be afraid to go before the Irish people. I am not. But
I did hope that when the Chairman of the Delegation was concluding his speech
the other night that he would have answered one of the Deputies from Mayo,
Doctor Ferran, who asked him some very pertinent questions regarding this Treaty
and its future. He did not deal with that nor with other things. But I hope he
will now. He seems to know more about it. He had some correspondence from the
Prime Minister of England, and he will know about its future. I have had this
point from the English Press and the Irish Press--- statements from the Prime
Minister of England and by Lord Birkenhead that these are Articles of Agreement.
THE SPEAKER:
What is the Deputy speaking to?
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
To the election of President de Valera, and I want to answer, as far as I
can, some statements made here that have really nothing to do with that [laughter].
I appreciate that. I do say the position of Deputies in this House who are
afraid to face the issue of electing the President for the Irish Republic in the
Parliament of the Irish Republic---they are afraid to face that issue straight
and so they side-track. They would not put up a candidate of their own. And they
go on talking about constitutionalism. Would it not be more constitutional to
here and now say `Are you going to kill the Irish Republic? Can you do it?' No!
You have not put up a candidate of your own. President de Valera has been put up
and you cannot put up anyone against him. You had it from a very able Deputy who
raised a laugh. But he did not deal with any constitutionalism. I have heard
from one of the Deputies in Dublin that we had not a President in the first
Parliament in Dublin. But that very Deputy seconded President de Valera as
President of the Republic in the Mansion House. He was proposed by Deputy Seán
MacKeown, and no quibble about it, President of the Irish Republic, and seconded
by Deputy Mulcahy, and I think the whole House agreed to it. Now he resigns that
position, and resigns it before the whole body, and he is proposed and seconded
for election. You cannot side-track that. You must face it. The other day when
things were made unconstitutional he threatened to resign, and he put up his
resignation and it was pointed out by the other side---it was said it was a
political trick. And it was not. There is a hope here in the minds of a few that
by insisting it is unconstitutional he will withdraw this. I hope he will not.
It is time for us to face the issue. The Deputy from Cork knows well that we
here had no right to ratify the Treaty. It was the Deputies elected to the
Parliament of Southern Ireland. You would have men from Trinity here.
MR. M. COLLINS:
They might vote against it.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
It was open, I daresay, to the Viceroy to call this meeting of the Southern
Parliament, to call it for, say, Leinster House or somewhere else, and elect a
Provisional Government. But I would appeal to you in the interests of Ireland,
even in the interests of the Treaty that you have by a majority decided to
accept here on Saturday night, to still maintain your Republic. It is a loose
thing; it is only Articles of Agreement according to the English, and you know
what they have done with treaties in the past. And one Deputy at some meeting
here stated that the only hope you have of getting that Treaty is that we would
stand out against it. Even the Deputy from Offaly stated it here one night. He
voted for it. For goodness sake do not for Party purposes or Party polities go
and destroy the ultimate aim you have, and that great opportunity you have, of
saving your country. I know there are men on the other side as patriotic as I
am. I always admitted that. I worked with them in the past. Some of them say
they will take an oath every time they get a rifle. I do not agree with that.
The oath is a thing that ought be respected and so is the Treaty, too. The
Minister of Finance declared that this does not satisfy the aspirations of the
Irish people; that this is not a final settlement; and in his final speech the
Chairman of the Delegation agreed that anything might happen in ten years;
though, unfortunately, in an interview he gave to some member of the Press
Association after the Treaty was signed he stated that it was the end of seven
and a half centuries of fighting---that it was the liberty of Ireland. Now I ask
you: it may be thought that I want to take a Party side in this question of
supporting President de Valera. I told you here that I supported principles and
not persons. President de Valera is the symbol of the Irish Republic. President
de Valera holds a greater place in the hearts of the Irish people than any man
in the public life of Ireland to-day. And I can assure you that if you turn him
down in this Dáil you will not have peace in the country. If you elect him you
will have peace, because he will see that you will have peace. He is not out for
party polities. He urged every one of us not to say one word that would injure
Ireland---that Ireland was above us all---and that is his feeling to-day. But I
met here a supporter of the Treaty last night, a man of some influence in the
city, who read in the Press that we seemed to want to turn the President down.
He resented that. What he did say was that on the 4th December President de
Valera went back from his Cabinet meeting and it seemed to be his Palm Sunday,
and `now,' he said `are you going to bring him back and make it his Good
Friday?'. That will be the feeling of the people. Let us get out of the strife
of last week. It is ended. We are here as the Parliament of the Irish Republic
and you are asked to re-elect President de Valera as President. Are you going to
vote against him? Are the young men who believe in the Republic going to go
against him? I say not. And it does not matter if he is elected here by the
majority. That will not stop the formation of obvious work, nor will it keep the
English Army in Ireland, nor the formation of the Irish Army in Ireland. It will
be the means of driving the English Army out of it. See what Thomas says about
the forthcoming General election, and what will happen. Realise your position.
You cannot trust these English Ministers. And now they would turn down every one
of those Articles of Agreement if you did not maintain the machinery of the
Irish Republic that forced them to accept things as they are. In God's name I
ask you this: abandon following Party politics; come back to the old spirit of
comradeship, Ireland over all, and unanimously---if you can---elect President de
Valera.
PETER HUGHES:
I move that we now adjourn for two hours.
Opposition cries of: `Take a vote'.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
I agree with Deputy Etchingham that it is time to face the issue. But my
conception of what the issue is, is somewhat different from his. The issue is
this: are we here as representatives of the Irish people or are we not? And I do
not think we speak here the voice of the Irish nation if we do not represent,
each one of us, our constituents. Then we are, more or less, able and
enthusiastic exponents of a particular point of view. We have come to the stage
when there is a question of the English evacuating Ireland, when there is a
question of England handing over the Governmental Departments that formerly
administered Ireland. Now, the evacuation of what? And handing over to whom? I
contend to the Provisional Government---handing over to the Provisional
Government. And there is a definite difference about it, too. Some people
contend that there is, and must continue to be, here in Ireland a Republic. Some
contend that there must be a Provisional Government and, following on that, the
Free State. Now, I was of opinion, I will grant, that there is and must be a
Republic. But there are some who merely seem to differ between one Free State
and another Free State, and one form of association---that the community of
association with the British Empire is again but another form of association.
But to come back to the main point---are we speaking here the voice of our
constituents or not? The sooner we take a plebiscite or General Election on this
issue the better. It may he said that we have no machinery for dissolving. It is
surely no great act of condescension on our part---we, who in the past, were
twice elected on English writs---to get a dissolution. Very good. It is not, as
I say, a great act of condescension on our part to get a dissolution
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
Use your influence with Lloyd George.
MR. M. COLLINS:
That is worthy of Austin Stack to say that.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
Any man who says the Republic is dead deserves it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
The remark is worthy of the man who made it.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
What I am really anxious to ascertain is this: whether the spiritual Republic
which we are told is in existence is to continue, or whether the people wish to
set up a Provisional Government preparatory to establishing a Free State in
Ireland?
MR. ERNEST BLYTHE:
What is in my mind is to assure you that anything that will be done here
to-day will he something that will rather tend to prevent people who have worked
together so long, and who are still out for the same ultimate end---to prevent
them from arriving at a situation where they may begin shooting one another.
Rather the opposite. I agree with President de Valera that a plebiscite now
would not be as clear an issue before the Irish people as a plebiscite or
General Election when the Constitution of the Irish Free State has been framed.
And for that reason I am not one of those who desire a plebiscite now;. I
believe that the plebiscite now would go in favour of the Treaty. I believe that
when the Constitution of the Irish Free State has been framed that the people
will respect that Constitution and that they will approve of the Treaty and
approve of the setting up of a Provisional Government. Because that was one of
the Articles of Agreement. Now, that Provisional Government will represent the
majority in this Dáil; whether formally or informally it will have authority
from this Dáil. And if we are going here to set up a Republican Government
representing the minority of the Dáil and also having the authority of the Dáil,
I think we are heading straight for a situation in which chaos of the worst kind
will result.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Mexican politics.
MR. BLYTHE:
To some extent President de Valera, by his first answer, met the situation.
But he did not go far enough. Nothing that he said gave any assurance that we
were not going to have the worst possible clash between two separate and
distinct Governments, both having authority from this Dáil. And I think that the
Dáil would be certainly shirking its duty and be guilty of a very grave crime
against the country if it lightly or hurriedly created such a
situation---because it has already approved of the Treaty---if it is going to
set up two opposing Governments, and if there is no arrangement made by which
there would not be a clash between them.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is obvious that the arrangements would have to be made.
MR. MACKEOWN:
I wish to support the motion for adjournment.
MR. M. COLLINS:
If we do not accept the adjournment at this present moment I want to speak
about this motion and its implications in every possible way. If we do not
adjourn I want to speak about this motion and refer to it in all its
implications.
THE SPEAKER:
Better adjourn now. It is one-thirty o'clock.
MR. M. COLLINS:
My statement about it will be rather lengthy.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
Several speakers have intimated to me that they want to speak on the motion.
THE SPEAKER put the motion to adjourn for two hours and it was carried.
The House adjourned at 1.30 p.m., to 3.30 p.m.
AFTERNOON SESSION.
On resuming after luncheon THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) took the
Chair at 3.50.
MR. STACK:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I did not intend speaking on this debate, on this
part of the debate at all, but unfortunately, the heat of the moment caused me
to use a remark which I regret. I was rather galled by a statement made by one
of the speakers which prompted me to suggest that, as a way out of a certain
difficulty, our friends opposite should use their influence with Mr. Lloyd
George to bring about a plebiscite. I wish to withdrew that remark unreservedly.
I know that whatever influence our friends opposite have will be used for
Ireland's good and not for her difficulty [hear, hear]. As I am my
feet I wish to say a few words in support of the nomination of Mr. de Valera,
who will be President, I hope, in future of the Republic. I simply wish to
remark that the Republic was established by the people's will, and that it still
exists, and that being so that a President and Executive are absolutely
necessary. I support the nomination of Eamon de Valera because I believe the
policy which he has propounded is the right and only policy for this country. I
support his nomination also because I believe he is a big man, perhaps the
biggest man in Europe this day. He is a man in whom I have always had the
greatest confidence. And if I may say a thing that is fairly personal, I
remarked during these negotiations when a friend of mine, a reverend clergyman,
approached me and hoped that we would not be let down, I told him I was ready to
commit suicide the moment Mr. de Valera let us down---and I am. With regard to
the suggested plebiscite it was on that subject that our friend opposite made
the remark to-day, and I say that we on this side have no objection whatever to
the voice of the people being made articulate. But it must be the people's free
choice, and whatever referendum there may be must be between the Republic and
this document. When I say free choice I am sure every member here will
understand me. I mean the choice made in the absence of any element of
compulsion. Then, and then only, will you have the true will of the people and,
let the result be what it may it will be Government with the consent of the
governed.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS:
When I spoke, before I went away from here, I said I would deal with what I
considered the implications of this present motion. Now, whatever we
say---whatever any of us say, or whatever any of us think---we cannot conceal
our own innermost thoughts from ourselves, and my innermost thought about this
is: that in opposing it I am doing a greater service to Eamon de Valera than the
people who put his name forward for re-election [hear, hear]; and
when I mentioned the other day that Eamon de Valera had the same place in my
regard now as ever he knows that I meant what I said. He knows it in his
innermost mind, whether the dictates of policy force him to deny it or not. He
knows it, and I am satisfied he knows it. Now, rushing a vote, on an issue like
this, may be good tactics from the point of view merely of getting a vote, but
it is bad tactics from the point of view of the nation. None of us want to see
the Republic turned down, and some of us have not turned down the Republic. Some
of us stand to work to the best of our ability---to work for the Irish nation,
for a free Irish atmosphere, for the Irish people, Irish climate, Irish ideas
and Irish ideals. That is the way we stand, the way we always stood, and we will
try to stand for it and I will try to stand for it; no matter in what capacity I
will try to stand for that ideal. To talk freely, squarely and fairly, that is
what I think about this motion. I think about it what I thought and said in
private about the plenipotentiaries. I think about it---and the suggestions that
have accompanied it from the other side---I think about it as a move like this:
that we can go on compromising, and we can go on negotiating, and we call go on
giving away the position so long as the others have the authority to tell us
afterwards that we have done so. Now, there is going to be an end to that,
fairly and squarely. Many people on my side differ from me in my reading of the
situation. In my belief the question of a plebiscite is not so simple as some
people think [hear, hear]. If the President is elected as
President, and if he has his Executive, I can say now what my course of action
will be. I will simply go down to the people of South Cork and tell them---most
of them know me personally and intimately---I will go down to the people of
South Cork and tell them that I did my best, that I could bring the thing no
further, `and now you can elect a representative who will carry the Irish nation
further' [applause]. And I will help them in that, and the people
in South Cork---the people in the cottages and the farms---they know me well,
and I will speak to them as man to man. I will say to them: `perhaps I have
failed,' and you know they would never question that I have done my best. I am
more concerned about what they will say than about what anybody else will say,
because they are the people who know me and who have been with me. I cannot see
any way out of this present difficulty except in the manner I have suggested,
and I have done my best to be constructive in my suggestions. I have done my
best to see the difficulties and the real opinions of the other side. I have no
other suggestion to make than the one I have made. And I believe if a
Provisional Government is formed as Mr. Griffith intends to form it, I believe
that if it is allowed to operate we can operate it on the lines we have
mentioned. If it is not allowed to operate, it will be only because of
difficulties put in our way. What we want is a chance---a real, genuine, proper
chance---to prove our mark. We do not want to have difficulties put in our way
by our friends, because you know that one friend, who does not quite agree with
the way you are going on, can do you more injury in the fulfilment of your plans
than all your enemies [applause]. You know that and I know it. I
recognise these difficulties. I recognised them from the day we went on the
negotiations and I recognised them long before that, and the President knows
that. I have discussed situations of this kind with him long before this. He
knows that I recognised these difficulties two and three years ago. Whatever may
be the tactics of the thing, we ought, at any rate, not to be governed by
tactics in an hour of crisis like this. And if the situation has passed into our
hands let us take the responsibility of it, and make us answerable for the
responsibility of it, and do it in a worthy open way ([hear, hear].
Now, if this motion is put for the President as President of the Republic I will
vote against it. I for one do not know or care what the people on my side will
do; and I will vote against it primarily because of this: that it would be
putting the President in a false position, and in a position in which he could
not act as President of the nation. That must be known to him, and I am not
going to put him into that position, or, if he is put into that position by this
Dáil, I for one will say in the future what I am saying now---that you placed
him in an impossible position; that you give him an impossible job. There is no
use in coming back and saying that: `We put you in that position and you did not
do the job'. We know in our hearts it would be putting him in an impossible
position. President of the Republic is a term that is known in many countries.
Could the President get up and say: `Yes! I will be President of this nation, I
will carry it on without interference from any other nation'? Could he say: `I
will carry on our finance, I will establish our currency'? Could he say: `I will
go on with the army, I will build submarines, I will build battleships, so that
no nation will interfere with us'? Let us be honest with ourselves. We know we
will be putting him in an impossible position, and I will not put him in an
impossible position if I can help it in any way [applause].
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
A Chinn Chomhairle, agus a lucht na Dála, ba mhaith liom a chur i gcuimhne
dhíbh go ndubhart i dtosach go raibh socair agam gan aon rud do rá a chuirfeadh
fearg ar einne ach nár bhfoláir dom an fhírinne d'innsint. Tá socair agam anois
gan aon rud a rá a chuirfeadh fearg ar einne ach táim chun an fhírinne d'innsint
agus ní doigh liom go gcuirfe se fearg ar einne. It will be just as well for
me to say at the start, having regard to what occurred on Saturday night, that I
have decided to avoid saying anything of a contentious nature. I must, however,
refer briefly to what occurred on Saturday night. Mr. Michael Collins might very
well say `Save me from my friends'. What occurred on Saturday would never have
occurred only for Mr. Collins' friends. His friend, Mr. Arthur Griffith, made a
statement in his opening speech here which showed me, so far as my understanding
went anyway, that an attempt was being made to sway the votes in this Dáil, and
possibly the votes of the Irish people when the matter came before them, by a
statement, in connection with Mr. Michael Collins, which could not be truly said
about anybody---that he had won the war. It could not be said truly that any one
man won the war. It has not been won at all. I may tell you I am in a position
to know, certainly as well as most people, and better than nearly all, that the
men mostly responsible for bringing us to the invincible position we held before
this Treaty was signed are men whose names, if I mentioned them here, would not
be known. I would ask you now not to be deceived by anything that takes place
here. I knew nothing about political tactics until the question of this Treaty
came up. I have seen too much of them, goodness knows, since, and I hope to
heavens I will see no more of them, no matter how we finish this. We were one
party before this occurred and, in God's name, let us be one party after it, in
the Dáil anyway. You have all known that on many---too many---occasions, when
Ireland or her representatives trusted England that Ireland was deceived. I can
give you plenty of historical references starting from Sarsfield, the Treaty of
Limerick, the Volunteers of 1782, not that I agree with Sarsfield's policy or
Grattan's policy or any of these policies; I just bring them before you to show
you cannot depend on England's word or the word of English statesmen. If the
English people had a say in this thing, I am perfectly sure they would accept
the offer we made them. It is English politicians and English statesmen whom we
cannot trust. I am perfectly satisfied that the five men who signed this
document thought that they did the best thing for Ireland. That is all right;
that is their own opinion. Certainly, if they think they can absolutely rely on
the word of Mr. Lloyd George and his friends they are not as sensible men as I
took them to be.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Is it not better to have a signed cheque than an unsigned cheque?
MR. BRUGHA:
Yes, but the money might not be in the bank after you endorsing the cheque [applause].
MR. M. COLLINS:
Even so you cannot put it there at all if your cheque is unsigned [applause].
MR. BRUGHA:
Let us safeguard ourselves in any case---and this is a means of doing it. You
say that in re-electing the President, by re-electing President de Valera, we
put him in a false position. We do nothing of the kind. We have been given a
mandate by the electors. That mandate, as you will admit, was to maintain the
Republic. Until we go before the electors again and they turn us down, must not
we carry out our mandate? Is not that so? We all know, prior to the 1918
elections, what sagacity resolutions, what confidence resolutions meant. They
were pouring in, snowball fashion, from all over the country, and when the
people in whose favour these resolutions were made out and sent up to Dublin
came before the electorate, do you not know what the electorate did with them?
In spite of what has happened, and the resolutions from public bodies---we do
not know that those public bodies speak for the country---the electorate gave us
a mandate, anyway, and we have to carry out that mandate, until we go before
them again and they say: `We want to change that mandate'.
MR. M. COLLINS.
On the previous occasion they were going for the unsigned cheque.
MR. BRUGHA:
In any case they have to be satisfied, and they are not such fools as some
people are. When it comes before them they will give their decision on that. We
must carry out our mandate. There is only one man in Ireland who can do that
properly, and when we come to make a satisfactory arrangement with England, one
that the Dáil before the sixth December would have been satisfied with
unanimously, the only one man who can deliver the goods is Eamon de Valera [applause].
Now, we are not putting him in a false position by re-electing him. You people,
we do not want to interfere with you. You may go ahead with your Treaty and your
Southern Parliament, but as far as we are concerned we are not going to
co-operate with you, but we are not going to hamper you. Go ahead, but we are
certainly going to see, so far as we can help it, that Dáil Eireann remains in
existence until the electorate turns it down [hear, hear]. There
is only one man who can lead us properly and keep us all together. If Eamon de
Valera did not happen to be President who would have kept Arthur Griffith,
Michael Collins and myself together? [laughter].
MR. M. COLLINS:
That is true. It was not to-day or yesterday it started.
MR. BRUGHA:
I only wish to God we could be brought together again under his leadership. I
only wish it was possible.
MR. M. COLLINS:
It is not, though.
MR. BRUGHA:
Not until Saturday night's work has been undone, and with the help of God and
the Irish electorate it will be undone. You have asked a question as to how
President de Valera is going to function with his Executive, to build
submarines, et cetera. We did it before and I do not see why we should
not do it again.
MR. M. COLLINS:
We never built a submarine.
MR. BRUGHA:
Let us, at least, have the goodwill of the people who are in favour of the
action we have taken on this Treaty. Do not try to interfere with those people
and we will not interfere with you. Go ahead, you will not have our
co-operation. We cannot do it on principle, but we will not interfere with you,
provided you do nothing that infringes on our principles; but we are going to
carry out the mandate given us by the electorate. One of your speakers here
to-day said he thought that after Saturday we had come to the parting of the
ways. Deputy Sears of County Mayo conveyed that you could not agree with us in
what we are doing---then you can clear out. There is no offence intended. Let us
go ahead and run the Republic [hear, hear]. I will be satisfied
for one when an election comes along. I am going to fight it. I will be
perfectly satisfied if the Irish people tell us that they want to become British
subjects and `you Republicans can go and mind your own business' [laughter
and applause].
MR. DE VALERA:
I would like to say one thing. There is no one man and no group of men can
deliver the Irish nation to anybody [hear, hear].
MR. SEUMAS FITZGERALD:
As one who voted against this Treaty at the Public Session, I admitted in the
course of my remarks I knew the majority of those who voted for the Treaty were
out for the ultimate Republic. And it was only on that consideration alone that
many of those who were fundamentally opposed to the Treaty bowed to the
circumstances that compelled them to vote for it. The ultimate Republic is the
concern of those too, and also the fact---I trust they will have thought of this
point for it is their concern---if the Treaty is the bird in hand they will want
to see that it is well caged. They will also want to see that the Republic will
not be disestablished until after the Treaty proposals are embodied in some
definite form, and a Constitution set up, so that the people may ultimately
decide on some clear basis. At present I am placing myself in the position of
one who might have bowed to the force of circumstances and voted for the Treaty.
That we do not throw away what we actually have, a Government of the Irish
Republic, for what we are expecting from the Treaty proposals is a very fair
argument. So we must hold ourselves in readiness for any possible treachery on
the part of the enemy. The majority side have said that it will be their aim and
object to make for the creation of circumstances towards the ultimate end of an
Irish Republic. We may go on a different road, but we will also try to set up
circumstances that will make for the ultimate end of an Irish Republic. When I
see my way, when the circumstances that they create are such, when I think I can
help to achieve that end of an Irish Republic, I will help them. Now, the
circumstances, what are they? At the present time a large portion, I will be
quite fair, of the army are against this Treaty. The point of view that I
maintain is that rather than have it disbanded we must keep it united. I will
make a suggestion later on as to how it can be maintained united. The army
overwhelmingly are out for the ultimate Republic, and I maintain that they would
be more unitedly prepared to continue under the direction of a Minister of
Defence chosen from the minority side as being the one that had the Republican
interests more immediately in view. A President and Cabinet from the majority
side might, and could do so If elected, give guarantees that they would
safeguard the interests of the Republic in the meantime, but these guarantees
will not inspire the same confidence and respect. It is stated that if President
de Valera is elected President of this Assembly it would be a ridiculous
position to place him in. I think it would be a much more ridiculous position
for the same body of men on one hand to set up a Provisional Government and, at
the same time, to act as the Government of Dáil Eireann. I remind them that it
is their duty to stand by the latter until the Free State Government is ready in
all its details. The suggestion I make is this: that the majority party go ahead
with their work in setting up the Provisional Government and that they do not
interfere with the Dáil in its present functions, with the Minister of Home
Affairs, the Minister of Defence, the Minister of Finance, et cetera.
Secondly, that they should go ahead with the work of making arrangements for the
withdrawal of the English troops with the English Government, and similarly with
the police. On the other hand they could simply pass an act to maintain peace,
law and order when these troops are gone. They could back up their arguments
with the English members by stating such. They are a majority in the House and
they can do that. Thus the Dáil as a Republican body will not cease to function
until and when the Treaty proposals are properly embodied in a Constitution, and
the possibility of treachery on the part of the English Government has not
manifested itself. They could, from the point of view of the majority vote,
cause the Dáil to again cease its functions and allow the people by popular
election to disestablish the Dáil as a Republican Parliament. That is a square
basis to put before the people.
MR. LORCAN ROBINS:
When I came into the Dáil this morning and President de Valera handed in his
resignation I thought he was doing the biggest thing of his life, but when
President de Valera demanded re-election------
MR. DE VALERA:
I did not demand re-election.
MR. ROBINS:
When he was put forward why did he not say he would not go forward? I say
that he did not do the biggest thing of his life. We sought peace last week; we
meant peace; we genuinely looked for peace; and this very suggestion was turned
down by the President. I am speaking fair truths. The Treaty went out and the
President put up a suggestion which he turned down the previous week.
MR. DE VALERA:
What suggestion?
MR. ROBINS:
Not the exact words, but the same thing.
MR. DE VALERA:
I was asked a question about our policy and I state it again. I say that, as
I put myself at the disposal of the country in the past in the belief that I
could help the country, I am willing to do so now.
MR. ROBINS:
We, on Saturday last, accepted the Free State, like it or like it not. We do
not like it. We took it because we thought it was the best we could get. We are
going to work the Free State, and we are not going to have a Punch and Judy show
with a Republican Government moving behind us. We are going to create a strong
Government, and if the other side want to do a statesmanlike thing, and the best
thing for Ireland, let them assist us as far as they can without committing
themselves to the Free State.
A MEMBER:
It cannot be done.
MR. ROBINS:
Then let the President withdraw his resignation.
A DEPUTY:
That is not logic.
MR. ROBINS:
I am just as logical as you are. The people of this country want a government
of some sort. They have---signed, sealed and delivered---a Treaty that gives
them a government. They have as an alternative a scrap of paper and I would not
like to see my dog shot for the difference between the two of them [laughter].
Go down to the country and ask them what they think about it. What will happen?
I say this is what will happen and what must happen. I told a private meeting of
our supporters yesterday when we discussed this, that if I was the sole man in
this Dáil I would vote against President de Valera being re-elected and because
one party or another must carry on the government. We would have the chief of a
party that England would not work with [applause]. Are we to make
him our Chief Executive Officer and go across and ask England to evacuate
Ireland? Are we to bring back a man who will never work this Treaty? That is the
position, and I do not think the English Government is likely to accept that
position. We are taking this Treaty for what is best in it and we mean to work
it---and the only way to work it is by having one government. The man who should
be the head of this government is the head of the majority party in this Dáil.
We cannot take a man, the Chief of the opposite party, if we have to part
company with him on essentials. We cannot go along and say `we work the Republic
only, go and ask England to evacuate Ireland'. They won't do it, and they would
be fools it they did.
MR. SEAN NOLAN:
The last speaker argued very well against himself. He has told us he would
not shoot his dog for the difference between the two. At the same time we are
parting on essentials. The first thing I would like to bring before this
Assembly is that we cannot disestablish the Republic, and if we do not elect the
President and have a Republic here to-day, we are trying to disestablish this.
It is ultra vires. The people of Ireland can alone disestablish the
Republic which has been established by them. According to the Articles of
Agreement those who voted for the Treaty and carried the resolution on Saturday
night have merely to call together the members elected for the Southern
Parliament to establish their Provisional Government. Let them call this
assembly together, the members elected for the Southern Parliament, and let them
establish their Provisional Government; and in doing that they have the
assurance of the other party that they will not be interfered with. Now, they
are out to do the best for Ireland and we are out to do the best for Ireland.
And they can do the best for Ireland by carrying out the Articles of the Treaty
in calling together this meeting of the elected members of the Southern
Parliament and establishing the Provisional Government and, at the same time,
leaving the Government that was established by the will of the people intact,
leaving that Government where it is until such time as it is disestablished by
the will of the Irish people. By leaving the Republican Government with its
President as it is, those on the side of the Treaty will have the best guarantee
that they will get the best and most out of this Treaty, which has been signed
in London. We have always heard that what England gave away in her hour of
weakness she would take away in her hour of strength. I say that those who
honestly supported the Treaty in the belief that they were doing the best for
Ireland will be doing the best for Ireland and doing the best for the Treaty by
not attempting to disestablish the Republican Government. They will have the
assurance, support and guarantee of this Government that England will not betray
us again. lf the Republic is disestablished then you will have chaos; then you
will have the parting of the ways indeed. But I would ask you not to throw away
this weapon which has brought us so far---this weapon of the Republican
Government, of the Army of the Republic, which has brought us so far along the
road to victory---I would ask you not to throw it away to the English wolves. If
you disestablish the Republic that is what it amounts to. Do not throw it away,
at any rate until you get the price for throwing it away, and the price that is
being offered is the Treaty signed in London. That Treaty is not delivered. It
is signed. And until such time as it is delivered do not throw away what you
have won to the English wolves. In the ordinary course, when your Provisional
Government is functioning and the country is in its normal condition, you can
take the will of the people and let them decide whether they will disestablish
the Republican Government or establish the Free State. Finally, when the will of
the people is being taken at the General election we on the other side of the
Treaty will fight the Treatyites---the pro-Treaty members---at that election on
the question of the Republic, but until such time as that comes about, for
Heaven's sake do not throw away this opportunity, do not fling away what you
have won by the fruits of the sacrifices that have been made, by disestablishing
the Government of the Republic. It is not a question of personalities; it is not
a question of Mr. de Valera and Mr. Griffith and Mr. Collins. It is a question
of the nation and each side of us profess sincerely to be doing what we consider
the best in the interests of the nation. And I put it to you who have supported
the Treaty and opposed the election of the President that went I have put before
you is went will prove to be the best in the interests of Ireland and in the
interests of the ultimate goal we ought to have---the ultimate goal of absolute
freedom [applause].
MR. JAMES DOLAN:
A Chinn Chomhairle, the last speaker has asked us not to dissipate our
forces in one breath, and in the next he says we should continue here in Ireland
the Government of the Irish Republic side by side with the new Government that
would be set up for Saorstát na h-Eireann. Does anybody seriously tell me that
is not dissipating our forces? If you say to the new Government: `Do not
interfere with the Departments that have been set up'. Take, for instance, that
very big controlling department, the Local Government Department. Does anybody
seriously tell me that the Local Government bodies of this country will still
continue to function in the in-and-out way that has helped to bring us to the
present position? And does anybody seriously tell me that we will not be
dissipating our forces by having a Local Government Board for the Free State and
a Local Government Board for the Republic? There must be a clash. People have
sniggered at the resolutions passed by the local bodies all over Ireland almost
unanimously. They all have declared---or, at least, ninety per cent. of
them---in favour of the Treaty. There is one instance of the confusion that
those people on the other side wish to throw us into. They tell us it will not
be dissipating our forces and will make for more strength in the face of the
enemy. The only way for this nation to make for strength, to get their last
ounce out of this Treaty, is to back up the decision that this National Assembly
came to on Saturday night when they decided to accept this Treaty, to work and
get every ounce out of it. We are told by some of the speakers that we will be
dismantling our machinery by not carrying on the Republican Government. I
absolutely deny that we would be dismantling our machinery. I say we will be
putting in up- to-date machinery to protect the interests of Ireland in working
the Treaty, when we get control of the Government of this country in reality,
not on paper or in theory, and dig into the many Government departments of this
country, and when we are in position to have our army better equipped than it is
to-day. Why should we consider that it will be a source of greater strength to
have the Volunteers as they are to-day, smuggling in arms and smuggling in
Thompsons? Why do you think it will be greater strength when we can buy them in
the open market and they have the authority of the Irish people behind them? We
will be in a position to get the last ounce out of this Treaty. If, even now, at
the eleventh hour, those who have been opposed to the Treaty would look at it in
a plain, practical commonsense manner as the man in the street looks at it, all
would be well. Let them not be here, as the President of the Delegation has
said, as if they were playing a game of chess, and if such and such would be a
good move. You can get the last ounce out of this Treaty only in one way and
that is to back up unitedly the decision you came to on Saturday night. I am
glad to hear the tone of some of the speeches that have been made on the
opposite side to-day. They say they do not wish to hamper the new Government in
Ireland and that they wish to see the last ounce got out of this Treaty. I
appeal to them, to their better nature, to look at things as reasonable sensible
men not as men tracing shadows, but as men grasping realities and dealing with
political facts. I appeal to them to put their shoulder to our shoulder, to back
us and see that the last ounce is got out of this. The proposal before us today,
of re-electing President de Valera, will, to my mind, if carried, make for
absolute chaos in the country. I oppose it then with all my might and I appeal
to the President himself to let his better nature get uppermost in him and let
him stand down in the interests of the nation [laughter].
MR. H. BOLAND:
I rise to support the nomination of President de Valera for re-election, and
certainly I am very happy to see we all enjoyed our dinner [laughter]
and that a better spirit is developing in Dáil Eireann. I think the gentlemen on
the other side should be very happy this evening that the issue is so clearly
knit. On Saturday, by a very small majority, you overthrew the policy of the
President of this Assembly, and to-day, following the recognised constitutional
practice, the President resigned his office. It is up to the men on the other
side who, up to to-day at any rate, have fought for the Treaty with the same
courage and the same dash as they fought in the fight for the Republic, and I
think they have a unique opportunity to carry on in this same spirit and put a
man up who is in favour of their policy against Eamon de Valera. I am sure, and
I speak from intimate knowledge of our late President, that his personality has
never been intruded in this fight. Everything he did during his term of office
was for Ireland and not for de Valera. I have had very intimate intercourse with
him, and particularly outside Ireland. And I saw him in situations such as this,
and never during the course of a very difficult time in America, did he waver in
the tightest place. We are on one side and you are on the other side. You have a
majority of this House. Accept your responsibility. If you throw out the man on
this side by the vote, we are in honour bound to see to it that you receive from
us all the resources that have been at the command of Dáil Eireann. I say the
issue is knit. All we ask is that we be allowed to hold to our opinions. If you
join issue now on this and put someone up in opposition Ireland will be happy
with the result of these proceedings. You cannot have it both ways. If de Valera
cannot receive two hundred votes, in one breath you cannot say that the nation
cannot do without him. I say to our friends to join issue and have a straight
vote, for or against. And then we will, on the first available opportunity, go
before the Irish people and seek a further mandate for the Irish Republic, and
if they in their wisdom decide against us we will be only too happy to obey.
MR. PETER HUGHES:
It strikes me that we are in a very peculiar position indeed. Mr. Boland
wants one Government, and he suggests that the other side set up another
Government. The English Government is here yet, and there is a Government in
Ulster. Where are we going to be landed in a few days? We gave a vote on
Saturday and we decided this Treaty should be, at least, approved, and I hope it
will be ratified. At the same time I think it is the duty of every man who voted
for the Treaty that the majority should elect a Government in this case. It is
the constitutional way to do things and I am greatly surprised that President de
Valera has allowed himself to be put forward in this fashion. I think if his own
personal views were taken on the subject that he would gladly allow the people
in the majority to carry on the Government, and that they should watch to see
that Lloyd George should not get on the inside of them. The Treaty should get a
chance, and if the majority should not get the best out of this Treaty, I for
one would kick them out and turn to the other side and see that they formed a
Government. There should be no doubt about it. The President could see that the
majority should do what they propose to do, and see that the country is cleared
of British troops in the shortest possible time. If this is done we can see that
the Treaty is carried into effect, and if it is not done we will be cast into
war. I am extremely sorry I will have to cast my vote in this case against Mr.
de Valera.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
A Chinn Chomhairle, there is one point that is not properly touched on
in this debate and it is this: a question was asked Mr. de Valera with regard to
his action if he was elected again---with regard to the formation of a
Cabinet---and he definitely stated that there could be no question of a majority
Cabinet or a coalition Cabinet. Therefore, what we are asked to do is to place
the control of the services of Dáil Eireann, finance, the army, et cetera,
at the disposal, not merely of Mr. de Valera, but of a minority party which, on
its own admission, is not only a minority in Dáil Eireann, but a small
minority---at the present time, at all events---of the people of Ireland. Was
ever such a proposition put up before a body of sane, sensible people? That, we
are told, is to be done in the interests of Ireland. Does this mean he is going
to see that Mr. Lloyd George carries out his undertaking? It seems to me to be
the best way to ensure that Mr. Lloyd George would not carry out his
undertaking. It is putting it to him not to do it. There is no man or woman who
does not urgently desire to have the services of Mr. de Valera for Ireland, but
we do not want to have this man, whom we have served and followed, simply as a
means of wrecking the Treaty, for that is what it amounts to. That is what it
amounts to, and you know it well. Everyone of you know it in your hearts and
souls [applause]. Having failed to carry the Treaty you want to
wreck it in this way, and the man who proposed his re-election was no friend of
Mr. de Valera.
MR. DE VALERA:
Do you think I would take office admitting that would be sought to be done?
MR. BEASLAI:
In common with a lot of people in this matter I am sorry that his judgment in
this case is at fault. We are all sorry, but I must say what I think as an
honest straight man. I believe and I am sure I am right, that a great many
persons, at all events, think it is a despicable thing for one to use any means
to jeopardise the Treaty. Let them not pretend that it is in the interests of
unity; that is simply to wreck the Treaty and nothing else. That is the reason
why I shall have to vote against the man whom I honour and respect simply in
order not to have him put in a false and contemptible position.
DR. MACCARTAN:
There are a few suggestions I would like to put to both sides. I am one of
those who did not vote for the Treaty, but against chaos and to put an issue
like this to the country again, you want to have a repetition of what occurred
in the Parnell split. You have seen it here in the Dáil, and it will be
intensified a hundred-fold throughout the country. Whether you elect Mr. de
Valera again or reject him, do not put anything to the country at present; let
the country settle down Let the tension subside before this is put to the
country. I cannot see Mr. de Valera's policy at the moment. I would like to be
with him, it is my natural place, but I cannot see his policy now. I try to look
at the situation as it is, not as we would like to have it. The situation is
this: the Treaty was signed, it was a fait accompli, and we must try to
make the best of it. That is the situation that presents itself. If it is
possible to get back to the Republic I would like to see it; and if President de
Valera is elected he is a greater man than I thought he was, and I thought he
was a very great man, and I still think so.
MR. ARTHUR GRIFFITH:
Before you put the vote there are some words I would like to say. On Saturday
night after a long discussion, this Treaty was approved. Now, to-day a proposal
comes forward which, if carried, in effect means a recision of that decision. It
is put forward to us in a guise that is not straight. It is intended to sway the
votes by appealing to the emotionalism of the members here who feel, and rightly
feel, all the good services that President de Valera has done his country. It
was said on the other side that this ought not to be a question of
personalities. Very well. If it ought not to be a question of personalities,
President de Valera when he resigned his position should not have gone forward.
Some man on this side should have gone forward, because the issue sought to be
made is between President de Valera and us, and personally no man on our side
wishes to vote against President de Valera. I say, therefore, it is a political
manoeuvre to get round the Treaty, and that the people who are using President
de Valera for that manoeuvre know what they are doing. We know what they are
doing. We approved the Treaty on Saturday evening and by a side wind we get
round it on Monday. What is going to happen the reputation of the country for
commonsense and honour? There was no necessity for him to resign. We suggested
that Dáil Eireann might continue until the Free State election came into effect.
There is no necessity for him to resign to-day. His resignation and going up
again for re-election is simply an attempt to wreck this Treaty.
MR. DE VALERA:
No! no!
MR. GRIFFITH:
It must be understood as that. Everyone knows how difficult it is for a man
personally to vote against President de Valera. I do not understand this
proposal. There was a proposal made from our side in the interests of unity. I
think it would have helped unity. At all events it was rejected by the other
side, and the proposal from the other side now is to constitute two Governments
in the country. Are we to have two sets of Ministers for all the departments? If
there are, there will be chaos of the worst kind. lf I am mistaken about the
interpretation I put upon it I am quite willing to discuss the matter with
President de Valera. As it stands it is this: the proposal put forward is not
bona-fide. It is put forward to use the personality of Mr. de Valera to
wreck this Treaty. Therefore I shall vote against it with the greatest regret.
It is not with an easy heart I shall do it, because I have worked with President
de Valera for years and I regard him as a dear friend, and I do it only in the
vital interests of the country. It is most unfair to this Assembly that the
personality of Mr. de Valera should be used as it is being used [hear,
hear].
MR. DE VALERA:
I say it is put forward in good faith. It is put forward by myself. I put
forward my resignation as a constitutional question, and the natural thing would
be for the majority party to propose a President. It is the proper thing to do,
the proper constitutional thing. Elect your President. I cannot be in a position
of responsibility without having power to act. In allowing my name to be put
forward the idea I have at the back of my mind is mainly this: that there was
still a reserve there---following the idea why I did not go to London---the
reserve for the nation is still there, the Republican forces would still be
there. Dublin Castle has been functioning in some sort of a way. We have tried
to prevent it from working. If the Provisional Government goes to Dublin Castle
and takes on the functioning we will not interfere with them. Let them deal with
their Government as they please. Dáil Eireann is here and its action with
reference to the Provisional Government will be determined by any arrangement
that this House will make.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Does not that imply there is going to be two sets of Governments with two
sets of departments?
MR. DE VALERA:
Not necessarily. There is no reason why this House should not make an
arrangement with regard to the vital departments so that if there was anything
going wrong, we would have our forces intact as before. They can be preserved
for the Republic, as, for instance, the Ministry of Local Government---I have no
doubt we can conceive a means of dealing with these departments. This is a
matter I would have to go into carefully. I regard the Provisional Government as
only Dublin Castle functioning by permission for the moment.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Is not this Provisional Government a Constitutional Government to draw up a
Constitution to carry on all the functions of the country? In any case, Dáil
Eireann, which was established by the will of the Irish people, is there until
it is disestablished by the Irish people. It is there and cannot cease to
function.
MR. GRIFFITH:
The Provisional Government must take over the functions of the Government of
this country pending the setting up of the Free State Government.
MISS MACSWINEY:
From Dublin Castle.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Any way you please.
MR. COLIVET:
Will not the same difficulty arise if a majority candidate is returned?
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
Is it absolutely essential that the Provisional Government should be set up
by Dáil Eireann? Does not Article 17 of the Articles of the Treaty state:
By way of provisional arrangement for the administration of Southern
Ireland during the period which must elapse between the date hereof and the
constitution of a Parliament and Government of the Irish Free State in
accordance therewith, steps shall be taken forthwith for summoning a meeting
of members of Parliament elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland since
the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and for constituting a
Provisional Government; and the British Government shall take the steps
necessary to transfer to such Provisional Government the powers and machinery
requisite for the discharge of its duties, provided that every member of such
Provisional Government shall have signified in writing his or her acceptance
of this instrument. But this arrangement shall not continue in force beyond
the expiration of twelve months from the date hereof.
Would it not be possible far the Chairman of the Delegation to ask those who
voted for the acceptance of this Treaty to meet the other members elected for
Southern Ireland, to ask them to set up a Provisional Government and still leave
the Dáil to set up its own Republican Government? I am only asking that because
it affords a way out.
MR. M. COLLINS:
With regard to what the President said about departments it requires a reply,
and I think I should give the reply. The President has spoken twice and I
suppose I may speak twice.
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
Are you President or equal to him?
MR. M. COLLINS:
If the President makes a point which, I think, requires a reply---
MR. DE VALERA:
I do not make any point.
MR. M. COLLINS:
In my opinion the proceedings here this afternoon have deprived us of the
possibility of having any kind of unity---any kind, not only of unity, but of
having Ireland for the Irish. There is no doubt about it that the proceedings of
this afternoon whatever the result of the vote is, do constitute a defeat of the
Treaty.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
On a point of order, I suggest as no other candidate has been proposed that
the President has been elected unanimously [applause].
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well, I am voting against.
ALDERMAN JAMES MURPHY:
If this side does not put forward any other candidate Mr. de Valera is
elected unanimously.
MR. DE VALERA:
I cannot, naturally, stand for that.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I will move an amendment if you allow me, a Chinn Chomhairle.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
On a point of order, while there is no amendment and no one else nominated, I
suggest that if the other side do not see their way to nominate anybody that
they vote for or against the motion. Every man is entitled to vote for or
against, even if there is no other proposition.
MR. M. COLLINS:
My amendment is this: that this House ask Mr. Griffith to form a Provisional
Executive.
Ma. SEAN MACKEOWN:
I second that motion. I have great pleasure in seconding it, but in doing so
I must say that I regard with extreme regret the attitude of those people who
are out to wreck the Treaty or to do the work of wrecking. I have listened to
this debate without saying anything. I have listened carefully to see if there
was one man on the opposite side who would have courage enough to stand up and
say: `Our duty is, once a decision has been arrived at by this Sovereign
Assembly, to loyally support that decision'. I find there is not a man with the
courage to do it. Standing in the dock before British authorities I declared
that this Government was the Sovereign Government of Ireland and that its
decision was binding on the Irish people. That decision taken on Saturday
evening is a binding decision upon the Irish people and upon every man here, and
every man knows it, and any attempt to flout that decision---well, if this is
government, if this is law and order, I was the damnedest fool that ever stood
in a dock [applause].
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
Is that motion in order?
THE SPEAKER:
I think this motion will have to be taken separately after taking the vote on
the other motion. It is not an amendment to the one before us. The motion you
are going to vote upon is this: `That Mr. de Valera be re-elected President of
the Irish Republic'.
MR. DE VALERA:
Article 2 of the Constitution is that all Executive powers shall be vested in
the members for the time being of the Cabinet:
`(b) The Cabinet shall consist of the President who shall also be the Prime
Minister and be elected by Dáil Eireann, and six Executive officers, namely,'
---so and so--- `each of whom the President shall nominate and shall have
power to dismiss'.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
The President in this case means the President of the Ministry. I was
present---and so was Gavan Duffy---when this matter was discussed, and it was
clearly understood in this meeting of the Dáil in January, 1919, that it would
be highly undemocratic for the Dáil to elect a President of the Republic. That
would be solely and entirely the duty of the Irish people, and for that reason
we made it clearly understood that the President simply means President of the
Cabinet and that alone.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I am voting against it. I want, at the same time, to register a protest. I am
not going to make a speech. We have no power here to elect a President of the
Republic. The people of Ireland can elect their President. The point is this: I
have no power as a representative man here to say who can be President of the
Irish Republic. I am voting against the resolution.
A poll was then taken by Mr. Diarmuid O'Hegarty, Secretary of An Dáil,
when the voting was: For the re-election of President de Valera 58 Against 60
The following are the names of those who voted: FOR:
Pól O Geallagáin
Seumas O Lonnáin
Eamon Aidhleart
Brian O hUigín
Seán Mac Suibhne
Seán O Maoláin
Domhnall O Corcora
Seán O Nualláin
Tomás O Fiadhchara
Seumas Mac Gearailt
Dáithí Ceannt
Seosamh O Dochartaigh
S. O Flaithbheartaigh
Bean an Phiarsaigh
Seán O Mathghamhna
Liam O Maoilíosa
Dr. Brian de Cíosóg
Próinsias O Fathaigh
Aibhistín de Stac
Conchubhar O Coileáin
Eamon de Róiste
P. S. O Cathail
Tomás O Donnchú
Art O Conchubhair
Domhnall O Buachalla
E. Childers
Riobárd Bartún
Seoirse Pluingceud
Bean Mhíchíl Uí Cheallacháin
M. P. Colivet
Seán O Ceallaigh
Dr. O Cruadhlaoich
Tomás O Deirg
P. S. Ruthleis
Enrí O Beoláin
Tomás Maguidhir
Seán Mac an t-Saoi
Dr. P. O Fearáin
Seumas O Daimhín
Próinsias Mac Cárthaigh
Seosamh Mac Donnchadha
P. S. O Maoldomhnaigh
P. S. O Broin
Cathal Brugha
Eamon O Deaghaidh
Seumas Mac Roibín
Dr. Seumas O Ríain
Seán Etchingham
Seumas O Dubhghaill
Seán T. O Ceallaigh
Pilib O Seanacháin
Bean an Chleirigh
Constans de Markievicz
Cathal O Murchadha
Máire Nic Shuibhne
Domhnall O Ceallacháin
Dr. Eithne Inglis
An t-Oll. W. F. P. Stockley
AGAINST:
Mícheál O Coileáin
Art O Gríobhtha
Seán Mac Giolla Ríogh
Liam T. Mac Cosgair
Gearóid O Súileabháin
Pádraig O Braonáin
Seán O Lidia
Seán O hAodha
Pádraig O Caoimh
Seán Mac Heil
Seosamh Mac Suibhne
Peadar S. Mac an Bháird
Dr. S. Mac Fhionnlaoigh
P. S. Mac Ualghairg
Próinsias Laighleis
S. Ghabháin Uí Dhubhthaigh
Deasmhumhain Mac Gearailt
Seumas Mac Doirim
Seumas O Duibhir
Pádraic O Máille
Seoirse Mac Niocaill
P. S. O hOgáin
An t-Oll. S. O Faoilleacháin
Piaras Beaslaí
Fionán O Loingsigh
S. O Cruadhlaoich
Criostóir O Broin
Seumas O Dóláin
Aindriú O Láimhín
Tomás Mac Artúir
Dr. Pádraig Mac Artáin
Caoimhghin O hUigínn
Seosamh O Loingsigh
Próinsias Bulfin
Dr. Risteárd O hAodha
Liam O hAodha
Seosamh Mac Aonghusa
Seán Mac Eoin
Lorcán O Roibín
Eamon O Dúgáin
Peadar O hAodha
Seumas O Murchadha
Saerbhreathach Mac Cionaith
Seosamh Mac Ghiolla Bhrighde
Liam Mac Sioghuird
Domhnall O Ruairc
Earnán de Blaghd
Eoin O Dubhthaigh
Alasdar Mac Cába
Seumas de Búrca
Dr. V. de Faoite
Risteárd Mac Fheorais
Seán Mac Gadhra
Mícheál Mac Stáin
Risteard O Maolchatha
Seosamh Mag Craith
Pilib Mac Cosgair
Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh
Seumas Breathnach
Mícheál O hAodha
MR. DE VALERA
when his name was called during the poll, said:
I will not vote.
ALDERMAN LIAM DE ROISTE
[, on being Called to vote, answered:]I refuse to plunge my
country into fratricidal strife.[Cries of vote!]
THE SPEAKER:
I declare the resolution lost.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Before another word is spoken I want to say: I want the Deputies here to
know, and all Ireland to know, that this vote is not to be taken as against
President de Valera [applause]. It is a vote to help the Treaty,
and I want to say now that there is scarcely a man I have ever met in my life
that I have more love and respect for than President de Valera. I am thoroughly
sorry to see him placed in such a position. We want him with us.
MR. DE VALERA rose to speak.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
[who rose amidst cries of `Order!']:Look here, Dev. will not
speak until I have spoken [`Order!']. He will not. I voted, not
for personalities, but for my country. Dev. has been made a tool of and I am
sorry for it.
Mr. DE VALERA:
I want to assure everybody on the other side that it was not a trick. That
was my own definite way of doing the right thing for Ireland. I tell you that
from my heart. I did it because I felt that it was still the best way to keep
that discipline which we had in the past. I did it because, as I said, that I
can, in so far as the principal resources of the Republic are concerned---I
would conserve them for the Republic. I do not think any side would think that I
would take a mean advantage. I regard the Provisional Government as Dublin
Castle for the moment---as Castle Government. They will take over the machinery,
but we should not scrap our machinery before they take theirs. That was the only
reason why I allowed my name to go forward. Now, I think the right thing has
been done, that the people who are responsible have done the right thing, and
therefore I hope that nobody will talk of fratricidal strife. That is all
nonsense. We have got a nation that knows how to conduct itself. As far as I can
on this side it will be our policy always. When the Volunteers split in
Donnybrook---it was at the time of the rejoicings about the Home Rule Bill. We
split and I went out in that Hall in which I had been elected unanimously as
Captain. I went out with a small majority and I said `You will want us to get
that Home Rule Bill yet. And when you want us we will be there'. I tell you now:
you will want us yet.
MR. M. COLLINS:
We want you now.
MR. DE VALERA:
Unfortunately, on the Treaty we cannot co-operate, you acting in this case
for the majority---and I suppose for Ireland---have to do certain work. Even to
get through that portion of the work you will need us. We will be there with you
against any outside enemy at any time [applause]. Meantime you
must simply regard us as an auxiliary army with a certain objective, which is
the complete independence of Ireland. Every step which we can believe that you
are taking to help in that road we will feel it our duty to go behind you, in so
long as we are not committing ourselves or our principles in co-operating. You
know how hard I was working for peace, and how I was trying to prepare this Dáil,
to try it we were able, having gone to the furthest limit we could go. I knew
there would be a big minority against it and I would be glad to see the
minority. I am against this Treaty on one basis only: that we are signing our
names to a promise we cannot keep. It is beyond the nature of men and women and
they cannot keep it. Some people talk of trenches and that we had got over other
trenches. What is the good of having trenches if you are going to put up barbed
wire entanglements to keep you from getting out of them? I would rather try to
risk the other trench. The same spirit would have carried us on to the end. I am
against you on principle. And I believe that to get the best out of that Treaty
you need us in a solid, compact body. We will keep in a solid compact body. We
will not interfere with you except when we find that you are going to do
something that will definitely injure the Irish nation. And if we have two evils
to choose from I hope it will be the lesser of the two, in the best interests of
the Irish nation, that we will choose.
MR. MACKEOWN:
That is the first statesmanlike speech I have heard from those against the
Treaty [cries of `Order!']. My respect for the President is one
hundred and fifty per cent. higher than ever it has been before.
MR. M. COLLINS:
This goes in as an independent motion. I wonder what is its position now? Is
it on the Orders of the day?
THE SPEAKER:
It is not on the Orders of the Day.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Does it go on as an independent motion?
THE SPEAKER:
That is the only way in which it could go on. It can only go forward by
consent.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
It is a motion of national importance which can be taken by you with the
consent of ten Deputies, under Standing Order 5.
MR. DE VALERA:
The Constitution is that there must be a President elected. You will have to
elect a President and have a Cabinet or you are going to break up the
Constitution. Now I do ask you not to smash up the Republic, not to break up
your Constitution. Try to proceed constitutionally.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Naturally, I agree to that thing so long as it is President of the Chamber of
Deputies, or anything you like. But I simply put that forward as an amendment to
the other resolution, and I put it forward as my best endeavour to avoid that
last vote, and I could only suggest what, to me, seems common sense. I do not
care whether you call the principal man here President or not. Even if the word
`President' in it is inserted there---if that will make my motion a proper
motion then that word may be put in. But, obviously, the thing before us is that
we must find some kind of machinery for taking the next step. And I suggest that
Diarmuid O'Hegarty should summon the Dáil, and as far us I know the additions to
the Dáil will be the four members from Trinity College.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
Will they take the oath?
MR. DUGGAN:
They need not, and you need not, take that oath.
MR. M. COLLINS:
That will be summoned according to the Treaty as the Parliament of Southern
Ireland, but it will be what I would call Dáil Eireann. If there is any better
Irish term for the Assembly let the people who understand Irish call it that.
That is the way I look at it. The way I mean is that Mr. Griffith may be asked
to form a Committee and take over and carry on. Words and phrases are no
hindrance to us no matter how bitter they be. I am not a lover of words and
phrases. What I want is---what I have always wanted is---to get the army out of
Ireland. And we will have to establish some kind of contact, and it is the
difficulties of the situation that I am thinking of. I suppose someone will have
to go into Dublin Castle to see what is there. And we have to meet somebody in
there to see that, under our financial clauses, I am to receive back the
twenty-three thousand pounds they stole from the Irish Republic. Somebody will
have to see to that. MacCready had to go to the Mansion House. I do not know
whether it was a departure from principle or a derogation of his status. I not
know whether he was less Commander-in-Chief there subsequently because we called
him MacCready. But you have to face details in a practical way like that, and
that is how I have tried to work the whole time. I have seen difficulties. I
know it is very easy to say that Michael Collins had breakfast with Lloyd George
in Downing Street. But there is this much about it: that Michael Collins did not
have breakfast with Lloyd George. It was said in a newspaper here which was
noticeably friendly to me when I tried to make them publish something about the
way the Black-and-Tans held them up. It is an easy thing to say about a man. We
know what it meant when John Redmond had breakfast with Lloyd George. If I had
breakfast with Lloyd George I would tell you so. I only want to try and explain
the implication of things. Somebody will have to meet them before they depart,
and it is not by saying merely what are flippant things for the time being that
we can get to handling the practicalities of the situation and the difficulties
of it. And I had not in my mind when I proposed that resolution any departure
from the rules of procedure here. I only meant it in my own plain way as being
some contribution to a difficult situation. If it makes it acceptable that Mr.
Griffith act as President of the Assembly and is asked to form a Provisional
Executive, then my motion can be put in these words. I only want to try to be of
help. I had not in my mind that I was departing from any rule of dignity or
procedure.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
Would I be allowed to ask a question? In the event of this body being set up
here to-day will they assume the obligations contracted in the name of the
Republic, and honour the pledges given in the Republic's name, when we were
instructed to raise money in the name of the Republic?
MR. M. COLLINS:
Anyway, I will do my best to see---and if it is not done I will regard the
Treaty as being broken---I will do my best to see that every person who
subscribed one pound to the Loan is repaid on the terms on which that money was
subscribed.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
In view of the resolution of this House in August last that the money raised
would be returned by the Irish nation, and that we proposed to raise some more
money, I had no personal reason in asking the question but as being one of the
men who raised the money.
MR. R. MULCAHY:
I second the resolution that Mr. Griffith be elected President, and that he
be asked to appoint a Provisional Executive.
MR. DE VALERA:
I am anxious about one thing; and we have a definite duty to preserve the
Republic until the Irish people disestablish it. It must be held to be in
existence until then, and this being a Sovereign Assembly I would like to know
whether those taking over the responsibility intend to preserve the Republic
until the Irish people disestablish it.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Dáil Eireann, as the President said---I must still and always call him
President---can only be disestablished by the will of the Irish people. What I
propose to do is this---when we adopt the form of Provisional Government---is to
arrange for a plebiscite of the Irish people or a General election on this
question as to whether they will have a Free State or a Republic.
MR. DE VALERA:
About the funds---will you use the funds of the Republic directly in
connection with your functions for the Free State? There is a big question
involved. You do not see my object. There have been funds subscribed for the
Republic. They are bound---we are really in honour bound to use these only for
the purpose of the Republic and to maintain Irish independence. Now, why I
dislike these proceedings is: you are, in fact, disestablishing the Republic and
you are taking over---Provisional Government---the resources of the Republic,
and this is rather a serious matter that you should take all these
responsibilities. We want to know here in this House which is the Government of
the Republic and nothing else, what is to be done with the army and with the
resources?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I take it that any money that is spent by this House must be submitted to
this House and the sanction of this House obtained; and that no money can be
spent without the sanction of the House. The estimates have to be submitted and
sanctioned and approved. If the House does not agree with any proposal that is
brought forward it can reject that proposal. The House is sovereign.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Now to deal practically with that point in that question--- that seems to me
to be a very small difficulty, and yet it is illustrative of the whole thing.
Now, what proposal would anybody have to make about that? The suggestion I would
make would be one that would be offered fairly to the other side. But that is
one of the difficulties I foresaw when I mentioned the other day that I wanted a
Committee of the two sides. That suggestion was not reciprocated. It can be
reciprocated now, when we have been put to the difficulty of fighting them twice
instead of once. There are Trustees of Dáil Eireann, and as they (the other
side) will not meet us at all, the suggestion I would make is this: that those
funds should remain on in trust.
MR. DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. COLLINS:
Our accounts are practically ready up to the thirty-first December because,
though I have been here every day, and although I was in London for several
days, everything in the department has been up to date; and, as a matter of
fact, the people who have been paid a weekly salary at the present time---well,
that is all illegal, because this House has not passed the estimates for the
first part of the year 1922. And, in reality, every member of Dáil Staff should
be going without his salary at the present moment because they were so very
constitutional about things. I hope nobody will tell me or suggest that I have
done wrong in allowing payment to go on to these people. You know,
constitutionally, you could tell me I was wrong, but in fairness you could not
tell me I was wrong. That is the only suggestion I have to make: that these
funds should remain on in trust. There has not been a penny that was subscribed
used for the purpose of our side since this thing started. Perhaps a sheet of
notepaper was used, but I have done my utmost to keep the thing absolutely
separate. Well, now, I will let others say whether they have been so very
scrupulous in that thing. But the funds are in the hands of Trustees. It would
be interesting to many people to know how these funds were safeguarded. If
necessary, if I am told, I will publish everything completely---I would prefer
to publish everything completely---and show the difficulties, and the vast
difficulties, that we had been up against in the matter of these funds.
MR. DE VALERA:
You may be up against them again.
MR. M. COLLINS:
How can we come to an agreement unless the other side meet us in this way,
unless we do arrange it here? The accounts for the last half-year are
practically ready. This is not a small job. They will be ready in a few days.
the details of working out the balance sheets and so on will take a little time.
What I suggest is that those accounts should be published. Then everybody will
know exactly what we have on hands, and it can be there as a public record. And,
at the same time, that we should make some agreed statement and some arrangement
with the Trustees or the House whereby the Trustees would go on keeping these
monies on trust on the basis on which the funds were subscribed. If we go on as
a Free State my proposal with regard to whoever would be Minister of Finance
would be, notwithstanding that---that we try to redeem the old loan, and
notwithstanding that, and as an indication of goodwill, and as an indication of
competence, that we should hand that money back in America and in Ireland. Now,
here is a point: all the lists on which I have written the names of subscribers
to the loan were seized by Dublin Castle. I hope nobody will tell us when we get
these back that I used influence with Lloyd George. Now, the alternative to
getting them back is to put a public notice in the Press asking subscribers to
send up their receipts. And I happen to know that a good many of those were
destroyed. And if anybody writes up a letter and says he subscribed ten pounds
we will keep those letters. We know the total and if they come to more than the
total we will be very doubtful about the genuineness of some letters. I am only
wanting to point out that, even in a simple thing like that, we must come to an
agreement here as to what we are going to do. And if anybody has a better
suggestion to make I will do my best to work out details of the suggestion.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Is that motion before the House---that Mr. Griffith be asked to form an
Executive?
THE SPEAKER:
The motion is: that Mr. Arthur Griffith be asked to form an Executive.
MISS MACSWINEY
Before that motion is put I would like to make one or two suggestions. This
is the Parliament of the Republic of Ireland. Is Mr. Griffith going to form an
Executive to carry on the Republic of Ireland or to form an Executive which will
be the Provisional Government, or what is he going to do? I would ask him what
he wants an Executive for? Why not go now and call the members elected to sit in
the Parliament of Southern Ireland and form his Provisional Government from
that. He cannot form it from this Assembly. I think we must be very clear. The
President has said that there can be no co-operation between the Republican
element in this Dáil and those who have surrendered the Republic; and there must
be no suggestion or innuendoes of nice meetings or things of that kind. I do not
want to say an unnecessary harsh word, but I must be quite clear on this. Before
there is any Executive formed from this House it must be understood that that
Executive must be Republican. Others must not be allowed to say that they set up
their Provisional Government with the sanction of Dáil Eireann, while the
Republican members sat in the House. Let us be clear about that. Well, there is
an Executive being set up which is not a Republican Executive. I maintain that
we cannot sit here if Mr. Griffith wants to form an Executive which will empower
him to call a meeting of members elected for constituencies in Southern
Ireland---but he does not need an Executive for that. He has not told us who is
to call that Executive. He has suggested that Diarmuid O'Hegarty should call a
meeting of Dáil Eireann. But his power comes from Lloyd George and not from Dáil
Eireann. Let us make no mistake about it now that this meeting cannot sanction
Mr. Griffith to form an Executive which will, in turn, sanction him or somebody
else to call a meeting of the people elected for constituencies in Southern
Ireland to set up a Provisional Government and an Executive---he wants to call
it a Republican Executive. If he says it is, then very well. It is the man whom
the Executive sanctions who may call the Provisional Government. If that is so I
maintain that not a single Republican member can sit here while he forms his
Executive. This is a double vote against Ireland's independence. They voted away
Ireland's independence as far as it was in their power on Saturday night, and
they have reiterated that vote to-night because they must have known that the
President was not acting on personalities but that he was acting for the
preservation of this nation and its independence, even against the trickery of
Lloyd George. Evidently he trusts Lloyd George more than he trusts the
Republican minority of this House. Let us be quite clear where we stand now. I
ask Mr. Griffith to note it and to answer it before this vote is taken. Will he
give a guarantee to the Republicans here that he will not use that Executive to
set up the Provisional Government? He does not need it. He is only doing it to
get nominal sanction from Dáil Eireann which it is not in the power of Dáil
Eireann to give him. He can go out to-night and set up his Provisional
Government regardless of Dáil Eireann. Now, I want to know from Mr. Griffith if,
in the event of his getting this Executive, he wants to call it Dáil Eireann?
Dáil Eireann is the Republican Government of Ireland and Mr. Griffith cannot use
it for his Government. Mr. Collins told us he is going to invite the Trinity
College members. Mr. Griffith said: `We brought back Saorstát na hEireann and we
brought back the flag'. I maintain here that the Free State which he has brought
back must not use the flag of the Irish Republic. And that is the flag of the
Irish Republic, intimately connected with the Republic, not with Dominion
Government, and the people of Ireland will not tolerate it being used as such.
Now, the other side have stated they do not want fratricidal war. Now let me
tell them what would happen if they used that flag. Every honest Republican
would resent any act of the Free State to use that flag as they would resent the
Black-and-Tans using it, because it is not the flag of a Dominion State. It is
the flag of the Irish Republic and must be kept so. And I maintain they have no
power to use that flag until they have got the sanction of the Irish people to
do what they are doing; and if they get that those of us who are Republicans
still will use our flag with a black band until the Dominion status is changed
into a Republic. We must be clear on that. The money question is quite clearly
one on which we should have arrangements. That money was subscribed in America
for the Republic and not for a Free State. It cannot be used for the Free State,
and that money that has been used must be paid back by the Irish nation.
Meantime we must not be in any way misled, or in any way fooled into taking any
step which is inconsistent with our stand to take; and therefore we most have a
definite, and a very definite, pledge from Mr. Griffith, before we who sit in
this House as a minority even will be convinced that he will not use his
Executive to call into being the Provisional Government of the Free State. If,
pending the completion of this Treaty, he is willing to sit here in Dáil Eireann
as a Republican Executive, and to keep all Ireland going without any
shilly-shallying about it, we will sit here, too. But he must give a definite
undertaking to this House that he will not use that Executive power to call the
meeting of the Southern Parliament of Ireland, but stand by the Republic. Dáil
Eireann is not mentioned from beginning to end in this Treaty. Article 17
mentions how the Provisional Government is to be set up. I again ask all those
who are staunch Republicans to stand with us, and those who consider gravely
where this issue is leading. Again I am making no apology for stressing it, for
I know perfectly well that many things have been said, and many things tried, in
order to cloud the issue in our minds. Mr. Michael Collins sat there and talked
about Dáil Eireann. If anybody could give him a better word to use he will use
it. It is very nice playing to the gallery. Again, will Mr. Griffith give us an
undertaking that he will not use the power of the Executive to give him a
majority of this House to form a Provisional Government, or to start that
Provisional Government in any way whatever---that whatever machinery was
arranged with Lloyd George he will use that absolutely with a clean-cut line
between the Provisional Government's doings and Dáil Eireann's doings? That that
Executive which he picks, having a majority in this House, will not be used
directly or indirectly to bolster up deeds of this Provisional Government, or to
work out the machinery of the Provisional Government. If he gives us that
undertaking, then, as far as Dáil Eireann is concerned, and for the preservation
of safety, we can sit here. But if he, by virtue of a majority he has in this
House, is going to use that Executive authority to get behind the Provisional
Government we part here and now. The money you can settle as you like, provided
you remember that money was subscribed for a Republic and not for a Free State;
and if it is necessary that you should interview one or two members on this side
informally, I suppose the President will know exactly how far that meeting is
necessary and we can have perfect confidence in him. But in a question of voting
we must have a straight answer before we vote. And the Free State must
understand that Dáil Eireann no longer holds a Republican minority if Dáil
Eireann, by virtue of a paltry majority, is to be subverted to stand behind the
Free State. I hope every Republican in this Dáil agrees with me. And I have made
my position clear, and I will not, without a definite guarantee from Mr.
Griffith that he is not going to play tricks with Dáil Eireann, that he is not
going to take the Parliament of the Dáil elected for the Republic, and use that
to bolster up the Provisional Government--- say what he likes---he has not got
the sanction of the Irish people. here are many questions that I should like to
ask Mr. Griffith. But that is the main one. Will he give us that guarantee
before we sit here and vote on this motion?
MR. DAVID CEANNT:
Some of the people thought I was only rainbow chasing when speaking against
the Treaty. I want to make it plain here and now that this vote will be for the
President of Dáil Eireann---that Mr. Griffith is going to be proposed as
President of the Republic of Ireland, and that he will get power to carry on the
Republican Government of Ireland. I want it to go forth from this House that any
time he will make use of the machinery of the Republican Government and
substitute it for the Provisional Government, then we will walk out in a body.
Also I want to make it clear that an arrangement will be come to immediately as
regards the money subscribed, and that not a three-penny bit of that will be
used to bring this other Government into existence---that is, of the funds.
These funds were subscribed for the Republic. Lloyd George will be able to
supply plenty of funds for the Free Staters. Another question is that as regards
the flag. That flag is Republican. That flag is sacred to me and to my family,
and to every member who sacrificed anything in this glorious fight for the
Republic. And any attempt that will be made to use that flag by the enemy---as
far as I can go I will preserve that flag to the best of my ability, even to the
cost of my life. I hope that Mr. Griffith will make it clear what flag he is to
use in the Free State, because he will never use the Republican flag except over
the dead bodies of some of us.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
I rise to put publicly some questions of which Mr. Griffith received notice
this morning:
Whether he has any further communication, direct or indirect from the
British Government in connection with the Treaty?
Whether he has been informed by them what kind of legislation they propose
to pass in the British Parliament in order to carry into effect the Articles
of Agreement?
Who should summon the members of the Southern Parliament under Clause 17 of
the Treaty and when? Would they continue in session?
Whether the proposed Provisional Government will be elected by and from
these members?
Whether the Provisional Government will act in conjunction with the Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland, and will it function under the statutory powers
conferred by the Partition Act?
What are the powers referred to in Clause 17 which will be transferred from
the British Government to the Provisional Government?
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
I rise to protest with all the weight and force of my being against any
attempt being made to use the name of Dáil, which is the Government of the Irish
Republic, and its machinery to set up a Provisional Government, and to establish
the Free State in accordance with a British Act of Parliament. It is no time,
perhaps, for angry words. But I do think that I would be untrue to what I
believe if I did not rise at this juncture to make this protest. This Free State
derives no authority from the Dáil. It derives authority solely and absolutely
from the British Government. And the vote that was taken on Saturday and the
vote that was taken to-day---so far as those members who voted for the Treaty,
and so far as those members who voted against the President of the Irish
Republic---was, I am convinced, a vote for the disestablishment of the Irish
Republic as far as they could make it. There is no use of our mincing words, or
pretending that we are going to stick to the Republic while at the same time, we
are undermining the Republic. Now if this Free State is to be established let it
be established in accordance with whatever terms Mr. Griffith made with Mr.
Lloyd George, and do not use the Government of the Irish Republic as the
machinery for doing so. I do not want to say any more. I only wish, in view of
this possibility, to voice my last protest against this crowning act of iniquity
against the Irish people.
MR. MACENTEE:
Before the motion is put I would ask the members to think very carefully
whether they need vote upon it, and whether they need set up an Executive
authority in this House---a Government of which the head is going to be,
ultimately, the head of the Free State. Now, I think that has been one of the
crying tragedies of Irish politics---that whenever an Irishman has got in touch
with an Englishman, and has bound himself to do something, he is always prepared
to be better than his word. I think there is nothing in the Articles of
Agreement laid before us which would make it imperative upon the Irish
signatories to these Articles to secure control of the resources of the
Republic. And it is to secure control of the resources of the Republic that the
motion which we are now considering has been introduced. It does not say that
those who are to form this Provisional Government are not to be, at the same
time, the Government of Dáil Eireann. It does not say it, and therefore we
should not permit it to be done. It only says that a meeting shall be called of
those who have been elected to the Parliament of Southern Ireland, and that
includes, remember, the four members elected for Dublin University who would not
take as we have done, the oath to the Irish Republic. Now, I suggest that by the
letter of their bond the signatories to the Articles of Agreement might leave
this Assembly, might take with them the majority which they have secured in it
and somewhere outside the Assembly of the Irish Republic, summon their
supporters and those other members for Southern Ireland who did not sit here---
they may have him selected there from the Provisional Government. I suggest that
that is a step which would be best in the interests of the nation. Because, so
long as they take over the resources of the Irish Republic, they will be told
that they are bound to use those resources in order to establish the Irish Free
State. The Minister for Finance stated that he was prepared, if he could, to
refund to those who subscribed to the Loan of the Irish Republic the monies
which they had subscribed. I tell him if he takes this step to-day to secure
control of the resources of the Irish Republic, and then goes forward and as the
Government of the Irish Republic, sets up the Government of the Irish Free
State, Lloyd George will tell him he is bound in honour not to refund those
monies.
MR. M. COLLINS:
But then, suppose I say to him I do not take my opinions from Mr. Lloyd
George. I am Michael Collins.
MR. MACENTEE:
You would have to deal with your Prime Minister, who said that he would not
dishonour his signature and become immortalised in history. I do not want to
make any party capital out of this. I only ask you not to do anything you are
not bound to do. A way out can be found if you want to find it. Instead of
electing a man as President of this Assembly who is bound by his honour and by
his signature---he has told you what his signature means to him---instead of
electing him now as your Chief Executive elect some other member of this
Assembly if you will, who will hold the resources of the Republic in trust for
the Republic. That is the way out. He need not use them for the moment---he may
give you every chance of setting up your Free State. But, at any rate, you
yourselves will not be stultifying yourselves later. If England betrays you you
can go back then and use your resources to make her honour a bond which she in
history has so often dishonoured before. We are now in the position of Grattan
and Flood. If Grattan had not permitted the Volunteers to be disbanded the Act
of Union would never have been passed. Now, you cannot---this Government of the
Irish Free State cannot---control the army of the Irish Republic. I believe that
you will secure for the President or for the Chief Executive that I propose you
should elect---believe that you can secure for him for the interim period
between now and the time that you come to submit the Irish Free State as an
agreed and detailed proposition, and as an actual fact, and not as a general
statement of Articles of Agreement, not as a scrap of paper to be dishonoured---I
believe that between now and that time you can secure a neutral President of
this Assembly to pledge himself solemnly that he can act; that the army of the
Republic will preserve towards you, at any rate, an attitude of friendly
neutrality; if you are afraid that we should use that army to subvert your
Government or that---at any rate you may have your fears. If it should happen
that after a General Election in England you should be told as the Catholic
Bishops who supported the Union were told, that Mr. Pitt was no longer in
office---therefore, in order that you yourselves should have something solid to
stand upon, I would suggest that you try and follow the way I am putting before
you. Do not elect Mr. Griffith whatever other man you elect; do not select Mr.
Griffith to be head of this Assembly; do not elect those who are bound by their
signatures. It does not matter to us whom we will have if we cannot have a
Republic. But it matters a great deal to the nation that the man who is
President should not be one who has signed that Treaty in London.
DR. FERRAN:
To whom will the Provisional Government be responsible?
MR. M. COLLINS:
To the Irish people.
MR. MILROY:
What I would like to say is to express a regret that some of our members feel
it necessary to assume an attitude of bitterness and hostility to others. Now,
the note that President de Valera had struck after the result of the vote, was
the guiding note to this assembly. I think if we had to part we would part as
good friends, believing that each side was thinking well for Ireland. I would
ask certain Deputies here who have said bitter and cutting things to try and let
that drop and to realise that whether they give us credit or not for
sincerity---to realise that we are as sincere as it is possible for us to be;
that we acted in what we considered the best interests of Ireland. We feel we
have not, in any sense, betrayed a single scrap of Irish interests or Irish
honour, and we believe, in taking the vote taken today, we did it, not with the
intention of defeating their ideals, but to prevent the resources of this nation
from being used to wreck the Treaty which the Dáil approved of last Saturday
night.
MR. DE VALERA:
We feel strongly the other way, and that is the way people in the country
look at it. It is nearly impossible to get a way out; absolutely impossible,
because the Chief Executive at the other side will not be able to satisfy
anybody. People will be all the time suspicious that the resources of the
Republic will be used to undermine the Republic. The situation they have created
is a very awkward one.
MR. MILROY:
Can we not go forward in the future and drop this attitude of embittered
hostility towards each other?
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
Is the motion before the House: `That this assembly asks Mr. Griffith to form
a Provisional Executive?'
THE SPEAKER:
Yes.
MR. R. MULCAHY:
I second that motion.
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
I understand that Mr. Collins suggested something else be added to that.
Because I believe that is as ultra vires as the discussion you permitted
at the opening of the Session for half a day.
MR. DE VALERA:
I submit that you are working on very dangerous grounds. I submit that if you
are going to subvert the Constitution you are going to make a situation that
will make it impossible for the Republican members to remain in. They will not
remain there any longer or by their presence give it any sanction. You must
elect a Republican President of this assembly, and you must elect him as Chief
Executive for this State---otherwise the Parliament no longer exists as such.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Am I to take it that the majority in this assembly has no rights?
MISS MACSWINEY:
Will you answer the questions we asked you?
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
The majority in this assembly must abide by the Constitution until it is
altered.
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
Article 18 of the Treaty determines the procedure in this matter. Here it is:
this instrument shall be submitted forthwith by His Majesty's Government
for the approval of Parliament, and by the Irish signatories to a meeting
summoned for the purpose of the members elected to sit in the House of Commons
of Southern Ireland and, if approved, shall be ratified by the necessary
legislation.
Now, I submit that this Session of Dáil Eireann was summoned a fortnight ago to
discuss the ratification of the Treaty. That you ruled the ratification of the
Treaty out of order, and it was altered here without the sanction of this House
and is entirely irregular. `Approval of the Treaty!' I submit that motion before
you now is ultra vires as much as the other motion as the only legitimate
step is to abide by Clause 18 and to go strictly in accordance with it. Those
members who sit for constituencies in Southern Ireland include the four members
of Trinity College, and those cannot attend a meeting of Dáil Eireann until they
take an oath of allegiance as we have done. And I accordingly would suggest to
you that we should adjourn and that you and the leaders on the other side should
see how you can put our proceedings in order.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Are we discussing particular clauses of the Treaty? lf we are, let us discuss
them. I would like to go into discussion on Document 2. But if we are discussing
particular clauses in the Treaty it seems to me we cannot say how the British
will do a particular thing until we have asked them. I cannot tell until we ask
them. And if we have to do it publicly through you we will ask them. The point
is, if we are discussing the clauses of the Treaty---all right, then,---we can
discuss them. If my motion is not in order, rule it out of order. What I suggest
is this: that we should adjourn this discussion as leading to nowhere. And the
tactics on the other side are obstructionist tactics.
THE SPEAKER:
The proceedings today from the beginning were conducted by consent. There was
no notice given of any motion up to now. It is by consent of the Assembly that
these motions that came before the Assembly were taken. They did not fulfil the
orders of the Assembly. A day's notice should be handed in. The same applies to
the motion in my hands now.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS:
In that case I will write it out fully. I will put it in as a notice of
motion, and let us adjourn or do anything at all.
MR. DE VALERA:
This is a very difficult position for the other side.
MR. M. COLLINS:
And you are making it more difficult. Well, do as you like.
MR. DE VALERA:
If you take over the Presidency of the Republic and go on with the Treaty you
are creating a great deal of difficulty in that; and you are creating a great
deal of suspicion in the minds of the people. So I suggest that we should
adjourn.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I thought so---at last the cat is out of the bag. Now, this consideration for
our side comes rather curiously. All right. We do not want to adjourn if you do
not. I know we want to consult amongst ourselves, because the difficulties are
great. But let us adjourn.
MR. DE VALERA:
I am quite prepared to go on.
MR. SEAN MACSWINEY:
We do not understand it. I do not know whether the Chairman of the Delegation
is prepared to answer those questions.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
To put the matter in order, I move the adjournment. I would like to know
whether I am in authority in my office. Do I give up my department until the
Minister for Local Government is elected?
MR. DE VALERA:
The Republic for the moment is without a head.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I presume I am acting in authority.
MR. DE VALERA:
If you want to keep to the Constitution you have got to elect the Chief
Executive who, by his office, is head of the State. If you elect the head of the
Republic you have to set up your Executive officers and go ahead.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I want to know where I am. I do not want to take on any powers I have not
got.
MR. DE VALERA:
You have got none now.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Then I formally move the adjournment. I understand that this building is
going to be used to-morrow for University purposes. If so, you want to make some
arrangements.
THE SPEAKER:
Have you any official communication to that effect?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Somebody told me that the lectures were starting to-morrow.
THE SPEAKER:
Do not mind what somebody told you [laughter].
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
I want to make one observation of a personal nature. I have tried to conduct
myself as well as I could. The suggestion has been made from the other side that
my putting you that question was meant to embarrass the other side. I put you a
question as to whether that motion was in order, and you replied it was not.
That is a sufficient vindication for me. I repudiate that suggestion.
MR. M. COLLINS:
If you, Mr. Speaker, will tell me what I have to do---if I have to give in a
notice of motion for to-morrow---I will do it.
THE SPEAKER:
Yes. Any business that is not taken up with the consent of the House can only
be discussed on notice.
MR. MACCABE:
I second the motion for adjournment.
The House adjourned at 6.45 p.m., to 11 o'clock on Tuesday, 10th
January.
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION, Tuesday, January 10th, 1922
THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) took the Chair at 11.30 a.m., and said:
THE SPEAKER
A telegram has been received from Cardinal Gasparri, Papal Secretary of State
to the Vatican. My knowledge of Italian does not enable me to read it. The
English translation of the telegram is:
The Holy Father rejoices with the Irish people because of the understanding
or agreement, and prays that the Lord will send His blessing on the noble
chosen people which has passed through such a long sorrow, ever faithful to
the Catholic Church.---Cardinal Gasparri.
The telegram is addressed to the President, Dáil Eireann, Mansion House, Dublin.
I suppose when the Dáil makes its arrangements for carrying on, a reply will be
sent in due course. I have received the following communication:
To Professor Mac Neill, Speaker, Dáil Eireann. Monday, January 9th,
1922.
I am directed by the National Executive of the Irish Labour Party and
Trades Union Congress, the national exponents of the will of the organised
workers of Ireland now in session, to request that the assembly will receive
and hear a deputation on matters of extreme urgency and gravity affecting the
lives of the people whom they represent. The desire of the delegation is to
impress on An Dáil the political and economic situation in the country; the
great problems of unemployment; reversion to grass of hundreds of thousands of
acres of land in the present year; the imminence of a vast industrial upheaval
due to attempts to degrade the standard of life of the people; and to call
attention to the necessity for the functioning of a stable authority which
will exercise power and authority in these urgent matters.
I am, faithfully yours,
Thomas Johnson, Secretary.
I understand the delegation is waiting to be received. A delegation can only be
received here if it be the will of the Dáil, and that would require a motion
duly moved and seconded. It is also understood that when a delegation is
received here there is no discussion in the presence of the delegation. Its
statement is simply received.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I beg to move that we receive this delegation of Labour. I need hardly point
out to the House the very important part that the Labour Movement of this
country has played in the affairs of the last four or five years.
MR. DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. WALSH:
It will be agreed by everybody here that in every critical stage of our
history a great and potent weapon which was always at our disposal, was to be
found in the body to whom we are giving permission to address this House to-day.
It is well, from many points of view, that the country should know the views of
Labour from the economic standpoint, and it is also well that we should learn
whatever there is to be learned from the difficulties and drawbacks under which
Labour is suffering at the moment.
MR. S. T. O'KELLY:
I beg to second that the Labour delegation be received.
THE SPEAKER:
I am told that the delegation is not ready. It did not expect to be received
so promptly, and it asks to be received after the mid-day adjournment.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Mr. Speaker, I ask your permission to move motion number three on the Agenda,
as it is a matter of the greatest and most urgent national importance.
THE SPEAKER:
Item number three on the Agenda is a motion by Mr. Michael Collins `that Mr.
Arthur Griffith be appointed President of Dáil Eireann'. I take it that the
first thing that it is necessary for us to do is to make arrangements for the
administration of the country.
MR. DE VALERA:
Is the motion in order?
THE SPEAKER:
I think there is no question that the motion is in order. The administration
of the country is the first of all concerns.
MR. M. COLLINS:
The reason that I do this is that the Irish nation at the present moment is a
ship without a captain, and a ship, we all know, cannot get on without a
captain. I want to move this motion so that we may have some captain for the
ship. I saw a thing happening down at home years ago that I can illustrate my
remarks with, I think, in an apt way. I remember one day passing along the road
and I saw two horses standing in a field with a plough behind them, and there
was no ploughman. I watched that thing for about two hours, and the ploughman
was still absent. The horses that were able to plough were idle---there was no
ploughman between the handles. There was no work done. Now, a bad ploughman is
better than no ploughman, and the Irish nation is watching us at the present
moment; in the same way as I watched that scene they are watching us. They see
the horses idle, the plough idle; they see that we are doing nothing at all;
they see that we are not taking action to put any sort of ploughman between the
handles. I knew where the ploughman was. He was in some place wasting his time.
We are very much before the Irish nation at the present moment in the position
of that ploughman. Some people know where he was all right. We must form some
kind of a staple Government to stop the position of anarchy that we are allowing
the country to drift into. Here is a thing that is typical of what is happening.
Everybody knows---no one better than the men from the South of Ireland---that I
hold no brief for the Cork Examiner; but I have received this
letter and it is typical of what will happen in the country if we allow the
present state of affairs to continue. The writer of the letter---George Crosbie---is
no friend of mine [Deputies:`Nor ours']. The letter is:
Knowing as I do the intense strain you must be under for some time past, I
am loth to trouble you, but I feel it is incumbent on us to explain how we are
situated. At two o'clock this morning the copy of a proclamation which appears
in to-day's paper was brought into us, and we were ordered to insert it. You
will understand that things may appear in the Examiner published
by us under duress.
Of course, if the Examiner had any pluck it would not publish
anything under duress. At the same time I call those methods Black-and-Tan
methods, and I am against Black-and-Tan methods, no matter where they appear. If
this motion is accepted I can only suggest that the position would then be in
our hands to make the best we can of it, and to report to some future meeting of
the Dáil. The position of drift is the worst of all positions, and we have said
a good deal about our being here, talking. I feel that members know I adopted
that attitude at meetings often before. They know I never believed it was at
meetings work was done, because while you are at meetings you cannot do any
work. We are here talking day after day, and we are getting no results of any
kind. Any kind of action is better than no action. Supposing, for instance, that
Mr. Griffith is beaten for this---what position are we in then? We are in the
position of not being on one side or the other. It will simply be a position
that will make us more and more laughable. In my estimation we have given the
North East of Ireland every excuse for not coming in. They would say: `Who would
go into a body like that, with the methods they employ, and the uselessness of
their discussions?' We are also giving the English an opportunity for remaining
here. I can only see it in this way. I will use the word `obstruction'. The
tactics are obstructionist tactics. It is all very well to say `We will not
interfere with you'. I have heard a thing this morning that shows that the
interference has already started. Why should not the departments of Dáil Eireann
function? Why should not the Labour Department, for instance, go on with
arbitrations? Why should there be an attempt by anyone to stop its officials
from going on with arbitrations which would help the country and prevent it from
getting into a chaotic state? It does not matter who is at the head of that
department, so long as it is officiating for the Irish nation. The opposition
side want to retain all the machinery. They want to say to England: `We are
still unfriendly,' and then they want to turn round to us at a later stage and
say: `I told you so'. Without the co-operation of the departments---whatever the
cooperation of individuals may do---this thing cannot be a success, and on the
people who will prevent this begin made a success lies the responsibility, and
not on us. That is what I want to say before Ireland. It is on the people who
will prevent it, and on the people who are employing these tactics, the
responsibility rests and the cost of failure rests---if there is failure. That
is what I want to say here publicly now. The only way to get rid of it is to
accept things in the spirit of good-will. Does anybody think if England does not
fulfil her promises I will be less against her than ever I was? Does anybody
really believe that if England does not fulfil her promises any one of us will
be less against her? I mentioned yesterday the case of the signed cheque. The
answer was that maybe the funds were not there to meet it. You can test whether
the funds are there or not by the signed cheque, but you cannot test it by an
unsigned cheque.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
You have no right to take a cheque for a farthing in the pound in any case.
MR. M. COLLINS:
You can test whether the funds are there by the signed cheque but not by the
unsigned cheque. It is only by passing this motion we will show that we are
capable of doing something constructive, and that we will show that we are
capable of running the affairs of the nation. It is only by passing this motion
we have any sort of constitutional authority here. This is a body of the
representatives of Ireland. I regard this body as being the Sovereign Assembly
of the Irish nation, and we are responsible to the people who sent us here. The
fact that the sovereign capacity of this Assembly should be questioned by
anybody shows that we ourselves do not regard ourselves as being what we are. I
always regarded the Dáil as being the Sovereign Assembly of Ireland. I regard it
as being the Sovereign Assembly of Ireland still, and it does not make it less
sovereign because Lloyd George says it is not. It is not what Lloyd George says.
It is what the Irish people say. It is not what the English Parliament says. It
is what we say. The English papers called us a murder gang. The Irish people did
not believe we were a murder gang. If the English Parliament called this
Assembly illegal I did not regard it as being illegal. I do not regard it now as
being illegal. I do not take my opinions from the English side. I take them from
the Irish side. It is in that spirit that we can make this Treaty a success, and
that we can make the Irish nation a success. It is only in that spirit. It is
not by words and formulas; it is by heart and soul. We must see by now that we
have talked long enough, without doing anything constructive; and this motion
will enable us to do something constructive. The difficulties we may be faced
with cannot be overstated. Any young government---I can see the difficulties
that come before it. I can see the frightful difficulties. Every new government
has these difficulties to go through. Some of the governments that have been
started in Europe found their difficulties enormous. You have only to point to
any one of these new governments that have been formed to see that up to the
present moment it is an unstable government. My belief about the thing is this:
that whether we like it or whether we do not, the world is entering on a
different era. My belief during the war was: that the plain people of France and
the plain people of Germany knew some better way of adjusting their difficulties
than by killing each other. That is my belief still. And about the people of
England, my belief is, that unless we show that we do not mean to be hostile,
the people of England are a great deal more kingly than the King. I know very
well that the people of England had very little regard for the people of
Ireland, and that when you lived among them you had to be defending yourself
constantly from insults. Every Irishman here who has lived amongst them knows
very well that the plain people of England are much more objectionable towards
us than the upper classes. Every man who has lived amongst them knows that they
are always making jokes about Paddy and the pig, and that sort of thing. Every
man who has lived amongst them appreciates that it is harder to get on with them
than with those of the English people who understand us better. If we show that
we are going to operate from the outset in a spirit of hostility, that will give
the English their excuse for remaining here. If we show, as we have been showing
as best we can that we are unable to carry on, England will say, and say with a
certain amount of truth: `I am afraid we will have to remain in Ireland to
preserve law and order'. That is what the Americans say when they go to preserve
law and order in Mexico. I do not know whether there is not a certain amount of
reason for the Americans going to Mexico to preserve law and order [`question'].
I suggest that we should get some kind of agreement on the majority side; anyway
we should get some kind of agreement that we would be allowed to go on with the
work without prevention, and that this motion can be passed, if not unanimously,
at least without dissent. I do not want to commit the other side to approval of
this motion. I appeal to them for the sake of Ireland to let this motion go
through, and give Ireland a chance [applause].
COMMANDANT EOIN O'DUFFY:
I rise to second the motion moved by Mr. Collins. I have only one or two
words to say. In the first place, I feel very much that our President thought it
well to place his resignation in our hands. Now that the Dáil has approved of
the Treaty it is but right that the majority should choose their captain, and we
have chosen Mr. Griffith. It is not necessary, at all, for me to emphasise the
claims that Mr. Griffith has in the presence of this Assembly. The members of
this House know him as well as I do. All I want to do is to say with Mr.
Collins: now that the Treaty is approved of we should get on with the work.
MR. CEANNT:
It is quite evident now to every member of this Dáil, and to people outside,
that the one ambition of those who are supporting the Treaty was to get rid of
the President of the Republic, and to substitute another Minister for him. The
Minister of Finance has referred to a letter from the Cork Examiner
stating certain things had to be printed in the Examiner last night
or this morning. That shows how the feeling in the South of Ireland is, because
of the Examiner misrepresenting the views of the people. It is now
we are beginning to hear the voice of the people. These are the people who saw
their city devastated by the Black-and-Tans, who saw the tragedy of Kerry Pike,
who saw the whole County of Cork left in ruins. They are beginning to have their
voice heard now. I remind the Minister of Finance that he was not so scrupulous
going into an office here not many years ago, when we had a hostile Press; and I
would remind him also that not long ago the Examiner and the
Crosbies were recruiting sergeants for the British Empire. They see now that
they cannot run against the wishes of the people.
MR. COLLINS:
I never did such a thing. I was never responsible for sending men on a job of
that kind, or any other disgraceful thing.
MR. CEANNT:
It was done officially. Some member of the Headquarters Staff or the Dáil was
responsible for it. It was done officially.
MR. COLLINS:
I was not responsible for anything disgraceful.
MR. CEANNT:
I may say, a Chinn Chomhairle, officially or unofficially it was done,
but what was done in Cork was not officially done by the members of the minority
here, but it expresses the will of the people in Cork. It shows how they are
feeling.
MR. MACENTEE:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I rise simply to state that I, for one, cannot
support the election of Mr. Griffith as President of the Dáil. In doing that I
want to make it clear that we on this side do not question the right of the
majority of this House to select their leader, but we do question, very, very
strongly, the wisdom of selecting as their leader the man who was bound by his
signature to bring down the Irish Republic. No one would question the urgency of
selecting or electing a Chief Executive Officer now, but the urgency of the
matter is no valid reason why such a step should be taken without very great and
very grave consideration. We all know the ship wants a captain---we all know the
horses want a ploughman---but we should take care not to select as captain of
the ship the man who is bound by his signature to wreck it. We should take care
that the ploughman we are going to choose is not the one who is bound to root up
the Irish Republic. I say we all know, whatever else we may do, we ought not to
do that, because it is unnecessary that we should do it. It is not essential, in
order that the English may honour the agreement which they have signed, the
agreement which they have entered into with the delegation, that the Government
of the Dáil should be the Provisional Government of the Free State. It is not. I
go further, I say it is not expedient in the interests of those who stand for
the Treaty that any man who signed the Articles of Agreement should be President
of the Dáil. I say that in taking the step they are taking to-day, the other
side are going further than their signatures warrant. When this is being done I
can only hark back to 1914. I can only recollect what happened then to the Irish
Volunteers. We all know, how, when it seemed likely that Mr. Asquith, another
English Liberal, was going to trick another Irish Constitutional Nationalist,
the people of this country sprang to arms in his defence, but Mr. Redmond,
anxious to prove himself a man who was better than his word, acting at the
behest of Asquith, set himself to capture the machinery of the Volunteer
organisation in exactly the same way as those who support this Treaty are
attempting now to capture the machinery of the Republic. That, Sir, we all
admitted, was the gravest tactical mistake which Mr. Redmond made. If he had
gone forward and said: `I fulfilled the letter of my bond when I kept you here
in office for these years, I will go not one whit further, I have no authority
over these people, I cannot compel them to dissolve. I will not attempt to
capture them', instead of this country being faced with the betrayal of 1914,
the Irish Volunteers would have been there to uphold and support Mr. Redmond,
and would have been there to do a great deal more. When the European war broke
out they would have been there to set up the Republic and they would have been
there to uphold it as the majority of the people of this country. Now, I say
that those who are asking us to hand over to them the machinery of the Republic
of Ireland are doing it gratuitously, and that is what, to me, is the bitterest
thing about it. It is not necessary it should be done at all, but it is being
done, as I said before, in order to prove once more to Englishmen that Irishmen
were better than their words. They are doing gratuitously what Mr. Redmond was
compelled to do under coercion in 1914. I say not only is it unnecessary, but it
is inexpedient. I say, furthermore, that it is very dangerous for the future of
the country that it should be done. Those who stand on the other side, and I
know that they stand there in good faith, because they believe they are doing
the best for their country in this crisis, should look back over the many years
of history. They never saw one Treaty signed by England with Ireland that
England did not dishonour. Have they any assurance that this Treaty will be
honoured either? They have nothing except the seven signatories who are members
of the English Government which can change from day to day. Those who stand on
the other side may be, themselves, very quickly floundering in the sea of
English treachery. For goodness sake, let them leave the Irish people some rock
firm enough to cling to, some rock whereby they may scramble back to the dry
land of the Republic. It may be, in suggesting this course, I am not taking the
attitude which will appeal to a man who has had twenty years of experience in
public life, and who, if he will permit me to say so, has brought nothing into
this Dáil as part of that experience, except the pettiest tricks in public
debate I have ever listened to. That gentleman never rose in debate, since this
grave and vital question came to be dealt with, to consider it upon principles,
but upon personalities. His avowed function in this House was not to convince
but to amuse. I do not want to follow his bad example, but in his discussion on
this question he made personal references to my stature. If I am little it is
not my fault. But, Sir, if I were to consider a grave question introduced by the
little Emperor, by the little Wizard of Wales, and the little Pope of Rome, and
ask no man to give it grave consideration upon that account, I should have
thought my words had little sense and little weight. Now, Sir, I say this may
not appear to be strictly in accordance with all the practices of the Dublin
Corporation and the South Dublin Union. But a nation in a grave emergency like
this must look, if you like, for some unusual expedient to get out of it, to
tide it through, at any rate; and therefore while it may not seem to be strictly
in accordance with precedents, it is in accordance with principle that now,
while we are in a transition state, some transitional or neutral Executive
should be formed for this House. Since that cannot be done---they on the other
side will not permit it to be done---all I can say is, that I am compelled to
vote against the resolution.
MR. DE VALERA:
A Chinn Chomhairle, what troubles me most in this matter is the whole
question of the position we are placed in. I would like to ask the Chairman of
the Delegation, Mr. Griffith, whether, if he is elected, he intends to act and
function as the Executive of the Republic, because this is the Government of the
Irish Republic and nothing else. When we meet here we do not meet as a political
party, we do not meet here as the Parliament of Southern Ireland or anything of
that sort. We meet here definitely as the Government of the established Republic
of Ireland, and any act whatsoever of ours which is not in accordance with that
is unconstitutional. Now, Mr. Griffith can have no fault to find with me for
bringing this forward for this reason: when he was in London I wrote to him
definitely and pointed out that if any arrangement was come to, very great care
would have to be exercised as to the manner of procedure by which any
transitional Government should be set up. This is the first example of the
difference between Document No. 2 and the Treaty, and it will stand up in
judgment against you more times than now. There was an arrangement here---a
transitional arrangement. I will read the paragraph. It will show, at any rate,
that it is not tactics on my part:
That by way of transitional arrangement for the administration of Ireland
during the interval which must elapse between the date hereof and the setting
up of a Parliament and Government of Ireland in accordance herewith, the
members elected for constituencies in Ireland since the passing of the British
Government of Ireland act in 1920, shall, at a meeting summoned for the
purpose, elect a transitional government to which the British Government and
Dáil Eireann shall transfer the authority, powers and machinery requisite for
the discharge of its duties, provided that every member of such transitional
government shall have signified in writing his or her acceptance of this
instrument.
Now, it is obvious that if a Treaty had come here which it would be
constitutional for us to ratify as the Government of the Republic that a
Provisional Government would have to be set up, and that it would have to derive
its powers---seeing it is contested---we hold this would have to be signed by
both parties, and therefore it would have to be a neutral document. The powers
of that Provisional Government should be derived, from our point of view, which
is the only point of view Irishmen will stand for, solely from this body. It
will have no authority from the Irish nation unless it gets it definitely from
this body which is the Government of the Irish Republic. As far as the British
point of view is concerned, any claim that authority comes here from the King
and Parliament and the rest of it---we deny that, and we will die denying it. I
am sure nobody here will say for a moment that the authority of Ireland comes
from any outside body. We are now in the position of Grattan and Flood. Flood
said it was not the same thing to assert a thing yourself as to get acceptance
of that assertion by other persons. You have simply the assertion now. That is
no use. If somebody tries to press a claim on to you, and he admits that claim
is not founded, or accepts some agreement which implies it is not founded, then
there is no dispute. The assertion on our part is always in danger of being
contested by someone else. Therefore I say peace is not established by that
Treaty, because the contest will go on. Britain will assert that it is from it
we derive authority. We assert it is from Ireland.
MR. M. COLLINS:
The Irish people.
MR. DE VALERA:
This Assembly has no right to disestablish itself, or vote away the
independence of Ireland. You have no power whatever unless it comes from the
Government of the Republic which is established. Hence I say, if Mr. Griffith
takes this Chief Executive, it is from this assembly. He can only do it
undertaking it is going to function as the Executive of this assembly; that is,
the Executive of the Government of the Republic of Ireland.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
A Chinn Chomhairle, in October, 1917, after three nights discussion,
Mr. Griffith finally agreed to the inclusion of this clause in the Constitution
of the Sinn Fein Organisation:
Sinn Fein aims at securing international recognition of Ireland as an
independent Irish Republic. Having achieved that status the Irish people may
by referendum freely choose their own form of government.
If Mr. Arthur Griffith had not agreed to that he would not have got the support
of the people who are prepared to make any sacrifice for Ireland. He agreed to
this. He got their support. He has broken that undertaking. Before he and the
four delegates went away to start these negotiations, Mr. Griffith agreed that
they would not come to any decision until they had at first submitted it to the
Cabinet at home, and awaited the reply from the Cabinet. He also agreed that
they would not sign any Treaty until it had first been submitted to the Cabinet
here. On the Saturday before this Treaty was signed Mr. Griffith undertook to
tell Mr. Lloyd George that, though he was not prepared to break, nevertheless he
would sign nothing, and would come back to us having signed nothing. Mr.
Griffith has broken that, and consequently, no matter what undertaking he gives
now, I object to his being elected as President of the Dáil.
MR. DE VALERA:
I would like to have my question answered definitely, because I cannot, by
sitting here during that motion, participate in any way---
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
On a point of order, a Chinn Chomhairle, a member having spoken is not
entitled to speak again. The usual procedure is, whoever has to answer questions
answers them in bulk at the end.
MR. SEAN MACSWINEY:
Last night I said we wished to hear some questions answered. There was a list
of questions before Mr. Griffith and we want them answered. We want the answers
now before the vote is taken.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
When President de Valera put his resignation before this House the member for
South Dublin said it was usual for a man seeking the support of this House to
define his policy. Do you not think the same applies in this question, and that
Mr. Griffith should be asked to define his policy.
MR. GRIFFITH:
The questions, I think, which the Deputies refer to were sent across by Mr.
Stack. They are:
`(1) Whether he had any communication, direct or indirect, from the British
Government, in connection with the Treaty?'
The only communication I had was this produced here, except one where he
stated it was not a Treaty, and I got the official title: `Articles of Agreement
between Ireland and Great Britain'.
`(2) Whether he had been informed what kind of legislation they proposed to
pass in the British Parliament in order to carry into effect the Articles of
Agreement?'
The legislation they will pass must be a Free State Act. Of course, they must
pass an Act of Ratification.
`(3) Who would summon the members of the Southern Parliament, and when?'
I will have them summoned.
`(4) Whether the proposed Provisional Government would be elected by and from
these members?'
They would.
`(5) Whether the Provisional Government would act in conjunction with the
Lord Lieutenant, and would it function under the statutory powers conferred by
the Partition Act?'
If it is necessary to use the Lord Lieutenant as it is necessary to use
liaison officers we will use him.
`(6) What were the powers referred to in Clause 17 of the Treaty which would
be transferred by the British Government to the Provisional Government?'
The general powers for maintaining law and order, police, and the evacuation
of the country by British troops. These are the answers to these questions. As
to Mr. Boland's question and President de Valera's question: if I am elected I
shall use my position to give effect to the constitutional vote of this assembly
in approving of the Treaty. I shall use the resources at our disposal for the
keeping of public order and security until such time as we can have an election
for the Free State Parliament, and at that Free State Election I will let the
will of the people decide whether we have a right to accept the Free State, or
whether they wish something else.
MR. DE VALERA:
It is absolutely necessary for us to have a definite answer to this question:
will the President of Dáil Eireann about to be elected function as hitherto as
the Chief Executive Officer of the Irish Republic?
MR. GRIFFITH:
The President is, I understand, President of Dáil Eireann, according to the
Constitution. The Dáil will remain in existence until such time---and I will see
that it is kept in existence until such time---as we can have an election, when
this question will be put to the people.
MR. DE VALERA:
It is not an answer to my question. It is very important, because any orders
from this assembly, to have legal effect with the army, will have to come from
this body---from the Chief Executive Officer of the Irish Republic. They are
called the Irish Republican Army and all the rest of it.
A DEPUTY:
The Irish Volunteers.
MR. DE VALERA:
We want to know definitely. If you want them as a volunteer army, all right,
but if you are going to order them as the Army of the Republic orders will have
to come from the person who is elected as the Chief Executive Officer of the
Irish Republic. I want to know definitely if Mr. Griffith is going to be
President of this assembly as the Chief Executive of the Irish Republic, as the
President hitherto functioned? The reason I want to know is this: if he is not
going to do that, I hold that this assembly is no longer the Sovereign Assembly
of the Irish nation, acting as the Government of the Irish Republic which it is
officially called. This is, in the army and elsewhere, spoken of as Dáil Eireann,
the Government of the Irish Republic. Therefore, if the Chief Executive Officer
is elected, to have legal force his orders must come from him as such, and I
want to know before I vote for him---and I am asking that, not merely for
myself, but for every member on our side---we want to know definitely where he
stands in that matter. Any vote taken, inconsistent with the position of the
Republic as established we hold is unconstitutional and illegal. The Treaty was
approved, but, in a sense, this delegation did not act in accordance with the
letter of the Treaty. You do not approve of anything you please. You approve of
a definite written Treaty. If you fulfil that you will have to do this---you
will have to carry out Article 17 to the letter:
By way of provisional arrangement for the administration of Southern
Ireland during the interval which must elapse between the date hereof and the
Constitution of a Parliament and Government of the Irish Free State in
accordance therewith, steps shall be taken forthwith for summoning a meeting
of members of Parliament elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland since
the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and for constituting a
provisional Government.
does the British Government not question Dáil Eirean doing it---
And the British Government shall take the steps necessary to transfer to
such provisional Government the powers and machinery requisite for the
discharge of its duties, et cetera.
Under that it is the British Government that has to transfer to you the powers.
If you look at Document No. 2, Dáil Eireann gives you the powers. Otherwise you
would be acting unconstitutionally. We hold this Government has not the
authority of the Irish people until the Irish people have voted on it. Take your
powers from the British Government and set it up. What does the vote in this
assembly mean? It means that we will not, as the Government of the Republic,
interfere with you, that you have, so to speak, a license to carry on. If it
were not for that we would have to take action to prevent you from doing
anything counter to it, as we would against Dublin Castle; but you can now go
ahead by reason of the vote of the majority of this assembly to carry out that
Treaty to the letter. That is what it is, and nothing else. I hold, therefore,
if you want us the majority of this assembly to elect a President of this
assembly, he will have to act as the Chief Executive of this of the Government
of the Republic of Ireland.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Mr. Griffith does not seem inclined to answer that question by a plain `yes'
or `no'.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I assure Miss MacSwiney I am very much inclined to answer it.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Are you going to work as the Republican Executive---yes or no?
MR. GRIFFITH:
The Republic of Ireland remains in being until the Free State comes into
operation.
MR. DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. GRIFFITH:
President de Valera yesterday threw this body into confusion by resigning and
leaving no government in existence. Public order and security have to be
maintained. If I am elected I will occupy whatever position President de Valera
occupied.
MR. DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Now, that is right. In that position he was not the President of the
Republic, but the President of Dáil Eireann according to the constitution [`No!
no!'].
MR. DE VALERA:
It is President of Dáil Eireann, which is written down as the Government of
the Republic of Ireland. So I was President of the Republic of Ireland.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I do not mind a single rap about words. I say whatever position---if you like
to put it that way---that the President resigned from yesterday, I will, if I am
elected, occupy the same position until the Irish people have an opportunity of
deciding for themselves.
MR. DE VALERA:
That is a fair answer. I feel that I can sit down in this assembly while such
an election is going on, because it is quite constitutional that Mr. Griffith,
if elected, is going to be in the same position which I held, which is President
of Dáil Eireann; that is, President of the Government of the Republic of
Ireland. Now, the next question. As President and Chief Officer your duty will
be to uphold and maintain the Republic of Ireland. That is your oath. You will,
as President of that be in duty bound to uphold the Republic, and that was why
Document No. 2 was so necessary. That is why I, as President, would not be
keeping my oath if I did anything to subvert the established Government. Mr.
Griffith will similarly be bound by that oath as I was, and he will have to give
an express undertaking that he will not use his powers for anything except to
maintain the established Government during the period until the other government
is set up. In other words, whatever you do, that you will not use your office
when acting as President of the Republic of Ireland in any way to subvert that
Republic; that you will do nothing which will make that Republic less a fact in
the minds of the Irish people than it is to-day. I hold you will be breaking
your oath of office if you do anything else.
MR. DOLAN:
May I ask President de Valera what was his interpretation of the oath he
took?
MR. DE VALERA:
Yes, and I kept it to the letter. That is the difference between Document No.
2 and the Treaty. You will see that I preserved in every line of it the
established Republic. There is not a line of it inconsistent with the Republic,
but there was what any Government might do, what France might do, what America
was going to do, what some of them have done---go into the League of Nations and
accept, if they wished to, any member of the pre-constituted group as President
or head. I, therefore, say in reply to the question asked as to how I
interpreted my oath, that I interpreted it in that fashion. I kept it, not
merely for the interests of Ireland, but I kept it in the negotiations to the
letter. Otherwise I felt I would be using personal views or something else to
subvert my sworn oath as head of the nation.
THE SPEAKER:
I would like this discussion to be carried on without interruption. When I
say that I mean without interruption.
MR. DE VALERA:
My question then is: whether Mr. Griffith, who will occupy the same position
as I have occupied, and which I interpreted as binding on me by oath, will not
use his office to subvert the established Republic?
DR. MACCARTAN:
I do not think it is a fair question. It is presuming that Mr. Griffith is
going to become a perjurer.
MR. DE VALERA:
It is absolutely necessary, if we are going to have the opposite party, whose
purpose is the subversion of the Republic, the turning of the Republic into a
monarchy, the turning of independence into dependence, that we ask the chief
exponent of that policy whether he is going to maintain and support something
which his policy is to subvert and destroy. Surely we have a very good reason
for asking that such an officer, before he is appointed---that he will not use
his office which is intended to maintain a certain theory, to destroy it.
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
A Chinn Chomhairle, before the question is answered, may I also ask
whether Mr. Griffith, if he is elected President and Prime Minister of the Dáil
in accordance with the Constitution, will give an undertaking that he will not
use the Executive authority of Dáil Eireann to summon and work the Provisional
Government according to Articles 17 and 18 of the Treaty?
MR. GRIFFITH:
President de Valera has asked me will I use my office to subvert the Irish
Republic. I think I have already answered the question, but I will answer it
again. I said if I am elected to this position I will keep the Republic in being
until such time as the establishment of the Free State is put to the people, to
decide for or against. But if it means am I not going to carry into effect, the
will of this Sovereign Assembly about the Treaty, I am going to carry it into
effect. This body has approved of the Treaty, this body wants the Treaty put
through and then sent to the Irish people. That I am going to do, of course.
Now, as to Mr. Mellowes' question: `If he is elected President and Prime
Minister of the Dáil in accordance with the Constitution, will he give an
undertaking that he will not use the Executive authority of Dáil Eireann to
summon and work the Provisional Government appointed according to Articles 17
and 18 of the Treaty?' I do not quite understand that question, but I expect he
means this: we must set up a Provisional Government under Articles 17 and 18. We
are not setting up the Free State Government now. Of course, I am going to use
all the machinery I can to put it into operation. Let nobody have the slightest
misunderstanding about where I stand. I am in favour of this Treaty. I want this
Treaty put into operation. I want the Provisional Government set up. I want the
Republic to remain in being until the time when the people can have a Free State
Election, and give their vote.
MISS MACSWINEY:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I think this is a very serious matter. The
President has asked certain definite questions. Mr. Griffith has answered that
he will undertake to uphold, or rather that he will keep the Republic in being
until a Free State Constitution is worked out. Now, I begin by quoting a leading
article from the Times this morning. I think it will keep us quite
clear:
Dáil Eireann, acting for the people, has endorsed the Treaty; that is, it
has by a majority approved of the Treaty. To-day we hope that it will
authorise Mr. Griffith to summon the Parliament of Southern Ireland for some
day in the present week.
That is what Mr. Griffith is looking for authority to do from this Republican
Government of Ireland. We must be quite clear, and I think Mr. Griffith's answer
has made us quite clear that Mr. Griffith means to use his authority as Chief
Executive to get Dáil Eireann endorsed by Mr. Lloyd George as the Provisional
Government of Ireland. That includes the four members of Trinity College and the
exclusion of Sean O'Mahony. Mr. Michael Collins, in his speech proposing the
motion before you, talked in his usual bluff, good-humoured fashion, of any kind
of action being better than no action. Now, I maintain that is absolutely wrong
on the face of it. Is it better for me to sit quietly and do nothing or to go
out and murder somebody? Surely no action in that ease would be infinitely
better than any kind of action. Mr. Collins suggests that he and Mr. Griffith
should be calmly allowed to murder the Irish Republic. He said many things, and
I am going to deal with the chief points in his speech. But one thing he said
which is important: `that Dáil Eireann is not going to be more solemn'---he had
said it was the Parliament of the Irish nation. He said it was not going to be
more solemn because---
MR. COLLINS:
More `sovereign' I said.
MISS MACSWINEY:
That is still more important. It is not going to be more sovereign because
Lloyd George says it is. There is the cat out of the bag. The English morning
papers are full of the difficulties with which the English Government is faced
in legalising an assembly which will be the Provisional Government of Ireland;
and Mr. Lloyd George played up to the sentiment of the Irish people by letting
them think Dáil Eireann is going to do this thing. Not only that, but two
members of the delegation have been carefully playing up to the sentiment of the
younger members of this House throughout the whole of the negotiations. Mr.
Michael Collins' speech this morning was absolutely along those lines. Dáil
Eireann is the sovereign Parliament of the Irish nation but it is expressly,
under its Constitution, the Government of the Republic of Ireland.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Would you mind showing us that?
MR. STACK:
It is in the oath.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Do you remember your oath?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
It is the Constitution we are speaking of.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Now, the oath taken by members of Dáil Eireann was:
I do solemnly swear and affirm that I do not and shall not yield voluntary
support to any pretended government, authority, or power within Ireland,
hostile or inimical thereto, and I do further swear that to the best of my
knowledge and ability I will support and defend the Irish Republic and the
Government of the Irish Republic, which is Dáil Eireann, against all enemies
foreign and domestic, and I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same,
and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation.
Now, Mr. Griffith is looking for the Chief Executive power of this Parliament
today; and he has been asked if, before accepting it or asking us to vote on it,
he will give us an undertaking to uphold the Republic in virtue and in
accordance with that oath. He has also been asked if he will give an undertaking
that he will not use the powers vested in him to summon or work the Provisional
Government according to Articles 17 and 18 of the Treaty. He has stated, in
answer to another question that he is to summon the Provisional Government, or
rather, a meeting of members elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland.
Now, Mr. Arthur Griffith therefore has to act in two capacities. He has to act,
if he is elected by this House this morning, as Chief Executive of the Irish
Republic. He has also declared he has to---he has been deputed by Mr. Lloyd
George---to summon this meeting of the members who are to appoint a Provisional
Government. All we ask from Mr. Griffith is a solemn undertaking here publicly
in this House, and before the country, that he will not confuse or merge the two
offices, that he will keep distinctly here in Dáil Eireann his Executive power
as Chief Executive of the Irish Republic, and that, as plain Mr. Arthur Griffith
without any authority from Dáil Eireann, he will go out and summon the
Provisional Government apart from this Assembly altogether or summon the meeting
of members elected to sit for constituencies in Southern Ireland. Now, we want
Mr. Griffith to-day to give a solemn declaration in this House, and before the
country, that he will not merge those two offices into one, that he will go as
Mr. Griffith Chairman of the Delegation, and summon the meeting that is to set
up the Provisional Government; that he will act as Prime Minister of this
Assembly; and that the two Mr. Griffiths will have no connection whatever, as
far as their offices go. That is what we are asking---Mr. Griffith's solemn
undertaking before this House and before the Irish nation. Surely that is clear.
And I appeal to the members of this House who have voted for the Treaty, and
who, in voting for the Treaty, have declared again and again that they are not
voting against the Republic---and I believe them---I believe they were perfectly
honest in declaring that in voting for the Treaty they are not voting against
the Republic. They voted against the re-election of President de Valera
yesterday because they were told it had to be a party vote; they were told that
if they voted for President de Valera they would be voting for the rejection of
the Treaty. I appeal to them now with all the force that is in me to realise the
great importance to the Irish nation of keeping Mr. Griffith's two offices
absolutely and entirely distinct. Do not allow Lloyd George to endorse Dáil
Eireann---it is what he wants to do---as the Provisional Government, and to
invite the four Trinity College members into it and exclude Mr. Seán O'Mahony.
Mr. Seán O'Mahony cannot be excluded from Dáil Eireann, Mr. Arthur Griffith.
MR. ROBINS:
On a point of order. Every member in Ireland, including the Trinity College
members, were summoned to the first meeting of Dáil Eireann.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
They must take the oath.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Every representative in Ireland---even in the North-East Corner---is a member
of Dáil Eireann, and if he only comes in and sits here we will welcome him if he
takes the Oath of Allegiance. Moreover, every member in Ireland cannot sit in
Mr. Griffith's parliament, or at the meeting of members summoned for
constituencies of Southern Ireland. Before Mr. Griffith can use this Assembly in
order to set up his Provisional Government he has to exclude Mr. Seán O'Mahony,
and Mr. Seán O'Mahony is the test in this case, because he is the only member
who sits for a constituency in what is called Northern Ireland, and has no seat
in Southern Ireland, so-called. Further, and I ask you young men of this
assembly who mean the Republic but who are voting for its subversion, to think
carefully over this---if you elect Mr. Griffith without first getting a
declaration from him, given to us solemnly here and to the Irish nation, that he
will not combine the Executive power of Dáil Eireann with his office as Chairman
of the Delegation to summon the meeting for Southern Ireland---I ask you to do
that---that Mr. Griffith if he dares to use this Assembly, or the sixty-four
members of it that support him, because he cannot use us, will first exclude Mr.
Seán O'Mahony. Nothing would please Mr. Lloyd Gorge better than that you, by
your vote here today, should elect Mr. Griffith as Executive of this Assembly
and then let Mr. Griffith, as Executive of this Assembly, summon this meeting to
set up a Provisional Government, because then he would be able to say that Dáil
Eireann sanctioned the setting up of the Provisional Government. Dáil Eireann
has not done that. Now, Mr. Collins asked us do we believe that he will be less
against England if she breaks her word than he has been in the past. No, I do
not, in heart. I believe he would be as much against her, but he is taking away
from himself the power to be against her. It is not the will he is taking from
himself; it is the power, and well England knows it. In my hotel this morning I
sat at breakfast and heard two Englishmen discussing. this matter. One said to
the other: `They will have to disestablish that Dáil Eireann before they can set
up the Provisional Government' Now, that is what Mr. Griffith is asking you to
do---to disestablish Dáil Eireann as the Sovereign Assembly of the Irish
Republic, and set up an emasculated thing which will be the Provisional
Government and, having done that, then this emasculated Assembly with the best
gone from it, will appoint the Provisional Government and set up the Free State.
That Assembly will not be Dáil Eireann, because, unless Mr. Griffith definitely
gives that solemn promise today---that he will not combine the two offices, or,
failing to give it, unless he is beaten in this Assembly to-day he and everyone
who votes with him is automatically declaring himself guilty of treason, and
voting himself out of Dáil Eireann. You do not kill Dáil Eireann, but you kill
your own right to use the name. Mr. Collins has also said that he does not mind
calling it Dáil Eireann. This meeting does object to this evil thing---`Call it
Dáil Eireann or get some other Irish name'. You cannot call it Dáil Eireann
because Dáil Eireann has been declared by the people to be the Government of the
Irish Republic, and has been given that mandate and nothing else. Mr. Collins
has also said that the North-East will say so and so, that they cannot come in
while we talk and not make up our minds. We have made up our minds definitely.
We have not changed them. They have. He also says that England will say they
will have to remain in the country to preserve law and order. Let her say it;
she has been saying it for a very long time; but never before drew from a
Republican a desire, in order to win Mr. Lloyd George's good opinion, to subvert
the authority of the Irish Republic. That is what it is---subverting the
authority of the Irish Republic. We will maintain law and order all right. He
says we will give the English an excuse for remaining in the country. Very well.
The Irish Republic, when Mr. Collins has come back to his senses and to the
Irish Republic, will be able to teach Mr. Lloyd George that it is the best of
his policy to get out of our country. If this subversion of the Irish Republic
should be forced on the country by a majority here, the Irish Republic cannot
and it has no desire, I understand from President de Valera, to actively oppose
the Provisional Government, but that Provisional Government is not, and will not
be, Dáil Eireann. Dáil Eireann remains the Government of the Republic of
Ireland. Mr. Michael Collins was also very emphatic about what the attitude of
the English would be. There he contradicted a statement of his own a few moments
before, that we were entering on a different era, and that the French people and
the German people, if they had been consulted in the matter of the war, would
have a different solution of the war from the one their Governments had. We all
agree with him, I am sure. Were we to get the opinion of the English people on
the President's alternative---there are things in it unpalatable to most of us,
but there was no subversion of the Irish Republic. Now, that is what matters.
Mr. Griffith will remember that before ever this Session of Dáil Eireann met
that I remonstrated with him about the signing of that document and said to him:
`take out the Dominion status, the Governor-General and the oath and even now we
will stand together for the rest of it'. That shows that I, even though I would
not like to give England a penny, or let a soldier of hers in our ports, am
quite willing to realise that on account of our propinquity to England we will
have to give up a little of the inessentials. When I say inessentials I do not
mean money is not an essential, but I do mean it is not a principle. I would
give England money, as I said before, in exactly the same spirit in which I
would give a robber a reward for giving me back my purse. As to the attitude of
the English people over there about Paddy and the pig, my own impression was
that we had outlived that by about fifty years.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I often hit one of them on the nose for it.
MISS MACSWINEY:
My attitude if they talked like that would be an attitude of the most intense
superiority. I never heard anything like their impudence, and I told them so,
and remember, as you are strong so can you afford to be merciful, and when
English fools talk like that why should we, in the strength of our knowledge of
our own inherent culture, and the knowledge of the inherent greatness of the
Irish people, be bothered by hitting them on the nose? Do you think that I am
going to bother my head by hitting a little pup on the nose---a cur that may
come to bark at me in the street.
MR. O'MAILLE:
Are we discussing what Miss MacSwiney would do?
MISS MACSWINEY:
We are discussing what Mr. Collins said---that the attitude of the English
people was very insulting towards us, and that he had often heard insulting
remarks about Paddy and the pig. I quite agree with Deputy O'Maille that it is
tee-totally and entirely out of order, but it was Mr. Collins brought it in, not
I. It was brought as a red-herring across the trail to show the English people
are not friendly. Perhaps! But they are friendly to themselves, and the English
people will not go to war on the difference between what Mr. Michael Collins is
willing to give and what we are willing to give; and if they have any sense at
all the English people will know from the debate here that we are in a position
to deliver the goods, and that the delegation are not. There is my point. They
must know that this Republican minority of ours is as anti-English as ever it
was, and that this Treaty of theirs will not mean peace. They must know
perfectly well that we will go on subverting their influence and their interests
in every part of the world where England's interests lie. Therefore, when we say
we are willing to make peace on certain terms, we are not only willing to do it,
but we are able to do it. The Chairman of the Delegation and the whole
delegation with him---bar one member of it; who has stood out supremely
honourable though, I must confess, weak---who wants us to take this thing now,
is not playing for peace with the English people. They cannot between the whole
lot of them, deliver the goods because, I hold, the Irish nation gave them and
gave us their mandate; and we are true to our mandate, while the majority of
this House who supported the Treaty were false to it. I ask this House in voting
on this question to get from Mr. Arthur Griffith the undertaking that we want
him to give us and to the Irish nation publicly to-day---that he will not, as
Chief Executive of this House summon that meeting, that he will only do it as
Mr. Arthur Griffith, Chairman of the Delegation, not as President of An Dáil;
that he will not use Dáil Eireann note-paper to summon that meeting, that he
will not use any single official title given him by Dáil Eireann, or any
official paper, or anything else of Dáil Eireann. If he gives us this solemn
declaration then we can, as long as he is Executive of this House, forget he is
Mr. Arthur Griffith, Chairman of the Delegation, and summoner of the meeting for
the Provisional Government, and we can stay with him here still; but if he does
not give that undertaking solemnly and publicly here without any evasion, then
we can no longer have any hand, act, or part in this thing; and I ask the
younger members of this assembly to realise what they are doing and support us
in asking Mr. Griffith for that undertaking.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I did not interrupt Miss MacSwiney because she might have taken offence at
it, but there was absolutely no necessity for her asking that question. I will
summon this body to constitute the Provisional Government as Chairman of the
Delegation, not as head of Dáil Eireann.
MISS MACSWINEY:
You promise also not to mix the two offices in any way?
MR. P. BRENNAN:
I resent very much one remark made by Deputy Miss MacSwiney. I do not mean
any insult now to the other side, because there are good men on the other side.
She said if her side left this assembly the best would be gone from it. It is
hard to have to listen to that sort of thing.
DR. FERRAN:
I rise to oppose the motion that Mr. Arthur Griffith be Premier of this
House. Mr. Griffith, in his answer to one of the questions to-day, admitted that
he was palpably tricked by Mr. Lloyd George. Mr. Griffith, when he got this
document, found it was labelled `Articles of Agreement'. He sent it back to
Downing Street, and some clerk there blotted out the words `Articles of
Agreement' and substituted `Treaty', and when he had that done he thought he had
got a Treaty. In an answer to a question put by him to Mr. Lloyd George within
the last few days he found he had no Treaty at all. Now, as regards the
Presidency: it is necessary, I understand, that the head of every State when
assuming office shall, by solemn oath, give an undertaking to maintain the
Constitution of that State. That is a precaution that all States have found
necessary for their own existence. Now, I want to ask Mr. Griffith is he
prepared, if elected, to give that undertaking by solemn oath, that he will
preserve the Constitution of this State, which is the Irish Republic?
MR. GRIFFITH:
I am not going to answer Doctor Ferran, and I shall not do so any more. I
object to this manner of jumping up and putting pharisaical questions to me. The
oath that President de Valera took I can take with the same covering clause
President de Valera put into it, that he would take it for the good of Ireland,
and use it to do the best for Ireland.
MR. DE VALERA:
I am speaking to the motion now. I asked some questions before. I just want
to say this: that I think the other side know me sufficiently well to know I am
not doing this through tactics, or trickery, or anything of that kind. I am
doing it because I know the condition of the country, and I know perfectly well
that if the Chief Executive of this House does not send orders as the Chief
Executive of the Republic of Ireland, he will not be obeyed, because the men
will be automatically dispensed from their oath of allegiance. I want to see
that the thing is done in a proper constitutional way, so that there will be no
way out of it. I was opposed for election last night on the ground---a very good
ground it was---that, as I was opposed to the Treaty it was presumed I would
work for the Republic as against the establishment of the Free State. The
position I would occupy would be a very difficult one, in which I would be, by
the terms of my oath, faithfully bound to take active steps to maintain the
Republic, which would be made difficult by the vote of this Assembly. Now take
Mr. Griffith's position: it is doubly difficult because he is supposed with the
right hand to maintain the Republic and, with the left, to knock it down. I say
it is a mistake for any individual giving this support to become a Doctor Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde in the matter. He cannot do it. No matter what Mr. Griffith says or
undertakes to do, every Republican in the country will be suspicious of every
act he is taking in the name of the Republic. It does not conduce, I hold, to
the maintenance of order, or it is not to the interests of the country at the
present time, that Mr. Griffith should hold that office. He will understand
that, as far as I am concerned, my sentiments are practically the same with
respect to him. I am not opposing him in any personal way, but for the good of
the country. I say when I took the oath I adhered to it to the letter. I was so
sensitive on that point and about the obligations of my oath as Chief Executive
officer, that I said they would have to remember, if they did elect me, that I
would interpret it in a certain fashion. I felt then, even with that explanation
that, nevertheless, it was my duty to obey that oath and carry it out to the
letter in so far as I was able. If there was a settlement that would make it
consistent I would be on the other side, if I was in a minority of one. I am on
this side definitely, because the arrangement is not in accordance with the oath
and the position I occupied: and because I believe that I could get an
arrangement that was; and I felt that as long as that arrangement was possible,
I would not be doing my duty to the Republic or acting in the best interests of
Ireland. Mr. Griffith cannot take that oath, he cannot act as Chief Executive
Officer of this Republic, bound with his right hand to uphold it, and bound to
another undertaking which means that with his left he is undermining it. I say
it is an impossible position. I only ask for the good of the country that Mr.
Griffith would not take that office; that he would allow some arrangement to be
made by which somebody who could act as Chief Executive Officer of this
assembly---who will act and be bound to act on behalf of the Republic---would do
so; and that Mr. Griffith would go on and carry out what this House has approved
of, namely, the terms of that Treaty.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I have often heard candidates for office being
invited to give pledges in consideration of support which would be extended to
them if the answers were found satisfactory, but this is the first time I have
heard a candidate being asked to give pledges, being listened to giving these
pledges, and then being told that, having satisfactorily answered the questions
he would be opposed more strongly than ever. That strikes me as a totally novel
departure. The key-note of this debate really lies in the statement made by
President de Valera yesterday: `Addressing a silent and solemn Assembly', as the
newspapers say, he said: `I suggest that the first business should be to make
arrangements for the continuance and government of the State'. That is what we
are up against. That is what has to be done. Let us face facts. I made my own
position pretty clear on the Treaty. I do not like it; I never did like it.
There are many others who think with me about it, that it is a bitter thing to
have to accept, but that we had to accept it because we saw no real alternative.
A point was made against the other side, and fairly made, during the debate,
that they were a coalition; some of them, for instance, taking one view about
the oath, others taking a vow for life to the Republic, and so on. I say in
perfect fairness that we are a coalition, too; because it is obvious that, just
as the degree of opposition to the Treaty on the other side varies with
different people, so does the degree in which persons on this side like the
Treaty, although they all agreed to support it as a matter of necessity; and the
degree with which they like it varies, too. Necessarily, under circumstances of
this kind, you will have to deal with a coalition, because a sudden and
unexpected turn of events has taken place; and people have had to make up their
minds upon developments which they had not looked forward to before. But this
much is clear: up to now the English have looked upon this country with
contempt---up to the recent fight---and the reason why we have got to the
present position of having terms offered us by the English is because that
contempt has given way to healthy fear, and it is our duty to see that healthy
fear remains, and that we do not give them any reason to resume their former
attitude by adopting an unreal attitude in this assembly. I should like to
remind the Deputies of the other side that the first article of the Constitution
says:
That all legislative powers shall be vested in Dáil Eireann.
And therefore it was for Dáil Eireann to approve of that Treaty, and no other
body whatever had authority from the Irish people to approve it and make that
approval binding. Dáil Eireann has approved of the Treaty and it follows, as
night the day, that it is the duty of Dáil Eireann to take the steps necessary
to give effect to that approval. The Minister of Finance spoke yesterday on the
question of funds, and, I take it, he gave very adequate evidence of the fact
that he intended to deal absolutely fairly with those who disagreed with him in
that important matter; and I think that those who are against the Treaty,
knowing the persons they have to deal with on this side, may fairly rest assured
on that at all events. But those who are for the Treaty are entitled to ask for
fairness from them. Anyhow the Republic goes on, and must go on until it is
superseded by the Free State. That is unanimously agreed. The Republic goes on,
and the Republic must have a Government. A proposal was made yesterday on behalf
of those against the Treaty that President de Valera should be re-elected. They
put forward for re-election their best man and Dáil Eireann declined to re-elect
him, many of us voting much against our own will. We felt it was the only thing
to do because, in view of your vote on Saturday, you would have been making
yourselves ridiculous in the eyes of the country and in the eyes of the world if
you did otherwise. It is admitted you must have a government. Surely that
government must be a government representative of the majority of this House.
What alternative is suggested to us? I have heard none.
MR. COLLIVET:
The Southern Parliament.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
The Southern Parliament is not the Government of the Republic. Until the Free
State comes into being Dáil Eireann must continue. No man here with this
Constitution before him---`that all legislative powers come from Dáil Eireann'---can
suggest any other body as the Government of this country. You must set up your
Provisional Government---get the English out and take over the powers that lay
in their hands. But I yet have to hear any suggestion from the other side as to
what is to be done for carrying on the Government if you do not elect a
representative of the majority to carry it on. We have heard Mr. Griffith
peppered with innumerable questions. He answered them, I hope, to the
satisfaction of the leaders on the other side.
MR. DE VALERA:
No!
MR. DUFFY:
He gave plain straight answers to the questions put to him, and the result of
that apparently is, that having answered those questions, and recognising that
the Republic would continue, and recognising every item he was asked to
recognise, he is now told, having done his best to satisfy these men, that they
are going to vote against him. What answers did they want to get other than the
answers he gave? I fail to see for what purpose these questions were put, unless
that they mean---in this way---`answer these questions in the way we think they
ought to be answered and we will vote for you'. I have not heard on what
principle those answers are considered unsatisfactory and if he gave a straight
answer, then I say that the people who put these questions ought to support him
and to recognise that they themselves are in a minority and that you cannot
govern this country by a Government that represents the minority and not the
majority. There is one thing more I would like to say. It is this: it seems to
me this question of the Republican Government and the Provisional Government is
really a much simpler one than it looks. So far as the Irish people are
concerned, the Government elected by Dáil Eireann will be the Government of the
Irish people. In the transition period, when you have agreed to take over from
the usurping English Government the powers they have got in this country, when
you have agreed that the machinery for so doing will be called the Provisional
Government, which is working but which will not take over those powers, you will
have, at the same time, the Government of the Republic, which must exist as long
as the Republic exists to keep the form of the Republic in being. You will also
have what I may call the machinery of government, which may or may not consist
of the same Government machinery; the Government recognised by the English as
Dáil Eireann would not be recognised for the purpose of carrying out the
necessary arrangements to give Ireland the powers to which she is entitled. I do
not think any logical objection can be taken to that. I will congratulate the
other side. I do think, on the whole, they have shown a much more reasonable
attitude to-day than they did yesterday. If they are beginning to be more
reasonable, I ask them to go a little further and recognise the logical
outcome---the logical corollary---to the attitude they have taken of putting
questions to the candidate for Premiership and getting the answers they expected
and wanted to get, which is, that they should acquiesce in the Government of
this country, instead of putting up a fictitious opposition.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Mr. Gavan Duffy said we got the answers we expected and wanted to get. I beg
to assure him that I got the answer I expected, but not the answer I wanted to
get. Again I ask that he will not use the machinery of Dáil Eireann to uphold
any other Government.
MR. SEAN ETCHINGHAM:
Yesterday that vote could have been taken before lunch. An adjournment was
moved by the majority and we know the reason why. I just want to say a few words
on this. I am in opposition to the election of Arthur Griffith. I am sorry for
that, for old times' sake. I say the answers we got to what we want to know were
given us yesterday when the majority---we were in a minority of two---refused to
elect Eamonn de Valera as President of the Irish Republic. We got the answer
then, and a writer in an English Sunday paper who was present here at the
debate, in writing of Eamonn de Valera, said: `There was one thing he might do;
he might lead his country to disaster, but he would never lead it to dishonour'.
It is because I am firmly convinced that the election of Arthur Griffith will
lead Ireland to both disaster and dishonour that I oppose it. I have not an
accommodating mind. Deputy Duffy says we have come here in a different frame of
mind to-day. The only difference in my mind yesterday and to-day is this: that I
am more sorrowful than ever. I have never been pessimistic about the future of
my country, but I was when President de Valera was turned down. He talks of the
healthy fear the English have or that they would not have negotiations. He talks
of the unreal attitude of this Assembly. Will that healthy fear be continued now
when you elect Arthur Griffith instead of Eamonn de Valera? No! Certainly not. I
only wish to goodness that we could give to the Irish people the private
documents we had here at the Private Session of An Dáil. Every private document
that could be brought up from the Cabinet of Dáil Eireann in Dublin was exposed
to ridicule by party politicians on the other side. I was very sorry for that.
The members of the delegation in London pledged their word of honour to Lloyd
George and his men that they would not give to the Irish people nor to anyone
else these documents until Lloyd George would give them liberty to do so. But if
the Irish people had read some of these documents the Irish people would know
that Lloyd George would look upon Arthur Griffith as a most accommodating man,
as a man who would not let Lloyd George down, and he would know on the other
hand, that Eamonn de Valera would not let the Irish people down, or the Irish
Republic down, and he would have a healthy fear of Ireland as a consequence.
That is the situation. That is why I oppose Arthur Griffith, because he will
have an accommodating mind, and he will not let Lloyd George down---and that is
on record. Now, if Arthur Griffith was the man he was when he ploughed the soil
to make Ireland what Ireland is to-day, or what Ireland was last year, I would
vote for him. Over and over again he told us he was a Separatist. He is not that
to-day. What is the consequence? We have it here with us. Now, in the
United Irishman of February 22nd, 1902, he said, in ridiculing Sir Horace
Plunkett, that: `possibly Sir Horace Plunkett may come to believe with us that
the permanent remedy for Ireland's disease is separation, but his conversion is
not likely'. That was written by Arthur Griffith in the United Irishman
on February 22nd, 1902. What is the result to-day? I saw a caricature of Horace
Plunkett as a big fat bullock and Arthur Griffith as a little bottle of oxo [laughter].
Horace Plunkett, addressing Arthur Griffith, says: `Alas! my poor brother' [laughter].
What a tragedy! I say I will not make use of that in a public assembly---the
picture, I mean [laughter]. I am giving you a word picture of it
with sorrow. The Minister of Finance gave us a pretty picture. I have often seen
a team of horses under a plough. He wanted something to move the plough. What
has he got? I have seen a team of horses galloping away from a gadfly. And who
is moving the plough? Put Arthur Griffith at the handles, but Lloyd George is
the gadfly that stung the horses. Lloyd George is the gadfly, and the team of
horses is the Irish people. God knows, this terrible warble, if it is not
squeezed out, what amount of worms it will leave in the Irish people. Now, the
Deputy for Dublin spoke of maintaining the Irish Republic and Parliament. I was
amused. On Saturday afternoon, with agony, I listened to the statement that we
never had a Republic. I was wondering what feelings Mr. Robins and others had
about it. We have a great number of Girondists in this assembly.
MR. ROBINS:
I never said we had not a Republic. I said we never had a working
Republic---and we never had.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
He said his constituents never believed we had. Doctor MacGinley said we only
had a paper Republic, and that the people of Donegal were tired of that.
Anything to carry the Treaty. Now we are going to maintain the Republic until we
get the Free State into existence! I am not a bit deceived. I expected these
answers. I would not ask my old friend, Arthur Griffith, a question about it,
because I know he is to put up the Free State and not maintain the Republic. I
protest against degrading this Assembly so far as to make it the machinery for
putting up the Free State. You cannot legally do so and, in God's name, summon
this Southern Parliament and set it up, but do not degrade the name of Dáil
Eireann with it. God knows we have compromised enough, and it may be the last
occasion on which I will address this assembly. It comes to that. It came to it
yesterday when you turned down the only man that could make peace in this
country---and you know it; the man all Ireland looks to and has trust in, that
man you turned down. And you knew perfectly well if you had elected him
President of the Republic he would not have interfered with you so long as you
were working for Ireland's good. He has been ousted. Arthur Griffith cannot deny
that he pledged his word to the President of the Republic and the Minister of
Defence in the Mansion House, Dublin, on December 3rd, that he would not sign
any document until he returned; and he did sign and pledge his word to Lloyd
George that none of these documents should be made public. He said he has
pledged his word.
MR. GRIFFITH:
That is not so; it is a deliberate misrepresentation---and you know it.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
I never heard it contradicted before---that the Chairman of the Delegation
did not pledge his word in the Mansion House. It is on record.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Does Mr. Griffith deny that he gave his word to us that he would not sign
anything? Does he deny that?
MR. GRIFFITH:
I gave my word that I would not sign that document.
MR. DE VALERA:
We must be clear on this. Nobody here will be able to accuse me of at any
time telling any untruth. I say it is a solemn truth that the Chairman of the
Delegation, on leaving us at the Cabinet meeting---otherwise things might have
been different---gave an undertaking that any document which involved allegiance
to the Crown, and involved our being British subjects would not be signed until
it was submitted to Dáil Eireann.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I have sat here and I have listened for weeks to misrepresentations. At the
Private Session we had all this up, and we are having it at the Public Session
now. The first line of attack on us was that we had exceeded our powers.
President de Valera admitted that we had not. On that Saturday after I came back
I was at the Cabinet meeting, and I told them I would not break on the Crown. I
asked President de Valera himself to go to London if he wished. When I was going
away the President asked me to try and get the thing back to Dáil Eireann. I
tried, and I tried all I could, to get the matter kept back for a week. I could
not succeed. I was faced with the responsibility of signing or not signing. The
responsibility was placed on me and I signed. I protest against the
misrepresentation that I was a man who pledged his word to something. The Deputy
for Wexford also charged me with something---he intended to convey to the Irish
people that I, in some way, connived with Lloyd George. That is a damnable lie
and he knows it.
MR. MACKEOWN:
I propose that all documents, private and otherwise, in connection with this
Session, and all documents in connection with the negotiations be published
immediately.
THE SPEAKER:
That is out of order.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I now beg to move that the question be put. We have discussed it long enough.
ALDERMAN MACDONAGH:
I have an amendment
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
The Chairman of the Delegation has stated in very plain language that a
charge of mine, as he put it, is a damnable lie. I was only repeating in
connection with the Mansion House what has been repeated here, and what has been
read in the newspaper. He ought to be grateful to me for giving him an
opportunity of making the explanation he did. Another thing he charged me with
was that I had spoken---and I did with sorrow---of an interview that he gave to
the Press Association in London, immediately after the signing of the Treaty.
You can say what you like of that. I have over and over again repeated it here.
I never heard a word of denial of it, nor I do not now. What I complained of was
that Arthur Griffith said seven-and-a-half centuries of fight was over---Irish
liberty was won---and our people took it as such. I was here on Saturday
evening, and I am thankful to say he retreated from that and said anything may
happen in ten years. The Minister of Finance said like a man that this is not a
final settlement. I do not believe anyone in Ireland believes it is. I made the
statement because it is on record that Mr. Griffith said that Irish liberty was
won. Whether he thinks it or not I really am sorry for opposing him, for old
times' sake, because he is the man who ploughed the soil, and a number in
Ireland sowed the seed. He does not seem the same man to-day that he was when he
was in the plough before. The plough he used then was the Sinn Fein plough---an
Irish plough. The plough he is using now---and he is coming to us under that
plough---is a London-manufactured plough, a Downing Street plough. That is the
tragedy of it; and no matter what he states he may do in the future, he has
avowed that he will put up the Free State, which means the destruction of the
Irish Republic.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I now move that the question be put.
MR. K. HIGGINS:
I second that.
MR. BOLAND:
I wish to speak.
MR. MACDONAGH:
Before you put the motion I have an amendment.
MR. MACENTEE:
It is already past the ordinary hour for adjournment. We can quite easily
take this motion to put the question immediately after luncheon [cries of
`Poll'].
MR. DE VALERA:
As a protest against the election as President of the Irish Republic of the
Chairman of the Delegation, who is bound by the Treaty conditions to set up a
State which is to subvert the Republic, and who, in the interim period, instead
of using the office as it should be used---to support the Republic---will, of
necessity, have to be taking action which will tend to its destruction, I, while
this vote is being taken, as one, am going to leave the House.
MR. DE VALERA then rose and left the House, followed by the entire body
of his supporters.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Deserters all! We will now call on the Irish people to rally to us. Deserters
all!
MR. CEANNT:
Up the Republic!
MR. M. COLLINS:
Deserters all to the Irish nation in her hour of trial. We will stand by her.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Oath breakers and cowards.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Foreigners---Americans---English.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Lloyd Georgeites.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Now, sir, will you put the question? They have had at least twice the number
of speakers that we have had up to this.
THE SPEAKER:
I am waiting until all those who wish to leave the House have left. The
motion is that the question be now put [`Agreed!'].
The original motion---that Mr. Griffith be appointed President of Dáil
Eireann---was then put, and carried unanimously by those remaining in the House.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I would like to suggest that the roll should be called, and a record made of
those who have been at this vote.
MR. D. MACCARTHY:
A Chinn Chomhairle, before the roll is called, may I explain that two
members paired by a signed agreement---Tom Hunter and Professor Whelehan
The roll was then called, when the following answered:
Mícheál O Coileáin
Art O Gríobhtha
Seán Mac Giolla Ríogh
Pól O Geallagáin
Liam T. Mac Cosgair
Gearóid O Súileabháin
Pádraig O Braonáin
Seán O Lidia
Seán O hAodha
Pádraig O Caoimh
Seán Mac Heil
Eoin Mac Neill
Seosamh Mac Suibhne
Peadar S. Mac an Bháird
Dr. S. Mac Fhionnlaoigh
P. S. Mac Ualghairg
Próinsias Laighleis
S. Ghabháin Uí Dhubhthaigh
Deasmhumhain Mac Gearailt
Seumas O Duibhir
Pádraic O Máille
Seoirse Mac Niocaill
P. S. O hOgáin
Piaras Beaslaí
Fionán O Loingsigh
S. O Cruadhlaoich
Criostóir O Broin
Seumas O Dóláin
Aindriú O Láimhín
Tomás Mac Artúir
Dr. Pádraig Mac Artáin
Caoimhghín O hUiginn
Seosamh O Loingsigh
Próinsias Bulfin
Dr. Risteárd O hAodha
Liam O hAodha
Seosamh Mac Aonghusa
Seán Mac Eoin
Lorcán O Roibín
Eamon O Dúgáin
Peadar O h-Aodha
Seumas O Murchadha
Saerbreathach Mac Cionaith
Seosamh Mac Giolla Bhrighde
Liam Mac Sioghuird
Domhnall O Ruairc
Earnán de Blaghd
Eoin O Dubhthaigh
Alastar Mac Cába
Seumas de Búrca
Dr. V. de Faoite
Risteárd Mac Fheorais
Seán Mac Gadhra
Mícheál Mac Stáin
Risteárd O Maolchatha
Seosamh Mag Craith
Pilib Mac Cosgair
Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh
Liam de Róiste
Seumas Breathnach
Mícheál O hAodha
MR. GRIFFITH:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I repeat now what I said before when asked the
question. As Premier I suppose I may say the Dáil and the Republic exist until
such time as the Free State Government is set up. When that Free State
Government is set up I intend that the Irish people shall have the fullest power
of expression at that election. When the Dáil---the sovereign body in
Ireland---passed that vote of approval of the Treaty, it was our business, and
our duty to the Dáil, to see it carried through, and I regret, myself, that
President de Valera resigned. When he resigned and automatically brought all his
Ministers with him, Ireland was left without any Government. Therefore, someone
had to be proposed to take his place in accordance with the Constitution. Now,
in accordance with the Constitution, the Premier proposes his Ministers and the
Dáil ratifies them. Now, I propose the six Cabinet Ministers for the Dáil:
Finance Minister: Mr. Michael Collins.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I beg to propose Mr. Michael Collins as Minister of Finance.
DR. MACCARTAN:
I second it.
MR. GRIFFITH:
It is not necessary. The Dáil has simply to ratify each name.
The following were then nominated and ratified as Ministers by the Dáil:
FINANCE: Mr. Michael Collins.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Mr. G. Gavan Duffy.
HOME AFFAIRS: Mr. Eamonn Duggan.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT: Alderman W. T. Cosgrave.
ECONOMIC AFFAIRS: Mr. Kevin O'Higgins.
DEFENCE: Mr. R. Mulcahy.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I propose now that we adjourn until four o'clock I suppose the Labour
deputation will be here at that time.
The House adjourned at 2.5 p.m.
On resuming the SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) took the Chair at 4.20 p.m.
THE SPEAKER:
In accordance with the wish of the Dáil this morning, the deputation from the
Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress will be here now.
The Labour Deputation consisted of: Messrs. Thomas Johnson, Secretary;
Cathal O' Shannon, Acting Chairman; Thomas Foran, General President I. T. and
G.W.U.; O'Farrell, R.C.A.; Cullen (Dublin); Nason (Cork); Carr (Limerick); and
Larkin (Waterford).
MR. THOMAS JOHNSON:
Mr. Speaker, and Deputies of the Dáil, my first duty is to thank you for the
privilege of allowing us to address you on these matters which were referred to
in my letter. We realise it is a privilege for us to come to address you; but we
feel that we are, perhaps, in a somewhat exceptional position, inasmuch as we
might have had the right to address the assembly had we considered, at the last
election and the previous election, it was in the interests of Ireland that we
should have gone forward as a Labour Party to seek representation in this Dáil [hear,
hear]. The Executive of the Labour Party was in session yesterday and
reported from various parts of the country as to the situation as affecting
working people in these various parts of the country. We had been following the
discussions here. We knew the situation as well as the newspapers would tell us
the situation, and we decided that, in the circumstances, it was desirable that
we should seek an interview---to seek to meet you, at least, as a delegation
officially representing three hundred thousand organised workers in this
country. Our delegation represents all the various towns: Cork, Waterford,
Limerick, Dublin and other towns as well as some of the agricultural districts
of the country. I said we had refrained from contesting elections in the
interests, as we thought---as we know---on national solidarity in the face of
the enemy of Ireland and the enemy of the working class---the capitalist
imperialism in operation in this country. We had reason to know---we had
documentary evidence to prove---that in the minds of certain very high officials
of the British Government there were hopes and beliefs, and their conduct was
founded on those hopes and beliefs, that we would sometime in the struggle split
off from the national movement. That was one of the factors---a very important
factor which determined our action at the elections. As I have said, we had
followed the debates intensely, and we could not but feel that with the stress
of the war, the critical periods, and the difficulties of administration, both
the Government and the Deputies seem to have forgotten---in the stress of
political issues---to some extent, that there was a social problem at home.
There are at this time probably one hundred and thirty thousand men and women
walking the streets unemployed. Tens, and twenties, and thirties of thousands of
these have been only intermittently employed for the last year, or
one-and-a-half years. In every country in Europe all such people have been
forced to agitate more or less violently against the powers that be. But the
feelings of solidarity with the nation which permeate the working class in
Ireland have tended to restrain any action which they would naturally take. We
were in the position that we could not agitate with the British Government on
such matters as social conditions. We dared not agitate because of the critical
nature of the situation---we dared not agitate against the Irish Government. The
times have developed; circumstances have developed. Those times have passed and
we are in the situation to-day that a very large proportion of the population is
at its wits' end to know how things are going to move. Thousands of children are
hungry and naked, huddled together like swine in their so-called houses. In all
parts of the country we hear cries of desperation, cries of: `What is going to
be done for us?' These murmurs presage, something like the tremors of an
earthquake, and unless something is done rapidly---something effective---there
will be a grave situation developing in this country that will be a problem for
even an old-established government, let alone a new one. The working classes in
Ireland have taken a full share in this national struggle [hear, hear].
Individually and collectively the workers have borne their part [hear,
hear]. They are prepared to do it again when the need comes. But I would
like to say that, in so far as they are conscious of their purpose---and that
applies to the greater part of the men who went into this fight for freedom and
for Ireland's nationality---they went into the fight for freedom for the men and
women of Ireland individually [hear, hear]. Freedom from bondage
to wage slavery, freedom from bondage to the machine, freedom from bondage to
capitalists and financiers in Ireland or in other parts of the world. We feel,
and they feel, that there must be something done immediately to lessen this
burden that they are suffering. I say there are one hundred and thirty thousand
unemployed up and down the country. Farmers have their complaints, their
grievances, their terrible trials at the moment. Merchants have their complaints
and grievances about bad trade, et cetera. They can speak for themselves.
They have the means to keep body and soul together. The workers, for whom we
speak, have not the means unless someone sees fit to give them employment.
Twenty thousand of these men---more than twenty thousand of these men---are
agricultural labourers; men who ought, at this moment, be preparing for next
year's harvest. The problem that faces you and that faces the country is: that
probably one million acres of land have gone out of cultivation during the last
couple of years. A million acres of land gone out of cultivation! We have held,
and rightly held, suspicions of the perfidy of England. We are aware of the
risk, the danger there is that, when the time comes, when the opportunity
serves, anything that has been promised will be withdrawn. I want to suggest to
you, Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen, that the best safeguard---the only real
safeguard---in this country, is an ample, home-grown food supply [applause].
What you are allowing to be done is that that food supply is not going to exist.
You are going to be dependent on overseas food, and a blockade of the ports will
bring Ireland to her knees. It is imperative, in our view, that the land of
Ireland must be tilled for the purpose of national defence. Incidentally, it
will mean the employment of the men capable of working the land [hear,
hear]. During recent years Labour in Ireland has developed a new
consciousness of its position in social economy. The workers have seen, and do
see, that the land of Ireland, the resources of Ireland, are capable of keeping
the people of Ireland in reasonable comfort. It is for those who have power to
organise those resources, the natural resources and the human resources, to
provide these people with the means of living a decent life. The workers are not
prepared to go back to or continue the low standard of life which they have
lived in the past. I want you to bear that in mind very carefully. The workers
are not going to be content to go back to the standard of life they lived prior
to 1914. Where attempts are being made, as they are day by day in all kinds of
industries and occupations, to degrade that standard of life, it means that the
workers are going to resist by whatever means they may think best. The patience
of the workers, of the people, of the poor unemployed, and the wives of the
unemployed, is becoming exhausted. We want to impress on you this: there is an
insistent and immediate need for these problems to be tackled---the problems of
unemployment, tillage, housing---and they will not brook delay. It will not do
to allow them to wait on political exigencies. These are social problems that
must be dealt with at once. We realise fully all the difficulties of the
situation. We are fully aware of them, and are prepared to make every allowance
for those difficulties. But we want to impress on you members of the Dáil---the
Government of Ireland---that this is a problem which is your responsibility, You
are responsible to see that this problem is dealt with and tackled effectually.
If it is not so done the people will rise and sweep you away, as they would
sweep any government away that failed to do its duty to the common people [applause].
MR. CATHAL O SHANNON:
A Chinn Chomhairle, agus a lucht na Dála,is mian liom buidhchas a ghabháil
libh i dtaobh gur leigeabhair don Toscaireacht cúis an lucht oibre do chur os
bhúr gcóir. Níl a thuille le rá agam ach aon fhocal amháin. Nuair a cuireadh
Poblacht na hEireann ar bun, dubhairt sibhse, lucht na Dála gur le muintir na
hEireann saidhbhreas agus talamh na hEireann. Níl uainn anois ach go gcuirfeadh
sibh e sin i bhfeidbm.
PRESIDENT ARTHUR GRIFFITH:
Before the delegation leaves, I want to thank them for putting before us
here, their views. I want also to say I fully agree with what they say. The
workers of Ireland have taken their full share in this fight for Irish freedom [hear,
hear]. I want also to say I understand perfectly, and I know, this
question of unemployment, and I may say we are prepared to appoint a Committee
to meet Mr. Johnson and his co-representatives to try and deal with this
question [hear, hear].
The Labour Deputation withdrew.
MR. DE VALERA:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I regret more than I can express the fact that I
cannot consistently and sincerely congratulate the President on his election. I
regret it, as I say, more than I can express. The difficulties which he has in
his office are undoubtedly very, very great. One who has had the burden of those
duties on his shoulders understands what they are likely to be now, perhaps,
better than anybody else and I think I will be expressing the views of everyone
here, not merely those on the majority side, but we here who stand definitely
for the Republic, when I say that, appreciating to the full his difficulties in
acting as President of the Republic of Ireland, as head of the established
State, we shall not only not stand in his way in carrying out the duties of that
office, but we shall do everything that is possible for us to secure to the full
for the Irish people enjoyment of the liberty which is their right as citizens
of the Irish Republic [hear, hear]. That must not, of course, be
interpreted in any way as meaning that we are not to continue our own
policy---that we are not to criticise and attack his policy in any respect in
which it may appear to us to be contrary to the interests of the Irish people
and the established government, which is the Republic. Whenever he functions, or
will function in his other capacity as head of another government, we cannot
recognise that government at all. We will have to insist and continue insisting
on our attitude that that government is not the legitimate government of this
country until the Irish people have disestablished the Republic, and we shall do
everything in our power to see they do not disestablish it. I have also said
whenever there is a question between the President of the Republic as head of
this State, and any outside power that he can count on us to the full; that he
can count on our support as definitely as if there had never been a division
between us. I would also feel contemptible in my own eyes if I did not say this:
I have found fault, as I felt it my duty, with the actions of the President when
he was Minister of Foreign Affairs; but there is not one in this whole Assembly,
not even those on his side, who realise how terrible was the task imposed upon
him. And I want to tell him this: that if in any way it were consistent with
Irish national principles to support the action he was taking, I would be
supporting him; and that I am in opposition now simply because I felt that the
action that is proposed is neither good for the Irish people, nor is it
consistent with Irish national aspirations. I know he will believe me when I
tell him I will, as a single Irish citizen, give to him in his office all the
respect which I would expect to receive when in that office, from any citizens,
and which I received from the Minister of Foreign Affairs himself. It is a good
thing there should be these changes, so that we who have been in power may
recognise, individually, that it is power which does not come from ourselves,
but is given to is; and when we are in office we are not acting as individual
autocrats, but as functionaries for the people. I have said changes are good
things, and I am glad to be able, as a private individual, to act my part as a
private Irish citizen; and the President of the Republic will receive from me,
personally, and I hope from every Irish citizen, while he is acting in that
capacity, the full respect which his office entitles him to. It will be my duty
to do everything in my power to see this established Republic is not
disestablished. On this side of the House, even amongst those who most bitterly
oppose his policy, there is a sympathetic feeling, and the magnitude of the task
imposed upon him is realised. I regret it is not possible for me consistently to
be able to congratulate him on the office which he is taking up in the present
circumstances. Now, I would like if he would give us some outline of the policy
he intends to pursue in maintaining the existing Republic.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
I desire to thank President de Valera for his words. I call him President
still; because if he had not resigned yesterday I would never have asked him to
resign. He has spoken of laying down a burden. If there was anything in my life
I would like, it would be to lay down the burden and get back into private life.
It is no feeling of ambition, or anything like that, that is going to make me
act as I am. I know the responsibilities I am taking on. I feel those
responsibilities, and if I did not feel it a duty to my country---an absolute
duty owing to the part I took---I would certainly wish to get away into some
kind of private or domestic life. I am doing what I am doing because I believe
it is my absolute duty to my country. Men may differ from me here; men may hold
other views. I can only follow my own conscience and my own judgment, and I am
doing that. As to the policy I am going to pursue, I have stated it already here
to-day. If President de Valera had not resigned yesterday I would never have
suggested he should resign. I would have suggested he would have remained on.
But once he resigned and carried us with him, there was nothing else for us to
do but adopt one course. We were not prepared to abandon the Treaty. Now, as
regards President de Valera, he is an individual whom I esteem and love,
although, in the interests of the nation, I had to oppose him. As I said from
the very beginning, the Dáil is going to remain in existence---the Republic of
Ireland is going to remain in existence---until the Free State is prepared to
have an election. I do not want any obstruction. At all events that is all I
ask. We are going to have the heaviest task that was ever laid on the shoulders
of Irishmen, thrown on our shoulders. All we ask is that we will not be
obstructed until we can go to the Irish people and give them the Free State, and
let them decide. That is the only policy I have. If the Irish people turn down
the Free State for the Republic, I will follow in the ranks. I will back the
Free State. All I ask of Ireland and of my colleagues against me is not to throw
obstacles in our way. Within the next three months we are going to have the
heaviest task ever thrown on the shoulders of Irishmen. So at least give us a
fair trial. That is the policy [applause].
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
A Chinn Chomhairle---
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
What is before the House, exactly?
THE SPEAKER:
There is no motion before the House at present.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
What about the Orders of the Day?
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
I am told I made some remark that might have another bearing to what I
intended to say. It was to the effect that if the Irish people turned down the
Free State, I would back the Free State. What I meant to say was that if the
Irish people at a free election, without any force used on either side, say:
`No! we want to have the Republic,' I will follow in the ranks of the Irish
people. I want that to be quite clear. I am going to back the Free State, to
propose it and to advocate it; but I agree with President de Valera, nobody can
disestablish the Dáil except the Irish people at an election. At that election I
will stand for the Free State. If the Irish people are against me I will follow
behind them as a private in the ranks. If I said anything to the contrary, I
wish to correct it.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
I wish to raise a few points in connection with the statement made by the
President.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
I must protest. There is nothing before the House. Deputy Childers is out of
order.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
The President has made a very general statement of policy. All I wish to do
is to ask him to be more explicit in a few particulars which are of great
importance. I do not raise the points in the least obstructive sense, or with
any obstructive motives. It is simply in order that we may know more exactly
where we stand. Mr. Griffith as President has taken over an important office, to
my view in a double capacity---one as Chief Executive Officer of Dáil Eireann,
and the other, which he will soon presumably hold, is Chief of the Provisional
Government. It is simply a few points arising out of that curious and ambiguous
situation which I wish to raise. I would have raised them on the previous motion
but the closure was moved and I was unable to speak. My friend, Mr. Gavan Duffy,
said all the questions put to Mr. Griffith had been satisfactorily answered, and
that we can just go ahead under Mr. Griffith in his dual capacity. I do not
think that is so, and further explanation is needed. One of the questions asked
him he certainly did not answer at all. That question was: `Will the Provisional
Government function under the statutory powers conferred by the Partition Act?'
I think I am right in saying he made no answer to that question at all. Has Dáil
Eireann---
MR. D. MACCARTHY:
I rise to a point of order. Yesterday you allowed a motion to be debated for
two-and-a-half hours, and then ruled it out of order. Let us know where we are
What is before the House? If this debate is going to go on for two or three
hours we may then be told it is not in order, and there is nothing before the
House.
THE SPEAKER:
On a strict point of order there is no motion before us.
MR. P. HUGHES:
I move that we proceed with the next business.
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
I have pleasure in seconding that motion.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
But this is a---
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
Before this proceeds any further, I want to say that President de Valera made
a statement---a generous statement---and I replied. Now [striking the
table] I will not reply to any Englishman in this Dáil [applause].
MR. P. O'KEEFE:
It is nearly time we had that.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
It is about time.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
My nationality is a matter for myself and for the constituents that sent me
here.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
Your constituents did not know what your nationality was.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
They have known me from my boyhood days---since I was about half a dozen
years of age.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
I will not reply to any damned Englishman in this Assembly.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
Are all these proceedings in order?
THE SPEAKER:
The whole proceedings at present are out of order.
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
It has been proposed and seconded that the next business in the Orders of the
Day be proceeded with.
THE SPEAKER:
I have ruled.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
I hardly think you will say this is out of order [cries of `Chair!
Chair!']. It is hardly out of order to say something to an interjection
like that made by the President. I am not going to defend my nationality, but I
would be delighted to show the President privately that I am not, in the true
sense of the word, an Englishman, as he knows. He banged the table. If he had
banged the table before Lloyd George in the way he banged it here, things might
have been different [cries of `Order!' and applause].
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
I banged the table before your countryman, Mr. Lloyd George [applause].
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
And Griffith is a Welsh name.
MR. P. HUGHES:
Are are going to have this all the evening?
THE SPEAKER:
I have ruled this is out of order.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
In the interests of decency and order you should rule Deputy Childers out of
order. It is not making for harmony or proper debate to allow him to continue.
Admittedly, it is out of order.
THE SPEAKER:
Leave it to me. Deputy Childers, I have ruled the continuation of this
discussion is out of order.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
You rule me out of order?
THE SPEAKER:
Yes.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
May I ask are we permitted to ask questions?
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
If the President of this House makes a statement of policy in this House, is
it in order to ask him some questions arising out of that statement?
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
Under Standing Order number six, twenty-four hours' notice of questions to
Ministers shall be given by Deputies, in writing.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
Let us get on with the next business. What is it?
THE SPEAKER:
We will take up the next business. It is a motion in the name of President de
Valera---we must call him Deputy de Valera now---
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I sent up a question yesterday. What is the proper time to bring it up at?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Standing Order 4 (d) deals with the matter.
THE SPEAKER:
When you brought it up before, I told you I believed it was out of order. I
also told you it was out of order in substance, as being an alternative in
opposition to the motion for the ratification of the Treaty.
MR. DE VALERA:
I do not intend to pursue this [hear, hear]. There is no good
purpose, as far as I can see, to be gained at this stage in pursuing this
motion. It will stand, and the criticisms that have been levelled at it will be
proved to be unjust. It is the natural sequel to the correspondence we had with
the British Prime Minister. It is the natural conclusion to that correspondence.
If we did not have that to show that we had a definite objective, it might
appear that we had no definite objective in view at all, and that we were simply
pursuing the negotiations for some other purpose except for the definite purpose
of trying to effect reconciliation and peace; and, in truth, to try to get a
solution, or find some means by which association with the community of nations
known as the British Commonwealth might best be reconciled with Irish national
aspirations. As to the motion for the approval of the Treaty, I still want to
insist it is not an act as such, but simply a resolution of this Assembly. It
would be ultra vires to ratify the Treaty. It is simply an approval of
the report brought over by the Delegation. That motion has been carried, and as
we have established such definite party lines here, there would be no good
purpose served by moving and explaining the document here.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Whether that document is ruled out or not, I want to say this about it: we
shall do our very best to secure the earliest possible publication of all the
private documents which led up to that document, and I shall do my best, at the
very first opportunity I have of doing it, to issue a criticism of that
document, and that can go before the public, and let that criticism be answered
in the same public way [applause].
THE SPEAKER:
The next motion is in my own name, and in order that I may move it, it will
be necessary for the Deputy Speaker to take my place.
MR. DE VALERA:
May I withdraw my motion?
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
When may I ask my question?
ALDERMAN W. T. COSGRAVE:
In No. 4 (d) of the Standing Orders it is laid down that the first business
of the day shall be questions to Ministers, and all subjects thereto, and so on.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
In the absence of the Deputy Speaker, I move that Deputy Liam de Roiste take
the Chair.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
I beg to second that.
THE SPEAKER vacated the Chair which was then taken by ALDERMAN LIAM DE
ROISTE.
PROFESSOR EOIN MACNEILL:
The motion I have to move, Sir, is: `That Dáil Eireann affirms that Ireland
is a Sovereign Nation, deriving its sovereignty in all respects from the will of
the people of Ireland; that all the international relations of Ireland are
governed on the part of Ireland by this sovereign status, and that all
facilities and accommodations accorded by Ireland to another state or country
are subject to the right of the Irish Government to take care that the liberty
and well-being of the people of Ireland are not endangered'. Now, one Deputy
asked me when this notice appeared first, what was the meaning of it. I gathered
from the question, or perhaps, from the conversation which followed it, that
what was intended in asking me that question was: what tactical purpose I had in
bringing it forward. Now, I have no tactical purpose in bringing it forward;
that is to say, no tactical purpose as between any number of members of this
Dáil and any other number of members of this Dáil---no tactical purpose
whatsoever. There is not a single member of this assembly who can say that any
single thing that I have done since I became a member of it partook of the
nature of tactics, in order to gain an advantage over any number of persons in
the Dáil, or for any object pursued by any number of persons in this Dáil over
the other number. There are old friends of mine associated with me in public
movements for years back, and not one of them can point to an occasion upon
which I ever endeavoured to gain a tactical advantage over any other person with
whom I was engaged in Irish public work. Therefore I put this motion in the hope
that it will express the unanimous view of the members of this assembly. I do
not put it from any controversial point of view, and if I understood that it
were to be made the basis of a controversy here now, I should rather never have
brought it forward, and I would ask that, sooner than that a controversy should
arise upon it, I shall be asked to withdraw it. The terms in which it is stated,
are stated with all the clarity that it was possible for me to put into it.
There is no reserve; there is nothing concealed in any term; I wish them to be
as plain as I could make them in the English language. And the reason for that,
I think, is obvious. Now, it is evident that a great deal of confusion of
thought---not so much confusion of thought as the confusion of the habitual way
of expressing thoughts---about these things, exists. It is natural enough. The
political traditions of the past have to account for it. I say the same as Mr.
de Valera said to you a few days ago. What I think about these things---I know
perfectly well; I have no doubt about it---it is what the people of Ireland
think in their hearts about it. They may be confused with regard to how to
express their thoughts, they may be confused in the face of this or that
political proposal or political formula, but what they think is the same,
fundamentally the same. They think what I say here: that there is no rightful
sovereignty, and can be no rightful sovereignty, except the sovereignty derived
from the will of the Irish people [hear, hear]. That is what I ask
the Dáil to re-affirm now as a basic principle, and the object of doing
that---one object of doing it---is clear enough. There is a danger in making
agreements, especially in making agreements with a government like the English
Government. There is a saying attributed to General Smuts `that the statesmen of
England cannot think of Ireland; when they think of Ireland their minds relapse
into the seventeenth century'. Well, consequently, there is a danger that people
in Ireland, and people in England, may interpret this or that in the terms of
the seventeenth century. I wish it to be made clear that it is in the terms of
the present century that these things ought to be interpreted. The second thing
I state in this is: that the international relations of Ireland are governed on
the part of Ireland by this sovereign status. Now, these international
relations---the international relations involved in the Treaty---concern, as
well as Ireland, Great Britain South Africa, Australia and New Zealand---every
single one of these countries. Those in them who represent them as political
thinkers hold precisely the same doctrines as are stated here, that is to say
that each of these countries is sovereign in its own domain, and derives its
sovereignty from the will of its people. In the second place, each one of them
in its relation with the other, exercises that sovereign status, so that the
relations to each other is one of equality. In a recent communication reported
in the Press, written by Mr. Lloyd George from the South of France, he is
reported as having stated that this equality of status was what is now
recognised on his part. At all events, I wish it to be put beyond all doubt that
it is what is now recognised on our part---that we recognise no inequality of
status---
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
PROFESSOR EOIN MACNEILL:
That we recognise no subordinate status, and that we recognise no suzeranity
or claim to suzeranity in any shape or form [hear, hear]. People
will say, perhaps---well no, take the `perhaps' out of it [laughter]---that
in the actual terms of the Treaty there are words and phrases that cannot
clearly be reconciled with those principles. I do not deny it. There are words
and phrases which cannot clearly be reconciled with those principles. I do not
read much of these discussions, but I happened to hit on one item in a
discussion that took place in the British Parliament on this Treaty. It was Lord
Birkenhead who was speaking, and he was speaking about his friend, Lord Carson,
and he said Lord Carson's ideas on the subject were mediæval. I wish Lord
Birkenhead's own ideas were less mediæval when he was engaged in his share of
drafting that Treaty, because there is a great deal of pure mediævalism in the
phrasing of it. My object is plain. It is to get away from the mediævalism and
interpret all these things in the light of the twentieth century---to interpret
status in the light in which South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand
interpret it; that is to say, sovereignty for each of those in their own domain,
and equality in their relations with each other. Not, indeed, that their form of
interpretation of it need concern us; for if they had never placed any
interpretation on it, it would be our right and duty and business to declare the
fact that Ireland is a sovereign nation, deriving its sovereignty in all
respects from the will of the people of Ireland, and that all the international
relations of Ireland are governed on the part of Ireland by this sovereign
status. That means complete equality in these relations. Now, we come to the
third part which deals with facilities and accommodations accorded by Ireland to
another state or country. We know the claim that has been put forward, and that
is that certain shines are necessary to the security of Great Britain on account
of its peculiar position. It is not necessary at all to deal with that that part
of my resolution in any controversial form, because I think it is recognised on
all hands---not that we take the view Great Britain takes with regard to these
things---but that, for one reason or another, we cannot escape from making
certain concessions in those respects. Well, having made those concessions, we
are entitled to insist that those concessions shall only be used for the
purposes for which they are claimed. It is quite possible they might be used for
another purpose. It has arisen at many points during our long discussions here
that we cannot invest ourselves with security here against the naval power of
Britain, if Britain is hostile to us; and, in fact, the statement has been made
that the only safeguard we have against the naval aggression of Great Britain is
international morality. I, personally, think international morality has a very
long way to go yet before it becomes worthy of the term morality at all. But if
these concessions are made, or exist, it is the right of the Irish Government to
take care that they are used for no other purpose than the purpose for which
they are claimed. Now, those are the reasons for which I have brought forward
those resolutions. It is in order that things which some people say exist by
implication, and other people deny, but---whether they exist by implication or
do not exist by implication---ought to exist, and about which we are all
unanimous that they ought to exist---it is in order that these things may be
clearly stated, so that it will not be possible for any person in future to say,
if we insist on these fundamental rights of the Irish people, we are breaking
faith with anybody. These are fundamental rights; they existed before the
Treaty, they existed during the Treaty, they existed after the Treaty. We claim
these rights, at all events, and I believe the Irish people, so far as they can
think these things out, are unanimous in claiming them. I would not even exclude
the Unionists. There is no political right but the right based on the will of
the Irish people. Consequently I put these proposals forward. I hope I have said
nothing controversial as between different sections here. If I have, it has been
unintentional. I put these forward for your consideration. These are things that
have all been agreed to publicly in many statements made on behalf of Great
Britain, and on behalf of the communities mentioned as in the British
Commonwealth. They are undenied, and put forward without being challenged. I ask
you to put them forward. I have avoided, so far as I consciously could, putting
up any controversial aspect on the resolution itself, and in my attempt to
explain it, and I would ask my fellow members here to adopt unanimously those
resolutions in order to show that, on certain fundamental things, we, as
representing the people of Ireland, are unanimous [applause].
THE ACTING SPEAKER:
Is there any seconder for Deputy MacNeill's resolution?
MR. R. MULCAHY:
I desire to second that resolution.
MR. DE VALERA:
I regret this resolution has been brought forward. As Deputy MacNeill said he
would withdraw it if it was controversial, I think, from one point of view, it
should be withdrawn. But the main idea can be served, perhaps, very much better
by an amendment. Our attitude is this: this resolution of the approval of the
Treaty was simply a license to the Executive---the new Executive---that they
might promote the setting up of a Provisional Government in accordance with the
terms, in other words, that we would not be actively hostile to the setting up
of the Government, though we do not, and cannot, admit its right as the
Government of this country until the Irish people have spoken. Anything that
would seem to make it appear that that Treaty was completed by the resolution of
approval here, we are against; and this mere declaration is, to our minds, of
very little value when it is not in accordance, as far as we can see, with the
text of the actual Treaty. I will propose an amendment to this---and I think we
can be unanimous about this, because any action we have taken here, we have
taken it as the Parliament of the Republic of Ireland---and the amendment that
would cover the object for which Deputy MacNeill's motion was put before you,
being the assertion of the independence of Ireland, can be put this way. Leave
out all the words after Dáil Eireann and insert: `The Government of Dáil Eireann
re-affirms in the name of the Irish people the Declaration of Independence made
on January 21st, 1919'. I propose that we here now solemnly re-affirm that
Declaration of Independence. It is, as you know, as follows:`
Whereas the Irish people is by right a free people: and whereas for seven
hundred years the Irish people has never ceased to repudiate, and has
repeatedly protested in arms against foreign usurpation; and whereas English
Rule in this country is, and always has been, based upon force and fraud and
maintained by military occupation against the declared will of the people: and
whereas the Irish Republic was proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday, 1916, by
the Irish Republican Army acting on behalf of the Irish people: and whereas
the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its complete independence
in order to promote the common weal, to re-establish justice, to provide for
future defence, to insure peace at home and good will with all nations, and to
constitute a national polity based upon the people's will, with equal right
and equal opportunity for every citizen: and whereas, at the threshold of a
new era in history, the Irish electorate has, in the General Election of
December, 1918, seized the first occasion to declare by an overwhelming
majority its firm allegiance to the Irish Republic: now, therefore, we, the
elected representatives of the ancient Irish people in national Parliament
assembled, do, in the name of the Irish nation ratify the establishment of the
Irish Republic, and pledge ourselves and our people to make this declaration
effective by every means at our command: we ordain that the elected
representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on
the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to
which that people will give its allegiance: we solemnly declare foreign
Government in Ireland to be an invasion of our national right which we will
never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation of our country by the English
Garrison: we claim for our national independence the recognition and support
of every free nation in the world, and we proclaim that independence to be a
condition precedent to international peace hereafter: in the name of the Irish
people we humbly commit our destiny to Almighty God who gave our fathers the
courage and determination to persevere through long centuries of a ruthless
tyranny,and strong in the justice of the cause which they have handed down to
us, we ask His Divine Blessing on this, the last stage of the struggle we have
pledged ourselves to carry through to freedom
[applause].
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
That is not an amendment in accordance with the rules of debate.
THE ACTING SPEAKER:
I am careful about that matter of omitting adding, or substituting words.
This is to omit words?
MR. DE VALERA:
To omit and substitute words.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Did I not understand the proposer of the motion to say very definitely and
clearly that he was putting it forward on the express understanding there was to
be no official opposition, and it there was, it would be withdrawn?
MR. D. O CEALLACHAlN:
Is mian liom aontú leis an bhfó-rún.
PROFESSOR MACNEIL:
I am sorry it was not indicated to me that it was intended to put an
amendment to my resolution. If I had known anything about that, I would not
have, at this stage of the proceedings, supplied material for a fresh
controversy. I ask the permission of the Dáil to withdraw my resolution [hear,
hear].
MR. J. J. WALSH:
There is no necessity to ask permission.
THE ACTING SPEAKER:
I must therefore declare, as the proposer of the motion has withdrawn it,
that now there is neither a motion nor an amendment before the House [applause].
I will ask the Speaker to take the Chair again[laughter].
ALDERMAN DE ROISTE vacated the Chair which was then taken by THE
SPEAKER.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I rise to make a motion for the adjournment. But
before I do so I may mention that into my hands have been put, within the last
few minutes questions addressed by Madame Markievicz. It was the first time I
saw them, and there might be an insinuation that I avoided them. The first
question is:
`What is the scheme that Mr. Griffith refers to when he says, alluding to
the Southern Unionists, `I agreed that a scheme should be devised to give them
their full share of representation in the first Chamber of the Irish
Parliament'. Is it a scheme for party legislation, class legislation, or
what?'
The second question is:
`On what basis is this Upper House that he mentions further on in the
letter to be constituted?'
My answer to that is this: I met some of the Southern Unionists in London. I
refused to meet them at a Conference. I said they had no locus standi at
a Conference; but I would meet them as an Irishman might meet Irishmen. I
discussed matters with them, and I said: `We want you all in Ireland'. They
asked about representation, and I said: `I will agree a scheme shall be devised
to give you full representation'. Madame Markievicz asks me what that scheme is.
I do not know.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Thank you.
PRESIDENT GRIFFITH:
That scheme will have to be considered when we are drawing up the
Constitution. I was not able to work out the scheme at the moment. These
questions are trap questions. I wrote overnight from London, and a courier came
across to Dublin. I informed the Cabinet I was going to see these gentlemen, and
I informed them afterwards; so they knew all about it. As to the second
question, that is a question when the Constitution is being drawn up. What I
have pledged is that they will get a fair representation in both Houses, and I
will see to it. Now I move the adjournment of the House until such time as we
call it together again.
MR. DE VALERA:
I do not know whether the President would be really wise in doing that
straight off. There are a number of things he might enlighten us on by having
another session. There are questions of policy to be disposed of, Republican
staffs, foreign representatives, and a number of Executive matters which the
House would like to have some information about. The taking over of the various
offices is another matter. Ex-Ministers will, naturally, hand over their
departments to the present Ministers and I suppose the present Ministers will
make arrangements for taking them over. I would suggest that to-morrow an
opportunity would be given to those who want to ask questions to meet again. An
opportunity will then be given to those who want information as to when the next
meeting of the Dáil will be. Let us have a definite idea of what is going to be
done.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Yes; something like that.
MR. DE VALERA:
Meanwhile the President and the members of his Cabinet will have an
opportunity of preparing an outline of policy.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Would it not be better if the other side made a practical suggestion for
once? I mentioned a matter the other day, and there was no response. Obviously a
Committee, or some kind of contest between the two sides, would meet the case.
It is also obvious, if we are not to be hindered, that certain details are
necessary to be arranged, and those details will take a great deal of working
out. It is not fair that we should be kept here and prevented from doing our
work. Questions are being asked. I say these cannot be answered, because we have
not the necessary time to send anybody to the English side to ask for transfers
and arrange other matters. If we are not to be hindered, I think the adjournment
of the House over a certain period ought to be supported. I do not care whether
the period is named or not. At any rate, tactics should be dropped, and we
should get a bit of fair play.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
The Minister of Finance put us into a difficulty yesterday which he has,
apparently, forgotten. He informed us that every penny we were spending now was
spent illegally. How can any expenditure be made until the House has sanctioned
it for the next six months? Expenditure cannot be carried on until it is
sanctioned by this House, as we did last July or August. That is one matter.
There are several other questions, as the President suggested, that have to come
up.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Would it be suggested by anybody here that we should cease at once paying the
staffs in the different departments, and that we should ask back from the staffs
all they have received in salaries for the past fortnight? The only expenditure
that is being made is the simple routine expenditure in all the departments. I
am not spending the money. All the departments have been carried on, as
everybody knows just as they had been prior to any division. And surely to
goodness it would not be suggested that they should not be paid. I do not know
to what extent the other side would go in any suggestion now. I do not know if
any person could find fault with any expenditure on ordinary staffs.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
I resent very much the suggestion that I am implying that the Minister of
Finance should do anything he should not do. I resent it very much. This is an
ordinary question of constitutional procedure. For any expenditure he has got to
get the sanction of the House.
MR. M. COLLINS:
A statement will have to be prepared.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
The newly elected President suggests that we should adjourn until he chooses
to call us together again. We cannot adjourn until the ordinary business of the
House is settled. Moreover we are told we cannot get questions answered without
giving twenty-four hours' notice. There are some very important questions to be
asked, not with a view to creating trouble, but to seek definite answers. I will
oppose the motion to adjourn until those questions are answered, and until we
get some idea---
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
There is a motion before the House.
ALDERMAN M. STAINES:
I second the motion for the adjournment. Any members who have questions to
ask should send them to the Cabinet Ministers, and the Cabinet Ministers will be
in a much better position to answer them when we meet again. We can see then
what is being done. It is not fair to the members of the Cabinet. Give them a
chance.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I have been Minister of Finance for the last couple of hours only. All the
estimates have to be prepared, and that is a fairly big task, and naturally it
will take some time before they can be submitted to the House.
MR. J. J. MACKEOWN:
I move that the motion be now put to the House.
MR. DE VALERA:
Do not try to rush the matter. We will get more harmony if there is no
attempt to rush. Undoubtedly there is great anxiety on our side of the House to
know what your programme for the future is. There, for example, is the question
of the estimates. Instead of adjourning the House sine die, if a certain
date were fixed, it would be accepted most definitely---if there was a definite
date fixed at which the Dáil was to re-assemble, everything could be prepared by
the new Cabinet, and they would be in a position to put the estimates before the
House, when they could be fully examined. I suggest a date be definitely fixed.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
I think President de Valera is acting fairly; some of the other members are
not. We want to get a chance. We have not spoken about ourselves, but for three
months past we have been working night and day. We were faced with the task of
fighting our English opponents first, and then we had to come and fight our
Irish friends, and now we have to take on as big a job as ever men took on [hear,
hear]. We want a chance. We cannot meet every day here and at the same
time try and carry out the things. If President de Valera---I will still call
him President---agrees, I will fix a month hence as the date for the next
meeting, end we will meet again on this day month. Give us a chance to do some
thing in the meantime. We cannot work as it is.
MR. DE VALERA:
We ought, I think, to take that as reasonable. Everybody ought to regard it
as reasonable [applause]. The only thing we are really anxious
about is the Army, and perhaps the Minister of Defence would give us some idea
of what he proposes to do. I am anxious myself as an individual who knows the
Army. I am anxious to know what the position of the Army will be. I fear that,
unless the Army is kept intact as the Army of the Republic, we will not have
that confidence---the members of the Army will not have that confidence---which
is necessary if we are to keep them as a solid unit.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
Suppose we adjourn until the fourteenth February. It is a Tuesday.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
So far as I am concerned, and also my colleagues, we will be always most
happy to meet President de Valera to discuss any matters that can be discussed.
The motion is to adjourn until fourteenth February; the tenth February, which
would be this day month, is a Friday---a bad day to meet on.
MR. R. J. MULCAHY:
In reply to President de Valera's question with regard to the Army, the
policy of the new Executive will be to keep the Army absolutely intact, and
that, as between this date and the re-assembly of the Dáil, there is absolutely
nothing that should give anybody in this Assembly any uneasiness with regard to
the Army and with regard to its strength.[applause]
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Do I understand that discipline is going to be maintained in Cork as well as
everywhere else?
MR. SEAN MOYLAN:
When has the Army in Cork ever shown lack of discipline? [hear, hear]
MR. P. COLLIVET:
I would like to ask that, if we do separate we will separate under
circumstances that will appeal to our own selves and to the people, and I would
ask Deputies to make no more remarks that would lead to differences of opinion.
MR. DE VALERA:
The Minister of Defence has not quite satisfied me. He says he will keep the
Army intact. What I am anxious about is that orders given to the Army will be
given in the name of the Government of the Republic; otherwise I fear there
might be some trouble.
MR. R. J. MULCAHY:
The Army will remain occupying the same position with regard to this
Government of the Republic, and occupying the same position with regard to the
Minister of Defence, and under the same management, and in the same spirit as we
have had up to the present [hear, hear].
MR. DE VALERA:
I do not want to pin you down any further, so I will take it at that.
PRESIDENT GRIFFITH:
Before we adjourn I wish to move that the thanks of the assembly be conveyed
to the College authorities for placing these rooms so long at our disposal.
MR. DE VALERA:
I have great pleasure in seconding that proposal. The University authorities
were very kind when, while I was acting as President of the Dáil---President of
the Republic---I asked that we might be given accommodation here. Then as
Chancellor of the University, I am delighted that this historic
meeting---although for many reasons it will be a sad one---was held here [applause].
THE SPEAKER put the motion and declared it carried unanimously.
MR. R. J. MULCAHY:
On a point of explanation; what I said apparently has not been understood,
and it has been suggested I avoided saying what could have been said very
simply. It is suggested I avoided saying the Army will continue to be the Army
of the Irish Republic. If any assurance is required---the Army will remain the
Army of the Irish Republic [applause].
The House rose.
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