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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. Gri |