December 2017: page currently under construction:
* Research notes added - draft 1
* Due for editing
* Illustrations to be added
Click 1922:
Birth control advocate Mary Ware Dennett's family planning pamphlet The Sex Side of Life is declared obscene and illegal to be mailed under the U.S. Comstock law. Dennett adopted civil disobedience and continued to mail the pamphlet and was indicted and convicted in 1929. A federal court of appeals ruled in her favor in 1930.
T.S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land is published.
Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha is published.
U.S. poet Claude McKay publishes a volume of verse, Harlem Shadows that marks the beginning of the African-American artistic movement known as The Harlem Renaissance.
In 1922, at the height of the Civil War, Free State brigadier Patrick Paul escaped from his Republican captors in Waterford disguised as a Mother Superior
The first casualty of the Civil War (1922-23) was a Free State Sniper smashed over the head with a teapot by an elderly Dublin woman. (Verify this information – sounds unlikely! )
During the 1930's, Judge Cohalan's determined fight against collusive divorce actions was widely publicized in the New York press
"There is as much of a chance of repealing the eighteenth amendment as there is for a humming bird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tied to its tail." Senator Morris Sheppard, as reported by The Washington Post, September 25, 1930.
ON THE ONE ROAD
[Chorus:]
We're on the one road
Sharing the one load
We're on the road to God knows where
We're on the one road
It may be the wrong road
But we're together now who caes
North men, South men, comrades all
Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Donegal
We're on the one road swinging along
Singing a soldier's song
Though we've had our troubles now and then
Now is the time to make them up again
Sure aren't we all Irish anyhow
Now is the time to step together now
[Chorus repeat]
Tinker, tailor, every mother's son
Butcher, baker shouldering his gun
Rich man, poor man, every man in line
All together just like Old Land Syne
[Chorus repeat]
Night is darkness just before the dawn
From dissention Ireland is reborn
Soon we'll all be United Irishmen
Make our land a Nation Once Again
James Connolly
A great crowd had gathered outside of Kilmainhem
With their heads uncovered they knelt on the ground
For inside that grim prison lay a brave Irish soldier
His life for his country about to lay down.
He wen`t to his death like a true son of Ireland,
The fireing party he bravely did face.
Then the order rang out: "Present arms, Fire!";
James Connolly fell into a ready made grave.
The black flag they hoisted, the cruel deed was over,
Gone was the man who loved Ireland so well,
There was many a sad heart in Dublin that morning,
When they murdered James Connolly, the Irish rebel.
God`s curse on you, England, you cruel hearted monster,
Your deeds would shame all the devils in Hell,
There were no flowers blooming but the Shamrock is growing
On the grave of James Connolly, the Irish rebel.
Many years have rolled by since the Irish rebellion,
When the guns of Brittania they loudly did speak,
The bold I.R.A. they stood shoulder to shoulder,
and the blood of their bodies flowed down Sackville Street.
The Four Courts of Dublin, the English bombarded,
The spirit of freedom, they tried hard to quell
But above all the din rose the cry "No Surrender!"
`Twas the voice of James Connolly, the Irish Rebel.
Changing Realities/Sustaining Traditions, 1930-1970
Although Al Smith's defeat in the presidential election of 1928 was a blow to the self- confidence of New York's Irish and Irish-American communities, they surmounted the profound social, political, and economic changes represented by the Great Depression and World War II and emerged poised to take advantage of post-war prosperity. Immigration from Ireland surged again following World War II. As trans-Atlantic passenger traffic shifted from ship to aircraft, many newcomers first saw New York not from the harbor but from the skies over LaGuardia or Idlewild (now John F. Kennedy) International Airport. Aer Lingus inaugurated service between Dublin and LaGuardia in 1958. A photograph of the inaugural Dublin-New York service is on display.
The downfall of Jimmy Walker in 1932 brought scanndal to Tammany at the same time that Fiorello La Guardia was building an anti-Tammany coalition of Jews, Italians, and reform-minded Democrats. His election in 1933 dealt a death-blow to the Irish- dominated Tammany machine. Even as the machine faded, the Irish continued to wield political clout, especially in their powerful leadership position in municipal unions such the Transit Workers Union (TWU). Featured in this section are TWU buttons and lapel pins, photos of Mike Quill (1906-1966), international TWU president 1935-1966, and posters and buttons from Quill's successful campaigns for City Council on the American Labor Party ticket in the 1930s and 40s. William O'Dwyer (1890-1964), New York's last Irish Catholic mayor, won election on the Democratic and American Labor party tickets in 1945. William's younger brother, Paul, began the reform movement in New York Democratic politics in 1958 just two years before John F. Kennedy was elected the first Irish-Catholic president of the United States.
From The Nation, August 9, 1922
Mention of Judge Cohalan
The Duty to Revolt
Who can read the news from Washington and not feel that the time has come for men everywhere to raise the banner of revolt? We refer, of course, not only to the pitiful ineptitude of the White House, but to the word from Congress as well. In the Senate on July 26 the attempt of a few self-respecting Senators to prevent the theft of $200,000,000 from the American people through the imposition of wool duties, some of which run as high as 137 per cent, was defeated by a vote of 43 to 22. Yet that was merely an attempt to limit the wool tariff maximum to 60 per cent. The itch for public graft again broke down party lines. Seven Democratic Senators, Ashhurst, Broussard, Kendrick, Sheppard, Jones (New Mexico), Walsh (Montana), and Ransdell, several of whom were ardent supporters of the Wilson tariff reductions, abandoned their party's principles and voted for the highest wool tariffs ever known. Nothing could more clearly indicate the degradation of both the great parties and their essential oneness. Eight Republican Senators, headed by Senators Lenroot and Borah, bolted and voted against the steal, but the list of the subservient ones included the names of several from whom the public had a right to expect better things -- France of Maryland, Capper of Kansas, Jones of Washington, Ladd of North Dakota.
What is the explanation of it? Simply that the wool tariff grab was part and parcel of the whole plan to mulct the people and it could not be altered without calling for a new deal all around. It is known that certain bolters welt to the inner steering-ring and declared that the voting of such a scandalous duty would wreck the party as a less outrageous schedule wrecked it and the Taft Administration in 1910. In so many words they were told that if a single brick were pulled out of the edifice the whole building would come toppling down. That is what the public never seems to understand. All the months of public committee meetings which precede the drafting of a tariff bill are the merest camouflage. The bargain and sale go on behind closed doors; they are no respecter of sections or parties and relate not at all to the real needs, where there are such, of any industry. Senators and Congressmen swap favors in a cold-blooded give-and-take for their States and their own personal aggrandizement, and a most elaborate system of deals is worked out -- even the Agricultural Bloc sold its birthright for a mess of tariff pottage, and its members, like Senator Ladd, are voting for schedules which they know in their hearts to be indefensible robbery of their fellow-Americans. Do not some of these Senators realize that there will be a reckoning at the polls? Yes, indeed; they are like criminals who know that sooner or later the police will overhaul them. They are simply, in the slang of the street, "getting theirs while the getting is good"; just now, while Republicans expect to be trounced at the polls, they are counting on the utter headlessness of the Democratic Party, the total absence of a single leader who could even be considered for the presidential nomination, to pull the Republican Party through the elections by a narrow margin. If there were even intelligent opposition, to say nothing of an honest one, they would be swept off the political field.
Dishonest, incompetent to govern, without vision at home or abroad, without any domestic program whatsoever, and without men of any moral or political stature -- this sums up Democrats as well as Republicans. The only question of importance is how much longer the American people are going to be stupid enough sheep to stand it. Fortunately, there are signs that the change is coming. Labor is getting into a fighting mood. The farmers are slowly beginning to awaken to their opportunities. There are even big capitalists who realize that whether they like it or not there must be a change; they see that they whole country is rapidly going down hill; if they have read history they must know that nations cannot stand still, and that any nation which is wholly without a forward-looking program in one of its parties is in a parlous way. They are beginning to see that if they continue to dam the stream of progress the dam will some day burst with catastrophic effects. Every Western vote has shown that wherever a pseudo-Liberal or Progressive has run he has carried the primary election. There is an ominous spirit among the people, not easy to characterize or to measure, which bodes evil to the politician. One of the ablest observers writes us privately from Indiana: "I have been out among the people more than any other ten men in this state out together and perhaps more than any other man in the country. A strange psychology exists and is growing more marked. It ie hard to analyze but quite distinct and it is it impossible for forecast the outcome."
All that the situation calls for is to plant the banner of revolt. There is no doubt whatever in our minds that if Senator William E. Borah should rise in his seat in the Senate and announce that he had cut loose from the body of death which is the Republican Party and would henceforth lead a new party, people would acclaim him as a Moses, even without waiting to read his platform and to assay it to see if it were liberal or radical or slightly progressive. His Fourth of July speech against the bonus, which merely smacked of revolt, has had widespread echoes in press and public. Indeed, one cannot talk with any group of Americans, whatever their situation in life, without finding how disgusted with current politics they are and how happy they would be to break away from their alliances.
Take the situation in New York alone. Here the electorate is not only facing the possibility of a fight over the governorship between Governor Miller, an old-fashioned Republican respectable, and William R. Hearst. The Senatorship bids fair to go almost by default; the choice may rest between Senator Calder, the present weak and useless incumbent, and a nonentity, possibly even Judge Cohalan, whose name is anathema to more than half the Irish and to almost everybody else who believes in political ideals and decent standards. One brave man of the type of Tifford Pinchot but more truly independent, if he could force proper publicity, would stir New York State to its depths -- if he were radical enough. The newly organized party of labor, farmers, and Socialists affords an excellent base for a new movement. Yet there does not seem to be a single man of the stature needed for the undertaking -- this in the Empire State of twelve millions of people.
The old parties are but creatures of a worn-out and rotten economic system. There is not hope from them. And yet the country is astir, waiting the signal for revolt. In this situation a great responsibility rests upon Senator Borah, to whom Liberals and Radicals and even many conservatives are turning to as a savior.
January 1922
‘The year 1922 opened for Ireland, in an athmosphere charged thuderously with passions in restraint’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’. Irish Press, Dublin. 1951. P629
1
‘No one is going to shoot me in my own country’ Michael Collins.
‘The Irish have a genius for conspiracy rather than Government’ Winston Churchill – Dominions Secretary.
The Provisional Government took over prison management from the British. In Mountjoy, only 237 out of 900 cells were occupied. ‘This was the result of a number of factors. Various pieces of legislation reduced the reliance on the penalty of imprisonment. Thousands of young Irishmen, the normal clientele of Mountjoy, die in the Great War. In addition the British and then the Free State Governments had been concentated more on supressing armed opposition than criminals during the War of Indpendence.. however, within a few years the national daily average in prison was 740…just over 300 were held in Mountjoy…’
Tim Carey. ‘Mountjoy – The Story of a Prison’ The Collins Press, Dublin 2000.p205
Russia: An extimated 33 million people were now facing famine.
2
The German Mark plummeted out of control - £1 bought 32,000 Marks.
Two children were shot & killed by Loyalist snipers in Belfast.
3
The second Dail reassembled in the National University with the daunting task of either ratifying the Treaty agreed in London in December or refusing it. There was widespread agitation amongst the land owners, buisness, press, Church and in most Government circles towards accepting the Treaty. Others were as definite in their belief that the Treaty should not be accepted. The Supreme Council of the I.R.B. were promoting acceptance amongst their brotherhood with 8 of the 12 members on the Council supporting the Treaty and the army was divided.
Over the next five days, the debate continued. ‘ The threat of immediate war, chaos, unimaginable disaster, as the sole alternative to the Treaty, dominated the arguments for acceptance….Countess Markievicz, like the other women deputies, opposed the Treaty with all her strenght…the mother of Padraic and Willie Pearse spoke with equal firmness against surrender: ‘We will hold’ she said ‘what they upheld’…to arguments like this… those who were sincere in their republicanism and who had hoped to make, without any more intrigue or turmoil, an honourable and lasting peace with England, listened almost in despair…’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’. Irish Press, Dublin. 1951. P630-631
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION
At the resumption of The Dáil debate on Tuesday, the 3rd January, 1922, DR. EOIN MACNEILL, SPEAKER, took the chair at 11.20 a.m.
MR. ART O'CONNOR MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE:
I am going to try to set a good example at this renewed Session of An Dáil by being very brief in what I have got to say. I shall not attempt any fire-works in my speech, because if I were to pose as a bellicose individual I am afraid I should be very much as a damp squib. All my activity and all my work has been more or less of a civil nature. I know nothing about the military side of our movement except what I have been able to judge by the results that were achieved. And I must say that both at the Public and Private Session I was very much struck by the statements of the soldier Deputies on both sides. I shall direct myself solely towards the civil points of view. I must say that the Treaty has suffered from its advocates both within this assembly and without it. I have been listening to the debates for several days and I have been unable to discover whether the Treaty is a Treaty by consent, or whether it is a Treaty signed under duress. To my mind it would make a big difference to this assembly if we knew definitely which was which---whether this assembly is being asked to go into the British Empire with its head up or whether it is being forced into the British Empire. I say, too, that it has suffered from its advocates outside, because the people who, during the recess, have been howling at us and telling us where our duty lay, were, for the most part, people who never did a solid hour's work for the country, and were anxious to drop down on the right side.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Some of them were in ambushes with me.
MR. O'CONNOR:
There are some very good people in the country supporting the Treaty and there are some of the very worst, and the people on the opposite side know it too. It seems to me that we are very much like a spectrum as we went along during the last two weeks. You know what a spectrum is like. When it is split up into various fragments you see the different sorts of colours. Well, I think Lloyd George has shown a spectrum here. The colours have veered from extreme purple to extreme red, and those who wore the purple mantle now arrived at the Royal Courts and were anxious to settle down there. Some professed Republicans on the other side said: `We will rest a little while at the Royal Court and furbish up our arms so as to be in a better position to advance'. And those on the other side, extreme revolutionists, say: `If we linger at all there is danger that we may be contaminated by Royalty, and there is danger that we may not be able to advance at all'. If I could feel in my heart and mind that the Republicans were only digging themselves in---
MR. M. COLLINS:
We never dug ourselves in.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
---that they were only going to use this business as a stepping stone or post from which to advance, I might be able to step alongwith them. But I am afraid it is not a matter like that---that it is a step backward and not forward. I hold and agree with Connolly when he said that it is not the extent of the step at all that matters, it is the direction of the step---
MR. M. COLLINS:
That's the stuff. Hear, Hear. Good for Connolly [cheers].
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Yes, you can applaud that because you think it suits your policy or is your policy. Yes, wrap as much of that soft solder in as you possibly can because the result will prove that it is a step backward. It is a step off the solid rock. You are in the swamp, and you will be swamped.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I was often in a swamp and I did not get many to pull me out.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I would like to give you a long stick to pull you out, because I am sorry you are in it, and going into it. Now it seems to me that this Free State is going to be a very good and sweet thing for a class of people in this country who have never been conspicuous for their love of country. The head of the Delegation when in London wrote a certain letter, promising certain things to the Southern Unionists. I would like to know exactly what these promises were.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Fair play.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Because Lloyd George stated that the Free State would be able to hammer out its own Constitution, subject to guarantees given to Southern Unionists. I would like to know what do these guarantees mean. I would like to know what it does mean. Is it fair play? Because I can assure the head of the Delegation that if it means more than fair play, if it means giving these people place and power, and giving them a controlling influence in Irish affairs, and giving them more than their heads or individuality entitle them to, the Irish people won't stand for that. These people have been here as our previous enemies. These people have stood in our way every time we tried to make a little advance, and it would be a poor thing now for the Free State---if it was established---if these people are to be put upon the necks of the Irish people. The people won't have them there.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. M. COLLINS:
No one suggested what the Deputy is alleging.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Why make promises? Why not be honest with them? Why throw out a bit of grain to attract those fellows in? Why not say: `You will get the same treatment as the people of the rest of the country'? We know where our duty lies. We knew it before we heard a word from those Southern Unionists, and we will know it long after they are heard of no more. And we will do our duty too, without any directions from those new come-rounds, those new Free Staters. But anyone who accepts the Free State will be a Southern Unionist, because you will all accept the King. So far as I can make out it is only an exchange from one Unionist to another. The old Union was a Union of force and this is a Union of consent. You take the boot off the foot and put it on the other. I was amused here last week listening to threats---to threats of war. Did the men who were trying to make us believe so, really believe that bluff themselves? If they did it would not be bluff. I have here a little clipping from a newspaper of the 28th November in which Lord Birkenhead, one of the plenipotentiaries, made a rather interesting statement in which he said: `If the only method of securing peace in Ireland was by force of arms, it would be a task from which neither this nor any British Government would shrink, but the question was this, when it was attained at great expense of treasure and blood, how much nearer were they to a genuine and contented Ireland? Therefore he expressed his earnest hope that their efforts and exertions might not'---
MR. M. COLLINS:
It was I asked that question of Lord Birkenhead in Downing Street.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Was the Birkenhead of Downing Street so different from the Birkenhead of the public platform? Why did he not show the cloven foot in Downing Street as well as on the public platform, and not be trying to deceive the world by pretending he was giving a genuine peace to the Irish, when he was giving them a peace thrust down their necks with a bayonet? Why could he not be honest with us as we would be with him?
MR. M. COLLINS:
Would you? [Laughter].
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I would, I can assure you I would. I have no desire to be at variance with England or with the English people. Any English people I met were rather nice decent people, but the English people in their political institutions are rather a different proposition. But it is the English people in their political institutions that I am thinking of. I would like to have a genuine and proper peace between the Irish and the English people, so that we would be free to go along and work out our own life in our own tinpot way, and have no fighting or arguing with them.
MR. M. COLLINS:
The English people are more loyal than their King.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
It seems to me that some of the Irish people are more loyal than the English people---otherwise where does the common citizenship come in? Since when did Munster become as loyal as Yorkshire or Suffolk? And the fealty to King George in virtue of the common citizenship---where did the common citizenship come in between Cork and Yorkshire?
MR. SEAN MILROY:
Where do your constituents come in?
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Where do my constituents come in? I will answer that question. My constituents gave me a definite mandate in 1918, and they renewed the mandate last May. And my mandate was that to the best of my ability I should support the Republican Government in this country. I have not changed. I told them they could change. Perhaps they have changed, but I will not change. I told them a couple of months ago when I spoke to them publicly that I would not change; that they could change if they chose. I will vote against this Treaty because the acceptance of it would mean the death knell of this Dáil and Republic. They are perfectly entitled to change. But there is a new element being introduced into Irish affairs which is not a good augury to the gentlemen of the Treasury Bench opposite. If at any moment people in a certain locality find themselves out of sympathy with one of their Treasury actions---and suppose they got a snow-ball resolution going, and suppose they got a venal Press to support it, will you obey the snow-ball resolution? Will they do what their honour and judgement dictated to them not to do? I say that the heart and mind of the people is not changed. I say that the heart and mind of the people is not reflected by the resolutions from the Farmers' Union and people of that ilk---who never did an honest day's or honest hour's work.
A DEPUTY:
They did; they supported us in the fight.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I have been rather surprised at some of the names I have seen presiding at some of the meetings.
MR. M. COLLINS:
If you saw some of the houses I saw---the farmers' houses burned down all over the place---as I have seen lately.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
The men I am referring to are not farmers at all. I wish to the Lord they were; but they are masquerading as farmers. It is just like this Treaty masquerading as a Treaty. It would be comic only it is likely to be tragic. It was a masked ball---a masquerade. The pity of it all is there was a little grain shook over the poor people. Lloyd George had set a trap very nicely and they walked in, and he pulled the stick and got you all in. Not alone did he get you within the crib, but he got some of us too [laughter]. When I say this, I say it of our genuine Republicans.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Where are they?
A DEPUTY:
Here.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Instead of uniting their strength to lift off the crib and get free again, they started to try and persuade themselves that, instead of being within the crib, they have, genuinely, the grandest freedom that could be possibly enjoyed, because they are going to be very well fed under it. Now I have nothing further to say except that I hope that none of the Deputies in this assembly will be swayed or misled by any of those extravagant resolutions that have been passed during the last fortnight. Every one of us was sent here with a definite mandate. If the people didn't mean the mandate---I say it with all sincerity and fairness to the people---the people should never have given us the mandate. I believe that the people mean us to work out for them an independent sovereign state. Under this Treaty we have not got an independent sovereign state. We have got three-quarters of a state. We have got a state with its principal ports controlled, with a jumping-off ground next door to us, from which an army can be jumped in at any moment; and, in a word, we have not got the essential thing for which a struggle for the last 750 years has been going on. It has been contended that it was necessary to accept this thing at the last hour, and the last minute of the last hour, of the 5th December. I say it was not necessary. The struggle that had lasted so long, the discussion that lasted a couple of months, could have lasted a couple of days or hours longer; and I think that this assembly would be dishonouring itself, and it would not be fair to itself, if, at the bidding of Lloyd George or any of his minions, it votes to surrender the sovereign independence of the Irish people.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, ós rud e go bhfuil a lán daoine eile chun cainte, agus ná fuil a lán aimsire le spáráil againn, ce gur mhaith liom labhairt as Gaedhilg is gá liom labhairt as Bearla ar fad, ach deanfad mo dhícheall chun gan einní do rá a chuirfeadh gangaid im' chaint. I will do my best to avoid introducing any element of bitterness or personality into this debate. I am sorry the debate has gone to a considerable extent on the lines it has gone. This is a debate of vital concern to the Irish nation. I don't think it right to endeavour to make points against a man's reasoned statement on a matter of vital national importance. I had hoped to hear from the opponents of the Treaty something that showed a sense of realities, something of a vision, something of sympathy for the poor, prostrate Irish nation, the great reality of the situation, beside which we 120 odd members with our formulas and politics pale into insignificance. I had hoped for some sign that they had considered alternative policies of peace, or of war, that they had constructive ideas to put forward, based on a robust faith in the Irish nation. No such note has been struck by the opponents or critics of the Treaty. I have heard much talk of what are called principles, but are really political formulas. Although the Irish notion in its struggle for 750 years, to which the Minister of Agriculture referred, fought for the one national principle, it adopted a dozen different political formulas at different times. Members have entertained us with accounts of their consciences and the political formulas which they call their principles, as if those were more important than the solid reality of the Irish nation. I have heard much high-pitched rhetoric and emotional appeals and references to brave men who did what we all, I hope, were ready to do---and some of us came very near doing---died for Ireland. As a contrast to this we have had elaborate expositions of the marvellous value of words and phrases and formulas, constituting the difference between internal and external association. In all this flood of dialectics I have not been able to find what I anxiously looked for---one hint of a suggestion of an alternative policy, one sign of constructive statesmanship. None of the opponents of the Treaty have even given an indication that they have even considered what we are to do next if this Treaty is rejected. Some say airily that they do not believe that the rejection of the Treaty will mean war anyway, as though that were a question to be gambled on. But I have listened in vain for the slightest suggestion or hint as to how they think war is to be avoided, how the impossible situation of an indefinite truce with no objective can be maintained. Or how either we or the other side could keep our armed forces for an indefinite period with their hands behind their backs and governmental activities held up thereby. I cannot understand how people entrusted with the fate of the nation can be so much obsessed by formulas and so blind to realities. The opponents of the Treaty are not even united in their formulas. With some the formula is isolation, with some external association. Meanwhile the lives and fortunes of the Irish people are being gambled with in the name of formulas. After all, the Irish people who have stood to us so loyally and suffered with us have some rights. One would think, to listen to some of the speeches, that we were solemnly asked to choose between an independent Republic and an associated Free State. What we are asked is, to choose between this Treaty on the one hand, and, on the other hand, bloodshed, political and social chaos and the frustration of all our hopes of national regeneration. The plain blunt man in the street, fighting man or civilian, sees that point more clearly than the formulists of Dáil Eireann. He sees in this Treaty the solid fact---our country cleared of the English armed forces, and the land in complete control of our own people to do what we like with [hear, hear]. We can make our own Constitution, control our own finances, have our own schools and colleges, our own courts, our own flag, our own coinage and stamps, our own police, aye, and last but not least, our own army, not in flying columns, but in possession of the strong places of Ireland and the fortresses of Ireland, with artillery, aeroplanes and all the resources of modern warfare. Why, for what else have we been fighting but that? For what else has been the national struggle in all generations but for that? The biggest guarantee of England's good faith in this matter is the evacuation from Ireland of her army. The problem all along for 750 years has been just this---the occupation of our country by the armed forces of England. All our evils, all our grievances were derived from this. The peaceful penetration of our Gaelic civilization, the gradual demoralisation and denationalisation of our people were ultimately due to the prestige derived by England from its superior force and its military. The reason why we found it necessary to send out our young men half armed, half equipped, to attack the enemy was not because we hoped to drive him from the country by force of arms---we were not such fools---but simply to break down that prestige which the enemy derived from his unquestioned superior force. That was the true motive of the war, and now that the British forces are preparing to evacuate our country without being beaten, some people want to fight again and retain them here. They want to keep the Black-and-Tans here. They want to keep 2,000 Irishmen in British prisons---a number of them in the shadow of death. They want the colleges and schools to continue manufacturing West Britons and our language to die out and the thousand signs of British dominance which we see on every side of us---to have all these retained, rather than to agree to a certain formula. The trouble is that many of us, many Irishmen bred in this hateful atmosphere of foreign occupation and foreign ascendancy, eternally struggling against it, have never visualised freedom. They have not realised what it means to our unfortunate country to breathe an invigorating atmosphere of national freedom and security, backed by our own force. They have not dreamed of the great work of national reconstruction, of healing the wounds, of substituting healthy national food for poison. They have been accustomed to think of a subdued, slavish and demoralised nation held in control by foreign force, and requiring the efforts of a few stalwarts like themselves to keep it right nationally; and they think that an Ireland from which the British forces are gone will be just the same. They lack faith in the nation. They seem to imagine that some shadowy representative of King George without a vestige of real power or authority, or a soldier to back him up, will be a great deal more formidable to the country than the 50,000 British troops and the 13,000 R.I.C. who are here at present. I tell you when the British have evacuated our country the Free State will be just what we make it; and we can make it a great and glorious land, the home of a fine Gaelic culture, of a highly developed agricultural system that will rival Denmark; with industries developed perhaps as some people advocate, on co-operative, non-capitalistic lines; of brave and beautiful ideas worked into practice. When I hear your dry formulists wrangling over words and phrases, and enlightening the world as to their political formula which they call principles, I find myself thinking on a line from Pádraig Colum's play, The Land: `the nation, the nation---do you ever think of the poor Irish nation which is trying to be born?' I have accused the opponents of the Treaty of a lack of the sense of realities. I have accused them of a lack of faith in the nation. But the worst of all defects I have now to accuse them of is a lack of vision, a pitiable lack of vision. They don't realise what this means to the nation. They are more concerned with their dry political formulas than with the living nation. For a barren victory of formulas they are prepared not merely to plunge the nation into chaos and bloodshed---for that is only a temporary evil---but to check the one great opportunity God has granted us for the work of national reconstruction. The President said the truth when he said that the men who brought us back this Treaty from an unbeaten enemy acted as they did from intense love for Ireland [hear, hear]. There are still some people who say they love Ireland. But to them it seems to be a name an abstraction, a formula. To me, Ireland is the Irish people. Not the pure souled Republicans alone, but the plain men and women that live in the cities and on the hillsides of all Ireland, including North-East Ulster. Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins have the national vision to sense that people. They see and know the country as it is---the old women by the fireside, the young men working in the fields and the girls in the shops, the Orange working-man of Sandy Row and the Molly Maguire of South Armagh, the men on city tram cars, all types and classes, good, bad or indifferent; and they stand for them all. Remember those people are Ireland. Ireland is not a formula but a fact. You cannot love Ireland without loving the whole Irish people, without sympathetically considering the state of a people reared in slavery, a nation that never got a fair chance in the world. [Hear, hear]. People are trading in the names of dead men in an indecent fashion---saying they would vote against this Treaty. Well, I won't presume to say how anybody would have voted, but I will say this that my dearest friend Seen MacDiarmuda, loved Ireland just as Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith love Ireland---with a love the formulists can never understand. Like Griffith and Michael Collins---it seems out of tune to call Mick Collins the Minister of Finance [laughter]---he knew the plain people well, all types, sailors, fishermen, farmers, labourers, shopkeepers, cattle dealers, as well as university professors and international law experts [laughter]. I think I knew his mind well, and it was just such a mind as Collins's and Griffith's. And I will not presume to say---I can only have my opinion---as to how the issue would have presented itself to him. A nation is not an arid abstraction. It is a living thing of flesh and blood made up of men and women; and the tragedy of the Irish nation has not been unsatisfactory formulas, but that she has been held in subjection by the military occupation of a foreign nation. Think of the evacuation of Ireland by foreign troops. Why, it seems like a fairy vision. All the old Gaelic poets sang of the going of the foreign hosts out of Ireland as an unreal dream of far off happiness. They did not sing of a Republic. They sang of a Gaelic monarch as symbol of association between the three kingdoms. `Ní iarrfad ach trí Ríoghachta le Móirín Ní Chuilionáin'. To see Seán Buidhe clear out of Ireland, and the country handed over to us, that is the prospect offered to you---and you object to the formula under which he goes out. So long as he goes out, what does the formula matter? When a proud unbeaten enemy surrenders, cannot we at least grant him the honours of war? Historically, the doctrinaire Republicans have not a leg to stand on. The Irish people did not fight for a Republic. They fought for Ireland for the Irish. They fought to have the British forces out of control of Ireland. As John Mitchell said: `I do not care a fig for Republicanism in the abstract'. A great many members have been entertaining us with accounts of their consciences and the principles they stood for and their national record. I can only answer for myself. From boyhood I have been a worker in the Gaelic League, Sinn Fein, the Volunteers and other organisations. I was one of the men who founded the Irish Volunteers, and I have served in the army ever since. I have taken oaths to the army and the Dáil and I have always been perfectly clear on the point, just as clear and emphatic as the President himself has been. I can even quote his words---that in taking the oath I was pledging my allegiance to the Irish nation, to the people of Ireland whom I have always loved and served, to do my best for them. Like the President I was no `Republican doctrinaire'. I only wanted to get the British out of Ireland, and the country in our hands. But my thoughts went further than that. I hoped to see a Gaelic Ireland, the home of strong and happy men and women in which a thousand splendid things could be done. The dreams of Davis, of William Rooney, of Pearse---men who saw Ireland with a prophetic vision and imagination---could be realised in a Gaelic State unchecked by foreign influence. But the formulists have no vision, no imagination, as they have no sense of realities. The reality of the situation is our bruised and bleeding country in a state of economic ruin; our people trained in slavery under the shadow of British force with all the demoralisation it implies. As the Minister of Finance has said: `Is Ireland ever to get a chance?' `The nation, do you ever think of the poor Irish nation that is trying to be born?' I appeal to you---give it a chance. Who knows what the child will be when it grows up outside the shadow of British force. The Minister of Education told us recently that it would take twenty years to get Irish taught in every school in Ireland------
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
I said ten years. I ought not be misquoted.
MR. P. BEASLAI:
Twenty years that is in this report of your speech. No matter, say ten years. I tell you if you reject this Treaty it will not take ten years or twenty years or forty years, for you will never see the day when it will happen. But if the British Army clears out you will have a real Irish national education in twelve months, and you can have all Ireland Irish-speaking in two generations. Pádraic Pearse advised the Irish people to accept the Irish Councils Bill because he considered it gave the Irish people control over education. But the finest education of all will be the bringing up of our boys and girls outside the shadow of the British armed forces. We can have our national theatres and municipal theatres, music halls and picture halls redolent of a national atmosphere in place of the demoralising institutions now influencing the people's outlook. We can have a development under state protection of that system of co-operative agricultural development that has already done so much good. We can have our fisheries organised on a national basis so that the poor fishermen of Ireland, in most cases the chief representatives of our historic Gaelic Ireland, will be able to compete on fair terms with the wealthy, state aided foreigner. We can have our marshes and waste lands turned into plantations and our hillsides covered with trees. We can have our national sports and pastimes developed under the aegis of the state. We can have industries built up, not on the sweating system, but in accordance with our Democratic Programme of the 21st January, 1919, on lines which will assure the worker of a fair share of the fruits of his labour. We can make our land the home of the fine arts which will rival the great big and the great small nations of the world. All this we can do. And the poor Irish nation that is trying to be born, that never got a chance before, is to be denied this chance because of a question of formulas. I appeal to those opponents of the Treaty who have done great and good work for Ireland in the past, are they going to be responsible for crushing this frail and beautiful thing in the chrysalis? I am afraid that as a Dáil we are a body of small people, dry formulists and politicians, and without imagination. We cannot rise to a great occasion in a manner worthy of us. We have not the vision. We have not the imagination. I have accused the opponents of the Treaty of a lack of faith in the nation, of a lack of a sense of realities and of a lack of vision and imagination. I have now to accuse them of a further lack of sense of their own representative capacity and responsibility to the nation. There is one thing that a great many of us seem to forget: that whatever authority our present government possesses rests solely on the support of the people of Ireland. If you act contrary to the will of the majority of the nation, then you have lost their moral support and your effective authority is gone. The President talked of a Provisional Government being a usurpation. Well if this Dáil acts contrary to the will of the majority of the Irish nation its continuance in office is the greatest usurpation of all. There were talks of threats of war. Well, England has no need to threaten war. She knows that if you reject this Treaty then the power and authority of Dáil Eireann, whatever it be in theory, is gone in practice, for we will not have the big bulk of the people behind us. It was that popular support that gave Dáil Eireann its strenght in the past, and even though you do not like the Treaty you must face realities. There is no conceivable alternative to the acceptance of the Treaty but division, faction and chaos. When we have a divided, chaotic Ireland, England has no need to make war on us. She can just leave things as they are, and she can dissolve Dáil Eireann any time she likes by simply dissolving the British Parliament. If she does that you will have to fight a general election or go under. And do you think you can win if you go against the national will? The point of view of the non-ratifiers is so unreal, such a resolute attempt not to face realities, that I find it difficult to understand it. We, the members of Dáil Eireann, must realise that the nation was not made for Dáil Eireann, but Dáil Eireann was made for the nation. I will go further and remind the Republican doctrinaires that if there was an Irish Republic in the past three years it consisted, not in an abstraction or a legal formula, but in the people of Ireland. The state is the people organised in a coherent form, and no matter whether you call it a Republic or a Free State, my allegiance is to the people of Ireland and to the state which represents the national will. If we do not represent the national will we are a usurpation, and your airy edifice of a Republic crashes to the ground. I implore you to consider this point---that if you reject this Treaty the people of Ireland, the poor nation that is trying to be born, will never get a chance of considering it. If you reject the Treaty, even by a majority of one, the British are no longer bound by it; and your country with whose future you are gambling so unfairly, so recklessly, in the name of political formulas which you call your principles, will not be able to say yes or no to it. But the country will let you know what it thinks of you, and what is left of our Gaelic nation in future generations will curse your failure to rise to a great opportunity. There is no need to talk of the danger of war. Perhaps even war would be better than division, and if this Treaty is rejected you will have a helpless, prostrate country. Nothing more effectively illustrates the unreality of our theoretic dialectics, our discussions of principles and oaths, than a consideration of the actual position of Ireland---Truce or War. The Minister for Home Affairs stated that if this Treaty were signed the Irish Free Stater who went abroad would get his passport from the British Foreign Office and be described in his passport as a British subject. Deputy MacCartan says this is not so, that the Canadian is not required to do this; but even if it were so, let me remind you of this---a great many Irish men and women have left Ireland for America during the past few years. Some of them went with passports from the Minister for Home Affairs, but all of them went, had to go, with British passports in which they were described as British subjects.
A DEPUTY:
Not all.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Some of them were smuggled out.
A DEPUTY:
By the Minister of Finance.
MR. P. BEASLAI:
A little fact like this is a douche of cold water on the idealists and on the unrealities of the formulists [laughter]. Some of those who oppose the Treaty have claimed to be idealists and take a superior pose against those who speak of plain realities. I say it is those who vote for the Treaty that are the true idealists. They have the vision and the imagination to sense the nation that is trying to be born---the poor, crushed, struggling people who never got a fair chance, the men and women of all Ireland, the Orangemen of Portadown, the fishermen of Aran, the worker of the slum and the labourer in the fields, that nation whose fate lies in your hands and whom you are dooming to another and, I fear, a final disappointment if you reject the Treaty. Save that poor nation, give it a chance to be born, have the courage to throw away the formulas which you call principles. Seize this chance to realise the visions of Thomas Davis, of Rooney and Pearse, of a free, happy and glorious Gaelic state. Do not have it said of your work what was said of the doctors who performed an operation---`The operation was a complete success, but the patient died'.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, táim im' sheasamh go láidir agus go fíor anso iniu i gcúis Phoblacht na hEireann d'eirigh i Seachtain na Cásga, cúig bliana ó shoin. I rise to-day to oppose with all the force of my will, with all the force of my whole existence, this so called Treaty---this Home Rule Bill covered over with the sugar of a Treaty. My reasons against it are two-fold. First, I stand true to my principles as a Republican, and to my principles as one pledged to the teeth for freedom for Ireland. I stand on that first and foremost. I stand, too, on the common sense of the Treaty itself, which, I say, does not mean what it professes to mean, and can be read in two ways. I would like first to take the Treaty, to draw your attention to clauses 17 and 18 and to ask the delegates what limiting power England and the English Parliament will have on the Constitution which they are prepared to draft. I would also like to ask them what they mean by number 17: `Steps shall be taken forthwith for summoning a meeting of Members of Parliament elected for Constituencies in Southern Ireland since the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920'. What do they mean by that? Is that a meeting of the Southern Parliament, or is it a sort of Committee which is to be formed, or what does it stand for? It is not An Dáil; it is not called a meeting of the Southern Parliament. It is called a meeting of members of Parliament elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland. What power has England to set up such elected representatives as a Government? She has power under the last Bill, I believe, to set up Crown Colony Government, but I doubt whether she has power to set up this as a Government for Ireland. That is a thing I would like to ask the Plenipotentiaries if they have thought about it. Then I see in that letter that Mr. Griffith quoted with regard to the setting up of this Constitution for Ireland---discussing the Second Chamber, Lloyd George says---: `The establishment and composition of the Second Chamber is therefore in the discretion of the Irish people. There is nothing in the Articles of Agreement to suggest that Ireland is, in this respect, bound to the Canadian model'. Well, Mr. Griffith published the letter which he wrote to the Southern Unionists. It was dealt with to-day by Mr. Art O'Connor. This is the letter: `Sir, I write to inform you that at a meeting I had with representatives of Southern Unionists I agreed that a scheme should be devised to give them their full share of representation in the First Chamber of the Irish Parliament, and that as to the Upper Chamber we will consult them on its constitution and undertake that their interests will be duly represented'. Now I want to know by what authority the Chairman of the Delegation said this? And I want to know also what it means. Does it mean that the Chairman of the Delegation wishes to alter the form of representation of this country by some syndicalist representation, or representation by classes, or by trades unions, or by public bodies, or something else? Mr. Griffith, surely, does not mean that they would merely get their proper representation or the representation they are entitled to. It must mean something special. Now why are these men to be given something special? And what do the Southern Unionists stand for? You will all allow they stand for two things. First and foremost as the people who, in Southern Ireland, have been the English garrison against Ireland and the rights of Ireland. But in Ireland they stand for something bigger still and worse, something more malignant; for that class of capitalists who have been more crushing, cruel and grinding on the people of the nation than any class of capitalists of whom I ever read in any other country, while the people were dying on the roadsides. They are the people who have combined together against the workers of Ireland, who have used the English soldiers, the English police, and every institution in the country to ruin the farmer, and more especially the small farmer, and to send the people of Ireland to drift in the emigrant ships and to die of horrible disease or to sink to the bottom of the Atlantic. And these anti-Irish Irishmen are to be given some select way of entering this House, some select privileges---privileges that they have earned by their cruelty to the Irish people and to the working classes of Ireland, and not only that, but they are to be consulted as to how the Upper House is to be constituted. As a Republican who means that the Republic means Government by the consent of the people [hear, hear]. I object to any Government of that sort whereby a privileged number of classes established here by British rule are to be given a say---to this small minority of traitors and oppressors---in the form of an Upper Chamber as against all, I might say, modern ideas of common sense, of the people who wish to build up a prosperous, contented nation. But looking as I do for the prosperity of the many, for the happiness and content of the workers, for what I stand, James Connolly's ideal of a Workers' Republic------
A DEPUTY:
Soviet Republic.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
------co-operative commonwealth, these men who have opposed everything are to be elected and upheld by our plenipotentiaries; and I suppose they are to be the Free State, or the Cheap State Army, or whatever selection these men are, to be set up to uphold English interests in Ireland, to uphold the capitalists' interests in Ireland, to block every ideal that the nation may wish to formulate; to block the teaching of Irish, to block the education of the poorer classes; to block, in fact, every bit of progress that every man and woman in Ireland to-day amongst working people desire to see put into force. That is one of the biggest blots on this Treaty; this deliberate attempt to set up a privileged class in this, what they call a Free State, that is not free. I would like the people here who represent the workers to take that into consideration---to say to themselves what can the working people expect in an Ireland that is being run by men who, at the time of the Treaty, are willing to guarantee this sort of privilege to a class that every thinking man and woman in Ireland despises. Now, there are one or two things that I would like an answer to. It strikes me that our opponents in speaking have been extraordinarily vague. We had Mr. Hogan, Deputy for Galway, before the recess talking a great deal about the King, and he was rather laughing and sneering at the idea of the King being head of a Free State. In fact his ideas about the King amounted to merely one thing---an individual's ideas of a modern king. What he lost sight of is this: that the King to-day in England---when you mention the King you mean the British Cabinet. Allegiance to the King like that does not even get you the freedom that is implied---a dual monarchy. The King to-day is a figurehead, a thing that presides at banquets, waves a flag, and reads his speeches some one else makes for him; which mean absolutely nothing but words put into his mouth by his Cabinet. Also the same vagueness comes into the question of the oath. As a Republican I naturally object to the King, because the King really stands in politics for his Prime Minister, the court of which he also is the head and centre, the pivot around which he turns---well it is not one of the things that tends to elevate and improve the country. It tends to develop all sorts of corruption, all sorts of luxury and all sorts of immorality. The court centre in any country has never, in the history of the world, for more than a very short period proved anything, through the centuries, but a centre from which vice and wrong ideals emanated. Now, with regard to the oath,I say to anyone---go truthfully and take this oath, take it. If they take it under duress there may be some excuse for them, but let them remember that nobody here took their Republican Oath under duress. They took it knowing that it might mean death, and they took it meaning that. And when they took that oath to the Irish Republic they meant, I hope, every honest man and every woman---I know the women---they took it meaning to keep it to death. Now what I have against that oath is that it is a dishonourable oath. It is not a straight oath. It is an oath that can be twisted in every imaginable form. You have heard the last speaker explain to you that this oath meant nothing; that it was a thing you could walk through and trample on; that in fact, the Irish nation could publicly pledge themselves to the King of England, and that you, the Irish people, could consider yourselves at the same time free, and not bound by it. Now, I have here some opinions, English opinions, as to what the oath is; but mind you, when you swear that oath the English people believe you mean it. Lloyd George, in the House of Commons on the 14th December said: `The main operation of this scheme is the raising of Ireland to the status of a Dominion of the British Empire with a common citizenship, and by virtue of that membership in the Empire, and of that common citizenship, owing allegiance to the King--- and swearing allegiance to the King'. For the moment I will confine myself to the statement that there has been complete acceptance of allegiance to the British Crown and acceptance of membership in the Empire, and acceptance of common citizenship; that she Ireland has accepted allegiance to the Crown and partnership in the same Empire. Mr. Winston Churchill in the House of Commons on the 15th December, 1921, said: `In our view they promise allegiance to the Crown and membership of the Empire.
Hon. Members: No, no.
That is our view. The oath comprises acceptance of the British Constitution, which is, by Articles 1 and 2 of the Constitution, exactly assimilated to the Constitution of our Dominions. This oath is far more precise and searching than the ordinary oath which is taken elsewhere.
Hon. Members: No, no.
It mentions specifically membership of the Empire, common citizenship, and faithfulness to the Crown, whereas only one of these matters is dealt with in the Dominion Oath.' Now here is a curious thing. Sir W. Davidson asked why should they not take the Canadian Oath, and the answer by Mr. Churchill is this:
<SMALL>
The oath they are asked to take is more carefully and precisely drawn than the existing oath, and it was chosen because it was more acceptable to the people whose allegiance we are seeking, and whose incorporation in the British Empire we are certainly desirous of securing. Sir L. Worthington Evans: What does <BLINK>as by law established</BLINK> mean? It means that presently---next Session---we shall be asked in this House to establish a Constitution for the Irish Free State, and part of the terms of the settlement will be that the members who go to serve in that Free State Parliament will have to swear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution as passed by this House of Commons. How is it possible to say that within the terms of that oath they can set up a Republic and still maintain their oath?
</SMALL>
Now here is one important extract I want to read to you on this point:
<SMALL>
Sir L. Worthington Evans: `Then it was suggested by the hon. member for Burton that this oath contained no allegiance to the Throne, but merely fidelity to the King. I have not time to go into the history of the oaths which have from time to time been taken in this Parliament, but I did have time while the hon. member was speaking to look up Anson on Constitutional Law, and I extracted this: `There were at one time three oaths. There was the Oath of Allegiance'---and this is how Anson defines it---`it was a declaration of fidelity to the reigning sovereign'. That is precisely what this is, a declaration of fidelity to the reigning sovereign . . . But Anson's description of the Oath of Allegiance is that it was a declaration of fidelity to the throne, so that in this oath as included in the Treaty we have got this: we have got the Oath of Allegiance in the declaration of fidelity, `I will be faithful to His Majesty King George V., his heirs and successors by law'. And we have got something in addition---a declaration of fidelity to the Constitution of the Irish Free State as by law established: and in further addition, we have the declaration of fidelity to the Empire itself'.
</SMALL>
Now, personally, I being an honourable woman, would sooner die than give a declaration of fidelity to King George or the British Empire. I saw a picture the other day of India, Ireland and Egypt fighting England, and Ireland crawling out with her hands up. Do you like that? I don't. Now, if we pledge ourselves to this oath we pledge our allegiance to this thing, whether you call it Empire or Commonwealth of Nations, that is treading down the people of Egypt and of India. And in Ireland this Treaty, as they call it, mar dheadh, that is to be ratified by a Home Rule Bill, binds us to stand by and enter no protest while England crushes Egypt and India. And mind you, England wants peace in Ireland to bring her troops over to India and Egypt. She wants the Republican Army to be turned into a Free State Army, and mind, the army is centred in the King or the representative of the King. He is the head of the army. The army is to hold itself faithful to the Commonwealth of Nations while the Commonwealth sends its Black-and-Tans to India. Of course you may want to send the Black-and-Tans out of this country. Now mind you, there are people in Ireland who were not afraid to face them before, and I believe would not be afraid to face them again. You are here labouring under a mistake if you believe that England, for the first time in her life, is treating you honourably. Now I believe, and we are against the Treaty believing, that England is being more dishonourable and acting in a cleverer way than she ever did before, because I believe we never sent cleverer men over than we sent this time, yet they have been tricked. Now you all know me, you know that my people came over here in Henry VllI.'s time, and by that bad black drop of English blood in me I know the English---that's the truth. I say it is because of that black drop in me that I know the English personally better perhaps than the people who went over on the delegation. [Laughter].
A DEPUTY:
Why didn't you go over?
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Why didn't you send me? I tell you, don't trust the English with gifts in their hands. That's not original, someone said it before of the Greeks---but it is true. The English come to you to-day offering you great gifts; I tell you this, those gifts are not genuine. I tell you, you will come out of this a defeated nation. No one ever got the benefits of the promises the English made them. It seems absurd to talk to the Irish people about trusting the English, but you know how the O'Neills and the O'Donnells went over and always came back with the promises and guarantees that their lands would be left them and that their religion would not be touched. What is England's record? It was self aggrandisement and Empire. You will notice how does she work---by a change of names. They subjugated Wales by giving them a Prince of Wales, and now they want to subjugate Ireland by a Free State Parliament and a Governor General at the head of it. I could tell you something about Governor-Generals and people of that sort. You can't have a Governor-General without the Union Jack, and a suite, and general household and other sort of official running in a large way. The interests of England are the interests of the capitalistic class. Your Governor-General is the centre for your Southern Unionists, for whom Mr. Griffith has been so obliging. He is the centre from which the anti-Irish ideals will go through Ireland, and English ideals will come: love of luxury, love of wealth, love of competition, trample on your neighbours to get to the top, immorality and divorce laws of the English nation. All these things you will find centred in this Governor-General. I heard there was a suggestion---there was a brother of the King's or the Queen's suggested as Governor-General, and I heard also that this Lascelles was going to be Governor. I also heard that there is a suggestion that Princess Mary's wedding is to be broken off, and that the Princess Mary is to be married to Michael Collins who will be appointed first Governor of our Saorstát na hEirennn. All these are mere nonsense. You will find that the English people, the rank and file of the common people will all take it that we are entering their Empire and that we are going to help them. All the people who are in favour of it here claim it to be a step towards Irish freedom, claim it to be nothing but allegiance to the Free State. Now what will the world think of it? What the world thinks of it is this: Ireland has long been held up to the scorn of the world through the British Press. According to that Press Ireland is a nation that lay down, that never protested. The people in other countries have scorned us. So Ireland can bear to be scorned again, even if she takes the oath that pledges her support to the Commonwealth of Nations. But I say, what do Irishmen think in their own hearts? Can any Irishman take that oath honourably and then go back and prepare to fight for an Irish Republic or even to work for the Republic? It is like a person going to get married plotting a divorce. I would make a Treaty with England once Ireland was free, and I would stand with President de Valera in this, that if Ireland were a free Republic I would welcome the King of England over here on a visit. But while Ireland is not free I remain a rebel unconverted and unconvertible. There is no word strong enough for it. I am pledged as a rebel, an unconvertible rebel, because I am pledged to the one thing---a free and independent Republic. Now we have been sneered at for being Republicans by even men who fought for the Republic. We have been told that we didn't know what we meant. Now I know what I mean---a state run by the Irish people for the people. That means a Government that looks after the rights of the people before the rights of property. And I don't wish under the Saorstát to anticipate that the directors of this and the capitalists' interests are to be at the head of it. My idea is the Workers' Republic for which Connolly died. And I say that that is one of the things that England wishes to prevent. She would sooner give us Home Rule than a democratic Republic. It is the capitalists' interests in England and Ireland that are pushing this Treaty to block the march of the working people in England and Ireland. Now, we were offered a Treaty in the first place because England was in a tight place. She wanted her troops for more dirty work elsewhere. Because Dáil Eireann was too democratic, because her Law courts were too just, because the will of the people was being done, and justice was being done, and the well being of the people was considered, the whole people were behind us. You talk very glibly about England evacuating the country. Has anybody questioned that? How long did it take her to evacuate Egypt? What guarantee have we that England will do more than begin to evacuate Ireland directly the Treaty has been ratified? She will begin to evacuate, I have no doubt; she will send a certain number of troops to her other war fronts. Now there is one Deputy---not more than one, I hope---who charged that we rattled the bones of the dead. I must protest about the phrase of rattling the bones of our dead. Now I would like to ask where would Ireland stand without the noble dead? I would like to ask can any of you remember, as I can, the first time you read Robert Emmet's speech from the dock? Yes, it is all very well for those who now talk Dominion Home Rule to try to be scornful of the phrases---voices of men from the grave, who call on us to die for the cause they died for. I don't think it is fair to say what dead men might say if they had been here to-day. What I do think fair is to read the messages they left behind them, and to mould our lives with them. James Connolly said, the last time I heard him speak---he spoke to me and to others---a few phrases that very much sum up the situation to-day. It was just before Easter Week in 1916. We had heard the news that certain people had called off the Rising. One man wishing to excuse them, to exonerate them, said: `So and so does not care to take the responsibility of letting people go to their death when there is so little chance of victory'. `Oh', said Connolly, `there is only one sort of responsibility I am afraid of and that is preventing the men and women of Ireland fighting and dying for Ireland if they are so minded'. That was almost the last word that was said to me by a man who died for Ireland, a man who was my Commandant, and I have always thought of that since, and I have always felt that was a message which I had to deliver to the people of Ireland. We hear a great deal of the renewal of warfare. I am of quite a pacific mind. I don't like to kill. I don't like death, but I am not afraid to die and, not being afraid to die myself, I don't see why I should say that I should take it for granted that the Irish people were not as ready to die now in this year 1922, any more than they were afraid in the past. I fear dishonour; I don't fear destiny and I feel at all events that death is preferable to dishonour, and sooner than see the people of Ireland take that oath meaning to build up your Republic on a lie, I would sooner say to the people of Ireland: `Stand by me and fight to the death'. I think that a real Treaty between a free Ireland and a free England---with Ireland standing as a free sovereign state---I believe it would be possible to get that now; but even if it were impossible, I myself would stand for what is noblest and what is truest. That is the thing that to me I can grasp in my nature. I have seen the stars, and I am not going to follow a flickering will-o'-the-wisp, and I am not going to follow any person juggling with constitutions and introducing petty tricky ways into this Republican movement which we built up---you and not I---because I have been in jail. It has been built up and are we now going back to this tricky Parliamentarianism, because I tell you this document is nothing else. Pierce Beasley gave us to understand that this is the beginning of something great and that Ireland is struggling to be born. I say that the new Ireland was born in Easter Week, 1916, that Ireland is not struggling to be born. I say that the Irish language has begun to grow, that we are pushing it in the schools, and I don't see that giving up our rights, that going into the British Empire is going to help. In any case the thing is not what you might call a practical thing. It won't help our commerce, but it is not that; we are idealists believing in and loving Ireland, and I believe that Ireland held by the Black-and-Tans did more for Ireland than Ireland held by Parliamentarianism---the road that meant commercial success for those who took it and, meaning other things, meant prestige for those who took it. But there is the other stony road that leads to ultimate freedom and the regeneration of Ireland; the road that so many of our heroes walked and I, for one will stand on the road with Terence MacSwiney and Kevin Barry and the men of Easter Week. I know the brave soldiers of Ireland will stand there, and I stand humbly behind them, men who have given themselves for Ireland, and I will devote to it the same amount that is left to me of energy and life; and I stand here to-day to make the last protest, for we only speak but once, and to ask you read most carefully, not to take everything for granted, and to realise above all that you strive for one thing, your allegiance to the men who have fought and died. But look at the results. Look at what we gain. We gained more in those few years of fighting than we gained by parliamentary agitation since the days of O'Connell. O'Connell said that Ireland's freedom was not worth a drop of blood. Now I say that Ireland's freedom is worth blood, and worth my blood, and I will willingly give it for it, and I appeal to the men of the Dáil to stand true. They ought to stand true and remember what God has put into your hearts and not to be led astray by phantasmagoria. Stand true to Ireland, stand true to your oaths, and put a little trust in God.
MR. J. WALSH:
Before I proceed to speak I think it would be well that the Dáil should consider the advisability of adjourning for lunch. I intend to speak for perhaps an hour---I may speak for two hours. It is entirely a matter for myself at the moment. But if you desire I should begin now, very well.
The House signified its wish that Mr. Walsh should go on.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
A Chinn Chomhairle, agus a cháirde, is gá dhom focal nó dhó do rá in ár dteangain dhúchais fein. Sílim gur cheart dúinn an díospóireacht so do dheanamh go bre reidh agus gan aon duine do chur einní i leith aon duine eile anois ná as so amach. I have been, perhaps, noted in the past for a certain amount of bluntness and directness which has made me unpopular with a great majority of the Dáil [cries of No! no!"]. Well, I certainly have interpreted that feeling in my own mind, and I am now glad to hear that it is not the feeling of my co-members. But I must confess that there were certain principles on which we were all in agreement, and these principles, if I correctly understand them, have been pretty sharply turned down by the members of the Dáil in opposition here to-day. I have since my advent into the political arena understood that we were here to express the voice of the people; that we were here to typify the consent of the governed, that we were here to speak for the majority of the people. Now, my friends, I have, unlike other people, made it my business to visit my constituency in the interval since the adjournment over Christmas. The City of Cork has played a not unimportant part in the events of the last four or five years; and though I have not counted heads, nor taken a vote of the people, I will honestly as a plain, honest man, say that I feel that nine out of every ten people in Cork City are in favour of the ratification of this Treaty. I have met prominent public men in my constituency and they assure me that they themselves have not met one single human being in Cork City opposed to the Treaty. Now I am stating what is an honest, straight fact. Some of you assume that if you voted, or if you should vote for this Treaty, you are violating your own conscience. I don't know that you have any right to intrude your conscience on the question of the lives and the liberties of your people. Your people have not asked you to take this oath, but they have asked you to ratify the Treaty. And be very clear on these two points. You need not necessarily take the oath if you don't want to; but you are certainly bound in conscience, and more strictly bound than by any oath the British Government can impose, to follow and execute the will of the people, the will that you swear you can't carry out, when you were elected by the strongest oath you could take. We hear a lot about unity. The majority of the Boards of the country have made it clear that, regardless of unity, this Treaty must be ratified. [Opposition cries of No!] I will venture to say that 95 per cent. of the people of this country who have had an opportunity of expressing themselves have definitely asserted that it is their view that the Treaty meets with their requirements for the time being. [Opposition cries of "No!"] Yes [laughter]. It is not the Southern Unionists who have asked you to support the Treaty. The Comhairlí Ceanntair are not Southern Unionists, the Sinn Fein Clubs are not Southern Unionists, the County Councils of the country are not Southern Unionists. The whole nation and all the public bodies of this country are not Southern Unionists; but they are as good Republicans, and you know it. They see an opportunity of expressing themselves on matters which mean the life and death of the nation.
A DEPUTY:
Take the 1916 Rising for example.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Now we hear a lot about unity. The Cork City electorate in the Municipal Elections of 1920 only voted 50 per cent. for the Republican candidates---slightly over 50 per cent.--- twenty-eight or twenty-nine candidates. If we were to ask the people of Cork to vote for or against the Treaty we would have 90 per cent. voting for it. That is a unity that this country, neither for a Republic nor at any other stage of its history, ever enjoyed. I have met a number of men who have said that this Dáil has spent too much time discussing oaths. I have met one man who reminded me of a certain imperishable phrase which the predecessor of the present ex- Kaiser used with regard to the lawyers in his country. Frederick the Great, on his visit to France, was asked how many lawyers he had in Germany, and he said: `One, and when I go back I will hang that one'[laughter]. Now, there are a great many pro-Germans in Ireland to-day. The Irish people are thoroughly fed up with this ju-jitsu exposition and things of that nature. I may tell you that I have a very elastic mind on oaths. I do not say that oaths are not a very forceful issue with me as between me and my country. If, for instance, a British soldier during the last half-dozen years offered me a rifle on condition that I would take this oath, I would take it. I assure you I would keep on taking it for a month if I could get a rifle and ammunition by taking this oath. The taking of a meaningless and harmless oath would not prevent me. Now, I hold my own individual view on that, and I don't ask other people to hold that view. A similar question arose at the G. A. A., a few years ago, and I expressed a similar view. War knows no principles, and you who have lived through the last half-dozen years will not deny the truth of that statement. There are certain points troubling very seriously genuine friends of this Treaty---points which I desire to deal with here to-day; but before I introduce that matter, I would like to say in fairness to myself, and in fairness to my constituents, that there is one thing in the Treaty that I dislike and that is the retention of our ports. Now, nobody has told me how we are to rid ourselves of that. The British Army and Navy alone dominate the situation. There are certain points which, undoubtedly, are troubling genuine friends of this Treaty. One of them may be summed up in this. They say now that when Ireland regains some material prosperity, when she gets on her feet, when the people get rich, that they will lose the grádh for independence. Now I heard the very same arguments when I was very young. I heard it said---I happened to be a country boy---there are a great many country boys here and the country boy differs very materially from the city boy---and I remember when a youngster going to school being told by my companions that the Land Legislation which was then being passed would mean the downfall of the national ideal, and that the extension of the Local Government powers would do the same. Now it was not the country boys said that, but the London Times. Now, I ask you, did any of the farmers of Ireland prove the truth of that? Were they not the back-bone of the fight through which we have gone---notwithstanding that they have enjoyed a prosperity which they didn't anticipate? Indeed, the well-to-do farmers were the great backers of our fight. You may as well say that it is essential to reduce one's body to poverty to save one's soul. I never heard any theologian advancing that argument, and I don't suppose I would be an enthusiastic backer of it, nor do I suppose that those who are opposed to me would follow it [laughter]. It is not necessary to pauperise the body to save the soul, nor to pauperise the body of this country to save the soul of this country. Others of those opposed to the Treaty say that when the old feud would terminate our country would be drawn closer to England. I say that instead of being drawn closer that we will be drawn further away from England by virtue of being drawn closer to the universe. If this Treaty is adopted this country, instead of being cut off, will be opened up through its trade routes, its consuls and ambassadors, and through its various means of communication through the whole world. So much for that point. I have heard quite a lot of play with the unfortunate or, perhaps, slip phrase used by the Deputy from Offaly some time ago. He said that this nation is going into the Empire with its hands up. Well, I ask you, are we out of the Empire under our Republic? [Cries of Yes!]. To begin with, my friends, you talk of a Republic for all Ireland. Your Cabinet has told you by virtue of the fact that you exclude North-East Ulster that you only recognise the Republic for three-quarters of Ireland. Now let us keep to facts. You say that you are marching into the British Empire with your hands up---you say that we who are favouring the Treaty are doing so. Let us consider the position we are in to-day. We have in this country been forced, under an ideal Republic, to utilise the Postal and Telegraph service of the British Government. We have been forced in order to get claims endorsed to go into their law courts, to carry their soldiers, police and sailors on our railroads. We have come here under a British Act of Parliament, and we meet here to-day with the consent of the British Government. That is the position, and you call yourself a Free Republic. You have an ideal, and an ideal only and anything provided in this Act does not rob you of that ideal; and I say to you that you who oppose this Treaty are inconsistent in this, because we propose to remove the inconsistency which I have mentioned and make it consistent. It has been mentioned here to-day, and I certainly felt very keenly when making up my mind with regard to the outlook of the people in India and Egypt. We feel that because they have travelled a hard road with us that it would be unfair to abandon them without just cause. Now, have we abandoned them? Take your memory back to August last. How much fighting had you in Egypt and India in those days? And how much to-day? It is not disaster but success, and it is the success of the Irish Free State which has made the position in India and Egypt which you find to-day. We have not heard a great lot about Ulster since the opening of the proceedings. I wonder if any of you Deputies ever thought it possible, under any set of circumstances as long as the British Empire existed, to establish a Republic for Ireland? [Opposition cries of Yes]. Well, I am sorry that in my highest flights of imagination I can't come up to your level. Now, assume that you hadn't, and the affirmative was lacking in that emphaticness which I expected---at any rate I assume that the most you people had in your minds at any time was a Republic for three fourths of Ireland. [Cries of No, no!]. Now that was what you had in reality asked, and you have endorsed it by the fact that you have thrown North-East Ulster overboard. Now, I assume there are individuals here who don't agree. I am honest enough to admit that. But the one thing that you had to face is, the alternative for a Republic for three-fourths of Ireland was the unity of all Ireland, and you could never get that unity you insisted on. A Republic would definitely alienate the North-East Ulster corner and divide our unfortunate country into two separate and distinct areas and into two races for all time. That's the programme you have brought forward. I hold that Ulster is the very important clause of the Treaty which we consider, and to this our opponents have not, in any single instance, given any consideration. They have taken it for granted that our plenipotentiaries were jockeyed by the Prime Minister into that position. I believe the situation was otherwise. Had I believed that this Treaty would leave Ireland a permanently divided nation I would vote against it. Now, some of you took sufficient interest in the Boer War. Those who were rebels in those days took sufficient interest in the fate of the Boer Republics. At their surrender they specified four conditions:
Foreign relations;
to accept a Protectorate of Great Britain;
to surrender the ports and territory of the South African Republics, and
to conclude a defensive alliance with Great Britain.
England refused to accept these rather humiliating conditions made on the part of the Boers; and insisted on unconditional surrender. At the same time she gave a verbal guarantee that, provided the Boers didn't resume the fight, their nation would not be destroyed. Now, the Boer soldiers were in as good a position to resume the fight as we are, and they could continue the fight and bring about a state of hari kari, and submit to the inevitable. To save the nation they accepted Britain's conditions. And what do you find to-day? You find the hitherto divided states sealed up into a solid Boer bloc in South Africa, one solid force in a position to re-assume the Republican ideal at any time they like. What did the Germans do when pressed by the Allies in the late war? Did the Germans say to the Allies: `Because of the principles which we have to abandon by your occupation of any part of our territory, and by your limitations on our finances, we refuse to come to any terms with you. We will continue to resist your army through every part of Germany, even if it means the destruction of every man and woman and house in Germany?' No, they did not. They said:`The thing, the programme for us, is to save as much as we can of our territory, and on that territory we are to rebuild and make the fatherland'. And what happened? In the brief interval of three years Germany has brought about no less than seven modifications of the Treaty of Versailles. That is what we ask you to do. It has been mentioned here that our Parliament is to some extent like Grattan's Parliament, and it was suggested as a very good thing that this Grattan's Parliament was discontinued or abolished. Now, if Grattan's parliament with all its limitations had continued in operation, would our country have gone through the famine period? Would our country have suffered the humiliations of '48 or '67, or would it have needed them? Or would our country have been lying helplessly in its grave a few years ago when we took up the cudgels? No, it would have saved the population, saved its industries, conserved its manhood, and when the time came during the Crimean War, or the Boer War, or any other of the shaky positions in which the British Empire found itself, the Irish nation could have regained its liberty. That is what Grattan's parliament would have done, and that is what this Treaty now provides and will do for the Irish nation. Instead of that you propose that it should simply commit suicide---wipe itself out and remain helpless for all time. You say: `Why should we follow in the role of a Dominion?' There is no reason if we could help it, but we can't help it. Is there any alternative? Will any member of this Dáil guarantee to me that those Dominions at which some people have laughed so heartily during the last fortnight---will anybody guarantee that they will still be Dominions or that they won't be Republics within twelve years, and will anyone say to me that Francis Feehily in Australia, or Laurier in Canada, are going to be definitely deferred or dispelled by anything that you can enlighten us on to-day? And if they can become Republics in our lifetime, what about us? I don't blame the Cabinet for breaking away from the Republican position. Our country and England had to face a definite situation, and this situation which is brought about by the Treaty is purely the resultant of opposing forces. The feelings of the Irish people are responsible for that departure, because the Irish people would not resume war, nor consent to the resumption of war by anybody standing on the bed-rock of the Republic. The opposing opinions here, though in no way proportionate to the feeling of the country, are, in my opinion, based on a frank and perfect honesty. We find ourselves as a body of men at the cross-roads. We see the objective at the distance. One party determines to go right through to that objective though a mighty and impassable gulf intervenes. They say it does not matter, even though it does mean hampering, so that it is a short road. The other people say:`let us take the long road; it is the surer.' Similarly, if we proceed on the assumption that we are military tacticians---I don't claim to be a military tactician---I have done very little fighting in my life, but as an ordinary civilian I will put it this way to the military tacticians. We found ourselves in 1914 with a dozen strong entrenchments separating us from complete victory. In the interval we have brought down eleven of these impediments, and we find that by rushing the twelfth and last one that it means our annihilation, our defeat and demoralisation, and instead of those of us who are voting for the Treaty---instead of submitting ourselves to that demoralisation, we are entrenching here; we wait for reinforcements and we wait for supplies, and at an opportune moment we march on. I was once in America on a holiday. It cost me three pounds to get over and three pounds to get back. At any rate I have seen the Continent of America. I found myself on one occasion on the southern bank of the Niagara. Now I wanted to get across, there was a bridge a little distance up, a Yankee who came along offered to enlighten me on the best way to get there. `What's the best way to get across?' I asked. `Well'," said he, `if you mean the shortest, the most direct way, jump in and swim'. That is what the opponents of this Treaty proposed to the people of Ireland.
Adjourned at 1.30.
On resumption the SPEAKER took the Chair at 3.30 p.m.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I crave just a couple of minutes to make a personal explanation. When the Deputy for a Division of Dublin was speaking to-day I was not present. She made reference to my name and to the name of a lady belonging to a foreign nation that I cannot allow to pass without making this reference to. Some time in our history as a nation a girl went through Ireland and was not insulted by the people of Ireland. I do not come from the class that the Deputy for the Dublin Division comes from; I come from the plain people of Ireland. The lady whose name was mentioned is, I understand, betrothed to some man. I know nothing of her personally, I know nothing of her in any way whatever, but the statement may cause her pain, and may cause pain to the lady who is betrothed to me [hear, hear]. I just stand in that plain way, and I will not allow without challenge any Deputy in the assembly of my nation to insult any lady either of this nation or of any other nation [applause].
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
A Chinn Chomhairle, tá beagán agamsa le rá agus ní bhead ach cúpla nóimeat á rá. As I have no doubt the other Deputies are as speech weary as I am, you will be glad to hear that what I have to say will be said in a few moments. I am not going to dictate to the Deputies on the duty they owe to their constituents or any thing else like that. I am not going to charge any man with betrayal, or impugn any man's honour, because I look upon every Deputy of Dáil Eireann as my comrade, and no word or act of mine, either here or outside, will, I trust, break that bond of comradeship [hear, hear]. I am against the Treaty on principle, and on principle alone. I have heard it stated that we should vote as our constituents wish us to vote because they are our masters. I agree that they are the masters of our political thought but they are not and can not be the captains of our souls. Is it seriously put up as an argument that if, say, 90 per cent. of our constituents at any time during the past two or three years were to have told us that the interests of Ireland could best be served by our going across to the British House of Commons, we should have gone there?
A DEPUTY:
They did not do that.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
If tomorrow or next week our constituents were to order us, with a view to securing Ireland's material interests, to become Freemasons, are we to immediately begin to save up the price of a trowel and apron? [Laughter]. I have as great a respect and as a deep a regard for my constituents as any Deputy in this assembly. I admit they have a perfect right to deride me, to repudiate any action of mine, and to kick me out at the first opportunity; but I deny absolutely that they have any right to direct or command my conscience. I have a few resolutions here in my pocket---just four from the whole County of Clare---and I know how some of these resolutions have been passed.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Unanimously.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
I know this also: in my opposition to the Treaty I know that I am not misrepresenting those who have the best influence in the constituency.
MR. PATRICK BRENNAN:
You are.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
I am not. I have made it my business to find out and I know what I am saying.
MR. P. BRENNAN:
So do we.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
Interruptions will not make me say one word more than this on that particular point: I went down to Clare on Christmas Eve fully satisfied in my mind that in opposing this Treaty I was doing what was right. A week later I came back from Clare doubly satisfied I was doing right [hear, hear]. I am against this on principle alone. I suppose that is a sentimental reason, a hopelessly ignorant reason, a reason of the heart but not of the head, the reason of a man without vision. Principle has been sneered at in every generation by those who have abandoned principle, and earnestly I ask the Deputies here not to sneer at those who stand for principle in these days, because the history of these days has yet to be written.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I am for the Treaty on principle alone.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
When I speak of principle and conscience I must necessarily speak of the oath embodied in the Treaty. In my sentimental, hopelessly ignorant attitude towards it, I must be guided, not by lawyers or Doctors of Divinity, or the Press, or by my constituents, but by my own conscience. My conscience tells me the oath embodied in the Treaty signed in London is an oath of loyalty to the English King; an admission that the King of England is King, also, of Ireland, that I am a British subject, that my children are British subjects, and such an admission I never intend to make so long as I have control of my will and reason, no matter what material advantage it may be supposed to gain for Ireland. I am not going to assert that the dead would do this or that. I have too much reverence and too much love for the dead to make such an assertion, or to drag them into this debate at all, But I will say one word about the men of Easter Week, living and dead. It has been suggested it would be no more dishonourable for us to take this oath and go into the British Empire than it was for the men of Easter Week to surrender. When we laid down our arms in O'Connell Street on the Saturday evening of Easter Week, we did so under duress, but we surrendered only our arms and the military position we had taken up; we did not surrender the Irish Republic, nor the historic Irish nation. We did not swear to be loyal subjects to the English King, nor acknowledge him as King of Ireland. That was war on a grand scale, in the Mount Street Bridge area, in Stephen's Green, at the South Dublin Union in the General Post Office, and other places during Easter Week. But when these positions were surrendered the Irish nation was not asked by the leaders of the rising to swear loyalty to King George, his heirs and successors; so it is an insult to the men and women of Easter Week to compare their honourable surrender with the surrender proposed to us now. I should like to pay a tribute to one Deputy in particular who has spoken here, Deputy Robert Barton. He admitted he was weak in London, and broke his oath to the Republic------
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Did we? Answer me that question. Did we break our oaths to the Republic? [Cries of Order, order!].
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
I am paying a tribute to Deputy Robert Barton.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Aye.
</SMALL>
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
When the threats of terrible and immediate war were held over his head------
MR. M. COLLINS:
We did not give damn for terrible and immediate war.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
If Mr. Barton was weak in London he has been strong here [laughter and cheers]. He has revealed the strength of a true man [laughter]. And his statement will be the most thought-compelling page in the history of these proceedings [hear, hear, and renewed laughter]. I cannot claim to have done anything worth talking about for Ireland, but during twenty years I have tried in a minor, fifth-rate way to convey to the common people of Ireland---my own people---the message of the brave men and women of our race who have stood for right against wrong. I shall continue to do so as long as God gives me strength to do it, whether this Treaty be ratified or not. I have taken only one oath in all my life, and I cannot now take another that, rightly or wrongly---it may be wrongly---I believe would make me a perjurer. I won't surrender the one ideal and dream of my life---an independent Irish Ireland, and so I mean to vote against the Treaty. [Applause].
MR. ERNEST BLYTHE:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a cháirde, ní choimeadfad abhfad sibh. An chuid is mó atá le rá agam tá se ráite ag na Teachtaí cheana. Ach is dócha nách díobháil dom labhairt chun a innsint ce an fáth go bhfuil mo thuairimí fe mar atáid. I would like to agree with the last speaker that it would be much more seemly if there was no attempt to bring in in any way into these discussions, which are rendered sometimes exasperating, the names of those who made the supreme sacrifice for the freedom of Ireland. And I would like particularly to say that I hate the phrase which has been used here---that of rattling the bones of the dead. In this matter that is before us I recognise only one principle. That principle is an obligation in making my choice here to choose that which, in my judgment, will be best for the Irish nation both in the immediate future and ultimately. I believe that I must exercise my judgment freely in that matter. I believe that in making my choice I am not fettered by the oath I took as a member of this Dáil. I believe that if I hold myself back from doing what I believe would be best for the Irish nation because it conflicted with the terms of that oath, it would be doing wrong, because I took that oath as President de Valera took it---as an oath to do my best for the freedom of the Irish nation. That was the purpose that I bound myself to by that oath, and I would be false alike to the oath and the purpose of the oath if I held to the mere terms of it against my judgment of what was best for the Irish nation at the present time. Republicanism is with me not a national principle but a political preference. I am against monarchy, because I believe monarchies in the world as it is to-day are effete and out of date. I believe the Irish people, when they voted for a Republican majority in this Dáil, and when they declared themselves for an Irish Republic, were not thinking of constitutional privileges very much, but were thinking of the complete freedom of Ireland [hear, hear]. I think that is the ideal for which the Irish people have declared. I think that, like myself, they have a preference for the Republican form of Government, because I do not see how anybody could, at the present day, prefer any other form of Government; but I believe the main thing that was in their minds was the securing of the complete independence of Ireland. As far as I am concerned I wanted the Irish Republic, as I believe the people of Ireland did, in order that Ireland might be free. With me the Republic was a means to an end and not an end in itself.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Hear, hear.
MR. ERNEST BLYTHE:
I believe in one sense the Republican form of Government which has been set up was a machine for the securing of Irish freedom [hear, hear]. And I believe there is no more harm, if the interests of the nation demand it, in scrapping that machine than there is in scrapping any other machine which may be devised for securing the freedom of the country. I do not hold myself fettered in making my choice either by the oath which I took as a member of the Dáil, or by the that a Republic was declared, or that a Republican form of Government was set up in this country. In point of fact, I believe that the choice before us is not a choice between this Treaty and an Irish Republic, as it is understood by the majority of the Irish people. In actual fact, I think that the choice that has been before the Dáil, not only in this present Session, but since the negotiations began, has been a choice between---at any rate, the thing that has been before the Dáil since the negotiations began has been practically, and certainly---or the majority of the members, the matter of external association. I am sure a good number of the members of the Dáil stand for nothing but the real Irish Republic---an isolated Republic. I think, undoubtedly, when the process of battering down the wall of the isolated Republic was begun, that by a majority of the Dáil the isolated, or as I would call it, the real, Irish Republic was abandoned as being immediately unattainable. For me there is very little difference between external association and what we get in this Treaty. I realise very well how far short this Treaty falls of the ultimate ideals of the Irish people, and what its defects are. I stand for a Gaelic State. I realise the difficulties that are before us in arriving at a Gaelic State. I know how far Anglicisation has gone in this country. I know the close relationship there must be between this country and England in any circumstances on account of Trade and Commercial interests. I know our difficulties in arriving at a Gaelic State will be great enough without any close, friendly and intimate political relationships with England. It seems to me we will have practically the same amount of close friendly and intimate political relationship with England under a scheme of external association as we would have under this Treaty. It seems to me that, while under external association we may retain the form of a Republican Government, if not the name of a Republic, we would have under it abandoned as much of the political control of the destinies of the Irish nation as under the Treaty. In fact, people who are willing to agree to external association and refuse to accept the Treaty seem to me to be the people who have swallowed the camel and are straining at the gnat. We have before us the alternatives of ratification and rejection. What would follow rejection is, I think, to a considerable extent, a matter of speculation. We would have chaotic conditions, certainly. If a bitter split on the Parnellite lines showed signs of developing, I do not think we would have war. The British would prefer a split; it would be better for them. If there were no split, or a split did not develop sufficiently, we might have war. As this is largely a choice of alternatives, more time might have been given to those who favour rejection of the Treaty to framing some idea of what would follow rejection. As to what would follow ratification that largely depends on the idea---on your interpretation of the Treaty. I do not believe ratification would be followed by anything like the split, or could be followed by anything like the split that would follow rejection. I am not competent to expound the Treaty, or to interpret it from any sort of a legal point of view. The Treaty has not been really sufficiently expounded. Mr. Childers gave a very long and, as far as it went, a very fair interpretation of the Treaty. We were blamed for not listening to him with more avid attention. It seems to me that one of the reasons why he did not hold us was that practically all of what he said was common ground; he explained what the law was in Canada, and then, though with a good deal less emphasis, said that was practically cancelled by the phrase `practice and constitutional usage'. And the main part of his argument was not of a constitutional nature at all, and not the sort of argument in which he could claim to have any sort of particular authority. He was arguing that the British would not keep to their terms of this Treaty, but of some other Treaty that might be signed.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Hear, hear.
MR. ERNEST BLYTHE:
That was really his argument, and I don't think it deserved---although it was very good [laughter and applause]. Although not a lawyer at all there is a phrase in this first clause which has not been mentioned by any of the lawyers who have spoken, and it seems to me to be of considerable importance. It is in the second last line and reads: `A Parliament having power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of Ireland, and an Executive responsible to that Parliament'. Now an Executive responsible to the Parliament is more than, I think, in theory at any rate, they have in England. It seems to me if we take that phrase in conjunction with the rest of the Treaty it does away completely with the idea that the representative of the Crown could take any action whatever except on the advice of the Ministry of the Free State. I do not say he could not refuse formal assent to a Bill or anything of that sort, but it seems to me to put the representative of the Crown in the same position here, in regard to the Government, as the King of England occupies in England with regard to the British Cabinet. It seems to me that there is some ambiguity as to whether or not this oath is obligatory at all. It certainly, to my mind, is not made obligatory by Clause 4, but it may be made obligatory by Clause 2. Clause 4 only specifies the form of oath to be taken, and it quite differs from the clauses you see in the Canadian and other constitutions, where it says that every member of the House of Representatives, and the Senate and so forth, before taking a seat, shall take oath in the following form, and the form is then given. That has been departed from here. It may be held Clause 2 makes the oath obligatory, but Clause 2 seems to me only to relate to the position of the Irish Free State---`Subject to the provisions hereinafter set out the position of the Irish Free State in relation to the Imperial Parliament and Government, and otherwise, shall be that of the Dominion of Canada, and the law, practice, and constitutional usage governing the relationship of the Crown or the representative of the Crown and of the Imperial Parliament to the Dominion of Canada, shall govern their relationship to the Irish Free State'. That clause certainly states the relationship of the Crown to the Free State shall be that of Canada, but it does not state that the Constitution of the Irish Free State shall be the same as the Constitution of Canada, and it has been specifically stated it need not be the same. It is straining that clause to say that it specifies that a certain particular clause in the Canadian Constitution shall also be in the Irish Constitution, or that the clause puts on a member of Parliament a certain duty. Whether or not the oath is obligatory is certainly a matter that could be disputed. In regard to the oath there has been a lot of argument---and there have been some arguments, I think, not worthy of this assembly. There was one Deputy from the West who made a long oration about the manacles of slaves. That Deputy must have known that faithfulness was not the same as fealty. He is a lawyer and if he found the word `vehicle 'in a document he would not proceed to argue it was a gig or a rickshaw. There has been a good deal said about the clauses in this Treaty in regard to NorthEast Ulster. I think we abandoned the possibility of getting an absolutely united Ireland---that is, getting it immediately---when the President's letter of the 1Oth August was sent. In it he stated he would not use coercion, and said we were agreeable to outside arbitration. I did not like this, but I think in the situation that had developed nothing better could have been got, and I am the only member of the Dáil who comes of the people who are going to exclude themselves, or may exclude themselves, from the Free State. I know them. I have always believed that by suitable propaganda these people amongst whom the roots of nationality still exist, although you might say the stem and foliage have been sapped away---these people could eventually be brought to the side of the Irish nation, as they were a hundred years ago [applause]. I also believe that they might be coerced, and I would stand for it that we have the right to coerce them, if we thought fit, and if we have the power to do so. But you can not coerce them and comfort them at the one time. As we pledged ourselves not to coerce them, it is as well that they should not have a threat of coercion over them all the time. I have no doubt under this business and under these arrangements, and the necessity they will feel for material reasons for union, combined with propaganda, these terms will lead in a comparatively short time to the union of that part of the country with the rest of Ireland. References have been made to the circumstances under which this Treaty was signed, and the fact that it was signed under a threat of war. I say these circumstances and that threat of war are necessary to make the Treaty acceptable to me, because, as I said, even external association is a good way short of our full right. I believe even if a better Treaty than this had been forthcoming, the plenipotentiaries would not have been entitled to sign it until it was clear that the alternative was war. A reference has been made to Mr. Barton. I do not want to be offensive at all, but it is as well that I should say what I have to say. I believe that the plenipotentiaries should have realised all along that a break might, and probably would, mean immediate war and the plenipotentiaries should have made up their minds as to the exact point to which they would go rather than face immediate war. And I think if any plenipotentiary was put in a hole by the short time for making up their minds that was given on that last night by Mr. Lloyd George, that plenipotentiary was in a difficulty only because of his own negligence in making up his mind as to the distance to which it would be right for him to go, and the place at which he was prepared to choose war.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Hear, hear.
MR. ERNEST BLYTHE:
Again I say I do not want to be offensive, but it was either that or the plenipotentiary was so impressionable as to make him by temperament unfitted to bear the responsibility of a plenipotentiary. That is really how the matter stands, and I think the circumstances under which this Treaty was signed, except in so far as all the plenipotentiaries were convinced that the alternative was war, and no more was to he got, have no bearing on it at all [applause].
MR. FRANK FAHY:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht an Dála ba mhaith liom labhairt as Gaedhilg toisc gurb í an Ghaedhilg teanga oifigiúil na Dála, ach tá a lán anso ná tuigfeadh me agus tá beirt anso ná tuigfeadh me go h-áirithe agus ba mhaith liom dá dtuigfidís sin me. Through many weary days of speech-making I have listened with patience, sometimes with pain, to many arguments about this Treaty. It grieved my very soul to hear some Deputies question the rights and authority of certain of our colleagues to sit and vote in this assembly. Let us recognise that we all have the same status here, and all are actuated by the one great motive, our country's good, but that we may reasonably come to widely different conclusions. We cannot get back to the position in which we stood on December 5th, 1921. The signing of the Treaty has completely altered the circumstances at home and abroad. Pity it is that these Articles of Agreement bear the signatures of our plenipotentiaries. Had this instrument been submitted unsigned to Dáil Eireann I feel convinced it would have been rejected by an overwhelming majority. The signing of it does not make it more acceptable, but we must base our arguments and our decision on a fait accompli. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not wish for a moment to impugn the honour or integrity of our plenipotentiaries. I feel that if I had been placed in their unenviable position in London I would have signed the Treaty. Having signed, I would, conscious of having done my best, bow to the decision of this assembly as to whether the Treaty were acceptable or not. That, I take it, is the position in which our plenipotentiaries find themselves to-day. Two problems have long confronted the Irish people---North-East Ulster and the British occupation. Did the Treaty offer a satisfactory solution of either problem with a probability of settling the second in a reasonable time, I think it should and would be accepted. The Treaty, however, does not conclusively settle either problem. It will not make for peace, domestic or international. The terms violate our territorial integrity; they make us British subjects and impose on us a Governor-General whose social circle will militate against the restoration of the Gaelic State which we must all endeavour to re-establish, if we are not to become West Britons. Is not the declaration of the Republic also fait accompli, or have we been playing at Republicanism? Were we not in earnest when we sent ambassadors to claim the recognition of the world for the Republic?
MR. FINIAN LYNCH:
With British passports and under the British flag. [Cries of No interruptions].
</SMALL>
FRANK FAHY:
We are told that we have secured the flag. What flag? Would there not be serious opposition to the adoption of the tricolour as the flag of the Irish Free State? I much fear so. How is such opposition to be overcome, and if not overcome, whither does it lead? Will such opposition, suppressed or unpunished make for stability and that peace we all so earnestly desire? In many debatable and vague clauses of the Treaty, especially the clauses relating to allegiance, financial adjustment, and North-East boundaries, lie the fruitful seeds of misunderstanding and strife. There is no use in disguising the fact that this Treaty, if accepted, will he ratified because the alternative is the dread arbitrament of war. I have been down among my constituents chiefly in South Galway. The Comhairle Ceanntair of that Division at a recent meeting, at which I was present, voted unanimously in favour of ratification. But the delegates stated, one and all, that this Treaty does not meet the nation's demand and that they so voted because they believed the alternative to be a war of extermination. 'Tis hard to blame the war-weary people for clamouring for peace. But it should be put clearly on record that such votes are given under duress. Can a Treaty based on fear, naked and unashamed, be a sound basis for friendship between the two peoples? It is my opinion that lasting peace and friendship between the two peoples was feasible as we stood on December 5th. Whether such peace is practicable now is, at least, questionable. The bond of brotherhood is broken; the comradeship and unity that stood the severest test and won the admiration of the world have been sundered through the machinations of the cleverest of the British statesmen, Lloyd George. Can this national solidarity be restored and restored without delay? Can Dáil Eireann again command the unswerving loyalty of the people and their undivided support, moral and material? We are told that Dáil Eireann can no longer hope for this. The people have been stampeded. A venal Press that never stood for freedom and now with one voice advocates ratification has, by suppressio veri and suggestio falsi prejudiced the issue and biased public opinion [hear, hear]. I attended a meeting of the East Galway Comhairle Ceanntair at which the voting was 18 to 8 in favour of ratification. The report in the metropolitan Press the next day would give one to understand that there was a unanimous decision in favour of the Treaty. Such sharp practice gives one furiously to think. The Chairman of the Delegation and the Minister for Finance made a strong case for ratification. This Treaty undoubtedly confers wide powers on the Irish people, far greater powers than were ever even demanded by our former representatives in the British House of Commons. But some of us believed that the time had gone by for seeking concessions. Under the terms of this Treaty we can undoubtedly develop the material resources of the country. But nations, like individuals, may fill their purses by emptying their souls. What is the nation? It is of yesterday, to-day and to-morrow. How the generations of our martyred dead would act at this juncture it is vain to argue. Few in this assembly were as intimately acquainted as I was with those who fell in Easter Week, '16. Of one, and only one, of those heroic men could I confidently assert that he would oppose ratification. I need scarcely state that I refer to Tom Clarke. Can we of to-day, bowing to force majeure, accept this Treaty without dishonour in view of our oaths and of the Republic declared before the world? Those Deputies who have spoken in support of the Treaty maintain that this is not a final settlement. Some of them advocate its adoption on the ground that it contains the seeds of future development, that it will broaden slowly down from precedent to precedent until we reach the goal of unfettered freedom. Their attitude is comprehensible and their sincerity unquestioned. I might suggest to them that this road under other guides may also lead rapidly to the sacrifice of principles to the Imperial ideal, to smug prosperity, and obese content. Other Deputies would use the powers obtained as an immediate lever to secure full independence. Honour cannot stand rooted in dishonour, and I maintain that such action is dishonourable even in dealing with England. Faith unfaithful to England's King cannot make us falsely true to Republicanism. Let at least our word be our bond. If we pledge our word, let us keep it in the letter and in the spirit. Honesty in politics and in international relations will eventually prove the better policy. We must, then, consider this Treaty on its merits, and as affected by existing circumstances. The great majority of the people are in favour of acceptance, lest worse befall. The views of our constituents should certainly have great weight with us, for they are our masters, they are the ultimate judges. There are, however, other circumstances to be considered. Had a vote been possible prior to the Rising of 1916, does any Deputy imagine that we would have received the sanction of l0 per cent. of our people? Yet the people now admit that our action was justified. Then again should a demand inspired by terror be hearkened to as the real voice of the people? It may be argued that in obtaining this Treaty we have done sufficient for our day, that our action does not bind coming generations. But then, can the path to freedom be thus conveniently arranged by stages? Those best qualified to judge hold that the economic situation makes it impossible for us to carry on the war for a year or two longer, even with a united front and the moral support of the people. This may be truly called a defeatist argument, but then the acceptance of this Treaty is an admission that once again we have been worsted in the game, that material might has vanquished moral right, that the weak must bow to the strong. We are not called on to decide between the Treaty and Document No. 2. Incidentally, it should be borne in mind that Document No. 2 was submitted to us in confidence, for the specific purpose of achieving unity of action. This document contained no oath of any description.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
The Cabinet Minutes do.
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
It is not signed by the British representatives.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
Document No. 2 contains no oath whatever.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
But the Minutes of the Cabinet do.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
There were no Minutes; they were never kept or signed.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
The many insinuations made to the contrary would awaken doubts as to the virtues of the Treaty that has to be supported by such methods, neither should a good Treaty need to be supported by revelations of verbal statements made at Cabinet meetings, especially when these revelations are made by one who was not a member of the Cabinet------
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Mr. Erskine Childers.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
Especially when these revelations were made by one who was not a member of the Cabinet, but was admitted to certain meetings as an act of grace. Such points, however cleverly put, are not relevant to the issue. We are concerned with the release of our country from a dilemma, not with liberating a cat from a bag.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
On a point of order. Reference has been made to a person being admitted to certain meetings as an act of grace. I would like the President to say whether that is a correct description of the reasons for my attendance at certain Cabinet meetings.
THE SPEAKER:
It is not a point of order. That matter may arise afterwards as a personal explanation.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
We are, as I said, concerned with liberating our country from a dilemma, and not liberating a eat from a bag. The immense labour of the latter performance may give us some idea of the task before us. As the eloquent Deputy for Tyrone was speaking a few days ago I recalled the words of the Latin poet `parturient montes et nascetur ridiculus mus'. I thought that, at least, a caterwauling litter would have come forth. The liberated cat must have been a tabby, such a chorus of welcome came from the supporters of the Welsh Wizard. The photograph of the gallant liberator adorned the pages of the English illustrated papers, and I scanned with disappointment the New Year's List of Honours. Let us eschew such special pleadings and such party tactics reminiscent of other days, and decide the question safely on its merits. Let no Deputy be influenced by any outside associations, no matter how sacred such associations might be in other circumstances. Guided by the light of conscience, the best interests of our country and the honour of our nation, let us, in God's name, lay aside personalities and do our duty fearlessly. [Applause].
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
What about the Welsh Wizard?
MR. F. FAHY:
I have been asked what about the Welsh Wizard. I may say what I like about any English politician without offence to any member of the Dáil.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Mr. Frank Fahy has described me and others as followers of the Welsh Wizard, and he has just sat down saying `lay aside personalities'.
MR. F. FAHY:
I never said anyone here was a follower of the Welsh Wizard.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
You described us as followers of the Welsh Wizard, and you won't get out of it.
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
What do you mean, Mr. Fahy?
MR. SEAN MILROY:
We heard what you said, Mr. Fahy.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Yes, we heard all you said. Stand by your words.
MR. K. O'HIGGINS:
I desire to make a personal explanation in connection with a remark in Mr. Fahy's speech; the reference could only be to me. He spoke of a person who attempted to make disclosures of some thing that took place at Cabinet meetings. That was more objectionable because the person was admitted to Cabinet meetings only as an act of grace. I did not think it would be necessary for me to explain why and how I came to attend Cabinet meetings, but as the question has been raised I will now explain. At the first meeting of the Dáil following the last election the President announced that he would have to have an inner Cabinet; that the large Ministry that was formerly admitted could not deal with matters of policy and the matters of these negotiations; and that therefore he would have to have an inner Cabinet of seven. I was seated behind him, and he turned to me and said: `I want you to attend Cabinet meetings and express your views on a position of absolute equality with the rest of us. If, in the unlikely event of a division, you, perhaps, had better not vote, but with the rest of us express your views quite freely'. How does Mr. Fahy consider that as an act of grace? I never asked the President why he made that arrangement, and did not want to know, but I want to ask now is it fair to say that I was admitted to the Cabinet meetings as an act of grace, when I attended on the instructions of the President? [Hear, hear].
MR. GEORGE NICOLLS:
A Chinn Comhairle agus a lucht na Dála, I suppose I am in the unenviable position of being the last lawyer that will speak in this assembly [laughter], but if I am I will not give you much law, constitutional or otherwise. I have often heard it said that the last leg of mutton is the sweetest. Well, I hope this will be something sweeter than what you have got before [laughter]. I am not going to go into constitutional law, but I may say that I have been down with my constituents, and they have been talking a lot about constitutional law since the Dáil met. One of my constituents was speaking to me, and he used these words to me: `We are bewildered and moidered with high faluting talk about constitutional law. This constitutional law plus Magna Charta to whose rights as British Citizens we were lately entitled, did not stop the Crown forces from burning Cork and performing other acts into which we need not enter now, but which were certainly against constitutional law and Magna Charta. But we do feel certain of one thing; that is, if we once get the British forces out of Ireland, it will require more than constitutional law to get them back'. [Hear, hear]. I can tell you, speaking for one of the largest constituencies in Ireland, that is how the people feel, and for that reason I made a solemn promise that I would talk no constitutional law when I came here. But I will talk common sense, and in trying to talk common sense I will try to be as brief as I can. I won't quote any law or any constitutional lawyer, but I will certainly say this: I am amazed at the tactics that have been adopted here by the opponents of the Treaty who say: `Don't trust Lloyd George', `Don't trust England or any English statesman', and, mind you, I greatly sympathise with them, but when they want to overwhelm and crush us, they get up and read long quotations from speeches of Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Worthington Evans, and others I know nothing about. That strikes me as rather peculiar. I say here as a lawyer that the slave mind seems very apparent there, where these men are quoted, and their words apparently, regarded as binding on us, and that we cannot go behind what they have said. I will certainly say this---I say I would back the opinion of the Minister of Finance on constitutional law against any Deputy who has spoken here, although one Deputy was held up as apparently the only man who knew anything about constitutional law. I would stake the opinion of the Minister of Finance before any tribunal, either national or international. We are told that the English when they give us this Treaty will humbug us, and that we won't be a match for them when it comes to framing a Constitution. In my opinion the Treaty has brought us a complete surrender, or a practically complete surrender, from England. Everything she said she would not give she has given. The Constitution that will be framed under the Treaty will be framed by Irishmen in Ireland, and the men who are able to meet Lloyd George, Worthington Evans and the other English delegates over there, and beat them at their own game, when it comes to framing a Constitution here I guarantee they will be able to beat them at their own game again [hear, hear]. There was one point that was inclined to carry weight with me when I heard the Treaty discussed. Great capital was made out of the fact that four coastal towns would be reserved as naval bases. That is done in a clause of the Treaty. I would like to know if the clause was not there what would be done. I have to face my constituents again, although some people may never have to face theirs [laughter]. I want to know one bit of information, and part of it can be given by the Minister of Finance, and portion by the Minister of Defence. The question I would like to ask is: If we are to take over immediately all our own coastal defences, I would like to know from the Minister of Defence whether and how we are to raise the fortifications that will be necessary to defend the coast; and what batteries, dreadnoughts, submarines, etc., will be necessary. When I have got that information from the Minister of Defence I would like to ask the Minister of Finance where the money is going to come from that is going to provide them and carry on the work of the rest of the country [laughter and applause]. This Treaty does not give us completely what we want, but it brings us very near to what we want. I think that when division has come--- and there is no good in saying it has not come---when the Cabinet is divided and the country is divided without any possibility of its being united in toto---where you have 95 per cent. of the people wanting the Treaty---it is our duty and our highest principle to accept the Treaty and work it. In a short time, by working that Treaty, not only would 95 per cent. of the people be satisfied, but 100 per cent.---the whole people of Ireland [applause].
MR. DONAL O'CALLAGHAN:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, is beag atá le rá agamsa. Leanfad dea-shompla na ndaoine nár fhan abhfad ag labhairt iniu. Táimse, agus tá furmhór na Dála, agus furmhór na ndaoine tuirseach de bheith ag eisteacht agus ag leigheamh óráidí lucht na Dála. Nílimse chun óráid do dheanamh. Is beag atá le rá agamsa ar fad. Like most members of the Dáil I am thoroughly wearied of those speeches and appeals made on the question of the ratification or approval of the Treaty, and I think so are the people of the country. For my part I shall follow the example set to-day by, I think, most of the speakers, by being very brief. I am not going to appeal to any member of the Dáil, or to seek to influence the views of any member of the Dáil. I am concerned only with the views of and the vote of one member of the Dáil, and that is myself. I rather resent, myself, the series of lectures and appeals to which this House has been treated by all, or both, sides in this matter. I take the view that every member of the Dáil has sufficient brains and sufficient intelligence and a sufficient conception of his responsibility from every point of view to decide for himself or herself what the course of action to be taken is. There are just two things I want to make clear, and I shall finish---my position for myself, and my position with regard to the people I represent here. I may say, while I have deplored and do deplore the keen difference of opinion--- the disruption---which has taken place in our assembly, which was wont to be so harmonious, I deplore perhaps still more the spirit in which it has been done. I deplore the fact that we, the members of the Dáil, could not differ ---even on a question of the importance of the present one---without introducing bitterness or ill-feeling, and without charges or suggestions, either in public or in private. For my part, I take the view, and I should be very sorry if I took any other, that every member of this Dáil is actuated solely by a desire to do the best thing in the interests of Ireland, and the best thing in conformity with his or her adherence to the ideal of absolute Irish independence. I think it is perfectly clear that on no side of this question is there a monopoly of patriotism, a monopoly of common sense. Why we cannot here take different views without levelling charges at one another is beyond me, and is one of the things I regret, at least as much if not more, than the difference itself. To-day, while a member was speaking, I heard an interruption from a member of the House near him. The Deputy was speaking against the Treaty, and the member said: `The country will fix you, too'. Now I say what my constituents will do to me is not a matter of indifference to me, but it is not a consideration which can influence me in my action in this matter. For my part, I am voting against the Treaty. I can not, in conscience, do anything else. Now with regard to the result of that, and with regard to the people whom I represent, I have had for some time the honour to represent the people of Cork in more than one capacity. I represent them as the Lord Mayor of Cork, and as the Chairman of their County Council, and I represent them here. The people of Cork did not elect me to any of these positions because of any ability of mine, real or supposed, or because of any statesmanship of mine, or because of any political ability. They elected me simply and solely because I believe in absolute freedom for Ireland, and because my views on that question were well known and established. If the people of Cork have since changed their minds---indeed I maintain the people of Ireland have not changed their minds---but if they have decided, as is absolutely of course within their right, that a halt may be made on the way, and that rather than hold out for the full measure of Irish freedom, entailing as it probably would still further war and suffering, I have no means of gathering that fact. I have no means, I repeat, in the first instance, nor am I, no matter how my colleagues here may differ with me, going to accept it, even if it were so available the people of Cork have the right to decide that, and I here and now suggest, and I regret it has not been suggested earlier, that the people of the country ought to be given a deciding voice in this question. My position is probably, in this matter, the position of many other members of the Dáil. I have no desire to record a vote if the people who sent me here desire it to be otherwise; but if a vote be taken, and if no other means be provided the electorate, I certainly, as an individual, cannot cast my vote in any but one way. Then the electorate can only repudiate my action and recall me or replace me. I, naturally, will be perfectly content to abide by their decision, but that is my position. That is the position I state to you and to the members of the House, and through you to my constituents. With regard to my personal position, I regret the members of this House in favour of the Treaty have not confined themselves to supporting the Treaty. I regret an effort has been made pretty generally to establish the fact that this House as a whole had agreed to accept something less than freedom. Now, a Chinn Chomhairle,, it is of no importance, perhaps, to members of the House, but it certainly is to me and to the people, or in my opinion to my constituents. I want to make it clear here publicly at this Dáil that my views today---and in this respect let me be absolutely fair to the members of this House who favour the Treaty---are the same as when returned to this House. I do not mean to suggest that the views of members who differ with me on this question are not the same. I personally believe that they are in the main, if not entirely. At all events my views are the same now as then, and nothing, a Chinn Chomhairle, transpired at any meeting of this Dáil which justifies any other assertion. It will be in the recollection of this House when, in the course of the correspondence which preceded these negotiations, the British Prime Minister had refused to accept the status which was laid down as necessary by our President for our plenipotentiaries. When the President decided or suggested a particular reply, before sending that reply a special meeting of the House was summoned, and each member was supplied with a copy of the proposed reply. Furthermore, the President himself read it, and directed the special attention of the House to the now famous paragraph 2. He further impressed on the House before they agreed that he should send that reply, that they should realise a possible and I think he said a probable result would be the breaking off of negotiations and the immediate renewal of war. There was not a suggestion that that reply should be altered by even a comma. The House was unanimous. After deciding that, there was a feeling of absolute relief in the House that there had been such a clear decision taken. When at a later meeting of the Dáil the plenipotentiaries were appointed, the one fact of all others which weighed with me was the possibility of a compromise. In connection with the possibility of compromise was the mention of one particular name. I mention it now without suggesting any reproach---far be it from me---that was the Minister of Finance.
MR. M. COLLINS:
The Minister of Finance has not compromised.
MR. D. O'CALLAGHAN:
I do not mean a compromise in the sense of definitely deciding to change the stand from the Republic, but to accept some thing less as a means to it. I want to be absolutely fair to every man. I do not wish to suggest that any member here has in any way acted in such a manner as would deserve reproach! I trust I have said nothing that would in any way interfere with them. I certainly had no intention of saying any thing that would hurt the Minister of Finance [hear, hear]. I also make it clear that some of us in the Dáil have visualised an independent Ireland. I have learned to-day, I must say with considerable surprise, from one of my colleagues in the representation of Cork that he never did. I can only say---
MR. J. J. WALSH:
That is not a correct interpretation of my speech.
MR. D. O'CALLAGHAN:
Very well, I withdraw it. For the rest, I regret very much the manner in which public boards and other institutions through the country have been divided up on this question. That there should be a division in this House is and would be in itself regrettable. There was a hope that it might have ended there and that division would not be forced through the country---but the country has been lined up for and against. The people of the country, even those who desire the Treaty ratified, are still keener about avoiding the return of days of internal divisions and party turmoil. I think, and still hope, that such a result, which would be so deplorable, may still be avoided, be the result what it may, for some time at least. I would furthermore suggest to those in favour of ratification that they should place it on record, saying that its acceptance by those who favour it is based on the desire of the people that it be accepted, and that their view also be placed on record in connection with it. That is, formally, that they desire the ratification of the Treaty, not as a case of absolute freedom, but that in view of the circumstances of the moment they desire its ratification rather than embark at the moment again in war to secure what remains, and what was withheld from them, of their liberty. I would ask those in favour of ratification to place that on record because that is a fair representation of those of our people who do desire ratification. For the rest I will close by regretting the strained feelings which have been visible in this House, and by hoping that when the vote has been taken here---if a vote be taken, and if my suggestion for a plebiscite be not accepted---then at least the bitterness and strained feeling and animosity that has so suddenly arisen in a House where there was wont to be such friendship will end with the division [applause].
MR. M. COLLINS:
I will make a suggestion now whereby we can avoid a division. Rightly or wrongly, Deputies or no Deputies, the Irish people have accepted this Treaty. Rightly or wrongly, I say------
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
We do not know; how do you know? [Cries of They have, and counter-cries of No, no; they have not.]
MR. M. COLLINS:
The noes are very feeble.
MR. D. CEANNT:
They are not.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I will make a suggestion which will not take away from the principle of any person on your side------
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Is all this in order?
THE SPEAKER:
It is not. It can only be done by permission of the House.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I do not care whether it is in order or not. [Cries of Chair].
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I appeal to the Chair. Is it in order?
MR. M. COLLINS:
I have tried to do things for Ireland for the last couple of years; I am trying to do this thing for Ireland now to avoid division [loud applause]. Are the Deputies going to listen to me or not? [Cries of Yes!].
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Chair, Chair.
THE SPEAKER:
If there is any objection------
MR. M. COLLINS:
My suggestion is------
MR. A. MACCABE:
In the interests of unity he should be heard, I think.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Quite so.
THE SPEAKER:
Members can only speak out of their turn by the courtesy of the Dáil.
MR. J. N. DOLAN:
I beg to move formally that permission be given to the Minister of Finance to speak.
MR. D. O'CALLAGHAN:
I beg to second that. As something I have said may be taken differently, I now wish to say that I have long since, before this House met, told the Minister of Finance privately, and I now say it publicly, that when he arrived at the point when he was satisfied to recommend the Treaty as the best thing in the interests of Ireland, I quite realised the magnificent moral courage that required from him. I told him that privately, I now say it publicly. I am not aware of having said anything which would have riled him, or injured or hurt any of his feelings.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I would suggest that you ask the President to give permission to the Minister of Finance to speak.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
With all due respect, it is not the President can decide------
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
It is the Chair.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I have no objection, of course.
THE SPEAKER:
Permission is given, I take it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well, the suggestion is this: I have my own feelings about the Treaty. I have feelings about it perhaps very much keener than Deputies who are against it. Well, I believe that the Treaty was inevitable, and this is the suggestion: that the men and women in the Dáil who are against the Treaty may continue to be against the Treaty, but they need not cause a division in the Dáil, and they need not cause it by falling in with this suggestion. We cannot be weaker if we accept this Treaty, provided some of you---and I give you all the credit of standing on principle and standing on nothing else against ourselves---as I have said we cannot be weaker, and you cannot have compromised yourselves by allowing this Treaty to go through; and I want to insist that, in my opinion, rightly or wrongly, the Irish people have endorsed this Treaty. Now, if the Treaty is rejected, what happens? The English are absolved from their bargain. You have all said strong things against the English, but they will be absolved from their bargain, and it is not a question of a Treaty or an alternative Treaty. There is neither a Treaty nor an alternative Treaty in the circumstances, and I say the opposition can redeem the country in that way, and they can take all the kudos. They may have all the honour and glory, and we can have all the shame and disgrace [applause].
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
What is the proposition?
MR. M. COLLINS:
That you allow the Treaty to go through and let the Provisional Government come into existence, and if necessary you can fight the Provisional Government on the Republican question afterwards.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
We will do that if you carry ratification, perhaps.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I thought you said ratification would be ultra vires.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is not ratification. There is a question whether approval is not in a sense ratification. It is unfortunate that the papers of the country are taking it up as ratification. It is a very strange thing we get a proposal like that here, when it is obvious if you were to approve of the Treaty that very line of policy could be followed, anyway; and when there is a suggestion to make a real peace, a peace that we could all stand over, that simply because certain credits were involved it should be turned down.
MR. J. N. DOLAN:
I rise to support the adoption of the motion by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and before going on to speak on the merits of the motion, I would like to say that I am sorry our President has put the construction that he did on the suggested way out---that way out that was suggested by the Minister of Finance.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
What way out?
MR. J. N. DOLAN:
He said that that course could be adopted when the Treaty was ratified; but remember we are here faced with the possibility that this Treaty may be defeated [hear, hear]. Then the point that the Minister of Finance makes becomes a reality. The country has accepted the Treaty. [Cries of No!]. The country has accepted the Treaty, I say. [Cries of hear, hear, and No!]. What position then would this Dáil occupy? Where is your constitutional usage or your democratic government? Where is your Republic? Where is government by the consent of the governed?
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
Wait for the next election.
MR. J. N. DOLAN:
I have listened to all the arguments that have been advanced against the ratification of this Treaty, and I must say they have all left me cold. I expected when the Lord Mayor of Cork rose to support the rejection of the Treaty that he, at least, would have some sensible alternative proposal. He had not. There is no alternative to this Treaty, as all the speakers on the other side have plainly pointed out, but chaos, and a gamble and a chance. There is a good deal of good---there is very much good in the Articles of Agreement that are embodied in this Treaty. I stand for this Treaty then, knowing all the circumstances that I do, knowing what led up to the negotiations when we sent our plenipotentiaries to London. I stand for it on its merits, and I say that in the knowledge of all these circumstances our plenipotentiaries have done exceptionally well. It is to the substance of what they have brought back I allude; and I say when you examine this Treaty and visualise the possibilities in working it, there is a big substance in it, and there are great possibilities of developing it for the Irish nation. As some of the other speakers have said, our ideal shall be a Gaelic State. There is nothing in this Treaty to prevent us building up from within, and developing under our own constitutional usage to the advantage--- and to the sole advantage---of the whole people of Ireland. It is said we will be dominated by English interference in the working out of our Constitution. It is said that certain things in this Treaty mean an advantage to England. But what I say and believe is that the men who frame the Constitution, and afterwards the men who work the Constitution, will say we shall interpret all these things in the Irish way to the benefit of the people of Ireland that we are serving here in this legislature. Now, it is said England is conferring on us concessions by this Treaty. I say by this Treaty England is abdicating the grip and the hold that she had on all our life here in Ireland, and she is withdrawing her armed forces from our midst. I see big possibilities in the carrying out of our Constitution, when our Irish soldiers are protecting that Constitution within even the strict limits of the Treaty. In fact---I am not speaking of law, I do not want to get up against Mr. Childers, because I am not a lawyer---but in fact we have in the body of this Treaty sovereign status. It remains for us to grasp the good that is in the Treaty. Have the courage to go in and use it. Have the courage to undertake the development of our country, and to make it possible for our country to advance still further to the goal that is now before her. There has been great play made about the words internal and external association. I see and realise the difference, but in the alternative proposals where external association is mentioned it is not stated by those who advance that argument that our delegates pleaded, worked, and worked energetically for external association, and it was turned down, as the isolated independent Republic was also turned down. Our plenipotentiaries had to face facts, and facing these facts---I say it deliberately---they interpreted as fairly as it was possible for ordinary human beings the instructions that we know they got, those of us who have read the Cabinet records. There was great play also made of the objectionable features of the Treaty. One of them that was mentioned to me---I have not heard any speaker refer to it at all---was what a terrible thing it was that we undertook to pay the pensions of the old R.I.C. Well, I think when the Minister of Finance is the Paymaster of the old R.I.C. they will be much safer in his hands than if they were paid by external association.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. J. N. DOLAN:
Speaker after speaker on the other side has got up and stated they were elected here on a particular mandate, and that so far as they were concerned they had not changed, and that until the mandate was withdrawn from them they could not see their way to make what they call a compromise on the Irish Republic. It has been stated over and over again, and we all know that it is ridiculous for those men to say that there was no compromise, that there was no lowering of the mandate, or no lowering of our declared principles, so to say, when we agreed to send plenipotentiaries to London to negotiate some kind of association with the British Empire. One Deputy said his conscience was eased by some particular clause in a formula that was read to him. It is not of formulas I am speaking now. I wish to refer him to facts. Was not he a party, and was not every man in the Dáil a party to the fact of sending our plenipotentiaries to London to negotiate some kind of association with the British Empire? I do not look upon this Treaty as final and everlasting. I recognise that all countries are developing, and I look on this as only a stage in the development of Ireland. I believe in the saying that `no man has the right', et cetera. Now let us, in the name of God, lay aside all this talk of formulas and face facts. Look at the facts and realise what facts will be staring us in the face if the Treaty is rejected. Realise the chaos in the country, and realise the possibilities of the future. Let us then go in and grasp this opportunity; use it for all it is worth, and let no man here attempt to put a stop to the onward march of the nation. [Applause].
MR. FRANK FAHY:
Just a personal point I would like to introduce. If any words of mine could bear the interpretation that any of the plenipotentiaries were followers of the Welsh Wizard, I beg to withdraw those words, and say I never meant any such thing. I would be very sorry to say it of any member of the Dáil or of any of the plenipotentiaries. I accept fully the explanation of the Assistant Minister for Local Government that he was present at the meetings of the Cabinet by the express orders of the President. I am sorry for the statement made that he was there by act of grace.
MR. M. P. COLIVET:
I am going to be as short as I possibly can. If I wished I could spend about two hours raising points about this Treaty, but, in the first place, I would have you all bored to death, and, in the second place, there would be very little chance of changing any man's opinion [laughter]. The country seems to require that each of the Teachtaí should give some reasons why he is voting in the particular way he thinks on the subject. Another reason why I do not wish to go into debating points is this: there are, in the main, two sets of interpretations to be taken of this Treaty. One is what I might call the interpretation of the Irish point of view, and the other the Imperial point of view. In debating against the Treaty it would be my business to examine how far the imperialists could drag or interpret the points of that Treaty to their views, and to point that out as the effect of the Treaty. In so doing I would, in the possibility of this Treaty being passed, be piling up munitions for the common enemy, and if this Treaty does pass it would be to our interest and to our ambition to see, if there is any interpretation at all, the Irish interpretation wins [hear, hear]. Much has been said about constituents. As far as my constituents are concerned, what I do here is a question between me and them, and concerns no other member of the Dáil, and I am prepared to settle with them what I do here. I was selected on the principle of the Republic. The Republic was formally declared three years ago, and for three years has been functioning to such an extent that not only have soldiers and policemen, but men of our own race, as spies, met their deaths on the moral authority of that Government. I am now asked to throw out the Republican Government and accept the status of a Dominion within the British Empire. Many men can find it within themselves to reconcile such with their previous views and opinions whether they were expressed in oaths or in any other form whatsoever. That is their business. I am only concerned with mine, and my point of view is, I cannot do that thing. I have declared myself a Republican, and have been elected a Republican, and I will never willingly become a subject of the British Empire. I do not put forward my conscience or judgment as infallible. Probably the judgment and conscience of the plenipotentiaries and those voting with them may, in history, prove to be sound; but sound or unsound, I am only responsible for acting on my own, and I am not going to be swayed from that by any cloud raised by the national Press as regards such words as `government by the consent of the governed'. I thought we had left all these catch-cries behind. `Government by consent of the governed'. Self-determination, to my mind, means this: that the people will be asked to say what they want, with the firm understanding that what they say they want they will get.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
Give them a chance.
MR. M. P. COLIVET:
It is a question now of `Will you have this or not? If you do not, you will get a rap on the nut'. Is that self-determination? I do not regard it as such. If the people say they want the Treaty because the result will be war, that is not self-determination. Call a spade a spade, but that is not self-determination. In reading over the speeches of the last Session there was one reference in a letter addressed to the Chairman of the plenipotentiaries by Mr. Lloyd George in which he referred to the pledge given in respect of the minority by the head of the Irish plenipotentiaries. `The framing of the Constitution will be in the hands of the Irish Government subject, of course, to the terms of the agreement, and to the pledges given in respect of the minority by the head of the Irish Delegation'. On reading that I could not remember of any explanation being given. Perhaps it was given. I would like that, at an early stage, the Chairman of the plenipotentiaries would inform us what these pledges are. They may not be of any importance or relevant to what we are discussing. I think we should know if there is anything else besides this Treaty which we would be bound by. Let us know what are the personal pledges he has given, and which, I presume, if the Treaty is passed, he will endeavour to point out to a future Government. [Applause].
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
I have listened to this debate ever since it started, and I never heard anything so unreal. There are three parties in the Dáil. There are the uncompromising Republicans, the Treaty party, and the Document No 2 party. The uncompromising Republicans can no more support President de Valera than us------
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Let them judge for themselves.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
I went to the country during the Christmas recess and consulted with my constituents as to their views about the Treaty. I have got a unanimous vote from my Comhairle Cennntair. They asked me what President de Valera's alternative was, and I was tongue-tied---the President had me tongue-tied. I say it is a grave injustice to the country that I and men like me, trying to argue for the Treaty, are being tongue-tied. There was some opinion in the country that President de Valera had some mysterious card up his sleeve. Every member of the Dáil knows there is not.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
May I be permitted to give an explanation? I am ready at any time to move Document No. 2 as an amendment.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
I am only pointing out------
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am ready at any time to make that proposition publicly, and then you will see whether any uncompromising Republicans will support it or not. It is very important that there should be no misrepresentation.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
I deliberately refrained from dealing with Document No. 2. I am giving my own opinions as a member of the Dáil. I am not mentioning any clauses.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is to suit the will of the other side.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
It is not to suit the will of the other side that Document No. 2 was kept from the public.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
You asked for a straight vote on the Treaty. I am ready at any time to make my proposals in public in substitution for your Treaty.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
Our position in the country is absolutely artificial, because the country does not know what we are rejecting as an alternative, and I have found that out all along. We have had duress hurled at us. I say the real duress is that any part of Ireland is left out of the Irish nation. The people in my county care nothing about formulas or oaths; they do care a lot about Ulster being kept out. That is the biggest question. Anything that ever mattered to the people of Ireland was the unity of Ireland, and I was surprised to hear Deputies getting up and talking about Mr. Griffith and the Southern Unionists. We want the Southern Unionists and we want every Irishman [hear, hear]. I never believed more in Mr. Arthur Griffith and never believed him to be more of a statesman than when he sent his message to the Southern Unionists [hear, hear]. The Southern Unionists are Irishmen, and, as Parnell once said, we need every Irish man. These people have been in a false environment. They are not English anyway, and it is for us to win them if we can, and if any man gets up and tries to draw them nearer to Ireland he is a statesman and should not be criticised [hear, hear]. I resent the remarks made by the Minister of Agriculture that the opinion behind this Treaty in the country is manufactured. The men I went to when I was down in Westmeath were the men who gave me loyal support ever since I went on the run, and I can also say they gave loyal support to Sinn Fein. They were men who suffered most---Volunteer Officers, and not Southern Unionists or Nationalists either. They are all Irishmen who believe in ultimate Irish freedom. They do not care a whole lot about formulas. When I went through Westmeath we never talked about theoretical Republics. We said we were out for getting Ireland into the hands of the Irish [hear, hear]. We stood where we did to get Ireland into the hands of the Irish. If the Mikado of Japan came over, it did not matter so long as Ireland belonged to the people of Ireland. The people of Westmeath do not care twopence about theoretical Republicanism, and neither do I. They had certain ideas in their minds, but they had one great idea; they want England out and Ireland in; that is their idea [applause]. And any man who comes along to them and talks about about a Workers' Republic, a theoretical Republic, or the nebulous Republic that we thought we had for the last two years, is talking foolishly. They do not understand. What the people of Ireland want is getting the soil of Ireland back to the hands of the people of Ireland, and they believe in getting the foreigners out and our own people in. Nothing else matters to them or ever did matter to them. That is what they always wanted. You would think by the talk of some people that we had a Republic here for 750 years. Red Hugh and Sarsfield were ex-officers of the British army. Tone was a member of the United Irishmen which was at one time, and was all along, a constitutional movement, and he became a Republican because he thought there was no other way out to freedom. Owen Roe was prepared to make a Treaty with the Puritans. The Irish Federation with Davis and Mitchell was prepared to accept the King, Lords and Commons of Ireland. The Republic of Ireland is only two years old, and it was a very weak infant all the time. I was working for it, and I know how it was able to function. Some people think that because they got up in January, 1919, Ireland was a Republic. For God's sake get back to facts. We were able to hold on by the skin of our teeth, and we are taking this Treaty because we could not hold out twelve months longer, and right well every man in the Dáil knows it. We have never been offered an alternative to the Treaty. We are not told how we can obtain freedom except by accepting the Treaty and making it better. Damn principles, but give us Irish freedom by any road we can get it. That is my view, and it is the view of the average man in the country. You would think we were a crowd of theologians instead of Irishmen [hear, hear]. How are we to win freedom except by taking the Treaty and making the best we can of it? The people of the country have their own plain views about Irish history, and I must say, with all respect to the Dáil, they have ten times the brains and wisdom of the Dáil [laughter and applause]. They know the realities of Irish Freedom. They know every time we rose in our history we were fighting an all-powerful enemy with inadequate weapons. They believe we are going to get an Irish Army and that we can make the best armed small army in Europe. It is not often I agree with the Countess, but she said a thing I quite agree with, and it was this: `England would not give this Treaty if she could avoid doing so'. Lord Salisbury laid down a principle: `What England gives in her weakness she takes back in her strength'. I myself have a dash of English blood in me. I quite agree England will take back this if she can. I will give my reasons why I vote for the Treaty. I do not care threepence about so-called oaths. I believe in ultimate Irish freedom. I am voting for the Treaty because we are getting an Irish army, and if we get an Irish army armed to the teeth, it is for England if she wants to take it back to take back the Treaty by force of arms; that is why I am voting for the Treaty. [Applause].
MR. EAMONN DEE:
I am against the ratification of the Treaty on several grounds, one of which is that it is a permanent barrier against the unity of Ireland. I am a Republican and I can not swear fealty or allegiance to the British King. I object to the clauses in the Treaty pertaining to naval defence, submarine cables, wireless stations in time of peace or war. I also oppose the Treaty because of the partitioning of Ireland. As Deputy Sean MacEntee has said, it leaves a permanent barrier against the unity of Ireland. I object to the Treaty because of the liability for the British National Debt; but the main objection I have to ratification is because of the fact of swearing fealty to the English King. I believe and regard the Treaty as an ignoble document, unworthy and inconsistent with our national ideals. Now the Anglo-Irish Conference, as you are aware, sat in London. We understood that the two nations were going into that Conference with a certain independent status, and for the express purpose of a settlement of the age-long difference. This would have been achieved on voluntary and reciprocal lines, but what happened was this: the Irish Delegation signed the Treaty under a threat of force and under duress, a distinct violation, to my mind, of the Truce, and that destroyed the hope of a friendly acceptance of the Treaty by the people of Ireland. Much criticism has been made of the Irish Delegation both individually and collectively. I am not going to criticise them at all because I firmly believe they tried to do their best. But what I will do is criticise them in conjunction with the British Delegation---criticise the Anglo-Irish Conference as a body. I believe they missed the supreme opportunity of settling the Irish question for ever. The blame for failure rests on the shoulders of the English representatives in the Conference, for, instead of rising to the plane of a voluntary and reciprocal agreement on which our delegation stood, they succeeded in forcing our representatives down to Britain's customary materialistic level where the hopes and the wishes of both countries were wrecked in dishonour and disgrace. The next step was when the Treaty, signed in London, was placed before you for consideration. The pro-Treaty Deputies place eulogies upon it. They told you the reason they signed it was because of the terrors of immediate and terrible war. The Press took up the cry, and then we have heard the changes being rung on this threat of terrible and immediate war. That went on until our Speaker, Deputy Eoin MacNeill, went speaking from the body of the House and made reference to the fact that the appeal to force was a bad argument, and then I noticed both the Press, the country and the Deputies here dropped the use of this threat of war, and they refer to it now as that it will bring chaos upon the country. Deputy Etchingham gave us a very lucid description of the meaning of the word `fealty', and I would suggest he would take up the meaning of the word `chaos', and search in Webster's Dictionary for the various meanings of the word `chaos'. As regards the reference to substance and shadow, I think Deputy Miss MacSwiney dealt very clearly with that when she described one as expediency and the other as principle. The next thing in connection with the Treaty was where they described it as a bird in the hand, and praised it so highly, I thought it was a Bird of Paradise with lovely green, white and gold plumage. Then the anti-Treaty Deputies began to criticise it, and judging from what they said, they thought it was not a bird at all---at least not yet. It was only an egg, originating in the British Cabinet, and classified in accordance with the oath of fidelity as belonging to the order of the O.B.E. The Governor General will assist at the hatching-out process in the Irish Free State, and it might produce an ugly duckling, not a game chicken anyway. The Anglo-Irish Conference missed the greatest opportunity in modern history because they failed to give effect to the principles of self-determination which the great war so clearly emphasised as a world demand. A world conference is being held in Paris this month to uphold it. The political philosophy of Europe to-day is Machiavelian and Troitsekean, which means political cunning and bad faith combined with the unscrupulous use of force, and England in Europe to-day is its outstanding protagonist as far as Ireland is concerned. But England's day of reckoning is not distant. If she wishes friendly relations with Ireland it must be on voluntary and reciprocal lines. Britain will have to settle the Irish question according to the true wishes of the Irish nation, or the Irish question, as General Smuts has said, will settle the Empire. The Irish question is to-day a world question, a great human question. For centuries we have been, and we are to-day, allies of all the oppressed peoples of the earth. Our fight for freedom and against oppression has given them heart and courage. We have no quarrel with any other nation but Britain, and we owe no ill-will to any other nation. All Ireland wants, as President de Valera stated, is to be allowed to live her own life in peace, with freedom to accomplish her own destiny. With our national freedom will come power to help to secure, in conjunction with other Christian countries, world peace and prosperity for all the suffering peoples on the earth. Ireland's glorious mission is to help to spiritualise and to civilise the world. When Ireland secures true freedom she will rise to the spiritual and intellectual heights which she attained in the 14th century, when she gave to Europe at her best, and adopted from other countries that which she found worth adopting. This Treaty will not bring peace. Fealty to Britain's King symbolises the shackles of slavery. The manhood and womanhood of Ireland repudiates it. Fling it back in the faces of those who falsely said they wished this age-long difference between the Irish and the British peoples ended. The one vital issue---the right of Ireland to full national freedom---they burked and declined to face though that would have solved the difficulty for all time. They were not great enough to trust themselves; they were not honest enough to trust Ireland; and now the only thing for British statesmen to do is to play the role of political hypocrites before the world and endeavour to still further fool Ireland and to fool the world. Reject this ignoble document and keep the Republican flag flying and refuse to fasten the chains of slavery and fealty on the proud spirit of the unconquered Irish nation. [Applause].
ALDERMAN SEAN MACGARRY:
I am going to endeavour to make a record for brevity. I am supporting the motion for ratification of the Treaty and I make no apology to anybody for doing so. I did not wait until I became a member of this Dáil to become a Republican. I have worked in the Republican movement for twenty years. I am a Republican to-day and I will be a Republican to-morrow. I vote for the Treaty as it stands. For that I do not need the opinion of a constitutional lawyer or a constitutional layman or a Webster's Dictionary or a Bible to tell me what it means. I put on it the interpretation of the ordinary plain man who means what he says. I am not looking for any other interpretation from Webster's Dictionary or anywhere else. I know what the Treaty means, and the man in the street knows what it means. I vote for it as it stands. We all know what it is. I do not see any reason for any argument, or making a pretence that it is less than what it is. I realise what its acceptance means, and I also realise what its rejection would mean, and it is because I realise these things that I am voting for it. If I did not realise them I would probably be voting against it. I do not want to make this an excuse for voting for it. Another thing is this: I feel as much committed to the ratification of the document as if my signature were on it and I will tell you why. I want to bring you back to the meeting of the Dáil when the Gairloch correspondence was read, and when President de Valera gave us an interpretation of what the oath meant to him, and Deputy Miss MacSwiney---she will correct me if I am wrong---I can recall the impression she made on me. I think, if I am not mistaken, she challenged the members of the Dáil that if there was anything in the nature of a compromise, or some thing less than a Republic contemplated, to say so, or else for ever more to hold their tongues.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
I think I said that outside the Dáil. I was told the negotiations meant compromise and therefore, inside the Dáil, I begged to be informed if they meant compromise. I did not think so, but outside the Dáil I was told they did mean compromise; I was assured they did not.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
I did not hear any assurance given. She challenged the members of the Dáil to speak then or for ever hold their tongues. The members did not speak then, but God knows they made up for it since [laughter and applause]. If talking would have got us a Republic we would have it last week [laughter]. What did we think we were sending to Downing Street for? Did any of us think we were going to get an Irish Republic in Downing Street?
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Of course you could.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
A Downing Street made Republic? [Laughter].
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
No, a Downing Street withdrawal from Ireland.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
Downing Street are withdrawing from Ireland.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
No, they are not.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
Several Deputies protested very strongly and very loudly that they were standing on the bedrock of the Irish Republic. A week before they were standing on the slippery slopes---to borrow a phrase of the Minister of Finance---the slippery slopes of Document No. 2. Document No. 2 was pulled from under their feet and landed them with what must have been an awful jerk on the bedrock of the Irish Republic. They will be standing on that until the proper time---I mean the time when Document No. 2, or perhaps Document No. 3 will be given to us.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
You can have it immediately if you like---whatever your side agrees.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
There has been theorising in some of the speeches made here by Deputies about Government by the consent of the governed---self-determination. You can have government in Ireland to-day by consent of the governed with this Treaty. You can have self-extermination without it; but you cannot have war without the consent of the Irish people. And the only reason you carried on war for the last two years was because you had the consent of the people. Several other Deputies talk about going back to war. I put it to them now they believe they are not going back to war. They are gambling, they know they are gambling, and they think they are gambling on a certainty. I have done a little bit of gambling myself---not very much---but I was never on a certainty yet that did not let me down [laughter and applause]. They are quite right, they are not going back to war; they are going back to destruction [hear, hear]. I think it was the President quoted the famous dictum of Parnell, that no man can set bounds to the march of a nation. Parnell said a lot of wise things. Parnell never said anything wiser than that. No man, or body of men, can set bounds, or should attempt it. There were two factors in Ireland within the last hundred years that set bounds to the march of the Irish nation---the British Army and British control of every nerve of our national life, education, finance, customs and excise. They set bounds to the nation's progress. Now it is the people who vote against the Treaty are setting bounds to the march of the nation's progress. I do not like talking about this question of oaths, because you are tempted to say things which you might be sorry for. But I would like to ask the Minister of Defence whether he has had, or has still in the l.R.A., people who have already sworn allegiance to the King, as soldiers of the British Army? They have done good work, and we did not ask them when they were joining up: `What about the other oath?'
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
And some of them are in their graves.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
I am sorry to have to refer to the dead. Several Deputies have come to me and told me I was letting down the dead I worked with for very many years. One said: `You worked with so-and-so for many heart-breaking years when to be called a Republican was to be called a fool'. I say no man of all the dead who died for Ireland was ever in this position. Would to God the men I worked with had to face this proposition and I believe they would be with us to-day [hear, hear]. The Deputy for Kildare, the Minister of Agriculture, quoted today a passage from the work of James Connolly. I am sorry Deputy Childers is not here because I wanted to ask him why he did not insist on the whole document being read. The Minister of Agriculture read a passage from Labour in Ireland------
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I did not read anything from Labour in Ireland.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
Well, I beg his pardon. He certainly did say that James Connolly said: `In this, as in the political and social world generally, the thing that matters most is not so much the extent of the march, but the direction in which we are marching'.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Correct.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
These are words of James Connolly, the man who, twenty years ago, taught me to be a Republican. He probably taught Republicanism from a different angle,but he was always a Republican. But the Minister of Agriculture did not tell us that, when Connolly wrote that, he was enthusing about the Local Government Act of 1898. Is the Local Government Act of 1898 better or worse than this is now? I am going to conclude. I think it was Charles Lamb told us about the Chinaman who burned his house to roast a pig. He at least had something to say for himself. After all it was his own house, and he got roast pig [applause]. Then again I heard about Samson. The Deputy from Wicklow might tell us more about that [laughter]. It was Samson who pulled down the pillars of the Temple. That was his funeral. I do not want to attend the funeral of the Irish nation. [Applause].
The House adjourned until 11 o'clock on Wednesday morning.
4
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION Wednesday, January 4th, 1922
THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) took the Chair at 11.15 a. m.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
When speaking yesterday I made use of the words `the supporters of the Welsh Wizard'. I admit that these words may bear the interpretation put upon them by the chairman of the plenipotentiaries. I did not see it at the time. What I meant by that reference was the supporters of the English Prime Minister in the English Press. I did not for a moment mean to suggest that there were any supporters or followers of the Welsh Wizard in this assembly, because if anyone outside this assembly or inside it suggested such I would deal with them as sternly as is in my power.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
I am quite satisfied that Mr. Fahy did not intend to convey the impression that his words gave at the time.
MR. DONAL BUCKLEY (KILDARE):
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, I will begin by asking what was the mandate we, the members of the Dáil, got from our constituents in the last election ? I know the mandate I got anyhow was to look for freedom, to strive for freedom for the country. When the plenipotentiaries left Ireland for the last time I presume they had in their possession a document in which was stated the minimum demand Ireland was to make on England, and coming up to the last moment on the eve of the morning on which that document was signed there was a threat held over the heads of these delegates. If there was a threat, the object of it must have been to minimise that demand that they had in their possession---that they were about to make. It is admitted that the threat was made. Therefore I conclude that the minimum demand which they had in their possession when they left Ireland must have been minimised before these Articles of Agreement were signed. Therefore they must have been signed for something less than freedom for Ireland to my mind. How can it be said that we have freedom if we picture to ourselves John Bull standing four square in this country of ours, with a crúb of his firmly fastened in each of our principal ports? We are told that in each of these ports there will be what is called a `care and maintenance party'---a very nice mild term. What does it really mean---this care and maintenance party? It means a British Garrison in each of these ports with the Union Jack---the symbol of oppression and treachery and slavery in this country, and all over the world, in Ireland especially---that this symbol of slavery will float over each of these strongholds, blockhouses of John Bull. Yet we are told we are getting freedom in these Articles of Agreement. I recall to mind one incident that happened during the last election whilst I was addressing a meeting in my constituency. A few of the khaki-clad warriors had fastened a Union Jack to a lamp post right beside the platform from which I was to address the meeting, and I remember stating distinctly to that assembly that I would not rest satisfied until every vestige of that rag was cleared out of the country. The assembly agreed with me, and before the words were scarcely out of my mouth a rush was made by half-a-dozen boys from the crowd and although the flag was defended by seven or eight of the warriors that flag was torn down. How can it said that we are going to have freedom with this document when the flag which symbolises slavery continues to float all over the country, here, there and everywhere, not alone in these four ports, but wherever there is a signal station or any other sort of station belonging to the British? The people of Ireland at this juncture have been stampeded by the rotten Press of Ireland. Lloyd George is rubbing the palms of his hands and laughing, I doubt not, at the spectacle which is anything but creditable to Ireland that has made such a fight up to this. To my mind the country wants a tonic of some sort to set it thinking. The country is not thinking. It has been stampeded and it now seeks to stampede its representatives. Well there is one representative anyway that won't be stampeded. I stand to-day for the same object for which I stood on the platform through out my constituency and for the same object for which my constituents elected me and I mean to continue so. I shall vote against the Treaty. [Applause].
MR. A. MACCABE (SLIGO):
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, tá níos mó ná beagáinín le rá agamsa ar an gceist seo, agus caithfe me labhairt as Bearla. In saying that I have decided to vote for this Treaty I think I should personally express my regret at finding myself in opposition to many of the leaders who piloted the national cause through the storms of the last five or six years. It is certainly no pleasure to us on this side of the House to stand up and declare ourselves in opposition to one especially who, in the eyes of the great majority of our countrymen, symbolises a national ideal. But in this cause no feeling of personal admiration, of personal animus either, can be allowed to influence our judgment or prevent us doing our duty to the people that sent us here. My duty at the moment I consider to be to examine the Treaty on its merits, and to decide, quite irrespective of the circumstances attending its signature, whether it was a settlement the country could honourably and profitably accept. I have come to the conclusion that it is, and I am going to vote for it. My action in doing so is governed by two considerations. The first is that the Treaty represents goods delivered and not promised to us---goods that we all know were never offered or, indeed, seriously asked for before. The second is that, as a matter of expediency, it is better to take these than run the risk of war or chaos and all that it means to our people and the prosperity of the country. Now, before going on to discuss the value of the goods delivered, and the advisability or otherwise of accepting them, which are really the only questions that matter---or at least, should matter---I should like to explain my position regarding the Republic. It is this: I regard the oath as a binding obligation on me to use every endeavour to secure the realisation of the ideal. It never, in my mind, barred any particular methods of achieving it, nor did it specifically mention the methods advocated by the opposition. To me, recognition of Irish nationality and the securing of practically complete control of our Army and natural resources which this Treaty brings us, are things that no Republican in his sober moments could or should refuse to accept. It will be said, of course, that in voting for the Treaty we are abandoning our principles, that we are breaking our oath, that we are betraying the Republic, that we, in fact, are guilty of all the sins in the calendar. For my part I don't mind what anybody says or thinks about me as long as I do my duty to the country, and my conscience is clear. But the opponents of this Treaty should remember that there are other principles and ideals involved in the issue besides Republicanism. There is, for instance, the ideal of a peaceful and happy Ireland, or that no less dearly cherished one of a united Ireland. There is government by the consent of the governed on which we took our stand throughout this war. Then what about the principles of Christianity? Are they worth any consideration? After the sermon addressed to the sinners on this side of the House by my old and, I must say, sincere friend, Deputy Etchingham, I take it; that his disciples, including his no less ardent acolytes, are familiar with the Commandments on which the principles of their religion are based.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
Arran Islands.
MR. MACCABE:
I surrender that to the opposition for external association in connection with the Free State. How many of them, I wonder, could stand up in this House and say they have never violated any of the Commandments? This is not a Webster, nor a text-book of international law, but it is the law the opposition is appealing to against this Treaty. The book has no high-sounding title. At school we used to call it the "Halfpenny Catechism." I'll read out the Ten Commandments, as by law established, as Moses would have added were he a constitutional lawyer, to Teachtaí opposed to the Treaty, and any of them who have never violated the principles for which they stand are at liberty to make themselves seen and heard. I see none of you have stood up to protest your innocence. It is as I thought: no one on the opposition side denies having offended against fundamental principles of the law my friend, Deputy Sean Etchingham, would have us, on this side, observe to the letter. I'm not saying, mind, that it should not be the law, but I maintain that, in their attitude to the Treaty, if they take the Ten Commandments as the law, they are no less principled than we are. If they succeed in having the Treaty rejected, they set aside every religious and political principle I know of, for they propose to accept as final a settlement that will not bring us a Republic; they postpone for generations, perhaps, the realisation of the ideal of a united Ireland, and they gamble recklessly on the lives and welfare of four and a half million people. As to the oath, all I can say is that it is unpalatable to me---it is, I believe, to us all. Nor do I like the idea of being associated internally or externally with a man eater; but I am prepared to take the Treaty for what it is worth, and as a stepping stone to getting more. Now I candidly do not believe that any of us are saints, not even my friend who gave the sermon a few days ago. This world is no place for saints, and the Church wisely refrains from canonising anybody whilst he or she is in this life. If the Commandments were the principles upon which international relations were grounded the attitude of the opposition to this Treaty would be the correct one, even though it might not be the honest one. But the trouble is that nations like individuals have different sets of principles, and interpret or disregard them just as it suits their circumstances. The British for instance, murder Indians on principle, and the great audience outside says "Amen." The Kaiser and his opponents sent armies to the shambles for a principle. East Ulster refuses, at least for the time being, to come into Ireland on principle. We could make a very plausible case for decimating the population of the corner counties on principle but our Christianity and the good sense of the President and his Cabinet forbid it. On principle, too, Miss MacSwiney would have the whole population of Ireland wiped out of existence, man, woman, and child.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
I beg your pardon. I never said anything of the kind. It is only on the principle of which I spoke that you can avoid wiping them out of existence.
MR. MACCABE:
She would not leave us even a grasshopper [Laughter]. That is the inference I drew from her speech, and I think most of the House drew the same inference from her speech.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Then I say if that is so the intelligence as well as the principle is on our side of the House [Laughter and applause].
MR. MACCABE:
Thanks. [Renewed Laughter]. We see here the abyss into which a blind and reckless pursuit of one principle leads and the danger to any nation of having people of such mentality in charge of its destinies. It may be that Miss MacSwiney's mind and outlook are distorted by the terrible experiences she has passed through. If so there is some excuse for------
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Again I protest against my name being used in that connection. I did not, and will not, use it myself in that connection. I did not bring anything of my personal experiences into my public speech here. I protest and ask the protection of the Dáil against any member using my name in such a connection [to Mr. MacCabe] and besides I assure you that I am quite sane on the point.
MR. MACCABE:
Am I in order, a Chinn Chomhairle?
</SMALL>
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Not in using my name.
MR. MACCABE:
I just used the subject matter of your speech.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Leave out my experiences.
MR. MACCABE:
From the inference I drew from the speech I can regard it as her suggestion that Ireland should fight to a finish even though half of the population were wiped out. That is nothing less than a criminal incitement to national suicide, whatever you (Miss MacSwiney) may think of it. I think it is quite evident to anyone who studies history that principle plays a very small part in international politics. And before we embark on a crusade to have the Ten Commandments written into international law I'd suggest that we try to have some of the Teachtaí whom we have heard speak against the Treaty converted to Christianity. The awkward fact at the moment is, that despite anything we can do or say in Dáil Eireann, the politics of the world are being, and will continue to be, dictated by expediency. I am voting for the Treaty for reasons of expediency and I consider, even though I were violating a principle, that it is my bounden duty to do so. Most of us are new to politics, and we do not realise the responsibilities of the office we hold. If we did the interests of the country and the lives of our people would come first in our consideration, and our principles and religious scruples long afterwards. There is another aspect of the campaign that is being carried on against this Treaty which I would like to refer to, while on this point of principle. It is the exploitation of the dead; and for the sake of their memory as well as in the interests of truth I beg to protest against it. I knew a number of these splendid men in their lifetime, amongst them Tom Clarke, the first President-elect of the Irish Republic. I agree with what Mrs. Clarke has said---that be would have voted against it. But he could not be expected to do otherwise considering that he worked almost alone for a lifetime to keep the flame burning. I also knew Terence MacSwiney very intimately, and I knew him as a sound Republican. I don't believe that he, or any of his comrades, would have died for Document No. 2, if it came to a choice between itself and the Treaty, nor, what is more, do I believe that he would sacrifice the whole population of Ireland on the altar of his principles. Now, nobody objects to people voting against the Treaty because they have a personal grievance against England, but I do suggest that it is unfair asking other people to vote for their grievance, for this is what it really amounts to. Is it not enough to have eight, nine or ten votes as the case may be, but not sufficient anyhow to defeat the Treaty, cast on this personal issue? Where does the country come in? I would remind all these Teachtaí who have such grievances that they were not sent here to avenge the wrongs committed in the war, but to secure an honourable peace, and I hold that this is an honourable peace, for when the honours are counted up they are all on our side. It is England that has surrendered, we have surrendered nothing. I would, therefore, appeal to them to rise above their personal prejudices and think of themselves, not as the sisters, or wives, or mothers, or brothers of dead patriots, but as representatives of the people, with the fate of a country in their hands. The earth belongs to those who are on it, and not to those who are under it, and to the living and not the dead we owe our votes. I would ask them also before they launch the country again into war, or worse, to think of the millions of wives and mothers and sisters who are waiting expectantly for peace, and to picture the disappointment and despair which the news of the rejection of the Treaty will bring into their homes.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Don't speak for the women.
MR. MACCABE:
I know what the women want just as well as the interrupter.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
You are an old woman, I know.
MR. MACCABE:
Thanks very much. I know just as well, if not better, than Deputy Mary MacSwiney what the people want in their heads and hearts, and I know it is not war. I wonder is there one woman in this assembly who could rise to the great opportunity, one woman who would sink her feelings, sink her cravings for vengeance, sink her principles even, and, sacrificing her personality as others sacrificed their lives, vote for the good of her country. Such an act of self-elimination would, in my opinion, appeal to the whole world as an act worthy of a country woman of Terence MacSwiney. I won't say any more on the question of principles or on the question of Christianity. Perhaps I have said enough; perhaps I have said too much. I did not mean to grate on anyone's sensibility or insult anyone. I just spoke in the way I thought necessary in a crisis like this when the issues should be placed straight before the country and no personalities dragged into it [hear, hear]. Now coming to the Treaty I'd like to say at the outset that I'm not enamoured of it. I don't like the oath, I don't like the enemy in our ports, and I don't like the Governor-General in substance or in shadow. But Document No. 2 is open to all these objections for-----
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
No, it is not.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I have several times said I will bring that document forward, and bring it as an amendment. Unless it is here I do not think it fair to be referring to it.
MR. MACCABE:
It is most unfair to us and the country to suppress it.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am ready at any time to bring it forward if the other side agree to I bringing it forward as an amendment.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Early in the proceedings the other side asked President De Valera to publish it at the beginning of the Session and he refused.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Do you object to my bringing it here as an amendment and publishing it then?
MR. M. COLLINS:
Are we going to conduct a debate or are we going to have an old woman's wrangle?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is no question of wrangling. This is an important matter. A document has been referred to piecemeal and an attempt made to prejudice it. I am ready to bring forward the document as an amendment to the Treaty. There is nothing keeping it from this assembly or the nation except the fact that the other side want a direct vote on the Treaty. Now I am ready at any time to move it as an amendment.
MR. MACCABE:
I do not object to Document No. 2 but I object to No. 8, certainly, which is being prepared for us.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is no document being prepared and I must be protected from these references, or else allowed to bring forward the document. I must insist on a vote being taken here in this assembly whether this document can be brought forward as an amendment or not.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I have done my best in a few instances to try and have the debate conducted without interruption, and I do think that speakers when making references ought to have the protection of you, Sir. If we are to discuss Document No. 2 and not the Treaty, let us discuss Document No. 2, and any speaker on our side and any speaker on the other side is entitled to make due reference to the things that have been said, and things that are possibilities.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I formally give notice that I am going to move to-morrow, and put it to a vote in this House, that this document be brought forward as an amendment to the Treaty.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
I suggest that President de Valera should hand that document to the Press as we asked him a fortnight ago.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am giving notice insisting on my rights as a member to put forward this as an amendment. I will do it to-morrow.
ALD. COSGRAVE:
A member is entitled to speak once. I understand the President has already spoken once, and the President did not introduce any document, nor did he move an amendment although the Minister for Home Affairs, who spoke afterwards, said he seconded the President's amendment.
MR. A. STACK:
I beg your pardon.
ALD. COSGRAVE:
The official records will contain all that you said.
MR. A. STACK:
The official records will show your inaccuracy.
ALD. COSGRAVE:
A member having spoken once is not entitled to speak a second time---if my interpretation of the Standing Orders is correct he is not entitled to speak a second time. Consequently it is not open to the President to move an amendment. I put that point of order to you.
THE SPEAKER:
That point only arises in the case of the President actually moving the amendment.
MR. MACCABE:
Am I in order to------
THE SPEAKER:
I thought you gave way to the interruptions. If you held your ground you would not be interrupted. You can continue. I will allow no further interruptions.
MR. MACCABE:
As regards the Treaty in general I would ask consideration for it on four main grounds: first, that it enables us to set to work at once building up the Gaelic State with a distinctive language, culture, and civilisation. This will be, in itself, the best bulwark we can have against that peaceful social penetration, which is supposed to follow in the train of a Governor General equally with a Republican upper ten. For my part I don't see how the Teachtaí opposed to the Treaty, if they have as they say such faith in the spirit of the Irish people, can maintain that their nationality or their morals will be undermined by the presence of a Governor-General or a Viceroy. The important thing is that the real governors of Ireland, the police, the military and the auxiliaries, sixty or seventy thousand of them all told, leave us. For my part I look on this Governor-General as a very useful bogey man. He will be to Irish Nationalism and Irish Republicanism what the Pope is to Orangeism in Belfast [Laughter], and until we have achieved complete independence I'd regard it as a disaster to lose this tangible stimulus to work for it. We all know what nationality did for the development of the language and for native culture, and we can imagine what a driving force it would lose were there anything in the nature of a settlement that the nation would be deceived into believing represented the attainment of the ideal. A second ground on which I would recommend the Treaty is that it is an official recognition of our status as a distinctive nation---the first ever we got since Confederate days, and then it was only as an appanage of the English Crown. Clause 1 says in plain language that we have the same status in the British Commonwealth of Nations that the Dominions have. I think, even apart from Mr. Lloyd George's letter, we can say that, as a Dominion, we are entitled to enter the League of Nations. If not, I'm sure in their own interests the British Dominions will have something to say about it. Now, Mr. Childers says that certain facts, such as distance and inherent strength affect, or are likely to affect, the status of the Irish Free State. Of course it is evident that the argument of distance used against this Treaty is a two-edged weapon and cuts both ways. I surrender that to the opposition for an experiment in external association with the Irish Free State. How we are going to get an Irish Republic set up further away from England's door than an Irish Free State I do not know; but I know this, that distance did not save the South African Republics, even though one of them was in external association with the Empire, when England chose to attack them. As to strength, I think this Treaty makes it plain that our powers of self defence will be such that no enemy, however long-ranged his guns, will be in a hurry to return here once our army is organised, and I think it will be conceded on all sides that a national army is in itself a guarantee that our status will be at all times respected. And as far as the defence of our coasts is concerned I see nothing in the Treaty which will prevent us making our shores as impregnable against enemy attacks as were those of Suvla Bay against the fleets of the world. And the experiences of the war go to prove that assaults from the sea on well organised land defences are neither profitable nor effective. But what puzzles me in regard to this question of defence is how the opposition can say that we will be at the mercy of the enemy when we have established government and a thoroughly equipped army, in view of the fact that we were able to paralyse British Government in Ireland for a number of years past without either. However, there are other guarantees we can rely on apart from the army; the guarantees implied in the membership of the British Commonwealth and the League of Nations. The British Dominions, for their own sakes, will see that our status is respected, but we have a higher and more impartial, if less interested, community to appeal to if we think our rights are infringed, in the League of the Free Nations. Membership of this means admittance to the family of nations, in other words, the international recognition we sought so vainly in the early days of the Republican movement. Was it not on this issue admission to the Peace Conference or, in other words, admission to the comity of nations, what is known as the Plunkett election was fought in North Roscommon? To-day a door is opening for us, but because it is not the hall door we are too proud to enter. We must go in tall hats, with brass dog chains across our vests, and our hands in our trousers pockets, just to impress the hall-porter. It reminds me of an incident that occurred in my part of the country during the Versailles Conference, when the question everyone was asking was would de Valera be admitted to the Peace Conference. There, as elsewhere in Ireland, the people take a very lively interest in public affairs, and every night at the fireside, as most of us know by this, they discuss the national question in all its moods and tenses. One very stormy night after the East Clare election---when excitement was at its height---the ramblers in a certain house decided to have a peace conference of their own to debate the political situation. After the preliminaries were settled the question arose as to who should play de Valera. It was, as I stated already, a wet, stormy night, and when it was mentioned that de Valera would have to remain outside the door knocking until he was admitted, no one was very anxious to play the role. As no volunteer was forthcoming the assembly decided unanimously to give it to a member who happened to be very careful of his health and not very popular. He was therefore ordered out and, when the door was locked, told to keep knocking until the Peace Conference had decided whether he should be admitted or not. Needless to say, once the Conference started its deliberations it was not in a very big hurry coming to a decision regarding de Valera's admittance. For several hours he was left there at the mercy of the wind and rain, breaking his knuckles on the door that would not open. At last, disgusted at the treatment meted out to him by the Peace Conference, and realising the joke that had been played on him, he delivered a few resounding on the door and left. He never thought of the back door which would have admitted him and saved him from the dangerous attack of pneumonia which he contracted as a result of his night's exposure to the storm. Now this story, I think, has a particular application to the issue we are discussing at the moment. We, in this assembly, have the option of admitting Ireland to the comity of nations by a side door, or a back door if you like, or letting her play de Valera at the hall door for God knows how long---poor old Ireland in her threadbare shawl standing there in the rain and storm for another long night with no certainty, even at the end of that night, of getting in. We on this side of the House at least, will not be a party to the joke, and I hope those opposed to the Treaty will consider before the vote whether Ireland is a fit subject at the moment for either a gamble or a joke. The third ground on which I would consider this Treaty worthy of support is that it offers a solution of the Ulster difficulty which places us well on the road to a united Ireland. I know there are members in this House who would advocate the coercion of the Ulster minority, and other members who would not even stop at that. Again I say that the land of Ulster belongs to those who are on it and not under it, and I take this opportunity of complimenting our President on the statesmanlike solution of the difficulty which appears in the Treaty. Minorities have been forcibly brought inside the boundaries of a number of nations liberated in the recent war, with results that should give us to pause before we launch on a coercion campaign against the corner counties. The recent history of some of these nations is well worth studying, and I'd specially commend it to those Teachtaí who rail at the plenipotentiaries and the Cabinet for not securing a united Ireland right off. Of course they do not realise that this Treaty gives us just as much control over the destinies of East Ulster as the British Parliament has and, what is still more important, an excellent chance of getting complete control. The economic argument is all in our favour---the railways, the markets, the customs---and this will always continue to be the decisive argument in favour of unification. For my part I'd prefer to see East Ulster stand out at first, so that our minorities may get a chance of having justice done to them in the making of boundaries and for the additional reason that I would not care to see a province of the size of North Ireland as it stands come into the Irish Free State. The establishment of the Irish Free State is, to my mind, not only a big step towards the ideal of an independent Ireland, but also a big step towards the ideal of a united Ireland, for were we to set up a Republic here in Southern Ireland I fear the unity which we all aspire to would hardly come in this generation. On the other hand, I look forward with confidence to the day when the demand for a Republic will come from a united Ireland, and that day we can say with certainty England will not and dare not refuse it. The fourth ground on which I consider the Treaty worthy of support is that it gives us all the essentials of economic freedom. One item of vital importance to Ireland has been almost overlooked in the discussion of the Treaty and that is the question of trade and commerce. The delegates have succeeded in bringing back full and complete fiscal freedom, thereby winning the right for us to protect our industries against English or any other foreign goods, to trade freely with the outside world, and to make commercial treaties with whom we may. This power has always been regarded in Ireland as the acid test of freedom, and we can only appreciate its importance properly when we remember that it was on this principle the Volunteers of '82 took their historic stand for independence. The picture of the Volunteers in College Green with the motto "Free Trade or else" suspended from the muzzles of their guns is eloquent of the importance the Irish nation has always attached to the right which our delegates have now once and for all established by the Treaty. With this control I believe we will be able to make Ireland economically strong enough to resist any aggression or threat of aggression from without; and this economic strength is the first thing we should aim at for it means a bigger and more vigorous population, a self-contained country and, if you like to put it so, much greater fighting potential. If we got a Republic of the Cuban type, for instance, we would in return have to surrender some of our freedom on such vital matters as trade and defence, for it too would have to be in the nature of a compromise and, putting the Central American brand of freedom side by side with ours, I think ninety-nine men out of every hundred, if it were a matter of choice, would any day vote for ours. I'm not going to say war with England is inevitable if the Treaty should be rejected. I think, in fact, there has been too much exploitation of this bogey by people on the side of ratification. Lloyd George would scarcely be such a fool as to declare war on us over the wording of an oath. He might even be persuaded to go further and give us a Republic of the Central American variety with all the forms of independence and none of the substance. Any of these settlements would, of course, entail a compromise of some kind on our part. What would we have to compromise? Nothing that I see except some of the substance we have got in this Treaty---control of our customs, control of our army, and probably another port or two. Where would the independence that we say we are working for come in then? Where is it in Cuba, for instance---the beau-ideal of some prominent members of the opposition?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Another misrepresentation.
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MR. M. COLLINS:
Another interruption.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am entitled to interrupt when he makes a misrepresentation.
MR. MACCABE:
This is some of the substance of freedom that Cuba had to surrender for her so-called independence:---No Treaty with foreign power, etc.; no debts that current revenue will not meet; intervention in certain circumstances; Naval and coaling stations; Reciprocal Treaty; Government by a Commission from 1906 to 1909. Now I put it to any sensible man or woman whether it is not better to take the essentials of freedom first which we are undoubtedly getting in the Treaty and look for the symbols afterwards, or plunge the country into chaos on the chance of getting this shadowy independence, but with the dead certainty of creating Mexican conditions in the country. Then there are other things to consider which no one here has thought it worth while mentioning although, to my mind, they are the real kernel of the situation. We are in a very backward condition, socially and economically speaking. We have, in fact, as far as the other countries of Europe are concerned, been practically standing still for nine or ten years; the land question is still us far as ever from settlement; a number of our industries are leading a precarious existence: labour is restless and aggressive. Do the Deputies opposed to this settlement think that all the elements interested in these vital questions will stand passively impracticable at the moment? Do they for an ideal that to most of them seems by and let this fight go on indefinitely think the farmers, the backbone of national Ireland, broken and disheartened by the crash in prices, will stand idly by while we run the country to ruin? For this is what rejection really means---not war. War against England would probably unite the army if it would not unite the country, but our enemies are too wily to force war on us. It is not war we are faced with but disunion, internal strife, chaos, and a retreat, perhaps, to the position we held when this war began. Finally there is this aspect of the question to be considered: the moral effect of a prolonged state of war on the population. We have already seen the effect it has had on such countries as Germany and Russia and, to a lesser extent, on England---how it has put passions of every kind in the saddle. Murder, robbery, arson, every brute instinct asserts itself when the doctrine of force alone is being preached abroad. Life will become cheap. Men will settle their quarrels with Webleys instead of their fists. The striker will abandon the peaceful method of picketing for the bomb and the torch. The landless workers will have recourse to more deadly weapons than hazel sticks in attacking the ranches. I'm not painting the picture any blacker than it is likely to be if this fight is to be carried on to a finish or until Document No. 2 is signed, sealed and delivered. For my part I stand by the goods that have been already delivered. In case this House does not stand by them I'd make one request to the succession Cabinet before sitting down. It is this: Give us Dominion Home Rule, give us Repeal of the Union. Give us anything that will stamp us as white men and women, but for Heaven's sake don't give us a Central American Republic.
MRS. MARGARET PEARSE:
I rise to support the motion of our President for the rejection of this Treaty. My reasons for doing so are various, but my first reason for doing so I would like to explain here to-day is on my sons' account. It has been said here on several occasions that Pádraig Pearse would have accepted this Treaty. I deny it. As his mother I deny it, and on his account I will not accept it. Neither would his brother Willie accept it, because his brother was part and parcel of him. I am proud to say to-day that Pádraig Pearse was a follower and a disciple, and a true disciple, of Tom Clarke's. Therefore he could not accept this Treaty. I also wish to say another reason why I could not accept it is the reason of fear. As I explained here at the private meeting, that from 1916---I now wish to go over this again in public---from 1916 until we had the visits from the Black-and-Tans I had comfortable, nice, happy nights and happy days because I knew my boys had done right, and I knew I had done right in giving them freely for their country, but when the Black-and-Tans came---then no nights, no days of rest had I. Always we had to be on the alert. But even the Black-and-Tans alone would not frighten me as much as if I accepted that Treaty: because I feel in my heart---and I would not say it only I feel it---that the ghosts of my sons would haunt me. Now another thing has been said about Pádraig Pearse: that he would accept a Home Rule Bill such as this. Well he would not. Now, in my own simple way I will relate a thing that happened, I think it was in 1915 or 1916. He sent me into Dublin on a very urgent message, and when I came to Westmoreland Street I saw on the placards Home Rule Bill Passed. At that time I knew very little of politics. I was going on a very urgent message as I told you. I leaped out of my tram, got into another and went as fast as I could up the roads of Rathfarnham. When I went in I found him, as usual, writing, and he turned round and said: `Back so quickly?' `Yes,' said I, `the Home Rule Bill is passed'. He sat writing: the tears came into his eyes. He got up and, putting his arms around me, said: `Little mother, this is not the Home Rule Bill we want, but perhaps in a short time you will see what we intend to do and what freedom we intend to fight for'. He then asked me about what he had sent me for, but I had come back without it. `Never mind,' he said, `I will do it myself to-morrow; go and get something to eat'. I said to him then: `What are you going to do?' `Mother,' he said, `don't ask me, but you will know time enough'. Now, in the face of this, do you mean to tell me Pádraig Pearse would have voted for this Treaty? I say no! I am sure here to-day the man to whom Pádraig Pearse addressed these words---I am certain he is present---he said that he could understand the case for compromise, but personally rejected it. As an instance: when discussing the now much-mooted question of Colonial Home rule he said that had he ever a voice in rejecting or accepting such proposals his vote would be cast amongst the noes. Well now my vote for accepting this is equal to his. I may say just a word on the oath. Our friend Mr. MacCabe read out the Ten Commandments. All I can say is what our catechism taught us in my days was: it is perjury to break your oath. I consider I'd be perjuring myself in breaking the oath I had taken to Dáil Eireann. An oath to me is a most sacred vow made in the presence of Almighty God to witness the truth, and the truth alone. Therefore that is another reason of mine. Now men here may think little of an oath, and think little of a word of honour, but I repeat here a little incident that happened twenty minutes before Pádraig Pearse was executed in Kilmainham, and it will let you know what he thought of a word of honour much less an oath. He, poor fellow, had something written for you Irishmen, and to-day I am ashamed of some of you here. Had that note then come out from Kilmainham, I am sure we would have had many more on our side in rejecting this Treaty, but the priest whom he wished to take out that document had given his word of honour to the British Government that he would take out nothing. Pádraig asked him to take out the document---at least, to take it to his mother, because he knew that if his mother got it, it would be put into the right quarters. The priest told him: `Pádraig,' he said, `I have given my word of honour to take out nothing'. `Well, Father,' he said, `if you have given your word of honour don't break it, but ask those in charge to give mother this because she is bound to hear it sometime and I want to get it out now'. If that document had been got out---it may be got yet, but, alas! I am afraid it is too late---the people here would not have made up their minds so willingly to go the wrong path and not the right path. People will say to me: `The people of Ireland want this Treaty'. I have been through Ireland for the past few years and I know the hearts and sorrows of the wives of Ireland. I have studied them; no one studied them more, and let no one here say that these women from their hearts could say they accept that Treaty. They say it through fear; they say it through fear of the aeroplanes and all that has been said to them. Now I will ask you again: there are some members here who may remember what Pádraig Pearse said in the early autumn of 1916. He said it when he was inspecting the Volunteers at Vinegar Hill. He told them there on that day: `We, the Volunteers, are formed here not for half of Ireland, not to give the British Garrison control of part of Ireland. No! we are here for the whole of Ireland'. Therefore Pádraig Pearse would not have accepted a Treaty like this with only two-thirds of his country in it. In the name of God I will ask the men that have used Pádraig Pearse's name here again to use it in honour, to use it in truthfulness. One Deputy mentioned here about rattling the bones of the dead. I only wish we could recall them. Remember, the day will come---soon, I hope, Free State or otherwise---when those bones shall be lifted as if they were the bones of saints. We won't let them rattle. No! but we will hold what they upheld, and no matter what anyone says I feel that I and others here have a right to speak in the name of their dead [Applause].
MR. EOIN O'DUFFY:
I think too much time has already been wasted in idle recrimination, by trying to fix responsibility for this error and that error. Now the plenipotentiaries are accused of doing this thing, and the next moment the Cabinet, or perhaps the President, is accused of doing that thing. Cannot it be agreed that we are all out for the one thing---to secure the freedom of our country and that if we differ at all we only differ in ways and means [hear, hear]. Every one of us is entitled to our opinion. One side disagrees with the plenipotentiaries. They disagree with Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins on a point of policy. Another side disagrees with President de Valera on a point of policy; but let not this disagreement blind us to the sterling worth of these three men---these three men who, above all others, have done the most to break the enemy's strength in this country. I still refer to England as our enemy in the country. I hold that I, as a more or less silent member of the Dáil---this is the first time I attempted to speak---that I am as much responsible for everything that occurred as well as everybody else. I was present here at the Session of the Dáil before our plenipotentiaries went across. I heard the correspondence read from Lloyd George to the President, and heard the replies from the President to Lloyd George. I heard what took place at the different Cabinet meetings; certain documents were handed out to us, and on that data I am in a position to make up my mind. I am sure everybody here is in the same position. Let us, then, get away from all these things of trying to fix responsibility and, even at the eleventh hour, consider the Treaty before us on its merits. There is not very much to be gained by making flank attacks in a place like this, how ever decisive they may be elsewhere. I think, too, it should be agreed that no party---unfortunately there are two parties---that neither party has the monopoly of patriotism, that neither party has the monopoly of principle, and that neither party can claim to be the sole custodians of the nation's honour. Now as regards the Treaty I am in favour of it for two or more reasons. The first reason is that only one or two out of the 35,000 people I represent are against it; and the second reason is that I believe the judgment of my constituents is correct on this occasion under the circumstances. As regards my right to voice the feelings of my constituents, that has already been threshed out here and in the Press. I need not labour it except to say, in my own opinion, the will of a constituency should prevail against the will of any one individual who may happen to be their mouthpiece at this particular time. It cannot be denied that this Treaty has the support of the country. The position is so grave that Deputies should weigh it very carefully before they take the responsibility of flouting the practically unanimous voice of the sovereign people of Ireland, before they refuse point blank to faithfully voice their people's will, because the people's will is mightier than the sword. I do not propose to go into the military situation. I did that in Private Session and all I would say now is that I'd ask the Deputies to bear in mind the facts I placed before them. The officers here who have the courage to stand up and state what they know to be true from experience, stated it also in Private Session; but now, unfortunately, in Public Session these same officers have been called cowardly and dishonest, said to be lacking in military knowledge, and I think some one said it would be better if some of them had fallen in the fight. Well we cannot prevent any civilian who happens to be a member of this House making remarks like this---intolerable and unseemly remarks. We cannot stop that, but the people who fought with us officers know us, and those people will not believe those remarks; and I hope, too, that if we have to go to fight again, and if we have to fight along with these people, that they will have no less confidence in us. I do not propose to occupy your time by going into the merits of the Treaty, except very superficially. The principal clauses that appeal to me are the evacuation of Ireland by England's forces, civil and military, and the setting up of our own army, trained and fully equipped. That, I admit, is not freedom, but as the Minister of Finance said in his statement, it is freedom to secure it. Our comrades died, in my opinion, to bring about Freedom, and I think it is towards freedom when a British soldier or a British policeman, in uniform, cannot be seen in the streets of Dublin; I think it is towards freedom when we will have our own National Army established here to safeguard the liberty of our people. The deaths of our comrades, and their deaths alone, brought that about [Applause]. Parnell was quoted here as saying that no man has the right to set limits to the march of a nation. No man has a right to try to make a nation travel faster than it is able without replenishing it on its journey, if it finds it difficult to reach the goal. I know that freedom is worth all the blood that has been shed for it; but why to-day should we, fully alive to all the facts of the situation, why should we sacrifice the manhood of Ireland, the young men that we require so much to build up the future of the Irish nation? Have the young men of Ireland to be sacrificed to get up a step on the ladder, and in order to secure what this Treaty gets for us---to get the British forces out, to get the Irish forces in, and to develop our own life in our own way, free from interference by England's armed forces or, what is worse, by peaceful penetration. There are a number of things in the Treaty that we do not like, but we must understand that liberty in every country is restricted by treaties and mutual understandings in relation to its neighbours. I think there is not a small nation in the world has secured so much by physical force alone, without any outside support, as Ireland [hear, hear]. Through the success of our arms and methods of warfare it has been rendered possible for us to negotiate a Truce and later on a Treaty. On the ratification of this Treaty Ireland passes from what was known all over the world as a domestic question to a position of sovereign status in the League of Nations. In practice, Ireland is invested with almost all the attributes and essentials of nationhood. There is no longer any obligation on us to take part in England's war or pay for it. We have full control in internal affairs and full control of external trade and commerce. But, what is most important of all, we have the language, because without the language I do not think we would be qualified for full independence. Now we may assume the hustle for freedom is only beginning; we have now our destinies in our own hands and if we do not secure freedom then it is our own fault. I think we will secure our freedom; I prefer to trust the Irish people. Let us, in God's name, go ahead and build the Irish nation. I have confidence, whatever may be our decision here, whether the Treaty be accepted or rejected, that every man and woman in this assembly and every man and woman outside this assembly will work together harmoniously for the freedom of our country. In South Africa the Boers had a Republic before the South African War. They were beaten by force of arms and forced to submit to more humiliating terms than this Treaty offers us. Would it be considered dishonourable on the part of the Boers, if opportunity offered, if they tried to secure back the Republic again? I hold there is no finality in this world, and to secure the freedom of our country there is more surety by ratifying this Treaty than by rejecting it. The position we occupy to-day has been truly won by the living and the dead. It is not our goal, but I hold that it brings the ball inside the fourteen yards' line. Let us maintain our position there and by keeping our eye on the goal the major score is assured. I now come to the North-East, and I want to say a little on that because very little has been said about it up to the present. At the outset I should say that I am not very enthusiastic over the Ulster clauses in this Treaty, and I think nobody is; but no one in this House, I think, suggests now, or ever suggested, that Ulster should be coerced. We are unanimous about that. It is all very fine to say, as has been said by another Deputy, that the plenipotentiaries and those who support them have betrayed Ulster. The people of Ulster will understand at once that such idle statements as those, not followed by acts, will bring them no farther. Only one Deputy speaking against the Treaty dealt with Ulster at any length at all. He was interrupted and asked for his policy and he said that he had none because it was none of his business. I hold it is the business of everyone who has a policy with regard to Ulster to bring it forward, and surely, above all, it is the business of a man who lives in Ulster and represents an Ulster constituency to come forward with a policy . I say he is the man and not the plenipotentiaries or the men who support them. If he has a policy I'd prefer to have his opinion. I have spent the greater part of my life in Ulster. I know it well. I know the business men of Ulster don't want separation because they fear economic pressure---the boycott has given them a taste of that. In the Gazette every week at least two or three of the principal men in Belfast appeared there for bankruptcy. With bankruptcy staring numbers of others in the face they will see that the Northern Parliament comes to terms with the rest of Ireland, and if they refuse to do it they will kick them out. Though the present war was between Ireland and England, Belfast has lost thousands of pounds in business. Since the Truce they have made a desperate effort to bring back their old customers again, and now of their own free will I am satisfied that they will not cut themselves adrift from a prosperous Ireland. I could quote instances we had of bitter dissatisfaction on the part of Ulster business men with the policy of Messrs. Coote, McGuffin and Co. To put it shortly, the business men of the North-East want to join up with the rest of Ireland. They are in favour of this Treaty being ratified, but the Orange assassins are against it. Personally I would prefer, and a number of Ulster Catholics agree with me, that it would be better, perhaps, that Ulster should not come in with the rest of Ireland for a time; that they should stay out just for a trial. Later on they will find out that they have to come in, and they will be easier spoken to. It was put up here also that part of Monaghan, part of Cavan and part of Donegal would be included in the Northern Counties' Parliament. The man that made that statement does not know anything about Monaghan. He paid one or two flying visits to it and he is not going back. I know the people of Monaghan, and I know the Unionists of Monaghan. The non-Catholics there are not fools. We made it very clear to them that if they were prepared to join up with the enemy they would get the same treatment as the enemy. Nine or ten of them have got the treatment of the Black-and-Tans, and they admitted they did not get that because of their religious belief, but the got it because they were part and parcel of the enemy. The people of the six counties know that under this Treaty they will be dealt with, as the Minister of Finance said in Armagh, not only justly but generously. Now I may be asked how do I reconcile with that statement a statement of my own at Armagh in which I said I was prepared to use the lead on Ulster. I did not then, nor do I now, recommend the lead for the purpose of bringing Ulster in with the rest of Ireland. What I said was that if the Orangemen were to murder our people in cold blood as they had done in the past, then they should get the lead. If they continue to do this my prescription remains the same. Let us consider for a moment what will happen our unfortunate people in the North-East if this Treaty is rejected. My opinion is that there will be callous, cold-blooded murder there again. Of all the atrocities committed in this country by the Black-and-Tans, and God knows there were many, there was nothing to equal the atrocities committed on our Catholic people in Ulster by the "A" and "B" Specials. We have instances of it in Belfast, Dromore, Cookstown, and Newry. I could describe it to you but I do not want to do it. Their action in each case was the same: they took out our people's eyes, put sticks down their throats, broke their arms and legs, and then shot them. That was the policy adopted, and it was the same everywhere; so it must have been an agreed policy. That is the lot that is before our people there if we are not in a position to defend them and ourselves. The Ulster Deputies who vote against this Treaty must understand they have a very grave and solemn responsibility on their shoulders if they throw Ulster back into the position it was in before. I can see no way of avoiding it except acceptance of this Treaty. I know Ulster better than any man or woman in this Dáil because I have faced Ulster's lead on more than one occasion with lead, and in those places where I was able to do it I silenced them with lead. I would have silenced them in very ease with lead if I had as much lead as they had. A lot of people are talking about the non-Catholics of Ulster but it was very little help and encouragement I got from these people for the last two years I was trying to carry on the war against the combined forces of Carson and England, and I can lay claim to as many successes as any man in the country. If the fight should begin again I will, please God, take my place in the fighting line, but I will take good care I will have with me some of these men who are trying to make history for themselves---I will take good care that they take a little risk also. One Deputy in referring to our army officers said: `You who profess to be soldiers'. He said it very ironically and sarcastically. I say, and I am speaking on behalf of our soldiers, we do not profess to be anything but what we are. We are not, perhaps, qualified for the positions we hold; we have no military training, but we are doing the very best we can; and I thought no person chosen to be a member of this House would stand up and criticise statements made by an officer in Private Session. I did not think that day would come so soon. I do not pretend to speak for the dead. All I will say is---`Lord rest the souls of those brave men who fell, and those who fell under my command. God forbid that I would betray them'. At this very moment there are over forty brave men awaiting the hangman's rope. Seven of these come from my Brigade and I got a message from them. That message is: `Don't mind us; we are soldiers, do what you think best for Ireland'. [Applause]. I rather think that would be the message a great many of our Volunteer dead would give if they were able to do it [Applause]. That message does not say they would accept this Treaty; that message does not say they would reject this Treaty; it says they leave it to the Government of Ireland to do what we consider as best. I do not want to keep you very much longer. As regards the oath, I am no authority on these things, but I must say that my conscience is at ease on the matter. Until we secure an isolated Republic there will be some symbol or some form of connection with Britain. While there is there must be some form of oath or recognition, and we should not be wasting our time over any form of words which, when examined very carefully, will have more or less the same meaning. There will be always some form of recognition of his Brittanic Majesty until we get an isolated Republic. It was said here that the Treaty was signed under duress, under threat of war. Well, I do not think, personally, it was necessary that any threat of war should be made. I hold we are in a state of war now; it is only suspended by the Truce. We have our liaison officers---if there was peace we would not have liaison officers---and the enemy have their liaison officers. If negotiations had broken down, or if at any time the Truce broke, there would be a resumption of hostilities. The plenipotentiaries were aware of that and they should have known a breakdown in the negotiations would have led to a resumption of hostilities. I think that is what was in their minds when they said they were signing under the threat of a terrible war. In conclusion I want to say what I think might happen in the event of the Treaty being rejected. It is only my own opinion. It is generally admitted here that there will be either war or political chaos. Personally I would prefer war. I agree with another speaker who said he would prefer war to political chaos. I fear that political chaos would break the morale of our army in less than six months' time. There would be unofficial shootings here, unofficial raids there, indiscipline and, perhaps, disaffection. Should that happen, all our efforts are in vain, for our only hope is in the army. For this reason I believe we must renew hostilities if we are to keep the army knit together in a fighting bond. I do not know would England declare war on us. I am not concerned with that or have no fear personally. But I feel we must renew hostilities if we are to hold the army together, and my opinion is that the army is our only hope. I am glad that a Deputy from Cork, in speaking for his Brigade, said he was prepared. I know he is prepared, and I know the army in my constituency is prepared; but I know also they have a policy and I know a good many others here know what they are going to do. But fighting on the field as a soldier is one thing, and taking responsibility for it here is quite another thing. Personally I consider, and I think I said it before, that the chief pleasure I felt in freedom was fighting for it. But as a Deputy with a very big responsibility on my shoulders I have to weigh the pros and cons very carefully. I might be asked, and probably would be asked: `What about the army if the Treaty be ratified?' My answer to that is: we are not bound to have an Army under this Treaty if it is ratified. It says `we may'. But I say this: we can have an Irish Volunteer Army that will be a model to the world in discipline and courage.
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
I have very little to say on this subject that is before us, because I stand definitely against this so-called Treaty and the arguments in favour of acceptance---of compromise, of departing from the straight road, of going off the path, and the only path that I believe this country can travel to its freedom. These arguments are always so many at all times and with all causes, while the arguments in favour of doing the right and straight thing are so few because they are so plain. That is why I say I have very little to say. An effort has been made here from time to time by speakers who are in favour of this Treaty, to show that everybody here in this Dáil was prepared mentally or otherwise to compromise on this point during the last few months. I wish, anyway, as one person, to state that is not so. I am speaking for myself now on this, and I state certainly that, consciously or unconsciously, I did not agree to any form of compromise. We were told that when the negotiations took place we were compromised. We have been told that since this Dáil meeting. This is not so because negotiations do not connote compromise. Entering into negotiations with the British Government did not in the least presuppose that you were going to give away your case for independence. When the British Government, following upon the Truce, offered, as it did, to discuss this whole case of Ireland, Ireland had no option but to enter into such a discussion. To refuse to have done so would have been the worse thing for the Irish case, and would have put Ireland very wrong in the eyes of the world. There was no surrender involved in entering into such a discussion; and when the plenipotentiaries went on their journey to England they went, not as the plenipotentiaries of a Republican Party in Ireland, not as the envoys of any political creed in this country, but they went as the envoys plenipotentiary of the Irish Republican Government, and, as such, they had no power to do anything that would surrender the Irish Republic of which they were plenipotentiaries. They were sent there to make, if they could, a treaty of settlement---personally I doubt if it could be done---but they were not sent to bring about what I can only call a surrender. I am not placing the plenipotentiaries in the dock by stating this, but I am stating what are plain facts. It is no reflection on them to state these things. In item 3 of the instructions given to the plenipotentiaries it is stated: `It is also understood that the complete text of the draft Treaty about to be signed will be similarly submitted to Dublin and a reply awaited'. The Dáil had no chance of discussing this Treaty as it should be discussed because the ground was cut from under the feet of the Dáil with the publication of this Treaty to the world before the Dáil had a chance of discussing it. The delegates, I repeat, had no power to sign away the rights of Ireland and the Irish Republic. They had no mandate to sign away the independence of this country as this Treaty does. They had no power to agree to anything inconsistent with the existence of the Republic. Now either the Republic exists or it does not. If the Republic exists, why are we talking about stepping towards the Republic by means of this Treaty? I for one believed, and do believe, that the Republic exists, because it exists upon the only sure foundation upon which any government or Republic can exist, that is, because the people gave a mandate for that Republic to be declared. We are hearing a great deal here about the will of the people, and the newspapers---that never even recognised the Republic when it was the will of the people---use that as a text for telling Republicans in Ireland what the will of the people is. The will of the people, we are told by one of the Deputies who spoke here, is that this Treaty shall go through---that this Treaty shall be ratified [hear, hear]. The will of the people! Let me for a moment carry your minds back to the 21st January, 1919, and I am going to read to you---I make no apology to this House whatsoever for the length of time I keep them in reading it, or to the people of Ireland for the length of time they are waiting while this thing is being discussed---I am going to read the Declaration of the Independence of this country based upon the declared will of the people at the elections in 1918, and ratified since at every election [Applause]. This is the official translation of the Declaration of Independence as contained in the official report of the proceedings, of the Dáil on that date:
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Whereas the Irish people is by right a free people: and whereas for seven hundred years the Irish people has never ceased to repudiate and has repeatedly protested in arms against foreign usurpation: and whereas English rule in this country is, and always has been, based upon force and fraud, and maintained by military occupation against the declared will of the people: and whereas the Irish Republic was proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday, 1916, by the Irish Republican Army acting on behalf of the Irish people: and whereas the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its complete independence in order to promote the common weal, to re-establish justice, to provide for future defence, to insure peace at home and goodwill with all nations and to constitute a national polity based upon the people's will, with equal right and equal opportunity for every citizen: and whereas at the threshold of a new era in history the Irish electorate has, in the general election of December, 1918, seized the first occasion to declare, by an overwhelming majority, its firm allegiance to the Irish Republic: now therefore we, the elected representatives of the ancient Irish people in National Parliament assembled, do, in the name of the Irish nation, ratify the establishment of the Irish Republic and pledge ourselves and our people to make this declaration effective by every means at our command: we ordain that the elected representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to which that people will give its allegiance: we solemnly declare foreign government in Ireland to be an invasion of our national right which we will never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation of our country by the English Garrison: we claim for our national independence the recognition and support of every free nation of the world, and we proclaim that independence to be a condition precedent to international peace hereafter: in the name of the Irish people we humbly commit our destiny to Almighty God Who gave our fathers the courage and determination to persevere through long centuries of a ruthless tyranny, and strong in the justice of the cause which they have handed down to us, we ask His Divine blessing on this, the last stage of the struggle we have pledged ourselves to carry through to Freedom.
</SMALL>
There, to my mind, is the will of the people. There is the Irish Republic existing, not a mandate to seek a step towards an Irish Republic that does not exist. The will of the people! The British Government has always sought, during the last century of this struggle in Ireland, to get the consent of the Irish people for whatever it wants to impose upon them. If the English Government wanted to make concessions to Ireland it had the power to do so even though it had not the right, and we could take whatever it was willing to give without giving away our case. But this Treaty gives away our case because it abrogates the Republic. The British Government passed a Home Rule Bill; it is still upon the statute book of the British Government and was never put into force because, when the time came to put it into force, the British Government found that the Irish people did not want it. The British Government since then has passed Act after Act and each time has been forced to overlook its own Acts, to forget about them, and to-day through this Treaty the British Government seeks to gain the consent of the Irish people to this measure. The British Government intends to try and find a way out because it has more experience than ourselves of what it means to have the people of Ireland with it---to get the assent of the Irish people to whatever it wants to do with Ireland. The will of the people! Why, even Lloyd George recognised the will of the people at one time. Speaking in the House of Commons in April, 1920, he said: `If you ask the people of Ireland what they would accept, by an emphatic majority they would say `we want independence and an Irish Republic'. There is absolutely no doubt about that. The elected representatives of Ireland now, by a clear definite majority, have declared in favour of independence---of secession.' Now, when Lloyd George admits that, it seems strange when we ourselves say that we never believed in the Irish Republic; that it was only a myth, something that did not exist, and that to-day we are still working towards the Irish Republic. To my mind the Republic does exist. It is a living tangible thing, something for which men gave their lives, for which men were hanged, for which men are in jail for which the people suffered, and for which men are still prepared to give their lives. It was not a question so far as I am aware, before any of us, or the people of Ireland, that the Irish heifer was going to be sold in the fair and that we were asking a high price so that we would get something less. There was no question of making a bargain over this thing, over the honour of Ireland, because I hold that the honour of Ireland is too sacred a thing to make a bargain over. We are told this is a question as between document referred to as No. 1 and Document No. 2. At this moment there is only one document before this House, and when that is disposed of as I do hope it will be disposed of in the proper way, then we will deal with any other documents that come up in the same way if they are not in conformity with the Irish Republic. There is no question before us of two documents or two sides, but there is a question of maintaining the existing Republic of Ireland or going back on it, throwing it out and accepting something in substitution for it with a view to getting back again to the Irish Republic. Let us face facts as we did so often during the last few years. We are not afraid of the facts. The facts are that the Irish Republic exists. People are talking to-day of the will of the people when the people themselves have been stampeded as I know because I paid a visit to my constituency. The people are being stampeded; in the people's minds there is only one alternative to this Treaty and that is terrible, immediate war. During the adjournment I paid a trip to the country and I found that the people who are in favour of the Treaty are not in favour of the Treaty on its merits, but are in favour of the Treaty because they fear what is to happen if it be rejected. That is not the will of the people, that is the fear of the people [hear, hear]. The will of the people was when the people declared for a Republic. Under this Treaty---this Treaty constitutes concessions to Ireland. It is, if you like, a new Coercion act in the biggest sense in which any Coercion act was ever made to Ireland. One thing you must bear in mind and make up your minds about: the acceptance of this Treaty destroys the existing Irish Republic. Whether we like it or not we become British subjects, British citizens. We have now a common citizenship with the English people, and evidently there is going to be a new citizenship invented---Anglo-Irish Citizenship. It is well known what you are going to get under this Treaty. The very words `Irish Free State,' so called, constitute a catch-phrase. It is not a state, it is part of a state; it is not free, because England controls every vital point; it is not Irish, because the people of Ireland established a Republic. Lloyd George may well to-day laugh up his sleeve. What must his thoughts have been, what must his idea have been, when he presented this document for signature? `lf they divide on this, we can let them fight it out, and we will be able to hold the country; if they accept, our interests are so well safeguarded that we can still afford to let them have it.' Rejection, we are told, would mean war. I, for one, do not hold it would mean immediate war at all, but I do hold that the unanimous rejection of this Treaty would put our case in such a fashion before the world that I do not believe England would, until she got some other excuse, dare to make war on the basis of the rejection of that. The question is not how to get a step towards the Republic. The question for us to decide here as the Government of the Irish Republic is how we are going to maintain the Republic, and how we are going to hold the Republic. Instead of discussing this Treaty here we should be considering how we are going to maintain the Republic after that Treaty has been rejected and put upon one side. We have acted up to this in the belief that the authority for Government in Ireland has been derived from the Irish people. We are now going to change that. If this Treaty goes through we are going to have authority in Ireland derived from a British act of Parliament, derived from the British Government under the authority of the British King. Somebody stated here there was more intelligent discussion down the country on this Treaty. I agree perfectly with him. I was in the country and I met the people at their firesides. I met people in favour of the Treaty, but I found no one under any delusion about it whatsoever. We have been told, presumably as a reason for accepting this, that before in Ireland chieftains and parliaments, and representatives of the people had admitted the right of the British Government to exist here. We were reminded of King John visiting the Irish chiefs and we know what happened the Irish chiefs when the Irish people realised what the Irish chiefs had done: We know the day when you had the Irish O'Donnells the `Queen's O'Donnells,' and the Irish O'Reillys the `Queen's O'Reillys.' I wonder will we ever see the day when we have the Irish Republicans the `King's Republicans.' The Parliament of 1782 did not represent the people of Ireland because it admitted the King as its head. This is the first assembly in the history of Ireland, since the British occupation, which is representative of the people of Ireland. It is here because the people of Ireland wished it to be here. The Parliamentary Party after years of efforts, when they in their turn had done their best, they went the way that all compromising parties go. Compromising parties may last for a time, may do good work for a time in so far as they are able to do that good work, but inevitably they go the way all compromising parties go. As it was with the Irish Parliamentary Party so it will be with the Irish Free State Parties and I say that with all respect. The Irish people have, thanks be to God, the tradition of coming out and speaking their true selves no matter how many times they may be led astray. Has the whole object of this fight and struggle in Ireland been to secure peace? Peace we have preached to us here day in and day out---peace, peace, peace------
A DEPUTY:
Peace with honour.
MR. MELLOWES:
Yes! that is what we want. We do not want peace with surrender, and we do not want peace with dishonour. If peace was the only object why, I say, was this fight ever started? Why did we ever negotiate for what we are now told is impossible? Why should men have ever been led on the road they travelled if peace was the only object? We could have had peace, and could have been peaceful in Ireland a long time ago if we were prepared to give up the ideal for which we fought. Have we now to give it up for the sake of this so-called peace? If peace is that which is to be the pursuit of the people then this Treaty will not bring them peace because there will be restless souls in the country who will not be satisfied under this Free State to make peace in this Free State possible. I use no threats, but you cannot bring peace by compromise. You cannot bring peace to a people when it does not also bring honour. This Treaty brings neither honour nor anything else. It brings to the people certain material advantages, such, I say, as they could have had long ago if they were prepared to sink their identity as Scotland did. Ireland has never been prepared to do that, and I do not believe she shall ever be prepared to do it. If this is a step towards the Republic how can it be contended that it means peace? Under the terms of this Free State are you going to be strong enough to say to the British Government `Hands off'? You will have an army, it is true, but it will be an army in which the incentive which kept the fight alive for the last few years will be lacking. Who will tell the British Government, when the time has come to tell it, keep its hands off? Will you be any more united then than you are now? Will all of you in favour of this Free State look forward to the time when you are going to say to the British Government: `You must not have anything more to do with us'? You will not. Human nature, even the strongest human nature, is weak, and the time will inevitably come, if this Free State comes into existence, when you will have a permanent government in the country, and permanent governments in any country have a dislike to being turned out, and they will seek to fight their own corner before anything else. Men will get into positions, men will hold power, and men who get into positions and hold power will desire to remain undisturbed and will not want to be removed, or will not take a step that will mean removal in case of failure. I only speak my mind on this matter. But to me it is very clear there is only one road this country can travel. It is the road we tried to travel together as best we could. It is the right road, and now if there should be a parting of the ways some of us, if God gives us the strength and courage, will travel it no matter what. Under this Treaty the Irish people are going to be committed within the British Empire. We have always in this country protested against being included within the British Empire. Now we are told that we are going into it with our heads up. The British Empire stands to me in the same relationship as the devil stands to religion. The British Empire represents to me nothing but the concentrated tyranny of ages. You may talk about your constitution in Canada, your united South Africa or Commonwealth of Australia, but the British Empire to me does not mean that. It means to me that terrible thing that has spread its tentacles all over the earth, that has crushed the lives out of people and exploited its own when it could not exploit anybody else. That British Empire is the thing that has crushed this country, yet we are told that we are going into it now with our heads up. We are going into the British Empire now to participate in the Empire's shame even though we do not actually commit the act, to participate in the shame and the crucifixion of India and the degradation of Egypt. Is that what the Irish people fought for freedom for? We are told damn principles. Aye, if Ireland was fighting for nothing only to become as most of the other rich countries of the world have become, this fight should never have been entered upon. We hoped to make this country something the world should be proud of, and we did not enter into the fight to make this country as the other countries, where its word was not its bond, and where a treaty was something to be struggled for. That was not the ideal that inspired men in this cause in every age, and it is not the ideal which inspires us to-day. We do not seek to make this country a materially great country at the expense of its honour in any way whatsoever. We would rather have this country poor and indigent, we would rather have the people of Ireland eking out a poor existence on the soil; as long as they possessed their souls, their minds, and their honour. This fight has been for something more than the fleshpots of Empire. Peace! peace! is the consideration. Is this Treaty going to bring you peace? No! Under Clause 7 you are going to be made a cock-pit of the next naval war in which England is engaged, because your docks and coast-line are given up, unfortunately, to the British Government to use as it sees fit. As against that we are told if we do not accept this Treaty we are going to have war. Every argument that I heard here to-day in favour of this Treaty is the argument I heard years ago against the question of ever attaining an Irish Republic. Every argument used here was the argument used by the Irish Parliamentary Party when fighting elections in this country. Every argument I heard here to-day was the argument everyone here had to answer in reply to those who faced them years ago. War! we are told. Were the people of Ireland afraid of war when they faced conscription in this country? They were threatened with annihilation. It was a question then of whether they would fight at home or abroad and they decided to fight at home. When the General Election came on they were threatened with war again. They were told that the corollary to acceptance of the Republican mandate or the Republican platform was war. The people of Ireland did not flinch. They accepted the issue and the issue, as we have seen since, was not war, but the people of Ireland did not flinch. This Treaty reminds me of the Treaty of Versailles, of the miserable end up to that bloody holocaust when the nations of the earth, after fighting supposedly for ideals, parcelled out amongst themselves the spoils of the young soldiers. The misguided young men who fought in that conflict were left disillusioned. Is this Treaty going to be a Treaty of Versailles? Are the Irish people to be told that when we spoke of a Republic we did not mean it? Are the Irish people to be told that when we spoke of independence we meant to be inside the British Empire and that when we spoke of ideals we meant morally? I say no! We did not mean that. You could point out to me for all time, day after day as long as you like, the material advantages to be gained under this Treaty, and it would remind me very much of what I have read about our Saviour. Having fasted for forty days He was taken by the devil to a height from which He was shown the cities, towns and fair places of the earth and told He could have all those if, bowing down, He would adore the devil. We are told to-day that we will get these things in return for the selling of our honour. I say selling of our honour; others here may not mean it; others here may not have the same view of it as I have, but my view is that we are selling the honour of Ireland for this mess of pottage contained in the Treaty. Under the future of this Free State, if it goes through, when are we going to know when we will have sincerity in Ireland about the Republic? After you get the Free State what will you take on hands, and what do you mean, when you talk of something next? The Government of the Free State will, with those who support it now liking it or not, eventually occupy the same relationship towards the people of Ireland as Dublin Castle does to-day, because, it will be the barrier government between the British and the Irish people. And the Irish people before they can struggle on will have to do something to remove that Free State Government. That, I think, has been the history of this country most of the time, as it is the history of most countries that go the way now urged by those who support the Free State. If the Free State is accepted and put into operation it will provide the means for the British Government to get its hold back again. It could not beat Ireland with force, it did its best. No war the British Government initiated here could he worse than the terrible mental strain imposed on the people during the last eighteen months. And that war was not levelled so much against the Irish Republican Army as against the people of the Irish Republic, because the British Government had a surer view of the people than we had. They felt that if they could crush the people of Ireland that would mean the end of things in Ireland until the next necessity arose. The British Government did not, for very obvious reasons---because of what it would mean on conditions abroad, and because of what the outside world must necessarily conclude---allow this warfare, as far as it could prevent it, to become one as between the British Army and the Irish Army. But it tried to maintain the appearance of it being a warfare conducted by no representative people, by people who counted for nothing against the forces of the civil authority, and that is why the Black-and-Tans and the Auxiliary forces were organised for special service here. The British Government still keep up the pretended show of maintaining the civil authority in Ireland, even though that civil authority had to be maintained by force of arms. And it was because the British Government saw there was a tangible government here, that the Irish Republic did exist, that it had its hirelings to murder its representatives, to murder Lord Mayor MacCurtin, to murder Mayor O'Callaghan, and to do to death Terence MacSwiney. The British Government recognised that there was a Republic, even though some of our representatives now do not, and the British Government recognised that it must be at the representatives of the Republic that blow must be struck. It knows to-day that the people have the Republic in their minds, in their spirit, and that any act they can do can not crush it. We placed Ireland upon a pedestal for the first time in the history of this country. For the first time in the history of this country we had a Government established by the directly declared will of the people. That Government rested upon the surest of all foundations and placed Ireland in a position it was never in before, since its subjection. Ireland was put forth to the world as a headlight, as a beacon beginning to shine for all time to guide all those who were struggling. The whole world was looking to Ireland for a lead. This downtrodden, this miserable country, as some of you called it, was, during the last few years, the greatest country in God's earth. `Are we always going to adopt the attitude of seeking something that is a little in front of us while the world always moves on?' Ah! how little that Deputy knew of what the world is. How little that Deputy knew that here in this country of ours is contained the germ of great and wonderful things for the world. The world did not move on; it is Ireland has moved on and Ireland has left the world far behind. We can get very insular sometimes, but it is well for us sometimes to see that we are not so downtrodden and miserable as some of us think we are. This country was one of the best in the world. It has fought a fight that will ring down through the ages, and maintained itself well against all the tortures and inflictions that a foreign tyranny knows so well how to impose. It maintained its way up to this stage, and now, not through the force of the British Government, not because of the weight of the British armies, but through the guile of the British Government, and the gullibility of ours we are going to throw away the Irish Republic. Somebody talked about facts. These are facts. We are told that we must have unity. Yes, we want unity, and had unity in Ireland during the last few years, but we had it only on one basis---the basis of the Republic. Destroy that basis and you cannot have unity. Once you take yourselves off that pedestal you place yourselves in a position to pave the way for concession after concession, for compromise after compromise. Once you begin to juggle with your mind or conscience in this matter God knows where you will end, no matter how you try to pull up later on. You can have unity by rejecting this thing; you cannot have unity by approving of it. Rejection means that the Irish Republic exists here, and that we are still the Government of the existing Irish Republic. Accept it and there is no Irish Republic existing because you have destroyed it, because you have abrogated the right of the Dáil, and this Dáil exists here as the Republican Government. It did not exist here for the purpose of changing its status. It was placed here by the people to work for the recognition and the interests of the Republic not to take steps towards the gaining or abolition of it. The Republic is here because it is in our wills. Destroy that by accepting this Treaty and there is no Republic. And you will not have unity and you will not have peace. You can have unity though you may not have peace, but you certainly will have unity and honour by rejecting this Treaty. Accept it and you will destroy the Republic, and even though you gain for Ireland the material advantages---you point out control of our language, et cetera---though you gain these things you throw away that which Ireland found since 1916, that which, after all, imbued Ireland in this phase of the struggle. 1916 did not represent the will of the people; 1916 found very little support from the people, but 1916 has been supported by the people since, and it has been 1916 that based their ideal when they declared for a Republic. From 1916 down to the present day that struggle has gone on. Person after person has been induced to come in and do his or her part. Now, if you accept this Treaty you are going to establish in this country a Government that does away with the Irish Republic. It is not a step towards the Irish Republic but a step away from it. That Treaty admits the right of the British Government to control the destiny of Ireland. Even though you have control of some of the material resources of the country you are going to put yourselves in the position of being within the British Empire, and outside, away from the rest of the world. During the last few years we were beginning to occupy a unique position in the world. As long as we looked upon ourselves as being independent we could appeal to the outside world and so long were we certain of receiving sympathy and help. Now you are inside the British Empire if you accept this Treaty, and, turn where you will, you will be told you are a domestic concern for the British Empire. The League of Nations---what does it mean to this country? The League of Nations---the League of Robbers! We stand, some of us, where we always stood and despite all that has been said in favour of this Treaty we mean to continue standing where we stood in the past. Whatever may happen, whatever the road may be in front of us, we intend, with God's help, to travel it. The time will come yet---I hope it will come soon---when those who are going to depart from the straight road will come back to it. Then we will be together to the end of this fight. I am sorry to inflict such a long statement upon the Dáil. It was not my intention to do so when I stood up, but ideas keep coming to your mind, probably, when you feel so keenly on a matter which represents the ideals for which one has struggled and fought, the ideals for which one is prepared to do the same again, but for which one is not prepared to compromise or surrender no matter what the advantages may be. [Applause].
[The House adjourned at 1.30 p.m. to 3.30 p.m.]
The House resumed at 3.45 p.m., the SPEAKER (Dr. Eoin MacNeill) in the chair.
MR. DESMOND FITZGERALD:
I want to say at the beginning, with regard to the last speaker before lunch, that I agree practically with every word he said. There is one thing I want cleared up because it may be a very fundamental difference. During the speeches in this Dáil there has been constant repetition of the words `Irish Republic,' and it has given the impression that the declaration of the Irish Republic was a declaration in favour of a form of Government as distinct from what I understood it to be. I remember in 1917 a meeting at which the President spoke in the Mansion House, where he said that he accepted the words `Irish Republic' as the best means of making it perfectly clear to the world that we have stood for absolute independence, whereas it seems to me during the course of the discussion in the Dáil that a great many people are fighting for a Republican principle rather than a national principle. Now the last speaker quoted from the Declaration of Independence read at the time, in January, 1919. Now I have always understood by a Free Irish Republic that we meant an independent Ireland, and I think that is borne out by that Declaration of Independence which was read by the member for Galway, and I think it bears out the point made by the member for Monaghan yesterday, namely, that the Irish Republic was looked upon as a means to an end, as one of the weapons used in fighting for the freedom of our country. In the Declaration of Independence adopted by the Dáil in January, 1919, it says: `Whereas the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its complete independence.' It says that, and it goes on to say---and it is before you to-day---that `In order to promote the common weal, to re-establish justice, to provide for future defence, to insure peace at home, and good-will with all nations, and to constitute a national polity based upon the people's will with equal rights and opportunities for every citizen,' et cetera. That was said to be the object we had in mind by complete independence. Now, in reading the present Treaty it seems to me that it tends to promote the common weal; to re-establish justice; to provide, possibly to a limited degree, for future defence; to secure peace at home and good-will with all nations, and to constitute a national polity based upon the people's will with equal right and opportunity for every citizen. It is because I see in this Treaty means to attain those ends that I am supporting this Treaty. And in the declaration of the Dáil in January, 1919, which ratified the establishment of the Irish Republic, it ordained that `The elected representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to which that people will give its allegiance. We solemnly declare foreign government in Ireland to be an invasion of our national right which we will never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation of our country by the English Garrison.' Those things were laid down at that first meeting of the Dáil, and I think that, without being worried by words, including the words `Irish Republic,' there is only one thing to guide us here now as ever, and that is the well-being of the Irish nation. I have always held, and I hold still, that for the complete well-being of the Irish nation sovereign independence is required. We are faced now with this Treaty, and with no alternative to it as far as I can see. I propose supporting the Treaty, because I am satisfied, looking at it, I think, as impartially as possible, that not only does it make for an immediate improvement in the future of this country, but, judging by the possibilities of what will happen by ratification or acceptance, it seems to me that we shall be much nearer the ultimate goal at any period such as I mentioned, by acceptance than by rejection. And I consider that in accepting---for always the one basis as a guide for our actions in this country is the welfare of the Irish nation---that we are not in any way breaking any pledge or abandoning any principle by doing what we are doing. It seems to me that we have one thing to rest assured of, the one thing that was made clear by the last few years' history of this country, and that is, that the tradition of Irish Independence and of Irish Nationality was too strongly embedded in us to be overcome by British Terror or by the disastrous period which preceded 1916. And I say that, given the powers, limited though they be to some small extent by this Treaty, there is no fear whatever of any going back. I look upon the Treaty as an entrenchment of the position so far gained, and I don't see that it is any abandonment of principle. Many things have been asserted about this Treaty which I consider quite unwarranted by any ordinary reading, and I agree with the speakers in this House that it will be the duty to read it in the light most favourable to ourselves. The last speaker said that the Government of the Free State would occupy the same position as Dublin Castle occupies now with regard to the people of this country. That may be so, but there will be this difference: our grievance with Dublin Castle is that it is there, and that it is not in our power to remove it except by physical force, and we have not had, so far, that force to remove it; but I cannot see how anyone can read this Treaty in such a way as to think that any Government which is undesired by the Irish people cannot be removed by the express will of the Irish people [hear, hear]. The last speaker asked how would we know when the time would come to fight again; how would we know when the time would come to strike for what he called an Irish Republic. In the declaration that is posted around the walls now which was made by the leaders of 1916 it was pointed out that in the last three hundred years Ireland had risen in arms some six or seven times. We have no reason to think that our generation or the generations coming after it will be less worthy Irishmen than those who have gone before; and it seems to me that if we accept this Treaty it will be worked by the people as well as they can, always working as Irishmen, thinking of the well-being of their country and when the time comes when they find that there is anything in the Treaty that comes between them and the well being of their country they, by the very oath they take in it, and by the whole tradition of our people, have only one course before them, and that is to act for the well-being of their country without any regard to anything else what ever. It has also been generally understood here that a Treaty is a thing which is made for eternity. It is no such thing. It is well recognised that a Treaty exists as long as it suits two parties to keep it. The last speaker suggested if ever it was for Ireland's good that the Treaty be abandoned we were bound in honour to keep to it. I think it is established the world over that a Treaty exists only until such time as one of the parties to it formally denounces it. I am satisfied that this Treaty bears that interpretation better than any other. It means this, that we do allow a certain limitation of our sovereignty by occupation of certain of our ports; that is to say, that we allow our sovereignty to be interfered with to a rather less degree than the sovereignty of Spain is interfered with by the occupation of Gibraltar. I would ask the member for Cork, who stated his objection to it was that he would see British ships from his house every morning, if he thinks at the present time Spain, in its weak condition, is justified in not considering the feelings of the people of Algeeiras, who also see British forces every morning when they look out? Does he think that Spain is insulted and that she is bound in honour, without any regard for circumstances, to declare war, and to declare war continually on England until that one point is effected? I do not think so. There are one or two points in the Treaty which have been laboured very much. One was the Governor-General, as he is called. The first clause in this Treaty says that the Executive shall be responsible to Parliament in this country. In Britain the Executive is, in fact, responsible to the Parliament, but in form it is responsible to the King. In Ireland, under the Treaty, it is clearly laid down that the Executive is responsible to the Parliament. The opponents of the Treaty contend that the King or his representative on the Council constitutes the Executive. They quoted the Canadian Constitution, 1869, section 9. That may be so if you like. In that case the King or his representative is responsible to the Parliament according to Clause 1 of the Treaty, and the Parliament is responsible to the people. Therefore I shall put the interpretation on the Treaty that the representative of the King of England will be responsible to the Parliament in Ireland which is responsible to the people. If the Crown or its representative means anything more than a symbol of State as Mr. Childers contends, he is the servant of and responsible to the Parliament and the people. Thus we have in the Treaty itself the very demand of the President: `That the legislative, executive and judicial authority of Ireland shall be derived solely from the people of Ireland.' I am satisfied that this Treaty bears that interpretation, and does recognise the sovereignty of Ireland. Sovereignty is of the people and is unalienable, and for that reason I say that, having only one formula to guide us---it is a formula which is not a mere formula, but absolutely basic---that, as the servants of the Irish nation, without abandonment of principle or without any breaking of oaths, we are doing a thing it is quite feasible for us to do in supporting this Treaty. The Republic has been spoken of as if it were a thing existing unchallenged. If that is so, I don't know what we were fighting for. We were fighting for the independence of our country, and that independence was interfered with because England still held our country. Now we have England recognising---whether she agrees that she is recognising it or not---this document in front of us is a recognition of the sovereignty of Ireland, but there is still a limitation of the independence of Ireland. That limitation is agreed to, say, under duress. I don't know of any Treaty that is not signed under duress, and I am quite satisfied that the Treaty was signed under duress not only by the plenipotentiaries, but by the representatives of the British Government. Everyone agrees that it was never love of justice or love of Ireland that induced Mr. Lloyd George to agree to that Treaty. He agreed to it because it was in our power to make it worth his while to agree to Irish independence to that extent. For that reason he signed it under duress and we signed it under duress. By accepting it we have sufficient belief in the Irish people that they will conserve their energy and build up their country, so that at any future time, if it be found that England is acting as the enemy of this country, we will be in a better position to deal with her than we are now [hear, hear]. And I am quite satisfied if at any time Ireland is in a strong enough position to challenge England with a fair chance of success, if England still persists in acting as our enemy, that she will receive final confirmation of the desire of the Irish people for the complete independence of their country. [Applause.]
MR. SEUMAS FITZGERALD (CORK):
During the adjournment I took the opportunity to test my constituents, and to the best of my ability during that short time I felt the pulse of my constituents. I found the following: those individuals who, to my certain knowledge were always against us favoured the Treaty. It was to be expected of them. Those whom we brought with us in the present fight supported the Treaty first because it was boomed in the Press as a great victory. Now they feel compelled to accept it as a mere compromise. The sympathisers and the workers themselves find themselves in a very curious position. They now, what they did not at the beginning of this Session, understand what the Treaty actually is. They realise that we have not won; that Lloyd George has won. They believe that no matter whether you call this, Government of Dáil Eireann, Government of the Republic, or call it the Government of the Saorstát that, for good and all, if we accept this treaty sovereign independence is gone. They feel, some of them, that they should accept the Treaty under duress, but if there is any possibility of uniting and practically unanimously rejecting this Treaty they would prefer that such would be done. Then there are those who bore the brunt of the fight during the past two or three years. They are---and I have ascertained their opinions ---almost unanimously against this Treaty, war or no war. Now one argument that I had to meet that was a fairly serious argument from my point of view; the Press boomed it and the country swallowed it: it was the point of view expressed by Deputy Mellowes that we as a Dáil had, before we sent plenipotentiaries to London definitely made up our minds to agree to compromise. I do not wish to enter into details to controvert that statement. There is an official publication of the Dáil containing all the correspondence that passed between President de Valera acting in his capacity as President of the Republic and Lloyd George; and I defy any single individual to show me throughout the whole of that correspondence by letter and telegram where the interests of the Republic were compromised. Now, the question of the mandate gives a good many Deputies a serious trouble of mind. What is my mandate? The only mandate that I ever remember having received was a mandate to come here to this second Dáil, and to the best of my ability safeguard the interests of the Republic established on the twenty-first January, 1919.
MR. M. COLLINS:
What about 1916?
MR. FITZGERALD:
Now that mandate is clear enough. The individuals who asked me to accept that mandate have not asked me to change. I have in my pocket resolutions passed by Sinn Fein Executives in my own area, and the most important Councils in my own area---those resolutions have not found their way into the Press---reiterating confidence in the Dáil, and expressing at the same time confidence that their representatives will do what they think best in the interests of Ireland. That is my mandate. But even so I find that, without considering the individuals whom I have mentioned, that I have found out that I can also take from them a somewhat similar mandate. Support of the Treaty by those who support it in my constituency is based upon fear, and such a mandate cannot be a true mandate. I have found that the thing that is uppermost in the people's mind is peace rather than the Treaty. Everybody, including myself, is anxious for peace. The people are longing for peace. All are not for the Treaty. It is discussed and it is also cursed. Well, if I find that the people want peace rather than the Treaty, and if I believe that the rejection of this Treaty will give us an opportunity of establishing a real and lasting peace, I would be interpreting, to the best of my ability, the wishes of those individuals who long for peace by voting against the Treaty. The last Deputy who spoke seemed to imagine that England does not mean that this Treaty will be binding. Why are Treaties made at all otherwise? If treaties were not binding we could have war practically in every decade. England would not put certain words in this Treaty unless she honestly intended to see that they were carried through. We know that even upon certain points in the Treaty that she even threatened war. I would imagine that she meant what she said when she asked that this certain phrase or clause would be inserted in the Treaty---if she threatened war. The Treaty is no empty formula to her. She, and not us, has won on principle. The Deputy from Cork, Deputy Walsh, gives an instance of how the provisions of the Treaty could be circumvented, and he stated that Germany gained a few extra points out of the Treaty of Versailles. I maintain that, as regards essential details, that certain points may be gained from treaties from time to time, but I maintain that on fundamentals treaties are essentially binding. They may alter in respect of questions about finances and particular clauses, but I do not believe that on such fundamentals as the questions of sovereignty or defence that England does not recognise that that Treaty is binding. The Deputy who spoke before me claimed that it was not irrevocable in so far as it was signed under duress. What was the duress under which the Treaty was signed? All the plenipotentiaries who signed were not there, and I hold that the duress to make that Treaty invalid should be personal and immediate duress. I do not believe that any of the plenipotentiaries were threatened with immediate death at that period, or that they were threatened with immediate torture. The duress was not immediate. If the matter was brought as a contentious matter before any International Court of Law I believe that, irrespective of England's strength, England would win. Now about the question of the alternative if this Treaty is not ratified. I give those who are supporting the Treaty, or a majority of them, credit, in so far as I believe them to be out for an ultimate Republic. Now I maintain that this Treaty is irrevocable, and to secure an ultimate Republic---the only way we could do it is to cast aside that Treaty, and that means a declaration of war upon England. It is a matter of choice therefore with me as to whether war will be immediate, or whether we must be prepared for war. Let the people understand both alternatives. The alternative on our side is immediate war, and the alternative on the other side, in so far as the Treaty does not satisfy the aspirations of those who signed it, is future war. Some of the speakers who support the Treaty do not believe that war will be necessary. They believe that we could gradually encroach upon this Treaty and that we could take `this thing and this thing and this thing,' as I heard it expressed. I do not believe that that is at all possible. For instance, we will just conceive in our minds the principal people who will work the Irish Free State if it does happen to come into operation. They will be people, the majority of them---I do not mean those who are supporting the Treaty, but I mean those who will come into the Irish Free State Government from outside---whose purely material and sordid interests will hamper your movements in that direction every way they possibly can. The Deputy from Cork, Deputy Walsh, offered a parallel in South Africa. Does he designedly forget the efforts that South Africa made during the period of the great war in Europe to regain a Republic? She was faced with the bitter opposition of her own people, and she lasted but a few months. What will happen if in endeavouring to secure an ultimate Republic in the future, we try to take the Opportunity of England's temporary weakness at such a period and attempt by force of arms to re-establish a Republic? The chaos that you imagine will follow the rejection of this Treaty will be nothing to the chaos that will follow such a course if adopted at such a period. I maintain that our moral position is such at the present time that we can better face war now than we can in ten or twenty years' time. The people of Ireland imagine that it is only solely on the question of the ratification of this Treaty that the alternative of war has been spoken about. I think the members of the Dáil will readily admit that they themselves faced war when they directed the President to transmit the reply he did transmit to Lloyd George on the 24th August last. They will admit that there was a probable break when our President refused to take as granted the letter that he sent to Lloyd George at Gairloch on the 13th September as not having been handed to Lloyd George when the open threat of war was contained therein, and the Dáil accepted that and the country does not seem to have realised it. Even the second last telegraphic communication sent by our President to Lloyd George invited the alternative to open warfare at that time, and the warfare did not come although it took ten full days for the British Cabinet to make up their minds, from the 19th to the 29th September. They did open negotiations, and the result was that our plenipotentiaries went to London. Therefore those who imagine that the only alternative is war are not acting fairly towards the country. If the Treaty is unanimously or otherwise rejected it is due to the President and his Cabinet to formulate a policy, and with that confidence in him that won so much for Ireland, I firmly believe that our confidence in him will not be misplaced at such a juncture. The last speaker said that one of my objections to the Treaty was that a British naval force would be in occupation of Cork Harbour, and that from my residence I would see it evening, night and morn. That was not my argument. My argument was that from my reading of the Treaty I can see the British naval force not there for five years, but there for ever. He pressed forward as an analogy the situation in Algiers. The situation is somewhat different. Algiers is, in a different sense, de facto dependent on France.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Algeciras, which is part of Spain---not `Algiers' which is the opposite side altogether.
MR. FITZGERALD:
I don't know anything about that. I understood him to speak of Algiers. I maintain that certain countries are de facto dependent on other political bodies, but those other countries are better off than we will be under this Treaty in so far as those countries themselves are sovereign. Deputy Fitzgerald, I think, says he believes that Ireland will have sovereign independence under this Treaty. Sovereignty is to me the complete independence of a state from all other states, that the state derives its rights solely from itself and are native to itself; that they are not delegated to it by another state; they are not exercised by virtue of powers conferred on it by any other state or body, that legally and judicially the state is not subject to any other political body. The position that we find at the present time---the Government of the Irish Republic functions on rights derived from itself and native to itself---bespeaks the Government of the Irish Republic as a sovereign assembly. Under this Treaty the authority of the Irish Free State is delegated to it by the British Parliament as legally and judicially subject to the British Crown, and as such, I maintain it cannot be accepted that Ireland under the Treaty will be a sovereign independent nation. The only other thing that it can be is that it will be a subordinate nation of the British Empire. I have heard arguments brought forward here in regard to the sovereign independence of Canada and Australia. In so far as their authority is derived from Britain and is exercised under this superior jurisdiction of Britain I cannot accept it that Australia and Canada are sovereign nations. After the great war the Allies imposed obligations on Germany---and Austria as well---obligations which she could not resist, but Germany still remains sovereign. Legally and judicially its authority was its own and was derived from itself and was not delegated to it by the Allies. I would really prefer this Treaty to recognise the fundamental of Irish sovereignty and be prepared to sacrifice other considerations such as financial considerations, truce clauses, aye, and defence clauses, but only for a certain period. Persia, Afghanistan and others allow other nations to exercise certain powers which are their's alone by right, but they are still sovereign. The reason why I would prefer such is this, that the people at all times will agitate for material concessions. The people as we know them will not at all times agitate for the ideal. The people will be very slow indeed to agitate for the idea of sovereignty which we have now lost under this Treaty if we accept it, when war will be the only method of regaining it. I do not know of any nation on this earth that does not claim that sovereignty as a natural attribute of the state. Why do we not demand the same right? You call It the Irish Free State. Fundamentally it is not so. Now about the clauses of the Treaty. I will not debate them. The clauses containing the oath and the Governor-General, and the point about common citizenship are repulsive to every individual whom I have met in my constituency who has created the present situation or assisted to create it. It is, undoubtedly, causing them great anxiety. The Deputy from Cork, Deputy Walsh, said that if he thought the Treaty would bring disunity to Ireland he would vote against it. From his inference I gathered that he meant Ulster. Does he take into consideration a more grievous and a more disastrous disunity than the one he spoke of? I speak of the disunity that is bound to come---the disruption of the national movement. Deputy O'Duffy said that if he were offered the alternative to war or chaos that he would prefer war. I believe national chaos is bound to come out of the acceptance of this Treaty unless some superhuman effort is made by somebody who has not yet come along to try and retrieve the position that we have lost. The Deputy also stated that the peaceful penetration of England is now at a standstill. I maintain that it is now and now only that the peaceful penetration of Britain is percolating through this country. He also mentioned about prisoners in Belfast awaiting execution. I am much in the same position myself. There are several individuals from my own constituency at the present time under sentence of death in Cork prison. At the same time I well remember that a communication was sent to the Press by the Brigade Commandant who at that time was responsible for the operation for which those men were adjudged guilty, that those men were perfectly innocent. From what I know of those men I do not believe that they would wish that their predicament should be allowed to trouble my conscience in this matter, and I firmly believe that they are quite prepared to stand by any decision the Dáil would make. But I know the attitude of one, personally. He has been sentenced to fifteen years and he is at present serving that sentence. He is well known to practically every Deputy in the Dáil, and when visited last Christmas by his sister it was natural that something should crop up about the Treaty. Now I maintain that there is very little difference between a man under sentence of execution and an individual who is condemned to fifteen years' penal servitude. Some, I think, prefer to be shot straight away, but this individual said that he wished it would he known that he would prefer to rot inside in jail for the fifteen years than accept this Treaty [Applause]. There is, at least, one opinion from an individual who has just as much to say as the individuals who are under sentence of execution. Now, I think it was the President who mentioned the point that if what is contained in this Treaty were contained in a further act that England thought fit to impose upon the country, that it is quite possible that we would seize upon the Act and work it to the best advantage. Deputy MacGarry sought to bring an unfair inference from what was contained in James Connolly's book admitting his acceptance of the Government act of '98. There is a difference in going forward and going backward. James Connolly, at that time, by seizing on that Act would be going a step forward. In taking that step he would not have signed any treaty bartering away the sovereign rights of the Irish people. In conclusion I wish to state that the men in my area who count will never accept this Treaty. There is nothing in the Treaty which binds England to remove the English Garrison out of this country. There is stated in a subsequent letter sent by Mr. Lloyd George to the Chairman of the Delegation, Mr. Arthur Griffith, that they will evacuate Southern Ireland. I wonder where they will go to? Then again,there is nothing in the Treaty that does not give England quite a legal right to bring her troops into Ireland whenever she deems so fit.
MR. MILROY:
Except the Irish Army.
MR. FITZGERALD:
The men who count in my area, I say, will never accept this Treaty. They ask that we should be united and refuse to accept it, because it will bring Ireland no peace. I am of the one mind only, and I ask that this Treaty be unanimously or nearly so rejected. After that we will put our minds together and try and re-establish our own position and make one more try. Those men have asked me to bring forward this suggestion here, that we should not accept this, and that we and the whole nation should make one more serious effort to try and re-establish the position that we had before December 5th.
DR. R. HAYES:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I have never at any time during the past three years, at any of the sessions, taken up very much of the time of this assembly, and now, at its last session, I certainly am not going to do so. In that respect at least I will try to be consistent. I am voting for the Treaty and I also am supporting its adoption; and although I recognise that it confers a status on this country that it had never since the English invasion, at the same time I recognise that it does not give us everything that we wish for. To me, anyhow, it is a compromise, but surely there are times, there are occasions---critical occasions---in a nation's history when it is justifiable to compromise, especially when the object of the compromise is not an ignoble one. It is a necessary compromise to me, anyhow, but it certainly is a compromise without dishonour. Speaking of compromises, to me it seems that the signing of this Treaty was the final result, the culmination of a whole series of compromises, during the past four or five months---all necessary compromises. One of the very first acts in the negotiations was a compromise. Our army was not defeated, it had not surrendered, and yet the enemy capital was selected as the meeting place for the two delegations. As a political proposition in relation to an immediate settlement with England it seems to me that the Republic ceased to exist four or five months ago. I agree with Deputy Mellowes that the real Republic, the Republican ideal, still exists, and is still cherished in the hearts even of those people who support this Treaty. I think that it has been unfair and unjust the criticism that has been levelled at the Delegation over these negotiations. They were selected by this assembly and by the Cabinet of this assembly to make a bargain, not on the Republican basis, but on the basis of association with Britain's Commonwealth. They made that bargain and they have brought back the bargain, and I think, considering the governing circumstances, that it is a pretty good bargain. I am firmly convinced of one thing regarding this Treaty, and it is this: but for the oath contained in it, ninety-nine per cent. of this Dáil would accept it, as a compromise at least. I say that the oath is just as unpalatable to those who are voting for the Treaty as it is to those who are voting against it. Some Deputies referred to the clash of the oath, the incompatibility of the oath with the Fenian tradition. A night or two before the adjournment I happened to be reading the recollections of a Fenian leader, and I came across in it his opinion of the oaths to English monarchs. As a personal explanation I may say here that I wrote out that opinion and showed it to a friend out here in the lobby, and next day it appeared in leaded type in one of the Dublin newspapers, surrounded with a frame. I want to make it clear that I had nothing to do with getting it into the paper. The Fenian leader I refer to was John O'Leary. I think every member of this assembly will agree that John O'Leary, up to the day of his death was a consistent and unrepentant Fenian. I have here this opinion. It is not taken out of its context. `Let England cease to govern Ireland, and then I shall swear to be true to Ireland, and to the Queen or King of Ireland, even though the Queen or King also so happen to be Queen or King of England. It has never been with me, and never shall be, any question of forms of government, but simply freedom from foreign control.' If I may say so, while reading the book memory carried back to me the first occasion in my life on which I saw the Fenian leader, John O'Leary, and the first occasion on which I saw the Chairman of the Delegation, Arthur Griffith; they were chatting together in a Dublin street. I think if John O'Leary were in this assembly he would see eye to eye with Arthur Griffith on this question. I do not intend to delay the House any longer. I shall finish up by saying this: If I were convinced this Treaty meant the final reconciliation of Ireland with England I would have very little hesitation in deciding upon which way my vote should go. But it is not the end [hear, hear]. The adoption of this Treaty will enable us, as the Chairman of the Delegation said in his opening address to rebuild here in this country the old Gaelic civilisation that went down at the Battle of Kinsale [hear, hear]. Its adoption will mean the revival and spread of Gaelic culture. It will mean the leavening into everybody's Irish life the old traditional and the old heroic memories. These things are not mentioned in the Treaty clauses, but they are implied there, and any one of them is just as important as, say, fiscal autonomy. Finally, a Chinn Chomhairle, I support this Treaty because it places in the hands of the Irish nation powerful weapons, material weapons and spiritual weapons, that will enable it to achieve its full destiny. [Applause].
MR. JOHN O'MAHONY:
I, like other Deputies, have received several messages within the last few days from my constituents, and one of those I received was this: `I have no doubt but that eighty or ninety per cent. favour the ratification here, more especially after reading de Valera's substitute oath.' Now, I have got friends in this assembly as dear to me as my own life, but I certainly must say I never read that oath in No. 2 Document.
MR. MILROY:
You know where it is.
MR. O'MAHONY:
I wish now to be as brief as possible. Like most other Deputies I have, since the adjournment, received letters, telegrams, and resolutions from public bodies and individual voters in my constituency requesting, in some cases demanding, that I vote for ratification of this so-called Treaty. While I have every possible respect for the individual opinions of my correspondents, I wish to point out that they are, after all, only individual opinions. They are not the opinions of the people. I would say the same of Councils. They are not the people either. They are the elected representatives of the people just as we are here, but our Republican mandate, our national mandate, from the people, is much clearer and much stronger than the mandate given to any County Council, District Council or Board of Guardians. I may be asked what about the Comhairle Ceanntair of Sinn Fein which, by a majority, has called upon me to vote for the Foreign Minister's motion. I am well aware---none better---of the weight and importance of the Comhairle Ceanntair of Sinn Fein in my constituency. I know its members and their worth. During the last three years they have worked well and worked sincerely with me, and for me in the Republican cause. I have always consulted the Comhairle Ceanntair, and have always paid the greatest attention to its views where matters affecting my constituency were concerned, but even it is not the people of Fermanagh. The Comhairle Ceanntair---and I am deeply grateful for it---honoured me by selecting me as a Republican candidate, but it was the people that elected me as a Republican Deputy to Dáil Eireann; and I have yet to be convinced---resolutions, letters and telegrams like those I have already received will not convince me---that the people have turned down the Republic that seven short months ago they elected me to maintain and uphold. If the people of Fermanagh gave me a mandate to vote for this `fleshpots of Egypt' alternative to renewed war that the British Government is seeking to force upon us, a mandate given in the same manner and carrying the same weight as that which they gave me last May, I admit that I would feel bound to consider it, I would feel bound to act upon it; I would feel bound at once to place my resignation in their hands, because I could not, even at their bidding, forswear my allegiance to the Irish Republic. But before I place my resignation in their hands I would, as within my right and in accordance with my duty, record my vote on the issue that is before us here and now. During the last week's organised campaign---to stampede or try to stampede the Dáil Deputies into approving of this Treaty in the British Government's ultimatum---we have heard a lot in speeches and Press letters about precedents for our obeying, like automatons, the alleged wishes of the people; and examples have been cited down to Abraham Lincoln. None of these examples is, in my opinion, analogous to the situation in which we find ourselves to-day. In all of them the questions at issue were questions at best of domestic politics; with us the issue at stake is the maintenance or surrender of our national independence. We can find a true analogy to our present position in our own time in the case of the Boers. In 1902 the British Government presented to the Boers the same ultimatum as it has now presented to us---take these terms or take a war of extermination. When the representatives of the Transvaal and of the Orange Free State met in combined session at Vereeniging to consider the terms it was found that, while one section of the Deputies were given a free hand, another section had a definite mandate from their constituents, and it was generally felt that such a mandate would prevent a free exercise of their judgment by the Deputies who had received it. The difficulty was alluded to in his inaugural address by the President of the Transvaal Republic, and before the discussion opened, General Botha asked for a direction on the matter. Judge Hertzog, the legal representative of the Orange Free State, and an acknowledged authority on constitutional law, stated---I quote his exact words: `It is a principle in law that a Deputy is not to be regarded as a mere agent or mouth-piece of his constituents, but, on the contrary, when dealing with public affairs, as a man vested with full powers---with the right, whatever his brief may be, of acting to the best of his judgment.' General Smuts, States-Procureur of the Transvaal, endorsed Judge Hertzog, and their decision was unanimously accepted. The Deputies with a specific mandate felt themselves as free to use their own judgment as the Deputies without one, and the decision at which they eventually arrived was at variance with the mandates that many of them had from their people. I am not now concerned with the character of either the mandates or the decision of the Boers. I cite their case simply to prove the principle that members of all parliaments are, in their acts and votes, free agents. I quote it to show, in spite of the campaign of intimidation being pursued by the pro-British Press in Ireland, that we Dáil Deputies here in Dublin, are as free agents as were the Boers at Vereeniging. In fact we are freer, because none of us has received from our constituents any mandate of any kind on the question that is before us.
MR. MILROY:
Question?
MR. O'MAHONY:
I will answer you. If I leave this matter here some of our pro-British papers will probably be asking: `If all this is true, where do the people stand?' I answer that the people stand------
MR. MILROY:
For the Treaty.
MR. O'MAHONY:
Where they always stood and always will stand, as the moral source and fount of all national authority. The Boers recognised this. While declaring their Deputies to be free agents they also, in the words of the President of the Transvaal, declared that the surrender or otherwise of their independence was a question that must be left to the decision of their people. We declare the same. We recognise the people as sovereign, we admit that their will is supreme, we acknowledge them as the final court of appeal. But I wish to point out that this so-called Treaty question has not yet reached that final court of appeal. It is still before us---the Dáil---and it is for us, as free agents, to decide it to the best of our judgment. If the people are not satisfied with our decision then they can turn it down and turn us down too. But in the meantime, as free and unfettered members of the Parliament of the Irish Republic, we are privileged, nay, we are bound, by every principle of law, by every obligation of right, by every canon of duty, to speak and act and vote as we individually and conscientiously believe to be in keeping with our oath to the Republic. Now some reference was made during the course of the debate to the Republican form of Government as if that form of Government had ceased to exist or practically never existed. We all believe that the Minister of Finance was a man who spoke the truth according to his conscience, and spoke the words he meant to follow. In the beginning of 1921 he stated in an interview with an American journalist, when speaking of the Loan: `We raised 400,000. Of this sum we lost only 29, which was taken by British authorities from one of our collectors. The Government carrying on the Irish Republic to-day cannot talk of compromise.' Now, the Treaty is objectionable to me for various reasons. I remember for many years realising that a wall was around Ireland, and the voice of Ireland choked. Now, the wall was pulled down by as great an Irishman as any who sits in this House to-day and that is the Minister for Foreign Affairs------
MR. GRIFFITH:
It won't do, John.
MR. O'MAHONY:
I thank you Art, [Laughter].
MR. GRIFFITH:
John, you are the man that asked me to make peace at any price.
</SMALL>
MR O'MAHONY
Yes, but not at the price of the Irish Republic.
MR. GRIFFITH:
It will not do, John.
MR. O'MAHONY:
Whatever my friend Arthur Griffith says, we can have our little jokes [Laughter].
MR. GRIFFITH:
It is no joke.
MR. O'MAHONY:
If that wall be built around Ireland, every submarine cable and all the messages sent out to the world are choked; and if England has her hand on the throat of the nation, how can you develop the foreign trade of the nation? Some of our friends on the other side who are voting for this so-called Treaty seem to have blinded themselves into the belief that they can be Free Staters and remain good Republicans as well. They may so blind themselves but they can not blind us, and they cannot blind the country or the world. No one knows better than the plenipotentiaries that as far as those who voluntarily accepted are concerned, this Georgian State is a final abandonment of the claim to independence; and those who support this Treaty will very soon find also that, on an issue of national principle like this there can be no such thing as running with the hare and hunting with the hounds [applause and counter cheers]. The two oaths are too fiercely conflicting to admit of either reconciliation or approachment. Any attempts to compose them must fail now as it failed before.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
What two oaths?
MR. O'MAHONY:
This oath and the oath to the Irish Republic. We had, as far as the oath is concerned, the same situation in the days of the New Departure. No matter who may talk about free Irish Constitutions there is no difference between this oath that is before us now and the Westminster oath then, except this: the Westminster oath was only a single-springed trap for unwary Irishmen, while this new one that the plenipotentiaries want us to accept secures us for ever with a treble spring. When the policy of the New Departure was proposed the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which Mr. P. S. O'Hegarty described a couple of weeks ago as the sheet anchor of Irish nationalism, promptly and absolutely turned it down. Thus foiled in Ireland, Davitt and his friends sought to win the support of the Clan-na-Gael; and the Supreme Council of the I.R.B. immediately sent the veteran, John O'Leary, to America to counteract their efforts. Addressing the Clan-na-Gael in New York, O'Leary denounced the proposal as immoral and impolitic. `There is,' he said, `to be a pretence of loyalty but in reality treason all along the line. I do not believe in a policy of dust throwing and lying, but that is the policy of the New Departure. The Fenian Movement is purely a national movement. Though I were to stand absolutely alone I would resist this dishonest and unholy alliance. I believe in righteous means as well us righteous ends.' What John O'Leary said of the New Departure Republicans in 1878 can, with even more force, be said of the self-deluded Free State Republicans in the Dáil to-day [Applause]. In spite of all this, Davitt, O'Connor Power, J. F. X. O'Brien, John O'Connor, and other members of the Fenian organisation persisted in their policy and took the Oath of Allegiance. When John O'Leary learned what they had done his only comment was: `I wish the British Sovereign joy of the British oaths of turncoats who have already taken and broken the Republican oath.' Would not the unconquerable old Fenian leader, if he were here to day, use the same words? Would he not employ even stronger language of those Dáil Deputies who are tumbling over each other in their eagerness to break the Republican oath that they took in August last to take this Oath of Allegiance to the British monarch and thereby to help the British Government to enforce this, its latest Coercion Art in Ireland? Whatever the result of the vote on this question, we who are against the surrender of our national independence can face ourselves, face the people, and face the country with the consciousness that we have done our duty to the Republic that we swore to maintain and uphold.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Why not face Fermanagh, John?
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MR. O'MAHONY:
I will go, and I will tell you how I will come out of it. I consider, a Chinn Chomairle, you are not doing your duty [Laughter]. Is it because there is a lasting friendship between the Foreign Minister and me that you allow these interruptions? [Laughter].
MR. GRIFFITH:
It is because you came to me three times and asked me to make peace at any price.
MR. O'MAHONY:
Do not lose your hair [Laughter]. We may find ourselves in a minority as Pearse and his comrades were in a minority in Easter Week; but like them we will have the satisfaction of feeling that we have saved the soul and body of the nation from those who would wittingly or unwittingly kill it, for the purpose of bringing ease and comfort to the material body. We can face the future with hope, nay with confidence, because we have with us the two elements amongst our people with whom the national future lies. We have the women with us, and no cause that is backed by the national womanhood of the country can ever fail, just as no cause that lacks their support can end in anything but disaster and disgrace. We have the youth with us, too---the youth of the Irish Republican Army---human beings endowed by God with the power of deciding what was right and what was wrong; not mere goods and chattels to be carried off and used as their absolute property by our anticipated Free State majority. For opportunism, for supineness, for contemptibleness, the daily Press of Ireland is unique in the journalism of the world. However, the young men of the army I am proud to say, have proved themselves too straight, too true, too unselfish in their love and loyalty to the Republic to be decoyed from the path of honour, of righteousness and of duty, to be deceived into breaking their soldier oaths by such transparent political expediency on the part of a majority of their Headquarters Staff. We have the young men of the army with us, we have the womanhood of the nation with us, and with these two elements on its side the ultimate triumph of the Republic is assured; because, as Terence MacSwiney said:
<SMALL>
Those who walk in old ruts and live in trembling may bend the knee and sign their rights away; but one wronged man defrauded of his heritage can refuse to seal the compact, and with one how many, thank God, will be found to stand, for the spirit of our youth to-day is not for compromise.
</SMALL>
[Applause]
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
I rise to support the Treaty. In what I have to say I hope not to hurt the feelings of anyone. I am not going to follow on the same lines as the last speaker. I have only this to say about that speaker: he has no right or authority to speak for the Irish Republican Brotherhood---to speak in this Dáil---and I doubt his authority to speak for the army either. He did not go to his constituents to find out what their views were; he knew their views already. It is all right to say the Press is stampeding the people; it is all right to compare the Press of 1916, but the comparison does not hold to-day. The old Boards who passed resolutions against the 1916 Rising have been wiped out. I hold in my hand here a pamphlet; it is issued by Sinn Fein, and it gives a list of the Republican Councils in Ireland: in Ulster there are forty-two Boards---sixteen Republican, ten Republican-Nationalist, and sixteen Unionists, in Leinster there are thirty-eight Boards and the thirty-eight are Republican; in Munster there are forty-seven Boards and the forty-seven are Republican; in Connacht there are twenty-seven Boards and the twenty-seven are Republican. Now, these are different Boards to the Boards that passed resolutions in 1916. You boasted of the fact that you had wiped out the old Nationalist crowd and a good deal of the Unionists and elected Republicans in their places. When these Republicans pass resolutions, Deputies like Professor Stockley and Deputy O'Mahony tell the Deputies to go to the devil, and that they would do what they liked in the Dáil.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
When did I tell the Deputies to go to the devil? [Laughter.]
MR. MACCARTHY:
I meant the electors.
</SMALL>
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
That the electors must go to the devil! When did I say that?
MR. MACCARTHY:
Not in so many words, but that is the meaning of what you said, anyhow.
MR. O'MAHONY:
I say the mandate given to me was given to me by the people, and I stand by that mandate. The people are the last Court of Appeal.
MR. MACCARTHY:
I object to these interruptions. I think nobody will deny the fact that I know something about elections [hear, hear], and I regret to say I am responsible for having some of the members here to-day [Laughter]. The 1918 election was not fought on the issue of an Irish Republic. It was fought for the principle and the right of self-determination. At that time we had a cartoon about the vacant chair at the Peace Conference to be filled by Count Plunkett. That is what the people voted on; not on what particular form of Government at all. It is only right to say that. Members have no right to say they were elected on the Republican issue and are not going to take the oath. They were nothing of the sort. I am not going to debate this point of the oath. As one of the Whips I have done my best to control the number of speakers and the length of speeches, but I failed. I am not going to go over the oath. We have lawyers on both sides who have made their cases. Some say they cannot take it, while others say it is all right. I am going to make up my mind like Michael Collins---as a plain Irishman. I see no allegiance in the oath. If there were I would not take it. Every speaker who claims to have English blood is opposed to this Treaty.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
Here is one who is not.
MR. MACCARTHY:
They do not understand the people. They put me in mind of the City Councillor going up for election in the Dublin Corporation who went about for a drive in the slum area and wept tears about the conditions of the people in the slums. He knew nothing about it. We sprang from the working people. We know their lives in the slums. We know them better than these people and we know what they want. We have heard Deputies speaking about breaking an oath and what a dishonourable thing it is. Was it dishonourable for the Fenians to send a major into the British Army to corrupt British soldiers? Shame on men who speak like that! I am out to do work for Ireland, and I do not give a damn where a man comes from so long as we do good work for Ireland. Now, I stand for this Treaty, and one of the principal things I see in it is the control of education. Again I say I am a plain man; the education I got was not very much; it was a National School education. On the map we were taught that `all the places marked red are British possessions. Look at Ireland! A little spot in the Atlantic.' We had there a singing chart to teach children to sing, in happy Christian days, about being a happy English child. If that education produced men and women who would go to the scaffold with a smile on their lips for Ireland, will Deputies tell me that the education they will get under their own Parliament, when they are more prosperous, will make them forget all about Ireland, and bow and bend the knee in front of a great Governor-General? Men who say that do not know Ireland. They do not know the people, and have no confidence in the people, and have no right to be members of this Dáil [cheers]. I thought it was always a motto of ours in Sinn Fein to try and unite all Ireland so as to bring freedom in this country and give fair play to everyone. It is a disgrace for a Deputy to get up and complain because the Chairman of the Plenipotentiaries offered fair play to the Southern Unionists. They are our countrymen. We want them with us in this fight as well as anyone.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I do not object to fair play.
MR. MACCARTHY:
I should like to ask when your Councils, working under your Local Government Board, were making a tremendous fight against the British Local Government Board, what happened? When the Dublin Corporation looked for a loan of 100,000, and could not get it from their so-called popular banks, the Governors of the Bank of Ireland, who were all Southern Unionists, granted that loan. If they failed to get that loan they would go down, and if the Dublin Corporation went down the rest of the local bodies went down. Make no mistake. The Governors of the Bank are Southern Unionists and they have done that turn for you. It is well known to the Minister of the Local Government Board and to the members of the Dáil if that loan failed you would not be in the position you are in to-day. You would have broken down. You ought to be perfectly honest in this matter. I do not see in this Treaty the end, but it is an instrument put into our hands, and we can use it for the benefit of Ireland. The alternative is war, or chaos, which is worse than war. Why are we going to do all that? The Minister for Fisheries gave an excuse and I wonder some member did not say that four years ago he consulted his mother and she was against it [Laughter]. Is it for that we are going to drive the Irish people to the shambles? Is it for that reason we are going to break up the solid ranks we have behind us? One of the great boasts of the Dáil was that they had the people behind them. It is true. But should you reject this Treaty what are you going to do? Can you go to England and the world and say the people are behind us? The President admits the people want this Treaty, and he admits they would take it. Ninety-five per cent. of the people are for it [`No! no!']. Well, the proof of that is, anyone that likes to contest a seat---as far as mine is concerned, I would fight the President or anyone in this Dáil and beat him a hundred to one.
MR. MILROY:
Here is another the same.
MR. MACCARTHY:
It is the same all over the country. We must face that issue. We could do nothing if the people were not behind us. The good, brave fellows in the army could do nothing were it not that the people were behind the army. The Dáil could do nothing only that the people were behind it. The people are not behind the minority in this issue. They are for this Treaty. They are our masters and we must obey them. [cheers.]
DR. ADA ENGLISH:
A Chinn Chomhairle is a lucht na Dála, níl mórán agam le rá ach dearfa me cúpla focal. A Deputy who spoke in favour of the Treaty wanted to know why the young men should be sent to the shambles---I think that was the word he used. I should be sorry to see young men or old men, or women, or children going to the shambles, but when there is a question of right or wrong in it I would be prepared to go to the shambles myself and I do not see why everybody would not. I credit the supporters of the Treaty with being as honest as I am, but I have a sound objection to it. I think it is wrong; I have various reasons for objecting to it, but the main one is that, in my opinion, it was wrong against Ireland, and a sin against Ireland. I do not like talking here about oaths. I have heard about oaths until my soul is sick of them, but if this Treaty were forced on us by England---as it is being forced---and that paragraph 4, the one with the oath in it were omitted, we could accept it under force; but certainly, while those oaths are in it, oaths in which we are asked to accept the King of England as head of the Irish State, and we are asked to accept the status of British citizens---British subjects---that we can not accept. As far as I see the whole fight in this country for centuries has centred round that very point. We are now asked not only to acknowledge the King of England's claim to be King of Ireland, but we are asked to swear allegiance and fidelity [`No! no!'] in virtue of that claim. Perhaps not, but that is the way I read it. For the last seven hundred centuries, roughly [Laughter]---I mean seven centuries---time does seem to be long here [Laughter]. However a jolly long time, any way, Ireland has been fighting England and, as I understood it, the grounds of this fight always were that we denied the right of England's King to this country [`No! no!'].
MISS MACSWINEY:
Yes.
DR. ENGLISH:
And we denied we were British subjects. We are now asked not only to acknowledge the claims of the English King to be head of Ireland, and to acknowledge ourselves as British subjects, but we are asked to give him a right to legalise his claim by giving him a right, by our votes, to the position---that is, as far as we could give him the right. We cannot---nobody can---give him a right to the country, or the votes of anybody give him a claim. It seems to me that the taking of those oaths is a complete surrender of our claims. It is a moral surrender. It is giving up the independence of our country, and that is the main reason why I object to this Treaty. I deny that we are a possession of the British and this Treaty simply makes us one of the British possessions. Various Deputies have said that we surrendered the Republic as soon as we began to discuss any association with England. I cannot understand that position. It is not surrender of the Republic---any arrangement for association with any other country, whether England, or Germany, or Japan, or any country in the world. That did not give away the Republic in the slightest degree. That we gave up the position of an isolated Republic without alliance, with England or otherwise, might be claimed, but certainly we did not compromise in any way our claim to a Republic. We would negotiate association with England but there was no compromise in it, and I am sorry Dr. MacCartan is not here, because in his amazing speech he said he knew the Republic was being killed the moment we began to discuss association. It was his duty, and the duty of any man who thinks as he did then to stand up and tell us that, in ignorance or innocence, we were trying to murder the Republic and kill it; it is not when he sees the Republic dead. Why did he not warn us in the beginning if he thought so? I hold that the Republic is not dead, and will not die, in spite of Lloyd George and the other evil spirits who wander through the world [Laughter and cheers]. We are told that the country is for this Treaty---it has been told to us in various forms of words, in various ways. The country is not for this Treaty, the country is out for peace. The country wants peace and desires peace. So do we. We all want peace, but we want a peace which will be a real peace and a lasting peace and a peace based on honour and on friend ship and a peace which we can keep, a peace that we can put our names to and stand by. That is the sort of peace the country wants, and it is only because the country is misled into believing that this Treaty gives such a peace that the country wants it. The country wants no peace which gives away the independence of Ireland and destroys the Republic which has been established by the will of the Irish people [hear, hear]. We have had painted for us in various lurid colours the terrors of war and the desire of the people for quietness and peace. Well, peace is a good thing, but in the days of the famine the people were also told that they should be peaceful and submissive and quiet, and accept what the English chose to give them---the rotten potatoes---and let the corn and food be exported out of the country. There were people then, Republicans and Revolutionists, who encouraged the people to fight for the country in spite of the men with the streak, and free themselves and keep the food in the country. But some of the influences that are working against the country to-day were working against it then and advised peace. They got peace---and death and famine. You can lose more men---their bodies as well as their souls---by an ignoble peace than by fighting for just rights [cheers]. The evacuation of the English troops is one of the things that are being held up to us as being one of the very good points in the Treaty. It would be a very desirable thing, indeed, that the English troops evacuated this country, if they did evacuate it, but I hold that Ulster is still part of Ireland and I have not heard a promise that the British troops are to evacuate Ulster. They are still there. I understand they are to be drawn from the rest of Ireland and, as I read the Treaty, there is not one word of promise in it about the evacuation of the British troops. There was, I think, a letter read from the man across---Lloyd George---promising that evacuation would begin in some certain time, but I should like to know was that promise part of the arrangement made between the British Government on one hand, and the plenipotentiaries of the Irish Republic on the other, or was it merely a private arrangement of Mr. Lloyd George? I suppose that the English Government believe---if they were going, even to a slight degree, to evacuate the country, it is probably because they thought that the country would be held for them by the Free State troops. They are depending on the acceptance of the Treaty. If this Treaty is going to be kept are we to understand that the Free State will hold the country for England instead of the British Garrison? I have heard, I have listened very carefully---I think this afternoon was the first time I missed any of the speeches from the beginning, on the 14th December---to those speeches in favour of the Treaty. I have listened most carefully and attentively to see if I could find any way in which I could reconcile my conscience to vote for the Treaty. My position is not the same as when I came to Dublin. I came up opposed to the Treaty. I am ten times more opposed to it since I have heard the speeches in favour of the Treaty in this Dáil. We repudiate the Republic if this Treaty is passed; we repudiate it absolutely. It is a complete surrender and we don't get peace by it, but we get the certainty of a bitter split and division in this country, because we who stand for the complete freedom---for the separatist idea---for the complete freedom and independence of Ireland cannot sit down with our hands across. We will work and fight for it, and so there is bound to be a split. The only chance you could have of unity is by having the whole Dáil unanimously reject this thing. Then you would have the country behind you. Unity is a good thing and I am very sorry to see the unity which was in this Dáil broken up as it is at present, but I would be very much more sorry to see the Dáil united in approving of this Treaty, because unity in wrong-doing is no advantage to the country or the cause [hear, hear]. What we have got in this Treaty---the material point, I suppose---is a truncated form of Dominion Home Rule for three-quarters of the country. If Dominion Home Rule were the thing we were fighting for and are satisfied to get---as those in favour of the Treaty seem to think---why, in God's name, did they not tell us that two years ago and not send out all the fellows to fight and lose their lives for a thing they did not want? On what authority did they send out, if the Republic did not exist and was not in being, any poor fellows to shoot and kill any man of any nation? If it was not for the Government of the Republic and the army why did they go out?
MR. P. BRENNAN:
They went out themselves.
MR. M. COLLINS:
They did.
DR. ENGLISH:
They will go again, I hope, as soon as this thing is thrown out.
MR. P. BRENNAN:
They might, then. I am from Clare [Laughter].
DR. ENGLISH:
There has been talk about compromise---that we compromised the position. I think that is a most unworthy thing to say---a most unworthy thing to say. We had lots of things to bargain about---you had lots of material things to bargain about---questions of trade and commerce and finance and the use of ports; but nobody ever suspected we were going to compromise on the question of independence and the rights of the country. Mr. MacGarry mentioned yesterday Land Acts taken in the past from England. There was no Republic in Ireland when we took the Land Acts from England. That makes a very great difference. And the Republic exists. You can take any Act you like that is consistent with the Republic but you cannot take anything which gives away the Republic. It is not in your power to give it away. I have been asked by several people in the Dáil and elsewhere as to what views my constituents took about this matter. I credit my constituents with being honest people, just as honest as I consider myself---and I consider myself fairly honest---they sent me here as a Republican Deputy to An Dáil which is, I believe, the living Republican Parliament of this country. Not only that, but when I was selected as Deputy in this place I was very much surprised and, after I got out of jail, when I was well enough to see some of my constituents, I asked them how it came they selected me, and they told me they wanted someone they could depend on to stand fast by the Republic, and who would not let Galway down again [cheers]. That is what my constituents told me they wanted when they sent me here, and they have got it [cheers]. This is---a Chinn Chomhairle , may I rend a letter which has been received to-day from the Graduates of the National University of Ireland? It is not to me, it is to Professor Stockley. `As our representative, we have perfect confidence in your ability to represent us. We disapprove of any interference by individual graduates in the free actions of our representatives. We disapprove further of any attempt to stampede members of the Dáil to act in contradiction of their considered opinions.---M. O'Kennedy.'
MR. GRIFFITH:
How many names to that?
DR. ENGLISH:
Cúig Cinn. I am only speaking about my own constituents. There is a point I want to make. I think that it was a most brave thing to-day to listen to the speech by the Deputy from Sligo in reference to the women members of An Dáil, claiming that they only have the opinions they have because they have a grievance against England, or because their men folk were killed and murdered by England's representatives in this country. It was a most unworthy thing for any man to say here. I can say this more freely because, I thank my God, I have no dead men to throw in my teeth as a reason for holding the opinions I hold. I should like to say that I think it most unfair to the women Teachtaí because Miss MacSwiney had suffered at England's hands. That, a Chinn Chomhairle is really all I want to say. I am against the Treaty, and I am very sorry to be in opposition to [nodding towards Mr. Griffith and Mr. Collins. (cheers)].
ALDERMAN JAMES MURPHY:
I simply want to publicly define my attitude towards the position in which we find ourselves. Not being a constitutional lawyer I do not possess the art of saying nothing in a great many words. Consequently I can relieve the House by assuring it that I will be very brief. I desire to carry away with me only one memory from this Session of An Dáil and that is a remembrance of two very honest speeches delivered, one of them delivered by Deputy Barton, and the other delivered by Deputy Dr. MacCartan, whose speech expressed my own thoughts and feelings. Like Dr. MacCartan I would refuse to vote at all were it not for one consideration. The consideration is this: that although in my opinion, this battle for the Republic is lost, one hope yet remains for the Republic in the future. That hope is the people of Ireland. I for one, will not consent to sacrifice the people for the purpose of saving my face, or for the sake of the differences which exist in this assembly. If the Republic---as the plain man in the street understands it---was not given away when the Truce was signed, in my opinion the Republic was certainly given away when we sent plenipotentiaries to London to negotiate a Treaty in which the Republic was explicitly and implicitly ruled out by the British Prime Minister in practically every communication he sent us on the subject. Since then the situation appears to me to have developed into a hunt after a basis which, when viewed through Irish spectacles would look like a Republic, and when viewed through English spectacles would assume the appearance of Dominion Home Rule. The result is neither one nor the other, and it only remains for me to congratulate all concerned on their acrobatic performance which, to me, is quite the most remarkable exhibition of the kind I have ever witnessed. As far as the Republic is concerned---and when I speak of the Republic I do not refer to the `bow-window' Republic, or external association which we have heard so much of lately---I refer to the Republic as the plain man in the street understands it, and as he will always understand it---as far as that Republic is concerned we have all walked into a bog, and the desperate endeavours of each side of the Cabinet to try to throw all the blame on the other side serve no useful purpose. We know perfectly well both sides are to blame. We know perfectly well we ourselves cannot escape our own share of the responsibility of what has happened, because in our child-like trust we did not maintain sufficiently close control over the Cabinet, and invested them with too much of our powers. Deputies who come here and talk about retrieving the position which we held before this took place could see there is no way out, and they know it, and it is only self-deception to suggest there is. Two alternatives are forced upon me. Both of them I consider outrageous. I must choose either, or do as Dr. MacCartan intends doing---refuse to choose at all. I choose what I consider the lesser of the two outrages, and I choose it for the reason I have given. I will vote for the Treaty, not because I consider it a satisfactory---not to talk of a final---settlement. Neither do I consider it binding if and when, the circumstances under which the Treaty was signed---the threat of a war of extermination---have disappeared. But I will vote for the Treaty simply and solely because I believe that this course contains the only germ of hope for the realisation of the Republic in the future, that is, the salvation of the lives of the Irish people. I will follow no leader except my conscience, and this is the only attitude my conscience will permit me to adopt. [cheers].
DR. BRIAN A. CUSACK:
I hope to establish a record for brevity. We have had this Treaty discussed from every possible point of view, and every impossible point of view, so that I do not think very much more can be said to throw any light on it with a view to acceptance or rejection. One has only to make clear one's own position, and with me, coming here and during the time I have been here, my idea has been always the same. I accept Deputy MacCarthy's suggestion that the election of 1918 was one of self-determination, but as a result of that election a Government was formed and the Republican Parliament. So we have one fact to go on. There was a Republic and there is a Republic [hear, hear]. Now, the people, in the midst of stormy times---in the darkest days of the terror---backed the Republican Government that was in possession of the country. That is the mandate beyond which I cannot go, and until the people, by a plebiscite or General Election, after that trust I have no hesitation in saying I will not vote for this Treaty. `In virtue of our British Citizenship'! That is enough to stick in the gills of any man who wants to discuss this. We are Irish Republican citizens, and I certainly would not dare, without a mandate from my constituents, to vote for an Irish Republic entering into English citizenship. If they themselves accept the position of British citizenship, then we back down. That is their look-out. They can; they are masters. The will of the people is supreme. That will was expressed in 1921, less than nine months ago; and unless a person had a sort of automatic record put up to hear his constituents' opinions on every particular question discussed here, he could not know their finally definite views [Laughter]. In 1921 they voted for the continuance of the Republican Government, and until a General Election or plebiscite is taken the Deputy so elected must vote for the Republic. This Treaty does not guarantee that. Therefore we cannot accept it. We had happy pictures painted as to the lovely things that would happen when the Free State was established, and a Deputy from Cork told us that the old idea of British education in Ireland will be altered---we will no longer thank goodness and praise, with a smile, that we are peaceful, happy English children---our children will be little Gaelic children. But the Treaty says they will be British citizens!
MR. M. COLLINS:
It does not.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
It does.
DR. CUSACK:
I cannot read it in any other way. Many Deputies pointed out that this Treaty was accepted under a threat of war, and the Deputy from the University said that was not an argument---that it should not be used as an argument to get the Treaty through the House. I agree with him. The country has been threatened, and always had war more or less with England. We had got to a strong vantage ground. I believe we should have held there. We have the Republic still and, in my opinion, this Dáil cannot, and has no power to destroy it. The Irish people have the right, and may do so as they will. But, as I say, there is no power in this Dáil to destroy it. It cannot destroy the Government which it established. We had Deputy MacCartan who has been appealed to from all sides of the House. He talked of chaos. The people have gone through the terror, and this Government did not allow the country to fall into chaos. Will the ability in this House be less in future years than it has been in the past few years? Will the strain on it be very much greater? And still chaos never came on the country. If we had a united policy to-morrow, the people--- and they are gallant because they stood the strain magnificently---they would stand behind the Dáil if it rejected this Treaty, and we would still win through. We are getting very impatient that we may see The Day. Better men than any here have hoped that God would spare them until that day would come, but they never let the ideal fall until a separate independent Ireland was achieved. It can never be independent if we are British citizens. There is somewhat of a good resemblance between the position of things now and that of the old Irish Parliament of 1782---Ministers trusting the honour of the English, the others doubting that honour---and I remember reading the Bill brought in by Mr. Flood that would place beyond question Ireland's power and authority inside her own four shores. The Bill he moved made over the sole and exclusive right of the Irish Parliament to make laws affecting that country in all that concerned its external and internal affairs whatever. Some such thing is necessary in any agreement we come to with England---to make sure that the centre and source of authority will be the people of Ireland, and not any foreign authority [cheers]. No King of England, and no Ministry of England or Government of England, has any power to put that power here---that power must be derived from the people alone. In this act it is not so derived. The divisions that are at present existing are somewhat similar to the divisions that then existed. British Ministers fostered those divisions, and that Bill was voted out. We know the result---one hundred and twenty-one years we have gone through. It is quite possible we may go through some more of it yet unless some definite action is taken. The Dáil was, of itself, in unity. The best policy, the only means of achieving that unity again, is by the rejection of this Treaty. I do not believe the people would he very divided on the matter---they certainly would not behind a united Dáil. The daily papers in Ireland are full of `ratify the Treaty' resolutions---public bodies falling in one after another. We saw the same before, and one gets suspicious. These bodies were elected as Republicans and I say when they send any message to me to do other than carry out the mandate I got, that they are false to the promise they made, because they got a Republican mandate when they were elected. These are the views of individual men, and not the voice of their constituents; and I say that until a General Election or plebiscite it is not for anyone or any of these bodies to say what policy should be adopted. One must do and act according to the lights he has. In doing so I will carry out the mandate given me. I was elected to this Dáil as a Republican and I will leave it as one. The people have authority to alter; we have not. There are points in the Treaty perhaps, worth inquiring into, but upon the essential parts of it---there is not a word guaranteeing the evacuation of the troops, or, if there is, I would like to see it pointed out, and even if there is a personal guarantee given as to when the evacuation will begin, there is none as to when the evacuation will cease. The last British troops only left South Africa during the past four or five months. That is a long time. We heard a good deal of the penetration of British business interests, but how can we prevent it in future? We will be British citizens also, and will have `common-citizenship' with them. If we are into the thing let us be honest about it. There is no mention either in the Treaty as to the definite number of troops to be retained as maintenance parties in the various ports. A communication written by a Minister has no binding force; it is only his word, and we have had such good faith kept by British Ministers with this country I do not think this word will carry very far. There is no mention either, as to the definite number of British troops to be kept in North-East Ireland. That is an important point. If the British troops are taken out of what they are pleased to call `Southern Ireland,' and merely transferred to Northern Ireland, I do not think we are much farther on. These are points which might possibly be cleared up though it is doubtful. One of the greatest German thinkers made use of the following sentence---it is a very pregnant sentence: `Everything in this world depends on disinterestedness of ideal, and firmness of purpose.' We have visualised this Republic far more clearly than we ever visualised this Free State. We have the Republic. We have established it; we have visualised it; we have held to the ideal. If we have sufficient firmness of purpose I believe we never need let it go. [cheers].
THE SPEAKER:
You did not make a record after all, Doctor [Laughter].
MR. WILLIAM SEARS:
I would like to give it as my opinion that if this Treaty is rejected this assembly will be guilty of as great an act of political folly as is recorded in history. The plenipotentiaries that we sent over to London were selected by the President himself and confirmed by this Dáil. There are no men in the Dáil superior to those, if there are equals, in political foresight and judgment [hear hear]. For two months they contended with the ablest diplomats of the world, and they succeeded marvelously, in my opinion. They did not exceed their rights, we are told, by one iota, and yet they are put in the dock. We know the pains they went to, while in London, to keep in touch with Dublin; we know about the daily couriers and the weekly crossings and even they went so far as to urge the President himself to come to London to keep in closer touch with them. And yet they are charged here as if they took the bit in their teeth when they went to London and acted off their own bat. We sent them to London to make a bargain---what are the terms?---a bargain, because we told the world that we were not Republican doctrinaires. We did not expect them to bring home a Republic, but this Treaty will put us on the shortest road to the completest independence of the country. I will not compare the terms of the Treaty that has been signed by England with the terms of the document that has been turned down by England. I will not compare the attainable with the unattainable, the bird in the hand with the bird in the bush---there has been too much time already wasted in those comparisons. I will refer to some of the solid material advantages already in the Treaty, and see whether there is any compromise in our accepting them. For the first time in 700 years the English army is to march out of Ireland. I see no compromise in that. There have been withdrawals in history, as we know, and I never knew a withdrawal of the kind to be considered a compromise. We get charge of our own purse, and our own internal affairs. Is there any compromise in that? lf the delegates brought home the Republic there are some gentlemen who, I think, would insist that England should surrender half her fleet as well; and when we point out to them that we have a seat at the League of Nations I think they will complain that the four great powers of Washington do not include us [Laughter]. I think we should examine the Treaty and if there are, within the four corners of the Treaty, provisions that will strengthen our nation we should accept it, and I hold there are such provisions. If, twelve months ago, the Minister for Defence was marching out to battle he must have two objects---one, to drive the English army out of Ireland, and a second, to guard and see that there was no further invasion. If some one then told him that the British Army was being fumed out without firing a shot would he not say: `Well, then I will devote all my energies to guarding against another invasion.'? Surely he would not say : `Leave them there; I would rather have the pleasure of putting them out myself.' And if anyone came and said: `You will have an opportunity of equipping an Irish Army,' surely he would not have refused it. Deputy Seán T. O'Kelly very rightly said here that whether this Treaty is accepted or not the fight for the complete independence of Ireland must go on. Certainly it will. And we have the opportunity of helping the nation towards that ideal. If, instead of entering on a disastrous war, we took charge of the schools and universities of the country, then we would be taking steps to preserve that ideal. There is a great deal of doubt in the minds of some Deputies as to the patriotism and the courage of the Irish race; I say we need not put too great a value upon the courage of our day and generation. Bishop O'Dwyer, of Limerick, said: `As long as grass grows and water runs there will be men ready to die to advance the cause of Ireland.' And we need not think that the breed of great reformers died with Pearse and Connolly. We need not trouble about the future. Some men think that if every `i' in this Treaty is not dotted, and every `t' not crossed, the future generations of Irishmen will be such poltroons, with the example of the past five years before them, as not to be able to preserve the rights which this Treaty puts into their hands. I call attention to the Governor-General that will be placed here by England, and again they think that the Irish people will be such pitiful snobs that this Englishman, with only his own society to operate upon, will be able to do, in teeth of the Irish Government, what a whole string of Lord Lieutenants could not do when they had our whole national purse at their control, and the English Army in the country. The thing is absurd. I will remind you of parallel case. Norway and Sweden were in exactly the same position as England and Ireland are to-day, and Norway was worsted in the war. She got an army and parliament, but she had to accept from Sweden a Governor-General. And if the people of Norway were able to resist the vice regal blandishments, and keep their independence, as they are keeping it, will not the Irish people be able to do the same? [cheers]. I will admit with regard to the Gaelic ideal, that whether it is in a Free State or Republic, as long as we have powerful British influences on our flank, it will be a terrible uphill fight to spread the Irish ideal. We can do that if, instead of the two parties in this Dáil wrangling with each other, they combine to advance the Gaelic ideal; then they would be doing better work for the country. All that was said about the Irish people here reminds me, as it must remind others, of what was said about the Irish farmers. It was said that if the Irish farmer got the land he would betray the country. Yet we know that the sons of the Irish farmers and the Irish labourers were the back-bone of the I.R.A. [cheers]. Another point that must be emphasised here is: when those delegates from Ireland met the delegates from England, on that terrible night---that strenuous night when they signed that document---there was a deed done that rang around the world. Deputy Etchingham well said that it was like a battle. It was, in this way: you can not re-stage that Conference no more than you could re-stage a battle. Since then much water has flowed under the bridge, and we are enjoying advantages from what they did that night. Why did they sign, and why was the Treaty published? These questions have been asked. I do not mind why it was signed or published, but the Treaty was signed and published. You talk about the Irish people as if they were fools, stampeded by the Press; but with the Press against them in 1918 they returned the Sinn Fein Party to power [cheers]. The Irish people are the shrewdest people on God's earth. If you go down and face them---farmer or labourer---he will tell you you are a fool if you throw away these advantages [cheers]. You talk about 1918! The man who would tell you he would stand by the Republic in 1918, what does he say to-day? I say this: if you had that Treaty in 1918, and the alternative was war, you would not get three per cent. of the people to vote for you.
A DEPUTY:
We had no Republic then.
MR. SEARS:
If you had the Treaty in 1921 you would not have three per cent. of the people around you. A Deputy read the declaration of independence to-day. I was proud to listen. And some of it said: `Basing our claim on the fact that the people of Ireland are behind us.' Very well. You went on the platform and said: `We have the people of Ireland behind us.' Look behind you now. They are not behind you. You have not three per cent. of the people behind you. Are you going to commit them to the shambles? What is that war going to be? From the other side we got a hint. We are going to have a `march through Georgia' like Sherman, when he burned every town and village and haggard on his path. You would have thirty-two Shermans marching through Ireland for the difference between this Treaty and Document No. 2. I say you have not the people of Ireland behind you, because it is madness, sheer madness. There is no common sense in that madness. The people of Ireland are a shrewd people; they know a good thing when they see it, and they have got a good thing in this Treaty. Some men say: `Why, when they pulled it so far, did they not pull it a little farther?' As if there was no one at all on the other end of the rope! [Laughter and cheers]. You want to hold up the two documents and see what is the difference between them. The difference between this Treaty and the other document is that England's signature is to the one document, and in our time it will never be to the other. That makes all the difference in the world. Why not go one step farther? I will tell you. That one step would bring you out of the British Commonwealth of Nations and even Lloyd George, if he tried, could not carry his people that one last step. Your delegates would not pull that off if they were there from that moment until this. These are the realities of the situation. The men who came out in 1916 were under no false pretence; they came out on their own individual responsibility. I saw men going to fight for this ideal; I have not the slightest doubt about it---whether you fight for it or not---I know men in this room who would fight for the ideal of an Irish Republic. I do not agree with Doctor MacCartan. I applaud the men---honestly applaud them for it---for it would be a bad day if there were not `Die-hards' in the Irish nation. I say: `God speed the Die- hards.' Let them fight on, but do not let them step in the way of our country gaining the material benefits she is so badly in need of. We are entitled to that. It is all very well to speak of the flame, but the candle must be kept going too. Now I say this Treaty is a victory for the Irish Republican Army. This Treaty is the fruits of efforts of the most gallant band in history who fought against fearful odds here and suffered and it is the fruits of the victory of the most patient and heroic people on God's earth---the Irish people---and they want to consolidate what has been gained, and when the day comes to make another advance. I share the hope of the Minister for Foreign Affairs that, with a stronger Ireland, we will be able to bring about further achievements with out another devastating war; and that we shall evolve and rise to greater heights; and that our status will grow too. I am convinced that Ireland will yet see the fondest dreams of Tone and Pearse realised to the full. [cheers].
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I claim the indulgence of the House for a few moments. I do not know whether I was the cause of those interruptions---whether I brought them on by my tone or temper or by what I was saying---but the result is that one very material portion of what I said in my speech yesterday is so disjointed and broken up it may be misconstrued or misinterpreted by people in the country who read it. I refer to the portion in which I was alluding to Farmers' Associations and Farmers' Unions. I hope that no misconstruction will be put upon that. There is no man in this assembly has a greater admiration for the work that the farmers have done for the Republic. It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest. I am a farmer's son. I come from farming people, and I hope and trust that the farmers of Ireland and the farming members of this Dáil will not think that I was attempting to throw dirty water on the farmers of the country. There's an old proverb which says that there are three things that cannot be recalled: the spoken word, the hunter's arrow, and the missed opportunity. The `spoken word' was yesterday, perhaps the `arrow' that might have hurt the feelings of some of the people of this country. The members of the Farmers' unions have helped me in my work as Minister of Agriculture. So now I take this opportunity of making this amende honourable, and apologising to the farmers for any of the things that might be misconstrued in anything I may have said.
DR. CROWLEY:
I am going against this Treaty, and I am stating briefly my reasons for doing so. I do so because I believe the people who elected me as their representative in 1918 are, each and every one, in their hearts Republican, and I believe, also, that if they were given a free choice between the Republic and this Treaty they would without exception, vote for the Republic. I have no doubt whatever as to the circumstances under which it was signed, and from the speeches and arguments we have heard in this House, I cannot help thinking that if, during the British Terror, the Irish Army gave the civil population the choice of voting for the continuance of the Terror, or the Partition Bill of 1920, the people would be then advised, as they are now, for the same reason, to vote for the Partition Bill. For the same reason as they are now clamouring for the ratification of the Treaty it would be said of those of us who would be voting against the Partition Bill as is said of us now---that we were not carrying out the wishes of our constituents. I can go down to those who are responsible for my election and say to them that I have kept the pledges I made to them and, if they so desire it, they can have back the trust placed in me, and I will give it to them without blemish; but it would not be without blemish if I voted for this so called Free State of Southern Ireland.
MR. JAMES BURKE:
I suppose because I happen to be a lawyer it is necessary to begin with an apology. I shall do so in order to put myself in order. In case anybody here is afraid, because I happen to belong to that profession, I am going to indulge in a long and laboured dissertation on constitutional law, I shall set their minds at rest on that question immediately. I may say in passing I am afraid that the greatest offenders in this respect have not been the professional lawyers, but the amateur lawyers. I think we have heard quite enough on this subject from both sides of the House already. I do not think it has done very much to elucidate the matter under discussion. I have been fighting English constitutional law in Ireland since I was called to the Irish Bar in 1916. I never held any position in a British court but in the dock, and I think if I were now to take my stand on British constitutional law I would be going the best possible way about justifying Deputy Etchingham's remark that we are marching into the Empire with our hands up. Accordingly I am not going to say anything about English constitutional law. Instead, I would want to state, as briefly and concisely as I can, my reasons for the position I hold in regard to this Treaty, and in particular those reasons which were not mentioned by the other Deputies of this House. I was returned unopposed at the General Election of 1918 for the constituency of Mid-Tipperary, on the Republican platform. In my election speech on that occasion I laid stress on three policies which, I believed, if judiciously combined, would have led to the independence of the country. First, there was the old Sinn Fein policy as outlined by Arthur Griffith; second, appeal to the Peace Conference, then sitting, for recognition of our right to self-determination; and the third was the driving of the British Government out of Ireland by armed force, backed by the moral opinion of the world, particularly the United States. I did not tell the people of Tipperary on that occasion that we were going to secure our independence by armed force alone, and if I had told them that, I do not believe I would ever have been elected; and that, in my opinion, is the only alternative that those opposed to ratification of the Treaty have now to lay before the Irish people, since all the other policies contained in that programme have now disappeared. And in laying that programme before my constituents I did not consider myself a mere visionary. I did not do it because I wanted to keep alive a tradition, or hand something down to posterity. I did it because I believed it was practical politics, and if I had not considered it was practical politics, I would consider it criminal to induce the Irish people to vote for it. In justification of my belief on that occasion, I want to state we were within an ace of winning because of the heroism of the Irish people and the Irish Army, and because of the reflection of that heroic effort in the unofficial pressure from the United States brought to bear on the British Government. As you here appear to despise it---the Minister for Finance has, on a couple of occasions, seen fitting to make what I felt were, perhaps, unfair remarks about the United States. The country that Lord Northcliffe felt worthwhile to spend 200,000 on propaganda in, to employ ten thousand specially trained journalists for advocating the case against Ireland and Germany, is not a country to be despised. I know from my own practical experience in the United States that many of those who helped us, financially and otherwise, did so in spite of pressure which, although of a different kind, was just us hard to resist as that which was applied here to those who stood for the Republican ideal. At the time of the election in 1918 I believe that an international situation had been created such as would have compelled the United States, in its own interests, either to declare war on England, or to withdraw from her its moral and financial support, without which her Empire would have become disintegrated; and I believe if things were kept sufficiently hot---and were, in Ireland, further forced---those elements in the United States who were naturally sympathetic to Ireland would draw in a lot of other elements opposed to British influence from other motives bringing about---at all events they would have been conciliated and made sympathetic---bringing about from this war, or from this revolution of spirit on the part of the United States, three things: First of all, the destruction or the disintegration of the British Empire; secondly, the defeat or scrapping of the British Fleet; and thirdly, Irish-Americans fighting all the time for freedom as we here---for an Irish Republic. But I then maintained, and still maintain, that no matter what you call it---an Irish Free Sate in external association with the British Empire, or an Irish Free State in external association, or, for that matter a nominal Irish Republic---so, long as it is enclosed by the iron wall of England's Navy you never can have a real Republic. There has been a lot of talk about slippery slopes, and the effort is made to create the impression that the Irish Republic was standing as solid as a rock until the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Foreign Affairs tore it away from its moorings and dragged it over to London. In my opinion we first broke away from the moorings when Judge Cohalan and John Devoy of New York---I feel myself in some respect responsible also. I do not intend to cast any reflection on any individual in the matter. I am not going to discuss the merits or demerits of rival parties.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
On a point of order. What on earth have individual policies to do with our Republican Government?
MR. BURKE:
I am discussing foreign policy, I believe. I am not going to enter here into the merits or demerits of the rival parties in that policy; but I wish to maintain that neither Mr. Devoy nor Judge Cohalan would ever hand over the friendship of the Irish Race in America to the British Government for anything short of an absolute independent Republic; whereas the men substituted in their place wrote welcoming the Treaty or Pact before the signatories' names were dry. We started down the slippery slopes when the President agreed to accept a relation between Ireland and England similar to that between Cuba and the United States.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Once more I must protest against these misrepresentations.
MR. BURKE:
I say so far as the Platt Amendment------
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
You know perfectly well the first article of the Platt Amendment was a declaration of independence.
MR. BURKE:
That is a matter of dispute.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is not. You should read the article and let it go down before the House.
MR. BURKE:
That is my contention; I am giving my own reasons here. We went still further down the slippery slopes when the President issued a manifesto to Ireland departing still further from the separatist ideal.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
What is that document?
MR. BURKE:
A letter you wrote.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is very important, because I stand as the symbol of this Republic and fifty times in this debate references have been made to this subject in one way or another. I ask any member here to point to any thing I have said, publicly or privately that bears the interpretation that is now being sought to put upon it, If I did that I would deserve to be impeached.
MR. BURKE:
As soon as I have done------
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I say it would be a matter of impeachment. If any member here------
MR. BURKE:
I am not saying you gave away anything so far. I am speaking at present. As soon us we agreed to enter into negotiations with the British Government while their troops were still in occupation of our territory, we took another step downwards; and when, after a long series of letters, the Cabinet and President appointed plenipotentiaries to enquire how Irish national aspirations could be reconciled with the British Empire, we took another step down the slippery slopes. I am quite prepared to admit from the position as left by the President to the position as represented by the documents we are discussing was quite a considerable slide; and in spite of what some members on our side of the House said, I am quite prepared to admit it was a very material slide; but from the position of an Irish Republic as I understand and define a Republic---when the British Navy is at the bottom of the sea---was a still greater slide. Whereas one slide was gradual, the other slide was taken in face of the valuable considerations contained in the present document. I am not going to criticise either party. I am very sorry the President took so much objection to my remarks.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Because they are not true.
MR. BURKE:
I am only trying to make the position clear. I am not going to say one word either for or against the Treaty. The Treaty is not sufficiently bad to prevent my voting for it, and it is not sufficiently good to prevent my voting against it if I saw any rational alternative. But none has been produced so far. It is a slippery slope, but however, at long last we have reached a landing stage. The people opposed to the Treaty say we are not to get off here, but put out again in the expectation of getting back to the position from which we started. I believe if we take these people's advice we shall be more likely to continue sliding down than sliding up. That is why I am in favour of the approval of this Treaty. [cheers].
MR. J. MACGRATH:
I move the adjournment.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I again, simply for the honour of the nation and the honour of the position I hold, wish to say I regard my office as a sacred trust. I said when I took it that I wanted it for the benefit of the Irish people, and that I should regard my duty as looking after the interests of the Irish people. But I defy any person in this Dáil, or in Ireland or in America, or anywhere else, to point out where I have departed one tittle, or one iota, or one comma from the position of the Republic as established by the Irish people, either in public or private. The members of the Dáil know that one of the reasons why I did not go to London was that I wanted to keep that symbol of the Irish Republic pure---even from insinuation---lest any word across the table from me would, in any sense, give away the Republic. [Applause].
MR. M. COLLINS:
There is a motion for the adjournment which I want to support. I also want to say there was no suggestion on the part of the Deputy from Tipperary, no suggestion that the President had done anything; but I do again, for the sake of the Dáil, protest against any insinuation that I have given away anything. I have been the custodian of the honour of the country, and I have given away nothing. [Applause].
MR. DAVID CEANNT:
I would like to make a suggestion: that all Deputies making insinuations against the President have the documents there read out to the House.
It was agreed that the House adjourn until 11 o'clock to-morrow.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I would like to give notice that I will move to-morrow the amendment. You have got the proposals now.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I suggest that we should take `for' and `against' the Treaty first. The document has been placed in our hands now, and I take it that it is a matter for our consideration, and the circumstances, I take it, of the consideration will probably be different from what they are. We ought to take, in my judgment, the opinion---we ought to take the division on the Treaty and then take the document.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think it will have to be decided by a ruling.
</SMALL>
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
Can you have an amendment to this Treaty? Must not the vote for or against the Treaty?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
This a resolution. I do not propose to amend the Treaty. I propose to move an amendment to the resolution.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I submit that a change has been made in Document No. 2 which has been before us. It is not within any member's power to do such a thing without the unanimous consent of this House, and I entirely object to it.
MR. COLIVET:
I cannot find anything in the Orders to prevent any member, any time, from moving an amendment. I am not now supporting the idea that it should be moved.
MR. GRIFFITH:
A document has been put into our hands this evening that is not Document No. 2.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
You are quibbling. The Minister for Foreign Affairs is quibbling now.
MR. GRIFFITH:
A document has been put in which is not Document No. 2.
MR. MACCARTHY:
On a point of order. The President is a touchy man. He jumps up very quickly when one puts his own interpretation on this document. Is it in order for the President to call the Minister for Foreign Affairs a quibbler?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I say that the word `quibble' has been used here several times. If ever it was once true it is in this case, because there is nothing changed but in the setting up---a slight change to have it in final form.
MR. GRIFFITH:
This House has here the document placed in our hands Document No. 2 consisted of twenty three clauses and an appendix. This new document consists of seventeen clauses. Six clauses are omitted.
MR. COLIVET:
Are we right in discussing the matter before it is moved at all?
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
I would like to make this point. This document, so-called------
THE SPEAKER:
The only motion before us is for the adjournment of the House.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I have no objection to having this document discussed. I was simply putting forward my idea for a course of procedure.
THE SPEAKER:
It is evident the course of procedure is not accepted by members on both sides.
MR. MACCARTHY:
Is it in order for an amendment to be moved to the Treaty?
THE SPEAKER:
Not to the Treaty but an amendment can he moved to the motion for the approval of the Treaty.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
This document embodies a post-rejection policy and it should be a matter for the post rejection Cabinet if the Treaty is rejected.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am responsible for the proposals and the House will have to decide on them. I am going to choose my own procedure.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I submit it is not in the competence of the President to choose his own procedure. This is either a constitutional body or it is not. If it is an autocracy let you say so and we will leave it.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
In answer to that I am going to propose an amendment in my own terms. It is for the House to decide whether they will take it or not.
MR. MILROY:
The President says he he is not proposing an amendment to the Treaty, but is not the effect of his proposal one which is a material amendment of the Treaty?
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
The amendment has not yet been proposed, and the only motion before the House is the one for adjournment.
The House then adjourned.
Mark Sturgis wrote ‘ The clearly expressed wish of the people for the Treaty makes the actual size of the majority much less important than it was before Xmas as however big the de Valera crowd is in voting strenght it is now quite clear that the country does not support them..’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p 226
5
The Irish Independent and Freeman’s Journal carried transcripts of both the original and final versions of the Document No. 2 supplied by Griffith. This according to the official de Valera biography implied ‘..that the President was trying to hide something. The old Devoy dispute about Cuba was resurrected and cast in de Valera’s face by people who knew that it had not been a retreat from the Republican position, but who now wanted a stick to beat him with.’
Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.176
5 January
While the Dail debates continued, on South Georgia Island, Ireland’s first Antartic explorer, Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton died aged 48. Many geographic features in Antartica, including a glacier, ice shelf, inlet and coastline section are named after him.
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION, Thursday 5th, 1922. The Dáil resumed at 11.15 a.m. on Thursday the 5th January with THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) in the chair.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
On a point of order I would like to bring this matter before the House. Yesterday I was informed that one of the principal business houses in this city received this letter:
<SMALL>Sinn Fein Headquarters, 6 Harcourt Street, Dublin, January 3, 1922.
Dear Sirs We have found that it will not be possible for us to obtain a Union Jack of sufficient size in the event of its being necessary for us to display one at the end of the session of Dáil Eireann when the Treaty will, in all probability have been ratified. We are anxious to comply with all the necessary courtesies, and propose to hoist the Union Jack beside the Green Flag on the University Building as soon as the result of the discussion is known. We would be grateful if you would give the bearer your largest flag. We will, of course, return it to you as soon as the one which we have ordered arrives.
We are, dear Sirs, Yours faithfully, M. WHELAN, Secretary, Decoration Committee, Irish Free State.</SMALL>
We are here by the courtesy and consent of the University authorities of which President de Valera is Chancellor.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
I am Chief Executive Officer in 6 Harcourt Street, and that is a forgery. It never came from 6 Harcourt Street.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
I would propose a motion that this Session does not formally open till three o'clock. There are a few private members, back benchers, who, in view of the seriousness of the present situation, are discussing matters among themselves. They have not had an opportunity of finishing their discussion and they think they would finish between now and lunch time, and they would suggest that the Session do not open until three o'clock. The members on both sides are concerned in this.
MR. EOIN O'DUFFY:
I agree to this. I second the motion.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I have no objection.
THE SPEAKER:
Do I understand there is no objection?
MR. M. COLLINS:
I agree.
MR. SEAN O'MAHONY:
I wish to I make one or two remarks with the permission of the house.
THE SPEAKER:
I will take the motion for the adjournment now.
The motion was then put and carried.
MR. D. FITZGERALD:
There is a very important matter that I want to bring up. A very disgraceful thing has occurred------
THE SPEAKER:
We won't take up any of these things at present
The House thereupon adjourned at 11.20 a.m., to 3 p.m.
</SMALL>
The Session was resumed at 3.35 p.m. with THE SPEAKER (DR. MACNEILL) in the Chair.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I have not consulted my friends about the leading article that appeared in the Freeman's Journal. But I wish to express my own regret that an Irish journal would publish such a leading article as that which appeared in a Dublin morning paper to-day. I think that the Dáil has the highest respect for and confidence in the President [applause], and I believe the people of this country have the highest respect for the President also [hear, hear], and it is not in the interests of the ratification of the Treaty that such an article as this should appear in an Irish journal.
MR. SEAN ETCHINGHAM:
I think some steps should be taken with regard to this article this venomous toad the Freeman's Journal has emitted from to-day's issue. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Griffith, often told us what the Freeman's Journal was. On February 8th 1902, twenty years ago, he summed up the Freeman's Journal as follows:---
<SMALL>
The Freeman's Journal is a paper with an evil history; Lucas's honest bigotry and Higgins' villainy mark its early years, the blood money of Lord Edward FitzGerald filled its coffers, the Castle nourished it for a generation, it gibed at the young Irelanders and spat venom on the Fenians; it strove to kill Parnell in his early days by a forgery as infamous as the Pigott ones, and afterwards crawled on its belly before him and begged for pardon; it supported him when his followers mutinied because it thought the country would support him, and it turned on him when it found it was mistaken. In a word, the Freeman's Journal has opposed every National movement until the movement became too strong for it, and it has assailed every Irish patriot from Henry Grattan to Parnell---from Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Theobald Wolfe Tone, to Thomas Clarke Luby and James Stephens.
</SMALL>
That was written twenty years ago of the Freeman's Journal. It was then true and it is true to-day. Now we want to take some action in the matter. There are also some notes in the bottom of this thing about `How Long?' And I think that concerns every member of Dáil Eireann; no matter what difference of opinion exists between us we can, at least, be unanimous in this: that we will not be insulted by the Freeman's Journal. I pass over what has been written about the President of our Republic. The Republic still lives, and President de Valera is more than a symbol; he is the head of that Republic. And President de Valera has been truly described in recent years as the `man of destiny,' as the `Irish Eagle,' and we are all proud of him as such; and the future will be proud of him. We have not forgotten the hero of Boland's Mills, and he has since that fight, proved his worth. But here is a thing, a Chinn Chomhairle, that none of us can take---`How long?' That is an attack on the Dáil. `How long?' they ask, and then it continues: `When will An Dáil cease talking? People are sick of speech-making.' [`They are, hear hear.'] But are you going to have the Freeman's Journal even though it supports you now, write the same about you. You heard what Arthur Griffith said about it. It will write the same of you in a month or two if it suits these parties. `We can't continue,' it says, `to weary our readers with such futile iteration. If anything new is said we shall be careful to report it, but otherwise we must exercise journalistic discretion in our treatment of the speeches.' I know something of what the representative of a paper feels; I pity them; I have great sympathy with them. Just like the lawyers have to speak to order in Court, the poor journalist, the representative of the Press, must write to order; it is a matter of bread and butter for them. But if you want to get at the men who control the paper---and I say that attack on Dáil Eireann, if that happened in any other country in any time, that matter would be brought before the bar here. The Freeman's Journal wants---before taking action it would be right to have a decision in the matter before you. I should think we must see that this paper, that the representatives of the paper as a protest be expelled from this assembly, from this House---it has been suggested to me--- pending an apology. And in what form is that apology to be? I leave it to you, my colleagues here. I say there is an insult to the Dáil in this. That was a criminal action on the President of the Republic. I say it is a criminal action. I have no enmity against the paper. I think I know the proprietor of the Freeman's Journal. He is an all-round sportsman---Martin Fitzgerald. I think I know him. That article is not his style. I have some experience of his literary style [Laughter]. But that paper has insulted the Republic of Ireland through its President. It has brought charges against him. Oh! it is the old venom, the old poison. Mark you here, you cannot trust that paper any more now than you ever could trust it, or than Ireland could trust it in the past. It may join you now, but it follows the English Press. And you know what the English Press are doing with those standing up for principle. I know their denunciation of some of us. I need not go down before some of my countrymen after what appeared in the Northcliffe journal. And we have some of the same as the Northcliffe journal here. I say to you that the representatives, though some may be friends of mine, be turned out of this House until, as it is suggested we get an ample apology.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
I rise to second the motion---that the Freeman's Journal's representative be turned out from this assembly and not re-admitted until the proprietors and editors of the journal give an undertaking that they will report what happens here. It is for us and the country to decide, and I consider that everybody here knows---everybody here from Mr. Griffith down to the humblest member knows what faith is to be put in any protestations of the Freeman's Journal. I consider their statement that they will print just what they like is of a piece with the rest of their journalistic attitude. I hope we will come to a unanimous decision in this matter, and that they will be expelled from this House.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
I hope we will be unanimous in the protest. But let us make a protest on proper grounds. The largest latitude must be allowed to fair comment by newspapers. The Freeman's Journal is entitled to say whether we are talking too long, and we are not entitled to turn out their representatives---they are entitled to ask `How long?' The principal ground of complaint is that in this morning's leading article in the Freeman's Journal the most infamous attack that I have ever seen in an Irish newspaper was made on two members of this House. That was not a matter of fair comment. But when you get one of the principal newspapers in Dublin in its leading article starting out by declaring that the President of our Government `has not the instincts of an Irishman in his blood' and continuing through a series of venomous personal attacks upon the President and Deputy Childers, ending up with this phrase: `when the fight was on Mr. de Valera and Mr. Erskine Childers fell accidentally into the hands of the military and were immediately released at the moment when there was 10,000 for the corpse of Michael Collins'---an article like that is infamous. That is the ground, and the only ground upon which we could legitimately protest against a newspaper which is allowed by courtesy to come here and report the meetings of this Dáil, abusing this privilege, and returning thanks for this privilege by insulting, not merely the Dáil in this manner, but the Irish people. I need not say anything about the President. But about Deputy Childers I must say this---as one who was present in London. Much as I disagree with what Deputy Childers has said about the Treaty, I think it should be known that there was nobody connected with the delegation in London who worked so hard and so assiduously and so untiringly as did Deputy Childers during the whole time. And whenever anybody had any difficulty or any question requiring solution they went to him as the natural authority on the subject. And to think that a man like that could be attacked in the most infamous manner by the Freeman's Journal which has now the audacity to put itself forward as the champion of Roger Casement; I think that is beyond the bounds to which any newspaper should be allowed to go.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
I wish to associate myself with the protest against personalities. But I certainly also wish to dissociate myself most emphatically from the subsequent suggestion that any Press representatives should be turned out from this assembly. Now I don't care if it was the representative of Dublin Castle was here. I think we are not afraid to hear the worst or the best that they can say. And if we want to comment against any particular journal, I have in my hand this moment one paper which I think contains a reference equally reprehensible and equally damning, unworthily suggesting baseness on the part of another section of this House. We have been putting up standards for journalism. If one journal is on its trial here to-day I am not going to take a brief for that particular journal. But another journal that makes insinuations against the honour and integrity of members should he equally open to impeachment.
THE SPEAKER:
Let it be done in the same way.
MR. MILROY:
I am not going to move that the representatives of this journal he expelled from An Dáil. I think it is only fair to point out to those responsible for it that they should see the unwisdom of it.
THE SPEAKER :
Let it be done in the to bring anything across what is being brought before us.
MR. MILROY:
I think it would be most unfair to select any particular journal which happens to make a suggestion that we resent. I resent it as much as any member of the assembly. If the same suggestion were made about me---my honour is as dear to me as the honour of the President is to him---I certainly would not feel called upon to ask that the representatives of such a journal be withdrawn. We want freedom of the Press, and we expect that the Press should be kept within restraint. I think the protest against personalities is quite adequate.
MR. MULCAHY:
I agree entirely with Deputy Gavan Duffy as to the grounds upon which we have to complain of the Freeman's Journal, and I would propose as an amendment to the motion `that we delay action with regard to any representative of the Freeman's Journal attending this assembly until to-morrow morning to see whether, in the morning's issue of the Freeman's Journal we may not have an adequate apology for the outrageous references and imputations contained in the leading article against President de Valera and Mr. Childers.' I may mention as one of the three names that have been dragged into the leading article, that I have already written to the editor a very emphatic protest against the nature of its leading article.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
I also wish to say what I hesitate to say. And I would like to support it. But I think it is very unwise to base anything on what a journal said as to its desire to publish a certain amount or not.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I beg to second Deputy Mulcahy's amendment. I may say that prior to the Christmas adjournment I made it clear that I strongly resented those personal attacks on President de Valera. I conveyed that information to both the Dublin newspapers and I represent the feelings of those in favour of the Treaty as I do my own. It has been said here---perhaps not meant---that those people in favour of the Treaty are largely influenced by the Press of the country. Now we are not in any way influenced by this Press or that Press or any other Press.
THE SPEAKER:
Better not go into this.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I beg your pardon. I am speaking [Laughter]. I don't think you have a right to interrupt me for a moment.
THE SPEAKER:
I will ask the Deputy to confine himself strictly to the question before us.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
On every question on which I rise to speak here, except on the speech I made the other day, you, for some reason or another, found it necessary to interrupt me. Now, I don't think that is fair. I don't think I have departed from the strict spirit of the amendment that was moved. It has been suggested here, and it is right that it should be cleared up, that we men have been influenced in our attitude towards this Treaty by the Press of the country. Everybody knows that the Republican movement was created despite that Press, and that we have not been influenced by it. We have no sympathy whatever with personal attacks against anybody. And it would be unfair to attribute any semblance of sympathy for that kind of matter on our behalf.
At this moment Mr. Harry Boland who had arrived from America, entered the Chamber and was heartily applauded.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I understand that the matter under discussion is in regard to the leading article in to-day's Freeman's Journal. My name was mentioned in it. It is not necessary for me to say that it was mentioned without my authority. I object as strongly to the form of to-day's feuding article in the Freeman as I have objected here in the Dáil to any personalities of any kind, and that is my position about it and I need not say another word about that. I don't approve of the use of names in that way. I never have used them in that way and I hope sincerely that I never shall.
THE SPEAKER:
An amendment as moved by Deputy Mulcahy and seconded by Deputy Walsh: `That action against any representatives of the Freeman's Journal attending this assembly be withheld pending an adequate apology in to-morrow's issue of that paper for the infamous nature of the references and imputations contained in the leading article against President de Valera and Mr. Childers in this day's issue.'
MR. D. FITZGERALD:
Already action has been taken against a certain Pressman in a most dastardly way, and I suggest that the words `action in the way of exclusion' should be substituted for the word `action' in the resolution.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
As the proposer of the motion I don't want to press the thing to a division. I only wanted to draw attention to it, and to get Dáil Eireann to register its protest. But I will say the editor is guilty of treason and ought to be impeached. That is the position. Personally, I would like to give him a dose of Backwoodsman's laws.
THE SPEAKER put the amendment with the alteration suggested by Mr. Desmond Fitzgerald.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I regard any motion of this kind as being an interference with the liberty of the Press, and I stand as much for the liberty of the Press as I stood and do stand against personalities.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
I would like to point out that the amendment, as it stands, involves a principle that some of us don't accept. We could all agree if the words `representatives of the Press' were deleted from it. The best way is to put it in the form in which we could all agree to it. And when it comes up to-morrow------
MR. D. FITZGERALD:
The Deputy for Wexford made a speech and he said he would like to give the editor of the Freeman's Journal a dose of Backwoodsman's law. Well actually a number of criminals in this country have already taken such action with regard to another Pressman, and I want to make it clear that this House does stand for the liberty of the Press. We may disapprove of that article. We are talking of letting the Press in by courtesy. We do let them in because we want them in. It is not through courtesy they are here. And the whole Press of the world represented here is considering the taking of action in boycotting this Dáil until the journalist who has been taken away is released; to show what they think of the action of people in this country---criminals who have taken certain action yesterday. If you want the Press here perhaps you won't have them after this afternoon.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
I would second Mr. Beasley's proposal.
MR. GRIFFITH:
If you say you condemn the reference to President de Valera in that article I am heartily with you. I think this is in the worst of bad taste. If you had to put up with what was written about us by one of the Deputies here---what was written about me in a recent paper---we could have raised these things. But we ignore these things. The Press has a right to say what it likes about us. I say the Press must be free to say what it pleases.
</SMALL>
MR. DAVID CEANNT:
Is there any other assembly in the world where the King or President would be attacked in this way? Would the editor not be tried immediately for high treason? Now, it is not a question alone of President de Valera, but because he is President of Ireland, and I think we are standing a little too much of this abuse during the last four or five days. If the Press thinks they can intimidate the members of the Dáil they are making, I tell them, the mistake of their lives. If an apology is not published I think action should be taken.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The fact that I have been attacked prevents my speaking on this. I want to say that I am for the fullest freedom of the Press. I agree with the Minister of Foreign Affairs absolutely in this matter. The people of Ireland will deal with their Press when they find that the Press has misled them. I am only anxious that the people should not be misled. I think any action of ours which would limit the freedom of the Press is a mistake.
MR. CHILDERS:
I endorse what the President has said.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
A protest has been made and I think the matter ought to end. I beg to move that leave be given to withdraw it.
MR. MULCAHY:
I withdraw my motion dealing with the possible exclusion of any Press representative.
THE. SPEAKER:
I wish to say myself that, had it not been raised by the Deputies here, it had been my intention to raise it. We are unanimous in declaring that a most scandalous abuse of the rights of the Press has been committed in this case; that that abuse consists in a gross insult to those whom this assembly, and to those whom the people of Ireland have placed in the highest positions of trust that it was in their power to place them. The insult to the President is against the President, against the Dáil itself, and against the nation; and I am quite certain that the reprobation and condemnation of that insult which was pronounced unanimously here to-day will be pronounced unanimously by the whole people of Ireland.
MR. SEAN O'MAHONY:
I claim the indulgence of the House to reply to a statement I see to-day attributed by the Press to the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the shape of an interjection by the Foreign Minister [Laughter]. You may laugh. He stated last night, according to the Press report, and I did not hear him making that statement or otherwise I would have dealt with it--- the remark attributed to Mr. Griffith was `You came to me two or three times before I went over to London last August and urged me to accept peace at any terms. It won't do John.' I never made such a statement and all I say is that that statement is untrue. I take my honour that such a statement I never made. And he is reported as saying this: `You are the man who, when I was going to London, told me to bring back peace anyhow'. I said: `Art, bring back peace and the country will be behind you!' The country would be behind him if he brought back peace with honour to the nation.
MR. GRIFFITH:
All right, John.
MR. O'MAHONY:
Art and I are still friends.
MR. COLIVET:
I wish to make a personal explanation. The words which I used here on Tuesday have been misinterpreted and have caused pain to some people. In referring to spies I was taken by some to be referring to one particular incident. I now wish to say as emphatically as I can that I had in my mind no one case or incident whatsoever. There was nothing further from my mind. I intended a general reference and nothing more. I had no intention of docketting or defining any particular incident, and I regret if any words of mine were taken as meaning such.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is another matter of privilege. In the Private Session I presented a certain document, and I presented it for the same reason that I am presenting, or intended to present, this other document. I put that draft before the House for the purpose of finding whether we could not, on that, get common ground. It was obvious to me then that the Treaty as it came was not at all likely to get that degree of unanimity which would at all show that it was acceptable to the Irish people as a whole. That draft should have no more interest for the public in general then, for instance, the rough draft of a reply which I was preparing to send to Lloyd George. It was of purely historic value and nothing else. I kept it away from the public in order that it might not be brought as a red herring across the track of the discussion here. I was prepared to put my motion in definite form as an amendment at the proper time and let it be discussed. There was an objection to that from the other side. The other side would not have the amendment, and therefore, as I could not bring it forward that way I wished to have it withdrawn altogether. Now this document is published in the Press and there was a definite undertaking here at this Secret Session. I asked that this document would be kept confidential. There is nothing in the document that is not in the other except, as the public could see, a slight change of form; and I want to say now that it is a great pity, when we are discussing such tremendous matters, that questions of that sort should be made to assume an importance which they really have not. My rough draft here was put before the Dáil to try and get unanimity on it and not to be represented as if I was trying to do something different from what I gave as my full considered motion; and I think it is an absolute abuse of confidence to publish that document, not that I am ashamed of it. That document was but as a rough draft of my reply to Lloyd George. It was given to members of this House in confidence and it was revealed. I think when one is trying to conduct the affairs of our nation and when the workings of one's mind in these matters is definitely brought and shown to those with whom we are dealing, I think it is very hard, indeed, to carry on the national work. Now I protest therefore against the publication of this confidential document. The next thing I want to say is this: last night at the close of the debate the question of this amendment came up and I said I would choose my own procedure. You will remember, a Chinn Chomhairle, and the members of the House will remember, that that came in reply to a statement from the other side that there would have to be an agreement. Now, I have been trying to work in agreement with the other side, but it is obvious that if I am to be hampered in what I wanted to do by agreement with the other side, I would simply be doing what the other side wanted me to do. That was said with reference to the other side and not with reference to the House as a whole. And that has been definitely misrepresented or misunderstood, and the suggestion of autocracy has been made. I have been working with the members of the House and I don't think any of them in the Cabinet could say I am an autocrat.
MR. GRIFFITH:
As the President has spoken about Document No. 2 appearing in the Press, I wish to say that I am responsible for it. I handed it to the Freeman's Journal and the Independent representatives last night. If it was an abuse of confidence, I may say that I sat here for days and heard myself described as dishonourable. I heard ladies and gentlemen here talking about me. I have not stood up. I have not complained about what the members said about me. I do not mind; I am content to let my countrymen judge me. The President said it was a confidential document. You will recollect that, at the first public sitting, when I intended to speak on the document the President made a request to me. He admitted that it was not a confidential document. I honoured that request and I withheld what I had to say. I spoke as with one hand tied. Last night this document here now was handed out as Document No. 2. I looked at it and I observed that it ended with clause seventeen whereas the other document ended with clause twenty-three. I called attention to the fact that it was not Document No. 2 and the President stood up and accused me of quibbling. I therefore handed it to the Press to let the Irish people judge whether I was quibbling or not. I made no abuse of confidence. That document was not a confidential document and I could have used it but for President de Valera's request not to do so. I honoured his request. I was accused of quibbling last night when I pointed out that this document had six additional clauses. I put that to the Irish people to show whether I was quibbling or not.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The Minister of Foreign Affairs has the right if he wishes to put it in that way to publish the document. I would have published the document myself but I thought it would be putting a red herring across the discussion here. The Minister for Foreign Affairs would not have been tied if I were allowed to move my amendment. There is nothing in the second form in which it appears further than that it was a considered form. The other document was put here in a hasty way without consideration. I amended it as I would have done with any other document. There are certain other verbal changes which are necessary in the document to make it consistent with our position.
MR. GRIFFITH:
The President suggests that I objected to his moving an amendment. I told the President that there could be no amendment to the Treaty and the President agreed with me, and the form of words that were there I submitted to him at the Mansion House and he approved of them. Any amendment to the Treaty destroys it.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
This is an amendment to the motion that is before the House. It is not an amendment to the Treaty but to the motion before the House. The motion before the House was that we approve of a certain thing. It need not have come before the House at all because, as a matter of fact, in the body of the Treaty this Dáil was not mentioned. I take it that the plenipotentiaries are simply reporting back here the result of their work in London, and that we are expressing our opinion on that report. And therefore, that when we have here `approval' on something which a large number of members don't approve, that we, as members of this House, have a right to say definitely on their report---to express our opinion, and if there is an amendment to put the amendment. What is at stake is this: that we as Dáil Eireann set out to make peace between Ireland and Great Britain. I hold that was the primary object of the negotiations, to have a definite peace, a lasting peace, so far as any human things we do to-day can be regarded as lasting---something that would be built on a secure foundation. If such a peace has not been made, then we have not done the thing we set out to do. And it is with the hope that we might do exactly what we set out to do, that is, to secure the basis of a lasting peace, that I wished to bring forward my proposal as an amendment. This body is representative of the Nation. The divisions that occurred here undoubtedly represent the divisions of thought in the nation. The principles that have been expounded here, and the sentiments that have been expressed, are an echo of the sentiments and principles to be found through the people of Ireland. If we allow a chance like this to pass without making a definite peace we are not doing our duty either to the Irish nation, or to humanity as a whole. And I simply wish, as one human being and not merely as an Irish man doing the work of a nation, but as a human being trying to get peace, and to bring people who have been warring for centuries to a basis of common understanding---I wished to bring forward my proposal. It was ruled out on a technical point, but I feel I have done my duty.
MR. GRIFFITH:
This motion that stands in my name was brought by me to the Mansion House at the request of President de Valera. There I asked him did he accept that motion and he said: `Yes, we will have to vote on that motion.' That is the whole matter.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is no question about that, but you definitely refused to agree to the amendment being brought before the House as an amendment to the motion. That is as far as you are personally concerned.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I think it is not open to the Minister for Foreign Affairs to answer that question. An amendment to the resolution can only be made by omitting certain words or adding certain words.
THE SPEAKER:
That does not arise yet; it will arise in due course.
The SPEAKER read the following
</SMALL>
letter from Próinsias O Druacháin, Deputy for Waterford and Tipperary, East:
<SMALL>Do Cheann Chomhairle na Dála.
Is oth liom go g-caithfe me and Dáil d'fhágaint mar Theachta. Do reir an meid rún a fuaireas ó Mhuintir Thiobtruid Arann Theas chím ná fuil na daoine sásta liom, mar gheall orm a bheith i g-coinne an t-socruithe a dineadh le muintir Shasana. Ní leigfeadh mo chroidhe ná m'aigne dhom mo ghuth do thabhairt ar thaobh an t-socruithe shin ; ahus ós rud e gur cheap Comhairle Ceanntair Sinn Fein iarraidh orm seasamh leis an socrú san, níl le deanamh agam ach eirghe as ar fad, mar siad na daoine a thoibh me.
Le beannacht oraibh go leir, Mise, Próinsias O Druacháin Tiobruid Arann, Theas.</SMALL>
COMMANDANT EOIN O'DUFFY:
A number of us for some days past have been very anxious to find some common ground for both sides out of the present grave position that we find ourselves in. Last night a number of us got together; we were self-appointed; there were nine in all to see if anything could he done. The names were: On the side of ratification---Messrs. MacGuinness, Hogan, Professor Hayes and I. Against---Messrs. Seán T. O Ceallaigh, Mellowes, O'Connor, Moylan and Rutledge. A substantial agreement was reached on a number of very vital questions whereby we thought it might be possible to retain the services of the President for the nation and perhaps, avoid a split in the country. It was necessary for us to report this morning to the leaders on either side and in order that we might do that, this House was adjourned. We did that and, unfortunately, after some time we found it was not possible for us to find an agreement and the position is as we left it except that we are still here, and I don't know whether we will think it worth while to again meet or not. I merely wish to let the assembly know shortly what had passed. As regards the document that we discussed, I am not in a position to disclose that now, by agreement with the other members.
THE SPEAKER:
We will resume now the orders of the day.
DR. MACCARTAN:
Are we to understand that this Committee agreed?
COMMANDANT O'DUFFY:
Oh yes! we got substantial agreement on a number of substantial matters.
DR. MACCARTAN:
Why not have a report from them?
MR. LIAM DE ROISTE:
I think in the interests of the nation that Committee should come together again. A most important thing for the country is that some substantial agreement should be come to. That Committee ought to come together again if it is possible to come to any agreement.
THE SPEAKER:
I understand that the Dáil, recognising the efforts made by this Committee, actually commissioned them to sit this morning------
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
No.
THE SPEAKER:
We adjourned for the purpose of enabling that Committee to formulate something upon which we might possibly agree. So that I now ask the members of the Committee whether they succeeded in formulating anything to lay before us?
COMMANDANT O'DUFFY:
I have just been discussing matters and we have decided that we should meet again this evening after the adjournment, and we hope then to formulate a report on what we have done.
MR. MULCAHY:
If that is so, I would move that the Dáil meets in Private Session to-morrow at eleven o'clock and have the report from that Committee before us. Obviously, if full agreement that can be of use to this House as a whole is not reached, it might be inadvisable to report in Public Session the actual grounds upon which fairly substantial agreement has been reached. But it is most important that the House as a whole would know how far along the road to agreement the Committee had been able to go.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I second that.
</SMALL>
MR. E. DE BLAGHD:
In view of I what has been said I think that no good purpose could be served by continuing the orders of the day at the present moment and I move now that we adjourn till eleven o'clock to-morrow in Private Session.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
This Committee was a self-appointed one. Some people from both sides came to me---some from the other side came to me last evening, and some from my own side came to me and I said, of course, that I was at the disposal of anybody; that I would be glad to join with anybody in discussing any possible or probable basis of agreement that could be accepted with honour and dignity on both sides. This Committee has no authority from the Dáil up to the present moment. If you want to give it authority that is another matter.
A DEPUTY:
Let it go on.
THE SPEAKER:
You cannot give it any authority. It is a Committee that meets with the approval of the Dáil, and the Dáil will receive a report from it.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
It is a very responsible work to put on the Committee. We might not have chosen ourselves for such a responsible position if we thought that the Committee's work was likely to be the basis of a report for the Dáil. However, if the Dáil is agreed that we should undertake the work, I am prepared to adopt the responsibility.
MR. LIAM DE ROISTE:
I propose if necessary that the Dáil approves of the meeting of this Committee [`No, no!']
The motion to adjourn was then agreed to, and the House adjourned at 4.30 p.m.
6
A private meeting of the Dail was held during the morning which saw ‘violent language from Michael Collins and Cathal Brugha. The strain of the long debate was now telling on tempers’
Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.176
De Valera offered to resign from Dail Eireann stating he was now unable to do what he had been elected to do; to preserve and defend the Republic and to use ‘ all the means at the Republic’s disposal to defend itself’. On hindsight it appears to have been a calculated risk, as all the Anti-Treaty Deputies rallied behind him and he secured from Griffith an undertaking that the motion on the Treaty would be taken within 48 hours if he did not resign.
The London Times that morning wrote of Document No. 2: ‘This, we say at once, is not a proposal which will appear to an Englishman as a mere modifiction of the existing Articles of Agreement. The status that it contemplates for Ireland is not that of a Dominion, but of an independent power in loose treaty relationship with this country.’
DAIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION Friday, January 6th, 1922
The Public Session of An Dáil resumed at 3.20 p.m. on Friday, 6th January, THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) in the Chair.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think it is not fair to the country or to this assembly that the anomalous position which we have been in since the Articles of Agreement were signed in London should be continued any longer. When these Articles of Agreement were signed the body in which the executive authority of this assembly and of the State is vested became as completely split as it was possible for it to become. Irrevocably, not on personalities or anything of that kind or matter, but on absolute fundamentals. Since then we have been trying to keep nominally as a unified Executive, but the time has come when that must be ended. If I, for instance, am to keep the Chief Executive authority here in the Republic, in duty bound to preserve the Republic and to use all the means at the Republic's disposal to preserve itself, I cannot be handicapped. I cannot have responsibility without the right to use all the resources of the State to defend itself and its existence. Very well, we have the position now in which I and a certain section of the Cabinet stand for one fundamental policy, and another section of the Cabinet stands for a fundamentally opposite policy. One side of us means the preservation of the Republic and the existence of our country; the other means the subversion of that independence. We have black and white so far as we are concerned. Now I stand here as one who believes in ordered government. I believe fundamentally in the right of the Irish people to govern themselves. I believe fundamentally in government of the people by the people, and if I may add the other part, for the people. That is my fundamental creed. Anything that would take away the Executive or fundamental authority of the people, whether executive, legislative or judicial, is absolutely against my principles and I hold that would be a subversion of nationality as I understand it, for this nation. Now, the position which has been created is this---a little history will make the whole position clear to every member here and to the country---I entered politics as a soldier, as one who stood for the principles of those who proclaimed the Republic in 1916. I went down to Clare the first time I went as a political candidate; I read the declaration of that Republic and I said to the people of Clare: `I stand for that; and I hope to be able to establish this for the world: that the men who proclaimed that, though they were said to be a minority of the nation at the time, they truly represented the heart and feeling of the nation.' And we proved it, thank God. Those who said we had no right to `rebel' as it was called, because we didn't represent the views of the people, were proved to have told untruths. Whatever may have been said about the chances of success and other matters there is one thing that stands proved historically---that these men did represent the hearts and souls and aspirations of the Irish people. I say that no election taken under duress or anything else will disprove that to-day. I say, therefore, that there will never be a peace which neglects that fundamental fact because it is the fact of the whole situation. The fundamental fact is that the Irish people want to live their own lives in their own way without any outside authority whatever being imposed upon them; whether it is the authority of the British
<SMALL>p.272</SMALL>
Crown or any other authority whatever. Now for the historical part. After my imprisonment, when I came out after leaving Dartmoor---I came out and I found here on the one hand the old chief of the Sinn Fein Organisation, at the time working politically---our present Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Arthur Griffith---and I found at the head of the Irish Volunteers the Minister for Defence, Mr. Cathal Brugha. I found that they differed then as fundamentally as they differ to-day. I found that I was a sort of connecting link between the two, and at the first Convention of Sinn Fein, or a night or two before it, we devised a basis on which we have worked so successfully for the past four years: the basis of the Sinn Fein Constitution. Since then I have been the link between the two. On the one hand the political leader at the time, as I might say, of Sinn Fein, surrendered at the Convention his Chairmanship of the Sinn Fein Organisation, surrendered it to me, and I was elected political head unanimously. Before that time the Minister of Defence had surrendered to me, as Senior Officer in the Army at the time, the headship of the Irish Volunteers. I combined therefore in myself for the time being, the political headship and the military headship; and it was the combination of these two---the military headship which represented the true aspirations of the Irish people, the headship of those who stood definitely for the Republic which was established in 1916 unequivocally, and the political headship---which enabled the two sides to work together. When I went to America to try to get recognition for the Republic that was established, I, as it was my right, nominated as Acting President or as Political Chief the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I should have said, in giving this little historical summary, in order that it might make the position clear---I should have said that when Dáil Eireann met at its first session and proclaimed its independence, the Minister for Defence was chosen as the first Chief Executive Authority. He formed the first Cabinet of the Republic and he surrendered it to me when I came out of prison. Again I became the connecting link. In every Cabinet I formed I took care to have those two sides properly represented. And I felt that if I was to be of any use to the country, and if there was to be unity in the country, it was by trying to harmonise these two voices as far as was possible. I had a difficult task to play for four years, to try, so to speak, to hold the balance even in public discussion, no matter what my own personal views might be; and privately, and certainly in public never did I do anything which would tend to lead to the disruption of these two forces. I felt that the unity of these two forces was absolutely essential for national success; and until the sixth December I succeeded in my task. On the sixth December a document was signed which irrevocably sundered that connection. On October twenty-sixth I think it was, I saw the danger on account of following the British negotiations in London very carefully---I saw the danger and I found it my duty, dealing with the Home members of the Cabinet, to send to London to the delegation what I regarded as a warning. It was an expression of the views of the Home members of the Cabinet who were five at the time, whilst three were away. There were at home four members of the Cabinet and the Assistant Minister for Local Government. Those of us who were here were the Minister of Defence, the Minister for Home Affairs, the Minister for Local Government, the Assistant Minister for Local Government and myself. We were a definite majority in the Cabinet and on the twenty-fifth of October I wrote this:
<SMALL>
I received the minutes of the Seventh Session and your letter of the twenty fourth. We are all here at one that there can be no question of asking the Irish people to enter an arrangement which would make them subjects of the Crown, or demand from them allegiance to the British King. If war is the alternative, we can only face it and I think the sooner the other side is made realise that the better.
</SMALL>
That was definite. On December second or the night before, I think, the plenipotentiaries came back with a document which represented the proposals of the British Government at that stage. That document was clearly one, to me, inconsistent with our position. My position and the position of the Cabinet was that which we expressed in the now famous paragraph two at Gairloch, which caused a number of telegrams to be exchanged. That was that we had no right or authority
<SMALL>p.273</SMALL>
to act on behalf of the Irish people except as representatives of a Government of a sovereign state. That is the only basis, and I hold that anything that is inconsistent with that is ultra vires so far as we are concerned. Now, I therefore rejected that document on that basis, and made it quite clear, as far as I was concerned, to the Chairman of the Delegation that that would be unacceptable and impossible for us in our position. At the Cabinet meeting following a similar discussion arose and it was pointed out by the Minister of Defence who represented, as I have said, the traditional view---the fundamental Irish Volunteer view---it was pointed out that it meant definitely a split in the country if such a document was signed. The Chairman of the Delegation held that he would not break on the Crown. In view of the definite, clear certainty of a split a promise was given that a document of that sort, involving the making of Irish citizens British subjects and allegiance to the Crown---that such a document would not be signed---whilst the Chairman of the Delegation would not take the responsibility of breaking on that question---that such a document would not he signed until it was submitted to this Dáil. So certain was I of that promise being fulfilled to the letter that when I heard an agreement had been reached I said: `We have won.' And when I saw in the newspapers that the agreement that was reached was one absolutely incompatible with our position---a subverting of the State as it stands---I knew that a step which was practically irrevocable had been taken. There was but one way to try to save that, and it was this: we had been working definitely for peace---for a peace that would be consistent with our position, and I believe definitely that such a peace was possible. I had pinned, personally, my efforts to get the idea of any association whatever with the British Empire or the States of the British Empire---to try to make that palatable, so to speak, to those who thought, not merely of an independent Ireland in the sense of being a sovereign state, but thought of Ireland as a sovereign state absolutely isolated, such as Switzerland. I had attacked it as a political problem. I had kept myself detached, so to speak, calmly, coldly I weighing the factors in the situation; and I kept clearly in mind all the time the fundamental of all, that is, the satisfaction of the aspiration of complete independent Irish nationality. I saw nothing in the proposals which we had made that was inconsistent with that, and when I made a rough outline of the proposals to the first Ministry meeting, after the members came out of prison which was a sort of duplicate Ministry meeting at the time, I got it unanimously accepted in the main outline. It was difficult to work it in detail, but as the Conference went on and the British proposals were made on the one hand and adjustments on our side, we made something like a State arrangement to curtail power in a definite shape: and when this document and Articles of Agreement with Great Britain were signed, I got a document which was practically the last proposals which our plenipotentiaries made---counter proposals. I put these together as quickly as I could before the first meeting of the Dáil. I produced a rough draft document. It was nothing else, and it was put before this House for the purpose of eliciting views, not of those who had accepted the Treaty. Any man who stands up and says he can object to the other document, I say he is not objecting on the grounds of nationality, anyway. Therefore I take it for granted, and any fair or impartial member of this House is entitled to take it for granted, that anybody who agreed to the Treaty could not find objection to that document. The best proof of that was that the plenipotentiaries themselves had already tried to get these particular proposals accepted by the British Government. I therefore put it before the meeting to get the views, not so much of those who stood for the present---the Articles of Agreement, as of those who stood for the Republic in its simplest form of isolation. The document was presented in the same way as I would present it to the Cabinet. We had Private Sessions here during the war. These Private Sessions were respected and no one spoke outside of anything that happened at the Private Sessions. I put that document before them. It is only when I have got general agreement that I look after it from the point of view of form and wording. I didn't want the world to see it because I didn't want the world or the Irish people confused. And I didn't want the British to see
<SMALL>p.274</SMALL>
it because I didn't want them to see the changes that would be made in it by this assembly. I asked it to be kept as a confidential document. It was the first time that confidence was broken. Therefore, as head of the State, I cannot get further work done, as I cannot have that confidence in the members of the Cabinet. The position, therefore, is this: at that stage my last effort to secure unanimity and to secure co-operation was destroyed because that document was treated most unfairly; and it was treated unfairly because then, at that stage, I saw at once that we had for the first time in this Dáil got parties. I withdrew the document. I saw it could serve no good purpose at the time to be used as a red herring across the track; but still I see that through that means, and through that means only, I could be of any use to this assembly or to the nation; because it is only by combining these two forces that you can keep the nation united. It is not personal, because that document was mainly evolved through the delegates in London. I find very little to do except to take those final results of their labours and the Treaty as it actually was presented, and put them together. I was anxious to keep as close to the British Treaty as possible; because, as we were genuinely anxious for peace, there was no reason that we should make any changes that were not vital. I felt that I was doing a big thing, a thing that was necessary not merely for Ireland but even a bigger thing in a sense, and that was the reconciliation of two peoples. I believe that that is possible still on one basis and one only, because as sure as this other Treaty goes through so sure will there be rebels against British authority---because they will not be British subjects. We will be living an absolute lie. Neither technically or otherwise am I a British subject, and please God I will die without ever being one. Now, I have definitely a policy, not some pet scheme of my own, but something that I know from four years' experience in my position---and I have been brought up amongst the Irish people. I was reared in a labourer's cottage here in Ireland [applause]. I have not lived solely amongst the intellectuals. The first fifteen years of my life that formed my character were lived amongst the Irish people down in Limerick; therefore, I know what I am talking about; and whenever I wanted to know what the Irish people wanted I had only to examine my own heart and it told me straight off what the Irish people wanted. I, therefore, am holding to this policy, first of all, because if I was the only man in Ireland left of those of 1916---as I was Senior Officer left---I will go down in that creed to my grave. I am not a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, but I hope when I die I will get a Fenian grave. Therefore from that point of view I would be that; but I would not let personal considerations of that sort have anything to do with the situation. I am doing this and acting on this principle because I believe it is the only policy that can save Ireland at this moment. I am coming therefore before this Dáil to lay down now definitely my office and, as I have the right to get from all the Ministers their resignations, I lay it down definitely here in this House; and this House has got to decide before it does further work, who is to be the Chief Executive in this nation---and it will have to do it constitutionally---so that the Chief Executive Officer, if he is going to have the responsibility of office, will also have the powers of the Government to enable him to execute the duties of his office properly---it does not matter who he is. There are two rival policies then, and you will have to decide between them. One policy is this: I stand definitely for the Irish Republic as it was established---as it was proclaimed in 1916---as it was constitutionally established by the Irish nation in 1919, and I stand for that definitely; and I will stand by no policy whatever that is not consistent with that. Now if you re-elect me [cries of `We will!']---steady for a moment---I will have to have the right to get a Cabinet that thinks with me so that we can be a unified body. Next, I will have to have the full use of all the resources of the Republic to defend the Republic---every resource and all the material that is in the nation to defend it. If you elect me and you do it by a majority I will throw out that Treaty---if we have a majority, if this Cabinet goes down. Next, I will bring from our Cabinet a document such as that, and we will offer it to the British people as a genuine peace Treaty---to the British peoples, not merely Lloyd George and his government, but to all the
<SMALL>p.275</SMALL>
States of the British Commonwealth---of the British Empire. This is going further than any one because I have spent years---because one of my earliest dreams, next to securing Irish independence, was that there might be reconciliation between the people of these two islands---this is a genuine offer of peace, a peace that can be as lasting as human peace can be. We will offer them that, and if they turn it down, then we will, as in the past, stick to the Sinn Fein Constitution; we will deny the right, we will oppose the will of the British Parliamentary power to legislate for Ireland; and we will make use of any and every means to render impotent the power of England to hold Ireland in subjection by military force or otherwise. Now, if you re-elect me that is our programme. We have not been afraid notwithstanding---we started this even before 1919; we started in 1917 that programme. If there was not a gun in Ireland we could carry out that programme. If we were bound hand and foot we could still, by our voice and our will, stand by that programme. Let the British put us in their jails and they can't stifle our will. That human will of ours will stand up to Lloyd George and say, like Terence MacSwiney: `No! we will not be British subjects.' [Applause]. Very well then, I offer to this House my personal resignation, and with it go the Ministers. You have to elect the head of the Government. If you elect me I will pursue the policy I have outlined. As to the policy opposed to it I propose to let the Minister of Foreign Affairs tell you about it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
On a point of order I would like to know whether this statement involves a discussion on Document 2 or on Document 3? Because I will put forward arguments about that document that will stand against any thing. I want simply to know whether this involves a discussion on that document, because I can't allow a statement about that document to which there is an answer, a good answer, a true answer, to pass unchallenged.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
What I do formally is to lay before the House my resignation. Definitely, as Chief Executive authority I resign and with it goes the Cabinet. Do not decide on personalities---on my personality. It is not a question of persons. That has nothing whatever to do with it. As I say, it is not a question of persons because where personality is concerned we are all the best friends. We worked together as one team. Now we are divided fundamentally, although we had kept together until we reached this Bridge. My object was that we don't part before we come to this Bridge. We are at the Bridge. This House has got my Document No. 2. It will be put before the House by the new Cabinet that will be formed if I am elected. We will put down that document. It will be submitted to the House.
MR. GRIFFITH:
The President referred to me. I want to make a short statement. I won't go into the speech of the President now. The President and I agreed that this motion should go on, and that a vote should be taken. Also he agreed that I should wind up this debate. Now, I submit that the order of the day is that we are discussing this motion: `that Dáil Eireann approves of this Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland '; and I submit that until that is decided we can't discuss the President's proposal. We are still on the orders of the day. And if any attempt is made to bring in another issue it is an unfair attempt to bring in another discussion, and to closure discussion on the motion before the House.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I can't take the responsibility of being defender of the Republic unless I have all the material resources of the Republic at my disposal, and I won't take the responsibility no matter what anybody asks me to do.
DR. FERRAN:
I have a serious statement to make. On a point of order no Treaty has been made. The motion of the Minister for Foreign Affairs------
THE SPEAKER:
What's the point of order?
DR. FERRAN:
I submit that the word `Treaty' there is inappropriate.
THE SPEAKER:
That's not a point of order.
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DR. FERRAN:
I submit that the Treaty is not yet concluded
THE SPEAKER:
Well, now, that is yet not a point of order.
MR. COLIVET:
Would it put matters in order if I moved a motion to suspend the Standing Orders in order to discuss the President's resignation?
MR. GRIFFITH:
I submit until that motion before the House is disposed of we can't discuss anything else.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I second the proposal to suspend the Standing Orders.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The Government can resign before everything else. There must be an Executive; and you must have somebody to see that the work of the House is carried out.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
I want to say this: the nation is bigger than any man and bigger even than the Dáil, and we ought to carry out the orders of the day.
THE SPEAKER:
The order is perfectly clear. The Dáil itself is the authority. That is to say that this body is supreme, and any other body in the country is subordinate to it; and especially with regard to the carrying on of its own proceedings, it passes its own authority. The orders of the day is the motion that is before us tabled here; that is the motion by the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I decline to take the responsibility for defending the Republic when I have not got the ordinary means of doing it.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
Have you accepted the motion for the suspending of the Standing Orders?
THE SPEAKER:
The motion to suspend the Standing Orders is in order.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
On that point I submit that the order of the day is before you, and it is a motion to discuss approval or disapproval of the Treaty. The Dáil is in session. Remember the discussion on it, and every sitting or meeting of this body was a continuation of one session, and not an ordinary meeting of the Dáil during which questions to Ministers and ordinary business, and the discussions which would arise at a single sitting would come up for consideration. This discussion here is out of the ordinary. It is one whole and entire sitting and I submit with great respect that it is not open to you to receive a motion---during the middle of a discussion---to suspend the Standing Orders.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
As you have ruled, there is no going back of your ruling now.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I suppose we can discuss this motion on the suspension of the Standing Orders [Cries of `No! no!']. I am in possession. I suppose we may discuss the motion to suspend the Standing Orders?
THE SPEAKER:
There is nothing against it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well we will discuss the motion to suspend the Standing Orders. The position is this. If you reject the Treaty the President of the Republic can, in ten minutes, have a Government for the Republic. Now there is another way of getting a Cabinet that will be a united Cabinet. As one member of the Cabinet I have offered already to put my resignation into the President's hands and let it go before the House. I have offered that and it was refused. Well, now, if the members of the present Government who are opposed to the Treaty---if those members, with the President at their head, ask for our resignations, well and good, let them come before the House. This now is a second way to get a Government to carry on. Let the President, having all the resources at his command, ask for our resignations, and let our resignations come before the House. There is a motion on now to suspend Standing Orders. That comes queerly at this time. I asked a question as to whether a speech which the President had made involved a discussion on document No. 2 or 3, I don't care which. I have an answer to this document and I want to give that answer to the Irish people. Now, under
<SMALL>p.277</SMALL>
the motion suspending the Standing Orders I take it that discussion on this document is ruled out. Is that right, sir?
THE SPEAKER:
Yes.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well, that is ruled out. The other side may say what they like, and they may put in any motion that they like, and they may take any action that they like, but we must not criticise them. That is the position that we have been put into. That is a position I won't accept from anybody; and no matter what happens to-day it won't be accepted by me. We will have no Tammany Hall methods here. Whether you are for the Treaty or whether you are against it, fight without Tammany Hall methods. We will not have them. A Committee was appointed by the House and the House was prevented from receiving the report of that Committee---it was prevented by three or four bullies [applause]. Are you going to be held up by three or four bullies?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Is that a proper thing?
THE SPEAKER:
I ask the Minister of Finance to withdraw that term.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I can withdraw the term but the spoken word cannot be recalled. Is that right, sir? [Applause and laughter]. This motion to suspend the Standing Orders is a motion to draw a red herring across our path here. And it is because of that that I, for one, cannot agree to it. We can have what we have been discussing for several days---we can have a straight vote for or against the Treaty. Have a straight vote and I am satisfied, whichever way it goes; because then we have shown that we can come to a decision. But don't try to employ those methods. The meaning of the suspension of the Standing Orders is nothing less than a red herring, On the motion before the House we can take a vote on the Treaty, and then the President can have his Cabinet that will work with him and for him.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Not for me.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I don't know whether or not we mean to have a discussion on the President's speech---there are things in it which I can tear to tatters---but under the Standing Orders I dare say we can. But on this, as on anything else, if you are going to strike a person about anything I say strike, and strike hard and strike and hear---hear first, anyway, the other side. This is an endeavour to put the other side into a position that we don't occupy and this motion to suspend the Standing Orders is simply a political dodge to put us in a false position.
MR. COLIVET:
As I raised the motion to suspend the Standing Orders I------ [Cries of `Order.']
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
The Minister of Finance has made a statement that the result of a meeting of eight or nine members of this body within the last twenty-four or forty-eight hours was prevented from being brought before us, and that this was the work of some bullies. He was asked to withdraw that. You have seen the way in which he withdrew it. I don't know to whom he referred when he mentioned this word `bullies.' Possibly he may have referred to me as being one of them. In the ordinary way I would take exception and take offence at such a term being applied to me, but the amount of offence that I would take at it would be measured by the respect or esteem that I had for the character of the person who made the charge. In this particular instance I take no offence whatever. Now, the Minister for Finance says something about Tammany Hall methods. I know nothing about them. Possibly he does. He says that on this motion for the suspension of the Standing Orders he and his friends are precluded from discussing the statement made by the President in the speech which you have just heard. That is so. But when the Standing Orders have been suspended he and his friends can discuss any statements that have been made by the President. That's all I have to say.
MR. M. COLLINS:
In that case I am satisfied.
MR. COLIVET:
I would like to say I did not move it as a political dodge or as
<SMALL>p.278</SMALL>
a red herring across the track. But as a private member I am sorry the President has resigned. I would prefer he had stayed until we had a vote on the Treaty.
MR. MILROY :
I don't think you can put the motion. We are not going to have the rules of this House played and trafficked with to suit the political manoeuvre of any Party in this House. There is a proper time for the step the President has taken, but this is not the time.
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
By Standing Order 5 it is laid down that: `the Chairman shall, at the request of a Deputy, suspend the orders of the day for the discussion of a special matter of national importance provided that, on a show of hands, the request has the support of ten Deputies.' I submit that it does not require that there should be a formal motion to suspend the Standing Order. If any Deputy can secure the support of ten Deputies.
MR. MILROY:
You have already ruled that the discussion upon the Standing Orders is permissible, and I want to resist the suspension of the Standing Orders, and I do it for this reason------
MR. MULCAHY:
It is not the suspension of the Standing Orders but the suspension of the orders of the day.
MR. MACENTEE:
It is the same thing.
MR. MILROY:
The point I would make if I were allowed to proceed---if those authorities on constitutional usage hadn't intervened---would be this: that the step that we are asked to take seems to me entirely out of harmony with constitutional usage. There is a time when it would be quite proper and quite opportune though, perhaps, regrettable for the President to take the step. That moment would be when he was defeated in this House upon the question which we are discussing---on the major issue, not now. I presume, sir, that that is a perfectly legitimate point to make. And therefore I suggest that to suspend the Standing Orders to discuss an unexpected pronouncement of the President is really an attempt to keep the Irish people still in the dark as to what is the real mind of the Dáil on the issue that is before us [cries of `No no!']. Well why was this intervention of the President---so unfortunate, so unhappy, so regretted by every one of us, so premature---why was it made? He talks about trying to keep unity. Is there any step more calculated to split not only this Dáil, but to split the whole Irish nation and the whole Irish race than that which the President has now taken up? Is there any step more calculated to bring about that result? I think that this Dáil will be well advised now to refuse to suspend the Standing Orders, and continue the discussion on the question---the main point---whether this Treaty is to be ratified or not.
MISS MACSWINEY
I rise to support the suspension of the Standing Orders. I do it on exactly the same grounds as the last speaker, and these are: that it is absolutely essential for the Irish people to be enlightened once for all on this matter, and that nothing will enlighten them so well as a direct policy on one side for the Republic, and on the other side for the Treaty, and I think it most essential that this motion should be put for that very purpose. The people in the country with all this talk of Documents 2 and 3 and now of X have been misled about the attitude of the President who, I think you will all agree with me, is the one supremely honourable man in this Dáil. And I think it is just because it is so muddled that a fair issue should be put before the people and the country. And for that reason I think it better to have the President's resignation with all it involves, with his clear statement of policy on the one side and, on the other side---then if the House defeats that policy, let them elect another President with a different policy, and then the issues are clear before the country.
MR. P. BRENNAN:
Is it simply a question of policy---the question between the President and the Treaty? Will it be a vote between the Treaty on the one side and President de Valera on the other? [Cries of `No! no!']
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I will explain clearly. I don't like to be misunderstood. I have done this in the
<SMALL>p.279</SMALL>
interests of order both here in this House and all over Ireland. We can't keep up a Coalition of that kind. It is impossible: because Cabinet documents have been brought out. How could I carry on the Cabinet work if private drafts were exposed to the public? I want, therefore, to safeguard the nation by having a definite head and Government for the nation. We will have parties here if we continue. I don't know whether I have the confidence of the House or not, but at present I can do nothing.
MR. P. MAILLE:
I strongly protest as a private member against this motion.
MR. BOLAND:
I support the motion for the suspension of the Standing Orders. I presume the remarks of the Hon. member for Cork were intended for me. I am sorry that he has seen fit to make such a suggestion. I will say this:that I don't know anything about Tammany Hall except this, that if he had a little training in Tammany Hall, and reserved some of his bullying for Lloyd George we would not be in the position we are in to-day.
MR. P. O MAILLE:
Lean leat.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
Now we are getting the dope.
MR. BOLAND:
If he had he could not have us in the position we are in to day. I came back to this country to vote against the Treaty. I support the President of this Republic, and I am particularly glad he has knit the issue. Either we are a Government or we are not. If we are a Government we must have a head; and as we have lined up now in parties, I think that the resignation offered gives this House the opportunity to say whether it stands for a Government of the Irish people---a Government that was created by the will of the Irish people, and a Government that can only be destroyed by the power that created it---or whether it stands with the men who have come back to this Dáil with a Treaty which denies the existence of the Irish nation [`No! no!'] and denies, in my opinion, the fact that we are a Government. We sent those plenipotentiaries to negotiate a Treaty; we sent them from Dáil Eireann. They returned with a document, not to Dáil Eireann, but to the Southern Parliament. Here is their opportunity now to have the issue clearly knit. I maintain that if the orders of the day be suspended, if the President's resignation be accepted and if he goes forward for re-election on a definite policy which he has clearly expressed, that that is proper and constitutional. As we are at present we are divided and he has taken this opportunity to place himself where he belongs. An attempt has been made and has succeeded in placing him, as the head of this nation, in a position that he does not occupy. It has gone out to the world that there is no question of principle dividing this House, and an attempt is being made to place the head of this nation in a false position. By his statement to-day he stands square on the Republic of Ireland ; and he comes before us now for a vote of confidence. If he is elected the work of the Irish Republic will go on; and if the men who maintain that there is no Government of the Irish Republic, and that there never has been, want to knit the issue, now is the time to do it.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
Is this in order?
MR. BOLAND:
If the men on the other side wished they could take this document to the Southern Irish Parliament and not to the Parliament of the Irish Republic. At a time like this I intended to move the re-election of President de Valera. I can't do that now. I have just spoken in support of suspending the orders of the day.
MR. P. O MAILLE:
Cuirim in aghaidh an rúin go dian. Bhíomair anso ar feadh trí seachtaine, agus bhí an fáth ceadna ag an Uachtarán le h-eirghe as i d-tosach agus tá anois. Cad na thaobh már dhin se an uair sin e? I am here to protest strongly against the suspending of the Standing Orders; I think this attitude of our present President is treating us unfairly. An effort is being made to put us in the position of a lot of schoolboys, with us private members having no right here at all. The very same situation for the resignation of the President existed at the beginning of the Session as exists to-day; and why was it not brought forward then instead of being brought forward now? Why it
<SMALL>p.280</SMALL>
was not brought forward then instead of now was to try and prejudice the issue on the vote on the Treaty. This is a question placing the personality of President de Valera on the one side and the Treaty on the other.
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
I want to interrupt on a point of order, that is, the regulations governing the procedure of this House. Paragraph 5 of the Standing Orders says: `the Chairman shall, at the request of a Deputy, suspend the Standing Orders for the discussion of a special matter of national importance provided that on a show of hands the request has the support of ten Deputies.' Now I submit that your duty is to call for a show of hands and ascertain whether ten Deputies are in favour of the suspension of the Standing Orders.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I would like to say one word on that. The position is this: that the document has been under consideration since the 5th or 6th December last, and this `matter of urgent national importance' has lasted successfully up to the 6th January of the following year. This `urgent matter of national importance' is just as urgent now as on the 6th December, and no more urgent now than then. We are within, at most, forty-eight hours of a decision on the matter; and on the orders of the day it can be decided here and now. That settles the point; and I claim that this is not a matter of national importance within the meaning of the words, and the debate should be continued without interruption.
MR. O MAILLE:
I maintain this motion is not treating the members of this Dáil fairly nor is it treating the Irish nation fairly. When I spoke here on a previous occasion I said that ninety five per cent. of the people of Galway were in favour of the Treaty. Now I can speak definitely and I say that ninety-nine per cent. of the people of Galway are in favour of this Treaty. Why should you here turn right round against the country and ignore the people? The people have some rights in this matter and they must be heard [`hear, hear'].
MR. PETER HUGHES:
We have been here now, as Deputy Cosgrave said, for a considerable number of days and the question of the resignation of the President is no more urgent now than it has been for a considerable time past. I think if anyone wants a vote of confidence from this House he should have it, but let this debate proceed. We must be treated as we have a right to be treated in this House; and I would appeal to the Deputies to continue this debate or take a vote now, if you like, with no further speaking, unless the Minister for Foreign Affairs should wind it up. Let us have done with this wrangling---we are becoming a disgrace to the nation. I am Chairman of a Board of Guardians and it this wrangling went on there I would feel I was absolutely disgraced. The nation is tired of this wrangling; and I hold if we proceed any further we will be the laughing stock, not alone of Ireland but of the world. I appeal to the members and to the President. Let us have a vote inside of an hour if you like.
THE SPEAKER:
I have been asked by one of the Deputies to decide---that I should call for a show of hands as to whether this is a matter of national importance. My decision is, that for many days we have been discussing a matter of national importance and that that is the matter of national importance before us. I am not going to give any decision that would interfere with the taking of a vote upon the issue discussed up to the present. We will take a vote now on the suspension of the orders of the day. The motion is as follows: `I beg to move the suspension of the orders of the day to deal with the President's resignation.'
MR. GRIFFITH:
Before you put that I want, at least, the Irish public to know this:that the motion here discussed for a month past is `That Dáil Eireann approves of the Treaty signed in London by the plenipotentiaries.' The terms of that motion were agreed upon between President de Valera and myself, and he agreed that I should wind up the discussion. I have listened here for days---during all that time---to arguments and attacks on my honour and the honour of my fellow-delegates and I have said nothing. I have waited to wind up this discussion. President de Valera now says he must have a Cabinet that works with him, but at the end of the last session of the Dáil---before Christmas---
<SMALL>p.281</SMALL>
he asked the Cabinet to stand and work together. We are standing together. There has been no trouble so far as I am aware. I remained Minister for Foreign Affairs, Michael Collins for Finance and Mr. Cosgrave for Local Government. I want to know why this matter is sprung now instead of letting the motion of taken in the ordinary course. If the vote is adverse to us, well and good. If it is adverse to the President he can do what he suggests to do now. Why we should be stopped in the middle of this discussion and a vote taken on the personality of President de Valera I don't understand; and I don't think my countrymen will understand it [`hear, hear'].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am sick and tired of politics---so sick that no matter what happens I would go back to private life. I have only seen politics within the last three weeks or a month. It is the first time I have seen them and I am sick to the heart of them. Now I am told this is a special political manoeuvre. Mr. Boland came back from America, and then there is talk of Tammany Hall; but I make up my mind for myself, now and always. Mr. Boland didn't know anything about it until I myself told him this morning. Only I see mean things. It is because I will not keep the responsibility of doing things if I am not to work as in the past; and therefore, if you decide to have a vote on this Treaty within forty-eight hours, have it or have my responsibility for doing things that I can't do. For instance there is the case in to-day's papers. Some one was kidnapped, and the Minister of Finance sent some one to make enquiries. He had no right to send anybody. There is a Minister for Defence and a Minister for Foreign Affairs. There should be a Government where some one man would be responsible.
MR. COLLINS:
I sent these men off under the orders of my superior officer.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The persons responsible are the Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Defence. These are the people responsible for that. There must be undivided authority and undivided responsibility. I will not hold office with divided responsibility. That is a matter that anybody who has done Executive work will understand. If this House wants to take a vote on a straight issue I don't want to draw any red herring across. It is because I am straight that I meet crookedness with straight dealing always, and I have beaten crookedness with straight dealing. If I tried to beat crookedness with similar methods we are undone. What matters to the nation is, always to stand in that we are able to face the enemy. lf you have crooked methods there is always the back door to them by which you will be taken in the rere. Truth will always stand no matter from what direction it is attacked. I detest trickery. What has sickened me most is that I got in this House the same sort of dealing that I was accustomed to over in America from other people of a similar kind---because, holding the position that I do, I don't want to see it tarnished. If the people of Clare wanted me to resign they could say so. I got telegrams telling me how these motions were passed and I could read them to the House.
MR. BRENNAN:
Do read them.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Insinuations about me have hurt me---because every man and woman who has dealt with me here knows that I am standing exactly where I stood. I tried to reconcile very difficult things and tried to solve the problems as far as I was able. I know what others didn't know: where the verge of the precipice was, and nothing would have pulled me beyond it---not even Lloyd George and all his Empire could have brought me over it. Therefore, I am straight with everybody and I am not a person for political trickery; and I don't want to pull a red herring across. If there is a straight vote in this House I will be quite satisfied if it is within forty-eight hours.
MR. ARTHUR GRIFFITH:
President de Valera says a vote within forty eight hours. I quite agree. Let us have a vote on Monday morning. [Cries of `To-morrow.')]I don't want, as I said, to prevent anybody from speaking here, but let it be to-morrow if the House wishes it.
MR. HUGHES:
I suggest that private members can get until lunch time to-morrow to explain their views and after
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that that the discussion be wound up by the Ministers.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
By arrangement with the whips the Minister for Defence was to speak last, and if you come to an arrangement to take a vote to-morrow, let the Ministers for Defence and Foreign Affairs wind up the debate. Carry on till ten o'clock to-night and take a vote to-morrow.
THE SPEAKER
I take it, in view of what the President and the other Ministers have said, that the motion for the suspension of the Standing Orders is withdrawn and that the discussion proceeds. [Cries of `Yes!']
DR. FERRAN:
I was out of order, it seems, when endeavouring to raise a point of order in connection with this motion. The Point is this:I say distinctly that no Treaty has been signed---that we have not signed a Treaty. If a Treaty has been signed at any rate it has not been produced to us. We have seen a document which, as I understand, is of the nature of practically an agreed agenda for a discussion which is to take place in London between our plenipotentiaries and the British plenipotentiaries if this Dáil approves. Now, I will read on that point an authority of a sufficiently distinguished constitutional lawyer, with whom our plenipotentiaries came into intimate contact in London.It is very regrettable, I think, that we should have to go to Hansard for information of this kind. The Irish people have been told that there is a Treaty before them when there is no such thing. There is no such document in existence. There is such a document to be prepared if this Dáil vote away its existence as the Government of the Irish Republic and not until then. Lord Birkenhead,answering a question by the Earl of Midleton on the 16th December, said:
<SMALL>`If and when the representatives of Dáil Eireann approve of these Articles of Agreement it will be necessary that there shall be meetings in order to deal with matters which are supplemental, and must necessarily be added in order to make the document a complete one.'</SMALL>
Now, we have been instructed here that we have a complete and unalterable Treaty before us. It is distinctly told us here that there is no such thing; that there are to be further discussions and alterations in this Treaty over which this body will have no control. These will be agreed upon after discussion between the negotiators. Lord Birkenhead continues:
<SMALL>`I most sincerely hope, and have every reason to believe, that when that part of the subject is reached which concerns the noble Earl (Earl of Midleton) he and his colleagues will be consulted, and that which has been agreed upon will, of course, be presented to Parliament in the form of an agreed Treaty. Only then have we the Treaty in front of us.'</SMALL>
It is very regrettable that this Dáil hadn't that information at its disposal and that we had to go to Hansard to get most vital points like this cleared up. If any of you will take the trouble again to look over the Treaty you will find that there are only three or four points definitely determined. One important point is the oath; there are other subsidiary points, such as the ports, religious endowments and one or two things of that kind, but the rest of the body of the Treaty and signatures of the Treaty about the law and the `subject'---all the rest is to be investigated and decided without the knowledge of this House. Now, I want to make a personal explanation before going on to speak on this matter. I heard, I don't say whether with regret or not, under the very tragic circumstances, the President tendering his resignation as President of the Irish Republic---nothing else could be done. I am ashamed to say that during the Secret Sessions of this Dáil---in August I think it was---I heard some whispers going round about the position of the President and I raised the question, though absolutely raw and new to the House---I raised the question in the form of a suggestion. I said, in reference to the motion brought forward by the Minister of Defence, that if it came to a question between the President of the Republic and the Republic that, much as we were attached to the President, we were still more attached to the Republic. Now I want to make a most full and complete apology for that. I have to say that, during the course of all those discussions behind closed doors, I never heard a single word let drop by any person on any side---we had only one side then---no single word was let drop which suggested that the Republic was going to be turned down, and I, for
<SMALL>p.283</SMALL>
one, knew nothing about the possibility of the Republic being turned down until I read in the newspapers the Articles of Agreement. Now, we have been united in this Dáil in one of the most splendid comradeships---and before we met in the Dáil---I have had very little part in it, but we have been united in one of the most splendid comradeships in an unselfish endeavour of any fight for liberty that was ever seen. It is the most tragic thing, I think, in all our history that that comradeship should be broken as it has been. I heard a suggestion, a horrible suggestion, that the President of the Republic was prepared to plunge Ireland into a terrible and immediate war for a quibble of words. I think that that is a most atrocious statement. A quibble of words! Now, there has been a lot of talk about quibbles of words. I would like definitely, once and for all, to pin down these anti-quibblers to one horn or to the other horn of their own dilemma. They can't continue to sit between them. They say in one breath that the difference between the two things is a quibble of words and then, in the next, that it is so immense as to involve terrible and disastrous and immediate war. Now that is a dilemma. I say that England does not fight for quibbles. She fights for realities. If this thing is a quibble of words it is a folly to talk of war, and if it is a reality it is dishonest to talk of quibbles. There are times when antipathy to quibbles may be pushed too far. And I think it was pushed too far when these Articles of Agreement were accepted in Downing Street and presented to us as though they were Holy Writ itself or the Ten Commandments, incapable of alteration or improvement. I don't want to labour unduly the circumstances of the signing of these Articles. We are told that they were signed, by some delegates at least under threat of immediate war. Now what was the issue? The issue was not---it didn't lie between the acceptance and rejection of these terms. The issue was simply this: that our delegates should take twenty-four hours to go back and consult their Cabinet as they had promised to do, before signing. Upon that issue we are told that Lloyd George was prepared to hurl the thunderbolt of war, not only on Ireland, but on his own people in England and on the world. I can't realise any man with a grain of sense coming here and putting such suggestion before the people. It was said that there was a plea of urgency, and that Sir James Craig was waiting in his parlour for a letter from Lloyd George and he could not wait twenty-four hours. Well, Sir James Craig had been waiting the Dáil's answer for more than twenty four hours because, until the Dáil approves of the Articles he has to wait and he is waiting for more than twenty four hours. The issue was not a bit more urgent when the document was signed than it is now. But I say that if Lloyd George endeavours to hasten the deliberation of this assembly by one hour under threat of immediate war he will get his answer, or I don't know the temper of this Dáil. Now, I am sorry---I probably should not speak at all because there is really nothing to say. However, I hope to discuss the examination of the Treaty in a new light afterwards. But it has been put up to that what is good enough for Michael Collins is good enough for Ireland. Well, I don't know whether it is good enough for him or not. But the real situation is if you pursue that line of argument, that what is good enough for Lloyd George is good enough for Birkenhead, and what is good enough for Birkenhead is good enough for the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and what is good enough for the Minister for Foreign Affairs is good enough for the Minister for Defence and, finally, good enough for Ireland. Now, it was stated on the opening day by the Minister for Foreign Affairs that ninety-five per cent. of the Irish people desire this Treaty. Well, I say that there were more rejoicings in the camp of the enemy when this Treaty was signed than amongst the Irish people. We never heard such a clang of joybells of the Empire since Waterloo. Over there in Mayo---and God bless Mayo as always---over there now there were no joybells. There were no fires. There was not a candle lit to celebrate the Emancipation---the Emancipation of the Irish nation after seven hundred years. But when one poor prisoner who had been suffering was liberated and returned to the home that he knew, the whole countryside would be ablaze. One was liberation, the other was not. And when the people know---because the instinct of the people is always sound, as some people may learn---perhaps I am not quite correct
<SMALL>p.284</SMALL>
in the last statement or in the penultimate statement. I said there were no fires. As a matter of fact there was one bonfire lit in the town of Swinford, by the R.I.C. and the Black-and Tans, to celebrate the victory for the wonderful liberty.
A DEPUTY:
Your old friends of recruiting days.
THE SPEAKER:
That is a most disorderly remark and it should never have been made.
THE DEPUTY:
I withdraw it.
DR. FERRAN:
I am very glad that that has been said here in this House. I heard it said last night that I was on a recruiting platform. I am not going to contradict it. There is one explanation of that. I presided in 1918 at Foxford at an anti-conscription meeting. It was addressed by Mr. Griffith, and for presiding there I got four months in jail. In addressing that meeting I said because I knew the people to whom I was talking understood the reference, I said that the last time I had been at a meeting in Foxford it was at a recruiting meeting. They knew what I meant. They knew that a meeting which had been held outside the Chapel gates, as we were leaving---held by the organisers sent down by John Redmond---was the recruiting meeting I meant, and now I am taunted with being on recruiting platforms.
THE SPEAKER:
Now I hope we will have no more interjections of this kind from any quarter during the remainder of this discussion. They are most improper, and the points which the people who are making these interjections are trying to make are never worth making.
DR. FERRAN:
With all deference I say I have some respect for the men who go on making insinuations here. But I have no respect for the men who are sending insinuations all over the country through subterranean channels where they can never be seen again.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
. FERRAN:
I am glad the Minister for Foreign Affairs agrees. I am quite sure he is not responsible for any thing of the kind. Now, the people of Ireland don't like the Treaty. They may acquiesce in it for a time, but when they learn---they don't know what it is yet---but when they do find out I think that some people now who have come here and told us that we must take this Treaty as Holy Writ, that these people will find their constituents complaining that they didn't enlighten them a little further about it before they got this unknown quantity. I would like to believe, and I still do believe, that the majority of the supporters in this House, of the Teachtaí supporting the Treaty, are only play-acting. Fancy, if you can, Commandant MacKeon tolling the death knell of the Republic! And fancy the Minister for Foreign Affairs coming here and in his opening speech re-assuring this House on four separate vital points, re-assuring them on the authority, of all persons, of Lloyd George. I wondered if he had ever read the pages of Nationality or Young Ireland. The young soldier Deputies are supporting the Treaty because they think they can equate it in terms of decimal .303. That is grave play-acting. If you take the Treaty as a jumping-off point to give you an opportunity of attacking England in the dark under cover of friendship, I say it is unfair to the Irish people in pretend that this is a Treaty of peace. I hold that it is not legitimate, as was suggested, to deceive your enemy under all circumstances. I hold it is not legitimate now, but it is never legitimate to deceive your own people. Now, the position is this:the Irish people are being told that this is a Treaty of peace. The Army, some of them anyhow, are being told that it gives an opportunity of striking again. The English people are being told that it will bring an abiding peace. I think that it is pretty clear that somebody is going to be let down. If you use the Treaty as an instrument of war it will justify every brutality that England can inflict upon you in crushing Ireland out of existence. You will go to war, you will go to fight, self-confessed rebels, having sworn your fealty to your King. You will go to war as perjurers having broken your oath: and I don't think that the world will have much sympathy for perjurers, whatever treatment they get.
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ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
We got a lot of sympathy up to this.
DR. FERRAN:
Well, I think we did. I think we got a lot of sympathy up to the 5th December. I don't think we have much now. If you think you can reach a Republic or liberty by a breach of this Treaty afterwards you will range the opinion of the whole world for the first time on the side of Great Britain against Ireland, and I think if you realise that the opinion of the world had, at least, a deterrent effect upon England in the last fight---fight clean or don't fight at all. We desire, and I am sure in reality all the parties in this House desire, to walk if possible side by side with England in a real friendship. That, of course, would be the simplest and most honourable and pleasant path for us all. We don't want war with Britain either now or hereafter. We don't want war as an alternative to the Treaty as has been suggested ; but we want an alternative to this Treaty as an alternative to the inevitable war that will follow its acceptance. The Treaty or immediate war has been used to stampede the Irish people. I hold it was a dishonest threat. It was dishonest in its source from the beginning at Downing Street; but people here in Ireland, some of them at any rate, are using it honestly now. Now, in reference to the Treaty itself: we couldn't be too careful in examining the document which, I hold, is in effect, the assignment of the sovereign rights of Ireland to Britain. We owe it to Ireland to examine at least what in left for ourselves. Even the Republicans have a duty in that respect. If the Treaty is to be forced upon the people the Deputies ought to make it the best possible Treaty. Now, I was going to suggest a way out of this by which we can have some kind of unanimity. Since we have been told---since we know definitely what these Articles of Agreement are---only preparatory to the Treaty, I think that the Republican side of the House might possibly be induced to refrain from voting against the Treaty on one condition: and that is: that the acceptance should he given conditionally upon the Treaty being, in reality, what it has been pretended by Lloyd George to be, and what it has been represented as to the Irish people. They say that they give us the same liberty as Canada. Well, in a sense, Canada is completely free, because she is a daughter of the Empire; and she has complete internal freedom now. But I would like to know are the supporters of the Treaty prepared to make it a condition of their acceptance that Ireland shall have the same real freedom as Canada has now? That we shall have complete freedom; that, in fact, all legislative, Executive and judicial authority in Ireland shall spring from the Irish people? I think that possibly there might be a way out by which some people might not vote against the Treaty if they would put it forward in that conditional way. But I am greatly afraid that they won't do so. I don't say that Britain would necessarily accept it, but I think she might. However, that is only a suggestion put forward, because I hold that if Ireland is going to be plunged into this thing that she shall not be plunged any more deeply than is quite necessary. Now, as to the Constitution of Canada. I want to examine the Treaty as briefly as I can. We get the constitutional status of Canada. Now, that is a very different matter from the liberty of Canada. Under that status, as defined in the terms of the agreement, the British Parliament is supreme over the lives, the liberties and fortunes of every Irishman and Irishwoman; and no Irish Parliament that you can set up under the Free State can protect them. The authority of the British Privy Council is higher than the authority of your Government under these Articles of Agreement. That is not a very pleasant predicament. We know something of the doings of the Privy Council in the past. Why not insist, at any rate, before you put your names to these Articles of Agreement that you see the Treaty? Why not postpone the motion until you would have the Treaty put in front of you? We would know then where we were. You have not done so. About the Governor-General---we have heard nothing about him. I heard it suggested to-day that the Governor-General was to be called the Tanist of Tara as a concession to Irish sentiment because we are such a sentimental people. They brought back the flag---another concession to sentiment. They brought back the substance of the flag---not a shadow, not a symbol. They left the symbol behind in Downing Street
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where they had no authority to leave it. They brought back a yard of calico and a couple of packages of Diamond Dyer. That's the flag of the Irish Free State, but it does not stand for liberty. Now, I wonder do all the Deputies by now realise that the Governor-General has the full powers of the British Government in Ireland. It has been suggested that under the saving clause of constitutional usage these powers, which are obsolete in Canada, shall not be exercised in Ireland; but have we forgotten---we in Ireland---have we forgotten how often has England dug deep in the debris of centuries for obsolete weapons against the Irish people? She has never used them against Canada. It will be poor satisfaction afterwards, when Ireland is stabbed through the heart, to say that the weapon was rusty, obsolete, antiquated. Then there is the oath---but if there is anything we are tired of it is oaths. I want to view the oath in a new light. I am sure that we are all convinced now that oaths are the lightest things on earth, and conscience the toughest thing in creation. The Irish people don't care a word about conscience. All it concerns them is the effect it has on themselves. It is not the people who take the oath and break it. The Irish people are bound down within the four corners of this oath and they can't escape from it. People come here and say they will drive a coach and four through the oath but they won't release the Irish people from their obligations. The metaphor is very appropriate. In the one case it is really four-in-hand. You have the Oath of Allegiance to the Act of Parliament which sets up the Irish Free State. You have the declaration or promise---a provisional promise, somebody said---fidelity to the present King of England. I never heard before of this kind of conditional partnership between a subject and his sovereign. That is certainly a new constitutional state. Again, well you have common citizenship. I would like to ask whether the Minister for Foreign Affairs arranged with Lloyd George as to which was which; as to whether Mr. Lloyd George became an Irish citizen or the Minister for Foreign Affairs became a British citizen. You can't have a hermaphrodite citizen, partly one thing and partly another. I wonder do the Deputies realise the obligations that are imposed on Ireland by this British citizenship. The victory that we have won after seven hundred and fifty years' struggle is to become citizens of Great Britain. I don't like the odious phrase that has been used here: to rattle the bones of the dead. But do we realise that, by declaring that the people of Ireland are British citizens, that we declare also that every man who died for Ireland is a rebel? That is a thing we never admitted before. Then, of course, there is the four-fold allegiance to the King as head of the British Empire. That is the latest of allegiances. To deny altogether this oath---that needs some breaking. We are not to have any navy. I confess that was not such a terrible grievance. I was not much moved by the complaint of Deputy Milroy that President de Valera's proposal was worse than the Treaty, because he robbed us of our submarines. I hold that the submarine is a mean and a treacherous form of attack, and I hope that in our relations with Britain we shall have no necessity for mean or treacherous action at any time.
MR. MILROY:
You have great faith in her.
DR. FERRAN:
That is a different thing from leaving Britain in permanent control of our defences. I hold we have a right to absolute freedom to protect the people of the country---by our land defences at least. Then there is the question of taxation. I see that the Freeman's Journal said yesterday that the difference between the two---the Treaty and Document Two or Three---was that Document Two or Three did not provide for evacuation. Now I would like anyone to show me a single line in the Treaty that compels the British Government to withdraw a single soldier from this country. There is a promise read to the Dáil in answer---a reply on the day of the first sitting---by the Minister for Foreign Affairs that the evacuation will begin within a month. But there was no talk of when it was ending. I suppose, as a matter of fact, it is wrong to quibble between the beginning and the end. But it makes a very important difference to the Irish people. It strikes me as one of the peculiar ironies of the situation that the Ulster constituencies are proposing
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double-barrelled resolutions that their members should have double-barrelled votes to shoot them out of the Irish nation, for that is what it comes to. You believe that under the Articles of Agreement you are to get a fair delimitation of boundary. I hold that England is going to trick you in that article; that Sir James Craig will be left with an equivalent of six counties and, as history stood here in Ireland, there is not a single guarantee that that will not be so. You think the wishes of the population, you think geographic and economic conditions will count. I know how the map is read in England. We remember that argument well enough---geographical propinquity. England can translate her geography as she pleases, but I say it is a desperate thing that you should commit this Dáil to blindly binding themselves to accept provisions which are capable of only one interpretation, that which would mean a loss of hundreds of square miles. They are only entitled to three-and-a-half counties on the basis of population. But those double-barrelled members---I don't say they are anxious to do it but they will do it---they will place these two-and-a-half counties permanently in the possession of Craig and his successors---permanently in the possession of a hostile state, for he won't be there for ever. I don't think I have any more to say, but I would, at least, urge the supporters of the Treaty to insist, before they sign it, that England shall not be allowed to put her own hostile interpretation upon the words of the Treaty; that you will bind her down in some way or other in your resolution, should it pass this House, to deliver the goods according to the specification. That much, at least, you owe to the Irish people.
DR. WHITE:
I will be very brief. During the recess I went down to the country to my constituency. Some people there said: `You are taking a long time to discuss this matter.' Others said: `You are quite right in taking a reasonable time in discussing this momentous question before coming to a final decision': and with the latter I agree, only I would make a suggestion that perhaps it would have been better at the very beginning if there had been a time limit to the speeches of the various Deputies. However, as the cordon is about to fall, it does not matter much now. Recently we have heard a lot about Press tyranny, about the metropolitan Press, and one would imagine that the metropolitan Press of Ireland had only to print anything, under any head or any article, and that the article would be swallowed with avidity by the Irish public. Now I state that such is not a fact, and I state this:that no Irishman or Irishwoman will venture to tell me, I think, that during the last four or five years the Press of Ireland, the metropolitan Press, have been unanimously with our programme. In view of the fact that we have not had a daily Press---I know of only one provincial newspaper, the Waterford Press, that has been Sinn Fein, though there may be other daily newspapers---how can any man say that the country is being stampeded by the Irish Press? Now, as regards the public Boards I think that the public Boards have a perfect right to, express their opinions either for or against the ratification of this Treaty, because, if the public Boards do not speak, how are you going to get the opinions of the Irish people except, perhaps, by a plebiscite or a referendum? I am not in ecstacies over this Treaty; at the same time I consider that it deserves very careful consideration; and I go as far as to say that it deserves ratification. We have heard a lot about birds. We have, undoubtedly, a bird in the hand; the other day we had a bird in the bush but I don't see him there now. There is a third bird there now, I have not as yet, had a good look at him, hut if he is a good alternative to the ratification of this Treaty then I am willing to consider him. Now, we have heard a lot about accentuating feeling in this Dáil between the members, but I refuse to believe that there is any undue acrimony or bitterness here, and I go so far as to say that we are not in a state of strained relations. Now, the Treaty has been discussed over and over again, clause by clause, then word for word; and it is a very difficult thing to get any new ground to break. However, perhaps a very brief look to see what conditions we derive from this Treaty will not be out of place. I have, in Private Session, stated that I am voting for this Treaty and I state publicly here now that I am voting for it. If first we look at the financial arrangements, we get complete
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fiscal autonomy; we have complete charge and complete powers; and it is not necessary for anyone to endeavour to point out what a sympathetic native Government can do for the country and for the people. There is one other point on the financial question which I don't recollect any Deputy to have spoken about. Seventy years ago the population of Ireland was, roughly, double what it is to-day. Our people had to fly the land, because there was no work, because all the laws which may have been good in themselves were unjustly administered---the people had to fly because there was no work for them. Now each of these people who had to fly our land was of a certain financial value to the country; I think that, roughly, the loss to the country can be estimated at about one or two billion pounds; and I think that is a point which will be recollected when the Financial Committee of England and Ireland will meet. I think this Treaty deserves ratification and I support this Treaty because there is some finality in it; and I support it because, when I went to my constituents in Waterford during Christmas, they suggested to me that it deserved ratification. Now, I have very carefully listened to the various Deputies both for and against the Treaty and I must say, as has been already said here, that neither side can claim a monopoly of patriotism. Many of those speeches appealed to my heart and not to my reason. We have in this Treaty, not the shadows, but the substance; and if any one can show me any other way out which is better for the Irish people and the Irish nation I am ready and willing to listen to him. We have complete control over our trade and commerce. We are entitled, if we so wish, to have a standing army of between thirty-five thousand and forty thousand men; and, finally, we have the evacuation of the British forces, bag and baggage, from Ireland. I submit accordingly that we have in this Treaty a solid foundation on which we can place a fulcrum and on which fulcrum we can place a lever---a lever to self-determination---and I am sure as time progresses we will have an opportunity of finally having an Irish nation as God intended us to, and of being in the premier rank of the nations. I think it was Parnell who said: `We fight for freedom and not for faction.' United we stand and divided we fall. I wish to say, in conclusion, that it there is any alternative that can lend us to better things than this Treaty forces upon us, I, for one, will be very delighted and very glad to hear of it.
MR. SEAMUS ROBINSON:
In my own plain, direct, if not too lucid way, I would like to fire a few shots at this Treaty---metaphorically speaking. To begin with, it seems to me that the Republic is at stake. Ratifiers should remember that we poor, benighted Republicans have not yet seen the light. They themselves did not see the light two months ago. If we lose our tempers a bit and think terrible things of them it should be charitably remembered that the ratifiers have changed, and it is their duty to listen patiently to us and then try to answer our questions. The Deputy for Clontarf, Deputy Mulcahy, sees no alternative. It is the Republic. The Republic is at stake and I don't care a rap whose reputation is torn up for bandages. This is the same man who often before declared to me that there was no danger of compromise. To my mind this compromise has been lurking in the ante camera of many a cerebrum for the past three years. It was conceived when the Volunteers were denied a general convention three years ago; it passed through the embryo form when the Volunteers began to be controlled solely from Dublin Headquarters; it became a chrysalis when Dublin H.Q. became a wage-earning business, when District H.Q. were set up by General H.Q. and paid to control men who fought the war, aye, and won it, without any appreciable assistance from Dublin Headquarters. One division in the South refused this money and they were told that it would be made a point of discipline if they did not accept. On the night prior to the Tuesday morning on which the Treaty was announced in the papers, the Chief of Staff laughed at me for again expressing to him and the Military Officer in Limerick, the fear that all these mysterious goings-on in London foreboded nothing but compromise---for truth and straight-dealing flourish in the light. Yes! Now we have got our beautiful compromise hatched out---just like all compromises, like the mule---it is barren. Our Chief Officer stated, and the Minister for Finance and others maintained, that the acceptance of this
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invitation amounted to an attempt at compromise. All I would say about that is this: that we trusted him, and it is hardly fair for him to blame us for trusting him. Now, the appeal to humanity is: are we going to give our moral or immoral support to England in her efforts to crush Egypt and India which countries have given us the sincerest form of flattery by imitating us? For my part I would give no support to any attempt at association with England either politically or economically, while she is suppressing with brute force any people---much less such splendid peoples as the Hindoos and Egyptians. Men who call ideals and symbols shadows and unrealities are, to my mind, defective human beings. I would ask the Irish people---yes, and the English people, too---for our quarrel is with the few English ruling families only---I would ask these peoples can you ever again trust these men, shall you trust them now? I will say this to the English people: do you not think that if you wish an honourable world peace, it would be better for you, for us, and for humanity as a whole that you fix up a humane peace---if I may put it like that---with all your present subject peoples. Why not call a conference of these peoples and the British peoples and hammer out an entente cordiale---a workable confederation of sovereign states into which other nations could be invited if we saw fit. I think there are great possibilities in that suggestion and I wonder it has not been suggested by someone who could attract attention. What I am going to say now may appear on the surface to be a contradiction of what I have just suggested---I wish to state emphatically that no people have the right to go into any empire, much less an Empire that is based on a big section of downtrodden humanity. They have no right because it would mean slavery of some type; and no form of slavery is a fit state for free-willed human beings; therefore, if we are in the minority of one, there will be one to fight against it. I wish to state that this Treaty does not mean peace, and I think that should be fairly obvious by this time. Chaos would be better by far than degradation. It may not seem to be degradation to many people, but it does seem so to some and these some may not have it. Those who are breaking away can come back; we cannot change, we who regard ideals and symbols as something worth while. I say that chaos can be avoided and peace will be at least possible if those who have changed return to the Republic; if not we will have chaos and war. This paper which I will now read for you will prove the serious view that thousands of Volunteers take of this thing that appears to be a betrayal. It is a copy of a letter received by me to-day. Here it is:
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In view of the false rumours that have been circulated about Dublin to the effect that we, the undersigned, have declared ourselves favourable to the acceptance of the proposed Treaty of Agreement between the Irish plenipotentiaries and those of Great Britain, we desire, first, to enter our emphatic protest against the use of our Division of the Army to influence public opinion and the opinion of members of Dáil Eireann in the direction favourable to the Treaty; and we desire, secondly, to state that we maintain unimpaired our allegiance to the Irish Republic and to it alone. The Divisions comprise the following Brigades: 1st Southern Division: Cork, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Brigade. Kerry, Nos. 1, 2, 3 Brigade; West Limerick Brigade; Waterford Brigade. Dublin Brigade. 3rd Southern Division: Tipperary No. 1 Brigade; Offaly No. 2 Brigade; Leix Brigade. Signed on behalf of the above mentioned Divisions and Brigades, Liam Lynch, O.C. 1st Southern Division; Ernán O Máille, O.C. 2nd Southern Division, Oscar Traynor, O.C. Dublin Brigade, Micheál MacCormaic, O.C. 3rd Southern Division.
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DR. HAYES:
That does not speak for East Limerick and I don't know that it speaks for the other Divisional Commandants either.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think it is scarcely right for any officers to be using the name of the army at all.
MR. SEAN MACGARRY:
It is done now.
MR. ROBINSON:
It may seem a terrible thing to do.
A DEPUTY:
Who signed for the Brigades?
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MR. ROBINSON:
There is no signature.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I would ask that the army be allowed to keep its discipline.
MR. ROBINSON:
The army has always been regarded as the army pure and simple. I submit that it is not so. If we had no political outlook we would not be soldiers at all.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I know that they are citizen-soldiers. The point is that bringing them up as Brigades is not wise.
MR. ROBINSON:
I think the Volunteers have been very badly treated. The Volunteers demand a veto on the change of our country's constitution. We are not a national army in the ordinary sense; we are not a machine pure and simple; we have political views as soldiers. For the purpose of this veto I here demand a general convention of the Volunteers who are not True Volunteers. The Volunteers never gave up their right to a general convention---the Oath of Allegiance in this weak, in this changeable Dáil was not sanctioned by the general convention. If this convention is granted I, with I am sure all Volunteers, would refrain from certain terrible action that will be necessary if the Treaty is forced on us without our consent as an Army of Volunteers. There is no fear of the outcome of a renewal of war.
MR. MILROY:
Gambling again.
MR. ROBINSON:
Our war is not a war between two ordinary nations such as England and Germany; England had no German subjects. Our position is unique; we can, and will if necessary, strike the Empire where and how no other people could do it---except the Scotch and Welsh if they should so choose. The English ruling families know this well; one of their delegates declared our war to be a peculiar war---enough said! We are not a definite objective to the British, while they will always be a vulnerable objective to the Irish Empire, because one thousand effective shots and one thousand effective fires in Britain would ruin England for ever, while we could recover any damage in five years---we have no debt and no great factories, comparatively speaking, and their destruction would mean comparatively little to us. We could fight the English for three years---the English themselves could not fight us for longer than six months, especially if we took the fight up seriously in England as well as in Ireland and India and Egypt. Perhaps we will be told again and again that we would be exterminated. There will always be ten Irishmen who will even up matters some day, should it be ninety years hence. Dr. White says England would lose India and Egypt and England itself---every man---rather than lose Ireland. Does the doctor, does not every Irishman care as much about Ireland as the English do? Irishmen, are you working for your country? There are many people in the Dáil and in the country and all over the world, who can not understand big questions of such complication as this Treaty, and haven't time to form an opinion, and who, naturally, will form their opinion on, or rather take their opinion from, their pet hero. There are many thousand people enthusiastic supporters of the Treaty simply because Michael Collins is its mother---possibly Arthur Griffith would be called its father. Now, it is only natural and right that many people should follow almost blindly a great and good man. But suppose you know that such a man was not really such a great man; and that his reputation and great deeds of daring were in existence only on paper and in the imagination of people who read stories about him. If Michael Collins is the great man he is supposed to be, he has a right to influence people and people ought to be influenced by him. Now Dr. MacCartan said that he could understand many people saying: `What is good enough for Michael Collins is good enough for me.' Arthur Griffith has called Collins `the man who won the war.' the Press has called him the Commander-in-Chief of the I.R.A. He has been called `a great exponent of guerrilla warfare' and the `elusive Mike' and we have all read the story of the White Horse. There are stories going round Dublin of fights he had all over the city---the Custom House in particular. If Michael Collins was all that he has been called then I will admire him and respect his
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opinions, if my little mind cannot comprehend his present attitude towards the Republic and this Treaty. Now, from my knowledge of character and psychology, which I'm conceited enough to think is not too bad, I'm forced to think that the reported Michael Collins could not possibly be the same Michael Collins who was so weak as to compromise the Republic.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
On a point of order. Are we discussing Michael Collins or the Treaty?
A DEPUTY:
Or are we impeaching him?
MR. ROBINSON:
The weak man who signed certainly exists and just as certainly therefore, I believe the reported Michael Collins did not ever exist. If Michael Collins who signed the Treaty ever did the wonderful things reported of him then I'm another fool. But before I finally admit myself a fool I want some authoritative statement. I want, and I think it all important that the Dáil, the country, aye, and the world, got authoritative answers to the following questions: (a) What positions exactly did Michael Collins hold in the army? (b) Did he ever take part in any armed conflict in which he fought by shooting; the number of such battles or fights; in fact, is there any authoritative record of his having ever fired a shot for Ireland at an enemy of Ireland?
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
Is this in order?
THE SPEAKER:
I don't want to interrupt but I think it is as near not discussing the Treaty as possible.
MR. ROBINSON:
Now, so far as I know, Michael Collins came over from London as I came from Glasgow to avoid conscription.
MR. BLYTHE:
That's not true.
MR. ROBINSON:
and to fight for Ireland instead of for England, and if Michael Collins says---and he has said it here---that the fight that we have been raging for two-and-a-half years is an impossible war, well it gives me furiously to think---bluff, coercion, duress, treachery and the lot. Somebody used the word `impeach'---well, that is true. Delegates are in the dock to some extent at least; they have done something that at first sight, at least, appears to be---well, treason. I maintain that they have been guilty of the act of high treason and betrayal; I believe they were guilty deliberately but not maliciously. In fairness to themselves they must clear themselves for they will be judged through all the coming years. I'll try to confine myself to facts and obvious points mostly. I will try to draw a few fair inferences: (1) Remember Lloyd George is a past master in political stage craft. (2) Remember Wilson and the London atmosphere. (3) Remember Arthur Griffith could hardly be bluffed nor Michael Collins. Arthur Griffith is a match for Lloyd George and Lloyd George is a match for Arthur Griffith. (4) Remember when these two men came together it is possible that they both soon realised that if they fought neither would win; and they realised also that there might be a way in which they could both win a victory over their respective Cabinets. (5) There is clear proof that two delegates signed under duress and that two delegates and one say that there was no duress. (6) Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins declared they really did not sign under duress though they speak of the time limit and the threat of terrible and immediate war. By the way, let us take Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins at their word and believe they were not forced to sign, then they must have done this with, shall I say, malice afore thought; and must have sided by their signatures and demeanour to bluff and stampede the rest of the delegation into signing too---that is how the matter strikes me, anyhow. Arthur Griffith declares he would not break on the Crown. I suggest Lloyd George knew this, too; and our Cabinet knew it; and in order to safeguard themselves and the Republic they gave the delegates instructions not to sign any final draft before submitting it to the Cabinet. Remember that Lloyd George probably knew---must have known---that the Republican Government would have rejected the Treaty as it stands had it come unsigned. Remember Arthur Griffith would not like to lose the child of former dreams of his life's labour, more especially when,
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as far as he could see, there was no chance of getting his newer step-son or foster-child---the Republic. I submit Lloyd George knew this, too; and that he probably saw---I'd say he did see---the possibility of satisfying Arthur Griffith and of making himself appear the greatest of British statesmen in eight hundred years by giving us Dominion Home Rule. Would it be too much to say that these two men came to an agreement to force, gently, this Treaty, down the necks of their respective Cabinets---with Michael Collins a willing backer the thing would not seem too difficult. Remember, Lloyd George and Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins had meetings at which the other delegates were not present. Remember that now these men---Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins---declare that they want substance, that they are not idealists; could they not have been of the same mind before, that is, previous to signing the Treaty? Remember that it Lloyd George, Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins thought that if they had a right to put their scheme on their respective countries---after all they could say and justly so: `We know this is the only, and therefore the best way Irish co-operation can be reconciled with the British Commonwealth of Nations'---they would know also that it would not be a success unless it could be bluffed on us and slipped on us; and would require very careful handling and a judicious amount of realistic stage play---a chance for Lloyd George here. Hence I submit this is the origin of the time limit, the immediate and terrible war threat, the appearance of armed auxiliaries rushing around Dublin and the making of camps all over Ireland just previous to the time for signing the Treaty. Look here, all this was not arranged in a couple of hours. Remember that negotiations were going on for eight weeks, was it. All the talks must surely have been on details only, they must have been leaving essentials, i.e., the oath and status to the end. It seems a strange way of doing business, and I'm afraid the Cabinet as a whole are not altogether without blame for this. Again, I submit that to recommend their scheme of Dominion Home Rule effectively to the country they would naturally fix up details first. A decision on essentials too soon would be disastrous---at least a decision on essentials would be disastrous if it were known too soon. Then, when all would be ready, a time limit and an immediate war stunt could be requisitioned to carry the remaining members off their feet. Remember, they were carried off their feet by this, coupled with the sight of the signatures of the two formidable men of the delegation. What is good enough for Michael Collins is good enough for me---what is a terror to Michael Collins ought to be a terror enough for me. Finally above all things considered, there is a prima facie case, I think, for the charge of treason against the delegates, Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins. No doubt they will give a satisfactory explanation of their efforts; and I would be more than delighted to withdraw any imputation that my words may unjustly convey. I think they should thank me for saying openly what is in the minds of many. They will have a chance to-morrow to answer this.
MR. GEAROID O'SULLIVAN:
I rise to support the motion for the ratification of this Treaty, and I, too, will attempt a record in brevity. There are three reasons why I am inclined to support the Treaty. The first is its own intrinsic value. I don't believe that the acceptance of this Treaty by the people of Ireland is dishonourable. I don't believe that when I recommend to the people of Ireland that they should accept it that I am guilty of any act of national apostacy. We have heard a good deal during the past few weeks of seven hundred and fifty years' fight with England. That fight I take to be a fight of the Gaelic State against the foreign sovereignty which was being forced upon it by England. That fight was not always a fight for an isolated Republic or an isolated monarchy. In fact one of the hardest fights in Irish history was made against that great Republican, Oliver Cromwell. It was, as I say, an attempt, an effort of Gaelic Ireland to assert its own right to live in its own way. Now, that sovereignty was not beaten; it was not defeated; the Gaelic sovereignty is not yet defeated and never will be defeated; it will not be defeated by the exponents of this Treaty. I hold that it will be advanced and strengthened, not by the Treaty itself, but by the amount of freedom and liberty which the Irish race has got to work out that
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civilization in their own way. England did not control this country entirely by her military or police forces or her judiciary. She has fifty odd Boards and Departments which govern this country. These Boards and these Departments are the inlets or outlets through which English civilization has been forced into and forced through this country. The acceptance of this Treaty means the withdrawal of these fifty-seven Departments---the fifty-seven swords which have been eating into our Irish nation will be removed. They can be replaced, and these boards which were working in Ireland for England and by England will be working in Ireland for Ireland and by Ireland. That is why I say the Treaty gives the Irish people a chance of living their own lives in their own way. Our President said a few days ago that he was anxious, not only for the good of Ireland but for the good of humanity that this strife should cease. I am also anxious not only for the good of Ireland, but for the good of the whole human race that this strife should cease; and I would like to draw your attention to the effect of Gaelic culture and Gaelic civilisation on the world. What has it done? The greatest Anglicisers of the world have been the Irish. We, the Irish people, have been Empire builders for England all over the world. We have built her railways and her roads; we have shot down troops who attempted to secure freedom from that Empire; we have taken up, the whip and flogged the slaves for England. Our people have done it, and remember, it would not have been so---we would not have been turned in that direction if those many inlets through which English and foreign civilisation was able to get at our people---if these inlets didn't exist. The Irish people collected customs for the British Empire all over the world. The Irish soldiers shot down the Indians in the Punjab: nobody can say that Sir Michael O'Dwyer is not an Irishman; and Sir Michael O'Dwyer making the Indians do the crawl is nothing for us to be proud of. [Referring to an interruption by Deputy Miss MacSwiney, Mr. O'Sullivan said:]I would ask that I be not interrupted, especially by the Deputy who is sitting so very near to me. We can look upon him (Sir Michael O'Dwyer) with no less feeling of bitterness because he is an Irishman any more than any decent Englishman would look upon Maxwell. Another proof that the Gaelic races and people have been stunted and stopped in their development to live their own lives in their own way is this assembly. We have not been able to discuss the question before this assembly in the language of our own country. I challenge the ablest speakers of our language in this assembly, beginning with you, sir, and running down to the last---I challenge them all to debate the vexed and intricate question of constitutional usage and the other points raised in this debate to debate that in our own language. All our thought has been running in the------
THE SPEAKER:
We would do it in three months' time if we started on it.
MR. O'SULLIVAN:
We will start on it when the Treaty is ratified, [a Chinn Chomhairle]. All our thoughts have been controlled have been directed by the English outlook, by the English language, by the English sovereignty. The same can be said, not only for our language, but for our music, and games, and Irish life. That is the first reason I give for supporting the Treaty. The second reason is that those who advocate its rejection have not, in my opinion, given me any reason why I should conscientiously vote for its rejection. The Minister for Labour, I think, objected to our association with England because England oppresses Egypt and India. I have already said that there are many Irishmen at present oppressing India; and if Ireland accepts this Treaty the opinion of the Irish people on British rule in India and in Egypt will be expressed---not as it is expressed at present by Ireland shooting down those people but by the representatives of the Irish people speaking at the Councils of the League of Nations or at the Imperial Conference of either the British Empire or the Commonwealth of Nations, which ever they have decided to call it; and, furthermore, the world would have the advantage of what, at least, is left of the mellow influence of the Irish outlook, in having a representative of Ireland on the League of Nations. I would ask the assembly to remember that England is not the only Empire that oppresses small nations, though I believe
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she is the worst. The Minister for Agriculture said that he was anxious that England would allow us to live our own life in our own tin-pot way. Well, we have great ideals about old Ireland and about our fighting race and about our great culture; and our hopes are not for a national life in any tin-pot way. We believe that the Gaelic-Irish outlook of civilisation and culture should permeate and influence the life of every nation in the world. At present we are only the slaves of those nations; we are only the tools of those nations. Though we are told that the Irish is a world-flung race, remember that what really counts in it is being eaten away and sapped away at the core here at home in Ireland by the terrible influence of the presence in our midst of enemy troops, officials, police, judiciary, and everything enemy. Thirdly: the reason I give in support of the ratification of the Treaty is that I believe it is the wish of the people who sent me here that I should support it; and I am sorry Deputy Stockley is not present because I want, as one of the persons responsible for sending him here, to say that in doing so I did not believe that he could flout the opinions of his electors. The constituency which I represent has a population of one hundred and eleven thousand odd. Finally, I would challenge my co-Deputies who do not agree with me---I challenge them to any kind of plebiscite to that hundred and eleven thousand; and I believe and I will lay any odds that I will best them five hundred to one.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
I propose that we adjourn until eight-fifteen p.m. and that we then continue the debate until eleven o'clock to-night---what I would compare this debate to is an old woman's wrangle on the Coal Quay of Cork---and that we take a vote to-morrow at four o'clock. Now, the Irish people are just sick of us talking about this thing and I think and tell you that I know the people of Ireland better than any man or woman in this assembly---you can laugh at me if you like, but I have Irish aspirations and Irish blood in my veins and I know the people of Ireland as well as any man or woman in this country---and I say that we ought to take this vote to-morrow evening at four or five o'clock and get finished with it; and I say that we ought to adjourn now until eight o'clock. I move that.
DR. WHITE:
I second it.
MR. J. MACGRATH:
There was a definite arrangement made that the Whips would conduct this business; and the chiefs on both sides don't want to go on until eleven o'clock. We can adjourn at seven and start at eleven o'clock in the morning.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
I am only a back-bencher, a plain member, but if I am I am sent here as well as anybody else. [(Cries of `Order!']
MR. MACGRATH:
We can adjourn at seven and go on in the morning.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
I tell you that the back-benchers have been too long silent; and if we spoke out in June 1920 we would be better off to-day. I am speaking and the member for St. James' has interrupted me and I won't be interrupted and I won't sit down. I am on the rock and I won't get off the rock.
THE SPEAKER:
I told the Deputy he is out of order. I call on the next speaker.
MR. CARTER:
I second the motion put forward by Deputy O'Keeffe that we adjourn until eight o'clock and go on then till eleven.
The motion was subsequently rejected.
MR. THOMAS DERRIG:
A Chinn Chomhairle, is mian liom cúpla focal a rá i d-taobh na ceiste seo. I have great respect for the wishes of Deputy O'Keeffe and I don't want to delay the debate in any way. My views on this subject are homely. The situation is so important that I think it is right for every Deputy to give his views. I cannot vote for this Treaty because the unity of Ireland is not secured, and I can't see any prospect in the future that we can get Ulster in. In the second place, I feel, while it is absolutely necessary that we should take a step forward in the direction of securing control of the government, that we might also take a step backward; and I feel that in accepting
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this Treaty we are taking a step backward. I feel that we are going over the cliff and giving away the sovereignty of our country. Professor O'Rahilly says that we will regain it by constitutional evolution; the Deputy for Carlow says that the Constitution will develop a Gaelic State, I contend that within the British Empire we cannot have a Gaelic State because the whole tradition of our people will have to be moulded in an Imperial way. The interpretation of this Treaty is also to be interpreted to safeguard the strategic interests of the British Empire. There are a number of articles in the Treaty which are very vague and I think we cannot look upon it as a Treaty. We are told that a Constitution must be drafted; and this Constitution must be legalised by the British Parliament. In my view there can never be an Irish Constitution until Irish unity is first secured. There has been a good deal of talk about the question of military settlement. In 1881 President Kruger had a peace forced upon him and he accepted it with the following reservations: `Eventually he understood the Treaty was accepted with the reservations that we are yielding to force; and that we trusted that, in view of this forced acceptance, the British Government would see their way to alter the Treaty and to remove from it the points which made it unacceptable to the Volkstrad; notably the imposition of the suzerainty and the unjust curtailment of territory'. There is no proof that the people of the Republic are taking the Treaty under these terms and the military situation is discussed here in public and provided it does not give you sufficient power to accept it without that reservation. There has been a good deal of talk about the material advantages in this Treaty. Lord Birkenhead has already written in the American Press; and our people are under the impression that the English Government has agreed under the Treaty to pay for the damage done in this country for two years. Lord Birkenhead and Winston Churchill have asserted that under the Treaty England has us economically in the hollow of her hand---a most illuminating statement. A gentleman is able to point out to me what the exact meaning of Clause 10 is. It is---though I don't want to go into figures---that we shall have to pay about two million pounds in order to get rid of the army forces. We have to guarantee to pay off these but there is no guarantee in the world that England will ever entertain our claim for over-taxation. I have an article here by Harold Cox, who represents England in Financial interests the conclusion of the article is this---it first stated certain facts that, in the opinion of English business, men, make out a case that Ireland, instead of being owed money by England, owes her a good deal; for instance, we owe her for the protection she has afforded us for one hundred and twenty years:
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When these and other facts are taken into account it will be found that the Irish alleged over-taxation not only does not exist but that a heavy debt is due from Ireland to Great Britain for subsidies paid out of the common exchequer for purely Irish purposes such as, for example, Land Purchase, Harbour Developments, Light Railways and so on. For several years during the present century Ireland's contribution to Imperial expenditure has been a minus quantity. Ireland has received the full naval, military and economic advantages of her union with Great Britain and has, during these years, received these benefits entirely at the cost of the tax-payers of Great Britain, in addition to a contribution from them to her domestic expenditure. By all means let us strike a fair financial bargain with the Irish Free State, but the first step towards the attainment of equity is to get rid of the baseless legend of Irish over-taxation.
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We have a ways told our people that in any settlement we would make a claim for over-taxation. I understand, however, from some Deputies who support the Treaty that we are going to make a claim for two billion pounds. Well, the arbitrator will not consider that claim and there is nothing in the Treaty to show that he will consider any claim at all. The economies effected by the change of Government will completely disappear in paying the interest on the sinking fund created in the country. After all economies have
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been made the surplus in the Irish Exchequer will be completely absorbed by the payment of the interest on the sinking fund. In other words, anything that is left to us, supposing that we maintain the high rate of taxation, I maintain, after all economies have been made and all Irish services maintained, that the surplus will be absorbed by the interest on our share of the national debt. We have not had, therefore, in this Treaty, anything to show that the Boundary Commission or Financial Commission means anything. Professor O'Rahilly says that some clauses in the Treaty mean nothing and I believe they have left us nothing. There is not sufficient difference between the Treaty as it stands and the proposals which were unanimously rejected by the Dáil; there is not sufficient difference to show that the negotiations have been successful; and there is not sufficient difference for us to go back to the Irish people and tell them that the difference was worth the losses which the Irish people have suffered during the last two years. There has been a good deal of talk about evacuation and it is dealt with in Lloyd George's letter and not in the Treaty. The second portion of Clause 7 of the Treaty completely does away with the evacuation argument. In my opinion it also completely nullifies our sovereignty. While I believe that the Treaty would confer great material advantages on this country and that there might be a serious effort made to develop the Gaelic State I realise that we have completely lost our position before the world. After all, this movement is not the Gaelic State. This movement ought to be based on the traditions of the men of '67 and 1916: and I think these are the ideals we ought to stand for. I came up here with an open mind; the mandate I got from my constituents was to try and do whatever I could to bring about an agreement; I am afraid now that there is no chance of substantial agreement. I know this: if there was an agreement with regard to the immediate future we would ultimately have the Hertzhog period and the Smuts period in this country; and I certainly would not stand for anything which would bring the Republican Government down to that level; we would be simply starting all over again. To my mind the alternative to this agreement can be got; the only alternative that I can see is rejection. I am very greatly concerned with the levity with which some Deputy spoke of sending this question to the country; I have never heard a question like this put to the people; the only issue that can be placed before the people is war on the one hand and on the other hand you can do it by the consent of the Irish people; but you are not giving the people their choice. Finally, I don't believe that we can be in a better position in five years' time than at present; we had attained a magnificent position throughout the world; the position throughout the world does not demand that we should make a peace now that they did not think fit and proper. I have great faith in Ghandhi and his two hundred and fifty million people, and in Egypt; I don't think the Deputy from Cork is right when he says the Free State is responsible for the movement in these countries; I think it is the Irish Republic is responsible for them. If this question is brought before the country it is not alone that it will cause a split in the country but in the ranks of the army; and I earnestly ask very Deputy here to do what he can to preserve the integrity of the Army. Whatever we do with this Treaty let us do the best for the country.
ALDERMAN MICHAEL STAINES:
Since the fourteenth December I have listened to lectures, sermons and speeches. Well, I won't lecture you, I won't preach; I will just say a few words. I will be brief for two reasons. The first is that I don't want to import any bitterness into this discussion; I want to have the DáiI and the country united if possible, if they are not united I sincerely hope that no word or action of mine will be responsible for disunion. The second reason is that there are two thousand Irishmen in Irish and English jails; they have got to stop there while we are talking and repeating the same things over and over again; there are forty-one of these men in jails in this Republic of Ireland under sentence of death. I don't want, and I am sure these prisoners don't want me to bring up their case here in order that it would decide the vote one way or another; I am speaking for myself; but anyway for their sakes I think we ought to hurry up and finish this debate. I am declaring for the approval of the Treaty between Ireland and Great Britain; and in doing so I do it in accordance with the dictates of my own conscience; in accordance with the wishes of the majority of my constituents; and in accordance with the wishes of the majority of the people of Ireland. My
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conscience, my constituency, my country; these are the three rocks---dove-tailed one to the other---these are the three rocks I stand on. There are no slippery slopes and there is no betrayal; I never betrayed my country; I am not doing it now and I never shall betray my country. At the meeting of An Dáil at which the plenipotentiaries were appointed---they were appointed by An Dáil at the suggestion of the President or the Cabinet; they were sanctioned by An Dáil, anyway---at that meeting we gave them full plenary powers; I think practically every member of An Dáil at any rate knew when the plenipotentiaries were going over that they could not bring back a Republic in their pockets. I think it was the President who stated that anyone who expected them to bring back a Republic expected them to do something that a mighty army and a mighty navy could not do, [hear, hear]. The other side---I don't know what side to call it---according to orders of the day the President is going to move a motion with reference to a document; that document is not a Republic, that document is not signed; the Treaty is signed. To-day the President made a statement in which he said he is going to stand by the Republic; I am glad he is a Republican again, and I am very sorry he ever left the rock of the Republic [Cries of `Shame!'].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
If that could be proved------
ALDERMAN STAINES:
President de Valera will understand me, he will admit that I don't want to say anything to hurt his feelings or the feelings of anyone in this House; we know each other a good many years; we have been always good friends, and I hope we will remain good friends to the end.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Show where the document is inconsistent with the Republic.
ALDERMAN STAINES:
First, as to your leaving the British Navy in possession of some ports.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
For five years.
MR. COLIVET:
In discussing the Treaty we can't keep to it.
ALDERMAN STAINES:
At any rate what we have to do now is to decide what is best for the country. This Treaty is before us; certain members want to turn it down; and what is the alternative they offer? According to the President he is going to stand for a Republic; he has admitted that a mighty army and a navy can't get us the Republic. How is it going to be done then? Is it by political action or by negotiations? Well, supposing the President goes to Downing Street and takes four or five plenipotentiaries with him and asks the British Cabinet to give us a Republic, what will happen? The negotiations will go on as they did before; perhaps they may refuse to negotiate, but suppose they do, will the President bring back the Republic? He will not. I say the only chance Ireland has to act her freedom is to take this Treaty. This Treaty gives us a political weapon, and, backed by the military and other resources, it is a weapon that, in the hands of the Irish people, will get more freedom for them than a mighty army or navy can ever do. One Deputy said that the Canadian form of Government is not liberty; several Deputies said, in effect, that they did not give a fig for self-determination; well, I will have to quote the President again. I am quoting from the Irish Press of Philadelphia of December 3rd. In a message to the Canadian Convention President de Valera sent the following through Mr. Harry Boland:
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President de Valera sends greetings to the National Convention. He is certain that the people of Canada, who so much appreciate their own liberty, will support the people of Ireland in their resolve to face extermination rather than abandon the right of freely choosing the path they shall take to realise their destiny [prolonged applause]. Ireland's freedom cannot menace the freedom of any nation, but as the principle of national self-determination is admittedly just, its denial will never be acquiesced in [applause]. And in the case of Ireland the denial is a menace to the peace of the world.
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Still Deputies here don't give three straws about self-determination. We heard from the last Deputy a good deal about the financial clauses of the Treaty; well, I would remind this House that the same financial clauses are in the President's document. Consequently whatever
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number of millions the Treaty is going to cost Ireland the alternative is going to cost the same number of millions.
THE PRESIDENT:
Hear, hear. That is right.
ALDERMAN STAINES:
We have heard from the legal gentlemen of the assembly.
A DEPUTY:
And illegal [laughter].
ALDERMAN STAINES:
Well, we heard from them several speeches on law and on international law, constitutional law and common law. Well, as an ordinary common man, the only law I was ever up against and made feel in this country---the law that every Irishman has been made feel---was the law of force and the law of might, constitutional law did not matter; international law did not matter; the thing that is going to matter is that the country is going to get the evacuation by the British Army and your own army is to be put in its stead. It depends on the Irish people then what class of freedom they will have; they can have whatever class of freedom they can make for themselves. I will vote for this Treaty because it stands for Irish freedom against English oppression and Irish sovereignty against English slavery.
MR. EAMONN AYLWARD:
I was elected by the people of South Kilkenny; and the people who elected me know what views I had because at that time I was fighting for the realisation of those views. I was elected a Republican to uphold the Republic of Ireland, and I shall do that to the best of my ability. Should my constituents change their mind then they can remove me at the next election and put in a politician; but they cannot change my personal opinion or my principles. Those Deputies who are supporting the Treaty, and some of the plenipotentiaries even, say they have not compromised any principles; if they had not compromised their principles it must be because they had no Republican principles to compromise; if their willingness to become British subjects with a British Governor-General to look after them, and to take their allegiance to the British Government and all that---if that is not compromise I don't know what compromise is. Not only do they become British subjects but they take an oath to a British King. I shall read an extract from a leading article written by the Chairman of the Delegation in June, 19l7; it may throw some light upon the present case:
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`The Home Rule Act 1914,' exposed by Mr. William Martin Murphy is a clear and trenchant exposure of that fraud upon a people. Mr. Murphy would settle the Irish question in the same way as the Canadian, South African and Australian questions were settled. This assumes that the element of nationality and the status of nationhood do not enter into the Irish question. Australia, for instance, possessed no rights except those it derived from England. England founded it, England fostered it, and England possessed the undoubted right to rule it. Ireland does not derive from England. She is not a colony. She has never been a colony. She can claim no colonial rights such as Australia, Canada and South Allies assert. If she be not a nation then she has no more title to independence of English Government than Kent or Middlesex or Lancashire or Yorkshire. If there be English politicians who really believe that they can settle the Irish question on colonial or semi-colonial lines they live in a fool's paradise. The first step to a permanent Irish settlement is the recognition of the Irish nation.
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[applause]. Well, the Chairman of the Delegation is trying to put the whole lot of us into a fool's paradise now. If I had come up here to this assembly undecided as to what course I should take, the very tactics adhered to by the other side would make me vote against the Treaty. Deputies have tried to misinterpret in every possible way the issue before us; they say the result of the non-ratification of this instrument is war---terrible and immediate war. I would like to know who endowed these men with the gift of prophecy? They say that the difference between this Treaty and the President's proposals is only a shadow. They can't have it both ways. Will Lloyd George go to war for a shadow? The Deputy who first introduced this so-called alternative oath in Public Session gave the impression to the public that this oath was contained in the President's alternative proposals; and that Deputy knew absolutely and perfectly well that there was no oath contained in the alternative proposals.
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MR. LYNCH:
It is implied in paragraph six.
MR. AYLWARD:
Again it has been put forward that we all let down the Republic. I absolutely deny that. I did not take it that the Republic had been let down at any time until I saw the terms of the Treaty in the public Press, and then I knew it had been let down by the delegates at least. These men who say that the Republic was let down as soon as the Truce was proclaimed, and who seem so bitter about it now, had a right to protest against it then. If they thought it was being let down they were more to blame than anybody else. But the Republican ideal has not died, nor will it die, even though there be but fifty men left in Ireland to carry it on. Such misrepresentations as these would, I say, be almost sufficient of themselves to make me vote against the Treaty, because it is a weak thing which requires misrepresentations to keep it on its legs. Again I say I was elected because I was a Republican soldier and I will remain a Republican and I will vote against that Treaty.
ALDERMAN CORISH:
A Chinn Chomhairle, agus a mhuintir na Dála, I rise to speak in support of this Treaty, not because it is entirely in accordance with the views I held and expressed up to this, but because I think it is the best thing for my country at the moment; and because the people of my constituency want me to vote for it, and I think it would be a bad state of affairs in this country if the representatives of the people were deliberately to flout the people's wishes [hear, hear]. It would be an end, once and for all, to representative government. Now, there has been much said about the plenipotentiaries sent to London, they have been placed in the dock in this assembly from the beginning of the Session. Now, they were in close touch with the Cabinet from the moment they went to London until they brought back this Treaty, and if they were going wrong they surely went wrong before the fifth or sixth of December; and it must have been patent to everybody that they were going wrong---if they were going wrong; and I hold that if things were not going better, or as they should go according to the views of the people on the Cabinet, that Dáil Eireann is entitled to regard all the views of the Cabinet---that Dáil Eireann is entitled to regard what they did as the views of the people of the Cabinet. I hold that it is the Cabinet that is to blame---the Cabinet that was left behind in Dublin that is to blame for the state of affairs that exists to-day [hear, hear]. Now, a lot has been said about the mandate given by the people for the Republic. To my mind the part the Republic played in the December elections of 1918 was small. I took a man's part on behalf of Doctor Ryan here, in the South Wexford Election in 1918, and, so far as I could see, that time the principle plank in the platform of Sinn Fein was to get shut of the Irish Party---nothing more or less---in May of last year Dáil Eireann declared its independence---it was declared already in January, 1919--- but in May of last year our President issued a manifesto asking the people to take part in the elections on behalf of the Republic. Now, everybody might not have seen eye to eye with that document at that moment; but it would have been an injudicious thing to question the President's action because of the presence in our midst of our enemies, the Black-and-Tans. So I think it should not he rigidly adhered to that the people of Ireland have given a straight mandate for the Republic [hear, hear]. Now, I think it was the second last speaker on the other side who talked of Egypt and India: and he said if we were to associate with the British Empire that we would be responsible for the crushing of the Indians and Egyptians. Now I hold that under the present state of affairs we are far more responsible; because we are sending the Connaught Rangers, the Munster Fusiliers, the Dublin Fusiliers, the Leinsters and other Irish regiments into India and Egypt year after year to crush these peoples; and we are doing this under the Republican Government. Now, if we are not able to stop that are we functioning as a Government? I hold that we are not; and I believe, as I said before, that the proper thing, at the moment, for this Dáil to do is to accept the Treaty. [Cheers]. Now the last speaker has spoken of the oath; he said it was not in Document No. 2. I know that the oath was not in Document No. 2, but we have it in another record. The oath was mentioned at a Cabinet meeting and
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President de Valera recited the oath to which he would agree; and one of the plenipotentiaries took it down across the table; owing to President de Valera's position as head of the nation I hold that the delegate had a right to interpret his views as to what the oath should be; and he took down the exact oath and in the exact words that the President used. Now I think that everybody will agree with that [hear, hear]. Now, I have said practically everything I wanted to say. I only wish to add that I hold that under this Treaty Ireland's national status has been raised [hear, hear]. Ireland is entitled to representation at the League of Nations and she will be there, of course, taking her place with the other nations of the world. The fact is that she will be represented there. These views are not in accordance with those which I held or expressed up to this; but I believe the Treaty is the best thing for my country and I will vote for it [cheers].
The House adjourned at 7 p.m. until Saturday morning
7
122 Dail Deputies were present for Arthur Griffith’s motion on the Treaty approval.
Arthur Griffith speaking on the Treaty Debate said ‘ nearly three months ago, Dail Eireann appointed plenipotentiaries to go to London to treat with the British Government and to make 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 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 disregarded whatever criticism might occur. We could have shirked the responsibility, we did not seek to act as 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 that 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 the first treaty that admits the equality of Ireland, we have brought back the flag, we have brought back the evacuation of Ireland after 700 years by British troops and the the formation of an Irish army. We have brought to back to Ireland her full rights and powers of fiscal control. Ask this Dail to pass this resoloution and I ask the people of Ireland and the Irish people everywhere to ratify this Treaty. We have a duty to our people, we have a duty at least as far as our judgement goes, not to lead them astray, not to tell them something will happen if you do this when you know you cannot do it in order to save our faces at the expense of our countrymen’s blood. This Treaty has no more finality as we are the final generation on the face of the earth.’
The vote was taken on the Treaty. 64 pro, 57 anti.
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION Saturday, January 7th, 1922 – Council Chamber of University College Dublin, Earlsfort Terrace.
Dáil Eireann resumed its Public Session at 11.20 a.m. on Saturday, 7th January, 1922, THE SPEAKER (DR. MACNEILL) in the Chair.
DR. FERRAN:
In the personal explanation which I made last night I believe I left the Dáil in doubt as to my intention. I will now clear it up by saying that at the time which reference was made I was engaged in recruiting but it was not for the British Army.
THE SPEAKER:
The following Notice of motion has been received:---Notice of Motion by Eoin Mac Neill, Deputy for the National University of Ireland and for Derry City and County: To move that `Dáil Eireann affirms that Ireland is a sovereign nation deriving its sovereignty in all respects from the will of the people of Ireland; that all the international relations of Ireland are governed on the part of Ireland by this sovereign status; and that all facilities and accommodations accorded by Ireland to another state or country are subject to the right of the Irish Government to take care that the liberty and well-being of the people of Ireland are not endangered.'
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
Is that an amendment?
THE SPEAKER:
No.
MR. MILROY:
Might I suggest that that be handed to the Deputies?
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
I rise to speak against this Treaty because, in my opinion, it denies a recognition of the Irish nation. I said yesterday, and I repeat here, that this Treaty is not one for the consideration of Dáil Eireann, and not one for approval by Dáil Eireann, but by the Southern Parliament according to Article 18. I object to it on the ground of principle, and my chief objection is because I am asked to surrender the title of Irishman and accept the title of West Briton. I object because this Treaty denies the sovereignty of the Irish nation, and I stand by the principles I have always held---that the Irish people are by right a free people. I object to this Treaty because it is the very negation of all that for which we have fought. It is the first time in the history of our country that a body of representative Irishmen has ever suggested that the sovereignty of this nation should be signed away. We went before the people of Ireland on a clear-cut, definite issue. We protested against the men who spoke for the Irish people, and we said that if elected---in 1918---we would set up in Dublin, the capital of the Irish nation, a Parliament that we selected for our political ideal, and a Republic, and we said that if elected we would re-affirm the independence of Ireland and seek international recognition for that. When I went before the people of Roscommon I was in earnest when I said that I stood for an Irish Republic. Since I have returned I have received scores of letters from friends and constituents---men urging me in the interests of Ireland and of the people of Roscommon to vote for this Treaty. I had a letter yesterday from a reverend clergyman asking me to cast my vote for this Treaty, and this man gave me great support when I was going through Roscommon seeking the suffrages of the people. On one occasion, at a public meeting, this clergyman said: `Vote for Harry Boland and the Irish Republic and you will get a good Home Rule Bill.' And
I got up immediately after he had finished and had to undo the work of my clerical supporter. He is consistent to-day when he asks me to vote for the Treaty; and I am consistent to-day as I was in Roscommon. We secured a mandate from the Irish people because we put for the first time before the people of Ireland a definite issue; we promised that if elected we would combat the will, and deny the right of England in this country, and after four years of hard work we have succeeded in bringing Ireland to the proud position she occupied on the fifth December last. The fight was made primarily here in Ireland; but I want to say that the fight that was made in Ireland was also reflected throughout the world; and we---because we had a definite object---had the sympathy of liberty-loving people everywhere, if we were denied the support of the Governments. Most of my time since I became a member of Dáil Eireann has been spent in another country. We were sent out to secure international recognition from the Government of the United States, and to seek the support of the liberty-loving American people on behalf of a nation struggling to be free---and when we left this country Ireland was unknown---and people, liberty-loving peoples, and peoples who are free, had no concern with a domestic question between Great Britain and Ireland. They in America had been under the impression for forty years that Ireland and England were one and that there was a domestic squabble; and we found that the greatest barrier that we had to break down was that Ireland had acquiesced in British law, and all the American people knew was that we were fighting for something called Home Rule. As a result of the magnificent fight put up at home by the men of the army and supported by the people of Ireland, the American people soon realised that we were fighting for our own God-given right to freedom; and if we were not recognised by the Governments of the world we were recognised by the peoples of the world; and as for the Treaty, I can say this: that the power of public opinion---outraged public opinion---throughout the world, backed by the magnificent fight the men and women of this country put up, had brought Ireland to the position that she rightly occupied. We found Ireland in 1918 a domestic question of Great Britain; by the work that has been accomplished since, she is now a burning international question; and no one believes in this House that it is for any altruistic purpose that Great Britain has changed her hand and called the Irish people into conference. And I say that the tragedy of all this is that, while the men who favour this Treaty have adopted a defeatist attitude and pointed out the weakness of Ireland and asked how could it stand against the mighty British Empire, I am afraid that they have not considered the weakness of that Empire. I respectfully suggest that this conference was called because England found It impossible to carry on her work in Ireland and to preserve and carry on her Empire; and having failed to force British sovereignty on the Irish nation for seven hundred and fifty years, she has done it now by diplomacy. If any member of the opposite side can convince me that that is not an oath of allegiance---to swear that oath and `that I will be faithful to His Majesty King George V., his heirs and successors by law, in virtue of the common citizenship'-
MR. MILROY:
Which oath are you talking of?
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
The oath that you are asked to sign in the Treaty. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the American people for the magnificent support they have given us in the struggle; and I am doing this because in this House a few weeks ago a statement was made by my friend the Minister of Finance which places us in a very embarrassing position in America-
MR. M. COLLINS:
And which every true American appreciates.
MR. H. BOLAND:
We were sent back to America to strengthen the hands of the Irish plenipotentiaries in London; we were sent back to carry on a propaganda to demonstrate to Great Britain that should this fight be renewed we were prepared to carry on; we were sent back to float a Bond Loan of the Irish Republic; and we, knowing that negotiations were going on, decided that this Bond Loan should not be floated in a national campaign, but should be confined to two states. We selected the District of Colombus and Illinois because in Washington, D.C. were meeting the Great Nations of the World; and we thought that the best propaganda that could be carried on on behalf of the Irish nation, and a thing that would give strength and support to our men in London, was to demonstrate to England that if they wished to win the good-will of the American nation they must make a just and honourable peace with Ireland. Very well. I must say now that whereas in 1919, when we floated the First Bond Drive of the Republic in the State of Illinois we collected three hundred and ninety-seven thousand dollars in twelve months at a cost of eighteen thousand dollars---to demonstrate the feeling in America this year---in three weeks in the State of Illinois they subscribed five hundred and fifty-two thousand dollars at a cost of eighteen thousand dollars [hear, hear]. No one knows better than my friend, Michael, that there were five thousand men in America ready to come to fight in Ireland, and they couldn't come as a foreign legion because it was against American laws [laughter].
MR. M. COLLINS:
Now you're talking.
MR. BOLAND:
But they were offered, and they came, and they fought. Just as President de Valera got back to Ireland, these men got back, and many of them did get back and they fought. I am only saying this, not in any way of finding fault with my comrades on the other side, but simply to thank the American people for the support they gave to us in the struggle. The cablegram that my friend Michael Collins took such exception to was suggested by me to strengthen his hands, four days before the Treaty was signed. I would be false to the position I hold from Dáil Eireann if I did not say that the great public opinion of America is on the side of this Treaty. I would be false to my position as a representative of the Government if I didn't fearlessly state that here---that, just as it seems the Press of Ireland has adopted a unanimous attitude in favour of this Treaty, so too did the American Press adopt that attitude. The people who subscribed the money to enable us to carry on look upon this as a betrayal; and it was only out of love for Ireland that an order of restraint was not taken out against us---an injunction against our raising money in the name of the Irish Republic. I know something of the situation in India and Egypt from the men who hold the same position in America for India and Egypt that I hold for Ireland; and while I am casting my vote prepared for war, so far as I am concerned I am convinced that there can be no war in Ireland. Allenby requires ninety thousand men in Egypt; India is in flames; and we are called in to buttress up the British Empire, not with the Connaught Rangers this time, forced by hard economic circumstances to join up to earn a living, but by virtue of our common citizenship [hear, hear]. I don't want to detain this House. I stand to-day exactly where I have always stood. I want to ask a question of my friend opposite. Is this, in your opinion, a final settlement of the question between England and Ireland?
MR. M. COLLINS:
It is not.
MR. BOLAND:
It is not. Well then we are asked to sign a Treaty. What was it that made the fight in Ireland possible ? The sanctity of Treaties---the invasion of Belgium that gave a great moral cry to the world that freedom was being outraged, and the whole world flew to the side of the Allies. Some of the best blood in Ireland fought with Great Britain in that war because Belgium had been outraged and her Treaty violated. You have the statement that the allied powers gave to the world---the moral cry which rallied all right-thinking people everywhere on the side of Belgium. If this is not a final settlement we have lost the good opinion of the world on the day we sign the Treaty with a mental reservation that it is not a final settlement. I have taken one oath to the Republic and I will keep it. If I voted for that document I would work the Treaty, and I would keep my solemn word and treat as a rebel any man who would rise out against it. If I could in conscience vote for that Treaty I would do so, and if I did I would do all in my power to enforce that Treaty; because, so sure as the honour of this nation is committed by its signature to this Treaty, so surely is Ireland dead. We are asked to commit suicide and I cannot do it. We are asked to annihilate the Irish nation. This nation has been preserved for seven hundred and fifty years, coming down in unbroken succession of great men who have inspired us to carry on. We were the heirs of a great tradition, and the tradition was that Ireland had never surrendered, that Ireland had never been beaten, and that Ireland can never be beaten [cheers]. And because of that great spiritual thing we young men went out to follow our fathers, and we have fought a good fight together, and I am sorry that we are now divided, and I entertain personally nothing but the fondest memories of my old comrades; and I am sorry that we are divided but I am glad that we are divided on fundamentals. And so sure as we accept this Treaty and rise against it in another generation, the whole nations of the world will be against us and as they rallied to the support of Belgium so will they rally to the support of England. You cannot compromise the nation's honour unless you definitely agree in conscience that this is a final settlement. No man can speak for the dead. Our concern is with the living and with those who may come after us, and I for one am quite easy in my mind that those who will come after us will deal kindly with the men who vote against this Treaty. Our leader, Pádraic Pearse, said that liberty is eternal. It belongs to all. Liberty can't be bartered for trade. Either we are entitled as a nation to the full unlimited control of our own destiny or we are not. If we have common citizenship with Great Britain, then the Union is good enough for me. If we are a nation this Treaty is the very negation of nationhood and I vote against it. Our late leader, Pádraic Pearse, said that this fight for Ireland was like a divine religion. It has come down to us in apostolic succession. In his language, in his summing up he told us that the veterans of Kinsale fought at Benburb, the veterans of Benburb fought with Sarsfield in Limerick and the veterans of Limerick kept the fires of the nation burning from Limerick to Dungannon; the veterans of Dungannon of '82 fought in 1798; Robert Holmes, the friend of Tone, was also the friend of Emmet; the man who defended Emmet lived to be a young Irelander; three veterans of the young Ireland movement founded Fenianism, and the veterans of the Fenian movement stood with the Volunteers of 1916. We picked it up in 1916 and we brought the Irish Republic out of the backwoods, away from the dark rooms of secret societies, and preached the gospel before the Irish people; and we asked them to stand for an independent Republic. Many Deputies in this House know that my father himself had to fly from this country and suffer---as men in this House who know him---he had to fly away because he believed in a Republic. His son was privileged to stand on public platforms and to ask the Irish people to subscribe to the Republic---and they did. Whatever else we do, let us not blame it on the people. The people have proved in this fight as strong as their leaders, and so long as the leaders remain strong no demand that you make on the people would be denied. Don't blame it on the wife. If we are prepared to carry on this fight the people of Ireland will support us. As we are divided so are the people of Ireland divided, but as a Parliament, as we represent the real opinion of Ireland and Ireland rallied to us, so surely will it come that the men who sign this Treaty will regret it. Now, in closing I say that this tradition has been handed down stainless; the national honour of Ireland has never yet been compromised; and if that document is rejected---come weal, come woe---this nation must survive; it can only be killed by the vote of its own representatives. We stand, therefore, where our fathers stood before us. If that Treaty is adopted we can never again ask the support of the world for our struggles, because the sanctity of Treaties will be invoked against us; and all honourable men everywhere will deny Ireland assistance. If I could accept that Treaty as a stepping-stone to Irish freedom I would do it; but I know that I would not be doing an expedient thing for Ireland, but doing what, in my opinion, would forever debar Ireland from winning her ultimate freedom. If we reject that Treaty England will not make war on us; if she does we will be able to defend ourselves as we have always done.
MR. JOSEPH MACGRATH:
I am going to give a lead for the remainder of the day, if I can, with regard to making a short statement. I want to state at the outset that I am now as I always have been, an out and outer.
MR. BOLAND:
You mean a down and outer.
MR. MACGRATH:
I am not a Republican of a latter day, neither am I a Republican since I was four years old; but I am one for the past fifteen years, when Republicanism was very low in Ireland; when some others on the other side along with me in the Dublin streets had to run from the population for attempting to do what we thought fit, in our own way, to try and bring about the Republican movement. I have been consistent all along, and I hope to prove by the few words I have to say that in taking the action I am taking to-day in supporting this Treaty I am still consistent. I was consistent when, as I said before, in the very early days I went into the homes of all classes and asked them to support the candidates that we put forward that time as Sinn Feiners, candidates who were known to be the `Kings, Lords, and Commons,' men; and I remember well in the slum areas meeting some of the poorer classes the constituency which I represent is full of them I remember meeting people of the working class type and after trying to convince those people that we were on the right track I had a man---I should say a hungry man---saying to me: `Oh, you are the same as the others. If you people get into power the workers will be just the same.' I thought then---and I told them so---that, as far as I and those with me could do it, the worker would be put on the level that I think he should he put on. Now one thing that struck me when I came out of prison---and I suppose only because I was in at the time I would not be elected a member of the Dáil---was the democratic programme of An Dáil. It is stuck there all the time. I won't read it for you---it is too long, and I want to keep to my word of making a brief statement---but there is one passage I will read for you, just this one item in the programme:
<SMALL>
It shall be the first duty of the Government of the Republic to make provision for the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the children; to secure that no child shall suffer from hunger, cold, lack of clothing or shelter, but that they shall be provided with the means and facilities requisite for their proper education and training as citizens of a free and Gaelic Ireland.
</SMALL>
There you have it---our first duty. Now we come to the Republic that has been established; and I worked for and fought for that Republic. It is held here that a Republic was established in 1919; now, I did my best that week too, though I knew well when going out that we were not going to get a Republic as the result. I knew that thoroughly well. I am five years older to-day than I ever expected to be; I thought I was going out to go down, but if I did, I knew what I was doing; I went out to wake up the Irish people---as the men who died that week did. The Republic is established! Now the Republic that I visualised has not yet been established. I will tell you why. It takes a little more than a number of meetings of men and women---having been put there, not as Republicans, mind you---it takes a little more than their meeting and passing resolutions and stating the Republic is established. It is held by the people on the other side that the Republic was established in 1919, and we will take that year, when we were being left alone and allowed to meet in public. If that is the Republic they have worked and fought for it certainly is not the Republic I have worked and fought for. What powers has that Republic? Could they or have they yet carried out their first duty. Have they done so? Are they able to? I will tell you in the very plain words of the President's own statement---I am going to quote from the Dáil Eireann Parliament meeting in 1919. A question was asked by one of the first citizens of Dublin, Alderman Tom Kelly, who, I am very sorry to say, is not in a fit state of health as the result of the treatment he received, and is not able to attend---Alderman Tom Kelly, by the way, wants to vote for this Treaty; I have a letter from him in my pocket---well, at this Dáil meeting in 1919 we find Alderman Kelly, who always looked after the workers, particularly after the poor classes in Dublin, asking for
<SMALL>
A statement from President de Valera regarding the social policy of the Ministry. In the Democratic Programme outlined at the first meeting of the Dáil it was stated that it would be the first duty of the Government of the Republic to make provision for the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the children, to abolish the present Poor Law System; and to take such measures as would safeguard the health of the people. He felt that if they separated after that Public Session without making some reference to what their Ministry deemed to be the right duty in connection with the social life of the people, that they would have done a wrong. Let them take the city of Dublin and see how its condition had been impoverished and demoralised from the time that the rapacity of British Imperialism became the creed immediately after what was known in history as Nelson's victories.
</SMALL>
He goes on to talk about Ireland's prosperity years ago President de Valera's reply was
<SMALL>
that it was quite clear that the Democratic Programme, as adopted by the Dáil, contemplated a situation somewhat different from that in which they actually found themselves. They had the occupation of the foreigner in their country and while that state of affairs existed, they could not put fully into force their desires and their wishes as far as their social programme was concerned.
</SMALL>
That is quite correct. Under this Treaty, which I don't hold is all we fought and worked for---I am using `fought' too often, but I didn't mean to use it---under this Treaty every single thing in this Democratic Programme can be put into force, and the democrats in this assembly know that well. Not one of those on the other side have referred to this matter. They have taken up their arguments against the Treaty, and not a single one of them has said that there is any one clause in the Treaty that is good for Ireland. Not a head of a department that has spoken has pointed out what could be done through their department under this Treaty. It strikes me that they are all very well disciplined; not a single one of them would say it. If they are against the Treaty they might point out some thing that they object to; but they could, at least, say it is good in some points---they could say to the plenipotentiaries: `At least you have done well in some way or another'. As I said before, and as Deputy Mrs. O'Callaghan said on the other side, it is perfectly clear that they are well disciplined. With regard to the alternative proposals---if that document were no one that had already been turned down by the people on the English side, or if it did not contain clauses that had already been turned down; or if it were here before us now signed by the plenipotentiaries on both sides and we were taking a vote on it---my position would be this: as one who took an oath fifteen years ago to establish an Irish Republic, I would have to get up and say exactly what I am saying about the Treaty. My friends on the other side know that very well, and that document that was put before us the other day does not bring us any of the things mentioned. It does not help to release them from the oath that they took along with me; let them be straight on it; let them get up and say so; but no, anything at all to beat the Treaty. Now, this is what I see wrong with that document: `That when acting as an associate the rights, status and privileges of Ireland shall be in no respect less than those enjoyed by any of the component States of the British Commonwealth', and `that for the purpose of the association Ireland shall recognise His Brittanic Majesty as Head of the association'.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Again I ask you is it fair to have that document discussed in detail when I have been prevented from bringing forward that document and explaining it as an alternative?
MR. MCGRATH:
I am not discussing it. I am only giving my reason why I would have as much objection to that document as to the Treaty.
MISS MACSWINEY:
The oath is not in the document.
MR. MACGRATH:
It is there in the document. Now, I am swallowing a bitter pill in having to vote for this Treaty; as I said before it is not what I want. I have had to swallow bitter pills before; I will tell you things I had to do in my life; perhaps some of you had to do similar things. This matter I speak of now happened when the President was in jail. I was asked one night at twelve o'clock by two men who came to my house---this is not a personal matter---the two men asked me would I go and help in an election that was taking place at the time. I asked them what was the intention of the man who was going up. They said that they could not tell me and I said `I am not going to work for a man who is going to Parliament after what has happened, for I have been fighting these people for ten years, and have been in the scrap, and have seen the punishment that was meted out to my comrades.' They said they could not promise whether he would go to Parliament or not; they had been sent to me to know whether I could lend a hand. At the time I was something of an election expert. I said I wouldn't go, and they said they were going up to Dan MacCarthy. I went up with them. He put the same question. They appealed to us to go and we went. I worked forfour days there, and it was the hardest election ever I was in. I worked then for a man whose record at the time was one that I was not satisfied with. That was a risk for us to take, and not till after the election, when a small committee met with the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Foreign Affairs present, did we find out whether the man elected intended going to Parliament; we found out he was not going to Parliament; that was a big risk we had taken, and I am going to take this in the same way. I believe in this Treaty; there is in it sufficient power, there is in it sufficient freedom to work out the ultimate freedom we all hope for. Well now, I am glad to see Deputy Harry Boland here, I am glad he came back. I was not here to-day when he asked about the `final settlement'. It was well known that Deputy Boland and myself went to Gairloch on the famous last trip. I want Deputy Harry Boland to tell me now what Deputy Boland meant when he told me he was going back to America on the President's instructions to do an awful thing---to prepare the American people for something short of a Republic.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Short of the isolated Republic.
MR. MACGRATH:
Something short of a Republic: that was what he was going back for, and now he comes home to talk of sovereign status and giving away. When I saw the President's first statement regarding the Treaty---I was in London at the time---the very first thing I said was: `My God, what a position Harry Boland must find himself in presently in America'. He told me, before we handed the document to Lloyd George, that he was going to America to prepare the people for something less than a Republic---I am deliberately not using the word `compromise.' Well, consequently it surprised me to see Harry Boland's telegram stating that he was against the Treaty. I won't say what happened in the meantime.
DR. MACCARTAN:
He had another statement in America.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
Will I be allowed to explain about it?
MR. MACGRATH:
I am not charging you with the first one at all; what I know about the first one is that the dope had not reached there at the time. There has been of late a cry here regarding the people: `If the people have changed I have not!' reminds me of a very similar cry a few years ago, that was exactly the swan song of the Irish Parliamentary Party when we had not an opportunity of turning them out; at meetings of their constituents they used to say: `If the people have changed, we have not', when they knew that the people had changed from their old ideas. The swan song of the Parliamentary Party of those days that `If the people have changed we have not', is now the swan song of the people on the other side to-day. One of the Deputies said here a few days ago that we were helping the British Government to send troops to India and Egypt; and that has been referred to in another way to-day. Such a statement, as I understand it, implies that we should sacrifice Ireland to save India and Egypt [hear, hear]. Now, in conclusion, I would like to ask does that mean that, should a Republic be offered to you---an isolated Republic---does it mean that you would stop the British troops from leaving this country lest they should be sent to India and Egypt? [Applause].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is something I cannot let pass because it is against the interests of the nation, apart from anything else; that is the suggestion that has been made with reference to Mr. Boland's instructions from me. Everyone knows that at the first meeting of the Cabinet and Ministry that I proposed a plan as the only chance I saw of getting, except by force of arms, an isolated Republic; and that chance was the plan of external association. I pointed out definitely that that was not an isolated Republic. I have not a face of brass as other people have, and when I had to go for the absolute isolated Republic I said so. It was because I was honest and wanted to be honest with the American people that I said that an isolated Republic would have to be changed into some sort of association, something that would be consistent with the position I was aiming at. I know no sort of association is agreeable to the Irish people, and I know a large percentage of the Irish people in America would not like to see Ireland associated in any way with the English.
COUNT O'BYRNE :
I should not have wearied the Dáil by taking part in this debate, but the matters at issue are so vital that I do feel in duty bound to state exactly my reasons why I cannot accept the Treaty. I will do so in as few words as possible and I hope for the indulgence of this Dáil if I should merely strike a personal note in stating these reasons. I have not the temerity to say that anything I should say would influence in the slightest way any Deputy here, nor do I intend to criticise the actions of those who support the Treaty honestly, on the grounds that it is a stepping stone to freedom. That may be so; time will tell. For my part I feel some day they will have a very rude awakening; to my mind, when you get on that stepping stone you must drop fundamental principles; I cannot follow them, never more so than when that involves the sovereign independence of my country. The last speaker complimented those who were against the Treaty on the ground of their discipline, for he said that apparently none of them would admit there was anything good in this Treaty. Well, I for my part, follow no Party and no man; I follow my own conscience, and in this ease, even if it be a breach of discipline, I will admit there are good things in this Treaty and plenty of good things; but are we to accept these good things at the risk of our own principles? I say we are not. Now, the point I go on is this: that by the first clause of the Treaty we give away the, right of sovereign independence; and we accept dominion status. I, for my part, always hated politics; in fact I shunned public life. It was a maxim of mine that if you once entered polities that, sooner or later, you would have to swallow your own principles. In 1920 I was drawn into it because I was for a mandate to secure a free and independent Ireland: I gladly accepted it. Had I been told that it implied compromise I would have positively declined to go forward, and I would have left the task to others. Subsequently in the Dáil, I took a solemn Oath of Allegiance in accordance with this mandate, and without any mental reservations. Am I now to be asked to break what I hold to be the most sacred oath, and that on the ground of expediency? I could never do so; with me it's a matter of conscience. Were I to vote for this Treaty it would be a cowardly act, done merely through fear of incurring public disfavour, while all the time in my heart I would feel I would have been wrong, and would have a sense of shame. I may be an idealist perhaps I am super-sensitive; but I claim now---well, I claim to be honourable. Were I to act in that way I feel that I would be false to my conscience; that I would be false to the dead. I would be false to my country as I would be giving away the birth-right of the whole Irish nation. Under these circumstances I feel that I cannot possibly vote for the Treaty.
MR. P. BRENNAN:
I shall not say much because everything I wanted to say has been said by either one side or the other. I might have said it better, but that does not matter [laughter]. I support the Treaty for what it is; not for more than it is, and certainly not for less. This Treaty gives us freedom to achieve the ultimate liberty for which we all aim. That is enough for me. There are a few other things I want to speak about. Doctor English of Galway made certain insinuations against the Volunteers; she asked whether the Irish Volunteers would hold Ireland for the British Empire. Now, that is an insult to the Volunteers, who brought Ireland to its present position. The Volunteers will hold Ireland for the Irish people. Deputy Brian O'Higgins stated that he went down to Clare on Christmas Eve and came back with his mind unchanged; that the views and impressions of the people who command the best influence in Clare, as he stated, are against the Treaty.
MR. B. O'HIGGINS:
West Clare.
MR. BRENNAN:
Yes, right-o. I know all Clare, every bog and mountain; I don't know those wonderful heroes whom Deputy Brian O'Higgins met. I would like to know who they are? Is the Most Reverend Doctor Fogarty a representative of the worst influence in Clare? Is the Chairman of the Clare County Council a representative of the worst influence in Clare? Well, if they are they are the devil's children, for they have the devil's luck to be alive to-day both the Most Reverend Doctor Fogarty and the Chairman of the County Council. It has been stated that the farmers have no right to express their opinion on the matters before the House. I am myself a member of the Irish Clerical Workers' Union therefore I am a Trades Unionist. I don't speak here for any particular class, but the farmers of Ireland, of Clare, anyway, were never asked in vain by the army or the civil organisation of Sinn Fein for any assistance, which they did not give, in money and in men to the fight---they were never backward; these people have every right to express their opinions. I, too, have old memories of the Minister of Finance, I knew him twelve years ago in London, when he was an unknown, a silent worker; I knew him up to the day when he came back to Dublin, and he did not come back to avoid conscription; but he came back to take a man's part in the Rising---and he did take a man's part---and if Seán MacDiarmuda was alive to-day he would tell you why Michael Collins and the rest of us came from London to Ireland. I don't suppose the old Michael Collins has changed, I think he is the same Michael Collins, and I think he has only one aim and that is to achieve Ireland's independence [applause].
DR. JAMES RYAN:
I beg to agree with the speaker on the other side, Deputy O'Duffy; I don't believe that our side has a monopoly of patriotism; I believe there is patriotism on the other side also. It is, as the President has said, a difference in fundamentals, a difference in what both parties believe to be right. The reason why I want to vote against the Treaty---the big reason---is because in voting against the Treaty I am carrying out the principle of government by consent of the governed. Now, I don't believe that the public bodies in my constituency, who were elected on the same ticket as I was, have any more right to speak for the people than I have. I can say a thing about my constituency that very few would believe---it might not fully or fairly represent the feelings of the people---I was five days in County Wexford and I never met a person who was in favour of the Treaty; I don't think that it is fair to the people of Wexford, for if I went to the trouble I could have met many I was five days there and I never met a person who was in favour of it. I did meet one---a certain person; he was a man who worked hard for me during the election, and he came to me to ask was I going to vote for the Treaty and I answered `No'. Then he said: `If I thought you were going to vote for that Treaty I would never have worked for you, and I would be a very disappointed man'. Now, a man like him, believing in my oath, would have a more genuine grievance against me if I voted for the Treaty than the people who want the Treaty; because the people who want this Treaty have absolutely no grievance for they never had any reason to believe that our party were going to compromise in any way. I don't want to find fault with the Treaty at all; I think that Deputy MacGrath was wrong in saying we gave no credit to the Treaty; I believe our side has given as much credit as possible and I think we have admitted the good points in the Treaty as far as finance and our own army and education and those things are concerned. They are all very good; but there is one big point that we cannot get over and that is the point of common citizenship. I don't think I have anything further to say. I think the most important thing of all at the present time is the decision.
DR. ADA ENGLISH:
May I make a personal explanation? I never said what Deputy Brennan accused me of: that the Irish Volunteers would hold Ireland for the English. What I said was: If this Treaty be accepted, and a Government put in power---if a Free State Government be in power---that they would have to use the army if they wanted to keep the Treaty, and keep true to it; that they would have to use the army to support the Treaty and to keep the Free State in power, which I consider is holding Ireland for England.
MR. BRENNAN:
The same thing. Did I not also say to you `would go out and fight for the Republic?'
MR. LIAM HAYES:
As a plain man, a soldier who has no claim to be a politician, but as one who in the Irish Republican Army did his best, I have a mandate from the Irish people to defend their rights and liberties. Which of our officers when making a fight against desperate odds did not ask himself: `Am I justified in sacrificing the lives of my men?' Well, he was justified, because he had authority then to fight for the rights of his country. We fought for Ireland's freedom; we fought to rid Ireland of the English Army of occupation; and we fought to secure for the Irish people control of Ireland's destinies. I hold we have won; if we accept the Treaty we have won these things. Now, we are asked to resume the war by some who have never heard the bark of an angry rifle---to bring further sufferings on the Irish race---and for what? Merely to alter a few words in the Treaty, words which do not vitally affect the national position of our country. This is rainbow chasing. I, for one, will not vote to sacrifice the lives of my comrades; I am voting for the Treaty.
MR. SEAN NOLAN:
I have no desire to speak; I, feeling as one who always fought straight from the shoulder, was anxious this House would come to an early decision, but I feel that if I were to take the line that I would have otherwise taken here that I would only add further to the difficulties there are, and the disunion that exists. For that reason I mean to confine myself and be as cautious and careful as possible. I was disappointed at, and I must say I resent the charge made by the Deputy from St James', Deputy MacGrath, when he insinuated that we have been disciplined in our speeches. Nobody has spoken to me as to what I have to say or will say, and I resent any insinuation of that description. He has spoken of dope; nobody has doped me, and I refuse to believe that our President has any intention of doping anybody whatsoever. We have tried to be straight on this question and why not be straight on all sides? We who are against the Treaty are against it because we feel and believe, and conscientiously believe, that we are doing the best thing for Ireland in rejecting this Treaty; and when we believe that why should Deputies stand up here and charge the leaders of our side with doping us or doping anybody else? A lot has been heard about the will of the people. I will take the memories of those who are for years working in the movement---I will take their memories back a few years, as far back as 1906. I then, and those who worked with me, worked against the will of the people; the will of the people then was Parliamentarianism and Home Rule. We worked then for a Republic and all along to 1916; and the men who fought then fought against the will of the people, it you might so call it, because the will of the people was Parliamentarianism and Home Rule. I fought and worked against the will of the people in those days because I thought the will of the people was wrong; and should the will of the people go wrong to-day I will work against it also; but I refuse to believe that the will of the people is in favour of the acceptance of this Treaty. Self determination has been flung around here, and `government by consent of the governed.' I have met men in Cork city and also in Dublin city who are supporting the Treaty, and they have said to me: `For God's sake, why didn't you throw it out in Private Session and the whole country would stand beside you.' What does that mean? That these people are prepared to accept this Treaty under duress, and that it is not the free consent of the people or self-determination. Self-determination means that you have a free voice to get what you select, and there is no selection in this Treaty. The question before them is: this Treaty or terrible and immediate war. In this Treaty promises of peace have been dangled before the people, and people have been intimidated by threat of war, or attempts have been made to intimidate them, but I say the people of Ireland are not afraid of war; the people of Ireland were never afraid of war when that war was in defence of their own rights and liberties. Should England force war on us again in consequence of the rejection of this Treaty, the people of Ireland will stand as solidly, as unitedly as ever against the common foe in order to achieve the liberty for which we have always been fighting. I have listened with pain, and sometimes with disgust, to speeches that were made here from time to time which endangered the fate of the nation and gave our case away to the enemy. I had visualised when I first entered this Dáil a Government composed of men who, come well or woe, would stand as firm as the Rock of Gibraltar for the Republic to which we swore allegiance, who would refuse to be disunited by any enemy, either from within or without this country. I believed at that time that each Deputy had the same end in view as I had, that he had the same thing in view as I had, that he had the same faith in the established Republican Government as I had, and that we were all one on the question of Dominion or Colonial Home Rule. But, alas! I have been mistaken. I have heard Deputies declare here that the Republic is dead, that this Treaty ends the seven centuries' struggle, that it gives us the freedom and what we fought for. I have never in all my life suffered greater agony than what I have suffered since this Session began. Charges have been made here against our noble President, that he let down the Republic; we have all been charged with letting down the Republic when we consented to negotiate. I deny that I ever deviated from the Republican path; I deny that acceptance of negotiations meant the surrender of our Republic, and the famous `paragraph two' in the President's letter to Lloyd George speaks for itself. Deputy MacCartan's speech I deplore; he told the enemy and the world that the Republic is dead, that the army is divided. I deny that the Republic is dead or that the army is divided; the army is as solid and as disciplined to-day as ever it was; it is as ready and willing to repel the attacks of the common enemy now as it was in the past, and it will defend Ireland's rights at all times with the same spirit, the same unity, the same determination. I would like here to refer to a pamphlet issued by Professor O'Rahilly of Cork; he said that fifteen-sixteenths of the army and the whole population is in favour of the Treaty. That is false propaganda; it is false propaganda and from honourable men we would expect better. The army, I say again, is as disciplined to-day as ever it was; the Irish people are as solid behind the national army and the national cause, no matter how they feel about the present Treaty. I deplore speeches which declare our cause is lost such defeatist speeches are not worthy of any member of this assembly; we are not defeated; the Irish Republican Army is not and was not defeated; and why should we surrender, as was suggested by a Deputy in this House, like the surrender of Germany to the Alllies in order to save their country. We were winning, and we will win. I am against this Treaty because it denies the existence of the Irish Republic and the Irish nation: I will vote against it because if I were to do otherwise I would do wrong, and the Chairman of the Delegation in his golden moments says: `No Church, no religion admits that any man or woman is entitled to do a wrong even that if they did not do it, somebody else would.' If the people in Ireland in their stampeded condition to-day would do wrong, that is no reason why I should. I will cast my vote for the Government to which I am pledged, and the only Government which I recognise; to do otherwise would be to subvert the Republican Government. We have been told by the Deputy for St. James' that we did not admit what material or social advantages were in the Treaty. The admission is contained in the other document; the good things in the Treaty have been included in Document No.2, which is referred to, and I think that was an uncalled-for remark. we have been told that we have got freedom, immediate freedom, great freedom, and that through this Treaty we are to get great and good things to build up a strong nation materially. But in order to do that, to my mind, we must still have the spirit and soul of a nation; and again, in reply to the material advantages that are to be gained through this Treaty, I would refer you to the golden moments of Arthur Griffith: `Train up a child to estimate what it learns by the amount of bread and jam he is likely to gain and you train it by that to lose its soul. If he is taught that patriotism is to be despised if it does not bring material advantages he will ask to-morrow what are the material advantages of religion.' That is my reply in the words of Arthur Griffith to the material advantages to be gained by this Treaty when we sell the soul of the nation by its acceptance. We are told what the acceptance of this Treaty means; and we are told that its rejection means that we challenge England to war; we are told that this Treaty is giving us all we asked for. I say that by the rejection of this Treaty we do not challenge England to war; we challenge England's sincerity for peace, and we express our own abhorrence of war by rejecting this Treaty because the Treaty means the perpetuating, the carrying on of war; and by its rejection we challenge England to make a genuine and honourable peace to which both the English nation and the Irish nation will subscribe, a peace with honour to which both nations can subscribe---that is the peace we desire. We all love peace, we pray for peace, and we are ready and willing to make peace with England on honourable terms; let England recognise our independence and we will be at peace; there will then be a definite end to the struggle between the two peoples and we will live as friends and good neighbours. We are anxious to live as good neighbours with the English nation if they are prepared to do the right thing by us. [applause]
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, is le croidhe duairc eirighim anso iniu. Do shaoileas bliain ó shin ná beadh a leitheid de sceal againn sa tír seo agus sa Dáil seo choíche. Ba mhaith liom a rá fe mar adubhairt Seathrún Ceitinn trí chead bliain ó shin: `Mo thruagh mar atá Eire'. Mo thruagh mar atá Eire iniu: í deighilte, briste, cráidhte; a teachtaí ag cáine a cheile, ag gearra a cheile, agus is eagal liom go m- beid ag marbha a cheile, sara bh-fad. Tá mórán ráite anso cheana i d- taobh na h-Eireann agus anois táimse chun an meid seo do rá: táim ag obair le fada im' shlí fein ar son na tíre; agus riamh, níor dhineas aon rud i g-coinnibh mo thíre ach aon rud amháin---rud ná raibh leigheas agam air---se sin gur chuas isteach i Civil Service Shasana. Se an fáth go n-dinim an tagairt seo ná gur chuir fear nú bean eigin e seo chugham: `Ratify the Treaty and Save the Empire. England wants Volunteers to join the Free State Army to crush Egypt and India. Join up.' Masla dhúinne atá ag cabhrú leis an g-Connradh iseadh e sin. Le dhá chead bliain anuas ná raibh einne dem' mhuintirse in Arm Shasana, ná i Navy Shasana, ná i b-Píleirí Shasana. Tá eagla orm, an bhean a chuir an `dope' sin chugham, ná raibh a fear ná a mac ag troid ar thaobh na h-Eireann, ach go raibh se ag troid i g-connibh na Gearmáine---tír nár dhin aon rud i g-coinnibh na tíre seo riamh. Tá a lán ráite i d- taobh Seachtain na Cásca, 1916. Is cuimhin liom an oiche roimh an Cháisc sin; bhí an Teachta ó Chathair Dhoire agus an Teachta ó Chathair Phortláirge ag cur an sceil trí cheile an oíche sin; bhíos-sa ann mar `soldier of the line'; ni raibh guth agam ach dubhart: `For God's sake go into action together or declare it off together.' Chuas isteach sa troid; ní raibh mo chroidhe an oíche sin sa troid, ach nuair a chuaidh na buachaillí sa chath chuas-sa ann. Chuas isteach sa troid chun aigne mhuintir na h-Eireann do shaora. I defy any Deputy here to say or state or write that we struck at the British Army in Easter Week, 1916, for any other purpose than to save the soul of Ireland. If we had what we get under this Treaty now---if we had that army out of Ireland that week, what would be the result? We would not be fighting for one week; we would be fighting them for six months, at least. Now I rise to support this Treaty because it gives my country a chance to live; if we reject this Treaty I believe that Ireland will be thrown into the wilderness for a hundred years; and I make no apology to any man or woman in Ireland for voting for this Treaty. We have not been given by our Cabinet a fair run. First of all we were told that we are compromising, but I think that has been dealt with already. If we sent any message to Lloyd George claiming a Republic we had a right to state that in plain Irish or in plain English; but we did not do so. We sent over our plenipotentiaries with an answer to this message `how the association of the Irish people could be best reconciled with the group of nations known as the British Empire.' There is no Republic in that to my mind. The plenipotentiaries were over there for close on two months. They came back and whatever happened at the Cabinet meeting I don't know---I don't know any of the Cabinet secrets---but this much I do know, and the world knows it: that there were four members of the Cabinet for the Treaty and two and the President against it. Now, I say we are treated unfairly, and the people of Ireland are treated unfairly, and, as somebody said here, we, the back-benchers, should have been called together to discuss the situation; there was a serious division in the Cabinet, and we had a right to be called in; it is for that we are here at all. Now we are getting under this Treaty, control of education; and we are talking since 1893 about the Irish language; what progress have we made in that time? All the speeches and all the word-bandying and all our misunderstandings here are caused because of our using the English language. Now, I say that under the Treaty we can revive our own language in less than a dozen years. The President said on one occasion: `B'fhearr liom Eire fe shlabhraí agus a teanga fein aici ná Eire saor gan a teanga fein aici'. If the Irish language once dies, as you all know, we can't bring it back; if freedom is lost we can bring it back. A lot has been said here about war; but I believe a lot of people are talking war now and I couldn't find these war merchants---I couldn't find them for the past two years [laughter and applause]. And I make no apology for not being in the firing line for the past two years, for I was put into a position by the President, and in that position I carried out my duties to the best of my ability.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. O'KEEFFE:
In that time, while our soldiers were fighting, the men and women on the civil side were helping the enemy. [Cries of `No! no!']. Do you deny it? Well, now, I say you were; you were trading with the enemy; and during that time you gave that enemy one hundred and thirty-two million pounds for goods that could be purchased and produced in this country; and you tell me that you were functioning as a Republic. Were there not English commercial travellers swarming all over this country, while our men were executed after the Coachford ambush? Were there any Englishmen in this country arrested, or did our Cabinet or this Dáil arrest or execute any English traveller? Every door you entered in this country---every shopkeeper in this country helped them [cries of `No! no!']. I say yes. Well, now, we hear sneering remarks about joining up in the Free State Army; but remember that we joined up in the English Army in 1912, in 1913 and in 1918; and we beat the Germans. Don't tell me that the Munster Fusiliers, my own neighbours, didn't beat the Germans. Don't tell me that the Dublins, the Leinsters and the Connaught Rangers didn't beat the Germans. If you ratify the Treaty there will be no Dublins, no Leinsters, no Connaught Rangers and no Munster Fusiliers. A lot has been said here about the farmers of Ireland---
A DEPUTY:
The North Cork Militia.
MR. O'KEEFFE:
Don't mind about the North Cork Militia. I believe that some people have said that the Republic was functioning from 1916 on, and that the people of lreland were told we were Republicans; well if they were they should have kept their own money in the Republic. Should they not? The Minister of Finance is not here. Now, the Banks of Ireland lent to the British Empire during the war---to win the war---fifty-and-a half million pounds. I want to go through the different points. Somebody said here the other day that the Republic was dead, I deny that; the Republic is not dead; the Republic is in the distance if we accept this Treaty. I compare Ireland to a bather perpetually in togs, prepared to take a dive. A lot has been said here about the will of the people, I don't think it counts now; other methods will be used, I am afraid, to try and stifle the will of the people [`No! no!']. I hope I'm wrong. Ninety-nine per cent. of the people of Ireland---with the exception of the counties of Munster where they would be about ninety-five per cent.---are in favour of the Treaty; I certainly say that ninety-five per cent. of the people of Leinster are in favour of that Treaty; and if they are not they are the biggest hypocrites I know of, because when our men were fighting in Cork for six months, aye for twelve months, I appealed to the Minister of Defence to take the pressure off Cork and to bring it up to Leinster---to Rathdrum---and that was not done; and why was it not done? Because Leinster wouldn't fight. Now, if we accept the Treaty we save the nation---and I take the nation to be the men and women in it, the good and the bad, the soldiers and the ex-soldiers. If we accept Ireland as the nation we will have to accept with it the good and the bad. The population of the County of Cork in 1841 was eight hundred and fifty-four thousand. In 1911 it was three hundred and ninety-two thousand; so that we lost in Cork during seventy years four hundred and sixty-two thousand, or fifty-four per cent. of its population. The whole of Ireland lost in that period three and three-quarter millions of people. We will save our population in future by accepting this Treaty. Now, I am not going to give you any dope, I have no right to give it, and besides it's no good; but I would appeal to Ireland, to Irishmen and Irishwomen, to do the best they can in their day for our common country. The curse of this country is---I will put it in the words of Geoffrey Keating:---
<SMALL>Eigceart na n-Eireannach fein
Do threascair iad do aon cheim
Ag spairinn fá cheart ghear chorrach
Ní neart arm na n-eachtrannach</SMALL>
MRS. O'CALLAGHAN:
The Deputy for St. James' said that in Private Session I accused his side of being disciplined. Am I in order in explaining what I did say? At the Private Session on December 17th, certain Deputies who said they were army men got up, one after another, and made certain statements about the army which I will not repeat. I sat here all day and listened to them. I noticed, as they went on, that every one of these soldier Teachtaí used the same three or four arguments, in practically the same words; and at the end of the day I got up and said---it was not in accusation of them, it was in praise of them---I said, whatever is right or wrong, that the army, obviously, to judge by the members here, is well disciplined. It was not an accusation; it was a matter for praise.
MR. MACKEOWN:
As every officer in the army is in the one boat and has the same facts before him, consequently each and every one of them had substantially the same statement to make and they naturally used the same words.
MR. MULCAHY:
I wish to make a certain explanation with regard to the army as the matter has arisen here and is arising in other places
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The Minister of Defence is not here. He will be here in the afternoon and it can be raised then.
MR. SEAMAS LENNON:
I don't intend to detain you long; I am just going to state in a few brief sentences why I am going to vote against this Treaty. I, like a good many here, have got sheaves of resolutions from public bodies in my constituency; some of these have been mild and reasonable; others of them are undoubtedly very strong---if I may so use the word. They have put it up to me in these words: `ratify or resign' [hear, hear]. Well, I am here now to say that I am not going either to ratify or resign. Those public bodies with whom I have been in close touch for the past three years---those bodies were called together to a public meeting last September and my co-Deputy, Gearóid O'Sullivan and I were present on that particular occasion. Now, I consider his speech on that occasion was, at least, a strong incentive to induce those public bodies to pass the resolutions which they have passed during the past week; he declared to those public bodies---and I am sure those men looked upon him in his dual capacity, and the word he conveyed to them went home to them he declared that if he were in charge of the English Army that he would smash the Irish Republic in a fortnight here in this country. He used these words to the public representatives of my native country. It is not wonderful then that the public bodies in my constituency, and in view of the Press campaign that has been going on since the Treaty appeared in public, it is not wonderful that these public bodies would send me these resolutions. I have absolute respect and love for these public bodies and for each individual in my constituency; but it is because I have absolute respect and love for these people that I will not vote for the ratification of this Treaty. To day the people of my constituency and the people of Ireland are citizens of the Irish Republic. To-night at seven o'clock if a vote is taken and if this Treaty is ratified by a majority of this House, the people of Ireland will be no longer citizens of the Irish Republic; they will be citizens of the British Empire.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Not quite so soon.
MR. LENNON:
I will not vote or cast my vote to bring the citizens of the Irish Republic whom I represent, to bring these men into the British Empire, no matter how many sheaves of resolutions I get to the effect---ratify or resign. My co-Deputy also issued what I consider a challenge to me here last night, possibly it may also be applied to my co-Deputy, Deputy Aylward; but I will deal with him in the county---the county in which I have been born and reared, and in which I am living and have lived all my life. I am prepared to take him up on that challenge when he declares that they who speak for the ratification of this Treaty in my county---that they would beat me five hundred to one. I am prepared to accept that challenge, and I will stand on the principle of the Irish Republic in facing my co-Deputy, Gearóid O'Sullivan, on that question: and I further declare that if my co-Deputy had come down last May and declared and called for the votes of the people of Carlow on the strength of the fact that he was going to support this Treaty I doubt if he would have got the thirty-two votes that he now declares that I would get in my constituency. I have a resolution here from my Comhairle Ceanntair in which there was an amendment carried on last Sunday by nine votes to six, and that amendment is this: `That we, the members of the Carlow Comhairle Ceanntair call upon the members of the Dáil for unity in the present crisis and that we ask all our members to use their influence to bring about that unity which we desire'. There is the Comhairle Ceanntair of Carlow though I am told that there are only thirty-two men in the county who stand for an Irish Republic; yet the names of nine men are there who stand firm on that principle. I went forward as a Republican in 1918; I was elected as a Republican in 1921; and yet there are people here who say the Republic is dead; I hold the Republic is not dead; and I say that when the Republic sent plenipotentiaries over to London the Republic was, undoubtedly, not dead, but I hold that the Republic never got right into its stride into the hearts of the Irish people until the delegates went over to London. The people looked to the Republic for guidance and for assistance; and I consider that if I vote for the ratification of this Treaty that my life for the past three years would be an absolute negation and an absolute lie. I am not going to vote for the Treaty; I am going to stand on the principles I stood on in 1918 and 1921, and I am going to vote solid for its rejection.
THE SPEAKER said he had received the following letter from Deputy Thomas O'Kelly:
<SMALL>Dublin, 22nd December, 1921. To the Speaker of Dáil Eireann.
I am unable to attend the meeting and I wish my vote to be recorded for the ratification of the Treaty.
Mise do chara, Thomas Kelly.</SMALL>
MR. D. O'ROURKE:
I have very little to say; and what I have to say is rather by way of personal explanation than in support of the Treaty. When I came here first I was opposed to the Treaty, and on principle I am opposed to it still. I was elected without my knowledge; the first thing I knew about being elected a member of Dáil Eireann was to see my name in the public Press; had I known my name was to be put forward I would have objected; I want to make that clear. Until I came here I didn't know how matters stood; when I found out how things happened I must say I did not like, and I do not like, the idea of the plenipotentiaries having signed without having brought back the Treaty for consideration. That is my opinion, although others who vote for the Treaty are against me in that. My great ambition and prayer was that unity would be achieved by some means. I was prepared to vote for Document No. 2 provided a substantial majority of the House was for it; my reason for doing so was to secure unity; I am quite prepared to do anything for unity because I realise that the curse of this country has been disunion. I say I will do anything yet to achieve unity. If a division had been taken before Christmas I say, undoubtedly, that I would have voted against the Treaty. That is my position. I returned to my constituency at Christmas and I went there to the people---not the resolution passers---to the people who had been with me in the fight, the people whose opinion I valued, the people who are, I believe, Die-Hards; and I consulted them about this question and I must say that unanimously they said to me that there was no alternative but to accept the Treaty. Everything that is personal in me is against this Treaty; I yield to no man in my hatred of British oppression, and in my opposition to any symbol of British rule in Ireland; but I say I would be acting an impertinent part by putting my own views and opinions against the views of my best friends, the men who are the best fighters with me. I have taken only one oath to the Republic---that was the Republican Army oath: the oath to the Saorstát was not a Republican oath. My oath to the army I will keep, I will not join the Saorstát Army and I don't care who takes exception to that. I will join no other army but the Irish Republican Army, when the fight begins for the Republic again I will take my part in it. My only hope now is that when this decision is taken there will be unity; that there will be a meeting afterwards; that the members of the Dáil will come together and come to some common understanding to work our country in the interests of the people. I say this for myself: that while I would vote for the Treaty I am just as well pleased if the Treaty is thrown out; but I will not take the responsibility of doing what I consider would be driving the young men of the country, and all the country, into war for I know what war has meant. I would not vote to bring war upon those people, but if this Treaty is rejected, and if war is the result, I promise I will do everything I possibly can to unite the people to fight the common enemy, and I promise to fight to victory or death to secure the Republic [applause].
MR. GEAROID O'SULLIVAN:
On a point of personal explanation, I understand my co-Deputy from Carlow made a statement here in my absence that I said a certain thing at a public meeting in Carlow. I did not make that statement. All the time since the Truce was established I spent in preparing, to the best of my ability, the country for war; I worked overtime. I will not say---it is for others to say---what I did. I wish to say now that the statement as alleged by Deputy Lennon was not made by me; it is not true.
MR. LENNON:
I made that statement; I stand over it.
MR. COSGRAVE:
I was at the meeting at Kilkenny and my co-Deputy made no such statement as Deputy Lennon has said---not a single tittle in the nature of what he has stated.
MR. LENNON:
He made it at the public meeting---at a meeting of the public men at Carlow that met in the Town Hall; I forget the day. The statement I made I stand by.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
Were you there?
MR. LENNON:
I was.
MR. CON COLLINS:
I hope that I will secure this record in brevity that is so much talked about here but so little adhered to. Now, the very little that I have got to say on this question at this hour of our Session will not, I believe, influence anybody here. I do not think at this stage that it is possible to influence anybody, any more than it would have been possible to influence myself even before this Dáil came into session to consider this question. At the outset, therefore, I will explain my own attitude to this Treaty or this so called Treaty. Immediately on the publication of its terms in the public Press my mind was made up in an attitude of direct and definite opposition to this so called Treaty, at that particular time it was made up, I should explain, in this fashion: even if there was not another single Deputy in the Dáil to oppose it, I would. In doing that I had my own conscience to consider, and also the electors who sent me here. I will come later to deal with the question of the electors; a good deal has been said about them here because it is sometimes useful for us to discover that we have got the like. Well, now, with regard to my conscience; I have been a nationalist for a very long time; that nationalism took a definite form twelve years previous to Easter Week; that definite form was Republicanism, as being the most feasible form of Government in which our people ought to live. At this stage I would like to refer to a remark made by one of the Deputies here some days ago; Deputy Dan MacCarthy said that the 1918 election was not fought on Republicanism, but on self-determination. Now that statement is true in a sense, but it is true only in a sense. The electors in my constituency understood as clearly as I did---and at that time I made it my business to explain to any of them who might be in doubt---that our attitude was a definite one that we were definitely following out the proclamation issued in Easter Week---the proclamation to the public of the existence of the Irish Republic. Now, with regard to the constituents, I have been a good amongst my constituents; I have worked a good deal amongst them in all phases of this work, both civil and military, under their Republican Government. They have done their share of work in the last three years very well; they definitely understood that they were doing that work with the authority of a Government that I and they had made up our minds had come to stay; They subscribed to the Republican Loan pretty well on that understanding; they subscribed to all other activities on that definite understanding. Recently at the Christmas holidays I went amongst them. I will not say, as some Deputies have said here---because I am not in a position to say---that I got resolutions. I have got one---if I might so call it---a resolution subscribed to by a few individuals whom I know, whose attitude towards Ireland has been pretty well known for a long while; these people call themselves members of the Farmers' Union, they have been known to us, and they have been in reality members of this body about which we have heard a good deal recently---the Southern Irish Unionists. These are the people who are calling on me to ratify the Treaty: these are the people who have been working against us in every step that wee have taken, and in all the different phases of our activity in this Republic of ours. I did not get resolutions; I did discuss the question with a number of my constituents; they did not think it necessary to pass any resolution; they definitely stated to me that they knew what my action has been from the very start, and they said that I and the other members of the Dáil were the best possible judges of this matter, and to decide it without interference. Now, at this hour of the day, at this hour of our Session, it seems to me a very vain hope to expect that we can have on this question---that we can have unity. For the sake of that unity I would be prepared to contribute anything that I possibly could, consistent with my principles, but I wish it to be definitely understood here that I would not, or could not, contribute one iota to anything that would mean the lowering of our national standard; and if there are people here who are really anxious, and disagree with my view on the question of this Treaty, it is for them and not for us those who stand on principle cannot and will not sacrifice---but those who stand here and on any other platform on what I might call expediency---I hope I am not insulting anybody when I call it expediency------
MR. MILROY:
You are.
MR. CON COLLINS:
It is for those to come up to our standard and then we can have unity. Now, with regard to that Treaty itself, one Deputy, my friend for one of the Dublin divisions here, stated this morning that nobody on our side had yet discussed the Treaty on its merits. Well, I will attempt to discuss some merits of the Treaty just as they appear to me. The first is this: there are some things in it which we---which the Irish people might take if they got them from Lloyd George, driven down their throats with a bayonet---they might take them then, but the Treaty is not a thing for which we can sacrifice our national honour; it is not sufficiently good; and no matter how good it might be, when it involves that sacrifice of principle after our years of struggle here to try to drag this country of ours out side the British Empire---are we now, as a willing sacrifice, to come into it with its lovely history and tradition? If some of our people are anxious to participate in that tradition and that history, we, at all events, will do all in our power to save our country and our traditions---the traditions that have given us strength to do all we have done in the last few years. Now, just one other word, and one only, and I have done. We have learned a great number of new words here and nice phrases, and one gentleman mentioned visualising the future. I have attempted in my own peculiar way to visualise the future; and, in a personal way, I must say I have taken rather a gloomy picture of it, because under this future state there has come forcibly to my mind the conclusion of my sentence received from a British Courtmartial, and the conclusion of a number of other sentences of honest Irish Republicans---under this Free State; we Republicans will probably spend the rest of our lives in jail as rebels under the Free State, with this difference---that we will have a greater difficulty in getting out under our native Government than under the foreign one. Another, and a chief merit I have seen in the Treaty---the chief merit that any body in Ireland can find in the Treaty---is to be discovered by viewing it through Lloyd George's glasses, if you like; there is to be found the chief merit of this so-called Treaty, and here in this assembly we find what used to be regarded as a national assembly of the Irish people turned into a semi-political assembly since this Treaty was introduced. Here we have the first fruits of the Treaty; we have dissension, bitterness and malice for the first time that I have seen any of these things displayed in this Dáil---we find these have been introduced on the introduction of this so called Treaty. These are the first fruits of it and they will be spread through the country no matter how we try to prevent it, and that is the chief merit I see; and from the British point of view it has done more for them and their power than all their bayonets and all their military preparation has been able to do. Therefore, finally, if it is not yet too late, I would make a last appeal for unity to these people to save their country; and they can only unite on the basis on which I and a number of Deputies in this Dáil stand and that is the basis of an Irish Republic [applause].
MR. JOSEPH MACGUINNESS:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, is beag atá agamsa a rá ar an g-ceist seo, go h-áirithe tareis an meid atá ráite cheana. As I am, I think, to be the last speaker amongst the private members I hope to make a record. It seems to me that we have talked at great length on the merits and demerits of the Treaty; but I believe that a good deal of that talk and a good deal of the arguments used would be more appropriate on the hustings later on. The Treaty has not been examined, and has not been given fair play for the good things that are in it; and because of the good things that are in it I am in favour of it. I have, during the past three weeks, done what I could in a private way to see if, in any way, the two sides could be brought together, if any arrangement could be come to that would preserve the unity of this Dáil; and on the Committee of which I was a member we had almost succeeded in doing that. People who are against this Treaty, for some reason which I cannot understand, refused to allow that document which we had drawn up to come before yesterday's Private Session of the Dáil. Instead of that a bombshell was thrown in by the resignation of the President; that is the President's own business; but I can say as a member of that Committee that the people on this side literally went on their knees to President de Valera to try and preserve the unity of the country.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
One of the objections I had to that Committee coming along was that they were bringing forward a thing that was impossible; and they were trying to put me in the same position as was attempted in America.
PROFESSOR HAYES:
That's a very unfair attack on the Committee.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I did not mean it for the Committee. What I mean is when that proposition---I do not care whether it is published or not---when it was being put to me it simply meant that we would let the Free State take existence and take root, and then try to pull it up again. That is the substance of what it amounts to.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
I move the adjournment now; and both sides have agreed that there should not be more than two speakers, exclusive of what we might, in courtesy, call the principal speakers. Mr. MacGrath has agreed that there should be two speakers on each side---private members---and after that the debate will be summed up or wound up by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and by the Minister for Defence; after which the division will be taken.
MR. COSGRAVE:
Who will speak last?
MR. S. T. O'KELLY:
The gentleman who winds up the debate---the Minister for Foreign Affairs. You will remember that Committee---which, unfortunately, I was not able to reach agreement as to finding a way out---that Committee had certain notes and it was agreed here in the Dáil---as there was no agreement come to by the Committee, and as certain of us insisted that these documents were not before the Dáil---it was agreed that they should not be published. Now, it has reached our ears that some of these notes have been given by somebody to the representatives of the Press; Mr. MacGrath and I have agreed that you ask the Press to regard these documents as confidential.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I should like to say now, as it might be my last opportunity to speak in this House, that an attempt has been made by the other side to try to make out that I am trying to split the country when they did it themselves---when the Minister of Foreign Affairs brought over the document that meant splitting the country---and then trying to put on me, as was done in America, to represent me as trying to prevent unity in the country.
MR. MILROY:
That statement should be made in the presence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
MR. MACGRATH:
I met last night a representative of the Press outside, and he told me he had got a copy of the decisions arrived at by the small Committee.
MR. MELLOWES.
There were no decisions arrived at.
MR. MACGRATH:
I told him in no circumstances was he to publish them; I reported this matter then to the chiefs on this side of the House and we took particular precaution and sent two men to tell them under no circumstances were they to be published.
THE SPEAKER:
Well it is understood that these documents and notes of that Committee which met in private are confidential.
MR. MACENTEE:
I presume that the publication of these documents will be regarded by this House as a breach of privilege, and that if they will be published------
MR. HOGAN:
I have been listening for five minutes to the debate which went on on the assumption that some of the Committee are trying underhand methods to get out these things---that somebody is trying to get out documents which are confidential. Is that a fair statement?
THE SPEAKER:
That statement has not been made.
MR. HOGAN:
I say on behalf of this side of the Committee that we are doing our best to the contrary.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I never made any remarks of the kind. I would have kept silent on it were it not for the remark of the Deputy for Longford that they went down on their knees to get unity.
MR. MACGUINNESS:
To anybody who was present yesterday it will be clear that what I have said is absolutely true.
The House adjourned at 1.40 p.m.
The Dáil Eireann Session was resumed at 4.10 p.m. on Saturday, 7th January, 1922, with THE SPEAKER (DR.MACNEILL) in the Chair.
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
On a point of information, there is a notice of motion here by Doctor MacNeill. Is that in order?
THE SPEAKER:
In order? Well, it is.
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
Should we not get twenty-four hours' notice?
THE SPEAKER:
It is not put before you yet. Very likely you will have forty eight hours' notice of it.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Is that a vote of confidence by the people who are voting for Saorstát na h-Eireann?
THE SPEAKER:
It can't be discussed now.
At the request of the Speaker the Secretary, Mr. Diarmuid O'Hegarty, called the roll, when 122 members answered.
MR. DANIEL CORKERY:
I rise to vote against this Treaty; I believe if I voted for this Treaty I would be voting against the independence of my country; I am not prepared to do that. I believe, also, if we go into this British Empire we will go in there as a prop to hold up a rotten Empire. We have heard a lot here of the alternative to this Treaty---terrible and immediate war. Well, I have the honour of representing Mid-Cork in this Dáil, and I think this guerilla warfare was started in Mid.-Cork; I believe the first lorry was attacked in Mid.-Cork; the people have been with us all the time up to the Truce and they never flinched though they often heard the angry crack of the rifle and machine gun. The people down there do not want war, but they are not half as much afraid of war as the people from other counties who have not fired a shot yet. I am against this Treaty.
MR. JOSEPH MACGUINNESS:
I am sorry to admit that I have lost; this was the shortest speech yet.
MR. P. J. WARD:
All through this long debate I have listened to the arguments on every side and, us one who has risen for the first time to speak in this assembly, I wish to state the reasons why I am, going to vote for the approval of the Treaty; not because I hope to convert even any one Deputy here, but for the purpose of explaining to my constituents the reason for my action. I am in the position of one of the Deputies who spoke before lunch---Deputy O'Rourke; and I make no apology whatever to any man for changing my opinions. I came here to this assembly opposed to this Treaty, as I believed then that the Dáil, by a big majority, would be opposed to it. It was not what we were fighting for; it was not the end---the ultimate end---of what I had in view when I joined Sinn Fein; but, as I have said, I have listened here without interrupting any man, and I have formed my opinion from what I have heard, and from what I know are the facts of the situation. I have not been impressed by anybody on either side; nor has my opinion been formed for me; I have formed it myself. Now, I was opposed to the Treaty because it was not the thing for which we were fighting. I have heard a lot here about the Republic as if it were not actually existing; about what we fought for; and I have heard from various members that this Treaty gave us what we fought for. I don't agree with that. The election of 1918 may have been for self-determination; but when I stood for the election I had to fight a bitter one; I stood for the complete independence of this country---total separation from England---and the placards are still on the walls down in Tír Chonaill. It was not for self determination I fought the election, it was for independence; and it will come to pass yet that the Irish people, if given a free choice, will vote for independence. Now, the fight was begun then, or in 1916, if you will, it has gone on since; we have had only one thing before us and that is the independence of the country---complete and total separation. The Republic was set up here in 1919; but we had not independence although the Republic was set up; we were fighting for it; and that fight is going on yet, and will go on in the future. Now, this Treaty, was signed but how it was signed, or by what means it was signed, is a matter with which I have nothing to do. It is here before us; and we have not to judge of this Treaty by how or why or the manner in which the signature was obtained; we have to deal with facts, with the facts of the situation as they are at the present moment. I believed when I came to this Dáil, and I believe it now, that if this Treaty had been rejected practically unanimously by the Dáil we could have obtained unity; in this country and have the people behind us, and we could have won our case. I was opposed to the Treaty up to Christmas; I went down to my constituency, and I may say here that I know my constituents perhaps as well as any other man in the Dáil; I have travelled throughout the length and breadth of my constituency; and I have been in practically every Sinn Fein Club during the two months before this Treaty was signed---we have twenty-four of them. At Christmas every Sinn Fein Club debated this Treaty amongst themselves; I went to the Comhairle Ceanntair and I endeavoured there---because I wanted to save them from themselves---to prevent them passing a resolution against acceptance and the Sinn Fein Clubs, by seventeen to three, asked that this Treaty be ratified under protest; and they stated that they could see no alternative. Now, that was the voice of my constituency; it was the voice of the best elements in that constituency. I will not speak of what the army thinks---I know that the army is prepared to fight as before---for it is the civil population that decides this question now; and of the civil population that is the voice, and the answer they gave to me. Now, I told them there at that Comhairle Ceanntair meeting that I did not hold that I was necessarily bound to vote for the ratification, because I held that the mandate they gave me was to secure the independence of Ireland, and that if I thought it better and wiser to vote against this Treaty I would do so; but what I did pledge myself to was this: that I would vote at this meeting of the Dáil for what I thought was the best way to obtain that independence of Ireland for which we were fighting. Now, those people down the country, so far as I can understand, can see no alternative but to take this Treaty as a step---that their voice. I have not met one man who was in favour of the Treaty but was in favour of it only as a step to the independence to which we were making. I have met some that were against it, as I have told you, but the majority were in favour of it as a step towards that independence because they could see no other way out of it. As I said, I could have seen the other way out when I came to this Dáil, if this Dáil had made up its mind to stand for it; but now, when it has come to the final day for decision I have to make up my mind as to the wisest course and the best way to obtain the independence of my country. Now, we have heard here members talk an alternative to rejection; some have told me privately that they based their decision on the belief that Lloyd George would not go to war with the Irish nation; I do not know what grounds they have for that view; I can only form my own opinion on English politics and one point in that matter is this: I do not know that any change has come to England since after that final note came before the Dáil for its approval---when the answer was being sent back to England that we would not accept her terms we were told that rejection of them would mean immediate war. I am not aware that any change has taken place since in Lloyd George's mind so that the rejection of this offer might not mean war, too, I do know that it has been said here that at that Session the members of the Dáil, when they let the plenipotentiaries go to England, compromised. I only asked one question on that occasion; I asked the President what he meant by association with the British Commonwealth of nations in his letter to Lloyd George, and I did not receive any direct reply. Even if this Treaty were rejected, and the President's document accepted by Lloyd George, I hold there will not be a lasting peace with England until we are absolutely separated from England and the British Empire. Now, the probable consequences of rejection have a different light in every Deputy's mind here, I suppose; but in my mind the consequences, if the Treaty be rejected, are that now Lloyd George is in the position of knowing that this country is absolutely disunited, and that he is in the happy position of knowing that if he makes war now---if he only threatens war on this county---that the people of this country do not want to fight. I know that may not be as it appears to you; but I have talked with the people, and I know their minds, and I know the view point they have; they are war-worn; they have come through a strenuous fight and they want peace. Now they see the prospect of peace, and they have not the smallest scruple about it; they are willing to take that prospect; and they, at the same time, are willing to take it as a stepping stone. I have no scruples about it either; I am willing to take it as a stepping stone, and I do not care how Lloyd George views what Deputies say here; so far as I am concerned, I will only vote for this Treaty as a stepping stone to put this country into such a position at some future time--- when the opportunity does come---that it will claim the total separation that it is entitled to as a separate nation. Some members have said that this Treaty should be put to the people of this country whichever way it goes, and some even have said that, so far as their constituents are concerned, their constituents would support them in its rejection. I do not know about their constituents, so far as my own constituency is concerned, I have men there who are opposed to the Treaty, and I am glad these men are there; perhaps if I were in their place I would be opposed to this Treaty: but I am here with the responsibility of either accepting this Treaty or rejecting it, with the consequences to the country. What these consequences are is in the future; you may see them in one light, I may see them in the other, but I will not take the responsibility of rejecting this Treaty with the probable consequences to the country, because one thing that may happen if this Treaty is rejected is this, and I regard it as the worst: we have got certain things here from Lloyd George and from the British Government in this Treaty which, if utilised to the full force, will benefit this country; but if this Treaty is rejected that gives Lloyd George an opportunity of backing down from these terms. Now, there are things in it that are not palatable to us and not palatable to Lloyd George and his associates, and they would be only too anxious and too glad to get rid of all this; and then, when he has an opportunity of backing out from the Treaty he has signed, he can put worse terms before the people of this country; and what I say is this, that the people of this country, in the state in which they are in at present, would take worse terms. You may like that or you may not. It is because the people of this country are disunited, because they have expressed their views on this Treaty, that I am voting for the Treaty. I do not want the Treaty myself; I do not like it; but I know very well that you will not be able to wring anything more out of Lloyd George with the state the people are in now in the country; you will wring no more, and you will have to take less. The other consequences are that you will go on in this state for years to come before you get as far as you are at present. Now, I have said nothing personal on one side or the other; I regard it as disastrous that there should have been such a split in the Dáil; if there had been unanimity the situation could have been saved. However, that is my own opinion. I make this explanation for the purpose of explaining to my constituents why I vote in this way, because some of them know I was opposed to it, and strongly opposed to it, when the Treaty came out first; I do consider that this Treaty, if it ever comes into operation, will give a chance to the people at some future time to obtain full independence. Now, I won't detain you very much longer. I am a lawyer, but I do not think I have employed any argument on this, or legal quibbles, of constitutional law; and I think if the lawyers who did speak first were to speak now they would not use these arguments either, for this matter is too big for chess-playing. We have to swallow a bitter pill in this; one Deputy has said that to-day, and nobody likes to swallow pills; but if we honestly think that it is for the best interests of our country I think we are doing then what our conscience directs; and in taking this step I consider I am doing what is best for my country. I will vote for the Treaty under protest---not under protest in a sense, because I have a free will---but I will vote for it only as a stepping stone, and when the time comes I will be just as ready to take a part in the fight for independence as I have been in the past. After all, we here are split, as far as I can see, on which is the better way; that is the only thing that divides us. I told my Comhairle Ceanntair that I would vote for what I thought was the best way to gain absolute independence in the end; I consider that if I voted for rejection I would be putting back the fight for independence for years and years to come: whereas if I vote and swallow the pill and take the Treaty I consider that I will bring that absolute independence nearer by years, how many years I do not know. I do know, however, that the people of this country have not changed their national aspirations, and I consider that their national aspirations will be brought nearer by acceptance of the Treaty.
MR. JOSEPH O'DOHERTY:
When I read the terms of the Treaty signed in London everything that was in me that I can call good revolted against those terms. Like my co-Deputy from Tír Chonaill I came to this Session of Dáil Eireann with a mind that was open to conviction against these prejudices that I had; no argument that has been produced by those who are for this Treaty has made any influence on me; I see in it the giving away of the whole case of Irish independence; I see in it, not the coming nearer of the day when liberty will be throughout the land, but the going farther away from that day; and I can't be a coward, and I would be a coward it I said anything else, and I can't be on the side of those who are swallowing pills and taking the backward step in the hope that; in the near future they will find themselves in a better position than they are to-day. Each man here has to interpret the mandate he got from his constituents. I come from a constitueney in Tír Chonaill; when I went into that constituency I went into it on the invitation of the man who was then Secretary of the Comhairle Ceanntair, and who now sits in this Dáil, I at first refused the invitation to stand because I had no desire to enter public life. When he proposed me, the Comhairle Ceanntair, he said, was in a hole, a difficulty; and he proposed me and I consented to stand for the Republic. I went into the constituency, and you, a Chinn Chomhairle, accompanied me to the first meeting; and the Chairman of the Comhairle Ceanntair took me behind the wagonette and he said he and the Comhairle Ceanntair wanted to win the election in North Donegal and that the election could be won if there was no mention of the Republic. `Very good,' said I, `you are entitled to your opinions, but you can get another candidate'. I am prepared to admit that the mandate I got from the constituents of North Donegal was one of self-determination; and it is a terrible thing and a terrible trial to have men in this Dáil interpretating that sacred principle here against the interests of the people
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. O'DOHERTY:
I know that the people in North Donegal at the present moment would accept this Treaty, and I think it is fair to the people of North Donegal that I should make that known; but they are accepting it under duress and at the point of the bayonet, and as a stop to terrible and immediate war. It is not peace they are getting; it is not the liberty they are getting which they are told they are getting, and they know it; and I will tell them honestly if I go to North Donegal again what they are getting. I have my ideals of the people's will; and at this stage of the proceedings I have no intention of saying anything bitter about any man or body of men in this assembly, but I hold that the people's will was flouted in London when that document was signed. I have sufficient data for my mind to prove that the men who signed it knew that there would be a split in the Cabinet, that there would be a split in the Dáil and a split in the country, and, notwithstanding that they accepted the document which embodies in it no clause or phrase which enables them to bring it before the people whose will they have such regard for. I say if they have the people's will, the sacred will of the Irish people, before their minds, they, at least, knowing the consequences of their signatures, should and could have demanded that if the Dáil turned it down the Irish people could have a final word. They have not done that. I am not afraid to go into my constituency and fight the question Free State versus the Irish Republic against any man, from a Cabinet Minister down; and my mind is not small enough to deny that there is a big difference between Document No 2 and the Treaty that was signed; it is not a question of tweedledum and tweedledee, as I was told the night before this Session opened, and as I have heard repeated often since then. It is the great question of Irish sovereignty, and as long us I have a weapon to fight for that cause I shall not be a party to voting away the sovereignty of this nation [applause].
DR. MACGINLEY:
The claim is made by men who are opposing this Treaty that we have a Republic established in this country. The delegates, in signing this Treaty with England, could not vote away that Republic if we had a Republic in this country in the sense in which they mean to convey. I, as one plain man, want to know why were delegates sent to London at all? Was it to arrange for the evacuation of the English forces out of this country? Was it to arrange an alliance with England? Why were they sent to England at all? To my mind the isolated Republic was let down when the reply was sent to the letter of Lloyd George to President de Valera on the 20th September, in which he stated that:
<SMALL>In spite of their (the British Government's) sincere desire for peace, and in spite of the conciliatory tone of your last communication, they cannot enter a conference upon the basis of this correspondence. Notwithstanding your personal assurance to the contrary which they much appreciate, it might be argued in future that the acceptance of a conference on this basis had involved them in a recognition which no British Government can accord.</SMALL>
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I ask that my reply be read now.
DR. MACGINLEY:
The reply, no matter how carefully read---in my opinion the sending over of the delegates was an abandonment of the isolated Republic.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It would be very important to have my reply read.
MR. COLIVET:
We all read the reply and we know it.
DR. MACGINLEY:
I don't want to read the reply. The point for me is this: we have not a Republic functioning in this country; we have a paper Republic, the people of Donegal are sick of this paper Republic.
A DEPUTY:
And paper Republicans, too.
DR. MACGINLEY:
If we have a Republic, how is it that the British institutions are functioning in this country as well? Every honest man in this Dáil must admit that; and are not British troops in Ireland and British institutions functioning in Ireland? We have got no national recognition from any country in the world, despite Harry Boland's talk. Their sympathy was not enough; the sympathy of the people in other countries, even in America, was not strong enough to compel them to recognise our Government. That was the test of it.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
The people recognised it.
DR. MACGINLEY:
It might be said that our men might have got better terms in London. Perhaps they might, but I can tell you the people of Donegal, anyhow, have the very greatest confidence in the ability of Arthur Griffith and the sincerity of Michael Collins; and they believe that, taking all the circumstances of the case into account, they did what was best for Ireland. Now, President de Valera has stated that rather than sign this Treaty he was prepared to see the Irish people live in subjection until God would redeem them. I may as well say at once that that is not my creed; that is a doctrine that never was preached in the history of the world before: that a country, if it could not get absolutely what it was out for, should fight to the extermination of its people. I, as one man, can't take the responsibility for committing the men and women who sent me here to a war of extermination which, I think, would result if this Treaty were rejected. I have no qualms about the oath which I took on coming into this assembly; the people sent me here to get absolute separation if I could---I am for absolute separation if I could see a way out---but they sent me here to use my own free will, and if I could not get absolute separation at the present time I was to take something by which we could work out our own independence in the long run. I think in voting for this Treaty I am voting according to the mandate which my constituents gave me when sending me here. That is all I have to say.
MR. THOMAS HUNTER:
I rise to say a few words; perhaps if I did not do so some people might say that I had not the courage to voice my opinions in this assembly. I vote against this Treaty because I am a Republican; I was elected on the Republican ticket; I came here and took the oath to the Republican Government and I am not going now to destroy that Government. If the people do not agree with me they can get rid of me at any time and in any way that they like. Finally, as a Republican, I could never recognise the Government of George V. of England in either internal or external association.
MR. SEAN HALES:
I was not going to speak one word here in this Public Session, I spoke what I had to say in the Private Session; I don't retract one word from that, nor have I one word to add to it. I have travelled down this stormy road since 1916 and it is conviction that leads me to vote for this Treaty; I know my friends and fellow soldiers on the other side are equally convinced; but I can feel no other way out at the present moment. I did not want to make a speech; I was not going to say a word in addition to what I had said in the Private Session, but lest, as my comrade here says, that some one might say that I had not the courage of my convictions, I now state publicly that I am going to vote for this Treaty.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a cháirde Gaedhal, mo sheana-chara, an Teachta ó Chiarruidhe Thoir, dubhuirt se i d-tosach an meid cainte do dhin se anso go raibh socair aige gan aon rud do rá a chuirfeadh fearg ar einne. Tá socair agamsa anois gan aon rud do rá a chuirfeadh fearg ar einne; ach tá socair agam an fhírinne d'innsint agus deir an sean-fhocal go m-bíonn an fhírinne searbh; ach nuair innsim an fhírinne má chuireann sí fearg ar einne ní h-ormsa atá an locht. Ní chun fearg do chur ar einne a neosfad-sa an fhírinne anois; ní mór dom an fhírinne d'innsint mar is leir go bh-fuil daoine ann ná tuigeann an sceal. Níl einne is mó go bh-fuil meas agam air imeasc na n-daoine atá i bh-fabhar an Chonnartha so ná mo sheana-chara ó Oirthear Chiarruidhe agus mo sheana-chara ó Chontae na Gaillimhe---Piaras Beaslaí agus Pádraig O Máille. Iarrfad ortha eisteacht go cúramuch le n-a bh-fuil le rá agam. Dubhairt Pádraig gur mheas se gur gheill an t-Aire um Ghnóthaí Dúiche agus mise do Shasana sarar chuaidh an Toscaireacht anonn; is truagh ná fuil se anso; ach dubhairt se, agus dubhairt daoine eile atá anso gur gheilleamair do Shasana ag cruinniú den Aireacht le linn na cainte do bhí ar siúl idir sinne agus an cúigear do chuaidh anonn. Deanfad-sa a dheimhniú nár dhineamair agus iarfad ar Art O Gríobhtha an meid a bheidh ráite agamsa a bhreagnú má's feidir do e. Now, my friends, there are some people who---from a few questions that they put, some of them have written them out for me---do not, apparently, understand the whole position at present. My friend, one of the Deputies from Dublin, Seán MacGarry, put a question the other night---I would have answered him, but I thought it a pity to interrupt the flow of his eloquence---he asked what would the Minister of Defence say to an ex-member of the British Army about the oath when that member would be about to join our forces---what he would say to him about the oath he had already taken to England. The only oath that concerns me is the Oath of Allegiance to the Dáil, and as long as every member of the army abides by the oath which he must take when he enters it I am satisfied; if he does not abide by it, as long as I am at the head of the army, I will have him dealt with in the proper way. My friend, the Deputy for one of the Mayo constituencies, sent a question in here which, in effect, is this: If the Minister of Defence had been made an offer two months ago to have the British forces clear out of Ireland would he, instead of accepting that offer, say: `No! I prefer to drive them out?' That, I understand, was in effect the question. Certainly not, I would let them go out. I do not want any fighting unless it is absolutely necessary; but if the conditions were that our people must become British subjects I would say: `I am not going to agree to that; clear out if you like'. A Deputy from Tipperary and Waterford, one of my own colleagues, has sent me in a question which I will read. `In view of the fact that many members and several people are biased in favour of this proposed Treaty because the Minister of Finance is in favour of ratification, and in view of the fact that many of these people, and many of these members, are of opinion that Mr. Michael Collins is a leader of the army and has fought many fights for the Republic, I think it is of great importance that an authoritative statement be made (a) defining the real position Mr. Michael Collins held in the army, (b) telling what fights he has taken an active part in, provided this can be done without injustice to himself or danger to the country; or can it be authoritatively stated that he ever fired a shot at any enemy of Ireland?'
MR. MILROY:
Is that in order?
MR. M. COLLINS:
Carry on.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
That is a matter which I approach with great reluctance; and I may tell you I would never have dealt with it, and this question would never have been asked, but for the statement made by the Chairman of the Delegation when he was speaking here; he referred to Mr. Michael Collins as the man who won the war.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. FIONAN LYNCH:
So he did.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
And the war is won and we are talking here. Very well, I will explain to you how that is done.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I would like to rise to a point of order. Are we discussing the Treaty or are we discussing the Minister of Finance? I think we are discussing the Treaty.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
The Minister of Finance does not like what I have got to say.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Anything that can be said about me, say it.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Tá go maith.
MR. BRENNAN:
If things are to be said about the Minister of Finance are we at liberty to say anything we know about other people? I mean it is becoming personal.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I think Cathal Brugha ought to respect the chair.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Táim chun rud eigin le rá anois; tá san socair im' aigne agam, agus má chuirtear isteach orm táim canncarach, crosta, agus ní aingeal in aon chor me.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Ni chuirfeadh einne e sin id' leith.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
It is necessary for me to define Michael Collins' position in the army. Now, I have my department divided up into sections. I have the ordinary Ministerial part of it; the civil part of it; the liaison part of it; and then the Head Quarters Staff. The Head Quarters Staff is divided up again; at the head is the Chief of Staff; and at the head of each section of the Head Quarters Staff is another man working under the Chief of Staff. One of those heads of the sub-sections is Mr. Michael Collins; and to use a word which he has on more than one occasion used, and which he is fond of using, he is merely a subordinate in the Department of Defence.
MR. DOLAN:
Has he been an efficient officer?
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Leig dom anois agus neosfad san duit. While the war was in progress I could not praise too highly the work done by the Head Quarters' Staff. The Chief of Staff and each of the leaders of the sub- sections---the members of the Head Quarters' Staff---were the best men we could get for the positions; each of them carried out efficiently, so far as I know, the work that was entrusted to him; they worked conscientiously and patriotically for Ireland without seeking any notoriety, with one exception; whether he is responsible or not for the notoriety I am not going to say [cries of `Shame' and `Get on with the Treaty']. There is little more for me to say. One member was specially selected by the Press and the people to put him into a position which he never held; he was made a romantic figure, a mystical character such as this person certainly is not; the gentleman I refer to is Mr. Michael Collins
MR. DUGGAN:
The Irish people will judge that.
MR. MILROY:
Now we know things.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
Now we know the reason for the opposition to the Treaty [applause].
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
During the war, on one or two occasions, people came to me and asked me why I did not stop this kind of thing; here was a man being described as Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Army, and on another occasion he was Field-Marshal-General, I believe. My reply was that Mr. Michael Collins could not be responsible for what people said of him in the Press: and consequently I never took any notice of these things, and would not have done so only for what the Chairman of the Delegation said; because it seems to me, when the Chairman of the Dlegation made such a statement as that, the people who were whispering fairy tales into the ears of the Press correspondents must have been at the Chairman of the Delegation too---that Mr. Michael Collins had won the war.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
The Chairman of the Delegation thinks the war is won, so far as he could win it, for England.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Bravo, Cathal, bravo.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Go maith. Now, so much for what the Chairman of the Delegation said about Mr. Michael Collins; but when Mr. Michael Collins was speaking here in support of the resolution in favour of the Treaty, he told us that during the war he compelled respect and also during the negotiations.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Well the modesty of that is such that I will not spoil it by comment; but it is just a continuance of the other fable. He also referred to some mysterious incidents that he says the people were excommunicated for, and he said he was responsible for that; a lot of people applauded it; and I wonder what those people who applauded thought they were applauding. I know of only two instances for which people during the war were excommunicated; one was an ambush, it was a fair ambush, and in charity to Mr. Michael Collins I will not repeat here what a participant in the ambush said about Mr. Collins. His remark about his being responsible for it---if it was to that he referred---suffice it to say---
MR. COLIVET:
I respectfully suggest that the Minister for Defence------
MR. SEAN MACGARRY:
Too late. Let him carry on now.
MR. BRENNAN:
The damage has been done.
MR. M. COLLINS:
No damage is done.
DR. MACCARTAN:
The damage is done.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
In any case you all understand now------
MR. J. MACGRATH:
We don't.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Well, what exactly am I going to say to you? [Laughter]. That Mr. Michael Collins does not occupy that position in the army that newspaper men said he occupied.
MR. MACGRATH:
I never thought he did.
MR. SEAN MACGARRY:
I think we have enough.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
I must protest against the Minister of Defence being interrupted. He is making a good speech for the Treaty [applause].
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Deimhneochad e sin ar ball. Now, I finish with that, so far as Michael Collins is concerned. Now, in the article which appeared a few days ago in the Freeman's Journal, the one in which a most dastardly attack was made on our President and on Deputy Childers, Mr. Michael Collins was also referred to: and it was stated that when our President was arrested and released there was a reward of ten thousand pounds offered by the British Government for the corpse of Michael Collins.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
I wonder how the Freeman's Journal got that information?
MR. GRIFFITH:
Public notoriety.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Because it is not in accordance with the tale that was being circulated at the time by a very intimate friend of Mr. Michael Collins. He told it to me, and I asked him where he got it, and he said he got it from Mr. Michael Collins himself, and he told him that it was forty thousand pounds.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
He was worth it. </SMALL>
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Now, Deputy Childers was attacked in the same article, and you know the way he was attacked. It is only fair for me to say now that I know, of my own personal knowledge, that Deputy Childers, amongst other work that he did for Ireland, has done as much as most men, and more than nearly all men who are working for Ireland, to arm the people of Ireland. I will turn now to what was said---some of the nice things that the Deputy for Tyrone, Seán Milroy, said---about the Minister for Defence; he said, amongst other things, that the Minister for Defence did not want peace. Now, I don't like to refer to anything that was said by a member of this House as being nonsense; but I ask you this: does any man contemplate with equanimity a renewal of the conditions in this country in which his wife will be dragged in the dead of the night out of her house, hustled along through the garden, and put into a motor lorry, and kept there in order that she will not be present while her husband is being murdered if the English cut-throats can get him? Does any man look forward with pleasure to having his little children frightened out of their lives by the spectacle of armed men rushing in and running through the house, some of them breaking their way down through the ceilings? But apparently the Minister of Defence does not want peace, but prefers that kind of thing. I am against this resolution because I know this Treaty can't achieve peace. You know how those who are opposed to it, how keenly they feel the thing, and how much they are against it; but some of the best men on the other side, the men who count, some of the fighting men, have said that the reason that they are in favour of it is that they will be able to get in arms. Deputy J. J. Walsh told us the other day---and he is in favour of this Treaty---that if he got a rifle and ammunition each time he would take this oath that he would keep on taking it.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Hear, hear; I would.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
And what is Deputy J. J. Walsh going to do with the rifle?
MR. J. J. WALSH:
What I did before. I said I would take indefinite oaths for indefinite rifles and ammunition. I stand over what I said.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Yes; and this gentleman is in favour of the Treaty. Now, we are told that this Treaty, if passed, is going to achieve peace. Well, when people who are in favour of the Treaty are going to get rifles, and take oaths to get rifles, and going to make use of them, we will say that we have little to say against this Treaty but to answer where will the peace come in? And it is because I know that you are not going to have peace that I am against the Treaty. Now, another statement made by this gentleman, the Deputy from Tyrone; he said he was taking off the gloves; he said that he had let the cat out of the bag when he made reference to the oath. Now, it is in keeping with some of the tactics referred to by our President yesterday that this use should be made of an alleged oath, a second oath. Mr. Deputy Milroy could only have heard about the discussion on that oath from some member of the Cabinet, because there was absolutely no note taken of it, because there was no decision come to on oath. Our friends on the opposite side now know that since the start of these negotiations on all vital matters we found it necessary to have unanimity in the Cabinet; and when we found we could not have unanimity the particular matter was dropped. Now, this oath question came up before us and it was clear from what was said that we could not have unanimity on it. Therefore, so far as the Cabinet was concerned, it was dropped; and the President, so far as my recollection went, said something to the effect that, if nothing else was between us, he would be in favour of taking a certain oath and he spoke out some words. However, that was only his own personal opinion; so far as the Cabinet were concerned there could not be unanimity; and it was dropped. The ungloved orator from Tyrone said he let the eat out of the bag when he made reference to the oath.
MR. MILROY:
The oath is on the Cabinet minutes.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
There are no records.
MR. MILROY:
There is such an oath on the Cabinet records.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
There was no such oath agreed to by the Cabinet; and anybody who knows anything about it knows that. This Deputy from Tyrone made another very personal remark to which I will not refer here as it is beneath contempt; consequently I will take no further notice of it. I will now turn to the Deputy from Offaly, he told us that the Republic was betrayed, he said it was betrayed when we decided to send delegates to England; nevertheless this delegate was present at the meeting of the Dáil at which this decision was come to and he sat silently by and he allowed us to betray the Republic. Of course you all know, everybody with the exception of this Deputy, that by sending delegates across to England. The Republic was not betrayed. This Deputy also said that the Republic was dead. Well, I tell him that if it depended upon faint hearts to keep it alive it would have died long ago, and if it depended upon faint hearts to bring it into existence it would never have been born. He tells us he will not vote for it or against it; that's a nice position for a man who has taken upon himself a certain responsibility---that's a nice position for him to adopt. Now, this Deputy and another Deputy, the Assistant Minister for Local Government, both took it upon themselves to speak for the army---as to the condition it was in and what would happen. They are both men of military age, and when they make a closer acquaintanceship with the army by joining its ranks, and putting themselves into the position of fighting, they may earn the respect of military men; and if their merits ever raise them to the position in which they would be entitled to speak for the army, I hope they will have learned sufficient sense then to keep silent about army matters when it is not necessary to refer to them. We come now to the jocular gentleman who represents Kilkenny, were I in the vein I might follow his jokes. However, I am not in that mood; but I suggest to him that this is too serious a matter to be dealt with by flippancy and levity. Now, the Deputy for South Kerry, Fionán O Loingsigh, stated here that he spoke for the people of South Kerry.
MR. FIONAN LYNCH:
And I still maintain it.
MR. BRUGHA:
There was an interjection from the body of the House telling him `No!' and he answered: `Yes, a minority of one'. I had in my pocket at the time, only I did not wish to interrupt him---just the same as on the contrary he has again now tried to interrupt me---I had in my pocket---
MR. FIONAN LYNCH:
If you use personalities you will be interrupted.
MR. BRUGHA:
I had in my pocket a document signed by people who are entitled to speak for the young men, the fighting men, the men who count and who are ready to make sacrifices in his constituency, and that is the Brigade Commandant in his area---the two Brigade Commandants that cover the area in which his constituency is in. In this they say very respectfully to the Government that they are absolutely against the Treaty. Since Deputy Lynch has made that statement he has been repudiated in the papers.
MR. LYNCH:
Oh!
MR. BRUGHA:
I will come now to the distinguished Chairman of the Delegation, and I don't refer to him sarcastically as the distinguished Chairman of the Delegation, for I, as much as anyone in this House, appreciate the political sagacity and patriotism of the Chairman of the Delegation, and I considered he was an acquisition, too, when those who were called the physical force movement joined with him four years ago. I considered it was an acquisition to have such a man with us. Now, he has said he has been a student of Thomas Davis all his life. So was I but I take different lessons from the teaching of Davis, and I must remind him that when Davis wrote it was for an Ireland enslaved and demoralised after forty years of the Union, but, anyway, those of you who saw the first edition of the new paper, the Republic of Ireland, saw the quotation in it from Davis in which he says: `in a just cause a nation is justified in going to war'. Now, I will defy the Chairman of the Delegation to point out to me in any readings of Thomas Davis where he advocated the sacrifice of principle in favour of expediency. In the Secret Session, in some interchanges that there were between Arthur Griffith andmyself, he asked me to repeat at the Public Session the answer that I gave to him at a Cabinet meeting that was held on the Saturday before the plenipotentiaries went away to England for the last time: and he told us at that Cabinet meeting that he would not break on the Crown. There were some rather heated passages between us and he put the question to me: Could I, or could we, could I with the army which we had here in Ireland, drive the English Forces out---I am not exactly certain if he added something about the navy. I answered that I could not undertake to do anything of the kind; I did not think it was necessary; and I do not think it is necessary for us to be able to beat all the resources in the shape of an army that England can put into Ireland in order to maintain our independence. We maintained it when we had not an army at all, it is not necessary. Now, Mr. Griffith has referred to the difference between this Treaty of his and the alternative that we have as being only a quibble; and yet the English Government is going to make war, as they say they will, for a quibble. The difference is, to me, the difference that there is between a draught of water and a draught of poison. If I were to accept this Treaty and if I did not do my best to have it defeated I would, in my view, be committing national suicide; I would be breaking the national tradition that has been handed down to us through the centuries. We would be doing for the first time a thing that no generation ever thought of doing before---wilfully, voluntarily admitting ourselves to be British subjects, and taking the oath of allegiance voluntarily to the English King. Now, I hope it is admitted by everybody in favour of this Treaty that that oath constitutes an Oath of Allegiance to the English King [`No! no!']. Well, then, it is not admitted [`No! no!']. Well, I will prove that it is; it has been proved before and I thought that was sufficient.
MR. DUGGAN:
It was not proved.
MR. BRUGHA:
You swear to bear true allegiance to the constitution of the Free State of Ireland as by law established; that is, in itself, if there was not a word about the King to follow, and there is---that, in itself, would be an Oath of Allegiance to the English King, because he would be the head of that Constitution.Agus tá se sin maith a dhóthain. Now, the third objectionable feature, the fundamental thing, even if there was no question of becoming British subjects and taking the Oath of Allegiance, this third objection would be so fundamental that I say it would be equivalent to my taking poison if I accepted it: that was allowing the British to say to us, `We will not allow you to carry out your coastal defence, you will not have permission to do so until we are satisfied, we must first agree to it'. That is putting us in a humiliating position. Now, no matter what happens we would not agree to the Treaty in which these three fundamentals are included. There has been a body of opinion in this country, as I had occasion to write a week ago in Irish, that has always repudiated English authority in this country. Each generation had that body of opinion in it, and whenever they found themselves strong enough they went out in insurrection against England and English authority here. The last one, as you know, was in 1916 when we established our Republic; it was ratified in January, 1919, and we have carried on our functions with a de jure and de facto Government since; and here, when we are in so strong a position and we so strong and England so weak and with so many enemies as she has now more than ever, we are asked to do such a thing as this. Why, if instead of being so strong, our last cartridge had been fired, our last shilling had been spent, and our last man were lying on the ground and his enemies howling round him and their bayonets raised, ready to plunge them into his body, that man should say---true to the traditions handed down---if they said to him: `Now, will you come into our Empire?'---he should say, and he would say: `No! I will not'. That is the spirit that has lasted all through the centuries, and you people in favour of the Treaty know that the British Government and the British Empire will have gone down before that spirit dies out in Ireland. Now, how are we going to reconcile an agreement between the people who have that spirit in them and those who are in favour of the Treaty. We have in this alternative of ours the means of doing this. Now, seeing that some people are in doubt as to what our alternative is, especially one man for whom I have great respect---though, unfortunately, he made an error in a statement he made in his speech---who said our alternative had not been treated fairly and that he did not understand it---that is Deputy Mulcahy---I presume that those in favour of the Treaty have no objection to my explaining briefly what our alternative means. We are prepared to enter into an agreement, an association with the British Commonwealth of Nations as it is generally called, on the same or similar lines as that on which one business firm enters into combination with another or several others. The thing is not uncommon now; such combinations are made for certain specific purposes; the combination appoints a managing-director to carry out the business of the firm but it is only for a specific purpose; each firm remains independent except for this one particular business. Say the purpose would be to do foreign trade; each firm would carry on, independently, its own internal trade; and the combination would, under this managing-director, carry out its purpose for foreign trade; each firm would give a stipend to the managing director. Now, by entering into combination no firm sacrifices its independence as a firm. We are prepared, on the same terms, to enter into an association with the British Commonwealth of Nations, and for the purposes of that combination we are prepared to recognise the English Government as the head of the combination [cries of `Oh!'].
MR. GRIFFITH:
A managing-director.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Now, by entering into such arrangements we are not going into the British Empire; neither do we take any oath whatsoever; and there will be no representative of the British Crown in the shape of a Governor-General in Ireland. We are entering into that arrangement, into this association as external associates. Now, what does that mean?
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. BRUGHA:
Tá go maith, ní thuigean tú anois e do reir dheallramh. Míneochad duit e. Now, instead of becoming British subjects or British citizens we will have reciprocal citizenship, that is, an Irish citizen or British subject will have the support of this group in any part of the world where he may find himself where he will require help. He will have the power of the new group behind him.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Common citizenship.
MR. BRUGHA:
Reciprocal citizenship. Apparently the Chairman of the Delegation does not understand the difference between common citizenship and reciprocal citizenship. Common citizenship will mean that we are British subjects, and reciprocal citizenship will mean that we will remain Irish Republicans. There is no letting down the Irish Republic there, and I defy the Chairman of the Delegation, when he is speaking after me, or anybody else after him, on any platform in Ireland, to prove that we have deviated by one hair's breadth from the Republican position by making such a proposal. Now one of the greatest fears that the British Government have from the Irish people is, that at any time they would be in a position, were England at war, to interfere with the food supplies of the population of Great Britain; they must safeguard the food supplies of forty millions of people; we appreciate that fear, and we realise how necessary it is for them to safeguard the food supplies of the English people. Consequently, we are prepared to agree not to build submarines unless in agreement with the British Government; the only use that submarines would be to us would be to attack English transports or food ships if England were at war; they would not be of very much use to us. Now, we are willing to give England that safeguard that we will not attack her food ships, and that we will not put ourselves in the position to do so. We are prepared to give her certain facilities in our ports for a period of five years; and at that time, or any other time, that we here consider that we are in a position to carry out our own coastal defence, then we take it over; but for five years we give her certain facilities in our ports. Those are fundamentals. There are other details which appear in our proposals, but it is not necessary for me now to go into them. The things that really matter are the fundamentals; upon these fundamentals we can make a free peace with England. Now, why can we not be unanimous in this matter. So far as I can see, at the start when this document was signed there was only one man really in favour of it and that was the Chairman of the Delegation; there might have been a couple of others favouring it, but the man who really wanted it was the Chairman. Our President yesterday narrated to you a little modern history; I will supplement what he said; and I might say that when he spoke before---early in this Session---before Christmas, he stated that if Arthur Griffith had told the electors of East Cavan that he was not going to stand by the principles that were enunciated by the speakers at that election, that he would not have been elected. I tell Mr. Griffith that only for a certain arrangement that he made in 1917, that he would not be now in public life any more than he was in 1916. I have here the Sinn Fein Constitution as passed by the Ard-Fheis held in October, 1917; there is a clause in this resolution which took us three nights to get passed---to get Mr. Griffith to agree to it---this is the Clause: `Sinn Fein aims at securing the international recognition of Ireland as an independent Irish Republic'. Mr. Griffith objected to that, but eventually we came to an agreement by adding this: `Having achieved that status the Irish people may by referendum freely choose their own form of Government'. These are the vital clauses in the Constitution of the Sinn Fein movement. In that Constitution we forged the weapon by which we produced the Dáil. If Mr. Griffith had not agreed to that, and it took him three nights before he would agree, I say he would not be in public life to-day any more than he was before 1916. Mr. Griffith, in 1916, was in prison for some time; he was released in 1917, we came together some months before that Ard-Fheis---and Mr. Griffith himself, now this is some modern history, will correct me if I make a mistake---Count Plunkett held a conference in 1917 and, as a result of that Conference, there was a Committee brought into being to form a new political party; I was asked to go on that Committee; I had never been in politics before; the work that I had done, so far as I was able to do work for Ireland, was, in addition to my little efforts to revive the language, preparing for Easter Week for years before. Now, I consented to go into this, to go on that Committee that had been selected, with Mr. Griffith. I put the question to him `Suppose the League of Nations agrees that Ireland should be independent, and that England should say I will not give her her independence, would you then', said I to Mr. Griffith, `would you then be against our going out and fighting?' And he said: `No! I will not'. `Very well, then, we will', said I, `go into it, and the fighting men will go into it, and the men who are prepared to make sacrifices will go into it, too'. If he did not give that undertaking, we would have to form Republican Clubs; he gave the undertaking, and then agreed to that Constitution. Now, instead of abiding by that, Mr. Griffith has come back from England with this Treaty, instead of abiding by this which he undertook---we see that instead of the Republic he brings back that Treaty. He tells us now the war is won. The men who are prepared to make sacrifices would never have come into this movement; they would have formed a party of their own. Mr. Griffith's policy was a well-thought out policy but it would not work; we know what little progress it made until 1916; but for these men who have been with us in every generation that policy would never have succeeded. It was the fact of these men working with their own ideals and on that policy, it was only on that fact that we were able to bring the Dáil into existence, and function as a Government; though not recognised it is, de facto and de jure, the Government; it is that up to now and, please God, it will remain so. Now, why can we not regain the position that we held prior to the signing of the Treaty? It can be done if Mr. Griffith, for one, will consent to it---I may tell you that. A lot of you Teachtaí, already know that I was against ever sending men across to England, not that I considered that we were giving the Republic away by doing so, but that I knew the terrible influences that would be brought to bear upon them there---influences that I thought might be too much for them--- but I hoped, especially when there were certain instructions drawn up, that the influences would not be too strong to get the better of them, and that they would abide by those instructions that were drawn up for them and to which they consented before they went. I, at any rate, was against these negotiations because I considered they were part of a manoeuvre on the part of Lloyd George to get the better of us; Mr. Lloyd George, in the autumn of 1920, told us at Carnarvon, and told the world, that he had murder by the throat in Ireland; and he told us what he was going to do with us. He had no sooner made that declaration than his Black-and-Tanism and militarism started here in the country; it was not long after when he had Balbriggan sacked, the people taken out of their houses and murdered, the revered pastor of that parish in a public statement said that the two men who were murdered presented the appearance of people who had been done to death by wild animals instead of human beings. This campaign of terrorism went on round the country; there is no necessity for me to go into details; one of the worst---worse even than Balbriggan---was the massacre at Kerry Pike, outside Cork, in which six men who had surrendered were done to death; during the inquest the bodies of some of them had to be kept covered so that the way that they were mutilated would not be exhibited; these men were under torture before they were killed for two or three hours. In spite of all that terrorism Lloyd George could not beat the Irish nation, and when he found he could not do so, he resorted to wiles and manoeuvres; he came along with the suggestion of negotiations. Now, we agreed to send our delegates. As I have said, and as has been said already here on a few occasions, certain instructions were drawn up to which they agreed, one of which was that they were not to come to any decision without notifying us here---the remainder of the Cabinet at home here---and waiting for the answer from us; another was that they were not to sign any Treaty without first submitting it to us. You know how these instructions have been carried out. I may tell you that when the negotiations were about a month in progress some of us became very suspicious when we saw what was going on; we found that the five men, the five delegates, the team of five that we had selected, was being divided up; that two members of it, and two only, were being brought into what they call a sub-plenary conference. For more than a month before the signing of this Treaty there was, I think, something between fifteen and twenty sub-conferences. Our team of five men was divided up and only two consulted when important things the vital things were discussed, there was not even a secretary allowed to be present. Some of us became suspicious; I did; I became very suspicious and I drew attention to this. I was told that there were certain instructions given to them, and surely there was no use in causing friction by supposing that they would not abide by those instructions; consequently I was satisfied. Now they came back on that fateful Saturday. When Mr. Griffith told us that he would not break on the Crown I made what he might consider some rather heated remarks; I asked how it was that our team of five had been divided up? Who was responsible for it? His answer was---the British Government, the British Government had divided up our team. I asked him, who was it that selected the two particular members---the two particular members were Mr. Griffith himself and Mr. Michael Collins---who was it that selected them? What was his answer? The British Government. I then made an answer which he insisted should be put down on the minutes, and I said: `Yes, the British Government selected their men'. In saying that I did not mean to cast any reflection on the honour of those men; but before these men were selected at all I told them---at the Cabinet meeting at which their names were suggested to be put before the Dáil---I told them what I thought of their ideals of freedom from the utterances that I had heard from them; and I said at this Cabinet meeting on that fateful Saturday: `Yes, they selected their men'. My meaning was this: because they knew they were the two weakest men we had on the team; and Lloyd George and his friends pretty soon discovered that, and that is how they came to select them out of the five; and they allowed the British Government to divide them up and select their own men to carry on an important Conference with them. They had the thing, apparently, settled with these men and they knew what they would agree to: and until the last hour they did not call in the other two men when they intimidated---on the admission of the other two---the other two men into it. As far as the third man is concerned I will make no reference to him whatsoever; I prefer not ---charity above all things. In any case you see the result---you see the result of this manoeuvre. Negotiations were suggested after terrorism had failed, they find out who are the weakest and they select them to carry on important negotiations; and they intimidate the other two, and then there is this Treaty. No wonder there was jubilation in London when it was signed, and congratulations from the English King to Lloyd George. This was the end of the fight, and Ireland, at least so far as these men could help it, anyway, had consented to go into the British Empire. Now, I hope that you members of the Dáil will see through this manoeuvre of Lloyd George, and that you will not consent to be a party to it. I put it up now to the five men, the five members of this Delegation, that they are not to vote at all for this Treaty. They gave a certain undertaking to Lloyd George and his friends when they signed that they would recommend: that undertaking went no further, and in honour they need not go any further; and this is such a vital matter that I think it should not be necessary for them to go out of their way by voting for it. I put it up to them that they should leave it to the Dáil--- that they should not vote for it, and I put it up to you, members of the Dáil that you ought not to allow yourselves to fall into the trap that was laid for Ireland by Lloyd George, and that you should not fall into it. Finally, I put it up to Mr. Arthur Griffith to fall in with this course; and I tell Mr. Arthur Griffith that when in 1917, at the Ard-Fheis, he stepped down in favour of Eamonn de Valera as President of the Sinn Fein Organisation of which he had been head since its inception---certainly for years--- I tell Mr. Griffith that when he did that, he earned the respect of men to whom his name, prior to that, was no more than the name of any other man. However, when he did that, and since that, these men have respect for Arthur Griffith second only to Eamon de Valera. If Arthur Griffith will fall in with this suggestion now tell him---and I need not take upon myself to be a prophet to foretell it---I tell him if he does this his name will live for ever in Ireland [applause].
MR. M. COLLINS:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I crave your leave to make just one personal reference. It has been suggested by the Minister for Defence that I, in my statement, said I was responsible for a certain ambush. I did not say that, sir, I said I took responsibility for a certain incident, I took that responsibility as a member of the Government.
The House adjourned for tea at 6.25 p.m., and resumed at 7.15 p.m., with the SPEAKER (DR. MACNEILL) in the Chair.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
With your permission I wish to raise one small point; the front public bench was reserved for the members of the Standing Committee of Sinn Fein; a member of the Standing Committee who came in and took his seat there a while ago was ejected to make room for a person who is not a member of the Standing Committee; and the member, the gentleman who was ejected from his seat, has left his seat under protest. I think the seat should be vacated and he should be invited in.
THE SPEAKER:
Give instructions to the officer in charge of the door.
MR. STACK:
Call in Mr. Little.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
Immediately following my speech to-day my colleague, Mr. MacGrath, thought fit to bring a personal conversation into the debate; and in order to clear my record I will take this opportunity to state that I was the servant of this Government, representing it in America, and when I was recalled to Ireland on the peace discussion I was informed by the President that the very minimum would be external association. I was instructed to go back to America with this definite objective in view; and I made whatever provision was possible, so that in the event of Ireland's minimum being accepted we would have no trouble from our friends in America. Now, with that in view, on the Tuesday night on which the Treaty was signed in London I stepped off the train at Washington, and when I read that the Treaty had been signed I understood that the men who went to negotiate for Ireland had followed out the instructions of their Cabinet, and that the minimum had been achieved. I thereupon issued a statement in which I said that Ireland had come within the comity of nations, On the following morning, Wednesday morning, the Treaty appeared in the American Press; and when I read the terms of the Treaty I was opposed to it. On the following Thursday night Mr. Stephen O'Mara, the fiscal agent to this Government, and myself attended a meeting in Washington where invitations had been sent out to wealthy Americans inviting them to subscribe to a million dollar Bond Drive---or the Republic; and the men turned up, and we cancelled the Bond Drive, and they turned the meeting into a meeting of rejoicings. Senators were present and they sang hallelujahs: and I, myself, spoke against that Treaty. On the following morning my speech was reported in the Manchester Guardian because their representative in America was among the invited guests; that was on record five hours before President de Valera came out against the Treaty. Apart from the propriety of introducing a private conversation I find it necessary to make a personal explanation; I certainly hope we won't reproduce any more private conversations.
MR. M. COLLINS:
You cannot stand them, Harry, you stood for the Treaty first. [`Order, order'.]
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
No! and you know it, Michael [laughter].
MR. ARTHUR GRIFFITH:
I cannot accept the invitation of the Minister of Defence to dishonour my signature and become immortalised in Irish history. I have signed this Treaty; and the man or nation that dishonours its signature is dishonoured for ever; no man who signed that Treaty can dishonour his signature without dishonouring himself and the nation [applause]. As to what the Minister of Defence said about myself I have nothing to say; it may be that I was unknown in public life before 1916; and it may be that I am only known in public life since through the Minister of Defence. That is not a matter I am interested in. There is one thing I want to say; a suggestion was made that my colleagues and myself are going to be immortalised if I take a certain course---to dishonour my signature and the nation. It was said that I was a weak man in the negotiations in London, and that I and that my colleague and friend, Michael Collins, held back our conversations with the English Ministers and gave something away. We were asked why we went to see these Ministers without the full body of the plenipotentiaries? For the same reason that President de Valera met Lloyd George alone when he went to London; and because there are certain things that are better discussed by two or three men than by eighteen men; and we both agreed on that. One other reference will I make to what the Minister of Defence has said; he spoke of Michael Collins, he referred to what I said about Michael Collins---that he was the man who won the war. I said it, and I say it again; he was the man that made the situation; he was the man, and nobody knows better than I do how, during a year and a half he worked from six in the morning until two next morning. He was the man whose matchless energy, whose indomitable will carried Ireland through the terrible crisis [applause]; and though I have not now, and never had, an ambition about either political affairs or history, if my name is to go down in history I want it associated with the name of Michael Collins [applause]. Michael Collins was the man who fought the Black-and-Tan terror for twelve months, until England was forced to offer terms [cheers]. That is all I have to say on that subject. Now, we have been in London as plenipotentiaries, and when we were going across it was stated to us that there might be scapegoats, and I said I was prepared to be a scapegoat if one per cent. more could be got for the Irish nation. We came back. We thought, at all events, we had done something that was very good for the Irish nation. We were indicted here from the day we came back; we were told that we let down the Republic; and the Irish people were led to believe that we had gone there with a mandate to get a Republic and nothing but a Republic, and that we had violated that mandate. Sir, before I went to London I said at a Cabinet meeting---when every member of the Cabinet was there---that: `If I go to London I can't get a Republic: I will try for a Republic, but I can't bring it back'. And we tried for a Republic, though I knew we could not get it. One Deputy here said yesterday that we were guilty of treason against the Republic. Well, if we were guilty of treason against the Republic let us be tried for treason. I, at all events, have nothing on my conscience; what I did, I did for the best interests of Ireland; I believed I was doing right; I believe now I did right, and I would do the same thing again [cheers]. Now, we have been told, and we were told after we came back, that we were in violent conflict with what the Irish people had expressed in the three elections; very well. The documents and letters that passed between our President and the Premier of England are all before the public; in which one of them was a demand made for the recognition of the Irish Republic as a condition before we went to London? If we were to get a Republic, and nothing but a Republic, the thing could have been dismissed in six lines by writing to the Premier of England and telling him that we would meet him on the condition that he recognised the Republic. We were sent to make some compromise, bargain or arrangement; we made an arrangement; the arrangement we made is not satisfactory to many people. Let them criticise on that point but do not let them say that we were sent to get one thing and that we got something else. We got a different type of arrangement from that which many wished; but when they charge us or insinuate that we went there with a mandate to demand a Republic, and nothing but a Republic, then they are maligning us; if we got that mandate we would have finished up in five minutes in Downing Street. Now, after the General Election, at a meeting of the Dáil in August last, President de Valera made a speech which covered the ground on which we went there; he said, speaking on the General Election: `I don't take it that the answer was for a form of Republican Government as such, because we are not Republican doctrinaires as such; but it was for Irish freedom and Irish independence'. [Hear, hear]. We went there to London, not us Republican doctrinaires, but looking for the substance of freedom and independence. If you think what we brought back is not the substance of independence that is a legitimate ground for attack upon us, but to attack us on the ground that we went there to get a Republic is to attack us on false and lying grounds, and some of those who criticise on that ground know perfectly well the conditions under which we went. `We are ready,' said President de Valera---`We are ready,' he said---`to leave the whole question between Ireland and England to external arbitration'. What did that mean? Need I comment on it? Is that saying you will have a Republic and nothing but a Republic? Is not that America or any other country might decide between us whether we would have a Republic or not?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
By justice.
MR. GRIFFITH:
In another letter he said: `We have no conditions to impose, no claim to advance but one---that we are to be free from aggression'. I hold that what we brought back from England frees us from aggression. It gives us the power to mould our own life, and it frees us from the only permanent form of aggression we can have---the occupation of Ireland by the army of another country. I have listened here for days to discussions on the oath. If you are going to have a form of association with the British Empire, call it what you will, you must have an oath; and such an oath was suggested and put before us and not rejected, and put before the plenipotentiaries when going back to London. The difference between these two oaths is the difference in the terms. I am not going to speak in terms of theology or terms of law about them; we have had quite a considerable discussion on that point; but what I am going to speak about is this: that in this assembly there are men who have taken oath after oath to the King of England; and I noticed that these men applauded loudly when insulting or slighting references were made to the young soldiers here on account of the oath. If a man considers an oath such a momentous thing, what did these gentlemen who took the oath to the King of England---what; I ask, has become of their oath at the present time? I have an arrangement of oaths here, seven different oaths taken by different members of this assembly to the King of England. These were the gentlemen who unsheathed their swords against the liberties of the people---these gentlemen sat on English benches---all of whom are going to vote against this Treaty because they will not take the oath. Ah! this hypocrisy that is going to involve the lives of gallant and brave men is damnable---the hypocrisy of the men who hung their flags out when the King of England came to Ireland, the men who received him, the men who fought in his army, the men who sat on his benches, the men who try to cut down the brave young men of Ireland---this is damnable hypocrisy. When we came back with this Treaty that has been called by many names---we have heard a selection of adjectives for that Treaty that have not been parallelled since the days of Biddy Moriarty [laughter]---when we came back with that Treaty there was, at least, one thing that might have been done. Our colleagues in the Dáil who disagreed with us might have met and discussed that Treaty on its merits. The President and myself made an appeal that no personalities be indulged in. I have been sitting here for days, and the more I sat here the more I wondered at the smallness of my imagination that I had never been able to realise the heights of my own villainy [laughter]. Well, that Treaty could have been discussed on its merits; it could have been dealt with without any reference as to whether the men who brought it were honourable or dishonourable men---tell us what you like. You say we are dishonourable men, this does not affect the fact of the Treaty which has been discussed on the basis of the failure, at least, of the plenipotentiaries and not discussed on what was in it. It has been discussed in the way that Carlyle once described---and I have thought of this many times while listening to the criticism of the Treaty---he describes the fly that crawled along the front of the Cologne Cathedral and communicated to all the other flies what a horribly rough surface it was, because the fly was unable to see the edifice. Now, as to that Treaty, an effort has been made to put us in the position of saying that this Treaty is an ideal thing; an effort has been made to put us into a false position. That Treaty is not an ideal thing; it has faults. I could draw up a Treaty---any of us could draw up a Treaty which would be more satisfactory to the Irish people; we could `call spirits from the vasty deep', but will they come when you call them? We have a Treaty signed by the heads of the British Government; we have nothing signed against it. I could draw up a much better Treaty myself, one that would suit myself; but it is not going to be passed. We are, therefore, face to face with a practical situation. Does this Treaty give away the interests and the honour of Ireland? I say it does not. I say it serves the interests of Ireland, it is not dishonourable to Ireland. It is not an ideal thing; it could be better. It has no more finality than that we are the final generation on the face of the earth [applause]. No man is going, as was quoted here---I have used it all my life---`no man can set bounds to the march of a nation'. But we here can accept that Treaty, and deal with it in good faith with the English people, and through the files of events reach, if we desire it, any further status that we desire or require after. Who is going to say what the world is to be like in ten years hence? We can make peace on the basis of that Treaty; it does not forever bind us not to ask for any more. England is going beyond where she is at present; all nations are going beyond where they are at present; and in the meantime we can move on in comfort and peace to the ultimate goal. This Treaty gives the Irish people what they have not had for centuries; it gives them a foothold in their own country; it gives them solid ground on which to stand; and Ireland has been a quaking bog for three hundred years, where there was no foothold for the Irish people. Well, reject this Treaty; throw Ireland back into what she was before this Treaty came---I am not a prophet, though I have listened to many prophets here, and I can't argue with prophets; but I know where Ireland was twenty or thirty years ago, I know where Ireland was when there was only a few dozen of us up in Dublin trying to keep the national ideal alive, not trying to keep it alive, because the Irish people never deserted it, but a few of us who had faith in our people and faith in our country, stood by her---you are going to throw Ireland back to that, to dishearten the men who made the fight, and to let back into Irish politics the time servers and men who let down Ireland before and who will, through their weakness, if not through dishonesty, let down Ireland again. You can take this Treaty and make it the basis of an Irish Ireland. You can reject this Treaty and you can throw Ireland back into where she was years ago, into where she was before---well I do not like to speak about the dead---before the sacrifice that the dead men have made raised her up; the men who died for the last four or five years made this Treaty possible; without them it could not have been done. You are going to give away the fruits of their sacrifices, and to condemn the other young men of Ireland to go out on a fruitless struggle. Certain disclosures have been made here about what happened at Cabinet meetings; well, there was a certain Cabinet meeting at which I asked a question as to what the alternative was as nobody held that we could, by military forces, drive the English out of Ireland---I would not refer to this except that it was already referred to this evening, and part of the conversation was reported---and I was told: `No! This generation might go down, but the next generation might do something or other' Is there to be no living Irish nation? Is the Irish nation to be the dead past or the prophetic future? Have we any duty to the present generation? I say we have. I say it is the task of political leadership, and statesmanship, or whatever you like to call it, to adopt the weapons and circumstances of this time to achieve the best possible result for the country while keeping the honour of the country safe; and I say if leadership does not devote itself to that task it is not leadership. We have a duty to our country, and our country are the living people of Ireland; we have a duty to our people; we have a duty at least, so far as our judgment goes, not to lead them astray, not to tell them something will happen `if you do this'---when you know they cannot do it---in order to save our faces at the expense of our countrymen's blood [hear, hear]. I have preached this Sinn Fein doctrine in years past; at that time the leadership of Ireland was in the hands of the Parliamentary Party; I felt the doctrine I preached was the right one; but I felt also a duty to the nation in that if anything could be got through these leaders I thought it was not my right to obstruct the way. In 1912, when the late Home Rule Act came in, I had a certain support in the country; I could have embarrassed Mr. Redmond if I wished; but I could not have effected any good for the country by so doing, because the country was overwhelmingly against us, and I said to my colleagues in Sinn Fein `The country has declared for that thing; it is not what we want; but we have no right to stand in the way of the country when we are not able to get them better'. We of Sinn Fein stood down; and we tried to help Mr. Redmond to get his Home Rule measure. He got it. It was not our duty to obstruct. If he and his party failed to get it they failed to get it, and the failure did not lie with us. I say to-day that any man or body of men that obstructs what the nation wishes, or what the nation desires, no matter though they might think themselves right, no matter though they were right, are culpable against the nation unless they can show as quick and as good a way. I can see no better way than this Treaty; no better way for the Irish people. If the Irish people are to have an alternative let the alternative be put down straight before them. Now, many questions were raised, many questions were asked me or referred to me; one by Madame Markievicz, who was perturbed over the letter I wrote about the Southern Unionists; she drew from that letter the idea that I was going to treat them as a privileged class; she wanted to know why I met these men. I met them because they are my countrymen [applause], and because, if we are to have an Irish nation, we want to start with fair play for all sections and with understandings between all sections [applause]. I would meet to-morrow on that basis the Ulster Unionists, to seek to get them to join in the Irish nation [hear, hear]. I met these gentlemen and I promised them fair play; and so far as I am concerned they will have fair play [applause]. I met them in the same spirit that the President met them, when he invited them to meet him at the Mansion House, because they are members of the Irish nation, and their lives and fortunes are as much at stake in the settlement of this Irish question as are our own and those of the people who are supporting us. If we are to start as an Irish nation we went to start on these lines, obliterating all that kept us apart before. We are to have different parties in the Irish nation; we do not want these parties ranged on the lines of pro-English versus pro-Irishism, we want them ranged on national lines, and the person who thinks that you can make an Irish nation, and make it successfully function, with eight hundred thousand of our countrymen in the North up against us, and four hundred thousand of our countrymen here in the South opposed to us, is living in a Fool's Paradise. You want every Irishman in this Irish nation; you want all of them, and the way we are going to get them is to ensure them that they are to have absolute justice and absolute fair play in the Irish nation [applause]. Now, I might go into many things. I do not wish to go into things that would arouse any personal contention; I will merely go into certain statements about another document, Document 2---the Minister of Defence gave a description of another alternative doctrine---well, all I can say is: these proposals, so far as they differ from what we signed, were put up by us---they did not emanate from us---we put them forward and they were turned down; we put them up again and they were turned down absolutely. The alternative proposal was simply to put up a third time what had been turned down twice. But it appears that from these alternative proposals some extraordinary measure of greater freedom accrues to Ireland than from the Treaty; that Ireland, somehow, is not to connect with the British Commonwealth of Nations; that Ireland is outside it; that it is not a question of Dominion status. Well, here they are:
<SMALL>
That for purposes of common concern Ireland shall be associated with the States of the British Commonwealth viz., the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa.
</SMALL>
It that is not a claim for Dominion status I do not know what the meaning of words is. Here is the next paragraph:
<SMALL>
The rights, status and privileges of Ireland shall be in no respect less than those enjoyed by the component States of the British Commonwealth.
</SMALL>
The next paragraph says:
<SMALL>
That the matters of common concern shall include defence, peace and war, political treaties, and all matters now treated as of common concern amongst the States of the British Commonwealth and that in these matters there shall be between Ireland and the States of the British Commonwealth such concerted action founded on consultation the several Governments may determine.
</SMALL>
We are outside the British Empire according to this explanation in this document, but we happen to be inside for peace, war, defence, treaties, and for all vital concerns. Again:
<SMALL>
That in virtue of this Association of Ireland with the States of the British Commonwealth, citizens of Ireland in any of these States shall not be subject to any disabilities which a citizen of one of the component States of the British Commonwealth would not be subject to and reciprocally for citizens of these States in Ireland.
</SMALL>
I have heard about common citizenship; what is that? Reciprocal rights? Is that over a change of words? And then we have this:
<SMALL>
That for purposes of the association Ireland shall recognise His Britannic Majesty as head of the association.
</SMALL>
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Why did Lloyd George turn it down?
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
It is not allegiance.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Is that a Republic or is it not? I say it is not a Republic. Is that allegiance or is it not?
MR. MACGARRY:
That's a Constitutional Republic [laughter].
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
That's a Republic.
MR. GRIFFITH:
There is a little item left out of that which we were empowered to put up in London---an annual payment to the King of England. The Irish people have been told that we let down the Republic; and that that document is a Republic. I say that is not a Republic. You said you were elected for a Republic; were you elected for that document? Well, that document is the question between us and our colleagues on the opposite side. Now whatever the difference is between us this thing is too grave for the Irish people to have them befogged by words. If they are going to be asked to go out and put their lives and fortunes in danger and lose their lives; and again go through what they have already gone through; let them know that what they are going out for is the recognition of His Britannic Majesty---for a payment to His Britannic Majesty---and for association.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is no oath.
MR. GRIFFITH:
The document is there. It is on the Cabinet records. [Cries of `No! no!'] No! you kept it out of that record---out of that document. </SMALL>
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I have been prevented by the Minister for Foreign Affairs bringing forward my amendment. The people in this assembly do not understand what is contained in the Treaty. We have got no opportunity.
MR. GRIFFITH:
If the people in this assembly do not understand what is in the document they are not fit to be representatives of the people of Ireland [applause]. Now, the Irish people are going to know, so far as I am concerned, what is the difference. I belong to the Irish people; I have worked for them because they are flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone [cheers]; I have never deceived them, at all events, whatever I have done; I may have misled them or given them bad advice; but I have never concealed from them anything that is vital to their interests. It is vital for them to know what we are up against and not to be misled and not to believe that we, plenipotentiaries, went away with a mandate for the Republic and came back with something else. I have heard in this assembly statements about the people of Ireland. The people of Ireland sent us here---we have no right and no authority except what we derive from the people of Ireland---we are here because the people of Ireland elected us, and our only right to speak is to seek what they want. I am told that the people of Ireland elected us to get a Republic. They elected us in 1918 to get rid of the Parliamentary Party; they elected us in 1921 as a gesture, a proper gesture of defiance to the Black-and-Tans; they elected us, not as doctrinaire Republicans, but as men looking for freedom and independence. When we agreed to enter into negotiations with England with the object of producing a Treaty we were bound, I hold, to respect whatever the Irish people---the people of Ireland---thought of that Treaty. I have heard one Deputy saying here that it does not matter what his constituents say. I tell him it does. If representative government is going to remain on the earth, then a representative must voice the opinion of his constituents; if his conscience will not let him do that he has only one way out and that is to resign and refuse to misrepresent them; but that men who know their constituents want this Treaty should come here and tell us that, by virtue of the vote they derive from these constituents, they are going to vote against this Treaty---as that is the negation of all democratic right, it is the negation of all freedom. You are doing what Castlereagh and Pitt did in 1800; you are doing what these two men did when they refused to let the Irish Parliament dissolve on the question of the Union, and to allow the people to be consulted. You are trying to reject this Treaty without allowing the Irish people to say whether they want it or not---the people whose lives and fortunes are involved.
PRESIDENT DR VALERA:
No! no!
MR. GRIFFITH:
You will kill Dáil Eireann when you do that [`No! no!']. You will remove from Dáil Eireann every vestige of moral authority, and they will no longer represent the people of Ireland. It will be a junta dictating to the people of Ireland and the people of Ireland will deal with it. When our President was in America he honoured the memory of Abraham Lincoln; and Abraham Lincoln was one of the greatest men of the last century---he was one of the men who upheld the rights of the people---and Ahraham Lincoln's words are words I recommend to you now. When Abraham Lincoln was elected as representative of the American people he said: `If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sagamon'---the constituency he represented---`my constituents, as well those who oppose me as those who support me. While acting as their representative I shall be governed by their will on all such subjects on which I have the means of knowing what that will is' [applause]. You know what the will of the Irish people is [cries of `No!' and `Yes!']. There is no man here who would go down to his constituency and stand on a platform before his people and say he is against this Treaty.
MR SEAN T. O'KELLY:
I would do it; and will, and so will others.
SEVERAL DEPUTIES:
We are prepared to do it.
MR. GRIFFITH:
They had an opportunity during the recess; I have not read of any of those who stood up now having gone before their constituents.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
There was an undertaking we were not to do it. </SMALL>
MR. FRANK FAHY:
We were forbidden by an undertaking with Mr. Griffith.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Therefore you did not do it. You may interrupt me as much as you please, but there is no power in the junta to intimidate me. The people of Ireland are, you know---every one of you---ninety-eight per cent. for this Treaty [`No! no!' and `Yes! yes!']. Now, everyone of you knows it; they have told you to vote for it.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
They did not tell me. They told me to vote against it.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Your constituents told you to vote for this Treaty. The Irish people will not be deceived. They know. They have made their voice heard. Some of you will try to muzzle it; but that voice will be heard, and it will pierce through. The most contemptible references I ever heard made to the people of Ireland have been made this Dáil, I have heard people in this Dáil say that if the people of Ireland had been able in 1921 to accept the Southern Parliament and get rid of Black-and-Tannery they would have done so. Now, I say that is the falsest libel ever uttered the people of Ireland: the people of Ireland stood, throughout, against that terror, and against the terrorism which would seek to suppress their nation; they will stand again [applause]. But they are not going to stand for a fight against what gives them the substance of freedom. If an attempt be made to mislead the Irish people on this question---a Deputy here said something me about last night, and about treason. But I tell you the people who commit treason are the people who try to prevent the Irish people, by force or otherwise, from expressing their opinion [hear, hear]. Distrust the people, muzzle the people, where then is gone self-determination for the people? Where is gone the platform on which we were elected to this Dáil? [hear, hear]. Ah! democracy is, to some minds, very good in theory when democracy fits in with their own ideas; but when democracy bends the reins contrary to their own ideas they get back into a casuistic vein. Now, this country is going to be governed by the Irish people or by the English Government. I am equally opposed to my countrymen being governed by any body of men who flout their wishes and opinions as I am opposed to their being governed by Dublin Castle. We have heard of usurpation. The usurpation that would set itself up against the will of the Irish people is as great a usurpation as Dublin Castle and, so far as I am concerned, my voice and power will be used against that usurpation. You have heard expressions in this Dáil that were rather unfortunate, perhaps. We have representatives in different countries---I happen to be Minister of Foreign Affairs---two of these representatives, immediately this Treaty was signed, started out on their own behalf and made public statements about the Treaty; they did not communicate with me; they thought it right that they should publicly state their views before either the Dáil Cabinet or the Dáil had the power to consider it. They have also represented that the opinion of the world was with them against that Treaty; I say the opinion of the world is that this Treaty constitutes a victory for Ireland, and while I am Minister for Foreign Affairs---perhaps I may not be there much longer---I take the liberty, since these gentlemen took it on themselves to attempt to jump the decision of the Dáil, to read the views of another of our representatives. He may, of course, be dismissed, but he has told me he does not mind; he is a man who has done more for us on the Continent than any other man---Captain MacWhite of the French Army, now representing us in Geneva------
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
When was he made a Captain? He is a Sergeant-Major in the French Army.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Mr. MacWhite is our representative in Geneva. He wrote me a letter on this subject and he told me I might use it if I wished. In this letter he says:
<SMALL>
To refuse to ratify the document which you brought back from London would be to put a millstone on the neck of posterity, and to condemn unborn generations to perpetual slavery and poverty. To pretend that we could again revive the sympathies which were so ardently expressed in favour of the Irish cause during the past few years throughout the whole civilised world is nothing less than a monstrous imposition on the credulity of the Irish people. All the sympathisers which we had in France---and they were legion---look upon the oposition to the Treaty as nothing less than insanity. Those French newspapers which, through thick and thin, fought the battle for Irish freedom believe that in wringing such a Treaty from the powerful British Empire you achieved the inachievable. In Italy our most enthusiastic supporters---and in no other part of the world was there so much popular enthusiasm behind our cause---are of the opinion that we have won a magnificent victory, and there deception will be nil the greater if we do not exploit the victory as any sane people should. Amongst our friends in every other country in Europe the same opinion prevails. Only a few days ago I read of a society at Zurich `Pro Irelande,' whose object was the advocation of Irish liberties, being dissolved as the raison d'etre for its existence had disappeared. Should Ireland, through the fault of her elected representatives, revert to disorder and chaos, then it will be said again---with some foundation this time---that we are unfit for freedom and that we handsomely deserve whatever fate England may reserve for us in the future. The Treaty admits Ireland to membership of the League of Nations. In order to give that document its true international character I do not see any reason why it should not be submitted to the League once Ireland's membership is officially recognised. The Constitution of the League requires that all Treaties entered into by its members or between one of its members and an outsider should be notified to it. Of course England may protest that the Irish Free State did not exist until after the ratification of this Treaty, but once ratified she cannot any longer pretend that is not an international instrument. In future any modification of that document should likewise be submitted to the League and its intervention could be solicited for the regulation of disputes which are not specifically reserved under the articles of the Treaty.
</SMALL>
I quote that simply to correct the idea that some of our representatives abroad gave as to the Treaty, that it was their view was held by the European nations. Now, you have heard all that might be said against this Treaty; you have heard even that it is not a Treaty at all. You have been spoken to as if you had a Republican Government functioning all through Ireland, and that you were asked to give up this Government and functioning Republic for this Treaty. You all know here that, instead of governing through Ireland, the most we could do was to hold, and to barely hold, the position we were in. I heard it said in this assembly that we had driven the British Army into the sea but I walked down O'Connell Street and I saw them there in hundreds afterwards. What is the use of so deceiving ourselves? The British Army into the sea; but I walked country; and the British Army can be got out of this country to-morrow by the ratification of this Treaty; those who vote against it are giving a vote to keep the British Army in Ireland. If you expect that when you reject this Treaty you will drive the British Army out, then you are even more credulous than I believed you to be all the time [laughter]. You have got to give the Irish people something substantial if you reject this Treaty; you have got to tell them where you are going to lead them. But you are not leading there anywhere; you have no objective. You have as I was told---as one very prominent man told us---you have been told that this generation is going to die but that the next generation will get something, that is not sanity; that is not politics; that is not statesmanship. Any of those who come and tell the Irish people: `Let this present generation immolate itself and, please God, the next generation will get something', are not talking in the voice of sanity. This generation in Ireland; and this generation has got the right to live for itself as past generations had the right; and future generations will have the right to live for themselves. We, as I said, have been put into the position of defending this Treaty, of making this Treaty appear as if it were a bigger thing than it is; the attacks on us have been designed to force us into the position of saying that this Treaty is an ideal Treaty. Well, it is not. It is the utmost Ireland can get; and it is a Treaty Ireland can honourably accept; it gives a way of working up to our fullest development. We speak here---some us speak here---as if there were no Irish people outside of these doors as if there were no economic questions; as if there were not tens of thousands of unemployed; as if there were not tens of thousands of struggling farmers and labouring people through the country; as if we could go on indefinitely making this kind of fight against England. I tell you what is going to happen to you if you reject this Treaty. The Irish people are going to sweep you out as incompetent. We have got to deal with the people; we have got to believe that we are not superiors; we have got to remember that they are our flesh and blood, we have got to remember that we are not sitting at a table playing chess with Lloyd George. It is our countrymen and country women whose lives and fortunes we are dealing with. As John Mitchell said: `One Irish peasant's life is as dear and as sacred to us as any other man's life in the country is, be he who he may'. We want to see this country placed on its feet; we want to put the English tax-gatherer out of the country; we want to hold our ports and harbours and commerce; and we want to have the right and power to educate our people as they ought to be educated. We have got all this in the Treaty. Reject the Treaty and what have you got? A few years ago I found, when I saw the misery and degradation and poverty of my country---when I saw her name forgotten in Europe---I found that the cause of all that was the infamous Act of Union. From the day that Act was passed Ireland became a chaos. In the one hundred and twenty years since that was passed we have lost twelve millions of our people, our country has been ravished and ravaged; we have had the emigrant ship and the famine and the prison cell and the scaffold all through that one hundred and twenty years, because you have had the English Army in occupation here; and by your vote are you going to keep the English Army in occupation here, because that is what it means? Are you going to put out the English Army, the English tax-gatherer, the English West Britons; to build yourself up as a nation again and stand as this Treaty gives you power to stand---on equality with the other nations once again---and get your fair name in the world? Or are you going back, without hope of success in this generation at least, to the position in which we were until the heroism and capacity of these young men made England offer terms in July last? That is what you have got decide; and I say that any man who is going to ask the young men of Ireland to go out again, and fight and suffer as before, has got to tell them where they are going [applause]. Here a few days ago, reference was made to Michael Collins and to the young men who would follow him to hell. Well, I know young men who went through hell with him; and because they went through hell with him you are here this evening; and this assembly would not be here, and we would not be discussing these terms with England unless the army---unless these young men had gone through hell with Michael Collins. Well, so far as my strength and voice and vote are concerned, I will not let my countrymen be led on a false track; I believe they will be led on a false track if we reject this Treaty; I believe they will be led on a straight track if we accept this Treaty. My colleagues and I have tried to meet the difficulties in the way, we have tried to get a united Dáil. Michael Collins made a suggestion. I regret that suggestion was not adopted, I believe we could have kept united if that suggestion were adopted; and if people had difficulties in their minds over what they considered principles I believe these difficulties could have been solved. I regret that that suggestion was not accepted; I regret it because I believe we could honourably have peace on this.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
What is it?
MR. GRIFFITH:
Mr. Collins' suggestion that you had before you recently.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Please read it so that we may all know it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
It was in the Press.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
That we should let this Treaty pass and hold the views we had. What would it mean for Ireland?
MR. GRIFFITH:
I do not mind reading it if President de Valera wishes.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I do not want to ask anybody to break any confidence. I simply want to know if a suggestion was made by Mr. Collins, if it was in the Press?
MR. GRIFFITH:
What I thought you wished me to read was the decision the Committee came to the other night. </SMALL>
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Anything that should go to the Irish people let it go. Please let us hear the whole thing now. I did everything I did for unity. If there is anything else read it out then, if it is agreeable.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
I am not agreeable.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Very well. I am not going to read any document so.
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
What about Mr. Collins' offer?
MR. M. COLLINS:
It was in the public Press.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Well, I regret, therefore, that we cannot go into that. I regret we are not going to have unity; but there is true unity and false unity. I will not sacrifice the Irish nation on the altar of false unity; I will not agree, in order to preserve the semblance of unity in this Dáil, that we should flout the people of this country; I will not agree that the people of Ireland should be sacrificed on a formula.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. GRIFFITH:
We had much talk of principles, of honour, and of virtue here. It seemed to me all on one side; we on this side, had lost all the effulgence of virtue that emblazoned the faces of the people on the opposite side. Well, I have some principles; the principle that I have stood on all my life is the principle of Ireland for the Irish people [hear, hear]. If I can get that with a Republic I will have a Republic; if I can get that with a monarchy I will have a monarchy. I will not sacrifice my country for a form of government. I stand in this exactly where every leader of the Irish nation stood from the time of O'Neill to Patrick Sarsfield. Owen Roe O'Neill said: `I do not care whether the King of England is King of Ireland so long as the people of Ireland are free'. I do not care whether the King of England or the symbol of the Crown be in Ireland so long as the people of Ireland are free to shape their own destinies. We have the means to do that by this Treaty; we have not the means otherwise. I say now to the people of Ireland that it is their right to see that this Treaty is carried into operation, when they get, for the first time in seven centuries, a chance to live their lives in their own country and take their place amongst the nations of Europe [applause].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Before you take a vote I want to enter my last protest---that document will rise in judgment against the men who say there is only a shadow of difference---
MR. MILROY:
Yes, that's all.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
If every thing is in this Treaty that seemed to be covered by it---but it is not---I say that the Irish nation will judge you who have brought this Treaty---if it is approved they will judge you by comparing what you got for the Irish people out of it with the terms of an explicit document where there is nothing implied but everything on the face of it. It is the same position exactly as in the case of Grattan and Flood; and I suppose the Irish Volunteers are to be disbanded next.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Let the Irish nation judge us now and for future years.
THE SPEAKER:
We will take a vote now in the usual way by calling the roll. The vote is on the motion by the Minister for Foreign Affairs that Dáil Eireann approves of the Treaty.
THE CLERK then proceeded to call the roll.
MR. M. COLLINS:
[on being called for the second constituency]The people on the other side need not have objected. I have already voted.
THE SPEAKER:
[on being called]I can only give a casting vote.
MR. GRIFFITH:
[on being called for the second constituency]I wish to register my protest against any constituency being disfranchised. I understand that is your ruling. There are five members here who represent two constituencies each---the President and four other members. Those constituencies that the five of us represent are disfranchised.
THE SPEAKER:
The question of what happens the constituency is not the question for me. I can only rule that each deputy present shall vote once.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
I wish to enter my protest against the County Tyrone being disfranchised.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
at the conclusion of the Roll call
I claim the right to speak first after the figures are announced.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I want to make a statement, too.
THE SPEAKER:
The result of the poll is sixty-four for approval and fifty seven against. That is a majority of seven in favour of approval of the Treaty.
FOR:
Micheál O Coileáin, Art O Gríobhtha, Seán Mac Giolla Ríogh, Pól O Geallagáin, Liam T. Mac Cosgair, Gearóid O Súileabháin
Pádraig O Braonáin, Seán O Lidia, Seán O hAodha, Pádraig O Caoimh, Seán Mac Heil, Seosamh Mac Suibhne, Peadar S. Mac an Bháird, Dr. S. Mac Fhionnlaoigh, P. S. Mac Ualghairg, Próinsias Laighleis, S. Ghabháin Uí Dhubhthaigh, Deasmhumhain Mac Gearailt, Seumas Mac Doirim, Seumas O Duibhir, Pádraic O Máille, Seoirse Mac Niocaill, P. S. O hOgáin, An t-Oll. S. O Faoilleacháin, Piaras Beaslaí, Fionán O Loingsigh, S. O Cruadhlaoich, Riobárd Bartún, Criostóir O Broin, Seumas O Dóláin Aindriú O Láimhín, Tomás Mac Artúir, Dr Pádraig Mac Artáin, Caoimhghín O hUigín, Seosamh O Loingsigh, Próinsias Bulfin
Dr. Risteárd O hAodha, Liam O hAodha, Seosamh Mac Aonghusa, Seán Mac Eoin, Lorcán O Roibíh, Eamon O Dúgáin, Peadar O hAodha, Seumas O Murchadha, Saerbhreathach Mac Cionaith, Seosamh Mac Giolla Bhrighde, Liam Mac Sioghuird , Domhnall O Ruairc, Earnán de Blaghd, Eoin O Dubhthaigh, Alasdar Mac Cába, Tomás O Domhnaill, Seumas de Búrca, Dr. V. de Faoite, Risteárd Mac Fheorais, Seán Mae Gadhra, Mícheál Mac Stáin, Risteárd O Maolchatha, Seosamh Mag Craith, Pilib Mac Cosgair
Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh, Liam de Róiste, Seumas Breathnach, Micheál O hAodha.
AGAINST:
Seumas O Lonnáin, Eamon Aidhleart, Eamon de Valera, Brian O hUigín, Seán Mac Suibhne, Seán O Maoláin, Domhnall O Corcora
Seán O Nualláin
Tomás O Fiadhchara
Seumas Mac Gearailt
Dáithí Ceannt
Seosamh O Dochartaigh
S. O Flaithbheartaigh
Bean an Phiarsaigh
Seán O Mathghamhna
Liam O Maoilíosa
Dr. Brian de Cíosóg
Próinsias O Fathaigh
Aibhistín de Stac
Conchubhar O Coileáin
Eamon de Róiste
P.S. O Cathail
Tomás O Donnchú
Art O Conchubhair
Domhnall O Buachalla
E. Childers
Seoirse Pluingceud
Bean Mhíchíl Ui Cheallacháin
M. P. Colivet
Seán O Ceallaigh
Dr. O Cruadhlaoich
Tomás O Deirg
P. S. O Ruthleis
Enrí O Beoláin
Tomás Maguidhir
Seán Mac an t-Saoi
Dr. P. O Fearáin
Seumas O Daimhín
Próinsias Mac Cárthaigh
Seosamh Mac Donnchadha
P. S. O Maoldomhnaigh
P. S. O Broin
Cathal Brugha
Eamon O Deaghaidh
Seumas Mac Roibín
Dr. Seumas O Riain
Seán Etchingham
Seumas O Dubhghaill
Seán T. O Ceallaigh
Pilib O Seanacháin
Bean an Chleirigh
Constans de Markievicz
Cathal O Murchadha
Máire Nic Shuibhne
Domhnall O Ceallacháin
Dr. Eithne Inglis
An t-Oll. W. F. P. Stockley
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It will, of course, be my duty to resign my office as Chief Executive. I do not know that I should do it just now.
MR. M. COLLINS:
No.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is one thing I want to say---I want it to go to the country and to the world, and it is this: the Irish people established a Republic. This is simply approval of a certain resolution. The Republic can only be disestablished by the Irish people. Therefore, until such time as the Irish people in regular manner disestablish it, this Republic goes on. Whatever arrangements are made this is the supreme sovereign body in the nation; this is the body to which the nation looks for its supreme Government, and it must remain that---no matter who is the Executive---it must remain that until the Irish people have disestablished it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I ask your permission to make a statement. I do not regard the passing of this thing as being any kind of triumph over the other side. I will do my best in the future, as I have done in the past, for the nation. What I have to say now is, whether there is something contentious about the Republic---about the Government in being---or not, that we should unite on this: that we will all do our best to preserve the public safety [hear, hear].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Now, in all countries in times of change---when countries are passing from peace to war or war to peace---they have had their most trying times on an occasion like this. Whether we are right or whether we are wrong in the view of future generations there is this: that we now are entitled to a chance; all the responsibility will fall upon us of taking over the machinery of government from the enemy. In times of change like that, when countries change from peace to war or war to peace, there are always elements that make for disorder and that make for chaos. That is as true of Ireland as of any other country; for in that respect all countries are the same. Now, what I suggest is that---I suppose we could regard it like this---that we are a kind of a majority party and that the others are a minority party; that is all I regard it as at present; and upon us, I suppose, will be the responsibility of proving our mark, to borrow a term from our President. Well, if we could form some kind of joint Committee to carry on---for carrying through the arrangements one way or another---I think that is what we ought to do. Now, I only want to say this to the people who are against us---and there are good people against us---so far as I am concerned this is not a question of politics, nor never has been. I make the promise publicly to the Irish nation that I will do my best, and though some people here have said hard things of me---I would not stand things like that said about the other side---I have just as high a regard for some of them, and am prepared to do as much for them, now as always. The President knows how I tried to do my best for him.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well, he has exactly the same position in my heart now as he always had [applause].
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
I claim my right, before matters go any further, to register my protest, because I look upon this act to-night worse than I look upon the Act of Castlereagh. I, for one, will have neither hand, act, nor part in helping the Irish Free State to carry this nation of ours, this glorious nation that has been betrayed here to-night, into the British Empire---either with or without your hands up. I maintain here now that this is the grossest act of betrayal that Ireland ever endured. I know some of you have done it from good motives; soldiers have done it to get a gun, God help them! Others, because they thought it best in some other way. I do not want to say a word that would prevent them from coming back to their Mother Republic; but I register my protest, and not one bit of help that we can give will we give them. The speech we have heard sounded very beautiful---as the late Minister of Finance can do it; he has played up to the gallery in this thing, but I tell you it may sound very beautiful but it will not do. Ireland stands on her Republican Government and that Republican Government cannot touch the pitch of the Free State without being fouled; and here and now I call on all true Republicans; we all want to protect the public safety; it is ouR side that will do its best to protect the public safety. We want no such terrible troubles in the country as faction fights; we can never descend to the faction fights of former days; we have established a Government, and we will have to protect it. Therefore, let there be no misunderstanding, no soft talk, ráimeis at this last moment of the betrayal of our country; no soft talk about union; you cannot unite a spiritual Irish Republic and a betrayal worse than Castlereagh's, because it was done for the Irish nation. You may talk about the will of the Irish people, as Arthur Griffith did, you know it is not the will of the Irish people; it is the fear of the Irish people, as the Lord Mayor of Cork says; and to-morrow or another day when they come to their senses, they will talk of those who betrayed them to-day as they talk of Castlereagh. Make no doubt about it. This is a betrayal, a gross betrayal; and the fact is that it is only a small majority, and that majority is not united; half of them look for a gun and the other half are looking for the fleshpots of the Empire. I tell you here there can be no union between the representatives of the Irish Republic and the so-called Free State.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
All those who have voted on the side of the established Republic, I would like to meet them say at one o'clock to-morrow, the sooner the better; perhaps we could get the use of this building or of the Mansion House, say twelve-thirty to-morrow.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Whatever we may say, whatever we may think, I do believe that some kind of an arrangement could be fixed between the two sides. Even though our physical presence is so distasteful that they will not meet us,I say some kind of understanding ought to be reached to preserve the present order in the country, at any rate over the week-end.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I would like my last word here to be this: we have had a glorious record for four years; it has been four years of magnificent discipline in our nation. The world is looking at us now---
The President here breaks down.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
So far as I am concerned I will see, at any rate, that discipline is kept in the army.
The House then adjourned at 8.50 p.m., until 11 o'clock a.m. on Monday, the 9th January.
Mark Sturgis commented on the approval of the Treaty: ‘it is another milestone but if Ireland – or England – expects the golden age is dawning I hope they won't be too roughly disillusioned. It is a huge gamble and we are groping in the dark’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p 227
8
January 8th, 1922. I was getting ready for church when Anne came up to say the telegraph boy was coming and calling out that the Treaty is ratified. I ran down and got Lennox Robinson’s telegram. Such a relief! The little boy had fallen off his bicycle with excitement on the avenue and had shouted the news to the maids coming from Mass and they had cheered. He said “This is the first time I ever was sent with a message, and I brought the best message that was ever brought!” and I gave him a shilling in addition to his apples. Mine had been the only message to Gort, and had been given out, everyone delighted except the poor Bagots who foresee the vanishing of their officers. We met a motor lorry leaving Gort in charge of one soldier and I said to Guy “ There is the army in retreat!”. And we went to the barracks after church ( where I said the General Thanksgiving with a full heart ) and got Richard’s gun and cartridges back again.
Lady Gregory’s Diaries. p165.
Group Portrait c. 1922. Back: Dennis, Tim. Front: Michael & Mary. Dan absent.
Macardle described the vote as ‘The Treaty was discussed without being examined and accepted without being understood’
9
De Valera announced the resignation of the cabinet and himself from the Dail. Griffith was then elected President of Dail Eireann, but De Valera, as the sole surviving commandant of the Rising insisted that he remained the President of the Irish Republic. De Valera now founded the Cumman na Poblachta, the Republican Party with the brief of informing the general public of the Republican opininion of the Treaty.
Aligned with the pro-treaty were the public service, much of the Republican Army and those that wanted peace; such as The Church, business, Labour, The Southern Unionists and of course the majority of the general public. The Anti-Treaty side had of course De Valera, backed by Childers, Brugha, Stack, the deputies who resigned, some army leaders & the majority of Cumman na mBan. Their main objections being that the Treaty enshrined partition, denied the Republic and recognised the Crown. Anti-Treaty feeling was particularly strong in Cork and Kerry.
Kathleen Clarke’s autobiography gives some insight to de Valera’s resignation and subsequent proposal for the Presidnecy.
‘What I took exception to was that he had resigned his position as President of the Republic…however it was decided to have another meeting before the Dail met again. I did not attend the meeting, I was too disgusted with de Valera’s action in resigning, and is vanity in thinking he would be re-elected. As I walked into the hall of the University, Mrs Pearse met me. She seemed very excited…de Valera had done me the honour of selecting me to propose him for President. I told her I would not propose him, I considered he had no right to resign. She was very insistent but I remained adamant. Then she suggested I should see Sean T. O'Kelly who was Whip, and tell him. I told her I would do nothing of the kind. They had no right to nominate me in my absence, or without my consent….I was not long seated when Sean T. O'Kelly came to know if what Mrs. Pearse told him was correct. I said yes…he begged me to reconsider my refusal, but I said ‘Its no use Sean, I will not propose him’. ‘My God’ he said ‘What will I do? There is no time to select another person’…he left me and went round from one member to another then over to de Valera. He then returned to say that they had all said I must do it. I said ‘Tell them I won't’. Off he went again and did the rounds and came back again to me.’The speaker will be in the chair in a minuter, there is no time to arrange a change’ he said.’
Sean T. O'Kelly next asked her to make the poposal in the name of of her husband, Tom Clarke. ‘I suppose in that case I cannot refuse you, but it is with utmost reluctance I consent’ I said. During all this time de Valera was looking over at me, and possible his antagonism to me down the years since was born then, though it was indulged in when he could do so without showing his hand.’
Kathleen Clarke. ‘Revoloutionary Woman’ O’Brien Press 1991. P193-194
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION Monday, January 9th, 1922
The Session wa resumed at 11.30 a.m., on Monday, 9th January, 1922, THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) in the Chair.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
In view of the vote that was taken here on Saturday and which I had definitely to oppose as one that was tending to subvert the Republic which I was elected to my present position to defend and maintain; and as it appeared to me also to be a vote which would tend to subvert the independence of the country, I could no longer continue---as I was beaten in that---I could no longer continue in my present office feeling I did not have the confidence of the House. I therefore wish to place my resignation in the hands of the Assembly; and I think it is not necessary to say any further words in doing so, but simply to resign my office and the responsibilities of it and the members of the Cabinet all go with my resignation.
THE SPEAKER:
In that case is it your intention to proceed with the business?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
No! I think the State cannot get on without definitely having somebody to deal with it. The first business would be to make arrangements for the business of the Government of the State and for its continuance.
MR. M. COLLINS:
In view of that, I suggest that my previous suggestions about forming a Committee would be put. My belief about the thing is this: that no one here in this assembly or in Ireland wants to be put in the position of opposing President de Valera. Well, the practical step in my estimation is to form a Committee, if necessary on both sides for some kind of public safety, as I said. Now, on our side we would form our own Committee to get on with the work, and in my belief what I said on last December twelve months applies now---to stop sulking and get on with the work. We are faced with the problems of taking Ireland over from the English, and they are faced with the problem of handing Ireland over to us, and the difficulties on both sides will be pretty big; and it does not matter what happens so long as we are assured that we are taking over Ireland and that the English are going out of Ireland. My suggestion means that we form a Committee on both sides, if necessary, for the preservation of the public peace, and that on our side we form a Committee to arrange the details and to do all the dirty work---all the difficult work that has to be done. In other words, that we take upon ourselves the burthens of the practical difficulties; and practical people will know what these difficulties are, and they will understand them---they will understand all these things and we will try to do the best we can [hear, hear].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
As far as I am concerned I think we will have to proceed constitutionally in this matter. I have tendered my resignation and I cannot, in any way, take divided responsibility. You have got here a sovereign Assembly which is the Government of the nation. This assembly must choose its executive according to its constitution and go ahead.
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
I altogether fail to see how this House could assent to the suggestion of the Minister of Finance. The formation of such a Committee and the participation in it of those of us who opposed the Treaty would mean that we acknowledge and have become willing to join in the subversion of the Republic for which we stand [hear, hear]. It is absolutely and utterly unconstitutional to do what the Minister of Finance has suggested, for those who voted for this Treaty declare that they are going to pull down with their own hands the Republic they set up, or else they must stand with us---go back on the Treaty now and stand for the Republic.
MR. GRIFFITH:
This body, a representative body of Irishmen, on Saturday evening approved of the Treaty. In doing so they expressed the will of the people. That approval is going to stand, and that will of the people is going to be maintained. Now, President de Valera said, when he called this body together, there was a constitutional way of settling this question of the Treaty. It has been constitutionally settled; and now nothing is going to prevent that vote from being carried out and the people from having their will expressed.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. PETER HUGHES:
Since President de Valera has signified his intention of not having anything further to do with the Government, and the Deputy for Monaghan says he cannot enter into any arrangement except on their ideas, I think the obvious thing for this House is to appoint a Premier or somebody else and try and get on with the work. There is no use in wasting two or three days over this. It is only for us to do the obvious thing and appoint someone to carry on the work we began on Saturday. May I ask that somebody responsible would propose some motion to this effect. I will not take the responsibility of making the proposal, but somebody must do it. If we start to make speeches again we will be here for three or four days. The country does not want that.
ALDERMAN MRS. CLARKE:
I wish to propose the re-election of Eamon de Valera, President of the Irish Republic, for the same position, for this reason: he is the one man, to my mind, who has maintained in act as well as in mind, the Republic. I have great pleasure in proposing him for re-election as President of the Irish Republic.
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
I second that. On this occasion it is with great pleasure I rise to second the motion of Deputy Mrs. Clarke. President de Valera has stood to us. He believes in the Republic and is the symbol of the Republic. As that symbol he stood forth at the head of this nation---this nation which has gained a unique position within the last few years. As to President de Valera, there is no need for me to say anything about his qualities. President de Valera stands for us at the moment as the symbol of the Republic, and it is as such that I take pleasure in seconding the motion for his re-election.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
Might I ask if this motion of Deputy Mrs. Clarke is in order? Certainly there is no motion on the Orders of the day for the election of anyone and I would like to have your ruling before proceeding with this very serious matter which has been so suddenly sprung on the Dáil. I ask you to say whether it is in order?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I gave notice that I was going to resign; and it followed as a matter of course, having been defeated on a vital matter of that sort, that I should resign. I gave notice at the last meeting that I was about to resign.
MR. P. O MAILLE:
I think to spring a matter of this sort on the Assembly not fair, because in a grave matter of this sort there should be due notice given and a time specified. I understand these was a meeting of one party held here yesterday.
MR. MACENTEE:
Two parties.
MR. P. O MAILLE:
Even if there was---
MR. M. COLLINS:
We met in the Mansion House.
MR. P. O MAILLE:
We did not know, nor did we get notice that you were going to spring this matter on the House. It is treating the Irish nation very unfairly---we are as strong for Ireland and as much for helping Ireland---and the country will not stand this kind of procedure.
MR. M. COLLINS:
It is only fair to say that we expected something like this; and that we discussed it; and that we would have been fools if we had not anticipated it. Naturally we expected it; otherwise we would have been mere children.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well, the way I propose---or I should say---the way we propose to meet it is that we should have a Committee. We do not know what the opponents of the Treaty---I refrain from calling them the other side because some of them are more for than against us, and some of us are more for than against them---
A DEPUTY:
Why do you not come over?
MR. M. COLLINS:
Why do you not come over? If you elect President de Valera President of the Irish Republic I have no objection whatever to it but let me say this much: everybody will regard us as being simply a laughing stock. [`No!'] Yes they will, and the people are already regarding us as a laughing stock; and people are getting impatient at our talking here day after day. If we are going on this way much further the people will come in and turn us out or they will ignore us and we can sit on here and talk as much as we like. What I feel like doing is to get a few people on our side to meet a few people on the English side and go on arranging for the taking over; and you go on here---remain here talking and watching us doing the work [applause].
MISS MACSWINEY:
With regard to the statement that the President's election is not in order.
MR. MILROY:
I merely asked was it in order---
MISS MACSWINEY:
On that point I would like to say a few words. We believe, and we have given evidence of our belief, in the existence of the Irish Republic. That Republic is not dead. It was absurd for the other side to say Mr. Michael Collins has just acknowledged, that they did not know this was coming. On last Thursday or Friday the President wanted to resign and put one policy against the other in order to show the country how they stood. On Saturday he gave notice of surrendering his office this morning. In view of the vote on Saturday night there was no other course open to him. Now, let us be honest with each other. We have got to carry on the Republican Government of Ireland until this Government is disestablished by the Irish people. The vote of a majority of seven did not disestablish the Irish Republic. The suggestion from the other side, or whatever Mr. Collins likes to call his side, that there should be a joint Committee to carry on the work of the country is out of the question. No more could there be a joint committee with them to-day than we could have a joint committee with Castlereagh. We cannot have any working connection whatever which would be tacitly acknowledging on our side that they are in a position to subvert the Republican Government of Ireland---as they have shown by their vote they wish to do. The President was perfectly right in resigning because he was in minority; and as he was not only the President of the Republic, but leader of the House, he had to resign being in a minority. We have to re-assert here to-day that this is a Republican Government and the Parliament of the Government of the Irish Republic, and we must have a President for that republic. If the other side wish to elect somebody in opposition to President de Valera let them do so; but how can they be at the one time, or how can any man from their side be President of the Republic and supporter of the Free State? I maintain that and I take great pleasure in supporting the re-election of the President. We must have that symbol of office until the people have disestablished the Republic and it is as clear for the other side as it is for us if they face the question straightly that that must be so. It is not a question of springing tactics on the country; that sort of thing has not been done. We believe in the Republic established by the people of Ireland; we believe that only by the people of Ireland can that Republican Government be disestablished; your majority of seven the other night could not disestablish the Irish Republic; and we, believing that the Republic still exists must have a head to that Republic, and therefore I have much pleasure in supporting the re-election.
MR. D. O'ROURKE:
I feel, in the circumstances that the only alternative is a General Election [hear, hear]. I see no other way out of it as there cannot be any working agreement. It would be impossible, apparently, for this Assembly to carry on---being almost equally divided---and the only way to settle the question is a General Election.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
I should have great pleasure in supporting that President de Valera be re-elected President on one condition, and that is that he tell us clearly that he has at last seen the error of his ways [laughter]. In any case it is absolutely essential that when a gentleman is proposed for election as President that he ought to tell the people who are to elect him exactly what his policy is. I think the House is entitled to know from the President where, and to what extent he proposes to give effect to the vote passed by the House on Saturday. We should not be asked to vote on this matter in the dark, and I should therefore ask the President to tell us what is the policy which he proposes to carry out in the event of his being reelected?
THE SPEAKER:
I have asked that the terms of the motion be given in writing.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think that is a fair question and no matter what anybody thinks to the contrary it is only right to the House that I should say distinctly where I stand. My position is distinctly this, and has always been this: I have regarded this House as the Sovereign Assembly, the sovereign Parliament of the Irish nation. You have even definitely called it the Government of the Irish Republic. Now, we need an executive here. The Executive must have the confidence of the House as a whole. It must have, at least, a majority. If the Executive is beaten on an essential question it must go out and the other side is the proper side to take authority; and if the other side has a definite policy that side should choose, in accordance with the Constitution, its President and so on. The difficulty I see is this: the Republic must exist until the people have disestablished it. So far as I am concerned my position is this: action was taken here which, in my opinion, tends to subvert the Republic. I should feel in my conscience compelled to take every step I possibly could to prevent that subversion; but I recognise that at the present moment, not understanding, to my thinking, what that Treaty means for the Irish people, for the nation, they have been passing resolutions and think that this Treaty should be taken for the moment. I do not think---I do not believe that the Irish people if they thoroughly understood it would stand for it. In the meantime, until they are consulted in a way in which the issue can be explained to them, the Government of the country must go on. I am quite ready to do everything possible to do this fundamental thing---to maintain the independence of Ireland during the interval I would say, should you as the result of the vote wish to keep me on, that the result would be this---I was beaten on a point of policy, but it was a particular point only though a fundamental one---that if the House wished I would carry on the Executive work and that the terms of that Treaty with the particulars---that the further steps have to be taken by those who came here and reported to this House---that those steps be taken by them, that we do not actively oppose, though in conscience I should actively oppose; but I am looking beyond my own personal feeling and seeing what the people of the country want---I have perfect confidence in the people of the country that when that Treaty is worked out in legislative form and put before them that then they will know what they have got, that then they will understand what they are doing by accepting this Treaty and not till then---that therefore these plenipotentiaries and others take the further steps necessary to have that Treaty seen to, that we carry on here in Dáil Eireann; that the resources of Dáil Eireann be here still invested in this House, and that we be entitled to use the funds and everything else for the preservation and independence of Ireland and for the maintenance of the Republic until such time as the Irish people have decided otherwise, and not decided on a vague and indefinite thing like the terms of this Agreement; but when they will have that Act to vote upon, and when they cannot be fooled, that then the Irish Republic can be disestablished if the people want it; but until then we go ahead. This House, by a majority vote, determined what the policy is definitely to be. Let the others go ahead and present the Irish people with that document completed. It is only a vague promise and when the people can see that worked out in black and white they will not have the general impression that is in their minds at present---that we will be all as free as in Canada. When the Irish people will see how much freedom they receive exactly, how much British authority they are going to root in this country, then they will have a definite issue to vote on.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
How do you propose the power to be handed over?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
We are finished with that Treaty as far as we are concerned. It has nothing further to do with this House. We have not passed any Act of Ratification of that Treaty. We have simply passed a resolution of approval which means that the Government of the Republic is not going actively to interfere with those who are to complete that Treaty. When they have completed that Treaty then they will have a definite issue before the Irish people, and not till then, and I challenge them on that.
MR. P. J. HOGAN:
I want to say how the position exactly strikes me as one Deputy, to say honestly what we mean, and honestly attempt to be frank. When it is all boiled down it means this: that President de Valera's policy is, in fact, that this Treaty is going to be fought in all details. That is what it means. Well, now, where exactly are we? What is the position? There was a resolution passed by this House on Saturday and I take it that it is a common case that that resolution was not a resolution for the dissolution of the Republic; but the resolution itself was in order, and it was regarded as a fundamental question of policy, and the House divided on it after a most elaborate and exhaustive debate. It was not a snatch vote; nothing like that; and they divided on it. The President, as Chief Executive Officer---his policy was beaten, and that is the position.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. HOGAN:
Now, we are asked to re-elect the President after he has stated, as I have said, that he is going to fight absolutely against the majority will as expressed last Saturday. Well, I do not care how the President is elected, or for what reason he is elected; I say that is tyranny, that is dictatorship; it is the same sort of dictatorship as we have been used to in history. That is what it comes to. Let us be honest the whole time. If you elect the President again on a policy of fighting the Treaty after the resolution that has been passed by this House, let us have no more talk of constitutionalism. Let us be honest about it now on each side of the Treaty. It is not a fair way to get out of it to say that though the people are in favour of it now that they will not be in favour of it when they see the details worked out, and when they see the Treaty in operation. The idea of that is plain; it is to enable this House to carry on under a minority for the next year. That is the idea of it. The people are entitled to be consulted on the issue now---absolutely. If, instead of doing that, this House elects a President who, on his own showing, is going to fight the Treaty that was approved on last Saturday night, then I say we are setting up a dictatorship, and in decency we should not talk of constitutionalism.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am not offering myself to this House in the sense that I am not asking the House to re-elect me. I am thinking of it as the better and the constitutional and the right and proper way to do the work. This House can elect its President and can act constitutionally. Let the majority work it; I am handing over responsibility to the majority party. The majority party say they do not want to oppose my re-election. I was asked the question what would I do if elected and I gave you definitely what I would do: carry on as before and forget that this Treaty has come. Let those who wish to work it go on; the majority vote at any time can defeat any proposition I put up.
MR. DAVID CEANNT:
It is quite evident that any assembly could not carry on without a recognised head. We are at the present time in what may seem to some a transitional state. We want to have this issue placed before the public of Ireland in a fair and clear manner. That cannot be done until it can be given to them in black and white, when the Act comes back from the British House of Commons---if it will come back at all---authorising the setting up in this country of a Free State Parliament. Then the people will have a right to decide whether they will have a Free State or remain a Republic. In the meantime it will be the duty of the Government of the nation to see that law and order must be maintained, and that we must function as a Government until such time as the people will say of their free will just that they do not want us any longer. If we were to go to the country in the morning to put a definite policy before the people it would be this: `Do you want a Republic or what is in this paper, which is not a Treaty at all?' I heard people saying, in effect, that when we voted on Saturday for this piece of paper that we converted ourselves into a Free State. That cannot be done. And it is only just, I hold, in order to maintain the liberties of the people and to safeguard them and every interest in the country, and to prevent fighting and bloodshed that we will have a President who will be the Chief of the State and who will have the power of the State behind him to carry on the Government.
MR. W. SEARS:
On Saturday night we took an important division here after a long Session and many speeches on each side; and it was put up to this Dáil that in that division they were either to accept the Treaty or not---that they were then deciding between a Free State on the one hand and a Republic on the other hand. I hold---and all Ireland holds---that that division accepted the Free State, and the world will take that view of it. We came to the parting of the ways on Saturday night, and we solemnly decided by sixty-four votes to fifty-seven to take the Free State road. And now we come in here this morning and we are asked to go to work as if we never made that decision at all. Is that vote to be regarded as inoperative and to have no results flowing from it, or are we to proceed and act on the decision arrived at on Saturday night? If our side were defeated, and if we decided to go on with the Republic, then I could understand that we met here to-day to see what we were to do. I say that if we mean honestly to act on the vote that we took on Saturday night we are to proceed to put the Treaty into operation and to act on it. I could understand the opposition here in taking the part of General Hertzog and his supporters in South Africa. I could understand them watching developments of the Free State, and if our party falls into the mistakes that they predict for us I could understand them going to the country and saying: `This is the failure we predicted; you voted for the Treaty and you got it; you now see it is a fraud'. But as we decided to take it, let us honestly take it before the world and work it. Let the other side criticise it. Do not let them come in here and say on the one hand, `Take the Treaty,' and on the other, `Give us a weapon to destroy and defeat it'. If we proceed on that policy we will be making ourselves a laughing stock before the world [applause].
MR. MACENTEE:
It appears to me that if I were on the side of those who voted for the approval and recommendation of the Articles of Agreement that on behalf of the Irish people I would be prepared now---
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Is a member entitled to speak twice?
THE SPEAKER:
This is the first time since this motion was moved.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
The second time.
MR. MACENTEE:
I am in opposition still.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I am sorry that you have not resigned like a manly man.
MR. MACENTEE:
It appears to me that if I were on the side of those who stand for the ratification of this Treaty, and with my knowledge of Irish history, I would be prepared to support, merely as a precaution against English treachery, the policy which the President has declared he stands for in this House. We have not yet got the Treaty with England. We have got the heads of the proposed agreement which England may not honour when the act is drawn up. We have not got the Constitution of the Free State. That Constitution has yet to emanate from the English Parliament; and with a prospect of a General Election in England within a very short period, when the man who is the chief signatory to these Articles of Agreement may quite possibly be defeated, or may decide, if it suits him, not to go forward at all---as Pitt did after he got the Union, and dishonoured his promise to give us Catholic Emancipation for the act of Union---I certainly feel that if I had the interests of my country at heart, and if I did believe that our future depended upon the actual establishment of the Free State, I would consider the suggestion of President de Valera a very necessary act in order that the army of the Republic, the finances of the Republic, and the Government of the Republic could be maintained to take up Ireland's case again if need be. Now, I heard a Deputy---and it is an amazing thing to me that a man of the intelligence of Deputy Hogan should get up in this House and deliberately mis-state what President de Valera said. President de Valera did not say that he was asking this House to re-elect him to the Presidency in order that he might fight this Treaty detail by detail.
MR. HOGAN:
I do not want this debate to proceed on the assumption that I said something that I did not say, I did not say that he asked to be re-elected.
MR. MACENTEE:
You said that the President's suggestion was that the Treaty should be fought detail by detail. He said if he were elected he would give those who stood for the Treaty a free hand in order to secure that that Treaty should receive some concrete expression of form, and then that when they and the English Parliament had evolved it he would challenge it in the country as he was perfectly entitled to do; and no doubt it will, in due course, be challenged in the country. It appears to me that the proposal of the other side that a Committee of Public Safety be set up and their refusal to nominate any candidate for the Presidency, and their attempt by a disgraceful manoeuvre to prevent the re-election of the President---it seems to me that the other side are already afraid of the consequences of their act. I would suggest to them that the reason for that fear is this: that they see already a prospect of English treachery, and that like the old Irish Party and every other party that ever depended on British promises, rather than acknowledge manfully the shaky ground upon which they stand they would wish to bring us all into the bog with them. I suggest that there is a nobler and more honourable way than that. The President has said that if elected by this House he will ask for the control of the resources of the Republic I think it would be a very good thing if the resources of the Republic should be at the disposal of a man like President de Valera, who, if this proposed bond should be dishonoured, will still stand with the Irish nation behind him to fight for Ireland. And I would suggest that, in their own interests, in order that they themselves may not be publicly betrayed, that they would support the re-election of President de Valera.
MR. BRENNAN:
Does the Deputy who has sat down think that if England does not keep her promises that we are going to sit down and are going to fall in with England against Ireland?
MR. MACENTEE:
No! but I wish you to maintain the machinery and the organisation and the finances in order that you might be able to fight England if England does let you down.
MR. MACKEOWN:
We will.
MR. M. COLLINS:
We will, not they.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
I would suggest earnestly to the gentlemen on the other side that they would be doing the best thing to promote the interests they have at heart by keeping the Republic established as long as these negotiations are to go on with England at least. A certain number of men on the other side---I give them credit for being as good Republicans as on our side and I believe the declaration of these men that their ultimate aim and object is a firmly fixed Republican form of Government in Ireland. They claim that by voting for this Treaty they are taking a good step in that direction. On that point we differ but I think they will agree with me that it would be a very unwise step now on their part to disestablish the Republic and all its machinery at this moment and that is what it would amount to if the re-election of President de Valera were not carried. I would urge upon them ---on those who are Republican at any rate---to re-elect, if possible unanimously, President de Valera and by that gesture show to England that they are determined to keep the machinery of the Republic safe and in good order to use at any moment---that they are rigidly determined to secure that every possible ounce that is in that Treaty will be got out of it. If they dismantle the machinery of the Republic they are leaving themselves without any weapon to be used against that enemy if it should act, as it has always acted towards us, in a treacherous manner. I appeal to them to stand by the Republic and re-elect President de Valera, and give him the resources to make their fight for them and to secure that the enemy will not let us down and let Ireland down as she has so often done in similar circumstances in the past.
PROFESSOR WHELEHAN:
May I ask through you, Mr. Speaker, if the President, in the selection of his Cabinet, will select from the majority or the minority of the House, or form a combined Cabinet?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is quite obvious that a combined Cabinet will be out of the question, because no effort of mine could secure a combined Cabinet. It is also equally obvious that a Cabinet from the majority is out of the question. So that it would mean, in effect, that in that case you would have a Cabinet that would be composed for the time being of those who stood definitely by the Republic; that you would here in this House control the Cabinet and all its acts; that it would be responsible to you, and that the effect would be that those who brought this document would take the necessary steps to complete it, and that they would come here to this House if they wished to get any sanction for any act and tell the House what they wanted. If the House agreed with what they wanted well and good. For instance, if there was something that would be held by the members of the House to be against it you might have a crisis in certain cases. But I am thinking only of the best way to do two things---to carry on over the interim period, and to do what I told this House several times I would like to see done. We came together to a certain bridge. At that bridge for years I thought we might part. I am anxious at least that we should never be driven back beyond that bridge; that we should entrench ourselves on that bridge and leave the final decision to the Irish people; and that in fairness to the Irish people we do not play party polities now any more than in the past. In fairness to the Irish people we will present them with an issue which will be so clear-cut and definite that they will not have any doubt on it. None of us would wish to see the Irish people giving away anything that they do not want themselves to give away; and therefore I hold, from the point of view of definitely safeguarding the nation, that the proposal I have made, and I would not have mentioned it, nobody here on my side knew anything about it---so that let nobody think it was a concerted plan. Every one of you will remember here at the Private Session that I said the same thing practically. Therefore you can see definitely that my proposal now is practically what it was before. I quite admit that there is a lot involved on the other side. If they do not want to take that risk they will have to choose their own Executive.
ALDERMAN W. T. COSGRAVE:
There is no doubt the older we are getting the more information we are getting. The latest interpretation of Constitutional practice is that the minority in an assembly is to form the Government and to carry out the various functions of Government in the country.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Remember, I am only putting myself at your disposal and at the disposal of the nation. I do not want office at all. Go and elect your President and all the rest of it. You have sixty-five. I do not want office at all.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
We are here now an hour, and the President has spoken four times, and the little Deputy from Monaghan twice.
MR. MACENTEE:
Once on the resolution.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
And the first thing he has stated was we have got to take great care that the English will honour the Treaty. And he is himself taking the greatest possible care that we will not honour it. Now, I do not know whether I read in the paper that the Deputy from Monaghan was talking about resignation---first that he was going to resign before the vote, and secondly that he would resign after the vote.
MR. MACENTEE:
On a point of order I never said I would resign before the vote was taken. The Deputy has stated a deliberate falsehood.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Did you say you would resign afterwards?
MR. MACENTEE:
I said I would resign in due course when I had discharged my obligations to the nation. My public utterances are on record. I said that when I fulfilled my obligations I would resign. I never said I would resign when the vote was taken.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
As I said before, the Deputy for Monaghan can speak until he is understood and, of course, it will take me a long time to understand him. Now, this is certainly the most unconstitutional procedure I have ever known. I am getting old; I am thirteen years in public life; I have never heard a proposition the like of which has been put before us this morning, and it is certainly the most exceptional procedure ever proposed. I think the President realises it too, and appreciates it---that the minority of this House takes over the Government of the country and takes over the resources of it.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Select your President.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
The President dictates to the House what the policy is regardless of the decision of this House. The minority is to regulate whether a decision of this House is to be put into operation or not.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
That is a deliberate misrepresentation, and you know it.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Let us have the exact representation.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The exact representation is this: I resigned. The minority can go and take over the machinery of the Republican Government as it is. The proposition was made that I should take office. I was asked by the Deputy for South Dublin that it was only fair to say what the policy was I have given it to you. I do not ask you to elect me. Therefore I am not seeking to get any power whatever in this nation. I am quite glad and anxious to get back to private life.
DR. MACCARTAN:
Is the President withdrawing his candidature?
MR. A. STACK:
You are not his agent.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
As an ordinary man who has been in public life, and who has generally managed to understand what people have said in public, it is this way: this is the interpretation I gather. I take it that the President does not want to be in this position where his advisers want to put him. He has stated he has no advisers.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I said I was not consulting anybody about it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Strange I have heard these arguments before, and I know where------
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
In Private Session he stated so.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I have heard them before the Private Session.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
It may be my own stupidity in the difficulty of understanding this. But, as I think anyone is aware, the position is---as it will appeal to the people of Ireland---that the advisers of the President seek to take advantage of his personal popularity and the respect in which the people of this Assembly hold him---that they desire to establish here an autocracy. Last week the vilest abuse was poured upon us. We were held up to public scorn and hatred. We were described as only babes could be described. This morning we are getting cheap advice. We are told that everything possible on the other side is being done in our interests---that it is our interests they have in view.
A DEPUTY:
The interests of the nation.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Well we are just as anxious to do the best for the nation as the loudest spoken amongst you. We have been only able to give whatever was in us. And we gave that and we are prepared to give it again. I made it a point at the commencement here not to interrupt anyone. And I regret that those young people here have not been able to appreciate that good example [laughter]. I have shown you an excellent example. Now, the people who do not want to see this Treaty carried out---and that is really the essence of the position of the other side---the people who do not want to see this Treaty carried out desire to have the resources of the Republic.
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
The people who are true to the Republic.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
And the army and the finances of the Republic. That is what they want given them---that and you can blaze away. I have never heard in my life a constitutional proposition of that kind being put up in any assembly by the minority. It may be a new axiom. And I submit that the resolution for the re-election of the President is out of order, having regard to the fact that the majority party in every assembly in the world moves the motion. I do not know whether that is objected to or not. The new apostles of the new system of government may object to it. There was one other matter that I would like to refer to. Those who have taken on themselves the right to speak and censure the utterances of others have interpreted it that under the Treaty we become British subjects. I deny that, and I say positively that they knew they were not speaking the truth when they made that statement. I was reading last evening an American paper, the Boston Post, sent me by a friend a few days ago, and that paper stated that under the Treaty the Irish people are Irish citizens and not British subjects.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Prove it.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Of course some people would not agree to that. I can tell you that it would take a lot to prove a thing to you that you do not want to understand or do not want to see. I did not interrupt you. It is not a thing that can be proved, as I said before, to a man who will not see the proof.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Prove it to the Dáil.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
The Dáil understands it. There are sixty-four sensible people in the Dáil, and the Dáil realises that [applause and laughter], and if you are the apostle of constitutional Government you will accept their decision, because it is a majority decision.
THE SPEAKER:
Deputies when speaking should address the Chair.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
It happens that some delegates or Deputies are more bellicose than others, and that consequently some Deputies when speaking are subject to interruption. I did not interrupt the Minister for War [laughter]. I submit that the motion for the re-election of the President is unconstitutional, and that it is out of order. That motion can only come from the majority party. I submit that the decision which has been taken here on Saturday cannot be rescinded on Monday. I submit that the President himself sees the position and appreciates it, and his own statement that he did not desire to set up a minority to run the country is evidence of the fact that he appreciates it. And I submit to you, sir, that the resolution is out of order, and that the only motion that can be in order is one moved from the other side---the majority party---to set up a joint Committee in order to carry into effect the resolution adopted by this Assembly on Saturday in accordance with every known axiom of constitutional law. That motion suggested by the Minister of Finance and supported by the Minister of Foreign Affairs is the only one. Now, I was looking up the Constitution of the Dáil, and I was not dismissed yet by the President, and I say under the rules it is only by dismissal you can be put out of office.
THE PRESIDENT:
Well, I dismissed you by my resignation.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I want put this position before the Dáil---that there are letters going out from my department with my name on them. Is that stopped? Because if so I must stop work. I will send over to tell them besides, that no further letters are to go out to the country. What then is the position to be? Is my department dissolved?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is to-day.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Well, then, I suppose I must send to my office to stop further communications going out. If the President is re-elected, and if the Ministers he puts up are defeated, where are we landing ourselves? We were warned by the Deputy from Monaghan that we will be in a bog. I think the only member of the Assembly who is in a bog is himself. Now, I put that position to you, sir, because you have a very responsible position as Speaker of this House. The Government of the country must go on. Nothing can change the vote that was taken here on Saturday last [cries of `No! no!']. There is a constitutional way of dealing with them. Are you afraid of the people? [Cries of `No! no!']. I am glad to hear that because one of the Deputies said here that the fear of the people would get this Treaty ratified. I know them, and the are not afraid; and I know it is not the ear but the sense of the people that made them favour the Treaty. There was never as much fight in the people as when the terror was highest. The people of this country are not going to be coerced into accepting an instrument of this kind [applause].
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
You know they were coerced at Downing Street.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
You were in the Chair a long time and you know what the order is. I am sorry I have been interrupted so often. I am interested in doing things in a proper way, and I am interested in this assembly as the first assembly of the nation. The one fact remains that we have the destinies of the country in our hands, and that we are responsible for restoring normal conditions. The enemy are now willing and anxious to clear out, and I believe they are making preparations to clear out. Are there to be no facilities on our side to get them out and to restore normal conditions? Is that an honest state of affairs? Are we to get away from the page of party politics and the page of party suspicion and party speeches and realise that this nation did not elect us to go on with this nonsense? And if the Government of the country is to be maintained it could only be done by establishing majority rule; and I believe the majority here would willingly get out tomorrow if you can get better men, and if those who are interested in the Republican form of Government---and I am not ---I don't care what form it is so long as it is free, independent, authoritative, and a sovereign Government of the people, an that it will be respected. If they wish to put up this Republican programme of theirs I warn them that they are not taking the best methods. And those people to whom I have been speaking outside about the proceedings here are not impressed by the attitude nor by the bitterness of those opposed to the Treaty. It is not by bitterness that we succeed. Upon our shoulders rests more responsibility than any body of Irishmen ever had to bear. The world is looking at us now, having approved of this Treaty, and it is expecting some results from it. It is expecting ordered government from it and if you cannot have ordered government if you re-establish and reconstruct the government of the minority. Therefore I submit to you that it is not in order to receive the motion.
DR. FERRAN:
We have listened to the most extraordinary constitutional procedure that was ever listened to. I will state the case in a few words. The government of the Irish Republic entered into negotiations with the British Government. They carried these negotiations up to a certain point. But Lloyd George chose to say that they were finished when he negotiated the Treaty. We know that they are not. We have reached a stage in the negotiations. Now, it seems the best way to continue the negotiations is through the Republican Government. The British Government is out to smash the Republican Government.
MR. R. MULCAHY:
This assembly here carried on for a very long time---as far as my recollection goes---without having a President of the Irish Republic. We carried on here in the Dáil---as far as my recollection goes---until the re-assembling of the Dáil after the re-election for what was called the Parliament of Southern Ireland. We carried on to that date without a President. The suggestion is being made here that we cannot carry on the work properly without a President. Now, I could say that I feel that the future is with those people who are supporting the Treaty, or that the future is with those people who are opposing the Treaty, that is the future is with ideas which demand its opposition, its rejection. But I would not be helping our work here. The job for the day, in my opinion, when we supported here the approval of the Treaty---our job was that we should lay our hands on those resources that were put within our reach under the Treaty, and that we should utilise those resources to strengthen the position and build up the Irish nation. The vote on Saturday evening confirms me in that opinion, and gives me constitutional authority for going ahead to the absolute best of my ability in getting Irish hands on these resources. Now, this Assembly, it has been stated, is the Government of the Irish Republic. It is the Government of the Irish people. And I agree with the statement that it remains that Government until the Irish people have set up another Government. Now, in the opinion of the majority of this Assembly, and in the opinion of the majority party which forms the Government of Ireland, our immediate job is to lay hands on those resources which are put within our reach by the Treaty. And I believe we would be false to our realisation of what the next job to be done by us for the benefit of the Irish people is if we did not use our whole weight and the whole resources and the whole constitutional position of this body for the carrying out of that end, and it is for that reason---however much I regret it---that I am opposing the proposition that President de Valera should be re-appointed President of the Irish Republic and President of this Assembly. It is for that reason that I must oppose such a proposition because we would be taking from the majority of this House, which realises it has to do a certain work, a considerable portion of the resources, if not all the resources that should be at its disposal for the carrying out of that work and placing them in the hands of other people who, no matter how they feel disposed to us, and no matter how they feel that we do not run on parallel lines ultimately---by taking the line that we take to-day we may not converge upon that point upon which, in our hearts we all desire to converge. No matter how they feel with regard to us, or how we feel with regard to them, we would be putting ourselves in the position of handing over these resources to people who, at the present moment, from their own point of view cannot co-operate with us in helping us to do the job which lies immediately at our hands, and which we are determined to do, just as in those days gone by we tackled one by one the different jobs that came in front of us.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
I think when the public read in the Press this discussion and understand its full bearing the feeling of the public will be one of sheer exasperation. We spent a number of weeks in Public and Private Session discussing a grave national issue. And we decided it last Saturday night after exploring every vestige of that Treaty, and after the public mind of the country has pronounced, as far as it was possible for the country to make itself articulate. Now, this morning we are confronted with a proposal, a motion, a situation which has, I think, no other object and can have, if carried, no other consequence than to reverse or nullify the decision of last Saturday. The President has emphasised the fact, from his point of view, that he is trying to end what appears to be an impasse by strict adherence to constitutional methods. I submit that he is not quite accurate or exact in his conception of what constitutional methods should be in this matter. The constitutional method for a party who is defeated in an assembly like this is to resign their power and let the majority take control [hear, hear]. I notice there is great jubilation amongst the supporters of this motion, and I take it that they strongly dissent from this statement of the President that there can be no question of a Cabinet being selected from the majority of the House. Now, I suppose I am guilty of as many interruptions as anybody else, and I need not grumble. But when I was coming in during the course of this discussion I heard the Deputy from Monaghan speaking about a shaky ground. I do not know whether it was the shaky ground of his in Monaghan or the shaky ground of the President in this position that he was referring to. But it certainly is a most precarious position to stand in. President de Valera and those who stood with him were defeated on last Saturday night in this House. I submit that the constitutional procedure is that those Ministers who were defeated should hand in their resignations. Now, I know what the move is. the President says that he does not wish to go forward. If President de Valera will stand down on this question he will show you the majority. Do not let us confuse the issue that is before the Assembly with a personality---the great and honoured personality of President de Valera. Let us know where we stand. Are you who are opposing the Treaty that was approved of on Saturday night, are you trying to play the personality of President de Valera as a trump card to try and kill the Treaty? [`No!'] It will take as much evidence and a good deal more evidence to prove that as it will require to prove the contention of the Minister of Agriculture that we are to be British citizens under this Treaty. I listened to President de Valera here one evening at the Private Session. And I suppose it is not proper to make anything like detailed allusions to what occurs in Private Session, but I gathered from him on one occasion--- when asked what would be his policy in the eventuality of the Treaty being rejected, and in the eventuality of its being approved. The President made a lengthy and, I thought, a carefully calculated speech suggesting what would be the outcome of all these eventualities. And, so far as my recollection serves me, President de Valera stated then that he would regard the will of the majority in this House as the sovereign and binding authority in this House. The majority spoke last Saturday night.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
On the Treaty.
MR. MILROY:
On the Treaty. Are you going to honour the decision of the majority or are you going to make us, not merely a laughing stock, but something that is beneath contempt in the civilised world, by giving a decision one night and two days after reversing that decision? [`No!']. Very well, do not be playing the personality of President de Valera against the real sense of this house. I find it hard to speak with patience about this matter. We regarded decision on Saturday night last---at least, I regarded it---as terminating a long and serious controversy. We regarded it as coming to the end of one stage, and that when that stage was reached we would begin subsequently to carry out what was the effect of that decision. If this motion is persisted in, if the policy connected with the Government is persisted in, it means that you are deliberately and with malice aforethought endeavouring to nullify the decision come to last Saturday night, endeavouring to reverse the decision of the House and to nullify the efforts made to bring some kind of independent staple government to Ireland. Now I would ask you who voted for the Treaty on last Saturday night to realise what you are faced with. Those who voted against it, of course, have not the responsibility that those who voted for it have. But every Deputy here who voted for that Treaty last Saturday night is as much bound to honour his vote as the plenipotentiaries were to honour their signatures. And I tell you, the man who votes to-day for the motion which will have the effect of destroying the motion voted for on last Saturday night---that Deputy will be as guilty of ------
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Treason.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
To the Republic, mar dheadh.
MR. MILROY:
I prefer to choose my own words
MR. A. STACK:
And your own crimes.
MR. MILROY:
I will be responsible for my own crimes. I will not ask any Deputy here to take responsibility for them. And I say that every person here who voted for the Treaty last Saturday night and who votes for the motion to destroy the Treaty or to nullify its effects to-day is as much guilty of cowardice---I will say moral cowardice---it is, perhaps, a less reprehensible word than the Minister for Home Affairs selected for me---he will be as guilty of moral cowardice as the plenipotentiary who signed in London and will come back and vote against the Treaty here. This is no time for playing party politics or trying to score [laughter]. I cannot understand the laughter that comes to the face of the Holy Roman Deputy from Tipperary. It may be a laughing matter to him if this Treaty is destroyed. But I tell you it will not be a laughing matter to Ireland, and there will be no smile on his face when Ireland calls him to account. This is a serious, a grave matter. And I ask every man who voted for the Treaty last Saturday night to remember, to realise, that the motion to-day to secure minority rule in this House is a motion intended to kill the Treaty, and to throw us back to the wrangling we were in before we came to the decision on last Saturday night [applause].
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I want to get back to common sense and plain facts. The President offered to resign. He resigned on Saturday. It was at the suggestion---or almost request---of the opposition he withdrew his resignation until this morning, and I strongly resent then that he should be accused of any political trick.
Mr. MILROY:
Not by me.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Surely when the President's policy is defeated the obvious course is for the President to resign. Now, we want order and peace in the country. We do not wish to see disruption and disagreement which may lead to very serious results up and down the land. We listened to Mr. Collins' suggestion of a joint committee that from the President's point of view and from my point of view is an impossibility, because we disagree on fundamentals, that is, on the Treaty. Mr. Michael Collins stands for Saorstát na h-Eireann, and I stand for the Republic. As a person who stands for the Republic I cannot consider anything less, nor will I work with anyone who considers the case of Ireland from a lower standard than my own. Now, the President's name was put forward for re-election. Now, I ask, what do the opposition mean? Why do they not put up a man of their own as President---which I would consider the honourable way out of this? I myself believe that, except on the one question of the Saorstát as against the Republic---that is, the Free State or Cheap State, as the other Irish translation has it---there is a majority in favour of the Free State in this House, but I do not know that on any other of the points of President de Valera's policy that there has ever been any disagreement in this House. And, of course, the opposition are pre-supposing that this House is definitely divided. One of our party proposed President de Valera as President of this assembly. And I conclude Deputy Mrs. Clarke proposed that because, when the President resigned, the opposition did not, in their turn, propose a President. They, apparently, did not stand for the Republic. We then, as Republicans---or a member of our party---proposed our much loved and much respected President, the man who carried out the great fight in Boland's Mill with a gun in his own hands, as a Commander, in Easter Week; the man who fought elections, the man who went to jail, the man whom we have all known as the straightest, truest and most honourable man we ever had anything to do with. Even his opponents will admit there could never have been a criticism of the President's bravery, courage or honour. We proposed the President and they are refusing to elect the President. They are trying to overthrow the Republic. This is what I would put to them: we established our Republic; they have this Treaty. This Treaty has been passed by the House. They have a clear road in front of them. They go over---they take up the negotiations, they form a Constitution and then go on. But I say: why should our side be supposed to end our opposition to the destruction of the Republic? Now, the members of the opposition here blame the President because, when he was put forward as President to be elected, he simply and frankly and honestly stated that, as President, he would continue his work as President of the Irish Republic---a protector and fighter for the Irish Republic. That was an honourable line, and a thing for which I respect and value him. We know to-day that England is in the tightest corner she was ever in. We know there is a paper wall around India and Egypt as big as there had ever been around Ireland before Easter Week. We do not know what straits England is in. We don't know what may happen in the coming year while the Provisional Government which Mr. Griffith and Mr. Collins are going to set up is functioning, and I say now it is necessary that the Republican interest should be held and the situation watched. And I say now: let this vote be a straight one. The Republic exists to-day. Let the President be elected and let him stand by his ideals and the world will know the man he is. I would say that those who stand for the ultimate Republic in Ireland, who believe in the Republic, and who work for the Republic, must support the President. What matters is that the Republic is not allowed to be overthrown to-day by any side-tracking, personal allusions---petty and mean---against brave and honourable men, and also by juggling and tricks. Again I repeat---it is very simple the outlook to-day---the state and condition at the moment is this: the President has resigned because he considers it his duty. The members of our party who wish for the re-affirmation of the Republic are supporting him. Let those who wish to overthrew the Republic vote that there ought be no President from this day in Ireland; and let them realise that they are using the little bit of authority, the one little piece, to pull down what Ireland has gained by centuries of fighting of misery and of suffering. And that is the position to-day.
MR. LIAM DE ROISTE:
Is not this the present position before us? The English are willing to evacuate the country at the moment that we set up the Provisional Government. Their forces are ready to leave as soon as the Provisional Government is set up. All their Departments of Government to the number of fifty-six are to be handed over to the representatives of the Irish people. Now, is it not common sense that in the interests of the Republic of Ireland---which to my view is not a minority or a majority party; not this Dáil itself, but the people of Ireland---is it not common sense that in the interests of the people of Ireland that the sooner we give facilities to the British to clear out of the country the better? And the only way in which we can give these facilities at the present moment is by setting up a Provisional Government here. Those who are opposed to the setting up of the Provisional Government in this country are, as I said and as I consider it now, in favour of retaining, not alone the British Army and the armed forces in this country, but the thing which is an abomination in Ireland---Dublin Castle Government. That, I maintain, is the position, and we ought all to take the same view.
DR. CUSACK:
There is a way out, and a very clear way out. This is the Dáil---the Republican Parliament for all Ireland. The members who were elected to the Republican Parliament know that the Republican Parliament will exist until the General election will remove it.
A DEPUTY:
And remove you, too.
DR. CUSACK:
That has nothing to do with this point. And by Article 17 of the Treaty we see:
<SMALL>
By way of provisional arrangement for the administration of Southern Ireland during the interval which must elapse between the date hereof and the constitution of a Parliament and a Government of the Irish Free State in accordance therewith, steps shall be taken forthwith for summoning a meeting of members of Parliament elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland since the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and for constituting a Provisional Government, and the British Government shall take the steps necessary to transfer to such Provisional Government the powers and the machinery requisite for the discharge of its duties, provided that every member of such Provisional Government shall have signified in writing his or her acceptance of this instrument. But this arrangement shall not continue in force beyond the expiration of twelve months from the date hereof.
</SMALL>
We have not got these members here. This is not a Parliament of Southern Ireland. Now, our Government must go on---the Republican Government must go on. There is no reason why the members elected to the Southern Parliament should not, if they wish, form a Provisional Government as this instrument says, and proceed to take over. There is no reason why that should not be done and end our discussion and end the flight of oratory.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
Mr. Mulcahy seemed to suggest that instantly we should enjoy the advantages given in the Treaty. Evidently that is not so. There has to be negotiations, conferences, and ratification of this Treaty in connection with England, and it is now what you mean to consider what views Ireland is to put before the world, and how she is to show herself an existing entity. Something should be done to show that we have not given up our separate existence, nor what we wish to get, an independent country. Therefore it seems to me a sort of misunderstanding to think that you can instantly now go and take the advantages of this Treaty. This has all to be settled.
MR. DOMHNALL O CEALLACHAIN:
I feel bound to contradict and resent one thing that I may safely describe as deliberate misrepresentation. I have listened to one of my colleagues from Cork seek to make a case. He said that those who maintain here to-day a particular line of action---that some members of this House desire to retain in Ireland the British Government and the British Army and British Departments. Now, I am satisfied that neither of us here nor any member of this House can believe that that is true. Consequently, I may safely call this deliberate misrepresentation. I hope this is not going to develop into a series of speeches. The central fact is that there must be a Government until such time as a certain form of negotiations has taken place. There must be a Government. It is also clear from certain statements that that Government must come from one side or the other. Now, the House is here and I think the House should decide now.
MR. LIAM DE ROISTE:
I am one of those who utterly dislike making any personal explanations. I rather agree with the motto `never explain'. But in regard to my friend, the Lord Mayor of Cork, I did not mean that that was the intention of those supporting the election of President de Valera, but that it will be the effect of their action in opposing the setting up of a Provisional Government by delaying the evacuation of the British Forces.
MR. SEAN ETCHINGHAM:
I hope this will not descend into politics. My good friend, the Deputy for Tyrone, referred to me. He used to consider himself a Party politician. What we want to do is to salve as much as we can out of the wreckage, and to do it for Ireland. He said I would be afraid to go before the Irish people. I am not. But I did hope that when the Chairman of the Delegation was concluding his speech the other night that he would have answered one of the Deputies from Mayo, Doctor Ferran, who asked him some very pertinent questions regarding this Treaty and its future. He did not deal with that nor with other things. But I hope he will now. He seems to know more about it. He had some correspondence from the Prime Minister of England, and he will know about its future. I have had this point from the English Press and the Irish Press--- statements from the Prime Minister of England and by Lord Birkenhead that these are Articles of Agreement.
THE SPEAKER:
What is the Deputy speaking to?
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
To the election of President de Valera, and I want to answer, as far as I can, some statements made here that have really nothing to do with that [laughter]. I appreciate that. I do say the position of Deputies in this House who are afraid to face the issue of electing the President for the Irish Republic in the Parliament of the Irish Republic---they are afraid to face that issue straight and so they side-track. They would not put up a candidate of their own. And they go on talking about constitutionalism. Would it not be more constitutional to here and now say `Are you going to kill the Irish Republic? Can you do it?' No! You have not put up a candidate of your own. President de Valera has been put up and you cannot put up anyone against him. You had it from a very able Deputy who raised a laugh. But he did not deal with any constitutionalism. I have heard from one of the Deputies in Dublin that we had not a President in the first Parliament in Dublin. But that very Deputy seconded President de Valera as President of the Republic in the Mansion House. He was proposed by Deputy Seán MacKeown, and no quibble about it, President of the Irish Republic, and seconded by Deputy Mulcahy, and I think the whole House agreed to it. Now he resigns that position, and resigns it before the whole body, and he is proposed and seconded for election. You cannot side-track that. You must face it. The other day when things were made unconstitutional he threatened to resign, and he put up his resignation and it was pointed out by the other side---it was said it was a political trick. And it was not. There is a hope here in the minds of a few that by insisting it is unconstitutional he will withdraw this. I hope he will not. It is time for us to face the issue. The Deputy from Cork knows well that we here had no right to ratify the Treaty. It was the Deputies elected to the Parliament of Southern Ireland. You would have men from Trinity here.
MR. M. COLLINS:
They might vote against it.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
It was open, I daresay, to the Viceroy to call this meeting of the Southern Parliament, to call it for, say, Leinster House or somewhere else, and elect a Provisional Government. But I would appeal to you in the interests of Ireland, even in the interests of the Treaty that you have by a majority decided to accept here on Saturday night, to still maintain your Republic. It is a loose thing; it is only Articles of Agreement according to the English, and you know what they have done with treaties in the past. And one Deputy at some meeting here stated that the only hope you have of getting that Treaty is that we would stand out against it. Even the Deputy from Offaly stated it here one night. He voted for it. For goodness sake do not for Party purposes or Party polities go and destroy the ultimate aim you have, and that great opportunity you have, of saving your country. I know there are men on the other side as patriotic as I am. I always admitted that. I worked with them in the past. Some of them say they will take an oath every time they get a rifle. I do not agree with that. The oath is a thing that ought be respected and so is the Treaty, too. The Minister of Finance declared that this does not satisfy the aspirations of the Irish people; that this is not a final settlement; and in his final speech the Chairman of the Delegation agreed that anything might happen in ten years; though, unfortunately, in an interview he gave to some member of the Press Association after the Treaty was signed he stated that it was the end of seven and a half centuries of fighting---that it was the liberty of Ireland. Now I ask you: it may be thought that I want to take a Party side in this question of supporting President de Valera. I told you here that I supported principles and not persons. President de Valera is the symbol of the Irish Republic. President de Valera holds a greater place in the hearts of the Irish people than any man in the public life of Ireland to-day. And I can assure you that if you turn him down in this Dáil you will not have peace in the country. If you elect him you will have peace, because he will see that you will have peace. He is not out for party polities. He urged every one of us not to say one word that would injure Ireland---that Ireland was above us all---and that is his feeling to-day. But I met here a supporter of the Treaty last night, a man of some influence in the city, who read in the Press that we seemed to want to turn the President down. He resented that. What he did say was that on the 4th December President de Valera went back from his Cabinet meeting and it seemed to be his Palm Sunday, and `now,' he said `are you going to bring him back and make it his Good Friday?'. That will be the feeling of the people. Let us get out of the strife of last week. It is ended. We are here as the Parliament of the Irish Republic and you are asked to re-elect President de Valera as President. Are you going to vote against him? Are the young men who believe in the Republic going to go against him? I say not. And it does not matter if he is elected here by the majority. That will not stop the formation of obvious work, nor will it keep the English Army in Ireland, nor the formation of the Irish Army in Ireland. It will be the means of driving the English Army out of it. See what Thomas says about the forthcoming General election, and what will happen. Realise your position. You cannot trust these English Ministers. And now they would turn down every one of those Articles of Agreement if you did not maintain the machinery of the Irish Republic that forced them to accept things as they are. In God's name I ask you this: abandon following Party politics; come back to the old spirit of comradeship, Ireland over all, and unanimously---if you can---elect President de Valera.
PETER HUGHES:
I move that we now adjourn for two hours.
Opposition cries of: `Take a vote'.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
I agree with Deputy Etchingham that it is time to face the issue. But my conception of what the issue is, is somewhat different from his. The issue is this: are we here as representatives of the Irish people or are we not? And I do not think we speak here the voice of the Irish nation if we do not represent, each one of us, our constituents. Then we are, more or less, able and enthusiastic exponents of a particular point of view. We have come to the stage when there is a question of the English evacuating Ireland, when there is a question of England handing over the Governmental Departments that formerly administered Ireland. Now, the evacuation of what? And handing over to whom? I contend to the Provisional Government---handing over to the Provisional Government. And there is a definite difference about it, too. Some people contend that there is, and must continue to be, here in Ireland a Republic. Some contend that there must be a Provisional Government and, following on that, the Free State. Now, I was of opinion, I will grant, that there is and must be a Republic. But there are some who merely seem to differ between one Free State and another Free State, and one form of association---that the community of association with the British Empire is again but another form of association. But to come back to the main point---are we speaking here the voice of our constituents or not? The sooner we take a plebiscite or General Election on this issue the better. It may he said that we have no machinery for dissolving. It is surely no great act of condescension on our part---we, who in the past, were twice elected on English writs---to get a dissolution. Very good. It is not, as I say, a great act of condescension on our part to get a dissolution
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
Use your influence with Lloyd George.
MR. M. COLLINS:
That is worthy of Austin Stack to say that.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
Any man who says the Republic is dead deserves it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
The remark is worthy of the man who made it.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
What I am really anxious to ascertain is this: whether the spiritual Republic which we are told is in existence is to continue, or whether the people wish to set up a Provisional Government preparatory to establishing a Free State in Ireland?
MR. ERNEST BLYTHE:
What is in my mind is to assure you that anything that will be done here to-day will he something that will rather tend to prevent people who have worked together so long, and who are still out for the same ultimate end---to prevent them from arriving at a situation where they may begin shooting one another. Rather the opposite. I agree with President de Valera that a plebiscite now would not be as clear an issue before the Irish people as a plebiscite or General Election when the Constitution of the Irish Free State has been framed. And for that reason I am not one of those who desire a plebiscite now;. I believe that the plebiscite now would go in favour of the Treaty. I believe that when the Constitution of the Irish Free State has been framed that the people will respect that Constitution and that they will approve of the Treaty and approve of the setting up of a Provisional Government. Because that was one of the Articles of Agreement. Now, that Provisional Government will represent the majority in this Dáil; whether formally or informally it will have authority from this Dáil. And if we are going here to set up a Republican Government representing the minority of the Dáil and also having the authority of the Dáil, I think we are heading straight for a situation in which chaos of the worst kind will result.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Mexican politics.
MR. BLYTHE:
To some extent President de Valera, by his first answer, met the situation. But he did not go far enough. Nothing that he said gave any assurance that we were not going to have the worst possible clash between two separate and distinct Governments, both having authority from this Dáil. And I think that the Dáil would be certainly shirking its duty and be guilty of a very grave crime against the country if it lightly or hurriedly created such a situation---because it has already approved of the Treaty---if it is going to set up two opposing Governments, and if there is no arrangement made by which there would not be a clash between them.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is obvious that the arrangements would have to be made.
MR. MACKEOWN:
I wish to support the motion for adjournment.
MR. M. COLLINS:
If we do not accept the adjournment at this present moment I want to speak about this motion and its implications in every possible way. If we do not adjourn I want to speak about this motion and refer to it in all its implications.
THE SPEAKER:
Better adjourn now. It is one-thirty o'clock.
MR. M. COLLINS:
My statement about it will be rather lengthy.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
Several speakers have intimated to me that they want to speak on the motion.
THE SPEAKER put the motion to adjourn for two hours and it was carried. The House adjourned at 1.30 p.m., to 3.30 p.m.
AFTERNOON SESSION.
On resuming after luncheon THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) took the Chair at 3.50.
MR. STACK:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I did not intend speaking on this debate, on this part of the debate at all, but unfortunately, the heat of the moment caused me to use a remark which I regret. I was rather galled by a statement made by one of the speakers which prompted me to suggest that, as a way out of a certain difficulty, our friends opposite should use their influence with Mr. Lloyd George to bring about a plebiscite. I wish to withdrew that remark unreservedly. I know that whatever influence our friends opposite have will be used for Ireland's good and not for her difficulty [hear, hear]. As I am my feet I wish to say a few words in support of the nomination of Mr. de Valera, who will be President, I hope, in future of the Republic. I simply wish to remark that the Republic was established by the people's will, and that it still exists, and that being so that a President and Executive are absolutely necessary. I support the nomination of Eamon de Valera because I believe the policy which he has propounded is the right and only policy for this country. I support his nomination also because I believe he is a big man, perhaps the biggest man in Europe this day. He is a man in whom I have always had the greatest confidence. And if I may say a thing that is fairly personal, I remarked during these negotiations when a friend of mine, a reverend clergyman, approached me and hoped that we would not be let down, I told him I was ready to commit suicide the moment Mr. de Valera let us down---and I am. With regard to the suggested plebiscite it was on that subject that our friend opposite made the remark to-day, and I say that we on this side have no objection whatever to the voice of the people being made articulate. But it must be the people's free choice, and whatever referendum there may be must be between the Republic and this document. When I say free choice I am sure every member here will understand me. I mean the choice made in the absence of any element of compulsion. Then, and then only, will you have the true will of the people and, let the result be what it may it will be Government with the consent of the governed.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS:
When I spoke, before I went away from here, I said I would deal with what I considered the implications of this present motion. Now, whatever we say---whatever any of us say, or whatever any of us think---we cannot conceal our own innermost thoughts from ourselves, and my innermost thought about this is: that in opposing it I am doing a greater service to Eamon de Valera than the people who put his name forward for re-election [hear, hear]; and when I mentioned the other day that Eamon de Valera had the same place in my regard now as ever he knows that I meant what I said. He knows it in his innermost mind, whether the dictates of policy force him to deny it or not. He knows it, and I am satisfied he knows it. Now, rushing a vote, on an issue like this, may be good tactics from the point of view merely of getting a vote, but it is bad tactics from the point of view of the nation. None of us want to see the Republic turned down, and some of us have not turned down the Republic. Some of us stand to work to the best of our ability---to work for the Irish nation, for a free Irish atmosphere, for the Irish people, Irish climate, Irish ideas and Irish ideals. That is the way we stand, the way we always stood, and we will try to stand for it and I will try to stand for it; no matter in what capacity I will try to stand for that ideal. To talk freely, squarely and fairly, that is what I think about this motion. I think about it what I thought and said in private about the plenipotentiaries. I think about it---and the suggestions that have accompanied it from the other side---I think about it as a move like this: that we can go on compromising, and we can go on negotiating, and we call go on giving away the position so long as the others have the authority to tell us afterwards that we have done so. Now, there is going to be an end to that, fairly and squarely. Many people on my side differ from me in my reading of the situation. In my belief the question of a plebiscite is not so simple as some people think [hear, hear]. If the President is elected as President, and if he has his Executive, I can say now what my course of action will be. I will simply go down to the people of South Cork and tell them---most of them know me personally and intimately---I will go down to the people of South Cork and tell them that I did my best, that I could bring the thing no further, `and now you can elect a representative who will carry the Irish nation further' [applause]. And I will help them in that, and the people in South Cork---the people in the cottages and the farms---they know me well, and I will speak to them as man to man. I will say to them: `perhaps I have failed,' and you know they would never question that I have done my best. I am more concerned about what they will say than about what anybody else will say, because they are the people who know me and who have been with me. I cannot see any way out of this present difficulty except in the manner I have suggested, and I have done my best to be constructive in my suggestions. I have done my best to see the difficulties and the real opinions of the other side. I have no other suggestion to make than the one I have made. And I believe if a Provisional Government is formed as Mr. Griffith intends to form it, I believe that if it is allowed to operate we can operate it on the lines we have mentioned. If it is not allowed to operate, it will be only because of difficulties put in our way. What we want is a chance---a real, genuine, proper chance---to prove our mark. We do not want to have difficulties put in our way by our friends, because you know that one friend, who does not quite agree with the way you are going on, can do you more injury in the fulfilment of your plans than all your enemies [applause]. You know that and I know it. I recognise these difficulties. I recognised them from the day we went on the negotiations and I recognised them long before that, and the President knows that. I have discussed situations of this kind with him long before this. He knows that I recognised these difficulties two and three years ago. Whatever may be the tactics of the thing, we ought, at any rate, not to be governed by tactics in an hour of crisis like this. And if the situation has passed into our hands let us take the responsibility of it, and make us answerable for the responsibility of it, and do it in a worthy open way ([hear, hear]. Now, if this motion is put for the President as President of the Republic I will vote against it. I for one do not know or care what the people on my side will do; and I will vote against it primarily because of this: that it would be putting the President in a false position, and in a position in which he could not act as President of the nation. That must be known to him, and I am not going to put him into that position, or, if he is put into that position by this Dáil, I for one will say in the future what I am saying now---that you placed him in an impossible position; that you give him an impossible job. There is no use in coming back and saying that: `We put you in that position and you did not do the job'. We know in our hearts it would be putting him in an impossible position. President of the Republic is a term that is known in many countries. Could the President get up and say: `Yes! I will be President of this nation, I will carry it on without interference from any other nation'? Could he say: `I will carry on our finance, I will establish our currency'? Could he say: `I will go on with the army, I will build submarines, I will build battleships, so that no nation will interfere with us'? Let us be honest with ourselves. We know we will be putting him in an impossible position, and I will not put him in an impossible position if I can help it in any way [applause].
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
A Chinn Chomhairle, agus a lucht na Dála, ba mhaith liom a chur i gcuimhne dhíbh go ndubhart i dtosach go raibh socair agam gan aon rud do rá a chuirfeadh fearg ar einne ach nár bhfoláir dom an fhírinne d'innsint. Tá socair agam anois gan aon rud a rá a chuirfeadh fearg ar einne ach táim chun an fhírinne d'innsint agus ní doigh liom go gcuirfe se fearg ar einne. It will be just as well for me to say at the start, having regard to what occurred on Saturday night, that I have decided to avoid saying anything of a contentious nature. I must, however, refer briefly to what occurred on Saturday night. Mr. Michael Collins might very well say `Save me from my friends'. What occurred on Saturday would never have occurred only for Mr. Collins' friends. His friend, Mr. Arthur Griffith, made a statement in his opening speech here which showed me, so far as my understanding went anyway, that an attempt was being made to sway the votes in this Dáil, and possibly the votes of the Irish people when the matter came before them, by a statement, in connection with Mr. Michael Collins, which could not be truly said about anybody---that he had won the war. It could not be said truly that any one man won the war. It has not been won at all. I may tell you I am in a position to know, certainly as well as most people, and better than nearly all, that the men mostly responsible for bringing us to the invincible position we held before this Treaty was signed are men whose names, if I mentioned them here, would not be known. I would ask you now not to be deceived by anything that takes place here. I knew nothing about political tactics until the question of this Treaty came up. I have seen too much of them, goodness knows, since, and I hope to heavens I will see no more of them, no matter how we finish this. We were one party before this occurred and, in God's name, let us be one party after it, in the Dáil anyway. You have all known that on many---too many---occasions, when Ireland or her representatives trusted England that Ireland was deceived. I can give you plenty of historical references starting from Sarsfield, the Treaty of Limerick, the Volunteers of 1782, not that I agree with Sarsfield's policy or Grattan's policy or any of these policies; I just bring them before you to show you cannot depend on England's word or the word of English statesmen. If the English people had a say in this thing, I am perfectly sure they would accept the offer we made them. It is English politicians and English statesmen whom we cannot trust. I am perfectly satisfied that the five men who signed this document thought that they did the best thing for Ireland. That is all right; that is their own opinion. Certainly, if they think they can absolutely rely on the word of Mr. Lloyd George and his friends they are not as sensible men as I took them to be.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Is it not better to have a signed cheque than an unsigned cheque?
MR. BRUGHA:
Yes, but the money might not be in the bank after you endorsing the cheque [applause].
MR. M. COLLINS:
Even so you cannot put it there at all if your cheque is unsigned [applause].
MR. BRUGHA:
Let us safeguard ourselves in any case---and this is a means of doing it. You say that in re-electing the President, by re-electing President de Valera, we put him in a false position. We do nothing of the kind. We have been given a mandate by the electors. That mandate, as you will admit, was to maintain the Republic. Until we go before the electors again and they turn us down, must not we carry out our mandate? Is not that so? We all know, prior to the 1918 elections, what sagacity resolutions, what confidence resolutions meant. They were pouring in, snowball fashion, from all over the country, and when the people in whose favour these resolutions were made out and sent up to Dublin came before the electorate, do you not know what the electorate did with them? In spite of what has happened, and the resolutions from public bodies---we do not know that those public bodies speak for the country---the electorate gave us a mandate, anyway, and we have to carry out that mandate, until we go before them again and they say: `We want to change that mandate'.
MR. M. COLLINS.
On the previous occasion they were going for the unsigned cheque.
MR. BRUGHA:
In any case they have to be satisfied, and they are not such fools as some people are. When it comes before them they will give their decision on that. We must carry out our mandate. There is only one man in Ireland who can do that properly, and when we come to make a satisfactory arrangement with England, one that the Dáil before the sixth December would have been satisfied with unanimously, the only one man who can deliver the goods is Eamon de Valera [applause]. Now, we are not putting him in a false position by re-electing him. You people, we do not want to interfere with you. You may go ahead with your Treaty and your Southern Parliament, but as far as we are concerned we are not going to co-operate with you, but we are not going to hamper you. Go ahead, but we are certainly going to see, so far as we can help it, that Dáil Eireann remains in existence until the electorate turns it down [hear, hear]. There is only one man who can lead us properly and keep us all together. If Eamon de Valera did not happen to be President who would have kept Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins and myself together? [laughter].
MR. M. COLLINS:
That is true. It was not to-day or yesterday it started.
MR. BRUGHA:
I only wish to God we could be brought together again under his leadership. I only wish it was possible.
MR. M. COLLINS:
It is not, though.
MR. BRUGHA:
Not until Saturday night's work has been undone, and with the help of God and the Irish electorate it will be undone. You have asked a question as to how President de Valera is going to function with his Executive, to build submarines, et cetera. We did it before and I do not see why we should not do it again.
MR. M. COLLINS:
We never built a submarine.
MR. BRUGHA:
Let us, at least, have the goodwill of the people who are in favour of the action we have taken on this Treaty. Do not try to interfere with those people and we will not interfere with you. Go ahead, you will not have our co-operation. We cannot do it on principle, but we will not interfere with you, provided you do nothing that infringes on our principles; but we are going to carry out the mandate given us by the electorate. One of your speakers here to-day said he thought that after Saturday we had come to the parting of the ways. Deputy Sears of County Mayo conveyed that you could not agree with us in what we are doing---then you can clear out. There is no offence intended. Let us go ahead and run the Republic [hear, hear]. I will be satisfied for one when an election comes along. I am going to fight it. I will be perfectly satisfied if the Irish people tell us that they want to become British subjects and `you Republicans can go and mind your own business' [laughter and applause].
MR. DE VALERA:
I would like to say one thing. There is no one man and no group of men can deliver the Irish nation to anybody [hear, hear].
MR. SEUMAS FITZGERALD:
As one who voted against this Treaty at the Public Session, I admitted in the course of my remarks I knew the majority of those who voted for the Treaty were out for the ultimate Republic. And it was only on that consideration alone that many of those who were fundamentally opposed to the Treaty bowed to the circumstances that compelled them to vote for it. The ultimate Republic is the concern of those too, and also the fact---I trust they will have thought of this point for it is their concern---if the Treaty is the bird in hand they will want to see that it is well caged. They will also want to see that the Republic will not be disestablished until after the Treaty proposals are embodied in some definite form, and a Constitution set up, so that the people may ultimately decide on some clear basis. At present I am placing myself in the position of one who might have bowed to the force of circumstances and voted for the Treaty. That we do not throw away what we actually have, a Government of the Irish Republic, for what we are expecting from the Treaty proposals is a very fair argument. So we must hold ourselves in readiness for any possible treachery on the part of the enemy. The majority side have said that it will be their aim and object to make for the creation of circumstances towards the ultimate end of an Irish Republic. We may go on a different road, but we will also try to set up circumstances that will make for the ultimate end of an Irish Republic. When I see my way, when the circumstances that they create are such, when I think I can help to achieve that end of an Irish Republic, I will help them. Now, the circumstances, what are they? At the present time a large portion, I will be quite fair, of the army are against this Treaty. The point of view that I maintain is that rather than have it disbanded we must keep it united. I will make a suggestion later on as to how it can be maintained united. The army overwhelmingly are out for the ultimate Republic, and I maintain that they would be more unitedly prepared to continue under the direction of a Minister of Defence chosen from the minority side as being the one that had the Republican interests more immediately in view. A President and Cabinet from the majority side might, and could do so If elected, give guarantees that they would safeguard the interests of the Republic in the meantime, but these guarantees will not inspire the same confidence and respect. It is stated that if President de Valera is elected President of this Assembly it would be a ridiculous position to place him in. I think it would be a much more ridiculous position for the same body of men on one hand to set up a Provisional Government and, at the same time, to act as the Government of Dáil Eireann. I remind them that it is their duty to stand by the latter until the Free State Government is ready in all its details. The suggestion I make is this: that the majority party go ahead with their work in setting up the Provisional Government and that they do not interfere with the Dáil in its present functions, with the Minister of Home Affairs, the Minister of Defence, the Minister of Finance, et cetera. Secondly, that they should go ahead with the work of making arrangements for the withdrawal of the English troops with the English Government, and similarly with the police. On the other hand they could simply pass an act to maintain peace, law and order when these troops are gone. They could back up their arguments with the English members by stating such. They are a majority in the House and they can do that. Thus the Dáil as a Republican body will not cease to function until and when the Treaty proposals are properly embodied in a Constitution, and the possibility of treachery on the part of the English Government has not manifested itself. They could, from the point of view of the majority vote, cause the Dáil to again cease its functions and allow the people by popular election to disestablish the Dáil as a Republican Parliament. That is a square basis to put before the people.
MR. LORCAN ROBINS:
When I came into the Dáil this morning and President de Valera handed in his resignation I thought he was doing the biggest thing of his life, but when President de Valera demanded re-election------
MR. DE VALERA:
I did not demand re-election.
MR. ROBINS:
When he was put forward why did he not say he would not go forward? I say that he did not do the biggest thing of his life. We sought peace last week; we meant peace; we genuinely looked for peace; and this very suggestion was turned down by the President. I am speaking fair truths. The Treaty went out and the President put up a suggestion which he turned down the previous week.
MR. DE VALERA:
What suggestion?
MR. ROBINS:
Not the exact words, but the same thing.
MR. DE VALERA:
I was asked a question about our policy and I state it again. I say that, as I put myself at the disposal of the country in the past in the belief that I could help the country, I am willing to do so now.
MR. ROBINS:
We, on Saturday last, accepted the Free State, like it or like it not. We do not like it. We took it because we thought it was the best we could get. We are going to work the Free State, and we are not going to have a Punch and Judy show with a Republican Government moving behind us. We are going to create a strong Government, and if the other side want to do a statesmanlike thing, and the best thing for Ireland, let them assist us as far as they can without committing themselves to the Free State.
A MEMBER:
It cannot be done.
MR. ROBINS:
Then let the President withdraw his resignation.
A DEPUTY:
That is not logic.
MR. ROBINS:
I am just as logical as you are. The people of this country want a government of some sort. They have---signed, sealed and delivered---a Treaty that gives them a government. They have as an alternative a scrap of paper and I would not like to see my dog shot for the difference between the two of them [laughter]. Go down to the country and ask them what they think about it. What will happen? I say this is what will happen and what must happen. I told a private meeting of our supporters yesterday when we discussed this, that if I was the sole man in this Dáil I would vote against President de Valera being re-elected and because one party or another must carry on the government. We would have the chief of a party that England would not work with [applause]. Are we to make him our Chief Executive Officer and go across and ask England to evacuate Ireland? Are we to bring back a man who will never work this Treaty? That is the position, and I do not think the English Government is likely to accept that position. We are taking this Treaty for what is best in it and we mean to work it---and the only way to work it is by having one government. The man who should be the head of this government is the head of the majority party in this Dáil. We cannot take a man, the Chief of the opposite party, if we have to part company with him on essentials. We cannot go along and say `we work the Republic only, go and ask England to evacuate Ireland'. They won't do it, and they would be fools it they did.
MR. SEAN NOLAN:
The last speaker argued very well against himself. He has told us he would not shoot his dog for the difference between the two. At the same time we are parting on essentials. The first thing I would like to bring before this Assembly is that we cannot disestablish the Republic, and if we do not elect the President and have a Republic here to-day, we are trying to disestablish this. It is ultra vires. The people of Ireland can alone disestablish the Republic which has been established by them. According to the Articles of Agreement those who voted for the Treaty and carried the resolution on Saturday night have merely to call together the members elected for the Southern Parliament to establish their Provisional Government. Let them call this assembly together, the members elected for the Southern Parliament, and let them establish their Provisional Government; and in doing that they have the assurance of the other party that they will not be interfered with. Now, they are out to do the best for Ireland and we are out to do the best for Ireland. And they can do the best for Ireland by carrying out the Articles of the Treaty in calling together this meeting of the elected members of the Southern Parliament and establishing the Provisional Government and, at the same time, leaving the Government that was established by the will of the people intact, leaving that Government where it is until such time as it is disestablished by the will of the Irish people. By leaving the Republican Government with its President as it is, those on the side of the Treaty will have the best guarantee that they will get the best and most out of this Treaty, which has been signed in London. We have always heard that what England gave away in her hour of weakness she would take away in her hour of strength. I say that those who honestly supported the Treaty in the belief that they were doing the best for Ireland will be doing the best for Ireland and doing the best for the Treaty by not attempting to disestablish the Republican Government. They will have the assurance, support and guarantee of this Government that England will not betray us again. lf the Republic is disestablished then you will have chaos; then you will have the parting of the ways indeed. But I would ask you not to throw away this weapon which has brought us so far---this weapon of the Republican Government, of the Army of the Republic, which has brought us so far along the road to victory---I would ask you not to throw it away to the English wolves. If you disestablish the Republic that is what it amounts to. Do not throw it away, at any rate until you get the price for throwing it away, and the price that is being offered is the Treaty signed in London. That Treaty is not delivered. It is signed. And until such time as it is delivered do not throw away what you have won to the English wolves. In the ordinary course, when your Provisional Government is functioning and the country is in its normal condition, you can take the will of the people and let them decide whether they will disestablish the Republican Government or establish the Free State. Finally, when the will of the people is being taken at the General election we on the other side of the Treaty will fight the Treatyites---the pro-Treaty members---at that election on the question of the Republic, but until such time as that comes about, for Heaven's sake do not throw away this opportunity, do not fling away what you have won by the fruits of the sacrifices that have been made, by disestablishing the Government of the Republic. It is not a question of personalities; it is not a question of Mr. de Valera and Mr. Griffith and Mr. Collins. It is a question of the nation and each side of us profess sincerely to be doing what we consider the best in the interests of the nation. And I put it to you who have supported the Treaty and opposed the election of the President that went I have put before you is went will prove to be the best in the interests of Ireland and in the interests of the ultimate goal we ought to have---the ultimate goal of absolute freedom [applause].
MR. JAMES DOLAN:
A Chinn Chomhairle, the last speaker has asked us not to dissipate our forces in one breath, and in the next he says we should continue here in Ireland the Government of the Irish Republic side by side with the new Government that would be set up for Saorstát na h-Eireann. Does anybody seriously tell me that is not dissipating our forces? If you say to the new Government: `Do not interfere with the Departments that have been set up'. Take, for instance, that very big controlling department, the Local Government Department. Does anybody seriously tell me that the Local Government bodies of this country will still continue to function in the in-and-out way that has helped to bring us to the present position? And does anybody seriously tell me that we will not be dissipating our forces by having a Local Government Board for the Free State and a Local Government Board for the Republic? There must be a clash. People have sniggered at the resolutions passed by the local bodies all over Ireland almost unanimously. They all have declared---or, at least, ninety per cent. of them---in favour of the Treaty. There is one instance of the confusion that those people on the other side wish to throw us into. They tell us it will not be dissipating our forces and will make for more strength in the face of the enemy. The only way for this nation to make for strength, to get their last ounce out of this Treaty, is to back up the decision that this National Assembly came to on Saturday night when they decided to accept this Treaty, to work and get every ounce out of it. We are told by some of the speakers that we will be dismantling our machinery by not carrying on the Republican Government. I absolutely deny that we would be dismantling our machinery. I say we will be putting in up- to-date machinery to protect the interests of Ireland in working the Treaty, when we get control of the Government of this country in reality, not on paper or in theory, and dig into the many Government departments of this country, and when we are in position to have our army better equipped than it is to-day. Why should we consider that it will be a source of greater strength to have the Volunteers as they are to-day, smuggling in arms and smuggling in Thompsons? Why do you think it will be greater strength when we can buy them in the open market and they have the authority of the Irish people behind them? We will be in a position to get the last ounce out of this Treaty. If, even now, at the eleventh hour, those who have been opposed to the Treaty would look at it in a plain, practical commonsense manner as the man in the street looks at it, all would be well. Let them not be here, as the President of the Delegation has said, as if they were playing a game of chess, and if such and such would be a good move. You can get the last ounce out of this Treaty only in one way and that is to back up unitedly the decision you came to on Saturday night. I am glad to hear the tone of some of the speeches that have been made on the opposite side to-day. They say they do not wish to hamper the new Government in Ireland and that they wish to see the last ounce got out of this Treaty. I appeal to them, to their better nature, to look at things as reasonable sensible men not as men tracing shadows, but as men grasping realities and dealing with political facts. I appeal to them to put their shoulder to our shoulder, to back us and see that the last ounce is got out of this. The proposal before us today, of re-electing President de Valera, will, to my mind, if carried, make for absolute chaos in the country. I oppose it then with all my might and I appeal to the President himself to let his better nature get uppermost in him and let him stand down in the interests of the nation [laughter].
MR. H. BOLAND:
I rise to support the nomination of President de Valera for re-election, and certainly I am very happy to see we all enjoyed our dinner [laughter] and that a better spirit is developing in Dáil Eireann. I think the gentlemen on the other side should be very happy this evening that the issue is so clearly knit. On Saturday, by a very small majority, you overthrew the policy of the President of this Assembly, and to-day, following the recognised constitutional practice, the President resigned his office. It is up to the men on the other side who, up to to-day at any rate, have fought for the Treaty with the same courage and the same dash as they fought in the fight for the Republic, and I think they have a unique opportunity to carry on in this same spirit and put a man up who is in favour of their policy against Eamon de Valera. I am sure, and I speak from intimate knowledge of our late President, that his personality has never been intruded in this fight. Everything he did during his term of office was for Ireland and not for de Valera. I have had very intimate intercourse with him, and particularly outside Ireland. And I saw him in situations such as this, and never during the course of a very difficult time in America, did he waver in the tightest place. We are on one side and you are on the other side. You have a majority of this House. Accept your responsibility. If you throw out the man on this side by the vote, we are in honour bound to see to it that you receive from us all the resources that have been at the command of Dáil Eireann. I say the issue is knit. All we ask is that we be allowed to hold to our opinions. If you join issue now on this and put someone up in opposition Ireland will be happy with the result of these proceedings. You cannot have it both ways. If de Valera cannot receive two hundred votes, in one breath you cannot say that the nation cannot do without him. I say to our friends to join issue and have a straight vote, for or against. And then we will, on the first available opportunity, go before the Irish people and seek a further mandate for the Irish Republic, and if they in their wisdom decide against us we will be only too happy to obey.
MR. PETER HUGHES:
It strikes me that we are in a very peculiar position indeed. Mr. Boland wants one Government, and he suggests that the other side set up another Government. The English Government is here yet, and there is a Government in Ulster. Where are we going to be landed in a few days? We gave a vote on Saturday and we decided this Treaty should be, at least, approved, and I hope it will be ratified. At the same time I think it is the duty of every man who voted for the Treaty that the majority should elect a Government in this case. It is the constitutional way to do things and I am greatly surprised that President de Valera has allowed himself to be put forward in this fashion. I think if his own personal views were taken on the subject that he would gladly allow the people in the majority to carry on the Government, and that they should watch to see that Lloyd George should not get on the inside of them. The Treaty should get a chance, and if the majority should not get the best out of this Treaty, I for one would kick them out and turn to the other side and see that they formed a Government. There should be no doubt about it. The President could see that the majority should do what they propose to do, and see that the country is cleared of British troops in the shortest possible time. If this is done we can see that the Treaty is carried into effect, and if it is not done we will be cast into war. I am extremely sorry I will have to cast my vote in this case against Mr. de Valera.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
A Chinn Chomhairle, there is one point that is not properly touched on in this debate and it is this: a question was asked Mr. de Valera with regard to his action if he was elected again---with regard to the formation of a Cabinet---and he definitely stated that there could be no question of a majority Cabinet or a coalition Cabinet. Therefore, what we are asked to do is to place the control of the services of Dáil Eireann, finance, the army, et cetera, at the disposal, not merely of Mr. de Valera, but of a minority party which, on its own admission, is not only a minority in Dáil Eireann, but a small minority---at the present time, at all events---of the people of Ireland. Was ever such a proposition put up before a body of sane, sensible people? That, we are told, is to be done in the interests of Ireland. Does this mean he is going to see that Mr. Lloyd George carries out his undertaking? It seems to me to be the best way to ensure that Mr. Lloyd George would not carry out his undertaking. It is putting it to him not to do it. There is no man or woman who does not urgently desire to have the services of Mr. de Valera for Ireland, but we do not want to have this man, whom we have served and followed, simply as a means of wrecking the Treaty, for that is what it amounts to. That is what it amounts to, and you know it well. Everyone of you know it in your hearts and souls [applause]. Having failed to carry the Treaty you want to wreck it in this way, and the man who proposed his re-election was no friend of Mr. de Valera.
MR. DE VALERA:
Do you think I would take office admitting that would be sought to be done?
MR. BEASLAI:
In common with a lot of people in this matter I am sorry that his judgment in this case is at fault. We are all sorry, but I must say what I think as an honest straight man. I believe and I am sure I am right, that a great many persons, at all events, think it is a despicable thing for one to use any means to jeopardise the Treaty. Let them not pretend that it is in the interests of unity; that is simply to wreck the Treaty and nothing else. That is the reason why I shall have to vote against the man whom I honour and respect simply in order not to have him put in a false and contemptible position.
DR. MACCARTAN:
There are a few suggestions I would like to put to both sides. I am one of those who did not vote for the Treaty, but against chaos and to put an issue like this to the country again, you want to have a repetition of what occurred in the Parnell split. You have seen it here in the Dáil, and it will be intensified a hundred-fold throughout the country. Whether you elect Mr. de Valera again or reject him, do not put anything to the country at present; let the country settle down Let the tension subside before this is put to the country. I cannot see Mr. de Valera's policy at the moment. I would like to be with him, it is my natural place, but I cannot see his policy now. I try to look at the situation as it is, not as we would like to have it. The situation is this: the Treaty was signed, it was a fait accompli, and we must try to make the best of it. That is the situation that presents itself. If it is possible to get back to the Republic I would like to see it; and if President de Valera is elected he is a greater man than I thought he was, and I thought he was a very great man, and I still think so.
MR. ARTHUR GRIFFITH:
Before you put the vote there are some words I would like to say. On Saturday night after a long discussion, this Treaty was approved. Now, to-day a proposal comes forward which, if carried, in effect means a recision of that decision. It is put forward to us in a guise that is not straight. It is intended to sway the votes by appealing to the emotionalism of the members here who feel, and rightly feel, all the good services that President de Valera has done his country. It was said on the other side that this ought not to be a question of personalities. Very well. If it ought not to be a question of personalities, President de Valera when he resigned his position should not have gone forward. Some man on this side should have gone forward, because the issue sought to be made is between President de Valera and us, and personally no man on our side wishes to vote against President de Valera. I say, therefore, it is a political manoeuvre to get round the Treaty, and that the people who are using President de Valera for that manoeuvre know what they are doing. We know what they are doing. We approved the Treaty on Saturday evening and by a side wind we get round it on Monday. What is going to happen the reputation of the country for commonsense and honour? There was no necessity for him to resign. We suggested that Dáil Eireann might continue until the Free State election came into effect. There is no necessity for him to resign to-day. His resignation and going up again for re-election is simply an attempt to wreck this Treaty.
MR. DE VALERA:
No! no!
MR. GRIFFITH:
It must be understood as that. Everyone knows how difficult it is for a man personally to vote against President de Valera. I do not understand this proposal. There was a proposal made from our side in the interests of unity. I think it would have helped unity. At all events it was rejected by the other side, and the proposal from the other side now is to constitute two Governments in the country. Are we to have two sets of Ministers for all the departments? If there are, there will be chaos of the worst kind. lf I am mistaken about the interpretation I put upon it I am quite willing to discuss the matter with President de Valera. As it stands it is this: the proposal put forward is not bona-fide. It is put forward to use the personality of Mr. de Valera to wreck this Treaty. Therefore I shall vote against it with the greatest regret. It is not with an easy heart I shall do it, because I have worked with President de Valera for years and I regard him as a dear friend, and I do it only in the vital interests of the country. It is most unfair to this Assembly that the personality of Mr. de Valera should be used as it is being used [hear, hear].
MR. DE VALERA:
I say it is put forward in good faith. It is put forward by myself. I put forward my resignation as a constitutional question, and the natural thing would be for the majority party to propose a President. It is the proper thing to do, the proper constitutional thing. Elect your President. I cannot be in a position of responsibility without having power to act. In allowing my name to be put forward the idea I have at the back of my mind is mainly this: that there was still a reserve there---following the idea why I did not go to London---the reserve for the nation is still there, the Republican forces would still be there. Dublin Castle has been functioning in some sort of a way. We have tried to prevent it from working. If the Provisional Government goes to Dublin Castle and takes on the functioning we will not interfere with them. Let them deal with their Government as they please. Dáil Eireann is here and its action with reference to the Provisional Government will be determined by any arrangement that this House will make.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Does not that imply there is going to be two sets of Governments with two sets of departments?
MR. DE VALERA:
Not necessarily. There is no reason why this House should not make an arrangement with regard to the vital departments so that if there was anything going wrong, we would have our forces intact as before. They can be preserved for the Republic, as, for instance, the Ministry of Local Government---I have no doubt we can conceive a means of dealing with these departments. This is a matter I would have to go into carefully. I regard the Provisional Government as only Dublin Castle functioning by permission for the moment.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Is not this Provisional Government a Constitutional Government to draw up a Constitution to carry on all the functions of the country? In any case, Dáil Eireann, which was established by the will of the Irish people, is there until it is disestablished by the Irish people. It is there and cannot cease to function.
MR. GRIFFITH:
The Provisional Government must take over the functions of the Government of this country pending the setting up of the Free State Government.
MISS MACSWINEY:
From Dublin Castle.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Any way you please.
MR. COLIVET:
Will not the same difficulty arise if a majority candidate is returned?
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
Is it absolutely essential that the Provisional Government should be set up by Dáil Eireann? Does not Article 17 of the Articles of the Treaty state:
<SMALL>
By way of provisional arrangement for the administration of Southern Ireland during the period which must elapse between the date hereof and the constitution of a Parliament and Government of the Irish Free State in accordance therewith, steps shall be taken forthwith for summoning a meeting of members of Parliament elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland since the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and for constituting a Provisional Government; and the British Government shall take the steps necessary to transfer to such Provisional Government the powers and machinery requisite for the discharge of its duties, provided that every member of such Provisional Government shall have signified in writing his or her acceptance of this instrument. But this arrangement shall not continue in force beyond the expiration of twelve months from the date hereof.
</SMALL>
Would it not be possible far the Chairman of the Delegation to ask those who voted for the acceptance of this Treaty to meet the other members elected for Southern Ireland, to ask them to set up a Provisional Government and still leave the Dáil to set up its own Republican Government? I am only asking that because it affords a way out.
MR. M. COLLINS:
With regard to what the President said about departments it requires a reply, and I think I should give the reply. The President has spoken twice and I suppose I may speak twice.
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
Are you President or equal to him?
MR. M. COLLINS:
If the President makes a point which, I think, requires a reply---
MR. DE VALERA:
I do not make any point.
MR. M. COLLINS:
In my opinion the proceedings here this afternoon have deprived us of the possibility of having any kind of unity---any kind, not only of unity, but of having Ireland for the Irish. There is no doubt about it that the proceedings of this afternoon whatever the result of the vote is, do constitute a defeat of the Treaty.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
On a point of order, I suggest as no other candidate has been proposed that the President has been elected unanimously [applause].
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well, I am voting against.
ALDERMAN JAMES MURPHY:
If this side does not put forward any other candidate Mr. de Valera is elected unanimously.
MR. DE VALERA:
I cannot, naturally, stand for that.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I will move an amendment if you allow me, a Chinn Chomhairle.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
On a point of order, while there is no amendment and no one else nominated, I suggest that if the other side do not see their way to nominate anybody that they vote for or against the motion. Every man is entitled to vote for or against, even if there is no other proposition.
MR. M. COLLINS:
My amendment is this: that this House ask Mr. Griffith to form a Provisional Executive.
Ma. SEAN MACKEOWN:
I second that motion. I have great pleasure in seconding it, but in doing so I must say that I regard with extreme regret the attitude of those people who are out to wreck the Treaty or to do the work of wrecking. I have listened to this debate without saying anything. I have listened carefully to see if there was one man on the opposite side who would have courage enough to stand up and say: `Our duty is, once a decision has been arrived at by this Sovereign Assembly, to loyally support that decision'. I find there is not a man with the courage to do it. Standing in the dock before British authorities I declared that this Government was the Sovereign Government of Ireland and that its decision was binding on the Irish people. That decision taken on Saturday evening is a binding decision upon the Irish people and upon every man here, and every man knows it, and any attempt to flout that decision---well, if this is government, if this is law and order, I was the damnedest fool that ever stood in a dock [applause].
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
Is that motion in order?
THE SPEAKER:
I think this motion will have to be taken separately after taking the vote on the other motion. It is not an amendment to the one before us. The motion you are going to vote upon is this: `That Mr. de Valera be re-elected President of the Irish Republic'.
MR. DE VALERA:
Article 2 of the Constitution is that all Executive powers shall be vested in the members for the time being of the Cabinet:
<SMALL>
`(b) The Cabinet shall consist of the President who shall also be the Prime Minister and be elected by Dáil Eireann, and six Executive officers, namely,' ---so and so--- `each of whom the President shall nominate and shall have power to dismiss'.
</SMALL>
MR. J. J. WALSH:
The President in this case means the President of the Ministry. I was present---and so was Gavan Duffy---when this matter was discussed, and it was clearly understood in this meeting of the Dáil in January, 1919, that it would be highly undemocratic for the Dáil to elect a President of the Republic. That would be solely and entirely the duty of the Irish people, and for that reason we made it clearly understood that the President simply means President of the Cabinet and that alone.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I am voting against it. I want, at the same time, to register a protest. I am not going to make a speech. We have no power here to elect a President of the Republic. The people of Ireland can elect their President. The point is this: I have no power as a representative man here to say who can be President of the Irish Republic. I am voting against the resolution.
A poll was then taken by Mr. Diarmuid O'Hegarty, Secretary of An Dáil, when the voting was: For the re-election of President de Valera 58 Against 60
The following are the names of those who voted: FOR:
Pól O Geallagáin
Seumas O Lonnáin
Eamon Aidhleart
Brian O hUigín
Seán Mac Suibhne
Seán O Maoláin
Domhnall O Corcora
Seán O Nualláin
Tomás O Fiadhchara
Seumas Mac Gearailt
Dáithí Ceannt
Seosamh O Dochartaigh
S. O Flaithbheartaigh
Bean an Phiarsaigh
Seán O Mathghamhna
Liam O Maoilíosa
Dr. Brian de Cíosóg
Próinsias O Fathaigh
Aibhistín de Stac
Conchubhar O Coileáin
Eamon de Róiste
P. S. O Cathail
Tomás O Donnchú
Art O Conchubhair
Domhnall O Buachalla
E. Childers
Riobárd Bartún
Seoirse Pluingceud
Bean Mhíchíl Uí Cheallacháin
M. P. Colivet
Seán O Ceallaigh
Dr. O Cruadhlaoich
Tomás O Deirg
P. S. Ruthleis
Enrí O Beoláin
Tomás Maguidhir
Seán Mac an t-Saoi
Dr. P. O Fearáin
Seumas O Daimhín
Próinsias Mac Cárthaigh
Seosamh Mac Donnchadha
P. S. O Maoldomhnaigh
P. S. O Broin
Cathal Brugha
Eamon O Deaghaidh
Seumas Mac Roibín
Dr. Seumas O Ríain
Seán Etchingham
Seumas O Dubhghaill
Seán T. O Ceallaigh
Pilib O Seanacháin
Bean an Chleirigh
Constans de Markievicz
Cathal O Murchadha
Máire Nic Shuibhne
Domhnall O Ceallacháin
Dr. Eithne Inglis
An t-Oll. W. F. P. Stockley
AGAINST:
Mícheál O Coileáin
Art O Gríobhtha
Seán Mac Giolla Ríogh
Liam T. Mac Cosgair
Gearóid O Súileabháin
Pádraig O Braonáin
Seán O Lidia
Seán O hAodha
Pádraig O Caoimh
Seán Mac Heil
Seosamh Mac Suibhne
Peadar S. Mac an Bháird
Dr. S. Mac Fhionnlaoigh
P. S. Mac Ualghairg
Próinsias Laighleis
S. Ghabháin Uí Dhubhthaigh
Deasmhumhain Mac Gearailt
Seumas Mac Doirim
Seumas O Duibhir
Pádraic O Máille
Seoirse Mac Niocaill
P. S. O hOgáin
An t-Oll. S. O Faoilleacháin
Piaras Beaslaí
Fionán O Loingsigh
S. O Cruadhlaoich
Criostóir O Broin
Seumas O Dóláin
Aindriú O Láimhín
Tomás Mac Artúir
Dr. Pádraig Mac Artáin
Caoimhghin O hUigínn
Seosamh O Loingsigh
Próinsias Bulfin
Dr. Risteárd O hAodha
Liam O hAodha
Seosamh Mac Aonghusa
Seán Mac Eoin
Lorcán O Roibín
Eamon O Dúgáin
Peadar O hAodha
Seumas O Murchadha
Saerbhreathach Mac Cionaith
Seosamh Mac Ghiolla Bhrighde
Liam Mac Sioghuird
Domhnall O Ruairc
Earnán de Blaghd
Eoin O Dubhthaigh
Alasdar Mac Cába
Seumas de Búrca
Dr. V. de Faoite
Risteárd Mac Fheorais
Seán Mac Gadhra
Mícheál Mac Stáin
Risteard O Maolchatha
Seosamh Mag Craith
Pilib Mac Cosgair
Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh
Seumas Breathnach
Mícheál O hAodha
MR. DE VALERA
when his name was called during the poll, said:
I will not vote.
ALDERMAN LIAM DE ROISTE
[, on being Called to vote, answered:] I refuse to plunge my country into fratricidal strife. [Cries of vote!]
THE SPEAKER:
I declare the resolution lost.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Before another word is spoken I want to say: I want the Deputies here to know, and all Ireland to know, that this vote is not to be taken as against President de Valera [applause]. It is a vote to help the Treaty, and I want to say now that there is scarcely a man I have ever met in my life that I have more love and respect for than President de Valera. I am thoroughly sorry to see him placed in such a position. We want him with us.
MR. DE VALERA rose to speak.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
[who rose amidst cries of `Order!']:Look here, Dev. will not speak until I have spoken [`Order!']. He will not. I voted, not for personalities, but for my country. Dev. has been made a tool of and I am sorry for it.
Mr. DE VALERA:
I want to assure everybody on the other side that it was not a trick. That was my own definite way of doing the right thing for Ireland. I tell you that from my heart. I did it because I felt that it was still the best way to keep that discipline which we had in the past. I did it because, as I said, that I can, in so far as the principal resources of the Republic are concerned---I would conserve them for the Republic. I do not think any side would think that I would take a mean advantage. I regard the Provisional Government as Dublin Castle for the moment---as Castle Government. They will take over the machinery, but we should not scrap our machinery before they take theirs. That was the only reason why I allowed my name to go forward. Now, I think the right thing has been done, that the people who are responsible have done the right thing, and therefore I hope that nobody will talk of fratricidal strife. That is all nonsense. We have got a nation that knows how to conduct itself. As far as I can on this side it will be our policy always. When the Volunteers split in Donnybrook---it was at the time of the rejoicings about the Home Rule Bill. We split and I went out in that Hall in which I had been elected unanimously as Captain. I went out with a small majority and I said `You will want us to get that Home Rule Bill yet. And when you want us we will be there'. I tell you now: you will want us yet.
MR. M. COLLINS:
We want you now.
MR. DE VALERA:
Unfortunately, on the Treaty we cannot co-operate, you acting in this case for the majority---and I suppose for Ireland---have to do certain work. Even to get through that portion of the work you will need us. We will be there with you against any outside enemy at any time [applause]. Meantime you must simply regard us as an auxiliary army with a certain objective, which is the complete independence of Ireland. Every step which we can believe that you are taking to help in that road we will feel it our duty to go behind you, in so long as we are not committing ourselves or our principles in co-operating. You know how hard I was working for peace, and how I was trying to prepare this Dáil, to try it we were able, having gone to the furthest limit we could go. I knew there would be a big minority against it and I would be glad to see the minority. I am against this Treaty on one basis only: that we are signing our names to a promise we cannot keep. It is beyond the nature of men and women and they cannot keep it. Some people talk of trenches and that we had got over other trenches. What is the good of having trenches if you are going to put up barbed wire entanglements to keep you from getting out of them? I would rather try to risk the other trench. The same spirit would have carried us on to the end. I am against you on principle. And I believe that to get the best out of that Treaty you need us in a solid, compact body. We will keep in a solid compact body. We will not interfere with you except when we find that you are going to do something that will definitely injure the Irish nation. And if we have two evils to choose from I hope it will be the lesser of the two, in the best interests of the Irish nation, that we will choose.
MR. MACKEOWN:
That is the first statesmanlike speech I have heard from those against the Treaty [cries of `Order!']. My respect for the President is one hundred and fifty per cent. higher than ever it has been before.
MR. M. COLLINS:
This goes in as an independent motion. I wonder what is its position now? Is it on the Orders of the day?
THE SPEAKER:
It is not on the Orders of the Day.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Does it go on as an independent motion?
THE SPEAKER:
That is the only way in which it could go on. It can only go forward by consent.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
It is a motion of national importance which can be taken by you with the consent of ten Deputies, under Standing Order 5.
MR. DE VALERA:
The Constitution is that there must be a President elected. You will have to elect a President and have a Cabinet or you are going to break up the Constitution. Now I do ask you not to smash up the Republic, not to break up your Constitution. Try to proceed constitutionally.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Naturally, I agree to that thing so long as it is President of the Chamber of Deputies, or anything you like. But I simply put that forward as an amendment to the other resolution, and I put it forward as my best endeavour to avoid that last vote, and I could only suggest what, to me, seems common sense. I do not care whether you call the principal man here President or not. Even if the word `President' in it is inserted there---if that will make my motion a proper motion then that word may be put in. But, obviously, the thing before us is that we must find some kind of machinery for taking the next step. And I suggest that Diarmuid O'Hegarty should summon the Dáil, and as far us I know the additions to the Dáil will be the four members from Trinity College.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
Will they take the oath?
MR. DUGGAN:
They need not, and you need not, take that oath.
MR. M. COLLINS:
That will be summoned according to the Treaty as the Parliament of Southern Ireland, but it will be what I would call Dáil Eireann. If there is any better Irish term for the Assembly let the people who understand Irish call it that. That is the way I look at it. The way I mean is that Mr. Griffith may be asked to form a Committee and take over and carry on. Words and phrases are no hindrance to us no matter how bitter they be. I am not a lover of words and phrases. What I want is---what I have always wanted is---to get the army out of Ireland. And we will have to establish some kind of contact, and it is the difficulties of the situation that I am thinking of. I suppose someone will have to go into Dublin Castle to see what is there. And we have to meet somebody in there to see that, under our financial clauses, I am to receive back the twenty-three thousand pounds they stole from the Irish Republic. Somebody will have to see to that. MacCready had to go to the Mansion House. I do not know whether it was a departure from principle or a derogation of his status. I not know whether he was less Commander-in-Chief there subsequently because we called him MacCready. But you have to face details in a practical way like that, and that is how I have tried to work the whole time. I have seen difficulties. I know it is very easy to say that Michael Collins had breakfast with Lloyd George in Downing Street. But there is this much about it: that Michael Collins did not have breakfast with Lloyd George. It was said in a newspaper here which was noticeably friendly to me when I tried to make them publish something about the way the Black-and-Tans held them up. It is an easy thing to say about a man. We know what it meant when John Redmond had breakfast with Lloyd George. If I had breakfast with Lloyd George I would tell you so. I only want to try and explain the implication of things. Somebody will have to meet them before they depart, and it is not by saying merely what are flippant things for the time being that we can get to handling the practicalities of the situation and the difficulties of it. And I had not in my mind when I proposed that resolution any departure from the rules of procedure here. I only meant it in my own plain way as being some contribution to a difficult situation. If it makes it acceptable that Mr. Griffith act as President of the Assembly and is asked to form a Provisional Executive, then my motion can be put in these words. I only want to try to be of help. I had not in my mind that I was departing from any rule of dignity or procedure.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
Would I be allowed to ask a question? In the event of this body being set up here to-day will they assume the obligations contracted in the name of the Republic, and honour the pledges given in the Republic's namer when we were instructed to raise money in the name of the Republic?
MR. M. COLLINS:
Anyway, I will do my best to see---and if it is not done I will regard the Treaty as being broken---I will do my best to see that every person who subscribed one pound to the Loan is repaid on the terms on which that money was subscribed.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
In view of the resolution of this House in August last that the money raised would be returned by the Irish nation, and that we proposed to raise some more money, I had no personal reason in asking the question but as being one of the men who raised the money.
MR. R. MULCAHY:
I second the resolution that Mr. Griffith be elected President, and that he be asked to appoint a Provisional Executive.
MR. DE VALERA:
I am anxious about one thing; and we have a definite duty to preserve the Republic until the Irish people disestablish it. It must be held to be in existence until then, and this being a Sovereign Assembly I would like to know whether those taking over the responsibility intend to preserve the Republic until the Irish people disestablish it.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Dáil Eireann, as the President said---I must still and always call him President---can only be disestablished by the will of the Irish people. What I propose to do is this---when we adopt the form of Provisional Government---is to arrange for a plebiscite of the Irish people or a General election on this question as to whether they will have a Free State or a Republic.
MR. DE VALERA:
About the funds---will you use the funds of the Republic directly in connection with your functions for the Free State? There is a big question involved. You do not see my object. There have been funds subscribed for the Republic. They are bound---we are really in honour bound to use these only for the purpose of the Republic and to maintain Irish independence. Now, why I dislike these proceedings is: you are, in fact, disestablishing the Republic and you are taking over---Provisional Government---the resources of the Republic, and this is rather a serious matter that you should take all these responsibilities. We want to know here in this House which is the Government of the Republic and nothing else, what is to be done with the army and with the resources?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I take it that any money that is spent by this House must be submitted to this House and the sanction of this House obtained; and that no money can be spent without the sanction of the House. The estimates have to be submitted and sanctioned and approved. If the House does not agree with any proposal that is brought forward it can reject that proposal. The House is sovereign.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Now to deal practically with that point in that question--- that seems to me to be a very small difficulty, and yet it is illustrative of the whole thing. Now, what proposal would anybody have to make about that? The suggestion I would make would be one that would be offered fairly to the other side. But that is one of the difficulties I foresaw when I mentioned the other day that I wanted a Committee of the two sides. That suggestion was not reciprocated. It can be reciprocated now, when we have been put to the difficulty of fighting them twice instead of once. There are Trustees of Dáil Eireann, and as they (the other side) will not meet us at all, the suggestion I would make is this: that those funds should remain on in trust.
MR. DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. COLLINS:
Our accounts are practically ready up to the thirty-first December because, though I have been here every day, and although I was in London for several days, everything in the department has been up to date; and, as a matter of fact, the people who have been paid a weekly salary at the present time---well, that is all illegal, because this House has not passed the estimates for the first part of the year 1922. And, in reality, every member of Dáil Staff should be going without his salary at the present moment because they were so very constitutional about things. I hope nobody will tell me or suggest that I have done wrong in allowing payment to go on to these people. You know, constitutionally, you could tell me I was wrong, but in fairness you could not tell me I was wrong. That is the only suggestion I have to make: that these funds should remain on in trust. There has not been a penny that was subscribed used for the purpose of our side since this thing started. Perhaps a sheet of notepaper was used, but I have done my utmost to keep the thing absolutely separate. Well, now, I will let others say whether they have been so very scrupulous in that thing. But the funds are in the hands of Trustees. It would be interesting to many people to know how these funds were safeguarded. If necessary, if I am told, I will publish everything completely---I would prefer to publish everything completely---and show the difficulties, and the vast difficulties, that we had been up against in the matter of these funds.
MR. DE VALERA:
You may be up against them again.
MR. M. COLLINS:
How can we come to an agreement unless the other side meet us in this way, unless we do arrange it here? The accounts for the last half-year are practically ready. This is not a small job. They will be ready in a few days. the details of working out the balance sheets and so on will take a little time. What I suggest is that those accounts should be published. Then everybody will know exactly what we have on hands, and it can be there as a public record. And, at the same time, that we should make some agreed statement and some arrangement with the Trustees or the House whereby the Trustees would go on keeping these monies on trust on the basis on which the funds were subscribed. If we go on as a Free State my proposal with regard to whoever would be Minister of Finance would be, notwithstanding that---that we try to redeem the old loan, and notwithstanding that, and as an indication of goodwill, and as an indication of competence, that we should hand that money back in America and in Ireland. Now, here is a point: all the lists on which I have written the names of subscribers to the loan were seized by Dublin Castle. I hope nobody will tell us when we get these back that I used influence with Lloyd George. Now, the alternative to getting them back is to put a public notice in the Press asking subscribers to send up their receipts. And I happen to know that a good many of those were destroyed. And if anybody writes up a letter and says he subscribed ten pounds we will keep those letters. We know the total and if they come to more than the total we will be very doubtful about the genuineness of some letters. I am only wanting to point out that, even in a simple thing like that, we must come to an agreement here as to what we are going to do. And if anybody has a better suggestion to make I will do my best to work out details of the suggestion.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Is that motion before the House---that Mr. Griffith be asked to form an Executive?
THE SPEAKER:
The motion is: that Mr. Arthur Griffith be asked to form an Executive.
MISS MACSWINEY
Before that motion is put I would like to make one or two suggestions. This is the Parliament of the Republic of Ireland. Is Mr. Griffith going to form an Executive to carry on the Republic of Ireland or to form an Executive which will be the Provisional Government, or what is he going to do? I would ask him what he wants an Executive for? Why not go now and call the members elected to sit in the Parliament of Southern Ireland and form his Provisional Government from that. He cannot form it from this Assembly. I think we must be very clear. The President has said that there can be no co-operation between the Republican element in this Dáil and those who have surrendered the Republic; and there must be no suggestion or innuendoes of nice meetings or things of that kind. I do not want to say an unnecessary harsh word, but I must be quite clear on this. Before there is any Executive formed from this House it must be understood that that Executive must be Republican. Others must not be allowed to say that they set up their Provisional Government with the sanction of Dáil Eireann, while the Republican members sat in the House. Let us be clear about that. Well, there is an Executive being set up which is not a Republican Executive. I maintain that we cannot sit here if Mr. Griffith wants to form an Executive which will empower him to call a meeting of members elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland---but he does not need an Executive for that. He has not told us who is to call that Executive. He has suggested that Diarmuid O'Hegarty should call a meeting of Dáil Eireann. But his power comes from Lloyd George and not from Dáil Eireann. Let us make no mistake about it now that this meeting cannot sanction Mr. Griffith to form an Executive which will, in turn, sanction him or somebody else to call a meeting of the people elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland to set up a Provisional Government and an Executive---he wants to call it a Republican Executive. If he says it is, then very well. It is the man whom the Executive sanctions who may call the Provisional Government. If that is so I maintain that not a single Republican member can sit here while he forms his Executive. This is a double vote against Ireland's independence. They voted away Ireland's independence as far as it was in their power on Saturday night, and they have reiterated that vote to-night because they must have known that the President was not acting on personalities but that he was acting for the preservation of this nation and its independence, even against the trickery of Lloyd George. Evidently he trusts Lloyd George more than he trusts the Republican minority of this House. Let us be quite clear where we stand now. I ask Mr. Griffith to note it and to answer it before this vote is taken. Will he give a guarantee to the Republicans here that he will not use that Executive to set up the Provisional Government? He does not need it. He is only doing it to get nominal sanction from Dáil Eireann which it is not in the power of Dáil Eireann to give him. He can go out to-night and set up his Provisional Government regardless of Dáil Eireann. Now, I want to know from Mr. Griffith if, in the event of his getting this Executive, he wants to call it Dáil Eireann? Dáil Eireann is the Republican Government of Ireland and Mr. Griffith cannot use it for his Government. Mr. Collins told us he is going to invite the Trinity College members. Mr. Griffith said: `We brought back Saorstát na hEireann and we brought back the flag'. I maintain here that the Free State which he has brought back must not use the flag of the Irish Republic. And that is the flag of the Irish Republic, intimately connected with the Republic, not with Dominion Government, and the people of Ireland will not tolerate it being used as such. Now, the other side have stated they do not want fratricidal war. Now let me tell them what would happen if they used that flag. Every honest Republican would resent any act of the Free State to use that flag as they would resent the Black-and-Tans using it, because it is not the flag of a Dominion State. It is the flag of the Irish Republic and must be kept so. And I maintain they have no power to use that flag until they have got the sanction of the Irish people to do what they are doing; and if they get that those of us who are Republicans still will use our flag with a black band until the Dominion status is changed into a Republic. We must be clear on that. The money question is quite clearly one on which we should have arrangements. That money was subscribed in America for the Republic and not for a Free State. It cannot be used for the Free State, and that money that has been used must be paid back by the Irish nation. Meantime we must not be in any way misled, or in any way fooled into taking any step which is inconsistent with our stand to take; and therefore we most have a definite, and a very definite, pledge from Mr. Griffith, before we who sit in this House as a minority even will be convinced that he will not use his Executive to call into being the Provisional Government of the Free State. If, pending the completion of this Treaty, he is willing to sit here in Dáil Eireann as a Republican Executive, and to keep all Ireland going without any shilly-shallying about it, we will sit here, too. But he must give a definite undertaking to this House that he will not use that Executive power to call the meeting of the Southern Parliament of Ireland, but stand by the Republic. Dáil Eireann is not mentioned from beginning to end in this Treaty. Article 17 mentions how the Provisional Government is to be set up. I again ask all those who are staunch Republicans to stand with us, and those who consider gravely where this issue is leading. Again I am making no apology for stressing it, for I know perfectly well that many things have been said, and many things tried, in order to cloud the issue in our minds. Mr. Michael Collins sat there and talked about Dáil Eireann. If anybody could give him a better word to use he will use it. It is very nice playing to the gallery. Again, will Mr. Griffith give us an undertaking that he will not use the power of the Executive to give him a majority of this House to form a Provisional Government, or to start that Provisional Government in any way whatever---that whatever machinery was arranged with Lloyd George he will use that absolutely with a clean-cut line between the Provisional Government's doings and Dáil Eireann's doings? That that Executive which he picks, having a majority in this House, will not be used directly or indirectly to bolster up deeds of this Provisional Government, or to work out the machinery of the Provisional Government. If he gives us that undertaking, then, as far as Dáil Eireann is concerned, and for the preservation of safety, we can sit here. But if he, by virtue of a majority he has in this House, is going to use that Executive authority to get behind the Provisional Government we part here and now. The money you can settle as you like, provided you remember that money was subscribed for a Republic and not for a Free State; and if it is necessary that you should interview one or two members on this side informally, I suppose the President will know exactly how far that meeting is necessary and we can have perfect confidence in him. But in a question of voting we must have a straight answer before we vote. And the Free State must understand that Dáil Eireann no longer holds a Republican minority if Dáil Eireann, by virtue of a paltry majority, is to be subverted to stand behind the Free State. I hope every Republican in this Dáil agrees with me. And I have made my position clear, and I will not, without a definite guarantee from Mr. Griffith that he is not going to play tricks with Dáil Eireann, that he is not going to take the Parliament of the Dáil elected for the Republic, and use that to bolster up the Provisional Government--- say what he likes---he has not got the sanction of the Irish people. here are many questions that I should like to ask Mr. Griffith. But that is the main one. Will he give us that guarantee before we sit here and vote on this motion?
MR. DAVID CEANNT:
Some of the people thought I was only rainbow chasing when speaking against the Treaty. I want to make it plain here and now that this vote will be for the President of Dáil Eireann---that Mr. Griffith is going to be proposed as President of the Republic of Ireland, and that he will get power to carry on the Republican Government of Ireland. I want it to go forth from this House that any time he will make use of the machinery of the Republican Government and substitute it for the Provisional Government, then we will walk out in a body. Also I want to make it clear that an arrangement will be come to immediately as regards the money subscribed, and that not a three-penny bit of that will be used to bring this other Government into existence---that is, of the funds. These funds were subscribed for the Republic. Lloyd George will be able to supply plenty of funds for the Free Staters. Another question is that as regards the flag. That flag is Republican. That flag is sacred to me and to my family, and to every member who sacrificed anything in this glorious fight for the Republic. And any attempt that will be made to use that flag by the enemy---as far as I can go I will preserve that flag to the best of my ability, even to the cost of my life. I hope that Mr. Griffith will make it clear what flag he is to use in the Free State, because he will never use the Republican flag except over the dead bodies of some of us.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
I rise to put publicly some questions of which Mr. Griffith received notice this morning:
Whether he has any further communication, direct or indirect from the British Government in connection with the Treaty?
Whether he has been informed by them what kind of legislation they propose to pass in the British Parliament in order to carry into effect the Articles of Agreement?
Who should summon the members of the Southern Parliament under Clause 17 of the Treaty and when? Would they continue in session?
Whether the proposed Provisional Government will be elected by and from these members?
Whether the Provisional Government will act in conjunction with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and will it function under the statutory powers conferred by the Partition Act?
What are the powers referred to in Clause 17 which will be transferred from the British Government to the Provisional Government?
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
I rise to protest with all the weight and force of my being against any attempt being made to use the name of Dáil, which is the Government of the Irish Republic, and its machinery to set up a Provisional Government, and to establish the Free State in accordance with a British Act of Parliament. It is no time, perhaps, for angry words. But I do think that I would be untrue to what I believe if I did not rise at this juncture to make this protest. This Free State derives no authority from the Dáil. It derives authority solely and absolutely from the British Government. And the vote that was taken on Saturday and the vote that was taken to-day---so far as those members who voted for the Treaty, and so far as those members who voted against the President of the Irish Republic---was, I am convinced, a vote for the disestablishment of the Irish Republic as far as they could make it. There is no use of our mincing words, or pretending that we are going to stick to the Republic while at the same time, we are undermining the Republic. Now if this Free State is to be established let it be established in accordance with whatever terms Mr. Griffith made with Mr. Lloyd George, and do not use the Government of the Irish Republic as the machinery for doing so. I do not want to say any more. I only wish, in view of this possibility, to voice my last protest against this crowning act of iniquity against the Irish people.
MR. MACENTEE:
Before the motion is put I would ask the members to think very carefully whether they need vote upon it, and whether they need set up an Executive authority in this House---a Government of which the head is going to be, ultimately, the head of the Free State. Now, I think that has been one of the crying tragedies of Irish politics---that whenever an Irishman has got in touch with an Englishman, and has bound himself to do something, he is always prepared to be better than his word. I think there is nothing in the Articles of Agreement laid before us which would make it imperative upon the Irish signatories to these Articles to secure control of the resources of the Republic. And it is to secure control of the resources of the Republic that the motion which we are now considering has been introduced. It does not say that those who are to form this Provisional Government are not to be, at the same time, the Government of Dáil Eireann. It does not say it, and therefore we should not permit it to be done. It only says that a meeting shall be called of those who have been elected to the Parliament of Southern Ireland, and that includes, remember, the four members elected for Dublin University who would not take as we have done, the oath to the Irish Republic. Now, I suggest that by the letter of their bond the signatories to the Articles of Agreement might leave this Assembly, might take with them the majority which they have secured in it and somewhere outside the Assembly of the Irish Republic, summon their supporters and those other members for Southern Ireland who did not sit here--- they may have him selected there from the Provisional Government. I suggest that that is a step which would be best in the interests of the nation. Because, so long as they take over the resources of the Irish Republic, they will be told that they are bound to use those resources in order to establish the Irish Free State. The Minister for Finance stated that he was prepared, if he could, to refund to those who subscribed to the Loan of the Irish Republic the monies which they had subscribed. I tell him if he takes this step to-day to secure control of the resources of the Irish Republic, and then goes forward and as the Government of the Irish Republic, sets up the Government of the Irish Free State, Lloyd George will tell him he is bound in honour not to refund those monies.
MR. M. COLLINS:
But then, suppose I say to him I do not take my opinions from Mr. Lloyd George. I am Michael Collins.
MR. MACENTEE:
You would have to deal with your Prime Minister, who said that he would not dishonour his signature and become immortalised in history. I do not want to make any party capital out of this. I only ask you not to do anything you are not bound to do. A way out can be found if you want to find it. Instead of electing a man as President of this Assembly who is bound by his honour and by his signature---he has told you what his signature means to him---instead of electing him now as your Chief Executive elect some other member of this Assembly if you will, who will hold the resources of the Republic in trust for the Republic. That is the way out. He need not use them for the moment---he may give you every chance of setting up your Free State. But, at any rate, you yourselves will not be stultifying yourselves later. If England betrays you you can go back then and use your resources to make her honour a bond which she in history has so often dishonoured before. We are now in the position of Grattan and Flood. If Grattan had not permitted the Volunteers to be disbanded the Act of Union would never have been passed. Now, you cannot---this Government of the Irish Free State cannot---control the army of the Irish Republic. I believe that you will secure for the President or for the Chief Executive that I propose you should elect---believe that you can secure for him for the interim period between now and the time that you come to submit the Irish Free State as an agreed and detailed proposition, and as an actual fact, and not as a general statement of Articles of Agreement, not as a scrap of paper to be dishonoured---I believe that between now and that time you can secure a neutral President of this Assembly to pledge himself solemnly that he can act; that the army of the Republic will preserve towards you, at any rate, an attitude of friendly neutrality; if you are afraid that we should use that army to subvert your Government or that---at any rate you may have your fears. If it should happen that after a General </SMALL>Election in England you should be told as the Catholic Bishops who supported the Union were told, that Mr. Pitt was no longer in office---therefore, in order that you yourselves should have something solid to stand upon, I would suggest that you try and follow the way I am putting before you. Do not elect Mr. Griffith whatever other man you elect; do not select Mr. Griffith to be head of this Assembly; do not elect those who are bound by their signatures. It does not matter to us whom we will have if we cannot have a Republic. But it matters a great deal to the nation that the man who is President should not be one who has signed that Treaty in London.
DR. FERRAN:
To whom will the Provisional Government be responsible?
MR. M. COLLINS:
To the Irish people.
MR. MILROY:
What I would like to say is to express a regret that some of our members feel it necessary to assume an attitude of bitterness and hostility to others. Now, the note that President de Valera had struck after the result of the vote, was the guiding note to this assembly. I think if we had to part we would part as good friends, believing that each side was thinking well for Ireland. I would ask certain Deputies here who have said bitter and cutting things to try and let that drop and to realise that whether they give us credit or not for sincerity---to realise that we are as sincere as it is possible for us to be; that we acted in what we considered the best interests of Ireland. We feel we have not, in any sense, betrayed a single scrap of Irish interests or Irish honour, and we believe, in taking the vote taken today, we did it, not with the intention of defeating their ideals, but to prevent the resources of this nation from being used to wreck the Treaty which the Dáil approved of last Saturday night.
MR. DE VALERA:
We feel strongly the other way, and that is the way people in the country look at it. It is nearly impossible to get a way out; absolutely impossible, because the Chief Executive at the other side will not be able to satisfy anybody. People will be all the time suspicious that the resources of the Republic will be used to undermine the Republic. The situation they have created is a very awkward one.
MR. MILROY:
Can we not go forward in the future and drop this attitude of embittered hostility towards each other?
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
Is the motion before the House: `That this assembly asks Mr. Griffith to form a Provisional Executive?'
THE SPEAKER:
Yes.
MR. R. MULCAHY:
I second that motion.
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
I understand that Mr. Collins suggested something else be added to that. Because I believe that is as ultra vires as the discussion you permitted at the opening of the Session for half a day.
MR. DE VALERA:
I submit that you are working on very dangerous grounds. I submit that if you are going to subvert the Constitution you are going to make a situation that will make it impossible for the Republican members to remain in. They will not remain there any longer or by their presence give it any sanction. You must elect a Republican President of this assembly, and you must elect him as Chief Executive for this State---otherwise the Parliament no longer exists as such.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Am I to take it that the majority in this assembly has no rights?
MISS MACSWINEY:
Will you answer the questions we asked you?
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
The majority in this assembly must abide by the Constitution until it is altered.
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
Article 18 of the Treaty determines the procedure in this matter. Here it is:
<SMALL>
this instrument shall be submitted forthwith by His Majesty's Government for the approval of Parliament, and by the Irish signatories to a meeting summoned for the purpose of the members elected to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and, if approved, shall be ratified by the necessary legislation.
</SMALL>
Now, I submit that this Session of Dáil Eireann was summoned a fortnight ago to discuss the ratification of the Treaty. That you ruled the ratification of the Treaty out of order, and it was altered here without the sanction of this House and is entirely irregular. `Approval of the Treaty!' I submit that motion before you now is ultra vires as much as the other motion as the only legitimate step is to abide by Clause 18 and to go strictly in accordance with it. Those members who sit for constituencies in Southern Ireland include the four members of Trinity College, and those cannot attend a meeting of Dáil Eireann until they take an oath of allegiance as we have done. And I accordingly would suggest to you that we should adjourn and that you and the leaders on the other side should see how you can put our proceedings in order.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Are we discussing particular clauses of the Treaty? lf we are, let us discuss them. I would like to go into discussion on Document 2. But if we are discussing particular clauses in the Treaty it seems to me we cannot say how the British will do a particular thing until we have asked them. I cannot tell until we ask them. And if we have to do it publicly through you we will ask them. The point is, if we are discussing the clauses of the Treaty---all right, then,---we can discuss them. If my motion is not in order, rule it out of order. What I suggest is this: that we should adjourn this discussion as leading to nowhere. And the tactics on the other side are obstructionist tactics.
THE SPEAKER:
The proceedings today from the beginning were conducted by consent. There was no notice given of any motion up to now. It is by consent of the Assembly that these motions that came before the Assembly were taken. They did not fulfil the orders of the Assembly. A day's notice should be handed in. The same applies to the motion in my hands now.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS:
In that case I will write it out fully. I will put it in as a notice of motion, and let us adjourn or do anything at all.
MR. DE VALERA:
This is a very difficult position for the other side.
MR. M. COLLINS:
And you are making it more difficult. Well, do as you like.
MR. DE VALERA:
If you take over the Presidency of the Republic and go on with the Treaty you are creating a great deal of difficulty in that; and you are creating a great deal of suspicion in the minds of the people. So I suggest that we should adjourn.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I thought so---at last the cat is out of the bag. Now, this consideration for our side comes rather curiously. All right. We do not want to adjourn if you do not. I know we want to consult amongst ourselves, because the difficulties are great. But let us adjourn.
MR. DE VALERA:
I am quite prepared to go on.
MR. SEAN MACSWINEY:
We do not understand it. I do not know whether the Chairman of the Delegation is prepared to answer those questions.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
To put the matter in order, I move the adjournment. I would like to know whether I am in authority in my office. Do I give up my department until the Minister for Local Government is elected?
MR. DE VALERA:
The Republic for the moment is without a head.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I presume I am acting in authority.
MR. DE VALERA:
If you want to keep to the Constitution you have got to elect the Chief Executive who, by his office, is head of the State. If you elect the head of the Republic you have to set up your Executive officers and go ahead.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I want to know where I am. I do not want to take on any powers I have not got.
MR. DE VALERA:
You have got none now.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Then I formally move the adjournment. I understand that this building is going to be used to-morrow for University purposes. If so, you want to make some arrangements.
THE SPEAKER:
Have you any official communication to that effect?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Somebody told me that the lectures were starting to-morrow.
THE SPEAKER:
Do not mind what somebody told you [laughter].
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
I want to make one observation of a personal nature. I have tried to conduct myself as well as I could. The suggestion has been made from the other side that my putting you that question was meant to embarrass the other side. I put you a question as to whether that motion was in order, and you replied it was not. That is a sufficient vindication for me. I repudiate that suggestion.
MR. M. COLLINS:
If you, Mr. Speaker, will tell me what I have to do---if I have to give in a notice of motion for to-morrow---I will do it.
THE SPEAKER:
Yes. Any business that is not taken up with the consent of the House can only be discussed on notice.
MR. MACCABE:
I second the motion for adjournment.
The House adjourned at 6.45 p.m., to 11 o'clock on Tuesday, 10th January.
Following the adjournment, the Anti-Treaty members met in a private room in the University. Kathleen Clarke recalls the events ‘ de Valera was in the chair, and said that he wished to resign; he would go back to his reaching. He was prepared to be the leader of the Irish people, but did not wish to be the leader of a party. I said that was all bunkum. He was never the leader of the Irish people, he was leader of the Republican section of the Irish people and he was still in that position. He did not resign. Perhaps I gave him the line he was seeking, and if I could have seen into the future I would have let him go back to his teaching.’
Kathleen Clarke. ‘Revoloutionary Woman’ O’Brien Press 1991. P194
10
An administration was formed led by Griffith. De Valera and the Anti-Treaty Group left the Dail in protest, along with him went Erskine Childers, Austin Stack, Cathal Brugha and Robert Barton. Collins remained as head of the IRB along with the IRA Chief of Staff, Richard Mulcahy, Chief of Organisation; Diarmuid O’Hegarty and the Adjutant General; Gearoid O’Sullivan. Kevin O’Higgins became Minister for Economic Affairs.
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION, Tuesday, January 10th, 1922
THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) took the Chair at 11.30 a.m., and said:
THE SPEAKER
A telegram has been received from Cardinal Gasparri, Papal Secretary of State to the Vatican. My knowledge of Italian does not enable me to read it. The English translation of the telegram is: <SMALL>
The Holy Father rejoices with the Irish people because of the understanding or agreement, and prays that the Lord will send His blessing on the noble chosen people which has passed through such a long sorrow, ever faithful to the Catholic Church.---Cardinal Gasparri.</SMALL>
The telegram is addressed to the President, Dáil Eireann, Mansion House, Dublin. I suppose when the Dáil makes its arrangements for carrying on, a reply will be sent in due course. I have received the following communication:
<SMALL>To Professor Mac Neill, Speaker, Dáil Eireann. Monday, January 9th, 1922.
I am directed by the National Executive of the Irish Labour Party and Trades Union Congress, the national exponents of the will of the organised workers of Ireland now in session, to request that the assembly will receive and hear a deputation on matters of extreme urgency and gravity affecting the lives of the people whom they represent. The desire of the delegation is to impress on An Dáil the political and economic situation in the country; the great problems of unemployment; reversion to grass of hundreds of thousands of acres of land in the present year; the imminence of a vast industrial upheaval due to attempts to degrade the standard of life of the people; and to call attention to the necessity for the functioning of a stable authority which will exercise power and authority in these urgent matters.
I am, faithfully yours, Thomas Johnson, Secretary.</SMALL>
I understand the delegation is waiting to be received. A delegation can only be received here if it be the will of the Dáil, and that would require a motion duly moved and seconded. It is also understood that when a delegation is received here there is no discussion in the presence of the delegation. Its statement is simply received.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I beg to move that we receive this delegation of Labour. I need hardly point out to the House the very important part that the Labour Movement of this country has played in the affairs of the last four or five years.
MR. DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. WALSH:
It will be agreed by everybody here that in every critical stage of our history a great and potent weapon which was always at our disposal, was to be found in the body to whom we are giving permission to address this House to-day. It is well, from many points of view, that the country should know the views of Labour from the economic standpoint, and it is also well that we should learn whatever there is to be learned from the difficulties and drawbacks under which Labour is suffering at the moment.
MR. S. T. O'KELLY:
I beg to second that the Labour delegation be received.
THE SPEAKER:
I am told that the delegation is not ready. It did not expect to be received so promptly, and it asks to be received after the mid-day adjournment.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Mr. Speaker, I ask your permission to move motion number three on the Agenda, as it is a matter of the greatest and most urgent national importance.
THE SPEAKER:
Item number three on the Agenda is a motion by Mr. Michael Collins `that Mr. Arthur Griffith be appointed President of Dáil Eireann'. I take it that the first thing that it is necessary for us to do is to make arrangements for the administration of the country.
MR. DE VALERA:
Is the motion in order?
THE SPEAKER:
I think there is no question that the motion is in order. The administration of the country is the first of all concerns.
MR. M. COLLINS:
The reason that I do this is that the Irish nation at the present moment is a ship without a captain, and a ship, we all know, cannot get on without a captain. I want to move this motion so that we may have some captain for the ship. I saw a thing happening down at home years ago that I can illustrate my remarks with, I think, in an apt way. I remember one day passing along the road and I saw two horses standing in a field with a plough behind them, and there was no ploughman. I watched that thing for about two hours, and the ploughman was still absent. The horses that were able to plough were idle---there was no ploughman between the handles. There was no work done. Now, a bad ploughman is better than no ploughman, and the Irish nation is watching us at the present moment; in the same way as I watched that scene they are watching us. They see the horses idle, the plough idle; they see that we are doing nothing at all; they see that we are not taking action to put any sort of ploughman between the handles. I knew where the ploughman was. He was in some place wasting his time. We are very much before the Irish nation at the present moment in the position of that ploughman. Some people know where he was all right. We must form some kind of a staple Government to stop the position of anarchy that we are allowing the country to drift into. Here is a thing that is typical of what is happening. Everybody knows---no one better than the men from the South of Ireland---that I hold no brief for the Cork Examiner; but I have received this letter and it is typical of what will happen in the country if we allow the present state of affairs to continue. The writer of the letter---George Crosbie---is no friend of mine [Deputies:`Nor ours']. The letter is:
<SMALL>
Knowing as I do the intense strain you must be under for some time past, I am loth to trouble you, but I feel it is incumbent on us to explain how we are situated. At two o'clock this morning the copy of a proclamation which appears in to-day's paper was brought into us, and we were ordered to insert it. You will understand that things may appear in the Examiner published by us under duress.
</SMALL>
Of course, if the Examiner had any pluck it would not publish anything under duress. At the same time I call those methods Black-and-Tan methods, and I am against Black-and-Tan methods, no matter where they appear. If this motion is accepted I can only suggest that the position would then be in our hands to make the best we can of it, and to report to some future meeting of the Dáil. The position of drift is the worst of all positions, and we have said a good deal about our being here, talking. I feel that members know I adopted that attitude at meetings often before. They know I never believed it was at meetings work was done, because while you are at meetings you cannot do any work. We are here talking day after day, and we are getting no results of any kind. Any kind of action is better than no action. Supposing, for instance, that Mr. Griffith is beaten for this---what position are we in then? We are in the position of not being on one side or the other. It will simply be a position that will make us more and more laughable. In my estimation we have given the North East of Ireland every excuse for not coming in. They would say: `Who would go into a body like that, with the methods they employ, and the uselessness of their discussions?' We are also giving the English an opportunity for remaining here. I can only see it in this way. I will use the word `obstruction'. The tactics are obstructionist tactics. It is all very well to say ‘We will not interfere with you'. I have heard a thing this morning that shows that the interference has already started. Why should not the departments of Dáil Eireann function? Why should not the Labour Department, for instance, go on with arbitrations? Why should there be an attempt by anyone to stop its officials from going on with arbitrations which would help the country and prevent it from getting into a chaotic state? It does not matter who is at the head of that department, so long as it is officiating for the Irish nation. The opposition side want to retain all the machinery. They want to say to England: `We are still unfriendly,' and then they want to turn round to us at a later stage and say: `I told you so'. Without the co-operation of the departments---whatever the cooperation of individuals may do---this thing cannot be a success, and on the people who will prevent this begin made a success lies the responsibility, and not on us. That is what I want to say before Ireland. It is on the people who will prevent it, and on the people who are employing these tactics, the responsibility rests and the cost of failure rests---if there is failure. That is what I want to say here publicly now. The only way to get rid of it is to accept things in the spirit of good-will. Does anybody think if England does not fulfil her promises I will be less against her than ever I was? Does anybody really believe that if England does not fulfil her promises any one of us will be less against her? I mentioned yesterday the case of the signed cheque. The answer was that maybe the funds were not there to meet it. You can test whether the funds are there or not by the signed cheque, but you cannot test it by an unsigned cheque.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
You have no right to take a cheque for a farthing in the pound in any case.
MR. M. COLLINS:
You can test whether the funds are there by the signed cheque but not by the unsigned cheque. It is only by passing this motion we will show that we are capable of doing something constructive, and that we will show that we are capable of running the affairs of the nation. It is only by passing this motion we have any sort of constitutional authority here. This is a body of the representatives of Ireland. I regard this body as being the Sovereign Assembly of the Irish nation, and we are responsible to the people who sent us here. The fact that the sovereign capacity of this Assembly should be questioned by anybody shows that we ourselves do not regard ourselves as being what we are. I always regarded the Dáil as being the Sovereign Assembly of Ireland. I regard it as being the Sovereign Assembly of Ireland still, and it does not make it less sovereign because Lloyd George says it is not. It is not what Lloyd George says. It is what the Irish people say. It is not what the English Parliament says. It is what we say. The English papers called us a murder gang. The Irish people did not believe we were a murder gang. If the English Parliament called this Assembly illegal I did not regard it as being illegal. I do not regard it now as being illegal. I do not take my opinions from the English side. I take them from the Irish side. It is in that spirit that we can make this Treaty a success, and that we can make the Irish nation a success. It is only in that spirit. It is not by words and formulas; it is by heart and soul. We must see by now that we have talked long enough, without doing anything constructive; and this motion will enable us to do something constructive. The difficulties we may be faced with cannot be overstated. Any young government---I can see the difficulties that come before it. I can see the frightful difficulties. Every new government has these difficulties to go through. Some of the governments that have been started in Europe found their difficulties enormous. You have only to point to any one of these new governments that have been formed to see that up to the present moment it is an unstable government. My belief about the thing is this: that whether we like it or whether we do not, the world is entering on a different era. My belief during the war was: that the plain people of France and the plain people of Germany knew some better way of adjusting their difficulties than by killing each other. That is my belief still. And about the people of England, my belief is, that unless we show that we do not mean to be hostile, the people of England are a great deal more kingly than the King. I know very well that the people of England had very little regard for the people of Ireland, and that when you lived among them you had to be defending yourself constantly from insults. Every Irishman here who has lived amongst them knows very well that the plain people of England are much more objectionable towards us than the upper classes. Every man who has lived amongst them knows that they are always making jokes about Paddy and the pig, and that sort of thing. Every man who has lived amongst them appreciates that it is harder to get on with them than with those of the English people who understand us better. If we show that we are going to operate from the outset in a spirit of hostility, that will give the English their excuse for remaining here. If we show, as we have been showing as best we can that we are unable to carry on, England will say, and say with a certain amount of truth: `I am afraid we will have to remain in Ireland to preserve law and order'. That is what the Americans say when they go to preserve law and order in Mexico. I do not know whether there is not a certain amount of reason for the Americans going to Mexico to preserve law and order [`question']. I suggest that we should get some kind of agreement on the majority side; anyway we should get some kind of agreement that we would be allowed to go on with the work without prevention, and that this motion can be passed, if not unanimously, at least without dissent. I do not want to commit the other side to approval of this motion. I appeal to them for the sake of Ireland to let this motion go through, and give Ireland a chance [applause].
COMMANDANT EOIN O'DUFFY:
I rise to second the motion moved by Mr. Collins. I have only one or two words to say. In the first place, I feel very much that our President thought it well to place his resignation in our hands. Now that the Dáil has approved of the Treaty it is but right that the majority should choose their captain, and we have chosen Mr. Griffith. It is not necessary, at all, for me to emphasise the claims that Mr. Griffith has in the presence of this Assembly. The members of this House know him as well as I do. All I want to do is to say with Mr. Collins: now that the Treaty is approved of we should get on with the work.
MR. CEANNT:
It is quite evident now to every member of this Dáil, and to people outside, that the one ambition of those who are supporting the Treaty was to get rid of the President of the Republic, and to substitute another Minister for him. The Minister of Finance has referred to a letter from the Cork Examiner stating certain things had to be printed in the Examiner last night or this morning. That shows how the feeling in the South of Ireland is, because of the Examiner misrepresenting the views of the people. It is now we are beginning to hear the voice of the people. These are the people who saw their city devastated by the Black-and-Tans, who saw the tragedy of Kerry Pike, who saw the whole County of Cork left in ruins. They are beginning to have their voice heard now. I remind the Minister of Finance that he was not so scrupulous going into an office here not many years ago, when we had a hostile Press; and I would remind him also that not long ago the Examiner and the Crosbies were recruiting sergeants for the British Empire. They see now that they cannot run against the wishes of the people.
MR. COLLINS:
I never did such a thing. I was never responsible for sending men on a job of that kind, or any other disgraceful thing.
MR. CEANNT:
It was done officially. Some member of the Headquarters Staff or the Dáil was responsible for it. It was done officially.
MR. COLLINS:
I was not responsible for anything disgraceful.
MR. CEANNT:
I may say, a Chinn Chomhairle, officially or unofficially it was done, but what was done in Cork was not officially done by the members of the minority here, but it expresses the will of the people in Cork. It shows how they are feeling.
MR. MACENTEE:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I rise simply to state that I, for one, cannot support the election of Mr. Griffith as President of the Dáil. In doing that I want to make it clear that we on this side do not question the right of the majority of this House to select their leader, but we do question, very, very strongly, the wisdom of selecting as their leader the man who was bound by his signature to bring down the Irish Republic. No one would question the urgency of selecting or electing a Chief Executive Officer now, but the urgency of the matter is no valid reason why such a step should be taken without very great and very grave consideration. We all know the ship wants a captain---we all know the horses want a ploughman---but we should take care not to select as captain of the ship the man who is bound by his signature to wreck it. We should take care that the ploughman we are going to choose is not the one who is bound to root up the Irish Republic. I say we all know, whatever else we may do, we ought not to do that, because it is unnecessary that we should do it. It is not essential, in order that the English may honour the agreement which they have signed, the agreement which they have entered into with the delegation, that the Government of the Dáil should be the Provisional Government of the Free State. It is not. I go further, I say it is not expedient in the interests of those who stand for the Treaty that any man who signed the Articles of Agreement should be President of the Dáil. I say that in taking the step they are taking to-day, the other side are going further than their signatures warrant. When this is being done I can only hark back to 1914. I can only recollect what happened then to the Irish Volunteers. We all know, how, when it seemed likely that Mr. Asquith, another English Liberal, was going to trick another Irish Constitutional Nationalist, the people of this country sprang to arms in his defence, but Mr. Redmond, anxious to prove himself a man who was better than his word, acting at the behest of Asquith, set himself to capture the machinery of the Volunteer organisation in exactly the same way as those who support this Treaty are attempting now to capture the machinery of the Republic. That, Sir, we all admitted, was the gravest tactical mistake which Mr. Redmond made. If he had gone forward and said: `I fulfilled the letter of my bond when I kept you here in office for these years, I will go not one whit further, I have no authority over these people, I cannot compel them to dissolve. I will not attempt to capture them', instead of this country being faced with the betrayal of 1914, the Irish Volunteers would have been there to uphold and support Mr. Redmond, and would have been there to do a great deal more. When the European war broke out they would have been there to set up the Republic and they would have been there to uphold it as the majority of the people of this country. Now, I say that those who are asking us to hand over to them the machinery of the Republic of Ireland are doing it gratuitously, and that is what, to me, is the bitterest thing about it. It is not necessary it should be done at all, but it is being done, as I said before, in order to prove once more to Englishmen that Irishmen were better than their words. They are doing gratuitously what Mr. Redmond was compelled to do under coercion in 1914. I say not only is it unnecessary, but it is inexpedient. I say, furthermore, that it is very dangerous for the future of the country that it should be done. Those who stand on the other side, and I know that they stand there in good faith, because they believe they are doing the best for their country in this crisis, should look back over the many years of history. They never saw one Treaty signed by England with Ireland that England did not dishonour. Have they any assurance that this Treaty will be honoured either? They have nothing except the seven signatories who are members of the English Government which can change from day to day. Those who stand on the other side may be, themselves, very quickly floundering in the sea of English treachery. For goodness sake, let them leave the Irish people some rock firm enough to cling to, some rock whereby they may scramble back to the dry land of the Republic. It may be, in suggesting this course, I am not taking the attitude which will appeal to a man who has had twenty years of experience in public life, and who, if he will permit me to say so, has brought nothing into this Dáil as part of that experience, except the pettiest tricks in public debate I have ever listened to. That gentleman never rose in debate, since this grave and vital question came to be dealt with, to consider it upon principles, but upon personalities. His avowed function in this House was not to convince but to amuse. I do not want to follow his bad example, but in his discussion on this question he made personal references to my stature. If I am little it is not my fault. But, Sir, if I were to consider a grave question introduced by the little Emperor, by the little Wizard of Wales, and the little Pope of Rome, and ask no man to give it grave consideration upon that account, I should have thought my words had little sense and little weight. Now, Sir, I say this may not appear to be strictly in accordance with all the practices of the Dublin Corporation and the South Dublin Union. But a nation in a grave emergency like this must look, if you like, for some unusual expedient to get out of it, to tide it through, at any rate; and therefore while it may not seem to be strictly in accordance with precedents, it is in accordance with principle that now, while we are in a transition state, some transitional or neutral Executive should be formed for this House. Since that cannot be done---they on the other side will not permit it to be done---all I can say is, that I am compelled to vote against the resolution.
MR. DE VALERA:
A Chinn Chomhairle, what troubles me most in this matter is the whole question of the position we are placed in. I would like to ask the Chairman of the Delegation, Mr. Griffith, whether, if he is elected, he intends to act and function as the Executive of the Republic, because this is the Government of the Irish Republic and nothing else. When we meet here we do not meet as a political party, we do not meet here as the Parliament of Southern Ireland or anything of that sort. We meet here definitely as the Government of the established Republic of Ireland, and any act whatsoever of ours which is not in accordance with that is unconstitutional. Now, Mr. Griffith can have no fault to find with me for bringing this forward for this reason: when he was in London I wrote to him definitely and pointed out that if any arrangement was come to, very great care would have to be exercised as to the manner of procedure by which any transitional Government should be set up. This is the first example of the difference between Document No. 2 and the Treaty, and it will stand up in judgment against you more times than now. There was an arrangement here---a transitional arrangement. I will read the paragraph. It will show, at any rate, that it is not tactics on my part:
<SMALL>
That by way of transitional arrangement for the administration of Ireland during the interval which must elapse between the date hereof and the setting up of a Parliament and Government of Ireland in accordance herewith, the members elected for constituencies in Ireland since the passing of the British Government of Ireland act in 1920, shall, at a meeting summoned for the purpose, elect a transitional government to which the British Government and Dáil Eireann shall transfer the authority, powers and machinery requisite for the discharge of its duties, provided that every member of such transitional government shall have signified in writing his or her acceptance of this instrument.
</SMALL>
Now, it is obvious that if a Treaty had come here which it would be constitutional for us to ratify as the Government of the Republic that a Provisional Government would have to be set up, and that it would have to derive its powers---seeing it is contested---we hold this would have to be signed by both parties, and therefore it would have to be a neutral document. The powers of that Provisional Government should be derived, from our point of view, which is the only point of view Irishmen will stand for, solely from this body. It will have no authority from the Irish nation unless it gets it definitely from this body which is the Government of the Irish Republic. As far as the British point of view is concerned, any claim that authority comes here from the King and Parliament and the rest of it---we deny that, and we will die denying it. I am sure nobody here will say for a moment that the authority of Ireland comes from any outside body. We are now in the position of Grattan and Flood. Flood said it was not the same thing to assert a thing yourself as to get acceptance of that assertion by other persons. You have simply the assertion now. That is no use. If somebody tries to press a claim on to you, and he admits that claim is not founded, or accepts some agreement which implies it is not founded, then there is no dispute. The assertion on our part is always in danger of being contested by someone else. Therefore I say peace is not established by that Treaty, because the contest will go on. Britain will assert that it is from it we derive authority. We assert it is from Ireland.
MR. M. COLLINS:
The Irish people.
MR. DE VALERA:
This Assembly has no right to disestablish itself, or vote away the independence of Ireland. You have no power whatever unless it comes from the Government of the Republic which is established. Hence I say, if Mr. Griffith takes this Chief Executive, it is from this assembly. He can only do it undertaking it is going to function as the Executive of this assembly; that is, the Executive of the Government of the Republic of Ireland.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
A Chinn Chomhairle, in October, 1917, after three nights discussion, Mr. Griffith finally agreed to the inclusion of this clause in the Constitution of the Sinn Fein Organisation:
<SMALL>
Sinn Fein aims at securing international recognition of Ireland as an independent Irish Republic. Having achieved that status the Irish people may by referendum freely choose their own form of government.
</SMALL>
If Mr. Arthur Griffith had not agreed to that he would not have got the support of the people who are prepared to make any sacrifice for Ireland. He agreed to this. He got their support. He has broken that undertaking. Before he and the four delegates went away to start these negotiations, Mr. Griffith agreed that they would not come to any decision until they had at first submitted it to the Cabinet at home, and awaited the reply from the Cabinet. He also agreed that they would not sign any Treaty until it had first been submitted to the Cabinet here. On the Saturday before this Treaty was signed Mr. Griffith undertook to tell Mr. Lloyd George that, though he was not prepared to break, nevertheless he would sign nothing, and would come back to us having signed nothing. Mr. Griffith has broken that, and consequently, no matter what undertaking he gives now, I object to his being elected as President of the Dáil.
MR. DE VALERA:
I would like to have my question answered definitely, because I cannot, by sitting here during that motion, participate in any way---
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
On a point of order, a Chinn Chomhairle, a member having spoken is not entitled to speak again. The usual procedure is, whoever has to answer questions answers them in bulk at the end.
MR. SEAN MACSWINEY:
Last night I said we wished to hear some questions answered. There was a list of questions before Mr. Griffith and we want them answered. We want the answers now before the vote is taken.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
When President de Valera put his resignation before this House the member for South Dublin said it was usual for a man seeking the support of this House to define his policy. Do you not think the same applies in this question, and that Mr. Griffith should be asked to define his policy.
MR. GRIFFITH:
The questions, I think, which the Deputies refer to were sent across by Mr. Stack. They are:
`(1) Whether he had any communication, direct or indirect, from the British Government, in connection with the Treaty?'
The only communication I had was this produced here, except one where he stated it was not a Treaty, and I got the official title: `Articles of Agreement between Ireland and Great Britain'.
`(2) Whether he had been informed what kind of legislation they proposed to pass in the British Parliament in order to carry into effect the Articles of Agreement?'
The legislation they will pass must be a Free State Act. Of course, they must pass an Act of Ratification.
`(3) Who would summon the members of the Southern Parliament, and when?'
I will have them summoned.
`(4) Whether the proposed Provisional Government would be elected by and from these members?'
They would.
(5) Whether the Provisional Government would act in conjunction with the Lord Lieutenant, and would it function under the statutory powers conferred by the Partition Act?'
If it is necessary to use the Lord Lieutenant as it is necessary to use liaison officers we will use him.
`(6) What were the powers referred to in Clause 17 of the Treaty which would be transferred by the British Government to the Provisional Government?'
The general powers for maintaining law and order, police, and the evacuation of the country by British troops. These are the answers to these questions. As to Mr. Boland's question and President de Valera's question: if I am elected I shall use my position to give effect to the constitutional vote of this assembly in approving of the Treaty. I shall use the resources at our disposal for the keeping of public order and security until such time as we can have an election for the Free State Parliament, and at that Free State Election I will let the will of the people decide whether we have a right to accept the Free State, or whether they wish something else.
MR. DE VALERA:
It is absolutely necessary for us to have a definite answer to this question: will the President of Dáil Eireann about to be elected function as hitherto as the Chief Executive Officer of the Irish Republic?
MR. GRIFFITH:
The President is, I understand, President of Dáil Eireann, according to the Constitution. The Dáil will remain in existence until such time---and I will see that it is kept in existence until such time---as we can have an election, when this question will be put to the people.
MR. DE VALERA:
It is not an answer to my question. It is very important, because any orders from this assembly, to have legal effect with the army, will have to come from this body---from the Chief Executive Officer of the Irish Republic. They are called the Irish Republican Army and all the rest of it.
A DEPUTY:
The Irish Volunteers.
MR. DE VALERA:
We want to know definitely. If you want them as a volunteer army, all right, but if you are going to order them as the Army of the Republic orders will have to come from the person who is elected as the Chief Executive Officer of the Irish Republic. I want to know definitely if Mr. Griffith is going to be President of this assembly as the Chief Executive of the Irish Republic, as the President hitherto functioned? The reason I want to know is this: if he is not going to do that, I hold that this assembly is no longer the Sovereign Assembly of the Irish nation, acting as the Government of the Irish Republic which it is officially called. This is, in the army and elsewhere, spoken of as Dáil Eireann, the Government of the Irish Republic. Therefore, if the Chief Executive Officer is elected, to have legal force his orders must come from him as such, and I want to know before I vote for him---and I am asking that, not merely for myself, but for every member on our side---we want to know definitely where he stands in that matter. Any vote taken, inconsistent with the position of the Republic as established we hold is unconstitutional and illegal. The Treaty was approved, but, in a sense, this delegation did not act in accordance with the letter of the Treaty. You do not approve of anything you please. You approve of a definite written Treaty. If you fulfil that you will have to do this---you will have to carry out Article 17 to the letter:
<SMALL>
By way of provisional arrangement for the administration of Southern Ireland during the interval which must elapse between the date hereof and the Constitution of a Parliament and Government of the Irish Free State in accordance therewith, steps shall be taken forthwith for summoning a meeting of members of Parliament elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland since the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and for constituting a provisional Government.
</SMALL>
does the British Government not question Dáil Eirean doing it---
<SMALL>
And the British Government shall take the steps necessary to transfer to such provisional Government the powers and machinery requisite for the discharge of its duties, et cetera.
</SMALL>
Under that it is the British Government that has to transfer to you the powers. If you look at Document No. 2, Dáil Eireann gives you the powers. Otherwise you would be acting unconstitutionally. We hold this Government has not the authority of the Irish people until the Irish people have voted on it. Take your powers from the British Government and set it up. What does the vote in this assembly mean? It means that we will not, as the Government of the Republic, interfere with you, that you have, so to speak, a license to carry on. If it were not for that we would have to take action to prevent you from doing anything counter to it, as we would against Dublin Castle; but you can now go ahead by reason of the vote of the majority of this assembly to carry out that Treaty to the letter. That is what it is, and nothing else. I hold, therefore, if you want us the majority of this assembly to elect a President of this assembly, he will have to act as the Chief Executive of this of the Government of the Republic of Ireland.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Mr. Griffith does not seem inclined to answer that question by a plain `yes' or `no'.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I assure Miss MacSwiney I am very much inclined to answer it.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Are you going to work as the Republican Executive---yes or no?
MR. GRIFFITH:
The Republic of Ireland remains in being until the Free State comes into operation.
MR. DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. GRIFFITH:
President de Valera yesterday threw this body into confusion by resigning and leaving no government in existence. Public order and security have to be maintained. If I am elected I will occupy whatever position President de Valera occupied.
MR. DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Now, that is right. In that position he was not the President of the Republic, but the President of Dáil Eireann according to the constitution [`No! no!'].
MR. DE VALERA:
It is President of Dáil Eireann, which is written down as the Government of the Republic of Ireland. So I was President of the Republic of Ireland.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I do not mind a single rap about words. I say whatever position---if you like to put it that way---that the President resigned from yesterday, I will, if I am elected, occupy the same position until the Irish people have an opportunity of deciding for themselves.
MR. DE VALERA:
That is a fair answer. I feel that I can sit down in this assembly while such an election is going on, because it is quite constitutional that Mr. Griffith, if elected, is going to be in the same position which I held, which is President of Dáil Eireann; that is, President of the Government of the Republic of Ireland. Now, the next question. As President and Chief Officer your duty will be to uphold and maintain the Republic of Ireland. That is your oath. You will, as President of that be in duty bound to uphold the Republic, and that was why Document No. 2 was so necessary. That is why I, as President, would not be keeping my oath if I did anything to subvert the established Government. Mr. Griffith will similarly be bound by that oath as I was, and he will have to give an express undertaking that he will not use his powers for anything except to maintain the established Government during the period until the other government is set up. In other words, whatever you do, that you will not use your office when acting as President of the Republic of Ireland in any way to subvert that Republic; that you will do nothing which will make that Republic less a fact in the minds of the Irish people than it is to-day. I hold you will be breaking your oath of office if you do anything else.
MR. DOLAN:
May I ask President de Valera what was his interpretation of the oath he took?
MR. DE VALERA:
Yes, and I kept it to the letter. That is the difference between Document No. 2 and the Treaty. You will see that I preserved in every line of it the established Republic. There is not a line of it inconsistent with the Republic, but there was what any Government might do, what France might do, what America was going to do, what some of them have done---go into the League of Nations and accept, if they wished to, any member of the pre-constituted group as President or head. I, therefore, say in reply to the question asked as to how I interpreted my oath, that I interpreted it in that fashion. I kept it, not merely for the interests of Ireland, but I kept it in the negotiations to the letter. Otherwise I felt I would be using personal views or something else to subvert my sworn oath as head of the nation.
THE SPEAKER:
I would like this discussion to be carried on without interruption. When I say that I mean without interruption.
MR. DE VALERA:
My question then is: whether Mr. Griffith, who will occupy the same position as I have occupied, and which I interpreted as binding on me by oath, will not use his office to subvert the established Republic?
DR. MACCARTAN:
I do not think it is a fair question. It is presuming that Mr. Griffith is going to become a perjurer.
MR. DE VALERA:
It is absolutely necessary, if we are going to have the opposite party, whose purpose is the subversion of the Republic, the turning of the Republic into a monarchy, the turning of independence into dependence, that we ask the chief exponent of that policy whether he is going to maintain and support something which his policy is to subvert and destroy. Surely we have a very good reason for asking that such an officer, before he is appointed---that he will not use his office which is intended to maintain a certain theory, to destroy it.
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
A Chinn Chomhairle, before the question is answered, may I also ask whether Mr. Griffith, if he is elected President and Prime Minister of the Dáil in accordance with the Constitution, will give an undertaking that he will not use the Executive authority of Dáil Eireann to summon and work the Provisional Government according to Articles 17 and 18 of the Treaty?
MR. GRIFFITH:
President de Valera has asked me will I use my office to subvert the Irish Republic. I think I have already answered the question, but I will answer it again. I said if I am elected to this position I will keep the Republic in being until such time as the establishment of the Free State is put to the people, to decide for or against. But if it means am I not going to carry into effect, the will of this Sovereign Assembly about the Treaty, I am going to carry it into effect. This body has approved of the Treaty, this body wants the Treaty put through and then sent to the Irish people. That I am going to do, of course. Now, as to Mr. Mellowes' question: `If he is elected President and Prime Minister of the Dáil in accordance with the Constitution, will he give an undertaking that he will not use the Executive authority of Dáil Eireann to summon and work the Provisional Government appointed according to Articles 17 and 18 of the Treaty?' I do not quite understand that question, but I expect he means this: we must set up a Provisional Government under Articles 17 and 18. We are not setting up the Free State Government now. Of course, I am going to use all the machinery I can to put it into operation. Let nobody have the slightest misunderstanding about where I stand. I am in favour of this Treaty. I want this Treaty put into operation. I want the Provisional Government set up. I want the Republic to remain in being until the time when the people can have a Free State Election, and give their vote.
MISS MACSWINEY:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I think this is a very serious matter. The President has asked certain definite questions. Mr. Griffith has answered that he will undertake to uphold, or rather that he will keep the Republic in being until a Free State Constitution is worked out. Now, I begin by quoting a leading article from the Times this morning. I think it will keep us quite clear:
<SMALL>
Dáil Eireann, acting for the people, has endorsed the Treaty; that is, it has by a majority approved of the Treaty. To-day we hope that it will authorise Mr. Griffith to summon the Parliament of Southern Ireland for some day in the present week.
</SMALL>
That is what Mr. Griffith is looking for authority to do from this Republican Government of Ireland. We must be quite clear, and I think Mr. Griffith's answer has made us quite clear that Mr. Griffith means to use his authority as Chief Executive to get Dáil Eireann endorsed by Mr. Lloyd George as the Provisional Government of Ireland. That includes the four members of Trinity College and the exclusion of Sean O'Mahony. Mr. Michael Collins, in his speech proposing the motion before you, talked in his usual bluff, good-humoured fashion, of any kind of action being better than no action. Now, I maintain that is absolutely wrong on the face of it. Is it better for me to sit quietly and do nothing or to go out and murder somebody? Surely no action in that ease would be infinitely better than any kind of action. Mr. Collins suggests that he and Mr. Griffith should be calmly allowed to murder the Irish Republic. He said many things, and I am going to deal with the chief points in his speech. But one thing he said which is important: `that Dáil Eireann is not going to be more solemn'---he had said it was the Parliament of the Irish nation. He said it was not going to be more solemn because---
MR. COLLINS:
More `sovereign' I said.
MISS MACSWINEY:
That is still more important. It is not going to be more sovereign because Lloyd George says it is. There is the cat out of the bag. The English morning papers are full of the difficulties with which the English Government is faced in legalising an assembly which will be the Provisional Government of Ireland; and Mr. Lloyd George played up to the sentiment of the Irish people by letting them think Dáil Eireann is going to do this thing. Not only that, but two members of the delegation have been carefully playing up to the sentiment of the younger members of this House throughout the whole of the negotiations. Mr. Michael Collins' speech this morning was absolutely along those lines. Dáil Eireann is the sovereign Parliament of the Irish nation but it is expressly, under its Constitution, the Government of the Republic of Ireland.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Would you mind showing us that?
MR. STACK:
It is in the oath.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Do you remember your oath?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
It is the Constitution we are speaking of.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Now, the oath taken by members of Dáil Eireann was:
<SMALL>
I do solemnly swear and affirm that I do not and shall not yield voluntary support to any pretended government, authority, or power within Ireland, hostile or inimical thereto, and I do further swear that to the best of my knowledge and ability I will support and defend the Irish Republic and the Government of the Irish Republic, which is Dáil Eireann, against all enemies foreign and domestic, and I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation.
</SMALL>
Now, Mr. Griffith is looking for the Chief Executive power of this Parliament today; and he has been asked if, before accepting it or asking us to vote on it, he will give us an undertaking to uphold the Republic in virtue and in accordance with that oath. He has also been asked if he will give an undertaking that he will not use the powers vested in him to summon or work the Provisional Government according to Articles 17 and 18 of the Treaty. He has stated, in answer to another question that he is to summon the Provisional Government, or rather, a meeting of members elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland. Now, Mr. Arthur Griffith therefore has to act in two capacities. He has to act, if he is elected by this House this morning, as Chief Executive of the Irish Republic. He has also declared he has to---he has been deputed by Mr. Lloyd George---to summon this meeting of the members who are to appoint a Provisional Government. All we ask from Mr. Griffith is a solemn undertaking here publicly in this House, and before the country, that he will not confuse or merge the two offices, that he will keep distinctly here in Dáil Eireann his Executive power as Chief Executive of the Irish Republic, and that, as plain Mr. Arthur Griffith without any authority from Dáil Eireann, he will go out and summon the Provisional Government apart from this Assembly altogether or summon the meeting of members elected to sit for constituencies in Southern Ireland. Now, we want Mr. Griffith to-day to give a solemn declaration in this House, and before the country, that he will not merge those two offices into one, that he will go as Mr. Griffith Chairman of the Delegation, and summon the meeting that is to set up the Provisional Government; that he will act as Prime Minister of this Assembly; and that the two Mr. Griffiths will have no connection whatever, as far as their offices go. That is what we are asking---Mr. Griffith's solemn undertaking before this House and before the Irish nation. Surely that is clear. And I appeal to the members of this House who have voted for the Treaty, and who, in voting for the Treaty, have declared again and again that they are not voting against the Republic---and I believe them---I believe they were perfectly honest in declaring that in voting for the Treaty they are not voting against the Republic. They voted against the re-election of President de Valera yesterday because they were told it had to be a party vote; they were told that if they voted for President de Valera they would be voting for the rejection of the Treaty. I appeal to them now with all the force that is in me to realise the great importance to the Irish nation of keeping Mr. Griffith's two offices absolutely and entirely distinct. Do not allow Lloyd George to endorse Dáil Eireann---it is what he wants to do---as the Provisional Government, and to invite the four Trinity College members into it and exclude Mr. Seán O'Mahony. Mr. Seán O'Mahony cannot be excluded from Dáil Eireann, Mr. Arthur Griffith.
MR. ROBINS:
On a point of order. Every member in Ireland, including the Trinity College members, were summoned to the first meeting of Dáil Eireann.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
They must take the oath.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Every representative in Ireland---even in the North-East Corner---is a member of Dáil Eireann, and if he only comes in and sits here we will welcome him if he takes the Oath of Allegiance. Moreover, every member in Ireland cannot sit in Mr. Griffith's parliament, or at the meeting of members summoned for constituencies of Southern Ireland. Before Mr. Griffith can use this Assembly in order to set up his Provisional Government he has to exclude Mr. Seán O'Mahony, and Mr. Seán O'Mahony is the test in this case, because he is the only member who sits for a constituency in what is called Northern Ireland, and has no seat in Southern Ireland, so-called. Further, and I ask you young men of this assembly who mean the Republic but who are voting for its subversion, to think carefully over this---if you elect Mr. Griffith without first getting a declaration from him, given to us solemnly here and to the Irish nation, that he will not combine the Executive power of Dáil Eireann with his office as Chairman of the Delegation to summon the meeting for Southern Ireland---I ask you to do that---that Mr. Griffith if he dares to use this Assembly, or the sixty-four members of it that support him, because he cannot use us, will first exclude Mr. Seán O'Mahony. Nothing would please Mr. Lloyd Gorge better than that you, by your vote here today, should elect Mr. Griffith as Executive of this Assembly and then let Mr. Griffith, as Executive of this Assembly, summon this meeting to set up a Provisional Government, because then he would be able to say that Dáil Eireann sanctioned the setting up of the Provisional Government. Dáil Eireann has not done that. Now, Mr. Collins asked us do we believe that he will be less against England if she breaks her word than he has been in the past. No, I do not, in heart. I believe he would be as much against her, but he is taking away from himself the power to be against her. It is not the will he is taking from himself; it is the power, and well England knows it. In my hotel this morning I sat at breakfast and heard two Englishmen discussing. this matter. One said to the other: `They will have to disestablish that Dáil Eireann before they can set up the Provisional Government' Now, that is what Mr. Griffith is asking you to do---to disestablish Dáil Eireann as the Sovereign Assembly of the Irish Republic, and set up an emasculated thing which will be the Provisional Government and, having done that, then this emasculated Assembly with the best gone from it, will appoint the Provisional Government and set up the Free State. That Assembly will not be Dáil Eireann, because, unless Mr. Griffith definitely gives that solemn promise today---that he will not combine the two offices, or, failing to give it, unless he is beaten in this Assembly to-day he and everyone who votes with him is automatically declaring himself guilty of treason, and voting himself out of Dáil Eireann. You do not kill Dáil Eireann, but you kill your own right to use the name. Mr. Collins has also said that he does not mind calling it Dáil Eireann. This meeting does object to this evil thing---`Call it Dáil Eireann or get some other Irish name'. You cannot call it Dáil Eireann because Dáil Eireann has been declared by the people to be the Government of the Irish Republic, and has been given that mandate and nothing else. Mr. Collins has also said that the North-East will say so and so, that they cannot come in while we talk and not make up our minds. We have made up our minds definitely. We have not changed them. They have. He also says that England will say they will have to remain in the country to preserve law and order. Let her say it; she has been saying it for a very long time; but never before drew from a Republican a desire, in order to win Mr. Lloyd George's good opinion, to subvert the authority of the Irish Republic. That is what it is---subverting the authority of the Irish Republic. We will maintain law and order all right. He says we will give the English an excuse for remaining in the country. Very well. The Irish Republic, when Mr. Collins has come back to his senses and to the Irish Republic, will be able to teach Mr. Lloyd George that it is the best of his policy to get out of our country. If this subversion of the Irish Republic should be forced on the country by a majority here, the Irish Republic cannot and it has no desire, I understand from President de Valera, to actively oppose the Provisional Government, but that Provisional Government is not, and will not be, Dáil Eireann. Dáil Eireann remains the Government of the Republic of Ireland. Mr. Michael Collins was also very emphatic about what the attitude of the English would be. There he contradicted a statement of his own a few moments before, that we were entering on a different era, and that the French people and the German people, if they had been consulted in the matter of the war, would have a different solution of the war from the one their Governments had. We all agree with him, I am sure. Were we to get the opinion of the English people on the President's alternative---there are things in it unpalatable to most of us, but there was no subversion of the Irish Republic. Now, that is what matters. Mr. Griffith will remember that before ever this Session of Dáil Eireann met that I remonstrated with him about the signing of that document and said to him: `take out the Dominion status, the Governor-General and the oath and even now we will stand together for the rest of it'. That shows that I, even though I would not like to give England a penny, or let a soldier of hers in our ports, am quite willing to realise that on account of our propinquity to England we will have to give up a little of the inessentials. When I say inessentials I do not mean money is not an essential, but I do mean it is not a principle. I would give England money, as I said before, in exactly the same spirit in which I would give a robber a reward for giving me back my purse. As to the attitude of the English people over there about Paddy and the pig, my own impression was that we had outlived that by about fifty years.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I often hit one of them on the nose for it.
MISS MACSWINEY:
My attitude if they talked like that would be an attitude of the most intense superiority. I never heard anything like their impudence, and I told them so, and remember, as you are strong so can you afford to be merciful, and when English fools talk like that why should we, in the strength of our knowledge of our own inherent culture, and the knowledge of the inherent greatness of the Irish people, be bothered by hitting them on the nose? Do you think that I am going to bother my head by hitting a little pup on the nose---a cur that may come to bark at me in the street.
MR. O'MAILLE:
Are we discussing what Miss MacSwiney would do?
MISS MACSWINEY:
We are discussing what Mr. Collins said---that the attitude of the English people was very insulting towards us, and that he had often heard insulting remarks about Paddy and the pig. I quite agree with Deputy O'Maille that it is tee-totally and entirely out of order, but it was Mr. Collins brought it in, not I. It was brought as a red-herring across the trail to show the English people are not friendly. Perhaps! But they are friendly to themselves, and the English people will not go to war on the difference between what Mr. Michael Collins is willing to give and what we are willing to give; and if they have any sense at all the English people will know from the debate here that we are in a position to deliver the goods, and that the delegation are not. There is my point. They must know that this Republican minority of ours is as anti-English as ever it was, and that this Treaty of theirs will not mean peace. They must know perfectly well that we will go on subverting their influence and their interests in every part of the world where England's interests lie. Therefore, when we say we are willing to make peace on certain terms, we are not only willing to do it, but we are able to do it. The Chairman of the Delegation and the whole delegation with him---bar one member of it; who has stood out supremely honourable though, I must confess, weak---who wants us to take this thing now, is not playing for peace with the English people. They cannot between the whole lot of them, deliver the goods because, I hold, the Irish nation gave them and gave us their mandate; and we are true to our mandate, while the majority of this House who supported the Treaty were false to it. I ask this House in voting on this question to get from Mr. Arthur Griffith the undertaking that we want him to give us and to the Irish nation publicly to-day---that he will not, as Chief Executive of this House summon that meeting, that he will only do it as Mr. Arthur Griffith, Chairman of the Delegation, not as President of An Dáil; that he will not use Dáil Eireann note-paper to summon that meeting, that he will not use any single official title given him by Dáil Eireann, or any official paper, or anything else of Dáil Eireann. If he gives us this solemn declaration then we can, as long as he is Executive of this House, forget he is Mr. Arthur Griffith, Chairman of the Delegation, and summoner of the meeting for the Provisional Government, and we can stay with him here still; but if he does not give that undertaking solemnly and publicly here without any evasion, then we can no longer have any hand, act, or part in this thing; and I ask the younger members of this assembly to realise what they are doing and support us in asking Mr. Griffith for that undertaking.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I did not interrupt Miss MacSwiney because she might have taken offence at it, but there was absolutely no necessity for her asking that question. I will summon this body to constitute the Provisional Government as Chairman of the Delegation, not as head of Dáil Eireann.
MISS MACSWINEY:
You promise also not to mix the two offices in any way?
MR. P. BRENNAN:
I resent very much one remark made by Deputy Miss MacSwiney. I do not mean any insult now to the other side, because there are good men on the other side. She said if her side left this assembly the best would be gone from it. It is hard to have to listen to that sort of thing.
DR. FERRAN:
I rise to oppose the motion that Mr. Arthur Griffith be Premier of this House. Mr. Griffith, in his answer to one of the questions to-day, admitted that he was palpably tricked by Mr. Lloyd George. Mr. Griffith, when he got this document, found it was labelled `Articles of Agreement'. He sent it back to Downing Street, and some clerk there blotted out the words `Articles of Agreement' and substituted `Treaty', and when he had that done he thought he had got a Treaty. In an answer to a question put by him to Mr. Lloyd George within the last few days he found he had no Treaty at all. Now, as regards the Presidency: it is necessary, I understand, that the head of every State when assuming office shall, by solemn oath, give an undertaking to maintain the Constitution of that State. That is a precaution that all States have found necessary for their own existence. Now, I want to ask Mr. Griffith is he prepared, if elected, to give that undertaking by solemn oath, that he will preserve the Constitution of this State, which is the Irish Republic?
MR. GRIFFITH:
I am not going to answer Doctor Ferran, and I shall not do so any more. I object to this manner of jumping up and putting pharisaical questions to me. The oath that President de Valera took I can take with the same covering clause President de Valera put into it, that he would take it for the good of Ireland, and use it to do the best for Ireland.
MR. DE VALERA:
I am speaking to the motion now. I asked some questions before. I just want to say this: that I think the other side know me sufficiently well to know I am not doing this through tactics, or trickery, or anything of that kind. I am doing it because I know the condition of the country, and I know perfectly well that if the Chief Executive of this House does not send orders as the Chief Executive of the Republic of Ireland, he will not be obeyed, because the men will be automatically dispensed from their oath of allegiance. I want to see that the thing is done in a proper constitutional way, so that there will be no way out of it. I was opposed for election last night on the ground---a very good ground it was---that, as I was opposed to the Treaty it was presumed I would work for the Republic as against the establishment of the Free State. The position I would occupy would be a very difficult one, in which I would be, by the terms of my oath, faithfully bound to take active steps to maintain the Republic, which would be made difficult by the vote of this Assembly. Now take Mr. Griffith's position: it is doubly difficult because he is supposed with the right hand to maintain the Republic and, with the left, to knock it down. I say it is a mistake for any individual giving this support to become a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the matter. He cannot do it. No matter what Mr. Griffith says or undertakes to do, every Republican in the country will be suspicious of every act he is taking in the name of the Republic. It does not conduce, I hold, to the maintenance of order, or it is not to the interests of the country at the present time, that Mr. Griffith should hold that office. He will understand that, as far as I am concerned, my sentiments are practically the same with respect to him. I am not opposing him in any personal way, but for the good of the country. I say when I took the oath I adhered to it to the letter. I was so sensitive on that point and about the obligations of my oath as Chief Executive officer, that I said they would have to remember, if they did elect me, that I would interpret it in a certain fashion. I felt then, even with that explanation that, nevertheless, it was my duty to obey that oath and carry it out to the letter in so far as I was able. If there was a settlement that would make it consistent I would be on the other side, if I was in a minority of one. I am on this side definitely, because the arrangement is not in accordance with the oath and the position I occupied: and because I believe that I could get an arrangement that was; and I felt that as long as that arrangement was possible, I would not be doing my duty to the Republic or acting in the best interests of Ireland. Mr. Griffith cannot take that oath, he cannot act as Chief Executive Officer of this Republic, bound with his right hand to uphold it, and bound to another undertaking which means that with his left he is undermining it. I say it is an impossible position. I only ask for the good of the country that Mr. Griffith would not take that office; that he would allow some arrangement to be made by which somebody who could act as Chief Executive Officer of this assembly---who will act and be bound to act on behalf of the Republic---would do so; and that Mr. Griffith would go on and carry out what this House has approved of, namely, the terms of that Treaty.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I have often heard candidates for office being invited to give pledges in consideration of support which would be extended to them if the answers were found satisfactory, but this is the first time I have heard a candidate being asked to give pledges, being listened to giving these pledges, and then being told that, having satisfactorily answered the questions he would be opposed more strongly than ever. That strikes me as a totally novel departure. The key-note of this debate really lies in the statement made by President de Valera yesterday: `Addressing a silent and solemn Assembly', as the newspapers say, he said: `I suggest that the first business should be to make arrangements for the continuance and government of the State'. That is what we are up against. That is what has to be done. Let us face facts. I made my own position pretty clear on the Treaty. I do not like it; I never did like it. There are many others who think with me about it, that it is a bitter thing to have to accept, but that we had to accept it because we saw no real alternative. A point was made against the other side, and fairly made, during the debate, that they were a coalition; some of them, for instance, taking one view about the oath, others taking a vow for life to the Republic, and so on. I say in perfect fairness that we are a coalition, too; because it is obvious that, just as the degree of opposition to the Treaty on the other side varies with different people, so does the degree in which persons on this side like the Treaty, although they all agreed to support it as a matter of necessity; and the degree with which they like it varies, too. Necessarily, under circumstances of this kind, you will have to deal with a coalition, because a sudden and unexpected turn of events has taken place; and people have had to make up their minds upon developments which they had not looked forward to before. But this much is clear: up to now the English have looked upon this country with contempt---up to the recent fight---and the reason why we have got to the present position of having terms offered us by the English is because that contempt has given way to healthy fear, and it is our duty to see that healthy fear remains, and that we do not give them any reason to resume their former attitude by adopting an unreal attitude in this assembly. I should like to remind the Deputies of the other side that the first article of the Constitution says:
<SMALL>
That all legislative powers shall be vested in Dáil Eireann.
</SMALL>
And therefore it was for Dáil Eireann to approve of that Treaty, and no other body whatever had authority from the Irish people to approve it and make that approval binding. Dáil Eireann has approved of the Treaty and it follows, as night the day, that it is the duty of Dáil Eireann to take the steps necessary to give effect to that approval. The Minister of Finance spoke yesterday on the question of funds, and, I take it, he gave very adequate evidence of the fact that he intended to deal absolutely fairly with those who disagreed with him in that important matter; and I think that those who are against the Treaty, knowing the persons they have to deal with on this side, may fairly rest assured on that at all events. But those who are for the Treaty are entitled to ask for fairness from them. Anyhow the Republic goes on, and must go on until it is superseded by the Free State. That is unanimously agreed. The Republic goes on, and the Republic must have a Government. A proposal was made yesterday on behalf of those against the Treaty that President de Valera should be re-elected. They put forward for re-election their best man and Dáil Eireann declined to re-elect him, many of us voting much against our own will. We felt it was the only thing to do because, in view of your vote on Saturday, you would have been making yourselves ridiculous in the eyes of the country and in the eyes of the world if you did otherwise. It is admitted you must have a government. Surely that government must be a government representative of the majority of this House. What alternative is suggested to us? I have heard none.
MR. COLLIVET:
The Southern Parliament.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
The Southern Parliament is not the Government of the Republic. Until the Free State comes into being Dáil Eireann must continue. No man here with this Constitution before him---`that all legislative powers come from Dáil Eireann'---can suggest any other body as the Government of this country. You must set up your Provisional Government---get the English out and take over the powers that lay in their hands. But I yet have to hear any suggestion from the other side as to what is to be done for carrying on the Government if you do not elect a representative of the majority to carry it on. We have heard Mr. Griffith peppered with innumerable questions. He answered them, I hope, to the satisfaction of the leaders on the other side.
MR. DE VALERA:
No!
MR. DUFFY:
He gave plain straight answers to the questions put to him, and the result of that apparently is, that having answered those questions, and recognising that the Republic would continue, and recognising every item he was asked to recognise, he is now told, having done his best to satisfy these men, that they are going to vote against him. What answers did they want to get other than the answers he gave? I fail to see for what purpose these questions were put, unless that they mean---in this way---`answer these questions in the way we think they ought to be answered and we will vote for you'. I have not heard on what principle those answers are considered unsatisfactory and if he gave a straight answer, then I say that the people who put these questions ought to support him and to recognise that they themselves are in a minority and that you cannot govern this country by a Government that represents the minority and not the majority. There is one thing more I would like to say. It is this: it seems to me this question of the Republican Government and the Provisional Government is really a much simpler one than it looks. So far as the Irish people are concerned, the Government elected by Dáil Eireann will be the Government of the Irish people. In the transition period, when you have agreed to take over from the usurping English Government the powers they have got in this country, when you have agreed that the machinery for so doing will be called the Provisional Government, which is working but which will not take over those powers, you will have, at the same time, the Government of the Republic, which must exist as long as the Republic exists to keep the form of the Republic in being. You will also have what I may call the machinery of government, which may or may not consist of the same Government machinery; the Government recognised by the English as Dáil Eireann would not be recognised for the purpose of carrying out the necessary arrangements to give Ireland the powers to which she is entitled. I do not think any logical objection can be taken to that. I will congratulate the other side. I do think, on the whole, they have shown a much more reasonable attitude to-day than they did yesterday. If they are beginning to be more reasonable, I ask them to go a little further and recognise the logical outcome---the logical corollary---to the attitude they have taken of putting questions to the candidate for Premiership and getting the answers they expected and wanted to get, which is, that they should acquiesce in the Government of this country, instead of putting up a fictitious opposition.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Mr. Gavan Duffy said we got the answers we expected and wanted to get. I beg to assure him that I got the answer I expected, but not the answer I wanted to get. Again I ask that he will not use the machinery of Dáil Eireann to uphold any other Government.
MR. SEAN ETCHINGHAM:
Yesterday that vote could have been taken before lunch. An adjournment was moved by the majority and we know the reason why. I just want to say a few words on this. I am in opposition to the election of Arthur Griffith. I am sorry for that, for old times' sake. I say the answers we got to what we want to know were given us yesterday when the majority---we were in a minority of two---refused to elect Eamonn de Valera as President of the Irish Republic. We got the answer then, and a writer in an English Sunday paper who was present here at the debate, in writing of Eamonn de Valera, said: `There was one thing he might do; he might lead his country to disaster, but he would never lead it to dishonour'. It is because I am firmly convinced that the election of Arthur Griffith will lead Ireland to both disaster and dishonour that I oppose it. I have not an accommodating mind. Deputy Duffy says we have come here in a different frame of mind to-day. The only difference in my mind yesterday and to-day is this: that I am more sorrowful than ever. I have never been pessimistic about the future of my country, but I was when President de Valera was turned down. He talks of the healthy fear the English have or that they would not have negotiations. He talks of the unreal attitude of this Assembly. Will that healthy fear be continued now when you elect Arthur Griffith instead of Eamonn de Valera? No! Certainly not. I only wish to goodness that we could give to the Irish People the private documents we had here at the Private Session of An Dáil. Every private document that could be brought up from the Cabinet of Dáil Eireann in Dublin was exposed to ridicule by party politicians on the other side. I was very sorry for that. The members of the delegation in London pledged their word of honour to Lloyd George and his men that they would not give to the Irish people nor to anyone else these documents until Lloyd George would give them liberty to do so. But if the Irish people had read some of these documents the Irish people would know that Lloyd George would look upon Arthur Griffith as a most accommodating man, as a man who would not let Lloyd George down, and he would know on the other hand, that Eamonn de Valera would not let the Irish people down, or the Irish Republic down, and he would have a healthy fear of Ireland as a consequence. That is the situation. That is why I oppose Arthur Griffith, because he will have an accommodating mind, and he will not let Lloyd George down---and that is on record. Now, if Arthur Griffith was the man he was when he ploughed the soil to make Ireland what Ireland is to-day, or what Ireland was last year, I would vote for him. Over and over again he told us he was a Separatist. He is not that to-day. What is the consequence? We have it here with us. Now, in the United Irishman of February 22nd, 1902, he said, in ridiculing Sir Horace Plunkett, that: `possibly Sir Horace Plunkett may come to believe with us that the permanent remedy for Ireland's disease is separation, but his conversion is not likely'. That was written by Arthur Griffith in the United Irishman on February 22nd, 1902. What is the result to-day? I saw a caricature of Horace Plunkett as a big fat bullock and Arthur Griffith as a little bottle of oxo [laughter]. Horace Plunkett, addressing Arthur Griffith, says: `Alas! my poor brother' [laughter]. What a tragedy! I say I will not make use of that in a public assembly---the picture, I mean [laughter]. I am giving you a word picture of it with sorrow. The Minister of Finance gave us a pretty picture. I have often seen a team of horses under a plough. He wanted something to move the plough. What has he got? I have seen a team of horses galloping away from a gadfly. And who is moving the plough? Put Arthur Griffith at the handles, but Lloyd George is the gadfly that stung the horses. Lloyd George is the gadfly, and the team of horses is the Irish people. God knows, this terrible warble, if it is not squeezed out, what amount of worms it will leave in the Irish people. Now, the Deputy for Dublin spoke of maintaining the Irish Republic and Parliament. I was amused. On Saturday afternoon, with agony, I listened to the statement that we never had a Republic. I was wondering what feelings Mr. Robins and others had about it. We have a great number of Girondists in this assembly.
MR. ROBINS:
I never said we had not a Republic. I said we never had a working Republic---and we never had.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
He said his constituents never believed we had. Doctor MacGinley said we only had a paper Republic, and that the people of Donegal were tired of that. Anything to carry the Treaty. Now we are going to maintain the Republic until we get the Free State into existence! I am not a bit deceived. I expected these answers. I would not ask my old friend, Arthur Griffith, a question about it, because I know he is to put up the Free State and not maintain the Republic. I protest against degrading this Assembly so far as to make it the machinery for putting up the Free State. You cannot legally do so and, in God's name, summon this Southern Parliament and set it up, but do not degrade the name of Dáil Eireann with it. God knows we have compromised enough, and it may be the last occasion on which I will address this assembly. It comes to that. It came to it yesterday when you turned down the only man that could make peace in this country---and you know it; the man all Ireland looks to and has trust in, that man you turned down. And you knew perfectly well if you had elected him President of the Republic he would not have interfered with you so long as you were working for Ireland's good. He has been ousted. Arthur Griffith cannot deny that he pledged his word to the President of the Republic and the Minister of Defence in the Mansion House, Dublin, on December 3rd, that he would not sign any document until he returned; and he did sign and pledge his word to Lloyd George that none of these documents should be made public. He said he has pledged his word.
MR. GRIFFITH:
That is not so; it is a deliberate misrepresentation---and you know it.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
I never heard it contradicted before---that the Chairman of the Delegation did not pledge his word in the Mansion House. It is on record.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Does Mr. Griffith deny that he gave his word to us that he would not sign anything? Does he deny that?
MR. GRIFFITH:
I gave my word that I would not sign that document.
MR. DE VALERA:
We must be clear on this. Nobody here will be able to accuse me of at any time telling any untruth. I say it is a solemn truth that the Chairman of the Delegation, on leaving us at the Cabinet meeting---otherwise things might have been different---gave an undertaking that any document which involved allegiance to the Crown, and involved our being British subjects would not be signed until it was submitted to Dáil Eireann.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I have sat here and I have listened for weeks to misrepresentations. At the Private Session we had all this up, and we are having it at the Public Session now. The first line of attack on us was that we had exceeded our powers. President de Valera admitted that we had not. On that Saturday after I came back I was at the Cabinet meeting, and I told them I would not break on the Crown. I asked President de Valera himself to go to London if he wished. When I was going away the President asked me to try and get the thing back to Dáil Eireann. I tried, and I tried all I could, to get the matter kept back for a week. I could not succeed. I was faced with the responsibility of signing or not signing. The responsibility was placed on me and I signed. I protest against the misrepresentation that I was a man who pledged his word to something. The Deputy for Wexford also charged me with something---he intended to convey to the Irish people that I, in some way, connived with Lloyd George. That is a damnable lie and he knows it.
MR. MACKEOWN:
I propose that all documents, private and otherwise, in connection with this Session, and all documents in connection with the negotiations be published immediately.
THE SPEAKER:
That is out of order.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I now beg to move that the question be put. We have discussed it long enough.
ALDERMAN MACDONAGH:
I have an amendment
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
The Chairman of the Delegation has stated in very plain language that a charge of mine, as he put it, is a damnable lie. I was only repeating in connection with the Mansion House what has been repeated here, and what has been read in the newspaper. He ought to be grateful to me for giving him an opportunity of making the explanation he did. Another thing he charged me with was that I had spoken---and I did with sorrow---of an interview that he gave to the Press Association in London, immediately after the signing of the Treaty. You can say what you like of that. I have over and over again repeated it here. I never heard a word of denial of it, nor I do not now. What I complained of was that Arthur Griffith said seven-and-a-half centuries of fight was over---Irish liberty was won---and our people took it as such. I was here on Saturday evening, and I am thankful to say he retreated from that and said anything may happen in ten years. The Minister of Finance said like a man that this is not a final settlement. I do not believe anyone in Ireland believes it is. I made the statement because it is on record that Mr. Griffith said that Irish liberty was won. Whether he thinks it or not I really am sorry for opposing him, for old times' sake, because he is the man who ploughed the soil, and a number in Ireland sowed the seed. He does not seem the same man to-day that he was when he was in the plough before. The plough he used then was the Sinn Fein plough---an Irish plough. The plough he is using now---and he is coming to us under that plough---is a London-manufacture plough, a Downing Street plough. That is the tragedy of it; and no matter what he states he may do in the future, he has avowed that he will put up the Free State, which means the destruction of the Irish Republic.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I now move that the question be put.
MR. K. HIGGINS:
I second that.
MR. BOLAND:
I wish to speak.
MR. MACDONAGH:
Before you put the motion I have an amendment.
MR. MACENTEE:
It is already past the ordinary hour for adjournment. We can quite easily take this motion to put the question immediately after luncheon [cries of `Poll'].
MR. DE VALERA:
As a protest against the election as President of the Irish Republic of the Chairman of the Delegation, who is bound by the Treaty conditions to set up a State which is to subvert the Republic, and who, in the interim period, instead of using the office as it should be used---to support the Republic---will, of necessity, have to be taking action which will tend to its destruction, I, while this vote is being taken, as one, am going to leave the House.
MR. DE VALERA then rose and left the House, followed by the entire body of his supporters.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Deserters all! We will now call on the Irish people to rally to us. Deserters all!
MR. CEANNT:
Up the Republic!
MR. M. COLLINS:
Deserters all to the Irish nation in her hour of trial. We will stand by her.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Oath breakers and cowards.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Foreigners---Americans---English.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Lloyd Georgeites.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Now, sir, will you put the question? They have had at least twice the number of speakers that we have had up to this.
THE SPEAKER:
I am waiting until all those who wish to leave the House have left. The motion is that the question be now put [`Agreed!'].
The original motion---that Mr. Griffith be appointed President of Dáil Eireann---was then put, and carried unanimously by those remaining in the House.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I would like to suggest that the roll should be called, and a record made of those who have been at this vote.
MR. D. MACCARTHY:
A Chinn Chomhairle, before the roll is called, may I explain that two members paired by a signed agreement---Tom Hunter and Professor Whelehan
The roll was then called, when the following answered:
Mícheál O Coileáin
Art O Gríobhtha
Seán Mac Giolla Ríogh
Pól O Geallagáin
Liam T. Mac Cosgair
Gearóid O Súileabháin
Pádraig O Braonáin
Seán O Lidia
Seán O hAodha
Pádraig O Caoimh
Seán Mac Heil
Eoin Mac Neill
Seosamh Mac Suibhne
Peadar S. Mac an Bháird
Dr. S. Mac Fhionnlaoigh
P. S. Mac Ualghairg
Próinsias Laighleis
S. Ghabháin Uí Dhubhthaigh
Deasmhumhain Mac Gearailt
Seumas O Duibhir
Pádraic O Máille
Seoirse Mac Niocaill
P. S. O hOgáin
Piaras Beaslaí
Fionán O Loingsigh
S. O Cruadhlaoich
Criostóir O Broin
Seumas O Dóláin
Aindriú O Láimhín
Tomás Mac Artúir
Dr. Pádraig Mac Artáin
Caoimhghín O hUiginn
Seosamh O Loingsigh
Próinsias Bulfin
Dr. Risteárd O hAodha
Liam O hAodha
Seosamh Mac Aonghusa
Seán Mac Eoin
Lorcán O Roibín
Eamon O Dúgáin
Peadar O h-Aodha
Seumas O Murchadha
Saerbreathach Mac Cionaith
Seosamh Mac Giolla Bhrighde
Liam Mac Sioghuird
Domhnall O Ruairc
Earnán de Blaghd
Eoin O Dubhthaigh
Alastar Mac Cába
Seumas de Búrca
Dr. V. de Faoite
Risteárd Mac Fheorais
Seán Mac Gadhra
Mícheál Mac Stáin
Risteárd O Maolchatha
Seosamh Mag Craith
Pilib Mac Cosgair
Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh
Liam de Róiste
Seumas Breathnach
Mícheál O hAodha
MR. GRIFFITH:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I repeat now what I said before when asked the question. As Premier I suppose I may say the Dáil and the Republic exist until such time as the Free State Government is set up. When that Free State Government is set up I intend that the Irish people shall have the fullest power of expression at that election. When the Dáil---the sovereign body in Ireland---passed that vote of approval of the Treaty, it was our business, and our duty to the Dáil, to see it carried through, and I regret, myself, that President de Valera resigned. When he resigned and automatically brought all his Ministers with him, Ireland was left without any Government. Therefore, someone had to be proposed to take his place in accordance with the Constitution. Now, in accordance with the Constitution, the Premier proposes his Ministers and the Dáil ratifies them. Now, I propose the six Cabinet Ministers for the Dáil: Finance Minister: Mr. Michael Collins.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I beg to propose Mr. Michael Collins as Minister of Finance.
DR. MACCARTAN:
I second it.
MR. GRIFFITH:
It is not necessary. The Dáil has simply to ratify each name.
The following were then nominated and ratified as Ministers by the Dáil:
FINANCE: Mr. Michael Collins.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS:Mr. G. Gavan Duffy.
HOME AFFAIRS:Mr. Eamonn Duggan.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT:Alderman W. T. Cosgrave.
ECONOMIC AFFAIRS:Mr. Kevin O'Higgins.
DEFENCE:Mr. R. Mulcahy.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I propose now that we adjourn until four o'clock I suppose the Labour deputation will be here at that time.
The House adjourned at 2.5 p.m.
On resuming the SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) took the Chair at 4.20 p.m.
THE SPEAKER:
In accordance with the wish of the Dáil this morning, the deputation from the Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress will be here now.
The Labour Deputation consisted of: Messrs. Thomas Johnson, Secretary; Cathal O' Shannon, Acting Chairman; Thomas Foran, General President I. T. and G.W.U.; O'Farrell, R.C.A.; Cullen (Dublin); Nason (Cork); Carr (Limerick); and Larkin (Waterford).
MR. THOMAS JOHNSON:
Mr. Speaker, and Deputies of the Dáil, my first duty is to thank you for the privilege of allowing us to address you on these matters which were referred to in my letter. We realise it is a privilege for us to come to address you; but we feel that we are, perhaps, in a somewhat exceptional position, inasmuch as we might have had the right to address the assembly had we considered, at the last election and the previous election, it was in the interests of Ireland that we should have gone forward as a Labour Party to seek representation in this Dáil [hear, hear]. The Executive of the Labour Party was in session yesterday and reported from various parts of the country as to the situation as affecting working people in these various parts of the country. We had been following the discussions here. We knew the situation as well as the newspapers would tell us the situation, and we decided that, in the circumstances, it was desirable that we should seek an interview---to seek to meet you, at least, as a delegation officially representing three hundred thousand organised workers in this country. Our delegation represents all the various towns: Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Dublin and other towns as well as some of the agricultural districts of the country. I said we had refrained from contesting elections in the interests, as we thought---as we know---on national solidarity in the face of the enemy of Ireland and the enemy of the working class---the capitalist imperialism in operation in this country. We had reason to know---we had documentary evidence to prove---that in the minds of certain very high officials of the British Government there were hopes and beliefs, and their conduct was founded on those hopes and beliefs, that we would sometime in the struggle split off from the national movement. That was one of the factors---a very important factor which determined our action at the elections. As I have said, we had followed the debates intensely, and we could not but feel that with the stress of the war, the critical periods, and the difficulties of administration, both the Government and the Deputies seem to have forgotten---in the stress of political issues---to some extent, that there was a social problem at home. There are at this time probably one hundred and thirty thousand men and women walking the streets unemployed. Tens, and twenties, and thirties of thousands of these have been only intermittently employed for the last year, or one-and-a-half years. In every country in Europe all such people have been forced to agitate more or less violently against the powers that be. But the feelings of solidarity with the nation which permeate the working class in Ireland have tended to restrain any action which they would naturally take. We were in the position that we could not agitate with the British Government on such matters as social conditions. We dared not agitate because of the critical nature of the situation---we dared not agitate against the Irish Government. The times have developed; circumstances have developed. Those times have passed and we are in the situation to-day that a very large proportion of the population is at its wits' end to know how things are going to move. Thousands of children are hungry and naked, huddled together like swine in their so-called houses. In all parts of the country we hear cries of desperation, cries of: `What is going to be done for us?' These murmurs presage, something like the tremors of an earthquake, and unless something is done rapidly---something effective---there will be a grave situation developing in this country that will be a problem for even an old-established government, let alone a new one. The working classes in Ireland have taken a full share in this national struggle [hear, hear]. Individually and collectively the workers have borne their part [hear, hear]. They are prepared to do it again when the need comes. But I would like to say that, in so far as they are conscious of their purpose---and that applies to the greater part of the men who went into this fight for freedom and for Ireland's nationality---they went into the fight for freedom for the men and women of Ireland individually [hear, hear]. Freedom from bondage to wage slavery, freedom from bondage to the machine, freedom from bondage to capitalists and financiers in Ireland or in other parts of the world. We feel, and they feel, that there must be something done immediately to lessen this burden that they are suffering. I say there are one hundred and thirty thousand unemployed up and down the country. Farmers have their complaints, their grievances, their terrible trials at the moment. Merchants have their complaints and grievances about bad trade, et cetera. They can speak for themselves. They have the means to keep body and soul together. The workers, for whom we speak, have not the means unless someone sees fit to give them employment. Twenty thousand of these men---more than twenty thousand of these men---are agricultural labourers; men who ought, at this moment, be preparing for next year's harvest. The problem that faces you and that faces the country is: that probably one million acres of land have gone out of cultivation during the last couple of years. A million acres of land gone out of cultivation! We have held, and rightly held, suspicions of the perfidy of England. We are aware of the risk, the danger there is that, when the time comes, when the opportunity serves, anything that has been promised will be withdrawn. I want to suggest to you, Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen, that the best safeguard---the only real safeguard---in this country, is an ample, home-grown food supply [applause]. What you are allowing to be done is that that food supply is not going to exist. You are going to be dependent on overseas food, and a blockade of the ports will bring Ireland to her knees. It is imperative, in our view, that the land of Ireland must be tilled for the purpose of national defence. Incidentally, it will mean the employment of the men capable of working the land [hear, hear]. During recent years Labour in Ireland has developed a new consciousness of its position in social economy. The workers have seen, and do see, that the land of Ireland, the resources of Ireland, are capable of keeping the people of Ireland in reasonable comfort. It is for those who have power to organise those resources, the natural resources and the human resources, to provide these people with the means of living a decent life. The workers are not prepared to go back to or continue the low standard of life which they have lived in the past. I want you to bear that in mind very carefully. The workers are not going to be content to go back to the standard of life they lived prior to 1914. Where attempts are being made, as they are day by day in all kinds of industries and occupations, to degrade that standard of life, it means that the workers are going to resist by whatever means they may think best. The patience of the workers, of the people, of the poor unemployed, and the wives of the unemployed, is becoming exhausted. We want to impress on you this: there is an insistent and immediate need for these problems to be tackled---the problems of unemployment, tillage, housing---and they will not brook delay. It will not do to allow them to wait on political exigencies. These are social problems that must be dealt with at once. We realise fully all the difficulties of the situation. We are fully aware of them, and are prepared to make every allowance for those difficulties. But we want to impress on you members of the Dáil---the Government of Ireland---that this is a problem which is your responsibility, You are responsible to see that this problem is dealt with and tackled effectually. If it is not so done the people will rise and sweep you away, as they would sweep any government away that failed to do its duty to the common people [applause].
MR. CATHAL O SHANNON:
A Chinn Chomhairle, agus a lucht na Dála,is mian liom buidhchas a ghabháil libh i dtaobh gur leigeabhair don Toscaireacht cúis an lucht oibre do chur os bhúr gcóir. Níl a thuille le rá agam ach aon fhocal amháin. Nuair a cuireadh Poblacht na hEireann ar bun, dubhairt sibhse, lucht na Dála gur le muintir na hEireann saidhbhreas agus talamh na hEireann. Níl uainn anois ach go gcuirfeadh sibh e sin i bhfeidbm.
PRESIDENT ARTHUR GRIFFITH:
Before the delegation leaves, I want to thank them for putting before us here, their views. I want also to say I fully agree with what they say. The workers of Ireland have taken their full share in this fight for Irish freedom [hear, hear]. I want also to say I understand perfectly, and I know, this question of unemployment, and I may say we are prepared to appoint a Committee to meet Mr. Johnson and his co-representatives to try and deal with this question [hear, hear].
The Labour Deputation withdrew.
MR. DE VALERA:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I regret more than I can express the fact that I cannot consistently and sincerely congratulate the President on his election. I regret it, as I say, more than I can express. The difficulties which he has in his office are undoubtedly very, very great. One who has had the burden of those duties on his shoulders understands what they are likely to be now, perhaps, better than anybody else and I think I will be expressing the views of everyone here, not merely those on the majority side, but we here who stand definitely for the Republic, when I say that, appreciating to the full his difficulties in acting as President of the Republic of Ireland, as head of the established State, we shall not only not stand in his way in carrying out the duties of that office, but we shall do everything that is possible for us to secure to the full for the Irish people enjoyment of the liberty which is their right as citizens of the Irish Republic [hear, hear]. That must not, of course, be interpreted in any way as meaning that we are not to continue our own policy---that we are not to criticise and attack his policy in any respect in which it may appear to us to be contrary to the interests of the Irish people and the established government, which is the Republic. Whenever he functions, or will function in his other capacity as head of another government, we cannot recognise that government at all. We will have to insist and continue insisting on our attitude that that government is not the legitimate government of this country until the Irish people have disestablished the Republic, and we shall do everything in our power to see they do not disestablish it. I have also said whenever there is a question between the President of the Republic as head of this State, and any outside power that he can count on us to the full; that he can count on our support as definitely as if there had never been a division between us. I would also feel contemptible in my own eyes if I did not say this: I have found fault, as I felt it my duty, with the actions of the President when he was Minister of Foreign Affairs; but there is not one in this whole Assembly, not even those on his side, who realise how terrible was the task imposed upon him. And I want to tell him this: that if in any way it were consistent with Irish national principles to support the action he was taking, I would be supporting him; and that I am in opposition now simply because I felt that the action that is proposed is neither good for the Irish people, nor is it consistent with Irish national aspirations. I know he will believe me when I tell him I will, as a single Irish citizen, give to him in his office all the respect which I would expect to receive when in that office, from any citizens, and which I received from the Minister of Foreign Affairs himself. It is a good thing there should be these changes, so that we who have been in power may recognise, individually, that it is power which does not come from ourselves, but is given to is; and when we are in office we are not acting as individual autocrats, but as functionaries for the people. I have said changes are good things, and I am glad to be able, as a private individual, to act my part as a private Irish citizen; and the President of the Republic will receive from me, personally, and I hope from every Irish citizen, while he is acting in that capacity, the full respect which his office entitles him to. It will be my duty to do everything in my power to see this established Republic is not disestablished. On this side of the House, even amongst those who most bitterly oppose his policy, there is a sympathetic feeling, and the magnitude of the task imposed upon him is realised. I regret it is not possible for me consistently to be able to congratulate him on the office which he is taking up in the present circumstances. Now, I would like if he would give us some outline of the policy he intends to pursue in maintaining the existing Republic.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
I desire to thank President de Valera for his words. I call him President still; because if he had not resigned yesterday I would never have asked him to resign. He has spoken of laying down a burden. If there was anything in my life I would like, it would be to lay down the burden and get back into private life. It is no feeling of ambition, or anything like that,
<SMALL>p.415</SMALL>
that is going to make me act as I am. I know the responsibilities I am taking on. I feel those responsibilities, and if I did not feel it a duty to my country---an absolute duty owing to the part I took---I would certainly wish to get away into some kind of private or domestic life. I am doing what I am doing because I believe it is my absolute duty to my country. Men may differ from me here; men may hold other views. I can only follow my own conscience and my own judgment, and I am doing that. As to the policy I am going to pursue, I have stated it already here to-day. If President de Valera had not resigned yesterday I would never have suggested he should resign. I would have suggested he would have remained on. But once he resigned and carried us with him, there was nothing else for us to do but adopt one course. We were not prepared to abandon the Treaty. Now, as regards President de Valera, he is an individual whom I esteem and love, although, in the interests of the nation, I had to oppose him. As I said from the very beginning, the Dáil is going to remain in existence---the Republic of Ireland is going to remain in existence---until the Free State is prepared to have an election. I do not want any obstruction. At all events that is all I ask. We are going to have the heaviest task that was ever laid on the shoulders of Irishmen, thrown on our shoulders. All we ask is that we will not be obstructed until we can go to the Irish people and give them the Free State, and let them decide. That is the only policy I have. If the Irish people turn down the Free State for the Republic, I will follow in the ranks. I will back the Free State. All I ask of Ireland and of my colleagues against me is not to throw obstacles in our way. Within the next three months we are going to have the heaviest task ever thrown on the shoulders of Irishmen. So at least give us a fair trial. That is the policy [applause].
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
A Chinn Chomhairle---
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
What is before the House, exactly?
THE SPEAKER:
There is no motion before the House at present.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
What about the Orders of the Day?
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
I am told I made some remark that might have another bearing to what I intended to say. It was to the effect that if the Irish people turned down the Free State, I would back the Free State. What I meant to say was that if the Irish people at a free election, without any force used on either side, say: `No! we want to have the Republic,' I will follow in the ranks of the Irish people. I want that to be quite clear. I am going to back the Free State, to propose it and to advocate it; but I agree with President de Valera, nobody can disestablish the Dáil except the Irish people at an election. At that election I will stand for the Free State. If the Irish people are against me I will follow behind them as a private in the ranks. If I said anything to the contrary, I wish to correct it.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
I wish to raise a few points in connection with the statement made by the President.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
I must protest. There is nothing before the House. Deputy Childers is out of order.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
The President has made a very general statement of policy. All I wish to do is to ask him to be more explicit in a few particulars which are of great importance. I do not raise the points in the least obstructive sense, or with any obstructive motives. It is simply in order that we may know more exactly where we stand. Mr. Griffith as President has taken over an important office, to my view in a double capacity---one as Chief Executive Officer of Dáil Eireann, and the other, which he will soon presumably hold, is Chief of the Provisional Government. It is simply a few points arising out of that curious and ambiguous situation which I wish to raise. I would have raised them on the previous motion but the closure was moved and I was unable to speak. My friend, Mr. Gavan Duffy, said all the questions put to Mr. Griffith had been satisfactorily answered, and that we can just go ahead under Mr. Griffith in his dual capacity. I do not think that is so, and further explanation is needed. One of the questions asked him he certainly did not answer at all. That question was: `Will the Provisional Government function under the statutory powers conferred by the Partition Act?' I think I am right in saying he made no answer to that question at all. Has Dáil Eireann---
MR. D. MACCARTHY:
I rise to a point of order. Yesterday you allowed a motion to be debated for two-and-a-half hours, and then ruled it out of order. Let us know where we are What is before the House? If this debate is going to go on for two or three hours we may then be told it is not in order, and there is nothing before the House.
THE SPEAKER:
On a strict point of order there is no motion before us.
MR. P. HUGHES:
I move that we proceed with the next business.
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
I have pleasure in seconding that motion.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
But this is a---
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
Before this proceeds any further, I want to say that President de Valera made a statement---a generous statement---and I replied. Now [striking the table] I will not reply to any Englishman in this Dáil [applause].
MR. P. O'KEEFE:
It is nearly time we had that.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
It is about time.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
My nationality is a matter for myself and for the constituents that sent me here.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
Your constituents did not know what your nationality was.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
They have known me from my boyhood days---since I was about half a dozen years of age.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
I will not reply to any damned Englishman in this Assembly.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
Are all these proceedings in order?
THE SPEAKER:
The whole proceedings at present are out of order.
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
It has been proposed and seconded that the next business in the Orders of the Day be proceeded with.
THE SPEAKER:
I have ruled.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
I hardly think you will say this is out of order [cries of `Chair! Chair!']. It is hardly out of order to say something to an interjection like that made by the President. I am not going to defend my nationality, but I would be delighted to show the President privately that I am not, in the true sense of the word, an Englishman, as he knows. He banged the table. If he had banged the table before Lloyd George in the way he banged it here, things might have been different [cries of `Order!' and applause].
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
I banged the table before your countryman, Mr. Lloyd George [applause].
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
And Griffith is a Welsh name.
MR. P. HUGHES:
Are are going to have this all the evening?
THE SPEAKER:
I have ruled this is out of order.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
In the interests of decency and order you should rule Deputy Childers out of order. It is not making for harmony or proper debate to allow him to continue. Admittedly, it is out of order.
THE SPEAKER:
Leave it to me. Deputy Childers, I have ruled the continuation of this discussion is out of order.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
You rule me out of order?
THE SPEAKER:
Yes.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
May I ask are we permitted to ask questions?
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
If the President of this House makes a statement of policy in this House, is it in order to ask him some questions arising out of that statement?
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
Under Standing Order number six, twenty-four hours' notice of questions to Ministers shall be given by Deputies, in writing.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
Let us get on with the next business. What is it?
THE SPEAKER:
We will take up the next business. It is a motion in the name of President de Valera---we must call him Deputy de Valera now---
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I sent up a question yesterday. What is the proper time to bring it up at?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Standing Order 4 (d) deals with the matter.
THE SPEAKER:
When you brought it up before, I told you I believed it was out of order. I also told you it was out of order in substance, as being an alternative in opposition to the motion for the ratification of the Treaty.
MR. DE VALERA:
I do not intend to pursue this [hear, hear]. There is no good purpose, as far as I can see, to be gained at this stage in pursuing this motion. It will stand, and the criticisms that have been levelled at it will be proved to be unjust. It is the natural sequel to the correspondence we had with the British Prime Minister. It is the natural conclusion to that correspondence. If we did not have that to show that we had a definite objective, it might appear that we had no definite objective in view at all, and that we were simply pursuing the negotiations for some other purpose except for the definite purpose of trying to effect reconciliation and peace; and, in truth, to try to get a solution, or find some means by which association with the community of nations known as the British Commonwealth might best be reconciled with Irish national aspirations. As to the motion for the approval of the Treaty, I still want to insist it is not an act as such, but simply a resolution of this Assembly. It would be ultra vires to ratify the Treaty. It is simply an approval of the report brought over by the Delegation. That motion has been carried, and as we have established such definite party lines here, there would be no good purpose served by moving and explaining the document here.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Whether that document is ruled out or not, I want to say this about it: we shall do our very best to secure the earliest possible publication of all the private documents which led up to that document, and I shall do my best, at the very first opportunity I have of doing it, to issue a criticism of that document, and that can go before the public, and let that criticism be answered in the same public way [applause].
THE SPEAKER:
The next motion is in my own name, and in order that I may move it, it will be necessary for the Deputy Speaker to take my place.
MR. DE VALERA:
May I withdraw my motion?
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
When may I ask my question?
ALDERMAN W. T. COSGRAVE:
In No. 4 (d) of the Standing Orders it is laid down that the first business of the day shall be questions to Ministers, and all subjects thereto, and so on.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
In the absence of the Deputy Speaker, I move that Deputy Liam de Roiste take the Chair.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
I beg to second that.
THE SPEAKER vacated the Chair which was then taken by ALDERMAN LIAM DE ROISTE.
PROFESSOR EOIN MACNEILL:
The motion I have to move, Sir, is: `That Dáil Eireann affirms that Ireland is a Sovereign Nation, deriving its sovereignty in all respects from the will of the people of Ireland; that all the international relations of Ireland are governed on the part of Ireland by this sovereign status, and that all facilities and accommodations accorded by Ireland to another state or country are subject to the right of the Irish Government to take care that the liberty and well-being of the people of Ireland are not endangered'. Now, one Deputy asked me when this notice appeared first, what was the meaning of it. I gathered from the question, or perhaps, from the conversation which followed it, that what was intended in asking me that question was: what tactical purpose I had in bringing it forward. Now, I have no tactical purpose in bringing it forward; that is to say, no tactical purpose as between any number of members of this Dáil and any other number of members of this Dáil---no tactical purpose whatsoever. There is not a single member of this assembly who can say that any single thing that I have done since I became a member of it partook of the nature of tactics, in order to gain an advantage over any number of persons in the Dáil, or for any object pursued by any number of persons in this Dáil over the other number. There are old friends of mine associated with me in public movements for years back, and not one of them can point to an occasion upon which I ever endeavoured to gain a tactical advantage over any other person with whom I was engaged in Irish public work. Therefore I put this motion in the hope that it will express the unanimous view of the members of this assembly. I do not put it from any controversial point of view, and if I understood that it were to be made the basis of a controversy here now, I should rather never have brought it forward, and I would ask that, sooner than that a controversy should arise upon it, I shall be asked to withdraw it. The terms in which it is stated, are stated with all the clarity that it was possible for me to put into it. There is no reserve; there is nothing concealed in any term; I wish them to be as plain as I could make them in the English language. And the reason for that, I think, is obvious. Now, it is evident that a great deal of confusion of thought---not so much confusion of thought as the confusion of the habitual way of expressing thoughts---about these things, exists. It is natural enough. The political traditions of the past have to account for it. I say the same as Mr. de Valera said to you a few days ago. What I think about these things---I know perfectly well; I have no doubt about it---it is what the people of Ireland think in their hearts about it. They may be confused with regard to how to express their thoughts, they may be confused in the face of this or that political proposal or political formula, but what they think is the same, fundamentally the same. They think what I say here: that there is no rightful sovereignty, and can be no rightful sovereignty, except the sovereignty derived from the will of the Irish people [hear, hear]. That is what I ask the Dáil to re-affirm now as a basic principle, and the object of doing that---one object of doing it---is clear enough. There is a danger in making agreements, especially in making agreements with a government like the English Government. There is a saying attributed to General Smuts `that the statesmen of England cannot think of Ireland; when they think of Ireland their minds relapse into the seventeenth century'. Well, consequently, there is a danger that people in Ireland, and people in England, may interpret this or that in the terms of the seventeenth century. I wish it to be made clear that it is in the terms of the present century that these things ought to be interpreted. The second thing I state in this is: that the international relations of Ireland are governed on the part of Ireland by this sovereign status. Now, these international relations---the international relations involved in the Treaty---concern, as well as Ireland, Great Britain South Africa, Australia and New Zealand---every single one of these countries. Those in them who represent them as political thinkers hold precisely the same doctrines as are stated here, that is to say that each of these countries is sovereign in its own domain, and derives its sovereignty from the will of its people. In the second place, each one of them in its relation with the other, exercises that sovereign status, so that the relations to each other is one of equality. In a recent communication reported in the Press, written by Mr. Lloyd George from the South of France, he is reported as having stated that this equality of status was what is now recognised on his part. At all events, I wish it to be put beyond all doubt that it is what is now recognised on our part---that we recognise no inequality of status---
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
PROFESSOR EOIN MACNEILL:
That we recognise no subordinate status, and that we recognise no suzeranity or claim to suzeranity in any shape or form [hear, hear]. People will say, perhaps---well no, take the `perhaps' out of it [laughter]---that in the actual terms of the Treaty there are words and phrases that cannot clearly be reconciled with those principles. I do not deny it. There are words and phrases which cannot clearly be reconciled with those principles. I do not read much of these discussions, but I happened to hit on one item in a discussion that took place in the British Parliament on this Treaty. It was Lord Birkenhead who was speaking, and he was speaking about his friend, Lord Carson, and he said Lord Carson's ideas on the subject were mediæval. I wish Lord Birkenhead's own ideas were less mediæval when he was engaged in his share of drafting that Treaty, because there is a great deal of pure mediævalism in the phrasing of it. My object is plain. It is to get away from the mediævalism and interpret all these things in the light of the twentieth century---to interpret status in the light in which South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand interpret it; that is to say, sovereignty for each of those in their own domain, and equality in their relations with each other. Not, indeed, that their form of interpretation of it need concern us; for if they had never placed any interpretation on it, it would be our right and duty and business to declare the fact that Ireland is a sovereign nation, deriving its sovereignty in all respects from the will of the people of Ireland, and that all the international relations of Ireland are governed on the part of Ireland by this sovereign status. That means complete equality in these relations. Now, we come to the third part which deals with facilities and accommodations accorded by Ireland to another state or country. We know the claim that has been put forward, and that is that certain shines are necessary to the security of Great Britain on account of its peculiar position. It is not necessary at all to deal with that that part of my resolution in any controversial form, because I think it is recognised on all hands---not that we take the view Great Britain takes with regard to these things---but that, for one reason or another, we cannot escape from making certain concessions in those respects. Well, having made those concessions, we are entitled to insist that those concessions shall only be used for the purposes for which they are claimed. It is quite possible they might be used for another purpose. It has arisen at many points during our long discussions here that we cannot invest ourselves with security here against the naval power of Britain, if Britain is hostile to us; and, in fact, the statement has been made that the only safeguard we have against the naval aggression of Great Britain is international morality. I, personally, think international morality has a very long way to go yet before it becomes worthy of the term morality at all. But if these concessions are made, or exist, it is the right of the Irish Government to take care that they are used for no other purpose than the purpose for which they are claimed. Now, those are the reasons for which I have brought forward those resolutions. It is in order that things which some people say exist by implication, and other people deny, but---whether they exist by implication or do not exist by implication---ought to exist, and about which we are all unanimous that they ought to exist---it is in order that these things may be clearly stated, so that it will not be possible for any person in future to say, if we insist on these fundamental rights of the Irish people, we are breaking faith with anybody. These are fundamental rights; they existed before the Treaty, they existed during the Treaty, they existed after the Treaty. We claim these rights, at all events, and I believe the Irish people, so far as they can think these things out, are unanimous in claiming them. I would not even exclude the Unionists. There is no political right but the right based on the will of the Irish people. Consequently I put these proposals forward. I hope I have said nothing controversial as between different sections here. If I have, it has been unintentional. I put these forward for your consideration. These are things that have all been agreed to publicly in many statements made on behalf of Great Britain, and on behalf of the communities mentioned as in the British Commonwealth. They are undenied, and put forward without being challenged. I ask you to put them forward. I have avoided, so far as I consciously could, putting up any controversial aspect on the resolution itself, and in my attempt to explain it, and I would ask my fellow members here to adopt unanimously those resolutions in order to show that, on certain fundamental things, we, as representing the people of Ireland, are unanimous [applause].
THE ACTING SPEAKER:
Is there any seconder for Deputy MacNeill's resolution?
MR. R. MULCAHY:
I desire to second that resolution.
MR. DE VALERA:
I regret this resolution has been brought forward. As Deputy MacNeill said he would withdraw it if it was controversial, I think, from one point of view, it should be withdrawn. But the main idea can be served, perhaps, very much better by an amendment. Our attitude is this: this resolution of the approval of the Treaty was simply a license to the Executive---the new Executive---that they might promote the setting up of a Provisional Government in accordance with the terms, in other words, that we would not be actively hostile to the setting up of the Government, though we do not, and cannot, admit its right as the Government of this country until the Irish people have spoken. Anything that would seem to make it appear that that Treaty was completed by the resolution of approval here, we are against; and this mere declaration is, to our minds, of very little value when it is not in accordance, as far as we can see, with the text of the actual Treaty. I will propose an amendment to this---and I think we can be unanimous about this, because any action we have taken here, we have taken it as the Parliament of the Republic of Ireland---and the amendment that would cover the object for which Deputy MacNeill's motion was put before you, being the assertion of the independence of Ireland, can be put this way. Leave out all the words after Dáil Eireann and insert: `The Government of Dáil Eireann re-affirms in the name of the Irish people the Declaration of Independence made on January 21st, 1919'. I propose that we here now solemnly re-affirm that Declaration of Independence. It is, as you know, as follows:`
<SMALL>
Whereas the Irish people is by right a free people: and whereas for seven hundred years the Irish people has never ceased to repudiate, and has repeatedly protested in arms against foreign usurpation; and whereas English Rule in this country is, and always has been, based upon force and fraud and maintained by military occupation against the declared will of the people: and whereas the Irish Republic was proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday, 1916, by the Irish Republican Army acting on behalf of the Irish people: and whereas the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its complete independence in order to promote the common weal, to re-establish justice, to provide for future defence, to insure peace at home and good will with all nations, and to constitute a national polity based upon the people's will, with equal right and equal opportunity for every citizen: and whereas, at the threshold of a new era in history, the Irish electorate has, in the General Election of December, 1918, seized the first occasion to declare by an overwhelming majority its firm allegiance to the Irish Republic: now, therefore, we, the elected representatives of the ancient Irish people in national Parliament assembled, do, in the name of the Irish nation ratify the establishment of the Irish Republic, and pledge ourselves and our people to make this declaration effective by every means at our command: we ordain that the elected representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to which that people will give its allegiance: we solemnly declare foreign Government in Ireland to be an invasion of our national right which we will never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation of our country by the English Garrison: we claim for our national independence the recognition and support of every free nation in the world, and we proclaim that independence to be a condition precedent to international peace hereafter: in the name of the Irish people we humbly commit our destiny to Almighty God who gave our fathers the courage and determination to persevere through long centuries of a ruthless tyranny,and strong in the justice of the cause which they have handed down to us, we ask His Divine Blessing on this, the last stage of the struggle we have pledged ourselves to carry through to freedom
</SMALL>
[applause].
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
That is not an amendment in accordance with the rules of debate.
THE ACTING SPEAKER:
I am careful about that matter of omitting adding, or substituting words. This is to omit words?
MR. DE VALERA:
To omit and substitute words.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Did I not understand the proposer of the motion to say very definitely and clearly that he was putting it forward on the express understanding there was to be no official opposition, and it there was, it would be withdrawn?
MR. D. O CEALLACHAlN:
Is mian liom aontú leis an bhfó-rún.
PROFESSOR MACNEIL:
I am sorry it was not indicated to me that it was intended to put an amendment to my resolution. If I had known anything about that, I would not have, at this stage of the proceedings, supplied material for a fresh controversy. I ask the permission of the Dáil to withdraw my resolution [hear, hear].
MR. J. J. WALSH:
There is no necessity to ask permission.
THE ACTING SPEAKER:
I must therefore declare, as the proposer of the motion has withdrawn it, that now there is neither a motion nor an amendment before the House [applause]. I will ask the Speaker to take the Chair again[laughter].
ALDERMAN DE ROISTE vacated the Chair which was then taken by THE SPEAKER.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I rise to make a motion for the adjournment. But before I do so I may mention that into my hands have been put, within the last few minutes questions addressed by Madame Markievicz. It was the first time I saw them, and there might be an insinuation that I avoided them. The first question is:
<SMALL>
`What is the scheme that Mr. Griffith refers to when he says, alluding to the Southern Unionists, `I agreed that a scheme should be devised to give them their full share of representation in the first Chamber of the Irish Parliament'. Is it a scheme for party legislation, class legislation, or what?'
</SMALL>
The second question is:
<SMALL>
`On what basis is this Upper House that he mentions further on in the letter to be constituted?'
</SMALL>
My answer to that is this: I met some of the Southern Unionists in London. I refused to meet them at a Conference. I said they had no locus standi at a Conference; but I would meet them as an Irishman might meet Irishmen. I discussed matters with them, and I said: `We want you all in Ireland'. They asked about representation, and I said: `I will agree a scheme shall be devised to give you full representation'. Madame Markievicz asks me what that scheme is. I do not know.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Thank you.
PRESIDENT GRIFFITH:
That scheme will have to be considered when we are drawing up the Constitution. I was not able to work out the scheme at the moment. These questions are trap questions. I wrote overnight from London, and a courier came across to Dublin. I informed the Cabinet I was going to see these gentlemen, and I informed them afterwards; so they knew all about it. As to the second question, that is a question when the Constitution is being drawn up. What I have pledged is that they will get a fair representation in both Houses, and I will see to it. Now I move the adjournment of the House until such time as we call it together again.
MR. DE VALERA:
I do not know whether the President would be really wise in doing that straight off. There are a number of things he might enlighten us on by having another session. There are questions of policy to be disposed of, Republican staffs, foreign representatives, and a number of Executive matters which the House would like to have some information about. The taking over of the various offices is another matter. Ex-Ministers will, naturally, hand over their departments to the present Ministers and I suppose the present Ministers will make arrangements for taking them over. I would suggest that to-morrow an opportunity would be given to those who want to ask questions to meet again. An opportunity will then be given to those who want information as to when the next meeting of the Dáil will be. Let us have a definite idea of what is going to be done.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Yes; something like that.
MR. DE VALERA:
Meanwhile the President and the members of his Cabinet will have an opportunity of preparing an outline of policy.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Would it not be better if the other side made a practical suggestion for once? I mentioned a matter the other day, and there was no response. Obviously a Committee, or some kind of contest between the two sides, would meet the case. It is also obvious, if we are not to be hindered, that certain details are necessary to be arranged, and those details will take a great deal of working out. It is not fair that we should be kept here and prevented from doing our work. Questions are being asked. I say these cannot be answered, because we have not the necessary time to send anybody to the English side to ask for transfers and arrange other matters. If we are not to be hindered, I think the adjournment of the House over a certain period ought to be supported. I do not care whether the period is named or not. At any rate, tactics should be dropped, and we should get a bit of fair play.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
The Minister of Finance put us into a difficulty yesterday which he has, apparently, forgotten. He informed us that every penny we were spending now was spent illegally. How can any expenditure be made until the House has sanctioned it for the next six months? Expenditure cannot be carried on until it is sanctioned by this House, as we did last July or August. That is one matter. There are several other questions, as the President suggested, that have to come up.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Would it be suggested by anybody here that we should cease at once paying the staffs in the different departments, and that we should ask back from the staffs all they have received in salaries for the past fortnight? The only expenditure that is being made is the simple routine expenditure in all the departments. I am not spending the money. All the departments have been carried on, as everybody knows just as they had been prior to any division. And surely to goodness it would not be suggested that they should not be paid. I do not know to what extent the other side would go in any suggestion now. I do not know if any person could find fault with any expenditure on ordinary staffs.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
I resent very much the suggestion that I am implying that the Minister of Finance should do anything he should not do. I resent it very much. This is an ordinary question of constitutional procedure. For any expenditure he has got to get the sanction of the House.
MR. M. COLLINS:
A statement will have to be prepared.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
The newly elected President suggests that we should adjourn until he chooses to call us together again. We cannot adjourn until the ordinary business of the House is settled. Moreover we are told we cannot get questions answered without giving twenty-four hours' notice. There are some very important questions to be asked, not with a view to creating trouble, but to seek definite answers. I will oppose the motion to adjourn until those questions are answered, and until we get some idea---
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
There is a motion before the House.
ALDERMAN M. STAINES:
I second the motion for the adjournment. Any members who have questions to ask should send them to the Cabinet Ministers, and the Cabinet Ministers will be in a much better position to answer them when we meet again. We can see then what is being done. It is not fair to the members of the Cabinet. Give them a chance.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I have been Minister of Finance for the last couple of hours only. All the estimates have to be prepared, and that is a fairly big
task, and naturally it will take some time before they can be submitted to the House.
MR. J. J. MACKEOWN:
I move that the motion be now put to the House.
MR. DE VALERA:
Do not try to rush the matter. We will get more harmony if there is no attempt to rush. Undoubtedly there is great anxiety on our side of the House to know what your programme for the future is. There, for example, is the question of the estimates. Instead of adjourning the House sine die, if a certain date were fixed, it would be accepted most definitely---if there was a definite date fixed at which the Dáil was to re-assemble, everything could be prepared by the new Cabinet, and they would be in a position to put the estimates before the House, when they could be fully examined. I suggest a date be definitely fixed.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
I think President de Valera is acting fairly; some of the other members are not. We want to get a chance. We have not spoken about ourselves, but for three months past we have been working night and day. We were faced with the task of fighting our English opponents first, and then we had to come and fight our Irish friends, and now we have to take on as big a job as ever men took on [hear, hear]. We want a chance. We cannot meet every day here and at the same time try and carry out the things. If President de Valera---I will still call him President---agrees, I will fix a month hence as the date for the next meeting, end we will meet again on this day month. Give us a chance to do some thing in the meantime. We cannot work as it is.
MR. DE VALERA:
We ought, I think, to take that as reasonable. Everybody ought to regard it as reasonable [applause]. The only thing we are really anxious about is the Army, and perhaps the Minister of Defence would give us some idea of what he proposes to do. I am anxious myself as an individual who knows the Army. I am anxious to know what the position of the Army will be. I fear that, unless the Army is kept intact as the Army of the Republic, we will not have that confidence---the members of the Army will not have that confidence---which is necessary if we are to keep them as a solid unit.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
Suppose we adjourn until the fourteenth February. It is a Tuesday.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
So far as I am concerned, and also my colleagues, we will be always most happy to meet President de Valera to discuss any matters that can be discussed. The motion is to adjourn until fourteenth February; the tenth February, which would be this day month, is a Friday---a bad day to meet on.
MR. R. J. MULCAHY:
In reply to President de Valera's question with regard to the Army, the policy of the new Executive will be to keep the Army absolutely intact, and that, as between this date and the re-assembly of the Dáil, there is absolutely nothing that should give anybody in this Assembly any uneasiness with regard to the Army and with regard to its strength.[applause]
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Do I understand that discipline is going to be maintained in Cork as well as everywhere else?
MR. SEAN MOYLAN:
When has the Army in Cork ever shown lack of discipline? [hear, hear]
MR. P. COLLIVET:
I would like to ask that, if we do separate we will separate under circumstances that will appeal to our own selves and to the people, and I would ask Deputies to make no more remarks that would lead to differences of opinion.
MR. DE VALERA:
The Minister of Defence has not quite satisfied me. He says he will keep the Army intact. What I am anxious about is that orders given to the Army will be given in the name of the Government of the Republic; otherwise I fear there might be some trouble.
MR. R. J. MULCAHY:
The Army will remain occupying the same position with regard to this Government of the Republic, and occupying the same position with regard to the Minister of Defence, and under the same management, and in the same spirit as we have had up to the present [hear, hear].
MR. DE VALERA:
I do not want to pin you down any further, so I will take it at that.
PRESIDENT GRIFFITH:
Before we adjourn I wish to move that the thanks of the assembly be conveyed to the College authorities for placing these rooms so long at our disposal.
MR. DE VALERA:
I have great pleasure in seconding that proposal. The University authorities were very kind when, while I was acting as President of the Dáil---President of the Republic---I asked that we might be given accommodation here. Then as Chancellor of the University, I am delighted that this historic meeting---although for many reasons it will be a sad one---was held here [applause].
THE SPEAKER put the motion and declared it carried unanimously.
MR. R. J. MULCAHY:
On a point of explanation; what I said apparently has not been understood, and it has been suggested I avoided saying what could have been said very simply. It is suggested I avoided saying the Army will continue to be the Army of the Irish Republic. If any assurance is required---the Army will remain the Army of the Irish Republic [applause].
The House rose.
Marcus Garvey of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in New York was not one to miss congratulating Dail Eireann on ratifying the Treaty, issuing the following announcement:
“ The Irish have succeeded, first among the trio of Egypt, India and Ireland, in winning a place of mastery among the nations of the world. Some time last night the Irish Parliament, with a majority of seven, voted for the ratification of the agreement . . . thus elevating Ireland and the Irish people from the position of serfs, peons, to that of masters”
Garvey found that his admiration of the revolutionary nationalism of Sinn Fein, under conditions of violent racial upheaval in America, refocused his articulation of the race question: "Africa must be for the Africans, and them exclusively." This ideological transition, moreover, was enhanced and deepened by Garvey's identification with the awe-inspiring blood sacrifice of Irish patriotic martyrdom, which symbolized in very dramatic ways both the recovery of Irish political independence and racial redemption. Thus, if Garvey's rapid entry into the swirling currents of postwar nationalist agitation did contribute to the turbulent quality of the epoch, he was guided to a remarkable degree by the example of the Irish struggle waged both in Ireland and from America.
Robert A Hill. “The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers Project “ UCLA ( Via Internet Site June 1997 )
`
Griffith summons all elected members of the 26 counties to a meeting of Dail Eireann in the Mansion House on January 14th. De Valera announced on behalf of all Anti-Treaty TD’s that they did not recognise the Parliament and would not be sitting. The divisions were forming. While political opinion was dividing along both Pro & Anti-Treaty lines, internally, both groups were also riven by moderates and extremists. Collins on the other hand could plainly see that Civil War was possible but avoidable, and if not, wanted time in which to build up the army. The reasoning being that while most of the active I.R.A units were anti-treaty, a policy of non-confrontation would allow for strengtening defences.
For the Anti-Treaty group, one of the key questions remained that of Army control. The new Minister for Defence, Richard Mulcahy maintained that it would be maintained as the Army of the Irish Republic but it became widely believed that the army could be now be used against opposition to the Treaty. To ensure a form of military neutrality, a letter requesting the holding of a General Army Convention was sent to the Minister for Defence by Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows, James O’Donovan,. Sean Russel, Oscar Traynor and Liam Lynch. In it were proposed resoloutions to be placed before the convention, amongst them an affirmation by the army of allegiance to the Irish Republic and controlled by an Executive to be appointed by the Convention. Not surprisingly, the convention was refused by Mulcahy citing that the Army would remain answerable to the Dail and not to any another executive. A private meeting to examine the situation was proposed.
12
Following on from the Mulcahy letter, an Acting Military Council was formed by the Anti-Treaty members who in turn advised the Minister for Defence that a convention would be called by them. This resulted in an agreement that an Army Convention would be held within two months.
As political divisions throughout the country were forming, so too did divisions within the Irish Volunteers. Ernie O’Malley, Commandant of the Second Southern met with his commanders who objected strongly to being under Dail control. The first break amongst the Irish Volunteers occurred when this division repudiated the Dail’s authority and remained independent. Similar breaks occurred in the West.
British Government announced an amnesty for all Irish political prisoners, releasing 400 men
Spanish Flu continues to sweep through Ireland and Britain.
14
Under articles 17 & 18 of the Treaty, a “Southern Parliament” was convened, performed two functions ( passing a motion approving the Treaty and electing a Provisional Government for the 26 counties ) and then ceased to exist.
There were 64 pro-treaty members elected to the 2nd Dail in May 1921 plus the 4 members of Trinity College.
The Parliament elected a provisional government for the 26 counties and confirmed the provision of the Treaty whereby the Irish Free State was to evolve from the provisional government in one year after the signing of the Treaty. De Valera and supporters were not present. Michael Collins was appointed Chairman and to organise the take-over from the British Government and Army.
15
On the last day of full British Administration in Ireland, Mark Sturgis wrote in his diary ‘History alone will show whether we have donegood work for Ireland and England or damn bad. It is clearly now up to Ireland to make a success of it or not. We have done the job we were sent to do … this I suppose is the last phase as far as I am concerned. If Collins stands up to the extremeists all will be well, but there was an uneasy tone in the Dial debate which sounded like a feeling after placation of these gentry which I’m sure is the wrong policy and may wreck the new Government if they go on with it..’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p 227
16
Government of the 26 Counties of Ireland formally handed over.
Michael Collins met with the Lord Lieutenant in Dublin Castle and ‘received the surrender of Dublin Castle’ according to the Provisional Government manifesto and was duly installed. On arrival at the Castle, he was told by the Viceroy that he was seven minutes late and is reputed to have said ‘We’ve been waiting seven hundred years, you can have your seven minutes’.
At the same time, British troop evacuation began, with flying colours and marching bands. ‘Let Erin Remember’ being the favourite farewell tune. The Black and Tans, Auxilliaries and RIC also began to disband. A proclamation was issued ordering courts and public servants to continue carrying out their functions. The Civil Servants that wanted to remain, kept their positions and so the machinery of administration continued. Collins went to London to confer on transfer of services, evacuation and amnestys.
As Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State, Collins said ‘How could I ever have expected to see Dublin Castle itself – that dread Bastille of Ireland – formally surrendered into my hands by the Lord Lieutenant in the brocade-hung council chamber, on my producing a copy of the London Treaty?’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.62
The Provisional Government received £500,000 to assist in the take over.
The new Government ‘inherited relatively strong economic, educational, social and political infrastructures. In addition, partition now saved the South from the most explosive internal problems subverting new states: race and religion, by the simple device of exporting them to the North.’
Prof. J.J.Lee. ‘Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society’ Cambridge University Press 1989. P77.
Over the following days, recruitment for the new police force, the Civic Guards, started. Macardle claims that of the Republican Police offered positions, ‘those known to be opposed to the Treaty [were] exempted from the offer, often by name.’ Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P654
17
Mark Sturgis was finding the transition somewhat awkward: ‘The papers announce the ‘Surrender of Dublin Castle’ the phrase used in the Sinn Fein Official from the Mansion House. It leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. It is so ‘caddish’. They might with advantage have confined themselves to prompting the papers to such talk and not indulged in it ‘officially’. I hope the Special Honours list will come quick – it will be the best counter to this surrender talk, which is galling to use, to the soldiers and the police alike, and will show that Lloyd George does not share this view that we are beaten..;
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p 227
19
Mark Sturgis wrote ‘The Provisonal Government are making a show of governing. I wish they would lose no time in getting the IRA into uniform so that all may know who’s who and whats what with violence is by no means decreasing; the stealing of motors in and near Dublin is serious..’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p 227
Southern Unionists, meeting in Dawson Street, resolve unanimously to recognise the Provisional Government and the Free State.
20
Sandy Linsay, an old Oxford friend of Erskine Childers commented to Mrs Childers: ‘Absoloutley everything that De Valera has said to the NE has has with the best intentions said the thing most calculated to put their backs up. I think that now you are preserving the unity of the South and West at the expense of making impossible or delaying for a long time the unity of the whole of Ireland.’
Michael Hopkinson ’The Irish War of Independence’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 2002. p161
21
Following meetings bwtween Collins, Churchill and Craig, both the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland agreed to send representatives to London to finalise the boundaries between the two states. Craig also undertakes to stop the attacks taking place on Ulster Catholics and to protect Catholic workers in the Belfast shipyards.
De Valera left for the Irish Race Congress meeting in Paris, attended by representatives of Irish organisations throughout the world. He traveled from London to Paris in disguise of Fr. Patrick Walsh until his return on February 3rd.
22
Erskine Childers began a bi-weekly newletter ‘The Republic Of Ireland’ containing ‘penetrating analysis of the inferior constitutional position which the Treaty was designed to create, exposures of the delusions fostered by the Pro-Treaty press and appeals to the reason of the Irish people’ Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P657
Bendict XV (1854-1922), elected Pope 1914-1922 died of pneumonia at the Vatican aged 68. Benedict maintained a strict neutrality throughout the World War and made frequent efforts to bring about a peace settlement and to aid war victims. During his rule, official relations were restored between the Vatican and the French government, and a British representative was sent to the Vatican for the first time since the 17th century. In 1917 he promulgated the new Codex Juris Canonici (Code of Canon Law).
Pius XI elected Pope and ruled until 1939.
23
While Collins, Duggan and O’Higgins were in London to assist British ministers in implementing the Treaty, Lady Hazel Lavery held a dinner party to intorduce them to her English friends. ‘Juliet Duff later remarked that ‘three nicer men, she’d never met’ particularly Collins, who was ‘quite irresistible’ and a ‘real playboy’ with a tremendous twinkle and sudden quick impulsive gestures’ That day Collins had met criag to discuss implications of the Treaty and the lifting of the boycott of goods from Belfast… Lady Duff recalled ‘It was a dramatic evening and they were all as pleased as punch at having agreed so far with criag. They were so interesting about everything, no bitterness nor boasting nor crowing, just talking things over quietly and dispasionatley’. The Churchills were among the guests…’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P85
24
Commenting on the Boundary Commission agreement signed on the 21st, Ronald McNeill MP regarded the action as ‘the definite and formal recognition by Mr. Collins of the status of Ulster as a separate Government from Ireland’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P658
The Provisional Government officially ends the ‘Belfast Boycott’ although it unoficcially remains in existence for a little longer.
25
Sir James Craig stated in Belfast ‘ I will never give in to any re-arrangement of the boundary that leaves our Ulster area less than it is under the Government of Ireland Act’. Not surprisngly, this caused some reaction in the more nationalist border counties within Ulster. Collins arranged the lifting of the Belfast Boycott in return for Catholic employment without barriers in Northern Ireland.
27
The Dublin Gazette, first published in 1705, was last issued on Friday, January 27, 1922. On the following Tuesday it was replaced by Iris Oifigiuil, the official organ of the Irish government.
Killareny handed over to the Provisional Government.
28
Washington: 107 die when the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre collapsed under the weight of snow.
30
US: A group of churchmen condemned Jazz music as ‘ a return to the jungle’.
First meeting of the committee to draft a constitution under chairmanship of Michael Collins.
31
At month end, the situation in Ireland had changed dramatically. British forces & the RIC were disbanding throuhgout the 26 counties and being replaced by Irish troops and police. The economic situation was not as optomistic – the British campaign resulted in industrial recession, farmland was out of cultivation and the unemployed numbers were rapidly rising. Macardle comments that it was a combination of warfare, compromise, business and agricultural recession and which ‘the resistance of the Irish people could not remain at its highest; the temptation to see only the good side in any terns which might offer a livelihood was overwhelming; promises which at another time might have been doubted and examined, were readily believed’
Desertion from the Free State Army became a frequent event, bringing arms and munitions to the Anti-Treaty side.
The Irish Free State Army took formal control of the Beggar's Bush Barracks, Dublin, on 31 January 1922.
Germany: Cost of living rose 74% in 12 months.
here to edit.
Birth control advocate Mary Ware Dennett's family planning pamphlet The Sex Side of Life is declared obscene and illegal to be mailed under the U.S. Comstock law. Dennett adopted civil disobedience and continued to mail the pamphlet and was indicted and convicted in 1929. A federal court of appeals ruled in her favor in 1930.
T.S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land is published.
Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha is published.
U.S. poet Claude McKay publishes a volume of verse, Harlem Shadows that marks the beginning of the African-American artistic movement known as The Harlem Renaissance.
In 1922, at the height of the Civil War, Free State brigadier Patrick Paul escaped from his Republican captors in Waterford disguised as a Mother Superior
The first casualty of the Civil War (1922-23) was a Free State Sniper smashed over the head with a teapot by an elderly Dublin woman. (Verify this information – sounds unlikely! )
During the 1930's, Judge Cohalan's determined fight against collusive divorce actions was widely publicized in the New York press
"There is as much of a chance of repealing the eighteenth amendment as there is for a humming bird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tied to its tail." Senator Morris Sheppard, as reported by The Washington Post, September 25, 1930.
ON THE ONE ROAD
[Chorus:]
We're on the one road
Sharing the one load
We're on the road to God knows where
We're on the one road
It may be the wrong road
But we're together now who caes
North men, South men, comrades all
Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Donegal
We're on the one road swinging along
Singing a soldier's song
Though we've had our troubles now and then
Now is the time to make them up again
Sure aren't we all Irish anyhow
Now is the time to step together now
[Chorus repeat]
Tinker, tailor, every mother's son
Butcher, baker shouldering his gun
Rich man, poor man, every man in line
All together just like Old Land Syne
[Chorus repeat]
Night is darkness just before the dawn
From dissention Ireland is reborn
Soon we'll all be United Irishmen
Make our land a Nation Once Again
James Connolly
A great crowd had gathered outside of Kilmainhem
With their heads uncovered they knelt on the ground
For inside that grim prison lay a brave Irish soldier
His life for his country about to lay down.
He wen`t to his death like a true son of Ireland,
The fireing party he bravely did face.
Then the order rang out: "Present arms, Fire!";
James Connolly fell into a ready made grave.
The black flag they hoisted, the cruel deed was over,
Gone was the man who loved Ireland so well,
There was many a sad heart in Dublin that morning,
When they murdered James Connolly, the Irish rebel.
God`s curse on you, England, you cruel hearted monster,
Your deeds would shame all the devils in Hell,
There were no flowers blooming but the Shamrock is growing
On the grave of James Connolly, the Irish rebel.
Many years have rolled by since the Irish rebellion,
When the guns of Brittania they loudly did speak,
The bold I.R.A. they stood shoulder to shoulder,
and the blood of their bodies flowed down Sackville Street.
The Four Courts of Dublin, the English bombarded,
The spirit of freedom, they tried hard to quell
But above all the din rose the cry "No Surrender!"
`Twas the voice of James Connolly, the Irish Rebel.
Changing Realities/Sustaining Traditions, 1930-1970
Although Al Smith's defeat in the presidential election of 1928 was a blow to the self- confidence of New York's Irish and Irish-American communities, they surmounted the profound social, political, and economic changes represented by the Great Depression and World War II and emerged poised to take advantage of post-war prosperity. Immigration from Ireland surged again following World War II. As trans-Atlantic passenger traffic shifted from ship to aircraft, many newcomers first saw New York not from the harbor but from the skies over LaGuardia or Idlewild (now John F. Kennedy) International Airport. Aer Lingus inaugurated service between Dublin and LaGuardia in 1958. A photograph of the inaugural Dublin-New York service is on display.
The downfall of Jimmy Walker in 1932 brought scanndal to Tammany at the same time that Fiorello La Guardia was building an anti-Tammany coalition of Jews, Italians, and reform-minded Democrats. His election in 1933 dealt a death-blow to the Irish- dominated Tammany machine. Even as the machine faded, the Irish continued to wield political clout, especially in their powerful leadership position in municipal unions such the Transit Workers Union (TWU). Featured in this section are TWU buttons and lapel pins, photos of Mike Quill (1906-1966), international TWU president 1935-1966, and posters and buttons from Quill's successful campaigns for City Council on the American Labor Party ticket in the 1930s and 40s. William O'Dwyer (1890-1964), New York's last Irish Catholic mayor, won election on the Democratic and American Labor party tickets in 1945. William's younger brother, Paul, began the reform movement in New York Democratic politics in 1958 just two years before John F. Kennedy was elected the first Irish-Catholic president of the United States.
From The Nation, August 9, 1922
Mention of Judge Cohalan
The Duty to Revolt
Who can read the news from Washington and not feel that the time has come for men everywhere to raise the banner of revolt? We refer, of course, not only to the pitiful ineptitude of the White House, but to the word from Congress as well. In the Senate on July 26 the attempt of a few self-respecting Senators to prevent the theft of $200,000,000 from the American people through the imposition of wool duties, some of which run as high as 137 per cent, was defeated by a vote of 43 to 22. Yet that was merely an attempt to limit the wool tariff maximum to 60 per cent. The itch for public graft again broke down party lines. Seven Democratic Senators, Ashhurst, Broussard, Kendrick, Sheppard, Jones (New Mexico), Walsh (Montana), and Ransdell, several of whom were ardent supporters of the Wilson tariff reductions, abandoned their party's principles and voted for the highest wool tariffs ever known. Nothing could more clearly indicate the degradation of both the great parties and their essential oneness. Eight Republican Senators, headed by Senators Lenroot and Borah, bolted and voted against the steal, but the list of the subservient ones included the names of several from whom the public had a right to expect better things -- France of Maryland, Capper of Kansas, Jones of Washington, Ladd of North Dakota.
What is the explanation of it? Simply that the wool tariff grab was part and parcel of the whole plan to mulct the people and it could not be altered without calling for a new deal all around. It is known that certain bolters welt to the inner steering-ring and declared that the voting of such a scandalous duty would wreck the party as a less outrageous schedule wrecked it and the Taft Administration in 1910. In so many words they were told that if a single brick were pulled out of the edifice the whole building would come toppling down. That is what the public never seems to understand. All the months of public committee meetings which precede the drafting of a tariff bill are the merest camouflage. The bargain and sale go on behind closed doors; they are no respecter of sections or parties and relate not at all to the real needs, where there are such, of any industry. Senators and Congressmen swap favors in a cold-blooded give-and-take for their States and their own personal aggrandizement, and a most elaborate system of deals is worked out -- even the Agricultural Bloc sold its birthright for a mess of tariff pottage, and its members, like Senator Ladd, are voting for schedules which they know in their hearts to be indefensible robbery of their fellow-Americans. Do not some of these Senators realize that there will be a reckoning at the polls? Yes, indeed; they are like criminals who know that sooner or later the police will overhaul them. They are simply, in the slang of the street, "getting theirs while the getting is good"; just now, while Republicans expect to be trounced at the polls, they are counting on the utter headlessness of the Democratic Party, the total absence of a single leader who could even be considered for the presidential nomination, to pull the Republican Party through the elections by a narrow margin. If there were even intelligent opposition, to say nothing of an honest one, they would be swept off the political field.
Dishonest, incompetent to govern, without vision at home or abroad, without any domestic program whatsoever, and without men of any moral or political stature -- this sums up Democrats as well as Republicans. The only question of importance is how much longer the American people are going to be stupid enough sheep to stand it. Fortunately, there are signs that the change is coming. Labor is getting into a fighting mood. The farmers are slowly beginning to awaken to their opportunities. There are even big capitalists who realize that whether they like it or not there must be a change; they see that they whole country is rapidly going down hill; if they have read history they must know that nations cannot stand still, and that any nation which is wholly without a forward-looking program in one of its parties is in a parlous way. They are beginning to see that if they continue to dam the stream of progress the dam will some day burst with catastrophic effects. Every Western vote has shown that wherever a pseudo-Liberal or Progressive has run he has carried the primary election. There is an ominous spirit among the people, not easy to characterize or to measure, which bodes evil to the politician. One of the ablest observers writes us privately from Indiana: "I have been out among the people more than any other ten men in this state out together and perhaps more than any other man in the country. A strange psychology exists and is growing more marked. It ie hard to analyze but quite distinct and it is it impossible for forecast the outcome."
All that the situation calls for is to plant the banner of revolt. There is no doubt whatever in our minds that if Senator William E. Borah should rise in his seat in the Senate and announce that he had cut loose from the body of death which is the Republican Party and would henceforth lead a new party, people would acclaim him as a Moses, even without waiting to read his platform and to assay it to see if it were liberal or radical or slightly progressive. His Fourth of July speech against the bonus, which merely smacked of revolt, has had widespread echoes in press and public. Indeed, one cannot talk with any group of Americans, whatever their situation in life, without finding how disgusted with current politics they are and how happy they would be to break away from their alliances.
Take the situation in New York alone. Here the electorate is not only facing the possibility of a fight over the governorship between Governor Miller, an old-fashioned Republican respectable, and William R. Hearst. The Senatorship bids fair to go almost by default; the choice may rest between Senator Calder, the present weak and useless incumbent, and a nonentity, possibly even Judge Cohalan, whose name is anathema to more than half the Irish and to almost everybody else who believes in political ideals and decent standards. One brave man of the type of Tifford Pinchot but more truly independent, if he could force proper publicity, would stir New York State to its depths -- if he were radical enough. The newly organized party of labor, farmers, and Socialists affords an excellent base for a new movement. Yet there does not seem to be a single man of the stature needed for the undertaking -- this in the Empire State of twelve millions of people.
The old parties are but creatures of a worn-out and rotten economic system. There is not hope from them. And yet the country is astir, waiting the signal for revolt. In this situation a great responsibility rests upon Senator Borah, to whom Liberals and Radicals and even many conservatives are turning to as a savior.
January 1922
‘The year 1922 opened for Ireland, in an athmosphere charged thuderously with passions in restraint’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’. Irish Press, Dublin. 1951. P629
1
‘No one is going to shoot me in my own country’ Michael Collins.
‘The Irish have a genius for conspiracy rather than Government’ Winston Churchill – Dominions Secretary.
The Provisional Government took over prison management from the British. In Mountjoy, only 237 out of 900 cells were occupied. ‘This was the result of a number of factors. Various pieces of legislation reduced the reliance on the penalty of imprisonment. Thousands of young Irishmen, the normal clientele of Mountjoy, die in the Great War. In addition the British and then the Free State Governments had been concentated more on supressing armed opposition than criminals during the War of Indpendence.. however, within a few years the national daily average in prison was 740…just over 300 were held in Mountjoy…’
Tim Carey. ‘Mountjoy – The Story of a Prison’ The Collins Press, Dublin 2000.p205
Russia: An extimated 33 million people were now facing famine.
2
The German Mark plummeted out of control - £1 bought 32,000 Marks.
Two children were shot & killed by Loyalist snipers in Belfast.
3
The second Dail reassembled in the National University with the daunting task of either ratifying the Treaty agreed in London in December or refusing it. There was widespread agitation amongst the land owners, buisness, press, Church and in most Government circles towards accepting the Treaty. Others were as definite in their belief that the Treaty should not be accepted. The Supreme Council of the I.R.B. were promoting acceptance amongst their brotherhood with 8 of the 12 members on the Council supporting the Treaty and the army was divided.
Over the next five days, the debate continued. ‘ The threat of immediate war, chaos, unimaginable disaster, as the sole alternative to the Treaty, dominated the arguments for acceptance….Countess Markievicz, like the other women deputies, opposed the Treaty with all her strenght…the mother of Padraic and Willie Pearse spoke with equal firmness against surrender: ‘We will hold’ she said ‘what they upheld’…to arguments like this… those who were sincere in their republicanism and who had hoped to make, without any more intrigue or turmoil, an honourable and lasting peace with England, listened almost in despair…’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’. Irish Press, Dublin. 1951. P630-631
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION
At the resumption of The Dáil debate on Tuesday, the 3rd January, 1922, DR. EOIN MACNEILL, SPEAKER, took the chair at 11.20 a.m.
MR. ART O'CONNOR MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE:
I am going to try to set a good example at this renewed Session of An Dáil by being very brief in what I have got to say. I shall not attempt any fire-works in my speech, because if I were to pose as a bellicose individual I am afraid I should be very much as a damp squib. All my activity and all my work has been more or less of a civil nature. I know nothing about the military side of our movement except what I have been able to judge by the results that were achieved. And I must say that both at the Public and Private Session I was very much struck by the statements of the soldier Deputies on both sides. I shall direct myself solely towards the civil points of view. I must say that the Treaty has suffered from its advocates both within this assembly and without it. I have been listening to the debates for several days and I have been unable to discover whether the Treaty is a Treaty by consent, or whether it is a Treaty signed under duress. To my mind it would make a big difference to this assembly if we knew definitely which was which---whether this assembly is being asked to go into the British Empire with its head up or whether it is being forced into the British Empire. I say, too, that it has suffered from its advocates outside, because the people who, during the recess, have been howling at us and telling us where our duty lay, were, for the most part, people who never did a solid hour's work for the country, and were anxious to drop down on the right side.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Some of them were in ambushes with me.
MR. O'CONNOR:
There are some very good people in the country supporting the Treaty and there are some of the very worst, and the people on the opposite side know it too. It seems to me that we are very much like a spectrum as we went along during the last two weeks. You know what a spectrum is like. When it is split up into various fragments you see the different sorts of colours. Well, I think Lloyd George has shown a spectrum here. The colours have veered from extreme purple to extreme red, and those who wore the purple mantle now arrived at the Royal Courts and were anxious to settle down there. Some professed Republicans on the other side said: `We will rest a little while at the Royal Court and furbish up our arms so as to be in a better position to advance'. And those on the other side, extreme revolutionists, say: `If we linger at all there is danger that we may be contaminated by Royalty, and there is danger that we may not be able to advance at all'. If I could feel in my heart and mind that the Republicans were only digging themselves in---
MR. M. COLLINS:
We never dug ourselves in.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
---that they were only going to use this business as a stepping stone or post from which to advance, I might be able to step alongwith them. But I am afraid it is not a matter like that---that it is a step backward and not forward. I hold and agree with Connolly when he said that it is not the extent of the step at all that matters, it is the direction of the step---
MR. M. COLLINS:
That's the stuff. Hear, Hear. Good for Connolly [cheers].
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Yes, you can applaud that because you think it suits your policy or is your policy. Yes, wrap as much of that soft solder in as you possibly can because the result will prove that it is a step backward. It is a step off the solid rock. You are in the swamp, and you will be swamped.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I was often in a swamp and I did not get many to pull me out.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I would like to give you a long stick to pull you out, because I am sorry you are in it, and going into it. Now it seems to me that this Free State is going to be a very good and sweet thing for a class of people in this country who have never been conspicuous for their love of country. The head of the Delegation when in London wrote a certain letter, promising certain things to the Southern Unionists. I would like to know exactly what these promises were.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Fair play.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Because Lloyd George stated that the Free State would be able to hammer out its own Constitution, subject to guarantees given to Southern Unionists. I would like to know what do these guarantees mean. I would like to know what it does mean. Is it fair play? Because I can assure the head of the Delegation that if it means more than fair play, if it means giving these people place and power, and giving them a controlling influence in Irish affairs, and giving them more than their heads or individuality entitle them to, the Irish people won't stand for that. These people have been here as our previous enemies. These people have stood in our way every time we tried to make a little advance, and it would be a poor thing now for the Free State---if it was established---if these people are to be put upon the necks of the Irish people. The people won't have them there.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. M. COLLINS:
No one suggested what the Deputy is alleging.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Why make promises? Why not be honest with them? Why throw out a bit of grain to attract those fellows in? Why not say: `You will get the same treatment as the people of the rest of the country'? We know where our duty lies. We knew it before we heard a word from those Southern Unionists, and we will know it long after they are heard of no more. And we will do our duty too, without any directions from those new come-rounds, those new Free Staters. But anyone who accepts the Free State will be a Southern Unionist, because you will all accept the King. So far as I can make out it is only an exchange from one Unionist to another. The old Union was a Union of force and this is a Union of consent. You take the boot off the foot and put it on the other. I was amused here last week listening to threats---to threats of war. Did the men who were trying to make us believe so, really believe that bluff themselves? If they did it would not be bluff. I have here a little clipping from a newspaper of the 28th November in which Lord Birkenhead, one of the plenipotentiaries, made a rather interesting statement in which he said: `If the only method of securing peace in Ireland was by force of arms, it would be a task from which neither this nor any British Government would shrink, but the question was this, when it was attained at great expense of treasure and blood, how much nearer were they to a genuine and contented Ireland? Therefore he expressed his earnest hope that their efforts and exertions might not'---
MR. M. COLLINS:
It was I asked that question of Lord Birkenhead in Downing Street.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Was the Birkenhead of Downing Street so different from the Birkenhead of the public platform? Why did he not show the cloven foot in Downing Street as well as on the public platform, and not be trying to deceive the world by pretending he was giving a genuine peace to the Irish, when he was giving them a peace thrust down their necks with a bayonet? Why could he not be honest with us as we would be with him?
MR. M. COLLINS:
Would you? [Laughter].
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I would, I can assure you I would. I have no desire to be at variance with England or with the English people. Any English people I met were rather nice decent people, but the English people in their political institutions are rather a different proposition. But it is the English people in their political institutions that I am thinking of. I would like to have a genuine and proper peace between the Irish and the English people, so that we would be free to go along and work out our own life in our own tinpot way, and have no fighting or arguing with them.
MR. M. COLLINS:
The English people are more loyal than their King.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
It seems to me that some of the Irish people are more loyal than the English people---otherwise where does the common citizenship come in? Since when did Munster become as loyal as Yorkshire or Suffolk? And the fealty to King George in virtue of the common citizenship---where did the common citizenship come in between Cork and Yorkshire?
MR. SEAN MILROY:
Where do your constituents come in?
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Where do my constituents come in? I will answer that question. My constituents gave me a definite mandate in 1918, and they renewed the mandate last May. And my mandate was that to the best of my ability I should support the Republican Government in this country. I have not changed. I told them they could change. Perhaps they have changed, but I will not change. I told them a couple of months ago when I spoke to them publicly that I would not change; that they could change if they chose. I will vote against this Treaty because the acceptance of it would mean the death knell of this Dáil and Republic. They are perfectly entitled to change. But there is a new element being introduced into Irish affairs which is not a good augury to the gentlemen of the Treasury Bench opposite. If at any moment people in a certain locality find themselves out of sympathy with one of their Treasury actions---and suppose they got a snow-ball resolution going, and suppose they got a venal Press to support it, will you obey the snow-ball resolution? Will they do what their honour and judgement dictated to them not to do? I say that the heart and mind of the people is not changed. I say that the heart and mind of the people is not reflected by the resolutions from the Farmers' Union and people of that ilk---who never did an honest day's or honest hour's work.
A DEPUTY:
They did; they supported us in the fight.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I have been rather surprised at some of the names I have seen presiding at some of the meetings.
MR. M. COLLINS:
If you saw some of the houses I saw---the farmers' houses burned down all over the place---as I have seen lately.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
The men I am referring to are not farmers at all. I wish to the Lord they were; but they are masquerading as farmers. It is just like this Treaty masquerading as a Treaty. It would be comic only it is likely to be tragic. It was a masked ball---a masquerade. The pity of it all is there was a little grain shook over the poor people. Lloyd George had set a trap very nicely and they walked in, and he pulled the stick and got you all in. Not alone did he get you within the crib, but he got some of us too [laughter]. When I say this, I say it of our genuine Republicans.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Where are they?
A DEPUTY:
Here.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Instead of uniting their strength to lift off the crib and get free again, they started to try and persuade themselves that, instead of being within the crib, they have, genuinely, the grandest freedom that could be possibly enjoyed, because they are going to be very well fed under it. Now I have nothing further to say except that I hope that none of the Deputies in this assembly will be swayed or misled by any of those extravagant resolutions that have been passed during the last fortnight. Every one of us was sent here with a definite mandate. If the people didn't mean the mandate---I say it with all sincerity and fairness to the people---the people should never have given us the mandate. I believe that the people mean us to work out for them an independent sovereign state. Under this Treaty we have not got an independent sovereign state. We have got three-quarters of a state. We have got a state with its principal ports controlled, with a jumping-off ground next door to us, from which an army can be jumped in at any moment; and, in a word, we have not got the essential thing for which a struggle for the last 750 years has been going on. It has been contended that it was necessary to accept this thing at the last hour, and the last minute of the last hour, of the 5th December. I say it was not necessary. The struggle that had lasted so long, the discussion that lasted a couple of months, could have lasted a couple of days or hours longer; and I think that this assembly would be dishonouring itself, and it would not be fair to itself, if, at the bidding of Lloyd George or any of his minions, it votes to surrender the sovereign independence of the Irish people.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, ós rud e go bhfuil a lán daoine eile chun cainte, agus ná fuil a lán aimsire le spáráil againn, ce gur mhaith liom labhairt as Gaedhilg is gá liom labhairt as Bearla ar fad, ach deanfad mo dhícheall chun gan einní do rá a chuirfeadh gangaid im' chaint. I will do my best to avoid introducing any element of bitterness or personality into this debate. I am sorry the debate has gone to a considerable extent on the lines it has gone. This is a debate of vital concern to the Irish nation. I don't think it right to endeavour to make points against a man's reasoned statement on a matter of vital national importance. I had hoped to hear from the opponents of the Treaty something that showed a sense of realities, something of a vision, something of sympathy for the poor, prostrate Irish nation, the great reality of the situation, beside which we 120 odd members with our formulas and politics pale into insignificance. I had hoped for some sign that they had considered alternative policies of peace, or of war, that they had constructive ideas to put forward, based on a robust faith in the Irish nation. No such note has been struck by the opponents or critics of the Treaty. I have heard much talk of what are called principles, but are really political formulas. Although the Irish notion in its struggle for 750 years, to which the Minister of Agriculture referred, fought for the one national principle, it adopted a dozen different political formulas at different times. Members have entertained us with accounts of their consciences and the political formulas which they call their principles, as if those were more important than the solid reality of the Irish nation. I have heard much high-pitched rhetoric and emotional appeals and references to brave men who did what we all, I hope, were ready to do---and some of us came very near doing---died for Ireland. As a contrast to this we have had elaborate expositions of the marvellous value of words and phrases and formulas, constituting the difference between internal and external association. In all this flood of dialectics I have not been able to find what I anxiously looked for---one hint of a suggestion of an alternative policy, one sign of constructive statesmanship. None of the opponents of the Treaty have even given an indication that they have even considered what we are to do next if this Treaty is rejected. Some say airily that they do not believe that the rejection of the Treaty will mean war anyway, as though that were a question to be gambled on. But I have listened in vain for the slightest suggestion or hint as to how they think war is to be avoided, how the impossible situation of an indefinite truce with no objective can be maintained. Or how either we or the other side could keep our armed forces for an indefinite period with their hands behind their backs and governmental activities held up thereby. I cannot understand how people entrusted with the fate of the nation can be so much obsessed by formulas and so blind to realities. The opponents of the Treaty are not even united in their formulas. With some the formula is isolation, with some external association. Meanwhile the lives and fortunes of the Irish people are being gambled with in the name of formulas. After all, the Irish people who have stood to us so loyally and suffered with us have some rights. One would think, to listen to some of the speeches, that we were solemnly asked to choose between an independent Republic and an associated Free State. What we are asked is, to choose between this Treaty on the one hand, and, on the other hand, bloodshed, political and social chaos and the frustration of all our hopes of national regeneration. The plain blunt man in the street, fighting man or civilian, sees that point more clearly than the formulists of Dáil Eireann. He sees in this Treaty the solid fact---our country cleared of the English armed forces, and the land in complete control of our own people to do what we like with [hear, hear]. We can make our own Constitution, control our own finances, have our own schools and colleges, our own courts, our own flag, our own coinage and stamps, our own police, aye, and last but not least, our own army, not in flying columns, but in possession of the strong places of Ireland and the fortresses of Ireland, with artillery, aeroplanes and all the resources of modern warfare. Why, for what else have we been fighting but that? For what else has been the national struggle in all generations but for that? The biggest guarantee of England's good faith in this matter is the evacuation from Ireland of her army. The problem all along for 750 years has been just this---the occupation of our country by the armed forces of England. All our evils, all our grievances were derived from this. The peaceful penetration of our Gaelic civilization, the gradual demoralisation and denationalisation of our people were ultimately due to the prestige derived by England from its superior force and its military. The reason why we found it necessary to send out our young men half armed, half equipped, to attack the enemy was not because we hoped to drive him from the country by force of arms---we were not such fools---but simply to break down that prestige which the enemy derived from his unquestioned superior force. That was the true motive of the war, and now that the British forces are preparing to evacuate our country without being beaten, some people want to fight again and retain them here. They want to keep the Black-and-Tans here. They want to keep 2,000 Irishmen in British prisons---a number of them in the shadow of death. They want the colleges and schools to continue manufacturing West Britons and our language to die out and the thousand signs of British dominance which we see on every side of us---to have all these retained, rather than to agree to a certain formula. The trouble is that many of us, many Irishmen bred in this hateful atmosphere of foreign occupation and foreign ascendancy, eternally struggling against it, have never visualised freedom. They have not realised what it means to our unfortunate country to breathe an invigorating atmosphere of national freedom and security, backed by our own force. They have not dreamed of the great work of national reconstruction, of healing the wounds, of substituting healthy national food for poison. They have been accustomed to think of a subdued, slavish and demoralised nation held in control by foreign force, and requiring the efforts of a few stalwarts like themselves to keep it right nationally; and they think that an Ireland from which the British forces are gone will be just the same. They lack faith in the nation. They seem to imagine that some shadowy representative of King George without a vestige of real power or authority, or a soldier to back him up, will be a great deal more formidable to the country than the 50,000 British troops and the 13,000 R.I.C. who are here at present. I tell you when the British have evacuated our country the Free State will be just what we make it; and we can make it a great and glorious land, the home of a fine Gaelic culture, of a highly developed agricultural system that will rival Denmark; with industries developed perhaps as some people advocate, on co-operative, non-capitalistic lines; of brave and beautiful ideas worked into practice. When I hear your dry formulists wrangling over words and phrases, and enlightening the world as to their political formula which they call principles, I find myself thinking on a line from Pádraig Colum's play, The Land: `the nation, the nation---do you ever think of the poor Irish nation which is trying to be born?' I have accused the opponents of the Treaty of a lack of the sense of realities. I have accused them of a lack of faith in the nation. But the worst of all defects I have now to accuse them of is a lack of vision, a pitiable lack of vision. They don't realise what this means to the nation. They are more concerned with their dry political formulas than with the living nation. For a barren victory of formulas they are prepared not merely to plunge the nation into chaos and bloodshed---for that is only a temporary evil---but to check the one great opportunity God has granted us for the work of national reconstruction. The President said the truth when he said that the men who brought us back this Treaty from an unbeaten enemy acted as they did from intense love for Ireland [hear, hear]. There are still some people who say they love Ireland. But to them it seems to be a name an abstraction, a formula. To me, Ireland is the Irish people. Not the pure souled Republicans alone, but the plain men and women that live in the cities and on the hillsides of all Ireland, including North-East Ulster. Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins have the national vision to sense that people. They see and know the country as it is---the old women by the fireside, the young men working in the fields and the girls in the shops, the Orange working-man of Sandy Row and the Molly Maguire of South Armagh, the men on city tram cars, all types and classes, good, bad or indifferent; and they stand for them all. Remember those people are Ireland. Ireland is not a formula but a fact. You cannot love Ireland without loving the whole Irish people, without sympathetically considering the state of a people reared in slavery, a nation that never got a fair chance in the world. [Hear, hear]. People are trading in the names of dead men in an indecent fashion---saying they would vote against this Treaty. Well, I won't presume to say how anybody would have voted, but I will say this that my dearest friend Seen MacDiarmuda, loved Ireland just as Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith love Ireland---with a love the formulists can never understand. Like Griffith and Michael Collins---it seems out of tune to call Mick Collins the Minister of Finance [laughter]---he knew the plain people well, all types, sailors, fishermen, farmers, labourers, shopkeepers, cattle dealers, as well as university professors and international law experts [laughter]. I think I knew his mind well, and it was just such a mind as Collins's and Griffith's. And I will not presume to say---I can only have my opinion---as to how the issue would have presented itself to him. A nation is not an arid abstraction. It is a living thing of flesh and blood made up of men and women; and the tragedy of the Irish nation has not been unsatisfactory formulas, but that she has been held in subjection by the military occupation of a foreign nation. Think of the evacuation of Ireland by foreign troops. Why, it seems like a fairy vision. All the old Gaelic poets sang of the going of the foreign hosts out of Ireland as an unreal dream of far off happiness. They did not sing of a Republic. They sang of a Gaelic monarch as symbol of association between the three kingdoms. `Ní iarrfad ach trí Ríoghachta le Móirín Ní Chuilionáin'. To see Seán Buidhe clear out of Ireland, and the country handed over to us, that is the prospect offered to you---and you object to the formula under which he goes out. So long as he goes out, what does the formula matter? When a proud unbeaten enemy surrenders, cannot we at least grant him the honours of war? Historically, the doctrinaire Republicans have not a leg to stand on. The Irish people did not fight for a Republic. They fought for Ireland for the Irish. They fought to have the British forces out of control of Ireland. As John Mitchell said: `I do not care a fig for Republicanism in the abstract'. A great many members have been entertaining us with accounts of their consciences and the principles they stood for and their national record. I can only answer for myself. From boyhood I have been a worker in the Gaelic League, Sinn Fein, the Volunteers and other organisations. I was one of the men who founded the Irish Volunteers, and I have served in the army ever since. I have taken oaths to the army and the Dáil and I have always been perfectly clear on the point, just as clear and emphatic as the President himself has been. I can even quote his words---that in taking the oath I was pledging my allegiance to the Irish nation, to the people of Ireland whom I have always loved and served, to do my best for them. Like the President I was no `Republican doctrinaire'. I only wanted to get the British out of Ireland, and the country in our hands. But my thoughts went further than that. I hoped to see a Gaelic Ireland, the home of strong and happy men and women in which a thousand splendid things could be done. The dreams of Davis, of William Rooney, of Pearse---men who saw Ireland with a prophetic vision and imagination---could be realised in a Gaelic State unchecked by foreign influence. But the formulists have no vision, no imagination, as they have no sense of realities. The reality of the situation is our bruised and bleeding country in a state of economic ruin; our people trained in slavery under the shadow of British force with all the demoralisation it implies. As the Minister of Finance has said: `Is Ireland ever to get a chance?' `The nation, do you ever think of the poor Irish nation that is trying to be born?' I appeal to you---give it a chance. Who knows what the child will be when it grows up outside the shadow of British force. The Minister of Education told us recently that it would take twenty years to get Irish taught in every school in Ireland------
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
I said ten years. I ought not be misquoted.
MR. P. BEASLAI:
Twenty years that is in this report of your speech. No matter, say ten years. I tell you if you reject this Treaty it will not take ten years or twenty years or forty years, for you will never see the day when it will happen. But if the British Army clears out you will have a real Irish national education in twelve months, and you can have all Ireland Irish-speaking in two generations. Pádraic Pearse advised the Irish people to accept the Irish Councils Bill because he considered it gave the Irish people control over education. But the finest education of all will be the bringing up of our boys and girls outside the shadow of the British armed forces. We can have our national theatres and municipal theatres, music halls and picture halls redolent of a national atmosphere in place of the demoralising institutions now influencing the people's outlook. We can have a development under state protection of that system of co-operative agricultural development that has already done so much good. We can have our fisheries organised on a national basis so that the poor fishermen of Ireland, in most cases the chief representatives of our historic Gaelic Ireland, will be able to compete on fair terms with the wealthy, state aided foreigner. We can have our marshes and waste lands turned into plantations and our hillsides covered with trees. We can have our national sports and pastimes developed under the aegis of the state. We can have industries built up, not on the sweating system, but in accordance with our Democratic Programme of the 21st January, 1919, on lines which will assure the worker of a fair share of the fruits of his labour. We can make our land the home of the fine arts which will rival the great big and the great small nations of the world. All this we can do. And the poor Irish nation that is trying to be born, that never got a chance before, is to be denied this chance because of a question of formulas. I appeal to those opponents of the Treaty who have done great and good work for Ireland in the past, are they going to be responsible for crushing this frail and beautiful thing in the chrysalis? I am afraid that as a Dáil we are a body of small people, dry formulists and politicians, and without imagination. We cannot rise to a great occasion in a manner worthy of us. We have not the vision. We have not the imagination. I have accused the opponents of the Treaty of a lack of faith in the nation, of a lack of a sense of realities and of a lack of vision and imagination. I have now to accuse them of a further lack of sense of their own representative capacity and responsibility to the nation. There is one thing that a great many of us seem to forget: that whatever authority our present government possesses rests solely on the support of the people of Ireland. If you act contrary to the will of the majority of the nation, then you have lost their moral support and your effective authority is gone. The President talked of a Provisional Government being a usurpation. Well if this Dáil acts contrary to the will of the majority of the Irish nation its continuance in office is the greatest usurpation of all. There were talks of threats of war. Well, England has no need to threaten war. She knows that if you reject this Treaty then the power and authority of Dáil Eireann, whatever it be in theory, is gone in practice, for we will not have the big bulk of the people behind us. It was that popular support that gave Dáil Eireann its strenght in the past, and even though you do not like the Treaty you must face realities. There is no conceivable alternative to the acceptance of the Treaty but division, faction and chaos. When we have a divided, chaotic Ireland, England has no need to make war on us. She can just leave things as they are, and she can dissolve Dáil Eireann any time she likes by simply dissolving the British Parliament. If she does that you will have to fight a general election or go under. And do you think you can win if you go against the national will? The point of view of the non-ratifiers is so unreal, such a resolute attempt not to face realities, that I find it difficult to understand it. We, the members of Dáil Eireann, must realise that the nation was not made for Dáil Eireann, but Dáil Eireann was made for the nation. I will go further and remind the Republican doctrinaires that if there was an Irish Republic in the past three years it consisted, not in an abstraction or a legal formula, but in the people of Ireland. The state is the people organised in a coherent form, and no matter whether you call it a Republic or a Free State, my allegiance is to the people of Ireland and to the state which represents the national will. If we do not represent the national will we are a usurpation, and your airy edifice of a Republic crashes to the ground. I implore you to consider this point---that if you reject this Treaty the people of Ireland, the poor nation that is trying to be born, will never get a chance of considering it. If you reject the Treaty, even by a majority of one, the British are no longer bound by it; and your country with whose future you are gambling so unfairly, so recklessly, in the name of political formulas which you call your principles, will not be able to say yes or no to it. But the country will let you know what it thinks of you, and what is left of our Gaelic nation in future generations will curse your failure to rise to a great opportunity. There is no need to talk of the danger of war. Perhaps even war would be better than division, and if this Treaty is rejected you will have a helpless, prostrate country. Nothing more effectively illustrates the unreality of our theoretic dialectics, our discussions of principles and oaths, than a consideration of the actual position of Ireland---Truce or War. The Minister for Home Affairs stated that if this Treaty were signed the Irish Free Stater who went abroad would get his passport from the British Foreign Office and be described in his passport as a British subject. Deputy MacCartan says this is not so, that the Canadian is not required to do this; but even if it were so, let me remind you of this---a great many Irish men and women have left Ireland for America during the past few years. Some of them went with passports from the Minister for Home Affairs, but all of them went, had to go, with British passports in which they were described as British subjects.
A DEPUTY:
Not all.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Some of them were smuggled out.
A DEPUTY:
By the Minister of Finance.
MR. P. BEASLAI:
A little fact like this is a douche of cold water on the idealists and on the unrealities of the formulists [laughter]. Some of those who oppose the Treaty have claimed to be idealists and take a superior pose against those who speak of plain realities. I say it is those who vote for the Treaty that are the true idealists. They have the vision and the imagination to sense the nation that is trying to be born---the poor, crushed, struggling people who never got a fair chance, the men and women of all Ireland, the Orangemen of Portadown, the fishermen of Aran, the worker of the slum and the labourer in the fields, that nation whose fate lies in your hands and whom you are dooming to another and, I fear, a final disappointment if you reject the Treaty. Save that poor nation, give it a chance to be born, have the courage to throw away the formulas which you call principles. Seize this chance to realise the visions of Thomas Davis, of Rooney and Pearse, of a free, happy and glorious Gaelic state. Do not have it said of your work what was said of the doctors who performed an operation---`The operation was a complete success, but the patient died'.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, táim im' sheasamh go láidir agus go fíor anso iniu i gcúis Phoblacht na hEireann d'eirigh i Seachtain na Cásga, cúig bliana ó shoin. I rise to-day to oppose with all the force of my will, with all the force of my whole existence, this so called Treaty---this Home Rule Bill covered over with the sugar of a Treaty. My reasons against it are two-fold. First, I stand true to my principles as a Republican, and to my principles as one pledged to the teeth for freedom for Ireland. I stand on that first and foremost. I stand, too, on the common sense of the Treaty itself, which, I say, does not mean what it professes to mean, and can be read in two ways. I would like first to take the Treaty, to draw your attention to clauses 17 and 18 and to ask the delegates what limiting power England and the English Parliament will have on the Constitution which they are prepared to draft. I would also like to ask them what they mean by number 17: `Steps shall be taken forthwith for summoning a meeting of Members of Parliament elected for Constituencies in Southern Ireland since the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920'. What do they mean by that? Is that a meeting of the Southern Parliament, or is it a sort of Committee which is to be formed, or what does it stand for? It is not An Dáil; it is not called a meeting of the Southern Parliament. It is called a meeting of members of Parliament elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland. What power has England to set up such elected representatives as a Government? She has power under the last Bill, I believe, to set up Crown Colony Government, but I doubt whether she has power to set up this as a Government for Ireland. That is a thing I would like to ask the Plenipotentiaries if they have thought about it. Then I see in that letter that Mr. Griffith quoted with regard to the setting up of this Constitution for Ireland---discussing the Second Chamber, Lloyd George says---: `The establishment and composition of the Second Chamber is therefore in the discretion of the Irish people. There is nothing in the Articles of Agreement to suggest that Ireland is, in this respect, bound to the Canadian model'. Well, Mr. Griffith published the letter which he wrote to the Southern Unionists. It was dealt with to-day by Mr. Art O'Connor. This is the letter: `Sir, I write to inform you that at a meeting I had with representatives of Southern Unionists I agreed that a scheme should be devised to give them their full share of representation in the First Chamber of the Irish Parliament, and that as to the Upper Chamber we will consult them on its constitution and undertake that their interests will be duly represented'. Now I want to know by what authority the Chairman of the Delegation said this? And I want to know also what it means. Does it mean that the Chairman of the Delegation wishes to alter the form of representation of this country by some syndicalist representation, or representation by classes, or by trades unions, or by public bodies, or something else? Mr. Griffith, surely, does not mean that they would merely get their proper representation or the representation they are entitled to. It must mean something special. Now why are these men to be given something special? And what do the Southern Unionists stand for? You will all allow they stand for two things. First and foremost as the people who, in Southern Ireland, have been the English garrison against Ireland and the rights of Ireland. But in Ireland they stand for something bigger still and worse, something more malignant; for that class of capitalists who have been more crushing, cruel and grinding on the people of the nation than any class of capitalists of whom I ever read in any other country, while the people were dying on the roadsides. They are the people who have combined together against the workers of Ireland, who have used the English soldiers, the English police, and every institution in the country to ruin the farmer, and more especially the small farmer, and to send the people of Ireland to drift in the emigrant ships and to die of horrible disease or to sink to the bottom of the Atlantic. And these anti-Irish Irishmen are to be given some select way of entering this House, some select privileges---privileges that they have earned by their cruelty to the Irish people and to the working classes of Ireland, and not only that, but they are to be consulted as to how the Upper House is to be constituted. As a Republican who means that the Republic means Government by the consent of the people [hear, hear]. I object to any Government of that sort whereby a privileged number of classes established here by British rule are to be given a say---to this small minority of traitors and oppressors---in the form of an Upper Chamber as against all, I might say, modern ideas of common sense, of the people who wish to build up a prosperous, contented nation. But looking as I do for the prosperity of the many, for the happiness and content of the workers, for what I stand, James Connolly's ideal of a Workers' Republic------
A DEPUTY:
Soviet Republic.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
------co-operative commonwealth, these men who have opposed everything are to be elected and upheld by our plenipotentiaries; and I suppose they are to be the Free State, or the Cheap State Army, or whatever selection these men are, to be set up to uphold English interests in Ireland, to uphold the capitalists' interests in Ireland, to block every ideal that the nation may wish to formulate; to block the teaching of Irish, to block the education of the poorer classes; to block, in fact, every bit of progress that every man and woman in Ireland to-day amongst working people desire to see put into force. That is one of the biggest blots on this Treaty; this deliberate attempt to set up a privileged class in this, what they call a Free State, that is not free. I would like the people here who represent the workers to take that into consideration---to say to themselves what can the working people expect in an Ireland that is being run by men who, at the time of the Treaty, are willing to guarantee this sort of privilege to a class that every thinking man and woman in Ireland despises. Now, there are one or two things that I would like an answer to. It strikes me that our opponents in speaking have been extraordinarily vague. We had Mr. Hogan, Deputy for Galway, before the recess talking a great deal about the King, and he was rather laughing and sneering at the idea of the King being head of a Free State. In fact his ideas about the King amounted to merely one thing---an individual's ideas of a modern king. What he lost sight of is this: that the King to-day in England---when you mention the King you mean the British Cabinet. Allegiance to the King like that does not even get you the freedom that is implied---a dual monarchy. The King to-day is a figurehead, a thing that presides at banquets, waves a flag, and reads his speeches some one else makes for him; which mean absolutely nothing but words put into his mouth by his Cabinet. Also the same vagueness comes into the question of the oath. As a Republican I naturally object to the King, because the King really stands in politics for his Prime Minister, the court of which he also is the head and centre, the pivot around which he turns---well it is not one of the things that tends to elevate and improve the country. It tends to develop all sorts of corruption, all sorts of luxury and all sorts of immorality. The court centre in any country has never, in the history of the world, for more than a very short period proved anything, through the centuries, but a centre from which vice and wrong ideals emanated. Now, with regard to the oath,I say to anyone---go truthfully and take this oath, take it. If they take it under duress there may be some excuse for them, but let them remember that nobody here took their Republican Oath under duress. They took it knowing that it might mean death, and they took it meaning that. And when they took that oath to the Irish Republic they meant, I hope, every honest man and every woman---I know the women---they took it meaning to keep it to death. Now what I have against that oath is that it is a dishonourable oath. It is not a straight oath. It is an oath that can be twisted in every imaginable form. You have heard the last speaker explain to you that this oath meant nothing; that it was a thing you could walk through and trample on; that in fact, the Irish nation could publicly pledge themselves to the King of England, and that you, the Irish people, could consider yourselves at the same time free, and not bound by it. Now, I have here some opinions, English opinions, as to what the oath is; but mind you, when you swear that oath the English people believe you mean it. Lloyd George, in the House of Commons on the 14th December said: `The main operation of this scheme is the raising of Ireland to the status of a Dominion of the British Empire with a common citizenship, and by virtue of that membership in the Empire, and of that common citizenship, owing allegiance to the King--- and swearing allegiance to the King'. For the moment I will confine myself to the statement that there has been complete acceptance of allegiance to the British Crown and acceptance of membership in the Empire, and acceptance of common citizenship; that she Ireland has accepted allegiance to the Crown and partnership in the same Empire. Mr. Winston Churchill in the House of Commons on the 15th December, 1921, said: `In our view they promise allegiance to the Crown and membership of the Empire.
Hon. Members: No, no.
That is our view. The oath comprises acceptance of the British Constitution, which is, by Articles 1 and 2 of the Constitution, exactly assimilated to the Constitution of our Dominions. This oath is far more precise and searching than the ordinary oath which is taken elsewhere.
Hon. Members: No, no.
It mentions specifically membership of the Empire, common citizenship, and faithfulness to the Crown, whereas only one of these matters is dealt with in the Dominion Oath.' Now here is a curious thing. Sir W. Davidson asked why should they not take the Canadian Oath, and the answer by Mr. Churchill is this:
<SMALL>
The oath they are asked to take is more carefully and precisely drawn than the existing oath, and it was chosen because it was more acceptable to the people whose allegiance we are seeking, and whose incorporation in the British Empire we are certainly desirous of securing. Sir L. Worthington Evans: What does <BLINK>as by law established</BLINK> mean? It means that presently---next Session---we shall be asked in this House to establish a Constitution for the Irish Free State, and part of the terms of the settlement will be that the members who go to serve in that Free State Parliament will have to swear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution as passed by this House of Commons. How is it possible to say that within the terms of that oath they can set up a Republic and still maintain their oath?
</SMALL>
Now here is one important extract I want to read to you on this point:
<SMALL>
Sir L. Worthington Evans: `Then it was suggested by the hon. member for Burton that this oath contained no allegiance to the Throne, but merely fidelity to the King. I have not time to go into the history of the oaths which have from time to time been taken in this Parliament, but I did have time while the hon. member was speaking to look up Anson on Constitutional Law, and I extracted this: `There were at one time three oaths. There was the Oath of Allegiance'---and this is how Anson defines it---`it was a declaration of fidelity to the reigning sovereign'. That is precisely what this is, a declaration of fidelity to the reigning sovereign . . . But Anson's description of the Oath of Allegiance is that it was a declaration of fidelity to the throne, so that in this oath as included in the Treaty we have got this: we have got the Oath of Allegiance in the declaration of fidelity, `I will be faithful to His Majesty King George V., his heirs and successors by law'. And we have got something in addition---a declaration of fidelity to the Constitution of the Irish Free State as by law established: and in further addition, we have the declaration of fidelity to the Empire itself'.
</SMALL>
Now, personally, I being an honourable woman, would sooner die than give a declaration of fidelity to King George or the British Empire. I saw a picture the other day of India, Ireland and Egypt fighting England, and Ireland crawling out with her hands up. Do you like that? I don't. Now, if we pledge ourselves to this oath we pledge our allegiance to this thing, whether you call it Empire or Commonwealth of Nations, that is treading down the people of Egypt and of India. And in Ireland this Treaty, as they call it, mar dheadh, that is to be ratified by a Home Rule Bill, binds us to stand by and enter no protest while England crushes Egypt and India. And mind you, England wants peace in Ireland to bring her troops over to India and Egypt. She wants the Republican Army to be turned into a Free State Army, and mind, the army is centred in the King or the representative of the King. He is the head of the army. The army is to hold itself faithful to the Commonwealth of Nations while the Commonwealth sends its Black-and-Tans to India. Of course you may want to send the Black-and-Tans out of this country. Now mind you, there are people in Ireland who were not afraid to face them before, and I believe would not be afraid to face them again. You are here labouring under a mistake if you believe that England, for the first time in her life, is treating you honourably. Now I believe, and we are against the Treaty believing, that England is being more dishonourable and acting in a cleverer way than she ever did before, because I believe we never sent cleverer men over than we sent this time, yet they have been tricked. Now you all know me, you know that my people came over here in Henry VllI.'s time, and by that bad black drop of English blood in me I know the English---that's the truth. I say it is because of that black drop in me that I know the English personally better perhaps than the people who went over on the delegation. [Laughter].
A DEPUTY:
Why didn't you go over?
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Why didn't you send me? I tell you, don't trust the English with gifts in their hands. That's not original, someone said it before of the Greeks---but it is true. The English come to you to-day offering you great gifts; I tell you this, those gifts are not genuine. I tell you, you will come out of this a defeated nation. No one ever got the benefits of the promises the English made them. It seems absurd to talk to the Irish people about trusting the English, but you know how the O'Neills and the O'Donnells went over and always came back with the promises and guarantees that their lands would be left them and that their religion would not be touched. What is England's record? It was self aggrandisement and Empire. You will notice how does she work---by a change of names. They subjugated Wales by giving them a Prince of Wales, and now they want to subjugate Ireland by a Free State Parliament and a Governor General at the head of it. I could tell you something about Governor-Generals and people of that sort. You can't have a Governor-General without the Union Jack, and a suite, and general household and other sort of official running in a large way. The interests of England are the interests of the capitalistic class. Your Governor-General is the centre for your Southern Unionists, for whom Mr. Griffith has been so obliging. He is the centre from which the anti-Irish ideals will go through Ireland, and English ideals will come: love of luxury, love of wealth, love of competition, trample on your neighbours to get to the top, immorality and divorce laws of the English nation. All these things you will find centred in this Governor-General. I heard there was a suggestion---there was a brother of the King's or the Queen's suggested as Governor-General, and I heard also that this Lascelles was going to be Governor. I also heard that there is a suggestion that Princess Mary's wedding is to be broken off, and that the Princess Mary is to be married to Michael Collins who will be appointed first Governor of our Saorstát na hEirennn. All these are mere nonsense. You will find that the English people, the rank and file of the common people will all take it that we are entering their Empire and that we are going to help them. All the people who are in favour of it here claim it to be a step towards Irish freedom, claim it to be nothing but allegiance to the Free State. Now what will the world think of it? What the world thinks of it is this: Ireland has long been held up to the scorn of the world through the British Press. According to that Press Ireland is a nation that lay down, that never protested. The people in other countries have scorned us. So Ireland can bear to be scorned again, even if she takes the oath that pledges her support to the Commonwealth of Nations. But I say, what do Irishmen think in their own hearts? Can any Irishman take that oath honourably and then go back and prepare to fight for an Irish Republic or even to work for the Republic? It is like a person going to get married plotting a divorce. I would make a Treaty with England once Ireland was free, and I would stand with President de Valera in this, that if Ireland were a free Republic I would welcome the King of England over here on a visit. But while Ireland is not free I remain a rebel unconverted and unconvertible. There is no word strong enough for it. I am pledged as a rebel, an unconvertible rebel, because I am pledged to the one thing---a free and independent Republic. Now we have been sneered at for being Republicans by even men who fought for the Republic. We have been told that we didn't know what we meant. Now I know what I mean---a state run by the Irish people for the people. That means a Government that looks after the rights of the people before the rights of property. And I don't wish under the Saorstát to anticipate that the directors of this and the capitalists' interests are to be at the head of it. My idea is the Workers' Republic for which Connolly died. And I say that that is one of the things that England wishes to prevent. She would sooner give us Home Rule than a democratic Republic. It is the capitalists' interests in England and Ireland that are pushing this Treaty to block the march of the working people in England and Ireland. Now, we were offered a Treaty in the first place because England was in a tight place. She wanted her troops for more dirty work elsewhere. Because Dáil Eireann was too democratic, because her Law courts were too just, because the will of the people was being done, and justice was being done, and the well being of the people was considered, the whole people were behind us. You talk very glibly about England evacuating the country. Has anybody questioned that? How long did it take her to evacuate Egypt? What guarantee have we that England will do more than begin to evacuate Ireland directly the Treaty has been ratified? She will begin to evacuate, I have no doubt; she will send a certain number of troops to her other war fronts. Now there is one Deputy---not more than one, I hope---who charged that we rattled the bones of the dead. I must protest about the phrase of rattling the bones of our dead. Now I would like to ask where would Ireland stand without the noble dead? I would like to ask can any of you remember, as I can, the first time you read Robert Emmet's speech from the dock? Yes, it is all very well for those who now talk Dominion Home Rule to try to be scornful of the phrases---voices of men from the grave, who call on us to die for the cause they died for. I don't think it is fair to say what dead men might say if they had been here to-day. What I do think fair is to read the messages they left behind them, and to mould our lives with them. James Connolly said, the last time I heard him speak---he spoke to me and to others---a few phrases that very much sum up the situation to-day. It was just before Easter Week in 1916. We had heard the news that certain people had called off the Rising. One man wishing to excuse them, to exonerate them, said: `So and so does not care to take the responsibility of letting people go to their death when there is so little chance of victory'. `Oh', said Connolly, `there is only one sort of responsibility I am afraid of and that is preventing the men and women of Ireland fighting and dying for Ireland if they are so minded'. That was almost the last word that was said to me by a man who died for Ireland, a man who was my Commandant, and I have always thought of that since, and I have always felt that was a message which I had to deliver to the people of Ireland. We hear a great deal of the renewal of warfare. I am of quite a pacific mind. I don't like to kill. I don't like death, but I am not afraid to die and, not being afraid to die myself, I don't see why I should say that I should take it for granted that the Irish people were not as ready to die now in this year 1922, any more than they were afraid in the past. I fear dishonour; I don't fear destiny and I feel at all events that death is preferable to dishonour, and sooner than see the people of Ireland take that oath meaning to build up your Republic on a lie, I would sooner say to the people of Ireland: `Stand by me and fight to the death'. I think that a real Treaty between a free Ireland and a free England---with Ireland standing as a free sovereign state---I believe it would be possible to get that now; but even if it were impossible, I myself would stand for what is noblest and what is truest. That is the thing that to me I can grasp in my nature. I have seen the stars, and I am not going to follow a flickering will-o'-the-wisp, and I am not going to follow any person juggling with constitutions and introducing petty tricky ways into this Republican movement which we built up---you and not I---because I have been in jail. It has been built up and are we now going back to this tricky Parliamentarianism, because I tell you this document is nothing else. Pierce Beasley gave us to understand that this is the beginning of something great and that Ireland is struggling to be born. I say that the new Ireland was born in Easter Week, 1916, that Ireland is not struggling to be born. I say that the Irish language has begun to grow, that we are pushing it in the schools, and I don't see that giving up our rights, that going into the British Empire is going to help. In any case the thing is not what you might call a practical thing. It won't help our commerce, but it is not that; we are idealists believing in and loving Ireland, and I believe that Ireland held by the Black-and-Tans did more for Ireland than Ireland held by Parliamentarianism---the road that meant commercial success for those who took it and, meaning other things, meant prestige for those who took it. But there is the other stony road that leads to ultimate freedom and the regeneration of Ireland; the road that so many of our heroes walked and I, for one will stand on the road with Terence MacSwiney and Kevin Barry and the men of Easter Week. I know the brave soldiers of Ireland will stand there, and I stand humbly behind them, men who have given themselves for Ireland, and I will devote to it the same amount that is left to me of energy and life; and I stand here to-day to make the last protest, for we only speak but once, and to ask you read most carefully, not to take everything for granted, and to realise above all that you strive for one thing, your allegiance to the men who have fought and died. But look at the results. Look at what we gain. We gained more in those few years of fighting than we gained by parliamentary agitation since the days of O'Connell. O'Connell said that Ireland's freedom was not worth a drop of blood. Now I say that Ireland's freedom is worth blood, and worth my blood, and I will willingly give it for it, and I appeal to the men of the Dáil to stand true. They ought to stand true and remember what God has put into your hearts and not to be led astray by phantasmagoria. Stand true to Ireland, stand true to your oaths, and put a little trust in God.
MR. J. WALSH:
Before I proceed to speak I think it would be well that the Dáil should consider the advisability of adjourning for lunch. I intend to speak for perhaps an hour---I may speak for two hours. It is entirely a matter for myself at the moment. But if you desire I should begin now, very well.
The House signified its wish that Mr. Walsh should go on.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
A Chinn Chomhairle, agus a cháirde, is gá dhom focal nó dhó do rá in ár dteangain dhúchais fein. Sílim gur cheart dúinn an díospóireacht so do dheanamh go bre reidh agus gan aon duine do chur einní i leith aon duine eile anois ná as so amach. I have been, perhaps, noted in the past for a certain amount of bluntness and directness which has made me unpopular with a great majority of the Dáil [cries of No! no!"]. Well, I certainly have interpreted that feeling in my own mind, and I am now glad to hear that it is not the feeling of my co-members. But I must confess that there were certain principles on which we were all in agreement, and these principles, if I correctly understand them, have been pretty sharply turned down by the members of the Dáil in opposition here to-day. I have since my advent into the political arena understood that we were here to express the voice of the people; that we were here to typify the consent of the governed, that we were here to speak for the majority of the people. Now, my friends, I have, unlike other people, made it my business to visit my constituency in the interval since the adjournment over Christmas. The City of Cork has played a not unimportant part in the events of the last four or five years; and though I have not counted heads, nor taken a vote of the people, I will honestly as a plain, honest man, say that I feel that nine out of every ten people in Cork City are in favour of the ratification of this Treaty. I have met prominent public men in my constituency and they assure me that they themselves have not met one single human being in Cork City opposed to the Treaty. Now I am stating what is an honest, straight fact. Some of you assume that if you voted, or if you should vote for this Treaty, you are violating your own conscience. I don't know that you have any right to intrude your conscience on the question of the lives and the liberties of your people. Your people have not asked you to take this oath, but they have asked you to ratify the Treaty. And be very clear on these two points. You need not necessarily take the oath if you don't want to; but you are certainly bound in conscience, and more strictly bound than by any oath the British Government can impose, to follow and execute the will of the people, the will that you swear you can't carry out, when you were elected by the strongest oath you could take. We hear a lot about unity. The majority of the Boards of the country have made it clear that, regardless of unity, this Treaty must be ratified. [Opposition cries of No!] I will venture to say that 95 per cent. of the people of this country who have had an opportunity of expressing themselves have definitely asserted that it is their view that the Treaty meets with their requirements for the time being. [Opposition cries of "No!"] Yes [laughter]. It is not the Southern Unionists who have asked you to support the Treaty. The Comhairlí Ceanntair are not Southern Unionists, the Sinn Fein Clubs are not Southern Unionists, the County Councils of the country are not Southern Unionists. The whole nation and all the public bodies of this country are not Southern Unionists; but they are as good Republicans, and you know it. They see an opportunity of expressing themselves on matters which mean the life and death of the nation.
A DEPUTY:
Take the 1916 Rising for example.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Now we hear a lot about unity. The Cork City electorate in the Municipal Elections of 1920 only voted 50 per cent. for the Republican candidates---slightly over 50 per cent.--- twenty-eight or twenty-nine candidates. If we were to ask the people of Cork to vote for or against the Treaty we would have 90 per cent. voting for it. That is a unity that this country, neither for a Republic nor at any other stage of its history, ever enjoyed. I have met a number of men who have said that this Dáil has spent too much time discussing oaths. I have met one man who reminded me of a certain imperishable phrase which the predecessor of the present ex- Kaiser used with regard to the lawyers in his country. Frederick the Great, on his visit to France, was asked how many lawyers he had in Germany, and he said: `One, and when I go back I will hang that one'[laughter]. Now, there are a great many pro-Germans in Ireland to-day. The Irish people are thoroughly fed up with this ju-jitsu exposition and things of that nature. I may tell you that I have a very elastic mind on oaths. I do not say that oaths are not a very forceful issue with me as between me and my country. If, for instance, a British soldier during the last half-dozen years offered me a rifle on condition that I would take this oath, I would take it. I assure you I would keep on taking it for a month if I could get a rifle and ammunition by taking this oath. The taking of a meaningless and harmless oath would not prevent me. Now, I hold my own individual view on that, and I don't ask other people to hold that view. A similar question arose at the G. A. A., a few years ago, and I expressed a similar view. War knows no principles, and you who have lived through the last half-dozen years will not deny the truth of that statement. There are certain points troubling very seriously genuine friends of this Treaty---points which I desire to deal with here to-day; but before I introduce that matter, I would like to say in fairness to myself, and in fairness to my constituents, that there is one thing in the Treaty that I dislike and that is the retention of our ports. Now, nobody has told me how we are to rid ourselves of that. The British Army and Navy alone dominate the situation. There are certain points which, undoubtedly, are troubling genuine friends of this Treaty. One of them may be summed up in this. They say now that when Ireland regains some material prosperity, when she gets on her feet, when the people get rich, that they will lose the grádh for independence. Now I heard the very same arguments when I was very young. I heard it said---I happened to be a country boy---there are a great many country boys here and the country boy differs very materially from the city boy---and I remember when a youngster going to school being told by my companions that the Land Legislation which was then being passed would mean the downfall of the national ideal, and that the extension of the Local Government powers would do the same. Now it was not the country boys said that, but the London Times. Now, I ask you, did any of the farmers of Ireland prove the truth of that? Were they not the back-bone of the fight through which we have gone---notwithstanding that they have enjoyed a prosperity which they didn't anticipate? Indeed, the well-to-do farmers were the great backers of our fight. You may as well say that it is essential to reduce one's body to poverty to save one's soul. I never heard any theologian advancing that argument, and I don't suppose I would be an enthusiastic backer of it, nor do I suppose that those who are opposed to me would follow it [laughter]. It is not necessary to pauperise the body to save the soul, nor to pauperise the body of this country to save the soul of this country. Others of those opposed to the Treaty say that when the old feud would terminate our country would be drawn closer to England. I say that instead of being drawn closer that we will be drawn further away from England by virtue of being drawn closer to the universe. If this Treaty is adopted this country, instead of being cut off, will be opened up through its trade routes, its consuls and ambassadors, and through its various means of communication through the whole world. So much for that point. I have heard quite a lot of play with the unfortunate or, perhaps, slip phrase used by the Deputy from Offaly some time ago. He said that this nation is going into the Empire with its hands up. Well, I ask you, are we out of the Empire under our Republic? [Cries of Yes!]. To begin with, my friends, you talk of a Republic for all Ireland. Your Cabinet has told you by virtue of the fact that you exclude North-East Ulster that you only recognise the Republic for three-quarters of Ireland. Now let us keep to facts. You say that you are marching into the British Empire with your hands up---you say that we who are favouring the Treaty are doing so. Let us consider the position we are in to-day. We have in this country been forced, under an ideal Republic, to utilise the Postal and Telegraph service of the British Government. We have been forced in order to get claims endorsed to go into their law courts, to carry their soldiers, police and sailors on our railroads. We have come here under a British Act of Parliament, and we meet here to-day with the consent of the British Government. That is the position, and you call yourself a Free Republic. You have an ideal, and an ideal only and anything provided in this Act does not rob you of that ideal; and I say to you that you who oppose this Treaty are inconsistent in this, because we propose to remove the inconsistency which I have mentioned and make it consistent. It has been mentioned here to-day, and I certainly felt very keenly when making up my mind with regard to the outlook of the people in India and Egypt. We feel that because they have travelled a hard road with us that it would be unfair to abandon them without just cause. Now, have we abandoned them? Take your memory back to August last. How much fighting had you in Egypt and India in those days? And how much to-day? It is not disaster but success, and it is the success of the Irish Free State which has made the position in India and Egypt which you find to-day. We have not heard a great lot about Ulster since the opening of the proceedings. I wonder if any of you Deputies ever thought it possible, under any set of circumstances as long as the British Empire existed, to establish a Republic for Ireland? [Opposition cries of Yes]. Well, I am sorry that in my highest flights of imagination I can't come up to your level. Now, assume that you hadn't, and the affirmative was lacking in that emphaticness which I expected---at any rate I assume that the most you people had in your minds at any time was a Republic for three fourths of Ireland. [Cries of No, no!]. Now that was what you had in reality asked, and you have endorsed it by the fact that you have thrown North-East Ulster overboard. Now, I assume there are individuals here who don't agree. I am honest enough to admit that. But the one thing that you had to face is, the alternative for a Republic for three-fourths of Ireland was the unity of all Ireland, and you could never get that unity you insisted on. A Republic would definitely alienate the North-East Ulster corner and divide our unfortunate country into two separate and distinct areas and into two races for all time. That's the programme you have brought forward. I hold that Ulster is the very important clause of the Treaty which we consider, and to this our opponents have not, in any single instance, given any consideration. They have taken it for granted that our plenipotentiaries were jockeyed by the Prime Minister into that position. I believe the situation was otherwise. Had I believed that this Treaty would leave Ireland a permanently divided nation I would vote against it. Now, some of you took sufficient interest in the Boer War. Those who were rebels in those days took sufficient interest in the fate of the Boer Republics. At their surrender they specified four conditions:
Foreign relations;
to accept a Protectorate of Great Britain;
to surrender the ports and territory of the South African Republics, and
to conclude a defensive alliance with Great Britain.
England refused to accept these rather humiliating conditions made on the part of the Boers; and insisted on unconditional surrender. At the same time she gave a verbal guarantee that, provided the Boers didn't resume the fight, their nation would not be destroyed. Now, the Boer soldiers were in as good a position to resume the fight as we are, and they could continue the fight and bring about a state of hari kari, and submit to the inevitable. To save the nation they accepted Britain's conditions. And what do you find to-day? You find the hitherto divided states sealed up into a solid Boer bloc in South Africa, one solid force in a position to re-assume the Republican ideal at any time they like. What did the Germans do when pressed by the Allies in the late war? Did the Germans say to the Allies: `Because of the principles which we have to abandon by your occupation of any part of our territory, and by your limitations on our finances, we refuse to come to any terms with you. We will continue to resist your army through every part of Germany, even if it means the destruction of every man and woman and house in Germany?' No, they did not. They said:`The thing, the programme for us, is to save as much as we can of our territory, and on that territory we are to rebuild and make the fatherland'. And what happened? In the brief interval of three years Germany has brought about no less than seven modifications of the Treaty of Versailles. That is what we ask you to do. It has been mentioned here that our Parliament is to some extent like Grattan's Parliament, and it was suggested as a very good thing that this Grattan's Parliament was discontinued or abolished. Now, if Grattan's parliament with all its limitations had continued in operation, would our country have gone through the famine period? Would our country have suffered the humiliations of '48 or '67, or would it have needed them? Or would our country have been lying helplessly in its grave a few years ago when we took up the cudgels? No, it would have saved the population, saved its industries, conserved its manhood, and when the time came during the Crimean War, or the Boer War, or any other of the shaky positions in which the British Empire found itself, the Irish nation could have regained its liberty. That is what Grattan's parliament would have done, and that is what this Treaty now provides and will do for the Irish nation. Instead of that you propose that it should simply commit suicide---wipe itself out and remain helpless for all time. You say: `Why should we follow in the role of a Dominion?' There is no reason if we could help it, but we can't help it. Is there any alternative? Will any member of this Dáil guarantee to me that those Dominions at which some people have laughed so heartily during the last fortnight---will anybody guarantee that they will still be Dominions or that they won't be Republics within twelve years, and will anyone say to me that Francis Feehily in Australia, or Laurier in Canada, are going to be definitely deferred or dispelled by anything that you can enlighten us on to-day? And if they can become Republics in our lifetime, what about us? I don't blame the Cabinet for breaking away from the Republican position. Our country and England had to face a definite situation, and this situation which is brought about by the Treaty is purely the resultant of opposing forces. The feelings of the Irish people are responsible for that departure, because the Irish people would not resume war, nor consent to the resumption of war by anybody standing on the bed-rock of the Republic. The opposing opinions here, though in no way proportionate to the feeling of the country, are, in my opinion, based on a frank and perfect honesty. We find ourselves as a body of men at the cross-roads. We see the objective at the distance. One party determines to go right through to that objective though a mighty and impassable gulf intervenes. They say it does not matter, even though it does mean hampering, so that it is a short road. The other people say:`let us take the long road; it is the surer.' Similarly, if we proceed on the assumption that we are military tacticians---I don't claim to be a military tactician---I have done very little fighting in my life, but as an ordinary civilian I will put it this way to the military tacticians. We found ourselves in 1914 with a dozen strong entrenchments separating us from complete victory. In the interval we have brought down eleven of these impediments, and we find that by rushing the twelfth and last one that it means our annihilation, our defeat and demoralisation, and instead of those of us who are voting for the Treaty---instead of submitting ourselves to that demoralisation, we are entrenching here; we wait for reinforcements and we wait for supplies, and at an opportune moment we march on. I was once in America on a holiday. It cost me three pounds to get over and three pounds to get back. At any rate I have seen the Continent of America. I found myself on one occasion on the southern bank of the Niagara. Now I wanted to get across, there was a bridge a little distance up, a Yankee who came along offered to enlighten me on the best way to get there. `What's the best way to get across?' I asked. `Well'," said he, `if you mean the shortest, the most direct way, jump in and swim'. That is what the opponents of this Treaty proposed to the people of Ireland.
Adjourned at 1.30.
On resumption the SPEAKER took the Chair at 3.30 p.m.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I crave just a couple of minutes to make a personal explanation. When the Deputy for a Division of Dublin was speaking to-day I was not present. She made reference to my name and to the name of a lady belonging to a foreign nation that I cannot allow to pass without making this reference to. Some time in our history as a nation a girl went through Ireland and was not insulted by the people of Ireland. I do not come from the class that the Deputy for the Dublin Division comes from; I come from the plain people of Ireland. The lady whose name was mentioned is, I understand, betrothed to some man. I know nothing of her personally, I know nothing of her in any way whatever, but the statement may cause her pain, and may cause pain to the lady who is betrothed to me [hear, hear]. I just stand in that plain way, and I will not allow without challenge any Deputy in the assembly of my nation to insult any lady either of this nation or of any other nation [applause].
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
A Chinn Chomhairle, tá beagán agamsa le rá agus ní bhead ach cúpla nóimeat á rá. As I have no doubt the other Deputies are as speech weary as I am, you will be glad to hear that what I have to say will be said in a few moments. I am not going to dictate to the Deputies on the duty they owe to their constituents or any thing else like that. I am not going to charge any man with betrayal, or impugn any man's honour, because I look upon every Deputy of Dáil Eireann as my comrade, and no word or act of mine, either here or outside, will, I trust, break that bond of comradeship [hear, hear]. I am against the Treaty on principle, and on principle alone. I have heard it stated that we should vote as our constituents wish us to vote because they are our masters. I agree that they are the masters of our political thought but they are not and can not be the captains of our souls. Is it seriously put up as an argument that if, say, 90 per cent. of our constituents at any time during the past two or three years were to have told us that the interests of Ireland could best be served by our going across to the British House of Commons, we should have gone there?
A DEPUTY:
They did not do that.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
If tomorrow or next week our constituents were to order us, with a view to securing Ireland's material interests, to become Freemasons, are we to immediately begin to save up the price of a trowel and apron? [Laughter]. I have as great a respect and as a deep a regard for my constituents as any Deputy in this assembly. I admit they have a perfect right to deride me, to repudiate any action of mine, and to kick me out at the first opportunity; but I deny absolutely that they have any right to direct or command my conscience. I have a few resolutions here in my pocket---just four from the whole County of Clare---and I know how some of these resolutions have been passed.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Unanimously.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
I know this also: in my opposition to the Treaty I know that I am not misrepresenting those who have the best influence in the constituency.
MR. PATRICK BRENNAN:
You are.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
I am not. I have made it my business to find out and I know what I am saying.
MR. P. BRENNAN:
So do we.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
Interruptions will not make me say one word more than this on that particular point: I went down to Clare on Christmas Eve fully satisfied in my mind that in opposing this Treaty I was doing what was right. A week later I came back from Clare doubly satisfied I was doing right [hear, hear]. I am against this on principle alone. I suppose that is a sentimental reason, a hopelessly ignorant reason, a reason of the heart but not of the head, the reason of a man without vision. Principle has been sneered at in every generation by those who have abandoned principle, and earnestly I ask the Deputies here not to sneer at those who stand for principle in these days, because the history of these days has yet to be written.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I am for the Treaty on principle alone.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
When I speak of principle and conscience I must necessarily speak of the oath embodied in the Treaty. In my sentimental, hopelessly ignorant attitude towards it, I must be guided, not by lawyers or Doctors of Divinity, or the Press, or by my constituents, but by my own conscience. My conscience tells me the oath embodied in the Treaty signed in London is an oath of loyalty to the English King; an admission that the King of England is King, also, of Ireland, that I am a British subject, that my children are British subjects, and such an admission I never intend to make so long as I have control of my will and reason, no matter what material advantage it may be supposed to gain for Ireland. I am not going to assert that the dead would do this or that. I have too much reverence and too much love for the dead to make such an assertion, or to drag them into this debate at all, But I will say one word about the men of Easter Week, living and dead. It has been suggested it would be no more dishonourable for us to take this oath and go into the British Empire than it was for the men of Easter Week to surrender. When we laid down our arms in O'Connell Street on the Saturday evening of Easter Week, we did so under duress, but we surrendered only our arms and the military position we had taken up; we did not surrender the Irish Republic, nor the historic Irish nation. We did not swear to be loyal subjects to the English King, nor acknowledge him as King of Ireland. That was war on a grand scale, in the Mount Street Bridge area, in Stephen's Green, at the South Dublin Union in the General Post Office, and other places during Easter Week. But when these positions were surrendered the Irish nation was not asked by the leaders of the rising to swear loyalty to King George, his heirs and successors; so it is an insult to the men and women of Easter Week to compare their honourable surrender with the surrender proposed to us now. I should like to pay a tribute to one Deputy in particular who has spoken here, Deputy Robert Barton. He admitted he was weak in London, and broke his oath to the Republic------
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Did we? Answer me that question. Did we break our oaths to the Republic? [Cries of Order, order!].
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
I am paying a tribute to Deputy Robert Barton.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Aye.
</SMALL>
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
When the threats of terrible and immediate war were held over his head------
MR. M. COLLINS:
We did not give damn for terrible and immediate war.
MR. BRIAN O'HIGGINS:
If Mr. Barton was weak in London he has been strong here [laughter and cheers]. He has revealed the strength of a true man [laughter]. And his statement will be the most thought-compelling page in the history of these proceedings [hear, hear, and renewed laughter]. I cannot claim to have done anything worth talking about for Ireland, but during twenty years I have tried in a minor, fifth-rate way to convey to the common people of Ireland---my own people---the message of the brave men and women of our race who have stood for right against wrong. I shall continue to do so as long as God gives me strength to do it, whether this Treaty be ratified or not. I have taken only one oath in all my life, and I cannot now take another that, rightly or wrongly---it may be wrongly---I believe would make me a perjurer. I won't surrender the one ideal and dream of my life---an independent Irish Ireland, and so I mean to vote against the Treaty. [Applause].
MR. ERNEST BLYTHE:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a cháirde, ní choimeadfad abhfad sibh. An chuid is mó atá le rá agam tá se ráite ag na Teachtaí cheana. Ach is dócha nách díobháil dom labhairt chun a innsint ce an fáth go bhfuil mo thuairimí fe mar atáid. I would like to agree with the last speaker that it would be much more seemly if there was no attempt to bring in in any way into these discussions, which are rendered sometimes exasperating, the names of those who made the supreme sacrifice for the freedom of Ireland. And I would like particularly to say that I hate the phrase which has been used here---that of rattling the bones of the dead. In this matter that is before us I recognise only one principle. That principle is an obligation in making my choice here to choose that which, in my judgment, will be best for the Irish nation both in the immediate future and ultimately. I believe that I must exercise my judgment freely in that matter. I believe that in making my choice I am not fettered by the oath I took as a member of this Dáil. I believe that if I hold myself back from doing what I believe would be best for the Irish nation because it conflicted with the terms of that oath, it would be doing wrong, because I took that oath as President de Valera took it---as an oath to do my best for the freedom of the Irish nation. That was the purpose that I bound myself to by that oath, and I would be false alike to the oath and the purpose of the oath if I held to the mere terms of it against my judgment of what was best for the Irish nation at the present time. Republicanism is with me not a national principle but a political preference. I am against monarchy, because I believe monarchies in the world as it is to-day are effete and out of date. I believe the Irish people, when they voted for a Republican majority in this Dáil, and when they declared themselves for an Irish Republic, were not thinking of constitutional privileges very much, but were thinking of the complete freedom of Ireland [hear, hear]. I think that is the ideal for which the Irish people have declared. I think that, like myself, they have a preference for the Republican form of Government, because I do not see how anybody could, at the present day, prefer any other form of Government; but I believe the main thing that was in their minds was the securing of the complete independence of Ireland. As far as I am concerned I wanted the Irish Republic, as I believe the people of Ireland did, in order that Ireland might be free. With me the Republic was a means to an end and not an end in itself.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Hear, hear.
MR. ERNEST BLYTHE:
I believe in one sense the Republican form of Government which has been set up was a machine for the securing of Irish freedom [hear, hear]. And I believe there is no more harm, if the interests of the nation demand it, in scrapping that machine than there is in scrapping any other machine which may be devised for securing the freedom of the country. I do not hold myself fettered in making my choice either by the oath which I took as a member of the Dáil, or by the that a Republic was declared, or that a Republican form of Government was set up in this country. In point of fact, I believe that the choice before us is not a choice between this Treaty and an Irish Republic, as it is understood by the majority of the Irish people. In actual fact, I think that the choice that has been before the Dáil, not only in this present Session, but since the negotiations began, has been a choice between---at any rate, the thing that has been before the Dáil since the negotiations began has been practically, and certainly---or the majority of the members, the matter of external association. I am sure a good number of the members of the Dáil stand for nothing but the real Irish Republic---an isolated Republic. I think, undoubtedly, when the process of battering down the wall of the isolated Republic was begun, that by a majority of the Dáil the isolated, or as I would call it, the real, Irish Republic was abandoned as being immediately unattainable. For me there is very little difference between external association and what we get in this Treaty. I realise very well how far short this Treaty falls of the ultimate ideals of the Irish people, and what its defects are. I stand for a Gaelic State. I realise the difficulties that are before us in arriving at a Gaelic State. I know how far Anglicisation has gone in this country. I know the close relationship there must be between this country and England in any circumstances on account of Trade and Commercial interests. I know our difficulties in arriving at a Gaelic State will be great enough without any close, friendly and intimate political relationships with England. It seems to me we will have practically the same amount of close friendly and intimate political relationship with England under a scheme of external association as we would have under this Treaty. It seems to me that, while under external association we may retain the form of a Republican Government, if not the name of a Republic, we would have under it abandoned as much of the political control of the destinies of the Irish nation as under the Treaty. In fact, people who are willing to agree to external association and refuse to accept the Treaty seem to me to be the people who have swallowed the camel and are straining at the gnat. We have before us the alternatives of ratification and rejection. What would follow rejection is, I think, to a considerable extent, a matter of speculation. We would have chaotic conditions, certainly. If a bitter split on the Parnellite lines showed signs of developing, I do not think we would have war. The British would prefer a split; it would be better for them. If there were no split, or a split did not develop sufficiently, we might have war. As this is largely a choice of alternatives, more time might have been given to those who favour rejection of the Treaty to framing some idea of what would follow rejection. As to what would follow ratification that largely depends on the idea---on your interpretation of the Treaty. I do not believe ratification would be followed by anything like the split, or could be followed by anything like the split that would follow rejection. I am not competent to expound the Treaty, or to interpret it from any sort of a legal point of view. The Treaty has not been really sufficiently expounded. Mr. Childers gave a very long and, as far as it went, a very fair interpretation of the Treaty. We were blamed for not listening to him with more avid attention. It seems to me that one of the reasons why he did not hold us was that practically all of what he said was common ground; he explained what the law was in Canada, and then, though with a good deal less emphasis, said that was practically cancelled by the phrase `practice and constitutional usage'. And the main part of his argument was not of a constitutional nature at all, and not the sort of argument in which he could claim to have any sort of particular authority. He was arguing that the British would not keep to their terms of this Treaty, but of some other Treaty that might be signed.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Hear, hear.
MR. ERNEST BLYTHE:
That was really his argument, and I don't think it deserved---although it was very good [laughter and applause]. Although not a lawyer at all there is a phrase in this first clause which has not been mentioned by any of the lawyers who have spoken, and it seems to me to be of considerable importance. It is in the second last line and reads: `A Parliament having power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of Ireland, and an Executive responsible to that Parliament'. Now an Executive responsible to the Parliament is more than, I think, in theory at any rate, they have in England. It seems to me if we take that phrase in conjunction with the rest of the Treaty it does away completely with the idea that the representative of the Crown could take any action whatever except on the advice of the Ministry of the Free State. I do not say he could not refuse formal assent to a Bill or anything of that sort, but it seems to me to put the representative of the Crown in the same position here, in regard to the Government, as the King of England occupies in England with regard to the British Cabinet. It seems to me that there is some ambiguity as to whether or not this oath is obligatory at all. It certainly, to my mind, is not made obligatory by Clause 4, but it may be made obligatory by Clause 2. Clause 4 only specifies the form of oath to be taken, and it quite differs from the clauses you see in the Canadian and other constitutions, where it says that every member of the House of Representatives, and the Senate and so forth, before taking a seat, shall take oath in the following form, and the form is then given. That has been departed from here. It may be held Clause 2 makes the oath obligatory, but Clause 2 seems to me only to relate to the position of the Irish Free State---`Subject to the provisions hereinafter set out the position of the Irish Free State in relation to the Imperial Parliament and Government, and otherwise, shall be that of the Dominion of Canada, and the law, practice, and constitutional usage governing the relationship of the Crown or the representative of the Crown and of the Imperial Parliament to the Dominion of Canada, shall govern their relationship to the Irish Free State'. That clause certainly states the relationship of the Crown to the Free State shall be that of Canada, but it does not state that the Constitution of the Irish Free State shall be the same as the Constitution of Canada, and it has been specifically stated it need not be the same. It is straining that clause to say that it specifies that a certain particular clause in the Canadian Constitution shall also be in the Irish Constitution, or that the clause puts on a member of Parliament a certain duty. Whether or not the oath is obligatory is certainly a matter that could be disputed. In regard to the oath there has been a lot of argument---and there have been some arguments, I think, not worthy of this assembly. There was one Deputy from the West who made a long oration about the manacles of slaves. That Deputy must have known that faithfulness was not the same as fealty. He is a lawyer and if he found the word `vehicle 'in a document he would not proceed to argue it was a gig or a rickshaw. There has been a good deal said about the clauses in this Treaty in regard to NorthEast Ulster. I think we abandoned the possibility of getting an absolutely united Ireland---that is, getting it immediately---when the President's letter of the 1Oth August was sent. In it he stated he would not use coercion, and said we were agreeable to outside arbitration. I did not like this, but I think in the situation that had developed nothing better could have been got, and I am the only member of the Dáil who comes of the people who are going to exclude themselves, or may exclude themselves, from the Free State. I know them. I have always believed that by suitable propaganda these people amongst whom the roots of nationality still exist, although you might say the stem and foliage have been sapped away---these people could eventually be brought to the side of the Irish nation, as they were a hundred years ago [applause]. I also believe that they might be coerced, and I would stand for it that we have the right to coerce them, if we thought fit, and if we have the power to do so. But you can not coerce them and comfort them at the one time. As we pledged ourselves not to coerce them, it is as well that they should not have a threat of coercion over them all the time. I have no doubt under this business and under these arrangements, and the necessity they will feel for material reasons for union, combined with propaganda, these terms will lead in a comparatively short time to the union of that part of the country with the rest of Ireland. References have been made to the circumstances under which this Treaty was signed, and the fact that it was signed under a threat of war. I say these circumstances and that threat of war are necessary to make the Treaty acceptable to me, because, as I said, even external association is a good way short of our full right. I believe even if a better Treaty than this had been forthcoming, the plenipotentiaries would not have been entitled to sign it until it was clear that the alternative was war. A reference has been made to Mr. Barton. I do not want to be offensive at all, but it is as well that I should say what I have to say. I believe that the plenipotentiaries should have realised all along that a break might, and probably would, mean immediate war and the plenipotentiaries should have made up their minds as to the exact point to which they would go rather than face immediate war. And I think if any plenipotentiary was put in a hole by the short time for making up their minds that was given on that last night by Mr. Lloyd George, that plenipotentiary was in a difficulty only because of his own negligence in making up his mind as to the distance to which it would be right for him to go, and the place at which he was prepared to choose war.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Hear, hear.
MR. ERNEST BLYTHE:
Again I say I do not want to be offensive, but it was either that or the plenipotentiary was so impressionable as to make him by temperament unfitted to bear the responsibility of a plenipotentiary. That is really how the matter stands, and I think the circumstances under which this Treaty was signed, except in so far as all the plenipotentiaries were convinced that the alternative was war, and no more was to he got, have no bearing on it at all [applause].
MR. FRANK FAHY:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht an Dála ba mhaith liom labhairt as Gaedhilg toisc gurb í an Ghaedhilg teanga oifigiúil na Dála, ach tá a lán anso ná tuigfeadh me agus tá beirt anso ná tuigfeadh me go h-áirithe agus ba mhaith liom dá dtuigfidís sin me. Through many weary days of speech-making I have listened with patience, sometimes with pain, to many arguments about this Treaty. It grieved my very soul to hear some Deputies question the rights and authority of certain of our colleagues to sit and vote in this assembly. Let us recognise that we all have the same status here, and all are actuated by the one great motive, our country's good, but that we may reasonably come to widely different conclusions. We cannot get back to the position in which we stood on December 5th, 1921. The signing of the Treaty has completely altered the circumstances at home and abroad. Pity it is that these Articles of Agreement bear the signatures of our plenipotentiaries. Had this instrument been submitted unsigned to Dáil Eireann I feel convinced it would have been rejected by an overwhelming majority. The signing of it does not make it more acceptable, but we must base our arguments and our decision on a fait accompli. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not wish for a moment to impugn the honour or integrity of our plenipotentiaries. I feel that if I had been placed in their unenviable position in London I would have signed the Treaty. Having signed, I would, conscious of having done my best, bow to the decision of this assembly as to whether the Treaty were acceptable or not. That, I take it, is the position in which our plenipotentiaries find themselves to-day. Two problems have long confronted the Irish people---North-East Ulster and the British occupation. Did the Treaty offer a satisfactory solution of either problem with a probability of settling the second in a reasonable time, I think it should and would be accepted. The Treaty, however, does not conclusively settle either problem. It will not make for peace, domestic or international. The terms violate our territorial integrity; they make us British subjects and impose on us a Governor-General whose social circle will militate against the restoration of the Gaelic State which we must all endeavour to re-establish, if we are not to become West Britons. Is not the declaration of the Republic also fait accompli, or have we been playing at Republicanism? Were we not in earnest when we sent ambassadors to claim the recognition of the world for the Republic?
MR. FINIAN LYNCH:
With British passports and under the British flag. [Cries of No interruptions].
</SMALL>
FRANK FAHY:
We are told that we have secured the flag. What flag? Would there not be serious opposition to the adoption of the tricolour as the flag of the Irish Free State? I much fear so. How is such opposition to be overcome, and if not overcome, whither does it lead? Will such opposition, suppressed or unpunished make for stability and that peace we all so earnestly desire? In many debatable and vague clauses of the Treaty, especially the clauses relating to allegiance, financial adjustment, and North-East boundaries, lie the fruitful seeds of misunderstanding and strife. There is no use in disguising the fact that this Treaty, if accepted, will he ratified because the alternative is the dread arbitrament of war. I have been down among my constituents chiefly in South Galway. The Comhairle Ceanntair of that Division at a recent meeting, at which I was present, voted unanimously in favour of ratification. But the delegates stated, one and all, that this Treaty does not meet the nation's demand and that they so voted because they believed the alternative to be a war of extermination. 'Tis hard to blame the war-weary people for clamouring for peace. But it should be put clearly on record that such votes are given under duress. Can a Treaty based on fear, naked and unashamed, be a sound basis for friendship between the two peoples? It is my opinion that lasting peace and friendship between the two peoples was feasible as we stood on December 5th. Whether such peace is practicable now is, at least, questionable. The bond of brotherhood is broken; the comradeship and unity that stood the severest test and won the admiration of the world have been sundered through the machinations of the cleverest of the British statesmen, Lloyd George. Can this national solidarity be restored and restored without delay? Can Dáil Eireann again command the unswerving loyalty of the people and their undivided support, moral and material? We are told that Dáil Eireann can no longer hope for this. The people have been stampeded. A venal Press that never stood for freedom and now with one voice advocates ratification has, by suppressio veri and suggestio falsi prejudiced the issue and biased public opinion [hear, hear]. I attended a meeting of the East Galway Comhairle Ceanntair at which the voting was 18 to 8 in favour of ratification. The report in the metropolitan Press the next day would give one to understand that there was a unanimous decision in favour of the Treaty. Such sharp practice gives one furiously to think. The Chairman of the Delegation and the Minister for Finance made a strong case for ratification. This Treaty undoubtedly confers wide powers on the Irish people, far greater powers than were ever even demanded by our former representatives in the British House of Commons. But some of us believed that the time had gone by for seeking concessions. Under the terms of this Treaty we can undoubtedly develop the material resources of the country. But nations, like individuals, may fill their purses by emptying their souls. What is the nation? It is of yesterday, to-day and to-morrow. How the generations of our martyred dead would act at this juncture it is vain to argue. Few in this assembly were as intimately acquainted as I was with those who fell in Easter Week, '16. Of one, and only one, of those heroic men could I confidently assert that he would oppose ratification. I need scarcely state that I refer to Tom Clarke. Can we of to-day, bowing to force majeure, accept this Treaty without dishonour in view of our oaths and of the Republic declared before the world? Those Deputies who have spoken in support of the Treaty maintain that this is not a final settlement. Some of them advocate its adoption on the ground that it contains the seeds of future development, that it will broaden slowly down from precedent to precedent until we reach the goal of unfettered freedom. Their attitude is comprehensible and their sincerity unquestioned. I might suggest to them that this road under other guides may also lead rapidly to the sacrifice of principles to the Imperial ideal, to smug prosperity, and obese content. Other Deputies would use the powers obtained as an immediate lever to secure full independence. Honour cannot stand rooted in dishonour, and I maintain that such action is dishonourable even in dealing with England. Faith unfaithful to England's King cannot make us falsely true to Republicanism. Let at least our word be our bond. If we pledge our word, let us keep it in the letter and in the spirit. Honesty in politics and in international relations will eventually prove the better policy. We must, then, consider this Treaty on its merits, and as affected by existing circumstances. The great majority of the people are in favour of acceptance, lest worse befall. The views of our constituents should certainly have great weight with us, for they are our masters, they are the ultimate judges. There are, however, other circumstances to be considered. Had a vote been possible prior to the Rising of 1916, does any Deputy imagine that we would have received the sanction of l0 per cent. of our people? Yet the people now admit that our action was justified. Then again should a demand inspired by terror be hearkened to as the real voice of the people? It may be argued that in obtaining this Treaty we have done sufficient for our day, that our action does not bind coming generations. But then, can the path to freedom be thus conveniently arranged by stages? Those best qualified to judge hold that the economic situation makes it impossible for us to carry on the war for a year or two longer, even with a united front and the moral support of the people. This may be truly called a defeatist argument, but then the acceptance of this Treaty is an admission that once again we have been worsted in the game, that material might has vanquished moral right, that the weak must bow to the strong. We are not called on to decide between the Treaty and Document No. 2. Incidentally, it should be borne in mind that Document No. 2 was submitted to us in confidence, for the specific purpose of achieving unity of action. This document contained no oath of any description.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
The Cabinet Minutes do.
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
It is not signed by the British representatives.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
Document No. 2 contains no oath whatever.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
But the Minutes of the Cabinet do.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
There were no Minutes; they were never kept or signed.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
The many insinuations made to the contrary would awaken doubts as to the virtues of the Treaty that has to be supported by such methods, neither should a good Treaty need to be supported by revelations of verbal statements made at Cabinet meetings, especially when these revelations are made by one who was not a member of the Cabinet------
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Mr. Erskine Childers.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
Especially when these revelations were made by one who was not a member of the Cabinet, but was admitted to certain meetings as an act of grace. Such points, however cleverly put, are not relevant to the issue. We are concerned with the release of our country from a dilemma, not with liberating a cat from a bag.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
On a point of order. Reference has been made to a person being admitted to certain meetings as an act of grace. I would like the President to say whether that is a correct description of the reasons for my attendance at certain Cabinet meetings.
THE SPEAKER:
It is not a point of order. That matter may arise afterwards as a personal explanation.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
We are, as I said, concerned with liberating our country from a dilemma, and not liberating a eat from a bag. The immense labour of the latter performance may give us some idea of the task before us. As the eloquent Deputy for Tyrone was speaking a few days ago I recalled the words of the Latin poet `parturient montes et nascetur ridiculus mus'. I thought that, at least, a caterwauling litter would have come forth. The liberated cat must have been a tabby, such a chorus of welcome came from the supporters of the Welsh Wizard. The photograph of the gallant liberator adorned the pages of the English illustrated papers, and I scanned with disappointment the New Year's List of Honours. Let us eschew such special pleadings and such party tactics reminiscent of other days, and decide the question safely on its merits. Let no Deputy be influenced by any outside associations, no matter how sacred such associations might be in other circumstances. Guided by the light of conscience, the best interests of our country and the honour of our nation, let us, in God's name, lay aside personalities and do our duty fearlessly. [Applause].
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
What about the Welsh Wizard?
MR. F. FAHY:
I have been asked what about the Welsh Wizard. I may say what I like about any English politician without offence to any member of the Dáil.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Mr. Frank Fahy has described me and others as followers of the Welsh Wizard, and he has just sat down saying `lay aside personalities'.
MR. F. FAHY:
I never said anyone here was a follower of the Welsh Wizard.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
You described us as followers of the Welsh Wizard, and you won't get out of it.
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
What do you mean, Mr. Fahy?
MR. SEAN MILROY:
We heard what you said, Mr. Fahy.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Yes, we heard all you said. Stand by your words.
MR. K. O'HIGGINS:
I desire to make a personal explanation in connection with a remark in Mr. Fahy's speech; the reference could only be to me. He spoke of a person who attempted to make disclosures of some thing that took place at Cabinet meetings. That was more objectionable because the person was admitted to Cabinet meetings only as an act of grace. I did not think it would be necessary for me to explain why and how I came to attend Cabinet meetings, but as the question has been raised I will now explain. At the first meeting of the Dáil following the last election the President announced that he would have to have an inner Cabinet; that the large Ministry that was formerly admitted could not deal with matters of policy and the matters of these negotiations; and that therefore he would have to have an inner Cabinet of seven. I was seated behind him, and he turned to me and said: `I want you to attend Cabinet meetings and express your views on a position of absolute equality with the rest of us. If, in the unlikely event of a division, you, perhaps, had better not vote, but with the rest of us express your views quite freely'. How does Mr. Fahy consider that as an act of grace? I never asked the President why he made that arrangement, and did not want to know, but I want to ask now is it fair to say that I was admitted to the Cabinet meetings as an act of grace, when I attended on the instructions of the President? [Hear, hear].
MR. GEORGE NICOLLS:
A Chinn Comhairle agus a lucht na Dála, I suppose I am in the unenviable position of being the last lawyer that will speak in this assembly [laughter], but if I am I will not give you much law, constitutional or otherwise. I have often heard it said that the last leg of mutton is the sweetest. Well, I hope this will be something sweeter than what you have got before [laughter]. I am not going to go into constitutional law, but I may say that I have been down with my constituents, and they have been talking a lot about constitutional law since the Dáil met. One of my constituents was speaking to me, and he used these words to me: `We are bewildered and moidered with high faluting talk about constitutional law. This constitutional law plus Magna Charta to whose rights as British Citizens we were lately entitled, did not stop the Crown forces from burning Cork and performing other acts into which we need not enter now, but which were certainly against constitutional law and Magna Charta. But we do feel certain of one thing; that is, if we once get the British forces out of Ireland, it will require more than constitutional law to get them back'. [Hear, hear]. I can tell you, speaking for one of the largest constituencies in Ireland, that is how the people feel, and for that reason I made a solemn promise that I would talk no constitutional law when I came here. But I will talk common sense, and in trying to talk common sense I will try to be as brief as I can. I won't quote any law or any constitutional lawyer, but I will certainly say this: I am amazed at the tactics that have been adopted here by the opponents of the Treaty who say: `Don't trust Lloyd George', `Don't trust England or any English statesman', and, mind you, I greatly sympathise with them, but when they want to overwhelm and crush us, they get up and read long quotations from speeches of Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Worthington Evans, and others I know nothing about. That strikes me as rather peculiar. I say here as a lawyer that the slave mind seems very apparent there, where these men are quoted, and their words apparently, regarded as binding on us, and that we cannot go behind what they have said. I will certainly say this---I say I would back the opinion of the Minister of Finance on constitutional law against any Deputy who has spoken here, although one Deputy was held up as apparently the only man who knew anything about constitutional law. I would stake the opinion of the Minister of Finance before any tribunal, either national or international. We are told that the English when they give us this Treaty will humbug us, and that we won't be a match for them when it comes to framing a Constitution. In my opinion the Treaty has brought us a complete surrender, or a practically complete surrender, from England. Everything she said she would not give she has given. The Constitution that will be framed under the Treaty will be framed by Irishmen in Ireland, and the men who are able to meet Lloyd George, Worthington Evans and the other English delegates over there, and beat them at their own game, when it comes to framing a Constitution here I guarantee they will be able to beat them at their own game again [hear, hear]. There was one point that was inclined to carry weight with me when I heard the Treaty discussed. Great capital was made out of the fact that four coastal towns would be reserved as naval bases. That is done in a clause of the Treaty. I would like to know if the clause was not there what would be done. I have to face my constituents again, although some people may never have to face theirs [laughter]. I want to know one bit of information, and part of it can be given by the Minister of Finance, and portion by the Minister of Defence. The question I would like to ask is: If we are to take over immediately all our own coastal defences, I would like to know from the Minister of Defence whether and how we are to raise the fortifications that will be necessary to defend the coast; and what batteries, dreadnoughts, submarines, etc., will be necessary. When I have got that information from the Minister of Defence I would like to ask the Minister of Finance where the money is going to come from that is going to provide them and carry on the work of the rest of the country [laughter and applause]. This Treaty does not give us completely what we want, but it brings us very near to what we want. I think that when division has come--- and there is no good in saying it has not come---when the Cabinet is divided and the country is divided without any possibility of its being united in toto---where you have 95 per cent. of the people wanting the Treaty---it is our duty and our highest principle to accept the Treaty and work it. In a short time, by working that Treaty, not only would 95 per cent. of the people be satisfied, but 100 per cent.---the whole people of Ireland [applause].
MR. DONAL O'CALLAGHAN:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, is beag atá le rá agamsa. Leanfad dea-shompla na ndaoine nár fhan abhfad ag labhairt iniu. Táimse, agus tá furmhór na Dála, agus furmhór na ndaoine tuirseach de bheith ag eisteacht agus ag leigheamh óráidí lucht na Dála. Nílimse chun óráid do dheanamh. Is beag atá le rá agamsa ar fad. Like most members of the Dáil I am thoroughly wearied of those speeches and appeals made on the question of the ratification or approval of the Treaty, and I think so are the people of the country. For my part I shall follow the example set to-day by, I think, most of the speakers, by being very brief. I am not going to appeal to any member of the Dáil, or to seek to influence the views of any member of the Dáil. I am concerned only with the views of and the vote of one member of the Dáil, and that is myself. I rather resent, myself, the series of lectures and appeals to which this House has been treated by all, or both, sides in this matter. I take the view that every member of the Dáil has sufficient brains and sufficient intelligence and a sufficient conception of his responsibility from every point of view to decide for himself or herself what the course of action to be taken is. There are just two things I want to make clear, and I shall finish---my position for myself, and my position with regard to the people I represent here. I may say, while I have deplored and do deplore the keen difference of opinion--- the disruption---which has taken place in our assembly, which was wont to be so harmonious, I deplore perhaps still more the spirit in which it has been done. I deplore the fact that we, the members of the Dáil, could not differ ---even on a question of the importance of the present one---without introducing bitterness or ill-feeling, and without charges or suggestions, either in public or in private. For my part, I take the view, and I should be very sorry if I took any other, that every member of this Dáil is actuated solely by a desire to do the best thing in the interests of Ireland, and the best thing in conformity with his or her adherence to the ideal of absolute Irish independence. I think it is perfectly clear that on no side of this question is there a monopoly of patriotism, a monopoly of common sense. Why we cannot here take different views without levelling charges at one another is beyond me, and is one of the things I regret, at least as much if not more, than the difference itself. To-day, while a member was speaking, I heard an interruption from a member of the House near him. The Deputy was speaking against the Treaty, and the member said: `The country will fix you, too'. Now I say what my constituents will do to me is not a matter of indifference to me, but it is not a consideration which can influence me in my action in this matter. For my part, I am voting against the Treaty. I can not, in conscience, do anything else. Now with regard to the result of that, and with regard to the people whom I represent, I have had for some time the honour to represent the people of Cork in more than one capacity. I represent them as the Lord Mayor of Cork, and as the Chairman of their County Council, and I represent them here. The people of Cork did not elect me to any of these positions because of any ability of mine, real or supposed, or because of any statesmanship of mine, or because of any political ability. They elected me simply and solely because I believe in absolute freedom for Ireland, and because my views on that question were well known and established. If the people of Cork have since changed their minds---indeed I maintain the people of Ireland have not changed their minds---but if they have decided, as is absolutely of course within their right, that a halt may be made on the way, and that rather than hold out for the full measure of Irish freedom, entailing as it probably would still further war and suffering, I have no means of gathering that fact. I have no means, I repeat, in the first instance, nor am I, no matter how my colleagues here may differ with me, going to accept it, even if it were so available the people of Cork have the right to decide that, and I here and now suggest, and I regret it has not been suggested earlier, that the people of the country ought to be given a deciding voice in this question. My position is probably, in this matter, the position of many other members of the Dáil. I have no desire to record a vote if the people who sent me here desire it to be otherwise; but if a vote be taken, and if no other means be provided the electorate, I certainly, as an individual, cannot cast my vote in any but one way. Then the electorate can only repudiate my action and recall me or replace me. I, naturally, will be perfectly content to abide by their decision, but that is my position. That is the position I state to you and to the members of the House, and through you to my constituents. With regard to my personal position, I regret the members of this House in favour of the Treaty have not confined themselves to supporting the Treaty. I regret an effort has been made pretty generally to establish the fact that this House as a whole had agreed to accept something less than freedom. Now, a Chinn Chomhairle,, it is of no importance, perhaps, to members of the House, but it certainly is to me and to the people, or in my opinion to my constituents. I want to make it clear here publicly at this Dáil that my views today---and in this respect let me be absolutely fair to the members of this House who favour the Treaty---are the same as when returned to this House. I do not mean to suggest that the views of members who differ with me on this question are not the same. I personally believe that they are in the main, if not entirely. At all events my views are the same now as then, and nothing, a Chinn Chomhairle, transpired at any meeting of this Dáil which justifies any other assertion. It will be in the recollection of this House when, in the course of the correspondence which preceded these negotiations, the British Prime Minister had refused to accept the status which was laid down as necessary by our President for our plenipotentiaries. When the President decided or suggested a particular reply, before sending that reply a special meeting of the House was summoned, and each member was supplied with a copy of the proposed reply. Furthermore, the President himself read it, and directed the special attention of the House to the now famous paragraph 2. He further impressed on the House before they agreed that he should send that reply, that they should realise a possible and I think he said a probable result would be the breaking off of negotiations and the immediate renewal of war. There was not a suggestion that that reply should be altered by even a comma. The House was unanimous. After deciding that, there was a feeling of absolute relief in the House that there had been such a clear decision taken. When at a later meeting of the Dáil the plenipotentiaries were appointed, the one fact of all others which weighed with me was the possibility of a compromise. In connection with the possibility of compromise was the mention of one particular name. I mention it now without suggesting any reproach---far be it from me---that was the Minister of Finance.
MR. M. COLLINS:
The Minister of Finance has not compromised.
MR. D. O'CALLAGHAN:
I do not mean a compromise in the sense of definitely deciding to change the stand from the Republic, but to accept some thing less as a means to it. I want to be absolutely fair to every man. I do not wish to suggest that any member here has in any way acted in such a manner as would deserve reproach! I trust I have said nothing that would in any way interfere with them. I certainly had no intention of saying any thing that would hurt the Minister of Finance [hear, hear]. I also make it clear that some of us in the Dáil have visualised an independent Ireland. I have learned to-day, I must say with considerable surprise, from one of my colleagues in the representation of Cork that he never did. I can only say---
MR. J. J. WALSH:
That is not a correct interpretation of my speech.
MR. D. O'CALLAGHAN:
Very well, I withdraw it. For the rest, I regret very much the manner in which public boards and other institutions through the country have been divided up on this question. That there should be a division in this House is and would be in itself regrettable. There was a hope that it might have ended there and that division would not be forced through the country---but the country has been lined up for and against. The people of the country, even those who desire the Treaty ratified, are still keener about avoiding the return of days of internal divisions and party turmoil. I think, and still hope, that such a result, which would be so deplorable, may still be avoided, be the result what it may, for some time at least. I would furthermore suggest to those in favour of ratification that they should place it on record, saying that its acceptance by those who favour it is based on the desire of the people that it be accepted, and that their view also be placed on record in connection with it. That is, formally, that they desire the ratification of the Treaty, not as a case of absolute freedom, but that in view of the circumstances of the moment they desire its ratification rather than embark at the moment again in war to secure what remains, and what was withheld from them, of their liberty. I would ask those in favour of ratification to place that on record because that is a fair representation of those of our people who do desire ratification. For the rest I will close by regretting the strained feelings which have been visible in this House, and by hoping that when the vote has been taken here---if a vote be taken, and if my suggestion for a plebiscite be not accepted---then at least the bitterness and strained feeling and animosity that has so suddenly arisen in a House where there was wont to be such friendship will end with the division [applause].
MR. M. COLLINS:
I will make a suggestion now whereby we can avoid a division. Rightly or wrongly, Deputies or no Deputies, the Irish people have accepted this Treaty. Rightly or wrongly, I say------
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
We do not know; how do you know? [Cries of They have, and counter-cries of No, no; they have not.]
MR. M. COLLINS:
The noes are very feeble.
MR. D. CEANNT:
They are not.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I will make a suggestion which will not take away from the principle of any person on your side------
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Is all this in order?
THE SPEAKER:
It is not. It can only be done by permission of the House.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I do not care whether it is in order or not. [Cries of Chair].
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I appeal to the Chair. Is it in order?
MR. M. COLLINS:
I have tried to do things for Ireland for the last couple of years; I am trying to do this thing for Ireland now to avoid division [loud applause]. Are the Deputies going to listen to me or not? [Cries of Yes!].
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Chair, Chair.
THE SPEAKER:
If there is any objection------
MR. M. COLLINS:
My suggestion is------
MR. A. MACCABE:
In the interests of unity he should be heard, I think.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Quite so.
THE SPEAKER:
Members can only speak out of their turn by the courtesy of the Dáil.
MR. J. N. DOLAN:
I beg to move formally that permission be given to the Minister of Finance to speak.
MR. D. O'CALLAGHAN:
I beg to second that. As something I have said may be taken differently, I now wish to say that I have long since, before this House met, told the Minister of Finance privately, and I now say it publicly, that when he arrived at the point when he was satisfied to recommend the Treaty as the best thing in the interests of Ireland, I quite realised the magnificent moral courage that required from him. I told him that privately, I now say it publicly. I am not aware of having said anything which would have riled him, or injured or hurt any of his feelings.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I would suggest that you ask the President to give permission to the Minister of Finance to speak.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
With all due respect, it is not the President can decide------
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
It is the Chair.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I have no objection, of course.
THE SPEAKER:
Permission is given, I take it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well, the suggestion is this: I have my own feelings about the Treaty. I have feelings about it perhaps very much keener than Deputies who are against it. Well, I believe that the Treaty was inevitable, and this is the suggestion: that the men and women in the Dáil who are against the Treaty may continue to be against the Treaty, but they need not cause a division in the Dáil, and they need not cause it by falling in with this suggestion. We cannot be weaker if we accept this Treaty, provided some of you---and I give you all the credit of standing on principle and standing on nothing else against ourselves---as I have said we cannot be weaker, and you cannot have compromised yourselves by allowing this Treaty to go through; and I want to insist that, in my opinion, rightly or wrongly, the Irish people have endorsed this Treaty. Now, if the Treaty is rejected, what happens? The English are absolved from their bargain. You have all said strong things against the English, but they will be absolved from their bargain, and it is not a question of a Treaty or an alternative Treaty. There is neither a Treaty nor an alternative Treaty in the circumstances, and I say the opposition can redeem the country in that way, and they can take all the kudos. They may have all the honour and glory, and we can have all the shame and disgrace [applause].
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
What is the proposition?
MR. M. COLLINS:
That you allow the Treaty to go through and let the Provisional Government come into existence, and if necessary you can fight the Provisional Government on the Republican question afterwards.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
We will do that if you carry ratification, perhaps.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I thought you said ratification would be ultra vires.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is not ratification. There is a question whether approval is not in a sense ratification. It is unfortunate that the papers of the country are taking it up as ratification. It is a very strange thing we get a proposal like that here, when it is obvious if you were to approve of the Treaty that very line of policy could be followed, anyway; and when there is a suggestion to make a real peace, a peace that we could all stand over, that simply because certain credits were involved it should be turned down.
MR. J. N. DOLAN:
I rise to support the adoption of the motion by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and before going on to speak on the merits of the motion, I would like to say that I am sorry our President has put the construction that he did on the suggested way out---that way out that was suggested by the Minister of Finance.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
What way out?
MR. J. N. DOLAN:
He said that that course could be adopted when the Treaty was ratified; but remember we are here faced with the possibility that this Treaty may be defeated [hear, hear]. Then the point that the Minister of Finance makes becomes a reality. The country has accepted the Treaty. [Cries of No!]. The country has accepted the Treaty, I say. [Cries of hear, hear, and No!]. What position then would this Dáil occupy? Where is your constitutional usage or your democratic government? Where is your Republic? Where is government by the consent of the governed?
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
Wait for the next election.
MR. J. N. DOLAN:
I have listened to all the arguments that have been advanced against the ratification of this Treaty, and I must say they have all left me cold. I expected when the Lord Mayor of Cork rose to support the rejection of the Treaty that he, at least, would have some sensible alternative proposal. He had not. There is no alternative to this Treaty, as all the speakers on the other side have plainly pointed out, but chaos, and a gamble and a chance. There is a good deal of good---there is very much good in the Articles of Agreement that are embodied in this Treaty. I stand for this Treaty then, knowing all the circumstances that I do, knowing what led up to the negotiations when we sent our plenipotentiaries to London. I stand for it on its merits, and I say that in the knowledge of all these circumstances our plenipotentiaries have done exceptionally well. It is to the substance of what they have brought back I allude; and I say when you examine this Treaty and visualise the possibilities in working it, there is a big substance in it, and there are great possibilities of developing it for the Irish nation. As some of the other speakers have said, our ideal shall be a Gaelic State. There is nothing in this Treaty to prevent us building up from within, and developing under our own constitutional usage to the advantage--- and to the sole advantage---of the whole people of Ireland. It is said we will be dominated by English interference in the working out of our Constitution. It is said that certain things in this Treaty mean an advantage to England. But what I say and believe is that the men who frame the Constitution, and afterwards the men who work the Constitution, will say we shall interpret all these things in the Irish way to the benefit of the people of Ireland that we are serving here in this legislature. Now, it is said England is conferring on us concessions by this Treaty. I say by this Treaty England is abdicating the grip and the hold that she had on all our life here in Ireland, and she is withdrawing her armed forces from our midst. I see big possibilities in the carrying out of our Constitution, when our Irish soldiers are protecting that Constitution within even the strict limits of the Treaty. In fact---I am not speaking of law, I do not want to get up against Mr. Childers, because I am not a lawyer---but in fact we have in the body of this Treaty sovereign status. It remains for us to grasp the good that is in the Treaty. Have the courage to go in and use it. Have the courage to undertake the development of our country, and to make it possible for our country to advance still further to the goal that is now before her. There has been great play made about the words internal and external association. I see and realise the difference, but in the alternative proposals where external association is mentioned it is not stated by those who advance that argument that our delegates pleaded, worked, and worked energetically for external association, and it was turned down, as the isolated independent Republic was also turned down. Our plenipotentiaries had to face facts, and facing these facts---I say it deliberately---they interpreted as fairly as it was possible for ordinary human beings the instructions that we know they got, those of us who have read the Cabinet records. There was great play also made of the objectionable features of the Treaty. One of them that was mentioned to me---I have not heard any speaker refer to it at all---was what a terrible thing it was that we undertook to pay the pensions of the old R.I.C. Well, I think when the Minister of Finance is the Paymaster of the old R.I.C. they will be much safer in his hands than if they were paid by external association.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. J. N. DOLAN:
Speaker after speaker on the other side has got up and stated they were elected here on a particular mandate, and that so far as they were concerned they had not changed, and that until the mandate was withdrawn from them they could not see their way to make what they call a compromise on the Irish Republic. It has been stated over and over again, and we all know that it is ridiculous for those men to say that there was no compromise, that there was no lowering of the mandate, or no lowering of our declared principles, so to say, when we agreed to send plenipotentiaries to London to negotiate some kind of association with the British Empire. One Deputy said his conscience was eased by some particular clause in a formula that was read to him. It is not of formulas I am speaking now. I wish to refer him to facts. Was not he a party, and was not every man in the Dáil a party to the fact of sending our plenipotentiaries to London to negotiate some kind of association with the British Empire? I do not look upon this Treaty as final and everlasting. I recognise that all countries are developing, and I look on this as only a stage in the development of Ireland. I believe in the saying that `no man has the right', et cetera. Now let us, in the name of God, lay aside all this talk of formulas and face facts. Look at the facts and realise what facts will be staring us in the face if the Treaty is rejected. Realise the chaos in the country, and realise the possibilities of the future. Let us then go in and grasp this opportunity; use it for all it is worth, and let no man here attempt to put a stop to the onward march of the nation. [Applause].
MR. FRANK FAHY:
Just a personal point I would like to introduce. If any words of mine could bear the interpretation that any of the plenipotentiaries were followers of the Welsh Wizard, I beg to withdraw those words, and say I never meant any such thing. I would be very sorry to say it of any member of the Dáil or of any of the plenipotentiaries. I accept fully the explanation of the Assistant Minister for Local Government that he was present at the meetings of the Cabinet by the express orders of the President. I am sorry for the statement made that he was there by act of grace.
MR. M. P. COLIVET:
I am going to be as short as I possibly can. If I wished I could spend about two hours raising points about this Treaty, but, in the first place, I would have you all bored to death, and, in the second place, there would be very little chance of changing any man's opinion [laughter]. The country seems to require that each of the Teachtaí should give some reasons why he is voting in the particular way he thinks on the subject. Another reason why I do not wish to go into debating points is this: there are, in the main, two sets of interpretations to be taken of this Treaty. One is what I might call the interpretation of the Irish point of view, and the other the Imperial point of view. In debating against the Treaty it would be my business to examine how far the imperialists could drag or interpret the points of that Treaty to their views, and to point that out as the effect of the Treaty. In so doing I would, in the possibility of this Treaty being passed, be piling up munitions for the common enemy, and if this Treaty does pass it would be to our interest and to our ambition to see, if there is any interpretation at all, the Irish interpretation wins [hear, hear]. Much has been said about constituents. As far as my constituents are concerned, what I do here is a question between me and them, and concerns no other member of the Dáil, and I am prepared to settle with them what I do here. I was selected on the principle of the Republic. The Republic was formally declared three years ago, and for three years has been functioning to such an extent that not only have soldiers and policemen, but men of our own race, as spies, met their deaths on the moral authority of that Government. I am now asked to throw out the Republican Government and accept the status of a Dominion within the British Empire. Many men can find it within themselves to reconcile such with their previous views and opinions whether they were expressed in oaths or in any other form whatsoever. That is their business. I am only concerned with mine, and my point of view is, I cannot do that thing. I have declared myself a Republican, and have been elected a Republican, and I will never willingly become a subject of the British Empire. I do not put forward my conscience or judgment as infallible. Probably the judgment and conscience of the plenipotentiaries and those voting with them may, in history, prove to be sound; but sound or unsound, I am only responsible for acting on my own, and I am not going to be swayed from that by any cloud raised by the national Press as regards such words as `government by the consent of the governed'. I thought we had left all these catch-cries behind. `Government by consent of the governed'. Self-determination, to my mind, means this: that the people will be asked to say what they want, with the firm understanding that what they say they want they will get.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
Give them a chance.
MR. M. P. COLIVET:
It is a question now of `Will you have this or not? If you do not, you will get a rap on the nut'. Is that self-determination? I do not regard it as such. If the people say they want the Treaty because the result will be war, that is not self-determination. Call a spade a spade, but that is not self-determination. In reading over the speeches of the last Session there was one reference in a letter addressed to the Chairman of the plenipotentiaries by Mr. Lloyd George in which he referred to the pledge given in respect of the minority by the head of the Irish plenipotentiaries. `The framing of the Constitution will be in the hands of the Irish Government subject, of course, to the terms of the agreement, and to the pledges given in respect of the minority by the head of the Irish Delegation'. On reading that I could not remember of any explanation being given. Perhaps it was given. I would like that, at an early stage, the Chairman of the plenipotentiaries would inform us what these pledges are. They may not be of any importance or relevant to what we are discussing. I think we should know if there is anything else besides this Treaty which we would be bound by. Let us know what are the personal pledges he has given, and which, I presume, if the Treaty is passed, he will endeavour to point out to a future Government. [Applause].
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
I have listened to this debate ever since it started, and I never heard anything so unreal. There are three parties in the Dáil. There are the uncompromising Republicans, the Treaty party, and the Document No 2 party. The uncompromising Republicans can no more support President de Valera than us------
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Let them judge for themselves.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
I went to the country during the Christmas recess and consulted with my constituents as to their views about the Treaty. I have got a unanimous vote from my Comhairle Cennntair. They asked me what President de Valera's alternative was, and I was tongue-tied---the President had me tongue-tied. I say it is a grave injustice to the country that I and men like me, trying to argue for the Treaty, are being tongue-tied. There was some opinion in the country that President de Valera had some mysterious card up his sleeve. Every member of the Dáil knows there is not.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
May I be permitted to give an explanation? I am ready at any time to move Document No. 2 as an amendment.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
I am only pointing out------
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am ready at any time to make that proposition publicly, and then you will see whether any uncompromising Republicans will support it or not. It is very important that there should be no misrepresentation.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
I deliberately refrained from dealing with Document No. 2. I am giving my own opinions as a member of the Dáil. I am not mentioning any clauses.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is to suit the will of the other side.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
It is not to suit the will of the other side that Document No. 2 was kept from the public.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
You asked for a straight vote on the Treaty. I am ready at any time to make my proposals in public in substitution for your Treaty.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
Our position in the country is absolutely artificial, because the country does not know what we are rejecting as an alternative, and I have found that out all along. We have had duress hurled at us. I say the real duress is that any part of Ireland is left out of the Irish nation. The people in my county care nothing about formulas or oaths; they do care a lot about Ulster being kept out. That is the biggest question. Anything that ever mattered to the people of Ireland was the unity of Ireland, and I was surprised to hear Deputies getting up and talking about Mr. Griffith and the Southern Unionists. We want the Southern Unionists and we want every Irishman [hear, hear]. I never believed more in Mr. Arthur Griffith and never believed him to be more of a statesman than when he sent his message to the Southern Unionists [hear, hear]. The Southern Unionists are Irishmen, and, as Parnell once said, we need every Irish man. These people have been in a false environment. They are not English anyway, and it is for us to win them if we can, and if any man gets up and tries to draw them nearer to Ireland he is a statesman and should not be criticised [hear, hear]. I resent the remarks made by the Minister of Agriculture that the opinion behind this Treaty in the country is manufactured. The men I went to when I was down in Westmeath were the men who gave me loyal support ever since I went on the run, and I can also say they gave loyal support to Sinn Fein. They were men who suffered most---Volunteer Officers, and not Southern Unionists or Nationalists either. They are all Irishmen who believe in ultimate Irish freedom. They do not care a whole lot about formulas. When I went through Westmeath we never talked about theoretical Republics. We said we were out for getting Ireland into the hands of the Irish [hear, hear]. We stood where we did to get Ireland into the hands of the Irish. If the Mikado of Japan came over, it did not matter so long as Ireland belonged to the people of Ireland. The people of Westmeath do not care twopence about theoretical Republicanism, and neither do I. They had certain ideas in their minds, but they had one great idea; they want England out and Ireland in; that is their idea [applause]. And any man who comes along to them and talks about about a Workers' Republic, a theoretical Republic, or the nebulous Republic that we thought we had for the last two years, is talking foolishly. They do not understand. What the people of Ireland want is getting the soil of Ireland back to the hands of the people of Ireland, and they believe in getting the foreigners out and our own people in. Nothing else matters to them or ever did matter to them. That is what they always wanted. You would think by the talk of some people that we had a Republic here for 750 years. Red Hugh and Sarsfield were ex-officers of the British army. Tone was a member of the United Irishmen which was at one time, and was all along, a constitutional movement, and he became a Republican because he thought there was no other way out to freedom. Owen Roe was prepared to make a Treaty with the Puritans. The Irish Federation with Davis and Mitchell was prepared to accept the King, Lords and Commons of Ireland. The Republic of Ireland is only two years old, and it was a very weak infant all the time. I was working for it, and I know how it was able to function. Some people think that because they got up in January, 1919, Ireland was a Republic. For God's sake get back to facts. We were able to hold on by the skin of our teeth, and we are taking this Treaty because we could not hold out twelve months longer, and right well every man in the Dáil knows it. We have never been offered an alternative to the Treaty. We are not told how we can obtain freedom except by accepting the Treaty and making it better. Damn principles, but give us Irish freedom by any road we can get it. That is my view, and it is the view of the average man in the country. You would think we were a crowd of theologians instead of Irishmen [hear, hear]. How are we to win freedom except by taking the Treaty and making the best we can of it? The people of the country have their own plain views about Irish history, and I must say, with all respect to the Dáil, they have ten times the brains and wisdom of the Dáil [laughter and applause]. They know the realities of Irish Freedom. They know every time we rose in our history we were fighting an all-powerful enemy with inadequate weapons. They believe we are going to get an Irish Army and that we can make the best armed small army in Europe. It is not often I agree with the Countess, but she said a thing I quite agree with, and it was this: `England would not give this Treaty if she could avoid doing so'. Lord Salisbury laid down a principle: `What England gives in her weakness she takes back in her strength'. I myself have a dash of English blood in me. I quite agree England will take back this if she can. I will give my reasons why I vote for the Treaty. I do not care threepence about so-called oaths. I believe in ultimate Irish freedom. I am voting for the Treaty because we are getting an Irish army, and if we get an Irish army armed to the teeth, it is for England if she wants to take it back to take back the Treaty by force of arms; that is why I am voting for the Treaty. [Applause].
MR. EAMONN DEE:
I am against the ratification of the Treaty on several grounds, one of which is that it is a permanent barrier against the unity of Ireland. I am a Republican and I can not swear fealty or allegiance to the British King. I object to the clauses in the Treaty pertaining to naval defence, submarine cables, wireless stations in time of peace or war. I also oppose the Treaty because of the partitioning of Ireland. As Deputy Sean MacEntee has said, it leaves a permanent barrier against the unity of Ireland. I object to the Treaty because of the liability for the British National Debt; but the main objection I have to ratification is because of the fact of swearing fealty to the English King. I believe and regard the Treaty as an ignoble document, unworthy and inconsistent with our national ideals. Now the Anglo-Irish Conference, as you are aware, sat in London. We understood that the two nations were going into that Conference with a certain independent status, and for the express purpose of a settlement of the age-long difference. This would have been achieved on voluntary and reciprocal lines, but what happened was this: the Irish Delegation signed the Treaty under a threat of force and under duress, a distinct violation, to my mind, of the Truce, and that destroyed the hope of a friendly acceptance of the Treaty by the people of Ireland. Much criticism has been made of the Irish Delegation both individually and collectively. I am not going to criticise them at all because I firmly believe they tried to do their best. But what I will do is criticise them in conjunction with the British Delegation---criticise the Anglo-Irish Conference as a body. I believe they missed the supreme opportunity of settling the Irish question for ever. The blame for failure rests on the shoulders of the English representatives in the Conference, for, instead of rising to the plane of a voluntary and reciprocal agreement on which our delegation stood, they succeeded in forcing our representatives down to Britain's customary materialistic level where the hopes and the wishes of both countries were wrecked in dishonour and disgrace. The next step was when the Treaty, signed in London, was placed before you for consideration. The pro-Treaty Deputies place eulogies upon it. They told you the reason they signed it was because of the terrors of immediate and terrible war. The Press took up the cry, and then we have heard the changes being rung on this threat of terrible and immediate war. That went on until our Speaker, Deputy Eoin MacNeill, went speaking from the body of the House and made reference to the fact that the appeal to force was a bad argument, and then I noticed both the Press, the country and the Deputies here dropped the use of this threat of war, and they refer to it now as that it will bring chaos upon the country. Deputy Etchingham gave us a very lucid description of the meaning of the word `fealty', and I would suggest he would take up the meaning of the word `chaos', and search in Webster's Dictionary for the various meanings of the word `chaos'. As regards the reference to substance and shadow, I think Deputy Miss MacSwiney dealt very clearly with that when she described one as expediency and the other as principle. The next thing in connection with the Treaty was where they described it as a bird in the hand, and praised it so highly, I thought it was a Bird of Paradise with lovely green, white and gold plumage. Then the anti-Treaty Deputies began to criticise it, and judging from what they said, they thought it was not a bird at all---at least not yet. It was only an egg, originating in the British Cabinet, and classified in accordance with the oath of fidelity as belonging to the order of the O.B.E. The Governor General will assist at the hatching-out process in the Irish Free State, and it might produce an ugly duckling, not a game chicken anyway. The Anglo-Irish Conference missed the greatest opportunity in modern history because they failed to give effect to the principles of self-determination which the great war so clearly emphasised as a world demand. A world conference is being held in Paris this month to uphold it. The political philosophy of Europe to-day is Machiavelian and Troitsekean, which means political cunning and bad faith combined with the unscrupulous use of force, and England in Europe to-day is its outstanding protagonist as far as Ireland is concerned. But England's day of reckoning is not distant. If she wishes friendly relations with Ireland it must be on voluntary and reciprocal lines. Britain will have to settle the Irish question according to the true wishes of the Irish nation, or the Irish question, as General Smuts has said, will settle the Empire. The Irish question is to-day a world question, a great human question. For centuries we have been, and we are to-day, allies of all the oppressed peoples of the earth. Our fight for freedom and against oppression has given them heart and courage. We have no quarrel with any other nation but Britain, and we owe no ill-will to any other nation. All Ireland wants, as President de Valera stated, is to be allowed to live her own life in peace, with freedom to accomplish her own destiny. With our national freedom will come power to help to secure, in conjunction with other Christian countries, world peace and prosperity for all the suffering peoples on the earth. Ireland's glorious mission is to help to spiritualise and to civilise the world. When Ireland secures true freedom she will rise to the spiritual and intellectual heights which she attained in the 14th century, when she gave to Europe at her best, and adopted from other countries that which she found worth adopting. This Treaty will not bring peace. Fealty to Britain's King symbolises the shackles of slavery. The manhood and womanhood of Ireland repudiates it. Fling it back in the faces of those who falsely said they wished this age-long difference between the Irish and the British peoples ended. The one vital issue---the right of Ireland to full national freedom---they burked and declined to face though that would have solved the difficulty for all time. They were not great enough to trust themselves; they were not honest enough to trust Ireland; and now the only thing for British statesmen to do is to play the role of political hypocrites before the world and endeavour to still further fool Ireland and to fool the world. Reject this ignoble document and keep the Republican flag flying and refuse to fasten the chains of slavery and fealty on the proud spirit of the unconquered Irish nation. [Applause].
ALDERMAN SEAN MACGARRY:
I am going to endeavour to make a record for brevity. I am supporting the motion for ratification of the Treaty and I make no apology to anybody for doing so. I did not wait until I became a member of this Dáil to become a Republican. I have worked in the Republican movement for twenty years. I am a Republican to-day and I will be a Republican to-morrow. I vote for the Treaty as it stands. For that I do not need the opinion of a constitutional lawyer or a constitutional layman or a Webster's Dictionary or a Bible to tell me what it means. I put on it the interpretation of the ordinary plain man who means what he says. I am not looking for any other interpretation from Webster's Dictionary or anywhere else. I know what the Treaty means, and the man in the street knows what it means. I vote for it as it stands. We all know what it is. I do not see any reason for any argument, or making a pretence that it is less than what it is. I realise what its acceptance means, and I also realise what its rejection would mean, and it is because I realise these things that I am voting for it. If I did not realise them I would probably be voting against it. I do not want to make this an excuse for voting for it. Another thing is this: I feel as much committed to the ratification of the document as if my signature were on it and I will tell you why. I want to bring you back to the meeting of the Dáil when the Gairloch correspondence was read, and when President de Valera gave us an interpretation of what the oath meant to him, and Deputy Miss MacSwiney---she will correct me if I am wrong---I can recall the impression she made on me. I think, if I am not mistaken, she challenged the members of the Dáil that if there was anything in the nature of a compromise, or some thing less than a Republic contemplated, to say so, or else for ever more to hold their tongues.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
I think I said that outside the Dáil. I was told the negotiations meant compromise and therefore, inside the Dáil, I begged to be informed if they meant compromise. I did not think so, but outside the Dáil I was told they did mean compromise; I was assured they did not.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
I did not hear any assurance given. She challenged the members of the Dáil to speak then or for ever hold their tongues. The members did not speak then, but God knows they made up for it since [laughter and applause]. If talking would have got us a Republic we would have it last week [laughter]. What did we think we were sending to Downing Street for? Did any of us think we were going to get an Irish Republic in Downing Street?
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Of course you could.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
A Downing Street made Republic? [Laughter].
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
No, a Downing Street withdrawal from Ireland.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
Downing Street are withdrawing from Ireland.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
No, they are not.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
Several Deputies protested very strongly and very loudly that they were standing on the bedrock of the Irish Republic. A week before they were standing on the slippery slopes---to borrow a phrase of the Minister of Finance---the slippery slopes of Document No. 2. Document No. 2 was pulled from under their feet and landed them with what must have been an awful jerk on the bedrock of the Irish Republic. They will be standing on that until the proper time---I mean the time when Document No. 2, or perhaps Document No. 3 will be given to us.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
You can have it immediately if you like---whatever your side agrees.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
There has been theorising in some of the speeches made here by Deputies about Government by the consent of the governed---self-determination. You can have government in Ireland to-day by consent of the governed with this Treaty. You can have self-extermination without it; but you cannot have war without the consent of the Irish people. And the only reason you carried on war for the last two years was because you had the consent of the people. Several other Deputies talk about going back to war. I put it to them now they believe they are not going back to war. They are gambling, they know they are gambling, and they think they are gambling on a certainty. I have done a little bit of gambling myself---not very much---but I was never on a certainty yet that did not let me down [laughter and applause]. They are quite right, they are not going back to war; they are going back to destruction [hear, hear]. I think it was the President quoted the famous dictum of Parnell, that no man can set bounds to the march of a nation. Parnell said a lot of wise things. Parnell never said anything wiser than that. No man, or body of men, can set bounds, or should attempt it. There were two factors in Ireland within the last hundred years that set bounds to the march of the Irish nation---the British Army and British control of every nerve of our national life, education, finance, customs and excise. They set bounds to the nation's progress. Now it is the people who vote against the Treaty are setting bounds to the march of the nation's progress. I do not like talking about this question of oaths, because you are tempted to say things which you might be sorry for. But I would like to ask the Minister of Defence whether he has had, or has still in the l.R.A., people who have already sworn allegiance to the King, as soldiers of the British Army? They have done good work, and we did not ask them when they were joining up: `What about the other oath?'
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
And some of them are in their graves.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
I am sorry to have to refer to the dead. Several Deputies have come to me and told me I was letting down the dead I worked with for very many years. One said: `You worked with so-and-so for many heart-breaking years when to be called a Republican was to be called a fool'. I say no man of all the dead who died for Ireland was ever in this position. Would to God the men I worked with had to face this proposition and I believe they would be with us to-day [hear, hear]. The Deputy for Kildare, the Minister of Agriculture, quoted today a passage from the work of James Connolly. I am sorry Deputy Childers is not here because I wanted to ask him why he did not insist on the whole document being read. The Minister of Agriculture read a passage from Labour in Ireland------
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I did not read anything from Labour in Ireland.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
Well, I beg his pardon. He certainly did say that James Connolly said: `In this, as in the political and social world generally, the thing that matters most is not so much the extent of the march, but the direction in which we are marching'.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
Correct.
ALD. SEAN MACGARRY:
These are words of James Connolly, the man who, twenty years ago, taught me to be a Republican. He probably taught Republicanism from a different angle,but he was always a Republican. But the Minister of Agriculture did not tell us that, when Connolly wrote that, he was enthusing about the Local Government Act of 1898. Is the Local Government Act of 1898 better or worse than this is now? I am going to conclude. I think it was Charles Lamb told us about the Chinaman who burned his house to roast a pig. He at least had something to say for himself. After all it was his own house, and he got roast pig [applause]. Then again I heard about Samson. The Deputy from Wicklow might tell us more about that [laughter]. It was Samson who pulled down the pillars of the Temple. That was his funeral. I do not want to attend the funeral of the Irish nation. [Applause].
The House adjourned until 11 o'clock on Wednesday morning.
4
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION Wednesday, January 4th, 1922
THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) took the Chair at 11.15 a. m.
MR. FRANK FAHY:
When speaking yesterday I made use of the words `the supporters of the Welsh Wizard'. I admit that these words may bear the interpretation put upon them by the chairman of the plenipotentiaries. I did not see it at the time. What I meant by that reference was the supporters of the English Prime Minister in the English Press. I did not for a moment mean to suggest that there were any supporters or followers of the Welsh Wizard in this assembly, because if anyone outside this assembly or inside it suggested such I would deal with them as sternly as is in my power.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
I am quite satisfied that Mr. Fahy did not intend to convey the impression that his words gave at the time.
MR. DONAL BUCKLEY (KILDARE):
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, I will begin by asking what was the mandate we, the members of the Dáil, got from our constituents in the last election ? I know the mandate I got anyhow was to look for freedom, to strive for freedom for the country. When the plenipotentiaries left Ireland for the last time I presume they had in their possession a document in which was stated the minimum demand Ireland was to make on England, and coming up to the last moment on the eve of the morning on which that document was signed there was a threat held over the heads of these delegates. If there was a threat, the object of it must have been to minimise that demand that they had in their possession---that they were about to make. It is admitted that the threat was made. Therefore I conclude that the minimum demand which they had in their possession when they left Ireland must have been minimised before these Articles of Agreement were signed. Therefore they must have been signed for something less than freedom for Ireland to my mind. How can it be said that we have freedom if we picture to ourselves John Bull standing four square in this country of ours, with a crúb of his firmly fastened in each of our principal ports? We are told that in each of these ports there will be what is called a `care and maintenance party'---a very nice mild term. What does it really mean---this care and maintenance party? It means a British Garrison in each of these ports with the Union Jack---the symbol of oppression and treachery and slavery in this country, and all over the world, in Ireland especially---that this symbol of slavery will float over each of these strongholds, blockhouses of John Bull. Yet we are told we are getting freedom in these Articles of Agreement. I recall to mind one incident that happened during the last election whilst I was addressing a meeting in my constituency. A few of the khaki-clad warriors had fastened a Union Jack to a lamp post right beside the platform from which I was to address the meeting, and I remember stating distinctly to that assembly that I would not rest satisfied until every vestige of that rag was cleared out of the country. The assembly agreed with me, and before the words were scarcely out of my mouth a rush was made by half-a-dozen boys from the crowd and although the flag was defended by seven or eight of the warriors that flag was torn down. How can it said that we are going to have freedom with this document when the flag which symbolises slavery continues to float all over the country, here, there and everywhere, not alone in these four ports, but wherever there is a signal station or any other sort of station belonging to the British? The people of Ireland at this juncture have been stampeded by the rotten Press of Ireland. Lloyd George is rubbing the palms of his hands and laughing, I doubt not, at the spectacle which is anything but creditable to Ireland that has made such a fight up to this. To my mind the country wants a tonic of some sort to set it thinking. The country is not thinking. It has been stampeded and it now seeks to stampede its representatives. Well there is one representative anyway that won't be stampeded. I stand to-day for the same object for which I stood on the platform through out my constituency and for the same object for which my constituents elected me and I mean to continue so. I shall vote against the Treaty. [Applause].
MR. A. MACCABE (SLIGO):
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, tá níos mó ná beagáinín le rá agamsa ar an gceist seo, agus caithfe me labhairt as Bearla. In saying that I have decided to vote for this Treaty I think I should personally express my regret at finding myself in opposition to many of the leaders who piloted the national cause through the storms of the last five or six years. It is certainly no pleasure to us on this side of the House to stand up and declare ourselves in opposition to one especially who, in the eyes of the great majority of our countrymen, symbolises a national ideal. But in this cause no feeling of personal admiration, of personal animus either, can be allowed to influence our judgment or prevent us doing our duty to the people that sent us here. My duty at the moment I consider to be to examine the Treaty on its merits, and to decide, quite irrespective of the circumstances attending its signature, whether it was a settlement the country could honourably and profitably accept. I have come to the conclusion that it is, and I am going to vote for it. My action in doing so is governed by two considerations. The first is that the Treaty represents goods delivered and not promised to us---goods that we all know were never offered or, indeed, seriously asked for before. The second is that, as a matter of expediency, it is better to take these than run the risk of war or chaos and all that it means to our people and the prosperity of the country. Now, before going on to discuss the value of the goods delivered, and the advisability or otherwise of accepting them, which are really the only questions that matter---or at least, should matter---I should like to explain my position regarding the Republic. It is this: I regard the oath as a binding obligation on me to use every endeavour to secure the realisation of the ideal. It never, in my mind, barred any particular methods of achieving it, nor did it specifically mention the methods advocated by the opposition. To me, recognition of Irish nationality and the securing of practically complete control of our Army and natural resources which this Treaty brings us, are things that no Republican in his sober moments could or should refuse to accept. It will be said, of course, that in voting for the Treaty we are abandoning our principles, that we are breaking our oath, that we are betraying the Republic, that we, in fact, are guilty of all the sins in the calendar. For my part I don't mind what anybody says or thinks about me as long as I do my duty to the country, and my conscience is clear. But the opponents of this Treaty should remember that there are other principles and ideals involved in the issue besides Republicanism. There is, for instance, the ideal of a peaceful and happy Ireland, or that no less dearly cherished one of a united Ireland. There is government by the consent of the governed on which we took our stand throughout this war. Then what about the principles of Christianity? Are they worth any consideration? After the sermon addressed to the sinners on this side of the House by my old and, I must say, sincere friend, Deputy Etchingham, I take it; that his disciples, including his no less ardent acolytes, are familiar with the Commandments on which the principles of their religion are based.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
Arran Islands.
MR. MACCABE:
I surrender that to the opposition for external association in connection with the Free State. How many of them, I wonder, could stand up in this House and say they have never violated any of the Commandments? This is not a Webster, nor a text-book of international law, but it is the law the opposition is appealing to against this Treaty. The book has no high-sounding title. At school we used to call it the "Halfpenny Catechism." I'll read out the Ten Commandments, as by law established, as Moses would have added were he a constitutional lawyer, to Teachtaí opposed to the Treaty, and any of them who have never violated the principles for which they stand are at liberty to make themselves seen and heard. I see none of you have stood up to protest your innocence. It is as I thought: no one on the opposition side denies having offended against fundamental principles of the law my friend, Deputy Sean Etchingham, would have us, on this side, observe to the letter. I'm not saying, mind, that it should not be the law, but I maintain that, in their attitude to the Treaty, if they take the Ten Commandments as the law, they are no less principled than we are. If they succeed in having the Treaty rejected, they set aside every religious and political principle I know of, for they propose to accept as final a settlement that will not bring us a Republic; they postpone for generations, perhaps, the realisation of the ideal of a united Ireland, and they gamble recklessly on the lives and welfare of four and a half million people. As to the oath, all I can say is that it is unpalatable to me---it is, I believe, to us all. Nor do I like the idea of being associated internally or externally with a man eater; but I am prepared to take the Treaty for what it is worth, and as a stepping stone to getting more. Now I candidly do not believe that any of us are saints, not even my friend who gave the sermon a few days ago. This world is no place for saints, and the Church wisely refrains from canonising anybody whilst he or she is in this life. If the Commandments were the principles upon which international relations were grounded the attitude of the opposition to this Treaty would be the correct one, even though it might not be the honest one. But the trouble is that nations like individuals have different sets of principles, and interpret or disregard them just as it suits their circumstances. The British for instance, murder Indians on principle, and the great audience outside says "Amen." The Kaiser and his opponents sent armies to the shambles for a principle. East Ulster refuses, at least for the time being, to come into Ireland on principle. We could make a very plausible case for decimating the population of the corner counties on principle but our Christianity and the good sense of the President and his Cabinet forbid it. On principle, too, Miss MacSwiney would have the whole population of Ireland wiped out of existence, man, woman, and child.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
I beg your pardon. I never said anything of the kind. It is only on the principle of which I spoke that you can avoid wiping them out of existence.
MR. MACCABE:
She would not leave us even a grasshopper [Laughter]. That is the inference I drew from her speech, and I think most of the House drew the same inference from her speech.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Then I say if that is so the intelligence as well as the principle is on our side of the House [Laughter and applause].
MR. MACCABE:
Thanks. [Renewed Laughter]. We see here the abyss into which a blind and reckless pursuit of one principle leads and the danger to any nation of having people of such mentality in charge of its destinies. It may be that Miss MacSwiney's mind and outlook are distorted by the terrible experiences she has passed through. If so there is some excuse for------
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Again I protest against my name being used in that connection. I did not, and will not, use it myself in that connection. I did not bring anything of my personal experiences into my public speech here. I protest and ask the protection of the Dáil against any member using my name in such a connection [to Mr. MacCabe] and besides I assure you that I am quite sane on the point.
MR. MACCABE:
Am I in order, a Chinn Chomhairle?
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MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Not in using my name.
MR. MACCABE:
I just used the subject matter of your speech.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Leave out my experiences.
MR. MACCABE:
From the inference I drew from the speech I can regard it as her suggestion that Ireland should fight to a finish even though half of the population were wiped out. That is nothing less than a criminal incitement to national suicide, whatever you (Miss MacSwiney) may think of it. I think it is quite evident to anyone who studies history that principle plays a very small part in international politics. And before we embark on a crusade to have the Ten Commandments written into international law I'd suggest that we try to have some of the Teachtaí whom we have heard speak against the Treaty converted to Christianity. The awkward fact at the moment is, that despite anything we can do or say in Dáil Eireann, the politics of the world are being, and will continue to be, dictated by expediency. I am voting for the Treaty for reasons of expediency and I consider, even though I were violating a principle, that it is my bounden duty to do so. Most of us are new to politics, and we do not realise the responsibilities of the office we hold. If we did the interests of the country and the lives of our people would come first in our consideration, and our principles and religious scruples long afterwards. There is another aspect of the campaign that is being carried on against this Treaty which I would like to refer to, while on this point of principle. It is the exploitation of the dead; and for the sake of their memory as well as in the interests of truth I beg to protest against it. I knew a number of these splendid men in their lifetime, amongst them Tom Clarke, the first President-elect of the Irish Republic. I agree with what Mrs. Clarke has said---that be would have voted against it. But he could not be expected to do otherwise considering that he worked almost alone for a lifetime to keep the flame burning. I also knew Terence MacSwiney very intimately, and I knew him as a sound Republican. I don't believe that he, or any of his comrades, would have died for Document No. 2, if it came to a choice between itself and the Treaty, nor, what is more, do I believe that he would sacrifice the whole population of Ireland on the altar of his principles. Now, nobody objects to people voting against the Treaty because they have a personal grievance against England, but I do suggest that it is unfair asking other people to vote for their grievance, for this is what it really amounts to. Is it not enough to have eight, nine or ten votes as the case may be, but not sufficient anyhow to defeat the Treaty, cast on this personal issue? Where does the country come in? I would remind all these Teachtaí who have such grievances that they were not sent here to avenge the wrongs committed in the war, but to secure an honourable peace, and I hold that this is an honourable peace, for when the honours are counted up they are all on our side. It is England that has surrendered, we have surrendered nothing. I would, therefore, appeal to them to rise above their personal prejudices and think of themselves, not as the sisters, or wives, or mothers, or brothers of dead patriots, but as representatives of the people, with the fate of a country in their hands. The earth belongs to those who are on it, and not to those who are under it, and to the living and not the dead we owe our votes. I would ask them also before they launch the country again into war, or worse, to think of the millions of wives and mothers and sisters who are waiting expectantly for peace, and to picture the disappointment and despair which the news of the rejection of the Treaty will bring into their homes.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Don't speak for the women.
MR. MACCABE:
I know what the women want just as well as the interrupter.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
You are an old woman, I know.
MR. MACCABE:
Thanks very much. I know just as well, if not better, than Deputy Mary MacSwiney what the people want in their heads and hearts, and I know it is not war. I wonder is there one woman in this assembly who could rise to the great opportunity, one woman who would sink her feelings, sink her cravings for vengeance, sink her principles even, and, sacrificing her personality as others sacrificed their lives, vote for the good of her country. Such an act of self-elimination would, in my opinion, appeal to the whole world as an act worthy of a country woman of Terence MacSwiney. I won't say any more on the question of principles or on the question of Christianity. Perhaps I have said enough; perhaps I have said too much. I did not mean to grate on anyone's sensibility or insult anyone. I just spoke in the way I thought necessary in a crisis like this when the issues should be placed straight before the country and no personalities dragged into it [hear, hear]. Now coming to the Treaty I'd like to say at the outset that I'm not enamoured of it. I don't like the oath, I don't like the enemy in our ports, and I don't like the Governor-General in substance or in shadow. But Document No. 2 is open to all these objections for-----
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
No, it is not.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I have several times said I will bring that document forward, and bring it as an amendment. Unless it is here I do not think it fair to be referring to it.
MR. MACCABE:
It is most unfair to us and the country to suppress it.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am ready at any time to bring it forward if the other side agree to I bringing it forward as an amendment.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
Early in the proceedings the other side asked President De Valera to publish it at the beginning of the Session and he refused.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Do you object to my bringing it here as an amendment and publishing it then?
MR. M. COLLINS:
Are we going to conduct a debate or are we going to have an old woman's wrangle?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is no question of wrangling. This is an important matter. A document has been referred to piecemeal and an attempt made to prejudice it. I am ready to bring forward the document as an amendment to the Treaty. There is nothing keeping it from this assembly or the nation except the fact that the other side want a direct vote on the Treaty. Now I am ready at any time to move it as an amendment.
MR. MACCABE:
I do not object to Document No. 2 but I object to No. 8, certainly, which is being prepared for us.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is no document being prepared and I must be protected from these references, or else allowed to bring forward the document. I must insist on a vote being taken here in this assembly whether this document can be brought forward as an amendment or not.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I have done my best in a few instances to try and have the debate conducted without interruption, and I do think that speakers when making references ought to have the protection of you, Sir. If we are to discuss Document No. 2 and not the Treaty, let us discuss Document No. 2, and any speaker on our side and any speaker on the other side is entitled to make due reference to the things that have been said, and things that are possibilities.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I formally give notice that I am going to move to-morrow, and put it to a vote in this House, that this document be brought forward as an amendment to the Treaty.
MR. A. GRIFFITH:
I suggest that President de Valera should hand that document to the Press as we asked him a fortnight ago.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am giving notice insisting on my rights as a member to put forward this as an amendment. I will do it to-morrow.
ALD. COSGRAVE:
A member is entitled to speak once. I understand the President has already spoken once, and the President did not introduce any document, nor did he move an amendment although the Minister for Home Affairs, who spoke afterwards, said he seconded the President's amendment.
MR. A. STACK:
I beg your pardon.
ALD. COSGRAVE:
The official records will contain all that you said.
MR. A. STACK:
The official records will show your inaccuracy.
ALD. COSGRAVE:
A member having spoken once is not entitled to speak a second time---if my interpretation of the Standing Orders is correct he is not entitled to speak a second time. Consequently it is not open to the President to move an amendment. I put that point of order to you.
THE SPEAKER:
That point only arises in the case of the President actually moving the amendment.
MR. MACCABE:
Am I in order to------
THE SPEAKER:
I thought you gave way to the interruptions. If you held your ground you would not be interrupted. You can continue. I will allow no further interruptions.
MR. MACCABE:
As regards the Treaty in general I would ask consideration for it on four main grounds: first, that it enables us to set to work at once building up the Gaelic State with a distinctive language, culture, and civilisation. This will be, in itself, the best bulwark we can have against that peaceful social penetration, which is supposed to follow in the train of a Governor General equally with a Republican upper ten. For my part I don't see how the Teachtaí opposed to the Treaty, if they have as they say such faith in the spirit of the Irish people, can maintain that their nationality or their morals will be undermined by the presence of a Governor-General or a Viceroy. The important thing is that the real governors of Ireland, the police, the military and the auxiliaries, sixty or seventy thousand of them all told, leave us. For my part I look on this Governor-General as a very useful bogey man. He will be to Irish Nationalism and Irish Republicanism what the Pope is to Orangeism in Belfast [Laughter], and until we have achieved complete independence I'd regard it as a disaster to lose this tangible stimulus to work for it. We all know what nationality did for the development of the language and for native culture, and we can imagine what a driving force it would lose were there anything in the nature of a settlement that the nation would be deceived into believing represented the attainment of the ideal. A second ground on which I would recommend the Treaty is that it is an official recognition of our status as a distinctive nation---the first ever we got since Confederate days, and then it was only as an appanage of the English Crown. Clause 1 says in plain language that we have the same status in the British Commonwealth of Nations that the Dominions have. I think, even apart from Mr. Lloyd George's letter, we can say that, as a Dominion, we are entitled to enter the League of Nations. If not, I'm sure in their own interests the British Dominions will have something to say about it. Now, Mr. Childers says that certain facts, such as distance and inherent strength affect, or are likely to affect, the status of the Irish Free State. Of course it is evident that the argument of distance used against this Treaty is a two-edged weapon and cuts both ways. I surrender that to the opposition for an experiment in external association with the Irish Free State. How we are going to get an Irish Republic set up further away from England's door than an Irish Free State I do not know; but I know this, that distance did not save the South African Republics, even though one of them was in external association with the Empire, when England chose to attack them. As to strength, I think this Treaty makes it plain that our powers of self defence will be such that no enemy, however long-ranged his guns, will be in a hurry to return here once our army is organised, and I think it will be conceded on all sides that a national army is in itself a guarantee that our status will be at all times respected. And as far as the defence of our coasts is concerned I see nothing in the Treaty which will prevent us making our shores as impregnable against enemy attacks as were those of Suvla Bay against the fleets of the world. And the experiences of the war go to prove that assaults from the sea on well organised land defences are neither profitable nor effective. But what puzzles me in regard to this question of defence is how the opposition can say that we will be at the mercy of the enemy when we have established government and a thoroughly equipped army, in view of the fact that we were able to paralyse British Government in Ireland for a number of years past without either. However, there are other guarantees we can rely on apart from the army; the guarantees implied in the membership of the British Commonwealth and the League of Nations. The British Dominions, for their own sakes, will see that our status is respected, but we have a higher and more impartial, if less interested, community to appeal to if we think our rights are infringed, in the League of the Free Nations. Membership of this means admittance to the family of nations, in other words, the international recognition we sought so vainly in the early days of the Republican movement. Was it not on this issue admission to the Peace Conference or, in other words, admission to the comity of nations, what is known as the Plunkett election was fought in North Roscommon? To-day a door is opening for us, but because it is not the hall door we are too proud to enter. We must go in tall hats, with brass dog chains across our vests, and our hands in our trousers pockets, just to impress the hall-porter. It reminds me of an incident that occurred in my part of the country during the Versailles Conference, when the question everyone was asking was would de Valera be admitted to the Peace Conference. There, as elsewhere in Ireland, the people take a very lively interest in public affairs, and every night at the fireside, as most of us know by this, they discuss the national question in all its moods and tenses. One very stormy night after the East Clare election---when excitement was at its height---the ramblers in a certain house decided to have a peace conference of their own to debate the political situation. After the preliminaries were settled the question arose as to who should play de Valera. It was, as I stated already, a wet, stormy night, and when it was mentioned that de Valera would have to remain outside the door knocking until he was admitted, no one was very anxious to play the role. As no volunteer was forthcoming the assembly decided unanimously to give it to a member who happened to be very careful of his health and not very popular. He was therefore ordered out and, when the door was locked, told to keep knocking until the Peace Conference had decided whether he should be admitted or not. Needless to say, once the Conference started its deliberations it was not in a very big hurry coming to a decision regarding de Valera's admittance. For several hours he was left there at the mercy of the wind and rain, breaking his knuckles on the door that would not open. At last, disgusted at the treatment meted out to him by the Peace Conference, and realising the joke that had been played on him, he delivered a few resounding on the door and left. He never thought of the back door which would have admitted him and saved him from the dangerous attack of pneumonia which he contracted as a result of his night's exposure to the storm. Now this story, I think, has a particular application to the issue we are discussing at the moment. We, in this assembly, have the option of admitting Ireland to the comity of nations by a side door, or a back door if you like, or letting her play de Valera at the hall door for God knows how long---poor old Ireland in her threadbare shawl standing there in the rain and storm for another long night with no certainty, even at the end of that night, of getting in. We on this side of the House at least, will not be a party to the joke, and I hope those opposed to the Treaty will consider before the vote whether Ireland is a fit subject at the moment for either a gamble or a joke. The third ground on which I would consider this Treaty worthy of support is that it offers a solution of the Ulster difficulty which places us well on the road to a united Ireland. I know there are members in this House who would advocate the coercion of the Ulster minority, and other members who would not even stop at that. Again I say that the land of Ulster belongs to those who are on it and not under it, and I take this opportunity of complimenting our President on the statesmanlike solution of the difficulty which appears in the Treaty. Minorities have been forcibly brought inside the boundaries of a number of nations liberated in the recent war, with results that should give us to pause before we launch on a coercion campaign against the corner counties. The recent history of some of these nations is well worth studying, and I'd specially commend it to those Teachtaí who rail at the plenipotentiaries and the Cabinet for not securing a united Ireland right off. Of course they do not realise that this Treaty gives us just as much control over the destinies of East Ulster as the British Parliament has and, what is still more important, an excellent chance of getting complete control. The economic argument is all in our favour---the railways, the markets, the customs---and this will always continue to be the decisive argument in favour of unification. For my part I'd prefer to see East Ulster stand out at first, so that our minorities may get a chance of having justice done to them in the making of boundaries and for the additional reason that I would not care to see a province of the size of North Ireland as it stands come into the Irish Free State. The establishment of the Irish Free State is, to my mind, not only a big step towards the ideal of an independent Ireland, but also a big step towards the ideal of a united Ireland, for were we to set up a Republic here in Southern Ireland I fear the unity which we all aspire to would hardly come in this generation. On the other hand, I look forward with confidence to the day when the demand for a Republic will come from a united Ireland, and that day we can say with certainty England will not and dare not refuse it. The fourth ground on which I consider the Treaty worthy of support is that it gives us all the essentials of economic freedom. One item of vital importance to Ireland has been almost overlooked in the discussion of the Treaty and that is the question of trade and commerce. The delegates have succeeded in bringing back full and complete fiscal freedom, thereby winning the right for us to protect our industries against English or any other foreign goods, to trade freely with the outside world, and to make commercial treaties with whom we may. This power has always been regarded in Ireland as the acid test of freedom, and we can only appreciate its importance properly when we remember that it was on this principle the Volunteers of '82 took their historic stand for independence. The picture of the Volunteers in College Green with the motto "Free Trade or else" suspended from the muzzles of their guns is eloquent of the importance the Irish nation has always attached to the right which our delegates have now once and for all established by the Treaty. With this control I believe we will be able to make Ireland economically strong enough to resist any aggression or threat of aggression from without; and this economic strength is the first thing we should aim at for it means a bigger and more vigorous population, a self-contained country and, if you like to put it so, much greater fighting potential. If we got a Republic of the Cuban type, for instance, we would in return have to surrender some of our freedom on such vital matters as trade and defence, for it too would have to be in the nature of a compromise and, putting the Central American brand of freedom side by side with ours, I think ninety-nine men out of every hundred, if it were a matter of choice, would any day vote for ours. I'm not going to say war with England is inevitable if the Treaty should be rejected. I think, in fact, there has been too much exploitation of this bogey by people on the side of ratification. Lloyd George would scarcely be such a fool as to declare war on us over the wording of an oath. He might even be persuaded to go further and give us a Republic of the Central American variety with all the forms of independence and none of the substance. Any of these settlements would, of course, entail a compromise of some kind on our part. What would we have to compromise? Nothing that I see except some of the substance we have got in this Treaty---control of our customs, control of our army, and probably another port or two. Where would the independence that we say we are working for come in then? Where is it in Cuba, for instance---the beau-ideal of some prominent members of the opposition?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Another misrepresentation.
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MR. M. COLLINS:
Another interruption.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am entitled to interrupt when he makes a misrepresentation.
MR. MACCABE:
This is some of the substance of freedom that Cuba had to surrender for her so-called independence:---No Treaty with foreign power, etc.; no debts that current revenue will not meet; intervention in certain circumstances; Naval and coaling stations; Reciprocal Treaty; Government by a Commission from 1906 to 1909. Now I put it to any sensible man or woman whether it is not better to take the essentials of freedom first which we are undoubtedly getting in the Treaty and look for the symbols afterwards, or plunge the country into chaos on the chance of getting this shadowy independence, but with the dead certainty of creating Mexican conditions in the country. Then there are other things to consider which no one here has thought it worth while mentioning although, to my mind, they are the real kernel of the situation. We are in a very backward condition, socially and economically speaking. We have, in fact, as far as the other countries of Europe are concerned, been practically standing still for nine or ten years; the land question is still us far as ever from settlement; a number of our industries are leading a precarious existence: labour is restless and aggressive. Do the Deputies opposed to this settlement think that all the elements interested in these vital questions will stand passively impracticable at the moment? Do they for an ideal that to most of them seems by and let this fight go on indefinitely think the farmers, the backbone of national Ireland, broken and disheartened by the crash in prices, will stand idly by while we run the country to ruin? For this is what rejection really means---not war. War against England would probably unite the army if it would not unite the country, but our enemies are too wily to force war on us. It is not war we are faced with but disunion, internal strife, chaos, and a retreat, perhaps, to the position we held when this war began. Finally there is this aspect of the question to be considered: the moral effect of a prolonged state of war on the population. We have already seen the effect it has had on such countries as Germany and Russia and, to a lesser extent, on England---how it has put passions of every kind in the saddle. Murder, robbery, arson, every brute instinct asserts itself when the doctrine of force alone is being preached abroad. Life will become cheap. Men will settle their quarrels with Webleys instead of their fists. The striker will abandon the peaceful method of picketing for the bomb and the torch. The landless workers will have recourse to more deadly weapons than hazel sticks in attacking the ranches. I'm not painting the picture any blacker than it is likely to be if this fight is to be carried on to a finish or until Document No. 2 is signed, sealed and delivered. For my part I stand by the goods that have been already delivered. In case this House does not stand by them I'd make one request to the succession Cabinet before sitting down. It is this: Give us Dominion Home Rule, give us Repeal of the Union. Give us anything that will stamp us as white men and women, but for Heaven's sake don't give us a Central American Republic.
MRS. MARGARET PEARSE:
I rise to support the motion of our President for the rejection of this Treaty. My reasons for doing so are various, but my first reason for doing so I would like to explain here to-day is on my sons' account. It has been said here on several occasions that Pádraig Pearse would have accepted this Treaty. I deny it. As his mother I deny it, and on his account I will not accept it. Neither would his brother Willie accept it, because his brother was part and parcel of him. I am proud to say to-day that Pádraig Pearse was a follower and a disciple, and a true disciple, of Tom Clarke's. Therefore he could not accept this Treaty. I also wish to say another reason why I could not accept it is the reason of fear. As I explained here at the private meeting, that from 1916---I now wish to go over this again in public---from 1916 until we had the visits from the Black-and-Tans I had comfortable, nice, happy nights and happy days because I knew my boys had done right, and I knew I had done right in giving them freely for their country, but when the Black-and-Tans came---then no nights, no days of rest had I. Always we had to be on the alert. But even the Black-and-Tans alone would not frighten me as much as if I accepted that Treaty: because I feel in my heart---and I would not say it only I feel it---that the ghosts of my sons would haunt me. Now another thing has been said about Pádraig Pearse: that he would accept a Home Rule Bill such as this. Well he would not. Now, in my own simple way I will relate a thing that happened, I think it was in 1915 or 1916. He sent me into Dublin on a very urgent message, and when I came to Westmoreland Street I saw on the placards Home Rule Bill Passed. At that time I knew very little of politics. I was going on a very urgent message as I told you. I leaped out of my tram, got into another and went as fast as I could up the roads of Rathfarnham. When I went in I found him, as usual, writing, and he turned round and said: `Back so quickly?' `Yes,' said I, `the Home Rule Bill is passed'. He sat writing: the tears came into his eyes. He got up and, putting his arms around me, said: `Little mother, this is not the Home Rule Bill we want, but perhaps in a short time you will see what we intend to do and what freedom we intend to fight for'. He then asked me about what he had sent me for, but I had come back without it. `Never mind,' he said, `I will do it myself to-morrow; go and get something to eat'. I said to him then: `What are you going to do?' `Mother,' he said, `don't ask me, but you will know time enough'. Now, in the face of this, do you mean to tell me Pádraig Pearse would have voted for this Treaty? I say no! I am sure here to-day the man to whom Pádraig Pearse addressed these words---I am certain he is present---he said that he could understand the case for compromise, but personally rejected it. As an instance: when discussing the now much-mooted question of Colonial Home rule he said that had he ever a voice in rejecting or accepting such proposals his vote would be cast amongst the noes. Well now my vote for accepting this is equal to his. I may say just a word on the oath. Our friend Mr. MacCabe read out the Ten Commandments. All I can say is what our catechism taught us in my days was: it is perjury to break your oath. I consider I'd be perjuring myself in breaking the oath I had taken to Dáil Eireann. An oath to me is a most sacred vow made in the presence of Almighty God to witness the truth, and the truth alone. Therefore that is another reason of mine. Now men here may think little of an oath, and think little of a word of honour, but I repeat here a little incident that happened twenty minutes before Pádraig Pearse was executed in Kilmainham, and it will let you know what he thought of a word of honour much less an oath. He, poor fellow, had something written for you Irishmen, and to-day I am ashamed of some of you here. Had that note then come out from Kilmainham, I am sure we would have had many more on our side in rejecting this Treaty, but the priest whom he wished to take out that document had given his word of honour to the British Government that he would take out nothing. Pádraig asked him to take out the document---at least, to take it to his mother, because he knew that if his mother got it, it would be put into the right quarters. The priest told him: `Pádraig,' he said, `I have given my word of honour to take out nothing'. `Well, Father,' he said, `if you have given your word of honour don't break it, but ask those in charge to give mother this because she is bound to hear it sometime and I want to get it out now'. If that document had been got out---it may be got yet, but, alas! I am afraid it is too late---the people here would not have made up their minds so willingly to go the wrong path and not the right path. People will say to me: `The people of Ireland want this Treaty'. I have been through Ireland for the past few years and I know the hearts and sorrows of the wives of Ireland. I have studied them; no one studied them more, and let no one here say that these women from their hearts could say they accept that Treaty. They say it through fear; they say it through fear of the aeroplanes and all that has been said to them. Now I will ask you again: there are some members here who may remember what Pádraig Pearse said in the early autumn of 1916. He said it when he was inspecting the Volunteers at Vinegar Hill. He told them there on that day: `We, the Volunteers, are formed here not for half of Ireland, not to give the British Garrison control of part of Ireland. No! we are here for the whole of Ireland'. Therefore Pádraig Pearse would not have accepted a Treaty like this with only two-thirds of his country in it. In the name of God I will ask the men that have used Pádraig Pearse's name here again to use it in honour, to use it in truthfulness. One Deputy mentioned here about rattling the bones of the dead. I only wish we could recall them. Remember, the day will come---soon, I hope, Free State or otherwise---when those bones shall be lifted as if they were the bones of saints. We won't let them rattle. No! but we will hold what they upheld, and no matter what anyone says I feel that I and others here have a right to speak in the name of their dead [Applause].
MR. EOIN O'DUFFY:
I think too much time has already been wasted in idle recrimination, by trying to fix responsibility for this error and that error. Now the plenipotentiaries are accused of doing this thing, and the next moment the Cabinet, or perhaps the President, is accused of doing that thing. Cannot it be agreed that we are all out for the one thing---to secure the freedom of our country and that if we differ at all we only differ in ways and means [hear, hear]. Every one of us is entitled to our opinion. One side disagrees with the plenipotentiaries. They disagree with Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins on a point of policy. Another side disagrees with President de Valera on a point of policy; but let not this disagreement blind us to the sterling worth of these three men---these three men who, above all others, have done the most to break the enemy's strength in this country. I still refer to England as our enemy in the country. I hold that I, as a more or less silent member of the Dáil---this is the first time I attempted to speak---that I am as much responsible for everything that occurred as well as everybody else. I was present here at the Session of the Dáil before our plenipotentiaries went across. I heard the correspondence read from Lloyd George to the President, and heard the replies from the President to Lloyd George. I heard what took place at the different Cabinet meetings; certain documents were handed out to us, and on that data I am in a position to make up my mind. I am sure everybody here is in the same position. Let us, then, get away from all these things of trying to fix responsibility and, even at the eleventh hour, consider the Treaty before us on its merits. There is not very much to be gained by making flank attacks in a place like this, how ever decisive they may be elsewhere. I think, too, it should be agreed that no party---unfortunately there are two parties---that neither party has the monopoly of patriotism, that neither party has the monopoly of principle, and that neither party can claim to be the sole custodians of the nation's honour. Now as regards the Treaty I am in favour of it for two or more reasons. The first reason is that only one or two out of the 35,000 people I represent are against it; and the second reason is that I believe the judgment of my constituents is correct on this occasion under the circumstances. As regards my right to voice the feelings of my constituents, that has already been threshed out here and in the Press. I need not labour it except to say, in my own opinion, the will of a constituency should prevail against the will of any one individual who may happen to be their mouthpiece at this particular time. It cannot be denied that this Treaty has the support of the country. The position is so grave that Deputies should weigh it very carefully before they take the responsibility of flouting the practically unanimous voice of the sovereign people of Ireland, before they refuse point blank to faithfully voice their people's will, because the people's will is mightier than the sword. I do not propose to go into the military situation. I did that in Private Session and all I would say now is that I'd ask the Deputies to bear in mind the facts I placed before them. The officers here who have the courage to stand up and state what they know to be true from experience, stated it also in Private Session; but now, unfortunately, in Public Session these same officers have been called cowardly and dishonest, said to be lacking in military knowledge, and I think some one said it would be better if some of them had fallen in the fight. Well we cannot prevent any civilian who happens to be a member of this House making remarks like this---intolerable and unseemly remarks. We cannot stop that, but the people who fought with us officers know us, and those people will not believe those remarks; and I hope, too, that if we have to go to fight again, and if we have to fight along with these people, that they will have no less confidence in us. I do not propose to occupy your time by going into the merits of the Treaty, except very superficially. The principal clauses that appeal to me are the evacuation of Ireland by England's forces, civil and military, and the setting up of our own army, trained and fully equipped. That, I admit, is not freedom, but as the Minister of Finance said in his statement, it is freedom to secure it. Our comrades died, in my opinion, to bring about Freedom, and I think it is towards freedom when a British soldier or a British policeman, in uniform, cannot be seen in the streets of Dublin; I think it is towards freedom when we will have our own National Army established here to safeguard the liberty of our people. The deaths of our comrades, and their deaths alone, brought that about [Applause]. Parnell was quoted here as saying that no man has the right to set limits to the march of a nation. No man has a right to try to make a nation travel faster than it is able without replenishing it on its journey, if it finds it difficult to reach the goal. I know that freedom is worth all the blood that has been shed for it; but why to-day should we, fully alive to all the facts of the situation, why should we sacrifice the manhood of Ireland, the young men that we require so much to build up the future of the Irish nation? Have the young men of Ireland to be sacrificed to get up a step on the ladder, and in order to secure what this Treaty gets for us---to get the British forces out, to get the Irish forces in, and to develop our own life in our own way, free from interference by England's armed forces or, what is worse, by peaceful penetration. There are a number of things in the Treaty that we do not like, but we must understand that liberty in every country is restricted by treaties and mutual understandings in relation to its neighbours. I think there is not a small nation in the world has secured so much by physical force alone, without any outside support, as Ireland [hear, hear]. Through the success of our arms and methods of warfare it has been rendered possible for us to negotiate a Truce and later on a Treaty. On the ratification of this Treaty Ireland passes from what was known all over the world as a domestic question to a position of sovereign status in the League of Nations. In practice, Ireland is invested with almost all the attributes and essentials of nationhood. There is no longer any obligation on us to take part in England's war or pay for it. We have full control in internal affairs and full control of external trade and commerce. But, what is most important of all, we have the language, because without the language I do not think we would be qualified for full independence. Now we may assume the hustle for freedom is only beginning; we have now our destinies in our own hands and if we do not secure freedom then it is our own fault. I think we will secure our freedom; I prefer to trust the Irish people. Let us, in God's name, go ahead and build the Irish nation. I have confidence, whatever may be our decision here, whether the Treaty be accepted or rejected, that every man and woman in this assembly and every man and woman outside this assembly will work together harmoniously for the freedom of our country. In South Africa the Boers had a Republic before the South African War. They were beaten by force of arms and forced to submit to more humiliating terms than this Treaty offers us. Would it be considered dishonourable on the part of the Boers, if opportunity offered, if they tried to secure back the Republic again? I hold there is no finality in this world, and to secure the freedom of our country there is more surety by ratifying this Treaty than by rejecting it. The position we occupy to-day has been truly won by the living and the dead. It is not our goal, but I hold that it brings the ball inside the fourteen yards' line. Let us maintain our position there and by keeping our eye on the goal the major score is assured. I now come to the North-East, and I want to say a little on that because very little has been said about it up to the present. At the outset I should say that I am not very enthusiastic over the Ulster clauses in this Treaty, and I think nobody is; but no one in this House, I think, suggests now, or ever suggested, that Ulster should be coerced. We are unanimous about that. It is all very fine to say, as has been said by another Deputy, that the plenipotentiaries and those who support them have betrayed Ulster. The people of Ulster will understand at once that such idle statements as those, not followed by acts, will bring them no farther. Only one Deputy speaking against the Treaty dealt with Ulster at any length at all. He was interrupted and asked for his policy and he said that he had none because it was none of his business. I hold it is the business of everyone who has a policy with regard to Ulster to bring it forward, and surely, above all, it is the business of a man who lives in Ulster and represents an Ulster constituency to come forward with a policy . I say he is the man and not the plenipotentiaries or the men who support them. If he has a policy I'd prefer to have his opinion. I have spent the greater part of my life in Ulster. I know it well. I know the business men of Ulster don't want separation because they fear economic pressure---the boycott has given them a taste of that. In the Gazette every week at least two or three of the principal men in Belfast appeared there for bankruptcy. With bankruptcy staring numbers of others in the face they will see that the Northern Parliament comes to terms with the rest of Ireland, and if they refuse to do it they will kick them out. Though the present war was between Ireland and England, Belfast has lost thousands of pounds in business. Since the Truce they have made a desperate effort to bring back their old customers again, and now of their own free will I am satisfied that they will not cut themselves adrift from a prosperous Ireland. I could quote instances we had of bitter dissatisfaction on the part of Ulster business men with the policy of Messrs. Coote, McGuffin and Co. To put it shortly, the business men of the North-East want to join up with the rest of Ireland. They are in favour of this Treaty being ratified, but the Orange assassins are against it. Personally I would prefer, and a number of Ulster Catholics agree with me, that it would be better, perhaps, that Ulster should not come in with the rest of Ireland for a time; that they should stay out just for a trial. Later on they will find out that they have to come in, and they will be easier spoken to. It was put up here also that part of Monaghan, part of Cavan and part of Donegal would be included in the Northern Counties' Parliament. The man that made that statement does not know anything about Monaghan. He paid one or two flying visits to it and he is not going back. I know the people of Monaghan, and I know the Unionists of Monaghan. The non-Catholics there are not fools. We made it very clear to them that if they were prepared to join up with the enemy they would get the same treatment as the enemy. Nine or ten of them have got the treatment of the Black-and-Tans, and they admitted they did not get that because of their religious belief, but the got it because they were part and parcel of the enemy. The people of the six counties know that under this Treaty they will be dealt with, as the Minister of Finance said in Armagh, not only justly but generously. Now I may be asked how do I reconcile with that statement a statement of my own at Armagh in which I said I was prepared to use the lead on Ulster. I did not then, nor do I now, recommend the lead for the purpose of bringing Ulster in with the rest of Ireland. What I said was that if the Orangemen were to murder our people in cold blood as they had done in the past, then they should get the lead. If they continue to do this my prescription remains the same. Let us consider for a moment what will happen our unfortunate people in the North-East if this Treaty is rejected. My opinion is that there will be callous, cold-blooded murder there again. Of all the atrocities committed in this country by the Black-and-Tans, and God knows there were many, there was nothing to equal the atrocities committed on our Catholic people in Ulster by the "A" and "B" Specials. We have instances of it in Belfast, Dromore, Cookstown, and Newry. I could describe it to you but I do not want to do it. Their action in each case was the same: they took out our people's eyes, put sticks down their throats, broke their arms and legs, and then shot them. That was the policy adopted, and it was the same everywhere; so it must have been an agreed policy. That is the lot that is before our people there if we are not in a position to defend them and ourselves. The Ulster Deputies who vote against this Treaty must understand they have a very grave and solemn responsibility on their shoulders if they throw Ulster back into the position it was in before. I can see no way of avoiding it except acceptance of this Treaty. I know Ulster better than any man or woman in this Dáil because I have faced Ulster's lead on more than one occasion with lead, and in those places where I was able to do it I silenced them with lead. I would have silenced them in very ease with lead if I had as much lead as they had. A lot of people are talking about the non-Catholics of Ulster but it was very little help and encouragement I got from these people for the last two years I was trying to carry on the war against the combined forces of Carson and England, and I can lay claim to as many successes as any man in the country. If the fight should begin again I will, please God, take my place in the fighting line, but I will take good care I will have with me some of these men who are trying to make history for themselves---I will take good care that they take a little risk also. One Deputy in referring to our army officers said: `You who profess to be soldiers'. He said it very ironically and sarcastically. I say, and I am speaking on behalf of our soldiers, we do not profess to be anything but what we are. We are not, perhaps, qualified for the positions we hold; we have no military training, but we are doing the very best we can; and I thought no person chosen to be a member of this House would stand up and criticise statements made by an officer in Private Session. I did not think that day would come so soon. I do not pretend to speak for the dead. All I will say is---`Lord rest the souls of those brave men who fell, and those who fell under my command. God forbid that I would betray them'. At this very moment there are over forty brave men awaiting the hangman's rope. Seven of these come from my Brigade and I got a message from them. That message is: `Don't mind us; we are soldiers, do what you think best for Ireland'. [Applause]. I rather think that would be the message a great many of our Volunteer dead would give if they were able to do it [Applause]. That message does not say they would accept this Treaty; that message does not say they would reject this Treaty; it says they leave it to the Government of Ireland to do what we consider as best. I do not want to keep you very much longer. As regards the oath, I am no authority on these things, but I must say that my conscience is at ease on the matter. Until we secure an isolated Republic there will be some symbol or some form of connection with Britain. While there is there must be some form of oath or recognition, and we should not be wasting our time over any form of words which, when examined very carefully, will have more or less the same meaning. There will be always some form of recognition of his Brittanic Majesty until we get an isolated Republic. It was said here that the Treaty was signed under duress, under threat of war. Well, I do not think, personally, it was necessary that any threat of war should be made. I hold we are in a state of war now; it is only suspended by the Truce. We have our liaison officers---if there was peace we would not have liaison officers---and the enemy have their liaison officers. If negotiations had broken down, or if at any time the Truce broke, there would be a resumption of hostilities. The plenipotentiaries were aware of that and they should have known a breakdown in the negotiations would have led to a resumption of hostilities. I think that is what was in their minds when they said they were signing under the threat of a terrible war. In conclusion I want to say what I think might happen in the event of the Treaty being rejected. It is only my own opinion. It is generally admitted here that there will be either war or political chaos. Personally I would prefer war. I agree with another speaker who said he would prefer war to political chaos. I fear that political chaos would break the morale of our army in less than six months' time. There would be unofficial shootings here, unofficial raids there, indiscipline and, perhaps, disaffection. Should that happen, all our efforts are in vain, for our only hope is in the army. For this reason I believe we must renew hostilities if we are to keep the army knit together in a fighting bond. I do not know would England declare war on us. I am not concerned with that or have no fear personally. But I feel we must renew hostilities if we are to hold the army together, and my opinion is that the army is our only hope. I am glad that a Deputy from Cork, in speaking for his Brigade, said he was prepared. I know he is prepared, and I know the army in my constituency is prepared; but I know also they have a policy and I know a good many others here know what they are going to do. But fighting on the field as a soldier is one thing, and taking responsibility for it here is quite another thing. Personally I consider, and I think I said it before, that the chief pleasure I felt in freedom was fighting for it. But as a Deputy with a very big responsibility on my shoulders I have to weigh the pros and cons very carefully. I might be asked, and probably would be asked: `What about the army if the Treaty be ratified?' My answer to that is: we are not bound to have an Army under this Treaty if it is ratified. It says `we may'. But I say this: we can have an Irish Volunteer Army that will be a model to the world in discipline and courage.
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
I have very little to say on this subject that is before us, because I stand definitely against this so-called Treaty and the arguments in favour of acceptance---of compromise, of departing from the straight road, of going off the path, and the only path that I believe this country can travel to its freedom. These arguments are always so many at all times and with all causes, while the arguments in favour of doing the right and straight thing are so few because they are so plain. That is why I say I have very little to say. An effort has been made here from time to time by speakers who are in favour of this Treaty, to show that everybody here in this Dáil was prepared mentally or otherwise to compromise on this point during the last few months. I wish, anyway, as one person, to state that is not so. I am speaking for myself now on this, and I state certainly that, consciously or unconsciously, I did not agree to any form of compromise. We were told that when the negotiations took place we were compromised. We have been told that since this Dáil meeting. This is not so because negotiations do not connote compromise. Entering into negotiations with the British Government did not in the least presuppose that you were going to give away your case for independence. When the British Government, following upon the Truce, offered, as it did, to discuss this whole case of Ireland, Ireland had no option but to enter into such a discussion. To refuse to have done so would have been the worse thing for the Irish case, and would have put Ireland very wrong in the eyes of the world. There was no surrender involved in entering into such a discussion; and when the plenipotentiaries went on their journey to England they went, not as the plenipotentiaries of a Republican Party in Ireland, not as the envoys of any political creed in this country, but they went as the envoys plenipotentiary of the Irish Republican Government, and, as such, they had no power to do anything that would surrender the Irish Republic of which they were plenipotentiaries. They were sent there to make, if they could, a treaty of settlement---personally I doubt if it could be done---but they were not sent to bring about what I can only call a surrender. I am not placing the plenipotentiaries in the dock by stating this, but I am stating what are plain facts. It is no reflection on them to state these things. In item 3 of the instructions given to the plenipotentiaries it is stated: `It is also understood that the complete text of the draft Treaty about to be signed will be similarly submitted to Dublin and a reply awaited'. The Dáil had no chance of discussing this Treaty as it should be discussed because the ground was cut from under the feet of the Dáil with the publication of this Treaty to the world before the Dáil had a chance of discussing it. The delegates, I repeat, had no power to sign away the rights of Ireland and the Irish Republic. They had no mandate to sign away the independence of this country as this Treaty does. They had no power to agree to anything inconsistent with the existence of the Republic. Now either the Republic exists or it does not. If the Republic exists, why are we talking about stepping towards the Republic by means of this Treaty? I for one believed, and do believe, that the Republic exists, because it exists upon the only sure foundation upon which any government or Republic can exist, that is, because the people gave a mandate for that Republic to be declared. We are hearing a great deal here about the will of the people, and the newspapers---that never even recognised the Republic when it was the will of the people---use that as a text for telling Republicans in Ireland what the will of the people is. The will of the people, we are told by one of the Deputies who spoke here, is that this Treaty shall go through---that this Treaty shall be ratified [hear, hear]. The will of the people! Let me for a moment carry your minds back to the 21st January, 1919, and I am going to read to you---I make no apology to this House whatsoever for the length of time I keep them in reading it, or to the people of Ireland for the length of time they are waiting while this thing is being discussed---I am going to read the Declaration of the Independence of this country based upon the declared will of the people at the elections in 1918, and ratified since at every election [Applause]. This is the official translation of the Declaration of Independence as contained in the official report of the proceedings, of the Dáil on that date:
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Whereas the Irish people is by right a free people: and whereas for seven hundred years the Irish people has never ceased to repudiate and has repeatedly protested in arms against foreign usurpation: and whereas English rule in this country is, and always has been, based upon force and fraud, and maintained by military occupation against the declared will of the people: and whereas the Irish Republic was proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday, 1916, by the Irish Republican Army acting on behalf of the Irish people: and whereas the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its complete independence in order to promote the common weal, to re-establish justice, to provide for future defence, to insure peace at home and goodwill with all nations and to constitute a national polity based upon the people's will, with equal right and equal opportunity for every citizen: and whereas at the threshold of a new era in history the Irish electorate has, in the general election of December, 1918, seized the first occasion to declare, by an overwhelming majority, its firm allegiance to the Irish Republic: now therefore we, the elected representatives of the ancient Irish people in National Parliament assembled, do, in the name of the Irish nation, ratify the establishment of the Irish Republic and pledge ourselves and our people to make this declaration effective by every means at our command: we ordain that the elected representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to which that people will give its allegiance: we solemnly declare foreign government in Ireland to be an invasion of our national right which we will never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation of our country by the English Garrison: we claim for our national independence the recognition and support of every free nation of the world, and we proclaim that independence to be a condition precedent to international peace hereafter: in the name of the Irish people we humbly commit our destiny to Almighty God Who gave our fathers the courage and determination to persevere through long centuries of a ruthless tyranny, and strong in the justice of the cause which they have handed down to us, we ask His Divine blessing on this, the last stage of the struggle we have pledged ourselves to carry through to Freedom.
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There, to my mind, is the will of the people. There is the Irish Republic existing, not a mandate to seek a step towards an Irish Republic that does not exist. The will of the people! The British Government has always sought, during the last century of this struggle in Ireland, to get the consent of the Irish people for whatever it wants to impose upon them. If the English Government wanted to make concessions to Ireland it had the power to do so even though it had not the right, and we could take whatever it was willing to give without giving away our case. But this Treaty gives away our case because it abrogates the Republic. The British Government passed a Home Rule Bill; it is still upon the statute book of the British Government and was never put into force because, when the time came to put it into force, the British Government found that the Irish people did not want it. The British Government since then has passed Act after Act and each time has been forced to overlook its own Acts, to forget about them, and to-day through this Treaty the British Government seeks to gain the consent of the Irish people to this measure. The British Government intends to try and find a way out because it has more experience than ourselves of what it means to have the people of Ireland with it---to get the assent of the Irish people to whatever it wants to do with Ireland. The will of the people! Why, even Lloyd George recognised the will of the people at one time. Speaking in the House of Commons in April, 1920, he said: `If you ask the people of Ireland what they would accept, by an emphatic majority they would say `we want independence and an Irish Republic'. There is absolutely no doubt about that. The elected representatives of Ireland now, by a clear definite majority, have declared in favour of independence---of secession.' Now, when Lloyd George admits that, it seems strange when we ourselves say that we never believed in the Irish Republic; that it was only a myth, something that did not exist, and that to-day we are still working towards the Irish Republic. To my mind the Republic does exist. It is a living tangible thing, something for which men gave their lives, for which men were hanged, for which men are in jail for which the people suffered, and for which men are still prepared to give their lives. It was not a question so far as I am aware, before any of us, or the people of Ireland, that the Irish heifer was going to be sold in the fair and that we were asking a high price so that we would get something less. There was no question of making a bargain over this thing, over the honour of Ireland, because I hold that the honour of Ireland is too sacred a thing to make a bargain over. We are told this is a question as between document referred to as No. 1 and Document No. 2. At this moment there is only one document before this House, and when that is disposed of as I do hope it will be disposed of in the proper way, then we will deal with any other documents that come up in the same way if they are not in conformity with the Irish Republic. There is no question before us of two documents or two sides, but there is a question of maintaining the existing Republic of Ireland or going back on it, throwing it out and accepting something in substitution for it with a view to getting back again to the Irish Republic. Let us face facts as we did so often during the last few years. We are not afraid of the facts. The facts are that the Irish Republic exists. People are talking to-day of the will of the people when the people themselves have been stampeded as I know because I paid a visit to my constituency. The people are being stampeded; in the people's minds there is only one alternative to this Treaty and that is terrible, immediate war. During the adjournment I paid a trip to the country and I found that the people who are in favour of the Treaty are not in favour of the Treaty on its merits, but are in favour of the Treaty because they fear what is to happen if it be rejected. That is not the will of the people, that is the fear of the people [hear, hear]. The will of the people was when the people declared for a Republic. Under this Treaty---this Treaty constitutes concessions to Ireland. It is, if you like, a new Coercion act in the biggest sense in which any Coercion act was ever made to Ireland. One thing you must bear in mind and make up your minds about: the acceptance of this Treaty destroys the existing Irish Republic. Whether we like it or not we become British subjects, British citizens. We have now a common citizenship with the English people, and evidently there is going to be a new citizenship invented---Anglo-Irish Citizenship. It is well known what you are going to get under this Treaty. The very words `Irish Free State,' so called, constitute a catch-phrase. It is not a state, it is part of a state; it is not free, because England controls every vital point; it is not Irish, because the people of Ireland established a Republic. Lloyd George may well to-day laugh up his sleeve. What must his thoughts have been, what must his idea have been, when he presented this document for signature? `lf they divide on this, we can let them fight it out, and we will be able to hold the country; if they accept, our interests are so well safeguarded that we can still afford to let them have it.' Rejection, we are told, would mean war. I, for one, do not hold it would mean immediate war at all, but I do hold that the unanimous rejection of this Treaty would put our case in such a fashion before the world that I do not believe England would, until she got some other excuse, dare to make war on the basis of the rejection of that. The question is not how to get a step towards the Republic. The question for us to decide here as the Government of the Irish Republic is how we are going to maintain the Republic, and how we are going to hold the Republic. Instead of discussing this Treaty here we should be considering how we are going to maintain the Republic after that Treaty has been rejected and put upon one side. We have acted up to this in the belief that the authority for Government in Ireland has been derived from the Irish people. We are now going to change that. If this Treaty goes through we are going to have authority in Ireland derived from a British act of Parliament, derived from the British Government under the authority of the British King. Somebody stated here there was more intelligent discussion down the country on this Treaty. I agree perfectly with him. I was in the country and I met the people at their firesides. I met people in favour of the Treaty, but I found no one under any delusion about it whatsoever. We have been told, presumably as a reason for accepting this, that before in Ireland chieftains and parliaments, and representatives of the people had admitted the right of the British Government to exist here. We were reminded of King John visiting the Irish chiefs and we know what happened the Irish chiefs when the Irish people realised what the Irish chiefs had done: We know the day when you had the Irish O'Donnells the `Queen's O'Donnells,' and the Irish O'Reillys the `Queen's O'Reillys.' I wonder will we ever see the day when we have the Irish Republicans the `King's Republicans.' The Parliament of 1782 did not represent the people of Ireland because it admitted the King as its head. This is the first assembly in the history of Ireland, since the British occupation, which is representative of the people of Ireland. It is here because the people of Ireland wished it to be here. The Parliamentary Party after years of efforts, when they in their turn had done their best, they went the way that all compromising parties go. Compromising parties may last for a time, may do good work for a time in so far as they are able to do that good work, but inevitably they go the way all compromising parties go. As it was with the Irish Parliamentary Party so it will be with the Irish Free State Parties and I say that with all respect. The Irish people have, thanks be to God, the tradition of coming out and speaking their true selves no matter how many times they may be led astray. Has the whole object of this fight and struggle in Ireland been to secure peace? Peace we have preached to us here day in and day out---peace, peace, peace------
A DEPUTY:
Peace with honour.
MR. MELLOWES:
Yes! that is what we want. We do not want peace with surrender, and we do not want peace with dishonour. If peace was the only object why, I say, was this fight ever started? Why did we ever negotiate for what we are now told is impossible? Why should men have ever been led on the road they travelled if peace was the only object? We could have had peace, and could have been peaceful in Ireland a long time ago if we were prepared to give up the ideal for which we fought. Have we now to give it up for the sake of this so-called peace? If peace is that which is to be the pursuit of the people then this Treaty will not bring them peace because there will be restless souls in the country who will not be satisfied under this Free State to make peace in this Free State possible. I use no threats, but you cannot bring peace by compromise. You cannot bring peace to a people when it does not also bring honour. This Treaty brings neither honour nor anything else. It brings to the people certain material advantages, such, I say, as they could have had long ago if they were prepared to sink their identity as Scotland did. Ireland has never been prepared to do that, and I do not believe she shall ever be prepared to do it. If this is a step towards the Republic how can it be contended that it means peace? Under the terms of this Free State are you going to be strong enough to say to the British Government `Hands off'? You will have an army, it is true, but it will be an army in which the incentive which kept the fight alive for the last few years will be lacking. Who will tell the British Government, when the time has come to tell it, keep its hands off? Will you be any more united then than you are now? Will all of you in favour of this Free State look forward to the time when you are going to say to the British Government: `You must not have anything more to do with us'? You will not. Human nature, even the strongest human nature, is weak, and the time will inevitably come, if this Free State comes into existence, when you will have a permanent government in the country, and permanent governments in any country have a dislike to being turned out, and they will seek to fight their own corner before anything else. Men will get into positions, men will hold power, and men who get into positions and hold power will desire to remain undisturbed and will not want to be removed, or will not take a step that will mean removal in case of failure. I only speak my mind on this matter. But to me it is very clear there is only one road this country can travel. It is the road we tried to travel together as best we could. It is the right road, and now if there should be a parting of the ways some of us, if God gives us the strength and courage, will travel it no matter what. Under this Treaty the Irish people are going to be committed within the British Empire. We have always in this country protested against being included within the British Empire. Now we are told that we are going into it with our heads up. The British Empire stands to me in the same relationship as the devil stands to religion. The British Empire represents to me nothing but the concentrated tyranny of ages. You may talk about your constitution in Canada, your united South Africa or Commonwealth of Australia, but the British Empire to me does not mean that. It means to me that terrible thing that has spread its tentacles all over the earth, that has crushed the lives out of people and exploited its own when it could not exploit anybody else. That British Empire is the thing that has crushed this country, yet we are told that we are going into it now with our heads up. We are going into the British Empire now to participate in the Empire's shame even though we do not actually commit the act, to participate in the shame and the crucifixion of India and the degradation of Egypt. Is that what the Irish people fought for freedom for? We are told damn principles. Aye, if Ireland was fighting for nothing only to become as most of the other rich countries of the world have become, this fight should never have been entered upon. We hoped to make this country something the world should be proud of, and we did not enter into the fight to make this country as the other countries, where its word was not its bond, and where a treaty was something to be struggled for. That was not the ideal that inspired men in this cause in every age, and it is not the ideal which inspires us to-day. We do not seek to make this country a materially great country at the expense of its honour in any way whatsoever. We would rather have this country poor and indigent, we would rather have the people of Ireland eking out a poor existence on the soil; as long as they possessed their souls, their minds, and their honour. This fight has been for something more than the fleshpots of Empire. Peace! peace! is the consideration. Is this Treaty going to bring you peace? No! Under Clause 7 you are going to be made a cock-pit of the next naval war in which England is engaged, because your docks and coast-line are given up, unfortunately, to the British Government to use as it sees fit. As against that we are told if we do not accept this Treaty we are going to have war. Every argument that I heard here to-day in favour of this Treaty is the argument I heard years ago against the question of ever attaining an Irish Republic. Every argument used here was the argument used by the Irish Parliamentary Party when fighting elections in this country. Every argument I heard here to-day was the argument everyone here had to answer in reply to those who faced them years ago. War! we are told. Were the people of Ireland afraid of war when they faced conscription in this country? They were threatened with annihilation. It was a question then of whether they would fight at home or abroad and they decided to fight at home. When the General Election came on they were threatened with war again. They were told that the corollary to acceptance of the Republican mandate or the Republican platform was war. The people of Ireland did not flinch. They accepted the issue and the issue, as we have seen since, was not war, but the people of Ireland did not flinch. This Treaty reminds me of the Treaty of Versailles, of the miserable end up to that bloody holocaust when the nations of the earth, after fighting supposedly for ideals, parcelled out amongst themselves the spoils of the young soldiers. The misguided young men who fought in that conflict were left disillusioned. Is this Treaty going to be a Treaty of Versailles? Are the Irish people to be told that when we spoke of a Republic we did not mean it? Are the Irish people to be told that when we spoke of independence we meant to be inside the British Empire and that when we spoke of ideals we meant morally? I say no! We did not mean that. You could point out to me for all time, day after day as long as you like, the material advantages to be gained under this Treaty, and it would remind me very much of what I have read about our Saviour. Having fasted for forty days He was taken by the devil to a height from which He was shown the cities, towns and fair places of the earth and told He could have all those if, bowing down, He would adore the devil. We are told to-day that we will get these things in return for the selling of our honour. I say selling of our honour; others here may not mean it; others here may not have the same view of it as I have, but my view is that we are selling the honour of Ireland for this mess of pottage contained in the Treaty. Under the future of this Free State, if it goes through, when are we going to know when we will have sincerity in Ireland about the Republic? After you get the Free State what will you take on hands, and what do you mean, when you talk of something next? The Government of the Free State will, with those who support it now liking it or not, eventually occupy the same relationship towards the people of Ireland as Dublin Castle does to-day, because, it will be the barrier government between the British and the Irish people. And the Irish people before they can struggle on will have to do something to remove that Free State Government. That, I think, has been the history of this country most of the time, as it is the history of most countries that go the way now urged by those who support the Free State. If the Free State is accepted and put into operation it will provide the means for the British Government to get its hold back again. It could not beat Ireland with force, it did its best. No war the British Government initiated here could he worse than the terrible mental strain imposed on the people during the last eighteen months. And that war was not levelled so much against the Irish Republican Army as against the people of the Irish Republic, because the British Government had a surer view of the people than we had. They felt that if they could crush the people of Ireland that would mean the end of things in Ireland until the next necessity arose. The British Government did not, for very obvious reasons---because of what it would mean on conditions abroad, and because of what the outside world must necessarily conclude---allow this warfare, as far as it could prevent it, to become one as between the British Army and the Irish Army. But it tried to maintain the appearance of it being a warfare conducted by no representative people, by people who counted for nothing against the forces of the civil authority, and that is why the Black-and-Tans and the Auxiliary forces were organised for special service here. The British Government still keep up the pretended show of maintaining the civil authority in Ireland, even though that civil authority had to be maintained by force of arms. And it was because the British Government saw there was a tangible government here, that the Irish Republic did exist, that it had its hirelings to murder its representatives, to murder Lord Mayor MacCurtin, to murder Mayor O'Callaghan, and to do to death Terence MacSwiney. The British Government recognised that there was a Republic, even though some of our representatives now do not, and the British Government recognised that it must be at the representatives of the Republic that blow must be struck. It knows to-day that the people have the Republic in their minds, in their spirit, and that any act they can do can not crush it. We placed Ireland upon a pedestal for the first time in the history of this country. For the first time in the history of this country we had a Government established by the directly declared will of the people. That Government rested upon the surest of all foundations and placed Ireland in a position it was never in before, since its subjection. Ireland was put forth to the world as a headlight, as a beacon beginning to shine for all time to guide all those who were struggling. The whole world was looking to Ireland for a lead. This downtrodden, this miserable country, as some of you called it, was, during the last few years, the greatest country in God's earth. `Are we always going to adopt the attitude of seeking something that is a little in front of us while the world always moves on?' Ah! how little that Deputy knew of what the world is. How little that Deputy knew that here in this country of ours is contained the germ of great and wonderful things for the world. The world did not move on; it is Ireland has moved on and Ireland has left the world far behind. We can get very insular sometimes, but it is well for us sometimes to see that we are not so downtrodden and miserable as some of us think we are. This country was one of the best in the world. It has fought a fight that will ring down through the ages, and maintained itself well against all the tortures and inflictions that a foreign tyranny knows so well how to impose. It maintained its way up to this stage, and now, not through the force of the British Government, not because of the weight of the British armies, but through the guile of the British Government, and the gullibility of ours we are going to throw away the Irish Republic. Somebody talked about facts. These are facts. We are told that we must have unity. Yes, we want unity, and had unity in Ireland during the last few years, but we had it only on one basis---the basis of the Republic. Destroy that basis and you cannot have unity. Once you take yourselves off that pedestal you place yourselves in a position to pave the way for concession after concession, for compromise after compromise. Once you begin to juggle with your mind or conscience in this matter God knows where you will end, no matter how you try to pull up later on. You can have unity by rejecting this thing; you cannot have unity by approving of it. Rejection means that the Irish Republic exists here, and that we are still the Government of the existing Irish Republic. Accept it and there is no Irish Republic existing because you have destroyed it, because you have abrogated the right of the Dáil, and this Dáil exists here as the Republican Government. It did not exist here for the purpose of changing its status. It was placed here by the people to work for the recognition and the interests of the Republic not to take steps towards the gaining or abolition of it. The Republic is here because it is in our wills. Destroy that by accepting this Treaty and there is no Republic. And you will not have unity and you will not have peace. You can have unity though you may not have peace, but you certainly will have unity and honour by rejecting this Treaty. Accept it and you will destroy the Republic, and even though you gain for Ireland the material advantages---you point out control of our language, et cetera---though you gain these things you throw away that which Ireland found since 1916, that which, after all, imbued Ireland in this phase of the struggle. 1916 did not represent the will of the people; 1916 found very little support from the people, but 1916 has been supported by the people since, and it has been 1916 that based their ideal when they declared for a Republic. From 1916 down to the present day that struggle has gone on. Person after person has been induced to come in and do his or her part. Now, if you accept this Treaty you are going to establish in this country a Government that does away with the Irish Republic. It is not a step towards the Irish Republic but a step away from it. That Treaty admits the right of the British Government to control the destiny of Ireland. Even though you have control of some of the material resources of the country you are going to put yourselves in the position of being within the British Empire, and outside, away from the rest of the world. During the last few years we were beginning to occupy a unique position in the world. As long as we looked upon ourselves as being independent we could appeal to the outside world and so long were we certain of receiving sympathy and help. Now you are inside the British Empire if you accept this Treaty, and, turn where you will, you will be told you are a domestic concern for the British Empire. The League of Nations---what does it mean to this country? The League of Nations---the League of Robbers! We stand, some of us, where we always stood and despite all that has been said in favour of this Treaty we mean to continue standing where we stood in the past. Whatever may happen, whatever the road may be in front of us, we intend, with God's help, to travel it. The time will come yet---I hope it will come soon---when those who are going to depart from the straight road will come back to it. Then we will be together to the end of this fight. I am sorry to inflict such a long statement upon the Dáil. It was not my intention to do so when I stood up, but ideas keep coming to your mind, probably, when you feel so keenly on a matter which represents the ideals for which one has struggled and fought, the ideals for which one is prepared to do the same again, but for which one is not prepared to compromise or surrender no matter what the advantages may be. [Applause].
[The House adjourned at 1.30 p.m. to 3.30 p.m.]
The House resumed at 3.45 p.m., the SPEAKER (Dr. Eoin MacNeill) in the chair.
MR. DESMOND FITZGERALD:
I want to say at the beginning, with regard to the last speaker before lunch, that I agree practically with every word he said. There is one thing I want cleared up because it may be a very fundamental difference. During the speeches in this Dáil there has been constant repetition of the words `Irish Republic,' and it has given the impression that the declaration of the Irish Republic was a declaration in favour of a form of Government as distinct from what I understood it to be. I remember in 1917 a meeting at which the President spoke in the Mansion House, where he said that he accepted the words `Irish Republic' as the best means of making it perfectly clear to the world that we have stood for absolute independence, whereas it seems to me during the course of the discussion in the Dáil that a great many people are fighting for a Republican principle rather than a national principle. Now the last speaker quoted from the Declaration of Independence read at the time, in January, 1919. Now I have always understood by a Free Irish Republic that we meant an independent Ireland, and I think that is borne out by that Declaration of Independence which was read by the member for Galway, and I think it bears out the point made by the member for Monaghan yesterday, namely, that the Irish Republic was looked upon as a means to an end, as one of the weapons used in fighting for the freedom of our country. In the Declaration of Independence adopted by the Dáil in January, 1919, it says: `Whereas the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its complete independence.' It says that, and it goes on to say---and it is before you to-day---that `In order to promote the common weal, to re-establish justice, to provide for future defence, to insure peace at home, and good-will with all nations, and to constitute a national polity based upon the people's will with equal rights and opportunities for every citizen,' et cetera. That was said to be the object we had in mind by complete independence. Now, in reading the present Treaty it seems to me that it tends to promote the common weal; to re-establish justice; to provide, possibly to a limited degree, for future defence; to secure peace at home and good-will with all nations, and to constitute a national polity based upon the people's will with equal right and opportunity for every citizen. It is because I see in this Treaty means to attain those ends that I am supporting this Treaty. And in the declaration of the Dáil in January, 1919, which ratified the establishment of the Irish Republic, it ordained that `The elected representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to which that people will give its allegiance. We solemnly declare foreign government in Ireland to be an invasion of our national right which we will never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation of our country by the English Garrison.' Those things were laid down at that first meeting of the Dáil, and I think that, without being worried by words, including the words `Irish Republic,' there is only one thing to guide us here now as ever, and that is the well-being of the Irish nation. I have always held, and I hold still, that for the complete well-being of the Irish nation sovereign independence is required. We are faced now with this Treaty, and with no alternative to it as far as I can see. I propose supporting the Treaty, because I am satisfied, looking at it, I think, as impartially as possible, that not only does it make for an immediate improvement in the future of this country, but, judging by the possibilities of what will happen by ratification or acceptance, it seems to me that we shall be much nearer the ultimate goal at any period such as I mentioned, by acceptance than by rejection. And I consider that in accepting---for always the one basis as a guide for our actions in this country is the welfare of the Irish nation---that we are not in any way breaking any pledge or abandoning any principle by doing what we are doing. It seems to me that we have one thing to rest assured of, the one thing that was made clear by the last few years' history of this country, and that is, that the tradition of Irish Independence and of Irish Nationality was too strongly embedded in us to be overcome by British Terror or by the disastrous period which preceded 1916. And I say that, given the powers, limited though they be to some small extent by this Treaty, there is no fear whatever of any going back. I look upon the Treaty as an entrenchment of the position so far gained, and I don't see that it is any abandonment of principle. Many things have been asserted about this Treaty which I consider quite unwarranted by any ordinary reading, and I agree with the speakers in this House that it will be the duty to read it in the light most favourable to ourselves. The last speaker said that the Government of the Free State would occupy the same position as Dublin Castle occupies now with regard to the people of this country. That may be so, but there will be this difference: our grievance with Dublin Castle is that it is there, and that it is not in our power to remove it except by physical force, and we have not had, so far, that force to remove it; but I cannot see how anyone can read this Treaty in such a way as to think that any Government which is undesired by the Irish people cannot be removed by the express will of the Irish people [hear, hear]. The last speaker asked how would we know when the time would come to fight again; how would we know when the time would come to strike for what he called an Irish Republic. In the declaration that is posted around the walls now which was made by the leaders of 1916 it was pointed out that in the last three hundred years Ireland had risen in arms some six or seven times. We have no reason to think that our generation or the generations coming after it will be less worthy Irishmen than those who have gone before; and it seems to me that if we accept this Treaty it will be worked by the people as well as they can, always working as Irishmen, thinking of the well-being of their country and when the time comes when they find that there is anything in the Treaty that comes between them and the well being of their country they, by the very oath they take in it, and by the whole tradition of our people, have only one course before them, and that is to act for the well-being of their country without any regard to anything else what ever. It has also been generally understood here that a Treaty is a thing which is made for eternity. It is no such thing. It is well recognised that a Treaty exists as long as it suits two parties to keep it. The last speaker suggested if ever it was for Ireland's good that the Treaty be abandoned we were bound in honour to keep to it. I think it is established the world over that a Treaty exists only until such time as one of the parties to it formally denounces it. I am satisfied that this Treaty bears that interpretation better than any other. It means this, that we do allow a certain limitation of our sovereignty by occupation of certain of our ports; that is to say, that we allow our sovereignty to be interfered with to a rather less degree than the sovereignty of Spain is interfered with by the occupation of Gibraltar. I would ask the member for Cork, who stated his objection to it was that he would see British ships from his house every morning, if he thinks at the present time Spain, in its weak condition, is justified in not considering the feelings of the people of Algeeiras, who also see British forces every morning when they look out? Does he think that Spain is insulted and that she is bound in honour, without any regard for circumstances, to declare war, and to declare war continually on England until that one point is effected? I do not think so. There are one or two points in the Treaty which have been laboured very much. One was the Governor-General, as he is called. The first clause in this Treaty says that the Executive shall be responsible to Parliament in this country. In Britain the Executive is, in fact, responsible to the Parliament, but in form it is responsible to the King. In Ireland, under the Treaty, it is clearly laid down that the Executive is responsible to the Parliament. The opponents of the Treaty contend that the King or his representative on the Council constitutes the Executive. They quoted the Canadian Constitution, 1869, section 9. That may be so if you like. In that case the King or his representative is responsible to the Parliament according to Clause 1 of the Treaty, and the Parliament is responsible to the people. Therefore I shall put the interpretation on the Treaty that the representative of the King of England will be responsible to the Parliament in Ireland which is responsible to the people. If the Crown or its representative means anything more than a symbol of State as Mr. Childers contends, he is the servant of and responsible to the Parliament and the people. Thus we have in the Treaty itself the very demand of the President: `That the legislative, executive and judicial authority of Ireland shall be derived solely from the people of Ireland.' I am satisfied that this Treaty bears that interpretation, and does recognise the sovereignty of Ireland. Sovereignty is of the people and is unalienable, and for that reason I say that, having only one formula to guide us---it is a formula which is not a mere formula, but absolutely basic---that, as the servants of the Irish nation, without abandonment of principle or without any breaking of oaths, we are doing a thing it is quite feasible for us to do in supporting this Treaty. The Republic has been spoken of as if it were a thing existing unchallenged. If that is so, I don't know what we were fighting for. We were fighting for the independence of our country, and that independence was interfered with because England still held our country. Now we have England recognising---whether she agrees that she is recognising it or not---this document in front of us is a recognition of the sovereignty of Ireland, but there is still a limitation of the independence of Ireland. That limitation is agreed to, say, under duress. I don't know of any Treaty that is not signed under duress, and I am quite satisfied that the Treaty was signed under duress not only by the plenipotentiaries, but by the representatives of the British Government. Everyone agrees that it was never love of justice or love of Ireland that induced Mr. Lloyd George to agree to that Treaty. He agreed to it because it was in our power to make it worth his while to agree to Irish independence to that extent. For that reason he signed it under duress and we signed it under duress. By accepting it we have sufficient belief in the Irish people that they will conserve their energy and build up their country, so that at any future time, if it be found that England is acting as the enemy of this country, we will be in a better position to deal with her than we are now [hear, hear]. And I am quite satisfied if at any time Ireland is in a strong enough position to challenge England with a fair chance of success, if England still persists in acting as our enemy, that she will receive final confirmation of the desire of the Irish people for the complete independence of their country. [Applause.]
MR. SEUMAS FITZGERALD (CORK):
During the adjournment I took the opportunity to test my constituents, and to the best of my ability during that short time I felt the pulse of my constituents. I found the following: those individuals who, to my certain knowledge were always against us favoured the Treaty. It was to be expected of them. Those whom we brought with us in the present fight supported the Treaty first because it was boomed in the Press as a great victory. Now they feel compelled to accept it as a mere compromise. The sympathisers and the workers themselves find themselves in a very curious position. They now, what they did not at the beginning of this Session, understand what the Treaty actually is. They realise that we have not won; that Lloyd George has won. They believe that no matter whether you call this, Government of Dáil Eireann, Government of the Republic, or call it the Government of the Saorstát that, for good and all, if we accept this treaty sovereign independence is gone. They feel, some of them, that they should accept the Treaty under duress, but if there is any possibility of uniting and practically unanimously rejecting this Treaty they would prefer that such would be done. Then there are those who bore the brunt of the fight during the past two or three years. They are---and I have ascertained their opinions ---almost unanimously against this Treaty, war or no war. Now one argument that I had to meet that was a fairly serious argument from my point of view; the Press boomed it and the country swallowed it: it was the point of view expressed by Deputy Mellowes that we as a Dáil had, before we sent plenipotentiaries to London definitely made up our minds to agree to compromise. I do not wish to enter into details to controvert that statement. There is an official publication of the Dáil containing all the correspondence that passed between President de Valera acting in his capacity as President of the Republic and Lloyd George; and I defy any single individual to show me throughout the whole of that correspondence by letter and telegram where the interests of the Republic were compromised. Now, the question of the mandate gives a good many Deputies a serious trouble of mind. What is my mandate? The only mandate that I ever remember having received was a mandate to come here to this second Dáil, and to the best of my ability safeguard the interests of the Republic established on the twenty-first January, 1919.
MR. M. COLLINS:
What about 1916?
MR. FITZGERALD:
Now that mandate is clear enough. The individuals who asked me to accept that mandate have not asked me to change. I have in my pocket resolutions passed by Sinn Fein Executives in my own area, and the most important Councils in my own area---those resolutions have not found their way into the Press---reiterating confidence in the Dáil, and expressing at the same time confidence that their representatives will do what they think best in the interests of Ireland. That is my mandate. But even so I find that, without considering the individuals whom I have mentioned, that I have found out that I can also take from them a somewhat similar mandate. Support of the Treaty by those who support it in my constituency is based upon fear, and such a mandate cannot be a true mandate. I have found that the thing that is uppermost in the people's mind is peace rather than the Treaty. Everybody, including myself, is anxious for peace. The people are longing for peace. All are not for the Treaty. It is discussed and it is also cursed. Well, if I find that the people want peace rather than the Treaty, and if I believe that the rejection of this Treaty will give us an opportunity of establishing a real and lasting peace, I would be interpreting, to the best of my ability, the wishes of those individuals who long for peace by voting against the Treaty. The last Deputy who spoke seemed to imagine that England does not mean that this Treaty will be binding. Why are Treaties made at all otherwise? If treaties were not binding we could have war practically in every decade. England would not put certain words in this Treaty unless she honestly intended to see that they were carried through. We know that even upon certain points in the Treaty that she even threatened war. I would imagine that she meant what she said when she asked that this certain phrase or clause would be inserted in the Treaty---if she threatened war. The Treaty is no empty formula to her. She, and not us, has won on principle. The Deputy from Cork, Deputy Walsh, gives an instance of how the provisions of the Treaty could be circumvented, and he stated that Germany gained a few extra points out of the Treaty of Versailles. I maintain that, as regards essential details, that certain points may be gained from treaties from time to time, but I maintain that on fundamentals treaties are essentially binding. They may alter in respect of questions about finances and particular clauses, but I do not believe that on such fundamentals as the questions of sovereignty or defence that England does not recognise that that Treaty is binding. The Deputy who spoke before me claimed that it was not irrevocable in so far as it was signed under duress. What was the duress under which the Treaty was signed? All the plenipotentiaries who signed were not there, and I hold that the duress to make that Treaty invalid should be personal and immediate duress. I do not believe that any of the plenipotentiaries were threatened with immediate death at that period, or that they were threatened with immediate torture. The duress was not immediate. If the matter was brought as a contentious matter before any International Court of Law I believe that, irrespective of England's strength, England would win. Now about the question of the alternative if this Treaty is not ratified. I give those who are supporting the Treaty, or a majority of them, credit, in so far as I believe them to be out for an ultimate Republic. Now I maintain that this Treaty is irrevocable, and to secure an ultimate Republic---the only way we could do it is to cast aside that Treaty, and that means a declaration of war upon England. It is a matter of choice therefore with me as to whether war will be immediate, or whether we must be prepared for war. Let the people understand both alternatives. The alternative on our side is immediate war, and the alternative on the other side, in so far as the Treaty does not satisfy the aspirations of those who signed it, is future war. Some of the speakers who support the Treaty do not believe that war will be necessary. They believe that we could gradually encroach upon this Treaty and that we could take `this thing and this thing and this thing,' as I heard it expressed. I do not believe that that is at all possible. For instance, we will just conceive in our minds the principal people who will work the Irish Free State if it does happen to come into operation. They will be people, the majority of them---I do not mean those who are supporting the Treaty, but I mean those who will come into the Irish Free State Government from outside---whose purely material and sordid interests will hamper your movements in that direction every way they possibly can. The Deputy from Cork, Deputy Walsh, offered a parallel in South Africa. Does he designedly forget the efforts that South Africa made during the period of the great war in Europe to regain a Republic? She was faced with the bitter opposition of her own people, and she lasted but a few months. What will happen if in endeavouring to secure an ultimate Republic in the future, we try to take the Opportunity of England's temporary weakness at such a period and attempt by force of arms to re-establish a Republic? The chaos that you imagine will follow the rejection of this Treaty will be nothing to the chaos that will follow such a course if adopted at such a period. I maintain that our moral position is such at the present time that we can better face war now than we can in ten or twenty years' time. The people of Ireland imagine that it is only solely on the question of the ratification of this Treaty that the alternative of war has been spoken about. I think the members of the Dáil will readily admit that they themselves faced war when they directed the President to transmit the reply he did transmit to Lloyd George on the 24th August last. They will admit that there was a probable break when our President refused to take as granted the letter that he sent to Lloyd George at Gairloch on the 13th September as not having been handed to Lloyd George when the open threat of war was contained therein, and the Dáil accepted that and the country does not seem to have realised it. Even the second last telegraphic communication sent by our President to Lloyd George invited the alternative to open warfare at that time, and the warfare did not come although it took ten full days for the British Cabinet to make up their minds, from the 19th to the 29th September. They did open negotiations, and the result was that our plenipotentiaries went to London. Therefore those who imagine that the only alternative is war are not acting fairly towards the country. If the Treaty is unanimously or otherwise rejected it is due to the President and his Cabinet to formulate a policy, and with that confidence in him that won so much for Ireland, I firmly believe that our confidence in him will not be misplaced at such a juncture. The last speaker said that one of my objections to the Treaty was that a British naval force would be in occupation of Cork Harbour, and that from my residence I would see it evening, night and morn. That was not my argument. My argument was that from my reading of the Treaty I can see the British naval force not there for five years, but there for ever. He pressed forward as an analogy the situation in Algiers. The situation is somewhat different. Algiers is, in a different sense, de facto dependent on France.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Algeciras, which is part of Spain---not `Algiers' which is the opposite side altogether.
MR. FITZGERALD:
I don't know anything about that. I understood him to speak of Algiers. I maintain that certain countries are de facto dependent on other political bodies, but those other countries are better off than we will be under this Treaty in so far as those countries themselves are sovereign. Deputy Fitzgerald, I think, says he believes that Ireland will have sovereign independence under this Treaty. Sovereignty is to me the complete independence of a state from all other states, that the state derives its rights solely from itself and are native to itself; that they are not delegated to it by another state; they are not exercised by virtue of powers conferred on it by any other state or body, that legally and judicially the state is not subject to any other political body. The position that we find at the present time---the Government of the Irish Republic functions on rights derived from itself and native to itself---bespeaks the Government of the Irish Republic as a sovereign assembly. Under this Treaty the authority of the Irish Free State is delegated to it by the British Parliament as legally and judicially subject to the British Crown, and as such, I maintain it cannot be accepted that Ireland under the Treaty will be a sovereign independent nation. The only other thing that it can be is that it will be a subordinate nation of the British Empire. I have heard arguments brought forward here in regard to the sovereign independence of Canada and Australia. In so far as their authority is derived from Britain and is exercised under this superior jurisdiction of Britain I cannot accept it that Australia and Canada are sovereign nations. After the great war the Allies imposed obligations on Germany---and Austria as well---obligations which she could not resist, but Germany still remains sovereign. Legally and judicially its authority was its own and was derived from itself and was not delegated to it by the Allies. I would really prefer this Treaty to recognise the fundamental of Irish sovereignty and be prepared to sacrifice other considerations such as financial considerations, truce clauses, aye, and defence clauses, but only for a certain period. Persia, Afghanistan and others allow other nations to exercise certain powers which are their's alone by right, but they are still sovereign. The reason why I would prefer such is this, that the people at all times will agitate for material concessions. The people as we know them will not at all times agitate for the ideal. The people will be very slow indeed to agitate for the idea of sovereignty which we have now lost under this Treaty if we accept it, when war will be the only method of regaining it. I do not know of any nation on this earth that does not claim that sovereignty as a natural attribute of the state. Why do we not demand the same right? You call It the Irish Free State. Fundamentally it is not so. Now about the clauses of the Treaty. I will not debate them. The clauses containing the oath and the Governor-General, and the point about common citizenship are repulsive to every individual whom I have met in my constituency who has created the present situation or assisted to create it. It is, undoubtedly, causing them great anxiety. The Deputy from Cork, Deputy Walsh, said that if he thought the Treaty would bring disunity to Ireland he would vote against it. From his inference I gathered that he meant Ulster. Does he take into consideration a more grievous and a more disastrous disunity than the one he spoke of? I speak of the disunity that is bound to come---the disruption of the national movement. Deputy O'Duffy said that if he were offered the alternative to war or chaos that he would prefer war. I believe national chaos is bound to come out of the acceptance of this Treaty unless some superhuman effort is made by somebody who has not yet come along to try and retrieve the position that we have lost. The Deputy also stated that the peaceful penetration of England is now at a standstill. I maintain that it is now and now only that the peaceful penetration of Britain is percolating through this country. He also mentioned about prisoners in Belfast awaiting execution. I am much in the same position myself. There are several individuals from my own constituency at the present time under sentence of death in Cork prison. At the same time I well remember that a communication was sent to the Press by the Brigade Commandant who at that time was responsible for the operation for which those men were adjudged guilty, that those men were perfectly innocent. From what I know of those men I do not believe that they would wish that their predicament should be allowed to trouble my conscience in this matter, and I firmly believe that they are quite prepared to stand by any decision the Dáil would make. But I know the attitude of one, personally. He has been sentenced to fifteen years and he is at present serving that sentence. He is well known to practically every Deputy in the Dáil, and when visited last Christmas by his sister it was natural that something should crop up about the Treaty. Now I maintain that there is very little difference between a man under sentence of execution and an individual who is condemned to fifteen years' penal servitude. Some, I think, prefer to be shot straight away, but this individual said that he wished it would he known that he would prefer to rot inside in jail for the fifteen years than accept this Treaty [Applause]. There is, at least, one opinion from an individual who has just as much to say as the individuals who are under sentence of execution. Now, I think it was the President who mentioned the point that if what is contained in this Treaty were contained in a further act that England thought fit to impose upon the country, that it is quite possible that we would seize upon the Act and work it to the best advantage. Deputy MacGarry sought to bring an unfair inference from what was contained in James Connolly's book admitting his acceptance of the Government act of '98. There is a difference in going forward and going backward. James Connolly, at that time, by seizing on that Act would be going a step forward. In taking that step he would not have signed any treaty bartering away the sovereign rights of the Irish people. In conclusion I wish to state that the men in my area who count will never accept this Treaty. There is nothing in the Treaty which binds England to remove the English Garrison out of this country. There is stated in a subsequent letter sent by Mr. Lloyd George to the Chairman of the Delegation, Mr. Arthur Griffith, that they will evacuate Southern Ireland. I wonder where they will go to? Then again,there is nothing in the Treaty that does not give England quite a legal right to bring her troops into Ireland whenever she deems so fit.
MR. MILROY:
Except the Irish Army.
MR. FITZGERALD:
The men who count in my area, I say, will never accept this Treaty. They ask that we should be united and refuse to accept it, because it will bring Ireland no peace. I am of the one mind only, and I ask that this Treaty be unanimously or nearly so rejected. After that we will put our minds together and try and re-establish our own position and make one more try. Those men have asked me to bring forward this suggestion here, that we should not accept this, and that we and the whole nation should make one more serious effort to try and re-establish the position that we had before December 5th.
DR. R. HAYES:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I have never at any time during the past three years, at any of the sessions, taken up very much of the time of this assembly, and now, at its last session, I certainly am not going to do so. In that respect at least I will try to be consistent. I am voting for the Treaty and I also am supporting its adoption; and although I recognise that it confers a status on this country that it had never since the English invasion, at the same time I recognise that it does not give us everything that we wish for. To me, anyhow, it is a compromise, but surely there are times, there are occasions---critical occasions---in a nation's history when it is justifiable to compromise, especially when the object of the compromise is not an ignoble one. It is a necessary compromise to me, anyhow, but it certainly is a compromise without dishonour. Speaking of compromises, to me it seems that the signing of this Treaty was the final result, the culmination of a whole series of compromises, during the past four or five months---all necessary compromises. One of the very first acts in the negotiations was a compromise. Our army was not defeated, it had not surrendered, and yet the enemy capital was selected as the meeting place for the two delegations. As a political proposition in relation to an immediate settlement with England it seems to me that the Republic ceased to exist four or five months ago. I agree with Deputy Mellowes that the real Republic, the Republican ideal, still exists, and is still cherished in the hearts even of those people who support this Treaty. I think that it has been unfair and unjust the criticism that has been levelled at the Delegation over these negotiations. They were selected by this assembly and by the Cabinet of this assembly to make a bargain, not on the Republican basis, but on the basis of association with Britain's Commonwealth. They made that bargain and they have brought back the bargain, and I think, considering the governing circumstances, that it is a pretty good bargain. I am firmly convinced of one thing regarding this Treaty, and it is this: but for the oath contained in it, ninety-nine per cent. of this Dáil would accept it, as a compromise at least. I say that the oath is just as unpalatable to those who are voting for the Treaty as it is to those who are voting against it. Some Deputies referred to the clash of the oath, the incompatibility of the oath with the Fenian tradition. A night or two before the adjournment I happened to be reading the recollections of a Fenian leader, and I came across in it his opinion of the oaths to English monarchs. As a personal explanation I may say here that I wrote out that opinion and showed it to a friend out here in the lobby, and next day it appeared in leaded type in one of the Dublin newspapers, surrounded with a frame. I want to make it clear that I had nothing to do with getting it into the paper. The Fenian leader I refer to was John O'Leary. I think every member of this assembly will agree that John O'Leary, up to the day of his death was a consistent and unrepentant Fenian. I have here this opinion. It is not taken out of its context. `Let England cease to govern Ireland, and then I shall swear to be true to Ireland, and to the Queen or King of Ireland, even though the Queen or King also so happen to be Queen or King of England. It has never been with me, and never shall be, any question of forms of government, but simply freedom from foreign control.' If I may say so, while reading the book memory carried back to me the first occasion in my life on which I saw the Fenian leader, John O'Leary, and the first occasion on which I saw the Chairman of the Delegation, Arthur Griffith; they were chatting together in a Dublin street. I think if John O'Leary were in this assembly he would see eye to eye with Arthur Griffith on this question. I do not intend to delay the House any longer. I shall finish up by saying this: If I were convinced this Treaty meant the final reconciliation of Ireland with England I would have very little hesitation in deciding upon which way my vote should go. But it is not the end [hear, hear]. The adoption of this Treaty will enable us, as the Chairman of the Delegation said in his opening address to rebuild here in this country the old Gaelic civilisation that went down at the Battle of Kinsale [hear, hear]. Its adoption will mean the revival and spread of Gaelic culture. It will mean the leavening into everybody's Irish life the old traditional and the old heroic memories. These things are not mentioned in the Treaty clauses, but they are implied there, and any one of them is just as important as, say, fiscal autonomy. Finally, a Chinn Chomhairle, I support this Treaty because it places in the hands of the Irish nation powerful weapons, material weapons and spiritual weapons, that will enable it to achieve its full destiny. [Applause].
MR. JOHN O'MAHONY:
I, like other Deputies, have received several messages within the last few days from my constituents, and one of those I received was this: `I have no doubt but that eighty or ninety per cent. favour the ratification here, more especially after reading de Valera's substitute oath.' Now, I have got friends in this assembly as dear to me as my own life, but I certainly must say I never read that oath in No. 2 Document.
MR. MILROY:
You know where it is.
MR. O'MAHONY:
I wish now to be as brief as possible. Like most other Deputies I have, since the adjournment, received letters, telegrams, and resolutions from public bodies and individual voters in my constituency requesting, in some cases demanding, that I vote for ratification of this so-called Treaty. While I have every possible respect for the individual opinions of my correspondents, I wish to point out that they are, after all, only individual opinions. They are not the opinions of the people. I would say the same of Councils. They are not the people either. They are the elected representatives of the people just as we are here, but our Republican mandate, our national mandate, from the people, is much clearer and much stronger than the mandate given to any County Council, District Council or Board of Guardians. I may be asked what about the Comhairle Ceanntair of Sinn Fein which, by a majority, has called upon me to vote for the Foreign Minister's motion. I am well aware---none better---of the weight and importance of the Comhairle Ceanntair of Sinn Fein in my constituency. I know its members and their worth. During the last three years they have worked well and worked sincerely with me, and for me in the Republican cause. I have always consulted the Comhairle Ceanntair, and have always paid the greatest attention to its views where matters affecting my constituency were concerned, but even it is not the people of Fermanagh. The Comhairle Ceanntair---and I am deeply grateful for it---honoured me by selecting me as a Republican candidate, but it was the people that elected me as a Republican Deputy to Dáil Eireann; and I have yet to be convinced---resolutions, letters and telegrams like those I have already received will not convince me---that the people have turned down the Republic that seven short months ago they elected me to maintain and uphold. If the people of Fermanagh gave me a mandate to vote for this `fleshpots of Egypt' alternative to renewed war that the British Government is seeking to force upon us, a mandate given in the same manner and carrying the same weight as that which they gave me last May, I admit that I would feel bound to consider it, I would feel bound to act upon it; I would feel bound at once to place my resignation in their hands, because I could not, even at their bidding, forswear my allegiance to the Irish Republic. But before I place my resignation in their hands I would, as within my right and in accordance with my duty, record my vote on the issue that is before us here and now. During the last week's organised campaign---to stampede or try to stampede the Dáil Deputies into approving of this Treaty in the British Government's ultimatum---we have heard a lot in speeches and Press letters about precedents for our obeying, like automatons, the alleged wishes of the people; and examples have been cited down to Abraham Lincoln. None of these examples is, in my opinion, analogous to the situation in which we find ourselves to-day. In all of them the questions at issue were questions at best of domestic politics; with us the issue at stake is the maintenance or surrender of our national independence. We can find a true analogy to our present position in our own time in the case of the Boers. In 1902 the British Government presented to the Boers the same ultimatum as it has now presented to us---take these terms or take a war of extermination. When the representatives of the Transvaal and of the Orange Free State met in combined session at Vereeniging to consider the terms it was found that, while one section of the Deputies were given a free hand, another section had a definite mandate from their constituents, and it was generally felt that such a mandate would prevent a free exercise of their judgment by the Deputies who had received it. The difficulty was alluded to in his inaugural address by the President of the Transvaal Republic, and before the discussion opened, General Botha asked for a direction on the matter. Judge Hertzog, the legal representative of the Orange Free State, and an acknowledged authority on constitutional law, stated---I quote his exact words: `It is a principle in law that a Deputy is not to be regarded as a mere agent or mouth-piece of his constituents, but, on the contrary, when dealing with public affairs, as a man vested with full powers---with the right, whatever his brief may be, of acting to the best of his judgment.' General Smuts, States-Procureur of the Transvaal, endorsed Judge Hertzog, and their decision was unanimously accepted. The Deputies with a specific mandate felt themselves as free to use their own judgment as the Deputies without one, and the decision at which they eventually arrived was at variance with the mandates that many of them had from their people. I am not now concerned with the character of either the mandates or the decision of the Boers. I cite their case simply to prove the principle that members of all parliaments are, in their acts and votes, free agents. I quote it to show, in spite of the campaign of intimidation being pursued by the pro-British Press in Ireland, that we Dáil Deputies here in Dublin, are as free agents as were the Boers at Vereeniging. In fact we are freer, because none of us has received from our constituents any mandate of any kind on the question that is before us.
MR. MILROY:
Question?
MR. O'MAHONY:
I will answer you. If I leave this matter here some of our pro-British papers will probably be asking: `If all this is true, where do the people stand?' I answer that the people stand------
MR. MILROY:
For the Treaty.
MR. O'MAHONY:
Where they always stood and always will stand, as the moral source and fount of all national authority. The Boers recognised this. While declaring their Deputies to be free agents they also, in the words of the President of the Transvaal, declared that the surrender or otherwise of their independence was a question that must be left to the decision of their people. We declare the same. We recognise the people as sovereign, we admit that their will is supreme, we acknowledge them as the final court of appeal. But I wish to point out that this so-called Treaty question has not yet reached that final court of appeal. It is still before us---the Dáil---and it is for us, as free agents, to decide it to the best of our judgment. If the people are not satisfied with our decision then they can turn it down and turn us down too. But in the meantime, as free and unfettered members of the Parliament of the Irish Republic, we are privileged, nay, we are bound, by every principle of law, by every obligation of right, by every canon of duty, to speak and act and vote as we individually and conscientiously believe to be in keeping with our oath to the Republic. Now some reference was made during the course of the debate to the Republican form of Government as if that form of Government had ceased to exist or practically never existed. We all believe that the Minister of Finance was a man who spoke the truth according to his conscience, and spoke the words he meant to follow. In the beginning of 1921 he stated in an interview with an American journalist, when speaking of the Loan: `We raised 400,000. Of this sum we lost only 29, which was taken by British authorities from one of our collectors. The Government carrying on the Irish Republic to-day cannot talk of compromise.' Now, the Treaty is objectionable to me for various reasons. I remember for many years realising that a wall was around Ireland, and the voice of Ireland choked. Now, the wall was pulled down by as great an Irishman as any who sits in this House to-day and that is the Minister for Foreign Affairs------
MR. GRIFFITH:
It won't do, John.
MR. O'MAHONY:
I thank you Art, [Laughter].
MR. GRIFFITH:
John, you are the man that asked me to make peace at any price.
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MR O'MAHONY
Yes, but not at the price of the Irish Republic.
MR. GRIFFITH:
It will not do, John.
MR. O'MAHONY:
Whatever my friend Arthur Griffith says, we can have our little jokes [Laughter].
MR. GRIFFITH:
It is no joke.
MR. O'MAHONY:
If that wall be built around Ireland, every submarine cable and all the messages sent out to the world are choked; and if England has her hand on the throat of the nation, how can you develop the foreign trade of the nation? Some of our friends on the other side who are voting for this so-called Treaty seem to have blinded themselves into the belief that they can be Free Staters and remain good Republicans as well. They may so blind themselves but they can not blind us, and they cannot blind the country or the world. No one knows better than the plenipotentiaries that as far as those who voluntarily accepted are concerned, this Georgian State is a final abandonment of the claim to independence; and those who support this Treaty will very soon find also that, on an issue of national principle like this there can be no such thing as running with the hare and hunting with the hounds [applause and counter cheers]. The two oaths are too fiercely conflicting to admit of either reconciliation or approachment. Any attempts to compose them must fail now as it failed before.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
What two oaths?
MR. O'MAHONY:
This oath and the oath to the Irish Republic. We had, as far as the oath is concerned, the same situation in the days of the New Departure. No matter who may talk about free Irish Constitutions there is no difference between this oath that is before us now and the Westminster oath then, except this: the Westminster oath was only a single-springed trap for unwary Irishmen, while this new one that the plenipotentiaries want us to accept secures us for ever with a treble spring. When the policy of the New Departure was proposed the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which Mr. P. S. O'Hegarty described a couple of weeks ago as the sheet anchor of Irish nationalism, promptly and absolutely turned it down. Thus foiled in Ireland, Davitt and his friends sought to win the support of the Clan-na-Gael; and the Supreme Council of the I.R.B. immediately sent the veteran, John O'Leary, to America to counteract their efforts. Addressing the Clan-na-Gael in New York, O'Leary denounced the proposal as immoral and impolitic. `There is,' he said, `to be a pretence of loyalty but in reality treason all along the line. I do not believe in a policy of dust throwing and lying, but that is the policy of the New Departure. The Fenian Movement is purely a national movement. Though I were to stand absolutely alone I would resist this dishonest and unholy alliance. I believe in righteous means as well us righteous ends.' What John O'Leary said of the New Departure Republicans in 1878 can, with even more force, be said of the self-deluded Free State Republicans in the Dáil to-day [Applause]. In spite of all this, Davitt, O'Connor Power, J. F. X. O'Brien, John O'Connor, and other members of the Fenian organisation persisted in their policy and took the Oath of Allegiance. When John O'Leary learned what they had done his only comment was: `I wish the British Sovereign joy of the British oaths of turncoats who have already taken and broken the Republican oath.' Would not the unconquerable old Fenian leader, if he were here to day, use the same words? Would he not employ even stronger language of those Dáil Deputies who are tumbling over each other in their eagerness to break the Republican oath that they took in August last to take this Oath of Allegiance to the British monarch and thereby to help the British Government to enforce this, its latest Coercion Art in Ireland? Whatever the result of the vote on this question, we who are against the surrender of our national independence can face ourselves, face the people, and face the country with the consciousness that we have done our duty to the Republic that we swore to maintain and uphold.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Why not face Fermanagh, John?
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MR. O'MAHONY:
I will go, and I will tell you how I will come out of it. I consider, a Chinn Chomairle, you are not doing your duty [Laughter]. Is it because there is a lasting friendship between the Foreign Minister and me that you allow these interruptions? [Laughter].
MR. GRIFFITH:
It is because you came to me three times and asked me to make peace at any price.
MR. O'MAHONY:
Do not lose your hair [Laughter]. We may find ourselves in a minority as Pearse and his comrades were in a minority in Easter Week; but like them we will have the satisfaction of feeling that we have saved the soul and body of the nation from those who would wittingly or unwittingly kill it, for the purpose of bringing ease and comfort to the material body. We can face the future with hope, nay with confidence, because we have with us the two elements amongst our people with whom the national future lies. We have the women with us, and no cause that is backed by the national womanhood of the country can ever fail, just as no cause that lacks their support can end in anything but disaster and disgrace. We have the youth with us, too---the youth of the Irish Republican Army---human beings endowed by God with the power of deciding what was right and what was wrong; not mere goods and chattels to be carried off and used as their absolute property by our anticipated Free State majority. For opportunism, for supineness, for contemptibleness, the daily Press of Ireland is unique in the journalism of the world. However, the young men of the army I am proud to say, have proved themselves too straight, too true, too unselfish in their love and loyalty to the Republic to be decoyed from the path of honour, of righteousness and of duty, to be deceived into breaking their soldier oaths by such transparent political expediency on the part of a majority of their Headquarters Staff. We have the young men of the army with us, we have the womanhood of the nation with us, and with these two elements on its side the ultimate triumph of the Republic is assured; because, as Terence MacSwiney said:
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Those who walk in old ruts and live in trembling may bend the knee and sign their rights away; but one wronged man defrauded of his heritage can refuse to seal the compact, and with one how many, thank God, will be found to stand, for the spirit of our youth to-day is not for compromise.
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[Applause]
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
I rise to support the Treaty. In what I have to say I hope not to hurt the feelings of anyone. I am not going to follow on the same lines as the last speaker. I have only this to say about that speaker: he has no right or authority to speak for the Irish Republican Brotherhood---to speak in this Dáil---and I doubt his authority to speak for the army either. He did not go to his constituents to find out what their views were; he knew their views already. It is all right to say the Press is stampeding the people; it is all right to compare the Press of 1916, but the comparison does not hold to-day. The old Boards who passed resolutions against the 1916 Rising have been wiped out. I hold in my hand here a pamphlet; it is issued by Sinn Fein, and it gives a list of the Republican Councils in Ireland: in Ulster there are forty-two Boards---sixteen Republican, ten Republican-Nationalist, and sixteen Unionists, in Leinster there are thirty-eight Boards and the thirty-eight are Republican; in Munster there are forty-seven Boards and the forty-seven are Republican; in Connacht there are twenty-seven Boards and the twenty-seven are Republican. Now, these are different Boards to the Boards that passed resolutions in 1916. You boasted of the fact that you had wiped out the old Nationalist crowd and a good deal of the Unionists and elected Republicans in their places. When these Republicans pass resolutions, Deputies like Professor Stockley and Deputy O'Mahony tell the Deputies to go to the devil, and that they would do what they liked in the Dáil.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
When did I tell the Deputies to go to the devil? [Laughter.]
MR. MACCARTHY:
I meant the electors.
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PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
That the electors must go to the devil! When did I say that?
MR. MACCARTHY:
Not in so many words, but that is the meaning of what you said, anyhow.
MR. O'MAHONY:
I say the mandate given to me was given to me by the people, and I stand by that mandate. The people are the last Court of Appeal.
MR. MACCARTHY:
I object to these interruptions. I think nobody will deny the fact that I know something about elections [hear, hear], and I regret to say I am responsible for having some of the members here to-day [Laughter]. The 1918 election was not fought on the issue of an Irish Republic. It was fought for the principle and the right of self-determination. At that time we had a cartoon about the vacant chair at the Peace Conference to be filled by Count Plunkett. That is what the people voted on; not on what particular form of Government at all. It is only right to say that. Members have no right to say they were elected on the Republican issue and are not going to take the oath. They were nothing of the sort. I am not going to debate this point of the oath. As one of the Whips I have done my best to control the number of speakers and the length of speeches, but I failed. I am not going to go over the oath. We have lawyers on both sides who have made their cases. Some say they cannot take it, while others say it is all right. I am going to make up my mind like Michael Collins---as a plain Irishman. I see no allegiance in the oath. If there were I would not take it. Every speaker who claims to have English blood is opposed to this Treaty.
MR. LORCAN ROBBINS:
Here is one who is not.
MR. MACCARTHY:
They do not understand the people. They put me in mind of the City Councillor going up for election in the Dublin Corporation who went about for a drive in the slum area and wept tears about the conditions of the people in the slums. He knew nothing about it. We sprang from the working people. We know their lives in the slums. We know them better than these people and we know what they want. We have heard Deputies speaking about breaking an oath and what a dishonourable thing it is. Was it dishonourable for the Fenians to send a major into the British Army to corrupt British soldiers? Shame on men who speak like that! I am out to do work for Ireland, and I do not give a damn where a man comes from so long as we do good work for Ireland. Now, I stand for this Treaty, and one of the principal things I see in it is the control of education. Again I say I am a plain man; the education I got was not very much; it was a National School education. On the map we were taught that `all the places marked red are British possessions. Look at Ireland! A little spot in the Atlantic.' We had there a singing chart to teach children to sing, in happy Christian days, about being a happy English child. If that education produced men and women who would go to the scaffold with a smile on their lips for Ireland, will Deputies tell me that the education they will get under their own Parliament, when they are more prosperous, will make them forget all about Ireland, and bow and bend the knee in front of a great Governor-General? Men who say that do not know Ireland. They do not know the people, and have no confidence in the people, and have no right to be members of this Dáil [cheers]. I thought it was always a motto of ours in Sinn Fein to try and unite all Ireland so as to bring freedom in this country and give fair play to everyone. It is a disgrace for a Deputy to get up and complain because the Chairman of the Plenipotentiaries offered fair play to the Southern Unionists. They are our countrymen. We want them with us in this fight as well as anyone.
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I do not object to fair play.
MR. MACCARTHY:
I should like to ask when your Councils, working under your Local Government Board, were making a tremendous fight against the British Local Government Board, what happened? When the Dublin Corporation looked for a loan of 100,000, and could not get it from their so-called popular banks, the Governors of the Bank of Ireland, who were all Southern Unionists, granted that loan. If they failed to get that loan they would go down, and if the Dublin Corporation went down the rest of the local bodies went down. Make no mistake. The Governors of the Bank are Southern Unionists and they have done that turn for you. It is well known to the Minister of the Local Government Board and to the members of the Dáil if that loan failed you would not be in the position you are in to-day. You would have broken down. You ought to be perfectly honest in this matter. I do not see in this Treaty the end, but it is an instrument put into our hands, and we can use it for the benefit of Ireland. The alternative is war, or chaos, which is worse than war. Why are we going to do all that? The Minister for Fisheries gave an excuse and I wonder some member did not say that four years ago he consulted his mother and she was against it [Laughter]. Is it for that we are going to drive the Irish people to the shambles? Is it for that reason we are going to break up the solid ranks we have behind us? One of the great boasts of the Dáil was that they had the people behind them. It is true. But should you reject this Treaty what are you going to do? Can you go to England and the world and say the people are behind us? The President admits the people want this Treaty, and he admits they would take it. Ninety-five per cent. of the people are for it [`No! no!']. Well, the proof of that is, anyone that likes to contest a seat---as far as mine is concerned, I would fight the President or anyone in this Dáil and beat him a hundred to one.
MR. MILROY:
Here is another the same.
MR. MACCARTHY:
It is the same all over the country. We must face that issue. We could do nothing if the people were not behind us. The good, brave fellows in the army could do nothing were it not that the people were behind the army. The Dáil could do nothing only that the people were behind it. The people are not behind the minority in this issue. They are for this Treaty. They are our masters and we must obey them. [cheers.]
DR. ADA ENGLISH:
A Chinn Chomhairle is a lucht na Dála, níl mórán agam le rá ach dearfa me cúpla focal. A Deputy who spoke in favour of the Treaty wanted to know why the young men should be sent to the shambles---I think that was the word he used. I should be sorry to see young men or old men, or women, or children going to the shambles, but when there is a question of right or wrong in it I would be prepared to go to the shambles myself and I do not see why everybody would not. I credit the supporters of the Treaty with being as honest as I am, but I have a sound objection to it. I think it is wrong; I have various reasons for objecting to it, but the main one is that, in my opinion, it was wrong against Ireland, and a sin against Ireland. I do not like talking here about oaths. I have heard about oaths until my soul is sick of them, but if this Treaty were forced on us by England---as it is being forced---and that paragraph 4, the one with the oath in it were omitted, we could accept it under force; but certainly, while those oaths are in it, oaths in which we are asked to accept the King of England as head of the Irish State, and we are asked to accept the status of British citizens---British subjects---that we can not accept. As far as I see the whole fight in this country for centuries has centred round that very point. We are now asked not only to acknowledge the King of England's claim to be King of Ireland, but we are asked to swear allegiance and fidelity [`No! no!'] in virtue of that claim. Perhaps not, but that is the way I read it. For the last seven hundred centuries, roughly [Laughter]---I mean seven centuries---time does seem to be long here [Laughter]. However a jolly long time, any way, Ireland has been fighting England and, as I understood it, the grounds of this fight always were that we denied the right of England's King to this country [`No! no!'].
MISS MACSWINEY:
Yes.
DR. ENGLISH:
And we denied we were British subjects. We are now asked not only to acknowledge the claims of the English King to be head of Ireland, and to acknowledge ourselves as British subjects, but we are asked to give him a right to legalise his claim by giving him a right, by our votes, to the position---that is, as far as we could give him the right. We cannot---nobody can---give him a right to the country, or the votes of anybody give him a claim. It seems to me that the taking of those oaths is a complete surrender of our claims. It is a moral surrender. It is giving up the independence of our country, and that is the main reason why I object to this Treaty. I deny that we are a possession of the British and this Treaty simply makes us one of the British possessions. Various Deputies have said that we surrendered the Republic as soon as we began to discuss any association with England. I cannot understand that position. It is not surrender of the Republic---any arrangement for association with any other country, whether England, or Germany, or Japan, or any country in the world. That did not give away the Republic in the slightest degree. That we gave up the position of an isolated Republic without alliance, with England or otherwise, might be claimed, but certainly we did not compromise in any way our claim to a Republic. We would negotiate association with England but there was no compromise in it, and I am sorry Dr. MacCartan is not here, because in his amazing speech he said he knew the Republic was being killed the moment we began to discuss association. It was his duty, and the duty of any man who thinks as he did then to stand up and tell us that, in ignorance or innocence, we were trying to murder the Republic and kill it; it is not when he sees the Republic dead. Why did he not warn us in the beginning if he thought so? I hold that the Republic is not dead, and will not die, in spite of Lloyd George and the other evil spirits who wander through the world [Laughter and cheers]. We are told that the country is for this Treaty---it has been told to us in various forms of words, in various ways. The country is not for this Treaty, the country is out for peace. The country wants peace and desires peace. So do we. We all want peace, but we want a peace which will be a real peace and a lasting peace and a peace based on honour and on friend ship and a peace which we can keep, a peace that we can put our names to and stand by. That is the sort of peace the country wants, and it is only because the country is misled into believing that this Treaty gives such a peace that the country wants it. The country wants no peace which gives away the independence of Ireland and destroys the Republic which has been established by the will of the Irish people [hear, hear]. We have had painted for us in various lurid colours the terrors of war and the desire of the people for quietness and peace. Well, peace is a good thing, but in the days of the famine the people were also told that they should be peaceful and submissive and quiet, and accept what the English chose to give them---the rotten potatoes---and let the corn and food be exported out of the country. There were people then, Republicans and Revolutionists, who encouraged the people to fight for the country in spite of the men with the streak, and free themselves and keep the food in the country. But some of the influences that are working against the country to-day were working against it then and advised peace. They got peace---and death and famine. You can lose more men---their bodies as well as their souls---by an ignoble peace than by fighting for just rights [cheers]. The evacuation of the English troops is one of the things that are being held up to us as being one of the very good points in the Treaty. It would be a very desirable thing, indeed, that the English troops evacuated this country, if they did evacuate it, but I hold that Ulster is still part of Ireland and I have not heard a promise that the British troops are to evacuate Ulster. They are still there. I understand they are to be drawn from the rest of Ireland and, as I read the Treaty, there is not one word of promise in it about the evacuation of the British troops. There was, I think, a letter read from the man across---Lloyd George---promising that evacuation would begin in some certain time, but I should like to know was that promise part of the arrangement made between the British Government on one hand, and the plenipotentiaries of the Irish Republic on the other, or was it merely a private arrangement of Mr. Lloyd George? I suppose that the English Government believe---if they were going, even to a slight degree, to evacuate the country, it is probably because they thought that the country would be held for them by the Free State troops. They are depending on the acceptance of the Treaty. If this Treaty is going to be kept are we to understand that the Free State will hold the country for England instead of the British Garrison? I have heard, I have listened very carefully---I think this afternoon was the first time I missed any of the speeches from the beginning, on the 14th December---to those speeches in favour of the Treaty. I have listened most carefully and attentively to see if I could find any way in which I could reconcile my conscience to vote for the Treaty. My position is not the same as when I came to Dublin. I came up opposed to the Treaty. I am ten times more opposed to it since I have heard the speeches in favour of the Treaty in this Dáil. We repudiate the Republic if this Treaty is passed; we repudiate it absolutely. It is a complete surrender and we don't get peace by it, but we get the certainty of a bitter split and division in this country, because we who stand for the complete freedom---for the separatist idea---for the complete freedom and independence of Ireland cannot sit down with our hands across. We will work and fight for it, and so there is bound to be a split. The only chance you could have of unity is by having the whole Dáil unanimously reject this thing. Then you would have the country behind you. Unity is a good thing and I am very sorry to see the unity which was in this Dáil broken up as it is at present, but I would be very much more sorry to see the Dáil united in approving of this Treaty, because unity in wrong-doing is no advantage to the country or the cause [hear, hear]. What we have got in this Treaty---the material point, I suppose---is a truncated form of Dominion Home Rule for three-quarters of the country. If Dominion Home Rule were the thing we were fighting for and are satisfied to get---as those in favour of the Treaty seem to think---why, in God's name, did they not tell us that two years ago and not send out all the fellows to fight and lose their lives for a thing they did not want? On what authority did they send out, if the Republic did not exist and was not in being, any poor fellows to shoot and kill any man of any nation? If it was not for the Government of the Republic and the army why did they go out?
MR. P. BRENNAN:
They went out themselves.
MR. M. COLLINS:
They did.
DR. ENGLISH:
They will go again, I hope, as soon as this thing is thrown out.
MR. P. BRENNAN:
They might, then. I am from Clare [Laughter].
DR. ENGLISH:
There has been talk about compromise---that we compromised the position. I think that is a most unworthy thing to say---a most unworthy thing to say. We had lots of things to bargain about---you had lots of material things to bargain about---questions of trade and commerce and finance and the use of ports; but nobody ever suspected we were going to compromise on the question of independence and the rights of the country. Mr. MacGarry mentioned yesterday Land Acts taken in the past from England. There was no Republic in Ireland when we took the Land Acts from England. That makes a very great difference. And the Republic exists. You can take any Act you like that is consistent with the Republic but you cannot take anything which gives away the Republic. It is not in your power to give it away. I have been asked by several people in the Dáil and elsewhere as to what views my constituents took about this matter. I credit my constituents with being honest people, just as honest as I consider myself---and I consider myself fairly honest---they sent me here as a Republican Deputy to An Dáil which is, I believe, the living Republican Parliament of this country. Not only that, but when I was selected as Deputy in this place I was very much surprised and, after I got out of jail, when I was well enough to see some of my constituents, I asked them how it came they selected me, and they told me they wanted someone they could depend on to stand fast by the Republic, and who would not let Galway down again [cheers]. That is what my constituents told me they wanted when they sent me here, and they have got it [cheers]. This is---a Chinn Chomhairle , may I rend a letter which has been received to-day from the Graduates of the National University of Ireland? It is not to me, it is to Professor Stockley. `As our representative, we have perfect confidence in your ability to represent us. We disapprove of any interference by individual graduates in the free actions of our representatives. We disapprove further of any attempt to stampede members of the Dáil to act in contradiction of their considered opinions.---M. O'Kennedy.'
MR. GRIFFITH:
How many names to that?
DR. ENGLISH:
Cúig Cinn. I am only speaking about my own constituents. There is a point I want to make. I think that it was a most brave thing to-day to listen to the speech by the Deputy from Sligo in reference to the women members of An Dáil, claiming that they only have the opinions they have because they have a grievance against England, or because their men folk were killed and murdered by England's representatives in this country. It was a most unworthy thing for any man to say here. I can say this more freely because, I thank my God, I have no dead men to throw in my teeth as a reason for holding the opinions I hold. I should like to say that I think it most unfair to the women Teachtaí because Miss MacSwiney had suffered at England's hands. That, a Chinn Chomhairle is really all I want to say. I am against the Treaty, and I am very sorry to be in opposition to [nodding towards Mr. Griffith and Mr. Collins. (cheers)].
ALDERMAN JAMES MURPHY:
I simply want to publicly define my attitude towards the position in which we find ourselves. Not being a constitutional lawyer I do not possess the art of saying nothing in a great many words. Consequently I can relieve the House by assuring it that I will be very brief. I desire to carry away with me only one memory from this Session of An Dáil and that is a remembrance of two very honest speeches delivered, one of them delivered by Deputy Barton, and the other delivered by Deputy Dr. MacCartan, whose speech expressed my own thoughts and feelings. Like Dr. MacCartan I would refuse to vote at all were it not for one consideration. The consideration is this: that although in my opinion, this battle for the Republic is lost, one hope yet remains for the Republic in the future. That hope is the people of Ireland. I for one, will not consent to sacrifice the people for the purpose of saving my face, or for the sake of the differences which exist in this assembly. If the Republic---as the plain man in the street understands it---was not given away when the Truce was signed, in my opinion the Republic was certainly given away when we sent plenipotentiaries to London to negotiate a Treaty in which the Republic was explicitly and implicitly ruled out by the British Prime Minister in practically every communication he sent us on the subject. Since then the situation appears to me to have developed into a hunt after a basis which, when viewed through Irish spectacles would look like a Republic, and when viewed through English spectacles would assume the appearance of Dominion Home Rule. The result is neither one nor the other, and it only remains for me to congratulate all concerned on their acrobatic performance which, to me, is quite the most remarkable exhibition of the kind I have ever witnessed. As far as the Republic is concerned---and when I speak of the Republic I do not refer to the `bow-window' Republic, or external association which we have heard so much of lately---I refer to the Republic as the plain man in the street understands it, and as he will always understand it---as far as that Republic is concerned we have all walked into a bog, and the desperate endeavours of each side of the Cabinet to try to throw all the blame on the other side serve no useful purpose. We know perfectly well both sides are to blame. We know perfectly well we ourselves cannot escape our own share of the responsibility of what has happened, because in our child-like trust we did not maintain sufficiently close control over the Cabinet, and invested them with too much of our powers. Deputies who come here and talk about retrieving the position which we held before this took place could see there is no way out, and they know it, and it is only self-deception to suggest there is. Two alternatives are forced upon me. Both of them I consider outrageous. I must choose either, or do as Dr. MacCartan intends doing---refuse to choose at all. I choose what I consider the lesser of the two outrages, and I choose it for the reason I have given. I will vote for the Treaty, not because I consider it a satisfactory---not to talk of a final---settlement. Neither do I consider it binding if and when, the circumstances under which the Treaty was signed---the threat of a war of extermination---have disappeared. But I will vote for the Treaty simply and solely because I believe that this course contains the only germ of hope for the realisation of the Republic in the future, that is, the salvation of the lives of the Irish people. I will follow no leader except my conscience, and this is the only attitude my conscience will permit me to adopt. [cheers].
DR. BRIAN A. CUSACK:
I hope to establish a record for brevity. We have had this Treaty discussed from every possible point of view, and every impossible point of view, so that I do not think very much more can be said to throw any light on it with a view to acceptance or rejection. One has only to make clear one's own position, and with me, coming here and during the time I have been here, my idea has been always the same. I accept Deputy MacCarthy's suggestion that the election of 1918 was one of self-determination, but as a result of that election a Government was formed and the Republican Parliament. So we have one fact to go on. There was a Republic and there is a Republic [hear, hear]. Now, the people, in the midst of stormy times---in the darkest days of the terror---backed the Republican Government that was in possession of the country. That is the mandate beyond which I cannot go, and until the people, by a plebiscite or General Election, after that trust I have no hesitation in saying I will not vote for this Treaty. `In virtue of our British Citizenship'! That is enough to stick in the gills of any man who wants to discuss this. We are Irish Republican citizens, and I certainly would not dare, without a mandate from my constituents, to vote for an Irish Republic entering into English citizenship. If they themselves accept the position of British citizenship, then we back down. That is their look-out. They can; they are masters. The will of the people is supreme. That will was expressed in 1921, less than nine months ago; and unless a person had a sort of automatic record put up to hear his constituents' opinions on every particular question discussed here, he could not know their finally definite views [Laughter]. In 1921 they voted for the continuance of the Republican Government, and until a General Election or plebiscite is taken the Deputy so elected must vote for the Republic. This Treaty does not guarantee that. Therefore we cannot accept it. We had happy pictures painted as to the lovely things that would happen when the Free State was established, and a Deputy from Cork told us that the old idea of British education in Ireland will be altered---we will no longer thank goodness and praise, with a smile, that we are peaceful, happy English children---our children will be little Gaelic children. But the Treaty says they will be British citizens!
MR. M. COLLINS:
It does not.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
It does.
DR. CUSACK:
I cannot read it in any other way. Many Deputies pointed out that this Treaty was accepted under a threat of war, and the Deputy from the University said that was not an argument---that it should not be used as an argument to get the Treaty through the House. I agree with him. The country has been threatened, and always had war more or less with England. We had got to a strong vantage ground. I believe we should have held there. We have the Republic still and, in my opinion, this Dáil cannot, and has no power to destroy it. The Irish people have the right, and may do so as they will. But, as I say, there is no power in this Dáil to destroy it. It cannot destroy the Government which it established. We had Deputy MacCartan who has been appealed to from all sides of the House. He talked of chaos. The people have gone through the terror, and this Government did not allow the country to fall into chaos. Will the ability in this House be less in future years than it has been in the past few years? Will the strain on it be very much greater? And still chaos never came on the country. If we had a united policy to-morrow, the people--- and they are gallant because they stood the strain magnificently---they would stand behind the Dáil if it rejected this Treaty, and we would still win through. We are getting very impatient that we may see The Day. Better men than any here have hoped that God would spare them until that day would come, but they never let the ideal fall until a separate independent Ireland was achieved. It can never be independent if we are British citizens. There is somewhat of a good resemblance between the position of things now and that of the old Irish Parliament of 1782---Ministers trusting the honour of the English, the others doubting that honour---and I remember reading the Bill brought in by Mr. Flood that would place beyond question Ireland's power and authority inside her own four shores. The Bill he moved made over the sole and exclusive right of the Irish Parliament to make laws affecting that country in all that concerned its external and internal affairs whatever. Some such thing is necessary in any agreement we come to with England---to make sure that the centre and source of authority will be the people of Ireland, and not any foreign authority [cheers]. No King of England, and no Ministry of England or Government of England, has any power to put that power here---that power must be derived from the people alone. In this act it is not so derived. The divisions that are at present existing are somewhat similar to the divisions that then existed. British Ministers fostered those divisions, and that Bill was voted out. We know the result---one hundred and twenty-one years we have gone through. It is quite possible we may go through some more of it yet unless some definite action is taken. The Dáil was, of itself, in unity. The best policy, the only means of achieving that unity again, is by the rejection of this Treaty. I do not believe the people would he very divided on the matter---they certainly would not behind a united Dáil. The daily papers in Ireland are full of `ratify the Treaty' resolutions---public bodies falling in one after another. We saw the same before, and one gets suspicious. These bodies were elected as Republicans and I say when they send any message to me to do other than carry out the mandate I got, that they are false to the promise they made, because they got a Republican mandate when they were elected. These are the views of individual men, and not the voice of their constituents; and I say that until a General Election or plebiscite it is not for anyone or any of these bodies to say what policy should be adopted. One must do and act according to the lights he has. In doing so I will carry out the mandate given me. I was elected to this Dáil as a Republican and I will leave it as one. The people have authority to alter; we have not. There are points in the Treaty perhaps, worth inquiring into, but upon the essential parts of it---there is not a word guaranteeing the evacuation of the troops, or, if there is, I would like to see it pointed out, and even if there is a personal guarantee given as to when the evacuation will begin, there is none as to when the evacuation will cease. The last British troops only left South Africa during the past four or five months. That is a long time. We heard a good deal of the penetration of British business interests, but how can we prevent it in future? We will be British citizens also, and will have `common-citizenship' with them. If we are into the thing let us be honest about it. There is no mention either in the Treaty as to the definite number of troops to be retained as maintenance parties in the various ports. A communication written by a Minister has no binding force; it is only his word, and we have had such good faith kept by British Ministers with this country I do not think this word will carry very far. There is no mention either, as to the definite number of British troops to be kept in North-East Ireland. That is an important point. If the British troops are taken out of what they are pleased to call `Southern Ireland,' and merely transferred to Northern Ireland, I do not think we are much farther on. These are points which might possibly be cleared up though it is doubtful. One of the greatest German thinkers made use of the following sentence---it is a very pregnant sentence: `Everything in this world depends on disinterestedness of ideal, and firmness of purpose.' We have visualised this Republic far more clearly than we ever visualised this Free State. We have the Republic. We have established it; we have visualised it; we have held to the ideal. If we have sufficient firmness of purpose I believe we never need let it go. [cheers].
THE SPEAKER:
You did not make a record after all, Doctor [Laughter].
MR. WILLIAM SEARS:
I would like to give it as my opinion that if this Treaty is rejected this assembly will be guilty of as great an act of political folly as is recorded in history. The plenipotentiaries that we sent over to London were selected by the President himself and confirmed by this Dáil. There are no men in the Dáil superior to those, if there are equals, in political foresight and judgment [hear hear]. For two months they contended with the ablest diplomats of the world, and they succeeded marvelously, in my opinion. They did not exceed their rights, we are told, by one iota, and yet they are put in the dock. We know the pains they went to, while in London, to keep in touch with Dublin; we know about the daily couriers and the weekly crossings and even they went so far as to urge the President himself to come to London to keep in closer touch with them. And yet they are charged here as if they took the bit in their teeth when they went to London and acted off their own bat. We sent them to London to make a bargain---what are the terms?---a bargain, because we told the world that we were not Republican doctrinaires. We did not expect them to bring home a Republic, but this Treaty will put us on the shortest road to the completest independence of the country. I will not compare the terms of the Treaty that has been signed by England with the terms of the document that has been turned down by England. I will not compare the attainable with the unattainable, the bird in the hand with the bird in the bush---there has been too much time already wasted in those comparisons. I will refer to some of the solid material advantages already in the Treaty, and see whether there is any compromise in our accepting them. For the first time in 700 years the English army is to march out of Ireland. I see no compromise in that. There have been withdrawals in history, as we know, and I never knew a withdrawal of the kind to be considered a compromise. We get charge of our own purse, and our own internal affairs. Is there any compromise in that? lf the delegates brought home the Republic there are some gentlemen who, I think, would insist that England should surrender half her fleet as well; and when we point out to them that we have a seat at the League of Nations I think they will complain that the four great powers of Washington do not include us [Laughter]. I think we should examine the Treaty and if there are, within the four corners of the Treaty, provisions that will strengthen our nation we should accept it, and I hold there are such provisions. If, twelve months ago, the Minister for Defence was marching out to battle he must have two objects---one, to drive the English army out of Ireland, and a second, to guard and see that there was no further invasion. If some one then told him that the British Army was being fumed out without firing a shot would he not say: `Well, then I will devote all my energies to guarding against another invasion.'? Surely he would not say : `Leave them there; I would rather have the pleasure of putting them out myself.' And if anyone came and said: `You will have an opportunity of equipping an Irish Army,' surely he would not have refused it. Deputy Seán T. O'Kelly very rightly said here that whether this Treaty is accepted or not the fight for the complete independence of Ireland must go on. Certainly it will. And we have the opportunity of helping the nation towards that ideal. If, instead of entering on a disastrous war, we took charge of the schools and universities of the country, then we would be taking steps to preserve that ideal. There is a great deal of doubt in the minds of some Deputies as to the patriotism and the courage of the Irish race; I say we need not put too great a value upon the courage of our day and generation. Bishop O'Dwyer, of Limerick, said: `As long as grass grows and water runs there will be men ready to die to advance the cause of Ireland.' And we need not think that the breed of great reformers died with Pearse and Connolly. We need not trouble about the future. Some men think that if every `i' in this Treaty is not dotted, and every `t' not crossed, the future generations of Irishmen will be such poltroons, with the example of the past five years before them, as not to be able to preserve the rights which this Treaty puts into their hands. I call attention to the Governor-General that will be placed here by England, and again they think that the Irish people will be such pitiful snobs that this Englishman, with only his own society to operate upon, will be able to do, in teeth of the Irish Government, what a whole string of Lord Lieutenants could not do when they had our whole national purse at their control, and the English Army in the country. The thing is absurd. I will remind you of parallel case. Norway and Sweden were in exactly the same position as England and Ireland are to-day, and Norway was worsted in the war. She got an army and parliament, but she had to accept from Sweden a Governor-General. And if the people of Norway were able to resist the vice regal blandishments, and keep their independence, as they are keeping it, will not the Irish people be able to do the same? [cheers]. I will admit with regard to the Gaelic ideal, that whether it is in a Free State or Republic, as long as we have powerful British influences on our flank, it will be a terrible uphill fight to spread the Irish ideal. We can do that if, instead of the two parties in this Dáil wrangling with each other, they combine to advance the Gaelic ideal; then they would be doing better work for the country. All that was said about the Irish people here reminds me, as it must remind others, of what was said about the Irish farmers. It was said that if the Irish farmer got the land he would betray the country. Yet we know that the sons of the Irish farmers and the Irish labourers were the back-bone of the I.R.A. [cheers]. Another point that must be emphasised here is: when those delegates from Ireland met the delegates from England, on that terrible night---that strenuous night when they signed that document---there was a deed done that rang around the world. Deputy Etchingham well said that it was like a battle. It was, in this way: you can not re-stage that Conference no more than you could re-stage a battle. Since then much water has flowed under the bridge, and we are enjoying advantages from what they did that night. Why did they sign, and why was the Treaty published? These questions have been asked. I do not mind why it was signed or published, but the Treaty was signed and published. You talk about the Irish people as if they were fools, stampeded by the Press; but with the Press against them in 1918 they returned the Sinn Fein Party to power [cheers]. The Irish people are the shrewdest people on God's earth. If you go down and face them---farmer or labourer---he will tell you you are a fool if you throw away these advantages [cheers]. You talk about 1918! The man who would tell you he would stand by the Republic in 1918, what does he say to-day? I say this: if you had that Treaty in 1918, and the alternative was war, you would not get three per cent. of the people to vote for you.
A DEPUTY:
We had no Republic then.
MR. SEARS:
If you had the Treaty in 1921 you would not have three per cent. of the people around you. A Deputy read the declaration of independence to-day. I was proud to listen. And some of it said: `Basing our claim on the fact that the people of Ireland are behind us.' Very well. You went on the platform and said: `We have the people of Ireland behind us.' Look behind you now. They are not behind you. You have not three per cent. of the people behind you. Are you going to commit them to the shambles? What is that war going to be? From the other side we got a hint. We are going to have a `march through Georgia' like Sherman, when he burned every town and village and haggard on his path. You would have thirty-two Shermans marching through Ireland for the difference between this Treaty and Document No. 2. I say you have not the people of Ireland behind you, because it is madness, sheer madness. There is no common sense in that madness. The people of Ireland are a shrewd people; they know a good thing when they see it, and they have got a good thing in this Treaty. Some men say: `Why, when they pulled it so far, did they not pull it a little farther?' As if there was no one at all on the other end of the rope! [Laughter and cheers]. You want to hold up the two documents and see what is the difference between them. The difference between this Treaty and the other document is that England's signature is to the one document, and in our time it will never be to the other. That makes all the difference in the world. Why not go one step farther? I will tell you. That one step would bring you out of the British Commonwealth of Nations and even Lloyd George, if he tried, could not carry his people that one last step. Your delegates would not pull that off if they were there from that moment until this. These are the realities of the situation. The men who came out in 1916 were under no false pretence; they came out on their own individual responsibility. I saw men going to fight for this ideal; I have not the slightest doubt about it---whether you fight for it or not---I know men in this room who would fight for the ideal of an Irish Republic. I do not agree with Doctor MacCartan. I applaud the men---honestly applaud them for it---for it would be a bad day if there were not `Die-hards' in the Irish nation. I say: `God speed the Die- hards.' Let them fight on, but do not let them step in the way of our country gaining the material benefits she is so badly in need of. We are entitled to that. It is all very well to speak of the flame, but the candle must be kept going too. Now I say this Treaty is a victory for the Irish Republican Army. This Treaty is the fruits of efforts of the most gallant band in history who fought against fearful odds here and suffered and it is the fruits of the victory of the most patient and heroic people on God's earth---the Irish people---and they want to consolidate what has been gained, and when the day comes to make another advance. I share the hope of the Minister for Foreign Affairs that, with a stronger Ireland, we will be able to bring about further achievements with out another devastating war; and that we shall evolve and rise to greater heights; and that our status will grow too. I am convinced that Ireland will yet see the fondest dreams of Tone and Pearse realised to the full. [cheers].
MR. ART O'CONNOR:
I claim the indulgence of the House for a few moments. I do not know whether I was the cause of those interruptions---whether I brought them on by my tone or temper or by what I was saying---but the result is that one very material portion of what I said in my speech yesterday is so disjointed and broken up it may be misconstrued or misinterpreted by people in the country who read it. I refer to the portion in which I was alluding to Farmers' Associations and Farmers' Unions. I hope that no misconstruction will be put upon that. There is no man in this assembly has a greater admiration for the work that the farmers have done for the Republic. It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest. I am a farmer's son. I come from farming people, and I hope and trust that the farmers of Ireland and the farming members of this Dáil will not think that I was attempting to throw dirty water on the farmers of the country. There's an old proverb which says that there are three things that cannot be recalled: the spoken word, the hunter's arrow, and the missed opportunity. The `spoken word' was yesterday, perhaps the `arrow' that might have hurt the feelings of some of the people of this country. The members of the Farmers' unions have helped me in my work as Minister of Agriculture. So now I take this opportunity of making this amende honourable, and apologising to the farmers for any of the things that might be misconstrued in anything I may have said.
DR. CROWLEY:
I am going against this Treaty, and I am stating briefly my reasons for doing so. I do so because I believe the people who elected me as their representative in 1918 are, each and every one, in their hearts Republican, and I believe, also, that if they were given a free choice between the Republic and this Treaty they would without exception, vote for the Republic. I have no doubt whatever as to the circumstances under which it was signed, and from the speeches and arguments we have heard in this House, I cannot help thinking that if, during the British Terror, the Irish Army gave the civil population the choice of voting for the continuance of the Terror, or the Partition Bill of 1920, the people would be then advised, as they are now, for the same reason, to vote for the Partition Bill. For the same reason as they are now clamouring for the ratification of the Treaty it would be said of those of us who would be voting against the Partition Bill as is said of us now---that we were not carrying out the wishes of our constituents. I can go down to those who are responsible for my election and say to them that I have kept the pledges I made to them and, if they so desire it, they can have back the trust placed in me, and I will give it to them without blemish; but it would not be without blemish if I voted for this so called Free State of Southern Ireland.
MR. JAMES BURKE:
I suppose because I happen to be a lawyer it is necessary to begin with an apology. I shall do so in order to put myself in order. In case anybody here is afraid, because I happen to belong to that profession, I am going to indulge in a long and laboured dissertation on constitutional law, I shall set their minds at rest on that question immediately. I may say in passing I am afraid that the greatest offenders in this respect have not been the professional lawyers, but the amateur lawyers. I think we have heard quite enough on this subject from both sides of the House already. I do not think it has done very much to elucidate the matter under discussion. I have been fighting English constitutional law in Ireland since I was called to the Irish Bar in 1916. I never held any position in a British court but in the dock, and I think if I were now to take my stand on British constitutional law I would be going the best possible way about justifying Deputy Etchingham's remark that we are marching into the Empire with our hands up. Accordingly I am not going to say anything about English constitutional law. Instead, I would want to state, as briefly and concisely as I can, my reasons for the position I hold in regard to this Treaty, and in particular those reasons which were not mentioned by the other Deputies of this House. I was returned unopposed at the General Election of 1918 for the constituency of Mid-Tipperary, on the Republican platform. In my election speech on that occasion I laid stress on three policies which, I believed, if judiciously combined, would have led to the independence of the country. First, there was the old Sinn Fein policy as outlined by Arthur Griffith; second, appeal to the Peace Conference, then sitting, for recognition of our right to self-determination; and the third was the driving of the British Government out of Ireland by armed force, backed by the moral opinion of the world, particularly the United States. I did not tell the people of Tipperary on that occasion that we were going to secure our independence by armed force alone, and if I had told them that, I do not believe I would ever have been elected; and that, in my opinion, is the only alternative that those opposed to ratification of the Treaty have now to lay before the Irish people, since all the other policies contained in that programme have now disappeared. And in laying that programme before my constituents I did not consider myself a mere visionary. I did not do it because I wanted to keep alive a tradition, or hand something down to posterity. I did it because I believed it was practical politics, and if I had not considered it was practical politics, I would consider it criminal to induce the Irish people to vote for it. In justification of my belief on that occasion, I want to state we were within an ace of winning because of the heroism of the Irish people and the Irish Army, and because of the reflection of that heroic effort in the unofficial pressure from the United States brought to bear on the British Government. As you here appear to despise it---the Minister for Finance has, on a couple of occasions, seen fitting to make what I felt were, perhaps, unfair remarks about the United States. The country that Lord Northcliffe felt worthwhile to spend 200,000 on propaganda in, to employ ten thousand specially trained journalists for advocating the case against Ireland and Germany, is not a country to be despised. I know from my own practical experience in the United States that many of those who helped us, financially and otherwise, did so in spite of pressure which, although of a different kind, was just us hard to resist as that which was applied here to those who stood for the Republican ideal. At the time of the election in 1918 I believe that an international situation had been created such as would have compelled the United States, in its own interests, either to declare war on England, or to withdraw from her its moral and financial support, without which her Empire would have become disintegrated; and I believe if things were kept sufficiently hot---and were, in Ireland, further forced---those elements in the United States who were naturally sympathetic to Ireland would draw in a lot of other elements opposed to British influence from other motives bringing about---at all events they would have been conciliated and made sympathetic---bringing about from this war, or from this revolution of spirit on the part of the United States, three things: First of all, the destruction or the disintegration of the British Empire; secondly, the defeat or scrapping of the British Fleet; and thirdly, Irish-Americans fighting all the time for freedom as we here---for an Irish Republic. But I then maintained, and still maintain, that no matter what you call it---an Irish Free Sate in external association with the British Empire, or an Irish Free State in external association, or, for that matter a nominal Irish Republic---so, long as it is enclosed by the iron wall of England's Navy you never can have a real Republic. There has been a lot of talk about slippery slopes, and the effort is made to create the impression that the Irish Republic was standing as solid as a rock until the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Foreign Affairs tore it away from its moorings and dragged it over to London. In my opinion we first broke away from the moorings when Judge Cohalan and John Devoy of New York---I feel myself in some respect responsible also. I do not intend to cast any reflection on any individual in the matter. I am not going to discuss the merits or demerits of rival parties.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
On a point of order. What on earth have individual policies to do with our Republican Government?
MR. BURKE:
I am discussing foreign policy, I believe. I am not going to enter here into the merits or demerits of the rival parties in that policy; but I wish to maintain that neither Mr. Devoy nor Judge Cohalan would ever hand over the friendship of the Irish Race in America to the British Government for anything short of an absolute independent Republic; whereas the men substituted in their place wrote welcoming the Treaty or Pact before the signatories' names were dry. We started down the slippery slopes when the President agreed to accept a relation between Ireland and England similar to that between Cuba and the United States.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Once more I must protest against these misrepresentations.
MR. BURKE:
I say so far as the Platt Amendment------
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
You know perfectly well the first article of the Platt Amendment was a declaration of independence.
MR. BURKE:
That is a matter of dispute.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is not. You should read the article and let it go down before the House.
MR. BURKE:
That is my contention; I am giving my own reasons here. We went still further down the slippery slopes when the President issued a manifesto to Ireland departing still further from the separatist ideal.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
What is that document?
MR. BURKE:
A letter you wrote.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is very important, because I stand as the symbol of this Republic and fifty times in this debate references have been made to this subject in one way or another. I ask any member here to point to any thing I have said, publicly or privately that bears the interpretation that is now being sought to put upon it, If I did that I would deserve to be impeached.
MR. BURKE:
As soon as I have done------
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I say it would be a matter of impeachment. If any member here------
MR. BURKE:
I am not saying you gave away anything so far. I am speaking at present. As soon us we agreed to enter into negotiations with the British Government while their troops were still in occupation of our territory, we took another step downwards; and when, after a long series of letters, the Cabinet and President appointed plenipotentiaries to enquire how Irish national aspirations could be reconciled with the British Empire, we took another step down the slippery slopes. I am quite prepared to admit from the position as left by the President to the position as represented by the documents we are discussing was quite a considerable slide; and in spite of what some members on our side of the House said, I am quite prepared to admit it was a very material slide; but from the position of an Irish Republic as I understand and define a Republic---when the British Navy is at the bottom of the sea---was a still greater slide. Whereas one slide was gradual, the other slide was taken in face of the valuable considerations contained in the present document. I am not going to criticise either party. I am very sorry the President took so much objection to my remarks.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Because they are not true.
MR. BURKE:
I am only trying to make the position clear. I am not going to say one word either for or against the Treaty. The Treaty is not sufficiently bad to prevent my voting for it, and it is not sufficiently good to prevent my voting against it if I saw any rational alternative. But none has been produced so far. It is a slippery slope, but however, at long last we have reached a landing stage. The people opposed to the Treaty say we are not to get off here, but put out again in the expectation of getting back to the position from which we started. I believe if we take these people's advice we shall be more likely to continue sliding down than sliding up. That is why I am in favour of the approval of this Treaty. [cheers].
MR. J. MACGRATH:
I move the adjournment.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I again, simply for the honour of the nation and the honour of the position I hold, wish to say I regard my office as a sacred trust. I said when I took it that I wanted it for the benefit of the Irish people, and that I should regard my duty as looking after the interests of the Irish people. But I defy any person in this Dáil, or in Ireland or in America, or anywhere else, to point out where I have departed one tittle, or one iota, or one comma from the position of the Republic as established by the Irish people, either in public or private. The members of the Dáil know that one of the reasons why I did not go to London was that I wanted to keep that symbol of the Irish Republic pure---even from insinuation---lest any word across the table from me would, in any sense, give away the Republic. [Applause].
MR. M. COLLINS:
There is a motion for the adjournment which I want to support. I also want to say there was no suggestion on the part of the Deputy from Tipperary, no suggestion that the President had done anything; but I do again, for the sake of the Dáil, protest against any insinuation that I have given away anything. I have been the custodian of the honour of the country, and I have given away nothing. [Applause].
MR. DAVID CEANNT:
I would like to make a suggestion: that all Deputies making insinuations against the President have the documents there read out to the House.
It was agreed that the House adjourn until 11 o'clock to-morrow.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I would like to give notice that I will move to-morrow the amendment. You have got the proposals now.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I suggest that we should take `for' and `against' the Treaty first. The document has been placed in our hands now, and I take it that it is a matter for our consideration, and the circumstances, I take it, of the consideration will probably be different from what they are. We ought to take, in my judgment, the opinion---we ought to take the division on the Treaty and then take the document.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think it will have to be decided by a ruling.
</SMALL>
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
Can you have an amendment to this Treaty? Must not the vote for or against the Treaty?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
This a resolution. I do not propose to amend the Treaty. I propose to move an amendment to the resolution.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I submit that a change has been made in Document No. 2 which has been before us. It is not within any member's power to do such a thing without the unanimous consent of this House, and I entirely object to it.
MR. COLIVET:
I cannot find anything in the Orders to prevent any member, any time, from moving an amendment. I am not now supporting the idea that it should be moved.
MR. GRIFFITH:
A document has been put into our hands this evening that is not Document No. 2.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
You are quibbling. The Minister for Foreign Affairs is quibbling now.
MR. GRIFFITH:
A document has been put in which is not Document No. 2.
MR. MACCARTHY:
On a point of order. The President is a touchy man. He jumps up very quickly when one puts his own interpretation on this document. Is it in order for the President to call the Minister for Foreign Affairs a quibbler?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I say that the word `quibble' has been used here several times. If ever it was once true it is in this case, because there is nothing changed but in the setting up---a slight change to have it in final form.
MR. GRIFFITH:
This House has here the document placed in our hands Document No. 2 consisted of twenty three clauses and an appendix. This new document consists of seventeen clauses. Six clauses are omitted.
MR. COLIVET:
Are we right in discussing the matter before it is moved at all?
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
I would like to make this point. This document, so-called------
THE SPEAKER:
The only motion before us is for the adjournment of the House.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I have no objection to having this document discussed. I was simply putting forward my idea for a course of procedure.
THE SPEAKER:
It is evident the course of procedure is not accepted by members on both sides.
MR. MACCARTHY:
Is it in order for an amendment to be moved to the Treaty?
THE SPEAKER:
Not to the Treaty but an amendment can he moved to the motion for the approval of the Treaty.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
This document embodies a post-rejection policy and it should be a matter for the post rejection Cabinet if the Treaty is rejected.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am responsible for the proposals and the House will have to decide on them. I am going to choose my own procedure.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I submit it is not in the competence of the President to choose his own procedure. This is either a constitutional body or it is not. If it is an autocracy let you say so and we will leave it.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
In answer to that I am going to propose an amendment in my own terms. It is for the House to decide whether they will take it or not.
MR. MILROY:
The President says he he is not proposing an amendment to the Treaty, but is not the effect of his proposal one which is a material amendment of the Treaty?
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
The amendment has not yet been proposed, and the only motion before the House is the one for adjournment.
The House then adjourned.
Mark Sturgis wrote ‘ The clearly expressed wish of the people for the Treaty makes the actual size of the majority much less important than it was before Xmas as however big the de Valera crowd is in voting strenght it is now quite clear that the country does not support them..’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p 226
5
The Irish Independent and Freeman’s Journal carried transcripts of both the original and final versions of the Document No. 2 supplied by Griffith. This according to the official de Valera biography implied ‘..that the President was trying to hide something. The old Devoy dispute about Cuba was resurrected and cast in de Valera’s face by people who knew that it had not been a retreat from the Republican position, but who now wanted a stick to beat him with.’
Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.176
5 January
While the Dail debates continued, on South Georgia Island, Ireland’s first Antartic explorer, Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton died aged 48. Many geographic features in Antartica, including a glacier, ice shelf, inlet and coastline section are named after him.
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION, Thursday 5th, 1922. The Dáil resumed at 11.15 a.m. on Thursday the 5th January with THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) in the chair.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
On a point of order I would like to bring this matter before the House. Yesterday I was informed that one of the principal business houses in this city received this letter:
<SMALL>Sinn Fein Headquarters, 6 Harcourt Street, Dublin, January 3, 1922.
Dear Sirs We have found that it will not be possible for us to obtain a Union Jack of sufficient size in the event of its being necessary for us to display one at the end of the session of Dáil Eireann when the Treaty will, in all probability have been ratified. We are anxious to comply with all the necessary courtesies, and propose to hoist the Union Jack beside the Green Flag on the University Building as soon as the result of the discussion is known. We would be grateful if you would give the bearer your largest flag. We will, of course, return it to you as soon as the one which we have ordered arrives.
We are, dear Sirs, Yours faithfully, M. WHELAN, Secretary, Decoration Committee, Irish Free State.</SMALL>
We are here by the courtesy and consent of the University authorities of which President de Valera is Chancellor.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
I am Chief Executive Officer in 6 Harcourt Street, and that is a forgery. It never came from 6 Harcourt Street.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
I would propose a motion that this Session does not formally open till three o'clock. There are a few private members, back benchers, who, in view of the seriousness of the present situation, are discussing matters among themselves. They have not had an opportunity of finishing their discussion and they think they would finish between now and lunch time, and they would suggest that the Session do not open until three o'clock. The members on both sides are concerned in this.
MR. EOIN O'DUFFY:
I agree to this. I second the motion.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I have no objection.
THE SPEAKER:
Do I understand there is no objection?
MR. M. COLLINS:
I agree.
MR. SEAN O'MAHONY:
I wish to I make one or two remarks with the permission of the house.
THE SPEAKER:
I will take the motion for the adjournment now.
The motion was then put and carried.
MR. D. FITZGERALD:
There is a very important matter that I want to bring up. A very disgraceful thing has occurred------
THE SPEAKER:
We won't take up any of these things at present
The House thereupon adjourned at 11.20 a.m., to 3 p.m.
</SMALL>
The Session was resumed at 3.35 p.m. with THE SPEAKER (DR. MACNEILL) in the Chair.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I have not consulted my friends about the leading article that appeared in the Freeman's Journal. But I wish to express my own regret that an Irish journal would publish such a leading article as that which appeared in a Dublin morning paper to-day. I think that the Dáil has the highest respect for and confidence in the President [applause], and I believe the people of this country have the highest respect for the President also [hear, hear], and it is not in the interests of the ratification of the Treaty that such an article as this should appear in an Irish journal.
MR. SEAN ETCHINGHAM:
I think some steps should be taken with regard to this article this venomous toad the Freeman's Journal has emitted from to-day's issue. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Griffith, often told us what the Freeman's Journal was. On February 8th 1902, twenty years ago, he summed up the Freeman's Journal as follows:---
<SMALL>
The Freeman's Journal is a paper with an evil history; Lucas's honest bigotry and Higgins' villainy mark its early years, the blood money of Lord Edward FitzGerald filled its coffers, the Castle nourished it for a generation, it gibed at the young Irelanders and spat venom on the Fenians; it strove to kill Parnell in his early days by a forgery as infamous as the Pigott ones, and afterwards crawled on its belly before him and begged for pardon; it supported him when his followers mutinied because it thought the country would support him, and it turned on him when it found it was mistaken. In a word, the Freeman's Journal has opposed every National movement until the movement became too strong for it, and it has assailed every Irish patriot from Henry Grattan to Parnell---from Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Theobald Wolfe Tone, to Thomas Clarke Luby and James Stephens.
</SMALL>
That was written twenty years ago of the Freeman's Journal. It was then true and it is true to-day. Now we want to take some action in the matter. There are also some notes in the bottom of this thing about `How Long?' And I think that concerns every member of Dáil Eireann; no matter what difference of opinion exists between us we can, at least, be unanimous in this: that we will not be insulted by the Freeman's Journal. I pass over what has been written about the President of our Republic. The Republic still lives, and President de Valera is more than a symbol; he is the head of that Republic. And President de Valera has been truly described in recent years as the `man of destiny,' as the `Irish Eagle,' and we are all proud of him as such; and the future will be proud of him. We have not forgotten the hero of Boland's Mills, and he has since that fight, proved his worth. But here is a thing, a Chinn Chomhairle, that none of us can take---`How long?' That is an attack on the Dáil. `How long?' they ask, and then it continues: `When will An Dáil cease talking? People are sick of speech-making.' [`They are, hear hear.'] But are you going to have the Freeman's Journal even though it supports you now, write the same about you. You heard what Arthur Griffith said about it. It will write the same of you in a month or two if it suits these parties. `We can't continue,' it says, `to weary our readers with such futile iteration. If anything new is said we shall be careful to report it, but otherwise we must exercise journalistic discretion in our treatment of the speeches.' I know something of what the representative of a paper feels; I pity them; I have great sympathy with them. Just like the lawyers have to speak to order in Court, the poor journalist, the representative of the Press, must write to order; it is a matter of bread and butter for them. But if you want to get at the men who control the paper---and I say that attack on Dáil Eireann, if that happened in any other country in any time, that matter would be brought before the bar here. The Freeman's Journal wants---before taking action it would be right to have a decision in the matter before you. I should think we must see that this paper, that the representatives of the paper as a protest be expelled from this assembly, from this House---it has been suggested to me--- pending an apology. And in what form is that apology to be? I leave it to you, my colleagues here. I say there is an insult to the Dáil in this. That was a criminal action on the President of the Republic. I say it is a criminal action. I have no enmity against the paper. I think I know the proprietor of the Freeman's Journal. He is an all-round sportsman---Martin Fitzgerald. I think I know him. That article is not his style. I have some experience of his literary style [Laughter]. But that paper has insulted the Republic of Ireland through its President. It has brought charges against him. Oh! it is the old venom, the old poison. Mark you here, you cannot trust that paper any more now than you ever could trust it, or than Ireland could trust it in the past. It may join you now, but it follows the English Press. And you know what the English Press are doing with those standing up for principle. I know their denunciation of some of us. I need not go down before some of my countrymen after what appeared in the Northcliffe journal. And we have some of the same as the Northcliffe journal here. I say to you that the representatives, though some may be friends of mine, be turned out of this House until, as it is suggested we get an ample apology.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
I rise to second the motion---that the Freeman's Journal's representative be turned out from this assembly and not re-admitted until the proprietors and editors of the journal give an undertaking that they will report what happens here. It is for us and the country to decide, and I consider that everybody here knows---everybody here from Mr. Griffith down to the humblest member knows what faith is to be put in any protestations of the Freeman's Journal. I consider their statement that they will print just what they like is of a piece with the rest of their journalistic attitude. I hope we will come to a unanimous decision in this matter, and that they will be expelled from this House.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
I hope we will be unanimous in the protest. But let us make a protest on proper grounds. The largest latitude must be allowed to fair comment by newspapers. The Freeman's Journal is entitled to say whether we are talking too long, and we are not entitled to turn out their representatives---they are entitled to ask `How long?' The principal ground of complaint is that in this morning's leading article in the Freeman's Journal the most infamous attack that I have ever seen in an Irish newspaper was made on two members of this House. That was not a matter of fair comment. But when you get one of the principal newspapers in Dublin in its leading article starting out by declaring that the President of our Government `has not the instincts of an Irishman in his blood' and continuing through a series of venomous personal attacks upon the President and Deputy Childers, ending up with this phrase: `when the fight was on Mr. de Valera and Mr. Erskine Childers fell accidentally into the hands of the military and were immediately released at the moment when there was 10,000 for the corpse of Michael Collins'---an article like that is infamous. That is the ground, and the only ground upon which we could legitimately protest against a newspaper which is allowed by courtesy to come here and report the meetings of this Dáil, abusing this privilege, and returning thanks for this privilege by insulting, not merely the Dáil in this manner, but the Irish people. I need not say anything about the President. But about Deputy Childers I must say this---as one who was present in London. Much as I disagree with what Deputy Childers has said about the Treaty, I think it should be known that there was nobody connected with the delegation in London who worked so hard and so assiduously and so untiringly as did Deputy Childers during the whole time. And whenever anybody had any difficulty or any question requiring solution they went to him as the natural authority on the subject. And to think that a man like that could be attacked in the most infamous manner by the Freeman's Journal which has now the audacity to put itself forward as the champion of Roger Casement; I think that is beyond the bounds to which any newspaper should be allowed to go.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
I wish to associate myself with the protest against personalities. But I certainly also wish to dissociate myself most emphatically from the subsequent suggestion that any Press representatives should be turned out from this assembly. Now I don't care if it was the representative of Dublin Castle was here. I think we are not afraid to hear the worst or the best that they can say. And if we want to comment against any particular journal, I have in my hand this moment one paper which I think contains a reference equally reprehensible and equally damning, unworthily suggesting baseness on the part of another section of this House. We have been putting up standards for journalism. If one journal is on its trial here to-day I am not going to take a brief for that particular journal. But another journal that makes insinuations against the honour and integrity of members should he equally open to impeachment.
THE SPEAKER:
Let it be done in the same way.
MR. MILROY:
I am not going to move that the representatives of this journal he expelled from An Dáil. I think it is only fair to point out to those responsible for it that they should see the unwisdom of it.
THE SPEAKER :
Let it be done in the to bring anything across what is being brought before us.
MR. MILROY:
I think it would be most unfair to select any particular journal which happens to make a suggestion that we resent. I resent it as much as any member of the assembly. If the same suggestion were made about me---my honour is as dear to me as the honour of the President is to him---I certainly would not feel called upon to ask that the representatives of such a journal be withdrawn. We want freedom of the Press, and we expect that the Press should be kept within restraint. I think the protest against personalities is quite adequate.
MR. MULCAHY:
I agree entirely with Deputy Gavan Duffy as to the grounds upon which we have to complain of the Freeman's Journal, and I would propose as an amendment to the motion `that we delay action with regard to any representative of the Freeman's Journal attending this assembly until to-morrow morning to see whether, in the morning's issue of the Freeman's Journal we may not have an adequate apology for the outrageous references and imputations contained in the leading article against President de Valera and Mr. Childers.' I may mention as one of the three names that have been dragged into the leading article, that I have already written to the editor a very emphatic protest against the nature of its leading article.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
I also wish to say what I hesitate to say. And I would like to support it. But I think it is very unwise to base anything on what a journal said as to its desire to publish a certain amount or not.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I beg to second Deputy Mulcahy's amendment. I may say that prior to the Christmas adjournment I made it clear that I strongly resented those personal attacks on President de Valera. I conveyed that information to both the Dublin newspapers and I represent the feelings of those in favour of the Treaty as I do my own. It has been said here---perhaps not meant---that those people in favour of the Treaty are largely influenced by the Press of the country. Now we are not in any way influenced by this Press or that Press or any other Press.
THE SPEAKER:
Better not go into this.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I beg your pardon. I am speaking [Laughter]. I don't think you have a right to interrupt me for a moment.
THE SPEAKER:
I will ask the Deputy to confine himself strictly to the question before us.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
On every question on which I rise to speak here, except on the speech I made the other day, you, for some reason or another, found it necessary to interrupt me. Now, I don't think that is fair. I don't think I have departed from the strict spirit of the amendment that was moved. It has been suggested here, and it is right that it should be cleared up, that we men have been influenced in our attitude towards this Treaty by the Press of the country. Everybody knows that the Republican movement was created despite that Press, and that we have not been influenced by it. We have no sympathy whatever with personal attacks against anybody. And it would be unfair to attribute any semblance of sympathy for that kind of matter on our behalf.
At this moment Mr. Harry Boland who had arrived from America, entered the Chamber and was heartily applauded.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I understand that the matter under discussion is in regard to the leading article in to-day's Freeman's Journal. My name was mentioned in it. It is not necessary for me to say that it was mentioned without my authority. I object as strongly to the form of to-day's feuding article in the Freeman as I have objected here in the Dáil to any personalities of any kind, and that is my position about it and I need not say another word about that. I don't approve of the use of names in that way. I never have used them in that way and I hope sincerely that I never shall.
THE SPEAKER:
An amendment as moved by Deputy Mulcahy and seconded by Deputy Walsh: `That action against any representatives of the Freeman's Journal attending this assembly be withheld pending an adequate apology in to-morrow's issue of that paper for the infamous nature of the references and imputations contained in the leading article against President de Valera and Mr. Childers in this day's issue.'
MR. D. FITZGERALD:
Already action has been taken against a certain Pressman in a most dastardly way, and I suggest that the words `action in the way of exclusion' should be substituted for the word `action' in the resolution.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
As the proposer of the motion I don't want to press the thing to a division. I only wanted to draw attention to it, and to get Dáil Eireann to register its protest. But I will say the editor is guilty of treason and ought to be impeached. That is the position. Personally, I would like to give him a dose of Backwoodsman's laws.
THE SPEAKER put the amendment with the alteration suggested by Mr. Desmond Fitzgerald.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I regard any motion of this kind as being an interference with the liberty of the Press, and I stand as much for the liberty of the Press as I stood and do stand against personalities.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
I would like to point out that the amendment, as it stands, involves a principle that some of us don't accept. We could all agree if the words `representatives of the Press' were deleted from it. The best way is to put it in the form in which we could all agree to it. And when it comes up to-morrow------
MR. D. FITZGERALD:
The Deputy for Wexford made a speech and he said he would like to give the editor of the Freeman's Journal a dose of Backwoodsman's law. Well actually a number of criminals in this country have already taken such action with regard to another Pressman, and I want to make it clear that this House does stand for the liberty of the Press. We may disapprove of that article. We are talking of letting the Press in by courtesy. We do let them in because we want them in. It is not through courtesy they are here. And the whole Press of the world represented here is considering the taking of action in boycotting this Dáil until the journalist who has been taken away is released; to show what they think of the action of people in this country---criminals who have taken certain action yesterday. If you want the Press here perhaps you won't have them after this afternoon.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
I would second Mr. Beasley's proposal.
MR. GRIFFITH:
If you say you condemn the reference to President de Valera in that article I am heartily with you. I think this is in the worst of bad taste. If you had to put up with what was written about us by one of the Deputies here---what was written about me in a recent paper---we could have raised these things. But we ignore these things. The Press has a right to say what it likes about us. I say the Press must be free to say what it pleases.
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MR. DAVID CEANNT:
Is there any other assembly in the world where the King or President would be attacked in this way? Would the editor not be tried immediately for high treason? Now, it is not a question alone of President de Valera, but because he is President of Ireland, and I think we are standing a little too much of this abuse during the last four or five days. If the Press thinks they can intimidate the members of the Dáil they are making, I tell them, the mistake of their lives. If an apology is not published I think action should be taken.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The fact that I have been attacked prevents my speaking on this. I want to say that I am for the fullest freedom of the Press. I agree with the Minister of Foreign Affairs absolutely in this matter. The people of Ireland will deal with their Press when they find that the Press has misled them. I am only anxious that the people should not be misled. I think any action of ours which would limit the freedom of the Press is a mistake.
MR. CHILDERS:
I endorse what the President has said.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
A protest has been made and I think the matter ought to end. I beg to move that leave be given to withdraw it.
MR. MULCAHY:
I withdraw my motion dealing with the possible exclusion of any Press representative.
THE. SPEAKER:
I wish to say myself that, had it not been raised by the Deputies here, it had been my intention to raise it. We are unanimous in declaring that a most scandalous abuse of the rights of the Press has been committed in this case; that that abuse consists in a gross insult to those whom this assembly, and to those whom the people of Ireland have placed in the highest positions of trust that it was in their power to place them. The insult to the President is against the President, against the Dáil itself, and against the nation; and I am quite certain that the reprobation and condemnation of that insult which was pronounced unanimously here to-day will be pronounced unanimously by the whole people of Ireland.
MR. SEAN O'MAHONY:
I claim the indulgence of the House to reply to a statement I see to-day attributed by the Press to the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the shape of an interjection by the Foreign Minister [Laughter]. You may laugh. He stated last night, according to the Press report, and I did not hear him making that statement or otherwise I would have dealt with it--- the remark attributed to Mr. Griffith was `You came to me two or three times before I went over to London last August and urged me to accept peace at any terms. It won't do John.' I never made such a statement and all I say is that that statement is untrue. I take my honour that such a statement I never made. And he is reported as saying this: `You are the man who, when I was going to London, told me to bring back peace anyhow'. I said: `Art, bring back peace and the country will be behind you!' The country would be behind him if he brought back peace with honour to the nation.
MR. GRIFFITH:
All right, John.
MR. O'MAHONY:
Art and I are still friends.
MR. COLIVET:
I wish to make a personal explanation. The words which I used here on Tuesday have been misinterpreted and have caused pain to some people. In referring to spies I was taken by some to be referring to one particular incident. I now wish to say as emphatically as I can that I had in my mind no one case or incident whatsoever. There was nothing further from my mind. I intended a general reference and nothing more. I had no intention of docketting or defining any particular incident, and I regret if any words of mine were taken as meaning such.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is another matter of privilege. In the Private Session I presented a certain document, and I presented it for the same reason that I am presenting, or intended to present, this other document. I put that draft before the House for the purpose of finding whether we could not, on that, get common ground. It was obvious to me then that the Treaty as it came was not at all likely to get that degree of unanimity which would at all show that it was acceptable to the Irish people as a whole. That draft should have no more interest for the public in general then, for instance, the rough draft of a reply which I was preparing to send to Lloyd George. It was of purely historic value and nothing else. I kept it away from the public in order that it might not be brought as a red herring across the track of the discussion here. I was prepared to put my motion in definite form as an amendment at the proper time and let it be discussed. There was an objection to that from the other side. The other side would not have the amendment, and therefore, as I could not bring it forward that way I wished to have it withdrawn altogether. Now this document is published in the Press and there was a definite undertaking here at this Secret Session. I asked that this document would be kept confidential. There is nothing in the document that is not in the other except, as the public could see, a slight change of form; and I want to say now that it is a great pity, when we are discussing such tremendous matters, that questions of that sort should be made to assume an importance which they really have not. My rough draft here was put before the Dáil to try and get unanimity on it and not to be represented as if I was trying to do something different from what I gave as my full considered motion; and I think it is an absolute abuse of confidence to publish that document, not that I am ashamed of it. That document was but as a rough draft of my reply to Lloyd George. It was given to members of this House in confidence and it was revealed. I think when one is trying to conduct the affairs of our nation and when the workings of one's mind in these matters is definitely brought and shown to those with whom we are dealing, I think it is very hard, indeed, to carry on the national work. Now I protest therefore against the publication of this confidential document. The next thing I want to say is this: last night at the close of the debate the question of this amendment came up and I said I would choose my own procedure. You will remember, a Chinn Chomhairle, and the members of the House will remember, that that came in reply to a statement from the other side that there would have to be an agreement. Now, I have been trying to work in agreement with the other side, but it is obvious that if I am to be hampered in what I wanted to do by agreement with the other side, I would simply be doing what the other side wanted me to do. That was said with reference to the other side and not with reference to the House as a whole. And that has been definitely misrepresented or misunderstood, and the suggestion of autocracy has been made. I have been working with the members of the House and I don't think any of them in the Cabinet could say I am an autocrat.
MR. GRIFFITH:
As the President has spoken about Document No. 2 appearing in the Press, I wish to say that I am responsible for it. I handed it to the Freeman's Journal and the Independent representatives last night. If it was an abuse of confidence, I may say that I sat here for days and heard myself described as dishonourable. I heard ladies and gentlemen here talking about me. I have not stood up. I have not complained about what the members said about me. I do not mind; I am content to let my countrymen judge me. The President said it was a confidential document. You will recollect that, at the first public sitting, when I intended to speak on the document the President made a request to me. He admitted that it was not a confidential document. I honoured that request and I withheld what I had to say. I spoke as with one hand tied. Last night this document here now was handed out as Document No. 2. I looked at it and I observed that it ended with clause seventeen whereas the other document ended with clause twenty-three. I called attention to the fact that it was not Document No. 2 and the President stood up and accused me of quibbling. I therefore handed it to the Press to let the Irish people judge whether I was quibbling or not. I made no abuse of confidence. That document was not a confidential document and I could have used it but for President de Valera's request not to do so. I honoured his request. I was accused of quibbling last night when I pointed out that this document had six additional clauses. I put that to the Irish people to show whether I was quibbling or not.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The Minister of Foreign Affairs has the right if he wishes to put it in that way to publish the document. I would have published the document myself but I thought it would be putting a red herring across the discussion here. The Minister for Foreign Affairs would not have been tied if I were allowed to move my amendment. There is nothing in the second form in which it appears further than that it was a considered form. The other document was put here in a hasty way without consideration. I amended it as I would have done with any other document. There are certain other verbal changes which are necessary in the document to make it consistent with our position.
MR. GRIFFITH:
The President suggests that I objected to his moving an amendment. I told the President that there could be no amendment to the Treaty and the President agreed with me, and the form of words that were there I submitted to him at the Mansion House and he approved of them. Any amendment to the Treaty destroys it.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
This is an amendment to the motion that is before the House. It is not an amendment to the Treaty but to the motion before the House. The motion before the House was that we approve of a certain thing. It need not have come before the House at all because, as a matter of fact, in the body of the Treaty this Dáil was not mentioned. I take it that the plenipotentiaries are simply reporting back here the result of their work in London, and that we are expressing our opinion on that report. And therefore, that when we have here `approval' on something which a large number of members don't approve, that we, as members of this House, have a right to say definitely on their report---to express our opinion, and if there is an amendment to put the amendment. What is at stake is this: that we as Dáil Eireann set out to make peace between Ireland and Great Britain. I hold that was the primary object of the negotiations, to have a definite peace, a lasting peace, so far as any human things we do to-day can be regarded as lasting---something that would be built on a secure foundation. If such a peace has not been made, then we have not done the thing we set out to do. And it is with the hope that we might do exactly what we set out to do, that is, to secure the basis of a lasting peace, that I wished to bring forward my proposal as an amendment. This body is representative of the Nation. The divisions that occurred here undoubtedly represent the divisions of thought in the nation. The principles that have been expounded here, and the sentiments that have been expressed, are an echo of the sentiments and principles to be found through the people of Ireland. If we allow a chance like this to pass without making a definite peace we are not doing our duty either to the Irish nation, or to humanity as a whole. And I simply wish, as one human being and not merely as an Irish man doing the work of a nation, but as a human being trying to get peace, and to bring people who have been warring for centuries to a basis of common understanding---I wished to bring forward my proposal. It was ruled out on a technical point, but I feel I have done my duty.
MR. GRIFFITH:
This motion that stands in my name was brought by me to the Mansion House at the request of President de Valera. There I asked him did he accept that motion and he said: `Yes, we will have to vote on that motion.' That is the whole matter.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is no question about that, but you definitely refused to agree to the amendment being brought before the House as an amendment to the motion. That is as far as you are personally concerned.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I think it is not open to the Minister for Foreign Affairs to answer that question. An amendment to the resolution can only be made by omitting certain words or adding certain words.
THE SPEAKER:
That does not arise yet; it will arise in due course.
The SPEAKER read the following
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letter from Próinsias O Druacháin, Deputy for Waterford and Tipperary, East:
<SMALL>Do Cheann Chomhairle na Dála.
Is oth liom go g-caithfe me and Dáil d'fhágaint mar Theachta. Do reir an meid rún a fuaireas ó Mhuintir Thiobtruid Arann Theas chím ná fuil na daoine sásta liom, mar gheall orm a bheith i g-coinne an t-socruithe a dineadh le muintir Shasana. Ní leigfeadh mo chroidhe ná m'aigne dhom mo ghuth do thabhairt ar thaobh an t-socruithe shin ; ahus ós rud e gur cheap Comhairle Ceanntair Sinn Fein iarraidh orm seasamh leis an socrú san, níl le deanamh agam ach eirghe as ar fad, mar siad na daoine a thoibh me.
Le beannacht oraibh go leir, Mise, Próinsias O Druacháin Tiobruid Arann, Theas.</SMALL>
COMMANDANT EOIN O'DUFFY:
A number of us for some days past have been very anxious to find some common ground for both sides out of the present grave position that we find ourselves in. Last night a number of us got together; we were self-appointed; there were nine in all to see if anything could he done. The names were: On the side of ratification---Messrs. MacGuinness, Hogan, Professor Hayes and I. Against---Messrs. Seán T. O Ceallaigh, Mellowes, O'Connor, Moylan and Rutledge. A substantial agreement was reached on a number of very vital questions whereby we thought it might be possible to retain the services of the President for the nation and perhaps, avoid a split in the country. It was necessary for us to report this morning to the leaders on either side and in order that we might do that, this House was adjourned. We did that and, unfortunately, after some time we found it was not possible for us to find an agreement and the position is as we left it except that we are still here, and I don't know whether we will think it worth while to again meet or not. I merely wish to let the assembly know shortly what had passed. As regards the document that we discussed, I am not in a position to disclose that now, by agreement with the other members.
THE SPEAKER:
We will resume now the orders of the day.
DR. MACCARTAN:
Are we to understand that this Committee agreed?
COMMANDANT O'DUFFY:
Oh yes! we got substantial agreement on a number of substantial matters.
DR. MACCARTAN:
Why not have a report from them?
MR. LIAM DE ROISTE:
I think in the interests of the nation that Committee should come together again. A most important thing for the country is that some substantial agreement should be come to. That Committee ought to come together again if it is possible to come to any agreement.
THE SPEAKER:
I understand that the Dáil, recognising the efforts made by this Committee, actually commissioned them to sit this morning------
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
No.
THE SPEAKER:
We adjourned for the purpose of enabling that Committee to formulate something upon which we might possibly agree. So that I now ask the members of the Committee whether they succeeded in formulating anything to lay before us?
COMMANDANT O'DUFFY:
I have just been discussing matters and we have decided that we should meet again this evening after the adjournment, and we hope then to formulate a report on what we have done.
MR. MULCAHY:
If that is so, I would move that the Dáil meets in Private Session to-morrow at eleven o'clock and have the report from that Committee before us. Obviously, if full agreement that can be of use to this House as a whole is not reached, it might be inadvisable to report in Public Session the actual grounds upon which fairly substantial agreement has been reached. But it is most important that the House as a whole would know how far along the road to agreement the Committee had been able to go.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I second that.
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MR. E. DE BLAGHD:
In view of I what has been said I think that no good purpose could be served by continuing the orders of the day at the present moment and I move now that we adjourn till eleven o'clock to-morrow in Private Session.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
This Committee was a self-appointed one. Some people from both sides came to me---some from the other side came to me last evening, and some from my own side came to me and I said, of course, that I was at the disposal of anybody; that I would be glad to join with anybody in discussing any possible or probable basis of agreement that could be accepted with honour and dignity on both sides. This Committee has no authority from the Dáil up to the present moment. If you want to give it authority that is another matter.
A DEPUTY:
Let it go on.
THE SPEAKER:
You cannot give it any authority. It is a Committee that meets with the approval of the Dáil, and the Dáil will receive a report from it.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
It is a very responsible work to put on the Committee. We might not have chosen ourselves for such a responsible position if we thought that the Committee's work was likely to be the basis of a report for the Dáil. However, if the Dáil is agreed that we should undertake the work, I am prepared to adopt the responsibility.
MR. LIAM DE ROISTE:
I propose if necessary that the Dáil approves of the meeting of this Committee [`No, no!']
The motion to adjourn was then agreed to, and the House adjourned at 4.30 p.m.
6
A private meeting of the Dail was held during the morning which saw ‘violent language from Michael Collins and Cathal Brugha. The strain of the long debate was now telling on tempers’
Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.176
De Valera offered to resign from Dail Eireann stating he was now unable to do what he had been elected to do; to preserve and defend the Republic and to use ‘ all the means at the Republic’s disposal to defend itself’. On hindsight it appears to have been a calculated risk, as all the Anti-Treaty Deputies rallied behind him and he secured from Griffith an undertaking that the motion on the Treaty would be taken within 48 hours if he did not resign.
The London Times that morning wrote of Document No. 2: ‘This, we say at once, is not a proposal which will appear to an Englishman as a mere modifiction of the existing Articles of Agreement. The status that it contemplates for Ireland is not that of a Dominion, but of an independent power in loose treaty relationship with this country.’
DAIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION Friday, January 6th, 1922
The Public Session of An Dáil resumed at 3.20 p.m. on Friday, 6th January, THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) in the Chair.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think it is not fair to the country or to this assembly that the anomalous position which we have been in since the Articles of Agreement were signed in London should be continued any longer. When these Articles of Agreement were signed the body in which the executive authority of this assembly and of the State is vested became as completely split as it was possible for it to become. Irrevocably, not on personalities or anything of that kind or matter, but on absolute fundamentals. Since then we have been trying to keep nominally as a unified Executive, but the time has come when that must be ended. If I, for instance, am to keep the Chief Executive authority here in the Republic, in duty bound to preserve the Republic and to use all the means at the Republic's disposal to preserve itself, I cannot be handicapped. I cannot have responsibility without the right to use all the resources of the State to defend itself and its existence. Very well, we have the position now in which I and a certain section of the Cabinet stand for one fundamental policy, and another section of the Cabinet stands for a fundamentally opposite policy. One side of us means the preservation of the Republic and the existence of our country; the other means the subversion of that independence. We have black and white so far as we are concerned. Now I stand here as one who believes in ordered government. I believe fundamentally in the right of the Irish people to govern themselves. I believe fundamentally in government of the people by the people, and if I may add the other part, for the people. That is my fundamental creed. Anything that would take away the Executive or fundamental authority of the people, whether executive, legislative or judicial, is absolutely against my principles and I hold that would be a subversion of nationality as I understand it, for this nation. Now, the position which has been created is this---a little history will make the whole position clear to every member here and to the country---I entered politics as a soldier, as one who stood for the principles of those who proclaimed the Republic in 1916. I went down to Clare the first time I went as a political candidate; I read the declaration of that Republic and I said to the people of Clare: `I stand for that; and I hope to be able to establish this for the world: that the men who proclaimed that, though they were said to be a minority of the nation at the time, they truly represented the heart and feeling of the nation.' And we proved it, thank God. Those who said we had no right to `rebel' as it was called, because we didn't represent the views of the people, were proved to have told untruths. Whatever may have been said about the chances of success and other matters there is one thing that stands proved historically---that these men did represent the hearts and souls and aspirations of the Irish people. I say that no election taken under duress or anything else will disprove that to-day. I say, therefore, that there will never be a peace which neglects that fundamental fact because it is the fact of the whole situation. The fundamental fact is that the Irish people want to live their own lives in their own way without any outside authority whatever being imposed upon them; whether it is the authority of the British
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Crown or any other authority whatever. Now for the historical part. After my imprisonment, when I came out after leaving Dartmoor---I came out and I found here on the one hand the old chief of the Sinn Fein Organisation, at the time working politically---our present Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Arthur Griffith---and I found at the head of the Irish Volunteers the Minister for Defence, Mr. Cathal Brugha. I found that they differed then as fundamentally as they differ to-day. I found that I was a sort of connecting link between the two, and at the first Convention of Sinn Fein, or a night or two before it, we devised a basis on which we have worked so successfully for the past four years: the basis of the Sinn Fein Constitution. Since then I have been the link between the two. On the one hand the political leader at the time, as I might say, of Sinn Fein, surrendered at the Convention his Chairmanship of the Sinn Fein Organisation, surrendered it to me, and I was elected political head unanimously. Before that time the Minister of Defence had surrendered to me, as Senior Officer in the Army at the time, the headship of the Irish Volunteers. I combined therefore in myself for the time being, the political headship and the military headship; and it was the combination of these two---the military headship which represented the true aspirations of the Irish people, the headship of those who stood definitely for the Republic which was established in 1916 unequivocally, and the political headship---which enabled the two sides to work together. When I went to America to try to get recognition for the Republic that was established, I, as it was my right, nominated as Acting President or as Political Chief the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I should have said, in giving this little historical summary, in order that it might make the position clear---I should have said that when Dáil Eireann met at its first session and proclaimed its independence, the Minister for Defence was chosen as the first Chief Executive Authority. He formed the first Cabinet of the Republic and he surrendered it to me when I came out of prison. Again I became the connecting link. In every Cabinet I formed I took care to have those two sides properly represented. And I felt that if I was to be of any use to the country, and if there was to be unity in the country, it was by trying to harmonise these two voices as far as was possible. I had a difficult task to play for four years, to try, so to speak, to hold the balance even in public discussion, no matter what my own personal views might be; and privately, and certainly in public never did I do anything which would tend to lead to the disruption of these two forces. I felt that the unity of these two forces was absolutely essential for national success; and until the sixth December I succeeded in my task. On the sixth December a document was signed which irrevocably sundered that connection. On October twenty-sixth I think it was, I saw the danger on account of following the British negotiations in London very carefully---I saw the danger and I found it my duty, dealing with the Home members of the Cabinet, to send to London to the delegation what I regarded as a warning. It was an expression of the views of the Home members of the Cabinet who were five at the time, whilst three were away. There were at home four members of the Cabinet and the Assistant Minister for Local Government. Those of us who were here were the Minister of Defence, the Minister for Home Affairs, the Minister for Local Government, the Assistant Minister for Local Government and myself. We were a definite majority in the Cabinet and on the twenty-fifth of October I wrote this:
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I received the minutes of the Seventh Session and your letter of the twenty fourth. We are all here at one that there can be no question of asking the Irish people to enter an arrangement which would make them subjects of the Crown, or demand from them allegiance to the British King. If war is the alternative, we can only face it and I think the sooner the other side is made realise that the better.
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That was definite. On December second or the night before, I think, the plenipotentiaries came back with a document which represented the proposals of the British Government at that stage. That document was clearly one, to me, inconsistent with our position. My position and the position of the Cabinet was that which we expressed in the now famous paragraph two at Gairloch, which caused a number of telegrams to be exchanged. That was that we had no right or authority
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to act on behalf of the Irish people except as representatives of a Government of a sovereign state. That is the only basis, and I hold that anything that is inconsistent with that is ultra vires so far as we are concerned. Now, I therefore rejected that document on that basis, and made it quite clear, as far as I was concerned, to the Chairman of the Delegation that that would be unacceptable and impossible for us in our position. At the Cabinet meeting following a similar discussion arose and it was pointed out by the Minister of Defence who represented, as I have said, the traditional view---the fundamental Irish Volunteer view---it was pointed out that it meant definitely a split in the country if such a document was signed. The Chairman of the Delegation held that he would not break on the Crown. In view of the definite, clear certainty of a split a promise was given that a document of that sort, involving the making of Irish citizens British subjects and allegiance to the Crown---that such a document would not be signed---whilst the Chairman of the Delegation would not take the responsibility of breaking on that question---that such a document would not he signed until it was submitted to this Dáil. So certain was I of that promise being fulfilled to the letter that when I heard an agreement had been reached I said: `We have won.' And when I saw in the newspapers that the agreement that was reached was one absolutely incompatible with our position---a subverting of the State as it stands---I knew that a step which was practically irrevocable had been taken. There was but one way to try to save that, and it was this: we had been working definitely for peace---for a peace that would be consistent with our position, and I believe definitely that such a peace was possible. I had pinned, personally, my efforts to get the idea of any association whatever with the British Empire or the States of the British Empire---to try to make that palatable, so to speak, to those who thought, not merely of an independent Ireland in the sense of being a sovereign state, but thought of Ireland as a sovereign state absolutely isolated, such as Switzerland. I had attacked it as a political problem. I had kept myself detached, so to speak, calmly, coldly I weighing the factors in the situation; and I kept clearly in mind all the time the fundamental of all, that is, the satisfaction of the aspiration of complete independent Irish nationality. I saw nothing in the proposals which we had made that was inconsistent with that, and when I made a rough outline of the proposals to the first Ministry meeting, after the members came out of prison which was a sort of duplicate Ministry meeting at the time, I got it unanimously accepted in the main outline. It was difficult to work it in detail, but as the Conference went on and the British proposals were made on the one hand and adjustments on our side, we made something like a State arrangement to curtail power in a definite shape: and when this document and Articles of Agreement with Great Britain were signed, I got a document which was practically the last proposals which our plenipotentiaries made---counter proposals. I put these together as quickly as I could before the first meeting of the Dáil. I produced a rough draft document. It was nothing else, and it was put before this House for the purpose of eliciting views, not of those who had accepted the Treaty. Any man who stands up and says he can object to the other document, I say he is not objecting on the grounds of nationality, anyway. Therefore I take it for granted, and any fair or impartial member of this House is entitled to take it for granted, that anybody who agreed to the Treaty could not find objection to that document. The best proof of that was that the plenipotentiaries themselves had already tried to get these particular proposals accepted by the British Government. I therefore put it before the meeting to get the views, not so much of those who stood for the present---the Articles of Agreement, as of those who stood for the Republic in its simplest form of isolation. The document was presented in the same way as I would present it to the Cabinet. We had Private Sessions here during the war. These Private Sessions were respected and no one spoke outside of anything that happened at the Private Sessions. I put that document before them. It is only when I have got general agreement that I look after it from the point of view of form and wording. I didn't want the world to see it because I didn't want the world or the Irish people confused. And I didn't want the British to see
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it because I didn't want them to see the changes that would be made in it by this assembly. I asked it to be kept as a confidential document. It was the first time that confidence was broken. Therefore, as head of the State, I cannot get further work done, as I cannot have that confidence in the members of the Cabinet. The position, therefore, is this: at that stage my last effort to secure unanimity and to secure co-operation was destroyed because that document was treated most unfairly; and it was treated unfairly because then, at that stage, I saw at once that we had for the first time in this Dáil got parties. I withdrew the document. I saw it could serve no good purpose at the time to be used as a red herring across the track; but still I see that through that means, and through that means only, I could be of any use to this assembly or to the nation; because it is only by combining these two forces that you can keep the nation united. It is not personal, because that document was mainly evolved through the delegates in London. I find very little to do except to take those final results of their labours and the Treaty as it actually was presented, and put them together. I was anxious to keep as close to the British Treaty as possible; because, as we were genuinely anxious for peace, there was no reason that we should make any changes that were not vital. I felt that I was doing a big thing, a thing that was necessary not merely for Ireland but even a bigger thing in a sense, and that was the reconciliation of two peoples. I believe that that is possible still on one basis and one only, because as sure as this other Treaty goes through so sure will there be rebels against British authority---because they will not be British subjects. We will be living an absolute lie. Neither technically or otherwise am I a British subject, and please God I will die without ever being one. Now, I have definitely a policy, not some pet scheme of my own, but something that I know from four years' experience in my position---and I have been brought up amongst the Irish people. I was reared in a labourer's cottage here in Ireland [applause]. I have not lived solely amongst the intellectuals. The first fifteen years of my life that formed my character were lived amongst the Irish people down in Limerick; therefore, I know what I am talking about; and whenever I wanted to know what the Irish people wanted I had only to examine my own heart and it told me straight off what the Irish people wanted. I, therefore, am holding to this policy, first of all, because if I was the only man in Ireland left of those of 1916---as I was Senior Officer left---I will go down in that creed to my grave. I am not a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, but I hope when I die I will get a Fenian grave. Therefore from that point of view I would be that; but I would not let personal considerations of that sort have anything to do with the situation. I am doing this and acting on this principle because I believe it is the only policy that can save Ireland at this moment. I am coming therefore before this Dáil to lay down now definitely my office and, as I have the right to get from all the Ministers their resignations, I lay it down definitely here in this House; and this House has got to decide before it does further work, who is to be the Chief Executive in this nation---and it will have to do it constitutionally---so that the Chief Executive Officer, if he is going to have the responsibility of office, will also have the powers of the Government to enable him to execute the duties of his office properly---it does not matter who he is. There are two rival policies then, and you will have to decide between them. One policy is this: I stand definitely for the Irish Republic as it was established---as it was proclaimed in 1916---as it was constitutionally established by the Irish nation in 1919, and I stand for that definitely; and I will stand by no policy whatever that is not consistent with that. Now if you re-elect me [cries of `We will!']---steady for a moment---I will have to have the right to get a Cabinet that thinks with me so that we can be a unified body. Next, I will have to have the full use of all the resources of the Republic to defend the Republic---every resource and all the material that is in the nation to defend it. If you elect me and you do it by a majority I will throw out that Treaty---if we have a majority, if this Cabinet goes down. Next, I will bring from our Cabinet a document such as that, and we will offer it to the British people as a genuine peace Treaty---to the British peoples, not merely Lloyd George and his government, but to all the
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States of the British Commonwealth---of the British Empire. This is going further than any one because I have spent years---because one of my earliest dreams, next to securing Irish independence, was that there might be reconciliation between the people of these two islands---this is a genuine offer of peace, a peace that can be as lasting as human peace can be. We will offer them that, and if they turn it down, then we will, as in the past, stick to the Sinn Fein Constitution; we will deny the right, we will oppose the will of the British Parliamentary power to legislate for Ireland; and we will make use of any and every means to render impotent the power of England to hold Ireland in subjection by military force or otherwise. Now, if you re-elect me that is our programme. We have not been afraid notwithstanding---we started this even before 1919; we started in 1917 that programme. If there was not a gun in Ireland we could carry out that programme. If we were bound hand and foot we could still, by our voice and our will, stand by that programme. Let the British put us in their jails and they can't stifle our will. That human will of ours will stand up to Lloyd George and say, like Terence MacSwiney: `No! we will not be British subjects.' [Applause]. Very well then, I offer to this House my personal resignation, and with it go the Ministers. You have to elect the head of the Government. If you elect me I will pursue the policy I have outlined. As to the policy opposed to it I propose to let the Minister of Foreign Affairs tell you about it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
On a point of order I would like to know whether this statement involves a discussion on Document 2 or on Document 3? Because I will put forward arguments about that document that will stand against any thing. I want simply to know whether this involves a discussion on that document, because I can't allow a statement about that document to which there is an answer, a good answer, a true answer, to pass unchallenged.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
What I do formally is to lay before the House my resignation. Definitely, as Chief Executive authority I resign and with it goes the Cabinet. Do not decide on personalities---on my personality. It is not a question of persons. That has nothing whatever to do with it. As I say, it is not a question of persons because where personality is concerned we are all the best friends. We worked together as one team. Now we are divided fundamentally, although we had kept together until we reached this Bridge. My object was that we don't part before we come to this Bridge. We are at the Bridge. This House has got my Document No. 2. It will be put before the House by the new Cabinet that will be formed if I am elected. We will put down that document. It will be submitted to the House.
MR. GRIFFITH:
The President referred to me. I want to make a short statement. I won't go into the speech of the President now. The President and I agreed that this motion should go on, and that a vote should be taken. Also he agreed that I should wind up this debate. Now, I submit that the order of the day is that we are discussing this motion: `that Dáil Eireann approves of this Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland '; and I submit that until that is decided we can't discuss the President's proposal. We are still on the orders of the day. And if any attempt is made to bring in another issue it is an unfair attempt to bring in another discussion, and to closure discussion on the motion before the House.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I can't take the responsibility of being defender of the Republic unless I have all the material resources of the Republic at my disposal, and I won't take the responsibility no matter what anybody asks me to do.
DR. FERRAN:
I have a serious statement to make. On a point of order no Treaty has been made. The motion of the Minister for Foreign Affairs------
THE SPEAKER:
What's the point of order?
DR. FERRAN:
I submit that the word `Treaty' there is inappropriate.
THE SPEAKER:
That's not a point of order.
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DR. FERRAN:
I submit that the Treaty is not yet concluded
THE SPEAKER:
Well, now, that is yet not a point of order.
MR. COLIVET:
Would it put matters in order if I moved a motion to suspend the Standing Orders in order to discuss the President's resignation?
MR. GRIFFITH:
I submit until that motion before the House is disposed of we can't discuss anything else.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I second the proposal to suspend the Standing Orders.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The Government can resign before everything else. There must be an Executive; and you must have somebody to see that the work of the House is carried out.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
I want to say this: the nation is bigger than any man and bigger even than the Dáil, and we ought to carry out the orders of the day.
THE SPEAKER:
The order is perfectly clear. The Dáil itself is the authority. That is to say that this body is supreme, and any other body in the country is subordinate to it; and especially with regard to the carrying on of its own proceedings, it passes its own authority. The orders of the day is the motion that is before us tabled here; that is the motion by the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I decline to take the responsibility for defending the Republic when I have not got the ordinary means of doing it.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
Have you accepted the motion for the suspending of the Standing Orders?
THE SPEAKER:
The motion to suspend the Standing Orders is in order.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
On that point I submit that the order of the day is before you, and it is a motion to discuss approval or disapproval of the Treaty. The Dáil is in session. Remember the discussion on it, and every sitting or meeting of this body was a continuation of one session, and not an ordinary meeting of the Dáil during which questions to Ministers and ordinary business, and the discussions which would arise at a single sitting would come up for consideration. This discussion here is out of the ordinary. It is one whole and entire sitting and I submit with great respect that it is not open to you to receive a motion---during the middle of a discussion---to suspend the Standing Orders.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
As you have ruled, there is no going back of your ruling now.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I suppose we can discuss this motion on the suspension of the Standing Orders [Cries of `No! no!']. I am in possession. I suppose we may discuss the motion to suspend the Standing Orders?
THE SPEAKER:
There is nothing against it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well we will discuss the motion to suspend the Standing Orders. The position is this. If you reject the Treaty the President of the Republic can, in ten minutes, have a Government for the Republic. Now there is another way of getting a Cabinet that will be a united Cabinet. As one member of the Cabinet I have offered already to put my resignation into the President's hands and let it go before the House. I have offered that and it was refused. Well, now, if the members of the present Government who are opposed to the Treaty---if those members, with the President at their head, ask for our resignations, well and good, let them come before the House. This now is a second way to get a Government to carry on. Let the President, having all the resources at his command, ask for our resignations, and let our resignations come before the House. There is a motion on now to suspend Standing Orders. That comes queerly at this time. I asked a question as to whether a speech which the President had made involved a discussion on document No. 2 or 3, I don't care which. I have an answer to this document and I want to give that answer to the Irish people. Now, under
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the motion suspending the Standing Orders I take it that discussion on this document is ruled out. Is that right, sir?
THE SPEAKER:
Yes.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well, that is ruled out. The other side may say what they like, and they may put in any motion that they like, and they may take any action that they like, but we must not criticise them. That is the position that we have been put into. That is a position I won't accept from anybody; and no matter what happens to-day it won't be accepted by me. We will have no Tammany Hall methods here. Whether you are for the Treaty or whether you are against it, fight without Tammany Hall methods. We will not have them. A Committee was appointed by the House and the House was prevented from receiving the report of that Committee---it was prevented by three or four bullies [applause]. Are you going to be held up by three or four bullies?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Is that a proper thing?
THE SPEAKER:
I ask the Minister of Finance to withdraw that term.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I can withdraw the term but the spoken word cannot be recalled. Is that right, sir? [Applause and laughter]. This motion to suspend the Standing Orders is a motion to draw a red herring across our path here. And it is because of that that I, for one, cannot agree to it. We can have what we have been discussing for several days---we can have a straight vote for or against the Treaty. Have a straight vote and I am satisfied, whichever way it goes; because then we have shown that we can come to a decision. But don't try to employ those methods. The meaning of the suspension of the Standing Orders is nothing less than a red herring, On the motion before the House we can take a vote on the Treaty, and then the President can have his Cabinet that will work with him and for him.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Not for me.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I don't know whether or not we mean to have a discussion on the President's speech---there are things in it which I can tear to tatters---but under the Standing Orders I dare say we can. But on this, as on anything else, if you are going to strike a person about anything I say strike, and strike hard and strike and hear---hear first, anyway, the other side. This is an endeavour to put the other side into a position that we don't occupy and this motion to suspend the Standing Orders is simply a political dodge to put us in a false position.
MR. COLIVET:
As I raised the motion to suspend the Standing Orders I------ [Cries of `Order.']
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
The Minister of Finance has made a statement that the result of a meeting of eight or nine members of this body within the last twenty-four or forty-eight hours was prevented from being brought before us, and that this was the work of some bullies. He was asked to withdraw that. You have seen the way in which he withdrew it. I don't know to whom he referred when he mentioned this word `bullies.' Possibly he may have referred to me as being one of them. In the ordinary way I would take exception and take offence at such a term being applied to me, but the amount of offence that I would take at it would be measured by the respect or esteem that I had for the character of the person who made the charge. In this particular instance I take no offence whatever. Now, the Minister for Finance says something about Tammany Hall methods. I know nothing about them. Possibly he does. He says that on this motion for the suspension of the Standing Orders he and his friends are precluded from discussing the statement made by the President in the speech which you have just heard. That is so. But when the Standing Orders have been suspended he and his friends can discuss any statements that have been made by the President. That's all I have to say.
MR. M. COLLINS:
In that case I am satisfied.
MR. COLIVET:
I would like to say I did not move it as a political dodge or as
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a red herring across the track. But as a private member I am sorry the President has resigned. I would prefer he had stayed until we had a vote on the Treaty.
MR. MILROY :
I don't think you can put the motion. We are not going to have the rules of this House played and trafficked with to suit the political manoeuvre of any Party in this House. There is a proper time for the step the President has taken, but this is not the time.
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
By Standing Order 5 it is laid down that: `the Chairman shall, at the request of a Deputy, suspend the orders of the day for the discussion of a special matter of national importance provided that, on a show of hands, the request has the support of ten Deputies.' I submit that it does not require that there should be a formal motion to suspend the Standing Order. If any Deputy can secure the support of ten Deputies.
MR. MILROY:
You have already ruled that the discussion upon the Standing Orders is permissible, and I want to resist the suspension of the Standing Orders, and I do it for this reason------
MR. MULCAHY:
It is not the suspension of the Standing Orders but the suspension of the orders of the day.
MR. MACENTEE:
It is the same thing.
MR. MILROY:
The point I would make if I were allowed to proceed---if those authorities on constitutional usage hadn't intervened---would be this: that the step that we are asked to take seems to me entirely out of harmony with constitutional usage. There is a time when it would be quite proper and quite opportune though, perhaps, regrettable for the President to take the step. That moment would be when he was defeated in this House upon the question which we are discussing---on the major issue, not now. I presume, sir, that that is a perfectly legitimate point to make. And therefore I suggest that to suspend the Standing Orders to discuss an unexpected pronouncement of the President is really an attempt to keep the Irish people still in the dark as to what is the real mind of the Dáil on the issue that is before us [cries of `No no!']. Well why was this intervention of the President---so unfortunate, so unhappy, so regretted by every one of us, so premature---why was it made? He talks about trying to keep unity. Is there any step more calculated to split not only this Dáil, but to split the whole Irish nation and the whole Irish race than that which the President has now taken up? Is there any step more calculated to bring about that result? I think that this Dáil will be well advised now to refuse to suspend the Standing Orders, and continue the discussion on the question---the main point---whether this Treaty is to be ratified or not.
MISS MACSWINEY
I rise to support the suspension of the Standing Orders. I do it on exactly the same grounds as the last speaker, and these are: that it is absolutely essential for the Irish people to be enlightened once for all on this matter, and that nothing will enlighten them so well as a direct policy on one side for the Republic, and on the other side for the Treaty, and I think it most essential that this motion should be put for that very purpose. The people in the country with all this talk of Documents 2 and 3 and now of X have been misled about the attitude of the President who, I think you will all agree with me, is the one supremely honourable man in this Dáil. And I think it is just because it is so muddled that a fair issue should be put before the people and the country. And for that reason I think it better to have the President's resignation with all it involves, with his clear statement of policy on the one side and, on the other side---then if the House defeats that policy, let them elect another President with a different policy, and then the issues are clear before the country.
MR. P. BRENNAN:
Is it simply a question of policy---the question between the President and the Treaty? Will it be a vote between the Treaty on the one side and President de Valera on the other? [Cries of `No! no!']
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I will explain clearly. I don't like to be misunderstood. I have done this in the
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interests of order both here in this House and all over Ireland. We can't keep up a Coalition of that kind. It is impossible: because Cabinet documents have been brought out. How could I carry on the Cabinet work if private drafts were exposed to the public? I want, therefore, to safeguard the nation by having a definite head and Government for the nation. We will have parties here if we continue. I don't know whether I have the confidence of the House or not, but at present I can do nothing.
MR. P. MAILLE:
I strongly protest as a private member against this motion.
MR. BOLAND:
I support the motion for the suspension of the Standing Orders. I presume the remarks of the Hon. member for Cork were intended for me. I am sorry that he has seen fit to make such a suggestion. I will say this:that I don't know anything about Tammany Hall except this, that if he had a little training in Tammany Hall, and reserved some of his bullying for Lloyd George we would not be in the position we are in to-day.
MR. P. O MAILLE:
Lean leat.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
Now we are getting the dope.
MR. BOLAND:
If he had he could not have us in the position we are in to day. I came back to this country to vote against the Treaty. I support the President of this Republic, and I am particularly glad he has knit the issue. Either we are a Government or we are not. If we are a Government we must have a head; and as we have lined up now in parties, I think that the resignation offered gives this House the opportunity to say whether it stands for a Government of the Irish people---a Government that was created by the will of the Irish people, and a Government that can only be destroyed by the power that created it---or whether it stands with the men who have come back to this Dáil with a Treaty which denies the existence of the Irish nation [`No! no!'] and denies, in my opinion, the fact that we are a Government. We sent those plenipotentiaries to negotiate a Treaty; we sent them from Dáil Eireann. They returned with a document, not to Dáil Eireann, but to the Southern Parliament. Here is their opportunity now to have the issue clearly knit. I maintain that if the orders of the day be suspended, if the President's resignation be accepted and if he goes forward for re-election on a definite policy which he has clearly expressed, that that is proper and constitutional. As we are at present we are divided and he has taken this opportunity to place himself where he belongs. An attempt has been made and has succeeded in placing him, as the head of this nation, in a position that he does not occupy. It has gone out to the world that there is no question of principle dividing this House, and an attempt is being made to place the head of this nation in a false position. By his statement to-day he stands square on the Republic of Ireland ; and he comes before us now for a vote of confidence. If he is elected the work of the Irish Republic will go on; and if the men who maintain that there is no Government of the Irish Republic, and that there never has been, want to knit the issue, now is the time to do it.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
Is this in order?
MR. BOLAND:
If the men on the other side wished they could take this document to the Southern Irish Parliament and not to the Parliament of the Irish Republic. At a time like this I intended to move the re-election of President de Valera. I can't do that now. I have just spoken in support of suspending the orders of the day.
MR. P. O MAILLE:
Cuirim in aghaidh an rúin go dian. Bhíomair anso ar feadh trí seachtaine, agus bhí an fáth ceadna ag an Uachtarán le h-eirghe as i d-tosach agus tá anois. Cad na thaobh már dhin se an uair sin e? I am here to protest strongly against the suspending of the Standing Orders; I think this attitude of our present President is treating us unfairly. An effort is being made to put us in the position of a lot of schoolboys, with us private members having no right here at all. The very same situation for the resignation of the President existed at the beginning of the Session as exists to-day; and why was it not brought forward then instead of being brought forward now? Why it
<SMALL>p.280</SMALL>
was not brought forward then instead of now was to try and prejudice the issue on the vote on the Treaty. This is a question placing the personality of President de Valera on the one side and the Treaty on the other.
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
I want to interrupt on a point of order, that is, the regulations governing the procedure of this House. Paragraph 5 of the Standing Orders says: `the Chairman shall, at the request of a Deputy, suspend the Standing Orders for the discussion of a special matter of national importance provided that on a show of hands the request has the support of ten Deputies.' Now I submit that your duty is to call for a show of hands and ascertain whether ten Deputies are in favour of the suspension of the Standing Orders.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I would like to say one word on that. The position is this: that the document has been under consideration since the 5th or 6th December last, and this `matter of urgent national importance' has lasted successfully up to the 6th January of the following year. This `urgent matter of national importance' is just as urgent now as on the 6th December, and no more urgent now than then. We are within, at most, forty-eight hours of a decision on the matter; and on the orders of the day it can be decided here and now. That settles the point; and I claim that this is not a matter of national importance within the meaning of the words, and the debate should be continued without interruption.
MR. O MAILLE:
I maintain this motion is not treating the members of this Dáil fairly nor is it treating the Irish nation fairly. When I spoke here on a previous occasion I said that ninety five per cent. of the people of Galway were in favour of the Treaty. Now I can speak definitely and I say that ninety-nine per cent. of the people of Galway are in favour of this Treaty. Why should you here turn right round against the country and ignore the people? The people have some rights in this matter and they must be heard [`hear, hear'].
MR. PETER HUGHES:
We have been here now, as Deputy Cosgrave said, for a considerable number of days and the question of the resignation of the President is no more urgent now than it has been for a considerable time past. I think if anyone wants a vote of confidence from this House he should have it, but let this debate proceed. We must be treated as we have a right to be treated in this House; and I would appeal to the Deputies to continue this debate or take a vote now, if you like, with no further speaking, unless the Minister for Foreign Affairs should wind it up. Let us have done with this wrangling---we are becoming a disgrace to the nation. I am Chairman of a Board of Guardians and it this wrangling went on there I would feel I was absolutely disgraced. The nation is tired of this wrangling; and I hold if we proceed any further we will be the laughing stock, not alone of Ireland but of the world. I appeal to the members and to the President. Let us have a vote inside of an hour if you like.
THE SPEAKER:
I have been asked by one of the Deputies to decide---that I should call for a show of hands as to whether this is a matter of national importance. My decision is, that for many days we have been discussing a matter of national importance and that that is the matter of national importance before us. I am not going to give any decision that would interfere with the taking of a vote upon the issue discussed up to the present. We will take a vote now on the suspension of the orders of the day. The motion is as follows: `I beg to move the suspension of the orders of the day to deal with the President's resignation.'
MR. GRIFFITH:
Before you put that I want, at least, the Irish public to know this:that the motion here discussed for a month past is `That Dáil Eireann approves of the Treaty signed in London by the plenipotentiaries.' The terms of that motion were agreed upon between President de Valera and myself, and he agreed that I should wind up the discussion. I have listened here for days---during all that time---to arguments and attacks on my honour and the honour of my fellow-delegates and I have said nothing. I have waited to wind up this discussion. President de Valera now says he must have a Cabinet that works with him, but at the end of the last session of the Dáil---before Christmas---
<SMALL>p.281</SMALL>
he asked the Cabinet to stand and work together. We are standing together. There has been no trouble so far as I am aware. I remained Minister for Foreign Affairs, Michael Collins for Finance and Mr. Cosgrave for Local Government. I want to know why this matter is sprung now instead of letting the motion of taken in the ordinary course. If the vote is adverse to us, well and good. If it is adverse to the President he can do what he suggests to do now. Why we should be stopped in the middle of this discussion and a vote taken on the personality of President de Valera I don't understand; and I don't think my countrymen will understand it [`hear, hear'].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am sick and tired of politics---so sick that no matter what happens I would go back to private life. I have only seen politics within the last three weeks or a month. It is the first time I have seen them and I am sick to the heart of them. Now I am told this is a special political manoeuvre. Mr. Boland came back from America, and then there is talk of Tammany Hall; but I make up my mind for myself, now and always. Mr. Boland didn't know anything about it until I myself told him this morning. Only I see mean things. It is because I will not keep the responsibility of doing things if I am not to work as in the past; and therefore, if you decide to have a vote on this Treaty within forty-eight hours, have it or have my responsibility for doing things that I can't do. For instance there is the case in to-day's papers. Some one was kidnapped, and the Minister of Finance sent some one to make enquiries. He had no right to send anybody. There is a Minister for Defence and a Minister for Foreign Affairs. There should be a Government where some one man would be responsible.
MR. COLLINS:
I sent these men off under the orders of my superior officer.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The persons responsible are the Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Defence. These are the people responsible for that. There must be undivided authority and undivided responsibility. I will not hold office with divided responsibility. That is a matter that anybody who has done Executive work will understand. If this House wants to take a vote on a straight issue I don't want to draw any red herring across. It is because I am straight that I meet crookedness with straight dealing always, and I have beaten crookedness with straight dealing. If I tried to beat crookedness with similar methods we are undone. What matters to the nation is, always to stand in that we are able to face the enemy. lf you have crooked methods there is always the back door to them by which you will be taken in the rere. Truth will always stand no matter from what direction it is attacked. I detest trickery. What has sickened me most is that I got in this House the same sort of dealing that I was accustomed to over in America from other people of a similar kind---because, holding the position that I do, I don't want to see it tarnished. If the people of Clare wanted me to resign they could say so. I got telegrams telling me how these motions were passed and I could read them to the House.
MR. BRENNAN:
Do read them.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Insinuations about me have hurt me---because every man and woman who has dealt with me here knows that I am standing exactly where I stood. I tried to reconcile very difficult things and tried to solve the problems as far as I was able. I know what others didn't know: where the verge of the precipice was, and nothing would have pulled me beyond it---not even Lloyd George and all his Empire could have brought me over it. Therefore, I am straight with everybody and I am not a person for political trickery; and I don't want to pull a red herring across. If there is a straight vote in this House I will be quite satisfied if it is within forty-eight hours.
MR. ARTHUR GRIFFITH:
President de Valera says a vote within forty eight hours. I quite agree. Let us have a vote on Monday morning. [Cries of `To-morrow.')]I don't want, as I said, to prevent anybody from speaking here, but let it be to-morrow if the House wishes it.
MR. HUGHES:
I suggest that private members can get until lunch time to-morrow to explain their views and after
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that that the discussion be wound up by the Ministers.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
By arrangement with the whips the Minister for Defence was to speak last, and if you come to an arrangement to take a vote to-morrow, let the Ministers for Defence and Foreign Affairs wind up the debate. Carry on till ten o'clock to-night and take a vote to-morrow.
THE SPEAKER
I take it, in view of what the President and the other Ministers have said, that the motion for the suspension of the Standing Orders is withdrawn and that the discussion proceeds. [Cries of `Yes!']
DR. FERRAN:
I was out of order, it seems, when endeavouring to raise a point of order in connection with this motion. The Point is this:I say distinctly that no Treaty has been signed---that we have not signed a Treaty. If a Treaty has been signed at any rate it has not been produced to us. We have seen a document which, as I understand, is of the nature of practically an agreed agenda for a discussion which is to take place in London between our plenipotentiaries and the British plenipotentiaries if this Dáil approves. Now, I will read on that point an authority of a sufficiently distinguished constitutional lawyer, with whom our plenipotentiaries came into intimate contact in London.It is very regrettable, I think, that we should have to go to Hansard for information of this kind. The Irish people have been told that there is a Treaty before them when there is no such thing. There is no such document in existence. There is such a document to be prepared if this Dáil vote away its existence as the Government of the Irish Republic and not until then. Lord Birkenhead,answering a question by the Earl of Midleton on the 16th December, said:
<SMALL>`If and when the representatives of Dáil Eireann approve of these Articles of Agreement it will be necessary that there shall be meetings in order to deal with matters which are supplemental, and must necessarily be added in order to make the document a complete one.'</SMALL>
Now, we have been instructed here that we have a complete and unalterable Treaty before us. It is distinctly told us here that there is no such thing; that there are to be further discussions and alterations in this Treaty over which this body will have no control. These will be agreed upon after discussion between the negotiators. Lord Birkenhead continues:
<SMALL>`I most sincerely hope, and have every reason to believe, that when that part of the subject is reached which concerns the noble Earl (Earl of Midleton) he and his colleagues will be consulted, and that which has been agreed upon will, of course, be presented to Parliament in the form of an agreed Treaty. Only then have we the Treaty in front of us.'</SMALL>
It is very regrettable that this Dáil hadn't that information at its disposal and that we had to go to Hansard to get most vital points like this cleared up. If any of you will take the trouble again to look over the Treaty you will find that there are only three or four points definitely determined. One important point is the oath; there are other subsidiary points, such as the ports, religious endowments and one or two things of that kind, but the rest of the body of the Treaty and signatures of the Treaty about the law and the `subject'---all the rest is to be investigated and decided without the knowledge of this House. Now, I want to make a personal explanation before going on to speak on this matter. I heard, I don't say whether with regret or not, under the very tragic circumstances, the President tendering his resignation as President of the Irish Republic---nothing else could be done. I am ashamed to say that during the Secret Sessions of this Dáil---in August I think it was---I heard some whispers going round about the position of the President and I raised the question, though absolutely raw and new to the House---I raised the question in the form of a suggestion. I said, in reference to the motion brought forward by the Minister of Defence, that if it came to a question between the President of the Republic and the Republic that, much as we were attached to the President, we were still more attached to the Republic. Now I want to make a most full and complete apology for that. I have to say that, during the course of all those discussions behind closed doors, I never heard a single word let drop by any person on any side---we had only one side then---no single word was let drop which suggested that the Republic was going to be turned down, and I, for
<SMALL>p.283</SMALL>
one, knew nothing about the possibility of the Republic being turned down until I read in the newspapers the Articles of Agreement. Now, we have been united in this Dáil in one of the most splendid comradeships---and before we met in the Dáil---I have had very little part in it, but we have been united in one of the most splendid comradeships in an unselfish endeavour of any fight for liberty that was ever seen. It is the most tragic thing, I think, in all our history that that comradeship should be broken as it has been. I heard a suggestion, a horrible suggestion, that the President of the Republic was prepared to plunge Ireland into a terrible and immediate war for a quibble of words. I think that that is a most atrocious statement. A quibble of words! Now, there has been a lot of talk about quibbles of words. I would like definitely, once and for all, to pin down these anti-quibblers to one horn or to the other horn of their own dilemma. They can't continue to sit between them. They say in one breath that the difference between the two things is a quibble of words and then, in the next, that it is so immense as to involve terrible and disastrous and immediate war. Now that is a dilemma. I say that England does not fight for quibbles. She fights for realities. If this thing is a quibble of words it is a folly to talk of war, and if it is a reality it is dishonest to talk of quibbles. There are times when antipathy to quibbles may be pushed too far. And I think it was pushed too far when these Articles of Agreement were accepted in Downing Street and presented to us as though they were Holy Writ itself or the Ten Commandments, incapable of alteration or improvement. I don't want to labour unduly the circumstances of the signing of these Articles. We are told that they were signed, by some delegates at least under threat of immediate war. Now what was the issue? The issue was not---it didn't lie between the acceptance and rejection of these terms. The issue was simply this: that our delegates should take twenty-four hours to go back and consult their Cabinet as they had promised to do, before signing. Upon that issue we are told that Lloyd George was prepared to hurl the thunderbolt of war, not only on Ireland, but on his own people in England and on the world. I can't realise any man with a grain of sense coming here and putting such suggestion before the people. It was said that there was a plea of urgency, and that Sir James Craig was waiting in his parlour for a letter from Lloyd George and he could not wait twenty-four hours. Well, Sir James Craig had been waiting the Dáil's answer for more than twenty four hours because, until the Dáil approves of the Articles he has to wait and he is waiting for more than twenty four hours. The issue was not a bit more urgent when the document was signed than it is now. But I say that if Lloyd George endeavours to hasten the deliberation of this assembly by one hour under threat of immediate war he will get his answer, or I don't know the temper of this Dáil. Now, I am sorry---I probably should not speak at all because there is really nothing to say. However, I hope to discuss the examination of the Treaty in a new light afterwards. But it has been put up to that what is good enough for Michael Collins is good enough for Ireland. Well, I don't know whether it is good enough for him or not. But the real situation is if you pursue that line of argument, that what is good enough for Lloyd George is good enough for Birkenhead, and what is good enough for Birkenhead is good enough for the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and what is good enough for the Minister for Foreign Affairs is good enough for the Minister for Defence and, finally, good enough for Ireland. Now, it was stated on the opening day by the Minister for Foreign Affairs that ninety-five per cent. of the Irish people desire this Treaty. Well, I say that there were more rejoicings in the camp of the enemy when this Treaty was signed than amongst the Irish people. We never heard such a clang of joybells of the Empire since Waterloo. Over there in Mayo---and God bless Mayo as always---over there now there were no joybells. There were no fires. There was not a candle lit to celebrate the Emancipation---the Emancipation of the Irish nation after seven hundred years. But when one poor prisoner who had been suffering was liberated and returned to the home that he knew, the whole countryside would be ablaze. One was liberation, the other was not. And when the people know---because the instinct of the people is always sound, as some people may learn---perhaps I am not quite correct
<SMALL>p.284</SMALL>
in the last statement or in the penultimate statement. I said there were no fires. As a matter of fact there was one bonfire lit in the town of Swinford, by the R.I.C. and the Black-and Tans, to celebrate the victory for the wonderful liberty.
A DEPUTY:
Your old friends of recruiting days.
THE SPEAKER:
That is a most disorderly remark and it should never have been made.
THE DEPUTY:
I withdraw it.
DR. FERRAN:
I am very glad that that has been said here in this House. I heard it said last night that I was on a recruiting platform. I am not going to contradict it. There is one explanation of that. I presided in 1918 at Foxford at an anti-conscription meeting. It was addressed by Mr. Griffith, and for presiding there I got four months in jail. In addressing that meeting I said because I knew the people to whom I was talking understood the reference, I said that the last time I had been at a meeting in Foxford it was at a recruiting meeting. They knew what I meant. They knew that a meeting which had been held outside the Chapel gates, as we were leaving---held by the organisers sent down by John Redmond---was the recruiting meeting I meant, and now I am taunted with being on recruiting platforms.
THE SPEAKER:
Now I hope we will have no more interjections of this kind from any quarter during the remainder of this discussion. They are most improper, and the points which the people who are making these interjections are trying to make are never worth making.
DR. FERRAN:
With all deference I say I have some respect for the men who go on making insinuations here. But I have no respect for the men who are sending insinuations all over the country through subterranean channels where they can never be seen again.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
. FERRAN:
I am glad the Minister for Foreign Affairs agrees. I am quite sure he is not responsible for any thing of the kind. Now, the people of Ireland don't like the Treaty. They may acquiesce in it for a time, but when they learn---they don't know what it is yet---but when they do find out I think that some people now who have come here and told us that we must take this Treaty as Holy Writ, that these people will find their constituents complaining that they didn't enlighten them a little further about it before they got this unknown quantity. I would like to believe, and I still do believe, that the majority of the supporters in this House, of the Teachtaí supporting the Treaty, are only play-acting. Fancy, if you can, Commandant MacKeon tolling the death knell of the Republic! And fancy the Minister for Foreign Affairs coming here and in his opening speech re-assuring this House on four separate vital points, re-assuring them on the authority, of all persons, of Lloyd George. I wondered if he had ever read the pages of Nationality or Young Ireland. The young soldier Deputies are supporting the Treaty because they think they can equate it in terms of decimal .303. That is grave play-acting. If you take the Treaty as a jumping-off point to give you an opportunity of attacking England in the dark under cover of friendship, I say it is unfair to the Irish people in pretend that this is a Treaty of peace. I hold that it is not legitimate, as was suggested, to deceive your enemy under all circumstances. I hold it is not legitimate now, but it is never legitimate to deceive your own people. Now, the position is this:the Irish people are being told that this is a Treaty of peace. The Army, some of them anyhow, are being told that it gives an opportunity of striking again. The English people are being told that it will bring an abiding peace. I think that it is pretty clear that somebody is going to be let down. If you use the Treaty as an instrument of war it will justify every brutality that England can inflict upon you in crushing Ireland out of existence. You will go to war, you will go to fight, self-confessed rebels, having sworn your fealty to your King. You will go to war as perjurers having broken your oath: and I don't think that the world will have much sympathy for perjurers, whatever treatment they get.
<SMALL>p.285</SMALL>
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
We got a lot of sympathy up to this.
DR. FERRAN:
Well, I think we did. I think we got a lot of sympathy up to the 5th December. I don't think we have much now. If you think you can reach a Republic or liberty by a breach of this Treaty afterwards you will range the opinion of the whole world for the first time on the side of Great Britain against Ireland, and I think if you realise that the opinion of the world had, at least, a deterrent effect upon England in the last fight---fight clean or don't fight at all. We desire, and I am sure in reality all the parties in this House desire, to walk if possible side by side with England in a real friendship. That, of course, would be the simplest and most honourable and pleasant path for us all. We don't want war with Britain either now or hereafter. We don't want war as an alternative to the Treaty as has been suggested ; but we want an alternative to this Treaty as an alternative to the inevitable war that will follow its acceptance. The Treaty or immediate war has been used to stampede the Irish people. I hold it was a dishonest threat. It was dishonest in its source from the beginning at Downing Street; but people here in Ireland, some of them at any rate, are using it honestly now. Now, in reference to the Treaty itself: we couldn't be too careful in examining the document which, I hold, is in effect, the assignment of the sovereign rights of Ireland to Britain. We owe it to Ireland to examine at least what in left for ourselves. Even the Republicans have a duty in that respect. If the Treaty is to be forced upon the people the Deputies ought to make it the best possible Treaty. Now, I was going to suggest a way out of this by which we can have some kind of unanimity. Since we have been told---since we know definitely what these Articles of Agreement are---only preparatory to the Treaty, I think that the Republican side of the House might possibly be induced to refrain from voting against the Treaty on one condition: and that is: that the acceptance should he given conditionally upon the Treaty being, in reality, what it has been pretended by Lloyd George to be, and what it has been represented as to the Irish people. They say that they give us the same liberty as Canada. Well, in a sense, Canada is completely free, because she is a daughter of the Empire; and she has complete internal freedom now. But I would like to know are the supporters of the Treaty prepared to make it a condition of their acceptance that Ireland shall have the same real freedom as Canada has now? That we shall have complete freedom; that, in fact, all legislative, Executive and judicial authority in Ireland shall spring from the Irish people? I think that possibly there might be a way out by which some people might not vote against the Treaty if they would put it forward in that conditional way. But I am greatly afraid that they won't do so. I don't say that Britain would necessarily accept it, but I think she might. However, that is only a suggestion put forward, because I hold that if Ireland is going to be plunged into this thing that she shall not be plunged any more deeply than is quite necessary. Now, as to the Constitution of Canada. I want to examine the Treaty as briefly as I can. We get the constitutional status of Canada. Now, that is a very different matter from the liberty of Canada. Under that status, as defined in the terms of the agreement, the British Parliament is supreme over the lives, the liberties and fortunes of every Irishman and Irishwoman; and no Irish Parliament that you can set up under the Free State can protect them. The authority of the British Privy Council is higher than the authority of your Government under these Articles of Agreement. That is not a very pleasant predicament. We know something of the doings of the Privy Council in the past. Why not insist, at any rate, before you put your names to these Articles of Agreement that you see the Treaty? Why not postpone the motion until you would have the Treaty put in front of you? We would know then where we were. You have not done so. About the Governor-General---we have heard nothing about him. I heard it suggested to-day that the Governor-General was to be called the Tanist of Tara as a concession to Irish sentiment because we are such a sentimental people. They brought back the flag---another concession to sentiment. They brought back the substance of the flag---not a shadow, not a symbol. They left the symbol behind in Downing Street
<SMALL>p.286</SMALL>
where they had no authority to leave it. They brought back a yard of calico and a couple of packages of Diamond Dyer. That's the flag of the Irish Free State, but it does not stand for liberty. Now, I wonder do all the Deputies by now realise that the Governor-General has the full powers of the British Government in Ireland. It has been suggested that under the saving clause of constitutional usage these powers, which are obsolete in Canada, shall not be exercised in Ireland; but have we forgotten---we in Ireland---have we forgotten how often has England dug deep in the debris of centuries for obsolete weapons against the Irish people? She has never used them against Canada. It will be poor satisfaction afterwards, when Ireland is stabbed through the heart, to say that the weapon was rusty, obsolete, antiquated. Then there is the oath---but if there is anything we are tired of it is oaths. I want to view the oath in a new light. I am sure that we are all convinced now that oaths are the lightest things on earth, and conscience the toughest thing in creation. The Irish people don't care a word about conscience. All it concerns them is the effect it has on themselves. It is not the people who take the oath and break it. The Irish people are bound down within the four corners of this oath and they can't escape from it. People come here and say they will drive a coach and four through the oath but they won't release the Irish people from their obligations. The metaphor is very appropriate. In the one case it is really four-in-hand. You have the Oath of Allegiance to the Act of Parliament which sets up the Irish Free State. You have the declaration or promise---a provisional promise, somebody said---fidelity to the present King of England. I never heard before of this kind of conditional partnership between a subject and his sovereign. That is certainly a new constitutional state. Again, well you have common citizenship. I would like to ask whether the Minister for Foreign Affairs arranged with Lloyd George as to which was which; as to whether Mr. Lloyd George became an Irish citizen or the Minister for Foreign Affairs became a British citizen. You can't have a hermaphrodite citizen, partly one thing and partly another. I wonder do the Deputies realise the obligations that are imposed on Ireland by this British citizenship. The victory that we have won after seven hundred and fifty years' struggle is to become citizens of Great Britain. I don't like the odious phrase that has been used here: to rattle the bones of the dead. But do we realise that, by declaring that the people of Ireland are British citizens, that we declare also that every man who died for Ireland is a rebel? That is a thing we never admitted before. Then, of course, there is the four-fold allegiance to the King as head of the British Empire. That is the latest of allegiances. To deny altogether this oath---that needs some breaking. We are not to have any navy. I confess that was not such a terrible grievance. I was not much moved by the complaint of Deputy Milroy that President de Valera's proposal was worse than the Treaty, because he robbed us of our submarines. I hold that the submarine is a mean and a treacherous form of attack, and I hope that in our relations with Britain we shall have no necessity for mean or treacherous action at any time.
MR. MILROY:
You have great faith in her.
DR. FERRAN:
That is a different thing from leaving Britain in permanent control of our defences. I hold we have a right to absolute freedom to protect the people of the country---by our land defences at least. Then there is the question of taxation. I see that the Freeman's Journal said yesterday that the difference between the two---the Treaty and Document Two or Three---was that Document Two or Three did not provide for evacuation. Now I would like anyone to show me a single line in the Treaty that compels the British Government to withdraw a single soldier from this country. There is a promise read to the Dáil in answer---a reply on the day of the first sitting---by the Minister for Foreign Affairs that the evacuation will begin within a month. But there was no talk of when it was ending. I suppose, as a matter of fact, it is wrong to quibble between the beginning and the end. But it makes a very important difference to the Irish people. It strikes me as one of the peculiar ironies of the situation that the Ulster constituencies are proposing
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double-barrelled resolutions that their members should have double-barrelled votes to shoot them out of the Irish nation, for that is what it comes to. You believe that under the Articles of Agreement you are to get a fair delimitation of boundary. I hold that England is going to trick you in that article; that Sir James Craig will be left with an equivalent of six counties and, as history stood here in Ireland, there is not a single guarantee that that will not be so. You think the wishes of the population, you think geographic and economic conditions will count. I know how the map is read in England. We remember that argument well enough---geographical propinquity. England can translate her geography as she pleases, but I say it is a desperate thing that you should commit this Dáil to blindly binding themselves to accept provisions which are capable of only one interpretation, that which would mean a loss of hundreds of square miles. They are only entitled to three-and-a-half counties on the basis of population. But those double-barrelled members---I don't say they are anxious to do it but they will do it---they will place these two-and-a-half counties permanently in the possession of Craig and his successors---permanently in the possession of a hostile state, for he won't be there for ever. I don't think I have any more to say, but I would, at least, urge the supporters of the Treaty to insist, before they sign it, that England shall not be allowed to put her own hostile interpretation upon the words of the Treaty; that you will bind her down in some way or other in your resolution, should it pass this House, to deliver the goods according to the specification. That much, at least, you owe to the Irish people.
DR. WHITE:
I will be very brief. During the recess I went down to the country to my constituency. Some people there said: `You are taking a long time to discuss this matter.' Others said: `You are quite right in taking a reasonable time in discussing this momentous question before coming to a final decision': and with the latter I agree, only I would make a suggestion that perhaps it would have been better at the very beginning if there had been a time limit to the speeches of the various Deputies. However, as the cordon is about to fall, it does not matter much now. Recently we have heard a lot about Press tyranny, about the metropolitan Press, and one would imagine that the metropolitan Press of Ireland had only to print anything, under any head or any article, and that the article would be swallowed with avidity by the Irish public. Now I state that such is not a fact, and I state this:that no Irishman or Irishwoman will venture to tell me, I think, that during the last four or five years the Press of Ireland, the metropolitan Press, have been unanimously with our programme. In view of the fact that we have not had a daily Press---I know of only one provincial newspaper, the Waterford Press, that has been Sinn Fein, though there may be other daily newspapers---how can any man say that the country is being stampeded by the Irish Press? Now, as regards the public Boards I think that the public Boards have a perfect right to, express their opinions either for or against the ratification of this Treaty, because, if the public Boards do not speak, how are you going to get the opinions of the Irish people except, perhaps, by a plebiscite or a referendum? I am not in ecstacies over this Treaty; at the same time I consider that it deserves very careful consideration; and I go as far as to say that it deserves ratification. We have heard a lot about birds. We have, undoubtedly, a bird in the hand; the other day we had a bird in the bush but I don't see him there now. There is a third bird there now, I have not as yet, had a good look at him, hut if he is a good alternative to the ratification of this Treaty then I am willing to consider him. Now, we have heard a lot about accentuating feeling in this Dáil between the members, but I refuse to believe that there is any undue acrimony or bitterness here, and I go so far as to say that we are not in a state of strained relations. Now, the Treaty has been discussed over and over again, clause by clause, then word for word; and it is a very difficult thing to get any new ground to break. However, perhaps a very brief look to see what conditions we derive from this Treaty will not be out of place. I have, in Private Session, stated that I am voting for this Treaty and I state publicly here now that I am voting for it. If first we look at the financial arrangements, we get complete
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fiscal autonomy; we have complete charge and complete powers; and it is not necessary for anyone to endeavour to point out what a sympathetic native Government can do for the country and for the people. There is one other point on the financial question which I don't recollect any Deputy to have spoken about. Seventy years ago the population of Ireland was, roughly, double what it is to-day. Our people had to fly the land, because there was no work, because all the laws which may have been good in themselves were unjustly administered---the people had to fly because there was no work for them. Now each of these people who had to fly our land was of a certain financial value to the country; I think that, roughly, the loss to the country can be estimated at about one or two billion pounds; and I think that is a point which will be recollected when the Financial Committee of England and Ireland will meet. I think this Treaty deserves ratification and I support this Treaty because there is some finality in it; and I support it because, when I went to my constituents in Waterford during Christmas, they suggested to me that it deserved ratification. Now, I have very carefully listened to the various Deputies both for and against the Treaty and I must say, as has been already said here, that neither side can claim a monopoly of patriotism. Many of those speeches appealed to my heart and not to my reason. We have in this Treaty, not the shadows, but the substance; and if any one can show me any other way out which is better for the Irish people and the Irish nation I am ready and willing to listen to him. We have complete control over our trade and commerce. We are entitled, if we so wish, to have a standing army of between thirty-five thousand and forty thousand men; and, finally, we have the evacuation of the British forces, bag and baggage, from Ireland. I submit accordingly that we have in this Treaty a solid foundation on which we can place a fulcrum and on which fulcrum we can place a lever---a lever to self-determination---and I am sure as time progresses we will have an opportunity of finally having an Irish nation as God intended us to, and of being in the premier rank of the nations. I think it was Parnell who said: `We fight for freedom and not for faction.' United we stand and divided we fall. I wish to say, in conclusion, that it there is any alternative that can lend us to better things than this Treaty forces upon us, I, for one, will be very delighted and very glad to hear of it.
MR. SEAMUS ROBINSON:
In my own plain, direct, if not too lucid way, I would like to fire a few shots at this Treaty---metaphorically speaking. To begin with, it seems to me that the Republic is at stake. Ratifiers should remember that we poor, benighted Republicans have not yet seen the light. They themselves did not see the light two months ago. If we lose our tempers a bit and think terrible things of them it should be charitably remembered that the ratifiers have changed, and it is their duty to listen patiently to us and then try to answer our questions. The Deputy for Clontarf, Deputy Mulcahy, sees no alternative. It is the Republic. The Republic is at stake and I don't care a rap whose reputation is torn up for bandages. This is the same man who often before declared to me that there was no danger of compromise. To my mind this compromise has been lurking in the ante camera of many a cerebrum for the past three years. It was conceived when the Volunteers were denied a general convention three years ago; it passed through the embryo form when the Volunteers began to be controlled solely from Dublin Headquarters; it became a chrysalis when Dublin H.Q. became a wage-earning business, when District H.Q. were set up by General H.Q. and paid to control men who fought the war, aye, and won it, without any appreciable assistance from Dublin Headquarters. One division in the South refused this money and they were told that it would be made a point of discipline if they did not accept. On the night prior to the Tuesday morning on which the Treaty was announced in the papers, the Chief of Staff laughed at me for again expressing to him and the Military Officer in Limerick, the fear that all these mysterious goings-on in London foreboded nothing but compromise---for truth and straight-dealing flourish in the light. Yes! Now we have got our beautiful compromise hatched out---just like all compromises, like the mule---it is barren. Our Chief Officer stated, and the Minister for Finance and others maintained, that the acceptance of this
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invitation amounted to an attempt at compromise. All I would say about that is this: that we trusted him, and it is hardly fair for him to blame us for trusting him. Now, the appeal to humanity is: are we going to give our moral or immoral support to England in her efforts to crush Egypt and India which countries have given us the sincerest form of flattery by imitating us? For my part I would give no support to any attempt at association with England either politically or economically, while she is suppressing with brute force any people---much less such splendid peoples as the Hindoos and Egyptians. Men who call ideals and symbols shadows and unrealities are, to my mind, defective human beings. I would ask the Irish people---yes, and the English people, too---for our quarrel is with the few English ruling families only---I would ask these peoples can you ever again trust these men, shall you trust them now? I will say this to the English people: do you not think that if you wish an honourable world peace, it would be better for you, for us, and for humanity as a whole that you fix up a humane peace---if I may put it like that---with all your present subject peoples. Why not call a conference of these peoples and the British peoples and hammer out an entente cordiale---a workable confederation of sovereign states into which other nations could be invited if we saw fit. I think there are great possibilities in that suggestion and I wonder it has not been suggested by someone who could attract attention. What I am going to say now may appear on the surface to be a contradiction of what I have just suggested---I wish to state emphatically that no people have the right to go into any empire, much less an Empire that is based on a big section of downtrodden humanity. They have no right because it would mean slavery of some type; and no form of slavery is a fit state for free-willed human beings; therefore, if we are in the minority of one, there will be one to fight against it. I wish to state that this Treaty does not mean peace, and I think that should be fairly obvious by this time. Chaos would be better by far than degradation. It may not seem to be degradation to many people, but it does seem so to some and these some may not have it. Those who are breaking away can come back; we cannot change, we who regard ideals and symbols as something worth while. I say that chaos can be avoided and peace will be at least possible if those who have changed return to the Republic; if not we will have chaos and war. This paper which I will now read for you will prove the serious view that thousands of Volunteers take of this thing that appears to be a betrayal. It is a copy of a letter received by me to-day. Here it is:
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In view of the false rumours that have been circulated about Dublin to the effect that we, the undersigned, have declared ourselves favourable to the acceptance of the proposed Treaty of Agreement between the Irish plenipotentiaries and those of Great Britain, we desire, first, to enter our emphatic protest against the use of our Division of the Army to influence public opinion and the opinion of members of Dáil Eireann in the direction favourable to the Treaty; and we desire, secondly, to state that we maintain unimpaired our allegiance to the Irish Republic and to it alone. The Divisions comprise the following Brigades: 1st Southern Division: Cork, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Brigade. Kerry, Nos. 1, 2, 3 Brigade; West Limerick Brigade; Waterford Brigade. Dublin Brigade. 3rd Southern Division: Tipperary No. 1 Brigade; Offaly No. 2 Brigade; Leix Brigade. Signed on behalf of the above mentioned Divisions and Brigades, Liam Lynch, O.C. 1st Southern Division; Ernán O Máille, O.C. 2nd Southern Division, Oscar Traynor, O.C. Dublin Brigade, Micheál MacCormaic, O.C. 3rd Southern Division.
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DR. HAYES:
That does not speak for East Limerick and I don't know that it speaks for the other Divisional Commandants either.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think it is scarcely right for any officers to be using the name of the army at all.
MR. SEAN MACGARRY:
It is done now.
MR. ROBINSON:
It may seem a terrible thing to do.
A DEPUTY:
Who signed for the Brigades?
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MR. ROBINSON:
There is no signature.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I would ask that the army be allowed to keep its discipline.
MR. ROBINSON:
The army has always been regarded as the army pure and simple. I submit that it is not so. If we had no political outlook we would not be soldiers at all.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I know that they are citizen-soldiers. The point is that bringing them up as Brigades is not wise.
MR. ROBINSON:
I think the Volunteers have been very badly treated. The Volunteers demand a veto on the change of our country's constitution. We are not a national army in the ordinary sense; we are not a machine pure and simple; we have political views as soldiers. For the purpose of this veto I here demand a general convention of the Volunteers who are not True Volunteers. The Volunteers never gave up their right to a general convention---the Oath of Allegiance in this weak, in this changeable Dáil was not sanctioned by the general convention. If this convention is granted I, with I am sure all Volunteers, would refrain from certain terrible action that will be necessary if the Treaty is forced on us without our consent as an Army of Volunteers. There is no fear of the outcome of a renewal of war.
MR. MILROY:
Gambling again.
MR. ROBINSON:
Our war is not a war between two ordinary nations such as England and Germany; England had no German subjects. Our position is unique; we can, and will if necessary, strike the Empire where and how no other people could do it---except the Scotch and Welsh if they should so choose. The English ruling families know this well; one of their delegates declared our war to be a peculiar war---enough said! We are not a definite objective to the British, while they will always be a vulnerable objective to the Irish Empire, because one thousand effective shots and one thousand effective fires in Britain would ruin England for ever, while we could recover any damage in five years---we have no debt and no great factories, comparatively speaking, and their destruction would mean comparatively little to us. We could fight the English for three years---the English themselves could not fight us for longer than six months, especially if we took the fight up seriously in England as well as in Ireland and India and Egypt. Perhaps we will be told again and again that we would be exterminated. There will always be ten Irishmen who will even up matters some day, should it be ninety years hence. Dr. White says England would lose India and Egypt and England itself---every man---rather than lose Ireland. Does the doctor, does not every Irishman care as much about Ireland as the English do? Irishmen, are you working for your country? There are many people in the Dáil and in the country and all over the world, who can not understand big questions of such complication as this Treaty, and haven't time to form an opinion, and who, naturally, will form their opinion on, or rather take their opinion from, their pet hero. There are many thousand people enthusiastic supporters of the Treaty simply because Michael Collins is its mother---possibly Arthur Griffith would be called its father. Now, it is only natural and right that many people should follow almost blindly a great and good man. But suppose you know that such a man was not really such a great man; and that his reputation and great deeds of daring were in existence only on paper and in the imagination of people who read stories about him. If Michael Collins is the great man he is supposed to be, he has a right to influence people and people ought to be influenced by him. Now Dr. MacCartan said that he could understand many people saying: `What is good enough for Michael Collins is good enough for me.' Arthur Griffith has called Collins `the man who won the war.' the Press has called him the Commander-in-Chief of the I.R.A. He has been called `a great exponent of guerrilla warfare' and the `elusive Mike' and we have all read the story of the White Horse. There are stories going round Dublin of fights he had all over the city---the Custom House in particular. If Michael Collins was all that he has been called then I will admire him and respect his
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opinions, if my little mind cannot comprehend his present attitude towards the Republic and this Treaty. Now, from my knowledge of character and psychology, which I'm conceited enough to think is not too bad, I'm forced to think that the reported Michael Collins could not possibly be the same Michael Collins who was so weak as to compromise the Republic.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
On a point of order. Are we discussing Michael Collins or the Treaty?
A DEPUTY:
Or are we impeaching him?
MR. ROBINSON:
The weak man who signed certainly exists and just as certainly therefore, I believe the reported Michael Collins did not ever exist. If Michael Collins who signed the Treaty ever did the wonderful things reported of him then I'm another fool. But before I finally admit myself a fool I want some authoritative statement. I want, and I think it all important that the Dáil, the country, aye, and the world, got authoritative answers to the following questions: (a) What positions exactly did Michael Collins hold in the army? (b) Did he ever take part in any armed conflict in which he fought by shooting; the number of such battles or fights; in fact, is there any authoritative record of his having ever fired a shot for Ireland at an enemy of Ireland?
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
Is this in order?
THE SPEAKER:
I don't want to interrupt but I think it is as near not discussing the Treaty as possible.
MR. ROBINSON:
Now, so far as I know, Michael Collins came over from London as I came from Glasgow to avoid conscription.
MR. BLYTHE:
That's not true.
MR. ROBINSON:
and to fight for Ireland instead of for England, and if Michael Collins says---and he has said it here---that the fight that we have been raging for two-and-a-half years is an impossible war, well it gives me furiously to think---bluff, coercion, duress, treachery and the lot. Somebody used the word `impeach'---well, that is true. Delegates are in the dock to some extent at least; they have done something that at first sight, at least, appears to be---well, treason. I maintain that they have been guilty of the act of high treason and betrayal; I believe they were guilty deliberately but not maliciously. In fairness to themselves they must clear themselves for they will be judged through all the coming years. I'll try to confine myself to facts and obvious points mostly. I will try to draw a few fair inferences: (1) Remember Lloyd George is a past master in political stage craft. (2) Remember Wilson and the London atmosphere. (3) Remember Arthur Griffith could hardly be bluffed nor Michael Collins. Arthur Griffith is a match for Lloyd George and Lloyd George is a match for Arthur Griffith. (4) Remember when these two men came together it is possible that they both soon realised that if they fought neither would win; and they realised also that there might be a way in which they could both win a victory over their respective Cabinets. (5) There is clear proof that two delegates signed under duress and that two delegates and one say that there was no duress. (6) Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins declared they really did not sign under duress though they speak of the time limit and the threat of terrible and immediate war. By the way, let us take Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins at their word and believe they were not forced to sign, then they must have done this with, shall I say, malice afore thought; and must have sided by their signatures and demeanour to bluff and stampede the rest of the delegation into signing too---that is how the matter strikes me, anyhow. Arthur Griffith declares he would not break on the Crown. I suggest Lloyd George knew this, too; and our Cabinet knew it; and in order to safeguard themselves and the Republic they gave the delegates instructions not to sign any final draft before submitting it to the Cabinet. Remember that Lloyd George probably knew---must have known---that the Republican Government would have rejected the Treaty as it stands had it come unsigned. Remember Arthur Griffith would not like to lose the child of former dreams of his life's labour, more especially when,
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as far as he could see, there was no chance of getting his newer step-son or foster-child---the Republic. I submit Lloyd George knew this, too; and that he probably saw---I'd say he did see---the possibility of satisfying Arthur Griffith and of making himself appear the greatest of British statesmen in eight hundred years by giving us Dominion Home Rule. Would it be too much to say that these two men came to an agreement to force, gently, this Treaty, down the necks of their respective Cabinets---with Michael Collins a willing backer the thing would not seem too difficult. Remember, Lloyd George and Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins had meetings at which the other delegates were not present. Remember that now these men---Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins---declare that they want substance, that they are not idealists; could they not have been of the same mind before, that is, previous to signing the Treaty? Remember that it Lloyd George, Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins thought that if they had a right to put their scheme on their respective countries---after all they could say and justly so: `We know this is the only, and therefore the best way Irish co-operation can be reconciled with the British Commonwealth of Nations'---they would know also that it would not be a success unless it could be bluffed on us and slipped on us; and would require very careful handling and a judicious amount of realistic stage play---a chance for Lloyd George here. Hence I submit this is the origin of the time limit, the immediate and terrible war threat, the appearance of armed auxiliaries rushing around Dublin and the making of camps all over Ireland just previous to the time for signing the Treaty. Look here, all this was not arranged in a couple of hours. Remember that negotiations were going on for eight weeks, was it. All the talks must surely have been on details only, they must have been leaving essentials, i.e., the oath and status to the end. It seems a strange way of doing business, and I'm afraid the Cabinet as a whole are not altogether without blame for this. Again, I submit that to recommend their scheme of Dominion Home Rule effectively to the country they would naturally fix up details first. A decision on essentials too soon would be disastrous---at least a decision on essentials would be disastrous if it were known too soon. Then, when all would be ready, a time limit and an immediate war stunt could be requisitioned to carry the remaining members off their feet. Remember, they were carried off their feet by this, coupled with the sight of the signatures of the two formidable men of the delegation. What is good enough for Michael Collins is good enough for me---what is a terror to Michael Collins ought to be a terror enough for me. Finally above all things considered, there is a prima facie case, I think, for the charge of treason against the delegates, Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins. No doubt they will give a satisfactory explanation of their efforts; and I would be more than delighted to withdraw any imputation that my words may unjustly convey. I think they should thank me for saying openly what is in the minds of many. They will have a chance to-morrow to answer this.
MR. GEAROID O'SULLIVAN:
I rise to support the motion for the ratification of this Treaty, and I, too, will attempt a record in brevity. There are three reasons why I am inclined to support the Treaty. The first is its own intrinsic value. I don't believe that the acceptance of this Treaty by the people of Ireland is dishonourable. I don't believe that when I recommend to the people of Ireland that they should accept it that I am guilty of any act of national apostacy. We have heard a good deal during the past few weeks of seven hundred and fifty years' fight with England. That fight I take to be a fight of the Gaelic State against the foreign sovereignty which was being forced upon it by England. That fight was not always a fight for an isolated Republic or an isolated monarchy. In fact one of the hardest fights in Irish history was made against that great Republican, Oliver Cromwell. It was, as I say, an attempt, an effort of Gaelic Ireland to assert its own right to live in its own way. Now, that sovereignty was not beaten; it was not defeated; the Gaelic sovereignty is not yet defeated and never will be defeated; it will not be defeated by the exponents of this Treaty. I hold that it will be advanced and strengthened, not by the Treaty itself, but by the amount of freedom and liberty which the Irish race has got to work out that
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civilization in their own way. England did not control this country entirely by her military or police forces or her judiciary. She has fifty odd Boards and Departments which govern this country. These Boards and these Departments are the inlets or outlets through which English civilization has been forced into and forced through this country. The acceptance of this Treaty means the withdrawal of these fifty-seven Departments---the fifty-seven swords which have been eating into our Irish nation will be removed. They can be replaced, and these boards which were working in Ireland for England and by England will be working in Ireland for Ireland and by Ireland. That is why I say the Treaty gives the Irish people a chance of living their own lives in their own way. Our President said a few days ago that he was anxious, not only for the good of Ireland but for the good of humanity that this strife should cease. I am also anxious not only for the good of Ireland, but for the good of the whole human race that this strife should cease; and I would like to draw your attention to the effect of Gaelic culture and Gaelic civilisation on the world. What has it done? The greatest Anglicisers of the world have been the Irish. We, the Irish people, have been Empire builders for England all over the world. We have built her railways and her roads; we have shot down troops who attempted to secure freedom from that Empire; we have taken up, the whip and flogged the slaves for England. Our people have done it, and remember, it would not have been so---we would not have been turned in that direction if those many inlets through which English and foreign civilisation was able to get at our people---if these inlets didn't exist. The Irish people collected customs for the British Empire all over the world. The Irish soldiers shot down the Indians in the Punjab: nobody can say that Sir Michael O'Dwyer is not an Irishman; and Sir Michael O'Dwyer making the Indians do the crawl is nothing for us to be proud of. [Referring to an interruption by Deputy Miss MacSwiney, Mr. O'Sullivan said:]I would ask that I be not interrupted, especially by the Deputy who is sitting so very near to me. We can look upon him (Sir Michael O'Dwyer) with no less feeling of bitterness because he is an Irishman any more than any decent Englishman would look upon Maxwell. Another proof that the Gaelic races and people have been stunted and stopped in their development to live their own lives in their own way is this assembly. We have not been able to discuss the question before this assembly in the language of our own country. I challenge the ablest speakers of our language in this assembly, beginning with you, sir, and running down to the last---I challenge them all to debate the vexed and intricate question of constitutional usage and the other points raised in this debate to debate that in our own language. All our thought has been running in the------
THE SPEAKER:
We would do it in three months' time if we started on it.
MR. O'SULLIVAN:
We will start on it when the Treaty is ratified, [a Chinn Chomhairle]. All our thoughts have been controlled have been directed by the English outlook, by the English language, by the English sovereignty. The same can be said, not only for our language, but for our music, and games, and Irish life. That is the first reason I give for supporting the Treaty. The second reason is that those who advocate its rejection have not, in my opinion, given me any reason why I should conscientiously vote for its rejection. The Minister for Labour, I think, objected to our association with England because England oppresses Egypt and India. I have already said that there are many Irishmen at present oppressing India; and if Ireland accepts this Treaty the opinion of the Irish people on British rule in India and in Egypt will be expressed---not as it is expressed at present by Ireland shooting down those people but by the representatives of the Irish people speaking at the Councils of the League of Nations or at the Imperial Conference of either the British Empire or the Commonwealth of Nations, which ever they have decided to call it; and, furthermore, the world would have the advantage of what, at least, is left of the mellow influence of the Irish outlook, in having a representative of Ireland on the League of Nations. I would ask the assembly to remember that England is not the only Empire that oppresses small nations, though I believe
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she is the worst. The Minister for Agriculture said that he was anxious that England would allow us to live our own life in our own tin-pot way. Well, we have great ideals about old Ireland and about our fighting race and about our great culture; and our hopes are not for a national life in any tin-pot way. We believe that the Gaelic-Irish outlook of civilisation and culture should permeate and influence the life of every nation in the world. At present we are only the slaves of those nations; we are only the tools of those nations. Though we are told that the Irish is a world-flung race, remember that what really counts in it is being eaten away and sapped away at the core here at home in Ireland by the terrible influence of the presence in our midst of enemy troops, officials, police, judiciary, and everything enemy. Thirdly: the reason I give in support of the ratification of the Treaty is that I believe it is the wish of the people who sent me here that I should support it; and I am sorry Deputy Stockley is not present because I want, as one of the persons responsible for sending him here, to say that in doing so I did not believe that he could flout the opinions of his electors. The constituency which I represent has a population of one hundred and eleven thousand odd. Finally, I would challenge my co-Deputies who do not agree with me---I challenge them to any kind of plebiscite to that hundred and eleven thousand; and I believe and I will lay any odds that I will best them five hundred to one.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
I propose that we adjourn until eight-fifteen p.m. and that we then continue the debate until eleven o'clock to-night---what I would compare this debate to is an old woman's wrangle on the Coal Quay of Cork---and that we take a vote to-morrow at four o'clock. Now, the Irish people are just sick of us talking about this thing and I think and tell you that I know the people of Ireland better than any man or woman in this assembly---you can laugh at me if you like, but I have Irish aspirations and Irish blood in my veins and I know the people of Ireland as well as any man or woman in this country---and I say that we ought to take this vote to-morrow evening at four or five o'clock and get finished with it; and I say that we ought to adjourn now until eight o'clock. I move that.
DR. WHITE:
I second it.
MR. J. MACGRATH:
There was a definite arrangement made that the Whips would conduct this business; and the chiefs on both sides don't want to go on until eleven o'clock. We can adjourn at seven and start at eleven o'clock in the morning.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
I am only a back-bencher, a plain member, but if I am I am sent here as well as anybody else. [(Cries of `Order!']
MR. MACGRATH:
We can adjourn at seven and go on in the morning.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
I tell you that the back-benchers have been too long silent; and if we spoke out in June 1920 we would be better off to-day. I am speaking and the member for St. James' has interrupted me and I won't be interrupted and I won't sit down. I am on the rock and I won't get off the rock.
THE SPEAKER:
I told the Deputy he is out of order. I call on the next speaker.
MR. CARTER:
I second the motion put forward by Deputy O'Keeffe that we adjourn until eight o'clock and go on then till eleven.
The motion was subsequently rejected.
MR. THOMAS DERRIG:
A Chinn Chomhairle, is mian liom cúpla focal a rá i d-taobh na ceiste seo. I have great respect for the wishes of Deputy O'Keeffe and I don't want to delay the debate in any way. My views on this subject are homely. The situation is so important that I think it is right for every Deputy to give his views. I cannot vote for this Treaty because the unity of Ireland is not secured, and I can't see any prospect in the future that we can get Ulster in. In the second place, I feel, while it is absolutely necessary that we should take a step forward in the direction of securing control of the government, that we might also take a step backward; and I feel that in accepting
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this Treaty we are taking a step backward. I feel that we are going over the cliff and giving away the sovereignty of our country. Professor O'Rahilly says that we will regain it by constitutional evolution; the Deputy for Carlow says that the Constitution will develop a Gaelic State, I contend that within the British Empire we cannot have a Gaelic State because the whole tradition of our people will have to be moulded in an Imperial way. The interpretation of this Treaty is also to be interpreted to safeguard the strategic interests of the British Empire. There are a number of articles in the Treaty which are very vague and I think we cannot look upon it as a Treaty. We are told that a Constitution must be drafted; and this Constitution must be legalised by the British Parliament. In my view there can never be an Irish Constitution until Irish unity is first secured. There has been a good deal of talk about the question of military settlement. In 1881 President Kruger had a peace forced upon him and he accepted it with the following reservations: `Eventually he understood the Treaty was accepted with the reservations that we are yielding to force; and that we trusted that, in view of this forced acceptance, the British Government would see their way to alter the Treaty and to remove from it the points which made it unacceptable to the Volkstrad; notably the imposition of the suzerainty and the unjust curtailment of territory'. There is no proof that the people of the Republic are taking the Treaty under these terms and the military situation is discussed here in public and provided it does not give you sufficient power to accept it without that reservation. There has been a good deal of talk about the material advantages in this Treaty. Lord Birkenhead has already written in the American Press; and our people are under the impression that the English Government has agreed under the Treaty to pay for the damage done in this country for two years. Lord Birkenhead and Winston Churchill have asserted that under the Treaty England has us economically in the hollow of her hand---a most illuminating statement. A gentleman is able to point out to me what the exact meaning of Clause 10 is. It is---though I don't want to go into figures---that we shall have to pay about two million pounds in order to get rid of the army forces. We have to guarantee to pay off these but there is no guarantee in the world that England will ever entertain our claim for over-taxation. I have an article here by Harold Cox, who represents England in Financial interests the conclusion of the article is this---it first stated certain facts that, in the opinion of English business, men, make out a case that Ireland, instead of being owed money by England, owes her a good deal; for instance, we owe her for the protection she has afforded us for one hundred and twenty years:
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When these and other facts are taken into account it will be found that the Irish alleged over-taxation not only does not exist but that a heavy debt is due from Ireland to Great Britain for subsidies paid out of the common exchequer for purely Irish purposes such as, for example, Land Purchase, Harbour Developments, Light Railways and so on. For several years during the present century Ireland's contribution to Imperial expenditure has been a minus quantity. Ireland has received the full naval, military and economic advantages of her union with Great Britain and has, during these years, received these benefits entirely at the cost of the tax-payers of Great Britain, in addition to a contribution from them to her domestic expenditure. By all means let us strike a fair financial bargain with the Irish Free State, but the first step towards the attainment of equity is to get rid of the baseless legend of Irish over-taxation.
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We have a ways told our people that in any settlement we would make a claim for over-taxation. I understand, however, from some Deputies who support the Treaty that we are going to make a claim for two billion pounds. Well, the arbitrator will not consider that claim and there is nothing in the Treaty to show that he will consider any claim at all. The economies effected by the change of Government will completely disappear in paying the interest on the sinking fund created in the country. After all economies have
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been made the surplus in the Irish Exchequer will be completely absorbed by the payment of the interest on the sinking fund. In other words, anything that is left to us, supposing that we maintain the high rate of taxation, I maintain, after all economies have been made and all Irish services maintained, that the surplus will be absorbed by the interest on our share of the national debt. We have not had, therefore, in this Treaty, anything to show that the Boundary Commission or Financial Commission means anything. Professor O'Rahilly says that some clauses in the Treaty mean nothing and I believe they have left us nothing. There is not sufficient difference between the Treaty as it stands and the proposals which were unanimously rejected by the Dáil; there is not sufficient difference to show that the negotiations have been successful; and there is not sufficient difference for us to go back to the Irish people and tell them that the difference was worth the losses which the Irish people have suffered during the last two years. There has been a good deal of talk about evacuation and it is dealt with in Lloyd George's letter and not in the Treaty. The second portion of Clause 7 of the Treaty completely does away with the evacuation argument. In my opinion it also completely nullifies our sovereignty. While I believe that the Treaty would confer great material advantages on this country and that there might be a serious effort made to develop the Gaelic State I realise that we have completely lost our position before the world. After all, this movement is not the Gaelic State. This movement ought to be based on the traditions of the men of '67 and 1916: and I think these are the ideals we ought to stand for. I came up here with an open mind; the mandate I got from my constituents was to try and do whatever I could to bring about an agreement; I am afraid now that there is no chance of substantial agreement. I know this: if there was an agreement with regard to the immediate future we would ultimately have the Hertzhog period and the Smuts period in this country; and I certainly would not stand for anything which would bring the Republican Government down to that level; we would be simply starting all over again. To my mind the alternative to this agreement can be got; the only alternative that I can see is rejection. I am very greatly concerned with the levity with which some Deputy spoke of sending this question to the country; I have never heard a question like this put to the people; the only issue that can be placed before the people is war on the one hand and on the other hand you can do it by the consent of the Irish people; but you are not giving the people their choice. Finally, I don't believe that we can be in a better position in five years' time than at present; we had attained a magnificent position throughout the world; the position throughout the world does not demand that we should make a peace now that they did not think fit and proper. I have great faith in Ghandhi and his two hundred and fifty million people, and in Egypt; I don't think the Deputy from Cork is right when he says the Free State is responsible for the movement in these countries; I think it is the Irish Republic is responsible for them. If this question is brought before the country it is not alone that it will cause a split in the country but in the ranks of the army; and I earnestly ask very Deputy here to do what he can to preserve the integrity of the Army. Whatever we do with this Treaty let us do the best for the country.
ALDERMAN MICHAEL STAINES:
Since the fourteenth December I have listened to lectures, sermons and speeches. Well, I won't lecture you, I won't preach; I will just say a few words. I will be brief for two reasons. The first is that I don't want to import any bitterness into this discussion; I want to have the DáiI and the country united if possible, if they are not united I sincerely hope that no word or action of mine will be responsible for disunion. The second reason is that there are two thousand Irishmen in Irish and English jails; they have got to stop there while we are talking and repeating the same things over and over again; there are forty-one of these men in jails in this Republic of Ireland under sentence of death. I don't want, and I am sure these prisoners don't want me to bring up their case here in order that it would decide the vote one way or another; I am speaking for myself; but anyway for their sakes I think we ought to hurry up and finish this debate. I am declaring for the approval of the Treaty between Ireland and Great Britain; and in doing so I do it in accordance with the dictates of my own conscience; in accordance with the wishes of the majority of my constituents; and in accordance with the wishes of the majority of the people of Ireland. My
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conscience, my constituency, my country; these are the three rocks---dove-tailed one to the other---these are the three rocks I stand on. There are no slippery slopes and there is no betrayal; I never betrayed my country; I am not doing it now and I never shall betray my country. At the meeting of An Dáil at which the plenipotentiaries were appointed---they were appointed by An Dáil at the suggestion of the President or the Cabinet; they were sanctioned by An Dáil, anyway---at that meeting we gave them full plenary powers; I think practically every member of An Dáil at any rate knew when the plenipotentiaries were going over that they could not bring back a Republic in their pockets. I think it was the President who stated that anyone who expected them to bring back a Republic expected them to do something that a mighty army and a mighty navy could not do, [hear, hear]. The other side---I don't know what side to call it---according to orders of the day the President is going to move a motion with reference to a document; that document is not a Republic, that document is not signed; the Treaty is signed. To-day the President made a statement in which he said he is going to stand by the Republic; I am glad he is a Republican again, and I am very sorry he ever left the rock of the Republic [Cries of `Shame!'].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
If that could be proved------
ALDERMAN STAINES:
President de Valera will understand me, he will admit that I don't want to say anything to hurt his feelings or the feelings of anyone in this House; we know each other a good many years; we have been always good friends, and I hope we will remain good friends to the end.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Show where the document is inconsistent with the Republic.
ALDERMAN STAINES:
First, as to your leaving the British Navy in possession of some ports.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
For five years.
MR. COLIVET:
In discussing the Treaty we can't keep to it.
ALDERMAN STAINES:
At any rate what we have to do now is to decide what is best for the country. This Treaty is before us; certain members want to turn it down; and what is the alternative they offer? According to the President he is going to stand for a Republic; he has admitted that a mighty army and a navy can't get us the Republic. How is it going to be done then? Is it by political action or by negotiations? Well, supposing the President goes to Downing Street and takes four or five plenipotentiaries with him and asks the British Cabinet to give us a Republic, what will happen? The negotiations will go on as they did before; perhaps they may refuse to negotiate, but suppose they do, will the President bring back the Republic? He will not. I say the only chance Ireland has to act her freedom is to take this Treaty. This Treaty gives us a political weapon, and, backed by the military and other resources, it is a weapon that, in the hands of the Irish people, will get more freedom for them than a mighty army or navy can ever do. One Deputy said that the Canadian form of Government is not liberty; several Deputies said, in effect, that they did not give a fig for self-determination; well, I will have to quote the President again. I am quoting from the Irish Press of Philadelphia of December 3rd. In a message to the Canadian Convention President de Valera sent the following through Mr. Harry Boland:
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President de Valera sends greetings to the National Convention. He is certain that the people of Canada, who so much appreciate their own liberty, will support the people of Ireland in their resolve to face extermination rather than abandon the right of freely choosing the path they shall take to realise their destiny [prolonged applause]. Ireland's freedom cannot menace the freedom of any nation, but as the principle of national self-determination is admittedly just, its denial will never be acquiesced in [applause]. And in the case of Ireland the denial is a menace to the peace of the world.
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Still Deputies here don't give three straws about self-determination. We heard from the last Deputy a good deal about the financial clauses of the Treaty; well, I would remind this House that the same financial clauses are in the President's document. Consequently whatever
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number of millions the Treaty is going to cost Ireland the alternative is going to cost the same number of millions.
THE PRESIDENT:
Hear, hear. That is right.
ALDERMAN STAINES:
We have heard from the legal gentlemen of the assembly.
A DEPUTY:
And illegal [laughter].
ALDERMAN STAINES:
Well, we heard from them several speeches on law and on international law, constitutional law and common law. Well, as an ordinary common man, the only law I was ever up against and made feel in this country---the law that every Irishman has been made feel---was the law of force and the law of might, constitutional law did not matter; international law did not matter; the thing that is going to matter is that the country is going to get the evacuation by the British Army and your own army is to be put in its stead. It depends on the Irish people then what class of freedom they will have; they can have whatever class of freedom they can make for themselves. I will vote for this Treaty because it stands for Irish freedom against English oppression and Irish sovereignty against English slavery.
MR. EAMONN AYLWARD:
I was elected by the people of South Kilkenny; and the people who elected me know what views I had because at that time I was fighting for the realisation of those views. I was elected a Republican to uphold the Republic of Ireland, and I shall do that to the best of my ability. Should my constituents change their mind then they can remove me at the next election and put in a politician; but they cannot change my personal opinion or my principles. Those Deputies who are supporting the Treaty, and some of the plenipotentiaries even, say they have not compromised any principles; if they had not compromised their principles it must be because they had no Republican principles to compromise; if their willingness to become British subjects with a British Governor-General to look after them, and to take their allegiance to the British Government and all that---if that is not compromise I don't know what compromise is. Not only do they become British subjects but they take an oath to a British King. I shall read an extract from a leading article written by the Chairman of the Delegation in June, 19l7; it may throw some light upon the present case:
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`The Home Rule Act 1914,' exposed by Mr. William Martin Murphy is a clear and trenchant exposure of that fraud upon a people. Mr. Murphy would settle the Irish question in the same way as the Canadian, South African and Australian questions were settled. This assumes that the element of nationality and the status of nationhood do not enter into the Irish question. Australia, for instance, possessed no rights except those it derived from England. England founded it, England fostered it, and England possessed the undoubted right to rule it. Ireland does not derive from England. She is not a colony. She has never been a colony. She can claim no colonial rights such as Australia, Canada and South Allies assert. If she be not a nation then she has no more title to independence of English Government than Kent or Middlesex or Lancashire or Yorkshire. If there be English politicians who really believe that they can settle the Irish question on colonial or semi-colonial lines they live in a fool's paradise. The first step to a permanent Irish settlement is the recognition of the Irish nation.
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[applause]. Well, the Chairman of the Delegation is trying to put the whole lot of us into a fool's paradise now. If I had come up here to this assembly undecided as to what course I should take, the very tactics adhered to by the other side would make me vote against the Treaty. Deputies have tried to misinterpret in every possible way the issue before us; they say the result of the non-ratification of this instrument is war---terrible and immediate war. I would like to know who endowed these men with the gift of prophecy? They say that the difference between this Treaty and the President's proposals is only a shadow. They can't have it both ways. Will Lloyd George go to war for a shadow? The Deputy who first introduced this so-called alternative oath in Public Session gave the impression to the public that this oath was contained in the President's alternative proposals; and that Deputy knew absolutely and perfectly well that there was no oath contained in the alternative proposals.
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MR. LYNCH:
It is implied in paragraph six.
MR. AYLWARD:
Again it has been put forward that we all let down the Republic. I absolutely deny that. I did not take it that the Republic had been let down at any time until I saw the terms of the Treaty in the public Press, and then I knew it had been let down by the delegates at least. These men who say that the Republic was let down as soon as the Truce was proclaimed, and who seem so bitter about it now, had a right to protest against it then. If they thought it was being let down they were more to blame than anybody else. But the Republican ideal has not died, nor will it die, even though there be but fifty men left in Ireland to carry it on. Such misrepresentations as these would, I say, be almost sufficient of themselves to make me vote against the Treaty, because it is a weak thing which requires misrepresentations to keep it on its legs. Again I say I was elected because I was a Republican soldier and I will remain a Republican and I will vote against that Treaty.
ALDERMAN CORISH:
A Chinn Chomhairle, agus a mhuintir na Dála, I rise to speak in support of this Treaty, not because it is entirely in accordance with the views I held and expressed up to this, but because I think it is the best thing for my country at the moment; and because the people of my constituency want me to vote for it, and I think it would be a bad state of affairs in this country if the representatives of the people were deliberately to flout the people's wishes [hear, hear]. It would be an end, once and for all, to representative government. Now, there has been much said about the plenipotentiaries sent to London, they have been placed in the dock in this assembly from the beginning of the Session. Now, they were in close touch with the Cabinet from the moment they went to London until they brought back this Treaty, and if they were going wrong they surely went wrong before the fifth or sixth of December; and it must have been patent to everybody that they were going wrong---if they were going wrong; and I hold that if things were not going better, or as they should go according to the views of the people on the Cabinet, that Dáil Eireann is entitled to regard all the views of the Cabinet---that Dáil Eireann is entitled to regard what they did as the views of the people of the Cabinet. I hold that it is the Cabinet that is to blame---the Cabinet that was left behind in Dublin that is to blame for the state of affairs that exists to-day [hear, hear]. Now, a lot has been said about the mandate given by the people for the Republic. To my mind the part the Republic played in the December elections of 1918 was small. I took a man's part on behalf of Doctor Ryan here, in the South Wexford Election in 1918, and, so far as I could see, that time the principle plank in the platform of Sinn Fein was to get shut of the Irish Party---nothing more or less---in May of last year Dáil Eireann declared its independence---it was declared already in January, 1919--- but in May of last year our President issued a manifesto asking the people to take part in the elections on behalf of the Republic. Now, everybody might not have seen eye to eye with that document at that moment; but it would have been an injudicious thing to question the President's action because of the presence in our midst of our enemies, the Black-and-Tans. So I think it should not he rigidly adhered to that the people of Ireland have given a straight mandate for the Republic [hear, hear]. Now, I think it was the second last speaker on the other side who talked of Egypt and India: and he said if we were to associate with the British Empire that we would be responsible for the crushing of the Indians and Egyptians. Now I hold that under the present state of affairs we are far more responsible; because we are sending the Connaught Rangers, the Munster Fusiliers, the Dublin Fusiliers, the Leinsters and other Irish regiments into India and Egypt year after year to crush these peoples; and we are doing this under the Republican Government. Now, if we are not able to stop that are we functioning as a Government? I hold that we are not; and I believe, as I said before, that the proper thing, at the moment, for this Dáil to do is to accept the Treaty. [Cheers]. Now the last speaker has spoken of the oath; he said it was not in Document No. 2. I know that the oath was not in Document No. 2, but we have it in another record. The oath was mentioned at a Cabinet meeting and
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President de Valera recited the oath to which he would agree; and one of the plenipotentiaries took it down across the table; owing to President de Valera's position as head of the nation I hold that the delegate had a right to interpret his views as to what the oath should be; and he took down the exact oath and in the exact words that the President used. Now I think that everybody will agree with that [hear, hear]. Now, I have said practically everything I wanted to say. I only wish to add that I hold that under this Treaty Ireland's national status has been raised [hear, hear]. Ireland is entitled to representation at the League of Nations and she will be there, of course, taking her place with the other nations of the world. The fact is that she will be represented there. These views are not in accordance with those which I held or expressed up to this; but I believe the Treaty is the best thing for my country and I will vote for it [cheers].
The House adjourned at 7 p.m. until Saturday morning
7
122 Dail Deputies were present for Arthur Griffith’s motion on the Treaty approval.
Arthur Griffith speaking on the Treaty Debate said ‘ nearly three months ago, Dail Eireann appointed plenipotentiaries to go to London to treat with the British Government and to make 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 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 disregarded whatever criticism might occur. We could have shirked the responsibility, we did not seek to act as 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 that 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 the first treaty that admits the equality of Ireland, we have brought back the flag, we have brought back the evacuation of Ireland after 700 years by British troops and the the formation of an Irish army. We have brought to back to Ireland her full rights and powers of fiscal control. Ask this Dail to pass this resoloution and I ask the people of Ireland and the Irish people everywhere to ratify this Treaty. We have a duty to our people, we have a duty at least as far as our judgement goes, not to lead them astray, not to tell them something will happen if you do this when you know you cannot do it in order to save our faces at the expense of our countrymen’s blood. This Treaty has no more finality as we are the final generation on the face of the earth.’
The vote was taken on the Treaty. 64 pro, 57 anti.
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION Saturday, January 7th, 1922 – Council Chamber of University College Dublin, Earlsfort Terrace.
Dáil Eireann resumed its Public Session at 11.20 a.m. on Saturday, 7th January, 1922, THE SPEAKER (DR. MACNEILL) in the Chair.
DR. FERRAN:
In the personal explanation which I made last night I believe I left the Dáil in doubt as to my intention. I will now clear it up by saying that at the time which reference was made I was engaged in recruiting but it was not for the British Army.
THE SPEAKER:
The following Notice of motion has been received:---Notice of Motion by Eoin Mac Neill, Deputy for the National University of Ireland and for Derry City and County: To move that `Dáil Eireann affirms that Ireland is a sovereign nation deriving its sovereignty in all respects from the will of the people of Ireland; that all the international relations of Ireland are governed on the part of Ireland by this sovereign status; and that all facilities and accommodations accorded by Ireland to another state or country are subject to the right of the Irish Government to take care that the liberty and well-being of the people of Ireland are not endangered.'
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
Is that an amendment?
THE SPEAKER:
No.
MR. MILROY:
Might I suggest that that be handed to the Deputies?
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
I rise to speak against this Treaty because, in my opinion, it denies a recognition of the Irish nation. I said yesterday, and I repeat here, that this Treaty is not one for the consideration of Dáil Eireann, and not one for approval by Dáil Eireann, but by the Southern Parliament according to Article 18. I object to it on the ground of principle, and my chief objection is because I am asked to surrender the title of Irishman and accept the title of West Briton. I object because this Treaty denies the sovereignty of the Irish nation, and I stand by the principles I have always held---that the Irish people are by right a free people. I object to this Treaty because it is the very negation of all that for which we have fought. It is the first time in the history of our country that a body of representative Irishmen has ever suggested that the sovereignty of this nation should be signed away. We went before the people of Ireland on a clear-cut, definite issue. We protested against the men who spoke for the Irish people, and we said that if elected---in 1918---we would set up in Dublin, the capital of the Irish nation, a Parliament that we selected for our political ideal, and a Republic, and we said that if elected we would re-affirm the independence of Ireland and seek international recognition for that. When I went before the people of Roscommon I was in earnest when I said that I stood for an Irish Republic. Since I have returned I have received scores of letters from friends and constituents---men urging me in the interests of Ireland and of the people of Roscommon to vote for this Treaty. I had a letter yesterday from a reverend clergyman asking me to cast my vote for this Treaty, and this man gave me great support when I was going through Roscommon seeking the suffrages of the people. On one occasion, at a public meeting, this clergyman said: `Vote for Harry Boland and the Irish Republic and you will get a good Home Rule Bill.' And
I got up immediately after he had finished and had to undo the work of my clerical supporter. He is consistent to-day when he asks me to vote for the Treaty; and I am consistent to-day as I was in Roscommon. We secured a mandate from the Irish people because we put for the first time before the people of Ireland a definite issue; we promised that if elected we would combat the will, and deny the right of England in this country, and after four years of hard work we have succeeded in bringing Ireland to the proud position she occupied on the fifth December last. The fight was made primarily here in Ireland; but I want to say that the fight that was made in Ireland was also reflected throughout the world; and we---because we had a definite object---had the sympathy of liberty-loving people everywhere, if we were denied the support of the Governments. Most of my time since I became a member of Dáil Eireann has been spent in another country. We were sent out to secure international recognition from the Government of the United States, and to seek the support of the liberty-loving American people on behalf of a nation struggling to be free---and when we left this country Ireland was unknown---and people, liberty-loving peoples, and peoples who are free, had no concern with a domestic question between Great Britain and Ireland. They in America had been under the impression for forty years that Ireland and England were one and that there was a domestic squabble; and we found that the greatest barrier that we had to break down was that Ireland had acquiesced in British law, and all the American people knew was that we were fighting for something called Home Rule. As a result of the magnificent fight put up at home by the men of the army and supported by the people of Ireland, the American people soon realised that we were fighting for our own God-given right to freedom; and if we were not recognised by the Governments of the world we were recognised by the peoples of the world; and as for the Treaty, I can say this: that the power of public opinion---outraged public opinion---throughout the world, backed by the magnificent fight the men and women of this country put up, had brought Ireland to the position that she rightly occupied. We found Ireland in 1918 a domestic question of Great Britain; by the work that has been accomplished since, she is now a burning international question; and no one believes in this House that it is for any altruistic purpose that Great Britain has changed her hand and called the Irish people into conference. And I say that the tragedy of all this is that, while the men who favour this Treaty have adopted a defeatist attitude and pointed out the weakness of Ireland and asked how could it stand against the mighty British Empire, I am afraid that they have not considered the weakness of that Empire. I respectfully suggest that this conference was called because England found It impossible to carry on her work in Ireland and to preserve and carry on her Empire; and having failed to force British sovereignty on the Irish nation for seven hundred and fifty years, she has done it now by diplomacy. If any member of the opposite side can convince me that that is not an oath of allegiance---to swear that oath and `that I will be faithful to His Majesty King George V., his heirs and successors by law, in virtue of the common citizenship'-
MR. MILROY:
Which oath are you talking of?
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
The oath that you are asked to sign in the Treaty. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the American people for the magnificent support they have given us in the struggle; and I am doing this because in this House a few weeks ago a statement was made by my friend the Minister of Finance which places us in a very embarrassing position in America-
MR. M. COLLINS:
And which every true American appreciates.
MR. H. BOLAND:
We were sent back to America to strengthen the hands of the Irish plenipotentiaries in London; we were sent back to carry on a propaganda to demonstrate to Great Britain that should this fight be renewed we were prepared to carry on; we were sent back to float a Bond Loan of the Irish Republic; and we, knowing that negotiations were going on, decided that this Bond Loan should not be floated in a national campaign, but should be confined to two states. We selected the District of Colombus and Illinois because in Washington, D.C. were meeting the Great Nations of the World; and we thought that the best propaganda that could be carried on on behalf of the Irish nation, and a thing that would give strength and support to our men in London, was to demonstrate to England that if they wished to win the good-will of the American nation they must make a just and honourable peace with Ireland. Very well. I must say now that whereas in 1919, when we floated the First Bond Drive of the Republic in the State of Illinois we collected three hundred and ninety-seven thousand dollars in twelve months at a cost of eighteen thousand dollars---to demonstrate the feeling in America this year---in three weeks in the State of Illinois they subscribed five hundred and fifty-two thousand dollars at a cost of eighteen thousand dollars [hear, hear]. No one knows better than my friend, Michael, that there were five thousand men in America ready to come to fight in Ireland, and they couldn't come as a foreign legion because it was against American laws [laughter].
MR. M. COLLINS:
Now you're talking.
MR. BOLAND:
But they were offered, and they came, and they fought. Just as President de Valera got back to Ireland, these men got back, and many of them did get back and they fought. I am only saying this, not in any way of finding fault with my comrades on the other side, but simply to thank the American people for the support they gave to us in the struggle. The cablegram that my friend Michael Collins took such exception to was suggested by me to strengthen his hands, four days before the Treaty was signed. I would be false to the position I hold from Dáil Eireann if I did not say that the great public opinion of America is on the side of this Treaty. I would be false to my position as a representative of the Government if I didn't fearlessly state that here---that, just as it seems the Press of Ireland has adopted a unanimous attitude in favour of this Treaty, so too did the American Press adopt that attitude. The people who subscribed the money to enable us to carry on look upon this as a betrayal; and it was only out of love for Ireland that an order of restraint was not taken out against us---an injunction against our raising money in the name of the Irish Republic. I know something of the situation in India and Egypt from the men who hold the same position in America for India and Egypt that I hold for Ireland; and while I am casting my vote prepared for war, so far as I am concerned I am convinced that there can be no war in Ireland. Allenby requires ninety thousand men in Egypt; India is in flames; and we are called in to buttress up the British Empire, not with the Connaught Rangers this time, forced by hard economic circumstances to join up to earn a living, but by virtue of our common citizenship [hear, hear]. I don't want to detain this House. I stand to-day exactly where I have always stood. I want to ask a question of my friend opposite. Is this, in your opinion, a final settlement of the question between England and Ireland?
MR. M. COLLINS:
It is not.
MR. BOLAND:
It is not. Well then we are asked to sign a Treaty. What was it that made the fight in Ireland possible ? The sanctity of Treaties---the invasion of Belgium that gave a great moral cry to the world that freedom was being outraged, and the whole world flew to the side of the Allies. Some of the best blood in Ireland fought with Great Britain in that war because Belgium had been outraged and her Treaty violated. You have the statement that the allied powers gave to the world---the moral cry which rallied all right-thinking people everywhere on the side of Belgium. If this is not a final settlement we have lost the good opinion of the world on the day we sign the Treaty with a mental reservation that it is not a final settlement. I have taken one oath to the Republic and I will keep it. If I voted for that document I would work the Treaty, and I would keep my solemn word and treat as a rebel any man who would rise out against it. If I could in conscience vote for that Treaty I would do so, and if I did I would do all in my power to enforce that Treaty; because, so sure as the honour of this nation is committed by its signature to this Treaty, so surely is Ireland dead. We are asked to commit suicide and I cannot do it. We are asked to annihilate the Irish nation. This nation has been preserved for seven hundred and fifty years, coming down in unbroken succession of great men who have inspired us to carry on. We were the heirs of a great tradition, and the tradition was that Ireland had never surrendered, that Ireland had never been beaten, and that Ireland can never be beaten [cheers]. And because of that great spiritual thing we young men went out to follow our fathers, and we have fought a good fight together, and I am sorry that we are now divided, and I entertain personally nothing but the fondest memories of my old comrades; and I am sorry that we are divided but I am glad that we are divided on fundamentals. And so sure as we accept this Treaty and rise against it in another generation, the whole nations of the world will be against us and as they rallied to the support of Belgium so will they rally to the support of England. You cannot compromise the nation's honour unless you definitely agree in conscience that this is a final settlement. No man can speak for the dead. Our concern is with the living and with those who may come after us, and I for one am quite easy in my mind that those who will come after us will deal kindly with the men who vote against this Treaty. Our leader, Pádraic Pearse, said that liberty is eternal. It belongs to all. Liberty can't be bartered for trade. Either we are entitled as a nation to the full unlimited control of our own destiny or we are not. If we have common citizenship with Great Britain, then the Union is good enough for me. If we are a nation this Treaty is the very negation of nationhood and I vote against it. Our late leader, Pádraic Pearse, said that this fight for Ireland was like a divine religion. It has come down to us in apostolic succession. In his language, in his summing up he told us that the veterans of Kinsale fought at Benburb, the veterans of Benburb fought with Sarsfield in Limerick and the veterans of Limerick kept the fires of the nation burning from Limerick to Dungannon; the veterans of Dungannon of '82 fought in 1798; Robert Holmes, the friend of Tone, was also the friend of Emmet; the man who defended Emmet lived to be a young Irelander; three veterans of the young Ireland movement founded Fenianism, and the veterans of the Fenian movement stood with the Volunteers of 1916. We picked it up in 1916 and we brought the Irish Republic out of the backwoods, away from the dark rooms of secret societies, and preached the gospel before the Irish people; and we asked them to stand for an independent Republic. Many Deputies in this House know that my father himself had to fly from this country and suffer---as men in this House who know him---he had to fly away because he believed in a Republic. His son was privileged to stand on public platforms and to ask the Irish people to subscribe to the Republic---and they did. Whatever else we do, let us not blame it on the people. The people have proved in this fight as strong as their leaders, and so long as the leaders remain strong no demand that you make on the people would be denied. Don't blame it on the wife. If we are prepared to carry on this fight the people of Ireland will support us. As we are divided so are the people of Ireland divided, but as a Parliament, as we represent the real opinion of Ireland and Ireland rallied to us, so surely will it come that the men who sign this Treaty will regret it. Now, in closing I say that this tradition has been handed down stainless; the national honour of Ireland has never yet been compromised; and if that document is rejected---come weal, come woe---this nation must survive; it can only be killed by the vote of its own representatives. We stand, therefore, where our fathers stood before us. If that Treaty is adopted we can never again ask the support of the world for our struggles, because the sanctity of Treaties will be invoked against us; and all honourable men everywhere will deny Ireland assistance. If I could accept that Treaty as a stepping-stone to Irish freedom I would do it; but I know that I would not be doing an expedient thing for Ireland, but doing what, in my opinion, would forever debar Ireland from winning her ultimate freedom. If we reject that Treaty England will not make war on us; if she does we will be able to defend ourselves as we have always done.
MR. JOSEPH MACGRATH:
I am going to give a lead for the remainder of the day, if I can, with regard to making a short statement. I want to state at the outset that I am now as I always have been, an out and outer.
MR. BOLAND:
You mean a down and outer.
MR. MACGRATH:
I am not a Republican of a latter day, neither am I a Republican since I was four years old; but I am one for the past fifteen years, when Republicanism was very low in Ireland; when some others on the other side along with me in the Dublin streets had to run from the population for attempting to do what we thought fit, in our own way, to try and bring about the Republican movement. I have been consistent all along, and I hope to prove by the few words I have to say that in taking the action I am taking to-day in supporting this Treaty I am still consistent. I was consistent when, as I said before, in the very early days I went into the homes of all classes and asked them to support the candidates that we put forward that time as Sinn Feiners, candidates who were known to be the `Kings, Lords, and Commons,' men; and I remember well in the slum areas meeting some of the poorer classes the constituency which I represent is full of them I remember meeting people of the working class type and after trying to convince those people that we were on the right track I had a man---I should say a hungry man---saying to me: `Oh, you are the same as the others. If you people get into power the workers will be just the same.' I thought then---and I told them so---that, as far as I and those with me could do it, the worker would be put on the level that I think he should he put on. Now one thing that struck me when I came out of prison---and I suppose only because I was in at the time I would not be elected a member of the Dáil---was the democratic programme of An Dáil. It is stuck there all the time. I won't read it for you---it is too long, and I want to keep to my word of making a brief statement---but there is one passage I will read for you, just this one item in the programme:
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It shall be the first duty of the Government of the Republic to make provision for the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the children; to secure that no child shall suffer from hunger, cold, lack of clothing or shelter, but that they shall be provided with the means and facilities requisite for their proper education and training as citizens of a free and Gaelic Ireland.
</SMALL>
There you have it---our first duty. Now we come to the Republic that has been established; and I worked for and fought for that Republic. It is held here that a Republic was established in 1919; now, I did my best that week too, though I knew well when going out that we were not going to get a Republic as the result. I knew that thoroughly well. I am five years older to-day than I ever expected to be; I thought I was going out to go down, but if I did, I knew what I was doing; I went out to wake up the Irish people---as the men who died that week did. The Republic is established! Now the Republic that I visualised has not yet been established. I will tell you why. It takes a little more than a number of meetings of men and women---having been put there, not as Republicans, mind you---it takes a little more than their meeting and passing resolutions and stating the Republic is established. It is held by the people on the other side that the Republic was established in 1919, and we will take that year, when we were being left alone and allowed to meet in public. If that is the Republic they have worked and fought for it certainly is not the Republic I have worked and fought for. What powers has that Republic? Could they or have they yet carried out their first duty. Have they done so? Are they able to? I will tell you in the very plain words of the President's own statement---I am going to quote from the Dáil Eireann Parliament meeting in 1919. A question was asked by one of the first citizens of Dublin, Alderman Tom Kelly, who, I am very sorry to say, is not in a fit state of health as the result of the treatment he received, and is not able to attend---Alderman Tom Kelly, by the way, wants to vote for this Treaty; I have a letter from him in my pocket---well, at this Dáil meeting in 1919 we find Alderman Kelly, who always looked after the workers, particularly after the poor classes in Dublin, asking for
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A statement from President de Valera regarding the social policy of the Ministry. In the Democratic Programme outlined at the first meeting of the Dáil it was stated that it would be the first duty of the Government of the Republic to make provision for the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the children, to abolish the present Poor Law System; and to take such measures as would safeguard the health of the people. He felt that if they separated after that Public Session without making some reference to what their Ministry deemed to be the right duty in connection with the social life of the people, that they would have done a wrong. Let them take the city of Dublin and see how its condition had been impoverished and demoralised from the time that the rapacity of British Imperialism became the creed immediately after what was known in history as Nelson's victories.
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He goes on to talk about Ireland's prosperity years ago President de Valera's reply was
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that it was quite clear that the Democratic Programme, as adopted by the Dáil, contemplated a situation somewhat different from that in which they actually found themselves. They had the occupation of the foreigner in their country and while that state of affairs existed, they could not put fully into force their desires and their wishes as far as their social programme was concerned.
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That is quite correct. Under this Treaty, which I don't hold is all we fought and worked for---I am using `fought' too often, but I didn't mean to use it---under this Treaty every single thing in this Democratic Programme can be put into force, and the democrats in this assembly know that well. Not one of those on the other side have referred to this matter. They have taken up their arguments against the Treaty, and not a single one of them has said that there is any one clause in the Treaty that is good for Ireland. Not a head of a department that has spoken has pointed out what could be done through their department under this Treaty. It strikes me that they are all very well disciplined; not a single one of them would say it. If they are against the Treaty they might point out some thing that they object to; but they could, at least, say it is good in some points---they could say to the plenipotentiaries: `At least you have done well in some way or another'. As I said before, and as Deputy Mrs. O'Callaghan said on the other side, it is perfectly clear that they are well disciplined. With regard to the alternative proposals---if that document were no one that had already been turned down by the people on the English side, or if it did not contain clauses that had already been turned down; or if it were here before us now signed by the plenipotentiaries on both sides and we were taking a vote on it---my position would be this: as one who took an oath fifteen years ago to establish an Irish Republic, I would have to get up and say exactly what I am saying about the Treaty. My friends on the other side know that very well, and that document that was put before us the other day does not bring us any of the things mentioned. It does not help to release them from the oath that they took along with me; let them be straight on it; let them get up and say so; but no, anything at all to beat the Treaty. Now, this is what I see wrong with that document: `That when acting as an associate the rights, status and privileges of Ireland shall be in no respect less than those enjoyed by any of the component States of the British Commonwealth', and `that for the purpose of the association Ireland shall recognise His Brittanic Majesty as Head of the association'.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Again I ask you is it fair to have that document discussed in detail when I have been prevented from bringing forward that document and explaining it as an alternative?
MR. MCGRATH:
I am not discussing it. I am only giving my reason why I would have as much objection to that document as to the Treaty.
MISS MACSWINEY:
The oath is not in the document.
MR. MACGRATH:
It is there in the document. Now, I am swallowing a bitter pill in having to vote for this Treaty; as I said before it is not what I want. I have had to swallow bitter pills before; I will tell you things I had to do in my life; perhaps some of you had to do similar things. This matter I speak of now happened when the President was in jail. I was asked one night at twelve o'clock by two men who came to my house---this is not a personal matter---the two men asked me would I go and help in an election that was taking place at the time. I asked them what was the intention of the man who was going up. They said that they could not tell me and I said `I am not going to work for a man who is going to Parliament after what has happened, for I have been fighting these people for ten years, and have been in the scrap, and have seen the punishment that was meted out to my comrades.' They said they could not promise whether he would go to Parliament or not; they had been sent to me to know whether I could lend a hand. At the time I was something of an election expert. I said I wouldn't go, and they said they were going up to Dan MacCarthy. I went up with them. He put the same question. They appealed to us to go and we went. I worked forfour days there, and it was the hardest election ever I was in. I worked then for a man whose record at the time was one that I was not satisfied with. That was a risk for us to take, and not till after the election, when a small committee met with the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Foreign Affairs present, did we find out whether the man elected intended going to Parliament; we found out he was not going to Parliament; that was a big risk we had taken, and I am going to take this in the same way. I believe in this Treaty; there is in it sufficient power, there is in it sufficient freedom to work out the ultimate freedom we all hope for. Well now, I am glad to see Deputy Harry Boland here, I am glad he came back. I was not here to-day when he asked about the `final settlement'. It was well known that Deputy Boland and myself went to Gairloch on the famous last trip. I want Deputy Harry Boland to tell me now what Deputy Boland meant when he told me he was going back to America on the President's instructions to do an awful thing---to prepare the American people for something short of a Republic.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Short of the isolated Republic.
MR. MACGRATH:
Something short of a Republic: that was what he was going back for, and now he comes home to talk of sovereign status and giving away. When I saw the President's first statement regarding the Treaty---I was in London at the time---the very first thing I said was: `My God, what a position Harry Boland must find himself in presently in America'. He told me, before we handed the document to Lloyd George, that he was going to America to prepare the people for something less than a Republic---I am deliberately not using the word `compromise.' Well, consequently it surprised me to see Harry Boland's telegram stating that he was against the Treaty. I won't say what happened in the meantime.
DR. MACCARTAN:
He had another statement in America.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
Will I be allowed to explain about it?
MR. MACGRATH:
I am not charging you with the first one at all; what I know about the first one is that the dope had not reached there at the time. There has been of late a cry here regarding the people: `If the people have changed I have not!' reminds me of a very similar cry a few years ago, that was exactly the swan song of the Irish Parliamentary Party when we had not an opportunity of turning them out; at meetings of their constituents they used to say: `If the people have changed, we have not', when they knew that the people had changed from their old ideas. The swan song of the Parliamentary Party of those days that `If the people have changed we have not', is now the swan song of the people on the other side to-day. One of the Deputies said here a few days ago that we were helping the British Government to send troops to India and Egypt; and that has been referred to in another way to-day. Such a statement, as I understand it, implies that we should sacrifice Ireland to save India and Egypt [hear, hear]. Now, in conclusion, I would like to ask does that mean that, should a Republic be offered to you---an isolated Republic---does it mean that you would stop the British troops from leaving this country lest they should be sent to India and Egypt? [Applause].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is something I cannot let pass because it is against the interests of the nation, apart from anything else; that is the suggestion that has been made with reference to Mr. Boland's instructions from me. Everyone knows that at the first meeting of the Cabinet and Ministry that I proposed a plan as the only chance I saw of getting, except by force of arms, an isolated Republic; and that chance was the plan of external association. I pointed out definitely that that was not an isolated Republic. I have not a face of brass as other people have, and when I had to go for the absolute isolated Republic I said so. It was because I was honest and wanted to be honest with the American people that I said that an isolated Republic would have to be changed into some sort of association, something that would be consistent with the position I was aiming at. I know no sort of association is agreeable to the Irish people, and I know a large percentage of the Irish people in America would not like to see Ireland associated in any way with the English.
COUNT O'BYRNE :
I should not have wearied the Dáil by taking part in this debate, but the matters at issue are so vital that I do feel in duty bound to state exactly my reasons why I cannot accept the Treaty. I will do so in as few words as possible and I hope for the indulgence of this Dáil if I should merely strike a personal note in stating these reasons. I have not the temerity to say that anything I should say would influence in the slightest way any Deputy here, nor do I intend to criticise the actions of those who support the Treaty honestly, on the grounds that it is a stepping stone to freedom. That may be so; time will tell. For my part I feel some day they will have a very rude awakening; to my mind, when you get on that stepping stone you must drop fundamental principles; I cannot follow them, never more so than when that involves the sovereign independence of my country. The last speaker complimented those who were against the Treaty on the ground of their discipline, for he said that apparently none of them would admit there was anything good in this Treaty. Well, I for my part, follow no Party and no man; I follow my own conscience, and in this ease, even if it be a breach of discipline, I will admit there are good things in this Treaty and plenty of good things; but are we to accept these good things at the risk of our own principles? I say we are not. Now, the point I go on is this: that by the first clause of the Treaty we give away the, right of sovereign independence; and we accept dominion status. I, for my part, always hated politics; in fact I shunned public life. It was a maxim of mine that if you once entered polities that, sooner or later, you would have to swallow your own principles. In 1920 I was drawn into it because I was for a mandate to secure a free and independent Ireland: I gladly accepted it. Had I been told that it implied compromise I would have positively declined to go forward, and I would have left the task to others. Subsequently in the Dáil, I took a solemn Oath of Allegiance in accordance with this mandate, and without any mental reservations. Am I now to be asked to break what I hold to be the most sacred oath, and that on the ground of expediency? I could never do so; with me it's a matter of conscience. Were I to vote for this Treaty it would be a cowardly act, done merely through fear of incurring public disfavour, while all the time in my heart I would feel I would have been wrong, and would have a sense of shame. I may be an idealist perhaps I am super-sensitive; but I claim now---well, I claim to be honourable. Were I to act in that way I feel that I would be false to my conscience; that I would be false to the dead. I would be false to my country as I would be giving away the birth-right of the whole Irish nation. Under these circumstances I feel that I cannot possibly vote for the Treaty.
MR. P. BRENNAN:
I shall not say much because everything I wanted to say has been said by either one side or the other. I might have said it better, but that does not matter [laughter]. I support the Treaty for what it is; not for more than it is, and certainly not for less. This Treaty gives us freedom to achieve the ultimate liberty for which we all aim. That is enough for me. There are a few other things I want to speak about. Doctor English of Galway made certain insinuations against the Volunteers; she asked whether the Irish Volunteers would hold Ireland for the British Empire. Now, that is an insult to the Volunteers, who brought Ireland to its present position. The Volunteers will hold Ireland for the Irish people. Deputy Brian O'Higgins stated that he went down to Clare on Christmas Eve and came back with his mind unchanged; that the views and impressions of the people who command the best influence in Clare, as he stated, are against the Treaty.
MR. B. O'HIGGINS:
West Clare.
MR. BRENNAN:
Yes, right-o. I know all Clare, every bog and mountain; I don't know those wonderful heroes whom Deputy Brian O'Higgins met. I would like to know who they are? Is the Most Reverend Doctor Fogarty a representative of the worst influence in Clare? Is the Chairman of the Clare County Council a representative of the worst influence in Clare? Well, if they are they are the devil's children, for they have the devil's luck to be alive to-day both the Most Reverend Doctor Fogarty and the Chairman of the County Council. It has been stated that the farmers have no right to express their opinion on the matters before the House. I am myself a member of the Irish Clerical Workers' Union therefore I am a Trades Unionist. I don't speak here for any particular class, but the farmers of Ireland, of Clare, anyway, were never asked in vain by the army or the civil organisation of Sinn Fein for any assistance, which they did not give, in money and in men to the fight---they were never backward; these people have every right to express their opinions. I, too, have old memories of the Minister of Finance, I knew him twelve years ago in London, when he was an unknown, a silent worker; I knew him up to the day when he came back to Dublin, and he did not come back to avoid conscription; but he came back to take a man's part in the Rising---and he did take a man's part---and if Seán MacDiarmuda was alive to-day he would tell you why Michael Collins and the rest of us came from London to Ireland. I don't suppose the old Michael Collins has changed, I think he is the same Michael Collins, and I think he has only one aim and that is to achieve Ireland's independence [applause].
DR. JAMES RYAN:
I beg to agree with the speaker on the other side, Deputy O'Duffy; I don't believe that our side has a monopoly of patriotism; I believe there is patriotism on the other side also. It is, as the President has said, a difference in fundamentals, a difference in what both parties believe to be right. The reason why I want to vote against the Treaty---the big reason---is because in voting against the Treaty I am carrying out the principle of government by consent of the governed. Now, I don't believe that the public bodies in my constituency, who were elected on the same ticket as I was, have any more right to speak for the people than I have. I can say a thing about my constituency that very few would believe---it might not fully or fairly represent the feelings of the people---I was five days in County Wexford and I never met a person who was in favour of the Treaty; I don't think that it is fair to the people of Wexford, for if I went to the trouble I could have met many I was five days there and I never met a person who was in favour of it. I did meet one---a certain person; he was a man who worked hard for me during the election, and he came to me to ask was I going to vote for the Treaty and I answered `No'. Then he said: `If I thought you were going to vote for that Treaty I would never have worked for you, and I would be a very disappointed man'. Now, a man like him, believing in my oath, would have a more genuine grievance against me if I voted for the Treaty than the people who want the Treaty; because the people who want this Treaty have absolutely no grievance for they never had any reason to believe that our party were going to compromise in any way. I don't want to find fault with the Treaty at all; I think that Deputy MacGrath was wrong in saying we gave no credit to the Treaty; I believe our side has given as much credit as possible and I think we have admitted the good points in the Treaty as far as finance and our own army and education and those things are concerned. They are all very good; but there is one big point that we cannot get over and that is the point of common citizenship. I don't think I have anything further to say. I think the most important thing of all at the present time is the decision.
DR. ADA ENGLISH:
May I make a personal explanation? I never said what Deputy Brennan accused me of: that the Irish Volunteers would hold Ireland for the English. What I said was: If this Treaty be accepted, and a Government put in power---if a Free State Government be in power---that they would have to use the army if they wanted to keep the Treaty, and keep true to it; that they would have to use the army to support the Treaty and to keep the Free State in power, which I consider is holding Ireland for England.
MR. BRENNAN:
The same thing. Did I not also say to you `would go out and fight for the Republic?'
MR. LIAM HAYES:
As a plain man, a soldier who has no claim to be a politician, but as one who in the Irish Republican Army did his best, I have a mandate from the Irish people to defend their rights and liberties. Which of our officers when making a fight against desperate odds did not ask himself: `Am I justified in sacrificing the lives of my men?' Well, he was justified, because he had authority then to fight for the rights of his country. We fought for Ireland's freedom; we fought to rid Ireland of the English Army of occupation; and we fought to secure for the Irish people control of Ireland's destinies. I hold we have won; if we accept the Treaty we have won these things. Now, we are asked to resume the war by some who have never heard the bark of an angry rifle---to bring further sufferings on the Irish race---and for what? Merely to alter a few words in the Treaty, words which do not vitally affect the national position of our country. This is rainbow chasing. I, for one, will not vote to sacrifice the lives of my comrades; I am voting for the Treaty.
MR. SEAN NOLAN:
I have no desire to speak; I, feeling as one who always fought straight from the shoulder, was anxious this House would come to an early decision, but I feel that if I were to take the line that I would have otherwise taken here that I would only add further to the difficulties there are, and the disunion that exists. For that reason I mean to confine myself and be as cautious and careful as possible. I was disappointed at, and I must say I resent the charge made by the Deputy from St James', Deputy MacGrath, when he insinuated that we have been disciplined in our speeches. Nobody has spoken to me as to what I have to say or will say, and I resent any insinuation of that description. He has spoken of dope; nobody has doped me, and I refuse to believe that our President has any intention of doping anybody whatsoever. We have tried to be straight on this question and why not be straight on all sides? We who are against the Treaty are against it because we feel and believe, and conscientiously believe, that we are doing the best thing for Ireland in rejecting this Treaty; and when we believe that why should Deputies stand up here and charge the leaders of our side with doping us or doping anybody else? A lot has been heard about the will of the people. I will take the memories of those who are for years working in the movement---I will take their memories back a few years, as far back as 1906. I then, and those who worked with me, worked against the will of the people; the will of the people then was Parliamentarianism and Home Rule. We worked then for a Republic and all along to 1916; and the men who fought then fought against the will of the people, it you might so call it, because the will of the people was Parliamentarianism and Home Rule. I fought and worked against the will of the people in those days because I thought the will of the people was wrong; and should the will of the people go wrong to-day I will work against it also; but I refuse to believe that the will of the people is in favour of the acceptance of this Treaty. Self determination has been flung around here, and `government by consent of the governed.' I have met men in Cork city and also in Dublin city who are supporting the Treaty, and they have said to me: `For God's sake, why didn't you throw it out in Private Session and the whole country would stand beside you.' What does that mean? That these people are prepared to accept this Treaty under duress, and that it is not the free consent of the people or self-determination. Self-determination means that you have a free voice to get what you select, and there is no selection in this Treaty. The question before them is: this Treaty or terrible and immediate war. In this Treaty promises of peace have been dangled before the people, and people have been intimidated by threat of war, or attempts have been made to intimidate them, but I say the people of Ireland are not afraid of war; the people of Ireland were never afraid of war when that war was in defence of their own rights and liberties. Should England force war on us again in consequence of the rejection of this Treaty, the people of Ireland will stand as solidly, as unitedly as ever against the common foe in order to achieve the liberty for which we have always been fighting. I have listened with pain, and sometimes with disgust, to speeches that were made here from time to time which endangered the fate of the nation and gave our case away to the enemy. I had visualised when I first entered this Dáil a Government composed of men who, come well or woe, would stand as firm as the Rock of Gibraltar for the Republic to which we swore allegiance, who would refuse to be disunited by any enemy, either from within or without this country. I believed at that time that each Deputy had the same end in view as I had, that he had the same thing in view as I had, that he had the same faith in the established Republican Government as I had, and that we were all one on the question of Dominion or Colonial Home Rule. But, alas! I have been mistaken. I have heard Deputies declare here that the Republic is dead, that this Treaty ends the seven centuries' struggle, that it gives us the freedom and what we fought for. I have never in all my life suffered greater agony than what I have suffered since this Session began. Charges have been made here against our noble President, that he let down the Republic; we have all been charged with letting down the Republic when we consented to negotiate. I deny that I ever deviated from the Republican path; I deny that acceptance of negotiations meant the surrender of our Republic, and the famous `paragraph two' in the President's letter to Lloyd George speaks for itself. Deputy MacCartan's speech I deplore; he told the enemy and the world that the Republic is dead, that the army is divided. I deny that the Republic is dead or that the army is divided; the army is as solid and as disciplined to-day as ever it was; it is as ready and willing to repel the attacks of the common enemy now as it was in the past, and it will defend Ireland's rights at all times with the same spirit, the same unity, the same determination. I would like here to refer to a pamphlet issued by Professor O'Rahilly of Cork; he said that fifteen-sixteenths of the army and the whole population is in favour of the Treaty. That is false propaganda; it is false propaganda and from honourable men we would expect better. The army, I say again, is as disciplined to-day as ever it was; the Irish people are as solid behind the national army and the national cause, no matter how they feel about the present Treaty. I deplore speeches which declare our cause is lost such defeatist speeches are not worthy of any member of this assembly; we are not defeated; the Irish Republican Army is not and was not defeated; and why should we surrender, as was suggested by a Deputy in this House, like the surrender of Germany to the Alllies in order to save their country. We were winning, and we will win. I am against this Treaty because it denies the existence of the Irish Republic and the Irish nation: I will vote against it because if I were to do otherwise I would do wrong, and the Chairman of the Delegation in his golden moments says: `No Church, no religion admits that any man or woman is entitled to do a wrong even that if they did not do it, somebody else would.' If the people in Ireland in their stampeded condition to-day would do wrong, that is no reason why I should. I will cast my vote for the Government to which I am pledged, and the only Government which I recognise; to do otherwise would be to subvert the Republican Government. We have been told by the Deputy for St. James' that we did not admit what material or social advantages were in the Treaty. The admission is contained in the other document; the good things in the Treaty have been included in Document No.2, which is referred to, and I think that was an uncalled-for remark. we have been told that we have got freedom, immediate freedom, great freedom, and that through this Treaty we are to get great and good things to build up a strong nation materially. But in order to do that, to my mind, we must still have the spirit and soul of a nation; and again, in reply to the material advantages that are to be gained through this Treaty, I would refer you to the golden moments of Arthur Griffith: `Train up a child to estimate what it learns by the amount of bread and jam he is likely to gain and you train it by that to lose its soul. If he is taught that patriotism is to be despised if it does not bring material advantages he will ask to-morrow what are the material advantages of religion.' That is my reply in the words of Arthur Griffith to the material advantages to be gained by this Treaty when we sell the soul of the nation by its acceptance. We are told what the acceptance of this Treaty means; and we are told that its rejection means that we challenge England to war; we are told that this Treaty is giving us all we asked for. I say that by the rejection of this Treaty we do not challenge England to war; we challenge England's sincerity for peace, and we express our own abhorrence of war by rejecting this Treaty because the Treaty means the perpetuating, the carrying on of war; and by its rejection we challenge England to make a genuine and honourable peace to which both the English nation and the Irish nation will subscribe, a peace with honour to which both nations can subscribe---that is the peace we desire. We all love peace, we pray for peace, and we are ready and willing to make peace with England on honourable terms; let England recognise our independence and we will be at peace; there will then be a definite end to the struggle between the two peoples and we will live as friends and good neighbours. We are anxious to live as good neighbours with the English nation if they are prepared to do the right thing by us. [applause]
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, is le croidhe duairc eirighim anso iniu. Do shaoileas bliain ó shin ná beadh a leitheid de sceal againn sa tír seo agus sa Dáil seo choíche. Ba mhaith liom a rá fe mar adubhairt Seathrún Ceitinn trí chead bliain ó shin: `Mo thruagh mar atá Eire'. Mo thruagh mar atá Eire iniu: í deighilte, briste, cráidhte; a teachtaí ag cáine a cheile, ag gearra a cheile, agus is eagal liom go m- beid ag marbha a cheile, sara bh-fad. Tá mórán ráite anso cheana i d- taobh na h-Eireann agus anois táimse chun an meid seo do rá: táim ag obair le fada im' shlí fein ar son na tíre; agus riamh, níor dhineas aon rud i g-coinnibh mo thíre ach aon rud amháin---rud ná raibh leigheas agam air---se sin gur chuas isteach i Civil Service Shasana. Se an fáth go n-dinim an tagairt seo ná gur chuir fear nú bean eigin e seo chugham: `Ratify the Treaty and Save the Empire. England wants Volunteers to join the Free State Army to crush Egypt and India. Join up.' Masla dhúinne atá ag cabhrú leis an g-Connradh iseadh e sin. Le dhá chead bliain anuas ná raibh einne dem' mhuintirse in Arm Shasana, ná i Navy Shasana, ná i b-Píleirí Shasana. Tá eagla orm, an bhean a chuir an `dope' sin chugham, ná raibh a fear ná a mac ag troid ar thaobh na h-Eireann, ach go raibh se ag troid i g-connibh na Gearmáine---tír nár dhin aon rud i g-coinnibh na tíre seo riamh. Tá a lán ráite i d- taobh Seachtain na Cásca, 1916. Is cuimhin liom an oiche roimh an Cháisc sin; bhí an Teachta ó Chathair Dhoire agus an Teachta ó Chathair Phortláirge ag cur an sceil trí cheile an oíche sin; bhíos-sa ann mar `soldier of the line'; ni raibh guth agam ach dubhart: `For God's sake go into action together or declare it off together.' Chuas isteach sa troid; ní raibh mo chroidhe an oíche sin sa troid, ach nuair a chuaidh na buachaillí sa chath chuas-sa ann. Chuas isteach sa troid chun aigne mhuintir na h-Eireann do shaora. I defy any Deputy here to say or state or write that we struck at the British Army in Easter Week, 1916, for any other purpose than to save the soul of Ireland. If we had what we get under this Treaty now---if we had that army out of Ireland that week, what would be the result? We would not be fighting for one week; we would be fighting them for six months, at least. Now I rise to support this Treaty because it gives my country a chance to live; if we reject this Treaty I believe that Ireland will be thrown into the wilderness for a hundred years; and I make no apology to any man or woman in Ireland for voting for this Treaty. We have not been given by our Cabinet a fair run. First of all we were told that we are compromising, but I think that has been dealt with already. If we sent any message to Lloyd George claiming a Republic we had a right to state that in plain Irish or in plain English; but we did not do so. We sent over our plenipotentiaries with an answer to this message `how the association of the Irish people could be best reconciled with the group of nations known as the British Empire.' There is no Republic in that to my mind. The plenipotentiaries were over there for close on two months. They came back and whatever happened at the Cabinet meeting I don't know---I don't know any of the Cabinet secrets---but this much I do know, and the world knows it: that there were four members of the Cabinet for the Treaty and two and the President against it. Now, I say we are treated unfairly, and the people of Ireland are treated unfairly, and, as somebody said here, we, the back-benchers, should have been called together to discuss the situation; there was a serious division in the Cabinet, and we had a right to be called in; it is for that we are here at all. Now we are getting under this Treaty, control of education; and we are talking since 1893 about the Irish language; what progress have we made in that time? All the speeches and all the word-bandying and all our misunderstandings here are caused because of our using the English language. Now, I say that under the Treaty we can revive our own language in less than a dozen years. The President said on one occasion: `B'fhearr liom Eire fe shlabhraí agus a teanga fein aici ná Eire saor gan a teanga fein aici'. If the Irish language once dies, as you all know, we can't bring it back; if freedom is lost we can bring it back. A lot has been said here about war; but I believe a lot of people are talking war now and I couldn't find these war merchants---I couldn't find them for the past two years [laughter and applause]. And I make no apology for not being in the firing line for the past two years, for I was put into a position by the President, and in that position I carried out my duties to the best of my ability.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. O'KEEFFE:
In that time, while our soldiers were fighting, the men and women on the civil side were helping the enemy. [Cries of `No! no!']. Do you deny it? Well, now, I say you were; you were trading with the enemy; and during that time you gave that enemy one hundred and thirty-two million pounds for goods that could be purchased and produced in this country; and you tell me that you were functioning as a Republic. Were there not English commercial travellers swarming all over this country, while our men were executed after the Coachford ambush? Were there any Englishmen in this country arrested, or did our Cabinet or this Dáil arrest or execute any English traveller? Every door you entered in this country---every shopkeeper in this country helped them [cries of `No! no!']. I say yes. Well, now, we hear sneering remarks about joining up in the Free State Army; but remember that we joined up in the English Army in 1912, in 1913 and in 1918; and we beat the Germans. Don't tell me that the Munster Fusiliers, my own neighbours, didn't beat the Germans. Don't tell me that the Dublins, the Leinsters and the Connaught Rangers didn't beat the Germans. If you ratify the Treaty there will be no Dublins, no Leinsters, no Connaught Rangers and no Munster Fusiliers. A lot has been said here about the farmers of Ireland---
A DEPUTY:
The North Cork Militia.
MR. O'KEEFFE:
Don't mind about the North Cork Militia. I believe that some people have said that the Republic was functioning from 1916 on, and that the people of lreland were told we were Republicans; well if they were they should have kept their own money in the Republic. Should they not? The Minister of Finance is not here. Now, the Banks of Ireland lent to the British Empire during the war---to win the war---fifty-and-a half million pounds. I want to go through the different points. Somebody said here the other day that the Republic was dead, I deny that; the Republic is not dead; the Republic is in the distance if we accept this Treaty. I compare Ireland to a bather perpetually in togs, prepared to take a dive. A lot has been said here about the will of the people, I don't think it counts now; other methods will be used, I am afraid, to try and stifle the will of the people [`No! no!']. I hope I'm wrong. Ninety-nine per cent. of the people of Ireland---with the exception of the counties of Munster where they would be about ninety-five per cent.---are in favour of the Treaty; I certainly say that ninety-five per cent. of the people of Leinster are in favour of that Treaty; and if they are not they are the biggest hypocrites I know of, because when our men were fighting in Cork for six months, aye for twelve months, I appealed to the Minister of Defence to take the pressure off Cork and to bring it up to Leinster---to Rathdrum---and that was not done; and why was it not done? Because Leinster wouldn't fight. Now, if we accept the Treaty we save the nation---and I take the nation to be the men and women in it, the good and the bad, the soldiers and the ex-soldiers. If we accept Ireland as the nation we will have to accept with it the good and the bad. The population of the County of Cork in 1841 was eight hundred and fifty-four thousand. In 1911 it was three hundred and ninety-two thousand; so that we lost in Cork during seventy years four hundred and sixty-two thousand, or fifty-four per cent. of its population. The whole of Ireland lost in that period three and three-quarter millions of people. We will save our population in future by accepting this Treaty. Now, I am not going to give you any dope, I have no right to give it, and besides it's no good; but I would appeal to Ireland, to Irishmen and Irishwomen, to do the best they can in their day for our common country. The curse of this country is---I will put it in the words of Geoffrey Keating:---
<SMALL>Eigceart na n-Eireannach fein
Do threascair iad do aon cheim
Ag spairinn fá cheart ghear chorrach
Ní neart arm na n-eachtrannach</SMALL>
MRS. O'CALLAGHAN:
The Deputy for St. James' said that in Private Session I accused his side of being disciplined. Am I in order in explaining what I did say? At the Private Session on December 17th, certain Deputies who said they were army men got up, one after another, and made certain statements about the army which I will not repeat. I sat here all day and listened to them. I noticed, as they went on, that every one of these soldier Teachtaí used the same three or four arguments, in practically the same words; and at the end of the day I got up and said---it was not in accusation of them, it was in praise of them---I said, whatever is right or wrong, that the army, obviously, to judge by the members here, is well disciplined. It was not an accusation; it was a matter for praise.
MR. MACKEOWN:
As every officer in the army is in the one boat and has the same facts before him, consequently each and every one of them had substantially the same statement to make and they naturally used the same words.
MR. MULCAHY:
I wish to make a certain explanation with regard to the army as the matter has arisen here and is arising in other places
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The Minister of Defence is not here. He will be here in the afternoon and it can be raised then.
MR. SEAMAS LENNON:
I don't intend to detain you long; I am just going to state in a few brief sentences why I am going to vote against this Treaty. I, like a good many here, have got sheaves of resolutions from public bodies in my constituency; some of these have been mild and reasonable; others of them are undoubtedly very strong---if I may so use the word. They have put it up to me in these words: `ratify or resign' [hear, hear]. Well, I am here now to say that I am not going either to ratify or resign. Those public bodies with whom I have been in close touch for the past three years---those bodies were called together to a public meeting last September and my co-Deputy, Gearóid O'Sullivan and I were present on that particular occasion. Now, I consider his speech on that occasion was, at least, a strong incentive to induce those public bodies to pass the resolutions which they have passed during the past week; he declared to those public bodies---and I am sure those men looked upon him in his dual capacity, and the word he conveyed to them went home to them he declared that if he were in charge of the English Army that he would smash the Irish Republic in a fortnight here in this country. He used these words to the public representatives of my native country. It is not wonderful then that the public bodies in my constituency, and in view of the Press campaign that has been going on since the Treaty appeared in public, it is not wonderful that these public bodies would send me these resolutions. I have absolute respect and love for these public bodies and for each individual in my constituency; but it is because I have absolute respect and love for these people that I will not vote for the ratification of this Treaty. To day the people of my constituency and the people of Ireland are citizens of the Irish Republic. To-night at seven o'clock if a vote is taken and if this Treaty is ratified by a majority of this House, the people of Ireland will be no longer citizens of the Irish Republic; they will be citizens of the British Empire.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Not quite so soon.
MR. LENNON:
I will not vote or cast my vote to bring the citizens of the Irish Republic whom I represent, to bring these men into the British Empire, no matter how many sheaves of resolutions I get to the effect---ratify or resign. My co-Deputy also issued what I consider a challenge to me here last night, possibly it may also be applied to my co-Deputy, Deputy Aylward; but I will deal with him in the county---the county in which I have been born and reared, and in which I am living and have lived all my life. I am prepared to take him up on that challenge when he declares that they who speak for the ratification of this Treaty in my county---that they would beat me five hundred to one. I am prepared to accept that challenge, and I will stand on the principle of the Irish Republic in facing my co-Deputy, Gearóid O'Sullivan, on that question: and I further declare that if my co-Deputy had come down last May and declared and called for the votes of the people of Carlow on the strength of the fact that he was going to support this Treaty I doubt if he would have got the thirty-two votes that he now declares that I would get in my constituency. I have a resolution here from my Comhairle Ceanntair in which there was an amendment carried on last Sunday by nine votes to six, and that amendment is this: `That we, the members of the Carlow Comhairle Ceanntair call upon the members of the Dáil for unity in the present crisis and that we ask all our members to use their influence to bring about that unity which we desire'. There is the Comhairle Ceanntair of Carlow though I am told that there are only thirty-two men in the county who stand for an Irish Republic; yet the names of nine men are there who stand firm on that principle. I went forward as a Republican in 1918; I was elected as a Republican in 1921; and yet there are people here who say the Republic is dead; I hold the Republic is not dead; and I say that when the Republic sent plenipotentiaries over to London the Republic was, undoubtedly, not dead, but I hold that the Republic never got right into its stride into the hearts of the Irish people until the delegates went over to London. The people looked to the Republic for guidance and for assistance; and I consider that if I vote for the ratification of this Treaty that my life for the past three years would be an absolute negation and an absolute lie. I am not going to vote for the Treaty; I am going to stand on the principles I stood on in 1918 and 1921, and I am going to vote solid for its rejection.
THE SPEAKER said he had received the following letter from Deputy Thomas O'Kelly:
<SMALL>Dublin, 22nd December, 1921. To the Speaker of Dáil Eireann.
I am unable to attend the meeting and I wish my vote to be recorded for the ratification of the Treaty.
Mise do chara, Thomas Kelly.</SMALL>
MR. D. O'ROURKE:
I have very little to say; and what I have to say is rather by way of personal explanation than in support of the Treaty. When I came here first I was opposed to the Treaty, and on principle I am opposed to it still. I was elected without my knowledge; the first thing I knew about being elected a member of Dáil Eireann was to see my name in the public Press; had I known my name was to be put forward I would have objected; I want to make that clear. Until I came here I didn't know how matters stood; when I found out how things happened I must say I did not like, and I do not like, the idea of the plenipotentiaries having signed without having brought back the Treaty for consideration. That is my opinion, although others who vote for the Treaty are against me in that. My great ambition and prayer was that unity would be achieved by some means. I was prepared to vote for Document No. 2 provided a substantial majority of the House was for it; my reason for doing so was to secure unity; I am quite prepared to do anything for unity because I realise that the curse of this country has been disunion. I say I will do anything yet to achieve unity. If a division had been taken before Christmas I say, undoubtedly, that I would have voted against the Treaty. That is my position. I returned to my constituency at Christmas and I went there to the people---not the resolution passers---to the people who had been with me in the fight, the people whose opinion I valued, the people who are, I believe, Die-Hards; and I consulted them about this question and I must say that unanimously they said to me that there was no alternative but to accept the Treaty. Everything that is personal in me is against this Treaty; I yield to no man in my hatred of British oppression, and in my opposition to any symbol of British rule in Ireland; but I say I would be acting an impertinent part by putting my own views and opinions against the views of my best friends, the men who are the best fighters with me. I have taken only one oath to the Republic---that was the Republican Army oath: the oath to the Saorstát was not a Republican oath. My oath to the army I will keep, I will not join the Saorstát Army and I don't care who takes exception to that. I will join no other army but the Irish Republican Army, when the fight begins for the Republic again I will take my part in it. My only hope now is that when this decision is taken there will be unity; that there will be a meeting afterwards; that the members of the Dáil will come together and come to some common understanding to work our country in the interests of the people. I say this for myself: that while I would vote for the Treaty I am just as well pleased if the Treaty is thrown out; but I will not take the responsibility of doing what I consider would be driving the young men of the country, and all the country, into war for I know what war has meant. I would not vote to bring war upon those people, but if this Treaty is rejected, and if war is the result, I promise I will do everything I possibly can to unite the people to fight the common enemy, and I promise to fight to victory or death to secure the Republic [applause].
MR. GEAROID O'SULLIVAN:
On a point of personal explanation, I understand my co-Deputy from Carlow made a statement here in my absence that I said a certain thing at a public meeting in Carlow. I did not make that statement. All the time since the Truce was established I spent in preparing, to the best of my ability, the country for war; I worked overtime. I will not say---it is for others to say---what I did. I wish to say now that the statement as alleged by Deputy Lennon was not made by me; it is not true.
MR. LENNON:
I made that statement; I stand over it.
MR. COSGRAVE:
I was at the meeting at Kilkenny and my co-Deputy made no such statement as Deputy Lennon has said---not a single tittle in the nature of what he has stated.
MR. LENNON:
He made it at the public meeting---at a meeting of the public men at Carlow that met in the Town Hall; I forget the day. The statement I made I stand by.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
Were you there?
MR. LENNON:
I was.
MR. CON COLLINS:
I hope that I will secure this record in brevity that is so much talked about here but so little adhered to. Now, the very little that I have got to say on this question at this hour of our Session will not, I believe, influence anybody here. I do not think at this stage that it is possible to influence anybody, any more than it would have been possible to influence myself even before this Dáil came into session to consider this question. At the outset, therefore, I will explain my own attitude to this Treaty or this so called Treaty. Immediately on the publication of its terms in the public Press my mind was made up in an attitude of direct and definite opposition to this so called Treaty, at that particular time it was made up, I should explain, in this fashion: even if there was not another single Deputy in the Dáil to oppose it, I would. In doing that I had my own conscience to consider, and also the electors who sent me here. I will come later to deal with the question of the electors; a good deal has been said about them here because it is sometimes useful for us to discover that we have got the like. Well, now, with regard to my conscience; I have been a nationalist for a very long time; that nationalism took a definite form twelve years previous to Easter Week; that definite form was Republicanism, as being the most feasible form of Government in which our people ought to live. At this stage I would like to refer to a remark made by one of the Deputies here some days ago; Deputy Dan MacCarthy said that the 1918 election was not fought on Republicanism, but on self-determination. Now that statement is true in a sense, but it is true only in a sense. The electors in my constituency understood as clearly as I did---and at that time I made it my business to explain to any of them who might be in doubt---that our attitude was a definite one that we were definitely following out the proclamation issued in Easter Week---the proclamation to the public of the existence of the Irish Republic. Now, with regard to the constituents, I have been a good amongst my constituents; I have worked a good deal amongst them in all phases of this work, both civil and military, under their Republican Government. They have done their share of work in the last three years very well; they definitely understood that they were doing that work with the authority of a Government that I and they had made up our minds had come to stay; They subscribed to the Republican Loan pretty well on that understanding; they subscribed to all other activities on that definite understanding. Recently at the Christmas holidays I went amongst them. I will not say, as some Deputies have said here---because I am not in a position to say---that I got resolutions. I have got one---if I might so call it---a resolution subscribed to by a few individuals whom I know, whose attitude towards Ireland has been pretty well known for a long while; these people call themselves members of the Farmers' Union, they have been known to us, and they have been in reality members of this body about which we have heard a good deal recently---the Southern Irish Unionists. These are the people who are calling on me to ratify the Treaty: these are the people who have been working against us in every step that wee have taken, and in all the different phases of our activity in this Republic of ours. I did not get resolutions; I did discuss the question with a number of my constituents; they did not think it necessary to pass any resolution; they definitely stated to me that they knew what my action has been from the very start, and they said that I and the other members of the Dáil were the best possible judges of this matter, and to decide it without interference. Now, at this hour of the day, at this hour of our Session, it seems to me a very vain hope to expect that we can have on this question---that we can have unity. For the sake of that unity I would be prepared to contribute anything that I possibly could, consistent with my principles, but I wish it to be definitely understood here that I would not, or could not, contribute one iota to anything that would mean the lowering of our national standard; and if there are people here who are really anxious, and disagree with my view on the question of this Treaty, it is for them and not for us those who stand on principle cannot and will not sacrifice---but those who stand here and on any other platform on what I might call expediency---I hope I am not insulting anybody when I call it expediency------
MR. MILROY:
You are.
MR. CON COLLINS:
It is for those to come up to our standard and then we can have unity. Now, with regard to that Treaty itself, one Deputy, my friend for one of the Dublin divisions here, stated this morning that nobody on our side had yet discussed the Treaty on its merits. Well, I will attempt to discuss some merits of the Treaty just as they appear to me. The first is this: there are some things in it which we---which the Irish people might take if they got them from Lloyd George, driven down their throats with a bayonet---they might take them then, but the Treaty is not a thing for which we can sacrifice our national honour; it is not sufficiently good; and no matter how good it might be, when it involves that sacrifice of principle after our years of struggle here to try to drag this country of ours out side the British Empire---are we now, as a willing sacrifice, to come into it with its lovely history and tradition? If some of our people are anxious to participate in that tradition and that history, we, at all events, will do all in our power to save our country and our traditions---the traditions that have given us strength to do all we have done in the last few years. Now, just one other word, and one only, and I have done. We have learned a great number of new words here and nice phrases, and one gentleman mentioned visualising the future. I have attempted in my own peculiar way to visualise the future; and, in a personal way, I must say I have taken rather a gloomy picture of it, because under this future state there has come forcibly to my mind the conclusion of my sentence received from a British Courtmartial, and the conclusion of a number of other sentences of honest Irish Republicans---under this Free State; we Republicans will probably spend the rest of our lives in jail as rebels under the Free State, with this difference---that we will have a greater difficulty in getting out under our native Government than under the foreign one. Another, and a chief merit I have seen in the Treaty---the chief merit that any body in Ireland can find in the Treaty---is to be discovered by viewing it through Lloyd George's glasses, if you like; there is to be found the chief merit of this so-called Treaty, and here in this assembly we find what used to be regarded as a national assembly of the Irish people turned into a semi-political assembly since this Treaty was introduced. Here we have the first fruits of the Treaty; we have dissension, bitterness and malice for the first time that I have seen any of these things displayed in this Dáil---we find these have been introduced on the introduction of this so called Treaty. These are the first fruits of it and they will be spread through the country no matter how we try to prevent it, and that is the chief merit I see; and from the British point of view it has done more for them and their power than all their bayonets and all their military preparation has been able to do. Therefore, finally, if it is not yet too late, I would make a last appeal for unity to these people to save their country; and they can only unite on the basis on which I and a number of Deputies in this Dáil stand and that is the basis of an Irish Republic [applause].
MR. JOSEPH MACGUINNESS:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a lucht na Dála, is beag atá agamsa a rá ar an g-ceist seo, go h-áirithe tareis an meid atá ráite cheana. As I am, I think, to be the last speaker amongst the private members I hope to make a record. It seems to me that we have talked at great length on the merits and demerits of the Treaty; but I believe that a good deal of that talk and a good deal of the arguments used would be more appropriate on the hustings later on. The Treaty has not been examined, and has not been given fair play for the good things that are in it; and because of the good things that are in it I am in favour of it. I have, during the past three weeks, done what I could in a private way to see if, in any way, the two sides could be brought together, if any arrangement could be come to that would preserve the unity of this Dáil; and on the Committee of which I was a member we had almost succeeded in doing that. People who are against this Treaty, for some reason which I cannot understand, refused to allow that document which we had drawn up to come before yesterday's Private Session of the Dáil. Instead of that a bombshell was thrown in by the resignation of the President; that is the President's own business; but I can say as a member of that Committee that the people on this side literally went on their knees to President de Valera to try and preserve the unity of the country.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
One of the objections I had to that Committee coming along was that they were bringing forward a thing that was impossible; and they were trying to put me in the same position as was attempted in America.
PROFESSOR HAYES:
That's a very unfair attack on the Committee.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I did not mean it for the Committee. What I mean is when that proposition---I do not care whether it is published or not---when it was being put to me it simply meant that we would let the Free State take existence and take root, and then try to pull it up again. That is the substance of what it amounts to.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
I move the adjournment now; and both sides have agreed that there should not be more than two speakers, exclusive of what we might, in courtesy, call the principal speakers. Mr. MacGrath has agreed that there should be two speakers on each side---private members---and after that the debate will be summed up or wound up by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and by the Minister for Defence; after which the division will be taken.
MR. COSGRAVE:
Who will speak last?
MR. S. T. O'KELLY:
The gentleman who winds up the debate---the Minister for Foreign Affairs. You will remember that Committee---which, unfortunately, I was not able to reach agreement as to finding a way out---that Committee had certain notes and it was agreed here in the Dáil---as there was no agreement come to by the Committee, and as certain of us insisted that these documents were not before the Dáil---it was agreed that they should not be published. Now, it has reached our ears that some of these notes have been given by somebody to the representatives of the Press; Mr. MacGrath and I have agreed that you ask the Press to regard these documents as confidential.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I should like to say now, as it might be my last opportunity to speak in this House, that an attempt has been made by the other side to try to make out that I am trying to split the country when they did it themselves---when the Minister of Foreign Affairs brought over the document that meant splitting the country---and then trying to put on me, as was done in America, to represent me as trying to prevent unity in the country.
MR. MILROY:
That statement should be made in the presence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
MR. MACGRATH:
I met last night a representative of the Press outside, and he told me he had got a copy of the decisions arrived at by the small Committee.
MR. MELLOWES.
There were no decisions arrived at.
MR. MACGRATH:
I told him in no circumstances was he to publish them; I reported this matter then to the chiefs on this side of the House and we took particular precaution and sent two men to tell them under no circumstances were they to be published.
THE SPEAKER:
Well it is understood that these documents and notes of that Committee which met in private are confidential.
MR. MACENTEE:
I presume that the publication of these documents will be regarded by this House as a breach of privilege, and that if they will be published------
MR. HOGAN:
I have been listening for five minutes to the debate which went on on the assumption that some of the Committee are trying underhand methods to get out these things---that somebody is trying to get out documents which are confidential. Is that a fair statement?
THE SPEAKER:
That statement has not been made.
MR. HOGAN:
I say on behalf of this side of the Committee that we are doing our best to the contrary.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I never made any remarks of the kind. I would have kept silent on it were it not for the remark of the Deputy for Longford that they went down on their knees to get unity.
MR. MACGUINNESS:
To anybody who was present yesterday it will be clear that what I have said is absolutely true.
The House adjourned at 1.40 p.m.
The Dáil Eireann Session was resumed at 4.10 p.m. on Saturday, 7th January, 1922, with THE SPEAKER (DR.MACNEILL) in the Chair.
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
On a point of information, there is a notice of motion here by Doctor MacNeill. Is that in order?
THE SPEAKER:
In order? Well, it is.
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
Should we not get twenty-four hours' notice?
THE SPEAKER:
It is not put before you yet. Very likely you will have forty eight hours' notice of it.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Is that a vote of confidence by the people who are voting for Saorstát na h-Eireann?
THE SPEAKER:
It can't be discussed now.
At the request of the Speaker the Secretary, Mr. Diarmuid O'Hegarty, called the roll, when 122 members answered.
MR. DANIEL CORKERY:
I rise to vote against this Treaty; I believe if I voted for this Treaty I would be voting against the independence of my country; I am not prepared to do that. I believe, also, if we go into this British Empire we will go in there as a prop to hold up a rotten Empire. We have heard a lot here of the alternative to this Treaty---terrible and immediate war. Well, I have the honour of representing Mid-Cork in this Dáil, and I think this guerilla warfare was started in Mid.-Cork; I believe the first lorry was attacked in Mid.-Cork; the people have been with us all the time up to the Truce and they never flinched though they often heard the angry crack of the rifle and machine gun. The people down there do not want war, but they are not half as much afraid of war as the people from other counties who have not fired a shot yet. I am against this Treaty.
MR. JOSEPH MACGUINNESS:
I am sorry to admit that I have lost; this was the shortest speech yet.
MR. P. J. WARD:
All through this long debate I have listened to the arguments on every side and, us one who has risen for the first time to speak in this assembly, I wish to state the reasons why I am, going to vote for the approval of the Treaty; not because I hope to convert even any one Deputy here, but for the purpose of explaining to my constituents the reason for my action. I am in the position of one of the Deputies who spoke before lunch---Deputy O'Rourke; and I make no apology whatever to any man for changing my opinions. I came here to this assembly opposed to this Treaty, as I believed then that the Dáil, by a big majority, would be opposed to it. It was not what we were fighting for; it was not the end---the ultimate end---of what I had in view when I joined Sinn Fein; but, as I have said, I have listened here without interrupting any man, and I have formed my opinion from what I have heard, and from what I know are the facts of the situation. I have not been impressed by anybody on either side; nor has my opinion been formed for me; I have formed it myself. Now, I was opposed to the Treaty because it was not the thing for which we were fighting. I have heard a lot here about the Republic as if it were not actually existing; about what we fought for; and I have heard from various members that this Treaty gave us what we fought for. I don't agree with that. The election of 1918 may have been for self-determination; but when I stood for the election I had to fight a bitter one; I stood for the complete independence of this country---total separation from England---and the placards are still on the walls down in Tír Chonaill. It was not for self determination I fought the election, it was for independence; and it will come to pass yet that the Irish people, if given a free choice, will vote for independence. Now, the fight was begun then, or in 1916, if you will, it has gone on since; we have had only one thing before us and that is the independence of the country---complete and total separation. The Republic was set up here in 1919; but we had not independence although the Republic was set up; we were fighting for it; and that fight is going on yet, and will go on in the future. Now, this Treaty, was signed but how it was signed, or by what means it was signed, is a matter with which I have nothing to do. It is here before us; and we have not to judge of this Treaty by how or why or the manner in which the signature was obtained; we have to deal with facts, with the facts of the situation as they are at the present moment. I believed when I came to this Dáil, and I believe it now, that if this Treaty had been rejected practically unanimously by the Dáil we could have obtained unity; in this country and have the people behind us, and we could have won our case. I was opposed to the Treaty up to Christmas; I went down to my constituency, and I may say here that I know my constituents perhaps as well as any other man in the Dáil; I have travelled throughout the length and breadth of my constituency; and I have been in practically every Sinn Fein Club during the two months before this Treaty was signed---we have twenty-four of them. At Christmas every Sinn Fein Club debated this Treaty amongst themselves; I went to the Comhairle Ceanntair and I endeavoured there---because I wanted to save them from themselves---to prevent them passing a resolution against acceptance and the Sinn Fein Clubs, by seventeen to three, asked that this Treaty be ratified under protest; and they stated that they could see no alternative. Now, that was the voice of my constituency; it was the voice of the best elements in that constituency. I will not speak of what the army thinks---I know that the army is prepared to fight as before---for it is the civil population that decides this question now; and of the civil population that is the voice, and the answer they gave to me. Now, I told them there at that Comhairle Ceanntair meeting that I did not hold that I was necessarily bound to vote for the ratification, because I held that the mandate they gave me was to secure the independence of Ireland, and that if I thought it better and wiser to vote against this Treaty I would do so; but what I did pledge myself to was this: that I would vote at this meeting of the Dáil for what I thought was the best way to obtain that independence of Ireland for which we were fighting. Now, those people down the country, so far as I can understand, can see no alternative but to take this Treaty as a step---that their voice. I have not met one man who was in favour of the Treaty but was in favour of it only as a step to the independence to which we were making. I have met some that were against it, as I have told you, but the majority were in favour of it as a step towards that independence because they could see no other way out of it. As I said, I could have seen the other way out when I came to this Dáil, if this Dáil had made up its mind to stand for it; but now, when it has come to the final day for decision I have to make up my mind as to the wisest course and the best way to obtain the independence of my country. Now, we have heard here members talk an alternative to rejection; some have told me privately that they based their decision on the belief that Lloyd George would not go to war with the Irish nation; I do not know what grounds they have for that view; I can only form my own opinion on English politics and one point in that matter is this: I do not know that any change has come to England since after that final note came before the Dáil for its approval---when the answer was being sent back to England that we would not accept her terms we were told that rejection of them would mean immediate war. I am not aware that any change has taken place since in Lloyd George's mind so that the rejection of this offer might not mean war, too, I do know that it has been said here that at that Session the members of the Dáil, when they let the plenipotentiaries go to England, compromised. I only asked one question on that occasion; I asked the President what he meant by association with the British Commonwealth of nations in his letter to Lloyd George, and I did not receive any direct reply. Even if this Treaty were rejected, and the President's document accepted by Lloyd George, I hold there will not be a lasting peace with England until we are absolutely separated from England and the British Empire. Now, the probable consequences of rejection have a different light in every Deputy's mind here, I suppose; but in my mind the consequences, if the Treaty be rejected, are that now Lloyd George is in the position of knowing that this country is absolutely disunited, and that he is in the happy position of knowing that if he makes war now---if he only threatens war on this county---that the people of this country do not want to fight. I know that may not be as it appears to you; but I have talked with the people, and I know their minds, and I know the view point they have; they are war-worn; they have come through a strenuous fight and they want peace. Now they see the prospect of peace, and they have not the smallest scruple about it; they are willing to take that prospect; and they, at the same time, are willing to take it as a stepping stone. I have no scruples about it either; I am willing to take it as a stepping stone, and I do not care how Lloyd George views what Deputies say here; so far as I am concerned, I will only vote for this Treaty as a stepping stone to put this country into such a position at some future time--- when the opportunity does come---that it will claim the total separation that it is entitled to as a separate nation. Some members have said that this Treaty should be put to the people of this country whichever way it goes, and some even have said that, so far as their constituents are concerned, their constituents would support them in its rejection. I do not know about their constituents, so far as my own constituency is concerned, I have men there who are opposed to the Treaty, and I am glad these men are there; perhaps if I were in their place I would be opposed to this Treaty: but I am here with the responsibility of either accepting this Treaty or rejecting it, with the consequences to the country. What these consequences are is in the future; you may see them in one light, I may see them in the other, but I will not take the responsibility of rejecting this Treaty with the probable consequences to the country, because one thing that may happen if this Treaty is rejected is this, and I regard it as the worst: we have got certain things here from Lloyd George and from the British Government in this Treaty which, if utilised to the full force, will benefit this country; but if this Treaty is rejected that gives Lloyd George an opportunity of backing down from these terms. Now, there are things in it that are not palatable to us and not palatable to Lloyd George and his associates, and they would be only too anxious and too glad to get rid of all this; and then, when he has an opportunity of backing out from the Treaty he has signed, he can put worse terms before the people of this country; and what I say is this, that the people of this country, in the state in which they are in at present, would take worse terms. You may like that or you may not. It is because the people of this country are disunited, because they have expressed their views on this Treaty, that I am voting for the Treaty. I do not want the Treaty myself; I do not like it; but I know very well that you will not be able to wring anything more out of Lloyd George with the state the people are in now in the country; you will wring no more, and you will have to take less. The other consequences are that you will go on in this state for years to come before you get as far as you are at present. Now, I have said nothing personal on one side or the other; I regard it as disastrous that there should have been such a split in the Dáil; if there had been unanimity the situation could have been saved. However, that is my own opinion. I make this explanation for the purpose of explaining to my constituents why I vote in this way, because some of them know I was opposed to it, and strongly opposed to it, when the Treaty came out first; I do consider that this Treaty, if it ever comes into operation, will give a chance to the people at some future time to obtain full independence. Now, I won't detain you very much longer. I am a lawyer, but I do not think I have employed any argument on this, or legal quibbles, of constitutional law; and I think if the lawyers who did speak first were to speak now they would not use these arguments either, for this matter is too big for chess-playing. We have to swallow a bitter pill in this; one Deputy has said that to-day, and nobody likes to swallow pills; but if we honestly think that it is for the best interests of our country I think we are doing then what our conscience directs; and in taking this step I consider I am doing what is best for my country. I will vote for the Treaty under protest---not under protest in a sense, because I have a free will---but I will vote for it only as a stepping stone, and when the time comes I will be just as ready to take a part in the fight for independence as I have been in the past. After all, we here are split, as far as I can see, on which is the better way; that is the only thing that divides us. I told my Comhairle Ceanntair that I would vote for what I thought was the best way to gain absolute independence in the end; I consider that if I voted for rejection I would be putting back the fight for independence for years and years to come: whereas if I vote and swallow the pill and take the Treaty I consider that I will bring that absolute independence nearer by years, how many years I do not know. I do know, however, that the people of this country have not changed their national aspirations, and I consider that their national aspirations will be brought nearer by acceptance of the Treaty.
MR. JOSEPH O'DOHERTY:
When I read the terms of the Treaty signed in London everything that was in me that I can call good revolted against those terms. Like my co-Deputy from Tír Chonaill I came to this Session of Dáil Eireann with a mind that was open to conviction against these prejudices that I had; no argument that has been produced by those who are for this Treaty has made any influence on me; I see in it the giving away of the whole case of Irish independence; I see in it, not the coming nearer of the day when liberty will be throughout the land, but the going farther away from that day; and I can't be a coward, and I would be a coward it I said anything else, and I can't be on the side of those who are swallowing pills and taking the backward step in the hope that; in the near future they will find themselves in a better position than they are to-day. Each man here has to interpret the mandate he got from his constituents. I come from a constitueney in Tír Chonaill; when I went into that constituency I went into it on the invitation of the man who was then Secretary of the Comhairle Ceanntair, and who now sits in this Dáil, I at first refused the invitation to stand because I had no desire to enter public life. When he proposed me, the Comhairle Ceanntair, he said, was in a hole, a difficulty; and he proposed me and I consented to stand for the Republic. I went into the constituency, and you, a Chinn Chomhairle, accompanied me to the first meeting; and the Chairman of the Comhairle Ceanntair took me behind the wagonette and he said he and the Comhairle Ceanntair wanted to win the election in North Donegal and that the election could be won if there was no mention of the Republic. `Very good,' said I, `you are entitled to your opinions, but you can get another candidate'. I am prepared to admit that the mandate I got from the constituents of North Donegal was one of self-determination; and it is a terrible thing and a terrible trial to have men in this Dáil interpretating that sacred principle here against the interests of the people
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. O'DOHERTY:
I know that the people in North Donegal at the present moment would accept this Treaty, and I think it is fair to the people of North Donegal that I should make that known; but they are accepting it under duress and at the point of the bayonet, and as a stop to terrible and immediate war. It is not peace they are getting; it is not the liberty they are getting which they are told they are getting, and they know it; and I will tell them honestly if I go to North Donegal again what they are getting. I have my ideals of the people's will; and at this stage of the proceedings I have no intention of saying anything bitter about any man or body of men in this assembly, but I hold that the people's will was flouted in London when that document was signed. I have sufficient data for my mind to prove that the men who signed it knew that there would be a split in the Cabinet, that there would be a split in the Dáil and a split in the country, and, notwithstanding that they accepted the document which embodies in it no clause or phrase which enables them to bring it before the people whose will they have such regard for. I say if they have the people's will, the sacred will of the Irish people, before their minds, they, at least, knowing the consequences of their signatures, should and could have demanded that if the Dáil turned it down the Irish people could have a final word. They have not done that. I am not afraid to go into my constituency and fight the question Free State versus the Irish Republic against any man, from a Cabinet Minister down; and my mind is not small enough to deny that there is a big difference between Document No 2 and the Treaty that was signed; it is not a question of tweedledum and tweedledee, as I was told the night before this Session opened, and as I have heard repeated often since then. It is the great question of Irish sovereignty, and as long us I have a weapon to fight for that cause I shall not be a party to voting away the sovereignty of this nation [applause].
DR. MACGINLEY:
The claim is made by men who are opposing this Treaty that we have a Republic established in this country. The delegates, in signing this Treaty with England, could not vote away that Republic if we had a Republic in this country in the sense in which they mean to convey. I, as one plain man, want to know why were delegates sent to London at all? Was it to arrange for the evacuation of the English forces out of this country? Was it to arrange an alliance with England? Why were they sent to England at all? To my mind the isolated Republic was let down when the reply was sent to the letter of Lloyd George to President de Valera on the 20th September, in which he stated that:
<SMALL>In spite of their (the British Government's) sincere desire for peace, and in spite of the conciliatory tone of your last communication, they cannot enter a conference upon the basis of this correspondence. Notwithstanding your personal assurance to the contrary which they much appreciate, it might be argued in future that the acceptance of a conference on this basis had involved them in a recognition which no British Government can accord.</SMALL>
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I ask that my reply be read now.
DR. MACGINLEY:
The reply, no matter how carefully read---in my opinion the sending over of the delegates was an abandonment of the isolated Republic.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It would be very important to have my reply read.
MR. COLIVET:
We all read the reply and we know it.
DR. MACGINLEY:
I don't want to read the reply. The point for me is this: we have not a Republic functioning in this country; we have a paper Republic, the people of Donegal are sick of this paper Republic.
A DEPUTY:
And paper Republicans, too.
DR. MACGINLEY:
If we have a Republic, how is it that the British institutions are functioning in this country as well? Every honest man in this Dáil must admit that; and are not British troops in Ireland and British institutions functioning in Ireland? We have got no national recognition from any country in the world, despite Harry Boland's talk. Their sympathy was not enough; the sympathy of the people in other countries, even in America, was not strong enough to compel them to recognise our Government. That was the test of it.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
The people recognised it.
DR. MACGINLEY:
It might be said that our men might have got better terms in London. Perhaps they might, but I can tell you the people of Donegal, anyhow, have the very greatest confidence in the ability of Arthur Griffith and the sincerity of Michael Collins; and they believe that, taking all the circumstances of the case into account, they did what was best for Ireland. Now, President de Valera has stated that rather than sign this Treaty he was prepared to see the Irish people live in subjection until God would redeem them. I may as well say at once that that is not my creed; that is a doctrine that never was preached in the history of the world before: that a country, if it could not get absolutely what it was out for, should fight to the extermination of its people. I, as one man, can't take the responsibility for committing the men and women who sent me here to a war of extermination which, I think, would result if this Treaty were rejected. I have no qualms about the oath which I took on coming into this assembly; the people sent me here to get absolute separation if I could---I am for absolute separation if I could see a way out---but they sent me here to use my own free will, and if I could not get absolute separation at the present time I was to take something by which we could work out our own independence in the long run. I think in voting for this Treaty I am voting according to the mandate which my constituents gave me when sending me here. That is all I have to say.
MR. THOMAS HUNTER:
I rise to say a few words; perhaps if I did not do so some people might say that I had not the courage to voice my opinions in this assembly. I vote against this Treaty because I am a Republican; I was elected on the Republican ticket; I came here and took the oath to the Republican Government and I am not going now to destroy that Government. If the people do not agree with me they can get rid of me at any time and in any way that they like. Finally, as a Republican, I could never recognise the Government of George V. of England in either internal or external association.
MR. SEAN HALES:
I was not going to speak one word here in this Public Session, I spoke what I had to say in the Private Session; I don't retract one word from that, nor have I one word to add to it. I have travelled down this stormy road since 1916 and it is conviction that leads me to vote for this Treaty; I know my friends and fellow soldiers on the other side are equally convinced; but I can feel no other way out at the present moment. I did not want to make a speech; I was not going to say a word in addition to what I had said in the Private Session, but lest, as my comrade here says, that some one might say that I had not the courage of my convictions, I now state publicly that I am going to vote for this Treaty.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
A Chinn Chomhairle agus a cháirde Gaedhal, mo sheana-chara, an Teachta ó Chiarruidhe Thoir, dubhuirt se i d-tosach an meid cainte do dhin se anso go raibh socair aige gan aon rud do rá a chuirfeadh fearg ar einne. Tá socair agamsa anois gan aon rud do rá a chuirfeadh fearg ar einne; ach tá socair agam an fhírinne d'innsint agus deir an sean-fhocal go m-bíonn an fhírinne searbh; ach nuair innsim an fhírinne má chuireann sí fearg ar einne ní h-ormsa atá an locht. Ní chun fearg do chur ar einne a neosfad-sa an fhírinne anois; ní mór dom an fhírinne d'innsint mar is leir go bh-fuil daoine ann ná tuigeann an sceal. Níl einne is mó go bh-fuil meas agam air imeasc na n-daoine atá i bh-fabhar an Chonnartha so ná mo sheana-chara ó Oirthear Chiarruidhe agus mo sheana-chara ó Chontae na Gaillimhe---Piaras Beaslaí agus Pádraig O Máille. Iarrfad ortha eisteacht go cúramuch le n-a bh-fuil le rá agam. Dubhairt Pádraig gur mheas se gur gheill an t-Aire um Ghnóthaí Dúiche agus mise do Shasana sarar chuaidh an Toscaireacht anonn; is truagh ná fuil se anso; ach dubhairt se, agus dubhairt daoine eile atá anso gur gheilleamair do Shasana ag cruinniú den Aireacht le linn na cainte do bhí ar siúl idir sinne agus an cúigear do chuaidh anonn. Deanfad-sa a dheimhniú nár dhineamair agus iarfad ar Art O Gríobhtha an meid a bheidh ráite agamsa a bhreagnú má's feidir do e. Now, my friends, there are some people who---from a few questions that they put, some of them have written them out for me---do not, apparently, understand the whole position at present. My friend, one of the Deputies from Dublin, Seán MacGarry, put a question the other night---I would have answered him, but I thought it a pity to interrupt the flow of his eloquence---he asked what would the Minister of Defence say to an ex-member of the British Army about the oath when that member would be about to join our forces---what he would say to him about the oath he had already taken to England. The only oath that concerns me is the Oath of Allegiance to the Dáil, and as long as every member of the army abides by the oath which he must take when he enters it I am satisfied; if he does not abide by it, as long as I am at the head of the army, I will have him dealt with in the proper way. My friend, the Deputy for one of the Mayo constituencies, sent a question in here which, in effect, is this: If the Minister of Defence had been made an offer two months ago to have the British forces clear out of Ireland would he, instead of accepting that offer, say: `No! I prefer to drive them out?' That, I understand, was in effect the question. Certainly not, I would let them go out. I do not want any fighting unless it is absolutely necessary; but if the conditions were that our people must become British subjects I would say: `I am not going to agree to that; clear out if you like'. A Deputy from Tipperary and Waterford, one of my own colleagues, has sent me in a question which I will read. `In view of the fact that many members and several people are biased in favour of this proposed Treaty because the Minister of Finance is in favour of ratification, and in view of the fact that many of these people, and many of these members, are of opinion that Mr. Michael Collins is a leader of the army and has fought many fights for the Republic, I think it is of great importance that an authoritative statement be made (a) defining the real position Mr. Michael Collins held in the army, (b) telling what fights he has taken an active part in, provided this can be done without injustice to himself or danger to the country; or can it be authoritatively stated that he ever fired a shot at any enemy of Ireland?'
MR. MILROY:
Is that in order?
MR. M. COLLINS:
Carry on.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
That is a matter which I approach with great reluctance; and I may tell you I would never have dealt with it, and this question would never have been asked, but for the statement made by the Chairman of the Delegation when he was speaking here; he referred to Mr. Michael Collins as the man who won the war.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. FIONAN LYNCH:
So he did.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
And the war is won and we are talking here. Very well, I will explain to you how that is done.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I would like to rise to a point of order. Are we discussing the Treaty or are we discussing the Minister of Finance? I think we are discussing the Treaty.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
The Minister of Finance does not like what I have got to say.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Anything that can be said about me, say it.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Tá go maith.
MR. BRENNAN:
If things are to be said about the Minister of Finance are we at liberty to say anything we know about other people? I mean it is becoming personal.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I think Cathal Brugha ought to respect the chair.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Táim chun rud eigin le rá anois; tá san socair im' aigne agam, agus má chuirtear isteach orm táim canncarach, crosta, agus ní aingeal in aon chor me.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Ni chuirfeadh einne e sin id' leith.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
It is necessary for me to define Michael Collins' position in the army. Now, I have my department divided up into sections. I have the ordinary Ministerial part of it; the civil part of it; the liaison part of it; and then the Head Quarters Staff. The Head Quarters Staff is divided up again; at the head is the Chief of Staff; and at the head of each section of the Head Quarters Staff is another man working under the Chief of Staff. One of those heads of the sub-sections is Mr. Michael Collins; and to use a word which he has on more than one occasion used, and which he is fond of using, he is merely a subordinate in the Department of Defence.
MR. DOLAN:
Has he been an efficient officer?
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Leig dom anois agus neosfad san duit. While the war was in progress I could not praise too highly the work done by the Head Quarters' Staff. The Chief of Staff and each of the leaders of the sub- sections---the members of the Head Quarters' Staff---were the best men we could get for the positions; each of them carried out efficiently, so far as I know, the work that was entrusted to him; they worked conscientiously and patriotically for Ireland without seeking any notoriety, with one exception; whether he is responsible or not for the notoriety I am not going to say [cries of `Shame' and `Get on with the Treaty']. There is little more for me to say. One member was specially selected by the Press and the people to put him into a position which he never held; he was made a romantic figure, a mystical character such as this person certainly is not; the gentleman I refer to is Mr. Michael Collins
MR. DUGGAN:
The Irish people will judge that.
MR. MILROY:
Now we know things.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
Now we know the reason for the opposition to the Treaty [applause].
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
During the war, on one or two occasions, people came to me and asked me why I did not stop this kind of thing; here was a man being described as Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Army, and on another occasion he was Field-Marshal-General, I believe. My reply was that Mr. Michael Collins could not be responsible for what people said of him in the Press: and consequently I never took any notice of these things, and would not have done so only for what the Chairman of the Delegation said; because it seems to me, when the Chairman of the Dlegation made such a statement as that, the people who were whispering fairy tales into the ears of the Press correspondents must have been at the Chairman of the Delegation too---that Mr. Michael Collins had won the war.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
The Chairman of the Delegation thinks the war is won, so far as he could win it, for England.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Bravo, Cathal, bravo.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Go maith. Now, so much for what the Chairman of the Delegation said about Mr. Michael Collins; but when Mr. Michael Collins was speaking here in support of the resolution in favour of the Treaty, he told us that during the war he compelled respect and also during the negotiations.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Well the modesty of that is such that I will not spoil it by comment; but it is just a continuance of the other fable. He also referred to some mysterious incidents that he says the people were excommunicated for, and he said he was responsible for that; a lot of people applauded it; and I wonder what those people who applauded thought they were applauding. I know of only two instances for which people during the war were excommunicated; one was an ambush, it was a fair ambush, and in charity to Mr. Michael Collins I will not repeat here what a participant in the ambush said about Mr. Collins. His remark about his being responsible for it---if it was to that he referred---suffice it to say---
MR. COLIVET:
I respectfully suggest that the Minister for Defence------
MR. SEAN MACGARRY:
Too late. Let him carry on now.
MR. BRENNAN:
The damage has been done.
MR. M. COLLINS:
No damage is done.
DR. MACCARTAN:
The damage is done.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
In any case you all understand now------
MR. J. MACGRATH:
We don't.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Well, what exactly am I going to say to you? [Laughter]. That Mr. Michael Collins does not occupy that position in the army that newspaper men said he occupied.
MR. MACGRATH:
I never thought he did.
MR. SEAN MACGARRY:
I think we have enough.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
I must protest against the Minister of Defence being interrupted. He is making a good speech for the Treaty [applause].
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Deimhneochad e sin ar ball. Now, I finish with that, so far as Michael Collins is concerned. Now, in the article which appeared a few days ago in the Freeman's Journal, the one in which a most dastardly attack was made on our President and on Deputy Childers, Mr. Michael Collins was also referred to: and it was stated that when our President was arrested and released there was a reward of ten thousand pounds offered by the British Government for the corpse of Michael Collins.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
I wonder how the Freeman's Journal got that information?
MR. GRIFFITH:
Public notoriety.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Because it is not in accordance with the tale that was being circulated at the time by a very intimate friend of Mr. Michael Collins. He told it to me, and I asked him where he got it, and he said he got it from Mr. Michael Collins himself, and he told him that it was forty thousand pounds.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
He was worth it. </SMALL>
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Now, Deputy Childers was attacked in the same article, and you know the way he was attacked. It is only fair for me to say now that I know, of my own personal knowledge, that Deputy Childers, amongst other work that he did for Ireland, has done as much as most men, and more than nearly all men who are working for Ireland, to arm the people of Ireland. I will turn now to what was said---some of the nice things that the Deputy for Tyrone, Seán Milroy, said---about the Minister for Defence; he said, amongst other things, that the Minister for Defence did not want peace. Now, I don't like to refer to anything that was said by a member of this House as being nonsense; but I ask you this: does any man contemplate with equanimity a renewal of the conditions in this country in which his wife will be dragged in the dead of the night out of her house, hustled along through the garden, and put into a motor lorry, and kept there in order that she will not be present while her husband is being murdered if the English cut-throats can get him? Does any man look forward with pleasure to having his little children frightened out of their lives by the spectacle of armed men rushing in and running through the house, some of them breaking their way down through the ceilings? But apparently the Minister of Defence does not want peace, but prefers that kind of thing. I am against this resolution because I know this Treaty can't achieve peace. You know how those who are opposed to it, how keenly they feel the thing, and how much they are against it; but some of the best men on the other side, the men who count, some of the fighting men, have said that the reason that they are in favour of it is that they will be able to get in arms. Deputy J. J. Walsh told us the other day---and he is in favour of this Treaty---that if he got a rifle and ammunition each time he would take this oath that he would keep on taking it.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Hear, hear; I would.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
And what is Deputy J. J. Walsh going to do with the rifle?
MR. J. J. WALSH:
What I did before. I said I would take indefinite oaths for indefinite rifles and ammunition. I stand over what I said.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Yes; and this gentleman is in favour of the Treaty. Now, we are told that this Treaty, if passed, is going to achieve peace. Well, when people who are in favour of the Treaty are going to get rifles, and take oaths to get rifles, and going to make use of them, we will say that we have little to say against this Treaty but to answer where will the peace come in? And it is because I know that you are not going to have peace that I am against the Treaty. Now, another statement made by this gentleman, the Deputy from Tyrone; he said he was taking off the gloves; he said that he had let the cat out of the bag when he made reference to the oath. Now, it is in keeping with some of the tactics referred to by our President yesterday that this use should be made of an alleged oath, a second oath. Mr. Deputy Milroy could only have heard about the discussion on that oath from some member of the Cabinet, because there was absolutely no note taken of it, because there was no decision come to on oath. Our friends on the opposite side now know that since the start of these negotiations on all vital matters we found it necessary to have unanimity in the Cabinet; and when we found we could not have unanimity the particular matter was dropped. Now, this oath question came up before us and it was clear from what was said that we could not have unanimity on it. Therefore, so far as the Cabinet was concerned, it was dropped; and the President, so far as my recollection went, said something to the effect that, if nothing else was between us, he would be in favour of taking a certain oath and he spoke out some words. However, that was only his own personal opinion; so far as the Cabinet were concerned there could not be unanimity; and it was dropped. The ungloved orator from Tyrone said he let the eat out of the bag when he made reference to the oath.
MR. MILROY:
The oath is on the Cabinet minutes.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
There are no records.
MR. MILROY:
There is such an oath on the Cabinet records.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
There was no such oath agreed to by the Cabinet; and anybody who knows anything about it knows that. This Deputy from Tyrone made another very personal remark to which I will not refer here as it is beneath contempt; consequently I will take no further notice of it. I will now turn to the Deputy from Offaly, he told us that the Republic was betrayed, he said it was betrayed when we decided to send delegates to England; nevertheless this delegate was present at the meeting of the Dáil at which this decision was come to and he sat silently by and he allowed us to betray the Republic. Of course you all know, everybody with the exception of this Deputy, that by sending delegates across to England. The Republic was not betrayed. This Deputy also said that the Republic was dead. Well, I tell him that if it depended upon faint hearts to keep it alive it would have died long ago, and if it depended upon faint hearts to bring it into existence it would never have been born. He tells us he will not vote for it or against it; that's a nice position for a man who has taken upon himself a certain responsibility---that's a nice position for him to adopt. Now, this Deputy and another Deputy, the Assistant Minister for Local Government, both took it upon themselves to speak for the army---as to the condition it was in and what would happen. They are both men of military age, and when they make a closer acquaintanceship with the army by joining its ranks, and putting themselves into the position of fighting, they may earn the respect of military men; and if their merits ever raise them to the position in which they would be entitled to speak for the army, I hope they will have learned sufficient sense then to keep silent about army matters when it is not necessary to refer to them. We come now to the jocular gentleman who represents Kilkenny, were I in the vein I might follow his jokes. However, I am not in that mood; but I suggest to him that this is too serious a matter to be dealt with by flippancy and levity. Now, the Deputy for South Kerry, Fionán O Loingsigh, stated here that he spoke for the people of South Kerry.
MR. FIONAN LYNCH:
And I still maintain it.
MR. BRUGHA:
There was an interjection from the body of the House telling him `No!' and he answered: `Yes, a minority of one'. I had in my pocket at the time, only I did not wish to interrupt him---just the same as on the contrary he has again now tried to interrupt me---I had in my pocket---
MR. FIONAN LYNCH:
If you use personalities you will be interrupted.
MR. BRUGHA:
I had in my pocket a document signed by people who are entitled to speak for the young men, the fighting men, the men who count and who are ready to make sacrifices in his constituency, and that is the Brigade Commandant in his area---the two Brigade Commandants that cover the area in which his constituency is in. In this they say very respectfully to the Government that they are absolutely against the Treaty. Since Deputy Lynch has made that statement he has been repudiated in the papers.
MR. LYNCH:
Oh!
MR. BRUGHA:
I will come now to the distinguished Chairman of the Delegation, and I don't refer to him sarcastically as the distinguished Chairman of the Delegation, for I, as much as anyone in this House, appreciate the political sagacity and patriotism of the Chairman of the Delegation, and I considered he was an acquisition, too, when those who were called the physical force movement joined with him four years ago. I considered it was an acquisition to have such a man with us. Now, he has said he has been a student of Thomas Davis all his life. So was I but I take different lessons from the teaching of Davis, and I must remind him that when Davis wrote it was for an Ireland enslaved and demoralised after forty years of the Union, but, anyway, those of you who saw the first edition of the new paper, the Republic of Ireland, saw the quotation in it from Davis in which he says: `in a just cause a nation is justified in going to war'. Now, I will defy the Chairman of the Delegation to point out to me in any readings of Thomas Davis where he advocated the sacrifice of principle in favour of expediency. In the Secret Session, in some interchanges that there were between Arthur Griffith andmyself, he asked me to repeat at the Public Session the answer that I gave to him at a Cabinet meeting that was held on the Saturday before the plenipotentiaries went away to England for the last time: and he told us at that Cabinet meeting that he would not break on the Crown. There were some rather heated passages between us and he put the question to me: Could I, or could we, could I with the army which we had here in Ireland, drive the English Forces out---I am not exactly certain if he added something about the navy. I answered that I could not undertake to do anything of the kind; I did not think it was necessary; and I do not think it is necessary for us to be able to beat all the resources in the shape of an army that England can put into Ireland in order to maintain our independence. We maintained it when we had not an army at all, it is not necessary. Now, Mr. Griffith has referred to the difference between this Treaty of his and the alternative that we have as being only a quibble; and yet the English Government is going to make war, as they say they will, for a quibble. The difference is, to me, the difference that there is between a draught of water and a draught of poison. If I were to accept this Treaty and if I did not do my best to have it defeated I would, in my view, be committing national suicide; I would be breaking the national tradition that has been handed down to us through the centuries. We would be doing for the first time a thing that no generation ever thought of doing before---wilfully, voluntarily admitting ourselves to be British subjects, and taking the oath of allegiance voluntarily to the English King. Now, I hope it is admitted by everybody in favour of this Treaty that that oath constitutes an Oath of Allegiance to the English King [`No! no!']. Well, then, it is not admitted [`No! no!']. Well, I will prove that it is; it has been proved before and I thought that was sufficient.
MR. DUGGAN:
It was not proved.
MR. BRUGHA:
You swear to bear true allegiance to the constitution of the Free State of Ireland as by law established; that is, in itself, if there was not a word about the King to follow, and there is---that, in itself, would be an Oath of Allegiance to the English King, because he would be the head of that Constitution.Agus tá se sin maith a dhóthain. Now, the third objectionable feature, the fundamental thing, even if there was no question of becoming British subjects and taking the Oath of Allegiance, this third objection would be so fundamental that I say it would be equivalent to my taking poison if I accepted it: that was allowing the British to say to us, `We will not allow you to carry out your coastal defence, you will not have permission to do so until we are satisfied, we must first agree to it'. That is putting us in a humiliating position. Now, no matter what happens we would not agree to the Treaty in which these three fundamentals are included. There has been a body of opinion in this country, as I had occasion to write a week ago in Irish, that has always repudiated English authority in this country. Each generation had that body of opinion in it, and whenever they found themselves strong enough they went out in insurrection against England and English authority here. The last one, as you know, was in 1916 when we established our Republic; it was ratified in January, 1919, and we have carried on our functions with a de jure and de facto Government since; and here, when we are in so strong a position and we so strong and England so weak and with so many enemies as she has now more than ever, we are asked to do such a thing as this. Why, if instead of being so strong, our last cartridge had been fired, our last shilling had been spent, and our last man were lying on the ground and his enemies howling round him and their bayonets raised, ready to plunge them into his body, that man should say---true to the traditions handed down---if they said to him: `Now, will you come into our Empire?'---he should say, and he would say: `No! I will not'. That is the spirit that has lasted all through the centuries, and you people in favour of the Treaty know that the British Government and the British Empire will have gone down before that spirit dies out in Ireland. Now, how are we going to reconcile an agreement between the people who have that spirit in them and those who are in favour of the Treaty. We have in this alternative of ours the means of doing this. Now, seeing that some people are in doubt as to what our alternative is, especially one man for whom I have great respect---though, unfortunately, he made an error in a statement he made in his speech---who said our alternative had not been treated fairly and that he did not understand it---that is Deputy Mulcahy---I presume that those in favour of the Treaty have no objection to my explaining briefly what our alternative means. We are prepared to enter into an agreement, an association with the British Commonwealth of Nations as it is generally called, on the same or similar lines as that on which one business firm enters into combination with another or several others. The thing is not uncommon now; such combinations are made for certain specific purposes; the combination appoints a managing-director to carry out the business of the firm but it is only for a specific purpose; each firm remains independent except for this one particular business. Say the purpose would be to do foreign trade; each firm would carry on, independently, its own internal trade; and the combination would, under this managing-director, carry out its purpose for foreign trade; each firm would give a stipend to the managing director. Now, by entering into combination no firm sacrifices its independence as a firm. We are prepared, on the same terms, to enter into an association with the British Commonwealth of Nations, and for the purposes of that combination we are prepared to recognise the English Government as the head of the combination [cries of `Oh!'].
MR. GRIFFITH:
A managing-director.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Now, by entering into such arrangements we are not going into the British Empire; neither do we take any oath whatsoever; and there will be no representative of the British Crown in the shape of a Governor-General in Ireland. We are entering into that arrangement, into this association as external associates. Now, what does that mean?
MR. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
MR. BRUGHA:
Tá go maith, ní thuigean tú anois e do reir dheallramh. Míneochad duit e. Now, instead of becoming British subjects or British citizens we will have reciprocal citizenship, that is, an Irish citizen or British subject will have the support of this group in any part of the world where he may find himself where he will require help. He will have the power of the new group behind him.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Common citizenship.
MR. BRUGHA:
Reciprocal citizenship. Apparently the Chairman of the Delegation does not understand the difference between common citizenship and reciprocal citizenship. Common citizenship will mean that we are British subjects, and reciprocal citizenship will mean that we will remain Irish Republicans. There is no letting down the Irish Republic there, and I defy the Chairman of the Delegation, when he is speaking after me, or anybody else after him, on any platform in Ireland, to prove that we have deviated by one hair's breadth from the Republican position by making such a proposal. Now one of the greatest fears that the British Government have from the Irish people is, that at any time they would be in a position, were England at war, to interfere with the food supplies of the population of Great Britain; they must safeguard the food supplies of forty millions of people; we appreciate that fear, and we realise how necessary it is for them to safeguard the food supplies of the English people. Consequently, we are prepared to agree not to build submarines unless in agreement with the British Government; the only use that submarines would be to us would be to attack English transports or food ships if England were at war; they would not be of very much use to us. Now, we are willing to give England that safeguard that we will not attack her food ships, and that we will not put ourselves in the position to do so. We are prepared to give her certain facilities in our ports for a period of five years; and at that time, or any other time, that we here consider that we are in a position to carry out our own coastal defence, then we take it over; but for five years we give her certain facilities in our ports. Those are fundamentals. There are other details which appear in our proposals, but it is not necessary for me now to go into them. The things that really matter are the fundamentals; upon these fundamentals we can make a free peace with England. Now, why can we not be unanimous in this matter. So far as I can see, at the start when this document was signed there was only one man really in favour of it and that was the Chairman of the Delegation; there might have been a couple of others favouring it, but the man who really wanted it was the Chairman. Our President yesterday narrated to you a little modern history; I will supplement what he said; and I might say that when he spoke before---early in this Session---before Christmas, he stated that if Arthur Griffith had told the electors of East Cavan that he was not going to stand by the principles that were enunciated by the speakers at that election, that he would not have been elected. I tell Mr. Griffith that only for a certain arrangement that he made in 1917, that he would not be now in public life any more than he was in 1916. I have here the Sinn Fein Constitution as passed by the Ard-Fheis held in October, 1917; there is a clause in this resolution which took us three nights to get passed---to get Mr. Griffith to agree to it---this is the Clause: `Sinn Fein aims at securing the international recognition of Ireland as an independent Irish Republic'. Mr. Griffith objected to that, but eventually we came to an agreement by adding this: `Having achieved that status the Irish people may by referendum freely choose their own form of Government'. These are the vital clauses in the Constitution of the Sinn Fein movement. In that Constitution we forged the weapon by which we produced the Dáil. If Mr. Griffith had not agreed to that, and it took him three nights before he would agree, I say he would not be in public life to-day any more than he was before 1916. Mr. Griffith, in 1916, was in prison for some time; he was released in 1917, we came together some months before that Ard-Fheis---and Mr. Griffith himself, now this is some modern history, will correct me if I make a mistake---Count Plunkett held a conference in 1917 and, as a result of that Conference, there was a Committee brought into being to form a new political party; I was asked to go on that Committee; I had never been in politics before; the work that I had done, so far as I was able to do work for Ireland, was, in addition to my little efforts to revive the language, preparing for Easter Week for years before. Now, I consented to go into this, to go on that Committee that had been selected, with Mr. Griffith. I put the question to him `Suppose the League of Nations agrees that Ireland should be independent, and that England should say I will not give her her independence, would you then', said I to Mr. Griffith, `would you then be against our going out and fighting?' And he said: `No! I will not'. `Very well, then, we will', said I, `go into it, and the fighting men will go into it, and the men who are prepared to make sacrifices will go into it, too'. If he did not give that undertaking, we would have to form Republican Clubs; he gave the undertaking, and then agreed to that Constitution. Now, instead of abiding by that, Mr. Griffith has come back from England with this Treaty, instead of abiding by this which he undertook---we see that instead of the Republic he brings back that Treaty. He tells us now the war is won. The men who are prepared to make sacrifices would never have come into this movement; they would have formed a party of their own. Mr. Griffith's policy was a well-thought out policy but it would not work; we know what little progress it made until 1916; but for these men who have been with us in every generation that policy would never have succeeded. It was the fact of these men working with their own ideals and on that policy, it was only on that fact that we were able to bring the Dáil into existence, and function as a Government; though not recognised it is, de facto and de jure, the Government; it is that up to now and, please God, it will remain so. Now, why can we not regain the position that we held prior to the signing of the Treaty? It can be done if Mr. Griffith, for one, will consent to it---I may tell you that. A lot of you Teachtaí, already know that I was against ever sending men across to England, not that I considered that we were giving the Republic away by doing so, but that I knew the terrible influences that would be brought to bear upon them there---influences that I thought might be too much for them--- but I hoped, especially when there were certain instructions drawn up, that the influences would not be too strong to get the better of them, and that they would abide by those instructions that were drawn up for them and to which they consented before they went. I, at any rate, was against these negotiations because I considered they were part of a manoeuvre on the part of Lloyd George to get the better of us; Mr. Lloyd George, in the autumn of 1920, told us at Carnarvon, and told the world, that he had murder by the throat in Ireland; and he told us what he was going to do with us. He had no sooner made that declaration than his Black-and-Tanism and militarism started here in the country; it was not long after when he had Balbriggan sacked, the people taken out of their houses and murdered, the revered pastor of that parish in a public statement said that the two men who were murdered presented the appearance of people who had been done to death by wild animals instead of human beings. This campaign of terrorism went on round the country; there is no necessity for me to go into details; one of the worst---worse even than Balbriggan---was the massacre at Kerry Pike, outside Cork, in which six men who had surrendered were done to death; during the inquest the bodies of some of them had to be kept covered so that the way that they were mutilated would not be exhibited; these men were under torture before they were killed for two or three hours. In spite of all that terrorism Lloyd George could not beat the Irish nation, and when he found he could not do so, he resorted to wiles and manoeuvres; he came along with the suggestion of negotiations. Now, we agreed to send our delegates. As I have said, and as has been said already here on a few occasions, certain instructions were drawn up to which they agreed, one of which was that they were not to come to any decision without notifying us here---the remainder of the Cabinet at home here---and waiting for the answer from us; another was that they were not to sign any Treaty without first submitting it to us. You know how these instructions have been carried out. I may tell you that when the negotiations were about a month in progress some of us became very suspicious when we saw what was going on; we found that the five men, the five delegates, the team of five that we had selected, was being divided up; that two members of it, and two only, were being brought into what they call a sub-plenary conference. For more than a month before the signing of this Treaty there was, I think, something between fifteen and twenty sub-conferences. Our team of five men was divided up and only two consulted when important things the vital things were discussed, there was not even a secretary allowed to be present. Some of us became suspicious; I did; I became very suspicious and I drew attention to this. I was told that there were certain instructions given to them, and surely there was no use in causing friction by supposing that they would not abide by those instructions; consequently I was satisfied. Now they came back on that fateful Saturday. When Mr. Griffith told us that he would not break on the Crown I made what he might consider some rather heated remarks; I asked how it was that our team of five had been divided up? Who was responsible for it? His answer was---the British Government, the British Government had divided up our team. I asked him, who was it that selected the two particular members---the two particular members were Mr. Griffith himself and Mr. Michael Collins---who was it that selected them? What was his answer? The British Government. I then made an answer which he insisted should be put down on the minutes, and I said: `Yes, the British Government selected their men'. In saying that I did not mean to cast any reflection on the honour of those men; but before these men were selected at all I told them---at the Cabinet meeting at which their names were suggested to be put before the Dáil---I told them what I thought of their ideals of freedom from the utterances that I had heard from them; and I said at this Cabinet meeting on that fateful Saturday: `Yes, they selected their men'. My meaning was this: because they knew they were the two weakest men we had on the team; and Lloyd George and his friends pretty soon discovered that, and that is how they came to select them out of the five; and they allowed the British Government to divide them up and select their own men to carry on an important Conference with them. They had the thing, apparently, settled with these men and they knew what they would agree to: and until the last hour they did not call in the other two men when they intimidated---on the admission of the other two---the other two men into it. As far as the third man is concerned I will make no reference to him whatsoever; I prefer not ---charity above all things. In any case you see the result---you see the result of this manoeuvre. Negotiations were suggested after terrorism had failed, they find out who are the weakest and they select them to carry on important negotiations; and they intimidate the other two, and then there is this Treaty. No wonder there was jubilation in London when it was signed, and congratulations from the English King to Lloyd George. This was the end of the fight, and Ireland, at least so far as these men could help it, anyway, had consented to go into the British Empire. Now, I hope that you members of the Dáil will see through this manoeuvre of Lloyd George, and that you will not consent to be a party to it. I put it up now to the five men, the five members of this Delegation, that they are not to vote at all for this Treaty. They gave a certain undertaking to Lloyd George and his friends when they signed that they would recommend: that undertaking went no further, and in honour they need not go any further; and this is such a vital matter that I think it should not be necessary for them to go out of their way by voting for it. I put it up to them that they should leave it to the Dáil--- that they should not vote for it, and I put it up to you, members of the Dáil that you ought not to allow yourselves to fall into the trap that was laid for Ireland by Lloyd George, and that you should not fall into it. Finally, I put it up to Mr. Arthur Griffith to fall in with this course; and I tell Mr. Arthur Griffith that when in 1917, at the Ard-Fheis, he stepped down in favour of Eamonn de Valera as President of the Sinn Fein Organisation of which he had been head since its inception---certainly for years--- I tell Mr. Griffith that when he did that, he earned the respect of men to whom his name, prior to that, was no more than the name of any other man. However, when he did that, and since that, these men have respect for Arthur Griffith second only to Eamon de Valera. If Arthur Griffith will fall in with this suggestion now tell him---and I need not take upon myself to be a prophet to foretell it---I tell him if he does this his name will live for ever in Ireland [applause].
MR. M. COLLINS:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I crave your leave to make just one personal reference. It has been suggested by the Minister for Defence that I, in my statement, said I was responsible for a certain ambush. I did not say that, sir, I said I took responsibility for a certain incident, I took that responsibility as a member of the Government.
The House adjourned for tea at 6.25 p.m., and resumed at 7.15 p.m., with the SPEAKER (DR. MACNEILL) in the Chair.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
With your permission I wish to raise one small point; the front public bench was reserved for the members of the Standing Committee of Sinn Fein; a member of the Standing Committee who came in and took his seat there a while ago was ejected to make room for a person who is not a member of the Standing Committee; and the member, the gentleman who was ejected from his seat, has left his seat under protest. I think the seat should be vacated and he should be invited in.
THE SPEAKER:
Give instructions to the officer in charge of the door.
MR. STACK:
Call in Mr. Little.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
Immediately following my speech to-day my colleague, Mr. MacGrath, thought fit to bring a personal conversation into the debate; and in order to clear my record I will take this opportunity to state that I was the servant of this Government, representing it in America, and when I was recalled to Ireland on the peace discussion I was informed by the President that the very minimum would be external association. I was instructed to go back to America with this definite objective in view; and I made whatever provision was possible, so that in the event of Ireland's minimum being accepted we would have no trouble from our friends in America. Now, with that in view, on the Tuesday night on which the Treaty was signed in London I stepped off the train at Washington, and when I read that the Treaty had been signed I understood that the men who went to negotiate for Ireland had followed out the instructions of their Cabinet, and that the minimum had been achieved. I thereupon issued a statement in which I said that Ireland had come within the comity of nations, On the following morning, Wednesday morning, the Treaty appeared in the American Press; and when I read the terms of the Treaty I was opposed to it. On the following Thursday night Mr. Stephen O'Mara, the fiscal agent to this Government, and myself attended a meeting in Washington where invitations had been sent out to wealthy Americans inviting them to subscribe to a million dollar Bond Drive---or the Republic; and the men turned up, and we cancelled the Bond Drive, and they turned the meeting into a meeting of rejoicings. Senators were present and they sang hallelujahs: and I, myself, spoke against that Treaty. On the following morning my speech was reported in the Manchester Guardian because their representative in America was among the invited guests; that was on record five hours before President de Valera came out against the Treaty. Apart from the propriety of introducing a private conversation I find it necessary to make a personal explanation; I certainly hope we won't reproduce any more private conversations.
MR. M. COLLINS:
You cannot stand them, Harry, you stood for the Treaty first. [`Order, order'.]
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
No! and you know it, Michael [laughter].
MR. ARTHUR GRIFFITH:
I cannot accept the invitation of the Minister of Defence to dishonour my signature and become immortalised in Irish history. I have signed this Treaty; and the man or nation that dishonours its signature is dishonoured for ever; no man who signed that Treaty can dishonour his signature without dishonouring himself and the nation [applause]. As to what the Minister of Defence said about myself I have nothing to say; it may be that I was unknown in public life before 1916; and it may be that I am only known in public life since through the Minister of Defence. That is not a matter I am interested in. There is one thing I want to say; a suggestion was made that my colleagues and myself are going to be immortalised if I take a certain course---to dishonour my signature and the nation. It was said that I was a weak man in the negotiations in London, and that I and that my colleague and friend, Michael Collins, held back our conversations with the English Ministers and gave something away. We were asked why we went to see these Ministers without the full body of the plenipotentiaries? For the same reason that President de Valera met Lloyd George alone when he went to London; and because there are certain things that are better discussed by two or three men than by eighteen men; and we both agreed on that. One other reference will I make to what the Minister of Defence has said; he spoke of Michael Collins, he referred to what I said about Michael Collins---that he was the man who won the war. I said it, and I say it again; he was the man that made the situation; he was the man, and nobody knows better than I do how, during a year and a half he worked from six in the morning until two next morning. He was the man whose matchless energy, whose indomitable will carried Ireland through the terrible crisis [applause]; and though I have not now, and never had, an ambition about either political affairs or history, if my name is to go down in history I want it associated with the name of Michael Collins [applause]. Michael Collins was the man who fought the Black-and-Tan terror for twelve months, until England was forced to offer terms [cheers]. That is all I have to say on that subject. Now, we have been in London as plenipotentiaries, and when we were going across it was stated to us that there might be scapegoats, and I said I was prepared to be a scapegoat if one per cent. more could be got for the Irish nation. We came back. We thought, at all events, we had done something that was very good for the Irish nation. We were indicted here from the day we came back; we were told that we let down the Republic; and the Irish people were led to believe that we had gone there with a mandate to get a Republic and nothing but a Republic, and that we had violated that mandate. Sir, before I went to London I said at a Cabinet meeting---when every member of the Cabinet was there---that: `If I go to London I can't get a Republic: I will try for a Republic, but I can't bring it back'. And we tried for a Republic, though I knew we could not get it. One Deputy here said yesterday that we were guilty of treason against the Republic. Well, if we were guilty of treason against the Republic let us be tried for treason. I, at all events, have nothing on my conscience; what I did, I did for the best interests of Ireland; I believed I was doing right; I believe now I did right, and I would do the same thing again [cheers]. Now, we have been told, and we were told after we came back, that we were in violent conflict with what the Irish people had expressed in the three elections; very well. The documents and letters that passed between our President and the Premier of England are all before the public; in which one of them was a demand made for the recognition of the Irish Republic as a condition before we went to London? If we were to get a Republic, and nothing but a Republic, the thing could have been dismissed in six lines by writing to the Premier of England and telling him that we would meet him on the condition that he recognised the Republic. We were sent to make some compromise, bargain or arrangement; we made an arrangement; the arrangement we made is not satisfactory to many people. Let them criticise on that point but do not let them say that we were sent to get one thing and that we got something else. We got a different type of arrangement from that which many wished; but when they charge us or insinuate that we went there with a mandate to demand a Republic, and nothing but a Republic, then they are maligning us; if we got that mandate we would have finished up in five minutes in Downing Street. Now, after the General Election, at a meeting of the Dáil in August last, President de Valera made a speech which covered the ground on which we went there; he said, speaking on the General Election: `I don't take it that the answer was for a form of Republican Government as such, because we are not Republican doctrinaires as such; but it was for Irish freedom and Irish independence'. [Hear, hear]. We went there to London, not us Republican doctrinaires, but looking for the substance of freedom and independence. If you think what we brought back is not the substance of independence that is a legitimate ground for attack upon us, but to attack us on the ground that we went there to get a Republic is to attack us on false and lying grounds, and some of those who criticise on that ground know perfectly well the conditions under which we went. `We are ready,' said President de Valera---`We are ready,' he said---`to leave the whole question between Ireland and England to external arbitration'. What did that mean? Need I comment on it? Is that saying you will have a Republic and nothing but a Republic? Is not that America or any other country might decide between us whether we would have a Republic or not?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
By justice.
MR. GRIFFITH:
In another letter he said: `We have no conditions to impose, no claim to advance but one---that we are to be free from aggression'. I hold that what we brought back from England frees us from aggression. It gives us the power to mould our own life, and it frees us from the only permanent form of aggression we can have---the occupation of Ireland by the army of another country. I have listened here for days to discussions on the oath. If you are going to have a form of association with the British Empire, call it what you will, you must have an oath; and such an oath was suggested and put before us and not rejected, and put before the plenipotentiaries when going back to London. The difference between these two oaths is the difference in the terms. I am not going to speak in terms of theology or terms of law about them; we have had quite a considerable discussion on that point; but what I am going to speak about is this: that in this assembly there are men who have taken oath after oath to the King of England; and I noticed that these men applauded loudly when insulting or slighting references were made to the young soldiers here on account of the oath. If a man considers an oath such a momentous thing, what did these gentlemen who took the oath to the King of England---what; I ask, has become of their oath at the present time? I have an arrangement of oaths here, seven different oaths taken by different members of this assembly to the King of England. These were the gentlemen who unsheathed their swords against the liberties of the people---these gentlemen sat on English benches---all of whom are going to vote against this Treaty because they will not take the oath. Ah! this hypocrisy that is going to involve the lives of gallant and brave men is damnable---the hypocrisy of the men who hung their flags out when the King of England came to Ireland, the men who received him, the men who fought in his army, the men who sat on his benches, the men who try to cut down the brave young men of Ireland---this is damnable hypocrisy. When we came back with this Treaty that has been called by many names---we have heard a selection of adjectives for that Treaty that have not been parallelled since the days of Biddy Moriarty [laughter]---when we came back with that Treaty there was, at least, one thing that might have been done. Our colleagues in the Dáil who disagreed with us might have met and discussed that Treaty on its merits. The President and myself made an appeal that no personalities be indulged in. I have been sitting here for days, and the more I sat here the more I wondered at the smallness of my imagination that I had never been able to realise the heights of my own villainy [laughter]. Well, that Treaty could have been discussed on its merits; it could have been dealt with without any reference as to whether the men who brought it were honourable or dishonourable men---tell us what you like. You say we are dishonourable men, this does not affect the fact of the Treaty which has been discussed on the basis of the failure, at least, of the plenipotentiaries and not discussed on what was in it. It has been discussed in the way that Carlyle once described---and I have thought of this many times while listening to the criticism of the Treaty---he describes the fly that crawled along the front of the Cologne Cathedral and communicated to all the other flies what a horribly rough surface it was, because the fly was unable to see the edifice. Now, as to that Treaty, an effort has been made to put us in the position of saying that this Treaty is an ideal thing; an effort has been made to put us into a false position. That Treaty is not an ideal thing; it has faults. I could draw up a Treaty---any of us could draw up a Treaty which would be more satisfactory to the Irish people; we could `call spirits from the vasty deep', but will they come when you call them? We have a Treaty signed by the heads of the British Government; we have nothing signed against it. I could draw up a much better Treaty myself, one that would suit myself; but it is not going to be passed. We are, therefore, face to face with a practical situation. Does this Treaty give away the interests and the honour of Ireland? I say it does not. I say it serves the interests of Ireland, it is not dishonourable to Ireland. It is not an ideal thing; it could be better. It has no more finality than that we are the final generation on the face of the earth [applause]. No man is going, as was quoted here---I have used it all my life---`no man can set bounds to the march of a nation'. But we here can accept that Treaty, and deal with it in good faith with the English people, and through the files of events reach, if we desire it, any further status that we desire or require after. Who is going to say what the world is to be like in ten years hence? We can make peace on the basis of that Treaty; it does not forever bind us not to ask for any more. England is going beyond where she is at present; all nations are going beyond where they are at present; and in the meantime we can move on in comfort and peace to the ultimate goal. This Treaty gives the Irish people what they have not had for centuries; it gives them a foothold in their own country; it gives them solid ground on which to stand; and Ireland has been a quaking bog for three hundred years, where there was no foothold for the Irish people. Well, reject this Treaty; throw Ireland back into what she was before this Treaty came---I am not a prophet, though I have listened to many prophets here, and I can't argue with prophets; but I know where Ireland was twenty or thirty years ago, I know where Ireland was when there was only a few dozen of us up in Dublin trying to keep the national ideal alive, not trying to keep it alive, because the Irish people never deserted it, but a few of us who had faith in our people and faith in our country, stood by her---you are going to throw Ireland back to that, to dishearten the men who made the fight, and to let back into Irish politics the time servers and men who let down Ireland before and who will, through their weakness, if not through dishonesty, let down Ireland again. You can take this Treaty and make it the basis of an Irish Ireland. You can reject this Treaty and you can throw Ireland back into where she was years ago, into where she was before---well I do not like to speak about the dead---before the sacrifice that the dead men have made raised her up; the men who died for the last four or five years made this Treaty possible; without them it could not have been done. You are going to give away the fruits of their sacrifices, and to condemn the other young men of Ireland to go out on a fruitless struggle. Certain disclosures have been made here about what happened at Cabinet meetings; well, there was a certain Cabinet meeting at which I asked a question as to what the alternative was as nobody held that we could, by military forces, drive the English out of Ireland---I would not refer to this except that it was already referred to this evening, and part of the conversation was reported---and I was told: `No! This generation might go down, but the next generation might do something or other' Is there to be no living Irish nation? Is the Irish nation to be the dead past or the prophetic future? Have we any duty to the present generation? I say we have. I say it is the task of political leadership, and statesmanship, or whatever you like to call it, to adopt the weapons and circumstances of this time to achieve the best possible result for the country while keeping the honour of the country safe; and I say if leadership does not devote itself to that task it is not leadership. We have a duty to our country, and our country are the living people of Ireland; we have a duty to our people; we have a duty at least, so far as our judgment goes, not to lead them astray, not to tell them something will happen `if you do this'---when you know they cannot do it---in order to save our faces at the expense of our countrymen's blood [hear, hear]. I have preached this Sinn Fein doctrine in years past; at that time the leadership of Ireland was in the hands of the Parliamentary Party; I felt the doctrine I preached was the right one; but I felt also a duty to the nation in that if anything could be got through these leaders I thought it was not my right to obstruct the way. In 1912, when the late Home Rule Act came in, I had a certain support in the country; I could have embarrassed Mr. Redmond if I wished; but I could not have effected any good for the country by so doing, because the country was overwhelmingly against us, and I said to my colleagues in Sinn Fein `The country has declared for that thing; it is not what we want; but we have no right to stand in the way of the country when we are not able to get them better'. We of Sinn Fein stood down; and we tried to help Mr. Redmond to get his Home Rule measure. He got it. It was not our duty to obstruct. If he and his party failed to get it they failed to get it, and the failure did not lie with us. I say to-day that any man or body of men that obstructs what the nation wishes, or what the nation desires, no matter though they might think themselves right, no matter though they were right, are culpable against the nation unless they can show as quick and as good a way. I can see no better way than this Treaty; no better way for the Irish people. If the Irish people are to have an alternative let the alternative be put down straight before them. Now, many questions were raised, many questions were asked me or referred to me; one by Madame Markievicz, who was perturbed over the letter I wrote about the Southern Unionists; she drew from that letter the idea that I was going to treat them as a privileged class; she wanted to know why I met these men. I met them because they are my countrymen [applause], and because, if we are to have an Irish nation, we want to start with fair play for all sections and with understandings between all sections [applause]. I would meet to-morrow on that basis the Ulster Unionists, to seek to get them to join in the Irish nation [hear, hear]. I met these gentlemen and I promised them fair play; and so far as I am concerned they will have fair play [applause]. I met them in the same spirit that the President met them, when he invited them to meet him at the Mansion House, because they are members of the Irish nation, and their lives and fortunes are as much at stake in the settlement of this Irish question as are our own and those of the people who are supporting us. If we are to start as an Irish nation we went to start on these lines, obliterating all that kept us apart before. We are to have different parties in the Irish nation; we do not want these parties ranged on the lines of pro-English versus pro-Irishism, we want them ranged on national lines, and the person who thinks that you can make an Irish nation, and make it successfully function, with eight hundred thousand of our countrymen in the North up against us, and four hundred thousand of our countrymen here in the South opposed to us, is living in a Fool's Paradise. You want every Irishman in this Irish nation; you want all of them, and the way we are going to get them is to ensure them that they are to have absolute justice and absolute fair play in the Irish nation [applause]. Now, I might go into many things. I do not wish to go into things that would arouse any personal contention; I will merely go into certain statements about another document, Document 2---the Minister of Defence gave a description of another alternative doctrine---well, all I can say is: these proposals, so far as they differ from what we signed, were put up by us---they did not emanate from us---we put them forward and they were turned down; we put them up again and they were turned down absolutely. The alternative proposal was simply to put up a third time what had been turned down twice. But it appears that from these alternative proposals some extraordinary measure of greater freedom accrues to Ireland than from the Treaty; that Ireland, somehow, is not to connect with the British Commonwealth of Nations; that Ireland is outside it; that it is not a question of Dominion status. Well, here they are:
<SMALL>
That for purposes of common concern Ireland shall be associated with the States of the British Commonwealth viz., the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa.
</SMALL>
It that is not a claim for Dominion status I do not know what the meaning of words is. Here is the next paragraph:
<SMALL>
The rights, status and privileges of Ireland shall be in no respect less than those enjoyed by the component States of the British Commonwealth.
</SMALL>
The next paragraph says:
<SMALL>
That the matters of common concern shall include defence, peace and war, political treaties, and all matters now treated as of common concern amongst the States of the British Commonwealth and that in these matters there shall be between Ireland and the States of the British Commonwealth such concerted action founded on consultation the several Governments may determine.
</SMALL>
We are outside the British Empire according to this explanation in this document, but we happen to be inside for peace, war, defence, treaties, and for all vital concerns. Again:
<SMALL>
That in virtue of this Association of Ireland with the States of the British Commonwealth, citizens of Ireland in any of these States shall not be subject to any disabilities which a citizen of one of the component States of the British Commonwealth would not be subject to and reciprocally for citizens of these States in Ireland.
</SMALL>
I have heard about common citizenship; what is that? Reciprocal rights? Is that over a change of words? And then we have this:
<SMALL>
That for purposes of the association Ireland shall recognise His Britannic Majesty as head of the association.
</SMALL>
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Why did Lloyd George turn it down?
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
It is not allegiance.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Is that a Republic or is it not? I say it is not a Republic. Is that allegiance or is it not?
MR. MACGARRY:
That's a Constitutional Republic [laughter].
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
That's a Republic.
MR. GRIFFITH:
There is a little item left out of that which we were empowered to put up in London---an annual payment to the King of England. The Irish people have been told that we let down the Republic; and that that document is a Republic. I say that is not a Republic. You said you were elected for a Republic; were you elected for that document? Well, that document is the question between us and our colleagues on the opposite side. Now whatever the difference is between us this thing is too grave for the Irish people to have them befogged by words. If they are going to be asked to go out and put their lives and fortunes in danger and lose their lives; and again go through what they have already gone through; let them know that what they are going out for is the recognition of His Britannic Majesty---for a payment to His Britannic Majesty---and for association.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is no oath.
MR. GRIFFITH:
The document is there. It is on the Cabinet records. [Cries of `No! no!'] No! you kept it out of that record---out of that document. </SMALL>
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I have been prevented by the Minister for Foreign Affairs bringing forward my amendment. The people in this assembly do not understand what is contained in the Treaty. We have got no opportunity.
MR. GRIFFITH:
If the people in this assembly do not understand what is in the document they are not fit to be representatives of the people of Ireland [applause]. Now, the Irish people are going to know, so far as I am concerned, what is the difference. I belong to the Irish people; I have worked for them because they are flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone [cheers]; I have never deceived them, at all events, whatever I have done; I may have misled them or given them bad advice; but I have never concealed from them anything that is vital to their interests. It is vital for them to know what we are up against and not to be misled and not to believe that we, plenipotentiaries, went away with a mandate for the Republic and came back with something else. I have heard in this assembly statements about the people of Ireland. The people of Ireland sent us here---we have no right and no authority except what we derive from the people of Ireland---we are here because the people of Ireland elected us, and our only right to speak is to seek what they want. I am told that the people of Ireland elected us to get a Republic. They elected us in 1918 to get rid of the Parliamentary Party; they elected us in 1921 as a gesture, a proper gesture of defiance to the Black-and-Tans; they elected us, not as doctrinaire Republicans, but as men looking for freedom and independence. When we agreed to enter into negotiations with England with the object of producing a Treaty we were bound, I hold, to respect whatever the Irish people---the people of Ireland---thought of that Treaty. I have heard one Deputy saying here that it does not matter what his constituents say. I tell him it does. If representative government is going to remain on the earth, then a representative must voice the opinion of his constituents; if his conscience will not let him do that he has only one way out and that is to resign and refuse to misrepresent them; but that men who know their constituents want this Treaty should come here and tell us that, by virtue of the vote they derive from these constituents, they are going to vote against this Treaty---as that is the negation of all democratic right, it is the negation of all freedom. You are doing what Castlereagh and Pitt did in 1800; you are doing what these two men did when they refused to let the Irish Parliament dissolve on the question of the Union, and to allow the people to be consulted. You are trying to reject this Treaty without allowing the Irish people to say whether they want it or not---the people whose lives and fortunes are involved.
PRESIDENT DR VALERA:
No! no!
MR. GRIFFITH:
You will kill Dáil Eireann when you do that [`No! no!']. You will remove from Dáil Eireann every vestige of moral authority, and they will no longer represent the people of Ireland. It will be a junta dictating to the people of Ireland and the people of Ireland will deal with it. When our President was in America he honoured the memory of Abraham Lincoln; and Abraham Lincoln was one of the greatest men of the last century---he was one of the men who upheld the rights of the people---and Ahraham Lincoln's words are words I recommend to you now. When Abraham Lincoln was elected as representative of the American people he said: `If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sagamon'---the constituency he represented---`my constituents, as well those who oppose me as those who support me. While acting as their representative I shall be governed by their will on all such subjects on which I have the means of knowing what that will is' [applause]. You know what the will of the Irish people is [cries of `No!' and `Yes!']. There is no man here who would go down to his constituency and stand on a platform before his people and say he is against this Treaty.
MR SEAN T. O'KELLY:
I would do it; and will, and so will others.
SEVERAL DEPUTIES:
We are prepared to do it.
MR. GRIFFITH:
They had an opportunity during the recess; I have not read of any of those who stood up now having gone before their constituents.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
There was an undertaking we were not to do it. </SMALL>
MR. FRANK FAHY:
We were forbidden by an undertaking with Mr. Griffith.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Therefore you did not do it. You may interrupt me as much as you please, but there is no power in the junta to intimidate me. The people of Ireland are, you know---every one of you---ninety-eight per cent. for this Treaty [`No! no!' and `Yes! yes!']. Now, everyone of you knows it; they have told you to vote for it.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
They did not tell me. They told me to vote against it.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Your constituents told you to vote for this Treaty. The Irish people will not be deceived. They know. They have made their voice heard. Some of you will try to muzzle it; but that voice will be heard, and it will pierce through. The most contemptible references I ever heard made to the people of Ireland have been made this Dáil, I have heard people in this Dáil say that if the people of Ireland had been able in 1921 to accept the Southern Parliament and get rid of Black-and-Tannery they would have done so. Now, I say that is the falsest libel ever uttered the people of Ireland: the people of Ireland stood, throughout, against that terror, and against the terrorism which would seek to suppress their nation; they will stand again [applause]. But they are not going to stand for a fight against what gives them the substance of freedom. If an attempt be made to mislead the Irish people on this question---a Deputy here said something me about last night, and about treason. But I tell you the people who commit treason are the people who try to prevent the Irish people, by force or otherwise, from expressing their opinion [hear, hear]. Distrust the people, muzzle the people, where then is gone self-determination for the people? Where is gone the platform on which we were elected to this Dáil? [hear, hear]. Ah! democracy is, to some minds, very good in theory when democracy fits in with their own ideas; but when democracy bends the reins contrary to their own ideas they get back into a casuistic vein. Now, this country is going to be governed by the Irish people or by the English Government. I am equally opposed to my countrymen being governed by any body of men who flout their wishes and opinions as I am opposed to their being governed by Dublin Castle. We have heard of usurpation. The usurpation that would set itself up against the will of the Irish people is as great a usurpation as Dublin Castle and, so far as I am concerned, my voice and power will be used against that usurpation. You have heard expressions in this Dáil that were rather unfortunate, perhaps. We have representatives in different countries---I happen to be Minister of Foreign Affairs---two of these representatives, immediately this Treaty was signed, started out on their own behalf and made public statements about the Treaty; they did not communicate with me; they thought it right that they should publicly state their views before either the Dáil Cabinet or the Dáil had the power to consider it. They have also represented that the opinion of the world was with them against that Treaty; I say the opinion of the world is that this Treaty constitutes a victory for Ireland, and while I am Minister for Foreign Affairs---perhaps I may not be there much longer---I take the liberty, since these gentlemen took it on themselves to attempt to jump the decision of the Dáil, to read the views of another of our representatives. He may, of course, be dismissed, but he has told me he does not mind; he is a man who has done more for us on the Continent than any other man---Captain MacWhite of the French Army, now representing us in Geneva------
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
When was he made a Captain? He is a Sergeant-Major in the French Army.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Mr. MacWhite is our representative in Geneva. He wrote me a letter on this subject and he told me I might use it if I wished. In this letter he says:
<SMALL>
To refuse to ratify the document which you brought back from London would be to put a millstone on the neck of posterity, and to condemn unborn generations to perpetual slavery and poverty. To pretend that we could again revive the sympathies which were so ardently expressed in favour of the Irish cause during the past few years throughout the whole civilised world is nothing less than a monstrous imposition on the credulity of the Irish people. All the sympathisers which we had in France---and they were legion---look upon the oposition to the Treaty as nothing less than insanity. Those French newspapers which, through thick and thin, fought the battle for Irish freedom believe that in wringing such a Treaty from the powerful British Empire you achieved the inachievable. In Italy our most enthusiastic supporters---and in no other part of the world was there so much popular enthusiasm behind our cause---are of the opinion that we have won a magnificent victory, and there deception will be nil the greater if we do not exploit the victory as any sane people should. Amongst our friends in every other country in Europe the same opinion prevails. Only a few days ago I read of a society at Zurich `Pro Irelande,' whose object was the advocation of Irish liberties, being dissolved as the raison d'etre for its existence had disappeared. Should Ireland, through the fault of her elected representatives, revert to disorder and chaos, then it will be said again---with some foundation this time---that we are unfit for freedom and that we handsomely deserve whatever fate England may reserve for us in the future. The Treaty admits Ireland to membership of the League of Nations. In order to give that document its true international character I do not see any reason why it should not be submitted to the League once Ireland's membership is officially recognised. The Constitution of the League requires that all Treaties entered into by its members or between one of its members and an outsider should be notified to it. Of course England may protest that the Irish Free State did not exist until after the ratification of this Treaty, but once ratified she cannot any longer pretend that is not an international instrument. In future any modification of that document should likewise be submitted to the League and its intervention could be solicited for the regulation of disputes which are not specifically reserved under the articles of the Treaty.
</SMALL>
I quote that simply to correct the idea that some of our representatives abroad gave as to the Treaty, that it was their view was held by the European nations. Now, you have heard all that might be said against this Treaty; you have heard even that it is not a Treaty at all. You have been spoken to as if you had a Republican Government functioning all through Ireland, and that you were asked to give up this Government and functioning Republic for this Treaty. You all know here that, instead of governing through Ireland, the most we could do was to hold, and to barely hold, the position we were in. I heard it said in this assembly that we had driven the British Army into the sea but I walked down O'Connell Street and I saw them there in hundreds afterwards. What is the use of so deceiving ourselves? The British Army into the sea; but I walked country; and the British Army can be got out of this country to-morrow by the ratification of this Treaty; those who vote against it are giving a vote to keep the British Army in Ireland. If you expect that when you reject this Treaty you will drive the British Army out, then you are even more credulous than I believed you to be all the time [laughter]. You have got to give the Irish people something substantial if you reject this Treaty; you have got to tell them where you are going to lead them. But you are not leading there anywhere; you have no objective. You have as I was told---as one very prominent man told us---you have been told that this generation is going to die but that the next generation will get something, that is not sanity; that is not politics; that is not statesmanship. Any of those who come and tell the Irish people: `Let this present generation immolate itself and, please God, the next generation will get something', are not talking in the voice of sanity. This generation in Ireland; and this generation has got the right to live for itself as past generations had the right; and future generations will have the right to live for themselves. We, as I said, have been put into the position of defending this Treaty, of making this Treaty appear as if it were a bigger thing than it is; the attacks on us have been designed to force us into the position of saying that this Treaty is an ideal Treaty. Well, it is not. It is the utmost Ireland can get; and it is a Treaty Ireland can honourably accept; it gives a way of working up to our fullest development. We speak here---some us speak here---as if there were no Irish people outside of these doors as if there were no economic questions; as if there were not tens of thousands of unemployed; as if there were not tens of thousands of struggling farmers and labouring people through the country; as if we could go on indefinitely making this kind of fight against England. I tell you what is going to happen to you if you reject this Treaty. The Irish people are going to sweep you out as incompetent. We have got to deal with the people; we have got to believe that we are not superiors; we have got to remember that they are our flesh and blood, we have got to remember that we are not sitting at a table playing chess with Lloyd George. It is our countrymen and country women whose lives and fortunes we are dealing with. As John Mitchell said: `One Irish peasant's life is as dear and as sacred to us as any other man's life in the country is, be he who he may'. We want to see this country placed on its feet; we want to put the English tax-gatherer out of the country; we want to hold our ports and harbours and commerce; and we want to have the right and power to educate our people as they ought to be educated. We have got all this in the Treaty. Reject the Treaty and what have you got? A few years ago I found, when I saw the misery and degradation and poverty of my country---when I saw her name forgotten in Europe---I found that the cause of all that was the infamous Act of Union. From the day that Act was passed Ireland became a chaos. In the one hundred and twenty years since that was passed we have lost twelve millions of our people, our country has been ravished and ravaged; we have had the emigrant ship and the famine and the prison cell and the scaffold all through that one hundred and twenty years, because you have had the English Army in occupation here; and by your vote are you going to keep the English Army in occupation here, because that is what it means? Are you going to put out the English Army, the English tax-gatherer, the English West Britons; to build yourself up as a nation again and stand as this Treaty gives you power to stand---on equality with the other nations once again---and get your fair name in the world? Or are you going back, without hope of success in this generation at least, to the position in which we were until the heroism and capacity of these young men made England offer terms in July last? That is what you have got decide; and I say that any man who is going to ask the young men of Ireland to go out again, and fight and suffer as before, has got to tell them where they are going [applause]. Here a few days ago, reference was made to Michael Collins and to the young men who would follow him to hell. Well, I know young men who went through hell with him; and because they went through hell with him you are here this evening; and this assembly would not be here, and we would not be discussing these terms with England unless the army---unless these young men had gone through hell with Michael Collins. Well, so far as my strength and voice and vote are concerned, I will not let my countrymen be led on a false track; I believe they will be led on a false track if we reject this Treaty; I believe they will be led on a straight track if we accept this Treaty. My colleagues and I have tried to meet the difficulties in the way, we have tried to get a united Dáil. Michael Collins made a suggestion. I regret that suggestion was not adopted, I believe we could have kept united if that suggestion were adopted; and if people had difficulties in their minds over what they considered principles I believe these difficulties could have been solved. I regret that that suggestion was not accepted; I regret it because I believe we could honourably have peace on this.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
What is it?
MR. GRIFFITH:
Mr. Collins' suggestion that you had before you recently.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Please read it so that we may all know it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
It was in the Press.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
That we should let this Treaty pass and hold the views we had. What would it mean for Ireland?
MR. GRIFFITH:
I do not mind reading it if President de Valera wishes.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I do not want to ask anybody to break any confidence. I simply want to know if a suggestion was made by Mr. Collins, if it was in the Press?
MR. GRIFFITH:
What I thought you wished me to read was the decision the Committee came to the other night. </SMALL>
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Anything that should go to the Irish people let it go. Please let us hear the whole thing now. I did everything I did for unity. If there is anything else read it out then, if it is agreeable.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
I am not agreeable.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Very well. I am not going to read any document so.
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
What about Mr. Collins' offer?
MR. M. COLLINS:
It was in the public Press.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Well, I regret, therefore, that we cannot go into that. I regret we are not going to have unity; but there is true unity and false unity. I will not sacrifice the Irish nation on the altar of false unity; I will not agree, in order to preserve the semblance of unity in this Dáil, that we should flout the people of this country; I will not agree that the people of Ireland should be sacrificed on a formula.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. GRIFFITH:
We had much talk of principles, of honour, and of virtue here. It seemed to me all on one side; we on this side, had lost all the effulgence of virtue that emblazoned the faces of the people on the opposite side. Well, I have some principles; the principle that I have stood on all my life is the principle of Ireland for the Irish people [hear, hear]. If I can get that with a Republic I will have a Republic; if I can get that with a monarchy I will have a monarchy. I will not sacrifice my country for a form of government. I stand in this exactly where every leader of the Irish nation stood from the time of O'Neill to Patrick Sarsfield. Owen Roe O'Neill said: `I do not care whether the King of England is King of Ireland so long as the people of Ireland are free'. I do not care whether the King of England or the symbol of the Crown be in Ireland so long as the people of Ireland are free to shape their own destinies. We have the means to do that by this Treaty; we have not the means otherwise. I say now to the people of Ireland that it is their right to see that this Treaty is carried into operation, when they get, for the first time in seven centuries, a chance to live their lives in their own country and take their place amongst the nations of Europe [applause].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Before you take a vote I want to enter my last protest---that document will rise in judgment against the men who say there is only a shadow of difference---
MR. MILROY:
Yes, that's all.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
If every thing is in this Treaty that seemed to be covered by it---but it is not---I say that the Irish nation will judge you who have brought this Treaty---if it is approved they will judge you by comparing what you got for the Irish people out of it with the terms of an explicit document where there is nothing implied but everything on the face of it. It is the same position exactly as in the case of Grattan and Flood; and I suppose the Irish Volunteers are to be disbanded next.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Let the Irish nation judge us now and for future years.
THE SPEAKER:
We will take a vote now in the usual way by calling the roll. The vote is on the motion by the Minister for Foreign Affairs that Dáil Eireann approves of the Treaty.
THE CLERK then proceeded to call the roll.
MR. M. COLLINS:
[on being called for the second constituency]The people on the other side need not have objected. I have already voted.
THE SPEAKER:
[on being called]I can only give a casting vote.
MR. GRIFFITH:
[on being called for the second constituency]I wish to register my protest against any constituency being disfranchised. I understand that is your ruling. There are five members here who represent two constituencies each---the President and four other members. Those constituencies that the five of us represent are disfranchised.
THE SPEAKER:
The question of what happens the constituency is not the question for me. I can only rule that each deputy present shall vote once.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
I wish to enter my protest against the County Tyrone being disfranchised.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
at the conclusion of the Roll call
I claim the right to speak first after the figures are announced.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I want to make a statement, too.
THE SPEAKER:
The result of the poll is sixty-four for approval and fifty seven against. That is a majority of seven in favour of approval of the Treaty.
FOR:
Micheál O Coileáin, Art O Gríobhtha, Seán Mac Giolla Ríogh, Pól O Geallagáin, Liam T. Mac Cosgair, Gearóid O Súileabháin
Pádraig O Braonáin, Seán O Lidia, Seán O hAodha, Pádraig O Caoimh, Seán Mac Heil, Seosamh Mac Suibhne, Peadar S. Mac an Bháird, Dr. S. Mac Fhionnlaoigh, P. S. Mac Ualghairg, Próinsias Laighleis, S. Ghabháin Uí Dhubhthaigh, Deasmhumhain Mac Gearailt, Seumas Mac Doirim, Seumas O Duibhir, Pádraic O Máille, Seoirse Mac Niocaill, P. S. O hOgáin, An t-Oll. S. O Faoilleacháin, Piaras Beaslaí, Fionán O Loingsigh, S. O Cruadhlaoich, Riobárd Bartún, Criostóir O Broin, Seumas O Dóláin Aindriú O Láimhín, Tomás Mac Artúir, Dr Pádraig Mac Artáin, Caoimhghín O hUigín, Seosamh O Loingsigh, Próinsias Bulfin
Dr. Risteárd O hAodha, Liam O hAodha, Seosamh Mac Aonghusa, Seán Mac Eoin, Lorcán O Roibíh, Eamon O Dúgáin, Peadar O hAodha, Seumas O Murchadha, Saerbhreathach Mac Cionaith, Seosamh Mac Giolla Bhrighde, Liam Mac Sioghuird , Domhnall O Ruairc, Earnán de Blaghd, Eoin O Dubhthaigh, Alasdar Mac Cába, Tomás O Domhnaill, Seumas de Búrca, Dr. V. de Faoite, Risteárd Mac Fheorais, Seán Mae Gadhra, Mícheál Mac Stáin, Risteárd O Maolchatha, Seosamh Mag Craith, Pilib Mac Cosgair
Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh, Liam de Róiste, Seumas Breathnach, Micheál O hAodha.
AGAINST:
Seumas O Lonnáin, Eamon Aidhleart, Eamon de Valera, Brian O hUigín, Seán Mac Suibhne, Seán O Maoláin, Domhnall O Corcora
Seán O Nualláin
Tomás O Fiadhchara
Seumas Mac Gearailt
Dáithí Ceannt
Seosamh O Dochartaigh
S. O Flaithbheartaigh
Bean an Phiarsaigh
Seán O Mathghamhna
Liam O Maoilíosa
Dr. Brian de Cíosóg
Próinsias O Fathaigh
Aibhistín de Stac
Conchubhar O Coileáin
Eamon de Róiste
P.S. O Cathail
Tomás O Donnchú
Art O Conchubhair
Domhnall O Buachalla
E. Childers
Seoirse Pluingceud
Bean Mhíchíl Ui Cheallacháin
M. P. Colivet
Seán O Ceallaigh
Dr. O Cruadhlaoich
Tomás O Deirg
P. S. O Ruthleis
Enrí O Beoláin
Tomás Maguidhir
Seán Mac an t-Saoi
Dr. P. O Fearáin
Seumas O Daimhín
Próinsias Mac Cárthaigh
Seosamh Mac Donnchadha
P. S. O Maoldomhnaigh
P. S. O Broin
Cathal Brugha
Eamon O Deaghaidh
Seumas Mac Roibín
Dr. Seumas O Riain
Seán Etchingham
Seumas O Dubhghaill
Seán T. O Ceallaigh
Pilib O Seanacháin
Bean an Chleirigh
Constans de Markievicz
Cathal O Murchadha
Máire Nic Shuibhne
Domhnall O Ceallacháin
Dr. Eithne Inglis
An t-Oll. W. F. P. Stockley
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It will, of course, be my duty to resign my office as Chief Executive. I do not know that I should do it just now.
MR. M. COLLINS:
No.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
There is one thing I want to say---I want it to go to the country and to the world, and it is this: the Irish people established a Republic. This is simply approval of a certain resolution. The Republic can only be disestablished by the Irish people. Therefore, until such time as the Irish people in regular manner disestablish it, this Republic goes on. Whatever arrangements are made this is the supreme sovereign body in the nation; this is the body to which the nation looks for its supreme Government, and it must remain that---no matter who is the Executive---it must remain that until the Irish people have disestablished it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I ask your permission to make a statement. I do not regard the passing of this thing as being any kind of triumph over the other side. I will do my best in the future, as I have done in the past, for the nation. What I have to say now is, whether there is something contentious about the Republic---about the Government in being---or not, that we should unite on this: that we will all do our best to preserve the public safety [hear, hear].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Now, in all countries in times of change---when countries are passing from peace to war or war to peace---they have had their most trying times on an occasion like this. Whether we are right or whether we are wrong in the view of future generations there is this: that we now are entitled to a chance; all the responsibility will fall upon us of taking over the machinery of government from the enemy. In times of change like that, when countries change from peace to war or war to peace, there are always elements that make for disorder and that make for chaos. That is as true of Ireland as of any other country; for in that respect all countries are the same. Now, what I suggest is that---I suppose we could regard it like this---that we are a kind of a majority party and that the others are a minority party; that is all I regard it as at present; and upon us, I suppose, will be the responsibility of proving our mark, to borrow a term from our President. Well, if we could form some kind of joint Committee to carry on---for carrying through the arrangements one way or another---I think that is what we ought to do. Now, I only want to say this to the people who are against us---and there are good people against us---so far as I am concerned this is not a question of politics, nor never has been. I make the promise publicly to the Irish nation that I will do my best, and though some people here have said hard things of me---I would not stand things like that said about the other side---I have just as high a regard for some of them, and am prepared to do as much for them, now as always. The President knows how I tried to do my best for him.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well, he has exactly the same position in my heart now as he always had [applause].
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
I claim my right, before matters go any further, to register my protest, because I look upon this act to-night worse than I look upon the Act of Castlereagh. I, for one, will have neither hand, act, nor part in helping the Irish Free State to carry this nation of ours, this glorious nation that has been betrayed here to-night, into the British Empire---either with or without your hands up. I maintain here now that this is the grossest act of betrayal that Ireland ever endured. I know some of you have done it from good motives; soldiers have done it to get a gun, God help them! Others, because they thought it best in some other way. I do not want to say a word that would prevent them from coming back to their Mother Republic; but I register my protest, and not one bit of help that we can give will we give them. The speech we have heard sounded very beautiful---as the late Minister of Finance can do it; he has played up to the gallery in this thing, but I tell you it may sound very beautiful but it will not do. Ireland stands on her Republican Government and that Republican Government cannot touch the pitch of the Free State without being fouled; and here and now I call on all true Republicans; we all want to protect the public safety; it is ouR side that will do its best to protect the public safety. We want no such terrible troubles in the country as faction fights; we can never descend to the faction fights of former days; we have established a Government, and we will have to protect it. Therefore, let there be no misunderstanding, no soft talk, ráimeis at this last moment of the betrayal of our country; no soft talk about union; you cannot unite a spiritual Irish Republic and a betrayal worse than Castlereagh's, because it was done for the Irish nation. You may talk about the will of the Irish people, as Arthur Griffith did, you know it is not the will of the Irish people; it is the fear of the Irish people, as the Lord Mayor of Cork says; and to-morrow or another day when they come to their senses, they will talk of those who betrayed them to-day as they talk of Castlereagh. Make no doubt about it. This is a betrayal, a gross betrayal; and the fact is that it is only a small majority, and that majority is not united; half of them look for a gun and the other half are looking for the fleshpots of the Empire. I tell you here there can be no union between the representatives of the Irish Republic and the so-called Free State.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
All those who have voted on the side of the established Republic, I would like to meet them say at one o'clock to-morrow, the sooner the better; perhaps we could get the use of this building or of the Mansion House, say twelve-thirty to-morrow.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Whatever we may say, whatever we may think, I do believe that some kind of an arrangement could be fixed between the two sides. Even though our physical presence is so distasteful that they will not meet us,I say some kind of understanding ought to be reached to preserve the present order in the country, at any rate over the week-end.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I would like my last word here to be this: we have had a glorious record for four years; it has been four years of magnificent discipline in our nation. The world is looking at us now---
The President here breaks down.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
So far as I am concerned I will see, at any rate, that discipline is kept in the army.
The House then adjourned at 8.50 p.m., until 11 o'clock a.m. on Monday, the 9th January.
Mark Sturgis commented on the approval of the Treaty: ‘it is another milestone but if Ireland – or England – expects the golden age is dawning I hope they won't be too roughly disillusioned. It is a huge gamble and we are groping in the dark’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p 227
8
January 8th, 1922. I was getting ready for church when Anne came up to say the telegraph boy was coming and calling out that the Treaty is ratified. I ran down and got Lennox Robinson’s telegram. Such a relief! The little boy had fallen off his bicycle with excitement on the avenue and had shouted the news to the maids coming from Mass and they had cheered. He said “This is the first time I ever was sent with a message, and I brought the best message that was ever brought!” and I gave him a shilling in addition to his apples. Mine had been the only message to Gort, and had been given out, everyone delighted except the poor Bagots who foresee the vanishing of their officers. We met a motor lorry leaving Gort in charge of one soldier and I said to Guy “ There is the army in retreat!”. And we went to the barracks after church ( where I said the General Thanksgiving with a full heart ) and got Richard’s gun and cartridges back again.
Lady Gregory’s Diaries. p165.
Group Portrait c. 1922. Back: Dennis, Tim. Front: Michael & Mary. Dan absent.
Macardle described the vote as ‘The Treaty was discussed without being examined and accepted without being understood’
9
De Valera announced the resignation of the cabinet and himself from the Dail. Griffith was then elected President of Dail Eireann, but De Valera, as the sole surviving commandant of the Rising insisted that he remained the President of the Irish Republic. De Valera now founded the Cumman na Poblachta, the Republican Party with the brief of informing the general public of the Republican opininion of the Treaty.
Aligned with the pro-treaty were the public service, much of the Republican Army and those that wanted peace; such as The Church, business, Labour, The Southern Unionists and of course the majority of the general public. The Anti-Treaty side had of course De Valera, backed by Childers, Brugha, Stack, the deputies who resigned, some army leaders & the majority of Cumman na mBan. Their main objections being that the Treaty enshrined partition, denied the Republic and recognised the Crown. Anti-Treaty feeling was particularly strong in Cork and Kerry.
Kathleen Clarke’s autobiography gives some insight to de Valera’s resignation and subsequent proposal for the Presidnecy.
‘What I took exception to was that he had resigned his position as President of the Republic…however it was decided to have another meeting before the Dail met again. I did not attend the meeting, I was too disgusted with de Valera’s action in resigning, and is vanity in thinking he would be re-elected. As I walked into the hall of the University, Mrs Pearse met me. She seemed very excited…de Valera had done me the honour of selecting me to propose him for President. I told her I would not propose him, I considered he had no right to resign. She was very insistent but I remained adamant. Then she suggested I should see Sean T. O'Kelly who was Whip, and tell him. I told her I would do nothing of the kind. They had no right to nominate me in my absence, or without my consent….I was not long seated when Sean T. O'Kelly came to know if what Mrs. Pearse told him was correct. I said yes…he begged me to reconsider my refusal, but I said ‘Its no use Sean, I will not propose him’. ‘My God’ he said ‘What will I do? There is no time to select another person’…he left me and went round from one member to another then over to de Valera. He then returned to say that they had all said I must do it. I said ‘Tell them I won't’. Off he went again and did the rounds and came back again to me.’The speaker will be in the chair in a minuter, there is no time to arrange a change’ he said.’
Sean T. O'Kelly next asked her to make the poposal in the name of of her husband, Tom Clarke. ‘I suppose in that case I cannot refuse you, but it is with utmost reluctance I consent’ I said. During all this time de Valera was looking over at me, and possible his antagonism to me down the years since was born then, though it was indulged in when he could do so without showing his hand.’
Kathleen Clarke. ‘Revoloutionary Woman’ O’Brien Press 1991. P193-194
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION Monday, January 9th, 1922
The Session wa resumed at 11.30 a.m., on Monday, 9th January, 1922, THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) in the Chair.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
In view of the vote that was taken here on Saturday and which I had definitely to oppose as one that was tending to subvert the Republic which I was elected to my present position to defend and maintain; and as it appeared to me also to be a vote which would tend to subvert the independence of the country, I could no longer continue---as I was beaten in that---I could no longer continue in my present office feeling I did not have the confidence of the House. I therefore wish to place my resignation in the hands of the Assembly; and I think it is not necessary to say any further words in doing so, but simply to resign my office and the responsibilities of it and the members of the Cabinet all go with my resignation.
THE SPEAKER:
In that case is it your intention to proceed with the business?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
No! I think the State cannot get on without definitely having somebody to deal with it. The first business would be to make arrangements for the business of the Government of the State and for its continuance.
MR. M. COLLINS:
In view of that, I suggest that my previous suggestions about forming a Committee would be put. My belief about the thing is this: that no one here in this assembly or in Ireland wants to be put in the position of opposing President de Valera. Well, the practical step in my estimation is to form a Committee, if necessary on both sides for some kind of public safety, as I said. Now, on our side we would form our own Committee to get on with the work, and in my belief what I said on last December twelve months applies now---to stop sulking and get on with the work. We are faced with the problems of taking Ireland over from the English, and they are faced with the problem of handing Ireland over to us, and the difficulties on both sides will be pretty big; and it does not matter what happens so long as we are assured that we are taking over Ireland and that the English are going out of Ireland. My suggestion means that we form a Committee on both sides, if necessary, for the preservation of the public peace, and that on our side we form a Committee to arrange the details and to do all the dirty work---all the difficult work that has to be done. In other words, that we take upon ourselves the burthens of the practical difficulties; and practical people will know what these difficulties are, and they will understand them---they will understand all these things and we will try to do the best we can [hear, hear].
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
As far as I am concerned I think we will have to proceed constitutionally in this matter. I have tendered my resignation and I cannot, in any way, take divided responsibility. You have got here a sovereign Assembly which is the Government of the nation. This assembly must choose its executive according to its constitution and go ahead.
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
I altogether fail to see how this House could assent to the suggestion of the Minister of Finance. The formation of such a Committee and the participation in it of those of us who opposed the Treaty would mean that we acknowledge and have become willing to join in the subversion of the Republic for which we stand [hear, hear]. It is absolutely and utterly unconstitutional to do what the Minister of Finance has suggested, for those who voted for this Treaty declare that they are going to pull down with their own hands the Republic they set up, or else they must stand with us---go back on the Treaty now and stand for the Republic.
MR. GRIFFITH:
This body, a representative body of Irishmen, on Saturday evening approved of the Treaty. In doing so they expressed the will of the people. That approval is going to stand, and that will of the people is going to be maintained. Now, President de Valera said, when he called this body together, there was a constitutional way of settling this question of the Treaty. It has been constitutionally settled; and now nothing is going to prevent that vote from being carried out and the people from having their will expressed.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. PETER HUGHES:
Since President de Valera has signified his intention of not having anything further to do with the Government, and the Deputy for Monaghan says he cannot enter into any arrangement except on their ideas, I think the obvious thing for this House is to appoint a Premier or somebody else and try and get on with the work. There is no use in wasting two or three days over this. It is only for us to do the obvious thing and appoint someone to carry on the work we began on Saturday. May I ask that somebody responsible would propose some motion to this effect. I will not take the responsibility of making the proposal, but somebody must do it. If we start to make speeches again we will be here for three or four days. The country does not want that.
ALDERMAN MRS. CLARKE:
I wish to propose the re-election of Eamon de Valera, President of the Irish Republic, for the same position, for this reason: he is the one man, to my mind, who has maintained in act as well as in mind, the Republic. I have great pleasure in proposing him for re-election as President of the Irish Republic.
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
I second that. On this occasion it is with great pleasure I rise to second the motion of Deputy Mrs. Clarke. President de Valera has stood to us. He believes in the Republic and is the symbol of the Republic. As that symbol he stood forth at the head of this nation---this nation which has gained a unique position within the last few years. As to President de Valera, there is no need for me to say anything about his qualities. President de Valera stands for us at the moment as the symbol of the Republic, and it is as such that I take pleasure in seconding the motion for his re-election.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
Might I ask if this motion of Deputy Mrs. Clarke is in order? Certainly there is no motion on the Orders of the day for the election of anyone and I would like to have your ruling before proceeding with this very serious matter which has been so suddenly sprung on the Dáil. I ask you to say whether it is in order?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I gave notice that I was going to resign; and it followed as a matter of course, having been defeated on a vital matter of that sort, that I should resign. I gave notice at the last meeting that I was about to resign.
MR. P. O MAILLE:
I think to spring a matter of this sort on the Assembly not fair, because in a grave matter of this sort there should be due notice given and a time specified. I understand these was a meeting of one party held here yesterday.
MR. MACENTEE:
Two parties.
MR. P. O MAILLE:
Even if there was---
MR. M. COLLINS:
We met in the Mansion House.
MR. P. O MAILLE:
We did not know, nor did we get notice that you were going to spring this matter on the House. It is treating the Irish nation very unfairly---we are as strong for Ireland and as much for helping Ireland---and the country will not stand this kind of procedure.
MR. M. COLLINS:
It is only fair to say that we expected something like this; and that we discussed it; and that we would have been fools if we had not anticipated it. Naturally we expected it; otherwise we would have been mere children.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well, the way I propose---or I should say---the way we propose to meet it is that we should have a Committee. We do not know what the opponents of the Treaty---I refrain from calling them the other side because some of them are more for than against us, and some of us are more for than against them---
A DEPUTY:
Why do you not come over?
MR. M. COLLINS:
Why do you not come over? If you elect President de Valera President of the Irish Republic I have no objection whatever to it but let me say this much: everybody will regard us as being simply a laughing stock. [`No!'] Yes they will, and the people are already regarding us as a laughing stock; and people are getting impatient at our talking here day after day. If we are going on this way much further the people will come in and turn us out or they will ignore us and we can sit on here and talk as much as we like. What I feel like doing is to get a few people on our side to meet a few people on the English side and go on arranging for the taking over; and you go on here---remain here talking and watching us doing the work [applause].
MISS MACSWINEY:
With regard to the statement that the President's election is not in order.
MR. MILROY:
I merely asked was it in order---
MISS MACSWINEY:
On that point I would like to say a few words. We believe, and we have given evidence of our belief, in the existence of the Irish Republic. That Republic is not dead. It was absurd for the other side to say Mr. Michael Collins has just acknowledged, that they did not know this was coming. On last Thursday or Friday the President wanted to resign and put one policy against the other in order to show the country how they stood. On Saturday he gave notice of surrendering his office this morning. In view of the vote on Saturday night there was no other course open to him. Now, let us be honest with each other. We have got to carry on the Republican Government of Ireland until this Government is disestablished by the Irish people. The vote of a majority of seven did not disestablish the Irish Republic. The suggestion from the other side, or whatever Mr. Collins likes to call his side, that there should be a joint Committee to carry on the work of the country is out of the question. No more could there be a joint committee with them to-day than we could have a joint committee with Castlereagh. We cannot have any working connection whatever which would be tacitly acknowledging on our side that they are in a position to subvert the Republican Government of Ireland---as they have shown by their vote they wish to do. The President was perfectly right in resigning because he was in minority; and as he was not only the President of the Republic, but leader of the House, he had to resign being in a minority. We have to re-assert here to-day that this is a Republican Government and the Parliament of the Government of the Irish Republic, and we must have a President for that republic. If the other side wish to elect somebody in opposition to President de Valera let them do so; but how can they be at the one time, or how can any man from their side be President of the Republic and supporter of the Free State? I maintain that and I take great pleasure in supporting the re-election of the President. We must have that symbol of office until the people have disestablished the Republic and it is as clear for the other side as it is for us if they face the question straightly that that must be so. It is not a question of springing tactics on the country; that sort of thing has not been done. We believe in the Republic established by the people of Ireland; we believe that only by the people of Ireland can that Republican Government be disestablished; your majority of seven the other night could not disestablish the Irish Republic; and we, believing that the Republic still exists must have a head to that Republic, and therefore I have much pleasure in supporting the re-election.
MR. D. O'ROURKE:
I feel, in the circumstances that the only alternative is a General Election [hear, hear]. I see no other way out of it as there cannot be any working agreement. It would be impossible, apparently, for this Assembly to carry on---being almost equally divided---and the only way to settle the question is a General Election.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
I should have great pleasure in supporting that President de Valera be re-elected President on one condition, and that is that he tell us clearly that he has at last seen the error of his ways [laughter]. In any case it is absolutely essential that when a gentleman is proposed for election as President that he ought to tell the people who are to elect him exactly what his policy is. I think the House is entitled to know from the President where, and to what extent he proposes to give effect to the vote passed by the House on Saturday. We should not be asked to vote on this matter in the dark, and I should therefore ask the President to tell us what is the policy which he proposes to carry out in the event of his being reelected?
THE SPEAKER:
I have asked that the terms of the motion be given in writing.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I think that is a fair question and no matter what anybody thinks to the contrary it is only right to the House that I should say distinctly where I stand. My position is distinctly this, and has always been this: I have regarded this House as the Sovereign Assembly, the sovereign Parliament of the Irish nation. You have even definitely called it the Government of the Irish Republic. Now, we need an executive here. The Executive must have the confidence of the House as a whole. It must have, at least, a majority. If the Executive is beaten on an essential question it must go out and the other side is the proper side to take authority; and if the other side has a definite policy that side should choose, in accordance with the Constitution, its President and so on. The difficulty I see is this: the Republic must exist until the people have disestablished it. So far as I am concerned my position is this: action was taken here which, in my opinion, tends to subvert the Republic. I should feel in my conscience compelled to take every step I possibly could to prevent that subversion; but I recognise that at the present moment, not understanding, to my thinking, what that Treaty means for the Irish people, for the nation, they have been passing resolutions and think that this Treaty should be taken for the moment. I do not think---I do not believe that the Irish people if they thoroughly understood it would stand for it. In the meantime, until they are consulted in a way in which the issue can be explained to them, the Government of the country must go on. I am quite ready to do everything possible to do this fundamental thing---to maintain the independence of Ireland during the interval I would say, should you as the result of the vote wish to keep me on, that the result would be this---I was beaten on a point of policy, but it was a particular point only though a fundamental one---that if the House wished I would carry on the Executive work and that the terms of that Treaty with the particulars---that the further steps have to be taken by those who came here and reported to this House---that those steps be taken by them, that we do not actively oppose, though in conscience I should actively oppose; but I am looking beyond my own personal feeling and seeing what the people of the country want---I have perfect confidence in the people of the country that when that Treaty is worked out in legislative form and put before them that then they will know what they have got, that then they will understand what they are doing by accepting this Treaty and not till then---that therefore these plenipotentiaries and others take the further steps necessary to have that Treaty seen to, that we carry on here in Dáil Eireann; that the resources of Dáil Eireann be here still invested in this House, and that we be entitled to use the funds and everything else for the preservation and independence of Ireland and for the maintenance of the Republic until such time as the Irish people have decided otherwise, and not decided on a vague and indefinite thing like the terms of this Agreement; but when they will have that Act to vote upon, and when they cannot be fooled, that then the Irish Republic can be disestablished if the people want it; but until then we go ahead. This House, by a majority vote, determined what the policy is definitely to be. Let the others go ahead and present the Irish people with that document completed. It is only a vague promise and when the people can see that worked out in black and white they will not have the general impression that is in their minds at present---that we will be all as free as in Canada. When the Irish people will see how much freedom they receive exactly, how much British authority they are going to root in this country, then they will have a definite issue to vote on.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
How do you propose the power to be handed over?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
We are finished with that Treaty as far as we are concerned. It has nothing further to do with this House. We have not passed any Act of Ratification of that Treaty. We have simply passed a resolution of approval which means that the Government of the Republic is not going actively to interfere with those who are to complete that Treaty. When they have completed that Treaty then they will have a definite issue before the Irish people, and not till then, and I challenge them on that.
MR. P. J. HOGAN:
I want to say how the position exactly strikes me as one Deputy, to say honestly what we mean, and honestly attempt to be frank. When it is all boiled down it means this: that President de Valera's policy is, in fact, that this Treaty is going to be fought in all details. That is what it means. Well, now, where exactly are we? What is the position? There was a resolution passed by this House on Saturday and I take it that it is a common case that that resolution was not a resolution for the dissolution of the Republic; but the resolution itself was in order, and it was regarded as a fundamental question of policy, and the House divided on it after a most elaborate and exhaustive debate. It was not a snatch vote; nothing like that; and they divided on it. The President, as Chief Executive Officer---his policy was beaten, and that is the position.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. HOGAN:
Now, we are asked to re-elect the President after he has stated, as I have said, that he is going to fight absolutely against the majority will as expressed last Saturday. Well, I do not care how the President is elected, or for what reason he is elected; I say that is tyranny, that is dictatorship; it is the same sort of dictatorship as we have been used to in history. That is what it comes to. Let us be honest the whole time. If you elect the President again on a policy of fighting the Treaty after the resolution that has been passed by this House, let us have no more talk of constitutionalism. Let us be honest about it now on each side of the Treaty. It is not a fair way to get out of it to say that though the people are in favour of it now that they will not be in favour of it when they see the details worked out, and when they see the Treaty in operation. The idea of that is plain; it is to enable this House to carry on under a minority for the next year. That is the idea of it. The people are entitled to be consulted on the issue now---absolutely. If, instead of doing that, this House elects a President who, on his own showing, is going to fight the Treaty that was approved on last Saturday night, then I say we are setting up a dictatorship, and in decency we should not talk of constitutionalism.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I am not offering myself to this House in the sense that I am not asking the House to re-elect me. I am thinking of it as the better and the constitutional and the right and proper way to do the work. This House can elect its President and can act constitutionally. Let the majority work it; I am handing over responsibility to the majority party. The majority party say they do not want to oppose my re-election. I was asked the question what would I do if elected and I gave you definitely what I would do: carry on as before and forget that this Treaty has come. Let those who wish to work it go on; the majority vote at any time can defeat any proposition I put up.
MR. DAVID CEANNT:
It is quite evident that any assembly could not carry on without a recognised head. We are at the present time in what may seem to some a transitional state. We want to have this issue placed before the public of Ireland in a fair and clear manner. That cannot be done until it can be given to them in black and white, when the Act comes back from the British House of Commons---if it will come back at all---authorising the setting up in this country of a Free State Parliament. Then the people will have a right to decide whether they will have a Free State or remain a Republic. In the meantime it will be the duty of the Government of the nation to see that law and order must be maintained, and that we must function as a Government until such time as the people will say of their free will just that they do not want us any longer. If we were to go to the country in the morning to put a definite policy before the people it would be this: `Do you want a Republic or what is in this paper, which is not a Treaty at all?' I heard people saying, in effect, that when we voted on Saturday for this piece of paper that we converted ourselves into a Free State. That cannot be done. And it is only just, I hold, in order to maintain the liberties of the people and to safeguard them and every interest in the country, and to prevent fighting and bloodshed that we will have a President who will be the Chief of the State and who will have the power of the State behind him to carry on the Government.
MR. W. SEARS:
On Saturday night we took an important division here after a long Session and many speeches on each side; and it was put up to this Dáil that in that division they were either to accept the Treaty or not---that they were then deciding between a Free State on the one hand and a Republic on the other hand. I hold---and all Ireland holds---that that division accepted the Free State, and the world will take that view of it. We came to the parting of the ways on Saturday night, and we solemnly decided by sixty-four votes to fifty-seven to take the Free State road. And now we come in here this morning and we are asked to go to work as if we never made that decision at all. Is that vote to be regarded as inoperative and to have no results flowing from it, or are we to proceed and act on the decision arrived at on Saturday night? If our side were defeated, and if we decided to go on with the Republic, then I could understand that we met here to-day to see what we were to do. I say that if we mean honestly to act on the vote that we took on Saturday night we are to proceed to put the Treaty into operation and to act on it. I could understand the opposition here in taking the part of General Hertzog and his supporters in South Africa. I could understand them watching developments of the Free State, and if our party falls into the mistakes that they predict for us I could understand them going to the country and saying: `This is the failure we predicted; you voted for the Treaty and you got it; you now see it is a fraud'. But as we decided to take it, let us honestly take it before the world and work it. Let the other side criticise it. Do not let them come in here and say on the one hand, `Take the Treaty,' and on the other, `Give us a weapon to destroy and defeat it'. If we proceed on that policy we will be making ourselves a laughing stock before the world [applause].
MR. MACENTEE:
It appears to me that if I were on the side of those who voted for the approval and recommendation of the Articles of Agreement that on behalf of the Irish people I would be prepared now---
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Is a member entitled to speak twice?
THE SPEAKER:
This is the first time since this motion was moved.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
The second time.
MR. MACENTEE:
I am in opposition still.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I am sorry that you have not resigned like a manly man.
MR. MACENTEE:
It appears to me that if I were on the side of those who stand for the ratification of this Treaty, and with my knowledge of Irish history, I would be prepared to support, merely as a precaution against English treachery, the policy which the President has declared he stands for in this House. We have not yet got the Treaty with England. We have got the heads of the proposed agreement which England may not honour when the act is drawn up. We have not got the Constitution of the Free State. That Constitution has yet to emanate from the English Parliament; and with a prospect of a General Election in England within a very short period, when the man who is the chief signatory to these Articles of Agreement may quite possibly be defeated, or may decide, if it suits him, not to go forward at all---as Pitt did after he got the Union, and dishonoured his promise to give us Catholic Emancipation for the act of Union---I certainly feel that if I had the interests of my country at heart, and if I did believe that our future depended upon the actual establishment of the Free State, I would consider the suggestion of President de Valera a very necessary act in order that the army of the Republic, the finances of the Republic, and the Government of the Republic could be maintained to take up Ireland's case again if need be. Now, I heard a Deputy---and it is an amazing thing to me that a man of the intelligence of Deputy Hogan should get up in this House and deliberately mis-state what President de Valera said. President de Valera did not say that he was asking this House to re-elect him to the Presidency in order that he might fight this Treaty detail by detail.
MR. HOGAN:
I do not want this debate to proceed on the assumption that I said something that I did not say, I did not say that he asked to be re-elected.
MR. MACENTEE:
You said that the President's suggestion was that the Treaty should be fought detail by detail. He said if he were elected he would give those who stood for the Treaty a free hand in order to secure that that Treaty should receive some concrete expression of form, and then that when they and the English Parliament had evolved it he would challenge it in the country as he was perfectly entitled to do; and no doubt it will, in due course, be challenged in the country. It appears to me that the proposal of the other side that a Committee of Public Safety be set up and their refusal to nominate any candidate for the Presidency, and their attempt by a disgraceful manoeuvre to prevent the re-election of the President---it seems to me that the other side are already afraid of the consequences of their act. I would suggest to them that the reason for that fear is this: that they see already a prospect of English treachery, and that like the old Irish Party and every other party that ever depended on British promises, rather than acknowledge manfully the shaky ground upon which they stand they would wish to bring us all into the bog with them. I suggest that there is a nobler and more honourable way than that. The President has said that if elected by this House he will ask for the control of the resources of the Republic I think it would be a very good thing if the resources of the Republic should be at the disposal of a man like President de Valera, who, if this proposed bond should be dishonoured, will still stand with the Irish nation behind him to fight for Ireland. And I would suggest that, in their own interests, in order that they themselves may not be publicly betrayed, that they would support the re-election of President de Valera.
MR. BRENNAN:
Does the Deputy who has sat down think that if England does not keep her promises that we are going to sit down and are going to fall in with England against Ireland?
MR. MACENTEE:
No! but I wish you to maintain the machinery and the organisation and the finances in order that you might be able to fight England if England does let you down.
MR. MACKEOWN:
We will.
MR. M. COLLINS:
We will, not they.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
I would suggest earnestly to the gentlemen on the other side that they would be doing the best thing to promote the interests they have at heart by keeping the Republic established as long as these negotiations are to go on with England at least. A certain number of men on the other side---I give them credit for being as good Republicans as on our side and I believe the declaration of these men that their ultimate aim and object is a firmly fixed Republican form of Government in Ireland. They claim that by voting for this Treaty they are taking a good step in that direction. On that point we differ but I think they will agree with me that it would be a very unwise step now on their part to disestablish the Republic and all its machinery at this moment and that is what it would amount to if the re-election of President de Valera were not carried. I would urge upon them ---on those who are Republican at any rate---to re-elect, if possible unanimously, President de Valera and by that gesture show to England that they are determined to keep the machinery of the Republic safe and in good order to use at any moment---that they are rigidly determined to secure that every possible ounce that is in that Treaty will be got out of it. If they dismantle the machinery of the Republic they are leaving themselves without any weapon to be used against that enemy if it should act, as it has always acted towards us, in a treacherous manner. I appeal to them to stand by the Republic and re-elect President de Valera, and give him the resources to make their fight for them and to secure that the enemy will not let us down and let Ireland down as she has so often done in similar circumstances in the past.
PROFESSOR WHELEHAN:
May I ask through you, Mr. Speaker, if the President, in the selection of his Cabinet, will select from the majority or the minority of the House, or form a combined Cabinet?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is quite obvious that a combined Cabinet will be out of the question, because no effort of mine could secure a combined Cabinet. It is also equally obvious that a Cabinet from the majority is out of the question. So that it would mean, in effect, that in that case you would have a Cabinet that would be composed for the time being of those who stood definitely by the Republic; that you would here in this House control the Cabinet and all its acts; that it would be responsible to you, and that the effect would be that those who brought this document would take the necessary steps to complete it, and that they would come here to this House if they wished to get any sanction for any act and tell the House what they wanted. If the House agreed with what they wanted well and good. For instance, if there was something that would be held by the members of the House to be against it you might have a crisis in certain cases. But I am thinking only of the best way to do two things---to carry on over the interim period, and to do what I told this House several times I would like to see done. We came together to a certain bridge. At that bridge for years I thought we might part. I am anxious at least that we should never be driven back beyond that bridge; that we should entrench ourselves on that bridge and leave the final decision to the Irish people; and that in fairness to the Irish people we do not play party polities now any more than in the past. In fairness to the Irish people we will present them with an issue which will be so clear-cut and definite that they will not have any doubt on it. None of us would wish to see the Irish people giving away anything that they do not want themselves to give away; and therefore I hold, from the point of view of definitely safeguarding the nation, that the proposal I have made, and I would not have mentioned it, nobody here on my side knew anything about it---so that let nobody think it was a concerted plan. Every one of you will remember here at the Private Session that I said the same thing practically. Therefore you can see definitely that my proposal now is practically what it was before. I quite admit that there is a lot involved on the other side. If they do not want to take that risk they will have to choose their own Executive.
ALDERMAN W. T. COSGRAVE:
There is no doubt the older we are getting the more information we are getting. The latest interpretation of Constitutional practice is that the minority in an assembly is to form the Government and to carry out the various functions of Government in the country.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Remember, I am only putting myself at your disposal and at the disposal of the nation. I do not want office at all. Go and elect your President and all the rest of it. You have sixty-five. I do not want office at all.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
We are here now an hour, and the President has spoken four times, and the little Deputy from Monaghan twice.
MR. MACENTEE:
Once on the resolution.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
And the first thing he has stated was we have got to take great care that the English will honour the Treaty. And he is himself taking the greatest possible care that we will not honour it. Now, I do not know whether I read in the paper that the Deputy from Monaghan was talking about resignation---first that he was going to resign before the vote, and secondly that he would resign after the vote.
MR. MACENTEE:
On a point of order I never said I would resign before the vote was taken. The Deputy has stated a deliberate falsehood.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Did you say you would resign afterwards?
MR. MACENTEE:
I said I would resign in due course when I had discharged my obligations to the nation. My public utterances are on record. I said that when I fulfilled my obligations I would resign. I never said I would resign when the vote was taken.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
As I said before, the Deputy for Monaghan can speak until he is understood and, of course, it will take me a long time to understand him. Now, this is certainly the most unconstitutional procedure I have ever known. I am getting old; I am thirteen years in public life; I have never heard a proposition the like of which has been put before us this morning, and it is certainly the most exceptional procedure ever proposed. I think the President realises it too, and appreciates it---that the minority of this House takes over the Government of the country and takes over the resources of it.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
Select your President.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
The President dictates to the House what the policy is regardless of the decision of this House. The minority is to regulate whether a decision of this House is to be put into operation or not.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
That is a deliberate misrepresentation, and you know it.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Let us have the exact representation.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
The exact representation is this: I resigned. The minority can go and take over the machinery of the Republican Government as it is. The proposition was made that I should take office. I was asked by the Deputy for South Dublin that it was only fair to say what the policy was I have given it to you. I do not ask you to elect me. Therefore I am not seeking to get any power whatever in this nation. I am quite glad and anxious to get back to private life.
DR. MACCARTAN:
Is the President withdrawing his candidature?
MR. A. STACK:
You are not his agent.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
As an ordinary man who has been in public life, and who has generally managed to understand what people have said in public, it is this way: this is the interpretation I gather. I take it that the President does not want to be in this position where his advisers want to put him. He has stated he has no advisers.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
I said I was not consulting anybody about it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Strange I have heard these arguments before, and I know where------
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
In Private Session he stated so.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I have heard them before the Private Session.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
It may be my own stupidity in the difficulty of understanding this. But, as I think anyone is aware, the position is---as it will appeal to the people of Ireland---that the advisers of the President seek to take advantage of his personal popularity and the respect in which the people of this Assembly hold him---that they desire to establish here an autocracy. Last week the vilest abuse was poured upon us. We were held up to public scorn and hatred. We were described as only babes could be described. This morning we are getting cheap advice. We are told that everything possible on the other side is being done in our interests---that it is our interests they have in view.
A DEPUTY:
The interests of the nation.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Well we are just as anxious to do the best for the nation as the loudest spoken amongst you. We have been only able to give whatever was in us. And we gave that and we are prepared to give it again. I made it a point at the commencement here not to interrupt anyone. And I regret that those young people here have not been able to appreciate that good example [laughter]. I have shown you an excellent example. Now, the people who do not want to see this Treaty carried out---and that is really the essence of the position of the other side---the people who do not want to see this Treaty carried out desire to have the resources of the Republic.
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
The people who are true to the Republic.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
And the army and the finances of the Republic. That is what they want given them---that and you can blaze away. I have never heard in my life a constitutional proposition of that kind being put up in any assembly by the minority. It may be a new axiom. And I submit that the resolution for the re-election of the President is out of order, having regard to the fact that the majority party in every assembly in the world moves the motion. I do not know whether that is objected to or not. The new apostles of the new system of government may object to it. There was one other matter that I would like to refer to. Those who have taken on themselves the right to speak and censure the utterances of others have interpreted it that under the Treaty we become British subjects. I deny that, and I say positively that they knew they were not speaking the truth when they made that statement. I was reading last evening an American paper, the Boston Post, sent me by a friend a few days ago, and that paper stated that under the Treaty the Irish people are Irish citizens and not British subjects.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Prove it.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Of course some people would not agree to that. I can tell you that it would take a lot to prove a thing to you that you do not want to understand or do not want to see. I did not interrupt you. It is not a thing that can be proved, as I said before, to a man who will not see the proof.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Prove it to the Dáil.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
The Dáil understands it. There are sixty-four sensible people in the Dáil, and the Dáil realises that [applause and laughter], and if you are the apostle of constitutional Government you will accept their decision, because it is a majority decision.
THE SPEAKER:
Deputies when speaking should address the Chair.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
It happens that some delegates or Deputies are more bellicose than others, and that consequently some Deputies when speaking are subject to interruption. I did not interrupt the Minister for War [laughter]. I submit that the motion for the re-election of the President is unconstitutional, and that it is out of order. That motion can only come from the majority party. I submit that the decision which has been taken here on Saturday cannot be rescinded on Monday. I submit that the President himself sees the position and appreciates it, and his own statement that he did not desire to set up a minority to run the country is evidence of the fact that he appreciates it. And I submit to you, sir, that the resolution is out of order, and that the only motion that can be in order is one moved from the other side---the majority party---to set up a joint Committee in order to carry into effect the resolution adopted by this Assembly on Saturday in accordance with every known axiom of constitutional law. That motion suggested by the Minister of Finance and supported by the Minister of Foreign Affairs is the only one. Now, I was looking up the Constitution of the Dáil, and I was not dismissed yet by the President, and I say under the rules it is only by dismissal you can be put out of office.
THE PRESIDENT:
Well, I dismissed you by my resignation.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I want put this position before the Dáil---that there are letters going out from my department with my name on them. Is that stopped? Because if so I must stop work. I will send over to tell them besides, that no further letters are to go out to the country. What then is the position to be? Is my department dissolved?
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is to-day.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Well, then, I suppose I must send to my office to stop further communications going out. If the President is re-elected, and if the Ministers he puts up are defeated, where are we landing ourselves? We were warned by the Deputy from Monaghan that we will be in a bog. I think the only member of the Assembly who is in a bog is himself. Now, I put that position to you, sir, because you have a very responsible position as Speaker of this House. The Government of the country must go on. Nothing can change the vote that was taken here on Saturday last [cries of `No! no!']. There is a constitutional way of dealing with them. Are you afraid of the people? [Cries of `No! no!']. I am glad to hear that because one of the Deputies said here that the fear of the people would get this Treaty ratified. I know them, and the are not afraid; and I know it is not the ear but the sense of the people that made them favour the Treaty. There was never as much fight in the people as when the terror was highest. The people of this country are not going to be coerced into accepting an instrument of this kind [applause].
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
You know they were coerced at Downing Street.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
You were in the Chair a long time and you know what the order is. I am sorry I have been interrupted so often. I am interested in doing things in a proper way, and I am interested in this assembly as the first assembly of the nation. The one fact remains that we have the destinies of the country in our hands, and that we are responsible for restoring normal conditions. The enemy are now willing and anxious to clear out, and I believe they are making preparations to clear out. Are there to be no facilities on our side to get them out and to restore normal conditions? Is that an honest state of affairs? Are we to get away from the page of party politics and the page of party suspicion and party speeches and realise that this nation did not elect us to go on with this nonsense? And if the Government of the country is to be maintained it could only be done by establishing majority rule; and I believe the majority here would willingly get out tomorrow if you can get better men, and if those who are interested in the Republican form of Government---and I am not ---I don't care what form it is so long as it is free, independent, authoritative, and a sovereign Government of the people, an that it will be respected. If they wish to put up this Republican programme of theirs I warn them that they are not taking the best methods. And those people to whom I have been speaking outside about the proceedings here are not impressed by the attitude nor by the bitterness of those opposed to the Treaty. It is not by bitterness that we succeed. Upon our shoulders rests more responsibility than any body of Irishmen ever had to bear. The world is looking at us now, having approved of this Treaty, and it is expecting some results from it. It is expecting ordered government from it and if you cannot have ordered government if you re-establish and reconstruct the government of the minority. Therefore I submit to you that it is not in order to receive the motion.
DR. FERRAN:
We have listened to the most extraordinary constitutional procedure that was ever listened to. I will state the case in a few words. The government of the Irish Republic entered into negotiations with the British Government. They carried these negotiations up to a certain point. But Lloyd George chose to say that they were finished when he negotiated the Treaty. We know that they are not. We have reached a stage in the negotiations. Now, it seems the best way to continue the negotiations is through the Republican Government. The British Government is out to smash the Republican Government.
MR. R. MULCAHY:
This assembly here carried on for a very long time---as far as my recollection goes---without having a President of the Irish Republic. We carried on here in the Dáil---as far as my recollection goes---until the re-assembling of the Dáil after the re-election for what was called the Parliament of Southern Ireland. We carried on to that date without a President. The suggestion is being made here that we cannot carry on the work properly without a President. Now, I could say that I feel that the future is with those people who are supporting the Treaty, or that the future is with those people who are opposing the Treaty, that is the future is with ideas which demand its opposition, its rejection. But I would not be helping our work here. The job for the day, in my opinion, when we supported here the approval of the Treaty---our job was that we should lay our hands on those resources that were put within our reach under the Treaty, and that we should utilise those resources to strengthen the position and build up the Irish nation. The vote on Saturday evening confirms me in that opinion, and gives me constitutional authority for going ahead to the absolute best of my ability in getting Irish hands on these resources. Now, this Assembly, it has been stated, is the Government of the Irish Republic. It is the Government of the Irish people. And I agree with the statement that it remains that Government until the Irish people have set up another Government. Now, in the opinion of the majority of this Assembly, and in the opinion of the majority party which forms the Government of Ireland, our immediate job is to lay hands on those resources which are put within our reach by the Treaty. And I believe we would be false to our realisation of what the next job to be done by us for the benefit of the Irish people is if we did not use our whole weight and the whole resources and the whole constitutional position of this body for the carrying out of that end, and it is for that reason---however much I regret it---that I am opposing the proposition that President de Valera should be re-appointed President of the Irish Republic and President of this Assembly. It is for that reason that I must oppose such a proposition because we would be taking from the majority of this House, which realises it has to do a certain work, a considerable portion of the resources, if not all the resources that should be at its disposal for the carrying out of that work and placing them in the hands of other people who, no matter how they feel disposed to us, and no matter how they feel that we do not run on parallel lines ultimately---by taking the line that we take to-day we may not converge upon that point upon which, in our hearts we all desire to converge. No matter how they feel with regard to us, or how we feel with regard to them, we would be putting ourselves in the position of handing over these resources to people who, at the present moment, from their own point of view cannot co-operate with us in helping us to do the job which lies immediately at our hands, and which we are determined to do, just as in those days gone by we tackled one by one the different jobs that came in front of us.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
I think when the public read in the Press this discussion and understand its full bearing the feeling of the public will be one of sheer exasperation. We spent a number of weeks in Public and Private Session discussing a grave national issue. And we decided it last Saturday night after exploring every vestige of that Treaty, and after the public mind of the country has pronounced, as far as it was possible for the country to make itself articulate. Now, this morning we are confronted with a proposal, a motion, a situation which has, I think, no other object and can have, if carried, no other consequence than to reverse or nullify the decision of last Saturday. The President has emphasised the fact, from his point of view, that he is trying to end what appears to be an impasse by strict adherence to constitutional methods. I submit that he is not quite accurate or exact in his conception of what constitutional methods should be in this matter. The constitutional method for a party who is defeated in an assembly like this is to resign their power and let the majority take control [hear, hear]. I notice there is great jubilation amongst the supporters of this motion, and I take it that they strongly dissent from this statement of the President that there can be no question of a Cabinet being selected from the majority of the House. Now, I suppose I am guilty of as many interruptions as anybody else, and I need not grumble. But when I was coming in during the course of this discussion I heard the Deputy from Monaghan speaking about a shaky ground. I do not know whether it was the shaky ground of his in Monaghan or the shaky ground of the President in this position that he was referring to. But it certainly is a most precarious position to stand in. President de Valera and those who stood with him were defeated on last Saturday night in this House. I submit that the constitutional procedure is that those Ministers who were defeated should hand in their resignations. Now, I know what the move is. the President says that he does not wish to go forward. If President de Valera will stand down on this question he will show you the majority. Do not let us confuse the issue that is before the Assembly with a personality---the great and honoured personality of President de Valera. Let us know where we stand. Are you who are opposing the Treaty that was approved of on Saturday night, are you trying to play the personality of President de Valera as a trump card to try and kill the Treaty? [`No!'] It will take as much evidence and a good deal more evidence to prove that as it will require to prove the contention of the Minister of Agriculture that we are to be British citizens under this Treaty. I listened to President de Valera here one evening at the Private Session. And I suppose it is not proper to make anything like detailed allusions to what occurs in Private Session, but I gathered from him on one occasion--- when asked what would be his policy in the eventuality of the Treaty being rejected, and in the eventuality of its being approved. The President made a lengthy and, I thought, a carefully calculated speech suggesting what would be the outcome of all these eventualities. And, so far as my recollection serves me, President de Valera stated then that he would regard the will of the majority in this House as the sovereign and binding authority in this House. The majority spoke last Saturday night.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
On the Treaty.
MR. MILROY:
On the Treaty. Are you going to honour the decision of the majority or are you going to make us, not merely a laughing stock, but something that is beneath contempt in the civilised world, by giving a decision one night and two days after reversing that decision? [`No!']. Very well, do not be playing the personality of President de Valera against the real sense of this house. I find it hard to speak with patience about this matter. We regarded decision on Saturday night last---at least, I regarded it---as terminating a long and serious controversy. We regarded it as coming to the end of one stage, and that when that stage was reached we would begin subsequently to carry out what was the effect of that decision. If this motion is persisted in, if the policy connected with the Government is persisted in, it means that you are deliberately and with malice aforethought endeavouring to nullify the decision come to last Saturday night, endeavouring to reverse the decision of the House and to nullify the efforts made to bring some kind of independent staple government to Ireland. Now I would ask you who voted for the Treaty on last Saturday night to realise what you are faced with. Those who voted against it, of course, have not the responsibility that those who voted for it have. But every Deputy here who voted for that Treaty last Saturday night is as much bound to honour his vote as the plenipotentiaries were to honour their signatures. And I tell you, the man who votes to-day for the motion which will have the effect of destroying the motion voted for on last Saturday night---that Deputy will be as guilty of ------
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Treason.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
To the Republic, mar dheadh.
MR. MILROY:
I prefer to choose my own words
MR. A. STACK:
And your own crimes.
MR. MILROY:
I will be responsible for my own crimes. I will not ask any Deputy here to take responsibility for them. And I say that every person here who voted for the Treaty last Saturday night and who votes for the motion to destroy the Treaty or to nullify its effects to-day is as much guilty of cowardice---I will say moral cowardice---it is, perhaps, a less reprehensible word than the Minister for Home Affairs selected for me---he will be as guilty of moral cowardice as the plenipotentiary who signed in London and will come back and vote against the Treaty here. This is no time for playing party politics or trying to score [laughter]. I cannot understand the laughter that comes to the face of the Holy Roman Deputy from Tipperary. It may be a laughing matter to him if this Treaty is destroyed. But I tell you it will not be a laughing matter to Ireland, and there will be no smile on his face when Ireland calls him to account. This is a serious, a grave matter. And I ask every man who voted for the Treaty last Saturday night to remember, to realise, that the motion to-day to secure minority rule in this House is a motion intended to kill the Treaty, and to throw us back to the wrangling we were in before we came to the decision on last Saturday night [applause].
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I want to get back to common sense and plain facts. The President offered to resign. He resigned on Saturday. It was at the suggestion---or almost request---of the opposition he withdrew his resignation until this morning, and I strongly resent then that he should be accused of any political trick.
Mr. MILROY:
Not by me.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Surely when the President's policy is defeated the obvious course is for the President to resign. Now, we want order and peace in the country. We do not wish to see disruption and disagreement which may lead to very serious results up and down the land. We listened to Mr. Collins' suggestion of a joint committee that from the President's point of view and from my point of view is an impossibility, because we disagree on fundamentals, that is, on the Treaty. Mr. Michael Collins stands for Saorstát na h-Eireann, and I stand for the Republic. As a person who stands for the Republic I cannot consider anything less, nor will I work with anyone who considers the case of Ireland from a lower standard than my own. Now, the President's name was put forward for re-election. Now, I ask, what do the opposition mean? Why do they not put up a man of their own as President---which I would consider the honourable way out of this? I myself believe that, except on the one question of the Saorstát as against the Republic---that is, the Free State or Cheap State, as the other Irish translation has it---there is a majority in favour of the Free State in this House, but I do not know that on any other of the points of President de Valera's policy that there has ever been any disagreement in this House. And, of course, the opposition are pre-supposing that this House is definitely divided. One of our party proposed President de Valera as President of this assembly. And I conclude Deputy Mrs. Clarke proposed that because, when the President resigned, the opposition did not, in their turn, propose a President. They, apparently, did not stand for the Republic. We then, as Republicans---or a member of our party---proposed our much loved and much respected President, the man who carried out the great fight in Boland's Mill with a gun in his own hands, as a Commander, in Easter Week; the man who fought elections, the man who went to jail, the man whom we have all known as the straightest, truest and most honourable man we ever had anything to do with. Even his opponents will admit there could never have been a criticism of the President's bravery, courage or honour. We proposed the President and they are refusing to elect the President. They are trying to overthrow the Republic. This is what I would put to them: we established our Republic; they have this Treaty. This Treaty has been passed by the House. They have a clear road in front of them. They go over---they take up the negotiations, they form a Constitution and then go on. But I say: why should our side be supposed to end our opposition to the destruction of the Republic? Now, the members of the opposition here blame the President because, when he was put forward as President to be elected, he simply and frankly and honestly stated that, as President, he would continue his work as President of the Irish Republic---a protector and fighter for the Irish Republic. That was an honourable line, and a thing for which I respect and value him. We know to-day that England is in the tightest corner she was ever in. We know there is a paper wall around India and Egypt as big as there had ever been around Ireland before Easter Week. We do not know what straits England is in. We don't know what may happen in the coming year while the Provisional Government which Mr. Griffith and Mr. Collins are going to set up is functioning, and I say now it is necessary that the Republican interest should be held and the situation watched. And I say now: let this vote be a straight one. The Republic exists to-day. Let the President be elected and let him stand by his ideals and the world will know the man he is. I would say that those who stand for the ultimate Republic in Ireland, who believe in the Republic, and who work for the Republic, must support the President. What matters is that the Republic is not allowed to be overthrown to-day by any side-tracking, personal allusions---petty and mean---against brave and honourable men, and also by juggling and tricks. Again I repeat---it is very simple the outlook to-day---the state and condition at the moment is this: the President has resigned because he considers it his duty. The members of our party who wish for the re-affirmation of the Republic are supporting him. Let those who wish to overthrew the Republic vote that there ought be no President from this day in Ireland; and let them realise that they are using the little bit of authority, the one little piece, to pull down what Ireland has gained by centuries of fighting of misery and of suffering. And that is the position to-day.
MR. LIAM DE ROISTE:
Is not this the present position before us? The English are willing to evacuate the country at the moment that we set up the Provisional Government. Their forces are ready to leave as soon as the Provisional Government is set up. All their Departments of Government to the number of fifty-six are to be handed over to the representatives of the Irish people. Now, is it not common sense that in the interests of the Republic of Ireland---which to my view is not a minority or a majority party; not this Dáil itself, but the people of Ireland---is it not common sense that in the interests of the people of Ireland that the sooner we give facilities to the British to clear out of the country the better? And the only way in which we can give these facilities at the present moment is by setting up a Provisional Government here. Those who are opposed to the setting up of the Provisional Government in this country are, as I said and as I consider it now, in favour of retaining, not alone the British Army and the armed forces in this country, but the thing which is an abomination in Ireland---Dublin Castle Government. That, I maintain, is the position, and we ought all to take the same view.
DR. CUSACK:
There is a way out, and a very clear way out. This is the Dáil---the Republican Parliament for all Ireland. The members who were elected to the Republican Parliament know that the Republican Parliament will exist until the General election will remove it.
A DEPUTY:
And remove you, too.
DR. CUSACK:
That has nothing to do with this point. And by Article 17 of the Treaty we see:
<SMALL>
By way of provisional arrangement for the administration of Southern Ireland during the interval which must elapse between the date hereof and the constitution of a Parliament and a Government of the Irish Free State in accordance therewith, steps shall be taken forthwith for summoning a meeting of members of Parliament elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland since the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and for constituting a Provisional Government, and the British Government shall take the steps necessary to transfer to such Provisional Government the powers and the machinery requisite for the discharge of its duties, provided that every member of such Provisional Government shall have signified in writing his or her acceptance of this instrument. But this arrangement shall not continue in force beyond the expiration of twelve months from the date hereof.
</SMALL>
We have not got these members here. This is not a Parliament of Southern Ireland. Now, our Government must go on---the Republican Government must go on. There is no reason why the members elected to the Southern Parliament should not, if they wish, form a Provisional Government as this instrument says, and proceed to take over. There is no reason why that should not be done and end our discussion and end the flight of oratory.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
Mr. Mulcahy seemed to suggest that instantly we should enjoy the advantages given in the Treaty. Evidently that is not so. There has to be negotiations, conferences, and ratification of this Treaty in connection with England, and it is now what you mean to consider what views Ireland is to put before the world, and how she is to show herself an existing entity. Something should be done to show that we have not given up our separate existence, nor what we wish to get, an independent country. Therefore it seems to me a sort of misunderstanding to think that you can instantly now go and take the advantages of this Treaty. This has all to be settled.
MR. DOMHNALL O CEALLACHAIN:
I feel bound to contradict and resent one thing that I may safely describe as deliberate misrepresentation. I have listened to one of my colleagues from Cork seek to make a case. He said that those who maintain here to-day a particular line of action---that some members of this House desire to retain in Ireland the British Government and the British Army and British Departments. Now, I am satisfied that neither of us here nor any member of this House can believe that that is true. Consequently, I may safely call this deliberate misrepresentation. I hope this is not going to develop into a series of speeches. The central fact is that there must be a Government until such time as a certain form of negotiations has taken place. There must be a Government. It is also clear from certain statements that that Government must come from one side or the other. Now, the House is here and I think the House should decide now.
MR. LIAM DE ROISTE:
I am one of those who utterly dislike making any personal explanations. I rather agree with the motto `never explain'. But in regard to my friend, the Lord Mayor of Cork, I did not mean that that was the intention of those supporting the election of President de Valera, but that it will be the effect of their action in opposing the setting up of a Provisional Government by delaying the evacuation of the British Forces.
MR. SEAN ETCHINGHAM:
I hope this will not descend into politics. My good friend, the Deputy for Tyrone, referred to me. He used to consider himself a Party politician. What we want to do is to salve as much as we can out of the wreckage, and to do it for Ireland. He said I would be afraid to go before the Irish people. I am not. But I did hope that when the Chairman of the Delegation was concluding his speech the other night that he would have answered one of the Deputies from Mayo, Doctor Ferran, who asked him some very pertinent questions regarding this Treaty and its future. He did not deal with that nor with other things. But I hope he will now. He seems to know more about it. He had some correspondence from the Prime Minister of England, and he will know about its future. I have had this point from the English Press and the Irish Press--- statements from the Prime Minister of England and by Lord Birkenhead that these are Articles of Agreement.
THE SPEAKER:
What is the Deputy speaking to?
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
To the election of President de Valera, and I want to answer, as far as I can, some statements made here that have really nothing to do with that [laughter]. I appreciate that. I do say the position of Deputies in this House who are afraid to face the issue of electing the President for the Irish Republic in the Parliament of the Irish Republic---they are afraid to face that issue straight and so they side-track. They would not put up a candidate of their own. And they go on talking about constitutionalism. Would it not be more constitutional to here and now say `Are you going to kill the Irish Republic? Can you do it?' No! You have not put up a candidate of your own. President de Valera has been put up and you cannot put up anyone against him. You had it from a very able Deputy who raised a laugh. But he did not deal with any constitutionalism. I have heard from one of the Deputies in Dublin that we had not a President in the first Parliament in Dublin. But that very Deputy seconded President de Valera as President of the Republic in the Mansion House. He was proposed by Deputy Seán MacKeown, and no quibble about it, President of the Irish Republic, and seconded by Deputy Mulcahy, and I think the whole House agreed to it. Now he resigns that position, and resigns it before the whole body, and he is proposed and seconded for election. You cannot side-track that. You must face it. The other day when things were made unconstitutional he threatened to resign, and he put up his resignation and it was pointed out by the other side---it was said it was a political trick. And it was not. There is a hope here in the minds of a few that by insisting it is unconstitutional he will withdraw this. I hope he will not. It is time for us to face the issue. The Deputy from Cork knows well that we here had no right to ratify the Treaty. It was the Deputies elected to the Parliament of Southern Ireland. You would have men from Trinity here.
MR. M. COLLINS:
They might vote against it.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
It was open, I daresay, to the Viceroy to call this meeting of the Southern Parliament, to call it for, say, Leinster House or somewhere else, and elect a Provisional Government. But I would appeal to you in the interests of Ireland, even in the interests of the Treaty that you have by a majority decided to accept here on Saturday night, to still maintain your Republic. It is a loose thing; it is only Articles of Agreement according to the English, and you know what they have done with treaties in the past. And one Deputy at some meeting here stated that the only hope you have of getting that Treaty is that we would stand out against it. Even the Deputy from Offaly stated it here one night. He voted for it. For goodness sake do not for Party purposes or Party polities go and destroy the ultimate aim you have, and that great opportunity you have, of saving your country. I know there are men on the other side as patriotic as I am. I always admitted that. I worked with them in the past. Some of them say they will take an oath every time they get a rifle. I do not agree with that. The oath is a thing that ought be respected and so is the Treaty, too. The Minister of Finance declared that this does not satisfy the aspirations of the Irish people; that this is not a final settlement; and in his final speech the Chairman of the Delegation agreed that anything might happen in ten years; though, unfortunately, in an interview he gave to some member of the Press Association after the Treaty was signed he stated that it was the end of seven and a half centuries of fighting---that it was the liberty of Ireland. Now I ask you: it may be thought that I want to take a Party side in this question of supporting President de Valera. I told you here that I supported principles and not persons. President de Valera is the symbol of the Irish Republic. President de Valera holds a greater place in the hearts of the Irish people than any man in the public life of Ireland to-day. And I can assure you that if you turn him down in this Dáil you will not have peace in the country. If you elect him you will have peace, because he will see that you will have peace. He is not out for party polities. He urged every one of us not to say one word that would injure Ireland---that Ireland was above us all---and that is his feeling to-day. But I met here a supporter of the Treaty last night, a man of some influence in the city, who read in the Press that we seemed to want to turn the President down. He resented that. What he did say was that on the 4th December President de Valera went back from his Cabinet meeting and it seemed to be his Palm Sunday, and `now,' he said `are you going to bring him back and make it his Good Friday?'. That will be the feeling of the people. Let us get out of the strife of last week. It is ended. We are here as the Parliament of the Irish Republic and you are asked to re-elect President de Valera as President. Are you going to vote against him? Are the young men who believe in the Republic going to go against him? I say not. And it does not matter if he is elected here by the majority. That will not stop the formation of obvious work, nor will it keep the English Army in Ireland, nor the formation of the Irish Army in Ireland. It will be the means of driving the English Army out of it. See what Thomas says about the forthcoming General election, and what will happen. Realise your position. You cannot trust these English Ministers. And now they would turn down every one of those Articles of Agreement if you did not maintain the machinery of the Irish Republic that forced them to accept things as they are. In God's name I ask you this: abandon following Party politics; come back to the old spirit of comradeship, Ireland over all, and unanimously---if you can---elect President de Valera.
PETER HUGHES:
I move that we now adjourn for two hours.
Opposition cries of: `Take a vote'.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
I agree with Deputy Etchingham that it is time to face the issue. But my conception of what the issue is, is somewhat different from his. The issue is this: are we here as representatives of the Irish people or are we not? And I do not think we speak here the voice of the Irish nation if we do not represent, each one of us, our constituents. Then we are, more or less, able and enthusiastic exponents of a particular point of view. We have come to the stage when there is a question of the English evacuating Ireland, when there is a question of England handing over the Governmental Departments that formerly administered Ireland. Now, the evacuation of what? And handing over to whom? I contend to the Provisional Government---handing over to the Provisional Government. And there is a definite difference about it, too. Some people contend that there is, and must continue to be, here in Ireland a Republic. Some contend that there must be a Provisional Government and, following on that, the Free State. Now, I was of opinion, I will grant, that there is and must be a Republic. But there are some who merely seem to differ between one Free State and another Free State, and one form of association---that the community of association with the British Empire is again but another form of association. But to come back to the main point---are we speaking here the voice of our constituents or not? The sooner we take a plebiscite or General Election on this issue the better. It may he said that we have no machinery for dissolving. It is surely no great act of condescension on our part---we, who in the past, were twice elected on English writs---to get a dissolution. Very good. It is not, as I say, a great act of condescension on our part to get a dissolution
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
Use your influence with Lloyd George.
MR. M. COLLINS:
That is worthy of Austin Stack to say that.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
Any man who says the Republic is dead deserves it.
MR. M. COLLINS:
The remark is worthy of the man who made it.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
What I am really anxious to ascertain is this: whether the spiritual Republic which we are told is in existence is to continue, or whether the people wish to set up a Provisional Government preparatory to establishing a Free State in Ireland?
MR. ERNEST BLYTHE:
What is in my mind is to assure you that anything that will be done here to-day will he something that will rather tend to prevent people who have worked together so long, and who are still out for the same ultimate end---to prevent them from arriving at a situation where they may begin shooting one another. Rather the opposite. I agree with President de Valera that a plebiscite now would not be as clear an issue before the Irish people as a plebiscite or General Election when the Constitution of the Irish Free State has been framed. And for that reason I am not one of those who desire a plebiscite now;. I believe that the plebiscite now would go in favour of the Treaty. I believe that when the Constitution of the Irish Free State has been framed that the people will respect that Constitution and that they will approve of the Treaty and approve of the setting up of a Provisional Government. Because that was one of the Articles of Agreement. Now, that Provisional Government will represent the majority in this Dáil; whether formally or informally it will have authority from this Dáil. And if we are going here to set up a Republican Government representing the minority of the Dáil and also having the authority of the Dáil, I think we are heading straight for a situation in which chaos of the worst kind will result.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Mexican politics.
MR. BLYTHE:
To some extent President de Valera, by his first answer, met the situation. But he did not go far enough. Nothing that he said gave any assurance that we were not going to have the worst possible clash between two separate and distinct Governments, both having authority from this Dáil. And I think that the Dáil would be certainly shirking its duty and be guilty of a very grave crime against the country if it lightly or hurriedly created such a situation---because it has already approved of the Treaty---if it is going to set up two opposing Governments, and if there is no arrangement made by which there would not be a clash between them.
PRESIDENT DE VALERA:
It is obvious that the arrangements would have to be made.
MR. MACKEOWN:
I wish to support the motion for adjournment.
MR. M. COLLINS:
If we do not accept the adjournment at this present moment I want to speak about this motion and its implications in every possible way. If we do not adjourn I want to speak about this motion and refer to it in all its implications.
THE SPEAKER:
Better adjourn now. It is one-thirty o'clock.
MR. M. COLLINS:
My statement about it will be rather lengthy.
MR. DAN MACCARTHY:
Several speakers have intimated to me that they want to speak on the motion.
THE SPEAKER put the motion to adjourn for two hours and it was carried. The House adjourned at 1.30 p.m., to 3.30 p.m.
AFTERNOON SESSION.
On resuming after luncheon THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) took the Chair at 3.50.
MR. STACK:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I did not intend speaking on this debate, on this part of the debate at all, but unfortunately, the heat of the moment caused me to use a remark which I regret. I was rather galled by a statement made by one of the speakers which prompted me to suggest that, as a way out of a certain difficulty, our friends opposite should use their influence with Mr. Lloyd George to bring about a plebiscite. I wish to withdrew that remark unreservedly. I know that whatever influence our friends opposite have will be used for Ireland's good and not for her difficulty [hear, hear]. As I am my feet I wish to say a few words in support of the nomination of Mr. de Valera, who will be President, I hope, in future of the Republic. I simply wish to remark that the Republic was established by the people's will, and that it still exists, and that being so that a President and Executive are absolutely necessary. I support the nomination of Eamon de Valera because I believe the policy which he has propounded is the right and only policy for this country. I support his nomination also because I believe he is a big man, perhaps the biggest man in Europe this day. He is a man in whom I have always had the greatest confidence. And if I may say a thing that is fairly personal, I remarked during these negotiations when a friend of mine, a reverend clergyman, approached me and hoped that we would not be let down, I told him I was ready to commit suicide the moment Mr. de Valera let us down---and I am. With regard to the suggested plebiscite it was on that subject that our friend opposite made the remark to-day, and I say that we on this side have no objection whatever to the voice of the people being made articulate. But it must be the people's free choice, and whatever referendum there may be must be between the Republic and this document. When I say free choice I am sure every member here will understand me. I mean the choice made in the absence of any element of compulsion. Then, and then only, will you have the true will of the people and, let the result be what it may it will be Government with the consent of the governed.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS:
When I spoke, before I went away from here, I said I would deal with what I considered the implications of this present motion. Now, whatever we say---whatever any of us say, or whatever any of us think---we cannot conceal our own innermost thoughts from ourselves, and my innermost thought about this is: that in opposing it I am doing a greater service to Eamon de Valera than the people who put his name forward for re-election [hear, hear]; and when I mentioned the other day that Eamon de Valera had the same place in my regard now as ever he knows that I meant what I said. He knows it in his innermost mind, whether the dictates of policy force him to deny it or not. He knows it, and I am satisfied he knows it. Now, rushing a vote, on an issue like this, may be good tactics from the point of view merely of getting a vote, but it is bad tactics from the point of view of the nation. None of us want to see the Republic turned down, and some of us have not turned down the Republic. Some of us stand to work to the best of our ability---to work for the Irish nation, for a free Irish atmosphere, for the Irish people, Irish climate, Irish ideas and Irish ideals. That is the way we stand, the way we always stood, and we will try to stand for it and I will try to stand for it; no matter in what capacity I will try to stand for that ideal. To talk freely, squarely and fairly, that is what I think about this motion. I think about it what I thought and said in private about the plenipotentiaries. I think about it---and the suggestions that have accompanied it from the other side---I think about it as a move like this: that we can go on compromising, and we can go on negotiating, and we call go on giving away the position so long as the others have the authority to tell us afterwards that we have done so. Now, there is going to be an end to that, fairly and squarely. Many people on my side differ from me in my reading of the situation. In my belief the question of a plebiscite is not so simple as some people think [hear, hear]. If the President is elected as President, and if he has his Executive, I can say now what my course of action will be. I will simply go down to the people of South Cork and tell them---most of them know me personally and intimately---I will go down to the people of South Cork and tell them that I did my best, that I could bring the thing no further, `and now you can elect a representative who will carry the Irish nation further' [applause]. And I will help them in that, and the people in South Cork---the people in the cottages and the farms---they know me well, and I will speak to them as man to man. I will say to them: `perhaps I have failed,' and you know they would never question that I have done my best. I am more concerned about what they will say than about what anybody else will say, because they are the people who know me and who have been with me. I cannot see any way out of this present difficulty except in the manner I have suggested, and I have done my best to be constructive in my suggestions. I have done my best to see the difficulties and the real opinions of the other side. I have no other suggestion to make than the one I have made. And I believe if a Provisional Government is formed as Mr. Griffith intends to form it, I believe that if it is allowed to operate we can operate it on the lines we have mentioned. If it is not allowed to operate, it will be only because of difficulties put in our way. What we want is a chance---a real, genuine, proper chance---to prove our mark. We do not want to have difficulties put in our way by our friends, because you know that one friend, who does not quite agree with the way you are going on, can do you more injury in the fulfilment of your plans than all your enemies [applause]. You know that and I know it. I recognise these difficulties. I recognised them from the day we went on the negotiations and I recognised them long before that, and the President knows that. I have discussed situations of this kind with him long before this. He knows that I recognised these difficulties two and three years ago. Whatever may be the tactics of the thing, we ought, at any rate, not to be governed by tactics in an hour of crisis like this. And if the situation has passed into our hands let us take the responsibility of it, and make us answerable for the responsibility of it, and do it in a worthy open way ([hear, hear]. Now, if this motion is put for the President as President of the Republic I will vote against it. I for one do not know or care what the people on my side will do; and I will vote against it primarily because of this: that it would be putting the President in a false position, and in a position in which he could not act as President of the nation. That must be known to him, and I am not going to put him into that position, or, if he is put into that position by this Dáil, I for one will say in the future what I am saying now---that you placed him in an impossible position; that you give him an impossible job. There is no use in coming back and saying that: `We put you in that position and you did not do the job'. We know in our hearts it would be putting him in an impossible position. President of the Republic is a term that is known in many countries. Could the President get up and say: `Yes! I will be President of this nation, I will carry it on without interference from any other nation'? Could he say: `I will carry on our finance, I will establish our currency'? Could he say: `I will go on with the army, I will build submarines, I will build battleships, so that no nation will interfere with us'? Let us be honest with ourselves. We know we will be putting him in an impossible position, and I will not put him in an impossible position if I can help it in any way [applause].
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
A Chinn Chomhairle, agus a lucht na Dála, ba mhaith liom a chur i gcuimhne dhíbh go ndubhart i dtosach go raibh socair agam gan aon rud do rá a chuirfeadh fearg ar einne ach nár bhfoláir dom an fhírinne d'innsint. Tá socair agam anois gan aon rud a rá a chuirfeadh fearg ar einne ach táim chun an fhírinne d'innsint agus ní doigh liom go gcuirfe se fearg ar einne. It will be just as well for me to say at the start, having regard to what occurred on Saturday night, that I have decided to avoid saying anything of a contentious nature. I must, however, refer briefly to what occurred on Saturday night. Mr. Michael Collins might very well say `Save me from my friends'. What occurred on Saturday would never have occurred only for Mr. Collins' friends. His friend, Mr. Arthur Griffith, made a statement in his opening speech here which showed me, so far as my understanding went anyway, that an attempt was being made to sway the votes in this Dáil, and possibly the votes of the Irish people when the matter came before them, by a statement, in connection with Mr. Michael Collins, which could not be truly said about anybody---that he had won the war. It could not be said truly that any one man won the war. It has not been won at all. I may tell you I am in a position to know, certainly as well as most people, and better than nearly all, that the men mostly responsible for bringing us to the invincible position we held before this Treaty was signed are men whose names, if I mentioned them here, would not be known. I would ask you now not to be deceived by anything that takes place here. I knew nothing about political tactics until the question of this Treaty came up. I have seen too much of them, goodness knows, since, and I hope to heavens I will see no more of them, no matter how we finish this. We were one party before this occurred and, in God's name, let us be one party after it, in the Dáil anyway. You have all known that on many---too many---occasions, when Ireland or her representatives trusted England that Ireland was deceived. I can give you plenty of historical references starting from Sarsfield, the Treaty of Limerick, the Volunteers of 1782, not that I agree with Sarsfield's policy or Grattan's policy or any of these policies; I just bring them before you to show you cannot depend on England's word or the word of English statesmen. If the English people had a say in this thing, I am perfectly sure they would accept the offer we made them. It is English politicians and English statesmen whom we cannot trust. I am perfectly satisfied that the five men who signed this document thought that they did the best thing for Ireland. That is all right; that is their own opinion. Certainly, if they think they can absolutely rely on the word of Mr. Lloyd George and his friends they are not as sensible men as I took them to be.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Is it not better to have a signed cheque than an unsigned cheque?
MR. BRUGHA:
Yes, but the money might not be in the bank after you endorsing the cheque [applause].
MR. M. COLLINS:
Even so you cannot put it there at all if your cheque is unsigned [applause].
MR. BRUGHA:
Let us safeguard ourselves in any case---and this is a means of doing it. You say that in re-electing the President, by re-electing President de Valera, we put him in a false position. We do nothing of the kind. We have been given a mandate by the electors. That mandate, as you will admit, was to maintain the Republic. Until we go before the electors again and they turn us down, must not we carry out our mandate? Is not that so? We all know, prior to the 1918 elections, what sagacity resolutions, what confidence resolutions meant. They were pouring in, snowball fashion, from all over the country, and when the people in whose favour these resolutions were made out and sent up to Dublin came before the electorate, do you not know what the electorate did with them? In spite of what has happened, and the resolutions from public bodies---we do not know that those public bodies speak for the country---the electorate gave us a mandate, anyway, and we have to carry out that mandate, until we go before them again and they say: `We want to change that mandate'.
MR. M. COLLINS.
On the previous occasion they were going for the unsigned cheque.
MR. BRUGHA:
In any case they have to be satisfied, and they are not such fools as some people are. When it comes before them they will give their decision on that. We must carry out our mandate. There is only one man in Ireland who can do that properly, and when we come to make a satisfactory arrangement with England, one that the Dáil before the sixth December would have been satisfied with unanimously, the only one man who can deliver the goods is Eamon de Valera [applause]. Now, we are not putting him in a false position by re-electing him. You people, we do not want to interfere with you. You may go ahead with your Treaty and your Southern Parliament, but as far as we are concerned we are not going to co-operate with you, but we are not going to hamper you. Go ahead, but we are certainly going to see, so far as we can help it, that Dáil Eireann remains in existence until the electorate turns it down [hear, hear]. There is only one man who can lead us properly and keep us all together. If Eamon de Valera did not happen to be President who would have kept Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins and myself together? [laughter].
MR. M. COLLINS:
That is true. It was not to-day or yesterday it started.
MR. BRUGHA:
I only wish to God we could be brought together again under his leadership. I only wish it was possible.
MR. M. COLLINS:
It is not, though.
MR. BRUGHA:
Not until Saturday night's work has been undone, and with the help of God and the Irish electorate it will be undone. You have asked a question as to how President de Valera is going to function with his Executive, to build submarines, et cetera. We did it before and I do not see why we should not do it again.
MR. M. COLLINS:
We never built a submarine.
MR. BRUGHA:
Let us, at least, have the goodwill of the people who are in favour of the action we have taken on this Treaty. Do not try to interfere with those people and we will not interfere with you. Go ahead, you will not have our co-operation. We cannot do it on principle, but we will not interfere with you, provided you do nothing that infringes on our principles; but we are going to carry out the mandate given us by the electorate. One of your speakers here to-day said he thought that after Saturday we had come to the parting of the ways. Deputy Sears of County Mayo conveyed that you could not agree with us in what we are doing---then you can clear out. There is no offence intended. Let us go ahead and run the Republic [hear, hear]. I will be satisfied for one when an election comes along. I am going to fight it. I will be perfectly satisfied if the Irish people tell us that they want to become British subjects and `you Republicans can go and mind your own business' [laughter and applause].
MR. DE VALERA:
I would like to say one thing. There is no one man and no group of men can deliver the Irish nation to anybody [hear, hear].
MR. SEUMAS FITZGERALD:
As one who voted against this Treaty at the Public Session, I admitted in the course of my remarks I knew the majority of those who voted for the Treaty were out for the ultimate Republic. And it was only on that consideration alone that many of those who were fundamentally opposed to the Treaty bowed to the circumstances that compelled them to vote for it. The ultimate Republic is the concern of those too, and also the fact---I trust they will have thought of this point for it is their concern---if the Treaty is the bird in hand they will want to see that it is well caged. They will also want to see that the Republic will not be disestablished until after the Treaty proposals are embodied in some definite form, and a Constitution set up, so that the people may ultimately decide on some clear basis. At present I am placing myself in the position of one who might have bowed to the force of circumstances and voted for the Treaty. That we do not throw away what we actually have, a Government of the Irish Republic, for what we are expecting from the Treaty proposals is a very fair argument. So we must hold ourselves in readiness for any possible treachery on the part of the enemy. The majority side have said that it will be their aim and object to make for the creation of circumstances towards the ultimate end of an Irish Republic. We may go on a different road, but we will also try to set up circumstances that will make for the ultimate end of an Irish Republic. When I see my way, when the circumstances that they create are such, when I think I can help to achieve that end of an Irish Republic, I will help them. Now, the circumstances, what are they? At the present time a large portion, I will be quite fair, of the army are against this Treaty. The point of view that I maintain is that rather than have it disbanded we must keep it united. I will make a suggestion later on as to how it can be maintained united. The army overwhelmingly are out for the ultimate Republic, and I maintain that they would be more unitedly prepared to continue under the direction of a Minister of Defence chosen from the minority side as being the one that had the Republican interests more immediately in view. A President and Cabinet from the majority side might, and could do so If elected, give guarantees that they would safeguard the interests of the Republic in the meantime, but these guarantees will not inspire the same confidence and respect. It is stated that if President de Valera is elected President of this Assembly it would be a ridiculous position to place him in. I think it would be a much more ridiculous position for the same body of men on one hand to set up a Provisional Government and, at the same time, to act as the Government of Dáil Eireann. I remind them that it is their duty to stand by the latter until the Free State Government is ready in all its details. The suggestion I make is this: that the majority party go ahead with their work in setting up the Provisional Government and that they do not interfere with the Dáil in its present functions, with the Minister of Home Affairs, the Minister of Defence, the Minister of Finance, et cetera. Secondly, that they should go ahead with the work of making arrangements for the withdrawal of the English troops with the English Government, and similarly with the police. On the other hand they could simply pass an act to maintain peace, law and order when these troops are gone. They could back up their arguments with the English members by stating such. They are a majority in the House and they can do that. Thus the Dáil as a Republican body will not cease to function until and when the Treaty proposals are properly embodied in a Constitution, and the possibility of treachery on the part of the English Government has not manifested itself. They could, from the point of view of the majority vote, cause the Dáil to again cease its functions and allow the people by popular election to disestablish the Dáil as a Republican Parliament. That is a square basis to put before the people.
MR. LORCAN ROBINS:
When I came into the Dáil this morning and President de Valera handed in his resignation I thought he was doing the biggest thing of his life, but when President de Valera demanded re-election------
MR. DE VALERA:
I did not demand re-election.
MR. ROBINS:
When he was put forward why did he not say he would not go forward? I say that he did not do the biggest thing of his life. We sought peace last week; we meant peace; we genuinely looked for peace; and this very suggestion was turned down by the President. I am speaking fair truths. The Treaty went out and the President put up a suggestion which he turned down the previous week.
MR. DE VALERA:
What suggestion?
MR. ROBINS:
Not the exact words, but the same thing.
MR. DE VALERA:
I was asked a question about our policy and I state it again. I say that, as I put myself at the disposal of the country in the past in the belief that I could help the country, I am willing to do so now.
MR. ROBINS:
We, on Saturday last, accepted the Free State, like it or like it not. We do not like it. We took it because we thought it was the best we could get. We are going to work the Free State, and we are not going to have a Punch and Judy show with a Republican Government moving behind us. We are going to create a strong Government, and if the other side want to do a statesmanlike thing, and the best thing for Ireland, let them assist us as far as they can without committing themselves to the Free State.
A MEMBER:
It cannot be done.
MR. ROBINS:
Then let the President withdraw his resignation.
A DEPUTY:
That is not logic.
MR. ROBINS:
I am just as logical as you are. The people of this country want a government of some sort. They have---signed, sealed and delivered---a Treaty that gives them a government. They have as an alternative a scrap of paper and I would not like to see my dog shot for the difference between the two of them [laughter]. Go down to the country and ask them what they think about it. What will happen? I say this is what will happen and what must happen. I told a private meeting of our supporters yesterday when we discussed this, that if I was the sole man in this Dáil I would vote against President de Valera being re-elected and because one party or another must carry on the government. We would have the chief of a party that England would not work with [applause]. Are we to make him our Chief Executive Officer and go across and ask England to evacuate Ireland? Are we to bring back a man who will never work this Treaty? That is the position, and I do not think the English Government is likely to accept that position. We are taking this Treaty for what is best in it and we mean to work it---and the only way to work it is by having one government. The man who should be the head of this government is the head of the majority party in this Dáil. We cannot take a man, the Chief of the opposite party, if we have to part company with him on essentials. We cannot go along and say `we work the Republic only, go and ask England to evacuate Ireland'. They won't do it, and they would be fools it they did.
MR. SEAN NOLAN:
The last speaker argued very well against himself. He has told us he would not shoot his dog for the difference between the two. At the same time we are parting on essentials. The first thing I would like to bring before this Assembly is that we cannot disestablish the Republic, and if we do not elect the President and have a Republic here to-day, we are trying to disestablish this. It is ultra vires. The people of Ireland can alone disestablish the Republic which has been established by them. According to the Articles of Agreement those who voted for the Treaty and carried the resolution on Saturday night have merely to call together the members elected for the Southern Parliament to establish their Provisional Government. Let them call this assembly together, the members elected for the Southern Parliament, and let them establish their Provisional Government; and in doing that they have the assurance of the other party that they will not be interfered with. Now, they are out to do the best for Ireland and we are out to do the best for Ireland. And they can do the best for Ireland by carrying out the Articles of the Treaty in calling together this meeting of the elected members of the Southern Parliament and establishing the Provisional Government and, at the same time, leaving the Government that was established by the will of the people intact, leaving that Government where it is until such time as it is disestablished by the will of the Irish people. By leaving the Republican Government with its President as it is, those on the side of the Treaty will have the best guarantee that they will get the best and most out of this Treaty, which has been signed in London. We have always heard that what England gave away in her hour of weakness she would take away in her hour of strength. I say that those who honestly supported the Treaty in the belief that they were doing the best for Ireland will be doing the best for Ireland and doing the best for the Treaty by not attempting to disestablish the Republican Government. They will have the assurance, support and guarantee of this Government that England will not betray us again. lf the Republic is disestablished then you will have chaos; then you will have the parting of the ways indeed. But I would ask you not to throw away this weapon which has brought us so far---this weapon of the Republican Government, of the Army of the Republic, which has brought us so far along the road to victory---I would ask you not to throw it away to the English wolves. If you disestablish the Republic that is what it amounts to. Do not throw it away, at any rate until you get the price for throwing it away, and the price that is being offered is the Treaty signed in London. That Treaty is not delivered. It is signed. And until such time as it is delivered do not throw away what you have won to the English wolves. In the ordinary course, when your Provisional Government is functioning and the country is in its normal condition, you can take the will of the people and let them decide whether they will disestablish the Republican Government or establish the Free State. Finally, when the will of the people is being taken at the General election we on the other side of the Treaty will fight the Treatyites---the pro-Treaty members---at that election on the question of the Republic, but until such time as that comes about, for Heaven's sake do not throw away this opportunity, do not fling away what you have won by the fruits of the sacrifices that have been made, by disestablishing the Government of the Republic. It is not a question of personalities; it is not a question of Mr. de Valera and Mr. Griffith and Mr. Collins. It is a question of the nation and each side of us profess sincerely to be doing what we consider the best in the interests of the nation. And I put it to you who have supported the Treaty and opposed the election of the President that went I have put before you is went will prove to be the best in the interests of Ireland and in the interests of the ultimate goal we ought to have---the ultimate goal of absolute freedom [applause].
MR. JAMES DOLAN:
A Chinn Chomhairle, the last speaker has asked us not to dissipate our forces in one breath, and in the next he says we should continue here in Ireland the Government of the Irish Republic side by side with the new Government that would be set up for Saorstát na h-Eireann. Does anybody seriously tell me that is not dissipating our forces? If you say to the new Government: `Do not interfere with the Departments that have been set up'. Take, for instance, that very big controlling department, the Local Government Department. Does anybody seriously tell me that the Local Government bodies of this country will still continue to function in the in-and-out way that has helped to bring us to the present position? And does anybody seriously tell me that we will not be dissipating our forces by having a Local Government Board for the Free State and a Local Government Board for the Republic? There must be a clash. People have sniggered at the resolutions passed by the local bodies all over Ireland almost unanimously. They all have declared---or, at least, ninety per cent. of them---in favour of the Treaty. There is one instance of the confusion that those people on the other side wish to throw us into. They tell us it will not be dissipating our forces and will make for more strength in the face of the enemy. The only way for this nation to make for strength, to get their last ounce out of this Treaty, is to back up the decision that this National Assembly came to on Saturday night when they decided to accept this Treaty, to work and get every ounce out of it. We are told by some of the speakers that we will be dismantling our machinery by not carrying on the Republican Government. I absolutely deny that we would be dismantling our machinery. I say we will be putting in up- to-date machinery to protect the interests of Ireland in working the Treaty, when we get control of the Government of this country in reality, not on paper or in theory, and dig into the many Government departments of this country, and when we are in position to have our army better equipped than it is to-day. Why should we consider that it will be a source of greater strength to have the Volunteers as they are to-day, smuggling in arms and smuggling in Thompsons? Why do you think it will be greater strength when we can buy them in the open market and they have the authority of the Irish people behind them? We will be in a position to get the last ounce out of this Treaty. If, even now, at the eleventh hour, those who have been opposed to the Treaty would look at it in a plain, practical commonsense manner as the man in the street looks at it, all would be well. Let them not be here, as the President of the Delegation has said, as if they were playing a game of chess, and if such and such would be a good move. You can get the last ounce out of this Treaty only in one way and that is to back up unitedly the decision you came to on Saturday night. I am glad to hear the tone of some of the speeches that have been made on the opposite side to-day. They say they do not wish to hamper the new Government in Ireland and that they wish to see the last ounce got out of this Treaty. I appeal to them, to their better nature, to look at things as reasonable sensible men not as men tracing shadows, but as men grasping realities and dealing with political facts. I appeal to them to put their shoulder to our shoulder, to back us and see that the last ounce is got out of this. The proposal before us today, of re-electing President de Valera, will, to my mind, if carried, make for absolute chaos in the country. I oppose it then with all my might and I appeal to the President himself to let his better nature get uppermost in him and let him stand down in the interests of the nation [laughter].
MR. H. BOLAND:
I rise to support the nomination of President de Valera for re-election, and certainly I am very happy to see we all enjoyed our dinner [laughter] and that a better spirit is developing in Dáil Eireann. I think the gentlemen on the other side should be very happy this evening that the issue is so clearly knit. On Saturday, by a very small majority, you overthrew the policy of the President of this Assembly, and to-day, following the recognised constitutional practice, the President resigned his office. It is up to the men on the other side who, up to to-day at any rate, have fought for the Treaty with the same courage and the same dash as they fought in the fight for the Republic, and I think they have a unique opportunity to carry on in this same spirit and put a man up who is in favour of their policy against Eamon de Valera. I am sure, and I speak from intimate knowledge of our late President, that his personality has never been intruded in this fight. Everything he did during his term of office was for Ireland and not for de Valera. I have had very intimate intercourse with him, and particularly outside Ireland. And I saw him in situations such as this, and never during the course of a very difficult time in America, did he waver in the tightest place. We are on one side and you are on the other side. You have a majority of this House. Accept your responsibility. If you throw out the man on this side by the vote, we are in honour bound to see to it that you receive from us all the resources that have been at the command of Dáil Eireann. I say the issue is knit. All we ask is that we be allowed to hold to our opinions. If you join issue now on this and put someone up in opposition Ireland will be happy with the result of these proceedings. You cannot have it both ways. If de Valera cannot receive two hundred votes, in one breath you cannot say that the nation cannot do without him. I say to our friends to join issue and have a straight vote, for or against. And then we will, on the first available opportunity, go before the Irish people and seek a further mandate for the Irish Republic, and if they in their wisdom decide against us we will be only too happy to obey.
MR. PETER HUGHES:
It strikes me that we are in a very peculiar position indeed. Mr. Boland wants one Government, and he suggests that the other side set up another Government. The English Government is here yet, and there is a Government in Ulster. Where are we going to be landed in a few days? We gave a vote on Saturday and we decided this Treaty should be, at least, approved, and I hope it will be ratified. At the same time I think it is the duty of every man who voted for the Treaty that the majority should elect a Government in this case. It is the constitutional way to do things and I am greatly surprised that President de Valera has allowed himself to be put forward in this fashion. I think if his own personal views were taken on the subject that he would gladly allow the people in the majority to carry on the Government, and that they should watch to see that Lloyd George should not get on the inside of them. The Treaty should get a chance, and if the majority should not get the best out of this Treaty, I for one would kick them out and turn to the other side and see that they formed a Government. There should be no doubt about it. The President could see that the majority should do what they propose to do, and see that the country is cleared of British troops in the shortest possible time. If this is done we can see that the Treaty is carried into effect, and if it is not done we will be cast into war. I am extremely sorry I will have to cast my vote in this case against Mr. de Valera.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
A Chinn Chomhairle, there is one point that is not properly touched on in this debate and it is this: a question was asked Mr. de Valera with regard to his action if he was elected again---with regard to the formation of a Cabinet---and he definitely stated that there could be no question of a majority Cabinet or a coalition Cabinet. Therefore, what we are asked to do is to place the control of the services of Dáil Eireann, finance, the army, et cetera, at the disposal, not merely of Mr. de Valera, but of a minority party which, on its own admission, is not only a minority in Dáil Eireann, but a small minority---at the present time, at all events---of the people of Ireland. Was ever such a proposition put up before a body of sane, sensible people? That, we are told, is to be done in the interests of Ireland. Does this mean he is going to see that Mr. Lloyd George carries out his undertaking? It seems to me to be the best way to ensure that Mr. Lloyd George would not carry out his undertaking. It is putting it to him not to do it. There is no man or woman who does not urgently desire to have the services of Mr. de Valera for Ireland, but we do not want to have this man, whom we have served and followed, simply as a means of wrecking the Treaty, for that is what it amounts to. That is what it amounts to, and you know it well. Everyone of you know it in your hearts and souls [applause]. Having failed to carry the Treaty you want to wreck it in this way, and the man who proposed his re-election was no friend of Mr. de Valera.
MR. DE VALERA:
Do you think I would take office admitting that would be sought to be done?
MR. BEASLAI:
In common with a lot of people in this matter I am sorry that his judgment in this case is at fault. We are all sorry, but I must say what I think as an honest straight man. I believe and I am sure I am right, that a great many persons, at all events, think it is a despicable thing for one to use any means to jeopardise the Treaty. Let them not pretend that it is in the interests of unity; that is simply to wreck the Treaty and nothing else. That is the reason why I shall have to vote against the man whom I honour and respect simply in order not to have him put in a false and contemptible position.
DR. MACCARTAN:
There are a few suggestions I would like to put to both sides. I am one of those who did not vote for the Treaty, but against chaos and to put an issue like this to the country again, you want to have a repetition of what occurred in the Parnell split. You have seen it here in the Dáil, and it will be intensified a hundred-fold throughout the country. Whether you elect Mr. de Valera again or reject him, do not put anything to the country at present; let the country settle down Let the tension subside before this is put to the country. I cannot see Mr. de Valera's policy at the moment. I would like to be with him, it is my natural place, but I cannot see his policy now. I try to look at the situation as it is, not as we would like to have it. The situation is this: the Treaty was signed, it was a fait accompli, and we must try to make the best of it. That is the situation that presents itself. If it is possible to get back to the Republic I would like to see it; and if President de Valera is elected he is a greater man than I thought he was, and I thought he was a very great man, and I still think so.
MR. ARTHUR GRIFFITH:
Before you put the vote there are some words I would like to say. On Saturday night after a long discussion, this Treaty was approved. Now, to-day a proposal comes forward which, if carried, in effect means a recision of that decision. It is put forward to us in a guise that is not straight. It is intended to sway the votes by appealing to the emotionalism of the members here who feel, and rightly feel, all the good services that President de Valera has done his country. It was said on the other side that this ought not to be a question of personalities. Very well. If it ought not to be a question of personalities, President de Valera when he resigned his position should not have gone forward. Some man on this side should have gone forward, because the issue sought to be made is between President de Valera and us, and personally no man on our side wishes to vote against President de Valera. I say, therefore, it is a political manoeuvre to get round the Treaty, and that the people who are using President de Valera for that manoeuvre know what they are doing. We know what they are doing. We approved the Treaty on Saturday evening and by a side wind we get round it on Monday. What is going to happen the reputation of the country for commonsense and honour? There was no necessity for him to resign. We suggested that Dáil Eireann might continue until the Free State election came into effect. There is no necessity for him to resign to-day. His resignation and going up again for re-election is simply an attempt to wreck this Treaty.
MR. DE VALERA:
No! no!
MR. GRIFFITH:
It must be understood as that. Everyone knows how difficult it is for a man personally to vote against President de Valera. I do not understand this proposal. There was a proposal made from our side in the interests of unity. I think it would have helped unity. At all events it was rejected by the other side, and the proposal from the other side now is to constitute two Governments in the country. Are we to have two sets of Ministers for all the departments? If there are, there will be chaos of the worst kind. lf I am mistaken about the interpretation I put upon it I am quite willing to discuss the matter with President de Valera. As it stands it is this: the proposal put forward is not bona-fide. It is put forward to use the personality of Mr. de Valera to wreck this Treaty. Therefore I shall vote against it with the greatest regret. It is not with an easy heart I shall do it, because I have worked with President de Valera for years and I regard him as a dear friend, and I do it only in the vital interests of the country. It is most unfair to this Assembly that the personality of Mr. de Valera should be used as it is being used [hear, hear].
MR. DE VALERA:
I say it is put forward in good faith. It is put forward by myself. I put forward my resignation as a constitutional question, and the natural thing would be for the majority party to propose a President. It is the proper thing to do, the proper constitutional thing. Elect your President. I cannot be in a position of responsibility without having power to act. In allowing my name to be put forward the idea I have at the back of my mind is mainly this: that there was still a reserve there---following the idea why I did not go to London---the reserve for the nation is still there, the Republican forces would still be there. Dublin Castle has been functioning in some sort of a way. We have tried to prevent it from working. If the Provisional Government goes to Dublin Castle and takes on the functioning we will not interfere with them. Let them deal with their Government as they please. Dáil Eireann is here and its action with reference to the Provisional Government will be determined by any arrangement that this House will make.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Does not that imply there is going to be two sets of Governments with two sets of departments?
MR. DE VALERA:
Not necessarily. There is no reason why this House should not make an arrangement with regard to the vital departments so that if there was anything going wrong, we would have our forces intact as before. They can be preserved for the Republic, as, for instance, the Ministry of Local Government---I have no doubt we can conceive a means of dealing with these departments. This is a matter I would have to go into carefully. I regard the Provisional Government as only Dublin Castle functioning by permission for the moment.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Is not this Provisional Government a Constitutional Government to draw up a Constitution to carry on all the functions of the country? In any case, Dáil Eireann, which was established by the will of the Irish people, is there until it is disestablished by the Irish people. It is there and cannot cease to function.
MR. GRIFFITH:
The Provisional Government must take over the functions of the Government of this country pending the setting up of the Free State Government.
MISS MACSWINEY:
From Dublin Castle.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Any way you please.
MR. COLIVET:
Will not the same difficulty arise if a majority candidate is returned?
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
Is it absolutely essential that the Provisional Government should be set up by Dáil Eireann? Does not Article 17 of the Articles of the Treaty state:
<SMALL>
By way of provisional arrangement for the administration of Southern Ireland during the period which must elapse between the date hereof and the constitution of a Parliament and Government of the Irish Free State in accordance therewith, steps shall be taken forthwith for summoning a meeting of members of Parliament elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland since the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and for constituting a Provisional Government; and the British Government shall take the steps necessary to transfer to such Provisional Government the powers and machinery requisite for the discharge of its duties, provided that every member of such Provisional Government shall have signified in writing his or her acceptance of this instrument. But this arrangement shall not continue in force beyond the expiration of twelve months from the date hereof.
</SMALL>
Would it not be possible far the Chairman of the Delegation to ask those who voted for the acceptance of this Treaty to meet the other members elected for Southern Ireland, to ask them to set up a Provisional Government and still leave the Dáil to set up its own Republican Government? I am only asking that because it affords a way out.
MR. M. COLLINS:
With regard to what the President said about departments it requires a reply, and I think I should give the reply. The President has spoken twice and I suppose I may speak twice.
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
Are you President or equal to him?
MR. M. COLLINS:
If the President makes a point which, I think, requires a reply---
MR. DE VALERA:
I do not make any point.
MR. M. COLLINS:
In my opinion the proceedings here this afternoon have deprived us of the possibility of having any kind of unity---any kind, not only of unity, but of having Ireland for the Irish. There is no doubt about it that the proceedings of this afternoon whatever the result of the vote is, do constitute a defeat of the Treaty.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
On a point of order, I suggest as no other candidate has been proposed that the President has been elected unanimously [applause].
MR. M. COLLINS:
Well, I am voting against.
ALDERMAN JAMES MURPHY:
If this side does not put forward any other candidate Mr. de Valera is elected unanimously.
MR. DE VALERA:
I cannot, naturally, stand for that.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I will move an amendment if you allow me, a Chinn Chomhairle.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
On a point of order, while there is no amendment and no one else nominated, I suggest that if the other side do not see their way to nominate anybody that they vote for or against the motion. Every man is entitled to vote for or against, even if there is no other proposition.
MR. M. COLLINS:
My amendment is this: that this House ask Mr. Griffith to form a Provisional Executive.
Ma. SEAN MACKEOWN:
I second that motion. I have great pleasure in seconding it, but in doing so I must say that I regard with extreme regret the attitude of those people who are out to wreck the Treaty or to do the work of wrecking. I have listened to this debate without saying anything. I have listened carefully to see if there was one man on the opposite side who would have courage enough to stand up and say: `Our duty is, once a decision has been arrived at by this Sovereign Assembly, to loyally support that decision'. I find there is not a man with the courage to do it. Standing in the dock before British authorities I declared that this Government was the Sovereign Government of Ireland and that its decision was binding on the Irish people. That decision taken on Saturday evening is a binding decision upon the Irish people and upon every man here, and every man knows it, and any attempt to flout that decision---well, if this is government, if this is law and order, I was the damnedest fool that ever stood in a dock [applause].
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
Is that motion in order?
THE SPEAKER:
I think this motion will have to be taken separately after taking the vote on the other motion. It is not an amendment to the one before us. The motion you are going to vote upon is this: `That Mr. de Valera be re-elected President of the Irish Republic'.
MR. DE VALERA:
Article 2 of the Constitution is that all Executive powers shall be vested in the members for the time being of the Cabinet:
<SMALL>
`(b) The Cabinet shall consist of the President who shall also be the Prime Minister and be elected by Dáil Eireann, and six Executive officers, namely,' ---so and so--- `each of whom the President shall nominate and shall have power to dismiss'.
</SMALL>
MR. J. J. WALSH:
The President in this case means the President of the Ministry. I was present---and so was Gavan Duffy---when this matter was discussed, and it was clearly understood in this meeting of the Dáil in January, 1919, that it would be highly undemocratic for the Dáil to elect a President of the Republic. That would be solely and entirely the duty of the Irish people, and for that reason we made it clearly understood that the President simply means President of the Cabinet and that alone.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I am voting against it. I want, at the same time, to register a protest. I am not going to make a speech. We have no power here to elect a President of the Republic. The people of Ireland can elect their President. The point is this: I have no power as a representative man here to say who can be President of the Irish Republic. I am voting against the resolution.
A poll was then taken by Mr. Diarmuid O'Hegarty, Secretary of An Dáil, when the voting was: For the re-election of President de Valera 58 Against 60
The following are the names of those who voted: FOR:
Pól O Geallagáin
Seumas O Lonnáin
Eamon Aidhleart
Brian O hUigín
Seán Mac Suibhne
Seán O Maoláin
Domhnall O Corcora
Seán O Nualláin
Tomás O Fiadhchara
Seumas Mac Gearailt
Dáithí Ceannt
Seosamh O Dochartaigh
S. O Flaithbheartaigh
Bean an Phiarsaigh
Seán O Mathghamhna
Liam O Maoilíosa
Dr. Brian de Cíosóg
Próinsias O Fathaigh
Aibhistín de Stac
Conchubhar O Coileáin
Eamon de Róiste
P. S. O Cathail
Tomás O Donnchú
Art O Conchubhair
Domhnall O Buachalla
E. Childers
Riobárd Bartún
Seoirse Pluingceud
Bean Mhíchíl Uí Cheallacháin
M. P. Colivet
Seán O Ceallaigh
Dr. O Cruadhlaoich
Tomás O Deirg
P. S. Ruthleis
Enrí O Beoláin
Tomás Maguidhir
Seán Mac an t-Saoi
Dr. P. O Fearáin
Seumas O Daimhín
Próinsias Mac Cárthaigh
Seosamh Mac Donnchadha
P. S. O Maoldomhnaigh
P. S. O Broin
Cathal Brugha
Eamon O Deaghaidh
Seumas Mac Roibín
Dr. Seumas O Ríain
Seán Etchingham
Seumas O Dubhghaill
Seán T. O Ceallaigh
Pilib O Seanacháin
Bean an Chleirigh
Constans de Markievicz
Cathal O Murchadha
Máire Nic Shuibhne
Domhnall O Ceallacháin
Dr. Eithne Inglis
An t-Oll. W. F. P. Stockley
AGAINST:
Mícheál O Coileáin
Art O Gríobhtha
Seán Mac Giolla Ríogh
Liam T. Mac Cosgair
Gearóid O Súileabháin
Pádraig O Braonáin
Seán O Lidia
Seán O hAodha
Pádraig O Caoimh
Seán Mac Heil
Seosamh Mac Suibhne
Peadar S. Mac an Bháird
Dr. S. Mac Fhionnlaoigh
P. S. Mac Ualghairg
Próinsias Laighleis
S. Ghabháin Uí Dhubhthaigh
Deasmhumhain Mac Gearailt
Seumas Mac Doirim
Seumas O Duibhir
Pádraic O Máille
Seoirse Mac Niocaill
P. S. O hOgáin
An t-Oll. S. O Faoilleacháin
Piaras Beaslaí
Fionán O Loingsigh
S. O Cruadhlaoich
Criostóir O Broin
Seumas O Dóláin
Aindriú O Láimhín
Tomás Mac Artúir
Dr. Pádraig Mac Artáin
Caoimhghin O hUigínn
Seosamh O Loingsigh
Próinsias Bulfin
Dr. Risteárd O hAodha
Liam O hAodha
Seosamh Mac Aonghusa
Seán Mac Eoin
Lorcán O Roibín
Eamon O Dúgáin
Peadar O hAodha
Seumas O Murchadha
Saerbhreathach Mac Cionaith
Seosamh Mac Ghiolla Bhrighde
Liam Mac Sioghuird
Domhnall O Ruairc
Earnán de Blaghd
Eoin O Dubhthaigh
Alasdar Mac Cába
Seumas de Búrca
Dr. V. de Faoite
Risteárd Mac Fheorais
Seán Mac Gadhra
Mícheál Mac Stáin
Risteard O Maolchatha
Seosamh Mag Craith
Pilib Mac Cosgair
Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh
Seumas Breathnach
Mícheál O hAodha
MR. DE VALERA
when his name was called during the poll, said:
I will not vote.
ALDERMAN LIAM DE ROISTE
[, on being Called to vote, answered:] I refuse to plunge my country into fratricidal strife. [Cries of vote!]
THE SPEAKER:
I declare the resolution lost.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Before another word is spoken I want to say: I want the Deputies here to know, and all Ireland to know, that this vote is not to be taken as against President de Valera [applause]. It is a vote to help the Treaty, and I want to say now that there is scarcely a man I have ever met in my life that I have more love and respect for than President de Valera. I am thoroughly sorry to see him placed in such a position. We want him with us.
MR. DE VALERA rose to speak.
MR. P. O'KEEFFE:
[who rose amidst cries of `Order!']:Look here, Dev. will not speak until I have spoken [`Order!']. He will not. I voted, not for personalities, but for my country. Dev. has been made a tool of and I am sorry for it.
Mr. DE VALERA:
I want to assure everybody on the other side that it was not a trick. That was my own definite way of doing the right thing for Ireland. I tell you that from my heart. I did it because I felt that it was still the best way to keep that discipline which we had in the past. I did it because, as I said, that I can, in so far as the principal resources of the Republic are concerned---I would conserve them for the Republic. I do not think any side would think that I would take a mean advantage. I regard the Provisional Government as Dublin Castle for the moment---as Castle Government. They will take over the machinery, but we should not scrap our machinery before they take theirs. That was the only reason why I allowed my name to go forward. Now, I think the right thing has been done, that the people who are responsible have done the right thing, and therefore I hope that nobody will talk of fratricidal strife. That is all nonsense. We have got a nation that knows how to conduct itself. As far as I can on this side it will be our policy always. When the Volunteers split in Donnybrook---it was at the time of the rejoicings about the Home Rule Bill. We split and I went out in that Hall in which I had been elected unanimously as Captain. I went out with a small majority and I said `You will want us to get that Home Rule Bill yet. And when you want us we will be there'. I tell you now: you will want us yet.
MR. M. COLLINS:
We want you now.
MR. DE VALERA:
Unfortunately, on the Treaty we cannot co-operate, you acting in this case for the majority---and I suppose for Ireland---have to do certain work. Even to get through that portion of the work you will need us. We will be there with you against any outside enemy at any time [applause]. Meantime you must simply regard us as an auxiliary army with a certain objective, which is the complete independence of Ireland. Every step which we can believe that you are taking to help in that road we will feel it our duty to go behind you, in so long as we are not committing ourselves or our principles in co-operating. You know how hard I was working for peace, and how I was trying to prepare this Dáil, to try it we were able, having gone to the furthest limit we could go. I knew there would be a big minority against it and I would be glad to see the minority. I am against this Treaty on one basis only: that we are signing our names to a promise we cannot keep. It is beyond the nature of men and women and they cannot keep it. Some people talk of trenches and that we had got over other trenches. What is the good of having trenches if you are going to put up barbed wire entanglements to keep you from getting out of them? I would rather try to risk the other trench. The same spirit would have carried us on to the end. I am against you on principle. And I believe that to get the best out of that Treaty you need us in a solid, compact body. We will keep in a solid compact body. We will not interfere with you except when we find that you are going to do something that will definitely injure the Irish nation. And if we have two evils to choose from I hope it will be the lesser of the two, in the best interests of the Irish nation, that we will choose.
MR. MACKEOWN:
That is the first statesmanlike speech I have heard from those against the Treaty [cries of `Order!']. My respect for the President is one hundred and fifty per cent. higher than ever it has been before.
MR. M. COLLINS:
This goes in as an independent motion. I wonder what is its position now? Is it on the Orders of the day?
THE SPEAKER:
It is not on the Orders of the Day.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Does it go on as an independent motion?
THE SPEAKER:
That is the only way in which it could go on. It can only go forward by consent.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
It is a motion of national importance which can be taken by you with the consent of ten Deputies, under Standing Order 5.
MR. DE VALERA:
The Constitution is that there must be a President elected. You will have to elect a President and have a Cabinet or you are going to break up the Constitution. Now I do ask you not to smash up the Republic, not to break up your Constitution. Try to proceed constitutionally.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Naturally, I agree to that thing so long as it is President of the Chamber of Deputies, or anything you like. But I simply put that forward as an amendment to the other resolution, and I put it forward as my best endeavour to avoid that last vote, and I could only suggest what, to me, seems common sense. I do not care whether you call the principal man here President or not. Even if the word `President' in it is inserted there---if that will make my motion a proper motion then that word may be put in. But, obviously, the thing before us is that we must find some kind of machinery for taking the next step. And I suggest that Diarmuid O'Hegarty should summon the Dáil, and as far us I know the additions to the Dáil will be the four members from Trinity College.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
Will they take the oath?
MR. DUGGAN:
They need not, and you need not, take that oath.
MR. M. COLLINS:
That will be summoned according to the Treaty as the Parliament of Southern Ireland, but it will be what I would call Dáil Eireann. If there is any better Irish term for the Assembly let the people who understand Irish call it that. That is the way I look at it. The way I mean is that Mr. Griffith may be asked to form a Committee and take over and carry on. Words and phrases are no hindrance to us no matter how bitter they be. I am not a lover of words and phrases. What I want is---what I have always wanted is---to get the army out of Ireland. And we will have to establish some kind of contact, and it is the difficulties of the situation that I am thinking of. I suppose someone will have to go into Dublin Castle to see what is there. And we have to meet somebody in there to see that, under our financial clauses, I am to receive back the twenty-three thousand pounds they stole from the Irish Republic. Somebody will have to see to that. MacCready had to go to the Mansion House. I do not know whether it was a departure from principle or a derogation of his status. I not know whether he was less Commander-in-Chief there subsequently because we called him MacCready. But you have to face details in a practical way like that, and that is how I have tried to work the whole time. I have seen difficulties. I know it is very easy to say that Michael Collins had breakfast with Lloyd George in Downing Street. But there is this much about it: that Michael Collins did not have breakfast with Lloyd George. It was said in a newspaper here which was noticeably friendly to me when I tried to make them publish something about the way the Black-and-Tans held them up. It is an easy thing to say about a man. We know what it meant when John Redmond had breakfast with Lloyd George. If I had breakfast with Lloyd George I would tell you so. I only want to try and explain the implication of things. Somebody will have to meet them before they depart, and it is not by saying merely what are flippant things for the time being that we can get to handling the practicalities of the situation and the difficulties of it. And I had not in my mind when I proposed that resolution any departure from the rules of procedure here. I only meant it in my own plain way as being some contribution to a difficult situation. If it makes it acceptable that Mr. Griffith act as President of the Assembly and is asked to form a Provisional Executive, then my motion can be put in these words. I only want to try to be of help. I had not in my mind that I was departing from any rule of dignity or procedure.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
Would I be allowed to ask a question? In the event of this body being set up here to-day will they assume the obligations contracted in the name of the Republic, and honour the pledges given in the Republic's namer when we were instructed to raise money in the name of the Republic?
MR. M. COLLINS:
Anyway, I will do my best to see---and if it is not done I will regard the Treaty as being broken---I will do my best to see that every person who subscribed one pound to the Loan is repaid on the terms on which that money was subscribed.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
In view of the resolution of this House in August last that the money raised would be returned by the Irish nation, and that we proposed to raise some more money, I had no personal reason in asking the question but as being one of the men who raised the money.
MR. R. MULCAHY:
I second the resolution that Mr. Griffith be elected President, and that he be asked to appoint a Provisional Executive.
MR. DE VALERA:
I am anxious about one thing; and we have a definite duty to preserve the Republic until the Irish people disestablish it. It must be held to be in existence until then, and this being a Sovereign Assembly I would like to know whether those taking over the responsibility intend to preserve the Republic until the Irish people disestablish it.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Dáil Eireann, as the President said---I must still and always call him President---can only be disestablished by the will of the Irish people. What I propose to do is this---when we adopt the form of Provisional Government---is to arrange for a plebiscite of the Irish people or a General election on this question as to whether they will have a Free State or a Republic.
MR. DE VALERA:
About the funds---will you use the funds of the Republic directly in connection with your functions for the Free State? There is a big question involved. You do not see my object. There have been funds subscribed for the Republic. They are bound---we are really in honour bound to use these only for the purpose of the Republic and to maintain Irish independence. Now, why I dislike these proceedings is: you are, in fact, disestablishing the Republic and you are taking over---Provisional Government---the resources of the Republic, and this is rather a serious matter that you should take all these responsibilities. We want to know here in this House which is the Government of the Republic and nothing else, what is to be done with the army and with the resources?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I take it that any money that is spent by this House must be submitted to this House and the sanction of this House obtained; and that no money can be spent without the sanction of the House. The estimates have to be submitted and sanctioned and approved. If the House does not agree with any proposal that is brought forward it can reject that proposal. The House is sovereign.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Now to deal practically with that point in that question--- that seems to me to be a very small difficulty, and yet it is illustrative of the whole thing. Now, what proposal would anybody have to make about that? The suggestion I would make would be one that would be offered fairly to the other side. But that is one of the difficulties I foresaw when I mentioned the other day that I wanted a Committee of the two sides. That suggestion was not reciprocated. It can be reciprocated now, when we have been put to the difficulty of fighting them twice instead of once. There are Trustees of Dáil Eireann, and as they (the other side) will not meet us at all, the suggestion I would make is this: that those funds should remain on in trust.
MR. DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. COLLINS:
Our accounts are practically ready up to the thirty-first December because, though I have been here every day, and although I was in London for several days, everything in the department has been up to date; and, as a matter of fact, the people who have been paid a weekly salary at the present time---well, that is all illegal, because this House has not passed the estimates for the first part of the year 1922. And, in reality, every member of Dáil Staff should be going without his salary at the present moment because they were so very constitutional about things. I hope nobody will tell me or suggest that I have done wrong in allowing payment to go on to these people. You know, constitutionally, you could tell me I was wrong, but in fairness you could not tell me I was wrong. That is the only suggestion I have to make: that these funds should remain on in trust. There has not been a penny that was subscribed used for the purpose of our side since this thing started. Perhaps a sheet of notepaper was used, but I have done my utmost to keep the thing absolutely separate. Well, now, I will let others say whether they have been so very scrupulous in that thing. But the funds are in the hands of Trustees. It would be interesting to many people to know how these funds were safeguarded. If necessary, if I am told, I will publish everything completely---I would prefer to publish everything completely---and show the difficulties, and the vast difficulties, that we had been up against in the matter of these funds.
MR. DE VALERA:
You may be up against them again.
MR. M. COLLINS:
How can we come to an agreement unless the other side meet us in this way, unless we do arrange it here? The accounts for the last half-year are practically ready. This is not a small job. They will be ready in a few days. the details of working out the balance sheets and so on will take a little time. What I suggest is that those accounts should be published. Then everybody will know exactly what we have on hands, and it can be there as a public record. And, at the same time, that we should make some agreed statement and some arrangement with the Trustees or the House whereby the Trustees would go on keeping these monies on trust on the basis on which the funds were subscribed. If we go on as a Free State my proposal with regard to whoever would be Minister of Finance would be, notwithstanding that---that we try to redeem the old loan, and notwithstanding that, and as an indication of goodwill, and as an indication of competence, that we should hand that money back in America and in Ireland. Now, here is a point: all the lists on which I have written the names of subscribers to the loan were seized by Dublin Castle. I hope nobody will tell us when we get these back that I used influence with Lloyd George. Now, the alternative to getting them back is to put a public notice in the Press asking subscribers to send up their receipts. And I happen to know that a good many of those were destroyed. And if anybody writes up a letter and says he subscribed ten pounds we will keep those letters. We know the total and if they come to more than the total we will be very doubtful about the genuineness of some letters. I am only wanting to point out that, even in a simple thing like that, we must come to an agreement here as to what we are going to do. And if anybody has a better suggestion to make I will do my best to work out details of the suggestion.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Is that motion before the House---that Mr. Griffith be asked to form an Executive?
THE SPEAKER:
The motion is: that Mr. Arthur Griffith be asked to form an Executive.
MISS MACSWINEY
Before that motion is put I would like to make one or two suggestions. This is the Parliament of the Republic of Ireland. Is Mr. Griffith going to form an Executive to carry on the Republic of Ireland or to form an Executive which will be the Provisional Government, or what is he going to do? I would ask him what he wants an Executive for? Why not go now and call the members elected to sit in the Parliament of Southern Ireland and form his Provisional Government from that. He cannot form it from this Assembly. I think we must be very clear. The President has said that there can be no co-operation between the Republican element in this Dáil and those who have surrendered the Republic; and there must be no suggestion or innuendoes of nice meetings or things of that kind. I do not want to say an unnecessary harsh word, but I must be quite clear on this. Before there is any Executive formed from this House it must be understood that that Executive must be Republican. Others must not be allowed to say that they set up their Provisional Government with the sanction of Dáil Eireann, while the Republican members sat in the House. Let us be clear about that. Well, there is an Executive being set up which is not a Republican Executive. I maintain that we cannot sit here if Mr. Griffith wants to form an Executive which will empower him to call a meeting of members elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland---but he does not need an Executive for that. He has not told us who is to call that Executive. He has suggested that Diarmuid O'Hegarty should call a meeting of Dáil Eireann. But his power comes from Lloyd George and not from Dáil Eireann. Let us make no mistake about it now that this meeting cannot sanction Mr. Griffith to form an Executive which will, in turn, sanction him or somebody else to call a meeting of the people elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland to set up a Provisional Government and an Executive---he wants to call it a Republican Executive. If he says it is, then very well. It is the man whom the Executive sanctions who may call the Provisional Government. If that is so I maintain that not a single Republican member can sit here while he forms his Executive. This is a double vote against Ireland's independence. They voted away Ireland's independence as far as it was in their power on Saturday night, and they have reiterated that vote to-night because they must have known that the President was not acting on personalities but that he was acting for the preservation of this nation and its independence, even against the trickery of Lloyd George. Evidently he trusts Lloyd George more than he trusts the Republican minority of this House. Let us be quite clear where we stand now. I ask Mr. Griffith to note it and to answer it before this vote is taken. Will he give a guarantee to the Republicans here that he will not use that Executive to set up the Provisional Government? He does not need it. He is only doing it to get nominal sanction from Dáil Eireann which it is not in the power of Dáil Eireann to give him. He can go out to-night and set up his Provisional Government regardless of Dáil Eireann. Now, I want to know from Mr. Griffith if, in the event of his getting this Executive, he wants to call it Dáil Eireann? Dáil Eireann is the Republican Government of Ireland and Mr. Griffith cannot use it for his Government. Mr. Collins told us he is going to invite the Trinity College members. Mr. Griffith said: `We brought back Saorstát na hEireann and we brought back the flag'. I maintain here that the Free State which he has brought back must not use the flag of the Irish Republic. And that is the flag of the Irish Republic, intimately connected with the Republic, not with Dominion Government, and the people of Ireland will not tolerate it being used as such. Now, the other side have stated they do not want fratricidal war. Now let me tell them what would happen if they used that flag. Every honest Republican would resent any act of the Free State to use that flag as they would resent the Black-and-Tans using it, because it is not the flag of a Dominion State. It is the flag of the Irish Republic and must be kept so. And I maintain they have no power to use that flag until they have got the sanction of the Irish people to do what they are doing; and if they get that those of us who are Republicans still will use our flag with a black band until the Dominion status is changed into a Republic. We must be clear on that. The money question is quite clearly one on which we should have arrangements. That money was subscribed in America for the Republic and not for a Free State. It cannot be used for the Free State, and that money that has been used must be paid back by the Irish nation. Meantime we must not be in any way misled, or in any way fooled into taking any step which is inconsistent with our stand to take; and therefore we most have a definite, and a very definite, pledge from Mr. Griffith, before we who sit in this House as a minority even will be convinced that he will not use his Executive to call into being the Provisional Government of the Free State. If, pending the completion of this Treaty, he is willing to sit here in Dáil Eireann as a Republican Executive, and to keep all Ireland going without any shilly-shallying about it, we will sit here, too. But he must give a definite undertaking to this House that he will not use that Executive power to call the meeting of the Southern Parliament of Ireland, but stand by the Republic. Dáil Eireann is not mentioned from beginning to end in this Treaty. Article 17 mentions how the Provisional Government is to be set up. I again ask all those who are staunch Republicans to stand with us, and those who consider gravely where this issue is leading. Again I am making no apology for stressing it, for I know perfectly well that many things have been said, and many things tried, in order to cloud the issue in our minds. Mr. Michael Collins sat there and talked about Dáil Eireann. If anybody could give him a better word to use he will use it. It is very nice playing to the gallery. Again, will Mr. Griffith give us an undertaking that he will not use the power of the Executive to give him a majority of this House to form a Provisional Government, or to start that Provisional Government in any way whatever---that whatever machinery was arranged with Lloyd George he will use that absolutely with a clean-cut line between the Provisional Government's doings and Dáil Eireann's doings? That that Executive which he picks, having a majority in this House, will not be used directly or indirectly to bolster up deeds of this Provisional Government, or to work out the machinery of the Provisional Government. If he gives us that undertaking, then, as far as Dáil Eireann is concerned, and for the preservation of safety, we can sit here. But if he, by virtue of a majority he has in this House, is going to use that Executive authority to get behind the Provisional Government we part here and now. The money you can settle as you like, provided you remember that money was subscribed for a Republic and not for a Free State; and if it is necessary that you should interview one or two members on this side informally, I suppose the President will know exactly how far that meeting is necessary and we can have perfect confidence in him. But in a question of voting we must have a straight answer before we vote. And the Free State must understand that Dáil Eireann no longer holds a Republican minority if Dáil Eireann, by virtue of a paltry majority, is to be subverted to stand behind the Free State. I hope every Republican in this Dáil agrees with me. And I have made my position clear, and I will not, without a definite guarantee from Mr. Griffith that he is not going to play tricks with Dáil Eireann, that he is not going to take the Parliament of the Dáil elected for the Republic, and use that to bolster up the Provisional Government--- say what he likes---he has not got the sanction of the Irish people. here are many questions that I should like to ask Mr. Griffith. But that is the main one. Will he give us that guarantee before we sit here and vote on this motion?
MR. DAVID CEANNT:
Some of the people thought I was only rainbow chasing when speaking against the Treaty. I want to make it plain here and now that this vote will be for the President of Dáil Eireann---that Mr. Griffith is going to be proposed as President of the Republic of Ireland, and that he will get power to carry on the Republican Government of Ireland. I want it to go forth from this House that any time he will make use of the machinery of the Republican Government and substitute it for the Provisional Government, then we will walk out in a body. Also I want to make it clear that an arrangement will be come to immediately as regards the money subscribed, and that not a three-penny bit of that will be used to bring this other Government into existence---that is, of the funds. These funds were subscribed for the Republic. Lloyd George will be able to supply plenty of funds for the Free Staters. Another question is that as regards the flag. That flag is Republican. That flag is sacred to me and to my family, and to every member who sacrificed anything in this glorious fight for the Republic. And any attempt that will be made to use that flag by the enemy---as far as I can go I will preserve that flag to the best of my ability, even to the cost of my life. I hope that Mr. Griffith will make it clear what flag he is to use in the Free State, because he will never use the Republican flag except over the dead bodies of some of us.
MR. AUSTIN STACK:
I rise to put publicly some questions of which Mr. Griffith received notice this morning:
Whether he has any further communication, direct or indirect from the British Government in connection with the Treaty?
Whether he has been informed by them what kind of legislation they propose to pass in the British Parliament in order to carry into effect the Articles of Agreement?
Who should summon the members of the Southern Parliament under Clause 17 of the Treaty and when? Would they continue in session?
Whether the proposed Provisional Government will be elected by and from these members?
Whether the Provisional Government will act in conjunction with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and will it function under the statutory powers conferred by the Partition Act?
What are the powers referred to in Clause 17 which will be transferred from the British Government to the Provisional Government?
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
I rise to protest with all the weight and force of my being against any attempt being made to use the name of Dáil, which is the Government of the Irish Republic, and its machinery to set up a Provisional Government, and to establish the Free State in accordance with a British Act of Parliament. It is no time, perhaps, for angry words. But I do think that I would be untrue to what I believe if I did not rise at this juncture to make this protest. This Free State derives no authority from the Dáil. It derives authority solely and absolutely from the British Government. And the vote that was taken on Saturday and the vote that was taken to-day---so far as those members who voted for the Treaty, and so far as those members who voted against the President of the Irish Republic---was, I am convinced, a vote for the disestablishment of the Irish Republic as far as they could make it. There is no use of our mincing words, or pretending that we are going to stick to the Republic while at the same time, we are undermining the Republic. Now if this Free State is to be established let it be established in accordance with whatever terms Mr. Griffith made with Mr. Lloyd George, and do not use the Government of the Irish Republic as the machinery for doing so. I do not want to say any more. I only wish, in view of this possibility, to voice my last protest against this crowning act of iniquity against the Irish people.
MR. MACENTEE:
Before the motion is put I would ask the members to think very carefully whether they need vote upon it, and whether they need set up an Executive authority in this House---a Government of which the head is going to be, ultimately, the head of the Free State. Now, I think that has been one of the crying tragedies of Irish politics---that whenever an Irishman has got in touch with an Englishman, and has bound himself to do something, he is always prepared to be better than his word. I think there is nothing in the Articles of Agreement laid before us which would make it imperative upon the Irish signatories to these Articles to secure control of the resources of the Republic. And it is to secure control of the resources of the Republic that the motion which we are now considering has been introduced. It does not say that those who are to form this Provisional Government are not to be, at the same time, the Government of Dáil Eireann. It does not say it, and therefore we should not permit it to be done. It only says that a meeting shall be called of those who have been elected to the Parliament of Southern Ireland, and that includes, remember, the four members elected for Dublin University who would not take as we have done, the oath to the Irish Republic. Now, I suggest that by the letter of their bond the signatories to the Articles of Agreement might leave this Assembly, might take with them the majority which they have secured in it and somewhere outside the Assembly of the Irish Republic, summon their supporters and those other members for Southern Ireland who did not sit here--- they may have him selected there from the Provisional Government. I suggest that that is a step which would be best in the interests of the nation. Because, so long as they take over the resources of the Irish Republic, they will be told that they are bound to use those resources in order to establish the Irish Free State. The Minister for Finance stated that he was prepared, if he could, to refund to those who subscribed to the Loan of the Irish Republic the monies which they had subscribed. I tell him if he takes this step to-day to secure control of the resources of the Irish Republic, and then goes forward and as the Government of the Irish Republic, sets up the Government of the Irish Free State, Lloyd George will tell him he is bound in honour not to refund those monies.
MR. M. COLLINS:
But then, suppose I say to him I do not take my opinions from Mr. Lloyd George. I am Michael Collins.
MR. MACENTEE:
You would have to deal with your Prime Minister, who said that he would not dishonour his signature and become immortalised in history. I do not want to make any party capital out of this. I only ask you not to do anything you are not bound to do. A way out can be found if you want to find it. Instead of electing a man as President of this Assembly who is bound by his honour and by his signature---he has told you what his signature means to him---instead of electing him now as your Chief Executive elect some other member of this Assembly if you will, who will hold the resources of the Republic in trust for the Republic. That is the way out. He need not use them for the moment---he may give you every chance of setting up your Free State. But, at any rate, you yourselves will not be stultifying yourselves later. If England betrays you you can go back then and use your resources to make her honour a bond which she in history has so often dishonoured before. We are now in the position of Grattan and Flood. If Grattan had not permitted the Volunteers to be disbanded the Act of Union would never have been passed. Now, you cannot---this Government of the Irish Free State cannot---control the army of the Irish Republic. I believe that you will secure for the President or for the Chief Executive that I propose you should elect---believe that you can secure for him for the interim period between now and the time that you come to submit the Irish Free State as an agreed and detailed proposition, and as an actual fact, and not as a general statement of Articles of Agreement, not as a scrap of paper to be dishonoured---I believe that between now and that time you can secure a neutral President of this Assembly to pledge himself solemnly that he can act; that the army of the Republic will preserve towards you, at any rate, an attitude of friendly neutrality; if you are afraid that we should use that army to subvert your Government or that---at any rate you may have your fears. If it should happen that after a General </SMALL>Election in England you should be told as the Catholic Bishops who supported the Union were told, that Mr. Pitt was no longer in office---therefore, in order that you yourselves should have something solid to stand upon, I would suggest that you try and follow the way I am putting before you. Do not elect Mr. Griffith whatever other man you elect; do not select Mr. Griffith to be head of this Assembly; do not elect those who are bound by their signatures. It does not matter to us whom we will have if we cannot have a Republic. But it matters a great deal to the nation that the man who is President should not be one who has signed that Treaty in London.
DR. FERRAN:
To whom will the Provisional Government be responsible?
MR. M. COLLINS:
To the Irish people.
MR. MILROY:
What I would like to say is to express a regret that some of our members feel it necessary to assume an attitude of bitterness and hostility to others. Now, the note that President de Valera had struck after the result of the vote, was the guiding note to this assembly. I think if we had to part we would part as good friends, believing that each side was thinking well for Ireland. I would ask certain Deputies here who have said bitter and cutting things to try and let that drop and to realise that whether they give us credit or not for sincerity---to realise that we are as sincere as it is possible for us to be; that we acted in what we considered the best interests of Ireland. We feel we have not, in any sense, betrayed a single scrap of Irish interests or Irish honour, and we believe, in taking the vote taken today, we did it, not with the intention of defeating their ideals, but to prevent the resources of this nation from being used to wreck the Treaty which the Dáil approved of last Saturday night.
MR. DE VALERA:
We feel strongly the other way, and that is the way people in the country look at it. It is nearly impossible to get a way out; absolutely impossible, because the Chief Executive at the other side will not be able to satisfy anybody. People will be all the time suspicious that the resources of the Republic will be used to undermine the Republic. The situation they have created is a very awkward one.
MR. MILROY:
Can we not go forward in the future and drop this attitude of embittered hostility towards each other?
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
Is the motion before the House: `That this assembly asks Mr. Griffith to form a Provisional Executive?'
THE SPEAKER:
Yes.
MR. R. MULCAHY:
I second that motion.
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
I understand that Mr. Collins suggested something else be added to that. Because I believe that is as ultra vires as the discussion you permitted at the opening of the Session for half a day.
MR. DE VALERA:
I submit that you are working on very dangerous grounds. I submit that if you are going to subvert the Constitution you are going to make a situation that will make it impossible for the Republican members to remain in. They will not remain there any longer or by their presence give it any sanction. You must elect a Republican President of this assembly, and you must elect him as Chief Executive for this State---otherwise the Parliament no longer exists as such.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Am I to take it that the majority in this assembly has no rights?
MISS MACSWINEY:
Will you answer the questions we asked you?
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
The majority in this assembly must abide by the Constitution until it is altered.
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
Article 18 of the Treaty determines the procedure in this matter. Here it is:
<SMALL>
this instrument shall be submitted forthwith by His Majesty's Government for the approval of Parliament, and by the Irish signatories to a meeting summoned for the purpose of the members elected to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and, if approved, shall be ratified by the necessary legislation.
</SMALL>
Now, I submit that this Session of Dáil Eireann was summoned a fortnight ago to discuss the ratification of the Treaty. That you ruled the ratification of the Treaty out of order, and it was altered here without the sanction of this House and is entirely irregular. `Approval of the Treaty!' I submit that motion before you now is ultra vires as much as the other motion as the only legitimate step is to abide by Clause 18 and to go strictly in accordance with it. Those members who sit for constituencies in Southern Ireland include the four members of Trinity College, and those cannot attend a meeting of Dáil Eireann until they take an oath of allegiance as we have done. And I accordingly would suggest to you that we should adjourn and that you and the leaders on the other side should see how you can put our proceedings in order.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Are we discussing particular clauses of the Treaty? lf we are, let us discuss them. I would like to go into discussion on Document 2. But if we are discussing particular clauses in the Treaty it seems to me we cannot say how the British will do a particular thing until we have asked them. I cannot tell until we ask them. And if we have to do it publicly through you we will ask them. The point is, if we are discussing the clauses of the Treaty---all right, then,---we can discuss them. If my motion is not in order, rule it out of order. What I suggest is this: that we should adjourn this discussion as leading to nowhere. And the tactics on the other side are obstructionist tactics.
THE SPEAKER:
The proceedings today from the beginning were conducted by consent. There was no notice given of any motion up to now. It is by consent of the Assembly that these motions that came before the Assembly were taken. They did not fulfil the orders of the Assembly. A day's notice should be handed in. The same applies to the motion in my hands now.
MR. MICHAEL COLLINS:
In that case I will write it out fully. I will put it in as a notice of motion, and let us adjourn or do anything at all.
MR. DE VALERA:
This is a very difficult position for the other side.
MR. M. COLLINS:
And you are making it more difficult. Well, do as you like.
MR. DE VALERA:
If you take over the Presidency of the Republic and go on with the Treaty you are creating a great deal of difficulty in that; and you are creating a great deal of suspicion in the minds of the people. So I suggest that we should adjourn.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I thought so---at last the cat is out of the bag. Now, this consideration for our side comes rather curiously. All right. We do not want to adjourn if you do not. I know we want to consult amongst ourselves, because the difficulties are great. But let us adjourn.
MR. DE VALERA:
I am quite prepared to go on.
MR. SEAN MACSWINEY:
We do not understand it. I do not know whether the Chairman of the Delegation is prepared to answer those questions.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
To put the matter in order, I move the adjournment. I would like to know whether I am in authority in my office. Do I give up my department until the Minister for Local Government is elected?
MR. DE VALERA:
The Republic for the moment is without a head.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I presume I am acting in authority.
MR. DE VALERA:
If you want to keep to the Constitution you have got to elect the Chief Executive who, by his office, is head of the State. If you elect the head of the Republic you have to set up your Executive officers and go ahead.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
I want to know where I am. I do not want to take on any powers I have not got.
MR. DE VALERA:
You have got none now.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Then I formally move the adjournment. I understand that this building is going to be used to-morrow for University purposes. If so, you want to make some arrangements.
THE SPEAKER:
Have you any official communication to that effect?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Somebody told me that the lectures were starting to-morrow.
THE SPEAKER:
Do not mind what somebody told you [laughter].
MR. J. J. O'KELLY:
I want to make one observation of a personal nature. I have tried to conduct myself as well as I could. The suggestion has been made from the other side that my putting you that question was meant to embarrass the other side. I put you a question as to whether that motion was in order, and you replied it was not. That is a sufficient vindication for me. I repudiate that suggestion.
MR. M. COLLINS:
If you, Mr. Speaker, will tell me what I have to do---if I have to give in a notice of motion for to-morrow---I will do it.
THE SPEAKER:
Yes. Any business that is not taken up with the consent of the House can only be discussed on notice.
MR. MACCABE:
I second the motion for adjournment.
The House adjourned at 6.45 p.m., to 11 o'clock on Tuesday, 10th January.
Following the adjournment, the Anti-Treaty members met in a private room in the University. Kathleen Clarke recalls the events ‘ de Valera was in the chair, and said that he wished to resign; he would go back to his reaching. He was prepared to be the leader of the Irish people, but did not wish to be the leader of a party. I said that was all bunkum. He was never the leader of the Irish people, he was leader of the Republican section of the Irish people and he was still in that position. He did not resign. Perhaps I gave him the line he was seeking, and if I could have seen into the future I would have let him go back to his teaching.’
Kathleen Clarke. ‘Revoloutionary Woman’ O’Brien Press 1991. P194
10
An administration was formed led by Griffith. De Valera and the Anti-Treaty Group left the Dail in protest, along with him went Erskine Childers, Austin Stack, Cathal Brugha and Robert Barton. Collins remained as head of the IRB along with the IRA Chief of Staff, Richard Mulcahy, Chief of Organisation; Diarmuid O’Hegarty and the Adjutant General; Gearoid O’Sullivan. Kevin O’Higgins became Minister for Economic Affairs.
DÁIL EIREANN PUBLIC SESSION, Tuesday, January 10th, 1922
THE SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) took the Chair at 11.30 a.m., and said:
THE SPEAKER
A telegram has been received from Cardinal Gasparri, Papal Secretary of State to the Vatican. My knowledge of Italian does not enable me to read it. The English translation of the telegram is: <SMALL>
The Holy Father rejoices with the Irish people because of the understanding or agreement, and prays that the Lord will send His blessing on the noble chosen people which has passed through such a long sorrow, ever faithful to the Catholic Church.---Cardinal Gasparri.</SMALL>
The telegram is addressed to the President, Dáil Eireann, Mansion House, Dublin. I suppose when the Dáil makes its arrangements for carrying on, a reply will be sent in due course. I have received the following communication:
<SMALL>To Professor Mac Neill, Speaker, Dáil Eireann. Monday, January 9th, 1922.
I am directed by the National Executive of the Irish Labour Party and Trades Union Congress, the national exponents of the will of the organised workers of Ireland now in session, to request that the assembly will receive and hear a deputation on matters of extreme urgency and gravity affecting the lives of the people whom they represent. The desire of the delegation is to impress on An Dáil the political and economic situation in the country; the great problems of unemployment; reversion to grass of hundreds of thousands of acres of land in the present year; the imminence of a vast industrial upheaval due to attempts to degrade the standard of life of the people; and to call attention to the necessity for the functioning of a stable authority which will exercise power and authority in these urgent matters.
I am, faithfully yours, Thomas Johnson, Secretary.</SMALL>
I understand the delegation is waiting to be received. A delegation can only be received here if it be the will of the Dáil, and that would require a motion duly moved and seconded. It is also understood that when a delegation is received here there is no discussion in the presence of the delegation. Its statement is simply received.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I beg to move that we receive this delegation of Labour. I need hardly point out to the House the very important part that the Labour Movement of this country has played in the affairs of the last four or five years.
MR. DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. WALSH:
It will be agreed by everybody here that in every critical stage of our history a great and potent weapon which was always at our disposal, was to be found in the body to whom we are giving permission to address this House to-day. It is well, from many points of view, that the country should know the views of Labour from the economic standpoint, and it is also well that we should learn whatever there is to be learned from the difficulties and drawbacks under which Labour is suffering at the moment.
MR. S. T. O'KELLY:
I beg to second that the Labour delegation be received.
THE SPEAKER:
I am told that the delegation is not ready. It did not expect to be received so promptly, and it asks to be received after the mid-day adjournment.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Mr. Speaker, I ask your permission to move motion number three on the Agenda, as it is a matter of the greatest and most urgent national importance.
THE SPEAKER:
Item number three on the Agenda is a motion by Mr. Michael Collins `that Mr. Arthur Griffith be appointed President of Dáil Eireann'. I take it that the first thing that it is necessary for us to do is to make arrangements for the administration of the country.
MR. DE VALERA:
Is the motion in order?
THE SPEAKER:
I think there is no question that the motion is in order. The administration of the country is the first of all concerns.
MR. M. COLLINS:
The reason that I do this is that the Irish nation at the present moment is a ship without a captain, and a ship, we all know, cannot get on without a captain. I want to move this motion so that we may have some captain for the ship. I saw a thing happening down at home years ago that I can illustrate my remarks with, I think, in an apt way. I remember one day passing along the road and I saw two horses standing in a field with a plough behind them, and there was no ploughman. I watched that thing for about two hours, and the ploughman was still absent. The horses that were able to plough were idle---there was no ploughman between the handles. There was no work done. Now, a bad ploughman is better than no ploughman, and the Irish nation is watching us at the present moment; in the same way as I watched that scene they are watching us. They see the horses idle, the plough idle; they see that we are doing nothing at all; they see that we are not taking action to put any sort of ploughman between the handles. I knew where the ploughman was. He was in some place wasting his time. We are very much before the Irish nation at the present moment in the position of that ploughman. Some people know where he was all right. We must form some kind of a staple Government to stop the position of anarchy that we are allowing the country to drift into. Here is a thing that is typical of what is happening. Everybody knows---no one better than the men from the South of Ireland---that I hold no brief for the Cork Examiner; but I have received this letter and it is typical of what will happen in the country if we allow the present state of affairs to continue. The writer of the letter---George Crosbie---is no friend of mine [Deputies:`Nor ours']. The letter is:
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Knowing as I do the intense strain you must be under for some time past, I am loth to trouble you, but I feel it is incumbent on us to explain how we are situated. At two o'clock this morning the copy of a proclamation which appears in to-day's paper was brought into us, and we were ordered to insert it. You will understand that things may appear in the Examiner published by us under duress.
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Of course, if the Examiner had any pluck it would not publish anything under duress. At the same time I call those methods Black-and-Tan methods, and I am against Black-and-Tan methods, no matter where they appear. If this motion is accepted I can only suggest that the position would then be in our hands to make the best we can of it, and to report to some future meeting of the Dáil. The position of drift is the worst of all positions, and we have said a good deal about our being here, talking. I feel that members know I adopted that attitude at meetings often before. They know I never believed it was at meetings work was done, because while you are at meetings you cannot do any work. We are here talking day after day, and we are getting no results of any kind. Any kind of action is better than no action. Supposing, for instance, that Mr. Griffith is beaten for this---what position are we in then? We are in the position of not being on one side or the other. It will simply be a position that will make us more and more laughable. In my estimation we have given the North East of Ireland every excuse for not coming in. They would say: `Who would go into a body like that, with the methods they employ, and the uselessness of their discussions?' We are also giving the English an opportunity for remaining here. I can only see it in this way. I will use the word `obstruction'. The tactics are obstructionist tactics. It is all very well to say ‘We will not interfere with you'. I have heard a thing this morning that shows that the interference has already started. Why should not the departments of Dáil Eireann function? Why should not the Labour Department, for instance, go on with arbitrations? Why should there be an attempt by anyone to stop its officials from going on with arbitrations which would help the country and prevent it from getting into a chaotic state? It does not matter who is at the head of that department, so long as it is officiating for the Irish nation. The opposition side want to retain all the machinery. They want to say to England: `We are still unfriendly,' and then they want to turn round to us at a later stage and say: `I told you so'. Without the co-operation of the departments---whatever the cooperation of individuals may do---this thing cannot be a success, and on the people who will prevent this begin made a success lies the responsibility, and not on us. That is what I want to say before Ireland. It is on the people who will prevent it, and on the people who are employing these tactics, the responsibility rests and the cost of failure rests---if there is failure. That is what I want to say here publicly now. The only way to get rid of it is to accept things in the spirit of good-will. Does anybody think if England does not fulfil her promises I will be less against her than ever I was? Does anybody really believe that if England does not fulfil her promises any one of us will be less against her? I mentioned yesterday the case of the signed cheque. The answer was that maybe the funds were not there to meet it. You can test whether the funds are there or not by the signed cheque, but you cannot test it by an unsigned cheque.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
You have no right to take a cheque for a farthing in the pound in any case.
MR. M. COLLINS:
You can test whether the funds are there by the signed cheque but not by the unsigned cheque. It is only by passing this motion we will show that we are capable of doing something constructive, and that we will show that we are capable of running the affairs of the nation. It is only by passing this motion we have any sort of constitutional authority here. This is a body of the representatives of Ireland. I regard this body as being the Sovereign Assembly of the Irish nation, and we are responsible to the people who sent us here. The fact that the sovereign capacity of this Assembly should be questioned by anybody shows that we ourselves do not regard ourselves as being what we are. I always regarded the Dáil as being the Sovereign Assembly of Ireland. I regard it as being the Sovereign Assembly of Ireland still, and it does not make it less sovereign because Lloyd George says it is not. It is not what Lloyd George says. It is what the Irish people say. It is not what the English Parliament says. It is what we say. The English papers called us a murder gang. The Irish people did not believe we were a murder gang. If the English Parliament called this Assembly illegal I did not regard it as being illegal. I do not regard it now as being illegal. I do not take my opinions from the English side. I take them from the Irish side. It is in that spirit that we can make this Treaty a success, and that we can make the Irish nation a success. It is only in that spirit. It is not by words and formulas; it is by heart and soul. We must see by now that we have talked long enough, without doing anything constructive; and this motion will enable us to do something constructive. The difficulties we may be faced with cannot be overstated. Any young government---I can see the difficulties that come before it. I can see the frightful difficulties. Every new government has these difficulties to go through. Some of the governments that have been started in Europe found their difficulties enormous. You have only to point to any one of these new governments that have been formed to see that up to the present moment it is an unstable government. My belief about the thing is this: that whether we like it or whether we do not, the world is entering on a different era. My belief during the war was: that the plain people of France and the plain people of Germany knew some better way of adjusting their difficulties than by killing each other. That is my belief still. And about the people of England, my belief is, that unless we show that we do not mean to be hostile, the people of England are a great deal more kingly than the King. I know very well that the people of England had very little regard for the people of Ireland, and that when you lived among them you had to be defending yourself constantly from insults. Every Irishman here who has lived amongst them knows very well that the plain people of England are much more objectionable towards us than the upper classes. Every man who has lived amongst them knows that they are always making jokes about Paddy and the pig, and that sort of thing. Every man who has lived amongst them appreciates that it is harder to get on with them than with those of the English people who understand us better. If we show that we are going to operate from the outset in a spirit of hostility, that will give the English their excuse for remaining here. If we show, as we have been showing as best we can that we are unable to carry on, England will say, and say with a certain amount of truth: `I am afraid we will have to remain in Ireland to preserve law and order'. That is what the Americans say when they go to preserve law and order in Mexico. I do not know whether there is not a certain amount of reason for the Americans going to Mexico to preserve law and order [`question']. I suggest that we should get some kind of agreement on the majority side; anyway we should get some kind of agreement that we would be allowed to go on with the work without prevention, and that this motion can be passed, if not unanimously, at least without dissent. I do not want to commit the other side to approval of this motion. I appeal to them for the sake of Ireland to let this motion go through, and give Ireland a chance [applause].
COMMANDANT EOIN O'DUFFY:
I rise to second the motion moved by Mr. Collins. I have only one or two words to say. In the first place, I feel very much that our President thought it well to place his resignation in our hands. Now that the Dáil has approved of the Treaty it is but right that the majority should choose their captain, and we have chosen Mr. Griffith. It is not necessary, at all, for me to emphasise the claims that Mr. Griffith has in the presence of this Assembly. The members of this House know him as well as I do. All I want to do is to say with Mr. Collins: now that the Treaty is approved of we should get on with the work.
MR. CEANNT:
It is quite evident now to every member of this Dáil, and to people outside, that the one ambition of those who are supporting the Treaty was to get rid of the President of the Republic, and to substitute another Minister for him. The Minister of Finance has referred to a letter from the Cork Examiner stating certain things had to be printed in the Examiner last night or this morning. That shows how the feeling in the South of Ireland is, because of the Examiner misrepresenting the views of the people. It is now we are beginning to hear the voice of the people. These are the people who saw their city devastated by the Black-and-Tans, who saw the tragedy of Kerry Pike, who saw the whole County of Cork left in ruins. They are beginning to have their voice heard now. I remind the Minister of Finance that he was not so scrupulous going into an office here not many years ago, when we had a hostile Press; and I would remind him also that not long ago the Examiner and the Crosbies were recruiting sergeants for the British Empire. They see now that they cannot run against the wishes of the people.
MR. COLLINS:
I never did such a thing. I was never responsible for sending men on a job of that kind, or any other disgraceful thing.
MR. CEANNT:
It was done officially. Some member of the Headquarters Staff or the Dáil was responsible for it. It was done officially.
MR. COLLINS:
I was not responsible for anything disgraceful.
MR. CEANNT:
I may say, a Chinn Chomhairle, officially or unofficially it was done, but what was done in Cork was not officially done by the members of the minority here, but it expresses the will of the people in Cork. It shows how they are feeling.
MR. MACENTEE:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I rise simply to state that I, for one, cannot support the election of Mr. Griffith as President of the Dáil. In doing that I want to make it clear that we on this side do not question the right of the majority of this House to select their leader, but we do question, very, very strongly, the wisdom of selecting as their leader the man who was bound by his signature to bring down the Irish Republic. No one would question the urgency of selecting or electing a Chief Executive Officer now, but the urgency of the matter is no valid reason why such a step should be taken without very great and very grave consideration. We all know the ship wants a captain---we all know the horses want a ploughman---but we should take care not to select as captain of the ship the man who is bound by his signature to wreck it. We should take care that the ploughman we are going to choose is not the one who is bound to root up the Irish Republic. I say we all know, whatever else we may do, we ought not to do that, because it is unnecessary that we should do it. It is not essential, in order that the English may honour the agreement which they have signed, the agreement which they have entered into with the delegation, that the Government of the Dáil should be the Provisional Government of the Free State. It is not. I go further, I say it is not expedient in the interests of those who stand for the Treaty that any man who signed the Articles of Agreement should be President of the Dáil. I say that in taking the step they are taking to-day, the other side are going further than their signatures warrant. When this is being done I can only hark back to 1914. I can only recollect what happened then to the Irish Volunteers. We all know, how, when it seemed likely that Mr. Asquith, another English Liberal, was going to trick another Irish Constitutional Nationalist, the people of this country sprang to arms in his defence, but Mr. Redmond, anxious to prove himself a man who was better than his word, acting at the behest of Asquith, set himself to capture the machinery of the Volunteer organisation in exactly the same way as those who support this Treaty are attempting now to capture the machinery of the Republic. That, Sir, we all admitted, was the gravest tactical mistake which Mr. Redmond made. If he had gone forward and said: `I fulfilled the letter of my bond when I kept you here in office for these years, I will go not one whit further, I have no authority over these people, I cannot compel them to dissolve. I will not attempt to capture them', instead of this country being faced with the betrayal of 1914, the Irish Volunteers would have been there to uphold and support Mr. Redmond, and would have been there to do a great deal more. When the European war broke out they would have been there to set up the Republic and they would have been there to uphold it as the majority of the people of this country. Now, I say that those who are asking us to hand over to them the machinery of the Republic of Ireland are doing it gratuitously, and that is what, to me, is the bitterest thing about it. It is not necessary it should be done at all, but it is being done, as I said before, in order to prove once more to Englishmen that Irishmen were better than their words. They are doing gratuitously what Mr. Redmond was compelled to do under coercion in 1914. I say not only is it unnecessary, but it is inexpedient. I say, furthermore, that it is very dangerous for the future of the country that it should be done. Those who stand on the other side, and I know that they stand there in good faith, because they believe they are doing the best for their country in this crisis, should look back over the many years of history. They never saw one Treaty signed by England with Ireland that England did not dishonour. Have they any assurance that this Treaty will be honoured either? They have nothing except the seven signatories who are members of the English Government which can change from day to day. Those who stand on the other side may be, themselves, very quickly floundering in the sea of English treachery. For goodness sake, let them leave the Irish people some rock firm enough to cling to, some rock whereby they may scramble back to the dry land of the Republic. It may be, in suggesting this course, I am not taking the attitude which will appeal to a man who has had twenty years of experience in public life, and who, if he will permit me to say so, has brought nothing into this Dáil as part of that experience, except the pettiest tricks in public debate I have ever listened to. That gentleman never rose in debate, since this grave and vital question came to be dealt with, to consider it upon principles, but upon personalities. His avowed function in this House was not to convince but to amuse. I do not want to follow his bad example, but in his discussion on this question he made personal references to my stature. If I am little it is not my fault. But, Sir, if I were to consider a grave question introduced by the little Emperor, by the little Wizard of Wales, and the little Pope of Rome, and ask no man to give it grave consideration upon that account, I should have thought my words had little sense and little weight. Now, Sir, I say this may not appear to be strictly in accordance with all the practices of the Dublin Corporation and the South Dublin Union. But a nation in a grave emergency like this must look, if you like, for some unusual expedient to get out of it, to tide it through, at any rate; and therefore while it may not seem to be strictly in accordance with precedents, it is in accordance with principle that now, while we are in a transition state, some transitional or neutral Executive should be formed for this House. Since that cannot be done---they on the other side will not permit it to be done---all I can say is, that I am compelled to vote against the resolution.
MR. DE VALERA:
A Chinn Chomhairle, what troubles me most in this matter is the whole question of the position we are placed in. I would like to ask the Chairman of the Delegation, Mr. Griffith, whether, if he is elected, he intends to act and function as the Executive of the Republic, because this is the Government of the Irish Republic and nothing else. When we meet here we do not meet as a political party, we do not meet here as the Parliament of Southern Ireland or anything of that sort. We meet here definitely as the Government of the established Republic of Ireland, and any act whatsoever of ours which is not in accordance with that is unconstitutional. Now, Mr. Griffith can have no fault to find with me for bringing this forward for this reason: when he was in London I wrote to him definitely and pointed out that if any arrangement was come to, very great care would have to be exercised as to the manner of procedure by which any transitional Government should be set up. This is the first example of the difference between Document No. 2 and the Treaty, and it will stand up in judgment against you more times than now. There was an arrangement here---a transitional arrangement. I will read the paragraph. It will show, at any rate, that it is not tactics on my part:
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That by way of transitional arrangement for the administration of Ireland during the interval which must elapse between the date hereof and the setting up of a Parliament and Government of Ireland in accordance herewith, the members elected for constituencies in Ireland since the passing of the British Government of Ireland act in 1920, shall, at a meeting summoned for the purpose, elect a transitional government to which the British Government and Dáil Eireann shall transfer the authority, powers and machinery requisite for the discharge of its duties, provided that every member of such transitional government shall have signified in writing his or her acceptance of this instrument.
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Now, it is obvious that if a Treaty had come here which it would be constitutional for us to ratify as the Government of the Republic that a Provisional Government would have to be set up, and that it would have to derive its powers---seeing it is contested---we hold this would have to be signed by both parties, and therefore it would have to be a neutral document. The powers of that Provisional Government should be derived, from our point of view, which is the only point of view Irishmen will stand for, solely from this body. It will have no authority from the Irish nation unless it gets it definitely from this body which is the Government of the Irish Republic. As far as the British point of view is concerned, any claim that authority comes here from the King and Parliament and the rest of it---we deny that, and we will die denying it. I am sure nobody here will say for a moment that the authority of Ireland comes from any outside body. We are now in the position of Grattan and Flood. Flood said it was not the same thing to assert a thing yourself as to get acceptance of that assertion by other persons. You have simply the assertion now. That is no use. If somebody tries to press a claim on to you, and he admits that claim is not founded, or accepts some agreement which implies it is not founded, then there is no dispute. The assertion on our part is always in danger of being contested by someone else. Therefore I say peace is not established by that Treaty, because the contest will go on. Britain will assert that it is from it we derive authority. We assert it is from Ireland.
MR. M. COLLINS:
The Irish people.
MR. DE VALERA:
This Assembly has no right to disestablish itself, or vote away the independence of Ireland. You have no power whatever unless it comes from the Government of the Republic which is established. Hence I say, if Mr. Griffith takes this Chief Executive, it is from this assembly. He can only do it undertaking it is going to function as the Executive of this assembly; that is, the Executive of the Government of the Republic of Ireland.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
A Chinn Chomhairle, in October, 1917, after three nights discussion, Mr. Griffith finally agreed to the inclusion of this clause in the Constitution of the Sinn Fein Organisation:
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Sinn Fein aims at securing international recognition of Ireland as an independent Irish Republic. Having achieved that status the Irish people may by referendum freely choose their own form of government.
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If Mr. Arthur Griffith had not agreed to that he would not have got the support of the people who are prepared to make any sacrifice for Ireland. He agreed to this. He got their support. He has broken that undertaking. Before he and the four delegates went away to start these negotiations, Mr. Griffith agreed that they would not come to any decision until they had at first submitted it to the Cabinet at home, and awaited the reply from the Cabinet. He also agreed that they would not sign any Treaty until it had first been submitted to the Cabinet here. On the Saturday before this Treaty was signed Mr. Griffith undertook to tell Mr. Lloyd George that, though he was not prepared to break, nevertheless he would sign nothing, and would come back to us having signed nothing. Mr. Griffith has broken that, and consequently, no matter what undertaking he gives now, I object to his being elected as President of the Dáil.
MR. DE VALERA:
I would like to have my question answered definitely, because I cannot, by sitting here during that motion, participate in any way---
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
On a point of order, a Chinn Chomhairle, a member having spoken is not entitled to speak again. The usual procedure is, whoever has to answer questions answers them in bulk at the end.
MR. SEAN MACSWINEY:
Last night I said we wished to hear some questions answered. There was a list of questions before Mr. Griffith and we want them answered. We want the answers now before the vote is taken.
MR. HARRY BOLAND:
When President de Valera put his resignation before this House the member for South Dublin said it was usual for a man seeking the support of this House to define his policy. Do you not think the same applies in this question, and that Mr. Griffith should be asked to define his policy.
MR. GRIFFITH:
The questions, I think, which the Deputies refer to were sent across by Mr. Stack. They are:
`(1) Whether he had any communication, direct or indirect, from the British Government, in connection with the Treaty?'
The only communication I had was this produced here, except one where he stated it was not a Treaty, and I got the official title: `Articles of Agreement between Ireland and Great Britain'.
`(2) Whether he had been informed what kind of legislation they proposed to pass in the British Parliament in order to carry into effect the Articles of Agreement?'
The legislation they will pass must be a Free State Act. Of course, they must pass an Act of Ratification.
`(3) Who would summon the members of the Southern Parliament, and when?'
I will have them summoned.
`(4) Whether the proposed Provisional Government would be elected by and from these members?'
They would.
(5) Whether the Provisional Government would act in conjunction with the Lord Lieutenant, and would it function under the statutory powers conferred by the Partition Act?'
If it is necessary to use the Lord Lieutenant as it is necessary to use liaison officers we will use him.
`(6) What were the powers referred to in Clause 17 of the Treaty which would be transferred by the British Government to the Provisional Government?'
The general powers for maintaining law and order, police, and the evacuation of the country by British troops. These are the answers to these questions. As to Mr. Boland's question and President de Valera's question: if I am elected I shall use my position to give effect to the constitutional vote of this assembly in approving of the Treaty. I shall use the resources at our disposal for the keeping of public order and security until such time as we can have an election for the Free State Parliament, and at that Free State Election I will let the will of the people decide whether we have a right to accept the Free State, or whether they wish something else.
MR. DE VALERA:
It is absolutely necessary for us to have a definite answer to this question: will the President of Dáil Eireann about to be elected function as hitherto as the Chief Executive Officer of the Irish Republic?
MR. GRIFFITH:
The President is, I understand, President of Dáil Eireann, according to the Constitution. The Dáil will remain in existence until such time---and I will see that it is kept in existence until such time---as we can have an election, when this question will be put to the people.
MR. DE VALERA:
It is not an answer to my question. It is very important, because any orders from this assembly, to have legal effect with the army, will have to come from this body---from the Chief Executive Officer of the Irish Republic. They are called the Irish Republican Army and all the rest of it.
A DEPUTY:
The Irish Volunteers.
MR. DE VALERA:
We want to know definitely. If you want them as a volunteer army, all right, but if you are going to order them as the Army of the Republic orders will have to come from the person who is elected as the Chief Executive Officer of the Irish Republic. I want to know definitely if Mr. Griffith is going to be President of this assembly as the Chief Executive of the Irish Republic, as the President hitherto functioned? The reason I want to know is this: if he is not going to do that, I hold that this assembly is no longer the Sovereign Assembly of the Irish nation, acting as the Government of the Irish Republic which it is officially called. This is, in the army and elsewhere, spoken of as Dáil Eireann, the Government of the Irish Republic. Therefore, if the Chief Executive Officer is elected, to have legal force his orders must come from him as such, and I want to know before I vote for him---and I am asking that, not merely for myself, but for every member on our side---we want to know definitely where he stands in that matter. Any vote taken, inconsistent with the position of the Republic as established we hold is unconstitutional and illegal. The Treaty was approved, but, in a sense, this delegation did not act in accordance with the letter of the Treaty. You do not approve of anything you please. You approve of a definite written Treaty. If you fulfil that you will have to do this---you will have to carry out Article 17 to the letter:
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By way of provisional arrangement for the administration of Southern Ireland during the interval which must elapse between the date hereof and the Constitution of a Parliament and Government of the Irish Free State in accordance therewith, steps shall be taken forthwith for summoning a meeting of members of Parliament elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland since the passing of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and for constituting a provisional Government.
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does the British Government not question Dáil Eirean doing it---
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And the British Government shall take the steps necessary to transfer to such provisional Government the powers and machinery requisite for the discharge of its duties, et cetera.
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Under that it is the British Government that has to transfer to you the powers. If you look at Document No. 2, Dáil Eireann gives you the powers. Otherwise you would be acting unconstitutionally. We hold this Government has not the authority of the Irish people until the Irish people have voted on it. Take your powers from the British Government and set it up. What does the vote in this assembly mean? It means that we will not, as the Government of the Republic, interfere with you, that you have, so to speak, a license to carry on. If it were not for that we would have to take action to prevent you from doing anything counter to it, as we would against Dublin Castle; but you can now go ahead by reason of the vote of the majority of this assembly to carry out that Treaty to the letter. That is what it is, and nothing else. I hold, therefore, if you want us the majority of this assembly to elect a President of this assembly, he will have to act as the Chief Executive of this of the Government of the Republic of Ireland.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Mr. Griffith does not seem inclined to answer that question by a plain `yes' or `no'.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I assure Miss MacSwiney I am very much inclined to answer it.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Are you going to work as the Republican Executive---yes or no?
MR. GRIFFITH:
The Republic of Ireland remains in being until the Free State comes into operation.
MR. DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. GRIFFITH:
President de Valera yesterday threw this body into confusion by resigning and leaving no government in existence. Public order and security have to be maintained. If I am elected I will occupy whatever position President de Valera occupied.
MR. DE VALERA:
Hear, hear.
MR. GRIFFITH:
Now, that is right. In that position he was not the President of the Republic, but the President of Dáil Eireann according to the constitution [`No! no!'].
MR. DE VALERA:
It is President of Dáil Eireann, which is written down as the Government of the Republic of Ireland. So I was President of the Republic of Ireland.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I do not mind a single rap about words. I say whatever position---if you like to put it that way---that the President resigned from yesterday, I will, if I am elected, occupy the same position until the Irish people have an opportunity of deciding for themselves.
MR. DE VALERA:
That is a fair answer. I feel that I can sit down in this assembly while such an election is going on, because it is quite constitutional that Mr. Griffith, if elected, is going to be in the same position which I held, which is President of Dáil Eireann; that is, President of the Government of the Republic of Ireland. Now, the next question. As President and Chief Officer your duty will be to uphold and maintain the Republic of Ireland. That is your oath. You will, as President of that be in duty bound to uphold the Republic, and that was why Document No. 2 was so necessary. That is why I, as President, would not be keeping my oath if I did anything to subvert the established Government. Mr. Griffith will similarly be bound by that oath as I was, and he will have to give an express undertaking that he will not use his powers for anything except to maintain the established Government during the period until the other government is set up. In other words, whatever you do, that you will not use your office when acting as President of the Republic of Ireland in any way to subvert that Republic; that you will do nothing which will make that Republic less a fact in the minds of the Irish people than it is to-day. I hold you will be breaking your oath of office if you do anything else.
MR. DOLAN:
May I ask President de Valera what was his interpretation of the oath he took?
MR. DE VALERA:
Yes, and I kept it to the letter. That is the difference between Document No. 2 and the Treaty. You will see that I preserved in every line of it the established Republic. There is not a line of it inconsistent with the Republic, but there was what any Government might do, what France might do, what America was going to do, what some of them have done---go into the League of Nations and accept, if they wished to, any member of the pre-constituted group as President or head. I, therefore, say in reply to the question asked as to how I interpreted my oath, that I interpreted it in that fashion. I kept it, not merely for the interests of Ireland, but I kept it in the negotiations to the letter. Otherwise I felt I would be using personal views or something else to subvert my sworn oath as head of the nation.
THE SPEAKER:
I would like this discussion to be carried on without interruption. When I say that I mean without interruption.
MR. DE VALERA:
My question then is: whether Mr. Griffith, who will occupy the same position as I have occupied, and which I interpreted as binding on me by oath, will not use his office to subvert the established Republic?
DR. MACCARTAN:
I do not think it is a fair question. It is presuming that Mr. Griffith is going to become a perjurer.
MR. DE VALERA:
It is absolutely necessary, if we are going to have the opposite party, whose purpose is the subversion of the Republic, the turning of the Republic into a monarchy, the turning of independence into dependence, that we ask the chief exponent of that policy whether he is going to maintain and support something which his policy is to subvert and destroy. Surely we have a very good reason for asking that such an officer, before he is appointed---that he will not use his office which is intended to maintain a certain theory, to destroy it.
MR. LIAM MELLOWES:
A Chinn Chomhairle, before the question is answered, may I also ask whether Mr. Griffith, if he is elected President and Prime Minister of the Dáil in accordance with the Constitution, will give an undertaking that he will not use the Executive authority of Dáil Eireann to summon and work the Provisional Government according to Articles 17 and 18 of the Treaty?
MR. GRIFFITH:
President de Valera has asked me will I use my office to subvert the Irish Republic. I think I have already answered the question, but I will answer it again. I said if I am elected to this position I will keep the Republic in being until such time as the establishment of the Free State is put to the people, to decide for or against. But if it means am I not going to carry into effect, the will of this Sovereign Assembly about the Treaty, I am going to carry it into effect. This body has approved of the Treaty, this body wants the Treaty put through and then sent to the Irish people. That I am going to do, of course. Now, as to Mr. Mellowes' question: `If he is elected President and Prime Minister of the Dáil in accordance with the Constitution, will he give an undertaking that he will not use the Executive authority of Dáil Eireann to summon and work the Provisional Government appointed according to Articles 17 and 18 of the Treaty?' I do not quite understand that question, but I expect he means this: we must set up a Provisional Government under Articles 17 and 18. We are not setting up the Free State Government now. Of course, I am going to use all the machinery I can to put it into operation. Let nobody have the slightest misunderstanding about where I stand. I am in favour of this Treaty. I want this Treaty put into operation. I want the Provisional Government set up. I want the Republic to remain in being until the time when the people can have a Free State Election, and give their vote.
MISS MACSWINEY:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I think this is a very serious matter. The President has asked certain definite questions. Mr. Griffith has answered that he will undertake to uphold, or rather that he will keep the Republic in being until a Free State Constitution is worked out. Now, I begin by quoting a leading article from the Times this morning. I think it will keep us quite clear:
<SMALL>
Dáil Eireann, acting for the people, has endorsed the Treaty; that is, it has by a majority approved of the Treaty. To-day we hope that it will authorise Mr. Griffith to summon the Parliament of Southern Ireland for some day in the present week.
</SMALL>
That is what Mr. Griffith is looking for authority to do from this Republican Government of Ireland. We must be quite clear, and I think Mr. Griffith's answer has made us quite clear that Mr. Griffith means to use his authority as Chief Executive to get Dáil Eireann endorsed by Mr. Lloyd George as the Provisional Government of Ireland. That includes the four members of Trinity College and the exclusion of Sean O'Mahony. Mr. Michael Collins, in his speech proposing the motion before you, talked in his usual bluff, good-humoured fashion, of any kind of action being better than no action. Now, I maintain that is absolutely wrong on the face of it. Is it better for me to sit quietly and do nothing or to go out and murder somebody? Surely no action in that ease would be infinitely better than any kind of action. Mr. Collins suggests that he and Mr. Griffith should be calmly allowed to murder the Irish Republic. He said many things, and I am going to deal with the chief points in his speech. But one thing he said which is important: `that Dáil Eireann is not going to be more solemn'---he had said it was the Parliament of the Irish nation. He said it was not going to be more solemn because---
MR. COLLINS:
More `sovereign' I said.
MISS MACSWINEY:
That is still more important. It is not going to be more sovereign because Lloyd George says it is. There is the cat out of the bag. The English morning papers are full of the difficulties with which the English Government is faced in legalising an assembly which will be the Provisional Government of Ireland; and Mr. Lloyd George played up to the sentiment of the Irish people by letting them think Dáil Eireann is going to do this thing. Not only that, but two members of the delegation have been carefully playing up to the sentiment of the younger members of this House throughout the whole of the negotiations. Mr. Michael Collins' speech this morning was absolutely along those lines. Dáil Eireann is the sovereign Parliament of the Irish nation but it is expressly, under its Constitution, the Government of the Republic of Ireland.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Would you mind showing us that?
MR. STACK:
It is in the oath.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Do you remember your oath?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
It is the Constitution we are speaking of.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Now, the oath taken by members of Dáil Eireann was:
<SMALL>
I do solemnly swear and affirm that I do not and shall not yield voluntary support to any pretended government, authority, or power within Ireland, hostile or inimical thereto, and I do further swear that to the best of my knowledge and ability I will support and defend the Irish Republic and the Government of the Irish Republic, which is Dáil Eireann, against all enemies foreign and domestic, and I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation.
</SMALL>
Now, Mr. Griffith is looking for the Chief Executive power of this Parliament today; and he has been asked if, before accepting it or asking us to vote on it, he will give us an undertaking to uphold the Republic in virtue and in accordance with that oath. He has also been asked if he will give an undertaking that he will not use the powers vested in him to summon or work the Provisional Government according to Articles 17 and 18 of the Treaty. He has stated, in answer to another question that he is to summon the Provisional Government, or rather, a meeting of members elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland. Now, Mr. Arthur Griffith therefore has to act in two capacities. He has to act, if he is elected by this House this morning, as Chief Executive of the Irish Republic. He has also declared he has to---he has been deputed by Mr. Lloyd George---to summon this meeting of the members who are to appoint a Provisional Government. All we ask from Mr. Griffith is a solemn undertaking here publicly in this House, and before the country, that he will not confuse or merge the two offices, that he will keep distinctly here in Dáil Eireann his Executive power as Chief Executive of the Irish Republic, and that, as plain Mr. Arthur Griffith without any authority from Dáil Eireann, he will go out and summon the Provisional Government apart from this Assembly altogether or summon the meeting of members elected to sit for constituencies in Southern Ireland. Now, we want Mr. Griffith to-day to give a solemn declaration in this House, and before the country, that he will not merge those two offices into one, that he will go as Mr. Griffith Chairman of the Delegation, and summon the meeting that is to set up the Provisional Government; that he will act as Prime Minister of this Assembly; and that the two Mr. Griffiths will have no connection whatever, as far as their offices go. That is what we are asking---Mr. Griffith's solemn undertaking before this House and before the Irish nation. Surely that is clear. And I appeal to the members of this House who have voted for the Treaty, and who, in voting for the Treaty, have declared again and again that they are not voting against the Republic---and I believe them---I believe they were perfectly honest in declaring that in voting for the Treaty they are not voting against the Republic. They voted against the re-election of President de Valera yesterday because they were told it had to be a party vote; they were told that if they voted for President de Valera they would be voting for the rejection of the Treaty. I appeal to them now with all the force that is in me to realise the great importance to the Irish nation of keeping Mr. Griffith's two offices absolutely and entirely distinct. Do not allow Lloyd George to endorse Dáil Eireann---it is what he wants to do---as the Provisional Government, and to invite the four Trinity College members into it and exclude Mr. Seán O'Mahony. Mr. Seán O'Mahony cannot be excluded from Dáil Eireann, Mr. Arthur Griffith.
MR. ROBINS:
On a point of order. Every member in Ireland, including the Trinity College members, were summoned to the first meeting of Dáil Eireann.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
They must take the oath.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Every representative in Ireland---even in the North-East Corner---is a member of Dáil Eireann, and if he only comes in and sits here we will welcome him if he takes the Oath of Allegiance. Moreover, every member in Ireland cannot sit in Mr. Griffith's parliament, or at the meeting of members summoned for constituencies of Southern Ireland. Before Mr. Griffith can use this Assembly in order to set up his Provisional Government he has to exclude Mr. Seán O'Mahony, and Mr. Seán O'Mahony is the test in this case, because he is the only member who sits for a constituency in what is called Northern Ireland, and has no seat in Southern Ireland, so-called. Further, and I ask you young men of this assembly who mean the Republic but who are voting for its subversion, to think carefully over this---if you elect Mr. Griffith without first getting a declaration from him, given to us solemnly here and to the Irish nation, that he will not combine the Executive power of Dáil Eireann with his office as Chairman of the Delegation to summon the meeting for Southern Ireland---I ask you to do that---that Mr. Griffith if he dares to use this Assembly, or the sixty-four members of it that support him, because he cannot use us, will first exclude Mr. Seán O'Mahony. Nothing would please Mr. Lloyd Gorge better than that you, by your vote here today, should elect Mr. Griffith as Executive of this Assembly and then let Mr. Griffith, as Executive of this Assembly, summon this meeting to set up a Provisional Government, because then he would be able to say that Dáil Eireann sanctioned the setting up of the Provisional Government. Dáil Eireann has not done that. Now, Mr. Collins asked us do we believe that he will be less against England if she breaks her word than he has been in the past. No, I do not, in heart. I believe he would be as much against her, but he is taking away from himself the power to be against her. It is not the will he is taking from himself; it is the power, and well England knows it. In my hotel this morning I sat at breakfast and heard two Englishmen discussing. this matter. One said to the other: `They will have to disestablish that Dáil Eireann before they can set up the Provisional Government' Now, that is what Mr. Griffith is asking you to do---to disestablish Dáil Eireann as the Sovereign Assembly of the Irish Republic, and set up an emasculated thing which will be the Provisional Government and, having done that, then this emasculated Assembly with the best gone from it, will appoint the Provisional Government and set up the Free State. That Assembly will not be Dáil Eireann, because, unless Mr. Griffith definitely gives that solemn promise today---that he will not combine the two offices, or, failing to give it, unless he is beaten in this Assembly to-day he and everyone who votes with him is automatically declaring himself guilty of treason, and voting himself out of Dáil Eireann. You do not kill Dáil Eireann, but you kill your own right to use the name. Mr. Collins has also said that he does not mind calling it Dáil Eireann. This meeting does object to this evil thing---`Call it Dáil Eireann or get some other Irish name'. You cannot call it Dáil Eireann because Dáil Eireann has been declared by the people to be the Government of the Irish Republic, and has been given that mandate and nothing else. Mr. Collins has also said that the North-East will say so and so, that they cannot come in while we talk and not make up our minds. We have made up our minds definitely. We have not changed them. They have. He also says that England will say they will have to remain in the country to preserve law and order. Let her say it; she has been saying it for a very long time; but never before drew from a Republican a desire, in order to win Mr. Lloyd George's good opinion, to subvert the authority of the Irish Republic. That is what it is---subverting the authority of the Irish Republic. We will maintain law and order all right. He says we will give the English an excuse for remaining in the country. Very well. The Irish Republic, when Mr. Collins has come back to his senses and to the Irish Republic, will be able to teach Mr. Lloyd George that it is the best of his policy to get out of our country. If this subversion of the Irish Republic should be forced on the country by a majority here, the Irish Republic cannot and it has no desire, I understand from President de Valera, to actively oppose the Provisional Government, but that Provisional Government is not, and will not be, Dáil Eireann. Dáil Eireann remains the Government of the Republic of Ireland. Mr. Michael Collins was also very emphatic about what the attitude of the English would be. There he contradicted a statement of his own a few moments before, that we were entering on a different era, and that the French people and the German people, if they had been consulted in the matter of the war, would have a different solution of the war from the one their Governments had. We all agree with him, I am sure. Were we to get the opinion of the English people on the President's alternative---there are things in it unpalatable to most of us, but there was no subversion of the Irish Republic. Now, that is what matters. Mr. Griffith will remember that before ever this Session of Dáil Eireann met that I remonstrated with him about the signing of that document and said to him: `take out the Dominion status, the Governor-General and the oath and even now we will stand together for the rest of it'. That shows that I, even though I would not like to give England a penny, or let a soldier of hers in our ports, am quite willing to realise that on account of our propinquity to England we will have to give up a little of the inessentials. When I say inessentials I do not mean money is not an essential, but I do mean it is not a principle. I would give England money, as I said before, in exactly the same spirit in which I would give a robber a reward for giving me back my purse. As to the attitude of the English people over there about Paddy and the pig, my own impression was that we had outlived that by about fifty years.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I often hit one of them on the nose for it.
MISS MACSWINEY:
My attitude if they talked like that would be an attitude of the most intense superiority. I never heard anything like their impudence, and I told them so, and remember, as you are strong so can you afford to be merciful, and when English fools talk like that why should we, in the strength of our knowledge of our own inherent culture, and the knowledge of the inherent greatness of the Irish people, be bothered by hitting them on the nose? Do you think that I am going to bother my head by hitting a little pup on the nose---a cur that may come to bark at me in the street.
MR. O'MAILLE:
Are we discussing what Miss MacSwiney would do?
MISS MACSWINEY:
We are discussing what Mr. Collins said---that the attitude of the English people was very insulting towards us, and that he had often heard insulting remarks about Paddy and the pig. I quite agree with Deputy O'Maille that it is tee-totally and entirely out of order, but it was Mr. Collins brought it in, not I. It was brought as a red-herring across the trail to show the English people are not friendly. Perhaps! But they are friendly to themselves, and the English people will not go to war on the difference between what Mr. Michael Collins is willing to give and what we are willing to give; and if they have any sense at all the English people will know from the debate here that we are in a position to deliver the goods, and that the delegation are not. There is my point. They must know that this Republican minority of ours is as anti-English as ever it was, and that this Treaty of theirs will not mean peace. They must know perfectly well that we will go on subverting their influence and their interests in every part of the world where England's interests lie. Therefore, when we say we are willing to make peace on certain terms, we are not only willing to do it, but we are able to do it. The Chairman of the Delegation and the whole delegation with him---bar one member of it; who has stood out supremely honourable though, I must confess, weak---who wants us to take this thing now, is not playing for peace with the English people. They cannot between the whole lot of them, deliver the goods because, I hold, the Irish nation gave them and gave us their mandate; and we are true to our mandate, while the majority of this House who supported the Treaty were false to it. I ask this House in voting on this question to get from Mr. Arthur Griffith the undertaking that we want him to give us and to the Irish nation publicly to-day---that he will not, as Chief Executive of this House summon that meeting, that he will only do it as Mr. Arthur Griffith, Chairman of the Delegation, not as President of An Dáil; that he will not use Dáil Eireann note-paper to summon that meeting, that he will not use any single official title given him by Dáil Eireann, or any official paper, or anything else of Dáil Eireann. If he gives us this solemn declaration then we can, as long as he is Executive of this House, forget he is Mr. Arthur Griffith, Chairman of the Delegation, and summoner of the meeting for the Provisional Government, and we can stay with him here still; but if he does not give that undertaking solemnly and publicly here without any evasion, then we can no longer have any hand, act, or part in this thing; and I ask the younger members of this assembly to realise what they are doing and support us in asking Mr. Griffith for that undertaking.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I did not interrupt Miss MacSwiney because she might have taken offence at it, but there was absolutely no necessity for her asking that question. I will summon this body to constitute the Provisional Government as Chairman of the Delegation, not as head of Dáil Eireann.
MISS MACSWINEY:
You promise also not to mix the two offices in any way?
MR. P. BRENNAN:
I resent very much one remark made by Deputy Miss MacSwiney. I do not mean any insult now to the other side, because there are good men on the other side. She said if her side left this assembly the best would be gone from it. It is hard to have to listen to that sort of thing.
DR. FERRAN:
I rise to oppose the motion that Mr. Arthur Griffith be Premier of this House. Mr. Griffith, in his answer to one of the questions to-day, admitted that he was palpably tricked by Mr. Lloyd George. Mr. Griffith, when he got this document, found it was labelled `Articles of Agreement'. He sent it back to Downing Street, and some clerk there blotted out the words `Articles of Agreement' and substituted `Treaty', and when he had that done he thought he had got a Treaty. In an answer to a question put by him to Mr. Lloyd George within the last few days he found he had no Treaty at all. Now, as regards the Presidency: it is necessary, I understand, that the head of every State when assuming office shall, by solemn oath, give an undertaking to maintain the Constitution of that State. That is a precaution that all States have found necessary for their own existence. Now, I want to ask Mr. Griffith is he prepared, if elected, to give that undertaking by solemn oath, that he will preserve the Constitution of this State, which is the Irish Republic?
MR. GRIFFITH:
I am not going to answer Doctor Ferran, and I shall not do so any more. I object to this manner of jumping up and putting pharisaical questions to me. The oath that President de Valera took I can take with the same covering clause President de Valera put into it, that he would take it for the good of Ireland, and use it to do the best for Ireland.
MR. DE VALERA:
I am speaking to the motion now. I asked some questions before. I just want to say this: that I think the other side know me sufficiently well to know I am not doing this through tactics, or trickery, or anything of that kind. I am doing it because I know the condition of the country, and I know perfectly well that if the Chief Executive of this House does not send orders as the Chief Executive of the Republic of Ireland, he will not be obeyed, because the men will be automatically dispensed from their oath of allegiance. I want to see that the thing is done in a proper constitutional way, so that there will be no way out of it. I was opposed for election last night on the ground---a very good ground it was---that, as I was opposed to the Treaty it was presumed I would work for the Republic as against the establishment of the Free State. The position I would occupy would be a very difficult one, in which I would be, by the terms of my oath, faithfully bound to take active steps to maintain the Republic, which would be made difficult by the vote of this Assembly. Now take Mr. Griffith's position: it is doubly difficult because he is supposed with the right hand to maintain the Republic and, with the left, to knock it down. I say it is a mistake for any individual giving this support to become a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the matter. He cannot do it. No matter what Mr. Griffith says or undertakes to do, every Republican in the country will be suspicious of every act he is taking in the name of the Republic. It does not conduce, I hold, to the maintenance of order, or it is not to the interests of the country at the present time, that Mr. Griffith should hold that office. He will understand that, as far as I am concerned, my sentiments are practically the same with respect to him. I am not opposing him in any personal way, but for the good of the country. I say when I took the oath I adhered to it to the letter. I was so sensitive on that point and about the obligations of my oath as Chief Executive officer, that I said they would have to remember, if they did elect me, that I would interpret it in a certain fashion. I felt then, even with that explanation that, nevertheless, it was my duty to obey that oath and carry it out to the letter in so far as I was able. If there was a settlement that would make it consistent I would be on the other side, if I was in a minority of one. I am on this side definitely, because the arrangement is not in accordance with the oath and the position I occupied: and because I believe that I could get an arrangement that was; and I felt that as long as that arrangement was possible, I would not be doing my duty to the Republic or acting in the best interests of Ireland. Mr. Griffith cannot take that oath, he cannot act as Chief Executive Officer of this Republic, bound with his right hand to uphold it, and bound to another undertaking which means that with his left he is undermining it. I say it is an impossible position. I only ask for the good of the country that Mr. Griffith would not take that office; that he would allow some arrangement to be made by which somebody who could act as Chief Executive Officer of this assembly---who will act and be bound to act on behalf of the Republic---would do so; and that Mr. Griffith would go on and carry out what this House has approved of, namely, the terms of that Treaty.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I have often heard candidates for office being invited to give pledges in consideration of support which would be extended to them if the answers were found satisfactory, but this is the first time I have heard a candidate being asked to give pledges, being listened to giving these pledges, and then being told that, having satisfactorily answered the questions he would be opposed more strongly than ever. That strikes me as a totally novel departure. The key-note of this debate really lies in the statement made by President de Valera yesterday: `Addressing a silent and solemn Assembly', as the newspapers say, he said: `I suggest that the first business should be to make arrangements for the continuance and government of the State'. That is what we are up against. That is what has to be done. Let us face facts. I made my own position pretty clear on the Treaty. I do not like it; I never did like it. There are many others who think with me about it, that it is a bitter thing to have to accept, but that we had to accept it because we saw no real alternative. A point was made against the other side, and fairly made, during the debate, that they were a coalition; some of them, for instance, taking one view about the oath, others taking a vow for life to the Republic, and so on. I say in perfect fairness that we are a coalition, too; because it is obvious that, just as the degree of opposition to the Treaty on the other side varies with different people, so does the degree in which persons on this side like the Treaty, although they all agreed to support it as a matter of necessity; and the degree with which they like it varies, too. Necessarily, under circumstances of this kind, you will have to deal with a coalition, because a sudden and unexpected turn of events has taken place; and people have had to make up their minds upon developments which they had not looked forward to before. But this much is clear: up to now the English have looked upon this country with contempt---up to the recent fight---and the reason why we have got to the present position of having terms offered us by the English is because that contempt has given way to healthy fear, and it is our duty to see that healthy fear remains, and that we do not give them any reason to resume their former attitude by adopting an unreal attitude in this assembly. I should like to remind the Deputies of the other side that the first article of the Constitution says:
<SMALL>
That all legislative powers shall be vested in Dáil Eireann.
</SMALL>
And therefore it was for Dáil Eireann to approve of that Treaty, and no other body whatever had authority from the Irish people to approve it and make that approval binding. Dáil Eireann has approved of the Treaty and it follows, as night the day, that it is the duty of Dáil Eireann to take the steps necessary to give effect to that approval. The Minister of Finance spoke yesterday on the question of funds, and, I take it, he gave very adequate evidence of the fact that he intended to deal absolutely fairly with those who disagreed with him in that important matter; and I think that those who are against the Treaty, knowing the persons they have to deal with on this side, may fairly rest assured on that at all events. But those who are for the Treaty are entitled to ask for fairness from them. Anyhow the Republic goes on, and must go on until it is superseded by the Free State. That is unanimously agreed. The Republic goes on, and the Republic must have a Government. A proposal was made yesterday on behalf of those against the Treaty that President de Valera should be re-elected. They put forward for re-election their best man and Dáil Eireann declined to re-elect him, many of us voting much against our own will. We felt it was the only thing to do because, in view of your vote on Saturday, you would have been making yourselves ridiculous in the eyes of the country and in the eyes of the world if you did otherwise. It is admitted you must have a government. Surely that government must be a government representative of the majority of this House. What alternative is suggested to us? I have heard none.
MR. COLLIVET:
The Southern Parliament.
MR. GAVAN DUFFY:
The Southern Parliament is not the Government of the Republic. Until the Free State comes into being Dáil Eireann must continue. No man here with this Constitution before him---`that all legislative powers come from Dáil Eireann'---can suggest any other body as the Government of this country. You must set up your Provisional Government---get the English out and take over the powers that lay in their hands. But I yet have to hear any suggestion from the other side as to what is to be done for carrying on the Government if you do not elect a representative of the majority to carry it on. We have heard Mr. Griffith peppered with innumerable questions. He answered them, I hope, to the satisfaction of the leaders on the other side.
MR. DE VALERA:
No!
MR. DUFFY:
He gave plain straight answers to the questions put to him, and the result of that apparently is, that having answered those questions, and recognising that the Republic would continue, and recognising every item he was asked to recognise, he is now told, having done his best to satisfy these men, that they are going to vote against him. What answers did they want to get other than the answers he gave? I fail to see for what purpose these questions were put, unless that they mean---in this way---`answer these questions in the way we think they ought to be answered and we will vote for you'. I have not heard on what principle those answers are considered unsatisfactory and if he gave a straight answer, then I say that the people who put these questions ought to support him and to recognise that they themselves are in a minority and that you cannot govern this country by a Government that represents the minority and not the majority. There is one thing more I would like to say. It is this: it seems to me this question of the Republican Government and the Provisional Government is really a much simpler one than it looks. So far as the Irish people are concerned, the Government elected by Dáil Eireann will be the Government of the Irish people. In the transition period, when you have agreed to take over from the usurping English Government the powers they have got in this country, when you have agreed that the machinery for so doing will be called the Provisional Government, which is working but which will not take over those powers, you will have, at the same time, the Government of the Republic, which must exist as long as the Republic exists to keep the form of the Republic in being. You will also have what I may call the machinery of government, which may or may not consist of the same Government machinery; the Government recognised by the English as Dáil Eireann would not be recognised for the purpose of carrying out the necessary arrangements to give Ireland the powers to which she is entitled. I do not think any logical objection can be taken to that. I will congratulate the other side. I do think, on the whole, they have shown a much more reasonable attitude to-day than they did yesterday. If they are beginning to be more reasonable, I ask them to go a little further and recognise the logical outcome---the logical corollary---to the attitude they have taken of putting questions to the candidate for Premiership and getting the answers they expected and wanted to get, which is, that they should acquiesce in the Government of this country, instead of putting up a fictitious opposition.
MISS MACSWINEY:
Mr. Gavan Duffy said we got the answers we expected and wanted to get. I beg to assure him that I got the answer I expected, but not the answer I wanted to get. Again I ask that he will not use the machinery of Dáil Eireann to uphold any other Government.
MR. SEAN ETCHINGHAM:
Yesterday that vote could have been taken before lunch. An adjournment was moved by the majority and we know the reason why. I just want to say a few words on this. I am in opposition to the election of Arthur Griffith. I am sorry for that, for old times' sake. I say the answers we got to what we want to know were given us yesterday when the majority---we were in a minority of two---refused to elect Eamonn de Valera as President of the Irish Republic. We got the answer then, and a writer in an English Sunday paper who was present here at the debate, in writing of Eamonn de Valera, said: `There was one thing he might do; he might lead his country to disaster, but he would never lead it to dishonour'. It is because I am firmly convinced that the election of Arthur Griffith will lead Ireland to both disaster and dishonour that I oppose it. I have not an accommodating mind. Deputy Duffy says we have come here in a different frame of mind to-day. The only difference in my mind yesterday and to-day is this: that I am more sorrowful than ever. I have never been pessimistic about the future of my country, but I was when President de Valera was turned down. He talks of the healthy fear the English have or that they would not have negotiations. He talks of the unreal attitude of this Assembly. Will that healthy fear be continued now when you elect Arthur Griffith instead of Eamonn de Valera? No! Certainly not. I only wish to goodness that we could give to the Irish People the private documents we had here at the Private Session of An Dáil. Every private document that could be brought up from the Cabinet of Dáil Eireann in Dublin was exposed to ridicule by party politicians on the other side. I was very sorry for that. The members of the delegation in London pledged their word of honour to Lloyd George and his men that they would not give to the Irish people nor to anyone else these documents until Lloyd George would give them liberty to do so. But if the Irish people had read some of these documents the Irish people would know that Lloyd George would look upon Arthur Griffith as a most accommodating man, as a man who would not let Lloyd George down, and he would know on the other hand, that Eamonn de Valera would not let the Irish people down, or the Irish Republic down, and he would have a healthy fear of Ireland as a consequence. That is the situation. That is why I oppose Arthur Griffith, because he will have an accommodating mind, and he will not let Lloyd George down---and that is on record. Now, if Arthur Griffith was the man he was when he ploughed the soil to make Ireland what Ireland is to-day, or what Ireland was last year, I would vote for him. Over and over again he told us he was a Separatist. He is not that to-day. What is the consequence? We have it here with us. Now, in the United Irishman of February 22nd, 1902, he said, in ridiculing Sir Horace Plunkett, that: `possibly Sir Horace Plunkett may come to believe with us that the permanent remedy for Ireland's disease is separation, but his conversion is not likely'. That was written by Arthur Griffith in the United Irishman on February 22nd, 1902. What is the result to-day? I saw a caricature of Horace Plunkett as a big fat bullock and Arthur Griffith as a little bottle of oxo [laughter]. Horace Plunkett, addressing Arthur Griffith, says: `Alas! my poor brother' [laughter]. What a tragedy! I say I will not make use of that in a public assembly---the picture, I mean [laughter]. I am giving you a word picture of it with sorrow. The Minister of Finance gave us a pretty picture. I have often seen a team of horses under a plough. He wanted something to move the plough. What has he got? I have seen a team of horses galloping away from a gadfly. And who is moving the plough? Put Arthur Griffith at the handles, but Lloyd George is the gadfly that stung the horses. Lloyd George is the gadfly, and the team of horses is the Irish people. God knows, this terrible warble, if it is not squeezed out, what amount of worms it will leave in the Irish people. Now, the Deputy for Dublin spoke of maintaining the Irish Republic and Parliament. I was amused. On Saturday afternoon, with agony, I listened to the statement that we never had a Republic. I was wondering what feelings Mr. Robins and others had about it. We have a great number of Girondists in this assembly.
MR. ROBINS:
I never said we had not a Republic. I said we never had a working Republic---and we never had.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
He said his constituents never believed we had. Doctor MacGinley said we only had a paper Republic, and that the people of Donegal were tired of that. Anything to carry the Treaty. Now we are going to maintain the Republic until we get the Free State into existence! I am not a bit deceived. I expected these answers. I would not ask my old friend, Arthur Griffith, a question about it, because I know he is to put up the Free State and not maintain the Republic. I protest against degrading this Assembly so far as to make it the machinery for putting up the Free State. You cannot legally do so and, in God's name, summon this Southern Parliament and set it up, but do not degrade the name of Dáil Eireann with it. God knows we have compromised enough, and it may be the last occasion on which I will address this assembly. It comes to that. It came to it yesterday when you turned down the only man that could make peace in this country---and you know it; the man all Ireland looks to and has trust in, that man you turned down. And you knew perfectly well if you had elected him President of the Republic he would not have interfered with you so long as you were working for Ireland's good. He has been ousted. Arthur Griffith cannot deny that he pledged his word to the President of the Republic and the Minister of Defence in the Mansion House, Dublin, on December 3rd, that he would not sign any document until he returned; and he did sign and pledge his word to Lloyd George that none of these documents should be made public. He said he has pledged his word.
MR. GRIFFITH:
That is not so; it is a deliberate misrepresentation---and you know it.
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
I never heard it contradicted before---that the Chairman of the Delegation did not pledge his word in the Mansion House. It is on record.
MR. CATHAL BRUGHA:
Does Mr. Griffith deny that he gave his word to us that he would not sign anything? Does he deny that?
MR. GRIFFITH:
I gave my word that I would not sign that document.
MR. DE VALERA:
We must be clear on this. Nobody here will be able to accuse me of at any time telling any untruth. I say it is a solemn truth that the Chairman of the Delegation, on leaving us at the Cabinet meeting---otherwise things might have been different---gave an undertaking that any document which involved allegiance to the Crown, and involved our being British subjects would not be signed until it was submitted to Dáil Eireann.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I have sat here and I have listened for weeks to misrepresentations. At the Private Session we had all this up, and we are having it at the Public Session now. The first line of attack on us was that we had exceeded our powers. President de Valera admitted that we had not. On that Saturday after I came back I was at the Cabinet meeting, and I told them I would not break on the Crown. I asked President de Valera himself to go to London if he wished. When I was going away the President asked me to try and get the thing back to Dáil Eireann. I tried, and I tried all I could, to get the matter kept back for a week. I could not succeed. I was faced with the responsibility of signing or not signing. The responsibility was placed on me and I signed. I protest against the misrepresentation that I was a man who pledged his word to something. The Deputy for Wexford also charged me with something---he intended to convey to the Irish people that I, in some way, connived with Lloyd George. That is a damnable lie and he knows it.
MR. MACKEOWN:
I propose that all documents, private and otherwise, in connection with this Session, and all documents in connection with the negotiations be published immediately.
THE SPEAKER:
That is out of order.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I now beg to move that the question be put. We have discussed it long enough.
ALDERMAN MACDONAGH:
I have an amendment
MR. ETCHINGHAM:
The Chairman of the Delegation has stated in very plain language that a charge of mine, as he put it, is a damnable lie. I was only repeating in connection with the Mansion House what has been repeated here, and what has been read in the newspaper. He ought to be grateful to me for giving him an opportunity of making the explanation he did. Another thing he charged me with was that I had spoken---and I did with sorrow---of an interview that he gave to the Press Association in London, immediately after the signing of the Treaty. You can say what you like of that. I have over and over again repeated it here. I never heard a word of denial of it, nor I do not now. What I complained of was that Arthur Griffith said seven-and-a-half centuries of fight was over---Irish liberty was won---and our people took it as such. I was here on Saturday evening, and I am thankful to say he retreated from that and said anything may happen in ten years. The Minister of Finance said like a man that this is not a final settlement. I do not believe anyone in Ireland believes it is. I made the statement because it is on record that Mr. Griffith said that Irish liberty was won. Whether he thinks it or not I really am sorry for opposing him, for old times' sake, because he is the man who ploughed the soil, and a number in Ireland sowed the seed. He does not seem the same man to-day that he was when he was in the plough before. The plough he used then was the Sinn Fein plough---an Irish plough. The plough he is using now---and he is coming to us under that plough---is a London-manufacture plough, a Downing Street plough. That is the tragedy of it; and no matter what he states he may do in the future, he has avowed that he will put up the Free State, which means the destruction of the Irish Republic.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I now move that the question be put.
MR. K. HIGGINS:
I second that.
MR. BOLAND:
I wish to speak.
MR. MACDONAGH:
Before you put the motion I have an amendment.
MR. MACENTEE:
It is already past the ordinary hour for adjournment. We can quite easily take this motion to put the question immediately after luncheon [cries of `Poll'].
MR. DE VALERA:
As a protest against the election as President of the Irish Republic of the Chairman of the Delegation, who is bound by the Treaty conditions to set up a State which is to subvert the Republic, and who, in the interim period, instead of using the office as it should be used---to support the Republic---will, of necessity, have to be taking action which will tend to its destruction, I, while this vote is being taken, as one, am going to leave the House.
MR. DE VALERA then rose and left the House, followed by the entire body of his supporters.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Deserters all! We will now call on the Irish people to rally to us. Deserters all!
MR. CEANNT:
Up the Republic!
MR. M. COLLINS:
Deserters all to the Irish nation in her hour of trial. We will stand by her.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Oath breakers and cowards.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Foreigners---Americans---English.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Lloyd Georgeites.
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Now, sir, will you put the question? They have had at least twice the number of speakers that we have had up to this.
THE SPEAKER:
I am waiting until all those who wish to leave the House have left. The motion is that the question be now put [`Agreed!'].
The original motion---that Mr. Griffith be appointed President of Dáil Eireann---was then put, and carried unanimously by those remaining in the House.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I would like to suggest that the roll should be called, and a record made of those who have been at this vote.
MR. D. MACCARTHY:
A Chinn Chomhairle, before the roll is called, may I explain that two members paired by a signed agreement---Tom Hunter and Professor Whelehan
The roll was then called, when the following answered:
Mícheál O Coileáin
Art O Gríobhtha
Seán Mac Giolla Ríogh
Pól O Geallagáin
Liam T. Mac Cosgair
Gearóid O Súileabháin
Pádraig O Braonáin
Seán O Lidia
Seán O hAodha
Pádraig O Caoimh
Seán Mac Heil
Eoin Mac Neill
Seosamh Mac Suibhne
Peadar S. Mac an Bháird
Dr. S. Mac Fhionnlaoigh
P. S. Mac Ualghairg
Próinsias Laighleis
S. Ghabháin Uí Dhubhthaigh
Deasmhumhain Mac Gearailt
Seumas O Duibhir
Pádraic O Máille
Seoirse Mac Niocaill
P. S. O hOgáin
Piaras Beaslaí
Fionán O Loingsigh
S. O Cruadhlaoich
Criostóir O Broin
Seumas O Dóláin
Aindriú O Láimhín
Tomás Mac Artúir
Dr. Pádraig Mac Artáin
Caoimhghín O hUiginn
Seosamh O Loingsigh
Próinsias Bulfin
Dr. Risteárd O hAodha
Liam O hAodha
Seosamh Mac Aonghusa
Seán Mac Eoin
Lorcán O Roibín
Eamon O Dúgáin
Peadar O h-Aodha
Seumas O Murchadha
Saerbreathach Mac Cionaith
Seosamh Mac Giolla Bhrighde
Liam Mac Sioghuird
Domhnall O Ruairc
Earnán de Blaghd
Eoin O Dubhthaigh
Alastar Mac Cába
Seumas de Búrca
Dr. V. de Faoite
Risteárd Mac Fheorais
Seán Mac Gadhra
Mícheál Mac Stáin
Risteárd O Maolchatha
Seosamh Mag Craith
Pilib Mac Cosgair
Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh
Liam de Róiste
Seumas Breathnach
Mícheál O hAodha
MR. GRIFFITH:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I repeat now what I said before when asked the question. As Premier I suppose I may say the Dáil and the Republic exist until such time as the Free State Government is set up. When that Free State Government is set up I intend that the Irish people shall have the fullest power of expression at that election. When the Dáil---the sovereign body in Ireland---passed that vote of approval of the Treaty, it was our business, and our duty to the Dáil, to see it carried through, and I regret, myself, that President de Valera resigned. When he resigned and automatically brought all his Ministers with him, Ireland was left without any Government. Therefore, someone had to be proposed to take his place in accordance with the Constitution. Now, in accordance with the Constitution, the Premier proposes his Ministers and the Dáil ratifies them. Now, I propose the six Cabinet Ministers for the Dáil: Finance Minister: Mr. Michael Collins.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
I beg to propose Mr. Michael Collins as Minister of Finance.
DR. MACCARTAN:
I second it.
MR. GRIFFITH:
It is not necessary. The Dáil has simply to ratify each name.
The following were then nominated and ratified as Ministers by the Dáil:
FINANCE: Mr. Michael Collins.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS:Mr. G. Gavan Duffy.
HOME AFFAIRS:Mr. Eamonn Duggan.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT:Alderman W. T. Cosgrave.
ECONOMIC AFFAIRS:Mr. Kevin O'Higgins.
DEFENCE:Mr. R. Mulcahy.
MR. GRIFFITH:
I propose now that we adjourn until four o'clock I suppose the Labour deputation will be here at that time.
The House adjourned at 2.5 p.m.
On resuming the SPEAKER (DR. EOIN MACNEILL) took the Chair at 4.20 p.m.
THE SPEAKER:
In accordance with the wish of the Dáil this morning, the deputation from the Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress will be here now.
The Labour Deputation consisted of: Messrs. Thomas Johnson, Secretary; Cathal O' Shannon, Acting Chairman; Thomas Foran, General President I. T. and G.W.U.; O'Farrell, R.C.A.; Cullen (Dublin); Nason (Cork); Carr (Limerick); and Larkin (Waterford).
MR. THOMAS JOHNSON:
Mr. Speaker, and Deputies of the Dáil, my first duty is to thank you for the privilege of allowing us to address you on these matters which were referred to in my letter. We realise it is a privilege for us to come to address you; but we feel that we are, perhaps, in a somewhat exceptional position, inasmuch as we might have had the right to address the assembly had we considered, at the last election and the previous election, it was in the interests of Ireland that we should have gone forward as a Labour Party to seek representation in this Dáil [hear, hear]. The Executive of the Labour Party was in session yesterday and reported from various parts of the country as to the situation as affecting working people in these various parts of the country. We had been following the discussions here. We knew the situation as well as the newspapers would tell us the situation, and we decided that, in the circumstances, it was desirable that we should seek an interview---to seek to meet you, at least, as a delegation officially representing three hundred thousand organised workers in this country. Our delegation represents all the various towns: Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Dublin and other towns as well as some of the agricultural districts of the country. I said we had refrained from contesting elections in the interests, as we thought---as we know---on national solidarity in the face of the enemy of Ireland and the enemy of the working class---the capitalist imperialism in operation in this country. We had reason to know---we had documentary evidence to prove---that in the minds of certain very high officials of the British Government there were hopes and beliefs, and their conduct was founded on those hopes and beliefs, that we would sometime in the struggle split off from the national movement. That was one of the factors---a very important factor which determined our action at the elections. As I have said, we had followed the debates intensely, and we could not but feel that with the stress of the war, the critical periods, and the difficulties of administration, both the Government and the Deputies seem to have forgotten---in the stress of political issues---to some extent, that there was a social problem at home. There are at this time probably one hundred and thirty thousand men and women walking the streets unemployed. Tens, and twenties, and thirties of thousands of these have been only intermittently employed for the last year, or one-and-a-half years. In every country in Europe all such people have been forced to agitate more or less violently against the powers that be. But the feelings of solidarity with the nation which permeate the working class in Ireland have tended to restrain any action which they would naturally take. We were in the position that we could not agitate with the British Government on such matters as social conditions. We dared not agitate because of the critical nature of the situation---we dared not agitate against the Irish Government. The times have developed; circumstances have developed. Those times have passed and we are in the situation to-day that a very large proportion of the population is at its wits' end to know how things are going to move. Thousands of children are hungry and naked, huddled together like swine in their so-called houses. In all parts of the country we hear cries of desperation, cries of: `What is going to be done for us?' These murmurs presage, something like the tremors of an earthquake, and unless something is done rapidly---something effective---there will be a grave situation developing in this country that will be a problem for even an old-established government, let alone a new one. The working classes in Ireland have taken a full share in this national struggle [hear, hear]. Individually and collectively the workers have borne their part [hear, hear]. They are prepared to do it again when the need comes. But I would like to say that, in so far as they are conscious of their purpose---and that applies to the greater part of the men who went into this fight for freedom and for Ireland's nationality---they went into the fight for freedom for the men and women of Ireland individually [hear, hear]. Freedom from bondage to wage slavery, freedom from bondage to the machine, freedom from bondage to capitalists and financiers in Ireland or in other parts of the world. We feel, and they feel, that there must be something done immediately to lessen this burden that they are suffering. I say there are one hundred and thirty thousand unemployed up and down the country. Farmers have their complaints, their grievances, their terrible trials at the moment. Merchants have their complaints and grievances about bad trade, et cetera. They can speak for themselves. They have the means to keep body and soul together. The workers, for whom we speak, have not the means unless someone sees fit to give them employment. Twenty thousand of these men---more than twenty thousand of these men---are agricultural labourers; men who ought, at this moment, be preparing for next year's harvest. The problem that faces you and that faces the country is: that probably one million acres of land have gone out of cultivation during the last couple of years. A million acres of land gone out of cultivation! We have held, and rightly held, suspicions of the perfidy of England. We are aware of the risk, the danger there is that, when the time comes, when the opportunity serves, anything that has been promised will be withdrawn. I want to suggest to you, Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen, that the best safeguard---the only real safeguard---in this country, is an ample, home-grown food supply [applause]. What you are allowing to be done is that that food supply is not going to exist. You are going to be dependent on overseas food, and a blockade of the ports will bring Ireland to her knees. It is imperative, in our view, that the land of Ireland must be tilled for the purpose of national defence. Incidentally, it will mean the employment of the men capable of working the land [hear, hear]. During recent years Labour in Ireland has developed a new consciousness of its position in social economy. The workers have seen, and do see, that the land of Ireland, the resources of Ireland, are capable of keeping the people of Ireland in reasonable comfort. It is for those who have power to organise those resources, the natural resources and the human resources, to provide these people with the means of living a decent life. The workers are not prepared to go back to or continue the low standard of life which they have lived in the past. I want you to bear that in mind very carefully. The workers are not going to be content to go back to the standard of life they lived prior to 1914. Where attempts are being made, as they are day by day in all kinds of industries and occupations, to degrade that standard of life, it means that the workers are going to resist by whatever means they may think best. The patience of the workers, of the people, of the poor unemployed, and the wives of the unemployed, is becoming exhausted. We want to impress on you this: there is an insistent and immediate need for these problems to be tackled---the problems of unemployment, tillage, housing---and they will not brook delay. It will not do to allow them to wait on political exigencies. These are social problems that must be dealt with at once. We realise fully all the difficulties of the situation. We are fully aware of them, and are prepared to make every allowance for those difficulties. But we want to impress on you members of the Dáil---the Government of Ireland---that this is a problem which is your responsibility, You are responsible to see that this problem is dealt with and tackled effectually. If it is not so done the people will rise and sweep you away, as they would sweep any government away that failed to do its duty to the common people [applause].
MR. CATHAL O SHANNON:
A Chinn Chomhairle, agus a lucht na Dála,is mian liom buidhchas a ghabháil libh i dtaobh gur leigeabhair don Toscaireacht cúis an lucht oibre do chur os bhúr gcóir. Níl a thuille le rá agam ach aon fhocal amháin. Nuair a cuireadh Poblacht na hEireann ar bun, dubhairt sibhse, lucht na Dála gur le muintir na hEireann saidhbhreas agus talamh na hEireann. Níl uainn anois ach go gcuirfeadh sibh e sin i bhfeidbm.
PRESIDENT ARTHUR GRIFFITH:
Before the delegation leaves, I want to thank them for putting before us here, their views. I want also to say I fully agree with what they say. The workers of Ireland have taken their full share in this fight for Irish freedom [hear, hear]. I want also to say I understand perfectly, and I know, this question of unemployment, and I may say we are prepared to appoint a Committee to meet Mr. Johnson and his co-representatives to try and deal with this question [hear, hear].
The Labour Deputation withdrew.
MR. DE VALERA:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I regret more than I can express the fact that I cannot consistently and sincerely congratulate the President on his election. I regret it, as I say, more than I can express. The difficulties which he has in his office are undoubtedly very, very great. One who has had the burden of those duties on his shoulders understands what they are likely to be now, perhaps, better than anybody else and I think I will be expressing the views of everyone here, not merely those on the majority side, but we here who stand definitely for the Republic, when I say that, appreciating to the full his difficulties in acting as President of the Republic of Ireland, as head of the established State, we shall not only not stand in his way in carrying out the duties of that office, but we shall do everything that is possible for us to secure to the full for the Irish people enjoyment of the liberty which is their right as citizens of the Irish Republic [hear, hear]. That must not, of course, be interpreted in any way as meaning that we are not to continue our own policy---that we are not to criticise and attack his policy in any respect in which it may appear to us to be contrary to the interests of the Irish people and the established government, which is the Republic. Whenever he functions, or will function in his other capacity as head of another government, we cannot recognise that government at all. We will have to insist and continue insisting on our attitude that that government is not the legitimate government of this country until the Irish people have disestablished the Republic, and we shall do everything in our power to see they do not disestablish it. I have also said whenever there is a question between the President of the Republic as head of this State, and any outside power that he can count on us to the full; that he can count on our support as definitely as if there had never been a division between us. I would also feel contemptible in my own eyes if I did not say this: I have found fault, as I felt it my duty, with the actions of the President when he was Minister of Foreign Affairs; but there is not one in this whole Assembly, not even those on his side, who realise how terrible was the task imposed upon him. And I want to tell him this: that if in any way it were consistent with Irish national principles to support the action he was taking, I would be supporting him; and that I am in opposition now simply because I felt that the action that is proposed is neither good for the Irish people, nor is it consistent with Irish national aspirations. I know he will believe me when I tell him I will, as a single Irish citizen, give to him in his office all the respect which I would expect to receive when in that office, from any citizens, and which I received from the Minister of Foreign Affairs himself. It is a good thing there should be these changes, so that we who have been in power may recognise, individually, that it is power which does not come from ourselves, but is given to is; and when we are in office we are not acting as individual autocrats, but as functionaries for the people. I have said changes are good things, and I am glad to be able, as a private individual, to act my part as a private Irish citizen; and the President of the Republic will receive from me, personally, and I hope from every Irish citizen, while he is acting in that capacity, the full respect which his office entitles him to. It will be my duty to do everything in my power to see this established Republic is not disestablished. On this side of the House, even amongst those who most bitterly oppose his policy, there is a sympathetic feeling, and the magnitude of the task imposed upon him is realised. I regret it is not possible for me consistently to be able to congratulate him on the office which he is taking up in the present circumstances. Now, I would like if he would give us some outline of the policy he intends to pursue in maintaining the existing Republic.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
I desire to thank President de Valera for his words. I call him President still; because if he had not resigned yesterday I would never have asked him to resign. He has spoken of laying down a burden. If there was anything in my life I would like, it would be to lay down the burden and get back into private life. It is no feeling of ambition, or anything like that,
<SMALL>p.415</SMALL>
that is going to make me act as I am. I know the responsibilities I am taking on. I feel those responsibilities, and if I did not feel it a duty to my country---an absolute duty owing to the part I took---I would certainly wish to get away into some kind of private or domestic life. I am doing what I am doing because I believe it is my absolute duty to my country. Men may differ from me here; men may hold other views. I can only follow my own conscience and my own judgment, and I am doing that. As to the policy I am going to pursue, I have stated it already here to-day. If President de Valera had not resigned yesterday I would never have suggested he should resign. I would have suggested he would have remained on. But once he resigned and carried us with him, there was nothing else for us to do but adopt one course. We were not prepared to abandon the Treaty. Now, as regards President de Valera, he is an individual whom I esteem and love, although, in the interests of the nation, I had to oppose him. As I said from the very beginning, the Dáil is going to remain in existence---the Republic of Ireland is going to remain in existence---until the Free State is prepared to have an election. I do not want any obstruction. At all events that is all I ask. We are going to have the heaviest task that was ever laid on the shoulders of Irishmen, thrown on our shoulders. All we ask is that we will not be obstructed until we can go to the Irish people and give them the Free State, and let them decide. That is the only policy I have. If the Irish people turn down the Free State for the Republic, I will follow in the ranks. I will back the Free State. All I ask of Ireland and of my colleagues against me is not to throw obstacles in our way. Within the next three months we are going to have the heaviest task ever thrown on the shoulders of Irishmen. So at least give us a fair trial. That is the policy [applause].
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
A Chinn Chomhairle---
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
What is before the House, exactly?
THE SPEAKER:
There is no motion before the House at present.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
What about the Orders of the Day?
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
I am told I made some remark that might have another bearing to what I intended to say. It was to the effect that if the Irish people turned down the Free State, I would back the Free State. What I meant to say was that if the Irish people at a free election, without any force used on either side, say: `No! we want to have the Republic,' I will follow in the ranks of the Irish people. I want that to be quite clear. I am going to back the Free State, to propose it and to advocate it; but I agree with President de Valera, nobody can disestablish the Dáil except the Irish people at an election. At that election I will stand for the Free State. If the Irish people are against me I will follow behind them as a private in the ranks. If I said anything to the contrary, I wish to correct it.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
I wish to raise a few points in connection with the statement made by the President.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
I must protest. There is nothing before the House. Deputy Childers is out of order.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
The President has made a very general statement of policy. All I wish to do is to ask him to be more explicit in a few particulars which are of great importance. I do not raise the points in the least obstructive sense, or with any obstructive motives. It is simply in order that we may know more exactly where we stand. Mr. Griffith as President has taken over an important office, to my view in a double capacity---one as Chief Executive Officer of Dáil Eireann, and the other, which he will soon presumably hold, is Chief of the Provisional Government. It is simply a few points arising out of that curious and ambiguous situation which I wish to raise. I would have raised them on the previous motion but the closure was moved and I was unable to speak. My friend, Mr. Gavan Duffy, said all the questions put to Mr. Griffith had been satisfactorily answered, and that we can just go ahead under Mr. Griffith in his dual capacity. I do not think that is so, and further explanation is needed. One of the questions asked him he certainly did not answer at all. That question was: `Will the Provisional Government function under the statutory powers conferred by the Partition Act?' I think I am right in saying he made no answer to that question at all. Has Dáil Eireann---
MR. D. MACCARTHY:
I rise to a point of order. Yesterday you allowed a motion to be debated for two-and-a-half hours, and then ruled it out of order. Let us know where we are What is before the House? If this debate is going to go on for two or three hours we may then be told it is not in order, and there is nothing before the House.
THE SPEAKER:
On a strict point of order there is no motion before us.
MR. P. HUGHES:
I move that we proceed with the next business.
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
I have pleasure in seconding that motion.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
But this is a---
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
Before this proceeds any further, I want to say that President de Valera made a statement---a generous statement---and I replied. Now [striking the table] I will not reply to any Englishman in this Dáil [applause].
MR. P. O'KEEFE:
It is nearly time we had that.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
It is about time.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
My nationality is a matter for myself and for the constituents that sent me here.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
Your constituents did not know what your nationality was.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
They have known me from my boyhood days---since I was about half a dozen years of age.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
I will not reply to any damned Englishman in this Assembly.
PROFESSOR STOCKLEY:
Are all these proceedings in order?
THE SPEAKER:
The whole proceedings at present are out of order.
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
It has been proposed and seconded that the next business in the Orders of the Day be proceeded with.
THE SPEAKER:
I have ruled.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
I hardly think you will say this is out of order [cries of `Chair! Chair!']. It is hardly out of order to say something to an interjection like that made by the President. I am not going to defend my nationality, but I would be delighted to show the President privately that I am not, in the true sense of the word, an Englishman, as he knows. He banged the table. If he had banged the table before Lloyd George in the way he banged it here, things might have been different [cries of `Order!' and applause].
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
I banged the table before your countryman, Mr. Lloyd George [applause].
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
And Griffith is a Welsh name.
MR. P. HUGHES:
Are are going to have this all the evening?
THE SPEAKER:
I have ruled this is out of order.
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
In the interests of decency and order you should rule Deputy Childers out of order. It is not making for harmony or proper debate to allow him to continue. Admittedly, it is out of order.
THE SPEAKER:
Leave it to me. Deputy Childers, I have ruled the continuation of this discussion is out of order.
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS:
You rule me out of order?
THE SPEAKER:
Yes.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
May I ask are we permitted to ask questions?
MR. SEAN MACENTEE:
If the President of this House makes a statement of policy in this House, is it in order to ask him some questions arising out of that statement?
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
Under Standing Order number six, twenty-four hours' notice of questions to Ministers shall be given by Deputies, in writing.
MR. SEAN MILROY:
Let us get on with the next business. What is it?
THE SPEAKER:
We will take up the next business. It is a motion in the name of President de Valera---we must call him Deputy de Valera now---
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
I sent up a question yesterday. What is the proper time to bring it up at?
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE:
Standing Order 4 (d) deals with the matter.
THE SPEAKER:
When you brought it up before, I told you I believed it was out of order. I also told you it was out of order in substance, as being an alternative in opposition to the motion for the ratification of the Treaty.
MR. DE VALERA:
I do not intend to pursue this [hear, hear]. There is no good purpose, as far as I can see, to be gained at this stage in pursuing this motion. It will stand, and the criticisms that have been levelled at it will be proved to be unjust. It is the natural sequel to the correspondence we had with the British Prime Minister. It is the natural conclusion to that correspondence. If we did not have that to show that we had a definite objective, it might appear that we had no definite objective in view at all, and that we were simply pursuing the negotiations for some other purpose except for the definite purpose of trying to effect reconciliation and peace; and, in truth, to try to get a solution, or find some means by which association with the community of nations known as the British Commonwealth might best be reconciled with Irish national aspirations. As to the motion for the approval of the Treaty, I still want to insist it is not an act as such, but simply a resolution of this Assembly. It would be ultra vires to ratify the Treaty. It is simply an approval of the report brought over by the Delegation. That motion has been carried, and as we have established such definite party lines here, there would be no good purpose served by moving and explaining the document here.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Whether that document is ruled out or not, I want to say this about it: we shall do our very best to secure the earliest possible publication of all the private documents which led up to that document, and I shall do my best, at the very first opportunity I have of doing it, to issue a criticism of that document, and that can go before the public, and let that criticism be answered in the same public way [applause].
THE SPEAKER:
The next motion is in my own name, and in order that I may move it, it will be necessary for the Deputy Speaker to take my place.
MR. DE VALERA:
May I withdraw my motion?
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
When may I ask my question?
ALDERMAN W. T. COSGRAVE:
In No. 4 (d) of the Standing Orders it is laid down that the first business of the day shall be questions to Ministers, and all subjects thereto, and so on.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
In the absence of the Deputy Speaker, I move that Deputy Liam de Roiste take the Chair.
MR. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
I beg to second that.
THE SPEAKER vacated the Chair which was then taken by ALDERMAN LIAM DE ROISTE.
PROFESSOR EOIN MACNEILL:
The motion I have to move, Sir, is: `That Dáil Eireann affirms that Ireland is a Sovereign Nation, deriving its sovereignty in all respects from the will of the people of Ireland; that all the international relations of Ireland are governed on the part of Ireland by this sovereign status, and that all facilities and accommodations accorded by Ireland to another state or country are subject to the right of the Irish Government to take care that the liberty and well-being of the people of Ireland are not endangered'. Now, one Deputy asked me when this notice appeared first, what was the meaning of it. I gathered from the question, or perhaps, from the conversation which followed it, that what was intended in asking me that question was: what tactical purpose I had in bringing it forward. Now, I have no tactical purpose in bringing it forward; that is to say, no tactical purpose as between any number of members of this Dáil and any other number of members of this Dáil---no tactical purpose whatsoever. There is not a single member of this assembly who can say that any single thing that I have done since I became a member of it partook of the nature of tactics, in order to gain an advantage over any number of persons in the Dáil, or for any object pursued by any number of persons in this Dáil over the other number. There are old friends of mine associated with me in public movements for years back, and not one of them can point to an occasion upon which I ever endeavoured to gain a tactical advantage over any other person with whom I was engaged in Irish public work. Therefore I put this motion in the hope that it will express the unanimous view of the members of this assembly. I do not put it from any controversial point of view, and if I understood that it were to be made the basis of a controversy here now, I should rather never have brought it forward, and I would ask that, sooner than that a controversy should arise upon it, I shall be asked to withdraw it. The terms in which it is stated, are stated with all the clarity that it was possible for me to put into it. There is no reserve; there is nothing concealed in any term; I wish them to be as plain as I could make them in the English language. And the reason for that, I think, is obvious. Now, it is evident that a great deal of confusion of thought---not so much confusion of thought as the confusion of the habitual way of expressing thoughts---about these things, exists. It is natural enough. The political traditions of the past have to account for it. I say the same as Mr. de Valera said to you a few days ago. What I think about these things---I know perfectly well; I have no doubt about it---it is what the people of Ireland think in their hearts about it. They may be confused with regard to how to express their thoughts, they may be confused in the face of this or that political proposal or political formula, but what they think is the same, fundamentally the same. They think what I say here: that there is no rightful sovereignty, and can be no rightful sovereignty, except the sovereignty derived from the will of the Irish people [hear, hear]. That is what I ask the Dáil to re-affirm now as a basic principle, and the object of doing that---one object of doing it---is clear enough. There is a danger in making agreements, especially in making agreements with a government like the English Government. There is a saying attributed to General Smuts `that the statesmen of England cannot think of Ireland; when they think of Ireland their minds relapse into the seventeenth century'. Well, consequently, there is a danger that people in Ireland, and people in England, may interpret this or that in the terms of the seventeenth century. I wish it to be made clear that it is in the terms of the present century that these things ought to be interpreted. The second thing I state in this is: that the international relations of Ireland are governed on the part of Ireland by this sovereign status. Now, these international relations---the international relations involved in the Treaty---concern, as well as Ireland, Great Britain South Africa, Australia and New Zealand---every single one of these countries. Those in them who represent them as political thinkers hold precisely the same doctrines as are stated here, that is to say that each of these countries is sovereign in its own domain, and derives its sovereignty from the will of its people. In the second place, each one of them in its relation with the other, exercises that sovereign status, so that the relations to each other is one of equality. In a recent communication reported in the Press, written by Mr. Lloyd George from the South of France, he is reported as having stated that this equality of status was what is now recognised on his part. At all events, I wish it to be put beyond all doubt that it is what is now recognised on our part---that we recognise no inequality of status---
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
Hear, hear.
PROFESSOR EOIN MACNEILL:
That we recognise no subordinate status, and that we recognise no suzeranity or claim to suzeranity in any shape or form [hear, hear]. People will say, perhaps---well no, take the `perhaps' out of it [laughter]---that in the actual terms of the Treaty there are words and phrases that cannot clearly be reconciled with those principles. I do not deny it. There are words and phrases which cannot clearly be reconciled with those principles. I do not read much of these discussions, but I happened to hit on one item in a discussion that took place in the British Parliament on this Treaty. It was Lord Birkenhead who was speaking, and he was speaking about his friend, Lord Carson, and he said Lord Carson's ideas on the subject were mediæval. I wish Lord Birkenhead's own ideas were less mediæval when he was engaged in his share of drafting that Treaty, because there is a great deal of pure mediævalism in the phrasing of it. My object is plain. It is to get away from the mediævalism and interpret all these things in the light of the twentieth century---to interpret status in the light in which South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand interpret it; that is to say, sovereignty for each of those in their own domain, and equality in their relations with each other. Not, indeed, that their form of interpretation of it need concern us; for if they had never placed any interpretation on it, it would be our right and duty and business to declare the fact that Ireland is a sovereign nation, deriving its sovereignty in all respects from the will of the people of Ireland, and that all the international relations of Ireland are governed on the part of Ireland by this sovereign status. That means complete equality in these relations. Now, we come to the third part which deals with facilities and accommodations accorded by Ireland to another state or country. We know the claim that has been put forward, and that is that certain shines are necessary to the security of Great Britain on account of its peculiar position. It is not necessary at all to deal with that that part of my resolution in any controversial form, because I think it is recognised on all hands---not that we take the view Great Britain takes with regard to these things---but that, for one reason or another, we cannot escape from making certain concessions in those respects. Well, having made those concessions, we are entitled to insist that those concessions shall only be used for the purposes for which they are claimed. It is quite possible they might be used for another purpose. It has arisen at many points during our long discussions here that we cannot invest ourselves with security here against the naval power of Britain, if Britain is hostile to us; and, in fact, the statement has been made that the only safeguard we have against the naval aggression of Great Britain is international morality. I, personally, think international morality has a very long way to go yet before it becomes worthy of the term morality at all. But if these concessions are made, or exist, it is the right of the Irish Government to take care that they are used for no other purpose than the purpose for which they are claimed. Now, those are the reasons for which I have brought forward those resolutions. It is in order that things which some people say exist by implication, and other people deny, but---whether they exist by implication or do not exist by implication---ought to exist, and about which we are all unanimous that they ought to exist---it is in order that these things may be clearly stated, so that it will not be possible for any person in future to say, if we insist on these fundamental rights of the Irish people, we are breaking faith with anybody. These are fundamental rights; they existed before the Treaty, they existed during the Treaty, they existed after the Treaty. We claim these rights, at all events, and I believe the Irish people, so far as they can think these things out, are unanimous in claiming them. I would not even exclude the Unionists. There is no political right but the right based on the will of the Irish people. Consequently I put these proposals forward. I hope I have said nothing controversial as between different sections here. If I have, it has been unintentional. I put these forward for your consideration. These are things that have all been agreed to publicly in many statements made on behalf of Great Britain, and on behalf of the communities mentioned as in the British Commonwealth. They are undenied, and put forward without being challenged. I ask you to put them forward. I have avoided, so far as I consciously could, putting up any controversial aspect on the resolution itself, and in my attempt to explain it, and I would ask my fellow members here to adopt unanimously those resolutions in order to show that, on certain fundamental things, we, as representing the people of Ireland, are unanimous [applause].
THE ACTING SPEAKER:
Is there any seconder for Deputy MacNeill's resolution?
MR. R. MULCAHY:
I desire to second that resolution.
MR. DE VALERA:
I regret this resolution has been brought forward. As Deputy MacNeill said he would withdraw it if it was controversial, I think, from one point of view, it should be withdrawn. But the main idea can be served, perhaps, very much better by an amendment. Our attitude is this: this resolution of the approval of the Treaty was simply a license to the Executive---the new Executive---that they might promote the setting up of a Provisional Government in accordance with the terms, in other words, that we would not be actively hostile to the setting up of the Government, though we do not, and cannot, admit its right as the Government of this country until the Irish people have spoken. Anything that would seem to make it appear that that Treaty was completed by the resolution of approval here, we are against; and this mere declaration is, to our minds, of very little value when it is not in accordance, as far as we can see, with the text of the actual Treaty. I will propose an amendment to this---and I think we can be unanimous about this, because any action we have taken here, we have taken it as the Parliament of the Republic of Ireland---and the amendment that would cover the object for which Deputy MacNeill's motion was put before you, being the assertion of the independence of Ireland, can be put this way. Leave out all the words after Dáil Eireann and insert: `The Government of Dáil Eireann re-affirms in the name of the Irish people the Declaration of Independence made on January 21st, 1919'. I propose that we here now solemnly re-affirm that Declaration of Independence. It is, as you know, as follows:`
<SMALL>
Whereas the Irish people is by right a free people: and whereas for seven hundred years the Irish people has never ceased to repudiate, and has repeatedly protested in arms against foreign usurpation; and whereas English Rule in this country is, and always has been, based upon force and fraud and maintained by military occupation against the declared will of the people: and whereas the Irish Republic was proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday, 1916, by the Irish Republican Army acting on behalf of the Irish people: and whereas the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its complete independence in order to promote the common weal, to re-establish justice, to provide for future defence, to insure peace at home and good will with all nations, and to constitute a national polity based upon the people's will, with equal right and equal opportunity for every citizen: and whereas, at the threshold of a new era in history, the Irish electorate has, in the General Election of December, 1918, seized the first occasion to declare by an overwhelming majority its firm allegiance to the Irish Republic: now, therefore, we, the elected representatives of the ancient Irish people in national Parliament assembled, do, in the name of the Irish nation ratify the establishment of the Irish Republic, and pledge ourselves and our people to make this declaration effective by every means at our command: we ordain that the elected representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to which that people will give its allegiance: we solemnly declare foreign Government in Ireland to be an invasion of our national right which we will never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation of our country by the English Garrison: we claim for our national independence the recognition and support of every free nation in the world, and we proclaim that independence to be a condition precedent to international peace hereafter: in the name of the Irish people we humbly commit our destiny to Almighty God who gave our fathers the courage and determination to persevere through long centuries of a ruthless tyranny,and strong in the justice of the cause which they have handed down to us, we ask His Divine Blessing on this, the last stage of the struggle we have pledged ourselves to carry through to freedom
</SMALL>
[applause].
MR. PIARAS BEASLAI:
That is not an amendment in accordance with the rules of debate.
THE ACTING SPEAKER:
I am careful about that matter of omitting adding, or substituting words. This is to omit words?
MR. DE VALERA:
To omit and substitute words.
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Did I not understand the proposer of the motion to say very definitely and clearly that he was putting it forward on the express understanding there was to be no official opposition, and it there was, it would be withdrawn?
MR. D. O CEALLACHAlN:
Is mian liom aontú leis an bhfó-rún.
PROFESSOR MACNEIL:
I am sorry it was not indicated to me that it was intended to put an amendment to my resolution. If I had known anything about that, I would not have, at this stage of the proceedings, supplied material for a fresh controversy. I ask the permission of the Dáil to withdraw my resolution [hear, hear].
MR. J. J. WALSH:
There is no necessity to ask permission.
THE ACTING SPEAKER:
I must therefore declare, as the proposer of the motion has withdrawn it, that now there is neither a motion nor an amendment before the House [applause]. I will ask the Speaker to take the Chair again[laughter].
ALDERMAN DE ROISTE vacated the Chair which was then taken by THE SPEAKER.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
A Chinn Chomhairle, I rise to make a motion for the adjournment. But before I do so I may mention that into my hands have been put, within the last few minutes questions addressed by Madame Markievicz. It was the first time I saw them, and there might be an insinuation that I avoided them. The first question is:
<SMALL>
`What is the scheme that Mr. Griffith refers to when he says, alluding to the Southern Unionists, `I agreed that a scheme should be devised to give them their full share of representation in the first Chamber of the Irish Parliament'. Is it a scheme for party legislation, class legislation, or what?'
</SMALL>
The second question is:
<SMALL>
`On what basis is this Upper House that he mentions further on in the letter to be constituted?'
</SMALL>
My answer to that is this: I met some of the Southern Unionists in London. I refused to meet them at a Conference. I said they had no locus standi at a Conference; but I would meet them as an Irishman might meet Irishmen. I discussed matters with them, and I said: `We want you all in Ireland'. They asked about representation, and I said: `I will agree a scheme shall be devised to give you full representation'. Madame Markievicz asks me what that scheme is. I do not know.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ:
Thank you.
PRESIDENT GRIFFITH:
That scheme will have to be considered when we are drawing up the Constitution. I was not able to work out the scheme at the moment. These questions are trap questions. I wrote overnight from London, and a courier came across to Dublin. I informed the Cabinet I was going to see these gentlemen, and I informed them afterwards; so they knew all about it. As to the second question, that is a question when the Constitution is being drawn up. What I have pledged is that they will get a fair representation in both Houses, and I will see to it. Now I move the adjournment of the House until such time as we call it together again.
MR. DE VALERA:
I do not know whether the President would be really wise in doing that straight off. There are a number of things he might enlighten us on by having another session. There are questions of policy to be disposed of, Republican staffs, foreign representatives, and a number of Executive matters which the House would like to have some information about. The taking over of the various offices is another matter. Ex-Ministers will, naturally, hand over their departments to the present Ministers and I suppose the present Ministers will make arrangements for taking them over. I would suggest that to-morrow an opportunity would be given to those who want to ask questions to meet again. An opportunity will then be given to those who want information as to when the next meeting of the Dáil will be. Let us have a definite idea of what is going to be done.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
Yes; something like that.
MR. DE VALERA:
Meanwhile the President and the members of his Cabinet will have an opportunity of preparing an outline of policy.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Would it not be better if the other side made a practical suggestion for once? I mentioned a matter the other day, and there was no response. Obviously a Committee, or some kind of contest between the two sides, would meet the case. It is also obvious, if we are not to be hindered, that certain details are necessary to be arranged, and those details will take a great deal of working out. It is not fair that we should be kept here and prevented from doing our work. Questions are being asked. I say these cannot be answered, because we have not the necessary time to send anybody to the English side to ask for transfers and arrange other matters. If we are not to be hindered, I think the adjournment of the House over a certain period ought to be supported. I do not care whether the period is named or not. At any rate, tactics should be dropped, and we should get a bit of fair play.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
The Minister of Finance put us into a difficulty yesterday which he has, apparently, forgotten. He informed us that every penny we were spending now was spent illegally. How can any expenditure be made until the House has sanctioned it for the next six months? Expenditure cannot be carried on until it is sanctioned by this House, as we did last July or August. That is one matter. There are several other questions, as the President suggested, that have to come up.
MR. M. COLLINS:
Would it be suggested by anybody here that we should cease at once paying the staffs in the different departments, and that we should ask back from the staffs all they have received in salaries for the past fortnight? The only expenditure that is being made is the simple routine expenditure in all the departments. I am not spending the money. All the departments have been carried on, as everybody knows just as they had been prior to any division. And surely to goodness it would not be suggested that they should not be paid. I do not know to what extent the other side would go in any suggestion now. I do not know if any person could find fault with any expenditure on ordinary staffs.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
I resent very much the suggestion that I am implying that the Minister of Finance should do anything he should not do. I resent it very much. This is an ordinary question of constitutional procedure. For any expenditure he has got to get the sanction of the House.
MR. M. COLLINS:
A statement will have to be prepared.
MISS M. MACSWINEY:
The newly elected President suggests that we should adjourn until he chooses to call us together again. We cannot adjourn until the ordinary business of the House is settled. Moreover we are told we cannot get questions answered without giving twenty-four hours' notice. There are some very important questions to be asked, not with a view to creating trouble, but to seek definite answers. I will oppose the motion to adjourn until those questions are answered, and until we get some idea---
MR. E. J. DUGGAN:
There is a motion before the House.
ALDERMAN M. STAINES:
I second the motion for the adjournment. Any members who have questions to ask should send them to the Cabinet Ministers, and the Cabinet Ministers will be in a much better position to answer them when we meet again. We can see then what is being done. It is not fair to the members of the Cabinet. Give them a chance.
MR. M. COLLINS:
I have been Minister of Finance for the last couple of hours only. All the estimates have to be prepared, and that is a fairly big
task, and naturally it will take some time before they can be submitted to the House.
MR. J. J. MACKEOWN:
I move that the motion be now put to the House.
MR. DE VALERA:
Do not try to rush the matter. We will get more harmony if there is no attempt to rush. Undoubtedly there is great anxiety on our side of the House to know what your programme for the future is. There, for example, is the question of the estimates. Instead of adjourning the House sine die, if a certain date were fixed, it would be accepted most definitely---if there was a definite date fixed at which the Dáil was to re-assemble, everything could be prepared by the new Cabinet, and they would be in a position to put the estimates before the House, when they could be fully examined. I suggest a date be definitely fixed.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
I think President de Valera is acting fairly; some of the other members are not. We want to get a chance. We have not spoken about ourselves, but for three months past we have been working night and day. We were faced with the task of fighting our English opponents first, and then we had to come and fight our Irish friends, and now we have to take on as big a job as ever men took on [hear, hear]. We want a chance. We cannot meet every day here and at the same time try and carry out the things. If President de Valera---I will still call him President---agrees, I will fix a month hence as the date for the next meeting, end we will meet again on this day month. Give us a chance to do some thing in the meantime. We cannot work as it is.
MR. DE VALERA:
We ought, I think, to take that as reasonable. Everybody ought to regard it as reasonable [applause]. The only thing we are really anxious about is the Army, and perhaps the Minister of Defence would give us some idea of what he proposes to do. I am anxious myself as an individual who knows the Army. I am anxious to know what the position of the Army will be. I fear that, unless the Army is kept intact as the Army of the Republic, we will not have that confidence---the members of the Army will not have that confidence---which is necessary if we are to keep them as a solid unit.
MR. SEAN T. O'KELLY:
Suppose we adjourn until the fourteenth February. It is a Tuesday.
PRESIDENT A. GRIFFITH:
So far as I am concerned, and also my colleagues, we will be always most happy to meet President de Valera to discuss any matters that can be discussed. The motion is to adjourn until fourteenth February; the tenth February, which would be this day month, is a Friday---a bad day to meet on.
MR. R. J. MULCAHY:
In reply to President de Valera's question with regard to the Army, the policy of the new Executive will be to keep the Army absolutely intact, and that, as between this date and the re-assembly of the Dáil, there is absolutely nothing that should give anybody in this Assembly any uneasiness with regard to the Army and with regard to its strength.[applause]
MR. J. J. WALSH:
Do I understand that discipline is going to be maintained in Cork as well as everywhere else?
MR. SEAN MOYLAN:
When has the Army in Cork ever shown lack of discipline? [hear, hear]
MR. P. COLLIVET:
I would like to ask that, if we do separate we will separate under circumstances that will appeal to our own selves and to the people, and I would ask Deputies to make no more remarks that would lead to differences of opinion.
MR. DE VALERA:
The Minister of Defence has not quite satisfied me. He says he will keep the Army intact. What I am anxious about is that orders given to the Army will be given in the name of the Government of the Republic; otherwise I fear there might be some trouble.
MR. R. J. MULCAHY:
The Army will remain occupying the same position with regard to this Government of the Republic, and occupying the same position with regard to the Minister of Defence, and under the same management, and in the same spirit as we have had up to the present [hear, hear].
MR. DE VALERA:
I do not want to pin you down any further, so I will take it at that.
PRESIDENT GRIFFITH:
Before we adjourn I wish to move that the thanks of the assembly be conveyed to the College authorities for placing these rooms so long at our disposal.
MR. DE VALERA:
I have great pleasure in seconding that proposal. The University authorities were very kind when, while I was acting as President of the Dáil---President of the Republic---I asked that we might be given accommodation here. Then as Chancellor of the University, I am delighted that this historic meeting---although for many reasons it will be a sad one---was held here [applause].
THE SPEAKER put the motion and declared it carried unanimously.
MR. R. J. MULCAHY:
On a point of explanation; what I said apparently has not been understood, and it has been suggested I avoided saying what could have been said very simply. It is suggested I avoided saying the Army will continue to be the Army of the Irish Republic. If any assurance is required---the Army will remain the Army of the Irish Republic [applause].
The House rose.
Marcus Garvey of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in New York was not one to miss congratulating Dail Eireann on ratifying the Treaty, issuing the following announcement:
“ The Irish have succeeded, first among the trio of Egypt, India and Ireland, in winning a place of mastery among the nations of the world. Some time last night the Irish Parliament, with a majority of seven, voted for the ratification of the agreement . . . thus elevating Ireland and the Irish people from the position of serfs, peons, to that of masters”
Garvey found that his admiration of the revolutionary nationalism of Sinn Fein, under conditions of violent racial upheaval in America, refocused his articulation of the race question: "Africa must be for the Africans, and them exclusively." This ideological transition, moreover, was enhanced and deepened by Garvey's identification with the awe-inspiring blood sacrifice of Irish patriotic martyrdom, which symbolized in very dramatic ways both the recovery of Irish political independence and racial redemption. Thus, if Garvey's rapid entry into the swirling currents of postwar nationalist agitation did contribute to the turbulent quality of the epoch, he was guided to a remarkable degree by the example of the Irish struggle waged both in Ireland and from America.
Robert A Hill. “The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers Project “ UCLA ( Via Internet Site June 1997 )
`
Griffith summons all elected members of the 26 counties to a meeting of Dail Eireann in the Mansion House on January 14th. De Valera announced on behalf of all Anti-Treaty TD’s that they did not recognise the Parliament and would not be sitting. The divisions were forming. While political opinion was dividing along both Pro & Anti-Treaty lines, internally, both groups were also riven by moderates and extremists. Collins on the other hand could plainly see that Civil War was possible but avoidable, and if not, wanted time in which to build up the army. The reasoning being that while most of the active I.R.A units were anti-treaty, a policy of non-confrontation would allow for strengtening defences.
For the Anti-Treaty group, one of the key questions remained that of Army control. The new Minister for Defence, Richard Mulcahy maintained that it would be maintained as the Army of the Irish Republic but it became widely believed that the army could be now be used against opposition to the Treaty. To ensure a form of military neutrality, a letter requesting the holding of a General Army Convention was sent to the Minister for Defence by Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows, James O’Donovan,. Sean Russel, Oscar Traynor and Liam Lynch. In it were proposed resoloutions to be placed before the convention, amongst them an affirmation by the army of allegiance to the Irish Republic and controlled by an Executive to be appointed by the Convention. Not surprisingly, the convention was refused by Mulcahy citing that the Army would remain answerable to the Dail and not to any another executive. A private meeting to examine the situation was proposed.
12
Following on from the Mulcahy letter, an Acting Military Council was formed by the Anti-Treaty members who in turn advised the Minister for Defence that a convention would be called by them. This resulted in an agreement that an Army Convention would be held within two months.
As political divisions throughout the country were forming, so too did divisions within the Irish Volunteers. Ernie O’Malley, Commandant of the Second Southern met with his commanders who objected strongly to being under Dail control. The first break amongst the Irish Volunteers occurred when this division repudiated the Dail’s authority and remained independent. Similar breaks occurred in the West.
British Government announced an amnesty for all Irish political prisoners, releasing 400 men
Spanish Flu continues to sweep through Ireland and Britain.
14
Under articles 17 & 18 of the Treaty, a “Southern Parliament” was convened, performed two functions ( passing a motion approving the Treaty and electing a Provisional Government for the 26 counties ) and then ceased to exist.
There were 64 pro-treaty members elected to the 2nd Dail in May 1921 plus the 4 members of Trinity College.
The Parliament elected a provisional government for the 26 counties and confirmed the provision of the Treaty whereby the Irish Free State was to evolve from the provisional government in one year after the signing of the Treaty. De Valera and supporters were not present. Michael Collins was appointed Chairman and to organise the take-over from the British Government and Army.
15
On the last day of full British Administration in Ireland, Mark Sturgis wrote in his diary ‘History alone will show whether we have donegood work for Ireland and England or damn bad. It is clearly now up to Ireland to make a success of it or not. We have done the job we were sent to do … this I suppose is the last phase as far as I am concerned. If Collins stands up to the extremeists all will be well, but there was an uneasy tone in the Dial debate which sounded like a feeling after placation of these gentry which I’m sure is the wrong policy and may wreck the new Government if they go on with it..’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p 227
16
Government of the 26 Counties of Ireland formally handed over.
Michael Collins met with the Lord Lieutenant in Dublin Castle and ‘received the surrender of Dublin Castle’ according to the Provisional Government manifesto and was duly installed. On arrival at the Castle, he was told by the Viceroy that he was seven minutes late and is reputed to have said ‘We’ve been waiting seven hundred years, you can have your seven minutes’.
At the same time, British troop evacuation began, with flying colours and marching bands. ‘Let Erin Remember’ being the favourite farewell tune. The Black and Tans, Auxilliaries and RIC also began to disband. A proclamation was issued ordering courts and public servants to continue carrying out their functions. The Civil Servants that wanted to remain, kept their positions and so the machinery of administration continued. Collins went to London to confer on transfer of services, evacuation and amnestys.
As Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State, Collins said ‘How could I ever have expected to see Dublin Castle itself – that dread Bastille of Ireland – formally surrendered into my hands by the Lord Lieutenant in the brocade-hung council chamber, on my producing a copy of the London Treaty?’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.62
The Provisional Government received £500,000 to assist in the take over.
The new Government ‘inherited relatively strong economic, educational, social and political infrastructures. In addition, partition now saved the South from the most explosive internal problems subverting new states: race and religion, by the simple device of exporting them to the North.’
Prof. J.J.Lee. ‘Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society’ Cambridge University Press 1989. P77.
Over the following days, recruitment for the new police force, the Civic Guards, started. Macardle claims that of the Republican Police offered positions, ‘those known to be opposed to the Treaty [were] exempted from the offer, often by name.’ Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P654
17
Mark Sturgis was finding the transition somewhat awkward: ‘The papers announce the ‘Surrender of Dublin Castle’ the phrase used in the Sinn Fein Official from the Mansion House. It leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. It is so ‘caddish’. They might with advantage have confined themselves to prompting the papers to such talk and not indulged in it ‘officially’. I hope the Special Honours list will come quick – it will be the best counter to this surrender talk, which is galling to use, to the soldiers and the police alike, and will show that Lloyd George does not share this view that we are beaten..;
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p 227
19
Mark Sturgis wrote ‘The Provisonal Government are making a show of governing. I wish they would lose no time in getting the IRA into uniform so that all may know who’s who and whats what with violence is by no means decreasing; the stealing of motors in and near Dublin is serious..’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p 227
Southern Unionists, meeting in Dawson Street, resolve unanimously to recognise the Provisional Government and the Free State.
20
Sandy Linsay, an old Oxford friend of Erskine Childers commented to Mrs Childers: ‘Absoloutley everything that De Valera has said to the NE has has with the best intentions said the thing most calculated to put their backs up. I think that now you are preserving the unity of the South and West at the expense of making impossible or delaying for a long time the unity of the whole of Ireland.’
Michael Hopkinson ’The Irish War of Independence’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 2002. p161
21
Following meetings bwtween Collins, Churchill and Craig, both the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland agreed to send representatives to London to finalise the boundaries between the two states. Craig also undertakes to stop the attacks taking place on Ulster Catholics and to protect Catholic workers in the Belfast shipyards.
De Valera left for the Irish Race Congress meeting in Paris, attended by representatives of Irish organisations throughout the world. He traveled from London to Paris in disguise of Fr. Patrick Walsh until his return on February 3rd.
22
Erskine Childers began a bi-weekly newletter ‘The Republic Of Ireland’ containing ‘penetrating analysis of the inferior constitutional position which the Treaty was designed to create, exposures of the delusions fostered by the Pro-Treaty press and appeals to the reason of the Irish people’ Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P657
Bendict XV (1854-1922), elected Pope 1914-1922 died of pneumonia at the Vatican aged 68. Benedict maintained a strict neutrality throughout the World War and made frequent efforts to bring about a peace settlement and to aid war victims. During his rule, official relations were restored between the Vatican and the French government, and a British representative was sent to the Vatican for the first time since the 17th century. In 1917 he promulgated the new Codex Juris Canonici (Code of Canon Law).
Pius XI elected Pope and ruled until 1939.
23
While Collins, Duggan and O’Higgins were in London to assist British ministers in implementing the Treaty, Lady Hazel Lavery held a dinner party to intorduce them to her English friends. ‘Juliet Duff later remarked that ‘three nicer men, she’d never met’ particularly Collins, who was ‘quite irresistible’ and a ‘real playboy’ with a tremendous twinkle and sudden quick impulsive gestures’ That day Collins had met criag to discuss implications of the Treaty and the lifting of the boycott of goods from Belfast… Lady Duff recalled ‘It was a dramatic evening and they were all as pleased as punch at having agreed so far with criag. They were so interesting about everything, no bitterness nor boasting nor crowing, just talking things over quietly and dispasionatley’. The Churchills were among the guests…’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P85
24
Commenting on the Boundary Commission agreement signed on the 21st, Ronald McNeill MP regarded the action as ‘the definite and formal recognition by Mr. Collins of the status of Ulster as a separate Government from Ireland’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P658
The Provisional Government officially ends the ‘Belfast Boycott’ although it unoficcially remains in existence for a little longer.
25
Sir James Craig stated in Belfast ‘ I will never give in to any re-arrangement of the boundary that leaves our Ulster area less than it is under the Government of Ireland Act’. Not surprisngly, this caused some reaction in the more nationalist border counties within Ulster. Collins arranged the lifting of the Belfast Boycott in return for Catholic employment without barriers in Northern Ireland.
27
The Dublin Gazette, first published in 1705, was last issued on Friday, January 27, 1922. On the following Tuesday it was replaced by Iris Oifigiuil, the official organ of the Irish government.
Killareny handed over to the Provisional Government.
28
Washington: 107 die when the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre collapsed under the weight of snow.
30
US: A group of churchmen condemned Jazz music as ‘ a return to the jungle’.
First meeting of the committee to draft a constitution under chairmanship of Michael Collins.
31
At month end, the situation in Ireland had changed dramatically. British forces & the RIC were disbanding throuhgout the 26 counties and being replaced by Irish troops and police. The economic situation was not as optomistic – the British campaign resulted in industrial recession, farmland was out of cultivation and the unemployed numbers were rapidly rising. Macardle comments that it was a combination of warfare, compromise, business and agricultural recession and which ‘the resistance of the Irish people could not remain at its highest; the temptation to see only the good side in any terns which might offer a livelihood was overwhelming; promises which at another time might have been doubted and examined, were readily believed’
Desertion from the Free State Army became a frequent event, bringing arms and munitions to the Anti-Treaty side.
The Irish Free State Army took formal control of the Beggar's Bush Barracks, Dublin, on 31 January 1922.
Germany: Cost of living rose 74% in 12 months.
here to edit.
February 1922
1
Foot & Mouth disease broke out in Ireland and Britain.
Patrick Hogan, the new Minister for Agriculture in the Free State agreed a slogan to promote farming growth ‘ One more cow, one more sow and one more acre under the plough’
Various interest groups now began to lobby the new Government, one was the IVA or Irish Vigilance Association: ‘Immoral stories, immoral situations, nude figures, indecently dressed figures – in a word everything contrary to Christian purity and modesty – should be banned mercilessly. All films and performances which are used for propaganda purposes alien to Irish and Catholic ideas must be turned down also…pictures and performances that assume the lawfulness of divorce..’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.62
Anti-Treaty forces now began to ‘infiltrate’ the Free State army and were prepared to act in a military coup. Free State troops deployed at 4am to take over the Beggars Bush Barracks from departing British toops.
The NI Minister for Home Affairs formed a committee to advise on police matters in Northern Ireland. It reported its findings on 31 March 1922. It was also stated that the establishment of ‘B’ Class Special Constables would be ten times the combined number of RIC and ‘A’ Class Special Constables in any of the six counties. This figure was never to be reached.
2
‘History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake’ Ulysses by James Joyce – published by the Paris bookstore owned by expatriate American Sylvia Beach. The same year, the novel is banned as indecent in Britain and the U.S. A shipment is seized by the U.S. postal authorities, who proceed to burn 500 copies.
Constable Charles Ednie (26) from Edinburgh was shot dead in Killarney following an incident between patrolling IRA members in the town and the RIC. Killarney had been handed over to the Provisional Government on 27th January and it was alleged that the RIC opened fire on the IRA. This was the first casualty of the RIC in 1922.
3
Constables William Gourlay (32) from Lanark and Frank Kershaw (23) from Lancashire were shot dead when leaving a public house in Lisdoonvarna, Co. Clare.
4
Collins called to London, writing a quick letter to his fiancee, Kitty Kiernan ‘All of a sudden I am called away to London…I wish you were coming to London with me tonight…’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P88
Violence in India comes to a head when nationalists kill 22 at a police station. Indian National Congress leader Mahatma Gandhi calls for a halt to his noncooperation movement to stop the mayhem, but British authorities arrest him March 10 for his leadership of the movement and sentence him to six years imprisonment.
5
Cumman na mBan held it’s convention in Dublin and ‘reaffirmed its allegiance to the Republic, rejected a motion to support the Treaty by 419 votes to 63…Pro-Treaty members were requested to resign’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P658
The first issue of ‘The Reader’s Digest’ was produced. Issue one was sent to 1,500 subscribers and opened with an article ‘How to keep young mentally’. Founded by DeWitt Wallace with just $5,000 in capital and operating from under a speakeasy in New York’s Grenwich Village it’s stated aims were to ‘ inform, entertain, inspire and guide people in their daily lives..’
6
Rioting broke out in Belfast which was to continue sporadically for almost 3 weeks.
10
Special Constable Charles McFadden was killed when an Ulster Special Constabularly patrol left Strabane to investigate reports of IRA activity in Clady.
11
Border skimishing increased. In Clones, Co. Monaghan, as a party of armed Ulster Specials were ordered back to the border, the local I.R.A Commandant Fitzpatrick, a gun battle erupted between the 18 man detachment of the Ulster Specials and the IRA. Special Constable Robert McMahon was killed. Meanwhile, another member of the Ulster Specials further along the train, jumped out and shot Fitzpatrick and a further gun battle broke out. Special Sergeant William Dougherty and Special Constables James Lewis and William McFarland were killed and eight more wounded. Some of the remaining detachment escaped along the railway line back to Newtownbutler in Northern Ireland while others took refuge in the RIC Barracks and a number captured by the IRA. These men were not released until 10 April. After the fracas, street lamps were turned off and lights in local shops and houses were ordered extinguished as other IRA units from Monaghan, Fermanagh and Cavan went to the town.
This led to rioting for three days in Belfast leaving 27 dead and the temporary suspension of evacuation of British troops from Ireland.
2 RIC constables were kidnapped near Macroom, Co. Cork and severley beaten with wire whips.
District Inspector Michael Keany (53) was shot dead while walking with his son in Clonakilty, Co. Cork. He was a marked man since his actions during an ambush in Rosscarbery resulted in the deaths of six IRA members and others wounded.
12
The new Pope elected was Cardinal Achille Ratti, Archbishop of Milan. The 257th Pope adopted the name of Pius XI and began to end the differences between the Italian Government and the Vatican.
The first of a series of anti-treaty meetings was held in Dublin’s O’Connell Street, led by de Valera and with Pearse’s mother on the platform. As expected he ‘vehemently addressed a vast enthusastic crowd from three platforms, and with all the vigour of his spirit, assailed the London agreement’ Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.176
13
Troop evacuations from Ireland were halted as a result of the Belfast rioting and further border skimishes. 27 killed and 68 wounded in 3 days violence in Belfast.
Collins in a cable to the AARIR urged US agreement on acceptance of the Treaty citing that a rejecteion would lead to a return to war conditions.
14
Anti-Catholic riots in Belfast continued, 12 dead in one day including children killed when a bomb was thrown.
15
The civilian administration of Dublin Castle began evacuation.
In the House of Commons, Churchill commented that if the Irish accepted Arthur Griffith advice and guidance to ratify the Treaty, Griffith would be able to ‘disestablish the Irish Republic…is it not a desirable thing that upon the authority of the Irish people recorded at an election, the Republican idea should be definitely, finally and completely put aside?’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.62
In the Netherlands, the Permanent Court of International Justice opens in The Hague.
16
Churchill in the House of Commons pondered ‘let us assume that the Boundary Commission…were to reduce Ulster to it's preponderatingly Ornage areas…would not that be a fatal and permanent obstacle to the unity and cooperation of Ireland?’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.62
An apprentice manager was shot dead in Belfast which triggered sporadic gunbattles in parts of Belfast, one incident killing Special Constable Hector Stewart.
In a memorandum ‘On the Wider International Aspects of an Anglo Irish Settlement’, Michael Collins wrote to John Devoy saying:
‘a new era is dawning, not for Ireland only, but for the whole world...the problem of associating autonomous communities can only be solved by recognising the complete independence of the several countries associated...into such a league might not America be ready to enter?’
Devoy disagreed strongly, writing back to Collins:
...Irish-American and many millions of other citizens are unalterably opposed to any Old World entanglements under any name whatsoever, knowing that highly trained, unscrupulous British diplomats will overreach and hoodwink American amatuers... America’s only security lies in strict adherence to Washington’s policy...
although thay remain [ Irish ] Republicans, our best men here, under existing conditions, favour giving the ‘Free State’ a chance to do what it can for Ireland. Personally, I am utterly opposed to De Valera attempt to upset the ‘Free State Agreement’...it is grotesque for De Valera to talk of hsi loyalty to the Republic. The first blow to the Republic was delivered by him in the Cuban interview, the second and more deadly one , was his unpardonable action in rejecting the Republican plank at Chicago...the third was his making the split here on charges that were all impudent falsehoods, and using vast sums of money collected by us for the Irish Republic to keep the spirit alive. You are fully aware of this and Stephen O’Mara’s recent request to Splitters for return of money advanced to them is abundant confirmation. That money should have gone in support of fighting men in irelnd, was prostituted for an evil purpose and materially aided England’s savage warfare on Ireland.
These infamous actions of De Valera were approved or condoned by all of you. You all bolstered up an attempt to create an autocracy and the present situation is the inevitable result. You allowed De Valera to hold the funds here in his own name and he is now holding a vast balance and is fighting you, not for Ireland’s sake, but to retain his grip as leader, after proving his utter unfitness.
Adhering unalterably to my life long Republican convictions, my earnest hope is that in such a struggle you man win, believing as I do that the defeat of De Valera’s selfish campaign is absolutely necessary in Ireland’s dearest interests’
Tansill. ‘American and the Fight for Irish Freedom 1865-1922’. Devin-Adair. New York 1957. p438-439
17
London: MP’s approve the Irish Free State Bill which sets up a Boundary Commisison for the Free State and Northern Ireland.
The first postage stamps are issued by the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State.
Constable Lauchlin McEdward (21) from Edinburgh was shot dead in Garryowen, Limerick.
Mc Garrity was sent to Ireland to see if the IRB was still intact and find out the supreme councils position on the treaty. It was thought that Mc Garrity’s influence might have an effect on the two factions, but he had no effect.
De Valera and Collins agreed to postpone elections for a period of 90 days until some form of settlement or compromise could be reach between the factions.
19
A large Anti-Treaty rally was held in Cork, with de Valera attacking the Constitution and challenging Griffith and Cabinet to frame a constitution. Cathal Brugha commented on Document No.2 as ‘a supreme effort by the Captain of the ship to pull it ff the rocks on which it had been driven by the incompetent amateurs who had seized the helm.’
21
The Sinn Fein Ard Fheis was held in Dublin.
Recruitment begins for the new police force in Ireland. An un-armed force from it's inception, it’s first member was P.J.Kerrigan from Co.Mayo.
22
The imemdiate future of the national movement was the main topic at the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis in the Mansion House. 3,000 delegates attending were certainly aware of the potential split within the ranks, opted to compromise and allow the elections be postponed for at least three months so that the Treaty and the proposed constitution could be examined by the electorate in more detail.
Collins speaking at the Ard-Fheis said ‘I know the English can go to war with us, and will go to war with us, and are at this moment watching an opportunity to go to war with us’ Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.186
23
As British troops evacuated positions in Limerick, Anti-Treaty forces occupied parts of the city, refusing access to Government troops. Negotiations would continue over two weeks, both factions wishing to avoid any overt conflict.
25
Sporadic rioting in Belfast ended with 138 dead, 96 Catholic and 42 Protestant.
27
Richard Mulcahy, Minister for Defence, approved an Army Convention for March 26th wich was followed by Brigade meetings throughout the country to assess opinion and report back to the Minister by early March.
28
As Dail Eireann met, Anti-Treaty forces through most of Munster re-stated their oppositon to the Provisional Government in Dublin. In a letter to Collins, Churchill wrote ‘Thank God you have got to manage it and not we’. In Limerick, both Pro & Anti-Treaty forces seized parts of Limerick from the evacuating British troops.
March 1922
1
A Special Powers Bill was introduced in Northern Ireland suspending normal process of law and introducing flogging and death penalty inflicted for possesion of arms and allowing the Minister for Home Affairs ‘virtually dictatorial authority’
An early ‘ethnic cleansing’ throughout Belfast and parts of Ulster now became commonplace. Craig refused to declare Martial Law citing adverse public opinion in Britian and preference given to the recruitment of special constables. Sir Henry Wilson became advisor on military policy.
2
The Sinn Fein Ard Fheis agreement was ratified by Dail Eireann. A de Valera supported motion to allow full sufferage to women was defeated on the grounds that it was a ploy to delay elections. The result however was an outdated electoral register from 1918. The Dail adjourned to April 25th.
Macardle commenting on the roots of the looming conflict also states that ‘neither Griffith or Collins showed any disposition to await the verdict of the electorate. Btoh treated the vote in the Dail as giving them the license to carry out the British Government programme, institute the regime required by the Treaty and in short regard its acceptance as a fait acompli.’
RIC Sergeant John Cotter (37) from Clare was shot dead in Phibsborough. He had been involved in the defence of Roskeen Barracks, North Tipperary in 1920 that resulted in the deaths of 3 IRA members.
A large cargo of German purchased arms were landed to Republican forces at Helvic Head in Waterford.
3
RIC Head Constable Christopher Davis (42) from Galway and Constable William Cummings (25) from Hampshire were killed in an ambush in Tipperary town. Fellow RIC officers were arrested later in Dublin for complicity in the attack.
Italy: Fascists under directions from Mussolini, seized control of the free port of Fiume on the Adriatic. The port was then occupied by Italian troops. Mussolini and the Fascist leadership noting the weakness, began to run succesful candidates in various city Government elections throughout the country. The anti-liberal, anti-socialist and nationalistic movement began to make attacks on socialist groups and peasant leagues winning support from the middle classes and business
4
The Irish Envoys to the US and Paris, Harry Boland and Sean T. O'Kelly were dismissed following their opposition to the Treaty.
5
Anti-Treaty deputies met and formally established Clann na Poblachta with de Valera as President and Stack, Brugha and Mary McSwiney as Vice-Presidents. Headquarters of the new Republican party were de Valera’s own offices, 23 Suffolk Street.
F.W. Murnau's horror film masterpiece Nosferatu premieres in Germany. Regarded as the first vampire film.
6
One of the last surviving letters from Mark Sturgis in Dublin Castle was dated March 6th 1922 in a letter to Sir John Anderson. He expressed his unease at the slowness in achieving order in the 26 counties as the Republican challenge to the Treaty gathered pace. The RIC in the meantime were being wound up but it’s members were frequently robbed and were becoming demoralised.
Sturgis remained on in the Castle until 1924 but with little relevance to events. Awarded a Knighthood for his work in Ireland in 1923 and on his return to England moved to HM Treasury. He died from tuberculosis on 29 April 1949.
Babe Ruth signs three-year contract with New York Yankees for salary of $52,000 a year (the highest salary for a ballplayer up to that time), meaning his pay equaled about 40 percent of the entire Yankee payroll. By 1927, The Babe was earning $70,000 a year on his contract (not counting outside endorsements).
7
Harry Boland’s succesor, Professor T.A.Smiddy was appointed as the Irish Free State representative to the US.
Churchil authorised arms supplies to the Provisional Government following attacks on former RIC members in Tipperary. ‘It is up to the Provisional Government not to allow themselves to be defied in public by lawless persons…I am supplying to them means to assert their authority.’
9
Constable Dudley O’Sullivan was shot dead while on duty in Cork city.
Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape premieres on Broadway.
10
Constables James Cullen(23) from Wexford and Patrick O’Connor (35) from Clare were shot dead on the Falls Road, Belfast.
11
Anti-Treaty forces cede control of Limerick to Free State troops following intervention from Oscar Traynor and Liam Lynch.
13
Sergeant Christopher Clarke (42) from Laois was shot dead as he returned home from the funerals of Constables Cullen and O’Connor, killed on the Falls Road on the 10th.
Judge Cohalan in a letter to Matthew Cummings wrote of his thoughts on the Treaty and that it was a:
‘step forward on the road to independence....between Collins and De Valera, the real lovers of Irish liberty favour Collins, such favour is not an endorsement of any settlement with England but only an utter repudiation of De Valera as the author of the present situation in Ireland and the man whose actions have prevented a recognition by other nations of the Republic of Ireland.’
15
Macrdle alleges that as a result of Brigade meetings througout the country, over 75% of the Irish Volunteers were against the Treaty. Mulcahy ‘realised that the Convention would show a result most embarrasing to the Treaty party…he became afariad that if the Convention were held, a military dictatorship might be set up and made representations to the Dail Cabinet’ Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P676
Sergeants Tobias Gibbons (44) from Mayo and John Gilmartin (50) from Leitrim were both shot dead in their hospital beds in Galway.
That evening, all Brigade commanders were advised that the Cabinet had prohibited that General Convention on March 26th. This was followed by an order from the Defence Minister that any officer attending the now banned Convention would be dismissed.
17
De Valera in a speech in Thurles said ‘if the Volunteers of the future attempted to reach the goal which the Volunteers of the past had fought for, they would have to wade through Irish blood, through the blood of the soldiers of the Irish Government and through, perhaps, the blood of some of the members of the Government in order to get Irish Freedom’.
Special Constable Alexander Kirkpatrick was shot dead in Upperlands, Co. Derry when he surprised a party of IRA preparing the bridge for demolition to delay police reinforcements reaching Maghera while the IRA attacked the local barracks.
18
India - Mahatma Ghandi pleaded guilty to three charges of sedition in Ahemedabad and was sentenced to six years imprisonment. ‘Non-violence is the first and last article of my faith’ he said and that he was there to ‘submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that could be inflicted’.
20
The Defence Minister in an effort to reach some compromise, suggested the set-up of a joint council to elect eight commsioners ‘to frame definite proposals for associating the I.R.A with the Government elected by the Irish people’. The majority of Anti-Treaty forces agreed on provision that the Army Convention be held not later than April 16th and that recruitment to the new police force, the Civic Guards be halted. This was refused and the proposals failed.
While it is accepted the new Irish state Constitutiion had no sectarian bias, ‘the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin insisted to Cosgrave that the Catholic Church had not merely the right, but the duty, to control Protestant consciences’ and while there was no overt anti-Semetism ‘ it was circumstances, not character, that prevented the latent anti-semitism finding a more active outlet in Ireland.’ In addition, Ireland had another advantage ’ it was not the potential victim of irredentist or imperalist ambitions.’ There was no need to maintain large armies with attendant strains on Government finances and with potential threats to internal security.
Prof. J.J.Lee. ‘Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society’ Cambridge University Press 1989. P77.
21
Special Constable Samuel Laird was killed when the IRA attacked a veteinary surgeons home in Trillick, Co. Tyrone.
22
The Republican Military Council now called for an Army Convention on the 26th. This marked the definite breakway of the republican section of the army from the provisional Government control. Over 50 senior officers in the army signed the summons to attend and appeared in the daily press on the 23rd.
The Irish High Commisioner in London, J.W.Dulanty in a note to the British Government on the oath of allegiance: ‘The people…regard it as an intolerable burden, a relic of mediavialism, a test imposed from outside under threat of immediate and terrible war.’
Special Constable George Chittick was shot dead while tending livestock at his home near Trillick, Co. Tyrone.
Following increasing attacks on Nothern Irish Catholics, the ‘B-Specials’ were targeted by the IRA for retaliation throughout Ulster.
23
6 members of the Catholic MacMahon publican family were killed in Belfast by men in police uniforms.
Special Constables William Chermside and Thomas Cunningham was shot dead on foot patrol in Belfast.
25
Belfast Nationalist MP, Joe Devlin stated in the House of Commons following the MacMahon murders ‘ If Catholics have no revolvers to protect themselves they are murdered. If they have revolvers they are flogged and sentenced to death’
The newly elected Pope Pius XI got down to business by ordering a ‘crusade against immodest women’s fashions’ as in his opinion, fashions were deemed so revealing.
26
The Army Convention convened in the Mansion House with 220 delegates representing 49 brigades. The delegates of the First Southern Brigade anticipating Government interference arrived in an armoured car. The meeting endorsed the January 11th resolutions placing the Army under the control of an executive appointed by the Convention. The meeting was adjourned to April 9th.
This effectively marked the split within the IRA and prompted a massive organisation within both groups to consolidate and gather support throughout the country for an expected face off.
Former RIC Constable Patrick Poland was seriously wounded in an attack in Cork.
27
A circular from the RIC Office in Dublin Castle, informed all members that the disbandment of the RIC was to begin immediately except in the 6 counties of Northern Ireland and was to be completed not later than 31st May, 1922. Members of the RIC who wished to join the RUC in Ulster were advised they could not join until the RIC had been disbanded but were permitted to resign from the force by giving one months notice. Traveling warrants were issued to men and their families allowing them to travel free to any place within the UK and Ireland.
As RIC nembers began to disband, they came under attack and some killed when they returned to their home areas.
Colonel Ashley asked in the House of Commons, what help was being given to ex RIC members who were in danger or threatened with death if they rerurned home.
Former RIC Sergeant Gloster shot dead in Barrack Street, Cork. He had retired in 1920.
28
Rory O’Connor on behalf of the anti-treaty forces, repudiates the authority of Dail Eireann.
Two former members of the RIC were taken from the Hollyhead steamer at Dublin’s North Wall as it was about to sail for Britain. Both men were reported as being killed.
New York: the Friends of Irish Freedom published a Declaration on the Political situation in Ireland as adopted by the National Council Friends of Irish Freedom in the Hotel Astor, New York and commented on ‘the confusion of thought which has arised in connection therwith; and the threat of civil war which looms larger every day’ and considered it advisable to supplement the earlier Declaration of Principles adopted in December and resoloutions adopted at National Council on January 13th:
‘Those who fought for the Irish Republic during recent years are now divided into two groups.
One of these groups has agreed to a compromise with England and accepted an enlarged measure of Home Rule under the title ‘Irish Free State’. The compromise retains the Soverignity of the English King over Ireland and guarantees British military control over Ireland’s chief ports, submarine cables, wireless and air stations, but gives certai powers of local legislation and administration and may secure the evacuation of Ireland by the English army.
The other group opposes the ‘Irish Free State’ agreement. De Valera and his auxilliary leaders of this group were parties, both before and after the ‘Agreement’ was signed in London, to an arrangement which abandoned the ideas of Ireland’s absolute independence practically to the same extent as does the Free State Agreement. Yet, this group at the present time caims that it still stands for an Independent Republic!’
The Declaration made comment on the events in Irish America 1919-20 and the ‘work of destruction in America’ by de Valera, outlining the actions taken by de Valera and others in attempting to destroy Irish American efforts to secure independence for Ireland. ‘Bearing in mind the tactics for the last two years, we unhesitaingly brand as a sham, his present protestations on behlaf of Irish Republicanism. ..no matter what they may say or do now, they cannot convince inteligent people that they are sincere in their present campaign…
Realising the insincerity of de Valera’s position and the hopeless confusion into which he would plunge Ireland, well meaning men have suggested that the Friends of Irish Freedom should endorse the Free State. They are wrong. The organisation will never endorse the Free State, and individual members should not do so…not having been consulted we are under no obligation to approve or endorse…while the indications are that at the proposed General Election, the people of Ireland may, by a majority, vote for the Free State Government, we assert that, in view of their repeated declarations for an indpeendent Republic in recent years, such coming vote will not represent the free will of the Irish pope, but will be given merely to escape the ever preent English threat of a renewal o war of devestation and extermination.
The Organisation sees, however, that by permitting the Free State to come into being – without any such endoresement as would stultify the Race historically – very material advnatages can be gained for Ireland. The British soldiers can b got out of te country; the British controlled police can be cleaned out of the barracks; the economic and educaional situation an be vsly improvd. Then when the Irish people again decide upon absolute seperation from England, a united Race abroad can swing world sentiment againt a foreign invasion of Ireland. Thus te aim of our organisation with regard to Ireland can be fulfilled.
One of the main purposes for which the Friends of Irish Freedom exists is to aid in securingthe absolute indepndence of Ireland – which is her God given right. We have to deviated and will not eviate from that policy, we are opposed to ‘exerna’ as well as internal association of Ireland with the British Empire. We reffirm our belief that ‘Ireland can never achieve liberty nor reach a place of equality with independent nations which any connetion with England remains, and that a free and independent Republic, seperated from he British Empore and controlling the destinies of the Irish people is the only soloution of the Irish National Problem.’
Lynch Family Archives – Folder 6 1921-1937
29
The Pro-Treaty ‘Freemans Journal’ the former Redmond newspaper was destroyed by a anti-treaty group led by Mellows and O’Connor on the grounds that a misleading item on the Army Convention had been printed.
Following the killing of a Catholic politician, Owen McMahon and four members of his family, the Northern Ireland PM, James Craig ‘No stone should be left unturned to try and stop this murdering that is going on in Ireland.’ Later discovered the killers were in uniform and ‘B Specials’.
Sergeant Patrick Early and Special Constable James Harper were ambushed and killed in Cullaville, Co. Armagh.
In Cobh, men of the First Southern Division seized arms, amunition and explosives from a British ship. The storm was approaching. Both factions sent delegations to America, led by James O’Mara and Austin, but a proposed conference failed to materialise.
A US Census reported that 11% of the population cannot speak english.
30
Collins met with James Craig and the Northern Irish Minister for Education, Charles Londonderry in Churchill’s office at the Colonial Office following an eruption of sectarian violence in Ulster. Craig agreed to the reorganisation of the police force to provide equal protection for both sections of the community and to reinstate sacked Catholics from their jobs in the shipyards. Collins agreed to act against IRA units operating against Northern Ireland from the Free State. A peace agreement was signed by Collins and Craig who issued a joint statement: ‘Peace is today delcared. From today the two Governments undertake to cooperate in every way in their power with a view to the restoration of peaceful conditions in the unsettled areas.’
Neither side were to deliver on the agreement.
Londonderry had initially refused to meet with Collins during the Treaty negotiations claiming that there was ‘a very unhealthy curiosity to meet this celebrity’, deeming Collins ‘an assasin and did not wish to socialise with somebody who had been party to
the murders of ‘brother officers of my own and many friends who lived in Ireland.’ But the reason may have been more personal in that in the midst of having an affair with Lady Lavery, he was dropped in favour of Collins.
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P86
31
The ‘Irish Free State Agreement Act’ received the Royal assent.
Craig’s second pact with Collins was published.
At month’s end, the I.R.A was to all intents and purposes, two armies. Brigades and commands reflecting the views of their men either openly declared acceptance or rejection of the Treaty. As the British evacutation continued, barracks and garrisons were replaced by either Pro-Treaty or Anti-Treaty supporters and covert operations by Anti-Treaty forces to stockpile arms and munitions began. Clashes between the two factions supporters became commonplace.
De Valera writing to Stack on the possibility of reaching unity ‘Honestly, I am afraid that this is a dream, pure and simple. I don’t believe the other side will make any advance beyond the strict terms of the Treaty which, of course, preculdes a Constitution which we could agree to.’ Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.184
“Legalism preoccupied the approach of the Treatyites, while a romantic moralism dominated the minds of their opponents….de Valera's tendency to keep his intellect private and his rhetoric public…”
Professor Tom Garvin - UCD Lecturer in Politics. Irish Times interview 1996.
The Northern Ireland committee on police matters reporting its findings to the Minister for Home Affairs. It recommended that the new police force for the state be 3,000 in number with 1/3 of the places reserved for R.C. recruits. It also recommended that the prefix ‘Royal’ be retained.
Special Constable David Allen was killed while on foot patrol in Newry, Co. Down when challenging a group of men they thought to be B Specials, who were 20 IRA members.
Special Constable Thomas Hall shot dead on the Short Strand, Belfast.
March 1922
1
A Special Powers Bill was introduced in Northern Ireland suspending normal process of law and introducing flogging and death penalty inflicted for possesion of arms and allowing the Minister for Home Affairs ‘virtually dictatorial authority’
An early ‘ethnic cleansing’ throughout Belfast and parts of Ulster now became commonplace. Craig refused to declare Martial Law citing adverse public opinion in Britian and preference given to the recruitment of special constables. Sir Henry Wilson became advisor on military policy.
2
The Sinn Fein Ard Fheis agreement was ratified by Dail Eireann. A de Valera supported motion to allow full sufferage to women was defeated on the grounds that it was a ploy to delay elections. The result however was an outdated electoral register from 1918. The Dail adjourned to April 25th.
Macardle commenting on the roots of the looming conflict also states that ‘neither Griffith or Collins showed any disposition to await the verdict of the electorate. Btoh treated the vote in the Dail as giving them the license to carry out the British Government programme, institute the regime required by the Treaty and in short regard its acceptance as a fait acompli.’
RIC Sergeant John Cotter (37) from Clare was shot dead in Phibsborough. He had been involved in the defence of Roskeen Barracks, North Tipperary in 1920 that resulted in the deaths of 3 IRA members.
A large cargo of German purchased arms were landed to Republican forces at Helvic Head in Waterford.
3
RIC Head Constable Christopher Davis (42) from Galway and Constable William Cummings (25) from Hampshire were killed in an ambush in Tipperary town. Fellow RIC officers were arrested later in Dublin for complicity in the attack.
Italy: Fascists under directions from Mussolini, seized control of the free port of Fiume on the Adriatic. The port was then occupied by Italian troops. Mussolini and the Fascist leadership noting the weakness, began to run succesful candidates in various city Government elections throughout the country. The anti-liberal, anti-socialist and nationalistic movement began to make attacks on socialist groups and peasant leagues winning support from the middle classes and business
4
The Irish Envoys to the US and Paris, Harry Boland and Sean T. O'Kelly were dismissed following their opposition to the Treaty.
5
Anti-Treaty deputies met and formally established Clann na Poblachta with de Valera as President and Stack, Brugha and Mary McSwiney as Vice-Presidents. Headquarters of the new Republican party were de Valera’s own offices, 23 Suffolk Street.
F.W. Murnau's horror film masterpiece Nosferatu premieres in Germany. Regarded as the first vampire film.
6
One of the last surviving letters from Mark Sturgis in Dublin Castle was dated March 6th 1922 in a letter to Sir John Anderson. He expressed his unease at the slowness in achieving order in the 26 counties as the Republican challenge to the Treaty gathered pace. The RIC in the meantime were being wound up but it’s members were frequently robbed and were becoming demoralised.
Sturgis remained on in the Castle until 1924 but with little relevance to events. Awarded a Knighthood for his work in Ireland in 1923 and on his return to England moved to HM Treasury. He died from tuberculosis on 29 April 1949.
Babe Ruth signs three-year contract with New York Yankees for salary of $52,000 a year (the highest salary for a ballplayer up to that time), meaning his pay equaled about 40 percent of the entire Yankee payroll. By 1927, The Babe was earning $70,000 a year on his contract (not counting outside endorsements).
7
Harry Boland’s succesor, Professor T.A.Smiddy was appointed as the Irish Free State representative to the US.
Churchil authorised arms supplies to the Provisional Government following attacks on former RIC members in Tipperary. ‘It is up to the Provisional Government not to allow themselves to be defied in public by lawless persons…I am supplying to them means to assert their authority.’
9
Constable Dudley O’Sullivan was shot dead while on duty in Cork city.
Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape premieres on Broadway.
10
Constables James Cullen(23) from Wexford and Patrick O’Connor (35) from Clare were shot dead on the Falls Road, Belfast.
11
Anti-Treaty forces cede control of Limerick to Free State troops following intervention from Oscar Traynor and Liam Lynch.
13
Sergeant Christopher Clarke (42) from Laois was shot dead as he returned home from the funerals of Constables Cullen and O’Connor, killed on the Falls Road on the 10th.
Judge Cohalan in a letter to Matthew Cummings wrote of his thoughts on the Treaty and that it was a:
‘step forward on the road to independence....between Collins and De Valera, the real lovers of Irish liberty favour Collins, such favour is not an endorsement of any settlement with England but only an utter repudiation of De Valera as the author of the present situation in Ireland and the man whose actions have prevented a recognition by other nations of the Republic of Ireland.’
15
Macrdle alleges that as a result of Brigade meetings througout the country, over 75% of the Irish Volunteers were against the Treaty. Mulcahy ‘realised that the Convention would show a result most embarrasing to the Treaty party…he became afariad that if the Convention were held, a military dictatorship might be set up and made representations to the Dail Cabinet’ Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P676
Sergeants Tobias Gibbons (44) from Mayo and John Gilmartin (50) from Leitrim were both shot dead in their hospital beds in Galway.
That evening, all Brigade commanders were advised that the Cabinet had prohibited that General Convention on March 26th. This was followed by an order from the Defence Minister that any officer attending the now banned Convention would be dismissed.
17
De Valera in a speech in Thurles said ‘if the Volunteers of the future attempted to reach the goal which the Volunteers of the past had fought for, they would have to wade through Irish blood, through the blood of the soldiers of the Irish Government and through, perhaps, the blood of some of the members of the Government in order to get Irish Freedom’.
Special Constable Alexander Kirkpatrick was shot dead in Upperlands, Co. Derry when he surprised a party of IRA preparing the bridge for demolition to delay police reinforcements reaching Maghera while the IRA attacked the local barracks.
18
India - Mahatma Ghandi pleaded guilty to three charges of sedition in Ahemedabad and was sentenced to six years imprisonment. ‘Non-violence is the first and last article of my faith’ he said and that he was there to ‘submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that could be inflicted’.
20
The Defence Minister in an effort to reach some compromise, suggested the set-up of a joint council to elect eight commsioners ‘to frame definite proposals for associating the I.R.A with the Government elected by the Irish people’. The majority of Anti-Treaty forces agreed on provision that the Army Convention be held not later than April 16th and that recruitment to the new police force, the Civic Guards be halted. This was refused and the proposals failed.
While it is accepted the new Irish state Constitutiion had no sectarian bias, ‘the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin insisted to Cosgrave that the Catholic Church had not merely the right, but the duty, to control Protestant consciences’ and while there was no overt anti-Semetism ‘ it was circumstances, not character, that prevented the latent anti-semitism finding a more active outlet in Ireland.’ In addition, Ireland had another advantage ’ it was not the potential victim of irredentist or imperalist ambitions.’ There was no need to maintain large armies with attendant strains on Government finances and with potential threats to internal security.
Prof. J.J.Lee. ‘Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society’ Cambridge University Press 1989. P77.
21
Special Constable Samuel Laird was killed when the IRA attacked a veteinary surgeons home in Trillick, Co. Tyrone.
22
The Republican Military Council now called for an Army Convention on the 26th. This marked the definite breakway of the republican section of the army from the provisional Government control. Over 50 senior officers in the army signed the summons to attend and appeared in the daily press on the 23rd.
The Irish High Commisioner in London, J.W.Dulanty in a note to the British Government on the oath of allegiance: ‘The people…regard it as an intolerable burden, a relic of mediavialism, a test imposed from outside under threat of immediate and terrible war.’
Special Constable George Chittick was shot dead while tending livestock at his home near Trillick, Co. Tyrone.
Following increasing attacks on Nothern Irish Catholics, the ‘B-Specials’ were targeted by the IRA for retaliation throughout Ulster.
23
6 members of the Catholic MacMahon publican family were killed in Belfast by men in police uniforms.
Special Constables William Chermside and Thomas Cunningham was shot dead on foot patrol in Belfast.
25
Belfast Nationalist MP, Joe Devlin stated in the House of Commons following the MacMahon murders ‘ If Catholics have no revolvers to protect themselves they are murdered. If they have revolvers they are flogged and sentenced to death’
The newly elected Pope Pius XI got down to business by ordering a ‘crusade against immodest women’s fashions’ as in his opinion, fashions were deemed so revealing.
26
The Army Convention convened in the Mansion House with 220 delegates representing 49 brigades. The delegates of the First Southern Brigade anticipating Government interference arrived in an armoured car. The meeting endorsed the January 11th resolutions placing the Army under the control of an executive appointed by the Convention. The meeting was adjourned to April 9th.
This effectively marked the split within the IRA and prompted a massive organisation within both groups to consolidate and gather support throughout the country for an expected face off.
Former RIC Constable Patrick Poland was seriously wounded in an attack in Cork.
27
A circular from the RIC Office in Dublin Castle, informed all members that the disbandment of the RIC was to begin immediately except in the 6 counties of Northern Ireland and was to be completed not later than 31st May, 1922. Members of the RIC who wished to join the RUC in Ulster were advised they could not join until the RIC had been disbanded but were permitted to resign from the force by giving one months notice. Traveling warrants were issued to men and their families allowing them to travel free to any place within the UK and Ireland.
As RIC nembers began to disband, they came under attack and some killed when they returned to their home areas.
Colonel Ashley asked in the House of Commons, what help was being given to ex RIC members who were in danger or threatened with death if they rerurned home.
Former RIC Sergeant Gloster shot dead in Barrack Street, Cork. He had retired in 1920.
28
Rory O’Connor on behalf of the anti-treaty forces, repudiates the authority of Dail Eireann.
Two former members of the RIC were taken from the Hollyhead steamer at Dublin’s North Wall as it was about to sail for Britain. Both men were reported as being killed.
New York: the Friends of Irish Freedom published a Declaration on the Political situation in Ireland as adopted by the National Council Friends of Irish Freedom in the Hotel Astor, New York and commented on ‘the confusion of thought which has arised in connection therwith; and the threat of civil war which looms larger every day’ and considered it advisable to supplement the earlier Declaration of Principles adopted in December and resoloutions adopted at National Council on January 13th:
‘Those who fought for the Irish Republic during recent years are now divided into two groups.
One of these groups has agreed to a compromise with England and accepted an enlarged measure of Home Rule under the title ‘Irish Free State’. The compromise retains the Soverignity of the English King over Ireland and guarantees British military control over Ireland’s chief ports, submarine cables, wireless and air stations, but gives certai powers of local legislation and administration and may secure the evacuation of Ireland by the English army.
The other group opposes the ‘Irish Free State’ agreement. De Valera and his auxilliary leaders of this group were parties, both before and after the ‘Agreement’ was signed in London, to an arrangement which abandoned the ideas of Ireland’s absolute independence practically to the same extent as does the Free State Agreement. Yet, this group at the present time caims that it still stands for an Independent Republic!’
The Declaration made comment on the events in Irish America 1919-20 and the ‘work of destruction in America’ by de Valera, outlining the actions taken by de Valera and others in attempting to destroy Irish American efforts to secure independence for Ireland. ‘Bearing in mind the tactics for the last two years, we unhesitaingly brand as a sham, his present protestations on behlaf of Irish Republicanism. ..no matter what they may say or do now, they cannot convince inteligent people that they are sincere in their present campaign…
Realising the insincerity of de Valera’s position and the hopeless confusion into which he would plunge Ireland, well meaning men have suggested that the Friends of Irish Freedom should endorse the Free State. They are wrong. The organisation will never endorse the Free State, and individual members should not do so…not having been consulted we are under no obligation to approve or endorse…while the indications are that at the proposed General Election, the people of Ireland may, by a majority, vote for the Free State Government, we assert that, in view of their repeated declarations for an indpeendent Republic in recent years, such coming vote will not represent the free will of the Irish pope, but will be given merely to escape the ever preent English threat of a renewal o war of devestation and extermination.
The Organisation sees, however, that by permitting the Free State to come into being – without any such endoresement as would stultify the Race historically – very material advnatages can be gained for Ireland. The British soldiers can b got out of te country; the British controlled police can be cleaned out of the barracks; the economic and educaional situation an be vsly improvd. Then when the Irish people again decide upon absolute seperation from England, a united Race abroad can swing world sentiment againt a foreign invasion of Ireland. Thus te aim of our organisation with regard to Ireland can be fulfilled.
One of the main purposes for which the Friends of Irish Freedom exists is to aid in securingthe absolute indepndence of Ireland – which is her God given right. We have to deviated and will not eviate from that policy, we are opposed to ‘exerna’ as well as internal association of Ireland with the British Empire. We reffirm our belief that ‘Ireland can never achieve liberty nor reach a place of equality with independent nations which any connetion with England remains, and that a free and independent Republic, seperated from he British Empore and controlling the destinies of the Irish people is the only soloution of the Irish National Problem.’
Lynch Family Archives – Folder 6 1921-1937
29
The Pro-Treaty ‘Freemans Journal’ the former Redmond newspaper was destroyed by a anti-treaty group led by Mellows and O’Connor on the grounds that a misleading item on the Army Convention had been printed.
Following the killing of a Catholic politician, Owen McMahon and four members of his family, the Northern Ireland PM, James Craig ‘No stone should be left unturned to try and stop this murdering that is going on in Ireland.’ Later discovered the killers were in uniform and ‘B Specials’.
Sergeant Patrick Early and Special Constable James Harper were ambushed and killed in Cullaville, Co. Armagh.
In Cobh, men of the First Southern Division seized arms, amunition and explosives from a British ship. The storm was approaching. Both factions sent delegations to America, led by James O’Mara and Austin, but a proposed conference failed to materialise.
A US Census reported that 11% of the population cannot speak english.
30
Collins met with James Craig and the Northern Irish Minister for Education, Charles Londonderry in Churchill’s office at the Colonial Office following an eruption of sectarian violence in Ulster. Craig agreed to the reorganisation of the police force to provide equal protection for both sections of the community and to reinstate sacked Catholics from their jobs in the shipyards. Collins agreed to act against IRA units operating against Northern Ireland from the Free State. A peace agreement was signed by Collins and Craig who issued a joint statement: ‘Peace is today delcared. From today the two Governments undertake to cooperate in every way in their power with a view to the restoration of peaceful conditions in the unsettled areas.’
Neither side were to deliver on the agreement.
Londonderry had initially refused to meet with Collins during the Treaty negotiations claiming that there was ‘a very unhealthy curiosity to meet this celebrity’, deeming Collins ‘an assasin and did not wish to socialise with somebody who had been party to
the murders of ‘brother officers of my own and many friends who lived in Ireland.’ But the reason may have been more personal in that in the midst of having an affair with Lady Lavery, he was dropped in favour of Collins.
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P86
31
The ‘Irish Free State Agreement Act’ received the Royal assent.
Craig’s second pact with Collins was published.
At month’s end, the I.R.A was to all intents and purposes, two armies. Brigades and commands reflecting the views of their men either openly declared acceptance or rejection of the Treaty. As the British evacutation continued, barracks and garrisons were replaced by either Pro-Treaty or Anti-Treaty supporters and covert operations by Anti-Treaty forces to stockpile arms and munitions began. Clashes between the two factions supporters became commonplace.
De Valera writing to Stack on the possibility of reaching unity ‘Honestly, I am afraid that this is a dream, pure and simple. I don’t believe the other side will make any advance beyond the strict terms of the Treaty which, of course, preculdes a Constitution which we could agree to.’ Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.184
“Legalism preoccupied the approach of the Treatyites, while a romantic moralism dominated the minds of their opponents….de Valera's tendency to keep his intellect private and his rhetoric public…”
Professor Tom Garvin - UCD Lecturer in Politics. Irish Times interview 1996.
The Northern Ireland committee on police matters reporting its findings to the Minister for Home Affairs. It recommended that the new police force for the state be 3,000 in number with 1/3 of the places reserved for R.C. recruits. It also recommended that the prefix ‘Royal’ be retained.
Special Constable David Allen was killed while on foot patrol in Newry, Co. Down when challenging a group of men they thought to be B Specials, who were 20 IRA members.
Special Constable Thomas Hall shot dead on the Short Strand, Belfast.
April 1922
1
Transfer of power from Britain to the Free State authority is officially signed by Churchill and Collins.
A massive, disruptive U.S. coal strike gets underway in protest of wage reductions and industrial and government labor union policies. By September, the miners gain concessions and the strike ends.
3
Constable George Turner (41) from Donegal was shot dead while on patrol with Special Constables in Belfast.
At Lenin’s suggestion, Joseph Stalin was given the minor post of Communist Party General Secretary.
Stalin, Joseph (1879-1953), Soviet Communist leader, the longtime ruler who more than any other individual moulded the features that characterized the Soviet regime and shaped the direction of post-World War II Europe; in this regard, Stalin may be considered the most powerful person to live during the 20th century.
Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, as he was originally named—he adopted the pseudonym Stalin, meaning “a man of steel”, around 1910—was born on December 21, 1879, in Gori, now in the Republic of Georgia. Both his parents were Georgian peasants. Neither of them spoke Russian, but Stalin was forced to learn it, as the language of instruction, when he attended the Gori church school in 1888-1894. The best pupil in the school, Soso (his schoolboy nickname) earned a full scholarship to the T'bilisi Theological Seminary.
The Revolutionary While studying for the priesthood, Stalin read forbidden literature, including Karl Marx's Das Kapital, and soon converted to a new orthodoxy: Russian Marxism. Before graduation he left the seminary to become a full-time revolutionary.
Stalin began his career in the Social-Democratic party in 1899 as a propagandist among T'bilisi rail workers. The police caught up with him in 1902. Arrested in Batum, he spent more than a year in prison before being exiled to Siberia, from which he escaped in 1904. This became a familiar pattern. Between 1902 and 1913 Stalin was arrested eight times; he was exiled seven times and escaped six times. The government contained him only once; his last exile in 1913 lasted until 1917.
On his return from Siberia in 1904 Stalin married. His first wife, Yekaterina Svanidze, died in 1910. A second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, whom he married in 1919, committed suicide in 1932. In the last years of tsarist Russia (1905-1917) Stalin was more of an up-and-coming follower than a leader. He always supported the Bolshevik faction of the party, but his contribution was practical, not theoretical. Thus, in 1907 he helped organize a bank robbery in T'bilisi to “expropriate” funds. Lenin raised him into the upper reaches of the party in 1912 by co-opting him into the Bolsheviks' Central Committee. The next year he briefly edited the new party newspaper, Pravda (Truth), and at Lenin's urging wrote his first major work, Marxism and the Nationality Question. Before this treatise appeared (1914), however, Stalin was sent to Siberia.
After the Revolution of March 1917, Stalin returned to Petrograd (now St Petersburg), where he resumed the editorship of Pravda. Together with Lev Kamenev, Stalin dominated party decisions in the capital before Lenin arrived in April. The two advocated a policy of moderation and cooperation with the provisional government. Although he played a not insignificant role in the armed uprising that followed in November, Stalin was not remembered as a revolutionary hero. In the words of one memoirist, he produced the impression of a “grey blur”.
The Administrator As the Bolsheviks' expert on nationalism, Stalin was Lenin's choice to head the Commissariat for Nationality Affairs. Together with Yakov Sverdlov and Leon Trotsky, he helped Lenin decide all emergency issues in the difficult first period of the civil war. Stalin participated in that war as a commander on several fronts. Within the party Stalin strengthened his position by dogged organizational work and devotion to administrative tasks. He was commissar for state control in 1919-1923, and—more important—in 1922 he became secretary-general of the party. As Stalin converted this organizational base into a source of political power, he came into conflict with Lenin on several minor but ultimately telling issues.
Before his death, Lenin came to regard the flaws in Stalin's personality and conduct as political liabilities. In his political “testament” Lenin doubted whether the party's general secretary would use his great power with sufficient caution. He also attacked Stalin as being “too rude” and called for his removal. Luck and adroit manoeuvring enabled Stalin to suppress Lenin's testament.
The Despot After Lenin's death Stalin joined in a troika with Grigory Zinovyev and Kamenev to lead the country. With these temporary allies, Stalin acted against his archrival Trotsky, the foremost candidate for Lenin's mantle. Once the threat of Trotsky was eliminated, however, Stalin reversed course, aligning himself with Nikolay Bukharin and Aleksey Rykov against his former partners. Trotsky, Zinovyev, and Kamenev in turn challenged Stalin as the “left opposition”. By skilful manipulation and clever publicity, but especially by interpreting Lenin's precepts to a new generation coming of age in the 1920s, Stalin bested all his rivals. By his 50th birthday (1929), he had cemented his position as Lenin's recognized successor and entrenched his power as sole leader of the Soviet Union.
Stalin reacted to lagging agricultural production in the late 1920s by a ruthless, personally supervised expropriation of grain from peasants in Siberia. When other crises threatened in late 1929, he expanded what had been a moderate collectivization programme into a nationwide offensive against the peasantry. Millions were displaced, and unknown thousands died in the massive collectivization. The industrialization campaigns over which Stalin presided in the 1930s were much more successful; these raised the backward Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the rank of the industrial powers.
In the mid-1930s Stalin launched a major campaign of political terror. The purges, arrests, and deportations to labour camps touched virtually every family. Former rivals Zinovyev, Kamenev, and Bukharin admitted to crimes against the state in show trials and were sentenced to death. Untold numbers of party, industrial, and military leaders disappeared during the “Great Terror”, making way for a rising generation that included such leaders as Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. Fear instilled by a political secret police formed an essential part of the system called Stalinism. See KGB.
The War Leader In part because the purges stripped the military of its leadership, the Soviet Union suffered greatly in World War II. Stalin personally directed the war against Nazi Germany. By rallying the people, and by his willingness to make great human sacrifices, he turned the tide against the Germans, notably at the Battle of Stalingrad.
Stalin participated in the Allies' meetings at Tehran (1943), Yalta (1945), and Potsdam (1945), where he obtained recognition of a Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, and after the war he extended Communist domination over most of the countries liberated by the Soviet armies. His single-minded determination to prevent yet another devastating assault on the USSR from the West had much to do with the growth of the Cold War. In his last years, increasingly paranoid and physically weak, Stalin apparently was about to start another purge. In January 1953 he ordered the arrest of many Moscow doctors, mostly Jews, charging them with medical assassinations. The so-called Doctors' Plot seemed to herald a return to the 1930s, but Stalin's sudden death on March 5, 1953, in Moscow forestalled another bloodbath.
Evaluation In spite of his role as the ironfisted ruler of a mighty nation, Stalin has remained an enigmatic figure and his place in history a controversial one. Soviet historians assess his regime as a great one, although marred by some errors, but Western scholars assail the bloody terror of his rule. The question is whether or not the Soviet Union would have made the same progress under less despotic leadership. Three years after his death, the 20th Party Congress denounced Stalin and much that he represented.
4
Recruitment to the Pro-Treaty forces increased.
from The Irish Times 4 April 1922
No Regard for Free Speech
Experience of previous pro-Treaty meetings prepared one for the tactics that were adopted to prevent the assembly at Castlebar. Displacing railway tracks, blocking roads, cutting wires, 'holding up' motor cars - these were already common features at political meetings - but the uniformed interrupters were hitherto absent. They were to be seen at frequent intervals in the large crowd which assembled on the square, and they kept shouting and gesticulating while Mr Collins was addressing the meeting. There were many civilians also who indulged persistently in interruptions, and it was obvious that there was a good leavening of anti-Treaty civilians in the crowd. Mr Collins, however, had a big following, mainly drawn from the town, as his outside supporters were unable to reach the venue.
There was nothing unusual in the interruptions until Mr Campbell, solicitor, of Swinford, attempted to harangue the crowd from a motor car drawn up beside the motor lorry from which Mr Collins was speaking. As this second 'Richmond,' an elderly gentleman of impassive demeanour, appeared there was a storm of boohing, and the proceedings became distinctly lively. Mr Collins invited him to bring along the typewritten list of questions which he was calmly waving in his hand. Mr Campbell, quite unperturbed by a hurricane of groans, made his way on to the lorry, and endeavoured to make himself heard, but the din was deafening.
Mr Collins spoke to Mr Campbell, and the last-named was seen to shake his head. Mr Collins was heard to shout, 'He won't give them to me.' He then endeavoured to continue his speech, but he was interrupted by Mr Campbell's declaring that he was afraid to answer his questions.
An attempt was made to get at Mr Campbell, but it was frustrated by some clergymen, and Mr Campbell said that he did not want physical force. The Rev. Father Joyce appealed for order, but Mr Campbell declared that he did not want this clergyman to interfere. Amid the ensuing din there were shouts of 'Who stoned Michael Davitt?' but Mr Campbell remained unmoved, and declared that Mr Collins was a faithful subject of King George. This retort stung Mr Collins to the quick, and he replied, angrily: 'Your conduct is worthy of your record: you took good care to be in jail when there was danger.'
Rushing the Lorry, A Revolver Drawn
There was another rush towards Mr Campbell, who again declared that he did not want physical force used. Mr McCabe, MP, and others endeavoured to calm the crowd near the lorry, but excitement reached fever pitch, and there was much commotion. The lorry began to move slightly, as if an attempt were made to take it away. Several of those who had been interrupting Mr Collins made a rush towards it, and Mr McCabe, who was standing near the driver's seat, drew a revolver. Those who were approaching halted for a moment, and produced revolvers also.
There were a few moments of painful tension, and it looked as if a terrible tragedy was about to be enacted. Revolvers flashed, seemingly by the score, as by this time Mr McCabe's supporters had gathered round him, and also flourished weapons. Portion of the crowd took to flight, fearing the worst. Mr McCabe's uniformed opponents declared that they would arrest him. An angry scene ensued, and a priest rushed up and declared that they would not do so.
The dramatic scene was interrupted in a startling manner. A tall, young man was seen dashing through the highly-strung crowd, and being pursued by officers in uniform. He rushed down a side street, and several shots were heard. Many women screamed, and others fainted, but the crowd generally remained around the lorry, where Mr Collins maintained his post. There was a lull in the excitement, and he proceeded with his speech. He was now the sole 'Richmond' on the lorry, as his antagonist had vanished. After a few minutes had elapsed an officer in uniform came on the platform, and addressing Mr Collins, said: - 'Aren't you ashamed of the man who shot the woman?' Amid cheers, Mr Collins replied: - 'Everyone here knows I am not responsible for that.' 'Proclaimed', 'In the Interests of Peace'
A second officer suddenly appeared and announced that the meeting was 'proclaimed in the interests of peace.' Then somebody started the engine, and the lorry, containing some priests and ladies and Colonel Moore, was hurriedly driven away, but Mr Collins, profiting probably by his Dungarvan experience, jumped off before it got going. The meeting then came to an abrupt close, and Mr Collins and his colleagues returned to their hotel ...
5
With growing opposition to the Provisional Government, Lloyd George stated ‘ a point might come when it would be necessary to tell Mr Collins that if he was unable to deal with the situation the British Government would have to do so.’
6
Special Constable James Plumb was shot dead in an IRA ambush at Garrison, Co. Fermanagh and his body taken over the border by the IRA. There, according to a Free State Soldier, each member of the raiding party was permitted one blow at the remains with his rifle. Local religious leaders appealed for the body to be returned which it was and with the evidence of the severe beating after death.
Special Head-Constable Alexander Compton was killed, when the truck he was travelling on was ambushed and it stopped suddenly and he was thrown onto the road.
Former RIC Constables Cranny and Butler were shot and killed in their homes in Ballyhaunis, Co. Mayo.
7
In Ulster, the Civil Authorities Special Powers Bill, popularly called the ‘Flogging Bill’ received Royal Assent and remained in force for many years. ( By 1936 the British National Council for Civil Liberties was severely critical of the act which gave the Northern Irish Government ‘practially dictatorship powers…unlimited powers of search and seizure, Habeas Corpus suspended…persons may be arrested on suspicion only and may be kept in prison indefinetly without trial…no right of appeal against imprisonment or internment…cases may be heard in camera …The Home Office, acting on the advice of the police may refuse to allow a person imprisoned or interned to send or receive letters, visits from friends, family or legal adviser…. The bankbooks of a suspect may be examined by the police and his money may be confiscate. The death penalty may be imposed for offences other than murder or treason.’ And should a prisoner die in custody, the Home Office or a Police Officer may direct that ‘no coroners inquest shall be held, and thus the prisoners relatives and friends are denied all opportunity of inspecting on the corpse any marks of possible violence in arrest or detention’
Quoted in Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P704
5 former RIC constables were killed and 6 injured. 3 were killed in Clare with 2 in Tralee.
US: Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leases the Navy's Teapot Dome oil field in Caspar, Wyoming secretly, and without competitive bidding, to Harry F. Sinclair and the Mammoth Oil Co. Later, on April 25 and Dec. 11, Fall leases the Elk Hills Reserve to Edward L Doheny in similar fashion. It was later found in investigations that Fall had taken bribes for these transactions.
8
Winston Churchill, now head of the Cabinet Committee on Irish Affairs said in Dundee ‘ It is possible that things will get worse before they get better. It is possible that Irishmen will kill and murder each other, and destroy Irish property and cripple Irish prosperity for some time before they realise that they, and they alone – and it is their country – will have to pay the bill in life and treasure…’ Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P702
RIC Sgt Edward McConnell (26) was found shot dead after a dance at the Templemore Military Barracks, Tipperary.
9
The Army Convention was held amidst growing tensions and calls that the elections be indefinetly postponed, the Provisional Government prevented from functioning and growing demands that a military dictatorship declared. Follwing the election of a 7 man, Army Council Republican Executive, Liam Lynch was appointed Chief od Staff. Almost immediately, some Anti-Treaty forces took over barracks occupied by Pro-Treaty troops.
Michael Collins stated that Civil War was threatening Ireland as the anti-treaty forces declared themselves independent of the Free State government, assumed all authority for public order and as they ‘proposed to postpone elections ‘while the threat of war with England exists’ and responding to continuining sectarian violence in Ulster ‘If the so called Government in Belfast has not the power not the will to protect it's citizens, the Irish Government must find the means to protect them’.
Both Collins and de Valera attempted to find a compromise betweeen the escalting tension within each group. The result was that de Valera ‘fell between several stools. He could not safely appeal to public opinion, which he knew supported the treaty. Neither could he appeal unequivocally to the anti-treaty militarists. Mellows and O’Connor detested his capacity for reconciliation’
10
Collins wrote to Lady Lavery ‘I know I shall never again meet anyone so beautiful, so gay, and so sad as you’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P88
11
The British Morning Post newspaper commented that the ‘best hope for peace’ would be to see both Pro-Treaty and Anti-Treaty groups ‘at war with one another – to see Collins locking horns with de Valera while making peace with Craig’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P703
Arthur Griffith, as President of the Dial met with Northern Nationalists saying the Provisional Government was unable to ‘protect our people in Belfast…these people are being murdered. We can always make reprislas, you can burn [Unionist] property. That does not save the lives of the people’
12
Churchill now acting as a watchdog for British interests said in an answer to a parliamentary question on what Britian would do should a Republic be established in Ireland: “If a Republic is set up, that is a form of government in Ireland which the British Empire in no circumstances whatever can tolerate or agree to… [ and that a Republic would be ] followed by a state of war with the British Empire”
Quoted in T.P.Coogan. “Ireland since the Rising”. Pall Mall Press. 1966. p.40 & Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.186
The British Government under conditions in the Free State Act, continued arming the Free State forces. In another Parliamentary debate, Churchill stated that ‘4,000 rifles, 2,200 revolvers and 6 machine guns together with corresponding amounts of ammunition, have been handed over by the British Government to the Provisional Government . I have, with the approval of the Cabinet, given authority for further issues to be made as required.’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P702
The Movie Star, Fatty Arbuckle was cleared of murder and rape charges by a San Francisco jury. This aquittal did not save his career however as all his films were withdrawn by cinema chains throughout the US and Canada.
13
The former seat of British justice in Ireland, The Four Courts, were seized by an Anti-Treaty force led by Rory O’Connor Liam Mellows, Dick McKeever and others following directives from the Republican Army Council to establish a Military HQ for Dublin. Liam Mellows wrote to the Dail stating a number of conditions on which agreement could be reached, including; maintaining the existing Republic, putting the army under the control of an independent electoral representative, disbanding the Civic Guard and that no elections be held until the threat of war with England has passed. No reply was made. De Valera claimed it was a ‘complete surprise to him’ Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.188
‘I am safe in saying that if the [Republican] Army were ever to follow a political leader, Mr de Valera is the man.’ Rory O’Connor after the occupation of the Four Courts.
RIC Sgt John Bruin (37) from Leitrim was shot dead while making enquiries in a public housein Belfast.
Special Constable Nathaniel McCoo was seriously injured in a shooting in Belfast. He died from his wounds on 5th May.
In the US, Massachusets becomes the first state to open all public offices to women.
14
Kilmainham Jail is taken over by Anti-Treaty forces.
15
The Belfast Boycott while lifted by the Provisional Government was reinstated by the Anti-Treaty forces in directives from the Four Courts. Trains were halted, freight seized and destroyed. Bank and Post office raids became commplace to finance arming and provisioning of republican centres.
As the Royal Flying Corps ( later to become the RAF ) left the military airfield in Baldonnel, 2 of their planes were unable to take off. After some swift telephone calls to Government offices in Dublin, the local Free State troops impounded them. A few days later, the 2 aircraft were joined by another from ‘down the country’ and became the nucelus of the Irish Army Air Corps. The aircraft purchased in Britian during the period of the Treaty talks and intended as an alternative mode of transport for Collins should the talks fail, now joined the Air Corps. The Martinside Passenger Aircraft Mark II, seated four apssengers in a small cabin with an open cockpit for the pilot and not surprisingly was nicknamed ‘The Big Fella’.
16
A public meeting in Sligo to be addressed by Arthur Griffith was banned by the local I.R.A.
Eamon de Valera stated publicly ‘Young men and women of Ireland, the goal is at last in sight. Steady all together; forward, Ireland is yours for the taking. Take it.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.64
Italy: Germany and Soviet Union signed an agreement treaty at Rapallo. German industrialist Walther Rathenau was a leading spirit in the negotiations. Both benefitted with each side giving up reparations to each other. Germany agreed to supply the Soviets with desperately needed manufactured goods in return for raw materials. German military officers went to Russia to train the army and in the process, German officers obtained a great deal of experiences and expertise in armaments not allowed under the Versailles Treaty. France however was very concerned.
17
Critical days
from The Irish Times 17 April 1922
Irishmen are living on the edge of a volcano, and have come to be thankful for every hour which spares them the horrors of an eruption. In spite of sinister portents the peace has been kept during the last two days. Easter Sunday was a calm and quiet festival in Dublin. Mr Arthur Griffith exercised without mishap his right to plead the cause of the Treaty with the citizens of Sligo. We may hope now that the anniversary of the Rebellion of 1916 will be allowed to pass without disturbance. Mr Rory O'Connor has declared that the seizure of the Four Courts is not the beginning of a coup d'état and that his forces do not contemplate a revolution. We are quite ready to accept the assurance; for all Mr O'Connor's statements have been frank and candid. On the other hand, the Provisional Government presents to every form of provocation an attitude of careful restraint. It is keeping the troops of Dáil ƒireann under strict control, and intends, we may infer, to rely less upon arms than on the support of a public opinion which becomes daily more conscious of the significance of recent events. The fighting men on both sides are reluctant to commit themselves to the tragedy of civil war, and the people pray earnestly that it may be averted. Nevertheless, the situation is full of peril.
The country is divided into two armed camps, and the normal activities of the Irish capital are paralysed by an all-pervading uncertainty. The task of the peace-makers has become terribly urgent. If the conference of political leaders can arrange a modus vivendi on Wednesday, the cause of peace will receive a very important reinforcement. The united voice of the conference would be the united voice of both parties in the existing Parliament of Southern and Western Ireland. Messrs de Valera and Brugha are not asked to repudiate the Republican policy. They are asked only to recognise the people's right to vote freely upon the Treaty - not necessarily for the Treaty - at the coming elections, and to co-operate in the task of maintaining a régime of law. We never have been able to fathom Mr de Valera's objections to this natural course, and our perplexity is increased by his speech yesterday at Tullamore. He said that the Treaty did not exist for the people until they had given it the sanction of their votes; but why is he unwilling to put the Treaty to the test of a general election? The more free the elections are, the more free will the people be to reject the Treaty, if they so desire.
Does Mr de Valera profess to know the people's mind better than the people themselves know it? He said, too, that the elections of 1918 gave the Republic 'a democratic basis which could not be questioned anywhere.' If the register was so satisfactory in 1918, why is it not good enough for 1922? Mr de Valera suggested also that the people had not studied the text of the Treaty - that they had allowed the newspapers to mislead them. The proposed Constitution of the Free State will be submitted to the electors in June. Would any English autocrat venture to hint that Irish democracy could not be trusted to form its own judgment on its own affairs?
The only true, the only sound, the only democratic principle is that which Messrs Griffith and Collins defended yesterday at Sligo and Naas. The people know what they want, and it is the people, not Mr Collins, Mr de Valera, or Mr O'Connor, who must decide. The Provisional Government offers peace with Great Britain, prosperity and virtual independence for the Free State, and a substantial prospect of union between North and South. Mr de Valera offers a Republic to which, as Mr Churchill has told us, Great Britain would be hostile from the outset. In his Easter message to the country, Mr de Valera says: 'Ireland is yours for the taking! Take it!' How does he propose to take North-East Ulster? On this point, and on many others in the Republican programme, the people await enlightenment. Mr de Valera will have every opportunity to give it to them in the next few weeks. He can address meetings, without fear of disturbance, in every one of the twenty-six counties. The columns of every Irish newspaper, including this newspaper, will be open to him. If his cause is the people's cause, it will prevail. If he is a real democrat, he will accept the people's verdict, whatever that verdict may be. We are very unwilling to suppose that any section of the Irish Army would set itself above the people's choice after that choice had been declared freely according to the custom of all civilised lands. The first safeguard of free elections must be an agreement of the political leaders in their favour, and the country expects and requires such agreement as the outcome of the Mansion House Conference.
18
An IRA order stated it was the IRA aim to make the northern six counties part of the State.
23
Former RIC Sergeant John Gunn was killed in Ennis. He retired from the force 3 days before.
24
A nationwide general strike in protest against militarism takes place in the Free State. Organised by the Labour Party.
25
As the peace conference convened in the Mansion House broke down, the Four Courts garrison issued a further letter to the Dail calling on it to remove authority from the cabinet and save the country from Civil War.
Collins & Griffith insisted that elections must be held on the Treaty issue. The Anti-Treaty groups objected on the grounds that the general desire among a war weary public was for peace resulting in a favourable vote for the Treaty and as the electoral register was unrevised, a large number of young, Republican sympathisers were disenfranchised. Poles apart, de Valera and Brugha agreed that any electoral result in favour of the Treaty would be repudiated by the existing militant Republicans.
There now were 60,000 troops in Ulster yet sectarian atrocities continued, Catholics expelled from homes, shootings, beatings and burnings. Sir Henry Wilson was urging action be taken against the Four Courts.
While sectarian violence continued in Ulster, fears of growing sectarianism in Cork followed an outbreak of shootings in Bandon which claimed the lives of 10 Protestants in a week after I.R.A Commandant O’Neill of the 3rd Cork Brigade was killed at the Hornibrook family home.
26
The Hierarchy issued a statement from the Irish Bishops, opposing anti-Treaty forces ’ The best and wisest course for Ireland is to accept the Treaty and make the most of the freedom it undoubtedly brings us…the young men connect with this military revolt…when they shoot their brothers on the opposite side, they are murderers.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.64
27
Collins in a strongly worded letter of protest to Craig, condemned the ‘abomninations that have taken place in belfast since the signing of our Pact’ with 24 Catholics killed and numerous homes burned and looted.
Michael Collins was also supplying the Anti-Treaty General, Liam Lynch with arms to assist Catholics in Ulster.
“Collins was not altogether adverse from having the Four Courts held by Republicans against the Pro-Treaty Government, for this enabled the IRA’s operations in the north to be attributed to “freelance” associates of Rory O’Connor.”
T.P.Coogan. “Ireland since the Rising”. Pall Mall Press. 1966. p.40
According to Prof. J.J.Lee, this action was more in reaction to the failure of Craig to implemt his part of the agreement made earlier in the year when Collins promised to try and curb IRA attacks in the North in return for re-organisation of the RUC to provide some representation for Catholics and also to provide some protection from sectarian progroms. Collins also agreed to respect the ‘territorial integrity’ of the North pending the findings of the Boundary commission.
28
Lord Middleton discussed the proposed Free State constitution with members of the Provisional Government.
29
Collins and Griffith met with de Valera and Cathal Brugha. Making reference to de Valera’s March 17th speech, Collins said ‘I suppose we are the two Ministers whose blood is to be waded through’ which De Valera replied ‘Yes’.
30
de Valera speaking in Mulingar said of the rising fears of sectarian violence within the 26 counties: ‘ The German Palatines, the French Hugenots, the English Protestants…later the Wesleyans and the Jews, who were persecuted in every land, in this land of cours always found safe asylum. That glorious record must not be tarnished by acts against a helpless minority’ Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P702
Dail Eireann’s comment was ‘the Irish nation consists of no one class or creed but combines all’
RIC Constable Benjamin Bentley (21) from London, was killed while enroute to collect a clergyman for service near Drogheda, Co. Louth.
April 1922
1
Transfer of power from Britain to the Free State authority is officially signed by Churchill and Collins.
A massive, disruptive U.S. coal strike gets underway in protest of wage reductions and industrial and government labor union policies. By September, the miners gain concessions and the strike ends.
3
Constable George Turner (41) from Donegal was shot dead while on patrol with Special Constables in Belfast.
At Lenin’s suggestion, Joseph Stalin was given the minor post of Communist Party General Secretary.
Stalin, Joseph (1879-1953), Soviet Communist leader, the longtime ruler who more than any other individual moulded the features that characterized the Soviet regime and shaped the direction of post-World War II Europe; in this regard, Stalin may be considered the most powerful person to live during the 20th century.
Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, as he was originally named—he adopted the pseudonym Stalin, meaning “a man of steel”, around 1910—was born on December 21, 1879, in Gori, now in the Republic of Georgia. Both his parents were Georgian peasants. Neither of them spoke Russian, but Stalin was forced to learn it, as the language of instruction, when he attended the Gori church school in 1888-1894. The best pupil in the school, Soso (his schoolboy nickname) earned a full scholarship to the T'bilisi Theological Seminary.
The Revolutionary While studying for the priesthood, Stalin read forbidden literature, including Karl Marx's Das Kapital, and soon converted to a new orthodoxy: Russian Marxism. Before graduation he left the seminary to become a full-time revolutionary.
Stalin began his career in the Social-Democratic party in 1899 as a propagandist among T'bilisi rail workers. The police caught up with him in 1902. Arrested in Batum, he spent more than a year in prison before being exiled to Siberia, from which he escaped in 1904. This became a familiar pattern. Between 1902 and 1913 Stalin was arrested eight times; he was exiled seven times and escaped six times. The government contained him only once; his last exile in 1913 lasted until 1917.
On his return from Siberia in 1904 Stalin married. His first wife, Yekaterina Svanidze, died in 1910. A second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, whom he married in 1919, committed suicide in 1932. In the last years of tsarist Russia (1905-1917) Stalin was more of an up-and-coming follower than a leader. He always supported the Bolshevik faction of the party, but his contribution was practical, not theoretical. Thus, in 1907 he helped organize a bank robbery in T'bilisi to “expropriate” funds. Lenin raised him into the upper reaches of the party in 1912 by co-opting him into the Bolsheviks' Central Committee. The next year he briefly edited the new party newspaper, Pravda (Truth), and at Lenin's urging wrote his first major work, Marxism and the Nationality Question. Before this treatise appeared (1914), however, Stalin was sent to Siberia.
After the Revolution of March 1917, Stalin returned to Petrograd (now St Petersburg), where he resumed the editorship of Pravda. Together with Lev Kamenev, Stalin dominated party decisions in the capital before Lenin arrived in April. The two advocated a policy of moderation and cooperation with the provisional government. Although he played a not insignificant role in the armed uprising that followed in November, Stalin was not remembered as a revolutionary hero. In the words of one memoirist, he produced the impression of a “grey blur”.
The Administrator As the Bolsheviks' expert on nationalism, Stalin was Lenin's choice to head the Commissariat for Nationality Affairs. Together with Yakov Sverdlov and Leon Trotsky, he helped Lenin decide all emergency issues in the difficult first period of the civil war. Stalin participated in that war as a commander on several fronts. Within the party Stalin strengthened his position by dogged organizational work and devotion to administrative tasks. He was commissar for state control in 1919-1923, and—more important—in 1922 he became secretary-general of the party. As Stalin converted this organizational base into a source of political power, he came into conflict with Lenin on several minor but ultimately telling issues.
Before his death, Lenin came to regard the flaws in Stalin's personality and conduct as political liabilities. In his political “testament” Lenin doubted whether the party's general secretary would use his great power with sufficient caution. He also attacked Stalin as being “too rude” and called for his removal. Luck and adroit manoeuvring enabled Stalin to suppress Lenin's testament.
The Despot After Lenin's death Stalin joined in a troika with Grigory Zinovyev and Kamenev to lead the country. With these temporary allies, Stalin acted against his archrival Trotsky, the foremost candidate for Lenin's mantle. Once the threat of Trotsky was eliminated, however, Stalin reversed course, aligning himself with Nikolay Bukharin and Aleksey Rykov against his former partners. Trotsky, Zinovyev, and Kamenev in turn challenged Stalin as the “left opposition”. By skilful manipulation and clever publicity, but especially by interpreting Lenin's precepts to a new generation coming of age in the 1920s, Stalin bested all his rivals. By his 50th birthday (1929), he had cemented his position as Lenin's recognized successor and entrenched his power as sole leader of the Soviet Union.
Stalin reacted to lagging agricultural production in the late 1920s by a ruthless, personally supervised expropriation of grain from peasants in Siberia. When other crises threatened in late 1929, he expanded what had been a moderate collectivization programme into a nationwide offensive against the peasantry. Millions were displaced, and unknown thousands died in the massive collectivization. The industrialization campaigns over which Stalin presided in the 1930s were much more successful; these raised the backward Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the rank of the industrial powers.
In the mid-1930s Stalin launched a major campaign of political terror. The purges, arrests, and deportations to labour camps touched virtually every family. Former rivals Zinovyev, Kamenev, and Bukharin admitted to crimes against the state in show trials and were sentenced to death. Untold numbers of party, industrial, and military leaders disappeared during the “Great Terror”, making way for a rising generation that included such leaders as Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. Fear instilled by a political secret police formed an essential part of the system called Stalinism. See KGB.
The War Leader In part because the purges stripped the military of its leadership, the Soviet Union suffered greatly in World War II. Stalin personally directed the war against Nazi Germany. By rallying the people, and by his willingness to make great human sacrifices, he turned the tide against the Germans, notably at the Battle of Stalingrad.
Stalin participated in the Allies' meetings at Tehran (1943), Yalta (1945), and Potsdam (1945), where he obtained recognition of a Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, and after the war he extended Communist domination over most of the countries liberated by the Soviet armies. His single-minded determination to prevent yet another devastating assault on the USSR from the West had much to do with the growth of the Cold War. In his last years, increasingly paranoid and physically weak, Stalin apparently was about to start another purge. In January 1953 he ordered the arrest of many Moscow doctors, mostly Jews, charging them with medical assassinations. The so-called Doctors' Plot seemed to herald a return to the 1930s, but Stalin's sudden death on March 5, 1953, in Moscow forestalled another bloodbath.
Evaluation In spite of his role as the ironfisted ruler of a mighty nation, Stalin has remained an enigmatic figure and his place in history a controversial one. Soviet historians assess his regime as a great one, although marred by some errors, but Western scholars assail the bloody terror of his rule. The question is whether or not the Soviet Union would have made the same progress under less despotic leadership. Three years after his death, the 20th Party Congress denounced Stalin and much that he represented.
4
Recruitment to the Pro-Treaty forces increased.
from The Irish Times 4 April 1922
No Regard for Free Speech
Experience of previous pro-Treaty meetings prepared one for the tactics that were adopted to prevent the assembly at Castlebar. Displacing railway tracks, blocking roads, cutting wires, 'holding up' motor cars - these were already common features at political meetings - but the uniformed interrupters were hitherto absent. They were to be seen at frequent intervals in the large crowd which assembled on the square, and they kept shouting and gesticulating while Mr Collins was addressing the meeting. There were many civilians also who indulged persistently in interruptions, and it was obvious that there was a good leavening of anti-Treaty civilians in the crowd. Mr Collins, however, had a big following, mainly drawn from the town, as his outside supporters were unable to reach the venue.
There was nothing unusual in the interruptions until Mr Campbell, solicitor, of Swinford, attempted to harangue the crowd from a motor car drawn up beside the motor lorry from which Mr Collins was speaking. As this second 'Richmond,' an elderly gentleman of impassive demeanour, appeared there was a storm of boohing, and the proceedings became distinctly lively. Mr Collins invited him to bring along the typewritten list of questions which he was calmly waving in his hand. Mr Campbell, quite unperturbed by a hurricane of groans, made his way on to the lorry, and endeavoured to make himself heard, but the din was deafening.
Mr Collins spoke to Mr Campbell, and the last-named was seen to shake his head. Mr Collins was heard to shout, 'He won't give them to me.' He then endeavoured to continue his speech, but he was interrupted by Mr Campbell's declaring that he was afraid to answer his questions.
An attempt was made to get at Mr Campbell, but it was frustrated by some clergymen, and Mr Campbell said that he did not want physical force. The Rev. Father Joyce appealed for order, but Mr Campbell declared that he did not want this clergyman to interfere. Amid the ensuing din there were shouts of 'Who stoned Michael Davitt?' but Mr Campbell remained unmoved, and declared that Mr Collins was a faithful subject of King George. This retort stung Mr Collins to the quick, and he replied, angrily: 'Your conduct is worthy of your record: you took good care to be in jail when there was danger.'
Rushing the Lorry, A Revolver Drawn
There was another rush towards Mr Campbell, who again declared that he did not want physical force used. Mr McCabe, MP, and others endeavoured to calm the crowd near the lorry, but excitement reached fever pitch, and there was much commotion. The lorry began to move slightly, as if an attempt were made to take it away. Several of those who had been interrupting Mr Collins made a rush towards it, and Mr McCabe, who was standing near the driver's seat, drew a revolver. Those who were approaching halted for a moment, and produced revolvers also.
There were a few moments of painful tension, and it looked as if a terrible tragedy was about to be enacted. Revolvers flashed, seemingly by the score, as by this time Mr McCabe's supporters had gathered round him, and also flourished weapons. Portion of the crowd took to flight, fearing the worst. Mr McCabe's uniformed opponents declared that they would arrest him. An angry scene ensued, and a priest rushed up and declared that they would not do so.
The dramatic scene was interrupted in a startling manner. A tall, young man was seen dashing through the highly-strung crowd, and being pursued by officers in uniform. He rushed down a side street, and several shots were heard. Many women screamed, and others fainted, but the crowd generally remained around the lorry, where Mr Collins maintained his post. There was a lull in the excitement, and he proceeded with his speech. He was now the sole 'Richmond' on the lorry, as his antagonist had vanished. After a few minutes had elapsed an officer in uniform came on the platform, and addressing Mr Collins, said: - 'Aren't you ashamed of the man who shot the woman?' Amid cheers, Mr Collins replied: - 'Everyone here knows I am not responsible for that.' 'Proclaimed', 'In the Interests of Peace'
A second officer suddenly appeared and announced that the meeting was 'proclaimed in the interests of peace.' Then somebody started the engine, and the lorry, containing some priests and ladies and Colonel Moore, was hurriedly driven away, but Mr Collins, profiting probably by his Dungarvan experience, jumped off before it got going. The meeting then came to an abrupt close, and Mr Collins and his colleagues returned to their hotel ...
5
With growing opposition to the Provisional Government, Lloyd George stated ‘ a point might come when it would be necessary to tell Mr Collins that if he was unable to deal with the situation the British Government would have to do so.’
6
Special Constable James Plumb was shot dead in an IRA ambush at Garrison, Co. Fermanagh and his body taken over the border by the IRA. There, according to a Free State Soldier, each member of the raiding party was permitted one blow at the remains with his rifle. Local religious leaders appealed for the body to be returned which it was and with the evidence of the severe beating after death.
Special Head-Constable Alexander Compton was killed, when the truck he was travelling on was ambushed and it stopped suddenly and he was thrown onto the road.
Former RIC Constables Cranny and Butler were shot and killed in their homes in Ballyhaunis, Co. Mayo.
7
In Ulster, the Civil Authorities Special Powers Bill, popularly called the ‘Flogging Bill’ received Royal Assent and remained in force for many years. ( By 1936 the British National Council for Civil Liberties was severely critical of the act which gave the Northern Irish Government ‘practially dictatorship powers…unlimited powers of search and seizure, Habeas Corpus suspended…persons may be arrested on suspicion only and may be kept in prison indefinetly without trial…no right of appeal against imprisonment or internment…cases may be heard in camera …The Home Office, acting on the advice of the police may refuse to allow a person imprisoned or interned to send or receive letters, visits from friends, family or legal adviser…. The bankbooks of a suspect may be examined by the police and his money may be confiscate. The death penalty may be imposed for offences other than murder or treason.’ And should a prisoner die in custody, the Home Office or a Police Officer may direct that ‘no coroners inquest shall be held, and thus the prisoners relatives and friends are denied all opportunity of inspecting on the corpse any marks of possible violence in arrest or detention’
Quoted in Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P704
5 former RIC constables were killed and 6 injured. 3 were killed in Clare with 2 in Tralee.
US: Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leases the Navy's Teapot Dome oil field in Caspar, Wyoming secretly, and without competitive bidding, to Harry F. Sinclair and the Mammoth Oil Co. Later, on April 25 and Dec. 11, Fall leases the Elk Hills Reserve to Edward L Doheny in similar fashion. It was later found in investigations that Fall had taken bribes for these transactions.
8
Winston Churchill, now head of the Cabinet Committee on Irish Affairs said in Dundee ‘ It is possible that things will get worse before they get better. It is possible that Irishmen will kill and murder each other, and destroy Irish property and cripple Irish prosperity for some time before they realise that they, and they alone – and it is their country – will have to pay the bill in life and treasure…’ Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P702
RIC Sgt Edward McConnell (26) was found shot dead after a dance at the Templemore Military Barracks, Tipperary.
9
The Army Convention was held amidst growing tensions and calls that the elections be indefinetly postponed, the Provisional Government prevented from functioning and growing demands that a military dictatorship declared. Follwing the election of a 7 man, Army Council Republican Executive, Liam Lynch was appointed Chief od Staff. Almost immediately, some Anti-Treaty forces took over barracks occupied by Pro-Treaty troops.
Michael Collins stated that Civil War was threatening Ireland as the anti-treaty forces declared themselves independent of the Free State government, assumed all authority for public order and as they ‘proposed to postpone elections ‘while the threat of war with England exists’ and responding to continuining sectarian violence in Ulster ‘If the so called Government in Belfast has not the power not the will to protect it's citizens, the Irish Government must find the means to protect them’.
Both Collins and de Valera attempted to find a compromise betweeen the escalting tension within each group. The result was that de Valera ‘fell between several stools. He could not safely appeal to public opinion, which he knew supported the treaty. Neither could he appeal unequivocally to the anti-treaty militarists. Mellows and O’Connor detested his capacity for reconciliation’
10
Collins wrote to Lady Lavery ‘I know I shall never again meet anyone so beautiful, so gay, and so sad as you’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P88
11
The British Morning Post newspaper commented that the ‘best hope for peace’ would be to see both Pro-Treaty and Anti-Treaty groups ‘at war with one another – to see Collins locking horns with de Valera while making peace with Craig’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P703
Arthur Griffith, as President of the Dial met with Northern Nationalists saying the Provisional Government was unable to ‘protect our people in Belfast…these people are being murdered. We can always make reprislas, you can burn [Unionist] property. That does not save the lives of the people’
12
Churchill now acting as a watchdog for British interests said in an answer to a parliamentary question on what Britian would do should a Republic be established in Ireland: “If a Republic is set up, that is a form of government in Ireland which the British Empire in no circumstances whatever can tolerate or agree to… [ and that a Republic would be ] followed by a state of war with the British Empire”
Quoted in T.P.Coogan. “Ireland since the Rising”. Pall Mall Press. 1966. p.40 & Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.186
The British Government under conditions in the Free State Act, continued arming the Free State forces. In another Parliamentary debate, Churchill stated that ‘4,000 rifles, 2,200 revolvers and 6 machine guns together with corresponding amounts of ammunition, have been handed over by the British Government to the Provisional Government . I have, with the approval of the Cabinet, given authority for further issues to be made as required.’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P702
The Movie Star, Fatty Arbuckle was cleared of murder and rape charges by a San Francisco jury. This aquittal did not save his career however as all his films were withdrawn by cinema chains throughout the US and Canada.
13
The former seat of British justice in Ireland, The Four Courts, were seized by an Anti-Treaty force led by Rory O’Connor Liam Mellows, Dick McKeever and others following directives from the Republican Army Council to establish a Military HQ for Dublin. Liam Mellows wrote to the Dail stating a number of conditions on which agreement could be reached, including; maintaining the existing Republic, putting the army under the control of an independent electoral representative, disbanding the Civic Guard and that no elections be held until the threat of war with England has passed. No reply was made. De Valera claimed it was a ‘complete surprise to him’ Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.188
‘I am safe in saying that if the [Republican] Army were ever to follow a political leader, Mr de Valera is the man.’ Rory O’Connor after the occupation of the Four Courts.
RIC Sgt John Bruin (37) from Leitrim was shot dead while making enquiries in a public housein Belfast.
Special Constable Nathaniel McCoo was seriously injured in a shooting in Belfast. He died from his wounds on 5th May.
In the US, Massachusets becomes the first state to open all public offices to women.
14
Kilmainham Jail is taken over by Anti-Treaty forces.
15
The Belfast Boycott while lifted by the Provisional Government was reinstated by the Anti-Treaty forces in directives from the Four Courts. Trains were halted, freight seized and destroyed. Bank and Post office raids became commplace to finance arming and provisioning of republican centres.
As the Royal Flying Corps ( later to become the RAF ) left the military airfield in Baldonnel, 2 of their planes were unable to take off. After some swift telephone calls to Government offices in Dublin, the local Free State troops impounded them. A few days later, the 2 aircraft were joined by another from ‘down the country’ and became the nucelus of the Irish Army Air Corps. The aircraft purchased in Britian during the period of the Treaty talks and intended as an alternative mode of transport for Collins should the talks fail, now joined the Air Corps. The Martinside Passenger Aircraft Mark II, seated four apssengers in a small cabin with an open cockpit for the pilot and not surprisingly was nicknamed ‘The Big Fella’.
16
A public meeting in Sligo to be addressed by Arthur Griffith was banned by the local I.R.A.
Eamon de Valera stated publicly ‘Young men and women of Ireland, the goal is at last in sight. Steady all together; forward, Ireland is yours for the taking. Take it.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.64
Italy: Germany and Soviet Union signed an agreement treaty at Rapallo. German industrialist Walther Rathenau was a leading spirit in the negotiations. Both benefitted with each side giving up reparations to each other. Germany agreed to supply the Soviets with desperately needed manufactured goods in return for raw materials. German military officers went to Russia to train the army and in the process, German officers obtained a great deal of experiences and expertise in armaments not allowed under the Versailles Treaty. France however was very concerned.
17
Critical days
from The Irish Times 17 April 1922
Irishmen are living on the edge of a volcano, and have come to be thankful for every hour which spares them the horrors of an eruption. In spite of sinister portents the peace has been kept during the last two days. Easter Sunday was a calm and quiet festival in Dublin. Mr Arthur Griffith exercised without mishap his right to plead the cause of the Treaty with the citizens of Sligo. We may hope now that the anniversary of the Rebellion of 1916 will be allowed to pass without disturbance. Mr Rory O'Connor has declared that the seizure of the Four Courts is not the beginning of a coup d'état and that his forces do not contemplate a revolution. We are quite ready to accept the assurance; for all Mr O'Connor's statements have been frank and candid. On the other hand, the Provisional Government presents to every form of provocation an attitude of careful restraint. It is keeping the troops of Dáil ƒireann under strict control, and intends, we may infer, to rely less upon arms than on the support of a public opinion which becomes daily more conscious of the significance of recent events. The fighting men on both sides are reluctant to commit themselves to the tragedy of civil war, and the people pray earnestly that it may be averted. Nevertheless, the situation is full of peril.
The country is divided into two armed camps, and the normal activities of the Irish capital are paralysed by an all-pervading uncertainty. The task of the peace-makers has become terribly urgent. If the conference of political leaders can arrange a modus vivendi on Wednesday, the cause of peace will receive a very important reinforcement. The united voice of the conference would be the united voice of both parties in the existing Parliament of Southern and Western Ireland. Messrs de Valera and Brugha are not asked to repudiate the Republican policy. They are asked only to recognise the people's right to vote freely upon the Treaty - not necessarily for the Treaty - at the coming elections, and to co-operate in the task of maintaining a régime of law. We never have been able to fathom Mr de Valera's objections to this natural course, and our perplexity is increased by his speech yesterday at Tullamore. He said that the Treaty did not exist for the people until they had given it the sanction of their votes; but why is he unwilling to put the Treaty to the test of a general election? The more free the elections are, the more free will the people be to reject the Treaty, if they so desire.
Does Mr de Valera profess to know the people's mind better than the people themselves know it? He said, too, that the elections of 1918 gave the Republic 'a democratic basis which could not be questioned anywhere.' If the register was so satisfactory in 1918, why is it not good enough for 1922? Mr de Valera suggested also that the people had not studied the text of the Treaty - that they had allowed the newspapers to mislead them. The proposed Constitution of the Free State will be submitted to the electors in June. Would any English autocrat venture to hint that Irish democracy could not be trusted to form its own judgment on its own affairs?
The only true, the only sound, the only democratic principle is that which Messrs Griffith and Collins defended yesterday at Sligo and Naas. The people know what they want, and it is the people, not Mr Collins, Mr de Valera, or Mr O'Connor, who must decide. The Provisional Government offers peace with Great Britain, prosperity and virtual independence for the Free State, and a substantial prospect of union between North and South. Mr de Valera offers a Republic to which, as Mr Churchill has told us, Great Britain would be hostile from the outset. In his Easter message to the country, Mr de Valera says: 'Ireland is yours for the taking! Take it!' How does he propose to take North-East Ulster? On this point, and on many others in the Republican programme, the people await enlightenment. Mr de Valera will have every opportunity to give it to them in the next few weeks. He can address meetings, without fear of disturbance, in every one of the twenty-six counties. The columns of every Irish newspaper, including this newspaper, will be open to him. If his cause is the people's cause, it will prevail. If he is a real democrat, he will accept the people's verdict, whatever that verdict may be. We are very unwilling to suppose that any section of the Irish Army would set itself above the people's choice after that choice had been declared freely according to the custom of all civilised lands. The first safeguard of free elections must be an agreement of the political leaders in their favour, and the country expects and requires such agreement as the outcome of the Mansion House Conference.
18
An IRA order stated it was the IRA aim to make the northern six counties part of the State.
23
Former RIC Sergeant John Gunn was killed in Ennis. He retired from the force 3 days before.
24
A nationwide general strike in protest against militarism takes place in the Free State. Organised by the Labour Party.
25
As the peace conference convened in the Mansion House broke down, the Four Courts garrison issued a further letter to the Dail calling on it to remove authority from the cabinet and save the country from Civil War.
Collins & Griffith insisted that elections must be held on the Treaty issue. The Anti-Treaty groups objected on the grounds that the general desire among a war weary public was for peace resulting in a favourable vote for the Treaty and as the electoral register was unrevised, a large number of young, Republican sympathisers were disenfranchised. Poles apart, de Valera and Brugha agreed that any electoral result in favour of the Treaty would be repudiated by the existing militant Republicans.
There now were 60,000 troops in Ulster yet sectarian atrocities continued, Catholics expelled from homes, shootings, beatings and burnings. Sir Henry Wilson was urging action be taken against the Four Courts.
While sectarian violence continued in Ulster, fears of growing sectarianism in Cork followed an outbreak of shootings in Bandon which claimed the lives of 10 Protestants in a week after I.R.A Commandant O’Neill of the 3rd Cork Brigade was killed at the Hornibrook family home.
26
The Hierarchy issued a statement from the Irish Bishops, opposing anti-Treaty forces ’ The best and wisest course for Ireland is to accept the Treaty and make the most of the freedom it undoubtedly brings us…the young men connect with this military revolt…when they shoot their brothers on the opposite side, they are murderers.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.64
27
Collins in a strongly worded letter of protest to Craig, condemned the ‘abomninations that have taken place in belfast since the signing of our Pact’ with 24 Catholics killed and numerous homes burned and looted.
Michael Collins was also supplying the Anti-Treaty General, Liam Lynch with arms to assist Catholics in Ulster.
“Collins was not altogether adverse from having the Four Courts held by Republicans against the Pro-Treaty Government, for this enabled the IRA’s operations in the north to be attributed to “freelance” associates of Rory O’Connor.”
T.P.Coogan. “Ireland since the Rising”. Pall Mall Press. 1966. p.40
According to Prof. J.J.Lee, this action was more in reaction to the failure of Craig to implemt his part of the agreement made earlier in the year when Collins promised to try and curb IRA attacks in the North in return for re-organisation of the RUC to provide some representation for Catholics and also to provide some protection from sectarian progroms. Collins also agreed to respect the ‘territorial integrity’ of the North pending the findings of the Boundary commission.
28
Lord Middleton discussed the proposed Free State constitution with members of the Provisional Government.
29
Collins and Griffith met with de Valera and Cathal Brugha. Making reference to de Valera’s March 17th speech, Collins said ‘I suppose we are the two Ministers whose blood is to be waded through’ which De Valera replied ‘Yes’.
30
de Valera speaking in Mulingar said of the rising fears of sectarian violence within the 26 counties: ‘ The German Palatines, the French Hugenots, the English Protestants…later the Wesleyans and the Jews, who were persecuted in every land, in this land of cours always found safe asylum. That glorious record must not be tarnished by acts against a helpless minority’ Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P702
Dail Eireann’s comment was ‘the Irish nation consists of no one class or creed but combines all’
RIC Constable Benjamin Bentley (21) from London, was killed while enroute to collect a clergyman for service near Drogheda, Co. Louth.
May 1922
1
Commadant Tom Hales of the 3rd Cork Brigade publishes a notice in the local and national press promising ‘all citizens in this area irresepctive of class or creed every protection within my powers’
Over £750,000 was taken in various raids on Bank of Ireland branches by Anti-Treaty forces.
2
RIC Constable John Harvey (37) from Monaghan was killed in an IRA attack on the RIC Barracks at Bellaghy, Co. Derry.
3
Special Constable William McKnight was killed in an IRA ambush near Cookstown, Co.Tyrone.
Special Constable Robert Cardwell was killed in an IRA ambush near Annaghmore, Co. Armagh.
RIC Sergeant Frederick Frizzelle (41) from Mayo was killed along with Special Constables Edward Hegarty and Thomas Hunter at Ballyronan, Co. Derry.
4
Michael Collins now began to consolidate opposotion to the Northern Irish government by ‘ demanding schemes from all ministers ‘for non co-operation in every possible way with the northern parliament. And, in addition, a scheme towards making it impossible for them to carry on. Only Agriculture, Education and Finance responded actively…’
Prof. J.J.Lee. ‘Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society’. Cambridge University Press. 1989. P61
The Anti-Treaty forces now began to consolidate. In Kilkenny, Free State troops were removed from key buildings which was countered by sending 200 troops from Dublin. In Dublin, key buildings were occupied. The Catholic Hierarchy voiced its opposition to Anti-Treaty forces and leadership, followed later by the Labour Party condemning militarism on both sides.
A former member of the RIC was taken by armed men in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary.
8
Special Constable Samuel Milligan was seriously wounded in an attack on 3 homes belonging to Unionists near Castlecaulfield, Co. Tyrone. He bled to death before receiving medical treatment.
Meanwhile in Clarenbridge, Co. Galway, a former member of the RIC was seriously wounded .
10
Modern magic
from The Irish Times 10 May 1922
Science invents or discovers marvels, and society puts them to very common-place uses. Take, for instance, the contrast between the possibilities of a wireless telephone in every home and the actual use to which it is being put. The 'broad-casting' system is well established in the United States and is now being introduced on a large scale in England. For a few guineas you buy a box which is capable of transmitting to you, along with thousands of other box-holders, at fixed times of the day, the noblest thoughts and sweetest sounds that the world's wisdom and imagination can create. It is a miracle compared with which the fisherman's bottled genie pales into insignificance. If Plato could have foreseen this invention, he would have proposed a connection of all the home telephones with a centre from which a little band of the supremely good and wise would raise the intellectual stature of mankind. In fact, the typical American programme for a wireless telephone recital consists of a weather forecast, a 'bed-time story' for children, 'late news flashes,' police reports, and a popular concert. It appears that the typical English programme will be of a similar kind. Science has tamed Pegasus and commerce has harnessed him to a dray.
11
Fenian leader and organiser, Civil War veteran and Civil Engineer, Colonel Ricard O’Sullivan Burke died. He had suffered through a stroke 5 ½ years previously and ‘there was a touching scene as the coffin, bearing the mortal remains of Colonel Burke, draped with the two flags for which he fought – the Stars and Stripes and the Green, White and Orange tricolour of Ireland – was borne to the hearse from his home. He was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Chicago.’
John Devoy. ‘Recollections of an Irish Rebel’. C.P.Young & Co Ltd. New York 1929. P352
18
Constable John Collins (49) from Cork was killed and a Special Constable wounded in an attack on Musgrave Street RIC Barracks, Belfast. The IRA plan was to attack the Barracks and capture two armoured cars which were to be used in general attacks on security forces in Ulster.
19
Attempt to seize police headquarters
from The Irish Times 19 May 1922
Men in Police Uniforms
A daring raid took place here early this morning, when an attempt was made to seize the Central Police Barracks, Musgrave Street, the headquarters of the City Force. At four o'clock the guard at the day-room of the barracks - Constable John Collins and Special Constable McKeown - heard a knock at the front gate. Collins, before opening the gate, inquired, 'Who is there?' and received the reply, 'Police on duty.' He opened the door about a couple of inches to satisfy himself that they were police who demanded admission, and saw seven or eight men dressed in police waterproof coats and caps. They were tall, well-built men, and Collins, believing that they were Royal Irish Constabulary, opened the door. On entering the men carefully closed the gate, and pushed their way into the day-room, with Collins in front of them.
McKeown paid little heed to the men, as it is quite customary for police to be passing in and out of the barracks at all hours of the day and night. As soon as they entered the day-room, however, the raiders all produced revolvers and gave the order, 'Hands up!' Still the two men of the guard were not surprised. They thought the affair was a joke. They were in the difficulty of not knowing any of the men personally; but that was only natural, owing to the large numbers of strange men who are being drafted into the city stations every day. The raiders repeated the command, and then the guard realised that the strangers were not police at all.
The two Royal Irish Constabulary men were at once relieved of their revolvers, and, finding all means of resistance from firearms gone, the raiders released their hold on the police to some extent. McKeown, who was nearest to the door of the day-room, then made a dash for the yard for the purpose of giving the alarm, but one of the raiders, who were stated to be Sinn Féiners, struck him a severe blow on the back of the head with the butt of a revolver. Although somewhat dazed by the blow, McKeown staggered out to the yard, but before he could give a call for assistance several shots were fired after him, and he collapsed in the yard, wounded in the leg. At the same time several other shots were discharged in the day-room, and Constable Collins also fell. The raiders then made a rush upstairs towards the arms room, but they met with a hot reception.
The sound of the shooting below put Sergeant Toomley, who was in charge of the arms and ammunition, on the alert, and, opening the door, he saw several men rushing up stairs. As soon as the door was opened the Sinn Féiners fired several shots at the sergeant, who briskly returned the fire, and in the meantime a special constable who was on guard in another part of the barracks hurried to the scene and fired several shots. Finding that the opposition was getting greater as time went on, the gang saw there was no hope of carrying out their plan. They escaped over the high walls and disappeared, some in the direction of the markets and other towards the Queen's Bridge.
Subsequently the two injured policemen were taken in the ambulance to the Royal Victoria Hospital. Collins, who had received bullet wounds in the head and body, died shortly before five o'clock. McKeown, in addition to the injuries inflicted by the butt of the revolver to his head, got a bullet through his right leg near the ankle. His condition is not regarded as serious.
McKeown has been about seventeen months in the special Constabulary, and came to Musgrave Street four months ago. He came on the same draft to the city as that which contained Special Constables Chermside and Cunningham, who were murdered in May Street about two months ago. Constable Collins, who was 50 years of age, had almost 27 years' service in the force, and was to have resigned in a few weeks' time ...
U.S. inventor Charles Francis Jenkins makes first lab transmission of a television picture signal.
20
Collins and de Valera agreed that election to the new dail would not be fought on the issue of the Treaty and that the Sinn Fein panel of candidates would be drawn from pro & anti-treaty candidates in proportion to their existing Dail Eireann strenght. The British Government denounced the pact and summoned both Griffith and Collins to London.
22
A lone assasin killed the MP for West Belfast W.J. Twaddell. This would prove to be the only killing of a Northern Irish MP for 59 years, until the murder of Rev Robert Bradford in 1981.
Former RIC Sergeant Walsh was killed at his home in Raphoe, Co. Donegal.
23
Collins in a statement to the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis recommended agreement on the electoral pact. ‘The value of the agreement he said, was not that it secured unity in the Dail, but that it secured unity in the nation.’
Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.189
In Northern Ireland, internment was introduced and Sinn Fein declared illegal following a series of violent incidents. For good measure, Cumman na mBan and the Fianna Eireann were also outlawed and a rolling series of arrests made.
Two formers RIC members, ex-sergeant Walshe killed in Newport and ex-Constable O’Leary killed near Kinsale.
Longest running Broadway play of the decade, the hokey Abie's Irish Rose premieres, to the chagrin of Life magazine drama critic Robert Benchley, who ridicules it in print until its close in 1927 (2,327 performances).
24
Belfast: The Constabulary Bill (Northern Ireland) was introduced.
25
Special Constable James Murphy was killed by a sniper on the Springfield Road, Belfast.
Special Constable George Connor was killed by a sniper in Belfast.
In Liverpool, the mlitary advisor to the Northern Ireland Government, Henry Wilson, commented in Liverpool that the apparent surrender of the Provisional Government to de Valera through the election pact on the 20th was ‘one of the most pitiful, miserable and cowardly stories in history…the Union must be re-established.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.65
26
Moscow: Lenin suffers a stroke.
The Upnor, a British naval vessel carrying arms was intercepted by the anti-treaty I.R.A in Strangford Lough. Collins suspected collusion between the British and Anti-Treaty forces.
US: The Drug War begins. The Federal Narcotics Control Board established, with power to prohibit importation of non-medicinal narcotics.
27
Draft constitution of the Free State presented to the British Government and rejected.
Special Constable Herbert Martin was shot dead in Jonesborough, Co Armagh by the IRA.
Shane Leslie recorded in his diary, that those of London Society who were not invited to the Lavery’s to meet with Collins that ‘the people who were not asked said with some jealously that those who went were consorting with murderers’. Writers, including McCoole and O’Connor wrote that Collins saw these trips to London as an escape from the pressurers in Ireland. ‘It had been the Childers, the Bartons, the Davies. Now it was Cope, Churchill, Birkenhead, the Laverys’. Unlike Collins, Kevin O’Higgins felt ill at ease in such company and wrote to his new wife that the Laverys were ‘fine folks’ but that he could only take so much of ‘boiled shirts and painted ladies’ and wanted ‘to go ho-am!’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P86
The Vatican objected to British rule in Palestine on the grounds that the proposed mandate would threten religious equality. The Vatican argument was that the creation of a national Jewish homeland would give a ‘priviledged position to the adherents of Zionism’.
20
Collins and de Valera agreed an electoral pact which provided for the two factions within Sinn Fein to be represented on a national Sinn Fein panel in the June elections for the third Dail, seats assigned in proportion to their current Dail strenght. Proportional representation agreements meant that a pro-treaty voter would be encouraged to give first preferences to the Pro-Treaty Sinn Fein candidate and second preferences to the Anti-Treaty Sinn Fein candidate. The anti-treaty voters would do the opposite. After the election a coalition Cabinet would be formed, consisting of the President, Minister of Defence and nine other ministers, five from the majority party and four from the minority party with eahc party choosing its own nominees. In effect it meant that the Treaty would not be used in electioneering.
Churchill denounced the pact strongly as ‘an outrage of democratic principles’ sent a destroyer to Belfast, halted the ongoing evacuation of British troops from Ireland and military supplies to the Free State Government while reinforcing troops in Ulster
Both Collins and Griffith was summoned to London to explain their positions before the Cabinet Committee on Irish Affairs.
27
While in London, the Lavery’s drove Collins to Downing Street. The following day, the papers reported that Collins ‘had driven with his sweetheart’
28
RIC Sergeant William Leech (32) from Galway and on temporary assignment to Dublin Castle, was shot dead in Westland Row, Dublin.
Special Constable Albert Rickerby was ambushed and killed in Garrison Co. Fermanagh by a large number of alleged Free State Troops.
Collins wrote to Kitty Kiernan: ‘You ought to have seen some of the papers here yesterday – M. Collins in Downing St. with his sweetheart. I can have al sorts of lovely libel actions. The Laverys took me there in their car. Some of the correspondents recognised my friend but the story was too good! I must bring you back some of the papers to show you.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P89
29
Special Constable John Megarrity (20) was killed in an IRA ambush on the Falls Road, Belfast. This was the beginning of a change of tactics by the IRA, moving from burning buildings to sniping.
RIC Constable Henry O’Brien (23) from Leitrim was shot dead by a group of men in Belfast.
An RIC pensioner taken from his home near Boyle, Oc. Roscommon and shot dead. His killers then made their way to his son’s home, also an ex-RIC member and shot him dead.
30
British Government plans to counter any breach in the Treaty were fianlised, including troop depolyments throughout the country from the Curragh and Dublin, a naval blockade of Cork and Limerick and selected artillery targets in Dublin.
Collins wrote to Kitty Kiernan: ‘Things are bad beyond words, and I am almost without hope of being able to do anything of permanent use. It’s really awful – to think of what I have to endure here owing to the way things are done by the opponents at home.'
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P83
31
The RUC is officially established. 2 RIC members killed later that day provoking indiscriminate reprisals. 8 Catholics killed and over 80 Catholic families burned out of their homes.
Special Constable Andrew Roulston was shot dead while on the beat in Belfast.
May 1922
1
Commadant Tom Hales of the 3rd Cork Brigade publishes a notice in the local and national press promising ‘all citizens in this area irresepctive of class or creed every protection within my powers’
Over £750,000 was taken in various raids on Bank of Ireland branches by Anti-Treaty forces.
2
RIC Constable John Harvey (37) from Monaghan was killed in an IRA attack on the RIC Barracks at Bellaghy, Co. Derry.
3
Special Constable William McKnight was killed in an IRA ambush near Cookstown, Co.Tyrone.
Special Constable Robert Cardwell was killed in an IRA ambush near Annaghmore, Co. Armagh.
RIC Sergeant Frederick Frizzelle (41) from Mayo was killed along with Special Constables Edward Hegarty and Thomas Hunter at Ballyronan, Co. Derry.
4
Michael Collins now began to consolidate opposotion to the Northern Irish government by ‘ demanding schemes from all ministers ‘for non co-operation in every possible way with the northern parliament. And, in addition, a scheme towards making it impossible for them to carry on. Only Agriculture, Education and Finance responded actively…’
Prof. J.J.Lee. ‘Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society’. Cambridge University Press. 1989. P61
The Anti-Treaty forces now began to consolidate. In Kilkenny, Free State troops were removed from key buildings which was countered by sending 200 troops from Dublin. In Dublin, key buildings were occupied. The Catholic Hierarchy voiced its opposition to Anti-Treaty forces and leadership, followed later by the Labour Party condemning militarism on both sides.
A former member of the RIC was taken by armed men in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary.
8
Special Constable Samuel Milligan was seriously wounded in an attack on 3 homes belonging to Unionists near Castlecaulfield, Co. Tyrone. He bled to death before receiving medical treatment.
Meanwhile in Clarenbridge, Co. Galway, a former member of the RIC was seriously wounded .
10
Modern magic
from The Irish Times 10 May 1922
Science invents or discovers marvels, and society puts them to very common-place uses. Take, for instance, the contrast between the possibilities of a wireless telephone in every home and the actual use to which it is being put. The 'broad-casting' system is well established in the United States and is now being introduced on a large scale in England. For a few guineas you buy a box which is capable of transmitting to you, along with thousands of other box-holders, at fixed times of the day, the noblest thoughts and sweetest sounds that the world's wisdom and imagination can create. It is a miracle compared with which the fisherman's bottled genie pales into insignificance. If Plato could have foreseen this invention, he would have proposed a connection of all the home telephones with a centre from which a little band of the supremely good and wise would raise the intellectual stature of mankind. In fact, the typical American programme for a wireless telephone recital consists of a weather forecast, a 'bed-time story' for children, 'late news flashes,' police reports, and a popular concert. It appears that the typical English programme will be of a similar kind. Science has tamed Pegasus and commerce has harnessed him to a dray.
11
Fenian leader and organiser, Civil War veteran and Civil Engineer, Colonel Ricard O’Sullivan Burke died. He had suffered through a stroke 5 ½ years previously and ‘there was a touching scene as the coffin, bearing the mortal remains of Colonel Burke, draped with the two flags for which he fought – the Stars and Stripes and the Green, White and Orange tricolour of Ireland – was borne to the hearse from his home. He was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Chicago.’
John Devoy. ‘Recollections of an Irish Rebel’. C.P.Young & Co Ltd. New York 1929. P352
18
Constable John Collins (49) from Cork was killed and a Special Constable wounded in an attack on Musgrave Street RIC Barracks, Belfast. The IRA plan was to attack the Barracks and capture two armoured cars which were to be used in general attacks on security forces in Ulster.
19
Attempt to seize police headquarters
from The Irish Times 19 May 1922
Men in Police Uniforms
A daring raid took place here early this morning, when an attempt was made to seize the Central Police Barracks, Musgrave Street, the headquarters of the City Force. At four o'clock the guard at the day-room of the barracks - Constable John Collins and Special Constable McKeown - heard a knock at the front gate. Collins, before opening the gate, inquired, 'Who is there?' and received the reply, 'Police on duty.' He opened the door about a couple of inches to satisfy himself that they were police who demanded admission, and saw seven or eight men dressed in police waterproof coats and caps. They were tall, well-built men, and Collins, believing that they were Royal Irish Constabulary, opened the door. On entering the men carefully closed the gate, and pushed their way into the day-room, with Collins in front of them.
McKeown paid little heed to the men, as it is quite customary for police to be passing in and out of the barracks at all hours of the day and night. As soon as they entered the day-room, however, the raiders all produced revolvers and gave the order, 'Hands up!' Still the two men of the guard were not surprised. They thought the affair was a joke. They were in the difficulty of not knowing any of the men personally; but that was only natural, owing to the large numbers of strange men who are being drafted into the city stations every day. The raiders repeated the command, and then the guard realised that the strangers were not police at all.
The two Royal Irish Constabulary men were at once relieved of their revolvers, and, finding all means of resistance from firearms gone, the raiders released their hold on the police to some extent. McKeown, who was nearest to the door of the day-room, then made a dash for the yard for the purpose of giving the alarm, but one of the raiders, who were stated to be Sinn Féiners, struck him a severe blow on the back of the head with the butt of a revolver. Although somewhat dazed by the blow, McKeown staggered out to the yard, but before he could give a call for assistance several shots were fired after him, and he collapsed in the yard, wounded in the leg. At the same time several other shots were discharged in the day-room, and Constable Collins also fell. The raiders then made a rush upstairs towards the arms room, but they met with a hot reception.
The sound of the shooting below put Sergeant Toomley, who was in charge of the arms and ammunition, on the alert, and, opening the door, he saw several men rushing up stairs. As soon as the door was opened the Sinn Féiners fired several shots at the sergeant, who briskly returned the fire, and in the meantime a special constable who was on guard in another part of the barracks hurried to the scene and fired several shots. Finding that the opposition was getting greater as time went on, the gang saw there was no hope of carrying out their plan. They escaped over the high walls and disappeared, some in the direction of the markets and other towards the Queen's Bridge.
Subsequently the two injured policemen were taken in the ambulance to the Royal Victoria Hospital. Collins, who had received bullet wounds in the head and body, died shortly before five o'clock. McKeown, in addition to the injuries inflicted by the butt of the revolver to his head, got a bullet through his right leg near the ankle. His condition is not regarded as serious.
McKeown has been about seventeen months in the special Constabulary, and came to Musgrave Street four months ago. He came on the same draft to the city as that which contained Special Constables Chermside and Cunningham, who were murdered in May Street about two months ago. Constable Collins, who was 50 years of age, had almost 27 years' service in the force, and was to have resigned in a few weeks' time ...
U.S. inventor Charles Francis Jenkins makes first lab transmission of a television picture signal.
20
Collins and de Valera agreed that election to the new dail would not be fought on the issue of the Treaty and that the Sinn Fein panel of candidates would be drawn from pro & anti-treaty candidates in proportion to their existing Dail Eireann strenght. The British Government denounced the pact and summoned both Griffith and Collins to London.
22
A lone assasin killed the MP for West Belfast W.J. Twaddell. This would prove to be the only killing of a Northern Irish MP for 59 years, until the murder of Rev Robert Bradford in 1981.
Former RIC Sergeant Walsh was killed at his home in Raphoe, Co. Donegal.
23
Collins in a statement to the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis recommended agreement on the electoral pact. ‘The value of the agreement he said, was not that it secured unity in the Dail, but that it secured unity in the nation.’
Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.189
In Northern Ireland, internment was introduced and Sinn Fein declared illegal following a series of violent incidents. For good measure, Cumman na mBan and the Fianna Eireann were also outlawed and a rolling series of arrests made.
Two formers RIC members, ex-sergeant Walshe killed in Newport and ex-Constable O’Leary killed near Kinsale.
Longest running Broadway play of the decade, the hokey Abie's Irish Rose premieres, to the chagrin of Life magazine drama critic Robert Benchley, who ridicules it in print until its close in 1927 (2,327 performances).
24
Belfast: The Constabulary Bill (Northern Ireland) was introduced.
25
Special Constable James Murphy was killed by a sniper on the Springfield Road, Belfast.
Special Constable George Connor was killed by a sniper in Belfast.
In Liverpool, the mlitary advisor to the Northern Ireland Government, Henry Wilson, commented in Liverpool that the apparent surrender of the Provisional Government to de Valera through the election pact on the 20th was ‘one of the most pitiful, miserable and cowardly stories in history…the Union must be re-established.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.65
26
Moscow: Lenin suffers a stroke.
The Upnor, a British naval vessel carrying arms was intercepted by the anti-treaty I.R.A in Strangford Lough. Collins suspected collusion between the British and Anti-Treaty forces.
US: The Drug War begins. The Federal Narcotics Control Board established, with power to prohibit importation of non-medicinal narcotics.
27
Draft constitution of the Free State presented to the British Government and rejected.
Special Constable Herbert Martin was shot dead in Jonesborough, Co Armagh by the IRA.
Shane Leslie recorded in his diary, that those of London Society who were not invited to the Lavery’s to meet with Collins that ‘the people who were not asked said with some jealously that those who went were consorting with murderers’. Writers, including McCoole and O’Connor wrote that Collins saw these trips to London as an escape from the pressurers in Ireland. ‘It had been the Childers, the Bartons, the Davies. Now it was Cope, Churchill, Birkenhead, the Laverys’. Unlike Collins, Kevin O’Higgins felt ill at ease in such company and wrote to his new wife that the Laverys were ‘fine folks’ but that he could only take so much of ‘boiled shirts and painted ladies’ and wanted ‘to go ho-am!’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P86
The Vatican objected to British rule in Palestine on the grounds that the proposed mandate would threten religious equality. The Vatican argument was that the creation of a national Jewish homeland would give a ‘priviledged position to the adherents of Zionism’.
20
Collins and de Valera agreed an electoral pact which provided for the two factions within Sinn Fein to be represented on a national Sinn Fein panel in the June elections for the third Dail, seats assigned in proportion to their current Dail strenght. Proportional representation agreements meant that a pro-treaty voter would be encouraged to give first preferences to the Pro-Treaty Sinn Fein candidate and second preferences to the Anti-Treaty Sinn Fein candidate. The anti-treaty voters would do the opposite. After the election a coalition Cabinet would be formed, consisting of the President, Minister of Defence and nine other ministers, five from the majority party and four from the minority party with eahc party choosing its own nominees. In effect it meant that the Treaty would not be used in electioneering.
Churchill denounced the pact strongly as ‘an outrage of democratic principles’ sent a destroyer to Belfast, halted the ongoing evacuation of British troops from Ireland and military supplies to the Free State Government while reinforcing troops in Ulster
Both Collins and Griffith was summoned to London to explain their positions before the Cabinet Committee on Irish Affairs.
27
While in London, the Lavery’s drove Collins to Downing Street. The following day, the papers reported that Collins ‘had driven with his sweetheart’
28
RIC Sergeant William Leech (32) from Galway and on temporary assignment to Dublin Castle, was shot dead in Westland Row, Dublin.
Special Constable Albert Rickerby was ambushed and killed in Garrison Co. Fermanagh by a large number of alleged Free State Troops.
Collins wrote to Kitty Kiernan: ‘You ought to have seen some of the papers here yesterday – M. Collins in Downing St. with his sweetheart. I can have al sorts of lovely libel actions. The Laverys took me there in their car. Some of the correspondents recognised my friend but the story was too good! I must bring you back some of the papers to show you.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P89
29
Special Constable John Megarrity (20) was killed in an IRA ambush on the Falls Road, Belfast. This was the beginning of a change of tactics by the IRA, moving from burning buildings to sniping.
RIC Constable Henry O’Brien (23) from Leitrim was shot dead by a group of men in Belfast.
An RIC pensioner taken from his home near Boyle, Oc. Roscommon and shot dead. His killers then made their way to his son’s home, also an ex-RIC member and shot him dead.
30
British Government plans to counter any breach in the Treaty were fianlised, including troop depolyments throughout the country from the Curragh and Dublin, a naval blockade of Cork and Limerick and selected artillery targets in Dublin.
Collins wrote to Kitty Kiernan: ‘Things are bad beyond words, and I am almost without hope of being able to do anything of permanent use. It’s really awful – to think of what I have to endure here owing to the way things are done by the opponents at home.'
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P83
31
The RUC is officially established. 2 RIC members killed later that day provoking indiscriminate reprisals. 8 Catholics killed and over 80 Catholic families burned out of their homes.
Special Constable Andrew Roulston was shot dead while on the beat in Belfast.
June 1922
1
A curfew imposed in Northern Ireland.
Lady Hazel Lavery recorded she organised a round of meeting for Collins between June 1st -13th although only one is documented. British Civil Servant Lionel Curtis commented that negotiating with Collins was like ‘trying to write on water.’
During parliamentary debates on Ireland, Lord Birkenhead stated that ‘should a crisis arise, the resources of our civiisation are by no means exhausted…England would be in an immeaurably stronger position that formerly to resume the inevitable bloody struggle’ Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P716
The Royal Ulster Constabularly was formed, with the majority of it’s new officers from the RIC.
2
Churchill reporting to Cabinet ‘The more the fear of renewed warfare is present in the minds of the electors, the more likely are they to get to the polls and support the Treaty.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.65
3
All the ex-members of the RIC in Ballinasloe, Co. Galway were visited by the IRA and two were shot in the legs,
4
Special Constable Thomas Dobson wa shot and killed by the IRA as he was driving a Crossley tender for the military near Pettigo, Co. Fermanagh during an operation to retake the village from IRA control.
6
Special Constable Thomas Sheridan was killed by a sniper near Caledon, Co. Armagh, some 50 yards from the border with the Irish Free State.
8
Padraic Colum in the RTE Archives recalled a conversation with Arthur Griffith’s wife. She ‘ had always wanted him out of politics, and the raids upon the house and his frequent arrests had put her and the children under great strain. ‘There is a good deal I have still to do’ he told her. But in a few months it will all be cleared up. I will leave politics in August. In August, Arthur Griffith was dead’’
The London Fashion scene reports that Plumes, Veils and Trains are back in favour this season.
Last meeting of the second Dail Eireann.
Refugees in Dublin
from The Irish Times 8 June 1922
Fresh Arrivals
Yesterday afternoon a party of 79 refugees arrived at Amiens Street Station, Dublin, from Belfast. The arrangements for their reception were in the hands of Commandant Henderson, from the Four Courts, who was acting on behalf of the North East Ulster Boycott Committee. A fleet of motor vehicles carried the refugees, many of whom were little children, to Marlborough Hall, Glasnevin, where five hundred Belfast men, women, and children are now housed.
An Irish Times representative, who visited Marlborough Hall soon after the arrival of the party, was afforded every facility of speaking with them, and of seeing the arrangements that have been made for their comfort. As a rule they do not care to discuss their recent experiences in the Northern city, and try to forget them in the new surroundings. Some of the women looked pale and ill. More than one had lost her husband or some other member of her family, and had not yet recovered from the blow. One woman, whose husband was killed, is accompanied by her six children. Many of them have lost their homes and almost everything that they possessed in the way of property.
At Marlborough Hall the refugees look after the cleaning of their rooms and make themselves generally useful. The cooking, however, is done by cooks of the Republican Army. Strict attention is paid to the health of the women and children, and a doctor and a trained nurse are in constant attendance. Medicine is also provided. Some of the women need careful attention.
Every able-bodied man is expected to look for work, and, with this object in view, they leave early every morning to find suitable positions in the city. So far none of them has been successful, and until there has been a general improvement in trade and business there can be little expectation of finding openings for the majority of them.
Last evening an impromptu concert was held in the grounds of Marlborough Hall, and it appeared to give much pleasure, especially to the women and children. Some of the young girls, who were dressed in bright costumes, sang songs of a patriotic character and danced lively Irish dances. It is expected that arrangements will be completed shortly for continuing the education of the children. Teachers will soon be available to conduct the classes.
9
A re-draft of the Free State constitution accepted by London.
10
US Actress and Singer, Judy Garland ( d.22 June 1969 ) born.
Garland, Judy, professional name of Frances Gumm (1922-1969), American film actress and singer. Born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Garland made her singing debut at the age of 30 months in her father's theatre. She and her sisters later formed a vaudeville act called the Gumm Sisters, touring the United States between 1927 and 1935. Her feature film career, which began in 1936, included appearances in such pictures as The Wizard of Oz (1939), the film that made her world famous and for which she received a special award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Ziegfeld Girl (1941); Meet Me in St Louis (1944); The Clock (1945); and The Pirate (1948). From 1950 onwards she appeared primarily in nightclubs, concerts, and on television; her first engagement at the Palace Theater in New York (1951-1952) broke vaudeville box-office records. Later films include A Star Is Born (1954), which won her an Oscar nomination, and which many see as her greatest performance, Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), I Could Go on Singing (1963), and A Child Is Waiting (1963). Garland was the mother of the actress and singer Liza Minnelli.
12
Climbers reached within 3,200 feet of the summit of Mount Everest and set a new record of 26,800 feet without oxygen.
A further meeting of the British Government and Provisional Government held to discuss the Constitution. Provisional Government representatives also met with Southern Unionist leaders.
Lady Hazel Lavery and Collins attended a play in London.
13
Austria declares bankruptcy.
On the same day, one of the few surviving fragments of poetry was penned by Collins to Lady Hazel Lavery:
‘Oh Hazel, Hazel Lavery:
What is your charm Oh! Say?
Like subtle Scottish Mary
You take my heart away.
Not by your wit and beauty
Nor your delicate sad grace
Nor the golden eyes of wonder
In the flower that is your face.
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P89-90
15
Draft constitution of the Free State issued to the press for publication on the 16th.
‘influenced by the menacing tones coming from London, Collins changed his position. In a speech at Cork he told the electorate to ‘vote for the candidate you think best of’. This was regarded by the Anti-Treaty side as a breach of the pact.’
T.P.Coogan. “Ireland since the Rising”. Pall Mall Press. 1966. p.41
The College of Science was opened in Merrion Square. One of the most visually impressive of Dublin's buildings it was to remain part of TCD until the late 80’s when ownership was transferred to the Government. The building had a long gestation period with the foundation stones was laid by Edward VII in 1904, the Georgian houses on the site were demolished in 1913 and the building was finally completed in 1922 after the end of British rule. The architect was Sir Aston Webb although credit is usually also given to Thomas Manly Deane whose offices were demolished for the building but who played little part in the project. The building is constructed around a courtyard with the central dome placed over the pedimented central block to the rear of the site. Unlike many of Dublin's domed buildings, the dome is lead clad not copper. This is left visible to the street by used a columned screen and gateway. Atop the flanking blocks on Merrion Street are large sculptures depicting the sciences.
16
The First General Election took place in the Free State and in the morning papers, details of the draft constitution were published. This had been agreed in London and contained an Oath of Allegiance to the British monarch strongly opposed by the Anti-Treaty group and many within the Pro-Treaty. The publication of the draft on polling day was understandbly considered sharp practice.
“In Cork, while the votes were awaiting the count, the armed guard outside the College of Art was circumvented by a band of Anti-Treatyites who got in through the roof and altered 4000 ballots, changing first preferences for Collins into fourth preferences. The forgery was easily spotted, however, as they used the wrong type of pencil. The Republicans in Cork were resourceful but at times a trifle naive. Instructed to write Republican slogans on all available surfaces, one election worker took his order literally and regaled the city with the oft repeated scrawl “Up the Republic” wherever a small space presented itself”
T.P.Coogan. “Ireland since the Rising”. Pall Mall Press. 1966. p.41
The Election results were clear-cut however. Of the total 128 seats available, 58 Sinn Fein Pro-Treaty, 36 Sinn Fein Anti-Treaty, 17 Labour and 17 Others. If the various camps were segregated according to political support, the national voting figures on the Treaty were: For 486,419, Against 133,864 or 78.4% of the vote was in favour of the Treaty.
A third faction now became apparent. The Commanders within the Four Courts, Rory O’Connor and Liam Mellows along with Cathal Brugha and Oscar Traynor now denounced both the pro & anti-treaty groups when their proposal to attack remaining British troops in Dublin before they withdrew was refused at an Extra-Ordinary convention of the Anti-Treaty IRA.
The political situation in Ireland at this time was complex. ‘There were no less than six ‘governmental’ authorities and four armed forces exerting influence to a greater or lesser extent on Irish affairs. There were the ‘Parliament of Southern Ireland ( the abortive Dublin Parliament of the British Act ), the Parliament of Northern Ireland, the Provisional Government of the Treatyites, the Dail, the Irish Republic of the Anti-Treatyites and the British Government. In the South there were the Pro & Anti-Treaty sections of the IRA, with detachments of British forces in the ‘Treaty Ports’; in the North there were considerable numbers of British troops together with the armed police of the RUC. In addition to these more or less regular bodies, there were groups of armed men and individuals carrying out private operations.’
T.P.Coogan. “Ireland since the Rising”. Pall Mall Press. 1966. p.43
17
Special Constable Thomas Russell was killed in an IRA ambush near Forkhill, Co. Armagh.
18
An IRA convention meeting held in the Mansion House splits on the issue of immediate resumption of the IRA offensive against British troops. The defeated minority, including three-quarters of the Executive, return to the Four Courts.
US scientists at Columbia University claimed that the sun produces a vitamin in the body that prevents rickets.
19
Special Constables Wiliam Mitchell and Samuel Young were killed in an IRA ambush near Keady, Co. Armagh.
21
John Devoy commented on recent developments in a letter to McCullough, June 21 1922, delivered before the Ulster Representative and Director of the IRB in Ulster sailed for home, a copy of which he passed to Diarmuid:
“ Dear Mr McCullough
I got a letter from Mr McGarry of Chicago today saying you had asked him to use his influence with me to have the Gaelic American ‘adopt a friendly attitude towards the Collins Griffith government’. I have replied that I think the best work the paper can do for Ireland just now is to maintain its present attitude; that is, exposing the unreal character of De Valera’s Republicanism, asking genuine Republicans to give the Free State a fair chance, with the powers given it, to build up Ireland and to continue their work without coming into conflict with the Free State for the eventual establishment of an independent Republic.
Diarmuid told me yesterday of his conversation with you a few days ago, of your willingness to work for the withdrawal of falsehoods about Cohalan and me inserted, at de Valera request, in the records of Dail Eireann, and of your willingness to recommend that the IRB made restitution for its utterly unwarranted action in cutting off the Clann na Gael and allowing Boland to give the press a proclamation announcing the action which was an utter perversion of the truth. That was a crime committed against Ireland. The matter about Cohalan and me, contemptible as it was, was only personal, though of course one of its purposes was to inure the Clann and the Friends of Irish Freedom . The attack on Clann na Gael was a deliberate blow aimed at the unity of the National Movement and it was followed up by using the money collected by the Clann na Gael in an attempt to destroy it.
The Clann na Gael has not been destroyed, but is still active and vigorous, while the McGarrity ‘reorganised Clann na Gael’ never had any real life and is now falling to pieces...the men taken into it could never have got into the old Clan and would lower its character and be a source of constant trouble if taken in now. McGarrity and Montague did all they could by treachery, robbery and deadly assaults on character to ruin the old organisation and they failed. we will not unite with them or take them back, but will go along in our own way, whether we are recognised at home or not. If we are not recognised, if the unforgivable wrong done us in not righted, it will hurt the Home Organisation, not us. We have plenty of work to do in America to defeat England’s desperate attempt to control the United States - and that is the best work that can be done for Ireland for the next few years. De Valera tried to destroy it and failed, and he could have done little but for the encouragement given him by McGarrity. McGarrity is still working with him, and it was he who gave to Maloney, Casement’s diary to publish, with a lying introduction to discredit the Clan and bolster up his claim that the Germans betrayed Casement to the English...McG is still wholly controlled by Maloney and if taken back would continue to tell him everything he knows as he did in the past....
Now, personally I don’t care whether the new Dail Eireann withdraws the miserable falsehood about Cohalan and me published by the first Dail or not, and I don’t think Cohalan does. it has done all the mischief it was intended to do, and that was only temporary, the best and only proper vindication will be the publication o the facts. That I will take care of in a book I am now preparing and in my libel suit against the Irish World which will come in its turn on the Court Calendar. but the infamous falsehoods given to the press by Boland against the Clann na Gael in announcing the severance of relations are a wholly different matter. if the IRB refuses to make restitution for the foul wrong, then I for one, want to have no connection or association with it. it was infinitely worse ad showed ore moral turpitude, than the lie that concerned only two men. I have the indisputable facts and proofs and I will embody them in a chapter of my book.
Now, Michael Collins was one of the men who consented to and approved that wrong. I have a great admiration for him - with some reservations caused by that action of his... I cant agree that misstating important facts in recent Irish history or failing to contradict glaring falsehoods will do any real good for the Irish cause.
You recently, I understand, expressed strong disapproval of making certain facts public through court proceedings, but the things that led to all the present troubles were publications of falsehood and atrocious personal attacks, published with the approval of the Dail Eireann and the apparent consent of the S.C. ( Supreme Council IRB ) the refutation of these falsehood is an absolute necessity.
...if Bolands lying attack on the Clann na Gael, issued in public in the name of the S.C. is not retracted with equal publicity, what use is there in expecting cordial co-operation between the wrong-doers and the organisation that more shamefully wronged that any group of men in Irish history. if there is to be union and cordial co-operation, let us begin by cleansing the record and establishing strict justice.
Diarmuid Lynch Papers – Florence O’Donoghue Collection - National Library of Ireland. Folio: 31-421
22
By this stage, the political situation had detiorated to such a stage that a peacfull soloution was impossible.
One event was to turn the struggle in Ireland into bitter civil war. The assassination of the military advisor to the Ulster Government, Sir Henry Wilson on the steps of his London home. Two London IRA Volunteers walked up behind Sir Henry Wilson as he returned to his Eaton Square home after unveiling a war memorial in Liverpool Street Station, and fired the fatal shots. Two policemen were also shot as the Volunteers tried to make good their escape. They were then surrounded by a hostile crowd and arrested by other policemen. Reginald Dunne and Joseph O'Sullivan were both former British army soldiers, O'Sullivan having lost a leg at Ypres, and during the Tan War they were active in England for the IRA. Following the Treaty Dunne leaned towards the pro-Treaty side (Cumann na mBan members in London sent him white feathers) and was firm friends with Michael Collins. Both men are believed to have been members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood; this has added to the speculation as to who ordered Wilson's execution.
“ Asquith called him “that poisonous though clever ruffian”. The Irish had reason to call him something worse. His hostility to Irish nationalism was intense, and its supporters regarded him as their most insidious enemy in the establishment of England. He had opposed the Truce, and ever since 1916 had favoured the strongest measures against the South. His murder came at a time of brutal action against the Catholics in North East Ulster, for which he, as military adviser to the Ulster government was held responsible. His killers, Reginald Dunne and Joseph O’Sullivan, both of whom had fought in the British army in the Great War - O’Sullivan loosing a leg a Ypres. They made no attempt to escape and were executed in August. At the trial, Dunne declared that they had shot Wilson in the same cause for which they had fought in France..”The rights of small nationalities”
T.P.Coogan. “Ireland since the Rising”. Pall Mall Press. 1966. p.42
Arthur Griffith denounced the murder saying ‘ it is a principle of civilised government that the assasination of a political opponent cannot be justified or condoned..’
De Valera commented:
``The killing of a human being is an awful act, but as awful when the victim is the humble worker or peasant, unknown outside his own immediate neighbourhod, as when the victim is placed in the seats of the mighty and his name known in every corner of the earth. It is characteristic of our hypocritical civilisation that it is in the latter case only we are expected to cry out and express our horror and condemnation... ...I do not know who they were who shot Sir Henry Wilson, or why they shot him... I know that life has been made a hell for the nationalist minority in Belfast and its neighbourhood for the past couple of years....I do not approve but I must not pretend to misunderstand.''
Lloyd George in a letter to Collins on the murder: ‘The ambiguous position of the Irish Republican Army can no longer be ignored by the British Government. Still less can Mr Rory O’Connor be permitted to remain with his folowers and his arsenal in open rebellion in the heart of Dublin in possesion of the Courts of Justice, organising and sending out from the centre, enterprises of murder…His Majesty’s Government is prepared to place at your disposal the necessary pieces of artillery..’
Though Collins was heavily implicated no proof was forthcoming. Was it an independent operation? A joint operation aimed at reuniting IRA (Dunne had been in Dublin visiting Collins and Rory O'Connor in the Four Courts a week earlier)? Was it a GHQ or an IRB operation? Or a provocative act to get Collins the carte blanche to attack the Four Courts garrison? No organisation ever claimed that the men were operating under their orders. The State backed demands for repatriation and reinterral of the bodies of the two men after their execution but were refused until 1967. At their graveside a day after their reinterral on 7 July 1967 three men with revolvers fired a volley.
Wilson was more than just a thorn in the side of Republicans. While not in favour of unofficial military reprisals but, he once said, ``if these men ought to be murdered then the government ought to murder them''. He threatened to resign if Kevin Barry was not hanged. An MP for Down after 1921 he was Sir James Craig's parliament's military advisor with £2 million at his disposal to carry out whatever measures were necessary ``regardless of consequences''. He was believed by republicans at the time to be directly responsible for setting up the B Specials and the anti-nationalist pogroms of 1921-'22.
Very few in Ireland grieved after him. The British predictably decided on a policy of retaliation, laying plans for a military attack on republican positions in Dublin with tanks, howitzers and aeroplanes. It issued an ultimatum to the Free State government that ``the ambiguous position'' of the IRA and Four Courts occupation could no longer be tolerated. The invasion was cancelled at last minute. Ships en route to Dublin had to be recalled. All copies of a proclamation prepared for the invasion were later destroyed in case its contents ever leaked out. While officially no actions were carried out, reprisals against nationalists did happen.
The British demanded that Collins bring the open rebellion in Dublin ``to an end forthwith'' was already underway. With Griffith calling Wilson's shooting an ``anarchic deed'', the cabinet decided to attack the Four Courts at Britain's behest.
Dunne and O'Sullivan were tried at the Old Bailey on 18 July and sentenced to be hanged in Wandsworth Prison on 10 August. Collins, who said to General Joseph Sweeney that ``it was two of ours that did it'', attempted a rescue attempt. Joe Dolan and later Tom Cullen were sent to London by him, whereas the IRA sent several Cork Volunteers over, including Frank Cremins and Billy Aherne led by Dinny Kelleher. The Cork Volunteers talked of schemes to capture the Prince of Wales at Bournemouth, and of capturing his sister and using her as a hostage, but neither scheme got off the ground. A plan was also hatched to blow up the van carrying Dunne and O'Sullivan from Brixton prison to their trial, but again nothing resulted. The split within the IRA in London, the outbreak of the Civil War, and the decline of Collins's old intelligence system, rendered such plans more difficult. Many of Collins's old IRB men in London by that time had returned to Ireland: there were apparently no friendly warders in Brixton. In the end no escape effort was attempted, and pleas for reprieves were turned down. Dunne and O'Sullivan were hanged on 10 August 1922.
In a speech which Reginald Dunne prepared, but was not permitted to deliver from the dock (reprinted in the Irish Independent 21 July 1922), he said:
``...We took our part in supporting the aspirations of our fellow-countrymen in the same way as we took our part in supporting the nations of the world who fought for the rights of small nationalities... The same principiles for which we shed our blood on the battle-field of Europe led us to commit the act we are charged with.
``You can condemn us to death today, but you cannot deprive us of the belief that what we have done was necessary to preserve the lives and the happiness of our countrymen in Ireland. You may, by your verdict, find us guilty, but we will go to the scaffold justified by the verdict of our own consciences.''
McCoole argues that some members of the Irish Government wished to distance Hazel Lavery from politics and as a distraction for Collins. Hugh Kennedy wrote to her ‘As we have come to an end of a chapter, and a new chapter opens whose scene will hardly be laid in London…may I take this opportunity…of confessing my share of the general indebtendess to you and Sir J.L….
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P91
23
Griffith was called to a meeting with the former Dublin Castle official, A.W.Cope and senior British army officers on the continuing occupation of the Four Courts. The British Cabinet delivered a strongly worded protest to the Provisional Government demanding that the Free State forces forcibly remove the rebels.
The Provisional Government reaction was a statement to the Cabinet that the ‘Government was satisfied that these forces contained within themselves elements of disruption which, given time, would accomplish their complete disintegration, and relieve the Government of ther necessity of employing metholds of supression which would have perhaps evoked a certain amount of misplaced sympathy for them’.
Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.192
24
British public & government opinion reacted strongly against the Wilson murder. The British governement considered mounting a British attack against the Four Courts garrison but were persuaded otherwise by General Macready, the commander in chief of British forces in Ireland.
Lady Lavery writing to the Irish Attorney General, Hugh Kennedy on events in London:
‘As you may imagine the death of Sir Henry Wilson has thrown us here into a tumult at first it seemed to cruely disastrous, but today things are steadying. I think and hope. Poor Winston and in fact all of us including poor Lady Lavery have been called ‘conspirators’, ‘murderers’ and other…terms of approbation by our dearest friends…’ and to his letter earlier in the month ‘It gave me a real pang of sadness when you spoke of ‘the end of a chapter!’…you must just indulgently let me hold the ends of the reins as you would a child so that I may well imagine I am guiding the splendid studs that you will control and handle so well..’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P91
With strong suspicions that Collins was responsible for ordering the assasination of Wilson, Hazel Lavery’s alliance with Collins was ‘now objected to in London. Fearing for Hazel’s safety, Collins appointed a special gurard for her. Leslie noted in his diary ‘Nobody feel safe, but society ladies are thrilled and are going over to Sinn Fein’.
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P91
Germany: Walther Rathenau, Jewish industrialist assassinated by German nationalists who opposed his policy of attempting to pay German reparations to the Allies. When World War I broke out, he was put in charge of the distribution of raw materials. After the war, he was appointed minister of reconstruction (1921) and then foreign minister (1922). Rathenau represented Germany at the reparations conferences in Cannes, France, and Genoa, Italy, in 1922 and negotiated the Treaty of Rapallo with the Soviet Union.
25
The British Cabinet cancelled orders for remaining British forces in Dublin to attack and remove rebels from the Four Courts.
John Devoy, from his rooms in the Hotel Ennis, 152 East 42nd Street, New York wrote to Diarmuid .
June 25, 1922.
Dear Diarmuid
Seamus found McCullough on Friday and delivered my letter. After reading it, McCullough said ‘Devoy is very bitter and Seumas replied ‘He has good reason to be’ McCullough answered ‘There are wrongs on both sides.’. This is the McCartan view as stated in his articles in the Separatist and partly by one of O’Heagrty’s. They all evidently have been filled with McCartan’s report,
McCullough and he are old friends. The Doctor has also said in one of his articles in the Separatist that McGarrity had built up the ‘greatest organisation in the history of the race in America’ all this is evidently to prepare the way for a union of the two organisations here, and judging by McCullough they are all committed to it....a few days ago one of the cables published here had a short paragraph saying that McCartan was now the head of the IRB and O’Hegarty his secretary ... it looks to me to be very probable.... when I first heard that McCartan had given up de Valera I was inclined to be charitable, for I had a great liking for the man, but putting a man of his weak temperament, with his record of mischief here into the chief position in the IRB is inviting disaster....Maloney still bosses both Joe and McCartan, which shows that if he reunited with them, Maloney would dominate the situation both in Ireland and here, for his two slaves will have no secrets from him.
These facts - if they are not exactly as I state they are substantially so - I think constitutes the main feature of the situation that confronts us and necessitate a firm and resolute attitude. Whatever reorganisation they have effected at home - and I am convinced that McCullough held much back from us - can be only transitory. As events progress here, there will be a new alignment and shuffling the cards and any bargain made with the present S.C. would have to be altered as events develop. Therefore I think we are safer as we are. Letting them think we will sacrifice everything for recognition would be playing in Maloney’s hands...I don’t by any means despair of bringing our friends over here to reason. Their hope of making us unite with Joe’s ramshackle crowd is evidently based on McCartan’s wild exaggerations about the ‘Greatest Irish organisation in American history’. When that hope is dispelled which it must be before long, it will be easier to deal with them, but it is a damned nuisance to have to deal with men who are so easily deceived. However we must remember that ever the ablest men can’t deal properly with a situation when all their sources of information are poisoned...
Yours truly
John Devoy
Mailed at Grand Central Station, June 25, 1922 @ 12pm to Diarmuid Lynch, 280 Broadway, New York.
Diarmuid Lynch Papers – Florence O’Donoghue Collection - National Library of Ireland. Folio: 31-421
26
The first event was when armed men from the Four Courts garrison hijacked cars in the city to make a convoy to travel to Belfast and protect Catholics there. The Officer in Charge, Leo Henderson was captured by Free State troops and thrown into Mountjoy and in reprisal, the Four Courts men kidnapped General ‘Ginger’ O’Connor, the Free State Deputy Chief of Staff and Second in Command to Michael Collins. De Valera, Liam Lynch, Harry Boland and Cathal Brugha urged the Four Courts leaders not to provke an armed response from the Provisional Government. Privately, the Provisional Government Cabinet decided that an attack would be mounted, but would wait to make a formal decision the following day.
Churchill in the House of Commons stated that if the IRA occupation of the Four Courts did not come to an end, it would be ‘through weakness, want of courage, or some other even less creditable reason it is not brought to an end, and a speedy end, then it is my duty to say…that we shall regard the Treaty as having been formally violated.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.65
In London, Lloyd George denied opposition claims he was menacing the Provisional Government in Dublin but insisted that the Four Courts occupation be ended. However he did accept that a decision could not be taken by the Dublin Cabinet until the Dail met on July 1st.
28
At 3.40am, the Four Courts Garrison were given an ultimatum from the Provisional Government to evacuate the buildings by 4am and surrender. This was ignored. Liam Lynch joined the garrison despite having disapproved of the takeover in April.
The Irish Civil war began at 4am with the Four Courts being shelled Provisional Government troops using field guns borrowed from the British forces remaining in Kilmainham. However, high explosive shells were not given to the former enemy, instead receiving shrapnel rounds which ‘was like hitting the place with peaches’.
Expecting an attack, efforts were made to reinforce positions using the state archives which were stored there. Other work was completed to ensure the building could be destroyed, along with pricless records should an evacuation be necessary. Holes were drilled between floors and packed with flamable material. Anti-Treaty supporters now took up arms.
The offensive action had the immediate effect of driving de Valera and the more moderate 'anti-imperialist' opponents of the Treaty into the arms of the republican irregulars, whom de Valera now hailed as 'the best and bravest of our nation'.
His statement contained ‘..at the bidding of the English, Irishmen are today shooting down, on the streets of our capital, brother Irishmen – old comrades in arms, companions in the recent struggle for Ireland’s independence and its embodiment – the Republic…. Irish Citizens! Give them support! Irish Soldiers! Bring them aid!’
Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.195
Liam Lynch, leader of the anti-Treaty IRA Executive ‘The fateful hour has come. At the dictation of our herideary enemy our rightful cause is being treacherously assaulted by recreant Irishmen…Gallant soldiers of the Republic stand vigoursly firm…the sacred spirits of the illustrious dead are with us in this great struggle…rally to the support of the Republic’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.66
In effect, the action taken by the Provisional Government was viewed as a coup d’etat. As if to support this view, the Provisional Government leadership now postponed the July 1st meeting of Dail Eireann.
From Michael Collins
An ex-RIC member based in Mallow was found shot dead near the town.
29
de Valera now re-joined the Irish Volunteers as a private in his old battalion, the Third. Harry Boland was sent south to Mallow to obtain reinforcements for the republicans in Dublin.
Head of the Provisional Government’s army, Richard Mulcahcy in a message to the army ‘ Today, having driven the tyranny of the stranger from our land…you are called upon to serve her still in arms to protect her from a madness within’
Collins, signalling an offensive against the IRA ‘ The safety of the nation is the first law and henceforth we shall not rest until we have established the authority of the people of Ireland in every square mile under their juridsiction’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.66
Labour Party moves to broker a peace deal were dashed when Collins and Griffith insisted there could be no truce until the Four Court’s garrison surrendered.
Mountjoy Prison received it’s first Civil War prisoner – the legendary Tom Barry, leader of the West Cork Flyin Column during the War of Indpendence – captured trying to join his comrades in the Four Courts.
375 shrapnel shells were fired into the Four Courts.
30
‘To help me carry on the fight outside, you must surrender forthwith. I would be unable to fight my way through to you even at terrefic sacrifice…if the Republic is to be saved, your surrender is a necessity’ Oscar Traynor – Officer commanding the Dublin Brigade IRA to the Four Courts Garrison.
9pm
The Four Courts Garrison of 200 surrendered after blowing up the Public Record Office and fighting then spread to O'Connell Street, where the Republicans occupied a number of prominent buildings. The result was a repeat of Easter Week, ending with the total defeat of the insurgents and the destruction of some of O'Connell Street. Many of the Republican politicians joined the irregular forces, though they held no positions of high command. One of these was Cathal Brugha, who inflexible to the last, was seriously wounded as he left a doorway in the Gresham Hotel, revolvers blazing. He died two days later in the Mater Hospital.
The remaining anti-treaty forces were forced southwards. Liam Lynch took over control of the 1st Southern Division of the IRA, the largest command with Ernie O’Malley as 2nd in Command. Lynch’s belief was that if the Anti-Treaty forces held and controlled all areas outside of Dublin, the Provisional Government would be in no position to administer and govern.
Surviving members of the Four Courts garrison were imprisoned in Mountjoy.
The Civil War was to drag on to May 24th 1923. During this time ‘ terrible things were done by both sides. It was a war without frontiers, a struggle in which 18 year old youths became colonels. The ordinary procceses of law broke down and with them the laws of nature. In Terenure, a group of Free State troops raiding a house shot a suspect: the son of the officer of the raiding party. In Knocknagoshel, Co.Tipperary, an Anti-Treaty group set a booby trap which killed five Treatyites. In reprisal a group of captured Anti-Treaty soldiers were chained together and set to dismantle a barricade at Ballyseedy, Co. Kerry. It had been mined and they were blown to pieces. In a prison in the West of Ireland men were castrated during interrogations, to die years afterwards in asylums without ever recovering their sanity.
Collins in a Daily Mail interview ‘There can be no question of forcing Ulster into union with the 26 Counties. I am absolutely against coercion of that kind. If ulster is to join us it must be voluntarily. Union is our final goal, that is all.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.66
Bulk of prisoners from the Four Courts began to arrive in Mountjoy where the systematic destruction of the prison began. Cell walls were hacked through, doors broken, windows smashed and floor pulled up.
June 1922
1
A curfew imposed in Northern Ireland.
Lady Hazel Lavery recorded she organised a round of meeting for Collins between June 1st -13th although only one is documented. British Civil Servant Lionel Curtis commented that negotiating with Collins was like ‘trying to write on water.’
During parliamentary debates on Ireland, Lord Birkenhead stated that ‘should a crisis arise, the resources of our civiisation are by no means exhausted…England would be in an immeaurably stronger position that formerly to resume the inevitable bloody struggle’ Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P716
The Royal Ulster Constabularly was formed, with the majority of it’s new officers from the RIC.
2
Churchill reporting to Cabinet ‘The more the fear of renewed warfare is present in the minds of the electors, the more likely are they to get to the polls and support the Treaty.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.65
3
All the ex-members of the RIC in Ballinasloe, Co. Galway were visited by the IRA and two were shot in the legs,
4
Special Constable Thomas Dobson wa shot and killed by the IRA as he was driving a Crossley tender for the military near Pettigo, Co. Fermanagh during an operation to retake the village from IRA control.
6
Special Constable Thomas Sheridan was killed by a sniper near Caledon, Co. Armagh, some 50 yards from the border with the Irish Free State.
8
Padraic Colum in the RTE Archives recalled a conversation with Arthur Griffith’s wife. She ‘ had always wanted him out of politics, and the raids upon the house and his frequent arrests had put her and the children under great strain. ‘There is a good deal I have still to do’ he told her. But in a few months it will all be cleared up. I will leave politics in August. In August, Arthur Griffith was dead’’
The London Fashion scene reports that Plumes, Veils and Trains are back in favour this season.
Last meeting of the second Dail Eireann.
Refugees in Dublin
from The Irish Times 8 June 1922
Fresh Arrivals
Yesterday afternoon a party of 79 refugees arrived at Amiens Street Station, Dublin, from Belfast. The arrangements for their reception were in the hands of Commandant Henderson, from the Four Courts, who was acting on behalf of the North East Ulster Boycott Committee. A fleet of motor vehicles carried the refugees, many of whom were little children, to Marlborough Hall, Glasnevin, where five hundred Belfast men, women, and children are now housed.
An Irish Times representative, who visited Marlborough Hall soon after the arrival of the party, was afforded every facility of speaking with them, and of seeing the arrangements that have been made for their comfort. As a rule they do not care to discuss their recent experiences in the Northern city, and try to forget them in the new surroundings. Some of the women looked pale and ill. More than one had lost her husband or some other member of her family, and had not yet recovered from the blow. One woman, whose husband was killed, is accompanied by her six children. Many of them have lost their homes and almost everything that they possessed in the way of property.
At Marlborough Hall the refugees look after the cleaning of their rooms and make themselves generally useful. The cooking, however, is done by cooks of the Republican Army. Strict attention is paid to the health of the women and children, and a doctor and a trained nurse are in constant attendance. Medicine is also provided. Some of the women need careful attention.
Every able-bodied man is expected to look for work, and, with this object in view, they leave early every morning to find suitable positions in the city. So far none of them has been successful, and until there has been a general improvement in trade and business there can be little expectation of finding openings for the majority of them.
Last evening an impromptu concert was held in the grounds of Marlborough Hall, and it appeared to give much pleasure, especially to the women and children. Some of the young girls, who were dressed in bright costumes, sang songs of a patriotic character and danced lively Irish dances. It is expected that arrangements will be completed shortly for continuing the education of the children. Teachers will soon be available to conduct the classes.
9
A re-draft of the Free State constitution accepted by London.
10
US Actress and Singer, Judy Garland ( d.22 June 1969 ) born.
Garland, Judy, professional name of Frances Gumm (1922-1969), American film actress and singer. Born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Garland made her singing debut at the age of 30 months in her father's theatre. She and her sisters later formed a vaudeville act called the Gumm Sisters, touring the United States between 1927 and 1935. Her feature film career, which began in 1936, included appearances in such pictures as The Wizard of Oz (1939), the film that made her world famous and for which she received a special award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Ziegfeld Girl (1941); Meet Me in St Louis (1944); The Clock (1945); and The Pirate (1948). From 1950 onwards she appeared primarily in nightclubs, concerts, and on television; her first engagement at the Palace Theater in New York (1951-1952) broke vaudeville box-office records. Later films include A Star Is Born (1954), which won her an Oscar nomination, and which many see as her greatest performance, Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), I Could Go on Singing (1963), and A Child Is Waiting (1963). Garland was the mother of the actress and singer Liza Minnelli.
12
Climbers reached within 3,200 feet of the summit of Mount Everest and set a new record of 26,800 feet without oxygen.
A further meeting of the British Government and Provisional Government held to discuss the Constitution. Provisional Government representatives also met with Southern Unionist leaders.
Lady Hazel Lavery and Collins attended a play in London.
13
Austria declares bankruptcy.
On the same day, one of the few surviving fragments of poetry was penned by Collins to Lady Hazel Lavery:
‘Oh Hazel, Hazel Lavery:
What is your charm Oh! Say?
Like subtle Scottish Mary
You take my heart away.
Not by your wit and beauty
Nor your delicate sad grace
Nor the golden eyes of wonder
In the flower that is your face.
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P89-90
15
Draft constitution of the Free State issued to the press for publication on the 16th.
‘influenced by the menacing tones coming from London, Collins changed his position. In a speech at Cork he told the electorate to ‘vote for the candidate you think best of’. This was regarded by the Anti-Treaty side as a breach of the pact.’
T.P.Coogan. “Ireland since the Rising”. Pall Mall Press. 1966. p.41
The College of Science was opened in Merrion Square. One of the most visually impressive of Dublin's buildings it was to remain part of TCD until the late 80’s when ownership was transferred to the Government. The building had a long gestation period with the foundation stones was laid by Edward VII in 1904, the Georgian houses on the site were demolished in 1913 and the building was finally completed in 1922 after the end of British rule. The architect was Sir Aston Webb although credit is usually also given to Thomas Manly Deane whose offices were demolished for the building but who played little part in the project. The building is constructed around a courtyard with the central dome placed over the pedimented central block to the rear of the site. Unlike many of Dublin's domed buildings, the dome is lead clad not copper. This is left visible to the street by used a columned screen and gateway. Atop the flanking blocks on Merrion Street are large sculptures depicting the sciences.
16
The First General Election took place in the Free State and in the morning papers, details of the draft constitution were published. This had been agreed in London and contained an Oath of Allegiance to the British monarch strongly opposed by the Anti-Treaty group and many within the Pro-Treaty. The publication of the draft on polling day was understandbly considered sharp practice.
“In Cork, while the votes were awaiting the count, the armed guard outside the College of Art was circumvented by a band of Anti-Treatyites who got in through the roof and altered 4000 ballots, changing first preferences for Collins into fourth preferences. The forgery was easily spotted, however, as they used the wrong type of pencil. The Republicans in Cork were resourceful but at times a trifle naive. Instructed to write Republican slogans on all available surfaces, one election worker took his order literally and regaled the city with the oft repeated scrawl “Up the Republic” wherever a small space presented itself”
T.P.Coogan. “Ireland since the Rising”. Pall Mall Press. 1966. p.41
The Election results were clear-cut however. Of the total 128 seats available, 58 Sinn Fein Pro-Treaty, 36 Sinn Fein Anti-Treaty, 17 Labour and 17 Others. If the various camps were segregated according to political support, the national voting figures on the Treaty were: For 486,419, Against 133,864 or 78.4% of the vote was in favour of the Treaty.
A third faction now became apparent. The Commanders within the Four Courts, Rory O’Connor and Liam Mellows along with Cathal Brugha and Oscar Traynor now denounced both the pro & anti-treaty groups when their proposal to attack remaining British troops in Dublin before they withdrew was refused at an Extra-Ordinary convention of the Anti-Treaty IRA.
The political situation in Ireland at this time was complex. ‘There were no less than six ‘governmental’ authorities and four armed forces exerting influence to a greater or lesser extent on Irish affairs. There were the ‘Parliament of Southern Ireland ( the abortive Dublin Parliament of the British Act ), the Parliament of Northern Ireland, the Provisional Government of the Treatyites, the Dail, the Irish Republic of the Anti-Treatyites and the British Government. In the South there were the Pro & Anti-Treaty sections of the IRA, with detachments of British forces in the ‘Treaty Ports’; in the North there were considerable numbers of British troops together with the armed police of the RUC. In addition to these more or less regular bodies, there were groups of armed men and individuals carrying out private operations.’
T.P.Coogan. “Ireland since the Rising”. Pall Mall Press. 1966. p.43
17
Special Constable Thomas Russell was killed in an IRA ambush near Forkhill, Co. Armagh.
18
An IRA convention meeting held in the Mansion House splits on the issue of immediate resumption of the IRA offensive against British troops. The defeated minority, including three-quarters of the Executive, return to the Four Courts.
US scientists at Columbia University claimed that the sun produces a vitamin in the body that prevents rickets.
19
Special Constables Wiliam Mitchell and Samuel Young were killed in an IRA ambush near Keady, Co. Armagh.
21
John Devoy commented on recent developments in a letter to McCullough, June 21 1922, delivered before the Ulster Representative and Director of the IRB in Ulster sailed for home, a copy of which he passed to Diarmuid:
“ Dear Mr McCullough
I got a letter from Mr McGarry of Chicago today saying you had asked him to use his influence with me to have the Gaelic American ‘adopt a friendly attitude towards the Collins Griffith government’. I have replied that I think the best work the paper can do for Ireland just now is to maintain its present attitude; that is, exposing the unreal character of De Valera’s Republicanism, asking genuine Republicans to give the Free State a fair chance, with the powers given it, to build up Ireland and to continue their work without coming into conflict with the Free State for the eventual establishment of an independent Republic.
Diarmuid told me yesterday of his conversation with you a few days ago, of your willingness to work for the withdrawal of falsehoods about Cohalan and me inserted, at de Valera request, in the records of Dail Eireann, and of your willingness to recommend that the IRB made restitution for its utterly unwarranted action in cutting off the Clann na Gael and allowing Boland to give the press a proclamation announcing the action which was an utter perversion of the truth. That was a crime committed against Ireland. The matter about Cohalan and me, contemptible as it was, was only personal, though of course one of its purposes was to inure the Clann and the Friends of Irish Freedom . The attack on Clann na Gael was a deliberate blow aimed at the unity of the National Movement and it was followed up by using the money collected by the Clann na Gael in an attempt to destroy it.
The Clann na Gael has not been destroyed, but is still active and vigorous, while the McGarrity ‘reorganised Clann na Gael’ never had any real life and is now falling to pieces...the men taken into it could never have got into the old Clan and would lower its character and be a source of constant trouble if taken in now. McGarrity and Montague did all they could by treachery, robbery and deadly assaults on character to ruin the old organisation and they failed. we will not unite with them or take them back, but will go along in our own way, whether we are recognised at home or not. If we are not recognised, if the unforgivable wrong done us in not righted, it will hurt the Home Organisation, not us. We have plenty of work to do in America to defeat England’s desperate attempt to control the United States - and that is the best work that can be done for Ireland for the next few years. De Valera tried to destroy it and failed, and he could have done little but for the encouragement given him by McGarrity. McGarrity is still working with him, and it was he who gave to Maloney, Casement’s diary to publish, with a lying introduction to discredit the Clan and bolster up his claim that the Germans betrayed Casement to the English...McG is still wholly controlled by Maloney and if taken back would continue to tell him everything he knows as he did in the past....
Now, personally I don’t care whether the new Dail Eireann withdraws the miserable falsehood about Cohalan and me published by the first Dail or not, and I don’t think Cohalan does. it has done all the mischief it was intended to do, and that was only temporary, the best and only proper vindication will be the publication o the facts. That I will take care of in a book I am now preparing and in my libel suit against the Irish World which will come in its turn on the Court Calendar. but the infamous falsehoods given to the press by Boland against the Clann na Gael in announcing the severance of relations are a wholly different matter. if the IRB refuses to make restitution for the foul wrong, then I for one, want to have no connection or association with it. it was infinitely worse ad showed ore moral turpitude, than the lie that concerned only two men. I have the indisputable facts and proofs and I will embody them in a chapter of my book.
Now, Michael Collins was one of the men who consented to and approved that wrong. I have a great admiration for him - with some reservations caused by that action of his... I cant agree that misstating important facts in recent Irish history or failing to contradict glaring falsehoods will do any real good for the Irish cause.
You recently, I understand, expressed strong disapproval of making certain facts public through court proceedings, but the things that led to all the present troubles were publications of falsehood and atrocious personal attacks, published with the approval of the Dail Eireann and the apparent consent of the S.C. ( Supreme Council IRB ) the refutation of these falsehood is an absolute necessity.
...if Bolands lying attack on the Clann na Gael, issued in public in the name of the S.C. is not retracted with equal publicity, what use is there in expecting cordial co-operation between the wrong-doers and the organisation that more shamefully wronged that any group of men in Irish history. if there is to be union and cordial co-operation, let us begin by cleansing the record and establishing strict justice.
Diarmuid Lynch Papers – Florence O’Donoghue Collection - National Library of Ireland. Folio: 31-421
22
By this stage, the political situation had detiorated to such a stage that a peacfull soloution was impossible.
One event was to turn the struggle in Ireland into bitter civil war. The assassination of the military advisor to the Ulster Government, Sir Henry Wilson on the steps of his London home. Two London IRA Volunteers walked up behind Sir Henry Wilson as he returned to his Eaton Square home after unveiling a war memorial in Liverpool Street Station, and fired the fatal shots. Two policemen were also shot as the Volunteers tried to make good their escape. They were then surrounded by a hostile crowd and arrested by other policemen. Reginald Dunne and Joseph O'Sullivan were both former British army soldiers, O'Sullivan having lost a leg at Ypres, and during the Tan War they were active in England for the IRA. Following the Treaty Dunne leaned towards the pro-Treaty side (Cumann na mBan members in London sent him white feathers) and was firm friends with Michael Collins. Both men are believed to have been members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood; this has added to the speculation as to who ordered Wilson's execution.
“ Asquith called him “that poisonous though clever ruffian”. The Irish had reason to call him something worse. His hostility to Irish nationalism was intense, and its supporters regarded him as their most insidious enemy in the establishment of England. He had opposed the Truce, and ever since 1916 had favoured the strongest measures against the South. His murder came at a time of brutal action against the Catholics in North East Ulster, for which he, as military adviser to the Ulster government was held responsible. His killers, Reginald Dunne and Joseph O’Sullivan, both of whom had fought in the British army in the Great War - O’Sullivan loosing a leg a Ypres. They made no attempt to escape and were executed in August. At the trial, Dunne declared that they had shot Wilson in the same cause for which they had fought in France..”The rights of small nationalities”
T.P.Coogan. “Ireland since the Rising”. Pall Mall Press. 1966. p.42
Arthur Griffith denounced the murder saying ‘ it is a principle of civilised government that the assasination of a political opponent cannot be justified or condoned..’
De Valera commented:
``The killing of a human being is an awful act, but as awful when the victim is the humble worker or peasant, unknown outside his own immediate neighbourhod, as when the victim is placed in the seats of the mighty and his name known in every corner of the earth. It is characteristic of our hypocritical civilisation that it is in the latter case only we are expected to cry out and express our horror and condemnation... ...I do not know who they were who shot Sir Henry Wilson, or why they shot him... I know that life has been made a hell for the nationalist minority in Belfast and its neighbourhood for the past couple of years....I do not approve but I must not pretend to misunderstand.''
Lloyd George in a letter to Collins on the murder: ‘The ambiguous position of the Irish Republican Army can no longer be ignored by the British Government. Still less can Mr Rory O’Connor be permitted to remain with his folowers and his arsenal in open rebellion in the heart of Dublin in possesion of the Courts of Justice, organising and sending out from the centre, enterprises of murder…His Majesty’s Government is prepared to place at your disposal the necessary pieces of artillery..’
Though Collins was heavily implicated no proof was forthcoming. Was it an independent operation? A joint operation aimed at reuniting IRA (Dunne had been in Dublin visiting Collins and Rory O'Connor in the Four Courts a week earlier)? Was it a GHQ or an IRB operation? Or a provocative act to get Collins the carte blanche to attack the Four Courts garrison? No organisation ever claimed that the men were operating under their orders. The State backed demands for repatriation and reinterral of the bodies of the two men after their execution but were refused until 1967. At their graveside a day after their reinterral on 7 July 1967 three men with revolvers fired a volley.
Wilson was more than just a thorn in the side of Republicans. While not in favour of unofficial military reprisals but, he once said, ``if these men ought to be murdered then the government ought to murder them''. He threatened to resign if Kevin Barry was not hanged. An MP for Down after 1921 he was Sir James Craig's parliament's military advisor with £2 million at his disposal to carry out whatever measures were necessary ``regardless of consequences''. He was believed by republicans at the time to be directly responsible for setting up the B Specials and the anti-nationalist pogroms of 1921-'22.
Very few in Ireland grieved after him. The British predictably decided on a policy of retaliation, laying plans for a military attack on republican positions in Dublin with tanks, howitzers and aeroplanes. It issued an ultimatum to the Free State government that ``the ambiguous position'' of the IRA and Four Courts occupation could no longer be tolerated. The invasion was cancelled at last minute. Ships en route to Dublin had to be recalled. All copies of a proclamation prepared for the invasion were later destroyed in case its contents ever leaked out. While officially no actions were carried out, reprisals against nationalists did happen.
The British demanded that Collins bring the open rebellion in Dublin ``to an end forthwith'' was already underway. With Griffith calling Wilson's shooting an ``anarchic deed'', the cabinet decided to attack the Four Courts at Britain's behest.
Dunne and O'Sullivan were tried at the Old Bailey on 18 July and sentenced to be hanged in Wandsworth Prison on 10 August. Collins, who said to General Joseph Sweeney that ``it was two of ours that did it'', attempted a rescue attempt. Joe Dolan and later Tom Cullen were sent to London by him, whereas the IRA sent several Cork Volunteers over, including Frank Cremins and Billy Aherne led by Dinny Kelleher. The Cork Volunteers talked of schemes to capture the Prince of Wales at Bournemouth, and of capturing his sister and using her as a hostage, but neither scheme got off the ground. A plan was also hatched to blow up the van carrying Dunne and O'Sullivan from Brixton prison to their trial, but again nothing resulted. The split within the IRA in London, the outbreak of the Civil War, and the decline of Collins's old intelligence system, rendered such plans more difficult. Many of Collins's old IRB men in London by that time had returned to Ireland: there were apparently no friendly warders in Brixton. In the end no escape effort was attempted, and pleas for reprieves were turned down. Dunne and O'Sullivan were hanged on 10 August 1922.
In a speech which Reginald Dunne prepared, but was not permitted to deliver from the dock (reprinted in the Irish Independent 21 July 1922), he said:
``...We took our part in supporting the aspirations of our fellow-countrymen in the same way as we took our part in supporting the nations of the world who fought for the rights of small nationalities... The same principiles for which we shed our blood on the battle-field of Europe led us to commit the act we are charged with.
``You can condemn us to death today, but you cannot deprive us of the belief that what we have done was necessary to preserve the lives and the happiness of our countrymen in Ireland. You may, by your verdict, find us guilty, but we will go to the scaffold justified by the verdict of our own consciences.''
McCoole argues that some members of the Irish Government wished to distance Hazel Lavery from politics and as a distraction for Collins. Hugh Kennedy wrote to her ‘As we have come to an end of a chapter, and a new chapter opens whose scene will hardly be laid in London…may I take this opportunity…of confessing my share of the general indebtendess to you and Sir J.L….
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P91
23
Griffith was called to a meeting with the former Dublin Castle official, A.W.Cope and senior British army officers on the continuing occupation of the Four Courts. The British Cabinet delivered a strongly worded protest to the Provisional Government demanding that the Free State forces forcibly remove the rebels.
The Provisional Government reaction was a statement to the Cabinet that the ‘Government was satisfied that these forces contained within themselves elements of disruption which, given time, would accomplish their complete disintegration, and relieve the Government of ther necessity of employing metholds of supression which would have perhaps evoked a certain amount of misplaced sympathy for them’.
Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.192
24
British public & government opinion reacted strongly against the Wilson murder. The British governement considered mounting a British attack against the Four Courts garrison but were persuaded otherwise by General Macready, the commander in chief of British forces in Ireland.
Lady Lavery writing to the Irish Attorney General, Hugh Kennedy on events in London:
‘As you may imagine the death of Sir Henry Wilson has thrown us here into a tumult at first it seemed to cruely disastrous, but today things are steadying. I think and hope. Poor Winston and in fact all of us including poor Lady Lavery have been called ‘conspirators’, ‘murderers’ and other…terms of approbation by our dearest friends…’ and to his letter earlier in the month ‘It gave me a real pang of sadness when you spoke of ‘the end of a chapter!’…you must just indulgently let me hold the ends of the reins as you would a child so that I may well imagine I am guiding the splendid studs that you will control and handle so well..’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P91
With strong suspicions that Collins was responsible for ordering the assasination of Wilson, Hazel Lavery’s alliance with Collins was ‘now objected to in London. Fearing for Hazel’s safety, Collins appointed a special gurard for her. Leslie noted in his diary ‘Nobody feel safe, but society ladies are thrilled and are going over to Sinn Fein’.
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P91
Germany: Walther Rathenau, Jewish industrialist assassinated by German nationalists who opposed his policy of attempting to pay German reparations to the Allies. When World War I broke out, he was put in charge of the distribution of raw materials. After the war, he was appointed minister of reconstruction (1921) and then foreign minister (1922). Rathenau represented Germany at the reparations conferences in Cannes, France, and Genoa, Italy, in 1922 and negotiated the Treaty of Rapallo with the Soviet Union.
25
The British Cabinet cancelled orders for remaining British forces in Dublin to attack and remove rebels from the Four Courts.
John Devoy, from his rooms in the Hotel Ennis, 152 East 42nd Street, New York wrote to Diarmuid .
June 25, 1922.
Dear Diarmuid
Seamus found McCullough on Friday and delivered my letter. After reading it, McCullough said ‘Devoy is very bitter and Seumas replied ‘He has good reason to be’ McCullough answered ‘There are wrongs on both sides.’. This is the McCartan view as stated in his articles in the Separatist and partly by one of O’Heagrty’s. They all evidently have been filled with McCartan’s report,
McCullough and he are old friends. The Doctor has also said in one of his articles in the Separatist that McGarrity had built up the ‘greatest organisation in the history of the race in America’ all this is evidently to prepare the way for a union of the two organisations here, and judging by McCullough they are all committed to it....a few days ago one of the cables published here had a short paragraph saying that McCartan was now the head of the IRB and O’Hegarty his secretary ... it looks to me to be very probable.... when I first heard that McCartan had given up de Valera I was inclined to be charitable, for I had a great liking for the man, but putting a man of his weak temperament, with his record of mischief here into the chief position in the IRB is inviting disaster....Maloney still bosses both Joe and McCartan, which shows that if he reunited with them, Maloney would dominate the situation both in Ireland and here, for his two slaves will have no secrets from him.
These facts - if they are not exactly as I state they are substantially so - I think constitutes the main feature of the situation that confronts us and necessitate a firm and resolute attitude. Whatever reorganisation they have effected at home - and I am convinced that McCullough held much back from us - can be only transitory. As events progress here, there will be a new alignment and shuffling the cards and any bargain made with the present S.C. would have to be altered as events develop. Therefore I think we are safer as we are. Letting them think we will sacrifice everything for recognition would be playing in Maloney’s hands...I don’t by any means despair of bringing our friends over here to reason. Their hope of making us unite with Joe’s ramshackle crowd is evidently based on McCartan’s wild exaggerations about the ‘Greatest Irish organisation in American history’. When that hope is dispelled which it must be before long, it will be easier to deal with them, but it is a damned nuisance to have to deal with men who are so easily deceived. However we must remember that ever the ablest men can’t deal properly with a situation when all their sources of information are poisoned...
Yours truly
John Devoy
Mailed at Grand Central Station, June 25, 1922 @ 12pm to Diarmuid Lynch, 280 Broadway, New York.
Diarmuid Lynch Papers – Florence O’Donoghue Collection - National Library of Ireland. Folio: 31-421
26
The first event was when armed men from the Four Courts garrison hijacked cars in the city to make a convoy to travel to Belfast and protect Catholics there. The Officer in Charge, Leo Henderson was captured by Free State troops and thrown into Mountjoy and in reprisal, the Four Courts men kidnapped General ‘Ginger’ O’Connor, the Free State Deputy Chief of Staff and Second in Command to Michael Collins. De Valera, Liam Lynch, Harry Boland and Cathal Brugha urged the Four Courts leaders not to provke an armed response from the Provisional Government. Privately, the Provisional Government Cabinet decided that an attack would be mounted, but would wait to make a formal decision the following day.
Churchill in the House of Commons stated that if the IRA occupation of the Four Courts did not come to an end, it would be ‘through weakness, want of courage, or some other even less creditable reason it is not brought to an end, and a speedy end, then it is my duty to say…that we shall regard the Treaty as having been formally violated.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.65
In London, Lloyd George denied opposition claims he was menacing the Provisional Government in Dublin but insisted that the Four Courts occupation be ended. However he did accept that a decision could not be taken by the Dublin Cabinet until the Dail met on July 1st.
28
At 3.40am, the Four Courts Garrison were given an ultimatum from the Provisional Government to evacuate the buildings by 4am and surrender. This was ignored. Liam Lynch joined the garrison despite having disapproved of the takeover in April.
The Irish Civil war began at 4am with the Four Courts being shelled Provisional Government troops using field guns borrowed from the British forces remaining in Kilmainham. However, high explosive shells were not given to the former enemy, instead receiving shrapnel rounds which ‘was like hitting the place with peaches’.
Expecting an attack, efforts were made to reinforce positions using the state archives which were stored there. Other work was completed to ensure the building could be destroyed, along with pricless records should an evacuation be necessary. Holes were drilled between floors and packed with flamable material. Anti-Treaty supporters now took up arms.
The offensive action had the immediate effect of driving de Valera and the more moderate 'anti-imperialist' opponents of the Treaty into the arms of the republican irregulars, whom de Valera now hailed as 'the best and bravest of our nation'.
His statement contained ‘..at the bidding of the English, Irishmen are today shooting down, on the streets of our capital, brother Irishmen – old comrades in arms, companions in the recent struggle for Ireland’s independence and its embodiment – the Republic…. Irish Citizens! Give them support! Irish Soldiers! Bring them aid!’
Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.195
Liam Lynch, leader of the anti-Treaty IRA Executive ‘The fateful hour has come. At the dictation of our herideary enemy our rightful cause is being treacherously assaulted by recreant Irishmen…Gallant soldiers of the Republic stand vigoursly firm…the sacred spirits of the illustrious dead are with us in this great struggle…rally to the support of the Republic’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.66
In effect, the action taken by the Provisional Government was viewed as a coup d’etat. As if to support this view, the Provisional Government leadership now postponed the July 1st meeting of Dail Eireann.
From Michael Collins
An ex-RIC member based in Mallow was found shot dead near the town.
29
de Valera now re-joined the Irish Volunteers as a private in his old battalion, the Third. Harry Boland was sent south to Mallow to obtain reinforcements for the republicans in Dublin.
Head of the Provisional Government’s army, Richard Mulcahcy in a message to the army ‘ Today, having driven the tyranny of the stranger from our land…you are called upon to serve her still in arms to protect her from a madness within’
Collins, signalling an offensive against the IRA ‘ The safety of the nation is the first law and henceforth we shall not rest until we have established the authority of the people of Ireland in every square mile under their juridsiction’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.66
Labour Party moves to broker a peace deal were dashed when Collins and Griffith insisted there could be no truce until the Four Court’s garrison surrendered.
Mountjoy Prison received it’s first Civil War prisoner – the legendary Tom Barry, leader of the West Cork Flyin Column during the War of Indpendence – captured trying to join his comrades in the Four Courts.
375 shrapnel shells were fired into the Four Courts.
30
‘To help me carry on the fight outside, you must surrender forthwith. I would be unable to fight my way through to you even at terrefic sacrifice…if the Republic is to be saved, your surrender is a necessity’ Oscar Traynor – Officer commanding the Dublin Brigade IRA to the Four Courts Garrison.
9pm
The Four Courts Garrison of 200 surrendered after blowing up the Public Record Office and fighting then spread to O'Connell Street, where the Republicans occupied a number of prominent buildings. The result was a repeat of Easter Week, ending with the total defeat of the insurgents and the destruction of some of O'Connell Street. Many of the Republican politicians joined the irregular forces, though they held no positions of high command. One of these was Cathal Brugha, who inflexible to the last, was seriously wounded as he left a doorway in the Gresham Hotel, revolvers blazing. He died two days later in the Mater Hospital.
The remaining anti-treaty forces were forced southwards. Liam Lynch took over control of the 1st Southern Division of the IRA, the largest command with Ernie O’Malley as 2nd in Command. Lynch’s belief was that if the Anti-Treaty forces held and controlled all areas outside of Dublin, the Provisional Government would be in no position to administer and govern.
Surviving members of the Four Courts garrison were imprisoned in Mountjoy.
The Civil War was to drag on to May 24th 1923. During this time ‘ terrible things were done by both sides. It was a war without frontiers, a struggle in which 18 year old youths became colonels. The ordinary procceses of law broke down and with them the laws of nature. In Terenure, a group of Free State troops raiding a house shot a suspect: the son of the officer of the raiding party. In Knocknagoshel, Co.Tipperary, an Anti-Treaty group set a booby trap which killed five Treatyites. In reprisal a group of captured Anti-Treaty soldiers were chained together and set to dismantle a barricade at Ballyseedy, Co. Kerry. It had been mined and they were blown to pieces. In a prison in the West of Ireland men were castrated during interrogations, to die years afterwards in asylums without ever recovering their sanity.
Collins in a Daily Mail interview ‘There can be no question of forcing Ulster into union with the 26 Counties. I am absolutely against coercion of that kind. If ulster is to join us it must be voluntarily. Union is our final goal, that is all.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.66
Bulk of prisoners from the Four Courts began to arrive in Mountjoy where the systematic destruction of the prison began. Cell walls were hacked through, doors broken, windows smashed and floor pulled up.
July 1922
Vincent Browne writing in the Sunday Times, March 1997 commented on Michael Collin’s reorgainsation of the I.R.B. and the potential ramifications for the Irish Free State... ‘ far from grieving over the ‘lost leader’ we may well have reason to feel relieved his career was foreshortened, however awful the circumstances of his murder.’ Collins began to use the I.R.B. ‘ to manipulate people and events in order to concentrate power in his hands...and in July 1922,...re-organised the I.R.B. to centralise civil and military power in himself... he had taken over military power at his own request, becoming Commander-in-Chief of the army at the begining of July. At the same time he remained firmly in control of the civil government with Cosgrave acting as his deputy... all sources of power led back to Collins... the Dail Courts had been suspended along with habeas corpus at the outbreak of the civil war and the third Dail elected in June had been suspended by the provisional government fortnightly thereafter. With Griffith’s death in August 1922 and with no parliament to account to, Collins, for better or worse, assumed dictatorial powers within the new regime.. even when the Labour Party threatened to withdraw from the Dail unless it was convened, Collins was determined to prevent it meeting - he seemed unconcerned about the damage Labour’s withdrawal would do to the legitimacy of the new Free State.
Vincent Browne. ‘The Dark Side of Collins, most devious dictator’ Sunday Times, March 9, 1997. p.15
1
US: The world’s first shopping centre, the Country Club Plaza opened.
The Four Courts archives were destroyed but as Churchill said ‘The archives of the Four Courts may be scattered, but the title deeds of Ireland are safe’
General Liam Lynch moved to Limerick to consolidate what became known as the ‘Munster Republic’ the area south of a line from Limerick to Waterford controlled by the Anti-Treaty forces.
A period of large-scale military engagements now ensued as the Provisional Government forces attacked the Republican line. At the outset of the campaign they were at a severe numerical disadvantage, but unlike the irregulars, they possessed the sophisticated field weapons lent by the British. A massive recruiting campaign for the national army was also started, and soon 1,000 men were enlisting each day, so that the army's strength was rapidly built up to 60,000-far in excess of the irregulars. (The speed with which this target was reached is an indicator of what ordinary people over most of the country thought of the irregulars.)
The Four Courts
from The Irish Times 1 July 1922
If there is an Elysian Field for beautiful buildings, Dublin's General Post Office, her Custom House and her Four Courts will keep sad company there. The destruction of the Four Courts is at once the heaviest and the most tragic of the three losses. Last week the Courts were a monument to the taste and ambition of eighteenth century Irishmen. Today their blackened ruins are a monument to the selfish folly of a small minority of a later generation. The explosion which destroyed our great treasury of legal and public documents has torn whole chapters out of Irish history and has involved some of the country's most important business in costly confusion. The full responsibility lies, of course, with the men who offered a reckless defiance to the authority of the Irish Government and the will of the Irish people. It is not the Government's fault that the seat of Ireland's law has been laid in ruins. The law is more precious than its house. Only in the last resort, only after a hundred appeals to reason and patriotism, did the Provisional Government take action to save the country from imminent anarchy.
It was a hateful, but an inevitable, task. We pray God that, after peace has been restored, no such duty will ever fall again upon the national Army. If need be, Mr Collins and his colleagues must continue to use that stern weapon until Dublin is once more safe and free. They cannot allow the sniper's bullet to fill the city's hospitals and to kill its trade. The people will endorse every measure that may be required for the suppression of the desperate attack upon their lives, their property and their prospects. Surely, however, we may expect now some recognition of their awful responsibility by the Republican leaders. Mr de Valera has associated himself openly with the men who are firing on Irish troops and are filling thousands of Irish homes with misery and sorrow. What does he expect to gain? His political cause is hopeless.
Crowds began to gather outside Mountjoy Prison shouting their support for the Republican prisoners.
2
Cathal Brugha died from wounds received. Collins wrote ‘I would forgive him anything, because of his sincerity, I would firgive him anything.’
De Valera moved south and became adjutant to the I.R.A Director of Operations, Sean Moylan.
3
In the midst of this political upheaval, Kitty Kiernan wrote to Collins, virtually accusing him of having ‘somebody else’.
‘The first and best goes to Ireland, I am only a good second, at least at the present time. Almost a year ago you would have written a more affectionate letter under the circumstances…if I was sure your really missed me, and had not somebody else. Knowing a little about you that, if you really wanted me badly, you would wire or write as you often did to have me near you…’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P94
Dublin's days of trial
from The Irish Times 3 July 1922
Impressions of the Fighting
All the time while revolvered youths were seizing buildings in the city, the bombardment of the stately Four Courts continued. The light 18-pound shells did not seem to be making much impression on the facade, but the eastern wing was showing signs of wear, and the tower supporting the great dome bore a distinctly pock-marked appearance. Somebody - I think it was a demure-looking lass of about eighteen years of age, who reminded me vaguely of Lily Elsie in 'The Quaker Girl,' thrust a copy of Rory O'Connor's communiqué into my hand. Other people were paying a shilling for it. I paid nothing. But I was sorry that she gave it to me, for it reminded me that they were Irishmen over yonder, and I wanted badly to forget it.
Along the quays the crowd was as dense as ever. From Grattan Bridge to the corner of Westmoreland Street there must have been well over a thousand spectators, and that enterprising street entertainer who makes a crazy little doll step-dance to the lively tune of a mouth organ, was doing a roaring trade. The vicious spit of a sniper's rifle did not worry him in the least. Hi-tiddely-hi-ti - ti-ti; the staccato rhythm of the foolish little puppet's feet seemed to synchronise with the beat of the gun-play. Where else but in Dublin could one find such a contrast? 'I never thought it would come to this,' remarked a tough old customer who was leaning on the parapet of the river. And he spat deliberately into the Liffey.
All night on Wednesday the bombardment was kept up, and all day on Thursday. Wednesday's series of ambushes had had a sobering effect on the people, and now one began to notice shops being shut, and a steady shrinkage in the number of persons on the streets. Several further buildings, including Carlisle Building, beside O'Connell Bridge, had been seized by the Irregulars, and snipers were beginning to make things lively from the roof tops. Now and then an armoured car would dash through the streets, but one saw very few signs of military activity, although one heard plenty of them.
It was becoming clear that the Four Courts could not hold out much longer, as a large breach had been made by the field guns, and the moment for an attack by storm was rapidly maturing. But as the chances of a successful resistance in the Four Courts lessened, more and more daring began to be shown by the Irregulars in other parts of the city. They were swooping down into most unexpected places, 'commandeering' foodstuffs, pots and pans, bedding, medical appliances, and what not. Apparently they were going to dig themselves into the heart of the city. One noticed that people were getting appreciably more nervous as the day advanced, and the news that, as a friend of mine put it, the postal services had 'gone west' sent a number of excellent citizens scurrying to the Kingstown mail boat. Sniping was in progress all over the city. Here, there, and everywhere one heard of civilian casualties. A woman killed on the bridge, another in Cavendish Row, and so forth.
Steadily the hospitals were beginning to fill. By the middle of the afternoon virtually every shop in the city had closed its doors. Dapper youths and pale-faced girls hurried homewards from their places of business. A few of the more curious lingered to watch what they were pleased to call 'the fun.' A drunken woman staggered across O'Connell Bridge, singing a snatch of maudlin song in quavering tones. Suddenly a burst of machine-gun fire tore the air. The streets seemed to duck with a fearful shudder. Then they were empty. That night everything was strangely quiet. The guns seemed to have grown weary of their roaring, and but for the odd whip-like snap of a sniper's bullet one could hear no evidence of the drama that was rushing swiftly to dénouement on the quays. Then came the startling news. The troops had stormed the Four Courts. Newspaper men dashed frantically about, linotypes rattled with excitement. Out in the darkened streets all was quiet; a Red Cross car flew across the bridge and was lost in the night.
Three-quarters of the building were now in the hands of General Ennis's men. The Irregular leader, with a remnant of his youthful force, was fighting desperately to hold the last fort. Morning came. The whole city seemed to be astir at an early hour, as the news had flown wildly from house to house. Sniping was still keeping pedestrians on the alert; but the trams were running, and a few shopkeepers daringly opened their shops. The Four Courts taken! Was it all over? 'Not yet,' came the reply from the young Irregulars as they seized half Sackville Street and extended their activities to Poyntz's and Yeates's corner.
About mid-day an ear-splitting explosion shattered Dublin. Compared with this, the booming of the 18-pounder gun had been the merest murmur. Windows were smashed, houses shook from roof to cellar, the sky was darkened with a cloud of flying debris as the Four Courts disappeared into smoke. A brown-robed monk with a large red cross on a white background across his breast led a grimy, red-eyed crowd of shaken boys on to Ormond Quay. Rory O'Connor was taken injured in a car. Liam Mellowes, grim and determined as ever, walked defiantly to Jameson's Distillery en route for Mountjoy ...
4
Frank Aiken wrote to the Minister for Defence Richard Mulcahy, asking for removal of Article 17 from the Free State Constitution to avoid Civil War ‘Are you prepared to carry on a war with your own people to enforce that Oath of Allegiance to England, while you have a splendid opportunity of uniting the whole nation to fight against it with success?’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.66
5
McCoole writes that ‘Collins, caught in a battle as bad ‘as Easter week’ replied: ‘And who’s the somebody else?…and if I’m in places where I can't even wire to you or where you don’t hear at all of me or from me, I’ll think of you…’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P91
Churchill as Dominions Secretary in the Commons on the loss of priceless historical records in the Four Courts ‘Better a state without archives than archives without a state.’
7
Fighting between government and Anti-Treaty forces broke out in Limerick.
Harry Boland wrote to Joe McGarrity ‘As you know, I was the liason or acting medium between our party and Collins, I expected a call from Mick as to the men on our side who would be required to fill the posts in Cabinet in accordance with the agreement. No word came.’
Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.190
Churchill in a letter to Collins ‘Of course from the imperial point of view, there is nothing we would like better than to see the South and the North join hands in an all-Ireland assembly without prejudice to the existing rights of Irishmen. Such ideas could be vehemently denied in many quarters at the moment, but events in the history of nations sometimes move very quickly.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.66
9
Erskine Childers in the weekly Poblacht na hEireann charged that the IRB ‘planned war on the Republic. It named the three top men of the Free State Forces – Collins, Mulcahy and Eoin O’Duffy – as members. It said Dail Eireann had not been consulted and that the people had not dreamt of war till the first shell smashed its way into theFour Courts…observe the recent appointments, P.S. O’Hegarty is put in control of the Post Office as Secretary, he is a member of the Supreme Council; Sean O’Muirthile is made Govenor of Kilmainham Jail; he is a member of the Supreme Council, Diarmuid O’Hegarty is first made Govenor fo Mountjoy Jail and then Director of Organisation of the Free State Army; he is a member of the Supreme Council, Gearoid O’Sullivan, is dj-General of the Army; he is a member of the Supreme Council; Dr. McCartan is put to the task of pretenting to criticise the Free State leaders in his ‘Sepratist’; he is a member of the Supreme Council. So in every branch of the ‘Government’ and its Army, power is given to the leaders and rank and file of a secret camarilla.’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil Press 1972. P122 & 178/179
Germany: Total financial collapse began with a spectacular drop in the value of the Mark.
Johnny Weissmuller is first to break the one minute mark in the 100 meter swim.
10
Despite the events, Collins found time to write a poem to Hazel Lavery, ‘leaving little doubt that she was the ‘somebody else’.
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P94
12
Collins announced to the Free State Cabinet that ‘he would not be able to act in his ministerial capacity until further notice’ as he was about to be appointed as Commander in Chief of the armed forces. Cosgrave appointed Acting Chairman and Acting Minister for Finance
‘We had fed the heart on fantasies,
the heart’s grown brutal from the fare.’
Meditations in time of Civil War by W.B.Yeats.
13
The Dail was prorogued by a notice signed by 15 leaders, of whom only 7 were members of the assembly.
The Irish Army or War Council was founded with Michael Collins as Commander in Chief, Richard Mulcachy (Chief of Staff and Minister for Defence), Eoin O’Duffy ( General for the South-Western Division ) and Diarmuid O’Hegarty (Commandant General
Harry Boland in a letter to McGarrity bearing the address ‘the Dublin Mountains’ wrote ‘Cathal Brugha is dead! No man is here to replace him. He was easily the greatest man of his day. What a wonderful fight he made, with his 15 men against an army…’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil Press 1972. P120
14
Seen from a motor car
from The Irish Times 14 July 1922
A Favourable Opening
The real trial of strength is not yet. To use a metaphor from chess, the opening has not yet become merged in the middle game. But from what I have seen there can be little doubt that the opening has gone in favour of the National forces. There may still be serious attempts by the Irregulars to attack the lines of communication. In a mountainous district such as that which extends to the south of Dublin, it is almost impossible to prevent a concentration of malcontents who might create an awkward diversion. The further a force is advanced from its base, the more vulnerable are its supplies; but, at the same time, the more precarious is the position of troops operating in its rear. Even with the initial advantage of fighting without uniforms, and so being able, chameleon-like, to turn their appearance from that of a solider to a harmless and necessary civilian, such a force could only prove a nuisance, and not a danger. Travelling about Ireland in a motor car is at present a very enjoyable and sometimes exciting occupation. Watching the shadows chequering the Dublin hills, diving down a slope into a green tunnel of trees which edge and overhang the road, watching the village children playing the great new game of war, you forget that the miles which are rolling under your wheels are bringing you further and further into districts which have not yet been completely tidied up.
How softly green is the tunnel which stretches before you, as if the wood had grown into the road itself. Hullo! brakes quickly! there is a tree down! The foot brake checks our swift rush, the hand brake grinds into action, and the heavy car - over twenty-eight hundredweight - comes finally to a stop three or four yards from the huge beech which has been felled artfully at a corner of the road, so that from a slight distance its leaves blend indistinguishably with the curving line of trees behind it. Then starts the hunt for an alternative route. Sometimes by going back a mile or two you can find a by-road which leads round by a detour to the main route on the other side of the obstacle. Sometimes you have to dig your way through a hedge and ditch and bump along through woodlands and over fields ...
With the size of crowds outside Mountjoy growing each day, an ultimatum was issued to the 300 political prisoners – stop communicating through the windows with those outside by 3pm or risk being fired upon. The prisoners refused and two were injured ( inclusing George Plunkett, brother of Joseph Plunkett executed in Kilmainham in 1916) as the military guard opened fire. 30 troops on duty in the barracks refused to fire on the men and were swiftly removed to barracks.
Order was restored and freedoms gradually phased in for the Anti-Treaty prisoners – free to move about within the wings, form clubs etc. However infringements were harshly dealt with and the preferred methold of clearing prison wings for lockdown at 11pm was firing live rounds up the corridors.
18
Sir Henry Wilson’s assasins, Reginald Dunne and Joseph O’Sullivan went on trial at the Old Bailey in London.
‘The same principles for which we shed our blood on the battlefield of Europe led us tocommit the act we are charged with…we will go to the scaffold justified by the verdict of our own consciences…’
Reginald Dunne.
19
Count Plunkett applied for a writ of Habeaus Corpus for the release from Mountjoy of his son, George. A hearing was fixed for July 26th by Justice Crowley.
20
Limerick was re-captured by Government forces. General Liam Lynch re-established the Anti-Treaty military headquarters in Clonmel, moving to Fermoy shortly afterwards.
21
Waterford was re-captured by Free State Troops after 9 days of fierce fighting.
25
The Free State Government revokes it's stated intention of establishing courts of law, equity and criminal jurisdction. Gavan Duffy, Minister for Foreign Affairs resigns in protest.
George Gavan Duffy resigned as a member of the Provisional Government because of a decision to abolish Republican courts set up in 1920 and retain the former British courts. ‘Ministers must feel some diffidence about championing against their own justices the judges of the old regime, most of whom, a year or two ago, would have welcomed an opportunity of loding our present rulers in jail.’
Harry Boland wrote again to McGarrity ‘ Can you imagine me on the run from Mick Collins? Well, I am, together with many others, in fact men of the IRA are again in the field fighting hard for the Republic and their lives.
You know how hard I worked for peace and there was not a happier man in all Ireland than I on the day on which Collins and DeValera made the pact…Raids and arrests are again the order of the day. Mrs Pearse has had her house raided in the dead of night, my house was raided on Sunday morning, Mrs DeValera’s house was raided and the Chief’s trunks broken into at 2am. Sean T O’Kelly’s house was also raided and so it goes. We are back again to the terror, the only change is the uniform…the Supreme Council have been rewarded for their treachery by serving posts as gaol govenors etc. the IRB is reorgnaised, all the old Supreme Council save four or five are now in arms or in jobs against the Republic, and their end of the organisation is no more. I will write to you again soon. God knows it is heartbreaking to have to write of Ireland just now. Yet we must fight on until the enemy is defeated.’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil, Kerry. 1972. P120.
This was Boland’s last letter to McGarrity. 8 days later he was dead.
26
Despite the supression of the Courts of law, equity and criminal jurisdiction, Justice Crowley read the supression document in court and declared it illegal.
Highest temperature ever measured on Earth is recorded at el-Azizia, Libya: 136 degrees fahrenheit/58 degrees centigrade--in the shade.
27
Republican forces free 105 prisoners from Dundalk Jail.
30
In a raid on the Grand Hotel in Skerries, north Co. Dublin, Harry Boland was shot suffering serious wounds and removed to St. Vincent’s Hospital.
‘Austin Stack wrote an account of the affair for McGarrity. He said Harry had been in Mrs Tom Clarke’s house to meet Sean T. O'Kelly, who was going to the United States as Republican Envoy. The house was raided and Harry escaped through the rear. Sean T was arrested with letters from Harry on him. Government sleuths trailed Boland to Skerries, Stack said, and he was supposed to have been shot while trying to escape.’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil, Kerry. 1972. P120.
Former Supreme Court Judge Crowley comments in 1935 that Sean T. O’Kelly was sent by de Valera in late July 1922 ‘to New York to prevent the Free State ‘Government’ gettign any of those funds [ Republican funds ]’
Diarmuid O’Cruadhlaoich ‘Step by Step. From the Republic back into the Empire. The Evolution of Eamonn de Valera’ c.1935. Lynch Family Archives. P13
31
Patrick McCartan went to St. Vincents off Stephens Green to see his old friend, Harry Boland. ‘He recognised me though a bit delirious and wanted to get out of bed…poor Harry. One felt inclined on leaving him to curse the whole lot more than one feels inclined to do so at other times…poor big-hearted, good natured Harry to be shot by his own friends.’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil, Kerry. 1972. P122.
August 1922
1
Paudee O’Keefe became Deputy Military Govenor of Mountjoy Prison. Veteran of the GPO in 1916, Frongoch, Secretary of Sinn Fein in 1917 and sentenced to 18 months in Mountjoy in 1919, serving only 1 following an all out hunger strike. ‘described by Peadar O’Donnell as ‘a restless little man with a fine pair of eyes and a waspish tongue’ he did not command much respect ( at night, the prisoners would screech Paudeen’s name like a pack of cats) but he was like by almost all of the prisoners…generous to the prisoners when his situation allowed him, he tried to calm what was an often bitter athmosphere. Above everything else, Paudeen’s comments were legendary. After an escape tunnel was discovered, Paudeen gleefully announced ‘ntohing escapes from here, only gas’. When the interned prisoners were fed up keeping two prisoners hidden in their cells, the count of prisoners was curiously two up. Double checking the numbers, Paudeen approached their representative Andy Cooney and asked ‘Jaysus, Cooney, which of you had the twins?’
Tim Carey. ‘Mountjoy – The Story of a Prison’ The Collins Press, Dublin 2000.p200-1
2
Harry Boland (35) died in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin. Collins in a letter to Kitty Kiernan wrote on his former friend’s death ‘I’d send a wreath but I suppose they’d return it torn up.’
The Capital of the ‘Munster Republic’ stronghold remained under Anti-Treaty forces. The Provisional Government completed an outflanking deployment of troops by sea so that the stronghold of resistance in Cork and the south came under attack from two fronts.
A flurry of newspaper letters marked another episode in the Devoy – McGarrity feud. In December 1921, both McGarrity and Montague were formally expelled from Clan na Gael. In the Irish Indpendent a letter was published from Dr. Mccartan, P.S. Ohegarty and denis McCullogh in which they wrote:
‘It is not true to say that Mr.McGarrity was expelled by Clan na Gael. When Mr Boland went to America, he was Chairman of the Supreme Council of the IRB and his sverance of the connection between the home organisation and that wing of Clan na Gael which supported John Devoy and Judge Cohalan was based on the fact that that wing, led by Devoy and Cohalan, onstructed the work of President dv and of the Dail Eireann official mission to America.
This severance was concurred in and sanctioned by the Supreme Council of the IRB here, and Mr. McGarrity was asked to re-organise that wing of the organisation and work in harmony with the President and the Dail official mission. That organisation which the comminque represented as an authorised one is, therefore the only really authorised Clan na Gael in America’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil Press 1972. P100
Alexander Graham Bell, telephone inventor, dies.
3:
“Martin Manseragh, the historian and head of research for Fianna Fail, recalled that on this date, Collins wrote to Cosgrave “ I am forced to the conclusion we may have to fight the British in the northeast”. That candour was unusual, for behind the backs of Griffith and Cosgrave, he was arming the IRA in the North and he told them he would “use the political arm against [Sir James] Craig, so long as it is of use. If that fails, the Treaty can go to hell and we will all start again”. Manseragh noted that it was wishful thinking to present Collins as someone who had definitely decided that force vis-a-vis the North had had it's day. He repeated a report, recorded inUnionist histories of Northern Ireland, of how a Protestant deputation led by Archbishop Gregg went to see Collins and Griffith in the middle of 1922. They asked if Protestants were to be allowed to live in the Free State or if they should leave the country. Far from reassuring them, Collins pointed to the murders of Catholics in the North.
Manseragh also pointed out that Collins’s cultural ‘vision’ for Ireland was no different to that of De Valera. Collins asserted ‘We are now free in name. The extent to which we become free in fact and secure our freedom will be the estent to which we become Gaels again...we can fill our minds with Gaelic ideas and our lives with Gaelic customs until there is no room for any other...the most completely anglicised person in Ireland will look to Britain in vain.”
Vincent Browne. ‘The Dark Side of Collins, most devious dictator’ Sunday Times, March 9, 1997. p.15
Harry Boland was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
In Fermoy Barracks, De Valera was informed of Harry Boland’s death ‘ He felt it terribly – crushed and broken. He lost his most faithful friend’ as his faithful secretary, Kathleen O’Connell reported in her diary. Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.197
That night, the barracks were abandoned and burned.
4
Patrick McCartan wrote to McGarrity: ‘Harry was buried yesterday. The papers give the funeral little space. This day week he shall be entirely forgotten except by his poor mother. I sent a wreath from ‘Joe McGarrity Phila.’ I knew you would like to be represented in some way…it appears the hotel was surrounded and two men went to his room. They talked with him and reasoned with him for a while and he said he would resist arrest. One went off to get assistance and Harry jumped for the man who remained and tried to secure his revolver. In the scuffle, Harry was shot. I got that story on fairly reliable information and it may be true but no ‘official account’ has been published so that one remains suspicious…’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil Press 1972. P122
Musolini’s Fascists broke up the Communist led strike in Milan and re-captured the city.
5
The German theoretical physicist, Albert Einstien flees Germany after he is threatened by an extremist group.
Special Constable Samuel Hayes was in a public house on the Newtonards Road in Belfast, when a man being pursued by a crowd took refuge there. Two gunmen fired into the bar after the man, wounding two, including Hayes. He died later from wounds. He was the last police officer to die as a result of political violence during 1919-1922. Hayes was the last of 493 policemen to loose their lives from the first attack on a police patrol at Soloheadbeg on 21 January 1919.
7
The IRA blew up the telegraph cable station in Waterville, Co. Kerry, cutting off all US cables to Europe.
Ulster’s Minister of Education, Lord Londonderry commented on the difficulties of the Free State Ministers as evidence of Ireland’s unsuitedness for indepence: ‘I do not see Ireland deriving all the Imperial advantages and yet not being in the Empire…I cannot subscribe to the littleness of thought which evisages a tiny little island, speaking a language which no one understands, self-centered, proud, and unduly sensitive…’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P95
8
Jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, part of the great exodus of blacks from the southern to the northern U.S., leaves New Orleans to play jazz in Chicago with mentor King Oliver.
9
A new style of shop, a department store, opens in Dublin. It’s name? Clerys.
10
Sir Henry Wilson’s assasins, Reginald Dunne and Joseph O’Sullivan were executed in Wandsworth Prison. Both bodies were reinterred in Deansgrange Cemetery, Dublin, in May 1967.
Free State troops landed by sea at Passage West and entered Cork City, ending the city’s role as capital of the Munster Republic.
Vol. James Hudson, Dun Laoghaire, was killed in action in Glasthule on 10 August 1922. He is buried in the Republican Plot, Deansgrange Cemetery.
11
The last town held by the I.R.A fell as General Liam Lynch abandoned Fermoy. Government forces advanced further into Cork county. He directed that the remaining IRA forces should breakup into smaller ‘active service units’ modeled on the Flying Columns during the War of Independence. Gradually the Government forces moved in on remaining Anti-Treaty units in Munster. The belief amongst the I.R.A military staff was the success of the flying columns could be guaranteed against former comrades as it had against the British – with two vital exceptions – they did not have the full co-operation of the local population and the men they were fighting also knew both the column strategy and the country.
A Habeaus Corpus order was granted by Justice Crowley for the release of Sean T O’Kelly from Kilmainham Jail.
12
Arthur Griffith ‘left politics’ when he died in Dublin aged 51. His death was unexpected and ‘was a shock to every Irish man and woman who had learned from him the doctine of Sinn Fein. He had been suffering from overwork and strain and from a slight attack of tonsilities, and had gone as a patient to a nursing home. He seemed well and was leaving for his office when he fell forward unconcious. He died in a few hours.’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P777
Cork was captured by the Provisional Government forces.
13
De Valera heard of Griffith’s death, wrote’ he was, I believe, unselfishly patriotic – and courageously’
Sir John and Lady hazel Lavery arrived in Ireland on a social visit. Sinead McCoole in her research on Hazel found numerous tales on Collins’s love for her, amongst them being one she told Lord Longford ‘that Collins was so disillusioned and in love that he wanted her to run off to America with him. Hazel informed others that Collins had stopped his car outside the window of her room at the Royal Marine [ Hotel ]. She looked down at him, then at John asleep. Conscience stricken, she remained at the window, and the car eventually drove away.
Their contemporaries could only speculate about their relationship. Leslie compared Hazel to Madame recamier, a salon hostess with a cooterie of admirers, who had remained a virgin. Hazel’s daughter Alice stated:
‘My mother was always believed to have had an affair with Michael Collins. She never believed in affairs. She said ‘Affairs are such shabby things; all that sneaking about by the back stairs’. She was almost undersexed if you know what I mean, she had no interest. She liked things to be beautiful. Michael Collins was a very gallant hero’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P96
Bishop Fogarty commenting to Collins advised ‘Michael, you should be prepared – you might be next. Collins joked, ‘I hope nobody takes it into his head to die for another twelve months’
T.P.Coogan. ‘Michael Collins’. P399.
14
Arthur Griffith was buried. ‘Michael, you should be prepared – you might be next’ was what the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Michael Fogarty said to Collins at the funeral service.
That evening, Collins dined with the Laverys in the Royal Marine Hotel. John Lavery in his autobiography recounted how he had ‘learned from the night porter that a sniper lurking in the hotel grounds had been blocked from his target by Hazel seated at the window and unwittingly shielding Collins’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P97
Returning from his evning with the Laverys, his car was ambushed as Hazel recounted in a letter to Eddie Marsh:
‘The car that was ambushed had just been left by Michael as soemthing had gone wrong with the clutch and he jumped into a Ford car standing near, so his lucky life was spared again. He had been dinign with us at an hotel near Dublin and it happened on the way home – he rang us up from H.Q. at three in the morning to assure us of his safety because we had heard the ambush which wasn’t far from the hotel.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P98
Lord Northcliffe, the pioneer of popular newspapers died aged 57. He founded the Daily Mail in 1896 on his ‘one murder a day’ formula and stories of less than 250 words that had to be personally vetted.
17
The RIC is formally disbanded and replaced by the Civic Guard.
The newly formed Civic Guard Commissioner Michael Staines led a column representing his 1,500-strong force into Dublin Castle to set up his headquarters there. Some 300 men had been brought up to Dublin that morning from Kildare and Newbridge, to augment the 80 strong headquarters staff for the ceremony. Having moved from one temporary headquarters building to another over the previous months, Staines was finally to get a permanent home in the Castle, giving the event for him a practical as well as a symbolic significance. Early that morning the last of the Royal Irish Constabulary headquarters staff had departed the Castle, leaving it in the command of a detachment of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry. With an exchange of salutes Staines's column marched into the Lower Yard, the newness of his force apparent from the fact that only 60 of the 380 men in the column wore uniforms.
Collins spent the evening in Hazel Lavery’s company. Collins’ car was ambushed again, this time around 1a.m. near Belfield in Dublin. Hazel Lavery described the event to Shane Leslie: ‘the bullets passed through the glass. Collins took her by the neck and pushed her into the well of the car. The newspaper accounts was less romantic.’
Shane Leslie Diaries quoted by Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P91
The newspapers reported matter of factly that: ‘A bomb was thrown at it, followed by rifle and revolver fire…General Collins was not in the car. The driver and the others returned the fire…’
US: Federal agents begin a crackdown on now illegal hip flasks.
Austin Stack wrote to McGarrity on events at home and on the inquest into Harry Boland’s death:
‘My God, ‘tis terrible. Those fellows are conducting themselves worse that the Black and Tans have ever done. It is a hard thing to sat but ‘tis true. The men who stand by the Republican ideal are going to be exterminated if it can be done. So guilty are the consiences of the Free State leaders now that they must be small, mean, cruel and tyrannical…I have just read this moment a report of the ‘inquest’ on poor Harry. A partisan coroner and a picked jury refused to investigate the cause of death – how he was wounded and so on. At the dictation of the Free State representative the jury brought in a verdict on the medical testimony only. This cloaking up of the matter is likely to do them more harm than good. But what is it all going to lead to. We are heartbroken at the ,oss of Cathal and Harry and many another must go down ere we wee the end. My God, if Collins had an ounce of real patriotism, he would have thrown up his cursed ‘Treaty’ long ago whern he saw it could not produce peace. Or even if he had insisted upon an acceptable form on Constitution. He had the choice between keeping his pact with us or his pact with England – of fighting England ( if England would fight ) or fighting our people – and he chose to break with and murder his own formber comrades. God’s blessing cannot be on such deeds – no matter what Bishops say. And Irish history shows that Irish bishops have always been wrong in national matters. But we can remain catholics without the bishops and we will. Brugha’s remains were refused at two churches. So were Harry’s, I have just heard, but this has not been confirmed so far. Our men in Mountjoy jail have been refused absolution unless they promsise not to fight further against this so called Government. And so history repeats itself. It is six hundred years almost since the Irish who took up arms to drive the ursurper out and to make Edward Bruce king were excomunicated by Rome ( I wonder how P.S. O’Hegarty likes his new company )… The Clan should range itself up definietly on the side of the IRA and be prepared to help us in every way possible. Work should be begun at once – money raised and so on…the fight here is bound to last some time - perhaps months, perhaps a year or two. There will be no ‘going into the Empire with out heads up’ anyhow. Ley us hope John Bull takes a more open part in the game and sends along troops from England. That day will see all good irishmen on our side and win we shall. May we live to see it – but if it be God’s will we shall be proud to die to bring it soon – just as Cathal and Harry…’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil, Kerry. 1972. P122
18
John Devoy’s letter to the Irish Independent was published in which he confirmed that both McGarrity and Montague had been formally expelled from the Clan na Gael. ‘Except in Philadelphia and San Francisco, the ‘re-organised Clan na Gael ‘ had little success’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil Press 1972. P99
Collins spent his last evening in Dublin in Hazel Lavery’s company.
19
Collins went to confession in a Greystones, Co Wicklow church.
Collins and Hazel Lavery traveled to the 90 acre Kilteragh, Foxrock, Co. Dublin estate of Sir Horace Plunkett where they dined amongst such august company as George Bernard Shaw, Daisy Fingall and Lennox Robinson.
‘Lady Gregory received a letter from Lennox Robinson describing the event and noted in her diary: ‘Collins is safe…and dined at Kilteragh on Saturday, he came in Lady Lavery’s train, or rather she in his for she is his abject admirer.’…Daisy Fingall found the evening quiet, almost dull and later wrote ‘Collins was not at all an eloquent man’. The guests left early as later that evening, Collins was leaving Dublin with Emmet Dalton on a tour of duty in Cork.
Sir Horace wrote in his diary: ‘I fear he is too careless with his life. His car was bombed only yesterday when, luckily, he was not in it.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P98
Sir John Lavery recounted in his autobiography that Hazel was aprhensive for his safety. ‘Hazel was pale with excitement and woke up screaming once or twice that night. Next day she was strange and silent…she had fearful premonitions…’All day I have been seeing them carrying Michael covered in blood…’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P98
20
Collins in a military convoy left Portobello Barracks, oficially making an inspection tour of the Midlands and south, but in reality making a secret and last ditch effort to halt the Civil War. He already had made contact with neutral IRA officers. In Portlaoishe, he met with some of the imprisoned IRA leaders but left after an hour when they refused to discuss any terms with him. According to later eye-witnesses, Collins was suffering from a heavy cold and kidney infection and was in constant pain. He was also edgy. Watching his men remove a bridge obstruction at Killmallock, a local man took a souvenir snapshot, the click of the camera shutter making Collins reach instictivly for his revolver. ‘The poor man is in a hurry to meet his death’ said the Archdeacon of Mallow to a member of Collins convoy en-route to Cork.
21
After inspecting the Free State garrison at Newcastlewest, he travelled southeast to Macroom where he began talks with neutral IRA officers and then towards Mallow. Later that evening he arrived at the Imperial Hotel in Cork’s South Mall. Emmet Dalton, head of the Free State troops in the city expressed concern that Collins was there ‘I knew how boysih he was, and the warmth and extent of his heart. He had a devout love for the people in Cork. I told him he was taking an un-necessary risk being there and he said, jocosely ‘Surely they wont shoot me in my own county?’
Collins also met with his sister and nephew, Sean Collina-Powell, a Quartermaster Sergeant in the Free State Army. They met outside the hotel and went in for tea. Two young soldiers sitting side by side in the foyer, leaning against each other half asleep but suposedly on guard duty, were spotted by Collins. He banged their heads together and walked on.
‘He was a bit tired at that meeting’ Collins-Powell said ‘Of course, he had a very severe cold bordering on pleurist, but he was in reasonably good form. He was a very serious fellow and didn’t waste time talking about himself’
22
Collins and his convoy of a scout on a motor cycle, a yellow Leyland Thomas touring car lent by a well wisher, Crossley tender with Lewis gun and eight riflemen accompanied by a Rolly Royce Whippet armoured car ‘Slievenamon’ carrying an officer and four men left Cork city at 6.15am. The comvoy travelled again to Macroom.
Later in the day, following this meeting, the convoy travelled to Bandon via the tiny crossroads village of Bealnablath. Unknown to Free State forces, senior irregular leaders were meeting in a farmhouse overlooking the village. The officer in charge was Brigade Commander Tom Hales who on hearing Collins was in the area, organised an ambush. A beer bottle collection cart was comandeered and placed across the road some 750 meters on the Bandon side of the Bealnablath crossroads. In front of this, a 30mm long mine containing 3kgs of explosives was buried beneath the surface of the dirt road and connected to a detonating plunger on higher ground. 22 riflemen were placed in position overlooking the road to wait for the possible passing of the convoy.
Collins and convoy had continued onto Bandon and Clonakilty for lunch, then traveled to Roscarbery and Sam’s Cross for a meeting with his relatives. There Collins told an officer that he was going to ‘put an end to this bloody war’. From Sam’s Cross he travelled to Skibereen where he had more talks and left around 5pm to return to Bandon for dinner. There he had a detailed briefing with Major General Sean Hales.
From Bandon, they moved on through the countryside, back towards Bealnablath and the waiting irregular ambush party. Leading the group on the motorcyle was scout Lieutenant Smith, followed by the Crossley tender of riflemen, the open yellow touring car and armoured car taking up the rear. Aboard the car were Collins and Emmet Dalton. As soon as the convoy had passed through, the irrgulars opened fire, Emmet Dalton ordered the driver and convoy to ‘Drive like Hell’ but Collins countermanded it to stop and fight. All four men jumped from the car and took up firing positions behind a low bank bordering the road. Smith in the meantime had raced up on his motorcycle followed by the lorry. At the barricade, irregulars fired on him as he retreated up the lane, bullets hitting his hands and forcing him to ditch the bike. He then waved warninsg to the lorry and the gunners opened fire on the retreating irregulars and rifelmen jumped down forming two groups. The first moved to the barricade to remove it while the second gave covering fire. The irregulars ran along the overlooking lane, firing intermittantly at the men below. After a few minutes, the first group of Free State Troops had moved the barricade and were moving back up the lane, pushing the irregulars towards the Collins party. The armoured car now reversed so as to get a better line of fire as Lieutenant Smith and Commandant O’Connell made their way back along the road to inform Collins and Dalton that the road was clear if they wanted to leave.
Meanwhile, on a sloping hillside to the right of the Free State men, three separate and unconnected groups of Irreugulars joined the battle. The first, led by Mike Donoghue of Glenfesk, Co. Kerry was making its way home after loosing Cork city to Free State forces and was drawn to the hillside by the sound of gunfire. Another two Irregulars in the area, also hearing the gunfire, made their way to the area At the Bandon end, yet another group returning from Waterford, joined in.
The armoured car’s machine gun was having problems – jamming several times. An inexperienced officer had made a mess of loading the ammunition belt and this caused repeated stoppages. During one of these lulls, the pinned down Irregulars moved further down the lane. Collins saw their movement, and leaving Dalton and the protection of the roadside bank, moved around the bend to fire from the cover of the armoured car. When the irreulars moved again, Collins moved from the armoured car to the centre of the road where standing upright, he fired from his revolver.
Further up the lane, Dennis ‘Sonny’ O’Neill was situated in a covering fire position and spotting the single officer standing upright and open, aimed his Lee Enfield rifle and shot Collins through the head. The bullet entering on the hairline and passing through his brain to exit explosively behind his right ear. He fell face down on the road.
Shortly after this, the Irregulars in the area had stopped firing and started to escape. Dalton, O’Connell and Smith rounded the bend to seek out their Chief of Staff. There they found Collins with a huge gaping wound and beyond al help. Dalton lifted his head and applied a field dressing while Sean O’Connell kneeled beside him and whispered an Act of Contrition in his ear. Michael Collins was dead. He was just 31. ( Sonny O’Neill lived until 1950 )
Collins body was lifted into the car, his head resting on Dalton’s shoulder as the convoy resumed it’s journey to Cork city. Because of blown bridges and blocked roads, the journey took many hours and did not reach the city until the early hours of the morning. His body was laid out in a small top corner room of the Shanakiel Hospital and Dalton telegraphed Army HQ in Dublin that ‘Commander in Chief shot dead in ambush’.
‘ The death of Collins…was a great public tragedy – indeed the only public tragedy – of the Civil War…only Collins might, just possibly, have signficantly influenced the course of history…though buffeted by many contrary winds, and failing to reconcile the irreconcilable, his performance as a political tactician was at least as able as de Valera’s…Collins final speeches..suggest an ambition, unique among his colleagues in the Provisional Government, to create not only a new state but a new society. He professed to seek a country distinguished by social justice, economic efficiency, cultural achivement and political tolerance…he scoffed at de Valera’s belief that the people must be kept poor to nurture their idealism…he wanted to expand educationl opportunity, to expropriate ranchers and urban land speculators, to embark on massive housing schemes to abolish the hideous urban slums, to harness the Shannon for electricity, to industrialise rapidly, to implement worker particiaption in management, and to generally foster a flourishing economy in the hope that a ‘propseprous Ireland will mean a united Ireland… On the day he died he had no need to stop to fight at the ambush site, but he dismissed advice to drive on, behaving more like a cowboy than a head of Government…his unrivalled combination of ability, energy, vision and magnaminity meant that his survival might, just concievably, have made a difference to the performance of the new state. Collins death removed the main conciliating influence in the cabinet and inevitably hardened the resolve of the survivors.’
Prof. J.J.Lee. ‘Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society’. Cambridge University Press. 1989. P65-66
General Richard Mulcahy, Chief of Staff of the Free State Army on the news of Collins death, issued a statement to the army:
‘Stand calmly by your posts. Bend bravely and undaunted to your work, let no cruel act of reprisal blemish your bright honour. You are each inheritors of Michael Collins’ strength, bravery and unfinished work’
Griffith and Collins were succeeded by Cosgrave and O'Higgins, who were determined to enforce a policy of law and order and to stamp out what they regarded as a soldierly resistance movement but criminal subversion. Collins had seen the struggle as a tragic conflict of former comrades; Cosgrave and O'Higgins saw it as a clash between civil law and gun law.
Initially, a conspiracy was suspected in the death of Collins. Was he murdered? Pro-Treaty authorities investigated but could find no supporting information. The identity of the killer became one of the better kept secrets.
One of the first actions of the Government after Collin’s death and the election of William Cosgrave as Taoiseach was to annul Collins’s suspension of the Dail and announce the meeting of the 3rd Dail for August 24th.
Collins’s legagcy, in the opininion of Vincent Browne was that he had left ‘ a legagcy of conspiratorial politics and revoloutionary insititutions in what aspired to be a consitutional democracy... In his murder, Ireland lost a leader of great energy and determination. But energy and determination can be liabilities, if allied to deviousness and ruthlessness. There is reason to believe that Collins’s character was a composite of that poisonous cocktail’
Vincent Browne. ‘The Dark Side of Collins, most devious dictator’ Sunday Times, March 9, 1997. p.15
23
Hazel Lavery was woken in the Royal Marine Hotel with the news ‘They have shot Mr Collins, my lady’. She went to Plunkett’s home where Daisy Fingall later recalled that Hazel told them ‘I knew it before I saw the papers. I had seen him in a dream, his face covered with blood’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P91
Michael Collins
from The Irish Times 23 August 1922
As we go to press we learn that General Michael Collins, Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Army, and Chairman of the Provisional Government, has been wounded fatally in an ambush in County Cork. The Irish nation will be shocked beyond measure at this awful news. General Collins stood for stable government and the restoration of civilised conditions to our distracted country. He applied all his abundant energy to the performance of the task to which he set his hand last December, when he signed the Treaty with the British Government in London, and his courage and sincerity rallied round him all the best and sanest elements in Irish life. His death is a disaster for Ireland. Irishmen the world over will mourn him, and will sink their heads in shame at the deep damnation of his taking-off. That he should have met his tragic end at Irish hands is the darkest feature of this national calamity. He dared much and suffered much for the ideal to which he devoted his life and in the achievement of which he played such a decisive part. Like his friend and teacher, Arthur Griffith, General Collins was a firm believer in the destiny of the Irish people and in its fulfilment through the medium of the London Treaty. He has fallen now within sight of the goal towards which he strove with such tenacity of purpose, but his death will serve only to strengthen the resolve of the Irish people that his work shall be carried to complete success.
General Collins dead
from The Irish Times 23 August 1922
The Late Commander-in-Chief
We much regret to announce the death of General Michael Collins, Commander-in-Chief of the National Army, which occurred yesterday under the circumstances related above …
We print below a character sketch of General Collins by 'Nichevo,' which appeared under the heading 'Irishmen of Today,' in The Irish Times of 1 April.
One day, about eighteen months ago, I was sitting with a friend in a Dublin restaurant. He was one of those people who seem to know everything and to be hail-fellow-well-met with everybody from Davy Stephens to the Lord Chancellor of England. We were talking politics, of course, when suddenly I noticed that my companion had turned very pale. 'Don't look round yet,' he said beneath his breath, 'Michael Collins has just come in.' I must confess that my heart promptly took refuge in my boots; but curiosity is generally stronger even than fear, and I could not resist the temptation to have a look at the elusive 'Mike'. The man to whom my friend referred was small, thin, with mouse-coloured hair, and looked rather like a jockey. What he lacked in physique, however, he made up in facial ferocity, for a more villainous looking individual I never saw. 'Are you sure that he is Collins?' I asked in doubt. 'Of course,' he replied jauntily, 'don't I know him well?'
For nearly a year, therefore, I guarded the guilty secret of having been within touching distance of the most badly 'wanted' man in Ireland; but I might have known my friend the quidnunc better. The man was no more Michael Collins than I was.
I discovered the fraud last August, when Dáil Éireann met in the Mansion House to discuss Mr Lloyd George's invitation to a conference. I scanned the assembly in vain for the gentleman of the restaurant. None of the members resembled him in the very least, and I was just beginning to be afraid that Mr Collins was a myth after all, when the Clerk of the House began to call the roll. 'Míceál î Coilean' was the first name on the list, and I knew enough Irish - but just enough - for that. There was the famous 'Mick,' sed quantum mutatus ab illo! Here was no emaciated little jockey-man, furtive of eye, and hang-dog of look. A big, burly, broad-shouldered individual with a shock of pitch-black hair and a broad smile, walked across the floor and signed the register. All my preconceived ideas were shattered. I could not have been more completely taken aback if the Moderator of the General Assembly had answered to that name ...
Liam Lynch, Chief of Staff of the IRA, compliemnted his colleagues in the 1st Southern Division on the action in Bealnablath but added ‘Nothing could bring home more forcefully the awful, unfortunate national situation at present that the fact that it has become necessary of Irishmen and former comrades to shoot such men as M. Collins’
de Valera, leaving the area where Collins was shot, mumbled to himself in distress ‘I told them not to do it, even pleaded with them, but they wouldn’t listen to me, and now what will become of us all.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.67
When news of the death reached Kilmainham Jail, a thousand IRA prisoners spontaounsly knelt and recited the rosary for the soul of Michael Collins.
The same day, the uniformed body of the Commander in Chief was brought to Dublin by ship. There it was embalmed by Dr. Oliver StJohn Gogarty who confirmed cause of death were two bullet wounds to the head, entry and exit points.
Collins’ body was moved to the mortuary chapel of the Sisters of Charity at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin. Both Hazel and Lady Fingall visited the mortuary to pay respects. ‘Hazel wanted to wear widow’s weeds, but Daisy restrained her.’ Gogarty commented ‘We had Lady lavery ..full of confidences of Collins. Lady Fingall made her go home and leave the arena to Kitty Kiernan’. To preserve the reputation of Collins, the dead hero, who in the tradition of Irish patriots was to be more revered in death than in life, Hazel’s grief had to be concealed.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P99
John Lavery painted a small canvas of Collins lying in state. He later wrote ‘I was allowed to paint him in death, any grossness in his features, event he peculiar little dent near the point of his nose, had disapeared. He might have been Napoleon in marble as he lay in his uniform, covered by the Free State flag, with a crucific on his breast. Four soldiers stood around the bier.’
At midnight, Collins’ body was removed to City Hall to lie in state.
McCartan wrote to McGarrity: ‘Ireland’s greatest leader since Shane O’Neill has died at the hands of his own countrymen. He was not a clever politician but he had a big heart and a stout heart, as lovable as a chile, as light hearted as a boy and a generous and forgiving as a god…Had he returned (from the south ) I eblieve we’d have peace by the end of the week. He was to discuss terms with Father Magennis and myself this morning. Our intention after seeing him was to go south and find DeValera and get him to get all the Irregular officers together. We would have secured safe conducts from Collins for this. This is strictly confidential…Im afriad the national Army would not stand for such a peace at present. However we must all hope and work for the best. I’m really too sad and too sick to write. If all belonging to me were dead I’d not feel half so sad. Collins was Ireland’s one hope for he was not bitter or vindicitive.’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil Press 1972. P122
24
As Collins lay in state, thousands came to pay their last respects. Among those, were many British Army soldiers and officers, wearing black armbands.
25
Wiliam Thomas Cosgrave succeeded Collins as Chairman of the Provisional Government.
28
The funeral mass for Collins was held in the Pro-Cathederal, Dublin. John Lavery painted the requiem from the gallery. ‘At the memorial mass, the cathederal was crowded right out into the street, people kneeling on the steps’ was how Hazel described the ceremony.
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P91
The funeral procession wound it’s way through the city to Glasnevin and burial. The coffin was carried on a gun carriage, pulled by four black horses and escorted by thousands of Free State soldiers. Hundreds of wreaths were carried on military cars draped in black crepe but only one floral tribute was permitted on the tricolour draped coffin, a single white peace lily. It was from Kitty Kiernan.
The graveside oration was given by General Mulcahy:
‘Men and women of Ireland, we are all mariners on the deep, bound for a port still seen only through a storm and spray, sailing still on a sea ‘full of dangers and hardships and bitter toil’ but the Great Sleeper lies smiling in the stern of the boat, and we shall be filled with that spirit which will walk bravely upon the waters’
John Lavery’s grandaughter, Lady Sempill recalled being told:
‘As the crowd moved away, Hazel took her rosary beads and threw them on the grave. Sir John bent down and retrieved them, and handed them back to her. Once again, she threw them on the grave. Once more, Sir John picked them up and gave them back to her. ‘Listen’ he said ‘don’t you know the first person to come along will pick them up and go off with them?’ she put them back in her handbag. …they were made out of real pearls.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P100
29
Over the next few days, Hazel described ‘ a constant and daily pilgrimage to his grave at Glasnevin, and so many wreaths you cannot get within twenty feet of it.
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P100
The first radio Advert is broadcast in the US.
31
The end of a month that brought the loss of Boland, Griffith and Collins along with the loss of IRA strongholds of Dublin and provinces.
Judge Crowley of the Supreme Court recalled that he ‘was waylaid in O’Connell St…by two gunmen and locked up in Wellington Barracks for ten days. After that, thepublic were afraid to take any business to the Republican Courts.’
Diarmuid O’Cruadhlaoich ‘Step by Step. From the Republic back into the Empire. The Evolution of Eamonn de Valera’ No publisher details c.1935. Lynch Family Archives.
The disbandment of the RIC was completed. From the commencement on January 7th, a total of 13,502 officers and men ( including 1,158 members of the Auxilliaries ) left the force. The first members to be disbanded were the much hated, Auxilliaries and the last were those attached to Dublin Castle. On disbandment, each officer received a payment based on his total length of service plus 12 years with many receiving assistance in resettlement in Ireland, the UK and in locations as distant as China, Egypt, Australia and the US.
August 1922
1
Paudee O’Keefe became Deputy Military Govenor of Mountjoy Prison. Veteran of the GPO in 1916, Frongoch, Secretary of Sinn Fein in 1917 and sentenced to 18 months in Mountjoy in 1919, serving only 1 following an all out hunger strike. ‘described by Peadar O’Donnell as ‘a restless little man with a fine pair of eyes and a waspish tongue’ he did not command much respect ( at night, the prisoners would screech Paudeen’s name like a pack of cats) but he was like by almost all of the prisoners…generous to the prisoners when his situation allowed him, he tried to calm what was an often bitter athmosphere. Above everything else, Paudeen’s comments were legendary. After an escape tunnel was discovered, Paudeen gleefully announced ‘ntohing escapes from here, only gas’. When the interned prisoners were fed up keeping two prisoners hidden in their cells, the count of prisoners was curiously two up. Double checking the numbers, Paudeen approached their representative Andy Cooney and asked ‘Jaysus, Cooney, which of you had the twins?’
Tim Carey. ‘Mountjoy – The Story of a Prison’ The Collins Press, Dublin 2000.p200-1
2
Harry Boland (35) died in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin. Collins in a letter to Kitty Kiernan wrote on his former friend’s death ‘I’d send a wreath but I suppose they’d return it torn up.’
The Capital of the ‘Munster Republic’ stronghold remained under Anti-Treaty forces. The Provisional Government completed an outflanking deployment of troops by sea so that the stronghold of resistance in Cork and the south came under attack from two fronts.
A flurry of newspaper letters marked another episode in the Devoy – McGarrity feud. In December 1921, both McGarrity and Montague were formally expelled from Clan na Gael. In the Irish Indpendent a letter was published from Dr. Mccartan, P.S. Ohegarty and denis McCullogh in which they wrote:
‘It is not true to say that Mr.McGarrity was expelled by Clan na Gael. When Mr Boland went to America, he was Chairman of the Supreme Council of the IRB and his sverance of the connection between the home organisation and that wing of Clan na Gael which supported John Devoy and Judge Cohalan was based on the fact that that wing, led by Devoy and Cohalan, onstructed the work of President dv and of the Dail Eireann official mission to America.
This severance was concurred in and sanctioned by the Supreme Council of the IRB here, and Mr. McGarrity was asked to re-organise that wing of the organisation and work in harmony with the President and the Dail official mission. That organisation which the comminque represented as an authorised one is, therefore the only really authorised Clan na Gael in America’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil Press 1972. P100
Alexander Graham Bell, telephone inventor, dies.
3:
“Martin Manseragh, the historian and head of research for Fianna Fail, recalled that on this date, Collins wrote to Cosgrave “ I am forced to the conclusion we may have to fight the British in the northeast”. That candour was unusual, for behind the backs of Griffith and Cosgrave, he was arming the IRA in the North and he told them he would “use the political arm against [Sir James] Craig, so long as it is of use. If that fails, the Treaty can go to hell and we will all start again”. Manseragh noted that it was wishful thinking to present Collins as someone who had definitely decided that force vis-a-vis the North had had it's day. He repeated a report, recorded inUnionist histories of Northern Ireland, of how a Protestant deputation led by Archbishop Gregg went to see Collins and Griffith in the middle of 1922. They asked if Protestants were to be allowed to live in the Free State or if they should leave the country. Far from reassuring them, Collins pointed to the murders of Catholics in the North.
Manseragh also pointed out that Collins’s cultural ‘vision’ for Ireland was no different to that of De Valera. Collins asserted ‘We are now free in name. The extent to which we become free in fact and secure our freedom will be the estent to which we become Gaels again...we can fill our minds with Gaelic ideas and our lives with Gaelic customs until there is no room for any other...the most completely anglicised person in Ireland will look to Britain in vain.”
Vincent Browne. ‘The Dark Side of Collins, most devious dictator’ Sunday Times, March 9, 1997. p.15
Harry Boland was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
In Fermoy Barracks, De Valera was informed of Harry Boland’s death ‘ He felt it terribly – crushed and broken. He lost his most faithful friend’ as his faithful secretary, Kathleen O’Connell reported in her diary. Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.197
That night, the barracks were abandoned and burned.
4
Patrick McCartan wrote to McGarrity: ‘Harry was buried yesterday. The papers give the funeral little space. This day week he shall be entirely forgotten except by his poor mother. I sent a wreath from ‘Joe McGarrity Phila.’ I knew you would like to be represented in some way…it appears the hotel was surrounded and two men went to his room. They talked with him and reasoned with him for a while and he said he would resist arrest. One went off to get assistance and Harry jumped for the man who remained and tried to secure his revolver. In the scuffle, Harry was shot. I got that story on fairly reliable information and it may be true but no ‘official account’ has been published so that one remains suspicious…’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil Press 1972. P122
Musolini’s Fascists broke up the Communist led strike in Milan and re-captured the city.
5
The German theoretical physicist, Albert Einstien flees Germany after he is threatened by an extremist group.
Special Constable Samuel Hayes was in a public house on the Newtonards Road in Belfast, when a man being pursued by a crowd took refuge there. Two gunmen fired into the bar after the man, wounding two, including Hayes. He died later from wounds. He was the last police officer to die as a result of political violence during 1919-1922. Hayes was the last of 493 policemen to loose their lives from the first attack on a police patrol at Soloheadbeg on 21 January 1919.
7
The IRA blew up the telegraph cable station in Waterville, Co. Kerry, cutting off all US cables to Europe.
Ulster’s Minister of Education, Lord Londonderry commented on the difficulties of the Free State Ministers as evidence of Ireland’s unsuitedness for indepence: ‘I do not see Ireland deriving all the Imperial advantages and yet not being in the Empire…I cannot subscribe to the littleness of thought which evisages a tiny little island, speaking a language which no one understands, self-centered, proud, and unduly sensitive…’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P95
8
Jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, part of the great exodus of blacks from the southern to the northern U.S., leaves New Orleans to play jazz in Chicago with mentor King Oliver.
9
A new style of shop, a department store, opens in Dublin. It’s name? Clerys.
10
Sir Henry Wilson’s assasins, Reginald Dunne and Joseph O’Sullivan were executed in Wandsworth Prison. Both bodies were reinterred in Deansgrange Cemetery, Dublin, in May 1967.
Free State troops landed by sea at Passage West and entered Cork City, ending the city’s role as capital of the Munster Republic.
Vol. James Hudson, Dun Laoghaire, was killed in action in Glasthule on 10 August 1922. He is buried in the Republican Plot, Deansgrange Cemetery.
11
The last town held by the I.R.A fell as General Liam Lynch abandoned Fermoy. Government forces advanced further into Cork county. He directed that the remaining IRA forces should breakup into smaller ‘active service units’ modeled on the Flying Columns during the War of Independence. Gradually the Government forces moved in on remaining Anti-Treaty units in Munster. The belief amongst the I.R.A military staff was the success of the flying columns could be guaranteed against former comrades as it had against the British – with two vital exceptions – they did not have the full co-operation of the local population and the men they were fighting also knew both the column strategy and the country.
A Habeaus Corpus order was granted by Justice Crowley for the release of Sean T O’Kelly from Kilmainham Jail.
12
Arthur Griffith ‘left politics’ when he died in Dublin aged 51. His death was unexpected and ‘was a shock to every Irish man and woman who had learned from him the doctine of Sinn Fein. He had been suffering from overwork and strain and from a slight attack of tonsilities, and had gone as a patient to a nursing home. He seemed well and was leaving for his office when he fell forward unconcious. He died in a few hours.’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P777
Cork was captured by the Provisional Government forces.
13
De Valera heard of Griffith’s death, wrote’ he was, I believe, unselfishly patriotic – and courageously’
Sir John and Lady hazel Lavery arrived in Ireland on a social visit. Sinead McCoole in her research on Hazel found numerous tales on Collins’s love for her, amongst them being one she told Lord Longford ‘that Collins was so disillusioned and in love that he wanted her to run off to America with him. Hazel informed others that Collins had stopped his car outside the window of her room at the Royal Marine [ Hotel ]. She looked down at him, then at John asleep. Conscience stricken, she remained at the window, and the car eventually drove away.
Their contemporaries could only speculate about their relationship. Leslie compared Hazel to Madame recamier, a salon hostess with a cooterie of admirers, who had remained a virgin. Hazel’s daughter Alice stated:
‘My mother was always believed to have had an affair with Michael Collins. She never believed in affairs. She said ‘Affairs are such shabby things; all that sneaking about by the back stairs’. She was almost undersexed if you know what I mean, she had no interest. She liked things to be beautiful. Michael Collins was a very gallant hero’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P96
Bishop Fogarty commenting to Collins advised ‘Michael, you should be prepared – you might be next. Collins joked, ‘I hope nobody takes it into his head to die for another twelve months’
T.P.Coogan. ‘Michael Collins’. P399.
14
Arthur Griffith was buried. ‘Michael, you should be prepared – you might be next’ was what the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Michael Fogarty said to Collins at the funeral service.
That evening, Collins dined with the Laverys in the Royal Marine Hotel. John Lavery in his autobiography recounted how he had ‘learned from the night porter that a sniper lurking in the hotel grounds had been blocked from his target by Hazel seated at the window and unwittingly shielding Collins’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P97
Returning from his evning with the Laverys, his car was ambushed as Hazel recounted in a letter to Eddie Marsh:
‘The car that was ambushed had just been left by Michael as soemthing had gone wrong with the clutch and he jumped into a Ford car standing near, so his lucky life was spared again. He had been dinign with us at an hotel near Dublin and it happened on the way home – he rang us up from H.Q. at three in the morning to assure us of his safety because we had heard the ambush which wasn’t far from the hotel.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P98
Lord Northcliffe, the pioneer of popular newspapers died aged 57. He founded the Daily Mail in 1896 on his ‘one murder a day’ formula and stories of less than 250 words that had to be personally vetted.
17
The RIC is formally disbanded and replaced by the Civic Guard.
The newly formed Civic Guard Commissioner Michael Staines led a column representing his 1,500-strong force into Dublin Castle to set up his headquarters there. Some 300 men had been brought up to Dublin that morning from Kildare and Newbridge, to augment the 80 strong headquarters staff for the ceremony. Having moved from one temporary headquarters building to another over the previous months, Staines was finally to get a permanent home in the Castle, giving the event for him a practical as well as a symbolic significance. Early that morning the last of the Royal Irish Constabulary headquarters staff had departed the Castle, leaving it in the command of a detachment of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry. With an exchange of salutes Staines's column marched into the Lower Yard, the newness of his force apparent from the fact that only 60 of the 380 men in the column wore uniforms.
Collins spent the evening in Hazel Lavery’s company. Collins’ car was ambushed again, this time around 1a.m. near Belfield in Dublin. Hazel Lavery described the event to Shane Leslie: ‘the bullets passed through the glass. Collins took her by the neck and pushed her into the well of the car. The newspaper accounts was less romantic.’
Shane Leslie Diaries quoted by Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P91
The newspapers reported matter of factly that: ‘A bomb was thrown at it, followed by rifle and revolver fire…General Collins was not in the car. The driver and the others returned the fire…’
US: Federal agents begin a crackdown on now illegal hip flasks.
Austin Stack wrote to McGarrity on events at home and on the inquest into Harry Boland’s death:
‘My God, ‘tis terrible. Those fellows are conducting themselves worse that the Black and Tans have ever done. It is a hard thing to sat but ‘tis true. The men who stand by the Republican ideal are going to be exterminated if it can be done. So guilty are the consiences of the Free State leaders now that they must be small, mean, cruel and tyrannical…I have just read this moment a report of the ‘inquest’ on poor Harry. A partisan coroner and a picked jury refused to investigate the cause of death – how he was wounded and so on. At the dictation of the Free State representative the jury brought in a verdict on the medical testimony only. This cloaking up of the matter is likely to do them more harm than good. But what is it all going to lead to. We are heartbroken at the ,oss of Cathal and Harry and many another must go down ere we wee the end. My God, if Collins had an ounce of real patriotism, he would have thrown up his cursed ‘Treaty’ long ago whern he saw it could not produce peace. Or even if he had insisted upon an acceptable form on Constitution. He had the choice between keeping his pact with us or his pact with England – of fighting England ( if England would fight ) or fighting our people – and he chose to break with and murder his own formber comrades. God’s blessing cannot be on such deeds – no matter what Bishops say. And Irish history shows that Irish bishops have always been wrong in national matters. But we can remain catholics without the bishops and we will. Brugha’s remains were refused at two churches. So were Harry’s, I have just heard, but this has not been confirmed so far. Our men in Mountjoy jail have been refused absolution unless they promsise not to fight further against this so called Government. And so history repeats itself. It is six hundred years almost since the Irish who took up arms to drive the ursurper out and to make Edward Bruce king were excomunicated by Rome ( I wonder how P.S. O’Hegarty likes his new company )… The Clan should range itself up definietly on the side of the IRA and be prepared to help us in every way possible. Work should be begun at once – money raised and so on…the fight here is bound to last some time - perhaps months, perhaps a year or two. There will be no ‘going into the Empire with out heads up’ anyhow. Ley us hope John Bull takes a more open part in the game and sends along troops from England. That day will see all good irishmen on our side and win we shall. May we live to see it – but if it be God’s will we shall be proud to die to bring it soon – just as Cathal and Harry…’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil, Kerry. 1972. P122
18
John Devoy’s letter to the Irish Independent was published in which he confirmed that both McGarrity and Montague had been formally expelled from the Clan na Gael. ‘Except in Philadelphia and San Francisco, the ‘re-organised Clan na Gael ‘ had little success’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil Press 1972. P99
Collins spent his last evening in Dublin in Hazel Lavery’s company.
19
Collins went to confession in a Greystones, Co Wicklow church.
Collins and Hazel Lavery traveled to the 90 acre Kilteragh, Foxrock, Co. Dublin estate of Sir Horace Plunkett where they dined amongst such august company as George Bernard Shaw, Daisy Fingall and Lennox Robinson.
‘Lady Gregory received a letter from Lennox Robinson describing the event and noted in her diary: ‘Collins is safe…and dined at Kilteragh on Saturday, he came in Lady Lavery’s train, or rather she in his for she is his abject admirer.’…Daisy Fingall found the evening quiet, almost dull and later wrote ‘Collins was not at all an eloquent man’. The guests left early as later that evening, Collins was leaving Dublin with Emmet Dalton on a tour of duty in Cork.
Sir Horace wrote in his diary: ‘I fear he is too careless with his life. His car was bombed only yesterday when, luckily, he was not in it.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P98
Sir John Lavery recounted in his autobiography that Hazel was aprhensive for his safety. ‘Hazel was pale with excitement and woke up screaming once or twice that night. Next day she was strange and silent…she had fearful premonitions…’All day I have been seeing them carrying Michael covered in blood…’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P98
20
Collins in a military convoy left Portobello Barracks, oficially making an inspection tour of the Midlands and south, but in reality making a secret and last ditch effort to halt the Civil War. He already had made contact with neutral IRA officers. In Portlaoishe, he met with some of the imprisoned IRA leaders but left after an hour when they refused to discuss any terms with him. According to later eye-witnesses, Collins was suffering from a heavy cold and kidney infection and was in constant pain. He was also edgy. Watching his men remove a bridge obstruction at Killmallock, a local man took a souvenir snapshot, the click of the camera shutter making Collins reach instictivly for his revolver. ‘The poor man is in a hurry to meet his death’ said the Archdeacon of Mallow to a member of Collins convoy en-route to Cork.
21
After inspecting the Free State garrison at Newcastlewest, he travelled southeast to Macroom where he began talks with neutral IRA officers and then towards Mallow. Later that evening he arrived at the Imperial Hotel in Cork’s South Mall. Emmet Dalton, head of the Free State troops in the city expressed concern that Collins was there ‘I knew how boysih he was, and the warmth and extent of his heart. He had a devout love for the people in Cork. I told him he was taking an un-necessary risk being there and he said, jocosely ‘Surely they wont shoot me in my own county?’
Collins also met with his sister and nephew, Sean Collina-Powell, a Quartermaster Sergeant in the Free State Army. They met outside the hotel and went in for tea. Two young soldiers sitting side by side in the foyer, leaning against each other half asleep but suposedly on guard duty, were spotted by Collins. He banged their heads together and walked on.
‘He was a bit tired at that meeting’ Collins-Powell said ‘Of course, he had a very severe cold bordering on pleurist, but he was in reasonably good form. He was a very serious fellow and didn’t waste time talking about himself’
22
Collins and his convoy of a scout on a motor cycle, a yellow Leyland Thomas touring car lent by a well wisher, Crossley tender with Lewis gun and eight riflemen accompanied by a Rolly Royce Whippet armoured car ‘Slievenamon’ carrying an officer and four men left Cork city at 6.15am. The comvoy travelled again to Macroom.
Later in the day, following this meeting, the convoy travelled to Bandon via the tiny crossroads village of Bealnablath. Unknown to Free State forces, senior irregular leaders were meeting in a farmhouse overlooking the village. The officer in charge was Brigade Commander Tom Hales who on hearing Collins was in the area, organised an ambush. A beer bottle collection cart was comandeered and placed across the road some 750 meters on the Bandon side of the Bealnablath crossroads. In front of this, a 30mm long mine containing 3kgs of explosives was buried beneath the surface of the dirt road and connected to a detonating plunger on higher ground. 22 riflemen were placed in position overlooking the road to wait for the possible passing of the convoy.
Collins and convoy had continued onto Bandon and Clonakilty for lunch, then traveled to Roscarbery and Sam’s Cross for a meeting with his relatives. There Collins told an officer that he was going to ‘put an end to this bloody war’. From Sam’s Cross he travelled to Skibereen where he had more talks and left around 5pm to return to Bandon for dinner. There he had a detailed briefing with Major General Sean Hales.
From Bandon, they moved on through the countryside, back towards Bealnablath and the waiting irregular ambush party. Leading the group on the motorcyle was scout Lieutenant Smith, followed by the Crossley tender of riflemen, the open yellow touring car and armoured car taking up the rear. Aboard the car were Collins and Emmet Dalton. As soon as the convoy had passed through, the irrgulars opened fire, Emmet Dalton ordered the driver and convoy to ‘Drive like Hell’ but Collins countermanded it to stop and fight. All four men jumped from the car and took up firing positions behind a low bank bordering the road. Smith in the meantime had raced up on his motorcycle followed by the lorry. At the barricade, irregulars fired on him as he retreated up the lane, bullets hitting his hands and forcing him to ditch the bike. He then waved warninsg to the lorry and the gunners opened fire on the retreating irregulars and rifelmen jumped down forming two groups. The first moved to the barricade to remove it while the second gave covering fire. The irregulars ran along the overlooking lane, firing intermittantly at the men below. After a few minutes, the first group of Free State Troops had moved the barricade and were moving back up the lane, pushing the irregulars towards the Collins party. The armoured car now reversed so as to get a better line of fire as Lieutenant Smith and Commandant O’Connell made their way back along the road to inform Collins and Dalton that the road was clear if they wanted to leave.
Meanwhile, on a sloping hillside to the right of the Free State men, three separate and unconnected groups of Irreugulars joined the battle. The first, led by Mike Donoghue of Glenfesk, Co. Kerry was making its way home after loosing Cork city to Free State forces and was drawn to the hillside by the sound of gunfire. Another two Irregulars in the area, also hearing the gunfire, made their way to the area At the Bandon end, yet another group returning from Waterford, joined in.
The armoured car’s machine gun was having problems – jamming several times. An inexperienced officer had made a mess of loading the ammunition belt and this caused repeated stoppages. During one of these lulls, the pinned down Irregulars moved further down the lane. Collins saw their movement, and leaving Dalton and the protection of the roadside bank, moved around the bend to fire from the cover of the armoured car. When the irreulars moved again, Collins moved from the armoured car to the centre of the road where standing upright, he fired from his revolver.
Further up the lane, Dennis ‘Sonny’ O’Neill was situated in a covering fire position and spotting the single officer standing upright and open, aimed his Lee Enfield rifle and shot Collins through the head. The bullet entering on the hairline and passing through his brain to exit explosively behind his right ear. He fell face down on the road.
Shortly after this, the Irregulars in the area had stopped firing and started to escape. Dalton, O’Connell and Smith rounded the bend to seek out their Chief of Staff. There they found Collins with a huge gaping wound and beyond al help. Dalton lifted his head and applied a field dressing while Sean O’Connell kneeled beside him and whispered an Act of Contrition in his ear. Michael Collins was dead. He was just 31. ( Sonny O’Neill lived until 1950 )
Collins body was lifted into the car, his head resting on Dalton’s shoulder as the convoy resumed it’s journey to Cork city. Because of blown bridges and blocked roads, the journey took many hours and did not reach the city until the early hours of the morning. His body was laid out in a small top corner room of the Shanakiel Hospital and Dalton telegraphed Army HQ in Dublin that ‘Commander in Chief shot dead in ambush’.
‘ The death of Collins…was a great public tragedy – indeed the only public tragedy – of the Civil War…only Collins might, just possibly, have signficantly influenced the course of history…though buffeted by many contrary winds, and failing to reconcile the irreconcilable, his performance as a political tactician was at least as able as de Valera’s…Collins final speeches..suggest an ambition, unique among his colleagues in the Provisional Government, to create not only a new state but a new society. He professed to seek a country distinguished by social justice, economic efficiency, cultural achivement and political tolerance…he scoffed at de Valera’s belief that the people must be kept poor to nurture their idealism…he wanted to expand educationl opportunity, to expropriate ranchers and urban land speculators, to embark on massive housing schemes to abolish the hideous urban slums, to harness the Shannon for electricity, to industrialise rapidly, to implement worker particiaption in management, and to generally foster a flourishing economy in the hope that a ‘propseprous Ireland will mean a united Ireland… On the day he died he had no need to stop to fight at the ambush site, but he dismissed advice to drive on, behaving more like a cowboy than a head of Government…his unrivalled combination of ability, energy, vision and magnaminity meant that his survival might, just concievably, have made a difference to the performance of the new state. Collins death removed the main conciliating influence in the cabinet and inevitably hardened the resolve of the survivors.’
Prof. J.J.Lee. ‘Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society’. Cambridge University Press. 1989. P65-66
General Richard Mulcahy, Chief of Staff of the Free State Army on the news of Collins death, issued a statement to the army:
‘Stand calmly by your posts. Bend bravely and undaunted to your work, let no cruel act of reprisal blemish your bright honour. You are each inheritors of Michael Collins’ strength, bravery and unfinished work’
Griffith and Collins were succeeded by Cosgrave and O'Higgins, who were determined to enforce a policy of law and order and to stamp out what they regarded as a soldierly resistance movement but criminal subversion. Collins had seen the struggle as a tragic conflict of former comrades; Cosgrave and O'Higgins saw it as a clash between civil law and gun law.
Initially, a conspiracy was suspected in the death of Collins. Was he murdered? Pro-Treaty authorities investigated but could find no supporting information. The identity of the killer became one of the better kept secrets.
One of the first actions of the Government after Collin’s death and the election of William Cosgrave as Taoiseach was to annul Collins’s suspension of the Dail and announce the meeting of the 3rd Dail for August 24th.
Collins’s legagcy, in the opininion of Vincent Browne was that he had left ‘ a legagcy of conspiratorial politics and revoloutionary insititutions in what aspired to be a consitutional democracy... In his murder, Ireland lost a leader of great energy and determination. But energy and determination can be liabilities, if allied to deviousness and ruthlessness. There is reason to believe that Collins’s character was a composite of that poisonous cocktail’
Vincent Browne. ‘The Dark Side of Collins, most devious dictator’ Sunday Times, March 9, 1997. p.15
23
Hazel Lavery was woken in the Royal Marine Hotel with the news ‘They have shot Mr Collins, my lady’. She went to Plunkett’s home where Daisy Fingall later recalled that Hazel told them ‘I knew it before I saw the papers. I had seen him in a dream, his face covered with blood’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P91
Michael Collins
from The Irish Times 23 August 1922
As we go to press we learn that General Michael Collins, Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Army, and Chairman of the Provisional Government, has been wounded fatally in an ambush in County Cork. The Irish nation will be shocked beyond measure at this awful news. General Collins stood for stable government and the restoration of civilised conditions to our distracted country. He applied all his abundant energy to the performance of the task to which he set his hand last December, when he signed the Treaty with the British Government in London, and his courage and sincerity rallied round him all the best and sanest elements in Irish life. His death is a disaster for Ireland. Irishmen the world over will mourn him, and will sink their heads in shame at the deep damnation of his taking-off. That he should have met his tragic end at Irish hands is the darkest feature of this national calamity. He dared much and suffered much for the ideal to which he devoted his life and in the achievement of which he played such a decisive part. Like his friend and teacher, Arthur Griffith, General Collins was a firm believer in the destiny of the Irish people and in its fulfilment through the medium of the London Treaty. He has fallen now within sight of the goal towards which he strove with such tenacity of purpose, but his death will serve only to strengthen the resolve of the Irish people that his work shall be carried to complete success.
General Collins dead
from The Irish Times 23 August 1922
The Late Commander-in-Chief
We much regret to announce the death of General Michael Collins, Commander-in-Chief of the National Army, which occurred yesterday under the circumstances related above …
We print below a character sketch of General Collins by 'Nichevo,' which appeared under the heading 'Irishmen of Today,' in The Irish Times of 1 April.
One day, about eighteen months ago, I was sitting with a friend in a Dublin restaurant. He was one of those people who seem to know everything and to be hail-fellow-well-met with everybody from Davy Stephens to the Lord Chancellor of England. We were talking politics, of course, when suddenly I noticed that my companion had turned very pale. 'Don't look round yet,' he said beneath his breath, 'Michael Collins has just come in.' I must confess that my heart promptly took refuge in my boots; but curiosity is generally stronger even than fear, and I could not resist the temptation to have a look at the elusive 'Mike'. The man to whom my friend referred was small, thin, with mouse-coloured hair, and looked rather like a jockey. What he lacked in physique, however, he made up in facial ferocity, for a more villainous looking individual I never saw. 'Are you sure that he is Collins?' I asked in doubt. 'Of course,' he replied jauntily, 'don't I know him well?'
For nearly a year, therefore, I guarded the guilty secret of having been within touching distance of the most badly 'wanted' man in Ireland; but I might have known my friend the quidnunc better. The man was no more Michael Collins than I was.
I discovered the fraud last August, when Dáil Éireann met in the Mansion House to discuss Mr Lloyd George's invitation to a conference. I scanned the assembly in vain for the gentleman of the restaurant. None of the members resembled him in the very least, and I was just beginning to be afraid that Mr Collins was a myth after all, when the Clerk of the House began to call the roll. 'Míceál î Coilean' was the first name on the list, and I knew enough Irish - but just enough - for that. There was the famous 'Mick,' sed quantum mutatus ab illo! Here was no emaciated little jockey-man, furtive of eye, and hang-dog of look. A big, burly, broad-shouldered individual with a shock of pitch-black hair and a broad smile, walked across the floor and signed the register. All my preconceived ideas were shattered. I could not have been more completely taken aback if the Moderator of the General Assembly had answered to that name ...
Liam Lynch, Chief of Staff of the IRA, compliemnted his colleagues in the 1st Southern Division on the action in Bealnablath but added ‘Nothing could bring home more forcefully the awful, unfortunate national situation at present that the fact that it has become necessary of Irishmen and former comrades to shoot such men as M. Collins’
de Valera, leaving the area where Collins was shot, mumbled to himself in distress ‘I told them not to do it, even pleaded with them, but they wouldn’t listen to me, and now what will become of us all.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.67
When news of the death reached Kilmainham Jail, a thousand IRA prisoners spontaounsly knelt and recited the rosary for the soul of Michael Collins.
The same day, the uniformed body of the Commander in Chief was brought to Dublin by ship. There it was embalmed by Dr. Oliver StJohn Gogarty who confirmed cause of death were two bullet wounds to the head, entry and exit points.
Collins’ body was moved to the mortuary chapel of the Sisters of Charity at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin. Both Hazel and Lady Fingall visited the mortuary to pay respects. ‘Hazel wanted to wear widow’s weeds, but Daisy restrained her.’ Gogarty commented ‘We had Lady lavery ..full of confidences of Collins. Lady Fingall made her go home and leave the arena to Kitty Kiernan’. To preserve the reputation of Collins, the dead hero, who in the tradition of Irish patriots was to be more revered in death than in life, Hazel’s grief had to be concealed.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P99
John Lavery painted a small canvas of Collins lying in state. He later wrote ‘I was allowed to paint him in death, any grossness in his features, event he peculiar little dent near the point of his nose, had disapeared. He might have been Napoleon in marble as he lay in his uniform, covered by the Free State flag, with a crucific on his breast. Four soldiers stood around the bier.’
At midnight, Collins’ body was removed to City Hall to lie in state.
McCartan wrote to McGarrity: ‘Ireland’s greatest leader since Shane O’Neill has died at the hands of his own countrymen. He was not a clever politician but he had a big heart and a stout heart, as lovable as a chile, as light hearted as a boy and a generous and forgiving as a god…Had he returned (from the south ) I eblieve we’d have peace by the end of the week. He was to discuss terms with Father Magennis and myself this morning. Our intention after seeing him was to go south and find DeValera and get him to get all the Irregular officers together. We would have secured safe conducts from Collins for this. This is strictly confidential…Im afriad the national Army would not stand for such a peace at present. However we must all hope and work for the best. I’m really too sad and too sick to write. If all belonging to me were dead I’d not feel half so sad. Collins was Ireland’s one hope for he was not bitter or vindicitive.’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil Press 1972. P122
24
As Collins lay in state, thousands came to pay their last respects. Among those, were many British Army soldiers and officers, wearing black armbands.
25
Wiliam Thomas Cosgrave succeeded Collins as Chairman of the Provisional Government.
28
The funeral mass for Collins was held in the Pro-Cathederal, Dublin. John Lavery painted the requiem from the gallery. ‘At the memorial mass, the cathederal was crowded right out into the street, people kneeling on the steps’ was how Hazel described the ceremony.
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P91
The funeral procession wound it’s way through the city to Glasnevin and burial. The coffin was carried on a gun carriage, pulled by four black horses and escorted by thousands of Free State soldiers. Hundreds of wreaths were carried on military cars draped in black crepe but only one floral tribute was permitted on the tricolour draped coffin, a single white peace lily. It was from Kitty Kiernan.
The graveside oration was given by General Mulcahy:
‘Men and women of Ireland, we are all mariners on the deep, bound for a port still seen only through a storm and spray, sailing still on a sea ‘full of dangers and hardships and bitter toil’ but the Great Sleeper lies smiling in the stern of the boat, and we shall be filled with that spirit which will walk bravely upon the waters’
John Lavery’s grandaughter, Lady Sempill recalled being told:
‘As the crowd moved away, Hazel took her rosary beads and threw them on the grave. Sir John bent down and retrieved them, and handed them back to her. Once again, she threw them on the grave. Once more, Sir John picked them up and gave them back to her. ‘Listen’ he said ‘don’t you know the first person to come along will pick them up and go off with them?’ she put them back in her handbag. …they were made out of real pearls.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P100
29
Over the next few days, Hazel described ‘ a constant and daily pilgrimage to his grave at Glasnevin, and so many wreaths you cannot get within twenty feet of it.
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P100
The first radio Advert is broadcast in the US.
31
The end of a month that brought the loss of Boland, Griffith and Collins along with the loss of IRA strongholds of Dublin and provinces.
Judge Crowley of the Supreme Court recalled that he ‘was waylaid in O’Connell St…by two gunmen and locked up in Wellington Barracks for ten days. After that, thepublic were afraid to take any business to the Republican Courts.’
Diarmuid O’Cruadhlaoich ‘Step by Step. From the Republic back into the Empire. The Evolution of Eamonn de Valera’ No publisher details c.1935. Lynch Family Archives.
The disbandment of the RIC was completed. From the commencement on January 7th, a total of 13,502 officers and men ( including 1,158 members of the Auxilliaries ) left the force. The first members to be disbanded were the much hated, Auxilliaries and the last were those attached to Dublin Castle. On disbandment, each officer received a payment based on his total length of service plus 12 years with many receiving assistance in resettlement in Ireland, the UK and in locations as distant as China, Egypt, Australia and the US.
September 1922
1
Rev Jeremiah Cohalan, Canon of Bandon, Co Cork ‘The day Michael Collins was shot, where was de Valera? Ask the people of Beal na Blath and they will tell you. There was a scowling face at a window looking out over that lovely valley and de Valera could tell you who it was.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.67
Denis McCullough in a letter to the Irish Independent continued the Devoy-McGarrity discussion saying that McGarrity was acting in the IRB interests when he moved against Devoy and those associated with him. ‘He did not wish to say anything to hurt or injure Devoy, for whom he had the highest regard. But he wanted to prevent ‘any misunderstanding’ of McGarrity’s actions ‘in a certain crisis in America’…’Joe McGarrity in his compartively short span of life as an exile in America has done at least as much in his own sphere and has made as great sacrifices for the Irish cause in America as John Devoy or any other living man. Furthermore most of the friends of John Devoy whom I have met in America had quite a high opinion of the honesty and patriotism of Joe McGarrity as we have, thought they are utterly opposed to him in his recent political actions’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil Press 1972. P101
5
US: The first coast to coast flight took place taking 21 hours and 19 minutes by James Doolittle.
Shane Leslie commenting in a letter to Iris Leslie on a letter found with Michael Collins after he died at Beal na mBlath, that it was "...returned to Hazel Lavery to whom they were written about a picture painted by John Lavery (burnt in parts by fire)."
Sir Shane Leslie Archives. University of Maryland Internet Archives. Box: 11 Fold: 20 Hazel Lavery. June 1997.
Amongst other items Collins had with him when he died were ‘ a section of a letter from Hazel, the Leslie letter on ‘Rose and Grey’, a lock of Hazel’s hair and a ruby brooch which he kept in his scapular case. The only complete document was a short letter written on a scrap of paper ripped from his notebook address to:
Hazel dearest
Hazel, my dear dear hazel
I too wish it was ‘tomorrow’
With all my love
Yours M.
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P100
McCoole comments that many historians have consistently protrayed Hazel’s relationship with Collins as a figment of an over active imagination. Terence deVere White as an example:
‘Lady Lavery developed a romantic attachment to Michael Collins which was notorious. Rumour gave a colour and exageration – and Lady Lavery, it must be confessed gave rumour wings – to what was after all, a fancy on her part. Collins was unaware.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P105
However, her vanity ran deep as Shane Leslie commented: ‘Hazel was proud of the letters and carried them about…and was inclined to show Collins love for her…she showed mens letters to each other….’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P105
8
De Valera met with the Provisional Government Commander in Chief of Free State Forces, General Mulcahy at the home of Dr. Farnan in Merrion Square. Little resulted from the meeting. De Valera felt that the growing international crisis between Britain and Turkey offered an opportunity to revise the Treaty if the Irish were united.
[ This event, becoming known as the Chanak Crisis resulted from the Greek-Turkish war and Mustapha Kemal’s intention of carrying the war into European territories assigned to Greece at the Peace conference in 1919. London feared that Turkish forces would also attack Allied occupation forces guarding the approaches to Istanbul, ordered reinforcement of the British forces at Chanak and virtually brought Britain to the brink of war. Agreement was reached between Britain and Turkey in October,, but led to the disintegration and eventual resignation of Lloyd George from Government ]
9
There was intense public interest as the Third Dail Eireann Assembly gathered at Leinster House. Would the 34 Republican deputies elected arrive or not? The Provisional Government assembled and all deputies present were asked to sign the roll. None of the Republican Deputies attended, implementing the abstentsionist policy. W.T. Cosgrave was elected President of the Executive Council of the Free State and began to name his ministry.
President and Minister for Finance: W.T.Cosgrave
External Affairs Desmond Fitzgerald
Local Government Ernest Blyth
Agriculture Patrick Hogan
Labour, Industry & Commerce Joseph McGrath
Postmaster General J.J.Walsh
Education Eoin MacNeill
Home Affairs & Justice Kevin O’Higgins
Defence Richard Mulcahy
Ministers without portfolios E.J.Duggan and Finian Lynch
The only effective opposition to the Government was that of the 17 seat Labour Party, certainly no effective opposition to the 56 seat Treaty party. The 7 representatives of the Farmer’s Party and 6 Indpendents all declared solidly for the Treaty.
Cosgrave announced that it was his intention to implement the Treaty, enact a Constitution and to assert the authority and supremacy of the Irish Free State Parliament. ‘The nation which has struggled so long against the most powerful aggression will not submit to an armed minority which makes war upon it's liberties, it's institutions, it's representation and it's honour;’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.68
Kevin O’Higgins, the newly appointed Minister for Justice & Home Affairs ‘We had very good reasons for to believe that [ by attacking the Four Courts ] we anticipated by a couple of hours the creation of conditions…which would have brought back the British power – horse, foot, artillery and navy.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.68
Cathal O’Shannon, as Labour Party Chairman complained in Dail Eireann on the mistreatment of prisoners: ‘There is not a county in the 26 counties, there is not a barracks or jail out of which has not come information which is a disgrace to any Irish Government.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.68
De Valera denounced the Government as a ‘junta using British powers, not Irish, and acting in an arbitary and irresponsible manner. Its whole assumption of power represented an usurpation. Once again he added that it broke Irish law by not abiding by the pact which had been ratified by a decree of Dail Eireann’
Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.200
Judges that declined to recognise the Provisional Government did not have their contacts renewed.
11
Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) abolished proportional representation for local elections and requires a declaration of allegiance from persons elected to or working for local authorities.
12
The I.R.A retook Ballina from Free State troops and after re-arming, the force left and returned to the hills.
15
An appeal for write of habeaus corpus by some of the prisoners held by the Free State came before the Lord Chief Justice in Dublin.The Adjutant General of the Army claimed that the state of the country justified their detention which in turn raised the legal question as to whether the Defence of the Realm Act was the existing law and whether or not the country was technically in a state of war. The Lord Chief Justice ruled that ‘A state of war and rebellion does exist which justifies the application of martial law by the duly constituted Government of the country’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P787
Judge Cohalan writing to Bishop William Turner of Buffalo:
‘…in common with all right thinking persons, I am grieved beyond measure at the intimely death of Michael Collins. The shock was felt throughout the world. Such occurrences deal a serious wound to the moral character of the Irish people limitless in its effects... may I recall to your mind the Park Avenue Hotel Conference in New York in 1920? What transpired in that meeting enabled you, with others, to scrutinise closely the traits and tendenancies of the central figures therein. How much like the conduct of Eamon De Valera on that occasion have been his actions since his return to Ireland. Crimination seldom serves to advance a cause. One’s self respect constrains its use except in rare instances.
Judge Cohalan went on to comment on the Treaty and it’s provisions:
‘..no one who has read the Treaty provisions can fail to note its many serious limitations on Irish soverenigty and independence. The separation of the country into two parts as well as the veto power vested in the Governor General to be appointed thereunder evokes the disaproval of the advocates of Irish Independence. Neverthless and notwithstanding, these provisions among others, the people of Ireland have decidedly expressed their approval of the plan as a whole. The fact seems to make it imperative for us who have been and who ocntinue to be interested in Irish matters, to revitalise and reconsolidate our friends in America in order to aid the people of Ireland in their advance to the goal of a real Irish Republic’.
Tansill. ‘American and the Fight for Irish Freedom 1865-1922’. Devin-Adair. New York 1957. P439-440
The German Chancellor declares ‘Bread first, reparations second’ as economic difficulties continue to plague Germany.
“Murder of the decade:" The Reverend Edward Wheeler Hall and his church choir leader Mrs. James Mills are found murdered at an abandoned farm in New Brunswick, N.J. The case, drenched in suggestions of adultery and innuendo, was the tabloid story of the decade. After no killer was found, a tabloid in 1926 got the case reopened with spurious evidence implicating the reverend's wife and two brothers. The sensational trial of the three was full of melodrama and histrionics, including an incapacitated witness ("The Pig Woman") carried into the courtroom on a stretcher (and who proved surprisingly animated during testimony), but the defendants were found innocent.
17
Hazel Lavery, in deep mourning wrote Marie Bellow Lowdnes ‘I saw him the very last hour when he started for Cork on that Sunday early morning. He came back two days later dead on the same ship which had carried him living and so vigorously confident…never was there a more starnge and romantic and fatal a story. It could only take place in Ireland….and alas! Thinking more than is good for me of that tragic Ireland, and what it has cost us all.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P100
18
Cosgrave introduced the Constitution Bill to enact a constitution for Saorstat Eireann to implemt the Anglo-Irish Treaty and steered through the Dail by Kevin O’Higgins. The Bill contained 2 schedules, Number 1 contained 79 articles and Schedule 2 contatiend the Treaty. Article 1 declared that the Irish Free State was an equal member of the British Commonwealth with legislation through the Oireachtas, consisting of the King, Dail Eireann and the Senate. Article 12 vested the ‘Sole and exclusive’ power of law making to the Oirechtas and with Executive Authority vested in the King. The affairs of state were to be managed by the Executive Council responsible to the Dail and consisting of ministers appointed by the representative of the Crown and the Govenor General. The Constitution came into existance on December 6th 1922 and survived until replaced by the 1937 Constitution by de Valera.
20
Debates on the Constitution Bill.
In Sligo, 5 Anti-Treaty volunteers were killed after surrender including Divisional Adjutant Brian MacNeill, son of Eoin MacNeill the Minister for Education.
21
Dail Eireann approves the constitution of the Free State.
On the same day, women were permitted to vote in all Irish elections on the same terms as men.
A draconian tariff act, the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act, is passed in the U.S. for many imported goods
22
F. Scott Fitzgerald's second short story collection, Tales of the Jazz Age published.
24
Bishop Cohalan of Cork in a pastoral letter read in all the dioscese churches that ‘the killing of National soldiers is murder’ and that Priests were under no obligation to grant absoloution to any anti-Government volunteers.
27
General Mulchay requested certain emergency powers for the Free State army, allowing the establishment of secret military courts with the power to try those charged with aiding or abetting an attack on National forces, damaging property, being in un-authorised possesion of arms or ammunition or comitting a breach of any general order or regulation made by the army authorities. The punishment for such crimes would be at the discretion of the court and would include fine, imprisonment, deportation or death.
The Labour Party opposed the emergency powers on the grounds that it would lead to the establishment of a military dictatorship.
Kevin O’Higgins in a speech supporting the emergency powers, ominously warned one individual in particular:
‘The life of this country is menaced economically…I do know that the able Englishman who is leading those who are opposed to this Government has his eye quite definitely on one objective, and that is the complete breakdown of the economic and social fabric, so that this thing that is trying so hard to be an Irish nation will go down in chaos, anarchy and futility. Hi programme is a negative programme, a puerly destructive programme…he keeps steadily, callously and ghoulishly at his career of striking at the heart of this nation…’ When asked who he wask referring to he replied: ‘ I am now referring to the Englishman, Erskine Childers.’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P804
Cosgrave stated ‘We are not going to treat rebels as prisoners of war.’
The emergency power proposal was carried 47 votes to 15.
General Eoin O’Duffy ( 1892-1944 ) was appointed as first Commisioner of the Gardai Siochana. He promoted the concept of an un-armed police force and ‘showed tremendous energy’ in his position. However, over the following years he became publicly associated with Liam Cosgrave’s Cumman na nGaedheal and was strongly suspected of not being impartial by de Valera and Fianna Fail.
Peace moves between pro and anti-Treaty forces collapsed.
Liam Mellows, still imprisoned in Mountjoy wrote his ‘Notes from Mountjoy; which appeared in the Irish Independt. He called for the defence of the republic and urged the establishment of a civilian republican government to counter the provisonal government.
September 1922
1
Rev Jeremiah Cohalan, Canon of Bandon, Co Cork ‘The day Michael Collins was shot, where was de Valera? Ask the people of Beal na Blath and they will tell you. There was a scowling face at a window looking out over that lovely valley and de Valera could tell you who it was.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.67
Denis McCullough in a letter to the Irish Independent continued the Devoy-McGarrity discussion saying that McGarrity was acting in the IRB interests when he moved against Devoy and those associated with him. ‘He did not wish to say anything to hurt or injure Devoy, for whom he had the highest regard. But he wanted to prevent ‘any misunderstanding’ of McGarrity’s actions ‘in a certain crisis in America’…’Joe McGarrity in his compartively short span of life as an exile in America has done at least as much in his own sphere and has made as great sacrifices for the Irish cause in America as John Devoy or any other living man. Furthermore most of the friends of John Devoy whom I have met in America had quite a high opinion of the honesty and patriotism of Joe McGarrity as we have, thought they are utterly opposed to him in his recent political actions’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’ Anvil Press 1972. P101
5
US: The first coast to coast flight took place taking 21 hours and 19 minutes by James Doolittle.
Shane Leslie commenting in a letter to Iris Leslie on a letter found with Michael Collins after he died at Beal na mBlath, that it was "...returned to Hazel Lavery to whom they were written about a picture painted by John Lavery (burnt in parts by fire)."
Sir Shane Leslie Archives. University of Maryland Internet Archives. Box: 11 Fold: 20 Hazel Lavery. June 1997.
Amongst other items Collins had with him when he died were ‘ a section of a letter from Hazel, the Leslie letter on ‘Rose and Grey’, a lock of Hazel’s hair and a ruby brooch which he kept in his scapular case. The only complete document was a short letter written on a scrap of paper ripped from his notebook address to:
Hazel dearest
Hazel, my dear dear hazel
I too wish it was ‘tomorrow’
With all my love
Yours M.
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P100
McCoole comments that many historians have consistently protrayed Hazel’s relationship with Collins as a figment of an over active imagination. Terence deVere White as an example:
‘Lady Lavery developed a romantic attachment to Michael Collins which was notorious. Rumour gave a colour and exageration – and Lady Lavery, it must be confessed gave rumour wings – to what was after all, a fancy on her part. Collins was unaware.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P105
However, her vanity ran deep as Shane Leslie commented: ‘Hazel was proud of the letters and carried them about…and was inclined to show Collins love for her…she showed mens letters to each other….’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P105
8
De Valera met with the Provisional Government Commander in Chief of Free State Forces, General Mulcahy at the home of Dr. Farnan in Merrion Square. Little resulted from the meeting. De Valera felt that the growing international crisis between Britain and Turkey offered an opportunity to revise the Treaty if the Irish were united.
[ This event, becoming known as the Chanak Crisis resulted from the Greek-Turkish war and Mustapha Kemal’s intention of carrying the war into European territories assigned to Greece at the Peace conference in 1919. London feared that Turkish forces would also attack Allied occupation forces guarding the approaches to Istanbul, ordered reinforcement of the British forces at Chanak and virtually brought Britain to the brink of war. Agreement was reached between Britain and Turkey in October,, but led to the disintegration and eventual resignation of Lloyd George from Government ]
9
There was intense public interest as the Third Dail Eireann Assembly gathered at Leinster House. Would the 34 Republican deputies elected arrive or not? The Provisional Government assembled and all deputies present were asked to sign the roll. None of the Republican Deputies attended, implementing the abstentsionist policy. W.T. Cosgrave was elected President of the Executive Council of the Free State and began to name his ministry.
President and Minister for Finance: W.T.Cosgrave
External Affairs Desmond Fitzgerald
Local Government Ernest Blyth
Agriculture Patrick Hogan
Labour, Industry & Commerce Joseph McGrath
Postmaster General J.J.Walsh
Education Eoin MacNeill
Home Affairs & Justice Kevin O’Higgins
Defence Richard Mulcahy
Ministers without portfolios E.J.Duggan and Finian Lynch
The only effective opposition to the Government was that of the 17 seat Labour Party, certainly no effective opposition to the 56 seat Treaty party. The 7 representatives of the Farmer’s Party and 6 Indpendents all declared solidly for the Treaty.
Cosgrave announced that it was his intention to implement the Treaty, enact a Constitution and to assert the authority and supremacy of the Irish Free State Parliament. ‘The nation which has struggled so long against the most powerful aggression will not submit to an armed minority which makes war upon it's liberties, it's institutions, it's representation and it's honour;’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.68
Kevin O’Higgins, the newly appointed Minister for Justice & Home Affairs ‘We had very good reasons for to believe that [ by attacking the Four Courts ] we anticipated by a couple of hours the creation of conditions…which would have brought back the British power – horse, foot, artillery and navy.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.68
Cathal O’Shannon, as Labour Party Chairman complained in Dail Eireann on the mistreatment of prisoners: ‘There is not a county in the 26 counties, there is not a barracks or jail out of which has not come information which is a disgrace to any Irish Government.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.68
De Valera denounced the Government as a ‘junta using British powers, not Irish, and acting in an arbitary and irresponsible manner. Its whole assumption of power represented an usurpation. Once again he added that it broke Irish law by not abiding by the pact which had been ratified by a decree of Dail Eireann’
Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.200
Judges that declined to recognise the Provisional Government did not have their contacts renewed.
11
Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) abolished proportional representation for local elections and requires a declaration of allegiance from persons elected to or working for local authorities.
12
The I.R.A retook Ballina from Free State troops and after re-arming, the force left and returned to the hills.
15
An appeal for write of habeaus corpus by some of the prisoners held by the Free State came before the Lord Chief Justice in Dublin.The Adjutant General of the Army claimed that the state of the country justified their detention which in turn raised the legal question as to whether the Defence of the Realm Act was the existing law and whether or not the country was technically in a state of war. The Lord Chief Justice ruled that ‘A state of war and rebellion does exist which justifies the application of martial law by the duly constituted Government of the country’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P787
Judge Cohalan writing to Bishop William Turner of Buffalo:
‘…in common with all right thinking persons, I am grieved beyond measure at the intimely death of Michael Collins. The shock was felt throughout the world. Such occurrences deal a serious wound to the moral character of the Irish people limitless in its effects... may I recall to your mind the Park Avenue Hotel Conference in New York in 1920? What transpired in that meeting enabled you, with others, to scrutinise closely the traits and tendenancies of the central figures therein. How much like the conduct of Eamon De Valera on that occasion have been his actions since his return to Ireland. Crimination seldom serves to advance a cause. One’s self respect constrains its use except in rare instances.
Judge Cohalan went on to comment on the Treaty and it’s provisions:
‘..no one who has read the Treaty provisions can fail to note its many serious limitations on Irish soverenigty and independence. The separation of the country into two parts as well as the veto power vested in the Governor General to be appointed thereunder evokes the disaproval of the advocates of Irish Independence. Neverthless and notwithstanding, these provisions among others, the people of Ireland have decidedly expressed their approval of the plan as a whole. The fact seems to make it imperative for us who have been and who ocntinue to be interested in Irish matters, to revitalise and reconsolidate our friends in America in order to aid the people of Ireland in their advance to the goal of a real Irish Republic’.
Tansill. ‘American and the Fight for Irish Freedom 1865-1922’. Devin-Adair. New York 1957. P439-440
The German Chancellor declares ‘Bread first, reparations second’ as economic difficulties continue to plague Germany.
“Murder of the decade:" The Reverend Edward Wheeler Hall and his church choir leader Mrs. James Mills are found murdered at an abandoned farm in New Brunswick, N.J. The case, drenched in suggestions of adultery and innuendo, was the tabloid story of the decade. After no killer was found, a tabloid in 1926 got the case reopened with spurious evidence implicating the reverend's wife and two brothers. The sensational trial of the three was full of melodrama and histrionics, including an incapacitated witness ("The Pig Woman") carried into the courtroom on a stretcher (and who proved surprisingly animated during testimony), but the defendants were found innocent.
17
Hazel Lavery, in deep mourning wrote Marie Bellow Lowdnes ‘I saw him the very last hour when he started for Cork on that Sunday early morning. He came back two days later dead on the same ship which had carried him living and so vigorously confident…never was there a more starnge and romantic and fatal a story. It could only take place in Ireland….and alas! Thinking more than is good for me of that tragic Ireland, and what it has cost us all.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P100
18
Cosgrave introduced the Constitution Bill to enact a constitution for Saorstat Eireann to implemt the Anglo-Irish Treaty and steered through the Dail by Kevin O’Higgins. The Bill contained 2 schedules, Number 1 contained 79 articles and Schedule 2 contatiend the Treaty. Article 1 declared that the Irish Free State was an equal member of the British Commonwealth with legislation through the Oireachtas, consisting of the King, Dail Eireann and the Senate. Article 12 vested the ‘Sole and exclusive’ power of law making to the Oirechtas and with Executive Authority vested in the King. The affairs of state were to be managed by the Executive Council responsible to the Dail and consisting of ministers appointed by the representative of the Crown and the Govenor General. The Constitution came into existance on December 6th 1922 and survived until replaced by the 1937 Constitution by de Valera.
20
Debates on the Constitution Bill.
In Sligo, 5 Anti-Treaty volunteers were killed after surrender including Divisional Adjutant Brian MacNeill, son of Eoin MacNeill the Minister for Education.
21
Dail Eireann approves the constitution of the Free State.
On the same day, women were permitted to vote in all Irish elections on the same terms as men.
A draconian tariff act, the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act, is passed in the U.S. for many imported goods
22
F. Scott Fitzgerald's second short story collection, Tales of the Jazz Age published.
24
Bishop Cohalan of Cork in a pastoral letter read in all the dioscese churches that ‘the killing of National soldiers is murder’ and that Priests were under no obligation to grant absoloution to any anti-Government volunteers.
27
General Mulchay requested certain emergency powers for the Free State army, allowing the establishment of secret military courts with the power to try those charged with aiding or abetting an attack on National forces, damaging property, being in un-authorised possesion of arms or ammunition or comitting a breach of any general order or regulation made by the army authorities. The punishment for such crimes would be at the discretion of the court and would include fine, imprisonment, deportation or death.
The Labour Party opposed the emergency powers on the grounds that it would lead to the establishment of a military dictatorship.
Kevin O’Higgins in a speech supporting the emergency powers, ominously warned one individual in particular:
‘The life of this country is menaced economically…I do know that the able Englishman who is leading those who are opposed to this Government has his eye quite definitely on one objective, and that is the complete breakdown of the economic and social fabric, so that this thing that is trying so hard to be an Irish nation will go down in chaos, anarchy and futility. Hi programme is a negative programme, a puerly destructive programme…he keeps steadily, callously and ghoulishly at his career of striking at the heart of this nation…’ When asked who he wask referring to he replied: ‘ I am now referring to the Englishman, Erskine Childers.’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P804
Cosgrave stated ‘We are not going to treat rebels as prisoners of war.’
The emergency power proposal was carried 47 votes to 15.
General Eoin O’Duffy ( 1892-1944 ) was appointed as first Commisioner of the Gardai Siochana. He promoted the concept of an un-armed police force and ‘showed tremendous energy’ in his position. However, over the following years he became publicly associated with Liam Cosgrave’s Cumman na nGaedheal and was strongly suspected of not being impartial by de Valera and Fianna Fail.
Peace moves between pro and anti-Treaty forces collapsed.
Liam Mellows, still imprisoned in Mountjoy wrote his ‘Notes from Mountjoy; which appeared in the Irish Independt. He called for the defence of the republic and urged the establishment of a civilian republican government to counter the provisonal government.
October 1922
3
A conditional amnesty and full pardon was offered to all those who laid down their arms and surrendered seized property, and ceased to aid and abet armed opposition before October 15th. The stage was now set for bloody conflict.
10
The Irish Heirarchy denounced the Irregulars and in a joint pastroal letter condemned armed resistance against the Government.
‘A republic without popular recognition behind it is a contradiction in terms….A section of the community, refusing to acknowledge the Government, set up by the Nation, have chosen to attack their own country as if she were a foreign power….the guerilla warfare now being carried on by the irregulars is without moral sanction, and. Therefore, the killing of National soldier in the course of it is murder before God.’
12
Special powers were now granted to the Free State Government to impose the death penalty after the expiry of the amnesty offer on October 15th. These special powers would result in the deaths of 77 anti-treaty prisoners who were executed over the next seven months to May 1923. This was to escalate into a ‘tit for tat’ round of execution and murder, followed by retaliatory executions and further murders.
7
US: Mrs W.H.Felton of Georgia is sworn in as the first woman US Senator.
18
The British Broadcasting Co. (BBC) is founded; first broadcasts on Nov. 14 and is licensed on January 18, 1923.
Robin Hood, big budget adventure film starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr., premieres.
19
Lloyd George resigned as leader of the Tory Party following the Parties refusal to support Austen Chamberlain as Party Leader. Stanley Baldwin made a speech at the Carlton Club claiming that Lloyd George was ‘wrecking the Tory party just as he previously had wrecked the Liberals’
De Valera writing to Joe McGarrity commented that ‘if the army thinks I am too moderate, well let them get a better president and go ahead’ he was determined to avoid a type of situation of which he had too much experience in the recent past. This time he was ‘going to make provision in advance to prevent any possible misunderstanding among the soldeirs of the republic, or our own people…and I do not want the young fellows who are fighting for the Republic to think otherwise.’
Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.201
21
Fats Waller makes his first record, "Muscle Shoals Blues," a jazz piano solo, for Okeh in New York City.
23
Andrew Bonar Law (Conservative) succeeds as British PM, holding power until 19 May 1923.
Law, (Andrew) Bonar (1858-1923), British statesman and iron manufacturer, born in New Brunswick, Canada, and educated in England and Glasgow, Scotland. At the age of 16 he was employed in his uncle's ironworks in Glasgow, and he soon rose to a senior position in the firm. In 1888 Law became a partner in one of the largest iron-manufacturing and exporting firms in Glasgow. After amassing a large fortune, he retired from business and entered politics. From 1916 to 1918 he was chancellor of the Exchequer in the ministry of David Lloyd George and, from 1919 to 1921, Lord Privy Seal. In 1919 he was the British plenipotentiary to the Paris Peace Conference and signed the Treaty of Versailles. In 1922 he headed the withdrawal of the Conservative party from the coalition cabinet, and he contributed largely to the party's victory in the general election held that year. He subsequently became prime minister but resigned in 1923 after only seven months in office because of ill health.
24
The Fascist plot to control Italy comes to a head. On this date, fascist leader Benito Mussolini, at a fascist party congress in Naples, demands formation of a fascist Italian government, but is rebuked by the ruling Facta coalition government. On Oct. 28, Mussolini and his followers stage a massive march on Rome – with Mussolini remaining in Milan, awaiting the result. Italy's King Victor Emmanuel III refuses to declare martial law, and the outraged Luigi Facta resigns. On Oct. 31, Mussolini, at the request the king, forms a cabinet of fascists and nationalists, ostensibly to stop the nation's political strife and begins to gerrymander the electoral laws and boundaries to ensure a Fascist victory at the next election.
25
On the day that the Constitution of the Irish Free State became law, the Anti-Treaty forces met secretly as Dail Eireann ( the second Dail) De Valera was elected president of the Irish Republic. Austin Stack became Minister for Finace, P.J.Ruttledge – Home Affairs, Sean T. O'Kelly - Local Government, Robert Barton – Economic Affairs and the still imprisoned Liam Mellows as Minister for Defence.
De Valera and Ruttledge within days published two proclamations declaring:
‘(1) that the ‘Treaty’ was null and void; (2) that the ‘Provisional Government’was an illegal body; (3) that the Courts established, or functioning under that ‘Government’ were illegal bodies and ought to be suppressed by the Republican Army; (4) that the Republican Courts were the only lawful courts; and (5) that any lawyer who accepted Judgeship in any of His Majesty’s Free State Courts, or who practised his profession in them as a barrister or solicitor, would be threatened as an ‘enemy of the Republc’ These proclamations were never withdrwan while Messrs dv and Ruttledge remained members of the Republican (Second) Dail up to the summer of 1927.’
Diarmuid O’Cruadhlaoich ‘Step by Step. From the Republic back into the Empire. The Evolution of Eamonn de Valera’ c.1935. Lynch Family Archives. p8
27
District and Parish courts established outside Dublin.
29
Hazel Lavery writing to Churchill commented
‘Everybody assures me nothing can go wrong with the Treaty, but one always trembles for the tragic fate that purusues Ireland, there seemes no end to it.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P103
Liam de Roiste recorded in his diary:
Full page advert in Irish papers from Friends of Irish Freedom organisation in New York, signed by Diarmuid Lynch National Secretary. It condemns the fratricidal strife, laying the blame on de Valera; declares for a Republic, but cousels acceptance of the Saorstat for the present.
Lynch Family Archives – Folder 3
30
Italy: 24,000 blackshirted Fascists marched on Rome from Naples demanding ‘Il Duce’ be allowed lead the government. Mussolini remained in Milan prepared to flee to Switzerland, should the march fail. King Victor Emmanuel conceeded to the Fascists in the belief that any opposition would mean civil war.
November 1922
1
Turkey: The monarchy abolished.
Germany: £1 now buys 20,000 marks.
The Dail adjourned for a fortnight in order to give the Executive a ‘free hand to restore order’. The Army Emergency powers were now in force and an intensive effort to crush resistance to the Free State was about to begin.
5
Egypt: Earl Carnarvon and Howard Carter discover the intact tomb of the Pharoh Tutankhamun and so became the first people to see the treasures in over 3,000 years. Carter had been searching for the tomb for over 30 years when he found a flight of steps leading to a door marked with the Pharoh’s seal in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. His sponsor, Earl of Carnarvon was sent for and on his arrival on this day, a hole was made in the door and Carter held a candle into the chamber. When asked when he saw, Carter said ‘many wonderful things’. These include golden statues, beds inlaid with ivory and jewels, a golden throne studded with gems, gold sandals painted with hunting scense and many other treasures undisturbed since 1337 BC. Tthey open the burial chamber seal on what is the greatest find ever of Egyptian archeological artifacts. The excitement generated worldwide by the find would even influence art and fashion, including art deco.
Tutankhamen, (c. 1352-1325 BC), Egyptian pharaoh (reigned c. 1343-1325 BC) of the 18th Dynasty, the son-in-law of Akhenaton, whom he succeeded. He became pharaoh at about the age of 9 and ruled until his death at about the age of 18. Peace was brought to Egypt during his reign as the worship of Amon, abandoned under Akhenaton, was restored and Thebes, the sacred city of Amon, (rather than Akhenaton, now Tell el-Amarna) was again made Egypt's capital.
Little else is known about the reign of Tutankhamen. His importance derives largely from the fact that his sumptuously appointed tomb, in the Valley of the Kings, was discovered virtually intact; unlike the majority of ancient Egyptian burials, it had escaped looting in antiquity, and on account of its splendour and completeness, has been of major importance to Egyptology. The tomb, consisting of a passageway leading to four interconnecting chambers, was richly decorated with wall paintings and filled with an array of furniture (much of it gilded or inlaid), statues, chariots, weapons, and other objects. In the burial chamber itself, placed inside three coffins, lay the mummy of Tutankhamen, the face covered by a gold mask inlaid with lapis lazuli and coloured glass.
The tomb was discovered by the British archaeologist Howard Carter and his patron Lord Carnarvon in 1922.
9
London’s Metropolitan police inspector is killed by arsenic filled chocolates.
10
Inteligence reports led Free State troops to arrest Erskine Childer while staying overnight with his cousin, Robert Barton. He was found to be in possesion of a revolver which had been presented to him by Michael Collins.
11
In Dundee, Churchill made a speech ‘using language calculated to excite violent prejudice against Childers. He said:
‘I have seen with satisfaction that the mischief making murderous renegade, Erskine Childers, has been captured. No man has done more harm or shown more genuine malice, or endeavoured to bring a greater curse upon the common people of Ireland than this strange being, actuated by a deadly and malignant hatred for the land of his birth…’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P811
Churchill finished off the speech with ‘Such as he is may all who hate us be’.
Four years after the end of the Great War, the battlefields had been cleared of remains of the dead, and national cemeteries had been created, Foe and Friend kept apart in death as in life.
Vol. Francis Power, 4th Batt. Dublin Brigade, was killed in action at Portobello on 11 November 1922.
15
General Election in the UK. Northern Ireland nationalists boycott the election except in the two seat constiuency of Fermanagh & South Tyrone where both Nationalist candidates top the poll. Northern Ireland results in Uionists 11 seats, Nationalists 2.
London: The first regular news broadcast made at 6pm from material supplied by Reuters and read by Arthur Burrows.
Emmet Dalton writing to Hazel Lavery warned that her letters were still considered a source of confidential information on Government activities: ‘About a week or so ago a prominent irregular* was captured in a house in Dublin…my brother, who is Chief Inteligence Officer in Dublin, discovered your letter amongst the many other valuable documents found amongst Ernest O’Malley’s personal belongings and he handed it to me. It is fairly clear that’s oem of the irregulars captured it in a raid on the mails in Dublin. I cannot see what use it would be to them, but they retained it and evidently placed some importance upon it as they marked it ‘valuable document’.
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P105
This ‘prominent irreegular’ was the colourful Ernie O’Malley (1898-1957), who abandoned his medical studies and saw action in the Easter Rising and imprisoned. Later became Staff Captain in the I.R.A during the War of Indpendence, captured by the British and tortured, he was imprisoned under the name ‘Bernard Stewart’ for 3 months, escaping in February 1921 taking coammsnd of the Second Division. O’Malley was the first Divisional Commander to reject the Treaty, raiding Clonmel Barracks, Officer in Command HQ Section in the Four Courts, remaining in the building after the Provisional Government commenced bombardment on June 28th. One of the last to leave, he triggered the explosion that destroyed the Public Record Office and the greater part of priceless and irreplacable records. Captured, he escaped and became Officer in Command of the Northern and Eastern areas, appointed to the Army Council in October 1922. He was captured in a Government raid on a house in Ailsebury Road, Dublin, imprisoned under sentence of death until July 1924. He was elected TD for Dublin North in 1923 and refused to take his seat while the Oath was mandatory. On his release, he moved to Spain, spending two years in the mountains and in contact with the Basque Seperatist movement. Returned to Ireland in 1927, and immediately went to the US fundraising for the Irish Press. Lived for a time in New Mexico, eventually moving to New York on marriage. Returned to Ireland in 1935 where he became an historical writer.
16
In the British General election, the Tories swept into office with a majority of 75. Lloyd George’s Liberal Party was obliterated.
Irish Peers in the House of Lords decide not to oppose the Irish Free State Constitution Bill.
17
Erskine Childers was tried in camera under recent legislation which made the posession of a revolver a capital offence, even if it was, in this case, a miniature pistol. He refused to recognise the Court and was sentenced to death. The right of appeal was not permitted. An application was then made for a conditional order of Habeas Corpus at the home of the Master of the Rolls, who gave leave to serve notice of application on the persons having the body of Erskine Childers.
The first executions for ‘the illegal possesion of arms’ took place in Dublin when James Fisher, Peter Cassidy, Richard Twohig and John Gaffney were shot in Kilmainham Jail. 73 more men were to follow them until May 2nd 1923.
That evenign in the Dail, the Labour Party pressed the Government as to why the four had been executed. Mulcahy pleaded ‘military necessity’. O’Higgins stated ‘If they took as their first case [ for execution ] some man who was outstandingly active and outstandingly wicked in his activities, the unfortunate dupe throughout the country might say that he wa killed because he was a leader, because he was an Englishman, or because he combined with other to commit rape.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.68
19
20
British Parliament assembled and Bonar Law introduced two Bills, the Irish Free State Constitution Bill and the Irish Free State (Consequential Provisions) Bill. The first presented the Constitution as passed by the Irish Provisional Parliament. While it met with little opposition, a Labour MP, ‘Saklatvala, member for North Battersea, objected to the Bill on the grounds that it was derived from a Treaty which was ‘based upon coercion and signed under duress’… the Labour Party did not…support him in his protest.’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P815
21
Rebecca Latimer Felton, appointed in Georgia to fill deceased senator's unexpired term, is first woman senator in the U.S.
23
Proceedings in the Dublin High Court on the applications for Habeaus Corpus concluded with a judgement that Habeaus Corpus be refused on the grounds that a state of war existed during which the civil courts could not ‘for any purpose, or under any circumstances, control the Military Authority’ but an appeal for a future hearing was granted. As a result of court action, the military authorities that night commuted death sentences on eight other prisoners to terms of imprsionment but upheld that of Childers. Despite the fact his case was still under appeal, Childers was advised he would be shot at dawn on Friday, November 24th at Beggars Bush Barracks.
That night, he wrote to his wife and children ( his son and namesake was to become President of Ireland 1973-1975 ) that ‘ I die full of love for Ireland…I die loving England and passionately praying that she may change completely and finally towards Ireland’.
24
Erskine Childers (52), the politician and author, organiser and shipper of arms for the Irish Volunteers in 1914, TD for Kildare-Wicklow, member of the secretriat of the Negotiating team in London 1921 and Anti-Treaty, shook hands with each member of the firing squad in Beggar’s Bush Barracks before he was executed. His last words were ‘It is 6am – it all seems perfectly simple and inevitable, like lying down after a long days work…come closer boys. It will be easier for you.’
In a statement he wrote on the 19th November for publication after his death: ‘I was bound by honour, consience and principle to oppose the Treaty by speech, writing and action, both in peace and, when it came to the disatrous point, in war…some day we shall be justified when the nation forgets it's weakness.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.69
Throughout the country there was surprise, anger and shame to the news of the execution. One Dail Deputy, Donal O’Rourke resigned in protest.
25
Rome: Italy’s Chamber of Deputies grants Mussolini absolute power for one year and he begins to consolidate the government with fascist supporters.
27
At the opening of the appeal hearings on behalf of Erskine Childers and eight other prisoners, the presiding Judge asked:
‘Are we to understand that the prisoner has been executed pending an appeal to this court?’. The case was upheld to be judicial murder.
Chief of Staff of the Anti-Treaty forces, General Liam Lynch wrote to the ‘Speaker of the Provisional Parliament of Southern Ireland’, stating that ‘The illegal body over which you preside has declared war on the soldiers of the Republic and supressed the legitimate parliament of the Irish Nation…In the early days of this war we took hundreds of your forces prisoners, but accorded them all the rights of Prisoners-Of-War and, over and above, treated them as fellow countrymen and former comrades. Many of your soldiers have been released by us three times although captured with arms on each occasion. But the prisoners you have taken you have treated barbarously, and when helpless have tortured, wounded and murdered them…. You now presume to murder and transport the soldiers who ahd brought Ireland victory when you, traitors, surrended the Republic twelve months ago… We therefore give you and each member of your body due notice that unless your army recognises the rules of warfare in future, we shall adopt very drastic measures to protect our forces’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P822
Both the Irish Free State Constitution and Consequntial Provisions Bill came before the House of Commons for a second reading.
28
Gavan Duffy during a vote in Dail Eireann on the Army Estimates said ‘Erskine Childers was a great irishman…he was an irishman in law under the free Constitution which this dail has passed… I think Erskine Childers was executed upon a charge which does not sustain in the public conscience the capital punishment, or else he was tried on that charge but other matters were allowed to influence those who confirmed the execution. If that were the case, the authorities have done something contrary to natural justice as understood in every part of the world’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P815
De Valera writing to Joe McGarrity commented that the people were tired of war and fighting, funds were tight and the simple fact that many who supported the Republic simply were unwilling to bear arms against their own. As for recent events, ‘Childer’s death is a big blow, not so much on account of what he was doing immediately before that, but because of what he could do under new conditions. He died the Prince he was. Of all the men I ever knew, I would say he was the noblest. The gun he had in his possesion was an automatic that Mick gave him, telling him it was to defend the Republic. I saw him with it myself – a tiny automatic, little better than a toy and in no sense a war weapon. Since Harry’s death I have felt no other blow so keenly.’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’. Anvil Books, 1972. P132
29
Gavan O’Duffy raised the matter of the executions of Cassidy, Gaffney, Fisher and Twohig, saying it was neither law nor justice to ‘try a man for one thing, and execute him for another.’. Members of the Government replied that the critical state of the nation and armed opposition to the Treaty demanded a detterent.
O’Higgins in an Irish Times interview said that the execution of the Cassidy, Gaffney, Fisher and Twohig on the 17th had gone ahead because if the Government was to execute Childers first, then ‘the unfortunate dupes throughout the country might say that he was killed because he was a leader, because he was an Englishman or because he combined with others to commit raids.’ Hence ‘average cases which had no particular fgacts to distinguish them’ were taken first.
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P812
30
Joseph Spooner, Patrick Farrelly and John Murphy were executed in Dublin for being in possesion of a revolver and explosives and the men had been captured near the HQ of the Criminal Investigtion Department following an attempt to blow up the building. These were the first of a new government policy where relatives were not informed until after the executions had taken place. The law as it stood now meant that ‘every Republican taken with arms after October 15th was now liable to be called from his prison cell, convicted by a court composed of his enemies and put to death within a few hours. This situation was one of great strain for the prisoners and of incessant anxiety for their families and friends. The Provisional Government had devised a war measure better calculated than any used by the British Government to break down the resistance of those opposed to them.’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P812
Richard Mulcahy responding in Dail Eireann to the three executions said ‘We are people who realise that man is made in the image and likeness of God…when a man is going to his death, he does get a priest’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.68
In Munich, Adolf Hitler addressed a National Socialist rally of 50,000 while on the same day.
General Liam Lynch issued his ‘Orders of Frighfulness’ outlining for all battalion commanders, fourteen categories of persons in the Provisional Government who could be now shot on sight by Anti-Treaty forces. This included any Dail Deputy who had voted for the Special Emergency Powers granted to the Minister for Defence, Senators, Unionists, hostile journalists, High Court Judges, Businessmen, those described as ‘aggressive Free State supporters’and any member of the Free State Army above the rank of Lieutenant.
December 1922
With the Civil war raging in Ireland, Diarmuid Lynch wrote a letter as Secreatry of the Friends of Irish Freedom which was sent to all members:
‘..heartrending as are the conditions in Ireland at the moment, our fellow workers in the cause here must not feel discouraged. It is more than ever incumbent on us to draw together those friends of Ireland who are capable of viewing the deplorable circumstances inteligently and without passion, so that our influence may be exercised towards securing for Ireland the greatest need of the moment - Peace; and then forge ahead towards the ultimate goal of the Race - an independent Irish Republic.
Diarmuid Lynch "The I.R.B. and the 1916 Rising" Mercier Press. 1957. p209
Major Florrie O’Donoghue commenting on Diarmuid’s activities and outlook from 1922 to 1932:
‘…his steady, consistent purpose is evident. His Republican principles remained unchnaged from the day Sean T. O'Kelly swore him into the I.R.B until the day of his death. There was no time in that long span of over half a century when he was not thinking and working in one way or another for the realisation of the ideal for which he took up arms in Easter Week, 1916. Wherever he was in the United States of Ireland, he found the means to continue what was for him, a labour of love.
His sterling honesty and fearless expression of his views remained uninfluenced by the stormy political passions in which he was unavoidably involved. In all his writings on current events there is an absence of that extravgant denunciation of opponents which was such an unfortunate aspect of the very human difference of opinion on policy which arose both in Ireland and America. In the historical recording of the events with which he was associated, truth was for him the first and paramount consideration.
In the years when Irish politicla life was embittered by the Treaty disension and their aftermath, he was, always with the ultimate purpose in view, an advocate of policies which were later adopted but then unpopular. As well as having the Fenian faith, he had faith in the Irish people. He never doubted their ultimate attianment of the national goal of complete indpendence, and he was, in the old tradition, prepared to use every weapon which came to his hands for the achievment of freedom.’
Diarmuid Lynch ‘"The I.R.B. and the 1916 Rising" Mercier Press. 1957. p215-216
3
An army order was issued extending the power of the Military Courts to include possesion of ammunition or any explosive substance as a capital offence.
4
Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, although passed by the U.S. House, is withdrawn from the Senate after a southern states' filibuster.
5
The Irish Constitution Bill creating the Irish Free State, received the Royal Assent and became law. Later the same day, the King approved the appointment of Timothy healy as Govenor-General Designate of the Free State.
First issue of an Irish postage stamp, face value of 2d, bearing a white map of Ireland on a green background.
6
A year after the signing of the Treaty, the Irish Free State came into existence as the powers of the Provisional Government expired. Members of the Provisional Parlaiment reassembled and the Parliament officially became Dail Eireann. The assembly continued to be boycotted by Republican Deputies and all present took the Oath of Allegiance. Labour leader, Thomas Johnson read a declaration signed by all Labour TD’s to the effect that they regarded the Oath as a formality implying no obligation of citizenship and that the terms of the Treaty were accepted..
7
Dail Eireann TD Sean Hales, one of the signatories to the Army Powers Resoloution was assasinated and the Leas Ceann Comphairle ( Deputy-President or Speaker of the Dial ) Padraig O’Maille wounded by a lone gunman, Owen Donnelly in Dublin.
The Cabinet met in a barricaded Merrion Street and opted to take extreme measures.
Death warrants were signed for four of the senior Republicans held in Mountjoy since the Four Courts surrender in July - Liam Mellows (30), Dick Barrett, Joseph McKelvey and Rory O’Connor. There was to be no trial. Eoin MacNeil was the first to agree while Minister for Home Affairs, Kevin O’Higgins was firmly against the severity of the retaliation and argued against the decision in Cabinet. At O’Higgin’s wedding the year before, Rory O’Connor had been best man. As Minister for Home Affairs, he held the responsibility of signing the four death warrants, which he did.
William T. Cosgrave was elected first president of the Irish Free State parliament on 7 December 1922.
In Belfast, the Northern Ireland assembly exercised its option of ‘contracting out’ and remain part of the United Kingdom. Sir James Criag reiterated that Northern Ireland was not a party to the Treaty and therefore would refuse to nominate a reprersentative to the Boundary Commission. Effectively this left the Commission hamstrung, unable to operate without a representative from the six counties.
The Anti-Partition League officially wound up with the end of Irish Unionist Alliance activities in the South of Ireland.
8
Liam Mellows (30), Dick Barrett, Joseph McKelvey and Rory O’Connor who had been held in Mountjoy prison since the surrender of the Four Courts in July were roused from sleep and advised that they would be executed at dawn.
30 minutes before his death, Liam Mellows wrote to his ‘dear comrades in Mountjoy! God bless you boys, and may he give you the fortitude, courage and wisdom to suffer and endure all for Ireland’s sake. An Poblacht Abu’
Tim Carey. ‘Mountjoy – The Story of a Prison’ The Collins Press, Dublin 2000.p202
At first light, the four men were shot in the prison yard. Cosgrave refused last minute clemency pleas of a personal friend, the Archbishop of Dublin, Edward Byrne, to reconsider. Sharing the cell with O’Connor was the 18 year old, Sean MacBride.
The firing squad party was led by Major-General Hugo MacNeill.
The government statement read that the four had been executed ‘as a reprisal for the assination of Brig. Hales TD, as a solemn warning to those associated with them who are engaged in the conspiracy of assination against the representatives of the Irish people’ and signalled a new hardline stance against the ‘irregulars’.
Liam Mellowes wrote to his mother from Mountjoy ‘Though unworthy of the greatest human honour that can be paid an Irishman or woman, I go to join Tone and Emmet, the Fenians, Tom Clarke, Connolly, Pearse, Kevin Barry and Childers. My last thoughts will be on God and Ireland and on you.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.69
‘The whole country was shocked. It was a dreaful reprisal. They were four of our best men’
Kathleen Clarke. ‘Revoloutionary Woman’ O’Brien Press 1991. P.200
In the Dail, Government ministers defended the executions. Richard Mulcahy stating that the threatening letter had been recievd by the Speaker, pointing out the vulnerability of the Government and that this action was taken as a deterrent to any future attempts on the lives of Dail deputies. Despite the fact that Minister for Home Affairs, Kevin O’Higgins had argued strongly against the retaliation measure in Cabinet, he signed the death warrants and publicly defended the measurers. ‘Personal spite, Great Heaven! Vindictiveness! One of these men was a friend of mine.’
Cosgrave in a closing speech concluded with a promise to ‘show them that terror will be struck into them.’
The New York Nation commented on the 20th December that this action was ‘Murder, foul and despicable and nothing else’
While no further government ministers were assasinated, direct relatives of the ministers were. A seige situation decsended in Ireland. The members of the provisional government lived in Government buildings.
This action by the Government redirected Anti-Treaty forces to target property rather than persons.
9
In the midst of these developments, the Senate was convened by the Govenor General and the Irish Free State Parliament was now complete.
10
Dr Edward Byrne. Archbishop of Dublin on the execution of the four IRA prisoners was ‘that one man should be punished for another’s crimes seems to me to be absolutely unjust. Moreover such a policy is bound to alienate many friends of the Government and it requires all the sympathy it can get.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.69
An arson attack on the home of Sean McGarry TD leads to the death of his son.
11
First meeting of the Free State Senate. Lord Glenavy elected Chairman.
12
The Oirechtas assembled in Leinster House to receive an address from the Govenor-General. The Labour party members absented themselves until T.M.Healy had left.
In Northern Ireland, the Duke of Abercorn sworn in as the first Govenor-General of Northern Ireland.
17
The last British troops leave Dublin, ending Britain’s first colony.
Meanwhile back in London, Sir Mansfield Cumming received a top secret copy of meeting minutes of the Soviet Commitern, the organisation founded to promote Bolshevik idealogy worldwide. These documents held information that aside from propaganda activities, the Soviet Union was funding various national communist parties to subvert governments. $300,000 had been given to the American Communist party to to persuade ‘American negroes’ to enlist in the Red Army. The British Communist party received £80,000 to assist in ‘electoral expenses’, £120,000 was given to the Indian Communist leder, M.N.Roy to train agents to be sent to India as this was seen as ‘the perfect back door with which to attack London’. The apparent genorisity of the Soviet Union was ‘all the more shocking given the desperate economic crisis in Russia…during which 5 million people died of starvation’
Source: Patrick French. Sunday Times article on MI6 Archives. 10 August 1997. P4 of News Review section.
19
As the Civil War degenerated further, the General commanding Government forces in Kerry announced that four officers of the IRA captured had been sentenced to death which would be carried out if any attack was made on Free State troops in the area after December 21st. This system of sentencing captured men and holding them as hostages became widespread on both sides.
On the same day, seven Anti-Treatyites, Stephen White, Joseph Johnston, Patrick Mangan, Patrick Nolan, Brian Moore, James O’Connor and Patrick Bagnel were executed by firing squad in Dublin after being discovered in a dugout in Kildare and being in ‘the illegal possesion of arms’.
Defeat of the Anti-Treaty forces was becoming only a matter of time. The Free State Government had access to British military supplies wheras the ‘irregulars’ depended on captured arms and munitions. Anti-Treaty Forces lived rough, in dug-outs and dependent on the local population. However the civilian majority did not support the on-going guerilla warfare and unlike the War of Independence, both sides knew the country, the terrain and how to fight effectively in it.
Shane Leslie wrote to Hazel Lavery warning that her perceived influence in Collins’ support for the Treaty may have placed her in danger. He wrote ‘You were always watched when you were with him in London or Ireland and a word is enough to set fire to a field in Ireland. I am glad you were not killed together as they doubtless planned in their myriad scheming minds.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P104
20
Anti-Treaty Forces tactics now switched to destruction of Government property and more specifically, homes and businesses of TD’s as a reprisal for any executions. Later in the month, Deputy McGarry’s home was burned killing one of his children.
Sir Horace Punkett’s home, Kilteragh was burned to the ground by Anti-Treaty forces.
21
The IRA Chief of Staff, Liam Lynch in a letter to Joe McGarrity, wrote that he had sent Sean Moylan to the US as the Executive Representative to the Clann na Gael along with Brigadier Leahy. As for the situation at home, Lynch commented that it ‘is generally very satisfactory and generally is immensley improving from week to week. We here believe the situation is already saved, at least, as far as the present enemy is concerned…the recent executions by the enemy, especially Liam Mellows, is a very serious blow to the Nation, but we hope these dishnourable tactics will be redeemed later.’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’. Anvil Books, 1972. P132
All in all, Liam Lynch was painting an over-optimistic picture of the situation for the Anti-Treaty forces.
Sean Moylan remained the Republican Liason Officer with Clann na Gael through 1922/23. Liam Lynch sent Moylan a list of ‘minimum requirements’ arms orders of four mountain batteries of artillery – each with four heavy guns and shells, Thompson sub-machine guns and two million rounds of .303 ammunition. The main problem was not so much where the arms could be purchased as to to raise the cash. McGarrity organised this, setting a target of some $53,000 from Irish communities and organisations throughout the US within 30 days. He had some $35,000 on hand and with that kind of money, buying arms would be no trouble, particualrly in post-war Germany. Moylan began arrangements for the purchase of heavy weapons in Germany through John T. Ryan and the arrival of experienced men in Ireland to use them.
22
U.S government approves $20 million in aid for Russian starvation relief.
27
George Russell (AE) appealed to the Republicans to lay down their arms ‘There is no dishonour in raising the ocnflict from the physical to the intelectual plane’
29
John Phelan and John Murphy were executed by firing squad in Kilkenny for ‘the illegal possesion of arms’.
30
With the Bolsheviks victorious in their civil war for control of Russia, Lenin proclaims the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), binding Russia, White Russia, Ukraine, and Transcaucasia, with central government authority in Moscow.
31
Kevin O’Higgins, Minister for Justice commenting on the first months of the Free State Government’s existence ‘The Provisional Government was simply eight young men in the City Hall standing amidst the ruins of one administration, with the foundation of another not yet laid and with wild men screaming through the keyhole’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.69
Hits of 1922:
‘Limehouse Blues’, ‘I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate’ and ‘Chicago’.
As 1922 drew to a close, Macardle wrote that to de Valera ‘the continuance of the Civil war appeared disastrous, yet he realised that resitance in arms had been rendered inevitable by the course which the Pro-Treaty leaders had followed.’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P830
3
A conditional amnesty and full pardon was offered to all those who laid down their arms and surrendered seized property, and ceased to aid and abet armed opposition before October 15th. The stage was now set for bloody conflict.
10
The Irish Heirarchy denounced the Irregulars and in a joint pastroal letter condemned armed resistance against the Government.
‘A republic without popular recognition behind it is a contradiction in terms….A section of the community, refusing to acknowledge the Government, set up by the Nation, have chosen to attack their own country as if she were a foreign power….the guerilla warfare now being carried on by the irregulars is without moral sanction, and. Therefore, the killing of National soldier in the course of it is murder before God.’
12
Special powers were now granted to the Free State Government to impose the death penalty after the expiry of the amnesty offer on October 15th. These special powers would result in the deaths of 77 anti-treaty prisoners who were executed over the next seven months to May 1923. This was to escalate into a ‘tit for tat’ round of execution and murder, followed by retaliatory executions and further murders.
7
US: Mrs W.H.Felton of Georgia is sworn in as the first woman US Senator.
18
The British Broadcasting Co. (BBC) is founded; first broadcasts on Nov. 14 and is licensed on January 18, 1923.
Robin Hood, big budget adventure film starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr., premieres.
19
Lloyd George resigned as leader of the Tory Party following the Parties refusal to support Austen Chamberlain as Party Leader. Stanley Baldwin made a speech at the Carlton Club claiming that Lloyd George was ‘wrecking the Tory party just as he previously had wrecked the Liberals’
De Valera writing to Joe McGarrity commented that ‘if the army thinks I am too moderate, well let them get a better president and go ahead’ he was determined to avoid a type of situation of which he had too much experience in the recent past. This time he was ‘going to make provision in advance to prevent any possible misunderstanding among the soldeirs of the republic, or our own people…and I do not want the young fellows who are fighting for the Republic to think otherwise.’
Earl of Longford and T.P.O’Neill. ‘Eamon de Valera’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 1970. P.201
21
Fats Waller makes his first record, "Muscle Shoals Blues," a jazz piano solo, for Okeh in New York City.
23
Andrew Bonar Law (Conservative) succeeds as British PM, holding power until 19 May 1923.
Law, (Andrew) Bonar (1858-1923), British statesman and iron manufacturer, born in New Brunswick, Canada, and educated in England and Glasgow, Scotland. At the age of 16 he was employed in his uncle's ironworks in Glasgow, and he soon rose to a senior position in the firm. In 1888 Law became a partner in one of the largest iron-manufacturing and exporting firms in Glasgow. After amassing a large fortune, he retired from business and entered politics. From 1916 to 1918 he was chancellor of the Exchequer in the ministry of David Lloyd George and, from 1919 to 1921, Lord Privy Seal. In 1919 he was the British plenipotentiary to the Paris Peace Conference and signed the Treaty of Versailles. In 1922 he headed the withdrawal of the Conservative party from the coalition cabinet, and he contributed largely to the party's victory in the general election held that year. He subsequently became prime minister but resigned in 1923 after only seven months in office because of ill health.
24
The Fascist plot to control Italy comes to a head. On this date, fascist leader Benito Mussolini, at a fascist party congress in Naples, demands formation of a fascist Italian government, but is rebuked by the ruling Facta coalition government. On Oct. 28, Mussolini and his followers stage a massive march on Rome – with Mussolini remaining in Milan, awaiting the result. Italy's King Victor Emmanuel III refuses to declare martial law, and the outraged Luigi Facta resigns. On Oct. 31, Mussolini, at the request the king, forms a cabinet of fascists and nationalists, ostensibly to stop the nation's political strife and begins to gerrymander the electoral laws and boundaries to ensure a Fascist victory at the next election.
25
On the day that the Constitution of the Irish Free State became law, the Anti-Treaty forces met secretly as Dail Eireann ( the second Dail) De Valera was elected president of the Irish Republic. Austin Stack became Minister for Finace, P.J.Ruttledge – Home Affairs, Sean T. O'Kelly - Local Government, Robert Barton – Economic Affairs and the still imprisoned Liam Mellows as Minister for Defence.
De Valera and Ruttledge within days published two proclamations declaring:
‘(1) that the ‘Treaty’ was null and void; (2) that the ‘Provisional Government’was an illegal body; (3) that the Courts established, or functioning under that ‘Government’ were illegal bodies and ought to be suppressed by the Republican Army; (4) that the Republican Courts were the only lawful courts; and (5) that any lawyer who accepted Judgeship in any of His Majesty’s Free State Courts, or who practised his profession in them as a barrister or solicitor, would be threatened as an ‘enemy of the Republc’ These proclamations were never withdrwan while Messrs dv and Ruttledge remained members of the Republican (Second) Dail up to the summer of 1927.’
Diarmuid O’Cruadhlaoich ‘Step by Step. From the Republic back into the Empire. The Evolution of Eamonn de Valera’ c.1935. Lynch Family Archives. p8
27
District and Parish courts established outside Dublin.
29
Hazel Lavery writing to Churchill commented
‘Everybody assures me nothing can go wrong with the Treaty, but one always trembles for the tragic fate that purusues Ireland, there seemes no end to it.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P103
Liam de Roiste recorded in his diary:
Full page advert in Irish papers from Friends of Irish Freedom organisation in New York, signed by Diarmuid Lynch National Secretary. It condemns the fratricidal strife, laying the blame on de Valera; declares for a Republic, but cousels acceptance of the Saorstat for the present.
Lynch Family Archives – Folder 3
30
Italy: 24,000 blackshirted Fascists marched on Rome from Naples demanding ‘Il Duce’ be allowed lead the government. Mussolini remained in Milan prepared to flee to Switzerland, should the march fail. King Victor Emmanuel conceeded to the Fascists in the belief that any opposition would mean civil war.
November 1922
1
Turkey: The monarchy abolished.
Germany: £1 now buys 20,000 marks.
The Dail adjourned for a fortnight in order to give the Executive a ‘free hand to restore order’. The Army Emergency powers were now in force and an intensive effort to crush resistance to the Free State was about to begin.
5
Egypt: Earl Carnarvon and Howard Carter discover the intact tomb of the Pharoh Tutankhamun and so became the first people to see the treasures in over 3,000 years. Carter had been searching for the tomb for over 30 years when he found a flight of steps leading to a door marked with the Pharoh’s seal in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. His sponsor, Earl of Carnarvon was sent for and on his arrival on this day, a hole was made in the door and Carter held a candle into the chamber. When asked when he saw, Carter said ‘many wonderful things’. These include golden statues, beds inlaid with ivory and jewels, a golden throne studded with gems, gold sandals painted with hunting scense and many other treasures undisturbed since 1337 BC. Tthey open the burial chamber seal on what is the greatest find ever of Egyptian archeological artifacts. The excitement generated worldwide by the find would even influence art and fashion, including art deco.
Tutankhamen, (c. 1352-1325 BC), Egyptian pharaoh (reigned c. 1343-1325 BC) of the 18th Dynasty, the son-in-law of Akhenaton, whom he succeeded. He became pharaoh at about the age of 9 and ruled until his death at about the age of 18. Peace was brought to Egypt during his reign as the worship of Amon, abandoned under Akhenaton, was restored and Thebes, the sacred city of Amon, (rather than Akhenaton, now Tell el-Amarna) was again made Egypt's capital.
Little else is known about the reign of Tutankhamen. His importance derives largely from the fact that his sumptuously appointed tomb, in the Valley of the Kings, was discovered virtually intact; unlike the majority of ancient Egyptian burials, it had escaped looting in antiquity, and on account of its splendour and completeness, has been of major importance to Egyptology. The tomb, consisting of a passageway leading to four interconnecting chambers, was richly decorated with wall paintings and filled with an array of furniture (much of it gilded or inlaid), statues, chariots, weapons, and other objects. In the burial chamber itself, placed inside three coffins, lay the mummy of Tutankhamen, the face covered by a gold mask inlaid with lapis lazuli and coloured glass.
The tomb was discovered by the British archaeologist Howard Carter and his patron Lord Carnarvon in 1922.
9
London’s Metropolitan police inspector is killed by arsenic filled chocolates.
10
Inteligence reports led Free State troops to arrest Erskine Childer while staying overnight with his cousin, Robert Barton. He was found to be in possesion of a revolver which had been presented to him by Michael Collins.
11
In Dundee, Churchill made a speech ‘using language calculated to excite violent prejudice against Childers. He said:
‘I have seen with satisfaction that the mischief making murderous renegade, Erskine Childers, has been captured. No man has done more harm or shown more genuine malice, or endeavoured to bring a greater curse upon the common people of Ireland than this strange being, actuated by a deadly and malignant hatred for the land of his birth…’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P811
Churchill finished off the speech with ‘Such as he is may all who hate us be’.
Four years after the end of the Great War, the battlefields had been cleared of remains of the dead, and national cemeteries had been created, Foe and Friend kept apart in death as in life.
Vol. Francis Power, 4th Batt. Dublin Brigade, was killed in action at Portobello on 11 November 1922.
15
General Election in the UK. Northern Ireland nationalists boycott the election except in the two seat constiuency of Fermanagh & South Tyrone where both Nationalist candidates top the poll. Northern Ireland results in Uionists 11 seats, Nationalists 2.
London: The first regular news broadcast made at 6pm from material supplied by Reuters and read by Arthur Burrows.
Emmet Dalton writing to Hazel Lavery warned that her letters were still considered a source of confidential information on Government activities: ‘About a week or so ago a prominent irregular* was captured in a house in Dublin…my brother, who is Chief Inteligence Officer in Dublin, discovered your letter amongst the many other valuable documents found amongst Ernest O’Malley’s personal belongings and he handed it to me. It is fairly clear that’s oem of the irregulars captured it in a raid on the mails in Dublin. I cannot see what use it would be to them, but they retained it and evidently placed some importance upon it as they marked it ‘valuable document’.
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P105
This ‘prominent irreegular’ was the colourful Ernie O’Malley (1898-1957), who abandoned his medical studies and saw action in the Easter Rising and imprisoned. Later became Staff Captain in the I.R.A during the War of Indpendence, captured by the British and tortured, he was imprisoned under the name ‘Bernard Stewart’ for 3 months, escaping in February 1921 taking coammsnd of the Second Division. O’Malley was the first Divisional Commander to reject the Treaty, raiding Clonmel Barracks, Officer in Command HQ Section in the Four Courts, remaining in the building after the Provisional Government commenced bombardment on June 28th. One of the last to leave, he triggered the explosion that destroyed the Public Record Office and the greater part of priceless and irreplacable records. Captured, he escaped and became Officer in Command of the Northern and Eastern areas, appointed to the Army Council in October 1922. He was captured in a Government raid on a house in Ailsebury Road, Dublin, imprisoned under sentence of death until July 1924. He was elected TD for Dublin North in 1923 and refused to take his seat while the Oath was mandatory. On his release, he moved to Spain, spending two years in the mountains and in contact with the Basque Seperatist movement. Returned to Ireland in 1927, and immediately went to the US fundraising for the Irish Press. Lived for a time in New Mexico, eventually moving to New York on marriage. Returned to Ireland in 1935 where he became an historical writer.
16
In the British General election, the Tories swept into office with a majority of 75. Lloyd George’s Liberal Party was obliterated.
Irish Peers in the House of Lords decide not to oppose the Irish Free State Constitution Bill.
17
Erskine Childers was tried in camera under recent legislation which made the posession of a revolver a capital offence, even if it was, in this case, a miniature pistol. He refused to recognise the Court and was sentenced to death. The right of appeal was not permitted. An application was then made for a conditional order of Habeas Corpus at the home of the Master of the Rolls, who gave leave to serve notice of application on the persons having the body of Erskine Childers.
The first executions for ‘the illegal possesion of arms’ took place in Dublin when James Fisher, Peter Cassidy, Richard Twohig and John Gaffney were shot in Kilmainham Jail. 73 more men were to follow them until May 2nd 1923.
That evenign in the Dail, the Labour Party pressed the Government as to why the four had been executed. Mulcahy pleaded ‘military necessity’. O’Higgins stated ‘If they took as their first case [ for execution ] some man who was outstandingly active and outstandingly wicked in his activities, the unfortunate dupe throughout the country might say that he wa killed because he was a leader, because he was an Englishman, or because he combined with other to commit rape.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.68
19
20
British Parliament assembled and Bonar Law introduced two Bills, the Irish Free State Constitution Bill and the Irish Free State (Consequential Provisions) Bill. The first presented the Constitution as passed by the Irish Provisional Parliament. While it met with little opposition, a Labour MP, ‘Saklatvala, member for North Battersea, objected to the Bill on the grounds that it was derived from a Treaty which was ‘based upon coercion and signed under duress’… the Labour Party did not…support him in his protest.’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P815
21
Rebecca Latimer Felton, appointed in Georgia to fill deceased senator's unexpired term, is first woman senator in the U.S.
23
Proceedings in the Dublin High Court on the applications for Habeaus Corpus concluded with a judgement that Habeaus Corpus be refused on the grounds that a state of war existed during which the civil courts could not ‘for any purpose, or under any circumstances, control the Military Authority’ but an appeal for a future hearing was granted. As a result of court action, the military authorities that night commuted death sentences on eight other prisoners to terms of imprsionment but upheld that of Childers. Despite the fact his case was still under appeal, Childers was advised he would be shot at dawn on Friday, November 24th at Beggars Bush Barracks.
That night, he wrote to his wife and children ( his son and namesake was to become President of Ireland 1973-1975 ) that ‘ I die full of love for Ireland…I die loving England and passionately praying that she may change completely and finally towards Ireland’.
24
Erskine Childers (52), the politician and author, organiser and shipper of arms for the Irish Volunteers in 1914, TD for Kildare-Wicklow, member of the secretriat of the Negotiating team in London 1921 and Anti-Treaty, shook hands with each member of the firing squad in Beggar’s Bush Barracks before he was executed. His last words were ‘It is 6am – it all seems perfectly simple and inevitable, like lying down after a long days work…come closer boys. It will be easier for you.’
In a statement he wrote on the 19th November for publication after his death: ‘I was bound by honour, consience and principle to oppose the Treaty by speech, writing and action, both in peace and, when it came to the disatrous point, in war…some day we shall be justified when the nation forgets it's weakness.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.69
Throughout the country there was surprise, anger and shame to the news of the execution. One Dail Deputy, Donal O’Rourke resigned in protest.
25
Rome: Italy’s Chamber of Deputies grants Mussolini absolute power for one year and he begins to consolidate the government with fascist supporters.
27
At the opening of the appeal hearings on behalf of Erskine Childers and eight other prisoners, the presiding Judge asked:
‘Are we to understand that the prisoner has been executed pending an appeal to this court?’. The case was upheld to be judicial murder.
Chief of Staff of the Anti-Treaty forces, General Liam Lynch wrote to the ‘Speaker of the Provisional Parliament of Southern Ireland’, stating that ‘The illegal body over which you preside has declared war on the soldiers of the Republic and supressed the legitimate parliament of the Irish Nation…In the early days of this war we took hundreds of your forces prisoners, but accorded them all the rights of Prisoners-Of-War and, over and above, treated them as fellow countrymen and former comrades. Many of your soldiers have been released by us three times although captured with arms on each occasion. But the prisoners you have taken you have treated barbarously, and when helpless have tortured, wounded and murdered them…. You now presume to murder and transport the soldiers who ahd brought Ireland victory when you, traitors, surrended the Republic twelve months ago… We therefore give you and each member of your body due notice that unless your army recognises the rules of warfare in future, we shall adopt very drastic measures to protect our forces’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P822
Both the Irish Free State Constitution and Consequntial Provisions Bill came before the House of Commons for a second reading.
28
Gavan Duffy during a vote in Dail Eireann on the Army Estimates said ‘Erskine Childers was a great irishman…he was an irishman in law under the free Constitution which this dail has passed… I think Erskine Childers was executed upon a charge which does not sustain in the public conscience the capital punishment, or else he was tried on that charge but other matters were allowed to influence those who confirmed the execution. If that were the case, the authorities have done something contrary to natural justice as understood in every part of the world’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P815
De Valera writing to Joe McGarrity commented that the people were tired of war and fighting, funds were tight and the simple fact that many who supported the Republic simply were unwilling to bear arms against their own. As for recent events, ‘Childer’s death is a big blow, not so much on account of what he was doing immediately before that, but because of what he could do under new conditions. He died the Prince he was. Of all the men I ever knew, I would say he was the noblest. The gun he had in his possesion was an automatic that Mick gave him, telling him it was to defend the Republic. I saw him with it myself – a tiny automatic, little better than a toy and in no sense a war weapon. Since Harry’s death I have felt no other blow so keenly.’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’. Anvil Books, 1972. P132
29
Gavan O’Duffy raised the matter of the executions of Cassidy, Gaffney, Fisher and Twohig, saying it was neither law nor justice to ‘try a man for one thing, and execute him for another.’. Members of the Government replied that the critical state of the nation and armed opposition to the Treaty demanded a detterent.
O’Higgins in an Irish Times interview said that the execution of the Cassidy, Gaffney, Fisher and Twohig on the 17th had gone ahead because if the Government was to execute Childers first, then ‘the unfortunate dupes throughout the country might say that he was killed because he was a leader, because he was an Englishman or because he combined with others to commit raids.’ Hence ‘average cases which had no particular fgacts to distinguish them’ were taken first.
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P812
30
Joseph Spooner, Patrick Farrelly and John Murphy were executed in Dublin for being in possesion of a revolver and explosives and the men had been captured near the HQ of the Criminal Investigtion Department following an attempt to blow up the building. These were the first of a new government policy where relatives were not informed until after the executions had taken place. The law as it stood now meant that ‘every Republican taken with arms after October 15th was now liable to be called from his prison cell, convicted by a court composed of his enemies and put to death within a few hours. This situation was one of great strain for the prisoners and of incessant anxiety for their families and friends. The Provisional Government had devised a war measure better calculated than any used by the British Government to break down the resistance of those opposed to them.’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P812
Richard Mulcahy responding in Dail Eireann to the three executions said ‘We are people who realise that man is made in the image and likeness of God…when a man is going to his death, he does get a priest’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.68
In Munich, Adolf Hitler addressed a National Socialist rally of 50,000 while on the same day.
General Liam Lynch issued his ‘Orders of Frighfulness’ outlining for all battalion commanders, fourteen categories of persons in the Provisional Government who could be now shot on sight by Anti-Treaty forces. This included any Dail Deputy who had voted for the Special Emergency Powers granted to the Minister for Defence, Senators, Unionists, hostile journalists, High Court Judges, Businessmen, those described as ‘aggressive Free State supporters’and any member of the Free State Army above the rank of Lieutenant.
December 1922
With the Civil war raging in Ireland, Diarmuid Lynch wrote a letter as Secreatry of the Friends of Irish Freedom which was sent to all members:
‘..heartrending as are the conditions in Ireland at the moment, our fellow workers in the cause here must not feel discouraged. It is more than ever incumbent on us to draw together those friends of Ireland who are capable of viewing the deplorable circumstances inteligently and without passion, so that our influence may be exercised towards securing for Ireland the greatest need of the moment - Peace; and then forge ahead towards the ultimate goal of the Race - an independent Irish Republic.
Diarmuid Lynch "The I.R.B. and the 1916 Rising" Mercier Press. 1957. p209
Major Florrie O’Donoghue commenting on Diarmuid’s activities and outlook from 1922 to 1932:
‘…his steady, consistent purpose is evident. His Republican principles remained unchnaged from the day Sean T. O'Kelly swore him into the I.R.B until the day of his death. There was no time in that long span of over half a century when he was not thinking and working in one way or another for the realisation of the ideal for which he took up arms in Easter Week, 1916. Wherever he was in the United States of Ireland, he found the means to continue what was for him, a labour of love.
His sterling honesty and fearless expression of his views remained uninfluenced by the stormy political passions in which he was unavoidably involved. In all his writings on current events there is an absence of that extravgant denunciation of opponents which was such an unfortunate aspect of the very human difference of opinion on policy which arose both in Ireland and America. In the historical recording of the events with which he was associated, truth was for him the first and paramount consideration.
In the years when Irish politicla life was embittered by the Treaty disension and their aftermath, he was, always with the ultimate purpose in view, an advocate of policies which were later adopted but then unpopular. As well as having the Fenian faith, he had faith in the Irish people. He never doubted their ultimate attianment of the national goal of complete indpendence, and he was, in the old tradition, prepared to use every weapon which came to his hands for the achievment of freedom.’
Diarmuid Lynch ‘"The I.R.B. and the 1916 Rising" Mercier Press. 1957. p215-216
3
An army order was issued extending the power of the Military Courts to include possesion of ammunition or any explosive substance as a capital offence.
4
Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, although passed by the U.S. House, is withdrawn from the Senate after a southern states' filibuster.
5
The Irish Constitution Bill creating the Irish Free State, received the Royal Assent and became law. Later the same day, the King approved the appointment of Timothy healy as Govenor-General Designate of the Free State.
First issue of an Irish postage stamp, face value of 2d, bearing a white map of Ireland on a green background.
6
A year after the signing of the Treaty, the Irish Free State came into existence as the powers of the Provisional Government expired. Members of the Provisional Parlaiment reassembled and the Parliament officially became Dail Eireann. The assembly continued to be boycotted by Republican Deputies and all present took the Oath of Allegiance. Labour leader, Thomas Johnson read a declaration signed by all Labour TD’s to the effect that they regarded the Oath as a formality implying no obligation of citizenship and that the terms of the Treaty were accepted..
7
Dail Eireann TD Sean Hales, one of the signatories to the Army Powers Resoloution was assasinated and the Leas Ceann Comphairle ( Deputy-President or Speaker of the Dial ) Padraig O’Maille wounded by a lone gunman, Owen Donnelly in Dublin.
The Cabinet met in a barricaded Merrion Street and opted to take extreme measures.
Death warrants were signed for four of the senior Republicans held in Mountjoy since the Four Courts surrender in July - Liam Mellows (30), Dick Barrett, Joseph McKelvey and Rory O’Connor. There was to be no trial. Eoin MacNeil was the first to agree while Minister for Home Affairs, Kevin O’Higgins was firmly against the severity of the retaliation and argued against the decision in Cabinet. At O’Higgin’s wedding the year before, Rory O’Connor had been best man. As Minister for Home Affairs, he held the responsibility of signing the four death warrants, which he did.
William T. Cosgrave was elected first president of the Irish Free State parliament on 7 December 1922.
In Belfast, the Northern Ireland assembly exercised its option of ‘contracting out’ and remain part of the United Kingdom. Sir James Criag reiterated that Northern Ireland was not a party to the Treaty and therefore would refuse to nominate a reprersentative to the Boundary Commission. Effectively this left the Commission hamstrung, unable to operate without a representative from the six counties.
The Anti-Partition League officially wound up with the end of Irish Unionist Alliance activities in the South of Ireland.
8
Liam Mellows (30), Dick Barrett, Joseph McKelvey and Rory O’Connor who had been held in Mountjoy prison since the surrender of the Four Courts in July were roused from sleep and advised that they would be executed at dawn.
30 minutes before his death, Liam Mellows wrote to his ‘dear comrades in Mountjoy! God bless you boys, and may he give you the fortitude, courage and wisdom to suffer and endure all for Ireland’s sake. An Poblacht Abu’
Tim Carey. ‘Mountjoy – The Story of a Prison’ The Collins Press, Dublin 2000.p202
At first light, the four men were shot in the prison yard. Cosgrave refused last minute clemency pleas of a personal friend, the Archbishop of Dublin, Edward Byrne, to reconsider. Sharing the cell with O’Connor was the 18 year old, Sean MacBride.
The firing squad party was led by Major-General Hugo MacNeill.
The government statement read that the four had been executed ‘as a reprisal for the assination of Brig. Hales TD, as a solemn warning to those associated with them who are engaged in the conspiracy of assination against the representatives of the Irish people’ and signalled a new hardline stance against the ‘irregulars’.
Liam Mellowes wrote to his mother from Mountjoy ‘Though unworthy of the greatest human honour that can be paid an Irishman or woman, I go to join Tone and Emmet, the Fenians, Tom Clarke, Connolly, Pearse, Kevin Barry and Childers. My last thoughts will be on God and Ireland and on you.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.69
‘The whole country was shocked. It was a dreaful reprisal. They were four of our best men’
Kathleen Clarke. ‘Revoloutionary Woman’ O’Brien Press 1991. P.200
In the Dail, Government ministers defended the executions. Richard Mulcahy stating that the threatening letter had been recievd by the Speaker, pointing out the vulnerability of the Government and that this action was taken as a deterrent to any future attempts on the lives of Dail deputies. Despite the fact that Minister for Home Affairs, Kevin O’Higgins had argued strongly against the retaliation measure in Cabinet, he signed the death warrants and publicly defended the measurers. ‘Personal spite, Great Heaven! Vindictiveness! One of these men was a friend of mine.’
Cosgrave in a closing speech concluded with a promise to ‘show them that terror will be struck into them.’
The New York Nation commented on the 20th December that this action was ‘Murder, foul and despicable and nothing else’
While no further government ministers were assasinated, direct relatives of the ministers were. A seige situation decsended in Ireland. The members of the provisional government lived in Government buildings.
This action by the Government redirected Anti-Treaty forces to target property rather than persons.
9
In the midst of these developments, the Senate was convened by the Govenor General and the Irish Free State Parliament was now complete.
10
Dr Edward Byrne. Archbishop of Dublin on the execution of the four IRA prisoners was ‘that one man should be punished for another’s crimes seems to me to be absolutely unjust. Moreover such a policy is bound to alienate many friends of the Government and it requires all the sympathy it can get.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.69
An arson attack on the home of Sean McGarry TD leads to the death of his son.
11
First meeting of the Free State Senate. Lord Glenavy elected Chairman.
12
The Oirechtas assembled in Leinster House to receive an address from the Govenor-General. The Labour party members absented themselves until T.M.Healy had left.
In Northern Ireland, the Duke of Abercorn sworn in as the first Govenor-General of Northern Ireland.
17
The last British troops leave Dublin, ending Britain’s first colony.
Meanwhile back in London, Sir Mansfield Cumming received a top secret copy of meeting minutes of the Soviet Commitern, the organisation founded to promote Bolshevik idealogy worldwide. These documents held information that aside from propaganda activities, the Soviet Union was funding various national communist parties to subvert governments. $300,000 had been given to the American Communist party to to persuade ‘American negroes’ to enlist in the Red Army. The British Communist party received £80,000 to assist in ‘electoral expenses’, £120,000 was given to the Indian Communist leder, M.N.Roy to train agents to be sent to India as this was seen as ‘the perfect back door with which to attack London’. The apparent genorisity of the Soviet Union was ‘all the more shocking given the desperate economic crisis in Russia…during which 5 million people died of starvation’
Source: Patrick French. Sunday Times article on MI6 Archives. 10 August 1997. P4 of News Review section.
19
As the Civil War degenerated further, the General commanding Government forces in Kerry announced that four officers of the IRA captured had been sentenced to death which would be carried out if any attack was made on Free State troops in the area after December 21st. This system of sentencing captured men and holding them as hostages became widespread on both sides.
On the same day, seven Anti-Treatyites, Stephen White, Joseph Johnston, Patrick Mangan, Patrick Nolan, Brian Moore, James O’Connor and Patrick Bagnel were executed by firing squad in Dublin after being discovered in a dugout in Kildare and being in ‘the illegal possesion of arms’.
Defeat of the Anti-Treaty forces was becoming only a matter of time. The Free State Government had access to British military supplies wheras the ‘irregulars’ depended on captured arms and munitions. Anti-Treaty Forces lived rough, in dug-outs and dependent on the local population. However the civilian majority did not support the on-going guerilla warfare and unlike the War of Independence, both sides knew the country, the terrain and how to fight effectively in it.
Shane Leslie wrote to Hazel Lavery warning that her perceived influence in Collins’ support for the Treaty may have placed her in danger. He wrote ‘You were always watched when you were with him in London or Ireland and a word is enough to set fire to a field in Ireland. I am glad you were not killed together as they doubtless planned in their myriad scheming minds.’
Sinead McCoole ‘Hazel – A Life of Lady Lavery 1880-1935’. Lilliput Press, Dublin 1996. P104
20
Anti-Treaty Forces tactics now switched to destruction of Government property and more specifically, homes and businesses of TD’s as a reprisal for any executions. Later in the month, Deputy McGarry’s home was burned killing one of his children.
Sir Horace Punkett’s home, Kilteragh was burned to the ground by Anti-Treaty forces.
21
The IRA Chief of Staff, Liam Lynch in a letter to Joe McGarrity, wrote that he had sent Sean Moylan to the US as the Executive Representative to the Clann na Gael along with Brigadier Leahy. As for the situation at home, Lynch commented that it ‘is generally very satisfactory and generally is immensley improving from week to week. We here believe the situation is already saved, at least, as far as the present enemy is concerned…the recent executions by the enemy, especially Liam Mellows, is a very serious blow to the Nation, but we hope these dishnourable tactics will be redeemed later.’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’. Anvil Books, 1972. P132
All in all, Liam Lynch was painting an over-optimistic picture of the situation for the Anti-Treaty forces.
Sean Moylan remained the Republican Liason Officer with Clann na Gael through 1922/23. Liam Lynch sent Moylan a list of ‘minimum requirements’ arms orders of four mountain batteries of artillery – each with four heavy guns and shells, Thompson sub-machine guns and two million rounds of .303 ammunition. The main problem was not so much where the arms could be purchased as to to raise the cash. McGarrity organised this, setting a target of some $53,000 from Irish communities and organisations throughout the US within 30 days. He had some $35,000 on hand and with that kind of money, buying arms would be no trouble, particualrly in post-war Germany. Moylan began arrangements for the purchase of heavy weapons in Germany through John T. Ryan and the arrival of experienced men in Ireland to use them.
22
U.S government approves $20 million in aid for Russian starvation relief.
27
George Russell (AE) appealed to the Republicans to lay down their arms ‘There is no dishonour in raising the ocnflict from the physical to the intelectual plane’
29
John Phelan and John Murphy were executed by firing squad in Kilkenny for ‘the illegal possesion of arms’.
30
With the Bolsheviks victorious in their civil war for control of Russia, Lenin proclaims the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), binding Russia, White Russia, Ukraine, and Transcaucasia, with central government authority in Moscow.
31
Kevin O’Higgins, Minister for Justice commenting on the first months of the Free State Government’s existence ‘The Provisional Government was simply eight young men in the City Hall standing amidst the ruins of one administration, with the foundation of another not yet laid and with wild men screaming through the keyhole’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999 p.69
Hits of 1922:
‘Limehouse Blues’, ‘I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate’ and ‘Chicago’.
As 1922 drew to a close, Macardle wrote that to de Valera ‘the continuance of the Civil war appeared disastrous, yet he realised that resitance in arms had been rendered inevitable by the course which the Pro-Treaty leaders had followed.’
Dorothy Macardle. ‘The Irish Republic’ Irish Press, Dublin 1951. P830