Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 29 Nov 1922

Vol. 1 No. 32

DÁIL IN COMMITTEE. - THE ARMY ESTIMATES.

The Army Estimates were under discussion yesterday evening on a motion:—"That the Dáil in Committee having considered the Estimates for the Army in 1922/23, and having passed a Vote on account of £4,000,000 for the period to the 6th December, 1922, recommend that the full Estimate of £7,245,000 for the Financial Year, 1922/23, be adopted in due course by the Oireachtas." I would like to remind Deputies that we are now going into Committee to resume that adjourned discussion and under the rules of debate in Committee speeches should not exceed ten minutes. That rule was waived yesterday in the case of Deputy Gavan Duffy.

I do not want to go outside the time allotted. I do not want to continue, and I think by the Standing Orders I am entitled to continue, that is, to speak a second time in Committee on these Estimates. I want briefly to continue part of the argument I had taken up yesterday in connection with the executions. Before I go on to that however, there are one or two questions which have already been put to the Minister for Defence which I hope he will be in a position to give the answers to in the course of his reply. One of them, I think, will perhaps arise under. Item "U: Compensation for Damage or Injuries, £100,000." I should like to know what that is intended to cover, and I should like to ask him whether as, for instance, in the case of the gentleman whose motor car was mentioned yesterday and other men whose motor cars have been commandeered and returned —returned, it is alleged, in a bad state —whether any progress has been made in the consideration which the Minister for Defence has said is given to these cases. Another point which I think he would do well to deal with arises in connection with the conduct of his troops, whom we are about to pass payment for at the public meeting in O'Connell Street, I think it was on Sunday week last. In the proceedings at the inquest I find that a military witness was informed by the Barrack Adjutant that there was a meeting in—as one paper the "Irish Times," calls it, Sackville Street, but the name is immaterial— and was told to proceed there. The witness asked if the meeting was proclaimed and was informed that it was. I should like the Minister to say whether the meeting was or was not proclaimed The witness went on to say that he told the meeting that it would have to disperse. Now this raises the whole big issue which has been a big issue in this country before this period. It raises an issue in which we on these benches are particularly interested, an issue which was raised away back in 1913 at the period of the general lock-out of the Dublin workers by the Dublin employers and at various other periods in our history. It involves, of course, the whole question of the legality of public meetings. I am not talking about the right of public meetings; I am talking about the legality of that public meeting. It involves also the question, even if a meeting or a gathering of any kind is illegal, of the method of dealing with that illegality or meeting. I submit while during the course of the meeting and after the intervention of the military, at that late hour the meeting may have become an unlawful or illegal assembly, I submit that before that it was a perfectly legal assembly, and if it were not that the proper steps should have been taken to deal with it. That, as I say, raises the other big question as to the amount of force with which the military, or, as I submit, in this case, if it were an illegal meeting, the Constabulary, could be used in dealing with it. It is not only a ridiculous but a dangerous thing, of which I and my colleagues up and down the country will have to take particular note, and particular care to guard against, that is, the mere sending out of a military officer with instructions from a Barrack Adjutant that the meeting was proclaimed, and to disperse it. The officer later said he was not told how to disperse it, and I want the Minister to deal as fully as he can with that. Not only for that reason, but because I want him to say, as I have repeatedly asked him in this Dáil, whether any progress has been made in the compilation of Army Regulations, or whether the troops at present are working under any Army Regulations, or say, the British Army Regulations, which on the whole, apart from their place of origin, are not at all bad Army Regulations. His reply, I think, to that is necessary, particularly arising out of the decisions in Habeas Corpus cases in the Courts, because I think we will want to know, and I think the Courts will want to know, whether these troops are working under what is popularly known as the Mutiny Act or not. Because while not being a lawyer, I submit that their responsibility, if they are acting under a certain Act or Acts, is of a different kind from their responsibility, if they are not acting under these Acts at all. Now to come back to the question of the executions, I submit that in those cases just as in the case of the meeting, a great deal centres around the principle of the case. I have asked, and I repeat the invitation to the Minister, to say whether it was necessary that these four and this fifth should be executed on the charge which it is presumed was prepared against them, namely the charge of having a revolver and whether others are going to be tried. This question is not a question of morbid curiosity at all. These things are establishing precedents, and the Courts are establishing precedents, and unless I am very much mistaken, and I think it is a good idea, we are going to have a good deal of judge-made law. Now I am not at all on the whole an admirer of the British Empire, or British Imperialism, or anything like that, but there is a distinct advantage which is not enjoyed by the people in many other States in the functioning of the British Constitution and British laws. We are going to have, I think, a good deal of judge-made law, and all these things are going to be precedents in the future. For that reason we must have them thrashed out here at the beginning, and so I want to go fully into the question of immediate necessity, because I am not one of those who hold what, in the legal view of some constitutional lawyers, is political necessity. I want him to tell us the necessity for the denial of the right of relatives to see these people before execution. In conclusion, I would like very briefly to draw attention to what happened in South Africa after the insurrection or rebellion of 1915. Now, I will grant to the Minister that the circumstances here are totally different. I grant that during the course of that insurrection, or while it was being dealt with, those in revolt did not act in the stupid, wild, altogether unjustifiable way in which those who are in arms in Ireland against the Government have done. I admit all that, but I would like to remind the Minister that when the insurrection was in being, and while steps were taken to deal with those taken prisoners and those persons who had taken part in the insurrection, there was no such thing as the death penalty. Not only was there no death penalty, but there was a special legal tribunal—I think it was of Judges—a special legal tribunal set up to deal with these things, and with a long elaborate system and code. I submit that from the low ground of expediency it would have been much better if originally the forces which the Minister commands had taken that course, or a similar course, rather than the course they did, and had presented these regulations originally to us. I hope the Minister will answer generally these points.

The discussion in this Committee, on Army Estimates, was opened yesterday by Deputy Gavan Duffy by a reference to a case that has aroused a considerable amount of publicity. I do not wish to make any extended reference to that, but I feel there are one or two matters in connection with it which ought perhaps to be mentioned. Seeing that the matter has been raised I take this opportunity of saying that I am in disagreement very fundamentally with the point of view Deputy Gavan Duffy has taken in this matter. I assume that we all recognise, in this Assembly, the very bitter necessity for such executions as have occurred, but while we recognise their bitterness we recognise the very unfortunate necessity also. No one goes about this city cutting off fingers for pleasure, for the reason that if anybody were found exercising that peculiar form of fun he would soon find himself in a criminal lunatic asylum. Nevertheless, we do find that there are people in this city who cut off fingers and are paid very high fees for it, and they are not put in a criminal lunatic asylum, and why? Because they only do it when it is required as a very important surgical necessity when the body is diseased. Ireland is at the present moment in a position that the body politic is diseased, and this unfortunate necessity has occurred, and we know exactly what it means in Ireland to-day with the threats each one of us is receiving every week, but in spite of that I take my stand, in this matter, with the necessity, and in criticism of the remarks that were made here yesterday by Deputy Gavan Duffy. But while doing so I wish to state this equally clearly, that I equally well recognise the considerable degree of moral courage that was required by Deputy Gavan Duffy to make the speech he made here yesterday holding the views that he does hold. It required more moral courage to have stood up in this Assembly and to have said what he did—knowing that he was alone in the Assembly, and knowing that the person shot was an unpopular man—than it required to have shot Mr. Erskine Childers, and I think we have too much in this Dáil of people being charged with a lack of moral courage instead of their criticisms being met by answers which are satisfactory. I say that with all the greater indignation and vehemence for this reason. One of the noblest men whom I ever knew was my friend Roger Casement, and I remember the time when Roger Casement was in England standing his trial for his life, with the whole population of England desiring his life, when it required no small degree of moral courage to have stood for the defence of Roger Casement. One solicitor came forward and undertook that defence, and threw his whole practice into it, and that solicitor was Deputy Gavan Duffy, I take off my hat to Deputy Gavan Duffy for the speech he made yesterday, although I disagree profoundly with every word he said. I think it would be much better if we could dispense with all these personalities in this Dáil, which are merely the backwash of what went on in the second Dáil. I turn from that to the Army Estimates, which have been made the subject of a good deal of criticism, all of which, perhaps, may not have been strictly pertinent, both by myself and others. There are one or two questions that I would like to ask the Minister for Defence to answer when he comes to deal with matters in his final reply. There has been something said outside this Dáil that there have been payments made. I do not know whether it is so or not. I am asking in order that we may have the opportunity of hearing any answer that may be made, and that may be more or less final because it will be authoritative—that the expenses incurred in respect of officers' messes have been paid out of national funds. That is a matter that we ought to deal with here, and I raise it for that reason. I hope the assurance we will receive is that all expenditure in connection with officers' messes is not national expenditure. I assume that is so, and I merely await an answer. I would also like if the Minister for Defence could answer a rather problematical question—if he would let us know if this very large sum of £7,250,000, which we are paying partly because of the necessity of the circumstances, but partly also because of the martial ardour that our war for freedom brought in to many young persons in the last three or four years, could possibly be diminished if we were living under terms and conditions of peace. I think it would help the nation if we could have a definite statement, if it is possible to make such a statement here, that it is paying seven and a quarter millions a year because of the action of certain Irishmen who will not accept in a sportsmanlike spirit, if in no better mind, the decision of the majority that has gone against them; whereas, if we were to take the advice of Irishmen who recommended when we were to adopt constitutional methods when they were available for us, we would be able to get this seven and a quarter millions down to a smaller figure, quite apart altogether from the damage that has been done in this country, but merely in the outgoings for the maintenance of an Army which we in the country do not need, and would not need if we learned rightly the constitutional lessons that were given to us so professorially and so badly practised since. I feel that there may be a tendency set up for the future of regarding this seven and a quarter millions as expense we will have to go on paying for some time, and it would be a lamentable thing if we got into the habit of regarding this sum as a sum that might be perpetuated, or, if diminished, diminished in a very small measure, and for this reason I am asking if the Minister for Defence has any figure at his disposal as to what, under conditions of peace, would be the monetary requirements for the maintenance of an Army force which may be required in this country under the Treaty of Peace.

I venture to direct the attention of the Minister for Defence to the question of Contracts for the provisioning of troops in the various towns. There appears to be universal dissatisfaction with the method adopted to secure supplies. A grave grievance is that those who never supported a National movement in many cases receive the largest orders for our troops. The complaint of the traders who always supported the National movement is that the supplies are not a matter for contract and that the contracts and tenders are not published in due course. I have been told that in the case of a shopkeeper who secures orders for provisions, the bread contract became a family matter, and furthermore in the fullness of his heart and in order to save the Minister for Defence from profiteering he started a butcher's business although there were several professional butchers in the district already. These matters should not occur, and they can be straightened out by having the subject of contracts gone into, in due course.

This question which Deputy McBride has just raised on contracts tends to go into one hundred and fifty grievances of a very serious kind with regard to the placing of contracts with the Army. It is common knowledge that there have been many abuses with regard to the placing of contracts, but I am saved from the necessity of entering upon this line of cricicism because I am satisfied with the assurances that we have had privately, that there is an admission of guilt and a promise of better behaviour in the future. It is undoubtedly true that the Army Contract system has broken through all terms and conditions under which Government Contracts ought to be given, but that is admitted, and we have the assurance that henceforward the fair wages clause and the other conditions which they generally hold to safeguard the interests of the taxpayer—certainly to safeguard the interests of the public and to prevent the barefaced rooking of the public which has been very prevalent during the last 12 months—that it shall not occur henceforward. There are other questions that one would like to raise, and before entering on the larger issues I would like to ask a question as to what sub-head of this Estimate the vote for munitions is to be included. I see:—

A. Pay of Officers, N.C.O's, and men of the Regular Army, £2,275,000.

B. Dependants' allowance, £1,050,000.

C. Wages of civilians attached to units, £150,000.

D. Pay. &c., of officiating clergymen, £25,000.

General Stores, £350,000.

War-like stores is the only description under which I think one could imagine that guns and ammunition could be included. If we are going to be sure that £20,000 will cover the whole cost then we are getting them cheaply. They have not been given out to local Jewish contractors. I will not say they have not been given out in that way, because I do not know, but I am perfectly certain if it is being done for £20,000 that is not the procedure. There is no other sub-head which seems to describe any payment for munitions, and I think we ought to have some idea as to what the Vote for Munitions is estimated to be. I think it is apparent that there has been a tremendous waste of ammunition. One is tempted to say that the element of sport enters too much in the minds of soldiers, and apparently there is not sufficient check upon the waste of their ammunition, as we judge by many evidences. But that is a comparatively small matter. I want to follow on the queries that were raised by Deputy O'Shannon in regard to the shooting in O'Connell Street. We have been informed that the demand for a public inquiry is impossible of being acceded to in the present state of things, that a military inquiry is to be held and the result of that military inquiry will be made known in due course. Luckily for the public—and I think it is a matter of luck perhaps, because there was a Corporation Counsel present at the inquest —there was something in the nature of a public inquiry into this case. It was lucky because the Coroner has too frequently exercised his discretion recently and has prevented facts being brought out. But the evidence of the military themselves, and it is their evidence alone which I will deal with, proves the necessity for this particular kind of action being brought home to the right people and steps taken to prevent the possibility of similar action taking place in the future. There has been, as is common knowledge, a series of meetings Sunday after Sunday in O'Connell Street. The meetings were small in the beginning, I am told, and they grew as the weeks went by. Now the right of public meeting is a very important right and must be maintained, but I am not going to claim that the right of public meeting in O'Connell Street at any hour, at any time, under any circumstances, without discrimination, is a right that ought to be demanded or conceded. The right of public meeting is one that must take into account the rights of citizens generally. But it was not on account of obstruction apparently that this meeting was prohibited or the attempt made to disperse it. We gather that the Officer who was sent out to disperse the meeting was told that it had been proclaimed. No name was given as to who proclaimed it, or how it was proclaimed, or to whom notice was given of its proclamation. But a tender took an officer and troops to the meeting and it was driven into the crowd, some say to a greater degree than others. The officer stepped down and attempted to reach the speakers pressing through the crowd with a revolver in his hand. If he had had any discretion he would have known that there was grave risk in that revolver going off. We all know the number of accidents through revolvers going off unpremeditatedly, and we know that in this case his own evidence shows that by virtue of the pressure of the crowd the revolver did go off. That was his evidence, and he ought to have foreseen it before he went through the crowd shaking the revolver with the object of dispersing the crowd. The crowd did not disperse, and I suppose that is evidence of the strength of mind of the people that composed the crowd and their familiarity with force and the threat of force in those recent days. But the incidents developed immediately, and naturally led to a shooting of people in that crowd. You might say naturally, because you had put into the hands of men who were not in the habit of dealing with crowds and civil commotion, you put into the hands of such men revolvers, and they went out from barracks under military orders full of the idea that they were going into a hostile crowd, and that as soon as they saw hostility they had to shoot. That is not the way to deal with a civil offence, if it is an offence. It is not the way to deal with a public meeting that you want to disperse, and it is very important that if this duty of dispersing public meetings is to be taken in hands by soldiers that they should be given some guidance as to how to proceed. It is a very common experience in other countries that crowds have to be dispersed, but there has grown up some kind of a practice, a formal method of procedure, and surely it was a simple thing if this meeting was getting too big, if it was not to be allowed to remain in O'Connell Street, that the promoters ought to have been informed beforehand, that it was not going to be allowed to be held. But instead of that the meeting is allowed to be held week after week and then suddenly, so far as one can gather, without any notice, an armoured car goes into the crowd, and an attempt is made to inform the promoters of the meeting that it is to be dispersed, and when some opposition is shown, the result is that soldiers fire upon the crowd, and one person is killed, another is seriously wounded, and several others less seriously wounded. We do not know to-day what the reason is for the successful dispersal of that meeting. It was not an illegal meeting. There is no evidence whatever that it was a boisterous meeting. There is no evidence, as a matter of fact, that it was even causing obstruction, although it is palpable that it was causing an obstruction. But even the following Sunday a meeting was allowed to be held in the same place, for the same purpose. I want to say that that meeting, if it was to be dispersed, ought to have been dispersed under the auspices of the Ministry for Home Affairs, and not under the auspices of the Ministry for Defence, and that it should not be at the option of a military officer in any barracks to send troops to disperse a public meeting until the police have failed in their attempt to disperse it and to keep order. We demand that there should be some definite promise that that kind of procedure shall not take place anywhere else at any future time. That brings me to another subject that I want to ask a question about, and it is to ensure, if possible, that a better appreciation of the responsibility will be given in regard to the detention of prisoners. What I would like to know is, what is the procedure—what is the method of inquiry—in regard to a prisoner who has been arrested and is being detained? We have been told that it is necessary that prisoners against whom there is any suspicion shall be detained; that if they will agree to abide by a promise not to oppose the Government, that an inquiry will be held into their antecedents, I suppose, and if satisfaction is given to the inquiring officers that such prisoners are not likely to be a danger, then there is a chance, a possibility, shall I say a probability, of release. What I would like to have is some indication of the principles under which this inquiry is conducted, and what the standing of the officer is who decides finally as to the merits of the case. I cannot but think that there is through the country the same amount of irresponsibility—that is to say, failure to appreciate sufficiently the justice of the case, the needs of the civil life, and the claims of the civilians to consideration. I feel that there are too many cases of detention and continued detention without any proof or any ground for the suspicion. And I want to know whether the sifting of each case is thorough, and whether there is before permanent detention is decided upon, whether there is a genuine and well thought out decision that such a person must be detained. I would like to know the method of procedure, and who is the final authority in regard to any particular case.

Before the Minister for Defence answers all the questions put to him yesterday and to-day there is one item in this Estimate (A. 1) which says: "the pay of the Officers, N.C.Os. and men of the Regular Army is £2,275,000." We have been told of the pay from Captain to Private, but we have not been told of the salaries from General to Captain, and it does not specify here the salary of Generals, from General to Captain. I think when an Estimate is put forward it should be put plainly, so that each Deputy can fully understand it. I know that the country in general, the people, are of opinion that a great deal of money has been wasted. Certainly I do say a great deal of money has been wasted owing to the very system that has been explained here by the two Deputies who spoke before me—where contracts were given. I am happy to say that in my constituency for the past couple of months this system has been changed. Tenders are taken, and the person who is the lowest tender gets the contract. That has been done in my own constituency for the past two months. There is another matter. I spoke against executions in this Dáil on last Friday week. Now, I do not stand up here to explain my opinions simply for want of moral courage. It was explained last night in the statement of the President that Deputies stand up and bring forward questions in order that that Deputy may be looked upon as an Eloquent Dempsey—as I explained a few minutes ago, running with the hare and hunting with the hounds, or, in other words, trying to pull both sides. I do not want to do that. Nothing of the kind. I accepted my nomination to try and do my best to bring peace and freedom to Ireland. My people returned me to the Dáil as their representative, and in this Dáil I am going to remain and suffer the consequences on my own shoulders, and I am strong enough to bear it, but there is one thing that I have an objection to since I had the honour of becoming a member of this Dáil, that is the executions. As it has been explained over and over again it was the executions in 1916 of Pearse, McDonagh, O'Rahilly and Connolly and the others who were shot against the wall—it was their blood that was shed that re-baptised the Irish Nation, and gave us the freedom that we have now within our grasp. If their blood re-baptised the Irish Nation through the mistake that England made by executing them, well it is the same identical problem that we are now confronted with. Will the blood of these men who have been executed by the Provisional Government spread Republicanism more in the hearts of the people than it is at the present time? In other words, I wonder how many Deputies will be returned to this Dáil if there is an election in two months' time if they continue these executions? I assure you they will be few and far between. The Irish are a people who will never be governed by the sword, and the more executions you will cause the more enemies you will make in the country. The remark made last night by Deputy Gaffney that when the late Mr. Childers asked to see a Catholic Bishop or a Catholic clergyman, that dying request was refused. But he was allowed to see, half an hour later, his own clergyman. Now I hope the Minister for Defence will be able to contradict that, and say it is false. If this man was asking to see a Catholic clergyman before he died it may have been with a good intention—it may have been with the intention of becoming a convert. I do not see why a smile should pass the lips of the Ministers when I say this. I do not see why Ministers should smile when a Deputy asks why you refused the death wish of a man whose life you were about to take, when you refuse him permission to see a clergyman of the religion that we a Catholic Nation recognise. I sincerely hope that the Minister for Defence will be able to give an answer to that question that will satisfy the Irish Nation. Furthermore, I would like, if possible, to make it quite clear to this Dáil in my own plain words that I do not stand up here against the Minister or that I do not come here in order to cause destruction or to cause annoyance in this Dáil. But I want fair play and justice. I can assure you the country will not tolerate this long imprisonment without trial, and it will not tolerate these executions. Take for example the young lady about whom I had a question yesterday, Miss Coyle. I will take her case. That young lady was imprisoned for over six weeks without a female attendant. There was no female there but herself, and after that long imprisonment she was removed to hospital, where there were female attendants. I do not see where the Christianity comes in there. Surely if you arrest females it is your duty to have female attendants. Surely if a person whose life you are about to take makes a dying request surely as Irishmen your hearts will tell you that you are in duty bound to grant it. I know you have done wrong; the country knows it, and you know it yourselves. I sincerely hope that the execution of Mr. Childers will be the last execution that will take place in Ireland under the present Government. I do not agree with ambushing. I do not agree with the policy of men who stand behind a ditch to take the lives of fellow-creatures passing by. Neither do I believe in one man stabbing another behind his back. I condemn that party the same as I condemn the Government. I condemn them more so if they lie in ambush to take the lives of fellow-creatures. If they are caught in that act, certainly it should be an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I do object to the execution of a man who is caught with a revolver in his possession and his captors do not know if that man pulled a trigger in order to take life. I observe that the proviso "with the intention" is put in. Is that sufficient to convict a prisoner in order that he may be executed? I say it is not. I hold if a man is to forfeit his life he must be caught in the act of taking life or you must have proof that he has already taken life. I hope this Government will consider the matter rather seriously before they again advise that any of their prisoners be executed. Above all things, I would ask the Minister for Defence to try, if possible, to give a satisfactory answer to the question with regard to the late Mr. Childers being refused the right to see a Catholic clergyman, while he was granted the right to see his own chaplain.

I would like to ask the Minister if the payments to officers include payments to officers who hold other positions. For instance, Captain Moynihan, the Director of the Criminal Investigation Department, holds, I believe, a position as Director of the Investigation Department of the G.P.O., and there are other instances.

In regard to the contracts for our troops, I have heard it said we are paying 100 per cent. more than the British Army authorities are paying for their contracts. I do not know how true that is. It seems strange, in a country where we produce so much of our own foodstuffs, that we would be paying so much. I refer particularly to meat. There must be something wrong if our Army authorities are paying current rates for supplies that the British authorities are getting at 50 per cent. less. A great saving could, I think, be effected in this Department.

I would like, in the first instance, to draw the attention of the Minister for Defence to the very great irregularity that exists with regard to the payment of dependants' allowances. I have received very many complaints, and I take it other Deputies have received many complaints, with regard to this matter. In Ballinasloe, County Galway, where very large numbers of men have joined, their dependants have made very serious complaints of delay in the payment of allowances. As to the general policy of the Army regarding executions, I did not intend to intervene, and would not have done so but for the statement of Deputy Figgis, from which anyone listening might draw the conclusion that Deputy Gavan Duffy in speaking on this matter yesterday was alone. I wish to say that so far as I understand he was not alone in this Dáil, and he certainly echoed the feelings of a great many people throughout the country. I am totally opposed to the taking of human life by one side or the other. I think it is a reversion to savagery when human life has to be taken. If such a necessity should arise —I do not admit it—it is an admission of bankruptcy in statesmanship. Such an admission is conveyed if we can only settle our differences at the point of the gun. I do not believe the gun has ever satisfactorily settled anything. I do not believe it will satisfactorily settle this. I believe another way must be found. In the interests of even the Government itself let me say that a continuation of the present policy is not going to bring peace. The President said here yesterday that the executions had already had a good effect in bringing about a certain cessation in activity on the part of the other side. That may be, but what we want is ultimate peace, a lasting peace. I may be mistaken, but in my opinion we are not going to get a lasting peace by the methods that are being adopted at the present time by either one side or the other. It may be said that everything has been tried. I do not agree that everything has been tried yet. When the British were using all their powers against this country a few years ago they repeatedly asked for a truce, making it a condition that there should be a surrender of arms. There was no truce. Eventually they asked for an unconditional truce. It may be said that there was no analogy, but that, I maintain, does not affect the position. I speak as a supporter of the Treaty and as a believer that it is the only way through which we could secure stable conditions in this country. I suggest that when next week you set up your Free State Government, the first thing you do will be to do what Lloyd George did in 1921, and ask for an unconditional Truce. If you get it, once the arms are laid down it should be easy then to bring about a state of affairs which will make for settled conditions, and peace and prosperity in the country.

We certainly cannot complain of a considerable volume of the criticism we have listened to on these Estimates. To a great extent it has been very helpful and we are not pretending—no one can—that there is not some confusion, some little inefficiencies, and some matters that do not need attention. That there should be is absolutely inevitable from the nature of the case. We are trying to build up an Army from the new, and to build it up under the most difficult possible circumstances, but there is a very much bigger question raised here. That is the question of the executions and the question of taking human life generally. Now, I hope that we on the Government benches have a due sense of the sacredness of human life, and that we have not come to any decision lightly Deputy O'Connell stated that what he wanted is ultimate peace. Well, that is what we want also. We want ultimate peace and a condition of affairs in this country where men and women can pursue their normal avocations, and where this Parliament can do its constructive work without the threat of force, and without being at the mercy of armed factions. I do not know why this particular question is centred around the name of Erskine Childers.

It did not, certainly, so far as some Deputies are concerned, but it did so far as others are concerned. Deputy Gavan Duffy treated us to an hour's speech on this question. It is true that in the end he brought in the cases of four Irishmen who were executed, but only as an aside. I do not understand why it is that this particular case has attracted so much attention, and so much attention in the English Press— attention of somewhat the same sort. One very great paper, one of the greatest papers in England, went so far as to state that there was a vast difference in the execution of a man like Erskine Childers as compared with the execution of the other four men. I cannot see that difference myself, and I ask myself what is at the back of all this, and I suggest to the Dáil and to the country that what really is at the back of this agitation in regard to this particular case is that the execution—this particular execution—is a clear example of the fact that there is an Irish Government functioning in Ireland, and that the time has passed when any man, rich or poor, Irishman or Englishman, whether he be an influential Englishman or not—when such a man can play fast and loose with the destiny of the Irish nation.

Why did you not try him for that?

There is an equal law in this country, and Erskine Childers, or any other man who offends against it, will get the same treatment.

And the same sentence.

The law under which these men have been tried was the law of military necessity. We are making no secret about that. We believe there is much more at stake here than the life of any individual; we believe that the life of the Irish nation is at stake. Every man in this Dáil knows that an attack has been made on the life of the country, and that an attempt has been made to cut every vein and artery of the country. Can anybody deny that? Every day we read of railways being broken, roads being cut up, and factories being burned down. There is a deliberate attempt to reduce this country to anarchy, with the avowed intention, published time and time again, of bringing the English back here. That attempt is being made by a small percentage of men who are honest fanatics, but the men who are responsible for it, the politicians—their motives—what are their motives? It has become absolutely plain that the motives behind this attempt is not the re-establishment of a Republic, not so much the dis-establishment of the Free State, but the establishment of the principle that it does not matter who rules so long as it is not other Irishmen. We believe that the life and honour of this Nation is pledged to the Treaty, and we intend to establish the Treaty. We believe further that, apart from the Treaty, there can be no progress, no constructive work and no decent civilisation built up in this country, except on the principle that the majority will of the country rules. I do not know whether anyone will quarrel with that. We are fighting here not only for the Treaty, but to establish this once and for all; that the freely elected representatives of the Irish Nation shall be the sole sovereign within the country, and we cannot see the life of the Irish Nation built on any other principle. There have been hopes expressed here that we have seen and heard of the last execution. I share the horror which a great many Deputies expressed at the necessity, but our policy is to establish the Treaty, to establish the sovereignty of the Irish people within this country. We are prepared to use whatever force is necessary to effect that, and the life of no man, or of no set of men in the country will be allowed to interfere with the life of the Irish Nation.

I do not often tell stories in this Dáil. I will tell a story now. I have a brother fighting as a Private in the National Army in Kerry. He was 3 or 4 weeks a prisoner in the hands of the Irregulars, and the leader of these Irregulars was an Englishman, and he was not Erskine Childers. He discussed during that time this whole Treaty position, and in reply to the remark that a great many people who are English, or half-English, had gone out against this Treaty, he said:—"Yes, your race, your people right down through the years, down through the centuries, down through the generations, have lost the knack of sticking out a thing, but we English will never give in." It was good in the circumstances. We English will burn your country from end to end, we will violate your homes, we will plunder your goods, we will strangle your economic life, but we will never give in, and we do all that on your behalf and in your name and in the sacred name of Irish liberty. We English will never give in! There was much learned talk here yesterday by Deputy Gavan Duffy as to Erskine Childers' nationality. I have no ill to speak of Erskine Childers now. I believe in the motto: “de mortuis nil nisi bonum.” I do not want to make a controversial question of Erskine Childers' nationality. I will say, perhaps, finally, that he was as much and as little Irish as Deputy Gavan Duffy. I leave it at that.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

"We English will never give in." We are up against a problem here, and that problem is the people who came into this national struggle on the last emotional wave, who have not the tradition of Irish nationality, who have not the conception of the grim continuity of this struggle and the grim upward rise of a submerged race—these English who will never give in. I say that this race knows its own business, that it is entitled to act on its own intuitions of self-preservation as any other race is, and that the ownership of this country by the plain men and women who inhabit it is a thing that must be asserted and must be vindicated at whatever cost, and that this country is not a stage or a platform whereon certain neurotic women and a certain megalomaniac kind of men may cut their capers. That is what is at stake—the ownership of this country by all the men and women and little children who inhabit it. And it is worth some lives to vindicate that principle; it is worth some lives to vindicate the principle which is the very basis of democracy—the very basis of representative government. If that principle is not vindicated, we have no use here; and if it is not the will of the majority of these people which is to rule in Ireland, then Parliamentary government and democracy are mere words to be flung to the winds. It is worth something to vindicate that principle. The people have a right to judge; they are able to judge; they know the circumstances with which they are confronted; they know the military aspect, the political aspect, the economic aspect, and within that definite state of circumstances they were entitled to form a decision. That decision should have been carried out, and no man had the right to challenge it. But instead of democracy now we have the new doctrine that the people have no right to do wrong, and certain megalomaniacs and certain intellectuals are to be the judges of whether what the people decide is right or wrong. We cannot accept that creed; this nation cannot accept that creed; and if this nation is to live, that false doctrine—that mad, wild doctrine— must be smashed. If it is not smashed, the nation will be smashed. "The people have no right to do wrong." That from the mouth of any individual, or from the mouths of any selected body of individuals, is a sentence of eternal slavery on the people of this country. They have the right to decide their own affairs; they have the right to have their majority-will to decide their own affairs, and no man, Irish or English, has the right to say them nay. They knew what they were up against; they know what they have been up against for centuries; and within the definite set of facts with which they find themselves confronted, they have the right to choose and the right to decide, and we will see that any people coming in here for adventure will get it—coming in here from other lands —that they get it, if they menace the the life of the Irish Nation, and they have menaced the peace and prosperity and fundamental rights of Irish citizens. Executions are terrible, but the murder of a nation is terrible; the throttling and degrading of a nation is a terrible thing, and has any man paused when he thinks of the physical destruction and moral destruction and the taking of life, to look on the moral aspect of this thing? Has any man paused to attempt to measure the effect on the growing youth of this country of all the terrible demoralisation and degradation that is taking place under their eyes? Has any man paused to measure the possible reactions of that in the future? And you talk of the taking of human life because that human life is taken coldly and judicially. The future of this nation is worth many human lives, and that very shrinking and that very reluctance if given way to might prove the greatest cruelty. If you lead men into the belief that they can plunder and murder and play free lances with their guns with impunity they will continue to do it. If you lead them to think that they can go out and rob and pillage this country from end to end because they babble about the Seventh year of the Irish Republic, and proceed in that sacred name to have brief and profitable interviews with bank managers and railway clerks, as the fellow said, then you are encouraging them; you are helping to prolong this thing; then you are putting away to some distant date the date of peace. If we had a proper sense of proportion we would have faced this fact long ago, that if the nation is to live many individuals must die, and that it does not matter that they die coldly at 7 o'clock in the morning.

Does the Minister not see that that is the proposition of his enemies?

Mr. O'HIGGINS

What is the proposition of my enemies?

That the nation must be saved at the cost of many lives.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

Yes, Sir. That, no doubt, is the proposition of the enemies of the Government and of the enemies of the Irish nation. They have not behind that the moral basis that the majority will, the expressed majority will of the country gives. I am surprised to hear from the Leader of the Labour Party what seems almost an acquiescence in the armed challenge to democracy that is taking place.

That is an entire misconception—a false accusation.

LABOUR MEMBERS

Withdraw.

He is worthy of it.

I am trying to save you from the position that that is leading you into—the very argument of your enemies.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

If I have misinterpreted the Deputy I will resume my seat while he explains.

The Minister has very frequently gone out of his way in the course of these discussions to charge members sitting on this side with acquiescence, hidden or open, with the activities of the Republican Army, and with antagonism to the Provisional Government. It has been refuted a dozen times. He knows well, if he believes words and can understand words, that we have come here believing the people demand the ratification of the Treaty, wisely or unwisely. We believe it is their will, and we are endeavouring to bring that into operation. We support the ratification of the Treaty. Yet he comes here and says we are acquiescing in, and supporting the activities of the Irregulars when we have denounced their murders—and I do not hesitate to use the word—their ambushes and incitements to an extent that he would understand, if he were willing to understand. He argues here that the life of the Nation is worth many human lives. But that is not an argument that is going to sustain him any more than it would sustain his opponents or his enemies. It is exactly the argument on which they are basing their contention that the life of the Nation is at stake, "and, therefore, we must be prepared to sacrifice the lives of the opponents and the enemies of the Nation." The Nation to them is the Republic. That is the will of the Nation to them, and they argue that they may, and that they must take human life in support of that. That is the position the Minister is taking up, and if we are only going to listen to that balancing of the one against the other we get no farther.

It is not a question of balancing one against the other. The Nation, in my judgment, will die if it becomes possible for an armed minority to defeat the majority will, democratically expressed. In such circumstances it ceases to be a Nation, and it becomes a mob dictated to by bullies. And it is not fair to say it is an even balance, and that it is hard for one to choose. They say—I know they have said, I heard it in the last Dáil, "This thing is not the will of the Nation. It is the fear of the Nation. It is not the will of the people, it is the fear of the people," and one Deputy said you can only get the will of the people by finding out what it would be if all external pressure is removed, and you had a condition of national vacuum. Few will endorse that. Sane people will say the will of the Nation is what the country decides within the definite state of facts, military, political and economic, with which it is confronted. So that it is not an even balance, and on the day that an armed force can defeat the democratically expressed will of the majority of the people that day the Irish Nation comes to a disgraceful end. And to avert that day and that calamity we as the Government democratically elected by the Irish people, will take very stern and drastic measures indeed. The decision is not one that in any way we wish. I do not believe many Government, if any Government, were ever placed in such a painful or such a distressing position as we were placed in in the last year, when it became necessary, in order to vindicate the majority-will of the people, to turn arms against our people and finally to execute certain of our own citizens, and it will be conceded we were slow to come to that conviction, and that when we did come to it there were many who said we were criminally slow to strike that blow, and, having struck it, we had hoped against hope that these men would realise that they were killing and strangling the nation and that they would desist. They have not desisted. Many things have occurred in the last few months showing anything but an inclination to desist; but we are faced with the position of taking the strongest possible measures to avert the national calamity that menaced us. If it could be said hereafter that Ireland failed because its Government failed to take adequate measures to enforce the will of the majority, that would be a very serious charge against this Government and against its individual Members. If it could be said that Ireland went down in futility because its Government failed to take measures that would shock the public mind to the realisation of the enormity of the crimes committed, that would be a very serious statement and charge. That charge, at any rate, cannot be made. We will leave nothing undone to shock the public mind to the consciousness of the enormity of the crime that is taking place. Deputy O'Connell said force never settled anything satisfactorily and that force will not settle this. No, perhaps, but the use of sufficient force may cause people to come to the conclusion that reason rather than road-mines should be the deciding factor in our political affairs.

I want to protest against the insinuation, the contemptible insinuation, that Erskine Childers was an Englishman. I do not know whether he was an Englishman or not. What does it matter? (A Deputy: "It does not matter a jot.") Not one pin's point. He was in the movement, working for Ireland, when some men on the Government benches were unheard of. He was with Casement at Howth when we did not hear anything from some of the men on the Government benches about nationality. Some of them are ready to condemn men to be shot now who did not believe in shooting policemen when they were on their trial themselves. Why should they shoot men? Why was Erskine Childers shot? Was it because he had possession of a revolver? They know it was not. They know they shot him because they made a big man of him with the vicious propaganda, and they had to shoot him after shooting the other poor fellows. It was not on account of his revolver but on account of their own vicious propaganda that they shot him. Childers was a great man, no matter what he did, and he tried to do his best for this country. I was not one of those carried away in admiration for him; I was prejudiced against him, but it was melted by the bullets that left him dead. He was one of the men that redeemed England—and we had them before to assist Ireland in her struggle with England. In every period of our struggle we had such Englishmen. I do not believe he was any more English than Padraic Pearse who had an English father, or that he was any more English than Charles Stewart Parnell. I might as well charge Ernest Blythe with being an Orangeman because he is the son of an Orangeman. It is a mean contemptible argument to bring against a man to say that his father was this or that. You have to judge him by his acts no matter what his ancestors, and Childers was not shot for his acts. We have heard a lot about majority rule. Every time the Government is challenged they always fall back on the rule of the people. They did not give the people much time to judge on the execution of the four men. They had no mandate from the people for civil war in this country. You know you did not put the question of civil war before the people, and you did not carry out your part of the pact any more than the others. You know you are as criminally responsible for civil war as are the Irregulars, and you must take your share of the responsibility and not try to put it over on Mr. Childers and De Valera and the other half-Irishmen as they are termed. There are a lot of these half-Irishmen more Irish than those who are all Irish. There are men on the Government Benches who do not understand what Republicanism is or will never understand what Republicanism is. Erskine Childers was judicially executed? The Master of the Rolls refused a writ of Habeas Corpus because there was a state of war. If there was a state of war, Erskine Childers was a prisoner of war. Where then is your judicial execution? It is simply murder of prisoners of war. It may be justifiable or not, but call it by its proper name—it is murder. If you have a right to murder, then the English had a right to murder when they were here. The Irregulars have the same rights as we had when the English were here, and the Government are now making the same apology as Dublin Castle made at that time, when they talked about the will of the people and the acts of murderers and plunderers. You know they are not murderers and plunderers. There are plunderers and murderers taking advantage of the situation. But the men who are out against you, like Liam Mellowes, Dan Breen, and Eamonn de Valera are not murderers. Harry Boland was not a murderer. I know that some of these men for twenty years were working for Ireland when some of the men on the Government Benches were West Britons. No they are not murderers and I protest against their being called murderers and plunderers. They are out for a great ideal. They may be wrong and they may be right, and sometimes I have doubts about it whether they are right or not. However, there is one good thing about this murder. I believe the men fighting for a Republic did a lot to kill the Republic ideal, but the murders of the four men and Mr. Childers by the Government gave a great impetus to Republicanism again. I hope they will go on in their mistaken policy for, as a Republican, I am glad.

I stand before you here to-day in answer to what my friend Deputy McCartan said now, and he can ascertain whether what I am saying now is true or not. I stand before you a man under sentence of death, and not I alone among the members of this Assembly. We are all sentenced; we are all traitors who are here. The doctrine upon which this war, which is a war of revolt, and not an ordinary war, is being waged in this country now is that all of you here do not represent at all the people of Ireland, do not sit or speak here by any right to represent the people of Ireland, but you are the nominees, the appointees and that this institution is the creation of the British Government, and in virtue of that doctrine certain people set themselves up in this country who themselves can claim no warrant whatsoever of authority for themselves, but the authority they have derived from themselves and the weapons that they have taken possession of. That authority, and that alone, they have themselves set up with the right to pass sentence of death, to be judges of life and death, to be judges to hold property, to be judges of the right to work, to be judges of every right that every person in this country possesses. Are we facing facts, or are we playing with them? I am not bound to agree with everything that my colleagues say. I believe and I testify here to my belief, that Erskine Childers was an honest and an honourable man.

It does you credit.

I want no credit for it. There was one simile that was used early in this discussion, and it was a perfectly just one, and that is— that in certain diseased cases of the body it is necessary to amputate, and not only is it necessary to amputate, but, no matter how unpleasant it may be, for those who suffer, or for those who are to perform the operation, or for those who have to look on at the operation, it is the duty of all who have any duty in the matter to see that the amputation is done. Now, it may be a question of policy, and it has been raised as to whether the extreme severity in those cases will lead to better or to worse. It is possible for people to differ on the question of policy, and if they differ it is only right they should express their sense, each of us his own view. But that is not the point that is being raised in the main before us here. It is the question as to whether those who have the responsibility in this matter are doing what is right to do or what is wrong to do. I hold, and I think it is sound doctrine, that if a Government comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to exercise certain severity, it is its duty to exercise that severity, and the only question that can arise in that case is whether those upon whom that severity must fall have placed themselves by their own choice and their own act in the position that they deserve it. And in that question I do not pretend to read into the heart of any man. It is not a question of the moral position that they entertain in their own mind. It is not that at all; it is this, that if they place themselves in such a position that their stand and their action are destructive to the right of the nation, destructive to the chance of the nation to live—if they place themselves in that position, well, they themselves suffer no more wrong in undergoing the consequences than if a man were to stand in front of a railway engine in motion. I know that the Deputy who has just spoken has spoken to us as a Republican, and as an old Republican, but I think he will agree with me that if any people in Ireland put up this doctrine that an Irish Republic, or any other political formula that any man can conceive, stands above the life of the nation, is superior to it, is to be made an object of fanatical worship, and that everything else is to be made subordinate and subject to that, that man puts up a doctrine which is and only can be a doctrine of dangerous fanaticism. It is not nationality; it is not fidelity to Ireland; it is simply fidelity to a particular formula which, in the very essence of the case, is subordinate, and must be subordinate, to the good of the nation in every other respect. That is the situation which we have to face—that we have raised up a particular formula which is set up on a throne as an idol, and which justifies those who accept it in going to any extreme they like, including the passing of the sentence of death on you and on me, and declaring the manifest lie that we are here, not by the authority of the Irish people and not representing the Irish people, but as instruments of a foreign Government in Ireland. Now, some of the criticisms that have been cast at the Government here, it seems to me, could have only come justly from those who have levelled them at the Government if they thought that we, the members of this Government, or any one of us, delighted in taking life, if they thought that the object we have placed before us includes any purpose of vengeance or vindictiveness towards those who are opposed to us. I do not know whether it lies at the back of the mind of any Deputy here to charge the Government with having acted in any of these cases through a delight in any degree in the shedding of blood, or through a desire in any degree to be avenged. But I am satisfied to believe that the people of Ireland, to whom we are responsible, do not entertain, and will not entertain for a moment any such idea. Now, sir, I listened to Deputy Gavan Duffy, Deputy Cathal O'Shannon, Deputy McCartan and the others who have spoken about all this, and I cannot answer them. Why? Because I cannot allow myself to stand up in this place, or any other place—I never did enjoy the luxury—and produce to you the proofs and the catalogue so that it may go broadcast through the world of the sort of things we are opposed with. I cannot do it. I do not want to do it. Day after day we have heard about propaganda. I admit that there is a deep, and has been a deep, public prejudice, taking a certain form against Erskine Childers in which I do not share, in which I have never shared, and which whenever I came across it I countered, by plainly expressing my own view. But, on the other side, there is an absolutely unlimited propaganda, a cruel propaganda, a false propaganda, a studied and deliberate propaganda that is creating and intended to create deep down feelings of bloodiness and of vengeance between one set of us Irishmen and another. I do not believe any of those who are carrying on this believe in the righteousness which they profess. And why? I will tell any of them when I meet them why, that the things they do, and the things they say, and the things they spread about those who are opposed to them would never be done by people who believe themselves to be right-minded idealists. Never. It is inconceivable. We have to meet here now carefully planned and studied fanaticism calling to its aid the lowest and the grossest passions. You can see it to-day. I did not believe it possible. I thought one man in a corner might concoct a programme—but that Irishmen would revolt against it—that they would offer, in order to gain adherents, the lands and the property they could seize upon of the supporters of the British Government and the supporters of the Free State as a reward for becoming true Republicans! Oh, if I go on with this I would be carried into bitterness against my fellow-Irishmen. It can all be settled to-morrow, and right well the Deputies who talk about peace know it. It is perfectly right to say that force is no remedy, and that force will not end these things, and if that be so then these people who talk and pose as idealists ought to know that they cannot establish any ideal at the point of the revolver or with road-mines or land-mines or grenades. Very well, but they can do other things; they can destroy the material life of this country by these things, and it is our duty as a Government to prevent the material life of the country being destroyed. Is not that so? Is there any getting away from that? Very well, the whole thing can be settled to-morrow. Let those who would attempt to establish what is claimed to be an ideal by means of bullets, explosives, mines, violence, appeals to violence, and appeals to bitterness, drop all these and the whole thing is settled. But here we are, a Government, and we have to take charge of roads and railways, of people's property, and people's means of livelihood. These are gross material things—bread and butter—but they have got to be defended, and when people attack them by force, I do not know whether any Government has any way of defending those things except by force. Now it is only a question of the right amount of force to be employed, and my opinion, in that case, is that the right amount of force to be employed is the right amount of force to put that thing down and to put it down as quickly as possible.

And the manner.

As to the manner, I do not say that as carried out in cases of this kind it can be excused in every particle, but if it is put up to us that we are to have the solemnity of long drawn out State trials, in order to carry out these acts of severity, I cannot agree with it for a moment. It seems to me to be rather a lawyer's plea than an ordinary man's plea, and I ask to look into it again. I do not think, and I could not feel, that if I were putting myself in their position that I would be at all sincere in saying that any one of the five men who have been sentenced to death have been sentenced to death for the possession of a revolver. It is perfectly well known that the Regulations that were adopted here provided that the military would have certain powers to deal with certain classes of cases. It is perfectly well known the actual form of the charge in each case does not necessarily mean the extent or the full significance of the act involved. Nothing of the kind. Let us be plain about that. No man has been executed simply for having a revolver either in his own house or elsewhere.

This is the first time we have had that admission.

There is no necessity for the admission. It is plain common-sense to everyone, which should never have been challenged. It is because people are taking part in this organised deliberate movement with other people behind them pushing them on; an organised deliberate movement—this is not denied—to make this Government impossible—yours as well as ours. Not the Government of these benches, but any Government at all, except the Government that accepts the doctrine that that minority is prepared to lay down. They are out to make all that impossible, and they profess that, and not a single one of them will deny it—not a single one of them. And it is not for having a revolver, but for taking a stand and being identified with that stand, whether as a leader or a follower, to make the Government impossible, including amongst the Government the whole material management of the concerns of this country. Unless it is done in obedience to the formula laid down by these people, it will not be allowed. Now, faced with that, and faced with every threat that can be used to back that up, those who come forward to criticise us—we may be poor, contemptible creatures, we do not claim to be anything extraordinary—but those who come forward to criticise us should know their criticism is not enough. Let them produce the alternative.

Listening to some of the discussion, and debates, or speeches, here to-day and yesterday, I could only draw the conclusion that in the minds of some of the Deputies here there was a belief that the one institution in Ireland that had no right to do anything was the Government of the country. Now, there was a passage from a speech delivered here last Friday week which I would like to recall to the attention of the Dáil. It is a passage from the speech of Deputy Johnson. He said: "I believe that stringent measures must be taken. You have been challenged to take these stringent measures. The country and the majority of the Government of the country have been defied to take these stringent measures, and men and women, high ideals as they may have —and we know that idealists are in all ages and in all countries willing to go to their deaths—must realise, in the words of the leader, as a principle of order, it is necessary to take that challenge to make it impossible for the destructive element to assume dominance. That is my position; and I go further, and I will say that the people who are challenging a conflict on the physical plane cannot command sympathy when, having been reversed on that physical plane, they fall back on the moral plane. That is not heroism, it is cowardice. That is my position." And then he goes on: "I will go further and I will say that the people who are challenging a conflict on the physical plane cannot command sympathy when having been reversed on the physical plane they fall back on the moral plane. That is not heroism; it is cowardice." I think there was profound truth in that statement of Deputy Johnson. I think it was one of the wisest things not only that he has said in this Dáil, but that had been uttered in the Dáil. We seem to forget sometimes, at least some of the Deputies seem to forget, that this institution is the Government of the Irish nation, and that it acts with powers of life and death over the Irish nation and the inhabitants of this country; and not merely that but this Assembly has the solemn responsibility of securing that the Irish nation shall flourish and continue, and that when this particular Parliament ceases its functions it shall hand over to its successor its trust fulfilled to the letter. That trust is to maintain the sanctity and security of life and legitimate institutions within this country. I am not concerned whether the man who has been executed was an Irishman, a Dutchman, an Esquimo, or a Hottentot. I say that not even the Irish people, or any section of them, have the right with impunity to destroy the life of the Irish nation. I cannot understand why it is put forward as a plea even of extenuation that a man was gifted with great qualities, great abilities, which were at one time a valuable asset to the services of the nation. If it comes to pass at a later stage that a man with such gifts and accomplishments devotes his life, not for the maintenance or security of the State, but for the overthrowing of the Government and the destruction of the economic life of the country, then I say that the culpability of such a man is infinitely greater than that of the poor unfortunate dupe who simply goes out in the dead of night upon ambushes and that sort of thing. The question of that man's fate and the fate of other men is not the real fundamental issue that is at stake here. The great and vital issue is whether or not this nation, that has struggled through the adversities and the bloodshed of centuries, is going now, at the moment when it might enter through the portals of freedom, to go down in utter defeat and extermination. The duty and responsibility of this Government is to see that the nation shall not go down in defeat or extermination, but that the nation shall survive. And if the Government, in the exercise of their solemn responsibilities, have to choose between the life of an individual or a number of individuals and the life of the nation, well, their sense of duty and responsibility to the country will direct them how to act. I venture to say this much that none of those men who have been executed—there is no one as I said before views with greater horror the state of circumstances that should make such a thing possible—wants anyone to stand up in this Assembly and make any plea for them. I take it they knew that they were entering the game of war—that they were taking their lives in their hands, and were prepared to pay the penalty if they suffered defeat. I would have infinitely less respect for them, if I thought they did not take that view. On the last occasion when this discussion was on here, when coming to this Assembly I bought a copy of one of the Irregular war news sheets, and I found this item in it. That was the day the discussion was raised upon the execution of four men. "One enemy officer wounded October 13th; October 18th four enemy wounded; October 21st four enemy were killed, and three wounded." Where were the advocates then who denounced the killing of brother Irishmen—why did they not raise that when those men were killed by the Irregulars? Are the lives of the National troops less sacred than the lives of those men who were executed by the Government? Then, again, I see in this Irregular War News Bulletin:—"October 24th, the party surrendered, having lost three killed and four wounded." But it is not merely the men who die in action that have to be considered. I have here a paragraph from a paper which brings to the notice of this Assembly something that has not been often touched upon by the passionate advocates of clemency. If I can have the indulgence of the Dáil I would like to read this, because it throws light upon an aspect of this matter which none of us can ignore. It is a letter to one of the Dublin papers, and reads:—"I live in a suburban district where, during the Black and Tan terror, not a bomb was thrown or a shot fired. A week ago between nine and ten p.m., a lorry of National troops was ambushed here by two youths who flung a bomb from a lane corner. Not waiting to see if the lorry was hit, they quickly ran off, and got safely away. None of the troops was injured. The front windows were broken and the blinds torn in a neighbouring house by the bomb splinters. Incidents of the kind are now so common that the newspapers dismissed it in a line or two, and added:—‘Nobody was wounded fortunately, and the attackers escaped.' That closed the chapter as far as the public was concerned. Some of the tragic and grievous results of that ambush, which the Press did not know or record are these:—Two women in a critical and delicate state of health, were so terrified by the awful explosion that one of them had a severe hæmorrhage, and the other fainted. A third woman owing to the shock collapsed on the floor of her bedroom. The following morning she gave birth to a baby boy. He was a fine child (the doctor said), but the shock, reacting on the infant, caused his death (in agony) within twelve hours. And he was the only child of that family." This is the background to this trouble— this outbreak of frenzied idealism. We heard a reference to a certain hunger strike yesterday. How many people will be hunger-striking in the slums of Dublin because they cannot get food as a result of this disturbance, which is going on in the country, and which the National Government is trying to bring to an end. One Deputy says the Government has no mandate for civil war. I admit, I agree, but the Government has not only a mandate, but a duty to restore law and order in this country, and I take it it is the one immediate task with which the Government is confronted, in so far as represented in the estimates now before the Dáil. I venture to say that if our Irregular friends established their Republic, and if they consolidated it and made it to some extent stable, and that if some small section of the country rose up in revolt and said "We will not have this Republic, we will have external association with the British Empire, and we will raise the standard of revolt against the Government of the Irish Republic," and if they went to the same lengths as the Irregulars are doing against the present Government, I venture to say that the custodians of the Republican Authority that would then exist would have very little compunction in going to the last extremity in order to restore the Sovereign Authority of the Republic within the territory of that Republic. I think we want to face facts. We are not here I hope as an assembly of hysterical beings, or as the Minister for Home Affairs said, megalomaniacs. We are here to try to get Ireland on its feet. We are here to brush aside all that impedes its advance. If the Government cannot have supreme authority to meet the situation that arises with the expedients that are necessary, then it means that this Government is going to be defeated and blocked in its advance; it means that the forces of reaction and disorder are going to get the upperhand and in the words of Deputy Johnson, that is a thing which it is the duty of this Dáil and of this Government to prevent at all costs. Deputy O'Connell said he wants ultimate peace. Everyone in this Dáil wants ultimate peace, but you will have neither immediate nor ultimate peace by making terms with anarchy, and that is the prospect we are faced with. As the Minister for Education has said, you can have peace tomorrow if there is a recognition of the fact that the will of the Irish people must prevail, and that armed assaults upon that will, will not be tolerated. There is no humiliation in any section of the people of the country bowing to the ascertained will of the majority, but there is great folly and great criminality in resisting that will. All that has arisen in this discussion moves around the one fundamental question as to whether or not this Government and this Nation is going to continue functioning. If it is to continue to function, then the Government must take steps to see that that will be secured, and if the Government fails to do that, either they will be swept aside and replaced by a more effective Government, or the Irish Nation will be swept aside, and will go down in utter defeat and extermination at the hands of those who seem to have no other object than a glorified conception of anarchy as the supreme goal for all human effort. I do not think that ideal is endorsed here. Even those who have expressed sympathy with those ideals, or have expressed something bordering upon sympathy, in their calmer and more lucid moments have, I think, recognised the fact that the Government is trying to do its best for Ireland, and I think the duty of every citizen is to try to help the Government and Ireland to do the right thing in any circumstances that arise.

There are some matters to which I would like to draw attention. There is the question of payment to Army Officers, N.C.Os., and men of the Regular Army. I would like to know what way promotion is carried on. Does it take place through favouritism, or are certain positions in the Army given to relations and friends of those who might happen to be in charge in a particular area? Then, there is the question of dependants' allowances. I and other members of the Dáil have had letters complaining of the way in which the dependants of troops have been neglected. In the case of a mother and five children living at Tullow, the eldest son is in Cork, and the mother has got no allowance. There are other cases, too. The next matter I wish to refer to deals with civilians attached to the units. I understood they would not be wearing uniform. I understand they are wearing uniform now. As regards clothing, I have a question in connection with it. Recently I saw a quotation in an English paper, "The Outfitter," in which it was said an order was given for Free State uniforms with gilt buttons, and it went on to describe the class of cloth. I want to know why these could not be made in Ireland. In many parts of the country troops are using Bass's Ale, connected with the manufacture of which is a bitter opponent of Irish aspirations at all times. Yet his ale is being used, or has up to recently been used. I have no information that it is not being used at present. It is drunk in preference to ales manufactured in many areas in which troops are stationed. As regards coal, I would like that some attention be given to the use of Irish coal. This seems to be more or less sadly neglected and it would be well that Irish coal would be used in future. Then there is the question about the way contracts were given out. Certain people seem to be getting the monopoly, and other people who had contracts complain that they are not getting payment. In one instance a man had a contract with the Carlow Military Barracks. He had no association with Republicanism; there was no evidence to convict him of any act of association with Republicans. His contract was taken from him, and when he went to look for some money— he was a man with a wife and three children—he was told that if he asked for any more he would be kept inside. I wish to refer to another matter, and that is the manner in which troops move through the city and country and the defiant attitude they adopt. I had one experience myself, and if I had a weapon available it would have been neck for neck. The first thing was I was accosted by an officer who came up with a revolver and almost flung it into the faces of myself and a friend, another young man, who was walking with me through the town. In connection with this particular officer, a Capt. Farrell, I asked the officer in charge of the area, and the answer he gave me was: "That fellow is mad." Apparently, I suppose, it was the right thing to have a man, accounted to be mad, going round with a revolver, holding people up. Another thing; quite recently there was a prisoner taken in the county Carlow— a prisoner who did good work against the Tans, and a man who had held to the opinion he formed in his youth. I saw that prisoner going up on the car, and I stopped and went over to see how he was and to find out why he was there, and just as I went over the machine gun was fired off deliberately, just as much as to say, "Although we cannot give it into your face, we are letting you know what will be in store for you." Also, there were certain prisoners who signed forms that they had no connection with the Republican forces. There is one particular instance of a man named Flynn, in Kilkenny. It appears from information supplied, or alleged, that the postmaster there had some prejudice against this young chap. He asked him to supply any information he had about the way the Republicans, or the Irregulars as he called them, were operating in the Callan area. This chap was a postman, and had been in Kilkenny, and he said he had no connection with, and that he knew nothing about them. The postmaster questioned him again on another occasion, and whilst he was talking to the postmaster somebody slipped out, and the next thing is he was taken prisoner. I am putting down a question about that. Then, about the commandeering of motors. I have a list of people who were deprived of their cars. In one particular instance, where an officer was commandeering a motor, he stated that the lives of sixty men were at stake. That motor car was returned in a bad state. The people who owned it were poor people, earning their livelihood, and suffered by the loss of the car. There is another man named Donnelly, in Carlow, who was taken out at night and thrown into the river because he was supposed to have expressed an opinion which he did not. This man was thrown out of employment by reason of the treatment meted out to him. I believe he is instituting some proceedings with a view to recovering compensation for the trouble he was caused and for the loss of employment. Now, as regards all the remarks that have been made in connection with the executions, I think I dealt pretty fairly with this yesterday, and there is no need for me to cover the ground to-day. In this Dáil expression has very often been given to the question of moral right. I held and I hold the Republican views. I advance the plea to certain members who now occupy the Governmental benches that there were people in Ireland during the fight against the Tans who were Unionists or Nationalists, or had other opinions, and who in their own way might be as honest and as liberty-loving people as those who choose to call themselves Republicans. As a matter of fact, a few years ago, during the election in 1918, there was nothing used at that time but wholesale intimidation. The gun was used then. I differed with the Parliamentary Party. There is no use in people talking now about moral right or anything like that when these tactics were adopted by all, and by people who now are on different sides. At that time the majority of the Irish Bishops and priests stood by the Irish Parliamentary Party, and it was accounted that because they did that there was no moral sanction behind Sinn Fein. Time has shown that the moral right lay with the people to govern themselves in the way they ought, and to have a free Ireland and not three-fourths of one. As regards this matter about the Treaty, I suppose the Speaker rules that out of order?

Really that is out of order.

I was just going to point out that the late General Collins said that unity was above any Treaty, and the fact of trying to bring all together to work for the common good of the country was better than any Treaty, or anything else that could be brought forward. It has been alleged at the present that all those who disagree with the opinion expressed from the Ministerial benches have a purpose of their own, or that they are failing in moral courage, or that they want to play to the gallery. So far as I, and I suppose so far as any other Deputies who may take my view or a similar view in the matter are concerned, as has been mentioned by Deputy Figgis, it does require moral courage to stand up in an Assembly with the vast majority against you and express a certain opinion. It requires much more moral courage to advance that than to silently acquiesce. It has been alleged that there is nothing at the back of the Republican movement but cornerboys, and men or boys who escaped from reformatories, or who should be there at least. That remark, I think, was used by the Minister for Local Government. It was conceded here on other occasions that there were a few men in the Republican movement who believed honestly they were following the right track. You advance the same arguments against your opponents to-day, the very same arguments that were advanced by the British, both against the Free State and the Republican parties when they were both in one. I say that all the vituperation and lowness and baseness sometimes stated here, in order, more or less, to defame these people, who for one reason or another are not here to defend themselves, is not worthy of this Assembly, or any Assembly, it surely is not worthy of an Assembly that calls —that might attempt to call—itself the Government of the country. There was a Pact entered into, and I allude to it just to state that that Pact should have been kept. I fought the Pact as an Independent; I did not agree with any Pact or Coalition Government, but, at the same time, I held that if the Four Courts had not been attacked we here in the Labour benches would be fighting or putting forward our cause, probably against——

You would not be there at all.

Probably against a combination of both parties about this mandate that has been spoken about. There is no doubt at all about it, and let no one confuse themselves in any way. Anybody returned to this Dáil was returned on an issue of peace. Any one of those who voted for those who supported the Treaty in this country would not, for one moment, vote for them or for the policy they approve of, did they think for a moment that civil war was to ensue. We, at any rate, on these benches have done our best to try to bring some reconciliation and to bring all together, but so far without any results. It has been said that if these men would lay down their guns tomorrow morning peace could be declared, but I say if there was any honest or open effort made from this Dáil—if you appoint, and it would be nothing beneath your dignity—if there are Irishmen who sat side by side in order to defeat the common enemy, it would be nothing out of their way now to propose to enter into negotiations with the people who stand for the Republican form of government in this country.

The Deputy got considerable liberty yesterday. He spoke for just twice ten minutes, and he is going towards twice ten minutes again.

I will bring my remarks to a close.

Liberty was allowed to Deputy Gavan Duffy yesterday under special circumstances, and I do not wish to interrupt any other Deputy, but three times ten is clearly thirty.

I am in the unfortunate position of being more subject to being called to order, perhaps, than most members of the Dáil. However, to cut the matter short, I will say that if some move is made in order to try to bring peace on the lines I suggest, that you would have nothing to regret and that you would have everything to be proud of. Deputy McCartan made a speech to-day with which in the main I agree, but thilst agreeing with those men who are opposing the setting up of the Free State Government in this country, let them not in any shape or form be put down, as too often they are, as murderers, as looters, as robbers, etc. They are men who conscientiously follow an opinion which they believe to be right, an opinion which will ultimately prevail, an opinion which will be the thing of the future, because there is no doubt about it that people who have fought with so much persistency must inevitably come out on top. The Republican form of Government will run in this country, and when it does I hope that its supporters will not attempt to mete out the same kind of justice to its opponents as they have attempted to mete out to them. I never believed for a moment with what went on last Christmas on the signing of the Treaty.

Now, the Deputy cannot enter into the question of the Treaty while he is discussing Army Estimates. The Deputy has had two periods of twenty minutes each, which is forty minutes. I think the Deputy has had quite enough licence. It amounts to licence really. I will give him one or two sentences to conclude, because we must get on, and I hope the conclusion will be quite relevant.

Well, at any rate, on a future occasion I may be able to deal with it. As I mentioned in the course of my greatly interrupted speech, a mandate was given for peace. The Treaty, at and rate, has brought war, and nothing, in my opinion, justifies such a measure. It has been alleged there were many men who did not fight against the Tans, but who have taken up arms with the Republicans against the Free State Government; but if you point it that way, you can also point to the other side.

The Deputy is completely out of order. This matter was raised two or three times before, and the Deputy cannot raise it on this particular issue. The Deputy must cease now completely.

You will not allow me to proceed further?

No, I will not. The Deputy, or any other Deputy, has not been interrupted because of any desire to interrupt the Deputy, but simply to endeavour to get the business of the Dáil done in a proper way, and not for any other reason.

Before the Minister replies I should like to make our position clear. We have been silent during this whole discussion. I think it is due to ourselves and to this Dáil to explain our position. We supported the Government when this Army measure was asked for, in order to regularise matters and in order to prevent precipitate action from individual sources, only to give them some confidence that justice would be done, and that they would not take justice or the law in their own hands and do what they ought not to do. That was the understanding under which this Dáil passed that measure, and no other. I have nothing to say to this question; it is a question for the military authorities and for the Government, and personally I am not making any comment whatsoever, but I do stand up to take up this challenge. I understand that the life of every man here has been threatened for the action or the support he has given to the Government, and I stood up to accept this challenge. I accept it and all it means. I am not surprised at things in Ireland to-day. Anybody who has read Irish history knows what that history was. To my mind we have begun when we got freedom. First we have got freedom—freedom which none of us expected—and we have begun where we left off seven hundred and fifty years ago. History repeats itself. We were wrangling with each other then, and we are wrangling with each other now.

History is not relevant to the Army Estimates.

I know it is not.

Well, then, let us have no more of it.

I am trying to evade——

The ruling.

I have heard such a lot of discussion here about principles and formulæ, and a whole lot of things that I thought were foreign to the Army Estimates, that I thought myself I would be right in going a little bit further.

These were introduced more skilfully on matters dealing with the Army Estimates.

Perhaps you will allow me to refer to formulæ and principles and ideals?

If they can be made to be relevant to the Army Estimates, certainly.

I am afraid I will have to go still further. To my mind, people who talk about principle and ideals and formulæ are not inspired by these things at all. As I know human nature, they are inspired by a double dose of seven Deadly Sins, and that is going a little bit further than 750 years ago. They are inspired by pride, covetousness, envy, anger and sloth. It is persons who count most in this trouble and not principles or ideals. It is the individual, the individual out for himself. This country has been always accepting the old grandmother's advice. "Oh, don't you have anything to do with it, boy; leave it to somebody else." For a thousand years we have been leaving things to somebody else, and we have always been afraid to do the right thing ourselves. I congratulate this Government on not leaving it to somebody else, but on standing up and doing the right thing themselves. The appeal that is made now is an appeal to greed. I heard it said that there is no looting, that there are no robberies, and no murders. There are robberies and there are murders, and anybody who lives in the country and does not want to shut his eyes to the facts knows it. Everyone except a rogue or a fool knows it. When I was a boy, and that is not so long ago, and when I was a young man people appreciated a man who had something to say to somebody else and who came out in the open and said it. A man who did otherwise was considered a cur. And a man who used a stick or a stone was a cur, and a man who from behind the ditch fires a revolver is a cur. I am a sportsman and do not object to a fight, and never did, and I have had more fights perhaps than anybody in this Assembly, but when you appeal to a man's greed you get down to something very much older than what happened 750 years ago. Greed was the cause for which Cain killed Abel, and when you appeal to greed you come to the original Cain in man and you will find it as near the surface to-day, as when Adam was rearing his youngsters. The original Cain is as close to the surface to-day as ever. If this is to be a game of taking life at sight, two can play at that game. If men sent here are threatened that their lives will be forfeited, again I say two can play at that game. People living in this country will have to come forward and take a part in working out the freedom of the country, and if there is to be a game of shooting at sight people may find, that that is also a game that two can play, and, if needs be, we will play at it. Deputy McCartan a moment ago made a very interesting speech, and a very venomous speech, but it was a speech with very little point in it, and he might have accompanied it with some explanation as to the results of the resolution he proposed here some months ago. He proposed a conciliatory resolution. I believe he went down the country, acting on the principle of that resolution, and other Deputies did the same, but we have not been told the result. They came in contact with others, but this Dáil and the country never were told what was the result. I understand, that some gentlemen in the Army on the other side said, if they were guaranteed their positions as commanders in their particular areas, they would accept the Treaty, and they would accept peace. There seems to be very little idealism there or very little principle there. It seems to me that it was the loaves and the fishes they counted. We hear a lot about principle, and a lot about the principle of Mr. De Valera and Mr. Erskine Childers who, we are told, died for principle. I read every word of what I might call the dying declaration of Erskine Childers. He gave a history of how often he changed his principles. He changed them from day to day, and we do not know, but he might have changed them again. Whether rightly or wrongly, it is believed in the country that he was the man who ordered the burning and the demolition of property and barracks and bridges. I do not know how true it is. I have nothing to say to him personally. I have neither the old loves nor enmities of the second Dáil. I came here practically as an outsider and I try to judge apart from the question of enmity or friendship. I hear a lot about the votes cast at the last election for peace, and one Deputy who referred to that is a man who sold his principle at the last election.

The Deputy must keep to the subject, and he must not refer to other Deputies. The matter under discussion is quite inflammatory enough without that.

On a point of explanation, I offered to explain that matter before.

There was no question of peace at the last election. Other people made pacts and they tried to hoodwink the people, but there was no hoodwinking on my part. Now, we hear about negotiations. We do not know the result of these negotiations. I will accept any negotiations or anything else if any man can tell me there is a possibility of settlement, but there is no use talking about negotiations if there is nothing at the back of men's minds, and if they are merely marking time. The country wants peace, and they want this thing ended, and they do not want the continuance of it. Things cannot go on as they have been going on for the last six months. It must be ended one way or the other no matter who has to fall on either sides.

The One Hundred Thousand Pounds asked for in the Vote for compensation for damage and injuries is to cover damage in respect of, it has been said, motor-cars commandeered, taken and damaged, buildings and persons damaged by action say that is purely Army action as distinct from National action and is to enable a certain amount of money to be at the disposal of the Army for dealing with cases in which the Army is specially interested. As far as cars are concerned we have before the Treasury for the past three weeks proposals that will enable us to dispose of many of those claims in respect of cars taken from these people and retained for a considerable amount of time, and cars damaged.

Top
Share