Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 20 Mar 1923

Vol. 2 No. 41

DAIL IN COMMITTEE. - DEPORTATIONS FROM ENGLAND.

Mr. JOHNSON

The discussion that has just taken place, and the discussion earlier in the afternoon on another question—a question which I want to deal with—strike me as being part of a desire existing among members of the Dáil to re-assert the position won by the men who made the Treaty, and to prevent as far as possible by, perhaps, a little inadvertence or slackness that position being given away. It is with that in my mind that I want to raise the question of which I gave notice earlier in the day respecting the 110 persons who appear to have been taken in charge by the Government here from the hands of the British authorities. In reply to a question that I submitted to the President he told us that there were 110 persons interned from the hands of the British Government, and all of whom are presumed to be citizens of the Saorstát, and he also told us that the Restoration of Order (Ireland) Act, 1920, and the Regulations made thereunder are, so far as the territory of Saorstát Eireann is concerned, spent and of no legal force and effect. That is important, and I would suggest directing the attention of the President to the First Schedule of the Criminal Malicious Injuries Bill, which says we are proposing to repeal Clause 1, sub-section 3 of Section 1 of the Restoration of Order (Ireland) Act, 1920. Deputy Fitzgibbon will be interested in the proposal to repeal portion of an Act which is spent and is of no legal force or effect. It is important to know that the men and women who have been deported from England and have been taken in charge by Free State officers are not held under any regulations made under the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act, so that what we have to presume is that not only are these men and women citizens of the Saorstát, and not citizens of Great Britain, but that they were handed over by the British Government to the charge of the Saorstát for offences against the Saorstát presumably committed in Great Britain. My primary concern is not with the question of the liberty of the subject in England; it is not with the question of the right of the British authorities to deport any person by any manner or means from that country. That is not my intention in raising this matter at the moment, whatever my thoughts on that subject may be, but I want to draw special attention to the manner in which this action has been conducted. The British Minister has told his people that our Government asked him to put in motion the regulations of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act, in order that these men might be interned. In response to that request from our Government to put into force these particular regulations to deport citizens of Saorstát Eireann from England and Scotland to Ireland, the British Minister issued orders for the deportation of these people. There was no question of extradition; there was no question of obtaining the consent of the Courts. The proposal was from our Government, in the language of the Minister for Home Affairs of Britain, that these citizens of Saorstát Eireann—presumably citizens of Saorstát Eireann, according to the President's reply to my question—should be deported and placed in internment camps or in prison at the charge of the Free State Government. Now so far as that goes we can understand the position. They were citizens of the Saorstát, and at the request of the Government of the Saorstát these men were deported upon an order under an Act which is no longer in existence in Ireland, but which, they were advised, was still operative in England. But the order that was issued under this Act gives, or presumes that the power over the person of those citizens of the Saorstát while interned in an Irish prison remains under the control of a British Minister: "I hereby order that the said... shall be interned in the Irish Free State in such place as the Irish Free State Government may determine, and shall be subject to all the rules and conditions applicable to persons there interned, and shall remain there until further orders. If I am satisfied by the report of the Advisory Committee that this Order may be revoked or varied I will revoke or vary this Order by a further Order. Failing such revocation or variation this Order shall remain in force." Now, these are citizens of the Saorstát; they are arrested in England and Scotland; they are, shall I say, dumped into Ireland, and taken prisoners by our Government, presumably on the authorisation which has been granted by the Resolutions of the Dáil. But, having these citizens under our charge, the British Secretary of State says:—"I will control them; I can order their release; I can insist that they shall be brought over to England to appear before an Advisory Committee, and can order their release." But, he says more than that. He says that in his opinion the Government had control over the interned men. He further says that he was endeavouring to show that they had followed the strictly legal and regular course and kept control of those men in every essential point. Further, he maintains that these undertakings, undertakings as between the Free State Government and the British Government, showed that they, the British Government, had complete control over the possession of the internees. The terms upon which these men were handed over included an express pledge by the Free State Government that they would hold these men harmless, keep them safe, and return them if the Advisory Committee so directed. Now, I maintain that that is an assumption of authority over the affairs of the Saorstát which is not justified by the position that the Saorstát occupies in relation to England. It is an assumption of authority by British Ministers over the citizens of the Saorstát, while in the charge of the Saorstát, and in the territory of the Saorstát. If, perchance, the Minister was not well advised in saying that these were citizens of the Saorstát, but were British citizens handed over at the instigation of the Government of the Saorstát by the British Government, then we are in the position of being jailers of British citizens for the British Government. We are going to keep control of these persons while in the territory of the Saorstát, but still under the direction of the British Government. I submit that this particular process is only explainable and understandable on the assumption that no greater change in the relations between the two countries has taken place than a devolution of authority, subject to the suzerainty of the British Government. All the arguments submitted in defence of the British Government's action have running through them the thought that "we have given the Free State authority, but we still retain supreme control; we still retain the power, the right to do things in relation to persons in the territory of the Free State, British citizens or Irish citizens." The order, of course, under which these people were interned is one which says that the Secretary of State shall have power to intern in any part of the British isles. They have acted under that authority, and having interned in Ireland, they still assert before their own constituents that they have control over them; they still assert, when they set up an Advisory Committee consisting of three Judges, that the Free State must hand over these prisoners to that Advisory Committee for inquiry, and on the advise of that Committee must release them. Now, that is quite justifiable on the assumption that Britain does hold the suzerainty, that the British Government is the overriding authority over the proceedings of this Government, but only on that assumption. We know that in Ireland as well as in England there are two views held in respect of the Treaty. We have the one side in England maintaining that everything was given away to Irish demands by England and that Ireland was guaranteed virtual independence. The apologists for the Treaty in England, who were trying to convince their supporters that it was something they could ratify and approve of, rather belittled the amount of the freedom and independence that was involved in the Free State by the Treaty. We have their counterpart in Ireland, but we must bear in mind in this connection that the British Government at present is composed of those people who would like to belittle the amount of the authority that has been won by the aid of the Treaty. We know, too, that it is not what people say so much as acts and proceedings that form the basis upon which jurists will at a later day expound the meaning of certain Acts and Constitutions. Now, if the Treaty is, as is obvious from what I have said respecting the two views in relation to the powers conferred by the Treaty—if that Treaty is susceptible of different interpretation, then we must be more and more careful to insist upon every possible occasion that the widest interpretation of these powers shall be maintained by our Government, by Oireachtas and by the people here; but in this Act and this procedure it seems to me that we have allowed the interpretation—the mildest possible interpretation—to be supported in the act of the British Minister in deporting these men under these conditions and these orders, and maintaining the right to control these men while in the charge of the Irish Government.

My purpose in raising this matter in this way, is not to discuss the question of the rights or the wrongs of the arrests, it is not to discuss the question of the freedom or the liberty of British subjects or Irish citizens in England, it is to give the Minister here an opportunity to re-assert the strength of the Irish position in relation to England, and to deny what I maintain is implied in the conduct of the British Ministers in regard to these proceedings. Every act of theirs in respect to these internments—the Order that was presented to the prisoners, the offer that they may appear before an Advisory Court which is an offer made to prisoners in charge of Saorstát Eireann, in prisons and camps associated with other prisoners who have not the same rights, the power to appear in England before an Advisory Committee at the request of these prisoners—is an assurance that the British Ministers have given to the British House of Commons that they still have control of the bodies of those prisoners, and that I say is only consistent with the interpretation of the Treaty that leaves Britain in supreme authority over the Government of Ireland. It is not consistent with the interpretation of the Treaty which involves virtual independence. It is not consonant with the interpretation of the Treaty, which gives to Ireland the same right and power over its internal affairs as Canada has, and, I believe, it is the duty of the Dáil, and of the Ministry, to courteously but firmly insist that the language of this Order, the language of the defence they are making for their own conduct, cannot be supported by the Irish Minister, and conflicts with the conception of Ireland's status that we will and must maintain.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

I think the basis upon which Deputy Johnson has put his case, as far as I can judge, is the right issue, and the gravest issue raised in these detentions. I do not propose, any more than he did, to deal with the question of the arrests themselves at all. People who have been in England conspiring against the peace and good conduct of this State are not necessarily deserving of a great deal of sympathy from us although we would still agree that they were entitled to at least a fair trial and to justice. I imagine one is not entirely ignorant of the state of affairs upon the other side. We had an organisation that did exist before the Treaty was signed, and we do know the plans that were made, and would have been carried out, if the Treaty had not been signed, and we know that a great part of the organisation still exists upon the other side, and that it can be exceedingly mischievous not only to the people upon the other side, but also to us here and to the State. Therefore, I assume it is perfectly reasonable that a large number of those persons who have been arrested should have been arrested. On the other hand, I put it, there was a procedure that should have been adopted in these cases that was not adopted. The procedure that has been undertaken by the Executive Council has, in my judgement, and I put it very simply and sincerely and fairly to the Ministry, impeached the very meaning of our Constitution.

In the first place, I think we are entitled to learn at whose instance these arrests were made. It was stated by the English Home Secretary, in definite terms, that they were made at the request of this Government. That was in the first debate yesterday week, but in his language yesterday the contrary would seem to be implied. Surely it is only fair that one should know exactly and precisely—these arrests having taken place—at whose instance they did take place; whether the Government on this side desired that they should take place and desired that the English Government should arrest these people, or whether it was proposed from the other side to us that these arrests should be made, and that these persons should be kept in detention here under the Restoration of Order (Ireland) Act. If the instance were ours, it means perfectly clearly that, not only do we recognise the Restoration of Order (Ireland) Act as of statutory effect—which is recognised, as Deputy Johnson has pointed out, in the Schedule of the Criminal and Malicious Injuries Bill now before the Dáil—but we go further, we avail of this Act. We originate a prosecution under an Act originally devised against the interests of this country. I think that is a very grave decision to have taken, if that was the procedure. But if, on the other hand, the instance lay with the English Government and that the Free State Government acted as their agents in the matter, then I think we have a right to know that too; because then it would appear that they arrested certain persons for wrongful acts done in English territory, and, having so arrested these persons, turned to this Government and made Ireland a jail for their detention. But, in any case, I think it is right that we should know what is exactly the upshot of the act that has taken place. We have three different objections, under each of which heads the Constitution has, in my judgement, been impeached. They are quite clearly in the words of the English Home Secretary. He said, "The Irish Free State had undertaken that if any other proceedings were desired by them against the deportees they were only to be taken after consultation with, and with the consent of, the British Government." In other words, it means that the people who are held in this country in detention by the Irish Government, which is a co-equal Government with any other Government in the British Commonwealth, that the Irish Government cannot proceed against any of these prisoners without first having to seek the consent of some other Government. That is a recognition of the superiority of that Government, at least in that specific matter— a superiority in jurisdiction, in any case. The English Home Secretary also stated that he undertook that the internees should have every facility for a personal hearing before the Advisory Committee, and that if that Committee decided that any person should not have been deported he should be released. That is the second objection, which allows an English Home Secretary to appoint some kind of Tribunal, under his own hand, to sit in England to try prisoners held by this Government, and if that Tribunal, sitting in England, is appealed to over the heads of the Irish Government, acting as a jailer in this case, such prisoner shall have freedom to proceed to England to have his or her case heard, and if the Tribunal there decides that such prisoner shall be liberated such prisoner shall be liberated, the Irish Government acting as jailers notwithstanding. An incidental trouble that arose out of this is that one of the benefits of the Treaty —not one of the main considerations of the Treaty, but one of the substantial set of benefits obtained under it—has been that Irish affairs have, by this action, been taken away from discussion in the English House of Commons. We have now seen that Irish affairs in the most acute form—a lively domestic Irish issue—has been made the subject of debate in the English House of Commons, and I think a great deal of harm has been done by the action that has led to such debate. In all this the case I am putting forward is not that these persons should not have been arrested. Of that I know nothing. I think it extremely likely that the majority of them should have been arrested. But in seeing that they were arrested a procedure has been adopted that has put this country in an unfortunate position as regards a country with which it has made an international Treaty, the foundation of that Treaty being that the two countries are in all matters on absolute terms of equality. Those terms announced by the English Home Secretary are not the terms of equality. I suggest that it is not difficult to discover what might have been done in the circumstances if we were to turn to the like case of Canada. If certain persons in England of Canadian birth or otherwise were conspiring against the safety and peace of Canada, and if either of the two Governments, the Canadian Government or the English Government, decided to proceed against such persons, what would be the procedure adopted? I think there is no doubt what the procedure would be. The procedure in that case would be that the English Government, at its own instance, no matter where it got its information, would arrest such persons, and having arrested such person under its own laws would be under the necessity of trying them for having been guilty of acts against specific laws in that country against a friendly and associate Power. It would have laid upon itself the responsibility of such imprisonment or other penalty that the Courts may award. I do not imagine that Canada would for one moment permit a situation such as has arisen within these past ten days. I do not imagine that Canada would for one moment permit Canadians to be arrested in England and sent to Canada, with a right of appeal from Canada to an Advisory Committee in England. By a curious irony of chance, in one of the papers this morning—the "Daily Independent"—almost in adjacent columns we had two specific items of news. In one case there was a report of a debate in the House of Commons yesterday upon the constitutional position as between Ireland and England in respect of these deportations, and in an adjoining column there was the constitutional position of Canada's independent signing of a Treaty. Canada in one column had made a declaration of increased separation, of stronger independence, and in the adjoining column an other sister nation of the Commonwealth had receded from the position which had been won for it under the Treaty, and which had been laid upon the foundation of the Constitution.

The PRESIDENT

There were two statements made by the last speaker— one that we had given away our sovreignty by saying that we would not prosecute any of the persons that we had arrested at Dun Laoghaire; the other was that we had given permission for these persons to go before the Advisory Committee. In his excitement the Deputy forgot to mention a third one, but if it has anything like the punch of the other two I am sure we have not lost much in not hearing it. We have been told that we have lost our sovereignty, that we have given away everything, I suppose, the Deputy has won for us either in the Constitution or the "London Times," and that as a matter of fact we have bartered away our whole position as a nation. The facts of the case are, there were certain citizens of ours—certain people about whose citizenship I am in some doubt, although I am presuming that they are citizens of the Saorstát— certain citizens who, I believe, in their own minds are in some doubt as to their citizenship or as to the country to which they belong, and those people got busy in England in a conspiracy to bring down this State. We asked for those prisoners. We got those prisoners, and we had to give certain undertakings in respect of getting them which the people who gave them to us were entitled to ask for. One was that we would not prosecute them without an agreement. An agreement usually takes place between parties to an agreement. The parties to an agreement in this case are equal. An agreement in order to be an agreement must be subscribed to by both parties. We have got to come to an agreement if we are going to prosecute them. They were not our prisoners. We had to ask other people to get them for us. They got them for us. We have them; we have given an undertaking, and we are going to keep our agreement with regard to them. We undertook also to allow them to go before this Advisory Committee. It does not require very much exercise of the imagination to know, why they ask for such a condition as that. It is possible that some of these people may be English citizens; they may claim British citizenship. They are certainly not a credit to Irish citizenship if they are Irish citizens, and they may possibly have another nationality either by marriage or assent or by anything else of that sort. If they be such they are entitled to say that they are not citizens of the Saorstát and the British Government is entitled to claim for them privileges which we could deny them if they were citizens of ours. That undertaking we have given—that they will go before the Advisory Committee. As far as any liability the British Government has to any person resident within its shores to protect them and to give them all the facilities of their courts and of their Constitution, they have retained that. They were entitled to do it, and we admitted their right to claim such and we gave it to them. These people have been arrested in England and sent here at the request of the Irish Government. It is our duty to protect this State. We are merely instruments of the people of this country and instruments of this Dáil. We would have failed in our duty if, knowing the work these people were engaged in, knowing the conspiracy of which they are alleged to be component parts and of which we are fairly satisfied from the evidence we have that they are conspirators, we would have failed in our duty if we did not get them. In getting them we had to give undertakings which I am perfectly satisfied are just, fair, and equitable, and which the British Government would have been in duty bound to ask for. If we have given more than we were entitled to give then our judgement is exceedingly bad and we will have to call in some of the elders of the nation in the future to advise us whenever we have matters of importance like this to do.

CATHAL O'SHANNON

I do not think that the President has disposed of the weight of the case that has been made against the Executive Council with reference to these arrests in England and internments in Ireland. The President says that it is presumed that these people are citizens of the Saorstát and he states quite definitely and specifically that the Regulations for the Restoration of Order in Ireland are spent and have no effect in Ireland. Now against the President are all the declarations not only of the British or the English Home Secretary but of the English Attorney-General. The President says that it is quite right and proper and just and decent to treat an Irish citizen who happens to have been over in England and happens to have been arrested there differently from an Irish citizen who happens to be arrested in Ireland. He does it on the ground that the British Government and the Irish Government are Governments of equal authority and equal jurisdiction. Of course he knows perfectly well that that is not the position and that it has not been the position that has been taken up by the English authorities. He knows perfectly well that the only shadow of legality the English Government had for deporting, not for arresting, these persons out of England is the regulations for the Restoration of Order in Ireland. He says it is quite right and just and proper that an Irish Government or the Government of Saorstát Eireann should make an agreement with the Government of England that Irish citizens in England should go, if they so desire, before an Advisory Committee appointed by the English Home Secretary and there show reason why they should not be interned in Ireland within the Saorstát. I claim that these Irish citizens, if they are Irish citizens, have no more right or duty to recognise the English Home Secretary's Advisory Committee than the late President Arthur Griffith had when he refused to recognise or to answer any questions put to him by a similar Committee—none at all. I will admit that this whole thing circulates round the question of citizenship. The President says they may claim British citizenship. He knows there is no such thing as British citizenship, but that there is British subjectory. There is such a thing as citizenship of the Saorstát, but the citizenship of the Saorstát carries with it what is technically known as British subjectory, and he and I and the rest of us are all British subjects, but if we are our Saorstát citizenship, I claim, does not entitle any British Secretary of State, Home Secretary, or anybody else to claim or to exercise control over the custody of our persons in the Saorstát. That is the position that has been put up by the British Home Secretary and Attorney-General. The Executive Council is putting these people, if they are citizens of the Saorstát, in a superior position to other citizens of the Saorstát. As the Dáil knows the general run of citizens in the Saorstát, if they have taken any part, or are suspected of having taken any part in activities against the Government and the Saorstát, come within certain Regulations which have been approved by this Dáil. Apart altogether from one's opinion of these Regulations we know that the Regulations expose such citizens to certain penalties, to certain procedure before certain Courts or Military Committees or Courtsmartial. But the Executive Council has gone and assured the English Attorney-General that in the case of these presumed citizens, who happen to be three or six or twelve months, or maybe only a week or two, resident in England, there was no possibility of the internees being tried by Courtmartial in Ireland. If I am suspected of taking part in activities against the Saorstát, and am arrested in Dublin I may be subject to the death penalty, but if I cross over to Liverpool or London, and Scotland Yard remembers that I was on its black list twelve months or two or three years ago, and it hands me over to the military forces of the Saorstát, then I am not to be subject to the Regulations which have been approved by this Dáil. The English Attorney-General says that no proceedings will be instituted against any of the deportees without the consent of the Home Secretary, and that when the consent is given a prisoner will be placed in exactly the same position, and dealt with in exactly the same way as if he had not been deported. In other words he will be dealt with by the ordinary common law of England, in open court, where he will be able to bring witnesses and challenge the evidence of those who prosecute him. If the offence is one triable in England, but not in Ireland, merely because he happens to have been asked for, in England, he is going to get treatment which is not being given, and which it has been decided definitely by this Dáil, at the request of the Executive Council, is not to be given to an Irish citizen. The President says that that is just and fair, and reasonable. Several speakers in the English House of Commons last night took it as settled, and not only took it as settled, but accepted the full assurance of the British Ministers that in every particular these British Ministers had full and complete control, as one of them said, over the internees. There cannot be such a thing as complete control by the Saorstát and complete control by the British Government. One or other of the two Governments has complete control. If the British Government, as it claims, has complete control over the persons of these people while they are interned here then the Saorstát Government has not complete control over them. But a remarkable thing comes out in the course of the debate in England. The English Attorney-General said that the Free State Government asked not only for the arrest and detention of these people, but asked that their internment should be in Ireland, and it was in accordance with that request that the English authorities put into force 14B of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Regulations. They were asked by the Free State Government to hand over these people because the only place where they would be safe would be in a prison in Ireland. I turn to the Act under which these Regulations were made in England and I find that it is the Restoration and Maintenance of Order (Ireland) Act, 1920. I find that the only legal authority that the English have for handing over these people to the Free State, on the request of the Free State, was a Sub-section which authorised the conveyance and detention in any of His Majesty's prisons, in any part of the United Kingdom, of any person and so on. "In any part of the United Kingdom," and the Saorstát is not part of the United Kingdom! The English Minister ran away from the question when it was put to him last night, but Irish Ministers are prepared to take anything. They can waive aside the Restoration of Order in Ireland Regulations and that Act and everything else. They can go to England and ask the British Government to hand them over certain people whom they presume to be citizens. They do not give twopence whether they are citizens or not, and they did not even enquire whether they were citizens or not. As a matter of fact if they had made enquiries they would have found that many of them—at least some of them—are not citizens of the Saorstát at all, and can make no claim to citizenship of the Saorstát. None whatever. Now, the position to me seems to have been fairly well summed up by one of the speakers in the British House of Commons when he said that one of three things had happened—either these people had been taken up in England and interned in Ireland under servants of the English Government, or one of two other things. The first, he said, was unlikely. It is most unlikely. The second thing, he said, that might have happened would have been that the English Government might have an arrangement that servants of the Free State should be temporarily servants of the English Government. It was on that, I think, the big blunder in policy has been made by the Executive Council of the Saorstát, that they have put themselves in the position that they seem to be, whether they will it or not, the servants of the English Government, acting within Ireland for that English Government. He said that that might be unlikely. The third was that they had been interned in Ireland under the custody and control of the Free State, and that they were under the control of the Free State. But he was assured by the British Ministers that they were not under the control of the Free State, that they were under the control of the English Home Secretary and his Advisory Committee. To back up that the English Home Secretary turned round blandly and informed the gentleman that "the power I have is to send people for internment in the British Isles." And he sent them to Ireland. Now, there used to be a fiction in the Black and Tan days that when an Irishman in England was arrested by English police he was not arrested at all. He was simply detained for examination and investigation until such time as a squad of Royal Irish Constabulary men came over and took him into custody. That fiction is being maintained and perpetuated by the Free State Government because its position is, that it has taken these citizens, or presumed citizens of the Free State into custody, has arrested them as soon as they were dumpted into Dun Laoghaire by a British warship It did not arrest them in England. It arrested them inside Ireland, and although it arrested them inside Ireland, inside the Saorstát, it is going to give them advantages over other citizens of the Saorstát whom it arrests inside Ireland. The British Home Secretary said the British Government had control of the interned men. He became aware of what was going on, and the Free State asked him to put in motion the Regulations for the Restoration of Order in Ireland, in order that these men might be interned and have their activities curtailed. Now somebody is lying. It may be that it is the British Home Secretary is lying, but there is a conflict there, and I am prepared to take the word of the President in his answer that the Free State did not ask that these people should be arrested and deported under the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act. But the British Home Secretary said that he was asked in such terms. The main charge, I think, has not been really met by the President, and it is this, that in certain of the acts, including this one of the Executive Council of the Saorstát, it is presumed that Ireland or the Saorstat is not a co-equal with Great Britain, and the evidence is in the action of Great Britain in this instance, that Great Britain, or the Government of Great Britain, which officially to us must be Great Britain, takes up that under one of its Acts it can dump into Ireland anyone whom it likes because that Act specifies that certain things can be done within the United Kingdom, and it regards these two islands as the United Kingdom. That is not a position which this Dáil can take up.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

This debate has gone on for a considerably longer time than half an hour. I take it, it is meant to conclude now.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

There were times in the course of this debate when I was inclined to wonder where exactly we were. The geography was mixed and my bump of location disturbed. While it is a fair and reasonable thing that we should carry our own burdens and our own responsibilities and answer for our own sins—if we should so far forget ourselves as to sin—it is just a little overmuch in times like these that we should be called to book here for the deeds, or the misdeeds, of British Ministers. What are we discussing? Is it the grievances, real or imaginary, of those men against this Government, or their grievances, real or imaginary, against the British Government?

Mr. O'CONNELL

Neither one nor the other.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

We have had quibbling about "I wonder have we lost our sovereignty?" People do not seem to realise that there is a difference between things done as of right and things done by agreement. None of us, and we know the position, lay awake at night wondering if we had lost our sovereignty, because we knew that we had not. What is the position? You had a country within a stone's throw of our shores—or at least a stone's throw for such a man as Finn MacCumhaill—used as a base, an arsenal, and an effective headquarters for a campaign against this State; not so much against the armed forces of this State as a brutal, cowardly campaign against the defenceless civilians who are citizens of this State. And we were to take no action! Afraid that we would lose our sovereignty, we were to take no action! People spin webs. Supposing it were France that was being used as a base, an arsenal and an effective headquarters for a campaign against the people of this country, and our relations with France were friendly, and if we approached the French Government and said:—"You might see your way to arrest the people who are taking action of this kind against our State and our citizens," can you not conceive the French Government saying:—"Yes, on terms?" The terms would be "if we make a mistake, if it is put up to us that we have made a mistake, or have done wrong, we should be in a position to bring back any one of those persons for investigation." But, because the British say the same thing, because the British say, "Yes, we are prepared to round up those men who are conducting this cowardly campaign against your people; we are prepared to send them across to you; but if the question is raised that a particular case needs investigation, you must agree, you should agree, and it is a reasonable thing to ask you to agree, that that person is sent back to have his case investigated here by the people who arrested him," it is different. We were told what would have been done if it were Canada, or under a Figgis administration here. This exact position could not arise with regard to Canada, and, therefore, there is no use talking about it. England, from its geographical position in relation to this country was an effective base and arsenal, and effective headquarters for a campaign against this country. It was the nerve centre of the world-organisation these people are trying to bring into play against this State and against democracy in this State. I am not going into the abstract question of the citizenship of these men or women, or any one of them. It is a rather abstract and complicated question, because citizenship would depend a great deal upon whether a particular individual had what I might refer to as the animus revertendi, the intention of returning. I do not know how many hail from here, and how many had the intention of returning. I know, however, of one man who had not the intention of returning, inasmuch as he sailed away with £7,000 out of public funds in his pocket. Deputy Gavan Duffy, no doubt, knows him, too. It comes to this: Their offence was an offence against this State. What fools we would be, conducting a fight for the very life and honour of this nation, not to accept the custody of those men and women. It is as true to say in that matter that we were acting as servants of the British Government, as it is to say that in the rounding up and arresting of them the British Government were acting as servants of ours. Certain men got up here to-night, and I thought for a moment they were solicitors for the internees, and that this was the Board of Inquiry, or whatever it is, that is to be set up in England. They made an eloquent plea for them and an indictment of those who had arrested them. What is that to us? I never heard British Ministers or British members of Parliament as frequently quoted in this Dáil as to-night, and I hope I may never hear it again.

CATHAL O'SHANNON

I hope you never give occasion for it.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

Now the man in opposition is irresponsible; he likes to get his wipe in. People who have to answer for this fight—to answer to the Irish people for every day it goes on, and the cost of it in money—are not going into quibbling metaphysics as to citizenship or anything else. Those men were planning war and were making war from a distance against our people here. We put it up to the British Government as to whether it would be possible for them to arrest those people and to send them over in custody. They are over in custody here, and our watchword is—as I heard it before in another part of this country—"What we have we hold." We will keep to the agreement we entered into as a condition of getting these men, and that is that if individuals amongst them want to go into the question with the British Government of the propriety or impropriety of their arrest, they can be brought over there, and that question can be thrashed out in the country where they were arrested. My own candid opinion on this matter is that the Dáil has been kept long enough and over-long on this matter. To us it is a very straight and simple matter. Every person who levies war against this country, wherever he is living, wherever the scene of his offence, if we can get him into our custody we will hold him. To get those people into our custody we made certain agreements, and we mean to stand by them. None of us lost a wink of sleep as to whether it was or was not a derogation of sovereignty. It was a thing that was not done of right, but as by agreement.

The Dáil adjourned at 7.5 p.m.