Deputy MacEntee is slightly at a disadvantage in so far as he was not present when this debate began. So far as I can learn, however, I have not missed much. I hoped the Minister would have given some explanation of the Bill which he is sponsoring in the Dáil. Whether he is ashamed of it or afraid of it, or because he does not understand it, he ushers this Bill into our midst in silence. He has good reason to be silent when we remember his former statements upon this matter. When the first decision of the Privy Council was announced, the Minister for Finance was deluged with questions as to the attitude which the Executive Council proposed to take in regard to it. To these questions he gave various replies, but in most of them he stated that the judgment raised not merely financial but constitutional and legal questions of far-reaching importance. It is clear, therefore, that the Minister realised the gravity of the constitutional position which the decision of the Judicial Committee had raised. Therefore, we may assume that he did not speak lightly when, on the 22nd February, 1928, according to the Official Reports (Vol. 22, cols. 108-9) he made the following declaration:—"The Government have had under consideration the opinions expressed by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the case of Wigg and another versus the Attorney-General. The Government are desirous of honouring to the fullest extent their obligations under Article 10 of the Treaty. It is clear, however, that some of the opinions expressed by the Judicial Committee in the case referred to would, if given effect to, result in more favourable treatment under Article 10 of the Treaty being accorded to transferred officers in the matter of bonus than they would have received had they remained in the British Civil Service or than transferred officers who elect to remain in the Civil Service of the Saorstát would receive on ultimate retirement in the normal course under the Superannuation Acts." Such a result, the Minister stated, was not intended by Article 10 of the Treaty.
Then he went on to state that the Executive Council proposed to set up a certain Committee and to introduce legislation in the Dáil making the awards of that Committee binding. He continued: "The determination of this Committee on any application or question referred to them will be final and conclusive. In assessing compensation the Committee will be required to adhere in the treatment of bonus to the basis applicable to officers in the British Civil Service immediately prior to the transfer of the officers to the service of the Provisional Government." The Minister thus thundered forth his defiance of the Committee of the Privy Council, and, if the British Government did not join in his fulminations, at least they were sufficiently terrified, so we are led to believe, to overthrow in their minds the decision of the Privy Council, because, following the Minister's statement, the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs made the following declaration in the British House of Commons: "It was not," he said, "the intention of those who framed Article 10 of the Articles of Agreement that the civil servants in question should be put in a more favourable position in respect of the matters in question than if they had remained in the service of the Crown under the British Government." He further indicated that it was proposed to amend the Article, to bring it into conformity with the intention of the farmers.
Thus we see that both the Minister for Finance of Saorstát Eireann and the British Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs joined in a denunciation of the Privy Council, but that august body seems to have been little affected by the cannonade, possibly because they knew our Minister for Finance and their Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs. At any rate, scarcely had the Minister's big words died away when very significant movements were discernible across the Channel. On April 25th, 1928, in the British House of Lords, two members of the Judicial Committee which had heard the case, admitted that a mistake might have been made by the Judicial Committee, and Lord Birkenhead announced that the British Government was satisfied that a mistake had been made and expressed its willingness to assent to such legislation as was necessary to rectify the mistake.
He said that the attention of the Judicial Committee had not been directed to a minute in relation to which, in his judgment and that of those who were advising the Ministers of the Government, the decision should have been made. Then followed what was afterwards discovered to be an extraordinary manifestation of the noble Lord's imaginative powers. He informed the House of Lords that within twenty-four hours of his death, Lord Cave, the Lord Chancellor, who had also sat on the Judicial Committee, authorised the Prime Minister to state that, in his opinion, the conclusion which he had drawn was probably wrong in law, and that for this error the persons who drafted the information were principally responsible. Now, I would like the House at this stage to bear in mind that the whole of this statement— the statement that Lord Cave had admitted that, because the attention of the Judicial Committee had not been drawn to a certain minute, they had arrived at the conclusion which they expressed in their judgment— was afterwards declared by those who were familiar with the circumstances to be fictitious, and I think that at the very outset this shows the laying of a trap to get the Executive Council to eat the declaration which the Minister for Finance had made in this House on 22nd February, 1928, to withdraw from the position which they had then taken up, and again to come before the Privy Council at a re-hearing of this case of Wigg and Cochrane, and that it was merely designed in order that the position and the right of the Privy Council to interfere in judicial affairs in this State should be acknowledged and should be secured.
Lord Birkenhead went further. He said that he would go the length of saying that no really competent lawyer who read this case, with the addition of the relevant minute, would differ from the conclusion that was formed by Lord Haldane, Lord Dunedin and Lord Cave. As I have said, the trap was set and nicely baited. Four noble Lords, all members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, three of whom had held the office of Lord Chancellor, announcing beforehand the inevitable decision of the court in favour of their good friends of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State if only that Council would be good enough to come again and humbly supplicate for justice which this time would not be denied them. And I am sorry to say that the trap was successful, that the bait was attractive, that this precious minute, which Lord Birkenhead fortuitously but fallaciously told us had so disturbed the last hours of Lord Cave, lured them on. The Executive Council saw an opportunity to retreat gracefully out of the situation which their magniloquence had created, but which they now feared to maintain. So, just as a matter of form, as the Minister for External Affairs informed the Dáil in the papers which he laid before us some time in June, 1928, the whole matter was again referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and this State was represented at the hearing. But when once the Executive Council of the Free State appeared again before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the minute which Lord Birkenhead had told us was so potent, seemed to have lost its power. It was not even considered by the Judicial Committee; it was brushed aside as of no weight, and at the second hearing, on the 13th November, 1928, the Judicial Committee in every particular confirmed the earlier findings, but this time with added emphasis and added authority.
In view of all that had gone before, it was quite obvious that the Executive Council, if there was still a spark of manhood left among those who constituted it, could not accept the second decision lying down, and accordingly we find the Minister for Finance, in the first fury of his indignation, expressing himself without restraint regarding it. In the "Irish Independent" of the 14th November, 1928, he is reported to have stated: "We certainly will not pay any more beyond what was originally found to be due in our own Supreme Court. We will not pay a farthing more in consequence of the decision of the Privy Council." Now, I know that those words are ambiguous; I know that they are capable of bearing two interpretations, but I do submit that the words at the time they were uttered were a declaration of intention and purpose, and not of hope or expectation. The Minister's statement was a deliberate statement, that, despite the decision of the Judicial Committee, the Executive Council would not pay these moneys, which were not justly due. Now, turn to the Bill and you will find that these moneys in the first instance have to be found and have to be paid by the Oireachtas.
In another interview, which appeared in the "Irish Times" on the following day, the Minister went even further in condemning the action and the judgment of the Privy Council. He said: "It has nothing to do with us. When the original decision was given we made our position perfectly clear. We said that it was an entirely inequitable decision, a decision such as we could not accept and which we have no intention of accepting. Really we are not interested." If the Executive Council of the Irish Free State are not interested in this judgment, why is this Bill introduced by the Minister for Finance to-day? Because he is anxious to honour, and the Executive Council are prepared to honour, the judgment and accept the decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
I move the adjournment of the debate.
