I oppose this Resolution. Notwithstanding what has been said by the President in the rather perfunctory address he has made to the House in regard to it, I do not think it any waste of time of the House that there should be intervention on this particular Resolution, even in the way it has been put before us. I want to have understood what is being done. We are now sending back to the Seanad, free from amendments which the Seanad put in, a Bill which bears on its face an acknowledgment that it is a breach of the Treaty. It bears that on its face as a matter of draughtsmanship. It is there in the contents of the Bill as we discovered in the course of many debates on the substance of the Bill. It is proposed to send back that Bill and to have it made law without allowing any further time for the attempt to achieve what the Seanad had asked might be attempted. In this House on 27th April of last year a resolution to the same end was proposed by Deputy Cosgrave. It was as follows:—
The Dáil declines to give a Second Reading to this Bill pending negotiations and agreement between the Executive Council and the British Government upon the question at issue.
We are now turning our backs on the method of negotiation and agreement. We are now going to put through a measure which, as I say, bears on its face evidence that it is a breach of the Treaty. Very good. Let us do that with our eyes open, and let there be a definite declaration from the many Parties in the House as to what they think of the Bill with that evidence upon its face. As far as we are concerned, the important fact is that, notwithstanding this measure and questions about the Oath, at the moment the Treaty still stands. It has not, at least, been formally denounced. There has been no straightforward honest breach and denunciation of the Treaty. An attempt has been made to get certain things accomplished. There has, however, been no attempt made to get rid of the Treaty in a direct fashion. The result has been that those who profess themselves Republicans find themselves attached to an alliance which they profess to find disgusting, and they find themselves further in the awkward position that they get all the disadvantages, according to themselves, of being so associated, and get none of the advantages of being inside the Commonwealth. A Treaty was negotiated, and it was ratified at three successive elections. It still stands. We of this Party stand for the national progress of this country in every way, including both advance in political status and advances for the temporal or economic welfare of the people. We believe still that both the temporal welfare of the people and their spiritual welfare, too, would be benefited, I do not say by association with the British Commonwealth of Nations, but by this people keeping their pledges when pledges have been given.
In this House we have asked on several occasions, and we now ask finally, that the method of negotiation and agreement should be tried. There could be no spiritual harm come to the people of this country in trying to amend by negotiation and by agreement with the other party anything found distasteful in the agreement. There could be even little harm done temporally by attempting such a thing. There could be no harm done spiritually in attempting this negotiation. I feel, however, that what we have now before us is a denunciation of the instrument, and it is quite clear that great spiritual harm can be worked by the bad example given to private citizens if they follow that example in their private lives, by the Government's declaration that they are going to take certain action in face of the contention that what they intend to do is a breach of an agreement, and despite the fact that the other party hold that it is a breach of the Treaty. We have it established clearly—though it is an incidental and a minor point— that grave temporal harm is being done to the people of the country.
We have over and over again suggested this method of negotiation and except for the speech which the President made on the first day the Bill was discussed on Second Reading, there has been no effort made to show cause why negotiation should not be attempted. The President's argument on that occasion did not sound well. It did not sound as if he believed in the argument that by negotiating about this matter the Government would lay themselves open to the objection from this side, that the mere act of negotiating was prejudicing our claims and so destroying the fruit of all the progress that ten years had achieved.
That was answered—answered many times, and answered by reasoned statements. From every quarter of the House when the Bill was on Second Stage there came this further offer to the President that if he did attempt negotiation, he would go across to negotiate with the full approval of every Party in the House. Seven or eight Deputies from this Party said so. At least two Deputies from the Independent group said so. The President could have gone across to negotiate without prejudicing his later actions in any way and could have taken steps towards negotiation with the full approval of this House, with unanimity from every Party. Instead he preferred the method of declaring his Party's point of view, and of acting upon a legal opinion which established that the point at issue was doubtful, and in the revealed circumstances that there were divided opinions on it as far as the legal advisers of the Government were concerned.
We still believe that the only approach to this subject should be by that method of negotiation. We take our stand on this, that there was an agreement made and that it was sanctioned at three elections. We take our stand further on this: that this country can at any moment denounce that Treaty but we think that the one thing it should not do is to break it, break it by act of one of the two parties and in the teeth of the statement that the other people do consider this legislation to be a breach of the Treaty. We think that there is no cause why this irregular course of action should be followed. If the President would only survey, as he now can survey from the inside, the progress that has been made in changing certain aspects of the Treaty by the process of negotiation— the negotiations were so successful that they drew from himself shortly after his advent as President of the country the remark that more progress had been made than he in 1921 or 1922 would have thought possible—he would see that he is now in a very strong position to act through negotiations. He has refused negotiations. He is embarking on this course which I say is bad temporally for the people of this country, and as an example is calculated to work grave spiritual harm to the people of this country, in their private lives in their dealing one with the other.
There is this one last aspect of the matter. A motion stands on the Order Paper, the first motion to be discussed in Private Members' time, asking the House to subscribe to the opinion that a reunion of the Irish nation founded upon goodwill should be the primary object of the Government and that every other constitutional issue should be subordinated thereto. Does the President believe that the biggest national question outstanding is national unity? Does he believe that the course he is taking with regard to this particular issue arising out of the Treaty is going to lead more speedily to national reunion? Do those people who formulated this motion believe that harping on this matter and sending it back to the Seanad in the way that is now suggested is subordinating every other constitutional issue to the main question of national unity?
We are now at the last stage of this matter, but even now the President, whether he heeds it or not, should have the position made clear to him.
Again I want to repeat what was said by at least seven Deputies on this side. If the President agrees to negotiate on this matter he will get the full support of this Party in that matter. If the President enters into negotiation with the people on the other side on this or any other Treaty matter which he finds distasteful and which he thinks is disadvantageous to the people of this country, he will have support in these negotiations, but if he is going to proceed on the basis of trying to do by the act of one party to an agreement, what the other party objects to, then we are not going to support him in that. For that reason we are going to object to the Resolution being sent forward to the Seanad.
