I wish to oppose this motion. This is a matter that has been very fully discussed on previous occasions. It is a matter of a breach of the Treaty. We do not intend to go into it now except to say that in the case of a treaty, the fact of one party to that treaty claiming the right to interpret it without regard to the agreement of the other parties, makes the international position of relations between countries based upon contractual arrangements quite impossible. It would mean that the only sanction as between nations hereafter, as far as I can see, would be war or some warlike act. When two parties come together and purport to make a treaty, no one party can claim they have the right to interpret it or distort it as may suit their convenience. There is another point. The President indicated at a Party gathering a couple of weeks ago, and again in reply to a question to-day, that he proposed changing the constitutional form of this State and abolishing the Treaty from which this State took its being, in piecemeal fashion. Now, I am no upholder of the theory of mandates. I think when a Government is elected by the people, the Government has itself to decide what is best for the lives of the people, but I say that it was an outrage against ordinary honesty for the Government to seek power to abolish the State as it exists and create a new State without making it clear to the people that that was going to be done as a result of the election. Supposing it were right to do that, it seems to me if this piecemeal transmigration of the Free State into some sort of republic were to be agreed to, the last way by which that should be done is by this abolition of the Oath. I have said before that I personally objected to that clause of the Treaty which insisted upon this Oath, because I regarded it as something of an insult to the people of this country as it implied that unless outside pressure were put upon us we, in this country, being an inferior people to all other peoples, would perhaps come here to legislate and to make laws binding upon the consciences of other people and hold that our own consciences should be unbound. If we are going to have this piecemeal evolution from one from to another, why should we begin with the abolition of the Oath?
If we abolished the various details and would up with the abolition of the Oath, there might be some rectitude in it but what are we doing now? The President will agree that the Government of which he is the head is the Government of the Irish Free State. He, I think, feels stronger, if possible, than I do on the necessity to have authority in government and on the moral rights of that Government to demand from the citizens loyalty and obedience to the law. During that period of evolution, if that Oath is maintained, if that proper position is maintained that, as long as this State remains the Free State, and, as long as the present Government is the present Government, and, as long as the King is part of the Constitution of this State, then, irrespective of this Oath, the duty that the Oath sets forth is binding on everyone of us and not merely on members of the Dáil, but on the people walking about the streets. It seems to me that taking this step, as the President is doing, is the clearest justification I know for the British Government insisting on having that clause in the Treaty.
The President, by this Act which he has brought in and which he now proposes to pass, is clearly, as he is performing a positive act in order to create that situation, proposing that, in this country, the State of which he is the head has not the right to claim loyalty and obedience and fidelity from its people. If that doctrine of his is sound, then we are here in a state of anarchy. How does this State exist except by the assent of the people and by the insistence of the Government that there shall be that obedience to law that is implied in that word "fidelity"? I, on national principle, must oppose this. I know that the President has appealed entirely to ignorant prejudices and to the more ignorant sections of the community and, by playing up the past, has created what I might call a sense of untruth amongst the people, a disregard for truth, a mental cowardice, a refusal to face up to fact and he has certainly got a certain amount of support in the country for the abolition of this Oath. He, as head of the Government, must recognise that if we, coming in here to legislate, do not owe fidelity and obedience to this State and to those sections which form the Constitution, the Executive Council, the Governor-General and so on, if the Government has no right to insist on that, by virtue of what does the Government govern?
Is the Government proposing to make the laws passed in this Dáil effective in this country solely through the means of the material sanctions under its control, such as the army and the police, or does the Government, although it abolishes this Oath, recognise that its own members, the members of this Dáil and every citizen of this State, are bound under a law which is not mutable as the ordinary laws we pass are but, under an immutable and unchanging law, to give that loyalty, fidelity and submission to law which we, coming into the Dáil, so far have asserted in a set form that we accept? I cannot understand, although I do not propose to argue about the President's general policy, why it is—he talked to-day about various things which were objectionable, presumably, to the Irish people, and which he proposes, some in the immediate future and some as opportunity arises, to abolish by legislation— he begins with the Oath. By some short or long time, we are going to come in here with free consciences, refusing to recognise authority in the Constitutional authority in this country, and, at the same time, are going to impose laws on the people of this country and to enforce those laws through our police, and, if necessary, with the assistance of the military, and are going to enforce those laws to the very point of taking life. If we do not owe the duty that we set out in that Oath, what right has the Government and its machinery to take a man's life for the transgression of law in this country? What form is there behind law in this country? Until we get to that form of State that is so dear, as the President would like us to believe, to his own heart, there is going to be no State here; there is going to be no real law in the country. We are only going to have a body of men, to use a favourite phrase of Fianna Fáil when they were in opposition, a junta, controlling certain armed forces, and, having gone through certain empty forms here, in the way of discussion, voting and so on, are going to enforce laws on the people of this country, and going to pass an Act, here and now, indicating clearly to the people that the Government does not recognise that there is any virtue of authority in itself. It seems to me—I do not want to use strong words—to justify the very worst things that were ever said about us. The statement was made about us that we were not fit for self-government. What is the President saying?—"Where other people are able to organise their society, to put authority over that society, which will have the right to expect obedience and which will have power to enforce obedience, we are something inferior to all the rest of the peoples of the world," and although we go through the form of elections and having an Executive Council and all the rest of it, so long as we have not the right to ask of the people of this country that they will give obedience to their own law and respect to their own institutions, I must protest on every possible ground against this step that the President is taking here.