Before the House adjourns, I wish to revert for a few minutes to the question which I put to the President to-day, and to which I received an answer that I considered vague and unsatisfactory. I should like to say that I am not raising the subject now for the purpose of making trouble or stirring up muddy water. On the contrary, I was very much impressed by, and would like to pay a tribute of admiration to the tone and much of the substance of the President's speech this afternoon on the Oath Bill, which was germane to the matter we are about to discuss. I do not want to say anything that would import a different tone or a different spirit into our discussions.
The President made a very striking statement as to the policy of the Government at Arbour Hill on 23rd April—a statement which, so far as I know, had not been foreshadowed in any previous speech. He said it was the policy of the Government by degrees to remove all forms and symbols at present exisiting which they considered inconsistent with Ireland's rights as a sovereign nation, so that they should gradually work up to the day when, if it was desired to declare a Republic, that declaration would be a mere ceremonial.
The first question that occurs to one to ask is why was no declaration of policy on those lines made to the electorate at the general election, if that was then the policy of the Government, and, failing that, if it is something they have evolved since the general election, would not one have expected it to be announced to the Dáil in the first instance rather than on such an occasion as that on which it was announced? Then one asks one's self what are these forms and symbols? What does all this mean? I, for one, have been cudgelling my brains to think what is involved in the statement about forms and symbols, and I cannot succeed in thinking of anything except the Governor-General. Does this mean the abolition of the Governor-General? Is that what it means, and is that all it means, or what exactly is involved? I feel when a statement of that sort is made by the President of the Executive Council—and it was a statement that appeared to bear internal evidence of careful preparation—one has a right to ask the President to be more specific about it. This afternoon, when I asked him to be more specific, he would say nothing except that it had reference to the symbols similar to the Oath which we are removing to-day. I hope he will go a little further than that to-night. Up to this declaration at Arbour Hill there had not been a hint, as far as I am aware, that the Oath Bill was really only the first of a series of similar measures. That was quite a new idea to me, that it was to be the first of a series. Is that a policy on which we can go forward with any satisfaction? Does it not mean that, instead of preserving the tone of the President's speech this afternoon, we will have constantly recurring bouts of excitement and jingoism in this country, that we will be raising constitutional issues one after another in order to stir up ill-feeling between ourselves and the English; that we will be dealing John Bull a further blow every session so that the Government may distract attention from any internal difficulties that the country may have. Is that the motive of the whole thing? As I said this afternoon, I would far prefer an immediate declaration of a Republic to a policy of that sort. I think that, both from the point of view of letting us settle down to tackle real problems, and from the point of view of preparing the way some day for the abolition of Partition and making an impression on the country's poverty, if we must purge the Republican idea out of our system, the sooner we do so the better by declaring a Republic. As long as there is a Republic in the background, it seems to me to be more impossible to get rid of Partition than if we actually tried a Republic and found after experience that the continued disunity of Ireland was something more intolerable, and that a Republic was something we were willing to give up in order to reunite the Irish nation.
The President justified that declaration of policy at Arbour Hill by saying that it arose out of our duty to the memory of the men who died for Ireland in Easter Week. Does it really arise out of that duty? I did not know the men who died in Easter Week, but I honour their memory as men who died for an ideal and men who died for Irish independence. While I honour their memory I honour certainly no less the memory of Irishmen who died for independence on other fields such as Flanders and Gallipoli. They died for independence because they believed, as I believed, and as John Redmond believed, that the best way to secure Irish independence and the unity of Ireland was to do as they did.
