The Minister for Justice, in introducing this Bill, was very frank, rather more frank than I thought he would be. This is a dishonest Bill, because it is a one-sided Bill. It is to be used against one party and one party only. I am glad that the Minister, at any rate, had sufficient moral courage to get up and say: "Yes, this is a political measure. We are going to use it against our political opponents. Anybody who likes may have any uniform he likes or any emblem of any kind he likes, any badge he likes, any flag he likes, provided he is a supporter of the Executive Council. If he is an opponent of the Executive Council, then he is to have neither badge nor armlet, neither emblem nor flag, neither banner nor device of any kind." It is a frank effort on the part of the administration to break down constitutional agitation in this country. We have got in this country, at the present moment, two forces at work, just as there are two forces at work in every other country in the world. We have got those who stand on the existing institutions and the existing arrangement of society, and we have on the other hand those revolutionaries who wish to destroy the existing social system and to set up in its place a system based on an entirely different social foundation. You have got these two forces at work in this country as they are at work in every country in the world. You have here on the one side, really illegal, really unlawful associations, which in their objects are directly hostile to the laws in this State and which, in their objects also, are directly opposed to the dictates and teachings of the Christian religion. You have those persons who wish to set up their views by physical force, and for a considerable time you had those men, by means of their physical force, in a position to dominate this country and able by intimidation to impose their will upon the people.
But you have another force now, an organised body of the best amongst the young men and women of our country, a body which is putting moral force against physical violence, and which is relying upon nothing else but moral force. You have an Executive Council putting a ban upon moral force and encouraging physical violence. That is what their object is and they do not deny it. They wish to encourage physical violence; they wish to encourage crime. That is the tenor of all their speeches. We had the Minister for Justice declaring in this House that the Constitution (Amendment 17) Act, otherwise called the Public Safety Act, should not be put in force. He said: "Put that in force and you are not going to lead to peace in this country; you are going to lead to crime." You had exactly the same thing coming from President de Valera. "Use this measure," he said, "use a measure like the Constitution (Amendment) Act of 1931 and it will not lead to peace but to crime." Even after that Act had been put in force you had the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance describing it as a public provocation Act and justifying its use by the Executive Council in this fashion:—"You gave us the power, and no matter how much we mususe that power it was your own fault in putting such power into our hands." We have it from the very mouths of the Ministers and from the President that they considered the putting into force of the Constitution (Amendment) Act would have the effect of increasing violence and crime and would not have the effect of restoring peace. Yet they put that measure into force. Now we have got this measure, and what is it for? You have a perfectly lawful organisation being carried on in the open light of day, concealing nothing, hiding nothing, its membership known and the members wearing the honourable badge of a great and honourable association. There is nothing secret about their doctrine. Every member of it is known, and yet the Government are endeavouring to drive that association underground. Here is a deliberate effort to make a lawful association a secret association. You are trying here by deliberate, provocative methods to drive the association of the best young men and the best young women into a course of crime. You may do your best to make that association a wrong-doing association, but you will fail. That association has always been above board. On the one side you have a secret society bound by oath, and on the other side you have an association operating in the broad daylight, every member of it being known, and every member being proud of his association. The Executive Council says: "By all means be secret, we will not allow you to associate or to have a badge." They are violating every possible principle. They are violating the natural law and the Constitution of this State.
By the natural law—and we have it on the highest of all authorities, an authority which rests upon higher than human wisdom—there is a right in human beings to associate together for lawful purposes. It is in the nature of men to associate. Man, by his nature, is not a solitary individual, but an individual made for society and, being made for society, he is entitled to associate with his fellow man for a common purpose, provided that that association be not for purposes which are unlawful. Article 9 of our Constitution sets out:
"The right of free expression of opinion as well as the right to assemble peaceably and without arms, and to form associations or unions, is guaranteed for purposes not opposed to public morality. Laws regulating the manner in which the right of forming associations and the right of free assembly may be exercised shall contain no political, religious or class distinction."
If you have the right to form an association, then you have all the rights which flow from that. You have the right to have a badge for that association. Wherever you do find associations, no matter for what purpose they may be formed, whether for religious, social, philanthropic or political purposes, you will always find the badge of that association. Even in sport, if you see two well-known football teams entering the field you will find the supporters of both teams sporting their respective colours. It goes right through human nature. There is the right of men to form associations and to recognise each other by a particular badge. According to the Government there is now to be no badge, no armlet, no emblem, no distinctive mark of any kind. If people wear the same kind of cuff-links they may be told it is a political badge. We are going to have blue uniforms banned.
The Minister for Justice referred to the conditions in other countries. We have been brought on a sort of personally conducted tour by the Minister for Justice. He told us that we should not use our own judgment at all, that we ought in this country to take a certain course because that certain course is taken in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Latvia or somewhere else, or by Sir John Gilmour in England. We are supposed not to use our own minds or our own judgments in this House at all. Yet, contradicting himself completely, he tells us towards the end of his speech that what happens in other countries is not to be in any way imitated in this country. As a matter of fact, if the Minister wants a precedent he could— as I am sure he knows himself—get a precedent; he has already got a precedent, and no doubt it was to that precedent he looked upon the statute book of this country. I remember when the Juries Protection Bill was being brought into this House President de Valera—Deputy de Valera as he then was—read us out a very long list of penal statutes which had been passed in this country, all of which, he said, had been completely unsuccessful in achieving their object. Therefore, I know that President de Valera is familiar with the penal laws of this country, and therefore, I think, I may very safely quote a law which this particular Bill resembles—a statute which was passed in the 28th year of the Reign of Henry VIII. It runs as follows:—
"That no perfon ne perfons, the King's fubjects within this land being, or hereafter to be, from and after the firft day of May, which fhall be in the yeare of our Lord God a thoufand five hundred thirtie nine, fhall be fhorn, or fhaven above the eares, or ufe the wearing of haire upon their heads, like unto long lockes, called glibbes, or have or ufe any hairs growing on their upper lippes, called or named a crommeal, or ufe or weare any fhirt, fmock, kerchor, bendel, neckerhour, mocket, or linnen cappe, coloured, or dyed with faffron, ne yet ufe, or wear in any their fhirts or fmockes above feven yards of cloth, to be meafured according to the King's standard, and that alfo no woman ufe or weare any kyrtell, or cote tucked up, or imbroydred or garnifhed with filke, or couched ne layd with ufker, after the Irifh fafhion; and that no perfon or perfons, of what eftate, condition, or degree they be, fhall ufe or weare any mantles, cote or hood made after the Irifh fafhion; and if any perfon or perfons ufe or weare any fhirt, fmock, cote, hood, mantle, kircher, bendell, neckerchor, mocket, or linenn cap, contrary to the forme above recited, that then every perfon fo offending, fhall forfeit the thing fo ufed or worne, and that it fhall be lawfull to every the King's true fubjects, to feize the fame, and further, the offendor in any of the premiffes, fhall forfeit for every time fo wearing the fame againft the forme aforefaid, fuch penalties and fummes of mony, as hereafter by this prefect act is limited and appointed."
It is pretty obvious where President de Valera went for his precedent. King Henry VIII objected to the colour saffron, and President de Valera objects to the colour blue, but the principle lying behind the two is exactly the same, though in some respects King Henry VIII showed himself a person with a greater sense of decency than President de Valera has shown in this Bill, as I will point out in a minute or two. Even Henry VIII made certain exceptions. I find none of them in President de Valera's Bill. This goes on:
"Provided alway, That this Act, ne any thing therein contayned, be prejudicial to any woman or any herdes, horfe boyes, for the ufing or wearing of any mantle, ne fhall extend to be hurtfull to any perfon or perfons, for or by reafon of wearing of any mantles, during fuch time as he or they fhall be in going, riding, or abiding in any hoftings, jorney or rode, or reifing out upon a cry, but that they, and every of them, fhall and may liberally and freely ufe and weare at their pleafures their mantles, during fuch hoftings, jorneys or rodes, or reifing out; any thing in this act before to the contrary mentioned or declared notwithftanding."
So that even at public meetings a mantle was allowed; a saffron mantle would be allowed at hostings, but not by Presdent de Valera. He goes considerably further than King Henry VIII went. I presume the coat there was being worn to keep the persons who were at the meetings warm and free from the rain, but if you bring an umbrella to a public meeting now you are liable to three months' imprisonment, because an umbrella is obviously a stick, and anybody who has a stick at public meetings is, under Section 6, liable to three months' imprisonment and, on the second occasion, to six months' imprisonment. This is the Bill you have before the House.
Since the President is so very interested in following up those precedents I suppose, now that he has tired of Henry VIII, he will go back after a short time to Henry VII. I commend to him an excellent statute which was passed in the reign of Henry VII, another nice Act to stifle freedom of speech, which the President might easily avail himself of. This is the twentieth chapter, in the tenth year of the reign of Henry VII:—
"Therefore it be enacted and eftablifhed by the fame authority, That no perfon ne perfons of whatfoever eftate condition, or degree, he or they be of, take part with any lord or gentleman, or uphold any fuch variances or comparifons in word or deed, as in ufeing thefe words, Cromabo, Butlerabo, or other words like, or otherwife contrary to the King's lawes, his crown, and dignity, and peace, but to call only on St. George, or the name of his Sovereign Lord the King of England for the time being. And if any perfon or perfons of whatfoever eftate, condition, or degree, he or they be of, do contrary fo offending in the premiffes, or any of them, be taken and committed to ward, there to remain without bayl or mainprife, 'till he or they have made fine after the difcretion of the King's deputy of Ireland, and the King's counfail of the fame for the time being.”
So I suppose we will shortly have some legislation making "Up Cosgrave" or "Up O'Duffy" a criminal offence, and nobody in this country will be allowed to do anything else but call upon St. George or Eamon de Valera. It is rather interesting to see that that chapter which I quoted to you a moment ago—chapter 15 of the 28th year of Henry VIII—is followed immediately after by chapter 16, the title to which is "An Act for the Suppreffion of Abbyes." I suppose it was some of the Communistic supporters of President de Valera, with their ideas that Catholicism should be driven out of this country, searching how Henry VIII set about the work and discovering chapter 16, went back just a little page further to chapter 15, to see how he dealt with the sort of apparel that persons should wear. Here in this Bill, as I said a moment ago, there is a thing which shows that even King Henry VIII himself had a certain sense of decency which is wanting to President de Valera and wanting to the Minister for Justice. This is a Bill to suppress the League of Youth, to prevent our young boys from wearing their blue shirts, to prevent our young girls from wearing blue blouses.
When I come to look at this Bill, I find this very clearly and definitely and distinctly laid down in Section 11:—
Whenever a member of the Gárda Síochána sees a person wearing a uniform or badge in contravention of this Act, it shall be lawful for such member, if he so thinks proper in the circumstances and whether he does or does not arrest such person, to take from such person and remove, if need be by force, such uniform or badge.
A Guard sees a girl wearing the banned blue blouse and that Guard has authority, there and then, to strip that article of clothing off that girl. There was a time in this country where there was a respect and reverence for the womanhood of this country which very few other countries could equal in respect of their womanhood, but here, on the orders of the Executive Council, the Guards may be ordered to tear the blouses off Irish girls because they wear this colour, blue, which President de Valera and his Executive Council object to. You may order your Guards and you may give them directions, but I believe that, by the old Guards, at any rate, you will not get public decency violated and these orders carried out. I am not so sure as to the members of your new force, but I do say that whether it be the old or the new Guards, to give any Guard the power to tear the clothing off a respect able, decent Irish girl, to tear off her blouse in the public street or public place, is a monstrous power to put in any Bill.
Do not answer me with any quibbles. Do not tell me: "We will never do this, or we will never do that." If you do not, why do you take the power? It would be the easiest thing on earth, if the Executive Council had given instructions to the Parliamentary draftsman, for him to draft the section: "Wherever a member of the Gárda Síochána sees a man, a male person or a person other than a woman," but, deliberately and knowing precisely and perfectly what you are doing, you have conferred under this Section 11 powers on the Guards which should not be conferred upon any man in this State. Even in our prisons, there are women searchers, but here you are getting away from that principle, and you are putting the power in the hands of the Guards, and the Guards are under your control, to tear off girls' clothing in the public street, and that is the Bill which you commend to this House. There is no exception—and you come here and ask this House to pass a measure of that nature. What is the meaning of half of your Bill? The Minister for Justice, when introducing it, said: "We are taking terribly wide powers, but we can be trusted." Who trusts them? I do not. We know what happened so far as the Constitution Amendment Bill of 1931 was concerned. We know that under that Bill two associations were declared to be unlawful which were not, in fact, unlawful, and in order to make these declara tions, in the teeth of all fact and in the teeth of all truth, the Executive Council had to prostitute its conscience, and if the Executive Council prostituted its conscience to get powers under one Act, are we to believe that, when it is given full and free powers, it will not exercise those powers—and they are wide powers indeed.
No emblem, no flag, no badge can be carried by anybody except a supporter of Fianna Fáil, because, as has been frankly told to us, this is a Bill aimed against the United Ireland Party. It is not a Bill aimed against Fianna Fáil; it is a Bill deliberately designed to give every advantage and every power they have at the present moment to Fianna Fáil and to take it away from the United Ireland Party and from every branch of the United Ireland Party. We have it that the Executive Council can call anything on earth it likes a political body, and under Section 2 we have it that no one shall wear any uniform or badge "which is indicative of membership of, affiliation to, or support of a political party or an association ancillary to a political party." Politics are completely dealt with. What is the meaning of Section 5? By Section 5 the Commissioner of the Gárda Síochána or, in his own area, any chief superintendent, can ban the wearing of any particular uniform or badge he likes. Those are not political badges. What are they? Political badges are dealt with by Section 2, and they can be dealt with also by Section 4. What is Section 5 for? It is to give powers to the Commissioner of the Guards and the chief superintendents of the Guards to proclaim any sort of association they like, political or non-political.
Nobody can associate together in this country with any badge or any emblem, but, at the mere wanton whim of the Commissioner or any chief superintendent of the Guards, the wearing of any single religious emblem or anything else can be prohibited. You say you are not going to use those powers for that purpose. Why not put that in the Bill, and why give those powers at all which cannot refer in any way to political matters, because political matters have been dealt with earlier? There is such a thing as the liberty of the subject; there is such a thing as the right of an Irish citizen to go about as a free man, and here, by every means you can, you are endeavouring to limit that right. In the statement of the Minister for Justice, when introducing this Bill, there was not a word of eulogy for one single section of it. There was an apology for this section; there is an apology for that section and for the next section, but not one word of eulogy of one single section of the whole Bill.
The Minister for Justice is kind enough to refer to me and to a speech I made. He said that in a speech I made I expressed my gladness and my pleasure that the Guards were not at a certain meeting which I addressed and where an attempt was made to break up that meeting. I was quite glad. In an effort to incite the people of this country to violence the President of the Executive Council here declared that he could not prevent people being unpopular. We have been told that our meetings could not be held unless they were being held under the protection of the Gárda. They could not be held a year ago. At that time they could not be held and they were not held in a great many parts of the country.
But our meetings can be held now and they can be held all over the country. That particular meeting at which there were no Gárda demonstrated that they could be held without the Gárda or their protection. The persons who had been attending that particular meeting were stoned by persons outside the crowd. But when they were stoned they defended themselves and the attackers cleared away. I am very glad of that. It shows clearly now that there is a manly spirit growing up in this country. It shows that there are men in this country who are not to be browbeaten and walked upon, men who keep themselves strictly within the law, but who, when attacked, are going to act in self-defence, and I am glad of it. I would be very sorry if this country became a country in which bullies may attack as much as they like and that the decent people attacked have not the courage to resist the bullies. Well, I am glad of that. I repeat again that I am very glad of it. The Minister for Justice may make any point he likes out of it.
This measure before the House is a measure, as I have already stated, that is calculated, at least, in the minds of those who introduced it to lead to violence in this country. When the present Executive Council took over office in this State they took over the ruling and the Government of the country which was quieter and more peaceful than any other country in the world or as quiet as any country could be expected to be. We had met violence with law. We had met with the forces of the law political crime by private methods. The law had shown itself stronger. When the Executive Council opposite took over office they took office in a perfectly peaceable condition in this country. So much was that the case that from his place in this House the Minister for Justice himself has been forced to admit that the General Election of 1932 was as peaceable an election as could possibly be held or wished for. Election times are times which stir up more excitement and bad feeling than are stirred up at any other period. Yet it is admitted by the Minister for Justice that the 1932 election was a perfectly calm and peaceful election. Crime had ceased.