Vote No. 67—External Affairs.

Minister for External Affairs (The President)

I move:—

Go ndeontar súim ná raghaidh thar £53,197 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1935, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig an Aire Gnóthaí Coigríche agus Seirbhísí áirithe atá fé riaradh na hOifige sin. (Uimh. 16 de 1924.)

That a sum not exceeding £53,197 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for External Affairs, and of certain services administered by that Office. (No. 16 of 1924.)

The amount of this Estimate for 1934-5 is £80,197, an apparent increase of £2,516 over the financial year 1933-4. To this must be added a sum of £14,209 for amounts included in other Estimates, bringing the gross estimated expenditure to £94,406 as shown on page 316 of the Estimates Book.

There are two items in connection with the Estimate which may require some explanation. One is the inclusion of a sum of £5,000 for the purchase of stamps—that is sub-head A (6), and the other the amount shown on page 316 of the Estimates Book for fees collected abroad for passports, visas and Consular services, £500. As regards the sum of £5,000, the practice is to purchase from the Revenue Commissioners stamps for the passport offices and all the establishments abroad. These stamps are purchased for cash. Stocks of stamps at all establishments have to be kept to the value of between £4,000 and £5,000. Up to about three years ago the receipts from passports issued at home, on each of which there was a considerable margin of profit, were sufficient to keep the stock of stamps abroad to the proper level. With the decrease of emigration, however, the receipts from the issue of passports at home declined so much that this procedure was no longer possible. To get over the difficulty, a sum of £5,000 was advanced from the Contingency Fund in the year 1931-32. This money has now to be repaid to the Contingency Fund, and it is for this purpose that the House is asked to vote this amount. There will thus be a floating balance of £5,000 available to maintain stocks of stamps at all our establishments.

In regard to the item of £500 for fees collected abroad, Deputies will see that in the year 1933-34 the corresponding figure was shown as £29,000. In previous years the figures shown in the Estimates included the estimated amount payable to the Revenue Commissioners for stamps during the financial year. These amounts were paid out of the Vote for External Affairs to the Revenue Commissioners direct and the fees collected in stamps were recouped to the Vote. The corresponding figures for 1933-34 will be approximately £13,500 and £600 respectively. The figures for 1934-35 will probably show very little change. It will be understood, of course, that 1932-33 was an exceptional year because of the holding of the Eucharistic Congress. Some further explanation with regard to the item of £500 may be necessary. In establishments abroad, fees are collected in local currency. It is essential that the amount in local currency when converted into national currency should not be less than the face value of the stamps cancelled. Consequently, a small margin is sometimes left between the amount collected and the face value of the stamps cancelled. This margin may be described briefly as a profit in stamps or on the exchange and goes to the Exchequer through this Vote as an extra receipt. This is the only Exchequer receipt in this Vote in respect of passports, visas, Consular services abroad.

As I have already stated, this Vote for 1934-35 shows an increase of £2,516 over the Vote for the year 1933-34, but if allowance is made for the new sub-head for the purchase of stamps (£5,000), which is not an expenditure in the ordinary sense, the Vote shows a decrease of £2,484. The money which is being voted for the purchase of stamps is really in the nature of an Imprest with which to purchase stamps from the Revenue Commissioners for the purpose of collecting revenue. It is no way comparable with a sub-head like salaries and wages or travelling expenses.

The other sub-heads of the vote call for very little comment. There are slight increases under salaries, wages, etc., at headquarters, incidental expenses and telegrams and telephones.

Abroad there is a substantial decrease in the Estimate for salaries, wages, etc., (£3,647) due to the fact that it was not necessary to make provision for exchange compensation and loss on exchange in America in the current year. If, however, exchange compensation and loss on exchange were excluded, the provision for salaries, etc., would show an increase of £2,764 spread over the various countries in which the Saorstát have direct representation. It is not necessary, I think, to go into further details on the question of the Vote itself. Now, as regards the general position of the Department, one of the matters that would naturally arise would be our relations with Great Britain but as these have been discussed over a period of 20 hours on the last Vote, I do not propose to refer to them here again. The routine work of the Department of External Affairs does not bring it into touch with Deputies and members of the public in the same way as the routine work of the other Departments of State.

It may be well, therefore, to give to the House a short sketch of the work done in Headquarters office and in the office of the Department abroad. I shall first deal with the work done in the Headquarters office. Deputies will remember that the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924, confided to the Department of External Affairs the charge of the "administration and business generally of public service in connection with communications and transactions between the Government of Saorstát Eireann and the Government of any other State or nation, diplomatic and consular representation of Saorstát Eireann, in any country or place, international amenities, the granting of passports and visas and all powers, duties and functions connected with the same." The work of the Department may consequently be set out under the following heads.

Communications between Government of Saorstát Eireann and the Governments of other countries:—

First under this heading would fall all communications between the Saorstát and foreign Governments on treaties, the appointment of Ministers and Consuls, the reception of Ministers and Consuls, attendance of Saorstát Delegation at International Conferences, and miscellaneous matters. All questions of international law affecting the rights of the Saorstát, whether under treaties or otherwise, are dealt with in the Department. Treaties concluded at International Conferences or at the League of Nations to which the Saorstát is a party are examined. Power to sign treaties and instruments of ratification of treaty are prepared at the Headquarters office.

All League of Nations' documents are examined and material for the Annual Assembly of the League of Nations is prepared in the League Section of the Department.

Passports are issued to Saorstát nationals, and documents required for use in foreign countries are legalised in the Department. The Headquarters office deals with all cases of repatriation of destitute Irish people from foreign countries, and deportations by foreign countries of Irish nationals are also dealt with. The Diplomatic and Consular immunities granted to foreign representatives in the Saorstát, and those granted to Saorstát representatives in foreign countries, are handled in the Headquarters office.

These offices of the Saorstát abroad are the channel of communication between the Saorstát Government and the Government of the country in which they are situate. Apart from their representative capacity, these offices deal with all matters regarding the issue of passports, the granting of visas, the legalisation of documents for use in this country. They generally afford protection to Saorstát nationals. In the United States they render very valuable services to Irish nationals by looking after their interests in estate cases. During the year 1933-34, 800 estate cases have been dealt with between the Headquarters office and the offices in the United States. The services rendered by Saorstát officers in the United States in these cases have resulted in £13,800 being transmitted to residents of Saorstát Eireann. This work in estate cases is only beginning and it is hoped that in the course of a year or two the offices in the United States will have succeeded in extending their activities in estate cases to every State in the United States. Deputies who have come in touch with cases where people in this country have interests in estates in the United States will appreciate the great assistance which has been given to Saorstát citizens both by the Department and the Saorstát offices in the United States. Apart from the activities which I have already mentioned the Saorstát offices abroad have during the last year been engaged in investigating the possibilities of markets for Saorstát agricultural and other products.

Perhaps a somewhat more extended statement might be given on that head. In my statement on External Affairs on the Estimate last year, I pointed out that our trade with countries abroad was considerably limited and that our representatives were busy trying to extend the markets and to redress the adverse balance against us in most countries. I adverted to the difficulty in finding a way into European and other markets on account of the many restrictions imposed by other countries on imports, whether by quotas, currency restrictions, high tariffs or other methods. I said that we were determined that these balances should be redressed and that, if outside countries wanted to get their goods into the Irish Free State in the future to the extent to which they had been getting in the past, they would be expected to take Saorstát goods in return in order to redress the adverse balances of trade. I recognise fully the difficulties of finding markets for our surplus agricultural products in other countries abroad, particularly at the present time when it is the policy of all countries to provide themselves with their requirements, especially in regard to food. It is, however, the desire of the Government to have our exports distributed as widely as possible and, in pursuance of this policy, the offices abroad have, in close co-operation with the headquarters of External Affairs, been concentrating largely on trade work.

It has been possible during the past nine months to make with certain countries informal arrangements by which certain quantities of our agricultural surplus were sold on the Continent at a price advantage over what would have been obtained in the British market, where our products are subject to a discriminatory tariff. Discussions have been proceeding with Belgium, Spain, Germany and France, mainly in relation to facilities for agricultural products, and, except in the case of France, certain what I might call initial results have been achieved. Discussions are continuing in the hope of arriving at some settled agreements. Towards the end of last year the trade side of Headquarters had to be strengthened to deal with this new work. A trade section was set up in the Department in October, 1933, with the object of (a) carrying on the functions previously devolving on the Markets Advisory Committee in testing foreign markets for Saorstát products; (b) keeping under continuous review in co-operation with the offices abroad conditions in foreign markets; and (c), conducting negotiations with foreign countries on trade matters in co-operation with the other Departments concerned.

In addition to the discussions with the four countries which I have mentioned, we have had formal discussions with India and with Poland, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The imports which the Irish Free State takes from all countries are being examined with a view to seeing that compensatory advantages can be obtained in those countries for Saorstát products. One of the objects which the Government had in introducing and passing into law the Control of Imports Act and the Customs Duties (Preferential Rates) Act was to have at hand administrative machinery which would enable the Irish Free State so to divert trade to those countries which show favour to Irish products from those countries which take little from us. Examination is continuously proceeding in the Departments with a view to seeing how far it would be possible so to regulate our imports in order to secure favourable terms in other markets for such products as we cannot consume ourselves. In addition to the two Acts to which I have referred, the Government can also use in bargaining with other countries in appropriate cases the flexibility of our tariff system on imports. As I have said, other countries which hope to find a market for their goods in the Irish Free State must be prepared to take reasonable quantities of our goods in return. The Saorstát makes large purchases of wheat, timber, coal, tea, petrol and oils, fruits, maize, wines, machinery, iron and steel goods, etc., from countries which take very little from us. This state of things has been going on for a number of years and is a position which the Government is trying to adjust in order to restore a more even balance between imports and exports. The League of Nations will be dealt with under a separate Vote.

Mr. MacDermot

I am afraid, Sir, that it must be admitted that, whether or not by the fault of the President in his capacity as Minister for External Affairs, the work of the Department of External Affairs during the past year has been an outstanding failure. As regards foreign countries other than Great Britain, what the Department of External Affairs has to aim at is the development of a less one-sided condition of international trade. The President has just admitted what, of course, is known to everyone of us, that the quantities of our goods admitted into any country in the world except Great Britain are contemptible in comparison with the quantities that we import from them. Now that we have in power a Government which believes wholeheartedly in tariffs and quotas and all the paraphernalia of high protection, this is their opportunity to display what they are able to accomplish in the way of developing more satisfactory trade relations with the nations of the earth other than Great Britain. It cannot be denied, and it has not been denied that so far the results of their efforts have been absolutely paltry. We will all hope for better things, but so far we have seen no reason to believe that better things are likely to be forthcoming. Similarly, in regard to relations with Great Britain about which so much has been said during the last few days, it cannot be denied these relations are bad, and to that extent, whether or not by the fault of the President, it must be admitted the work of the Department of External Affairs has been a failure. The Department, therefore, has been a failure all round.

Before I go any further I want to refer a little more fully to an incident to which I referred in the debate on the Estimate for the President's Department, namely, what occurred in connection with the presentation of the letters of credence of the late American Minister. I only mentioned that matter incidentally in the debate on the President's Estimate as an illustration of the kind of advance that was characteristic of the Government's so-called national policy. I made my comments upon it and they were taken exception to last night by the President in his reply. Now, I propose, as I say, to deal with that matter a little more fully. I had been saying that the so-called exploration of the possibilities of increasing freedom under the Treaty was humbug; that such liberation did not, in fact, take place, and that this movement of advance which the President conceived himself as making, bore to any unprejudiced onlooker the appearance of the side-long motion of the crab. I said that it was typical of the President and the Fianna Fáil Party that "they concealed as long as they could from the public that permission for the change in the procedure had been sought, and obtained from the King." Now, obviously, my point was that there was nothing epoch-making about what occurred. The President asked me to justify in cold blood the use of such a word as "permission." I am perfectly prepared to justify that word. I agree in a sense that the permission of the King is a constitutional fiction. It is a permission that he must give, if so advised, but my point was that fiction or no fiction, it had to be got by the ordinary constitutional procedure and that there was no question of any sort of advance in the matter of freedom. That appears to me to be a perfectly sound proposition, and I have nothing at all to retract from it.

Now, the newspapers when they first announced that the letters were going to be presented to the President and not to the Governor-General did not make any mention of the King. There is no doubt that, to superficial minds, it may have seemed, and I am quite sure it did seem to a great many minds, that this was a new rebuff to his Majesty and that once again the President was standing up and dealing his Majesty a buffet. I think it is remarkable that when a reaction of that sort could have been foreseen, when it was quite certain that an incident of that kind would be seized upon by the mischief makers, as the President said it was seized upon, in the hope of making trouble between the United States and Great Britain, I think it is very remarkable that the official announcement in the President's own organ contained no mention of the King.

The President

Would the Deputy refer me to the date on which that official announcement appeared?

Mr. MacDermot

I am very sorry I cannot at the moment. I looked the matter up this morning, but I did not take a note of the date. I read the announcement in the Irish Press which said that the letters were to be delivered to the President and further that the Executive Council had powers to make that arrangement and had carried out the procedure that was necessary in order to enable them to make that arrangement. But there was no mention of the King, and the announcements in the other papers omitted any mention of the King, so that there was a widespread impression in this country and elsewhere that a sort of insult to the King was intended and had, in fact, been accomplished.

The President suggested that all this was a bogey of my imagination, and that at no time did the Government, or their organ, take a line that would give an excuse for the sort of misrepresentation to which I have referred. I have here an extract from the Irish Press of March 27th of the present year, giving a report of a speech made by the Vice-President of the Executive Council, in the inspiring atmosphere of the Wolfe Tone Hall, Phibsboro', where he used these words:—

"Every day, said Mr. O'Kelly, something was being done to oust British control from the country. Fianna Fáil, led by Mr. de Valera, had removed the Oath of Allegiance to a foreign King. To-day, said Mr. O'Kelly, the American Minister would present his credentials to Mr. de Valera. Under Mr. Cosgrave's Government, these letters were presented to the Governor-General, as representative of King George, but they had changed that. One by one, great or small, they were cutting the ropes and chains that England wound around them here."

Is that language appropriate to a harmless alteration in procedure, strictly in accordance with our constitutional rights, following on previous consultation with His Majesty King George V? I submit that is, as I described it in the debate on the President's Department, a typical example of Fianna Fáil humbug, a typical example of the efforts to give the people of the country the impression that there is a striking off of real fetters, when in reality what are struck off are what I described as fetters of cotton wool. They were doing no more than they were authorised to do by the constitutional position in which they find themselves. It is no more an insult to His Majesty the King to be represented by President de Valera, when receiving letters of credence, than to be represented by the "man in the iron mask," who performs the duties of our Governor-General in such remote seclusion. In fact, if anything, more prestige would be acquired by the King having himself represented on such an occasion by the President of the Executive Council. So much for that incident.

Now, I am going to say a little about the general conduct of the Department of External Affairs with reference to a subject of great interest and importance that was raised by President de Valera, not for the first time, in his reply, in the debate on the administration of the Department for External Affairs. I refer to the question of obtaining what might be called a consolidated national front in matters of foreign policy. It has been the aim of many successive Governments in England, and I have no doubt in other countries, to have a certain continuity in the administration of the Foreign Office as compared with the inevitable changes of policy, sometimes very sharp changes of policy, in other Departments of the Government activity, and I am sure we would all quite sincerely wish to see the same thing in this country if it could be accomplished. I want to speak about it now, because I think it could have been accomplished, and I think it could still be accomplished, and the more we look into the realities of the situation and see the difficulties of the situation, the more notion we shall have of how best it may be accomplished.

We are only dealing now with the work of the Department of External Affairs during the year that has just gone by. I am, therefore, not going to discuss—I should be out of order in discussing—what the Government might have done when they first came into office in order to obtain a united front, but I can say this, that the difficulties that faced them during this past year, after the verdict they obtained at the last general election, were less than the difficulties that had faced them a year previously. I can see that, carried on, as they were, by the impetus of the tearing, raging election campaign of January and February, 1932; bound down, as they were, by a number of fairly specific undertakings to their supporters as to the procedure they were going to follow when they got into power, they were not perhaps in a position to pursue a policy that had any elasticity in it, with the aim of bringing Opposition and Government together to present a united front in international matters. At the last general election, however, the Government were returned with what corresponded to the mandate described in England as "a doctor's mandate," when the National Government was returned to office. They were given more or less a blank cheque by the electorate at the last election, subject to this, that they had assured the electorate that the winning of that election was the winning of the last round in the secular conflict between Great Britain and this country, and that a renewed verdict in their favour by the people of this country would put them in a position to achieve a satisfactory settlement of a victorious character of the outstanding difficulties between ourselves and Great Britain. That that is so, which I could easily prove by citing a number of newspaper articles, speeches and proclamations, is confirmed by the fact that within a very few weeks after the election—within. I think, a fortnight after the election— the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs came down to the part of the country with which I am most concerned—the County of Roscommon—and announced to the rejoicing multitude that as a result of the election, he already saw in the sky, in the near horizon, the signs of a forthcoming satisfactory settlement of the economic dispute with Great Britain.

The vote of confidence which the Government then received from the people of this country put them in a position in which they would have been open to no charge of breach of faith from their own supporters if they had entered into negotiations with other Parties in this House with a view to a united national front. The President will not deny that, in the previous year various attempts had been made at setting on foot such negotiations. I think he once concurred in my description of myself as having been perhaps over-officious in offers of mediation and attempts to smooth things over and to arrive at some sort of a policy that seemed likely to all concerned to achieve satisfactory results, but in the year 1933 there was an opportunity put at his disposal from an entirely new quarter.

A Fianna Fáil solicitor in the South of Ireland got into touch with Cardinal MacRory, and as a result of his doing so a proposal was made to the leaders of the Fianna Fáil Party, of the Labour Party and of this Party, that we should assemble and see if we could hammer out something mutually satisfactory. It is true that Mr. Rice's interest was purely in the economic conflict but, personally, I would have wished to see an attempt at agreement covering a wider field than that—covering the whole field of national politics—but, at any rate, whatever such a conference might have managed to include in its agenda, it was never given a chance of including anything at all, because it was sharply and firmly turned down by the President of the Executive Council —by the very man who reproaches the Opposition for lack of patriotism and for not showing the same readiness as oppositions are alleged to show in other countries to support the Government of the day in its disputes with other nations, whether they think that Government right or wrong. I think it was G.K. Chesterton once said that to exclaim: "I support whatever my country does, right or wrong," is just as indefensible as to say: "I will stand over whatever my mother does, be she drunk or sober." In point of fact, it is not the custom of oppositions in other countries to stand over everything their Government does in its relations with other nations. I have quoted instances taken from English history, and recent English history, in this House before, and will only now refer to the outstanding example of the Boer War, where the opposition to the Government of the day was extraordinarily outspoken and fervent.

It is true that in the matter of war debts, the Opposition in England, and, I suppose, the Opposition in other European countries, have, on the whole, supported their Governments. But consider the differences between their situation and ours. In the matter of war debts, from the moment the war was over Great Britain pursued a policy which was assented to from the first by all Parties. People talk as if the cancellation of war debts was a proposition that the British had taken up by a piece of sharp practice because it was something favourable to them. Now, in point of fact it would have been far more advantageous for Great Britain if all war debts had been paid than if all war debts had been cancelled, assuming that the economy of the world as a whole would have stood up under the strain, which is a very big assumption, and I personally think an untenable assumption. At any rate, it is true that Great Britain was owed £3 or more in the way of war debts for every pound that she owed to the United States of America. After the war, the policy that was adopted by the British from the first was that they would demand no more from their debtors than was necessary in order to enable them to pay their creditors, the United States of America. That was a policy that was easy for all parties to unite on, and that has been consistently followed up. Whether it be a good policy or a bad policy, a right policy or a wrong policy, it is one on which, from the first, all parties were willing to unite. The fact that while Great Britain was paying to America what she was getting from other countries, she was simultaneously advocating on general world grounds that war debts should, in fact, be abolished does not detract from the truth of what I have said. What happened in this country?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Chair is loth to interrupt the Deputy, but I would submit to the House that if the present line of argument is pursued it is inevitable that there will be a duplication of a debate which lasted for approximately 20 hours. Relations with Great Britain and the question of the land annuities were discussed very fully indeed during the last three sitting days. The question of the British attitude towards the cancellation of war debts is not relevant. Technically, the House is in order in discussing on the Vote for External Affairs the relations of the Saorstát with Great Britain, but I submit that the House might agree that the question has been adequately discussed for the present.

Mr. MacDermot

I am quite conscious of the force of what you say as regards war debts. I have now finished with war debts; I was not proposing to say anything more about them. In thinking out what I was going to say to-day on this Vote I made up my mind that I would not traverse ground that had already been traversed in the debate on the President's Department, but that I would address myself to what I think is an important point that was new so far as that discussion was concerned—the point as to the conduct of the Opposition raised at considerable length by the President in his reply. I do that, not for the purpose of barren discussion or making debating points, but because with all my heart I believe it is essential for the future welfare of this country that we should arrive sooner or later at a common national front about our international relationships, and especially our relationship with Great Britain. I shall only touch on the topics with which I have been dealing in so far as they affect this question of getting all Parties together for the purpose I have indicated. I was asking the question: What happened in this country? Why has there so far been a failure in this country to achieve the unity of front of which I have been speaking? The trouble is that as far as the economic question is concerned the Government took their stand on the alleged corruption and incapacity of their predecessors, and on that basis it was clearly impossible for their predecessors, and themselves to come together. They have repelled as officious and interfering any attempts that were made by independents to get the whole question put upon another basis.

I could say a lot more on the subject of getting together on the economic question, but for my desire to keep away from what we have been discussing for the last few days. Deputies can perhaps imagine, without my saying them, the sort of things that are in my mind. I will just confine myself to this observation, that I do still believe that without continuing to break our shins on the rock of principle, without continuing to argue and argue and argue as to whether the chairman of the arbitration court ought to be drawn from outside the Commonwealth or inside it, or about whether the so-called Cosgrave agreements should be admitted as valid or should be treated as invalid, without arguing about questions which, with the Government's point of view, they must obviously go on arguing about indefinitely if they argue them at all, it would still be possible to make whatever proposition seems to the Government to be good business. Instead of torturing ourselves by thinking about our rights, by thinking about all we were robbed of in the past, by thinking how improper it is that we should not be receiving restitution in the present, I suggest that we can all come together in putting forward a proposition which would do us good if accepted. Whether the President considers it fair or not, if it would do this country good he should put it forward. After all, is there a better way or is there a more practical way of getting restitution from England of whatever she may have robbed us of in the past, and of getting atonement for any wrongs she may have done us in the past, than by taking advantage of the opportunities that her market now presents to us and will present to us in the future, turning her into a source of wealth when perhaps she was for so long in the past a cause of poverty? From my point of view, we are just throwing aside the connection with Great Britain at a moment when for perhaps the first time in our history, or at any rate, whether for the first time in our history or not, when we very decidedly have nothing at all to lose from it and a great deal to gain from it by way of restitution and atonement for what has taken place in the past. I know the President says I am mesmerised by Great Britain. I am not mesmerised by Great Britain. If I am mesmerised by anything, I am mesmerised by Ulster, and the thought that there are a million people in this country—I am not one of them; nobody in this House is less one of them than myself—of British stock and British attachments. If you could banish all these people or massacre all these people the problem would disappear.

Mr. Donnelly

They are not all in Ulster.

Mr. MacDermot

In Ulster and elsewhere through this island there are a million people, roughly, of British stock and attachments. If I were asked to put these people on a throne and be their slave, naturally I would not agree to that. But when I see no other way of making use of that material for building up the Irish nation except by arriving at satisfactory relations with Great Britain and retaining the opportunity that we have for getting restitution for losses in the past and retaining all the numerous advantages to be drawn from the Commonwealth connection— when I see no other way of making use of that material for building up the Irish nation then, by heaven, I am in no doubt at all about whether it is good patriotism to do it or not to do it.

The President has claimed that his management of external affairs has been rendered specially difficult by the attitude of the Opposition. I think I have given some reasons for believing the contrary of that statement. He has also stated that his task has been rendered specially difficult by the fact that he has inherited a certain situation— that the position is a forced position. Now, I put to him that we could all get together on the national issue just as we could on the economic issue, if only we would realise that the position is not a forced position and that, in so far as it seems to be a forced position, it can be changed.

If the Government really want to strike off some fetters, I am prepared to indicate something worth doing. There is a certain amount of doubt in the minds of the people of this country as to whether the Treaty position is something that refuses to us the same right of secession that is admittedly the possession of South Africa, Canada and Australia. If that ever was the Treaty position, I hold that to that extent the Treaty is dead—killed, not by any achievement of the Party opposite, but killed by something that lay within the Treaty itself; killed by the developments which have taken place in the Constitution of the British Commonwealth as a whole since the time the Treaty came into force. In other words, I would not stand for the proposition that this country, because of the Treaty, should be denied for all time, or for any time, what has become a fundamental right throughout the British Commonwealth—the right of secession. I am quite sure that all Parties would join with the President and with the Executive Council in getting it quite explicitly stated by the British Government—by Mr. Thomas, or by any member of the British Government, or by the British Government as a whole—that our right of secession was admitted. I do not approve of taking the line, "Will you promise not to hurt us if we do secede?" I think we should take our risks about that like men if we want to secede. But, if any doubt exists about the right of secession being part of our national equipment, I think that those doubts should be set at rest and the President would have the united support of the whole country in getting it established that we were free to go out of the British Commonwealth any moment we wanted to.

If the right is established, once again what becomes of all this high-falutin' talk about not setting bounds to the march of a nation? If the nation is free now and always to do what it likes on the subject of staying in or going out of the Commonwealth, no bounds have been set to its march. God save us from the word "march" and other similar military metaphors. Anyhow, if we are to go about shouting out phrases like that, let us apply them with some degree of common sense, and let us realise that to be in a particular federation of nations with a right to go out is something that no more sets bounds to our progress than to be called a republic, especially as may be if you were called a republic it might be more difficult for you to develop out of that into something else than it would for you to develop out of being a member of the Commonwealth into being a republic.

The President should believe in our sincerity in those things and realise our point of view; he should realise that we, no more than himself, wish this country to be surrounded by a prison wall; that we would not be content to be just at liberty to wander about within prison grounds. I am quite sure that that is not in any way an appropriate description of our present situation, but if there are those who think it is, the remedy is not to go on shouting about a republic, either about a Twenty-Six County republic, which needs no shouting about because it can be set up whenever the authority of the people is asked to set it up, or about a Thirty-Two Country republic, which is unattainable—the road to advance is not to go on talking about these things, but to make perfectly clear to our people and to the world at large that we possess that fundamental right of going outside the Commonwealth if we want to.

The President takes exception to my whole point of view about these matters. He accuses me of wishing to see the Irish nation pulled up with a rope and bucket hundreds of feet in the air and then let down with a bang. I absolutely repudiate that accusation. I do not consider that the present would be a specially dangerous moment to cut ourselves adrift, if we wanted to cut ourselves adrift. On the contrary, I think that, first of all, from the point of view of putting the issue to the people, the fact that there are any threats around or that the President can induce people to believe that there are any threats around would operate in favour of those who wished the people to assent to a republic. It is not threats that would deter the people of this country from setting up a republic. They are very much more likely to be driven into the setting up of a republic by threats. The fact that people believe that somebody is denying their right to do a certain thing will be just the reason they will want to do it.

The economic consequences of letting down the bucket would not be specially disastrous at the present moment, and would not even bring special obloquy on the President at the present moment, because a great many of these consequences are going on, anyway, as a result of the economic dispute, in the shape of tariffs, and, on account of the failure to make trade treaties, in the shape of quotas. The economic consequences of the establishment of a republic would probably be, therefore, less striking at the present moment than they would be in normal times.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is obviously resuming the debate on the President's Vote, and is replying to the President's concluding speech. He is technically justified in doing that, but Deputies must realise that there must be some limitation of debate, and that occasionally a Minister has the right to wind up a debate.

Mr. MacDermot

I plead guilty. For the last few minutes I have been referring, I admit, more than I intended, to the last debate. I shall say no more now except to emphasise that so far as getting the best possible financial arrangements between this country and Great Britain is concerned, the Opposition would be anxious to help the Government and not to hinder them, and so far as getting the best possible trade treaty with Great Britain is concerned, the Opposition would be anxious to help the Government and not to hinder them. Further, I say, in regard to the complete establishment of the right of this country to decide its own destiny, and to decide whether at any time it is in its interests or for its dignity to belong to the British Commonwealth or not, the Opposition would be anxious to help the Government and not to hinder them. If the Government will bear those facts in mind, I see no insuperable obstacle to our arriving at something we should all like to arrive at, and that is a united national front in matters of foreign policy.

Mr. Moore

I only intervene, Sir, to call attention to a matter that is not, perhaps, of general importance, but one which may be of considerable importance to a number of citizens. I want to call attention to a report which appeared to-day in the Manchester Guardian from their Paris correspondent. The report says that it was announced that during the period June 15th to July 15th foreign tourists will be allowed to bring their cars over without having to go through the usual formalities. These facilities will apply to British, German, Belgian, Swiss, Italian and Spanish motorists.

I just want to inquire whether the Saorstát Government was consulted with regard to that arrangement, and if they were, what has happened that has prevented them from sharing in it? It was announced in the same or some other paper to-day that considerable numbers of French tourists are expected in England within the year, and it is stated that the Travel Association of Great Britain and Ireland is working very hard to increase the number of French tourists. Presumably the Travel Association of Ireland wants these tourists to come here, and, presumably, if they come, some of them, at all events, would be bringing motor cars. Is there any arrangement or any proposal for an arrangement by which the Saorstát Government would facilitate such tourists coming here or has there been anything between the two Governments on this question at all?

I am concerned, particularly, for the reason that last year an Englishman coming to do business here, a man who was very welcome to those with whom he was to do business as a buyer, brought his car with him, but finding great difficulty in getting it through the Customs, largely, I think, through his own fault in not explaining what his business was, had to return the car, and a great many people who were concerned with his coming here and wished to see his visit successful were very sorry that that happened. I think, however, it was his own mistake in failing to make clear what his business was, or failing to see the higher officials of the Revenue authorities.

But the incident raises the question whether there would not be considerable advantage to this country in making the easiest possible arrangements for tourists and other people to bring motor cars into the country for a temporary stay. In making special and very easy arrangements for them I think we should not be governed by the ordinary international arrangements, because they would seem hardly applicable to our circumstances. Obviously in France or Germany the same circumstances would not at all lie, inasmuch as these countries are connected by land with a number of other countries. Here you have a country completely on its own, and the same precautions would not have to be taken with regard to the people coming in here—precautions against their exceeding their privileges or otherwise abusing in any way concessions extended to them. I hope there will be some statement in regard to this matter, because if the same amount of traffic takes place from Ireland to the Continent between 15th June and 15th July as took place in the same period last year from this country, quite obviously a considerable number of our citizens would be affected by it. In connection with the pilgrimage to Rome last year, a considerable number of those who made the journey took their own cars with them. Naturally such a concession as I have described would have been of considerable importance to them.

There is another matter to which I wish to draw attention. I think it is three years ago now since the Minister for External Affairs, at that time Deputy McGilligan, announced that returns were being prepared of the trade activities of the Saorstát Eireann representatives in foreign countries and that they would soon be published. Such reports have never been published so far as I know. I think the President himself also gave a promise more than a year ago that these reports would be published. I would just like to know whether that decision has been changed and whether we are not to have any such reports as these. We all know that the reports prepared by the British representatives abroad are of the greatest importance to the people of that country. The question is, are we to rely on them for our guidance, or are we to have some similar reports of our own, perhaps not so elaborate, but at all events reports which would give us an idea as to how far our representatives are going to obtain foreign markets for this country? The President referred to the efforts made to get foreign markets for our agricultural produce and for other products of this country.

In that connection, I understand a great deal of British trade with foreign countries is at present financed under a credit scheme which was established by the British Government. It seems to me that it would be very difficult for a country which had not such a facility as that to offer to its exporters, to compete with British manufacturers in the same markets. I have heard it stated—I cannot say that I have read it—by a person very much interested in that question that more and more of the foreign trade of Great Britain was being done under this system of guaranteed credits. If that be the case, it is obvious that the Government here will have to consider whether they also cannot offer some such inducement to exporters with a view to obtaining a foothold in certain foreign markets. It is, undoubtedly, disappointing that we are not getting further, that we are not making more rapid progress in the way of acquiring such a foothold in foreign markets; but no doubt with the establishment of this foreign trade section in the Department of External Affairs we will be able soon to see what our future prospects are in that connection.

Mr. Fitzgerald

Deputy MacDermot referred to the letter of credence to the American Minister and the President referred to it last night. I must confess that I have not had any opportunity in the meantime to give the matter very considerable thought and, therefore, I do not purport to speak as a pundit in the matter or lay down the law. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the position has not been presented in a completely true light. We all know the head of a State in these matters directs his letter of credence to the head of the appropriate State and, in that case, it was inevitably necessary and quite proper that the President of the United States should send his letter of credence to His Majesty the King as head of this State. Naturally, the King in performing his function acts on the advice of the Executive Council within the law. On the advice of the Executive Council the King has a representative here. That representative is chosen formally by the King on the advice of the Executive Council and he is the Governor-General. The President said last night there was no question of a request or permission, but merely advice which is, in effect, an order. I am not speaking as a pundit and I am not wishing to lay down the law as I have not had time to consider this matter more closely, but I do not think that was a proper representation of the matter. Certainly the Government can advise the King as to who his representative shall be. The law provides that when that representative is appointed he is the Governor-General. Therefore, the Government could have advised that in regard to the present occupant of that office he should be removed from that office and another person whom the Government wished to receive this letter of credence should be appointed. That would be within the law.

The position in this country at the moment is that letters should be received by the King's representative here and that that representative should be such person as the Government here advise the King to appoint for that purpose. It seems to me that if what the President tried to indicate last night was a fact, the President and his Government should advise the King that the present occupant of the office, Mr. Buckley, should be removed and President de Valera should occupy that office because it is the occupant of that office who is the proper person to receive it. I can quite understand that a request went to His Majesty saying that it was the personal wish of President de Valera that he should receive it. One knows perfectly well that under these circumstances His Majesty would not make any trouble about it and would be quite willing to permit it. One can well understand that His Majesty would not make any trouble about the matter. It seems to me that constitutionally the letter is addressed to the King to be received by his representative. The Government has advised the King as to the person of that representative here. If what the President tried to indicate last night was the fact, it could only be brought about by the Government advising that some other person should be formally appointed as the representative of the King. That is the law.

I would not like it to appear that the statement on the constitutional position that was thrown out by the President was necessarily accepted unless some sort of proof of it were adduced. The President said I had very different ideas with regard to the functions and powers of government before we went out of office compared with afterwards. There, of course, he is quite wrong. I can quite understand that he might think that is so because he has a tendency to think that if it is not right to be extreme right, then extreme left is. I have always recognised that necessarily there must be a limitation to the scope of Government. The Government I was a member of always kept within that scope, and it had certain restraints put upon it which it accepted. The reason I say that en passant is that in the general external policy of the Government I would not like the President to say that he is doing just the same as we did, and that we should be satisfied with it. For instance, in the general contact with other countries which takes place in the League of Nations, I am quite willing to admit that every matter that came up we viewed rather from the aspect of narrow nationalism. Under the circumstances, and considering the psychology of the situation at the time, we always watched closely as though we stood completely for the absolutist national State. It was rather necessary, but personally I had a hope that if we had remained in office we should have been able to come off that.

I think when the new Government came into office, if they had considered the case—and they were freer to do so than we were—they would have recognised what I said when I was collaborating with the President in another place. It seems to me that any thought over the matter will indicate clearly that if we do not stand for justice and charity, then the absolutist national State is wrong. If we want international relations to be placed on a basis of truth, justice and charity, then we should consider in abstracto what is necessary and, so far as it is feasible, we should aim in that direction if it were possible for us to recognise that it should be. In the interests of international justice a limitation upon national sovereignty is necessary. If we went for that we should be a pretty good influence, provided I am right in my assumption, in international relations, and the more that influence could be made effective the better for the world at large.

If we examine the policy of this Government we find that not only does it stand for the absolutist national State, such as we did in our actions, but it carries it to an extreme which is unknown in the world to-day. We had various theories put down by the President last evening. Let us look at it this way. If every other country had the same point of view as we have, would the world be better off? It is perfectly clear that if other countries went to the extremes that our country goes to, there would be no hope for the world. Some time ago in reply to me the President said: "Is it with the will of the Irish people that the British are in Cobh?" Later on he indicated that our sovereignty was not complete, and we could not have a condition of peace with our neighbour owing to that incompletion by virtue of British maintenance parties in Spike Island, Berehaven and Lough Swilly. He excitedly talked about Belgium and France and so on.

Now, the truth is, that practically every country I know would insist upon remaining in a condition of passive warfare with their neighbours if they took up an analogous attitude to that taken up by President de Valera. We are told we have parties of British troops in Spike Island, Cobh and Lough Swilly. When I mentioned the case of Spain and France the President mentioned the case of Belgium. It would appear, according to the President, that Belgium should remain in a state of chronic war preparation against the French and the English and even, indeed, ourselves. Against what is obviously the intention of the Creator Belgium would have a right to maintain that attitude. The President is aware that some years ago Belgium and Holland tried to rearrange matters with regard to the Scheldt, and asked even our permission in regard to a matter which was really an affair between the two countries. When the Congress of Vienna sat it was decided that the waters of the Scheldt was a matter of interest to the participants in the Congress and, as we were incorporated in the British Commonwealth at that time, we had to be consulted too as to whether we would agree to that revision. In the same way every small country adjacent to a big country has limitation upon its safety. We have the British in the Six-Counties, in Spike Island, in Cobh and so on. As a matter of fact there is a little spot I know in France, away from the Spanish border but which really belongs to Spain. Is Spain to go to war with France because of this little piece of country? If France said this belongs to us; we are much stronger than Spain and we will take this piece of territory to ourselves, Spain would have a grievance, because it would be an outrage of a treaty existing with Spain. Go to Switzerland and you will find that Campione is really Italian. It is Italian in language and tradition yet it is part of the Swiss Federation. It might be said that in regard to this town which is Italian in tradition, in language and in race, Switzerland is acting in an extraordinary way in insisting in incorporating it in their Federation. If you say that this belongs, not to Switzerland, but is rather an Italian enclave in Switzerland, then it may be supposed that the difficulties between Italian and Swiss relations would amount to a state of constant warfare, and that these neighbours were in danger of being constantly at war with one another. But such is not the case; and one could point to many similar anomalies in other countries. In the case of Belgium and Holland, as I said, since the Congress of Vienna because there was a limitation put upon their sovereignty and their inalienable rights some people might, perhaps, expect trouble. But what happens in politics is that you face up to the facts.

If we were powerful enough to drive the British out of the Six-Counties and those other ports, we would not have to drive them out, because we would simply be in a position to arrange matters in an amicable way. We need have no doubt about that. But England was in a different position. As the Fianna Fáil Party tells us, our country was subject to England, and was incorporated in her system for centuries. After a thing has gone on for hundreds of years it, to some extent, establishes itself. And the British, when they allowed us to separate from them retained small maintenance parties in Spike Island and in Cobh, because of the nature of their own defence forces which had grown up throughout the ages. The President spoke of those parties as something that was bound to lead to friction with England. In 1929, I, myself, was in conference with the British in regard to one of these places, and a certain situation that subsisted there. No secret was made about the matter. They recognised that in a few years, or perhaps in ten years, these places would necessarily be handed over to us. I think the one thing that prevented that happening, in the normal course of events, was the pronouncements from President de Valera and his Party in regard to treaties.

All people in the world want peace and stability. Peace and stability are often more important than things that might be discussed in relation to national rights. The world wants the sanctity of treaties recognised. There is no doubt about that. All over the world, every treaty ever made falls short of complete and absolute justice. It may be that there was divergence from justice in relation to both participating countries, in some cases, and in other cases there may be divergence from justice only in relation to one country. Yet the tradition has grown up that there is a certain sanctity attaching to treaties, and the world desires that treaties should be recognised, because it is in the interest of international relations and general world well-being. I do not want to misrepresent the President in any way but I feel that he put up a very specious argument with regard to the Article of the Treaty dealing with the Oath. He put up all sorts of arguments to show that the abolition of that Article did not, in any way, break the Treaty, but at the same time he said whether that was so or not the Article had got to go.

An Ceann Comhairle

I should like the Deputy and the House to realise that last night the President, when called upon to conclude the debate on his own Vote, dealt with all that.

Mr. Fitzgerald

I was not aware of that. I was not present when he was replying. Looking at what his Department controls, and our general foreign policy, I would like that our general foreign policy, besides benefiting ourselves, should be of benefit to the world, and that if it failed to benefit us in the material sense here, it would, at least, give our country a position of prestige as a country which stood for principle and for practice which, if more generally accepted, would be a benefit to all countries in the world. I referred to the general attitude with regard to treaties in the world at the present time. There is no doubt that the country which, in regard to arbitration and treaties, throws aside its obligations is regarded as an immoral factor. If a big country does such a thing against a small country there is a general outcry. The truth is that if we were the powerful party and England the weak party we would not have to break the Treaty, because it could be done by negotiation. But the one thing the world has no sympathy with is a truculent weak country. It seems to me that we have taken on the line of building upon our weakness through truculence. We have said that so far as treaties are concerned we only accept those parts that suit us, and so far as their binding effect is concerned we assert our right to disregard and wipe out treaty obligations when we wish. That seems to me to be a doctrine which is internationally pernicious. The reason that people want treaties to have attached to them a certain amount of sanctity is in order to avoid getting into a situation in which international arrangements can only be regulated by warlike sanctions. The people who desire pre-eminently that sanctity should apply to treaties are, clearly, the weaker nations. If a powerful nation is surrounded by weak nations, that powerful nation knows perfectly well that if it wants a thing badly enough it can force it on its neighbours by its mere warlike strength, but when you have a certain tradition, a certain understanding of faith, between nations, in which treaties are made and recognised as binding, there is a protection for the weaker countries.

So far as England is concerned—and I do not think I am being anti-patriotic in saying it—she knows perfectly well that if it comes—to quote a phrase attributed to the President at one time—to a show-down with us, outside of all international laws and outside of all treaty arrangements, she is going to get the best of it. With regard to a treaty made between a small country and a big country, it can conceivably be in the material interest of the big country to have that treaty disregarded. It cannot be in the interests of the small country to have that treaty disregarded, because that treaty is the small country's protection. The President, by his policy, has stated that any Articles in the Treaty, or anything that flows out of them, which are antipathetic to our feelings, which we disapprove of or do not like for one reason or another, are not binding upon us. If the British were the immoral nation we love to depict them as, they could clearly turn around and say "All right, nobody is more delighted to hear you say that than we are. We agree entirely with you, and anything that is unsatisfactory to us, we also are going to disregard."

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy might say under what particular item of Vote 67 there is any reference to a treaty.

Mr. Fitzgerald

In that part which deals with the London Office and the Central Office—the one which, in a general way, and the other in a particular way, deals with our relations with England, but actually, I am dealing with this in relation to the general policy of foreign affairs with regard to the sanctity of treaties. I think that it is in our personal and material interest, as well as in what I might call the interests of a good moral international atmosphere, that we should be able to stand rigidly for the sanctity of a treaty, recognising always that, from time to time, it may be necessary for the two contracting parties to come together to make variations in the light of new existing circumstances. I should like this Department or this Government to have in mind what I might call the ideal international situation to be arrived at, which, in my judgment—and which I have found, since I made the statement, some time ago, is concurred in by a man for whose opinion I have more respect than for the opinion of any man in Europe—would require that all countries would agree voluntarily to a limitation of their sovereignty. Mind you, every treaty is a limitation of sovereignty. I have heard spokesmen on the Government side going around the country and saying "Is it not intolerable? You cannot say that we are free when a foreign Government is able to dictate to us with regard to the Constitution which is the fundamental law." The Constitution was drafted here, passed by a constituent assembly and was adopted here, but that does not matter.

As a matter of fact, I remember in the year 1924, the United States proposed to make a treaty usually known as a "Liquor Treaty." We were in a minor way interested in it. The Constitution of the United States, their fundamental law, declared that no one should take into American territory alcoholic liquor. That was the fundamental law of the United States. The United States Government made a treaty with England and the British insisted that for the consideration that they would permit their ships to be searched an hour's distance from the shores of the United States, their ships should be able to carry alcoholic liquor under seal into American territorial waters, that is to say, into American territory. There you had the situation in which the fundamental law of the United States declared that it was unlawful that alcohol should be taken into American territory and the British will was imposed because the American Government required to make a treaty with them. The British will, as it would be depicted by Fianna Fáil speakers, over-rode the fundamental law of the United States and alcoholic liquor was taken legally into American waters, although the Constitution declared that it could not legally be done.

Here we have a Government that says it aims at economic self-sufficiency. Every country does it up to a certain point. If we had followed the arguments of this Government or of its members or of its henchmen, we would find that, to satisfy the thesis which they put up, it would require that we get a position of absolute self-sufficiency economically which no country in the world can get, and which would be disastrous if it could be got. The policy of national economic self-sufficiency is one which is directed against our interests.

An Ceann Comhairle

And is an internal policy, surely, and not a matter for external affairs?

Mr. Fitzgerald

Last year I referred, again in regard to this international prestige, to an appointment in the Paris office. I referred to certain matters, and I said that the President could find out whether or not a certain letter was written to the Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs. The President said: "The Deputy has interested me sufficiently to see what it was all about." I think the President should, in the last 12 months, have sought an opportunity to clear up that matter. This was in relation to the appointment of a man as commercial attaché or something of that nature in Paris. I pointed out that that man had previously been in our service, and that he had gone off with certain property belonging to this Government. I quoted a letter in which he asked:

"Am I responsible for the correspondence from 1919 to date or am I to destroy it or otherwise dispose of it?"

That is in column 2132, Volume 48. The reply he got was——

An Ceann Comhairle

In reference to this year's Estimate?

Mr. Fitzgerald

What I am coming to is this——

An Ceann Comhairle

Is it in reference to this year's Estimate?

Mr. Fitzgerald

Yes. You will find it on page 320. Various items are given: commercial secretary £474; local allowance £275; representation allowance £200; rent allowance £175; amounting in all to something over £1,100. This man has been appointed there——

I fail to see what letters of 1925 have to do with this year's Estimate.

Mr. Fitzgerald

If I might put it this way. We are invited to pay £1,100 this year for the employment of a certain man. That might well be a desirable thing to do if that man, by his associations and otherwise, is a man who is likely to be of much value to us. On the other hand, it is possible to give £1,100 to a man who, from the fact that he receives that money from us, will be injuring the State and not benefiting it. Last year I gave the President an opportunity of clearing that matter up. This year, when it comes back, he jumps up to interrupt. I think he would object strongly to interruptions from me when he is speaking. There is a letter quoted in this volume to this man Kerney, saying:

"M.F.A. asks of Marino's kindness to ascertain for him from the person Marino hopes to see the extent of financial assistance that might be expected"—

From where was the financial assistance coming?—

"the exact manner in which its transfer would be effected, and the conditions, if any, attached. Also whether absolute secrecy could be maintained"—

Why was it so necessary that this money which was expected to go to Marino should be kept secret?—

"so that the whole transaction would remain unknown to the agent here in England and elsewhere. You will know without my telling, and can describe how great are the difficulties. For us, these would be greater than they are even for others in like case. Yet the need also is greater perhaps. While the objectives are of necessity unlike, it is the self-same obstacle that stands in the way of both."

What is the obstacle that stands in the way of the principals behind Marino on the one side and the M. F. A. person on this side?

"This for the person of whom Marino writes. Once M.F.A. possesses this information it might be possible to adopt the proposal, or rather the example Marino plans to set. In all this you will understand all M. F. A. has in mind, and will be able to express his gratitude for Marino, who shows such remarkable generosity in what he is trying to do for Ireland."

At the time of that correspondence I have reason to believe that the people behind Marino were the Russian Government or the Third International. I am giving the President a further opportunity of making this thing clear. I am not trying to slap the thing out in a concluding statement or anything like that, and then to shut everybody up afterwards. Will the President say who are the people behind Marino?

Mr. Little

You had more to do with Marino than anybody else.

Mr. Fitzgerald

That is untrue. I am prepared to state exactly what I did about Marino. As soon as I discovered that Marino was in touch with Russian agents I refused to see him.

If you can achieve something which it is desirable to achieve you should try and achieve it, but if you cannot then you should face up to the existing realities. The existing reality here is that we are not strong enough to overcome England, but are trying to drag unwillingly from her what justice demands. What are we to do? Are we to stand sulking in our tents and commit our people to further suffering? Are we to deny them the benefits of a settlement? The President tells us, "They may steal my watch from me but I will not give it to them." To my mind that is completely futile. It is not a sound principle. Instead of getting us benefits it is calculated to make our condition worse. The President uses the most extraordinary analogy with regard to the attitude of our Government to foreign policy and the attitude of the British people to foreign policy.

We are and have been for some time in the position in which another Government is able to take more money from us than they could take in the normal way. The President turns round and says that the people in other countries are supporting their Government in similar circumstances. Now, there is no analogy between the two cases. By his policy the President let himself, and his country in for paying more than he need pay. That is what the fool does in most cases. The efficient rogue gets away with it.

That is one of the things. I am sure that the Deputy knows quite well that President de Valera was not in the country then.

General Mulcahy

I could spend a few months there and I would not be able to find any trace of a Bolshevic in Russia in 1920.

Mr. Minch

On a point of order, have we to go on listening to all this?

Mr. Killilea

The Deputy did not raise any objection when trash was being talked for two hours.

Mr. Minch

Is it in order to discuss on this Estimate the 1920 Republic?

Mr. Donnelly

We are not discussing that.

Mr. Minch

You are.

Mr. Jordan

It is no harm to "Minch" matters, anyhow.

Mr. Fitzgerald

I think the Deputy is really quite in order. I understand what he is actually doing is admitting that this man was in touch with Bolshevic Russia, and he is justifying the President's action in 1925 by a reference to something agreed to by the Dáil on the recommendation that came from where the President was operating in 1919.

Mr. Donnelly

The Deputy suggested that the President's position at the League of Nations would carry no weight whatever if it were known that he was at any time in touch with the Bolshevists. I suggest to Deputy Fitzgerald that this seems to be a hardy annual, the talk about the gentleman who took the files. Would it not be possible, instead of wasting the time of the Dáil, to try to get on to something more relevant? I suggest the Deputy might get a furniture van and that he should remove these files altogether and let us hear no more about them. It is a sheer waste of time. The last sentence in Deputy MacDermot's speech was this: "The Opposition was anxious to help and not to hinder our foreign policy." Any Deputy can judge for himself the anxiety of the Opposition to help and not hinder, from the speech delivered by Deputy Fitzgerald. Deputy MacDermot has one idea in his head and Deputy Fitzgerald has another as to how they should help and not hinder. I listened to Deputy MacDermot with great interest. I believe that he was sincere when he said that sooner or later on foreign policy there would have to be a united front. He was sincere, and I will pay him that compliment, anyhow. So far as I am concerned, the basis of that unity would have to be very satisfactory from the national standpoint.

There is no use in trying to mix up with big international politics such things as letters written by some solicitor in Fermoy on the economic war and how it could be settled. I do not see why a matter like the economic war, about which this gentleman in Fermoy felt himself compelled to write —I suppose he did it with a good purpose—should be dragged into matters of high politics. It does not properly come into high international politics at all. Deputy MacDermot spoke about people being mesmerised. The whole issue before us, the big issue, so far as foreign policy is concerned, is the partition of the country. Here we are and we have to treat one of our own provinces as a foreign country. We have to deal with it, if not directly through Belfast, then through London. That is the position we are in as a result of British policy. That partition bars the way to all advance nationally so far as our position with the English is concerned. Deputy MacDermot suggested that common ground could be found amongst all Parties in the country if we made the issue a question of the right of secession.

Now I take that to mean that Deputy MacDermot was speaking of Thirty-Two Counties instead of Twenty-Six Counties, and that we could have common ground if we made the issue one big Dominion versus the right of secession. I expect that is what the Deputy was driving at. That would mean, in my opinion, that the issue would resolve itself into this: that you would have one big Dominion in the Commonwealth with the right of secession; but that the right of secession would be the issue. I think that is what was in his mind. I would like to hear that discussed by other Deputies. If we could discuss this matter impartially, if what he really means is to get common ground upon an issue like that, I could understand it. But in all these things there are so many cross-currents, and so many important things that would have to be discussed that it would be well to try to bear them in mind. When Deputy MacDermot mentioned that kind of possibility he thought perhaps that we were nearer than many would suppose to common ground in the discussion of this matter. My own belief, and I put this quite honestly, is that the issue would have to be a complete independent unit, standing for the complete separation of this country from England, and that only on that issue could any advance be made or will any advance ever be made. It was the thing that inspired all our great men in the past. It inspired Wolfe Tone in his day. Any weakening of that demand, no matter what section of opinion there is at the back of it, any weakening in the demand for complete separation can only hinder and hamper the march of this nation to complete prosperity. I look at it from that point of view. It is sad, and I was sorry, after the speech delivered by the Deputy leader of the Opposition, that we should have had to listen to such a speech as was delivered by Deputy Fitzgerald about furniture in a Paris office and about a certain agent from Russia.

Why should we not discuss foreign affairs as a matter entirely to itself? Deputy MacDermot approached this matter in a very fair way. He made a suggestion that one of the issues that might be discussed on common ground was that of this country of Thirty-Two Counties remaining within the Empire with the right of secession. I wonder how many Deputies opposite agree with that? Deputy Curran said the other evening: "Let us forget the past and look to the future." We cannot do that entirely; it is utterly impossible. Deputy Curran comes from one of the most national counties in Ireland but I do not believe that the people who elected him would be so successful if they agreed to forget the past in order that the bullock might be sold in Clonmel.

General Mulcahy

The President dealt, very briefly, with that aspect of the External Affairs Department that deals with foreign trade. He indicated that the Department had been instrumental in making arrangements for the selling of a considerable amount of agricultural produce in countries other than Great Britain at prices higher than had been got in Great Britain. He indicated that certain tentative arrangements had been going on with certain countries and that it was hoped to have the same with several other countries. If we are to judge of the actual position, by the information the President gave, and by the statistics published by the various departments, there is nothing in what the President told us little more than dope for the people, and a bit of fresh eye-wash in regard to his promises of alternative markets.

We would like to know what are the countries to which a considerable amount of agricultural produce has been exported as a result of the operations of the Department of External Affairs. The whole of the trade returns for 1933 tell us that the total exports to countries other than Great Britain and Northern Ireland amounted to £1,129,420—an increase, over the year 1932, of only £145,000, and less than £202,000 for the year 1931. So that, on the main figures, for our exports, there is nothing to show that there has been diverted to countries other than Great Britain and Northern Ireland any appreciable amount of our exports, in the absence of definite information as to where the countries are and what exactly has been done. In addition to the refusal of the Minister for Agriculture, from time to time, to give us any information about that, I cannot do anything but characterise the statement of the President, in regard to our exports of agricultural products, as nothing but dope.

In reference to countries like Belgium, Spain, Germany and France, I asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce this morning, arising out of the trade deputation, which was a combination of Departments of Industry and Commerce and External Affairs that went abroad in December last, whether any agreement had been entered into, and the answer was no, but that negotiations were going on. When we take these countries— Belgium, Spain, Germany and France, and look at how our trade with these countries is progressing under Fianna Fáil administration, we find in the case of Belgium that while our total trade— that is the sum of our exports and imports between them—has risen from £808,000 to £1,106,000, the adverse balance, as between this country and Belgium, has increased by £155,000. In regard to Spain for the year 1933 the figure of the adverse balance is represented by £726,000. In Germany, where our total trade— that is the sum of the imports and exports between the two countries— has risen from 1931 to 1933, from £1,325,000 to £1,922,000, the adverse trade balance has increased to £454,000 on a total trade of £1,922,000. As far as Germany and Belgium are concerned that is the position in respect of two of the countries with which the President says we have made some kind of tentative agreement. In the case of one where we have very badly increased our adverse balance, we had a trade deputation composed of important representatives of two departments, over there six months ago. The position in regard to Spain seems to differ totally from the others. On a trade of £107,000 we have had an adverse balance of £99,000. In the case of France our total trade with that country has been halved since 1931. Out of a total trade of £292,000 this year, we have had an adverse balance as against France of £132,000, an increase of about £50,000 in the adverse trade balance for the last year. So much for the countries with which the President said we made agreements. When we look to another similar country in Europe, Holland, we find that our adverse balance has risen, as between 1931 and 1933, by a sum of £89,000 and that at the present time, out of a total trade of £539,000, we have an adverse balance of £455,000. He indicates then that there are some countries—Poland, Portugal, New Zealand, the United States and India —in respect of which he hopes to do something. I should like to hear what is the position, seen from the detached point of view, of the Department of External Affairs, which brings about a situation in which our total trade with the United States has fallen from £5,044,000 to £1,204,000 since 1931. All these figures indicate, as I say, that what the President has stated here to-day is nothing but the purest dope and that, after two years of talk about the finding of additional external markets, of linking up with other countries and establishing firm trading relations with them that will make adequate recompense to both the agriculturists and industrialists of this country for the trade with Great Britain which is being blotted out in a national spirit, this is what we have: increased adverse balances with all the principal countries in Europe and a reduction to about one-fifth of our trade with the United States. These facts cannot be unknown to the Department of External Affairs, and I think that in the light of these facts, the President's statement on the matter to-day was entirely cynical.

Mr. Esmonde

Deputy Donnelly referred at some length to the attempts of a rather revolutionary Government some years ago to enter into relations with the Government in Moscow. I do not wish to go into that matter except to remind the House of the fact that our emissary was treated in a peculiarly offensive and insulting manner when he got into Russian territory, and I think that the contemptuous attitude adopted by the Russian Government towards us even when we were in conflict with the British Government, has cured any of our politicians who may at the time have thought that they could get any assistance or sympathy from that quarter. In fact, I think we can safely say that, during the struggle for the establishment of the State, the only countries that gave us any support or sympathy of any kind were Christian countries. That, however, is only incidental. At the present time, the Soviet Government is solely in the position of one of the war profiteers of our economic war. The economic war which damages our position in the British market is to the advantage of the Russian Government, and the recent trade agreements which have been entered into by the British Government with Russia would not have been so favourable to Russia had we not been engaged in this ridiculous and suicidal conflict, so that it is in the interests of the Russian Government to prolong the economic war so far as possible. That is the only way in which the Russian Government may be said to come into the picture to-day.

The only matter I wish to raise here to-day is the failure of the Department to deal with an important matter which seems to have been forgotten by Deputies on all sides of the House— the question of Irish nationality. There is on the Order Paper to-day notice of a Bill introduced to amend the Control of Manufactures Act and, during the last two years, the Government have introduced several measures giving contradictory definitions of Irish nationals. They have not only been contradictory but they have also been at variance with the definition of an Irish citizen contained in the Constitution, with the result that there is complete chaos at present as to what is an Irish national or an Irish citizen. For instance, according to the Constitution of the Irish Free State, no children up to the age of 12 years are citizens of the State. Only persons resident in Ireland at the time of the establishment of the State are citizens, and the proposed legislation has not been introduced to confer that citizenship on children born after that date. It might be said that this is not a question which should rightly be raised on this Vote, but I maintain it is. There are many Departments involved—the Department of the Attorney-General and the Department of Industry and Commerce, both in relation to the control of manufactures and in relation to the admission of aliens into this country.

At the present time, although we have a certain number of representatives abroad to look after our interests, we have to rely upon the good offices of the British Consuls in all those cities where we have not got our own representatives. The establishment of a Twenty-Six County Republic will, therefore, involve very great expenditure in this Department. It will increase by approximately 1,000 per cent. The cost of the Department of External Affairs in small countries like Denmark is many hundreds of thousands of pounds per year. Naturally, when our citizens have ceased to retain their citizenship of the Commonwealth, the British Consuls all over the world will not be in a position of authority to give them assistance of any kind. We will, therefore, have to maintain a very large staff, which will involve very great expenditure. The expenses will be greater in our case than for a country like Denmark, because there is very great diffusion of the Irish race throughout the world. It is much more far-flung than, say, the Danish race. The Estimate we are discussing to-day is only a foretaste of the very large expenditure which will be required when the Twenty-Six County Republic is established. For that reason alone, I think that the Government should endeavour in the meantime to make the best arrangements they can for our citizens—particularly those who happen to be abroad—with regard to nationality.

There is another matter which I raised on various occasions during the last ten years. Owing to the stress of business in Government Departments, and owing to the political situation, it was not possible to deal with it in any comprehensive way. I am afraid no attempt was made by the various Ministers in charge of Departments to take the matter in hand. I refer to the question of the establishment of some institution under the auspices of the Department of External Affairs to keep the various sections of our race in touch with the cultural and intellectual developments in this country. There is a very fine institute which keeps the various nations of the American Continent in touch with Spanish culture, literature and so on. An attempt was made just at the time of the Treaty to establish such an institute here. I think the President was made President of that Institute, and Professor McNeill was made Vice-President. It so happens that the name of that institute was a peculiar one. I think the President could probably sustain an action for damages against General O'Duffy for usurping his title of President of Fine Gael, because this Institute was known by the name of Fine Gael. Owing to the conflict at the time that organisation fell to pieces, and it is only now that the Ministry can consider the establishment of some council or advisory committee with a view to keeping the various sections of our race scattered throughout the world in touch with intellectual and artistic culture in this country. The advisory council, if so established, would naturally have to be non-political and non-party in its character. The corresponding bodies in the countries in which the Irish race are established would have to be similarly recruited from every section of the Irish race. I think the time has now come when some effort might be made in that direction. Certainly, Irish people throughout the world have, since the establishment of this State, been cut off, to a certain extent, from a knowledge of what is happening in this country. Their information is received only from very biased and very prejudiced channels, and the various controlled Press agencies of the world. I think this is a matter which might now be considered. At any rate, a committee might be set up to see what could be done in that direction, within reasonable limits, and without very great expenditure.

Mr. McGilligan

I understand, Sir, that passports are still being issued in my name, and I should like to find out from the President if he has yet come to the conclusion that honesty in that matter would be a better policy than what he is carrying on. I should like to warn him, at any rate, that the question was put to me recently as to whether I had approved of the continued use of my name on those passports, after the time when I had authority to have my name on the fly-leaf of those documents. Of course. I said "No," and then I asked whether anything depended upon it. I was told "Yes; certain legal action might follow." What the case is I do not know, but at any rate, it shows that there certainly are people very keen on this matter. Somebody has got involved in trouble somewhere, and apparently as a way to get over the difficulty is going to allege that it is somebody else's passport, that it is not his own, and that it is not a proper document because it is given without the authority of the person whose name is on it. A further point was put to me, which I suppose I shall have to consider for some little time, as to whether if the man wants an enlargement of the passport I have not the power to sign for that enlargement seeing that my name is used on the fly-leaf. I should say that, prima facie, I have. I do not know whether I should collect the 7/6, but whether or not I give my services gratuitously it will, at any rate, prevent certain moneys from flowing into the Department. As I say, honesty may be found to be the better policy. The President has clasped the King more closely to himself this year in the matter of the reception of the American Minister and his credentials. He might, at any rate, while he is, through his Minister for Justice, pretending to the I.R.A., that a Thirty-Two County Republic is not far distant, indicate that until that happy day comes he grabs the King through the passport, as he tried to envelop him in the matter of the American Minister's credentials.

I gather that the keynote of the speech made on the Department of External Affairs to-day is that we are concentrating on trade work. We have given warning, I understand, through the President to-day, of our determination that the adverse balance which exists in our trading relations with many countries should be redressed and we warn these countries that they will be expected to take our goods in return for what we take from them. I suppose we might as well adopt the old-time idea of the Sybilline Books and tell them that if they do not take that warning we will kill more calves at home to prevent them getting any more goods; that by degrees we will lessen the amount of goods that they might ordinarily be persuaded to purchase if they do not take our warning now. Then we get on to a rather tendentious sort of note. Informal agreements, I understand, have been mentioned with Belgium, Spain, Germany and France and there have been some results obtained. Could we have something more concrete about the results? More is expected. We can only judge "the more" by comparison with what we are given in the way of actual achievements up-to-date. Then I understand the President told us, in a phrase which almost sounds like an indictment framed before the Military Tribunal, that we are conspiring in an endeavour to incite India, Poland, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America to trade with us. Was New Zealand mentioned or was that a mistake? Are we going to trade with New Zealand? What is the market that New Zealand offers to us— New Zealand which is actively in conflict with us in the British market? What is it that we sell that New Zealand will require? What do we sell that India is going to require?

What is our chance of doing better business if we progress along the lines revealed by the last trading returns we have? The trade returns for December, 1933, show that our exports to countries, other than Great Britain and Northern Ireland, were up from £973,000 to £1,129,000. We are up £145,000 in exports to other countries. Let us look at the other side. We used to import from countries other than Great Britain and Northern Ireland £9,945,000 worth of goods. In the year in which we exported £145,000 more, we imported from those countries £10,756,000 worth of goods. So that, in the process of carrying out the new economy, a process, I suppose, of getting it impressed on these people that if they do not take more goods of ours we will take none from them, we bought £800,000 worth more than we used to from these countries because they took £145,000 worth more from us. That certainly weakens the threat that if these people do not mend their manners we will stop trading with them. It is to be noted that, if we did increase, in the year 1933, our exports to countries other than Great Britain and Northern Ireland by £145,000 over the year 1932, we are still not at the point we were at in 1931, when we exported to countries other than Great Britain and Northern Ireland £1,332,000 worth of goods. Although we have made this remarkable stride forward in the way of getting goods sent into countries other than Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the extent of £145,000 in the year 1933, taking in return £800,000 worth of goods from them more than we used, we are still £202,000 down on what we used to send as exports to countries other than Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the year 1931.

If the President is concentrating on trade it almost looks as if that concentration is going to have the effect that the threat of the Ministry's attention to almost any problem brings as a result. The Minister for Agriculture decided to extend agriculture in this country and we know the unmanageable mess he has created. The Minister for Industry and Commerce decided to run amok with tariffs, quotas, subsidies and everything else and he falls short, if we are to believe his best figures, by 20,000 people per year to put into employment the newcomers for whom some employment has to be got. The President has concentrated the Department of External Affairs on trade. There is an informal arrangement with some countries talked of; there are some results obtained, but not announced, so that we have no basis for comparison. Some way or another he has in the offing some possible agreements, arrangements, or talks with another group of five or six nations. All the time the statistical record is here to show the result of this concentration on trade—that we are selling less to countries, other than Great Britain and Northern Ireland, than we did in 1931, and we imported, in the year 1933, £800,000 worth over the previous year, while we exported only £145,000 more.

I do not want to concentrate entirely on the trade returns. The President has representatives now, and they are not too many—at least the offices are not too many—in Rome, London, Washington, New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Geneva, Paris and Berlin. There is a vast amount of information which might have been got together from these offices—the men there are capable of doing it—and collated and presented to the House to show how, say, economic matters go in the world. The President this year—I think it was in a St. Patrick's Day address to the citizens of the United States—in an attempt to be complimentary to the President of the United States had, of course, with the knack he has, to blunder into an insult to the administration replaced by President Roosevelt. In an attempt to institute a comparison with the gigantic efforts he was making here at home to redress a bad economic situation, he had to make the odious comparison that, of course, things here were somewhat easy as we had something to do, but that in America President Roosevelt had been handed over what amounted to a corpse. That was what the Roosevelt Administration got when they came into office.

When he gets his attention, even in that blundering way, riveted on America, he might have told us what are the real developments in America in the improvement of their economic life, and whether there have been any developments worth while announcing to the people of this country in economic matters in Europe. Is there not a certain tendency observable all over the world in economic matters? In America they have instituted the code system for business, and that code system did replace private enterprise by the Government or by some sort of governmental supervision if not governmental activity in business. There when the natural cry of alarm was raised as to what was to happen prices when the ordinary play of competition was removed, there were two answers given; first, that the plan was a definite attempt to raise prices, because the producer was not getting a fair return; because his return had been beaten down to a point which did not allow him any profits beyond his costs, or if the price did allow him profits it was such profits as he got by paying low wages or sweated wages. The second answer was that prices were going to be fixed. That was the answer most relied on. There was a board to be fixed up to investigate prices.

We had that system here. The Minister for Industry and Commerce established, with a great flourish of trumpets, a Prices Commission. Many difficulties were pointed out to him when that measure was going through the House, but in his usual way he scorned them all. There was a variety of ways in which plans could be brought forward and investigated. One would imagine that there would have been a report made as to the general activities of that Prices Commission, a report which would tell us what complaints were brought forward. Even apart from that, the President, in this estimate, might have given a statement as to how far a commission of that type would be useful in checking the rise in prices which must always obtain when the code system is in operation. Recently the Darragh Report has been produced in America. That report has set out in no mild terms that the whole plan of the code has broken down in so far as price fixing goes. That report shows that this fixing of prices is not working, and that it cannot work in the circumstances of American industry. The reasons why it cannot work are of value to this country. Anybody who has followed the investigations of the Prices Commission, if one may dignify the proceedings by that word, must see that you have exactly the same thing emerging here. It is impossible to check prices unless the prices are checked at every stage between the producer and the consumer. But that would entail an immense staff, a staff having power to act swiftly, to act, at any rate, two or three times swiftly in the hope of striking terror into the hearts of people. That is the tendency that has been observable in America in the working of the code system. The feeling that has emerged from the recent reports over there is that those who believe that Government supervision is going to give a new life and a wider scope to business have found out their mistake, and are now anxious to find out what is the easiest way in which to get out of it without doing greater harm than they have already done. That movement has spread beyond the United States.

I think the President might have found out from the Minister, who represents him at Geneva, what the new tendency was there. There was an attempt made at Geneva to get a truce to tariffs. That broke down, because it was found that injustice would flow from it. It was seen that it would be unjust to take the situation at a particular time and to stereotype it so that the country that, at a particular moment, had huge tariffs found itself in a very advantageous position in relation to a country which had only just started to put on tariffs scientifically. We are all aware that the fixing of these tariffs at a particular level at this moment would work very great injustice as between two countries. It was for that reason that the tariff movement at Geneva broke down in that way. Three years ago there was an attempt made at Geneva to get a new system inaugurated. Unfortunately, politics crept into that attempt, because the only way in which this new system could be put through was not to have the whole of Europe or the whole of South America in one group, but by having regional agreements of a particular type. Politics then came in and people said that these regional agreements would inevitably lead into the grouping of Europe into two or three economic camps, and that these economic camps were to breed insecurity.

Economics have been the cause of most wars, and it was said that if people came together in economic groups they would coalesce eventually into groups for military purposes, Recently, however, that fear has broken down. The fear of bankruptcy and the fear of so much waste of economic conditions as of itself would lead to war has prevailed over the other fear. The result has been that in the last 12 months there has been apparent, in Europe, a tendency for nations situated in proximity to unite into economic groups. There has been a group in the Scandinavian countries and a further one in the Baltic countries. The latest was one made up of the Danubian countries, Austria, Italy, Yugo Slavia, all bound with the view of making economic treaties, each one making a treaty or treaties with the others. There was one phrase running through all these treaties which said they had come together with a view each to strengthen his own country. The operative clause of all these treaties was about No. 2, where it was stated that the aim and object of the alliance was to extend the national economy of each of the members of the group.

After a considerable amount of discussion these nations found that each of them required exports and each of them had necessarily to agree to imports. They decided that if they amalgamated into one sort of nation that they could get better agreements hammered out than if these three or four countries had waited until every other country further east or further west could make agreements into which they could interlock. The Baltic and the Scandinavian countries did group. Quite recently one of the measures presented to the United States Congress, with the benediction of the President, was a Bill to enable him to reduce tariffs without going to Congress. That Bill was to give him power to reduce tariffs which he found in existence as long as he did not reduce them more than 50 per cent., but that if he were to reduce them more than 50 per cent. he had to assemble Congress and get their approval. The message in which the measure was presented to Congress on his behalf said that it had been realised on the part of the American industries that they must have an export market if they were to live.

It is and, if all these factories were abolished and people could start all over again, there are very few countries that would start the subsidising of sugar beet as against the other sugar.

If there is that tendency, of which I spoke, observable, is there not some lesson to be learned from it here, particularly when we see that the people who have concentrated on trade can only show that in 1933 we exported to countries other than Great Britain and Northern Ireland £145,000 worth more than we used to, and we bought in that year £800,000 worth more than we used to buy? Are we gaining on that? Is that what economic nationalism is leading us to? Observe the fatuity of some of the statements made in this House. We are told that the Government have warned other countries that if they do not trade with us we will cease to trade with them. We have already from these benches explained the nonsense of buying from other countries what we would get more cheaply from Britain. The position in regard to other countries would appear to be that our Government tell them that if they do not trade with us we will stop buying their goods, and we are prepared to embark on a series of economic wars with them. We will stop buying their goods, and then we will switch round again and buy from Great Britain. What are we to do if other countries do not buy our goods? Has the full weight of the Ministry yet discovered a real alternative to the British markets? They have deluded themselves and the people by stories about the British market, and then they have tried to kill off our surplus production by wasteful methods, but still we have a surplus production. Have they found anywhere for it? Have the Executive Council, or the President, any more rosy prospect to present to the people than the present? It is black enough in all conscience, but where are we to advance? To-day we get the declaration that in two years we will have a formal agreement with Belgium, France, Spain and Germany. But we are given no results. There are some results we have been told, and we are told that they will be improved, but we are not told what they are; we get no estimate, we are only told that they are there.

We also should have some attention given and some view expressed as to whether we are following along lines of certain countries where they are trying to get away from previous blunders, or whether we are simply fumbling along with blinkers on our heads, not looking to the right or to the left, for fear we would see something to teach us. America has had her quotas and other countries have had policies of retaliatory tariffs. In that state of things most countries find themselves up against this natural repercussion— prices. What was to happen to prices? We start with tariffs and the absence of competitive goods. Some countries hobbled along for a year or two, but, eventually, public attention began to be focussed upon this matter. I think it can be proved from the records of certain countries that there is a tendency, and the same is to be found in America, towards the opposite direction. It was seen that certain manufacturers, where they were making money in larger quantities than they were able to use it on their business, had a better chance and were getting better prices by exploiting the consumer. As a rule an ordinary democracy will say we do not mind being exploited if the result of the exploitation is a better scattering of purchasing powers through the community, but we want to see that increased purchasing power evidenced, and we want to see more people employed, or better wages paid to the people employed. We certainly are not going to stand for exploitation of the masses in order to enrich a few employers or a few industrialists. And by degrees Governments advert to that situation, and there comes that tendency, where business is protected by tariffs and quotas, that such business can no longer be regarded as the private possession of employers. In some countries matters have gone the length of State ownership. In other countries they have gone to the point of State control, and in most of these countries they have gone to the point of State supervision, and imposing the necessity for the publication of accounts. There has been supervision to the point that no more money can be scattered in dividends than a certain amount, and that if there is to be any more distribution, it must be in the improvement of the business, or the buildings, or else distributed amongst the employees by way of bonus and wages.

In America, the result, it would appear, has been that it is driving people away from quotas and tariffs, back to the reinstatement of private business men and private enterprises. In other countries, unfortunately, I think State control has fastened more and more upon business, and private enterprise is being more and more cast aside. Where are we going to in this country? Have we adverted to that at all? I take one article here that might easily be used to analyse that question and to get a decision upon it. It is being asserted—and it may be that the wrong assertion is made—that as far as flour is concerned, it is open to the manufacturers of this country, or the most efficient amongst them, to get anything from 4/6 to 5/- extra per sack of flour. The consumption of bread amongst the white population of the world is supposed to be one sack per head of the population per annum. It was said here that it was about .9 of a sack; let us call it a sack—3,000,000 sacks consumption here every year. If there is 5/- extra charged, per sack, that would amount to £750,000 extra being charged for bread. That implies that the community will not bother. How many employees extra are there in the mill since that operation went on? Are they scattering purchasing power so as to provide £750,000 for the sacrifices which people are prepared to make to get bread? Are they scattering it around? Are they helping in these things? If that is not so—if there is a crop of efficient employers, and they are able to get back a proportion of the extra money got from flour, then it is an iniquitous thing. Flour, being an essential of the bread stuff that the people consume in big quantities, is a matter that might easily fall in such circumstances for Government control or management. Does anyone ever think that under any Government control, no matter what Government, the price of bread is going to be anything less to the community than it is at the moment.

At any rate, there is a vast amount of information that could be got from France, Germany, Belgium and America, and particularly from Geneva, where all this information is collated with all these economic tendencies. I should have thought that to-day we might have beard from many of the countries that have experimented some account of what study was given to these things, what reports were got, and what decisions were founded on these reports. It is a bad thing always to experiment in economics, because you are not experimenting in a laboratory, or on dead things, or on dumb animals. You are experimenting on a community, and such experiments are serious and expensive. If there is anything to be learned from other countries, if there is anything to be learned from their mistakes and successes, surely we should have it produced here for the information of Deputies who have to debate these things in this House; that is if we are to concentrate upon economics. There is another particular thing also which is a mixture of economics and politics. There are a great many experiments going on in the world at the moment under different types of Government. There is one country, at all events, advertised here by people who nevertheless have little information about it. I scarcely ever read a speech made in this country by a representative of Labour in which the Chancellor of a particular European country is not held up to odium and scorn for his attack on the working classes in that country. You have only to study the speeches made by any of these people to realise that they do not know what is happening in that country. All they take is the scare headlines of some picture-paper which is only anxious to promulgate its news—something about barricades, guns and the slaughter of certain people.

There are, however, experiments in government and in systems of government, experiments that have seemed, at any rate, sufficiently noteworthy to get, in some cases, the condemnation and, in other cases, the approval of the Pope. They are certainly the subject of discussion in this country. We have people living in the capitals of some of these countries, and we have some of our representatives living in their neighbourhood, or certainly in adjoining countries, where these experiments are being very anxiously looked to and criticised and examined. Surely it would not be too much to ask people to produce here—and let it be attacked afterwards as being biassed—information as to what authoritative papers, in friendly and in hostile countries as well as in the country under discussion, say about a particular experiment in Government. Then we will have some idea of what the systems are, instead of this rubbish one hears from the Labour Benches about a certain individual being down on the Labour masses and that, therefore, anything can be condemned or held up to odium and ridicule here by attaching the name of that individual or that particular community to it.

These experiments, incidentally—it is a mixture of economics and politics —have been brought about by economic considerations and by the floundering there was after the War, when Governments simply set out to outbid previous Governments by promising everything to the people and finding, when they got into power, that they had to do either of two things—brazenly to break and cynically to disavow their promises or else to try in some blundering way to achieve some part of what they promised, with the inevitable result, as was proved in most of the countries, that they went deeper into the mire. Then you got a sort of feeling in some countries that old-time institutions could not last. It might have been right in some cases and it might have been entirely wrong; but, at any rate, the matters are worth consideration and they might even still, if they are not at this moment, be the subject of some report to be made by foreign representatives. Let those foreign representatives of ours do even this in relation to some of these systems: indicate to the people who are anxious to study these things a bibliography, even indicate who are the best people who write upon these matters and try to put the people here in touch, so that there will be something in the way of clear thought and something in the way of decent argument founded on that, instead of there being, as there is at the moment, an attempt to appeal to the passions of people by representing certain folk as being of a particular calibre and then deciding: "That is enough; we need not argue any further. The propaganda has been successful and argument is displaced." We have got too accustomed to that in this matter of the annuities, economics and everything else. The tag of being a supporter of the British has been dragged in on every occasion on which the Government have found themselves unable to meet a situation by argument, and it is a pity that that should be introduced into our discussion of foreign politics here.

One does not need to be arrogant towards the Minister. In relation to international affairs—I should not say that, because it is ludicrous, but at a meeting at which international affairs were discussed— the Minister for Finance had with him Deputy Corry and, again, I bring this into the atmosphere that we are standing for peace by negotiation, conciliation and arbitration. Deputy Corry thinks the Treaty is finished with. In the matter of international affairs people do not ordinarily boast of it, but he says "Fianna Fáil had made ribbons of that damn Treaty." Then this bright thought came from the Deputy:

"If I thought that the objective of a Thirty-Two County Republic could not be achieved in the shop up there—that is, the Dáil, here is one man who will go back to the gun."

Naturally, with Deputy Corry speaking in that fashion, how could the Minister for Finance even admit the right of an International Court to give such a thing as the land annuities against the Government? At any rate, let us hear what the Minister did say and let us hear, if the Minister wants to say it here now, that all the talk about a suspense account, and that until an international or a proper tribunal gives a verdict for or against us, we are going to keep the money safely lodged for payment over, was all nonsense and just hiding the issue and that the real truth of the matter is that there was no intention of paying, if a Commonwealth Tribunal, the Hague Court or any other international tribunal that could be thought of gave this question against us. Having said that, let us also go on to say—and I am sure that it can be explained—that we are still in favour of negotiation, conciliation and arbitration.

Mr. Costello

I am sorry that I beat the Minister for Finance by a short head before the Ceann Comhairle proceeded to put the Vote. Had I not done so or had the Minister been less slick in rising in his seat, we would have been in a position that not merely did the head of this Department, in his opening statement, not give any account of the activities of his Department but he would have made no speech in reply. I was not present when the President made his speech in putting this Vote to the House, but I understand that he did not give any detailed account of the various activities of his Department during the last year or of the policy of that Department during the forthcoming year but that he concentrated, as Deputy McGilligan has said, on showing that the keynote of the Department should be an increase of trade. To my mind, the Department of External Affairs is not a trade Department. I think the House has some reason to regret, if not to complain, that the President has not seen fit to give a very much more detailed exposition of the activities and the duties of the various sections of the Department of External Affairs, because I think that there is no Department of State which is more important in its functions than the Department whose Vote we are discussing at the present moment. The Department of External Affairs started its life in this State as the Cinderella of Government Departments. It was looked upon by officialdom in the Department of Finance as something that had really no right to exist. It was criticised by the newspapers as an extravagance. It was regarded in the House, by Deputies of various Parties, either with complete unconcern or merely as being something in the nature of a trade concern which ought to send out commercial travellers all over the world, with a view to selling our produce or getting markets for our goods. The President, but for neglecting to give us—as I am sure he would have been in a position to do, through the records that are in his Department— some detailed account of the various and interesting activities of the sections of his Department, could have dissipated that particular view which exists in the country and in the Dáil, particularly in the Dáil, with regard to the functions of the Department of External Affairs.

We have had tremendous outbursts of Governmental determination to seek and gain for this country a republican form of government. If we had a republican form of government the expression of our life as a nation with that form of government would be given through the Department of External Affairs, and through the activities of the Department of External Affairs in its associations with the other nations of the world. It is rather significant that, up to a few moments ago, when the President was in the House there were only two Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party on the back benches, and no Minister supporting him. They are interested in talk about a Republic, but there was no interest shown in the very Department whose job it is to look after the status and the dignity and the influence of this country on world affairs. While it is the legitimate activity of the Department of External Affairs to look after our trade interests in European and other countries, that is only one branch of the Department's activities, and it ought to be only one branch. Our association as a nation is expressed through the activities of the Department of External Affairs. Our influence as a nation is felt through our representatives abroad, and it is of some significance at least that one of our representatives abroad was last year honoured by being made High Commissioner of the free City of Dantzig. That was properly advertised in the Press as being an achievement for this country. It was an achievement, or perhaps not so much an achievement as a recognition of the fact that we have some international influence, and that we are of some concern in the sphere of international relations. I certainly do object to turning the discussion of this Department's affairs into a mere discussion as to whether or not we have got any markets, or whether or not the Department is doing anything in the way of getting trade for this country. My recollection is that when this Vote for the Department of External Affairs was taken, year after year, Deputies from various parts of the House, and principally from the back benches of the Fianna Fáil Party when in Opposition, concentrated on the question of trade, and what the Department of External Affairs were doing in relation to it. It is legitimate and proper and necessary that this Department should, as Deputy McGilligan has said, concentrate on the problems that are facing European countries and Continental countries and American countries, putting at the disposal of the Government the various theories that are being considered, and the various economic principles that are being put into practice. That is only one aspect of their activities. Personally, I should like to have heard the President, as head of this Department, telling us something about the international position as it exists in Europe to-day.

This Department which, as I say, was originally the Cinderella of Government Departments, has progressively attained more importance as years went by, and this State increased in age and in international status. The President himself, when he became President of this State, had such an opinion of the Department's importance that he became its head. Surely we are entitled to be told by the head of the Department what information his Department has in reference to the international situation, as it exists at the present moment in Europe. Are we to get from the Sunday newspapers our information about the Disarmament Conference, the result of which may possibly have very serious reactions on the peace of the world? So far, the President has given no indication of the activities of his Department in the sphere of international relations. He has given no indication as to what information the Department has about the situation as it exists on the Continent of Europe to-day. Everybody knows that that situation is a serious one. Everybody who knows anything about the Department of External Affairs knows that that Department has the most efficient staff in the whole Government service. They are in constant, close and intimate touch with the international situation abroad, and its alterations from day to day. We are to be told nothing about that. This country had apparently to suffer further from the policy of economic self-sufficiency. While the Department may have in its archives information of great interest to the public, and certainly of considerable interest to a section of the community in this country, about the international situation, about foreign policy, about British activities, about French and American activities, we are to be told that we are to stay with our eyes fixed on the borders of our own country, that we are not to look beyond it, and that we are to take no interest in our external relations. Even under the Treaty, which Deputy Corry so delightedly said we had torn into ribbons, we are at the present moment a full member of the family of nations, and as such we are entitled to take our share in world politics and world policies. Certainly the people of this country are entitled to get some indication, and to be given some authoritative statement, about the position as it exists on the Continent of Europe to-day. Apparently, the President passed over that aspect in complete silence. It may be that it would be a good thing for this country if we could get a market in CzechoSlovakia or some other place, but at least we are entitled to say that, while we have to look after our materialistic interests, we are also entitled to—and it would be a good thing for this country if we did—take a little more interest in world affairs, and not concentrate so much on our own tin-pot affairs. We are suffering from far too much insularity at present. If we took a little more active interest in world politics, we would not have such a parochial conception of our own nation and our own problems. This country does not take sufficient interest in international affairs, and in the rôle that this country would have to play and is entitled to play in international affairs. We are very fortunately situated in some respects. We are outside the whirlpool of European politics. We are largely untouched by the intrigues of European diplomacy. We have no axe to grind in international affairs. It is because we have had no axe to grind in international affairs, because we have shown, during the ten years of the last Government, that our interest in international problems and international relations was purely unselfish, that it was motivated solely by a desire to do whatever good could be done through our influence, that the nations of the world paid us the greatest compliment in their power by electing the representative of this country to be the President of the Council of the League of Nations and last year selected our representative at Geneva to the responsible post of High Commissioner of the free City of Danzig. We had some years ago, at all events, that particular influence in international affairs. We had a prestige amongst the family of nations as a nation which had no axe to grind, that could be trusted to do the impartial and decent thing.

I should like to know what efforts have been made to extend our sphere of influence in that way. The President has vouchsafed no information to us. We have, through that favoured situation that we occupy, an opportunity of doing some good in international affairs. We have, through our membership of the British Commonwealth of Nations, a tremendous influence, if we like to exert it. Through that very membership of the British Commonwealth of Nations we have an opportunity of exercising a very deep, wide and beneficent influence in international affairs. What is this Department, under the President of this State, doing in relation to that matter? Are we to get any information as to whether he has considered that aspect of his departmental activities? I suggest that we are entitled to get some information on that. I suggest that it would be good for this country that we should concentrate a little more on the affairs of other nations and, through lessons that other nations have had to learn, that we should learn some salutary lessons of our own.

I should like to know also what progress, if any, has been made in our relations with our fellow-members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. The Vice-President has put on record the debt that this country owes to Canada. The people of this country hardly appreciate—I doubt even if the Vice-President appreciates—how much this country owes to Canada. What have our relations been in the last 12 months with that big country which is advancing in nationality, in world influence, and in prestige? What is it proposed that they should be in the next 12 months? Is it the intention of the President, through the Department of External Affairs, to seek closer co-operation with the Dominion of Canada? Is there any intention of having a diplomatic representative of this country in Canada? Or, are we just to drift along, a nation forgotten by the nations of the world, throwing away the opportunity that we have of being some good in international affairs and sinking more or less to the level of a country that is no longer a nation, but a country full of introspection, seeking only its own interests and not concerning itself with the interests of the members of the family of nations? Are we to become sunk in insularity and to put, not merely a tariff wall around the borders of our country, but to put a spiritual wall, and to think that we are self-sufficient materially, spiritually, politically, economically and internationally?

I should like to know what our relations are with South Africa. Perhaps we do not owe as much to South Africa as we do to Canada. It may be that in that respect South Africa owes a little to us. I should like to know what our relations have been for the past 12 months with South Africa. This country has some lesson to learn from South Africa. We think that we are the apostles of nationality, but it would be well for those fanatics, who look upon their own particular belief as the last thing in nationality, to turn their eyes to the history of South Africa for the last 30 or 40 years and learn some lessons in nationality from South Africa. We heard the President complain that he could not become a statesman because of the gunboats in Cobh. The fact that there are gunboats in a South African port does not prevent General Hertzog and his colleagues from being good South Africans, from being able to hold their heads high amongst the greatest patriots in South Africa. The fact that South Africa is a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and proud to be a member of it, does not prevent General Hertzog from being a good South African and a good Boer.

It would be well, too, if the country were given some information, through the President, of the situation as regards the League of Nations and our activities in that connection. What has become of the projects for the codification of international law? What has become of all the projects that were adumbrated through the various Committees of the League of Nations for the health and peace of the world?

Are we to be told anything of the activities of our representative at Geneva? Or are we to assume officially from the President's statement in opening this Vote to-day that the Department of External Affairs is to be from this forward nothing but a subsidiary branch of the Department of Industry and Commerce? Are we to assume that it is concentrating merely upon trade and the getting of trade, that it is forgetting that its primary function is to keep this country in touch with the other members of the family of nations, to see that the status and dignity of this country are upheld in its associations with other members of the family of nations, to see that our prestige is increased amongst the members of the family of nations and to see, if possible, that we cease to be, as we are at the moment, an object of pity to our fellow members of the family of nations in the matter of our futile policy towards our neighbour across the water?

We have heard a lot of talk about the economic war. This is a war which has been carried on in such a manner as no war has ever been carried on. I assume that we are carrying on with Great Britain in the ordinary diplomatic way. I assume that Great Britain and this country in their relations in the last 12 months have carried on in the usual fashion. I assume that the Dominion Office has been in touch with the Department of External Affairs, and that it has been giving the Department of External Affairs information with regard to Great Britain's diplomatic relations with other countries, and that the ordinary relations between Great Britain and Ireland have been carried on between the Dominion Office and this Department. Will the President give us any information about that? Will the President give us any information as to whether he had been left anything to do to increase the status of this country and its rights under the Treaty? Is there anything left for the President to do in that respect? Has he in the last 12 months discovered anything that was left undone by his predecessors? Has he with the help of Professor Berridale Keith and other men of that kind who seem to have spent their lives in endeavouring to find out something lacking in the Treaty, found out anything that was left undone, but which might have been done in the matter of the Treaty? If so, has he taken steps to see that any holes that were left unstopped are now stopped?

There is a wide field for discussion on this Vote. There is a possibility that on this Vote we would have a discussion that should be conducted without bitterness, and on non-party lines, and that would be fruitful in the way of political education to this country. There is a possibility that we would have a discussion which would tend to break down that frightful insularity which is the foundation of the Fianna Fáil policy, and which has brought so much misery and loss to the people of this country.

The President

I am very loth to enter into some of the larger questions that were again raised in some of the speeches here to-day. I had hoped that the 20 hours we spent on the relations between Great Britain and ourselves would have been sufficient, for the present at any rate. I do not think there is any necessity for me to go over the whole field again. There were a few matters raised by the Deputies, and I should like to refer to them at the start. There were points raised by Deputy Moore. There was the question of the motor cars and the report which appeared in a British newspaper to-day with reference to the granting of facilities to tourists in France. We were asked whether we had any official information of that, and whether we had been approached in the matter. I must say we have not. I understand that tourists coming to this country have to submit to certain formulae, but with the appropriate triptique they can get in here without paying the Customs duty. The question of making it easier for the tourists to bring their cars here will be considered. The assistance that we can reasonably give in that matter will be given.

Deputy Moore raised another point— that was with regard to the furnishing of reports by our representatives abroad as to the trade position in the various countries. I am afraid that would require a staff bigger than we can afford to keep in these countries, and I am very doubtful if it would be worth the cost, particularly in present conditions. These conditions are changing rapidly. Experiments are being tried, and by the time the information would come along it would be so much out of date that I doubt if it would be of any real value. I do not think, therefore, that I can promise to have reports of the type that he has in mind published. The Deputy told us that British officials abroad furnish such reports and that they are very valuable. We cannot, in the circumstances here, hope to produce reports of that type.

The question with regard to the expansion of our trade abroad is a matter that would have to be considered. There has been a criticism from the opposite benches with regard to our trade abroad. In a slight way, the criticism from the opposite benches is justified. It is extraordinarily difficult to establish a foreign market. Trade is contracting everywhere. There was no organised effort, so far as I know, made in former years to seek these markets. I think that was a very great pity. We always thought it would be more in the interests of this country if we could have a better balance of external trade and not to have all our eggs in one basket, so to speak. We thought in the past that a policy of trying to get our trade better distributed was a policy that should have been pursued by those who got an opportunity of directing, through Government channels, trade activities. At the present time and in later years it has been almost impossible to expand trade except by negotiations between Governments. You have to meet high tariff walls. You have the quota systems everywhere, and any expansion of trade means negotiations between Governments. In order to make the necessary arrangements and to meet the situation we established a special branch of our External Affairs Department. We were criticised by Deputy Costello just now for appearing to concentrate on this matter of external trade. I do not think it would be fair to say we are concentrating on it except that as a special activity it is receiving at the moment the particular attention of the Department of External Affairs. The Department of External Affairs however, will have a wider field than external trade, but external trade is a very practical field, and no efforts are to be spared to utilise the Department in order to get that better distribution of trade which should be the aim and which is the ideal for this country.

I have mentioned some of the negotiations that have taken place. At the moment the fruits from them are not very great, but we must not expect much. We must not be criticised on the ground that as the soil seems so infertile at the moment it is unwise to cultivate it at all. If the efforts we are making do not show any positive results they are not altogether nil. In the case of Belgium there has been an amount of butter exported. In fact for want of sufficient production here we were not able completely to fill the quotas that were allowed to us by Belgium. There was, I think, a trader who took about 1,000 head of cattle, but that arrangement was made only for a short period. But other negotiations have established certain contacts and the other Governments know what our position is. Acts that have been passed here recently have put the Government in a bargaining position which it did not occupy up to the present. We are purchasing a certain amount of capital goods, machinery and so on, and that gives us a certain bargaining position. We have intimated to the countries concerned that if they are to get a market here for their goods they must give us a market for our goods so as to pay for them.

We cannot change the huge adverse ratios against us overnight, but I contend that, at any rate, this section of the Department, a completely new section, new to the work, is justifying itself. If it were only for the information about the conditions that are obtaining and the exact position in other countries, it would be well worth the money that is being spent on it. I am very glad to note that there has been no criticism from the opposite benches on the ground that we are spending too much on this Department. I am glad to realise that Deputies opposite feel this Department is of very great importance from the point of view of maintaining our prestige abroad. I may have to deal with it when we are discussing the League of Nations again. I do not think anybody will contend that during the past year there has been any diminution of our influence abroad, such as it was and such as a small nation could hope for. I did not hear the whole of Deputy Costello's speech, but as I came in I heard him speaking of the fact that we as a nation had no axe to grind. That is quite well understood. It is felt that, as far as being able to act impartially, to be desirous for fair play, for good world conditions and good relations between nations is concerned, there is probably no small nation that occupies a more independent position in that regard or is more highly respected. During the past year there has been evidence of that regard given in the positions into which our representatives have been put.

It has been suggested that I should have referred to a number of things with which it would be quite impossible to deal here without making this debate the occasion to deal with the whole of modern conditions, both political and economic, and a number of the things we were asked to discuss would be really quite inappropriate. To deal critically here with the political and economic conditions in other countries might very well be regarded as out of place and not by any means helpful, either to ourselves or to the countries that are being criticised. Such information as our representatives are able to gather is sent to us and is available for the Government when any questions dealing with foreign countries arise. I have been asked to speak on our relations with Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and so on. I can only say that the good relations that existed between these countries and ourselves have continued, and the dispute between Great Britain and ourselves has not in any way, at least so far as we could influence it, been transferred to Canada, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa. Occasionally communications on matters of common interest pass between our Department of External Affairs and the Governments of these countries, and certain communications which the Department of External Affairs was in the habit of receiving from the British Government still continue.

The question of having representatives in countries like Canada is being considered, and I am glad to note that any movement in the way of establishing closer relations in that manner would be approved by Deputies opposite. Of course, we have carefully to consider our means in this matter, and we must not extend ourselves so as to impose on our people burdens beyond those which they can reasonably bear.

There were a couple of matters referred to with regard to our officials. Again, one of our officials in Paris has been made the subject of what I consider a most unjustifiable and a very mean attack. That attack was begun last year. Efforts are being made by a former Minister for External Affairs to make suggestions about certain transactions with Russia, and an endeavour was made to make it appear that the appointment of this official was an insult, or something like that, to the French Government. Of course, the thing is preposterous. The official in question was appointed to the post. He was restored to a position, not exactly the position he held, but he was restored to the service in the External Affairs Department in a country where, at any rate, he had formerly served this country more or less in a similar capacity. He was reinstated in the public service. He is an honourable man, and every effort of his both before he was reinstated and in the past has been to serve Ireland to the best of his ability.

Reference has also been made to the appointment of Mr. Brennan to the post of Secretary at the Washington Legation. He was called an outsider, somebody taken in from outside. If our Department expands rapidly it may be necessary to take in people from outside. But surely Mr. Brennan could not be regarded as an outsider. He, too, was in the service of Ireland in Republican days, and he was UnderSecretary of the Department of External Affairs. He was actually head of that Department. He was reinstated as other civil servants were reinstated, other people who had given service in the past. I am very happy indeed to find that we have a man of Mr. Brennan's ability and knowledge of this country, knowledge generally of the relations between this country and other countries and, in particular, knowledge of the relations between this country and the United States, to take up the important position offered to him in Washington. There again a man was attacked, a man who was honoured and whose devotion to his country cannot be impugned in any way by anybody. I do not think there are any what I might call side matters that I have passed over.

Mr. MacDermot

May I interrupt on one side matter? It is only a minor point, and it relates to the question of expense. In countries where the pound is at a discount in the terms of the local currency, exchange compensation is given so that the income of our representatives should be maintained at what it was intended to be. I wonder if thought has been given as to what ought to be done in countries where, on the contrary, our currency is at a premium, as it is at the moment, for example, in the United States of America? The premium may not now be enough to make a very big difference, but it might become so, and I would suggest that there should be compensation both ways. Our representatives living in a country where the pound does not go as far as it ought, should be compensated. But, on the other hand, the State should be recouped in countries where the pound has a purchasing power above its normal value.

The President

I appreciate the point made by the Deputy, but I am afraid the Deputy's point of view is being pressed too hard, not only by the Deputy, but by others. There is, to my mind, another side to this question. However, the matter is being equitably examined, and what the Deputy, I think, wants to secure, has already been provided for. The Deputy knows, of course, already anything in the way of extra compensation is wiped out.

Mr. MacDermot

Yes.

The President

However, I do not want to go into that now. It is a matter which should receive very careful consideration. It is like a great many other matters; there are two sides to the question, and you have to take all matters into account. If the Deputy would speak to me privately, I would be able to point out a lot of things that must be examined, and I do not want to prejudice any decision that might be taken by Finance by debating the matter here now. I can assure the Deputy that the points raised are being kept very carefully in view.

I do not think that a fair interpretation of their action. If any Republican took pleasure in what happened he took pleasure in it, not because it was a rebuff to anybody, but because it was an assertion of the right of our people here through their elected representatives to deal, as far as the Constitution would permit them to deal, with a foreign nation. That is the spirit. It is not fair to those, nor in the interests of our country to make a suggestion of that sort. It is the same old thing. It is suggested that our people are animated by some insane idea of gratifying a feeling of hostility towards the British—"on our side is virtue and Eireann; on theirs the Saxon and guilt." It is the same idea and equally untrue. It is the idea that we regard ourselves in every possible way as perfect and we regard the British in every way the opposite. We differ in the matter of this national struggle for we have right on our side, and it is obvious to the world that there is right on our side. The very fact that there are British people here trying to maintain power here is proof that we are not the aggressors, and if there is aggression it is from outside.

The Minister for Finance is said to have "blown the gaff." We were told that we are dishonest in saying that we were prepared to accept the decision of an international tribunal on the question of the annuities and such matters. The suggestion was that we were all the time simply playing a game. We had the money at our disposal. The British were informed that we were prepared to put these moneys at the time into the Bank of International Settlement. I think we have a right to protest, not merely as the Government, but we have a right to protest generally, in the name of the nation, against this misrepresentation of the whole national attitude. Most of my time, when representing this country in America, and a great deal of my time here, when charged with the headship either of the Government or of the national organisation, was spent trying to get the British and the world to understand that that has not been our attitude. At one period during the War we were represented as pro-German. Our attitude during the War was that if there was to be a fight for small nations, our small nation was as much entitled to independence as any other.

I should like to go into this question of the reception of the American Minister. We did not speak about it. Deputy O'Kelly is quoted as having talked about knocking off the shackles. Deputy Costello asked what we had done. We have done things. We have removed the Oath. We have removed appeals to the Privy Council. These were big and important things. In the matter of procedure, we have replaced the old system under which Ministers accredited to this country, who formerly presented their credentials to the Governor-General now present these credentials, addressed as formerly— and it is right to say that credentials from one head of a State are addressed to the head of the other State the Minister is being sent to, in this case King George—not to any person chosen, so to speak, by King George. They are accepted by the person who has been chosen as head of the Government here by the elected representatives of the Irish people. I have tried to get the papers dealing with this matter, because my recollection of what happened did not coincide with the Deputy's statement. I was under the impression, when it was first indicated that there was a change of procedure, that we said nothing except to indicate that a change had occurred. I find in the Irish Press of March 27th, an official statement to the effect that the American Minister would present to the President his Letters of Credence as Minister-Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary of the United States of America to the Saorstát. I do not find any reference at all to the change. The newspaper stated that the Minister would be received in the Council Chamber, Government Buildings, at 3.45 on the following day, March 27th. Evidently that was issued on March 26th and the Minister was received on March 27th. That is the first intimation. That is ordinarily all that would be issued, but the Press which wanted to create mischief got busy. The object of their activities was to try to make it appear somehow that we had tried to involve the United States Government in some dispute between Great Britain and ourselves. The British Government was mentioned, and all the rest. I find that I am wrong and that what appeared in the newspapers was not an official communication at all. It was evidently something communicated by the political correspondent of the newspaper. This paper stated on March 28th:

"Our political Correspondent understands that the manner in which Letters of Credence are to be presented is a matter for the Executive Council to determine, and that the formal steps necessary to effect the change by which they were received by the President of the Executive Council were duly taken. The Letters of Credence are still addressed to King George and are not duplicated."

I have a fair experience of one or another sort of political conference, both in this country and in other places, between people who were politically opposed, and I have never seen any of those conferences result in anything but bitterness and misrepresentation. Such conferences, to be effective—if they are not to be just like us here talking across from one bench to another—are held, as a rule, in secret. What is said is not known, and the parties going out from it, or some of the parties going out, do not respect the secrecy of those conferences and they give ex parte accounts of what happened. These accounts, almost invariably, are misrepresentations of the real situation. These misrepresentations give rise to bitterness and do not help at all, but quite the reverse. I am confident that there is a far better feeling between the two Parties, such as it is, without that conference, and that there is a far better hope of getting co-operation of the type I have indicated than there would have been if you had any conferences of this sort, because if people honestly differ you are not going, simply by sitting down together, to get one side to agree that the other is right; nor, if they feel keenly about the issues involved, are you going to get them to agree to some compromise or other. So that these conferences between political Parties, opposed in view as ours are, are not going to be helpful. The best thing that political Parties, that differ so widely as ours do, can hope for is that they will be content to submit their differences and to submit their different policies to the people and to accept the people's judgment. If you can get that, you have got the real basis for co-operation. Anybody who has any intimate contact with political matters and with the things that result from those conferences will agree with me that that is the truth, and it is in the interests of both Parties that I, for one, would refuse to enter into a conference of that sort.

In any case, the Government here has been selected with a definite programme to carry through, and it is supposed to do its utmost to put that programme through. Otherwise, it would be false to its programme and false to the people who supported it on the understanding that it was going to endeavour to put that programme into execution. The Deputy said that he was not mesmerised or hypnotised by the British position—that he was by the Ulster position. I think that, if you were to try to get one common ground for agreement amongst all Irishmen, that which would give you nearest to it would be the common ground that we desire the unity of our country. I think that is a fact. It is true of all Irishmen—of Irishmen living in Ireland and of Irishmen the world over. Time after time I have said that the greatest crime Britain has committed against this country has been that of dividing it up, and I have always contended that that division was not based on any principle of right or justice, or any concern for the rights of minorities, but that it was a policy pursued mainly in British interests and maintained in British interests. I have not the slightest doubt that, if Britain did not actively assist in maintaining and keeping up that spirit that maintains Partition to-day, in so far as it is maintained by our own people—if Britain did not continue to keep that spirit alive, the union of this country would come inevitably, and that we need not worry about its coming because we would know that it would come and would come quickly. We know, however, that Britain has an interest in keeping our country apart.

Mr. MacDermot

I do not believe it.

The President

The Deputy does not believe it?

Mr. MacDermot

No.

The President

The Deputy may know them a little better than I do. I would be very glad to believe that he is right. I was told that at the time that the Treaty negotiations were afoot. I did not believe it then, and I do not believe it now. I believe that Britain is doing its utmost to preserve that Partition. If it were not for the subsidies and so on that they are giving, Partition, economically, would not last. What I say to the Deputies, who speak about their programme as bringing about the unity of this country or as being calculated to bring about the unity of this country, is that they cannot show me any evidence whatever that that is true. The day that they can come and get the representatives of the North to give, for instance, a signed agreement that under the programme of the Deputies yonder they are prepared for a united Ireland, then, I think, people in this country might give them serious attention. If Deputies on the opposite benches believe that their policy is the policy for bringing about the unity of this country, I would suggest to them that they should bring along to the Irish people some acceptance of that on the part of the people up in the North. If they do that, then, perhaps, there will be people in this country who will believe that there is something in their programme. The position at present, however, is this: that you are asked, as we contended our people were asked in 1921, to surrender the solid ground on which they stood for a thing that was held out and dangled before their eyes as something to be accomplished in the future, which was not, in fact, likely to eventuate.

I remember that we were told that the Treaty brought about the unity of this country, whereas anybody who read the terms would know that there were provisions in the terms that provided a way out. Everybody about that time who had followed British politics at all, and who had followed the attitude of British politicians towards this country for years, would have recognised that the fundamental policy of Mr. Lloyd George's Government was to bring about Partition in this country and to make that Partition, so far as they could, permanent. So, when the Deputies opposite say that their policy tends to bring about the unity of this country whereas ours does not, I simply say to them: "Let you show definitely to the people of Ireland that your policy has got the acceptance of the people whom you hope to bring in by it, and then you will have something real to put before the Irish people, but at present you have nothing of the sort, and do not be pretending that you have got it."

Another matter which the Deputy raised was this question of secession. Now, when matters of this sort are being discussed, the British are very wary. I remember seeing that principle enunciated at one particular time. I think it was enunciated by Mr. Bonar Law. I am not quite sure if I am right, but I think it was he who enunciated it. Some time afterwards an effort was made to get that statement accepted by the British Government as a whole. They did not succeed. What has happened is this: that States have asserted—States of the British Commonwealth have asserted—in their own regard, that particular right; but the British have not accepted it. There is no doubt whatever that it would be a very valuable advance to get the British to accept it. South Africa has declared it in its own regard. When Deputy Fitzgerald was on the opposite benches a question was put to him as to the right of the Saorstát to secede. If I remember rightly, he qualified his answer with a reference to the Treaty intervening. It would be very interesting to demand from the British Government an explicit declaration or recognition that secession for States of the Commonwealth is a legal and constitutional right. Looking at things some years ago from the outside, I had thought that that matter was going to be pushed to a head on a certain occasion. Somehow or other, it was not pushed to a head. That declaration, the effort to secure which Deputy MacDermot thinks would be approved of by the opposite side who would co-operate, would be very valuable. I tried to get something out. Of course, the Deputy says it was a blunder on my part. Mr. Thomas had been talking very glibly about our desire to have it both ways. I felt that it was time to stop that kind of talk, at any rate. I wanted to make it quite clear that we did not want to have it both ways, that we were quite prepared to put the question to our own people as to whether they wanted to be partners in the British Empire or not. So that the test might be fairly put, we did want to remove from the campaign, which was likely to follow, those threats which I was certain were going to be used. The British may not use them directly, but I know enough about the methods that were used to put the Treaty through to believe that our political opponents would not hesitate, during the campaign period, to make it appear to our people that they were going to suffer not merely the disadvantages of which Deputy MacDermot speaks, of being a foreign country in regard to Britain—of being in a similar position to Denmark and Holland with regard to trade and other things—but that our people would be definitely told during the election or plebiscite campaign that there were going to be reprisals in the form of economic action, which is a thing not to be despised. Cities have been reduced by means other than by assaults, and nations can, under certain circumstances, be brought to positions of severe distress by economic methods. Economic methods were amongst those contemplated in the League of Nations in dealing with members who did not accept certain decisions properly arrived at. During the election or plebiscite campaign, I anticipated, knowing the country and knowing our opponents, that if we put that question, we would have during the campaign these threats—real or imaginary. To start with, I wanted to let Mr. Thomas know that he was not going to be able to continue in that particular way by suggesting that we wanted to have it both ways. I wanted to make clear that we were quite prepared to take the step our policy indicated provided he, on his side, removed his threat of force which is lying in the background and has been lying in the background since the time of the Treaty. Mr. Thomas refused to set that matter right. I shall consider this question of having a definite declaration of secession. I hope that Deputies on the opposite benches will support Deputy MacDermot in the attitude he has indicated to-day. It would be one thing settled, anyhow.

Unfortunately, I have not taken notes of all the points made, and I am not disposed to go, in any wide way, into the large field we covered the other day. Again, I ask for that reasonable help in external relations which, I think, the Government is entitled to expect from the Opposition in matters of such vital consequence to the welfare of our people.

Question put and agreed to.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 13 Jun 1934

Vote No. 67—External Affairs.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 13 Jun 1934