Over any area at the moment. I do not want, for instance, to see the British care and maintenance parties in our ports, and I want to see some means of getting them out. I want to see, when we have a Republic here, a genuine effective Republic in which every inch of the whole of Ireland will be under the control of the Government selected by the Irish people. Even for the Twenty-Six Counties I say that I want to see here every inch of the territory which we claim to govern under our control. Because there are difficulties in the way Deputy MacDermot says: "Oh, you should give up all attempt. Try to get yourself to believe that you would be happier with the bonds which you cannot get rid of than you would be if you were rid of them. Be happy in your chains. Think they are good for you." But that has not been our attitude at any time. The British, by the Treaty, have here in this country secured a certain position which they have secured by the threat of force and for no other reason. We certainly will never be happy, never be contented and never be satisfied as long as they maintain that position and maintain it, as I hold, against the will of the Irish people.
"Why do you not have courage?" Deputy MacDermot says; "you have a perfect right to do all those things." Suppose we had an election to-morrow, and that question was before the Irish people, I wonder would Deputy MacDermot come along and tell the Irish people: "You can declare your freedom; you can declare your independence here, even in the Twenty-Six Counties, as a Republic; you can do that without any type of retaliation by Britain"? Or would he, the moment we started the election campaign, do as was done on previous occasions by others, go and tell the Irish people: "If you dare to assert your right in this particular matter, you are going to have British forces against you in one form or another"? They will not merely be telling the Irish people then of the material advantages which they will have to sacrifice. They will tell them of another sort of thing. They will directly suggest and threaten that if we take this action of asserting our independence and our rights we are going to have force of one kind or another used against us. We will be told: "We are a small, weak nation. We are beside a powerful neighbour who will, whenever its interests suggest it, come along and invade us." We have had it even here to-night. When the matter suggested itself to him Deputy MacDermot could not refrain from putting forward the argument that if we were independent we would be open to attack; not an attack from Germany, mind you; not an attack from France, but an attack from whom? From a nation that could, he suggests, attack us with impunity, because an attack upon us was not going to threaten any other country and, therefore, no other country would be interested in our fate. I suggest that the moment there was an election on this issue, until it was made quite clear to the Irish people that by taking this course they were not going to involve themselves in a position in which hostile action would be taken by Britain, we would have very different speeches from the type of speech which the Deputy suggested at the start would be made.
When we came into this movement originally there was none of us, I hope, so foolish as to think that the achievement of our freedom was an easy matter. If I wanted to, I could turn up hundreds of speeches from the first day on which I had anything to do with public life until to-day, showing that I pointed out all along the line that for a country like ours to win its freedom in its present position was a difficult task—a task that could only be accomplished by continuous effort and by patient and unrelaxing effort. Therefore, if we do not declare a Republic to-day or to-morrow, we are waiting for a time when we think there is a fair prospect of our being able to maintain it when it is declared. I for one, whilst I should like to see another 1919 in the morning, do not want to see it followed by a 1921. It is easy enough to declare and to take up a certain position. It is not so easy to maintain it when it is declared, and I hope to goodness that the next time we take up a position we will not have a large section of those who urged us to take it up running away from it when it is taken up. I am not blaming people for doing that. I know the difficulties, and always knew the difficulties.
What we are doing to-day by our attitude is this: We are pointing out that though we are in the British Commonwealth to-day we are not of it. We have done everything in our power to make that position clear. We regard the Treaty which has been forced upon us as having no moral binding force. We have said that in public, and have told the British Government that. What we have been doing to the utmost of our strength is asserting on every possible occasion what the rights of the Irish people are, and doing our utmost at every point to maintain those rights, always within what we regard as the limit of our strength. We have pointed out then why it is that there is no rush at the moment, and why it is that we are not doing the things which two Parties desire us to do. Two Parties desire us to do it. Is it in the interests of the ideas that we have, or is it simply because they think that it would be good politics to force us quickly into that position? I suggest that the Parties, whether they are on the Right or Left, who are urging us to take precipitate action in this matter are people who want us to do it simply because they believe it would be our undoing. As I believe that the whole future of the country is bound up in the success of the policy of the present majority. I for one, at any rate, am not going lightly, to be persuaded by the gentlemen who can have only one real purpose in doing so. I certainly am not going to be pushed into that position by them and I do not think that any member of the Executive Council is going to be pushed into it either. What is more, I believe the vast majority of the Irish people approve of our policy; know that we are genuinely anxious to secure for this country the maximum amount of freedom it can attain and that we are never going to be satisfied until full, complete freedom is obtained. I believe the majority of the people realise that and the majority of the people approve of our actions and the methods we are adopting. So much for the strict motion.
Now, as for the merits. Nobody is better pleased than I am that this question should be argued on its merits. I believe the more we argue it with ourselves and with others, the more we will be satisfied in the end that the best interests of this country will be served by securing our complete independence. As a first reason, I am perfectly satisfied that there never will be real peace amongst our people until that position is reached. The same political factor which has disturbed us in the past, the same political factor which has put us in such relations, such unhappy relations, with Britain—that same position will continue until complete independence is reached. You are not going to get our people at this time of the day to be led away by arguments which failed to impress them in the past. There was a time when Ireland, with Great Britain, ruled this Empire. We were partners in it, full partners in it, with full representation in it; every post was open to our people in it.
The attractions of that position were such that we had a large section of the Irish people so attached to it that they fought every effort of the majority of the Irish nation to get out of it. It was a position far above the position of being one of a number or group of co-equal States. It was a position in which our people—I am talking now of our people apart from their nationality, apart from any national feeling—our people as a people, shared with the people of Britain the position of being at the head of that great Empire, at the head of it at a time when it was more powerful relatively than it is to-day, when it occupied a more commanding position in the world, when it had more advantages to offer to those who were in the partnership than it has to-day, and they rejected it. I suggest that if the arguments of advantage were so powerful, the arguments which Deputy MacDermot put forth to-day, they would have affected our people then, but they did not. Why Because they were in conflict with the fundamental idea of the people's nationality. Deputy MacDermot will, no doubt, say: "Oh, but that is just the difference between the position then and the position to-day." Then we were absorbed, we were rapidly becoming indistinguishable from the people of Britain; we were being absorbed in this Empire, and there was no opportunity given to us for an expression of our nationality.
The Deputy suggests that now there is full opportunity for an expression of our nationality. I suggest that has to be determined by the sentiment of our people as a whole, and I differ fundamentally from Deputy MacDermot in this, that I believe the Dominion position, being inconsistent with the history of our people, will never satisfy completely the sentiment of our people. We are not a British colony. That is the fundamental fact in this situation. We have fought for our independence. We are not going to be satisfied until we get it. That is the feeling of the vast majority of our people, and I believe it is going to persist. I am satisfied that my judgment in that regard has a better background to suggest its probability than has the opinion that is suggested by Deputy MacDermot. Hence I am satisfied that until we have got our independence, no matter what we may do with it afterwards, until we have won our independence, you are going to have a troubled political position here. Therefore, in order to get rid of that disturbing factor, no matter what the future may be, the moment we have an opportunity of making good and seeing that another 1921 did not follow another 1919, I think it would be right that we should declare the Republic, and I think if it were declared, then, after that, feeling that you were free and our people having got the feeling that the long centuries' fight was won, they would be in a position to examine on its merits any proposition of relationship or association that might be put up to them. But until that position is won they are not going to be satisfied with the position in which they will have to accept the bonds that they dislike, in which they will have to accept them pretending that they are bonds which they would have imposed on themselves in any case.
Fundamental, therefore, in this whole matter is the question of the sentiment of our people, the national sentiment of our people, and I differ with Deputy MacDermot in believing that that will ever be satisfied until there is complete independence. From the point of view of the welfare of our people, the future welfare and content of our people, I want to see our independence established, no matter what we may do with it afterwards. Deputy MacDermot posed here as if he were the only person who had ever considered any one of these questions, the only person who was bringing reason to bear, the only person who wants to examine these things on their merits and who does not want to take a political advantage of somebody who objects or holds a different point of view. That is not true. All these matters were debated very fully by a very strong political party here from 1916 to 1919. There is not an advantage that has been suggested by Deputy MacDermot that was not held out to our people at that time and, none the less, our people decided in an unequivocal manner.
Deputy MacDermot thinks that after the passage of time perhaps our people may be prepared to revise and change their opinions. I do not think so. I have been closely in touch with our people during the whole period and I am satisfied, no matter what changes there may have been on the surface, that there is no change in the fundamental objective of our people, none whatever. I saw that Deputy MacDermot was all wrong there when he was speaking. There was not, so far as I could see, one of his colleagues on the Front Bench with him. I suggest to him that he should canvass his colleagues quietly and ask each one of them separately: "Would you not prefer to be in the Commonwealth than to be completely independent as a Republic?"
I think it was Deputy MacEoin who seconded the motion. He has reserved his speech. I would like to hear, when he stands up, whether he is going to say that, now the circumstances have so altered and so changed, he thinks that if we could now reach the Republic he fought for and very nearly died for at one period, it would not be worth, as one former Minister said over here, raising his little finger to get it. I hope I am not misjudging their views. I think that if Deputy MacDermot tries to find out what is the feeling of the Irish people in this particular matter he will get it even by going amongst the members of his own Party and asking any of them, who in the past worked for the Republic, whether if they got a free chance of voting for it to-morrow, or voting for the Commonwealth, they would not be prepared to accept the Republic and take it even with all the material disadvantages which Deputy MacDermot suggests would be attached to it.
I can only say then with regard to all the advantages that these and more, or as much, at any rate, were offered to the Irish people in the past and they resisted them all. They preferred to continue to work for the independence which they desired. I do not believe that you would get them to believe that to-morrow, even if it were offered to them, a position in the Commonwealth as a Dominion for the whole of Ireland would be regarded by them as a satisfaction of their national claims. That is my view. I have said more than once, I think, that while I see as clearly as Deputy MacDermot does the material advantages that could be derived I, with this country, would be prepared to face complete separation and isolation rather than face inclusion unless it was a position that was arrived at after the Irish people had secured and got acknowledgment of their complete right to be free.
Now what has been the position of the Executive Council in this whole matter? We tried, all of us who sit on these benches, to maintain the Republic because it had been established by the Irish people. We tried to maintain it as long as it was possible to do it—as long, even, as there was a hope of doing it. We failed to maintain it because the forces against us here at home were too great. We tried then to get the Irish people to give us a majority, as our opponents had claimed to act in the name of the majority of the Irish people. We asked the Irish people to give us a majority, and said that if we got a majority we would reproclaim and maintain the Republic that was declared in 1919 without coming to this Assembly at all. That was the policy up to the time that we entered here. Why did we change that? Because our opponents here passed a law which made it impossible for anybody afterwards to go up for election unless they pledged themselves, when going forward as candidates, that if elected, they would come in here. There was no alternative left to us then but to come in here or try force. Believing that a further trial of force would be unsuccessful and disastrous for the country, we took the alternative and came in here. The moment that we came in here we made up our minds that we would use to the full the position that we had here, and try to advance to the position that we believed was the position desired by the Irish people. We have done that consistently.
Deputy MacDermot has suggested that we have adopted a nagging policy in regard to Britain. It has not been a nagging policy. We have done one thing by it, and I suggest that it is a very important thing. We have got people accustomed to the idea that there could be a free Ireland here which need not necessarily be inimical to England or to England's interests. We have got the English people accustomed to the idea that there could be here beside them an independent people and a friendly people. We have got them to see that it was not necessary that there should be the Oath to prevent us, as they had imagined, from cutting their throats some fine morning, or something of that sort. We are gradually accustoming the British people to realise that there could be here an independent Ireland which will not necessarily be a menace to them. That has been the view that we have held all the time. We told the British people that they would be in a safer position with a free Ireland here beside them than they would be with an Ireland that was held by them by force. They have not got accustomed to the idea completely yet.
I, for one, have not lost hope. I believe that I see signs of sanity coming to the people across the Irish Sea. I believe they are beginning to see that they had pictured to themselves a completely false situation. I said in one or two speeches that I believed we would have secured here in a very short time such a position that if you declared a Republic overnight it would be simply a mere formal declaration: that everything else would have been done in advance. I suggest that that is not an unreasonable policy, because there would be less anxiety on the part of the British in the matter and less anxiety on the part of people like Deputy MacDermot here at home, and that would be all to the good. So that this supposed unconsidered policy of ours has a background of reason behind it and a proper understanding. I have suggested further, that what we were prepared to do in 1921 we are prepared to consider to-day. At that time a united Republican Cabinet made it clear that to meet the sentiments of a certain section of our people we were prepared to consider some form of association, but that was based on a couple of provisos. The fundamental thing was that it should be based on the unity of this country. When people like Deputy MacDermot talk as if unity is immediately at our hands if we would only accept the Commonweath situation I would point out to him—I am sure he knows it full well— that when that position was about to be accepted before the unity of Ireland was not provided for in it: that when it was only a question of milk-and-water Home Rule even it did not secure the unity of the country. In 1921, we said that we were prepared to make a settlement on the basis of the unity of Ireland: the unity of Ireland accepted and the rights of the majority, then, as far as it was possible, we would take cognisance of the sentiments of a certain minority of our people who wished to have some sort of association. We said that on certain conditions, and one of the conditions was that any such proposed settlement should be submitted to the Irish people under such circumstances as would make it clear that their decision on the matter was a free decision: that they were at liberty to reject it or to accept it, and that there was no feeling of compulsion behind it. I hope still. Perhaps it is too much to hope for, to see a problem of this sort completely settled within a short time, even within our own lifetime. That may be foolish. I would hope to see it within my own lifetime, but if I do not, as long as we lay the foundations that will make it possible for our successors, then I shall be happy.
I feel that we have done our best in the circumstances and that, if we are not able to complete the building, we shall, at least, have put one good course upon it. That is no mean achievement in the circumstances. Deputy MacDermot pretends that the unity of Ireland is available if we accept Commonwealth association. I suggest that that is altogether false. There has been no suggestion of the kind. When Lord Craigavon says something like that the Irish people may pay some attention to it—Lord Craigavon and the people with him, not the British Government, although Partition was the creation of the British Government and though I believe that if the British Government wanted to get rid of it to-morrow, they could. Still, any suggestion by the British Government that they would bring that about would not be worth the snap of your fingers because the moment there was an attempt made to make the promise effective we would have the same happenings in the North that we had before and the British would tell us quietly in the end that they could not force or compel the people of Ulster, as they call it, to accept their view. When the people near talk about the unity of Ireland—unity being held far away in front of us— to be based upon our attitude, they have sufficient sense, gathered from their experience, not to bother their heads about it. When the people in the North and when Lord Craigavon talk in the strain in which Deputy MacDermot has spoken, then, perhaps, the Irish people will pay some attention, but, until that day arrives, it is vain for Deputy MacDermot and those who think with him to try to lure us away from the present position by saying that, by getting away from it, we shall bring Partition to an end. Nobody is now going to be fooled by that sort of talk. We have too much experience to be fooled by it. We might have believed it in 1917, 1918 or in 1919 but since 1921 we are not likely to believe it. Of course, we were then the bad boys. But for us, Lord Craigavon would have come in immediately and accepted the whole position. I have never seen anything from Lord Craigavon or any of the people up here to suggest that there was any truth in that. It was another good stone to throw at those who did not accept the Treaty, just as it is a good stone for Deputy MacDermot to fling at us and say: "If you are not sham Republicans advance to the goal in the morning, immediately re-proclaim the Republic" without any consideration of our power to maintain it.
I should be glad to have all these things considered on their merits. I do not think that anybody would suffer by that in any way. I believe the more we talk about these things the better. I do not believe that discussion will weaken our will in the matter. As regards this question being closed at any time. If we were to regard this as a decided question, I suggest that the very argument which Deputy MacDermot has used would be used, if not by him, at least by some people in his Party or, perhaps, some Deputies like Deputy Thrift, who might possibly want to reverse the decision. If a decision were taken for a Republic, Deputy MacDermot suggests that he would not use any propaganda against it. But there might be people like Deputy Thrift who would not feel quite like that. Would he be able to keep him quiet if such a decision were arrived at? Republicans have very good reason for saying that the matter was decided in 1918 in circumstances so decisive that they led to our taking a very definite step—a step which it would be extremely difficult to retreat from with national honour. A decision like that does make for strength of will and prevents vacillation and questioning as to whether or not you are on the right road. There is such a thing as considering a matter calmly, quietly and fully once and for all, particularly when there is a large body of people in question. When a decision is taken, it should be acted upon unless there is a new factor introduced which completely changes the situation. There is steadiness and continuity secured by going ahead when a decision is arrived at, not hesitating and looking back and asking if you are on the right road. From the point of view of practical success and material progress, it is advisable that we should not be asking ourselves every day whether or not we are on the right road.
If Deputy MacDermot wants to talk about this matter in the country, he is at full liberty to do so. Perhaps I may take advantage of this opportunity to say that everybody in this country is free to advocate any political opinions he chooses and that any suggestion that there is coercion or any obstacle to freedom of speech is not true. Full liberty of speech is allowed. One thing is not allowed and cannot be allowed—that is, the advocacy of the use of force against the Government elected by the majority of the Irish people. The position is not the same as it was some years ago—as it was, for instance, when the test to which I referred was put up and we were given the alternative either of coming in here under conditions which, though we accepted them, we regarded as humiliating, or else going out and using force. There is no such position to-day. People can go and advocate whatever opinions they like. There is full liberty of speech for every section and, with that full liberty, I hold that we should have finished now with threats of force. As long as he does not try to build up an organisation which would fall back on the use of force, Deputy MacDermot can go out and talk about the Commonwealth as much as he pleases. Similarly, those who call themselves the real republicans and who call us sham republicans can go out and preach their doctrines to the Irish people. They can suggest to the Irish people that Deputy MacDermot is right and that we should declare a Republic at once and get done with it. Let them go out in that way and, if they get a majority, they will probably find that some of the people in the past who stood for the State set up by the Irish people will again not be wanting when the time comes. But theirs is not our policy. We, also, shall go to the Irish people.
As it is now 10.30, I formally move the adjournment of the debate.
