We are accustomed to be asked on each occasion when this Estimate is brought before the House for adoption, to give a lengthy report of world affairs. That is, in effect, what it would amount to, if we are to meet the wishes expressed by Deputies like Deputy Costello. I was listening very carefully to the extracts which Deputy Costello quoted from a Canadian report, which he held up to us as a model. I was just wondering if we brought in a report of that sort and presented it to the Dáil what would be the remarks of Deputies on the opposite benches. I believe they would immediately say to us that we were telling them things they knew full well; that we were telling them of the ordinary routine work that was being done by our representatives in foreign countries.
Of course, our representatives, whether they be in Paris or Berlin or Rome or the United States—wherever they are—must keep us informed of the policy of the State to which they are accredited, and they do that. Would it add very much to the information which Deputies have if I were to tell them in a report that our Minister, say in Washington, kept us informed of the policies of the American Government in regard to world affairs in so far as it was possible for him to find out what their policies were? In fact, the things that would be of most value to us as a Government, and to Deputies if they wanted to get information that would be most valuable, would be just the very things I could not give in a report.
Consequently, in the very nature of things we can hardly say more about our representatives than that they are representing us, and that they are available to be called upon by us at any time to perform services for any of our citizens and for the State as a whole: to initiate conversations with regard to trade where there is a question of trade or with regard to any other matter. They also send us information of the happenings in a country in so far as that information is capable of supplementing and adding to the reports which we get by following the ordinary Press. That is, in fact, the type of summary that I would have to give if I were to follow the example which the Deputy has held up to us, and, frankly, I do not think it would be worth while collating and printing a report of that sort. It would not add to the information which Deputies have. Now, the Department in its information is very much like any other news-gathering centre. Rumours come in first. After that, you get confirmation, or the reverse, of these rumours, and from day to day the situation changes. You try to keep in constant touch with it, but it changes for us in the same way as it changes for the ordinary reader who tries to keep himself informed on world affairs by following the Press. There is very little in general that you can say about it that is going to add to the information which the ordinary person gets. Frankly, I do not think it would be worth while presenting that in the form of a report.
We are also told that in other Parliaments it is usual, on the Vote for External Affairs, to have world affairs discussed. Yes, undoubtedly, world affairs as they impinge immediately upon the particular State in question, but not a roving debate over the whole world situation. It is that situation as it immediately affects the particular State in question. If it is Great Britain, it is the question of her relations with France Germany or some of the nations about which public interest is excited. In our case it is quite clear that if we had to publish and give the House a very long report, the debate here would be concentrated on exactly the same points that it was concentrated on to-day, and these are matters on which we have already spoken to the House on several occasions.
Nobody is going to say in this House that our relations with Great Britain are not well known. I was mocked when I began to speak of the position with regard to Partition. "Who are you telling that to; do we not know all about it?" That was the complaint that was made on one of the things that most affects us, and most affects our relations with Great Britain. I was supposed to be doing a completely unnecessary work when I referred to that, and yet it is fundamental, as far as our relations with Great Britain are concerned. When I spoke on the question of the annuities I was told I was flogging a dead horse, or something of that sort. Yet again it is one of the most important things in regard to our external affairs, a thing that immediately concerns us. The question of our ports and defence was brought up. Is there anyone who will say for a moment that it was necessary for me to give a report on the position with regard to our ports?
The position in Spain was brought up. Was there any necessity for me to deal at length with regard to the position in Spain? We have had several debates on it already, and there was no material change in the situation. A policy of non-intervention is not equivalent to a policy of disinterestedness and carelessness with regard to what might be the results of the conflict in Spain. I am glad to have it explicitly stated from the opposite benches—it was by no means so clear some time ago—that the policy of non-intervention is now accepted by them as the proper national policy, and that they are now prepared to stand by it without hesitation. I think it is the best policy, as I said before, in the interests of Spain. I think it is the best in the interests of world peace, and because we are standing by this policy of non-intervention we do not want to do things on either side. The policy of non-intervention means this, that whatever our sympathies may be on one side or the other, the States of the world should keep their hands off, that they should cease giving munitions to the parties on one side or the other, and should not interfere. As far as I have been able to hear about it, the cry from the Franco side has been: "Let foreigners not come here to Spain and we will settle this matter ourselves." The appeal from the Spanish people has been to get those foreigners out of Spain. They have said that if it were not for those acts of intervention on the one side or the other the thing would have been finished long ago.
Our representative, with the representatives of a number of other countries, is at St. Jean de Luz. He is there able to keep in touch with both sides. From that point of view he is nearer to and has greater facilities for getting into communication with the Franco side than with the other. We have not formally withdrawn him. I did not think that a formal withdrawal of our Minister was going to help conditions in Spain, or was going to help the situation from the world point of view. In so far as our influence has been of any value, our representative has worked consistently for this policy of non-intervention; that it should be, in fact and in truth such a policy and not a mere verbal agreement. So far as Spain is concerned Deputies know perfectly what is happening. They know what our representative is doing and what the representatives of other countries are doing. He is getting for us such information as he can get and is keeping in touch with both sides. As regards minors, there was the question of trying to get minors, who had gone away without the consent of their parents and were engaged in the conflict on one side or the other, out of the area of conflict. We succeeded in the case of those on one side in getting them out to a position behind the fighting lines.
It is very difficult at first sight to say what are all the things that a representative in another country does. If we want to maintain our international status we have to do what other nations do in that regard, and we are only doing what is, so to speak, the minimum that is required.
It is not right to suggest that the Department of External Affairs is the Cinderella Department. I admit that it is not a very big Department as regards numbers and personnel, but it is one of the most important Departments of State. Through it are canalised all our dealings with outside countries. All communications with outside countries are canalised and done through the Department of External Affairs, so that it will not happen that one Department will be going on one line of policy and another Department on another. The work is being co-ordinated, each knowing what the other is doing. It is a most important Department, and I think the fact that the President of the Executive Council has himself taken over that Department—let us forget about the person who is occupying the position at the moment—is an indication of that. The fact that he has taken on the Department of External Affairs— you have the same position in a number of other countries—is proof of the importance of the Department, from the point of view of the estimation of the Government.
So it is all nonsense to say that this is the Cinderella Department and that it gets no attention. I will admit, quite frankly, that, obviously, if I am to do other work, I cannot give as much time directly to the Department of External Affairs as I could give if I had that duty solely to perform. That is quite true, and I admit it. The time, and so on, that I spend in connection with other Departments, I would give to that Department if I were dealing with that Department alone. That does not mean, however, that I am not satisfied that everything that should be done in that Department is being done. I am. I was very fortunate to have officials in that Department who have been working there and who have been acquainted with the work of the State since the State was founded. It was an old Republican Department which was carried on, and I am perfectly satisfied that the fact that I cannot attend to a number of details, to which I should attend if I were Minister for that Department alone, is not detrimental to the Department, and I am quite satisfied that the work of that Department is not suffering from the fact that I might not be able to attend to all these details. I get every piece of information that I should get in connection with that Department, and I get every piece of information, particularly, in connection with our relations with Great Britain, inasmuch as the most important part of the work in External Affairs is in connection with Great Britain, in which the Government, as a whole, has an immediate interest, since that is the biggest external relation that we have to deal with. Any information in that regard comes, of necessity, directly and immediately to me.
We are asked what our High Commissioner in London is doing. The Deputies who ask that question know perfectly well what he is doing. He is there, not merely in the capacity of a diplomatic representative, but he also combines in himself, with that, the position, so to speak, of a trade representative. He is the one member of our external representatives who is in direct and immediate touch with some of our Departments, because of the extent of our trade relations with Great Britain. Nobody suggests, I think—certainly no Deputy in the House, and I doubt if there is any person in the country who does not know fully what, in general, is the type of work that our High Commissioner in London is doing—that he should be withdrawn. I do not think the suggestion would come from any quarter that he should be withdrawn or that he was not worth his salary, or that that particular office was not worth the money that is being spent on it.
As I was saying, in a debate like this, if we leave aside the ordinary details of expenditure, once we begin to discuss our external relations, it is inevitable that the whole weight of the debate will be concerned with our relations with Great Britain. Deputy McGilligan tried to make some point as to inconsistency when he said that there were matters of great importance affecting this country being discussed in Great Britain at the present time, and that we are not there. In my statement on my own Vote, as President of the Executive Council, I admitted that we are interested in these things; but we are interested in other things even more than we are interested in the things that are being discussed at present. Trade treaties and so on, are going to be bi-lateral. They are bi-lateral agreements. As far as we and Great Britain are concerned, any of these trade treaties that are made, from time to time, between the several States, are, by their very nature, bi-lateral, and if there is any question of our trade relations with Great Britain, the mutual interests of the two countries will put us in the position of being able to make such trade agreements, and it is not necessary to go to the Imperial Conference in order to have matters of that kind brought forward for discussion. The fact is that the relations between us and Great Britain are such that the other States, besides Great Britain, would hesitate to interfere. They would say: "Keep us out of your difficulties; these are difficulties peculiar to yourselves, and we have no quarrel with either of you. Just keep us out. These are quarrels between two particular units, and we do not want to be brought into them." I must say that I would find it very difficult to resist an appeal of that sort, or to base a claim as to why they should come in. They will probably have this interest— but it is not necessary for us to go and point it out to them—that, as far as they are concerned, and so far as the position of the States of the British Commonwealth in the world as a whole is concerned, the more unity there is and the more definitely all the groups co-operate, the better it is for them. Consequently, for their own interests, and apart from any wishing well as between Great Britain and ourselves— Great Britain being the mother country from which many of their citizens derive—they would probably have an interest in both of our countries from that point of view. Apart from that, however, in their own interest, they would like to see any differences that exist between Great Britain and ourselves fixed up, but what they would say is: "For Heaven's sake, try and fix up your differences yourselves," and they would be very slow, I think, to go farther than that, and either to suggest solutions or to press for a particular type of solution.
There are no deviations as regards the main lines of our policy—the main lines of the policy for which we have been working. As I have said, I think that the central aim of anything I have ever done, in so far as there has been a question between Great Britain and ourselves, was to try to arrive at a foundation on which good relations between the two countries could be permanently founded, but I know, and everybody here must know as well as I do, that it is only on the basis of fair play and justice that you can get those good relations established. Everybody knows the position that we had in this country, and you could not get these good relations between us so long as you had the Oath in the Constitution and the number of other symbols that were in the Constitution. They had to be got rid of, and the clearing away of them was absolutely necessary in order that the site should be cleared before any proper edifice of good relations could be placed upon it. I think, for instance, that this new Constitution, so far as this part of the country is concerned, does clear away a number of the things which would make good relations between the two countries impossible. It does clear away a number of these obstacles to good relations between the two countries, and that is why it is devised.
The people in this country, just as the people in other countries, will differ as to what is the best possible policy, in the interests of their country, for foreign affairs; and what I have been trying to do in this Draft Constitution is to put that thing outside of the machinery of the State and the machinery of Government, so that it could be dealt with and we could differ upon these matters of foreign policy without differing at all upon the institutions, so to speak, of this State. I am perfectly certain that the new Constitution will mean a tremendous advance towards laying the foundations for good relations between the two countries. If we had that situation which is envisaged in that Constitution for the whole of this country—if we had the question of the ports settled —then the question of our relations with Great Britain would be a matter for a difference of opinion amongst our people, just as, for example, the question of whether the United States becomes a member of the League of Nations or not is a matter for a difference of opinion amongst the people of America. It would be no longer the same type of difference. When you examine it, all it means is that we have tried to get down to a basis of justice in which any relationships our people may have with other countries will be relationships into which they will not be forced by threat of military action or anything of that kind, but relationships which they will undertake freely because it is in their interests, the interests of the people generally.
Some statement made by the Minister for Lands has been referred to, and it is suggested that he made that statement on behalf of the Government. Not every Minister who speaks goes out as if he had got a special commission to speak on behalf of the Government. There was no question of that. I have not got his exact words here, but my recollection of what he did say was that what we did was done in the interests of the country and was done for no other reason. A more general statement as the basis of any action could not be made. Should not everything we do as a Government be done in the interests of our people? If we, for instance, make a Coal-Cattle Pact with Britain, in whose interests are we doing it? At the time we made this pact there was a very heavy pressure on our people and it was necessary to that extent, whilst that pressure was there, to make this agreement so that the pressure would not become altogether intolerable. Is there a suggestion that, because we made this agreement, we accept the situation? We do not. Our protest about what is being done by the British in that matter has continued and will continue so long as moneys are being extracted from our people which we think are not due and should not be paid in justice. There is nothing inconsistent in that. No more fundamental reason can be given by anybody for the action taken in that particular case. When we enter into a Coal-Cattle Pact or any other pact, it is because of the fact that the interests of our people demand that the thing should be done, but it does not mean—and we have been careful to point out that it does not mean— that we accept the situation as being a just one or that we have ceased to protest against it. Our present action is also in the form of a protest. Our refusal to go to the conference is also in the form of a protest, so that it would be made clear in the most definite way that we protest against the taking of moneys from our people which are not, in our opinion at any rate, due. The taking of them, in our view, cannot be defended.
I do not know whether there are any special points brought out in the debate that need to be further dealt with. The debate covered such a very wide field that it is very hard to deal with it. I was asked about the position of the Italian Minister. That will be made clear when the formal reception takes place. We are receiving the representative of the other country in the same spirit as the gesture, the friendly gesture, in asking us to accept the Minister, was made. There has been some reference to an explanation by me of a statement which was made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance. Here in a debate somebody quoted, or purported to quote, a statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary. I asked somebody here if he could give me a copy of the statement. I took that statement and I interpreted it, assuming that it had been made, as I thought that ordinarily it should be interpreted, and I said that, even on that statement, the case that was being made by the Opposition was not tenable. Is there any inconsistency between that and the fact of the Parliamentary Secretary's stating afterwards that he never made that statement? I did not say that the Parliamentary Secretary had made it. There was a report, which was alleged to give that statement. I asked to see it, and I interpreted the report as it was given to me. There is no inconsistency in doing that and in his saying afterwards that the statement was not made at all. Some of the old orators made up speeches for delivery which they never made afterwards. If there was a question of the interpretation of a passage from such a speech, that I interpreted it, and that it transpired afterwards that the speech had never been delivered, there would be nothing inconsistent in my having interpreted the speech given to me and the statement afterwards that the speech was never delivered. However, these are very small points indeed, and I do not think it worth while spending the time of the House in going over them further.
With regard to broadcasting, there is a peculiar confusion of thought. The broadcasting station acts independently. It has an independent news-gathering method and it gives out the news it gets, just as a newspaper or any other independent body gives out news. We do not control, in that sense, the news service. It publishes certain governmental communiques when they are sent along but they are always acknowledged and definitely given as governmental communiques. I do not know whether the view of the Opposition is that whenever there is any news statement issued by the broadcasting station, which may not correspond exactly with the information we may have, it is our duty to go out and correct it. These things correct themselves. The news of one day very often corrects the news of the day before, and unless there was some very blatant and dangerous statement broadcast, we would not interfere ordinarily. If my attention were called to some misleading statement issued by the broadcasting station, which I found to be misleading, if it affected our external relations in any way, either by getting our people to believe that things had happened which had not happened or the reverse, and if I thought it of sufficient importance, I agree with Deputy McGilligan it might be advisable to issue a Government communique on the subject. No matter of that kind has so far been brought to my notice. I do not watch these announcements every evening myself. I do not know whether the Department make it their business to watch all the statements issued from the broadcasting station to see if they are accurate in regard to international affairs. I think it would be a rather heavy task and it is only in cases where the matter would be brought to our attention that we would ordinarily take cognisance of what was issued by the broadcasting station. I agree that if it touched external affairs, and if the matter were sufficiently important, we should take cognisance of it and try to correct any wrong impression. It should obviously be a matter of very great importance before we could do that.
I am sorry that I do not remember every point which was made, but I think that the main points were with regard to our relations with Great Britain, and with regard to the question of Spain. In regard to Spain, the Opposition has repeated a point of view which it has expressed before. I would only repeat the point of view which I have expressed before, and there would be no use in doing that. With regard to Britain, I have given a full account in the previous speech. With regard to our Ministers, they are doing what the Ministers of other countries do. With regard to giving a report, I think that, very largely, it would be waste, because the things you would like to know, and that would be some information if you could be given them, are of their nature the sort of things we would not be at liberty to give.
