I will not disagree with those Deputies who, speaking here yesterday, said that what is happening now is important. I think, however, that some of the speeches which were delivered from the benches opposite may confuse the public mind as to what is happening. I think the important feature of these discussions is not so much the Bill which is before the House, the name or the form or the purpose of that Bill, as the fact that a Bill with that name and purpose has been introduced here by a coalition Government, led by the Fine Gael Party. I think it is important that there is now an acceptance by that Party, by the Clann na Poblachta Party and the other groups making up the coalition, of the republican status of this State, which was established by the Constitution. I think it is important that this step which they are now taking should bring to an end, as it must bring to an end, the opposition to that Constitution which was maintained since its enactment: that it must end the misrepresentation of its provisions, because it is obvious that from this date forward such misrepresentation will not be possible. That is important. It may, in the course of time, prove to be very important.
So far as the Deputies on this side of the House are concerned, it is also very welcome. It is welcome because it removes an impediment which may not have been a very serious impediment, but it was serious enough, to the proper working of this State. It puts outside the limits of party controversy the constitutional basis for political action. Those who opposed the Constitution, who urged its rejection by the people in the plebiscite upon it, whether they did so from a misunderstanding of its provisions or merely from party motives, are, by withdrawing from that position now, contributing to the national welfare, and I am prepared to give them full credit for that. I may say also that I do not want to ask them to make any public act of regret or repentance—so far as I am concerned the introduction of this Bill by them is good enough—but when I say that I want to add that they must not ask us either to concede, by speech or by silence, in fact or by implication, that we think that their opposition to the enactment of that Constitution was justified on any grounds whatever.
I want to deny as emphatically as I can what I think were the three basic contentions in the speech delivered here yesterday by the Taoiseach. First, I deny that our development to republican status was inherent in the Treaty of 1922, or consequential on the acceptance of that Treaty, or in any way facilitated by that Treaty. I deny, despite the many self-righteous speeches we heard from Deputies opposite yesterday, that the present attitude of the Fine Gael Party on these matters is consistent with the past actions or past declarations of that Party which we opposed and which we asked the people of this country to repudiate. I deny also that there is now, or ever was, any ambiguity or doubt concerning the republican character of our Constitution, except such doubts as were created by Deputies opposite for party purposes.
The Taoiseach gave us here yesterday a picture of constitutional developments proceeding continuously, proceeding in unbroken succession, from the acceptance of the Treaty—for one period, under the guidance of the pro-Treaty Cumann na nGaedheal Government, and, for another period, under the guidance of the anti-Treaty Fianna Fáil Government. I say that that picture is false, that it is in complete conflict with known historical facts. I have no desire to revive any of the controversies about that dead Treaty, but, if the Taoiseach thought it desirable, from his Party point of view, to put on record here yesterday an interpretation of the history of those controversies, which I consider to be false, then I will briefly put on record the true interpretation. I say that the picture which the Taoiseach presented here yesterday was made plausible only by reason of the fact that he suppressed from his recital of events the most significant of them and selected for reference only such as would help to build up the picture he was presenting.
It is not true, as I said yesterday, that the Treaty gave us freedom to achieve freedom. I will admit that many of those who voted for the Treaty in the Dáil and many of those who accepted the Treaty in the country may have done so in the belief that it gave us freedom to achieve freedom. I know that that argument was advanced at the time, and I know that it influenced many people, but it was not true. It certainly was not intended by the British to confer any such freedom on this country. It was, so far as the British were concerned, the maximum concession to Irish national aspirations which Irish resistance and world opinion forced them to concede, and was intended by them as a final settlement, the acceptance of which by our people was ensured by a threat of force. Whatever may have been the case advanced for its acceptance, however, whatever may have induced members of the Dáil at that time and the people throughout the country to vote for its acceptance, it is an historical fact that the Treaty was not used as an instrument to help us to achieve freedom. It is an historical fact that those who accepted it, whatever their original intentions, ultimately came to the point at which they used every method, every force and every guile to make it effective, and to prevent its being used even by those who had been associated with them in its acceptance as an instrument to achieve freedom.
The Taoiseach represented the effect of the Treaty as putting the State which the Treaty established, the State which replaced the republic which they had destroyed, in a position to benefit by the constitutional progress of British Dominions and he referred specifically to the Statute of Westminister, an Act of the British Parliament which defined the powers by which these Dominions might make constitutional progress. It is surely relevant to the case he was trying to make, the case that the Bill he is now proposing to the Dáil is consistent with what Deputy O'Higgins called the national traditions of Fine Gael and a logical consequence of the Treaty, to refer to what happened here when the Statute of Westminister was under consideration by the British Parliament. When that statute was before the British Parliament as a Bill, an amendment was proposed by Mr. Winston Churchill to make it clear that the statute could not have the effect of giving to this Dáil the power to alter the position created by the Treaty.
When that amendment was proposed, the then leader of Fine Gael, the President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State of that date, wrote a letter to the British Prime Minister, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, in which he gave him an assurance that the Statute of Westminster would not be used to alter the Treaty position, that they regarded the Treaty as an international agreement, binding upon this country, an agreement which could not be altered except with the consent of the British Government. The case which was presented here on the basis of the Statute of Westminster, the case that because, subsequent to the enactment of the Treaty, the Statute of Westminster made it possible then, if it had not been possible before, to use the instrument of the Treaty as a means of securing a greater measure of freedom here, falls to the ground once that fact is remembered.
Surely, if there was any validity in that case at all, the Taoiseach could not have said what he said here yesterday in relation to the Bill for the repeal of the oath. He said that he and his colleagues in Fine Gael opposed that Bill in the Dáil, even though they knew it represented the will of the vast majority of the Irish people, because they regarded themselves as bound in honour to do so on account of the acceptance of the Treaty. The Taoiseach quoted various speeches which were made during the constitutional debates of that time, culminating in the Twenty-Seventh Amendment of the Free State Constitution in 1936, in an effort to show that the attitude of his Party then was consistent with their action now. He stated that they felt themselves bound to maintain the Treaty, bound to resist every move to amend the position created by the Treaty, until in 1937 the British Government admitted that the Treaty was dead. If any Deputy takes the trouble of going back to the record of those debates, he will find, however, that that was not the case that was made by the present Taoiseach and his Fine Gael colleagues. They did not argue then against the changes which were proposed on the ground that, however desirable they might be, we could not make them without breaking the Treaty. They argued in favour of preserving the position established by the Treaty as better than the position that would result from the changes.
The Minister for External Affairs issued a public statement yesterday or the day before—a controversial public statement, even though it came from the Government Information Bureau— in which he purported to set out evidence that members of all Parties in the present Government had in the past opposed the External Relations Act and therefore were acting consistently with their pasts in seeking to repeal it now. Everybody knows that that statement was false, that while it is true that there was opposition to the enactment of the External Relations Act, that opposition was a consequence of the Constitution Amendment Act with which it was associated. That Act, at the time it was made, was the most considerable constitutional advance that had been made since the Treaty. They were opposing the advance which that Act represented. They were not in opposition to it because they wanted to declare a republic, they were not in opposition to it because they thought we were limiting in any sense the national advance: they opposed it because they thought it was going too far; and to represent that opposition now as being consistent with their action in supporting the introduction of this Bill is to strain public credulity.
It is true that the Fine Gael Party, and the Government which from 1922 to 1932 it constituted, was bound by the Treaty. It is true that they resisted every move, both from those who opposed the Treaty and those who had genuinely accepted it as a possible stepping-stone to freedom, to alter the position which was established. That situation ended in 1932. We did not regard ourselves as bound by a Treaty imposed upon the country by threat of force and we set out to remove, one by one, the shackles upon national independence which it imposed. They disappeared completely with the Twenty-Seventh Amendment of the Free State Constitution. The final and formal ending of that whole Treaty position followed on the approval of the present Constitution by popular vote. That act of the people destroyed the State which the Treaty established and substituted for it this republican State which we now have.
It may not be very important to show that the present attitude of the Fine Gael Party is inconsistent with their past. If it has any importance at all, it arises from one aspect of it and one aspect only. Deputy de Valera said here yesterday that, when we take a step of this kind, we must take it with determination that we will not retrace it. We, who have seen in our lifetime a republican State proclaimed and betrayed, and anxious that under no circumstances should the difficulties which resulted reappear here, must size up the situation, and in doing so take note of these previous declarations of policy made by the Fine Gael Party before they entered the present Coalition. The Taoiseach set out to prove yesterday—he had a difficult task, but he did the best he could with it—that this step is not inconsistent with his own past declarations or with the past policy of his Party. I think he would have been far straighter with those who elected him and elected his Party colleagues if he had not made that attempt. They could not possibly wipe out the written word of previous years.
I mentioned yesterday as one significant fact which destroyed the whole case that he was trying to make, that when in 1937 that process of constitutional change was coming to an end, in the election of that year in connection with which the plebiscite on the Constitution was conducted, the Fine Gael Party published, by means of paid advertisements in the newspapers, a declaration of their policy in the following words: "To restore"— again I emphasise the use of the word "restore"—"the position of this State as a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations." I refer to Deputy Mulcahy's declaration as President of Fine Gael at the 1944 Convention, that his Party stood unequivocally for full membership of the Commonwealth. These statements are on record. They cannot be ignored. Because of them, there is no doubt whatever that many hundreds and thousands of Irish citizens gave support to that Party and support in the belief that they intended to adhere to those declarations.
It is undesirable that there should appear to be any breach of faith. If the Fine Gael section of the Government has in fact now decided that its past policy was wrong—and I admit they are entitled to change their policy —if, seeing the national position from the viewpoint of Ministers, they decided that their policy when in opposition was nationally undesirable, it is much better that they should publicly announce the change, state all the facts which led to it and justify making the change rather than they should attempt now to deny that any change had occurred. If there has been a change—and I take it despite the Taoiseach's attempt yesterday that is beyond question—then we are glad, but we would much prefer that the change was justified by arguments, the validity of which we ourselves could recognise and approve.
The Taoiseach spoke at considerable length about newspapers which were attacking him and his Government because of their decision to introduce this Bill. Let me say, straight away, that I have no sympathy whatever with the Irish Times, or with any of the people who were induced by the Irish Times to give their political support to Fine Gael. The Irish Times supported the establishment of this Coalition Government although they must have known, as everybody else knows, that it has no merits——
