Deputy Costello was arguing that a certain course should have been pursued on the previous day and he went on to say:
"That would have been the proper procedure. We were faced last night with the fact that the King had abdicated under the provisions of the British Parliament. So far as this country is concerned, he has not abdicated yet. That is not a situation that should have arisen."
I do not know what Deputy Costello found to criticise in the fact that we had not tried to act simultaneously with the British Parliament, that we had chosen to pursue a course which made it quite clear to everybody that we were acting independently of the British Parliament. The Taoiseach, or Deputy Costello as he then was, made it quite clear that while the King had abdicated in Great Britain, the King under this Constitution had not yet abdicated in Ireland and therefore we were not marching in step with the British Commonwealth, the British Government or indeed with any of the British Dominions; we were acting, more or less, on our own, acting as much on our own as we could, within the limitations imposed on us by this Constitution of 1922. Deputy Costello then drew a moral and that moral, I think, was a correct one. He drew the right conclusion:—
"The very fact that we are here engaged on this Bill is in itself a very significant manifestation of the powers of this Parliament."
It was a manifestation of the powers of this Parliament that was made possible by a Fianna Fáil Government because, according to the remarks with which Deputy Costello had prefaced that statement, if a Fine Gael Government had been in power they would have been so anxious to assimilate their conduct with that of the British Commonwealth that they would have proceeded in quite a different way and they would not have manifested the powers of the Parliament in the singular way in which we did.
"If anybody had said in 1925 that it would have been possible for the Parliament of any member of the British Commonwealth of Nations to pass on its own mere motion and of its own volition, legislation in any way dealing with the Crown or a section of the Crown, that would have been regarded not merely as a constitutional heresy but as something approaching high treason."
Why were we in a position to do that? Why were we in a position to take the course in relation to the Bill that, according to Deputy Costello, would have been regarded as something approaching high treason? Because the Fianna Fáil Administration in the year 1932 had set itself, of deliberate policy, to eviscerate that Constitution, to cut out of it every significant element in it that bound us up with British constitutional practice. If it had not been for the fact that, despite the opposition, against the opposition of Fine Gael on the preceding day, we had removed the King and every iota of British association from that Constitution, except Article 1, we would not have been in the position to take action which Deputy Costello held would have been regarded by British constitutional lawyers in other days as something approaching high treason.
Proceeding later in the course of his speech, Deputy Costello—I must try to make quite clear that I am speaking now of the Taoiseach, not as holding his present office, but as a leading member of the Opposition, and, with your indulgence, Sir, and with his permission, I will continue henceforward to refer to the Taoiseach as Deputy Costello, for the purpose of making quite clear the capacity in which he was speaking—said, on 12th December, 1936:—
"Section 3 is a most extraordinary section...."
It is a pity that the members of Clann na Poblachta are not here to listen to this, because they have been the principal propagators of the falsehood that the King was enshrined in our Constitution, of the lie that we had brought the King back and that this country, by virtue of the External Relations Act, had been made subject to Great Britain. There is not one of those who sent men to death on that hypothesis here to listen to this exposition of the constitutional position by Deputy Costello. He said:
"Section 3 is a most extraordinary section and I am not at all sure that on its strict legal construction, it may not have the effect which would, I am sure, be very welcome to some members of the Fianna Fáil Party and some of their supporters throughout the country. In fact, the effect of this Bill"—
and here we see where an epigram was coined—
"which is to give us half a Crown is that it gives no Crown at all..."
The Minister for Defence, on the Second Reading of the Bill, was talking about a crown on the brow and a half-crown on the brow, and he thought that Ireland would be better with no Crown at all. His colleague sitting on the front Fine Gael Bench in 1936 thought the effect of the External Relations Act of that year was to give us no Crown at all, so what was all the pother about when the Minister for Defence was speaking? If the purpose, the avowed purpose, of the repeal of this Act is to give us no Crown at all, we had reached that position on 12th December, 1936, according to Deputy Costello, now Taoiseach. He gave his reason for that conclusion:
"...for the phrase in Section 3 (1) which purports to confer functions on the King in external affairs may in fact have the effect of there being no King at all in this country because the authority that is conferred upon the Crown by Section 3 (1) subsists only so long as the King, represented by these nations, namely, Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand and South Africa as the symbol of their co-operation, continues to act on behalf of each of those nations."
Here is where Deputy Costello brought in his favourite hypothesis and I think there is a great deal in it, because, remember, as we have been told, the phrase "symbol of their co-operation" was deliberately chosen.
"We are only authorising the King to act on our behalf so long as the nations of the Commonwealth recognise the King as their symbol of co-operation."
He then went on to point out that the King, as he had long argued on the previous day, was not their symbol of co-operation, but their symbol of association. He continued:—
"We propose solemnly to pass an Act of this Dáil stating that we will allow the King to act for us in external affairs so long as the other nations recognise him as the symbol of their co-operation. But they do not recognise the King as a symbol of their co-operation."
Here was his conclusion, the conclusion of the man who is now Taoiseach, the man who had helped to draft constitutions, who had helped to smash constitutions and therefore a lawyer whose opinion must carry a great deal of weight in constitutional affairs:
"Therefore, this Act never can come into effective operation and, therefore, the King cannot act at all in external affairs with the authority of this Bill, when it becomes an Act."
That is the answer which the Taoiseach gave 12 years ago almost to a day—12 years ago to 12 days, as we are now discussing this Bill on 1st December, 1948. Twelve years ago, on 12th December, 1936, the Taoiseach scoffed at the argument which has been submitted to this House by his Minister for External Affairs. He sneered at it and he told Deputy Norton, his present Tánaiste, that he was talking nonsense when he said that we were then, in a hurried fashion, electing the British King as King of Ireland. It seems to me that that canard has been disposed of, at any rate. There was never any substance in it. So far from electing the King of Great Britain as King of Ireland, we were taking some monarch—and he was not the King of Great Britain; he was a functionary, if you like, who was recognised by five nations as the symbol of their association, they said; we had another phrase for the relationship—the effect of which may very well have been that which Deputy Costello so emphatically expressed 12 years ago—"the symbol of their co-operation". But the King to be used was not the King of Great Britain per se, nor the King of Canada nor the King of Australia per se. He was the King who was recognised by these States as the symbol of their co-operation, and we did not bring him back here into Ireland, nor did we elect him King of Ireland. We used him merely as an organ or instrument for giving effect to Irish Government policy. We used him in the same way as we might use a lawyer, if we retained him and asked him to act for us, or as we might use a builder, or a scribe, and indeed as one might use a rubber stamp. That is precisely the position the King was in under this External Relations Act and there was nothing that infringed Irish sovereignty, either in internal or external affairs, in any provision of that Act.
Now we are going to repeal the External Relations Act. What did that Act do internally? It did to a certain extent, by the will of this Parliament, impose conditions upon the Government in relation to the exercise of the powers given to the Government by sub-article 4 of Article 29 of the Constitution. I do not know whether any of the Deputies who are pretending to be greatly concerned with the External Relations Act have read that Article or not. I advise them to read it and study it and study it very carefully. Sub-clause 2 of Clause 4 of Article 29 reads:—
"For the purpose of the exercise of any executive function of the State in or in connection with its external relations, the Government may to such extent"—
and here is a very important phrase—
"...and subject to such conditions, if any, as may be determined by law, avail of or adopt any organ, instrument or method of procedure used or adopted for the like purpose by the members of any group or league of nations with which the State is or becomes associated for the purpose of international co-operation in matters of common concern."
The critical words, I think, in that Article are: "Subject to such conditions, if any, as may be determined by law". At the present moment the only law which prescribes the conditions of the exercise of that power is the External Relations Act. Repeal that Act, as you are doing, and the Government can use whoever they like, outside the State or inside it, without qualification. I say that on the assumption that Section 3 of the Bill will become law. If Section 3 and the Bill as a whole become law, without any significant amendment, the position will be that the Government under the Constitution may use anyone they like for the purpose of exercising any executive authority of the State in connection with its external relations. That opens up a fairly wide range of possibility. Of course somebody will say that they are limited to some extent by Clause 5 of the Article which reads:—
"Every international agreement to which the State becomes a party shall be laid before the Dáil."
but I think the Government can be considered apart from the State. The Government is a separate, corporate personality. The Government can be changed or overthrown; the State remains the same; the State is not overthrown.
It would be quite possible, at least I think it would be arguable, that the Government could enter into an agreement which would bind its members in honour and in conscience. Remember, we had a civil war fought, with ten years of domestic turmoil, because men felt that they were bound in honour by the letter of the Treaty and by the Constitution which flowed from the Treaty. It is possible therefore, for the Government composed of such men —I think all Governments should be composed of men who regard their word as their bond—to enter into an arrangement whereby some other person, some person external to this State, would act for them in external affairs. It seems to me it is possible and as I have said it opens up a wide range for apprehension and fear.
I have wondered why it was that the Government decided, apparently so suddenly, to repeal this External Relations Act. I have ventured to express an opinion as to what did happen. I may have been right and I may have been wrong but I see nothing to allay my suspicions in relation to the matter. I certainly see nothing to explain away the statement of the present Minister for External Affairs that no mandate had been given by the country to repeal this Act. That appeared to be the view taken by the Minister for External Affairs and the other Parties to the Coalition of the 18th February of this year. Apparently a change took place, a change which has not yet been explained to the public. I think it is not without significance that that change should first have been bruited or mooted in this House at the end of August by the Tánaiste, the Minister for Social Welfare. Perhaps I might not be permitted by the Chair to express the significance I attach to it, but those who know what I have been saying about the relations between the Tánaiste and other members of the House——