I am extremely grateful to Deputy Dillon for having reminded the House that during the last war he told the world that I was a Nazi. I am delighted that he repeated the charge to-day, because I suppose that before very long he will be calling me a Communist. I just want to mark that, to keep it in the minds ofDeputies, that Deputy Dillon proclaimed 12 years ago to a lot of people, who did not know, that I was a Nazi. Unfortunately for this country and for the world, international relations are usually not discussed in a reasonable way. One of the things that has damned this country for the last century is that the political relations between two sections of our people have been bedevilled by groups on top of either side who want to use religion for political purposes. You have, unfortunately, a group in the six north-eastern counties who are doing that and it is quite obvious to everyone that there is a group here that wants to use exactly the same tactics for exactly the same political ends. It is also unfortunate that in talking about international relations in various Parliaments, including this one, there are people who want to make powerful foreigners believe that they are the only ones who are their friends.
Following Deputy Dillon's allegations in 1940 and 1941 I had to go to the United States and the newspapers put it to me: "You are pro-German." I said: "I am neither pro-British nor pro-German; I am just pro-Irish." At that time Deputy Dillon thought that it was to his benefit to put that story out. He is foolish enough to have repeated it to-day and I suppose he will be calling me a Communist to-morrow.
Several Deputies asked me what our foreign policy is. Our foreign policy is agreed to by 98, if not 99.8 per cent., of our people. There is no necessity for me or any other Minister to reiterate what the foreign policy of this Government is and what the foreign policy is that our people want. Of course, from time to time the words in which that policy are expressed will differ. For instance, in the last war, if I were speaking to a friendly person I could explain, as Deputy Esmonde here very quietly explained, that after all we were as much entitled to freedom as any other country, that if they wanted us to take an interest in the freedom of any other country they should take an interest in our freedom first. You could explain it in that reasonable tone of voice or you couldexplain it, as I had to explain it in the United States during the last war, because of the propaganda by Deputy Dillon and others, in very forcible terms indeed.
It is known that Deputy Dillon's chief friend in the last war advocated that we should be starved into it. Deputy Dillon knew it and I knew it and, therefore, I had to bring it home clearly and definitely to anybody in the United States or Britain or anywhere else that we would not be starved into the war and would not be driven into it by any other means.
I was looking up, as a matter of interest, a speech I made in Boston on 18th April, 1941. It was a standard speech which I made in most of the principal cities of the United States and which I handed into the State Department so that no one could say that the American Government did not know exactly what I was saying. The speech is a long one and if any Deputy wants a copy I can give it to him, but I want to make one quote which shows the rather forceful way I had to put the attitude of the Irish people to the war because of Deputy Dillon's carrying on. I talked first about how we had declared our attitude to the war and went on to say:—
"I have been asked whether there is any chance of our people changing their attitude to the war. There is none. We took our decision in the full light of the circumstances and the interest of our partitioned nation, and neither economic pressure nor threats of military aggression, nor promises of an Irish Utopia after the war are going to shift us. We have learned a little wisdom in the hard school of experience and if we fight in this war it will only be when we are attacked."
Deputy Esmonde put our attitude to the present war, the war which we hope will not come, but the war which is now in the cold phase. We believe that our country has a right to freedom, to complete freedom for the whole of Ireland. We believe that it has as much right to self-determination as a unit as has Britain, America,France, Germany, Belgium or any other country in the world, and we are not going to be content with less, and 99 per cent. of our people, if asked to-morrow should we go to fight for the freedom of another country, while our own is denied, would say no. We did that before; we did it in the 1914-1918 war, and, at the end of it, we got not freedom, but the Black and Tans.
I am glad to say that the world is moving along, and I am hoping that there will be on the banners of most of the big nations the principle of the right of self-determination, and that not only will it be on their banners, but that they will apply it in the areas over which they have influence. We have recently seen in the speech of President Eisenhower, to which Deputy Dillon alluded, how President Eisenhower repeats and underlines the statement made by the American Ambassador to Germany that it is the American aim that Germany should be free and united. It is a very generous thing, indeed, of the American people that they should state an aim so clearly about a people who, until recently, were at war with them. We have never been at war with America, thank God, and we never will, I hope. We do not ask America to fight for us, as she may have to fight if she is to implement that aim in regard to Germany; but we do believe that we are entitled to have our attitude respected when we say that we are as much entitled to freedom and unity as is Germany, France, Belgium, England or the United States itself, and that we are not going to be content with less.
There was discussion here as to what big nations would do and what big nations would not do. In my belief, some of the big nations, at any rate, have improved in our generation. Britain herself has improved to a certain extent, although I do not believe, as Deputy Dillon believes, that she lost anything by respecting our neutrality in the last war. At least, she did respect it and my belief is that if she had not respected it, she would have lost very heavily indeed. It has been my duty to speak to quite a number of people, Americans, both in the Government and out, and other people, inregard to the partition of Ireland and our rights in the matter of the declaration of war, of participation in war, and I found that by and large the representatives of the bigger countries understand our attitude. I am not going to blame them because up to this time they have not taken steps to see that that complete freedom and right to unity and self-determination should be applied to us, but we hope that, as time goes on, even though we may not wish them to take up arms to assert and vindicate our right, at least they will use their influence to make certain that our rights are granted to us.
The behaviour of America since the last war has indeed been most enlightened and generous. Some nations before were generous and some were enlightened, but very few big nations —none that I know of with the same relative power relationship to the rest of the world—have been as generous and enlightened as the United States has been, and all we can hope is that they will continue to be generous, not with their money but with their instincts, and will become even more enlightened as time goes on. There is no doubting the truth of what Napoleon said: "In war, morale is to matérielas three is to one.” I do not want to see war come and, if it ever comes, I should like to see a clear-cut case between right and wrong and I should like to see the various countries standing for something clear-cut and definite which any Irishman could support.
I want to see them standing for the principles that are enshrined in our Constitution and the principles for which the Irish people have fought all their lives. It is hard, of course, for the President, Cabinet or Congress to swing the vast United States even though the President or Cabinet might believe that certain things should be done but we hope that, as time goes on, they will be brought around to agree with the principle which is enshrined in the resolution on the partition of Ireland, that a couple of times was brought before the American Houses of Congress.
By the way, I want to say that Iwas very glad indeed to hear Deputy Corish clearing away any misunderstanding that there might be on foot of what he said on the last occasion that we were debating External Affairs. I was very glad indeed to hear him pay tribute to the Irish organisations and particularly to the American League for an Undivided Ireland for the work they have done for Irish unity.
All over the years when Ireland was fighting with its back to the wall for the land or for Home Rule or for anything else that the Irish people agreed upon, for the Republic of Ireland, for the freedom of the Republic of Ireland, we have had in the United States of America, Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and elsewhere very loyal friends. Knowing the Irish organisations in the United States of America since 1926, which is 27 years, I do not believe that at any time in Ireland's history had we more devoted, more unselfish and energetic friends than we have at the present time in the United States of America. They have pursued the object of bringing the American Government and people to a recognition that what Ireland stands for is right and proper. They have pursued that quietly and very energetically. They have not been fully successful but, to the extent that they have been successful, it is due to their very patriotic and very persistent efforts.
Talking about relations being bedevilled, the relations between our country and Britain are also being bedevilled. As time goes on, an increasing number of the British people feel that their past history in Ireland is something that should be obliterated and should be obliterated in the only practical way, that is, by substituting good relations between Great Britain and Ireland, to make restitution, to see that the unity of the country that was divided for British military or political reasons, whichever way you like to put it, should be restored, and to recognise that the Irish people have a right to choose their own form of Government and to govern themselves in their own way. But you have in England, just as you have in this Dáil and inmany other parts of the world, troublemakers. You have certain journalists —indeed, you have them in this country—who want to see trouble between ourselves and Britain. You have certain gentlemen living in this country who regard themselves as exiled Britishers. They are prepared to do everything for Britain except to live in it. They prefer to stay here and keep their jobs and take our money. They have given wrong impressions to American reporters they have met here. They have given wrong impressions to English reporters they have met here. Indeed, some of the English reporters coming over were looking for bad impressions of us. Some of the gentlemen I have alluded to wrote the stories that have been complained about in this debate by several Deputies—Deputy Kyne, I think, and others. But you have in England to-day, just as you had during the Black and Tan war and at the various times that the British Government were trying to crush the Irish people, people who are fair-minded and who do not want to be enemies with anybody and who, particularly, do not want to be enemies with our people.
While you have the type of articles such as those complained of appearing in the British Press, there has appeared in what is, from one point of view, the most important of the British papers, The World's Press News, a paper for newspapers, read in every newspaper office in Britain and in many other countries, an article which I will quote. InThe World's Press Newsof April 24th, 1953, under the heading: “A Dublin Diary, by B.B.”, there is this paragraph which I should like to put on record in honour of the man who wrote it and as a thankful gesture to the paper that published it:—
"Irish newspapermen have a serious grouse against the British Press for the way in which it treats Irish news. For years, they say, any piece of news that shows Ireland as being silly and irresponsible is headlined. Favourable news is suppressed. This line culminated in the reports appearing in the British nationals——"
that is, national papers,
"——of riots in Dublin on the opening of An Tóstal. There was no riot, they say, beyond a few stones thrown at windows by hooligans in O'Connell Street. I asked my friends, many of whom know Fleet Street, London, as well as they know Fleet Street, Dublin, whether they thought it was a national bias on the part of London editors or whether it was a case of a bad habit persisting. They were inclined to think it the latter. We think it important enough to ask our correspondent in Dublin to write a special feature on this question, giving the facts as the Irish see them. This will appear shortly in The World's Press News.At the moment there seems quite a running sore in Anglo-Irish relations which needs healing.”
We appreciate that objective paragraph in that important paper, and we trust that having it repeated here will help to assuage some of the anger that is naturally aroused in our people by the very scurrilous and very unfair articles that were written in some of the British papers.
A number of Deputies stated that we had no foreign policy. The basis of our foreign policy, of course, is in our Constitution. Somebody said that war was to carry over into forcible means the pursuit of ends which one had failed to obtain by more peaceful means. At any rate, the Government cannot carry over our foreign policy into war without the assent of Dáil Éireann. Article 28 of the Constitution says:—
"War shall not be declared and the State shall not participate in any war save with the assent of Dáil Éireann."
I have indicated that this Government, any more than 99 per cent. of the Irish people, have no intention of considering getting into war. It has been indicated before by previous Governments and by this Government that the question will not even be considered by the Twenty-Six County Parliament unless we are attacked. If attacked, of course, we will resist; but, unless we are attacked, this nation will not go into war and will not consider going intowar unless and until that matter is considered by an all-Ireland Parliament. I cannot say, and nobody can say, on behalf of that Parliament, what decision it will take.
In that regard, the remarks of our Ambassador in America were adverted to here. In reply to a parliamentary question the other day, I said that the Ambassador was not reading a written statement when he made use of the words reported in our daily newspapers. The Ambassador was trying to deal with something like the attitude of Deputy Dillon, that if we are neutral we are indifferent, that if we are neutral we must be pro-Communist, that in the last war when we were neutral we had to be pro-Nazi. The Ambassador was dealing with that situation and pointing out that our people were anti-Communist, that we were not indifferent. But he stressed the fact which I have stressed to-day, which was stressed by Deputy Costello when he was Taoiseach, and by Deputy Dr. O'Higgins when he was Minister for Defence, that this country was going to be neutral and had no option. Winding up his reply to one question as to what our attitude was to N.A.T.O. and other such organisations, the Ambassador said:—
"Let us have applied to our country the democratic principle by which the majority of the whole people would decide the destinies of the people as a whole, then we would be free to take whatever attitude our people as a whole thought proper towards any pact or treaty or other international instrument of any kind."
I think I have said enough in regard to that matter. I just want to underline what the Ambassador said in the words I have quoted.
So much for our foreign policy as regards going into war or declaring war. As to what we would do if war broke out, that has been announced by our Government many years ago. It was announced by the Taoiseach, Deputy de Valera, in 1935. We said that much as we resented British injustice to Ireland and their occupation of six of our counties, we would notallow our country to be used as a base for attack on Britain. That, of course, continues to be the policy of this country and I am sure our people would thoroughly approve of it. It continues to be the policy, not alone in relation to Great Britain, but also in relation to America. But, much as we resent Partition, and even if we do not abandon our right to decide when to make war, we will not allow our country to be used as a base for attack on these countries.
I was asked what our attitude was to various international organisations, what we proposed to do about U.N.O., European co-operation and so on. Let us have a look again at the Article of the Constitution which refers to international relations. Article 29 (1) says:—
"Ireland affirms its devotion to the ideal of peace and friendly co-operation amongst nations founded on international justice and morality."
In the League of Nations and in all our international relations since, we have sought as a people to get in international relations co-operation amongst nations founded on international justice and morality. There are no other principles upon which international relations can be founded if we are to remain at peace permanently.
Much as we hear to-day about war receding into the distant future, my belief is that if the proper principles are not set out and carried into operation by the international Powers war will come sooner than later. In that regard, I believe the one thing which we can do to prepare ourselves is to build up our resources so that we can protect ourselves economically and, if the worst comes to the worst, militarily. There is a policy there which is good for our country either in peace or in war, and that is to build up our resources so that if war should come and supplies are cut off we will still be able to exist on some reasonable standard of comfort.
Clause 2 of Article 29 says:—
"Ireland affirms its adherence to the principle of pacific settlement of international disputes by international arbitration or by judicial determination."
In the past we were one of the chief advocates of that approach in the League of Nations. In more recent years we have, through the activities of our representatives on the Council of Europe, shown that we still adhere to that principle of pacific settlement of international disputes by international arbitration or judicial determination. That is the type of world we want, a world wherein there is a law which applies with equal force to the big and the small and which can be invoked should a small nation have a grievance against a large nation or should a large nation have a grievance against a small, belligerent, trouble-making nation.
Clause 3 of Article 29 says:—
"Ireland accepts the generally recognised principles of international law as its rule of conduct in its relations with other States."
Everybody knows that we do not claim to have any law made specially for us and that we are prepared to have applied to us the law applicable to other countries. On the other hand we do not hold with laws being made specially for us to drive us to do things that other countries are not prepared to do. We think that the best way in which large nations can behave is to define laws and enforce laws which they themselves are prepared to have applied to themselves.
In that connection it was my duty not so very long ago to make a protest to the representative of the Government of a very large nation because certain forces had come into the Six Counties against our will and against the will of the Irish people. He started talking to me about treaties, if you please. I took it that he was indicating that by the Treaty of 1921, to which we had agreed, and its subsequent amendment in 1925, that we were bound by that Treaty. I told him that both the Treaty and the amended Treaty were null and void, that they had no force or effect and that they had as much validity here now as something that was signed by the French Government when thatcountry was overwhelmed during the last war.
We are prepared to accept the application to us of laws made, laws applicable by a court representative of other countries equally prepared to have those laws applied to them.
Clause 4 of Article 29 says:—
"The executive power of the State in or in connection with its external relations shall be in accordance with Article 28 of this Constitution to be exercised by or on the authority of the Government."
That is well known. Article 29 (4) (2) says:—
"For the purpose of the exercise of any executive function of the State or in connection with its external relations, the Government may to such extent 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."
There was a good deal of talk about that article in relation to one matter. As we pointed out when we were invited to the Council of Europe that Article of our Constitution permits of the association and co-operation of Ireland with the countries of Europe without any amendment to our Constitution such as would be necessary in the case of many other countries if those countries wanted to act in the way in which this Article permits us to act.
I think the Irish delegations have done good work in connection with the Council of Europe. The worst of it is, that even if we only talk a little about what we have done it is regarded as boasting and it might detract from our ability to do more. The Council of Europe has done one practical thing and recommended another. It adopted the Human Rights Charter. If thereis one group responsible for the adoption of that Charter it is the Irish group. I also had the pleasure of hearing the Council of Europe claiming that its deliberations were responsible for the setting up of the European Payments Union—the one European association which has ridden all the storms of the last four or five years. That has been a success. Even those who did not hold with it have had to admit that it has been a success. It was claimed by the Council of Europe in some of its documents that it was the Irish delegation that promoted the idea in the first instance. Deputy Norton and some of the others who were at Strasbourg in 1949 will remember that the promotion by the Council of Europe consisted in my trying to get a resolution through and I could only get one vote for it. Nevertheless it is now claimed that it was in the Council of Europe that the idea of the European Payments Union was first mooted.
A few minor points were raised. Someone asked whether we were going to withdraw our application from U.N.O. That is not the Government's intention. I think it was a Fianna Fáil Government that first applied for admission to U.N.O. The application was left there by the previous Government and we have left it active since we came back into office. If we are admitted to U.N.O., we will try to play our part there, as we have done in the Council of Europe, to see that the attitude expressed in our Constitution is carried out.
Mention was made of the Green Pool. The Green Pool is not under the Council of Europe or O.E.E.C. The Green Pool assembly was collected, on the initiative of the French Government, outside the Council of Europe or O.E.E.C. We sent our Ambassador to the first meeting to explain our attitude in regard to the matter. Deputies have seen the speech which he made and there is no necessity for me to repeat it. Naturally, anything which affects agriculture, or which might affect the sale of agricultural produce, is of great interest to us. That is the reason why we were represented in the Green Pool by our Ambassador and bya representative of the Department of Agriculture.
Somebody raised the question of two gentlemen who claim they are going off to Moscow. I think I saw in the paper the names of the two gentlemen referred to. They do not hold passports from our office.
Deputy Dr. Esmonde referred to the Irish News Agency. He said that there were complaints that the news agency was fighting with private enterprise. He told me that he heard that over in England. I think that the news agency have had many conferences with Irish journalists here. So far as I am aware, they have come to very reasonable working relations with them. Of course, they are fighting against the Press Association and Reuter and other institutions of that kind, but these are private enterprise companies promoted by Britain or by some other foreign country. I do not think that the Irish News Agency can be accused of unfair play in competing against them, because these organisations are very often subsidised by other Governments.
Deputy Norton and Deputy Corish referred to a rather more important matter—the question of conscription in Britain. I think Deputy Norton is very well aware of the history of the British claim to conscript Irish people who have been living in Britain for more than two years. Before 1948, the British claimed they had a right to conscript them on the basis that they were British subjects. In 1947, when negotiations were going on in relation to the British Nationality Act which was passed in 1948, I remember distinctly that we got them to admit—in 1947—that we were no longer British subjects, that our constitutional position was such that we were not British subjects. As Deputies are aware, they insisted, however, that the status of our citizens living in Britain would be changed from that of "British subjects" to "non-aliens".
When representatives of the inter-Party Government went over to London after the repeal of the External Relations Act, one of the then Ministers—Deputy McGilligan—succeeded in having that changed to "non-foreign."The British insist that people who can be classed as "non-foreign"—our citizens, for instance—render themselves liable for conscription if they reside there for non-temporary or non-educational purposes for more than two years. The only break in that is that, for a period of six weeks after they get the call-up for medical examination, they are allowed to return home. That has been the state of affairs since 1940 when the British Military Service Act first came into operation. Our first anxiety was whether it would be applied to the Six Counties. After prolonged negotiations with the British, they very wisely agreed not to apply it to the Six Counties. Then, in 1940 or 1941, they began to apply conscription to Irish citizens living in England. As a result of protests which we made at that time, they agreed not to conscript our citizens if they were there for less than two years, or if they were there for longer than two years but could prove that they were there for nonpermanent or educational purposes. The position is by no means satisfactory. There is a question about it for answer to-morrow and I shall deal with it then.
