It relates to External Affairs to the extent that I am submitting the Minister and the Government had a guilty conscience. They could not easily charge the people in Northern Ireland with offences of which they themselves were partially guilty.
In relation to the motion standing in our name, the action of the Minister for External Affairs did not surprise me at all. It did not surprise a number of my colleagues that the Minister would be a party to the suppression of material facts that, in justice, should have been mentioned. The fact that they jump from 1923, when we joined the League of Nations, to 1933 implied that they made application to join. Unless you read it carefully, you would believe that they applied to the League of Nations, and in a short time afterwards, Mr. de Valera became President of the League. In 1923, I was a Deputy and an Army officer. I know the circumstances in which it was proposed to make application for membership to the League of Nations. I am aware that the then Leader of the Opposition outside the House— they were members of the House but not in it—sent a telegram of protest to the Secretary-General of the League of Nations demanding that we not be admitted. But the big point was that under no circumstances should the Treaty of 1921 be registered as an international instrument. The argument was that if such registration took place it would bind us for all time. We argued in this House at that time that that was not so, that the purpose was to put it on an international plane. All credit to Mr. Cosgrave and his Government of that day. They succeeded in having that registration take place.
I am happy to say that the advice of the then international law adviser to the League of Nations was given to me at that time on Lake Geneva with our representative in Geneva, who was not recognised, the late Mr. MacWhite. I carried that memorandum back from Geneva to the President of the Executive Council, Mr. Cosgrave. It was a big mistake on the part of the Minister for External Affairs that he did not include the telegram he sent protesting against our admission to the League of Nations. It would be an historical document of great importance. They made it a matter of grave importance at that time. Ladies went up and down with placards protesting against our entry into the League of Nations. We took the Presidency of the League of Nations in 1933, but we do not give any credit or thanks or mention the names of those who made that possible. I do not want to denigrate anything Mr. de Valera did, and I have no intention of doing so. I assert, however, that when a Deputy of the Fianna Fáil Party can say in this House that they wrote this book to suit themselves at the taxpayers' expense, it is an outrage on all public decency.
I wish to deal now with the omission of Griffith and Collins. I will accept what the Taoiseach said the other day—that this State was founded in 1919—but who was responsible for its establishment in 1919? Who was the father of Sinn Féin who established the principle of remaining at home here and establishing an Irish Parliament? Who stood down in the interests of unity from the Presidency of the Sinn Féin organisation in 1917? Arthur Griffith. Who worked here in poverty and hardship for Ireland when he could, if he wanted, have secured a good remuneration that would have allowed him and his family to live in very comfortable circumstances? He is not to be mentioned.
When the Dáil was established and when the then Prime Minister was in the United States, from 1919 to 1921 Arthur Griffith carried on the Premiership until he was arrested. When he was arrested, who then carried on the Premiership? Michael Collins. Not only did he carry on the Premiership and control of the Government, but he was also Minister for Finance; he was the Director of Intelligence, he was the co-ordinator of all activities within the enemy ranks that could be to our advantage. Yet he is to be ignored. When the Minister for External Affairs, in green trousers and green socks, can get a whole big photograph in this book, I cannot understand why four lines could not have been given to Collins and Griffith or to the fact that there was a Government from 1922 to 1932. In my opinion, the green socks the Minister had on were the green socks of the Army uniform in which he served to September, 1922. The Minister for External Affairs, as he is now, was then an Army officer, the same as myself, accepting the Treaty.