Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 12 Jul 1928

Vol. 10 No. 25

CONSTITUTION (AMENDMENT No. 10) BILL. - DECLARATION UNDER ARTICLE 47 OF THE CONSTITUTION.

Mr. MacLOUGHLIN

I move:—

"That it is hereby declared that the Bill entitled the ‘Constitution (Amendment No. 10) Bill, 1928,' which has this day been passed by Seanad Eireann, is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace and safety."

The passage of a resolution in these or similar terms by the Seanad is the only means of securing that the Constitution (Amendment No. 10) Bill, which has for its object the removal of Article 47 of the Constitution on the ground that this Article is undesirable and dangerous, will not be held up by virtue of the very Article which it is intended to remove. Indeed, we have had sufficient warning of the danger that exists that this course would be resorted to. The opponents of this Bill have stated their intention to use every possible method open to them to oppose the present measure. One of the courses still open to them is to endeavour to secure 62 signatories from amongst members of the Dáil to a demand which will operate to suspend the Bill for 90 days, giving them 90 days to go round the country to collect the signatures of one-twentieth of the voters on the register, and thereby to force a Referendum on the people.

We know that the principal Party in opposition to this Bill would only require to obtain five additional signatories in the Dáil to start the Article operating. We know that they have an organisation sufficiently strong to secure that five per cent. of the electorate would joyously commit the remainder to the expense and disturbance which a Referendum would entail. There is, therefore, grave reason to apprehend that unless this door is closed by the passage of the resolution on the Order Paper, the country will be faced with a Referendum on this Bill abolishing the Referendum. There will be no finality to this question. It would go on like a recurring decimal. It is because of this danger and in view of it that I ask the House to say that the immediate passage of this Bill is necessary if the public peace and safety are not to be endangered. We have all seen how public business has been consistently and openly obstructed since the introduction of these measures. We have already had an example of the devices which can be and have been resorted to to hinder and delay the work of Parliament. In the passage of this Bill through the other House there were scenes of gross disorder and a determined effort made to turn the Dáil into a bear-garden.

Is it seriously contended that the extension of these tactics to the wider sphere of the Referendum, with the greater opportunities for misrepresentation which would present themselves, with the certainty of excited appeals to the electorate upon false and dishonest issues, would not endanger the public peace? Is it seriously contended that the public safety is not endangered by attempts to delude the people into taking a course which would inevitably result in the breaking of the Treaty? The present measure was introduced, and its passing has become urgent, by reason of an attempt to do this. An attempt was made and is being persisted in to force the majority in the Oireachtas by the machinery of Article 48 of the Constitution, which this Bill deletes, to facilitate the delusion of the people into the belief that the oath of membership of the Oireachtas could be abolished without taking the consequences; that an international agreement was susceptible of alteration at the hands of either Party thereto—that the people had only got to vote for the abolition of the oath and the oath was abolished and nothing would happen, that everything in the garden would be lovely, and the last barrier to the prosperity of the country would be removed. These beliefs have been sedulously cultivated, and the fact that a campaign of this nature is on foot, and that it has been sought to utilise Article 48 in this dishonest manner should open our eyes to the danger to the Treaty that lurks in this movement, and, of course, any danger to the Treaty is a danger to the public peace. The mere fact that this present measure has been attacked along lines calculated to incite ill-will between sections of the people, and that the opportunities which a Referendum would afford would be utilised still further for this purpose, are, I think, ample grounds for declaring that the measure is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace and safety.

Mr. COUNIHAN

I second.

The PRESIDENT

If I may be permitted to intervene at this moment on the resolution before the Seanad, I should like to say that the view of the Government is that the resolution is necessary. I make that assertion not in any alarmist spirit, not to make anyone uneasy, not to indicate that there is a departure from peace and order, but simply to say that in the opinion of the Government the measure which has just passed is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace. It will be within the recollection of the Seanad that a General Election took place in June, 1927. It was a model of public decorum. Within a month we were confronted with a national tragedy. The ordinary citizen was shocked, the public was horrified. National confidence received a rude shock. Looking back over the events of the past five years we find various incidents, however in themselves detached, which evidence the presence of organised attempt to provoke disorder—having a certain political tinge, and all conceived and planned in defiance of representative government and organised authority. The sad and deplorable event of July, 1927, was not the last example of a deplorable excess.

It may be, and I feel confident the Seanad agree with me in the hope, that these incidents are the last flickering sparks of the disturbed conditions which arose early in 1922 and continued for some time in 1923. But I have no information, nor have I seen any indication, that those responsible for these periodic outrages have even now accepted the decision of the people in General Elections. The Constitution as it was before the Amending Bill was introduced contained clauses, some repugnant, some favoured, by political Parties in the State A good deal of heat is imparted by these political Parties on the various occasions they address themselves to these provisions. Exaggerated statements are made concerning them and allegations made likely to foment civil strife and commotion. In the event of this resolution not being passed these exaggerations would arouse angry passions and provoke breaches of the peace. The right of the people to decide national issues is preserved in the Constitution. I would fail in my duty as head of the Government if I did not say solemnly and sincerely that the passage of this resolution is in the interests of the immediate preservation of the public peace.

Mr. O'FARRELL

I for one am not going to vote for a resolution which I believe to be a lie. I would not be paying any compliment to the intelligence of those who moved and seconded it if I said they did not know it was not. Would it not be far better if we were bluntly told the truth in regard to this? The President said that the election in June was a model of decorum, and I think the same term might be applied largely to the election in September, in which great and passionate issues were discussed and decided. Now, in the event, the very unlikely event, of a Referendum taking place on this Bill, we are told that the whole peace of the country is going to be disturbed. It would be very much better to say we are not going to give the country the opportunity of deciding on this, and that even if we were anxious to do it we are not, after a long Parliamentary Session, going to have a Referendum on this Bill. There are many arguments one could advance in a human point of view which are not in the documents read by Senator MacLoughlin and the President. It is putting a very severe tax on the followers of the Government in this House to ask them to vote for this resolution, and make the pretence to the public and all decent persons that they are voting for something they know to be true. The resolution is not true, and if we pass it we will be passing a lie. I am not going to vote for this resolution for that reason.

Mr. DOWDALL

I wish to protest against the resolution. To my mind it is an abuse of language and an abuse of the Standing Orders of this House as regards the phrase that it "is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace and safety." It is nothing whatever of the kind. Senator MacLoughlin, in moving the resolution, said that we were to be in fear and trembling lest perchance a Party in the other House, which is opposed to this measure, might by any possible chance get five hundred signatures. What if they did? Are not the elected representatives of the people to exercise their right of judgment in signing against this Bill, if they think it proper to do so? Personally I do not think they are likely to do it. But when we are told seriously here, and in a manner which is an insult to the intelligence of every one of us, that this is to preserve a democratic feature of the Constitution and to enable people to have sound, stable and fixed government, that is not true. As a result of the last election, it is well to bear it in mind as between the two larger Parties in the State, the figures were 61 elected for the Government Party and 55 elected in opposition to it. That is not counting the Independents or the Labour representatives, and when the Government speak as if they were the sole monopolists of the goodwill and good wish of this country they know it is not true to say that this Bill must be rushed through. To say that such constitutional safeguards as are in the Constition should not be availed of is an insult to the intelligence of the House.

Dr. GOGARTY

One may be allowed to inquire into the mentality which seeks to retain the Referendum and to prevent this motion from passing. If anyone could persuade me that the preservation of the Referendum was to serve democratic principles and to maintain stability in the country I should have been very loath to oppose it. But when one thinks that every pettifogging subterfuge, every instrument that can be made to contradict itself in the Constitution, which had to be drawn up in order to put in writing the broadest issues of the Treaty; when one sees that is done to defeat stability and to obliterate not alone the Constitution but the Treaty itself, then the sooner the Constitution is rid of these stultifying elements the better, and it is high time to examine not alone the mentality but the personality of the people who have been so extraordinary solicitous for the retention of the Referendum: It is the usual attitude of the people who have been suppressed for a very long time, the attitude of the meaner part of the people, an attitude towards law and security in a form that is concentrated in the bootlegger towards the laws of the United States. That is what one might have where there has been slavery for a very long time. Slaves associate every Government, even there own, with an enemy act. They consider that stability can only be British, and that if we have a Government in Ireland we should resist it in every way, and oppose it and upset it merely because for centuries and generations the British stood for law in this country. There is never to be the outlook where the law can come from ourselves or themselves. The resistance they show to their own laws is a kind of re-action to any form of liberty. When you consider the men whose devastating political career from petrol to perjury who are behind the resistance to this motion there is not a single word to be said for their attitude except the forgetfulness and ignorance of the country. I think that dealing with them is more a matter for the Education Minister than for Senator Dowdall blaming the outrage on his intelligence. What is wanted is political and economic education for the people to neutralise the stupefying effect of the cosmopolitan intermediate system. If we had economic education in all the local National Schools we would never have the spectacle that has presented itself. The United States has a written Constitution. The British Constitution, which is not written, may be arbitrary where there are interests at stake. It is lamentable that our Constitution had to be written, but it had to be written so that the terms of the Treaty could be included. People have been deliberately humbugging by pretending that in the Referendum are terms of reference by which you can get rid of the oath. It would be far honester for them to say that to get rid of the oath is to get rid of the Treaty. If there was less fomenting of contention by those who stand for what is called Republicanism there would be less emigration and more security in the Irish Free State. It would be better to get the people to understand that they can evolve their own laws and change them than to be indulging in slogans and catch-cries on the rights of the people. The whole issue is an economic and financial one. This country is on the western seaboard of Europe, and apart from the springs of European civilisation, and so you have people here still capable of being humbugged.

Sir JOHN KEANE

With reference to the statement of the President, I, for one, have been a consistent, if reluctant supporter, of measures to maintain public safety. I have considered all along it is essential to act swiftly and surely in matters of public safety. Behind the President's speech I see the shadow of the Public Safety Act and the spectre of the gunman and if I believed those were realities at present, if I really believed that those dangers are likely to arise owing to failure to pass this resolution, I certainly would not vote against it, but I do not believe anything of the kind. I do not like to suggest that the President is trying to make our flesh creep. I think if he really believes that he justifies what Senator Linehan said some time ago, that the Government were acting in a panicky manner on this question. I wish those were the real reasons for promoting this resolution. Yesterday the President attempted a pleasantry at my expense when he said that I thanked God I was not as other men are. I took the trouble this morning to verify the text, for I generally find a lurking fallacy in most parables. I find that I was the pharisee and he was the publican. The pharisee in those days was a hypocritical person who made a pretence and show. The publican was not the publican of to-day but the tax-gatherer of a foreign power, an agent of the Romans dominating over the Jews, but in practice none of these analogies will bear close examination. In fact I should rather suggest that the tables should be turned and that the hypocrites are those who are going to vote for this resolution, and that in their hearts they believe it is not necessary in the interests of the preservation of public peace and safety. They know it is not, and I pity them. I pity the position of degradation to which they have been brought by the operation of the Party machine. That is all it is; the party machine drawing them along and they have been unable to escape, like Sisyphus. This reminds me of Potsdam, in 1914 and the specious policy that "Necessity knows no law." That is what is written over this resolution—reluctance to trust the country— fear of public opinion. According to the President we should trust the people. This resolution is invoked in a totally different and, I venture to say, dishonest spirit.

It comes badly from the Senator who moved this resolution and who talked about false and dishonest methods that are going to be employed if this Resolution does not pass. Heavens alive! I hold no brief for these people. I feel as anxious as anybody for the preservation of the Treaty, not merely in the letter but in the spirit, in its inward and outward forms. But I do not believe for one moment the Treaty is in jeopardy or the Oath if this resolution is not passed. I think the only thing in jeopardy is the security of parties. The only peace concerned is the peace of darkness, the peace of the ostrich who hides its head in the sand and thinks it is not seen. The President in talking of stability said "Can we not trust the people. Cannot we be satisfied with the Government in power and accept their good sense." The precedent this resolution affords makes me seriously alarmed for our future stability. This resolution is nothing but sharp practice, which sets an example to the other people, who will always go one better. That is the danger. There is ample precedent for things we loath and detest in the action we see taken to-day. It is for that reason I stand up with all sincerity to protest against the solemn farce we are about to enact. I feel it is nothing more than part and parcel of a political vendetta. It is not good. You are not giving your Constitution a fair chance. It is taking a short view, trying to suppress, trying to sit on the safety valve of a boiler. The only thing it does is to drive them underground and make them worse, and in those circumstances for every blow given two are returned. Senator Gogarty referred to the British Constitution. A British Poet Laureate spoke of freedom broadening down from precedent to precedent, but what I say is this example is, it is freedom narrowing down from precedent to precedent.

Mr. LINEHAN

In dealing with this matter I have to ask myself the question whether there would be more excitement by a Referendum than there would be by a General Election, or whether it is more likely that the peace would be disturbed by taking the Referendum than by a General Election. I cannot understand the arguments that have been put forward—they were unconvincing to me—by Senator MacLoughlin, the President and Senator Gogarty. I cannot see any grounds for believing that the Referendum cannot be as peacefully taken as a General Election. For that reason, and because I wish to have that truth that we asked for at the commencement of our proceedings prevailing, I certainly could not bring myself to vote for a resolution in which I do not believe there is any truth.

Question put.

The Seanad divided: Ta, 25; Níl. 7.

Tá

• T. Westropp Bennett.
• William Barrington.
• Sir Edward Bellingham.
• Sir Edward Coey Bigger.
• P.J. Brady.
• Samuel L. Brown, K.C.
• Mrs. Costello.
• John C. Counihan.
• The Dowager Countess of Desart.
• James Dillon.
• Michael Fanning.
• Dr. O. St. J. Gogarty.
• James P. Goodbody.
• Right Hon. Andrew Jameson.
• Patrick W. Kenny.
• Francis MacGuinness.
• James MacKean.
• John MacLoughlin.
• General Sir Byran Mahon.
• James Moran.
• Sir Walter Nugent.
• Joseph O'Connor.
• Michael F. O'Hanlon.
• Bernard O'Rourke.
• W.B. Yeats.

Níl

• William Cummins.
• J.C. Dowdall.
• Thomas Farren.
• Sir John Keane.
• Thomas Linehan.
• John T. O'Farrell.
• Siobhán Bean an Phaoraigh.

Motion declared carried.

The Seanad adjourned at 5 o'clock to Wednesday, July 18th.