I think not in that respect. Two points of view have been expressed on the Report, one by Senator Johnson and afterwards by Senator O'Farrell, and a different point of view expressed by Senator O'Doherty. These points of view were as different as they could well be. Before discussing them I want to make clear my position with regard to all these Conferences. I accept what Senator Brown said at the beginning and what was said afterwards by Senator O'Farrell, that the Treaty at election after election has been ratified by the people of this country. I have, therefore, no mandate from the people to try and break the Treaty. Never at any time have I gone to Conferences with the idea in my mind to attempt a breach of the Treaty. But I did go across to Conferences over and over again to make sure that the status we claimed as inherent in the Treaty settlement was definitely shown to be there. I claim to have succeeded in that. But whatever I desired to achieve at those Conferences was limited by this, that there was no question of attempting to break the Treaty. The Treaty was accepted, but there were certain clauses subject to different interpretations founded upon the point of status which we recognised as a growing thing. We wanted to see that the full fruit should be got from the Treaty. Senator Johnson accepts that generally as the position. Senator O'Doherty and others do not.
Senator Johnson raised a point that I have already dealt with in a general way. He expressed a hope that the Seanad would have the point of view that this State is bound only by such legislation as is enacted here. I definitely take that point of view, that no legislation other than the legislation enacted here is binding on this country. But as to what is now happening I put this analogy before the House because I think it will be present to most people's minds. I mentioned it earlier this year when I brought forward for ratification a trade treaty with Germany. Consequent on that treaty I brought forward an amendment to a certain piece of law that was, or could have been presumed to be, upon our Statute Book as part of the old trading-with-the-enemy code. When the treaty with Germany was being make disturbing deductions as to German Government said to us that even if that particular piece of law was not effective in practice in this country it had however been gripped as law by Article 73 of the Constitution. They asked that it be taken out lest it might affect them. They asked to have it removed so that there would then be a clear-cut situation. They were not bothered about the implication that by repealing it we argued its previous existence, and from its presence on our Statute Book theorists might go on to make disturbing deductions as to whether or not we were one of the Allies fighting against the Central Powers. They made little of implications—in their anxiety for practical results they asked to have it taken away and we took it away.
Was that a request from the German Parliament that we should pass legislation binding them? It certainly will affect them in the sense that we took away something that previously might have affected them. Can it be described as anything more than that?
Can what we are discussing now be described as anything more than this: that the British are going to take off their Statute Book, for reasons arising out of a certain Conference, certain bits of legislation which judges might rule to be in operation against certain Dominions? Some Senators have asked what will be the result if approval be not requested by Governments. The result will be, if this Government fails to join with the other Dominions in asking the British to take off their Statute Book certain legislation which affects certain of the Dominions, that the Statute will not be passed. I think it is quite certain that it will not be passed. What, then, will the situation be hereafter?
So far in certain newspapers we have been represented as the prime movers for the disruption of the Commonwealth, the people who at every point are supposed to be leading towards the disruption of the Commonwealth of Nations. If we do not join in this request these newspapers will have the dissatisfaction of seeing us paraded before the next Imperial Conference as the folk who prevented the other Dominions from getting something which they ardently desired. The Parliaments of the other Dominions have debated this and made the necessary request, or are about to forward the required resolutions. We alone remain, and failure on our part may wreck the scheme.
Senator Johnson was good enough to say that he felt that a good deal of the 1926 Report had gone by the board. I hope he will agree with the amendment that I would make to his statement, that a great deal of those parts of the Report of the 1923 Conference which he then regarded with suspicion have gone by the board. The parts which he would regard as good have remained and are being fully implemented.
As regards a very small academic point concerning the negotiation of Treaties, the Senator was good enough to confess that when the 1926 Report was discussed previously he had his doubts—he felt that there was somewhere about it an atmosphere of British Empire policy in regard to Treaties. As a result of the changes since made, he says that he sees now that the suspicions he had at that time were unfounded. In connection with either the 1926 or 1929 Report I want any Senator to point out where suspicions he may have held with regard to them have proved to be founded. I do not at all disagree with the idea that when conventions and reports of conferences come before the House that members should be extremely vigilant in looking into them to see that nothing harmful or retrograding gets through but they might learn a little from the past. I would expect this, that having given rein to their suspicions, and finding later that nothing had happened, they might at any rate confess, "Our suspicions have proved to be unfounded, and we have more confidence in the people working on our behalf."
The Senator referred to a view held with regard to the status achieved under the Treaty, that the Treaty merely stereotyped the Canadian position as it stood at a particular moment. That may be an interesting legal view, but it is a view that is of no interest to this country until people attempt to assert it and work through it against this country. At that moment those people will realise that is not the Treaty that we passed. A Treaty containing that limited status would never be passed in this country. We can leave that until we find that it is seriously held.
The Senator has referred to other points in the Report—Defence, Singapore, Whaling, and the Antarctic. I ask Senators not to bother about these things. I am concentrating on Part Six, and I am asking the Seanad not to bring anything into the discussion that is not in that Part of the Report, For the rest, I ask them to read the Report carefully and to see where any recommendation is made which affects this country, and to say whether they agree or disagree with it. Then let them find out what effect can be given to any of these recommendations without legislation. If legislation is required they have the guardianship since nothing can be done until legislation is introduced, and on that they have the whole control. Small points can be discussed as each piece of legislation comes before the House. The main item that does arise in this discussion is Part Six, because that does not depend on our legislation, though on certain matters referred to in Part Six legislation of ours still to be passed will have a connection. We would have to pass these in any event, and the inter-action of this Report on such pieces of legislation can be discussed when they are introduced.
In connection with the discipline of armed forces, a point as to the meaning of consent has been raised. May I in reply refer to the Report where it deals with this matter. It says:—
"It is assumed that all Governments will desire to take such action as may be necessary to secure (1) that the military discipline of any of the armed forces of the Commonwealth when present, by consent, within territory of another, rests upon a statutory basis, and (2) that there shall be no period of time during which the legal basis of military discipline could on any ground be impeached."
But it adds—and this should be stressed:—
"The method by which the above two objects can best be attained must necessarily be a matter for the Governments themselves."
Senators who want to argue about what consent means will have their opportunity when legislation to give statutory effect to that particular recommendation comes along. You are binding yourself to nothing by passing this motion except this, but you are accepting this: that if, with our consent, any forces of a part of the Commonwealth come here, they shall be governed by their own code of military discipline while here with our consent. If we send a horse-jumping team to Olympia, so far as the members of it misconduct themselves in any way, they shall be governed by their own military code and not by the ordinary civil code of England. That is the principle, and when it comes to be given statutory effect we will be able to discuss the incidentals.
Senator Johnson told us—and he was fortified by Senator O'Farrell—what their attitude on the whole Treaty position was. I do not want to refer to what he said with regard to the past, because I think the Senator made that clear on more than one occasion. He said that the idea of his Party was that the Treaty was accepted and should be kept until such time as either social, national, or economic growth required a change. Can anybody say that that is limiting the march of this nation? Can anybody say that I as a member of the Government, or any other member of the Government, have by this Report set a limit to the march of this nation? Let us hear the Opposition point of view as expressed by Senator O'Doherty. He felt that Senator Johnson's speech was ludicrous, because in its fundamentals it was very different from the Senator's. He said it was laughable to hear Senator Johnson's point of view. Then he brought us to the heart of things. According to Senator O'Doherty, the Parliament of this country owes its existence to a British Statute because, according to him, there were Articles of Agreement implemented by a British Act of Parliament. So it is to a British Act that the Senator owes his position as a Senator. Do all the members of the Senator's Party sit here because their positions are assured to them by a British Act of Parliament? Do they not think they are founded upon the expression of some part of the will of the people of this country? Does their position depend entirely on the fact that there were Articles of Agreement, and that that Treaty was implemented only by a British Act of Parliament? Do they take up the position that was taken up in the other House by members of that Party, that the true Government of this country lies outside of the Oireachtas, or what is the position? Senator O'Doherty is aghast that this "sovereign" Parliament invites another Parliament to make laws for it. Not in this Report. It invites another sovereign Parliament to take certain things off its Statute Book. It invites it to pass no legislation for this country, and never did. Merely putting this Report before the House, according to the Senator, indicates that the British Parliament in London is supreme in the British Empire. If that Report can be read with any understanding by the Seanad, Senators will see that whatever might have been the position in the past, it indicates that for the future the whole idea of supremacy throughout the Empire has disappeared, and this marks the end of that epoch. So far is the bringing of the Report of that Conference before this Parliament from arguing any subserviency to the British Parliament, that it absolutely demonstrates how completely any element of subserviency has disappeared.
If we pass the motion the Senator is afraid that there is going to be a rigid Constitution. He wonders are we going to be tied up with regard to matters of common concern, defence and a common judiciary? Senator Connolly let his imagination roam, and saw quotas for the Navy, quotas for the Army, and quotas of imports and exports. I cannot attend to that sort of calculation unless I am directed to some paragraph in the Report from which it is demonstrable that this rigidity and these quotas are emerging. Then I will deal with it. You cannot minister to a mind diseased, and the mind diseased with bogies is the one least of all subject to any sort of cure. Where is there anything that any of these diseased minds can lean on in the Report, to show quotas for the Navy, quotas for the Army, quotas with regard to imports or exports or a common judiciary? They are not there, and it is only imagination that conjures them in there.
Senator O'Doherty dealt with the King in relation to this country. Senator Johnson more accurately described the position of the King in this country. "A legislative shadow." One does not like using that phrase, because it will be written up as if there was a tinge of contempt in it. I do not want any contempt or slight to be read into my phrase. I am speaking accurately of the relationship of the King to Irish affairs. It is such that he cannot act except on the advice of Irish Ministers, and Irish Ministers cannot advise him, except on Irish affairs. That is as clear cut as a thing can be. If Senators like to put the phrase "cypher" or "shadow" upon that situation they can. It is the constitutional situation. Senator O'Doherty asked "Why send men to their death for cyphers?" As between the King in that position, and the President of a Republic in exactly the same position, there is no reason why one single drop of blood should be shed.
Two developments happened this year. I call them of minor importance, but to the constitutional lawyer they indicate a certain tendency and how far that tendency goes. In the course of our various discussions and examinations of the relationship between this country and Great Britain we came on several small anomalies. One of these was raised by some text book, where it was argued that because a document was sealed in a particular way, it could be said to be sealed under the authority of a British Secretary of State. We thought it better to attack that situation. The argument ran this way: The seal is in the possession of a particular Secretary of State, and can only be released on a warrant issued in a particular way. It could, therefore, be said that, as long as a British Secretary of State controls the stamping of certain documents, say in Treaty making, in that way a British Minister controls whether you make a Treaty or not.
We know, for we had it asserted to us that there was no control in that. The seals, we know, would be released as often as required. We thought however that as a permanent situation it was not good and we urged that we should have seals of our own, kept under our own control, and issued for the stamping of documents when we said they should be issued. That proposition was accepted, and the seals will come into being one of these days.
There was a second point raised, that because, when certain matters had to be communicated to the King, the old channel of the Dominion Office was used, it could be said the channel of communication was capable of being blocked and that a Dominion Secretary, carrying to the King the advice of an Irish Ministry, might change and distort it. Although we knew that such a fear was fantastic and the danger most remote we claimed the right of direct access and advice, and that was granted. All these are small things in themselves, but important from the angle of constitutional development. Digging into history will throw up certain anomalous things from time to time. These were not of sufficient importance to raise them as extreme matters in any extreme way at an Imperial Conference, but when they were raised they were met at once, and have helped to establish the clearest situation with regard to the King and his attitude towards Irish affairs.
Senator O'Farrell when stating his attitude to the Treaty asked what the alternative was. I asked that question last week of the leaders of Fianna Fáil. I pointed out that three speeches, full of as much vehemence as Senator O'Doherty had in his to-day, had been delivered, and that, in two of them, there had been a swerving away from the use of the word "republic," and that when the third speaker used it he used it in the phrase, "The republic that was to be established ultimately if people can do it." I asked what was the present attitude of that Party in respect to the republic which, we used to be told, was to be declared at once when certain people were empowered by the people of the country to act as a Government. I pointed out that we had been told over and over again that there were certain marks of the non-existence of the republic, and that we could segregate, from speeches of the Fianna Fáil people, five items as marks of the non-existence of the republic: the oath, the King, the Governor-General, the Six-County situation, and the fact of certain troops being in certain parts of the country. I asked if any of these was going to be advanced upon if and when the Fianna Fáil Party was empowered to form a Government, and I could get no answer. I am wondering if I can get an answer here. What is their policy?