Seanad Éireann debate -
Friday, 16 Oct 1931

Vol. 14 No. 33

Constitution (Amendment No. 17) Bill, 1931—Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That this Bill be now read a second time."

The President

In view of the very short time which will be allowed for the discussion of this measure, I do not propose to delay the Seanad at any length. It is within the knowledge of most people throughout the country that many acts of intimidation, many attempts at assassination and assassinations themselves, have occurred in the country during the last twelve months. The ordinary law, which, normally speaking, ought to be in a position to deal with the matter, has proved ineffective. One of the most prized institutions in this or any other country, trial by jury, has been attacked by a conspiracy which is in existence in this country, not alone for the overthrow of the State, but for the subversion of ordered conditions of civilisation and of any attempt to govern by democratic means. That is a serious menace. Apart altogether from such heinous crimes as the assassinations I have referred to, apart from the attacks upon individuals, which have been numerous—that is, attempted assassinations — apart from the attacks on prisons or prison warders, apart altogether from the activities of particular organisations engaged in this conspiracy, we have had within the last few months an attempt to found and to propagate through the country another organisation which apparently had its roots in another country, and which boasts quite openly of its attempt to achieve by revolutionary means the objects which are set out by the organisation.

For something like 50 or 60 years there has been in the mouths of patriotic Irishmen all over the world from the first time they were pronounced in a court the salutation "God Save Ireland." The Irish translation of that saying is, "A Dhia Saor Eire." This new organisation has taken out the Dia, leaving the two words Saor Eire. From that fact the Seanad and the people of this country can draw their own conclusions. This is the first time in this country that any attempt has been made openly and blatantly to carry out the activities of an organisation without invoking the aid and the assistance of Almighty God. This conspiracy is something which will have to be dealt with and would have to be dealt with by any Government, leaving out of consideration for the moment all questions of politics, political parties and the various divisions that there are in the country. At long last it comes down to this, that representatives of the people in their Parliament must select an Executive, and upon that Executive is laid the responsibility of enforcing the law, order, government, liberty, and all the rest of it. To that end various institutions have been set up in this State, founded upon the most democratic principles and appealing to all lovers of liberty—true liberty, liberty under God and under God's law to carry out whatever orders and whatever statutes the Parliament and the people may decide. It does not matter what Government is in power. Upon that institution, however composed—of whatever men and of whatever political party—there will rest the responsibility in the first and last degree of ensuring to the people of the country liberty, and liberty without licence. These organisations have taken to themselves all authority and power to enforce their will upon unarmed people.

That is where the first weakness or infirmity was found in our Constitution. We had provision for dealing with peaceful conditions, institutions set up under the State to deal with crime and offences against the laws of the State and so on. Once an attack was made on those institutions an attempt was made on the Oireachtas. Remember it is not the Government which passes laws. There are some apparently who have the idea that these are the Government's laws. They are the laws of the Oireachtas, of the two Houses of Parliament set up by the people of the country, and it is they and they alone have the right to determine who shall represent them, what are the laws that they want and what are the conditions under which they wish to live.

At this period in our history, when every State in the world without exception is groaning under economic difficulties the like of which has never been known in the world's history, when ordered conditions ought to prevail, when every effort should be made by every law-abiding citizen to build up his country, the whole work of this State is held up by a crowd of people who posture as nationalists, who pose as patriots, and who act in contravention of the law of the State, the law of God, and every law which any democratic State could set up.

To deal with that situation we have produced a Bill. It is a Bill of far-reaching power and authority. It seeks to deal out justice to those who offend against the State's laws. It gives greater freedom to the person charged with an offence than any of the victims or any of the possible victims of the conspiracy which I am denouncing to-day. This is a period in which every citizen in the State who values his conscience or his soul or his country ought to respond to the call of country first, to the call of the best dictates of democratic Government, and to the call of nationality in order that our name as a nation may not be a byword amongst nations.

I presume it is unnecessary for me to recapitulate the various attacks which have been made on individuals, the short shrift which was afforded in the first remarkable instance here of the murder of a Superintendent of the Gárda Síochána. What institution is meant when we say the Gárda Síochána? That is an institution set up by the State for the protection of the citizens and of their rights, to ensure the detection of criminals, and to ensure every law necessary for ordered conditions and for the progress of society. This Superintendent was shot down for "exceeding his duty." That is the description that is blatantly and publicly given in one of the publications which emanate from the authors of this conspiracy. They glorify the fact that he has been shot for "exceeding his duty." An interview given by one of these men stated that the C.I.D. are employed and paid to do their duty and they have no grudge or ill-will against them. Why? Because a grudge or ill-will against them postulates an attack on them. Why are they not attacked? Because they are armed. This is practically an unarmed State without this Bill. We propose to arm it in defence of the rights and liberties of the people, and we ask the Seanad, in the name of God, to give this power, not to this Executive alone, but to any Executive bearing responsibility for government in this country.

Mr. O'Doherty

I am going to ask the Seanad to refuse a Second Reading to this Bill. I am going to ask them not to be blindfolded by the use of very choice phrases by the President of the Executive Council. Democratic Government coming from him means a different thing to the definition of democratic government that this country lived up to through the ages, but especially from 1916 to 1921. I charge the President of the Executive Council with the responsibility for much of the turmoil that is in this country at present, because of the bad example that he gave in the exercise of functions placed in him democratically by the people of the country.

In 1919 the most democratic Government that ever assembled in Ireland met in this city of Dublin. It declared its form of government, namely a republic or a free Ireland, claiming that the de jure right of exercising the functions of government resided within it, and that these functions should be exercised from the centre to the sea. From 1919, through a reign of terror unequalled in this or in any other civilised country, our people stood behind that Government, giving to it, as no people ever gave a Government in this or any other age, such loyalty and devotion, such magnificent services, as should stand to the credit of our people for all time and to all democratic peoples as an example of liberty-loving citizens. That Government endeavoured to exercise its de facto functions. It was thwarted by a foreign Power. It was met by whatever forces that Power could muster and as a result a war was waged against external forces, against the British Empire, which culminated in December, 1921, in the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between this country and Great Britain.

These Articles of Agreement for a Treaty did not embody the full principles of liberty and nationality which were enshrined in the annals of our people throughout the ages, but unfortunately they were accepted by a small majority of the elected representatives of the people. Following that acceptance we reached probably the most momentous stage of our history when the average man could read the writing on the wall that old comrades were about to hurl themselves at each other's throats over the merits or demerits of that document called the Treaty. The Government was split, the administrative offices of that Republic were split, the Army itself was split, and the people were split, because of the recognition or non-recognition of a new policy enunciated, namely, that through that Treaty we would gain a new liberty, that we would gain recognition of the Republic democratically established and that we would march forward without any difficulty and without further bloodshed to a realisation of the nation's dream. But a civil war became so imminent that the elected representatives of the people, through pressure brought to bear on them by the national organisations on the one hand, by peaceful-loving citizens on the other hand, not up to then connected with any organisation, by the custodians of the moral laws in this country, the heads of the various religious sects were called together to formulate some programme and some method, and the responsibility was thrown upon the republican representatives of finding some way out of the morass, some manner or means by which civil strife, the greatest curse that could visit any country, could be prevented. To the credit of the leaders and to the credit of the public representatives of the period such a way out was found—at least it was thought it was found. A Pact election was called.

That Pact election, mark you, in 1922 was called not by the Provisional Government afterwards set up under the Treaty, not by the Parliament of Southern Ireland, not on a writ of the British House of Commons, but on the definite writ of the Republic of Ireland. The representatives, men who held different views on the merits or demerits of the Treaty, anti-Treatyites and pro-Treatyites, standing on the same platform, appealed to the people to throw upon them in a democratic manner the responsibility of maintaining peace, order and good government, which is prayed for here in this Assembly. The people of Ireland responded to that call, and at the Pact election 75 per cent. of the elected representatives were given a mandate to maintain peace in Ireland and to avoid civil strife. But before that Parliament elected by the people could meet, civil war had broken out, and I say here and now by and with the authority of the British Government. The first principles of democratic government were trampled under foot by the present President of the Executive Council of the so-called Free State and his followers. They refused the mandate given to them by the people of Ireland. They prevented the Parliament of Ireland meeting and deciding the ways and means whereby civil strife could be obviated and peace and government maintained. Then the President comes to talk to us here glibly of democratic government and the moral law and the God-given moral right of the people. Not content with smashing up that effort on the part of the people to guarantee the prevention of civil war, not content with preventing the elected representatives of the people meeting, the President and his associates who now profess such a magnificent love for justice, who now appeal to you for the sanctity of the courts and the administration of the law also at the time tore down the courts set up by the Government of the people of Ireland without reason or without cause. There is an example of a love of justice that resides in the hearts of these people who are responsible for this latest measure of coercion for the Irish nation.

The President, in a rather debating society manner, has discovered that the new Communistic organisation has left out the word "Dia." Well, for all the organisations that leave out the word "Dia," the President of the Executive Council makes up for; he can scarcely close a door without calling on the name of God. He and his colleagues had an opportunity of writing the name of God in a place that would have demanded the respect of all our people and the name of God was not written there by the President of the Executive Council and his colleagues. That is in the alleged free Constitution of the so-called Free State. Let us get away from all cant. Let us see where we really are. Let us see where we are going. The young brilliant Minister for External Affairs is here listening to the debate. I am glad he is here. On the last occasion when the Minister for Finance took advantage of a clause in the Constitution which I believe was inserted there without any reason or at least without any hope which would provide an opportunity for the Minister to come and propagandise in favour of a particular Party or a particular Bill, I reminded the Minister and the Seanad that it would be well if our young and able Minister for External Affairs would devote some little of his time and energy to try and preserve peace among the people of Ireland instead of among foreigners who have at the moment nothing at all to do with this country.

We are committed to the expenditure of money for the maintenance of order and good government and the elimination of arms and force as factors amongst the free peoples in the world. The only peace the Irish people can lay claim to is the peace of the tomb following coercion. We are called on to pass this Bill, which not only is a measure of coercion, but in my opinion it is asking you to put your name to a death sentence, not merely on the names that are in the Bill, but on any man and woman in Ireland who dare lift their voices to say this country is not politically free, that this Assembly is not a Sovereign Assembly. Our nation was not designed by God to be governed by two puppet parliaments. The line should not have been drawn straight across Ireland in an irregular fashion from the north-east to the south-west leaving the most northerly part in what is called Southern Ireland —this was an arbitrary arrangement of territory made by Lloyd George and those in the country who feared the puckering of his brow—but by a more arbitrary finger, the finger that has written our coast line. That is the boundary we want and the people within that shall always, regardless of all the coercive measures, regardless of the Public Safety Bill, regardless of the efforts of this Executive, with outside or inside help or aid want that geographical boundary.

That is the geographical boundary that should be cherished by our people and the sovereign rights that should be cherished by our people are the sovereign rights of the whole people of Ireland. We ask you not to consider in any way from a party point of view this Bill. We have pointed out to you in the discussions which took place already on the motion for closure, on the motion proposed by Senators Wilson and O'Rourke, the methods that are being adopted to put through this measure in such a short time as to prevent due consideration of this Bill and all its sections.

With respect to the Chair, I will emphasise that this Bill so placed before us was being discussed in this Assembly and that it, or at least its implications were actually an hour under discussion before this Assembly was notified that the Cathaoirleach had a certified copy of the Bill in his possession. I will emphasise now and always that even now when we know that the certified copy is in the hands of the Cathaoirleach that there is not a member of this Assembly at the present time in this House who can get up and say that he has seen a certified copy.

The Bill arrives in our hands the morning after the Committee Stage has been passed in the Dáil. What is the usual course? We are interested in two stages of any Bill that is introduced. When we wish to devote any time or energy to its consideration, we read the first or initial draft and find out the objections to it. We may or may not read the amendments embodied on the Committee Stage but we do look forward to the final draft as passed by Dáil Eireann. I repeat that that final draft has not been placed in our hands. We were limited this morning, we were limited at 3 o'clock to-day and we are limited now in the consideration of this measure, passed by Dáil Eireann an hour before this Assembly sat. I am not appealing to you as a member of a political group. I want to point out that you are hurling the word "murder" across at our Party and our Party are hurling the word "murder" across at your Party, while the remnants of a Party who sit here having no connection with the Gael, belonging to the Gall, smilingly walk into the division lobbies to vote for a measure which will consolidate imperialism in this country. I say as an Irishman to Irishmen—I leave the others out—that this Bill if it becomes law will bring in its train bloodshed. The President of the Executive Council, the Minister for External Affairs and the other Ministers can translate them, as they translated Deputy de Valera's statement in Tipperary in 1921, as meaning war. Every man with his eyes open knows that the translation of this Act into fact and the endeavour to put this oppressive measure into operation will, undoubtedly, have its repercussion in force——

Dr. Gogarty

Give us your alternative.

Mr. O'Doherty

The alternative is this: Let us approach this matter as Irishmen. Let us approach it as a problem which concerns us all, from the national point of view, and from no other point of view. Let us see whether this Assembly in which we sit possesses in its Constitution anything which, at the moment, is debarring other Irishmen from accepting it or coming in to discuss matters. Let us consider all the clauses of our Constitution which are sacrosanct. The liberty of the people, which is being overthrown by this Bill, was supposed to be sacrosanct. That is a very beautiful subject for fine phrases from the President of the Executive Council and his confreres. But there are other clauses of the Constitution which are sacrosanct. What are they? Allegiance to the British King and an oath to a foreign power. The late Minister for Justice told you that you dare not alter a comma of these clauses, but the fundamentals, which have so much concern for the Irish people, can be washed aside. I ask you to let stand those provisions for representative democratic institutions, those provisions appertaining to the liberty of the subject and to examine the others. But you dare not lest you offend England. Alter these other provisions. Wipe away the Oath of Allegiance. Wipe away the Governor-General and all his chattels. Senators may smile. In 1921, some of us were associated with the discussion connected with the so-called Treaty or Articles of Agreement. One argument put forward then by a then headquarters staff man of the I.R.A., who now holds a very responsible position in the Free State police force—an argument for the acceptance of the Treaty—ought to bring a blush to the face of any policeman—namely, that after six months this Governor-General should be shot. On lies, you built up your support for the Treaty. What were the lies? In 1921 it was whispered by the I.R.B. “We have no arms, but we will get arms under the Treaty.” It was whispered that the clauses of the Treaty which referred to partition would definitely operate to bring Ulster in—that the Six Counties would be so economically small a unit that they could not exist. They went further with their lies. They sent emissaries right into the Six Counties. The then Minister for Education, with the Minister for Finance, was definitely responsible for getting teachers from the northern section of our country to refuse allegiance to the Government set up under the 1920 Act in the North-East corner. That was done on the understanding, first of all, that they would receive their money from the central Government and, secondly, that their action would help the central headquarters of the Republican Government to establish a government for all Ireland. They told the people of two counties— one of which I belong to, and the Minister for External Affairs belongs to, Derry—they told the people of the city of Derry that whenever they had a majority in the city of Derry, portion of the clauses of the Treaty would operate in favour of Derry coming in with Donegal and that then the rest of the county of Derry would be secured. The Minister for External Affairs knows that. But that belongs to External Affairs now, because it is outside the jurisdiction of this Parliament, in whose Executive Mr. McGilligan sits. Let him take up the case of his own people across the Border. On the question of minorities in Poland and Yugo-Slavia, the relations between the Chinese and Japanese, whether Italy shall have a big or a small navy, our brilliant little Minister is doing exceptionally good work. Let us ask him to devote some of his energy and his brains to solving the position at home. It will not be solved this way. They betrayed the people of the North. Definitely and unequivocally, I say that. They have failed in the Departments in which they claimed they would most succeed. According to the protagonists of the Treaty in 1921, Ireland was to be a land flowing with milk and honey. Economic stability was sure to come. Our people would advance in prestige and population. Our industries would flourish. What do we see to-day? Is there any man in the country, whether he be farm labourer or agriculturalist working a large farm, whether he be an artisan or a member of board of directors of one of the manufacturing concerns in this city or in any other in the country—is there any such one satisfied with the economic position at the moment? Surely the attitude of the supporters of the Government in the Seanad debate the other day in reference to the motion to appoint a Joint Committee to consider the most advisable way of dealing with the present economic situation proved how little the Government or its followers care whether we have economic stability in Ireland or not. It seems to me that unless all suggestions for economic stability emanate from the Executive Council they are tarnished. Ireland must be saved, but according to the members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party, both in the Dáil and in the Seanad, at the back of the Executive, it must only be saved by and with the methods of the present Executive. I ask Senators as Irishmen to consider whether the alleged Communism or Bolshevism that exists is going to thrive or be driven under or disappear under the operations of this measure now proposed. Every thinking and intelligent man I think knows that the real generator of Bolshevism and Communism was the arrogant dictatorship and tyranny of the Czar and all he stood for. We know that tyrannical measures adopted in any country have their repercussions eventually, and that they will take the form that those who lead think best suited to the circumstances of the moment.

I am not going to invoke Catholic principles here on this occasion. There are other places for doing that, but if we want this country to advance economically, if you want to retard the alleged advance of sections of our people in regard to those associations and societies which are inimical to the basic principles of freedom of democracy, if you want to guarantee that the people of Ireland will march forward with the principles and tradition of their fathers, the first thing to do is to pay attention to the position, nationally and fundamentally. I ask you therefore to refuse to give this Bill a Second Reading and to throw back in the face of the present Executive the insult they hurl at us in asking us to consider and pass this measure through all its stages in such a short time.

The President

The living can answer for themselves but the dead cannot. It was said by the Senator who has just spoken that the late Minister for Justice, Mr. Kevin O'Higgins, had said that they must accept the oath in the Constitution. That statement is not true. He said that the Executive was standing for that and that you have got to form another Executive if you wanted to change it.

Mr. O'Doherty

In other words that they must accept it.

The President

Tell the truth about the dead at any rate.

Mr. O'Doherty

As a personal explanation I may say I have had thrown upon me the responsibility of speaking abroad. I spoke during all my campaign and no Minister or anybody else can throw one single solitary stone as to any references I made to a dead Irishman. I resent very much the attempt made by the President to drag a red herring across this debate by endeavouring to suggest that I am casting a slur upon the memory of any Irishman.

The President

The Senator said it or he did not. If he did not let him say so, and if he did let him withdraw it.

Mr. O'Doherty

The Senator stands by what he said. The House, I remember, was told at that time that they could not alter one comma in certain clauses of the Constitution.

The President

It is not a question of memory. It is a question of fact. I am stating a fact. Let the Deputy deny it.

Colonel Moore

Is not the Senator correct?

Mr. Comyn

The point is whether the oath of allegiance was imposed by England.

Cathaoirleach

Senator Comyn must not interfere. This is a question of opinion.

Mr. Comyn

It is not a question of opinion, it is a question of fact.

Cathaoirleach

Senator O'Doherty has made a statement and he is quite right in verifying it or otherwise.

Mr. O'Doherty

The statement I made I stand over—to the best of my opinion.

The President

Oh, that is it, is it?

Mr. O'Doherty

Do you deny what I said?

The President

Have I not denied it? Have I not told the Senator what the late Minister for Justice said?

Mr. O'Doherty

Do you deny that in the course of the debate when those present were supposed to be discussing the Constitution it was said that certain clauses of the Constitution could not be altered?

The President

The late Minister for Justice said these are the proposals for which this Executive is standing. Alter them—change the Executive. That is a very different thing.

Mr. Douglas

It was my intention to state briefly the reason why I voted for the Closure, but that was impossible at the time. I want to say I find it impossible to separate the Closure from the Bill. If a case was made for the Bill and if you accept it the Bill is one that must be passed immediately. It is many years since this House decided to make a decision of the same importance as it is being asked to make to-day. The Executive have come to the Oireachtas and they have solemnly told us that they are satisfied that a state of affairs exists in the country which can only be dealt with by methods set out in this Bill. They have stated that they must have these powers at once. The Bill, if I understand it correctly, means that the Executive is, in effect, being given full responsibility. They are being given carte blanche; they will decide when the powers are to be put into effect. They will appoint the tribunal and they may remove it. They, I assume, will review such sentences when revision is deemed necessary; they alone can alter or cancel or defer sentences of the tribunal.

This House is only indirectly responsible to the people; it is only indirectly representative of the people; it does not claim to be the medium of the expression of the will of the majority in the same way as the Dáil can and does claim. Its general function is revision; it has also powers of delay. Senator Johnson in his reference to the Closure suggested that Parliamentary Government has only one function—to discuss and amend and debate. Surely Parliamentary Government has another function, and that function is to control the Executive of the nation. Parliamentary Government equally fails if it fails to act promptly when there is occasion for acting promptly, just the same as if it fails to discuss or debate or amend when there is occasion and opportunity. It seems to me that on this occasion this House is not facing the question of revision. That is not the question that is before it.

The Government have made it a definite issue that they must have this Bill at once or they cannot be responsible for the consequences. Any amendment means delay, therefore I assume that no amendment will be accepted or seriously considered here. There is only one issue, to my mind, in this House. Are you satisfied with the case and the statement made by the Government, or are you prepared to accept the statement made by their principal opponents? The President in the other House set out a long list of crimes of violence, none of which is disputed. His case for the Bill, and it is the only possible case that to my mind would justify a Bill of this kind, is that these are not isolated crimes but that they are a definite part of a conspiracy, and that either the State will be killed by the conspiracy or the conspirators will kill the State.

The opposition Party contend that these crimes are only isolated instances which everyone regrets and they can be dealt with under the ordinary law. That is the issue. If we accept the position that the Government is honest we have no option but to give them the powers which they are asking. If we believe with Fianna Fáil that this is an election trick, that this is simply a dishonest and corrupt scheme to risk the lives of people in order to get political advantage, then you must vote against the Government. To me this is a simple issue—difficult if you like but a plain issue—on which it is not possible to have a half-way house and it is for that reason, because I am not prepared to say that the Government are dishonest and because I am not prepared to go against them and say that the whole proposal is corrupt, that I am going to vote for this Bill, and it is exactly for the same reason and no other that I have voted for the Closure. I believe that it is a responsible thing to give a vote for this Bill and I believe it is equally responsible or perhaps more responsible to give a vote against it. Because if you vote against it you state that you are prepared definitely to withhold from the responsible Executive of this State what they have solemnly stated is the only way in which they can carry out the law in this country. I do not believe you should minimise it and pretend that it is not serious. It is serious and it has to be given with honesty and courage; either you are prepared to go against them and take the consequences, or support them and take the consequences. Now I do not believe that force is any permanent remedy for this or any other evil. I entirely agree with those who say that lawlessness and discontent can only be ultimately stopped by improving the conditions of the people, by giving them something worth living for and by education and industry.

Everyone knows that social conditions in many parts of the country are not what they there ought to be. Everyone knows that there are desires for certain political changes, but I am absolutely convinced that if what we have been told (when we have not the same knowledge as the Government) is true, that if you allow the gunman to rule in this country it will be the absolute end to any improvement in our political, social, or economic conditions, and I believe it will be the end of religion. And we are in this position to-day, that it is not a question of casuistry, discussing how much we dislike, and I heartily dislike portions of this Bill. It is not a question as to whether this Bill can or cannot be amended. It is a question of whether we are to face the issue before this House, and accept the whole thing or whether we are prepared to say "No, we do not believe what has been put before us and we are prepared to take the responsibility for that action."

Mr. Dowdall

I must confess that the statement of Senator Douglas that he could not disassociate the closure measure from the measure itself surprises me. To me it is simple incredible, without the mentality in discriminating the analytical mind of Senator Douglas, that such a measure as this with such powers as the President described as carte blanche, can be even read over carefully in the time available to us for discussion. I would ask Senator Douglas was he satisfied with this closure measure and with the importance of some sections and ideas in it which he confesses are very distasteful to him and I am not surprised they are distasteful to him. If that be the case did it not occur to him that the Executive Council might have curtailed its holiday? The holiday was full and nobody can pretend that the time allowed for discussion either in the Dáil or here is adequate in any degree. I am voting against this measure because I regard it as an election dodge. I saw some men guarded coming up here last Wednesday whom I met in O'Connell Street mixing with the crowds which had come to Dublin for the hurling final. Then apparently the state of the country was such that they did not require a guard. What extraordinary transformation and what dangerous atmosphere has been created since then? When I see men walking about Cork guarded, men of wide and deserved popularity not a hair of whose head any man, woman or child in Munster would touch—when I see these men guarded I think the thing is a farce. The only regret I have in connection with it is that the money spent on guarding these men might be more properly expended in the construction of houses or amelioration of some of the other social evils to which Senator Douglas has referred. During the holiday the Minister for Justice has in the intervals permitted to him in the exposition of high international finance spoken repeatedly on this measure. I think at least half a dozen speeches he made around his constituency broadcasting the dangerous atmosphere in which we live. In the last session the Minister for Justice carried through the Juries Protection Act, which has expired. He had it reenacted. A debate took place on that measure and on the 17th of June of this year, in summing up the second reading debate (Column 1164 of the Official Reports), Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney said: “I say that the Act has in fact worked and the Intimidation of juries has been reduced to a negligible point.”

When was the truth being told? Now or then? Has any crime referred to by the President in his speech occurred between now and then? The deplorable and unjustifiable murder of Superintendent Curtin had taken place long before that. And in reference to the intimidation of juries I would point out that unfortunately nobody has ever been arraigned before a jury in connection with the murder of Superintendent Curtin. I deplore that. I would sincerely rejoice that those who were responsible for that man's murder had been arrested, convicted and punished.

The President has referred to Communism. I think he will agree with me that I have as little in common with Communism as he has, but how any man who thinks of it can imagine for a moment that Communism has any chance of successful development in this country is more than I can imagine. You have a country intensely Christian. I do not advert to Catholic principles. I say, and I rejoice in saying, that religion in this country with every Christian sect is a well-grounded belief, and is not merely as possibly it may be in some countries not too far away, more or less a gloss or window-dressing. Whether they be regarded as bigots or enthusiasts the people of Ireland of all Christian denominations hold fast to their religious belief. That in itself is the first great block against the propagation of Communistic propaganda. We have in addition to that a widespread peasant proprietorship all over the Twenty-Six Counties. All down through history people have tried to drive the Irish peasant off the land; sometimes they succeeded temporarily, but everybody who knows anything about it knows the extraordinary tenacity with which the Irish peasant proprietor holds his property and land, and regards it as a very valuable property. You have in addition to that, not as numerous as I would like, but still numerous enough, another factor, the labourer with his cottage and acre of land. In face of all that, because a few hare-brained idiots in Dublin calling themselves what they like with or without the prefix of the Divine Name, can be regarded as a justification for a measure such as that which is put before us to pass within a few hours is ridiculous. Inevitably if it were intended that this Act should be administered seriously as the law of the land, it would have violent reactions, but I do not believe that any attempt will be made to do it. It is an attempt to create an atmosphere for a successful election. As such I regard it as a degradation of this Assembly to put it before it for consideration at such a time as the present.

Mr. Johnson

The President in his speech stated quite rightly, and I am very glad he emphasised it, because his words become very much more authoritative than words from any member of this Assembly, that these Acts are Acts of the Oireachtas and not of the Executive Council. I would like to ask Senator Douglas and those who think with him to ponder those words and not to be over-impressed with the necessity for simply doing what the Executive Council wishes them to do, because it is not the Executive Council's responsibility. It is the responsibility of the Oireachtas.

This Bill in many respects is like the Public Safety Bill of 1927, in many other respects it is a very different Bill from the 1927 Bill. We were told by Mr. Blythe, Minister for Finance, on Wednesday, and the Dáil was told by other Ministers that for the eighteen months during which that Act was in operation it was effective, but that after it had been allowed to lapse in deference to the pressure that was applied to him from parties in the Dáil violence, outrage and murder began to come into operation. I opposed that Bill in 1927 and I am proud that I opposed it. I take the Minister's assurance that it was effective, that it did the work that it was believed that it would be able to do. If that Act had been brought here now with the assurance that it had done that work and was effective in doing it and that no other less powerful authority and repressive legislation were possible, I think my attitude to the Bill would be different. The Act was effective in 1927 and 1928. Were the circumstances of 1927 much less terrible than they are to-day? The Minister for Finance told us on Wednesday that there was nothing very dangerous at the moment or something to that effect but it was feared that something might come out of the present conspiracy. But the Bill we are now asked to deal with multiplies all the defects in the 1927 Bill which Senators on the benches opposite expressed themselves as very fearful of and removes many of the safeguards that reassured Senators opposite and justified them as they said in accepting the assurance of the Executive Council. All those safeguards that were the final assurance that enabled Senators to support the Bill of 1927 are removed from this Bill, with this further very important feature that this Bill is not a seven years Bill, as the original draft of the 1927 Bill was, or a five years Bill as it was passed with the additional right of the Ministers to have it annulled after a period, as they did in eighteen months. But this is an amendment of the fundamental law of this State, an amendment of the Constitution.

As regards the conspiracy that is spoken of, I am not one of those who are going to belittle it. I am not of those who think that to improve the social conditions will entirely eliminate that kind of conspiracy. If my understanding of the situation is anything like valid there are two types of mind working. One type is not going to be deterred from conspiracy to revolution by force of arms by any amelioration of the social conditions, but it is a very important fact that their field of operation would be very much restricted.

The number of people approached through poverty, through excited feelings, and envy, hatred and uncharitableness, will not be quite so readily available or so easily reached if the ameliorative social legislation which is necessary were put into operation. But the Minister is allowed to stress here, and the public have been somewhat inflamed by the rise of a new movement so it is said—Saor Eire the President spoke of. I think the minds operating behind that movement are not wholly the same as those which were operating what may be called the purely Nationalist movement. In so far as Saor Eire is Communistic, it will be less Nationalist than the older I.R.A. What I am wanting to say is this: that this Saor Eire movement has undoubtedly got its inspiration from Russia and from the Communist International, but it is no new thing to this country to have a Communist organisation. There has been a Communist movement, a very small Communistic influence working in this country at least for eight years or nine. It is now taking a hand in the arming of certain elements, probably a separate and distinct body of people. And I draw attention to that because I want to know whether the existence of Communistic activities in this country is the occasion for the introduction of this Bill giving the powers that are in the Bill or whether the emphasis is rather upon armed activities. Because there is a difference.

For quite a number of years now I have been persistently trying to prevent any associations where I had some responsibility—trying to prevent men from allowing their natural desires, their obligations to improve the position of the workers and to defend them against attack—I have been persistent in trying to prevent them from allowing their minds to become infected with the Communist philosophy. I have very persistently, perhaps without the knowledge of some of my colleagues, taken steps many times to prevent those men unconsciously moving in the direction in which the Communist movement draws them with its very powerful propagandist machine for influencing the workers and the working classes; and I think that the Communist movement as such has had very little influence among the working classes in this city or in this country. Undoubtedly the Communist organisation is extremely influential by virtue of its experience all over the world, extremely influential because it knows how to inflame, excite and permeate the minds of people who are suffering from injustice through economic depression and oppression. But let me say this: that it is not essential to the Communist movement that they should use arms to attain their ends. It is not part of the necessary method of Communism, and it so happens that they have taken advantage of the situation in this country to utilise the militant nationalist idea and ideals to propagate the ideas they have set forth.

I want to draw the attention of the House to this question: Is it to the political, social and economic idea of Communism that this House is going to direct its aims against, and that this Bill is intended to stress? Or is it the attainment of those ideals by means of arms that they are intending to suppress? I think that it is important that we should draw a distinction, because if we do not we are going to pass a Bill which, under cover of preventing the dissemination of Communistic political, social and economic ideas and purposes, will enable the Executives of the future to suppress every minority idea, every movement which had no notion of achieving its ends by arms, armaments or by violence. If this Bill were directed against the use of arms and armed force, you could talk of it in one way. So far as it is directed against the use of the platform and the printing Press for the propagation of social and political ideas irrespective of the use of arms and violence, then we have got to think of the Bill in another way.

I want to put a point of view to some of the Senators quite seriously, perhaps running some risk of misunderstanding. We know there are zealots in all movements. We have seen pretty frequent reference in the newspapers to Freemasonry, and we have frequently seen references in the newspapers coupling Freemasonry and Communism, as two sides of the same movement. Be careful that some future Parliament will not elect a government of zealots, who also may connect Freemasonry and Communism as two sides of the same shield. Article 9 of the Constitution reads:—

The right of free expression of opinion as well as the right to assemble peaceably and without arms, and to form associations or unions is guaranteed for purposes not opposed to public morality. Laws regulating the manner in which the right of forming associations and the right of free assembly may be exercised shall contain no political, religious or class distinction.

You are given that guarantee by Article 9. At the will of the Executive Council that guarantee to these minorities may be removed.

This is a Bill to amend the Constitution, and at the will of the Executive Council these Tribunals may be set up without reference to Parliament. The Tribunals will act on their own initiative. They may try in secret and they may execute in secret. There is nothing in this Bill to insure that there will be any report or record made of the trial or of the execution. There is nothing in this Bill which will guarantee to the people those things which the people in 1922 were guaranteed. One might say quite fairly that the Constitution is a compact between the State and the citizens and some kind of assurance even to non-citizens having association and compacts with the State and with its citizens. There is some kind of a compact between the State and the citizen, subject of course to the citizen knowing that the Parliament always has a right to annul the contract or compact and make changes in its laws. But when making that compact there surely was given to citizens some kind of promise, implied if not explicit, that the Parliament before altering that fundamental law which was of the nature of a compact would give due consideration to the terms of the compact and the guarantees.

The procedure here to-day is the annulment of the compact between the State which formulated the Constitution in 1922 and the individual citizens who were induced to enter into that compact and claim the citizenship of this State. It is not possible if one wants to pay any regard to the rights of other Senators to examine in detail the sections of this Bill and to direct attention to the enormous and terrible changes that are being made in the law, and the powers that are given to the Executive and the armed forces subject to the Executive. But I do say without encroaching upon the rights of others that the entry upon this course is, to my mind, a certain method of developing the Communist movement, not necessarily the armed Communist movement, not necessarily the movement for the overthrow of this State by force of arms; but the development of the Communist idea is going to be fostered by the fact that this is the kind of Constitution which a democratic Parliamentary Government is capable of. If this Seanad is going to consent and to approve, well I suppose nothing more can be said and nothing more can be done. But it will undoubtedly have a very serious effect upon the attitude of many people to the Parliamentary institution and the State organisation which we have up to now endeavoured to make one which would give security to the citizens and prevent injustice from the Executive authority.

Sir Walter Nugent

This is not a question on which one would like to give a silent vote. I have listened attentively to the debate here to-night and in another place, and though naturally a considerable amount of heat has at times developed nevertheless I am amazed to find running through the whole discussion a certain amount of agreement. Personally I take a rather detached view and ask myself how all this debate and discussion will affect the business and industry of the country. I listened very attentively to what I thought was the remarkable speech which Deputy de Valera delivered in the Dáil on Wednesday last. What struck me about that speech was that he showed a considerable amount of agreement with the policy of the present administration and he foresaw that under certain circumstances he himself might be identified with such a measure. I do not want to misrepresent Deputy de Valera.

Mr. MacEllin

Is the Senator suggesting that Deputy de Valera is in agreement with the present procedure of the Executive Council?

Sir Walter Nugent

May I finish? I got it quite clear that he did not consider the present Government were entitled to pass this law. He made it perfectly clear that the reason he said they were not entitled to pass the law was because he denied they had a majority of the people of the country behind them. Deputy de Valera denied that the present Government has a majority of the people behind them, the reason being, as he said, that a considerable section of the people were disfranchised in view of the fact that they did not recognise the Constitution.

The main point I want to emphasise is merely this: that if the Government have a majority behind them and if we believe they have a majority behind them then we must realise that it is their function to maintain law and order and it is our duty to support them. Deputy de Valera pointed out, and that as far as I could understand was his view, that if a majority of the country endorsed the Government and if the Government found it must administer the law of the country then they were perfectly entitled to go to Parliament and to ask for those powers. I am deeply anxious not to misrepresent what he said, and I do not think I have. He said:—

"Every section of the House agrees that freedom of opinion in politics, as in religion, must be maintained in the Free State—that everyone is entitled to do what he can to advance his opinions whatever they may be so long as he does so constitutionally and that no one must be prevented by intimidation or threats from voting or acting as he thinks fit. We also agree that no law should be passed which should interfere in the slightest degree with the rights of private citizens."

As I said all through the debate I found very considerable agreement. The Minister for Justice says he wants this Bill and that he cannot get along without it. If we believe that the majority of the country endorses the Government then it is our bounden duty to give them the powers they ask for.

My hope is that when this passing phase is over we will have a rest from politics, that we will be allowed to forget all about gunmen, that we will be allowed to devote all our attention to take the advantages which are now offering to us. Next year I think we may look forward to a year of prosperity. Large crowds must visit Ireland in connection with the great religious ceremony that is to take place here. An improvement in industry must follow. Better prices must result for farm produce and an era of prosperity should begin. Let us not present to the world the silly spectacle of a country, with boundless opportunities such as we have, wasting time in petty internecine strife which amounts to nothing and which, by no manner of means, can ever accomplish anything. Let us take advantage of any opportunities that are offered to us, let us forget all the strife and let us take the Eucharistic Congress year as a red letter year in the history of Ireland.

Mr. Comyn

Postbone the Bill, then.

Sir Walter Nugent

Let us try to advance on new lines. Let every citizen do his utmost to advance the interests of the country, to make it industrious and prosperous. Let us forget all our strife and let us remember that we are Irishmen. When I refer to the Free State I really mean the whole of Ireland. Let us start again and forget that there ever were such things as gunmen, politics and the rest of it.

Colonel Moore

Senator Douglas described the differences between the two parties—those who believed that the Government were quite right in attempting to put down the troubles that are occurring, and on the other side those who believe that the matter was a political stunt. I think if we examine the way in which this whole question has been put forward many of us will agree that it is a political stunt. We find crowds of police around Kildare Street and at the approaches to this building. Soldiers and armed people are moving about and people are being guarded. A policeman came to me and asked me if I wanted a guard. I told him to go to the devil.

Mr. Comyn

And did he go?

Colonel Moore

Whether he went or not I do not know, but he opened the gate and went out. When we look at all this tomfoolery that is going on it is more fit for a cinema than anything else. We have all this nonsense going on because it is pretended that some terrible things are going to happen. We are told that everything must be done immediately because dangers are in front of us. Senators have been told that this Bill must be passed immediately with the result that there can be no proper discussion of it. All this is done as if we were on the eve of war, as if half Dublin were in the hands of some enemy and that arrangements had to be rushed to make the defences ready. If I were asked who won this cinema battle, a battle that is supposed to be staged against the I.R.A. and other institutions I should say that the I.R.A. have had a fine victory. They can say: Here we are, a small body of people in this country; we have upset the whole of this Free State Government, we have made them stand on their heads and tear their hair; they do not know what is going to occur and Bills must be rushed through at record speed. I think the I.R.A. have had a fine victory. They have made fools of these people and they can laugh. They can laugh openly and say what a lot of tomfools there are in the country—we have shown now what our power is in the country. That really is what they have done.

Personally, I am ashamed. I never thought, in my time at all events, that a Bill such as this would be brought before the House. In all the time that I have been considering these questions I thought that things would be done in a pacific way. I am not advocating any shooting or plunder or anything of that sort. I never have, but on the other hand I do not want to see any incitement to that sort of thing. I do not believe that there was the least danger of any attack, of any violent attack on this Parliament or anything else requiring batches of police and that sort of show and propaganda to frighten the people. All this is frightening lots of people. Friends of mine who are Unionists, who do not approve of me or of my Party, have come to me and asked if it were safe for them to go to the country. I told them it was and not to believe in all this tomfoolery. In my opinion the Minister for Justice did a most dastardly thing in giving a statement to an English newspaper saying that this country was in a most desperate state.

My view of all these matters is that no revolution is possible in a well governed State. It is only in badly governed States that revolutions take place. Look at the countries in which revolutions have taken place. Why did a revolution take place in Soviet Russia? Because for ages the people had been governed, as the Ministers here want to govern this country, in a despotic way and because the country was poor. This country, too, is poor because it has been plundered by the present Ministry who are sending over five millions a year across the water. That money ought to be spent here. Because it is being sent out of the country the people are impoverished and they resent that. Spain we are told is in a terrible state of irreligion and Communism. What has brought that about? It followed eight years of despotism such as the Ministers here are trying to stage for this country. Everyone knew that years ago Spain was a religious country, that the people had no thought of Communism, but now after a despotic rule of seven or eight years the country has suddenly been plunged into a revolution. That has occurred at all times in all countries. Look back at all the revolutions that have occurred. Go back to the revolution in England when Charles I had his head chopped off because he had been trying to do exactly what the Ministers want to do here. He had his Star Chamber to punish so-called offenders. The people opposed his particular form of Government, and that brought about the revolution. That is what the Ministers here are going to do and they will get the revolution. Why did the revolution occur in France? Because the Government was extremely bad. The country was impoverished and the King and his ministers were dealing in a despotic way with the people. The revolution would never have occurred only for that. Countries that are well governed and that are not impoverished never have a revolution.

My memory goes back a long way in this country. I remember all the fighting and all the discussions that took place about the Land League. The people were poor and the Land League sprang up all over the country. Landlords were shot because the people were impoverished. They could hardly live in the country at all and they revolted. That has always happened and will happen again. What was the first step that led to revolution here? The first step was taken when the revolutionists, including myself and others, were engaged in the landing of the rifles at Howth. I daresay the President was there. He probably was. Some of the Ministers were there, but I cannot say now who was there or who was not. At any rate, the police and the soldiers went out there and attempted to seize the rifles from the hands of the people. There was a scrimmage, and shortly afterwards the soldiers shot people. The Ministers are going to try and do the same thing now. They are going to seize the arms from the people. I told the Minister six or seven years ago in private conversation that he would not succeed in getting the arms. "Oh," he said, "I will get them and get them in good time. I will seize the dumps." He did not get them, because he told us the other day that there were dumps all over the place, and that he had not been able to seize them. That was the first success that the revolution had in this country. The next was when the authorities who were in force in this country at the time seized the people who fought in 1916 and shot them. These shootings at once brought success to the movement. They gave it prominence and everyone knows that. Crowds of people who were not revolutionists at all joined the movement after that just as they did after the landing of the rifles at Howth.

After the Howth landing I went to inspect Volunteers at Belfast. As a result of what took place in connection with the landing the strength of the Volunteers there was increased by twenty-five per cent. That is what is going to happen now. Finally, the revolution in this country was successful on account of the Black and Tans. That is the way it is going to be. The Minister told us that the jury system had been brought to naught. I told the Minister for Justice when he brought in his legislation in connection with that, that he would fail; that the result would be that jurors would not convict. The other day a man was being tried for some supposed political offence. When the trial was going on the policeman who was giving evidence was asked by counsel if he had been convicted of beating and ill-treating prisoners in prison. He admitted that he had been, whereupon the jury at once ignored his evidence and acquitted the prisoner. The wholesale beating of prisoners by policemen has been a cause of a great deal of the trouble here. The people resent these things very much and struggle against them.

Several Ministers have asked what we here would do if we had to tackle this matter. As a matter of fact that is not our business to consider. That is the business of the Executive Council. I may say, however, that the first thing we would do would be to put discipline into the C.I.D. We would make them obey orders and discipline. We would not allow them to ill-treat prisoners and so on. The first thing we would do would be to put our own side in good order and afterwards deal with the others. Our next step would be to improve the position of the people by keeping our own money in the country instead of sending it over to England illegally and robbing our people in order to pay debts we do not owe. The sending away of money has been the cause of practically all the trouble that has been happening in Europe. Germany got into trouble because her money had to be sent away to pay the other nations that had beaten her in war. The same things occurred in France and in England. We hear about the murders that have happened in this country. When you make a comparison they would represent about one to the four hundred or five hundred that are committed in England and in other countries, and in respect of most of these the people who commit them have never been discovered. I believe that the whole of this business is a put up job in order to frighten the people into voting for the present Ministry again. That is what many people think.

Minister for Defence (Mr. Desmond Fitzgerald)

I have listened to two speeches and to part of a third speech.

Mr. MacEllin

Is the Minister concluding the debate?

Cathaoirleach

No, but he is being permitted to speak.

Mr. MacEllin

I do not think that the Minister should be permitted to absorb the short time that remains at our disposal.

Mr. Fitzgerald

I am speaking after a Senator who spoke against the Bill.

Mr. MacEllin

I am not addressing the Minister; I am addressing the Chair.

Cathaoirleach

I think the Minister is entitled to speak. I have called upon the Minister for Defence.

Mr. Fitzgerald

Some Senators seem very anxious that I should not be heard.

Mr. Comyn

We are glad to hear your voice.

Mr. Fitzgerald

Listening to Senator Colonel Moore, one must be convinced that there must be some mental sion on the part of Superintendent Curtin that makes him believe he is dead; there must be some delusion on the part of Ryan that makes him think he is dead. It is the appalling stupidity manifested by people like that that creates the situation in the country. You have in this country at the present time a strong of crime and you have the bland, stupid blindness of people like Senator Colonel Moore who just say when people are murdered in the country that it really is not happening at all and that we are only imagining it. Such people say that this is only a put up job, that it is propaganda. What are the facts? Here we have a country with people who have not had the opportunity of knowing reflexively the ordinary reactions that a citizen should have to circumstances. We have here a people who were denied the right of having a national Government for hundreds of years and consequently they fail to have that sense of the powers and the rights of authority that should be natural amongst all law-abiding people and that are natural under the moral law. That has created in them, to a large extent, a failure to understand the need for obedience. The fact that we have achieved what we did achieve by what had the outward semblance of being lawless means tended to make people who wanted illegitimate objects think they could also be achieved by actual lawless means.

Mr. Comyn

Read it out.

Mr. Fitzgerald

I made a few notes on the speeches of Senators and I am consulting them. Senator Johnson seems to think that the all-important thing is to have down on pieces of paper certain guarantees for the people whether they get them or not. He reminds me rather of the case of the doctor whose patients always died cured. Senator Johnson wants to have all these nice fine phrases of liberalism, radical socialism and the rest of them that sound so well. Here we have a Constitution guaranteeing all sorts of things to the people and as far as the Executive is concerned it has done its best to give the people these rights. Opposed against them you have various bodies of men through the country disregarding all law, having no sense whatever of right or wrong— blinded to all that—and putting the people in this position, that unless the people are prepared to assist the murderers they themselves will be murdered. Every citizen of a country has imposed upon him a bounden duty to come forward to give evidence and to make it possible for the police to bring murderers to justice. What is the position in this country where we have these splendid guarantees for the rights of the subject?

Mr. Comyn

Twenty-five minutes are all we have given to us. Give it to us, please—in your charity, do.

Mr. Fitzgerald

The Senator is helping a lot to waste those precious minutes. Under the moral law people are bound to give information to help to bring murderers to justice. What is the position here? The man who endeavours to do what he is bound by the moral law to do, to assist the police, is promptly murdered. If you do not assist these people, if you do not connive at their misdeeds, you are sentenced to death by a hidden tribunal of blackguards.

Senator Johnson asked upon what was the emphasis. Is it, he asked, upon Communism or upon the gun work? You have a peculiar situation in this country where you have a tradition of action with arms previously for national reasons. The thing can be condemned for two reasons: first, because the end it seeks to attain is bad; and, secondly, because the means by which it seeks to attain that end are bad. In other countries, as Senator Johnson says, Communism does not necessarily involve the use of arms. In other countries nationalism is not necessarily involved with Communism. Here you have people who, owing to our former situation, have not very clear ideas on nationalism or authority; but they have a tradition of using the gun. You have people coming from outside trying to inculcate amongst our people an immoral doctrine, trying to have a coalition between gun work and the Communistic ideal. This movement is doubly dangerous here: first, because of the gun work; and, secondly, because of the end that it seeks to attain.

We are bringing in this Bill in order that the ordinary citizen may be protected against blackguardism and against crime, and in order that our young people may be saved from the constant propaganda which Senator Johnson referred to, and which has already extinguished the interior light of conscience of thousands of young men in this country.

Mr. Comyn

You will soon have a nimbus around you. We want to hear the President.

Mr. Fitzgerald

As far as I am concerned the President will have every opportunity of speaking when I am finished. The Senator objects to interior light. That is exactly what the blackguards outside object to. They are using every possible means, in a country where circumstances make it peculiarly easy for them to do it, to kill the interior light in the minds of our young men. There are two things which prevent people from doing wrong. One is the consciousness of moral guilt, and the other the consciousness that they are likely to be punished for it. What is the situation in this country at present? Everybody knows it—everybody of ordinary intelligence. I do not say that Senator Moore necessarily knows it. The very people who at this moment tell us there is nothing to worry about if you call them on a jury with clear evidence in front of them as to the guilt of murder, or what is called political crime, will they bring in a verdict according to the evidence? Of course they will not. We know that Senator Moore can talk all this bland nonsense, but call upon them to fulfil that duty and they suddenly realise the reality of the threat there is in the country. Then we have people coming along talking about tomfoolery and so on. Senator Dowdall says this country is perfectly safe, because it is Christian, because the people are peasant proprietors.

Mr. Dowdall

Safe from Communism.

Mr. Fitzgerald

From Communism. What is the position in the country? Our peasant proprietors achieved what they have got arising out of a number of circumstances, including the fact that the landed proprietors outrageously refused to accept the responsibilities attached to their proprietorship. Consequently you might call a form of injustice had to be done, and greater stress had to be put on the right of the tenant rather than the landlord. It appeared to a man who had been paying rent and was merely a tenant, that at a stage he became the owner in fee-simple, subject to paying an annuity. It appeared as if he became a proprietor by a form of confiscation from the landlord. Then you had certain dishonest blackguards going through the country assuring the people that they really need not pay these land annuities. Of course, that is a very easy doctrine.

Mr. MacEllin

Do you suggest that Fianna Fáil are blackguards because they said people ought not to pay the annuities?

Mr. Fitzgerald

I am suggesting exactly what I said.

Mr. MacEllin

Answer a straight question. Are you suggesting that Fianna Fáil had not a perfect right to say whether they should pay the land annuities in this country or not?

Mr. Fitzgerald

I assert they have no right to say that. They know well they have not.

Mr. MacEllin

Do you call them blackguards for saying it?

Mr. Fitzgerald

Certainly, anybody who advocates to our people an immoral course of dishonesty, I can call them nothing else but blackguards.

Mr. Comyn

You look like a prize schoolboy to me. Do you talk like this in the Dáil?

Mr. Fitzgerald

Occasionally. The Senator is very anxious to waste time. All this childish frivolity is going on while the country is actually and really dangerously threatened. We have a small Army and a small number of police. It is said that there is only a small minority in the country who are touched with this Communism. You can have an infinitesimal minority of the country touched by Communism, and be actually a threat to the whole Army and police force, except that we do realise, and that most of the people realise, what that trouble is. These people are going round. They do not say to the peasant proprietor: "You have no right to own the land; the Communist ideal requires that the land should be the property of the State." They do not say that; they are too dishonest. All they say is: "Do not pay the land annuities," in order to create a condition of social disorder in this country, to collapse all law, all authority, and to build out of that anarchical condition the ideal that Senator Johnson referred to—the Communist ideal.

What is the Seanad going to do in the matter? This country, with its traditions of nationalism, is now being prostituted by blackguards going round assuring the young men that in order to be a decent Irishman you have to cease to be an honest man. What do they say to the young men? There is no anti-religious propaganda. They are too cowardly to come out straight. They give hints. They preach a doctrine contrary to Christian doctrine. They say: "We are not trying to overthrow Christianity, not at all; we merely want to establish in the peoples' mind a kind of doctrine that is contrary to truth. Once we have got them there, we will not have any trouble with Christianity."

Senator Moore referred to the case of Spain. What brought about the situation in Spain? The fundamental cause of the collapse there was that prior to the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera there was an Executive that refused to take its job seriously. It was not from the Czarist régime that the Soviet Government took over. They took over from Kerenski, a man with exactly the same ideas as Senator Johnson. He wanted a lot of fine phrases on paper and blinded his eyes to what was happening in the country until he found that the Bolshevists had control.

What are we asked to do? To sit down and every time we get our reports in as to what is happening in the country to close our eyes and if we say often enough, "It is not happening," all will be right. We are an Executive with responsibility. We have authority which we are bound to exercise. Senator Moore in that usual way of his says he has no proposal to offer, that it is our responsibility. He then does all he can to prevent our having the powers which are required to deal with the situation. We are not entitled, we have not the right to sit down and to say: "Let the thing go on." It is our duty to bring these men to justice in so far as we can.

I think it was Senator Dowdall said that we had not been able to bring the murderers of Superintendent Curtain to justice. Of course we have not been able. Who is going to come forward and give information when they know well that there is the whole force of the law, first of all, to protect the murderer? When he comes forward, blackguards outside, who are not handicapped by any fine phrases, can come along and murder him, and when he is murdered the whole force of the law as it exists at present as against organised crime can be mobilised to defend the man who has murdered him, without coming along and helping us to get the murderer. The one way to enable us to get the murderers of Superintendent Curtin or any other murderer when a murder has taken place, or to prevent a murder, is to give us power to make it safer for the law-abiding citizen than it is for the anti-law-abiding citizen. That is all we are asking for.

What is the threat that is held out? That you are giving excessive powers into the hands of the Executive. This country must have an election every five years. The Dáil majority elects the Executive, and the Executive is controllable by the Dáil and ultimately by the people. You have a choice between handing over power into the hands of the communist gunmen and leaving them with the protection of the law, with none of the restraints of the law on them, or handing over what you may consider rather excessive powers to an Executive which is subject to the Dáil, whose life is definitely determined, and which is chosen by the elected representatives of the people. What is the choice going to be? Is it going to be for the gunmen communists or for the Executive elected by the people?

Mr. Connolly

I do not propose to say very much. There has been little time left to say anything, but I am not impressed at all by the last speaker with his usual supercilious attitude, that superior mentality that he evidently acquired in the capital of a great Empire. He sneers at everything in the mentality of the people. Apparently, according to him, there is only one group that has intelligence, has the super-mind, in this country and they think that they alone are in a position to decide what ought to be done. There is one thing that they could have done and one thing they can still do and one thing that must be done if the fertility of the soil is to be nullified for Communism and other doctrines preached in this country. There is a barrier against a certain element in this country. It may be right or it may be wrong, but that outlook is genuinely felt and so long as that barrier remains that element is disfranchised in this country from recording their votes or being represented in the Oireachtas.

Dr. Gogarty

Recording their shots.

Mr. Connolly

Senator Gogarty may want them shot.

Dr. Gogarty

The Senator talked of men recording their votes. Recording their shots is more like it.

Mr. Comyn

I thought you never fired a shot in your life.

Dr. Gogarty

I am not speaking of my shots.

Mr. Connolly

I would be very glad if Senator Gogarty refrained from passing any of the shots over this way owing to the limitation of time.

Dr. Gogarty

And intelligence too.

Mr. Connolly

There is no intelligence in the country besides the Executive apparently. We have to bow to Senator Gogarty; that is news to some of us. I say the oath of allegiance and the affiliations we are tied up with are preventing these people from getting some expression politically, and so long as that is so there is, I hold, fertile soil for the doctrines that the Ministry want to keep out of this country. Now this Bill ought to be analysed and there has not been much opportunity to analyse it. It is a Bill that, clause by clause ought to be argued and considered and if certain elements in the Bill are considered at all they should be sufficient to have the Bill thrown out.

Sub-section (5) of Section 6 denies any appeal whatever from any decision whatever by this star chamber. Sub-section (5) of Section 7 does not permit any coroner's inquest to be held. That is to say, nobody is to know how the victim of the present Executive has met his end, whether instantaneously or after a series of tortúres administered by their agents when they have him in their power. It surely is a negation of all law that this is permitted under this Bill. After all, the vilest criminal gets at least a coroner's inquest, but that is to be denied under this Bill. Section 15, sub-section (2) encourages and directly orders or permits third degree methods to be employed by any element of the Guard. Any member of the Gárda may stop any citizen, and whether he believes him to be guilty or likely to commit an offence or anything else, if he has any particular grudge against an individual or one of his masters has a particular grudge against an individual, that individual can be taken away and third degreed at the will of the ordinary Gárda.

I would like to say this with regard to the Gárdaí, that a certain development has taken place in this country during the last two years, and the public were coming to the point where they could differentiate between the Gárdaí as such and the C.I.D. as such and again between the C.I.D. that was devoting its attention entirely to ordinary crime and the C.I.D. that was devoting its attention to political action. One of the great disasters of this measure will be that the Gárda Síochána will now be put in a position of complete hostility to the people and the people will be put in an attitude of hostility to them, and I cannot see how decent law and order can be preserved with that state of affairs being developed as it undoubtedly will be under this Bill.

The freedom of the Press, of course, goes by the board. Under Section 23 there is the abolition of by-elections, and now we find that the Executive can nominate members, operating, of course, through the Governor-General, representing the King, and can appoint any members of this House or in the other House if anything happens to any particular member. It would seem to me that the Executive have gone mad, or that it deliberately wants to provoke blood and chaos in this country.

I do not know whether they are acting in the interests of any particular group that are supposed to want to prevent the Eucharistic Congress next year or not. There is a good deal of debate regarding the Eucharistic Congress and a good deal of talk going on with regard to the reaction on the Congress of the coercion. I venture to think that if this measure is passed we will have blood and chaos and that there will be no possibility of having any Eucharistic Congress or any peace in this country.

Sir Walter Nugent has appealed for peace and has appealed to us that we ought to forget the past. How in the face of a Bill like this can we forget the past and is it likely that after all the historical knowledge that members of this House have they can conscientiously face this Bill in the hope that any coercive measure like it will be productive of peace? I suppose it is too late now to make any appeal to the Executive or to this House or any appeal to those in control. It is really futile for the Seanad to sit here in face of certain statements that have been made. Senator Douglas wants the Seanad to wash its hands like Pontius Pilate of any responsibility for it. The Seanad cannot do that. Senator Douglas must take his responsibility with the rest of us. It is an Act of the Oireachtas. The Executive may have bullied it through, they may have broken all the traditions of this House and the other House in bullying it through in the time, but the Seanad itself had the opportunity of rejecting the closure motion and of taking its stand definitely in the interests of peace. The Seanad has definitely refused to do that and Senator Douglas like every other member who voted for the closure motion is committed to the principles of this Bill. I regret that is the case. We had hoped, by making every reasoned and honest attempt, to remove the national disabilities before this measure was carried through. I hold the Executive are at present preparing for the courtsmartial, for the murders and executions of many young Irishmen, and by no means are they going to stop the various movements by a measure like this.

Mr. Comyn

Before the President closes the debate, I want some information regarding the dispute which he and Senator O'Doherty have had. Senator O'Doherty says that the oath is imposed by England. The President has denied that.

The President

That is not the dispute.

Sir John Keane

Senator Johnson said he was ashamed of this measure. So am I. But we have to examine where the responsibility for it lies. Surely, the responsibility for these drastic powers, which are in direct conflict with the true principles of parliamentary government and with the fine platitudes of liberalism which Senator Johnson uttered, rests on public opinion. If public opinion was healthy, there would be no need for any measures of this kind. Who represent public opinion? Do not the Parties in this House represent public opinion? If those who oppose this Bill wished to modify its provisions, it rested with them to do so. They had only to come out openly and say "We stand for the suppression of disorder; we are determined to put down the disgraceful acts that have been taking place during the past year." If they went to the Government with the intention of co-operating with them, if Fianna Fáil and Labour spoke unanimously condemning these acts, it would be very easy to modify the provisions of this measure, because public opinion would be so strong—

Mr. Dowdall

We made the offer.

Sir John Keane

I have no knowledge that such an offer was made. They never on any public platform came out emphatically and condemned what was happening during the past year. I say, further, that there is a tendency to turn this disorder to Party advantages and not to look at the matter from a national point of view.

Mr. Connolly

Our Party has consistently condemned crime all over the country.

Mr. MacLoughlin

You mix politics with your ethics.

Mr. Connolly

What is attempted is to mix our Party up with everything that is wrong and blackguardly in the country and that is done for Party purposes.

Sir John Keane

If this matter had been treated as a national issue, this measure would never have been necessary, and we should not have—I say this advisedly—to suffer the disgrace due to the necessity of putting a measure of this kind on the Statute Book.

The President

Senator Connolly depicts the very best evidence possible in this or any other country of a slave whose skin has not yet lost the marks of the chains. They are there still.

Mr. Comyn

Leave out the slave.

The President

The slave mind is there. So far as the oath of allegiance is concerned, the references are columns 359, 676, and 678 of the Dáil Debates, 1922. They bear out exactly what I said, doing justice and honour to the dead.

Mr. Comyn

Let us have it.

The President

This Parliament can reject what we have put up if they like. We are standing for it. That is the position. Put us out. Get the people of this country to give their sanction to you, and the road is clear for you to deal with the situation that will arise then.

Mr. O'Doherty

Resign.

The President

Resign to what?

Mr. Robinson

Resign.

The President

Resign to a minority? Is that what is intended?

Mr. Robinson

Have a general election.

The President

I want to read this extract from "An Phoblacht," dated 29th August, 1931 (Interruptions).

The time has come when all those who have hitherto clung to Parliamentary methods should take stock. They, too, must discard their belief in Parliamentarianism for direct action. They can no longer continue to sit in safety upon the green be-flagged Parliamentary stool. For the people, pressed more and more into the capitalist mire are impatient. They realise more clearly than ever that a change of Parliamentary Government is but a change of bailiffs; that the mere re-shuffling of party labels such as is now going forward in John Bull's own island is but the clapping of a new sticking plaster upon a cancer which should be cut out at the root; they realise that the quack remedies of politicians are useless, and above all, that the cancer must be cut out with the bayonet of the people.

That is what we are fighting.

Mr. Comyn

Answer the question you are asked.

The President

Senator Connolly said that Senator Douglas was acting as Pontius Pilate. Not at all. It is the Senator and his Party who are acting as Pontius Pilate. They say that they wash their hands of all this and leave it to the Government. They say that the Government have enough control and power. We have not and the Senator refuses to give us the powers we want, washing his hands like Pontius Pilate.

Cathaoirleach

The question is "That the Bill be read a Second Time."

Mr. Comyn

Before the question is put——

Mr. MacLoughlin

I move that the question be now put.

Cathaoirleach

The question has been put.

Colonel Moore

The order is for 7 o'clock and it is now only a quarter to seven.

Mr. O'Hanlon

On a point of order, I suggest that you have to put the second reading of the Bill straight away as it is now 6.45, which was the time fixed.

Mr. MacEllin

Senator O'Hanlon will be heard but no member of our Party will be heard.

Cathaoirleach

Are there ten judges of order, or am I the judge of order?

Mr. Comyn

You are the judge.

Cathaoirleach

I am putting the question at 6.45, as directed by the motion. I have no option but to do that.

Question put.

The Seanad divided: Tá, 41; Níl, 14.

Tá

• Bagwell, John.
• Barniville, Dr. Henry L.
• Barrington, William.
• Bellingham, Sir Edward.
• Bigger, Sir Edward Coey.
• Brown, Samuel L., K.C.
• Browne, Miss Kathleen.
• Byrne, Right Hon. Alfred.
• Costello, Mrs.
• Counihan, John C.
• Desart, The Countess of.
• Dillon, James.
• Douglas, James G.
• Esmonde, Sir Thomas Grattan.
• Fanning, Michael.
• Gogarty, Dr. O. St. J.
• Granard, The Earl of.
• Griffith, Sir John Purser.
• Guinness, Henry S.
• Hickie, Major-General Sir William.
• Jameson, Right Hon. Andrew.
• Keane, Sir John.
• Kennedy, Cornelius.
• Linehan, Thomas.
• McGillycuddy of the Reeks, The.
• MacKean, James.
• MacLoughlin, John.
• Milroy, Seán.
• Molloy, William John.
• Moran, James.
• Nugent, Sir Walter.
• O'Connor, Joseph.
• O'Hanlon, M.F.
• O'Neill, L.
• O'Rourke, Bernard.
• O'Sullivan, Dr. William.
• Parkinson, James J.
• Staines, Michael.
• Toal, Thomas.
• Vincent, A. R.
• Wilson, Richard.

Níl

• Chléirigh, Caitlín Bean Uí.
• Connolly, Joseph.
• Cummins, William.
• Dowdall, J.C.
• Duffy, Michael.
• Farren, Thomas.
• Foran, Thomas.
• Johnson, Thomas.
• MacEllin, Seán E.
• Moore, Colonel.
• O'Doherty, Joseph.
• O'Farrell, John T.
• Phaoraigh, Siobhán Bean an.
• Robinson, Séumas.

Tellers:—Tá: Senators Milroy and Mac Loughlin; Níl: Senators Connolly and O'Doherty.

Question declared carried.

The Seanad adjourned at 7 p.m. and resumed at 8 p.m.

Cathaoirleach

As regards business, the printed list of amendments is now available and I hope that every Senator has a copy. It will be noticed that there are 45 amendments, all of them being to the Schedule. I propose to put the questions that Section 1 stand part of the Bill and that Section 2 stand part of the Bill. We then come to the Schedule and as it is obvious that only a small proportion of the amendments offered thereto can possibly be disposed of in the two hours allotted for the Committee Stage, I propose to call the amendments seriatim and not to allow a debate on any section of the Schedule to which no amendment has been offered. At 10 o'clock I shall put the question necessary to bring the Committee Stage to a conclusion.

Mr. Dowdall

Would I be in order in asking the Minister for Justice, who, I presume, is in charge of the Bill, a question?

Cathaoirleach

What I would suggest would be that if matter agreeable to your opinions is not divulged in the time allotted I shall allow you to ask a question before the conclusion of the business.

The Seanad went into Committee.