Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 25 May 1932

Vol. 15 No. 13

Public Business. - Constitution (Removal of Oath) Bill, 1932.—Second Stage.

The President

I am sure that the members of the Seanad have already, during the long discussions on this Bill, made themselves completely acquainted with the arguments, pro and con, and, on that account, I think it will not be necessary for me to speak at length at this particular stage. The Bill, as you see, is a Bill for the removal of the Oath, the Oath that is made obligatory for the members of the Oireachtas by Article 17 of the Constitution. The form of the Oath, as you are aware, occurs, I think, in Article 4 of the Treaty of 1921, but Article 17 of the Constitution it is that imposes the obligation on members to take it. The argument, I have no doubt, as to whether this Oath shall or shall not be removed will circle very largely round the question whether it is permissible for us to do this and to do it without interfering with the Treaty of 1921. I think that I would not be far wrong in saying that if that question did not arise we would have unanimous approval for this Bill. I have not heard anybody defend the Oath on its merits. I have not heard anybody argue that it is right that an obligation of this sort should be imposed. The only arguments against the Bill that I have heard are arguments, as I have just indicated, as to whether or not it is right or permissible for us to do this consonant with the Treaty.

It might be no harm for us to look at the other question first, to consider this question on its merits. Is there any particular reason why an obligation of this sort should be imposed upon the members at all? Supposing there were no Treaty obligations, would we stand for the insertion of an article of that particular kind in the Constitution? If you look at the Constitutions of a number of other countries you will find that in some an obligation of that kind is imposed and in others it is not. And one of the most peculiar things that arise from the comparison, one of the things that strikes you when you compare the Constitution of other countries is this: that the country that probably had most experience of the failure of cast-iron Constitutions to effect the purpose which their founders had in view, has no Oath. That is France.

It is a silly thing for the framers of Constitutions to think that by inserting in a fundamental law some particular principle which has not general acceptance, such insertion will enable that principle to be perpetuated. It is found to be a failure in France. You cannot bind the future in that particular way. The majority for the time being may like to preserve a sort of continuity of the principles that they stand by into the future. The experience of mankind in its deep commonsense shows that is a very vain attempt. But cast-iron rules intended to bind the future have always led to explosions of one kind or another of the whole principle which it was intended to maintain. So that, speaking for myself at any rate, on broad principles I would be against the insertion of any test of this kind in any Constitution. I think it cuts at the base of representative institutions in general.

If representative institutions are really going to be effective they ought to be really representative; that is, they should have amongst them, or they should be composed of the representatives of the different classes in the community, and any attempt to put tests is clearly intended to deprive in one way or another certain individuals or certain classes of individuals from representation. Therefore, I say that tests of that kind on their merits should not, seeing where they lead to, be included in any Constitution which would be drawn up by people who are really free to devise their own Constitution.

I am aware that arguments of a contrary kind may be put up and that there are some people foolish enough to think that the lessons of history can be set aside, and that they are able to do something which human beings so far have not been able to do. At any rate, if I were voting as a member of the Seanad I would ask myself and the other members of the Seanad to think for themselves. I ask the members of the Seanad to convince themselves that if we are to have real representative institutions at all, and if they are to preserve their character, that anything in the form of tests like this should disappear. We know how these tests in the religious conflict of the past were used, and we know how they were evaded. I think it is a mean thing to interfere with the conscience of the individual in the manner in which it is proposed in tests of this particular kind, and I am opposed to it.

I would, therefore, say that if we were to consider this test on its merits each of us would be against it, and if it existed and I could remove it on the general principle I would remove it. In our own case we see how this test is operating. There is no doubt whatever that this test is not in the Constitution with the will of the Irish people. Those who took the Treaty at the start defended their acceptance of the measures which were contained in it on the ground that they had to do it, that the alternative was war, and that no choice was left to them. I think that if you examine the records of the debates in the Dáil at the time the Treaty was introduced you will readily satisfy yourself that probably not more than three or four members of the Dáil defended the Treaty on its merits as the free will covenant between two peoples.

You can test the accuracy of my statement for yourselves. Look over the debates. I do not know if the debates of the secret session are anywhere in print, but if you had the debates in the secret session before you, you would satisfy yourself even more clearly than you can satisfy yourself from the debates of the public session of the truth of that. One of the most distasteful provisions of the Treaty undoubtedly at the time was this Article 4. The question as to whether it was or was not obligatory was argued not at very great length I am prepared to admit, because the attitude of many of us was this—that whether it was or was not obligatory in actual terms the position of dominating force which the British occupied at the time would be sufficient to get the British to have their own interpretation of the Treaty forced upon us, and not the actual terms of the Treaty as they might be interpreted, let us say by a third party, by an impartial tribunal if I might so term it. Therefore, this Article was undoubtedly an imposition on the people of Ireland from outside. The majority of our people resented it as such. The Treaty was accepted by a large number—

Mr. Milroy

The majority.

The President

I think the Senator might wait until I completed the sentence to know whether I would be right or not in using the word "majority." I said the Treaty was accepted by a very large number as something which could be used by them to advance from the position in which we were to a position of freedom where the pressure, the duress that compelled them to take it at that time might be removed, a position in which their own free will might have an opportunity of operating freely. These were the arguments undoubtedly that secured the majority. I wonder does the Senator agree with me now that these were the arguments that induced the majority of the Deputies in the Dáil to accept it? I probably would take it that the Senator is one of the two or three who might have accepted the Treaty on its merits as a free will covenant between two peoples. But he would be in a very small minority indeed if he belonged to that particular class. I would say if he were to include himself amongst the majority that the majority of the Deputies who took that view accepted the Treaty simply because they felt that the alternative was a war which we could not successfully wage.

The Oath is not therefore to be regarded as being in the Constitution as something which was deliberately chosen without outside pressure by the people of Ireland itself. And if it were, I for one would think it was an unwise choice to have an Article of this kind and feel that I would be free at any time to go back to the Irish people and ask them to change that view. At any rate, the Irish people have clearly demonstrated in the last election their view that on its merits they do not want that Article in the Constitution. When I was here in the Seanad on the last occasion I was however met with the argument that when that question was put to the Irish people there was also given to them an assurance of our belief that this Article could be removed from the Constitution without in any way violating the Treaty of 1921. That is the position as I see it and that is the position as the Government see it. That is the position as the majority of the members of the elected representatives see it to-day—that it is competent for us without any violation whatever of the Treaty of 1921 to remove that Article from the Constitution. I think that is the question to which I have to address myself here to-day.

The question is can we do this without violating the Treaty of 1921? I believe we can. The arguments behind my belief are these: that if you look at the structure of the Treaty you will recognise that certain Articles of the Treaty refer to our own domestic affairs here. They are of a special domestic character, closely associated with the status which we are supposed to possess. Whatever may have been the position in 1921 there is no doubt that in 1926 and 1930 it was definitely made clear by the representatives of the different States in the British Commonwealth meeting together in Conference that the position at the period in 1926 and 1930 and the position to-day is that so far as status is concerned the Irish Free State stands on the same level as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain herself, and that anything that it was competent for the Parliaments of these countries to do it is competent for this Parliament to do.

I ask any one of you to put this to the test:—if, for instance, there was in the British Parliament a majority who thought or who think as I do that tests of this particular kind should not be imposed on their merits and if the British House of Commons and the British House of Lords were to decide that it was not consistent with the representative character of their assembly to have a test of that kind imposed on their members—if the majority took the view that they would get rid of the Oath of Allegiance taken in that Parliament, I am perfectly certain each of you would admit that they could do so. There might be no inclination to do so. It is no answer that there might be no inclination on the part of Canada, or Australia or South Africa to do so; but the fact is that if there was an inclination to get rid of that Oath, if they thought it was a good act to do so and that it was in their interests to get rid of it, they could do so if they had the majority in favour of it and their doing so was not going to upset their State and change whatever relations existed between them and other States in the British Commonwealth.

My answer is if Britain can do that and if Australia and Canada can do that, that we can do it; and it is no answer to say that we are precluded from doing it by the Treaty of 1921, because the only way in which that Treaty can operate against us in precluding us would be if the Treaty had fixed a position for all time out of which we could not advance from the point of view of status. It does not pretend to do anything of the sort and it has never been interpreted so. The position regarding the appointment of the Governor-General and the position with reference to the British Cabinet has changed completely since 1921.

These changes have taken place here as elsewhere. Would it be suggested that in the case of the appointment of the Governor-General we could not do something that they can do in Australia, Canada and South Africa, on the grounds that we were being held back by the Treaty of 1921? No case was put forward in that regard at the time and no case can be put forward to-day with regard to our power to remove that Oath because it is one of the Articles that are associated with status. Our position, our right to pass laws whether they do or do not conflict with the laws that the British may wish to pass is co-equal; we are no longer subject to the will of the British Parliament here as regards our operations, and that being so the will of the British Parliament cannot operate as against our right to change this particular section if we please.

The only way in which it can be contended that we are debarred by the Treaty of 1921 from doing what we propose to do is on the grounds that it fixed for all time a definite position and that we cannot change that position without the express sanction and consent of the British Government and Parliament, and I would say even if that express consent were regarded as necessary that that express consent was actually given with the status position or accepted, as it was accepted, in 1926 and 1930. It was clearly admitted by the representatives of the British Parliament in that Conference, as well as by the other representatives of the other States of the British Commonwealth, that there was to be no dictation, no attempt by one Parliament of the Commonwealth to dominate another. Our position, therefore, is that it is wise to do this thing and to remove this Article from the Constitution and that it is within our competence to do it and to do it without in any sense violating the Treaty of 1921. It might be asked why does not the Government try to get this thing done by way of negotiation.

Mr. Milroy

You do not want negotiations.

The President

I will give my reasons now if you just wait. As I have said, it might be asked why does not the Government of the Free State go to the British Government and say "Our people wish to have this removed. Will you be good enough to permit us to do it?" Suppose we went there and suppose they said:—"We are not willing to permit you to do it," what position would we be in then? I hold that this is a test, a real test, as to whether the declarations of 1926 and 1930 mean what they say or not. If they mean what they say there is no offence whatever, there can be no offence in our doing what we propose to do.

It is only on the assumption that they do not mean what they say about the co-equality and the rights that are supposed to be admitted in these declarations, it is only on that assumption that we have to go and ask permission of the British and asking permission of anybody suggests a right of that person either to give or to refuse. I say they have no right to refuse and because I say that they have no right to refuse I do not want to go through the pretence of asking permission. It is not a Treaty matter or a question of whether or not we are interfering with the Treaty of 1921. It is outside the Treaty altogether. It is a question of fact really as to whether we occupy the position which we are supposed to occupy and which has been declared in 1926 and 1930; it is a question as to whether we are sovereign in our own domain or not.

I have heard foolish arguments that would suggest that the elimination of this Oath was an act of severance which cut us off from the other States with which we are associated at the moment in the British Commonwealth. I say this is an argument which cannot be upheld. When I was speaking of the Parliament of Great Britain a moment ago I asked you to put yourselves in this position and ask yourselves whether if the Oath of Allegiance to the King were removed by the Parliament of Great Britain that that was going to cut off Great Britain from the other States of the Commonwealth.

If Canada were to eliminate the Oath, or if Australia were to eliminate it, would that act cut Canada off or Australia off? There is a confusion of thought——

Mr. Brown

Hear, hear.

The President

—in the minds of anybody who argues like that. Supposing we were a Republic here the question as to whether there should or should not be an Oath either to the Constitution or to the Head of the State or any other test if you like or as to whether there should or should not be an Oath imposed here would neither interfere with the existence of the State as such nor with any other existing obligations that there might be between this State and outside States. It is clear that one is a matter between the State and its own individual citizens as to whether their representatives should or should not be obliged to conform to a certain test, and the other is a question of quite a different character. It is a question between States and therefore there is not involved here, as some people suggest is involved, a deliberate act of severance of this particular State from the States of the British Commonwealth. It is a question of quite a different character altogether and I hope that members of the Senate in arguing this question will not fall into the mistakes made elsewhere in this regard.

I think I need not dwell at further length on the part of the Bill immediately directed to remove Article 17 from the Constitution. But if you will look at it you will notice that there is a section which deals with the repeal of Section 2 of the Constitution of the Irish Free State Act, 1922, and you naturally ask why it should appear in the Bill which is entitled the Constitution (Removal of Oath) Bill, and the purpose of which is to remove a certain test in the Constitution. That is a very natural question, and it should be answered. The reason it appears in the Bill is this—there is really a twofold reason—it appears in this Bill as the Removal of the Oath Bill because if it were not there there is a possibility that this question might be referred to our own Courts. The Government does not wish that matters of this sort should be tried by our domestic Courts. The reason it does not wish this is because our own Courts are not the Courts for trying a matter of that particular kind. The only really substantial objection to the removal of the Oath that has been put forward is the one that I have indicated, namely, that it is supposed to violate the Treaty. Therefore, our Courts are to be put in the position in which they are to determine a question which is really an international question. Domestic Courts ought not to be asked to decide on matters of that kind. They are really international matters. I pointed out in the Dáil already that it stands to commonsense that domestic Courts ought not to be used as Courts in any country for deciding international matters for the very good reason that if they should decide in favour of the home Government the decision would be of no effect as regards its power to influence the other party, because it would be said this has been tried in a biassed court. The British Government could very fairly refuse to accept a judgment of our Court if it were in our favour. If, on the other hand, the judgment was against us, then, whether it was a right judgment or a wrong judgment, it would practically put our Government out of Court—out of any Court. The only thing that can be said for it is this, that if you got a judgment in your favour it might influence, to some extent, public opinion on your side. But that is a very big risk. Taking it as a general principle, would it not be an unfair risk for a Government that had the interests of the people at heart to submit a matter to the domestic Courts when a judgment in their favour could not really affect them, and a judgment against them would be such as completely to rule them out of Court in an international sense? Because that judgment was found against them, when they tried to take it to an international Court, they would be told: "Even your own biassed Courts would not find in your favour." On general principles, therefore, it is wrong to submit international questions to a home Court, and we do not propose that any risks in a matter of this fundamental importance to our people should unnecessarily be run. If this matter should be tried in a Court, then, the Court must be one where a judgment for us will settle the question in our favour, or a judgment against us will settle the affair definitely against us. It must be a fair risk in that sense. On general principles, then, it is wrong that our Courts should have the decision on this matter. As a mere ordinary matter of precaution, which would be taken by any Government in the world where there was an international dispute, we ought to see that this question will not be referred to the Courts, that this, which is essentially a matter to be decided by the representatives of the people and by the legislature, will be decided by the Court proper to decide it as far as this country is concerned.

This is the Court in which that matter has to be decided as far as we are concerned. Therefore, again I repeat, as a matter of mere precaution, in order that when this becomes an Act it may be effective and that it may not be open to revision of the question in any of our Courts here, we are introducing that second clause which is necessary for that purpose. I admit that I am not sorry that there should be an occasion to introduce this clause here because if it did not come in in this Bill undoubtedly, on general principles, it should be brought into a separate Bill immediately afterwards.

Apart altogether from the precaution that it was necessary to take in regard to the Oath question—it is a matter of principle again—this clause should be introduced because if this is a Treaty between two peoples it ought to stand in relation to domestic law in the same position that Treaties between countries usually occupy. And what is the position that they usually occupy? Are they put in the position of dominating domestic law? They are not. They are outside domestic law, usually.

They are not, as other matters at issue, to be tried in a home Court. If they are to be justiciable at all it should be in a Court of an international character in which the two nations involved appear as two persons before it.

This clause, therefore, would, altogether apart from the Oath Bill, be necessary in order to put, as I expressed it in the Dáil, this Treaty between the Twenty-six Counties and Great Britain in its proper place qua international treaty. And putting it in its proper place does not deprive this Treaty of any binding force it may have between the two countries. It simply puts it in the position as between the two peoples that it is binding, but as far as domestic law is concerned in so far as it may be necessary to implement it by domestic law, that implementation has to be done in quite different fashion from the way in which it is done in the Constitution Act. Therefore, I say the purpose of this second clause here for the repeal of Section 2 of the Constitution Act may be regarded as twofold, though fundamentally it is one thing that is involved, first, a precautionary measure in regard to this particular question of the Oath, and secondly, as a general principle, because we are satisfied that the Treaty, as a Treaty, ought to be put in the position in which Treaties between sovereign States usually are.

I have had a number of constitutions examined and the position of Treaties with regard to other States examined and, out of a very large number which has been examined, I know of only one where an international Treaty is put in any special position with regard to domestic law; that is in the United States. It was mentioned in the Dáil, but as a matter of fact it is an exception.

We have entered into other Treaties of an international character since this State was founded, and they occupy a certain position. This Treaty ought to occupy just the same position if it is to be regarded as an international instrument.

The next section, Section 3, which requires the deletion of certain words in Article 50 of the Constitution, is really for the same purpose. It is to prevent the Treaty being regarded, so to speak, as our fundamental domestic law. That is a position it ought not to occupy, and the whole purpose of the Bill, outside the direct part for the removal of the Oath, is to put this Treaty in its proper place as an international instrument.

I hope I have, in general terms anyhow, indicated the scope of the Bill and tried to show you the logical connection between the various parts, and with that I commend it to you for a Second Reading.

Mr. Douglas

We are now considering the first measure of any importance which has come to us from the new Government and the Dáil since the General Election. Although there are admittedly many urgent questions requiring attention, the Government has seen fit to press the Bill before all the other items in their programme, which means that they regard it as a matter of major importance and urgency. The President is of the opinion, and he has made it clear to us here to-day, that it is an internal matter, and that the only question which we have to consider is whether or not we wish an Oath taken by all members of the Oireachtas.

I would like to say at once that if this was simply a matter of whether or not an Oath was desirable, I would have no difficulty whatever in voting for the abolition of the Oath. If I had my way, I would abolish all obligatory oaths or affirmations, not only for members of the Oireachtas, but also for jurymen, court witnesses, and the Civil Service. I would substitute an Act which would provide a statutory obligation of loyalty to the State as by law established, for members of the Oireachtas and of the Civil Service, and a similar legal obligation to tell the truth, or to act according to the evidence, on witnesses and jurors, respectively, with severe penalties for all breaches of the obligation. I go further and say that I believe that if the particular Oath we are now discussing was discussed at an Imperial Conference in a friendly way, it would be found to be of no real value to this country or to the various members of the British Commonwealth. I do not know a single citizen of the Saorstát who does not regard the way the Oath has been taken by many members of both Houses as a farce, which he would be glad to see ended in a constitutional and proper manner. There is not a member of this House, however, who does not know—and the President has admitted it—that the real issue which we have before us is not the merits or otherwise of the Oath in the Constitution. Far more serious questions are involved, and the passing of this Bill not only raises the question of our Treaty obligations, but may also affect our membership of the British Commonwealth—our trade and commerce, and last, but not least, the ultimate political unity of Ireland.

We are asked to pass this Bill and we are not told where it will lead this country. We do not know—the President cannot tell us definitely. The Government could easily have found out by friendly negotiation but they could not see their way to do so. We know that the Government say that they believe—I do not question the sincerity of their belief for one moment—that they can remove the Oath without breaking the Treaty or altering our position in the Commonwealth. We also know that the British Government hold a diametrically opposite view and they hold it strongly. We do not know the opinions of the Governments of South Africa, Australia, Canada or New Zealand. Probably every member of this House has his own opinion as to whether this Bill breaks the Treaty or not, but not one of us can answer with any certainty the question as to what our position will be in relation to membership of the Commonwealth if members of the Oireachtas cease to subscribe the Oath mentioned in the Treaty. Personally, I do not know the answer —I am not prepared to accept the opinions of either the President or of Mr. Thomas as authoritative or final. I do know, however, that when our Constitution was being drafted the members of the Committee did not include any Oath. They did not doubt that the taking of an Oath by members of the Oireachtas was obligatory, but they thought it would be sufficient to have the Oath in the Treaty and in the Standing Orders of each House of the Oireachtas. I know that there were discussions at that time, and I know that our Government accepted the view that the Oath was obligatory under the Treaty and should, therefore, be included in the Constitution. Even if our Government made a mistake—I am not arguing the point now—it is beyond doubt that they did so agree and that the Government which agreed to this was reelected on several occasions by the people of the Saorstát since that agreement was made.

I do not suggest that a new Government cannot properly endeavour to alter an agreement made by their predecessors but I am very strongly of opinion that any Government which desires to dispute or set aside that agreement is bound under the accepted rules of international courtesy, to say the least of it, and bound by its duty to the citizens of this country who may be vitally affected by the result, to enter into negotiations with the other signatory before any final action is taken.

The President has stated that this is an internal matter and one only affecting the citizens of this country. Even if this be correct, and I do not think it is, the fact remains that a previous Government agreed that it was not only an internal matter, but a Treaty obligation. It would have been a very simple matter for the Government to have introduced into both Houses a resolution in favour of the abolition of the Oath, without breaking the Treaty. I have no doubt that such a resolution would have been passed by both the Dáil and the Seanad. The Government could then have negotiated with full authority with Great Britain. If they had succeeded, well and good; if they had failed, they could then have put the issue to the country in the full knowledge of its consequences, and whatever decision was finally arrived at by the people could not be questioned by any loyal Irishman. This would have been a wise and dignified method, and would, in my opinion, have resulted in an ultimate agreement without any ill-will on either side. Instead, the Government have chosen the method best calculated to cause misunderstanding and bad feeling between this country and the people of Great Britain; they have chosen a method which has already injured our trade, which has caused uncertainty and insecurity for many other industries, and which leaves us in the unenviable position of not knowing where we stand. Great Britain is our largest—indeed, almost our only—customer. The prosperity of our agriculture and several of our largest industries depends on their British markets; in fact, the whole economic structure of this country has been built up on the assumption that we have a large open market close to us. If the Fianna Fáil Party had gone to the country with a programme of secession from the Commonwealth, if they had told the electors that their policy was the creation of a small State of 3,000,000 people, self-supporting and content with whatever wealth or prosperity 3,000,000 could produce amongst themselves, I would have strongly opposed them, but I would have respected their point of view. They did not do this. They said: "Give Fianna Fáil a chance to govern; there will be no scrap with England; we will not do anything to affect our constitutional position in the Commonwealth without another election." How have the Government kept this pledge? Their very first action has been to break the essential basis of the British Commonwealth, by proposing to break a form common to all the Parliaments, without any previous discussion or agreement.

When introducing this Bill in the Dáil, the President made what was— up to a certain point—an excellent pro-Treaty speech. It marked a great advance on his speeches of a few years ago, and as I listened to it I could not help feeling how much trouble this country could have avoided if he had held those views a considerable number of years before. But in this speech he showed very clearly that he still fails to grasp the essential basis on which the Commonwealth exists, which is friendship—readmess to act together on all matters of common concern and to discuss in a friendly way all matters of dispute between members of the group. We cannot have it both ways. While we are in the Commonwealth we must accept the common obligations. If we do not like these, we can try and alter them by consent, or we can announce our intention to secede. Either course would be honourable and dignified, but the present method is neither and has created an intolerable situation—intolerable to our traders and manufacturers, and indeed to most of our own citizens; intolerable also to Irishmen resident in other countries; unfair to our friends in Great Britain who wish to promote goodwill between the two countries.

I am inclined to think that the present situation is even more objectionable to our friends in the Six Counties than it is to anyone else. Occasionally, I have to visit Northern Ireland on business, and I know that there are persons in Northern Ireland who were Unionists and who were watching the growing friendship between this country and Great Britain with considerable satisfaction, and who believed it would ultimately lead to political unity in Ireland. The present régime in Northern Ireland will not last for ever; some day the moderate people will assert themselves and there will be a real move towards unity. The present Government in the Saorstát have, by their actions, given the extreme Unionist Party in the North a new lease of life. This Government had a magnificent chance to strike a blow for Irish unity. If they had said, "We have no mandate to leave the Commonwealth, therefore we will give the Commonwealth a fair trial; we will co-operate with Great Britain and the other nations in the friendliest possible way; we will try our best to remove our outstanding difficulties and disagreements by negotiation," I believe they would have brought Irish unity in this generation within the bounds of possibility. To my mind, the method they have adopted in this measure has created hostility amongst the majority in the Six Counties which it will take many years to right again, and I honestly think they have added years to the lifetime of partition, which all parties want to end.

The President stated that we have a constitutional right to pass this Bill— that the nations in the Commonwealth are co-equal in status—and he laid great stress on the legal independence secured by the Statute of Westminster. Personally, I do not dispute any of these contentions. I do not question our constitutional right to pass this Bill, but I do not believe that the Statute of Westminster gave us any legal powers which we had not previously possessed according to constitutional usage. The Statute of Westminster was of the utmost importance in that it gave legal form to what had already been accepted at previous Imperial Conferences. When the Treaty was signed, I wrote several articles in which I contended that the Saorstát then became politically independent, and bound only by its membership of the Commonwealth to accept certain common forms and to consult with other Members on all matters of common interest or in any matter of dispute.

Friendly interchange of views at various Imperial Conferences have resulted in great constitutional development since the Treaty was signed, but the fundamental basis remains the same. The representatives of the Saorstát have taken a prominent part in this development. They have consistently contended that the greater the freedom in form as well as in fact, the greater the possibility of free cooperation. If they had argued that they required the abolition of ancient forms which suggest domination in order that they could refuse to discuss or to co-operate, they would have failed completely. They succeeded because they presented an unanswerable case in a friendly manner. Common forms have been so reduced in number that only five remain:—

(a) The King as head of the Commonwealth, with his representative in each Nation, nominated by the respective governments.

(b) The King as an integral part of each Parliament, which consists of the King and two Houses.

(c) The King as nominal head of the Executive, acting only on the advice of his Ministers.

(d) An Oath to His Majesty taken by all Members of Parliament in each State, and

(e) An obligation to consult together from time to time on all matters of general interest, and, in particular, to consult with any, or all, of the other Governments on any matter which any of them may consider likely to affect their interests in any way.

How far any, or all, of the first four of these common forms are essential is a very proper matter for discussion if any Government chooses to raise the issue; though admittedly they do not, in fact, prevent any of the constituent States governing their own people as they think right—but clearly they are not matters on which any one State can act alone, without negotiation, if it wishes to retain its membership.

The President has specifically referred to the power of the British Parliament. I would say definitely that if the British Parliament proposed to delete the Oath taken by its members, and if any one of the other Parliaments objected, the British Government would be obliged, not legally perhaps, but obliged in the spirit of the Commonwealth, to enter into consultation with the other Governments before any action was definitely taken. In fact, as we know here, they had to consult this country and each of the Dominions before changing the title of His Majesty. They could have done it, but not within the constitutional usage of the Commonwealth. I have read most of the speeches in the Dáil on the Fianna Fáil side during the discussion on this Bill, and it seems to me that they have completely failed to understand the point of view of those of us who are opposed to this Bill, because we believe not only the good faith of this country but also its real independence, both at home and abroad, may be endangered by its immediate passing into law.

I am not referring to certain cheap jibes that we are fighting England's battle or to the belief that all Irish patriotism is on the Fianna Fáil side. The country and the people will judge the value of that talk for what it is worth. I believe the main reason why even the thinking members of their Party cannot understand our point of view is because they do not understand the present constitutional position of this country —they do not understand the construction of the British Commonwealth. The members in the Commonwealth are independent and co-equal. As the President said, no one has the right to dominate the other. To quote the Imperial Conference Report in 1926: "Every self-governing member is now the master of its destiny. In fact, if not always in form, it is subject to no compulsion whatever." If this is true, and the President recognises that fact, what is it that binds them together and makes a Commonwealth of Nations at all? I submit that the fundamental link is the absolute obligation to consult on any matter which any of the nations in the group consider to be of common concern. To my mind it is this friendly consultation before action is taken which is the really vital link, greater even than the acceptance of the common Crown. It is this obligation that the Government is breaking by its refusal to negotiate. While stating they do not propose to secede, they are cutting across the very thing that makes the existence of the Commonwealth possible. I do not believe, and I have never believed, that the British Commonwealth exists on legal forms or sanctions. Some one has said that the Imperial Statute as a means of unity has been superseded by the Imperial Conference as a means of cooperation. It is obvious to any student of its progress and development that constitutional usage and practice have always preceded the changing of legal form. The very life of the Commonwealth depends on consent and mutual goodwill. Again I would quote the same Imperial Conference Report: "Free institutions are its life blood; free co-operation is its instrument."

I think it was in the Dáil the President stated that Canada could alter her Constitution if she wished. That is only a half truth. According to the letter of the law, Canada cannot, even under the Statute of Westminister, alter her own Constitution. Yet does anyone doubt for one moment that if she should decide to do so, she would enter into negotiation and the necessary legal sanctions would follow immediately? In the same way I believe the Constitution of the Saorstát is in strict legality limited by the terms of the Treaty. But, if it were, by any chance, found that these terms were in conflict with any agreement made, or that they placed us in a worse position than, say, Canada or South Africa, the necessary legal alteration of the Treaty must follow in due course. We would be entitled to demand it. Members of the Party opposite may not agree with me, but I hold strongly that membership of the Commonwealth means a great deal to this country. I think it is a safeguard of our political liberty and freedom. If we go out of the Commonwealth as the result of a quarrel with Great Britain or with any of the other nations in the Commonwealth, we should be simply a small, divided country with no friends anywhere. We should lose our position in the Councils of Europe and run the risk of losing the principal markets for our produce, and that would mean an inevitable increase in unemployment.

Inside the Commonwealth, we can be certain, or reasonably certain, of a friendly Great Britain. But even if Great Britain were not friendly when we are inside the Commonwealth she could not interfere with our liberty without endangering the existence of the Commonwealth itself. Outside the Commonwealth we might be theoretically more independent, but a hostile Britain could restrict our real independence in many ways, and in ways that she could not do at present, and no other nation would care what happened to us. The Government say that in objecting to this Bill England is interfering with our liberty and ignoring the co-equality of the nations in the Commonwealth.

The President said that if he went to negotiate he would be asking for leave. I think that kind of contention shows a complete misunderstanding of our position and confuses the issue. I agree with him in this, that I do not want this country to go and ask for leave. I want this country to recognise that while we are in the Commonwealth, if any one of the other nations raises an issue, we, before we act, have an obligation to discuss it, and we can decide on our action afterwards, because we are free. It is this country— I say it regretfully and deliberately— that is proposing to break the fundamental basis on which the Commonwealth exists, by refusing to accept our obligations, by attempting to break a common form without negotiation or agreement. I should like to emphasise again the fact that it is not the proposal to delete the Oath in itself which is a breach of our Commonwealth obligations. We do not know that yet. It has not been discussed. It is the refusal to discuss the common form whether it is to be regarded as essential to the group, or the club, if you like, that, to my mind, is the breach, and that is a matter upon which the country has not been consulted.

What is the right course for this House to adopt in regard to the Bill? The Bill has been passed by a majority of the Dáil after a General Election. I think we may assume that the majority of the people would favour the abolition of the Oath if it can be done within the Commonwealth. The main function of this House is that of revision, and we should not lightly reject a Bill passed by the Dáil, especially just after an election. We have, however, another function—that of seeing that the people are consulted on any issues of vital importance to the country on which they have not been consulted at the polls. The President says that he has a mandate to remove the Oath, but he also says he has not got, and did not ask for, a mandate to alter our constitutional position in any other way. He has no mandate to lead the country, either directly or by a back-door, outside the British Commonwealth. According to his own statement, it is his duty to ascertain beyond doubt that the question of our membership of the British Commonwealth is not involved in this Bill or in the action which he is taking in regard to it. If he finds out that the bringing of this Bill into operation may jeopardise that membership, then he is according to his own statement in honour bound to consult the electors of the Saorstát and to ascertain whether or not they wish to leave the British Commonwealth. He has declined to find out the position beforehand. We cannot make him do it. We can, however, see that sufficient time will elapse before this Bill comes into operation to enable the Government and the country to find out exactly where we stand. We think that this House has a duty to see that the people of this country know beyond yea or nay where it stands in relation to the Commonwealth if this Bill comes into operation.

I would therefore suggest to the Seanad that we should allow the Second Stage of this Bill to pass without a division. By doing so it will be made clear that we have no objection to the removal of the Oath if it can be done by negotiation and agreement. When the Bill reaches Committee we should ask the Government to explain exactly what steps it will take to ascertain the true position; what steps it will take to see that the President's assurance is fulfilled—that the constitutional position of this country will not be altered without another election. If we are satisfied with the statements made we can then introduce an amendment which will provide that the Act will only come into operation after an Order in Council has been made, and providing that such Order shall not be made before an agreement has been entered into with Great Britain, the other party to the Treaty of 1921, for the necessary amendment of that instrument. This will give ample time to ascertain the true position, whether at Ottawa or elsewhere, and there will be no possibility of the country finding itself outside the Commonwealth until it has been consulted on the question. To sum up the position as I see it, I believe the majority of the people consider the Oath to be useless to this country. I still believe that a majority prefer to remain in the Commonwealth. I hold that the Government have no right to press this matter to the extent to which it might lead—to our going outside the Commonwealth—and I believe it is our duty in this House to see that no irrevocable step is taken before the people are consulted. I suggest that the course I have proposed will enable us to carry out that duty.

Mr. Milroy

I followed the statement of the Minister with very close attention. It was an arresting kind of speech and I may say that it was a convincing speech, but convincing in a way which, I am sure, the Minister did not intend. It was a convincing vindication of the action taken ten years ago which he opposed, and it was a devastatingly convincing condemnation of the attitude he took then, and of the policy he has since pursued. The whole strength of the case that he has made has been based, and is based, on the growth in status and stature of this State from the beginning in 1921, which beginning he opposed. And the whole weight of his argument is this: that we have so grown from that origin, in stature and status and strength, that we are now potent enough to break treaties with impunity.

As I listened to the Minister developing his case and bedecking it with the trappings of pro-Saorstát argument, my mind went back to a good many years ago when I read of the pirates who, sighting what they thought was a potential victim, hoisted a friendly flag so that they might more readily approach that ship, board it, loot it, and scuttle it. I say that this is a political pirates' Bill and that its object is to scuttle the Free State. Why, Sir, the pirates are already on board. Last week, I believe, from the crew's quarters, we heard the strains of the pirates' shanties in the Dáil. One of those pirates, disguised as Minister for Finance, is engaged in the looting, and another, heading the squad that is being told off to do the scuttling, has appeared here to-day to enlist the services of Senators in that operation. For some time past the Press gang has been putting forward this view, that if the members of this House do not consent to be impressed into doing this work of the pirates, they will have to "walk the plank." Well, sir, whether I walk the plank or not as a result of my attitude on this Bill is a very secondary consideration with me in this discussion. But before I do, I have a few things to say about this precious proposal of these comic opera buccaneers; I have a few reasons to adduce why the duty of this House is to throw out this Bill and throw the pirates overboard.

And before this House gives its assent to this Bill there are several phases of the issue which it raises which require a much fuller explanation than the Minister has yet given. There are certain important questions that require to be answered, and answered, not in ambiguous double-meaning terms, which may mean one thing to the average mind but which are capable of quite a different interpretation in the indirect mental processes of the Minister. We want straightforward answers to plain questions. The people, Sir, after all are entitled to frank dealing in this matter. It is their security, their lives and their fortunes which are involved in this transaction, and which will be imperilled and possibly forfeited if the course which the Minister asks us to embark on should prove to be lacking in sound statesmanship and true wisdom.

The importance of stressing the necessity for Ministerial frankness in this matter is rendered very acute because of a rather amazing example of the lack of frankness displayed by the Minister to this House the last time he was here, and displayed in regard to a matter which has such a direct bearing upon this particular question which we are discussing that I think that it is not only relevant to introduce it but an imperative duty to direct the attention of the Seanad to it. It will be recalled that on the last occasion that the Minister came before this House—it was in March I think —he came to make, presumably, an official statement of policy. Before he spoke Senator Johnson, in the course of some speculations on what he anticipated the policy of the Government might be, deprecated very, very strongly the course of action that had been taken by the Minister some time previously in confiding to the Press a statement of Government policy which Senator Johnson argued should have been made to the Dáil before it adjourned. "I hope and trust," said Senator Johnson, "that the example of last week is not going to be followed frequently." Senator Douglas, who followed, drew attention to certain matters that had figured in the forefront of the election programme of the Minister, and he urged forcibly and repeatedly that in regard to those matters which may affect the relations between this State and England, before any action of a definite or irrevocable nature should be taken, every effort should be made to effect the desired changes by friendly efforts in the friendliest possible way. I quote the words. They are important enough to bring them very definitely before the attention of this House:—

What may ultimately result, we are not immediately concerned with at the moment, but I cannot help feeling that if they could see their way to give us an assurance that before any action of a definite or irrevocable nature was taken, an effort would be made to bring about the desired changes by friendly conversation and in the friendliest possible manner—I am by no means convinced that some of these difficulties could not be removed in that way—if they could give us that assurance a great deal of the uneasiness which exists in the country might by avoided.

In the course of the statement which the Minister made a little later he made but scant and, I think, only indirect allusion to this appeal of Senator Douglas. But he would give no assurance such as was asked for. He spoke in a lofty manner of what he terms his mandate and of his determination to give effect to it. And not only did he not give an assurance—I am coming now to the serious part of this matter, and if I did not regard it as of serious import I would not delay the House with it— not only did he not give the assurance asked for but he indulged in language which, in the light of subsequent events, seems to have been deliberately intended to mislead the Seanad and to keep it in the dark as to his intentions until the House adjourned. Here are his words:—

We are asked why we do not begin negotiations .......... our position is that this is a purely domestic question.

We feel, however, that it would be quite absurd for us, seeing that we are determined, no matter what happens, to carry out our mandate, to make representations such as have been suggested. Nothing could come of these representations.

I ask you, Sir, what impression was that language calculated to make on the mind of anyone listening to it save this, that there would be no precipitation of a further critical strain upon public feeling in this country or upon the position between this State and England until the Minister was ready to present his specific proposals to the Oireachtas and that the Oireachtas would be the first recipients of his intimate confidences in this matter? But, Sir, it was not until the Seanad adjourned not to meet again for several weeks, that we learned that before the Minister stood in the Seanad on that day, definite and irrevocable action had been taken. It must have been with astonishment that Senators read that evening in the Press the information that had been withheld from them by the Minister when he was addressing them, and that when he was addressing the House upon that occasion he had already, so to speak, crossed the Rubicon and that the first shot in the next round with England had been fired. The British House of Commons was informed of it that night, and I want to know why that information was withheld from the Seanad when we were discussing a matter which was very pertinent to it. I want to know why the British House of Commons was considered as entitled to prior information before the Oireachtas concerning the intentions of the Minister about this purely domestic question. We could only learn from the lips of Mr. Thomas what the policy of the Minister for External Affairs for Saorstát Eireann was. I venture to say that if the late Government had been guilty of anything nearly approaching this it would have been sufficient to have precipitated Senator Johnson headlong into a two column protest in the daily Press. But, Sir, the reason I bring this matter forward to-day is not merely because I think it deserves the censure of this House as wrong procedure, but because this matter that we are dealing with is of such vital importance to this State, and because I suggest that here we had a deliberate lack of frankness on the part of the Minister in dealing with this matter, and because I think it is the imperative duty of this House to insist that in the Minister's handling of the Bill that is before us to-day, there will be no repetition of this kind of thing, that there will be no cloaking or masking of hidden intentions, but that we shall have a full, frank statement, not merely of what, in the opinion of the Minister, the immediate effect of ceasing to take the Oath is, but as to what is the real purpose behind this Bill and where the policy that inspires it is going to land the people of this State.

Now, Sir, I come to the actual Bill itself. I leave aside for a moment the very questionable wisdom of the proposal, and I come to the grounds upon which it has been carried through the Dáil and brought to this House. I contend that the only valid authority upon which a proposal of this nature could rest is a clear mandate from the people, the electorate, that such a proposal should be proceeded with. I am aware that the Minister has made the claim repeatedly that he and his Government have certain mandates. In the Seanad on the last occasion on which he spoke, the occasion that I have just been referring to, he claimed that he had such a mandate by an overwhelming majority of the people. That statement was about as accurate as many others delivered since he came into office. Repeatedly in Press interviews, and in reply to messages from him to the Dominion Premiers and in correspondence with the British Dominions Secretary, he repeated that claim. In one of his speeches in the Dáil during the consideration of the Bill in that House he again made that claim in these emphatic terms:

"Either you will have to give up elections as giving a mandate at all, or you have to accept that we have a mandate here."

Now, I accept neither one nor the other of these alternatives of the Minister. I have gone to the trouble of trying to ascertain how far these repeated assertions of his are in accord with fact. I find it impossible to reconcile the two, and I am forced to the conclusion that either the Minister does not understand the meaning of the word "mandate" in its application to democratic electoral sanction for legislation, or he is a sort of political transcendentalist, one of those superior beings not under the necessity of discriminating between the regions of prosaic fact and the airy realms of imagination. Repetition after repetition that he has such a mandate, and that the people have delivered their will, has been made, and I have arrived at the conclusion that the explanation must be that the Minister has a chronic preference for fiction rather than fact, and suffers from the illusion that the former may be transformed into the latter by sheer vehement repetition.

I absolutely challenge the accuracy of the statement of the Minister that he has a mandate for this. If there was any basis for that claim it would be reflected in one or other of two things:—The majority returned to support him in the Dáil, or a majority of first preference votes cast for his Party at the polls. And the Minister knows, and so does every member of his Party, and so does every thinking man and woman in this State who has given any consideration to the matter, that in neither one nor the other of these directions can he find support for this claim.

At the General Election his Party was returned in a minority of nine. In the matter of first preferences his Party was faced with a majority of over 140,000 against them, and I ask what becomes of this overwhelming majority vote which he assured the Seanad he had on the last occasion he spoke here. What becomes of this unequivocal mandate that he has been telling the world about? He knows, and every man in his Party knows, and every man and woman in this House knows, and the Oireachtas knows, that there is no mandate for this Bill, and that this Bill has been brought before us and is being carried through the Oireachtas under false pretences.

What the Minister has got is not a mandate, but a small majority with the assistance of the seven wise men of the Labour Party, not a single one of whom has one iota of authority from his constituents to support the Minister in this Bill. He secured that support by dangling before the noses of these seven wise men a bunch of specious promises in the same way as the proverbial bunch of carrots is dangled before the nose of the proverbial donkey.

In regard to the attitude of the Labour Party, it is not out of place, as showing how difficult their claim to support this Bill is to recall the fate of their nominee at the last Election that was held in the Saorstát and the first that took place immediately after Labour had declared their support of this Bill. What was the result? Their nominee was defeated, and not merely defeated but was almost at the bottom of the poll. That was the first opportunity, and the only opportunity since, that the Electorate have had of pronouncing on what the seven wise men had done in their name. And if there is any significance to be attached to a mandate from the votes of the people, then I think Labour should have taken that as a line of reasoning by which to judge their action and policy.

Senator Johnson, it is true, has made an effort, to me a very unconvincing effort, to explain the tactics of his colleagues. His words are interesting enough to recall. Speaking during the Election I have referred to, he said:—

The Labour Party adheres to the belief that the Oath constitutes no barrier to social and economic requirements and industrial development. These should be our primary concern. At the present stage of the country's history there was no compelling necessity that the time and energy that should be devoted to other purposes should be devoted to the abolition of the Oath. But if the responsible Government believe that the country's welfare requires that it should be removed from the Constitution the Labour Party would have no hesitation in supporting them in that proposal.

Now there is a childlike and bland innocence about that reasoning of Senator Johnson which reminds me of Bret Harte's Heathen Chinee. To say the least, it is peculiar, and for Senator Johnson, a most extraordinary departure from precedent. It will be observed that he does not base his support on these proposals in this case on their merits. On the contrary, it will be noted that he prefaces his statement of support by a denial of the merits of these proposals to which he was giving his support, and he only gives his support because the responsible Government of the day wanted that thing done; because the Government thought that the country's welfare required that the Oath should be removed from the Constitution, and that, therefore, the Labour Party would have no hesitation in supporting them in their proposals.

Now, if my recollection be not very much astray, hitherto recommendations on matters of drastic policy in the interests of the people's welfare by the responsible Government at the time for the last ten years made no such touching appeal to Senator Johnson's heart. On the contrary, the very fact that there were recommendations from the responsible Government seemed to be quite sufficient to send him into vehement and determined opposition. Therefore, this may possibly be another example of politics making strange bed fellows and strange converts.

I notice that one of the seven wise men has made a unique discovery. He has found a unique substitute for the democratic mandate of sanction for legislation. He has unearthed the nursery mandate and said he found it in the cradle. I have heard of wisdom flowing from the mouths of babes and sucklings, but we also know that a good deal of babbling nonsense emanates from the same quarter, and I am inclined to class Deputy Norton's prattling with babbling nonsense. And if that is the only justification he can find for the action of his colleagues and himself, then the sooner the better, I think, that he goes out of grown-up politics and goes lack to his cradle where he can listen-in to the Postmaster-General broadcasting bed-time talks to juvenile politicians. The necessity for labouring and emphasising the importance of this mandate aspect of the matter arises in great measure from the fact that the Minister has practically anchored his whole case to it. He based his whole claim to introduce and pass this Bill on that ground. Speaking on the 27th April, moving the Second Reading, he quoted from his election manifesto, a copy of which I have retained as a souvenir of that historic contest.

"We pledge ourselves," he said, "that if elected in a majority we shall not, in the field of international relations, exceed the mandate here asked for without again consulting the people."

And he went on to say that the pledge that they gave to the electors they proposed scrupulously to honour. Therefore it follows, in my opinion, that if it is shown, as I think I have shown, that this Party was not elected in a majority and no mandate was given for this Bill, then the whole justification for proceeding further with it falls to the ground and vanishes. This Bill, every clause of it and every word of advocacy of it since the election is in excess, not of the mandate asked for, but of the mandate given by the people. And if, therefore, the Minister is still anxious scrupulously to honour his word and his pledge to the electors, the way to do so is to abandon this unwarranted offspring of his political miscalculations and to get on with the real work of government and administration.

I have another word or two to say in regard to this manifesto of the Minister. He declares now that this matter of deleting the Oath from the Constitution is a purely domestic question. That has been his argument on many occasions, but he has not consistently adhered to that. Even to-day he strayed into what must be an error from the point of view of his argument, by describing it as an international matter. However his mind may have fluctuated between the purely domestic question aspect and the international matter aspect, when he drafted this mandate I think he had no doubt in his mind that it was an international matter and not a purely domestic question. In this manifesto, which he used as the text for his Second Reading speech in the Dáil, he placed the Oath amongst international matters and declared the programme as a whole might be divided roughly into two parts, that which had relation to international and external relations of the State, and the other part which had reference directly to domestic matters.

Remember that he was arguing and dealing with this matter of the Oath and he proceeded immediately then to link that statement that I have just quoted to his pledge to the electors not to exceed the mandate in regard to international matters without further consulting them. The obvious inference from that was that when he drafted this manifesto, he did regard, and wished the electors to regard the matter as an international one. It is important to remember that in making that statement, dividing the programme outlined in this manifesto into two divisions, he placed international matters first, and this matter of the Oath is an international matter in the first part of his programme giving it pride of place at the head of the list, and rightly so. It stands out amongst these items. I have good reason to remember this programme. I made many a speech on the subject during the general election. This item of the Oath stands out in the whole list as pre-eminently to be included there and it is an international matter. However some people may think I am driving at an open door, I am not. This is an international matter and obviously concerns States other than, and in addition to, this State, and the other State so affected must be considered and consulted if a grave blunder in international relations is not to be committed. That is my point of view. We have a more explicit statement from the Minister than even that which I have already quoted. In the Committee Stage of the Bill in the Dáil the Minister argued against the suggestion that the Courts should be allowed to decide a certain aspect of the Oath question and he said: "I have another objection which I already mentioned that this matter should not be left to our Courts to decide, as it is a wrong principle." Mr. McGilligan: "What is a wrong principle?" The President: "To have the Courts decide an international matter."

Now I wonder does the Minister agree with our dissent from his reasoning about this difference between an international and a domestic matter. It cannot be purely a domestic matter in the Oireachtas and an international matter on the hustings. If it is a purely domestic question, then the Minister was humbugging the electors when he drafted this manifesto. If it is an international matter, then he is misleading the Oireachtas in his arguments to get the Bill passed into law. He cannot have it both ways. He said in the Dail:—

"I say that nobody in the Opposition has proved that we are violating the Treaty by removing the Oath. Legal luminaries on the other side did not prove it."

And he went on and again repeated the statement on 3rd May:

"It has not been proved on the other side that there is a violation of the Treaty. The mere statement does not prove it. The whole argument is on the assumption that there is violation involved, but there has been no attempt whatever to prove that—none whatever."

I wonder is the Minister really very much worried as to whether there is a violation of the Treaty in this Bill. I think if he was perfectly frank with us, and with the country, he would say his position was that he did not give a hang whether it violated the Treaty or not but he knew that there was a certain body of citizens in the country that must be calmed and pacified and, therefore, he had to engage in a piece of special pleading in order to demonstrate that there was no violation of the Treaty in this Bill. I wonder was he thinking of this Bill when he delivered this utterance? It is from a little pamphlet entitled "National Policy, outlined by Mr. de Valera at the inaugural meeting of Fianna Fáil at La Scala, Dublin, in May, 1926." There is one little paragraph on page nine:—

"I have been asked what we would do if we secured a majority. My answer is to say we would ignore the Lloyd George construction of the Articles and deal with them exactly as with the Oath." Is that the language of a man scrupulously anxious to avoid any violation of the Treaty? I have quoted the statement he made in the Dáil and I think he repeated the same statement or in similar language in the House to-day. I really wondered that there has not crept into his mind, if he has perused the speeches of those who opposed and criticised him in the Dáil, some doubt as to whether he may not possibly be wrong. I doubt whether, if he had perused carefully, and with a detached mind, statements made criticising his proposals he would still continue to adhere tenaciously to his own belief in his own political infallibility. I suggest, at any rate, that the Minister in his leisure moments, if he has any, or if he should proceed to Ottawa his journey out there might be made much more instructive and a little entertaining by contemplating his own errors by a perusal of columns 653, 654 and 655 of the Official Reports of the 27th April. There he will find a statement by the Minister for Justice in the late Government and it is very pertinent and so fully answers the complaint of the Minister that he obviously did not hear it and did not read it. It would be too bad if the opportunity was lost to bring it before him. This is the speech dealing with the repeal of Section 2 of the Constitution Act, that is Section 2 of this Bill. This is the language which the late Minister for Justice used on this matter. As a layman it seems to me to be fool-proof as a legal argument. It certainly was not taken up and dealt with by any Minister speaking after it was made, except by oblique reference to it by the Minister at a later stage on an amendment by Deputy McGilligan. Here are the words of Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney:

"It is said here that this Act is not a violation of the Treaty. I will go very much further to prove that it is a violation of the Treaty. I am going to prove that it is an absolute repudiation of the Treaty; it is a denouncement of the Treaty if it becomes law and the Treaty will no longer have any valid or binding effect in this country. If this Bill becomes law we will cease to be here and now members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. I will proceed to develop that point. Section 18 of the Articles of Agreement for a treaty between Great Britain and Ireland is very clear, definite and specific. It says: ‘This instrument shall be submitted forthwith by His Majesty's Government for the approval of Parliament and by the Irish signatories to a meeting summoned for the purpose of the members elected to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland, and if approved shall be ratified by the necessary legislation.' That Treaty was not binding on this country nor binding upon Great Britain until it was ratified by legislation. What is the legislation to ratify it? The legislation which ratified it is the very legislation with which this Bill is dealing. The only ratification of the Treaty is to be found in Section 2, the section which this Bill hopes to repeal. The Section sets out ‘The said Constitution shall be construed with reference to the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland set forth in the Second Schedule hereto annexed (hereinafter referred to as the Scheduled Treaty) which are hereby given the force of law and if any provision of the said Constitution or of any amendment thereof or of any law made thereunder is in any respect repugnant to any of the provisions of the Scheduled Treaty it shall to the extent only of such repugnancy be absolutely void and inoperative.'"

The ex-Minister for Justice continues:—

"In consequence, if the whole of Section 2 is taken away, not portion of it, then the Treaty has no longer got the force of law in this country. That section is the ratifying section and that statute is the ratifying statute. Repeal that statute and you go back to an unratified Treaty. That is a perfectly plain principle of the construction of statute law... Pass this Bill, make this law, and you will have brought about a state of affairs which will be the same as if Section 2 of the Act of 1922 had never been passed at all. In other words you will have brought about a position of affairs that the Treaty is not ratified and is abrogated."

The Minister said that no attempt had been made to prove that this Bill was a violation of the Treaty, none whatever, but a mere statement. Is that a mere statement or is it not a perfectly clear and lucid analysis of the position—the vital position of the Treaty? I say that the only man who can argue so blindly from the facts and deny that there is a violation of the Treaty is the man who is determined whether there is or is not a violation of the Treaty, that this Bill shall go through and smash the Treaty. After that statement that I have quoted was made the Minister for External Affairs and the Attorney-General both spoke and neither attempted to answer Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney nor Deputy McGilligan on that point.

The Attorney-General went to great pains to prove that we had powers legally to repeal the whole Treaty. I suppose if we did, that such an Act or such a repeal would have all the legality that this sovereign Parliament could invest it with. But what neither the Attorney-General nor the Minister for External Affairs was able to prove was this: that you are able to smash and violate the Treaty and maintain it at the same time. That is exactly what the Minister for External Affairs is trying to do. Unless he has achieved the faculty of working miracles I do not see how he is going to manage it.

On the Committee Stage the Minister made some reference not directly to the statement I have quoted from the ex-Minister for Justice, but to the same argument that was raised in a subsequent place on an amendment by Deputy McGilligan. He practically admitted the contention made by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney. He went as far as it was possible for him, consistent with the position he takes in regard to this Bill, to admit that Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney and Deputy McGilligan were right in their contention that these sections that he was repealing were vital to the maintenance of the Treaty. I have the actual report here.

These are the words of the Minister, and I ask you to mark their significance: "I am quite willing to admit that something may be said on that particular basis for the contention that it is the section of the Act, the particular section that gives the force of law to the Treaty." That is the section he is repealing, which would be referred to as the ratifying legislation. In that sentence the whole case that he has been making that this Bill does not violate and break the Treaty breaks down; it is an admission that such violation is perpetrated by this Bill. I do not know whether he will admit that, seeing that the Minister is apparently, in spite of his protest here to-day, coming to the conclusion that there is something to be said for those who claim that this violates the Treaty.

But it might drive home to his mind to quote once more for him what has already been quoted several times— that is, the declaration of his present allies or one of them, Deputy Davin. I am sure Deputy Davin will be gratified to learn how he has come to be regarded as a great authority on constitutional law. In any case, I wish to add my little offering to the tributes in that respect that have been paid to the worthy Deputy within the last two weeks. On October 3, 1922, these were the words of wisdom that fell from the lips of Deputy Davin:—

I listened very carefully to the speech of Deputy Gavan Duffy to find out from him, as one of the signatories to the Treaty, if anything took place in the negotiations that went on that would allow any member elected to the Free State Parliament to ignore this Oath or leave it optional. However, I am sorry to point out that nothing in his remarks cleared the air, so far as that matter is concerned. I am rather surprised, however, that if Deputy Gavan Duffy foresaw all these objections when he was representing the Irish people as one of the plenipotentiaries, why he did not make provision for all the things that he has referred to here to-day.... Looking at the position any way I may, I cannot close my eyes to the fact that the subject of this Oath forms Article 4 of the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, as signed by the representatives of both nations, and afterwards passed by Dáil Eireann.... It is at all events undoubtedly a fact, that no member present gave any indication to his constituents that he was in opposition to the Treaty, or indicated that he would imperil its operation in any way. It must be plain to everybody that the violation or alteration of any vital clause in the Treaty by one of the high contracting parties that signed it would render the whole agreement null and void. Unless Deputies are prepared to face this position honestly and say they are ready to accept the full consequences of their action, notwithstanding promises, explicit or implied, given to their constituents, they are only wasting the time of this Dáil in moving amendments which, if accepted, would leave the English free to say the Treaty was no longer in existence. Personally I gave a clear and emphatic promise to my constituents that I was prepared to make the best of the Treaty. I was elected to the Dáil by a very emphatic majority, and I am not now going, for the sake of any display or to satisfy any sentimentality, to defend a course that would be tantamount to antagonism to the policy on which I was elected. To my mind, all these arguments about the Oath are a mere storm in a teacup. If I were convinced the taking of the Oath would prevent me from placing Ireland first and above everything else I would emphatically refuse to subscribe to it. In the first part of the Oath I am asked to swear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the Irish Free State as by law established.... Consequently the second part of the Oath, as far as I am concerned, is mere window dressing, and is in no way going to compel me to do or say anything that would not be in the best interests of the Irish Nation. The proposal to abolish or alter the Oath at this stage is like trying to destroy the middle storey of a house after the building has been completed. To take the objectionable storey away you must abolish the whole structure.

I have shown on the Minister's own admissions, and not merely his admission but on his specific declaration, that this is an international question. We have it on the authority of Deputy Davin that it is a violation of the Treaty, and I have shown that there has been no mandate given by the people for this Bill or for any breach of the Treaty. The Minister said, to advert to the whole topic I was refering to, that a mere statement that this Bill violates the Treaty is no proof. I have shown that there has been more than a mere statement, but I say that it is a mere statement that he has a mandate to bring forward. This Bill has no mandate; I have given facts to show that there is no mandate for either the violation of the Treaty that this Bill proposes or for any other violation. I want to ask the Minister a very straight, a very definite question, and I want a straight answer. Is it his intention to take the Saorstát out of the Commonwealth? That question permits of and necessitates a definite unequivocal reply—yes or no. The issue that he is raising, I contend, in his proposal is secession from the Commonwealth, and whether that issue be a wise one or an unwise one, at any rate it is grave enough for the Parliament of this State that will have to make the decision to face in all its bearings.

Again I say and repeat what I urged at the beginning, and that is that the gravity of this issue is such that we here who have the responsibility of either assenting to and sanctioning the proposals of the Minister or rejecting them or amending them—that it is an imperative duty on us to insist that the Minister will open his real mind to us and tell us where he is taking this State by his policy. It is not sufficient for him to tell us that when the people are willing and ready to declare for a Republic, he is prepared to lead them. We want to know where he is going to ask the people to travel if he gets this Bill into law and he goes to seek for an extension of his mandate in regard to international matters. We want to know here and now, because the direction he will then propose to ask the people to follow will have some bearing on the decision we will have to come to in regard to this measure to-day.

So far as an ordinary mortal can follow the workings of the Minister's mind, it would seem that he would like to be in the Commonwealth and out of it at the same time. He told the Dáil some time ago that he and his Party were only accepting the Treaty for the time being, and I think he would like to have, so to speak, his feet inside the Commonwealth and his head outside—his body being materially incorporated with it internally, and his soul having only external association. Now I am quite aware that the Minister has repeatedly asserted that this Bill does not affect our status in the Commonwealth. He may have convinced himself of that, but I wonder how many outside of his own immediate partisans he has brought to that conclusion? But again I say, even if we admit that, which I for one do not for a moment, we want, and we are entitled to, a fuller disclosure of his projected policy than we have yet secured.

We want to know if, when he goes to seek for an extension of his mandate to dabble in international matters, whether that extension of his mandate will be towards the consolidation, strengthening and widening of our position in the Commonwealth, or will it be a mandate to destroy the last lingering vestiges of association by which the Commonwealth may survive. Because there have been certain statements made both by the Minister and his colleagues in the Government which would seem to indicate that the policy of the Minister and his Government is definitely to take this State out of the Commonwealth.

I want to know is this Bill the first step on the road of that policy, and we are entitled to know, because if it is deliberately part and parcel of the policy to bring about the severance of this State from the Commonwealth, then I say that is a consideration that will weigh very, very heavily with certain people in making up their mind as to the decision at which they will arrive. I repeat we are entitled to know from the Minister, and it is the kernel of the whole situation, what are his intentions towards the Commonwealth? Is he prepared to get up and say "I do not propose to take the Saorstát out of the Commonwealth of Nations"? or is he prepared to get up and say "It is my avowed object to take the Saorstát out of the Commonwealth; this is the beginning of my policy towards that end, and when I have secured this I will prosecute the next stages towards that object"? We are entitled to have a full declaration from the Minister as to his policy on this question. I said a few moments ago that there had been certain declarations which seemed to indicate that it is his purpose to take this State out of the Commonwealth. For instance, in Ennis on October 12th, 1930, the Minister said:

He had no interest in the British Commonwealth of Nations, and he held that the Government should not be trying to involve them in unnecessary and entangling alliances at the Imperial Conference.

Will the Minister say whether behind this Bill there is not the same mind and the same driving force behind this declaration as in Ennis two years ago? One of his colleagues who sits with him here to-day visited the Historical Society in Trinity College on the 18th of this month and he delivered an address there. There was no official report given, and I can only depend upon what the Press stated. The statement of the Postmaster-General in regard to the Commonwealth was as follows:—

He claimed a special right to discuss the Republican position with regard to partition. Having lived for thirty-six years in Belfast and with friends of every possible shade of political opinion, he was convinced that the only argument which would ever appeal to the North-East Irishman was the evidence that membership of the British Commonwealth of Nations was not advantageous. The only way to prove this to them was the establishment of a prosperous economic State outside the British Empire in Southern Ireland.

This was about a week ago. I could quote similar statements not merely from the Postmaster-General, but from Ministerial colleagues of the Minister in the Government, with absolutely the same trend of thought; and what we want to know is: is this Bill intended to implement the ideas expressed in these statements I have quoted? If it is, then this Bill is a Bill to implement the severance of the Saorstát from the Commonwealth of Nations, and I think it is important enough to be faced and weighed in all its bearings and implications, and that a decision to support this Bill should be based upon the grounds that withdrawal from the Commonwealth is a wise thing and a good thing for the Saorstát. If we believe that, then here is the first step to secure that good and wise thing. If we believe that it is unwise; if we believe it would be a disadvantageous thing for this State, then, judging the matter from that point of view, this Bill, I think, would not receive much support.

The Minister has dwelt with a reiteration which has become almost nauseous about his hypothetical analogy with Canada and South Africa, and what they can do. If what he says is correct, if there are any grounds for that argument, then surely this is a matter of common concern to all these Dominions and a matter which is one which would merit being discussed between the representatives of these Dominions before one Dominion arrives at an isolated decision? The Minister spoke in the beginning and referred to the existence of confusion of thought. In that he uttered one of the few things with which I agree with him. I do not know that we agree as to the quarters in which the confusion reigns or exists, but he seems to confuse co-equality of function with identity of origin. Those States, Canada, Australia and South Africa, have their constitutional basis and origin in British Statutes. This State has not. This State has its constitutional origin in the Treaty of 1921. The Treaty of 1921 enters into our Constitution because that Constitution is in a large measure the offspring and outcome of the Treaty, and to use the argument that the President, the Minister for External Affairs, has used seems to suggest it might be argued that co-equality means identity and identification, and that as we are co-equal members of the Commonwealth and are bound by the Treaty, therefore the other members of the Commonwealth are bound by the Treaty also. This kind of argument is simply riding a plausible argument to death. If the Minister can demonstrate this it would be a sound position for him to take up. If he can demonstrate that we have reached the stage in State development, national development and constitutional development when the provisions of the Treaty are no longer binding on the people of this State—if he can demonstrate that then he can demonstrate that we can give effect to this Bill. But his argument from the analogies he draws as to what Canada and Australia may do are neither convincing nor in my opinion sound. Sometimes they appear to be somewhat puzzling. But the point I am trying to drive home is this, that no matter how the Minister and his colleagues may assert that this Bill does not violate the Treaty and does not affect our status in the Commonwealth; no matter how much they may say so, assuming they are anxious to avoid doing these things, can they give us any assurance that the other members of the Commonwealth will not take the viewpoint that this Bill does violate the Treaty and does sever the contact of this State with the Commonwealth and treat us accordingly? Can they give us an assurance that that will not be the attitude adopted by the other members of the Commonwealth if this Bill becomes law? At any rate it is a matter which the Government should investigate because if in a moment on the assumption of a certain attitude on the part of these State members of the Commonwealth, this Bill passes, we may find we are in the humiliating position where we will be told that we have cut the painter and that there will be no further inter-State communication with us. I think some investigation in advance might obviate such a humiliating position and the Government are in duty bound to prosecute such an inquiry.

I am not arguing that we are not competent to secede from the Commonwealth. That, in my opinion, is certainly within the rights and powers of this State, and that right was admitted and defined as far back as the 30th March, 1920, in relation to the Dominions and the Commonwealth at that time by the late Mr. Bonar Law in the British House of Commons, when he used these words:—

There is not a man in this House who would not admit that the connection of the Dominions and the Empire depends upon themselves. If the self-governing Dominions, Australia and Canada, choose to-morrow to say, "We will no longer make a part of the British Empire," we would not try to force them.

The events of the years that have intervened since then have added weight and effectiveness to these words to a degree which no man could have foreseen at the time they were spoken. Since then the relations, not merely between Ireland and Britain, but also between the Dominions and Britain, have undergone a radical, fundamental transformation. It is no exaggeration to say that the very concept of Empire, which in those days regulated these relations, has vanished. The term Empire itself has fallen into disuse. In the place of the Empire of that day, where Britain exercised an over-riding dictatorial veto, we have now the Commonwealth of co-equal sovereign States, each supreme within its own domain, and among that very association exists the Saorstát, where the authority of Britain is as non-existent as it is in Peru. I am, therefore, not challenging the right of this State to secede from this association, but I am urging that that is the real issue that is being raised in this Bill, not the mere question of deleting the Oath or indulging in a little constitutional reform. The real issue we have to face in this Bill is secession from the Commonwealth.

I am asking the Seanad to consider, before it assents to this Bill, whether that course is a wise one to pursue; whether or not it may not be folly of the greatest magnitude to do this thing at the present time and in this way and under existing circumstances. The Minister raised a new issue to-day with regard to the Oath. He gave us a dissertation on the philosophy of Oaths. He is not now concerned about the implication that this Oath is a derogation from our status or is a perpetuation of British authority. It is a pure question of the consciences of those poor people outside who, so far as I know, are still determined that the Free State shall go, lock, stock and barrel. There was a time when the Minister took a quite different view and succeeded in creating a rather spurious public opinion about this matter of the Oath. He would hardly deny that, even if he were here. I have his words of false prophecy which he indulged in ten years ago, where he declared that this Oath would have enthroned permanently the authority of England in this State. I have them here and they can be cited if necessary. But the ten years that have intervened have so exploded that theory that he then pronounced that he knows that if he adhered to the theory of the argument he then put forward in favour of the Oath, he would be laughed out of court. He assumes a new pose now.

Those ten years have given the lie to the utterly fallacious contentions which he made when he was opposing the Treaty. Now he will not have an oath of allegiance to the authority or the will of the people; he will not have an oath or a declaration of any kind from the elected representatives of the people. That may or may not be a sound idea. I suggest that it is an entirely new issue to raise, and an issue that should be discussed entirely apart from the storm of vexed controversies that the Minister has for the last ten years succeeded in arousing around the question of this particular Oath. This is neither the time, nor is this the manner, to discuss the question whether this State as a State should have a declaration of some kind from its elected representatives, and the purpose of this Bill is not to deal with that matter. The purpose of this Bill is to strike at what is considered the most vulnerable part of the Treaty, on the principle that the strength of the chain is its weakest link, and that by smashing what may seem its most vulnerable part the whole structure of the Treaty will come tumbling to the ground.

Another argument that was used by the Minister and his supporters to generate bitter opposition to the Treaty in connection with the Oath was that this Oath would enable Britain to exercise authority here and act in an aggressive manner to the people of this State. An assumed apprehension of aggression from England represented a large part of the driving force behind the campaign of the Minister and his supporters—an assumption of aggression on the part of England against this country—and it is therefore pertinent to inquire if we withdraw from the Commonwealth and later on there should be international complications which involve Britain and this State, what guarantee have we against any aggressive action that England may then feel inclined to take, and what power would we have to restrain such aggressive action on the part of Britain? If you are depending upon foreign countries coming to your aid in that extremity, I am afraid you are depending upon a very, very feeble hope. If there is one thing our history should teach us, it is that there is no altruism in the foreign policy of any foreign country.

At the present time, by virtue of our status in the Commonwealth, we have a guarantee against aggression from Great Britain to a very ample degree. I know the Minister will smile when I refer to this guarantee, but the guarantee, and the words in which it is written, are a much better defence for this State than whatever may be behind the Minister's smile. I refer to the letter of General Smuts to President de Valera on August 4th, 1921, in which he makes this declaration:

If, as I hope, you accept, you will become a sister Dominion in a great circle of equal States, who will stand beside you and shield you and protect your new rights; who will view an invasion of your rights as if they were their own rights; who will view an invasion of your rights or a violation of your status as if it were an invasion and violation of their own and who will thus give you the most effective guarantee possible against any possible arbitrary interference by the British Government with your rights and position.

In fact the British Government will have no further basis of interference with your affairs, as your relations with Great Britain will be a concern not of the British Government but of the Imperial Conference, of which Great Britain will be only one of seven members. Any questions in issue between you and the British Government will be for the Imperial Conference to decide.

I remember, on reading the report, I discovered where that quotation had been cited by one Deputy in the course of the discussion, and the Minister, when he came to refer to it, became somewhat facetious. He seemed to assume that because General Smuts did not immediately accept his version of the merits of this controversy that therefore General Smuts was acting as a supporter of English aggresion in this matter. There has been no aggression from England in this matter. If there has been any truculence, anything that savours of aggression in this controvery so far it has emanated from the Ministers of the Irish Free State. But it is surely a matter worthy of consideration whether the guarantee against possible aggression indicated in that letter should be lightly thrown away, especially when, so far as any human mind can discern, there is no evidence of an adequate substitute guarantee likely to be available to replace it. Certainly the Minister, so far, has failed to indicate the remotest prospect of any.

I am taking the view, as I have already stated, that the issue we are considering is secession from the Commonwealth, and I am taking the view that if that is so it is only right, before we come to a decision to assent to or reject this Bill, we should consider what are the likely reactions to follow from its passing into law; what are the reactions likely to follow from withdrawal from the Commonwealth of Nations? What position would we occupy? I do not know. We certainly will have ceased to have Commonwealth status—we will not be an independent nation—we will be a fragment of a nation; apparently we will not be a Republic, an isolated Republic—not even an externally associated Republic.

We will have all the disadvantages of isolation and none of the advantages of either an independent Republic or of Commonwealth status. We have to consider what exactly will be the constitutional position we will occupy. So far, it has not been indicated. Can the Minister inform us this: if under such circumstances nations which have recognised our status by accepting our representatives and sending their representatives here will continue or withdraw that representation? Will our representation on the League of Nations be continued or withdrawn? Remember that this recognition and representation which we have secured arises directly from the status we have won through the Treaty, and it is important that we should know, and know before this discussion terminates, how far these matters have been considered by the Minister before introducing this measure. Is he in a position to give us any assurance that such international recognition as we possess will not be withdrawn if and when we abandon the position from which such recognition is derived?

I come to another possible reaction. Can he enlighten us upon the policy that his Government intend to pursue if, consequent upon a rupture of relations with England, this State is confronted with a tariff wall blocking the entry of its products into the markets of that country, or at best making the marketing of them there an uneconomic proposition? Has the Minister secured alternative markets for our produce in that eventuality? If so, will he tell us where those markets are situated? If he has not secured alternative markets and if a critical economic position for this State arises, will he tell us how his Government are prepared to cope with such a critical economic position? I read in an interview which he gave to a representative of the "News-Chronicle" some time ago that, referring to the possibility of a trade boycott by England, he said: "We should undoubtedly suffer during the initial period, but the final result would be beneficial."

Mr. Dowdall

Hear, hear!

Mr. Milroy

A very feeble hope is expressed in that. If the hope in that "hear, hear" is as feeble as its utterance I am afraid the prospects of this State and the policy that inspires that "hear, hear" are very poor indeed. The first part of that statement that we should undoubtedly suffer during the initial period is I think an obvious certainty. The second part—"the final result would be beneficial"— I think is merely an optimistic speculation.

I have heard the suggestion of retaliatory tariffs against England in the event of that country withdrawing preferential treatment from Free State produce entering her markets. I think the Minister himself hinted at the possibility of such in the interview I have quoted for you. I cannot see how an expedient of that nature would save the situation for this State. We might be able to hit back to a certain extent, but in the event of a tariff wall if there were retaliatory tariffs on one side or the other—in the event of a tariff wall that was based not upon economic interests or grounds but upon political resentments—I do not think it is difficult to see which of the two countries could stand the racket longest.

In the daily organ of the Minister's Party for March 30th, there appeared a reprint of an article in an English paper. It was published in the "Irish Press" with captions that suggested warm editorial approval of the tenor of the article in question, the burden of which was that if a tariff wall was erected in Britain to exclude Irish agricultural produce from that country it might prove to be Ireland's economic salvation. If that has any relation to the reasoning of the Minister I think he must have mistaken "Alice in Wonderland" for a textbook on statesmanship and taken the Mad Hatter as his mentor in economics. That appeared seriously as a definite contribution in the columns of the organ of the Minister's Party, that if a tariff wall is placed in the British market to exclude Irish agricultural produce it may prove to be Ireland's economic salvation. Such a tariff wall would, no doubt, have a profound and far-reaching effect on the economic life of the Free State, but I very much doubt if it would tend towards our economic salvation. There are certain States that would welcome that, I believe, as a step towards the solution of their social problems. Canada, Denmark and New Zealand have economic interests that would be powerfully stimulated by the exclusion of the produce of the Free State from the British markets. It would be helpful to them, but for the Free State the only immediate effect and probably the only ultimate effect, would be one of economic dislocation and widespread distress. Is that necessary? Is that the intention? Is the philosophy of the Minister and of his colleagues this: that before this country can come to maturity nationally, before it can reach the promised land of the enjoyment of national freedom, that we must have another series of tribulations, this time not at the hands of an alien oppressor but under the economic pressure and conditions created, and deliberately created, by the Government elected by the people themselves? Is that their theory, that we cannot develop normally from the freedom we have, building up the State, or is it the theory that it is essential that we must again go through—I will not say another baptism of fire, but another test of hunger, starvation and destitution before the real sun of liberty and prosperity shines on this land? Is that the theory? It seems to be indicated by those who sponsored his policy in the Press and elsewhere that that is the theory he has.

There is another aspect I want to refer to, and I am sure this will interest the Postmaster-General. I have already quoted his statement that he lived for a long time in Belfast. You would think, that being so, that he would still have, in his inner heart, a warm corner for the Northern Counties. I want to refer to the possible reactions of this Bill, if it becomes law, in the North-East Counties of Ulster. It is impossible to ignore that matter in any critical analysis of the proposals of this Bill. The Minister and his colleagues have been lavish in their denunciations of partition, and their declarations of sympathy with the Nationalist minority in the Six Counties and in their expressions of hope for the recovery of our national territorial and political unity. How far will this measure, if it becomes law, go towards transforming those expressions of sympathy into real assistance and achieving the national unity of this country? No man in Ireland to-day ought to know better than the Minister that the effects of this Bill on the majority in the North-East will be to destroy any hopes of reconciliation between the Twenty-Six and the Six Counties. No man ought to know better than he that it sounds the death knell of the hopes of the Nationalist minority in the Six Counties. If there is one that knows it better than the Minister for External Affairs it is the Postmaster-General. A number of Nationalists in the Six Counties have, during recent years, manifested the opinion that by placing in power here in the Free State those who have been, and so far as I know are still, hostile to the existence of the Free State, they were hastening the day of their own release. I do not pretend to understand how they arrived at that strange conclusion; but the fact remains that they did, undoubtedly, harbour that illusion. What will be their thought when they discover that the man whom they had come to look on as a kind of political Moses, who would lead them out of the land of bondage into the promised land of political and national freedom, has locked, bolted, and barred the gates through which they had hoped to advance; that instead of making easy the way that would lighten their lot, his first great essay in State-craft, when established in power, was to produce a condition of affairs which heightened and strengthened the boundary between North and South, and gave a new lease of life to partition and postponed national unity until Tibb's Eve? I think they will be very sadly disillusioned, those who looked forward to the advent of Fianna Fáil to power to hasten the day of their release from what they regard as political bondage, when they discover that the action of the Party they had looked to for hope was action that riveted the political fetters on their limbs that they had hoped to get rid of.

I hope that I am not detaining the Seanad too long. But I have one or two more matters to speak about. Sundry supporters of the Ministry have been chanting with monotonous reiteration the refrain that those who oppose this Bill and criticise its proposals are taking the side of England in this matter. Sir, I am neither impressed nor perturbed by these suggestions. I am not concerned with England's interest in this matter, but I am very much concerned with the interests of the Irish Free State and with the reactions of this Bill upon the fate and fortunes of Ireland as a whole. I take the same position in regard to this Bill as I took towards the Treaty when it came up for consideration in 1921 and 1922. I opposed the Minister then just as much as I oppose him now, not in the interests of England but in the interests of Irish peace and in the hope of Irish security and progress. The ten years that have intervened have vindicated and justified those who opposed him then, and written in deep indelible characters the condemnation of the position that he then took up and the policy that he has since pursued, showing him to be a wrong guide in national politics. And if there is any evidence required of the national folly to which his policy would lead, it is this Bill which he has sponsored here to-day. He has been talking lately at great length about national honour. He has been almost garrulous about national honour. I tell him that this Bill points neither to national honour nor to national security. The only thing that it can lead to is national danger, national confusion, and national discredit. I wonder was the Minister thinking about national honour, about honour, national or personal, when he penned the despatch of April 5th to the British Dominions Secretary, a despatch in which he distorts facts and asperses the integrity of the living and the honour of the dead? That despatch will, I presume, be regarded as a State paper and be regarded too as a contribution to the historical record of the events of this period. In the interests of historical truth and in defence of the honour of men who are not alive to-day to speak for themselves, I desire to put on record a contradiction of two definite allegations made by the Minister in this despatch. They are on page 4 of this published correspondence. The Minister makes reference to the Agreement of 1921 and he says:

"It was on the other hand directly opposed to the will of the Irish people and was submitted to by them only under the threat of immediate and terrible war."

The other statement on the same page is this:

"This agreement divided the people of Ireland into two hostile camps, those who deemed it a duty to resist, facing the consequences, and those who deemed it prudent in the National interest temporarily to submit, the latter being placed in the no less cruel position of having apparently to hold Ireland for England with ‘an economy of English lives,' to quote from the late Lord Birkenhead's famous exposition of the policy in the House of Lords."

Both these statements I have quoted are untrue.

The President

They are true.

Mr. Milroy

Grossly untrue. The second is not only untrue, it is an atrocious libel on those who have stood for democratic rule and security in the Free State for the last ten years.

Mr. Dowdall

How? In what respect?

Mr. Milroy

I will tell you if you allow me. I have plenty of time. I am making a serious charge, and I would not dream of making it unless I wanted to show that I am right in the protest I am making and the contradiction I am giving. I say that this second statement is not only untrue, but that it is an atrocious libel on those who stood for majority rule and security in the Free State for the last ten years. I will finish with the first statement first, the statement that the agreement was, on the other hand, directly opposed to the will of the Irish people and was submitted to by them only under the threat of immediate and terrible war. I do not know how it is that the Minister claims to speak for the will of the Irish people, seeing that in every general election that has taken place since the Treaty of 1921, the will of the people in this State has been declared against him. We have had since 1921 several general elections and I say it distinctly, and I say it deliberately, that at each of these elections the Treaty was the dominating issue, and that at each, including the last general election, the Irish people returned a majority in support of the Treaty. Not once has the Minister been able to secure a majority verdict against the Treaty from the electors. At those elections, the only threat of immediate and terrible war that menaced the people was the threat that emanated from the policy and the declarations of the Minister and his Party in the early days of the Free State's existence. There was no threat of immediate and terrible war held over the people by the British at a single one of those elections, and the vast majority of the electors of the Free State spoke, and spoke a decision which is contrary, I say definitely contrary, to that statement that appears in this despatch of April 5th.

Now, as to the second statement, I will read it again:

"This agreement divided the people of Ireland into two hostile camps—those who deemed it a duty to resist, facing the consequences, and those who deemed it prudent, in the national interest, temporarily to submit—"

Here is the gravamen of the matter:—

"the latter being placed in the no less cruel position of having apparently to hold Ireland for England with ‘an economy of English lives,' to quote from the late Lord Birkenhead's famous exposition of the policy in the House of Lords."

Does the Minister think that that is historically accurate? Does the Minister think that a single one of those who gave their lives in defence of majority rule gave their lives in order to hold Ireland for England with an economy of English lives? I say, Sir, that that is a fearful accusation. One can allow for the extravagance of language that may be indulged in in domestic politics on political platforms when we are contesting elections. But I think it is a fearful accusation to make in a State document in a despatch to the representative of the Government of another State. It defames the majority who stood for the State. It defames the dead who supported majority rule with their lives during the last ten years. It reveals the Minister as acting not with a conception of the serious responsibility that should attach to anyone occupying the high position which he occupies as head of the Executive Council of the State, in which position, in relation at least to those matters where he deals as the representative of one State with the representative of another, he should endeavour to speak, not as a partisan but in the collective sense of the community as a whole. That is not the role exhibited by the Minister in this despatch. The role that he exhibits in that despatch is that of speaking and acting not as the head of a State but as the spokesman of a Party, and that Party a minority of the community. I say that it is serious enough to warrant this protest that I have made and this contradiction of his statement that I want to go on record. This narrow, shortsighted partisan outlook that breaks out in this despatch characterises the whole genesis and advocacy of this Bill. It is not the outcome of statesmanlike thought but the outcome of manoeuvring politicians and very pettifogging politicians at that. To my mind, it will throw this State back —if it becomes law and if the reactions that seem to be inevitable should begin to flow from it—into the quivering morass of uncertainty, insecurity, and despair from which the genius and statesmanship of Griffith and Collins rescued it.

I have spoken at great length and with a certain degree perhaps of aggressiveness, but I have done so because I am taking a very serious view of this Bill, its origin, its possible reactions and its effect upon the Free State. I have taken a certain pride in the creation and the growth of this State. It has been one of the most remarkable outcomes of national struggle, and international relations, that this and many previous generations have witnessed, and we, who live within this State and who have an opportunity, to some extent, of moulding the path, the fortunes and the character of this State ought, I think, to take great pride and a great interest in the security and the future of this State. It is because I believe that this Bill is a blow at the State, because I believe its objective is to try to wreck the State, that I stand here to protest against a policy that inspires it, and to ask the Seanad not to give its sanction to that policy.

The Minister has spoken of peace, not so much here to-day, but in other places. He said that one of the reasons for bringing in this Bill is that it will bring peace within the nation. Who are the people that he hopes to pacify by the Bill? The people who have already declared that this Bill means nothing to them. So far as they are concerned, this Bill will not bring peace. What it may bring—but which in all sincerity I hope it will not bring—is estrangement with one section that has been gradually—though slowly and reluctantly—woven into the fabric of the nation and that is taking a place within the life of the State. We know that at the beginning when this State came into being there was a considerable section—a minority in the 26 counties—reluctant to accept the Treaty, reluctant to accept native rule, who had played in the past the part of bitter opposition to the securing of any kind of self-government. We know that they came into this State with reluctance and accepted its institutions with reluctance. One of the achievements of the last ten years has been that these people, in spite of their former predilections and their political outlook, have been gradually brought within the life and the institutions of the State and have taken their part, and I think have begun to develop a pride in building up the structure and the institution of the State. Are those people going to be flung back into the estrangement and hostility that they were in before the Treaty and before this State came into being? I think that is a consideration which should not be lightly dismissed from the minds of those responsible for moulding the policy of the State.

I am sure that there will be no peace from the quarter in which this Bill is supposed to bring peace. There is the possibility of division in another direction. During the course of my speech I have shown that this is not purely a domestic matter; that it is an international matter, and being an international matter the other party must be considered and consulted if a decision is to be arrived at in regard to the issue here, that will not conflict with good international relations and the good credit of this State. The issue is secession. Is that wise for us? Are we prepared to secede when this discussion is finished? Are we prepared to tell the other State that the deliberate opinion and decision of Seanad Eireann is that secession is wise and a good policy for this State, and that this Bill has been sanctioned in order that the Minister can pursue the other steps by which he will make secession effective? Are we prepared to make that considered decision? If we are not, then we will be slow about giving sanction to this Bill. Are we prepared to shut permanently the gates which may open to national unity?

Argument seems futile in matters of this kind. Since the discussion began in the Dáil I do not think there has been one single word there from any supporter of this Bill to indicate that the effects of this Bill in regard to North-East Ulster will be other than rendering partition permanent. There has been no attempt by any Government speaker to show that in any way, even remotely, it will bring about any approach to national unity. I believe, on the other hand, that it will be a serious obstacle—possibly an insurmountable obstacle—to national unity. I believe that national unity is a thing that it is desirable to achieve. I believe it is something that can be achieved in a few years with an intelligent, far-seeing policy operating in the Free State, but it is something, I am afraid, which will never be achieved if the spirit that inspires this Bill is the spirit that dominates public life and national politics within the Free State. For these reasons I oppose this Bill. I think it is a bad Bill. It is a Bill that will inflict deep and perhaps fatal injuries upon this State. I think it is a Bill that is intended for a purpose not yet disclosed by the Ministry, and because I do not believe in giving this Ministry, or any other Ministry, the power to play fast and loose with the fortunes and vital interests of this State, I am going to vote against the Second Reading.

Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (Mr. Connolly)

I think we have listened to the Marathon runner of the Seanad, but whether we have learned anything or not from him is another matter. I do not know whether his purpose was to entertain the House, to instruct the House, or to bore the House, but I think he succeeded in doing the latter. Senator Milroy reminds me of the young lady who complained that "Hamlet" was too full of quotations. He has evolved a new method of getting the speeches of Deputies reiterated at great length and with very little effect in this House.

Mr. Milroy

On a point of order——

Mr. Connolly

I suggest that after patiently listening for 2¼ hours to the last speaker I should be allowed to continue without interruption.

Cathaoirleach

I think the Senator should not be interrupted.

Mr. Connolly

Senator Milroy has exhibited his typical bad manners. Senators who were here at the time will remember that when we were speaking we were severely pulled over the coals by Deputy McGilligan, who was then Minister for Industry and Commerce, for referring to "the President of the Executive Council," which was President Cosgrave's position at the time, and Deputy McGilligan, I think, wanted to make us to refer to him as the President. Senator Milroy showed his typical bad manners by referring to the President of the Executive Council here to-day as "the Minister."

Mr. Milroy

On a point of explanation, I referred to him as Minister because he is Minister for External Affairs. I had no intention whatever to be in any way——

Mr. Connolly

Senator Milroy's apology only vitiates his original bad manners. We are quite satisfied.

Mr. Milroy

Is he not Minister for External Affairs?

Mr. O'Doherty

The Bill was introduced by the President. If you read the Bill you would see that.

Mr. Milroy

Is he not Minister for External Affairs?

Mr. Connolly

I do not want to have this made an excuse for the interrupting tactics of Senator Milroy. I merely want to point to the fact. The President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State has not any undue amount of vanity, and he is quite content, I feel sure, to be called Minister for External Affairs. I merely wish to call the attention of the Seanad to the point. Senator Milroy has, in a rather confusing speech, mixed with all sorts of unreliable history, referred to the period of the last ten years. He has stated in the latter portion of his speech that there was no threat of immediate and terrible war.

Mr. MacLoughlin

At elections.

Mr. Connolly

I ask again not to be interrupted. We remained here patiently listening to an obstructionist speech, and we claim the privilege to speak without interruption.

Cathaoirleach

I would ask the Senators not to interrupt. The House has listened to a long speech from another Senator.

Mr. Connolly

I will quote the late Mr. Kevin O'Higgins, when speaking on the 25th September, 1922, on the first Article of the Draft Constitution:

The Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) is a co-equal member of the Community of Nations forming the British Commonwealth of Nations.

In the course of his speech on the subject, the late Mr. O'Higgins said:—

The fact that war stood as an alternative is undeniable—the fact was that war was explicity presented as an alternative to one of the signatories.... It was a question of comparison and, undoubtedly, in the face of the alternative, war, that Treaty was signed.

I make Senator Milroy a present of any quibbling he can make out of that. The same applies to Senator MacLoughlin. There is ample historical reason to make us believe that Senator Milroy did not believe that the late administration was progressing on the stepping-stone policy to freedom. I think we can all recollect that in the period in and around 1923, Senator Milroy repudiated the Party that afterwards adopted him, and he fought that Party at a by-election or at a general election.

Mr. Milroy

I never repudiated the Treaty.

Mr. Connolly

Senator Milroy went into the wilderness on principle and came back on sufferance, but he did not come back to the Dáil, he came back to the Seanad, the resting place for politicians, having made a compromise with the late President of the Executive.

Mr. Milroy

On a point of order, I do not want to interrupt, but——

Cathaoirleach

What is the point of order?

Mr. Milroy

The Minister is making statements which are personal and which are utterly untrue. If he persists in making these statements I cannot allow them to go on record without contradiction.

Cathaoirleach

You made a great many statements yourself, Senator.

Mr. Milroy

Not personal.

Cathaoirleach

You made a great many statements.

Mr. Milroy

I challenge anyone to produce any personal allusion I made to anyone.

Cathaoirleach

It would be quite impossible to verify them all.

Mr. Farren

What about the seven wise men?

Mr. Connolly

Senator Milroy in attempting to make a sneering reference to the present President of the Executive Council of the Free State accused him of adopting the attitude of a superior being. Why not? When one meets Senator Milroy one naturally adopts the attitude of a superior being. Senator Milroy no doubt realising the exact position which he had occupied in the community naturally presupposes that the President of the Executive Council takes up a superior attitude to him. Those of us who know the President of the Executive Council know exactly where he belongs, and know exactly where Senator Milroy belongs.

There is one thing that has come out quite clearly and distinctly from Senator Milroy's speech, and I regret to say, from many of the speeches in the other House, and that is the felon-setting attitude of Senators and Deputies against this country by people who ought to know better. I argue here that the speeches made from the front bench in the other House and speeches such as that made by Senator Milroy, provide the necessary propaganda for the British Government that they have no right to provide for them.

It is rather tragic to me, who was associated, and very closely associated, with Senator Milroy in the old days in prison and elsewhere, to find that the man of 1916, 1918, 1920 and 1921 is the Senator Milroy that I had to listen to to-day.

Senator Milroy referred to my Trinity address. I do not take back any word of what I said in Trinity. I claim a special right to speak for the people of the Six Counties, and I still claim that right here, and I say Senator Milroy is wrong if he feels that the forward policy of the Fianna Fáil Executive, as now being pursued, is not highly approved of by the people who have been left in the wilderness and thrown to the wolves by the late administration of this country. Who created partition in permanent form and gave away the Six Counties? Who yielded to the Feetham Commission? It was not the representatives of Fianna Fáil or of this administration. Senator Milroy will remember that when the present President of the Executive Council was in prison in the North there was not even a note of protest sent by Deputy Cosgrave and the other Ministers at the time. I know the people of the Six Counties, I know them well, and more intimately than Senator Milroy, and I know them more recently, and I know their point of view, and I tell him it is only when this country stands upon its feet and stands up to such things as Senator Milroy would have us yield to, that the people of the Six Counties will understand and have appreciation of the aspirations of the people of this country.

Let us get to the Empire position, if we will. What has the Empire done for Belfast and the Six Counties? What is the position of the City of Belfast to-day? It is regrettable to me to find my native city is in the state that it is in. I say there is no hope for it while it is tied up in all that British Imperialism means. What does Senator Milroy want us to do? Is he trying to bait the trap so that a Minister will come out in this House and say he is an anti-Imperialist, that he does not love the British Empire, that he is a believer in complete independence? If so, he has that declaration now and I stand over it. When I spoke at Trinity College I was dealing with social and economic matters, and I said I believed there was no future for the Six Counties and for this country unless we evolved a different civilisation to the so-called civilisation imposed by the British Empire all over the world, that has brought about to a great extent the ruin that exists at the present time. So much for Senator Milroy. I do not think his contribution to this debate either warranted the time taken or the heat engendered. Still it is as well to get an unpleasant job over and done with.

Senator Douglas dealt with more important matters, and, with his usual ability and celerity in handling such problems, his facing them to-day was extremely astute. Senator Douglas, if I may say so, does protest on most occasions for independence, for being as keen for complete freedom as any man in this country. He has protested again to-day that he does not believe in oaths. But as he invariably does, he qualifies his statement with just a sufficient qualification to nullify any effect that it might have as a contribution to national wellbeing. He spoke of Treaty obligations, of the Imperial Commonwealth and of the unity of Ireland, and he said he did not know where the present Bill was going to lead to. I want to make one remark in regard to that and it is this: the strength of our position is the strength of the plain people of Ireland backing us, and the strength of the British position is the strength of the pro-British element backing them. Take it what way you like. This issue involved will split up the people for Ireland and against Ireland, and, for God's sake, in this House let us at least not quibble on that issue.

We heard a good deal about the accepted rules of international courtesy and the things that international courtesy demand. It is to be supposed from what Senator Douglas says that if we come forward with our own line of national policy we will be accused of being the one element that is disrupting the Commonwealth. There are many factors that may disrupt the Commonwealth and many factors that will come up to face the people at Ottawa that will be disruptive of good feeling amongst the members of the Commonwealth. We do not want to disrupt the Commonwealth or to make bad blood amongst any people. We want peace in this country and to be on peaceable terms with the people outside this country, but surely after ten years we must realise that this running sore, this vicious sore imposed by the deliberate policy of the statesmen of Britain in 1921 is preventing anything like peaceful conditions prevailing in this country, and that until this running sore of the Oath is removed we cannot have full peace in this country. What is more important for us? To have complete peace in our own country rather than peace even within the Commonwealth? I hold our first duty is national peace and unity amongst our own people and that must be secured even at the risk of offending some of the most tender-hearted people of the British Empire, or Britain itself.

Senator Douglas said, I think, that any complication between this country and Britain following any possible disruption or even bad feeling between ourselves and Britain would not have the support of Canada, would not have the support of South Africa, would not have the support of Australia.

Mr. Douglas

In point of fact I did not say anything of the kind. I said we did not know the opinion of any of these countries.

Mr. Connolly

I accept that correction. I submit that even at the risk of that we will have to go on. I feel that while we go on, openly and decently, doing what we believe is the right thing by this country we are bound to command the respect of every other country, and I hold nothing is more despicable, particularly to the mind of the people of Canada, Australia and South Africa than pretending to feel for Britain a loyalty that they know damned well we do not believe.

But to come back to what is the all-important thing, the position of the people themselves. There has been a great deal of talk about mandates, and whether we got a mandate or we did not get a mandate, and whether we have the support of the people or not. But is there anybody here in this House who will claim that the majority in the Twenty-Six Counties of Saorstát Eireann are not against any form of allegiance? Is there anyone in this House who believes the majority of the people will not support the Party standing for the wiping out of this Oath? We put it to the test at the last election. We were returned as the biggest single Party, and while it may be argued that we have not a majority over all other Parties, it can also be claimed by us that we have the largest single Party that ever governed this country, and a vote of 77 given for the removal of this Oath was a much bigger vote than that which was given for many of the terrible things done to this country. I want to ask Senators if the Cosgrave administration had the support of 77 votes for the 77 executions? Many terrible things were done by the last administration. This House spent less time in passing the Public Safety Act, in its final stages, than Senator Milroy took to blether here about the Oath Bill. Never mind the fact that men's lives are in jeopardy! The most revolutionary thing that ever took place in any Parliament took place when an hour and a half sufficed the enlightened members of this Seanad to machine that legislation through on a Saturday morning. And we are talked to here about mandates! It is the felon-setting spirit that I complain of. It has come to a nice pitch in Ireland when Irishmen of responsibility, who only a few months ago formed the Executive Council of this country, provide the only ammunition that can be provided for Mr. Thomas and company to use against this country. Do not let us have any delusions. This country is national; this country is sound, and if you people in the Senate come in here at 3 o'clock out of your motors, or out of 1st class carriages, provided for you by the State, and are not sufficiently in touch with the people to realise the mentality and spirit of the people, the sooner you are wakened up the better, because if you go on legislating in that spirit you are in for a very rude awakening.

Fianna Fáil as a political Party entered the Oireachtas some years ago. They did that and took that step at the time, tentatively, risking the loss of support of some of the best people that ever lived in this country, and far superior to many people sitting in this House or in the other House. Their entry was made difficult. The Oath was there and it was kept there. It suited the political purpose of the other political party to keep it there. We entered the Dáil; we jeopardised our whole political future. There was disagreement in our own ranks, but we felt that in the circumstances it was up to us to see if by a reversion to political processes steps to freedom could be taken that would bring this country out of the morass into which the Treaty position put it. And step by step we have gone along. What have we met with as a result? Do you people realise what you are doing if you reject this Bill? Does a small group voting against this Bill in the Seanad, realise the implication of taking the responsibility that a small group—it may be 12, 15 or 20— is going to take on setting at nought all that was effected at the last election, all the national aspirations of the people of this country? I do not say any more. Realise that! Think it over! It is not for me to suggest the possible aftermath.

Senator Douglas speaking on the Public Safety Act made certain statements when he assumed that the Government had to put certain proposals and had told them that in the interests of the country these steps were necessary legislatively to be put through, He said that "if we accept the position that the Government is honest we have no option but to give them the powers they are asking." I want to assure Senator Douglas that we, at least, are equally honest in arguing here to-day that this Bill is necessary for the future welfare of this country. But I want to assure him further that we are determined that this Bill will go through and the Senate can throw it out if it will and take the consequences. I shall leave it at that, and I shall come to one or two other points in connection with the Bill.

A great deal of talk was concentrated in the other House on Section 2 of this Bill. I am not a lawyer and I do not propose to go into the legal arguments which took place in the other House. Neither do I propose to abuse the privileges of this Senate by reading innumerable speeches as Senator Milroy did, but there was one thing that clearly emerged out of the debate on the legal aspect in the other House and that was the admission by Mr. Blythe that the same section that we have in this Bill was advised and recommended by the law advisers of the late administration in connection with the Privy Council Bill. And this is something that I would ask the Senate to think over, before they reject this Bill or before they put up amendments to it in Committee. I referred earlier to the mentality that was exhibited in the other House by certain Deputies who ought to know better. I think a remark of one Deputy should not be allowed to go without comment. He said that Great Britain knew that although she might not trust this country's honour she had another sanction, and that was the sanction of her superior force. If it is going to be argued here, as the Deputy argued in the other House, that we are subject to the superior force of Britain, let it be so. No one denies the power of Britain—her naval power and her military power. We realise she could surround this country and blow it to atoms. She could have done that in 1921—why did she not? It was not for the love of us that she did not do it, for nothing in history goes to indicate that there is any spirit of affection there.

There are other powers even outside Canada and South Africa and Australia with which England has to count and to reckon, and I submit that these powers still operate in international political events. I do not want to stress this matter but for one reason: that it is depressing and deplorable to find that this argument had to be put up. The threat of immediate and terrible war was made in 1921. The further threat and possibility of immediate and terrible war was made by a Deputy formerly a member of the Executive Council.

Dr. Gogarty

What of your threat of the aftermath to Senators?

Mr. Connolly

I did not make any threat.

Dr. Gogarty

You did not talk directly; no one of your Party ever does, but you hinted it——

Cathaoirleach

The Senator will get an opportunity of speaking later.

Mr. Connolly

I submit I neither insinuated nor indicated any such threat. The aftermath I referred to can be argued out and analysed by any intelligent Senator from his own point of view and in his own way. What is the conscience test that is being imposed? Supposing we in this House of the Oireachtas attempted to impose a conscience test in our own land. Suppose we attempted to impose a conscience test against the 7 per cent. minority of the people of this country, what would the reactions be? That is inconceivable, and it is not less conceivable that we should have this conscience test imposed upon us here, and that we should permanently lie under that stigma. It is for that reason that we argue that this conscience test must be removed. There is no possibility of bringing about law and order in this country while there is any such conscience test. You will always have an element in this country, including some of the best people in the country, who will not take the Oath and who will not come into the Dáil because of the Oath. We turned the Oath into an empty formula and made a complete sham of it in this House.

Cathaoirleach

What is that, Senator?

Mr. Connolly

That I already explained in this House in controversy with Deputy McGilligan.

Cathaoirleach

Such a statement, that it was made a complete sham of in this House, can hardly be maintained. Would the Senator like to repeat it? If so, I shall define the position of this House on that question.

Mr. Connolly

I will withdraw the statement, and make it an empty formula, if you prefer it that way. Mr. Thomas, who has been the Minister responsible for the opinions expressed representing Britain's attitude with regard to our line of procedure, said the other day:

"Here is a country where, after a long period of bitterness, we had hoped and believed that by the Treaty of 1921 a new era was being opened. Who will deny, on looking back over the last ten years, that our hopes and belief were justified?"

I do not want to indulge in any bitter recrimination, but I suggest that Mr. Thomas has not fully realised exactly what has gone on since the Treaty of 1921 was imposed. Mr. Thomas was not definitely aware when he made that statement of all that transpired in this country during the last ten years. Mr. Thomas said further:

I have had more than once recently to make statements, on behalf of the Government, indicating our attitude, in relation to the Irish Free State ... I want to make it absolutely clear that in making them I was not basing our position on any constitutional theory, or question of status, but simply on the sanctity of treaties, and the maintenance of agreements.

One of the results of what Mr. Thomas referred to was the list of Coercion Acts, passed by the late administration, the worst of which was finally passed, as I have said already, in an hour and a half on its Final Stages through this House. That list includes:—The Public Safety Act, 1923; the Public Safety (Powers of Arrest and Detention) Act, 1924; the Punishment of Offences (Temporary) Act, 1924; the Protection of the Public Act, 1926; the Public Safety (Emergency Powers) Act, 1926; the Public Safety Act, 1927; Constitution (Amendment No. 17) Act, 1932; the Treasonable Offences Act; the Firearms Act, and the Juries Protection Act. These are a few of the benefits which we have enjoyed during the last ten years.

Deputy Cosgrave, speaking in the other House, opened up a completely new phase of Irish political and national thought to me. It was a revelation that I, certainly, could not have anticipated from Deputy Cosgrave, and from him least of all. It will be found reported, column 583, Vol. 41, of the Official Reports. Mr. Cosgrave, speaking on that occasion, asked:

What are national aspirations? I have never read or seen a concise form set down by either politicians, statesmen, jurists or professors of international law, a brief description of what are Irish national aspirations.

I take it from that that Mr. Cosgrave has never heard of Irish nationality at all. I want to put an interrogative parallel to him. Has Deputy Cosgrave ever, in "brief form" or in "concise description," had an analysis of the faith which he holds in common with 93 per cent. of the people, or in common with most of the 93 per cent. of the people in this country? And does the fact that he has not the whole Acts of the Apostles, the Articles of Faith and the wonderful history of the Church to which he belongs lead him to believe that no such thing exists? In spite of the fact that he has not got that in that brief and concise form, does he not know what the Church to which he belongs stands for? I quote this to show the terrible quibbling which we have been up against with regard to this problem and this Bill. I say it has been unfairly dealt with in the other House and probably will be unfairly dealt with here. Deputy Cosgrave goes on to say: "I do not say that every word and letter of the Treaty is sacrosanct and could not be altered by agreement." We dispute that. We argue that this is a domestic matter, and that it is so essential to the peace of this country that it is going to be altered by one decision only, and that decision is the will of the people of this country. We claim that we are the Government returned on that main and consistent plank ever since we became the Fianna Fáil Party. To us the removal of the Oath was the main plank, so that the people in this way could be represented as they choose in the Parliament of the nation.

It will be argued by certain people in this Seanad that we are not a nation and never were a nation. That used to be the old standard argument. To these people we were only an appendix of the British Empire. Their interests lay there and their hearts lay there also. That has been their consistent attitude. It is refreshing to find that at least one independent English author, a poet and journalist, has a different point of view and more bitterly, more completely and more tersely he describes what the English attitude in Ireland has been. I refer to the recent contribution by Mr. G. K. Chesterton on the issues between these two countries:

"They (the English) were not there to govern or to misgovern; they were there to exterminate. The English do not remember Irish history; and, therefore, the Irish do not forget. The English (characteristically, I fear) were ready to forget Irish crimes; but not to remember the English crimes. The Irish, therefore, fall back on their old consistent position of having no connection with the Empire; and the English on the utterly unreal position that Ireland is a new ‘Dominion' and that all ‘Dominions' are alike."

He further states:

"They were not there to govern or to misgovern; they were there to exterminate in the old correct sense of driving men either to death or to some distant place beyond their border; an intention clearly and frankly embodied in the actual slogan, ‘To Hell or to Connaught.' ... This is not an exaggeration. It was stated in cold print as late as the Nineteenth Century and in a great newspaper like ‘The Times.'"

I quote that merely to show that we do not need to go to the Seanad or even to the cross-roads in Ireland or to the cities and towns of Ireland to get an intelligent analysis of the historical background that really is in essence the cause of this Bill being before you. When the trimmings are all cut away and all the sophistries of Senator Milroy and Deputies Fitzgerald-Kenney, McGilligan, and the rest are boiled down it amounts to this: That the essential national dignity of this country demands that we pledge no loyalty to anybody except to the people of Ireland, and on that we take our stand. I do not propose to weary you any longer. I have been trying to abstain from any vehement rhetoric, perhaps not successfully. Nevertheless, when one hears speeches such as Senator Milroy's, when one reads the speeches of the various members of the present Opposition one realises that the national issue should spring out of this debate and that those people who try to shut their eyes to the realities of the situation should realise just exactly what they are talking of.

Sir William Hickie

I consider this Bill the most important of all the legislative measures this House has ever had to deal with. If passed it will have far-reaching results both in the immediate and distant future. I think every Senator, even those who are accustomed as a rule to sit and listen to the voices of others, should on this occasion make clear to the House and to the country the reasons that influence his or her vote and the arguments on which he or she support his or her action. I belong, as the House is aware, to no political Party, and I am free to speak and vote not in accordance with the agreed policy of any political Party, but as I think that I should speak and vote in the best interests of my country. I wish this Seanad could have maintained a strictly non-Party attitude, because there are many Bills which are best debated in the calm atmosphere of a non-Party Chamber.

The Seanad can be of great service in delaying hasty legislation and thus allowing people time to think over the arguments of politicians and to study in detail matters such as these which can only have been placed before them in the broadest outline at the General Election. In bringing forward this measure the Government have stated they do so in obedience to a mandate received from the people. If I could think such a mandate really and unmistakably as this existed I would have a greater difficulty and a deeper sense of responsibility in voicing my position here. At the time of the General Election there were three main planks in the Fianna Fáil platform: the abolition of the Oath; the treatment of unemployment, and the retention of the land annuities. There were certain other struts in the platform, such as the hope for the release of the political prisoners and the expected increase of the old age pensions. I ask myself how many of the votes cast for the Fianna Fáil Party were absolutely given on account of the promise to repeal that clause which makes the taking of the Oath necessary. When I remember that the last Government had been ten years in office and made many enemies by a firm determination to govern; when I consider the natural and human desire for change and the kind of sporting wish to give the other side a chance, and when I realise that in spite of these factors in their favour the Fianna Fáil Party were returned to power with a margin so slender that they could not on their own command a majority in the House, I am forced to the conclusion that this mandate clearly and unmistakably does not exist, but even if the Fianna Fáil Party were returned with so sweeping a majority that they could claim they had a mandate for this and for every item in their programme, there are other considerations which make it impossible for me to support the Bill.

Centuries of hostilities between two warring countries have come to a conclusion in the Treaty signed and ratified by both belligerents. The fighting of 1916 to 1921 was concluded by a Treaty signed in London by the men sent over from here to act as plenipotentiaries. That Treaty was afterwards ratified by the Dáil itself. Looking at it from a soldier's point of view I cannot forget that not only did the British hand over as a result of that Treaty the management and the government of this country to us, but they also withdrew their armed troops from our soil. In the past we had many reasons to complain of the want of faith on the part of the British in the matter of the keeping of Treaties, but as far as I am aware they have kept their side of the Treaty scrupulously as I believe we have kept ours. Are we now about to change that?

I refrain from alluding to the possible consequences of the passing of this Bill because I hold if an action is just, right and necessary whatever the consequences are that action must and should be taken, but this action is not right, just nor equitable and is not for the honour of our race; and a nation that does not honour its bond is just as guilty as an individual who refuses to do so.

Even if I could persuade my conscience that we were right in voting for this Bill I cannot imagine a more inopportune time for its introduction than the present moment. We are to have a Conference in Ottawa as a result of which it is Loped that we in Ireland, and those amongst us especially who are farmers, may have an opportunity for the first time in 100 years of competing on exceptionally favourable terms with the foreigner in the British market. Anything we may do at this moment that will jeopardise our position and obscure our status is in the material interests of the country to be deprecated. It is the duty of the Senators to watch over the country's material interests just as much as it is of every individual member of the Dáil.

By refusing to pass this measure we can give the people time to think over the Bill in view of the light thrown on it by this debate. We ask them if they will stand for an action which the British nation has almost informed us they will hold to be dishonourable and to break a Treaty which we solemnly made and we gave the Government an opportunity to turn their best energies to the vital questions of unemployment, housing and finance. They have a great deal of work to do and one and all of us shall only be too glad to do it.

I am not asking the House to vote against the will of the people if that will is expressed with a full knowledge of the circumstances and realisation of the consequences and by a sufficient majority to warrant the expression of the word "mandate." I hold it is the duty of every Senator to give expression to that will by voting for this or any other motion or to resign his seat in the Oireachtas. I oppose this Bill because I do not think it is permitted to us under the conditions of the Treaty solemnly made with the British people in 1921, and I beg this House to remember the fate of that country infinitely greater and infinitely more powerful than we which on an historical occasion refused to honour the sanctity of a scrap of paper.

Mr. Brown

I listened with considerable pain to the speech of Senator Connolly. I admit he was not altogether to blame, but I do hope that we will now get into a calmer and a more relevant atmosphere during the rest of the debate on the Second Reading of this Bill. I do not propose to argue the question whether the removal of the Oath from the Constitution is, or is not, a breach of the Treaty. I spent more than forty years in the study and practice of the law, and, speaking as a lawyer, I have no doubt whatever that it is a breach of the Treaty. I read most of what the President of the Executive Council said in the Dáil. I listened to him most carefully to-day, and I must say that I have been completely unable to follow his arguments. He seems to me to argue in an intellectual atmosphere or space of four dimensions in which I find it quite impossible to live, but it is really not a matter of any importance whether I am of opinion that this Bill is a breach of the Treaty or whether other people are of the opposite opinion. To my mind the question has become irrelevant.

We have reached the stage at which it does not matter what anyone in this country thinks on this question. What does matter is what the British Government and above all what the plain people of Great Britain think on this subject, and of that there can be no doubt whatever. In this connection I may say that I am much more concerned with what the British people think than what the British Government think. The British people are a patient people, but they are a strangely emotional people, and the result of their emotion lasts very long. Now, before indicating my personal view of what course the Seanad ought to take on this matter, I would like to refer to one other matter. This Bill, in its inception and in most of the arguments by which it has been supported in the Dáil, is founded on a total misconception of the nature of the British Commonwealth of Nations.

No wise statesman who understands the nature of the British Commonwealth of Nations could have adopted the procedure which has been adopted by the present Government. The British Commonwealth of Nations is an international partnership at will. From that partnership any partner nation can retire at any time it chooses. So long as the partnership continues, the partners have absolutely equal rights, and each partner nation is independent within its own borders, subject only to this: that it cannot, while it remains a partner, violate an essential condition of the partnership without the consent of the other partners. It may be difficult to define all the essential conditions of this partnership of nations, but at least two of them are fundamental. The first is allegiance to a common King, not the King of Great Britain, but the sovereign head of the Commonwealth. The second fundamental condition is the duty of friendly consultation with all the other members of the partnership before taking any action on a matter of common concern.

Allegiance to a common King is the only outward and visible sign of the partnership of nations and it is difficult to see how some recognition of this allegiance, not necessarily by an Oath, can be avoided, but that is a matter for consultation and agreement between the partners. For the present it is obvious that the British Government and the Governments of the other Dominions, all of whom have practically said so, consider that the Oath is an essential condition of this partnership of nations or at least that it is a matter of common concern.

In this connection, I would like to refer to a favourite argument or rather a favourite statement of the President, namely, that Canada can abolish the Oath and so why cannot we? Of course Canada can abolish the Oath, but unless she did so with the consent of Great Britain and the other Dominions she would do so at the risk of her place in the Commonwealth. When he makes this statement, the President forgets Section 7 of the Statute of Westminster. The Canadian Constitution is embodied in the British North America Act of 1867, and under Section 128 of that Act every member of the Canadian legislature must take the prescribed Oath of Allegiance to the King, and Section 7 of the Statute of Westminster declares that nothing "in this Act" (that is the Statute of Westminster) shall be deemed to apply to the repeal, amendment or alteration of the British North America Acts, 1867 to 1930.

Of course Canada could abolish the Oath if she wished, but if she wished to remain in the Commonwealth she could only do so after friendly consultation with Great Britain. She could repeal only with the consent and aid of Great Britain and the acquiescence of the other Dominions the Oath section of the British North America Act of 1867. I have no doubt if she put up a reasonable case for that purpose she would get that alteration in that Act of 1867 from Great Britain and the other Dominions.

I have stated that the second fundamental condition of the partnership between the British Commonwealth of Nations is the duty of friendly consultation before taking action on any matter of common concern. The President has reiterated, time after time, that this Bill which we are discussing—the removal of the Oath—is a mere domestic matter. With great respect, it is not a mere domestic matter; it is a matter of common concern to us and to every member of this partnership of nations.

And this duty of friendly consultation is one which arises out of the very essence of the partnership. If five honourable men were partners in a business concern and one of them wanted to do something which he believed was for his own good, but which might be considered by the other partners to be a breach of this partnership or a matter of partnership concern, what would he do? He would not do it first and consult his partners afterwards. On the contrary, the next time the partners met he would consult them about it and try to get them to agree, and if he could not get agreement, he would then have to make up his mind whether or not he should remain in the partnership. That would be an honourable course, and if he had to retire from the partnership he would do so as an honourable man and without having broken his word. The same honourable rule of conduct should apply to this partnership of nations. It has not been adopted by this nation of ours, or rather by the Government of this nation of ours. The reason for the departure from this rule of decent partnership conduct is difficult to understand.

As well as I can make out, our Government would not negotiate because they declined to be dictated to by Great Britain. There can be no dictation amongst equal partners. I am afraid this is a bad case of inferiority complex—the partner who is equal in fact but is not conscious of his equality. If I am right in this conception of the obligations of the partner nations in the British Commonwealth of Nations inter se the course which our Government should have adopted seems clear. They ought to have opened friendly negotiations in the first place with Great Britain, explained the situation in this country of ours, said that the removal of the Oath would allay friction and bring about internal peace. If they had done so, I believe the British Government would have listened sympathetically. At any rate, the position would not have become strained. Even now would it not be possible to relieve the strain? Even now is it too late for friendly consultation? I do not believe that it is.

In Mr. Thomas's last statement, strong and definite as it is, there are signs that friendly consultation is not only possible but desirable. I would therefore urge, and I would ask this House to urge, upon our Government to stay their hands and even at this late hour to enter into friendly consultation with the British Government. As to the course which the Seanad should adopt in dealing with this Bill I am in complete accord with Senator Douglas. The duty of the Seanad at the present time is to see that the operations of this Bill are delayed long enough to enable the country to find out definitely where it stands, whether it is to be inside or outside the Commonwealth. The President has said that they have got a mandate for the abolition of the Oath. But the removal of the Oath or a mandate for its removal is not a mandate to lead the country out of the Commonwealth. Therefore, it is our duty to see that nothing will be done before a General Election, that is to say, that nothing will be done which would have the effect of leading the country outside the Commonwealth of Nations.

How best can we discharge that duty? I am of opinion that we can best discharge that duty by passing the Second Reading of this Bill without a division, and then by inserting on the Committee Stage an amendment that this Bill shall not come into operation unless and until a valid agreement shall have been entered into with Great Britain that the Treaty shall be amended by the removal of the Oath. If our Government, by friendly negotiation, can effect such an agreement, and I hope that they will be able to do so, all will be well. If, on the other hand, they decline negotiations or fail to get agreement the people at the next General Election will know where they are. They must then be asked for a mandate on the issue of remaining in or going out of the British Commonwealth of Nations. I, myself, have little doubt of what their reply will be. I must say that on the Committee Stage of this Bill it is my intention to put down an amendment roughly in the direction which I have now outlined.

Dr. O'Sullivan

It is now 7.30, and I beg to move that the House do adjourn until next Wednesday. I do so because to-morrow is a Church Holiday, and I am sure I am voicing the opinions of the members here that we should not meet on the day after, Friday being a short day, and it would be unfair to keep the country members here, especially as this is not a Bill of any very great urgency.

Miss Browne

I second the adjournment until next Wednesday.

Mr. Connolly

I would like to protest against that mode of procedure. I would certainly like to observe the holyday to-morrow, but we think it is quite reasonable to ask this Seanad to meet at least two days in one week, considering the number of weeks in which it does not meet. I would hope that the Seanad would decide definitely to meet on Friday, or if they decide that they will not meet on Friday then we ought to meet here to-morrow. I am not anxious to have a meeting to-morrow, but rather than have no second sitting this week I would accept sitting to-morrow.

Cathaoirleach

I would like to have a proposal on that.

Mr. Connolly

I propose that we meet here on Friday, at 11.30 a.m.

Mr. Brown

I would have no objection to meeting to-morrow rather than on Friday. Friday, I think, is an impossible day. It is not fair to meet on Friday.

Cathaoirleach

Having had considerably long speeches, I am more or less in accord with the idea that we should meet here again this week. It is not for me, however, to decide; it is for the House. I shall put the amendment.

Question: "That the House stands adjourned till 11.30 a.m. next Friday," put and declared lost, on a show of hands.

Mr. O'Neill

I beg to move as a further amendment——

Cathaoirleach

I cannot take a further amendment now. I am sorry. I must put the substantive motion.

Mr. O'Neill

What I intended moving was that we meet to-morrow.

Cathaoirleach

I am afraid I must put the main question now. I do not think there is any other course open to me.

Mr. Connolly

Seeing that the wishes of certain people are that we meet one day this week, would there be any objection to our coming back here at 8.30 and working for a couple of hours? That seems to me reasonable considering that the Seanad only meets four or five hours every three weeks or so.

Question put: "That the House do now adjourn till 3 o'clock next Wednesday."

The Seanad divided. Tá: 35; Níl: 21.

Tá.

• Bagwell, John.
• Barniville, Dr. Henry L.
• Bellingham, Sir Edward.
• Bigger, Sir Edward Coey.
• Brown, K.C., Samuel L.
• Browne, Miss Kathleen.
• Costello, Mrs.
• Counihan, John C.
• Crosbie, George.
• Desart, The Countess of.
• Dillon, James.
• Douglas, James G.
• Fanning, Michael.
• Garahan, Hugh.
• Gogarty, Dr. O. St. J.
• Granard, The Earl of.
• Griffith, Sir John Purser.
• Guinness, Henry S.
• Jameson, Right Hon. Andrew.
• Keane, Sir John
• Kennedy, Cornelius.
• McGillycuddy of the Reeks.
• MacKean, James.
• MacLoughlin, John.
• Milroy, Seán.
• Moran, James.
• O'Connor, Joseph.
• O'Hanlon, M.F.
• O'Rourke, Brian.
• O'Sullivan, Dr. William.
• Parkinson, James J.
• Staines, Michael.
• Toal, Thomas.
• Vincent, A.R.
• Wilson, Richard.

Níl.

• Chléirigh, Caitlín Bean Uí
• Comyn, K.C., Michael.
• Connolly, Joseph.
• Cummins, William.
• Dowdall, J.C.
• Duffy, Michael.
• Farren, Thomas.
• Foran, Thomas.
• Johnson, Thomas.
• Linehan, Thomas.
• MacEllin, Seán E.
• MacPartland, D.H.
• Moore, Colonel.
• O'Doherty, Joseph.
• O'Farrell, John T.
• O'Neill, L.
• Phaoraigh, Siobhán Bean an.
• Quirke, William.
• Robinson, David L.
• Robinson, Séumas.
• Ryan, Séumas.

Tellers:—Tá: Senators Wilson and Staines; Níl: Senators S. Robinson and O'Doherty.

Motion declared carried.

The Seanad adjourned at 7.40 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, June 1st.