With regard to procedure, I find that my amendment to this motion is last on the Order Paper although it was the first handed in to the office. I want to know what is the procedure in such cases.
Question of Partition—Motion.
The following motion appeared on the Order Paper:—
That in the opinion of the Seanad the policy of the Government in regard to the question of Partition ought to take more serious account of the sentiments and interests of the majority of the people in Northern Ireland. —Senator MacDermot, Senator Alton.
In accordance with the usual practice, the wider amendment takes precedence. That is why Senator O'Donovan's amendment comes before Senator Counihan's on the Order Paper. The motion will be proposed and seconded formally and then the amendments will be taken in the order in which they are on the Order Paper.
Is there any question of this being an official amendment?
I have not been informed that it is an official amendment. We will have the motion and the amendments proposed and seconded and then we will have a debate on the general question.
I beg to move the motion standing in my name. That motion was by no means put down for the purpose of throwing cold water on the movement in favour of national unity. It is to be seconded by Senator Alton, who is the representative of Dublin University, and I suppose there is no institution in this country which has a more immediate interest in Irish unity than Dublin University. I might add that apart from the university, throughout the territory which we control there is no class of the population that I believe to be more sincerely eager for Irish unity than the Southern Protestants. They have even a more fraternal feeling towards our erring brethren in the North than we have ourselves. For my part, my first beginnings in politics were in Northern Ireland. I am sorry to say that as long as 29 years ago I started making speeches on political platforms, on nationalist platforms, in the Counties of Derry and Tyrone, and when I first attempted to become a parliamentary representative it was in the City of Belfast that I made the attempt. Moreover, I had a prolonged experience in the years before the war of meeting Ulster arguments on political platforms across the water. Then, during the last six years, I came into the politics of this State mainly because of my interest in the question of Irish unity. If I lost hope in that cause—irrevocably lost hope of its success—I should not have the heart to stay in politics for five minutes—no, not for five minutes.
Since I became a member of the Dáil I introduced there two motions on this subject. One motion was actually accepted by the Government—accepted in word, but not in fact. It was a motion which stated that the Partition issue was the primary constitutional issue in this country and that every other constitutional issue ought to be subordinated thereto. That, as I say, was accepted by the Government, but they were very far indeed from acting on it. Then, when the Centre Party was formed, we made the question of Irish unity the principal national plank in our programme, and throughout the time of the existence of that Party we did everything possible to ventilate it on political platforms and to convince the people that it was the national issue that really mattered. Consequently, I hope nobody will be disposed to think that tln, motion is put down in a wrecking spirit with the desire to interfere with the prospects of Irish unity. Quite the contrary is the case.
Let me state briefly what I shall attempt to prove in this speech. It is that the Border is the external symptom of an internal disease; that this disease is curable; that it is curable only by ourselves and after proper diagnosis and treatment—in fact, that there never was a matter in which the motto "Sinn Féin" had a more important application, and that, at present, far from treating it on the right lines, we are blundering about and doing much to make it more intractable and more dangerous. Now, this motion was put down before the incidents of the last few weeks. It is the opinion of Senator Alton and myself that the campaign at present being conducted by the Government and their supporters, for the purpose of getting rid of Partition, is being run on lines that make it do more harm than good. I think the truth of that contention is illustrated by these unfortunate incidents to which I have just referred. If it is true that the English are wantonly and brutally lacerating our territory, fomenting strife between brothers, and imposing upon us a separation uncalled for by anything in Irish domestic conditions, there is something to be said for violent and aggressive retaliation of a kind that has often proved effective in the past. Lofty rebukes in the leading articles of the Irish Press, in the name of Christian ethics, do not carry much weight with young men whom we have taught to admire similar exploits; and when the Minister for Finance, as he did last Saturday, impressively sets forth the considerations of trade and finance which make it so vitally important for us to retain English goodwill, the question may clearly be asked—especially by the young and the ardent—whether such matters ought to be allowed to impede the fulfilment of national aspirations. Acts of violence are, in fact, the logical consequence of attributing to England the entire blame for continuing Partition, and of the inflammatory speeches on that theme which have lately been delivered.
This brings me to the amendment on the Order Paper in the name of Senator McEllin who has done me the favour of compressing into a nutshell the point of view which I am most anxious to destroy. He says that by subsidisation and general policy the British Government is solely responsible for the continuance of the Border. Now, a couple of weeks ago, a sort of manifesto was issued by a body called, I think, the Northern Council for National Unity, which was sent around to the heads of a number of States, declaring, not that Great Britain was coddling and subsidising Northern Ireland, but, on the contrary, that she was draining it of its wealth and impoverishing it. Consequently, I feel some doubt as to whether Senator McEllin's amendment would have the benediction of the Nationalists in Northern Ireland or, at any rate, of the council there which calls itself the Northern Council for National Unity. Leaving that aside, however, I want to consider his contention on its merits. First, let me say that I have a fairly wide acquaintance among British politicians of different Parties and I have yet to meet a single one who would wish to stand in the way of an agreed settlement between North and South, if one could be arrived at. Such a man may exist, but I do not happen to have come across him. On the other hand, I have met many who would be enchanted if some agreed settlement could be arrived at. Apart from politicians, if you take the English man-in-the-street, his interest in Irish politics or in Irish affairs is almost non-existent at ordinary times, and now that, thank Heavens, we are out of British Party politics and that our affairs are not a British Party issue, the interest of the English voter in Ireland is reduced to a minimum and, at the best, is exceedingly fitful and only is manifested when something occurs which causes the Irish situation to be played up in the newspapers. It is perfectly certain that there is no objection on the part of the British public at large to a settlement between the North and ourselves. Those who imagine that the British are going out of their way to stimulate opposition between different sorts of Irishmen, to keep alive strife that ought to be allowed to die, are just showing themselves completely ignorant of British psychology. That desire does not exist. I will not say there may not be a few fanatics (say, in the Protestant parts of the slums of Liverpool or Manchester) who have that point of view. But they are so few that they do not count, and the first piece of wisdom worth learning in dealing with this question is that we have not to reckon with any opposition from any political Party at the other side of the Irish Sea in arriving at a settlement with those in the North.
Question.
If Senator McEllin questions that he will have an opportunity for developing his reasons——
They are obvious.
If they are so obvious they can be developed with all the more ease. I have noticed during the last few weeks that the Irish newspapers have been publishing, day after day, extracts from the debates on the Home Rule Bill of 1920. I take it these extracts have been furnished to them from official sources. Everyone of these extracts goes to show that at that time Englishmen of all Parties were looking forward to the separation which was provided for in the Home Rule Bill of 1920 being something of temporary duration, and that English politicians as a whole, including some of the most eminent amongst them, were looking forward to Irish unity being ultimately reached by agreement between the North and South as a result of the operations of that Home Rule Bill. I do not quite know with what motive these paragraphs have been published. I welcome them, because they are of historical importance and value and they should tend to make us more optimistic about the chances of achieving Irish unity. But one thing is certain about them and that is that they blow sky-high the idea that a continuance of Irish disunity is due simply and solely to the malevolence of the people across the water.
Now Senator McEllin says: "Oh, in that case why are the British subsidising the Northern Ireland Government?" I forbear from arguing as to whether what is occurring is subsidising or not. I will admit for the purpose of argument that Northern Ireland is costing money to the British taxpayer. But when you feel inclined to complain of that you have to remember that technically and in theory Northern Ireland is still an integral part of the United Kingdom. If Northern Ireland were treated as part of the United Kingdom for some purposes and not for others, and it was not enjoying whatever benefits might flow from membership of the United Kingdom, I think we should be amongst those who would raise their voices crying that our brethren in the North were unjustly treated.
During the first years of the existence of the Northern Parliament the balance was the other way. Northern Ireland was paying a balance to Imperial expenses. At the present moment the North of Ireland is what is known in England as a "distressed area," comparable to such places as South Wales, Newcastle and districts like these. If it were situated in England instead of in Ireland, it would, undoubtedly, be receiving the sort of special assistance that those distresed areas are, in fact, receiving. Consequently, I cannot, for the life of me, see that there is any genuine grievance on our part against Englishmen because they give such assistance to the Northern Ireland Government at the present time-assistance of a financial kind.
We also talk, as if it were a sign of great wickedness, of British troops being present in Northern Ireland. Of course, as long as Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, it is natural that British troops should be there. These British troops are regarded not as a foreign army but as part of their own army. Incidentally, it might be added that if those troops were removed it would add appreciably to the economic distress of Northern Ireland, for at the present time they spend a great deal of money there.
I think that those in our midst who talk about Northern Ireland as being the spoiled darling of the British Government show a certain lack of a sense of humour, because there is another place that has strong claim to compete with them for that description as the pampered pets of the British Government and that place is not far away. It is just here. After all the people of Northern Ireland do admit their obligations to share in the burdens as well as the benefits of the Commonwealth, whereas there is no country in the world but ourselves who are in our position of having our products treated in the British market as if they came from the Commonwealth, who have positions throughout the Commonwealth thrown open to our young men and women as if they were British citizens, who have the use of and who avail ourselves of the diplomatic and consular machinery of the British Commonwealth all over the world, except in the comparatively few places where we have direct representatives of our own—I say there is no other country which enjoys all these advantages of the Commonwealth and yet repudiates all obligations towards it and fundamental connection with it. Consequently, I think if we jeer at the North for being spoiled darlings, that we are throwing ourselves open to an obvious retort, to a tu quoque.
If Northern Unionism is a plant watered with British gold it can also be retorted that Southern Nationalism is watered with British gold.
But these are, of course, debating points and the truth of the matter, the thing that is of importance is that the disease is here in Ireland itself and that if it is to be cured it has got to be cured here in Ireland itself, and that there is no evidence worth being called evidence to show that there would be any opposition in England to that process of curing if we were to undertake it. Up to the present we have not begun to undertake it. Any activities of ours on the subject of unity have proceeded on the basis that the Northern Unionists were not worth persuading, were not worth understanding and were not worth convincing, and until we change that how are we to make any progress?
If we agree that this is not an English question what are the difficulties inside Ireland? In the first place I am prepared to admit that some of them consist of Northern illusions; for example, such illusions as that Home Rule would be Rome Rule and that Rome Rule means bigotry and oppression; illusions about the inherent incapacity of Celtic Ireland for self-government. Now these illusions have been sorely shaken by the events of recent years. During the discussions, on platforms in England, on the Home Rule Bill of 1912 I had to deal with them many a time and oft. I had to deal with other allegations too. I am sorry to say that while the answers I gave to the Northerners about Rome Rule and persecution and Irish incapacity have been confirmed by events, there were answers I gave to some of their other statements that have not been confirmed by events—very much the contrary.
At any rate, those illusions still do exist in the North, and still form a part of the complex of ideas which are separating them from ourselves, but their part is a diminishing part. The number of people who believe in them is steadily decreasing. The number of people who believe in them in England is very small indeed, and here let me make another remark indicative of the fact that we have not got to fear opposition from England to a reasonable settlement. A few years ago a Peer called Lord Danesfort, now dead, was bringing forward a motion in the English House of Lords condemning the alleged religious persecution and favouritism in Southern Ireland. I happened to be ill in a London nursing home at the time, but I was so much interested that I got up and went to see the man in the House of Lords who was going to have to answer Lord Danesfort. It so happened that that man was, of all the members of the British Government at that time, the one most sympathetic to Ulster. His name was Lord Hailsham. I was able to hand to Lord Hailsham a budget of evidence in the shape of utterances by distinguished Protestants in Southern Ireland to show that all this talk of bigotry and favouritism was humbug. Now, if the English had been as malevolent as is urged, Lord Hailsham, I suppose, would have thrust all that evidence aside, and would have made a speech in the House of Lords sympathetic to the motion which Lord Danesfort was putting forward. He did nothing of the kind. He availed himself of the evidence that I offered him, and he successfully refuted the unfounded allegations of Lord Danesfort.
The truth of the matter is that unfounded objections cannot continue to have force for ever. So long as they are mixed up with a number of better founded ones they may continue to have a certain sort of life, but if you get rid of the real objections, if you get rid of the real grievances, unfounded objections and unfounded grievances must in the course of nature wither away and die, and so in the long run we have nothing to fear from the Northern statements about our bigotry and our lack of capacity. Any man going between Dublin and Belfast will notice that we are far more advanced and not less advanced than they are in our attitude about relations between different religions. I have told British audiences before this that when I go from Dublin to Belfast I feel as if I were going back a century or two, so benighted as they are in those matters. Nevertheless, they are improving. I read, and I think perhaps more of us ought to read the speeches and the newspapers that reflect Northern opinion, and I find that among their leaders at any rate those allegations are being made more and more rarely. I read a long speech, which was reported verbatim in the Northern papers, made a couple of days ago in Manchester by Sir Basil Brooke in the sympathetic atmosphere of some Protestant Evangelical Alliance, or some such body, and even there, I could not find a single line in his speech in which he dared to allege that bigotry was a feature of the régime in Southern Ireland. Well, if that is so, we are making some progress. Similarly, nobody—I do not wish to say anything invidious—who compares man by man the personnel of the Northern Government and the personnel of our Government here in Dublin would say that the balance of capacity, energy and ability was in favour of the Northerners rather than in favour of ourselves.
As I say, I do not believe that those old illusions count for very much to-day and I think they will count for less and less in the future, but there are other objections which are more than illusions. In the first place, there are material objections. Now, attention to one part of those material difficulties has been called in his amendment by Senator Counihan, namely those relating to agriculture. I do not like Senator Counihan's amendment for two reasons. First of all, I do not like it because I think it is too narrow even as regards the material difficulties. I do not know that indeed it is in the region of agriculture that the material difficulties are greatest. Secondly, I do not like it because by making no mention of anything but material difficulties that amendment seems to adopt what I believe to be a mischievous fallacy— that material considerations are the only ones that count with the people of Northern Ireland. I often see and hear that suggested, but to my mind history shows that it is utterly untrue. I think that the Northerner, more than ourselves, have all through their history been prone to fanaticism, prone to allowing their fancies to do all sorts of curious things to the facts, prone to turbulence and to violence in the cause of ideals, even when such turbulence and violence were injurious to their material interests. I object very much, as I have said, to some of the allegations that the Northerners make about ourselves, but I almost equally object to the allegations which have been made down here that the Northerners are basely materialistic, and care about nothing but money. That is not my experience any more of the Northern Protestants than of the Northern Catholics. I think they care about a great many other things besides money, and I think that their ideals and sympathies deserve respect the same as everybody else's. Consequently, I think an amendment of the type of Senator Counihan's is too narrow.
There are very real material difficulties that have to be taken into consideration, and answers have to be found for some questions that a reasonable Northerner might reasonably ask if we invited him face to face to-morrow to come and form part of our State. One question he would undoubtedly ask would be: "What about markets for our shipbuilding and for our linen? At the present time the British market is absolutely secure to us. If we come in with you, what assurance have we that that state of things will continue? What have you to say about it?" Well, what have we to say about it? I hope some representative of the Government will say to-day what our answer will be to assure the Northerner about the future of his shipbuilding industry and his linen industry so far as the British market is concerned, or whether we have any alternative markets to propose. Similarly, the Northerner would point out to us that up there, even more than down here, a large proportion of the young men who come from the universities are unable to find positions inside the country; that at the present time they have the whole of the British Commonwealth open to them as if they were Englishmen, in view of their position as British citizens; and that, in fact, like our own young men in the South —though we say very little about it— they do go forth and get positions in various parts of the Commonwealth. They might ask us what assurance they have that that state of things will continue.
They might ask us other questions of a material kind. They might ask us how our social services compare with theirs. That is a question I am not going into to-day, but if you were sitting around a table with Northerners, and discussing union, you would have to go into it, and it amazes me that on topics like that which really matter from a bread-and-butter point of view, with all the speeches that are coming from the members of the Fianna Fáil Party on the question of Partition, there is complete and absolute silence. Not a word is said that will enable a Northerner to judge what his position would be economically, if he came in with us, as compared with what it is to-day. There are also difficulties about industries, competitive industries. We have set up a number of new industries here that might find it very hard to endure competition with the North, but that is a matter that, I suppose, will raise objections on our side of the Border rather than on the other side. It is the sort of matter, however, that is practical and will need going into when the time comes to get down to brass tacks.
Next, there are difficulties of a less material nature, but even more important. They might be described, roughly, as sentimental. I am not referring to the illusory ones founded on lies, prejudices and propaganda. I am referring to ones that have a genuine foundation. What are these? I do not suppose the average Northerner is a constitutional expert and has gone very closely, or is likely to go very closely, into such questions as external association versus internal association. I do not suppose he has studied the exact terms of the Treaty or the exact terms of the Constitution, or that he ever will. I do not think it is constitutional niceties that are likely to interest him, but there are certain broad points that will interest him.
One of these is the question of citizenship which, as I pointed out, has a material side, too. The Northerner is proud of his position as a British citizen. If he joins in with us, will he be able to retain his British citizenship along with his Irish citizenship? Every where else in the Commonwealth that is done; there is the citizenship of the country combined with the general British citizenship. Here we have announced that we repudiate the name of British citizen altogether. Is that going to continue and are we going to ask the Northerner to assent to that? My own view is that, alike on material and sentimental grounds, he will never assent to that.
Secondly, there is the question of the Crown, allegiance to the King as the King of Ireland. It is my view that that is essential to the Northerner's outlook, that he is not disposed to throw that off and that he will not be induced, of his own free will, to come in with us unless we restore that. I do not mean by that that we need abolish our President and replace him with a Governor-General; but I do mean that my knowledge of Northern mentality is such as to make me believe that he would require the head of the State, the President, besides being the representative of the people, to be also the representative of the King.
Then take the question of the flag and the national anthem. I think about these matters he would feel even more strongly. He might, perhaps, be induced to revert to the Ulster republicanism of the 18th century so far as not to have any particular interest in the actual crowned head; but I do not think he will be persuaded to lose interest in the flag and the national anthem that unite him to the rest of the British peoples throughout the world. I think one of the questions we ought to answer, if we take up this matter seriously, is whether we propose that we shall have no anthem but the Soldier's Song and no flag but the Tricolour, or whether, as in South Africa, we shall have in this country a Commonwealth emblem and a Commonwealth anthem along with our Irish emblem and our Irish anthem.
A short time ago the Taoiseach made a speech in which he said that the British were foreigners; that there was no proper word to describe them by except foreigners. Is the Northern Irishman going to be content with that? Is he going to be content to come into a State which is to regard as foreigners those who are so closely akin to him across the Irish Sea? I do not believe for a moment that he is. I think we shall have to alter our attitude about such a matter as that if we want him to come in by consent.
Take the teaching of history. The teaching of history in this country at present consists largely of stoking up hatred against England. We have got to teach history in a factual way and I agree that there is a great deal in our history to make us indignant against England. I do not deny that, but I do say there are various palliatory features at certain stages of our history and these features are being suppressed; that we hear constantly of the crimes and misdemeanours of the English against us, but we never hear anything of what good they have done —and they have done some good in this country. We never hear anything of the attempts made by British statesmen, sometimes at the risk of their political lives and sometimes at the cost of their political lives, to do justice to this country. If we want to have an atmosphere in Ireland in which it is possible for Northerner and Southerner to live in amity together, we have to teach history in a more objective spirit in all our schools. The Northern Protestant child learns history in the same spirit from the opposite point of view and in his history book everything we do is painted black and everything the English do is painted white. A change will have to be made there as well. We want to get rid of the fog of hatred that hangs over the land and we have to introduce a spirit of objectivity into our teaching.
Then we come to the very thorny question of Gaelicisation. I see leading articles and speeches stating that there is no difference of race between the Northerners and ourselves. I agree there is not much. I do not think there is much difference of race between the English and ourselves. If it was a question of chemical analysis of the blood of any of us here or any Welshmen, Englishmen or Scotchmen I believe that you would not find a very great difference. The amount of inter-marriage that has gone on between the different strains that have populated these islands has been very great indeed. There is hardly more justification for referring to the Englishman as a foreigner from a racial point of view than there is for referring to the Northern Irishman as a foreigner. I agree that the racial barrier between us and the North is, or, at any rate ought to be, a very small one. I noticed to-day an article in the Irish Press, for example quoting with approval a statement by Captain Henry Harrison, a great advocate of unity, that there is no difference between ourselves and the North in race, in language, or in history. As regards history, I have already said something. There is a difference. There is a difference between what matters, and that is our view of history. There is a great difference, a difference that in course of time I believe can be adjusted by an objective spirit. What about race and language? I say there is very little difference in race, and that at present there is none in language. But is that going to continue? Are not our Gaelic enthusiasts down here preaching that we are to become a race of pure Gaels and that anything that is not Gaelic in this country is a foreign element? Are not our Gaelic enthusiasts down here all preaching that Gaelic ought to become the national language? Are not they pretending that it has become the national language?
In point of fact, it is all nonsense. Gaelic is not the national language. Gaelic has ceased to be the national language for a very long time. English is now our national language. We have given it our own tang and savour, and our writers have nobly enriched it. The larger part of Irish culture is embedded in the English language.
Ní fíor.
If there was no Northern question at all, I would be very willing to argue Gaelicisation on its merits, but there is a Northern question, and the question at this point is, are we going deliberately and of set purpose to raise the barriers that Captain Harrison and the Irish Press say do not exist? Are we going to put them up? Are we going to create a language barrier between ourselves and the North and to create a race barrier between ourselves and the North?
Tá an iomad Gaedhilge sa Tuaidh is atá ann-seo.
All these sentimental objections that deter the Northern Irishman from coming in with us are objections that traditional Irish nationalism would have no difficulty at all in meeting.
There is an amendment put down which talks of national aspirations. National aspirations are not fixed like the laws of mathematics or like the Pole Star. National aspirations are what we choose to make them—what we choose to make them in the light of all the facts and in the light of all the interests concerned. And, even if the national aspirations of every past generation of Irishmen had been what these gentlemen pretend are the only rightful national aspirations, I should still say we must decide for ourselves upon our own responsibility in the light of the things of to-day what our national aspirations ought to be. But, in point of fact, the whole of Irish history is against them.
Where do they take their doctrine from? Is it from Wolfe Tone, who said that if the connection between Ireland and England could be adjusted on a basis of equality and equity no Irishman would wish to disturb it? Is it from Wolfe Tone, who said he was prepared to shed every drop of blood in his body on behalf of the King of Ireland, who happened at the same time to be King of England? Is it from O'Connell, who was ten times more exuberant about his loyalty to the Crown that I would be myself? Is it from Thomas Davis, who expressed the view that if Ireland were given freedom to manage her own affairs, it would be well to continue the link of the Crown? Is it from Parnell, who accepted the Home Rule Bill of 1886 as a final settlement? I can back up every allusion I have made by quotations, but I did not want to take up the time of the Seanad.
Cad mar gheall ar Phadraic MacPiarais?
Is it from Parnell? I can find no such doctrine in Parnell and I can find statements to the contrary, which I am prepared to read to the Seanad. Where do they get these national aspirations? I know no source for them except John Mitchel (whose reliability as a guide in political principles may be judged from the fact that he was a supporter of negro slavery), the Fenians and the main national movement from 1918 onwards. That is all. National aspirations as they are understood by that Party are a mushroom growth, an unhealthy growth, an unnatural growth, and they are stunting and dwarfing the development of this nation and preventing Irish unity.
There is an amendment down in the name of Senator O'Donovan which, roughly, advocates the solution of this question by the transference to ourselves of the reserved powers at present held by the Imperial Parliament. What is to be said about that amendment? In the first place, I notice that he talks about negotiations with the English. Just what does that word "negotiations" mean? Are we going to the English to offer them something in exchange for something else or are we going to them just to make a demand? If it is merely to make a demand, I submit "negotiations" is hardly the correct word to use. If we are going to offer them something, what are we going to offer them? In the second place, I observe that this business of going to the British is all wrong. It is unworthy of us. It is taking the subject by the wrong end. It can do no good. In the third place, I ask what are the merits of the proposal itself that we should take over the reserved powers at present held by the Imperial Parliament? I may be doing injustice to that proposal. I have considered it as carefully as I can. I am prepared to listen to anything that may be said in its favour, but at present I cannot see that it has any merits at all. It meets none of the material objections that I have mentioned as affecting the mind of the Ulster Unionist, not one of them, and gives him none of the assurances that I have suggested he would require. Similarly, on the sentimental side, it meets none of his objections. The British troops are presumably to be taken away. The Army of our State is to march in. The Union Jack is to disappear from his flagstaffs. The playing or singing of "God Save the King" would create an uproar and be regarded as an act of semi-treason to the State. His constitutional position as a British citizen is impaired to exactly the same extent that it would be impaired if there were only one Parliament in this country instead of two. And the proposal maintains the Border. I do not want to maintain the Border; I want to get rid of it. I do not want two Parliaments in this country; I want one. I do not want two Administrations in this country; I want one. There is no sign, not a glimmer of a sign, that that proposal makes any appeal to a single Ulster Unionist, and I do not see why it should. I see very little chance that the British Government will take it seriously or give a favourable answer to it. The British Government have not shown a great deal of firmness of late in international affairs. I cannot say that their international policies have filled me with admiration, but I do not think that they have sunk quite so low as to do anything quite so base as to hand over those men to us against their will like a lot of cattle. I do not think they will do it; I do not think they ought to do it and I do not think they ought to be asked to do it.
I think we have already listened to enough of this. It is most unbecoming for Senator MacDermot to refer to the people of the North of Ireland as cattle. I refuse to listen to him any longer expressing such language.
I am very sorry if I should have caused distress to any Senator.
I say that to call the people of the North of Ireland cattle is a disgrace. I repudiate it as a North of Ireland man.
So far from calling any one in the North of Ireland cattle I protested against any one treating them as cattle. If the Senator would listen a little more attentively to what I have to say he could spare himself a certain amount of indignation.
I have listened too long.
The door is always available. There is no exertion that I would not make, no personal sacrifice that I would not make, to procure the consent of the people in Northern Ireland to come into this State of their own free will; but I do not believe it would be good for them or for us that they should be thrown to us as a sop in return for something that we might offer to England, even if we had anything to offer to England. I quite appreciate, and I am constantly harping on it to English audiences, the guilt of the English in the past in contributing to the creation of this question of Partition. I quite agree that they originally sent those people over here, and I quite agree that for Party purposes—another magnificent illustration of the beauties of Party politics—in the years immediately preceding the war, not members of the British Government but leaders of the opponents of the British Government went out of their way to come over to Ireland to stimulate differences between Irishmen and to exasperate feeling. I quite agree with all that, and when I am among Englishmen I ram those points home. But those are not what concern us. They have nothing to do with our task. Those people were once, what the Taoiseach called them, invaders and intruders, but that is a long time back. Their stock has been in Ireland now for centuries and they have as much right to be considered as Irishmen as we have. I have noticed very often that in Fianna Fáil circles the slightest suggestion that the Northern Unionists are not Irishmen is resented and is attacked, and is very properly resented and attacked. They are Irishmen, and our business as Irish statesmen is to take account of the wishes and sentiments of every kind of Irishman and not brutally to overrule them.
For centuries we had an ascendancy here that overruled us. It is true that they were a minority and we a majority, but even a majority can be guilty of tyranny, and can set up something that amounts to an ascendancy. There is a point beyond which you cannot either from the point of view of statesmanship or from the point of view of natural justice overrule and ignore the hearts and consciences of 800,000 of your fellow-citizens. Those 800,000 of our fellow-citizens in the North have, I may say, close sympathisers of perhaps another 200,000 among the Protestants of the South of Ireland. If we are going to reach our full stature as a nation, is it sense to attempt to overrule brutally the dearest sentiments of a quarter of our inhabitants, of 1,000,000 of our citizens? That was never the theory of Irish nationalism until now, and I am ashamed if Irish nationalism has so degenerated that it has become its theory to-day.
I do not believe then that this proposal of Senator O'Donovan's is a good one in itself, and, apart from anything I have said already, there is one immediate answer that I can imagine the Northerners making to it and that is: Assuming even that this arrangement gave them full protection on the material side and on the sentimental side so long as it lasted, which, as a matter of fact it would not, but assuming that it did, how long is it going to last? I honestly do not think it would last very long. I think we would all hate to see that Belfast Parliament; we would all hate to see the Border, and we would have complete legal power just as the Imperial Parliament has to-day to abolish that Ulster Parliament by a stroke of the pen. Honestly, I do not think that it would be very long before we did it.
Senator O'Donovan tells us that at the present time the Northern Parliament needs a heavy subsidy from England. Would not the Northern Administration, if continued under our auspices, need a heavy subsidy from us? Are we proposing to provide it? That is a question that is worth considering.
And we will consider it.
Some of my indignant hearers over there would, I know, oppose making concessions of the sort that I advocate being made, and that I say are in full consonance with the main stream of Irish nationalism: they oppose all such concessions on the ground that they are inconsistent with the national aspirations of the country to-day as they understand them. Now, I ask exactly what it is that we are being asked to sacrifice the possibilities of unity to. Is it even a republic? If the Government were prepared to declare a republic to-morrow and do what the Taoiseach talked of doing some years ago, when he spoke of getting down to bed-rock and declaring a republic and standing on our own feet, of taking the natural consequences of being a republic like men— I am not thinking of any vindictive retaliation from England, but merely of the natural and logical consequences of renouncing all connections with Great Britain and with the British Commonwealth: if we were prepared to do that I should not be in favour of it. I would think that it was to adopt a disastrously narrow conception of nationality, but, at any rate, it would be an intelligible one. It would be one that I could understand would inspire enthusiasm in some minds, but, Heaven help us, are we going to sacrifice the hopes of unity because we desire to retain the King as an organ rather than as King?
Is that the reed upon which all our hopes are going to be placed? Is it for this hermaphrodite thing we have to-day, that is neither a Republic nor a partner in the British Commonwealth that we are asked to sacrifice the hopes of unity? For my part, I can see nothing to inspire enthusiasm in that conception of Irish nationality. If we are going to refuse to rise to the higher conception that I should wish to see us rise to, then, in all honesty, I implore the Government to lose no time in taking the step that is the logical consequence of what are alleged to be our national aspirations, and that is to declare ourselves a completely separate and independent Republic. That, at any rate, would be manly and would be intelligible.
I remember the Minister for Industry and Commerce telling me in the Dáil, when I expressed the view that Fianna Fáil economic policy was something that was not, perhaps, the result of hard thinking by men with wet towels around their heads sitting up at night; something they had not arrived at on the merits, but something rather that flowed from and was the consequence of their political outlook—I remember his reply: that quite the contrary was the case; that it was their economic policy came first, and that it would be much truer to say that their political theories flowed from their economic theories, than that their economic theories flowed from their political theories. Since those days their economic theories have undergone very considerable change. Something is now officially admitted which used to be fiercely denied, and was then uncasily concealed, namely, that our prosperity is dependent upon that of Britain. We have immense public and private investments there. The British market is already of capital importance to us, and to whatever extent we repatriate our investments in England, we shall have to increase our exports to that market, so as to pay for the things we shall always have to import. All that was pointed out with the utmost clearness last Saturday by the Minister for Finance, and if anyone for a moment doubts that there has been an immense change in Fianna Fáil economic theories, let him compare that one speech of the Minister for Finance with any speech a Fianna Fáil leader made, not merely before they came into office but at any time up to a year or two ago. The fancy picture of Ireland teeming with all the requisites of a high standard of living for a large population has been abandoned. There is much in which we are deficient in this little island, and we can only pay for these things by our exports. If the British Commonwealth is destined, as it may be, to gradual decline and impoverishment, then we shall suffer as much as any part of it. The proportion of Irishmen—and of Catholic and Celtic Irishmen—in the service of that Commonwealth and in high positions in that service in all parts of the world is astoundingly high, and I, for one, refuse to call or to regard them as foreigners. Has not the time come, now that certain illusions have been shed, when we might deny ourselves the luxury of making malicious attacks day after day in our speeches and in our newspapers, not alone upon their policy in reference to Ireland, but upon every phase of British policy throughout the world? I do suggest we should not keep up for ever the insipid and demoralising rôle of the injured innocent. Even if there were no Border question, I think such a change would be good for us, would be honest and realistic. As it is, it seems to me that our failure to make such a change is a crime against national unity, and one of the worst instances of national blindness that history has known.
I believe that we have within our grasp the possibility of accomplishing the highest aims of our forefathers, even if we have to resign ourselves to the collapse of that very modern and ill-designed structure which Senator Tierney has somewhere referred to as our "enchanted palace." I believe this can be done if we start pulling down barriers instead of putting them up. I believe that there is a community of interest, of race and of language between ourselves and the Northern Unionists, which we ought to emphasise instead of seeking to destroy. Their view of history is widely different from ours, but I am confident that by statesmanship and by large-minded charity the discords of the past can be resolved into harmony. I do not mean for a moment that directly we have done all I am pleading for, the Northerners will fall into our arms. I know they will not. The disease from which they suffer takes time to cure, and it is idle to expect sick men to behave like healthy men. We cannot obtain assurances from them that they will do this if we will do that, although I may say that such assurances come fairly near to being implied in some recent speeches of Ulster leaders. We must have the patience and the understanding of a wise physician. We must put our trust in what Erskine Childers used to call the fundamental probabilities of civil society. We must remember that our national aspirations are not something immutable, but are what we choose to make them. In deciding what they should be, let us have regard to all the facts and not merely part of them, to all our history and not merely part of it.
I derive some hope from the fact that in concentrating on this question we have at last reached something real and tangible and worth while, instead of the rubbishy constitutional fiddle-faddles which have been occupying us ever since the Treaty, and which have so much deepened the antagonism of the North. I am not a pessimist about reunion; I am an optimist, provided we realise that the issue depends upon us and not upon the English. I am not a pessimist about Irish nationality, provided we do not torture it from its true meaning. I have no fear of this country ever losing the special qualities of Irish thought and character. Even if the English language remains what I have said it has become, our national language, that is not going to denationalise us. There is much more danger in a violent reaction from quixotic and ill-judged attempts to put back the clock of history. The government of men is a delicate task and must contain a considerable element of trial and error. There are many blunders for which we may look for indulgence from posterity. But posterity will not easily forgive us if, at this crisis in our history, we sacrifice substance to shadow through pettiness and obstinacy, and the appeal I make to-day is for magnanimity and a little Celtic imagination. It is an appeal which I believe would be made by Tone, Emmet and Davis if they were present amongst us.
I formally second the motion and, with your permission, reserve my right to speak at a later stage.
I move amendment No. 1:—
To delete all words after the word "Seanad" and substitute the following words:—
"the Government of Éire should take immediate steps towards the establishment of satisfactory relations with the British Government by the opening of negotiations for the evacuation of the Six Counties by the British armed forces and administrative officials, and for the transference to the Government of Éire of the powers now exercised by the British Government in that section of Irish territory, on terms which will satisfy the national aspirations of the majority of the Irish people."
I earnestly appeal to the members of the House to support and adopt this amendment as a positive, practical and peaceful effort to promote the unity of our beloved country. The text of the amendment speaks for itself, and any elaboration by me is scarcely necessary to emphasise the desirability of adopting the course of action which I propose. That course of action is not new. It is, I feel, already operating and it has been impressed upon the British Government by our Taoiseach who, I am glad to see, has honoured us by his presence here to-day to listen to this debate. I believe that the endorsement of his action by the Seanad will aid him in his efforts to convince the British Government of the injustice to our Irish nation which it has perpetrated. The head of the British Government, who claims that he is a realist in his efforts to establish peace throughout the world, must be convinced that the first realistic effort which he should make should be to secure the peace and goodwill of the Irish nation—his next-door neighbour. As head of a British Government, he has endeavoured in European politics and amongst European countries to promote peace. He has undone in other countries treaties which had operated since the time they were imposed by a predecessor. The same oppression has been imposed upon our country by a predecessor—the Government of Lloyd George. It is up to the head of the British Government, in his efforts to establish peace throughout the world, to create a spirit of peace and freedom with his nearest neighbour—the Irish nation. The Irish nation has survived British persecution by force and by laws which should bring a blush of shame to the cheeks of any British subject. The realism claimed by the head of a British Government should be demonstrated to us here by the removal of these barriers to peace between us.
In that connection, I come to some of the remarks made by Senator MacDermot. I shall not deal with a tithe of them because my appeal is mainly to those who were formerly classified as Unionists, resident in this portion of our national territory. Senator MacDermot referred to colleagues in this House of the so-called Unionist element. We are really the Unionists now. Those who are against the cause of union are partitionists. Senator MacDermot referred to these so-called Unionists in the North being treated like cattle and thrown at us. He said something about brutalising them. I ask Senator MacDermot and the members of this House if those who formerly voiced Unionist opinion and favoured the British connection have anything to complain of as citizens of this State? I should like to refer, in this connection, to a speech by Senator Johnston, made on an occasion which was the fruition of procedure similar to that which I now propose should be taken by the Government. That procedure is not new. It has already been used in negotiations with the British Government—negotiations which all the members of this House approved. I suggest we should ask our Government to proceed with similar negotiations with the British Government, with, I hope and pray, similarly good results which will be approved by this House and by a majority of the Irish people I appeal to Senators like Senator Johnston, Senator Sir John Keane and Senator Alton, who is the seconder of Senator MacDermot's motion, to throw in their weight with us of Nationalist Ireland, and convince the people of Britain and the people—I must use the term—of the same religious persuasion in Northern Ireland of the desirability of union.
In the discussion in this House in connection with the ratification of trade agreements with the British Government, Senator Johnston made what appeared to me to be a very important statement. He said:
"Now, I wonder in what way the minority down here can contribute in making these relations happier and in furthering the idea of a reunited Ireland. The minority down here frequently have had occasion to recognise not only the justice but the generosity of the treatment which has been handed out to us by the Government of the majority Party here, and we are not aware of any grievance which affected us, as a minority, which did not equally affect other people who find themselves in the same position as ourselves."
Have we treated them as cattle? We have adopted them. Perhaps some day they will become, as happened previously in history, more Irish than the Irish themselves.
I did not say that there was any danger of our treating the Northerners as cattle. I objected to the idea of the British treating the Northerners as cattle.
The British have had to concede independence to, at least, this portion of the country. You could, therefore, argue, as you have argued about the Northerners, that England handed over the Southern Unionists to us and that, in so doing, she treated them as cattle. Therefore, they have already treated as cattle a section of the Irish people. We have adopted them and they have become useful citizens of this State.
They are being fattened now by the policy of the Government.
I was going to refer to the ignorant method of referring to the treatment of these people as treatment which would be given to cattle. Our treatment of their colleagues here is a sufficient answer to that. Senator Johnston, in another speech in this House, referred to "that part of geographical Ireland which we may call ‘Hibernia Irridenta'." I am glad to see that Senator Johnston has referred to the Six Counties as "unredeemed Ireland." My appeal is specially made to these gentlemen to help us in convincing the British that, in the interests of peace in Ireland and of the world and in their own interests, they should withdraw their troops in the North and press for the unification of our country. Another member of the House, Senator Sir John Keane, who, I noticed, on one occasion in the Lobby was good enough to give his name as Seán O Catháin, perhaps, too, could assist. We were both in the one Lobby on that occasion. He could assist in educating the British public as to the progress we have made and as to the happy family we have become in this portion of the country. He is reputed to be, and I think he has never denied he is, correspondent of an influential English paper in which his efforts could be very effective towards convincing the British people as to what they should do in Ireland.
My aim in speaking to this motion is really directed towards tearing the mask of hypocrisy from British statesmen and other British public speakers who claim that the abolition of Partition is a matter for agreement between the two Irish Governments. Now, there are not two Irish Governments. There is the Government of the Oireachtas, with control over Éire, and the British Government. What is left to the people in Northern Ireland is too infinitesimal, you might say, to provide the Administration there with anything like a claim to full legislative authority. The Government which rules at the other side of the Border is actually the British Government. The Customs huts that are established on the other side of the Border are British Customs huts, so that in actual fact we have one Irish Government and the British Government operating in Ireland. While that obtains, while the people in Ireland do not govern and do not rule over the entire area of the Irish nation, we cannot hope for peace and goodwill between the two countries. I certainly regret that we must classify Senators like Senator MacDermot as incorrigible, because he has so often repeated these misstatements about Northern Ireland and the British. Actually there can be no unity between the people of the North and ourselves while the British hold the whole control of the North. The solution of the problem of the unity of the two sections of Irish people and the abolition of the Border is in the hands of the British Government. If the British Government wish for the goodwill of the Irish people they will refrain from interference in that portion of our national territory and, in that way, contribute towards the solution of the Ulster problem. I think that the theory which has been dilated upon by Senator MacDermot falls to the ground, because I believe the Government of Northern Ireland has no actual legislative authority there at all.
Now, as to the motives which prompted me to move this amendment, I have done this on my own. One Senator asked whether this was an official amendment. It is official from me. I speak as a Senator in this House.
Is the Senator not speaking for the Party?
I am speaking for myself.
Mr. Hayes
Only?
I am a member of the Seanad who supports the Government Party in this House. I am a member of the Fianna Fáil organisation. I am a Senator in this House and, as a Senator, I speak to the motion.
Mr. Hayes
Nobody doubts the Senator's right to speak to the motion but can he answer the questions as to whether he is giving Government authority or the authority of the organisation or merely the authority of one Senator, Seán O'Donovan?
I give you the authority of Seán O'Donovan. The Northern Government, so-called, functions under the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. The Belfast local Parliament operates under that Act which details 13 heads defining powers which the Parliament shall not have and a 14th head detailing reserved powers. Surely to goodness, anybody reading that Act can say that there is only one Irish Government in this country, our Government, and that the other Government is a foreign Government, the British Government. An offer has been made by An Taoiseach to give the people of Northern Ireland the powers which are locally administered by the Six-County Government provided they guarantee civil and religious liberty. That liberty was really supposed to be guaranteed by the Act of 1920 but, unfortunately, we see to what extent it has been abandoned. The speakers representing the North have departed from it due, I believe, to the backing and support constantly given to them by the British Administration. If the British withdraw that support, there will be no coercion imposed on the people of the North any more than was imposed on the Southern Unionists who have become, as Senator Johnston stated, good citizens of the Irish State. Senator Johnston finished up that speech to which I have referred with this quotation from Tom Moore:—
"Till like the rainbow's light,
The various tints unite
And form in Heaven's sight
One arch of peace."
If these sentiments, as expressed by Senator Johnston, are the sentiments of other people, my appeal to them would be to recommend them to Senator MacDermot.
How do you know that Senator Johnston was ever a Unionist?
Senator Johnston is here and can speak for himself, if he wishes.
He is a long time a Nationalist, anyhow.
I should like to quote some remarks on the situation in Northern Ireland as expressed by Mr. Armour, who has written some books on the position and the maintenance of the ascendancy over the people of Northern Ireland—its maintenance in the past when we were all one and its continued maintenance now for the Six-County Parliament. He refers in that book to the condition of affairs in our section of the national territory. Allow me to quote some of his remarks on page 31:—
"As a matter of fact, leading Protestants in what was formerly known as the Free State appear to lose no opportunity of testifying to the fair treatment they have received from the Dublin authorities. But no weight whatsoever is attached to these statements in the North-East, where they are systematically discredited."
I might say that they do not seem to have had any weight with the British Government and the British people by whom they are discredited. He goes on to say:—
"Yet they seem honest witnesses, and there is no reason to suppose that the only truthful Protestants in Ireland are those within the Belfast zone, who have little means of learning the truth at all. If they do, they find it more prudent to say nothing about it, lest the ‘Empire' be imperilled."
In connection with that, I might say that it is lest their own existence be imperilled, because I personally am aware, and I am sure other Senators are aware, of the large volume of Protestant opinion in Northern Ireland which is quite agreeable and amenable to the Government of Éire, but they dare not open their mouths because of this ascendancy and vested interests in the Northern Government which are maintained by the British Government there.
There are districts, one of which I know very well, where Protestant and Catholic live in the greatest Christian association of neighbourliness from one end of the year to the other. Yet, that Protestant neighbour is necessarily silenced from voicing his opinion and his appreciation of his Catholic neighbour and their Christian feeling towards one another because of this ascendancy of the Six-County Parliament and the British-maintained institutions in Northern Ireland.
Not the Orangemen? The intimidation does not come from the Orangemen?
The institutions and the vested interests and the ascendancy are certainly one and the same as the Orange organisation and the Government which is maintained by the British.
Is the Orange organisation British?
So far as I am aware, it is more or less international. I am not a member of the Orange Order myself so I cannot say from where it emanates. Unfortunately, we cannot discuss this matter without bringing in the question of different religions, and I say that the Protestant Christian religion, the people practising it, and our Catholic religion, to which the majority of the people in the whole country belong, are of little consideration when you think of all religions, Christian and otherwise, in other countries, and I would think that the Protestants of the North of Ireland would be better living in friendly relations with the people of Southern Ireland and in Christian relations with them than have, for instance, we will say, the system which is adopted in other countries of no religion at all, but something imposed on them by a State Fascist authority.
Unfortunately, this Ulster question, which is fostered by a foreign Government, fostered by the British Government, was, according even to English historians, the cause of the Great European War in 1914. I only hope that the same thing cannot again be laid at the door of the leaders of the Ulster Government at present, and, of course, I always embody with them the British Government, which maintains them there. It would be unfortunate if in such a state of suppressed conflagration as we have in European politics at present, this Ulster question should again become the cause of a European war. That has been recorded by British historians as one of the causes of the European conflagration in 1914. Let us hope that the same thing will not arise now, for while coercion continues there is always bound to be a protest, a protest even going beyond what we may call a vocal protest. I think Pádraig Pearse said at one time that sections of the community may from continuous coercion come to the conclusion that it is easier to endure than to protest. But while coercion is maintained, there will be always people in this part of the country and in the Six Counties who will protest by any and every means in their power, and, unfortunately, that is what the coercion in Northern Ireland has been leading to in recent weeks.
My hope in proposing this amendment is that its effect will be the initial step towards peace between the two countries. It was written by the late Terence MacSwiney 20 years ago that we should not always or we would not always be thinking that England's difficulty was Ireland's opportunity. England's difficulty will, unfortunately, remain Ireland's opportunity while the British Government hold a portion of our territory, and while she retains it, there will be and must be protests of one kind or another. Therefore, I put this amendment to the House in the hope that it will be an initial step in establishing peaceful negotiations and a peaceful status between the two countries. It is not a new course to adopt, because, as I pointed out, it has been adopted before, and adopted with such success that it was approved and appreciated by all Senators here, including Senator MacDermot. Therefore, I ask even him to correct what I have already called that incorrigible attitude of his and even to agree to the amendment which I have proposed to his resolution. It is the only practical and peaceful method of approaching the question of the abolition of Partition. We have a Government of our own here, and negotiation with the people who are really responsible for the Partition of Ireland—the British Government—is the peaceful and practical way of seeking and obtaining the abolition of Partition.
Who is seconding the amendment?
There are two items, a Chathaoirligh, in Senator MacDermot's speech, one at the beginning and the other towards the close of it.
On a point of order, Sir, do we understand that Senator Magennis is seconding the amendment, or is he rising to discuss it?
He is seconding the amendment.
The Cathaoirleach asked who seconded the amendment, and I rose to second it. I apologise to the House for not having used the formula "I second the amendment." I say it now, and beg to second the amendment. Senator MacDermot assured us that he was animated throughout his public life by the desire to benefit Ireland. We all assent to that. We are all perfectly assured that Senator MacDermot is a model to many of his people. He is a man of comparative wealth—perhaps I might say of wealth—a man of many interests and of various cultures, who chooses to give his service, such as it is, to his own people, who comes here to debate, who incurs odium on behalf of the doctrines he seeks to promote here, and for such a man we have personal respect and personal regard. The second part of his speech with which I heartily agree is his appeal to Irish history as to "the whole of Irish history," but I am afraid that he has not yet made any approach to his own ideal. He spoke of us on this side as sitting with wet towels around our heads at night seeking to evolve a fiscal policy. If a raid were made on Senator MacDermot's club, I am afraid it would be found that the towels in his apartment are dry. He has not been studying this question, he has exhibited an utter disregard of the essentials of Irish history.
Senator MacDermot says that this is an "internal disease." The first time that my attention was drawn to him as a public man, in the Dáil and on public platforms, was when, standing side by side with one of the perpetrators of the separation of Ireland, in December, 1925, he had the courage to say that this was an ulcer in the Irish life and that it must be removed. Since then, however, he has apparently come to the conclusion that it is, as he says to-day, an internal disease. With that, I completely disagree. His proposal, however, that the problem should be solved by the joint action of the two sections of Irishmen is my proposal—it is the proposal of all of us—but what he has not grasped, and what the proposer of this amendment has sought to enlighten him on, is this: our demand is that we be allowed to settle it as Irishmen without the intrusion of a foreign power which created the separation in its own imperial interests.
We are constantly accused of appealing to Irish history, but what else can we do when even a man imbued with patriotic sentiments such as Senator MacDermot can unconsciously circulate such a misleading and erroneous account of how this problem we are at present discussing came to be? Does he not know that Ireland has a history before the Act of Union in 1800? What was Ireland before, "by perjury and fraud of slaves who sold their land for gold as Judas sold his God," our country was put into a legislative union with Great Britain? Before that time Ireland was a nation among the nations. Grattan in vain appealed to the settlers to unite with Irish-Ireland and become not invaders, not men holding by force of arms confiscated lands, but brothers and fellow-citizens with the Irish people whose race was there for centuries before their arrival as invaders. Grattan failed for the very same reason as we have failed so far. He could not absorb the Williamite settlers. They were afraid that one of the first acts of a united Ireland would be to undo the conquest in their regard, to take away the lands which had become theirs, and they resisted Grattan's movement and it was defeated. That same element has been used for leverage in defeating the demand for full self-government in Ireland in our own day.
Senator MacDermot ignores that altogether. He persistently speaks of the Northern Irishmen and the Ulstermen, and whom does he designate?—not our people, but the settlers' brood, the descendants of the invaders. Some of them, thank God, we did assimilate—many of them, and some of the best of them—but there are others who still look to England— to Britain—as to their spiritual home. They are Englishmen holding the fort in the North. These are the enemy of Irish nationalism and of Irish nationalist aspirations being realised. According to Senator MacDermot's political philosophy, when one country invades another and seizes and holds, by force, its territory, destroys its civilisation, and attempts to force upon it its own culture, all that is required, apparently, is that at a later date someone should arise, like Senator MacDermot, who will say: "Let us have peace; there should be peace; you must conciliate those other people who are holding you and yours in bondage." That is what it amounts to. The one thing consistent in his speech this afternoon was his looking at the whole problem from the point of view of those people whom he called Northern Irishmen. They are Irishmen in point of birth. Those of them that I know are proud to be Irishmen; but those who dominate them— those to whom my colleague, Senator O'Donovan, referred to as being moved or controlled by "vested interests"— are not Irishmen. They are instruments of imperialism. They are proud to be so. They claim to be so.
Now, I appeal to Senator MacDermot to review Irish history. We need not go back very far. I know something about Ulster. I ought to know something about it because I was born and bred in Ulster. They are my people. In the Six Counties that have been annexed to the British Empire, while we in Southern Ireland have been accorded a measure of self-government under what was called the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty, there are over 600,000 of our kith and kin— people with the same outlook on life as ours and people who hold the same values on the things that matter as we do—and they are held in bondage outside of our Irish State, outside of a share or participation in the making of a new Ireland, although they are on Irish soil. They are within the geographical boundaries of historic Ireland, but they are outside of Ireland. By whose act was that done? According to Senator MacDermot it is by people inspired with friendship for us, by people with a high desire for goodwill. Let us examine that.
In this movement to defeat the demand of Irishmen to rule in their own land and own their own land, the principal agents were the house of Londonderry. That house was the centre and stronghold of what we call Diehard True Blue Toryism in the Empire. How did they set about defeating anything in the nature of a Home Rule Bill coming into operation and at what time did they operate? I can speak of it with an intimate knowledge. I say this without any desire to accuse the Senator of ignorance, but I do claim that I speak of this with inside knowledge of what went on while it was going on. I remember well that Mr. Lloyd George audaciously made a speech in the House of Commons and lamented that John Redmond had been let down badly by the Marquis of Lansdowne. He complained of it. How was Redmond let down? It was put up to the Irish Parliamentary Party that if they would agree to a Home Rule measure operating with this limitation that a portion of Ulster should go out of its jurisdiction for a while, a certain measure would be readily granted by the British Parliament, and that after a period of five years or seven years, unity would be restored. I well remember the Redmondite Party agreeing for strategic reasons to accept that. They went to Ulster and in the Catholic Hall in Belfast they recommended this to the Ulster leader for as I say strategic reasons.
The very fact that they went even to that length for the purpose of tactics and strategy and consented to a temporary Partition of the country swept them off the political map of this country. That showed what was the feeling of the men who called themselves Nationalists in those days. But that is an aside. British diplomacy, British intrigues had to find effective means to defeat Nationalism. They found it by working on the racialist and the religious prejudices of a section of the people in the Six Counties. They utilised that. Now, at the time of the Treaty which was made for the settlement of Europe the article that dealt with a similar problem of Partition in Poland and that was meant to solve the problem there, found very great sympathy amongst all who were in favour of President Wilson's doctrine—"All powers, both great and small, should be free to choose their way of life, obedience, and their form of government." It was the right of little nations as well as of great powers to create institutions that expressed the national will and embodied the national spirit and to live under them.
In the formulation of the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty, portion of the formula originally made for Silesia, for Prussian Poland, was incorporated in Article 12 to deal with the Six Counties. In accordance with that a plebiscite would have to be taken. In accordance with that, if it had been seriously carried out, there would have been an opportunity given for self-determination on the part of the people of Ireland as a whole. But that was defeated. I need not go into the history of it nor into the machinations that brought it about. These are too recent in our memories. But the British Government, whose chief Cabinet Ministers had signed the Articles of Agreement—the midnight Treaty as we call it—declared that the words of Article 12 had not the meaning that they possessed for the European diplomatists who used them, and first put them into operation. They denied the effect. They denied also practically everything that those words had meant to us.
The British Government at a cost of £1,100,000 odd, built a Parliament House for the people of the Six Counties in Belfast, who had declared themselves out of the jurisdiction of the Irish Parliament set up in Dublin. Not only did they create that to stabilise and perpetuate the separation of the Six Counties from the other Twenty-Six but they created a judiciary, a civil service and a separate constabulary. That is to say, the British created, for the first time in the history of representative Government, a freak unit of government, so-called, for those Six Counties. Those Six Counties with which we are concerned are only an imperial province. They are a province of the British Empire. Yet that population is only equal to that of the City of Glasgow, which is governed by a corporation. The province has a castle, a parliament house, with all its officialdom, a separate civil service, a separate judiciary, a separate constabulary. Yet withal, as Senator O'Donovan reminded you, they are not strictly a Government. They are exercising an extended local self-government but, in all the main concerns of their lives, legislation is determined for them in Westminister. That is what the public has commonly overlooked. Their judiciary was created for them in Westminster, and this is the test whether a particular type of Government is a State or not—do they create their own judiciary? The Westminster Parliament created the Belfast judiciary. It was by enactment of Westminster that practically all their institutions were set up. Under those reserved powers referred to in Senator O'Donovan's amendment the really vital things are controlled from Westminster. That is why the British Army is there. That is why they are an integral element of what is called the United Kingdom.
In November, 1926, at the international meeting of the various members and units of the Commonwealth it was agreed that in enumerating the members of the Commonwealth for the purposes of treaties with foreign powers the first unit should be Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the possessions beyond the seas. That is unit number one. Now the last unit is the Irish Free State, meaning not Ireland, as the first article of the Treaty had declared it meant, but meaning 26 counties. Now, those acts —first of all the acts of deceit practised upon the Parliamentary Party; secondly, the undoing of whatever there was of value in the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty; and thirdly the annexation of the Six Counties to the British Empire and the altering of the King's title accordingly—are all the acts of a conqueror; they are all acts of a foreign power imposing its will upon the Irish people. Those who represent the British tradition in the Six Counties—and what are they at present, but as Senator MacDermot himself said, "a distressed area of Great Britain"?—they are as Englishmen to all intents and purposes, in their political convictions, in their political affiliations——
They are Englishmen, and you want to annex them.
That is exactly the fallacy. I am delighted the Senator has come to my aid. You who talk like that forget that they have annexed over 600,000 of our people, and have annexed the territory upon which they live, and have always lived. That is the important point. It is not as if Yorkshire suddenly took it into its head that it would break away from the rest of England. It is a case of dividing Ireland, and at a time when Mr. Chamberlain and his Cabinet are upholding the doctrine of the identity of national and geographical boundaries with political boundaries. Is there any place on the map of Europe which has its political and national boundaries so palpably coincident as those of our own country? I quote from a lawyer in the days when the Union was being advocated:—
"The Almighty who made our land an island never meant her to be a province; the Almighty who made our land an island stamped upon her the indelible charter as a nation."
The boundaries of Ireland are the sea. That sinister streak across the map of Ireland, called the Border, what is it but an artificial division? It was put there in order to have a garrison to hold the land for her conqueror, who would have control of the Northern seas and the Northern harbours. It was to have a Gibraltar of the North.
Senator MacDermot appealed to history. Let it be history which we all know, because it is part of our lives. We have lived when those things were being enacted. He asks what have we to give England. That is a wise consideration, no doubt. In all those things there is what I call political arithmetic. For her own purposes England, while prating to the world about little nations and their rights, took an ancient little nation and dismembered it for her own purposes. Now, in her time of distraction, while wondering what is going to happen next, let her take stock with political arithmetic, and consider whether it is better for her to have a little garrison supported at huge cost to herself, with the rest of the country hostile because of that very "internal disease" about which Senator MacDermot is so eloquent. I put it frankly, let them consider in a period of war is a hostile Ireland on her flank or a friendly Ireland of more value? Which will be of more benefit to them—to have a few fanatics of the Orange Lodges waving a Union Jack, or to have the Irish people, who are not only in Ireland but all over the world, conciliated? Senator Johnston evidently is of the same mind as Senator MacDermot, that conciliation is what is needed. Yes, but it is we who ought to be conciliated. It is we who are wronged. Let us see things in their right proportion. The ancient realm of Ireland was undone. Portion of it was parcelled out amongst the descendants of the invaders. They claim to hold it still as a privileged people, because of their racial origin and of their religion. I am most unwilling to mention the religious aspect, but Senator MacDermot forces me to do it, because he denies there is any bigotry there.
I never denied it.
Senator MacDermot spoke repeatedly in terms that have no other meaning than that we can have no complaint on that score, yet repeatedly the responsible rulers of the Six Counties, the members of the Government of the Six Counties, have declared on public platforms: "We are a Protestant Government of a Protestant people." You cannot get round that. Is it not through that that they appealed, and successfully appealed, to a large element of the British population? They can talk at Ontario and Ottawa, they can beat their Orange drums, and talk of William of the Boyne there, and appeal to the bigotry with which those things are associated, and they do. I am not able, like Deputy MacDermot, to shut my eyes to facts. I envy him his marvellous capacity for detachment. I envy him the detachment with which he can look at this Irish problem, this denial of the rights of a people, a denial proceeding from a power that preaches appeasement, that calls itself the white dove of peace in the world, that joined with President Wilson in declaring the principle of democracy, the fundamental for democratic powers, that little nations as well as great are to enjoy the right of self-determination.
Here are the facts. The British by the reserved powers of 1920 were able to annex six of our 32 counties to the Empire, so that in international relations the unit that deals with foreign powers is Great Britain and Northern Ireland, etc. That is the outstanding fact, that the Six Counties have been annexed. It is equally a fact that those Six Counties belong to Ireland. It is equally a fact that up to 1800 that little dismembered island was a realm regarded as a centre of distinctive civilisation. It had its distinctive culture; it had its place in the sun; and ever since that, alternately by force of arms, alternately by protest, by argument by appeal, the Irish people have been asserting their claim to regain their ancient status, and the only opponent of that claim that we have to deal with is lodged in Westminster?" Is it not rational to say to Irishmen: "Direct your efforts to Westminster?" That is the central idea in Senator O'Donovan's amendment, as I interpret it.
We are getting down, as our American cousins would say, to brass tacks. Senator MacDermot would have us conciliate and woo what he calls the Ulsterman. And how? By surrender. As I have said before, more than once, there are three ways of settling every dispute. One is by war, one is by arbitration, and the other—it is dear to the heart of Senator MacDermot—is by one of the parties to the dispute giving in. We are to give up all that we value in our distinct nationality. Why? Because the settlers in the North do not like it. We are to ask them what they like and to behave accordingly. In other words, the old British régime is to be restored, the régime under which we are to learn as well as speak their speech and live the type of life that belongs to their British culture.
If Senator MacDermot reflects upon what he has said this evening, he will find that he has condemned Mr. Chamberlain and his Cabinet and all their works and pomps. For what are they trying to do? They are trying to maintain the separate independence of Great Britain. In the Great War, England put every ounce of manpower and every ounce of gold that she could contrive to procure, into the fight against Germany. Why? Because she could not do what we are called upon to do, admit that the foreigner, merely because he had a mightier force, was entitled to come in and rule in the land that was theirs and replace the civilisation that they had moulded for themselves, with a foreign civilisation. Surely, we have the same right as England has to stand for all that we hold dear, for what are to us the eternal verities?
I am with Senator MacDermot as a man of peace. I believe in conciliation, but I believe that when it comes to the settlement of disputes by conciliation, the conciliation must come from the stronger power. It is weakness and cowardice, said Burke, in the eyes of the world, when the weak power seeks to conciliate; it is magnanimity and generosity when a great power conciliates. Senator MacDermot asks us to crawl, because that is what it amounts to. What have all these centuries of Irishmen of whom he speaks been striving for? What has been the goal of their endeavour? What has been the inspiration that has made the Irish people throughout long centuries persevere in such a hard struggle? What was the sense of their fight for separate national independence?
The same exponent of history, Senator MacDermot, assures us that the people in the Six Counties are not materialistic. I know them very well. They, too, like us, have their spiritual values, their spiritual ideals. For them the great realities are immaterial realities and they are prepared to make great sacrifices for them. But why should we, the majority of Ireland, we who are the victims of rapacity and plunder on the part of the spoiler, the invader—why should we, now that we have gone so far, by the grace of God, in the emancipation of ourselves from what had been our evil status until recent years, halt in our progress and try to win over people who are really backed by the Empire to hold the fort for the Empire?
Senator MacDermot says that we should negotiate. Why, in the South we are now a State and we have a Minister for External Affairs, so the proper course is by negotiation. This amendment recommends negotiation. We have negotiated already, and only as recently as in April last. Senator MacDermot's memory conveniently forgets the negotiations in April. When the Taoiseach and his colleagues went to negotiate with the British Cabinet, their very first point was the restoration of the territorial integrity of Ireland. They dwelt, as we are doing now, on the wrong done to Ireland, and they stressed that Irish territory is arbitrarily, artificially divided and that the Irish people do not rule over their own land. What was the reply from "friendly" England, about whom Senator MacDermot has so many illusions? An emphatic refusal to deal with the question; an absolute "no". They presented the pleasing formula: "It is a dispute between Irishmen; Irishmen must decide it themselves."
There we are brought back by Mr. Chamberlain to where I began. It is a question for Irishmen to settle, though the problem was not created by Irishmen. It is a problem that Irishmen can settle, and will settle, if they are left to themselves; but so long as racial pride and religious bigotry are fomented to keep "the people of the North", as Senator MacDermot styles them, away from us, they will remain apart from us. That is what I know about them, and I am speaking from intimate knowledge and understanding of my own Ulster people. I have one advantage over Senator MacDermot there, and my memory of recent events, I claim, is better than his. I have the advantage of knowing the Ulster mind, and I have the advantage of knowing also the influences that have played upon it, that have moulded it of late and given it its urge.
Our dealing has got to be with the British Government. We should endeavour to awaken them to the fact that consistency with all the doctrines they have been preaching to the world about democracy requires that they should grant our request, at this hour when, in the words of the President of the United States, the conflict is between the democratic powers and the powers that seek to destroy democracy in the world. If we stand for democracy, and we do, we are standing for the great principle that little nations as well as great powers have a right to determine their way of life and obedience. People in the North are still our people just as much as "boys of the bulldog breed" that are in far away Canada, Australia or South Africa are boys of the bulldog breed. Our people, our kith and kin, in the Six Counties are entitled to demand of us to free them. We are in danger of losing sight of that duty that we owe to them.
Follow what Senator MacDermot recommends and what do we do? We go and ask "the people of the North" to be good boys because we are going to change our ways; we repent of our nationalism; we will sacrifice our institutions that we have thus far succeeded in building up; we will undo all these things to please them. How will that surrender emancipate our 600,000? We all know from past experience that friendly protests and attempts at conciliation make them feel that we are weak and they are strong. We might only foment the ascendancy spirit. We have never gained anything politically in Ireland from the MacDermot policy. Whatever we have got we have got by standing virile and determined. It is the policy of virility that always gets Great Britain to hear and listen. I beg of you, therefore, as Irishmen, not unmindful of the history of your country, to realise you owe a duty to our people in the Six Counties. You owe the duty, indeed, to Ireland. The wrong, I repeat, was done to Ireland.
A good many people, well-disposed, like Senator MacDermot, look across the Border and see our people oppressed. They see injustice and oppression and they think that what we cry out against is the wrongs of some people in Ulster who are not getting a share of the jobs, to put it vulgarly. That is not our grievance. It is not a mere Ulster question. It is an Irish national question. The wrong that we seek to undo is a wrong done to Ireland.
In the name of democracy, professing the fundamental doctrines of democracy, I repeat that the people of Ireland have the right to rule over Ireland. The force operating against the realisation of our democratic liberty is the will of Great Britain. It is with Great Britain, therefore, we have to deal. It is a waste of time to try inferior, roundabout methods such as Senator MacDermot recommends.
The Seanad adjourned at 5.30 p.m. and resumed at 6.30 p.m.
The following amendment appeared on the Order Paper in the name of Senator McEllin:—
To delete all words after the word "Seanad" and substitute the following words:—
"the monetary assistance afforded to the Government of Northern Ireland by the British Government and the policy of that Government in regard to Partition is solely responsible for the continuance of the Border, and that the withdrawal of such assistance is a necessary step to be taken towards bringing about the unity of the country."
Leas-Cathaoirleach
Amendment No. 2, in the name of Senator McEllin.
I do not intend to move the amendment. Senator O'Donovan's motion covers a much wider field than mine. It meets all the points of view and all the difficulties, and simplifies the issue so far as the House is concerned. In the belief that his motion will have the effect of eliciting the views of the House as a whole on this question, I propose to withdraw my amendment. I would appeal to Senator Counihan to meet the situation in the same spirit. If he does, I believe it will have the effect of simplifying the whole issue, and will lead to a more satisfactory debate on this question.
Amendment No. 2 not moved.
I beg to move the following amendment, which appears on the Order Paper in my name:—
To delete all words after the word "account", and substitute the following words:—
"of the adjustment of outstanding matters, affecting agricultural productivity, especially in regard to fixity of tenure, derating and marketing of agricultural produce, to accord with advantages in these respects at present enjoyed by the farmers of Northern Ireland."
I do not think that what I have to say on this is going to embarrass anybody. I do not intend to deal with the historical aspect of the question of Partition, but rather with it as it affects the bread and butter of the people concerned. Senator MacDermot said that he had not met any one in Northern Ireland or the Free State who objected to a settlement of Partition or to the removal of the Border: that all the people in both parts of the country were idealists and did not consider the material aspect of the question at all. If the Senator thinks that, then he must be living in the clouds. Many of the people that I meet have a definite objection to the removal of the Border. We find many such here in our own part of the country. Many of the new rich, the owners of the new factories, have a definite objection to the removal of the Border. That was demonstrated clearly at their meetings when speeches were made taking strong exception to the financial settlement with Great Britain. Their sole concern is not for what is best for the country as a whole, but rather for what is best for their own selfish, narrow interests. We had an instance of that the other day when their President made a speech in Cork, a speech in my opinion not calculated to lead to good feeling or good fellowship between this country and Great Britain. He said, in the course of that speech, that at this particular time England's difficulty was Ireland's opportunity, and that that should be our slogan and should continue to be our slogan. That shows the mentality of the new factory owners in this country. I want to enter a protest against those remarks because they are calculated to injure the principal industry and trade of this country.
I am sorry to interrupt the Senator, but I recollect reading to the contrary. It would be unfair for Senator Counihan to quote such a statement without quoting the further remarks of the speaker he mentioned, a man who pledged his life towards the removal of the Border. The Senator mentioned that the object was to maintain the Border, but when he quoted the statement he should quote the further remarks that were then made.
That does not tend to the peaceful removal of the Border. Senator MacDermot objects to all the amendments. I agree with that portion of the amendment of Senator McEllin which states that England was responsible for the creation of the Border, and that it was the duty of England to settle the question. There is no use in Senator MacDermot saying that this was a question for ourselves to settle now, that it was not one for England. In the first instance, it is mainly a question for those who created the Border to have it removed, and to have it removed by the peaceful and diplomatic methods that Senator MacDermot suggests. I believe, if the Border is removed by any other process, we would be better off as we are unless we have the good will of the Northern people for its removal. For that reason, while I am whole-heartedly in support of the motion put down by Senator MacDermot, I believe it would take a long time to get where the Senator wants to get. The motion in the name of Senator O'Donovan might be a quicker and a more effective method of getting somewhere. I cannot see why any reasonable man who has the interests of the country at heart should not support the amendment as it now stands. It is what everyone is advocating, and it is what Senator MacDermot has advocated, the adoption of peaceful means. I do not believe that there is anything in the motion of Senator O'Donovan that would, in any way, coerce the people of Northern Ireland, and for that reason I am supporting it.
Outside of Belfast and a few manufacturing centres, agriculture is still the principal industry in Northern Ireland. Except we can show the farmers and hard-headed business men in the North that they will suffer no disadvantages by the removal of the Border, they will not come in. Northern Ireland farmers have very many advantages and facilities for carrying on their business that we are deprived of in the Twenty-Six Counties. They have fixity of tenure, derating of agricultural land, a subsidy on fat cattle, better prices for most of their agricultural produce, and cheap artificial manures. Even with these advantages I believe that a considerable number of the farmers in Northern Ireland want no Border, but they are vitally concerned about the ownership of their land, and about the arbitrary powers vested in the Land Commission in this State, under which it can come in and take land and property without any appeal to the ordinary law, but to the Land Commission, which is a law unto itself. We had a case in County Meath which was very widely reported in the news-papers—and of which An Taoiseach must be aware—where a farm was compulsorily acquired by the Land Commission, and the sole compensation that the owner got was £5. I am quoting statements that were made in the Dáil and that were not refuted.
For the past two or three years, farmers in Northern Ireland received an annual subsidy of £270,000 for their fat cattle. In contrast to that, our Minister for Agriculture introduced a subsidy for fat cattle last year for a specific number of months in connection with tillage, which cost the Treasury here something like £45,000. All the appeals made to the Minister to continue that subsidy, even for this year, were turned down. These are questions which affect the livelihood of people in the Six Counties, because when everything comes down to brass tacks, people must live, and they will think—even though Senator MacDermot contends that they are all idealists—where they will find bread and butter, and consequently they will not willingly come in. The majority in the Six Counties is, I think, very much concerned about having friendly relations with England. A big percentage here, particularly among the agricultural community, has the same desire for friendly relations and for close co-operation. That has been said by An Taoiseach, and accordingly I say to the Government, that if they want a united Ireland, if they want a contented and a prosperous Ireland, if they want the British markets and the goodwill of the British people, it is for them openly and boldly to declare that they will continue to be a loyal member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. I am sure if a pronouncement of that kind was made, it would go very much further towards removing the Border than all the speech-making.
On behalf of Senator Madden, I second the amendment.
I hope it will not be considered an impertinence for one who has lived his life in Ulster to intervene in this debate. I agree with the motion but I disagree with its sponsors in thinking that it will do the least good. The best service we could do the cause of Irish unity would be to bridle our tongues on that subject. I do not know any topic which has given rise to so much platitudinous nonsense and solemn humbug and, in the amendment to this motion and the speeches supporting it, we have a classic example of both. It has been said that this should not be a Party question. Instead of being elevated from the rut of Party politics, this question, which I agree transcends in importance all others affecting our national life, has been made from the beginning the plaything of Party politics. It has been unscrupulously used to make Party capital and to give Party advantage. Notwithstanding the fact that a stunning blow had been dealt to the cause of Irish unity by the attempted rejection of the Treaty and the civil war which followed, members of Fianna Fáil, when in Opposition, proclaimed that they had an immediate cure for Partition. In fact they claimed that they were the only Party that could end Partition. They denounced their opponents as traitors who had sold the Six Counties for £1,700 a year and led the people to believe that they would no sooner be in office as a Government than the Border would vanish without the firing of a shot. Unfortunately, Fianna Fáil became the Government. The sons of Anak came to Jerusalem. The giants of politics arrived at Merrion Street and what a job they have made of the Border!
At the time this State was established those who could see beyond their noses advocated the pursuit of a policy which would have made the majority in the North realise that the fears entertained regarding the majority of the people here were groundless. The present Government deliberately sabotaged that policy with spurious anti-British propaganda and hollow talk of an isolated Republic, while at the same time they were preparing to dig themselves into the Empire. They pursued a course of sham and spectacular antagonism to Britain which has alienated more and more the majority in the Six Counties until to-day, at the end of seven years of Fianna Fáil rule, the position with regard to Partition is worse than ever it was. The sentiments of the majority in the North were insolently disregarded and the sentiments and interests of the minority in the North were shamlessly exploited to further a political game. By intensive propaganda from Press and platform, the minority were taught to believe that Fianna Fáil was the only Party that could secure their political salvation.
About this time last year, when the Government delegation went to London to negotiate with the British regarding all outstanding differences, including Partition, the minority in the North believed that, in the words of the Irish Press, “the day of their deliverance had dawned”. Remember, this delegation went to London, as they themselves admitted, under the most propitious circumstances. They went over to meet an English Government, which, according to the Taoiseach himself, “was taking broad views of international questions”—a Government which, we were told, recognised the importance, from their own point of view, of having a genuine settlement with this country, a Government which had at its head a peace-loving Englishman after the Taoiseach's own heart, Mr. Neville Chamberlain. The delegation came back having failed to get that ideal English Government and that fair-minded Englishman even to consider the question of Partition. Our delegates were told that it was a domestic question to be settled between the Government here and the Government of the Six Counties. They came back with nothing better to offer the unfortunate minority in the North than the cold comfort—“it was only a matter of time” until the whole of Ireland would be a completely independent State.
I do not blame either the delegates or their leader for having failed to abolish Partition. I do not accuse them of having sold the Six Counties. I do not say they should be spat upon as traitors. What I do condemn is the course they have pursued since regarding Partition. Having failed under the most favourable circumstances to induce England to lift a little finger to undo Partition and—with Partition thrown overboard—having concluded a treaty of peace and goodwill with England, ordinary folk would think it politic that the question of Partition should be given a rest for a while—at least, until the effect of our new policy of friendship with England had been given a chance to create a better atmosphere in the North. But within a few months of England's turning down Partition, before the ink on the London Agreement was dry, with the same Government in England, the same man at its head, with circumstances unchanged in any way, the Taoiseach thought fit to give an interview to an English newspaper in which he practically appealed to England to intervene at once to put an end to Partition. This appeal, both as regards time and text, could only have the result of further deluding the minority in the North with false hopes and of further estranging the majority there. That it certainly had the latter effect was speedily seen. It simply changed Craigavon's slogan of "Not an inch" to "Not half an inch". It will be remembered that in this interview the Taoiseach outlined an offer allowing the majority in the North to retain their Parliament providing they agreed that our Parliament here should administer the reserved services at present being administered from London. The offer was accompanied by statements which destroyed any chance of its securing consideration—statements which the leaders of the majority in the North at once seized upon as evidence that they could not trust us.
Mr. de Valera spoke of the great danger Partition would be to England if she were involved in a European war as Éire would not be willing to co-operate with her in defence. The Northern Unionists interpreted this declaration as a recantation of the previous promise never to allow this island to be made the base of enemy attacks on Britain. The Ulster man is not skilled in subtlety. He says what he means in the strongest language he can command. He did not understand the working of the mind of the Taoiseach when he said, in one breath, that he would not permit Éire to be used as a base of attack on Britain and, in the next breath, that he would not co-operate with Britain in time of war. We here are accustomed to the tortuous ambiguities of the Taoiseach and they leave us unmoved. But the men in the North are not. They took it that the non-co-operation declaration meant the cancellation of the pledge never to allow this island to be made a base of an enemy attack.
Candidly, I do not know myself what it meant, and if this motion succeeds in clarifying that point it will have achieved something. British statesmen, however, seem to understand the casuistry of the Taoiseach better than the men of the North. They did not take the threat of non-co-operation too seriously as we find at the end of the year Mr. Chamberlain claiming as one of his peace achievements in 1938 that he had secured the friendship of Éire while Sir Samuel Hoare was able to boast that the attitude of Éire to Great Britain during the September crisis was as different from that of Southern Ireland in the early days of the world war as could well be imagined. But while the effect of the interview in England and on the world generally was nil, the effect on the majority in the Six Counties was to estrange them still further. They saw in it an appeal to England to force them into this State and they resented that. And now Senator O'Donovan wants another appeal to England to force them in. Before another approach is made to England, I suggest that the Government should privately ascertain the probable chance of success such an approach would have, because I think it would be nothing short of cruelty to the feelings of the minority in the North again to raise their hopes by new negotiations and to have them subsequently dashed by a fresh disappointment. If the Government failed last spring to have Partition included in the settlement, after negotiating for three months under the most favourable conditions, does anyone think they have a chance now of succeeding, at a time like the present when public opinion has been inflamed by recent happenings?
We are told by Senator O'Donovan that this is not a Government amendment. I am glad to hear it, but if the Government adopt this amendment and favour the reopening of negotiations with England, without having first had some assurance of a reasonable chance of success, it would look as if they were inviting another debacle and showing a callous disregard for the feelings both of the minority and the majority in the North. To reopen negotiations with England within a few months of the previous failure would reveal to me merely a triumph of hope over experience. Candidly, I do not think the present time is the most opportune for negotiations of this type or, indeed, for a debate of this type. I am more anxious for the success of the negotiations than for the negotiations themselves. Unsuccessful negotiations will set our cause back rather than advance it. I shall not oppose Senator O'Donovan's proposal but I think the Government might usefully defer action until the memory of recent events will have died down. There is not much use in engaging in peace parleys in the height of a riot. The atmosphere is unfavourable to the peacemaker. Better wait until passions have cooled down and there is a greater disposition to come to terms.
Of course I know that it is very popular to blame England for Partition and, undoubtedly, the blame for the initiation of Partition must be laid at England's door, but a substantial portion of the blame for the continuance of Partition must be laid at doors nearer home. At the present time I do not believe that England is keenly anxious for the continuance of Partition. While she is doing nothing to put pressure on the Six Counties to join us, she will, I am convinced, do nothing to prevent their coming into a united Ireland if they are willing, because that would suit her policy at the moment.
It is not to England, therefore, we should primarily appeal for a solution of the problem. Everybody who lives in Ulster knows that something more than England's benediction is needed to end Partition. Even if England withdrew her financial help and withdrew her forces from the Six Counties, we should still under a forced settlement have to contend with a sullen and resentful population. As far back as 1921 the Taoiseach himself declared that the Six Counties should not be coerced and has repeated that declaration several times since. To-day nobody outside a mental home wants to resort to force to achieve unity. That would be creating a problem—not settling it.
If force, with or without England's aid, be ruled out there remains only the policy of conciliation or attraction. If this policy is to be effective, you must take into account the ideals, sentiments and interests of the people you wish to attract. There are many methods of attraction, but the very worst way is to flout the ideals of those you wish to conciliate. That this has been persistently done in the case of the majority in the Six Counties there is no doubt. No effort whatever has been made by this Government either to conciliate or attract them. I know, of course, that it will be said that it is impossible to attract them. No doubt a big proportion of die-hard Unionists refuse to be attracted or conciliated in any way, and the policy of the Government here plays exactly the game to suit these implacables, to provide them with the excuse, if not with a justification, for their bigoted opposition to reunion. But there is a big section of thoughtful independent Protestant opinion who could be attracted if it were pointed out to them that the best service they could render to the Empire to which they are so loyal would be to join up in the creation of a united Ireland. These people have been brought up to regard loyalty to the Empire almost as an article of faith. They have been nurtured in an atmosphere of loyalty and attachment to Britain. Does any sane man think that they will ever voluntarily come into an isolated Republic or that we can ever attract them to join us by boasting that we have severed the last link with England and have set up a Constitution here which enables a Republic to be declared without the altering of a comma?
This devotion to King and Empire on the part of the Unionists of the North may be a fetish, but it is nevertheless a fact, and you do not overcome facts by star-gazing. Let me endeavour to impress its factual importance on the House by an example. Suppose we here constituted an isolated Republic of Six Counties and that the people in the North were a Commonwealth State of 26 counties which desired to absorb us. Does any Senator think that if an emissary came from the North, waving a Union Jack and crying aloud his attachment to King George and the Empire, he would have the remotest chance of winning over to the cause of unity such intransigeant Republicans as, say, Senator McEllin or Senator Colonel Moore?
Yet, change the positions, and that is precisely what we are doing. Would it not serve our interests better, instead of boasting a lie, to tell the truth? And the truth is—as everybody who has read the statutes of the Oireachtas knows—that we are as much part of the Commonwealth as an Act of Parliament can make us. All our diplomatic relations are conducted on the basis of membership of the Commonwealth of which the King of England is head. Why, in the name of common sense, do we not emphasise that feature of our constitutional position to the Unionists of the North instead of affronting them by boasting of a mendacious republicanism? I, as an Ulsterman, do not understand the mentality of the man who thinks that the Partition question will be solved by yelling sloppy republican slogans at the Unionists of the North-slogans which have been discarded to every-body's knowledge by Fianna Fáil in this part of Ireland.
Apart altogether from their attachment to King and Empire, the people of the North have a very real appreciation of economic facts. Is the policy of State interference in industry, on which Fianna Fáil policy is based, likely to attract the business men of the North who place a high value on individual enterprise and freedom of trade? Are these hard-headed fellows likely to be attracted into a State where officials accumulate and workers decay and where pockets are turned out to spoonfeed industry?
The task of national reunion has been at all times a difficult one but the policy of Fianna Fáil is definitely calculated to turn the difficult into the impossible. It has made it almost politically and financially impossible for the majority in the Six Counties to come in, and it has made it in the financial interests of an influential section here to keep them out. Can it be claimed that our new industrial magnates are feverishly anxious for the abolition of the Border? Every experienced business man knows that if the Border were removed to-morrow not five per cent. of the ceremoniously-opened factories here would survive six months. I do not like to sit in judgment on the motives of any man. It is sufficient to criticise his actions. But I cannot help asking myself whether, if a vote for the abolition of the Border were also to be a vote for the abolition of some of our tariffed industries, a few of the directors of these industries would not hesitate before casting it. The more shrewd of the Northern Unionists are not blind to this aspect of the situation. They know the Border is quite safe as long as the Government here go on creating vested interests whose existence depends on the maintenance of the Border. One of the Unionists' leaders was able to boast recently that the greatest of all partitionists were to be found amongst the business men of the Twenty-Six Counties.
There is a ring of insincerity about the whole business. While the Taoiseach expresses the hope that it is only a matter of a very short time until we have a united Ireland, his Ministers are busy spending thousands of pounds on the erection of permanent customs buildings all round the Border. If that is the measure of the Government's optimism, then I think we may resign ourselves to a continuance of present conditions for a generation at least.
It is evident that the Government have no policy except a policy of "wobble" on the Partition question. If they had any practical or feasible policy, no Irishman, no matter how much he differed from them on other matters, would refuse to line up behind them. But the present substitute for a policy is merely earning the people of Éire a reputation as prevaricators and quibblers.
Tá mé in aghaidh an rúin seo agus i bhfabhar an leas-rúin. Bheadh sé furas dúinn dá mbeadh an dearcadh céanna againn agus atá ag an Seanadóir Mac Diarmuda agus da mbeadhmuid sásta ár naisiúntacht, ár dteanga, ár bpolasaí econoimice agus rudaí mar sin do thabhairt suas-da mbeadhmuid sásta é sin do dhéanamh bheadh sé furas aontú leis na Buachaillí Buidhe. Ach bheadh an luach ró-árd. Bhí aontacht ann roimhe seo agus níor sheasuigh sí. Ní rabhamar sásta san am atá thart na rudaí seo do thabhairt suas. Do throideamar ar feadh na gcéadta blian ar a son agus an bhfuilmíd sásta anois dul ar gcúl i dtreo go mbeidh smacht agus comhacht ag na Gaill orainn? Sin í án cheist.
Cad iad na smuaintí agus na samhaltaí atá ag breis na ndaoine ins na Sé Conndaethe? An féidir linn glacadh go labhrann Seumas Creag, an Tighearna Creagabhann, Príomh-Aire na Sé Condaethe ar a son. Ag seo iad na tuairimí a nocht séisean ar a son, atá mí ó shoin ann, gur Sasanaigh muintear na Sé Conndaethe nó a mbreis agus nach bhfuil uatha ach bheith mar Chonndae, no Sir, de Shasain.
An gcreideann an Seanadóir gur Sasanaigh iad?
Deirim nach fíor é sin. Ní Sasanaigh muintear na Sé Conndaethe ach fíor-uathadh díobh. Tá cruthú agam air sin. Deirim-se nach bhfuil aon Chonndae ar na Sé Conndaethe Fichead chó Gaedhealach, do réir chinidh agus dúthchais, agus tá cuid de na Sé Conndaethe. Bhí mé ar cuairt i gConndae Aondroma, dhá bhliadhain ó shoin, ins an limistéir is fuide soir de. Tháinig sé in mo aigne gur bhailigheas sloinnte na ndaoine a chomhnuigheann san áit. Fuair mé 31 sloinnte dhe ghnáth-dhaoinibh na háite. Asta sin bhí "Mac" roimh 20 sloinnte aca, agus "Ó" roimh 5 cinn eile. Ón méid a bhí fágtha bhí 5 cinn gur ceart "Mac" nó "Ó" do bheith leo, ach go raibh siad sin caillte ac Cha rabh ach sloinne amháin as an 31 .i. an sloinne "Hamilton" nach rabh Gaedhealach. Agus sin iad na daoine a n-abrann Seumas a' Creag gur Sasanaigh iad. Is fíor go dtáinig a sinnsear ó Albain, cuid mhaith aca, ach ba Ghaedhil Alban iad, agus ba chineadh amháin Gaedhil Alban agus Gaedhil Éireann.
Bheadh sé chomh ciallmhar ag an Seanadóir MacDiarmada, Maighlurg, leigean air féin gur Sasanach é agus tá sé ag muintear na Sé Conndaethe. Agus ní chreidim an chuid eile de'n scéal go mbeadh furmhór muintire na Sé Conndaethe sásta bheith mar Sír faoi Shasain. Níl ann ach bladhmann agus cur-i-gcéill. Tá eolas áirithe agam ar mhuintir na Sé Conndaethe mar tá ag Seanadóir MacAonghusa. Rugadh agus tógadh mé ar a' dteorann agus i measg na bPlandóirí agus chomhnuigh mé ar feadh 14 bliadhna i mBéil Feirsde ina dhiaidh sin. Tuigim meon na Plandóirí agus tuigim meon na nGaedheal dúthchais. Is Gaedhil iad araon ó dhuthchas ach iad deighilte ó na chéile ar cheisteanna Creidimh agus ceisteanna poilitideachta.
Nuair rinneadh Clannadh nó Plandáil ar Sé Conndaetha in Ultaibh, ba Albanaigh furmhór na bPlandóirí agus Gaedhil Alban, rud a chruthuigheann na sloinnte. Acht tugadh isteach iad faoi chumhacht agus faoi anál Shasana, agus tugadh talamh agus tighthe na nGaedheal dúthchasach dóibh. Thréig siad an duthchas an méid a d'fhéud siad. Mar sin féin bhí coimeadar éigin aca le chéile. Nuair d'éirigh Gaedhil dúthchasacha Chúige Uladh amach in aghaidh a námhad i 1641 rinne Féilim Ó Néill agus na taoiseacha do chuidigh leis iarracht ar na hAlbanchaibh do chosaint agus d'fhuascailt. Agus arís i 1798 bhí na Plandóirí agus na Gaedhil dúthchasacha ag obair as láimh a chéile.
Is fá'n am sin chuimhnigh an Sasanach nár mhór do fál agus múr do chothú eatorra, le go mbeadh sé ininnimh greim do choimhéad ortha araon. Bunaigheadh Cumann rúnda, na Fir Buidhe no na Fir Oráisde, agus thug Sasain airm agus cothú dóibh. Ceannuigeadh cáirdeas na ministéirí priomhtharacha le bríb (an Regium Donum) agus tugadh fá mhóradh na bPlandóirí mar Phrotastúnaigh. Tugadh plámasaidheacht agus peataidheacht dóibh mar dhéanfadh máthair amaideach le peata páisde. Tugadh ceann atuighthe dóibh agus tugadh droch-mheas dóibh ar Ghaedhill Éireann. An t-easaontas atá ann ó shoin is Sasain is cionntach leis. Anois níl aon droch rún ag Gaedhil Eireann do mhuintir na Sé Conndaethe fiú do shliocht na bPlandóirí agus is cuma linn cé'n chuma ina n-adhrann siad Dia. Acht má tá siad in aghaidh an náisiúin Ghaedhealaigh is náimhde dúinne iad. Caithfidh siad glacadh le cathrachas na hÉireann sul a bhéas comhluadar ar bith againn leo. Tá tuairim láidir agamsa go nglacfaídh siad le cathrachas na hÉireann dá leigtí dóibh. Más féidir dúinn ar shlighe nó ar shlighe eile tabhairt ar Shasain a ladhair do tharraint as an measgán, agus fanacht ar a thaobh féin de'n fhairrge ní chreidim go mbeidh aon deacracht an scéal a réidhteach eadar muintir na Sé Conndaethe agus muintear na Sé Conndaethe Fichead.
I think it would be well if we could reach some understanding as to whether the debate should end to-night or should be adjourned to another day.
What was the suggestion for concluding the debate?
Leas-Chathaoirleach
There is no agreement at all.
The Taoiseach is naturally a very busy man, and we are all anxious to meet his views in connection with the debate. Perhaps the Taoiseach would express an opinion as to whether he would like the debate to go on.
I have had nothing whatever to do either with the putting down of this motion or amendments or suggesting that it should be debated here, or anything else. I have come here to represent the Government, to hear whatever views might be expressed, and to reply at such a time as I think wise to any suggestions made, or any criticisms that might be made of Government policy, I naturally would wait until the end, just before Senator MacDermot would conclude the debate, to see whether there were any particular views that I want to express or to meet. That would be naturally the time for me to speak. Of course, I am at the disposal of the Seanad.
I am inclined to think it would be better to give an opportunity to the Taoiseach to speak to-night, and then, if we thought fit, adjourn the debate until the next time the Seanad meets, because, a rush of half-baked speeches on a matter of absolute importance would be a mistake. There are far more Senators who desire to speak than could possibly fit in before 9 o'clock. I suggest that we should adjourn at 9.30 p.m.
I do not see why we should adjourn at 9.30 p.m. We could at least continue until the time the Dáil adjourns—10.30 p.m.—and then, if there are still speakers wishing to contribute to the debate, we can adjourn it until another day. I do not suppose anybody wishes to move the closure.
No.
At present we do not know how many more will speak and therefore cannot fix a time when the Taoiseach could speak or Senator MacDermot conclude the debate.
Mr. Hayes
It would not be possible, if I might use the phrase, to begin to conclude the debate at 9 o'clock by calling on the Taoiseach. That would seem to be impossible now. Therefore, we should agree upon leaving it over.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
That is a matter for the Seanad.
We want to give a proper opportunity to the Taoiseach to speak. I suggest that at 9 o'clock the Chair should find out whether a number of others wish to take part in the debate. If there is agreement that it should conclude to-night, then an opportunity should be given to the Taoiseach, to be followed by Mr. MacDermot. On the other hand, if there is a general desire, we might adjourn at 9.30 or 10 o'clock and have another day for it.
I was anxious to meet the wishes and convenience of the Taoiseach. There are a number of Senators who may be anxious to speak but, because of the lateness of the hour, or possibly because of anxiety to hear the Taoiseach, they might forego speaking. We ought to consider the views of the Taoiseach —whether he could come here another day or would prefer to have the debate finished to-night.
As to whether I can come here another day, I certainly will endeavour to come if it is adjourned. So far as my wishes are concerned, naturally having been here for the afternoon I should like to see it finished, but that is a matter for the Seanad.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
Is it the feeling of the House that we should go on and at 9 o'clock re-examine the position? So far as I can see that is all we can do.
Would there be any possibility of hearing the Taoiseach now?
Leas-Chathaoirleach
That is a matter for the Taoiseach.
No.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
The Taoiseach does not wish to speak now.
Agreed—"That the debate be continued until 9 p.m."
I promise to be brief and, as far as possible, I shall not indulge in platitudinous nonsense or solemn humbug. I am rather frightened about speaking on this question because I know that the subject of Partition is a very thorny and contentious one. I had misgivings at first, but I found myself completely in accord with the terms of the motion and I thought it would be merely cowardice not to face a discussion of the facts. I thought that more good would come of discussion since the thought that is embodied in the motion is one that has occurred to me very frequently, especially in my visits in the North. I should like to say that, personally, I know that those who think with me and are of the same opinion have no desire to embarrass the Government in any negotiations on the subject, nor is this resolution intended—I am speaking, perhaps, for myself—as any sort of expostulation or reproof for anything that has been done or is being done. It is rather an appeal, and—this may seem strange —it is an appeal for tolerance. Now, I can join with the crowd of witnesses that exists in Southern Ireland in testifying to the tolerance that is extended here—well do I know it—but I would appeal for tolerance, in the strict sense, to be directed to this problem of Partition. Tolerance has been well defined as an honest effort to understand the beliefs, habits and practices of another man without necessarily sharing or accepting them, and I do think that if we are to solve this problem of Partition it will be necessary for us to adopt an attitude of tolerance in that sense. It is tolerance in this sense that is required if we are to remove or, at any rate, diminish, the evil of Partition. The capacity for such tolerance is certainly not lacking in Southern Ireland, but it has not perhaps been exercised as much as it ought in examining the problem of Partition.
The division between North and South goes very deep. It is not a mere line across a map or a chain of custom houses which are periodically blown up; nor do I believe it is due entirely, or wholly and solely, to the fiendish machinations of the English Government. Indeed, if we are to believe our stories, divisions between North and South in this country have existed from time immemorial. There were divisions in the time of Saint Patrick, and before his days, if we can believe the evidence of the Black Pig's Dyke. I am assured by archæologists that they go back to the neolithic age, before England was ever born, when man first appeared in holy Ireland. I am not going into these ancient divisions now nor do I propose to investigate their causes and determine the responsibilities for these cleavages, ancient and modern. It is sufficient to say that to-day they are cleavages which go deep and that those who are in the Six Counties-which I shall have to call, for the moment, the Northerners-can give reasons for these cleavages and their beliefs as they present themselves to their minds at the present moment, and it is just as well to review some of these reasons.
Previous speakers have enumerated a number of these reasons, but when the Northerner looks across the Border at the present moment he sees a lot of things which deter him from joining or throwing in his fortunes with the South. He sees serious economic disadvantages. Those have been alluded to by speakers. The Northern farmer sees that he would suffer certain disadvantages if the law of the South held for the North. Then there are other drawbacks, particularly as regards social services and, perhaps, as regards education, and I hope I may say without offence that there are more reasons than one which make the Northerner cling to English and shrink from compulsory Irish. The civil servants, for instance, would regard it as undesirable that appointments and promotion should depend on a knowledge of Irish. That reason was given to me by a Northern civil servant. But above all, there is this question of attachment to the Empire, the Flag and the Crown. I do not think there is a blind devotion, as somebody remarked, to Flag and Crown, but they do regard the Flag and Crown as symbols of the freedom and advantages they at present enjoy and they are very loath to lose them.
Now, no doubt there were a lot of illusions, which have diminished in recent years, from which the Northerner suffered, and I have no doubt that his vision to-day is a bit jaundiced and distorted, but I have equally no doubt that he is sincere in his beliefs and unless we can get him to modify them there can be no real union between the North and South. It is not impossible for Southern Irishmen to do something to make him modify these views, which we may, perhaps rather rashly, characterise as narrow and bigoted, but we can at least refrain from exacerbating the situation by refraining from comments and speeches of an exasperating kind, and trusting to little acts of kindness to cure the evil in time. As I say, the real problem is deep and far below the surface, and we must begin from the bottom. The wound must be healed from the bottom, and it would be well not to speak of the Northern Government continually as usurpers but pay them some respect and endeavour to keep in touch, as far as we can, with them. Little good can come from a policy of pin-pricking or things of that sort. We should co-operate in little things if we cannot do so in the big things. We should extend our commercial agreements with them. After all, charity begins at home, and the Six Counties are nearer to us than any Continental nation and they deserve preferential treatment more than such nations. We should encourage social and other contacts and, by employing what an old philosopher called the true cement of society, namely, good will, in every connection, ultimately we might build up a spiritual rather than a mere territorial Union.
But that will require time and patience and above all we must try to realise the Northern point of view. For that we require the tolerance to which I alluded. It is only in that way that we can discover what the Minister for Finance characterised as "the reasonable solution for the vexed problem of Partition." That is the solution for which we all pray. Such a solution is of vital importance not merely to England but to Ireland and to the Six Counties. Such a solution ought to be inside the range of possibility. In Scotland we have the Highlander and the Lowlander. I know of no two classes that are more distinct, I will not say racially. But these two classes are differing in history and traditions, in social, industrial and economic outlook, yet they work together unitedly and are proud of the union in their national outlook. Both Highlander and Lowlander are equally proud of calling themselves native Scotsmen. They would resent any imputation on the nationality of one another. It is high time for us to come to some arrangement in the same way as Scotsmen do, to look at our Northern brethren in the same way as the Highlander looks to the Lowlander and as the Lowlander looks to the Highlander. I think that ought to be possible, so that some day the Orange wolf will be able to lie down with the Southern lamb. We are all Irish. In spite of what Senator Professor Magennis says they are as Irish as ourselves and very proud of it. They are worth winning. These Northerners are obstinate, dour, hard people to deal with, and well I know it, but if you get the friendship of a Northerner you will know that you have got a friend. I feel that they will be friends one day with us. They cannot be cajoled into forsaking their old-time convictions, but reason and goodwill can achieve more than violence. The loyalty of Northern friends is proverbial. Those who possess such friends know their worth.
I said already that I did not believe that England is wholly and solely responsible for Partition. The North is responsible and we, to a certain extent, are responsible because we have been erecting barriers. We have been erecting tariff barriers and language barriers. I do not know exactly what Senator O'Donovan visualises in his amendment. If he is thinking of a forcible invasion and conquest of the Northern Counties, his project, if achieved, will not end Partition. It might remove the geographical partition but the division would still be there and antagonism will be embittered. If the English retired from the North, would the Six Counties necessarily collapse in bankruptcy? Would they not go back to Westminster? I feel I must congratulate Senator Professor Magennis on his maiden speech in the Seanad and his splendid eloquence which I admired though I could not altogether follow his logic. I think he is looking upon Northern Ireland as a kind of CzechoSlovakia. I am sure the Senator would like to go in there and rescue the Sudeten Irish——
A Senator
He is a Northerner himself.
I know that, but the Senator is going to out-Hitler Hitler. If there is at present in the North a situation somewhat similar to that which existed in Czechoslovakia it may be reasonable to rescue the Irish Sudeten, but it is hard to justify the incorporation of the Northern Czechoslovaks against their will. The Senator is not going to rescue them, but to incorporate them in his own country. I do not know if that will be done. Perhaps I have spoken too long already, but I have refrained deliberately from touching on old unhappy far-off things. I believe that Partition will fade and pass away. I am enthusiastic enough to hope that; I believe the trouble is internal and the cure must be internal. The cure will come from within. Personally, as far as my friends are concerned, we will do our best to help to put an end to Partition. The Northerner is as Irish as the Southerner, but his outlook is different, and until we can understand and make allowance for this difference, there can be no real union.
I rise with some hesitation to take part in this debate, because I have not prepared anything. But I am called to my feet on account of the appeal made to me by the mover of the amendment, Senator O'Donovan. I presume as the background of this whole debate the question of any settlement by force is ruled out? I want to be perfectly clear about that; I do not see how force can be detached from Senator O'Donovan's amendment. If to-morrow the British Government were to hand over the Reserved Services to this country I am afraid that would inevitably lead to civil war. I am afraid that would be implicit in any settlement of that kind.
Presuming that we are going to have a peaceful settlement of the question, I will deal with it on these lines. The Senator said that some attempt might be made on the part of ex-Unionist individuals in the South of Ireland to persuade the people of the North that they would not suffer under a united Government. Now, you have first of all got to realise what is meant by the word "suffer." The suggestion is that we ex-Unionists have not suffered. I admit that we have not suffered; in some things we have benefited. Our income-tax is 1/- in the £ less than at the other side. But I must admit that we are not altogether happy in our hearts at this estrangement from the Crown. I admit that we are not quite happy at the situation whereby under the Constitution it is claimed that without a stroke of the pen we can become an independent Republic. We are not complaining about that. There is not so much to worry about there. We do enjoy the benefits of the Commonwealth. But if you are going to become a missionary you must have a good case to plead. If one went up to the North to preach this gospel to the people of the North of Ireland, one would be asked "What have you done about the King?"; "Do you expect us to go into a country where the Constitution is ready without any change of wording to turn it into a separate Republic?"; "Do you want us to come under a Constitution where we will not be allowed to have the Union Jack?" Similar questions to these would be asked us. In that set of circumstances it would be almost impossible for us to go out as enthusiastic missionaries.
Would Senator Sir John Keane kindly excuse me? He is evading, I will not say purposely, the appeal I made to the British people to say that in the interests of peace here, and in the interests of the peace of the world, they should take steps to end Partition. I did not appeal so much as far as the Government of Northern Ireland is concerned.
Senator O'Donovan must let me make my case in my own way. It is not by an appeal to the British people at all but by an appeal to the people of the North that a solution is to be achieved. If you ask some of us to go out as missionaries I am afraid that under present circumstances I for one could only make a very bad case. I admit that we receive very fair and generous treatment. But I cannot make the case with enthusiasm; I cannot make the case which would do away with the prejudices of our Northern friends. But the Senator and the Government can put us in the position of making a case as enthusiastic missionaries if they will accept the spirit of Senator MacDermot's motion, and say that in return for unity we are prepared to make certain concessions, to become full members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, to realise that we must have joint anthems, that some concession must be made to joint flags and some concession with regard to this 100 per cent. policy of teaching Irish. If they could get the two Governments to come together and see what common ground they have, then there might be a chance of settlement by consent, but as things are now I am afraid I cannot see much possibility of it. I feel that I myself could not make a good case as a missionary on the lines suggested.
A Chathaoirligh: It is difficult to imagine how the two Senators who put their names to the motion we are considering could ever have persuaded themselves that it would help the cause which no doubt they have at heart as much as the rest of us, the restoration of the unity of Ireland a nation, the restoration of the historic province of Ulster, now most lamentably and unnaturally mutilated. It is difficult, after reading the terms of the motion and hearing the speeches made in support of it, to avoid the conclusion that perhaps unconsciously they were seeking an outlet for their own "grouses" against those aspects of our national programme with which they disagree, but which the majority of the Irish people put the present Government in here to bring to fruition, and that, while they purported to be concerned for the sentiments and interests of the section of the people of Northern Ireland for whom they claim to speak, they were in reality projecting on a sort of screen which they had set up the prejudices and political preoccupations of Senators MacDermot and Alton.
Now, while it is difficult to know what good might be done by the motion standing in the names of those Senators, it is very easy to see how much harm it might do, because in the last analysis the motion was framed in such a way—and deliberately framed in such a way—as to amount to this: it is a warning to certain people in Northern Ireland, somewhat arbitrarily designated as "the majority," to eschew any reunion with this part of Ireland so long as we stand for ideals for the attainment of which Patrick Pearse—whose sister sits on this bench beside me—and his comrades did not think their own lives too big a price to pay. As we paid a great price it would be foolish as well as contemptible of us not to try to get some value for that price. I think if we were to go on the lines which have been advocated it would be frightfully bad business. I use that term because it appeals to the people who, very largely have been left out in this discussion, the real majority of Northern Ireland, the plain people of Northern Ireland, Protestant and Catholic, for whom I feel I can speak because I am one of them, and proud to be one of them.
We Northerners have warm hearts, but we are practical, hard-headed folk. We belong to the "not an inch" school of bargaining, and we have great respect for people who hold on and hold out until they get a good bargain. The leader who will secure the reunion of Ireland, and win with it what it would be valueless without, the hearts of the men and women of Ulster, must be what King Daire found St. Patrick, "a steadfast and imperturbable man." King Daire to my mind was a typical Ulsterman, and the old story told by the earliest biographer of St. Patrick, Muirchu, comes inevitably to my mind during this discussion. St. Patrick had tried to get some of his land, but he was not very keen about giving it. He had given the saint a cauldron—a princely gift in those days. He was anxious to find out from the messenger what effect his generosity had upon the apostle, so he asked his messenger what Patrick had said. "Grazacham," he was told, was Patrick's expression of thanks. The messenger's phonetic rendering of the latin expression of thanks did not seem to Daire an adequate expression of appreciation, so he sent the messenger back to take the gift away. On the messenger's return, he asked, "What did Patrick say this time?" The messenger replied: "Grazacham again." Daire thought for a moment, and then said: "‘Grazacham' when the gift is made to him; ‘grazacham' when it is taken away from him. The gift must remain with Patrick because he is a steadfast and imperturbable man." As well as that he went to Patrick and said: "That portion of land which you did before desire I give to you now." That land, Muirchu tells us, was the land upon which the City of Armagh now stands.
Please God the land on which the City of Armagh now stands will soon be restored to the Irish nation, and with it the hearts of the Ulster folk, and gifts even more precious than Daire's princely offering to St. Patrick. What are those gifts? I believe one of them is a real republicanism, which has come down to the men and women of Ulster, whether Protestant or Catholic, from the shared pride and sorrow of '98, the light of which though obscured temporarily, has never died away. When I speak of republicanism, I do not really mean only a political theory. It is something much bigger than that. It is a sort of philosophy of life, a science of right living. It implies a certain austere dignity, a noble simplicity and plainness, the Roman general of the great days, back at his plough, rather than the Roman emperor of decadent days in his marble banqueting hall. It occurred to me when I heard some of the speeches made during the debate on the scale of our Ministers' salaries that this grand old ideal of plain living and high thinking which is so consenant with the Christian tradition of Ireland is in danger of being lost. God forbid that it should, for we would lose with it all that gives dignity and meaning to our history. But if we are inclined to let it go, then the plain people of Northern Ireland, who have held on to it, will help us to retrieve it.
Another precious gift which they will bring back to us from the store of their heritage of our shared traditions of '98 and the Land League is that of a true democracy. It is, I believe, as a great Christian democracy that Ireland will fulfil her destiny, and Ulster will help us to a realisation of that Christian democracy. We are now at the entrance to a new world, with ideologies fighting for possession of men's minds, and we are taking our stand on the side of Christian democracy. I think the men and women of Ulster are more likely to be ranged with us than on the side of a sort of Fascism thinly disguised as vocationalism. It is an opportune time to hope for that, and it is a splendid thing that Ireland will be able to use her children to that end, "No matter though at different times her soil their fathers trod; no matter though at different shrines they kneel before one God."
I do not know whether the sum and substance of the last speaker's remarks were that she was supporting the amendment submitted by Senator O'Donovan, or that we might negotiate with Neville Chamberlain to bring the Six Counties into an all-Ireland Parliament. At any rate, when I saw this motion by Senator MacDermot, the first thing that struck me was that it was bound to give rise to speeches and to a general debate which would, in all probability, not be helpful to this Government or to any other Government that had at heart the solution of this difficulty of Partition.
Before I state my own position on the matter, I would like to say that I disagree entirely with Senator MacDermot in his view that Parliamentary motions and debates and resolutions on this Partition question are effective and will bring us further on the road to the solution which apparently we all desire. I do not think that resolutions are of any value or that resolutions on this subject, passed by this House, can be of any value either to the Government or to the people in the Six Counties whose condition we want to improve. I fail to see any great value in this kind of discussion and particularly in the type of motion and amendment we have here.
For example, Senator MacDermot's motion asks the Government to take more serious account of the sentiments and interests of the majority of the people in Northern Ireland. Senator O'Donovan's amendment seeks to delete all the words after the word "Seanad"; that is to say, to delete every single word of the motion which asks the Government to take account of the sentiments and interests of the majority of the people in Northern Ireland and, therefore, it would appear that in any solution which Senator O'Donovan has in mind, he is not going to consider these sentiments and interests. That really is an extraordinary position.
It seems to me it is much more important for this particular State that we should fashion our own policies, internal and external, on particular lines rather than that we should state in public, in Parliament, our view about how a Government should proceed to solve Partition. More would depend on our own economic and social conditions, on our educational conditions, on the conditions under which we would administer justice and upon the place we have in the world, both in regard to Great Britain and the world generally, as to how far we will progress on the road of bringing about a united Ireland.
If we must discuss the question, I rather feel, perhaps peculiarly enough, in agreement with the Taoiseach in the brief remark he made, and I feel in agreement with what Senator McGinley said in Irish. I do not think the discussion would be any good, and it would be much better if the House were not compelled to vote on the motion or the amendment, and if the matter were left rather in the hands of the Government, with nobody offering them advice which, perhaps, will not tend to improve the position generally. However, if we must discuss this question, we ought to get it into its perspective.
It must be realised that Partition was not only an Act but a fact before the Truce of 1921. The task set to the negotiators of the Treaty was to remedy something which already existed, to remove an obstacle which was already established. I agree with Senator McLoughlin that the golden opportunity for making a move to settle it was in the earlier days of 1922, and that the refusal to accept the Treaty was the thing which, above all other things, fastened Partition upon us. The problem is naturally more difficult to solve now, when the Parliament of Northern Ireland is nearly 18 years old, than it would have been when that Parliament was only six months old, when big things were happening and a situation was created which, had it been accepted, might have had particular results. However, I do not want to go into that beyond putting that point of view as to when Partition actually began.
I think the negotiations had not begun, and Senator O'Donovan and myself were both behind barbed wire in the area included in Northern Ireland, when that particular Parliament was opened, and neither ourselves nor our comrades were able to do anything effective to prevent that opening at that particular moment. Since then Partition has been often used as a slogan here in the Twenty-Six Counties, and it is very questionable, indeed, whether what has been said had any good effects on the solution of the problem. The present Government got a good deal of support inside the Six Counties which helped it in the Border counties and elsewhere through the Twenty-Six Counties by the freely-made statement that they had a policy upon Partition. That policy has not yet been produced, and it is not apparently to be found in this amendment of Senator O'Donovan. In any event, we surely must have some unity here as to our political objective, as to what kind of a State we want here, so that we can tell the people in the Six Counties what kind of State we want to bring them into, either in its political formation or in its general social and economic trend and direction.
We base our claim to the Six Counties on the fact that the people there are Irish and in that I agree entirely, although I had for a moment a misunderstanding, with Senator McGinley. If we once take up the view put forward by some Senators that they are not Irish, then our case falls to the ground. We have had a habit, when it suited a particular case, of saying they were Irish, and when it did not suit a particular case, of saying they were British or planters or the seed of planters. That is one thing we should agree upon, that these people are Irish, and that we have no machinery for coercing them, and even if we had or saw that machinery in the offing, I think it is sound to say that a settlement based upon coercion, as we are very well aware ourselves, would not be lasting or desirable.
It seems to me that the most important objection to the amendment of Senator O'Donovan is that it asks that the people in the Six Counties who do not want to come into this particular State should be subjected to coercion by the British. For my part, I think it is very objectionable that this Irish Parliament should be called upon to pass a motion asking the British to exercise coercion upon any section of Irishmen. The amendment excludes the words in Senator MacDermot's motion dealing with the sentiments and interests of the majority of the people in Northern Ireland. If Senator O'Donovan's amendment read like this: "The Government of Éire should take immediate steps towards the establishment of satisfactory relations with the British Government by the opening of negotiations for the evacuation of the Six Counties by the British armed forces and administrative officials", and if it stopped there, he would have established in the Six Counties a Dominion, or perhaps an independent Republic—I am not quite clear. Presumably he would not have one or the other because he goes on to say: "and for the transference to the Government of Éire of the powers now exercised by the British Government in that section of Irish territory."
I wonder what precisely does that mean? It seems to me to be the echo of the statement by the Taoiseach, I think to a newspaper, in which it was suggested that the Northern Parliament should remain with its present powers and that the powers exercised from Westminster should be transferred to Dublin. One would like to have authoritatively what that solution implies. Does it imply a Parliament in Belfast exercising its present powers over Six Counties, a Parliament in Dublin for the Twenty-Six Counties, and a third Parliament exercising jurisdiction over the whole country, and having representatives from the 32 counties?
Apparently it does, and it means still two police forces, but I think Senator MacDermot is not correct when he says it still means the Border. It does not. If in Dublin you had the powers of the Westminster Parliament over Belfast, then there would not be any Border because there is no Border between England and the Six Counties. It would imply a tariff upon certain British goods coming into Belfast and, no doubt, upon certain of their raw materials. So that, even if Senator O'Donovan were to get this particular solution adopted it would still involve, unless we were completely lunatic, negotiations and discussions with representatives of Northern Ireland. There can be no doubt at all about that. I am personally not prepared to vote, and I cannot understand how any Irish nationalist could vote for any amendment or any motion which implies that we are going to settle this whole question with the British and cut out of our consideration and out of our negotiations and conversations our fellow-countrymen in the Six Counties, whatever their politics are. I think that is a most anti-national and most retrograde proposal, and I feel that perhaps Senator O'Donovan did not realise all its implications when he put it down. I want to keep the discussion on as high a plane as I can, but I am tempted to say that the last sentence-"on terms which will satisfy the national aspirations of the majority of the Irish people"—is simply a meaningless phrase to which we have become accustomed from the Fianna Fáil Party. What does it mean? The British are to evacuate the Six Counties. They are to hand them over to us on terms which will satisfy the national aspirations of the majority of the Irish people. I do not understand that at all.
A Senator
Is there any means of defining it?
It sounds well. I am pretty good at English but I do not understand the phrase "on terms which will satisfy the national aspirations of the majority of the Irish people."
The national aspirations of the majority of the Irish people mean nothing to you.
It means so much to me that I hate to see Senator O'Donovan mangling it.
That is what you have said.
I do not understand. We must get this in the proper perspective. If, by some misfortune, I were in the position of the Taoiseach myself, and I went over to a British Prime Minister, no matter what his name was, and he said to me: "We are completely tired of this Partition business and we want to end it, and I am going to send for this fellow from Belfast. What do you think I ought to say to him?" That is a reasonable question to put to the Prime Minister of this State in London. I do not know whether the Taoiseach has any answer and if he has I do not think he will give it. Perhaps he should not. I do not know from Adam what I would say to him, and I do not know anyone that does, but I do know this, that there is no use in saying to him by long-distance radio or by long distance telephone or by newspaper interviews: "You will have to hand over this State on conditions that will satisfy the national aspirations of the majority of the Irish people." It means nothing in English, and I suggest you could not put it into Irish. That is true. It could not be done, because it does not mean anything. You cannot translate from one language into another unless you know what the first language means. I do not know what that means, and nobody else does. It is simply the usual kind of thing with which important and real issues are confused.
I am sorry for interrupting, but I would ask the Senator if he can define and translate into Irish the words of the motion, "to take more serious account of the sentiments and interests of the majority of the people in Northern Ireland." He does not know what national aspirations are, but he knows what sentiments and interests are, I presume.
I am like the Taoiseach; I have no responsibility for the motion or the amendment.
But you have some responsibility for what you say.
I have no responsibility for the motion at all and I am asked to vote for the motion and the amendment. I do not want to vote for either one or the other of them, as a matter of fact, but, if I am forced into doing so I would rather vote for the motion than the amendment. I can translate the motion into Irish, but not "national aspirations" in this particular context. That is a linguistic point but a very practical point. Surely we do not consider that the proper way to solve Partition is to put the burden entirely on the British Government. Has any consideration been given to what would happen if, for example, you did negotiate with the British Government and they did withdraw all their forces and the people of the Six Counties said: "Well, now, we will not come in." What then?
They are in.
It is not so simple as that.
That explains the motion.
That is the kind of thing that makes me feel that this kind of debate can only do harm. Senator O'Donovan lives in that kind of world. I frequently visit my friends in Belfast, and know something about this thing myself personally. I spent seven months in an internment camp, doing my bit, but without much success, to find out from various Northerners what the problem was. In any event, it is not so simple as to say that the moment the British forces are gone the problem is solved. It is not solved at all.
Tell us why.
It just is not solved, that is all, because they have a Parliament which can go on functioning without the British Army. It can take over the functions itself.
On a point of explanation, might I, as having seconded the amendment, come to the aid of my friend Senator Hayes? I told him what those words mean. I translated them into English. They mean, to give such concession to the majority in the present Six Counties as is compatible with the preservation of Irish rights, and the historical demand for Irish rights. Nobody knows better than Professor Hayes who was in a university of barbed wire what that means.
Too many teachers, like too many cooks, spoil the broth and I am no clearer now than I was before. I am glad to find the amendment does contemplate giving something to the Six-County people even if you are not going to talk to them. However, it is quite clear that, if this is done and the Six-County people are not willing to come in, a problem still remains to be solved. The difficulty in this kind of debate is that one does not want to make public all the difficulties that exist but I do want to suggest that the matter is not as simple as Senator O'Donovan thinks and it cannot be solved by any kind of general proposition.
Why does Senator O'Donovan make a suggestion that the Government should negotiate immediately with the British Government? There was an opportunity to negotiate in 1922. There was an opportunity to negotiate, for example, in 1932, when they became a Government. But they had other fish to fry and other problems to solve before they could come to the question of Partition. They had to solve the question of an economic war. They had to frame a new Constitution and other political devices before they could consider Partition at all. Senator O'Donovan now wants them immediately to take steps with the British Government to solve this problem. Let us remember that in the early part of last year the Taoiseach and certain of his Ministers went to London and proclaimed that this matter of the Six Counties was to be discussed. I have no doubt it was discussed and I have no doubt an excellent case was made. I am not one of those people who want to crab other people in negotiations. I think most Irish Governments could make a good case on this matter but no success which is yet apparent arose out of those negotiations. What has happened since then that would give us to understand that immediate negotiations now are going to do any good? I do not know unless perhaps international politics and international defence, but these problems, I think, were existing last year as well as they are this year, but nothing happened.
It seems to me that no weapon should be neglected, short of violence, and that it is a question not only for the British Government, but also, in the end, a question for the Northern Government, and perhaps it would be possible to talk to those people. I want to tell Senator O'Donovan and others that there is no use in saying that certain courses cannot be taken. Anyone who has lived through the last 20 years or even 15 or 16 years in this country knows very well that the impossible is frequently accomplished. I used to hear that it was impossible for certain people to come into the Dáil, but they did. I used to hear it was impossible to work the Treaty, but it was worked. It used to be considered impossible to negotiate a settlement of the economic war, but it was done. In answer to my own question as to what could be done to placate the people in the North, what I would suggest is this: I do not think any good purpose is served at all by Senator MacDermot giving us a litany of the things that we might do to placate the people in the North. But I do think it would be well worth the Government's while sitting down and seeing if there was anything they could do, because many things are done eventually by negotiation, many things that appear to be impossible before the negotiations take place. If any one, for example, had told Senator O'Donovan 12 months ago that the Government would proudly raise a national loan to pay the British Government £10,000,000, he would have gone up in smoke with vexation. In that case, negotiations took place, a settlement was made, and the £10,000,000 was paid; so that really if there was urgency and earnestness about this point of Partition, it should be possible to meet those in the Northern Government and see what you could do. Of course, I know they are a difficult people. I know that the position that they occupy is quite unique, and I could be, well, not quite as eloquent as my colleague, Senator Magennis, in denouncing them, but no good purpose at all would be served by denouncing them now.
Senator O'Donovan, in putting forward his amendment, asks this House to help the Taoiseach to impress the importance of this on the British Government. Just imagine this House impressing the British Government. We cannot impress the Government here about anything. It is simply a waste of time to ask this House to do anything to impress the British Government. We cannot get a Minister to accept a simple amendment to a Bill, and yet we want to impress the British Government to do a very important and a very difficult thing. It appears to me that very little good purpose is served by this kind of debate or this kind of discussion. We must avoid making Partition merely a Party slogan, and it seems to me that that is the position. First we had "the Republic" as a slogan. Then we had "Prosperity all round" as a slogan. We had the new Constitution, which was to effect the unity of Ireland, as a slogan. We have the new Constitution and the Border appears to be as strong as ever. I hope that we are not going to have the situation now that, in order to avoid looking at our real problems in this country, real problems the solution of which would also make for the solution of Partition, the eyes of the people will be diverted from the real problems to the slogan of "Vote for Fianna Fáil and end Partition." That has been tried already and has been quite ineffective. It seems to me that the reality of the situation should be faced up to, and that it is a matter really for the Government and not a matter for speeches.
Before I sit down I just want to refer to one point that Senator MacDermot mentioned. Speaking as one with some experience, I want to say that I do not agree with him. He says that in our schools history teaching is concerned with making people stoke up hatred of the British. Well, in the position which I happen to occupy I meet a very considerable number of young people, and I meet hardly anybody who hates the British. In fact, what seems to me extraordinary about the young people is this: that while I was reared to hate the British in schools that were controlled by the British Government, the young people now do not seem to know the first thing about the British. There used to be a time when certain teachers in certain schools taught the children to hate Cosgrave. That is a different proposition, but that was done and done pretty freely; but I find no evidence at all in the young people that I meet that in the schools of the country, whether they are taught through Irish or English, they are being taught to hate the British. I think Senator MacDermot is mistaken in that.
Our national aspirations are something which are not so easy of definition as some people fondly think. It is not true to say that what we call our national aspirations in any particular form go back very far in this country. They do not, and it is possible for us to adjust any of our national aspirations to our real problems. It might be put like this: our greatest national aspiration at the present moment would be the creation of one single Irish State in this island, and that to do that Irish nationalists with a proper view of Irish history—Irish nationalists with Irish blood in their veins— knowing Irish history and knowing the Irish language and the kind of national aspiration that is enshrined in that language, might be prepared to make considerable sacrifices to end Partition. But I think that any attempt publicly to state that, or to get the Government publicly to state that, is not going to accomplish the end which apparently everybody desires.
I do not intend to make a long contribution to this debate, but I feel that I ought to express one or two points of view which are somewhat different from those which have been expressed so far. It may, perhaps, astonish Senator MacDermot when I tell him that since I was a boy I have been in favour of Irish national independence, and I learned that by spending four years at a Protestant boarding school in the Six Counties. That did not apply to me alone. It applied to a small group of boys from the South. It may have been simply perversity if you like, but my mother came from the Six Counties and I married a lady from the Six Counties, so that when I get listening to discussions about their being a difficult people, etc., I find myself in strong disagreement with such views. I also have had a good deal of contact, through business and otherwise, with the North. I think that one of the first things that is necessary on all sides is to get out of our heads this idea that they are a peculiarly difficult people. They have the same ideas with regard to the people in the South, politically, at any rate. That does not get you very far. I believe sincerely, in spite of all the difficulties, that it is only a matter of reasonable time in the life of this nation—I do not mean to-morrow—until Partition will be a thing of the past. I believe that the whole policy of this State should be based on the conviction that it is going to end, and that idea should underline all our policy both with regard to our friends in the Six Counties and with regard to the British Government.
I agree with a good deal of what Senator MacDermot said, though I disagree with him on other matters that he dealt with, matters which I need not go into in detail now. The Senator seemed to me to over-emphasise the view that Partition can be ended simply by agreement with our friends in the North. Senator O'Donovan stated the extreme opposite. He scarcely made any reference at all to the point of view that Partition can be ended by agreement with the people in the Six Counties who at the moment represent the majority. He over-emphasised the responsibility of Great Britain. Now, my belief is that the truth of this matter is not going to be found in either of these extremes. There is a past responsibility on the part of the British people. There is, I think, a very considerable present responsibility, though I do not doubt for a moment that they would bring about the end of Partition now if they could do it easily and without breaking political pledges. But that is not the whole story. I think our policy should be on one side to help to make the people in Britain understand that they have a responsibility in this matter and can help in many ways—not by coercive methods, or by the methods immediately suggested in the motion— while at the same time losing no opportunity whatever for promoting friendly relations and co-operation where possible. I would not be too particular about niceties. If you can co-operate with the present Government in the Six Counties—and I am not formally recognising them or asking to have some special resolution passed recognising their exact position—by recognising Lord Craigavon in the way that a certain English Premier recognised Mr. de Valera on a certain occasion as the leader of the Irish people, as the leader of the majority in that particular area, and seizing every opportunity that occurs, I am not so certain that that opportunity is not going to occur much sooner than most people think.
There was a far greater scare in Belfast at the time of the last crisis than there was here. There is very considerable uneasiness at the international situation. There is a good deal of recognition of the fact that there might be many other reasons, other than those we have discussed to-day, why the closest co-operation might be necessary. You are not going to get people to go on thinking in these lines—and I say it with respect—after reading the speech of Senator Magennis. You do not want to say things that antagonise, even though they may be true.
Where I must agree with Senator MacDermot is that I think we should face up to the fact that it is not in matters of politics that the people of the Six Counties have individual minds. One friend I meet occasionally told me that he would be against Partition if he were not a school teacher. Those who know the different conditions that exist, know exactly what he meant. I could give other instances. We have to face the fact that these things would have to be adjusted. I should like to see the Government reiterating again and again its willingness to try to adjust them, and to adjust them not unfavourably. I may be quite wrong, but I believe you would be surprised at the change of outlook in a comparatively short time amongst quite a number of people, who are called the majority in Northern Ireland at the present time, if they could be got to believe that finding a way for unity with their consent was going to strengthen the position of the British Isles in the case of danger. When we talk about extremists or talk about, say, the last speech made by Lord Craigavon or one of his Ministers, may I remind the House that when the Taoiseach went across to England he was extremely careful to warn us that he might not come to an agreement. When he came back with an agreement he talked quite differently, and rightly so. You do not say beforehand all you are going to do. If we are going to wait until the members of the Northern Government announce that they are prepared to agree to something that will suit our views, or suit the views of our Government, we will wait until Doomsday.
There is a substantial minority in favour of ending Partition. That consists almost altogether of a majority of Catholics. On the other hand I know some Catholics who would rather see Partition continued. There is also definitely a small number who are not organised—people who are not Catholics. It will not make such an enormous change if it is done peacefully, and in a friendly way to bring around the majority. We are not going to get that by strong speeches, by harking back to the past, or by saying that the agreement, if there is any, must be in accord with the national aspirations of the majority of the Irish people. The majority of the Irish people at a given time may express different aspirations to those they expressed at another time. The aspiration to end Partition will be the aspiration of the then majority of the Irish people. We need not be afraid to say that the people in the Six Counties must have, and will have, an important say in what are to be the aspirations of the Irish people, if they are part and parcel of that people.
I think there has been in this debate an attitude that was a mistake. I do not think that was Senator O'Donovan's purpose, but it was implied that in this matter the majority at present in the Six Counties have no rights. I suggest that they have rights. They may not have the right to maintain Partition indefinitely, but they have rights, and if we talk about ending Partition, we have to give some indication that we appreciate their feelings, by recognising that they have rights—rights to express their opinions and views in favour of the Union Jack in a free democracy. They have got to feel that you care as much about their liberties as you care about your own. We have to face difficulties with regard to the language also. I do not think they are insurmountable. We have also to face difficulties with regard to social legislation, but they are not insurmountable. I believe that people in business will have to face difficulties, and, I am sure, trade unionists will have to face difficulties, but none of these are insurmountable. We should not sink our heads in the sand and never refer to these things.
In that sense, I think, the debate will be all to the good. My business takes me occasionally to the North, and I find a difficulty when I am asked what the Government would do about this question. I always try to defend the Government as far as I can. When I am asked what they will do about these things, I answer that I do not know. Few Senators could answer. In a sense that is inevitable, but it would be a help if we could know the mind of the Government, and had a responsible statement, while at the same time placing the responsibility on England in the right place—with which I am not disagreeing. It is always said that that was only for form, by pointing out that there were problems to be met. I would much prefer to see both the motion and the amendment withdrawn, after having had this debate. If the House refuses to pass the motion it means that it does not think that the policy of the Government should take a more serious view about the interests of the majority. No one wants that. In my opinion it would also be unwise to reject the motion. If Senator O'Donovan's amendment stated that the sentiments of the people of the North to negotiate would be taken into account, perhaps it might be acceptable, but, as an alternative, by ruling out all reference to that, it would be most unfortunate if it should be printed in the papers in the North that that was the accepted view here.
The amendment does not rule that out.
That is the effect, and for that reason I would prefer to see all withdrawn. If not, I would vote for the motion in preference to the amendment.
I feel myself in much the same position as Senator Hayes and Senator Douglas with regard to the motion and the amendment. My view about the main motion is that even though the Government here did everything which the Senator suggests should be done, we would not get any nearer bringing the people of the Six Counties into a united Ireland. With regard to Senator O'Donovan's amendment, I think the analytic mind of Senator Hayes so clearly revealed the faults and weaknesses in the amendment that Senator O'Donovan must be quite convinced now that that is the wrong way of trying to achieve what he and we want to achieve. In discussing this question here, as an Ulster man who, along with my colleague, Senator McLoughlin, is one of the two members of this House born in Ulster who had the courage to remain in Ulster, I feel that if any Ulster man, or indeed any Ulster woman, who remained in the territory of the Six Counties, wandered into this House this evening, he or she would ask: "Just how much do these people know about this problem at all, and about the mentality of the ordinary leader of Ulster thought to-day?"
I do not want to take up the time of the Seanad at any length, but it seems to me that it is true to say that part of the responsibility for the Partition of this country must be laid at the door of the British Government; part for its maintenance must be attributed to the people of the Six Counties and, I am very much afraid, the majority Party in this country cannot absolve itself from a share of the responsibility for the continuance and maintenance of Partition. The truth, of course, is that the occupation of this country for centuries created a privileged class. A remnant of that class still remains in the Six Counties, and it is in complete and absolute control of the Government, and of the prestige, the power and the benefits which come to those who are strong enough to remain continuously in control of the Government anywhere.
In my view, these people are not going to abandon the privileges they enjoy at present. They are not voluntarily going to give up anything they have. I wonder if anybody asked the Government Party here to-day if they were prepared to walk out, to give up what they have, the patronage they have to distribute, would they be prepared to do it? We all know they would not. The position is the same up there. There is a political Party in control and there they are going to remain until means can be devised to make it impossible for them to remain in control.
For us here, it is difficult to realise the intolerance and bigotry which still continue as the policy of the leaders in the Six Counties. It is a hateful thing in political life, it is an abominable thing, degrading, unjust and unChristian, but it is better that we should understand the outlook of the leaders up there. The unfortunate thing about it is that, though educated and supposedly cultured Christians, as they pretend to be, everything they say is an indication of the fact that from the point of view of a sense of justice in dealing with their fellowmen, they have only one attitude, and that is, that so long as they are in power, the people who disagree with them politically, from the point of view of nationality or from what they term religion, have no rights as citizens at all. I should be loath here in this House to make use of statements like these if the leaders up there, the actual Ministers of the Government, had not repeatedly made use of statements which, if they were made by any Minister, or even by the most bigoted follower of a Ministry down here, would lead to his being hounded out of public life. Speaking on the 12th of July, 1933, the Minister for Agriculture, Sir Basil Brooke, said: "Many in the audience employ Catholics. I have not one. Catholics are out to destroy Ulster with all their might. They want to nullify the Protestant vote, take all they can out of Ulster and then see it go to hell." Then you have a former Minister, Sir Edward Archdale, speaking in this strain: "I have 109 officials. So far as I know, there are four Roman Catholics, three of whom, civil servants, were turned over to me and whom I had to take when I was appointed." We know that earlier on July 12, 1933, the leader himself, Lord Craigavon, said: "Ours is a Protestant Government and I am an Orangeman." I do not think that there has been any change whatever in the outlook of the group of people who are in the control of the Government in the Six Counties. Mind you, the policy that is being pursued in the Six Counties, with a relentless fervour, has a very disquieting effect on the Nationalists and the religious minority within the Six Counties.
Again, if you take an institution like the Great Northern Railway, where we see there has been a change recently in the administration, you find that the facts are that there are about 82 officials at the top. Seventy of them are non-Catholics getting about £40,000 in salaries in the year. Twelve are Catholics getting about £3,700 in salaries. There are about 80 stationmasters; 56 of them are non-Catholics and 24 are Catholics. These are the facts relating to one of the biggest concerns operating not only within the Six Counties but even within part of our territory. They show the definite policy that is being carried out, consistently and persistently, up to date. What is being done cannot be defended on the question of right, nor can it be defended as representing the feelings of the people in the area served by the particular transport company, by the amount of goods carried, or by the number of people served. There is part of the problem that you have to face. Definitely you have entrenched there a privileged group of people, and I have very little faith that these are going to abandon anything they have because of any mere talk on the part of people down here or because of any good wishes or desires on the part of those who are the minority in the Twenty-Six Counties, when they say that there is justice and fair play down here and that there should be an end to the Partition which separates the Six Counties from the remainder of the country. You have to face that fact. Every Northern nationalist will tell you that that is the position and that unless you understand that that is the position and the mentality you are making no approach to the problem at all.
I realise, of course, that that position exists to-day because of the occupation of this country by the British Government in the past. I believe myself that the policies which have been pursued here, which were pursued at a particular time in the creation of this State, certainly did not help to end Partition at a time when there was a chance. One, for instance, would like to know—because we know that the Taoiseach himself talked to Sir James Craig, as he was then, before even the Treaty was signed—one would like to know what the atmosphere was like then, or before the Truce even. One would like to know what the atmosphere was like or what the prospects were like then. I do not know what happened when Sir James Craig came, I think, to Dublin to interview General Collins. We do not know these things, but they were days when the possibilities with regard to Partition were different, in my view, from what they are to-day.
Part of the difficulty that I see in this whole question is this. There are so many minds, so many different points of view, that there certainly is not a common policy on the part of the Twenty-Six Counties towards ending Partition. My view is that there is never going to be an end to Partition until all the people in the Twenty-Six Counties have a common policy on it. It cannot be a Party policy. It cannot be a policy that is going to be enunciated now by the Taoiseach because there are possibilities in it, electoral possibilities. There are all sorts of difficulties to be faced, and they cannot be faced by public discussion. Plans cannot be laid and carried out by a group of people who are going perhaps to be elbowed out of office at the next election only to find themselves in opposition, perhaps, to a scheme that they were in part responsible for enunciating. What we require is, and I believe the Government itself should take the initiative in this, to have here within our own territory a council of all our people with the one definite end in view—to conceive a plan which will be carried out no matter what Government may be in power, and be backed by the Opposition, having for its aim the ending of Partition.
I do not think that any plan can be properly conceived without advice from those people within the Six Counties who are friendly to us, and we know that there are such people within the Six Counties, people of the type of Senator Johnston, who has for a long time been playing his part in breaking down this kind of barrier between our people. There are others of this type who have been always liberal in their views, standing for the Irish nation, and standing for a conception of life here in which there would be liberty and freedom and a chance for all to work together to build up a better State. These must be brought along and consulted too. But there are things that we ought to do as well, and I do not think they have been done yet. We ought to cultivate our own garden as well as it is possible for us to cultivate it. That has not been done. Senator Douglas pointed out the attitude of a teacher. Somebody else could point out the attitude of the Royal Ulster Constabulary as against the position the Gárda occupy. Others will argue how much better civil servants are in the Six Counties than here. Then you have Senator Counihan's view about the farmers. Even the latest scheme enunciated by the Minister for Agriculture to help us to manure our soil is not as favourable to our farmers as the one in the Six Counties.
We have to face all these problems. I believe myself that the first thing we should set about doing is to make our own State here more prosperous than it is. We have to remember that living here costs more than it costs people in the Six Counties no matter who they are. But when we think of the relationship with Great Britain my feeling again is that we should pull ourselves together and look to a future when very probably the difficulties confronting democracies will be even greater than they are to day. We should think out what plan we are going to adopt if the storm, which apparently is brewing, breaks. Senator O'Donovan talked loud and long about England's difficulty being Ireland's opportunity.
I did not. I want to see the end of such a status.
The Senator used quotations in such a fashion as to convince one that that was his point of view. If it is not his point of view, I accept it that it is not so. But it is true that England is finding it much more difficult to hold her place in the world than in the past. It is going obviously to be increasingly difficult for her to do so. She will want all the friends, both in the background and in the foreground, that she can find anywhere. I do not think if trouble comes that there will be any enthusiasm on the part of any of our people to go out and get killed for anybody. We have had our own share of that. Those of us who lived through it want just as much quiet and peace until the end of our days as we can manage to win.
I think, myself, that a clear declaration on the part of our leaders here as to what exactly they are going to do if trouble comes, a declaration of the neutral kind of policy which they are going to pursue, would do much in its way to make these people realise that we are just not going to be as accommodating and convenient as perhaps they would like us to be. I do not suggest that we are going to go out declaring that England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity, to make very great trouble for England. But I am satisfied that any policy that does not take cognisance first of Ireland's rights and what is good for Ireland's future is not going to be a sound Irish policy at all. I feel that, while it is unpleasant to say some of the things that are truths, when a debate like this is introduced in the fashion in which it has been by Senator MacDermot, in a very able speech looking at it from his point of view, we can, as Senator Hayes and Senator Douglas pointed out, only express views which perhaps will get us a very short distance indeed. But, at the same time, the expression of these views demonstrates one thing very clearly—that there are so many different points of view as to how this problem is to be solved on the part of people here who are seeking a solution that some common policy must be devised. If the Taoiseach, arising out of this discussion, will realise that, and will perhaps have it brought home to him that possibly within has own Party there are wide differences of opinion as to the wisest policy that can be adopted, and will take action, which it is within his power to take, to get the leaders here to come together and see what plan can be devised—only then, in my opinion, will the first step have been taken by us to do something to break down the Border, which none of us here wants and for which none of us has anything like a sensible plan to succeed in breaking down.
I understand that a suggestion has been made that the Taoiseach, if he wished to do so, should have an opportunity of participating in the debate about 9 o'clock and that Senator MacDermot would speak afterwards—that is, if we decide on finishing to-night. The Chair is in the hands of the House in respect of the matter of concluding the debate.
I suggest that the debate be adjourned in order to give everybody time to think over the many interesting points made by the speakers to-night. Partition has been going on for 300 years and I do not think there is any reason for hurrying up the conclusion of this debate, which I think is most valuable. My own interest and desire in the matter is that I should like to take part in the debate some time or another, but circumstances over which I have no control make it necessary for me to leave in a few moments. Apart from that, I want very much to hear the Taoiseach and Senator MacDermot, and I personally would be delighted to have that opportunity if my suggestion meets the views of other Senators.
I think quite a number of people are anxious to speak on this matter, who would be willing to suit the convenience of the Taoiseach by forgoing anything they have to say. I might have something to say myself with regard to some of the points made by Senator MacDermot and I should be glad to have an opportunity of doing so, but I would certainly forgo that desire in order to facilitate the Taoiseach.
I wish to move the adjournment of the debate to a date to be fixed.
I merely wish to support Senator Johnston's suggestion and to say that if by any chance it should be inconvenient for the Taoiseach to attend on another day surely it would be practicable for him to speak to-night and then the debate could continue on another day to facilitate Senators who wish to speak. However, Senator Johnston says that he would like to be present when the Taoiseach is speaking.
I should like very much to hear the Taoiseach. Might I suggest that the motion be left on the Order Paper and that the debate be resumed on the next available date which meets the convenience of the Taoiseach?
And adjourn the debate now?
Yes.
If the Senators could suggest a definite date, I think it would be more convenient for all of us, and for the Taoiseach, probably, to make arrangements accordingly.
As things stand we are to meet on Tuesday week.
That has to be decided yet.
Senator Quirke proposed it yesterday.
It was more or less agreed upon.
It was only a proposal. It is a matter for the Seanad to decide now.
I think that, as Senator Johnston has moved that the debate be adjourned, it should be adjourned till the next day the Seanad meets, and then a committee can decide whether Senator Quirke's proposal of the 7th be the next date-agreed upon.
I will take a motion for the adjournment of the House separately, and then the date can be fixed.
Agreed—"That the debate on the motion be adjourned till the next sitting of the Seanad."
Is not Tuesday more likely to be suitable for the convenience of any Minister, as the Dáil meets on Wednesday?
I am sure the Seanad will agree to fix whatever date would suit the convenience of the Taoiseach.
At this stage, I could not say what date would be convenient. We might fix a day now, and afterwards it might be found to be quite unsuitable.
I think it would be better to agree to Wednesday, because Senators generally recognise that as the day for meeting. If, on that day, it was not possible for the Taoiseach to attend I am perfectly certain there would be general consent to fix the following day for the debate or a day in the following week. There is no likelihood of any immediate action being taken and the Taoiseach cannot be expected to say now what date would suit him.
Senator Quirke proposed yesterday that Tuesday be the day. I wish to rise as an ardent advocate of Tuesday. I see no reason, if necessary, why we should not put the date to a vote as between Tuesday and Wednesday. I agree with the suggestion put forward by Senator Quirke that it would be a very good thing to make it a habit of meeting on Tuesdays, and it would probably be more convenient for Ministers wishing to come to the Seanad.
I made that proposal, having discussed the matter with various people from every side of the House. The idea, as I gathered it, was, that we should meet on Tuesday and Wednesday, instead of Wednesday and Thursday, the reason being that we generally do our business in one day and that if that were so Ministers would be available if the Dáil was in session at the same time. We have had the experience on many occasions of bringing Ministers here and having them wait for something to come up which did not come up when it was expected and then they have had to rush back to the Dáil.
I suggest that the position here is exceptional in so far as it requires the attendance of the Taoiseach. My suggestion is that if you intend adjourning now, you should adjourn until Tuesday week, provisionally, provided it suits the Taoiseach. If it does not suit his convenience, presumably the Clerks would be notified.
I understand that what is before us now is a proposal by Senator Quirke that as a general practice the Seanad should meet on Tuesdays and Wednesdays as from February 7th. In relation to the matter of requiring the presence of the Taoiseach, that would be on the Order Paper and it would be a matter for making whatever arrangements might be necessary for appointing a date which would be convenient for the attendance of the Taoiseach.
Agreed: "That the Seanad meet on Tuesday, 7th February."
The Seanad adjourned at 9.10 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 7th February.