I expect nothing but those disorderly interruptions. It has become a practice in regard to me, and I think the Deputies who indulge themselves in those interruptions should learn long before this that they cannot effect the purpose which they design. I am not so easily put out as to have the continuity of my discourse broken by disorderly interruption. I was about to point out to you, Sir, that Deputy Baxter is a further example of those who rushed into a discussion of this sort, and expect to be reported in the Press, where those more ignorant than themselves in the matter will very naturally conclude that a thing cannot be utterly erroneous, cannot be wholly wrong, and the result is that they are, whether they intended or not, joining in & propaganda that can have no other result than interfering with the stability of the Free State. I do not suggest that it was intended for that purpose, but it requires one to make a claim to no powers of divination or prophecy to foretell that that would be the inevitable result.
Now, a great deal of the, I will not say heat, but energy, fervour and zeal that has entered into the discussion on the subject which has been wasting the time of the Dáil for the last few days is due, unquestionably, to the idea in the backs of the heads of certain Deputies, that because the King's name is mentioned in the Treaty and in the Constitution, that in some way the liberty of Ireland, or her international status, is being jeopardised, and that we are to conceal the fact that there is any reference in any of our instruments of Government to the Crown or to the King, or to the same function or the same relation under any other name.
At the risk of being attacked again for deprecating the attempt to instruct the public without a serious effort on the part of the teacher to be well-informed himself, I would declare that the association of ideas, a very hateful association of ideas in the Irish mind between the names "British Empire,""Britannic Majesty,""British citizen," and "British flag," is allowed to operate in 1924 as if all the things denoted by these names were precisely to-day what they were in 1914. I am waiting for someone on the back benches to ask am I in order. What was the British Empire in 1914? It was a single State in the eyes of every international court. There were English possessions, or more correctly, British possessions, British meaning here Great Britain which is England and Scotland. Those Dominions with which Ireland is given under the Treaty equal status, were practically self-governing Colonies, struggling, and consciously struggling, under heavy odds, into the position which they now occupy of being States with international recognition.
I quite agree with those who object to the title "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland," and I will enter upon that later, if time will permit; but the point I wish to deal with for the moment is the point that has been raised specifically by Deputy Johnson a few moments ago. Let us see the facts as they are, and clear our minds of prejudice and cant if we can. The British Empire that existed in 1914 is as extinct as the Dodo. Because these tremendous changes, great revolutions in point of constitutional relations, have been effected under our very eyes, not in ten years, but since the outbreak of the war, or rather since 1917, there are people who are absolutely blind to the facts and to the significance of the facts. Burke speaks of people who are retrospectively wise, people who can understand the history of a past century and remain grossly ignorant and unobservant with regard to the great historical events of their own day. Just as we have many of our fellow-countrymen in most inexplicable blindness of the fact that Ireland is now a nation among the nations.
With your permission I would recite briefly the history of the changes since 1917 that have determined the present status of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. In that way we would be better able to appreciate what is the meaning of the phrase in Article 1 of the Treaty "the high-contracting parties" and still better able to understand what is meant in Article 2 by "His Britannic Majesty" and the "British flag." Because, I suggest, to begin at the end, his Britannic Majesty does not mean King of Great Britain and Ireland as used in that official title, and the British flag does not mean the English flag. That is my thesis, and it may take a little time and, therefore, a little indulgence on the part of the House to enable me to reach it as a conclusion.
I have taken the precaution of writing down the more important documentary evidence for my purpose, so that no one shall accuse me of depending on my memory merely, and of falsifying the documents through misquotation. That is one of the usual methods of impugning my arguments here. I begin with the document handed in to the Imperial Conference in 1917. It was drafted, I believe, by that great statesman, Sir Robert Borden, who has done more than any other man to assert, and to develop what he had asserted, as to he claim of his country—of Canada— to be a nation among the nations. At the period at which this document was written there was an Imperial War Cabinet, and various negotiations went on with regard to the separate expeditionary forces from the different portions of the Empire. It was agreed that the adjustments of the constitutional and political position should be deferred until the termination of the war, but what I am about to read out declares the terms upon which the Prime Ministers of the various Dominions were willing to postpone the consideration of these political readjustments: "They deemed it their duty"—in this context I should explain that Prime Ministers mean the Ministers representing the Dominions—"to place on record their view that any such re-adjustment, while thoroughly preserving all existing powers of self-government and complete control of domestic affairs, should be based upon a full recognition of the Dominions as autonomous nations of the Imperial Commonwealth, and should recognise the right of the Dominions to an adequate voice in foreign policy and in foreign relations, and should provide effective arrangements for continuous consultation in all important matters of common concern and for such necessary concerted action founded on consultation as the said Governments may determine."
Now, the culmination of the constitutional developments, so far as relates to the connection between the Dominions and the so-called United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, was the signing of the Versailles Treaty in June, 1919. You will see that after a very slight interval, a bare two years, what is claimed in that document is actually realised in practice, and I think those who, like Deputy Grattan Esmonde, have disordered conceptions as to the nature of a Treaty and the relation between the signing and the ratification of a Treaty, would do well to consider these facts. The various Ministers representing the Dominions at the Peace Conference in Paris acted as plenipotentiaries, and they signed the Treaty of Versailles in the name of the Dominions that they respectively represented.
I have taken down particularly the words used with regard to the Canadian part. They are these: "Concluded and signed on behalf of His Majesty for, and in respect of, the Dominion of Canada."
Now, I call this the culmination of the constitutional developments, not in itself, but taken in connection with the significant facts and the significant acts that accompanied it. What are these facts? Pressure was being brought to bear by France, for instance, upon England, and, through England, upon various other co-signatories, for haste. Lord Milner suggested that the signing of the Treaty by the Dominion Plenipotentiaries might be taken as equivalent to ratification. That was suggested on account of urgency as a method of saving time. Sir Robert Borden replied to that in a form of memorandum, which was really an ultimatum. In diplomatic matters things are not always called by their proper name. The memorandum was drawn up by Sir Robert Borden, and put in on behalf of all the Dominions, and was more particularly urged by General Smuts on behalf of the Union of South Africa. This memorandum claims for all the Dominions equality of nationhood; requires the abandonment of the old procedure, by which the British Government— under this context that means the Ministers of the English Crown operating in Downing Street and in Westminster—acted on behalf of the Self-Governing Colonies and Dependencies, should be abandoned, and a new practice set up which would put each Dominion on an equal footing with the United Kingdom, or with any other of the signatory nations, and in that connection any other of the signatory nations mean France, Italy and the rest. The British reply to this insistence upon the principle of freedom and constitutional equality was given by Lord Milner, who had been the high priest of Imperial federation, to which all this is utterly opposed—this doctrine of cooperation on the part of free and constitutionally co-equal nations in a combination or Commonwealth. Here is Lord Milner's reply. It was published as a Command Paper: that is, it is an official statement on behalf of the English Government.
"The Peace Treaty recently made in Paris was signed on behalf of the British Empire by the Ministers of the self-governing Dominions as well as by the English Ministry. They were all equally plenipotentiaries of His Majesty the King." They were all equally plenipotentiaries of His Majesty the King who was "the high contracting party for the whole." I think that explains the term "high contracting party" as used in Article 1 of the Treaty. They were all equally plenipotentiaries of His Majesty the King, who was the high contracting party for the whole Empire. That is the procedure. Lord Milner goes on to illustrate the new conception of the Empire which has been gradually growing up. The United Kingdom and the Dominions are partner-nations, not yet, indeed, of equal power, but all of equal status. Now that is a very important pronouncement. In fact, I might say it is impossible to overrate its importance, and yet in connection with this constitutional development there is another fact to be mentioned which is not less important. In the British document, which states what happened at the framing of the Covenant of the League of Nations, these words were used. I am quoting from an English Parliamentary paper: "Thirty-two allied and associated Powers, signatories to the Treaty of Peace." There is no differentiation there between one power and another. Canada, the Union of South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and so on are signatories. They are referred to here in this official Parliamentary Paper as the thirty-two allied and associated powers, and the associated powers referred to, of course, include the United States of America who are signatories to the Treaty of Peace. Now, a very interesting thing, to my mind more interesting in some respects than any of these, is the attitude taken up in the beginning of the League of Nations with regard to the application of those Dominions to be received into the family of nations. In the first draft of the covenant there was no separate representation for the Dominions partly because there were still die-hard Britishers at work who believed rather in Imperial Federation and who resented this tremendous growth of liberty and co-equality on the part of Canada and the Union of South Africa and the others. There was ignorance on the part of some of the European countries—stark, crass, crude ignorance, such as prevails in Ireland for example to the present hour with regard to this matter. That ignorance was heightened and intensified by the suspicion that England was putting in her Colonies under the guise of being separate nations in order to multiply her own vote in the League of Nations' decisions.
Time and enquiry brought a change of mind through illumination and enlightenment, and at the second stage "the status of complete nationhood was internationally recognised." That is a quotation from General Smuts in a farewell letter that he wrote on leaving England. He was challenged in his own Union of South Africa Parliament by General Hertzog and others —for they have their Irregulars, their extremists and fanatics there also. He was asked if the registration of the Union of South Africa in the League of Nations was not really that of a dependency of England, and his answer was: "We are absolutely independent of England; we have equal status, with group unity." Now that happy phrase of General Smuts— whom, by the way, because he was a wiser man and a man of broader views than Mr. de Valera, it is the custom to regard in certain circles in Ireland as a sort of traitor to the cause of freedom—indicates what the ideal was amongst those Canadians and Australians—who, unlike us, have no past history of unhappy memory, but look to Great Britain; that is, England and Scotland, as a mother country—to have freedom of nationhood and cooperation of group. The group unity is for them marked by the fact that what was once the British King— King of Great Britain and Ireland— has become the Crown of the Commonwealth—the Commonwealth Crown— and the mark and symbol of Commonwealth unity is the Crown.
Here is a quotation from one of the principal documents issued by Sir Robert Borden, and it is backed up by another, which will have more authority with Deputy Johnson, because when I appealed to an English coin he preferred to have the inscription on a Canadian coin:—
The Crown is the supreme Executive in the United Kingdom, and in all the Dominions, but it acts on the advice of different Ministries within different Constitutional units.
That declaration is the key—if I am not mixing my metaphors—to the solution of many things that are difficulties for people who confound the King of England with the permanent and hereditary President of the Commonwealth of free nations, and who cannot understand what the new character of the British Empire or British Commonwealth has become, and the altered relation of the Crown to the various Executives. When the Prince of Wales had returned from one of those little expensive excursions which, for political and social reasons perhaps, he occasionally is made to take, this document was issued—I am quoting now from the London "Times" of December 19th, 1919—"The King is the Constitutional Sovereign of the Empire...""Empire" is the word used, it will be remembered, in the first Clause of our Treaty as the equivalent for the Commonwealth, although I am sure Deputy Grattan Esmonde, who is so fastidious for exact fact in all its minutiæ would distinguish between the Empire and the Commonwealth. In our Treaty and in this document from which I quote, the Empire is the synonym for the Commonwealth—that is to say, for the Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, and so on, including the new arrival, India, with a measure of development which, I do not think, we are quite able to appreciate as yet through the fact of India being more a continent than a country. This declaration with regard to the Prince of Wales' tour was—
The King, as the Constitutional Sovereign of the Empire, occupies exactly the same place in Canada (I would ask the special attention of Deputy Wilson to that) and in the whole British Empire as he does in Great Britain.
That is to say, he is the head of the Executive. That is the position with regard to the other elements of the Commonwealth previous to the making of the Treaty with Ireland. I desire to emphasise that very strongly—that between the years 1917 and 1921 Canada has developed from being a self-governing Colony, striving, occasionally with success, now and then with only partial success, at other times with considerable failure, to assert nationhood, or Statehood rather, and becomes a cosignatory with France and other countries, on equal terms, of the Treaty of Versailles, and enters in her own right into the League of Nations.
Now I turn to our own Treaty for a moment, and I notice that it is headed in the Schedule to the Constitution as "Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland." It will probably interest Deputy Grattan Esmonde to read in the Preamble to the Act enacting our Constitution these words, on page 83 of the volume that was handed to all of us on becoming members of the Dáil:—
"The said Constitution shall be construed with reference to the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland set forth in the Second Schedule hereto annexed (hereinafter referred to as `The Scheduled Treaty')."
Of course Deputy Grattan Esmonde would prefer to read Oppenheim and foreign works. He has not time, perhaps, to read our own enactments. However, that is by the way. In our own Treaty, Article 1 declares that:
"Ireland shall have the same Constitutional status in the community of nations known as the British Empire as the Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa, with a Parliament having powers to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of Ireland, and an Executive responsible to that Parliament, and shall be styled and known as the Irish Free State."
The Article opens with the name "Ireland," which is not a merely geographical expression, but an expression that has its place and significance in history. Ireland, historically and geographically, is declared to have the same Constitutional status in the community of nations as all these others. I have just now read to you from Lord Milner, and from other documents, what is the precise Constitutional position of these. I shall no doubt be told that legally we must go back to the British North America Act of 1867 and there find a number of things. It then becomes necessary to dwell on the difference between legal right and Constitutional right. Again, I quote from General Smuts, who, when the point was put to him by General Hertzog, and when he was asked a variety of questions as to what South Africa could do, said: "It is not a question of what is legal, it is a question of what is constitutional." Sir Robert Borden, founding upon the man who was the real maker of the nationhood of Canada—an Irishman named Blake—has put in the most unmistakable language, which has been accepted everywhere, this difference between legal right and constitutional position, constitutional power and constitutional right. The important thing is Article 2:
"The position of the Irish Free State—that is, Ireland, the historical and geographical Ireland—in relation to the Imperial Parliament and Government and otherwise shall be that of the Dominion of Canada, and the law, practice and constitutional usage governing the relationship of the Crown or the representative of the Crown and of the Imperial Parliament to the Dominion of Canada shall govern the relationship to the Irish Free State."
Consequently, what the Crown is for Canada so long as that Treaty operates the Crown is for the Irish Free State. Article 12 of this Constitution and Article 51 set out the relation of the Crown. By Article 12 the Crown is a component of our Executive. It is the depository of executive power if at any time we had no Executive Council. I would direct special attention to Article 51, more particularly as it was dwelt upon, I see from a newspaper report yesterday, by Deputy Johnson.
"The Executive Authority of the Irish Free State ... shall be exercisable, in accordance with the law, practice and constitutional usage governing the exercise of the Executive Authority in the case of the Dominion of Canada by the Representative of the Crown."
The Crown in all these cases in relation to the Executive and legislature of the various units of the community of free nations is the Commonwealth Crown. That requires to be named in international documents, and the name known to international jurists and known in all the diplomacies of the world is His Britannic Majesty. His Britannic Majesty in 1924 is the Crown, as the Crown figures in these various Constitutions, and the British flag is the flag of the Commonwealth. I have no doubt that there will soon be an Irish flag to indicate the statehood and sovereignty of Ireland. But pending that, this description, for the purpose of Treaties entered into, is the only available form of description, and has to be used. I believe that is exactly the same reason why this objectionable term is employed in the Treaty, or in the Preamble, as Deputy Grattan Esmonde loves to call it, to this Liquor Traffic Treaty. The objectionable title is used not, I believe, because of any love for it on the other side of the water as something to insist upon to our annoyance, or even to our detriment, but simply because for the time being it is the recognised name, and there is no other.
We, at any rate, through the amendment which was graciously accepted by the Minister to-day, are taking steps to bring under the notice of all whom it may concern that we regard that as an incorrect description of the present facts. While it is the term employed, His Britannic Majesty and the British flag are not to be interpreted in any narrow sense. Deputy Baxter treated us to his view of international relations and constitutional practice. I should be very glad if we could make international law according to our own desires. Unfortunately, we live under a system of things in which the individual wish and the working out of realities are very frequently in conflict. All the time that Irishmen uttered the aspiration, "Ireland a Nation," and sang Davis's poem, "A Nation Once Again," what we were craving for, and what we were demanding, was that position of independent statehood, that position which President Cosgrave as the incarnation of Ireland's bodily presence was able to assert and to receive international recognition for when Ireland was registered amongst the League of Nations and entered into the family of nations. "A Nation Once Again" was the aspiration for that. According to Deputy Baxter, Ireland was always a sovereign nation. Will he forgive me if I say: what a confusion of thought! A sovereign nation is as much a thing of definition as, say, an internal combustion engine. An internal combustion engine is a thing of definition. Deputy Davin is, unfortunately, not here or he would quote me the conventional definitions, or the terms by which they regulate traffic and tariffs upon goods on the railway lines. They differentiate between goats and pigs, tortoises and insects. Ireland was not a sovereign nation when she was being dragooned by England, and her laws made for her in an alien Parliament. Ireland was not a sovereign nation when the taxes raised from her were imposed upon her in an alien Assembly, and collected practically at the point of alien bayonets. The very fact that it was English law and English police systems, English codes, under an English Viceroy, that regulated our lives is the test fact of sovereignty in regard to these international and constitutional matters.
Deputy Baxter is confusing the inextinguishable sense of nationhood that survived amongst the Irish people, and the determination of every right-minded Irishman that he would assert that right at all costs. That is a very different thing from the technical position of having secured the recognition of statehood. We are now what Deputy Esmonde called technically "international persons." That is to say, just as every person is equal before the law under English law, in this international code a soverign State, or a State that is recognised so far as to be received into the family of nations, at the League of Nations, is a person. And they are equal. Whatever conventions may regulate intercourse they are all entitled to. Surely to have achieved that is worth a great deal. Why is it necessary to belittle the achievement? Why is it necessary to befog our minds and the minds of those outside this Assembly by harking back to language and connotation of words which are completely out of date, as dead as Queen Anne, although so recent? Now what is there in this that is so objectionable, that time that ought to be devoted to constructive work has been spent upon it? It would seem as if we were gathered together here to make a public exhibition of the shortcomings of our information on things which our constituents have a right to expect that we have informed ourselves upon.
