As a Deputy from an area contiguous to the present boundary I feel it my duty to say a few words upon the subject of this motion and the amendment of Deputy Johnson. There is not much need I think for talk. It does not serve any useful purpose. We have had conversations and we have been promised some results from them, but we have not received such results. I think that it is time that the method of talk should cease and that the method of sensible approach to this question should be commenced. The discussion seems to have drifted latterly here into an academic one. This is not an academic question: this is a serious national question. It is a question between right and wrong, with a tribunal designed to decide, and that tribunal has to decide on an international treaty backed up by two nations. That is the decision that is awaited here in this country. The motion and the amendment seem to me to have the same object, and that is to emphasise the delay that has taken place on this question. The delay is almost inexplicable and it seems to threaten to continue. The correspondence that we have gone through and which has been placed in our hands in the White Paper proves, I think, quite clearly to us that our Executive is in no way responsible for this delay. While that is so it is necessary I think to impress upon the members of the Executive Council that the situation is very acute, and that it is gradually growing more acute day by day while the struggle continues in correspondence. It actually threatens the Government of this country and it threatens the Treaty. Let that be clearly understood. That is the situation that confronts the Government on this question. Of all other questions that face this country, this is the most formidable and the solution of this difficulty is the real national problem. There is a feeling prevalent that there is obstruction to the commission that has been designed by the Treaty and accepted by those who ratified the Treaty on behalf of this nation and on behalf of the people of Britain, and that there is a disposition on the part of the British Government to temporise with this obstruction.
If any such fears as that should obtain even a semblance of justification it would be disastrous for Ireland, as well as being disgraceful to Britain, and it would be very difficult to forecast what the consequences might be. These fears are particularly acute in the areas that are specially affected, that is, those areas that are held in bondage in spite of their majorities, and where an attempt, a very deliberate attempt, has been made to submerge these majorities and to deprive these people of all civic rights on local representative authorities. There was great alacrity in recognising the Treaty in the first instance on the part of the Northern Government for the purpose of securing partition. Now there is a great desire to use the second part of the same Article in order to secure not only that the country is to be partitioned but that Article 12 is to be partitioned. It had been hoped that he problem might have been approached and envisaged to do away with all boundaries. That was hoped in the initial stages, and there was a certain amount of grounds given for that belief, and there would have been no demur to the sanction of reasonable or even unreasonable accommodation. I think, for the purpose of securing that very desirable national object. It seems, however, as if there has not been any such desire on the part of Belfast, when we look at the treatment of our people in the interval in these areas. The fate of our whole nation hangs on this struggle absolutely. While everyone in the Dáil will agree that our Executive has handled the matter so far in a statesmanlike way, it is necessary they should realise the extreme urgency of having Article 12 honoured at once, since it appears impossible to have the question dealt with from the point of view of more immediate national re-union, and if discussion here hastens progress in doing this, then it would be of very great advantage to the whole Irish nation.
