I beg to move:
That the Dáil approves of the representations made by the Executive Council to the Boundary Commission regarding the provisions of Article 12 of the Treaty as set out in the President's reply to Deputy Johnson on Wednesday, 11th November, 1925.
The motion standing in my name arises out of the answer given by the President to Deputy Johnson on the 11th of this month pointing out that representations had been made by the Executive Council as to their views of the meaning of Clause 12 of the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland. I suppose I have no right to suggest what reason prompted Deputy Johnson to put the question, but I venture to assume that it was because of reports appearing in the Press uttering suggested solutions or a suggested line as to the result of the Boundary Commission findings. Evidently the same reports exercised the minds of the people in Tirconaill, judging by the amount of correspondence, resolutions, telegrams, etc., that have reached myself and other Deputies. These reports have caused what amounts to consternation in the minds of the people in the border counties. That may not be justified by the result, and perhaps it may seem premature to raise this question merely upon the appearance of predictions in the public Press, given without authority. But it seems to me that when you have had a volume of expressions of opinion, amounting to what I may almost call propaganda, by the other parties to this problem, it is time to raise it in the Dáil and to get an expression of opinion, a clear expression of opinion, from the Dáil as to what its view of the meaning of Clause 12 of the Treaty is. As a matter of fact, I have come to the conclusion that it is overdue; that the Dáil in general, and Tirconaill Deputies in particular, and not the Tirconaill Deputies alone but the Deputies from all the Border counties, have remained silent overlong on this matter, and that they have allowed a march to be stolen on them by the people of the Six Counties.
Taking human nature into consideration, it is quite probable that the amount of propaganda done against our view of the meaning of Clause 12 of the Treaty may have an effect upon those who are engaged in drawing the Boundary line. Consequently, I think the Dáil, without equivocation, should, as clearly as it can, express an endorsement of the views set out by President Cosgrave in his reply to Deputy Johnson. It is quite possible that the Government may not approve entirely of my bringing this motion before the Dáil. They are, perhaps, in a difficult position and they have a huge responsibility in this matter. They may not desire that any pre-discussion should be given to a question which is at present under consideration by another body. But I would say that no less than the Government and the Ministers, Deputies have responsibilities also to their constituents, responsibilities and duties not less important in degree, at all events, to their constituents, than have Ministers to the Dáil and to the country. For that reason I have found it necessary to bring forward this motion. I am moving it in response to practically a unanimous request from all over Tirconaill and Monaghan and various other parts of the northern end of the Saorstát. I am doing it in response to that request and probably it might be said that I am playing the game of the politician in order to meet the outcry in my constituency by moving in this matter. Well, I am doing it in pursuance of my duty as a Deputy and in response to requests amounting to demands that I have received from all over the North.
Statements have appeared in the Press recently, made by Sir James Craig, a responsible man in the Six Counties, giving definite assurances to meetings of various people there—the last was a meeting of the Orange Order —that they would be satisfied with the result of the Boundary Commission. Similar assurances have been given by practically every Minister in his Cabinet at various times at meetings throughout the Six Counties. We have not received any similar assurances from any side that our interests will be satisfied by the Report of the Boundary Commission. Ministers assure us that they are not in a position to do so, that their nominee on the Boundary Commission has kept strictly to his undertaking to keep inviolate the proceedings of the Boundary Commission. I have no fault to find with the carrying out of that pledge and undertaking provided that similar good faith is kept by other persons who are associated with that Commission. I accept the word of the Ministers in this matter, that they have no information to give the Dáil or the country as to what the probable findings of the Commission will be. President Cosgrave, in his reply has assured us that he has made representations, both oral and written, as to the view the Executive Council take on the rendering of Clause 12 of the Treaty. But in the absence of any assurances of a similar or comparable kind to those given in the Six Counties, there should be an expression of opinion from Dáil Eireann that it has not altered its view as to the attitude or point of view it takes of the rendering of Clause 12 of the Treaty. My motion is down here to-day in the hope that the Dáil, and every Deputy in the Dáil, will by its and their vote affirm again their view that Clause 12 of the Treaty was to change the Boundary in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants of the border areas. It is a motion framed in words that make it possible for every Deputy of whatever complexion to support it by his vote. It is a motion that I venture to say no Deputy of Dáil Eireann, having taken the oath to the Constitution, dare vote against.
Consequently, I hope there will be unanimous support from every Deputy in this House for the point of view put forward by the Executive Council: that the wishes of the inhabitants are to be considered and that there is no power inherent in Clause 12 of the Treaty to give to anybody the right to take any part of the territory of the Saorstát from it. We have also the answer given in this House by the President, in which he stated that the Government were prepared to accept the findings of the Boundary Commission. Some people hold the view that that is binding the hands of this Government and this House. I do not hold that view at all, and I press the point of view which I am going to put before the House as the correct point of view and the correct attitude to take towards this matter, namely, that the acceptance of any decision of the Boundary Commission that is not in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, ascertained how it may be, is not a fulfilment of Clause 12 of the Treaty and is not a finding in accordance with the powers given to the Boundary Commission by Clause 12 of the Treaty and, consequently, that it absolves the Executive Council from any responsibility for its findings. Any finding of the Boundary Commission that is not in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants is a grave breach of faith with our people in the Six Counties. It is a breach of faith inasmuch as Ireland was assured in general, and they were assured in particular by all those who supported the Treaty, that under Clause 12 the people along the Border who desired to come under the jurisdiction of this Government would be enabled by the operations of the Boundary Commission, to change their allegiance to this Government if they so desired.
I would remind the House that the Nationalists of Ulster made sacrifices no less great and no less continuous than the sacrifices that were made by every other part of Ireland to achieve the freedom that we now enjoy and to set up the Government under which this country now works. The Nationalists of Ulster took no small part in the movement, in the work, in the sufferings and in the sacrifices that brought about the Treaty with England and which gave us the free institutions we now enjoy in the Saorstát—free institutions which we in the Twenty-Six Counties enjoy, but which they do not enjoy, free institutions for us, but a disimprovement of the position for them, with an alteration of affairs that has left them worse than they were under the British regime. For these services, for these sacrifices and for this loyalty to Ireland, the people on the Border and in the Six-Counties in general are entitled to the consideration of this House. I would think that Ireland was not worthy of my loyalty if I thought that the people of the other Twenty-Six Counties, no matter how remote they may be from the Border problem in point of distance, felt no obligations towards their fellow-countrymen in the Six Counties—I would feel that Ireland was entitled to no loyalty from me if I thought that the rest of the country would sit down in selfish contentment under the measure of freedom that they had obtained and leave their fellow-countrymen in the Six Counties under a form of Government and under government institutions which they find irksome and tyrannical.
I hold it is a debt of honour which the people of the Saorstát, and particularly the Government of the Saorstát, owes to the people in the border counties. Ireland won the measure of freedom which we now have because the people stood together, sharing their sacrifices and sharing their efforts. An injury to one was an injury to all in that great movement, down even to the very groups of men in the prison camps at the time. All acted together, and there was no question as to what part of Ireland you came from, because they all stood for one cause and all were prepared to take their share in whatever the result might be. Consequently, when these people are left out of the operations of the free institutions that have come to the Saorstát it is our duty and our honour to see to it that as far as we can they are not cheated out of the full and beneficent effects of the Treaty as applied to other parts of Ireland. Therefore, I do not alone move this motion as a Deputy from Tirconaill. I move it as a duty of honour to that part of Ireland from which I come and to those people who worked with me and helped to bring about freedom for Ireland.
Born in Belfast myself I understand and appreciate the feelings of the people. I understand and appreciate the desire they have to come under the jurisdiction of this Government. I understand and appreciate the disabilities under which they labour under the partisan Government that exists in the Six Counties. Consequently, I feel that the duty incumbent on me is a duty of honour to get what support I can for the view held by the Executive Council that no part of the territory of Saorstát Eireann can be taken from it to be placed under the jurisdiction of another Government, and that, further, the wishes of the inhabitants in those areas near the border who desire to come under the jurisdiction of this Government shall not go unheeded.
On St. Stephen's Night, 1921, I was sent to Dublin from Belfast in company with the late Commandant Joe McKelvey to interview Mr. Griffith and General Collins as to what the position of the people there was under the Treaty, and to ascertain their views on the matter and give our point of view and our allegiance if we were satisfied. General Collins had no difficulty whatever in assuring Commandant McKelvery and myself that Clause 12 of the Treaty was a clause which would enable every part of the Six Counties near the borders of the Saorstát, and where the majority of the people desidred, to come under the jurisdiction of the Saorstát Government—he assured us that Clause 12 of the Treaty would offer means whereby they would be enabled to change their allegiance, or at least enable them to give their allegiance to this Government. When discussing the matter at full length, he explained to me in particular how this clause was arrived at, and why the subsidiary sentences were put in— those relating to economic and geographic considerations. That is the reason, and the only one, that induced our delegates to agree to the subsequent conditions.
It may be no harm to take a short survey of the whole story of partition, because many interests are endeavouring to make political capital out of the position that might arise in the event of a non-satisfactory report being issued by the Boundary Commission. Many resolutions have been sent to me by people condemning myself and other Deputies representing the Border counties for the results, or the supposed results, of the Commission's findings. I just want to set out here, so that the public should be reminded of it, that neither Deputies in this House nor the Government nor the signatories to the Treaty were responsible for partition. They did not make partition. They found partition made for them by England, and in England, and presented as a fait accompli to the delegates who were discussing the whole Anglo-Irish Treaty. Early when the first suggestion was made in favour of it to the House of Commons by Mr. Agar Robartes, no support could be found for it. But his suggestion germinated subsequently in the minds of British politicians when Home Rule was in the making as offering a way by which they could still keep control of Ireland. The matter was raised subsequently. I remember a meeting being held in the County Tyrone by Mr. F.E. Smith, now Lord Birkenhead, and Lord Carson. Mr. Smith made a tentative reference to the cutting off of the Ulster counties from the rest of Ireland, and the huge monster meeting he was addressing received that suggestion in complete and dead silence. Not one voice at the whole meeting was raised in support of it, and so cold and frigid was the reception it got that Sir Edward Carson, rising to his feet afterwards, in order to put heart into the crowd, said: “We do not consider north or south, east or west; we want only Ireland and we will not have Home Rule”; and in response to that statement the crowd rose in enthusiasm. That was the denunciation of partition. It came again from the Buckingham Palace Conference, but it was partly baptised in St. Mary's Hall, Belfast, and it then became a reality in the political problems of this country.
Six or seven months before the Treaty was signed the Parliament in Belfast was opened with ceremonial panoply by the King of England, and partition was then an accomplished fact. It is well to remember this, and I state it in reply to some of the many resolutions I have received from various bodies. We have Mr. de Valera making utterances at present, as appears from the Press, speaking of the Government of a Republic for all Ireland. This question was almost made concrete by a statement from Mr. de Valera that there would be no coercion for Ulster. Why I have never been able to understand. While all Ireland was to be coerced, crushed and battered in the most ruthless campaign ever raised against a white people, Mr de Valera publicly stated there could be no coercion for Ulster. I do not want coercion for Ulster. I never did, but why the leader of a people who were coerced in every act of their lives should absolve or remove from the possibilities and the necessities of the case some coercion to be applied to a minority standing out against the majority and against the will of the people of the rest of Ireland I never could understand.
Further, it may be interesting to note that the Dáil Cabinet, when considering the terms of the Treaty when it was being negotiated, did accept in principle partition, and no voice was raised against it there. Consequently, it is too late for those people to attack either the Deputies in this House or the Government for partition. It is too late for them to try to get back to safe ground and make their attacks upon us as if we were the responsible parties for it. We are not. Further, I may say that this difficulty would have been solved, in my personal opinion and to my personal knowledge, had not certain people in Ireland started raging like mad bulls and turned the country into a welter of strife and war. This is a question that far transcends in importance for Ireland any other question arising out of the Treaty, and this question would have been settled by agreement with the people of the Six Counties to come in under one Parliament for all Ireland. Throughout the whole of the negotiations that gave rise to partition everything in turn has been ceded to the people of the Six Counties. The first suggestion was that four counties only would be cut off from the rest of Ireland. Then again it was suggested that areas would be taken and plebiscites got, and that those areas that declared for separate Government for the North would go under, and those who declared for the Government of the rest of Ireland would come in under that Government. Correspondence was carried on between Mr. Lloyd George and Sir James Craig in which these points were discussed, but finally, when the matter was settled, the Ulster Unionist Council and their supporters in England had their way as usual and the Six Counties were cut out. Two of these counties had majorities in each opposed to their inclusion under the Six-County Government, and now under Clause 12 they want to push the matter even further.
They want further concessions given to them. They want further concessions of territory to increase in extent and to strengthen economically the area they are in possession of. I see by to-day's Press that they are asking, further, that compensation should be given to those of their people in territory taken off them and that they should be enabled to move back under the jurisdiction of the Six-County Government. I think it is time that these people recognised that they have equal rights with the other people of Ireland and no more. I think it is time they recognised that they are going to have equal rights and no more—that the vote of one Irishman is as good as that of another, and that the old and bad tradition descending to us from the British occupation of this country must pass away for ever. When one considers what the position of Nationalists under Sir James Craig's Government is, it is no wonder if consternation and alarm spreads over the border counties at the suggestion that any portion of their territory should be brought under that Government. In County Tyrone protests have been made by responsible men that such a division of the county has been made by the Government that it takes practically four Nationalist votes to equal one Unionist vote. Gerrymandering has been carried to a fine art there and our people are in such a position that they are not represented in the Six-County Parliament in anything approaching their numbers and importance. All the principles of democracy have been reversed and a property qualification has been substituted for the personal one. In the Senate not even one seat would be ceded to the minority. It was said by one member that it would be a good thing in politics and a good thing in fact to have given one seat to the minority in the Senate, but they found that was not possible either. Not even minor jobs, like probationary nurses, fall to the lot of the minority, except in exceptional circumstances. Nationalists in the Six Counties to-day are in a worse position than the Catholics were in Ireland in the penal times. There is no reason whatever why we should abandon those on the Border who desire to come under our jurisdiction. There is no reason why we should abandon them if we can obtain for them justice and right under Clause 12 of the Treaty. When, one contrasts the policy existing in the Six Counties with the policy of this Government, I think a further reason is given and further backing is forthcoming for the clamant desire of the people on the Border to get under the jurisdiction of this Government and for those who are under it to remain under it. We have, in this State, testimonies to fair dealing and fair play, without any regard to religion, status or politics. Indeed you have one section of the country stating from the housetops that the Government have handed over the control of the country to their opponents —to those who differ from them in politics and religion. I do not accept that view, but still it is evidence to every one that this Government endeavours to give justice and fair play to all within the borders of the State, as far as they humanly can and as far as they control the exercise of the functions of government.
I would refer again to the statements made by Sir James Craig and to his assurances to the last meeting of the Orange Order in Ulster—assurances that they would be fully satisfied with the report of the Boundary Commission. If the Boundary Commission reported as was forecasted in the "Morning Post," they would have every reason to be satisfied with the report, because it would strengthen Sir James Craig's Government in every particular. But it would do something more terrible, something fatal—it would stereotype partition for our time and possibly for all time. It would give an economic background to the towns and cities that rightly belong to this part of the country. It would give to us, as somebody said, the best grouse-shooting in Ireland and very little else. It would give to us, on that showing, bits of territory which are practically made up of mountain land and which, where habitable at all, provide only for uneconomic holdings. These bits of territory would serve, perhaps, chiefly to make an addition to our Old Age Pension list. If it were thinkable at all—I hold it is not and cannot be—that any pant of the county which I have the honour to represent should be partitioned—it is suggested that the eastern part of the county be taken from the jurisdiction of this Government—you would have two results. You would oblige the city of Derry, which contains a majority of inhabitants favourable to this Government and opposed to Sir James Craig's Government, to continue under the jurisdiction of the Craig Government, which it desires to escape from, and you would give it a territorial hinterland which would enable it to carry on where, as now, it is practically broken down. You would take from Donegal County portion of the richest part of that county. East Donegal contains the best land in Donegal and possibly some of the best tillage land in Ireland. In extent and value, this land forms a considerable part of the rateable valuation of the county. If any considerable part of that territory were filched away from us, I say here that it would be impossible for the county administration to carry on. It would be impossible for the County Council to carry on the public institutions which it now has under its control, and it would add a burden to the rest of the county that would be impossible to bear. If such a thing were thinkable, or if any responsible member of this Government were to give pre-acceptance to a finding such as forecasted in the "Morning Post," I say it would strike a death-blow at the peace of this country and at the life of this Government. It would achieve a result that would not make for the unity of the country. It would achieve a result that would bring weakness to the Government and weakness to the country. It would be bad policy for the present and disastrous policy for the future. It would be a breach of faith with our people in the Six Counties, and I believe that it would be a breach of faith engineered by English statesmei. I say that because of the public utterances of some of the English representatives at the Anglo-Irish Treaty Conference. If the facts are what I have stated here, there is no doubt about what the intention of the signatories was at the time of the signing of the Treaty.
Later on, when these men find themselves out of office, under the pressure of that small, but extremely small, section in England who have always hated Ireland and hate it moreintensely now because of the freedom that Irishmen have attained, they make statements about Clause 12 of the Treaty contrary to the views expressed to me by General Collins fresh from the Conference. I do not say this because of any policy of hate of England or of hate of the Six-County Government. I recognise that no good thing can be built upon a foundation of hate, that any policy built upon hate is built upon sand, and that it cannot last or bear good fruit. I say it because I desire that we should have lasting good relations with England, that we should have amity and peace and progress, that we should get definitely and finally down to some relations with our countrymen of all colours in the Six Counties that would enable us, in the fulness of time, to bring about genuine unity in the country. I say it because I recognise that there is more than a community of interest between our fellow-countrymen in the North and ourselves and that there is at least a community of interest between ourselves and the English people. It is because I recognise that community of interest and that I recognise that this country's progress and prosperity will be added to and strengthened by a proper understanding and by a peaceful condition of affairs in our relations with England, that I desire to see this Boundary question settled in a way that will bring some peace of mind to the people concerned—that will not perpetuate injustice and create further hatreds, further bickerings and further strife in this land of ours. If any such unthinkable finding as was forecasted in the Press were to be brought about, it would destroy all hope of peace and unity in our time. It would set passion again raging in the land and re-create the bitterness, the ill-feeling and the hate which we desire to allay. Consequently, if for no higher purpose than interest alone, it is the duty of this Government and of the Dáil to see, as far as they can see, that the Boundary Commissioners are fully impressed with what we were led to believe was the true and proper rendering of Clause 12 of the Treaty.
I venture to say that the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland would never have passed Dáil Eireann were it not for the recommendations made by those who were responsible for it, that the wishes of the inhabitants in the Border areas would be taken into consideration when the Boundary Commission was set up.
