This Bill comes before us from the Seanad, and I do not know to what extent it is pertinent to advert here to the fact that, in the Seanad, the Bill was passed by the casting vote of the Cathaoirleach. I want to oppose the Bill on behalf of the Executive Council, and in doing so I would like to advert, in the first instance, to certain objections which may be considered accidental rather than fundamental to the project embodied in the Bill. There is, as we know, a considerable divergence of view amongst the subscribers to the £40,000 that is on hands, and there is as we all know, a considerable diversity of opinion amongst the surviving ex-servicemen as to the desirability of proceeding with this particular project. Two prominent representative ex-servicemen, Senator General Sir Bryan Mahon, and Senator General Sir William Hickie opposed the Bill in the Seanad. As to the point of view of the subscribers. I would like to refer Deputies to a letter that appeared in the "Irish Times" of the 11th May, 1926, signed by Lord Glenavy, and it might be proper to read to the Dáil certain extracts from that letter:—
"In view of the evidence I have received of the increasing hostility, on the part of subscribers to Lord French's War Memorial Fund, to the contemplated diversion of part of the funds to the conversion of Merrion Square into a public park, I feel that I have a certain responsibility to them in the matter by reason of the fact that at Lord French's request I presided at the representative meeting in the Viceregal Lodge at which the fund was inaugurated. The hostility I refer to is not against the project in itself, which, as a municipal enterprise, has much to commend it to the citizens of Dublin provided they are willing to pay for it, but is due to the feeling that, in view of the express purpose for which the subscriptions were invited, and received from every county in Ireland, any such allocation of the money, in whole or in part, would involve a wholesale departure from this purpose and a substantial injustice to those for whose benefit the money was subscribed.
"There can be no room for doubt as to the governing purpose on this point, because, at the meeting to which I have referred it was distinctly understood and agreed that the object of the fund was to perpetuate the memory of our fallen soldiers in a form that would, at the same time, benefit their surviving comrades. Concrete expression was subsequently given to this definite purpose when it was resolved to utilise the fund in the erection or acquisition of suitable premises in the City of Dublin, to be used as a hostel for British soldiers and ex-servicemen. The Treaty and its consequences put an end to this project, and also greatly embarrassed the Committee in their selection of a suitable alternative; and I am satisfied that it was only as the result of a full and conscientious inquiry that they finally selected the Merrion Square scheme.
"I was not myself a member of this Committee, and cannot recall the sequence of events in connection with this fund for the last four years; but, so far as I can recollect, no attempt was ever made, by convening a general meeting of subscribers or by circular letter to those of them who could be traced, to ascertain their views upon this scheme. At the same time, it is only fair to the Committee to state that during the long period occupied by them in giving effect, to the scheme and applying to the court for its sanction, they were not, so far as I am aware, challenged by any public expression of dissatisfaction on the part of subscribers. But while this has to be admitted, in justification of the action of the Committee, the explanation is probably to be found in the fact that, until publicity was recently given to them by the application in the courts, many subscribers were wholly unacquainted with the details of the scheme, and, in particular, were unaware that the conversion of Merrion Square into a public park was to be carried out at the expense of the fund.
"In this respect my position was different, as I was acquainted with the general details of the scheme. I never regarded it with favour, and entertained, and still entertain, the gravest doubts as to the jurisdiction of the court—unless possibly upon the clearest evidence of its approval by the subscribers as a whole—to sanction such a wide departure from the original purpose, upon the faith of which the money was subscribed; but, in the absence of any general complaint by the subscribers, I was prepared to acquiesce in the Committee's scheme, provided they could prevail on the court to sanction it. I am now, however, satisfied from the volume of complaint that has reached me that this scheme is not only distasteful to some of the most generous subscribers to the fund, but is also greatly resented by those in a position to voice the feelings of the relatives of our dead heroes and their surviving comrades, in whose interest the fund was originated.
"In this state of facts, and the light of my own responsibility in the matter, I would respectfully suggest to the Committee to delay further action until effective steps have been taken to ascertain the wishes of the subscribers as a whole, and to arrive at a solution which would not so directly violate the purpose, and trust for and upon which the fund was invited and subscribed."
That letter voices the discontent and disagreement that existed amongst those who subscribed the £40,000 that it is proposed to devote to this project of the Memorial in Merrion Square. As it was said, following on the discussion in the other House, it is questionable whether it is wise or proper to proceed with a project of this kind, in the absence of something in the nature of substantial unanimity amongst those who subscribed the funds. And when in addition to the sharp diversity of view amongst the subscribers you have also a strong difference of opinion amongst the surviving ex-servicemen, I think the case against proceeding with the project is complete.
I refer to these objections as accidental and they are accidental so far as my personal objection and the objection of the Executive Council are concerned. This money was subscribed by prominent people throughout the country to commemorate those who died in the Great War as it seems agreed to call it. The original proposal was that there would be a hostel established here in the capital, dedicated to the memory of those men, to be used by the British soldiers and ex-servicemen of the Great War. I remember when that project was mooted in or about the year 1920, reflecting that it was something of an irony that men who joined the British Army and fought in the War to the slogan of the freedom of small nations were to have their memories perpetuated by a glorified canteen for an army of occupation in this country. That project fell through; as Lord Glenavy remarks in his letter, the Treaty and its consequences rendered that particular project unattainable, and it became a question of searching for an alternative scheme. The scheme that is embodied in this Bill is to set up a Memorial in Merrion Square, to dedicate the Square and the Memorial to the memory of those who fell in the Great War, and to have the Square open to the general public. I believe that the considerations which I have mentioned ought to be sufficient to prevent the Dáil passing this Bill. But I want to say that to my mind they are not the objections on which I personally would wish to base my opposition to the Bill.
I believe that to devote Merrion Square to this purpose would be to give a wrong twist, as it were, a wrong suggestion, to the origins of this State. It would be a falsehood, a falsehood by suppression of the truth and by a suggestion of something that is contrary to the truth. I want Deputies to picture the effect on the minds of strangers coming into this State and visiting this capital. You have a square here, confronting the seat of the Government of the country, and it is proposed to devote that square to this purpose. I say that any intelligent visitor, not particularly versed in the history of the country, would be entitled to conclude that the origins of this State were connected with that park and the memorial in that park, were connected with the lives that were lost in the Great War in France, Belgium, Gallipoli and so on. That is not the position. This State has other origins, and because it has other origins I do not wish to see it suggested, in stone or otherwise, that it has that origin.
I want it to be understood that I speak in no spirit of hostility to ex-servicemen, qua ex-servicemen. Two members of my family served throughout that war—one who did not survive, in the British Army, and another who did, in the Navy—and so it will be understood that it is in no feeling of hostility to those who were through that war in the ranks of the British Army that I oppose this scheme; but this proposal, if it is proceeded with, means that you are to have here, straight in front of the seat of the Government of the country, a park monument dedicated to the memory of those men. I object to that because the fulfilment of such a project suggests that it is on that sacrifice that this State was reared. No one denies the sacrifice, and no one denies the patriotic motives which induced the vast majority of those men to join the British Army to take part in the Great War, and yet it is not on their sacrifice that this State is based, and I have no desire to see it suggested that it is. We have to go back a bit to get our perspective of this proposal. We have to take really the decade leading up to the war to remember the political position of this country from about 1908, or thereabouts, on to 1914.
We had our parliamentary representatives in Westminster. They held a particular strategical position in that assembly, and by the strength of that position they were able to arrive at a particular agreement with the British Government of the day. That position was watched with intense interest by many in Ireland, and I think that many in Ireland decided to form their considered view of the efficacy of constitutional action, as it was called, the efficacy of parliamentary agitation, on the result. Parliamentary action was to be tried out. It was to be tried out under the fairest possible conditions. It was to be tried out under a particular set of circumstances which might not arise again in a generation—a balance of power held by the Irish Parliamentary Party in the British House of Commons. We watched that game played out. We watched that situation develop. We saw the Government getting through many of its major measures, and there were those who thought, as each such measure went through, that the grip of the Irish Parliamentary Party must be to some extent, greater or less, relaxing. Accordingly, as each big measure of the Government programme went through, and went through with the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party, then there were those who held the view that the grip was looser. Constitutional action, parliamentary agitation, was played out within those years leading up to the war, and we saw strange things. We saw the British Constitution crack and break under the strain of that paltry extension of local government. We saw the law flouted openly and the Government, with a Parliamentary majority, cowering before the challenge.
We saw arms imported into the North of Ireland, and the whole administration held up, so that that measure could never become operative law. Those who had watched the beginning of that situation with interest, with tense interest, were losing day by day their faith in the efficacy of constitutional action, and day by day a lesson was being burned into their brain by British statesmen, by the Conservative Party of Great Britain and their adherents in Ireland, that direct action was the winning card. If ever man set out to teach people that lesson, the Opposition in the British House of Commons during those years, and their wing on this side of the Channel, seemed to have that end in view. Here was a measure introduced into the House of Commons with a parliamentary majority to back it. Here were people threatening to kick the King's Crown into the Boyne, to lynch British Ministers on London lamp-posts, to smash and trample on their own Constitution rather than have that measure become law.
Then we narrowed on to the war situation of 1914. We had our talk of political dismemberment; we had our talk of partition; we had our conference on the less or more of partition; we had the shelving of the whole issue, the hanging up of the Bill until after the war, when that whole issue was to be re-opened. The horse was to live, and it would get grass after the war. The horse, not unwisely, as I see it, decided that it would have a bid for grass before the end of the war. Someone said, or wrote, that somehow, sometime, and by somebody, revolutions must be begun. A revolution was begun in this country in Easter, 1916. That revolution was endorsed by the people in a general election of 1918, and three years afterwards the representatives of the Irish people negotiated a Treaty with the British Government.
It is on that Treaty won in that way that this State and its Constitution are based and I submit to Deputies it is not wise to suggest that this State has any other origin than those. Let men think what they will of them; let men criticise them and hold their individual viewpoints, but those are the origins of the State. It would be lacking in a sense of truth, in a sense of historical perspective, a sense of symmetry, to suggest that the State has not those origins, but that it is based in some way on the sacrifice of those who followed the advice of the Parliamentary representatives of the day and recruited in great numbers to the British Army to fight in the European War. Fifty thousand Irishmen died in France. I hope that the memory of those men and their sacrifice, and the motives of their sacrifice will always have respect and reverence in Ireland.
In that connection I would like to say that I deprecate profoundly the mentality of either side that would like to make of the 11th November a Twelfth of July. I hope there will always be respectful admiration in the minds of Irishmen and Irishwomen for the men who went out to France and fought there and died there believing that by so doing they were serving the best interests of their country, but I do not want to see the little park in front of this State's seat of Government dedicated to the memory of those who fell in the Great War. To do that would suggest that there is the connection, there is the link, there are the roots from which this State has sprung, but those are not the roots. If it were another park, Fitzwilliam Park, or the park in Parnell Square, my objection personally would be considerably less than it is to the project embodied in the present Bill. You have a division amongst the subscribers; you have acute division amongst the ex-servicemen, and if there were no other reasons these are reasons against proceeding with the Bill; but the reasons I would prefer to give as my own, and the reasons I am authorised to give as the reasons of the Executive Council, are not those but an objection to have this park here, near by the seat of Government, dedicated to that purpose. Other suggestions were made in the Seanad, suggestions that would redound more to the benefit of surviving ex-servicemen. I would consider it presumption to dictate to those who contributed this £40,000, or to the Committee, as to how they should use it, and I prefer simply to take the line that with regard to this particular project my vote must be a negative vote.
