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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 19 May 1932

Vol. 41 No. 15

In Committee on Finance. - Fifth Stage.

I move "That the Bill do now pass."

[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]

We now find ourselves at the Final Stage of this Bill, and again I want to call attention to the phraseology of it. The short title of the Bill is "Constitution (Removal of Oath) Bill, 1932," and the long title of it is—again I want to stress the phraseology—"An Act to remove the obligation now imposed by law on members of the Oireachtas and Ministers who are not members of the Executive Council to take an Oath, and for that purpose to amend the Constitution and also the Constitution of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) Act, 1922." We had this Bill spoken to on Second Reading by the President in the form which I already quoted to-day: that Fianna Fáil had put forward a manifesto to the people of the country and put it forward, he said, in very explicit terms, stating the policy they would endeavour, if elected, to put into operation. The quotation from the manifesto was, that the first item on that programme was to remove the Article of the Constitution which makes the signing of an Oath of Allegiance obligatory on members entering the Dáil. He followed that up by stating that further on the manifesto said:

We pledge ourselves that if elected in a majority we shall not in the field of international relations exceed the mandate here asked for without again consulting the people.

Where are we in regard to this measure? What is it it is held to put in, and what is it it is held to be removing? We started with the idea that the Oath was not mandatory, that the phrase "to be taken" did not imply an obligation, but gave people an option. As the debate went on, and indeed as the correspondence with the British went on, we advanced to other arguments. But we do find in the correspondence with the British that the first Note said that the position of the Government was as stated, that the Oath is not mandatory in the Treaty. The first Note said, in addition to that:

Besides the legal and constitutional consideration there is another and paramount consideration more than sufficient in itself to make the Government's decision final and irrevocable.... The abolition of the Oath was the principal and the dominating issue before the electors.

It continues:

And even if the British Government held the view that the Oath is mandatory in the Treaty they must recognise that such a test and imposition on the conscience of the people is completely out of place in a political agreement between two countries.

The first part of the argument was that the Oath was not mandatory, and the second part was, whether it is held to be mandatory or not, we have got to remove it.

The second paragraph in the third Note of the series climbed down a little bit. It says:

Whether the Oath was or was not an integral part of the Treaty made ten years ago is not now the issue. The real issue is that the Oath is an intolerable burden to the people of this State, and that they have declared in the most formal manner that they desire its instant removal.

Paragraph 5 of that Note says:

The competence of the Legislature of the Irish Free State to pass such a measure is not open to question and has been expressly recognised by the British Legislature itself.

That is a point upon which we had very little if any argument. It continues:

It is the intention of my Government, therefore, to introduce immediately on the reassembly of Parliament a Bill for the removal of Article 17 of the Constitution, and for such consequential changes as may be required to make the removal effective.

I read that because I want again to emphasise that the Bill is to remove an obligation imposed by law, and for that purpose to remove Section 2 of the Constitution Act. That is what was described in the Note as the consequential changes that were required to make the removal effective. How can anybody faced with this phrase, and the particular collocation of clauses in that Bill, argue that the Oath is not in the Treaty, and that the removal of the Oath from the Constitution is not a breach of the Treaty?

The argument changed as the days went on. As far as the Attorney-General is concerned, all that his legal lore was able to bring to our assistance is the analogy with what he assumes was done with regard to the Privy Council. As far as the President is concerned, we have mainly two arguments. One is that if the Oath was ever made mandatory on us, it was made mandatory by Article 2 of the Treaty, and that Article 4 was only put in because the form of Oath is different from what it would have been if there had been reliance upon Article 2 alone. The second argument that the President got to is the one introduced tonight and, as usual, it has two legs. He said with regard to the removal of the Treaty from the Constitution that his purpose was to see that the Treaty would no longer have the force of law in this country, and, therefore, would not be justiciable by our judges. When we came to discuss the last amendment, we were told by our Attorney-General, and his phrase was not denied by the President, but, in fact, was approved of by him, that the Treaty is law in this country because the Constitution Act passed by Great Britain in March, 1922, gripped by Article 73 of our Constitution and consequently now carried into this State is law, and is law which can be interpreted by judges. Which is the argument upon which we are to stand? Which is the argument upon which the case is to be presented to the British?

May I take the first, the analogy of the Privy Council? I do not at all object to what has happened in some respects. Imitation is said to be the sincerest form of flattery, and when the Attorney-General of this separatist Government proceeds to follow in my footsteps I regard that as meaning a compliment, although I would not like to take it as such. It is not necessary to steal my boots in order to walk in my footsteps. If a man puts on my boots and they are too small for him his style is going to be cramped, and if he puts the boots on the wrong feet he is going to find that his constitutional gait is going to be nothing but an ungainly walk. What has the Attorney-General done with regard to the Privy Council? He has made, and stayed upon, a false analogy throughout. I argued previously that the great distinction between the two cases was, that one was explicit and the other, if in the Treaty at all, was only implied. The President's argument against this was that to him the thing being explicit or implied was as the difference between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

The man who could describe his signature as an autograph will not see very many distinctions between things that are implied and things that are explicit, but when one comes to the consideration of a document of an international character these things count. If the Privy Council were ever in our State under the Treaty it was only by constructional effort under Article 2. Even if it were there, it was there with a very definite assurance that the Privy Council jurisdiction was being limited, and, as was said in the first case ever tried before the Privy Council by Lord Haldane, it was becoming more or less as the Dominions chose. We raised that point. When cases were brought before the Privy Council and leave to appeal was sought we did introduce legislation in this House, legislation which the Attorney-General of this State described as the backdoor method of getting rid of the Privy Council. It is a pity he did not fortify himself with the legal opinions on the other side with regard to that. Lord Cave in the House of Lords said that it was a perfectly constitutional action we took in the case of Lynam v. Butler. The records of the Imperial Conference reports are full of the statement. The same Lord Chancellor said to us in 1926 that we had discovered a most effective and ingenious method of removing the Privy Council, and, on a later occasion, when the Bray case came to the consideration of the House of Lords, another Lord Chancellor was found to say that our action in regard to this particular method of legislation was quite in accord with our constitutional rights. Has the Attorney-General got any statement of that type from any British lawyer in regard to what it is proposed to do on the Oath? Although we had those statements we realised that that was not the best way of dealing with Privy Council matters. What did we do? We did not proceed to get a half-hearted opinion passed by the Attorney-General of the State that there were two opinions about these matters and that we could take the one which pleased us. We did not found on such half-hearted statements as that, draft legislation and pass it in the teeth of British opposition. We negotiated during the years prior to 1926 and we got our effects in 1926. We negotiated prior to 1929, and in 1929 and 1930 and up to June of last year there were negotiations and parleys with the British in regard to this matter.

The Attorney-General makes the point to-day that we had presented to us a piece of legislation in regard to the Privy Council similar to what is now before this House in regard to the Oath. I was not here to hear the phraseology he used, but I should like to hear what was the turn that was given to that. We had a piece of legislation prepared by us which was quite constitutional, which was quite in accord with what had been done previously, an Act to enforce the judgments of the Supreme Court in this country, an Act which could have been declared to be constitutional founded upon statements like those of Lord Cave and Lord Sankey and which, if introduced into this House, would have effectively stopped the Privy Council from hearing any case. We wanted to investigate what would happen if we went any further and we did find exactly what is in that Bill, and we concluded that if we brought in a piece of legislation of that sort, even though the cases are not on all fours, and even though the reading of the Privy Council into our Constitution and the Treaty was only by implication—we did make up our minds that if we introduced that piece of legislation the argument might be used that we were committing a breach of the Treaty, and we brought in no such piece of legislation. We decided not to bring in any such piece of legislation, and we proceeded with our negotiations.

As I said previously on the Second Stage, and I repeat it, if and when the President and his Attorney-General can get to the same point almost of unanimity with regard to the disappearance of the Oath from the Treaty or the Constitution as we had got with regard to the disappearance by consent of the Privy Council from our Constitution, then we will give him the full support not merely of the people who are here but of our followers throughout the country.

You would be wonderful and deserving of a lot of thanks.

No, the President would not accept that. He thinks that the best thing to do is to go ahead and the difference between us is clear from that. We want to keep the Treaty and to bring about any modifications that may have to be made in it by consent. The President has no regard for the Treaty. He is positively out to destroy the Treaty. The Privy Council cannot be quoted as any analogy for what is happening here. If the Privy Council is to be quoted, it has to be quoted in regard to what can be done by the process of negotiation with regard to getting ambiguity removed. It can be quoted as an example of how successfully negotiations can be carried on to a very far point indeed.

The President's second argument was that if the Oath was in the Treaty at all, it is implied in the status article, Article 2, and that Article 4 only gives the form. A man, they say, cannot take a libel action against himself, which is a good thing. Otherwise the President might be forced to move in the courts against himself on a particular matter. Article 4 would not be there according to the President, only that if it were not there, Article 2 would have brought in not merely the Oath of Allegiance but the exact Oath of Allegiance which was in Canada. That was the President's argument on a particular stage of the Bill.

He said on the 29th of April:

"On December 3rd, 1921, when the Irish delegates who were sent to London came back to report, and when they brought the latest British proposals to us, I remember there were three or four Articles before they came to the Oath. Then there was the Oath. It was not this form of Oath at all; it was the direct form of Oath that you have in Canada and Australia."

And the President is going to argue at a later stage with the British that Article 2 gave you that Oath and that Article 4 was only necessary because the form was different to what they had in Canada. He can be faced with his own argument, that the final proposals contained Article 2 but did not contain Article 4, exacting the Oath that the Canadian Parliament has to take. What becomes of the argument that Article 4 is only necessary because the form of the Oath is different to what is being taken in Canada?

To-night, as I say, we have got the last argument, the argument that it was necessary to remove the Treaty from being the law in this country, that Treaties are not generally made part of the municipal law, that it was necessary to put this Treaty in the position in which Treaties ordinarily are—something outside the ordinary law, something at any rate that the judges cannot hear and decide cases upon. That may be the stuff to give to the Republican troops. But we have another argument. When the Civil Service question was being debated, and when something in the nature of a restorative had to be given to Deputy Norton, we had the statement that there is a provision in the British Act of March, 1922, and that that is gripped by Article 73 of the Constitution, is consequently the law here, and has not been repealed here. That is the mush to give, not to the Republican troops, but to the Labour camp-followers. These are the two arguments. On which does the President lean? Is the Treaty part of the law in this country as having been gripped by Article 73 of the Constitution when it was passed by the British legislature? Or is the Treaty now repealed from having the force of law by dint of what we are doing here? They have taken, according to the Note, a final and irrevocable decision. And what is it based upon? The President's opening statement on the second reading was that he proposed scrupulously to honour his pledge to remove the Article of the Constitution which makes the signing of the Oath obligatory on members entering the Dáil. He continued:

"We said in the Note that the Article that imposed the Oath, made the Oath obligatory on the members, was not required by the Treaty. That statement was inserted after having given the matter the fullest attention and consideration and having consulted authorities whose views, on account of their eminence, we were bound to consider as worthy of acceptance."

We have not heard who these authorities were, but they are referred to again. The President said at a later stage:

"There is no doubt whatever. Every lawyer I have asked agrees upon that—that we have the right under the Treaty to pass this Bill and to make it law and to take away this restriction."

I do not know whether the Attorney-General is to be considered an authority whose view, on account of its eminence, is to be considered worthy of acceptance, or whether he is merely one of the other lawyers whom the President asked on the subject. And what is the Attorney-General's opinion on the 29th April? Speaking on the 29th April he said:

"First on the question as to whether the Oath is obligatory or not, I admit that there are two views. Any lawyer would be silly on a difficult question which has been discussed over several years to lay down positively that his own interpretation of certain things is absolutely the correct one. I admit that there are two views."

Was that the type of advice that was given to the President by these men whose authority is of such eminence that we are bound to accept it, or was that the opinion given to him by every lawyer whom he asked? Where does the Attorney-General stand vis-á-vis him in this? At any rate, the Attorney-General does state openly in the House, with regard to the point as to whether the Oath is obligatory or not, that there are two views. Further, he says that it would be silly to lay down positively that his own interpretation of certain things is absolutely the correct one. Yet, that being the legal adviser of the Government, the Government decided to write a Note to the British to say that their decision to remove the Oath is final and irrevocable, and that there will be no negotiations about that point. May I say to them that they are wise from one angle, that if they had to parade as their chief legal opinion, after having taken this final and irrevocable step, a man who says that it would be silly to say that his interpretation of a particular thing was correct, and a man who would also say that he had to admit that there were two views, I do not know where the negotiations would be likely to end.

There are going to be no negotiations on this point. That is one thing that is certain. There are going to be no negotiations on this side of this measure becoming law. The President is not going to get himself into handigrips with the British. In fact, I doubt very much if the President on any occasion will get himself into handigrips with the British. When the day comes that somebody has got to get into handigrips with the British that will be the President's day off, a day for his self-inflicted penance, to look into his own soul, a day upon which he will ponder what Lincoln or Wilson might have done in similar circumstances. The President will be an absentee again. It is well, reasonable and good that he should be an absentee if negotiations have ever to be conducted. Look at the position in which the President stands in the eyes of any person who wants to make a Treaty, enter into an obligation or undertaking, or have an understanding on anything. He has told us that he signed the Oath. It was an autograph. He has told us, at any rate, that the Oath was nothing, it was a formula, it was empty. About 400 years before Christ was born a pagan poet said very much the same thing.

"My tongue is sworn," said Euripedes, "but my sould is not sullied by any oath." And a pagan audience laughed a serious play off the stage because of that very phrase. It was regarded as such a remarkable phrase by a comic playwright that he afterwards took it up and it ran as a theme through several of his plays, and the Athenians of a later day, who still were pagan—it was before Christ was born—laughed it off the stage because they regarded is as ridiculous even in a comic play to introduce the phrase, "My tongue has sworn, but my mind is still unsullied by any oath." And schoolboys right down along the ages have chuckled over the folly of that statement. Who is the President to make any agreement with anybody? Leave out anything in the way of the sanctity of an Oath in this matter. Merely put it on the basis of an ordinary contract, a thing that a man signs and agrees to do. Who hereafter would ever, with any security, make a contract with the President of this State? His tongue can swear but his soul will be unsullied by any oath. His signature was an autograph in a newspaper. Governments do not go in for autograph collecting. They go in for getting the signatures of honourable men to agreements which they want decently and honourably observed. This country has had a peculiarly mournful but very interesting and very bright history. The darkest period we ever went through was the period of the Penal Laws, the period when there was sought to be forced on the people of this country when they were out to achieve property rights of any description such things as the Oath of Abjuration, or such things as the Sacramental Test; and men lost all their property rather than submit to that oath, or rather than submit to that test. And we have been fools, we in this generation, looking back with respect to the men who behaved in that way when they decided to forego all their property rights rather than conform to something that did not please them. It was left to somebody in this State to show us the folly of these men. All they had to do was to say something, to sign something, and call it an autograph. All they had to do was to go and conform with all the mental reservations that even the Church people spoke of in these days, and there was no need for what was called perversion, there was no need for hardship on the Catholics of these days. It was left to the person who now leads this State to show us how foolish these people were in these olden days and to show us an easy way out of the difficulties that were then around them. It has still to be said that if he has shown us an easy way, it is not an honourable way of avoiding obligations that the people have taken upon themselves.

I hope that the speech that we have just listened to is the last of the sort that we will have in this country. There are two ways of looking at everything and two ways of looking at things that come up for consideration in this House regarding the relations between this country and Britain. There is the Irish point of view and the British point of view. There are two ways in which the Opposition can act—as an Irish Opposition or as an adjunct to British Imperialism. I hope that the Opposition here to-night on all sides will not allow themselves to be carried away by the bitterness that has been attempted to be engendered, but will act as a real Irish Opposition, and that when a decision is taken on the question of international relations they will act as the Opposition would act in Germany, in France, or in any other country where, although they might differ regarding the actions of the Government at the time, at least, when it was a question between their country and some other country, they would throw their whole weight behind the Government. This Bill had to go through in all its stages. It was a necessary evil, I suppose, after all these years, that we should have discussed it in detail, and that on the Committee Stage the Opposition should have endeavoured to get certain clauses deleted. I deliberately took no part in the debate. I kept out of the House most of the time, because when people say bitter things naturally one wants to say bitter things in return. On a question of international relations I think we should not do that, but should endeavour to do our best to extract the utmost for our country. This Bill was passed en bloc on the Second Reading and was passed section by section on the Committee Stage. Every amendment moved by the Opposition was defeated by a majority vote. This Bill is national policy. It has been passed by a majority vote of the representatives of the Irish people who are entitled to come to this House.

I hope that members of the Opposition will remember some of their phrases and some of their actions of the past. They will remember the words, "the will of the people," and they will remember what actions they felt themselves justified in taking in the name of "the will of the people." Every line of this Bill has been passed by the votes of the majority of the representatives of the Irish people entitled to come here, and therefore should be treated by an Irish Opposition as national policy. Every man jack of the Opposition should throw his weight behind the Government in seeing that this Bill goes through, even though they disagree with the way the Government has initiated it or with the arguments by which it was carried.

To me the removal of this Oath means a great deal. A number of Deputies on the opposite benches will know perfectly well that I did my utmost after the signing of the Treaty to get national unity by endeavouring to get the Oath omitted from the Constitution. They will remember that at the end of the civil war I did my utmost to secure national unity by getting the I.R.A. to agree that if the Oath was deleted from the Constitution and if the Dáil would say that all legal authority and all right to legislate came exclusively from the people they would accept majority rule. I have always held that the civil war was a frightful thing, and I did everything in my power to prevent it. In the last analysis I have held that those of us on both sides were not to blame but were the victims of British policy. Many of the members opposite can vouch for the fact that I am not saying all this now in order to get any support for this Bill, because they will remember a document I sent to the members of the I.R.A. who were serving the Provisional Government on 3rd August, 1922. I suppose the document could easily be changed, but I am going to read it in order to get back the spirit which has been lost to a large extent by the clashes that took place. This is what I said to the I.R.A. who were serving in the forces of the Provisional Government on 3rd August, 1922:—

Comrades,—It is a dark hour in our country's history when we of the I.R.A. are fighting each other and the enemy still unbeaten. In July, 1921, we were the finest military organisation since the Fianna, proud of our cause, our dead heroes and living comrades, confident in the knowledge that our willing sufferings and deaths were bringing our country towards freedom in our generation. In July, 1922, we find ourselves, through the trickery of our common enemy, in two camps, using all our talents and energy in fighting, abusing, and even maligning each other. We are the same men; the difference is, as an old priest said, that war with the foreigner brings to the fore all that is best and noblest in a nation, civil war all that is mean and base.

Now, there is good and evil in all of us. We must cultivate the good, destroy the evil, and rectify our mistakes. At present we are tempted to a dishonourable peace with England. It is not through lack of personal courage that some of our officers would accept the oath of allegiance, but because they are influenced by the fear of terrible sufferings for the country they love. That is our big National mistake, and the cause of the civil war. We must put this mistake behind us and go forward. The degradation and barrier to National Independence which would result from the taking of the Oath to England and acceptance of the Constitution must be avoided. The sufferings and deaths of the past months will not have been in vain if the Provisional Government, and you who are with them, realise the mistake that was about to be made.

Was that before or after the blowing up of the barracks in Dundalk?

Before it. Unfortunately my words were not heeded then, and the civil war came and went. I wish to repeat here that if the representatives of the Irish people have only learned the lessons the civil war should have taught us, then the sufferings and death of the civil war will not have been in vain. Terence MacSweeney said a thing which is worth repeating:

Our enemies are our brothers from whom we are estranged. Here is the fundamental truth that explains and justifies our hope of reestablishing a real patriotism among all parties in Ireland and a final peace with our ancient enemy of England.

We should remember what Pearse said:

Any undertaking made in the name of Ireland, to accept in full satisfaction of Ireland's claim anything less than what the generations of Ireland have stood for is null and void, binding on Ireland neither by the law of God nor the law of Nations.

Terence MacSweeney also said:

We fight for Freedom ... we stifle for self-development individually and as a nation. If we don't go forward, we must go down. It is a matter of life and death: it is our soul's salvation.

I appeal to the members of the Opposition to go forward to-night as the people of the Twenty-six Counties through their representatives have decided to go forward. By a majority of their representatives they have declared for this Bill, and those who fought so long and so hard for the will of the people to operate, I hope will be at least logical and consistent, and say now that this Bill has received the assent of the majority of the elected representatives, they will allow it to go through without further opposition. I hope that when the Oath is gone we will go forward. It is absolutely necessary to get rid of the Oath in order that all shades and sections of political opinion can come in here, and that all questions, social, national and economic should be decided by the representatives of the people without injustice and without violence.

I recognise the restrictions of a final reading debate, and I shall detain the House only a few minutes. I should not like this debate to come to an end without reminding the Government that there is a case against this Bill besides the case based on the Treaty. I cannot expect them to pay much attention to an obscure individual like myself, but, in speaking both on the First Reading and on the Second Reading of this Bill, and in any speeches I have made in connection with it in my own constituency, I have not based myself on the Treaty. I have not even based my opposition to the Bill on the relations between Ireland and Great Britain. My case has not been the same as Mr. Thomas's case, nor has it borne any resemblance to Mr. Thomas's case.

What I should like the Government to do—the speech I have just listened to impresses it more upon my mind than ever—is to try to forget the Treaty and the feelings arising out of the Treaty, and to look on this question like commonsense men, like business men, like men of goodwill. These debates have now dragged on for a long time, and in a few weeks two or three representatives of the Government will be setting out for Ottawa. Why would it not be the natural thing, the decent thing, the reasonable thing, and the friendly thing for them to make a communication now to the other members of the British Commonwealth that they wish to raise a question at Ottawa as to what, in future, shall be the form and the method in which we shall give expression to those obligations of loyalty and friendliness to the other members of that partnership which it is our duty to observe?

I have pointed out in my previous speeches on this Bill that it is not necessary to consider exactly how we got into the partnership of the British Commonwealth. Assuming we are there, why not behave with decency and friendliness to the other parties? What have we to lose by it? Nobody objects on principle to the removal of the Oath if it can only be done in a decent kind of way. The Government would have the support of everybody if they entered into negotiations about it at Ottawa, or if they had entered into negotiations with the British Government. Nobody wants the Oath for its own sake. Nobody attaches any special value to the Oath. I put it to the Government that if they could succeed in getting the representatives of the various Dominions at Ottawa to agree to a common form, or to agree as to what would be the most acceptable expression of our obligations to the other partners, they would have no cause to worry about the Treaty. There is very little doubt that the British Government would be perfectly willing to alter the Treaty in any way acceptable to the general body of opinion at the conference at Ottawa. What is there against that natural and courteous manner of proceeding? I suggest that there is nothing at all against it, except that we lash ourselves into fury with all sorts of bogeys and all sorts of catch-words. Equality! What is the necessity for all this pother about equality? How does the question of equality arise? If a number of friends are sitting round the dinner table, is it necessary for one who wants to assert his equality to put his boots up on the table? Bad manners are not the proper way to assert equality. Nobody has challenged our equality. A conscience test! How much is there in this talk about a conscience test? What exactly is a conscience test? Is it an invention of the brutal British? Was the I.R.A. or the I.R.B. or the Republican oath a conscience test? Let us suppose it was justifiable in these organisations to have a conscience test. But we can point to others. If a visitor goes to listen to a debate in the British House of Commons, he has—at least he had when I was there last time— to sign an undertaking not to make a disturbance. Is that a conscience test? When I was in a business partnership, I had to sign partnership articles and undertake to behave in a loyal and decent manner to my partner. Was that a conscience test? Is every kind of contractual relation in life to be regarded as a conscience test? What about people who go on a visit to America. If you go into the great free Republic of the West, you have always to undergo a conscience test—even if you go only for a few days. The President of the Executive Council must have submitted to that conscience test frequently. Even the most logical and consistent man sitting on those benches—Deputy Breen—must have submitted to it. A person entering the United States, even for a few days, must sign a declaration that he is not a polygamist, that he is not an anarchist, that he is not in favour of overthrowing organised government by force, that he is not in favour of killing any member of any organised Government in the world because of his official position. Deputy Breen signed that.

I did not mean it when I signed it.

It was an empty formula. In face of all these conscience tests cropping up at every turn in life, are we really justified in saying that there is something inherently unreasonable in requiring men who come here to legislate, men who come here to handle the lives and fortunes of their fellow-citizens, to make some declaration of loyalty to the institutions of the State? Is it unreasonable that there should be a certain solemnity about our coming in here? That is on the internal side; and on the external side, bearing in mind our position in the British Commonwealth, is it unreasonable that we should make some kind of promise of loyalty to our obligations as partners in the Commonwealth? For my part, I have no wish to insist that there should be an oath or declaration of any kind, but I do say that if our fellow-partners in the Commonwealth wanted such a declaration that it is absurd to suggest that there is something tyrannical in having it. Let the Government think about what would be decent and reasonable in the way of a declaration and let them try to arrange with the other members of the Commonwealth to have that introduced.

There is a saying of Edmund Burke which all my life has been a source of consolation and hope to me. It is this: "When the thing called a country is once formed in Ireland quite other things will be done than are done when the minds of men are turned to the interests of a Party and when they think those interests provided for by the destruction of everything else." The thing called a country is not yet formed in Ireland and it cannot be formed until we bundle away into oblivion the ridiculous bogeys and catch-cries that do duty for political thought in this country.

What about the Boundary?

Sure the Boundary ! The thing called a country cannot be formed in Ireland until we purge our minds of childishness and purge our minds of malice, and cease to have the impulse to call all those opposed to us traitors, Englishmen, Freemasons, and other things of that kind.

And ex-British officers.

We need to mature and mellow our outlook and set our feet in the paths of kindliness and reason. If only we would really put our minds and our hearts into the task of introducing into Ireland a little of the spirit of Saint Francis of Assisi, I think we would be astonished at the results. I think there is no section of our people, not even the Orangemen of Belfast, whom I know well and whom I fought, and not the I.R.A. or Saor Eire or any other section of our people, who could not be welded into one group and brought into one family in Ireland if we would only allow counsels of reason to prevail, and if we would only change our political atmosphere and get rid of the division of political parties founded on nothing else but bitter memories of the Treaty and the Civil War. It is because I believe that this Bill—whatever the President may say —has its origin in two hatreds—hatred of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party and hatred of England—that I object to it. It is because the procedure that the President of the Executive Council is taking for the removal of the Oath—is just the kind of brutal nationalism and egotism that is denounced this morning in the Encyclical of Pope Pius XI—that I deplore it so much. I beg the Government, even at this late hour, to change their minds and to hold up this Bill until their representatives have been to Ottawa, and behave to our partners in the Commonwealth with ordinary loyalty and decency.

The last speaker has urged that at this stage everyone should throw in his lot with the Government and support them in a national issue. But this Bill is not yet law. I do not know whether it is going to become law; personally, I hope it will not. If an appeal to the Government to act reasonably fails, I would welcome an appeal to the country. It cannot come too soon for me. I do not believe that the country is behind the Government in this Bill. I do not for a moment believe that. I would welcome the giving of a chance to the people to reverse the decision they gave at the last election. I would welcome an opportunity of appealing from Ireland drunk to Ireland sober.

The speech of the Minister for Defence was in tone reasonable, but I do not think it was at all so reasonable in substance. He referred back to the document he issued in 1923. But that document was in substance an invitation to those to whom it was addressed to tear up the Treaty. I am afraid that the Minister for Defence is still of the same mind as he was in 1922 or 1923. In so far as we are concerned, our view about the Treaty is entirely different from that of the Minister for Defence. We do not think that the Treaty was a defeat, and we do not think that there was anything in the Treaty that we need to be ashamed of or sore over. The Treaty represented an extraordinary, and, I would venture to say, an unparalleled victory. I do not think it ever before happened in any country in the world that a great military and naval power surrendered territory which it had held for centuries without having been beaten in the field. And it is well to remember that it was not beaten; that, in fact— and it is no derogation of the heroism of the men engaged in the Volunteers, to say so—that from the military point of view what was done at that time against that power was absolutely negligible.

Surely in these circumstances the Treaty represents a great victory. It was not that we surrendered independence, because we had not got independence. There was not a square yard of our soil that we securely held. It was not that we surrendered a Republic, because except from a propagandist point of view there was no Republic. There was no State here let alone a particular form of State. We therefore surrendered nothing except a claim if you like or a propagandist position. We gained everything material. We gained control of our territory, this Free State territory. We gained control absolutely of our own affairs. The Treaty is therefore for us a great charter of liberty. It is quite different from any other Treaty of peace that a nation which liberated itself might have signed, because in other cases they had driven out the foreigner, either by their own arms or by the aid of their allies. We had no allies to help us, and so far as we got rid of our enemies it was by the Treaty. The winning of the Treaty therefore is something of which we have every reason to be proud.

I believe this Treaty, unlike others, ought to be part of our municipal law. I have heard arguments against judges interpreting ordinary treaties as a part of the municipal law, but this is no ordinary Treaty. This Treaty brought into being a State of which the people have control, a State which they never, as far as one could see, the people whom we were hoping to help us having been beaten in the Great War, could hope to establish; a State which there was not a shadow or prospect of establishing through any efforts of our own. I would like to know, and it would have some influence on all our minds if we knew, what is the attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party —if we had that stated explicitly—in regard to the Treaty. The President declined, as far as I could see, to answer the question put to him as to where we are going. If it is only the question of the Oath, and if the Fianna Fáil Party is willing to work the Treaty and to stand on the Treaty position—if the Oath were gone, if that is definitely their policy—then this whole legislation has a different aspect from what it had in the light of the President's answer, which was extremely dubious.

If the Fianna Fáil Party are prepared to stand on the Treaty position and work the Treaty, there is no need at all for proceeding in this way in regard to the Oath. A great deal of water has flown under the bridges since 1923. Undoubtedly the position of public opinion in England, if no steps were taken to arouse enmity to us, is very different from what it was in 1921-22. The British, through many generations of their history, had had their regiments of troops here and they had some sort of control of the country. Undoubtedly it was a very hard thing for them to give up all they had. A proposal to change the Treaty immediately after the Treaty was signed would undoubtedly have met with resistance and possibly would have involved this country in another round. No proposal for a change of the Treaty would have been entertained.

In minor respects we have seen the Treaty modified on more than one occasion, and if this Government were prepared to negotiate on this question of the Oath I have no doubt they could get very far with it. They might succeed in getting an amendment of the Treaty removing the Oath. I would not be surprised if they were able to get that provided their position was that they stood by the Treaty, and that they accept the place we have in the Commonwealth of Nations.

Why did you not do it?

Because we had no interest in it. We thought that many of the things with which we were concerned when in office were of much greater importance than the Oath. We regarded the Oath as of no importance. We thought the Privy Council, which had a very practical effect in our daily life and a very big influence on the jurisdiction of our courts, was a much more important thing to remove and that the Oath affected nobody. If the Treaty is to be set aside, if the policy of Fianna Fáil is directed to tearing up the Treaty, and if the Oath is the first step, then the Minister for Defence has even gone back on the position that he occupied in 1922.

So far as we are concerned, we think, looking at the matter not merely from the point of view of the economic needs of the nation, but from the broader point of view, that the prospect of the restoration of national unity depends at the present juncture on our maintaining our position in the British Commonwealth of Nations. If we get out of it, whether we deliberately go out and proceed to establish a twenty-six county Republic here, or whether we allow ourselves to get into such a relationship with the other members of the Commonwealth that we are eventually expelled, then in my opinion the country will be facing a very serious situation. If we have a twenty-six county Republic established there is no prospect that at any time we will have a reunion. One cannot see a prospect of anything like that coming about immediately. On the other hand, I deny the statement by the Minister for Finance that there is some sort of a Republican spirit in the North of Ireland to-day to which a Republican policy would appeal. I think there is nothing doing in that respect, nor will there be for some considerable time ahead.

If we maintain our position in the British Commonwealth, there is a hope that at some time ahead, in the next generation say, we may have a national reunion, whereas if we get into the position of having this truncated twenty-six county Republic, whether we deliberately go out for that or blunder into a position where we get ourselves expelled from the Association of which we are now a member, then there is no prospect at all at any time of national reunion. The people of the two parts will be legally made foreigners to each other; they will have to turn their backs on each other and will be forced further from each other day by day.

Would not that be all your fault?

It would not.

I would like to remind the Deputy that he is giving me only a quarter of an hour in which to reply.

I am not desirous of preventing the motion being taken. As a matter of fact, we thought we would have the whole day to deal with this, but other business intervened. I am not trying to talk the matter out. The President wants the Bill and we will not prevent him getting a vote this evening. I think the suggestion that the Minister for Defence made, that we should accept this policy as a wise policy simply because there is a majority, is not one that should be adopted. The suggestion that we should adopt it because there is a majority for the Bill in the House is something that should not be accepted. We think this is an unwise policy. If the Government is going only for the removal of the Oath, then quite unnecessary friction has been caused and unnecessary damage has been done that could easily have been avoided. The Bill is an unwise Bill. If the policy of the Government is to tear up the Treaty and to establish a twenty-six county Republic, then we think that is even more unwise. The fact that there is a majority in the House does not impose any obligation on us to say that the policy is a wise policy or to refrain from objecting to it.

There is no question of a war being on between the British and ourselves. If there was a British invasion of this country, there would be a position created that no matter what we thought about the steps that brought about that invasion, we would have to be on the side of the Government. But there is no war, there is no quarrel, and the British are not interfering with us. Probably our position would be entirely different if the British began to interpret the Treaty in our way and interfered.

We have a new position being created. There was an accepted view and an accepted interpretation of the Treaty. Any changes required from time to time were a matter of negotiation. The Government, from the outside point of view, has now suddenly decided to put its own interpretation on the Treaty, and they are doing so without consultation with the other side. That may provoke a quarrel. If it is going to, or if there is a danger, our duty is to do all we can to urge the Government to stop and to rouse the people through the country to exercise their influence on the Government. We recognise no obligation in the circumstances that exist to refrain from criticism of the Government's policy in this respect, or criticism of their proposals.

There is no obligation at all on us from a national point of view to fall in behind the Government. There is not even at issue a question of any importance for this country. The matter is a triviality and from absolutely every point of view we must persist in trying to rouse public opinion against this proceeding. You cannot get a clear vote on a thing like this. All sorts of things are mixed up with it. While from one point of view you can claim, if you like, that there was a mandate, on the other hand it is perfectly clear that this whole thing was quite a minor thing in the election. There was no commanding mandate, and if there was any mandate, it was a permissive mandate rather than a mandate that would oblige the Government to go ahead on this particular line.

[An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.]

May I put a question to the President?

The President has only ten minutes in which to conclude the debate.

I am entitled to ask this question before the President replies. I want to be quite fair to the President.

The Deputy has his mind made up already, and no matter what the President says it will not change him.

I would ask the Deputy to cease making these interruptions. I want to ask the President is it fair, on a matter of such grave import as the Bill we are discussing, to closure debate? There are numbers of Deputies in the House waiting to make their views vocal on this Bill —their own views and the views of their constituents. I happen to be one of them. I would like, as a representative of the City of Cork, which is certainly not an unimportant city in this State—it is supposed to be the second city in the State ——

Is this a question or a speech?

I am asking the President, who is always ——

What is the Deputy's question?

I am asking the President would he not give a little extra time for the discussion on the Final Stage of this Bill? I think the House would agree to an extra half hour, or even to an hour if necessary, on a matter of such grave import as this. It really means, in my view, a tearing up and a violation of the Treaty.

The President to conclude.

With the time at my disposal I think it is hardly worth starting to meet the arguments put forward. Apparently Deputy Anthony wants us to tear up a domestic Treaty. There has been an arrangement entered into by which we were to conclude on this Bill at 10.30. So far as I am concerned I do not care if the House sits on until midnight or even until 5 o'clock in the morning, but in view of the fact that an arrangement has been come to there is the question whether other members of the House would be prepared to sit after the hour agreed on? The usual arrangement was made, and we were told that we could take the Final Stage of this Bill at 10.30 to-night. Deputy Anthony knows, as well as any other member of the House, how these arrangements are come to. We are not closuring discussion. There is a great deal of other public work to be done. Are we to have these debates going on day after day and week after week without anything new emerging from them— nothing new except what has been gone over a dozen times already? Now the whole issue, so far as this debate is concerned, seems to me to be this: Are we or are we not doing something which is in contravention of the Treaty? I hold that we are not. I hold that the action that we are proposing here, action which I hope the House will take, is absolutely in accord with the mandate which we have asked from the people.

That is questionable.

The Bill is divided into two portions. There is the major portion concerned with the deletion of Article 17, the removal of the Oath; and there is the section which deals with Section 2 of the Constitution Act. The deletion of Section 2 of the Constitution Act is necessary in order to fully safeguard this position because again I hold that the interpretation of an international document is not a matter for domestic courts. So far as I can I want to remove any possibility of that matter being tried before our own courts because in principle they are not the places to try those issues. Therefore the second section of the Bill is necessary as a precautionary measure, apart altogether from any other principle as to the position that an international document ought to occupy with respect to municipal law. We would have had to put it in there as a precautionary measure in any case.

But we have another reason for putting it in, a reason which would justify a special Act for it, namely, the putting of the Treaty in what I call the proper position which the Treaty ought to occupy, if it is, in fact, an international instrument.

Why do you not let us have that Act?

I have given the Deputy the reason why, as a precautionary measure, that would have to be done, in any case, and I say that, over and above that reason, there is the other reason which would, apart altogether from the Oath, justify this being put into a separate Act. I might have been tempted to bring in a separate Act, if it were not necessary as a precautionary measure. It is suggested that if we brought this question before the people they would not have given us a mandate. None of the Deputies have suggested the form in which we would have asked the people. What would we have asked the people for a mandate to do?

To break the Treaty.

That is not the question. There is no question of breaking the Treaty involved here, and no question of whether we are going inside or outside the British Commonwealth of Nations.

Another Document No. 2.

There is no question involved other than the question as to whether, in fact, this is a truth or a falsehood. At the Imperial Conference in 1926 the statement was made with regard to their position and mutual relations. "Their position and mutual relation may be readily defined. They are autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations." What does that mean? It means that we are entitled here in this part of Ireland, to do anything that Canada, Australia or New Zealand could do. If, for one moment, the imposition of an oath upon the members of the Parliaments of these countries was to be a matter of domestic contention, and to cause domestic strife, is there any Deputy here who would say that the Parliaments of these countries could not remove that oath? Of course they could.

I would say that they would have to consult the other parties.

I do not believe anything of the kind. There are two questions involved here, and surely the Deputy ought to have intelligence enough to see the difference between them. The difference is the relation between States as States. That is one question, and we are not proposing to interfere with that. The other question involved is what are to be the domestic obligations of the representatives of the people in a particular State, to the head of the State, if you like? Are these not two separate questions? Of course they are, but apparently some of the Deputies who have been talking cannot realise the difference between the two. They are falling into the same mistake into which some of the British publicists have fallen. They talk about our Act here as if it were an act of severance. It is not, and no sensible person would suggest it is. What are to be the obligations of the individual representatives of the people with respect to the Parliament here, and with respect, if you like, to the head of the State, is a domestic matter for us. That is the position.

Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 77; Níl, 69.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Denis.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Blaney, Neal.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Boland, Patrick.
  • Bourke, Daniel.
  • Brady, Bryan.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Breen, Daniel.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Browne, William Frazer.
  • Carney, Frank.
  • Carty, Frank.
  • Clery, Mícheál.
  • Colbert, James.
  • Cooney, Eamonn.
  • Corish, Richard.
  • Corry, Martin John.
  • Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
  • Crowley, Tadhg.
  • Curran, Patrick Joseph.
  • Davin, William.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • Dowdall, Thomas P.
  • Everett, James.
  • Flinn, Hugo V.
  • Flynn, John.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Geoghegan, James.
  • Gibbons, Seán.
  • Gormley, Francis.
  • Gorry, Patrick Joseph.
  • Goulding, John.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Hayes, Seán.
  • Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
  • Humphreys, Francis.
  • Jordan, Stephen.
  • Kelly, James Patrick.
  • Keyes, Raphael Patrick.
  • Kilroy, Michael.
  • Kissane, Eamonn.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick John.
  • Lynch, James B.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Maguire, Ben
  • Maguire, Conor Alexander.
  • Moane, Edward.
  • Moore, Séamus.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
  • Murphy, Timothy Joseph.
  • Norton, William.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Kelly, Seán Thomas.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • O'Reilly, Thomas J.
  • O'Rourke, Daniel.
  • Powell, Thomas P.
  • Rice, Edward.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sexton, Martin.
  • Sheehy, Timothy.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Walsh, Richard.
  • Ward, Francis C. (Dr.).

Níl

  • Alton, Ernest Henry.
  • Anthony, Richard.
  • Beckett, James Walter.
  • Bennett, George Cecil.
  • Blythe, Ernest.
  • Brasier, Brooke.
  • Broderick, William Jos.
  • Brodrick, Seán.
  • Burke, Patrick.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Byrne, John Joseph.
  • Coburn, James.
  • Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.
  • Conlon, Martin.
  • Cosgrave William T.
  • Craig, Sir James.
  • Davis, Michael.
  • Desmond, William.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • McDonogh, Fred.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • Minch, Sydney B.
  • Mongan, Joseph W.
  • Morrissey, Daniel.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • Murphy, James Edward.
  • Myles, James Sproule.
  • Nally, Martin.
  • O'Brien, Eugene P.
  • O'Connor, Batt.
  • O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.
  • O'Hanlon, John F.
  • O'Hara, Patrick.
  • Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
  • Doherty, Eugene.
  • Doyle, Peadar Seán.
  • Duggan, Edmund John.
  • Finlay, Thomas A.
  • Fitzgerald, Desmond.
  • Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
  • Good, John.
  • Gorey, Denis John.
  • Hassett, John J.
  • Hayes, Michael.
  • Hennessy, Thomas.
  • Hennigan, John.
  • Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
  • Keating, John.
  • Keogh, Myles.
  • Kiersey, John.
  • Lynch, Finian.
  • MacDermot, Frank.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
  • O'Leary, Daniel.
  • O'Mahony, The.
  • O'Neill, Eamonn.
  • O'Reilly, John Joseph.
  • O'Shaughnessy, John Joseph.
  • O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
  • O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
  • Reidy, James.
  • Reynolds, Mrs. Mary.
  • Roddv Martin.
  • Shaw, Patrick Walter.
  • Thrift, William Edward.
  • Vaughan, Daniel.
  • White, John.
Tellers: Tá: Deputies G. Boland and Allen; Níl: Deputies Duggan and P. S. Doyle.
Motion declared carried.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.40 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, 20th May.
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