I agree with the views expressed by Deputy Costello. I disagree with this amendment and I must oppose it. I associate this amendment closely with what is now Section 30 of the Bill which purports to abolish, so far as Irish citizens are concerned, the common status possessed by every one of the King's subjects throughout the British Commonwealth.
I wish to say a few words about the principle and philosophy behind this proposal. The President and his Party accepted here, less than two years ago, a motion declaring that voluntary reunion of the Irish Free State with Northern Ireland should be the principal object of Irish statesmanship, and that every other constitutional issue should be subordinated to that. Although they accepted that motion they have frequently acted in a manner entirely opposed to it. In this Bill they act in a manner entirely opposed to it. They do so without the excuse of their achieving anything at all. What they are putting into the Bill here is just words. The President speaks as if he were saving this country from some form of degradation by declaring that it would be henceforth an impertinence for anybody to allude to us as British subjects. If there is any degradation it does not consist in what people call you. It consists in how you behave yourself. The President is not proposing that measures should be taken to stop Irish citizens from taking advantage of whatever privileges are available as a result of our belonging to the British Commonwealth. He is not even proposing, so far as I am aware, to make a patriotic appeal to them to refrain from making use of such privileges. If he was sincere in this talk of "impertinence" and this implication of degradation, he, surely, would introduce some such legislation or make some such appeal. He tells us that he proposes to change the basis of these privileges, that we are to have in future some sort of reciprocal arrangement—a reciprocal arrangement that can be made with any other country just as well as with Great Britain. I venture to say that that statement was sheer humbug. He knows perfectly well that there is no prospect of obtaining in any other country the privileges that we at present enjoy in Great Britain. He knows, moreover, that he himself is not prepared to offer such privileges to other countries, nor is he, I take it, prepared to offer to Great Britain the full privileges for British citizens that are available for Irish citizens in Great Britain. Even if he were prepared to keep the door on this side as wide open as they keep it on their side, he knows very well that a small and poor country like ours has got nothing equal in value to offer. I ask him to consider what the logical conclusion would be if he were to be taken seriously by the British.