Last night I suggested it would be well for the House to face the realities in this question and not to be dealing with pretences. Deputies who have spoken on the Opposition side have all been labouring to pretend to themselves, to the House and to the country that the real difficulty in this issue between Britain and ourselves is the waywardness or the wilfulness of the present Government, and particularly my waywardness and my wilfulness. Let us go back a little and see the origin of this dispute, and get the whole thing in its proper perspective. For years before we were returned as a Government we held that the payments, in particular the land annuity payments to Britain, were not due to Britain either legally or morally. We made that case in the country, we made that case here. The case was met by the then Government in the country, and the case was met here and we argued it for something like six years. During all that time the basis of the arguments on the other side was that by the Land Acts, etc., these moneys were due to Britain. Never once in the whole of that time was it suggested that these payments were being handed over to Britain in virtue of an agreement which had been arrived at by the then President of the Executive Council and a British Secretary of the Treasury, Major Hills.
There was, as you will remember, before the election of 1932, an electioneering pamphlet issued at the public expense by the then Government for their side, in which the opinions of eminent counsel were cited as to the liability of the State to pay these moneys over to Britain. But not in the whole of that argument on their side was it once stated that the reason that the moneys should be paid over was because a contract to pay them over had been entered into by the then President of this State. There was reference, undoubtedly, to the Ultimate Financial Settlement, but that was pushed aside. As I have repeatedly stated—I am not going to quote the exact words here—the effect of the brushing aside was that the Ultimate Financial Settlement had nothing to do with the paying over of the moneys, that it was not the basis or the authority for the payment, that the liability, in other words, did not rest on that document at all. All the time the argument was that the liabilities depend on other things—the Land Acts, etc.
That was the position when we took office. We were prepared to meet the British case from that standpoint. We told them in advance by public statements that it was our intention, when we got into office, believing that these moneys were not due, to do what any private individual in similar circumstances would do and that is retain these moneys until it was proved definitely that these moneys were due. We expected that the British, as they afterwards did, would come along with their statement of the case. Mr. Thomas, the then Secretary for the Dominions, noticed that statement of mine and sent us a despatch in which he stated that these moneys were due on the basis of a formal agreement as binding—I think he said as binding as the Treaty of 1921 was, a formal agreement binding in honour and in law on the two Governments. That surprised me somewhat; I did not know what he was driving at, and I sent a despatch asking him if he would be good enough to point out to us what was this formal undertaking or agreement which until that time we had not heard about. To our amazement he sent us back a statement that a certain document was signed in February, 1923, by the then President, agreeing to hand over these moneys, and this was further confirmed by the Ultimate Financial Settlement of a later period.
I asked the Minister for Finance, the Department of Finance and the officers of the Department of External Affairs if they had any record of this famous agreement, and to let me have it so that I might know what its terms were. I got a tattered and torn document which I exhibited on one occasion here to the House, but which has been strapped up with ribbon and tape and wax since in order to try to put it in something like a condition in which it would last. It should have been kept in its original form as an exhibit for all time. It was such a remarkable document that it even aroused the curiosity of Deputy Belton, who wanted to come over and have a good look at it. I called it a thing of shreds and patches and that is what it was. I found it was on the basis of this document, which contained only a single signature, quite unlike any document or treaty or undertaking between Governments that I have ever seen, that it was held by the British that these payments were due to Britain. We had to face then a completely new situation. To what extent were we bound by this document which had been kept secret during all these years from the Irish people? We had been aware of the Ultimate Financial Settlement which had been kept secret for nine months, but this was a case of a document nine years hidden away. Was this respect for treaties? As I mention that, I would say that my regard for treaties and contracts is much higher, to put it at its worst, than the regard for them that the Deputies on the opposite benches, in certain statements that they made, have shown.
I remember the Treaty debates well, and I remember that one of the things I used to contend against on that occasion was the suggestion, which was very common, that this country could enter into a treaty, but that on the day it was signed it could be forgotten, that it was imposed on us, and that therefore it need not be regarded. I admit it was imposed, but I recognised then, and I recognise now that even under that threat, the dire threat of force, when documents like that are signed they are constantly used as an excuse by the opposite party to persist in the threat and to persist in the exploitation, if it is a question of exploitation, to which it seemed to give sanction. I know full well that treaties between nations when they are entered into, even under duress, are very difficult things to get out of. I admit I have always held that there is no moral binding force in a treaty imposed by force. I have given an example here in this House before and I believe it is sound. If somebody or other comes along and takes from me by threat of force something that is mine, let us say my watch, and in order to try to legalise his title to it, compels me to resign my title to that watch, I say if ever I can get a chance by force to come back on that robber, to compel him by similar means to give me back my watch, and also to compel him to relinquish the document he has taken, and to hand me a document by which he surrenders any right that might have been given to him by means of the first document, I shall use that force.
It is obvious, in the case of force, that there is no finality about it. There is no moral right secured by treaties got under threat of force. All of us remember the Treaty of Versailles and the circumstances under which it was signed. I ask all of you who were of age to think at that time, did you not know when that treaty was signed that in it there were the seeds of future wars? So it shall always be, but that does not take away from the fact that when you have documents signed like that, they will always be held up by the party which secured your signature to the treaty by the use of a threat, as a barrier if you ever make an effort to get out of the position into which you have signed yourself. I say, then, I have as high a regard for contracts as our opponents at least. I believe that in everything I have said in public in regard to treaties and all the rest of it, I have tried to set as high, if not a higher, standard. It is precisely because I do not want to see any representatives of this country signing an agreement under circumstances like that again, that I have said if we make an agreement with the British it ought to be an agreement which would correspond to realities as regards the consent of our people.
Then, on every occasion when there was a question of a treaty between ourselves and Britain, I have stipulated as a condition that the treaty should be submitted to our people for their ratification, under conditions which would remove the possibility of threats. I have made the case that it is only under such conditions you can have agreements which will be loyally accepted and loyally fulfilled. If there is any element of waywardness shown in the Bill, it is in our adherence to, and not in any departure from, the letter and the spirit of the idea that contracts which are voluntarily entered into should be carried out honestly and fairly. This document was signed in 1923. Was it a document which was, as Mr. Thomas held, binding in law and in honour on our people? I hold it was not, and I held all the time it was not. It was a document the full terms of which were never revealed to our people. They were not revealed to this House. On the occasions on which there was any reference to such an agreement having been signed or made, there was always evasion on the part of the Ministers who were then in office. When there was a question of its publication for certain purposes in Britain, the Government then in office here refused to agree to have it published.
There was a document, the terms of which were such that it would not be politically convenient for the Executive then in office to have that document published in extenso. Suggestions are made that there was some sort of implied ratification of its contents by means of Appropriation Acts and so on. There again there is a departure from a well-known principle, a principle which was argued in the British House of Commons on one occasion by Mr. Healy, and his arguments were accepted by the then Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith. His argument was that appropriations should not be used except to pass moneys that were already granted by previous legislation. The whole idea that Parliament here is supreme over the Executive, and that it is only by their representatives in Parliament the people of the country can be bound in financial matters, was departed from. That was a well understood principle, but it was set aside.
Accordingly, I say that our people, either through their Parliament or their votes, were never parties to that agreement. I repudiate the agreement and I have always repudiated it on that basis. I say it is not binding. Is it a trifle? Was this matter over which we are talking a mere trifle? Was it something that we could lightly set aside and forget about? What was it? Up to 1931 about five and one-third million pounds a year were paid over to Britain and we got nothing in return for it. It had to be paid by means of produce, of course. We would have to pay it by sending over cattle, sheep or other produce. It had to be paid in that way for a long period of years or else by the way Deputy Cosgrave deplores, by the depletion of our foreign credits. It had to be paid anyhow. What relation does this sum bear to our resources? I have frequently quoted the estimate of the British Treasury, given, I think, by Mr. Baldwin when he was Chancellor—66 to 1.