Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Friday, 11 Dec 1936

Vol. 64 No. 9

Constitution (Amendment No. 27) Bill, 1936—Committee.

SECTION 1.

The President

I move: That Section 1 stand part of the Bill. As Deputies will see, the effect of this section is to delete certain phrases from the Constitution and insert others. Looking over the Schedule we have, first of all, in Article 2A, the deletion in sub-section (2) of Section 4 of the words, "Governor-General acting on the advice of the." With this deletion it will mean by the Executive Council. In Article 12 we have the deletion of the words, "The King and." The Oireachtas will then consist of Dáil Eireann. In Article 24 there is the deletion of the words, "Representative of the Crown in the name of the King" and the substitution therefor of the words "Chairman of Dáil Eireann on the direction in writing of the Executive Council signed by the President of the Executive Council." That is the Article dealing with the summoning and dissolving of Parliament. In other words, Parliament in future will be summoned and dissolved by the Chairman of Dáil Eireann acting on the advice and under the direction of the Executive Council signed by the President of the Executive Council. The amendment in Article 41 means that Bills, instead of being signed as formerly by the representative of the Crown on the advice of the Executive Council, will in future be signed by the Chairman of Dáil Eireann and shall become law as from the date of that signature. In Article 42 there is the deletion of the words, "received the King's assent" and the substitution therefor of the words, "been signed by the Chairman of Dáil Eireann." That is consequential on the previous changes. There is also the deletion of the words, "Representative of the Crown" wherever those words occur and the substitution in every case of the words "Chairman of Dáil Eireann." That is with regard to the copies of Bills which will be authoritative copies.

In Article 51 you have the deletion of the sentence beginning with the words, "The Executive Authority" and ending with the words, "Representative of the Crown," and the deletion of the words "aid and advise in the Government," etc., as indicated on the Paper. The effect of that is to leave the executive authority to be exercised by the Executive Council direct. Similarly, you have the appointment of Ministers. Ministers were formerly supposed to be appointed by the representative of the Crown. In a certain way the President was nominated by Dáil Eireann, but in fact and in truth he was elected, so that in fact and in truth there is no difference. I never got, and I do not think my predecessors ever got, anything in the nature of a formal appointment or anything of that sort. It was purely a question of election so far as I have been able to find out. I do not know what happened exactly in the case of my predecessors, but the fact was that the person elected here was accepted at once without question as the President of the Executive Council. He selected the persons he proposed to submit to Dáil Eireann to be members of the Executive Council; Dáil Eireann considered whether they would approve of that Executive Council and, when they were approved, they were supposed to be appointed. I know of no formal act of any kind to say that such and such were appointed. There was nothing to be said for or against it. In fact, it could not be otherwise.

Mr. McGilligan

It was represented by yourself as likely to be otherwise.

The President

It could have been otherwise.

Mr. McGilligan

You said it was going to be otherwise.

The President

It could have been otherwise. So far as I knew it was.

Mr. McGilligan

I am talking about the fog and misrepresentation.

The President

The fog was in everybody's mind.

Mr. McGilligan

Created by yourself.

The President

No, but by the fictions which we cleared away.

Mr. McGilligan

Nonsense. There were never any such fictions except in your fevered imagination.

The President

Are we going to proceed in this way, Sir, or in an orderly manner?

Mr. MacEntee

Deputy McGilligan is suffering from an old maid's disease known as the vapours.

The President

I say that this, like the others, purposes to change into obvious realities what were facts surrounded by a lot of fictions and based on a lot of fictions and theories formerly. The question of extern Ministers similarly is changed. As a matter of fact, we might have deleted that Article altogether except that it would have meant a number of consequential changes and it was thought simpler to deal with it in this way.

Mr. Cosgrave

What Article is this?

The President

That is Article 55. Article 60, which deals with the appointment of the Governor-General, has been deleted altogether. There will be no need for any further provision and Deputy MacDermot, I am sure, will be very happy to know that the waste, as he said, of money will very soon disappear. Then there is the appointment of judges. In fact, up to the present the appointment of judges lay with the Executive Council. This proposes to make it quite clear to everybody and puts the responsibility directly, immediately, openly, explicitly, or any other word you want to express it——

Mr. McGilligan

Without misrepresentation—why not say it?

The President

It is as well to say it. The Deputy on his theories of my action and the basis of it can build up any argument he chooses.

Mr. McGilligan

Without the guillotine.

The President

I think the Deputy's speeches and remarks will read very much better as the result of their curtailment by the guillotine.

Mr. McGilligan

I might return the compliment with a lot of additions.

The President

I have dealt with the main purport of the section. Anybody who has looked over it will immediately realise the purport of these amendments proposed in the Schedule. I repeat that the main purpose of the Bill is to take away any executive functions, direct or indirect, of the King in our internal affairs.

Professor O'Sullivan

I wonder if we have ever listened to such a complete condemnation of the President's policy as we have now listened to from the President. The great efforts of himself and his Party for 14 years culminated to-day "in changing into obvious realities what are facts!" What an achievement for which to have suffered a civil war, refusal to recognise the Dáil, to have had two Dáils functioning at one time, and all the denunciation of everybody and everything, in order to change into obvious realities what were facts!

Mr. Davin

Can you ever forget it? Do not go on repeating it over and over again.

Professor O'Sullivan

I am speaking of the effect of the present Bill, in the words of your leader the President.

Mr. Davin

The history of the civil war.

Professor O'Sullivan

I am not going into the history of the civil war.

Mr. MacEntee

That is one thing you do not want to go into.

Mr. Davin

Try to give it up.

Professor O'Sullivan

The present Bill is the consummation of the Fianna Fáil Party's efforts to change obvious realities into what are facts.

Mr. Corry

That is not what you said this morning.

Professor O'Sullivan

That is what the President said, to change into obvious realities what are facts—a marvellous achievement! What advance have we made in freedom except to get rid of a little verbiage, according to the President? The facts will not be changed. As the President knows and believes, in the time of some of his predecessors all the things that he now proposes to do were always, in reality, facts. What is all the pother about? What is this all about? This is the great achievement: to make this Bill palatable to people like the Deputies opposite! Is that the purpose of the Bill? Is it to throw dust once more in the eyes of the people under the excuse of removing misleading verbiage, and in order to change into obvious realities what are already facts? Every Schedule the President read out was an admission that there was no increase in the power of this State by what was being done—not a single new power in the State. We were told we were summoned to discuss something arising out of the abdication of the King. I have read the Bill, and I do not know whether or not, when we pass it, Edward VIII will have to be considered as having abdicated in this country. I do not know, and even the President, when addressing some sarcastic remarks to Deputy MacDermot, did not make it quite clear whether we have still a Governor-General. I gathered that we are to have him for a short time. Whom does he represent? Can anyone tell me?

Mr. Davin

The Opposition.

Professor O'Sullivan

I suppose the Deputy is compos?

Mr. Cosgrave

He is after dinner.

Mr. Davin

I did not get it yet.

Professor O'Sullivan

Whom does the Governor-General represent?

Mr. Bennett

Deputy Davin.

Professor O'Sullivan

We are told he is still there. Does he represent King Edward VIII or the new King? This Bill does not make it clear. How could a Bill like this make it clear? The President confined himself to reading out certain Schedules which are plain to anyone who has had time to look at the Bill, but he did not explain the effect of what he was doing. The speech proved one thing up to the hilt, that this nation has been—and was when the present Government took over command—a sovereign State; and that he has not added one whit to the sovereignty of the nation. Nothing that is proposed to be done here does that. The President does not even pretend it does. It is a question of formality. What for? This nation has suffered, and apparently is going to suffer, from the inability of the President to understand constitutional issues, the value of constitutional machinery as distinct from legal forms. To him legal forms are much more important, it was quite evident from the President's explanatory statement—if I may so call it— than realities, though apparently the legal forms can make obvious realities what are already facts!

A Deputy

Is that English?

Professor O'Sullivan

It is an excellent phrase. I rarely heard the President's policy summed up so well as in that phrase. The country has suffered very seriously from that inability of the President to understand the value of a constitutional instrument as distinct from mere legal forms. I believe that in this Bill, and possibly in to-morrow's Bill, which I cannot discuss now, he is going to sacrifice realities for legal forms. We are going to be left less free on account of his passion for legal forms, in order to remove verbiage so as to make out facts to be facts! That is the situation we are asked to approve of by voting for this Schedule. I asked the President, and he has not made it clear, why the Governor-General exists even for a short time. Whom does he represent during that short time? Does he refuse to answer? Is he not clear on the issue? Does he know the purport of the Bill in that respect? Quite true, the Governor-General exercises no functions, but it obviously follows from the statement of the President that though he exercises no functions he is still Governor-General of this State. What has the President done as regards the King? He has taken out all his functions but is he providing that he is not King any more than he is providing that the Governor-General is not Governor-General. We are in a rather peculiar position. We have the Governor-General without functions still remaining the Governor-General. I suggest in the same analogy we will have King Edward the Eighth without functions still remaining King Edward the Eighth as far as we are concerned.

For a certain function for which we are going to provide to-morrow we shall have another King. Naturally, one is not enough for the Party opposite. They want two Kings! We are getting rid of machinery, of certain constitutional fictions, as, I presume, the President would call them, fictions that he confesses have no reality so far as this State is concerned. and that have not interfered with our freedom. We are getting rid of these fictions and we are going, or we may be tempted, to put in their place something far more dangerous to our liberties and our freedom, something that might bind us more definitely and clearly. We are going to sacrifice realities for fictions. That is the position we are going to get into. Notwithstanding what is urged in certain quarters, this State did make considerable progress in the way of real liberty between 1922 and 1932 in home affairs, and in foreign affairs, as the President knows and also in reference to the Governor-General and his status and functions. There was real progress. That cannot be denied. It was obvious to anyone who had an understanding of the vitality of an instrument like the Treaty that that development was inherent in it. Does the President's constitution develop that further? There was no necessity for any misrepresentation. The President acknowledges that it happened. Anyone who reads the President's statement of the "tremendous" thing he is doing to-day, and compares that with the liberty won, and the achievements between 1922 and 1932, will see that the balance is altogether on the side of the achievements between 1922 and 1932 and that what we are doing now in so far as it is not dangerous, is a mere bauble in comparison with what was done between those years, when every real advance to liberty was opposed, criticised and carped at by those who now admit that the real facts of the situation were that we had liberty and untrammelled liberty.

Mr. Cosgrave

We were told in the course of the Second Reading speech for this Bill that there were two reasons for the introduction of the measure, and consequently for the various Articles set out in the Schedule. One explanation was that if in practice and reality they were to take responsibility for Bill No. 2 they were not prepared to do so unless they had Bill No. 1, which makes quite clear the functions of the King. We must distinguish in connection with this matter what are described as the functions of the King, on the one hand, and the existence of the King, on the other hand. In the case of the unprecedented introduction of two such measures as these, we must consider whether what is proposed to be done will be an improvement upon the existing state of affairs. Judged by that standard, we have to shake our minds free from the entanglements of the slave-mind which appears, so far as one can judge, practically to dominate the majority of the members of this House. Are we at liberty to consider what are the best methods of providing for the government and control of this country? If we are, is the scheme before us the best that can be conceived at this particular moment? Ought it not to concern us, just at the present time, whether another nation is in great travail?

If we pride ourselves upon our Christianity, we should, at least, have that natural sympathy which one people ordinarily has with another and regret the circumstances which have arisen and which presented us with the question before us now. What we must consider, whether we like it or not, is that Parliament here has the responsibility of standing over whatever decisions it comes to and that, if a deliberative assembly is going to enact provisions for the proper control and government of this country, it ought to do so on the actual value of these proposals and not because of some events that have happened in our own lifetime or in the lifetime of our forefathers for which we wish to take revenge or assert our present independence. Judged by that standard, the alterations proposed to be made are no improvement upon the state of affairs which has existed up to the present.

When this Parliament re-assembled three or four years ago, there were three parts in the Oireachtas—the King and two Houses. There is now left one House. When this measure passes into law, there will be no outside individual to put his name to a measure. It rests absolutely at the whim of the majority in this House to change the Constitution and the law inside a seven and a half-hour's sitting. We are told that this is democracy. Is it not a mockery of democracy? Who outside a lunatic asylum could stand for it except he were dominated by a majority such as there is in this House? In a few years' time will any Deputy be able to look back with pride on what we are doing to-day and say that this change represents an assertion of greater independence than we had before? What do we mean by the first Article of our own Constitution in which we accept membership of the British Commonwealth? Are we honest in our acceptance of it? Is it the spirit of the thing or the letter we are bothering about? Are we really friendly with South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain? If we are, it is the spirit of the thing that matters and not the tattered remnants of this Constitution, as it will be decimated.

What is the position with regard to this Bill? We are to have the Dáil dissolved and assembled by the President of the Executive Council and the Chairman of the Dáil. I presume that no Party outside this House is going to challenge one or the other of them, assuming that the President of the Executive Council advises the Ceann Comhairle to dissolve the Dáil even though he has not got a majority in the House for the purpose. When I was on the opposite side, I was often told: "You will not be always there and recollect that what you are doing now may be done by those who will come after you." The majority here at the moment may content themselves with their self-sufficiency, their self-confidence and self-adulation but remember that the headlines they are setting this House to-night will be the subject of consideration by future Parliaments. It is not in any spirit of mere opposition we draw attention to these matters. What is the Constitution of this State going to be when this Bill is passed? Can anybody say what it will be like? After 14 or 16 years boasting of our independence, of our non-subordination to any other country, of our equality with those other countries, is there a Statute Book in the whole British Commonwealth that can compare in complexity with the Statute Book we have for our single House, notwithstanding our squeamishness about democracy?

This measure is one which the members of this House will live to regret. There is neither genius in it nor construction. It has not even the semblance of what some people will probably apologise for; it is putting the King outside the Constitution and leaving him in the State. As somebody said, they are not satisfied with even one King. We have the most royal set of republicans in this country anybody has ever known, and they have served faithfully under three kings.

The President

Perhaps I may intervene again, as we have the privilege on Committee Stage to do so. It is very interesting to notice the changes which can suddenly come in debates on one subject. This morning we were being threatened from every direction as to the terrible consequences of what we proposed to do. I should like to put side by side the speech Deputy O'Sullivan made a few hours ago and the speech he has made just now. If they were put side by side, these speeches would show at once how play can be made with all this fog and fiction that existed. At least, there will be clearer thinking when these Bills are through and our people will clearly understand what the position of affairs is. They will not be subject to threat by people who were very strong at certain times in their statements about the liberty they had. The moment the people were going to exercise that liberty, even to the point of getting rid of the symbols, then we were threatened that we were not free.

References to the "slave mind" come very badly from the opposite benches because the whole of the arguments of these Deputies to-day were quite inconsistent with any belief in their own freedom or right to do certain things. We are doing these things because we believe we have a right to do them. The same threats that were used when the Oath of Allegiance was about to be put aside, and the same threats that were used, to a certain extent, when we were making other changes, because we did not go into negotiation, were repeated to-day and repeated with just as little foundation as on the previous occasions. The great legal experts who told us what we could do and what we could not do were all proven wrong in the end. We did not hear much, when put to the test, regarding the effects of the threats made in the other House as to the legal consequences of what we were doing. What we are doing now will establish a position which will make for better relations, because these relations between the people of this country and people elsewhere will be clearer. By these Bills, we are laying a foundation on which it will be possible to start at the beginning and establish relations in which all the friction that occurred, just because of these symbols and this fog and misrepresentation, will disappear. It will be possible to do that when these Bills are passed, and it will never be possible otherwise. With regard to the Six Counties, we were prepared in 1921 to make certain concessions to the minority if they were prepared to come into a united Ireland at that time. There is a limit, obviously, to the concessions that the majority of the people down here ought to be asked to make in order to bring in the people from the North. We are laying the frame-work into which they can come if they want to. It shows the utmost limit of our concessions. If, after a certain time, they do not come, the Irish people will constitutionally be at liberty to take any other line of action they please.

Mr. Cosgrave

We are told that we are doing this because we believe that we have the right to do it. Is not that magnificent? If there is no better justification than that for this measure, does it not absolutely prove the petulancy that surrounds this whole business. Let me admit at once that I am just as ignorant of constitutional law on this question as the President. I am not concerned with that, but what I am concerned with is that if there be a case when either one of two parties to a Treaty says to the other that he has broken it, it is for the two parties in question to settle that between them. It is not for an outside party to decide whether one or the other has broken it.

What is the view of the opposite Party on the Treaty? Are they standing for it and for its normal development here? I am not concerned now with legal interpretations or with constitutional law. I am concerned with the right of one person to say to the other, "You have broken it," and of the other person to say "I did not," and for the two of them then to come together and hammer out between them an agreement for a new Treaty to settle the question once and for all.

The President

As regards my attitude towards the Treaty, it has been expressed thousands of times in this House as well as out of it, and in despatches to the British Government which have been published. That Treaty, as far as I am concerned, was imposed by force, and it imposes no moral obligation on the Irish people. But leaving that to one side, the question is whether the actions which we are taking can be construed as breaches of that Treaty in itself. I say they cannot. We have heard here to-day two or three different interpretations of the Treaty. One set of Deputies want to say that the Treaty is to be interpreted practically as it was when it was signed, and under the conditions under which it was signed. Then we hear of constitutional advances in 1926 and in 1931. I want to say with regard to these that they were hardly made when I was one of the first to admit that these did constitute a tremendous advance in regard to the position in the Free State. I was one of the first to admit it. The moment the Governor-General ceased to be the instrument of what, in fact, was the Crown, of the British Cabinet as was shown up to that time—the moment that he ceased to be the instrument of the British Cabinet and became subject to the advice and authority of the Executive Council here, his position was completely changed. That is true. I admitted it at the time and spoke of it here in the Dáil. Similarly there was an advance from one point of view at a later stage, not because the Statute of Westminister ran here, but because fundamentally it showed and was a declaratory recognition as far as they were concerned that they had no right to interfere and legislate anywhere.

I would not be here bringing in these Bills at all if it was not that I felt it to be my duty to see that whatever was in the situation, as long as we were here anyhow, would be maintained. From the day on which I came into the Department of External Affairs, although we came into a situation with the creation of which we had nothing to do, one of the things that I set out for myself was that if we were not able to make a definite advance I was, at least, going to leave the situation in such a position that, if my predecessors came back into office, they would not find, from their point of view, at any rate, a worse position to deal with. That has been my attitude. There is no one here who has had anything whatever to do with the Department of External Affairs who will not admit that it is very important from our point of view that this situation should be clarified. They ask what advances we have made. I say that by the choosing of our symbols and the exercise of our rights, by our standing on the theories that we hold and standing on them against the theories that are held by people elsewhere, we are asserting our liberty and making advances. The symbols will be here after this.

I am not saying that this is going to be our permanent Constitution. I have proceeded in this way because I would not take responsibility for bringing in this Act No. 2 unless I put it in conjunction with Act No. 1, which was going to clarify a situation and clearly define the extent to which the King was going to be used in our regard.

Mr. Cosgrave

We have just listened to the statement that the Treaty imposes no moral obligation on the Irish people. That would come better from people who had made a better instrument than the Treaty, and it is the duty of the President, if he has that in mind, to make such a Treaty. What is the position of the Irish people with regard to the Treaty? They pronounced their opinion on it four or five times, and even the President did not invite them to repudiate it on the last occasion.

Mr. McGilligan

I understand that the person in commercial life who can find any means for dispelling fog will make a fortune. There may be the same fortune awaiting the person who can find the means of dispelling fog in regard to constitutional relations. When I was being educated one of the greatest deities presented to me for my edification had always attached to his name the descriptive epithet "cloud compeller." I see his facsimile in front of me, the man who has generated all this fog about constitutional relations, the President who got men killed in this country by reason of the fog that he generated, and who now recants certain of his statements. He does admit now that there were advances made, but he did not say that when he was here on this side.

The President

I did.

Mr. McGilligan

The Vice-President said that he regretted saying it because it made the position more acceptable.

The President

I repeat that I made the statement.

Mr. McGilligan

I repeat that it was not made here.

Mr. Brady

It is like the Deputy to say that.

Mr. McGilligan

I would like to get the occasion on which it was said and any documentation that there is of it. We are used to these statements by the President without documentation, but we have not yet found one to be accurate. The President made the point that certain people speaking to-day said that what was being attempted in these Bills was dangerous. I repeat that. Having said that, I say what we have here is the removal of symbols. Is there anything contradictory? We are accepting certain association. We say we do. Is there inherent in that association the acceptance of certain symbols? I say there is. Do those symbols operate adversely on the Irish people? Do they prevent the representatives of the Irish people being as free in their movements, legislative and executive, as the Government of any other country? I say there is no impediment. They are, in fact, symbols, but they are also the sign of our association in a very valuable community. There is no contradiction in calling these matters symbols and saying there may be threats used against us and something disagreeable in the way of circumstances put upon us because we remove those symbols; there is no contradiction whatever. But there is this to be said, that the President did as much as a man might do—I think malevolently—to dissipate through this country this fog about the situation, that these were not symbols, that they were effective handicaps upon the people. We know the documents that were issued under the President's authority telling us that what might be the constitutional law and practice in Canada, so many thousands of miles away, would not be the law and practice here. The President fought the Treaty on the ground that the freedom it offered was not real freedom. He now tells us that it is merely symbols that we are clearing away. I say they were always symbols; for years past they were merely symbols, since 1926.

The President

There is a difference of six years between 1921 and 1926.

Mr. McGilligan

Certain of them began to be cleared away in 1926. But could we not go through the whole litany of the amazing list of hidden powers the President saw in the Treaty and in the Constitution founded on the Treaty? Was not there a bogey in every line? We took the ones that emerged, particularly ones about which theorists and publicists had commented, and we got a distinct clarification of the new position. We got the phrase used "the new position." Certain people held it was the old position, but we knew that certain principles might often be stated and there might be an attempt to get behind them and operate them in an adverse way. We knew that the President was going to get his propagandists to work in an attempt to prove that what we knew were symbols were, in fact, definite powers that could be brought into sway to prevent the people functioning in the way they wanted to function.

What is being done, we are told, is the removal of certain things which in no way impede the free exercise of the people's will through governmental institutions. But the removal of these symbols may operate to drive us from an association in which I, for one, want to remain. The President has told us it is not his intention to sever the connection. He may succeed in doing it; he may be excluded. He has told us of threats. He said there were threats about what might happen after the Oath had been removed. I do not remember definite threats being made, but I remember warnings of the type now being given, were then given. What were they? That the British might think what was being done with regard to the Oath was a breach of an agreement. They have done so. We said the British might seek in some way to penalise the people for what was being done. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, in an article written before the 1932 election, said that that was rubbish. It is no rubbish whatever.

Can the President deny that there are in force against us at the moment certain penal duties on goods that flow out of this country to Great Britain, goods that must go there because we have no other opening for them? Is the keeping on of those penalties the result of the breach of a political agreement? I say it is. A Deputy asked the question: If there was no threat, no operative threat against us by the British, why was not the economic war brought to a conclusion?

Mr. Daly

It will be settled now, after this.

Mr. McGilligan

The Treaty was imposed upon us, the President said. He told us it has no moral force. Possibly not, in his opinion. It has no legal force, according to the President. Then why does he fasten on to it still? Is it still in operation?

Mr. Donnelly

Very little of it.

Mr. McGilligan

Is there any part of it in operation? The President says it has no legal force. Has it? I can understand people who will say in a straightforward way "This is a bad settlement; it was forced on us and we will have none of it." What I cannot understand is the attitude of those who say "We will work this" and in the next breath they tell us that it has no legal or moral force. They accept it and work it but it has no force.

I want the President to face up to the precise question put by Deputy O'Sullivan: Is the abdication of King Edward recognised in the two measures before us, and, if so, where? Is there a specific clause which recognises that abdication and, if so, which is it? Is it asserted that the cumulative effect of the first measure, or the first and second measures, is to agree to the abdication of that person? Surely we can have that answered? The second Bill, for the first time in the history of this country, does two things. It says that the Act of Settlement is Irish law. If it is, it is not so declared. It is not declared to come into existence merely by the passage of to-morrow's Bill. I take it the President's mind is, as disciplined by his legal advisers, that the Act of Settlement is law in this country at the moment. If so, a certain individual rules in this country under it. How do we oust him? What clause removes him? The Abdication Bill has been signed in England to-day. Who will the Governor-General represent? Who will sign this Bill? Will it be the Governor-General as the King's Irish representative—will he sign it?

The President

As King Edward VIII.

Mr. McGilligan

That Bill, therefore, does not remove King Edward VIII. It is going to be sent to the representative of King Edward VIII. Where is the removal clause in the second Bill? Surely the situation is what appeared to be put facetiously, that to-morrow night we will have in this country apparently a Governor-General without function, Edward VIII King, but without function, and the new King with a limited function. We have, we are told, a multiplicity of civil servants in this country, but to get to the point where we want a multiplicity of regal personalities is carrying the joke a bit too far.

The point is one that admits of a precise legal answer. I had thought the answer that might be given would be that this Bill, the first Bill that we are discussing, by removing all kingly functions, might have been alleged to remove the King, any kings, all kings, and into that gap to-morrow we will put a new King for a limited purpose; but I am told that is not the situation, that the Bill does not remove King Edward. The President assented to that, that the Bill does not remove King Edward. Does the other Bill do it? We will certainly have to get that matter explained, if not in this debate, certainly in the other.

The President is very anxious that whether there be advances or not by him he will leave his successors in no worse position. I alluded to that to-day. The people of this country might be left in a worse position by either of two sets of circumstances operating. There might be something new brought into a constitutional scheme, something new brought into law which would have an effect not of a limited duration. But there might outside that be engagements and commitments entered into by a Government, which could not be removed by a new Government. Does the President say that what is now being done on our west coast has nothing to do with defence and has nothing to do with the British Islands' defence? Does the President say that his remark that this country would never be used as a stepping-off ground for enemies of England against England means no commitment?

The President

No.

Mr. McGilligan

Does the President tell me that our operations under what used to be called the all-red route, what used to be regarded for the purposes of a steamship service and is now regarded from the aspect of an aerial service, mean no engagement with the British?

The President

No.

Mr. McGilligan

The answer is "no", but the facts speak to the contrary. I have heard people arguing about the Treaty and what are the good terms and the bad terms in it. I know there is a school of thought which holds that these Articles which allow British maintenance parties to be in possession of certain parts of our coasts are the worst parts of the Treaty because they give an enemy in time of war at least this, a legitimate excuse under international law for attacking us. Does the President say here that his new engagements in regard to the wireless matter on the West coast, and his engagements with regard to the aerial service, do not give an enemy a better opportunity or a better excuse for attacking us in time of war? If he does, he speaks without any knowledge of history as apart from law. But in law, there is also an advance, or a retrogression. The President, if he left office to-morrow, will not leave a situation as unembarrassed to his successor as the one which he got.

I do not know what the President means by his references to the Statute of Westminister. Nobody here asked that it should be enacted in this country. It was a British Act. It was to clear up British doubts and to prevent British judges holding a certain view which they might otherwise have taken in regard to certain constitutional relations; but there is this, apart from the Statute of Westminister, that the President, by the Bill we are to discuss to-morrow, does say that the Act of Settlement is Saorstát law. Under its operation, a certain person reigns at this moment. When does he stop and by reason of what clause in either of these two Bills?

I am sorry that Deputy MacDermot has gone. He intervenes in this House occasionally to read to the Deputies of this House lectures as to what happened in the years during which he was regrettably an absentee from this country. There is a phrase used in one of the newspapers this morning with regard to the tragic incident, or the incident which developed so tragically, in England. It was a classical quotation—mulier peregrina vertit in pulverem. The peregrina touch suits Deputy MacDermot. If Deputy MacDermot had his feet more often on the soil of this country and gave a little more time and attention to the recent history of this country, he would find it impossible to make the statement he made here to-night that there was no advantage gained between the years 1922 and 1931 in our arrangements by treaty with Great Britain and our constitutional proceedings here. I cannot speak any further about him in his absence, but let me say that that speech proceeds from a depth of ignorance which I thought I had previously plumbed, but to which I now realise the impossibility of getting.

General Mulcahy

The President says there will be clearer thinking after all this is over and he also prided himself on the position he occupied in that, whatever he did, when he handed over to somebody else to follow him in the office of President of the Executive Council here, no harm would have been done. On the question of clearer thinking, the President certainly left nothing undone, in my opinion, to get clear thinking on one particular aspect of what he is doing, because on no fewer than eight occasions in speaking here to-day he said that what was being done by this legislation was showing what the true position in this country was. He charged Deputies on this side of the House that they could never have believed what they said with regard to the freedom we possess in this country or they would not oppose what he is doing here. He said that we should welcome it as showing what the true position is. Again, he said that in these two Bills "We are giving expression to the position as it is to-day." For the third time, he said: "This is making clear what is the fundamental position in practice"; for the fourth time, he said: "We propose to continue the King for the functions which he in fact directly exercises"; for the fifth time, he said: "From the King is being taken away any function, direct or indirect, in this country"; for the sixth time, he said: "What we are doing is clearly setting down what the conditions are so that there can be no misrepresentation of them"; for the seventh time, he said: "The effect of it is to eliminate the King from all these Articles of the Constitution which seem to give him functions here in our internal affairs"; and for the eighth time: "The fact is that we are making clear the position as it is."

Here we have a position in which he says, in his own phrase, which Deputy O'Sullivan has emphasised, that he is making no change, that he is providing us with a written law which states exactly what the position is. Much has been suggested as to progress made between 1922 and 1926 and between 1926 and 1929, but I would ask the President, or any of the persons who were associated with him in his fight against the Parliament set up here in 1922, and in his absentee attitude to the Parliament that existed here up to 1927, where is there any function that the King had in this country in 1923 that he had not got in 1935? The President said that he was not prepared to introduce Bill No. 2 unless Bill No. 1 went along with it. Bill No. 1 is simply a piece of the fog the President complains about, introduced as a kind of cover to keep off his flank the criticism of people like Seán Russell outside and certain members of his own Party whom his own misrepresentations of earlier years drove to fight against this Parliament, to repudiate its authority and to adopt the attitude which they continued of misrepresenting its sovereignty and its powers to the people until they got into office themselves.

What was all the past about? If the position is as the President states to-day, that this tells us what the position exactly is, the clearing up that was done in the past was certainly not the clearing up and the stopping of any actual powers of interference on behalf of the Crown in this country, because I again challenge the President, the Attorney-General or any of his Party to say what powers the Crown had in this country in 1923 that it had not in 1935. Deputy Donnelly says that the plans and policies affecting union with the North, etc., that were good enough nine years ago are not good enough now. I am sure they are not because Deputy Donnelly will remember that nine years ago the present Minister for Finance and the Minister for Industry and Commerce were examining the situation for the purpose of informing the Vice-President, who was then in America, and strengthening the hands of the Vice-President in America for the purpose of getting money out of the American people. They were examining the military situation here and the military situation here was that Deputy Donnelly and the President had only 15,000 men. There was the Free State Army of 18,000 to be beaten and then the situation had to be consolidated here. There was an army of 30,000 Specials in the North to be beaten, and five battalions of infantry, and then there was the British Army to be taken on, and as a result conversations and deputations to Russia to gain military experience were being arranged.

The present policy is a milder one. According to Deputy Donnelly, it is a happier one; it is a more powerful one, even though he found out from some of his Unionist acquaintances in the North of Ireland that what was wrong with Fianna Fáil policy in the eyes of the Unionists, and what was keeping them from getting more Unionist help, was its mildness. I should like to know from Deputy Donnelly—he has a different plan from this—how many degrees east of this proposal and how many degrees west of the Russian and 1925 proposal his plans go.

Mr. Donnelly

What about the Deputy's own proposals?

Mr. MacEntee

What about the pro posals of 1922? Tell us about some of those now.

General Mulcahy

We would be very interested to know what the better proposals are for bringing in the North of Ireland.

Mr. MacEntee

As the Deputy is on his feet, he might tell us about the mutiny of 1923 also.

General Mulcahy

We should like to hear the Minister for Finance both on the constitutional aspect here, and on the difference that exists de facto between the position in 1936 and 1935 and the position that existed in 1922.

Mr. MacEntee

As the Deputy is on his feet, we would be very anxious to hear the difference between the Deputy's plans in 1922 for an armed incursion into the Six Counties and the proposals he has been discussing for 1925. We should also like to hear the Deputy tell about his part in the Army mutiny in 1923.

General Mulcahy

We are told by one of the Minister's back benchers, the only one outside the President, who perforce had to speak, the only one who voluntarily opened his mouth, that he has a better plan for bringing in the North than the 1925 plan.

Mr. MacEntee

Or the 1922 plan of Deputy Mulcahy.

General Mulcahy

The point I am bringing out is that whereas we had grave destruction in this country, loss of life and repudiation of Parliamentary institutions, with all that followed in their train, there was no ground for them according to the President to-day. Eight times running he tells us that these proposals here are to show what the position actually is at the present time. I challenge the President and his followers to show what difference exists between the position of 1936 and 1935 and the position of 1923. Again the President says that he is going to leave this country in no worse position than he found it. One thing that makes me almost speechless, in face of the antics of the Fianna Fáil Party, is the tragic occurrences that have happened in this country without any of the excitement of special meetings summoned by telegram, without any guillotine to push Government proposals through the Dáil for alleviating the position. We had the position disclosed, a position that was perfectly known to the Ministry, of a fall in agricultural production of £25,000,000. We had the revelation when the census returns were issued this year, that the population of this country was 50,000 below the figure they expected it to be. We had also disclosed, a couple of weeks ago, the enormous rise in emigration from this country. These figures show that 36,000 people emigrated from this country in the first nine months of this year. We had that fact unexpectedly disclosed by the British Board of Trade Returns but there was no special summoning of Parliament to deal with it.

As Deputy Fagan pointed out, the question that is affecting this country more than anything else, is the sufferings our people are undergoing as a result of the economic war. These conditions are forced on this country simply because of the political antics of the Fianna Fáil Party. The political antics of the Fianna Fáil Party in introducing measures like this, are antics which, while they are not of the same kind, have the same effect as the antics of 1922 and 1923. Their antics in 1922 and 1923 involved this country in destruction amounting to £30,000,000 as well as loss of life. Their antics in connection with the present proposals and their policy for the past few years have cost this country £25,000,000 by the fall in agricultural production. Their policy has resulted in a loss of 36,000 people to this country in the first nine months of this year. The loss has been increasing every year since they came into office. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has before him to-day with the exception of those for one industry, namely, coach-building—and he has probably the figures for that too—the results of the Census of Production for 1935. After four years of intensive efforts with all the machinery of an absolutely free and sovereign Parliament to develop industrial production, all the increase he can show in net output is £2,500,000. That return is inflated by bounties on bacon, woollens and linens sent abroad.

He knows that in the three years from 1926 to 1929 when, according to the Fianna Fáil Party from front bench to back bench, there was a Government in this country that could do nothing for the country, there was a net increase of £1,500,000 odd in industrial production. So that in three years, in a normal way, under conditions in which you had a natural growth in the country, you had an increase in production of £1,500,000. After four years of intensive work by the present Government, with a squandering of State money in all directions, inflated as the amount is by fictitious figures, by moneys taken from the pockets of the taxpayers and handed over to industrialists, by the payment of bounties on bacon, woollens and linens sent to Great Britain, industrial production here shows an increase of, probably less than £2,500,000. And why? Because, instead of being concerned with the real interests of the country, instead of dealing with the things that will have an effect on the well-being of the country, the President is merely concerned about whitewashing himself and his followers. The result is that we get this kind of measure and we get a continuance of the industrial and economic conditions that exist in this country. Then the President tells us: "Stick to the language and learn Irish," at a time when this country is being bled so much economically, when it is so bedevilled with false antics and misrepresentations of men's characters and men's actions, misrepresentations of our neighbours, their outlook and their actions, that we have no real cultural outlook at all or no character on which a sound cultural outlook can be founded. The character on which only a sound cultural outlook can be built, is being destroyed.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This seems to be very far away from the section of the Bill under discussion.

General Mulcahy

We are moving here that certain changes be made in the Constitution. This fiddling with symbols has up to the present resulted in an economic deadlock between this country and Britain. That has been the main factor in reducing this country to the condition in which it finds itself at the present time. Our concern is to establish a Constitution of a proper kind. We want to establish international relations of a proper kind so as to enable our people to develop our resources and to develop a true Irish culture, an Irish and a Christian civilisation. Nothing else matters. And the things that this Bill most affects in this country are the economic condition of our people, the character of our people and our cultural future. To-day in the Irish-speaking districts, the greater part of our people in the Irish-speaking districts are kept up on the dole, with an odd fourpenny voucher for free meat, and we are taking some of these people from the Gaeltacht and bringing them to Meath and putting them on good land there, at enormous expense to the State, and the result of that is that in 12 months they are not able to pay their rates.

Donnchadha O Briain

Ní fíor é sin.

General Mulcahy

Tá sé fíor. An ndearfidh an Teachta nar cuireadh cuid des na daoine ó'n nGaoltacht os comhair na Cúirte gCondae na Mí toisg nár fhéadadar a rataí d'íoc?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

What is troubling the Chair is how the Deputy would relate the particular things he is mentioning to the discussion of this section with which we are dealing. The Chair is not satisfied that this is relevant to the section under discussion.

General Mulcahy

The President says that when he is finished here, if he does not do any good, he will not do any harm. I say that this Bill and the policy behind it and the mentality that is dealing with it affect our country economically and culturally. Over all the President's speeches recently he talks about the Irish language and I say that, in so far as it is the living language of the people, it is living on the dole, and that in so far as an effort is being made to put it into better conditions in Meath, this policy is making it impossible for the people there to make a living out of the land on which they have been put at enormous expense to this country.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This section?

General Mulcahy

Yes, Sir, this section. It proposes that the fact enshrined in Section 2 A of the Constitution shall be made an obvious reality. Everyone of these things that deals with things that are symbols, that the President says we do not want—he does not inform us what the symbols are that we do want—but these symbols that we do want are the symbols of economic well-being in this country, of decent living and upright character in this country, and, the greatest symbol, the Irish language, as the living speech of our Irish people. We are concerned with this Bill in that this Bill prevents the Irish-speaking colonies, which are being brought to Meath and put on good land there at enormous expense to this country, from making a living there because agriculture is reduced by the President's agricultural policy to a position in which agriculture is getting £25,000,000 a year less out of the land than it was getting before the President found it necessary to develop this particular type of constitutional policy as a means of whitewashing his face for the losses brought to this country when he made war on the Parliament here and war on the people here, alleging that there was a foreign monarch with de facto powers here of interfering with the people of this country, which he now admits never existed, because he is introducing a measure here which he tells us, eight times running, and again in ten additional comments in the Schedule to this Bill, never existed in the country.

We are entitled to hear from the President what are the symbols that he talks about that our people want, and we are entitled to hear from him what steps he has taken to ascertain what the reactions of this measure are going to be on the symbols I have mentioned: the economic well-being of our people, their culture and their welfare, and the Irish language, because it seems to me that the silence on the Fianna Fáil Benches shows that they know, so far from doing the good of which the President speaks, this Bill is going to do continued harm, a harm that will be continuous to the harm that has followed his misrepresentation and his pretence from the time he began in 1922.

Mr. MacDermot

Those of us who criticise this Bill have been making, as it seems to me, a very modest and humble request to the President that he should ascertain and consider what its consequences would be. His reply is that to make such a request of him is to be an enemy to Irish freedom, and the short point that he has to answer is: Is it really inconsistent with freedom for a man to consider what the likely consequences of his act are going to be? This is not a question of interpretation of the Treaty. I should make the same point if there had been no Treaty. The situation is that we are going to change fundamentally the whole framework of our association with the British Commonwealth, or are going to attempt to change that framework, and surely it is not a matter of sacrificing principle —it is a matter of the merest common-sense to find out in advance how the other people affected are going to take it.

The President must have got some inkling from the British when he communicated with them months ago about leaving out the King from our Constitution—he must have got some inkling from them surely as to how they were going to take that and as to what they were going to do about it: whether they would make up their minds for themselves upon it or whether they would leave it over for the Imperial Conference next May to decide. Whatever it was, surely we have a right—surely the House has a right and surely the country has a right to have that information.

I understand that, at the close of his speech when, unfortunately, I was not in the House, Deputy McGilligan complained of my having asserted that there had been no constitutional advances between the Treaty and the coming into office of the present Government. I made no such assertion. I quite agree that there were advances. What I did say, in reference to Deputy Costello's speech, was that I believed he exaggerated the value of that advance. I said that the advances were implicit in the terms of the Treaty and the first two Articles of our Constitution, and that they consisted rather in a gradual clarification than, as he said, in a fundamental change in the whole fabric of our Constitution.

Mr. McGilligan

Does the Deputy think that what took place in 1926 was not a fundamental change?

Mr. MacDermot

I would say it was of great importance, but I would not say that it was a fundamental change, because it was included and implicit in the terms of the Treaty, and it seems to me that these boasts of fundamental change are both misleading and an error of tactics. I said in passing that they played to a certain extent into the President's hands, even though I admit the difference between attempting to do such things by consent and doing them by unilateral action. I think it is absurd to represent what I said as a denial of theoretical advances of which we have heard dozens of times already in this House and with which every man in the street is, to a considerable extent, familiar.

Mr. McGilligan

But the Deputy denied them by implication.

Mr. Lavery

I take the view that the Bill before the House is a serious one. As presented by the President to the House, it is put on two different footings. I may not have followed him, but I endeavoured to do so. He told the House that the Bill now before us is the price which he demands—I do not say that these are his exact words—for the Bill which he proposes to introduce to-morrow. The unpalatable, and the price must be exacted to-day by the passage of the present Bill. If so, it is a matter of importance, and I think the House is entitled to know more clearly than it has heard up to the present what the effect of it is considered to be. So far as we have heard anything about the effect of it, we are told that it simply removes from the Constitution a set of fictions. If that be so, it is difficult to know why it is put through, in circumstances like the present, as a matter of extreme urgency. I do not think it is a matter of the removal of fictions. Examining the Bill, in the time that I and the House have had in which to do it, it would seem to me that the effect of it is to remove the King from the Constitution, and to give to this country a republican Constitution. That may or may not be a desirable thing. Before doing it, I understood that the country and the House were to be given an opportunity of considering what the effects of it might be. I think, before the House is asked to pass such a measure, the House ought to know what its reactions are going to be upon the Commonwealth of which we are told we are still to remain a member.

I think that that is a fair reading of the Bill, that there is no King in the Constitution, though we are told— by what means it is achieved I know not—that although there is no King in the Constitution there still is a King in the State. That seems to me to be something incomprehensible. I entirely fail—it may be my fault—to understand how a State can be organised with a written Constitution, a fundamental law, from which every mention of the King or the King's representative must be taken, and, even where a reference is made to somebody performing the functions of a King, the word "King" is taboo and the word "organ" is used. The President has said that the use of the words "organ" or "constitutional organ" is a more appropriate way of describing the King. I venture to say that the choice was deliberately made, in order that the Government Party outside this House might say to their supporters that they had struck the King out of the Constitution. They therefore funked—if I may use a vulgar term—the word "King" and substituted the synonym "organ".

The President

Is it better, might I ask, than "organisation?"

Mr. Lavery

The President already made that point. If the President says that the word "organ" was used in the amendment to Article 51 because it seemed to him to be the most suitable word, if he will say that the name "King" was not consciously and deliberately avoided, I suppose we will accept it, though it is difficult to believe.

The President

There might also be another organ at some other time.

Mr. Lavery

The President's point would be better taken if, in to-morrow's Bill, where the same provision is made in the same term, the vexatious word "King" is faced up and used, and what is described as "organ" to-night is named as "King" to-morrow, because to-morrow, having paid the price to-day, the Bill will be swallowed. It is remarkable that although Deputies on the other side of the House are as numerous as Deputy Donnelly told us at an early stage to-day, not one of them made any contribution to to-night's debate, with the single exception of Deputy Donnelly, who, if I may say so without disrespect, indulged in one of his usual comedian speeches which he does so well. I think that his contribution—being the only contribution from the Government side of the House other than that of the President, and consisting of cheap jibes at Deputy Belton, for whom I hold no brief; he does not need anybody to hold a brief for him——

Mr. MacEntee

Nobody would.

Mr. Lavery

——was a very poor contribution to what I take to be a serious matter requiring serious consideration by this House. It seems to me—I may be wrong; the President has not made the matter clear, but perhaps he will make it clear before the House is asked finally to pass this Bill—that when this Bill is passed the Irish Free State will be without a King as part of its Constitution. That may be to some members of the House a desirable state of affairs, but let it be understood. I take it that if I am wrong, and if when we leave this House to-night there is a King forming any part of our Constitution, forming any part of the Government of this State, that King is His Majesty King Edward VIII, and I take it that he is King of the Irish Free State until we take further steps to-morrow. This debate has been conducted—probably because the speakers have not been members of the Government Party—without any criticism or any unsympathetic reference to the difficulty of Great Britain, and I certainly do not propose to make any criticism of the position there, or to say anything which could be considered disrespectful either to His Majesty King Edward VIII or to his successor. Certainly this House is entitled to know what will be the position to-night and to-morrow. It may be a technical point that we may make right to-morrow afternoon; I know not. But you can test the reality of these proceedings by asking yourselves: "Have we a King? If so, who is he?"

I venture to submit to this House that it is quite impossible for anybody who has a sense of reality to regard the internal relations of a State separate and distinct from its external relations. A State must have its organisations. It must have its Executive. It must have its representatives abroad. Its Executive has duties to perform within and without the State. It is, I would suggest, absurd to say that we can deal to-day with the internal Constitution of the State, and to-morrow make separate provision for our external relations. There is no sense in it. No man who is not a twister and a quibbler in words could possibly face up to such a situation, and that is the situation we are confronted with.

That is one way of testing the ill-considered nature of the present proposals. There are others; I will only refer to one. I do not know whether it has been considered—I certainly think it has not been sufficiently considered —what are the provisions to be made in the future for the summoning and dissolution of Dáil Eireann? We now know that the Oireachtas and Dáil Eireann are synonymous terms. We are asked to make an amendment to Article 24 of the Constitution by which the Oireachtas—that is Dáil Eireann —shall be summoned and dissolved by the Chairman of Dáil Eireann, on the direction, in writing, of the Executive Council, signed by the President. Has it been considered that when Dáil Eireann is dissolved, the Chairman of the Dáil, as a functionary, ceases to have existence? Has it been considered how the Dáil is to be summoned by the non-existent functionary—the Chairman of Dáil Eireann. The position of the Chairman, I think, is perfectly plain. By the Constitution Amendment Act of 1927 the member of Dáil Eireann who is Chairman of Dáil Eireann immediately before the dissolution of the Oireachtas shall, unless before such dissolution he announces to Dáil Eireann that he does not desire to continue to be a member thereof, be deemed without any actual election to be elected in accordance with this Constitution at the ensuing general election as a member of Dáil Eireann. The late Chairman of the Dáil comes into the succeeding Dáil as a member of the Dáil and not as Chairman of the Dáil. By the act of dissolution when the Chairman of the Dáil ceases to exist with the Dáil of which he is Chairman there is no provision for the summoning of the new Dáil. It may be said that that can be met in a new way. That is possible. Here we are asked to swallow to-night after a seven hours' debate, a Bill which has not been fully considered, a Bill which the members of the House other than the Government Party and probably only the members of the Executive Council had an opportunity of seeing only this morning. I suggest that that is only one of the many difficulties that may be found in the working out of this ill-considered, hasty and unnecessary piece of legislation.

Mr. MacEntee rose.

Mr. Dillon

Will not the Attorney-General get up and answer the questions asked?

Mr. MacEntee

When Deputy McGilligan rose to speak for the first time on this Bill, members might have been at a loss to establish the connection between his opening statement and the matter under discussion. The House will recollect that he began by stating that a fortune awaited the man who could discover some means of dispelling fog or mist. The speech to which we have just listened, when considered with the speeches from the Opposition benches which preceded it, explains Deputy McGilligan's preoccupation with a commercial fog dispeller. Because it is quite clear from that speech—for I presume that Deputy McGilligan has been taking counsel with the learned legal luminaries who decorate the benches opposite—that in the counsels of his Party there is at the present moment a very thick fog and a very heavy fog. Deputy Lavery has just told us that he takes the view that this Bill is dangerous. That great authority upon constitutional law, Deputy John Marcus O'Sullivan, who I think opened the debate for the Opposition on the Second Reading of this Bill, declared that what this Bill is doing is a mere bauble in comparison with what was done in those years when every advance to liberty was opposed. So we have Deputy J.M. O'Sullivan, the Deputy who is leading Deputy Lavery on the Front Bench, declaring that this Bill is a mere bauble in comparison with what has been attempted and done while Deputy Lavery declares that it is a dangerous Bill. Deputy Desmond Fitzgerald, another great authority on constitutional law and practice, in so far as I could follow him or follow the drift of his remarks, was apparently contending that this Bill would do nothing to oust the King from the Constitution. I think he was followed on these lines by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, another great authority on constitutional law and practice.

Mr. Dillon

Is the Attorney-General going to speak to-night?

Mr. Morrissey

He does not know anything about the Bill.

Mr. MacEntee

I was pointing out that Deputy Fitzgerald and Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney were at issue with Deputy Lavery as to whether this Bill does or does not oust the King from the Constitution. With so much confusion in the minds of his colleagues as to what the Bill does, one can appreciate Deputy McGilligan's desire to have a fog dispeller. I hope when the Deputy gets the fog dispeller he will turn it like a fire extinguisher upon the ranks of his colleagues and get them to clear their minds as to what the Bill does or does not do.

Let me return to Deputy O'Sullivan's speech. He declared that what this Bill proposed to do was a mere bauble in comparison with what was done already. He laboured the point that the purpose of the Bill was to make obvious——

General Mulcahy

On a point of order, does not this debate conclude at 10.30 p.m.?

Mr. MacEntee

I do not think I have occupied an undue portion of time.

General Mulcahy

On a point of order, certain important questions were put to the Attorney-General. Cannot we have an answer from the Attorney-General?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy will appreciate that that is not a point of order. It is a matter for the Attorney-General himself whether he is to intervene in the debate or not.

Mr. Davin

Is it in order for the Minister for Finance to repeat the speeches made by the Opposition Deputies?

General Mulcahy

He cannot make a speech of his own.

Mr. MacEntee

I have not intervened in this debate, though I have been listening to it since three o'clock, but I do want, while on my feet, to try, if I can, to reconcile the speeches made by the Opposition Deputies——

Mr. Morrissey

The Minister's remarks have the effect of a powerful lamp. They only increase the fog.

Mr. MacEntee

Well, Deputy Morrissey gave neither light nor leading Deputy John Marcus O'Sullivan said that the purpose of this Bill was to remove verbiage in order to make obvious the results that are facts. If that be the purpose of the Bill—and Deputy O'Sullivan says it is—what justification have the Opposition for opposing a measure which proposes to remove verbiage? I can quite readily understand Deputy Dillon wanting to retain the verbiage. He revels in it. So does Deputy McGilligan, even though he is a trifle acidulated on occasions. But why do the strong silent men behind these two over-articulate Deputies walk into the division lobbies in order to prevent the Government from removing verbiage? Why are they trying to prevent us from removing verbiage the removal of which will make obvious what are the facts? Surely if there is one service the Government can do it is to clarify this matter for the people. If we are trying to do that why should we be opposed by the silent ranks opposite? They have no regard for verbiage. They do not get up and talk as interminably as Deputy Dillon talks. They do not get up and talk as offensively as Deputy McGilligan does nor as confusedly as Deputy Mulcahy talks. They sit here and try to understand. But why should they not have the wits to try and make clear to the understanding of the people what our Constitution really means. According to John Marcus O'Sullivan that is just precisely what we are trying to do to-night by this Bill. They are trying to stop us from pruning from the Constitution the useless verbiage which now conceals the real facts of our constitutional position.

I do not think that Deputy O'Sullivan's statement does the Opposition justice. I am sure that somehow or other they must think this Bill does make a change. We are told that, if it does make a change, then the event of an abdication is not a fit occasion to make the change. But every abdication that has marked the course of English history has marked a constitutional change and a constitutional advance. If we feel that this is the time when such an advance should be made, why should we not take it, particularly if, as we have been told a dozen times over, all power and all authority in this country rests in this House and in this country's people? Deputy McGilligan was one of those who stated that we were, in fact, doing nothing except dispelling the fog which has been created by years of misrepresentation. Surely it is beneficial at any rate to dispel the fog. Why does Deputy McGilligan want to retain the fog here, just as Deputy John Marcus O'Sullivan wants to retain the verbiage?

Mr. McGilligan

I did not. You misunderstand me completely. You are entirely wrong in your statement. I did not do what you said.

Mr. MacEntee

You are like most ladies with a viperous tongue—very often misunderstood.

Mr. McGilligan

When that made its debut five years ago it was badly received and it should have been put in the background.

Mr. MacEntee

There are some things which the Deputy on occasions has repeated which also ought to have been put in the background. Let us get back to this question of why Deputy McGilligan wants to retain the fog around the fundamental facts of the situation.

Mr. McGilligan

I do not.

Mr. MacEntee

You do.

Mr. McGilligan

That is where you are mistaken.

Mr. MacEntee

You told us that the only thing the Bill will do is to make clear to the people what the real constitutional position is.

Mr. McGilligan

On a point of order. I think there is a rule that when a member denies something he is accused of his denial is accepted. I do not like this foul imputation——

An Ceann Comhairle

I do not think there was any foul imputation, nor does the Deputy seem to be much perturbed.

Mr. McGilligan

I am bearing it very lightly, but I do object to being misrepresented several times in the course of this rather wandering discussion of the Minister's. I think he should accept my statement that I do not want any fog about this Constitution.

Mr. MacEntee

I find it very difficult to understand Deputy McGilligan's delicacy in this matter of misrepresentation. We have on occasions been amused at Deputy McGilligan's adroit attempt to misrepresent his opponents.

Mr. McGilligan

No.

Mr. Davin

Will the Minister answer the point made by Deputy Lavery?

Mr. McGilligan

Before the Attorney-General answers, will he meet one other point?

The President

I should like to meet a point that has been made.

Mr. McGilligan

I have not wasted time. I want to put another point.

The President

The time is running out.

Mr. McGilligan

That is not my fault. I am prepared to sit for another half-hour. We have here, that as soon as a Bill is passed the Chairman of Dáil Eireann is to sign such a Bill and, thereupon, it becomes law. The next Article of the Constitution says that, as soon as it has been signed by the Chairman of Dáil Eireann, two copies are to be made and one of these is to be signed by the Chairman and that is law. Apparently, he signs three times and twice it is declared to be law. Which is it to be?

Mr. Davin

Will the Attorney-General answer the very important point as to the rights of the retiring Ceann Comhairle to resummon the Dáil?

Mr. McGilligan

I want to put one last point. Article 51 used to run in the form that executive authority is hereby declared to be vested in the King and shall be exercisable, etc. That is cut out. The phrase we are now going to have is that there shall be a council to exercise the executive authority and power. In whom is the executive authority vested? There used to be a vesting of the executive power in the King. The King has not been removed entirely from the Constitution. Remember the phrase, "His Majesty," is still in the Constitution. It still occurs in one amending Article of the Constitution and possibly is kept alive for constitutional purposes. So that, if there was an attempt to take out the name everywhere it occurred, it has failed. "His Majesty in Council" occurs once in the Constitution still, no matter what clearing has been done. It may be in a restrictive Article but it is still there. There is. I think, a maxim that will be regarded by the Attorney-General, that whatever is expressed has a certain reaction upon things about which there is silence.

We used to say that the executive authority vested in the King. We now do not vest it anywhere. Where does it reside? We make allowance for its execution. We have asked already, from this side of the House, whether King Edward still remains. I think he still remains as the repository of the executive authority. It may not be intended that way, but is not that the situation? Where do we say that the King shall not have the authority vested in him? Remember, we still accept the Treaty with two Articles in it, and these Articles indicate a certain constitutional relationship as between the King or his representative and a Government. That, undoubtedly, through the rest of the Commonwealth, means that the executive authority is vested in the monarch. In explicit terms that has not been said not to be the effect here. We have removed the phrase which implemented what was in the Treaty That being the situation, I hold that the matter is still there.

The Attorney-General

As regards the inquiry put by Deputy McGilligan, my view is that, on the passing of this Bill, executive authority will be vested in the people of this State.

Mr. McGilligan

Where is that?

The Attorney-General

The Constitution, as the Deputy will probably remember, contains in Article II the statement that, "All powers of Government and all authority, legislative, executive, and judicial in Ireland are derived from the people of Ireland and the same shall be exercised in the Irish Free State through the organisations established by or under, and in accord with, this Constitution."

Mr. McGilligan

Read Article II of the Treaty.

The Attorney-General

That is my answer to the Deputy's question. The Deputy may, and he is entitled to, consider that it is an inaccurate answer. I believe it is the true answer.

Mr. McGilligan

Does Article II have no repercussions?

The Attorney-General

That is my reply to the Deputy—that the executive power rests with the people. I may say that in my opinion Deputy Lavery has made a very important point—a point that touches a matter in this Bill that I could not assure the House is free from doubt. I take the line of greater caution. I propose to yield to the view expressed by Deputy Lavery, that there is at least a doubt as regards this and, with your permission, Sir, I will ask to move at this stage an amendment to Article 24.

Mr. Morrissey

On a point of order.

The Attorney-General

This is an amendment by the Government.

Mr. Morrissey

On a point of order. I draw attention to the fact that it is now 10.30 p.m. and to the terms of the guillotine motion passed by the House to-day.

The President

We will go through with the Bill then. If there is any doubt, it can be resolved later.

Mr. McGilligan

To go further with this point of order, the guillotine resolution did not state that in the Committee Stage amendments by the Government might be moved after 10.30 p.m.

An Ceann Comhairle

A point of order has been put to the Chair, that the Question must be put at 10.30. As it is now 10.30 I am going to put the Question.

Mr. Davin

Are you going to put the amendment by the Attorney-General?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Question is: "That the sections of the Bill stand part thereof, and that the Schedule and Title be the Schedule and the Title to the Bill."

Question put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 79; Níl, 54.

Tá

• Aiken, Frank.
• Allen, Denis.
• Bartley, Gerald.
• Beegan, Patrick.
• Blaney, Neal.
• Boland, Gerald.
• Boland, Patrick.
• Bourke, Daniel.
• Brady, Brian.
• Brady, Seán.
• Breathnach, Cormac.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Carty, Frank.
• Clery, Micheál.
• Concannon, Helena.
• Cooney, Eamonn.
• Corbett, Edmond.
• Corkey, Daniel.
• Corry, Martin John.
• Crowley, Fred Hugh.
• Crowley, Timothy.
• Daly, Denis.
• Davin, William.
• Derrig, Thomas.
• De Valera, Eamon.
• Doherty, Hugh.
• Donnelly, Eamon.
• Dowdall, Thomas P.
• Everett, James.
• Flinn, Hugo V.
• Flynn, Stephen.
• Fogarty, Andrew.
• Geoghegan, James.
• Gibbons, Seán.
• Goulding, John.
• Hales, Thomas.
• Harris, Thomas.
• Hayes, Seán.
• Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
• Houlihan, Patrick.
• Jordan, Stephen.
• Keely, Séamus P.
• Kehoe, Patrick.
• Kelly, James Patrick.
• Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
• Keyes, Michael.
• Killilea, Mark.
• Kilroy, Michael.
• Kissane, Eamonn.
• Lemass, Seán F.
• Little, Patrick John.
• Lynch, James B.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• Maguire, Ben.
• Moane, Edward.
• Moore, Seamus.
• Moylan, Seán.
• Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
• Neilan, Martin.
• Norton, William.
• O Briain, Donnchadh.
• O'Dowd, Patrick.
• O'Grady, Seán.
• O'Ceallaigh, Seán T.
• O'Reilly, Matthew.
• Pattison, James P.
• Pearse, Margaret Mary.
• Rice, Edward.
• Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
• Ryan, James.
• Ryan, Martin.
• Ryan, Robert.
• Sheridan, Michael.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Traynor, Oscar.
• Victory, James.
• Walsh, Richard.
• Ward, Francis C.

Níl

• Alton, Ernest Henry.
• Anthony, Richard.
• Beckett, James Walter.
• Belton, Patrick.
• Bennett, George Cecil.
• Bourke, Séamus.
• Brennan, Michael.
• Brodrick, Seán.
• Coburn, James.
• Cosgrave, William T.
• Costello, John Aloysius.
• Curran, Richard.
• Davitt, Robert Emmet.
• Desmond, William.
• Dillon, James M.
• Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
• Dolan, James Nicholas.
• Doyle, Peadar S.
• Fagan, Charles.
• Finlay, John.
• Fitzgerald, Desmond.
• Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
• Good, John.
• Haslett, Alexander.
• Holohan, Richard.
• Lavery, Cecil.
• MacDermot, Frank.
• MacEoin, Seán.
• McFadden, Michael Og.
• McGilligan, Patrick.
• McGovern, Patrick.
• McGuire, James Ivan.
• McMenamin, Daniel.
• Minch, Sydney B.
• Morrisroe, James.
• Morrissey, Daniel.
• Mulcahy, Richard.
• Murphy, James Edward.
• Myles, James Sproule.
• Nally, Martin.
• O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
• O'Leary, Daniel.
• O'Mahony, The.
• O'Neill, Eamonn.
• O'Reilly, John Joseph.
• O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
• O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
• Redmond, Bridget Mary.
• Reidy, James.
• Rice, Vincent.
• Roddy, Martin.
• Rogers, Patrick James.
• Rowlette, Robert James.
• Thrift, William Edward.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.

Question declared carried.

Bill reported without amendment.

The President

I move: "That the Bill be received for final consideration."

Question put and agreed to.

Question put: "That the Bill do now pass."

The Dáil divided: Tá, 79; Níl, 54.

Tá

• Aiken, Frank.
• Allen, Denis.
• Bartley, Gerald.
• Beegan, Patrick.
• Blaney, Neal.
• Boland, Gerald.
• Boland, Patrick.
• Bourke, Daniel.
• Brady, Brian.
• Brady, Seán.
• Breathnach, Cormac.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Carty, Frank.
• Clery, Micheál.
• Concannon, Helena.
• Cooney, Eamonn.
• Corbett, Edmond.
• Corkery, Daniel.
• Corry, Martin John.
• Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
• Crowley, Timothy.
• Daly, Denis.
• Davin, William.
• Derrig, Thomas.
• De Valera, Eamon.
• Doherty, Hugh.
• Donnelly, Eamon.
• Dowdall, Thomas P.
• Everett, James.
• Flinn, Hugo V.
• Flynn, Stephen.
• Fogarty, Andrew.
• O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
• O'Reilly, Matthew.
• Pattison, James P.
• Pearse, Margaret Mary.
• Rice, Edward.
• Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
• Ryan, James.
• Ryan, Martin.
• Geoghegan, James.
• Gibbons, Seán.
• Goulding, John.
• Hales, Thomas.
• Harris, Thomas.
• Hayes, Seán.
• Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
• Houlihan, Patrick.
• Jordan, Stephen.
• Keely, Séamus P.
• Kehoe, Patrick.
• Kelly, James Patrick.
• Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
• Keyes, Michael.
• Killilea, Mark.
• Kilroy, Michael.
• Kissane, Eamonn.
• Lemass, Seán F.
• Little, Patrick John.
• Lynch, James B.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• Maguire, Ben.
• Moane, Edward.
• Moore, Séamus.
• Moylan, Seán.
• Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
• Neilan, Martin.
• Norton, William.
• O Briain, Donnehadh.
• O'Dowd, Patrick.
• O'Grady, Seán.
• Ryan, Robert.
• Sheridan, Michael.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Traynor, Oscar.
• Victory, James.
• Walsh, Richard.
• Ward, Francis C.

Níl

• Alton, Ernest Henry.
• Anthony, Richard.
• Beckett, James Walter.
• Belton, Patrick.
• Bennett, George Cecil.
• Bourke, Séamus.
• Brennan, Michael.
• Brodrick, Seán.
• Coburn, James.
• Cosgrave, William T.
• Costello, John Aloysius.
• Curran, Richard.
• Davitt, Robert Emmet.
• Desmond, William.
• Dillon, James M.
• Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
• Dolan, James Nicholas.
• Doyle, Peadar S.
• Fagan, Charles.
• Finlay, John.
• Fitzgerald, Desmond.
• Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
• Good, John.
• Haslett, Alexander.
• Holohan, Richard.
• Lavery, Cecil.
• MacDermot, Frank.
• MacEoin, Seán.
• McFadden, Michael Og.
• McGilligan, Patrick.
• McGovern, Patrick.
• McGuire, James Ivan.
• McMenamin, Daniel.
• Minch, Sydney B.
• Morrisroe, James.
• Morrissey, Daniel.
• Mulcahy, Richard.
• Murphy, James Edward.
• Myles, James Sproule.
• Nally, Martin.
• O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
• O'Leary, Daniel.
• O'Mahony, The.
• O'Neill, Eamonn.
• O'Reilly, John Joseph.
• O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
• O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
• Redmond, Bridget Mary.
• Reidy, James.
• Rice, Vincent.
• Roddy, Martin.
• Rogers, Patrick James.
• Rowlette, Robert James.
• Thrift, William Edward.

Question declared carried.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.55 p.m. until Saturday, at 10.30 a.m.