I wish, in the first place, to protest most emphatically against the method in which these particular Bills have been introduced. I think the method is entirely offensive and distasteful and the time selected, I think, is about as inopportune and as unhappy as could possibly be selected by anyone stimulated only with a desire to reopen enmities and feuds, and to give offence to a neighbouring people at a time when sympathy would come better from us. We have a particular piece of legislation flung at us here this evening not only to bring about very grave and far-reaching changes in the Constitution of this State, but to mutilate to a very great degree, if not entirely to smash, the Articles of Agreement between this country and Great Britain, and we have legislation of that type introduced here with a clear statement by the President of the Executive Council that he has given it no consideration—none whatsoever. He does not know its reactions; he does not know its consequences. The State and the Parliament, and the people and the prosperity of the people mean so very little to that individual that, without consideration, he will gamble with their destinies and introduce this type of legislation. If he had time to consider it, and if his colleagues on the Executive had time to give ample consideration to that Bill, that would be absolutely inconsistent with the statement he made that he had no time to consult any other member of the Commonwealth. The two are incompatible. The reply given by the President to Deputy Cosgrave means that he takes his responsibilities so lightly and has such contempt for the destinies of the people that he introduces grave and far-reaching legislation of this type without any consideration or without knowing its immediate or remote effects.
I protest that it is not fair play to the country or to the Parliament. We are a single Parliament now, and at the time we were created a single Chamber Parliament all kinds of frothy pledges were given from the Government Benches that it would be inconceivable that a Government would ever effect major Constitutional changes or do anything of a violent nature without giving the Parliament ample time to consider it. What happened? Each Deputy of this House, or those who were reached, got two wires yesterday — (1) hold yourself in readiness and (2) the Dáil to meet to-morrow at 3 o'clock. For what? No information in the wire, good, bad, or indifferent; and by post this morning, a Bill goes out to each of the Deputies. Take any Deputy living at a distance. To get here by three o'clock, he would have to leave his home before the post arrives. He gets here at 3 o'clock, and the first motion tabled from the Government Benches is that that Bill is to be through by 10.30 as a matter of extreme urgency; and the man who moves that motion at least shows his sense of shame by not attempting even to advance one word to explain why it must be through at 10.30, or to make any case for the motion. The President, every one of his Ministers and every member of his Party sit there like so many dummies and not a voice is raised to justify this undemocratic action and violation of all the rights of Parliament.
In theory, every Deputy of this House has equal rights; in theory, every Deputy of this House has equal responsibilities: and to bring them up here and deliberately machine the programme so that only a tiny minority of the Deputies would have any opportunity of expressing their views is certainly ensuring that the voice of the majority of the Deputies will not be heard. It is exactly what many of us feared and most of us expected when the Second Chamber was abolished — that it was in order to give a free hand, not to a Party and not to an Executive, but to one man, because that Party and that Executive is treated normally as this House is being treated to-day. Their opinions do not matter; their voices do not matter. What one man, in a spirit of vindictiveness and recklessness, decides will be done, shall be done; and the only case made for the guillotine motion, and the only answer given when a request is made for arguments to be advanced, is for Deputy Donnelly to point to the members sitting around him on the Government Benches. That is not an answer. Might is not always right. Having the right to do a thing does not necessarily mean that you are right in doing it.
This bit of legislation has been introduced and is being put through in a thoroughly despicable manner. This bit of legislation, in the way in which it is being put through, has not the stamp of a statesman on it. It has the stamp and the brand of a shifty politician — the political opportunist who takes advantage of the fact that one particular thing has got to be done urgently and who because of that will link to it the thing he has linked, because it is shady, because it will not stand the light of day, because it will not stand a proper examination, because the person who introduced it is not prepared to stand up and argue it and prove to the Dáil and to the country that he has given it ample consideration or, in fact, is aware of its possible consequences. It is introduced in that shifty spirit, that we are told that there was a communication between us and the British Government and he does not remember whether it was telephonic, a direct verbal discussion or a written communication. Is this country such an unimportant plaything to that individual that he can take a decision to-day on a particularly drastic matter and it is of such comparative unimportance that he does not remember how, why, where or by what means he discussed it with the other party concerned? Is there any evidence of responsibility there? Is there any evidence in that statement, or in that answer, of the capacity of the individual to pilot through this Dáil legislation of a far-reaching kind? I suggest it is because of the very definite incapacity of the individual to pilot it through in a normal way that we have to put it through in this contemptible, abnormal way.
About the gravest and most far-reaching thing that can be done is to undermine the foundations of any institution. In the material sense, about the most reckless and dangerous thing that can be done is to interrupt or to invite the interruption of relations associating us with other trading communities. The President, in conveying, if he did convey, an outline of his intentions to another country on which his Government admits we lean materially, treated it so lightly that he does not know how the communication was transmitted, and, presumably, does not know the reply he got. If he does know the reply he got, surely this Parliament, this democratic Assembly, is entitled to demand that that information should be placed at the disposal of every Deputy in this House before he is asked to vote? There are some, possibly a majority, who are prepared to vote to jeopardise the future of the country, like mutes in blinkers. There are others who are not prepared to do that, but both the majority and the minority, in facing up to a Bill of this gravity, are entitled to have all the information that is available. If the House has to violate all the principles governing a democratic Assembly, and if we are to put this type of legislation through, racing against the face of the clock, we are entitled to have a case made for that urgency. Even if the case made were a weak case, or a bad case, it would not be so deliberately offensive as the way in which this guillotine motion was introduced to-day, without a word, without one line of explanation, without any attempt to say why the urgency, but merely "I move," and the answer, "Count heads." It is a foretaste of what we all have before us.
This legislation is to remove a symbol, a symbol that is powerless to interfere, from the Executive machinery and the Oireachtas of this country. According to speeches made by the President and others, what the future holds in store for us is to replace that symbol by an individual who will have powers to throttle this Parliament. As a Nationalist and a democrat, I would rather have any outer external symbol, absolutely powerless to interfere, absolutely powerless to obstruct, than to have anyone within the country with overriding powers over the legislation passed by a majority of the Parliament. I would have more respect for the legislation introduced in the name of a so-called republican Party who have fooled hundreds of thousands of electors to the cry that they were out for the establishment of a republic. I would not agree with them if they did that, but at least I would respect it as an honest course and a bold course, but this zebra legislation, merely to act the part of the musk rat, to undermine, to nibble away, to destroy as much as can be destroyed with safety, and to replace it by nothing — that type of legislation will get the respect of nobody, neither the person standing strongly for the republic nor the person standing strongly for the Commonwealth. They will join together in contempt not only for the legislation itself, but for the unmanly way in which it is introduced.
We have an attempt made here to defy, as far as we can with safety, our colleagues within the Commonwealth of Nations, to give as much offence as we can, to drift as far apart as we can with safety, to cling with our left hand to the tow-rope, while we waggle the republican flag with the right. If it is not a body to which it is good for us to belong, then we ought not to cling on to it in the contemptible position of a flea on the back of a dog, merely sucking sustenance from it, capable of giving a certain amount of irritation, but powerless to control the movements or to direct the animal itself, just going wherever the animal brings it for the little bit of sustenance. If I happened to be associated with a household, I would prefer to be in that household as a member of the family, rather than be tolerated as a beggar at the back door. The whole drift is that drift of servile attachment, and here we have it in these Bills that we are going to be in the position of being republicans in the Bog of Allen and Imperialists in Piccadilly; that we are going to say here at home: "We have got rid of the King, we are a Republican Government now," but when there is anything to be got, when there is anything to be secured, when we are sending a Minister to any point of the compass, that Minister will be accredited by the King of England, and the President here at home is going to strut about as the bogus President of a sham republic, but when he goes abroad he is going to be fêted and greeted by the accredited Ministers accredited by the King.
There is no half-way house between the Commonwealth association and separatism, meaning, isolation. There is no half-way house. If it is good to belong to the one, it is better then to belong to it in an open, honest way and get all that can be got out of it. If it is bad to belong, we should go out completely. Both under the previous Government and under this Government experience has proved that the symbol of association is absolutely powerless to interfere with the will of the Parliament here or with the will of the people here. Experience under two Governments has shown that. Why jeopardise the association, then, by bringing in this type of legislation and rushing it through before it can be examined? It is clear that this legislation is not and has not been introduced in the interests of the country, either present or future. It is introduced in order to justify the doubtful political record of certain individuals; in order to justify an unfortunate past. We can forget that past, and we can forget that past without damaging the future. If we had to select and if we had a choice between having to keep the King somewhere within the Constitution, and it was a case of keeping him here at home inside the internal half of our Constitution, or having him in the external half of our Constitution, if we think really nationally, it would be far less harmful to have him in the internal half. If you have him here in the internal half, the people are close up against the position, and the people would see, from day to day, that all power is in fact in the hands of the people and of the people's Parliament, and that that particular symbol has no effect and is powerless to stand against or interfere with the people or the Parliament. But selecting, as the President does, for selfish political reasons, to use him in the capacity abroad, nationally—that is the more harmful nationally; that carries potential danger; but the whole idea of the Bill is not designed for the progress of this country nationally or otherwise. It is designed and introduced out of motives of political expediency. It is introduced with discreditable haste. It is introduced in a way that shows contempt for the people and contempt for their Parliament. It is introduced by a President who tells us he has no time to consider it, and because he has no time to consider it he is going to ensure that the members of the Parliament have no time to consider it.
Countries progress by thought, by study, by careful consideration given to every step taken by careful planning, and careful building. Countries collapse and go to disaster by hasty, reckless, thoughtless legislation. There can be neither good luck nor blessing on the type of legislation that is passed under the directorship that directs this Bill, or passed under the conditions in which we are asked to pass it here this evening.
