What was not proved? I must tell the Deputy that I am completely at sea with regard to particular cases, so I cannot answer in detail. If he wishes to ask a question, I will answer it in the House at the first opportunity. I have not had an opportunity to get the information in such a form that I could be quite satisfied with it myself. I can only promise the Deputy that I will look into the matter and see what the exact position is with regard to these cases. I understood him to state that some representations had been made otherwise than through our Department, and that where our Department was not successful these private representations were. I do not know, but it could very well happen. We know what life is, and that direct personal interest very often achieves results that are not achieved through the ordinary regular channels. It very often requires a great deal of persistence in regard to official communications to get the sort of general consideration that should be given always, but it very rarely happens that we fail, unless there is a definite rule or something of that kind. I quite admit that it is possible, knowing human nature. Knowing the nature of Governmental and Departmental activities generally, in other countries as well as ours, it is possible that a direct and immediate approach may succeed in getting more speedy action than you can get through the Department. I do not know the facts—they may be quite different—and what I am speaking about may have no relation to these cases; but it would not surprise me if such things occasionally did occur.
Another question that was raised was that of the visit of the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures to the United States of America. I was asked a question here with regard to that, and I gave a reply, giving the material facts—that the Minister had gone to the United States to examine the possibility of our obtaining arms and supplies there. It was to examine the possibility: we had already explored the ground fairly fully and knew that, in the ordinary way, it would be extremely difficult to get such supplies. It was suggested to me that it might be well if one of the Ministers went over. It is strange to find that objected to by Deputies on the Opposition Benches. It was suggested that we had a Minister already in Washington and that there should be no need to supplement his efforts by the efforts of a member of the Cabinet That runs quite contrary to the views that have been expressed in other cases, when it has been suggested that direct contact by Ministers would achieve results that would not be achieved otherwise. Now, to see that no stone was left unturned and no effort left unmade to try to secure the essential arms and supplies, the Minister for the Co-Ordination of Defensive Measures went there. I am not quite definite, but as far as my recollection goes, I think it was suggested by the American representative here that a member of the Government should go. Whenever I met the representative of the United States here, I had made it almost a constant practice to make representations with regard to arms and certain necessary supplies. This led to the suggestion that it would be well if a member of the Government could go to the United States to put the case directly and immediately.
As I announced to the Dáil, the Minister was unsuccessful. I do not think it was due to any lack of effort on his part in putting our case—Ireland's case—before the President of the United States. I have always felt a difficulty in talking about these matters fully and completely here, under the present conditions. The complaint was made that it was possible for the President of the United States to make a statement such as was reported in the Press here, and that we appeared not to be taking any appropriate action about it. Many things appear in the papers which are not correct. Obviously, the first thing for us to do, when a statement of that sort appeared in the Press, was to see whether it really had been made. It seemed so astonishing that naturally we wondered whether the report was true at all, whether there was not something wrong about the news despatches, whether the report was complete or not. We did not talk about it, as there was no use in making public statements, but we instructed our representative to try, at the earliest possible moment—one cannot get replies immediately in matters of that sort—whether this statement was made and if it was made what interpretation was to be placed on it.
It was astonishing that such a statement should have been made, in view of the fact that the American representative here had, time after time, been made aware of the national position and of our attitude. Not merely was it the subject of private conversation, but there were also public statements. There was nothing that we had done, no document which we possessed, which would give any explanation for the making of that statement. All I had to do was to make it quite clear that the attitude of this country and of this Government was that any aggression from any quarter whatever would be resisted by us and, therefore, that aggression by Germany would be resisted as well as aggression from anywhere else. Why we should not have been allowed to do that quietly, without trying to make it appear that there had been some fault on the part of the Minister for the Co-Ordination of Defensive Measures, or someone else, I do not know. I cannot see that any public loss would have accrued by letting that statement go while that was being done. Certainly, in this country it would not create any difficulties, as our people understand the position; but misrepresentation of anything said here might create difficulties in the United States of America.
Naturally, we did not wish to have any section of the people in the United States think that the arms which we were trying to get to be used against any aggression, whence ever it may come, would not be used against one particular aggressor. That would be a very serious matter. Our principal concern was, not that our people here should know the position—because they knew it clearly and could be in no doubt—but that those in the United States should not misunderstand the position in view of the statement which was made. It was a delicate and difficult matter. There was no use in suggesting that we were bungling it, or that my relations with the President of the United States were not good. My own personal relations with him—in so far as I can call them personal relations —have always been of the friendliest character. Therefore, there was no question of any wrong action being taken by us.
What I have been anxious about in these matters—and, perhaps wrongly so, impatient of in regard to them—is this. We are in an extremely difficult and delicate situation. The policy of neutrality is not by any means an easy policy and it is not a cowardly policy. It will require as much courage to put that policy through, and to stand by our national statements regarding it, as it would to put any other policy through. It may be a more difficult policy, in the long run, than any other policy. Therefore, I am not in the slightest affected by statements that the policy the country is following is a cowardly policy or anything of that sort. What I am anxious about is that so far as we, in this country, can do so, we should refrain from making the position more difficult. I am particularly anxious lest statements by public men here should be taken up by Press correspondents and sent abroad to cause misunderstanding of our position and increase our dangers. As an example of that, I have here a telegram sent me by our representative in the United States regarding a London dispatch which figured in a New York evening newspaper. I shall read it to show the sort of thing against which we have to safeguard ourselves:—
"All about England, Scotland and Northern Ireland there are American engineers. The American Navy during the last war operated from Cork but Cork in this war will be denied to the U.S., just as it has been denied to Great Britain. It is now obvious that Éire will be as belligerently anti-American as it has been belligerently anti-British."
Everybody here knows that that is not true. We are not belligerently anti-American or belligerently anti-British. Whenever any attempt was made to make it appear that the Government here was anti-British, we tried to make clear that that was not so. Statements made here or emphasis laid on one part of a statement will give the cue to those who want to send dispatches of this sort to the United States. Goodness knows, we have a sufficiently difficult path to tread without giving an opportunity to people who live on this sort of thing, and who, in a time of war propaganda, are only too anxious to take advantage of such opportunities to stir up feeling against this country. This newspaper dispatch continues:
"The story here persists that Wendel Willkie and Premier de Valera parted company in Dublin in a white heat of fury."
There is no truth whatever in that. I do not say that there were no differences of opinion between us, but there was no question of heat or anything of that sort. We did not discuss Irish national policy. It was not our business and I did not feel that there was any necessity to discuss it with Mr. Willkie. Whatever general discussions went on, there was no questioning of our right to do what we were doing and there was no heat or anything of that sort. The dispatch goes on:
"Éire is not with us and it is now evident that the only chance we and the British have of obtaining Irish co-operation will come only if the de Valera Government should fall and if he is succeeded by Cosgrave or some other southern Irishman."
Deputy Cosgrave has spoken to-day and given his opinion of what Irish national policy should be at present. It is quite obvious that there is no foundation for that sort of story. The dispatch proceeds:
"The only indication we have, up to date, that de Valera might not ride the storm is the recent defeat of Mrs. Clarke, the de Valera protegée, as Lord Mayor of Dublin. Economic conditions are rapidly growing worse throughout the whole of Eire."
I was in the United States for a considerable period and I know how difficult it is to keep contact between opinion here and in the United States. In the United States, we have a nation which has been uniformly friendly to us. Our national struggle was aided considerably by the fact that a large section of the population of that country was friendly. The position of the administration of the United States is that they are not actually in this war but that they are definitely supplying all possible aid, as they openly say, to Britain. As I pointed out yesterday, our difficulty is that our policy of neutrality does not fit in with the policies which are being pursued in the United States and in Britain at the present time. It is natural for people engaged in war to act as if those who were not with them were against them. That is not so in our case. We are not against them but we have a right to choose our own course. We have a right to make that choice with an eye to what is in the best interests of our people.
Deputy Dillon expressed his personal view this evening. Other Deputies suggested that they felt as he did. The first thing that occurred to me when Deputy Dillon spoke was that the Censor would have a very difficult problem to-night. If Deputy Dillon's speech goes forth as it was delivered here, how can we stop other people from replying in kind? Has not our problem of censorship been a difficult problem? How are we to keep our people from starting a quarrel of this sort at a time when it is very foolish for them to quarrel? The Deputy spoke, I believe, from conviction. He expressed his own views, but it is ridiculous for people who have views of that sort to believe that they can lead a nation simply by giving expression to such views. I think it would be quite impossible for anybody to attempt to lead our people along a line of that sort.
Our people have very long memories. They need not have too long a memory to go back to the last war. A large number of us remember seeing the walls of the Dublin quays covered with posters about the rights of small nations. We did not, at that time, believe that the fight going on was genuinely for the rights of small nations. We may have been wrong in that, but that is what we felt. The test we put ourselves was: If this is a fight for small nations, there is one small nation which has been struggling for its freedom for centuries, and that small nation can be freed without the defeat of any foreign power. That could have been done if the British people and the British Government at the time had willed it. They could have given this country its freedom. The fact that that freedom was not given was the crucial test which convinced our people that, no matter what professions were made at the time, that was not genuinely and fundamentally a war for the freedom of small nations.
We know the fight which had to be made afterwards to get the amount of freedom we have got. I have said, time after time, that we are as free as any other nation in the world in this part of Ireland, but this part of Ireland does not represent the territory of which our people have been struggling to get possession for centuries. As long as that wrong remains unrighted, our people here will not be convinced that the fight is all for freedom on one side and all for slavery on the other. There is no doubt whatever that a very difficult problem has been created in the Six Counties but, so far as we are concerned, we still claim that these Six Counties belong to the historic Irish nation and are a part of the historic national territory. We shall never, and I hope no Irishman will ever, be satisfied with any freedom which this part of Ireland may get until the nation as a whole is free and is governed in freedom by the representatives of the Irish people, chosen freely as we chose them here. That is the aim, and until that is satisfied, there is no use in talking about grand principles which are being fought for on the one side and neglected on the other.
I am naturally at considerable difficulty in speaking because I have not got the freedom which Deputies who are not in office have when speaking at the present time. I do not want to say anything which will make the situation more difficult than it is. All I do want Deputies to be clear about is this: that I am satisfied—if I am not right I want to be shown the contrary as quickly as possible; the more quickly it is shown to me the better—that a proportion, as high at least as 90 per cent. of the people of this country support the policy that has been adopted by the Government. A few Deputies who have spoken to-day would seem to suggest that that is not the situation and that I would be surprised how many Deputies would go into the Lobby in favour of entering the war. If there is any truth in that assertion, I should like to have it proved, and I think the sooner Deputies who feel like that put down a motion that the national policy should be changed, the better for us all. But the problem is precisely this. I take the same view on this matter as Deputy Cosgrave has taken. He says that in times of crisis one should make up his mind what he is going to do and then stick to that decision. There should be no hesitation or shifting about. You have first to size up the situation as quickly as you can, then make your decision and, having made your decision, stand firmly by it. That is what I believe has been done.
We made up our minds fairly quickly at the beginning of this war. We have taken a line which we believe it was in the national interest to take. We believed that was the right decision for the country and that we were supported in it by the people. We heard no voice in the country saying that we were wrong or objecting to our decision. Our anxiety was in this time of trial to make every effort to put the position of our defences both from the military and economic point of view on a sound foundation. That was our principal purpose. We thought it right, having made up our minds on the national policy, that we should not have injected into it controversies as to whether the present fight was a fight for Christian principles or a fight for something else. If Deputy Dillon claims the right to express his views and have them published widely, then there are other people who will take, with no less strength and no less conviction, the completely opposite point of view. We are then going to have, if they are permitted freely to take place, the most vehement expressions of opinion on opposite sides. If it were to stop at expressions of opinion—we all know the further dangers involved —it would be all right but it is not going to stop at that. It is going to involve efforts, on the one side or the other, to get the people away from a particular line of policy and to make another line of policy supreme. We are going to have here all the efforts of war propaganda. That is, unfortunately, the position.
I personally should like to see people express their views, though I sometimes might be inclined with the knowledge I have acquired over a number of years of the motives that drive nations to war, to say of such statements as Deputy Dillon's: "It is magnificent, but it is not common sense." Whilst it may be good to have high ideals and to express them, to express the view that right is worth fighting for, and so on, when that leads to developments that are going to have dangerous consequences for our country at the present time, I think the censor ought not permit it. We have to choose which it is to be—whether there is to be complete silence or whether there is to be free expression of opinion—violently expressed on one side and equally violently expressed on the other. I think we are better off in present circumstances in suppressing such expressions of opinion on both sides. I think that is necessary, and it is the principle on which the censor has had to act. I do not know what view he will take to-night about it. I see he has a problem, because if he allows Deputy Dillon's remarks to be published, he must also allow others. Similarly, the Ceann Comhairle is sometimes constrained to allow a matter which seems to be irrelevant to be raised in this House although it might have been ruled out of order, because some other Deputy was guilty of an irrelevancy prior to that, and the Chair then had to allow the second irrelevancy to be introduced.
With regard to national policy I have no doubt whatever that our duty here is to protect our people as best we can. I cannot tell what the future may hold. I have an imagination just as lively as that of Deputy Dillon and I can imagine all sorts of horrors that may come to this country as a result of this war, on one side or another. All I can do is to try so far as I can to put the country into that state of defence in which it will be able to protect itself against attack from any quarter and then trust in God. That is all I can do. I have not got any special revelation to tell me that this is a war for Christianity and that it is our duty as a Christian people to go out on a crusade. As was pointed out by certain Deputies, we have a large number of Christians on one side and a large number of Christians on the other. We do not get revelations in regard to these matters. We have to try to arrive at conclusions by examining the world as we see it about us. I am just as anxious as Deputy Dillon about the preservation of certain rights and privileges and I have just as great a horror as he has of the possibilities that may face our people but, with the responsibility of meeting the situation that exists, I have no doubt whatever that the line the Government has adopted, a line that has been supported by the vast majority of our people, is the right line for our people. That does not really mean that people are quite indifferent about the issues. I am sure there are very many people in this country who are anxious about this war and that there are very large numbers who are thinking about what the whole thing is going to end in.
Some reference was made to the part we can play in international affairs. All I can say is that on any occasion I had to speak at Geneva I tried to get settled in time by means of conference things which if they were not settled would lead to war. I have seen, as far as the League of Nations was concerned, certain cases arise in which there seemed to be a moral obligation on the part of the League of Nations to do certain things. These things were not done by some of the big States. The reason they were not done was that on some practical ground it seemed prudent to these States that these things should not be done. However, I do not think we have got any responsibility for the present war. So far as the question of our entry into the war is concerned, if I could detach a number of countries from it I would do so. I think the less of humanity that becomes involved in it the better. It may involve civilised humanity as a whole before it is finished. We may find ourselves in it. If we do find ourselves in it, I hope our people will fight for something which they are sure is right and one of the things which we can be sure is right, is that we here are a nation and that we do not want to interfere with anybody. We are not guilty of any aggression against any other nation. We want to live here peaceably and to be left alone in regard to our own affairs. We want to live and let live. If anybody does attack us, then everyone of us can die, if necessary, fighting for what we are certain is a just cause— and I say that, no matter from which side we are attacked. That is the position we are taking up and it is not a cowardly position.
We are not a great country. If we are to be attacked at all, in all probability we will be attacked by one of the big States of the world. We have to face that and, if we are prepared to face it, our attitude cannot be described as cowardly. We are not impressed by anyone who pretends that we are following a cowardly policy by trying to sneak out of this or out of that. We are determined to live our own lives in our own way and, if the warring worlds come upon us, then we will know that in defending ourselves we will be doing what is right. It will be something to know that if we do fight we will be fighting for something about which there can be no doubt, and that is that we are right.
The Deputy has been talking about the possibility of our being drawn in on the one side or on the other. I say that we are ready to fight in order to maintain our rights as much against one side as against the other. As far as any leadership is concerned, it will be leadership to maintain our rights as a nation against any aggressor whatsoever. We have not the arms we would wish for and we are, therefore, in this position, that in waging that fight we may not be as well-equipped as we would like to be. The position is that we are not spoiling for a fight and we are not voluntarily involving ourselves in a conflict. We are simply in the position of a man who may be attacked by somebody who has no right to attack him and he will defend himself with any weapons he has in his hands and he will fight to the best of his ability.
I do not wish to go into this matter more deeply. If there was a positive motion before the House and if there was an appearance of any considerable difference of opinion in the House with regard to national policy, I would, perhaps, deal with it in more detail, but I do not think there is and there will be ample opportunity later for me to go more fully into the reasons for our present policy.
I do not know that there is any use in my going more fully into the mission of the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures to the United States of America. He was received in audience by the President, by the Secretary of State, by the Under-Secretary of State and by some of the other heads of the Administration. Whilst there he explained to them fully what the Irish attitude is. I think that if the report of his conversations was made public, it would be found to be in no way different from the statements I make in the House with regard to Government policy. We cannot compel anybody to give us what they say they are themselves short of, or what they do not want to give us. We have simply asked for certain things and expressed our feelings of goodwill —and there are genuine feelings of goodwill between the people of this country and the people of the United States. There is no doubt whatever about that. I have been privileged more than once to express them, so that there should be no doubt about it.
But we are sometimes asked to give this facility or that facility, as if it were a matter of giving the loan of a grid-iron or something of that sort, quite forgetting that what we are being asked to do is to enter this war—that is what it amounts to. I was speaking to one person who happened to visit us here and he asked: "Why do you not do this?" He observed: "If a neighbour's house was on fire, surely you would allow the firemen to get up on your roof to put out the fire next door?" Of course we would, but that is not an analogy to what we are being asked to do. What we have been asked to do is to set our own house on fire in company with the other house. We have been asked to throw ourselves into the flames—that is what it amounts to.
Prudence is not cowardice. There must be an examination of what your means are and what the consequences of your action are likely to be. Ordinary prudence is not cowardice. It is one of the powers given to us in order to enable us to conduct ourselves and live as human beings in the world. We have certain duties to perform on behalf of our people. We try to exercise the virtues of foresight and prudence in so far as it is humanly possible to do it and when people ask us why we cannot give this facility or that facility, we ask them: "Do you realise what you are asking us to do?" It is all very well for a big nation, a nation at a distance, to give facilities and act in that particular way.
Let us consider what our position would be. After this war we might find that we would have very little to say, as little to say about the terms on which it should end as we had to say about the terms on which it began. The big nation is not in that position. The big nation will be big enough at the end to insist that the things it fought for are the things that will be accomplished in the peace. A small nation getting into the war is in no such position. Its services are availed of for the time being, but when the end comes, and when it says: "Our people fought for such an ideal," its views will not be considered. Certain people will sit around the table at the peace conference, the big four or five, or whatever their number may be. They will deal with the settlement, and they will be quite capable of making a settlement to suit themselves. They can give the small nations any sort of an excuse they want to.
When a small nation is asked to join in the war it is asked to make what are incomparably bigger sacrifices than the sacrifices that are made by the bigger States. I have never been the slightest bit impressed or affected, or even hurt, by suggestions that Ireland in this war is not playing its part. Ireland in this war is doing its national duty, its duty to its own people. Of that I have no doubt.
With regard to the Department I am very glad that a number of Deputies who spoke testified to the service which has been rendered by it and the courtesy which has uniformly been shown by the officials. I have been Minister for External Affairs since this Government came into office and I have found there a magnificent staff. We are blessed in having people who have had long experience there, who know their work and who are competent to deal with it. It has been a pleasure to work with the officers of that Department. Although not physically in the office, I have always been connected with it by direct wire and otherwise and I may say that any particular questions I have to ask are promptly dealt with and any decisions I am asked to give are communicated immediately.
It is undoubtedly an extra task for the Head of the Government to undertake—to act, at the same time, as Minister for External Affairs. It would be ridiculous to say that the details of administration could be carried out as efficiently by a person who has other duties as they could by the same person if he were free to devote the whole of his time to that particular Department. If I were leaving public life to-morrow there is one piece of advice I would leave to those coming after me, should they care to take it, and it is that in this State, as in all small States, it is almost absolutely essential that the Head of the Government should also be the Minister for External Affairs. In regard to outside affairs, the nation ought to appear as one. In a case like that, where decisions have to be come to from day to day, you cannot, if there is any divergence of opinion, as there will be between any two human beings, have that showing itself, and getting wider and wider. I think, although that arrangement does mean that it would not be so easy to deal with the details of administration as it would be if you had a Minister giving his whole time to the Department, that, nevertheless, the part-time service that can be given to it by the Head of the Government is, from the point of view of the national interest, more valuable than would be the whole time but divided work of another Minister.
I believe that the present practice is a good practice, and that it should continue. I have been at pains to see how the system of having a Secretary for Foreign Affairs different from the Head of the Government works in other States. It is, however, only done in this way: that in that particular Department of work, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs is really not as complete and as absolute a master of his Department as the Ministers in other Departments generally are. The other evening I said that the ideal would be if the Head of the Government could be a sort of senior partner in every Department, but, as I pointed out, that is not possible under modern conditions. In regard to External Affairs, in so far as I have been able to find out, the practice in other countries has been: that where there was a Secretary for Foreign Affairs, other than the Head of the Government, he was so constantly in touch with the Head of the Government in regard to various matters, that the Head of the Government was really the senior partner. I do not think I have anything more to say on the Vote.
Vote put and declared carried, Deputy Dillon to be recorded as dissenting.
