Last night I had almost completed what I had to say on this particular motion. I would like to add one or two further remarks. I asked Deputies to accept it, and I notice by to-day's papers that the Taoiseach also asked them to accept it, that the admission of this country to the United Nations Organisation, while it may not do any harm in relation to the Partition problem, is not likely to do anything in the way of good. I asked Deputies to accept this motion, encouraging the Government to take steps to join the United Nations Organisation, while at the same time putting far from their minds any even remote hope that anything raised before whatever United Nations Organisation will meet will have the slightest effect on the matter of Partition. I asked people further to say that it would be an injudicious thing to ask any member of the Government to have that question raised abroad, and I pointed out that if our people were to appear there with the British, and were to have constant wrangles with regard to this matter, it would have two effects: one, it would definitely antagonise the members of the United Nations Organisation against us and, two, it would possibly harden English opinion on a matter which, it is quite obvious, is becoming day by day more flexible.
When I did say that I did not mean —if it is allowable to introduce this matter as an aside—that the question of Partition should be left without notice. When I finished last night I asked that we should, as one way of inducing the people of the North to join us, put our house here in better order and adopt better standards in many respects, certainly with regard to the economics they have there in comparison with ours. I think the coming of this motion and our advent to the United Nations Organisation indicates a new atmosphere in which it is quite possible that this question may be raised with better effect with the British themselves.
I notice in the papers that Deputy Flanagan yesterday suggested that this motion was brought in here because the Government had received instructions from, say, the British. I know nothing of any such instruction. I doubt if, in the ordinary course of diplomatic arrangments as between two friendly peoples such as ourselves and the British, anything in the nature of such instructions would be given. I think the money we spend in diplomatic representation would be badly spent if we had not some touch with the British and the Americans and with other peoples on this question of when would be a proper time to make application for membership of the organisation and what support we would find it possible to get for that application.
I do know well that if the circumstances were changed, if the Taoiseach were here in opposition and another Government made this move, the phrase would come as trippingly from the Taoiseach's tongue as it has come from Deputy Flanagan's tongue, that instructions were given. At least, it would have come as trippingly fifteen years ago. One hopes that the experience the Taoiseach has derived makes him realise that these things were as foully said in the old days as he will repudiate them now as being foully said. But I believe there has been an association, and I even hope there has been collaboration. I would like to believe that we are so close, both to the United Kingdom representatives and the representatives of the United States of America, that we will be able to make soundings to find out from them what would be the most appropriate time for us to make this application and when it is likely to meet with success. I shall be surprised if hereafter it is not discovered that such diplomatic approaches were made —I hope they were made—by us, and that the initiative came from our side.
If that be the situation, and I hope it is, I think we are in a better position to urge the settlement of the Partition problem with more chance of success than there ever was. We have been lucky in our history in one respect, that we swung out into independence here at a time when the old greed of British Imperialism had weakened. We developed along friendly relations with them, while that old-time mood was fast slipping from them. We now see a further development along these lines. We see the British getting ready to remove themselves from Egypt and offering to the peoples of India the freest possible settlement they can make for themselves, even if that means immediate secession from the British Commonwealth of Nations, or taking a place as an independent State inside it. Nobody, so far as I can see, in the British House of Commons has raised any comment as to whether that secession from the British Commonwealth will take place eventually. The point is made as to whether it should take place sooner, or whether it should come later.
One always thought that the great difficulty in connection with the Partition problem here was not, on the whole, a matter of sentiment but a matter of strategic values. One felt that this island, placed as it was, was unfortunate in this respect, that the British did conceive of this island and its geographical position as something of importance to them as guarding the western approaches to their own country. One also thought of the Mediterranean, and particularly of the Suez canal, in the same context. One now sees that whatever may be, to the amateur eye, the still continued value of these two places, the British are ready to leave Egypt and to hand over control of the Suez Canal and of the approaches, top and bottom, from and to the Mediterranean, to the Egyptians themselves. If that be the situation, there has been some profound change with regard to strategy, something which no longer imposes on the British in their own defence the necessity of keeping these particular outposts.
It is possible that the same considerations apply here. In any event, there is a new mood and it is possible that that new mood, joined with the new weapons, may put the British into a better mind to see that right should be done here and the two portions of the country joined together. In any event our joining the United Nations Organisation, our entering into these friendly relations with other people and entering into them particularly in close collaboration, as I hope, with the United Kingdom and with the United States of America, the United Kingdom being the party, in the main, responsible for the origin of Partition—whether they are responsible for its continuance or not is a matter about which they can argue—and the United States, a country where so many of our people are and in which we can hope we shall be able to arouse some feeling favourable to us in connection with this matter, may provide a better chance of success. Joining this new organisation, in conjuction with these two countries, whom we know so well, whom fate has made us know so well, there is at least a better chance that, by a friendly approach to the British, and not by any snarling, in public at meetings of the United Nations Organisation, we shall be able to get this problem resolved. But before we try to get that done, I suggest that minds should be made clear here and we should ask ourselves if we are going to adopt the not-an-inch attitude adopted in the North. Are we going to say: "We insist on the fullest possible meeting of our demands"? Are we going to insist that these people, some of whom we must recognise as not having the same ideals nationally, or any other way, as ourselves——