I have stressed the vital importance to us as a small nation, in common with all other small nations, of the maintenance of world peace and I have emphasised my conviction that it is our duty to do what lies in our power to promote the acceptance of Christian principles in international relations. I would like, with your permission, to quote just a few sentences from a speech that I made to the National Press Club at Washington where my views are summarised. I stated there certain principles and wish to quote them to the Dáil as my own here to-day:—
"The object of Irish foreign policy is to use such influence as we possess to promote the spirit of justice, Christian charity and goodwill on which the hope of peace must ultimately depend. Within the broad scope of that purpose we seek in common with all other small nations our own survival, the welfare of our people and the preservation of peace and of the rule of law in international relations. We have our own special object of policy in full harmony with our general purpose of promoting justice in international affairs, namely, the restoration of the territorial unity of Ireland.
The next cardinal point of our policy is our opposition to atheistic Communism. Communism, in our view, is a creed which confronts the established order of society with the most uncompromising challenge in our history and one to which we are implacably opposed."
The maintenance of world peace, the establishment of the rule of law and Christian principles in international affairs and opposition to Communism, summarise the cardinal points of our policy so far. We have, I think I am entitled to say, no quarrel with Russia or with the Russian people as such. What we do object to is the policy of atheistic Communism and, particularly, the consequences of the steadfast adherence to a policy of disseminating that policy throughout the world. That is so important that it is our duty, in my view at all events, in fulfilling our function in world affairs, to see that the forces making for its disintegration are in no way weakened. The primary consideration for us must be to see that the forces of atheistic Communism are repelled and that we do not allow ourselves to become tools to serve Communist imperialistic interests no matter how carefully they may be camouflaged.
When I spoke, as I did speak on any occasion when I addressed any assembly in the States in respect of Partition, I made it quite clear that the removal of Partition would strengthen the West and strengthen the forces against disintegration. On a subject of this kind the subject of the Partition of Ireland inevitably must be dealt with, at least to some short extent. I have been accused of making statements in America which were contradictory of some of the statements I made elsewhere but I think that I kept, in all the speeches I made, to a consistent line. I spoke at the Georgetown University and referred to our position there. I spoke to the members of the National Press Club at Washington and dealt with the subject of Partition. I said there, and I repeat here, that while our objective to survive as a nation is paramount and that while world peace is, for Ireland, a paramount national necessity, Ireland can never pursue adventurous policies and the risk of war which would therefore hazard the nation's survival.
I emphasised everywhere that our special object of national policy is the abolition of Partition and the establishment of full national unity for the whole of our island territory; that we could not, because of our preoccupation with that problem, enter into any military alliances however some friendly nations might urge us to join such alliances and that no Government in this country could contemplate any such alliance while Partition existed.
Those principles were accepted with understanding and sympathy everywhere I went. I did say, and said most deliberately, in the course of a reply that I made to a question put to me by one of the United Nations Press correspondents at a lunch that they gave to me in New York, that while Ireland would raise, at an appropriate time and on the proper occasion at the United Nations, the question of Partition, that would not mean that Ireland would be a sore thumb in the United Nations on the subject of Partition. Anybody who has had experience of international affairs and of attendance at international organisations must have seen how particular countries and particular individuals who are constantly putting forward their own interests and their own particular grievances to the exclusion of all other interests lost all influence and came to be regarded as nothing but a mere nuisance.
We have, unfortunately, due to the fact that we have been kept out of the United Nations for nine years, lost the valuable experience that we would have gained in that time of the mechanism of the diplomacy of that organisation. Again, anybody who has been at international gatherings knows of the behind-the-scenes activities, the conferences and subterranean agreements and the back-door conferences which take place. We have not been able to test the feelings and assess the manner in which diplomacy is carried on in the United Nations behind the facade of the Assembly. It will be the task of our representative to find all that out and that is why, as I said yesterday, it is so important and necessary for this country to ensure that we have friends. Partition cannot be solved without the help of friends and friends cannot be obtained if we pursue an entirely selfish course.
It is a question of timing, a question of discretion, a question of making friends, a question of doing good turns for other nations so that they will do good turns for us. That is a common form of activity. Trade is obtained through international contacts and friendship, through representatives of one nation doing good turns for another, and, in return, seeking help which that nation can give. It is along those general lines that we should operate on the problem of Partition. I am convinced that it is along those lines we will secure results. The official policy of the American State Department is that America will not interfere between us and Great Britain on the question of Partition. I believe that if we play our part and secure a standing influence in the kind of part that we play in the U.N.O. we can secure friends, powerful friends, who, without any formal démarche, will help us in the struggle to end Partition. I believe that it is in this respect that our membership of U.N.O. can be best used to secure the ending of Partition.
I believe that if we play our cards well, as I believe we shall, and if we seek the influence which can be secured by independent action based on some of the principles enunciated during the course of this debate, then we will secure powerful help, not merely from the Irish in America but from Americans not of Irish birth or descent. There is a lot of goodwill, an invaluable measure of goodwill, towards this country among all sections in the United States. All those sections of people are looking to us now with eagerness to see how we will perform and see how we will achieve results.
It is for that reason that I said yesterday that our acceptance of membership of the United Nations imposed on us grave duties and high responsibilities I do not think that they are going to involve us in war or in intervention in any part of the world with whatever armed forces we may have, but our responsibility is to do our duty as a Catholic Christian country, to act justly, and with the kind of independence that I described yesterday, making friends for ourselves, securing respect for ourselves and ensuring that we have an influence which will count in international affairs. This country has made an impact on practically every part of the world. We have our relations and kith and kin all over the world. I believe that all those people, and particularly Irish-Americans in the United States, are looking to us to do something which will increase their prestige and their pride in their own Motherland. I hope we will be able to fulfil that expectation.
There is another matter that, I think, I should refer to in passing. Certain suggestions, if not criticisms, were made as to the amount of expenditure on the Department of External Affairs. I should like to pay tribute to our representatives abroad and to our officers in the Department of External Affairs. I think their credit and reputation abroad stand high and that everywhere they go they do honour to themselves and to their country. So far from these people being overpaid they are in my very serious view underpaid. They are, in fact, struggling most of their lives with the almost impossible task of making ends meet.
Suggestions were made that we were expanding too much. I think Deputy MacBride answered that yesterday. So far from expanding we have fine-combed the Estimate for this Department. I think every penny that is spent is necessary expenditure. We have tried to cut out anything unnecessary. We have had to stave off demands that have been made upon us for further representation. I will mention only one type.
I have been pressed very frequently, indeed, by lay people and by bishops, priests and ecclesiastics of all kinds to have some sort of representation in the East. We have our missionaries abroad in Africa and in the East and there is nobody to look after their intersts except possibly when we have a representative in Australia and the distance from Australia to the East is very vast indeed. I have been pressed very strongly by people in South Africa because of the situation in which Catholic and Christian schools are there at the present time for some representatives of this country to whom people of Irish descent and Catholics can look. It should be a cardinal point of our policy to the extent we can secure it to look after our people and missionaries in the East but it will not be a very easy task.
Some Deputies appear to be under the delusion that we ought to go to U.N.O. and, as I think the phrase was, not bother ourselves with other nations' problems but deal only with our own. What an absurd position we would be in were we to go into U.N.O., talk about Partition and nothing else and walk out when there was any other problem affecting world peace and the interests of the various other nations where justice required consideration and give an example of an entirely selfish policy. I think that would bring down upon us criticism— just criticism—and make the big expenditure relevant to our resources that we are making on the United Nations entirely futile.
I should like, just before I conclude, to express and put upon record my appreciation and sincere gratitude to the President of the United States of America, to the American Government and to official America for the extraordinary welcome they gave to me as head of an Irish Government. I quite appreciate, to use the expression I used at one meeting in America, that I went to America officially as the unimportant representative of a very important country, and it was to this very important small country that the President of the greatest nation in the world at the present time, the most powerful nation, the nation that is carrying the greatest weight of international responsibility, paid such tribute and respect.
To the people of the United States whom I met in the course of my journey I should like also to record my thanks—official America and unofficial America. Native Americans, if I may use that expression, Irish-born Americans and Americans of Irish descent, all vied with each other to do honour to this small nation. In the tribute I wish to pay here and put on record, I should like especially to record my appreciation—I hope I will be entitled to say that I do so with the consent of this House and the people of Ireland— in regard to the University of Yale which is Puritan in its origin. It honoured this Catholic country by inviting me, in my capacity as head of the Government for the time being, to take part in the deliberations of the student body and to meet the professors, fellows and lecturers of the Law School and of the Timothy Dwight College. From the President of Yale and the fellows and lecturers of Yale I received nothing but the utmost friendship, cordiality and hospitality. To meet the students of Yale was a perfect joy. They were interested in nothing but in Ireland. They wanted to talk about nothing but Irish affairs and learn about Ireland and Irish affairs. Very few, if any, of those I met had any Irish origin.
I think it is also proper and incumbent upon me to pay the highest tribute in my power to Mr. and Mrs. Wilmarth Lewis who from their own funds put at my disposal a scholarship to be granted to an Irish citizen to visit Yale for post-graduate studies in any course I select. That was a gesture of great friendship from a distinguished scholar and a very well-known personality not merely in Yale but in the United States. I think it is right and proper that we should record our thanks for that generous gesture. It was a gesture which in itself was substantial not only from the point of view of money and value but from the point of view of its friendliness towards this country and its interest in this country which was beyond measure.
I want once again to emphasise, as I did at the start, that Ireland has a great opportunity. I think we will grasp that opportunity. Certainly whatever Government may be in power from time to time will do the best it can to see that our duties and obligations are carried out in the United Nations. If we do that, we will enhance our own prestige here and we will, I believe, secure friends who will help us in a very powerful way to solve Partition. We will also ensure that the respect which foreigners have for us and particularly the respect which America has for us will enable them to have such an esteem for us that they will be inclined to trade more with us and invest more money with us, to put it at its lowest possible level. If we rise, as I believe we will rise, to the opportunity, I think Ireland will become a very vital factor for good in world affairs in time to come.
