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Dáil Éireann - Volume 33 - 20 March, 1930

Conference on Operation of Dominion Legislation and Merchant Shipping Legislation—Motion of Approval.

Debate resumed on Motion:

That Dáil Eireann approves of the Report of the Conference on the operation of Dominion Legislation and Merchant Shipping Legislation and recommends the [2196] Executive Council to take such steps as they may think fit to give effect thereto.—(Mr. McGilligan).

Minister for Defence (Mr. Fitzgerald): I got up last night to speak in this matter on its more general aspect, because I think it is generally recognised that the governing position, the details of which are dealt with in this Report, is the fundamental cause of what I might call the regrettable hiatus between Deputies opposite and this Government, and I think it is always as well to have the position as clearly defined as possible. It seemed to me from what was stated by Deputies on the other side in this debate and in other debates and in various statements made through the country, that they, at any rate, had a wrong impression as to what exactly is the existing condition of affairs here. I said last night that, as far as I can judge the position of this free association in reply to Deputies opposite as to whether that meant that we had perfect freedom to end that association, it seemed to me that legally we have that right; that this Dáil is sovereign and has a perfect right to decide whatever it thinks is for the wellbeing of the people of the country. I pointed out, of course, at the same time that if anybody proposed to take any such action they should realise that, apart from the legality of the question, there might be adverse effects from such an act which would need to be borne in mind before any such action is taken. As far as I am concerned, I do not foresee in any immediate future or even comparatively remote future, that it would be in the interests of the people of this country that such action should be taken. Nevertheless, this is a perfectly free association. I pointed out that when the Treaty was signed it was understood already that the Dominions were co-equal with Great Britain. As to the word “Dominion,” some Deputies object to a word which takes on a different connotation from time to time. Whatever meaning the word “Dominion” had, the word now means an autonomous, sovereign, independent [2197] country, and all that connotes, and I do not see that we have necessarily any objection to the use of the term.

At the same time, with the progress of time, it may be necessary to abolish the word “Dominion” in that connotation. It may even be necessary to change the description “Commonwealth of Nations” into something like “Community of Nations” in order to bring out more strongly the plurality of these entities. But when we took over there was a governing clause, as I might say, declaring co-equality amongst the various members of the British Commonwealth, and that was implemented in the Treaty in words something like this: That the relations between this country and Great Britain should be according to the law, practice and constitutional usage of the Dominions, and particularly that of Canada. There is a question of law, practice and constitutional usage. Owing to these States being the result of growth, law and practice were not identical. Deputy O'Connell, I think, speaking yesterday, remarked how I had said that I maintained that the Colonial Laws Validity Act did not apply to us. That is a point I shall at any time be prepared to argue. On the ground that as practice was more important for us than law, and as in practice the Colonial Laws Validity Act was non-operative, I would have argued that practice and not law is the thing that governed, especially bearing in mind the co-equality.

When we took over we found that many things remained from the prior state of affairs which were anomalous. Imperial Conferences meet from time to time, and their major work is to declare what is the practice. Now the last Imperial Conference having dealt, very satisfactorily, with the question of practice there were matters in which, prior to the autonomy of the Dominions, certain Acts were passed by the British Parliament declaring, on the face of them, that they applied not merely to Great Britain and the dependencies but, also, to the States which are [2198] now known as Dominions. There was, for instance, the question as to whether that law which had been passed and never formally abrogated, was still operative or not. In practice one would say it had entirely ceased to be operative, in law it could be argued it was still operative. Matters that affected such laws were not dealt with for the reason that the law had been passed to meet certain conditions and before it was wiped away with the stroke of a pen it was considered it would be desirable to look into the effect of such laws to see if any of those effects were beneficial, and should be continued and to see the best method of meeting that position.

This Conference met last year to deal with certain prescribed matters, not a question of practice but a question of law. Deputy O'Connell is concerned that the report of the Conference should be brought here at all. He seemed to think it implies a certain seniority, a certain priority, a certain authority on the part of the British Parliament not existing here. Historically we know the British Parliament existed first, and that the others first submitted to that Parliament and gradually evolved away from that submission. Consequently, there might be such a stage where there would be a question as to whether that Parliament had extra authority or not, but there would be no question of the other Parliaments ever having had such authority. When there is a question of any doubt it is very desirable to have as clear a definition as possible, and to have the doubt cleared up. Out of such debates as this one of the beneficial effects I would like to find would be to have a definition exactly as to what the difference between the party opposite and us is, not with a view to accentuate that difference, but merely with the view of knowing exactly what that difference is, and seeing how far we do actually diverge, and how far we could possibly converge. The Party on our side of the House no less than [2199] the Party opposite, has been always jealous for the sovereignty and independence of this country. Every suggestion even that might lead to a deduction that we were submissive or subject to any power outside we have immediately noted with a view to having any doubt on the question removed at the earliest possible occasion.

That is the reason why the Imperial Conference 1926 Report was based largely upon the memoranda made by the External Affairs Department of this country—because they represented certain points that we had noted from time to time. What is the difference say, for instance, between the two Parties? At the time this State came into existence, we considered that the co-equality clause would be the chief governing clause of our future development. The Party opposite believes otherwise. Our experience during the seven years that this State has existed has been, that when we found anything anomalous in that position, we had only to point that out and it was removed.

Bringing this Report before the Dáil is either right or wrong. Deputy O'Connell seems to have certain doubts as to whether it should be brought here or not. To begin with, any proposed international arrangement is a matter for agreement or disagreement with and not for picking or choosing as between details. There are no details that we object to. The agreement should be brought here, for this reason: when there is a doubt or a possible doubt it is desirable that that possible doubt should be removed. We know that the Party opposite had many doubts which proved to be wrongly founded in the last seven years. We have internally in this country sufficient evidence that it was possible to have doubts on many points. Internationally, we know that if the thing went before an international court, that court would consider the thing from every point of view and not be guided by what our point of view was, even though [2200] our point of view may have had solid foundation. Therefore, it was desirable to have any of these doubts cleared up.

In the event of what I might call an evenly balanced question between us and Great Britain, Deputies must have known that the more powerful and the more influential have more possibility of having a doubt solved in their favour than the less powerful and the less influential. But here we are. We have excellent relations with Great Britain. There is no desire on the part of Great Britain to impinge in any way on our sovereignty or independence. When we discover anything that is anomalous or considered to be anomalous, we desire that these things be rectified. Many such matters have been rectified, including the Colonial Laws Validity Act, the Merchant Shipping Act, disallowance and reservation. These are things on which international lawyers might have divergent opinions. There was an inclination among international lawyers, possibly because of their affiliations and possibly because they were used to the previous state of affairs, always to interpret these points against us. Most of the writers on Dominion status and the British Commonwealth of Nations who are declared experts show themselves time and again in their works to be thoroughly misinformed in the matter. It is detrimental to this country that the authority of a man who is regarded as an expert should be quotable against what we know to be a fact. Also it is desirable when there is any doubt to have that doubt cleared up. For instance, if Deputy MacEntee owed me £5——

Mr. MacEntee: Impossible.

Mr. Fitzgerald: —and he paid me that £5——

Mr. MacEntee: More impossible still.

Mr. Fitzgerald: —he might ask me for a receipt, saying that that £5 was in full settlement of what he owed me. His neighbours might come along and say: “Do not take [2201] any receipt from him; if you take that receipt from him, that receipt may be understood as saying that you owed him more than the £5.” He takes the receipt because he does not want to go before the courts and have any trouble afterwards. He wants something definitely laying down that he has paid me the £5 and that I have agreed (in writing) that he paid me what he owed me. Does the giving of that receipt assert that he owes me more than £5? It asserts plainly that he has paid me what he owed. The matters that were raised here were matters that were questions of considerable doubt in people's minds. Here they are laid down clearly, and we bring the matter before the Dáil. Should we bring the matter before the Dáil? As I explained yesterday, in regard to the Irish Free State, no body of men, or power or authority has the right to lay down anything that shall affect it in any way except this Government. A representative body met in London consisting of representatives of six States. They made certain recommendations. As far as they are concerned, they have no power to bind anybody in any way in any one of these States, because those States are all independent and sovereign. But that body recommended that their Report, which was practically completely in favour of the points that we maintain, should be brought before the various Parliaments to be approved by those various Parliaments. Why was that? Because it is clearly recognised that with regard to Canada only the Canadian Government can speak, and that with regard to the Free State only the Free State Government can speak. If that body in London, containing as it did representatives of six Governments, declared that they could decide these things without reference to us, that would be impinging upon our authority. Anything declaring even the possible extension of the powers of this Government must be decided here and not elsewhere, and that is the reason why this matter is brought here. Some of the points [2202] which are dealt with in this Report really do not affect this country. They have relation to the individual constitutions of individual Dominions. Nevertheless, anything affecting any Dominion affects us, because our position was largely defined by analogy.

It is in our interests that not merely should we define our sovereignty as clearly as possible but it is also specifically in our interest that the other States affected should move in the same direction with us. The point I want to bring out is that the governing clause of co-equality has been adhered to ever since the Treaty was accepted at every Imperial Conference gathering and at this gathering that was held last year. The net effect of their deliberations has been to make clear and clearer our co-equality. Sometimes they have dealt with matters not affecting so much the co-equality between the various members of the British Commonwealth; points have been raised, and necessarily raised, to point out clearly that not merely was there co-equality between members of the British Commonwealth of Nations but that there was co-equality between each and every member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and every sovereign State that forms the world to-day. The movement has been ever in one direction. There have been certain anomalies, the result of the same cause—namely, the growth from non-independence to independence, the growth from non-sovereignty to sovereignty, that will require to be cleared up. This Report I consider to be very good, and I consider that the bringing of it before the Dáil is just as necessary as it is desirable, as it is the re-assertion of the fact that only the Government of this country has a right to say anything in any way affecting the interests of the people of this country.

Questions have been raised about the Privy Council and so on. As I pointed out yesterday, the Privy Council question was definitely referred by the last Imperial Conference to the next Imperial [2203] Conference. Certain questions were referred to the Conference previously held and were considered at the 1929 Conference. One or two matters not definitely adverted to in the 1926 Conference have been brought in here first as additional to the Agenda but not in any way transferring their consideration from the next Conference to this. When it came to a question such as partition, this Conference did not deal with that. I would like if some of those Deputies opposite were to point out what exactly is their fault with our status. I think they cannot blame us or even blame Great Britain to any great extent for the fact that economically and commercially we are inferior to Great Britain. That does not affect status at all but it may change the well-being of this country.

On the question of status, on which there has been so much argument for years and so much division in the country, I would like the Opposition to state their position clearly, not merely to make assertions that they believe to be a fact, but assertions in regard to things that they know to be a fact. I assert here that during the seven years of the existence of this Government our sovereignty and independence have not been called in question on any occasion by any other Government. Deputies opposite have referred to the question of our association with those other States. I have explained that legally we can withdraw, but that as far as this Government is concerned it may be said that we are not such damn fools as to do it. I think that any potential Government in this country if it declares its policy to do that act that Deputy Lemass suggested yesterday—just scrap the Treaty and be done with it—should certainly advert to the likely and also possible consequences of that act before it would take steps to commit the people of this country to that act.

Mr. Lemass: My contention yesterday was that the consequences would be nil if the definition of the Empire [2204] as given by the Minister for External Affairs was a correct one.

Mr. Fitzgerald: The definition is correct, but the Deputy's deduction from it is incorrect.

Mr. Lemass: If the two countries are co-equal in status and there are no penalties provided in the Treaty, then a breach of the Treaty by either party could not lead to any subjection of one party to the other party.

Mr. Fitzgerald: I will give the Deputy an instance: Belgium and France are in status equal. Does the Deputy think that in the event of strained relations between Russia and France or Germany and France the Belgians can say: “There is no penalty laid down as to any acts we shall do, and we shall proceed to make offensive or defensive alliances”?

Mr. Lemass: That is not an analogy.

Mr. Fitzgerald: It is.

Mr. Lemass: If there is a treaty between Belgium and France and the Belgian Government notifies the French Government that as from a certain date its allegiance under that Treaty will be discontinued, would the French Government be justified in threatening war, or something of that nature, in consequence?

Mr. Fitzgerald: That all depends upon certain matters. Suppose Belgium and France had a defensive and offensive alliance and there were strained relations between Germany and Belgium or Germany and France——

Mr. Lemass: Why bring that in?

Mr. Fitzgerald: At present we have a Treaty. A number of clauses in that Treaty possibly came from lack of confidence on the part of the British people. That Treaty gave them certain reassurances. One reassurance is, of course, the Crown. Explaining how real an assurance that is is very difficult because one [2205] might almost describe a great many aspects of it as atmospherical; at the same time it is a very real assurance. There are other things in the Treaty which assured Great Britain in much the same way as Treaties do between other countries—assured them of many things that they are interested in. There was this country, non-sovereign, making an agreement with Great Britain and Great Britain agreeing to things—if you like, avoiding risk by making sure of certain things in that Treaty. If we turn around and say: “We made this Treaty with you. We are sovereign and independent and we are done with it”—really I do not think the Deputy believes that one can act exactly in that way. It cannot be done. It does not affect our status in the least. Between any two States in the world when it comes to the abrogation of a Treaty all sorts of questions are raised; there is no doubt whatever about that. For instance, I am not quite sure if Jugo Slavia or Czecho Slovakia or some other country that has not a seaboard could not make an agreement with a maritime country whereby they would have the right to ships coming in, provided they would enter into another agreement which might be very vital to the other country concerned. If the other country comes along and says: “We are scrapping this free port for you and you can keep whatever you undertook to give us,” then if the country affected is very much stronger than the other country they simply do not sit down under the thing and say: “Of course, if you say that, it ends the matter.” That does not happen.

Mr. Lemass: Even if they have signed the Kellogg Pact?

Mr. Fitzgerald: Even if they have.

Mr. Lemass: Or were members of the League of Nations?

Mr. Fitzgerald: Even if they were. As it is, we have to deal with real politics, and, as I say, it is not affecting our status in the least. To my [2206] mind, the unity of the Crown gives assurances which could not be achieved satisfactorily in any other way.

Mr. MacEntee: Why, might I ask?

Mr. Fitzgerald: As I explained, this is very subtle. To get these same assurances which are more or less implicit in that relationship, would require certain clauses laid down which would impinge or tend to impinge more on our independence and sovereignty than the present arrangement does. I will go this far and say that the sovereignty and independence of the Free State under the existing arrangement is less impinged upon than the sovereignty and independence of any similarly small State in juxtaposition to any similarly large State. We are not merely as free as any country with our resources in relationship to a country with the resources of Great Britain, but I will go so far as to say that our arrangement allows of greater freedom on our part than is the case in any similarly situated country.

Mr. Little: Might I ask the Minister to give some concrete instance of where other small countries in Europe are more dominated over in their Treaty relations than is the Free State by Great Britain?

Mr. Fitzgerald: The Deputy will understand that it would be bad form for me publicly to discuss the relationships of other countries. In private I would be quite prepared to discuss the matter with any Deputy on the other side.

Mr. Lemass: Can the Minister give any instance of a European State unable to amend its Constitution in consequence of a Treaty with a foreign power?

Mr. Fitzgerald: Offhand, no, but of course there are such countries. If Germany proposed to re-establish the Kaiser there would be a question for other countries to consider. Let us take the question of Holland and Belgium and a Scheldt arrangement. Deputies are aware that any arrangement [2207] between Holland and Belgium as to the navigation of the Scheldt has to have the assent of other countries who were parties to the Council of Vienna in 1833, or it may have been 1839. The Union between Austria and Germany is another point. There are many such questions. The Scheldt is quite an interesting case. Those two free countries, Holland and Belgium, when they want to make an arrangement between themselves must have associated in the Treaty other countries that were parties to the Council of Vienna. These things happen. The same applies with regard to partition. I would declare this country, not merely the Free State but the whole of Ireland, free for this reason, that as far as the Six Counties are concerned they are out by their own act. It is an understood arrangement that if at any time the majority of the people there by their vote or otherwise declare a wish for a union with this country, it follows automatically. What is regrettable in the case of partition is that unfortunately the majority of the people up there do not wish to be with us.

Mr. Lemass: Is not the Minister thinking of the Six Counties as a unit?

Mr. Fitzgerald: It is an arbitrary unit if you like, I agree.

Mr. Cassidy: Does the Minister allege that it is by the wishes of the whole people of the country that partition exists?

Mr. Fitzgerald: No, I have not said that. In the same way nearly every country in Europe is more or less in the same position. France for a period did not own Alsace Lorraine but they own it now. If you say that that was an interference with the sovereignty of France and that France was not sovereign up to 1918 so Germany is not sovereign to-day. There is a large section of Switzerland peopled by people of language, race and religion at one with the Italian people. That is [2208] arbitrary if you like. If you take it on race, language or anything else and if you take all the people of the Italian race and language, would they decide that that area should go out? The majority of the people in Switzerland are, I think, very ready to stay with Switzerland. Is Spain less sovereign because Gibraltar is British? On the Spanish-French frontier there is the town of Leivia which is in France. Inside Switzerland the town of Campione belongs to Italy. The frontiers of Italy, Germany, Roumania, Austria and Denmark have changed within recent years. These things happen in every country. We notice it more here because we are an island but our sovereign status is no more impinged by these things than was that of France.

Mr. Cassidy: Are these cases a justification for partition being created in this country?

Mr. Fitzgerald: No, the only justification for that is that in an area arbitrarily taken the majority of the people have decided to be outside. That is the fundamental justification, if there can be any justification for partition. The way to solve partition is to conduct our affairs in such a way, and to bring about a movement from the 17th to the 20th century in the Six Counties, that they will of their own will come in. If Deputies opposite have a better solution we shall be glad to hear it and, if it is a better one, I shall adopt it.

An Ceann Comhairle: We are not dealing with that.

Mr. Lemass: If the Minister ceases to justify it now he will be on the way to getting a better solution.

Mr. Fitzgerald: I am stating a fact.

Mr. Lemass: On the Minister's argument if County Kerry decided by a majority to leave the Free State it would be justified in doing so.

[2209] Mr. Fitzgerald: Not quite. The canton of Ticino is inside Switzerland, but Italian in race and language. Everyone agrees to that. But they would not agree that if Naples decided to go outside Italy it could do so. There are historical facts which have to be recognised. There is a concatenation of events which must be recognised. I have tried to explain the thing as I see it in its general aspect. I would like if the Party opposite would set out in detail exactly why they were at one time, and are at present, against the Treaty, basing that opposition on questions of independence and sovereignty, but not on questions of sentiment. I believe that at this moment the question “for or against the Treaty” does not exist among the people, that everybody accepts the Treaty and recognises it as a good solution of the situation. I believe that Deputies opposite—I do not wish to be offensive or to misrepresent them— by their previous associations find it rather hard to break with things they said on certain previous occasions. I believe that they get a certain amount of support in the country not because people are anti-Treaty, but because certain people think that they have reason to dislike the Government. I think they get as many votes among people whose brothers——

An Ceann Comhairle: Let us keep to the Report.

Mr. Fitzgerald: I want to bring out that this is one more step in the direction in which we have been moving since 1922. This Report deals with detailed matters affecting laws that were passed by a Parliament capable of passing such laws, but whose operative effect we believe in most cases ceased, but which might still be argued in some court or conference. This is, if you like, an act of renunciation on the part of Great Britain. Roughly, they say: “If up to the present we may have had such powers, we declare, at any rate from this on, that we have not such powers.” There were certain [2210] matters in which there was a certain conflict between law and practice. This Report settles that. It does not deal with practice but with law, and it brings the law, which might at some time or other cause an argument or trouble, into consonance with the practice, which is an implementation of the sovereign right of the various members of the British Commonwealth. On the question of the Crown, there is one Crown. What is the effect of it? When dealing with the Report of the 1926 Conference I explained that the Crown is several in its functions. I believe that the movement tends even beyond that, not merely to be several in its functions but to be several in itself. We have not reached that point yet. The Crown is several in its functions. There is one King, a constitutional monarch acting on the advice of his appropriate Ministers. For instance, he would sign the full powers of a plenipotentiary. But how would he sign? In the case of the Free State he would sign necessarily, and only on the advice of the Government of the Free State. In the case of Great Britain he would sign the full powers necessarily, and only on the advice of the Government of Great Britain, and so with the other States of the Commonwealth. The Party opposite and the Government divide on that point, that we happen to have the one Crown, several in function, and because the actual signature is made by the King, he making it necessarily without option and making it only on the advice of this Government, that is the difference which separates us.

Mr. Lemass: The whole issues of the Treaty.

Mr. Fitzgerald: There may be various points on which we are agreed. Our movement has been consistently during the past seven years to watch jealously for anything that impinged on our sovereignty. We made a note of it and at the next Imperial Conference, or otherwise, we referred to the matter and it was dealt with. There may be things [2211] which we have not yet dealt with and which may require to be remedied. Our experience during those seven years has been that everything in any way contradictory to the independence of this State has only to be noted to be removed. This is one further step towards unification of law and practice and the removal of any possible doubt in the minds even of prejudiced persons as to the fullness of our sovereignty and independence. That being so, I welcome it. It was necessary and desirable that it should be brought before the Dáil so that it will be made clear here and elsewhere that only this Government has a right to take any action which commits the people of this State. Therefore I think Deputy O'Connell's fears about having the Report brought up here for approval are not merely not on a sound foundation but they are a complete misunderstanding of the facts. Everything that affects the Dominions affects us. There are many things here that it is particularly important we should have cleared up. There is nothing in it which I can see which in any way changes the direction in which we have been moving during the last seven years. Everything in it as far as I can see moves in the same direction. Therefore we welcome it, and the Dáil in approving of the Report is exercising that capacity which has been conferred upon it by virtue of the sovereignty of the people of this State. I cannot see any difference that divides us from the Party opposite, and still less anything which divides us from the Labour Party, which should lead the Party opposite or the Labour Party to do other than to welcome this Report and approve of it.

Mr. Lemass: May I ask the Minister whether it is the policy of the Government to weaken or to strengthen the link with the Crown?

Mr. Fitzgerald: The policy of the Government is primarily to define clearly and strengthen the sovereignty and independence of the State and, secondarily to that, to [2212] consider how it affects the wellbeing of the people of the country. As far as I am personally concerned, I feel that it is not in the interests of the people of the country to weaken the association with other members of the Commonwealth. I hope the Deputies opposite, having heard the actual facts, if they will not vote with us, will at least give us some opportunity of examining all their fears and doubts as to the existing position with regard to status and let us at least know if we have been misled during the last seven years, or give us an opportunity of enlightening them on the facts and thereby lessen perhaps the division there is between us.

Mr. MacEntee: The speech of the Minister for Defence, I must say, was in welcome contrast with the speech of the Deputy who preceded him. The Minister's speech at least was strictly ad rem, whereas Deputy O'Sullivan was wool-gathering in the distant and irrevocable past. I do not propose to follow him, however. The events and the circumstances of 1921 and 1922 can never be recalled. Possibly their consequences will never be undone. In any event, it is vain for Deputy O'Sullivan or anyone else to seek to harp back to justify, extenuate or to undo what was then done. We must all follow Time's arrow. We cannot roll back history like a cinema film to excise a little bit here and possibly to interpolate a little bit there. Therefore, when I personally come to discuss these matters, I discuss and consider them in relation to our present circumstances and to our possible future. I think that is the attitude of this party as a whole. Unlike Deputy O'Sullivan and Deputy Tierney and some other members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party, we do not live in dead yesterdays—we live in to-day, and we are looking to the future. Our concern here is to keep open the path for the future, to keep open the path to independence, so that if not we, at least those who come after us, can tread that path to-morrow.

[2213] The Minister for Defence in the course of his speech has, I think, answered very fully and definitely the question which was raised by the leader of the Labour Party as to the reasons why the Dáil has been asked to approve of the Report that is now before us. He pointed out that the Report in its present form and the conclusions of the Conference are in no sense binding on any of the States, until the States shall have ratified it through the respective legislatures concerned. At the moment, therefore, this Report is of no effect whatsoever, but the moment we approve of it it becomes binding with as heavy and as onerous obligations as were imposed by the Treaty of 1921.

There is very much to be said for the way in which the Minister for Defence and the Minister for External Affairs have presented their case to the Dáil. They have not attempted in any way to disguise the gravity and the effect of this motion for approval. The Minister for External Affairs emphasised and re-emphasised the importance of this Report. It was, he declared, the most important constitutional document since the Treaty. The tremendous nature of the recommendations he pointed out. And then, as though he himself were appalled at the seriousness of the course which he asked the House to take, he began to conjure up false confidence and false courage, based upon Press reports, upon “fumbling attempts,” as he described them, “to find in the Report imaginative dangers.” But what are the dangers which the critics of the Report to whom the Minister referred tried to find in it, and which the Minister described as imaginative? Are they not that too much liberty has been given to the Dominions? Is it not the fear that the Empire is becoming more and more a free and voluntary association in which the constituents were held together by no heavier, no more enduring, tie than that of temporary self-interest? Is that not the presentation of the Empire which the Minister and his colleagues have put [2214] before the country? Is that not the impression in regard to it which the Minister for External Affairs endeavoured, in the course of his speech, to create in the House? Is that not the impression which the Minister for Defence attempted also to create in the speech to which we have just listened? The whole sum and substance of the Minister's speech was that the Empire is becoming, as I have said, more and more a free and voluntary association in which the constituents were held only by no heavier thing, no more enduring tie, than that of mere temporary self-interest. And yet in the very same speech in which he attempted to convey this picture to the House the Minister, speaking from his own knowledge of what was discussed at the Conference, declared that all the gaudy structure of freedom and co-equality which the Reports of this Conference and the earlier Conference in 1926 suggest, was and is an imaginative sham.

The Minister for External Affairs has his candid moments. So, too, has the Minister for Education. In presenting and in supporting this report in the Dáil they seemed to vie with each other to ensure that we should be put in possession of the whole truth and that hereafter it should not be imputed to them that they had in any way deceived the House. They want us to approve of the Report, but they want us to do so with our eyes open. Therefore when the Minister for External Affairs speaks of the dangers which the Imperialists have found in the Report and says that they are imaginative, the Minister for Education hastens to second him by describing the report as “a pretended statement of existing facts”—a true philosopher's formula to reconcile the make-belief of this Report with the realities of the Treaty. That is the salient fact which emerges from the speeches of the Minister for Defence and the Minister for Education. The Ministers who have spoken in support of the motion know that the Treaty still binds and fetters us, that there has been no advance in [2215] the direction of independence from the position of 1922. There has been a decided movement in the contrary direction, a recession towards Imperialism in its latter-day development, as I will show later, but of the constitutional advance along the stepping stones, which Deputy McEoin and Deputy Conlon who were comrades of ours, promised to take, there has not been one single inch. If this Report, instead of being “a pretended statement of existing facts,” were indeed a full and true statement of existing facts, if we were indeed free associates, co-equals, non-subordinates, then, as Deputy Lemass stated in the course of his speech, the Treaty would be dead, not only dead but dust. It would have perished in 1926 and long ago have gone the way of all corruption. The Report and the Treaty, if each has to be taken at its face value, are mutually inconsistent. If the Report stands, if it be indeed as the Minister states not only a clear, but the clearest, constitutional record, then the Treaty, whether for good or ill, has been superseded and all the disabilities which the Treaty imposed upon us are removed.

The Minister for Education asks that the Report should be taken as a whole. Let us examine the preliminary paragraph in it. Consider how the principles enunciated in that paragraph can be reconciled with our position under the Treaty. The Report opens with a statement as to the relations which are pre-supposed to exist between Great Britain and the Dominions and that statement is to this effect:

They are autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.

The three assertions are that in status we are co-equal, not only with Canada, Australia and South Africa, [2216] but with Great Britain herself; that we are freely associated with Great Britain and the other Dominions as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations; and that we are in no way subordinate to any of the others, including Great Britain, in any aspect of our domestic or external affairs.

If the Minister for External Affairs had been present I would have asked him, in the course of his reply, to deal with some problems which arise from the principle of co-equality. According to the declaration in the 1926 Conference, which I have quoted and which has been repeated in the Report now before us, all the States in the British Commonwealth, including Great Britain and ourselves, are equals. What does this mean? I cannot better express it as it appears to my mind than has already been done by Mr. Amery, Minister for the Dominions in the last British Cabinet. Speaking in the House of Commons on 29th June, 1927, he said:

What is meant by equality of status? First, that as far as the question of right is concerned, every Government of that Empire is, if it so wished, entitled to exercise every function of national and international right.

Possibly the most elemental right of a State is to remain at peace in all quarrels in which it does not feel in any way aggrieved. Have we that right? Can we make war or remain at peace at our absolute discretion? Can we remain at peace when Great Britain goes to war? If we are co-equal then we should have the right to determine for ourselves whether we will remain peaceful citizens of the world or whether we will, whether we wish it or not, whether in our interest or not, be dragged into war if our neighbour goes to war. If the States are co-equal, would a declaration of war, say, by Great Britain involve us in the war?

General McKeon: No.

Mr. MacEntee: I should like the Minister in his reply to answer those [2217] questions. They go to the root of the theory of Dominion independence, and are the touchstone whereby the reality of that independence is to be tested. So far as we know, there is no compact that Great Britain shall not declare war without the consent of the Dominions. She reserves all freedom and full liberty of action in that vital matter to herself. If she, in the exercise of that right, declares war without prior consultation with her so-called equals will we be involved in the struggle?

Mr. Fitzgerald: Where is that right defined?

Mr. MacEntee: There is no compact that Great Britain will consult the Dominions before declaring war. I take it as she is a sovereign State unquestionably she reserves full liberty and freedom of action in so vital a matter to herself, and she would not in a moment when possibly her life might be imperilled take time to consult not only the Free State but the other Dominions as well. I take it that is a matter of practical common sense, but if there is a compact that Great Britain will consult the Free State before declaring war I should like if the Minister would disclose that fact to the House, and also what obligations have been imposed upon us by such a compact.

The Minister in the course of his speech stated that the unity of the Crown gives assurances which cannot be secured in any other way. According to our Constitution, war is not to be declared except with the consent of the Oireachtas, but what we want to know is, is there inherent in the Crown a prerogative that would override the Constitution. The Minister has stressed in the course of his speech an important fact that the unity of the Crown, as he describes it, gives to Great Britain assurances that could not be given in any other way, in a way so solemn even as a Treaty freely entered into between this State and Great Britain.

Mr. Fitzgerald: I think the Deputy is misquoting me a little. As far as I remember, what I said was that the unity of the Crown achieved [2218] that end better than any other way that I could think of and achieved it with less impingement on our sovereign independence than could be the fact if the end was sought merely by means of a Treaty. I think the Deputy will find those were the lines of my remarks.

Mr. MacEntee: I would not like to differ from the Minister, but I took down the very words he used. “The unity of the Crown gives assurances which cannot be secured in any other way.”

Mr. Fitzgerald: I may have said that, but I continued in some other way, “in a more satisfactory form,” or something like that.

Mr. MacEntee: Let us assume they cannot be given in any more satisfactory form, and let us ask ourselves why. Is it because there is inherent in the Crown some prerogative that would over-ride the constitutional guarantee which the Oireachtas has that war would not be declared without its consent? I am afraid there is. The Crown has certain prerogatives which may be divided into two classes, major and minor prerogatives. A constitutional authority lays it down that where the greater rights and prerogatives of the Crown are in question recourse must be had to the common and statute law of England whereby it alone may be determined, but where minor rights and prerogatives are in question they are regulated by the statute law of the place where the question arose. As an example of minor prerogatives you have prerogatives relating to coinage and appointment of State officers, Ministers and the like.

Mr. Fitzgerald: Might I ask the reference the Deputy is quoting from?

Mr. MacEntee: The reference is Schlossberg: The King's Republics.

Mr. Fitzgerald: What is his authority?

Mr. MacEntee: I am stating the authority of a person who has [2219] studied the constitutional question. However, let us go away from that. Deputy McKeon has not studied the constitutional question, because I believe if he did he would be on this side and not on that side.

Mr. Fitzgerald: I would back myself against Schlossberg.

General McKeon: We will change places.

Mr. Lemass: You would not agree.

Mr. MacEntee: The major prerogatives are those concerned with declaration of war, making of peace, negotiations with foreign nations, making of treaties, granting leave to appeal to Privy Council, petition of right, granting of passports and safe conducts, and the right of sending and receiving ambassadors.

Mr. Fitzgerald: What is the date of Schlossberg?

Mr. MacEntee: 1927. A very recent authority, even though the Minister questions him. As I said before, it would seem to me that the greater assurances which this unity of the Crown gives to Great Britain is to be accounted for by the fact that these major prerogatives are still attached to the Crown, and that so far as the Dominions are concerned the King can exercise these prerogatives not on the advice of the Executive Council or the Ministers of the Dominions, but on the advice of his Ministers in Great Britain.

Mr. Fitzgerald: Wrong.

Mr. MacEntee: I would be glad if it were wrong. At the same time I did not come to this House unfortified with authority. I am going to quote now for the Minister the words of a Dominion statesman who played a leading part in the constitutional development between 1917 and 1923. Speaking on the debate on the Imperial Conference Report in the Australian House of Commons Mr. Hughes used these significant words in relation to this question of status [2220] and of the competency of the Dominion Ministers who advised the King:

The representatives all sit round the council table, equal in status, but not equal in circumstance or stature. They are all advisers of the King. The Prime Minister of Australia is the first Minister of the King in this dominion and Mr. Baldwin is the first Minister of the King in Great Britain. In that respect they are equal, for they are both first Ministers of the King. But one is an adviser of the King by virtue of his position in the Parliament that grants supply to and maintains the forces upon which the monarchy and the safety and power of the country and the Dominions rest.

Mr. Fitzgerald: What is the date?

Mr. MacEntee: The 22nd of March 1927.

Mr. Fitzgerald: He is referring to what Conference?

Mr. MacEntee: The Report of the Imperial Conference 1926.

Mr. Fitzgerald: He was not there.

Mr. MacEntee: No. He was discussing it in the Australian Parliament. He was dealing with the Report as presented to them, and as he is a Privy Councillor I assume he is familiar with the constitutional position between Great Britain and the Dominions.

Mr. Fitzgerald: Not as familiar as I am.

An Ceann Comhairle: Anyway the quotation is relevant.

Mr. MacEntee: The Minister might permit me to proceed even if the statement should be damaging to the case which he has made.

So that although all the Prime Ministers are advisers of the King it is the advice of his Ministers in London that he follows. It will be seen therefore that the circumstances of the various parties sitting [2221] around the council table are entirely different and nothing that we can say or do can alter that. The Dominions are equal in status with Britain, their Prime Ministers are theoretically equally entitled to advise the King; but the only advice the King can accept is that of the Government of Britain. We must, therefore, qualify the reference in the report of the relations between the Dominion Governments and the King by this very material reservation.

I suggest that the fact that the major prerogative of declaring war still attaches to the Crown, and that that prerogative can be exercised and will be exercised only on the advice, as Mr. Hughes says, of the King's Ministers in Great Britain, that it is in those two facts that Great Britain finds the greater assurances in the unity of the Crown to which the Minister refers.

It is said that we are co-equals with Great Britain—I would like, however, to consider this question of the unity of the Crown a little further. Theoretically it is possible for the King of Great Britain to refuse his assent to a Bill passed by the Houses of Parliament but that right has not been exercised I think since 1707. Is a similar right reserved to the representative of the Crown in this country? Can the Governor-General, in the Free State —this goes again to the root of the question as to whether we are or are not subordinate—refuse his assent to a Bill passed by the Oireachtas and if so, for what reasons? I will permit the Minister if he likes to interrupt me in order to answer that question. Is it because of Section 2 of the Constitution?

Mr. Fitzgerald: A question such as that was originally governed by a section in the Treaty and in the Constitution which, I think, says that law, practice and constitutional usage in the Irish Free State shall be such as in Canada. In so far as that governs it, I think, that will be the clause.

Mr. MacEntee: I think “in so far [2222] as it may be repugnant to the Treaty.” The section is:—

The said Constitution shall be construed with reference to the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland set forth in the Second Schedule hereto annexed (hereinafter referred to as “the Scheduled Treaty”) which are hereby given the force of law, and if any provision of the said Constitution or of any amendment thereof or of any law made thereunder is in any respect repugnant to any of the provisions of the Scheduled Treaty, it shall, to the extent only of such repugnancy, be absolutely void and inoperative and the Parliament and the Executive Council of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) shall respectively pass such further legislation and do all such other things as may be necessary to implement the Scheduled Treaty.

It is quite clear, therefore, that by means of this section Great Britain can veto and does purport to veto legislation passed by the Oireachtas. Again I would like to ask the Minister for External Affairs, whose duty it will be to reply, to show how so long as that section in the Constitution Act remains and is operative Great Britain and ourselves can be co-equal in status.

If Great Britain and ourselves are co-equal we are equally a sovereign State with her. It does not require any acute exercise of logic to follow that. A sovereign State is one which exercises full and exclusive control over all persons and things within the territory occupied by it. Have we undisputed and exclusive control over all persons and things in the territory of the Irish Free State? Have we, for instance, undisputed and exclusive control over the Governor-General in his executive capacity? Have we undisputed and exclusive control over our harbours, over Lough Swilly, Berehaven and Cobh? Have we full and exclusive control, or has any person the right to veto the laying of submarine cables or the establishment of wireless [2223] stations upon our shores, or can we refuse to permit Great Britain to run such cables and to establish such stations for communication with places outside this country? If the Minister can answer these questions in the affirmative, then I will admit that he has gone a long way to prove we are co-equal with Great Britain. If, for any reason, he cannot answer them in this way, then the statement that we are co-equal with Great Britain is untrue.

The declaration of 1926 asserts that the Dominions are freely associated with the Commonwealth of Nations. The test of free and voluntary association is the power to discontinue such association should the associate so desire. There seems to be no doubt that that is the position as far as Canada, South Africa and Australia are concerned. Mr. Bonar Law, on the 31st March, 1920, declared in the House of Commons:

There is no man in this House who would not admit that the connection of the Dominions with the Empire depends upon themselves. If the self-governing Dominions chose to say to-morrow: “We will no longer make a part of the British Empire,” we would not force them.

Later, in 1923, Viscount Sandham, in the House of Lords, declared that any self-governing Dominion was free to secede at any moment it wished. Sir Robert Borden, then Prime Minister, asserted in the Canadian Parliament, on the 17th August, 1925, that Canada was free to leave the British Empire if it chose. Later still, in 1927, General Hertzog, in South Africa, declared that the right of secession had been acknowledged by the Conference of 1926, and that there was no longer any doubt in this regard.

We have those statements by the Dominion Premiers on the one hand and by British Ministers on the other. I ask the Minister for External Affairs do these statements apply unequivocally and without reservation to the Irish Free State? The [2224] right of secession has been granted in the case of South Africa and Canada. Does the Minister claim that right in the case of the Irish Free State? I think the Minister is bound to answer that question. The Minister has put this Report before this House; he sponsors it here. I think he is bound to stand over its statements and have the courage to declare, as the South African and Canadian Ministers have declared in respect of their people, that in the present circumstances this is in reality and in fact a free association, and that this country has the right to secede, peacefully secede, from the British Empire should the majority of her citizens so desire, and that that right in the case of this State has been freely acknowledged by Great Britain, as it has been in the case of South Africa and of Canada.

I think it is all the more necessary that the Minister should make a statement of this sort in view of the statements which have been made elsewhere as to the purpose and value of the Report of the last Imperial Conference. For instance, in the Canadian Parliament, Mr. Bourassa, dealing with the 1926 Report, upon which the present Report is based, pointed out that there was a fundamental contradiction between the conception of Canada as remaining within the Empire and being at the same time a fully sovereign independent State. Dealing with that point, Mr. Mackenzie King replied that the declaration as to status had served the important purpose of allaying the discontent in the Irish Free State. Later, a further authority, Professor Keith, dealing with the position which the Conference of 1926 had created, made this statement:

Nor in any evaluation of the work of Lord Balfour and his colleagues can there be forgotten the real value of the Report in enabling the Governments of the Irish Free State and the Union of South Africa to make headway against those elements in their Dominions which were pressing for the adoption by their Governments of the [2225] doctrine of absolute independence and the secession of membership of the British Empire.

I think that statements like that make it incumbent upon the Minister to clarify the position. He tells us this is the biggest constitutional record which has yet emanated from an Imperial Conference.

The Minister for Defence has asked us to point out any ambiguities, any anomalies, so that they may be clarified and all doubts removed. I should like, in regard to this question of free association, that the Minister should clarify the doubt which is in our mind and the minds of the people of the country, the doubt which he and his colleagues have traded upon for political purposes. Are we a free association or are we not? Have we free association, and have we the right to secede? If so, will the Minister, in virtue of the fact of our free association, declare to the Irish people that they have the right to freely and peacefully secede from the British Empire any time a majority of them may so determine?

The Imperial Conference of 1926 also declared that the States of the Commonwealth are in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs. Is this a true statement of our position? Are we in any way subordinate to Great Britain? The Minister, I take it, in virtue of the fact that he has presented the Report containing the paragraph upon which my speech has been mainly based, declared that we are not in any way subordinate. Very well. Let us examine it. If we are not a subordinate State, then we should have full and exclusive right to make laws for the inhabitants of this State, and our actions in this regard should not be subject to any interference by any other State, not even by Great Britain itself. We should, therefore, have full control over our representative institutions and be able freely to determine for ourselves how they shall be constituted. In particular, it ought to be possible for us to abolish, if we so desire, all [2226] tests or conditions limiting the right of any representative chosen by the people to sit in this Dáil. If, therefore, the statement that we are not subordinate in any way to Great Britain be true, it ought to be possible for us, without interference from Great Britain, to abolish Article 17 of the Constitution, and to remove the great barrier which at present prevents this House from being truly representative of the people of the twenty-six counties.

I ask the Minister, in view of the statement that has issued from the Imperial Conference, and the text of the Report which he presents to the House, has the Oireachtas power to abolish the oath of allegiance? Will the Minister, in the course of his reply, deal with that question, or is it falling upon deaf ears? “There are none so deaf as they who will not hear.” It would be very difficult for the Minister to say that the terms of the Report that he has presented to this House are consistent with the terms of the Treaty. As I said in the beginning of my speech, one or other must go. If the Report is valid, then the Treaty falls. If the Treaty stands, the Report is a sham and make-believe, and the Minister is conscious of that fact. If we are not subordinate in any way whatsoever, then no outside or external power has a right to exact or to extort from the citizens of this State an oath of allegiance which no honest Irishman would ever freely or truthfully give. The fact of the matter is that the more we analyse this Report, and the more we analyse the Report of 1926, the more we see that the Conference was one demanding unusual talent in devising formula which would command general acceptance but which would also allow each of the Dominions to claim that its special point of view had been given full effect to.

The Minister made great play with the question of reservation and the question of disallowance. The power of disallowance has been lopped off, but the fact of the matter is that the power of disallowance had not, in [2227] fact, been exercised since 1873, and I do not think that in latter years the question of reservation arose at all. These were merely accidental prerogatives of Great Britain. They had been abolished years ago, and the only thing that the Conference of 1926 and 1929 did was to lop off the dead timber. But in the Report the trunk of British hegemony still remains. But not even one shoot in which a vestige of life remains has been pruned, as witness the legislation effecting trustee stocks. In this regard, the official organ of the Government—“The Star”—whose editorials, I believe, are sometimes written by a very important member of the Executive Council—states that the present Treasury requirements in this matter are clearly more political than financial in their object.

That, of course, is not the view the Minister for External Affairs put before the House and the Minister for Defence. They stress the point that the provisions of the Trustee Acts are purely financial in their intention. The “Star” for some reason or another has spilled the beans upon the Minister and contends that—and so the Minister and those associated with him contended before they went to the Imperial Conference—that the provisions of the Trustee Acts are political and not merely financial.

There is one other point I want to touch on. This Report of the Imperial Conference does propose a very real and a very vital change in the Imperial relations. That change strange to say, was not stressed at all by the Minister in the course of his speech. I refer to paragraph 60 of the Report, which says:

Inasmuch as the Crown is the symbol of the free association of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and as they are united by a common allegiance to the Crown, it would be in accord with the established constitutional position of all the members of the Commonwealth in relation to one another that any alteration in the law touching the Succession to the [2228] Throne or the Royal Style and Titles shall hereafter require the assent as well of the Parliaments of all the Dominions as of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

I think that is the real reason why this Report has been brought into the House and why the Minister is asking the House to approve of it, in order that the House may be committed to the paragraph I have just read. It is clear that the argument of the Minister hitherto has been that the Dominions have full sovereign power, full right of legislation in all matters appertaining to themselves. This paragraph proposes to impose a limitation in one particular matter which is of primary and vital concern to us. As I have already said, declarations have been made by responsible Prime Ministers of other Dominions claiming the right to secede, and Great Britain has admitted the right so far as they are concerned, and this new convention which is to publish and clearly record in the Report of the Imperial Conference seeks to limit and take away that right.

Again, in the words of the editorial in the official organ of the Executive Council, “the effect of this Convention will be that a Dominion can constitutionally do everything except declare itself a republic. It can only separate itself from the Commonwealth by revolutionary and extra-constitutional action.” Mark the change! Responsible Prime Ministers in other Dominions have claimed, and Great Britain has acknowledged the right of those Dominions to secede. That claim and its acknowledgment by the British Ministers, that action in admitting that in the particular circumstances governing the British constitutional relations, the Dominions have a right to secede, created a constitutional right, and therefore a right which the Dominions could freely exercise without Great Britain saying yea or nay. But according to the “Star,” and not only to the “Star,” but to the plain commonsense interpretation of the paragraph, it is clear that if the House approve of this principle, and if it [2229] be also approved by all the other Dominion States, that that constitutional right to secede will be denied to everyone of them, and that in the words of the “Star,” henceforward “a Dominion can only separate from the Commonwealth by revolutionary or extra-constitutional action.”

Therefore, if the people of this country were by a majority to declare for a republic, it might be asserted by Great Britain that not only in view not only of the adherence of the present Minister for External Affairs, and of the present Government, to the Report now before the House, but in view of the approval of that Report by this House, the Irish people had surrendered their natural right to secede, except with the full consent of the Parliaments of the Dominions and the Parliament of Great Britain.

This paragraph raises also another very important issue, because it is an attempt to exercise group control over individual Dominions. Hitherto it has been contended that the Dominion States were autonomous, sovereign, independent States. It has been contended that this is a perfectly free association in which every State had the fullest liberty of action, apart from the fact that considerations of courtesy and goodwill might require that there should be, from time to time, consultations between the States as to lines of action. But that consultation was merely an act of grace and not an act of duty, and if as a result of that consultation other States objected to the course of action which a Dominion proposed to take, that did not and could not be held to prevent the Dominion from pursuing its original intention irrespective of the views the Dominions consulted might have in regard to it.

This creates a perfectly new situation. It is clear that in so far as this particular question of the Crown is concerned the individual Dominions are going to be placed in a condition of subordination to the aggregate group which is being called the British Commonwealth. It is [2230] clear, therefore, that in this connection the sovereignty of the King of Great Britain is only being exchanged for the sovereignty of the King of the British Commonwealth. Moreover, if the Commonwealth as a group takes powers, and if such powers are given to it to legislate in this one particular matter, how can it be said that later on the aggregate group will not claim further powers to abolish a bridge or alter the existing constitution of any one or more of the groups taken individually? I think that is an important factor.

The Minister for Education in the course of his speech emphasised the fact that this Report does not take a set of circumstances and freeze and fix them there for all time. I shall apply that to the recommendation in Article 60. For the first time a responsible Minister has gone to a State which, whether we like or not, we have to regard at the present time and for present purposes as a constituent State of the British Commonwealth. He recognises that the sovereignty which he hitherto has claimed has been full and absolute in all matters pertaining to the State including, no doubt, the headship of the State. He asks that Dominion to cede some portion of its full and absolute sovereignty to the Dominions as a whole. You cannot fix and freeze, as the Minister for Education said, these circumstances for all time. Once the principle of group control is admitted in this important matter it must extend to others. What I said before will hold good, that in this matter we are not only exchanging the sovereignty of Great Britain for the sovereignty of the British Commonwealth, but we are definitely making a change in status and we are receding even from the position which the Minister for External Affairs and the Minister for Defence have contended has been maintained by them since 1922. They have held that they were free, sovereign and automonous States. In this matter they will be no longer autonomous and no longer sovereign. They can only act with the permission [2231] and full assent of every other constituent in the British Commonwealth.

I ask the House, in view of that fact, not to accept this Report. I notice that most of the people who used to be associated in the old Republican movement are no longer in the House. I notice that Deputy McKeon is absent, that Deputy Conlon has left the House, and I notice that all those who used to belong to the I.R.B. wing have left the House. The Minister for External Affairs and the Minister for Defence, whatever else may be said against them, will have this to their credit, that in presenting this Report to the House they stressed its importance and they did not disguise or conceal from the House the step which they are asking the House to take. If you ratify the Report as a whole, you accept as binding upon yourselves paragraph 60, and the effect of that paragraph, in the words of “The Star,” will be that a Dominion can constitutionally do everything except declare itself a Republic. It can never separate itself from the Commonwealth by a revolutionary or extra-constitutional action. The declaration, therefore, is intended to prevent the future peaceful evolution of this State towards complete and sovereign independence. It will bar all progress along the road upon which the Irish people have stood and the goal towards which their faces have been turned for countless generations. We should, therefore, not endorse by our vote any Report which would do this. I appeal to any member of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party who still has the old instinct strong within him, and who seriously regards the Republican oath which he swore, not to stultify himself and not to bind the hands of future generations by voting and approving of this Report.

Professor Tierney: Deputy MacEntee's speech has been full of sound and fury. I am afraid because of the small number of Deputies who have [2232] been listening to him that it can hardly be said to have signified very much. I think until Deputy MacEntee brought the rhetorical flourish into the debate that he has brought into it, it was hardly possible to speak of the very weak and watery criticisms to which this resolution has been subjected as opposition at all in the strict sense of the word. If it is possible to say that the weak criticism implies a certain amount of negative praise, then it is possible to say that the attitude of the Opposition Party to this resolution has been rather to praise it with faint damns. Neither the Labour Party nor the Fianna Fáil Party has put forward any serious reason why the House should refuse to accept this motion. Last night Deputies O'Kelly, Lemass and O'Connell sought with the most pathetic eagerness for any little shred of reason for criticising this Report. It was really pitiful to see the very slight results that their search succeeded in bringing forth. Deputy O'Kelly complains that the provisions which the Report enshrines are not yet law. He did not quite go so far as to say there was an X instead of an Z in some words on page so-and-so, but that was the general tone of his criticism.

Deputy O'Connell, on the other hand, instead of thinking it a drawback that the Bill was not yet law, thinks it is a drawback that it is being formally ratified. Deputy Lemass, whom I have always suspected of a certain amount of Imperialism, has been demanding that the Minister should go to the most extraordinary lengths in exercising the authority of this House. He wants to have the Minister on every possible occasion enunciate his policy in regard to a series of newspaper rumours which the Deputy would appear to spend most of his time collecting. He wants the Minister to answer not only for the policy of the Executive Council and to explain that policy, but he also wants the Minister to answer for the policy of the British Government and for the policy of the South African Government. It was not until Deputy [2233] MacEntee came along with his peculiar series of mares' nests that anything like an attempt was made to criticise the Report, or anything like a really detailed criticism of the Report was made. But Deputy MacEntee's attempt was in truth a very pitiable one.

The attitude of the Labour Party towards this Resolution reminds me of the attitude that is so common amongst young ladies at present. They want to be different from others. The whole anxiety of the Labour Party is not to adopt an attitude of impartial judgment on anything brought before them in this House. What they are most anxious to do is to take every care that, whatever happens, they will not have the same view as the Government has and, if they can possibly manage it, that they will not have the same view as the Fianna Fáil Party has.

Mr. E. Doyle: It would be bad for us if we had.

Professor Tierney: Deputy O'Connell did his best last evening to walk on a thin rope between what he considered to be the policies of the two Parties. If that represented a seriously thought-out attitude on the part of the Labour Party towards this Report it would be well and good. But it does not. In many respects, it might be said that Deputy O'Connell's speech here last evening was the voice of a ghost. It does not represent either the opinion of Deputy O'Connell himself or the opinion of any member of his Party in this House. The whole object of that speech was, as I have said, to take up for the Labour Party an attitude that will have the look of independence. Whatever happens, they do not want to see eye to eye with the Government, at any rate, and, for once, they did their best not to see eye to eye with Fianna Fáil. We see in this morning's paper that the Labour Party intend going before the country at the next election as——

Mr. E. Doyle: Is it the Labour Party we are discussing now, or is it the Resolution?

Professor Tierney: We are discussing [2234] the attitude of the Labour Party and, I submit, we are entitled to do so. It is stated in this morning's paper that the Labour Party intend to go before the country at the next election as a possible alternative Government to Fianna Fáil. I would be satisfied with almost anything as an alternative Government to Fianna Fáil. It would need, indeed, to be a very poor Party if it did not make a better alternative Government than Fianna Fáil, but I am afraid that the electors will hardly see with my eyes in this particular respect, and I think that they will refuse to give the Labour Party a majority over Fianna Fáil so long as they see that instead of a self-contained, autonomous Party the country is going to get, in the guise of a Labour Party, only a poor, miserable spectre dressed up in the cast-off clothes of Fianna Fáil or else some sort of a wretched hybrid made up of fragments of the less important parts of the policies of the other two Parties with no distincttive characteristic of its own except——

Mr. E. Doyle: They have clean hands.

Professor Tierney: Deputy Lemass said last night that if what the Minister was saying about this Report were true, the Treaty was obsolete. What this Report proves to be obsolete is not the Treaty, but the interpretation put on the Treaty by the Fianna Fáil Party. Ever since 1921, the Fianna Fáil Party and the people who opposed the Treaty in this country have insisted on seeing in the Treaty only an instrument of subjection. They have attempted, as Deputy MacEntee attempted to do here this evening, over and over again, to prove that in all sorts of ways the Treaty bound this country hand and foot to England. They regard the Treaty not as a guarantee of sovereignty or of freedom, but as a sort of instrument of subjection. The whole point of the present Report and of the 1926 Report has been to show, if people needed to be shown it, that that point of view is [2235] obsolete, that it was obsolete in 1921, and that the Party which put forward that point of view in 1921 and is trying to put it forward at present is an obsolete Party.

A great essayist once drew a distinction between books which are books and books which are not books. He gave as an example of books which are not books railway guides. It seems to me that the Fianna Fáil Party are the best living example of a Party which is not a party. They are a Party which is founded on a fallacy. They are a Party founded on the assumption that the Treaty and the status which it conferred were symbols of subjection for this country instead of being symbols of recognition of the sovereignty of this country. Almost every single detail in the Treaty, when it first appeared, was the subject of the most searching attempt at criticism; in the anti-Treaty Press at the time there was practically no aspect of the status accorded this country by the Treaty that was not examined under a microscope. In practically no aspect did it happen that the anti-Treaty Party failed to find that this country was going to be held in subjection.

Eight years have gone by, and in all that time the anti-Treaty Party in this country have not been able to find a single respect in which the Oireachtas has not exercised full and absolute sovereignty over this State. They have attempted to dig up all sorts of mares' nests like the mare's nest about paragraph 60 of the Report. They have attempted to take constitutional documents and to stand them on their heads, which is what Deputy MacEntee was doing with paragraph 60 of this Report. They tried to take out of plain English exactly the opposite meaning to what it suggested to most plain people. But they have failed to show in any one respect that the Free State is a subordinate State and that the Oireachtas of this State has not full and absolute sovereignty over everything in this State.

[2236] This document before us is the result of the Imperial Conference of 1926. At that Conference certain guiding principles regarding the constitutional position as between the different Dominions were laid down, and it was pointed out that although these were recognised as guiding principles governing the constitutional position of the Dominions, in practice these principles were not actually squared with a certain amount of legal theory. There were a number of authorities on constitutional law, both here and elsewhere, who, living solely in a legal atmosphere, refused to recognise that practice had in the course of time changed a great deal of the fundamental structure of the constitutional relations of the Dominions. Actually, even after the Report of the Conference of 1926 was made public, there were constitutional lawyers who made it their business to try to show that that Report did not correspond with the exact position as they found it theoretically, from their legal point of view.

It was maintained by a variety of constitutional lawyers, as Deputy MacEntee in a rather blundering way tried to maintain, that the sovereign prerogative of the King was in no way affected by the various constitutional changes that have been brought about. It was maintained that the sovereign position of the British Parliament and the capacity of that Parliament to legislate for the Dominions were in no way interfered with by either the Report of the Imperial Conference of 1926 or anything that happened prior to that. It was in order to deal with these survivals of legal theory and to set at rest the minds of various diehards in all countries, here, in England, and elsewhere, who still wished to maintain that, no matter what might be done in practice, the legal theory kept up the old British Empire. It was to meet the difficulties which such people were making that it seemed to be necessary in 1926 that a Conference [2237] should be called which would study the question and advise the various Parliaments upon the best methods of removing these legal and theoretical disabilities. In practice, this document will make no real difference in the status of the Free State or of any other Dominion. What it will do will be to make it perfectly clear that in pursuance of the recommendations contained in the document certain legislation has been passed. It will make it clear, both to theorists and politicians, that in theory as well as in practice the old British Empire and the old conceptions of that Empire are dead, that instead of that there has grown up what was accurately defined in a practical way in 1926 as a group of Dominion communities equal in status and in no way subordinate to one another in any aspect of their external and domestic affairs, associated with the Crown, and known as the British Commonwealth of Nations.

It is known that such an Association has been in existence in practice for a number of years, and that the various communities which make up the British Commonwealth have been autonomous in all essential matters since the conclusion of the war, and when the question, for example, of the power of the British Government to involve other Dominions in a war without their consent is raised, there is in actual practice a clear precedent for what will happen should anything like that occur in the case of Chenak. In that case the British Government tried to involve the Dominion Governments, particularly the Canadian Government, in a war without the consent of the Governments and failed to do so. The Canadian Government refused to have any part in that war. The precedent set by the Canadian Government is a precedent that from that time on governs the position of the Dominions in cases where Great Britain declares war. We owe our position as an autonomous unit in that free Association of Nations to the Treaty of 1921. When Deputy Lemass talked about the Treaty [2238] being obsolete, the real fact is that it is owing to the Treaty, and to the Treaty alone, that we can claim the sovereign status which is now ours.

Deputy Lemass asked what would be the consequences supposing the Treaty were treated as non-existent by this State. It is easy to point out two or three consequences. The first consequence would be that the Free State would no longer have a right to be a member of the League of Nations. The second consequence would be that every foreign power which is now represented in the Free State would pretty certainly withdraw its representative from this country. The third consequence would be that the right of the Free State to appeal to the International Tribunal at the Hague would fall, along with the Treaty on which that right is based. The result of any attempt on our part to treat the Treaty as if it were non-existent would simply be national suicide. We would be wiping off the slate all the results which are real and practical and which we gained by that Treaty, and we would be going into a wilderness not knowing what would happen to us from one day to another.

The thing which the Fianna Fáil Party are not able to see is that the Treaty is our guarantee, gives us our enfranchisement and, instead of being a bond and tying us hand and foot and handing us over to some mystical bondage of the British Government, the Treaty gives us not only a status and position among the sovereign nations making up that community, but it also gives us an international status and enables the Pope to send a Nuncio to Dublin and enables the American nation to be represented at the place where our Government sits. It gives us a position among the nations such as the Irish people have not had since the beginning of the Middle Ages. We are asked by the Fianna Fáil Party to treat that instrument either as non-existent or, instead of being an instrument of freedom, which it is, to treat it as if it imposes shackles upon us. It is nearly impossible to deal [2239] with all the peculiar doubts and difficulties which Fianna Fáil persist in raising every time a subject like this is discussed. They are really in the position of a man having an obsession. I doubt very much whether Deputy MacEntee meant what he said in his speech. I doubt whether his attitude towards paragraph 60 of this Report can really represent the honest result of any kind of honest thought devoted to that article, but, in so far as he meant what he said, he and his Party remind one of people with an irremovable obsession. They start with the wrong point of view, and no amount of argument can get them into the position from which they will get the right point of view. It is very difficult for them to do so as their whole political existence for the last eight years has depended on the fallacy that the Treaty, instead of enfranchising the country and giving, what Michael Collins claimed it did give, freedom to attain freedom, was in reality only a prison for this country. As their whole political existence is based on that fallacy and that fatuity, it is impossible for them, without destroying their existence as a Party, to take up a reasonable or sane attitude towards this question.

They have recognised again—and I think the speech of Deputy O'Kelly yesterday showed that he recognised it to some extent—that the prop on which they raised that foolish foundation and on which they built their Party from 1924 onwards is beginning to sag. They have tried to set up other props to keep them in existence as a Party before the public, but I think they will find ultimately that they will have to stand or fall with the attitude they took up in 1921 when they opposed the Treaty and opposed the acceptance by the Irish people of inclusion in the British Commonwealth. They raised all sorts of verbal difficulties. They tried to invest the person of the British sovereign with some kind of extraordinary, mystical, semi-religious faculty. They almost persuaded people that members of Cumann na [2240] nGaedheal say their prayers to that sovereign every morning. One would imagine that, instead of being a little used part of the machinery of State, the British sovereign was a divinity.

The real trouble with a good many people who opposed the Treaty was that they persisted in regarding political questions as if they were spiritual questions. They persisted in investing political institutions and political concepts, which owed their value to the expediency of the moment, with a kind of religious sanctity, and they persisted in implying that the people who accepted one set of political expedients were accepting one religion and denying another. Our attitude towards this document and towards the question of the status of the Free State is simply an attitude of expediency. We have accepted the Treaty, and in spite of what Deputy O'Kelly says I hold—and I think I can say that I am right in holding— that the Irish people have freely accepted their position under it. In election after election they have by a majority accepted the position of the Free State as an independent and autonomous member of that community of free nations known as the British Empire. They have accepted that, and have accepted it because they know that under the instrument which gives Ireland that status Ireland achieved not only sovereignty within her own borders, but a standing and a prestige amongst the nations of the world that scarcely any other instrument would be likely to give us. The people of Ireland have accepted that position, but they have not accepted it as a new religion. They have not proceeded to burn incense every morning before a statue of the King or anything of the kind. They have accepted it as a political expedient which is useful and valuable for the present condition of the Irish people. It is quite open to the Irish people at any time they find that political expedient no longer valuable or useful to reject it.

The question of whether we are [2241] free to reject the Treaty or not was raised, and all sorts of attempts have been made to invest it with some kind of subtlety that reminds one of a decadent theology. Attempts have been made to show that we are not free to reject the Treaty. We are free to reject it any time the majority of the people want to reject it, but we can only reject it in the way Treaties are always rejected. We cannot reject the Treaty by going into a church and making an act of faith, or by going into a shop to buy something. There is a certain way in which we can declare that we no longer accept our status under the British Commonwealth. It is open to the people any moment they choose to take the steps entering upon that way, but when they do take these steps they must do so with a clear realisation of what it will mean to the country.

Mr. Lemass: What will it mean?

Professor Tierney: It will mean, as I have already said, that this country will cut itself off from all international recognition which it has been painfully building up for itself for the last seven years.

Mr. Lemass: Why?

Professor Tierney: It will mean that this State will not be recognised as in existence, and in order to achieve recognition it will have to do what it did in 1918 and 1919. It will have to send Deputy Seán T. O Ceallaigh to Paris to stand half in and half out of the door of a Minister, his feet in and his face out.

An Ceann Comhairle: Let us leave Deputy O'Kelly.

Professor Tierney: It will have to become as it was before, a beggar among the nations, to be accepted or rejected as the nations please.

Mr. Lemass: Why?

Professor Tierney: Because things happen in a certain way, and nothing that the Irish people can do will prevent it happening that way.

[2242] Mr. Lemass: Then I take it the Deputy says that the Treaty is inherent in the British Constitution, the constitution of the British Empire?

Mr. McGilligan: He has not said that.

Mr. Moore: Deputy Tierney has said that the Irish people are free to reject the Treaty. Does he mean that they are free when, at the same time, all these awful consequences are to follow?

Professor Tierney: I was going to deal with that. Deputy MacEntee wanted freedom to reject the Treaty and have it at the same time. They want to be in the British Empire and out of it at the same time.

Mr. Corry: We will make you a present of the Empire.

Professor Tierney: The Deputy reminds me very often of a certain——

An Ceann Comhairle: Better not.

Mr. McGilligan: Any comparison with the Deputy would be very odious.

Mr. Lemass: The Deputy means that we are a free nation as long as Britain is prepared to let us be free.

Professor Tierney: I mean that we are a free nation by virtue of the Treaty and by virtue of nothing else. As long as we keep to the Treaty we maintain our freedom, but when we reject it we go out into the wilderness and nobody can then say whether we are free or not free. Deputy MacEntee talked about the right of secession and he referred to an article which appeared in the “Star” some time ago in which it was said that the Irish people could at any time they pleased leave the British Commonwealth but that they could only do so by a constitutional revolution. Deputy MacEntee makes it a grievance that there cannot be a constitutional revolution. He makes it a grievance that in order to change our Constitution we would have to change our Constitution. That is [2243] what it amounts to. If there was ever a party which wanted to have its cake and eat it at the same time, the Fianna Fáil Party are in that position. I do not know whether they are serious about it or not. It is very hard to say what they are serious about and what they are not serious about.

Deputy Lemass inquired whether it was enshrined in the document or why it was not, that the Parliament of one State has no power to legislate for another State, and if it was not enshrined in the document that one Government had no power to advise the Crown about the affairs of another Government against the will of that Government. It has been said time after time that these two questions have been settled and answered already. Deputy Lemass wants every time a document referring to the relations of this country with the British Government or the Dominions is produced, a certain number of flamboyant declarations to be made in the documents to please him.

Mr. Lemass: When were they settled?

Professor Tierney: They were settled for one thing in the Treaty and for another in the Constitution.

Mr. Lemass: What clause?

Professor Tierney: I have not the Treaty by me, but it was part of the Constitution of the Free State that no other Parliament, has any power to legislate for the Free State except the Parliament of the Free State. It was in the clause of the Treaty for example which gave the Irish Free State the same constitutional status as the Dominion of Canada. It was in that for one. It was implicit in several other clauses, and the same thing applies about the right of one Government to advise the Crown about the affairs of another government. That was implicit in the position that this country accepted when it accepted the Treaty. Deputy Lemass cannot understand the difference between [2244] practice and theory for one thing. He cannot understand that a certain thing can be the law in practice and not be enshrined in set, implicit terms in any handbook by Mr. Schlossberg or some other high authority. Everything has to be got out of a book. There was a good deal said about the power of reservation. A great deal of difficulty was made because people assumed that there was still some power of reservation inherent in the British Crown against the Acts of this Parliament. There is not and there never has been any. No case has arisen in which any discretionary reservation was ever exercised against any Act of this Parliament, and as the Minister for Defence pointed out that was so since this country accepted the same status and constitutional position that the Dominion of Canada possessed in 1921. There has never been compulsory reservation. There was in theory a possibility of discretionary reservation but that was set aside by the practice of Canada and it was never exercised in the Free State and cannot now be exercised.

Mr. Lemass: Where is that stated in the Report?

Professor Tierney: Why should it be stated in the Report?

Mr. McGilligan: It is in the Report.

Mr. Lemass: It is not.

Professor Tierney: It is in the Report in actual fact.

Mr. McGilligan: I am going to speak at length on that paragraph.

Professor Tierney: It is paragraph 32.

Mr. Lemass: That does not say it.

Mr. McGilligan: It does.

Mr. Lemass: Paragraph 32 says that the powers of the Government of the United Kingdom will not be exercised. It does not say that they cannot be exercised.

[2245] Mr. McGilligan: Read the first part of it.

Professor Tierney: “It is established first that the powers of discretionary reservation, if exercised at all, can only be exercised in accordance with the constitutional practice in the Domin