On the 14th of last September that letter was read to the Deputies here present and it was received with loud and prolonged applause. I confess that it was a very great relief to my mind for I had arrived back from America on the 1st of last August and had come straight into an atmosphere of what I can only call compromise. I was told to the right and to the left of me that we could not possibly get a Republic, that the conference meant this, that on the other thing [sic]. I maintain that it did not but I went to that meeting on September the 14th in fear and trembling for fear any single vote of principle would be given away and in that letter of the President's I maintain there is not one bit of principle given away and that this Dáil subscribed most heartily to that final note we wrote to Lloyd George. Therefore that was the Dáil's terms of reference to our plenipotentiaries. Next comes the credentials given by the President as head of the Republic of Ireland to the British Government, “In virtue of the authority vested in me by Dáil Éireann I hereby appoint Arthur Griffith T.D.”—I need not read all the names—“as envoys plenipotentiary from the Elected Government of the Republic of Ireland to negotiate and conclude on behalf of Ireland with the representatives of his Britannic Majesty George V, a Treaty or Treaties of settlement, association and accommodation between Ireland and the community of nations known as the British Commonwealth in witness whereof I hereunder subscribe my name as President”. We have been told that our delegation went without any terms of reference. I maintain that it is not true. They went first and foremost bound by their oath of allegiance to the Irish Republic sarcastic allusions to the nature of which we have heard very often during the last few days. They went bound by the last note of Dáil Éireann to Lloyd George which I have just read for you, and they went bound by the credentials given to them and these credentials were given to them only by the President of the elected Government of the Republic of Ireland. Now formally that much is true. Not in fact but formally Lloyd George refuses to see them as the elected representatives or from the elected Government of the Republic of Ireland. He wanted them to go and settle Dominion Home Rule and we as a Dáil refused to allow them to go as that. We cannot get away from that. Following that letter of the 14th September many telegrams passed between our President and the British Prime Minister. Some of them I told you frankly I did not like. It seemed to me [248] that there was in the sending of these telegrams a certain weakness. If he did not want us on our terms, I thought, let him go without, but at all events the President's final telegram made the matter clear. He said to Lloyd George that he would not go on his terms without first giving up the principle of our independence and that he was no more entitled to ask us to give up that principle than we were to ask him to recognise our Republic before we went. You all recollect that and I want you to take the facts as I give them to you. I am not asking you to take my word for anything. You all [know] perfectly well that these negotiations in order to thrash us had been going on for months. I was not here when they began. I saw allusions to them in the papers but I had perfect confluence in the President and Cabinet of the Irish Republic and the oaths they had taken to that Republic. I believe they began according to the American papers so far back as last December with Archbishop Clune trying to put a finger in the pie. Then there was somebody else and I believe the Lord Deputy [recte Derby] tried to catch our President and I don't know exactly whether I would be giving away any Cabinet secret but I am going to risk it. I learned in America that Lord Derby had come over here and after talking to the President and left him—now remember I am only quoting something I heard months ago—he wrote an unsigned letter saying: “Am I then to understand that you will not meet the representatives of Great Britain unless your independence is first acknowledged?” Now I am only quoting from memory and I am giving you the substance and I have not asked your permission to give it at all but I don't think that anything that has happened in the Cabinet has a right to be kept from the meeting today. I think our President very cleverly answered: “Before answering an unsigned note am I to understand that they cannot enter into a conference unless the principle of Irish independence is first abandoned?” That was the end of Lord Derby. And this I maintain, that from the beginning to the end of this conference matter, as far as the conference itself is concerned, the President has not made a mistake in anything he has said or written for the Republic. Whatever has gone on in the secret conclaves of the Cabinet I do not see that it matters very much. I don't know if any assembly ever came together where there were not differences in the Cabinet. In the documents which were presented to us now is the difference between Tweedledum and Tweedledee? I cannot quite agree with that but I am not going to dwell on that one matter for the moment. I want to deal further with the attitude of this Dáil towards that conference. Now I am in a position here, a curious position, rather an anomalous one in one way, because generally when you are trying to bring people to agreement you are the middle between two extremes, but I am in the position of an extremist between two sets of moderates. I will not call myself a diehard, because I object to that word. Principle is immortal as Mr. Kevin O'Higgins said yesterday and that is about the one thing which he said with which I could agree with him. Principle is immortal and cannot die, and therefore those of us who stand on principle are among the immortals not diehards. I want to take this question and I want you to have patience if I seem to dwell too much on it because it is of vital importance in the present issue. The delegation then went from the Dáil and the last document of that Dáil was an absolutely uncompromising Republican document and I defy anybody to say anything to the contrary. Now there seems to have been in the minds of many a suggestion that compromise was intended, that we could not get a Republic and that nobody could be so foolish as to go to talk to the English unless we meant compromise, but it seems as if I had been talking to the air because certainly it made no difference whatever to the point of view of anybody so far as I could see and therefore I deem it for my honour to say to this Dáil and for the honour of those who think like me that we did not mean to compromise when we sent those men to London and that if we did not get what was consistent with the Republic we meant to turn it down. They were not entitled to sign anything, not entitled by any terms of reference though they might by a legal technicality. We have heard a good deal of talk from the Minister of Finance over and over again about the befogged state of his mind in view of the legal qualities, the legal clauses. Well I confess I know a great deal less than the Minister of Finance about legal clauses. I know nothing about them and I don't want to know. I am quite sure that it must be a supremely honest lawyer who can be an honest man at the same [249] time. I am but a plain member of this Dáil with a plain straight intelligence that refuses point blank to draw the veil of my hypocrisy over my conscience for anyone. Words must be words and it is absurd for the Minister of Finance to plead that his befogged state arose from legal technicalities. There is nothing legal whatever about that Oath of Allegiance that he is asking us to take, nothing that is not understandable by the intelligence of the merest child. That is not the intelligence of the Minister of Finance for I think one of the most remarkable things is the wonderful intelligence that has been shown by these men to whom the destinies of the country have been committed. Who, six years ago, could have expected this country could have produced at a moment's notice statesmen and soldiers of the highest quality, and that our Cabinet and those who have acted for us in this matter have been the wonder of the world? Our soldiers have commanded admiration of the world, and I am glad that the world has not been listening to some of them today. Who could have expected six years ago that men drawn from all kinds of life, clerks and professors, and plain teachers, and I don't know what business or profession half of them were. But who were they six years ago? Nobodies, and today they stand in a position commanding the admiration of the world, and they stand on it because they stood on the rock of principle and if they compromise they go down in the admiration of the world and they go down absolutely in the admiration of their own people, for say what you like about this Treaty, it is a compromise of principle. We have heard a great deal about war tonight and the horrors of war. You men that talk need not talk to us about war. It is the women who suffer, it is the women who suffer the most of the hardships that war brings. You can go out in the excitement of the fight and it brings its own honour and its own glory. We have to sit at home and work in more humble ways, we have to endure the agony, the sunshines, the torture of misery and the privations which war brings, the horror of nightly visitations to our houses and their consequences. It is easier for you than it is for us, but you will not find in Ireland a woman who has suffered who today will talk as the soldiers here today have talked, and I ask the Minister for Defence, if that is the type of soldier he has, in heaven's name send the women as your officers next time. It is not a laughing matter for anybody, none whatever. I know nothing of our army matters. I say this for myself, that I have never asked a question that I ought not to ask from an officer or anybody who is not entitled to give me information, but I must say this for the officers in Cork that they are absolutely honourable as far as I know and I think if anybody in Cork could get inside information about the army I would get it and I am quite sure, when they don't talk to me, they won't talk to others and they never talk about their secret orders or any army order or anything else. But what have I heard since I came to Dublin, I don't mean in the Dáil but round about the streets of Dublin? Everybody is talking about the condition of the army, everybody is saying that the army is not properly equipped, everybody is saying around the streets of Dublin today that the G.H.Q. did not want to arm them; but I do say this that if it was the business of the Minister of Finance to supply money for arms where needed it was the business of the Headquarters Staff to tell him what they wanted. If the Headquarters Staff did not use this Truce to bring arms into the country they should have done it. You may say they were bound to keep the terms of the Truce, you who are so very loose in your opinions as to what you are or are not bound to by the Oath could surely get arms in under an unsigned document from Sir Hamar Greenwood. In the House of Commons I first learned that the Truce had never been signed and that it was only a verbal agreement and that the English gave me an interpretation of what the Truce of [recte was], the Irish gave another, and if that is so I fail to see why the Minister of Defence and G.H.Q. did not spend the time of the Truce arming this country, and they could have done that if they spent as much brain power on that as they have been able to spend on their wonderful escapes which set the country in admiration and the world wondering at them. Why didn't you turn your brains to the responsibility for the arming of this country, turn your brains for getting arms in? Don't tell me you could not have done it. The excuse of expecting any intelligent person to believe that the men who come and go from America, men who can get the President to America and back as they liked, and could not get arms as they liked! They could and I know they could, and I learned [250] a good deal in America about the slackness of the people in getting arms. I learned a good deal of things in America. I had heard before I left Ireland of the I.R.B. over and over and I knew what I.R.B. meant, and men were bound into it as a secret society and I had a great reverence for it as a body of men with a good old tradition. But I have come to the conclusion for many years past that secret societies are a great mistake. They are a refuge for weaklings, for comrades and informers and for traitors. I do not say that the men of the I.R.B. are like that now or that they have been in recent years of that type, but I learned a good deal in America about the I.R.B. that I never knew before I went there; anyhow I know this, that men who stand as I.R.B. feel themselves bound to stand together. But if you belong to the I.R.B. any of you, remember that your oath to the I.R.B. is subordinate to your oath to the Republic and that the Irish Republican Brotherhood is very much an inferior thing to the Republic established. You should have got arms. That was the discretion about the I.R.B. You should have got arms and you could have got them if you tried hard enough. Don't tell me that the clever men that we have had in G.H.Q. could not do that much. We have been told about this Treaty, and I am not going to talk about this Treaty itself but about the signing of it. We are told by several people that it was signed at the cannon's mouth. If it were it should not have been. I don't consider that is an excuse. It may be an explanation. Mr. Arthur Griffith has declared that he did not sign under duress and how are we going to reconcile those two statements you have read? I presume all of you commandants note. He says they were signed because Mr. Lloyd George shook his papers in the air and got into a rage, and he said that Mr. Griffith was letting him down and that Sir James Craig was waiting for an answer. Really! Sir James Craig waiting for an answer and a gun boat waiting to be put out is the reason why our fight for 750 years is to be lost at the last moment. Who is Sir James Craig, I ask you, that he could not wait on the will and the time of the Irish Republic? What right has Ulster, Belfast as we call it, to dictate as to whether our plenipotentiaries shall or shall not sign a document at any particular hour? Lloyd George gave his word that Sir James Craig should get an answer on Tuesday, but our delegation had given their words that they would bring back any document before they would sign it. Which word should they hold, Lloyd George's or their own? That I quite realise is not the real issue. Lloyd George claimed that he should not be let down, because if they brought back the Treaty and it was rejected he would not be quite sure that it should be signed and he could not be quite sure that it would not be made public or that something about it might not be let out. There is the issue. Perhaps you thought I was going to say something else. That is why Lloyd George shook his papers in their faces; that is why Lloyd George said they should sign or have immediate war, because his political future was at stake. Again I ask the delegation which was more important to them, keeping their word to the Irish Republic or saving Lloyd George's reputation? I believe they honestly believed that Lloyd George meant immediate war. Granted. It was no excuse for them to sign that document. They had given their word to bring back any document, and by paragraph 3 of the President's instructions they were bound to bring back any document before they signed it even though, technically speaking they had permission and power to sign it. Technically speaking they had the power but they had not, honourably speaking, the power, and it seems the irony of fate that, of all people in this country, these five men could be bluffed by Lloyd George; they believed that he meant it. They don't believe it now, at least some of them don't, and it seemed to be rather hard to get some of them to believe it at the time. Atmosphere, yes, atmosphere and the Wizard of Wales were very powerful, and mind I am not decrying Lloyd George's power or influence. He has broken another man, not a great man. Wilson came over here, came over across the Atlantic with a programme so glorious and so magnificent that, if he carried it out, it should have meant the salvation of the world, and the atmosphere of Buckingham Palace, and perhaps of Downing Street, has left Wilson a broken man—broken because he lost his ideals. I have been told by someone whom I respect very much. Wilson was not broken because he was false to his ideals but that he was broken because his ideals were too high for the world at the present stage. I absolutely disagree with that point of view. The world was ready for those ideals at the moment and Wilson could have carried [251] them out if he had been a man. Atmosphere and the wizard power of Lloyd George have left Wilson a broken, beaten man. Now we want to prevent our people, our nation, our delegation too, from the fate that has come to President Wilson, and it is not too late I believe. Though I was against a secret session, that secret session has at all events left it still in our power to regain our stand. We have lost, and lost terribly, in the last fortnight, but it is not yet beyond our power to get back most of the ground we have lost, particularly from the point of view of publicity. You know how Mr. Griffith, as I reminded you the other day, taught us to read England's tactics with regard to Ireland, taught some of us anyhow, how he spoke to us again and again about that paper wall that England had built round Ireland, and I realise how, the other day, that as far as the world was concerned the thing that tore that first paper wall down to any great extent was Brixton Jail last year, and Cork Jail. It is absolutely true that after Lloyd George sat down at the table with the representatives of our Government he could never again use the words, “Murder Gang.” Last year, following my brother's death, I was asked to go to America, and the President asked me then to stay there, and while I was at Washington on the very first morning—I have evidence—I spoke about Ireland's right to conclude an agreement with Germany if she wanted to because I was asked why were not the Irish pro-German. I said Ireland had every right to the propaganda [recte be pro-German] if she wanted to, and what was the result? At luncheon time all our good friends gathered around me good friends of Ireland I know, but Irish-Americans in America, I am sorry to say, are 90 per cent of them of the slavemind type. I was told, “That is not a wise thing for you to say. There is a great horror of the Germans still in this country. It would be just as well you know if you passed that over lightly.” After I went back from luncheon, I began by saying I would like to make a statement. I reminded them all of what I had said, and that I had advice given to me at luncheon time, and I said to them it seems to me that some of you good people like the truth and nothing but the truth, but you are afraid of the whole truth. Well, I am not afraid of the whole truth. My country has a Government, my people are a different race and we have exactly as much right to conclude a treaty with Germany if we wanted as our [recte your] forefathers did conclude a treaty with France in 1778. I did not think I lost, or my cause lost by my honesty and I want to bring to your mind on that point something which Commandant O'Duffy said tonight or this afternoon. He said that he was speaking last evening to an ecclesiastic, and that in the conversation or argument he argued against the Treaty and not for it, and he spoke rather flippantly, “I said then I may never again shoot a policeman.” One does not shoot a policeman. The policemen that were shot were spies and traitors. The question I maintain was a flippant one and the answer he got was, “You would be no worse off than you were before.” And it seems to me that in taking that answer Commandant O'Duffy betrayed the Republic for which he declared he stood, because if you took that Treaty and the country accepted it and sent you back, any of you, as a Government, you are in a totally different position to what you were before. It was only because we were a Government and a regularly established Government that we were justified in acting as we did. If you take it that this was not a Government formally set up in 1919 then you are justifying Lloyd George and Hamar Greenwood for calling you murderers and assassins. It has been said that men have taken oaths of allegiance; Redmond and Parnell took oaths of allegiance and we were told today by somebody that a certain man who is a Republican now, said in 1913 that he could take an oath of allegiance. Granted. They were all entitled if you like to take oaths of allegiance then if they considered it the right thing to do. One of my colleagues from Cork, Liam de Róiste, has said that he knows what his people want him to do. Now that is more than I can say and I doubt very much if Liam de Róiste and I went before the citizens of Cork and put the case shortly before them, I doubt very much if Liam de Róiste would find out that he did know as certainly as he thinks. I make this distinction between Liam de Róiste and myself. In 1918 it is absolutely correct to say that the vote given by the citizens of Ireland was rather a vote against the Party than for a Republic definitely. That is absolutely correct. But when the Deputies elected met in the first Dáil Éireann on the 21st January, I think the date was 1919, they took an oath of [252] allegiance to the Republic of Ireland which was declared on the 24th of April 1916 but which up to that moment had not functioned, and while any man could have taken the Oath of Allegiance if his conscience allowed him to up to that time, no man who since took the oath of allegiance to the Irish Republic from the 21st January 1919 ever can withdraw from that oath for this was recognised by the country and established by the Provisional Government then. That was the manifesto of the Sinn Féin Party [which] they sent out for the elections in 1918 and therefore the Deputies who were elected by a large majority were elected on the understanding that they were Republicans. I call attention to that particularly for two reasons. The first is that it has been said in the last election to which Deputy Hogan alluded that there was no mention of the Republic; the President has contradicted that and his words were very clear and very wise. It was the first time I heard them. It has again shown how careful every written word of his had been, how careful every expression given to the country has been and that is what posterity will judge him on. He did not declare that this was the Republican Manifesto, as Sinn Féin put it in 1918, but he legalised the elections of 1918. I don't remember the exact words but the significance of what he said is very great for all future time. Those who were elected in 1918, even though they went in as Republicans and the vote they got was not an entirely Republican vote, cannot claim that they are not strictly speaking members of the Irish Republican Government. Well, Deputy de Róiste did not get an opportunity last May of going forward for election, because the elections were practically uncontested but if we did not think then that he was going for a Republic I maintain he should have stood down and not gone forward.

MR. DE RÓISTE: Excuse me, Mr. Speaker, so I would have done but on the personal wish of the President I remand [sic] it.

COMMANDANT O'DUFFY: I don't know since this Dáil met any more serious statements could be made against a Deputy than that I betrayed the Republic, and I will stand on my feet now until I get an explanation from the speaker as to what she means by saying that I betrayed my country. I have taken part in this fight for some time and I put it before this House. What I have done I don't want to go into but I want justice. I want an explanation of what she means by saying that I betrayed the Republic. I may be emotional. I ask the Leader of the House to show justice to me. I ask the speaker, before she goes any further, to explain what she means by this. If she did not mean to convey these words I will accept her apology immediately.

MISS MACSWINEY: I did not mean, so far as he was personally concerned, that Commandant O'Duffy ever meant to betray the Republic. I know it is a difficult matter. I know perfectly well that the Deputies were elected here. A large number went into election either because they were asked to do it without realising the fundamental things at the bottom of this thing and it was because Commandant O'Duffy allowed that remark to pass that if he shot a policeman in the Irish Free State that he would be no worse off than he was before. Now I quite realise that Commandant O'Duffy did not himself realise what that implied, and I know perfectly well that he did not mean to betray the Republic and I know perfectly well that if we have to go to fight again his work for the Republic will be of a great deal more value than mine. I did not impugn his honour in the very least and I hope he will believe that, and if I gave him the impression that I did, I am sincerely sorry. I don't in the least impugn his honour. What I impugn and what I say is this, no wonder that we are going wrong on this because we don't think enough. The country has been fed with words for generations, with “trust of the leaders”, and you know perfectly well that the most anybody will ask you is to save them the trouble of thinking. Now, you who are here tonight must think and think seriously and remember all we have done for the past two years—

COMMANDANT O'DUFFY: I am not entirely satisfied with the explanation given by the speaker who said that I did betray the Republic. I hold that I did not betray it intentionally or unintentionally and it is a wrong, a false, and a malicious construction to put on the words that I used.

MISS MACSWINEY: I am not trying to put any construction that is wrong or malicious. If I said “betrayed the Republic” I wanted to—

COMMANDANT O'DUFFY: You should not use the words. I have a great respect for you, but you should not use the words.

MISS MACSWINEY: If you or anyone shot a policeman in the exercise of his duty as an officer or soldier of the Republican Government of Ireland it was justifiable.

MR. O'DUFFY: What about the men before December 1919? What do you say of them?

MISS MACSWINEY: Let me answer.

MR. O'DUFFY: The statement is so serious and I am sure every Deputy has understood how serious it is and I cannot allow this thing to go out from this Assembly. I would rather be shot on the spot, and would to God I were shot an hour ago, rather than this last statement should be made against me now. It is most unfair, most unjust. Such statements should not be used. We are supposed to act in harmony together here; we are supposed to work together. How could I or anybody else work together or come to a satisfactory conclusion upon this when such a statement as this one is made against the honour of any Irishman?

THE SPEAKER: You have made your complaint sufficiently clear. It is not necessary to make it any clearer.

MISS MACSWINEY: I have said that if the Deputy concerned thought I impugned his honour or said he betrayed the Republic, that I beg to say I meant nothing of the kind and I think the majority of the Deputies here realise perfectly well the difference in what I am saying. He did not betray the Republic in any sense.

COMMANDANT O'DUFFY: I accept that.

MISS MACSWINEY: What I meant to say I say again, that if any man shot a policeman as a spy except in proper war he was doing a wrong act and because we have to mind our acts before the world we have to make that plain. It was the remark, not of the Deputy, but of the ecclesiastic that I objected to.

COMMDT. O'DUFFY: Why didn't you say so?

MISS MACSWINEY: I say this, and it is not a matter for laughing. I say the Deputy, if he looked upon the Government of the Irish Republic as a real Government and not a sham, should have answered that by telling that ecclesiastic to his teeth that he lied.

COMMDT. O'DUFFY: You did not wait for the answer.

MR. COLLIVET: On a point of order. It was understood all the time that, especially with the intense feelings we had for the last couple of days being ventilated, Deputies should not use words or expressions likely to raise a heated atmosphere, and I suggest that the Deputy speaking has used words that should not be used as the result of a jocular incident.

THE SPEAKER: It leads, among other things, to a waste of time and, while there is no limitation of time, I have a list here of 16 persons who wish to speak this evening, and Miss MacSwiney has already been speaking for about an hour. Now, I would ask, in order to economise time if for no better reason that the Deputies when they are speaking would not make these personal rejoinders to each other but confine themselves to the main question, not to be taking up points made by each other and answering them in that personal way but confine them to the main question.

MISS MACSWINEY: I am sorry if I am rather long. It is due to the fact—I have my eyes on my watch and I am not speaking anything like an hour yet.

A DEPUTY: Oh yes, an hour and ten minutes.

MISS MACSWINEY: I hope that I have made it quite clear to Commaniant O'Duffy that I did not impugn his personal honour.

COMMANDANT O'DUFFY: I accept that explanation.

MISS MACSWINEY: I am glad of that [254] for I have told you I stand here for peace and unity. I shall be as quick as I can. I want to call your attention to one thing, and that is the question of this Oath. There is a fundamental difference here and the reason I want to speak to you about that is this: taking that Oath means spiritual surrender in this Dáil and though you may give up physical things you cannot give up spiritual things. That is why I say that you who are willing to take that Oath could come with us. We who are willing [recte unwilling] to take it cannot go with you and if there is to be unity it must be [a] unity that will count. Yesterday the Chairman of the House in his speech as a private member, declared himself as an opportunist and a practical man. I would like to read you just one quotation about the opportunists and the practical men taken from the book written by Terence MacSwiney, as a series of articles rather in John MacDermott's paper, and one of the most important was set aside with a leading article of Seán MacDermott's headed, “Damn your concessions, we want our country”, and this extract from the “Principles of Freedom” reads as follows—he had been talking about idealists and what that idealist who is a real practical man stands for, “But there is the other self-styled practical man who thinks all this proceeding foolish, cries out for the expedient of the hour. Has he ever realised the promise of his proposals? No, he is the most inefficient person who has ever walked the earth. But for a saving consideration let him go contemplate the wasted efforts of the opportunists in every generation, and the broken projects scattered through the desert places of history.” And side by side with that he says, “I stand by this principle: no physical victory can compensate for spiritual surrender. Whatever side denies that is not my side.” We cannot surrender for this principle of the Oath. If you mean to keep this Oath, and you don't keep it—if you keep it you cannot say you are true to the Irish Republic; if you take it meaning to break it you are taking a false oath and you have compromised your honour. You could not for the sake of a material advantage accept a spiritual surrender. Why, it reminds us of the Israelites in getting out of the promised land trying to get back to the flesh-pots of Egypt. We want to take this thing which will give us economic prosperity for a while and we will give them, for that, the only thing that has made us stand for our freedom before the world. I feel I cannot keep you any longer, I wanted to say many things. Some of you have been talking today that it is not a question of principle; it is Document No. 1 against Document No. 2. It is nothing of the kind. Document No. 2, in any case, does not contain an oath. Document No. 2 does not give away the principle of the Republic, and I think it was a man today who told us that he was responsible as a good Irish solicitor dropping Pádraig Pearse and the Poblacht na hÉireann and putting in its place Saorstát na hÉireann. Provided you get the thing are you going to be foolish enough to think that you are getting the English army out in a month? England put her army into Egypt in '83 and said it would take it out as soon as the danger of the Turks coming there was over, and it is still there, and you think you can fool Lloyd George into keeping a Treaty which is not even an honest agreement on either side. It is not a Treaty. The King, in his speech did not call it a Treaty but Articles of Agreement. No matter what they put down on the paper for publicity purposes that does not matter. The thing that matters is that you could not take that Treaty without betraying your Oath to the Republic. Now, one thing more I want to say is this. It has been said that we who allowed these delegates to go to London compromised. I want to go back to one thing, the President will corroborate what I say, that I worried him out with letters on the matter. I did not go on rushing into the papers because I did not want to embarrass the Government but I wrote to Mr. Arthur Griffith myself to London. I remonstrated with him on the way our delegation had allowed the press to get away with our standing before the world, and I think the delegation did not do their duty and I wrote to our representative in London, Mr. Art O'Brien. I remonstrated with him about it because I had realised that value of publicity. Mr. Griffith wrote back to me that they should have the confidence of their people no matter what the newspapers said if they were going to do any good and he would not take anything that the Irish people would not accept. I took his word for it; I did give him my confidence. He has not justified my confidence anyhow, and I ask you people to realise now what will be the confidence [recte consequence] of your [255] action if you vote for the ratification of this Treaty. You split the country for a certainty. We cannot help it, it is not our fault. We are no more entitled to give in to you on this principle than the Irish Volunteers were to give in to Redmond in 1914, and those of you who stood on the side of the Irish Volunteers then cannot well stand on the side of the Treaty now. We cannot compromise but I ask you to vote in the name of the dead to unite against this Treaty and let us take the consequence. We are no worse off than we were a fortnight ago. We are better off, according to the Minister for Defence, than we were then when he proposed to start the fight, but not as well off as we might have [recte had we] been a little busier getting in arms, but at all events we are no worse off and we have not compromised our honour. This ratification must go to the people not yet trained out of the slavery which the last 100 years have put into these souls. As to whether the majority of the people would take it, what would the majority in 1916 have taken? Somebody quoting Pádraig Pearse said “We have lost this battle but we have saved the soul of the nation”, and if you tomorrow ratify this Treaty you would have done the best you could to undo Pádraig Pearse's work and to lose the soul of the nation, for we have to face the fact that our people are only gradually coming out of the slavehood. They are only gradually coming to realise all their rights as free men and after they have had that, the first 10 or 12 years of freedom, to bring them back to the realisation of what freedom ought to be. The reason you are betraying the people who are not able to judge for themselves properly like free men is because they have been in slavery for 120 years and longer, and, therefore, it is up to you not to the country. A united Dáil against that Treaty will be a united country. You can only have a united Dáil by the rejection of the Treaty and I ask you in the name of our martyred dead to, at all events, take the risk. Do a brave thing, a noble thing. If we women who suffer most are willing to take the risk why should you men not do it? You have said that the country will not be behind you. That is a lie for every man that said it. It is a lie and I deny it in the name of the women of Ireland. Anyhow they will not turn down the men who have been fighting for them. They may be disappointed if there is not going to be peace but there is no man, woman or child in the country, the south of Ireland, who will turn down the men who fight for Ireland and it is a gross insult to the people to say so. They won't like it. It is in your hands to bring the people back to where we stood a fortnight ago. We could do it if we had a united Dáil or a large majority for it, and I beg and implore of you in the name of the dead not to split the country. You know what it will mean. It will mean that we will be going back to the old, old fights between ourselves which made us so sick at heart. It will mean the enemy triumphant and laughing and at the end you won't get even the Articles of Agreement, because Lloyd George will know that the minority who stand on principle and against the ratification of that Treaty are the people in the country who count. He will know perfectly well that it is the minority—if we are a minority—that made today possible. It was the minority in 1916 that made 1918 possible; it was that minority all along that made it possible to have this offer today. Turn [down] that offer in the name of God and in the name of our martyred dead. If you take that Treaty you know the position you are placing yourselves in. England's difficulty is still Ireland's opportunity. England's difficulties in Egypt and India and her financial difficulties are the cause of what you saw Churchill said, Churchill who always gives away the show on his own people. “What does it matter”, he said, “our financial clauses don't matter because England will have economic control of Ireland still.” What does an army of 40,000 matter? You see what they say. Why blind yourselves with the Treaty? For God's sake refuse that Treaty; reject it. Let us stand united before the country on Monday and then the country will stand behind us.

MR. M. COLLINS: I should like to know if you could not proceed to make arrangements to adjourn this session and perhaps it would be necessary for some people to make arrangements for the public session on Monday. The speech of the Deputy from Cork could much more profitably be made in public session and if we all make speeches we are making in the public session I think it is quite useless. I think we should make arrangements to wind up the session so that we could go into public session.

MR. MILROY: If you arrange to have the public session in the Round Room the parties who are responsible for the public session, have they made any arrangements in that direction?

THE PRESIDENT: There were no arrangements made because the question was not decided here as to whether it was feasible or not. The question is for the Dáil to determine. My idea at the beginning was —Mr. Griffith agreed—I did not mind in the slightest—the only point is that it was considered that it would be very much better not to have a crowd because one way or the other you won't be able to maintain strict order and if you wish to risk that then of course that is all right. I have no real strong views one way or the other.

MR. MILROY: If it was not for the very prolonged speech of the last speaker— and I think before the Speaker left the chair he told us he had had 16 other names to place before us of Deputies who wished to speak—now the duration of the last speech—of course I have no desire to put limitation of time but I think that what the last speaker had to say could easily have been condensed into at least one half of the time—and the duration of the time has certainly prevented the private members from expressing their opinions. Were it not for that I should certainly have consented to an adjournment at this moment but in the circumstances I think we will have to remain in session for another couple of hours in order to allow those other private members to speak their minds.

MR. GRIFFITH: We agreed to have the opening session here and we agreed to have all the press here for the reason that if you could take a place like the Round Room you would have a thousand people or so. There would be a tremendous amount of work thrown on the secretaries giving out tickets and there would be charges on both sides undoubtedly of favouritism in giving out tickets. There is no doubt that this might cause partisans of both sides to commence to cheer. I believe we ought to sit here and have a public session as we had on the opening day of [recte with] the press.

THE PRESIDENT: I am quite in agreement with Mr. Griffith in that matter. That was the consideration that weighed with me personally and it was I who made the suggestion when we could not get the Round Room originally. I said when I heard it was engaged that this is one of these cases where it is really rather fortunate that it is not available because there would be this clapping and applause.

PROFESSOR STOCKLEY: I propose that the meeting be held here.

MR. MACENTEE: I second that.

MR. D. [recte SÉUMAS] FITZGERALD (Cork): It is felt that the press—it has been remarked in fact by both sides—that the press is wholly in favour of the acceptance of the Treaty but if that is so those who do not wish to vote for the acceptance of the Treaty find themselves in this difficulty that they do not believe that the press will give them adequate space and I think that if you agree that the press are to come here that at least we should get a guarantee from the Irish press that unless they report the proceedings in full that they will not be allowed in.

THE PRESIDENT: The Director of Publicity might be able to tell us whether we could get such a guarantee.

MR. D. FITZGERALD: I don't see that the Dublin newspapers could give it entirely in full if we are going on for hours but I think of course the principal speakers, that is to say the mover and seconder on each side, would be given in full unless you make some arrangements with them that they give equal space to each side. They may do that but you couldn't possibly have the whole thing in full.

MR. ETCHINGHAM: I know the way that will be met, if the press is against you every good point won't appear. I raised this point and I raised it because I see English papers full of the challenge that we are afraid to come out in public, we who opposed the signing of the Treaty. Well I don't think any of us are. I would like to see it in the Round Room if it were possible to have it there but it is feared that we still have a division. Still I don't think I will have anyhow. There is none of us want a split. We want unity and I think that something could be done tonight or tomorrow for, if arrangements could have been made for some other hall than this, [257] I thought arrangements would have been made during the day.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well we must get through with this list. There are 16 names on it and I wonder if we could come to any arrangement. I don't like to restrict the speakers.

MR. STACK: I think a lot of us are in favour of the Mansion House if it could be arranged to have it in the Mansion House because there is a lot of dissatisfaction. A lot of the foreign press are let in and Irish patriots cannot get a chance.

MR. BRENNAN: I move that it will not be held in the Mansion House.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: The motion was that it should be held here

MR. MACGRATH: The amendment is that it should be held in the Mansion House.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: Has that been seconded?

MR. STACK: I second it.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will take the amendment first.

MR. MCGUINNESS: There are about 15 stallholders there. They will finish up tonight but they don't usually take away their stuff until Monday. Any party we send there to square up the place tomorrow they will have to throw the stuff all about. That is the great difficulty—all their goods would be in confusion. I may say myself I am in favour if we could have it.

MADAME MARKIEVICZ: It is for the meeting to choose.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is proposed and seconded that the public session be held in the Round Room of the Mansion House. This is an amendment to the original proposition.

MR. DAN MCCARTHY: Is it possible to know for certain whether we could have the Mansion House?

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: That the public session be held in the Round Room of the Mansion House. That is the amendment. It is lost. That the public session be held here, carried.

MR. SEÁN T. O'KELLY: Will there be any chance of the suggestion of the Minister of Finance being thought of about arrangements of some kind to assist the Speaker so far as is in our position to have order on Monday and not make such an exhibition as we had on the opening day of this session? We ought to have a definite programme drawn up. The Clerks of the House with the Speaker ought immediately to come to some conclusion so that everybody should know what the Orders of the Day should be for Monday.

MR. MILROY: I suggest that this matter be adjourned for another hour and that the speakers go on.

MR. EOIN MACNEILL: For the second time during this discussion I wish to say something and I hope that all the members will understand that what I have to say now is something profitable. I have done my best to study this situation, the very difficult situation in which we find ourselves. Now it appears to me perfectly plain that the Treaty, which I hold to be a Treaty, that has come before us signed by the plenipotentiaries is in certain important respects—I am criticising it only on one ground—ultra vires, that in certain characteristics it is, I am not saying too much or too little but outside not merely the terms of reference at all but outside the entire competence of this legislature. We are in the same position at present as the independent Irish legislature was before the Union and it is held by the best and the highest authorities that that legislature could do nothing to disestablish itself which was not consistent with its own constitution. Now in the Treaty before us there are certain provisions which to my mind are undoubtedly inconsistent with our whole position and with such imposed constitution as we have at present; the Treaty makes certain arrangements with regard to national relations between the Irish Government and the Irish people. The proper business of a treaty is this: a treaty between two Governments that is I think pointed our to you already is acknowledged in its 10th article the proper business of that Treaty [258] I don't want to raise a point of controversy at all on that; it is my construction of it; at all events it does not matter—the proper business of a treaty is to regulate the relations between the country which is making the treaty and the country or countries with which it is making the treaty to regulate the international relations between these two countries and not as I hold and as I think we shall all hold to regulate the international [recte internal] affairs of one of the two countries, affairs which are properly between the Government of that country and the people of that country. Now it might be held roughly that the first—I would confine your attention to the first four articles of the Treaty and especially the first two—it might be held that articles that deal with international relations and that is so until we come down to words, “with a Parliament having powers to make laws for the peace, order and good government of Ireland and an executive responsible to that Parliament”. Now it has been our position all along, and this is where we take a distinctly separate stand from, I think, the first elections in Roscommon or Longford, but in all the subsequent elections I had some part and most of you here had some part in them and you know that at every one of those elections and right on from that time up to now we held that the British legislature had no right to legislate for Ireland, that the British Government had no right to make constitutional provisions for Ireland and on that ground every single member who was elected was pledged not to go into the British Parliament because going there was a recognition of the right of Great Britain to legislate for this country. That principle has been fixed indisputably at all moments from the beginning of these elections down to the present day and in a sense it is the foundation of the position on which we stand. Now, therefore, it is impossible, it is beyond the powers of our Cabinet or of our plenipotentiaries or of ourselves to assent to any instrument or to any phrases in an instrument which we could acknowledge as vesting that power in the British Government or in any function of the British Government. It is only for Ireland itself to decide what authority has powers to make laws for peace, order and good government in Ireland and so on, things of that kind. Except for that phrase the first article in the Treaty could be held, could be well held to regulate external relations alone. The second article it would be far more difficult to put that construction on it. It speaks of the position of the Irish Free State under this constitution which is the position of the third article also. With regard to the fourth article it has been sufficiently discussed already; I don't wish to discuss it any further. These are the four articles which, to my mind, are fundamental of this Treaty. We heard a long exposition with regard to the position which Ireland would occupy under these articles, a careful exposition by Mr. Childers and many others whom I have discussed matters with and especially those who take the historically constitutional view of these things practically on the same lines as Mr. Childers. These articles would introduce into Ireland in some shape or form the authority of the British Government and the real authority of the British Crown or something of that kind. Well now, I am going to make a proposal to you with regard to these things and some people will say when I put that proposal before you that it is a contradiction and that it is not a logical one, that it is not a consistent one. I say that at all events it is not consistent with our necessary position. The proposal that I wish to bring before you is this, that when the motion for the ratification of this Treaty comes before you an amendment shall be brought before you to the following effect —to add to the statement of the resolution stating the ratification the following which shall be stated in the amendment as governing principle first “that nothing in this Treaty”—. Now this is a line of procedure that has been taken over and over again in the American legislature in dealing with treaties with outside countries that, if they were not satisfied with the contents of these treaties, they have dealt with them by riders, addenda added on afterwards. The first statement I would make in the amendment [to] be added to the resolution—I would state these to be governing principles—first, that nothing in this Treaty shall be held to refer to anything but the international relations between Ireland and the other countries and named in articles 1 and 2. Now of course it will be objected that there are things in the Treaty that are outside or inside of the international relations. My answer to that is that I don't care whether they are or not and I ask you not to care [259] whether they are or not. Leave it to the lawyers and authorities on constitutional law and procedure to be as consistent as ever they like to be; you be as logical with regard to your position as your position calls on you to be. Your position requires you to assent to nothing in this that deals with anything except international relations and therefore you should state in this first provision that nothing in this Treaty shall be construed as dealing except with international relations between Ireland and the countries named in articles 1 and 2. Secondly, that nothing in this Treaty shall be construed—I don't say that the words I am giving are the best possible words because I am only giving them to you as they have come to myself, others may word them a little better but you will get the idea clearly enough—the second provision will be that nothing in this Treaty shall be construed as taking away from the natural sovereign rights of the Irish people. The third addendum that I propose that you should make would be this, that the accommodations and facilities conceded by Ireland to Great Britain in this Treaty for the purpose of defence shall not be allowed to be used in any way to the detriment of Ireland. That provision would give you the right to interfere with any movement of troops, for example, or anything of that kind that did not previously get your own approval and consent. Now I admit plainly that it will at once be claimed that those things are in a sense inconsistent with the Treaty. If they are they are only inconsistent with the Treaty in the sense in which we are bound to be inconsistent with the Treaty. Consequently I point out to you that in order to them [sic] you force the British government to state its objections to them, to show wherein they are objectionable. If they attempt to show that those provisions are contrary to the provisions of the Treaty then they will make the following claims in their behalf. First of all, claim to interfere in the international [recte internal] concerns of Ireland. They will have to make that claim otherwise they couldn't dispute this first rider which I propose you should add. Secondly in the second rider I propose that you should state that nothing in this Treaty shall contravene that natural sovereign right of the Irish people. If the British government objects to that then it objects to the natural sovereign rights of the Irish people. In the third case if the British government takes objection to the third addendum that facilities and accommodations accorded to the British government for the purpose of defence shall not be allowed to be used in any way for the detriment of Ireland—if they object to that it will be because they are making a claim to use these facilities and accommodations for the detriment of Ireland and I don't think they dare make any of these claims. But suppose they do then you will have before the whole world a clear issue, a very clear issue. You will put the British government hopelessly in the wrong before the entire world and you will compel them, if they want to make war on you or use pressure of any kind on you, they will have to do it on an issue which they cannot morally. Another effect of bringing in a rider of that kind, reservations whatever you like to call it of that kind, would be this that you will make it, if not impossible, at all events ridiculous for the British government to pass a Dominion Act for the benefit of Ireland. You will make it ridiculous for them to pass any such Act. You have already divided the first of those principles. You have already denied them the right to make any internal arrangements for Ireland as between Gt. Britain and Ireland. We can make whatever international regulations the two countries please even if there are disadvantages to one of the two countries. In this arrangement are disadvantages to us, occupations of certain ports. They are not dishonourable to us. When France came to an accommodation with Germany after the Franco-German War she had to part with Alsace-Lorraine. No one ever said that that was in dishonour to France. It was a great disadvantage to France. It was not a dishonour. Her national sovereignty remained unimpaired and finally I would oppose [recte propose] this amendment to the resolution and would direct that the resolution so amended be communicated officially, whatever the proper phraseology is, to the British government—that it be a communication from the Irish to the British government. Now with regard to that proposal I don't pretend that it is a proposal that will be satisfactory to everyone here. I do not ask the signatories to the existing Treaty, I would not ask them, to vote for that proposal. I would not ask those who take their stand that nothing at all should be conceded, no [260] port, no concession whatsoever should be made. I would not ask them to vote for that proposal and I would strongly hope that they would not vote for that proposal. I would hope that, if a proposal of this kind were carried, that there would still remain the [gap in original] of people who would adopt the hard and fast position that was stated for us this morning by Mr. Etchingham. I think it would be of the greatest possible value to us in the future if there were such a nucleus. But I would ask all the others here without exception to support that proposal and not to mind in the least what Mr. Childers or Mr. Gavan Duffy might say about its constitutional aspect. This is the twentieth century and these constitutional aspects belong to the nineteenth and the eighteenth and the seventeenth centuries and if what I am putting before you is not in accordance with the constitutional practice of the past we will have just as much right to make constitutional practices as any other country has. We are told that certain things can be read constructively, that, for example, Canada, while it is subject to the British Crown and the King is King of Canada and all that, notwithstanding it is absolutely independent and so independent that it has the right of secession. These things are admitted by public men, by statesmen, that constitutional practice is growing and constitutional law is changing and I propose that we assist at the changing. I know that others will speak and will say that the proposal I am making to you is somewhat illogical. I am not here in order to ask Dáil Éireann to give a lesson in logic to anybody. I don't ask you to publish this Treaty as a treaty of national right which is more important than logic and to declare our national right in the rider or reservations or applause [recte annex] that you will put to the resolution moving the Treaty in that form. I believe if you do that you will put the whole difficulty on the other side. If you do that you will certainly prevent anything like a split in our lines of policy in this country. It is impossible that you should foreshadow a split on a policy which asserts that no other country has a right to make any but international arrangements with regard to our country and that no other country has a right to interfere with the natural sovereign rights of the Irish people and that no other country has a right to use accommodations and facilities in this country in any way to the detriment of this country. So I hope you are clear about it because I think it is a thing of the greatest importance. If I am not mistaken the constitutional lawyers are all dead against me but the practical men that Miss MacSwiney does not like, they are all on my side. With regard to the construction of the case which I put before you, if anything occurs I will be very glad to illustrate it.

PRESIDENT DE VALERA: It is not logic. Logic is the basis of commonsense. Now if you have a signed Treaty could you put reservations which negative the articles of it? It is quite obvious if you go for reservations without [recte about] meanings that are not quite clear and might be construed against you but if it is in the articles 2 or 3 it is obvious that the Treaty contemplates internal affairs of the British Government, the British Crown in Ireland. You see, it is so absurd from that point of view that I don't see how anybody could stand for it. What I feel is that in article 2 you say we have certain powers in Ireland, then you try to head off. It [recte if] there were a question suppose by the associated states you mean so and so is the case and I cannot see how you can put something that is absolutely contradictory to the text of the Treaty in a reservation.

MR. COLLINS: Mr. Speaker, this is a discussion on the Treaty. I have said that I was not a constitutional lawyer, I stand on fact. If we were to discuss the Treaty here I could give every argument that Mr. MacNeill has given, I could show how we could work that out to our advantage. I want to give the interpretation of a man who has faith in Irish aspirations and who means to go before the Irish people of the Free State making our own precedents not occupying [recte accepting] precedents of Canada, not accepting the constitutional usage in Canada or any other place because all these things have advanced in the history of these nations and we have done a thing here under this Treaty—I only want to put this publicly because I want to publish it before men of the world who understand these things— we have done a thing here that has never been done in history. It is no longer the [261] British Empire, it is the community of nations known as the British Empire. The British Empire stood always for domination. The claim is abandoned by Britain; in this Treaty it abandons this domination over Ireland. I want to go into all this not here but in the public session. I want to put it forward on that basis. I want to tear up Document No. 2 on that basis or any other document and I want to show how we can work up our nationhood and freedom, but I do not, as I have said, want to enter into any argument on the Treaty here because we have decided that the Treaty be discussed in public. I have been at a disadvantage all the time until we go into public session. I want to appeal from the members of the Dáil to the general public which does understand these things in the plain Irish way that I understand them myself.

MR. MCCARTHY: On a point of order. You asked that Whips would be appointed to assist the business of the House. The Whips have agreed to certain speakers and it has been carried out. The Whips will do no more.

MR. NICHOLLS: As I think everybody should have a chance of expressing their views I will try to condense into ten minutes a reply to a speech which took an hour and a half and in doing so there will be no [gap in original] about it. The Deputy from Cork, Miss MacSwiney, told us that if this Treaty is confirmed, I mean ratified, that the country will be split. I say emphatically if you do not ratify it the country will be split indefinitely worse. We all know that.

MADAME MARKIEVICZ: No we don't.

MR. NICHOLLS: Whether it is for good or evil the country does want this Treaty. The issue is right or wrong according to Miss MacSwiney. I agree absolutely and it is a matter for her conscience and every other delegate has his conscience and I do not think it right for any delegation on their conscience [sic]. Now on the question of the Treaty we are tackled on the question of principle and we are told a lot about this Oath. Well on the question of principle I must say that I was rather surprised at the delegate who was telling us how to act in accordance with principle for she told us that the man who had taken one oath first should break it in favour of another that he should break later.

MISS MACSWINEY: I never said such a thing.

MR. NICHOLLS: I don't see how that matter was exactly brought in. The question of the men who had taken an oath to the I.R.B., the man who had taken the oath to the Dáil was brought in and we were told that a man who had taken an oath to the I.R.B. would have to break that oath in favour of the Oath. We were told that this was a Dominion oath that will be taken. The Dominion oath is this, “I swear to bear true faith and allegiance to His Majesty King George, his heirs and successors,”—faith and allegiance. The Oath in this Treaty is an absolutely unique one. You have got no oath like it anywhere and I tell you, instead of the delegates we sent over being befogged by the Welsh Wizard, that they befogged the Welsh Wizard in a way that he was never befogged before. The plain rank and file man like myself is impressed with this, I think, that there is no doubt in any of our minds that the issue is ratification of the Treaty or war. When I find the combined brains of the members of the delegation—Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins, Eamonn Duggan, Robert Barton and Gavan Duffy—when we find their combined brains bringing us home this, when I find these combined brains coupled with the spirit of men like Commdt. McKeon, Gearóid O'Sullivan and the numerous survivors of Easter Week that are here, I must certainly say it seems good enough for me in any case. We are appealed to in the name of the dead. I would like to lay great stress on the fact that it is only by the merest coincidence that a great number of members that are here present are alive. They fought for the same principle as the men who died and anyone who would suggest to me that they would be false, well I must say that I cannot understand that person's mind. On the question of documents I would go into documents or read many documents because I will keep my promise and be very brief but the Deputy from Cork says that every line that the President wrote was absolutely clear and that it left the issue absolutely straight and that the issue was all the time a Republic. Well I [262] will just read two expressions from the correspondence. One is No. 10 in the correspondence, the letter telegraphed by the President de Valera to the British Prime Minister, Sept. 16th, second paragraph: “Throughout the correspondence that has taken place you have defined your Government's position. We have defined ours. If the positions were not so definitely opposed there would indeed be no problem to discuss.” The President defined our position according to the Deputy from Cork as a Republican position. Well, these two lines I certainly cannot understand. I don't claim to have very much intelligence but I cannot understand if the position were so clear why the delegates went over at all and why there was a conference at all. The other extract I will read is one from Lloyd George. It is 15 in the correspondence, September 29th. The letter telegraphed by the British Prime Minister to the President and down in the middle you will see: “On this point they must guard themselves against any possible doubt. There is no purpose to be served by any further interchange of explanatory and argumentative communications upon this subject. The position taken up by His Majesty's Government is fundamental to the existence of the British Empire and they cannot alter it.” Well as I said I won't go through the correspondence. Without going through the correspondence you will find the position of the British Empire defined so that Ireland must be an essential part of the British Empire and that the question of allegiance was essential and I say, so far from our delegates being befogged, that they absolutely made Lloyd George, the Welsh Wizard, eat his own words in the most ignominious fashion. We all have a duty to our constituents and I must say that I don't understand the attitude taken up by the Minister for Defence when he thought we absolutely should not know something about arguments but at any rate it is all right and I dare say he has good reasons for adopting that attitude but I must say I have been fairly well through the country myself and I suffer from no hallucinations at all as to what intensive warfare will mean. It is ridiculous to suggest that if the war is resumed again that England cannot do things that she never did before. For instance she can arrest, at sight, every man between fifteen and fifty, let out the ones who swear allegiance. She could without firing a shot adopt another attitude. I must say that, having heard the expressions of the military men, that I cannot see what we have in this Treaty to my mind got very nearly all that was ever dreamed of; we have got the power to have an army, got the enemy banished out of the country, except for the retention of one or two forts which would be retained under Document No. 2. If we got that I certainly say that we would not be justified in plunging the country into war. I think I have kept my promise. I have tried to be as brief as I could because I think everybody should get an opportunity to discuss this.

MRS. CLARKE: A Chinn Chomhairle, it has been said that every one of us belonging to this Assembly had given away something when we agreed for these plenipotentiaries to go across to England. I flatly deny that I gave anything away in agreeing to it. I did not speak because I did not feel quite sure in my mind about their going but when I heard the names of the men selected for it they were the men I had learned to have respect for and confidence in, and I believed they would not give anything away any more than I would. I felt safe in keeping my tongue and particularly when the President made the remark such as this, “We must have scapegoats”.

PRESIDENT DE VALERA: Oh, no.

MRS. CLARKE: What I felt about these men was how could they allow themselves to be made scapegoats of. I remember that the President—

PRESIDENT DE VALERA: I hope it won't be taken in reference to the position that I was taking in refusing to go over. “Unflinchingly behind” has been used. It was obvious that I was contemplating a possible break in the country and I wanted the country to be behind the delegates in breaking.

MRS. CLARKE: I understand that if these men went over and came to an agreement with the British Government feeling that it was the best thing to do, that they would be rather in the position of scapegoats if the Dáil threw it out after they came back.

PRESIDENT DE VALERA: I forget [263] what particular idea was in my mind at the time. My idea was that we wanted to be in a strong position and that the Republic would not be injured.

MRS. CLARKE: The main thing that I want to make clear is that I did not give anything away in agreeing to their going over and I did not mean to give it away. What I have to say against the Treaty I will say in the public session. I deny and flatly contradict anyone who dares to say that I gave anything away in agreeing to these plenipotentiaries going to England.

MR. SEÁN HALES: There has been so much speaking over this extraordinary question that the only thing I have to say on it is from the military point of view. If I thought that this Treaty which was being signed was to bar our right to freedom, if it was to be the finality, I wouldn't touch it but I took it that it is to be a jumping off point to attain our alternative ends, because if it is in one year or in ten years, Ireland will regain that freedom which is her destiny and no man can bar it. The only thing is that at the present moment if there was anything like a split it would be more dangerous than anything else. As for our principle we are all pledged to that principle which is to place Ireland in her place amongst the nations of the earth. Some may differ in the plan but I always think, always did think, that we are too many patriots and not enough of Cromwells. Posterity will judge us all yet. There is no getting away from that. When the time comes there is one thing certain. Speaking from the column which I was always with through the battlefields and willing and ready to carry on the fight but still I look upon that Treaty as the best rock from which to jump off for the final accomplishment of the Irish freedom. There is no doubt but speaking in these momentous times because it takes men of iron will to stand up against that question of principle because he would be apt to be misjudged. He might be called a coward. There is no cowardice in it but there is real commonsense in the South. When we were footsore and weary and hungry the people did stand to us and I proclaim it from here there are some in a position today that they are next door to the poor house if the poor house was there but it is not. The only thing that I would like to be understood in is that any kind of disunion would have a terrible effect. As for the people on the whole they are for this Treaty and I don't care what sense they are for it because some vote for any peace. There is no doubt about that; I wouldn't consider it in the case of principle but as a matter of expediency for us. There is hardly one of us here could realise what it is to have that army of occupation gone because in a short time with the building up of the youth of the country, the training of their minds and the training of them as soldiers and the equipping, that the day will soon be at hand when you could place Ireland to my mind in her rightful place amongst the nations of the earth. The feeling in the South amongst the ordinary people is surely for the Treaty, even the best of them were tired and war worn out. There is no getting away from it but still if they are called upon again they will give their help to the soldiers of Ireland. They gave what they had and they will give what is remaining but I consider and I have weighed it up and watched the whole proceedings. I don't speak with animosity to any man but I speak as a soldier because it is the soldiers who will win this fight, it is not the politicians. My friend here on the left has said, “Wily England was always met by [too] much honour and too much principle”, and the only way to meet England is after her own game and at the present moment her empire is tottering perhaps. A great man has said, Mitchel, “If I could control the fires of hell I would hurl them against the enemies of my country”. We had a great precedent about keeping treaties with England. That morning on the banks of the Shannon when Sarsfield under duress signed that treaty with the English King, foolishly enough, when the assistance of France in ships and men sailed up that Shannon, he honourably kept his word and they honourably broke it. Well, the day is coming when we will pay that back. The only thing is if there is any man well beloved in the South it is the President and it would be very painful for me to think that in any way I should differ from him. There is no fear that the soul of Ireland will die. Ireland's destiny is to be a Republic and the man who gets the closest and soonest to that in the best way is the man.

MRS. O'CALLAGHAN: I don't want to speak to-night. I will speak on Monday.

MR. P. BRENNAN: Just before I get on [264] to what I have to say there are a few things that the Deputy here from Cork has stated. She stated that you will find no woman who has suffered who would think of accepting this Treaty or something similar. Well, the wife of Christy McCarthy who was killed in action a few weeks before the Truce spoke to me and asked me for God's sake to vote for the Treaty and not plunge the country into war again. She stated also that the people would be behind us in the new fight but they would not be behind with the same heart as they showed in the last fight. Miss MacSwiney said again that England would easily overcome an Irish army of 40,000 men. How much more easily could she overcome an army of—I don't know exactly. Somebody referred to Commandant Seán McKeon as having sounded a note of surrender. Now, supposing you don't ratify this Treaty you can take it that the army, if you want it, will fight again. It is not a note of surrender he sounded. Every commandant is at liberty to sound a note of warning when he sees the dangers and when people who have not been in action don't know what they are but will insist on plunging us into war. Deputy Robinson of Tipperary spoke of the army yesterday or the day before and he said that principle was before discipline. I think that discredits his claim to speak for any army. Discipline is first in any army, not principle. Now I am going to vote for the Treaty and I will tell you why. If this Treaty is rejected the country is plunged into disunion at once. England may not declare [war], she may let us beat ourselves but the probability is that there will be war because you could have seen if you had been minding things that even if this Truce had continued there would be war very soon. Policemen would be shot here and there and they would have satisfaction and gradually the fight would start. If the Treaty is rejected it is obvious that these things would become worse. Therefore we are going to have war. The people want the Treaty and without the people the army couldn't carry on because they were the commissariat and the transport and they gave a protection, and they were most of all Intelligence Department—for every one eye the enemy had [we had] a couple of thousand; that was the way we beat them not with a few rifles and ammunition but with the Intelligence Department, the farmers and labourers, the men of the country. That is how we beat the enemy. We won't have that I hold if we go back to war and why? Because in the minds of the people the Treaty is a good thing, they are out for accepting it. But [if] we go back to war they won't allow us to have that. If there are a few scraps which are not successful the people will say why didn't they accept what they were getting. It is absolutely certain we will lose the support of the civilian population after a few months if we go back to war.

MRS. O'CALLAGHAN: I think I may say a few words now.

THE SPEAKER: I am afraid we must take the next name on the list.

MRS. O'CALLAGHAN: Today I have listened to the speeches of military men. They say—well there is one thing that some of them have and that is discipline. They brought forward the same two arguments in different forms. The two arguments are, “We are a fine body of men. If we only had—”. The second argument was, “War is inevitable; anyhow they are disciplined; they have learned their lesson”.

DR. WHITE: As I was the one that was primarily responsible for the Dáil having its first meeting in private and if necessary and if the Dáil thought well of it, other private meetings, I think it may be necessary for me to give a few reasons why I thought it. I submit with all due respect that the people in Ireland are in the position that the members of the Dáil were in prior to last Wednesday, that is to say the members of the Dáil knew absolutely nothing of what was taking place. Now I know that President de Valera and the members of the Cabinet did not enter into negotiations. Well, I don't see when all is ended how the negotiations could have otherwise been conducted. Another point too is, as I say, previous to Wednesday I was absolutely ignorant of the conditions of this Treaty and I for one will always refuse to vote for or against a motion until I thoroughly understand as a plain blunt Irishman the gist of what I am going to vote for. Furthermore I think it is a desirable thing for the government of any nation before legislating if you like for the nation to have a chance of meeting together and discussing the various points. Now, I want to say one word. Allow me as a rank and [265] filer of the Dáil to congratulate the members of the Dáil generally speaking on the decorous manner in which they have conducted this discussion and I only hope and trust in God that whatever the future may have in store for us and whatever future meetings we may have that they will be conducted in the same orderly and friendly manner. We are all Irishmen; we are all members of the Irish delegation and I don't claim to be one versed in technical language. I am, from the moment I took a part in this movement, merely trying to do what I could for my country. Now, the other afternoon Dr. MacCartan made a certain suggestion and I hope to God in the interests of unity that the members of the Cabinet will see their way perhaps to come to some understanding because if the Cabinet remains disunited the dangers or the sufferings of the country are too terrible to contemplate. My speech or my attempt to talk may be rather scrappy but it is as good as I can be and I simply do it as a plain rank and filer of the Dáil. There has been a lot of discussion about our plenipotentiaries who went to London. Now these plenipotentiaries were not cooing doves and they knew perfectly well that they were not going into a nest of cooing birds. They were going into a nest of serpents. When I was a medical student I read in my text books how to operate on tonsils and how to apply a splint but when I came down to practical relations and tried these things I am sorry to say in the beginning I found it a very difficult proposition and I found a hundred difficulties confronting me. These men were specially picked, specially chosen, every one of them suffered for their country. Do you think that those men are not going to do their utmost for their country, that these men have not had, to use a simile, their fingers on the pulse of England? And they knew exactly how far they could go, and I will make this statement that England, before she will let Ireland go ultimately, that she will expend the last farthing and the last man before she allows you to disappear from the grip. England, I believe personally, would sooner let Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, Canada and the rest of the possessions pass from her before she would finally allow Ireland to go from her grip. Now I submit that, with all due respect, that there is certainly something, in my mind anyway, very rotten in the state of England that she should go so far as she has gone. I respectfully admit that in this Treaty we practically possess all we can possess in what we like to call a Republic if you wish...The Oath, I suggest, in this Treaty is the oath of the Free State of Ireland. So far as that is concerned I am very easy in my mind. The people of Ireland are taking that Oath under duress and I, as a representative, have consulted as many as I could of my people before I came to Dublin and they were in favour of my voting for this Treaty. I will do as they suggest. Now there was a question raised about the Governor General. The Governor General, before he was elected, must be ratified, I understand, by both Houses. Now both Houses might refuse ever to have a Governor General on a point of salary. They said that they hadn't got the money to pay them and they accordingly kicked him out. Perhaps we may have some opportunity likewise of disposing of this person if he ever appears on the horizon. I understand that the total number of enemies that will man certain specified spots in Ireland will total altogether about 14,000 [recte 1,400] men. These men will be there to look after guns and give them the necessary attention, and what we could do later on as regards 1,400 men will be very apparent to any member of this Assembly. The next point is strained relations. It is mentioned in this Treaty, I understand, if strained relations do exist that means that England can send her fleets in any of these places by declaring strained relations with any power and strained relations will be tantamount to a mobilisation. If mobilisation means anything it means that the vessels would have to mobilise in England and furthermore under this Treaty we would have a representative on the League of Nations. I fancy that if England does anything like that that we will be disposed of at the League of Nations. Now this Treaty has by some been called a shadow. I respectfully submit that it contains 99 per cent of the substance and I further say that the shadow of England has disappeared practically to the minimum and I for one as a plain Irishman fail to see what more we could do from an economic point of view and for the development of the country under a Republic than we could do under this measure of the Treaty. Now, the army of the Republic—and God bless the members of the army of the Republic who had the moral courage to [266] come here today and express their views— they have proved their bravery on the field of battle. Under the terms of the Treaty I understand that you will have about 30,000 or 40,000 men here in Ireland fully equipped and fully trained. That will be a matter for the Government. Like my friend Michael Collins I am a plain blunt Irishman unused to technical terms and used [recte unused] to words like “instrument” and “in accordance with the British constitution” and the rest of it. I am here as a simple country practitioner endeavouring to do the best he can for his country and I understand that under the provisions of the Treaty Ulster will have to pay to the English Exchequer about 8 millions per annum. I have for the past year and a half presided at the Boycott Committee to boycott Belfast and beg to say, working in communion with the rest of the Irish committees throughout Ireland, that Belfast is beginning to feel the pinch. I don't know whether we can, under this Treaty, legislate against Belfast. If we can then that would help to knock out Belfast very quickly. In any case we can, if it were possible, accentuate and make the boycott against Belfast more tight and you may take it for granted that the men of Belfast are not fools and even now at the present moment I personally am of opinion—I may be wrong—I personally am of opinion that Belfast would come into Ireland very very quickly. Ulster is in a vice and she knows it and her businessmen are not fools. Now, I say this with all due respect, it may have been possible that Wolfe Tone and maybe some of the '46 and '67 men may have said, “If we do not attain Irish independence in this generation we will attain it in the next”. They may have said that. Now, these men were heroes, great national heroes and patriots. They went out and did their best and I thoroughly agree with the Speaker, “I will be a compromiser and an opportunist”, but if you give me a rock from which I can spring off at England's throat I will vote for it and I will stand by it and I will vote for and stand by the Treaty on that account. Now, before coming up here I asked men who had worked with me in my place, “What is your opinion as regards this Treaty?” And they gave me their opinion so far as they could make it out that the Treaty should be voted for. “Vox populi vox Dei est.” It is the voice of the people and as our President said, I think, subject to correction, he mentioned that if this question were put to the country tomorrow he would have the country, I think, voting for its ratification. I am satisfied on that point and if the voice of the people is the voice of God then I say we should certainly do as the people desire us. We, unfortunately, are not in the position of three men whom we all love and respect, differing on this terrible, this vital question. I submit that the work for Ireland is only now beginning and it is now more than ever we want these men, and I ask them in the name of God, in the name of Ireland and in the name of humanity, to come together and try and work out some proposition that will not split the country. As I say, the consequences are too awful to contemplate and we would be playing into the enemies' hands. Disunion, unhappily, was the curse of Ireland and surely to God Tantalus's cup is not now once again to be dashed from the lips of Dark Rosaleen. Surely to God the men that we all love and cherish, the men who have suffered, aye, and the women who have suffered, surely to God these men are not now going to stab the dagger of disunion to the heart of Dark Rosaleen. In the name of God and in the name of Ireland and in the name of humanity I ask these men as a humble member of the Dáil for all they hold near and dear to come together and see if we cannot form up the thin green line against the scarlet hordes of the invader.

THE SPEAKER: As it is now past ten o'clock the Whips have agreed that there be only two more speakers.

MR. SEÁN MOYLAN: There is a little for me to say. As one who has made up his mind about the Treaty and who has since he came up to this meeting heard nothing that would make him change his views, I would like to say a few words. Most of the soldier members of the Dáil who have spoken at all have been more or less favourable to the Treaty. Now the Minister of Finance and the delegation need no justification in my eyes. There is no necessity for saving their faces and I think, and I have been thinking all the time for the past few days, that what really is before the House is the question of ratification or non-ratification of the Treaty. There has been a whole lot of talk about it and none directly to the point. Now I will vote against this Treaty. If the Dáil ratifies it I [267] would like to make it perfectly clear until the new Government comes into power I as a soldier can speak for my brigade area will stand for the existing Government. If the Treaty is not to be ratified and there is to be war I take it that the Minister of Defence will be in his place. While I vote against the Treaty I know that that war is real war. Some member today said that we did not know what real war was. He mentioned on a point of fact Balbriggan as proof that there was no war in Ireland. I also heard of a place called Lunriain [sic], and the people who have spoken about it were only using it as propaganda and the effect that there was no real war on. I know down in our area there was real war on. There has been a whole lot talked about the terror of war. The question is not a question of peace or war for me. It is a question of right or wrong. Now, war is bad enough God knows, but a lot of the soldier Deputies have been putting it up to you in a worse light than it really is. I wonder now I realise my duty to the Government both as a member of this Dáil and as a soldier and I have heard a very peculiar statement. I am not going to tell you what arms I have. There was a question of honour raised here yesterday. Deputy Seán MacEntee said did he take it that the Truce was meant to be used as a chance of the reorganising our army, of getting them into a better fighting position; somebody questioned the honour of the attitude. Was it any less honourable for us to shift our ground and try to be prepared better the next time? I hold that the true pacifist was the man who prepared for this war. I came here out of Spike to your meeting last August, and I went home fully believing that the Truce was not going to bring us a Republic by negotiation; I couldn't see it; I am only a country working man. I did not see that we were going to be put into a position to work for the Republic and my duty was to go down to Cork to my own brigade area to try and equip my men and be ready for the war. Whoever has spoken for the men or women of the Dáil for sending delegates to London, I am not responsible for them anyway; I am responsible simply as a soldier. Like the Minister for Finance I am a plain man and I don't know anything about formulas and forms of words, but even if I did I would vote against this Treaty. I would put it up seriously to the men who are voting against the Treaty are they doing the right thing now or if they did the right thing last August. Have the men who are going to vote against this Treaty started their preparations for war? But the men who will vote for the non-ratification of this Treaty, it will be their duty to accept responsibility for the war. It will be their duty to fight in the war. It will be their duty also to give a lead in the war now on tomorrow. When the war breaks out is not the time for these men to make preparations. If they saw it as clearly as I, in my own tinpot way, saw it, that this war was to come, if they saw as a lot of them tell us they saw it as there was no chance of a Republic, did they try to make a fight for a Republic? Will each Deputy who is going to vote against it—let him put that question to himself before he will cast his vote. I say I came here to vote against the Treaty as I am going to vote against it—let him put that question to himself before he will cast his vote. I say I came here to vote against the Treaty. But I have seen nothing and heard nothing since that would change my views on it. The Minister of Finance said he has a fine pronouncement to make. If he has anything to persuade me to it I am open to conviction. I was not idle since I came out of jail. I am ready for war in my brigade area. I have mapped out my course. I know what I am going to do. There has been a question asked here today by several members, “What will the civil population think of it?” I can speak for the people in North Cork—they won't let me down. There is another point and I am not in a [gap in original] of war. It is this. In one brigade we were told there were... revolvers. In my brigade it was a kick of a hurley that was our first revolver. The President knows what I think of him and what every member of the Dáil thinks of him. The Minister of Finance, the man who made the army, knows what I think of him too. Is there any way out of it by which we could reunite them?

MR. CATHAL BRUGHA here made a statement in reply to the last speaker as to how the army stood.

MR. SEÁN MCGARRY: I am not going to make a speech. However, before I commence what I have to say I want to make a little personal explanation. It was stated to me that I said something at the first meeting of the Dáil that I should not have said, something that might be regarded as [268] disrespectful to the President. I don't remember it and I didn't intend it and I apologise for it now. At the outset I may say that I am going to vote for the ratification of this Treaty, the reasons I will give for voting for this I will give at the public session. I am not going to give reasons here because I objected at the beginning to the ratification being discussed in private. I have still the same objection. There are just two things I want to say. There has been a lot of talk here in the Dáil about the people who object to the Oath [and who] put forward an alternative document, clause 6 of which says, “That for the purposes of the Association Ireland shall recognise His Britannic Majesty as Head of the Association.” Now I don't care whether I give my oath or my word and I hope and trust that every member of the Dáil believes that his word is as good as his oath. Now somebody here used the word that they were gambling on the fact that there would not be war if this thing were not ratified. I am willing to gamble on the last shilling; I am willing to gamble my own life but I am not willing to gamble with the lives of other people. Now, I was accused today by somebody [of] lobbying outside or betraying the men with whom I have worked and who are dead. I was told I was a renegade; I was also told they would turn in their graves if they knew I was going to vote for this Treaty. I don't believe it. I think there are very few in this Dáil in as good a position to know the minds of the men who helped to create this Assembly, whom I worked with for years, to say what they would think of it. I was told today that we went out in Easter Week to fight for an Irish Republic; we went out in the name of the Irish Republic; with no hope of getting an Irish Republic; we went out to make a protest and every one of us who went out who wasn't a fool never expected to come back; some of us came back; some of us didn't, I am very sorry to say. But every man that went out went to make a protest because it was felt that the protest was necessary. But I say here and now we would not have waited for 1916 to fight for a Republic if the British army had evacuated the country and then we would not have gone out without hope of a Republic in 1916 if the British army was not in occupation (cheers).

MR. SEÁN [recte SÉUMAS] MAC GEARAILT: On his name being called by the Speaker, he said: Well, honestly, Mr. Speaker, I thought I was off the list (laughter).

DR. FERRAN: I will not be disciplined in the Dáil but I will be disciplined outside the Dáil behind Cathal Brugha. Before I did say I am ready to expect [recie accept] the discipline of the army outside and I will do what I can for the fighting cause. It is not perhaps light work; unfortunately I suffer from heart disease but I have not the form of heart disease I have seen in this room today. I was ashamed. I have listened to men whom I thought would rank amongst the legendary heroes of Ireland; I wish to think so still. I think of course their talking is not consistent with the honour of the past. I say that no state born in dishonour can leave an [recte live in] honour. I have heard tonight men speak of what can be done under a new set of circumstances. We should have Ireland filled with the arms ready to gobble up England. Now, I hold if every spade were a rifle and every rolling pin a hand grenade and every sucking bottle an egg and if we lost our honour and lost our position before the world then England could blow us to pieces. Now I said I was going to make a suggestion, it would be a breach of discipline outside. If it could be proved the army can no longer fight there is one more honourable course open to them than the course some of them propose to take. Why not surrender? Why not surrender every gun and every man? It is not a more dishonourable course to surrender their bodies and their arms than to surrender the Republic which they were constituted to defend. And I say that even in that event we can still beat England so long as there is one Terence MacSwiney to die in a cell and so long as that man represents the soul of the nation of Ireland. Ireland is not beaten and Ireland will win. They are going to propose to the people of Ireland on Monday and every word they say will rise in judgment against them if they defend it on its merits. Let them in stating this imperial document, since they must bring it, let them bring it on the point of a British bayonet.

MR. M. COLLINS: That's the sort of stuff now. What we will say in making our case will be all that will be necessary. [269] Particularly from the last Deputy I don't want to hear anything—particularly from the last Deputy.

DR. FERRAN: I want an explanation of it.

MR. M. COLLINS: You have no right to make a statement about any one of the delegates. I don't want to hear anything from any Deputy who made such a statement; you were the only Deputy who made such a statement.

MR. P. Ó MÁILLE: As there are Deputies who have not spoken why not a session be held for an hour or two tomorrow?

MR. SEÁN [recte SÉUMAS] MAC GEARAILT: I will try to be brief. First I am going to vote against the ratification of this Treaty. I was elected here by the people who gave me a mandate to secure a Republic in plain common words. I don't believe that it is within my power to go outside of the exercise of the mandate unless they on their part wish to withdraw from me the mandate and then they can do as they please themselves. Now, a word or two about the men with whom I am in contact. In my own special area it was rather a singular thing that those men who are officers in command of the Volunteers had taken up a very strange attitude last year. There was an oath of allegiance to be administered to all Volunteers. These men had taken up what might seem to you a strange attitude when they didn't take the oath. They feared the Dáil might change and they wanted to keep themselves straight. These men could not possibly accept the Treaty for very many reasons. They are a small battalion, not a small brigade or division. I am a member of one company of it. I am proud to say Deputies here are opposing this Treaty in the firm belief that it would cause a split if they were to vote for the Treaty. I feel very sorry that I will have to go back and tell those men that are prepared so long to stand by their rights and honour that a tremendous effort was not made for possible unity within our ranks. I am against the Treaty for two prime reasons. First of all it does not compare from the point of view that it compromises me in very many ways with the draft of the Treaty as made out in the President's document. In the first place it contains the two words, “in virtue of the common citizenship of Ireland with Great Britain”. Perhaps there might be some statement from the House explaining “common citizenship”. I prefer the President's term even if I expect to take the very reciprocal citizenship I will be in the very same position as the British government supposes me to be at present. “British citizenship” that I will never be now practically under the words of the Treaty if it were adopted [sic]. And I wish to draw your attention once more to what has been said by others that the English forces are not being taken out of this country. I know if this Treaty is passed I will see them every morning and night. I happen to live in Cobh. In the morning I will see the British battleships moored to the moorings. Camden and Carlisle Fort will be manned with marines some appreciable proportion of the thousand odd officers and men that Lloyd George specified in the House of Commons. Now what sort of influence is that going to have upon the district around Cork harbour? It has been said on the ratification side that the Governor General that has to be set up in Ireland will extend a certain amount of patronage. Therefore we will not only have one stronghold of Britain in Ulster but one in Dublin and also one in Cobh. You must if necessary have some individual there who will take control in and going out of British naval ships. He will also exercise the same influence that the Governor General will exercise in Dublin. The difference is this between the two treaties that I would not care if I knew that I would only see the men for 5, 10 or 20 years, and [as] for the draft of the Treaty as far as I know Lloyd George has proved himself to be a trickster. I know very well that the condition of affairs will last for ever and that is a thing that the men who count down in our area could not countenance.

MR. ARTHUR GRIFFITH: The draft Treaty in all probability the delegates thought would be accepted unanimously by the Dáil. Now I knew there were certain contingencies that would arise. If we were to get complete control of Ireland I would not be in favour of Haulbowline being retained as a British dockyard. I know what the meaning of such a dockyard would be, and I wished to see the end of it. They came back and they accepted as to Ulster this Treaty. British ships of var [270] will come up and go out and they will enjoy all the advantages of the finest harbour in the world, therefore why could you not get some repayments for the people of the district? Why not accept the government dockyards established there and I was not prepared to say that a government dockyard would be established in Cobh.

MR. COSGRAVE: The Republican district of Cobh sent a deputation over to Westminster to keep them there.

MR. MACGEARAILT: The Minister of Local Government knows I was out of Cobh for practically 18 months.

Speaking in Irish MR. FINIAN LYNCH said: I want at the start to say and to have you understand that I am very strongly in favour of this Treaty. On the very first day the President said that the ratification of the Treaty by the Dáil was ultra vires. Well now since that time he has harped and harped upon ratification of the Treaty. He has used the word time and again.

THE PRESIDENT: I was going to ask Mr. Griffith the terms of his resolution. I hold it cannot be ratified and if I used the word it was used as common speech.

MR. F. LYNCH: He said it was only in the power of the Dáil to recommend it to the country.

THE PRESIDENT: There are two things it may do. It can itself approve or disapprove of it. It could also recommend it to the country or not recommend it.

MR. LYNCH: I understand you to say that the only thing within the power of the Dáil is to recommend it to the country. I also wanted to know, if it was in the power of the Dáil to recommend it, had they the power to reject it. It has been put up here in the Dáil to prevent a split that those who stand for the Treaty should come over. Now I hold it is not the people who stand for the Treaty who are going to be responsible for the split. I hold it is the people who go out from this Assembly to the country who will cause a split. Now I will give you my reasons briefly. I will give you my reasons briefly for standing for the Treaty. I stand for it inasmuch as it gives this country an army in the first instance. I am not a great soldier and I am not going to boast about my heroism. I cannot boast about any heroism because when the real war came on I was unanimously [sic] captured and I spent my time in jail nice and safe when other men were fighting. But I did my best. I stand for the Treaty because it gives this country control over education. It gives it an opportunity of building up the Gaelic state as was referred to by somebody yesterday. It gives the country control over its own finances; something that we have been hearing a lot about for many years past as the be-all and the end-all of Irish aspirations. It gets finally the British army out of Ireland and even though my friend Deputy Etchingham says that it only exchanges the khaki man for the marines we have got both the marines and khaki men here now. (Deputy: And the Black and Tans). And this document put up by the President provides for the marines just as the Treaty does.

THE PRESIDENT: Only for five years.

MR. LYNCH: This Treaty we have been told over and over in the House is a compromise. It is a compromise and so is that of the President. The difference is just a matter of degree. This compromise Document No. 2 leads you nowhere but into war. The other compromise delivers some kind of goods. I stand for the compromise that brings us back to war [sic]. The man who compromises to lead you nowhere is no good to me. If it is a choice of compromise I will have the compromise that leads me somewhere and that gives me some hold over the country. Now there has been a good deal of bandying of words and casting aspersions from one side of the House to the other as to the abandonment of principle and whoever was responsible. I say it was the President that suggested that oath. It was not the plenipotentiaries.

THE PRESIDENT: I did not suggest that oath. It was only a question of amendment.

MR. LYNCH: At any rate you accept the fact that it was necessary for some form of oath if you have external association. Well the compromise did not start there and in spite of Deputy Miss MacSwiney and in spite of her challenge I really did not mind because in the ordinary way I [271] took it as a challenge which you hear from a rhetorical orator. I therefore say that the abandonment of principle was when the delegation was sent over there either on the first day when we sent them over to consider how best the association of nations and so on can be reconciled with Irish national aspirations. I as one plain man of the Dáil assumed that that meant compromise and I approve of it as the only way out under the circumstances and if that is opportunism then I am an opportunist, and if it is expediency then I stand for expediency. But I choose to consider it as a realisation of facts and I think it would be a very good thing for the members of the Dáil if they faced facts as they heard them here today from those who know them. Therefore, I hold that on neither side is there a monopoly of principle. Now I do not want to dwell on the President's document. It is practically withdrawn. But if you are going to lead the country back to war on the difference between that document and the Treaty I know what the Irish people would think of you. Well I know them. I know the feeling of my constituents and the feeling of the people who sent me here. I have had it by wire every day since this thing started. I know what they would think of me if I carried them back to war as against that Treaty which we have got which is signed by the plenipotentiaries. Now I have said that I am no hero, but if we have to go back to war I will guarantee I will take my stand as well as any man on the opposite side. I do not think there is one of them can challenge that. But going back to war to die yourself is one thing and leading back those whom you represent is another thing, sacrificing the lives and property of 16,000 or 17,000 people whom I hold that I represent. And that is quite another proposition and I in consequence of the knowledge of facts as we heard them here today could not do it, and with a knowledge of the facts of the conditions of the brigade in the constituency that I represent could not do it. Now there was another thing; I know what people will think about if we reject that Treaty. They will look on us as rather good, decent fellows. Alright, it up to a certain stage brought about the situation very gallantly by a very gallant fight but you did not know that you had brought about the situation that you actually had brought about. That is what the people will think and there was another thing, a point made by the member for Monaghan—Deputy Seán MacEntee—that he was against this Treaty because of the possibly implored [sic] partition. I find the President in his document has identically the same clause with a preamble but identically the same in substance. I am sorry the Deputy for Monaghan has now left the room. I was wondering whether he supported this Document No. 2 as against the Treaty, because he said that he stood out merely against this Treaty, that he had always stood on the question of unity. I find the same thing in the two documents; I find again in the two documents this thing that has been raised by Deputy MacGearailt mooring buoys and the rest of it and they are still in Document No. 2.

THE PRESIDENT: Five years.

MR. FINIAN LYNCH: And how are you going to get rid of them then?

THE PRESIDENT: Just as easy as now.

MRS. MARGARET PEARSE: I would like to say that here today two or three times the name of Pádraig Pearse was mentioned and in a dishonourable way. That was that he would accept that Treaty; neither will I. In the first place, with both my sons against it I would not accept it. Since 1916, with the exception of the visits of the Black and Tans I had comfortable night's rest, but if I signed that Treaty or accepted it I assure you I would not have any night's rest, for I would be haunted by the ghosts of my sons. I hope in God that I will see that while I see here tonight several men who are going wrong that they will come right and will do what Pádraig Pearse would have done. Let them go back to O'Donovan Rossa's grave and listen to him there, and for one moment do they think that the man who spoke as he did at O'Donovan Rossa's grave would accept that Treaty? No, nor neither would his brother or his mother. I have several letters from people who sent me here reminding me of my duty. There was no necessity to remind me of it. They should know me. They pointed out to me how they elected me and what they elected me for—to do my duty, and I mean to.

[272] THE PRESIDENT: I am sorry that we have not a more complete House because the whole object for which I put this paper before you has evidently been lost sight of—that you might make such amendments as you think fit which would enable you as a body, if you were so disposed, to reject the Treaty and immediately after make that united offer to the British Government. I have amended it myself. I have cut out the last clauses myself because I think that it is very much better that we should make this question and that we should simply say as regards Ulster that we offer to meet them and so on. Now the most unfair things have been said about that document. That is a Republican document that is as true to the Republic, every line of it, as any document that I wrote to Lloyd George, and I defy anybody to show anything in it inconsistent with the statements put forward by the head of the existing Government. It is a proposition that might be made by France to Britain, or by the United States to Britain. There is not a line in it that is not consistent with the Republic. What it states is that the Republic is willing to make for certain reasons a treaty of association with an outside power. I say there is all [the] difference in the world between the existing document and for one I would be willing to break on that document, and if you had imagination to see it you would, tomorrow, reject that Treaty and accept the other. There is a gamble. We have all tried to look into the future as well as we can. When I asked you to give your sanction to paragraph 2 somebody said I was a compromise [sic] by putting in this paragraph. I said Lloyd George wants to make war on us; let him make war on us. If he wants peace he will swallow that. And this is a proposal which I hold that the people could not make war on the Irish people, and I say again that I have as much responsibility for the lives of the people in Ireland as I have as much hatred of war as anybody and there is no argument put forward for the acceptance of the Treaty that I have not in my own mind. It is only my political sense that tells me you would not have war on that. I put this document before the Dáil that they might consider it and make amendments to it and it would be the most magnificent gesture that was ever made by a small nation.

The House adjourned at 11.20 p.m. to 11 o'clock on Monday morning.