Orders of the Day — Irish Free State.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 10 July 1935.

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Photo of Mr Henry Croft Mr Henry Croft , Bournemouth

I think I can assure the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross)—at least I feel it in my bones—that whatever may be the composition of this House in future, no Government would dare to go back on their word to Ulster. I can hardly imagine that anyone, even in these days of facile change and short memories, would advocate such a policy, except perhaps the hon. Gentleman who feels it his duty to represent the Irish Free State in this House. But it is the case all through the country at the present time that when this Irish trouble is mentioned everybody turns away and, as for us politicians, we are inclined immediately to assume an ostrich-like demeanour and hide our heads in the sand. But even His Majesty's Government themselves must now realise that the time has come when we have to consider the position of this country vis-à-vis the Irish Free State.

I make no apology for reminding the right hon. Gentleman that some of us did warn this House of what was going to happen. I myself tabled a Motion in 1919 pointing out what the situation would be and, in 1921, some 40 of us—the remnant of whom were associated together in the last two years on another issue—gave a similar warning. We actually proposed a Vote of Censure and told His Majesty's Government of that time of our conviction that whatever the sincerity of Michael Collins and Arthur Griffiths—which we did not doubt—there were forces in Ireland which would make it impossible for the Treaty to be honoured. I know that we were labelled "diehards" at that time. I think the term was then intended to convey that we were prepared to perish, at any rate politically, for our principles. But if hon. Members will study the few occasions on which those who were then described as "diehards" have intervened, they will find that those interventions have always been made out of love of country and for the purpose of warning our fellow-countrymen of dangers which might arise. Looking back on those occasions I think it may also be said that the term "diehard" in future can be regarded as including the term "prophet." Like my right hon. Friend who spoke earlier it is to me a tragedy that the State of Ireland should be as we see it at present because there were genuine hopes in this House that by this great gift, as great gift it was—indeed a Quixotic gift—a completely new spirit was going to be created in Ireland. I would remind the House of the words of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), who was responsible for negotiating this Treaty behind the backs of this House, and we were then informed of the fait accompli. He said: By this agreement we win a deep, abiding, and passionate loyalty. Our peril will be her danger; our fears will be her anxiety; our victory will be her joy. I am afraid that we must all confess that that has not been the spirit. The good will and the co-operation which we were told on all hands would come about have been distinctly absent. My right hon. and gallant Friend pointed out all the different occasions on which the decisions of the Treaty have been completely wiped out. He referred to the oath of allegiance, to the appeals to the Privy Council, and to those other vital questions, such as citizenship and other points of that description. The hon. Member for Fermanagh and Tyrone (Mr. Healy) was incensed with my right hon. and gallant Friend because he happened to mention the Governor who was appointed by Mr. de Valera. I think, to be quite fair to my right hon. and gallant Friend, it was not owing to the fact that he was a shopkeeper that he was appointed. The fact was, as my right hon. and gallant Friend said, that apparently this gentleman was chosen particularly because his name was absolutely unknown in Ireland, as much as to say, "We will appoint somebody absolutely unknown, to show that the office is a cipher." Mr. de Valera announced in the Dail: There is a difficulty in getting rid of the signing of Bills; but even that can be got over. The moment we are rid of these functions, we will get rid of the office. Therefore, I do not think Mr. de Valera himself is very anxious to uphold the honour and dignity of this gentleman whom he appointed. He went on to say, on the 28th May last, on the Vote for the Governor-General's establishment: I do not think it will be moved again, because there will be hardly any good reason for the continuance of the office. It is no good anyone coming to this House and saying, "Let the Irish people have self-determination to decide what their future is to be," and at the same time deny that self-determination apparently to Ulster. Ulster has to go into the pot and to be voted down by those in the South. It will be self-determination for them, but not for their neighbours in the North. The fact remains that we have now arrived at the position that on every vital safeguard in this Irish Treaty no longer are we able to sustain the position unless His Majesty's Government are going to take action. How far are they going to allow it to go? What is their policy? No one can deny their difficulties—everybody knows them—but you cannot allow this matter to drift. It is intolerable to think you are gradually going to allow the whole of this honourable undertaking, which was carried out by distinguished citizens of the Irish Free State in solemn conclave, to be torn to shreds month after month and month after month. That is impossible.

I think we have cause also to complain of His Majesty's Government, because, in the Debate on the Statute of Westminster, some of us had doubts, and they were expressed very eloquently by some of my hon. Friends, as to whether in fact the Statute of Westminster did not make it possible for the people of Leland through their Government to break the various Clauses of the Treaty. We certainly had soothing statements from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Dominions, who, I believe, is going to offer a few remarks later on, and who has been giving us solemn advice for the last few years on another subject—and time and time again we had the assurances of the Law Officers of the Crown—but innocently, no doubt, without any guile, and certainly with full belief that his soothing judgments were correct at that time. I think every Member of the House must agree, after what has happened in the Free State in the last three or four months, that if we are to take the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman as having been gospel at the time they were made, those statements have been unfulfilled. Therefore, we are in this very difficult position, that gradually under this machinery every single one of these printed parts of that Treaty have been torn up.

Ireland is rapidly passing, as we declared she would pass, into the hands of republicans. How far are we going? Have not the Government a duty to the security of this island and of the British Empire to say what their policy is and how far they are going to tolerate this position? Have they not a duty to the 200,000, it may be, Irish loyalists who have suffered so grievously owing to the betrayal by this House, in insisting that their rights are carried out; and have we not a duty to the whole fabric of Empire to see that it is impossible that this position can go from bad to worse? Many a time have I heard hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on these benches, above and below the Gangway on this side, speak of the great spirit of Abraham Lincoln. When we see the British Empire gradually disappearing, and when we look at the map of this mighty confederation of peoples as it was at the end of the War, and then look at it to-day, and at what it will be in a few years' time, I ask, Is it not time that we began to stand firm and to make sure that this wreck cannot go on?