EIRE AND NORTHERN IRELAND (Hansard, 31 March 1944)

§ Professor Savory (Queen's University of Belfast)
I should like to thank the House for the sympathy which it has shown to Ulster in the difficulties in which her citizens have been placed by the ban which has been put upon Ireland. We were sympathetically received by the Home Secretary, who went with the utmost care into all the difficult cases that we brought before him, cases of unfortunate teachers who have been prevented from going home for the Easter holidays, and who are stranded in this country, cases of nurses, even cases of expectant mothers.
1770 This ban has undoubtedly imposed a very great deal of hardship on individuals, but my reply to the innumerable letters, amounting to at least 50 a day, which I have received has always been to appeal to the patriotism of my correspondents, and to point out that Ulster has always been prepared to make sacrifices in the national interest, especially in time of war.
Having said so much, I wish to proceed to my main thesis. In 1921 the then Prime Minister, in introducing into the House of Commons the articles of agreement for the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, signed on 6th December, 1921, referring to the Irish Free State which was about to be set up.

§ Professor Savory
These are the words used by the then Prime Minister in that all-important debate: There has been complete acceptance of allegiance to the British Crown and acceptance of membership in the Empire and acceptance of common citizenship.… It brings to our side a valiant comrade. 1771 He went on to call attention to the fact that in the Imperial War Cabinet while there were representatives present of Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and India there was one vacant chair; it was the chair, he said, that ought to have been filled by Ireland, and he continued: Henceforward that chair will be filled by a willing Ireland radiant because her long quarrel with Great Britain will have been settled by the concession of liberty to her own people and she can now take her part in the partnership of Empire.… By this agreement we win to our side a nation of deep abiding and even passionate loyalties. He concluded as follows: There are still dangers lurking in the mists. Whence will they come? From what quarter? Who knows? When they do come I feel glad to know that Ireland will be there by our side and the old motto that 'England's danger is Ireland's opportunity' will have a new meaning. As in the case of the Dominions in 1914 our peril will be her danger. Our fears will be her anxieties, Our victories will be her joy."—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 14th December, 1921; cols. 33 and 49, Vol. 149.] In the whole of history no prophecy has been more rapidly and more decisively belied by events. By this disastrous agreement of 1921 for the first time partition was made in the United Kingdom. A most unfortunate Customs barrier was set up between one part of Ireland and another The great and immortal work of Castlereagh was undone, and the so-called "Treaty" was carried through, which as events have shown was dangerous to the security of this country. To do its authors justice, they consented to insert certain provisions to provide for the security of the country. Great attention has been paid to the provision by which the superb harbour of Lough Swilly guarding the channel to Liverpool and Glasgow, of Berehaven protecting the shores of the United Kingdom towards the Atlantic, and of Queenstown, which was the base of the whole American fleet during the last war, were at least preserved. But attention has not been sufficiently called to another vital Clause in the agreement, which was in these words: The Government of the Irish Free State shall afford to His Majesty's Imperial Forces in time of war or strained relations with a foreign power such harbour and other facilities as the British Government may require for the purposes of such defence as aforesaid. That vital Clause gave a very large measure of security to this country in time 1772 of war. It remained, however, for another British Government, by the agreement of April, 1938, to abandon, without any quid pro quo, these vital Clauses. Will it be believed by future generations that that agreement abandoning these three magnificent harbours and abrogating Clause 7 which I have just read, passed through the House of Commons on Second Reading, Committee stage and Third Reading without a Division? It is amazing, in view of the eloquent speech delivered by the right hon. Gentleman who is now Prime Minister and who, in protesting against the agreement, said that he had negotiated these Clauses, and that he was advised by Admiral Beattie, when concluding the agreement of 1921, that Article 7 prescribed the "indispensable minimum of reservations for strategic security." He went on: The Admiralty of those days assured me that without the use of these ports it would be very difficulty, perhaps almost impossible to feed this Island in time of war.… These are the essential bases from which the whole operations of hunting submarines and protecting incoming convoys is conducted.… They are the life defences of the crowded population of England.… This was the expert opinion placed before the Government which made the Irish Free State Treaty."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th May, 1938; cols. 1098–9, 1100, Vol. 335.] Only two years later, the right hon. Gentleman had become Prime Minister, and in one of those marvellous reviews of the war situation which he makes periodically in the House of Commons, he said, on 5th November, 1940: More serious than the air raids has been the recent recrudescence of U-boat sinkings in the Atlantic approaches to our islands. The fact that we cannot use the south and west coasts of Ireland to refuel our flotillas and aircraft, and thus protect the trade by which Ireland as well as Great Britain lives, is a most heavy and grievous burden and one which should never have been placed on our shoulders, broad though they be."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th November, 1940; col. 1243, Vol. 365.] Two days later, this eloquent speech of our Prime Minister was replied to in the Dail in Dublin by the Prime Minister of Eire, who used these words: There can be no question of the handing over of these ports so long as this State remains neutral. There can be no question of leasing these ports. They are ours. They are within our sovereignty, and there can be no question, as long as we remain neutral, of handing them over on any condition whatsoever. Any attempt to bring pressure to bear on us by any side—and by any of the belligerents—by Britain—could only lead to bloodshed. 1773 Many of our friends in the House of Commons have said to me in the smoking-room, the tea-room and elsewhere, "If Northern Ireland would join with Southern Ireland and would form a united Ireland, then you can be quite sure that Southern Ireland would throw in her lot with us and would assist us in our difficulties and in our fight for our very existence."
In order to show how ill-founded this statement is, let me read an interview which Mr. de Valera gave to the American Press on 20th November, 1940. He was asked by his interviewer: Would you abandon neutrality, if the British agreed to end partition and let Northern Ireland unite with Southern Ireland? That was a question which was perfectly clear and to which Mr. de Valera replied as follows: That is to ask: Shall we barter our right to freedom in order to secure our right to unity? The Irish nation is entitled to both these rights and ought not to be asked to sacrifice one to secure the other. We are entitled to freedom as well as unity—and there is no more important matter in which that freedom can be exercised, than in the choice of peace or war. Listen to the last words: To suggest that the undoing of partition might be made dependent on our going into this war, is to fail to understand our whole position. This word "partition" has been used, again and again, by Mr. de Valera. In his reply to the American demand that the German and Japanese representatives should be dismissed from Dublin, he made as one of his principal points the "forced partition" of Ireland.
Now I have not time to develop that point and I do not want to repeat what I said on the Motion for the Address in reply to the King's Speech, when I showed that this partition, so far from being forced, has, three times, been voluntarily accepted by Southern Ireland, in 1916, in 1921 and in 1925, and on the last occasion by a Tripartite Agreement, signed on behalf of Great Britain by, among other signatories, the present Prime Minister, on behalf of the Free State by its President and others, and on behalf of Northern Ireland by Lord Craigavon. Under this Tripartite Agreement of December, 1925, Southern Ireland agreed to confirm the existing boundaries between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland. 1774 That was passed by overwhelming majorities of both Houses of the Free State Parliament. It became a law of the Free State.
Let us remember that the Free State acquired a most substantial quid pro quo because, as part of that agreement, Clause 5 of the so-called Treaty of 1921 was abrogated, under which the Free State had undertaken to pay her fair share of the cost of the war and of the National Debt. Mr. Baldwin, then Prime Minister, estimated in this House of Commons this liability at £150,000,000. That was confirmed by Lord Birkenhead in the House of Lords. Mr. de Valera said it amounted to a liability of £19,000,000 per annum. By an act of amazing generosity on the part of the British Government, this enormous liability, which Mr. Cosgrave had said was weighing on the credit of the Free State, making it almost impossible for them to launch loans in London or New York, was abrogated in 1925.
That did not however prevent Mr. de Valera from adopting in 1937 an entirely new Constitution—of the legality of which I have the gravest doubt, although I have not time to develop that point now—which was for a 'sovereign, independent democratic State' of Ireland, consisting of the whole island of Ireland, its islands, and the territorial seas, under the name of 'Eire,' or, in the English language, Ireland, that is to say a claim, in spite of the agreement of 1925, to the whole of Ireland. This claim was again put forward in January, 1942, when Mr. de Valera protested against the landing of American troops in Northern Ireland. The protest was made in Washington by Robert Brennan, the Eire Minister, to President Roosevelt and was handed to the Secretary of State for the Dominions here in London by the High Commissioner. It protested against the landing of American troops in Northern Ireland over which Mr. de Valera has no jurisdiction whatever.
With regard to the question of neutrality, I have never, nor has anyone in Northern Ireland ever, disputed the right of Eire as a Dominion not to take part in this war. That is evident from Dominion status, because, in order to carry on a war, you first have to demand supplies from your Parliament. The Parliament of a Dominion can refuse to vote supplies. But I maintain that, for any 1775 part of the British Commonwealth of Nations to retain representatives of the Axis Powers, is ultra vires, and is inconsistent with membership of the British Commonwealth of Nations. I have searched in vain among all the constitutional authorities that I have been able to get hold of, and I have not found one that ventures to maintain that such a state of affairs is constitutional or consistent with the Statute of Westminster.
One of the greatest of our Dominion statesmen, Lord Bennett, former Prime Minister of Canada, who himself carried through the Parliament at Ottawa the Statute of Westminster—a great statesman and a very great lawyer—has used these words, in referring to the present Constitution of Eire: Is the presence of representatives of enemy States within the territory of a Dominion consistent with the provisions of the Statute of Westminster? Can the legations of warring enemies of the British Commonwealth of Nations be legally or honourably maintained within the territory of a member of that Commonwealth? Those questions were put by Lord Bennett, and he answered them at very considerable length in the negative. He said that it was "obviously an impossible and ridiculous situation."
What is the disadvantage from which we are suffering by the maintenance of these hostile Ministries and Legations in Dublin? Mr. de Valera's own paper, the "Irish Press," made a statement on the matter, quoting from the "New York Times." When presenting his request Mr. Gray, the representative of the United States in Dublin, is said to have pointed out that: The large number of Irish citizens working in Britain afforded an excellent opportunity for the Germans and Japanese to plant members of the Irish Republican Army in British factories and in military establishments in Northern Ireland, where the Allies have large military forces. Among the evidence presented to Mr. de Valera to show that the I.R.A. was planning to co-operate with the enemy was a document captured by the Royal Ulster Constabulary showing a detailed map of the coast of Northern Ireland with all inlets, bays and beaches marked, and the depth of water indicated at all different states of the tides. The Attorney-General for Northern Ireland, speaking in the House of Commons at Stormont on 11th March, 1943, quoted two resolutions which had been discovered, at the cost of a fight and a 1776 fusillade in Belfast. They relate to the Northern Command of the I.R.A. and are: Proposed and seconded by delegates from the fourth area that if German Forces should enter Ireland with the consent of the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic, the Irish Republican Army should assist the German Forces. Passed unanimously. That the political squad of the C.I.D."— that is the Criminal Investigation Department— be executed. Proposed and seconded by delegates from the fourth area and passed unanimously. I have an immense amount of other material, all public. I shall not disclose the secret information which I have, but I have a large number of documents here to show the danger of these enemy Legations being maintained in Dublin. But on account of our regulations, this Debate must close in a few minutes and I must, in all fairness, give the rest of the time to the hon. Gentleman who has been good enough to come here in order to reply to me. Therefore, I must desist from giving this evidence, but believe me I have it here in my possession. I do feel very strongly that the position is one which it is not possible for us to tolerate, and that we should not have waited for the action of the United States. As I said at the time, in September, 1939, when war broke out, the British Government should then have put forward a demand to Eire to dismiss the Axis representatives from Dublin.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (Mr. Emrys-Evans)
My hon. Friend has explained the history of partition in detail, and with a wealth of local and historical knowledge with which he will not expect me to compete. The facts, so far as I am aware, are not in dispute. The Treaty of 1921 could never have been concluded at all, if the Southern Irish leaders had not agreed lo the separation of Northern Ireland, under a separate Government and under a separate Parliament. The further agreement of 1925, to which my hon. Friend referred, concerning the final border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State, as it was called in those days, was approved, as he says, by Parliament, both in this country and in Dublin. No doubt it may well be that there are many people at the present time who say in 1944, that what was done in 1921 or 1925 was contrary to their view. What is 1777 said, however, does not alter the fact that on two occasions partition was agreed to by Eire, and has actually been embodied in a Treaty.
My hon. Friend referred to the present position of Northern Ireland and its importance in relation to the conduct of the war. As the whole House fully appreciates, the fact that Northern Ireland has been a separate entity and is part of the United Kingdom has, in this war, proved vital to this country. Without Northern Ireland, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to protect the shipping on which our very life depends. Not only we ourselves, but our Allies and particularly our American Allies, have benefited. It has been possible to give effective protection to their troops coming across the Atlantic to this country, and the House also knows, as my hon. Friend pointed out, that American troops have actually been stationed in Northern Ireland. But this war has shown more clearly than ever, that the defence of these islands must be treated as a whole. As my hon. Friend pointed out in the course of his speech, the surrender of the Treaty ports undoubtedly added to our difficulties in the early part of the war, when we were so hard pressed. I need not enlarge on this aspect of the question to which the House is only too fully alive. Northern Ireland has contributed in full measure to the war effort in the same way as other parts of the United Kingdom. It would not be too much to say that, both from the point of view of strategy and in the general war effort, the separate existence of Northern Ireland has been a factor of the greatest importance. My hon. Friend may rest assured that those services which have been of so much value to our cause will not be forgotten either by this House or by the country.
My hon. Friend touched on the question of the right of a Dominion to decide whether it would take part in a war or not. He said he had no objection to the line which the Eire Government had decided to take, but he then went into what I can only describe as a very complicated and legal constitutional question, to which the Prime Minister referred in the course of a reply to a Question a few days ago. I would not like, especially in a short speech at the end of a Debate on the Adjournment such as this, to go into this complicated matter. But the 1778 presence of the Axis Legations is, in the view of the Government, very undesirable. As my hon. Friend knows the American Government very recently presented a Note to Mr. de Valera and we have given our full support to them. I can give him this assurance: that the position with regard to the presence of the Axis Legations—and I can say quite definitely that the Government would be very glad to see them out of Ireland—is being very carefully watched.
There is one other point on which my hon. Friend touched, that is the hardship which is undoubtedly suffered in Northern Ireland at the present time. Certain restrictions are imposed on the people which, undoubtedly, cause a great inconvenience and, indeed, as I have said, hardship. This country, however, and Northern Ireland are a base of operations against Germany, and we are, therefore, all bound to suffer certain hardships. People here are suffering from the imposition of the ban on the coastal area, from the Wash to Lands End, and they are bearing it willingly. I think it is not unfair to ask the people of Northern Ireland to share these inconveniences and hardships which have been imposed upon them.
They are, after all, a part of the United Kingdom, and I am sure that they are willing and anxious to take their share and bear their part in the necessary burdens laid upon us all. It is true, as the Home Secretary said in reply to a Question recently, that we are faced with certain geographical facts which make the restrictions with regard to Northern Ireland different, in some respects, from those placed on the people of this country, but such facts are, of course, inescapable. It is not possible to maintain rigid control of the border, so as to prevent a leakage of information from Northern Ireland into Eire. It is, therefore, necessary to prevent a leakage into both parts of Ireland. While, therefore, the Government have the greatest sympathy with Northern Ireland, I have every confidence that they will accept the measures which are necessary in the interests of the common military effort.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore (Ayr Burghs)
In the minute that remains, I would like to ask whether it would be possible for the Government to try to get across the President and Government of 1779 Eire, to the people of Eire? We know that, at the moment, owing to censorship, it is difficult to get anything into print. But through radio and other means, could we tell them that we recognise most fully that there are thousands of their gallant young men fighting and dying with us, but at the same time we want the glory 1780 of those young men to continue and not to be spoiled by this ridiculous and stupid attitude which Mr. de Valera's Government have taken against Britain, on the question of neutrality and supporting her enemies? Could that be done?