Sitting of 14 December 1921

Preamble
The Fourth Session of the Thirty-first Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, appointed by Royal Proclamation to meet 14th December, 1921, in the eleventh year in the Reign of King George V., was opened by His Majesty in person.
The House met at Twelve of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER (Right Hon. J. H. Whitley, M.P.) in the Chair.
The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod (General Sir William Pulteney) was announced.
Addressing Mr. SPEAKER, the Gentleman Usher said: The King Commands this Honourable House to attend His Majesty immediately in the House of Peers.
Mr. SPEAKER, accompanied by the Prime Minister (Rt. Hon. David Lloyd George), the Rt. Hon. Edward Shortt, the Rt. Hon. H. H. Asquith, the Rt. Hon. J. R. Clynes, and other Members want to the House of Lords.
On their return, the Sitting was suspended until Three of the Clock, and then resumed.

WARRANT FOR NEW WRIT.
Mr. SPEAKER informed the House that he had issued, during the Recess, a Warrant for a New Writ for the Borough of Southwark (South-East Division), in the room of JAMES ARTHUR DAWES, Esq., deceased.
NEW MEMBER SWORN.
Captain WILLIAM HUMBLE ERIC WARD, M.C., commonly called Viscount Ednam, for the Borough of Hornsey.
SESSIONAL ORDERS.

  ELECTIONS.
  Ordered, That all Members who are returned for two or more places in any part of the United Kingdom do make their Election for which of the places they will serve, within one week after it shall appear that there is no question upon the Return for that place; and if anything shall come in question touching the Return or Election of any Member, he is to withdraw during the time the matter is in debate; and that all Members returned upon double Returns do withdraw till the Returns are determined.
  Resolved, That no Peer of the Realm, except such Peers of Ireland as shall for the time being be actually elected, and

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  shall not have declined to serve, for any county, city or borough of Great Britain, hath any right to give his vote in the Election of any Member to serve in Parliament.
  Resolved, That if it shall appear that any person hath been elected or returned a Member of this Houes, or endeavoured so to be, by bribery, or any other corrupt practices, this House will proceed with the utmost severity against all such persons as shall have been wilfully concerned in such bribery or other corrupt practices.

  WITNESSES.
  Resolved, That if it shall appear that any person hath been tampering with any Witness, in respect of his evidence to be given to this House, or any Committee thereof, or directly or indirectly hath endeavoured to deter or hinder any person from appearing or giving evidence, the same is declared to be a high crime or misdemeanour; and this House will proceed with the utmost severity against such offender.
  Resolved, That if it shall appear that any person hath given false evidence in any case before this House, or any Committee thereof, this House will proceed with the utmost severity against such offender.

  METROPOLITAN POLICE.
  Ordered, That the Commissioners of the Police of the Metropolis do take care that, during the Session of Parliament, the passages through the streets leading to this House be kept free and open, and that no obstruction be permitted to hinder the passage of Members to and from this House, and that no disorder be allowed in Westminster Hall,
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  or in the passages leading to this House, during the Sitting of Parliament, and that there be no annoyance therein or thereabouts; and that the Sergeant-at Arms attending this House do communicate this Order to the Commissioners aforesaid.

  VOTES AND PROCEEDINGS.
  Ordered, That the Votes and Proceedings of this House be printed, being first perused by Mr. Speaker; and that he do appoint the printing thereof; and that no person but such as he shall appoint do presume to print the same.
  Ordered, That a Committee of Privileges be appointed.
  OUTLAWRIES BILL.
  "For the more effectual preventing Clandestine Outlawries," read the First time; to be read a Second time.

  JOURNAL.
  Ordered, That the Journal of this House, from the end of the last Session to the end of the present Session, with an Index thereto, be printed.
  Ordered, That the said Journal and Index be printed by the appointment and under the direction of Thomas Lonsdale Webster, Esquire, C.B., the Clerk of this House.
  Ordered, That the said Journal and Index be printed by such person as shall be licensed by Mr. Speaker, and that no other person do presume to print the same.

KING'S SPEECH.

  IRISH FREE STATE.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I have to acquaint the House that this House has this day attended His Majesty in the House of Peers to hear His Majesty's Most Gracious Speech to both Houses of Parliament, in pursuance of His Majesty's Commands, and of which I have for greater accuracy obtained a copy.
  My Lords and Members of the House of Commons,
  I have summoned you to meet at this unusual time in order that the Articles of Agreement which have been signed by My Ministers and the Irish Delegation may be at once submitted for your approval.
  No other business will be brought before you in the present Session.
  It was with heartfelt joy that I learnt of the Agreement reached after negotiations protracted for many months and affecting the welfare not only of Ireland, but of the British and Irish races throughout the world.
  It is my earnest hope that by the Articles of Agreement now submitted to you the strife of centuries may be ended, and that Ireland, as a free partner in the Commonwealth of Nations forming the British Empire, will secure the fulfilment of her national ideals.
  I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may rest upon your labours.

DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS.
Lieut.-Colonel Sir SAMUEL HOARE(in the uniform of Deputy-Lieutenant of the County of Norfolk): I beg to move
"That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty as followeth:
Most Gracious Sovereign, We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the Most Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.
Having taken into consideration the Articles of Agreement presented to us by Your Majesty's Command, we are ready to confirm and ratify these Articles in order that the same may be established for ever by the mutual consent of the peoples of Great Britain and Ireland, and we offer to Your Majesty our humble congratulations on the near accomplishment of that work of reconciliation to which Your Majesty has so largely contributed."
It has been the custom of this House for many years past to entrust the duty of moving the Address in reply to the Gracious Speech from the Throne to some Member who has seldom, if ever, addressed it. It is a very good custom, for, with most of us, the less we speak, the more likely the House is to give us a kind hearing and extend to us its indulgence when chiefly we need it. I am afraid that I cannot urge this merit of past silence upon my colleagues. I cannot claim from them the indulgence that is always given to a first offender. I am afraid that I am a hardened criminal, and, as a hardened criminal, I must simply appeal to the mercy of the judge and the jury. They must forget and forgive my past speeches, and grant me a kind hearing for this sole reason: The Session that is opening to-day is unique in the annals of Parliament, and the Address that I am moving differs both in the intensity of feeling it excites, and in the general body of support it commands, from any previous reply that has ever been moved on the Floor of this House.
Let me, at any rate, begin my speech upon a field of universal agreement.

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Since the House adjourned, two events of outstanding importance have taken place, not only in the annals of the Royal family, but in the history of the British Empire—the landing of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales in India, and the betrothal of Princess Mary to Lord Lascelles. As we mark the continued successes of the Imperial tours of the Prince of Wales—successes in no way impaired by the efforts of despairing agitators—and as we note the general outburst of affection that has greeted the news of Princess Mary's engagement, we ought to offer our dutiful congratulations to their Majesties, and to assure the King that, if any further proof were needed to justify a hereditary monarchy, the hereditary charm and talent of his son and daughter would make converts of even the most bigoted Republicans.
The Gracious Speech from the Throne concentrates the attention of the House upon one question, and one question alone—"the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland." "The Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland"—that is the title of the Paper we have in our hands to-day. What a chequered and tragic history, what hopes and fears, what trials, what a long array of great names have gone to make the Treaty that we are to ratify to-day! Strongbow, Strafford, Cromwell, Gladstone, Pitt, Grattan, O'Connell, Parnell, generation after generation—[HON. MEMBERS: "Redmond!" and "Butt!"]—and Redmond—generation after generation, the great figures of our political history have all had their hand in the work that we are asked to approve to-day. There were some of them who believed, in the sincerity of their hearts, that they could settle Ireland by the sword. It has been left to the British Monarchy, in the person of his Majesty the King, to point a better and surer way to settlement. His Majesty's Gracious Speech at Belfast was the turning point in the crisis. His Majesty's Speech to-day asks us to gather the fruits that were sown there. Let the Irish people mark the part that the King has played in this settlement. Let them know the value of the British Monarchy. I remember the year 1916, when I was in charge of our military intelligence in Russia, that I met a Finnish agent who came to give me news of Casement's
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doings in Germany. He described to me the efforts Casement had made to induce the Irish prisoners in their internment camp near Berlin to join the Irish Brigade of the German Army. How did those Irish Nationalists respond to Casement's invitation? They drowned his voice by singing "God Save the King." A race nurtured in these ancient traditions will not be slow to respond to the invitation of His Majesty the King. May we not hope that, with Irish peace established, the Royal influence in Ireland will be still further strengthened by a Royal residence beyond St. George's Channel?
Let the House throw its mind back to the moment, six months ago, when His Majesty intervened with such telling effect upon the side of peace. Six months ago there was in Ireland a peace that was not a peace and a war that was not a war. Day after day there were events of grim tragedy. Brave men who had withstood the dangers of the Great War were being daily killed and wounded. [An HON. MEMBER: "Murdered!"] A terrible guerilla struggle was proceeding, and the tragedy was all the greater from the fact that although its blood was being shed, and although terror was gripping the land by the throat, the great body of British people in their inner hearts wished to live at peace with their Irish neighbours. There was the Irish tragedy! A terrible war in progress; a great body of British people here wishing to live in peace with their Irish neighbours, yet caught in a vice that seemed to make it almost impossible to escape from the orgy of battle, murder and sudden death. The real tragedies of history are not the battles between right and wrong, where the issue is clear and the merits of the question undisputed; it is when there is right on both sides that the real tragedies of history are enacted. Such a tragedy was the Irish tragedy. On the one hand the passionate desire of the Irish Nationalists to rebuild the Irish nation; on the other hand the stubborn determination of the forces of the Crown to restore law and order; and behind those two ideals a background set in 800 years of mutual misunderstanding. We might have allowed the tragedy to proceed to its inevitable end. We might have attempted a military solution. No one can deny that had we attempted a military solution the armed forces of the Crown would have carried out the task.

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The Army and Navy that beat the German Empire would certainly have been victorious. What then? The Irish problem is not a military problem. A military solution could not touch it. If we had killed every Sinn Feiner in Ireland, if we had burned every city in the South and West, if we had laid waste the land, should we have been a day nearer to Irish peace?
We know something of war in this country. There are 5,000,000 of men who went through it three years ago. Does any one of those 5,000,000 men, who weighs the consequences, wish to embark upon a terrible war with his Irish fellow-citizens? In spite of this repugnance, in spite of the general desire for peace, there might have been war. With a quarrel whose roots have sunk so deep and whose poison is spread so wide that it seemed almost impossible to wrench up by the roots the deadly plant. The Prime Minister and his colleagues made the attempt, and we are here to-day to ratify their work. Is it a British surrender this Treaty of Peace that we are discussing to-day? Certainly Mr. de Valera and his "die-hards" in Dublin do not regard it as a British surrender. The British Empire does not surrender to anyone. Our power is so strong, our might so unquestioned, that no one can say that we surrender to anybody. We are so strong that we can make big and generous concessions such as no small and weak country would dare to make. We are making a peace with Ireland, not because we have to make a peace, but because we wish to make a peace. We wish to be the friends, not the enemies, of Ireland. We wish to make our friendship permanent and secure. When the British people make up their minds they do not higgle about details. The British people are a very generous people, and because we are a generous people we say to our former enemies: "Come in and take your part in the British Commonwealth as full partners." We ask Ireland to take her place as a peer at the Round Table of the Empire's governors. Not only do we make the invitation. It is an invitation from every one of the great self-governing Dominions of the British Empire.
Not so many years ago we made a similar offer to our former enemies in South Africa. Do we regret the offer we made to our former enemies? Do they
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regret the agreement they made with their new friends? Ireland, however, is not as the other Dominions. Ireland is a mother country. When Europe was plunged in darkness Irish learning flooded every corner of the Continent. Ireland has her citizens beyond the seas, a company of colonists greater than any possessed by practically every great country except our own. Ireland can bring to the service of the Empire a wealth of history and tradition and foreign influence such as is not possessed by any of the Dominions. More than that, she can bring to the service of the Irish Free State a unique wealth of political experience. No Parliament has passed, but there has been in our Debates here some Irish leader of outstanding. For a century, from the Irish Benches on this side of the House and on the other, there has arisen a long and unbroken line of great Parliamentary leaders. Henceforth the scene of the triumph of Irish statesmen will be transferred from the sterile deserts of opposition in this House to the fertile field of reconstruction in Ireland. We are taking to-day a long step forward upon the path of peace. We are thankful that we are on the right road. We must not, however, forget the many boulders that have been placed across our steps by past convulsions. The controversy of eight centuries cannot be ended by a Resolution of this House. A battle that has stirred the blood of generations of Englishmen and Irishmen cannot suddenly be stayed by the signature of any political leader. The Irish Free State has before it a most difficult task—the consolidation of a new, and stable government after centuries of agitation and unrest. Even to-day the first engagement in this struggle is being fought in Dublin. The wreckers of Dublin are attacking the peace. Let us in this House not make more difficult the task of the men of good will. For the first time in modern history Irishmen are to have the full responsibility of governing themselves. Let them show in the service of their own Government the poltical genius and courage they have shown overseas, and particularly let them show their political courage and genius in their dealings with their fellow Irishmen. If the Treaty is to succeed, the Government of the Irish Free State must at the very outset recognise the solid fact of Irish disunion, and if Ireland is to take the place that is due to it in the world this disunion must be

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closed and a reconciliation reached between the North and the South. Reconciliation cannot be brought about by Act of Parliament. Reconciliation is the work of the spirit, not of the letter of any statute. The Government of the Irish Free State must give its mind to the great work of reconciliation. Its leaders have made a wise beginning by their offer of fair play to the Southern Unionists. Let this be a good omen for the greater peace between North and South.
As for Ulster, Ulster is free to choose the path that she desires to take. I have great confidence in the political wisdom of Sir James Craig, and I am glad to see that, in his own words, he is
"not dissatisfied at the moment with the outlook."
I have confidence in the solid sense of the men of the North. They must make their choice. If now or hereafter they find themselves able to join the Irish Free State, how great will be our satisfaction! They will take to the service of a united Ireland their stubborn character, their business talent, their political courage and their burning patriotism. How eagerly we hope that these priceless qualities will not be lost to the new Irish State.
The Conservative party has not always found itself behind the Prime Minister. He would be the first to admit it and the last to resent it. But to-day I venture to say to him from this bench what I believe is in the minds of many other Conservatives. By his resourcefulness, by his energy, by his intuition, he has succeeded where the greatest names in our political history have failed. We offer him our thanks and congratulations for the part that he has played at a critical moment of the Empire's history. As a Conservative I welcome from the bottom of my heart the hope for reconciliation between English Conservatives and a people that reverences history, tradition and religion.
As a Unionist I am grateful to the Leader of the House for the brave and honest part that he and the Lord Chancellor have played in these difficult negotiations. The union that we have honestly tried to maintain is being transmuted into a union of purer essence. As a party we have played no dishonourable part in Irish affairs. We may have made
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mistakes, but who in Irish politics has not made mistakes? If we have fought for a lost cause, that cause has not been lost through any fault of our own. We have had our policy, and who shall say that it was not honourably and successfully carried out by men like the Lord President of the Council, like George Wyndham, and like Lord Long? Having done our best I ask my Conservative colleagues to throw their weight into the scale of peace. Is it too much to hope that the Address will be voted without controversy, and that the treaty between England and Ireland will mark, not only the end of a long feud between two great peoples, but the beginning of that new world for which we fought through the long years of the great and terrible War?
Mr. G. BARNES(in morning dress): I rise to second the Motion which has been so well and ably put by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare), and in so doing I need scarcely say that I esteem it a great honour to be called upon to play a small part in the proceedings of this day which I venture to predict will become memorable in our annals. We are called upon to-day to do our part towards ending an age-long controversy which has embittered and poisoned the political life and relations of two countries. We are called upon to-day to offer appeasement both to Ireland and to Great Britain. My hon. and gallant Friend has just said that the efforts to settle the Irish problem have been the undoing of some of our greatest statesmen. Irishmen have been misunderstood by us and we have been continually misunderstood by Irishmen. Ireland has remained an enigma, a weakness and a menace. But to His Majesty the King there came the great good fortune of beginning a new move for peace. His Majesty appealed to the better nature of both sides for forgiveness and forgetfulness of an evil past. He appealed to both sides to get together, to reason together in a spirit of good will, and I venture to say that that appeal has already brought us further on the road to peace and reconciliation than any of the efforts of great statesmen in the past; for the simple reason that it touched the heart. Therefore, in thanking His Majesty the King for the Gracious Speech which has been read to us to-day,

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we thank him none the less heartily, but rather all the more heartily, for the speech which he made at Belfast, because that speech liberated the kindly feeling on both sides which has brought us together to-day to back up His Majesty's new effort.
It seems to me the first thing we have to do is to banish rancour from our minds and to approach the question before us in the same spirit as it was approached in that Belfast Speech; to make up our minds as far as we can that Irishmen and Britishers will in future live on terms of amity in the same way as we are living in amity with the peoples of Canada and Australia and of other overseas Dominions. We are here, I fervently hope, on the eve of a settlement of what has ceased to be a mere Irish question, but has become a world-wide problem, because there is not only one Ireland but there are many Irelands. Irishmen, like Scotchmen, have spread themselves over the whole habitable globe; indeed they may be the meek who are destined, according to Holy Writ, to inherit the earth. Whether that be so or not we know that Irishmen have found a home in every land. There is now, therefore, not only an Irish question so far as it used to be regarded, but we have an American Ireland, we have an Australian Ireland, and we have other Irelands, one of which is included within the confines of our own shores. In the City of Glasgow, a part of which I have the honour to represent in this House, it is said that one-fifth of the population is Irish either by origin, by birth or by descent. We have no quarrel with them. We have no quarrel with the Irishmen who are to be found in all the great cities throughout the length and breadth of this country. On the contrary, they join with us in all our activities; they are not only with us but they are of us, because their blood is commingled with our blood, and in these days they are part of the British stock and we to a large extent are part of them. Therefore for us—in this House or elsewhere—to pass any law or do anything which would make them aliens, which would alienate them, would be to cut away from us that which may became vital both to them and to us. We cannot longer deny, consistently with our professions of democratic Government, consistently with our representative institutions, the right of Irishmen to live in their own country in their
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own way, and under their own form of Government. We cannot withhold from them the right to manage their own affairs, a right for which they have so long fought. I venture, to say that that is the principle which lies at the bottom of the British Commonwealth of Nations. It is the principle which has been progressively applied to the Dominions overseas until now without conflict or ill-will, they have come to have, and in fact have, absolutely free hands so far as their own internal affairs are concerned. As to the method by which the principle is to be applied in the document now under review, that is a matter which I am not called upon to go into at present, except on general terms. But I may say here that for my part I honestly confess I do not like the creation of new armies and navies. Their multiplication has been one of the tragedies of the past War. Just as honestly I confess I do not like the bare possibility of tariffs being imposed on trade between this country and Ireland. But these things have been thrashed out by those whose business it was to thrash them out. Certain conclusions have been reached, and those conclusions satisfy the requirements of the Admiralty. They leave Ulster free to remain out if she wishes to remain out, but free also to come in, when time has healed old sores and brought forgetfulness of old feuds.
Those, to my mind, are the main principles of the agreement that has been reached. Ireland becomes a free State within the Empire entitled to make her own laws and to enforce them. Ireland becomes entitled to the protection of the British Commonwealth and at the same time is expected to be ready to yield her quota to the protection of other parts of the British Empire. The position of the British Dominions overseas and their relation to the Mother Country is, I suppose, one of the paradoxes of Government. They are free, each and every one of them, to go their own way, and yet they are tied by ties of sentiment and common interests and common protection, and it has been found that those common ties of sentiment, of interest, and of protection are stronger than any mechanical ties ever were or probably ever will be. Yet those Dominions have evolved quite naturally as the result of the progressive application of the principle of democratic freedom, the principle upon which, as I

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have said, the Empire is based. They have reached the stage which others will reach in due fulfilment of destiny. Ireland, with the exception of Ulster, has now become one of the free Dominions, and Ulster, as I think, is entirely a matter for Irishmen themselves, and not for us.
I hope and believe that this agreement will be ratified by Southern Ireland, and I say so for several reasons. In the first place, and in spite of what has been said within this last day or two in regard to an assumed analogy between this settlement and the, Peace Treaty so far as America was concerned, I have no hesitation in saying that this settlement ought to be ratified, because it bears the signatures of those whom we have been led to believe were the accredited representatives of their country. The agreement was drawn up on that basis, we were told by Mr. de Valera only some two months ago that the men who were here in London were the trusted representatives of a united nation. Therefore, the agreement has been drawn up on that basis, and, that being so, it seems to me that the honour of Ireland is really at stake. In the second place, I think this agreement should be ratified because it does meet and more than meet the aspirations of those Irishmen who have pleaded in this House eloquently and long for the removal of the barriers to the self-expression of their fellow-countrymen. I have heard the late Mr. Redmond and I have read others before him, and I have no hesitation in saying that this agreement goes far beyond anything that has been asked for by any representative Irishman in this House before. Thirdly, I would commend it, because it has the approval of all the political parties in this House. It is not a Party settlement except that the Prime Minister's good fortune has been to have been in the right place at the right time and to have gathered up and mobilised forces from all political parties. Apart from that, it might be said to be the offer of the nation, tired of fighting and perhaps a little ashamed of its last century's record.
This agreement is endorsed by all the political parties. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith), who is the lineal descendant of Mr. Gladstone in this House and the honoured custodian of the Gladstonian
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tradition, has given it his blessing. The Labour party, which has always stood for Home Rule for Ireland, has claimed it as its own, and, as my hon. Friend who last spoke has reminded us, the Conservatives in the Government have courageously and loyally faced new needs based upon new facts and have accepted the situation. Therefore, it seems to me that there is every probability that there will be no acrimony or discussions of a violent character after this agreement goes through, but, on the other hand, that there is every prospect of good will in its going through. There has been danger sometimes of the Mover or Seconder of the Address to the Throne getting over the border line and saying something which offends the susceptibilities of political parties. To-day there is no such danger, because all political parties are in favour of a settlement.
Lastly, I commend this agreement to all concerned because it corresponds with the pledges given in the Manifesto three years ago. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Well, let me put my point. In the Manifesto issued three years ago by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House of that time, and upon which the much-talked-of coupon was based, certain statements were made, and amongst them was that if returned again to office the Government was pledged to explore every possible avenue of peace with Ireland on the basis of self-government, with two reservations only, those being the non-separation of Ireland and the non-coercion of Ulster. That statement will be found in the Manifesto. I have it here, but it is not necessary for me to read it. The settlement to which the King's Speech has led us, and which today we are called upon to endorse, in my humble judgment, fulfils those conditions.
It is true, as my hon. Friend said a little while ago, that it has been reached only after long guerilla warfare, and that it has been reached only after loss of life under distressing and aggravating circumstances. Let me say further that in my judgment, at all events, it is true that its endorsement means some degree of self-mortification on our part and forgetfulness of recent history, but the mortification and forgetfulness are not expected of one side alone. They are expected of both sides. To my mind, the cardinal virtue of the King's Speech at Belfast was that it appealed to both sides

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to forgive and forget the past, and, having regard to that speech and the great spirit underlying it, it is inconceivable to me that either side should now refuse the hand of friendship and again revert to barbarism. There is one aspect of it that might he mentioned, and from which, I think, a lesson might be learned. There is in several respects a similarity between our position to-day and that of the United States of America in 1860. The year before Lincoln had been elected upon the principle of non-separation of the Southern States, just as our Prime Minister was elected three years ago on the principle, among other matters, of non-separation of Ireland. Lincoln, in 1860, made an eloquent appeal for peace, but he failed. Addressing the American people, in his first inaugural address, he said:
"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not be allowed to break our bonds of affection."
Yet passion did break the bonds and brought, four years of dreadful devastating war, and then there was no separation, because separation, as Lincoln truly said, was impossible. Neither can there be separation between this country and Ireland. Let all of us banish it from our minds. Separation is even less practicable now than it was then, because since 1860 science has bridged the seas and brought nations more into inter-dependent life. Therefore, Ireland to-day is nearer to us in a physical as well as a spiritual sense. She is part of our life and we of hers. Let us, bearing those great facts in mind, accept this great opportunity of peace and appeasement between the two countries. Let us see that, so far as we can make it so, Ireland and Britain shall march forward together as friends and neighbours in the future, separate as regards their internal Government, but indivisible in spirit as separate parts only of a great family of free nations.
Mr. CLYNES Mr. CLYNES rose——
Mr. RONALD McNEILL: On a point of Order. May I ask whether now, as the Address has been moved and seconded, it would be in order to move that the Debate be adjourned until we know whether these articles of agreement are accepted or rejected in Dublin?
Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid that the hon. Member did not catch my eye when he rose, and therefore he is not entitled to intervene; but in any case the action of this Parliament is free and independent, and I could not accept a Motion for Adjournment on the grounds given.
4.0 p.m.
Mr. CLYNES: It is customary for anyone following the Mover and Seconder of the Address of Thanks to the Throne to indulge in the language of compliment. Both the hon. and gallant Gentleman who moved the Address, and the right hon. Gentleman who seconded it, are Members of such standing and experience in this House that it would be inappropriate on my part to say more than that they have discharged a task of the greatest difficulty, as it always is, with a skill and resource which the House expected from them. One thing I would like to say with reference to their position, and their speeches, and it is that I am sure that never on any previous occasion have hon. Members of this House undertaken such onerous duties with feelings of greater thanks-giving for the occasion which has called upon them to perform this service. This is not a moment when any hon. Member of the House need attempt any long review of the almost endless and embittered conflicts which have raged throughout many centuries between this country and Ireland.
My object will be to centre my few observations upon the meaning of the Articles of Agreement as I understand them. Those Articles in themselves I regard as a triumph of national patriotism which, pursued as it has been and supported as it has been by statesmen and martyrs for a generation, was bound to win in the end. Let it he said frankly that the Articles of Agreement are a victory for an enduring national spirit over every obstacle and every form of force which that spirit has had to encounter for centuries. The truth is that nationhood once acquired will endure in spite of any acts of repression directed against it, and a union of nations such as the statesmen of this country proposed more than 100 years ago can be found only in the consent and the mutual goodwill of the people, of any two countries who may seek to be united. What do these Articles of Agreement

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symbolise? They symbolic the atonement of parties and of public men who for long in this country resisted the natural demands of a country having all the attributes of an ancient nation and possessing in a high degree all the natural desires to manifest their qualities in their own way and govern themselves according to the collective opinion of the people.
Reference has been made to the attitude of the Labour party in relation to these Articles. These Articles travel on the lines long advocated by Labour. For some such terms as these we organised missions to Ireland in the recent days of turmoil and peril, and we organised special campaigns in this country to secure British opinion for such a settlement as is now proposed. I will only add that on the whole history of this Irish problem, and especially in relation to the stage which has now been reached, the conscience of the Labour party is easy. I am, however, less concerned to try to apportion any degree of praise or blame for the stage which has been reached than to make a contribution towards the continuance of that party unity which alone finally secures a settlement, and will put the seal to a finish of these unhappy quarrels between Ireland and this country. Whatever else may be questioned, this is true, that the Irish difficulty had reached a stage when it could be settled only by a unity of parties, by each agreeing to act with the other and to support those who are engaged in seeking to meet the national desires of the Irish people. I look upon these Articles of Agreement as the instrument of a lasting and beneficent settlement between Ireland and this country.
I think that settlement will have an influence in the form of a world advancement, for this question has long ceased to be a mere Irish-English topic. It has been in a large degree a world problem for many years, and it must have its effect in conducing to peace in many parts of the world as well as in Ireland itself. The Agreement will do what statesmen for many years have said never should be attempted, for it will in effect destroy what was termed the Act of Union, a thing which in substance never existed, because in reality there never has been between Ireland and this country a real union. The Agreement will destroy a mere technical union which has existed
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upon paper and will substitute the realities of union between Parliaments and peoples pursuing their tasks for the common prosperity of both countries. The Agreement affords the fullest scope for every manifestation of Irish nationhood with provision for such relations in the modern world as underly the idea of national co-operation and international action. I do not like to speak of the Articles of Agreement as a free gift from this country to Ireland. We must not view what we are doing as an act of patronage, we must not look upon the Agreement as embodying a generous gift or as embodying most generous offers or favours. The Agreement is an act of justice and a manifestation to us of the futility of any attempt to govern peoples against their will.
Labour has nothing to regret in relation to the claims of Ireland, but there would be cause for deep regret indeed if, through divided counsels or misguided conduct, the blessings offered by this agreement were in any way destroyed and ruinous conflict and were continued. No settlement can last which does not rest upon the goodwill of the people of Ireland, I will even say upon the goodwill of a united Ireland, and it must rest upon an abounding sense of justice on the part of the people of Great Britain. There has long been conflict between Ireland and this country, and if conflict between Ireland and Britain is to be deplored the fear of conflict between one part of Ireland and another must be recognised. For the purposes of a settlement parties have appealed for unity. It was essential to have unity also among political parties for this purpose. It is essential to have unity between the South and the North of Ireland for the future prosperity of the whole of Ireland. I believe that, until the North and the South come together, they can never realise how much they have in common and how little fundamental cause there is for conflict.
I suggest to both these parts of Ireland to live less in the terms of the past and to act in the terms and in the needs of the future. Some time or other the quarrel had to end, not only as between this country and Ireland, but as between the Northern part of Ireland and the South. It is better to end it now than to go on facing the certainty that at some future date, after greater losses and greater em-

21
bitterment, statesmen will have to try again to serve the cause of peace and produce a settlement. A very great responsibility indeed rests upon the leaders who speak for both sections of the Irish people. There are times when leaders cannot do all they would wish to do, but this is, I think, a moment when if the leaders will exert themselves and exhibit the courage which we know inwardly they possess, they can go far to reconcile their followers to the necessities of a settlement and help to bury the feuds and the hatred which has done so much harm to both sections of the Irish people. The representatives of the North of Ireland have now a golden opportunity, not only to secure all substantial safeguards for their interests, but they have the power to make a priceless contribution to the creation of a reconciled Ireland which will be a lasting friend and partner with Great Britain, and a welcome force for the future progress of mankind. This agreement also offers opportunities to Sinn Fein representatives not only to win the enduring goodwill and co-operation of this country, but what is also essential, the co-operation of Irishmen in the North of Ireland whose friendship is indispensable to a united country.
I cannot close the little I have to say without a brief reference to what might be termed the personal aspect of this question. We do not know what took place during the long days and even nights of debate between the men who, although on opposite sides, I am sure were seeking to reach some common agreement. I believe that the leaders of Sinn Fein acted with their native genius, and without in any sense forfeiting in the slightest degree the loyalty which they owed to their followers. I can imagine the difficulties. Our congratulations are earnest, and we offer them both to the representatives of the Government and to the representatives of the Irish people on having overcome those difficulties, and on having produced Articles of Agreement which, if sanctioned earnestly and warmly by this House and by the representatives of the Irish people, will immediately produce a feeling the like of which has never been imagined by the masses of the people of this country or of Ireland itself. The Prime Minister is renowned as a negotiator. In this instance his great resources have been put
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to the test, and evidently they have not failed. For that fact we are especially thankful. Whatever our differences with the Prime Minister may be, he has on this occasion recognised the greatness of the cause and the impossibility of settling such a question by the mere weight of party numbers; and he must have used that great margin of negotiating skill which we know him to possess, in order to convince and persuade those who held different views, of the absolute necessity of seeking only the interests of the people of this country and of Ireland in the terms of agreement which finally were reached. I repeat my plea for party unity to pursue to a triumphant close the work which has been begun, for, unless that unity be maintained, a settlement cannot, I believe, be reached.
It may be proper, in view of the terms of the Address now before the House, just to say that evidently His Majesty the King found his own way to produce an atmosphere for agreement, for good feeling. By felicity and warmth of manner, and by kingly moral leadership, the Monarch has made a very great contribution to the settlement which we are here to affirm and to approve during the course of this discussion. I say, therefore, that the Labour party rejoices with the rest of those who, either in this House or in the country, welcome this Agreement. We are eager to approve, and are convinced that it has the support of the vast majority of the Irish people. We are convinced that, if the people of both the North and the South of Ireland will try it, they will find, in the real test of it, that prosperity, that happiness and contentment for their country, which in days of conflict they have never been able to find.
Sir DONALD MACLEAN: I rise to express, on behalf of those for whom. I can speak, our complete concurrence in what my right hon. Friend has just said, both with regard to the action of that Committee of the Government which brought a most difficult and complicated matter to a successful conclusion and also with regard to the Mover and the Seconder of the Address and to His Majesty the King. With regard to the action which has been taken by His Majesty's Government, theirs was a most difficult task. They had to meet in an atmosphere which it would not be using exaggerated language to describe as one not only of suspicion, but of actual hostility. That had to be

23
changed, if success was to be achieved, into an atmosphere of confidence and of good will. They succeeded in that. I should also like to bear our testimony of recognition of the fact that the burden upon the head of the Government—the Prime Minister—was one of unexampled weight and responsibility. We sincerely trust that, after the long and arduous years during which he has held office, bearing very grave and serious burdens, the limits of his physical capacity have not been reached, and that he will, as he has on other occasions, survive this last and, perhaps, most trying of all the ordeals he has gone through, and will resume his usual physical vigour and energy amongst us. There are just two questions that I should like to ask my right hon. Friend with regard to the Articles which are now before us. In the first place, can he in the course of his speech, which is now most anxiously awaited by the House, amplify what arrangements are in contemplation for the provisional government which must very speedily be set up in Ireland for the purpose of dealing with the new situation now created? I see that Article 17 states that
"By way of provisional arrangement for the administration of Southern Ireland during the interval which must elapse between the date hereof and the constitution of a Parliament and Government of the Irish Free State in accordance therewith, steps shall be taken forthwith …"
I am certain that the Prime Minister will accede to the request which I have put forward and will further elaborate for the information of the House and the country what action His Majesty's Government propose to take. Then there is another question which, I think, I might ask of him, namely, at what date does he propose that Parliament should meet again for the new Session? This Parliament will be prorogued, as I hope myself, on Friday next, and Parliament must be summoned for a new Session by His Majesty the King. It is quite obvious that the longer the delay—the necessary delay—between the action of the House to-day and its taking up the Bill for serious and legislative consideration, the more danger there is of factors arising which even the very best intentions of the very best Government that ever existed, and of the most patriotic and loyal Opposition, might not be able to over-
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come. I suggest that a right and proper course would be that there should be no undue delay with regard to that matter. It is not, of course, for me to suggest a date, but I should imagine that, while the House usually meets somewhere about the middle of February, it would really accord with the views of most, and, indeed, of all, Members if the next meeting of Parliament took place rather earlier than that.
Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House): What His Majesty's Government have in contemplation is that Parliament should prorogue to Tuesday, 31st January, and meet for the despatch of business on that date.
Sir D. MACLEAN: I am obliged to my right hon. Friend. We now know that on the 31st January the new Session will open, and that this Bill, subject, of course, to financial arrangements—the passing of the necessary Votes on Account and so forth—will be the first Order which His Majesty's Government will present to the House for its consideration. There is only one other point which I desire to make. It would, I think, be a great mistake in our Debates if there were any note, so far as those of us who are supporting the proposal of the Government are concerned, which suggested that there was at the back of our minds any idea of recrimination, or of a desire to go back on the past and to say, "Well, I told you so." That is very easy to do, and in other circumstances we might be justified in doing it; but what we have to bear in mind, in this Debate at any rate, is that the very greatest care should be exercised as to the line for which those who take part in it are responsible. There is not the least doubt that our Irish brethren across the Channel are in a situation of very great difficulty between themselves. There are evidences of elements of difficulty and danger. Let us see, so far as our conduct of this Debate is concerned, that we give the, friends of peace in Ireland no occasion for saying that they did not have an absolutely open field and a fair chance so far as the British House of Commons was concerned. If that be done, I am quite certain that it will be fully appreciated by those who took their courage in both hands, amid circumstances of real danger to themselves, and arrived at the conclusion of the Articles which are now presented to the House.

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I would remind the House, with great respect, of the fact that this particular controversy is one which has occupied the House of Commons at intervals for no less a period than 120 years. Pitt, when he was proposing his Bill in, I think, June, 1801, wound up, after some of his most eloquent periods, by an appeal to the people of both nations, suggesting to them that the spirit in which the Union was approached should be that of equal partnership. Whatever might have been the policy since that date, nothing but disaster, as we believe, has been associated with that Measure which was then placed upon the Statute Book. An appeal was made by Mr Gladstone from that Box in support of his Bill 35 years ago. I do not know whether there is one Member of this House at the present moment who, as a Member of the House, heard that speech, but everyone who has read his speeches can call to mind the conclusion which he then made, as he begged the House to think well, to think wisely, to think, not for the moment, but for the years to come, before it rejected the Bill. Since then there lies a whole history of tragedy over which we wish to pass an Act of oblivion to-day and to make a fresh start bright with promise for the future not only of this country but of the world, because the question between Ireland and Great Britain is a world problem.
The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Lloyd George): We generally select for the moving and seconding of the Address Members of what I may call budding promise; but we regarded this occasion as being so exceptional that it was thought desirable to select men whose promise had matured into reputation and respect in the House. My hon. and gallant Friend who moved, and my right hon. Friend who seconded, have made speeches worthy of the reputation which they have already won in this House—well-considered, thoughtful, prudent, discreet. There were many difficulties which they avoided. They realised that it was necessary, not merely to carry these Articles in this House, but also to secure the assent of the Irish representatives as well; and all those who take part in this Debate must necessarily be hampered by that knowledge. These Articles of Agreement have received a wider publicity than probably any treaty that has ever been
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entered into, except the Treaty of Versailles. They have been published in every land.

UNIVERSAL ACCEPTANCE OF AGREEMENT.
No agreement ever arrived at between two peoples has been received with so enthusiastic and so universal a welcome as the Articles of Agreement which were signed between the people of this country and the representatives of the Irish people on the 6th of this month. They have been received in every quarter in this country with satisfaction and with relief. They have been received throughout the whole of His Majesty's Dominions with acclaim. I saw that they were characterised in some quarters as "a humiliation for Britain and for the Empire." The Dominions of the Crown are not in the habit of rejoicing over acts of humiliation to the Empire, for which they have sacrificed so much. Every article was telegraphed to them as soon as the Treaty was signed and, without a dissentient voice, Governments and Parliaments not merely sanctioned and approved, but expressed satisfaction and joy at the transaction. Every Ally sent through its leading Ministers congratulations to the British Government on the accord—tried friends of ours, not in the habit of being glad when we are humiliated. At home, in the great Dominions of the Crown, among our Allies, throughout the whole of the civilised world, this has been received not merely with satisfaction, but with delight and with hope.
I am very much obliged to my right hon. Friend (Sir Donald Maclean) for the kind words he used in reference to the part which I took, but let me say at once that, in so far as this Agreement has been achieved, it would not have been done without the most perfect collaboration among all the members of the British Delegation. Every one of them worked hard; each of them contributed from his mind and from his resource. The same thing applies—and here I am in cordial agreement with my right hon. Friend—to the part played by the representatives of Ireland. They sought peace, and they ensued it. There were some of my right hon. Friends who took greater risks than I did in signing this Treaty. It will be remembered to their honour. There were men on the other side who took risks. The risks they took are only becoming

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too manifest in the conflict which is raging at this hour in Ireland, and all honour to them. Not a word will I say—and I appeal to every Member in this House not to say a word—to make their task more difficult. They are fighting to make peace between two great races designed by Providence to work together in partnership and in friendship.
It is very difficult on an occasion like this to knew exactly what to say, what to dwell upon, what one ought to elaborate, what needs elucidation, what you can just leave to the mere Articles to speak for themselves; and there is no greater difficulty for a man who has been immersed in a business for months than to know exactly what to explain. That is the difficulty I am experiencing at the present moment. If the House will put up with me, I propose to expound the general effect of the Articles of Agreement, leaving it to those who take part later in the Debate to answer any criticisms or respond to any inquiries, or to clear up any obscurities which may appear in the mind of any Member of this House. I understand that an Amendment will be moved which traverses practically the whole of these Articles of Agreement, and there will certainly be another opportunity for my right hon. Friend, and probably for myself, to say a few words later on.

DOMINION STATUS.
The main operation of this scheme is the raising of Ireland to the status of a Dominion of the British Empire—that of a Free State within the Empire, with a common citizenship, and, by virtue of that membership in the Empire and of that common citizenship, owning allegiance to the King.
Mr. R. McNEILL: "Owning allegiance"!
The PRIME MINISTER: And swearing allegiance to the King. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend can make his observations later on.
Mr. J. JONES: They will not be worth much, if he does make them.
The PRIME MINISTER: I will explain as best I can the nature and extent of this transaction. What does "Dominion status" mean? It is difficult and dangerous to give a definition.
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When I made a statement at the request of the Imperial Conference to this House as to what had passed at our gathering, I pointed out the anxiety of all the Dominion delegates not to have any rigid definitions. That is not the way of the British constitution. We realise the danger of rigidity and the danger of limiting our constitution by too many finalities. Many of the Premiers delivered notable speeches in the course of that Conference, emphasising the importance of not defining too precisely what the relations of the Dominions were with ourselves, what were their powers, and what was the limit of the power of the Crown. It is something that has never been defined by an Act of Parliament, even in this country, and yet it works perfectly. All we can say is that whatever measure of freedom Dominion status gives to Canada, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa, that will be extended to Ireland, and there will be the guarantee, contained in the mere fact that the status is the same, that wherever there is an attempt at encroaching upon the rights of Ireland, every Dominion will begin to feel that its own position is put in jeopardy. That is a guarantee which is of infinite value to Ireland. In practice it means complete control over their own internal affairs, without any interference from any other part of the Empire. They are the rulers of their own hearth—in finance, administration, legislation, as far as their domestic affairs are concerned—and the representatives of the Sovereign will act on the advice of the Dominion Ministers. That is in as far as internal affairs are concerned. I will come later on to the limitations which have been rendered necessary because of the peculiar position of Ireland in reference to Great Britain, and the Army and Navy more particularly.

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS.
I come now to the question of external affairs. The position of the Dominions in reference to external affairs has been completely revolutionised in the course of the last four years. I tried to call attention to that a few weeks ago when I made a statement. Since the War the Dominions have been given equal rights with Great Britain in the control of the foreign policy of the Empire. That was won by the aid they gave us in the Great War. I wonder what Lord Palmerston would have said if a

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Dominion representative had come over here in 1856, and said, "I am coming along to the Conference of Vienna." I think he would have dismissed him with polite disdain, and wondered where he came from. But the conditions were different. There was not a single platoon from the Dominions in the Crimean War. It would have been equally inconceivable that there should have been no representatives of the Dominion at Versailles or at Washington. Why? There had been a complete change in the conditions since 1856. What were they? A million men—young men, strong, brave, indomitable men—had gone from all the Dominions to help the Motherland in the hour of danger. Although they came to help the Empire in a policy which they had no share in passing, they felt that in future it was an unfair dilemma to impose upon them. They said: "You are putting us in this position—either we have to support you in a policy which we might or might not approve, or we have to desert the old country in the time of trouble. That is a dilemma in which you ought never to put us. Therefore, in future, you must consult us before the event." That was right; that was just. That was advantageous to both parties. We acceded to it gladly.

FOREIGN POLICY.
The machinery is the machinery of the British Government—the Foreign Office, the Ambassadors. The machinery must remain here. It is impossible that it could be otherwise, unless you had a Council of Empire, with representatives elected for the purpose. Apart from that, you must act through one instrument. The instrument of the foreign policy of the Empire is the British Foreign Office. That has been accepted by all the Dominions as inevitable. But they claim a voice in determining the lines of our future policy. At the last Imperial Conference they were there discussing our policy in Germany, our policy in Egypt, our policy in America, our policy all over the world, and we are now acting upon the mature, general decisions arrived at with the common consent of the whole Empire. The sole control of Britain over foreign policy is now vested in the Empire as a whole. That is a new fact, and I would point out what bearing it has upon the Irish controversy.
The advantage to us is that joint control means joint responsibility, and when the burden of Empire has become so vast it is well that we should have the shoulders of these young giants under the burden to help us along. It introduces a broader and a calmer view into foreign policy. It restrains rash Ministers, and it will stimulate timorous ones. It widens the prospect. When we took part in discussion at the Imperial Conference, what struck us was this, that, from the mere fact that representatives were there from the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, and from other ends of the world, with different interests, the discussion broadened into a world survey. That was an advantage. Our troubles were Upper Silesia, the Ruhr Valley, Angora and Egypt, and they came there with other questions—with the problems of the Pacific, Honolulu, the Philippines, Nagasaki, and Pekin. All these problems were brought into the common stock, and a wide survey was taken by all the representatives of the Empire, who would honour the policy decided upon, and support that policy when it was challenged. They felt that there was not one among them who was not speaking for hundreds of thousands and millions of men who were prepared to risk their fortunes and their lives for a great Empire.
That is the position which has developed in the last four years. If any one will take the trouble—which I took a few days ago—to read Pitt's speeches on the Union, he will see how this development within the last four years has altered the argument about Union. What was Pitt's difficulty? His one great difficulty was this: He was in the middle of a great war, a Continental war, which was not going too well, and no doubt our power was being menaced, and menaced seriously. What did he find? He found two co-ordinating Parliaments, each with full, equal powers to declare peace and war, to enter into treaties and alliances, and he said: "This is a danger." There had been recent rebellion. He never knew what peril might develop out of that state of things. Had he had the present condition of things to deal with, does anyone imagine that that is the course he would have pursued? Had he found that the question of treaties, alliances, peace and war were left, as they are now, to a great council of free peoples, each of them self-governing, and

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coming together with the Motherland to discuss their affairs and decide upon their policy, what he would have done then would have been to invite Ireland to come to that Council Chamber, to merge her interests and her ideals with the common ideals of the whole of those free peoples throughout the Empire. That is the position.
Ireland will share the rights of the Empire and share the responsibilities of the Empire. She will take her part with other Free States in discussing the policy of the Empire. That, undoubtedly, commits her to responsibilities which I have no doubt here people will honour, whatever may ensue as a result of the policy agreed upon in the Council Chamber of the Empire. That is a general summary of the main proposition which is involved in these Articles of Agreement.

DOMINION HOME RULE.
It is all very well to say "Dominion Home Rule" or "Dominion Self-government." The difficulties only begin there—difficulties formidable and peculiar to Ireland. There are multitudes of people in this country to-day who are made happy by the thought that they have settled the Irish Question, and they are happy because they said a year or two ago that the way to settle it was by Dominion Home Rule. "That settles it." I can assure my right hon. Friends opposite that they are not alone in this sense of self-satisfaction. But it does not settle it. You do not settle great complicated problems the moment you utter a good phrase about them.
Mr. J. JONES: "I am the man who knows."
The PRIME MINISTER: Oh, yes, I do. Certainly I do. I have discovered it. There are innumerable letters, resolutions and speeches which have all said: "Try Dominion Home Rule!" They had all one defect in common. They ignored all the obstacles and, therefore, they gave us no counsel as to how we were to overcome them. It is no use giving a general prescription in complicated cases. You may find the same symptoms, but you cannot ignore the constitution of the patient, his temperament, and, above all, his history, because you may find that there are evils in his system which have been left there by earlier imprudences. Therefore, it is
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no use going to a chemist, and ordering one general prescription. You have to deal with the complications, and you have to deal with the complications in Ireland, attributable to its history and to the imprudences of statesmen. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Yes, of both sides.

DIFFICULTIES OF SOLUTION.
These are the things that make a settlement in Ireland difficult, and we found them very difficult of solution. I hope we have found the solution. I never like to be too confident or too sanguine when I am talking of Ireland. Therefore, I am not going to say that we have found the specific at last. It has been said so often, but we must try. At any rate, I can see nothing better.
5.0 P.M.
What were the difficulties? There was the preliminary difficulty that the parties were not ready to come together. There was the difficulty that arose from the geographical and strategical position of Ireland. There was no use saying, "You must treat Ireland exactly as you treat Canada or Australia." There was Ireland, right across the ocean. The security of this country depends on what happens on this breakwater, this advance post, this front trench of Britain. We knew that, and that was one of the greatest difficulties with which we had to deal. There was no use saying: "Apply Dominion Home Rule fully and completely." We had to safeguard the security of this land. I am only now enumerating the difficulties. The next difficulty was the question of the National Debt and pensions. Every Dominion has its war debt and its pensions. Unless you make some arrangement with Ireland now, Irishmen in Ireland would be the only Irishmen who would escape contribution to the Great War. Irishmen in this country, Irishmen in the Dominions, Irishmen in the United States of America, are all paying their share. Unless there were conditions in our Agreement that Irishmen in Ireland should also bear the same burden as Irishmen anywhere else, they would escape.
The third was the difficulty which arose from rooted religious animosities. I am sorry to use the word "animosities" in connection with religion, but there they are. It is no use ignoring them. They produce fears, I think exaggerated fears, but it is a great mistake to imagine that

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exaggerated fears are not facts because they are exaggerated. Even the exaggeration is a fact which you have got to deal with as long as it is rooted in men's minds, perhaps extravagantly accentuated by recent events in North and South. There were the attacks on Protestants in the South. There were the difficulties about turning men out of shipyards in the North. There were these facts, which accentuated old differences, and added new fuel to old flames and stirred up embers. Then there was the question of protective tariffs and of the accessibility of the ports, the possibility of the exclusion of British ships from the coastal trade of Ireland, just as they are excluded in other Dominions. But the greatest difficulty of all was undoubtedly that created by the peculiar position of the north-eastern end of Ireland itself. That had wrecked every settlement up to the present. Those are roughly the peculiar difficulties, the difficulties which are Irish, which are not Dominion difficulties, and before you applied Dominion status you had to deal with each and all of these complicated troubles rooted in the past history of Ireland.

MILITARY AND NAVAL FORCES.
Now I will deal with them. First in regard to allegiance. If anyone challenges what I am saying—and I understand it is going to be challenged—I will defer what I intend to say until an Amendment is moved on that subject. But for the moment I will confine myself to the statement that there has been complete acceptance of allegiance to the British Crown, and acceptance of membership in the Empire and acceptance of common citizenship. I come to the first of the great difficulties—the security of this country if full and complete Dominion Government were conferred upon, Ireland. My right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) pointed out in his letter to the "Times" that, that meant that they would have complete control over their army and the navy. They could raise any army they liked and any navy they liked. I pointed out over a year ago what that meant. I said that they could in these circumstances raise an army of half a million men. I think that that was rather ridiculed at the time. I have only got to point out two or three facts. The first is that Australia, with practically the same population, has sent that number of men
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overseas. The second is that during the War Great Britain raised very nearly one-sixth of its population to put under arias. That would have meant 700,000 in Ireland, and my recollection is that Scotland actually raised, with the same population, something like 700,000 men.
There are two objections, apart from the security of this country, to that being permissible. I say that, even from the point of view of the security of this country, there was an element of danger, but there are two objections apart from that. This country has, since the War, taken the leading part in the disarmament of land forces, and taken a leading part in America in the disarmament of naval forces. We were the first power to put an end to conscription. We took a leading part in imposing the abolition of conscription upon our enemy countries in the Treaty of Peace. We could do so because we were setting the example ourselves. But these problems of the disarmament are the problems of the immediate future. How could the British Empire exercise the weight which it ought to exercise in pressing on other countries the importance of reducing these great forces, which had so much to do with provoking and precipitating the war, when in partnership side by side near us we had a country with forces numbering perhaps 500,000 of men all trained for war? That is the international objection.
The second objection is of a different character. If Southern Ireland trained all its young men, and raised these big forces, one can imagine the apprehension that would fill the hearts of men in the North-East of Ireland. They would be driven, if only to give their people a sense of protection, to pursue the same course. You, therefore, would have all the young men of the North-East of Ireland enrolled, trained, and equipped as fighting forces of the North. What would happen? You would have two rival powers, with menacing conditions, and in those conditions an attitude of defence is apt to be distorted into a gesture of menace. Those are conditions in which conflict always begins. It was desirable, in the interests of the Empire, in the interests of the world, in the interests of Ireland herself, that there should be a limitation imposed upon the raising of armaments and the training of armed men within those boundaries.
I now come to the other side, which is put forward by those who think that we ought not to have allowed any armed forces at all. Let my hon. Friends who think that consider what it means. You cannot guarantee law and order in a country unless you have, to support your civilian forces, a certain number of armed men. We think of Ireland as a country concerned merely about Nationalist questions, concerned merely about these conflicts which have been raging during the last few years. But Ireland has exactly the same problems that we have at bottom. In Belfast there were strikes some time ago, and a considerable number of armed men had to be sent there to maintain peace. In my own country, in Wales, we had a great strike. [HON. MEMBERS: "Lock out!"] We had a stoppage of work, an involuntary stoppage of work. A certain number of extreme men were threatening sabotage. The Government felt compelled to send a considerable number of armed men there to maintain order and protect property. You cannot have a Government responsible for law and order, unless you also equip them with the right to raise a certain number of armed men to support the civil authority. That is all that has been done.
The limit is not beyond what is necessary for the purpose. If you take the most sanguine view, the numbers will not exceed, for the whole of Ireland, 40,000 men. That is not an extravagant figure for the maintenance of order in North and South, with all the possibilities of conflict which may arise. I know exactly what the idea of my friends in the North of Ireland is as to the numbers they require, and if they require these numbers in the North of Ireland, it is not too much to say that it would be unfair to say that the Government in the South of Ireland responsible for law and order should get something corresponding, on the population, to those figures.
Sir F. BANBURY: How do you propose to enforce the limit?
The PRIME MINISTER: That is the Treaty—which is the only question now before us. My right hon. Friend enquires, if this Treaty be broken, what shall we do to enforce it? I am quite willing to face that. It is not a question
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of one Article. It is a question of the whole of the Articles. If Ireland break faith, break her Treaty—if such a situation has arisen—the British Empire has been quite capable of dealing with breaches of Treaties with much more formidable Powers than Ireland. But we want to feel perfectly clear that when she does so, the responsibility is not ours, but entirely on other shoulders.
I now come to the second force—the Navy. With regard to the Navy we felt that we could not allow the ordinary working of Dominion status to operate. Here we had the experience of the late War, which showed how vital Ireland was to the security of this country. The access to our ports is along the coasts of Ireland. For offence or defence, Ireland is a post which is a key in many respects, and though I agree that Ireland is never likely to raise a great formidable Navy which will challenge us upon the seas, I would remind the House that minelayers and submarines do not cost much, and that they were our trouble mostly in the War. Then as to naval accessibility to the ports of Ireland. The use of coastal positions for the defence of our commerce and the British Islands in time of war is vital. We could not leave that merely to good will, or to the general interpretation of vague conditions of the Treaty. Good will has been planted, but it must have time to grow, and it must not be exposed too much to the winds of temptation. Therefore, we felt that where the security of these islands was concerned, we must leave nothing to chance. My right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley has charged me with having stigmatised Dominion Home Rule as lunacy. I never did so—never. My right hon. Friend, had he taken the trouble to read the speech before criticising it, would have seen that. He said some rather unkind things about me recently, but I think that to force him to read my speeches would be too severe a penalty. I am not complaining, except that I think that if he does criticise my speeches, he is in honour bound to read them.
Mr. ASQUITH: I have read them.
The PRIME MINISTER: Then my right hon. Friend's memory must be very bad indeed. I never stigmatised Dominion Home Rule as lunacy. What I did say was that to allow Ireland the right to raise unlimited forces, which would pro-

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voke civil war there, and be a menace to us, to allow Ireland to raise a navy and any craft she chose, when Ireland was so vital to our defence, was lunacy, and I still say so.
Mr. ASQUITH: It is quite clear that the right hon. Gentleman did not read my speech.
The PRIME MINISTER: If my right hon. Friend says now that he did not say that I characterised Dominion Home Rule as lunacy, then I at once withdraw, but his followers certainly have done so, and I understood that he did also. At any rate, let me make it clear, for the benefit of his supporters that I never did say that. I confined the statement purely to the unlimited raising of forces and to the raising of an independent navy.
Mr. ASQUITH: Which I have never proposed or sanctioned.
The PRIME MINISTER: I have read within the last 24 hours a letter which my right hon. Friend wrote to his organ, the "Times." I will bring it here tomorrow. He will find there a passage in which he makes it perfectly clear that he would leave the army and navy in the same position in Ireland as in Canada.
Mr. ASQUITH: No.
The PRIME MINISTER: For the moment we will postpone the duel till to-morrow. All I say is that if my right hon. Friend did not say so, and assuming that I am right, such a proposal was sheer lunacy. That is only a kind of provisional characterisation of his speech. So much for the military forces of the Crown. What we have done there is this: We felt that the defence of these islands by sea ought to be left to the British Navy. That is better for Ireland and better for England. There is the inherited skill, there is the power, there is the tradition of the Navy, so that the first thing we provided for was that, in the case of war, we should have free access to all the Irish harbours and creeks. If there be war, we cannot wait for discussions between Governments as to whether you can send your ships here or land men there. The decision must be left to the discretion of the men who conduct the operations.
That is safeguarded by these Articles of Agreement. That does not mean that we
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do not contemplate that Ireland should take her share in the defence of these islands, the defence of her own coast, and by defending her own coasts helping us to defend ours. In five years we propose to review the conditions, and we trust it will then be possible to allocate a certain proportion of defence to Ireland herself. But that is a matter for discussion and agreement. We shall welcome her co-operation just as we welcome the co-operation of the great Dominions in naval defence and in all the other defence that is necessary for the Empire. If there are any questions to be put upon it, I shall be very glad to answer them.

TARIFFS.
I now come to the question of tariffs. Here I confess that I was very reluctant to assent to any proposition which would involve Ireland having the right to impose tariffs upon British goods, although undoubtedly it was a Dominion right. Ultimately, and only very reluctantly, we assented to this, for the reason that Ireland is more dependent upon Britain in the matter of trade than is Britain upon Ireland. For Irish produce, especially agricultural products, England is substantially the only purchaser. That is certainly not the case in the opposite way. Therefore, the danger of any menace to our trade and commerce from this quarter is one which is entirely in our own hands; but I did think it was very important that there should be a protection against any legislation which would exclude British ships from the coastal trade with Ireland, and that was inserted in the Agreement.

ULSTER.
I come now to the more vexed question of Ulster. Here we had all given a definitely clear pledge that, under no conditions, would we agree to any proposals that would involve the coercion of Ulster. That was a pledge given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley when I served under him as my chief. I fully assented to it. I have always been strongly of the view that you could not do it without provoking a conflict which would simply mean transferring the agony from the South to the North, and thus unduly prolonging the Irish controversy, instead of settling it. Therefore, on policy I have always been in favour of the pledge that there should be no

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coercion of Ulster. There were some of my hon. Friends who thought fit to doubt whether we meant to stand by that pledge. We have never for a moment forgotten the pledge—not for an instant. That did not preclude us from endeavouring to persuade Ulster to come into an All-Ireland Parliament. Surely Ulster is not above being argued with. You cannot hold that arguing a question, and saying that a person ought to take a certain course, is coercing him. If you threaten—if you say you will use the forces of the Crown, that is coercion; but if you say that in your judgment it is in his interests, in the interests of the whole of Ireland, and in the interests of the British Empire, in the interests of the minority in the South, that Ulster should come in, surely that is an argument which we are entitled to use, and entitled to press?
Mr. R. McNEILL: If you use it fairly.
The PRIME MINISTER: I claim that we have used it fairly—quite fairly. We have used every argument in favour of it. I have heard from the benches where the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. R. McNeill) sits my right hon. Friend Lord Carson set forward as the ultimate ideal—the unity of Ireland. I have never heard an Ulster leader challenge the proposition that that was the ultimate ideal. I meant to have the quotation before me, but I did not think that would be doubted. If that be the ultimate ideal, was it unfair to Ulster to recommend that they should consider the question? That is all we have done. The refusal of Ulster even to enter into discussion, as long as an all-Ireland Parliament was a subject of discussion, raised artificial barriers in the way of an interchange of views. We could not have agreed to withdraw the discussion of an all-Ireland Parliament from the Conference without breaking it up, and we should not have been justified in breaking it up upon a refusal even to enter into a discussion of the desirability of the proposal. The responsibility was too great, and we could not accept it.

ALL-IRELAND PARLIAMENT.
What is the decision we have come to in this Treaty? Ulster has her option either to join an All-Ireland Parliament, or to remain exactly as she is. No change from her present position will be involved if she decide, by an Address to the
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Crown, to remain where she is. It is an option which she may or may not exercise, and I am not going to express an opinion upon the subject. If she exercise her option with her full rights under the Act of 1920, she will remain without a single change except in respect of boundaries. We were of opinion—and we are not alone in that opinion, because there are friends of Ulster who take the same view—that it is desirable, if Ulster is to remain a separate unit, that there should be a readjustment of boundaries.
Mr. LYNN: No.
The PRIME MINISTER: I stated that there are people who express that opinion, and I think it is wise. Just see what it means. There is no doubt—certainly since the Act of 1920—that the majority of the people of two counties prefer being with their Southern neighbours to being in the Northern Parliament. Take it either by constituency or by Poor Law unions, or, if you like, by counting heads, and you will find that the majority in these two counties prefer to be with their Southern neighbours. What does that mean? If Ulster is to remain a separate community, you can only by means of coercion keep them there, and although I am against the coercion of Ulster, I do not believe in Ulster coercing other units. Apart from that, would it be an advantage to Ulster? There is no doubt it would give her trouble. The trouble which we have had in the South the North would have on a smaller scale, but the strain, in proportion, on her resources would be just as great as the strain upon ours. It would be a trouble at her own door, a trouble which would complicate the whole of her machinery, and take away her mind from building. She wants to construct; she wants to build up a good Government, a model Government, and she cannot do so as long as she has got a trouble like this on her own threshold, nay, inside her door.

RE-ADJUSTMENT OF BOUNDARIES.
What we propose I think is wise for Ulster, namely, that you should have a re-adjustment of boundaries, not for the six counties, but a re-adjustment of the boundaries of the North of Ireland which would take into account where there are homogeneous populations of the same kind as that which is in Ulster, and

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where there are homogeneous populations of the same kind as you have in the South. If you get a homogeneous area you must, however, take into account geographical and economic considerations. For instance, there is a little area, I believe, of Catholics, right up in the North-East of Antrim, cut off completely from the South. Nobody proposes, because the numbers there would be in favour of joining the South, that that should be taken away from the North and put into the South. You must have regard to economic considerations as well; but taking into account all these considerations, I believe it is in the interest of Ulster that she should have people who will work with her and co-operate with her, and help her along, and not make difficulties, not merely inside her boundaries, but difficulties with her neighbours as well. For those reasons we have recommended a Boundary Commission. It is not for me to say what the result will be, whether it will mean that the area of Ulster will be diminished or increased. There are those who think both, but at any rate, we propose to set up an arbitration. There will be a nominee of the. Northern Government, a nominee of the Irish Free State, and there will be a Chairman appointed by the Government, and we will take care to get a man of distinction and a man whose impartiality will commend itself to all parties alike.
Mr. ASQUITH: This is a very important point. I would like my right hon. Friend to tell us, is the operation of this proposed Boundary Commission to be by counties, or by any specific areas, or merely an enumeration of population?
The PRIME MINISTER: No, no! If my right hon. Friend will take the actual terms, he will find that we avoid giving specific directions of that kind to the Arbitrator. He is there to adjust the boundaries, and he can take into account these considerations.
Mr. ASQUITH: The boundaries as between North and South?
The PRIME MINISTER: As between the Northern community and the Southern. He takes into account the wishes of the inhabitants, but, as I pointed out, if that were the sole criterion, you might take away a little corner of North-East Antrim. Therefore, you have also got to take into account geographical considerations and
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economic considerations. You have also got little islands of Protestants in Catholic areas, and you must undoubtedly take into account whether a given place is an economic centre for one area or the other. I think I have dealt with the difficulties with which we were confronted.

MACHINERY OF AGREEMENT.
I now come to the question of machinery, of how these provisions can be carried into effect. There are permanent and provisional arrangements to be made. With regard to the permanent arrangements these must be formulated by the Irish representatives themselves. Here we are going to follow the example which has been set in the framing of every constitution throughout the Empire. The constitution is drafted and decided by the Dominion, the Imperial Parliament taking such steps as may be necessary to legalise these decisions. Any proposal in contravention of this Agreement will be ultra vires. The position of the Crown must, therefore, be assured. Relationship to the Empire must be established, the rights of Ulster safe-guarded, and likewise provisions for the protection of religious minorities must be incorporated. Provisions as to the Army and Navy must also be inserted. Within these limits, Ireland herself determines the constitution of her own Government. Written assurances have been given by the plenipotentiaries that before they do so they are to take into full consultation the representatives of the Southern minority. I believe there have already been interchanges of views between them of the most friendly character. They are most anxious—I am convinced they are most anxious—to do everything in their power to retain the minority within their area. They want their experience, they want their training, they want the help which they can give to reconstruct the Ireland to which they are all attached; and I am convinced that the leaders of the majority in Ireland mean to do all in their power to make it not merely possible for the minority to live there, but to make it as attractive as possible for them to continue their citizenship among them.
Then there are the provisional arrangements. What is to be done before the Constitution is set up? There are two ways of dealing with that.

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One would be the status quo, leaving the forces of the Crown there to operate. But that is obviously undesirable once we have arrived at an agreement. There is a danger of incidents occurring which might imperil the whole Agreement. We therefore propose that a Provisional Government should be set up with such powers as are now vested in the Crown. That Government must represent the existing majority of Irish representatives. As soon as that is arranged, the whole responsibility for the Government of Ireland outside the Northern Province would be handed over to this Provisional Government and the Crown forces will be withdrawn.
That is the substance of the Agreement we have entered into. There are such questions as Acts of Indemnity which are vital. We do not want questions to be raised on one side or the other which would involve the courts for years, and which would provoke controversies between the two countries. There must be an Act of Indemnity, and a Bill will be introduced into this House. It is only proposed now to take the ratification or sanction or assent or approval of this document; but a Bill will have to be introduced in another Session to ratify the arrangement, and give it statutory effect. If anything has been overlooked, if anything has to go into this Agreement, that must be agreed to between the various plenipotentiaries. But the introduction of Amendments without assent would undoubtedly break the Treaty, because the other party would not be bound by any alteration made either in one Parliament or the other. What applies to this Parliament equally applies to the Parliament of Southern Ireland. I have no doubt at all there will be Amendments moved there to leave out certain restrictions and limitations and qualifications. Once they are inserted, the Treaty goes. The same thing applies to any Amendment in this Parliament. Unless the wisdom of our entering into this Agreement is seriously challenged, it would only be a waste of the time of this House to enter into a defence of it.

SETTLEMENT WITH REBELS.
So far there have been but two criticisms, and I will deal very briefly with them. The first is that this is a surrender to rebellion, and is therefore a derogation from the dignity of the Crown and the prestige
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of the Empire. The best answer to that is the effect which the agreement has had throughout the whole civilised world, and notably in the Dominions. The part played by the Monarch has added dignity and splendour to the Throne.
Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: On a point of Order. I am exceedingly sorry to intrude on the Prime Minister. I did not raise this point of Order when two previous speakers were addressing the House, because they were moving and seconding the Address. I now ask your ruling, Sir, as to whether the name of the Monarch can be introduced into a Debate in this House. I submit with great deference that it is one of the oldest and longest standing Rules of Order of this House that no reference whatever should be made to the personality of the Crown or the action of the Crown. In these circumstances, I ask whether it is in order for the right hon. Gentleman or for any other Member in this Debate to refer to the action of the Crown in regard to this matter?
Mr. SPEAKER: I think the hon. Baronet has stated the position of this House just a little too broadly. In moving the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne, it is not possible to avoid using the name of the Sovereign. Our rule—a very sound one—is that the name of the Sovereign should not be brought into Debates to influence decisions.
The PRIME MINISTER: It is only to that extent I propose to go, and, having regard to the terms of the Address, it is essential I should make that reference. The prestige of the Empire has been enormously enhanced by this Agreement. It has given the Empire a new strength. There was a very remarkable communication which came the other day from an able correspondent at Washington, and I think it worth reading to the House:
"Regarding the Irish settlement strictly from the American standpoint, its effects must be beneficial on Anglo-American relations and ought to bring about a close and firm friendship between England and the United States, which hitherto has been impossible, because all attempts at amity were defeated by Irish malcontents in this country. Ireland has long been an issue in American politics. It has affected elections and controlled policies. It has divided parties. It has defeated treaties, agreements, and co-operation between England and the United States because of the terrorism exercised by the Irish."

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It ends up:
"The 'New York Times,' voicing the general approval, states that some politicians in this country will lament that their source of reputation and of livelihood has been taken from them, but nothing can really abate the deep satisfaction with which the entire world will receive the news."
That is the Washington correspondent of the "Morning Post." There is a lack of co-ordination there, but it is very creditable to the news columns of that paper. There is no doubt at all that he is one of the ablest correspondents which any paper has got in America at the present time, and that is very well known. It has added to the conviction which the world already possessed that Britain somehow or other always gets over her difficulties. It is dangerous to discuss the ethics of rebellion.
Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Hear, hear!
The PRIME MINISTER: I meant no personal reflection. Is it to be laid down that no rebellion is ever to be settled by pacific means? If the terms are good, are they never to be negotiated with rebels? Whom else could we have negotiated with? This House is the last authority in the world to maintain that proposition. It owes its greatest rights and privileges to concessions made to successful rebels. And may I also point out that the most ruthless repression of any Irish insurrection was effected by the greatest English rebel in history, leading an army of rebels, on behalf of a rebel government, to crush the Irish who had rallied to their legitimate Sovereign. If you take the greatest battle in Irish history—and I am sure my friends from Ulster will forgive me if I allude to it; you might have thought sometimes it was fought only yesterday—it was a battle fought by a British army led by a revolutionary King against an Irish army led by a King who had been deposed by an English revolution. There were more than half, I believe, of the English aristocracy who still believed him to be the rightful occupant of the Throne. There are considerations when you come to discuss rebellion in Ireland which are very difficult to disentangle, and we had better not say too much about them. The same arguments were advanced when there was appeasement of Canada. One of the Bills that was carried through this House was characterised by the "Morning Post" of that day as the "Rebels
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Reward" Bill. I make my hon. Friends a present of that. That "Rebels Reward" Bill, 70 years later, brought over 500,000 valiant men to our aid in our greatest trouble. The Earl of Chatham when dealing with rebellion in the United States of America, moved a Resolution which ended like this:
"Fully persuaded that to heal and to redress will be more congenial to the goodness and magnanimity of His Majesty and more prevalent over the hearts of generous and free-born subjects than the rigours of chastisement and the horrors of civil war."
That is equally true to-day. He said, in the course of the speech in which he commended that to the House of Lords:
"It is difficult for a Government, after all that has passed, to shake hands with defiers of the King, defiers of Parliament, defiers of the people. … Mercy cannot do harm. It will seat the King where he ought to be, throned in the hearts of his people; and millions at home and abroad now employed in obloquy and revolt would pray for him."
Therefore I do not shrink from this settlement. There are those who say we might have done it a year or two ago. Who can say? It is easy for you to see clearly what you can propose, but you must choose your time in proposing it. Statesmanship consists not merely in the wisdom of your proposals, but in the choosing of the right moment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and I belong in different ranks to the same profession. I belong to the lower and working ranks, and consequently the less remunerated. He knows what it is to settle an action, and he knows it depends upon your choosing exactly the moment. You must not choose it when the parties are full of fight, when they are confident they are going to win, when they are confident, not merely in the justice of their case, but in the invincibility of their counsel. Who can stand against it? That is not the time to settle. You have got to wait until difficulties have cropped up which they had never foreseen, when doubt begins to enter their minds as to the completeness of their victory, when the costs are mounting up, and the only smile is on the face of the solicitor, when they are tired out by pleadings and counter-pleadings and all the delays and wearing mechanism of the law. That is the time. But if you propose too soon, it means not merely that you fail then, but that you interpose obstacles in the way of

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settling at the right time. You cannot repeat exactly the same terms which have already been rejected—and terms which may be excellent to-day would not have been looked at a year ago—but you cannot repeat them once they have been thrown over. Every counsel knows that, and every statesman ought to know it.
In 1917 we tried a settlement. Representatives of Sinn Fein would not come to the Convention, and for the rest one party would not agree to the unity of Ireland and the other party would not look at anything without it. The result was division. What was ultimately agreed to was not carried by a majority of that Convention. There were moments when we all feared that we proposed a Conference too soon, and if any of those who think that we might have done it a year ago could have just peeped through and seen the last hours which ended in agreement, they would have wondered whether, on the whole, we might not have waited a little longer. You have done it, but only just. I believe that it could not have been done had you not faced Ireland with the accomplished fact of the rights of Ulster. That accomplished fact—by legislation, by the setting up of the Government, by the operation of the Government—it was there to deal with, not in the abstract, not in an argument, not in contention across tables, but in an actual living Government. There are those who still think it could have been done a year or two ago. We do not think so.
Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Hear, hear!
The PRIME MINISTER: We have got in support of our view this agreement, and can anyone say it could have been reached a year ago? I do not believe it could. But it has been done. I invited here time and again conferences, and those invitations were not accepted. The fact of the matter is that public opinion on neither side was quite ripe. It was only when it came to be realised by everybody that prolonging the agony would only mean more loss, devastation, irritation, and trouble that the moment came when men of reason on both sides said: "Let us put an end to it." You could not have done it earlier; but here it is, as far as it has gone. We
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have got this document. [An HON. MEMBER: "A scrap of paper!"]

PARTNERSHIP OF EMPIRE.
6.0 P.M.
On the British side we have allegiance to the Crown, partnership in the Empire, security of our shores, non-coercion of Ulster. These are the provisions we have over and over again laid down, and they are here, signed in this document. On the Irish side there is one supreme condition—that the Irish people as a nation should be free in their own land to work out their own national destinies in their own way. These two nations, I believe, will be reconciled. Ireland, within her own boundaries, will be free to marshal her own resources, direct her own forces—material, moral and spiritual—and guide her own destinies. She has accepted allegiance to the Crown, partnership in the same Empire, and subordinated her external relations to the judgment of the same general Council of the Empire as we have. She has agreed to freedom of choice for Ulster. The freedom of Ireland increases the strength of the Empire by ending the conflict which has been carried on for centuries with varying success, but with unvarying discredit, for centuries. Incidents of that struggle have done more to impair the honour of this country than any aspect of its world dominion throughout the ages. It was not possible to interchange views with the truest friends of Britain without feeling that there was something in reference to Ireland to pass over. This brings new credit to the Empire, and it brings new strength. It brings to our side a valiant comrade.
During the trying years of the War we set up for the first time in the history of this Empire a great Imperial War Cabinet. There were present representatives of Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and India, but there was one vacant chair, and we all were conscious of it. It was the chair that ought to have been filled by Ireland. In so far as it was occupied, it was occupied by the shadow of a fretful, resentful, angry people—angry not merely for ancient wrongs, but angry because, while every nation in the Empire had its nationhood honoured, the people who were a nation when the oldest Dominion had not even been discovered had its nationhood ignored. The youngest

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Dominion marched into the War under its own flag. As for the flag of Ireland, it was torn from the hands of men who had volunteered to die for the cause which the British Empire was championing. The result was a rebellion, and, at the worst moment of the War, we had to divert our mind to methods of dealing with the crisis in Ireland. Henceforth 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 part in the partnership of Empire, not merely without loss of self-respect, but with an accession of honour to herself and of glory to her own nationhood.
By this agreement we win to our side a nation of deep abiding and even passionate loyalties. What nation ever showed such loyalty to its faith under such conditions? Generations of persecution, proscription, beggary and disdain—she faced them all. She showed loyalty to Kings whom Britain had thrown over. Ireland stood by them, and shed her blood to maintain their inheritance—that precious loyalty which she now avows to the Throne, and to the partnership and common citizenship of Empire. It would be taking too hopeful a view of the future to imagine that the last peril of the British Empire has passed. There are still dangers lurking in the mists. Whence will they come? From what quarter? Who knows? But 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.
Captain CHARLES CRAIG: I admit it is a very difficult task I have before me, that of following no less than five speakers, all of whose speeches have been devoted to approving the action of the Government in connection with the Agreement we are discussing to-day. However, as the interests of Ulster are seriously affected by many particulars in the Articles of Agreement, no one will object to my putting forth the Ulster view. Before I deal with the point of view of Ulster, however, I hope I may be allowed to say a few words on the
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Agreement generally, and on what has fallen from various speakers who have preceded me. I would like to remind the Prime Minister, first of all, that it is a complete mis-statement to call this document "Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland." It is nothing of the sort. They may be Articles of Agreement between Great Britain and Southern Ireland, but Ulster, which I maintain is a not unimportant part of Ireland, is no party to this Agreement, and repudiates it so far as its own area is concerned. The Prime Minister informed us that the position given to Ireland under this document was entirely similar to that of Canada, that the Constitution she would enjoy would be the same as that of Canada, and he then proceeded in the latter part of his speech to point out two or three directions in which it was not the same. I do not know whether he pointed it out, but it is obvious to everyone that it is not so in the matter of the Oath, which I was going to describe as much discussed. It has not been yet, but it will be, I am sure, before the Debate is finished. When we enter this House we swear allegiance to His Majesty in a few very plain, straightforward words. We know also that Members of the Parliaments of our great Dominions overseas—Australia, New Zealand, Canada and other parts of the Empire in the two hemispheres—do so in precisely the same words as we use. I would like whoever next addresses the House from the Government Bench to explain to us why the Oath which is good enough for us is not good enough for Sinn Fein. I would also make this statement, namely, that the Oath which is contained in this document is, as an Oath, not worth the paper on which it is printed. It is the most extraordinary rigmarole and conglomeration of senseless words I have ever read. If hon. Members have studied it, they will see it is nothing more than a legalisation of treason under certain circumstances.
Mr. W. THORNE: Rubbish!
Captain CRAIG: Perhaps the hon. Member will hear my argument. There are two distinct oaths contained in one. The person who takes the Oath swears allegiance to the Irish state. Later on he swears that he will be faithful to the

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King, but bear in mind that the latter part of the Oath is not unconditional. He only swears that he will be faithful to the King
"in virtue of the common citizenship of Ireland with Great Britain, and her adherence to and membership of the group of nations forming the British Commonwealth of Nations."
That means to say, that if Sinn Fein passed a resolution, which I maintain she will do in a very few years, constituting herself a Republic, then these gentlemen who swear allegiance to the King are by the very Oath itself absolved from that allegiance. But, as I said, I do not place very much reliance on the Oath one way or another, for the simple reason that I believe, within a few years, Sinn Fein will throw off all the remaining trammels or bonds, which bind them to this country after the Act embodying this document is passed, and will become a Republic. I will go further than that, and I would like to have this on record, that whenever that does happen, in spite of all we have heard from Ministers on the Front Bench and on the platform as to the impossibility of this country ever allowing Ireland to secede from this country, I do not believe England will raise a finger, or send a pinnace or a single soldier to recover her allegiance to this country.
Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: Do not make too sure of that.
Captain CRAIG: I see this matter from a double point of view—from the point of view of Ulster, and from the point of view of the Empire. I am not ashamed to say that, first and foremost, I view it from the point of view of Ulster; but while I see it from that point of view, I see it also from the point of view of the Empire. From the point of view of Ulster, I desire to see a settlement of this question as much as the Prime Minister. Goodness knows, we are sick and tired of the murder and rapine which have been going on in Ireland during the last few years, and we want a settlement as much as anybody. On the other hand I, as a, member of the general public, and a representative of a constituency which delights in being part of the British Empire, cannot see my way to condone and pass over what I consider to be acts
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of weakness on the part of the Government in this matter. As I have said, I have never objected to the idea of the Conference. I do not think anybody has a right to do so, for the House will remember that for two years at least before the Conference began, the Prime Minister, on more than one occasion, and indeed frequently, declared his willingness to meet in conference anybody who could speak on behalf of Sinn Fein. I am within the recollection of the House when I say that no objection was ever taken to that. Therefore, I submit that none of us really have any reason to object to the fact that the Conference was brought into being, and that Ministers should have met the representatives of Sinn Fein. I also take the view that it was not for us, as Ulster representatives, to do or say anything to jeopardise the chance of a settlement being arrived at so long as the interests of Ulster were not touched. We have during the fateful five months during which the Conference has been sitting adhered to that policy; but the interests of Ulster have been touched upon very seriously and are involved in this document. Therefore, it is our duty now to speak out in Parliament. I do not, however, propose to criticise the action of the Government to any great extent, except on one or two points.
I maintain that the besetting sin of the Conference, and the Prime Minister's negotiations, has been their most unfortunate procrastination. It has carried this Conference all along the weary weeks, when, in my view, it was clear from the first what should have been done. I say that the Prime Minister's letter of 20th July, containing, as everybody remembers, the terms that he was prepared to offer Sinn Fein were such that the world was astounded at its generosity. The American papers, even the hostile papers, had to admit most freely that the terms were of an extraordinarily generous nature. The proper course of the Prime Minister on that occasion was to have put those terms to Sinn Fein and give them one month, or at, the most a couple of months, to accept or reject them. I am sure the bulk of Members of this House will agree that Sinn Fein would have accepted those terms. If they had not, then the Prime Minister was in a very strong position. He could then have settled the rebellion

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in Ireland by any means he chose to employ and he would have had the whole world behind him.
What has happened? The atmosphere created by the generosity of these proposals has been to a large extent dissipated by the horrible happenings in Ireland, in spite of the truce, and ever since that truce was proclaimed. The Government have allowed the truce to be broken day by day, and have taken no steps whatever to establish stability. [An HON. MEMBER: "Especially in Belfast!"] I say that atmosphere has been dissipated by the horrible acts of murder and riot which have taken place in Belfast and other places. Not only that, but the protection to which every loyalist and every law-abiding man in Ireland or any other country is entitled to ask for has not been given. I also blame the Government for their action in connection with the compensation which will be due to those public servants, police and others, who will not be required by Sinn Fein. The Prime Minister has told us that in such an agreement as this it is right to assume that the Sinn Fein Parliament will attend to these matters; but I maintain from my knowledge of them, which is as great, or greater perhaps than most Members, that they will do nothing of the kind. In matters of the kind they are likely to look somewhat suspiciously on the pensions of the police and other public servants who for years past they have regarded as their enemies. They will do all in their power to get out of their obligation, and this is one of those obligations which the Government are in honour bound to keep in their own hands and see that it is properly carried out.
Let me deal very shortly with my objections to the document from the mere Ulster point of view. It is called a Treaty with Ireland, but Ulster is left out. The Prime Minister told us that he and his Government long ago undertook that there was no coercion to be used against Ulster; that, in fact, by the underlying principle of the Act of 1920, Ulster would only come in, could only be expected to come in, to an all-Ireland Parliament by her own consent. The Prime Minister has always known—he knows at this moment as well as I know—that Ulster at this moment, at any rate, has no intention whatever of coming into an all-Ireland Parliament. Therefore I should like to ask him, or whoever replies for the
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Government, later why, with that knowledge—and there is no question of uncertainty—it is only a couple of weeks ago since the right hon. Gentleman had a formal answer to his request that Ulster should come in from the Prime Minister of the Northern Parliament—he knows that as well as I do—does this document contain the clauses which can only come into operation if Ulster comes into an all-Ireland Parliament? One half of this so-called Treaty deals with the state of affairs that will exist if Ulster comes into an all-Ireland Parliament. What is the point of that? What, I ask, was the object of the Prime Minister in putting these clauses into this document when only a couple of weeks ago he got a formal reply from the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland declining to come into an all-Ireland Parliament. [An HON. MEMBER: "Perhaps Ulster may change her mind?"] Ulster never changes her mind in matters of this sort. She is not in the habit of doing that. What was the object of the right hon. Gentleman in filling this document with clauses dealing with a state of affairs which could only arise if Ulster does come in? Clauses 12 to 16 deal with that position. It is all camouflage to put these into the Bill.
The Prime Minister reiterated to-day what has been said on many occasions without, I am sorry to say, being acted upon, that Ulster is not to be coerced. I say that for the last two or three months Ulster has been subjected to a most unworthy form of coercion. The Press campaign that has been going on, organised by the Government, and fed by the Government, has been one of the most disgraceful facts in connection with the Government. Ulster has been held up to contumely and hatred by every means that the Press could employ. Coercion has not stopped there either, because the Government themselves have been directly guilty of it. The Prime Minister says they have tried persuasion. Take one instance of this sort of thing: the appeal made by the Leader of the House to the Prime Minister of the North of Ireland Parliament in a speech he made the other night. The Prime Minister and the Government have admitted on many occasions, and put the admission into legal form in the Act of 1920, that we were justified

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in our attitude in asking for separate treatment. They stereotyped that. They put it on paper by passing the Act. It is only a year since that Act was passed. Yet the Government consider themselves justified in turning round, probably—because they have been persuaded by the Irish delegates at the Convention—to turn round and try to persuade us to undo everything for which we have fought. I say that is coercion. I say to the right hon. Gentleman who is not only Leader of this House, but also the Leader, for the time being, of the Conservative party—to which I belong—that I can assure him that we take it in very bad part that he has lent himself to this campaign of coercion.
There are other means of coercion, and I can only say this: We thought when we got our Parliament only a few months ago, opened, with such splendid success by His Majesty the King, that we had the goodwill of the whole community—[HON. MEMBERS: "So you have!"]—not only of this country, but of every country. We thought we had started off, and that at least we were to be left to attend to our own affairs. Ulster has been, I was going to say, between the devil and the deep sea for many long years, and when we got the Act and our Parliament opened we thought that now our troubles were at an end! Now we have the whole Government, one Member after another, one time by appeal, another by turning on a paid Press to slander us, using every means in their power against us. We have been treated in a scandalous way. Our position is made evident in the correspondence that is published this morning in the newspapers. Incidentally I may say, that it was an understanding between the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of Ulster, that when the interests of Ulster were touched upon in these Conferences he was to be informed of it. He was sent for a few weeks ago, and when the correspondence is read it will be seen that his first intimation that the interests of Ulster had been touched upon was being handed a bald cut-and-dried scheme by which Ulster was expected to come into an All-Ireland Parliament. I call that rather late in the day to inform Ulster that her interests have been touched upon. The very fact that the Government representatives at that
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Conference had discussed this question Sinn Fein and had actually drawn up the details, shows how far they had gone in their attempt to coerce us. We consider this an unfriendly act of the first magnitude.
In the document in question it was set out that the proper thing for us to do was to go into an All-Ireland Parliament. The bribe held out to us was that as it would have fiscal autonomy we should have less taxation to pay, and the threat held out was that if we refused to go in we should have to pay the high taxation we are being subjected to at the present time. On this subject the Press did not know what to do. Some of them thought we would accept at once in order to gain this bribe. Some of them knew us better. They assumed we would not accept, and they have been waiting until they hear us squeal because we are going to be put into a worse position than we are now in. I wish to say that we are not asking for any financial advantage, and we are prepared to bear the same burdens of Empire as you are. Let there be no mistake about that. The Clauses dealt with by the Prime Minister, and the advantages which he claimed that we should gain by coming in, and the disadvantages of staying out, were not worthy of the right hon. Gentleman. I have reserved for the end of my speech the points we object to most strongly in the Agreement. The House will remember that about a fortnight ago the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland read out a statement agreed to by the Prime Minister of the Imperial Parliament and himself at a meeting of the Northern Parliament in Belfast, which said that the negotiations with Sinn Fein would either break clown within a week or else new proposals would be sent to the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, and that in the meantime nothing would be done to prejudice or jeopardise the interests of Ulster. When the document which came upon us so suddenly the other day was read, it was found, in spite of the pledge of the Prime Minister to the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, that he had actually incorporated in the document a Clause which is going to set up a Commission to interfere with our boundaries.
I cannot speak too seriously about that proposal. It may mean that our northern areas will be so cut up and

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mutilated that we shall no longer be masters in our own house. The decision of that Commission may be a matter of life and death to us. I submit to the Prime Minister that he had no right to do that, and he was in honour bound not to allow such a Commission to appear in this document by the promise he had given to the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. He told us to-day that this Boundary Commission was a matter of comparatively small importance, and he suggested that it was simply going to deal with a small number of Protestants on the southern side of our line and a small number of Roman Catholics on the northern side. He said that when the rectification of the boundary was finished there would be no great difference either in area or population in Northern or Southern Ireland. There is nothing in the Clause to guarantee that one way or the other. On the contrary, the terms of the Clause are drawn in the broadest possible manner. I will read the Clause:
"Provided that if such an Address is so presented, a Commission consisting of three persons, one to be appointed by the Irish Free State, one to be appointed by the Government of Northern Ireland, and one who shall be chairman, to be appointed by the British Government, shall determine, in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants,"
The inhabitants of what? Does it mean Northern Ireland? The right hon. Gentleman referred to an area in Northern Antrim in which there was a comparatively large number of Roman Catholics, and they are entitled to be consulted. Their wishes should be consulted just as much as any other part. They could be dealt with under this proviso. The Clause proceeds
"so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions, the boundaries between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland."
The only three conditions are the wishes of the inhabitants and the geographic and economic conditions. Who is to decide? Are we to have a definition in the Bill as to what are the exact meaning of geographic or economic conditions? It will be obvious to everybody that there are no two men, if appointed chairman of that Commission, who would arrive at the same conclusion. I say that even if the right hon. Gentleman had given us notice that he was going to move such a Clause, such a Boundary Commission as that should never have been set up.
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I admit that the boundaries are not in every way satisfactory, but they are fixed, and there is an end of them. There is a large number of Roman Catholics in the north and in the southern area there is a number of Protestants. The Prime Minister said that all that was intended was to rectify the boundaries by the exchange of a few Roman Catholics for a few Protestants, and, if that is so, it ought to have been stated. There is nothing that he could have done more calculated to rouse the ire and suspicion of the Ulster people than the appointment of this Boundary Commission, and that is all I want to say about Ulster.
With regard to the Debate to-day, I just want to ask one or two questions. I do not think there ever was an occasion when so many precedents were being set up. The Prime Minister referred to the precedent set up by the Mover and Seconder of the Address. They delivered two most graceful speeches—I do not say they were excellent, because I do not agree with half of what they said, but it is an improvement upon having two new Members of the House who are not always very happy in the discharge of their duty. There was another precedent I ask the House to note, which has been set up. In former times, so far as my recollection goes, and it goes back over 19 years, I have never known an Address to the King couched in any other terms than a plain motion of thanks to His Majesty for his Gracious Speech from the Throne. I challenge any older Members than myself, who know the records of the House better than I do, to refer me to a case where it has been in any other form than that.
Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: This was the universal form down to 1890.
Captain CRAIG: What does the right hon. Gentleman mean? It cannot be so, because the state of affairs which has arisen to-day has never been before the House on any former occasion.
Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: It was customary down to 1890, down to the year when Mr. W. H. Smith was Leader of the House, for the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne to follow the Speech from the Throne article by article, and it was considered a revolutionary change when a simple motion of thanks

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was substituted. We have now reverted to the older form.
Captain CRAIG: I apologise for my ignorance of the forms of the House, but I know that in my time this form has not been reverted to before, and why has the right hon. Gentleman reverted to it now? I suggest the reason is that he wants to use the Address to the Throne as equivalent to a resolution in favour of this document. Did the right hon. Gentleman hear that?
Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I heard it, but I do not want to interrupt the hon. and gallant Gentleman, and if I think it necessary to make a reply, I will make it when I intervene in the Debate.
Captain CRAIG: I did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman heard my question. These are points of considerable importance. My last point is with regard to the Bill which we are to see some time or other embodying the conditions of this Agreement. Are we to understand that when that Bill comes before the House there is to be no power of amendment? I heard something very like that statement fall from the Prime Minister in his speech. All I can say with reference to that is I am perfectly convinced that this House five months ago, when they took no exception to the Conference being entered into, if they had thought for one moment that the conclusions of that Conference were to be, so to speak, put in a hermetically sealed document in which they could not introduce any improvements or amendments they would never have allowed the Prime Minister the latitude they did. We are asked to treat this as a sacred document. Take the question of the boundaries which I am sure, by their cheers, hon. Members recognise as being of great importance to us. According to the Prime Minister we are not to be allowed to alter the terms of the reference in any way, and the only terms that can go before the Commission will be those contained in Clause 12. I ask the House to reflect very seriously as to whether they are going to allow themselves to be so gagged and muzzled as that when we come to legislate on such an important question.
Lord HUGH CECIL: I wish to say a word of respectful congratulation to the Government upon one aspect of what we
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are doing to-day, and that is the cessation, or very great diminution, of crime in Ireland by which we are saved much innocent bloodshed, and that the great horror we have suffered for the last three years has passed away. Everyone, whatever his opinion on the merits of this proposal and the method by which it is arrived at, must agree in rejoicing that, at any rate, that great evil is out of the way for the moment. Further, it is due to the Government to say that they seem to me to be quite right, if any adjustment for any temporary or permanent peace is to be introduced into Ireland, and if it be not possible to go back to the position, with which I agree, and of which I was a supporter, as it stood before 1914, that it is fundamental and essential to try to get the assent of the majority of the people of Southern Ireland to whatever form of government is to be set up. I have always been of the opinion that there is really no choice in the government of Ireland except one of two systems. You must either have a system of treating the United Kingdom as a single political unit and of giving within that unit equal rights to every citizen, whether he be an Irishman or an Englishman, which is the system which we call the Union, or you must try and satisfy the Irish people about the form of government which is to be set up, so that you can rely, at any rate, on their approbation when the system is first, inaugurated.
When I have said those two things, I come to the end of that which, conscientiously, I am able to say, favourable to the Government position. I cannot believe that there is any probability that this plan for Irish government will succeed, and I cannot help thinking that the method by which the Agreement has been arrived at deserves the grave censure of Parliament. We have heard a great deal during this Debate, and still more whimsically outside in the newspapers, about Irish history and the healing of the feud of 700 years, as it is sometimes put, or of 800 years, as it is at other times put. We even heard it from my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare) in the interesting speech which he made in moving the Address. Surely there can be nothing more absurd to anybody who knows anything about it than to suppose that there has been a

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single controversy running through Irish history for the last 700 or 800 years of which the Sinn Fein movement is the ultimate expression. One wonders what is the picture of the state of things in the latter part of the 12th century when the invasion of the Barons of Henry II. began. I suppose it is something of this kind: A peaceful Ireland, united under a single national Government, leading a harmless, useful, civilised life. Then there entered certain Empire builders, persons like the late Cecil Rhodes, persons who obeyed Henry II., who is thought of as a great English builder of Empire, perhaps like Lord Milner in 1899, or the distinguished father of the Leader of the House, Mr. Chamberlain. These great English statesmen, in the name of English nationality, invaded and overcame the Irish nation which was then in a peaceful and happy state. As a matter of fact, there has never been peace in Ireland from time immemorial. There was quite as much disturbance in Ireland before the invasion of the Barons of Henry II., for prior to that invasion one petty king fought against another petty king. I cannot help thinking how strange it is that the Sinn Fein party, which attaches so much importance to these Celtic reminiscences, opposes partition. Partition was the normal state of Ireland, partition not into two States, but into four or five petty States. Nor had the Celtic High King more authority than the Council of Ireland under the Act of 1920. Nationality does not really come into Irish history until the movement that ended in 1780. That is the honest truth. Earlier there was a racial struggle between the colonists who believed themselves to be a higher race, and the natives, a struggle greatly resembling that which has taken place all over the world where a colony has been founded in defiance of native feeling.
One of the difficulties which stand in the way of the Sinn Fein theory of Irish nationality is that either you say that what our ancestors called the Englishry was a part of the Irish nation, or you do not. If they were a part, then all the oppressions and cruelties were the work of one part of the Irish nation inflicted on the other part of the Irish nation. I believe that that argument was put by Colonel Saunderson, a long time ago in this House, when he said that he did not see why England should be
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blamed because the ancestors of Mr. Parnell had ill-treated the ancestors of Mr. O'Brien. That very picturesquely puts the point. If you take the true view, there have been at least two streams, one the Anglo-Irish colonists supported, no doubt, from time to time by England, and the other the Celtic population, which, under the leadership of Swift and afterwards of Grattan, was gradually drawn out of the state of servitude to which they had been reduced into what was then called a kingdom, and which we now call a nation.
I recall these things because it is necessary to see what is the real mischief in Ireland. It is not a claim to self-government, though it is often said to be. So far as self-government is concerned, that was amply secured under the Act of Union. Every Irishman had precisely the same political and civil rights as every Englishman. My right hon. Friend opposite said that they were in the minority. Has he ever reflected how much the English people have suffered under precisely that grievance. If we are to think in these national terms, then the English people were opposed to the Government of which he was a Member and which was under the leadership of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith). The English people were by a majority opposed to the Parliament of 1910, but that Government not only carried the important scheme of taxation associated with the name of the present Prime Minister—and there is no greater grievance of the subject than being taxed against his will—but it actually destroyed the legislative power of a purely English institution, the House of Lords. Therefore, if you are coming to a proposition that a nation is not self-governing if it is outvoted in a common political unit by a majority, then England was not self-governing during that period. The whole doctrine of nationality is really a tissue of absurdities. You cannot pursue it for a moment without finding yourself in one absurdity or another.
The important thing to recognise is that the Irish are asking for recognition as a separate nation. That is common ground to us all. It is important to emphasise it, because we have to see how far they will be satisfied ultimately by the settlement that has been set up. Great hopes are raised merely because of

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the assent of the Irish delegates, and the chorus of praise and welcome with which this scheme has been received by great bodies of opinion all over the world which the Prime Minister read out. He was perfectly entitled to draw attention to that, but it is not the first time that it has happened. We must all remember what took place in this House in September, 1914, when Mr. Redmond, speaking with quite as much authority on behalf of the Irish people, welcomed in the warmest terms the settlement achieved, as it seemed, by the passing of the Home Rule Act through its concluding stages. His language deserves to be remembered. Let me read what he said. He referred in glowing terms to what had been achieved in South Africa, and to the evidences of loyalty there, and he went on:
"Just as Botha and Smuts have been able to say in the speeches which were published three days ago that the concession of free institutions to South Africa has changed the men who but ten or a little more years ago were your bitter enemies in the field into your loyal comrades and fellow citizens in the Empire, just as truthfully can I say to you that by what of recent years has happened in this country with the democracy of England, Ireland has been transformed from what George Meredith described a short time ago as 'the broken arm of England' into one of the strongest bulwarks of the Empire."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th September, 1914; col. 912. Vol. 66.]
It is difficult to conceive stronger language than that, and yet within little more than 18 months there was a most formidable rebellion in Dublin, and the country has been profoundly discontented and alienated from this country ever since. The Prime Minister says that his Government did not bring that Act into operation, but that they had the fullest consent and approbation of Mr. Redmond to its suspension. He thoroughly approved of that suspension.
Sir F. BANBURY: And all his party.
Lord H. CECIL: That is sufficient to show how easy it is to hope, and how often one is disappointed. The right hon. Gentleman, in his very interesting description of what the Dominions did in respect of foreign affairs, and of how the newly revised constitution of the Empire worked, claimed, and rightly claimed, that it was goodwill and good sense which made such a system work. That is very
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true. But if you give it, not as an extraordinary example of how patriotic statesmen can work together, but as a piece of political machinery likely by reason of its mechanical smoothness to work well, one must say that a more incoherent system was never devised. The right hon. Gentleman explained how foreign affairs were now settled with the Dominions. Supposing there was disagreement, I suppose if it was sufficiently grave it would lead to secession. Obviously, there is no machinery for solving disagreement between the Dominions. You rely upon good sense. Similarly, in respect of other matters, such as the completeness of fiscal autonomy. I mention that, because, in former times, the Lord Chancellor, in another place, strongly objected to Dominion Home Rule on the ground that it gave fiscal autonomy. Fiscal autonomy may be worked in a manner altogether injurious to this country. The Prime Minister says that we shall find the remedy in our own hands. When it is remembered that every term of the settlement can be worked only with good will, if we are going to embark on a tariff war with Ireland, then the prospects are extremely bad. Nothing would be worse than to have a quarrel on some question of customs. In almost every respect the Irish people could make the system intolerable if they choose to do so. I gather that the right hon. Gentleman does not at all deny that there is no prospect of working this agreement, except by good will on both sides.
The PRIME MINISTER: Hear, hear.
Lord H. CECIL: What prospect is there of that good will? We start with the fact that a minority, an influential minority in Ireland, are opposed to this settlement.
7.0 P.M.
The President of the Sinn Fein Organisation has declared against it, and it is stated that he will be supported in that opposition by some others although not perhaps by the majority. That, at any rate, is a bad beginning for a permanent acceptance. Then there is the question of the oath which has been criticised more or less on account of its composition. It belongs to a category of documents, some of them very excellent documents, some of them very important and famous documents, which are composed with a desire by

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ambiguity to turn the edge of conflict. Directly I read the form of oath I was reminded of the 39 Articles. How does it read?
"I … do solemnly swear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the Irish Free State as by law established and that I will be faithful to His Majesty King George V., his heirs and successors by law in virtue of the common citizenship of Ireland with Great Britain and her adherence to and membership of the group of nations forming the British Commonwealth of Nations."
The citizenship, it will be seen, is attributed to Great Britain. What the meaning of the words "in virtue of" may be I do not know. I doubt if anyone does know. But the most significant thing is to be found in the difference of expression used in respect of the Free State and in respect of His Majesty King George V.
"I solemnly swear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the Irish Free State … and that I will be faithful to His Majesty King George V."
That suggests that there in the mind of Sinn Fein the possibility that allegiance to the Free State and allegiance to the King may point in different directions, and they have therefore accepted this form of Oath because it seems to provide that allegiance to the Free State is in any event to have precedence of allegiance to the King. I do not, however, want to deal with mere points of language. If things were perfectly smooth, if prospects were bright, if there were cordial goodwill, if there were true agreement, you would not have ambiguous language, and the fact that you have had to take refuge in ambiguity shows the difficulty in which you are landed.
In answer to all these arguments the Government fall back on the encouraging example of South Africa in 1914. The Mover and Seconder of the Address have both referred to that to-day, and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House referred to it the other day in a speech which he made in the country. There are always dangers in these analogies. We have had comparisons between the Irish and other people in days gone by. Cromwell and his soldiers spoke of fighting them as if they were fighting the Canaanites. Other people now compare them to the Boers. I do not know which is the sillier opinion. What are the dissimilarities between the case of South Africa and the case of Ireland?
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First of all, Ireland is an old country, South Africa is a new one. That makes a great difference. Then South Africa has an economic future; Ireland has probably no economic future at all. I should be greatly surprised if Southern Ireland could ever be richer than she is to-day. Ireland, again, is so placed that other countries, such as America and this country, draw from her the cream of her population. The ablest Irishmen go away from Ireland—not all of them, but a very large proportion of them, and accordingly you have to deal only with the remainder of the Irish race. They are also Celtic. The Boers are of Teutonic blood, and it is a matter of experience that Teutonic blond works much more smoothly in matters of self-government and autonomous administration. Then, too, the Boers are Protestants, and it may honestly be said that while the Roman Catholic religion produces the most elevating individual characters, in the great majority of cases it makes society politically difficult. Finally, the settlement with South Africa was a result of war; but this settlement with. Ireland is a result of murder. The Prime Minister spoke of rebellion, and if it were only rebellion I should agree. If the-Irish had not been worse than open rebels in battle, as, for example, were the French Canadians at Quebec in 1839, the right hon. Gentleman's argument is one I should be inclined to agree with. But the position is different in every possible respect.
Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Our hands are not quite clean.
Lord H. CECIL: That does not make it any better. These murders were, in a very extraordinary degree, social acts which were screened by the Irish people, no doubt as a result, very largely, of intimidation; but does that promise any prosperity for a scheme of Dominion Home Rule? Is that the sort of material out of which a strong Dominion can be created—a Dominion which can work reasonably and with goodwill? Murder breaks up society from the very bottom, and the moment it exists the law begins to collapse. Self-government also collapses, and there can be no reality in any self-governing system brought about under such conditions. It reduces the, whole constitution to a farce. I blame, the Government very severely for not having had this in their mind when they

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entered into negotiations with Sinn Fein. If they had called together a constituent Assembly, if they had got a representative Assembly of the Irish people and met it openly and publicly in the light of day, there might have been much to be said for their action, but they entered into a private conference which involved treating murderers as honest men, a course profoundly demoralising to the Irish nation because it gave a triumph to murder. I do not want to appeal to the national pride either of Englishmen or of Irishmen. Such appeals to national sentiment in the last hundred years have been carried so far as almost to drive the world mad, but I do say this, that there could be nothing more unwise than to treat murder as though it were a mere incident. The Government have humiliated us not before rebels but before murderers. That is a grave charge against them.
Let me remind the House and the Government of the very scandalous contrast between the language which they are using to-day and the language which they used a few months ago. The contrast is really demoralising. The Government in March and April last used the most violent language about murder and murderers, but in September and October they welcomed the murderers in Downing Street. That is a most serious injury to the moral standard of the country. The Chief Secretary used to speak of persons who were "on the run." I believe one of the delegates was among those thus spoken of as being "on the run." He was a fugitive from justice, but at last he was welcomed in the Prime Minister's House in Downing Street, and it has been placed on record that little jokes passed between him and the Prime Minister. It is impossible not to remember this difference which has occurred within a few months or weeks. My memory goes back to the time when knives of a particular pattern, of a pattern similar to those with which the Phœnix Park murders had been committed, were found in the office of an English branch of the National League, having been deposited there for a time. Evidence was given of that fact before the Parnell Commission, and it caused a painful shock in those days to British opinion. Of course, if "The Times" had succeeded in connecting Mr. Parnell with the Phœnix Park
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murders, there would have been an end to the Home Rule movement of that day, and Mr. Parnell would have been driven out of public life, but the alleged connection was very remote compared with what now exists.
The point of view now seems to have changed, and whether there has been murder or not, it is now agreed that what has happened has been war, although it was not war which came to an end by one side or the other forcibly occupying its enemy's territory and subduing its opponents. But it was not war in any sense whatever, although it was called war. There is a strange hope, resembling the teaching of the Christian scientists, that if you call a thing something which it is not, or refuse to call it by its true name, there is some great gain. Let us speak the truth. Southern Ireland is at this moment dominated by murder, and to suppose that any system of government so complicated and difficult as that which is called Dominion Home Rule—which mechanically is not at all admirable, and which is dependent at every turn on good will and good sense and an infinite capacity for self-centrol and political concession—to suppose that that system of government can work in a country dominated by murder seems to me to be the most fantastic optimism. The Government think that Ireland is like South Africa, but it is vastly more like one of the tropical republics of South America. There you have to deal with a Roman Catholic population, and you have also these recurrent fits of violence which you have had in Ireland for 160 years. They may be political in origin. They come down from political causes, if you like to trace them back, but the occasion of them has been sometimes religious, sometimes agrarian, and sometimes, as is the case now, political. They have been, on the whole, more commonly religious, and, later, agrarian. Any community that has these recurrent fits of violence will become demoralised. Therefore the only way to solve the Irish Question is not to concern yourself so much with political machinery, but to achieve the triumph of law and religion over the wickedness of murder.
The PRIME MINISTER: How?
Lord H. CECIL: By resigning as a first step, since the Prime Minister asks me. By resigning office and giving place to people who can govern. I have not the least doubt that you could put down

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murder in Ireland, but I do not say that it could be put down by the singularly inefficient methods of the present Chief Secretary. I do not believe in military administration at all. The only efficient administration is civil administration. Give the civilian administration as large powers as you please, but you should never permit military administration. Secondly, you should never soil your hands, because you give away all the moral advantage of being in the right, and of having a claim on all citizens—who, after all, exist in every country—who do disapprove of murder. Above all, by that you gave away the opportunity of forcing the Roman Catholic Church to use its vast influence—and its influence still remains vast, though it is not so great as it was—in putting down murder. If you had kept your hands clean, sooner or later you would have forced them to do that. The Irish Roman Catholic Church is not a body that I admire; I profoundly dislike and distrust that particular branch of that great community. But in the end no Christian Church can refuse you the help to which you have a right in putting down murder. Had you taken that course, had you worked through a civilian administration, had you rigidly abstained from breaking your own laws, had you tried rigidly to enforce them by legal means, and at the same time appealed to every religious and moral person in Ireland to support you in putting down so hideous an evil as murder, I am confident that in a year or two you would have succeeded, as all previous Governments did succeed, in putting down this recurring access of violence. I emphasise this point of murder, which in my view is the governing consideration. It affects the position of Ulster. The Government now say that they would like Ulster to join in an All-Ireland Parliament. That is quite a novel doctrine. The Lord Chancellor, speaking in another place as lately as the 21st June of this year, said:
"What has been the consequence of setting up this Parliament in Northern Ireland? It is a consequence which some Noble Lords will find welcome and some will find very unwelcome. Let me state it. It is to make it clear, written in legible characters upon the face of the Statute Book, that there are to be dealt with, as there have always had to be dealt with in this matter, not one Ireland, but two Irelands."
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Your theory is that there are two Irelands. What conceivable sense is there, then, in urging that, for the sake of giving national recognition to a nationality, you are to count two nationalities together? Was there ever such an absurdity? If there are two Irelands, and if the whole question is one nationality, what is the sense of lumping them together? The Prime Minister tells us that he is not to blame for not proposing this solution earlier, because he had not yet reached the exact moment when it was likely to be accepted. That is an extraordinary picture of his mind and of the mind of the Government. As far hack as 1917, apparently, he was distressed in mind; he began to see things. He saw the vacant chair, and, like Macbeth at the banquet, in the vacant chair he saw a spectre. All this happened in a meeting of Dominion representatives, and he was led to think, apparently, that even then Ireland ought to be a Dominion. But he kept that opinion to himself. When he and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Glasgow (Mr. Bonar Law), who was then the Leader of the House, appealed for support, they said they were going to explore all the avenues to arrive at Irish peace. That is one of those metaphorical expressions which sound very well the first time, but become a little comic when they are repeated over and over again. Starting on this career of exploration, it never occurred to them, apparently, in spite of the vision of the right hon. Gentleman a year before, to explore the way of Dominion Home Rule. The Prime Minister announced that he was getting ready for the psychological moment. In his view there had to be a certain preparation of murder before peace was ripe; so many policemen and so many soldiers had to be killed, until the moment came when Dominion Home Rule could be suggested. Accordingly, he turned down another avenue—the avenue of the Act of 1920, which led, as it turned out, nowhere in particular. It ended as a cul de sac, as many persons, including my humble self, believed that it would end.
The PRIME MINISTER: It ended in this settlement.
Lord H. CECIL: Does the right hon. Gentleman really maintain that if, instead of propounding the Act of 1920, he had

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propounded Dominion Home Rule, it would have been less easily accepted in Ireland? If not, was the design merely to amuse the House of Commons by passing this Act? Then, with the eye of genius, the Prime Minister—the Lord Chancellor, apparently, was not equally quick-sighted—saw that the moment had come to explore the avenue which had all the time been staring him in the face, and he got where he is now. I never had the right hon. Gentleman's advantage in having a distinguished official position. Perhaps I should have got somewhere if I had been so fortunate. In the meantime difficulties lie ahead about questions turning round Ulster. He says truly he is pledged against coercion. Apart from any pledge about coercion, he certainly will find it impolitic if he treats Ulster worse than the South of Ireland.
As I say, the South of Ireland is under the influence of murder. You must not put a premium upon murder. You must not teach anyone in Ireland that if they commit murder they get much better fiscal terms than if they do not. You must not teach people in Ireland that the boundary will be revised in such a fashion that more people are to be put under a Government dominated by murderers and fewer people put under a Government dominated by honest men. If you do that you inculcate the practice of murder in Ireland. You will make it clear that murder pays and it is a wise thing to do, and you will therefore produce sooner or later anarchy—first murder, then retaliation, then every private individual committing murder, and you have very nearly got to that in the past few months. And if that applies to the whole Government something more applies to my right hon. Friends who are Unionists. They are pledged to the very neck to stand by Ulster. They were deeply engaged in resistance to the Home Rule Act of 1914. They gave pledges encouraging the Ulstermen and promising them assistance. They will certainly not be justified in merely abstaining from coercion. They must treat Ulster as well as the South is treated. They must not give the Ulstermen occasion to say, with Macbeth
"And be these juggling friends no more believ'd
That palter with us in a double sense:
That keep the word of promise to our ear
And break it to our hope."
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Macbeth was cheated because he trafficked with the devil: are Ulstermen to suffer as much for trusting Unionist leaders? It is certainly a deep obligation of honour on any Unionist Minister to see that Ulster is fairly and honestly treated. I know nothing about the financial settlement and how the Customs system will work, but I am certain that it will be deeply dishonourable to them if they consent to any arrangement which enables the South to put financial pressure or pressure through the Customs, or in any other way, upon Ulster to give up the autonomy of which she is naturally proud. If it is so, it is a shameful thing. For, observe, what you are asking Ulstermen to do is to come under a Government which is dominated by murder. You are asking them, that is to say, to give up self-government, for there can be no self-government under such a Government. You are asking them to take a step down in civilisation, as they are, at any rate, on a higher level than the Government of a country in which there is a widespread commission of assassination. That applies also to the question of boundaries. You have no right to take great bodies of Protestants, even for the sake of getting a rather better boundary, and put them under the Government of Sinn Fein. It is not a Government on the same level of civilisation as the Government of the North of Ireland. It is a lower Government. If you say that is hard on them, it is part of the penalty of tolerating these atrocious crimes. Till they rise to the level of hating murder as a civilised Christian nation ought to hate it, they must be treated as being on a lower level.
I shall be asked, do you see any hope, under any circumstances, of solving the Irish question? Only the hope that is always before mankind of some moral improvement. It is a moral question and not a political question. There will be no peace in Ireland until the mass of the Irish people have a higher conception of the moral duties of a citizen—until, at any rate, they have scruples about murder. Drive murder out of Irish life and you may be able to have political freedom and civic freedom. Get the Irish to he a law-abiding, peaceable, God-fearing people, and then you will have begun to settle the Irish question. But, of course, you cannot do that by

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political changes. I am very far from blaming the Prime Minister for not being able to effect that change. It lies in other hands if it lies in any human hands at all. It lies with the religious leaders. But what the Government can do is not to make things worse. They can clearly show that whatever else they will tolerate they will never tolerate breaches of universal moral law, like murder. It is not an offence against the British Crown. It is not a mere act of rebellion which the British Crown has a right to be indulgent about. It is an offence against the laws of the universe, and there is no future for Ireland unless it be cast out. So far as the Government have dealt with that great evil, they have made it worse. They have sanctioned the doctrine that murder is a legitimate political instrument. So, while I have no good hopes of the future success of this scheme, I think also the method of doing it is a grave offence against this country and against all sound principles of legislation. I believe it to be a folly. I believe it to be a dishonour.
Mr. HAILW00D: In the earlier part of his speech the Noble Lord touched upon a good many points of historical interest, and sketched some of the history of Ireland some centuries back. It would be folly for me to controvert his knowledge of history, representing such an important centre as Oxford University, but nevertheless there are one or two points in history of which my Noble Friend has omitted to tell the House, and which have a direct bearing on this case. He has also given us a very high moral disquisition with regard to murder, and, here again, I am sure the whole House must feel in perfect sympathy with him. He has also touched upon the differences between Ireland and this country on a good many points, and has brought out the distinction of religion. Here again I should like to say a word or two for, being a Catholic myself, I feel that it is only fair that I should put some view-point before the House as it appeals to me, and also as a supporter of the Government, all through the days when they were applying all the force they knew to the suppression of murder. I was an ardent supporter of the Government all through those days, and to-day I find myself equally a supporter of the Government in their process of
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conciliation. Undoubtedly the religious question has something to do with the Irish question. It has a fundamental bearing on it, and it is only right that we should recognise it, and that we should lay it bare on the Floor of this House before we reach any settlement. I quite agree with the Noble Lord that in ages past there were a good many factions in Ireland fighting one against the other. In fact, it is quite a commonplace that if you get into confidential chat with anyone of Irish nationality you will find they are all descended from some king, and they all come from the aristocracy of Ireland, and one wonders how many kings there really were at the same time in Irish history. It is an undoubted fact that at the period of Henry VIII. there was an attempt made to alter the religion of Ireland during the Reformation. Clergymen were sent over there with English prayer books, and with the English Church service, and they both prayed and preached in a language which was foreign to the people of Ireland. No matter how the Irish people may have fought amongst themselves before, the tyranny that was used in order to try to force the Protestant religion upon Ireland did nothing but consolidate the country into one mass against England. Although the Noble Lord told us of the earlier differences, he did not touch upon this point. It is a fundamental point with regard to the Irish people that they are, at any rate, a very large percentage of them, true adherents of the Catholic faith. They know that the people of one part of Northern Ireland belong to another faith, and they have felt that the British Government for ages past has listened too sympathetically to the representations which have been made in Northern Ireland, and that any kind of government from this country is prejudiced in favour of Ulster.
The Noble Lord touched upon the question of the unity of Ireland. It is not necessary to go back into Irish history in order to find out what is meant by the phrase "Ireland a Nation." We all know that the Irish people have embodied this thought of "Ireland a Nation" pre-eminently in their songs and in their movements, and it is something to which they attach great importance. I remember, as a lad, a paper called "United Ireland." We remember the United Irish League and the Nationalist Party.

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All these movements breathe in them the sense of "Ireland a Nation." We know that the Sinn Fein movement means "Ourselves alone," meaning the Irish nation alone. They have a song "Ireland a Nation Once Again." If any approach at a settlement was to be reached it was necessary to have in mind these sentiments of the Irish people. They are a sentimental nation and attach great importance to the sentiments which have been fostered in their minds. It was necessary for the Government of this country to seek some different method than they had sought before if anything like a solution was to be obtained with the Irish people.
Undoubtedly, there is the religious sore between the rest of Ireland and Ulster, and it is a difficulty that stands in the way. The Noble Lord paid a compliment to the Catholic faith and to the many shining examples of individual character under that faith; but he seemed to draw a line between the Catholics of Ireland and Catholics in other parts of the world. I am afraid that is in the minds of a great many people, and one need not wonder much on this point when we have had for so many months, and from time to time for many years, outrages, murder, and violence in Ireland which no civilised country or Government could countenance or sanction. I regret as much as the Noble Lord, and I am sure the Government regret, that it should have been necessary to meet in conference with men who have founded their case on these methods, and as a Catholic I deeply regret that the Catholic Church in Ireland has not been stronger on this point, as they ought to have been. However, we have been urged by our King to forget and forgive, and as a loyal subject of His Majesty I say that we ought on both sides to forget and for give if we are to make any progress. I believe that His Majesty's Ministers and the representatives of Ireland have met in that spirit. If they had met in any other spirit it would have been impossible to have reached a satisfactory conclusion.
Undoubtedly, it must be a very difficult time for the people of Ulster, and as one who has supported the Government in whatever measures they chose to take for the repression of murder and violence in Ireland, I have been really on the side of Ulster all through these difficult months. I have sided with Ulster because
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the rest of Ireland was disloyal. If to-day we have a chance of settlement under which the rest of Ireland is going to be loyal, and under which they are going to swear loyalty to His Majesty the King, the case is different. If we look at it from the purely English point of view we had a good case while the rest of Ireland was disloyal; but if there is a chance of the rest of Ireland being loyal, the case is different altogether. If we continued to fight or turn our backs on the rest of Ireland, we should make the division of religion more pronounced and more emphatic than ever before. We should be enthroning the people of Ulster in a privileged position, and we should be saying, in effect, that because they are Protestants they are to dictate to the rest of the country the form of government they are to have. I believe that there is great anxiety felt in Ulster from the religious point of view. Ulster is entitled to all the safeguards possible in order that the difficulties which they foresee may be overcome and in order that any fears that they may have may be allayed; but they have no right to dictate to Ireland and to say what form of government she shall have for the whole country. It is a different thing altogether asking for safeguards for a minority from allowing that minority to dictate to the whole country what form of government there should be for the whole country.
I believe that if Ulster has any doubts with regard to loyalty and these other matters, we ought to safeguard Ulster in every way possible, and do our best to allay her fears. We do not wonder, if they have to live side by side with these people who have been committing these acts, that there is apprehension on their part, and in view of this religious prejudice, because, after all, it is a prejudice which may exist on both sides, and it is only natural to turn to people and to say that because these other persons are of a different religion it is impossible to believe their word, and their loyalty is of a different stamp. And here, as a Catholic, I feel it important to bring this point out into the clear light of day. I am one of those who believe that a Catholic can be nothing else than a Conservative. There may be others who have a different view point, but if we look all the world over, we shall always find the Catholic Church

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on one side and extreme Liberals and Socialists and Anarchists on the other. No matter to what country in the world you turn, there you will always find that the Catholics are truly loyal to their own country, and always have been so.
We know that when in this country, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Catholics were being persecuted right and left, and when the priests were being hunted from the land, the King of Spain sent an Armada here and fully expected that the Catholics of this country would come to his help, and that he would have very little difficulty in establishing himself here. But we know as a matter of history that the direct opposite to that took place, and that the Catholics of the land as one man supported the Queen at the time, and that one fleet of ships under Lord Howard sailed into the Channel along with Drake, and was instrumental in accomplishing the defeat of the Spanish Armada. We know that during the late. War there may have been conscientious objectors in different faiths. There may have been Quakers and others who on account of their religion were conscientious objectors, but I have not heard, during the whole course of the War that there were any Catholic conscientious objectors. We know that at our meetings we have a song which is the embodiment of patriotism in this country. This song contains the words
"Land of hope and glory, Mother of the free,
How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee?
Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set,
God who made thee mighty make thee mightier yet."
We know that that song is the composition of a very famous musician, Sir Edward Elgar, who is a Catholic, and he has written this song which is the embodiment of patriotism at most of our big public meetings. I might instance various generals who have held important positions under the Crown, and have fought for this country. We know also that Catholics have held very important positions with great distinction, and do to-day, and yet we find that in some minds there is an idea of disloyalty as though the Catholic were not quite so loyal as other sections of the community. We know that even such a great man as the late Mr. Gladstone, when the late Marquess of Ripon joined the Catholic church, said
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that he was horrified, and he had the temerity to say in public that no man could join the Catholic church without in some way subjecting his conscience and that he could not be as free and loyal a citizen as before he accepted the Catholic religion. Yet we find that six years afterwards Mr. Gladstone made the Marquess of Ripon Viceroy of India.
I am instancing these things to show that really there is nothing in the Catholic faith which should give rise to any doubt whatever with regard to loyalty to the Crown either in this country or any other, and yet why is there this difference in Ireland? Why is an Irish Catholic looked upon as being something different from an English, French or Belgian Catholic? I believe that some of the blame must be attached to this country, and after all if there is some blame to be attached to this country and we can overcome the fears which these people have had in the past, it may be quite possible so to stimulate the loyalty of the people of Ireland until they shall be just as loyal as the Catholics in any other part of the world to their country.
And really this nationalism of the Irish people is something akin to loyalty if it be analysed properly. What is patriotism, what is jingoism, what is loyalty to the Crown in its extremest form but a high sense of nationality, and what is this nationality of the Irish people except the ideal of nationality driven to the extreme? And if we can in some way associate the people of Ireland in one nationality, if we can meet this conception of theirs, Ireland a nation once again, and if we can in some way link this nationality on to the Crown so that their loyalty is got in one sense by respecting their nationality and showing that the Catholics of Ireland are not to be considered to be in an inferior position, we shall have achieved a very big success, and I heartily wish God-speed to the Government Measure when it is introduced, and I have very great pleasure in giving my sanction to the proposition.
Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: I rise to put another point of view than that which has just been placed before the House by my hon. Friend. I am afraid that I look upon the signing of this Agreement as a very deep humiliation to this country. I feel that it would be more fitting if we were to have in the Gracious Speech from the Throne something like

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that which was in the Speech from the Throne in 1782 when we were about to acknowledge the independence of the United States. In the Gracious Speech of that day these words occurred:
"In thus submitting the separation from the Crown of these Colonies I have sacrificed every consideration of my own to the wishes and opinion of my own people, and I make it my humblest, earnest prayer to Almighty God that Great Britain may not feel the evils which might result from so great a dismemberment of the Empire."
This is not a complete dismemberment as yet, but it is a surrender to a weapon of assassination. No country has ever surrendered to rebels in arms, and least of all to assassins, with advantage to itself or with any possibility of their being an era of peace. In 1783, when we passed the Peace, we had surrenderd to rebels in arms, it is true, but in that case there was not the same humiliation because, firstly, there was no question of assassination in that campaign, and, secondly, we were operating at a great distance from England in those days of slow transport, and our revolting Colonies were assisted by the French, our great enemy at that time, who cut our forces off at Yorktown by sea, and I believe it is a fact that Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown to a greater force of French than Americans. Under the circumstances the whole world knows it was not a disgrace to Great Britain, which was fighting the whole of the rest of the world, to be defeated by her own colonists in the United States. Every other campaign which has been fought for the freedom of a nation, such as that the Boers fought from 1899 to 1902, was clear of the fearful stain of murder and assassination. The Boers, on the whole, fought cleanly and well. We are asked to believe that because South Africa was granted self-government in 1906, therefore it must necessarily be a very good example for the granting of Dominion Home Rule to Ireland.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House stated at Liverpool that he regretted the vote which he had given against that grant. If my memory serves me right, the party to which he and I belong were always in favour of granting self-government to South Africa. The only difference between us and the Liberal party was as to the time when it should be given. It is only 15 years
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ago since it was given. Upon what issue was the last election in South Africa? The election turned upon the question whether South Africa should secede from the Empire or not. It is quite true that a majority, I think very nearly two-thirds, is in power there and is returned for the retention of South Africa within the Empire, but if we have many more elections fought upon that issue it is not a very safe example to hold out for the granting of Home Rule to Ireland. Then, again, we have been told by the Lord Chancellor that there was in the Orange Free State a very good example for the name of Irish Free State. It is a curious thing about the election of last February in South Africa that of 17 members from the Orange Free State no fewer than 16 were secessionists and the other member was a Labour party man whose views I do not know. Sixteen out of 17 members wanted secession from the Empire. It is not a very happy example to bring forward in relation to Ireland.
80. P.M.
The Prime Minister is a past master in the art of negotiation. He has been held up to admiration by a servile Press for the manner in which he has negotiated so many disputes in this country. In every case he has brought them to a successful conclusion by handing over to protestants large blocks of the taxpayers' money. In this case he is outstripping even that record by handing over to rebels in arms a very large proportion of the United Kingdom. It is useless, of course, for us to go back to the speeches of Ministers. There was a time when Ministers thought it necessary to give some explanation of a very rapid change of opinion, but nowadays Ministers do not. seem to think that necessary. As the Chief Secretary for Ireland is present I might remind him of a statement made by him in February last, when he said:
"The policy of calculated and brutal arson and murder, with all its ghastly consequences, remains uncondemned by De Valera and the Sinn Fein leaders. The authors of that policy hope to terrorise into submission the British people and the British Government. It is the policy of the assassin that we are fighting, and it is watched by sinister eyes in Great Britain, in Egypt, in India, and throughout the world. Its success would mean the breakup of the Empire and our civilisation. I submit there are only two alternatives. The one is to surrender to the assassin and the

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other is to fight. I am for fighting the assassin."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st February, 1921; col. 648, Vol. 138.]
The right hon. Gentleman spoke to the same tune in June last, yet within a very few weeks he is entirely in favour of this policy of negotiations. I cannot follow these rapid changes of mind. Perhaps the fastest of the lot was the Lord Chancellor in the other House. On the 21st June he told the House of Lords that they could not negotiate with the Sinn Fein rebels because they were steeped to the Ups in the policy of assassination. Yet within three weeks from that date he was one of the principal negotiators with these very men. Take the agreement in a few of its principal aspects. When the offer was made to De Valera in July, 1921, there were six conditions laid down, and those conditions, in the opinion of the Government, were vital to the welfare and safety of Great Britain and Ireland. The offer was made subject to those conditions. The House will remember that we have been deliberately told that the Government felt they must put all their cards on the table, and that they must put down exactly what they could offer to Ireland, and that beyond that they could not go. The Government especially laid it down that there were certain things which were vital to the welfare of England and Ireland.
I do not think enough attention has been paid to a comparison between the Articles of Agreement and those conditions. No fewer than three of the conditions have been entirely abandoned, and two of the remaining three have been considerably altered and weakened. Take the first which relates to the Royal Navy. It is asserted in Condition 1 that the Royal Navy alone should control the sea around the United Kingdom. Now we know by Article 6 that there is to be an Irish naval defence force of some sort, and that the Royal Navy is to have only partial rights in the harbours of Ireland. Take Condition 2, which dealt with the question of an Irish Territorial Force. Although all of us who disagree with these negotiations thought that the question of a separate Irish Army was the worst thing that could be put into any offer, yet, at the same time, our opposition was modified to a certain extent by the fact that it was to be a Territorial Force only and to be of very small proportions. Now we learn, under Article 8, that it is be a defence force, and that
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there is no question at all of its being a Territorial Force. It may be a Regular Army with a short service, a one-year service—
Major Sir KEITH FRASER: Why not?
Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: That would give them a reserve, probably, of the 400,000 or 500,000 men which the Prime Minister gave as the number Ireland might possibly be able to arm.
Major Sir K. FRASER: To fight for the Empire?
Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: I did not understand the hon. and gallant Member's interruption. If we were absolutely sure that that army of, say, 400,000 men would be as friendly to us as the Australians are at the present time, then I admit it might be possible to allow it, but I think it is a very grave danger to allow it until that has been proved or, at any rate, until stable government has been set up in Ireland, which is very far from being the case at present. If Ireland really is going to take this Agreement as a final settlement of all differences and if we are going to pull together in friendship in the future, why not keep one Army for the whole of England, Ireland and Scotland? The Irish people never hated the British Army in the old days, and I do not believe for a moment they do so now. I say, on the other hand, it is an enormous weakening of all forces—both the Navy, Army and the Air Force—not to be allowed to be recruited in Ireland, which is one of the things laid down in this Agreement. I have had the honour of serving in both the Navy and the Army. For four years I wore naval uniform and for 17 years military uniform. Everyone who has served, like so many of us in this House, in the Navy or Army, knows what a very large number of the regular forces we used to get from Ireland before the War. Now we are not to be allowed to recruit these men, and if they come over here to join, supposing there is a hostile party in power—say, a Republican party under De Valera or somebody else—they will, in all probability, be boycotted and their relations in Ireland ill-treated. Condition 3 dealt with the necessity of the Royal Air Force having landing facilities and air ports in Ireland. That has gone overboard entirely. The

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only mention of that in the Articles of Agreement is a reference to the possibility of naval aeroplanes in the neighbourhood of the ports being allowed to fly in times of war. There is nothing at all about air ports in Ireland and apparently we are not to be allowed to have them any more than we are to be allowed to garrison British troops in Ireland. Under Condition 4 the hope was expressed that Ireland will contribute a proportion of her wealth to the Regular Naval, Military and Air Forces of the Empire. That has gone altogether. It was assumed apparently that the recruiting of these forces would be permitted. That assumption has been entirely destroyed. On the contrary, we are given to understand that the Sinn Feiners absolutely refuse to allow that recruiting. Condition 5 said that in order to avoid the possibility of a ruinous trade war no protection duties should be imposed. The Prime Minister has dealt with that and he has said that had been given away, but with great reluctance. Yet it was one of the conditions laid down, and it should not have been given away, and it will perhaps have very serious consequences on the possibility of peace between the two countries.
Condition 6 deals with the responsibility of Ireland for her share of the debt of the United Kingdom. I think the Prime Minister said he would leave that question alone, but that if any questions were asked he would deal with them later. I should like to know a great deal more about this very important matter. I should like to know what amount, if any, Ireland is going to undertake of the War debt. We owe something like £8,000,000,000, and if Ireland were to take a proportion according to population she would take £800,000,000 of that War debt. By the Articles of Agreement, however, she is to be allowed to settle a large number of counter claims and there is to be arbitration. It is interesting to know what sort of claim Ireland is going to make against England. I hold in my hand a copy of an address presented to the United States Congress by Dail Eireann. This was passed in January, 1921, at a session of Dail Eireann and was presented to the United States Congress about March or April of this year. It is a very interesting document. It begins with two or three pages of most absurdly
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fabricated Irish history. Among other things it says that Ireland enjoyed for over 1,000 years the rights of an independent sovereign State among the States of Europe. That is absolutely untrue. I do not wish to follow all these things, but I mention that to give an idea of the sort of statements contained in this paper. Everybody who knows anything about the history of Ireland knows that in 1170, when the Pope asked Henry II to take over the suzerainty of Ireland, there were five separate kingdoms in Ireland, and all the five separate kings paid homage to Henry II and swore fealty to him and his successors. The handing over of Ireland to the Crown of England by the Pope in 1170 was twice confirmed by subsequent Popes, and as lately as 1555. I have not time to go into these questions of Irish history, and I only bring out this point to show the absurd statements in this document. There is an appendix to the document, which deals with this very question of what is claimed as being due from England to Ireland, and the House may be surprised to know that Dail Eireann has informed the United States Congress in that official document that England owes Ireland no less a sum than £4,584,000,000. As regards loss of manpower, a sum of £3,152,000,000 is put down against us, this being for everybody who ever emigrated from Ireland. We are supposed to have been responsible for this by our bad treatment of Ireland. That sum is seriously put down, and this is a serious document which has been sent to me, and I dare say to several other Members of the House by Senator Borah of the United States. They also state that Ireland has been overtaxed to the extent of £2,750,000 a year for 120 years. That is put down at £330,000,000. They also say that Ireland was overtaxed in the War to the extent of £102,000,000, and that was also put into this little bill. It is claimed that owing to absentee rents Ireland has been robbed of £1,000,000,000, and that is also put in, and altogether we get the huge sum of £4,584,000,000. I do not suppose, of course, it is seriously supposed that anything like that sum could be obtained from this country. In the first place, we could not pay it, but even if you cut out absurd sums such as those for loss of man power and absentee rents, you get a very large sum which would

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very nearly off-set the amount Ireland ought to take over of the War debt according to her population. When you add to that a bill for every house that was ever burned in Ireland on both sides during the recent trouble, and all the compensation to dependants of Sinn Feiners who have lost their lives, you will find that Ireland probably would have a little on the credit side, according to their own estimate. This Agreement, as far as it safeguards the interests of this country regarding the debt which Ireland ought to take over as her share of the War debt, is absolutely illusory.
Ireland is not going to take over any part of our War debt, and it cannot be too often and too clearly pointed out to the people of this country that by letting Ireland go like this they are letting Ireland escape her proper share of taxation. Not only was she treated better than any other part of the United Kingdom during the War in the way of restrictions, not only did she send a far less proportion of her population to fight in the great War, but she is to be allowed to escape her proper share of taxation for that War. When the English people know that they will not perhaps be quite so happy and jubilant about this settlement as some people think they are. When they understand it, I think they will take a different view, and I do not think they are very jubilant now, but I think they are looking on with somewhat cynical indifference, and that this newspaper campaign to try and work up a wonderful enthusiasm for this Agreement of the Government is entirely exaggerated. I do not know what prospects there are of Dail Eireann ratifying this Agreement. I see that already Michael Collins—it is on the tape—said that one of the Sinn Feiners had called him a traitor, and that was just before they adjourned for lunch. The ink was not dry on that Agreement, on the signature of Michael Collins—at least, I do not suppose it was, because it was not 24 hours before he made a statement in which he advocated complete abandonment of all allegiance, not only in Ireland, but in every other part of the Dominions of the British Empire. He said it was the only solution apparently of our troubles. He said:
"In the interests of all the associated States, in the interests above all of England herself, it is essential that the present de
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facto position should be recognised de jure, and that all its implications as to sovereignty, allegiance, and constitutional independence of the Governments should be acknowledged."
That was within 24 hours of signing this Agreement. Again, we have the fact that every member of Dail Eireann has sworn a very strong oath to be absolutely faithful to Dail Eireann and to repudiate all those who were the enemies of that particular Parliament. How are these people who swore allegiance to their own rebel Government going to swear the oath which has been put before them in the Agreement? The Prime Minister made a great deal about that oath being an oath of allegiance, but it is not an oath of allegiance at all——
Sir K. FRASER: Why not?
Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: Because it says so. They first of all swear allegiance to the Irish Free State, and the second part is only an oath of fidelity to His Majesty as head of the British Commonwealth of Nations. To begin with, there is not a British Commonwealth of Nations, and in the second place, fidelity is not allegiance. When we come to look into it, there is no other Dominion in the British Empire in which the Members of their respective. Houses of Parliament do not swear allegiance to the Crown. Why Ireland should be allowed not to do that I fail to understand, except upon one ground, and after all it is the ground upon which this Agreement has been framed. It is, of course, because the Sinn Feiners refused, if they had to swear allegiance, to go on with the negotiations. As the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil)—and I thought he made a most telling speech against this Agreement—said, it really comes back to a miserable, and shameful, and humiliating surrender to these people who have been guilty of the most horrible campaign of murder and assassination, and it means handing over the South of Ireland to a Government of bullies and tyrants. That is what it means. Ireland itself will be miserable, I believe, in a very short time if this Agreement goes through. I think the sort of separation which is to be carried out now is one of the saddest things that has ever happened in the history of this country, and I

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agree with Burke, who, writing in 1797 from Bath, said this with reference to that question:
"There is a great cry against English influence. I am quite sure that it is Irish influence that dreads the English habits … I think that Great Britain would be ruined by the separation of Ireland; but as there are degrees oven in ruin, it would fall the most heavily on Ireland. By such a separation Ireland would be the most completely undone country in the world; the most wretched, the most distracted, and, in the end, the most desolate part of the habitable globe. Little do many people in Ireland consider how much of its prosperity has been owing, and still depends upon, its intimate connection with this Kingdom."
Those words are as true, in my opinion, as they were when they were written 124 years ago. I believe it is bad for Ireland and bad for England. I believe this Agreement does not safeguard the rights and liberties of this country, and for these reasons I hope we shall have an opportunity of registering our emphatic protest against this Agreement.
Mr. C. L. MALONE: This is one of those very rare occasions when I am able to accord my support to the Government. The Prime Minister and his friends appear to have come to the House to-day in an atmosphere in which they appear to have as their motto "Peace on earth, goodwill towards men," and I would extend to them my greater support on this occasion if I felt that this motto was being applied to the Government's policy in this country as well as in Ireland. I am not concerned so very much with the actual terms of the Irish settlement. In themselves they are only a step, though a step in the right direction, removing one obstacle in the way of the improvement of the admittedly deplorable conditions of the Irish workers. An immense amount of devoted work still remains to be done in their country, and I shall watch with very great interest how the new Governments, North and South, set about dealing with the terrible slum areas in both Dublin and Belfast. I am chiefly concerned with the methods of this settlement by conference, because I hope that it indicates that the Government have at long last realised that military force does not crush an idea. It can never crush an idea. We all make mistakes and miscalculations sometimes, but surely the Government should realise, after their Russian experience, that militarism cannot crush out an ideal. They should have
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learned that after they have squandered £200,000,000 in their fruitless support of Denikin, Koltchak, Yudenitch, and subsequently Wrangel. I hope the Government will apply their new-found knowledge to the situation in India, in Egypt, and perhaps even in this country as well.
I would urge the Government to cease their campaign of repression in this land. I would urge them to curb the military-minded obscurantists in their midst. The Chief Secretary will celebrate his Christmas with a contented feeling that throughout the length and breadth of Ireland thousands of men and women, whose only crime is that they are patriots, will be returning to their homes from their confinement in Government establishments. There is going to be an amnesty for political prisoners in Ireland. Why cannot we have an amnesty in Great Britain as in Ireland? Will the Government on this occasion, now that Christmas is approaching, release the English political prisoners as well, all of them working men or people who have espoused the cause of working men, who are in orison simply for expressing their opinion? The highly placed are, apparently, immune, whether they urge or organise military resistance against the constitutional authority. Statements which, on the lips of the highly placed, constitute, in the words of the Attorney-General, not even a hypothetically contingent threat, become, when uttered, perhaps, in heated moments, at times of great emotion, sedition, and are punished by imprisonment. Perhaps, however, the recent changes in Scotland Yard indicate that we are at long last emerging from the dark ages——
Mr. ERSKINE: On a point of Order. Is it right for the hon. Member to go into a long dissertation on English social matters? We are talking about Ireland. I should have thought it was quite out of order, but I submit to your ruling.
Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope): It is an Address in answer to His Majesty's Gracious Speech, and on this occasion it is in order to review the general policy of the Government on the situation of this country.
Mr. MALONE: I think my points were very closely connected with the Irish Question, because I was endeavouring to point out that the release of political

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prisoners in Ireland might be followed at this Christmas time by a similar release of political prisoners in England. As I was saying when I was interrupted, perhaps recent changes in Scotland Yard may indicate that we are at last opening up a new era when those who cherish the ideal of the good of the masses of the people will not he punished as criminals by this Government. I think we may see behind this Irish settlement the powerful hand of the mighty Federation of British industries, which, ever since it issued its whips to Members calling upon them to support the Government against the "Die-hard" Vote of Censure on 31st October, has thrown its mighty influence in the cause of peace, though I do not deceive myself that was either from altruism or idealism. It was simply because they realised that the disturbed conditions in Ireland were against their vast activities all over the country. Could not this great organisation, which has such influence on the present Government, apply what it has learnt in Ireland to its operations in England, and strive, for peace, ceasing its attacks, not only on the workers in regard to the standard of living, wages, and so on, but also in a way which is far more insidious and far more deeply resented, namely, attacks on the workers in the Press? If they do this—and it is a very auspicious moment for it to be done—they will no longer be haunted by the spooks and bogies of plots and machinations, which are simply the creation of their own bad conduct.
The last speaker but one gave us a very interesting discourse on the question of policy. As a final word, I would like, as a message before we separate for Christmas, to make an appeal on this matter. What of Christian ethics? What of our duty to humanity at this time? Cannot we apply something of the spirit that has brought about conciliation in Ireland in this country as well? We have recently seen expounded—and expounded, if I may say so, very lucidly by a former Minister of the Coalition in a wonderful little book called "Success"—another code, a different ideal, a religion in which he calls upon us to worship in the temple, whose foundations are firmly placed upon power and money, and whose golden pinnacle is money and power. That is what we have come down to in 1900 years—back to the worship of the golden calf. This worship of the golden calf is the
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creed which has been followed by the Government in all its dealings up to date. Will it continue to apply this creed to internal affairs in England? It is this attempt on the part of a few to monopolise all power and all wealth, which came near to destroying Ireland, that is the cause of the suffering in England and throughout Europe to-day. It is this creed which makes it possible, while a few can celebrate Christmas in comfort, and even in luxury, for 2,000,000 of our fellow-Christians to drag themselves, barely clothed and ill-shod, to the guardians and the exchanges for their miserably inadequate dole. Are not the celebrations of Christmas under these conditions, with millions suffering cold and hunger, men and women imprisoned throughout the land—nay, throughout the whole Empire—for the utterance of their convictions and ideals, an insufferable mockery of the cause and the ideal for which this feast is supposedly to be an everlasting reminder? Is there no escape from this terrible creed? Why not give real Christianity a trial in this country?
Sir J. BUTCHER: I confess to have listened with deep disappointment to the speech of the Prime Minister this afternoon. I found in it no real attempt at justifying the great departure in policy in which he and his colleagues have engaged. The greater portion of the speech was devoted to an exposition—it appeared to be a somewhat laboured one—of the details of the so-called Treaty, interspersed as it was with apologies, or explanations he might have called them—I think rather unsatisfactory ones—of the more objectionable features in that Treaty, and he wound up by picturing before our eyes the vision of the paradise which is going to enrapture Ireland and the world if this settlement comes into operation. I wish he had devoted a little more time to telling us why he and his colleagues changed their minds in a month or two, threw all their convictions of a lifetime into the melting-pot, and asked us to follow them. There was one portion of his speech really alarming, and that was that when a Bill is brought in to give effect to these Articles of Agreement, it will be utterly impossible for this House to alter one iota of the Bill, unless we are willing to throw the Treaty on the floor. I venture to think no Member of this House had realised that was the position into which we were

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going to be engineered. For my part, I thought the Government would have laid down some broad principles, on which they and the Sinn Feiners had agreed, that a Bill would have been brought in, and it would be open to us to enlarge or modify that Bill consistently with the main provisions of the Treaty. Apparently nothing of the kind. My opinion was gathered from an answer he gave to myself in the House on 27th October last. I asked him:
"What is the precise meaning of the statement in his letter of 20th July last to the Member for East Clare in which he says that the British Government propose that the conditions of settlement between Great Britain and Ireland shall be embodied in the form of a Treaty, to which effect shall in due course be given by the British and Irish Parliaments; and whether it is intended that the terms of any settlement shall be open to revision and alteration by the Imperial Parliament?"
That was a very clear question. The answer of the Prime Minister was as follows:
"The results of the conferences now being held will be submitted to Parliament, and the concurrence of Parliament in any settlement is, of course, necessary."
Then, leaving out something which is unimportant, I put to the right hon. Gentleman this point:
"Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my question as to whether the terms of settlement are to be open to revision and alteration by Parliament."
The answer of the Prime Minister was
"Most distinctly."
That is to say, it would be open to revision and alteration by Parliament. The Prime Minister went on to say:
"It will be quite impossible to have a settlement except with the full consent of Parliament. The whole of the terms will be submitted to Parliament on the assumption that there is a settlement, and every provision will have to be ratified by Parliament even to the smallest detail"—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 27th October, 1921; col. 1025, Vol. 147.]
The impression left upon my mind, and I venture to think upon the minds of other Members of the House, was that the freedom of Parliament to discuss, revise and, if necessary, to alter this settlement, was not going to be taken away from it; that it was to be open to us to introduce revision into the terms of settlement if necessary. It now appears that was a total misapprehension. Parlia-
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ment has its hands absolutely tied behind its back, and is unable to exercise any discretion whatsoever. I call this a grave constitutional infringement. It is taking away from Parliament Parliament's undoubted right to revise legislation, to pass legislation or to amend it. It is an assumption on the part of the Executive of the day of the right not only to initiate but to settle the details of legislation and then to throw it at the head of this House and say: "Pass it, or destroy the whole thing." That is a disaster. It is an insult to Parliament. It is a very grave comment upon the way in which this gigantic constitutional change has been brought about.
The House is asked to-day to sanction a constitutional revolution. It is a singular, and I venture to think, an unprecedented position. The Government have, behind the back of Parliament, negotiated with avowed rebels a fundamental and revolutionary change in the constitution of the United Kingdom which goes beyond anything ever proposed before by any responsible Minister.
The remarkable thing about it is that the principles on which this settlement, which they call a Treaty, is based are entirely subversive of every principle on which successive British Governments have acted for the last 120 years; principles which have been declared by the present Government, and repeatedly declared until quite recently, to be absolutely vital to the security of our Empire and the peace of Ireland. The Government now come to the House of Commons and tell us that the abandonment of all these cherished principles is absolutely essential for security and peace. It is quite true that a settlement has been reached which has been approved in many quarters, many of which have no very great appreciation of the conditions which exist either in Great Britain or in Ireland. The Government now come and ask the House of Commons to accept the settlement under conditions which make it an absolute impossibility for the House of Commons to exercise an independent judgment. The Government tell us that this settlement is going to bring Ireland peace, and happiness to the world, and say that the House dare not, in the exercise of their discretion, do other than approve it.
The man of independent thought to-day is denounced in many quarters as a fool or

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a wrecker, and a great deal else which is quite absurd. He is exhorted to obey the Government Whip, and to yield to outside pressure. I am glad to think there are some men in this House who are not going to accept that advice. It will be an evil day for independence and honesty in Parliament if methods of pressure such as these were to prevail. Speaking for myself, I can only say I have done my very utmost to try to persuade myself that the Government position is just, correct, and right. I have failed. I have been unable to persuade myself that this settlement is consistent with the security of the Empire, or sound principles of government, or that it is at all likely to bring peace and happiness to Ireland. I regret it deeply because, like everyone in this House and outside, I desire a settlement of this age-long controversy. Holding, however, the opinion I do, I should despise myself, and every honest man would despise me, if I did not vote according to the honest conviction I have formed.
Let me enumerate very shortly some of the reasons which have led me to this position. In the first place, I say that this Treaty is a surrender to crime. No candid observer, least of all no Sinn Feiner, can deny that. What has happened? Before this campaign of violence and crime commenced there was no responsible statesman of any party who ventured to put forward concessions on the lines set out in this Treaty. On the contrary, the principles on which this Treaty is framed, Dominion Home Rule, with power to create an army and navy and other vast powers, were denounced by the Leader of every responsible party in this House as dangerous and impossible conditions. Then what happened? The campaign of crime commenced. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, with a courage that I personally admired, did his best to put down crime, and he said that it must be put down if we are to secure peace and happiness in Ireland. He did not succeed so quickly as he thought he would, and it became more difficult. All of a sudden, on the 20th of July, without any sanction or communication with Parliament, the Government put forward these proposals which are a violation of everything they have ever proposed. They made the physical force party in Ireland an offer of concessions which they had persistently and always refused to the old Irish
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Nationalist Constitutional Party, to whom some concessions might have been fairly offered. On this matter of surrender to crime let me quote a greater authority than myself, namely, the present Prime Minister. I quote him, not by way of recrimination, but, on the contrary, with warm approval. What did he say, in a speech at Carnarvon only so lately as the 9th of October, 1920, when this question of Dominion Home Rule was being discussed by him? He said:
"The murder gang, who were dominating and terrorising the country, should be broken up, and unless I am greatly mistaken we shall do it."
He then referred to the Home Rule proposals of Mr. Gladstone, and the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) in 1912, and he pointed out that those proposals went as far as they could consistently with the security of the United Kingdom and of the Empire, and that was the view both of Mr. Gladstone and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley. There were, he said, some who asked them to go further and grant Dominion Home Rule. Let me quote the Prime Minister's own words:
"Why are we asked to go further? I protest against the doctrine that you should go further and give more, not because Ireland needs it, not because it is fair to the United Kingdom, but because crime has been more successful. That is a fatal doctrine for any Government in any country to adopt. Give it because it is right and just, or because it is good for Ireland and the United Kingdom, or because it is for peace and goodwill, but do not give it because you are bullied by assassins."
I leave it to hon. Members to say how far those admirable principles are being followed by this House to-day. What has happened? What change has taken place since those words were uttered? Is there any change any man can suggest in the position in Ireland except that in July, 1921, crime was more successful than in October, 1920, and that appears to be the reason why that policy which was impossible and ruinous in October, 1920, is declared to be necessary and just to-day? Is that not a surrender to crime? I say that is a fatal doctrine for any Government to adopt. It is a disastrous doctrine. What will be the effect of it in different parts of this Empire? There are to-day in different parts of our Empire revolutionary bodies with dangerous objects in view, and they are prepared to

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carry out those objects by crime and violence. There are such bodies to-day in India and in Egypt, and even in the United Kingdom itself, and what will be the effect of this surrender upon those revolutionary bodies? Could there be a more deadly precedent? Could there be a more potent incentive to those men to persist in their career of crime in order that the Government of this country may surrender to them and give them power by reason of that crime to carry out their dangerous enterprises?
I pass from that to consider for a few moments the terms of the settlement itself. I am not going into the full details now. I am only going to refer to what appears to be the great and fundamental mischief at the bottom of this settlement. It grants virtual independence to Southern Ireland which may at any time be turned into real independence. There is not a Member who sits on the Treasury Bench, or a Member of this House, who would not look upon the complete independence of Ireland as an unspeakable calamity to be fought against at any price. But what do you find under this Treaty? That Southern Ireland is given what is practically independence, and when once she gets it then it will be open to her at any time she likes to have absolute independence, and the only way to stop it would be by engaging in a bloody civil war far more terrible than anything that would be necessary now to put down rebellion.
The Prime Minister told us this afternoon that Ireland must be put into the position of Canada. Will anyone say if Canada were to decide to secede—which, thank God, there is no chance of happening!—from this country, could we stop it? Of course we could not. Canada has the right de facto, as all the Dominions have, to secede from this country, and according to the analogy put forward by the Prime Minister, Ireland would have the right to secede, and we should have no right to stop her. That position is even more assured to Ireland by virtue of the astounding so-called Oath of Allegiance which is embodied in the Treaty. The Prime Minister said this afternoon that by this Treaty allegiance to Great Britain is completely accepted, but is it? What does Article 4 provide? It contains the form of the Oath, and there is not in it one word of allegiance to His Majesty.
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It is an oath of allegiance to the constitution of the Sinn Fein State which they will no doubt succeed in getting the Members of the Sinn Fein Parliament to accept. The only reference to His Majesty in the Oath is
"I will be faithful to His Majesty King George V., his heirs and successors by law,"
and this is qualified by the words
"in virtue of the common citizenship of Ireland with Great Britain and her adherence to and membership of the group of nations forming the British Commonwealth of Nations."
Why is there that qualification? It is most significant. I hate these new formulæ which are being discovered every day to conceal or wrap up the truth. This formula means that so long, and so long only, as the Irish Free State adheres to the British Commonwealth of Nations, so long, and so long only, will a man who takes this oath be faithful to the King, and his fidelity is only by virtue of this adherence. There is not a word in the Treaty binding the Irish State to continue adherence to the British Commonwealth of Nations. If that be so, so far from this oath being any help to keep the allegiance of the Irish Free State, it is an absolute help to them becoming independent, because it will be open to them at any time to declare that they give up their adherence to the British Commonwealth of Nations, and the moment they give up that adherence their oath falls to the ground, and with an easy conscience, if they desire that help, they can declare their independence and set up an Irish Republic.
The truth is that this settlement will last only so long as there is goodwill between the British Government and the Irish Free State. I wish that I could see some stronger indications of goodwill than those which I see to-day. There is a strong faction in Ireland and a strong party in America who have always maintained the principles of hatred to Britain and who have not by reason of this proposal or of anything which has ever happened in the way of concession to Ireland abated one jot or tittle of their hatred of England or their condemnation of British rule, and I see to-day strong indications that there will be in Ireland as well as in America a strong party hostile to any goodwill.

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Therefore, I confess that I can see little hope of it coming about. The truth is that we are gambling to-day on this goodwill. It is a desperate venture. We are gambling with the security of the Empire. The stake is too great for the chances of success.
There are other things in this settlement which, though not of the same great fundamental importance, nevertheless deserve attention on the part of the Members of this House, and all the more so because of the declaration of the Prime Minister this afternoon that when the Bill conies before the House we cannot alter it and we cannot put anything into the Agreement which is not already there unless we get the consent of the Sinn Feiners. Let me point out some things which are not in the Agreement which ought to be put into it, and which will give rise to anxiety on the part of people in Ireland if no provision is made for them. In the first place, there is not one single syllable in the Agreement safeguarding the interests of the loyal minority in Ireland, not one single safeguard for those subjects in Ireland who have been true to our rule and loyal to us through good weather and foul, and whose lives are now a hell upon earth. There is not one single provision to safeguard the lives or the property of ex-service men who fought for us in the late War, or ex-men of the Royal Irish Constabulary who most loyally and gallantly served us in times of great trouble and distress. I know that the Chief Secretary is anxious to do justice to the men of the Royal Irish Constabulary and ex-service men, and I do implore him, before it is too late, to go to the Sinn Feiners and ask them if they really object to putting in some safeguards for the loyalists of Ireland. Let me mention another omission. There is not one word of guarantee in this Agreement against the Irish Free State imposing unfair and, it may be, intolerable taxation upon British goods and goods made in loyal Ulster. There is not one guarantee against their continuing that savage boycott which exists to-day against British goods and goods made in Ulster. Was it not worth some passing thought on the part of the British Government to provide for the safety of loyal British subjects in Ireland, and to see that great
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commercial interests are not to be prejudiced by this settlement.
9.0 P.M.
Again, look at Clause 10 of your Articles, which says that your judges, your officials, your members of police forces and other public servants, who may be turned out at a moment's notice by this new Irish Free State or who may have to leave by reason of the fact that they can no longer serve these new masters, are to be given compensation, fair compensation I grant you, but given by whom? Not by the British Government whom they have loyally served, but by the Irish Free State. Supposing the Irish Free State does not choose to pay them. What then? Is the British Government going to stand by and see its own servants starve, trusting to the honour or generosity of this new Sinn Fein rebel Government? Surely that is a matter for which the Government might have made some provision in this Treaty, bearing in mind, as they must have borne in mind, that they cannot add a line to this Treaty without the consent of the Sinn Feiners. With regard to the judges, may I draw this fact to the special attention of the Chief Secretary? By their patent of office the judges of the High Courts of Ireland just as the High Court judges in this country are not dismissible except upon a Vote of both Houses of Parliament of this country, and their pensions and salaries are charged upon the Consolidated Fund of this country. By your new Treaty you are going to tell the judges that all these privileges, upon the terms of which they took office are now to be taken away from them. They are to be left to the generosity of the new Irish Free State in case they are discharged or dismissed, and, if they are not generous, then they are to starve. Again, I hope that before this Treaty comes before Parliament in the terms of the Bill the Sinn Fein delegates may be induced to take a more reasonable attitude than that which they have done as yet.
Holding, as I do, these views upon the nature of this settlement, upon the grave dangers to the Empire by which we are menaced, upon the absence of all provision for securing the lives and the safety of the loyal subjects, some 300,000, in the South of Ireland, and upon the omission of material and important

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matters from this settlement, I cannot support it. I cannot express an approval of a settlement which I do not feel and I cannot pretend to cherish hopes which I do not entertain.
Mr. KIDD: There are Members of the Coalition who will unhesitatingly support this Treaty, and, in doing so, will resent very strongly any suggestion that they have sympathy with murder or outrage or other atrocities. So far from having the slightest sympathy with those outrages they deplore and condemn them, but, on the other hand, they cannot escape responsibility, in some measure, for the existence of conditions which may have to some extent been responsible for those outrages. Over a lengthy period we have had these outrages constantly recurring, and it is only fair to the younger Members of the Unionist party to consider very seriously whether there is any remedy for them. Are we to assume that the Catholic Irishman is utterly incapable of being as respectable a citizen as, say, a Scotsman? Very proud as I am of my own country and its traditions, I should, I feel, be unworthy of my country if I entertained any such opinion as that of Catholic Irishmen. Therefore I want at the very outset to enter my strong dissent to the suggestion that any Conservative Member is to be regarded as having any sympathy whatever with disorder because he supports the Treaty now before the House. I should like, in supporting this Treaty, to say that I have arrived at my decision by a somewhat different route and have been influenced by far different considerations from those put forward by the Prime Minister to-day. If it is not presumptuous for one in my position to say so, it seems to me that the Prime Minister, in his desire to be as tactful as possible at the present stage, unduly strained the analogy of Dominion Government. I speak in the presence of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who has doubtless studied the subject closely, when I say that of the many tests which can be applied to Dominion Government of the character to which the Prime Minister referred, although the right hon. Gentleman did not attempt to give anything like a final definition, there is one best to be satisfied, and that is that the Dominion Government has only been resorted to when government by representation in this Parliament was impossible to a British State.
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Dominion Government has only been granted where representation in this Parliament was impossible, and the converse applies that where representation in this Parliament was possible then whatever is granted to a country capable of being so represented cannot really be described as Dominion government. It is just as well to make it perfectly clear that in supporting the Treaty, so far from repudiating the policy of the Union, we are truly lending our support to the Treaty in vindication of the policy of the Union. What is the policy of the Union? It is a policy of wisdom which is reinforced day by day by the progress of education and the march of science. As science gets rid of space, time and tide, as it draws the world together into a smaller compass, as men are brought into closer contact with each other, surely it becomes more and more obvious how wrong it is to multiply unnecessarily those parliamentary institutions which by their separate existence must tend to create conditions of friction, if not of conflict. The policy of the Union postulates, if it is to be successful, that the parties to the Union shall enter by voluntary co-operation. The hon. and learned Member who has just spoken represents an English constituency. I represent a Scottish constituency, and here, in discussing the test that must be satisfied before the Union policy is satisfactory, I am enabled to offer the House a very simple but a very effective contrast by comparing the positions of Scotland and Ireland. Scotland came into the Union, it might almost be said, by accident. She came in by reason of the Law of Primogeniture. She came side by side with the English people in the happiest way from the Scottish point of view because England was practically annexed under that Law of Primogeniture. That was an excellent first step. Then the Parliamentary union of the two countries was devised by the two Parliaments, the Scottish Parliament and the English Parliament, each Parliament being represented of its own people, and it might easily be said that Scotland entered the Union by pride of birth. The Union represented to Scotland, not only an increase of material prosperity, but, what was more important, it was very gratifying to her pride.
Contrast that position with the position of Ireland in this matter. The union of

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Ireland with England was arrived at by an Irish Parliament, but it was a Parliament totally unrepresentative of the views of the majority of the Irish people because the majority adhered to an ancient faith. Therefore, at its very roots the union between England and Ireland was possessed of a cancer. We may have sought to allay that cancer; we have sought to excise it now and again; but, like a cancer, it has always broken out. All that this Treaty asks is that we give to the majority of the Irish people the power to satisfy that spirit of nationhood which must always be satisfied before a country can proceed to a larger growth. Having cleared away the basic cause of the disaffection between Ireland and this country—having, at least, done our best as a people to get rid of the cause of that disaffection—we have made the conditions possible for Ireland to grow, and to grow in the direction of reunion with this country. The hon. and learned Member for York (Sir J. Butcher) referred to the fact, as I understood him, that the Treaty made no provision for the protection of the Southern Protestants. I would ask the hon. Member, as an eminent lawyer, which position he would have—the present position with Ireland as a co-partner only in name, and an enemy in spirit, or the position with Ireland politically not so close to this country, but with, as I hope, her spirit satisfied? I grant that Ireland might commit a breach of the Treaty, but, if so, she will offer us a clean, honest casus belli, and, were I a Southern Protestant, I would prefer my security behind an honest casus belli, rather than the wretched security afforded me to-day by a nominal Government from London, when my life was dominated by Sinn Fein.
Even from the standpoint of the Southern Unionists, I submit that, as compared with the present position, this Treaty offers great advantages. In the Press, from platforms, and even in this House, we have heard appeals made to Ulster in order to persuade Ulster to join at once in an all-Ireland Parliament. Strongly supporting this Treaty as I do, I venture—modestly, in view of the source of the appeals to which I have referred—to suggest that, even if Ulster decided to-morrow that she might join, the wisdom of her joining now is open to grave doubt. In Southern Ireland,
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at the present moment, a keen contest is being waged between what I may describe as the moderate and constitutional party and the extremists. There is no doubt, at any rate, that there are two parties, and that is one factor to start with. There is no doubt that one of them is an extreme revolutionary party, totally antagonistic to this country; and, if the other party is different from that, I hope I am entitled to refer to it as the moderate party. With such a contest being waged, nothing would be more harmful to the moderate and constitutional party than for Ulster to enter now, because the revolutionary party would be able to use the representatives of Ulster to stir up again radial and religious feeling—that is to use the Ulster party as a kind of political red rag. They would be able to represent to the people of Ireland, "Here is the unholy Alliance. Your ancient enemy is brought in to destroy the aspirations of Ireland," those aspirations being in the direction of independence. Therefore, speaking as a loyal supporter of this Treaty, I venture to put in my plea that there is room for doubting the wisdom of Ulster coming in now. Ulster has always been on the side of law and order. She would certainly prefer to have that law and order maintained from the central Parliament here. But can anyone doubt that, when the Irish Free State has, under the new régime, established methods of law and order, Ulster will automatically move into the Union? She will do so for the very reasons which were urged last night by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith), namely, for economic reasons and for the reason that Ireland's spirit will be satisfied. But at that point those reasons will also constrain a movement towards re-union with this Parliament by a united Ireland. Therefore, I say that this Treaty, so far from being contrary to Unionist policy, is a vindication of that policy, and it is in the hope that we shall turn enmity in Ireland into friendship and a later voluntary reunion that I and many others of my party support it.
Sir W. DAVISON: The Prime Minister, in his speech this afternoon, complained that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley had not read his speeches. I think the complaint was justified, and that the Prime

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Minister's speeches are not only always worth hearing, but that, if you have not the good fortune to hear them, they are certainly worth reading. They also have not the fault that the speeches of some speakers have, in that people sometimes say, "I heard Mr. So-and-So deliver a speech on that subject two or three months ago, and I do not care to hear him again"; because the advice which the Prime Minister often gives in a speech which he may have delivered at one time is by no means the same as the advice which he may give to his hearers in a speech delivered 3, 4, 9, or 12 months afterwards. As to the speech to which the Prime Minister made reference this afternoon, and to which he complained the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley had not given sufficient study, I have since taken the trouble to refresh my memory of what the Prime Minister then said, and I only wish that this House of Commons, before it comes to a vote, could hear within these walls that speech, which the Prime Minister delivered with that ineffable eloquence, that charm of style, and that pungency of form of which he is so great a master, on the 9th October, 1920, at Carnarvon. There is hardly a thing which the Prime Minister said this afternoon that he did not conclusively refute in the speech which he delivered at Carnarvon on the 9th October, 1920. We are asked in this paper which has been put into our hands to give what is practically a blank cheque to the Prime Minister, and if anyone, still more if this great Assembly, gives a blank cheque to anyone, surely it will require to be assured that the judgment and the opinion of that person can be relied upon and, is not one which is changed month by month.
Allusion has been made by the hon. and gallant Member for South Antrim (Captain Craig) to the misrepresentation of a large portion of the Press with regard to Ulster. Those of us who have not seen eye to eye with the Government on this question of Ireland have also cause to complain of the gross misrepresentation from which we have suffered. We have been described as men who make violence and repression our first instinct. We have been described as British Junkers whose blind hate will destroy the Empire. I am giving an actual quotation. [An HON.
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MEMBER: "Who is it from"?] The last was from the "Observer" newspaper, which is a supporter of the Government on the Irish question. We have also been described elsewhere as rebels and Bolsheviks. These libellous statements I think it is unnecessary for me to contradict, but at the same time it is well to draw attention to them. It is because we abhor violence, because we believe that to give to violence what has been refused to argument and constitutional appeal is the negation of sound government and means sooner or later the overthrow and the disruption of the Empire, that we have opposed these negotiations and that we have had serious doubts with regard to this Treaty. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, in the course of this great Press campaign which the Government has been booming throughout the country, on Sunday last wrote an article in one of the periodicals which is supporting the Government through thick and thin in this matter. He began by saying,
"This is not a humiliation; it is an achievement."
Qui s'excuse s'accuse. Whether or not it is an achievement, time alone can show. It is possible that one of the things it may achieve is the breaking up of the British Empire. Time alone can show whether it is an achievement, but there is no doubt whatever that it is a humiliation. Surely it is a humiliation for a country whose statesmen recant the solemn assurances and pledges and advice which they had given only a few months before, and surely it is a humiliation for the Empire to give, after the commission of violence, what it has again and again refused when urged with moderation and constitutional appeal.
Let us look at this agreement for a moment. I had the audacity to contradict the Prime Minister when he said to-day that the Members of the Parliament of the Irish Free State had agreed to take an Oath of Allegiance to His Majesty, the King. Again and again we have had Ministers going up and down the country saying, whatever was given away, whatever was surrendered, the Oath of Allegiance to His Majesty was a sine qua non which would never be given up. I ask hon. Members of this House where, in this Agreement, is there an Oath of Allegiance to His Majesty, the King. Here is the Oath: The Members of the Irish Parliament solemnly swear "faith

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and allegiance to the constitution of the Irish Free State."
HON. MEMBERS: Go on!
Sir W. DAVISON: One moment, all in good time. Had it been desired to swear allegiance to His Majesty, the King, all that was necessary was to add those simple straightforward words, "and to His Majesty, King George." But no. We have the word "allegiance" taken away and then we have the garbled, ununder-standable jumble of meaningless phrases which has been referred to. It goes on, after swearing faith and allegiance to the Irish Free State, "and I will be faithful," and then the words which the hon. Baronet (Sir J. Butcher) has dealt with so fully that it is unnecessary for me to deal with them again, conditional on the Free State continuing its membership of the "group of nations forming the British Commonwealth of Nations," a thing which can be repudiated at any moment. The next thing which there was to be no going back upon was the supremacy of the British Navy. The British Navy alone shall be responsible for guarding the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland. In this Agreement the whole of that has been given away. The British Navy will no longer have any right, except in time of war, to guard the coast of Ireland. Ireland is to have its own coastal defence, and but for three ports, which are specified in the Schedule to the Agreement, where care parties of the British Navy are to be established, so far as Ireland is concerned the British Navy is to withdraw. I have referred to the speech of the Prime Minister at Carnarvon, and I should like to quote a few words on this point:
"Then as to the Navy, Mr. Asquith says, 'Why not? They will not be so foolish as to spend money on the Navy.' They do not want to spend much money on submarines. They are vicious little craft. They are dangerous and perilous. But they are not expensive. I am not sure they cost as much as a respectable yacht. And mines you can have, and they are cheap, and those under full and complete Dominion Home Rule the Irish Republic can have."
Is there anything in this Agreement which prevents the Irish Free State from having submarines or from having mines in their harbours, or from erecting fortifications round their naval bases of which only small care parties from the Navy are to have charge? Not a word. Is that not a humiliation for a great nation?
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I think it is. Again, the Prime Minister in another place says:
"And we are to hand over Ireland to be made a base of the submarine fleet, and we are to trust to luck in our next war. Was there ever such lunacy proposed by anybody?"
That is the phrase he objected to the right hon. Member for Paisley not remembering. That is where the lunacy came in.
"Do not take these risks. This is a great country, a great country. It has done more for human freedom than any other country. Do not risk its destinies and its future through any folly or any fear of any gang in Ireland."
That was the advice given by the Prime Minister little more than a twelvemonth ago. That advice was not given here to-day. I ask the House of Commons to ponder well these two advises, one advice given freely, without any compulsion, and the other advice given after wrestling between two and three o'clock in the morning with people who brought arguments to bear of which we do not know.
With regard to the Army, the Prime Minister does not adhere to what he said at Carnarvon as to the danger of Ireland having an army without restriction. He says that that is provided for in the Agreement. Paragraph 8 of the Agreement provides,
"With a view to securing the observance of the principle of international limitation of armaments, if the Government of the Irish Free State establishes and maintains a military defence force, the establishments thereof shall not exceed in size such proportion of the military establishments maintained in Great Britain as that which the population of Ireland bears to the population of Great Britain."
The establishment of a military force in Great Britain is not for the protection of Great Britain only. Great Britain has established a large Expeditionary Force, which is capable of going to any part of the world at very short notice. In addition, Great Britain is the headquarters of the nucleus of all drafts that have to go to India, to the East, Egypt, and other places. Is Ireland to have a proportionate part of the Expeditionary Force, and the force established for garrisoning India and the other commitments of a great Empire, of which England is the centre? Surely, that is a point upon which we want further information, and surely that is another ground for saying that in this Agreement there is humiliation to this country.

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The Prime Minister said 12 months ago in regard to an army for Ireland:
"For the sake of Ireland they had better not have an army. Armies are expensive. Navies are expensive, too. Not only are they expensive, but they are also extremely dangerous, and may go off. So, on the whole, I think the Army and Navy had better be under the control of the Imperial Parliament. So far as I am concerned, and I am speaking on behalf of the Government, we shall certainly resist, out and out, any attempt for an army or navy being set up in Ireland, at our doors, to menace the existence of the United Kingdom."
Is it possible to believe that the man who made that statement is the same person who spoke to us this afternoon.
I should like to put a few questions to the Government. In the first place, under the Agreement is Ireland to cease to be a recruiting ground for the splendid Irish regiments, which have been an honour to this country and the Empire for so many years? There is not a word in the Agreement providing that Great Britain shall have the right to recruit for these regiments in Ireland; (2) is His Majesty to remain King of Great Britain and Ireland, or is the oath of Succession and the Coronation Oath to be altered; (3) is the Free State Government to have any say in foreign affairs? That question has been answered, because I understand it is admitted that the Free State Government is to have its foreign representatives and deal with foreign affairs. Fourthly, are we to have the Union Jack tampered with? I read a leading article in the "Daily Mail" a few days ago, from which it would appear that that newspaper is going to start a competition for a design for a new Union Jack. I do not know what other Members of this House feel on this matter, but I feel that it would be an unspeakable humiliation to tamper with that flag under which our people have died, under which their souls have throbbed for many years, and for the sake of which so many great things have been done. Under this Agreement is it proposed again to trample upon the Union flag, as I saw it trampled upon within a stone's throw of this building, at a meeting at which Lord Derby was making a speech only a few weeks ago, on which occasion the police force of the Metropolis, when called upon, failed to interfere. If that is to be done some of us will have to make a stand. The same police force arrested a man a few days
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before because he pulled down a Sinn Fein flag in Whitehall.
This Treaty is a great confidence trick. We are asked to give confidence to the Prime Minister, but in view of what I have quoted to-night, and in view of other speeches in this House and in the country by the Prime Minister, and when the right hon. Gentleman is asking us to give him our confidence, I ask whether we are to give it to Dr. Jekyll, of Carnarvon, or to Mr. Hyde, of Downing Street. They are two different people. It does not matter for my purpose which way it is, because they are both different. The hon. Member for York (Sir J. Butcher) has referred to another speech made by the Prime Minister, with regard to giving way to compulsion, and I do not think it is necessary again to refer to it, but I would ask the House to remember the stirring words in which the Prime Minister con-chided that speech:
"Give it because it is right, give it because it is just, give it because it is good for Ireland and good for the United Kingdom, give it because it brings peace and good will, but do not give it because you are bullied by assassins."
I ask the House to say to-night whether they can honestly believe that this surrender will bring peace and good will to Ireland. Is there peace in Ireland today? Is not the bitterness of Ulster as the bitterness of gall? You have—
"Jeered at her loyalty,
Trod on her pride,
Scorned her, repulsed her—
Great-hearted Ulster—
Flung her aside."
That is the feeling of Ulster to-day. You asked Ulster to come into a final settlement, where they shall have their own Parliament, and be free; but in the Press of the country to-day we see from the correspondence between the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, that pressure has been brought to bear. Bribes almost have been offered to him, that he would be excused from the liabilities of the Empire, excused from paying the costs of the Navy and the Army, if only he would put his Northern Province under the power and Dominion of Sinn Fein. It is a fine thing to forgive your enemies, but it is a damnable thing to give away your friends to appease your enemies. In old days it was the proud boast that the pax Britannica was always founded upon

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justice and right. I cannot vote for this Treaty. I believe it will bring not peace but the sword, because it is founded on violence and blood.
Rear-Admiral ADAIR: I came here with certain convictions with regard to these proposals. Nothing which I have heard has altered my convictions. My sympathies are entirely with the hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison), who has made a most impassioned speech. My firm conviction is that these proposals are an ignoble surrender to rebellion, assassination and outrage. No chicanery, no glorification of these proposals in the Press can mask that fact, though the Press has done its best to do so, nor can the splendour of the opening of Parliament for the special purpose of passing these proposals mitigate the sad reality of that surrender. That surrender has come about in consequence of the vacillating, weak, not to say craven, conduct of affairs by His Majesty's Government during the past few years. I called attention to this 18 months ago when I told the Government that their weak-kneed policy was at the bottom of the whole of the trouble. This lamentable conduct of affairs has landed the Government in an appalling situation from which there are two means of escape. The first is the suppression of rebellion, assassination and outrage, and the other is surrender. In spite of all the protestations as to effecting the suppression of rebellion, assassination and outrage, the Government have chosen surrender.
I have referred to utterances by Ministers as to suppressing rebellion, assassination and outrage, and I am going to quote one or two. I do not choose the sensational ones which refer to gangs of murderers, gangs of assassins, and so on, in the words of Ministers themselves, I choose the more statesmanlike ones; as I shall call them. Speaking of the Government of Ireland Bill, the Prime Minister at Carnarvon in October, 1920, said:
"I protest against the doctrine that you should go further and give more, not because Ireland needs it, not because it is fair to the United Kingdom, but because crime has been more successful.
Has crime been more successful? Where is that protest to-day? The result of the success of crime has been these proposals. On the Second Reading of that
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Bill in this House the Leader of the House said this:
"The powers given are the most generous that are compatible with the existing conditions in Ireland."
They have gone very much further in these proposals. Are the divisions any less than they were when they had already given everything that was compatible with the existing state of affairs in Ireland? And he went on to taunt the right hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) for having suggested that, having lost control of the horse they should throw the reins on its neck. Is it not the case that, having lost control of the horse, the Government have now thrown the reins on its neck? The Government new propose to go far beyond the proposals of the Bill of 1920. They propose to set up an Irish Free State, to give even more than Dominion Home Rule, in so far as they claim no oath of allegiance to the Sovereign, though it is in the most unmistakable way contained in the oath that is necessary in the Dominions overseas. No matter what the Prime Minister has said to-day, there is no oath of allegiance to the King in these proposals, and in spite of that they set up an army and navy. Let us have no mistake about it. They do set up a navy. There is the nucleus in those ships which are to guard the Customs, Fisheries, etc., and there is the possibility of much more, as admitted by the Prime Minister—submarines—when in five years it will be further discussed, when they are to be given the defence of their own coasts.
But I do not presume to base my own decisions and my absolute refusal to be a party to these proposals on my own reasoning alone. I go back to the opinions of great statesmen in support of the conclusion to which I have come. Mr. John Bright said:
"If Ireland could be towed out 2,000 miles towards America you would then find that there was a considerable resemblance between the case of Ireland and that of the Colonies."
Mr. Gladstone, the protagonist of Home Rule, said:
"The case of the Colonies is not identical with that of Ireland and does not resemble it. The nearness of Ireland compared with the remoteness of the Colonies prevents it."
How does that accord with the settlement put forward by the Prime Minister to-day of Dominion Home Rule and even

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more for Ireland? Lord Grey of Fallodon said:
"Between Great Britain and Ireland there can be one foreign policy and one Army and one Navy, and we cannot stand any separation in those matters any more than could the North stand the separation of the South in the case of the United States."
I would ask Members of this House whether or no they attach any importance to those opinions? If so, can they conscientiously support the proposals of the Government? And I ask my fellow Unionists is not this the very destruction of the foundation of our Unionism and of the Union which, in spite of anything which the Prime Minister said to-day, was established by William Pitt because Ireland had proved a danger in the old French Wars and was likely to prove it again? Do not let us be befogged by details. I do not want to go into details to-night. Even in our anxiety for the safety of Ulster do not let us overlook the safety of the United Kingdom. That is the point which is before this House—the safety of the United Kingdom in the future. It is a question of breaking up or maintaining the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as understood by all those Unionists who returned us to Parliament; aye, and by the Coalition Liberals, too. If we accept these proposals, I claim that we are betraying our trusts towards the people who elected us to this Parliament. Our pledges at the General Election were fully implemented by the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. All Coalitionists, by their support of that Act, have loyally abided by their pledges as given at the General Election. That Act, as described by the Prime Minister,
"Is the outcome of the best judgment of the Government and is the wisest conclusion which the Government could possibly arrive at after serious reflection."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st March, 1920; col. 1326, Vol. 127.]
Why should we go any further if that Act is the wisest conclusion that the Government could come to after serious reflection? In having supported them in that Act, I claim that we Coalitionists, Unionists or Liberals, have fulfilled our pledges to our electors, and we have no mandate to go any further. The Act of 1920 embodies the great principle that for the safeguarding of Great Britain the union of Ireland with it is essential. It embodies also the undoubted fact that Ire-
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land comprises two peoples, two distinct and separate peoples, and as a corollary it comprises the principle that it should be left to those different peoples to settle for Ireland as a whole its own self-determination without any further interference from this Parliament. What more statesmanlike act could have been devised by the wit of man? I supported that Act loyally as a Unionist. I believe it to be the best and only solution of the Irish problem. I will be no party to any departure whatever from it. Does any hon. Member honestly believe that the proposals before us now will settle the Irish problem?
10.0 P.M.
The very foundation of the Sinn Fein ideal is complete independence of a whole Ireland from England. So long as there is partition Sinn Fein will have a grievance; so long as the six counties of Ulster stand apart, supported by this country, as it always must be until it chooses voluntarily to join the other Parliament in Ireland, Sinn Fein will be at enmity with Great Britain. For, apart from the sentimental aspect of it, Sinn Fein covets the businesslike properties, the richness, the prosperity of Ulster, and that is really why they wish to have it under their dominion. Let us be clear on the point of Ulster, although it is only incidental to the main question, which is the safety of this great Empire. The great bulk of the people of the six counties are of a race totally different from that of the remaining 26 counties. They differ in character absolutely and they differ in that most important thing, religion, which is at the bottom of nearly all the trouble in Ireland. Indeed, looking at this lamentable Agreement and the ridiculous signatures attached to it, we might say that Ulster differs in language also. In the Prime Minister's own words:
"Ulster is a separate and distinct entity."
Does anyone really think that the loyal, progressive and Protestant six counties will ever accept the domination of the disloyal, ignorant and Roman Catholic majority of the South? In saying "Roman Catholic," let me make this quite clear; I have no disrespect whatever for Roman Catholicism such as that, for example, of the Viceroy of Ireland and Members of this House; but the Roman Catholicism of Maynooth is a different thing altogether. Does anyone think that Nova Scotia would have

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accepted the domination of Quebec? Is it not very much the same thing? Never would they have accepted it; yet each of them, each province, was ready to come into a united Canada. There lies the solution of the Irish problem, the solution provided by the 1920 Act, but not in these proposals which have gone very much further. Whether there is partition or not, whether there is enmity towards Great Britain arising from that partition, let us bear this in mind: in these proposals we are surrendering to Sinn Fein, to people who were described by Dean Swift 200 years ago as "unscrupulous." That is his word and not mine. Has it not been borne out by their conduct in the War, their unscrupulous assassinations and so on? Is it not a true word?
We are handing over to these people, we are putting at their mercy, the passage of the whole of our ships through those water gates to Great Britain, a safe passage through which is absolutely essential to our very life and sustenance in this country. We will have the possibility of the destruction, by submarine or by other methods, by an Irish navy possibly associated with the navy of some other country, of ships bringing to us all that is essential to our life, our commerce, our trade and our industry. It is not so much the present moment I am concerned with, as the future. We are safe enough at the moment, but what will our successors think of us in 50 years' time? [An HON. MEMBER: "You need not bother about that!"] I do bother about that. I think of our successors even 20 years silence if we now set up on the vulnerable flank of Great Britain a potential enemy, with all her harbours and ports open to the use of other enemies that may arise, and from which not only her own submarines, but those of other enemy countries may work devastation among the ships approaching Great Britain with her food and sustenance. I would ask those who are supporting these proposals to consider whether in the course, say, of 50 years, Germany may not arise and again become our enemy, seeking her revenge for what we achieved in the last War. Why, they talk of it to-day, and if that occurs, can we rely upon Irish ports and harbours in the way set out in these proposals? I doubt it. I bear in mind Dean Swift's opinion of the Irish character, which is that it is unscrupulous.
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We have no right whatever to commit our successors to that danger or to go any further than the mandate we received from our electors, which was fully carried out by the Act of 1920. I am not going to elaborate any further on that, nor am I going to refer to any details whatever. I shall conclude with a quotation which has already been made, but which bears repetition, it is so apposite to the subject under discussion. Speaking at Penarth, the Prime Minister said:
"As far as I am concerned, and I am speaking on behalf of the Government, we shall certainly resist, out and out, any attempt to have an army or navy set up in Ireland at our doors to menace the existence of the United Kingdom."
With that clear statement of the potential danger that lies in these proposals, I feel it unnecessary to say more. I beg of my fellow Unionists to think well whether the maintenance of the Union, from which they take their very name, is not a thing of the very first importance, not only to Great Britain, but the whole British Empire? Let them not overlook their Unionism and forgo it in voting for these proposals.
Sir R. THOMAS: I think Wales should have a voice in regard to the problem which is before the House to-day. Liberal Members from Wales are a united body on this matter. We have returned Members to this House for the last quarter of a century to advocate the claims of Ireland. We have been Home Rulers in Wales for at least 30 years, and we are Home Rulers to-day. We sympathise with the sister island and with her Celtic aspirations, and I think it requires a Celt from Wales or Scotland to appreciate the Irish point of view. We in our country feel very proud that a Welshman is at the head of the Administration which is to-day bringing a message of peace and goodwill to Ireland. My hon. and gallant Friend who has just addressed the House suggests that those who support this Treaty are committing a breach of faith with their constituents. We are not doing that in Wales. By supporting the Prime Minister and the Government in this matter we are fulfilling the earnest and enthusiastic wish of practically the whole of the Welsh nation. I am glad there are hon. Members able to look at this problem from another point of view than the naval point of view, which is, after

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all, a rather narrow point of view. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"] An hon. Member who can only look at our industrial and civil problems from the naval or the military point of view is taking a narrow view. We want a little of the human touch in our politics, and we are getting it in this. It is suggested that the Irish may commit a breach of this contract. Why do you say that? What have Irishmen done under free institutions in our colonies? That is the acid test. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] My hon. Friends opposite say "No!" I have travelled throughout our colonies extensively, and I have met Irishmen, many of them in responsible positions, and it could not be said that these men are not loyal and patriotic. Many of them went from Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere to fight in France, and it is a shame for anybody to stand up in this House and say that Irishmen, whether they be Catholic or Protestants, cannot be loyal men, and to suggest that the men who have attached their signature to this contract will not stick to it. Whether they are rebels or not, they are acting to-day on behalf of the Southern Irish nation. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] If they are not, who are acting for that nation? I say these men who can fight well can also be honourable in peace time. These men have fought for their national rights, and when you talk of rebels, who was it started rebellion first in Ireland? I have just been listening to an hon. and learned Gentleman in another place making a most violent speech not conducive to harmony or goodwill, a mischievous speech that is going to do infinite harm in the country. I have heard him quite recently make that speech—within the past few hours—and he was one of the first to import arms into Ireland.
Mr. LYNN: No, no!
HON. MEMBERS: Withdraw!
Sir R. THOMAS: He ought to be impeached for high treason. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw, withdraw" and "Sit down"!] That is the spirit of Ulster!
Mr. RAWLINSON: On a point of Order. Is it in order for an hon. Member to refer to a debate in another place and to refer to a speech there as a mischievous speech?
Major HAMILTON: And to call him a man instead of a Noble Lord?
Mr. SPEAKER: This House is not the place in which to make any reply to speeches made in the other House.
Sir R. THOMAS: I bow to your ruling, Sir. I was not replying to the speech made by the Noble Lord in another place, I was making a passing reference to the late leader of the Northern Unionist party in this House, who has gone to another place and who made a speech to-day which is not calculated to promote harmony. I was referring to the importation of arms into Ireland.
Captain DIXON: In 1641.
Sir R. THOMAS: I say this, when people talk about the disloyalty of the Southern Irish, that they should bear in mind that the people who first imported arms into Ireland are the people of the North of Ireland.
Mr. LYNN: No, it is not true.
Sir R. THOMAS: Therefore it ill becomes hon. Members opposite to talk in this way of Irishmen in Southern Ireland.
Captain DIXON: Go and read your history.
Sir R. THOMAS: As to all speeches which we have heard to-day from hon. Members opposite who are out to avoid this contract or pact being ratified, what is their alternative?
Mr. LYNN: Law and order.
Sir R. THOMAS: Law and order! You have tried it for 700 years and failed. Law and order! You will never get it,—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Perhaps my hon. Friends will allow me to finish my sentence. You will never get law and order by the sword. You have tried it, and you have failed. Hon. Gentlemen opposite who are declining to ratify this Treaty surely ought to bring forward some alternative. Are we going to continue to have this bloodshed and ruin in Ireland without some attempt at a settlement? If you have declined to negotiate with Griffith and these other men, with whom are you going to negotiate? What is your alternative policy? I would like someone to tell us what is the way out of this difficulty. I have heard no one yet give any indication of a solution.
Rear-Admiral ADAIR: The enforcement of the 1920 Act.
Sir R. THOMAS: Really, I am surprised at my hon. and gallant Friend making a suggestion of that sort. We have tried it. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] The Sinn Fein members declined to attend the Parliament. They would not administer that Act. That is no solution. The Irish want self-government. Under this Treaty they are going to have self-government. They are to govern themselves according to their own ideals. The North can govern themselves according to their own ideals. What I would like to know is, What is the alternative to the policy proposed by the Government? I do hope that this House will not be intimidated by the North of Ireland, by the "Diehards," by the men who will advocate no policy of their own, and obstruct every other policy. It is time, in these enlightened years, that really we should approach these problems with a little common sense. If we were able to trust to the Dutch in South Africa, surely we can trust men of our own blood across the water. [An HON. MEMBER: "We cannot trust the Welsh."] The people of this country can trust the Prime Minister, who is Welsh!
Mr. SPEAKER: Some hon. Members below the Gangway are continually interrupting. I hope they will allow the hon. Member to proceed with his speech.
Sir R. THOMAS: I do not know where my hon. Friend comes from. If he be a Saxon, I will tell him, for his enlightenment, that we had civilisation in Wales when his ancestors were running in the backwoods with painted skins. Not trust a Welshman! I would like to know what would have happened in the War if it had not been for a Welshman, and the three principal figures of to-day are Welshmen. Mr. Secretary Hughes, of the United States, who is a Welshman from Anglesey, and the Prime Minister, who is a Welshman, and we are proud of him, and the Prime Minister of Australia. Therefore it is not for my hon. Friends opposite to cast aspersions upon Welshmen. There was a time when that sort of thing went down, but to-day a Welshman can hold his own with most men. Owing to the interruptions I have been taken rather away from my subject, but, in conclusion,
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I would like once again to appeal to every man in this country who wishes to settle down to conditions of peace and prosperity to support this contract. Ireland has been a clog on the wheels of progress ever since the War terminated—and before it. Until this clog, this difficulty, is removed we cannot have prosperity not only in Ireland, but in this country. We have been prejudiced all over the world. Our name is becoming a byword. It is time the fair name of Britain was redeemed. I do hope that, notwithstanding the opposition of the "Diehards," we shall give the Government an overwhelming majority when the Division is taken.
Colonel BURN: I wish to ask a few questions on behalf of the ex-service men in Ireland whose lot at present is anything but a happy one. These men joined the Army in the dark days, voluntarily, without coercion, when the country needed men badly, and now, many having been demobilised, are having a very miserable time of it at the hands of those about them. They are suffering insults and derision, as they did in the first instance on joining the Army. In this Measure to be brought forward to give effect to the agreement of the conference there is a paragraph which says something about the Royal Irish Constabulary, but there is nothing said about the ex-service men. I consider that their lot is an uncommonly hard one, and it is the duty of the Government to see that some arrangement is made under which these men can live in peace. Moreover, many of these men cannot get employment simply because they have served their country. They, therefore, deserve the protection of the Government.
There are many officers serving in the Royal Irish Regiments who are anxious to know something of the future of these regiments. Are they still to be part and parcel of the British Army or are they going to be disbanded? If the former, are they to be allowed to recruit in the districts to which they belong? If these districts are still open to recruiting what will be the attitude in Southern Ireland of the Sinn Fein Parliament towards that recruiting? We saw the attitude of the Irish towards recruiting in the dark days and we want to know what is going to be done in the future. Is it going to be possible for the Irish regiments again to do their recruiting in Ireland? We all

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know the splendid service these Irish regiments have performed, not only in the last War, but in all previous wars. An Irish regiment is not an Irish regiment unless it is recruited from Irishmen, and has mostly Irish officers. Something must be done by the Government, if possible, to see that these regiments remain part and parcel of the British army, to see that recruiting takes place as I have suggested, and under the British Government. These questions I have put are very important to the men concerned who are serving, and I have been asked by more than one to discover what the Government is going to do for them in the future, not only in respect to their services, but in regard to the recruiting for the regiments.
The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Baldwin): I appeal to the House for that courtesy which they always extend to an hon. Member making his maiden speech on Irish affairs. Although I have been in the House for many years and have voted many times on Irish questions, and hold an unwavering position in regard to Ireland, this is the first time I have risen to address the House on an Irish subject. I hope my hon. and gallant Friend who has just spoken will not think that I am lacking in courtesy if I do not go into details in the short time that remains for me to address the House, as those who have had more direct concern with the negotiations are in a better position to answer detailed questions. I wish to confine myself to the main lines of argument used this afternoon and give such answer as I can. In passing, I may say that I have had no part in the negotiations and that my mind is always rather of a critical than of an enthusiastic kind. I have always considered myself as a typical representative of an ordinary rank and file Member of the Unionist party, and so I am pleased that it has fallen to my lot to stand at this Box and explain why I support, as I do whole-heartedly, the agreement which is before the House. It was always said by our opponents, and I think my Unionist friends will remember, that the position we took up over Ulster was that we wanted Ulster to be predominant in Ireland and be in such a position that she could exercise a veto over
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the rest of Ireland. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] At any rate that was said. I have fought many elections on that and we always denied it on this ground that all we claimed for Ulster was equal rights with the United Kingdom. I want to make it quite clear that the link between Ulster and Great Britain was only to be broken at the will of Ulster. I think we are all agreed on that point, and that is my attitude to-day. Had the question arisen of forcing Ulster at this moment into a United Ireland Parliament—I do not know that I have any right to speak for other Unionist Members of the Cabinet—I do not think there is one of those sitting on this bench who would advocate such a course. I should not do so, and I do not think any of my colleagues would. However, that question has not arisen.
There has been talk in some quarters as though we were treating Ulster unfairly in that there is a possibility of the taxation in the South of Ireland being less than in the North, and that therefore we are exercising a form of financial pressure upon her. I think that is a very unfair argument, for this reason. Ulster has never at any time that I am aware of claimed that she should be treated on financial grounds otherwise than as an integral portion of Great Britain. That has never been her claim in the past, and I do not think it has been put forward during this controversy. What taxation may be in the North of Ireland in the future time alone will show. I am just an ordinary Englishman, and I think it is not unlikely that the taxes in the South of Ireland may in time be higher than many people at this moment anticipate. But whether the argument of different financial treatment holds at the moment or not, and whether it will hold in the future, is not the point, because differential treatment has never been claimed by Ulster, and the question does not therefore arise. If I thought that in this Agreement there was any differential treatment of Ulster I should not be supporting it, but, so far as the relationship between Ulster and this country is concerned, there is nothing in the agreement to effect it, because she has the option of maintaining the status quo, and, in giving her that option, I feel, and my colleagues feel, that we have made sure of the one point to which we believe we are bound. We made sure of it for

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her, and whether in years to come she thinks fit to come into a united Parliament is her business, and her business alone. I wish to say a few words on that point, because I know that it is a subject that has, in the course of recent discussions, agitated the minds of a great many members of our party. It is very natural that it should have done, but I cannot see, up to the point at which the negotiations have arrived to-day, any cause for anxiety to an honest English Unionist unless he takes the view that to have gone into the Conference at all was wrong. If he takes that view, nothing that I or anyone else can say will move him, and he will show the force of the ideas which he holds by his vote in the Lobby.
There is one other question on which I propose to say rather more, and that is the question which has underlaid a great many speeches to-day, and especially the speech of the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil), to whom I listened, as I always have done, with great delight, if not with perfect sympathy. I never see him rise to speak, or, indeed, the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord R. Cecil), without feeling that in them there are ancestral voices prophesying woe, and, when he rose, challenging the Government, and said that the only remedy which he could suggest was to turn us out and put somebody else in. I could not help asking myself, whom? Was it to be the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith)? Was it to be the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes)? No; the Government which the Noble Lord would favour would be one consisting of himself and the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin, and I do not know which of them would resign within a week. The subject of his speech—and I have heard it in this House, and from friends of my own many times—may be summed up in this, that the Government have surrendered to murder. That is a question which I wish to examine, because it touches every one of us. There is no one in this House who would be less willing to feel that he had surrendered to murder than I shall, and my Friends may rest assured that before I, as a single member of the Cabinet, agreed to a conference. I satisfied myself, at all events, that, so far as I could interpret
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it, I was not surrendering to murder. I know that that view is not shared by all in this House, and I would like, if I may, to put before the House the simple motives which lead me to accept the Conference. The Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University said that what he wanted to see in Ireland was a moral change—a change of heart which would look upon murder as a sin. I quite agree with him, but the obvious retort which springs to one's mind is, Are we going to secure that end by shooting people, and, if so, how many? How are we to know when to stop? Are you more likely to get that by trying to secure law and order by force, or are you more likely to get the moral result by leaving the people free, so that in time the sanctions of their own religion may cut away the glamour, and murder will be removed? It will no longer be murder of those who may be described as oppressors, but it will be murder among themselves, for which they will have to justify themselves before the eyes of the whole world. That is the point raised by the right hon. Gentleman, but it does not touch my point. Did we yield to murder?
Let us look for a moment at the past in Ireland. I do not want to go into ancient history. I venture to question the wisdom of my hon. Friend who spoke just now in dealing too much with ancient history. We have to look forward to-day instead of looking backward. The more one looks back the less likely one is to move forward. We have in this matter to keep our sense of perspective. We have emerged from a very Great War. I will say nothing about that, but the fact remains that it filled our thoughts and lives for years. The rebellion in Ireland filled the minds of that small population in that small country in the same way, but to us in England it did not fill our minds, and, after all we have been through, it seems a small thing. We may be wrong in that, but that is the perspective and the way in which we regard it. It was very small after the terrors which we had passed through, and so it was that when this rebellion took place, rightly or wrongly, we did not regard Ireland as a country in rebellion, but we sought to put an end to it by trying to hunt out the people who were suspected of murder—a slow and tedious process. We had come to a point when it was quite clear

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that, by making war upon the country, we could reconquer it—there is no question about that—and reconquer it sooner than many people think. But it would have meant war; it would have meant treating them as belligerents, and it would undoubtedly have meant bloodshed oh possibly a large scale. What was the question that we had to ask ourselves? Remember that, when I had to put that question to myself, I was not a retired man, sitting in an armchair in a club with my pipe, with no responsibility attaching to the decision I might come to. What I decided must mean for me peace or war. I thought of this—that this country had suffered almost beyond all other countries in the world in the last four years. I reflected that we were the leading nation in the League of Nations; that we had already attended their conferences, that our influence was essential to any successful move forward in the League of Nations. I remembered that we had consented to go to Washington, with a view, not only to consider the question of possible disarmament, but to consider questions of policy which might mean peace or war in the Far East within the next 10 or 15 years. I had these three points clearly in mind, and I felt that, having regard to the part which we had played in the War and having regard to the stand which we were taking before the nations of the world, this country was big enough, before embarking in further bloodshed within our own boundaries, to make one last effort for peace.
Having decided to do that, we took the next step; and what step could we have taken but the one we did, which was to ask those representatives who had been returned to Parliament in the South of Ireland, under an Act passed by this House, to select their representatives to meet our representatives. That was done, and the result we all know. It may be that in parts of Ireland, inhabited by a certain race, remote from contact with the world, ignorant, if you like, of many of the realities of the world, very self-centred by their very name—it is possible that among those people our action might be described as a surrender. It Was not a surrender to us; it has not been looked on as a surrender in our Dominions, from each of which the policy
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of this Government has been fully endorsed—including the Government of New Zealand, of which the Prime Minister, if I remember aright, is an Ulsterman himself, and which is the last Government in the world to congratulate us if, in their opinion, we were shaking hands with murder. The argument that we are yielding to force is the same argument that the extremists in Ireland are using to try and upset this settlement. It is the argument used by all those who turn away from the way of peace and are trying to use the argument of force. I believe this argument, alike in this House and in Ireland, will be defeated, and that the extremists on both sides of the Channel will be beaten. There is a saying of Milton which I came across the other day. It impressed me more than anything I have come across for many a long day. It is this:
"When God wants a hard thing done in this world He tells it to His Englishmen."
If ever a hard thing has been told to his Englishmen, it is in this matter of peace in Ireland, because our history, our pride, our prejudice, and everything stand in the way. But we have made the attempt. We have in this agreement the seeds of peace, and we must take care that by no word or action of ours we prevent those seeds coming to fruition. We have started climbing a very hard and steep path, and when you are engaged in climbing a hard and steep path, if you look backwards you lose your way, and if we look back on the blood-besmeared path we have trodden, with the precipices that lie on either side of it, we shall lose our heads and be incapable of proceeding. Our duty is plain and straightforward. It is to go on in the strength of this agreement we have made, and to go on with faith.
Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned," put, and agreed to.—[Mr. George Thorne.]
Debate to be resumed To-morrow.

ADJOURNMENT.
Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Colonel Leslie Wilson.]
Adjourned accordingly at Eight Minutes before Eleven o'clock.

Preamble
Summoned by Royal Proclamation, dated December 7, 1921, to meet this day "for the despatch of divers urgent and important affairs," Parliament was opened by His Majesty the King at noon.

THE KING'S SPEECH.
THE KING being seated on the Throne, and the Commons being at the Bar with their Speaker, His Majesty was pleased to make a most gracious Speech to both Houses of Parliament, and then retired.
His Majesty's Speech was as follows—
"My Lords and Members of the House of Commons,
"I have summoned you to meet at this unusual time in order that the Articles of Agreement which have been signed by My Ministers and the Irish Delegation may be at once submitted for your approval.
"No other business will be brought before you in the present Session.
"It was with heartfelt joy that I learnt of the Agreement reached after negotiations protracted for many months and affecting the welfare not only of Ireland but of the British and Irish races throughout the world.
"It is my earnest hope that by the Articles of Agreement now submitted to you the strife of centuries may be ended, and that Ireland, as a free partner in
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the Commonwealth of Nations forming the British Empire, will secure the fulfilment of her national ideals.
"I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may rest upon your labours."
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Lord Russell of Liverpool—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his grandfather.

TRIBUTE TO THE LATE EARL OF HALSBURY.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT BIRKENHEAD): My Lords, before the House passes to the grave affairs which engage our attention to-day, it seems to me fitting, and I hope that I shall express the general opinion of your Lordships, that we should not allow the death of Lord Halsbury to pass without mention in this House. He was, I think, the oldest living Peer. For eighteen years he sat in the seat which I occupy to-day, and if you throw your minds back over all the illustrious men who have occupied the Woolsack—and the names of Cairns, Brougham, Lyndhurst, and of fifty others will occur to the memories of those who have had occasion to study the records of my predecessors—it will not, I think, be an exaggeration to say that hardly one of them had occupied over so long a period a position of such supreme authority as that which, by the general judgment of this House, was conceded to Lord Halsbury.

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I could not expect that the majority of this House would be very well acquainted with the technical qualities which Lord Halsbury contributed to the arduous duties of his position. It has been my task and my privilege, it has been part of my legal education, to study the judgments which, over so long a period, Lord Halsbury delivered in this House, and I hardly exaggerate when I say that in the last one hundred years there has not been one Lord Chancellor who has possessed a greater mastery of the English Common Law, who has moved with such easy and confident strides in a field of law in which clarity of view and complete clarity of expression are conceded only to very few.
There was, however, a side of this great Judge which is better known to the majority of your Lordships than the technical one. Your Lordships know well the opinions which this great man held and so freely expressed upon public events. It was at one time said that Lord Eldon was the last of the Tories. Those of us who lived with Lord Halsbury, who knew his views and who listened in this House and elsewhere to the expression of those views, know well that Lord Eldon was not the last of the Tories. Whether the noble and learned Lord who has so recently passed away was the last of all it would, perhaps, be presumptuous of us to declare a final opinion in the light of that which I have already said. But no one in this country, whether Ire agreed with Lord Halsbury or did not agree with him, can withhold from him a meed of warm admiration as a man who had formed, as the result of deep reflection, sure and certain convictions and who never in a long life to the slightest degree deviated from them either in act or in thought. Here in this Assembly of which he was an ornament, over which for so many years he presided, may I presume to make myself the instrument for expressing the regret which all of your Lordships feel for his death and the sense of personal loss which must be experienced by every one of us? I would venture also, if I may be so bold, on your Lordships' behalf to tender our sympathy to his family at the bereavement which has overtaken them.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I could wish that one more competent than myself to speak of those technical accomplishments of Lord Halsbury of which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack spoke could have taken my place in saying
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a word from this bench of regret and sorrow at his loss. I, of course, speak only as an old member of this House to whom Lord Halsbury's figure on either front bench, and formerly on the Woolsack, was so familiar for many years. As the noble and learned Lord has said, he was a Tory of the Tories, but those of us who were opposed to him in politics always found him a most courteous, if sometimes a very trenchant, opponent, and in all the personal relations that we were permitted to have with him we found him a most kind and considerate friend. It will be long before Lord Halsbury is forgotten in this House, not only from those great legal qualifications of which the Lord Chancellor has spoken but also from the personal part he took in debate. He was a man greatly loved by his friends, of many accomplishments beyond that professional distinction of which we have heard, and the whole House will feel, I am sure, that he is one who will not easily be replaced here.
I do not know whether Lord Halsbury, with that love for ancient things which so distinguished him, ever took any personal pride in the fact that he belonged to one of the oldest houses in England, one of the few which could claim as its founder one of the very small number of Earls of the Norman and early Plantagenet days. If Lord Halsbury had any family pride of that kind he certainly never showed it in his bearing or demeanour, but it is, I think, an interesting fact to associate with one who in a sense was the architect of his own fortunes, that he should have been by descent in a position which perhaps not more than ten or a dozen of your Lordships' House can claim. I desire to associate myself with the Lord Chancellor in his expression of regret and of sincere sympathy with the family to which Lord Halsbury was so deeply attached.

LIST OF THE LORDS TEMPORAL.
GARTER KING OF ARMS GARTER KING OF ARMS attending, delivered at the Table (in the usual manner) a List of the Lords Temporal in the Fourth Session of the Thirty-first Parliament of the United Kingdom: The same was ordered to lie on the Table.

SELECT VESTRIES.
Bill, pro forma, read 1ª.
Viscount Morley—Took the Oath.

ADDRESS IN REPLY TO HIS MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH.
VISCOUNT MORLEY: My Lords, I rise to move an address in reply to His Majesty's gracious Speech this morning. There is one paragraph in His Majesty's Speech in which he says that it was with heartfelt joy that he received the intelligence of this Agreement. I am sure that all, even those who do not favour the Agreement, will feel that His Majesty in using those words is declaring a feeling that is shared by enormous numbers of people in England and in Ireland—heartfelt joy! I do not envy any Englishman or Irishman who reads those words without deep feeling. They are not official. They represent the feeling in His Majesty's own mind when he makes this Speech to your Lordships. I do not think that anybody in the House will demur to the last sentence of the Address which I now venture to move in reply to His Majesty's gracious Speech, where mention is made of the reconciliation between Great Britain and Ireland, to which His Majesty's own action has materially contributed.
NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
VISCOUNT MORLEY: I think we all feel that in making that declaration the King has been moved by that gift of sympathetic imagination which, along with acute observation, must be regarded not only as a graceful ornament in the Royal character but as an essential in the Head of a great and powerful State.
I understand that the other day when the King was parting company with his Privy Councillors—I hope it is not wrong in me to refer to it here—he said, in conversation with the Prime Minister, that he recalled some years ago when the cause of Home Rule happened to have received one of its many repulses, that I ventured to observe to His Majesty: "Well, Sir, do not let us be too sure that Your Majesty will not some day perhaps, sooner or later, receive Home Rule proposals from Conservative Ministers." That forecast seems to have been thought by sonic to have been a miraculous and marvellous vision. I do not think it is marvellous at all. The event has shown that it was a probable occurrence.
I understand that there may be Amendments moved to my Motion. I shall take care, in the short time which I venture to
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address your Lordships, not to use any words of a provocative character. It has been said that this is "abject humiliation"—those two words have been used. Those who are called "Die-hards" will take that view. I have no fault to find with a "Diehard" as such. Indeed, I rather think that I myself, outside Ireland, am a humble member of the "Die-hard" persuasion. I cannot see any trace of humiliation in it. The good wishes of the whole world, almost an unparalleled phenomenon, go out to us in this movement. Let me ask a question. The alternative, the opposite, to humiliation is pride. I wonder whether anybody, any Englishman, any citizen of Great Britain, can look back upon the Government of Ireland by Great Britain as an object of pride. Surely, so far from being that, the misrule of Ireland by our country has been a catchword for an age or more. I will put it in this way. A great nation ought to have a good conscience. I submit that as a proposition. I then ask: Can anybody defend the proposition that the government of Ireland all these years has been such as the conscience, the political conscience, can approve? I think not.
Men who have lived long have one privilege among a few—that of being allowed to tell over again old stories. I am certainly not going this afternoon to take up your time in the old story of the Home Rule proposals within the last thirty years. But I would remind your Lordships that the first mention of an alteration in the system of Irish government was the suggestion made, I suppose from this very box, by the Irish Viceroy of that day—Lord Carnarvon, whom Lord Salisbury, then in his first Administration, had made Viceroy of Ireland. I earnestly commend to those who are inclined to take too short a Party view on this side or the other, the words which Lord Carnarvon, the new Irish Viceroy, then used. He said that he had been looking through the Coercion Acts and had been astonished to find that since 1847, with some very short intervals hardly worth mentioning, Ireland had lived under exceptional and Coercive legislation.
It is rather astonishing that a Viceroy should go to Ireland whom that should have astonished so much. It was a cardinal element in the records of our dealings with Ireland all that time that it was by special and coercive legislation. Then Lord Carnarvon went on to say,

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speaking in the none of his Conservative colleagues, that he had recently been to Canada where English, Scottish and Irish citizens were in subjection to the law of the land, and that he did not despair. On the contrary, he thought he saw there an example of the system which might lead to the better settlement of Ireland. Your Lordships will observe that in the middle of July, 1885, the Irish Viceroy, speaking for his colleagues, said that he looked in the direction of the Canadian system and not the system of coercion. I suspect that speech has been long forgotten by most, but it was the beginning of an effective movement towards changing a system of which I hope we are to-day about to see the end.
What does it all mean? Let us look at the history of Ireland, the history of this chronic government by coercion. What does it mean? It was the naked government of another Kingdom by irresponsible force—irresponsible, that is to say, as regards those whom this system was to affect. Coercion Laws were passed, and were smoothly, described as being for the protection of life and property, of respect for ordinary law, and so on. All those methods proved an ugly failure. At this point I would remind your Lordships of this other fact, that the old strong system of government by exceptional laws was never carried out. Conservatives are very often fond of recalling this. When Mr. Balfour was Irish Secretary for five years—I do not wish to say a word as to the administration of those days, but do let us note this when we talk of Great Britain governing Ireland—Mr. Balfour himself, after following the ordinary practice of Coercion Laws for five years, came back, became head of a Government, and, with his Government, was immediately turned out, instead of being received with gratitude. The whole system of Government was changed and left to a Liberal successor. That is only an instance.
Then there was Lord Spencer, who was not a Conservative but a strong Liberal. Lord Spencer administered these exceptional laws with enormous success, and Ireland was superficially quiet when he left. I may say that Lord Spencer was one of the finest characters that it has ever been my good fortune to know. But what happened under Lord Spencer? He failed with a renewal of coercion, and the continuance of that system of government with which he had been so closely concerned
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was no longer possible. He then joined Mr. Gladstone. Your Lordships will observe how things stood.
I have mentioned the name of Mr. Gladstone. I think your Lordships would not forgive me, and I should not forgive myself if, as Chief of Staff, as perhaps I was, in his Government, I were not to take this opportunity of saluting that illustrious name. Mr. Gladstone ran through many years of labour, toil awl sacrifice in order to effect a permanent change of policy. Great fault is sometimes found—in fact, it is often found—with the present Prime Minister because he has secured a Coalition. But I would remind your Lordships that after Mr. Gladstone himself had become an advocate and a champion of a new system of government in Ireland, his first view and his first action was to secure a Coalition, and he was often proud of referring to it in later days. He made a communication to Lord Salisbury, then Prime Minister, and assured him that if he felt it his duty to propose plans for improvement in Ireland, he would find from himself, Mr. Gladstone, no opposition, but on the contrary as much strong support as he could reasonably give. I hope your Lordships will remember that when all this nonsense—if I may use the word without disrespect—is talked to-day. This Coalition was Mr. Gladstone's first and prolonged idea. What would have happened if that Coalition had then taken place, it is idle to speculate. We cannot tell; and we are concerned with the present and the future, not with the past, except as more or less a guide in our future proceedings.
There was one other very important proceeding—if you like, a much more important one—the General Election of 1885. I shall not abuse the privilege of a man of long years in going too far into old stories, but do not forget the Irish General Election of the year 1885. It was one of the greatest surprises of political history. I well remember it myself, and I can imagine that there are many Irish Peers here to-day who will remember it too. It was an immense surprise. It was the first time when, by an electoral rearrangement and redistribution of seats and so forth, there was any attempt to get the real opinion of the Irish population. What happened? As I say, it was most extraordinary. Out of eighty-nine contests in Ireland, Mr. Parnell's men carried eighty-five by overwhelming majorities, some as large as 6,000.

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I submit—and it is worthy to-day of your Lordships' consideration—that no more conclusive and effective repudiation of the government of Ireland was ever made than was made by the Election of 1885. Whether you counted votes, or seats, or forces of which perhaps my noble friend Lord Dunraven will tell us more by-and-by, not only in the south and west but even in the great landlord districts, the result was the same. The Land Acts had made no impression. The Rent Act had done no good. There was no single redeeming point that you could find on behalf of that system of government. You could find no means of testing the feeling of Ireland, and even Ulster, which had returned eight or nine Liberals, now sent them all off and would not have a single Liberal there. The Catholic voter went to the election with the Orange card, and vice versa.
Now let us see where we are. Does anybody suppose that if there was an Election on the same suffrage and distribution, the verdict would be different? I confess that from all I have heard of Ireland, and from all I knew of it when I was there officially, I cannot imagine that it would be so. Of course, it must not be forgotten that we had the enormous influence of Mr. Gladstone and his endless power of industry, given to a cause in which he had no personal interest, at that time. Let us not forget that, but just as I am for recognition of his splendid powers, I am unwilling, and I hope that, many at all events of your Lordships will be unwilling, not to do justice to the present Prime Minister, because I feel, front my own observation and knowledge of Ireland, that if the present Prime Minister had not made up his own mind upon a national policy, and then carried it on with a perseverance, courage and tenacity which are beyond all praise—I feel that by the work which he did, and his colleagues did, they saved Great Britain and Ireland from a formidable and irreparable disaster. I submit that as an Opinion Of my own, whatever it may be worth, for your Lordships' consideration.
After all, what we want is to know the result. For my own part it seems to me that the result is hopeful. I know very well that the work, in one sense, is only just beginning. I will not say only just beginning, because the effective thing is done—namely, the reconciliation of the minds of the British and Irish peoples. See what has happened.
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In Ulster, two or three days ago, Sir James Craig, who is the leader of the Government of Northern Ireland, used these words, and they really deserve the attention of the House in the consideration of some Trish views which they may hear. He said:—
"I am not myself dissatisfied at the moment with the Conference, but—"
I am afraid we must all agree with him here, whether we like the agreement, or repudiate it—
"there are dark clouds and great difficulties. I believe that the first will be swept away, and that the second will be surmounted."
That, as the last declaration which we have from the North of Ireland, makes us sanguine that the time will come when they will meet and work with their fellow Irishmen in the south and west of Ireland. We shall hear what Lord Dunraven has to say on that. This Agreement, and all that depends upon it, and all the measures to carry it further, in the way of good machinery, will all depend upon the continuance, both in Great Britain and in Ireland, of that same spirit that marks to-day as one of the historic, memorable and most spacious moments in our imperial history. I thank your Lordships for allowing me to move the Address.
Moved, That, an humble Address be presented to His Majesty as followeth—
"Most, Gracious Sovereign,—We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.
"Having taken into consideration the Articles of Agreement presented to us by Your Majesty's command, we are ready to confirm and ratify these Articles in order that the same may be established for ever by the mutual consent of the peoples of Great Britain and Ireland, and we offer to Your Majesty our humble congratulations on the near accomplishment of that work of reconciliation to which Your Majesty has so largely contributed.—(Viscount Morley.)
THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN: My Lords, in rising to second the Motion before your Lordships' House I do so with a very keen

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consciousness of the great privilege that has been accorded to me in following the veteran statesman whose distinguished career has been so intimately connected with the cause of Ireland, both in the political aspect, the grant of self-governing power, and in respect of the liberal settlement of the once very vexed land question, and with all other matters connected with the welfare of the country. And I am conscious also of the very slender claim that I have upon that privilege afforded me. I, as a private and independent member of your Lordships' House, have done what I could, but have done very little, to further a settlement of what has been for so long, but will no longer be, the Irish question.
I could do nothing else. I was actuated primarily, no doubt, by affection for the country of my birth, by great sympathy for the people in the pathetic tragedy of their history, and by admiration of their great tenacity of purpose. But I was actuated by many other motives also. I believed that the people of Great Britain—a just and large-hearted people—were ignorant of the real causes of the perpetual discontent in Ireland, and did not understand the people on the other side of the Channel. And of later years it has seemed to me that the reconstruction of society after the great war and the peace of the world were very largely in the hands of the great Commonwealth of Nations that we call the Empire, and perhaps depended entirely upon a complete understanding on essential principles between the Empire and the great Republic across the Atlantic. And, as it seemed to me, the one obstacle that stood between those two great Powers for good, acting in unison and accord, was the discord existing between Great Britain and Ireland. I wanted to do what I could to turn that discord into harmony; and, though I have done but very little, we have now before us a measure that will surely bring it about.
Until the last few days I should have had to admit that all the great work that others have done, and the little that have done myself, had utterly failed; that the cause we advocated was a lost cause; and that failure was complete. Your Lordships may remember that just about a year ago I moved an Amendment to the Second Reading to the Bill of 1920 in this House. I do not want to allude to that except to say that after that debate I admit I left this House in complete
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despair. I thought that the last possibility of an offer that might be accepted and might save bloodshed was gone; thought I was doomed to see Ireland suppressed by military force, wrecked and ruined in the process. For though I very well knew that military force was bound to prevail, I knew, too, that it would be after a bitter struggle, and afterwards a settlement by military force could never be a real settlement. What was I to look to in the future but to the renewal of the struggle by another generation and to all the increased bitterness and hate that had been engendered by suppression by military strength?
And now, my Lords, I find myself having the honour and the privilege of seconding a Motion for an humble Address to His Majesty thanking His Majesty for his gracious Speech from the Throne in which is announced a great act of reconciliation that will completely change the whole relations in the future between Great Britain and Ireland, will heal the feuds of centuries, and bring about an era, I believe, of true friendship, understanding and fellowship between the two peoples. It would be impossible, and it would be useless for me to try, to find words to express the gratitude I feel and the intensity of the feeling of relief. But I should not be sincere if I did not admit that my great joy is suffused also with regret. How can it be otherwise when I look back upon the last twenty years, the opportunities lost, the great mistakes made on both sides, by Governments here, by leaders of Irish opinion in Ireland; and when I think of the catalogue of calamities that might perhaps have been avoided—would surely have been avoided—had more timely action been taken?
But I do not wish to dwell upon the past. I have taken to heart the words of His Majesty in the great Speech—an epoch-making Speech, for it marked the turn of the tide in opening the Northern Parliament at Belfast, when he urged us all to forgive and forget. I wish to forgive and forget. And whatever little time may be left to me, whatever opportunities I may be afforded. I shall devote to doing the best I can to make this great instrument of reconciliation and peace fulfil all that the authors of it could possibly desire.
It is not for me to say anything about the statesmanship, the patience, the determination to win a way out somehow, of all those who were engaged in the negotiations

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and in the Conference of which this great measure is the happy outcome. They have their reward in the consciousness of what they have accomplished, and they will have it brimming over when time reveals the consequences of the noble work they have done. I do not desire, either, to go into the Articles of the Agreement. It is an Agreement of tremendous scope, and it inaugurates a gigantic change. Without injustice to any one, without compulsion, it offers a free people all that they can possibly desire to enable them to govern themselves. It puts their destiny in their own hands. For the welfare of their country they in the future, and they alone, will be absolutely responsible. It is a tremendous responsibility, but responsibility is a great solvent and I believe that under that sense of responsibility many of the differences and prejudices that oppress us in Ireland now will gradually melt away.
There are many people, and I dare say some members of this House, who think that this great act and deed of peace goes too far. There are others, of course, though not members of this House, who think that it does not go far enough. My Lords, it does not go too far. When His Majesty's Government saw that a change of policy was necessary—requiring, as I think, great courage and an act of great magnanimity—when they determined upon a great measure of renunciation and reconciliation, they were wise to make it complete, without reservations or qualifications of any sort or kind whatever. You have to trust the Irish people. If you trust them at all it is wise to trust them all in all, and I believe it will be found that they can be trusted. The Agreement goes too far, know, for many of my friends, but to those who are afraid of this great experiment and who think it will end in disaster and ruin, I would make this appeal. I would ask thorn to be patient, to give the people of Ireland a fair chance to make good, as I believe they can and will make good, to do nothing, to say nothing, that could possibly add to the great difficulties which will have to be surmounted in any case.
I do not wish to refer to the past in any way, but I would like to say this. Whatever may be thought of acts and measures employed during the last few melancholy years, I think that any candid man living on the spot and understanding the conditions in Ireland would admit that under
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the form of government which was set up in Dublin and which the people thought was properly constituted, those in authority and the people themselves displayed qualities of administration and of obedience to the law which augur well for the future of the Irish Free State.
Ireland will want the help of all her friends. The difficulties to be surmounted will be very great. We cannot expect a miracle, and it would be little short of a miracle for any people to take over this great responsibility without difficulty and to put the whole machinery for complete self-government into operation without friction. Ireland, therefore, will want the help of all her friends, and I rejoice to see that my friends the Southern Unionists—I suppose I am one myself but I think we shall have to be re-christened—have received assurances front the Chairman of the Irish Delegation guaranteeing the safeguarding of their interests and asking for their help and support. I am sanguine enough to think, I have faith enough in me to say, that I believe that in time, and in a little time, you will find all Irishmen front north to south and from east to west helping each other in ensuring the prosperity and welfare of what, after all, in spite of all differences and prejudices, in spite of all that is said and done, is the common country of them all.
It is thought by some that this Treaty does not go far enough. I confess that frame of mind is incomprehensible to me. I do not know what may happen in Dublin; I do not know what may be happening there while I am speaking; but of this I feel absolutely confident—that the people of Ireland will not dishonour the signatures of the plenipotentiaries that they trusted to negotiate this great Treaty for them. I cannot understand how any human being can cavil at the terms of this Treaty. No man can deny that it confers upon the Irish people all the powers and all the privileges that are necessary to give them absolute control over their own affairs and to put the whole destiny and future of the country in their hands. Absolute independence can do no more than that, and absolute independence would mean a great deal less. Absolute independence for a small nation situated as Ireland is means isolation. The isolation of a little unit limits her opportunities and prevents her real enjoyment of the solid substance of independence, of freedom, and of liberty.

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These Articles not only give Ireland complete control of her own affairs, but offer her the position of an honoured member of a great Commonwealth of Nations—a position which endues her with a power that in no other circumstances could she possibly have gained, and which while giving her complete control of her own affairs and placing her destiny in her own hands, gives her also the opportunity, a larger opportunity, of doing her duty ill a wider sphere of life. I am very confident that the Irish people will not dream of rejecting this great message of peace which is offered to them. It has been my fortune to see two great historic episodes in history—to see the triumph of militarism when the King of Prussia was proclaimed German Emperor at Versailles in 1871 (a glorification of the great Prussian god of war) and to see that idol overturned, the rehabilitation of a despoiled and suffering nation, and the right of weak peoples to live and of men to be free secured when the Treaty of Peace was signed in the same room in the same place in 1919. Those were two great episodes in history; but I feel sure that, under heaven, this great pact, this great gift, recognition by a powerful nation of the rights of a small and feeble folk, will stand out for ever as a landmark, pointing to the realisation of that grand ideal, a world at peace. I beg to second the Motion before us.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, for a great number of years, I am sorry to say, it has been my privilege, either from this side of the Table or from the other, to follow those who have moved and seconded an Address in reply to the gracious Speech from the Throne, and it has frequently been my lot to express congratulations to those who have moved or seconded, and, further, to express the hope that after so successful a beginning they would be found taking a frequent part in the debates of your Lordships' House. To-day I am not going to commit the impertinence of congratulating either of my noble friends on their speeches, but I do desire to congratulate the noble Marquess the Leader of the House on the fortunate inspiration which prompted him to invite, as mover and seconder of the Address in reply, two noble Lords, both of whom have watched and taken part in the affairs of Ireland ever since Home Rule became a vital issue in 1885, and, indeed, for years before.
I do not desire to dwell upon my own
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feelings on hearing my noble friend Lord Morley move the Address—he and I were associated, now nearly thirty years ago, in the government of Ireland—but I do feel that even those noble Lords in the House who have perhaps disagreed with Lord Morley on almost every political subject could not regard without emotion his presence here to-day in this capacity, he being, since Mr. Gladstone died, the foremost living English champion of the cause of self-government for Ireland. And as regards my noble friend Lord Dunraven, his position as seconding the Address is one of profound interest. He was not a follower of Mr. Gladstone. He was not, in the technical sense, for many years a Home Ruler, but he was always a liberal Irishman, looking forward to a freer form of government in that country. I believe I shall be right in saying that the precise form which this Agreement has taken does not fulfil all the aspirations of my noble friend. As he has often told us, he looked forward to a somewhat different form—a form of federal union between the different parts of the United Kingdom. But that surely makes the adhesion and support of my noble friend for the Government measure of even greater value and importance than if he had been in the ordinary sense a Home Ruler all through.
I do not wish to discuss in detail the terms of the Agreement which has been reached. There will, I conceive, be other opportunities of speaking in greater detail on some of its provisions, but I am able to express my general concurrence with its terms. More than a year ago I said from this place that to my mind any amendment that was made in the form of Irish government, if it was to be a success, must include three separate provisions—in the first place, that there should be a single Parliament for Ireland with due provision for secondary Parliaments or for any precautions that were needed to preserve the rights of the north-eastern counties of Ulster; in the second place, that there should be complete financial control of Irish finance by Ireland; and, in the third place, that there should be no representation of Ireland at Westminster. As I read the Agreement the ideal of His Majesty's Government includes all these three provisions, subject, of course, to certain possibilities regarding Ulster of which a word may be said later.
There is only one actual provision in the Agreement to which I wish to allude.

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By Article 15 of that Agreement, if Ulster agrees to become part of Ireland instead of remaining for a number of purposes connected with Great Britain, there is a long list of subjects safeguarding the interests of Ulster, which are to become the subject of discussion between the Northern and Southern Parliaments. One would have supposed that it would have been possible to include in the Agreement some similar provisions for safeguarding the minority in the South of Ireland. I understand, and Lord Dunraven has already stated, that the Unionists of Southern Ireland have received satisfactory assurances in that regard from those who are qualified to give them on the part of the majority. But it would have seemed on the face of it—I speak without any special knowledge—as though some such provision Might well have formed an essential part of the Agreement itself.
I think it may be fairly claimed on behalf of His Majesty's Government that the Agreement, taken as a whole, is not separatist in any way in its effect. I do not want to go into the reasons which prompt me to make that assertion, but I do not think it can be complained (the term "separatist" having been so often applied to us, who in the old days advocated Home Rule), that this can be described in any sense as a Separatist Agreement. But, as has been indicated by the mover and seconder of the Address, an Agreement of this kind cannot be expected to come into operation without opposition from different quarters. It is bound to receive some opposition from those who, as Lord Morley has said, think it does not go far enough. The men who are the heirs of the Fenians of 1866 and the Invincibles of 1882 are not likely to be content with a measure of this kind. I cannot believe, however, that they are numerous, nor can I believe that other opponents on the same side can be numerous; that is to say, those who are mere doctrinaire revolutionaries and who cling to terms and forms more than they do to the essentials of such a proposal as this.
On the other hand, there will undoubtedly be some opposition from Ulster. It has often been said that we Liberals in the past, and the Nationalist members of the House of Commons with whom we generally acted, did not ever really face the Ulster difficulty when we endeavoured to promote Home Rule. I am not concerned to dispute the proof of that statement, more particularly
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as it applies to our action in 1914. There is this, however, to be said on the other side. It must be remembered that all through Ulster set herself not merely to prevent her being placed under a Dublin Parliament but to prevent the passing of any measure of Home Rule of any kind. We never came to the point when it had to be considered what were the actual demands of Ulster if there was to be a Home Rule Parliament in Dublin. What that demand is we know now. It takes the form of a Parliament of her own; but that was never hinted at or suggested in the old days when we were pressing Home Rule measures on Parliament. In consequence of that the Ulster representatives were enabled to enlist on their side, so as to act uniformly with them, practically the whole of the Conservative Party which took up an unyielding opposition to the idea of any Home Rule of any sort.
At the same time I confess that I frankly comprehend, although I may not entirely sympathise with, the feeling of Ulstermen in view of the undoubted and complete reversal of the policy of His Majesty's Government. That cannot be disputed, and the Government must expect that a great many of their old supporters must feel towards them very much as Lord George Bentinck and his friends felt towards Sir Robert Peel in 1846. In my humble opinion the Government have done perfectly right, but they cannot complain if some of their supporters take this view. But even if they do, I venture to express the hope that as Irishmen Ulstermen will try to make the best of things and see whether it is not possible to carry out the general tennis of this Agreement in a manner which will do no harm to their real interests, to their loyalty, and to their sentiments on any civil or religious subject.
I have always felt that if it broke down, if Ulster were to refuse altogether to remain part of Ireland in view of the establishment of a Parliament in Dublin, the right course would be to attach the administration of Ulster not to England but to Scotland. It would be, I trust, a purely temporary arrangement, because in my view the force of circumstances, sooner or later, and I hope very much sooner, would bring Ulster into accord with the rest of Ireland. But if it were to break down altogether, as a pis aller that is the course which, if I had anything to do with it, I should take.

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I apprehend the position of Ulster and I shall not be surprised, not do I think the Government can be surprised, if some hard things are said about them by those who speak for Northern Ireland. But I confess that I do not comprehend in any sense the attitude of English Tories who are prepared to believe that a renewal of civil war, which is the only alternative, would be preferable to the carrying out of this Agreement. That is an attitude of mind which I confess I am entirely unable to understand, and I should like to think that noble Lords who feel bitterly about this business will pause before they attempt to press any Amendment to the Address which, if carried—though I do not believe it would be carried—would have the effect of destroying the Agreement, and presumably of obliging His Majesty's Government to reconsider their whole position.
On the other hand, there is one question which I feel obliged to ask, because it will be asked by a great many people. Assuming this to be the right course to pursue, assuming that this Agreement can be carried out with the hope of bringing peace to Ireland, why was no attempt made to do it before? Let us see what happened. Up to last June the Government were pursuing the policy of repressing the Irish rebellion, as it was always called, and the country was encouraged to believe that until that rebellion was forcibly suppressed and order was restored there could be no question of reconsidering any of the provisions of the Government of Ireland Act. But at the beginning of June His Majesty's Government were seized with an acute attack of sanity. We all remember the gracious Speech delivered at the opening of the Northern Parliament, to which Lord Dunraven has already alluded— His Majesty's Speech, but also, of course, the speech of His Majesty's Government—in which His Majesty and the Government appealed to all Irishmen to pause and to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation. Two days later the Prime Minister addressed to Mr. de Valera an invitation to confer with himself and also with Sir James Craig.
It was a most happy turn of affairs, but there was no reason that I know of for its being postponed until that particular date. There was no particular issue as between the forces of the Government and the forces of rebellion in Ireland which
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could be said to have been then determined in a way which made conference easy. Things were going on in the deplorable way in which they had been going on for months, and, except for the general weariness which everybody was beginning to feel at what seemed to be the unending course of horrors in Ireland, there was no fact or act which made the selection of that particular moment a natural one. One cannot help feeling, therefore, that those many months of conflict, that succession of ambushes and kidnappings and homicides on the one side and of indiscriminate reprisals on the other side, that terrible tale of broken hearts and ruined homes, might, much of it, have been avoided if action had been taken sooner. I do not want to press the details of this tragedy. History is bound to ask that question. Perhaps politicians can defy history, but the question will also be put by the constituents of right hon. gentlemen and of the supporters of the Coalition, if they claim—as presumably they will after a happy issue—that the Government and its supporters, and they alone, have at last succeeded in bringing about a complete settlement of the Irish question.
The future is, as I believe, hopeful; but it must be difficult. There must be a number of most delicate matters which will be the subject of discussion and of some difference of opinion between those in Ireland who will be affected by their determination one way or the other. But I do venture to hope that the practical common sense of Irishmen, which is a quality belonging to that nation to an infinitely greater extent than is sometimes popularly supposed, will find an answer to those questions and a solution of those difficulties. I believe that it will be found possible to frame the details of government under this Agreement, and so to ensure a fair start for what, however we look at it, must be considered one of the greatest constitutional enterprises that any Government has ever undertaken.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON): My Lords, when I came into the House this afternoon, I found the Lord Chancellor from the Woolsack paying, with an authority which few in this House can equal, and in singularly well-chosen language, a tribute to the great Judge and the remarkable public man who has lately departed from our midst. I should not like, as Leader of the House, to

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refrain from the privilege of endorsing, in one or two Sentences only, the tribute which he offered more particularly on behalf of the profession which he represents.
Lord Halsbury was, indeed, a notable figure in this House. Fiercely attacked in his earlier days, he became in time one of the most historic and respected personalities in the public life of the country. Possessed of al astonishing physical and intellectual vitality, his years were prolonged far beyond the ordinary span, until he appeared to reproduce the tradition and the spectacle of a patriarch of the Old Testament. Uncompromising in his opinions, fearless in the expression of them, he was nevertheless, as Lord Crewe pointed out to us, one of the most open-hearted and kindly of men. The Lord Chancellor spoke of him, I understood, or quoted sons view expressed of him, as "The last of the Tories." That would be an ill-compliment to pay to some members of your Lordships' House. There are still quarters of this House where that type lingers, but this I will say, that Lord Halsbury was, perhaps, the most powerful and moat formidable exponent of that creed. It is not for me to speak of him as a Judge, but I have always been told that his judgments were conspicuous if not merely for erudition and subtlety, at all events for perspicuity, sanity and wisdom. He will fill an honourable place in the list of those who have held the Great Seal in this country, and those of us who recall his long services here will always cherish of him an admiring recollection.
Since we last met another great Judge has passed away, also a member of your Lordships' House, to whom I will only allude in a sentence, and he is the late Lord Lindley. I never remember his speaking in this House, although he may have done so, but I think it may be said of him with truth that he symbolised to a remarkable degree the reputation and distinction of the British Bench.
I come now to the occasion of our meeting this afternoon. It has already been pointed out that it is unlike other occasions—I might almost say all other occasions—in our memory. This session, it is contemplated, will be only a few days in duration. It will probably be the shortest session of Parliament on record. It is to be marked by no legislation whatsoever. The Kings Speech is confined to five paragraphs, and it relates to a single subject only. We are invited to perform at this stage one
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act, and then to disperse. The contrast between this, and all previous occasions, is also marked, as the noble Marquess indicated, by the difference in the duties which devolve upon him and me. Ordinarily, speaking on these occasions, we commence our speeches by conventional, but always sincere and in the majority of cases eminently well-deserved, compliments to the speakers who move and second the Address, and we conclude that portion of our remarks by expressing a hope that they will overcome their natural timidity and address your Lordships often.
No such invocation has it been necessary to address to the two eminent men to whom we have listened this afternoon. I think we may regard ourselves as fortunate to have persuaded to emerge from his retirement, still, we are glad to find, in the enjoyment of good health, one of the foremost figures of our time—a man whom all here regard with honour and those who know him with deep affection—the standard-bearer of this fight in earlier days, the colleague, as he very naturally reminded us, and the interpreter, of Mr. Gladstone, twice himself Chief Secretary for Ireland, and the earliest, the most undaunted and the most faithful apostle of Home Rule. I would fain hope, from the character of his remarks, that he has not found it uncongenial to appear here this afternoon and to address us on the consummation of what he cannot help regarding as the labours of his life. A little while ago he brought out a volume of Recollections. May I suggest that in his retirement at Wimbledon another volume, or at any rate another chapter, be added, regarding this final scene in the struggle in which he has borne so noble a part. I think it only fair, on behalf of this House, to say that we salute those also who during the last forty years have joined or followed him in the struggle, a good many of whom have passed away from our midst.
The seconder of the Address was the noble Earl who sits on my left. He has been, as we all know, a life-long friend of Ireland. He has never failed, in fair weather or in foul, and he has known both, to preach with an eloquence of which we had further illustration to-night, and with a consistency which has never wavered, the cause of Irish unity, Irish welfare and Irish freedom. In less propitious days, and among colleagues with whom he did not always agree, he never wavered in his

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faith, and to-night I am in your Lordships' recollection when I say that his speech was charged with the same qualities—the same generosity, the same faith, and the same appeal to the better instincts of his countrymen which we have so often admired on previous occasions.
There are others whom it would be unfair to omit in our tribute of honour. I was glad to notice that the noble Viscount Lord Morley, specially mentioned the service that has been rendered by His Majesty the King. The influence of the Crown is an increasing rather than a diminishing factor in the life of England, and this, my Lords, without the smallest infringement of our liberties or the slightest strain upon the fabric of the Constitution. There are occasions when the Sovereign can perform an act, or say a word, which no subject, however influential, could attempt, and which expresses, as no subject could do, the views of the people. In this respect His Majesty has worthily borne the torch which was handed to him by his illustrious father. He has known when and how and where to make himself the interpreter of the sentiments and purpose of the nation, and assuredly never did he play this part with greater opportuneness or with surer instinct than when he delivered his moving and manly speech at Belfast to which reference has been made.
Neither would it, I think, be fair to omit—and I have so far noticed the omission—a word of recognition to those who have represented the Government and, I hope, the country also, in these negotiations. One of them sits in this House on the Woolsack—not the least in talent and resourcefulness—and no doubt later on we shall hear much more from him about the progress and details of the negotiations than I am competent to offer. But I do know of my colleagues that for weeks, and indeed months, they devoted their whole time to exploring every avenue, to sifting every suggestion, to considering every alternative, bringing to the examination of the question all the resources of Constitutional Law and practice.
Lord Morley said nothing more fair than when he remarked, as indeed all my colleagues would readily admit, that the chief credit for the result that has been obtained, whatever you may think of that result, is due to the Prime Minister. His inexhaustible patience, his extraordinary power of conciliation have been accom-
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panied—and this I know—by a firmness at critical moments which has never blenched; and even when things were at their worst, just as I remember it so often in the war, he never failed, he never faltered, and he never despaired. Do let us pay this tribute of credit in a quarter where it is so thoroughly deserved.
Before I pass from this subject I do not think, either, that it would be fair to deny many of those tributes to those delegates who represented the Irish Party, engaged in a contest quite unfamiliar to them. I am told that they showed conspicuous ability, great sincerity, and a desire also to bring things to a happy issue. Remember that we are not the only people who have had to sacrifice some prejudices and to surrender some convictions. There has been, perhaps, a good deal of that upon both sides. Let us, therefore, in complimenting our own delegates, not be ungenerous to those of the other side.
The Agreement that has been concluded is in your possession. It is in print, and has appeared in all the newspapers. I had thought originally of putting before you at this early stage of the debate some attempt at an exposition of its clauses, but I realised that that was hardly required. In the first place, this is not a Second Reading debate upon a Bill. Then again, the terms of the Articles are stated in language so clear that he who runs may read; and, thirdly, opportunities, if they are needed, will arise later on of offering any explanation or defence that may be called for. But there are one or two smaller aspects of the case about which you may expect me to say a word in passing in order to render the course of this debate easier as it goes along.
The first point, to which I need only devote a sentence or two, is as to the selection of the title of Irish Free State—a choice which has aroused some apprehension, and met with sonic criticism in different quarters. There is nothing sinister about it. The title was chosen not merely because it gratified the Irishmen, but because it rested upon a distinct historical precedent in our own recent history. In 1848 the country that lies between the Orange and Vaal rivers in South Africa was known as the Orange River Sovereignty. In 1854 its independence was recognised, and it became the Orange Free State. In 1900, after the Boer War, the State was annexed, it

25
became a Crown Colony, and it was called the Orange River Colony. But in 1910, when that great movement took place that culminated in the Convention of South Africa, a reversion was made—and I think happily made to the old title of Orange Free State; and it may interest your Lordships to know that the motion for that reversion was made by Dr. Jameson himself, a man of wide insight and imagination, and I have always been told by those who were in Africa at the time, as indeed I happened to be myself, that no step had a greater effect in touching the hearts anti reconciling the prejudices of many of those to whom he had hitherto been opposed.
The next point about which your Lordships may not unnaturally ask for some information is as to the stages through which, in the immediate future, von will be asked to proceed. We are engaged upon the first stage to-day; that is, asking the approval of both Houses of Parliament—and the same thing is going on in Ireland—of the Agreement that has been concluded. The second stage will be that which is provided for in Article 17 of the Agreement, under Which a Provisional Government is to be set up in Ireland during the period while the Constitution of the Free State is being drafted and set in motion. This will no doubt require some discussion, and will take up a certain amount of time. Legislation will not be required for that object, though it may be that when the Constitution is set up an Act of Indemnity may be called for in order to cover any informality that may have occurred.
The first duty of this Provisional Government, when it is instituted, will be to draw up the new Constitution within the lines laid down by the Articles of Agreement. The Constitution will be limited by these boundaries; it will not fall short of them, neither can it go beyond them. Now, in drawing up that final Constitution—
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Does the noble Marquess say that the Constitution will be drawn up by the Irish Provisional Government, and not by the Government here?
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON: Yes. The draft, at ally rate, will be drawn up by the Provisional Government that is set up. And I was
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going on to say (because it is very pertinent to the inquiry of the noble Marquess) that we earnestly hope that all Parties in Ireland will participate in that act. Mention has more than once been made of the invitation that has been addressed by the leaders of the Irish movement to my noble friend and his colleagues. We hope that they will be represented and that they will take their part, in these discussions, and, for my own part, as regards Ulster, whatever Ulster's views may be of the main Agreement—whether she decides to come in or not to come in—I hope that she, too, may not be unwilling to consider the question of taking part in these discussions which, whether she conies in or not, must have a material effect upon her future.
LORD CARSON: May I ask the noble Marquess whether it is proposed to amend the 1920 Act as regards the finances of Ulster, and whether it will be left, to the Ulster Parliament to frame the Bill, or whether it will be done over here? Because the noble Marquess must know that the whole of the finance is taken away by this proposal.
THE MARQUESS CURZON of KEDLESTON: That is not a question which I should like to answer definitely; I mean, it is a question which, if answered at all, ought to be answered with absolute precision Perhaps the noble Lord will allow that question to be answered at a later stage in this debate.
One other preliminary point I should like to deal with, and that is the point about trade, because here the House may not unnaturally or unfairly expect sonic explanation of an apparent change of view. In our original proposals in July last we stipulated that Great Britain and Ireland should be bound by an agreement not to impose protective duties or other restrictions upon the flow of transport, trade, and commerce, between the two islands. You will see in the Articles of Agreement that we have maintained this stipulation with regard to transport alone.
Under the new Articles, therefore, Ireland is completely mistress of all forms of taxation, direct and indirect; she absolutely controls her own Customs and Excise. The Irish delegates felt strongly that this power was an essential element of the self-government which they desired to attain, and inasmuch as we had originally inserted the stipulation against it more in regard

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for Ireland than in regard for ourselves, we waived it at their request. We trust, however, that this power will not be exercised in any way likely to impair the relations between the two islands. Differential duties have been a fruitful source of irritation, injustice, and alienation in the past. At the present moment, as we know only too well, the erection of tariffs between the States that were set up in Europe by the Treaty of Versailles has unquestionably impeded their recovery from the effects of the war. We do not in the least grudge to Ireland the power to protect new industries or to make safeguards of any sort that she may think necessary for her economic development, but we are very strongly of opinion that the freest possible trade between the two islands is best, and is, indeed, essential for both.
Let me illustrate this to your Lordships by a few figures. The total trade of Great Britain was valued in 1919 at £2,538,000,000. Of this total £306,000,000, or about 12 per cent., was with Ireland. The total overseas trade of Ireland was valued in the same year at £334,000,000, and of this total £306,000,000, or about 90 per cent., was with or through Great Britain. This total, I should explain, includes transit trade through Great Britain of which the figures are unknown, but the transit trade certainly bears a moderate proportion to the whole. Out of the Irish exports in 1919, £94,000,000 were represented by farm produce, food, and drink, while over half the agricultural products of Ireland are in fact exported to Great Britain. Ireland, moreover, is dependent on this country for supplies of iron and coal.
I have quoted those figures in order to show the dominant economic position in which nature has placed Great Britain with regard to Ireland. That was the ground on which we desired to secure for Ireland free trade with this country. Our object was the interest of Ireland, and the assurance of good commercial relations with her for all time. It was not in any way prompted by jealousy of Irish development. I say this in order to make it absolutely clear that the abrogation of the free trade condition was decided at the instance of the Irish Delegates and contrary to our own desires. In practice, the liberty conceded to Ireland is not one which, owing to the conditions which I have described, it will be either possible or desirable for Ireland in her own interests to use against this country.
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Now I pass from those particular observations to the larger issues upon which it is more natural for us to dwell in a debate of this character. A good deal has been said about this message of peace. Is it peace with honour to Ireland and to ourselves? Can our delegates truthfully stand up and make for themselves the same claim which Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury did when they came back from Berlin more than forty years ago? I will endeavour, briefly but fairly, to answer those questions. Is this peace, if it be peace, honourable to Ireland? No one, I think, will doubt that proposition. Lord Dunraven himself said that Ireland has gained more under this than the most sanguine of her supporters had ventured to believe possible. She has obtained the full status of a Dominion. She is in exactly the same position vis-à-vis ourselves as Canada, or Australia, or New Zealand. She has control of her finances, and her trade. She has all the internal attributes and prerogatives of self-government. She is the mistress of her own destinies. Her prospects are equal, and indeed superior, to those which are enjoyed by the greater part of the free States in Europe which were set up as a consequence of the recent war.
I can understand the contention that we have given too much. I am sure that we shall hear a good deal of it in the course of this debate. I will not anticipate that criticism before it is made, and I will not, therefore, attempt to give a reply. I would merely like to indulge in this general reflection. You have to measure the price you pay for a commodity not merely by the value of that commodity at the moment, but by its prospective value in the future. And here, my Lords, I at any rate venture to think that you are purchasing an article which will greatly appreciate in value as time goes on. On the whole, just as in private life we do not condemn a gift because it is munificent or an apology because it is handsome, so also in tins affair I should not like, it would not be fair, to blame our negotiators because the concessions they made were generous, or because their statesmanship was compatible with a belief in the sincerity of those whom they met and was actuated, as it was in many cases, by the highest courage.
But I pass on to a question equally, perhaps more, relevant to the majority of the members of your Lordships' House. Is this measure a measure of peace that is

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honourable to ourselves, to Great Britain, and to the British Empire? Have we sacrificed anything that we ought to have kept? Have we retained the essentials which it was necessary to maintain? Let me state it to your Lordships as I see it. As the result of this Agreement, if it be concluded, Ireland remains within the circle of the British Empire. She becomes a member of that great Commonwealth of Free Nations to which reference has more than once been made this afternoon. Her people are our fellow-subjects in the fullest sense of the term. They own allegiance to the same King. The Sovereign will be represented in Ireland by a Governor-General appointed by the Crown in consultation, as is the case in every Dominion, with the Government of that Dominion. We retain control over her ports and harbours to a degree and in a manner which satisfy the Admiralty, who were looking after her interests. If it be, said: "You have allowed her to have military forces," I reply that at least they are limited to numbers proportionate to her population, which can scarcely conceivably be a source of danger. The Privy Council remains the final court of appeal in Ireland, and if any community or any individual in Ireland feels, for instance, that his or their rights in respect of religion or religious education, as provided for in Article 17 of the Agreement, are infringed by any laws that may be passed in future in Ireland, their remedy lies in an appeal to the Privy Council.
LORD CARSON: Will the noble Marquess say where that appeal is mentioned in the provisions?
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I do not know that it is mentioned in the provisions, but it is inherent in her status as a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. There is given to her no more and no less than is conceded to them. If, however, there is any doubt about it it can easily be made clear. I suppose the full incorporation of Ireland in the Commonwealth of the British Empire could not be, if I may use a certain word on this point, better illustrated than by this, that if any foreign Power were to declare war against this country she would be declaring war against Ireland, and if in any war in the future Ireland attempted to declare her own neutrality that would be an act of secession from the Empire. I have
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thus, I hope, in a few sentences shown that in this Agreement we have vindicated the three essential principles which have over and over again been laid down in your Lordships' House—firstly, the position and supremacy of the Crown; secondly, the security of the United Kingdom; and, thirdly, the integrity of the Empire.
But, for my own part, I look for the vindication of this Agreement not merely to its contents but to its consequence. This will, as I hope, cover the whole field of our national life both at home and abroad. For a hundred years the politics of England have been affected, coloured, and at times embittered, by the existence of an Ireland close to our shores, an Ireland which was discontented, sullen, and sometimes actively hostile. Take our own experience, the experience of those of us in all parts of this House who have been in public life something like thirty to forty years, ever since Mr. Gladstone first went over to the Home Rule cause, nearly forty years ago. This phenomenon of which I am speaking has grown into an obsession, and this menace has at times become an absolute danger. During the time that I remember, Ireland and Irish debates have consumed the time of Parliament; they have blocked British legislation; they have produced scenes of violence, passion, and even of crime, culminating in the tragical experience of the last two years. They have exercised an effect upon our life in this country which has been at one time paralysing, and at another time disruptive and destructive. In peace the Irish have seldom been a solace; they have almost always been an anxiety in war. They have declined to share our burdens. What a relief, what a crowning mercy, if we could lay this spectre at last, and if we could turn this haunted house of Ireland into an abode of happiness and of peace.
When I talk to you of the relief that may be expected, I have a peculiar right to speak, not in the least from my recollections, which are not different from those of anybody else, but from the Office which I happen to fill. There has not been a Foreign Minister in this country during the last fifty years who has not felt, and indeed often stated, that the strength of England was diminished, and her moral influence jeopardised, by the unsolved position of the Irish question. This was felt not merely in the Dominions, where the Irish have been so disturbing a factor, but most

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of all in the United States of America, where the understanding which we so warmly desire has not only been rendered difficult, but almost impossible, by the existence of the Irish question.
As I came down here this afternoon there was put into my hands a telegram from Mr. Balfour, which said that he, on behalf of the British Government, had signed what is called the Quadruple Treaty in substitution for the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. This follows upon the Agreement as regards Naval Disarmament to which we gave our adhesion at Washington a few weeks ago. If, in the same week that these great events have taken place at Washington, we could wipe off from the slate here this Irish question, I know of no obstacle to impair the completeness of the understanding, and the closeness of the co-operation that should prevail in future between America and ourselves, and which is equally demanded by the traditions, the sentiments, and the need of these two great branches of the English-speaking race.
The noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, in the course of his speech, put to me a very direct question. He said: "If this measure is so desirable and so practicable now, why was it not done last year? Why was it not done before? Why have we had to go through all these pathetic and lamentable experiences in the past? "I think that these questions of what might have been, of what could have been done, or of what should have been done, are very futile questions. I am coming to particulars. My noble and learned friend Lord Carson smiles.
LORD CARSON: No; I laugh.
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON: But it is a serious question, and I am prepared to give a serious answer to it. I might, I suppose, retaliate by saying, why did not Lord Morley, or Mr. Gladstone, or Mr. Asquith give, instead of the patchy Home Rule which they offered, something more substantial and more like that which we are giving now? I might say why, when Mr. Disraeli or Lord Salisbury extended the franchise, did they not give the much wider extension which was afterwards found possible and necessary? The fact is, if you look at history, you find that it is almost invariably by slow and painful, and sometimes by bloodstained stages that great
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events like the liberation of a country or the attainment of freedom are secured. Each stage is perhaps an unconscious contribution to the final issue, and of every great event in our history it is true that it has been brought on quite as much by the failures as by the successful efforts of the past.
Let me give a more direct reply to the question. I can imagine many forms of argument that might be developed in explanation of the success of this solution, if it be successful. I can imagine one set of persons arguing that had it not been for the war, and for the passion for peace that has been engendered by the war, it would never have taken place. I think there is a great deal of truth in that. I can imagine another set of persons arguing that had it not been for the existence of a Coalition Government it could never have taken place. I think there is a great deal of force in that. But I can also imagine a third set of persons holding the view that had it not been for what I have called the tragic experiences of the past year in Ireland, and the horror which they have bred in the minds of all men of both sides, the Irish Party would never have been persuaded to drop the claim for independence which they had put forward.
There is yet another point. I suggest to noble Lords as an indisputable proposition that you would never have got this settlement had it not been that Ulster, by the legislation which we passed here in 1920, attained a separate being of her own, with her own rights entrenched therein behind an Act of Parliament. I do not know whether Ulster is going to accept this plan.
LORD CARSON: She will not.
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON: That remains to be seen. I am quite sure that Nationalist Ireland would never have accepted it before. Her idea up till last year has always been to intimidate and coerce Ulster into surrender. From the moment the Irish Act of last year was passed that became impossible. Ulster is in a position to defend herself, as we are told she means to do, more effectively than otherwise she could possibly have done.
I think we are justified in noting with some attention the reception with which these proposals have met. I do not say

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that the news of this settlement was received in this country with anything comparable with the excitement that followed the declaration of the Armistice in November, 1918. The circumstances were different. In the first place, the settlement came so suddenly, and with an element of surprise in view of the news which had been circulated a little before. In the second place, people were not certain that it was still capable of being carried out. But I do truthfully say, and believe some of the speakers have said it before, that there was a silent sense of relief in all parts of the country that was positively overwhelming; that there was not a home in which satisfaction was not felt, and not a pulpit in a single church in which on the following Sunday it was not expressed. The fee ling was universal in all our minds that the great weight which has been lying upon the conscience and spirit of the nation for years was lifted, and that we could look ahead with greater confidence than we had hitherto been able to do.
And, after all, do not take the sentiment of this country only. Are we not entitled to attach sonic weight to what was said by our Dominions and by foreign countries? When this Agreement came out there was not a single Premier of a single Dominion of the British Crown who did not telegraph his congratulations, and not a single foreign Government that did not express their sense of satisfaction to His Majesty's Government. They felt, and felt truly, that England had added to her strength and glory by this act of reconciliation, and at a bound our reputation and our prestige stood higher in the world.
The reception that, this Agreement meets with in Parliament is a different matter. The present debate will show what reception it meets with from various sections of Irish opinion in the House of Lords. As regards the Southern Unionists it is not for me to anticipate what their attitude may be, but I observe this, that in reply to the conciliatory advances from one of the leaders of the Irish Delegation, who knows just as well as any man that Southern Ireland cannot subsist in the future without the experience, the services, and the patriotic aid, of men like Lord Midleton who live there—I note that in response to that invitation, couched in most conciliatory terms, an encouraging and sympathetic reply was returned by my noble
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friend. I know that we may rely upon him to spare nothing in respect of conciliatory temper and good will that may promote a good result.
As regards Ulster she will presently state her own ease, and it is not for me to forecast what that case may be. Her most powerful spokesman now sits on the benches opposite. I understand he is going to follow me in the debate. I hope he will pardon me if I say, having known him both in a public and private capacity for many years, that I have often seen and heard him in the House of Commons, while defending with inflexible courage the interests of the community of whose cause he has been the principal champion, indulge, nevertheless, in gestures of supreme and passionate belief in the destinies of his own country, in confessing a love of Ireland no less than a love of Ulster, and confessing too, his willingness to join hands even with those who have been his rivals and his foes in the furtherance of a larger and common aim.
The noble and learned Lord has now become a judge, a member of the highest Court of this Realm. I hope that because he has become a Judge he will not become less generous, but rather that the equipoise of his judgment will be even more solidly fixed. I hope that in our debates and the solution of this matter, if I may not utter an impertinence in saying so, he will remember that he is not only an advocate but, by virtue of his judicial position, he has become in large measure an arbiter.
As for Ulster as a whole, she is assured of a sympathetic reception for her case in whatever form she chooses to place it before this House. This House has always fought the battles of Ulster with uncompromising sincerity. I remember that in the last debate in which the noble Viscount and I took part, in January, 1913, on the Second Reading of the last Home Rule Bill before it was rejected by this House, Lord Londonderry, the father of the present noble Marquess, made a powerful and passionate appeal on behalf of Ulster, and I remember the day after in my small way endorsing that appeal, and speaking on behalf of Ulster, and Ulster almost alone. We are just as keen now as we were then in our desire that Ulster, if she comes into this Agreement, shall secure all the guarantees she has a right to ask, and that if she stays out, she shall not suffer for doing so. I remember particularly the loyal and self-

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sacrificing part which was played by Ulster and her spokesmen here in the debates on the Government of Ireland Bill of last year. I recall the self-abnegation and the magnanimity with which those spokesmen accepted an agreement, a solution which none of them really liked, but which they were prepared to carry out in the larger interests of their country.
The future of Ulster is, of course, in her own hands. Nothing that we can say can make much difference. But personally—if one is entitled to a personal opinion about the matter—I have never wavered in my belief that the ultimate destiny of Ireland, whether it be accomplished earlier or later, is to be a united country, and that the barriers of history, sentiment and religion, formidable as they are, are barriers which are not destined to be permanent, and which will ultimately yield to the compelling force of nationality. I have never made a speech in this House on Home Rule (and I have made several) in which I have not expressed that aspiration, and I have never given a vote in the Cabinet on any Home Rule matter which was not inspired by that hope. The appeasement of Ireland, the pacification of Ireland is a great thing, but the union of Ireland will be a much greater thing, and I should like, and I still hope, to live to see it.
Perhaps your Lordships will allow me, from my experience of the last few years, to put before you the larger vision of the future of Ireland in which I venture to indulge. I contemplate not merely a peaceful Ireland or a prosperous Ireland, taking advantage of her great resources; I contemplate an Ireland which shall be a willing and a valuable member of the Commonwealth of Nations that constitutes our Empire. During the last seven years, since the war began, I have realised, in a manner which I should have deemed incredible before, the strength, the dignity and the independence enjoyed by those constituent elements of our Empire. In domestic affairs they are practically independent. In Imperial affairs their Ministers attend our Councils, they are kept informed of our policy, they see all the most important papers. The day-by-day conduct of the foreign affairs of the Empire is, of course, in the hands of the Foreign Office; that is determined by conditions of geography and convenience. But from time to time those Ministers come here to review the whole field, and if any substantial change or departure is contemplated,
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either in their relations or in Imperial affairs, it is only by the consent of the Imperial Conference, which has insensibly developed into a sort of Imperial Cabinet, that the thing can be done.
These are the conditions of peace. In war time these Ministers take their seats at the council table; they become Cabinet Ministers; they are responsible for the great decisions that regulate the conduct of the war; they help to direct the war policy of the Empire, to determine the movement of troops, the strategy of campaigns, and so forth. When war is concluded, they attend the meetings of the Supreme Council, wherever they are held; they sign the Peace Treaties; they are in a position of absolute equality with Great Britain; they are incorporated in the League of Nations—as Ireland, I hope, will shortly be, for if this Agreement be accepted she has only to ask it—and they enjoy an independent status there.
These are the advantages, as I see them, winch are open to Ireland. Will her citizens be so blind as to refuse them? Shall we be so narrow as not to offer them? If we give them, and if she takes them, there lies before her a future not merely of material prosperity, but of power and prestige of which she has never hitherto dreamed. I hope that it may be ours to realise the vision which is in our grasp, and hers to embrace the destiny that is offered to her.
LORD CARSON: My Lords, in venturing to address your Lordships' House for the first time I am bound to admit that the only pleasure I find in such an operation is in having to welcome here the mover of this Address, Lord Morley. I cannot but recollect that it was his speech in the House of Commons just thirty years ago which, when I first spoke there, I had to answer. I think it is befitting that he should attend here at these splendid obsequies of the Unionist Party. I think he is a very proper person to pronounce the funeral oration over all that has been said and done by that misguided Party (as we have just learnt from the noble Marquess) for the last thirty-five years, dead and buried front today, with all this engineered splendour to cover up the defeat and humiliation you have had in Ireland; dead and buried, strangled, without consultation with their followers, by the leaders and trustees who were sent into the Government to protect them.

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The seconder of the Address is a brother Irishman. I have known him many years. His one great characteristic has always been that he never could agree with anybody on any subject, and I cannot but congratulate him that this evening he has at last found peace and understanding in the knowledge that he will now be under that perfect Government which will be evolved out of the murder gang in. Ireland. I wish him every success and every happiness in the future of his country and of his own life there.
But, after all, we must come down to the realities of the situation. I wish I had something of the eloquence of the noble Marquess in advocating his new-found faith. I wonder when it came to him. It would be worth inquiring. Was it yesterday, or was it the day before? Why, it is not very long ago that he used to tell us that black was very black, just with as great eloquence as he has assured us that it is very white. He has what they call in boys' slang "gone the whole hog." It is always the way with a man who has a newly-found faith. I believe in religion they call him a pervert, but I should be sorry to apply an epithet of that kind to so great, so eloquent, and so superior a man as the noble Marquess.
It is a curious thing. I once heard the late Duke of Devonshire. It was one of the earliest political meetings I ever attended and it was in Dublin, and he was commenting upon the then recent change of Mr. Gladstone on this very question. Having quoted some of his previous utterances, the noble Duke made this remark, which I commend, if I may most humbly, to the noble Marquess. He said:—
"Is it necessary that because a man turns his coat he should divest himself of every particle of his raiment?"
I suggest to the noble Marquess that it was not in the least necessary, because he came down here with his coat turned, that he should have tried to picture himself in such a state of absolute nudity as his speech appeared to indicate.
I read a statement in an essay in a paper a few weeks ago by that great statesman, so intimately connected with Ireland, Mr. Birrell. He said this, and I never knew it was true till I heard the noble Marquess speak this evening—
"It is a British characteristic, though not an amiable one, that once we are beaten we go over in a body to the successful enemy, and too often
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abandon and cold-shoulder and snub, both in action and writing, the suffering few who adhere to our cause in evil and difficult times."
I am one of the suffering few. I speak for a good many. I speak—I can hardly speak—for all those who, relying on British honour and British justice, have in giving their best to the service of the State seen them now deserted and cast aside without one single line of recollection or recognition in the whole of what you call peace terms in Ireland. The noble Marquess paid a generous and eloquent tribute to Michael Collins, the head of the murder gang, as Sir Hamar Greenwood described him only a few months ago in the House of Commons.
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I never mentioned him.
LORD CARSON: You mentioned the delegates. Perhaps you did not know he was one of them. I do not know if you were ever there, but he was. He committed many murders with his own hands—the hand that you have now so willingly grasped. But I heard nothing said of a case that I saw in the newspapers only two days ago—a letter written by a brokenhearted mother, whose son had been through the whole war and won honour and distinction for himself, and safety and security for you. The recompense he got was that when he went to see his mother in Ireland he was foully murdered, and the next night her house was burned down, and, while you and your colleagues were carrying on all these negotiations in Downing Street, without remonstrance or interference every single article that this broken-hearted woman had was being auctioned off in the light of day.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: During the truce?
LORD CARSON: Yes, during the truce, and while the negotiations were going on in Downing Street, and you, the Government, are proud of the results that you have brought about. Well might Lord Crewe ask, as he did ask, why, if you are so certain of all this peace being gained by the abandonment of Ulster, did you go on for a year or two years sacrificing these precious lives, and rendering desolate households whose only crime was that they thought you were going to back them up. In that same letter I saw it stated that this young officer was murdered solely because

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he dared to refuse to subscribe to Sinn Fein, because he thought it was dishonourable; and all the time you were plotting to throw him over and to give to Sinn Fein what you had denied to him—natnely, the honour and the glory of having beaten this terrible organisation of crime and assassination which existed in Ireland.
I would like to know where we stand at the present moment. I notice in the Resolution moved by the noble Viscount for an Address in reply to His Majesty's gracious Speech that we are asked to confirm and ratify what you are pleased to call these Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland. Was ever a House of Lords or House of Commons put into such an extraordinary position? Just see what it is. For thirty years or more the late Unionist Party has been fighting the question of modified Home Rule—as I think the noble Marquess called it, a "milk-and-watery Home Rule," or something of that kind. All of a sudden they say that that Home Rule is not good enough; you must have the real thing; the country must abandon Ireland at the very heart of the Empire to independence, with an Army, with a Navy, with separate Customs, with Ministers at foreign Courts, and delegates to the League of Nations, where they can vote against you.
And how is it presented to the country? I do not believe, in the whole of the history of our Constitution, anything approaching it has ever been attempted. It is brought out one morning cut and dried, signed, scaled, and delivered; and before making this great act of constitutional change, which is to break up the United Kingdom and, in the words of Sir Hamar Greenwood, to smash the British Empire, you are not to present this to Parliament or to the country, but you are to advise His Majesty to give his consent. I say there never was a greater outrage attempted upon constitutional liberty than this Coalition Government have attempted at the present time.
I should like to ask you this. If Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Asquith had attempted to do what you are attempting to do in this case, what would be the speech that the noble Marquess would have made in those circumstances? It would repay the noble Marquess to see what the leader of the Party in the House of Commons said in 1914, when the milk-and-watery Home Rule Bill was put upon the Statute Book.
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Why, I was ordered to walk out of the House of Commons with indignation—which I did. And now not only am I to have no indignation at the grant of what they are pleased to call Dominion Home Rule to Ireland—and I will show you what they said about it themselves two or three months ago—but I get a long lecture from the noble Marquess which, may I say, I hope in the future he will spare me; because the man (let me speak plainly) who, in my opinion at all events, has betrayed me, has no right afterwards to lecture me.
There you get it all cut and dried, like an Act of Parliament signed by the King. I saw the other day that Mr. Asquith, with whom I never have much sympathy, and never have had, made a speech and said an unusual thing had happened, that when all this came out, of which he entirely approved—indeed, I think he claimed to be the author of it—he felt an unaccustomed moisture coming down his cheeks. I do pot wonder.
And how beautifully it has all been managed! The stage management is one of the most perfect things I ever recollect. The chorus in the papers, frantic telegrams to every Prime Minister to send back another telegram in order that we might have it published here. I know the Prime Minister so well, for I served under him. Make no mistake, I am grateful for all that he did in the war; but I know his methods. "Now I give The Times into your charge; I give the Daily News into your charge; and the Daily Chronicle into your charge; you see that they are all in a chorus tomorrow." And so they are. And do you think either we or the country are going to be taken in by this manufactured glorification of what you are pleased to call the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland? No, we are not. We tell you, if you want to pass it, go and ask the country, but you will not dare. That is the last thing you will do, or the last thing you care about. And all this comes from the long continuance in office of a Coalition Government which was formed for entirely different objects and entirely different purposes.
One thing the noble Marquess entirely forgot to tell us was how the Government came to the conclusion that these Articles of Treaty were so much for the benefit of the country. The difficulty I have in commenting upon them at all is that, unless as a matter of mere pretence, when

41
we are seeming to be very dignified and concerned, there is not a noble Lord in this House who believes for a moment that these terms were passed upon the merits. Not at all. They were passed with a revolver pointed at your head. And you know it. You know you passed them because you were beaten. You know you passed them because Sinn Fein with its Army in Ireland has beaten you. Why do you not say so? Your Press says so, and you may as well confess it. There may be nothing dishonourable in it.
But when we are told that the reason why they had to pass these terms of Treaty, and the reason why they could not put down crime in Ireland was because they bad neither the men nor the money, nor the backing, let me say that that is an awful confession to make to the British Empire. If you tell your Empire in India, in Egypt, and all over the world that you have not got the men, the money, the pluck, the inclination, and the backing to restore law and order in a country within twenty miles of your own shore, you may as well begin to abandon the attempt to make British rule prevail throughout the Empire at all.
How did this new-born faith come into existence? I have here a speech of the noble Marquess's leader, which I have no doubt he has read over and over again out of loyalty. This speech was made on October 9 of last year. I am sorry that I shall have to inflict upon the House a certain number of quotations, because I want to show the House the unreality of the pretext put forward for these Articles of Treaty. Here is a speech made on October 9 of last year at Carnarvon by the Prime Minister, and I might mention before I read the passage, in order that you may thoroughly understand what happened, that Mr. Lloyd George, upon rising, was vociferously cheered. Now listen to it:—
"Mr. Gladstone went to what he considered to be the safe limit in his concessions to Ireland. There were many who thought he went too far. He went as far as he could consistent with the security of the United Kingdom and of the Empire, and consistent with supremacy in Ireland. The same applied to Mr. Asquith in 1912. But there are men, and responsible men, who would go far beyond anything Mr. Gladstone ever thought safe"—
that was the noble Marquess to-night!
"far beyond that which Mr. Asquith himself thought safe in 1912, and I have got to deal with these appeals which have been made."
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Now mark this—
"Why are we asked to go further? I protest against the doctrine that you should go further and give more, not because Ireland needs it, not because it is fair to the United Kingdom, but because crime has been more successful. It is a fatal doctrine for any Government in any country (Loud cheers). Give it because it is right. Give it because it is just. Give it because it is good for Ireland and good for the United Kingdom. Give it because it brings peace and good will, but do not give it because you are bullied by assassins."
And that is what you did, or are trying to do.
We have heard a great deal about delivering the goods. "Only show me somebody," said the Prime Minister, "who can deliver the goods." What goods has anyone delivered? I know of no goods that have been delivered as a consideration for these concessions, but five hundred or six hundred bleeding corpses of men who have tried to do their duty and have lost their lives in the service of their country.
Look at the document! I defy anybody to show me anything in that document but one provision, and that is that Great Britain should scuttle out of Ireland. You may talk of a Free State. You may put in window-dressing about the status of the Colonies and everything else, but from the beginning to the end of this document there is nothing you will find except that England, beaten to her knees by the gun of the assassin, says: "We are willing to scuttle out of Ireland and to leave to the tender mercies of the assassins everybody who has supported us in the past." I noticed this as I looked through these provisions, and I looked through them with anxiety. I know that since the truce was entered into and while you were parleying in Downing Street with, and making up your minds as to the sincerity of, these men, they were taking possession of the lands and properties of men in Ireland by force and without any interference upon the part of our splendid Coalition Government. What provision is there about that in this document? Not one word. You leave them in undisturbed possession. You know well that you have not even the courage to tell them that they ought to have the externals of decency in the pretence of carrying out what is supposed to be a peace charter for Ireland.
But let me not be mistaken. It may be that you have to start in a consideration of this question upon the basis that this

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country was not strong enough to put down crime in Ireland. It may be that that is so. I do not know; I have not the means of judging. I regret it and I feel humiliated by it. But I know that we have gone through a great and terrible war, and it may be that by reason of the expense or of the slaughter that would occur either to your own men or to the people in Ireland, you were bound to abandon Unionist policy and to give up Ireland, which you had tried for so long to retain as a constituent part of the United Kingdom. It may be that that would become necessary. But I ask your Lordships, ought Unionist leaders to have been parties to that—Unionist leaders who had undertaken to defend Unionist policy? At least, they might have said what Peel said and, unfortunately, did not do: "I was elected for another purpose; I was put into office by those who were my followers for another purpose. If there is to be a change of policy it is not for me to carry it out." That, I think, would have been a more honourable position to take up in public life, but the truth of the matter is that if you go on like this, if you have men in high positions stating to-day that A. is white, and to-morrow arguing that it is certainly black, you will destroy the confidence of the democracy of this country in its rulers and in its institutions. I believe that is what has happened in this case, and it will make public life and politics stink in the nostrils of the country for the next twenty years.
When I took up this document involving independence, finance, and the granting of an Army and a Navy, I thought that I recollected a good deal that was said by the Prime Minister during the past year in the House of Commons and elsewhere about the impossibility of granting these things. Here is what he said on February 8, 1921, in very welcome surroundings no doubt, at the meeting of the executive of the Welsh National Liberals at the Central Hall, Westminster.
"They must have an Irish Republic, an Irish Army, an Irish Navy. They won't get it."
But you have given it. Will it be given to them by this now Party? If it will, we ought to know.
"It is the most dangerous menace to the life of this country that there ever was. If they do not get it they will kill our policemen and our soldiers, not in open fighting but in hiding, in
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houses, walking about as respectable tenant farmers, swaggering along the road until they come to their hiding place, where they find rifles ready placed for them, passing perhaps on the way the very policeman they are about to murder, as if they were innocent men. They are not open, straightforward fighters."
If I had the time, and if you, my Lords, had the patience, I could trace through the utterances of this great statesman and you would find that his enthusiasm for the preservation of the status quo has cooled as the number of murders multiplied in Ireland. Later, on June 15, 1921, he said at a semi-religious ceremony, the General Assembly of the Calvinistic Methodist Church of Wales, speaking there, no doubt, as a man of peace—
"There can be no doubt in the mind of any reasonable man that if Ireland were given complete independence, with its own Army, and control of its own ports, and powers to enter into Treaties with foreign countries, whether they were friendly or hostile to us, that would place Britain in a position of such peril that I should hesitate to think what might befall in the event of a repetition of either the great struggle with Napoleon or the struggle with Germany."
Now, however, that is all put down, cut and dried, with the King's assent, without the country having the slightest opportunity of passing a verdict upon it, and without the terms being even examined in the way that we were accustomed in the old days to examine proposals of political Parties when they were brought forward.
There are other utterances of the Prime Minister which, I think, will repay a perusal. Here is one where he tackles poor Mr. Asquith. This is what he said in a speech at Carnarvon—
"I put to Mr. Asquith a question in the House of Commons—"
I remember the scene perfectly well. I think I was rather exuberant over the way the Prime Minister dealt with Mr. Asquith, but at that time I did not know, as I know now, that I was a mere puppet in a political game. I was in earnest. I was not playing politics. I believed all this. I thought of the last thirty years, during which I was fighting with others whose friendship and comradeship I hope I will lose from tonight, because I do not value any friendship that is not founded upon confidence and trust. I was in earnest. What a fool I was. I was only a puppet, and so was Ulster, and so was Ireland, in the political game that was to get the Conservative Party into power. And of all the men in

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my experience that I think are the most loathsome it is those who will sell their friends for the purpose of conciliating their enemies, and, perhaps, still worse, the men who climb up a ladder into power of which even I may have been part of a humble rung, and then, when they have got into power, kick the ladder away without any concern for the pain, or injury, or mischief, or damage that they do to those who have helped them to gain power.
This is what the Prime Minister said in October last year—
"I put to Mr. Asquith a question in the House of Commons. I said you are talking about Dominion Home Rule—"
The noble Marquess told us to-night that that is exactly what they are giving. The Prime Minister spoke of it as if it were a ridiculous idea—
"You are talking about Dominion Home Rule, but the Dominions have got Armies and Navies of their own—"
A terrible point that against Mr. Asquith.
"Their ports are entirely in their control. They can shut their ports against British ships, and we know perfectly well that we could not interfere—"
No more than you could interfere with Ireland.
"I ask, would you give the same rights to Ireland? If not, it is no use talking about Dominion Home Rule."
And yet every word of that the Cabinet have now agreed to, without consulting, so far as the Unionist members were concerned, the Party, and without consulting the country. They have agreed to pass into law all that. It may be right or it may be wrong, but I say, if that is the way measures are going to be allowed to be passed in this country, then set up an autocracy in Downing Street and get rid both of the House of Lords and of the House of Commons.
But that is not all. There is another quotation—
"Nobody wishes to manage Ireland's domestic affairs, but dangerous weapons like Armies and Navies I think we had better not trust them with. It would hurt them to grasp weapons of that kind, and for the sake of Ireland they had better not have them, As far as I am concerned, and I speak on behalf of the Government, we shall certainly resist out and out any demand for an Army or Navy to be set up in Ireland at our doors to menace the existence of the United kingdom."
And you, my Lords, are expected to be the complaisant puppets of His Majesty's
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Government, and without demur and with extreme politeness, such as we heard in all the speeches which went before mine, to take off your hats and say: "Thank God for our Prime Minister and our Foreign Secretary and all the rest of them. They have done everything which they told us would ruin the United Kingdom, and with the open minds they have, and great hearts, are prepared even to risk that for the sake of putting down assassination in Ireland."
But that is not all. Upon what issue I did you go to the country? You went to the country upon the issue setting up the Home Rule Act, which was on the Statute Book; which retained the Army and Navy here, which retained all finance here, which provided that Ireland was to have only a subordinate Parliament and which preserved the supremacy of the Crown. The noble Marquess and I used to go down to platforms together and tell the people that that Act would be absolute ruin to this country and mean the break-up of the United Kingdom and the Empire. I suppose you were humbugging all the time and had your tongue in your check. I was not. I was taking risks, right or wrong; and you were encouraging me all you knew. Many a man who is now party to all this treason and treachery has come up to me time after time in the House of Commons and elsewhere, and said, "For God's sake do not give way an inch, and we will win the next Election."
I hope you are proud of your Treaty. Let me say this, and it is the last word so far as this point is concerned. I think it is an innovation which this House ought very carefully to consider—namely, the entry into a Treaty between different parts of one Kingdom. Was such a thing ever heard of before? The next time you have a dispute in the coal fields of this down you will find suddenly coming down here, with the King's Assent to it beforehand, a Treaty between England and: the coal-owners and coal-miners of Yorkshire, Derbyshire and elsewhere.
A Treaty! On the very face of the document itself it is false. It says: "A Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland," and before you signed it you never even asked Ulster. Nor is her signature necessary. It is only to be signed in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and by this House, and your Lordships, Who only last year set up a separate entity in the

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six counties consisting of 1,200,000 people, disregard that as part of Ireland. But when you come to ask for contributions and taxes then you say: "Small patch as you are" (to use Mr. Asquith's phrase) "you must pay 44 per cent. of the contribution." I say the document has a lie on the face of it. And it is put there purposely. It is put there for this reason—that you wish to admit in the presence of those men, because you were afraid of them, that they were representative of the whole of Ireland. They are not, and please God they never will be.
Let me say before I sit down—I deeply apologise to the House for the time I have taken—a word about Ulster. Like everybody else, you have betrayed Ulster. The noble Marquess, in his lecture to me, hoped that I would advance opinions that Ulster should come in. This constant preaching at Ulster is nauseating. The other evening I saw with disgust that Mr. Austen Chamberlain, the son of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, having agreed to put Ulster into these terms, then said he made an appeal to the comradeship of his old friend Sir James Craig to come in and submit to the domination of Sinn Fein. I could not help thinking that it was very like, after having shot a man in the back, going over to him and patting him on the shoulder and saying: "Old man, die as quickly as you can, and do not make any noise."
Your Lordships, I have no doubt, read the papers. I hope you read more of them than I do. For the last three or six months the whole vitriolic power of the Press, inspired by No. 10, Downing Street and their able propaganda department, have been carrying on week after week and day after day a campaign of falsehood and misrepresentation against Ulster, bellowing, bullying and blustering as if Ulster cared one farthing about it. But why is all this attack made upon Ulster? What has Ulster done? I will tell you what Ulster has done. She has stuck too well to you, and you believe that because she is loyal you can kick her as you like.
In 1914 the whole Conservative Party, headed by the noble Marquess, had pledged the whole force and power of the Party and, if they got into the Government, of this country, to maintain and keep Ulster outside the modified Home Rule Bill of 1914. What has happened since to change your attitude? When the war came on
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and you were in want of men, just at the point when you were turning Ulster (as she thought, at all events) out of the United Kingdom, I was asked to go over and try to raise a Division. I had to go to the men who were smarting under the fact that you were trying to turn them out of the heritage of citizenship to which they were loyal and devoted, and I had to say to them: "Never mind; that is merely an act of the Government and not an act of the poeple; the people are all right, and, after all, our union and the United Kingdom are all wrapped up in the success of this war." I said to them: "Go and enlist, go and bring glory to Ulster and safety to the Empire; that is your first duty." And they went, and they suffered, and they lost thousands and thousands of men, while your new-found friends were murdering your troops in the city of Dublin. Is it that which has turned you from your desire to help Ulster?
And then, in 1916, after the Rebellion, I was asked by the present Prime Minister, at the instigation of Mr. Asquith, who was then his chief, to go to Ireland and to try to induce the Ulster people to agree to the setting up of the Act of 1914 in the south and west on the condition that the Six Counties should be left out. I knew they would hate it, but I cared more about the success of the war than I did even about Ulster. I am not ashamed to say it, because I thought the one involved the other. I went over, and I had as a guarantee a letter from the present Prime Minister, which I shall always keep as a precious possession, guaranteeing me that the Six Counties would be left out, and that they never could be put back again without an Act of Parliament. Was it my action on that account which has turned you to take a different attitude towards Ulster?
Again, conscription was brought in for Ireland—in my opinion far too late, and at a very fatal moment, as I advised at the time—and Ulster was willing to be conscripted. But all your friends, your new-found friends in Ireland, went down and met together in solemn conclave with the Catholic hierarchy, and determined to send to perdition anybody that dared even to advocate and allow it. And there again they beat you. Was it that which turned you against Ulster? And in 1920, when this Government came into power and you brought in your Home Rule Bill

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of 1920, was that your policy? Did it represent your policy, or was it a sham? Do any of your Bills ever represent your policy, or do you mean to correct them the moment the ink is dry upon His Majesty's signature? Was it your policy? All I can say, as I said in the House of Commons at the time, is that I refused absolutely to go Over and ask Ulster, which loathed and detested it, to accept a Parliament there unless I had the most solemn assurances from the Prime Minister that that was to be a settlement of the case, and a permanent one, so that Ulster might proceed, after being threatened for thirty years, to the natural development of her resources and to the progress of the great democratic community over which she presides.
I got those solemn assurances over and over again from the Prime Minister. I went there, and I lost many friends. Lord Farnham can tell you something of what I went through at the time, because he was there. I am not sure he did not very nearly fall out with me himself, only he is far too good a fellow. I went through all that, and I came back and supported it, and did what I could to support it in this House. I was not a member, but many members asked me about it, because they knew I was interested in it, and I think they believed I was sincere.
Then the Bill was passed; and you advised His Majesty to open this new Parliament, with all the paraphernalia and splendour of a new-born Parliament in the Empire. He did so, with great success, and he met with a loyalty that he himself declared had never been exceeded in any part of His Majesty's Dominions. And then what happens? The murders go cm, and you forget all your pledges. What a splendid thing a statesman's conscience is in modern times! It is becoming nearly as elastic as the conscience of the Press, and I do not know which of them I have insulted more in saying that.
Next you enter into your parleys with the Sinn Feiners. I want to be perfectly frank about that. I do not see any reason why the Prime Minister should not enter into parleys with these gentlemen if he thought he could save bloodshed, or get such modifications of the Act of 1920 as would make a real settlement. But what happened? Without one word of warning to Ulster, without one single communica-
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tion to the Prime Minister or Government of Ulster—which, after all, you cannot altogether despise, as you are the parents of it—that would be an unnatural thing of which I would never accuse the noble Marquess—without one word of warning there is sprung upon them this: "We have arranged with the Sinn Feiners that there is to be a Parliament for the whole of Ireland, that the six counties are to go in, and if you go in here is good news for you, because you are not to pay a 6s. Income Tax, but probably only a 1s.6d. one, and now how happy you ought to be." Ulster is not for sale. Her loyalty does not depend upon taxes. Ulster values her heritage as citizens of the United Kingdom, and neither you nor the Press, nor your friends in the south of Ireland, need try to terrorise her by the bogey of her having to pay more. At the same time, I make this observation in passing, that it does seem an extraordinary idea of British justice that because Ulster will not join the enemies of this country, and will not go under the murder gang in Dublin, therefore she must pay higher taxation. However, I merely make that observation in passing.
When Ulster refuses to accept these terms, you proceed behind her back, having promised to submit new proposals to her which you never did until they were signed—you proceed to pass the Treaty, as you call it, which is now under discussion. Even then you must outrage her sentiments by putting her, without her consent, into what they call the Free State of Ireland. Why should you do that? Do you not know perfectly well that the way she takes that is this, and I am sure she is right—that you are throwing the whole weight of the British Government into the policy of compelling her to go under the Sinn Fein Parliament in Dublin? Why else did you put her in in that way, and how have you framed your Bill if she comes out? And I promise you she will come out. I promise you that sire will come out within ten minutes of her hearing of the Kings Assent being given to a Bill putting her in.
Then, how does she stand? You have tried to make—and I charge you that you have done it wilfully and deliberately—you have tried to make her position impossible, and, what is more, I believe you have told the Sinn Fein delegates so. What have you done? You give these people

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power to have an Army and to pay for it out of the taxes which they collect. You give them the free Customs, which enables them to bring in arms, ammunition and all the weapons of war, as they like. What do they want an Army for unless it be to invade Ulster? What do you give them the Army for? What is your plan? Is it to invade America, or the Isle of Man, or the Channel Islands? You know well that you want to strengthen her against Ulster, and that Ulster will have standing on her frontier, a difficult frontier always, a standing Army supported out of the taxes of the south and west of Ireland.
Ulster has no provision for raising an Army. That you have reserved for yourselves. Of course you may answer me: "You need have no fear, because the British Army will be at Ulster's disposal." Do you think, after what has happened, that we can trust any Government that it will be so, and, above all, that we can trust a Government who have shown by their framing of the Bill that their policy is to drive us under? No! we will have to trust our own right arm, and we will trust our own right arm. But what a message of peace to send to Ireland, to tell the south and west: "You can maintain an Army and all the accoutrements of war for the purpose, if you like, of invading Ulster and of compelling Ulster to come under you. You can commence with an Army, and also, if you like, with some naval ships." Peace! What is the good of pretence? You are crying peace when there is no peace.
But that is not all. What more have you done? You have given free Customs to the south and west, and you have retained Ulster under your own powers of taxation here. When Ulster goes out, what does that mean? At the present moment, and for some months past, a vigorous boycotting of Ulster goods, or goods that come into Ireland through Ulster, has been going on by the south and west, and not merely Ulster goods but also English goods, for I am told that you cannot buy any Ulster or any English goods anywhere in the south and west at the present moment. You have that boycotting going on, and you have trains stopped daily and the goods of loyal merchants pitched upon the ground, or into rivers, or burnt, merely as a coercive policy towards Northern Ireland; and of course without any interference—for how could you interfere after the character
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you have given them to-night?—by the British Government.
What will it be when the Act passes? Why, you will have legitimised all this, because you will have given power to the Sinn Fein Parliament in the south and west, by prohibition or tariffs, just as they please, to prevent anything coming into Ireland through Ulster, or anything being sent from Ulster to the south and west. Therefore, I say that you have given into their hands the power of actual physical coercion, and also the power of economic coercion. Is it any wonder that Ulster has, I regret to say, begun to break away from you. You have been preaching at her day after day and beseeching her to become Sinn Fein, and what is the result? That for the first time the people are wavering towards you. I have had many letters and many communications. Perhaps you will allow me to read a passage from one. This is not from a politician; it is from an official—
"The feeling here—"
that is, Londonderry—
"is very bitter, and a strong feeling exists that if solid, reliable guarantees could be got, Ulster should join in with a Republican Ireland and wash its hands from all connection with such a perfidious people. In my opinion all faith of the Ulster Protestants in Englishmen's honesty or capacity has been wrecked."
That is the record of your message of peace.
But I say to my Ulster friends, and I say it with all sincerity and solemnity: "Do not be led into any such false line. Stick to your old ideals of closer and closer connection with this country. The Coalition Government, after all, is not the British nation, and the British nation will certainly see you righted. Your interests lie with Great Britain. You have helped her, and you have helped her Empire, and her Empire belongs just as much to you as it does to England. Stick to it, and trust the British people." But I warn the Government of this tendency, because do not imagine that, if any such thing happens, it would be merely that you had achieved your ambition to turn the people of the North of Ireland into Sinn Feiners and assassins. Not at all. Out through the whole Empire—Canada, Australia, New Zealand—Ulstermen are strong and powerful. Toronto is an Ulster city. Do not do something which, throughout the length and breadth of our Empire, will turn Ulster against the British connection. God forbid! And do remember that when,

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through your laws, Ulstermen were driven out of Ireland and went to America, it was thirty-six Ulstermen, smarting under a grievance, who signed the Declaration of Independence.
Loyalty is a strange thing. It is something which you cannot get by merely sitting round a table and trying to find a formula for an Oath of Allegiance which means nothing. It is something born and bred in you. I have often—I admit it—when we have been threatened because we were loyal in Ulster in times past, threatened day after day and night after night, for no crime except that we were loyal—if have often said to myself: "Well, why don't you give it up and join the others?" And I never did, because I know I could not, because I know that it is something that is born in you, inherited in you, and that is the safety of the State. But do not try us too high. Do recognise that we have tried to help you, as you have helped us, and do not, when we want to stay with you, do anything to turn us out.
LORD BUCKMASTER: My Lords, we have listened to words the gravity and sincerity of which it is impossible to measure too high. They are the words of a man who has devoted his whole public life to one cause—devoted it with an undeviating devotion which his political opponents recognise, devoted it even to the risk of breaking the law, and, as he said this evening, being ready (as I know he was) to take the consequences of his act. It is not surprising that, grave and sincere as his statement was, it should be tinged with bitterness.
"Creeds pass, rites change,
No altar if standeth whole."
He has seen the inner sanctuary of the citadel which he attempted to defend, not captured by people like myself who were throughout his enemies, but surrendered by his friends. I have throughout the whole of my active political life struggled, not as violently but, I trust, with the same sincerity as the noble and learned Lord, to achieve the very object which he has devoted his life to preventing.
It is therefore not surprising that he and I should regard the gracious Message from the Throne with mingled feelings. But in one place our feelings met: it is in complete bewilderment at what it is that has caused this Government to introduce this measure. I myself am delighted that they have done
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it for every cause but one. I agree with him in thinking that it may be a long time before the English people will recover from the shock which the introduction of this measure must have given to their confidence in public men. But apart from that, I rejoice more than I can say, for if this scheme can be carried through, I see in it the fulfilment of the great work to which Mr. Gladstone devoted the remaining years of his life, a work which, if it be suggested that it was prompted by political necessity—a thing I do not believe—was at least inspired by a lire and an enthusiasm which must have satisfied those who met him that they were dealing with no common and passing force.
I trust sincerely that this measure will pass and I trust that your Lordships will pass the Motion that has been moved by the noble Viscount, Lord Morley. Nor do I share the feelings that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carson, has expressed as to the unconstitutional nature of what you are asked to do, for, after all, this is nothing but a Resolution of this House, and the acceptance of the Speech in another place will be nothing but a Resolution passed in another place. And Resolutions, though they may indicate for the moment the opinion of the House, can have no binding effect upon its ultimate judgment.
I cannot help asking, however, once more, what is the reason—for I think we are entitled to know—why the Government, who only a few months ago denounced this very measure as rank lunacy, now think that it is the highest expression of sane and reasonable statesmanship. It is that which, I admit, causes me great uneasiness. When the noble Marquess said that after all bloodshed may in some way have tended to solve the difficulties, I thought that he was giving utterance to a very dangerous doctrine. I do not believe for a single moment that bloodshed, either now or in the future, will solve anything excepting one question, and that is which of two armed forces happens to be the better armed. It can solve no political difference; it can help in no political crisis, and if the noble Marquess really thinks that in the pain and the trouble of the past eighteen months there is to be found some justification for the Government's change of view, to my mind, so far from it affording a justification it is a complete condemnation of their whole policy.

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If this be, as the noble Marquess asks us to believe it to be, and as the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, and, in a more humble capacity, myself, have from time to time asked people to believe it to be, when they would not listen—if it really be an act of wisdom, an act of union, an act that will heal the differences between the two nations, as I think it might, why was it not introduced in 1918 after the Armistice? Surely that was the moment beyond all other moments when we desired to heal and appease all the differences of opinion that have broken out between us.
I really do not wish to go through the sorry recital of what has happened since then, and I do not for this reason. I am sincerely anxious that this measure should pass. I do not desire that the Government should do as the noble Lord, Lord Carson, invited them to do, and take the opinion of the country, and I do not desire it for this reason. I believe, in the interests of sincere and honest government, that this coalition should end as early as possible, and I am quite convinced that if you went to the country to-morrow upon the question as to whether these terms should be accepted or not, and the issue lay as between the Government with these terms on the one hand and the people who oppose on the other, the Government would be returned once more to power by a majority even more overwhelming than that which it possesses at the present time. I should regard that, not figuratively but actually and really, as a great catastrophe, a catastrophe from which I think it might be difficult for this country to recover. Therefore, I sincerely hope that it will not be done.
I believe there is no doubt that the people here will accept these terms. I wish I were quite as certain about the people in Ireland. That Ulster would not accept them I think most people supposed. The speech of the noble and learned Lord who has just spoken has made their refusal plain. In spite of whatever disadvantages may attach to a refusal, they will use the opportunity that these terms afford them to escape from the provisions of the measure. Will the south and the west accept them, and will they accept them with that eager adherence and loyalty which alone can make their development a success? It is my hope that they will, and if I might say one word to them—a word from one who in times of very great difficulty has often
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advocated their cause to unheeding and unlistening ears—I would beg them to use this opportunity to bury deep beyond the possibility of recovery all the bitter memories and the ancient wrongs, all the misunderstandings and the mistakes which have blotted and marred the relationship between England and Ireland for centuries past. I would beg of them to do that, and to erect upon the grave as a memorial an independent, a prosperous, and a contented people, believing that that is the best and the finest memorial that they can possibly erect to the sacrifices and the sufferings of the men who have often given their lives in support of their cause.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, I beg to move that this debate be now adjourned.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(The Marquess of Londonderry.)
THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, before the Motion is put I may, perhaps, suggest to your Lordships that as there are a great many noble Lords who wish to take part in the debate, we should commence at three o'clock to-morrow rather than at four; that we should sit after dinner, for which arrangements will be made, and that if we do not finish to-morrow we should continue our sittings upon Friday. From what I can hear, it is quite likely that the debate will last till then, because the list of speakers I have seep is so extensive that it does not seem to me that even the scheme I propose will be adequate to contain them all.
On Question, Motion to adjourn the debate agreed to.

CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES.
The Viscount HUTCHINSON (E. Donoughmore) appointed nemine dissentiente to take the Chair in all Committees of this House for this session.
Committee for Privileges—Appointed.
Committee for the Journals—Appointed.
Stoppages in the Streets—Order to prevent, renewed.
Appeal Committee—Appointed.
House adjourned at eight o'clock until three o'clock to-morrow.