DR. ADA ENGLISH: A Chinn Chomhairle is a lucht na Dála, níl mórán agam le rá ach dearfa mé cúpla focal. A Deputy who spoke in favour of the Treaty wanted to know why the young men should be sent to the shambles—I think that was the word he used. I should be sorry to see young men or old men, or women, or children going to the shambles, but when there is a question of right or wrong in it I would be prepared to go to the shambles myself, and I do not see why everybody would not. I credit the supporters of the Treaty with being as honest as I am, but I have a sound objection to it. I think it is wrong; I have various reasons for objecting to it, but the main one is that, in my opinion, it was wrong against Ireland, and a sin against Ireland. I do not like talking here about oaths. I have heard about oaths until my soul is sick of them, but if this Treaty were forced on us by England—as it is being forced—and that paragraph 4, the one with the oath in it were omitted, we could accept it under force; but certainly, while those oaths are in it, oaths in which we are asked to accept the King of England as head of the Irish State, and we are asked to accept the status of British citizens—British subjects—that we cannot accept. As far as I see the whole fight in this country for centuries has centred round that very point. We are now asked not only to acknowledge the King of England's claim to be King of Ireland, but we are asked to swear allegiance and fidelity (“No! no!”) in virtue of that claim. Perhaps not, but that is the way I read it. For the last seven hundred centuries, roughly (laughter)—I mean seven centuries— time does seem to be long here (laughter). However a jolly long time, anyway, Ireland has been fighting England and, as I understood it, the grounds of this fight always were that we denied the right of England's King to this country (“No! no!”).

MISS MACSWINEY MISS MACSWINEY

MISS MACSWINEY: Yes.

DR. ENGLISH DR. ENGLISH

DR. ENGLISH: And we denied we were British subjects. We are now asked not only to acknowledge the [248] claims of the English King to be head of Ireland, and to acknowledge ourselves as British subjects, but we are asked to give him a right to legalise his claim by giving him a right, by our votes, to the position—that is, as far as we could give him the right. We cannot—nobody can—give him a right to the country, or the votes of anybody give him a claim. It seems to me that the taking of those oaths is a complete surrender of our claims. It is a moral surrender. It is giving up the independence of our country, and that is the main reason why I object to this Treaty. I deny that we are a possession of the British and this Treaty simply makes us one of the British possessions. Various Deputies have said that we surrendered the Republic as soon as we began to discuss any association with England. I cannot understand that position. It is not surrender of the Republic —any arrangement for association with any other country, whether England, or Germany, or Japan, or any country in the world. That did not give away the Republic in the slightest degree. That we gave up the position of an isolated Republic without alliance, with England or otherwise, might be claimed, but certainly we did not compromise in any way our claim to a Republic. We would negotiate association with England but there was no compromise in it, and I am sorry Dr. MacCartan is not here, because in his amazing speech he said he knew the Republic was being killed the moment we began to discuss association. It was his duty, and the duty of any man who thinks as he did then to stand up and tell us that, in ignorance or innocence, we were trying to murder the Republic and kill it; it is not when he sees the Republic dead. Why did he not warn us in the beginning if he thought so? I hold that the Republic is not dead, and will not die, in spite of Lloyd George and the other evil spirits who wander through the world (laughter and cheers). We are told that the country is for this Treaty—it has been told to us in various forms of words, in various ways. The country is not for this Treaty, the country is out for peace. The country wants peace and desires peace. So do we. We all want peace, but we want a peace which will be a real peace and a lasting peace and a peace based on honour and on friendship and a peace which we can keep, a peace that we can put our names to and stand by. That is the sort of peace the country wants, and it is only because the country is misled into believing that this Treaty gives such a peace that the country wants it. The country wants no peace which gives away the independence of Ireland and destroys the Republic which has been established by the will of the Irish people (hear, hear). We have had painted for us in various lurid colours the terrors of war and the desire of the people for quietness and peace. Well, peace is a good thing, but in the days of the famine the people were also told that they should be peaceful and submissive and quiet, and accept what the English chose to give them—the rotten potatoes—and let the corn and food be exported out of the country. There were people then, Republicans and Revolutionists, who encouraged the people to fight for the country in spite of the men with the streak, and free themselves and keep the food in the country. But some of the influences that are working against the country to-day were working against it then and advised peace. They got peace—and death and famine. You can lose more men—their bodies as well as their souls—by an ignoble peace than by fighting for just rights (cheers). The evacuation of the English troops is one of the things that are being held up to us as being one of the very good points in the Treaty. It would be a very desirable thing, indeed, that the English troops evacuated this country, if they did evacuate it, but I hold that Ulster is still part of Ireland and I have not heard a promise that the British troops are to evacuate Ulster. They are still there. I understand they are to be drawn from the rest of Ireland and, as I read the Treaty, there is not one word of promise in it about the evacuation of the British troops. There was, I think, a letter read from the man across—Lloyd George—promising that evacuation would begin in some certain time, but I should like to know was that promise part of the arrangement made between the British Government on one hand, and the plenipotentiaries of the Irish Republic on the other, or was it merely a private arrangement of Mr. Lloyd [249] George? I suppose that the English Government believe—if they were going, even to a slight degree, to evacuate the country, it is probably because they thought that the country would be held for them by the Free State troops. They are depending on the acceptance of the Treaty. If this Treaty is going to be kept are we to understand that the Free State will hold the country for England instead of the British Garrison? I have heard, I have listened very carefully—I think this afternoon was the first time I missed any of the speeches from the beginning, on the 14th December—to those speeches in favour of the Treaty. I have listened most carefully and attentively to see if I could find any way in which I could reconcile my conscience to vote for the Treaty. My position is not the same as when I came to Dublin. I came up opposed to the Treaty. I am ten times more opposed to it since I have heard the speeches in favour of the Treaty in this Dáil. We repudiate the Republic if this Treaty is passed; we repudiate it absolutely. It is a complete surrender and we don't get peace by it, but we get the certainty of a bitter split and division in this country; because we who stand for the complete freedom—for the separatist idea—for the complete freedom and independence of Ireland cannot sit down with our hands across. We will work and fight for it, and so there is bound to be a split. The only chance you could have of unity is by having the whole Dáil unanimously reject this thing. Then you would have the country behind you. Unity is a good thing and I am very sorry to see the unity which was in this Dáil broken up as it is at present, but I would be very much more sorry to see the Dáil united in approving of this Treaty, because unity in wrong-doing is no advantage to the country or the cause (hear, hear). What we have got in this Treaty—the material point, I suppose—is a truncated form of Dominion Home Rule for three-quarters of the country. If Dominion Home Rule were the thing we were fighting for and are satisfied to get—as those in favour of the Treaty seem to think—why, in God's name, did they not tell us that two years ago and not send out all the fellows to fight and lose their lives for a thing they did not want? On what authority did they send out, if the Republic did not exist and was not in being, any poor fellows to shoot and kill any man of any nation? If it was not for the Government of the Republic and the army why did they go out?

MR. P. BRENNAN MR. P. BRENNAN

MR. P. BRENNAN: They went out themselves.

MR. M. COLLINS MR. M. COLLINS

MR. M. COLLINS: They did.

DR. ENGLISH DR. ENGLISH

DR. ENGLISH: They will go again, I hope, as soon as this thing is thrown out.

MR. P. BRENNAN MR. P. BRENNAN

MR. P. BRENNAN: They might, then. I am from Clare (laughter).

DR. ENGLISH DR. ENGLISH

DR. ENGLISH: There has been talk about compromise—that we compromised the position. I think that is a most unworthy thing to say—a most unworthy thing to say. We had lots of things to bargain about—you had lots of material things to bargain about —questions of trade and commerce and finance and the use of ports; but nobody ever suspected we were going to compromise on the question of independence and the rights of the country. Mr. MacGarry mentioned yesterday Land Acts taken in the past from England. There was no Republic in Ireland when we took the Land Acts from England. That makes a very great difference. And the Republic exists. You can take any Act you like that is consistent with the Republic, but you cannot take anything which gives away the Republic. It is not in your power to give it away. I have been asked by several people in the Dáil and elsewhere as to what views my constituents took about this matter. I credit my constituents with being honest people, just as honest as I consider myself—and I consider myself fairly honest—they sent me here as a Republican Deputy to An Dáil which is, I believe, the living Republican Parliament of this country. Not only that, but when I was selected as Deputy in this place I was very much surprised and, after I got out of jail, when I was well enough to see some of my constituents, I asked them how it came they selected me, and they told me the wanted someone they could depend on to stand fast by the Republic, and who would not let Galway down against [250] (cheers). That is what my constituents told me they wanted when they sent me here, and they have got it (cheers). This is—a Chinn Chomhairle, may I read a letter which has been received to-day from the Graduates of the National University of Ireland? It is not to me, it is to Professor Stockley. “As our representative, we have perfect confidence in your ability to represent us. We disapprove of any interference by individual graduates in the free actions of our representatives. We disapprove further of any attempt to stampede members of the Dáil to act in contradiction of their considered opinions.—M. O'Kennedy.”

MR. GRIFFITH MR. GRIFFITH

MR. GRIFFITH: How many names to that?

DR. ENGLISH DR. ENGLISH

DR. ENGLISH: Cúig cinn. I am only speaking about my own constituents. There is a point I want to make. I think that it was a most brave thing to-day to listen to the speech by the Deputy from Sligo in reference to the women members of An Dáil, claiming that they only have the opinions they have because they have a grievance against England, or because their men folk were killed and murdered by England's representatives in this country. It was a most unworthy thing for any man to say here. I can say this more freely because, I thank my God, I have no dead men to throw in my teeth as a reason for holding the opinions I hold. I should like to say that I think it most unfair to the women Teachtaí because Miss MacSwiney had suffered at England's hands. That, a Chinn Chomhairle is really all I want to say. I am against the Treaty, and I am very sorry to be in opposition to (nodding towards Mr. Griffith and Mr. Collins). (Cheers).