IN A MAZE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 124, 27 May 1932, Page 7

IN A MAZE.

FREE STATE SENATE.

OATH BILL DEBATE.

No Question of Severance From Britain, Says de Valera.

COSGRAVITES' WARNING.

(British Official Wireless.) (Received 1 p.m.) KUGBY, May 20. In the Irish Free State Senate, the debate opened last night on the bill to remove the oath of allegiance from the Constitution and to repeal a section of the Free State Constituent Act which gives the force of law to the treaty between Britain and the 20 counties of Southern Ireland. Mr, de Valera declared that there was no question of an act of severance from the British Commonwealth.

The oath, he said, was a matter between the Free State and its individual citizens, and its removal in no way was to be regarded as an act of severance. The bill did not deprive the treaty of any binding force that it might have as between the Free State and Britain.

Mr. Douglas, on behalf of the Cosgrave party, which is in the majority in the Senate protested that Mr. do Vulera had not told them where the passing of the bill would lead them. He Lad said the bill did not break the treaty, but they knew the British Government held diametrically opposite views. The Free State could not have things both ways—it could not be in the Commonwealth without accepting the Commonwealth's common obligations. Outside of the Commonwealth the Free Stat© would mean very little. It would lose its place in the councils of Europe and might lose its only market as well.

The Cosgrave party held that the main function of the Senate was revision, and it would allow the bill to pass the second reading without division, but it would ensure, in the Committee stage, that the constitutional position would not be altered.