EIRE’S POSITION DISCUSSED

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25654, 17 November 1948, Page 5

EIRE’S POSITION DISCUSSED

WITHDRAWAL FROM COMMONWEALTH MINISTERS MEET IN PARIS (Rec. 9.20 p.m.) PARIS, Nov. lb. Commonwealth representatives last night discussed Eire’s decision to ra* geal the External Relations Act with ire’s Minister of External Affairs (Mr Sean Macßride). The meeting will be continued to-day. An aide memoire sent to the Eireann Government recently suggested that the Commonwealth representatives would welcome further talks before Eire repealed the External Relations Act. *The Eireann Government replied by sending Mr Macßride and its Minister of Finance (Mr P. McGilligan) and others to Paris for talks. They arrived yesterday. Britain’s Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr P. J. Noel-Baker) and the Lord Chancellor (Lord Jowitt) returned from London shortly before the talks began. Mr Noel-Baker discussed the matter with the New Zealand, Australian, and Canadian representatives in Paris at the week-end. and went to London early yesterday for consultation with the British Cabinet,

After the meeting last night, Mr Macßride said that one of the main questions dealt with was whether the Commonwealth nations should continue to show Eire the same trade preferences and privileges when she was no longer a member of the Commonwealth.

“The Commonwealth representatives made a strong but unavailing eleventh-hour attempt to keep Eire in the Commonwealth at yesterday’* meeting,” says the British United Press correspondent in Paris. The corresnondent adds that Mr Macßride had earlier told him that there was no question of Eire’s being talked out of the course she had decided to take. “The Times,” however, says that there is no question of the Paris meeting being a last-minute attempt to persuade the Government of Eire to change its mind. It adds: “It is taken for granted that the measure for the repeal of the External Relations Act will go forward, and the object of the meeting is to discuss how within the bounds of international law this can be achieved without undue disturbance of Commonwealth relations.”