BOND OF EMPIRE

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 170, 14 April 1932, Page 7

BOND OF EMPIRE

Allegiance to Crown DE VALERA’S THREAT Irish Free State and Oath Official Wireless. Rugby, April' 12. Although the Irish Free State Executive Council will meet to-morrow, a Dublin message says that it Is unlikc1, that the reply of the Dominions Secretary, Mr. J. H. Thomas, to Mr. E. De Valera’s dispatch on the Oath and land annuities controversy will be examined before Friday. According to the Dublin correspondent of “The Times,” the friendly tone of the British Government’s Note -and its freedom from any kind of threat has been welcomed by Irish Free State citizens. The correspondent describes many Free State people as surprised that the Oath, which Mr. De Valera and his followers in the Free State Parliament have themselves taken, describing it in so doing as an “empty formula,’’ should be treated as the occasion to precipitate a dispute. In no quarter of the British Press is any sympathy or approval found for Mr. De Valera’s action. The Liberal “Star” this evening says: “Ireland now is no longer an appanage of England, but a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The old position lives only in the memory of those who cannot adjust their minds to facts. The only thing, in fact, which binds the Commonwealth together is allegiance to the Crown. Mr. De Valera is writing to the wrong address. He thinks he is trying to break the link with England; he Is, in fact, threatening to break the bonds of Empire which bind Irishmen in Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand to Ireland itself.” The “Evening News” refers to thq already expressed concern of Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa at the possible consequences of Mr. De Valera’s meditated action, and says that he will probably be further reminded by them that the Free State helped to frame the Statute of Westminster in which it is laid down that the “Crown is the symbol of the free association of members of the British Commonwealth of Nations and they are united by common allegiance to the Crown.” The “News” adds that all over the Empire the hope will be that Ireland, which has accepted the Invitation to the Imperial Economic Conference at Ottawa, will not go there with the intention of tearing itself out of the family and so becoming no longer entitled to the many and growing boons which membership of the British Commonwealth confers.