Evening Post FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1921. IRISH TREATY DEBATE

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 151, 23 December 1921, Page 6

Evening Post FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1921. IRISH TREATY DEBATE

The expectation that there would be " wigs on the green," that many cats would,be let out of their bags, and that the organisers of the great fight against the British Government would be seen fighting one another with equal zest has not been entirely falsified by the proceedings of the Dail Eireann at the session now in progress. But if allowance be made for the inexperience of its members, the gravity of the occasion, and the intensity of the passions which have inevitably been aroused, we do not know that much ground is left for a feeling of superiority on the part of the more phlegmatic British temperament, or for the suggestion that, after all, Dublin Castle is really more competent to manage the affairs' of Ireland than the Dail Eireann. The habitual unpunctuality against which Mr. Collins has had to protest is perhaps the most essentially unbusinesslike of the shortcomings ; revealed by our reports. Ireland has never been oppressed by the Napoleonic sense of the value of time. The quick national temperament has not developed that species of quickness. But that Ireland is " a land of lots of time" was surely never more strikingly revealed than by the. fact that at this crisis of her fate, wife the choice between peace and war and jthe whole future of the country awaiting the decision ;of the Dail Eireann, its members have been unable to get to business till half an hour beyond the appointed time.

The fact that the cat has been let out of the bag on several occasions is less surprising than the frantic efforts which have been made to keep it in and the fierce indignation which their failure has excited. Upon what reasonable ground can any incident in the prolonged negotiations for the settlement of Ireland's claims be withheld from the representative body which has to confirm or reject the settlement arrived at, or from its constituents? r While the negotiations were under way secrecy was, of course, essential, and it is to the credit of the Sinn Fein delegates that they appear to have observed this obligation just as scrupulously as Mr. Lloyd George and pis colleagues. But if the processes of diplomacy must in the main be secret, it is at least equally clear that those of democracy must be open. The only legitimate • ground for secrecy in diplomacy 4s that a conclusion might never be reached without the confidential interchanges "which immediate publicity would forbid. But to prolong the demand for secrecy after a result has . been reached is to ask for honest diplomacy a protection which it does not need. In particular, to demand that essential steps in proceedings intimately affecting the life and honour of a nation should bo withheld from the nation's representatives when they are about to pronounce judgment on the result is a grotesque travesty of democracy.

Many strange things have been done in the name of liberty, but this is one of the strangest of them. The paradox is to be explained by the difference between the spirit and methods which are respectively .required to effect a popular revolution and to administer a popular government. The success of a revolutionary struggle, especially if the struggle be fierce' and prolonged, demands a military or quasi-mili-tary autocracy rather than the qualities of a constitutional leader It seems probable that Mr. de Valera is at heart no more of a democrat than Lenin or Trotsky. Soviet Russia is governed by one of the most .despotic oligarchies ever devised, and if it desired to give democracy a trial it would certainly have to find other leaders, or else the leopard would have to change his spots. In the same way it looks as though Mr. de Valera, who has shown great qualities as a fierce, courageous, and stubborn idealist, inspiring and organising his countrymen/o fight for their independence, and of necessity resorting to unconstitutional methods for that purpose, lacks the very different qualifications required for constitutional leadership. He has led his compatriots to*the edge of the promised land, but for this reason he may not be privileged to lead them in. ■ ■ . That Mr. de Valera jk fighting namely for tho full realisation of,

his beatific vision is beyond question, and he is giving his opponents a harder task than they expected. He is picturesquely described as "a tall, gaunt, unyielding figure, resembling Savonarola turned politician,'' as quickly stirring the passions of the Dail Eireann with his powerful voice, and as displaying a "hard, almost inhuman, ierocity, as he proceeded from denunciation to denunciation." Those who are not helped by the comparison to "a Savonarola turned politician " may be glad'to be reminded of a parallel nearer home. Though he is a very different man from Parnell, Mr. de Valera's gallant fight against odds bears some resemblance to his predecessor's famous stand in Committee Room iHo. 15 against the attempt to dispose him from the leadership of the Nationalist Party. " Mr. Parnell presided," says Lord Morley, " frigid, severe, and lofty, 'as if,' said one present, 'it were we who had gone astray, and he were sitting there to judge us.' " It was not till after some twelve days of the unequal contest that Parnell's patience gave way, but his courage was still unbeaten. Mr. de Valera seems likely to fight as bravely to the last gasp, but neither in his ideas of secrecy, nor in his continued demand for an Irish Republic, nor in his specific objection to the form of the oath of allegiance, is he taking ground which promises anything but mischief to the interests of Ireland.