DEBATE ON IRISH BILL

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 53, 4 March 1922, Page 5

DEBATE ON IRISH BILL

THE CLOSURE APPLIED

REJECTION OF AMENDMENTS.

* (CKRw'VrtlH /MCCMIIOH.—COTIMOBT.)

(AOTTRAUAN - M«W HALAH* CAM AHOCIATIOX.J LONDON, 2nd March.

When the Irish Bill was in Committee, Colonel Gretton moved to omit the word "treaty" from the Bill.-As a treaty coufd only be made between the high contracting powers of independent States, the Crown could not constitutionally make a treaty with subjects of the Crown.

Mr. Winston Churchill resisted the amendment. The expression , "treaty" had become the foundation of the poli-. tical party in Ireland who were combating a republic. Colonel Wedgwood said the Labour Party was convinced the treaty had been made with the Irish Republic. It was useless for the Government to try to evade the issue by alleging ' that the words were merely formal. The Attorney^jßeneral (Sir Gordon Hewart) did not consider this an occasion for constitutional pedantry. Sir Frederick Banbury moved an amendment defining the treaty as between Britain and Southern Ireland, not {he whole of Ireland.

Mr. Churchill, in refusing to accept the amendment, said that if it were carried the Bill, would be dead and the treaty would be dead, and so would the Government be dead. "If,-' he said, "I am asked why we decline to insert the words 'Southern Ireland/ I would say it is because we were negotiating ; with men who rightly or wrongly we decided to consider as representing the Irish nation." (Loud Ulster cries of "Traitor !" and "Sit Down!" were followed by conaiderable uproar.) Continuing,. Mr. Churchill said there were provisions in the''Bil! which enabled Ulster-to contract itself out of the arrangement if necessary. The Government, as signatories to the treaty, were in honour *»Vound to go through with it. (Cheers.) The debate then: took an ugly turn. The "Die-hards," undaunted by Mi\ Lloyd George's threat of resignation, attacked the Government. Mr. Ronald. ''M'Neill passionately charged'the Premier with dishonourable conduct and of conferring with malefactors. > .

Lord Hugh Cecil gibed at Ministers as fearful that they would-be left by their Irish coadjutors with a derelict treaty, which they would have to sell for what it would fetch in English constituencies. "Though we know," he said, "the treaty cannot be killed, we wish the Government was as dead as mutton."' . .

Sir Frederick Banbury's amendment was rejected by 264 votes to 64.