OATH GOES

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 82, 7 April 1933, Page 9

OATH GOES

IRISH FBEE STATE

THE DAIL'S DECISION

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, March 2. .Late i last night (according to the "Daily Mail" correspondent) the Tree State Dail adopted a resolution, by 75 votes to 49, to' re-enact forthwith the Bill to deleto the oath of allegiance to the Crown from the Free State Constitution. The resolution was moved ■ by Mr. de Valera. The resolution goes next to the ' Senate,' which has no further effective voice in the matter, for by his success at the recent General Election Mr. de Valcra is empowered under the Constitution to secure tho enactment of the measure in 60 days. Mr. de Valera, in tho debate, said it would bo "a waste of time to discuss the Oath Bill any further." Tho removal of the oath was designed to secure internal peace in the Tree State, but certain people indicated that the removal had been done purposely to give offence to people in Northern Ireland who still wished to be associated with the British Empire. That was not so. Mr. Patrick McGilligan (ex-Minister for External Affairs), opposing the resolution, said that the Bill bore on its very face the fact that they were breaking the Anglo-Irish Treaty .by passing it. The Treaty still stood, since it had never been denied or denounced by the Government. , Mr. Frank MacDermot, loeder of the Centre Party, moved a resolution ask: ing that steps should be taken to secure the reunion of Ireland. It further asked whether Mr. de Valera thought that by deliberately breaking the treaty ho was coming any nearer to the ideal of a United Ireland. DE VALERA'S OBJECTIVE. Mr. de Valera, in reply to the motion, said that the only policy for abolishing partition 'that •he saw "was for the ' people o£ the Free State to use such freedom as they I could secure to get for the people such conditions as would make the people in Northern. Ireland ■Wish to belong to the Tree State. So far no plan had been suggested to the Government by any of tho speakers in the House by reunion, of the countries could be secured, and until that was done they were wasting their time talking about it. '■ "This is not a minor issue," comments, the "Daily Mail, 7* in a leading article. "la its perils it gravest with which the nation has had to deal since August, 1914. _ "Alas for the promises and visions of politicians'. The safeguards have been one after another torn up.. Mr. de Valera last year, repudiated the Land Annuities, totalling £5,100,000 a year, and he is now about to propose in the Dail that the money shall rje seized and spent in subsidies to his supporters. • , f'Mr de Valera has also declared his intention of tearing up the Treaty —with consequences which, as Mr. Lloyd George said on June 17, (may develop into a very grave danger to this country.' * , ;. "With the aid of the Dail, he abolished the Oath of Allegiance yesterday and he is actually laying claim to Ulster, though Ulster is aii integral part of the British Kingdom. . "Such have been the fruits _of scuttle in the immediate past. It brings conflict and shame, not peace.-- Conservatives have good reason to show alarm at the Government's attempt to put into force in India the policy which, tried on a small scale, has a*»ady failed so dismally in Southern TToiaTin1." -