IRISH REPUBLIC

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 128, 1 June 1935, Page 8

IRISH REPUBLIC

ALWAYS IN THE FUTURE

RELATION TO EMPIRE

"Ireland never is but always is to be a republic," Professor Michael Tierney, one of the clearest of Irish political thinkers, writes in the current number of "The Irish Heview," says the "New York Times" Dublin correspondent.

Nothing gave greater point to this description 'of the country's peculiar political condition than the recent debate in the Dail on Frank MacDermott's motion that the Government ought to abandon its profession of republicanism or else seek authority for the immediate establishment of a twenty-six county republic.

President Eamon de Valera, replying to the challenge, simply refused to commit himself to either of the courses urged by Mr. MacDermott. With considerable vehemence the President avowed his own and his party's loyalty to the separatist ideal. Fianna Fail, he said, is to lead the nation in the formation of a republic as soon as there should be the least chance of success. To many, however, this chance seems very remote. '

The President frankly admitted that the Government even if it declared a republic could not make the declaration effective either in thirty-two counties or in the Free State. British naval maintenance parties are still stationed in Cobh, Berehaven, and Lough Swilly. The Free State cannot remove these by force and the British are unlikely to take them away voluntarily.

Indeed the chances of a reunion o£ North and South never seemed so distant as at present. Only the other ,day Lord Craigavon, the Northern Premier, answering Mr. de Valera's speech, said: "Some British Government might possibly possess the power to kick us out of Britain, but they could never kick us out of the Empire into the Free State or into a Southern republic."

While declaring that the Free State is only in the British Commonwealth under duress, the Fianna Fail Government nevertheless is enjoying any economic benefits that may be gained from this partnership.

This half-in-half-out position pleases nobody. Conservative opinion is all for frank acceptance of the Commonwealth and reaping the fullest economic advantages of such association. The radical elements refuse to accept Mr. de Valera's profession of republicanism at face value. Instead, they charge him with maintaining British Imperialist interests in Ireland.

The President finds himself today in a difficult, none too comfortable position. He is governing under powers conferred by a treaty he fought a civil war to destroy.

Hecently Mr. de Valera, with members of the Government, held a great Easter commemoration cer-emony at the General Post Office where Padraic Pearse, Connolly, MacDonagh, and Tom Clarke first declared for the republic.

But somehow, despite frequent separatist protestations, the glamour of republicanism seems to have gone from the Fianna Fail and the; old slogan of "To the Republic" lacks inspiration and popular appeal. That idealism which made the 1916 movement possible is markedly absent today.