TREATY POSITION

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 18, 20 July 1935, Page 26

TREATY POSITION

ÜBITAIN" AXI) 111 ELAND

EFFECT OF JUDGMENT

The situation created lay Hie judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the Erne fisheries appeal is amusingly paradoxical and not without interesting and important possibilities, says the "Manchester Guardian's" Irish correspondent. The Judicial Committee holds that the Statute of Westminster gives the Free State Parliament a power under which it can abrogate the whole or any part cf the Anglo-Irish Treaty. This pronouncement is based, on the view that that treaty and the Free State Constitution founded on it is merely a British statute in law, though the Committee hints that there may be a contractual obligation binding upon the parties otherwise than legally. Except in regard to this hint about cantractual obligations, the Judicial Committee is thus upholding Mr. de Valera's view of the treaty and rejecting Mr. Cosgrave's. For, of course, Mi-, de Valera' has all along been concerned to belittle the recognition of Ireland's international status implied by the treaty, while Mr. Cosgrave was anxious to magnify it as much as possible. Thus Mr. de Valera argued that the treaty and the Free State Constitution were mere Acts of the British Parliament, no more binding on a patriotic IrishmEin than any other British statute. Irishmen, he holds, may use the Free State Parliament as a convenient instrument, especially now that the Oath of Allegiance has been abolished. But they hEive no respect for the so-called Constituent Assembly or for the Constitution which it enacted, and still, less for the treaty, which the Constituent Assembly regarded as an international instrument not alterable either by the Free State or by the British Parliament but only by the concurrent action of both or by a formal denunciation. MR. COSGRAVE'S VIEW. « This latter view is, of course, Mr. Cosgrave's. The treaty is not to him an Act of the British, nor in his eyes does the Free State Constitution draw its validity from the fact that it was enacted at Westminster. To him as a good constitutional Irish Nationalist all power :in the Irish Free State is derived from the Irish people. But in the treaty Irish people made certain terms with the representatives of Great Britain and in the framing of the Free State Constitution the Irish Constituent Assembly provided that the terms of this international agreement should be binding on future Free State Legislatures. The view that by the Statute of Westminster the British Parliament could unilaterally alter the binding nature, of this international agreement was one against which Mr. Cosgrave was bound to protest and has protested. ' For -if the British' Parliament had power 6:0 its own authority to alter the treaty .in,'the Free State's ■■'favour, so also it mu:st be held to have had power; and- perhaps; still to have power, to alter it in a contrary sense. _ _>; But' now tiiaf Mr: de Valera is in power, and now that the Judicial' C6m r mi'ttee has declared the Free State Par--liament to be legally empowered ■to amend 'the'treaty, Mr. Cosgrave's view loses its importance and' the question is what will Mr. de Valera do. Only recently he expressed anxiety lest a provision in the treaty which entitles Great Britain to demand certain facilities in case of war' may hereafter gravely imperil the good relations between the two countries. He has also recently expressed a desire to negotiate a new treaty for national defence. Will he now repeal the obnoxious clause in the Treaty of 1921 in order to forestall the possibility of future friction and to compel Great Britain to enter into negotiations for anew and more sahsfac'tory mutual defence agreement? MATTERS LITTLE. The view which is gaining ground here is that it matters very little to Great Britain whether Mr. de Valera now or after the next General Election repeals the whole or any part of the treaty. On the other hand, men are ■beginning to realise that it may matter very much indeed to the inhabitants, of the Irish Free State and to the chances of reunion with Northern Ireland. For this reason responsible men are a little alarmed at the idea that Mr. de Valera may succeed in his aim of inducing England to negotiate a new treaty or series of agreements to replace those of 1921 and 1925. Even Mr de Valera's own supporters do not regard his coal-cattle pact as exactly a diplomatic triumph, and men cannot shut their eyes to the .fact that the most favourable trading agreement which Mr. de Valera may now hope to get canncit—thanks to his rigid Nationalist principles—give as favourable a position ag that which the Free State enjoyed without any agreement under Mr. Cosgrave. Similarly,, negotiations regarding citizenship rights or mutual defence seem likely to end in the Free State's having to give more in order to get less of anything except a nominal independence. The net result may confirm the average Ulsterman in his belief that Irish Nationalism' is an expensive luxury in which it is wiser not to indulge.'