CHANGE AHEAD

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 14, 16 July 1936, Page 26

CHANGE AHEAD

FOR THE FREE STATE

MR. DE VALERA AS PRESIDENT

A NEW CONSTITUTION?

Irish politics have come to a dead end, writes the Irish correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian." Is the country content that they should remain there, or is it looking for a way out? To all appearance, Mr. De Valera is firmly seated, no longer in the saddle but on the throne. But a seat on a throne is more treacherous than a seat in a saddle. Mr. De Valera is aware that he cannot afford simply to keep on sitting where he is. Both by word and deed Mr. De Valera and his lieutenants have gone a long way towards making the people of Ireland expect a continuous redistribution of property so that the poor man may share the rich man's surplus. The means already employed are the division of lands and high taxation, especially through tariffs on luxuries intended to increase employment at home, or at least to provide funds for social services. Yet all that has been done has left the unemployment problem much where it was. "There are two things you will never get in Dublin, a house and a job"—this is still a common saying in the mouths of the working men. Mr. De Valera must therefore not only maintain but increase his social services, and the question is whether the money will continue to be forthcoming. A DIVIDED PARTY. Budget prospects for this year are better than was expected. The recovery of world trade has begun to be felt in the Free State, and apart from that it is plain that the policy of high taxation for social services has been beneficial to the economy of the country in many respects. But there still remains serious cause for anxiety. Tariffs, mainly protective,. brought in this year £10,000,000 out of a total revenue of £30,000,000. As Protection becomes effective this cannot ■ continue, and how will the deficiency be replaced? Besides, the expenditure on social services has not yet attained the desired standard. There will be. contant pressure to increase it, especially as the protective policy tends steadily to drive up the cost of living. Further, this tendency, combined with high taxation on property, threatens to drive the "idle rich" with their taxable incomes out of the country. At the same time the huge income accruing from pensions for services rendered to the British Empire tends to fall. It was presumably considerations of this sort that induced Mr. De Valera's Finance Minister, Mr. MacEntee, the other day to oppose a suggestion for the taxation of ground rents with arguments which shocked even Mr. Cosgrave by their orthodox conservatism No doubt there is a capitalist wing of the Fianna Fail party which d?sires to cleave to orthodox finance, to maintain the rights of property, to combat Communism, and to arrange an association with Great Britain to secure for Ireland the material benefits of membership of the British Commonwealth. Taking advantage of the suspicion of this tendency inside Fianna Fail, the I.R'.A. leaders are trying to organise a new political party which will contest elections on a separatist "Workers' Republic" platform but will abstain from entering the Dail or recognising the authority of the Free State Constitution or institutions. NO MORE GOVERNOR-GENERALS? The appearance of this new party will suffice to warn Mr. De Valera that neither his political interests nor his social sympathies permit him to take his stand with Mr. MacEntee and the right wing, of the Fianna Fail. If riot elsewhere, then at least in Ireland, a country where titles to property are for the most part based on historic and unfor gotten injustices, the property-owner has always been in a highly invidious position, and adult suffrage steadily tends to take political power out of the hands of his champions and to transfer it to his assailants. Mr. De Valera instinctively recognises that fact, and, besides, his social sympathies are with the poor man. But he is conservative enough to dislike the State regulation entailed by Socialism or Communism, and he does not want to be driven' beyond his present system of high taxation plus social services and generous subsidies and protection for new local industries. He may therefore be expected to appeal again to Ireland's desire for the outward and visible signs of political freedom. The common belief that he is drafting a new Constitution which will give prominence to Irish citizenship and substitute •an elected President for the GovernorGeneral.

Whether the President is only "to j reign or also to rule is a matter for! speculation, but many fancy that Mr. De Valera sees himself in the; position of the working head of a one-party State, united not by force or fraud, but by a world-wide admiration for the patriot leader. The new Constitution will presumably take no cognisance of the British Parlaiment or the Statute of Westminster, but will authorise the President to negotiate "external association1' arrangements for mutual advantage with neighbour States, subject to ratification by the Dail. The draft will be ready to be submitted to the judgment of the people at a general election to be held at Mr. De Valera's chosen time. ' Its arrival will be heralded by the execution of the sentence of death which has been passed upon the Senate, but is at present suspended during Mr.

De Valera's pleasure. It seems likely I that the new Constitution will contain provision for a new second Chamber, as Mr. De Valera must by this time have realised how much a singleChamber system might facilitate the 'work or strengthen the legal position of' a physical force party planning a coup d'etat. THE NEXT CARD. So far our speculators can make a plausible case for their forecast of Mr. De Valera's programme. But then they come up against an old difficulty. On their supposition the new Dail will be required to act as a constituent Assembly to ratify the new Constitution. But the Dail represents only twenty-six counties, and how can Mr. De Valera claim authority for a Constitution not ratified by an all-Ireland Assembly? If he submits a Constitution to a twenty-six-county Dail is lie not acquiescing in partition? Can he venture to invite delegates from Northern Ireland. That might only emphasise the fact of partition.

.' Nevertheless it seems likely that a new Constitution is the next card Mr. Dc Valera will produce from his sleeve. For things are not going so well that he can afford to leave the I.R.A:'s lead untrumped. England continues to collect her disputed debts without apparent difficulty or loss, the wet winter has shaken men's faith in the wheat-growing policy, and Dublin is suffering from the third great strike in two years. There is, it is true, nothing to fear from Mr. Cosgrave's party, for that party has lost faith in its own programme; but the trouble is that Fianna Fail shows signs of doing the same thing. Fianna Fail has begun to have doubts about the possibility and advantages of economic self-sufficiency and political separation and ceases to be thrilled by the name "Republic." Both parties are playing with the idea of "external association." But - both recognise that it amounts only to a change in names and cannot help to overcome the three real difficulties, which are (1) the Ulster problem, (2)' the need for free access to the British market, and (3) the dilemma that Ireland must be defended either by the British navy or against it.