IRISH CITIZENSHIP

Evening Star, Issue 21933, 21 January 1935, Page 13

IRISH CITIZENSHIP

GOVERNMENT'S NEW MOVE DIRECTED AT BRITAIN The Irish. Free State recently has seen the portents of more than local interest, says the Dublin correspondent ot the ‘Manchester Guardian. -In the Enniscorthy School case the District Justice has delivered judgment convicting the parents prosecuted under the School Attendance Act. He found that the school was an excellent school, but as the education given did not include Irish it could not be considered to be “a suitable primary education for the children of Free State parents since the Free State Constitution says that msh i« the national language. This judgment, if it is upheld on appeal, implies that it is the duty of the. Minister to insist not only that all private schools give facilities for learning Irish, but that all children are taught Irish, it could further be used to enable the Minister to insist—as he means presently to insist—that all children should be taught through the medium of Irish. The same day on which this judgment was delivered the Hev. Mr Morrow, a Presbyterian clergyman in the Free State, was protesting against the orders of the Education Department. insisting on teaching through the medium of Irish in the infant and first standards of the schools under his charge irrespective of the language of the parents. It is true that this use of compul-: sion to revive Irish has the support. of Mr Cosgrave’s old party and of political Labour. But it is also true that nothing in the Free State’s policy has a more powerful effect in alienating the feelings of the Protestant .minority in the South or in confirming Lister’s determination to hold aloof. PRICE OF NATIONALISM. Now there has been published the new Free State Citizenship Bill. This Bill is undoubtedly the logical consequence of the doctrine that the Free State and the dominions art all cp»r ate nations Indeed, the Free State Constitution provides for a separate Free State citizenship. But its defini- * tion of a Free State citizen was left incomplete, and Mr Cosgrave’s Government shied at the task of completing it, fearing that some of the implications of the idea might prove inconvenient. Mr De Valera, however, has never shrunk from paying the full price for carrying the doctrine of nationalism to its logical extreme, even though a reductio ad absurdum were attained. Hence the present Bill. It makes sound common-sense provision for regulating Free State citizenship on the assumption that the Free State is a separate nation. No word in it would have to he altered if the Free State became an independent .Republic. But Mr De Valera has also to show that the position of Free State citizens in Great Britain is not immediately endangered. This is also an opportunity for demonstrating how he might provide for the external association of an Irish Republic with the British Commonwealth. The method proposed for achieving these ends deserves careful attention. Briefly it is this. The Free State Government' may conclude a convention with any country exchanging reciprocal rights of citizenship subject to agreed conditions and limitations. This method could be applied equally to Japan or the United States. Further, in the case of any country whose law •already gives rights of citizenship to Free State citizens—as Great Britain’s law- does —the Free State Cabinet may make an order granting to its citizens citizen shiprights in the Free State subject to any conditions or limitations. These conventions and orders may be revoked or varied. They cannot give to those who . are not Free State citizens any privileges which Free State law has already reserved, or may hereafter specially reserve, for Free State citizens. CHALLENGE TO BRITAIN. In effect the Bill clearly challenges Great Britain to abandon as out of date the idea of “ subjects of one British Crown ” with a common citizenship for the whole British Empire and to substitute a Citizenship Act on the Free State model, excluding citizens of the Free State and dominions, but providing for reciprocal conventions to be negotiated with them. This is no doubt the appropriate logical consequence of separate nationhood. But citizenship is a state of feeling resulting from inherited traditions and upbringing. It cannot be created or changed by law. It is not a proper subject for bargaining. The privileges of citizenship which any country will be willing to grant by a revocable convention implying no permanent loyalty will be found to include nothing more than what every civilised country ought to allow to unobjectionable immigrants. But the idea of bargaining for privilege may easily lead to citizenship wars as injurious, with their passports and quotas, as any tariff war. Sooner or later the Free State citizen’s privileges of seeking a career in the British services would be forfeited and with it might go the Free State labourer’s right to seek employment in the British labour market. When that day comes Mr De Valera will quite sincerely thank God just as he thanked God for the loss of the British cattle market. Meanwhile, as before the opening of the tariff war, he will assure the country that there is no danger of any such thing happening. SELF-SUFFICIENT IRELAND. It may be taken as certain that Mr De Valera does desire to destroy the idea of “ the common citizenship of the British Isles.” His aim is to turn all Irish hearts and eyes to the idea of a self-sufficient Ireland with a distinctive Gaelic culture. Not much progress can be made towards that ideal if the best brains in Ireland choose rather to share in the work of culture of the British Commonwealth. Mr De Valera always talks as if those who reject his ideal are a small Protestant minority influenced by an antiquated attachment to the British Crown, which implies either subserviency to England or contempt for all things Irish. This is, of course, a misrepresentation of the facts. The pro-British minority now probably contains as many Catholics as Protestants. These men told that for Ireland to reject the English ’ language and to turn her back on Great Britain means cutting herself off from all chance of playing a leading part in the modern wdrld. Though Ireland was once a conquered nation she is so no longer, but can now help to direct the policy of the British Commonwealth, influence its culture, work through it for her ideals, knowing that she is strong enough . to influence her partners without losing her own individuality. Because memory of past wrongs is more powerful than hopes for the future, Mr De Valera, has still a majority for his separatist Gaelic idea. But it is difficult to see how he hopes to attract Ulster with n United Ireland which is to be outside the British “ system,” which challenges Great

Britain to withdraw the privileges of British citizenship, and in which all State aid is to be denied to schools unless they teach through the medium of Irish, Three years ago Southern Irish Protestants were saying to Ulster Protestants: “ You would do wisely and rightly to come in and help us.’ To-day they say: “You do wisely and rightly in keeping out of this.”