FREE STATE CLAIMS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 271, 31 October 1932, Page 7

FREE STATE CLAIMS

ANGLO-IRISH CONFERENCE CORRESPONDENCE PUBLISHED. LAND ANNUITIES QUESTION. (British Official Wireless.) (Received 31, 12.30 p.m.) Rugby, October 29. A White Paper, issued this morning contains the correspondence relating to the recent conference in London between the United Kingdom and the Irish Free State.

In the first document the Free State declines to recognise that there is any binding force in certain instruments upon which the British Government rely. They state that the instrument of February 12, 1923, is not binding because, amongst other reasons, it was not submitted to the Irish Parliament for ratification. It was merely the provisional heads of the ultimate financial settlement of March, 1926, which, it states, is open to the same objection. The Free State Government contends that the land stocks are part of the public debt of teh United Kingdom, and .should therefore, .under the 1925 agreement, which amended the Irish Treaty, remain a liability on the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom, in reply to this memorandum, pointed out that according to the recognised practice of nations, agreements concluded between the representatives of Governments are binding upon the Governments concerned unless expressly subject to ratification. No such statement occurs in the agreements of 1923 or 1926, which were signed by Ministers on each side. Concerning the question of land annuities, it is stated that there are many considerations which show that the Irish land stocks are not part of the public debt or the national debt of the United Kingdom. They have never been so shown in the United Kingdom accounts. They are a contingent liability, since primary security is the Land Purchase Fund and the United Kingdom Government are the only guarantors. Apart from technical considerations it is perfectly clear that when the agreement of 1925 was signed, by which the Free State was absolved from bearing any share in the public debt of the United Kingdom, neither party intended to include land annuities in this term. This was shown, inter alia, by the fact that the subsequent agreement of 1926 provided for the payment of annuities in full and without the deduction of income tax to the National Debt Commissioners. The land annuities are debts due by Free State tenants to the Land Purchase Fund, held by the National 'Debt Commissioners in respect to the sums advanced to enable them to buy their land. The annuities had been collected by the Free State Government as agent, and that Government would have no right to collect except as agents. They were bound to pay them over when collected, and Irish Free Statelegislation provided that they shall be paid over. It is for this reason that the payments cannot be regarded as inter-governmental debts.

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