AGREEMENT WITH IRELAND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19196, 9 December 1925, Page 11

AGREEMENT WITH IRELAND

STEPS FOR RATIFICATION I HEATED DEBATE IN DAIL. MR. COSGRAVE'S APPEAL. INTERESTS OF PEACE. NATIONALISTS ANGERED. By Telegraph.—Press Association. —Copyright. (Received 5.5 p.m.) A. and N.Z.—Renter. LONDON. Dec. 7. The Irish Treaty Bill was formally introduced in the House of Commons today by the Prime Minister, Mr. Stanley Baldwin. The measure fixes April las the date for the transfer of the powers of the Council of Ireland to the Parliament of Northern Ireland. A message from Dublin states that after a heated debate in the Dail on the Irish agreement the Government defeated a motion for the adjournment of the debate by 55 votes to 26, thus practically ensuring the ratification of the agreement. The House adjourned after a heated two hours' discussion. The President, Mr. W. T. Cosgravo, in moving the second reading of the ratifying bill, said that when Mr. MacNeill resigned from the Irish executive the Government was faced with perhaps the most serious situation with which it had ever had to deal. The award ot the Boundary Commission was then imminent., and it would have sown seeds of distrust, hate and disorder. The Government was faced with two alternatives, namely, those of Carrying out the award of the commission, or of resorting to arbitration or force. Either alternative pointed straight to disaster and chaos. The agreement would mean the turning point in Irish history. It had removed the main outstanding sources of the dispute between Britain and the Irish Free State. The executive strongly recommended deputies to accept it in the interests of prosperity and peace. Professor Magennis strongly opposed the agreement. He said Ulster had got all its own way, and was in a fair way to become a Dominion. It was culpable and wilful ignorance for the executive to allow Mr. MacNeill to proceed until there was no way out. A meeting 9f Nationalist members of Parliament and leaders in Tyrone and Fermanagh was held at Omagh this evening. It declared that the Nationalists in the border counties had been callously betrayed, and that they were neither morally nor legally bound by the new agreement, as the Free State representatives had not been authorised to alter the treaty.