MR DE VALERA’S AMBITIONS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21598, 19 March 1932, Page 10

MR DE VALERA’S AMBITIONS.

Mr db Valera, though now President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, has not yet reached the goal of his ambitions. He still hopes to be President of an Irish Republic. His utterances in his new political role have been adorned with frequent references to the ultimate object of his party as the separation, unity, and sovereign independence of Ireland. But at the elections, he has explained, Fianna Fail sought only a partial mandate. This is to be exercised without unnecessary delay in the abolition of the oath of allegiance. He is credited with now describing the oath as a purely domestic matter, “ not calling for any reference from Britain.” Just what he means by that is not very clear. The oath was embodied in the treaty of 1921, and the obligation in respect of it is part of the Free State Constitution under which is created the Free State Legislature consisting of the King and two Houses. Apparently Mr de Valera does not consider the time quite ripe for a definite proposal that the treaty with Great Britain should be repudiated. He hopes, however, to be successful in pursuing a policy of whittling away the Irish settlement and the Irish obligations under it. He has been warned, however, by the leader of the Labour Party in the Hail, without the assistance of which he cannot continue to hold office, that if the Government wastes time in bickering over political issues to the neglect of economic and social questions, it will receive short shrift. Mr de Valera has an opportunity of continuing the good work for the benefit of Southern Ireland that was carried on by the Cosgrave Administration, and an opportunity also of attempting an interference of a more or less mischievous kind with existing conditions. He seems to be bent on removing any doubt concerning the direction in which his policy, so long as he is in office, will tend. The proceedings of his Ministry will doubtless be watched, as The Times has suggested, with a somewhat detached British interest, although a recent statement by the Secretary of State for the Dominions contained a very definite reaffirmation that the British Government regards the relations between Great Britain and Ireland as based upon the treaty of 1921 and will abide by that position. The Republican Party in Ireland cannot reasonably claim to enjoy the benefits of the treaty without the treaty itself. And when Mr de Valera expresses his hope that what he calls the “unnatural boundaries ” between Northern and Southern Ireland will be broken down, and at the same time admits that his ultimate object is an Irish Republic, he reveals himself as wilfully cynical. Any suggestion of a united Ireland that would be a republic is obviously absurd. The attitude of Northern Ireland on that point is absolutely uncompromising,, even in the improbable event of the north bringing itself to agree to a union with the Free State as a dominion. The announcement by Mr de Valera that his Government does not intend to make another payment of land annuities, and intends to claim the restoration of £30,000,000 in respect of payments made, is indicative of a repudiatory design in another direction. The question of the land annuities is somewhat complicated and has been the subject of a good deal of political controversy in the Free State. The Cosgrave Government took up the reasonable attitude that the Land Act of 1923, which makes the payment of the annuities legal, contains exactly the same provisions for the repayment of land purchases as every previous Land Act; that land annuities are not revenue, but represent the price of ownership in fee simple paid by the farmer purchaser; that the British Government does not get one penny of the land annuities, which are paid to the people who advanced the money; and that, while the Free State could repeal the law providing for the payment of the annuities, neither a nation nor an individual is entitled to embezzle money or cancel just debts. The land annuities obtain in Northern Ireland as well as in the Free State, but the attitude towards them in the north is in marked contrast to that exhibited by Mr de Valera when he proposes to retain them as national land revenue and to claim restoration. It has been suggested that if the land annuity obligations were dealt with in Southern Ireland on the same basis as in Northern Ireland the Free State would be paying £9 to Great Britain for every £3 she pays now.