THE IRISH QUESTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23109, 8 February 1937, Page 12

THE IRISH QUESTION

UNEXPECTED MEETING DE VALERA-MACDONALD TALKS END TO ECONOMIC WAR? (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, Jan. 16. After a lapse of four year, formal contact between the head of the Irish Free State and a British Minister took place this week. Mr de Valera, president of the Executive Council, had two meetings with Mr Malcolm MacDonald, Dominions Secretary. The talks were unforeseen and prolonged, and are believed also to have embraced the Free State attitude towards the Coronation, to certain Imperial Defence problems, and economic relations. An official, statement recorded that informal discussions had taken place “ on a number of matters affecting the relations between the two countries.”

Considerable surprise was caused in political quarters at the unexpected meeting, and there was a good deal of speculation concerning its import. Generally, it was welcomed as a first step to ending the “ miserable disputes ” that divide the two Governments. Three years have passed since formal notes were last exchanged. 1932 INCIDENTS The beginning of strained relations between the Irish Free State and the British Governments goes back to 1932, when Mr de Valera, in office for the first time, announced that he would withhold the land purchase annuities and other sums amounting to over £5,000,000, hitherto paid under agreement between Mr Cosgrave’s Government and . the British Government, until an impartial court upheld the right of the British claim. In June, 1932, Mr de Valera saw Lord Hailsham and Mr J. H. Thomas, then Secretary for the Dominions, in Dublin, and discussions were arranged. They Broke down on Mr de Valera’s refusal to accept limitation of an arbitration tribunal to Empire membership. The British Government imposed taxation on imports from the Free State for the purpose of recouping itself for the withheld moneys. In October formal negotiations were opened in London between the two Governments, but these again broke down after two days. Since then the only personal contact between Ministers of the two Governments concerning the points in dispute has been a five-minutes’ conversation between Mr de Valera and Mr Thomas at Victoria Station, London, in April, 1933, when Mr de Valera was on his way back to Dublin from' a visit to Paris. Meanwhile the constitutional points of difference between the two Governments were accentuated by the course of Mr de Valera’s legislation in the Dail, which was declared by Mr Thomas to be in the British Government’s view a repudiation of the treaty. MR DE VALERA’S ACTIONS Mr de Valera has abolished the Governor-General, but he has not broken the Imperial connection. Indeed, he has actually affirmed his acceptance of it through the King in the realm of “ external affairs,” and for treaty-making purposes, The English Government has refused to get excited about Mr de Valera’s constitutional legislation, while Mr Malcolm Mac Donald has conceived the best hdpo for a genuine political understanding to lie through the liquidation of the economic war.

The war has been mitigated in two important respects. First, there was the pound-for-pound coal-cattle agreement of 1935. That was renewed last February, and is still working well, and will, no doubt, be renewed again. But at the same time that the coalcattle agreement was renewed a new agreement was announced whereby there was a reciprocal remission or reduction of duties. The Irish Free State reduced the duties on a wide range of manufactured ~'oods, such as electrical apparatus, machinery, iron and steel products, cycles and cement, and also on sugar and manufactures of sugar. 'The British Government in return reduced the duties on imports from the Free State of live animals and meat, horses, sheep and lambs, and mutton and lamb. SUSPICION While the meeting between Mr de Valera and Mr MacDonald was welcomed generally, a note of suspicion was sounded by the conservative Morning Post. Its comment was:— “ Clearly something is in the wind, and remembrance of Mr de Valera’s past actions and avowed intentions justifies a lively concern as to his present purpose. Mr de Valera’s policy hitherto has been, briefly stated, to retain for the Free State all the advantages of the British connection while ignoring or repudiating its obligations Owing to the feeble complaisance of British Ministers, that policy of injury and affront has been very successful—so successful that yet another extension of it may be more than suspected now.”