AN ABORTIVE MEETING.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 June 1932, Page 6

AN ABORTIVE MEETING.

The failure of the two British Ministers, Mr. J. 11. Thomas and Lord Hausham, to come to an agreement with the Ins i Free State leader, Mr. de Valera, regarding the constitutional questions now a issue is extremely disappointing. icn Mr. do Valera first launched in the Dail his attack upon the oath of a eglance it was generally assumed, outside lieland at any rate, that political diflicuities would probably put an en policy before he had made ruuci p gress. To the surprise of the oni ooke s ho experienced no great tj’ou lap iiiL' his measure through the popular SXuough the British Ujwnm had made no secret of its opinioni that the abolition of the oath would b > vn tual denunciation of the treaty■ u which the Free State holds its Dominion Constitution and the sister Dominions had earnestly pleaded that IrelandLshou d do nothing to impair her friendship with them. It seemed Mr. de Valeras “one way” mind, as it has been called, was fully mado up, but the announcement last week of his invitation to the Imperial Government to confer with him appeared to give welcome evidence of a very sudden change of heart. The visit to Dublin of the two British Ministers and the subsequent report that there linrl Been “preliminary conversations akve promise of a satisfactory result, but Mr. de Valera in turn has been to London, and the problem remains unsolved. For the moment the high hopes that were entertained have been dashed, yet it would not be wise to conclude that further action is impossible. In the Free State itself there has been a rather unexpected complication, dhe Senate has defeated or amended the vital portions of tho Oath Bill, and It is reported that the result will be a legislative deadlock. The Government will have to wait eighteen months before it can re-introduce the measure, it it desires to do so, and that means that there will be ample time to reconsider the position. Is it not possible that Mr. de Valera had this in mind when lie visited London? It may be that when he sought a conference with the Imperial Government he contemplated driving a bargain which would include the abandonment of the proposal to abolish the oath, but by the time the conference took place the Senate had acted, and he simply changed his plan rather than take a step which might have been interpreted as a surrender to the opposition he had encountered in the Free State Legislature. That is a not _ unreasonable explanation of the failure in London. If it is the right one the Mother Country and the Dominions need not fear that Ireland will hastily withdraw from the British Commonwealth of Nations.