SERIOUS DOCUMENT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 380, 23 March 1932, Page 1

SERIOUS DOCUMENT.

Mr J. H. Thomas’s Statement in House. RELATIONS WITH IRELAND. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received March 23, 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, March 22. In the House of Commons, Mr J. H. Thomas announced that he had received from the Irish

High Commissioner a most important and serious document. He would take the earliest opportunity of giving an official reply. This followed dramatically a ques--tion from the Rt Hon J. C. Wedgewood as to whether his attention had been called to the position in Ireland

and would he say when the next payment of land purchase annuities was due? Mr Thomas assured his questioner that the relations between Britain and the Free State rested on the treaty. The next payment of annuities was due late in June.

DID NOT DRAFT OATH

Mr E. de Valera Declares Statement False. (Received March 23, 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, March 22. “ The statement made by Mr Duggan that I drafted, or had anything to do with the drafting of the oath of allegiance in the treaty is a falsehood,” said Mr de Valera, President of the Irish Executive Council, in an interview yesterday. “Michael Collins told, me that Lord Birkenhead drafted the oath, adding as he passed it to Mr Collins, ‘This is the greatest piece of prevarication in history’,” added Mr de Valera. Mr Lloyd George’s View. Mr Lloyd George declines to believe that Lord Birkenhead called the Irish oath of allegiance a “ piece of prevarication.” He adds: “Lord Birkenhead and everyone concerned regarded the oath as a cardinally important reference to the Crown as a link- of Empire.”