REPLY APPROVED.

Wairarapa Age, 6 April 1932, Page 5

REPLY APPROVED.

FREE STATE AND ENGLAND. OATH ISSUE. IRISH CABINET UNANIMOUS. LONDON, April 4. The Free State Cabinet sat until 11 p.m., when it was officially announced that the final draft of the reply to the British Government on the Oath issue was approved unanimously. The reply will be forwarded to Mr. J. H. Thomas, Dominions Secretary, to-morrow. CONFERENCE SUGGESTED. DETERMINATION TO ABOLISH THE OATH. (Received Tuesday, 7.0 p.m.) LONDON, April 4. ’ It is understood that the Fianna Fail’s reply while reiterating a determination to abolish the Oath and retain annuities lengthily argues that neither constitutes a breach of the Treaty and intimates that the Free State is not averse to holding a conference to discuss annuities. It is reasserted that the Oath concerns the Irish people alone. AUSTRALIA’S CONCERN. MESSAGE FROM PRIME MINISTER. (Received Tuesday, 8.45 p.m.) CANBERRA, April 5. The Prime Minister, Mr. J. A. Lyons, announces that he had cabled to Mr. de Valera expressing Australia's deep concern at the situation developing in Ireland and expressing an earnest hope that the Irish Free State would take no action which would endanger tho existing unity of the British Commonwealth of Nations and the relationship of the Irish Free State to her sister Dominions and to the United Kingdom. He pointed out that Australia had cooperated with the Irish Free State, sister Dominions and the United Kingdom in removing constitutional difficulties and he had hoped that as a result of the Imperial Conferences of 1926 and 1930 a position had been reached where full co-operation of the self-governing peoples under the common Crown had been achieved. Therefore, any attempt to weaken the unity of the British Commonwealth of Nations would be profoundly deplored by people of Australia.

IRISH IN AUSTRALIA. MR. LYONS’S REMINDER. (Received Tuesday 11.5 p.m.) CANBERRA, April 6. Mr. Lyons emphasised that Australia contains a large proportion of people of Irish birth who might be vitally affected by any constitutional change involving their rights and privileges as citizens of a member of the British. Commonwealth of Nations.