mber 8th that lasted far into the night.
Even then, at that tragic last hour, the nation’s worst calamity might have been averted if Griffith had declared that he acted under duress. He who had favoured the dual monarchy in other days, was well enough satisfied by the Dominion to be unwilling to take the gloss off the settlement. Republicans knew that the gloss was fallacious. Collins and Duggan stood with Griffith, while Gavan Duffy and Barton considered that their pledge, given to avert war, bound them to stand by their signatures. It is only fair to observe that, if Gavan Duffy and Barton had denounced Lloyd George’s constraint, the treaty would have been defeated and the purpose for which they signed it would have been frustrated. Only if all five delegates solemnly declared that they had signed under duress could it be accepted, under protest, as a thing forced on us. On December 9th, Ireland learnt, therefore, that the Cabinet had split. The President announced that he could not recommend the Treaty for acceptance, and that the Ministers of Home Affairs and Defence (Stack and Brugha) supported him. “The great test of our people has come,” he wrote, and he pleaded for a decision by constitutional means.
For three days, the Treaty had been gathering a volume of applause, and the world was astonished to learn that the Irish leader was against it. Instantly, the agents of propaganda circulated the legend of a dour, irreconcilable fanatic, who was jealous of the success of the chief delegates – Griffith and Collins, who were being made white-headed boys by powers and persons whom, in truth, both of them despised.
To the everlasting shame of some of our newspapers, there were leading articles again and again, during the ensuing fortnight, which protested against the Dáil’s scrutiny of the Treaty clause by clause and the exhaustive debate on status. The corrupt old Irish Parliament of the landlords took six months to debate the Union, but the Irish Republic was not to spend a few days in discussing its own disestablishment and the adoption of a complex trade and finance agreement. The impatience of some papers showed what inane persons can write and control organs of opinion in an unfree land. Small wonder, then, that de Valera’s difficult case got a poor hearing. He was striving to pull together a legislature and a nation which Lloyd George, the sudden ultimatum and the swift propaganda had flung into confusion. Aided by Childers, he drew up the famous Document No. 2, which he put forward as a final concession on which unity by compromise be reached. This document agreed with the Treaty on material issues, ceding more than ever Mr. de Valera had contemplated before the fatal sixth of December; but it removed the Crown from Ireland’s internal affairs, it denied that we were British citizens, it reaffirmed Sovereignty. If thus were accepted, the honour of the Republic would be saved and a united people could work to make the most of it. Unhappily, dissension had gone too far. Once Griffith broke with a man, he was unreconcilable, and now he had set aside the President’s authority and was set on his own policy and purpose.
So the Treaty was approved on January 7th, 1922, by 64 votes to 57—a very, very narrow majority when we consider that two of the affirmative votes were those of the two delegates who felt themselves conscience-bound to stand by the Treaty that they detested, and that some others who voted for the Treaty did so as those delegates had signed, namely in constraint. “I cannot vote to bring war on my country,” cried Deputy Liam de Roiste of Cork, as he cast his voice for acceptance—a broken-hearted man.
For the only time in his life to his friends’ knowledge, Eamon de Valera broke down. He rose to speak on the defeat of the Republic, the end of “the four glorious years,” but tears overcame him.
Contrast the position in January, 1922, with that of the Summer of 1938. When the Treaty had been approved, the principles of Sovereignty and independence were gone; English power was in our ports; a Governor-General wa