blishment 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 was about to be sent over to symbolise our loss of free status. The spirit of the nation was low, and brothers were on the eve of civil war.
The Republican army refused to accept the disestablishment of the Republic as lawful, and repudiated the Dáil which had committed itself to establish a Dominion. There was threat of war between that army and the forces which the Provisional Government called into being—and in one calamitous episode, a soldier was shot dead. In the desperate effort to prevent the outbreak, the Collins-de Valera pact was signed. By this understanding, the Treaty supporters agreed to devise a constitution which would contain no oath, and Republicans would enter that constitution to work through its machinery for the recovery of the lost status. Collins had praised the Treaty as giving “freedom to attain freedom,” and he was asked to make this good by dropping the oath as lawyers declared to be possible without violation of the Treaty. A “pact election “was held, which was not to be contested. The pact was broken. A Dominion constitution was clapped before the people on the very morning of the poll.
Once again it was Lloyd George who drove the sword of his malice through the hope of Irish peace. He declared that Britain could not accept the draft Irish constitution as a faithful interpretation of the Treaty. He obliged Collins to restore the oath and to break the pact. Republicans were returned to the Second Dáil in reduced, though surprisingly large, numbers. On June 28th, civil war began.
Deputy Patrick Hogan, Free State Minister for Agriculture, used to say, “We started the civil war.” Not all supporters of the Free State were equally ready to accept the responsibility, and efforts still are made to blame the Republican side. It was not when the cannon opened fire on the Republican army’s headquarters at Four Courts that the civil war became inevitable, but earlier, when the pact was broken and the political arm of Republican action paralysed. Yet, when the guns began and the centre of Dublin w