 so. The draft Treaty provided that the Northern Government could “opt” out, but that a Boundary Commission would revise the boundary.
Now here is Lloyd George’s ultimate act of treachery. He secured the signatures of Griffith and Collins on the assurance that the revision of boundaries would reduce the exempt area to the Unionist core; and it was believed that such a small area soon would throw in its lot with Ireland.
The Hon. Frank Pakenham in his “Peace by Ordeal “quotes English statesmen as declaring (what every Irishman knows) that Griffith and Collins would not and could not sign the Treaty unless assured of “essential unity.” (On the strength of Lloyd George’s promise, the Treaty was signed—and its disastrous consequences brought upon us.)
The time came for the Boundary Commission to operate. Craig had “opted” out of the State on the very date that its Constitution came into force, December 6th, 1922, and now in 1925 the Commission was under Mr. Justice Feetham to revise the Border.
Feetham declared that the wording of the Treaty permitted only rectifications of the Border—the straightening out of corners in that tortuous frontier. He said that it did not allow transfer of substantial territory, such as the two Nationalist counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh and the great Nationalist areas of South Armagh, South and East Down, North Antrim, Derry City. In other words, the two great Irishmen who had accepted the Treaty on the score of ‘‘essential unity” and had given their lives, one to a broken heart and the other to death in battle, had been hoaxed. As long as men remember the name of Lloyd George, it will be to execrate the betrayer of Griffith and Collins and Ireland.
The Boundary Commission’s report was scrapped. The existing Border was confirmed. We are saddled with it still. Until it is wiped out by the unification of Ireland under the national Constitution—with local autonomy, perhaps, but that is another and a minor question— Ireland will be bitterly resentful against England that perpetuated the wrong and still finances its continuance.
We are hopeful, however, that Partition will be ended soon, and we base our hopes on the following factors:
(1) The Constitution of Sovereign Ireland claims the whole of Ireland in what may be termed the Second Declaration of Independence. Though the fact is recognised that Irish Sovereignty cannot operate in the Six Counties at present, the incorporation can be effected, once assent is secured, by a mere resolution of the legislature. Our claim is made, it is known to the world, and this fact has roused the Irish race as it has not been roused since the days of the armed struggle; while, day by day, fresh tokens come from foreign sources that Ireland has recovered the sympathy of the world. In a little while, all the forces that carried the Irish cause forward between 1916 and 1921 will be mobilised in all their strength once more; and now the obstacle on which they must be bent is comparatively small beside the tremendous forces which opposed them seventeen years ago.
(2) England has abandoned ground that seemed nigh impregnable in 1921. She has faced and accepted the Republican principle which she then declared to be intolerable. We no longer have to struggle against a mountainous assumption of the necessity of Irish subjection. English statesmen with their characteristic flexibility have accepted what they formerly declared to be out of the question; and behold you, they are inviting the friendship of a State which they tried to prevent from coming into existence. They know—they have been told by our leaders and the spokesmen of nationality in the Six Counties, the Northern Council for Unity, that friendship hangs on one condition—the rectification our supreme wrong, partition. Now, they have nothing to gain by upholding partition with their arms, money and Press. The Six Counties, now that the Twenty-Six are independent, are no use to them, but rather a financial drain and an obstacle to their desire for Irish friendship. Hence we are certain that the rising tide of nat