hat might have come in the dark suspicions of that hour. Now came one more test of Eamon de Valera’s prudence. That he had joined, or rather led, the national repudiation of the crime was merely what was to be expected of this Christian statesman, but if the sudden plunge of the nation towards violence was to be checked he must make his great influence felt as he could not do from outside the legislature. Accordingly, with his colleagues of the party, he abandoned the Abstentionist tactics, proclaimed that the oath would be treated as a formality, and so entered the new Dáil, at which, on the second election of that fateful year, Fianna Fail made a formidable showing.
For five years, the new party laboured patiently, gaining mastery of the parliamentary technique and the business of government, though taunted often ungenerously by those who had legislated to force them into the Dáil. The economic policy of the governing party afforded Fianna Fail a double ground of criticism. In the first place, it was marked by a general abandonment of the traditional Irish policy of protection and tillage; the policy of which Griffith himself had been the chief modern expounder. Griffith’s followers had run away from Griffith’s principles. Ireland was being made a mere grass-land for England, while manufacturers still dominated our market and defied industrial revival. In the second place, the Government policy was palpably bad in immediate results. The people were suffering bitterly. Mr. Cosgrave made a half-hearted attempt to ease the position by asking relief from the annuities impost, that drain of millions a year from a struggling country; but the English abruptly refused all concessions. Fianna Fail promised to challenge the enforced tribute, and to set up tariff walls that would enable Irish industry to recover.
At the end of 1931, the Dáil was dissolved, and the test came. To Mr. Cosgrave’s astonishment, the country condemned him. Aided by Labour, Fianna Fail came into power in 1932, the glorious Eucharistic Year. How deeply thankful patriots were that Eamon de Valera, who had suffered arid endured so much, and whose Christian charity had healed wounds that seemed unhealable, was privileged to be this historic nation’s lay head to welcome the Holy Father’s legate to that majestic gathering of the Catholic world upon the Irish shore!
VIII..—SIX YEARS’ LEGISLATION—1932-1937
Our story may be unfolded more rapidly as it deals with events fresh in the public memory. The year 1932 saw little progress beyond preliminaries. The annuities payments were discontinued and England responded by her penal tariffs on Irish produce. That egregious statesman, Mr. J. H. Thomas (the Right Honourable) accused Ireland of perfidy and did his utmost to make a difficult situation more difficult for his own country as well as ours. He fully believed, and so probably did most of England’s ill-informed statesmen, that the nation would renege its leader in order to escape the penal tariffs. De Valera called the bluff. A general election was held in January, 1933, in the depth of the sufferings of our farmers, and to the astonishment of all who don’t know Ireland, Fianna Fail came back triumphant—it was endorsed in its resolve to fight the issue out.
It was De Valera’s declared purpose, having abolished the oath, so that all groups could enter the legislature, to concentrate on economic measures, in order that the nation should be strong enough to stand whenever the constitutional issue should he taken up afresh. In both economic and constitutional matters, he was forced to move more rapidly than he had planned. As we noted in our introduction, the industrial revival was carried in five years so far towards self—sufficiency that its champions were themselves surprised. England’s tariff war, as we remarked, obliged Ireland to carry out fifty years’ programme in five.
In the constitutional field, De Valera was obliged to accept two challenges. The Governor-General of 1932 had done things which gave his office a place which the Republican Government could not 