judgment. The Government's draft was appreciated and accepted " to the extent that it implies a recognition of Ireland's separate nationhood and her right to self-determination "; but the offer of " Dominion status " was rejected as " illusory " unless the " right to secede " was sufficiently guaranteed. The " independence " of Ireland wa's claimed " on the basis of moral right "; and Mr. De Valera asserted " for myself and my col- leagues our deep conviction that true friendship with England . . . can be obtained and most readily through amicable but absolute separation." The present proposals were such as the Irish people could not be asked to accept, though he would have been ready to recommend " a certain treaty of free associa- tion with the British Commonwealth group " if it would secure the allegiance of " the present dissenting minority," or to negotiate treaties about trade, armaments, etc. They were prepared to leave Ireland's share of the national debt to be determined by three arbitrators, one chosen by Ireland, one by Great Britain, and a third by agreement, or, in default, " to be nominated, say, by the President of the United States." The question at issue with " the political minority " (i.e. Ulster) was one " for the Irish people themselves to settle," but " we cannot admit the right of the British Government to mutilate our country, either in its own interest or at the call of any section of our population." They did not " contemplate the use of force," however, in bringing Ulster to terms, and if conciliation failed the question might, he suggested, be sub- mitted to " external arbitration."
On Aug. 15 the Government at last published the text of the terms offered to Mr. De Valera on July 20, his reply on Aug. 10, and a rejoinder from Mr. Lloyd George on Aug. 13, together with a letter addressed to De Valera on Aug. 4 by Gen. Smuts advising him to accept the "Dominion status" offered and " to leave Ulster alone for the present " in the sure hope that, sooner or later, economic considerations would lead her to seek union with the rest of Ireland. In Mr. Lloyd George's rejoinder on Aug. 13, he declared emphatically that no right of Ireland to secede from allegiance to the King could be admitted, and no claim that she should negotiate with Britain as a " separate and foreign Power," nor could the relations between Southern and Northern Ireland nor any other question be allowed to be referred to foreign arbitration. He repeated that, if the conditions of the Government's offer were accepted in principle, their application in detail would form material for discussion.
On Aug. 16, Dail Eireann assembled at the Dublin Mansion House. The proceedings, which were conducted according to all the forms of an ordinary parliament, began by the taking by all the members of an oath " to support and defend the Irish Republic and the Government of the Irish Republic." Then followed the address of " President " De Valera, in which he asserted once more the right of Ireland to complete inde- pendence, " which could not be realized at the present time in any other way so suitably as through a Republic," and declared it to be impossible to negotiate to any effect with the British Government, because the two parties to the negotiations had no common basis of principle. 1 At the adjourned meeting on the following day he reasserted this attitude yet more uncom- promisingly. "We cannot, and we will not," he said, "on behalf of this nation, accept these terms." As for the Six Counties, the Irish Republic would " go a long way in order to satisfy the sentiments of Ulster "; but he insisted that " the minority problem in Ireland had its origin in British policy." 2
De Valera's attitude caused something like consternation in those circles in England which believed or affected to believe that Sinn Fein might be conciliated by the concession of "Do- minion status." English Radical organs like the Nation, which had consistently supported Sinn Fein and vilified the police and the soldiers in Ireland, betrayed their discomfiture by efforts to find in De Valera's utterances phrases which might be twisted into an expression of some willingness to compromise.
1 Ir. Butt, v., No. 55, Aug. 17. Ir. Bull, v., No. 56, Aug. 18.
The Northcliffe Press, 3 whose criticisms of the Government had previously done so much to encourage Sinn Fein, enlarged on the far-reaching character of Mr. Lloyd George's offer, and for the first time for about two years warned De Valera that British opinion would not tolerate an Irish Republic. On Aug. 19 the Prime Minister, in the House of Commons, declared that the terms offered to Ireland by the Government had defined the issues more clearly than they had ever been defined before, and that their rejection would be " an unmistakable challenge to the authority of the Crown and the unity of the Empire in the very heart of the Empire." In the House of Lords the Lord Chancellor defended the action of the Government in attempting to reach a settlement, but went still further in warning Sinn Fein that, in the event of a rejection of the offer, Great Britain would be committed to hostilities in Ireland on an unprecedented scale. This declaration by Lord Birkenhead was attacked by a small section of the Liberal Press as provoc- ative, but, in general, British newspapers of all complexions, with surprising unanimity, emphasized the inevitable result of a refusal by Sinn Fein to come to terms. On the other hand the Irish Bulletin commented caustically on the con- tradiction involved in threatening dire consequences in the event of the Irish " declining as ' a free Dominion ' to ' join voluntarily ' ' a free association' of ' free nations ' " (v., No. 57, Aug. 19). The Bulletin, indeed, which represented day by day the views of the republican leaders, denied that the British offer was really one of "Dominion status" as understood in the overseas Dominions; and it protested against the publication of Gen. Smuts's letter, the comments contained in which, it argued, were not justified by the actual proposals made by the Government', which implied the " military subjection of Ireland," and were " incompatible with an independent voice in foreign affairs." The rights and privileges of the Dominions, it argued, were all summed up in the right to secede, which " gives them the authentic stamp of freedom; that is, of free choice; self-determination." The Bulletin denied, however, that the phrase " the right to secede " was applicable to Ireland, " which can never be said to ' secede ' from an authority never acknowledged." 4
On Aug. 21 Dail Eireann met in secret session in order to agree upon its formal answer to the Government's terms. From all parts of the world came messages urging the Sinn Fein leaders to listen to reason. They were, however, in a singularly diffi- cult position, and therefore, both in order to safeguard them- selves and to add weight to whatever decision might be arrived at, they determined to consult those who might be con- sidered more closely in touch with opinion throughout the country than the members of the Dail, who had been elected under the conditions already described. For this purpose the executive council, representing all the district councils of Sinn Fein in Ireland, was summoned to Dublin to sit concurrently with Dail Eireann, and met at the Mansion House on Aug. 24. On Aug. 26 a public session of the Dail was held. At the outset of the proceedings Mr. De Valera announced that, as this was a new Dail, the " Ministry " had resigned. On the motion of Mr. McKeon, Mr. De Valera was next reelected " President of the Irish Republic," and in this capacity proceeded to nominate
8 In 1919 The Times, departing from its previous policy, had pub- lished a scheme of its own, on Home Rule lines, for an Irish settle- ment.
4 This claim, frequently repeated by De Valera and others, that Ireland never acknowledged the sovereignty of the Crown, is, of course, quite without foundation either in history or in public law. It was examined, from the point of view both of a historian and a canonist, by Father Walter McDonald, D.D. (d. 1920), Professor of Moral Philosophy in the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth, in his Some Ethical Questions of Peace and War (1919). In this, Father McDonald demolished the Sinn Fein position with pitiless logic, his intimate knowledge of Ireland and its history giving his arguments special weight. The book was violently assailed in The Catholic Times (No. 22," Ireland's Plain Rights "), to which Father McDonald replied in a Postcript in Reply to Certain Criticisms (1920). For the issues of principle involved in the Sinn Fein claim see SELF-DETERMINATION.
