Extract from a letter from John J. Hearne to Joseph P. Walshe (Dublin)¹
(135/5)

Viscount Alexander² received me graciously. He said that he was glad to have a fellow countryman in Canada with whom to talk about Ireland. He spoke (one imagined to a brief) of the great influence of the Irish in the United States and the present prestige of the Catholic Church in that country. He expressed a mild interest in the number of Irishmen in Canada. His Excellency has a pleasant baritone voice. He is of middle height, slight build, and military bearing. His manner is informal but, in no sense, 'familiar'. His conversation in official company on social occasions will, one feels, as, no doubt, it should, be trivial and tentative. The third son of the fourth Earl of Caledon, of Caledon, in the Co. of Tyrone, is fifty-five years of age. It is exactly two hundred and eighty years since his ancestor got that 'grant' of land at Ballyclose, near Newtown, Limavady, in the County of Derry.

Viscountess Alexander is a Bingham (family of the Earls Lucan of Castlebar) and is related to the Duchess of Abercorn. Captain David Lloyd-Thomas, one of the two Aides who accompanied the Governor General to Canada is a cousin of Viscountess Alexander. His mother was a daughter of the fourth Baron Bellew of Louth. Mrs. Millbanke, wife of the Private Secretary to the Governor General, is a daughter of Lord Farnham (of Cavan).

The Irish associations of the Governor General and his household are adverted to, not only as a matter of general interest, but because of a tendency which some of our friends in Ottawa have noticed in the press and radio of recent months to glorify Northern Ireland at the expense of the remainder of the country, and the Irishmen who fought in British Forces in the war at the expense of the majority who supported the national policy of neutrality. The new major Canadian operatic work e.g. 'Deirdre of the Sorrows' by Healy Willan,³ the world première of which was broadcasted by the CBC a fortnight ago is a musical poem in praise of Ulster which Mr. Healy Willan was requested by the CBC to compose. About the same time a coming visit of Esmond Warnock⁴ to Canada was announced in the press. It is possible to exaggerate the significance of all this. But one must take account of it. Senator McGuire, of Toronto, said to me after the ceremony in which the Governor General was sworn in: 'The time has come for the Irish Government to flood this country with propaganda'.

An incident in connection with the issue of new Instructions to the Governor General will be of interest to the Department. The Canadian Government decided to issue new instructions on the occasion of Viscount Alexander's entry upon his office. In a departure from former practice, Mr. Mackenzie King advised the Earl of Athlone to issue the Letters Patent containing the Instructions. (Previously, the Letters had always been issued by the King). But His Majesty, without informing the Canadian Government, issued Letters (containing the old Instructions) to Viscount Alexander, and sent them to the Prime Minister King for countersignature. His Majesty, of course, was (so far as one knows) unaware of the Letters made by the Earl of Athlone on the advice of the Canadian Government. Mr. Mackenzie King was, one learns, taken aback by His Majesty's surprizing constitutional initiative. But, 'in order to avoid a crisis', he countersigned the Letters made in London. The Canadian document is a dead letter.

[matter omitted]