Memorandum from Joseph P. Walshe for Eamon de Valera (Dublin)
(Secret)

I have just had a further conversation with the High Commissioner on the phone. His summing up of his conversations with the British Ministers, especially with Inskip, is that the British Government intend to go through with the application in principle of Conscription to the Six County area. They are, however, seeking some method by which the Nationalists can be excluded, and at the moment at any rate it is their intention to try to put a clause into their Bill for that purpose. The Cabinet is meeting on Monday morning at 10 o'clock, and Inskip has promised to give the clause or its purport to the High Commissioner at mid-day on Monday. Whatever they may do about exempting the Nationalists, it is clearly their desire to establish their right to impose Conscription on the Six Counties.

The High Commissioner has found the editors of the principal London papers sympathetic. All of them this morning carry pretty accurate accounts of your attitude. So far as I have learned, the 'Manchester Guardian' is the only paper which has a leader advocating the non-application of the Bill to the Six Counties on the grounds of expediency while emphasising the right of the British Parliament to do so if they desired. I enclose the High Commissioner's two written reports of his interviews, received this morning¹. The High Commissioner added on the phone this morning that Beaverbrook was wholeheartedly with us and was working might and main to prevent what he regards as a very dangerous step being taken.