Extract from minutes of a meeting of the Executive Council (C. 5/38)

An order was made advising the ratification on behalf of the Irish Free State of the International Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armaments, signed at London on 22nd April, 1930.

The Minister for External Affairs intimated that it had been his intention on this occasion to institute a change in the procedure for sealing documents of this character, by having the Great Seal of Saorstát Éireann affixed instead of the Great Seal of the United Kingdom, as hitherto, but in present circumstances and particularly in view of the pressing anxiety of the United States Government to have this Treaty ratified, the Minister recommended, and the Executive Council agreed, that any modification of the existing practice should be deferred until the next occasion on which a Treaty falls due for ratification.