Three sections of handwritten notes by Eamon de Valera in preparation for a speech to the Nineteenth Assembly of the League of Nations (Geneva)¹

• We should [...] League
• Faults - should [...] how although to maintain frontier is against will of inhabitants
• Self Determination - Wilson examine.
• People will not go to war for other peoples.
• Wars in China, Spain, wars in China, Abyssinia.
• Right cla²

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[page missing?] That the, will of men seems powerless to avert a benumbing fatalism. It has required no small exercise of restraint to remain here. The members of the several Delegations are either men who are members of governments or high officers carrying heavy responsibility in their own country. Were a war to break out every one of them would have important duties to perform. Behind whatever attention is paid to other items on the agenda is the ever insistent question - How will our people be affected by a war. What are the greatest dangers to be apprehended - and finally they come back to the old old question: Is it inevitable that there should be wars like the last war so awful in the sufferings it caused during its duration - so terrible in its aftermath - so futile as a means of solving in any lasting fashion the econ. soc. or political problems in which it originates. And the minds of everyone reverts to twenty years ago.

Those phrases that caught the imagination of the people the plain people - as Mr. Wilson called them are still ringing in our ears: the self determination of peoples, the rights of the small nations as well as those of great - the iniquity of handing our people against their will from Governments to Governments as if they were chattels: we ask ourselves were these merely clever propaganda to inspire propaganda of what again analyse the meaning of these phrases and after twenty years experience ask ourselves whether the solutions they were intended to suggest is practicable in this actual world of ours with clashing wills with evil every arranged and [word indecipherable] against the good. We know that the League of Nations for the foundation of which he was responsible - had within a decade and a half from its inception proved itself incapable of fulfilling the functions for which above all other its was created - the preservation of peace.

It was intended as a joint security for all its members. It has failed to secure peace to its members in Asia it has failed to secure its members in Africa - It failed to secure its members in America.

And despite all its evident failure it is the only ideal to which all desire peace, obedience to law and ordered society revert. There are only two ways in which order and law can be secured. One is by one unified State getting so powerful that it can impose its will on all the other States that they will accept the law it imposes - a Roman peace: the other that there should be a coming together of the States each because of the advantage of peace submitting itself voluntary³ to a rule of law and sacrificing its selfish desires when they [clash?] with the rule of law.

We would need an international parliament to declare the law. An international judiciary to interpret it and an international authority with police force to see that the law be kept. There are whose who would use their power and force to take possession of what belongs to another and wars that arise [word order unclear] clash of opposing rights against the aggressor pure and simple it is easy to mobilise opinion - all decent minded people reach to an appeal to assist against the robber bully. His own people will not in the [word order unclear] task again and if he is beaten there is an end to all. But when either side can show a rightful claim - when neither side sees why it should surrender its right to the others claim. Then each side is assured of the support of its own people, outside opinion is divided and takes opposite say a long struggle can ensue and a victory by force can only settle the question temporarily. The vanquished today sets his will with renewed energy to become the conqueror of tomorrow. That there can be such wars is evident and if we could only organise ourselves in the first instance so that these could be avoided obviated then the first great step to avoid all wars would have been taken negotiation arbitration, judicial determination are the ways that are open - it is vital that the will to avail of these methods of solution should be cultivated: the people must be taught to accept the sacrifice which what is essentially a compromise entails: the most noble of these methods is the method of negotiation - but the danger of the method is that each tries to have the ultimate result to force as a bargaining factor in order that he may have the best of the compromise - if their side is strong and the other weak

- the only defence of the weak is the determination to sacrifice everything rather than submit to unfair treatment. Were there machinery by which the stronger would have to submit to the judgment of our honest arbitrator .

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I am sure that there can hardly have been a single member of the 40 delegations from the 40 States represented here [that] have not felt as I have felt - that we were merely fiddling. We have had our committees and our plenary sessions - the delegates have done their formal work recorded the Committees giving their Governments attitudes on the various subjects on the agenda. But at the focus of every mind was the supreme question. Was Europe to be dragged into another great conflict and if so how each particular delegates own country would fare - were their people as well prepared for it as they should be - were their defences as well organised as they should be.

Frankly and at a time like this with peace and war hanging in the balance to speak frankly what one felt was to risk doing harm with little corresponding hope that anything one might say could do good.

The delegations from the states that are meeting here at Geneva are all men and women who have a very clear conception of what another world war would mean for their respective countries and for Europe - and I would certainly not represent them if I were not fully alive to the importance of saying nothing which might even in the slightest degree make a dangerous situation more dangerous or hamper ever so little those who had undertaken the delicate task of trying to get a solution.

It is a significant indication of the present position of the League.

If only this Assembly were really where the Law of Nations. The first thought [word indecipherable] is of President Wilson - his work his success and his failure. One cannot help thinking what a monument this great building and institution would be to his memory if the League were really able to perform the functions [that the average person interested] plain people as he called them expected of it.

In the mind of the average person the chief function of the League should be to secure the maintenance of peace. The war a little while ago in Abyssinia, the war in China [is proof that], the threatened war in Europe which the League is helpless to stop are all proof that whatever else the League may be able to do it cannot maintain peace between the nations.