Memorandum from Joseph P. Walshe to Eamon de Valera (Dublin)
'Sir John Maffey – Sanctions'
(Most Secret)

I met Sir John Maffey by arrangement at Wing Commander Begg's¹ cocktail party at Dundrum yesterday evening. We chatted in the garden for about forty minutes.

As he promised during my conversation with him at the American Minister 's lunch on Thursday, 16th, he had been talking to London.² But it was clear from the first moment of this present conversation that he had not been given any definite instructions to inform us that there was no question of sanctions. On the contrary, he was vague and inclined to hedge. The Dominions Office had told him, he said, that there was nothing in Churchill's speech of Tuesday, 14th, to warrant the assumption that sanctions were to be applied. He personally still felt sure that there would be no sanctions, but (and this he said for the first time in the course of conversations on three successive days), of course, it was impossible to say that under no circumstances whatever would there be sanctions. Moreover, he thought we should be ready, in view of the Second Front, for still stricter control of traffic, even of the deprivation of some of the shipping facilities which now existed between the two islands.

I said that I felt his message from the Dominions Office about Churchill's speech was very unsatisfactory. It was surely against their interests as well as ours that we should be left in doubt, as the British Government seemed to wish to leave us, whether or not there would be sanctions. The threat of further measures in Churchill's speech – apart from the extremely ungracious character of the whole tenor of it – was already causing a certain bitterness amongst our people, and it would not be at all surprising, if the British deliberately continued to leave us in doubt, that the situation might cause revival of the old anti-British feelings. No momentary gain in the British or American political atmosphere was worth paying such a price for. It was all very well to say (as Kearney, the Canadian High Commissioner had said to me) that Churchill had spoken with his tongue in his cheek. How many people, even amongst the very best informed, would know that his tongue was in that position? It was a most unscrupulous speech and a most damaging speech, as he himself had taken the initiative in calling it. The average Englishman could not have read Churchill's speech without acquiring new prejudices against Ireland. I must, therefore, urge him again to do what I had suggested the day before, namely, that Cranborne should make a definite statement saying it was not intended to take any sanctions against us and that there was question only of military precautions: insofar as these latter were concerned we were ready to give every help in our power. And, incidentally, was not it most unfair treatment that the British Government should announce measures implying that they were punitive, though since explained to us as precautionary, without having given us any warning or having consulted us on the measures which could or should be taken by both sides? The mere one-sided announcement of the measures, whatever the Dominions Office might say, was enough in itself to give them a strong flavour of sanctions. The British always wanted to have it both ways. Now, apparently, they wanted us to believe that Churchill's speech was or was not a sanctions speech according as it suited their particular needs.

He had mentioned the workers' pool, and I wanted to emphasise again that any action we took with regard to the workers was in accord with our absolute obligation to protect them and our own interests. We could not possibly neglect our duty to the extent of allowing them to go to England until we had the most positive assurance that there would be no sanctions and also until we had the clearest information about all the restrictive measures they meant to take. (I said this because there were implications in Maffey's attitude as a whole that the restrictions might easily cross the border line into sanctions, especially in relation to shipping between the two countries. Indeed, unless we are told something positive to the contrary, it is better to assume that they are going to withdraw a substantial percentage of the shipping now engaged in the Anglo-Irish trade.)

Maffey then went on to the leakage question, and enlarged on the hypothesis that, if there had not been so much talk here in the early days after the presentation of the note, especially on account of Army measures, the whole trouble would never have arisen.

I told him we were nearly tired of hearing that argument from David Gray and himself. Clearly the two of them were determined to put us in the wrong on the question of the leakage which had already been answered by the well-known fact that the B.B.C. made the first positive announcement in London at 6 o'c. on March 10th, almost simultaneously with Hull's statement in Washington. He would remember very well that we have had several scares of American, British and German invasions across the Border. We even had at least one military stand-to. The rumours were rife for nine or ten days, but, because there was no official confirmation of them, they died down. That would have been the fate of the recent rumours if the British Censorship had prevented the story crossing the Atlantic, as they were preventing other stories, and if the Americans had acted likewise.

One fact was absolutely certain – our Censorship was not given the chance of stopping the story. In any case, the campaign against us in Britain and America, and the provocative tone of Churchill's speech, could not be explained away without some prior intention to let the cat out of the bag.

Maffey laughingly agreed that it was no good arguing about the leakage aspect, nor, indeed, was it of any great import now. His job was to try and prevent any further incidents. And, in this connection, he said that he was going over to London very shortly to talk about the whole matter, and, amongst other people before whom he would lay our views and his own, would be Anthony Eden. Because, he said, Anthony Eden had a real sense of the need for treating Ireland fairly.

I continued to urge that the present situation, as far as our people were concerned, could not be expected to improve until we got a definite statement.

Finally, as we were going away, I told him that I felt his instruction from the Dominions Office to be so vague that I could not clearly convey it to the Taoiseach, and perhaps it would be better if he saw the Taoiseach immediately himself.

In reply, he said that, after the conversation with me, he felt it was better to go back to his own people once more with the further information I had given him about my Minister 's and the Government's attitude. He now realised, he said, that we had a sense of soreness at being left in doubt about such a serious matter, and he would try to secure a definite statement in the sense I had spoken of.

I reminded him to impress upon his people how necessary it was for us to be informed precisely of the restrictive measures they intended to take, because, otherwise, we on our side should only see half the picture.

He promised to do so.