Memorandum from Joseph P. Walshe to Eamon de Valera (Dublin)
concerning European economic integration

For the Taoiseach.
The Western European States are not merely nor primarily economic entities. They have a history and traditions of religion and culture going back to the remotest times.¹ For nearly 2,000 years their evolution has been very largely determined by Christian principles. Each one of them, including our own, has contributed spiritual values to the fabric of European civilisation. There could be no greater disaster for humanity than that these nation states should be absorbed, partially or wholly, into one or more great economic entities. Europe is so immensely richer as a source of noble ideas and human endeavours than any other part of the world that any attempt to interfere with the present fabric might well imperil Christian civilisation as a whole. However much we small states co-operate for good ends – and we must do so to the greatest extent possible – we must be constantly vigilant on account of the new tendency towards the great economic unit as the ideal form of State.

These new theories envisage the State as a mere instrument for acquiring economic power – a mere transition factor in an economic evolution towards a purely materialistic world State. The greatest service that the small State can render to humanity is to resist this tendency by developing and deepening its own spiritual values, for it is by spiritual ideas that men's minds are essentially governed. Promises of material well-being in the exclusively economic state cannot satisfy the end of man's existence and consequently cannot lead to happiness.