Letter from Seán MacBride to Lord Rugby (Dublin) enclosing a memorandum on the title and status of High Commissioners

My dear Lord Rugby,
With reference to your letter of the 12th instant to the Taoiseach, enclosing a message from your Prime Minister concerning the status of High Commissioners, I now enclose herewith a memorandum setting forth the Irish Government view point in relation to this matter.

[enclosure]

1. So far as the position of High Commissioners is concerned, the Irish Government are interested, not so much in their precedence as in the question of title and status of the office itself.
2. In their view, the title 'High Commissioner' is obsolete and anomalous. It suggests executive rather than representative functions. It harps back to the era of colonialism and suggests undesirable and misleading implications as to the nature of the relations between Ireland and the States of the Commonwealth. The title is unknown to established diplomatic practice and its attribution to Irish representatives in Commonwealth countries and vice versa, by leaving the officials concerned without any clearly recognisable diplomatic rank and dignity, tends to place them on a lower plane than representatives of other countries.
3. In the opinion of the Irish Government there is an irrefutable case for changing the title of the office itself and for designating the officials concerned by a title which would make clear, by reference to established practice, their character as diplomatic representatives of the highest rank. In view of its specially close relations with Britain and other members of the British Commonwealth, the Irish Government feel that it would be appropriate that the representatives exchanged between Ireland and those countries should occupy a position of special dignity and importance and they consider that this object would be best secured by attributing to them the rank and title of Ambassador. There is no reason, in the view of the Irish Government, why this should present any insurmountable problems of accredition and they believe that the relations between Ireland and the States of the British Commonwealth, far from being prejudiced, would be strengthened by a change which could only serve to signalise the importance attached to them.
4. The Irish Government would be quite prepared to exchange Ministers or Ambassadors with any Commonwealth Government similarly inclined.
5. The change of title which the Irish Government would wish to see brought about would, of course, automatically solve any outstanding difficulties on the question of precedence.