Confidential report from John W. Dulanty to Frederick H. Boland (Dublin)
(Secret Report No. 32)¹

Mr. R.A.B. Butler who has served in Conservative Administrations as Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Minister of Education, and Minister for Labour, and who is now one of the three or four leading Members of the Opposition, said, confidentially, last evening that the Opposition were very dissatisfied with the statement which Mr. Attlee made on the subject of our Government of Ireland Republic Bill. They thought that the Government here had taken altogether too light-hearted a view of the matter and the position could certainly not be left as it was. Lord Simon's Sunday Times article has made a big impression in Westminster.

The question, he thought, would be raised in the House of Lords next week, because Ireland, now being a foreign country, would come within the scope of the Foreign Affairs Debate - it might even be referred to in this week's Debate on Foreign Affairs in the House of Commons.

Mr. Churchill and his principal colleagues had discussed the House of Commons statement of Mr. Attlee before it was made but he was afraid Mr. Churchill did not in the House convey the views expressed by his colleagues. I gathered that they were more strongly opposed to our action than would appear from Mr. Churchill's statement, though Mr. Butler cordially agreed with his Leader's view about a united Ireland with some kind of Commonwealth association.

Their fear was that, after our Bill became law, India and South Africa might well follow suit, and instead of a logical and practical association with the Commonwealth, they would be allowed to drift into some loose and merely friendly arrangement.

It was a pity that we still maintained so passionate a regard for history. It was true, of course, that many years ago, Ireland had every ground for dissatisfaction at her connexion with Britain but those bad old days were gone and they were not at all reflected in our relations today. He wished with all his heart that we could have seen our way to take an attitude more consistent with the facts of our own time.

It might be possible at some future date to have as the core of the Commonwealth, those countries that accepted the Crown with an outer ring of countries that did not but wished still to be associated with the Commonwealth. In this way the shades of difference which Ireland and India felt might be swallowed up in some form of grand alliance into which other countries, such as France, for example, might enter.

Whilst Lord Montgomery was successfully integrating the defence forces of the Western Union, no kind of attempt was being made to integrate the defence forces of the Commonwealth. In matters of defence, there was not nearly enough consultation by the British, either with the Commonwealth countries or such countries as France.

He lamented the lack of consultation also between the Government and the Opposition; it was amazing that with the world in the state it was at present, that the Opposition were left so uninformed - 'I get a certain amount of information when I am having a drink with Ernest Bevin which I give to Winston Churchill when I am having a drink with him', beyond that there was nothing.

He thought it was a pity that Dr. Evatt had not consulted other people before he took his recent action with Mr. Trygve Lie; no wonder it disappointed the British because it was a feeble renewal of the old and empty theory of appeasement.

The British also were not anything like as efficient as they should be in the diplomatic sphere. Total war could not be abolished without total diplomacy, and by that he meant far more diplomatic activity on economic, as well as political, questions, together with a far more extensive and imaginative use of propaganda.