Confidential report from John J. Hearne to Seán Nunan (Dublin)
(3/13/1) (Confidential)

I have the honour to report a conversation which I had with Sir Oliver Franks¹ at the British Embassy on Friday the 29th February. Sir Oliver’s replacement was rumoured many weeks ago. I had previously (upon my return from New Orleans) made a formal call at the Embassy, as I had at other Embassies of British Commonwealth countries to offer sympathy on the death of King George VI. The call on Sir Oliver on Friday last was a personal call, at my instance, for the purpose of a general conversation. I remained an hour.

The British Ambassador had, a day or so previously, refused the post of Secretary-General of the new Secretariat for the ‘permanent session’ of representatives of NATO Foreign Ministers in Paris. I had heard it said earlier in the week by one very close to the British Embassy that the offer of the Paris post to Sir Oliver Franks might have been Mr. Churchill’s method of ‘promoting’ the Ambassador in order to appoint a nominee of his own to Washington. Sir Oliver was quite definite that he did not want the Paris post. ‘I am remaining on here’, he said. ‘You will have less headaches here than you would have in Paris’, I offered. Sir Oliver smiled and nodded. ‘Mr. Pearson’, I said, ‘probably thought of it that way too’. (It has been stated in the Press that the Canadian Minister for External Affairs² had declined the post). I asked whether the appointee would necessarily be an Englishman? The Ambassador replied: ‘Oh no, not necessarily, I think it will be quite open now’.

I referred to the recent talks in London of the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Industry and Commerce with the British Chancellor of the Exchequer and other British Ministers.³ I said that good progress appeared to have been made. I was relying, without saying so, on the accounts in the Irish press of the coal agreement, etc. Sir Oliver said that he had seen a note of the proceedings in London. He did not comment further on the talks. He spoke, more generally, of the splendid atmosphere which had prevailed in all discussions between our Government and the British Government in recent years. I said that one reason was that, apart from the problem of Partition, the constitutional problem was out of the way. Another reason was an identity or similarity of interest in the solution of our separate or mutual economic difficulties. Mr. de Valera, I said, had been criticised during the years in which he had been implementing his constitutional policy twenty years ago (I did not add, earlier) on the ground that he was creating new enmity between the two countries. He had always himself held that, on the contrary, the removal of the constitutional problem would make for closer relations. And that, in fact, was what has happened. I referred to our Minister’s presence at the obsequies of King George and to the Taoiseach’s graceful and thoughtful tribute in Dáil Éireann.⁴ I referred to the comment in the Washington ‘Star’ on the Taoiseach’s remarks on that occasion. The comment in the ‘Star’ recalled that the Taoiseach who had spoken so nobly of the late King George had been sentenced to death in the reign of King George’s father for standing for the freedom of Ireland.

The British Ambassador, and the other Ambassadors of British Commonwealth countries upon whom I called to offer sympathy on King George’s death, were deeply appreciative of the courtesy. Ambassador Munro of New Zealand,⁵ who recently succeeded Sir Carl Berendsen,⁶ was so surprised by my call that, for a moment, he gave me the impression of a man who just could not believe his ears.

Ambassador Franks spoke about the death of King George. He said that he had been an example of family life and, generally, of a simple single-minded devoted life to his people. ‘He was a good man’, he said, ‘and a faithful public servant’. He was the type of man best fitted for the discharge of the duties of a constitutional Sovereign, and he had, in extremely difficult times, enhanced the prestige of the British Monarchy and enlarged its influence.

I referred to Princess Elizabeth’s recent visit to the United States, and added that a Coronation would have an uplifting effect on the British people. Sir Oliver seemed greatly taken by this remark. His face lit up, ‘Yes, yes’, he said, quickly, ‘it will be an inspiration to us all’. He went on talking for a while about Queen Elizabeth II and their great hopes for her reign.

At the end he said: ‘But let’s talk about Ireland’. He asked whether I would care to tell him about our position on the North Atlantic Treaty. (His manner and tone were non-controversial, indeed, deferential.) ‘You know’, he said, ‘I have always thought it unfortunate that so famous a member of the Atlantic Community as Ireland is not a member of the Atlantic Pact. Is it too much to impose on you in this friendly chat to ask you to go into that a little for me?’

I said: ‘Not at all. Our position is quite clear and can be briefly stated’.

‘I know’, Sir Oliver Franks interrupted, ‘that Partition comes into it’. He added that Partition appeared to him to be ‘absolutely contrary to nature’.

I said that I had never heard the partition of our country more forcefully described.

I went on to say that, politically, no Irish Government could bring our people into the Pact so long as Partition remained. The two Irish Governments which had held office since the Pact was proposed were at one on that issue. It wasn’t a political party issue, anymore than neutrality in the war was a political party issue. The leaders of all parties knew the mind of our people on these things. The people would not accept Article 4 of the Pact so long as Partition remained as that course would bind us to the existing geographical frontier which cut Ireland in two against the wishes of the majority. Neither would they accept national unity in return for their entering the Pact. They would not barter sovereignty for unity, i.e. put a self-imposed shackle on their national liberty in return for the removal of a wrong which was ‘contrary to nature’. Their attitude was: Remove the border and let the whole Irish people decide their attitude to the Pact. Let them determine the matter for themselves in the normal democratic way.

I asked Sir Oliver whether he had seen the notes exchanged between our Government and the United States Government in 1949 when the Pact was under discussion and we were invited to join.⁷ He said that he had not. I said that we had hoped at that time that a new approach might be made to the solution of the Partition problem that would be helpful to the British Government, an approach through the Atlantic Community, in the context of the Pact. But we made no progress. We were told that our introduction of the Partition issue in the context was irrelevant. We did not even succeed in getting a discussion.

We were, sometimes, asked, I said, when we gave Partition as a reason for not joining the Pact, why we accepted membership of the League of Nations and sought membership of the United Nations without insisting on the removal of the Border. Our reply was that the League of Nations and the United Nations were international political organisations for world peace, but that the Pact was a military alliance. Our people simply could not go into a military alliance, which, on terms, or by implication, meant an alliance for the defence of the unnatural border, with the power responsible for creating it, and with powers which, if a divided Ireland joined, would be bound to perpetuate the division. The whole thing appeared to us to be illogical and unprincipled.

Perhaps it was too idealistic to think that the question of principle appealed to others as forcibly as it does to us. The tendency of Governments has been to stand for principles in international relations only whenever and wherever their own interests are involved. We had always wondered why it could not be seen that Britain’s interests as well as Ireland’s would be served by the fact of a free, united and friendly Irish Nation as Britain’s nearest neighbour.

I referred to Mr. Churchill’s off the record reply to the question put to him at the National Press Club in Washington recently.⁸

‘Yes’, Sir Oliver Franks said, ‘he certainly took the matter seriously and spoke very appreciatively about the progress you are making and the friendliness of your people to visitors from England’.

‘He didn’t brush the matter aside’, I said, ‘as had been so often done previously by some of your statesmen. He, of course, defined again his official policy about not abandoning the minority, and so on. But then he went on to speak, as you say, appreciatively about us. He surprised many, however, by saying that we should begin to woo the Six Counties. May I tell you something about the wooing we have been doing all the time? It hasn’t been too successful so far but it hasn’t been furtive or clandestine. It has been open and plain for all to see’.

‘Please do’, the Ambassador said eagerly, curling up, as is his manner, on his chair.

I continued as follows.

We had been seeking unity ever since the Partition Act was passed in 1920. While Ireland was a member of the British Commonwealth we had sought unity on the basis of a several monarchy such as that which now actually exists in the British Commonwealth. You had Canada e.g. in 1939 for the first time separately advising King George VI as King of Canada to declare war for Canada a week after His Majesty had done so on the advice of the British Government for Britain. You had Princess Elizabeth presented in Washington some weeks ago by the Canadian Ambassador as a Canadian Princess. Her Accession was proclaimed in Canada before it was proclaimed in Britain. The political fact of a several monarchy has now been established and the theory will follow and soon pass into the text books. Twenty-five years ago, some of our statesmen saw a possibility of Irish unity on the basis of a Kingdom of Ireland in the context of the several monarchy. But the idea found no favour. For those were the days of Colonel Amery’s⁹ ‘indivisible Crown’.

For nearly thirty years after the Partition Act, we sought unity on the basis of membership of the British Commonwealth or some relationship with it. When Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 we offered the Executive Authority (External Relations) Act of that year as a formula for co-operation with Commonwealth countries in the field of foreign affairs but also as a basis for fruitful discussion with our fellowcountrymen in the Six Counties on the subject of national unity. That attempt also failed. Although no settlement on the basis of the Crown would have been final, their efforts were nevertheless made.

In the Constitutions of 1922 and 1937 we adopted Proportional Representation in order to show to our separated brethren that if they joined us they would have fair representation in the National Parliament.

We guaranteed freedom of conscience and outlawed discrimination against the religious minority, their clergy, their Churches and their schools. We kept the Privy Council for eleven years in order to ensure our fellowcountrymen of the Thirty-two Counties, who were of the religious minority, that, if any case of discrimination against them on religious grounds arose, they would have a final Court of Appeal which they could trust to which to resort to remedy the wrong. No such case ever arose. On the contrary, tribute after public tribute was paid by prominent ecclesiastics of the Faith of the minority like Dr. Gregg,¹⁰ Archbishop of Dublin, and later of Armagh, to the meticulous care taken by successive Irish Governments to protect the religious and educational rights and institutions of the minority. The National Constitution of 1937 gave a constitutional standing to the various minority religious groups mentioned in the text of Article 44.

More recently, practical approaches towards the co-operation of the Six Counties with the rest of the country were successfully made. I referred to the case of the Great Northern Railway, the Erne Drainage Scheme, and the Lough Foyle Fisheries Agreement. These great measures were steps in the direction of a gradual delimitation of the area of unregulated relations.

I concluded this by saying that, over the years, we had been doing our share of the wooing.

The British Ambassador listened very courteously and, indeed, attentively, to my rather long recital. ‘I am most grateful to you’, he said, ‘What you say interests me deeply. What suggestions have there been as to how unity can be brought about?’

‘Before I come to that’, I said, ‘may I add that some of the constitutional measures we adopted to facilitate the decision of our Northern fellowcitizens brought sharp criticism of our leaders from their own supporters. They were told that they were going too far in their constitutional concessions to the Six Counties.’

The same experience attended our declaration of neutrality in World War II. The traditional policy had been that, until final freedom is achieved, England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity. Mr. de Valera had lost many of his friends when he stood for and successfully carried out the policy of neutrality in the War. His definition of Ireland’s neutrality was precisely stated. He said that he would not permit the portion of our national territory which we effectively control to be used as a basis for attack on Britain. Mr. Aiken repeated that statement recently in a Note to the American Ambassador in Ireland,¹¹ adding the United States as a country for an attack on which we would not permit our territory to be used.

It all amounted to an abundance of goodwill on one side and a desire for the very closest relations of a free and united Ireland with Britain.

With regard to the question as to how unity is to be brought about the most direct and most democratic way to unity was by a national plebiscite. The principle to be applied was that of national self-determination. Another way would be an agreement between the British Government and ourselves with safeguards (acceptable to the British Government) for those in the Six Counties who in the face of what they always knew or recently learned still insisted on safeguards. A Federal System had been suggested but the country was probably too small for the successful operation of so expensive a system. Unity and sovereignty would involve the transfer of the Reserved Services of Finance, Nationality and Defence from the British Parliament to the National Parliament of Ireland. They could be administered for a while, by, say, a Joint Board or Council of Ireland constituted either ad hoc [for] these Services, or generally to supervise or advise upon the problems of a fixed transitional period. If there was agreement on unity, in their mutual and joint interests, on the part of the two Governments principally concerned, namely, the British and our own, a way would be found. Many of our people felt that an approach to Irish national unity at the instance of a Conservative Government in London was the best hope of a satisfactory solution. A Conservative Government would have a better prospect of convincing the British Parliament of the wisdom of repealing the Partition Act in the interests of permanent peace and closer co-operation between the two countries. The British people as a whole would probably be as relieved to see the whole thing finished and done with as our own would be heartened and uplifted. Mr. Churchill’s reflective mood and manner at the National Press Club in Washington indicated to many of those who heard him the beginning of a new frame of mind on the question of Anglo-Irish relations.