Memorandum by Frank Aiken of a meeting with Lord Salisbury
(Copy No. 4)¹

On Monday 27th the Ambassador arranged that I should meet Lord Salisbury² in the room in the House of Lords assigned to him as Leader of the House.

When we arrived at 3.30 Lord Salisbury was addressing the house and his Private Secretary apologised and took us to the Distinguished Strangers Gallery to wait until the debate was finished. Lord Salisbury came up and greeted us and apologised. After ten minutes or so he came out and we met him in his room.

Mr. Boland left after a few preliminaries.

Lord Salisbury enquired about Mr. de Valera’s health and said that though they did not always see eye to eye he regarded himself as a friend of Mr. de Valera’s. I said that Mr. de Valera had a very great respect for him and wished me to thank him for his kind message on his 70th birthday.

I told Lord Salisbury that I was very glad to have this opportunity of meeting him. That it had been my policy since coming into External Affairs to let the temperature drop to a point at which Partition could be ended on the basis of reason and good will. I said that Partition was going to come to an end, that it was too artificial to last and that the sooner that happened the better for all concerned.

I pointed out that we were in the fortunate position that the principals on both sides knew and respected one another – Mr. de Valera, himself, Mr. Eden and the Prime Minister – but that we could not depend on this situation continuing for too long. I said that as far as the world knew, the attitude of the British Government was that outlined by Lloyd George to Carson when he wrote ‘Ulster must not, whether she wills it or not, merge in the rest of Ireland’. I pointed out that even so relations between ourselves and Belfast were improving: Erne drainage and electricity; Foyle Fisheries and GNR. The North’s principal argument now was its strategic value to Britain. The Belfast Government had been in power 30 years with British help and naturally tended to continue the same arguments and policy in order to remain in power.

Partition was a problem which was handed down to us from the past. However much all of us might regret its existence we had to realize that a situation which had lasted so long could not be ended suddenly in a single day except during a violent revolutionary upheaval. The whole atmosphere would be changed, however, and Partition would melt away if the British Government could see their way to declare, if possible with the concurrence of the Opposition, that they regarded the unity of Ireland as being in the interests of Great Britain and, indeed, of Europe. I said I had made the same suggestion to the Labour Government, but they seemed to me to be always looking over their shoulders to see what the Tories were thinking. Lord Salisbury said that that was not so in the case of a Tory Government.

I said that I did not expect any immediate spectacular results from the suggested declaration but that it would act like a germ of yeast producing good wine quietly over a period of time. Lord Salisbury said that this would mean putting their friends in the Six Counties out of the Commonwealth. I said that in the case of the Twenty-Six Counties that was what was done with a smaller minority and that the minority in the North would be strong enough to look after themselves.

Lord Salisbury asked would we come back into the Commonwealth if Partition were ended. I replied that it was impossible to undo what had been done. That we had kept the External Relations Act as a bridge in spite of political difficulties. That the British ignored its existence and held out no hope that it would ever be used and, therefore, when somebody else proposed to blow it up we could not object.

Lord Salisbury said that the British people and the people in the North had a deep sense of loyalty to the Crown and indicated that it would be necessary in some way that we should respect the sentiments of the Unionists in the North if we were to move for a settlement. I said to him that the British were a queer people. That they went to the greatest possible lengths to avoid a written internal constitution, but when it came to the question of the Crown and commonwealth relations they insisted on a label in a most definite form.

I said that both the last Government and ourselves had adverted to the close relationship between our two peoples and the desire that this relationship continue. That in fact in the nature of the case there were no two peoples who would be so closely associated if Ireland were united – even more closely than Great Britain to any of the members of the Commonwealth.

I pointed out that they had accepted conditions in the Indian case which they had rejected in ours. We had not refused any invitations which were received to take part in the various technical and other Commonwealth Conferences. I said that we should be wise enough to continue associating on the basis of the existing conditions rather than insisting on labels.

Lord Salisbury said that what they wanted was to continue the present association leaving the Six Counties as they were, and went on to refer to the strategic importance of the Six Counties. He said that there was no guarantee that we would not be neutral in another war if Ireland were united and, therefore, they would lose the strategic advantage of the present situation in the Six Counties. I said that I did not want to argue the case on the basis of strategy but the idea that the Six Counties would be of strategic value to them in the next war was nonsense. I realised, of course, that military people wanted to hold on to any piece of territory they had lest at some time it might be useful to them. But if they had had the whole of Ireland during the last war they would probably have lost the Battle of the Atlantic as they would have held on to land based planes beyond the critical date. Having the Six Counties in their possession they did, in fact, endeavour to fight the Battle of the Atlantic from shore until they had almost lost it. If war comes again and as far as I can see only a miracle would stop it, the Battle of the Atlantic would have to be fought from shore to shore and they could not rely upon protecting conveys from Intermediate points in the Six Counties and Iceland. They would need the same protection every mile of the way from port to port.

I said that in any event it was as true now as in Napoleon’s time that morale was to material as three is to one and if there were now a final reconciliation between our two peoples it would have a spectacular effect on both sides of the iron curtain. Even Russian propagandists could not conceal it from their peoples and all peoples would regard such an event as an earnest that the western powers were really out to establish a new relationship between peoples on the basis of justice and fair play.

As Lord Salisbury was twenty minutes late for a Government meeting I brought the interview to an end by expressing the hope that he would think over my proposition that the British Government should declare the unity of Ireland to be in the interests of Britain.

Lord Salisbury said he himself would be against putting the Six Counties out of the Commonwealth, but he promised that he would think my suggestion over and discuss it with his colleagues.

The interview was candid but free-flowing and friendly.