Extract from a confidential report from Frederick H. Boland
to Seán Nunan (Dublin)
(Secret)

Mr. Patrick Gordon Walker, MP, came to lunch yesterday to tell me about his visit to Dublin last week. He apparently enjoyed the visit immensely and it seems to have had quite a striking effect on his ideas.

2. He spoke enthusiastically about his conversations with our Minister, the Minister for Finance¹ and the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.² He said he was much impressed by the officials of the Department whom he met. He apparently had a long conversation with the Provost of Trinity College, Dublin,³ who spoke to him about the Government’s treatment of the minority and made a deep impression on Mr. Gordon Walker by what he said. Mr. Gordon Walker also met Mr. Cosgrave, TD,⁴ for whom he has a personal liking, and Professor Desmond Williams of University College, Dublin,⁵ whom he found very interesting and informative. He told me that the only really unpleasant people he met during his stay in Dublin [were] a group of pro-British business men with whom he was invited to dine at the Royal Irish Yacht Club.⁶ He said that the men (whose names he did not mention but who, he said, seemed to be mostly in the shipping and importing business) were bad enough but their wives were ‘simply dreadful’. They had nothing good to say of Ireland or the Irish Government. I suspect – although Mr. Gordon Walker did not say so – that they had nothing good to say of the Labour Government in Britain either. Mr. Gordon Walker said that he had got the impression from Hankinson that a lot of the British people in Ireland – particularly some of those who had gone there in recent years – were anything but a help or a credit to Great Britain. Since his return to London he had given Mr. Attlee and Mr. Morrison an account of his visit.⁷
3. Mr. Gordon Walker said that he had been thinking over the ‘Irish problem’ in the light of what he had seen and heard in Dublin and he was coming to the conclusion that it might very well be possible to do something about it ‘within the next three or four years’. He thought that the prospects of getting a solution of the Partition problem were better now than they were before and if things went on as they were going, he saw no reason why the Labour Party should not try to do something about it when they got into power. The problem would have to be approached very carefully and the utmost secrecy in respect of any conversations which took place would have to be guaranteed in advance. He thought, however, that many of the elements of a successful solution already existed. There were, of course, difficulties which would have to be surmounted. Britain did not bother about the ports in the Twenty-six Counties but some means would have to be found of assuring her the continued use of the ports in the Six County area. The present governmental set up in the Six Counties would have to remain, for the time being at least. The Tory element in the Six Counties would have to be given the freedom to do ‘a bit of British flag wagging’ for a generation or so and then, of course, the question of the relationship of a united Ireland to the Commonwealth would have to be cleared up. He was starting to feel, however, that, if one could only get down to the discussion of these things in secrecy and in an atmosphere of calm deliberation, solutions might not be quite so difficult to find as he once thought.⁸ He did not think that the present moment was ripe for any such initiative. But he thought that events were now moving in the right direction and he could easily see a favourable opportunity presenting itself within the next three or four years.
4. At one stage in this exposition of his ideas, Mr. Gordon Walker remarked that of course the feeling in the Labour party as a whole would be very much in favour of any plan which promised to bring Partition to an end because everybody in the party was very anxious to get rid of the seats in the House at present held by Ulster Unionists!
5. Mr. Gordon Walker told me that another matter to which he had been giving some thought since his visit to Dublin was the economic relations between Ireland and Britain. He felt that Ireland could supply Britain with much more food than she was exporting at present and he appreciated the point that any increase in Irish agricultural production over its present level immediately reflected itself in exports. He was coming around to the idea that it would be good business for Britain to pay Irish farmers the same prices for their produce as are paid to British farmers. The Irish government might not wish to pass the price increases on direct to the farmers. They might prefer to pay them into a fund to be used for the increase of Irish agricultural production in accordance with officially approved schemes. Something of that kind had been done by New Zealand. In any case he thought that the British Government should now make up its mind that it would be good business from this point of view to pay a level of prices designed to improve the productivity of Irish agriculture and that they should sit down and discuss with our Government how best the additional payments might be utilized for that purpose. Action might also be taken by the British Government, he thought, to limit the number of young Irish people coming over here so as to prevent Irish agriculture being denuded of necessary labour. I asked Mr. Gordon Walker whether he had had any discussion on this subject with our Minister while he was in Dublin but he said he had not.
6. Knowing Mr. Gordon Walker and his political ideas fairly well, I was much struck by the change of views indicated in his conversation with me yesterday. It is an illustration of how much can be achieved by getting public men and officials here to visit Dublin and to see and hear things for themselves.

[matter omitted]