Speech by William T. Cosgrave at Emyvale, Co Monaghan

I have come here to-day uninvited and unexpected, but I have come because I have a statement to make to you and through you to the people of Monaghan and to the people of Ireland. It is that Dr. MacNeill, the Representative of the Irish Free State on the Boundary Commission has tendered to the Executive Council his resignation from membership of that Commission and that the Executive Council has accepted his resignation. For many months the Boundary Commission have been sitting, shrouded in an atmosphere of secrecy; all their sittings have been held in private; all their deliberations have been conducted behind closed doors; the Commissioners had bound themselves to each other to maintain the most profound confidence in regard to their progress. As a consequence neither I nor any other Minister, with the exception of course of Dr. MacNeill, had any knowledge of what was taking place. We knew the representations which we ourselves had placed before the Commission; we knew the arguments which we had advanced in support of those representations; we knew also that very complete evidence had been tendered to the Commission regarding the wishes of the inhabitants by those of our fellowcountrymen who had against their will been handed over to Northern Ireland by the Partition Act of 1920; we were aware of representations made by small and isolated bodies in Saorstát Éireann for their transfer to the Six County area, and we were thoroughly appreciative of the futility of the arguments contained in those representations. Beyond this we knew nothing. All else was hidden as by a November fog. I do not want to be taken as saying that this was altogether unwise and unjustifiable. I know that the conditions under which Nationalists lived in the Six County Area were such that it was by no means easy for them to give testimony of their desire to be included in our territory. I merely state the fact that so far as the work of the Boundary Commission was concerned, it was a closed book to us, and it was equally, if guarantees were of any avail, a closed book to everyone else.

On the 7th of this month, however, the 'Morning Post', an English newspaper which has been consistently and fiercely hostile to Irish nationality, to Irish sentiment, and to Irish existence generally, published what it assured its readers was an accurate forecast of the Commission's report. Now the only thing we knew about the Commission's report at that moment was that it did not exist. It does not yet exist. Where then did this forecast come from? Was it in fact an indication of the mind of Mr. Justice Feetham, or of Mr. Fisher or of Dr. MacNeill or of any two of them or of all of them conveyed in some mysterious manner to this favoured journal, or was it what it seemed to be, a line drawn for propagandist purposes by a hostile organ with a view to influencing the ultimate decision of the Commission? Whichever it was, however it was conveyed, it was sufficiently detailed and sufficiently unjust to give rise to a feeling of disquiet which has manifested itself in the various deputations which I have received since its publication and in the debate which took place in the Dáil on Thursday last. On that occasion I said that it was inconceivable to me that any body of men respecting the terms of reference placed in their hands by Article 12 of the Treaty, recognising their functions as a judicial authority, and setting upon their reputation for impartiality and honour the value which honest men place upon those things, could lend their names to such a decision.I reiterate those words to-day, and I do so in the light of the fuller knowledge which I now possess. That fuller knowledge is the resignation of Dr. MacNeill from the Commission.

Dr. MacNeill has come to the Executive Council¹ and has told us that during the course of the last meetings of the Commission he has been completely and amply satisfied that there was no likelihood that the work of the Commission would result in a report based upon the terms of reference provided for it by the solemn international engagement under which the Commission was created.The Terms of Reference are set out with great clarity in Article 12 of the Treaty.The Boundary was to be determined in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants subject to possible rectifications by economic and geographic considerations.The Treaty settlement was intended by all parties to mark the end of coercion in Ireland and to substitute the principle of democratic government based on the consent of the governed. No other interpretation of Article 12 could possibly accord with the general spirit of the Treaty. It was clearly intended, in the event of Northern Ireland deciding to secede from the Irish Free State, to bring relief to the Nationalist inhabitants of the Six Counties who would otherwise be held under a Government not acceptable to them.

On the very day following the signing of the Treaty this fact was publicly recognised by Lord Birkenhead in a speech explaining the arrangement which had been made with regard to Northern Ireland. Referring to the suppression of the County Council of Tyrone, he stated that the Boundary Commission had been agreed to with a view to rendering impossible such an incident as that of a few days before in which popularly elected bodies of one or two districts were excluded from their habitations by representatives of the Northern Parliament. Clearly Lord Birkenhead was then under the impression that County Tyrone or a substantial portion of it might properly be transferred to the Irish Free State.

Mr. Lloyd George, who was, at the time of the signing of the Treaty, Prime Minister of Great Britain, and Chairman of the British Delegation, speaking in the British House of Commons a week after the Treaty was signed said:- 'There is no doubt, certainly since the Act of 1920, that the majority of the people of the two counties prefer being with their Southern neighbours to being in the Northern Parliament. Take it either by constituency or by Poor Law Unions,or, if you like, by counting heads, and you will find that the majority in those two counties prefer to be with their Southern neighbours. What does that mean?If Ulster is to remain a separate community you can only by means of coercion keep them there, and although I am against the coercion of Ulster, I do not believe in Ulster coercing other units.' These are the words not of members of the Irish Delegation but of British Signatories spoken while the events leading up to the Treaty were still fresh in their minds.

I am aware that at a later date other views were expressed and other explanations were attempted. I do not set myself to ascribe the motives for these later utterances, but their effect can only have been to exert an improper influence upon the minds of the British nominees on the Boundary Commission.I pointed out in the Dáil last Thursday that the contention of the Executive Council has always been that the Commission has no right to take away any Free State territory. I go further and say that if the terms of reference contained in the Treaty were properly interpreted and effect given to the wishes of the inhabitants, this question could never arise. No boundary line could possibly be drawn, consonant with the terms of reference, which would infringe Free State territory, even if in the abstract such power did in fact exist.

I venture to say that at the time of the Treaty nobody had any doubt as to the work which the Boundary Commission was intended to perform. It was arranged by the Treaty that in the event of Northern Ireland remaining under the jurisdiction of the Parliament of the Free State provision should be made for the protection of the nationalist minority in that area. No such provision was to be made in the event of the Northern Parliament exercising its right of continuing its association with Westminster. In that event the Boundary Commission was to bring the minority relief by returning them to the Government of their choice. What has happened since the signing of the Treaty to throw doubt on so clear a proposition? How does it come about that a judicial Commission provided with ample evidence on all the aspects of its enquiry comes to be regarded by one of its Members as unlikely to produce an award based on its terms of reference or in accordance with the evidence. This lamentable result can only be explained by the persistent and unscrupulous use of threats of violence and political pressure. From the moment that the Boundary Commission was in course of formation threats have been circulated,emphasised and encouraged by an influential section of the British Press.

This section of the Press, while giving the most unstinted hospitality to the unconstitutional threats of the North, practically closed its columns to any reasoned arguments for the honest carrying out of an international engagement,supported by the law both of Great Britain and the Free State.

British politicians lent their influence to this unscrupulous movement. Public men in the highest positions lent themselves, without hesitation, to the campaign of whittling away, by misrepresentation, the rights which a large number of Irishmen had acquired by Treaty and Statute, to be returned to the Government of their choice. This campaign had the express purpose of prejudicing the Commission in their interpretation of their terms of reference. Through how many channels, through what secret organisations must this campaign have been carried on?

I said on Thursday last that I would prefer to wait for better proof than the publication in the 'Morning Post' before coming to the conclusion that the members of the Commission were men who did not place a value on impartial justice, who did not respect the considerations which had been laid down for their guidance and direction, and who were prepared to allow themselves to be swayed from the path of judicial rectitude by outside considerations. Dr.MacNeill, as an honourable man, has left the Commission and has proved that, so far as he was concerned, our confidence in him was not misplaced.

It has come then to this. Our Representative has lost faith in the other Members of the Commission, and has felt himself in honour bound to dissociate himself from them.

I must say that I also have lost faith in the other members of the Commission and am forced to the conclusion that they have allowed themselves to be swayed in the discharge of their judicial duty by the threats and political influences which have been brought to bear upon them. Dr. MacNeill left not because we were not getting all we asked for, but because justice was not being done,because the rights of our people in the North that were enshrined in Article 12 were being shamefully flouted and their destinies being made the plaything of hostile prejudice.

The grave situation which has occurred calls for the most careful consideration by your Government. It calls for the serious consideration of the British Government who have appointed the two remaining members of the Commission and who cannot escape moral responsibility for any act of injustice which may be inflicted through the agency of their nominees. I have no doubt that it will receive that consideration from them. It will certainly receive it from us.

But it calls for more than that. It calls for the exercise of restraint and dignity by all the people of Ireland and particularly by those most closely and most directly affected. A new and grave situation has undoubtedly arisen but good citizenship dictates that no heated words or foolish acts should render our task more difficult. The serious nature of that task we fully realise. We are under no misapprehensions as to the magnitude of the problem with which we are confronted. We will consider it with the utmost care and we will take such steps as appear to our considered judgment to be the most suitable and the most effective to prevent the infliction of injustice upon our people.