Letter from Joseph P. Walshe to Sir Harry Batterbee (London)
(Copy)

Dear Batterbee,

The Minister, in his anxiety to avoid any possibility of the Ratification on behalf of the Irish Free State being late for handing to the State Department by the 4th March, is beginning to consider the desirability of sending the signed document to Washington, and cabling instructions to our Chargé d'Affaires the moment the Oireachtas has given its consent. If he decides to do so, he will explain to the Dáil that the Document had been prepared and forwarded to Washington and that it would be released immediately on the Oireachtas approving of the Ratification. He would feel obliged to adopt this course owing to the departure from constitutional practice involved. He would, of course, have to explain to the two houses the procedure adopted for signature including the fundamental constitutional point that the Executive Council had advised His Majesty to sign the instrument, or in the event of his being unable to do so, to have it signed on his behalf by Her Majesty the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York.

As His Majesty signifies the will of the electors of any one of the nations composing the British Commonwealth only after having received the advice of the Government concerned, the act of signature by the members of the Royal family mentioned above, must derive its ultimate justification from the same source. In any other circumstances, the Minister would be obliged to inform the two Houses that the ratification and all other instruments requiring His Majesty's signature would have to be held up until His Majesty's convalescence.