De Valera Reply to Lloyd George
Introduction from Chronology
De Valera replies to Lloyd George on the British July 20th proposals
saying inter alia that “To the extent that it [the draft proposals]
implies a recognition of Ireland’s separate nationhood and her right to
self-determination, we appreciate it and accept it”, however “a claim [is]
advanced by your Government to an interference in our affairs, and to a control
which we cannot admit”.
The issues raised in the British July 20th proposals and in
de Valera’s reply of August 10th were to become the issues argued
over in detail over the two months after the negotiations started on October 11th.
More Detail
De Valera goes to state that “The Irish people’s belief is that the
national destiny can best be realised in political detachment, free from
Imperialistic entanglements”. He says
that “plebiscite after plebiscite” had demonstrated the Irish people’s
preference for political detachment and “the degree to which any other line of
policy deviates from it must be taken as a measure of the extent to which
external pressure is operative and violence is being done to the wishes of the
majority”.
He states further that “‘Dominion’ status for Ireland everyone who knows
the conditions [of the British July 20th proposals] knows to be illusory”. However, he continues that the Irish
government is prepared to negotiate treaty of association with the Commonwealth
if “such association would secure for it the allegiance of the present
dissenting minority, to meet whose sentiments alone this step could be
contemplated”. He also said that issues
such as trade, armaments etc. could be freely negotiated and that the question
of Ireland’s share of the UK’s debt could be determined by a board of
arbitrators.
With regard to Northern Ireland, he says “As regards the question at issue
between the political minority [unionists] and the great majority of the Irish
people, that must remain a question for the Irish themselves to settle.
We cannot admit the right of the British Government to mutilate our country,
Ireland, either in its own interests or at the call of any section of our
population”. He agreed that force would
not solve the problem [of Northern Ireland] and was willing to submit to it to
external arbitration if North and South could not agree on unity."
Full text of letter given in Macardle.
Comment on de Valera’s Letter
In his commentary on de Valera’s letter, Boyce takes issue
with some of de Valera’s letter. For
example, he quotes the Daily News
(from August 27th 1921) saying that “the present world of great Empires”
made complete independence “impracticable and unattainable” and also
“meaningless political suicide”.
It is probably useful to point out that Boyce’s book was
published in 1972, when both the UK and Ireland were applying to join the
European Common Market (now the European Union) when concepts such as ‘pooled
sovereignty’ were gaining widespread acceptance. However, from today’s (2023) viewpoint, it is
not people in Ireland but the Brexiteers in the UK (and, in particular, the
right wing of the British Conservative Party) who would echo de Valera’s words
that “The Irish people’s belief is that the national destiny can best be
realised in political detachment” except, of course, they would substitute
English for Irish. In 1921, the right
wing of the Conservative Party in Britain (the ‘Die-Hards’ or ‘Morning Post
brigade’) were the group in British society most opposed to any accommodation
with Irish nationalism.
Boyce also quotes a Rev B. C. Waller as writing (on August 27th
1921) that “in modern times you cannot have complete independence without
losing much which is of the greatest value … One cannot help feeling the
break-up of the Austria-Hungary will soon be regarded as a mistake even by the
secession states”. Without delving too
deeply into the nature of national sovereignty, two rejoinders can be made to
what the Rev Waller said. One, despite
some tragic history among the ‘secession states’ of the Austrian-Hungarian
Empire, it is difficult to adduce evidence that many citizens of these
countries would choose to reunite with the old Empire either at the time or
since. Two, defenders of Empire often
seem not to be able to understand the desire for independence by of people in
‘subject’ nations or colonies. This lack
of understanding is undoubtedly based, in large part, on self-interest but
also, in part, on a sense of racist superiority among people in the imperialist
country over the people in their colonies.
For example, in March 1937, Churchill declared that “I do not admit, for
instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or
the black people of Australia. I do not
admit that a wrong has been done to those people by the fact that a stronger
race, a higher grade race … has come in and taken
their place” (Mount (2019), pg 22). It would not take
a great leap of the imagination to envisage Churchill substituting ‘native
Irish’ for the ‘Red Indians of America’ or the ‘black people of
Australia’. (Later in his article,
Mount adds that Churchill “was a violent and persistent Islamophobe”.)