Comments on Treaty
In
a review of the Treaty, Curran says that its major significance was that it
gave the Irish side the power to gain complete independence for the twenty-six
counties.
However,
he says that it was a major weakness that Collins and Griffith had accepted a
loosely worded formula on the functions of the Boundary Commission instead of
insisting on a precise definition. The second part of Article 12 of the
Treaty stated that “Provided that if such an address is so presented
[that the Northern Ireland parliament has decided not to join the Free State] a
Commission consisting of three persons, one to be appointed by the Government
of the Irish Free State, one to be appointed by the Government of Northern
Ireland, and one who shall be Chairman to be appointed by the British
Government shall determine in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so
far as may be compatible with economic and geographical conditions, the
boundaries between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland”. Curran says that, if they had insisted
on the boundary being redrawn in accordance with the plebiscites in specified
local units, then the British would have found it difficult to resist such a
demand as the Irish side had accepted terms which did not guarantee unity and,
since they had accepted that the unionists would not be coerced into a united
Ireland, then the unionists did not have a right to coerce areas with
nationalist majorities into Northern Ireland. Agreeing with Curran,
Fanning points out the “inherent ambiguity [in Article 12] about how the
‘wishes of the inhabitants’ in those area of Northern Ireland in
which there were nationalist majorities would be reconciled with ‘economic
and geographic conditions’ in any adjustment of the boundary”.
Fanning
also points out that “the terms under which the commission was to be
appointed assumed the Northern Ireland’s government’s acceptance of
a provision in a treaty that they had not signed”. On this point, Curran notes out that the Irish delegation did not
need to accept Llyod George’s deadline for telling Craig and could have
asked him to phone Craig. Not waiting for Craig’s reply meant that
Craig could subsequently say that he was not a party to the Treaty and he was
therefore not bound by its clauses on Northern Ireland (even though he
eventually agreed to the setting up of the Boundary Commission.)
Macardle says that the Irish delegation should have phoned Dublin
as that would have averted the charge that they were breaking written
instructions from cabinet. However, they had consulted the cabinet in
Dublin – see December 3rd – and three of the seven
members of cabinet were on the delegation.
More importantly, the delegation was given plenipotentiary power by the
Dáil and, as the cabinet culd not limit powers conferred by Dáil,
the cabinet instructions were nothing more than suggested guidelines and, in
this sense, Griffith had accepted them – see Oct-07-21/1.
Finally, Tom Jones’s comment on the Treaty was “In essentials, we have given nothing that was not in the July proposals” – see Jul-20-21/1. There were actually some concessions from the July proposals but the British side got most of what they set out in the July proposals.