Further Griffith
Reassurances
Introduction from Chronology
Jones and Griffith meet in the morning at 22 Hans Place.
In the afternoon, Llyod George and Griffith meet for lunch in the house
of Llyod George’s parliamentary private secretary Philip Sassoon at 25 Park
Lane.
Griffith is shown (or, according to Pakenham given a ‘hurried’ reading
of) the Llyod George – Craig correspondence of November 10th and 11th/12th. Griffith later says that he understood that
all members of the British Cabinet were astounded at Craig’s proposal that
Northern Ireland should be made a Dominion and should pay none except voluntary
contributions to England.
Llyod George now says that, after Craig’s refusal to join an all-Ireland
state under any circumstance, he wishes to make a proposal to Craig that there
would be an all-Ireland Parliament but that Ulster would have the right to
remove itself from its jurisdiction. However, if Northern Ireland chose
to withdraw, then a boundary commission would delimit its area to make the
boundary conform as closely as possible to the wishes of the population.
He also said that the part that remains after the Commission would be “subject
to equal financial burdens as England”. Llyod George asked Griffith if he would
refrain from repudiating it. Griffith gave him this
assurance.
Llyod George also extracted an assurance from Griffith not to embarrass
him at a major meeting of the National Unionist Association on November 17th
in Liverpool by not repudiating him.
Tom Jones quickly embodied Griffith’s undertaking in a short
memorandum. Fanning says that “Llyod
George was later to use [this memorandum] to devastating effect in the dying
hours of the negotiations” - see Dec-05-21/1
Comment
Macardle says Pakenham concluded that Griffith had given this concession as he
still understood it as a manoeuvre to wrong foot the unionists as he explained
the previous day in a letter to de Valera. In a letter to de Valera on
November 12th, Griffith wrote that both he and Llyod George believes
that the Unionists would turn down both offers (to go into All-Ireland
Parliament or stay out with boundary commission and financial drawbacks) and,
if that occurred, Llyod George vowed to “fight, summon Parliament, appeal to it
against Ulster, dissolve, or pass an Act establishing and All-Ireland
Parliament”. Griffith also said that if
the unionists accepted the second option then he and
his colleagues would discuss it with Llyod George and his colleagues in the
privacy of the Conference.
On Llyod George’s request, Griffith also agreed to
keep secret about their meeting to protect him from charges of conspiring
against Ulster. This allowed Llyod George to give different accounts of
his meeting with Griffith to others as he immediately did with
Chamberlain. He told Chamberlain immediately after his meeting with
Griffith that he had got Griffith (personally) to agree to not break off
negotiations as long as Llyod George carried through his plan for a boundary
commission. (This got Llyod George of his promise to resign if he did
achieve unity.)