14 JUNE 1935, Page 20

The Anglo-Irish Treaty

By DESMOND FITZGERALD Mn. PAKENHAM writes with distinction. He can seize his reader's attention and hold it to the end. It is clear that he can make history as interesting as fiction. But the true history of the circumstances surrounding the Anglo-Irish Treaty were themselves more interesting than fiction. The closer one adheres to truth, the deeper is the tragedy that is revealed. This subject therefore offered him an amazing opportunity both as an historian and as a writer. Having read his book we have to deplore the fact that he conceals the tragedy because he modifies history.

It is known that two great Irishmen negotiated with England, won for their country more than their predecessors had deemed possible, and were rewarded with death. That is tragic enough. But the complete story would have added to its pity. They both loved their country and her people. They set no limit to the service that they were ready to give. When the summer of 1921 showed that victory was in sight, they had many reasons to be happy. In serving their country they also served the leader whom they loved and had united to exalt. The glory was to go to him. He and they were completely at one, and it seemed that an unbounded mutual confidence existed between these three. It is true that two members of the Irish Cabinet were united against them • in opposition to any settlement and in hatred of Collins. These men might make a little trouble, but it would be very little. They did not count in the scales against the chosen leader and the two men who had borne the brunt of the struggle. That leader showed his unbounded confidence in them. He asked them to take his place and negotiate the settlement that was in sight. He paid a tribute to their known devotion when he said to Griffith (pathetically enough) "Get me out of the strait- jacket of the Republic." And when he said, " It may be necessary to have a scapegoat," he showed clearly that he realized the depth of devoted service that he could depend upon. Griffith replied, " I am ready to be a scapegoat." His close friend remembers how deeply moved he was when he reported that tribute immediately afterwards.

Thus they agreed to be plenipotentiaries, which gave them a further opportunity of serving the people they loved. And in taking upon their own shoulders the complete respon- sibility for the settlement that would be reached, they would take to themselves all the criticism and abuse that some few would try to attach to it But the chosen leader would be unsullied by that abuse. • . - -

Brugha and Stack, Collins' two bitter enemies, steadily announced that they would agree to no settlement that excluded the " Republic." They made no secret of the fact that they knew that the Republic could not be attained. But when the leader proposed that Griffith and Collins should be selected they made no demur. Griffith had consistently maintained that he saw no objection to the Crown, that it constituted no obstacle to a settlement, and that he would not break on the Crown. They had repeatedly suggested that Collins was not to be trusted. But they did not oppose the selection of these two " moderates " as plenipotentiaries. Collins knew, of course, that this gave them an opportunity

Peace by Ordeal. An Account from first-hand sources of the Negotiation and Signature of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, 1921. By Frank Pakenham. (Jonathan Cape. 15s.) against him. He knew that they hoped to utilize his absence in London to try to eliminate him from the Volunteers.

But they would not find this easy. The men were devoted to him. And the President would be in Dublin, and nothing serious could be done without his assent.

Mr. Pakenham almost conceals the fact that Griffith and Collins were plenipotentiaries. He does not give the official report of the Dail meeting of September 14th, which announces that the Dail had unanimously ratified them as plenipoten- tiaries. But he does make great play with " instructions " given to them by Mr. De Valera. By omitting to stress that they were given plenary powers, he does not have to explain how it was that they could receive instructions from others who had not those powers. But Mr. Griffith was well aware that the responsibility was his. When the " instructions " were proposed to him, he stipulated that he agreed to comply with them only as far as possible. But we are not told this. Mr. De Valera is presented to us as a man of indefectible prescience, the least impressionable man on earth, ready to die " rather than surrender where he reckoned a principle was involved." We are assured that he never contemplated any departure from the Republic. All his pronouncements are explained as meaning that he • was not insisting upon an " isolated " Republic. And yet he chose as chief plenipotenti- ary a man who saw no obstacle in the Crown. We are inclined to wonder if Mr. Pakenham is convinced by his own assurances.

He is perhaps unaware that after the Treaty was signed Mr. De Valera gave a date on which he made up his mind. Not only was it after the entire responsibility had been accepted by Griffith and Collins, but after the actual negotiations had been proceeding for some time.

He does not tell us of Cathal Brugha's proposal to have the Volunteers disbanded and reformed so that Collins would return to find himself excluded. He does not tell us how when

this was proposed to the chief officers and they demurred, one whom Collins had gone to London to shelter from criticism

appealed to the men to fall in with the proposal, saying, You can mutiny if you like, but Ireland will give me another Army." He does not tell us that the death of Collins was not an accident of war, but carefully planned, that the machine- gun refused to fire in his protection because his enemies had employed a man to see that it should happen so. And yet he could have found that information in the Official Report of the Dail.

Collins and Griffith are not injured by this book in the eyes of the careful reader. But he needs to be careful. For Mr.

Pakenham seems to have an unlimited faith in all that he hears from those who were opposed to them. He quotes Stack as though he were reliable, although in every case where his state- ments can be tested they are found to be utterly remote from fact. He is anxious not to discredit the memory of Griffith and Collins, and so he makes them almost as noble and almost as heroic as a man who signed the Treaty and (apparently) considered thereafter that all who honoured his signature were deserving of extreme measures.

This book is interesting, but the true history is infinitely more tragic, with its picture of heroic men bewildered to find that, having agreed to be scapegoats to save a -friend, it is the friend who leads the outcry against them. What a pity that Mr. Pakenham has preferred to depart from that histoty.