• HOW THE IRISH BOUNDARY AGREEMENT IS WORKING
By AN IRISH CORRESPONDENT. THE split in the Sinn Fein organization, followed by the resignation of Mr. de Valera, is the most striking re-orientation in the Irish Free State caused by the Boundary Agreement. When the Agreement was submitted to Dail Eireann for approval, it was carried by a substantial majority of the House, but if the forty-seven abstaining Sinn Fein deputies had taken the oath of allegiance, entered the Dail, and voted with the minority, the Government would have carried its way only by the narrow margin of four votes. Realization of this fact caused a section of the Sinn Fein Party to yield a willing ear to an appeal by the Dail minority for co-operation. It was suggested that if the Republicans would announce their willingness to enter the Dail pro- vided the oath were removed, a resolution calling for the removal of the oath would be tabled by the Opposition and an attempt made to rouse a public demand for its adoption.
The proposal was not wholly fantastic. Many of the abstaining Republican deputies have a strong following in the country. if ctions of opinion which were shaken from the Government's support by the Boundary Agree- ment have indicated a willingness to vote for Republicans who would enter the Dail, and their voices would swell the demand for the removal of the obstacle. A by- election fought on the oath issue might have disconcerting results. Moreover, there was a body of opinion among the Government's supporters which held that if the 'formality of the oath could be removed, the entry of the Sinn Fein deputies to Parliament actually would strengthen the Free State, since it would put an end to revolutionary action outside, and tend to modify the intransigeance of men at present without responsibility. It would put Mr. de Valera in the position of General Hertzog.
- Mr. de Valera himself took the lead in asking the Sinn Fein organization to sanction entry to the Dail in the event of the oath being removed. At the Simi Fein Congress, he was supported (curiously enough) by the chiefs of the physical force wing of the movement ; but (again curiously) the principal Republican deputies and intellectuals opposed him. It was argued by the opposition that to enter either of the present Parliaments in Ireland, in any circumstances, would be to abandon the revolutionary revolt against partition ; that once they entered, the deputies would be a strength instead of a menace to the present settlement ; and that the traditional attitude of Gaelic Ireland boycotting the Pale must be maintained at all costs in order to preserve the secular protest against all manner of foreign association. The opposition won. Entry to the Dail—recognition of the Treaty—was refused, and Mr. de Valera, leader of Sinn Fein since 1917, resigned.
It must be stated that although Sinn Fein has been split from top to bottom, the difference concerns policy alone, and both sides have been at pains to declare that they are at one regarding ultimate objects and in the determination never to take the oath. Most people think that Sinn Fein, being split, will be impotent ; but persons intimate with Republican leaders take a different View. It is suggested that Mr. de Valera's friends, although in a minority in the organization, will be able to gain a large following in. the countryside, and even may poll larger numbers at elections, now that they will be able to offer electors a definite policy, viz., "elect us with a mandate to demand the removal of the oath, and to promote our objects in Parliament." The intransi- geants, it is said, although maintaining the Sinn Fein organization as a means of propaganda, will stand aside from elections, and give Mr. de Valera his chance to try the new policy. The minority, free for political sans revolutionary action, may form an alliance with the Opposition parties in the Dail—Labour, and the People's Party, formed in protest against the London Agreement.
• Thus the split in Sinn Fein is not necessarily a gain to the Government party. At the recent by-elections the dangers of anti-Government alliances, under the " P.R." system, were manifested ; for in County Dublin the Labour candidate defeated the Government candidate by a transfer of votes from the Independent, and in Leix-Offaly, the Republican, by transfer of votes from Labour, came near to 50 per cent, of the total votes, although at the General Election Republicanism had polled only iO per cent. These difficulties were incurred knowingly by the Government when the London Agree- ment was accepted ; it was recognized that the fruits of that Agreement would be reaped slowly, and would have no immediate election value. A great risk was takeii, and the present year will show whether it was justified. In effect, the Government bargained upon an apparent surrender, temporarily endured, yielding an ultimate gain. To accept the Agreement with protests would be to please the multitude. Instead, the Government acted in the spirit of the instrument. They waived all claim to the North, trusting that the removal of all con- straint would incline the North to view the South, so to speak, on its merits—to co-operate where co-operation was not enforced, but mutually gainful. Two months ago the Minister for Agriculture for Northern Ireland came to Dublin and conferred on matters of common interest with the Free State Minister. This was the greatest triumph of the Agreement. It could not have happened while the Free State was laying claim to territory held by the North or otherwise challenging the Northern position.
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