PREMIER CANCELS THE IRISH CONFERENCE.
“SOVEREIGN STATE.”
AN IMPOSSIBLE CLAIM.
The Inverness Conference has been cancelled.
Mr. De Valera, in his answer to the Premier’s invitation to the meeting expressed the willingness of Dail Eireann to enter a conference, but added: “It is only as representative of a sovereign State and as its chosen guardians that we have any authority to act.”
Mr. Lloyd George replied to the letter yesterday. He said he had already informed the Dail emissaries that the reiteration of the claim to negotiate with the Government as the representative of an independent and sovereign State would make conference impossible.
As that claim has been specifically reaffirmed, he has cancelled the conference.
MR DE VALERA’S LETTER.
“Mansion House, Dublin, Sept, 12.
“To the Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, 10, Downing-street, Whitehall, London.
“Sir – We have no hesitation in declaring our willingness to enter a conference to ascertain how the association of Ireland with the community of nations known as the British Empire can best be reconciled with Irish national aspirations. Our readiness to contemplate such an association was indicated in our letter of Aug. 10. We have accordingly summoned Dail Eireann that we may submit to it for ratification the names of the representatives it is our intention to propose. We hope that these representatives will find it possible to be at Inverness on the date you suggest, Sept. 20.
“In this final Note we deem it our duty to reaffirm that our position is, and only can be, as we have defined it throughout this correspondence. Our nation has formally declared its independence, and recognises itself as a sovereign State. It is only as the representatives of that State, and as its chosen guardians, that we have any authority or powers to act on behalf of our people.
“As regards the principle of government ‘by the consent of the governed,’ in the very nature of things it must be the basis of any agreement that will achieve the purpose we have at heart – that is, the final reconciliation of our nation with yours. We have suggested no interpretation of that principle save its everyday interpretation, the sense or example in which it was understood by the plain men and women of the world when on Jan. 5, 1918, you said the settlement of the new Europe ‘must be based on such grounds of reason and justice as will give some promise of stability.’ Therefore it is that we feel that government with the consent of the governed must be the basis of any territorial settlement in this war.
“These words are the true answer to the criticism of our position which your last letter puts forward. The principle was understood then to mean the right of nations that had been annexed to Empires against their will to free themselves from the grappling hook. That is the sense in which we understand it. In reality it is your Government, when it seeks to rend our ancient nation and to partition its territory, that would give to the principle an interpretation that would undermine the fabric of every democratic State and drive the civilised world back into tribalism.
“I am, Sir, faithfully yours, EAMON DE VALERA.”
PREMIER’S REPLY.
The following communication was telegraphed by the Prime Minister to Mr. De Valera yesterday:
“Sir – I informed your emissaries who came to me here on Tuesday, the 13th, that the reiteration of your claim to negotiate with his Majesty’s Government as the representatives of an independent and sovereign State would make conference between us impossible. They brought me a letter from you in which you specifically reaffirm that claim, stating that your nation ‘has formally declared its independence and recognises itself as a sovereign State,’ and ‘it is only,’ you added, ‘as the representatives of that State and as its chosen guardians that we have any authority or powers to act on behalf of our people.’ I asked them to warn you of the very serious effect of such a paragraph, and I offered to regard the letter as undelivered to me in order that you might have time to reconsider it.
“Despite this intimation, you have now published the letter in its original form. I must accordingly cancel the arrangements for conference next week at Inverness, and must consult my colleagues on the course of action which this new situation necessitates. I will communicate this to you as soon as possible, but as I am for the moment laid up here, a few days’ delay is inevitable.
“Meanwhile, I must make it absolutely clear that his Majesty’s Government cannot reconsider the position which I have stated to you. If we accepted conference with your delegates on a formal statement of the claim which you have reaffirmed, it would constitute an official recognition by his Majesty’s Government of the severance of Ireland from the Empire, and of its existence as an independent republic. It would, moreover, entitle you to declare as of right acknowledged by us that in preference to association with the British Empire you would pursue a closer association by treaty with some other foreign Power. There is only one answer possible to such a claim as that.
“The great concessions which his Majesty’s Government have made to the feeling of your people in order to secure a lasting settlement deserved in my opinion some more generous response, but so far every advance has been made by us. On your part you have not come to meet us by a single step,