FREE STATE OATH

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 182, 26 March 1932, Page 5

FREE STATE OATH

| (British Official Wireless)

considered integral part • of anglo-irish treaty ANNUNITIES MUST BE PAID

RUGBY, Thursday. The newspapers state that Cabinet previously corisidered the -te'rms" of the reply made in Parliament' by Mr J. H. Thomas, secretary of State for the Dominions, to a question relating to a communication received yesterday from the Irish Free State Government. Answering the qtfestion Mr Thomas said: "I was Officially .informed yestei'day by the High Commissioner of the Irish Free State that in the opinion of his Government the oath of allegiance was not mandatory in the treaty, and that the Irish Free State had an absolute right to modify the constitution as the people desire. "It is riianifest that the oath is an integral part of the treaty made ten years'ago between the two countries, and which has' hitherto been I honourably observed by both sides. "We are addressing to His Majesty's Government in the Irish Free State a communication which will make our staridpoint clear beyond the possibility of doubt. "With regard to the land annuities, we have received no official communicatiofi from the Irish Free State Government, but from a statemerit reported to have been made yesterday by Mr. de Valera in the Free State Senate we understand the Free State Government proposes to retain the Irish land annuities. "These annuities are payments which the tenants of purchased estates make in order to rfepay sums lent them to buy their land. "The Irish Free State Government is bound by the most formal and explicit undertaking to continue to pay the land annuities to the National Debt Commissioners, and failure to do so would be a manifest violation of an engament which is binding in law and in honour on the Irish Free State, whatever administration may be in power, in exactly the same way as ihe treaty itself is binding on both countries." Answering further questions, Mr. Thomas said the terms of the reply to the Irish Free State would be published at an appropriate moment.