EVE OF DECISION.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 January 1922, Page 5

EVE OF DECISION.

DE VALERA’S ANGRY SPEECH. MOVE TO UPSET TREATY. HATRED OF BRITAIN. By Telegraph.—Pres* Assn.—Copyright. Received Jan. 8. 5.5 pjn. London, Jan. 6. Mr. De Valera’s last effort to smash the treaty and Mr. Michael ColHns’ laming outburst against Tammany Hall methods were features of a sensational sitting of the Dail Eireann, though there was an anti-climax when Mr. De Valera withdrew his resignation. The committee of nine had reached a preliminary agreement amongst themselves, but Mr. De Valera and one or two other extremists turned down this agreement. This was the position when the public session of the Dail Opened. It was well known that the two parties were so nearly equal that everything depended upon four or five wobblers who had been changing their minds from day to day. Mr. De Valera therefore tried appealing to the Wobblers, on then traditional loyalty to office and the personality of the president by resigning ;n order to reconstruct Cabinet, expelling the ratificationists from it, thus enabling |he new Cabinet to submit document fiumber two to the British Government and Governments of all States of the British Empire as a genuine offer of peace from the Irish peoples. The attack was almost successful, but Messrs. Griffiths, Collins and Mulcahy prevented g vote on the issue. DE VALERA S TACTICS. The Dail Eireann reconciliation committee sat all the morning and re-as-sembled publicly in the afternoon. Mr. De Valera (leader of Sinn Fein and a rejectionist) immediately had an earnest conversation with the Speaker, and then made a long statement. Mr. De Valera Announced: “I am designing the presidency, and with it goes the Ministry. The Dail Eireann will have constitutionally to elect a chief executive officer. I intend to offer myself for re-election on the principles enunciated in* 1916. I shall seek a Cabinet who will think with me, and I shall demand that all resources be handed over to defend the Republic.” Finally Mr. De Valera withdrew his resignation on a mutual agreement to take a straight-out vote on ratification on Saturday. Mr. De Valera declared that he was sure that if the treaty was ratified there would be no acknowledging British citizenship in Ireland. He was neither technically nor otherwise a British subject, and he thanked God he never would be. Though he had never belonged to the Finian Brotherhood he hoped to get a Finian's grave. Mr. Arthur Griffith (one of the leaders for ratification) objected that the business of the House was the ratification motion.

Another member moved the suspension of the orders of the day to allow Mr De Valera to submit his motion. THREAT OF TROUBLE. Mr. Michael Collins (another leader of '♦he ratificationists) said: “If the treaty is rejected Mr. De Valera can nave n united Cabinet in ten minutes. His motion is only a red herring. We won’t have Tammany Hall here. The submission of the committee’s report is only prevented by three or four bullies.” Mr. De Valera objected to this expression, and the Speaker demanded jts withdrawal. Mr. De Valera: “You can withdraw the expression, but the spoken words Remain.” The motion for the suspension of orders was withdrawn and the debate pn ratification proceeded. Fuller reports show that Mr. De Valera, speaking with much solemnity when the Dail re-assembled, said: “I think it unfair to the country and to the Dail that the discussion since the London conference should be continued. The executive become completely split. We have been trying to continue nominally as a unified executive, but the time has come when this must be ended. Very well, I say definitely that I resign chief executive authority, and with it goes the Ministry. If you reelect me we shall stick to the Sinn Fein constitution and use every means to make the power of England or anyone else impotent to hold this country. Just so surely as this treaty goes through there will be rebels in Ireland.” t—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.