Enclosure

Mr. President,

I come to this Tribune with a feeling of deep sadness. The speakers who preceded me doubtless have had the same feeling; for no one can avoid being affected by the contrast between the high ideals and lofty purposes enunciated from this platform in former years and the atmosphere of despair which surrounds it today. From this Tribune, representative statesmen of successive generations have spoken to the listening peoples, holding up to them the vision of a better world, inspiring and leading them on to noble effort, telling them that the highest aspirations of their souls could be reached, urging that old animosities and egoistic selfishness should be laid aside, promising that by loyal cooperation, first in the smaller things, the nations would be led to realise that the highest good of each was best secured by devoted service to the common interests of all.

Today, however, the cynic is our teacher; he is whispering to each of us, telling us that man in the long run is only a beast, that his duty is determined and his destiny ruled by selfishness and passion, that force is his weapon, that victory rests with the most brutal and that it is only the fool who credits such dreams as were uttered here.

Yesterday, believing that war, as an instrument of aggressive national policy, had been outlawed, our thoughts were busy with the possibility of a Union of Europe. Today, before the mangled bodies of the youth of this continent have yet been mercifully assimilated with the clay, before the anguished hearts of countless mothers have even got a respite, we are here awaiting the result of an eleventh hour attempt to postpone the opening of a conflict which may set the peoples of the world mutilating and destroying each other again - awaiting - and expecting little but the relief that must come in exchanging the piteous melancholy uncertainty of today for the steady resolve and active purpose of tomorrow.

To be thrown into a position of enmity with those with whom we wish to be on terms of friendship, to have to oppose those whom we admire and would welcome an occasion to serve - what more heart rending alternative can there be to the abandonment of duty and the betrayal of our deepest convictions and of word solemnly given? That is, however, the alternative before us and that is the price we may be called upon to pay for that common security without which the peace we need can never be realised.

It is a hard price, but harder still and more terrible is the future in store for us if we should fail to be ready to pay it. The final test of the League and all that it stands for has come. Our conduct in this crisis will determine whether the League of Nations is worthy to survive, or whether it is better to let it lapse and disappear and be forgotten. Make no mistake, if on any pretext whatever we were to permit the sovereignty of even the weakest State amongst us to be unjustly taken away, the whole foundation of the League would crumble into dust. If the pledge of security is not universal, if it is not to apply to all impartially, if there be picking and choosing, and jockeying and favouritism, if one aggressor is to be given a free hand while another is restrained, then it is far better that the old system of alliances should return and that each nation should do what it can to prepare for its own defence. Without universality, the League can be only a snare. If the Covenant is not observed as a whole for all and by all, then there is no Covenant.

I have to speak of the attitude of my own nation in this crisis. The Irish nation has no imperialist ambitions. Though a mother country we covet no colonies and have no dominions. Our sole claim is that the ancestral home of our people, unmistakably delimited by the Ocean, should belong to us. We make no demands but those founded upon justice. We claim the right to order our own life in our own way and select our own governmental institutions without interference, prepared to admit for all other nations in their respective territories the same rights which we claim for ourselves in ours. One of the oldest of the European nations, it is with feelings of intense joy, that after several centuries of attempted assimilation by a neighbouring people, we find ourselves restored again as a separate recognised member of the European family to which we belong. By our own choice and without compulsion, we entered into the obligations of the Covenant. We shall fulfil these obligations in the letter and in the spirit. We have given our word and we shall keep it. For few nations will the test which may confront us tomorrow be more severe. May the Good God keep this cup of bitterness from all of us.

Oh, why cannot the nations put into the enterprises of peace the energies they are prepared to squander in the futility and frightfulness of war? Yesterday, there were no finances to give the workless the opportunity of earning their bread. Tomorrow, money unlimited will be found to provide for the manufacture of instruments of destruction. Why can we not in a spirit of justice deal with wrongs when we perceive them? Not every demand for change deserves to be listened to, it is true, but must we wait until the wronged has risen up in armed revolt before we grant him the redress to which we know he is entitled? Why if the problems are economic and it is the fear of withholding essential raw material that is causing alarm, why cannot these questions and their relation to colonial possessions be discussed now? Or will our conservatism, the natural philosophy of those who have, and are concerned only to retain - will this conservatism give its consent and deem the time ripe only when the slaughter has begun? Are adjustments never to be made but at the expense of the weak?

Why cannot the Peace Conference which will meet in Europe when the next conflict has decimated the nations, and disaster and exhaustion has tamed some of them into temporary submission - why cannot this Conference be convened now when calm reason might have a chance to bring the nations into friendly co-operation and a lasting association of mutual help?

Why can we not at least place this League of Nations on a stable foundation? Why can we not free the fundamental instrument of the League from its association with political arrangements which are universally recognised as unjust? Why can we not endeavour to forge an international instrument, not merely for settling international disputes when they arise, but for removing in advance the causes of those disputes?

The solidarity of which we have had happily such a manifestation within the past few days is an earnest that the good will of the Nations can in the last resort be depended upon for the fulfilment of the obligations into which they have freely entered. Will that goodwill not be all the more active and effective in a system of collective security in which the legitimate national requirements of States are provided for, and their loyalty to the system thereby doubly assured? Such goodwill would have given us the Protocol,¹ ten years ago. But ten years ago, there was no sense of impending calamity, no crises, in the intensity of which we could be welded to a common purpose of self-preservation.

Such a crisis is here now. May God grant us the wisdom rightly to avail of it?