I have to report the substance of a conversation with X.1
On the question of the Annuities his own view was that the money was probably due from us but he had put in a personal minute to the Prime Minister the moment this difficulty arose, strongly urging that the Chief Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States of America should immediately be asked to arbitrate or to be the Chairman of an Arbitration Tribunal. That suggestion as we knew was not adopted.
On the coal-cattle pact he said that his readiness to do everything to help could be assumed. There were certain Civil Servants - Sir Alfred Faulkner, the Secretary of the Coal Mines Department was one - who were much too rigid in their approach and thought on questions that came under their official view. We doubtless had similar people on our side, but he could be counted on to take such action as he thought fit with his own men who were 'rather the pedestrian type of Civil Servant'. If it rested with him X would wipe out the whole of the duties. Their masters would be back in office in about a fortnight and he would like to have started the ball rolling before they came in.
That was the reason why he asked me to meet certain of the senior officials - omitting Faulkner. If the Irish Government saw their way to modify some of the duties about which the Board of Trade had been embarrassed he would do all in his power to help on the cattle duties.
His own anticipation about the new Government was that Mr. Baldwin would be in power with a comfortable, or even more than a comfortable, majority when the results were declared.
Assuming that that forecast was correct he thought there was no question that there would be another man sent to the Dominions Office. Every member of the Cabinet knew that Mr. Thomas, whatever his merits in other directions may have been, was a constant danger in that post. He, X, had so arranged matters that he was fairly free from normal departmental duties and he spent a good deal of his time discussing supra-departmental matters with different Ministers. He had never dreamt of approaching Mr. Thomas because he felt that there was no use in talking to him nor hope of changing his curious mind. Supposing in the new Government there was somebody such as Mr. Eden, he, X, would take a very different view and would see to it that what he called the rational view about Ireland was properly appreciated in the Dominions Office.
The attitude of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald on our question was indistinguishable from that of Lord Hailsham. Nothing, he thought, would ever be got from him.
Mr. Baldwin everybody trusted. He knew that Mr. Baldwin liked the President, but he, X, thought they were both too intellectually honest for what is normally regarded as the political game. Unfortunately Mr. Baldwin was bone idle, and what was still worse, he was much given to avoiding decisions. X had had a long and close experience of him and thought him a splendid character but he was afraid that he did shirk the shouldering of the responsibilities of his post.
The second man in the Cabinet was of course Mr. Neville Chamberlain. He had a great capacity for work and he certainly never shirked responsibility. But he was a very shy man, and X thought that it might be a good thing if he crossed over to Dublin for a wholly private unofficial talk with the President.2 He believed that he could help in interpreting Mr. Chamberlain to the President and he might, if the President agreed, with my assistance talk to Mr. Chamberlain in explanation of the President's position.
I told X that I was sure the President would appreciate X's suggestion. The President had continuously since he assumed office seen people who were anxious to do what could be done towards promoting a settlement between the two countries. And of course few, if any, of these were in quite such a special position as X, whose views I knew were seriously regarded by the Cabinet. Notwithstanding all this however I feared that the President might be disposed to say that his own position had been made crystal clear time and time again in his speeches and if the British Government did not at this stage understand exactly where the Irish Government stood it was doubtful if they ever would understand it.
We were talking wholly privately - in no sense officially - and my own personal view was that the British should make a big gesture on the cattle duties and that, if and when the coal-cattle pact were renewed, X and I might talk again on the question of his visit to Dublin.
To this X immediately agreed. He went on to say that he had married into an Irish Catholic family and he knew in a way that could not be known from books or newspapers just what the people in the Free State felt about the present situation. He had been all his life a fairly serious student of history and Irish history had been one of the subjects he had read con amore.
Finally, enjoining on me the strictest secrecy, he could say that as between the President's position of an Irish Republic with external associations with Britain, and his (X's) position on the same question, there was really no gap. That, he repeated, was his own opinion as a private citizen, but like every other Civil Servant he had to do what his masters told him. It did however happen that he held a somewhat special position in Great Britain, and again, speaking to me as a friend, he asked me to assure the President that he would be glad to do all in his power to promote a settlement between the two countries.
