On the occasion of a chance meeting here with Mr. Walshe, he remarked to me that I had seemed to have bad luck in my meetings with Mr. de Valera, since I had been unable to go out, owing to a heavy cold, the night when I was dining with him, and Mr. de Valera himself had had to go to Lausanne to see an oculist on the occasion he had been invited to dine with me. I took this as an indication that Mr. Walshe or Mr. de Valera might want to speak to me, and (mindful of Sir H. Batterbee's visit to me before I left London) I asked Mr. Walshe whether he would like to come along and have a talk some day. Mr. Walshe accepted at once, and the conversation took place this morning.
The earlier portion of our talk dealt with foreign affairs (Mr. Walshe was not confident of the success of the economic sanctions that might be agreed upon in Geneva. He feared, as I did, that there would be too many cracks in the edifice. He felt that before long the League must be reformed on some new basis.) I remarked that a satisfactory feature of the present situation seemed to me to be that our delegations were at one in their view of the present dispute. Mr. Walshe said that certainly this was so, and, he added, would always be so. There was no reason for any divergence of views between us in foreign politics, since our interests were the same. Mr. Walshe added that Mr. de Valera welcomed this the more in view of the difficult situation between our countries in other respects.
Mr. Walshe said that he would not hide from me that Mr. de Valera had been much disappointed at the reception which certain recent overtures of his had met with. At the last meeting of Prime Ministers, Mr. Dulanty had made a definite statement which indicated the willingness of the Free State to co-operate with Great Britain in defence matters. That statement had met with no response whatever, either at the time or later. The result of this was that Mr. de Valera felt that he did not know where he was. Mr. Walshe begged me to believe that Mr. de Valera was not anti-British and referred in evidence of his contention to Mr. de Valera's attitude on repeated occasions at Geneva.
Mr. Walshe referred to the negotiations which had been going on for the establishment of an air port in the Irish Free State on the proposed transatlantic route. He was glad to know that these had made a good beginning, and he hoped that they would be successfully concluded. The Irish Free State had done all they could to facilitate negotiations with a genuine desire to show their helpfulness in the matter.
Mr. Walshe wondered whether some progress could not be made in the matter of defence. He had told Mr. de Valera that he was coming to see me this morning, and the latter had authorised him to make certain purely tentative suggestions to me. Mr. Walshe felt that the difficulty of the negotiations hitherto had been that both sides had stated their maximum, and neither had moved from that position. In the matter of defence there was the most difficult question of ports. In this respect if we could revise the conditions of the 1921 Treaty, the Irish Free State was perfectly prepared to set aside the necessary money to carry out the defence of these ports themselves, and they were prepared to do this in consultation with, and on the advice of, our experts. This would certainly involve the Irish Free State in a considerable expenditure, as it would involve the construction of destroyers, but they were prepared to carry this out since they fully realised our interest in the matter, and the need for the close co-ordination of the defences of our two countries. In this connexion Mr. Walshe emphasised that, despite the difficult relations between our two countries, and despite the fact that the Irish Free State had frequently been given information of a highly confidential character about defence matters, there had never been a leakage of any kind, nor would there be.
Mr. Walshe went on to speak of the problem of a united Ireland. He said that Mr. de Valera fully appreciated that this could not come about all at once. The most therefore that could probably be hoped for at this stage would be some declaration by both Governments in Ireland expressing a hope that at some future date when both parties desired it a united Ireland might come about.
Finally there was the problem of the position of The King. I would be aware that His Majesty at present signed, on the advice of Mr. de Valera, all the documents calling for his signature in respect of External Affairs, even including the appointment of Consuls. There was no desire to make any change in this practice. The only outstanding problem therefore related to the Governor General. Mr. Walshe believed that in 1928 His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom had been willing to consider some suggestions to meet this difficulty. The continuation of the appointment of a Governor General was not desired, but it should not be beyond the wit of man to find some means of meeting this situation in a form which could be acceptable to both countries.
I told Mr. Walshe that I was not in a position to discuss with him any of the subjects which he had raised, which concerned the relations of the United Kingdom and the Irish Free State, since this was far wide of my province. I would, however take careful note of what he had said, and report it. Mr. Walshe rejoined that he did not expect any early reply from us, as he fully understood that we should soon be in an electoral campaign. He added, however, that he did hope that His Majesty's Government would consider the possibility of taking the next initiative themselves, in the light of the information as to Mr. de Valera's position which he had given to me.
