I went by appointment at 12.30 today to see Mr. Attlee. Mr. Noel-Baker was with him and I gave each a copy of the Aide Mémoire of the 7th May.¹

My Minister, I said, had found on his return to Dublin that the feeling against the proposed assurance to the Northern Ireland Government had been much more intense than he had indicated in his recent talk with the Prime Minister.²

I said that the several British Governments in the past had argued that the solution of the Six County problem rested with the two Irish Governments and that they would approve any agreement thus reached. That had always been regarded in Ireland as a shirking of the British responsibility - they had tied the knot and it was their clear duty to undo it. But even the supposed British impartiality which their attitude hitherto had implied had now gone. To ask us to wait for the consent of the Parliament of Northern Ireland as now constituted, was as bad as in former days asking the Liberal and Labour Parties in Britain to wait for the consent of the Tory packed House of Lords prior to the Parliament Act.³ On the basis of the present representation in Stormont, we could wait until the crack of doom without being any nearer a settlement. As they knew, all parties in Ireland, Government and Opposition, were resolutely united in declining to accept so plainly impossible a position.

The restoration of the Irish Republic, internationally recognised, meant that the physical force party in Ireland would decline. But there was imminent danger of the gun being brought into politics again as a result of the British action. When I cited Lecky's⁴ statement, of which you reminded me, that the Act of Union was worse than a crime - that it was a blunder - Mr. Attlee curtly remarked that that described precisely our Republic of Ireland Act; it was we, not they, who were responsible for any difficulty that might arise. I made the obvious rejoinder that in passing the Republic of Ireland Act, we were well within our undisputed right. To this Mr. Attlee readily agreed but contended that the Bill said no more than he had already said in Parliament and that it did no more than maintain the status quo.

On my reference to the words 'territorial integrity', Mr. Attlee said it was a perfectly normal expression and certainly contained no hidden significance.

Mr. Baker said that all the time his Government had tried to take a friendly and helpful line toward us. The passing of the Republic of Ireland Act came as a great shock to many people in this country and he and his colleagues had tried to take the sting out of that enactment. The Tories had rejoiced in the action of the Irish Government because they said it provided a golden opportunity to make partition firm forever. Now the Tories were charging the Government with being soft and flabby because they were recognising the Republic and giving us the rights which they intended to give. They had tried further to help by getting the friendly message from the King, notwithstanding speeches in Ireland where the methods of the British were likened to those of Hitler. In the strictest confidence he said that immediately after our Republic of Ireland Act, many proposals had been put forward by the Northern Ireland Government to all of which they made a firm refusal. I asked if he could expand that statement: he said that he could not, and probably he had said rather more than he ought, but there were 'lots of declarations' which the Stormont people wanted made and which they had refused.

The interview concluded with Mr. Attlee's repeating his statement that what they were doing now was no more than saying what had been said so often before - 'no change without free agreement'. He did not agree when I rejoined that there was a real political and psychological advance for the Six County people in the statutory pledge.