Excellency,
I have the honour to acknowledge with thanks the receipt of your Note (No. 549/A/522)² of the 30th June, 1950, containing an appeal for the peaceful settlement of disputes among nations and to say that the Government and people of the Republic of Ireland are in full and complete accord with the desire expressed therein.

In the consciousness that modern wars bring destruction and desolation to victor and vanquished, to combatants and non-combatants alike, Ireland, from the earliest days of her admission to the League of Nations, and in spite of the unjustly enforced and unnatural partition of her own territory by Britain, strove for an arbitrament among nations other than that of force. Debarred from participation in the work of the United Nations, she has nevertheless striven for the acceptance of that principle in the world to-day in those international organisations of which she is a member and you will no doubt be aware that the Irish delegates to the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe at present meeting at Strasbourg have proposed to that Assembly a resolution calling for the establishment of machinery for the peaceful settlement of disputes among member states.

It is the earnest wish of the Irish people that this resolution will be accepted by the Assembly and that mankind will come to agree that physical force, not merely destroys, but also demoralises.

Accept, Excellency, the assurance of my highest consideration.