October 7 1924
In an interview with Mr Wickham Steed, which is to appear in the issue of “The Review of Reviews” to be published on October 15, the Prime Minister [Ramsay MacDonald] referred to the Irish Boundary question.
Mr Wickham Steed said he (Mr Steed) referred to the difficulties of the questions which the Government would have to contend with, and, addressing the Prime Minister, he said – “Of that work, it seems to me that the Irish difficulty is the most urgent – There is, I believe, a real danger if a Cabinet crisis or a dissolution is brought on by the actions of the Liberal or the Conservative Party now, an inevitable result will be to cause such action to be regarded in the Irish Free State as a British trick to evade fulfilment of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on the Boundary question. Suspicion already plays so large a part in Irish affairs that very little is needed to arouse it, and once it is aroused it will be very hard to allay”.
“Nobody in Ireland or elsewhere can fairly suspect the Labour Government of having sought to evade fulfilment of the Treaty”, answered the Prime Minister. “As I said the other day in the House of Commons, I wish it had not fallen to my lot to deal with the Boundary question, for neither I nor any of us are responsible for the trouble that has arisen. But since we have been responsible for upholding the honour of this country and for vindicating its faithfulness to solemn obligations, we have had no thought of side-stepping or of evading the issue.
“I had a letter recently”, I continued (writes Mr Steed), “from an influential Irishman well acquainted with all shades of Irish opinion. In it he asked two questions. One was whether the Prime Minister was really in favour of a settlement by consent that would secure Irish unity. The other was whether the Conservative Party really desire an Irish settlement or care anything at all for Irish unity”.
“I doubt if Mr Stanley Baldwin could do it”, said Mr Ramsay MacDonald. “I think I know what he and some Northern Irishmen would wish to do if they could, but I am not sure that they have the power to do as they wish.
We, at any rate, shall do all we can as long as we can for the sake of not only Ireland but of this country”.
