OCTOBER 27TH, 1921: What became known as the treaty negotiations (but known at the time to The Irish Timesas the Irish Peace Conference) began on October 11th, 1921.
Some two weeks later, with little or no information about the discussions available to the media, it appeared that the talks were in stalemate as a subcommittee of two from each side tried to get over some thorny issues like the oath of allegiance and the North. This editorial expressed the hopes and fears of this day in 1921.
THE FATE of the Irish Peace Conference is balanced on a razor's edge. Mr de Valera's unhappy intervention [in a telegram to the pope which referred to independence and no allegiance to the king of England] has restarted ab initiothe process of finding a formula, and once more the hearts of all lovers of peace are in their mouths. The world knows that settlement is impossible on the basis of an independent Ireland.
The conference is confronted now with the task of keeping itself alive until every possibility of securing such a settlement has been exhausted. A committee of four of its members is hunting for the necessary formula and until it has been found, the full meetings of the conference cannot be resumed. It was not found on Monday or on Tuesday or yesterday but hope persists that it will be found today or tomorrow and that the conference will be once more in session before the end of the week . . .
Today the public’s instinct tells it not only that the conference ought to succeed and can succeed, but that its members on both sides are sincerely anxious that it shall succeed. We feel that the Sinn Féin delegates, like the Government’s delegates, realise their tremendous obligations and wish, whatever may be the outcome, to be at peace with their conscience . . .
Mr de Valera’s outburst was almost fatal. Henceforth there must be a strict and general agreement to abstain from any word or deed that could embarrass the negotiators. If they fail through lack of wisdom or generosity, and so precipitate an international disaster, they must not be able to transfer their own blame to other shoulders. If the greatest opportunity in Irish history is lost, the verdict of posterity on the men who lost it must not be left in any confusion.
The conference is a vital and final effort to win peace for Ireland. We may criticise the policy and methods of which it is the outcome; we may dislike the principle, or lack of principle, on which it is based; but we must give it every chance to achieve its purpose . . .
The hitch in the conference puts a new strain upon the truce. The terms of the truce were issued yesterday as a White Paper, and were criticised in the Commons partly on account of their vagueness and partly because they are unsigned.
The Irish people, remembering the hurried and dramatic conditions of the truce, will be less critical. At the time they were so passionately anxious for the stopping of bloodshed that they had no thought for formalities. The fact remains, however, that the truce is not so much a formal agreement as “an honourable understanding” between the military authorities in Ireland and the Republican organisation.
This fact ought to make it more rather than less binding on the whole country. The tribunal before which breaches of the truce must come today is not a court of law, but the national conscience. Moreover, every breach is not merely a breach of an honourable understanding, but a direct danger to the conference, which is now wavering between life and death. Strict regard for the moral obligations of the truce is a duty which honour and patriotism alike demand from every Irishman.
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