From Sod to Sky

Work done last week by President Eamon de Valera. called by his enemies a windbag, by his friends a Messiah of Freedom :

P: Received from Eugenic Cardinal Pacelli. Secretary of State of the Papal State, this message:

"The Holy Father, thanking you for your expression of respectful homage and praying that divine aid may remain forever with the noble Irish people, sends his heartfelt wishes for continued prosperity and bestows the Apostolic blessing."

P: Suspended the Public Safety Act under which so many Irish Free Staters have been jailed for advocating an Irish Republic separate from Great Britain.

P: Radioed to the U. S. (his aged mother was listening in at Rochester, N. Y.) : "The aims of the new Government [of which he is President] are simple. I know of no words in which I can express them better than in this quotation:

" 'Ireland alone and Ireland her own and all therein from the sod to the sky. The soil of Ireland for the people of Ireland, to have and to hold, from God alone who gave it, to have and to hold for them and their heirs forever, without suit or service,, rent or render, faith or fealty to any power under heaven.' "

P: Permitted the Free State Parliament to adjourn until April 20 without submitting to it last week his proposal to abolish the oath of allegiance to King George. Before they went home the Deputies were told by Minister of Finance John McEntee that the Free State will retain the -L-3,000,000 ($10,860,000) which it is scheduled to pay this year to former British "absentee landlords" who sold out their Irish holdings and are owed this money. Messiah de Valera spoke of lowering taxation by this means.

P: Alarmed London and Belfast (the capital of predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland) by this flat statement:

"I hope to see the unnatural boundaries between North and South Ireland broken down.-"

Promptly though unofficially. Great Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Neville Chamberlain ("Key Man in the MacDonald Cabinet") keynoted in a speech to his Birmingham constituents:

"Lest there should be any doubt as to the attitude of the British Government. I would say that, in its view, any suggestion that obligations or agreements solemnly entered into by the two countries [Great Britain and the Irish Free State] could be repudiated or varied by either side as though it concerned that side alone, would cause the gravest concern, and, if seriously pursued, would undoubtedly revive bitterness and differences which it was hoped had been removed forever."

Northern Ireland reacted with increasing bitterness to New York-born Southerner de Valera (his father was a Spaniard).

"The political border which separates us from the Free State is to disappear at the waving of some mysterious wand." commented the Belfast News Letter. "Mr. de Yalera expects a series of miracles to occur."

P: Ignored a pointed hint from Buckingham Palace that the Irelands must remain two. Both the King-Emperor and the Prince of Wales. it was suddenly announced last week, will go to Belfast next August and inaugurate: 1) the new Parliament Building of Northern Ireland; 2) the new Law Courts of Northern Ireland.

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