"No Fear!"

Intent on driving out of the Irish Free State the oath of allegiance to King George, President Eamon de Valera was heartened last week by news that in London the House of Commons was squabbling over a bill to abolish its own Oath of Allegiance to His Majesty.

"That such a bill should even be discussed in the Commons," stormed Sir Gerald Hurst, Conservative M. P., "is a disgrace and a disaster!"

Paradoxically the now minute Independent Labor Party which last week brought in the anti-oath bill used to be the party of James Ramsay MacDonald, today the most monarchist of Socialists. Cried the bill's sponsor, Laborite John McGovern: "Any M. P. holding Socialist opinions should be a Republican whether he admits it or not! I want to say here & now that as a Socialist I cannot take the Oath of Allegiance to a symbol I am out to destroy. It is outrageous to ask a member of this House to make it his first duty to make a public act of perjury."*

Amid shouts and hubbub fiery Laborite James Maxton was seen to threaten with his doubled fist equally fiery Conservative Winston Churchill.

"No self-respecting Dominion thinks of doing away with the oath!" shouted Sir Gerald Hurst, again taking up the cudgels. "The oath is simply a recognition of the common duty of citizenship. It is simply a symbol of recognition of the big things of national life."

Though somewhat belittling the official dignity of George V, this Conservative definition of what the Oath of Allegiance really means was allowed by His Majesty's Government to stand. Soon the Commons threw out Independent Labor's anti-oath bill 294-10-4 and in London the issue was dead. But in Dublin last week it again kicked up its Irish heels.

Fortnight ago President de Valera's oath-abolition bill slid through first reading in the Free State Dail unopposed. Last week its second reading opened with a striking boast by Tipperary's rip-roaring Deputy Dan Breen (TIME, Feb. 29).

"I'm the only man here," boasted Dan, "who was one of those that went out to kill French.* I'd be false to my Comrade, Martin Savage, who died in my arms, did I not support this bill."

Amid dead silence Dan Breen earnestly continued, "I did not go out to kill French to make room for James McNeill/- or any other man to succeed him. I went out to kill French, and, if it were possible, to kill the last link of British supremacy in Ireland, and I would do the same again tomorrow morning if the occasion arose."

After that, Irish patriotism being what it is, former President William Cosgrave and other foes of President de Valera's bill had hard sledding. Jeers of "Where were you then?" greeted Deputy John Dillon as he rose to fight the bill, and his retort, "I wasn't murdering my neighbors!" got him nowhere. Deputies hurled insults. In vain the Lord Mayor of Dublin tried to prevent Cosgrave Deputy James Coburn from flying at the coat lapels of de Valera Deputy Batt O'Connor. Slipping from the Lord Mayor's grasp, Mr. Coburn seized Mr. O'Connor's lapels and shouted in his face: "Batt O'Connor, if you were a younger man I would kill you where you stand. No one will insult my party while I am here. There is no fear in me!"

Other Deputies broke the lapel grapple as the Speaker furiously rang his bell. Kicking shins right & left, Lapel-Grappler Coburn was dragged from the Dail bellowing: "Death I will face, but no one shall insult the Party!"

What mattered was not the ranting and fighting of either Cosgrave or de Valera supporters. The balance of power in the Dail is held by seven Irish Laborites, loose adherents of President de Valera. The fate of the Oath of Allegiance in the Free State hinged on whether they would stick. Amid a hush Labor Leader William Norton quietly gave the Cosgrave Opposition its coup de grace, threw his Party behind the bill which passed second reading 77-to-71.

Though the Dail must pass President de Valera's bill through a third reading for it to become law, Britons gloomily assumed its passage. In the House of Commons genial James Henry ("Jim") Thomas, Secretary of State for Dominions Affairs, looked glum when an M. P. asked whether any serious difference existed between His Majesty's Government in Great Britain and His Majesty's Government in the Irish Free State.

"The difference at the moment," said Mr. Thomas, "is a difference between two parties to an agreement. One of them has repudiated it. There is nothing more to add."

*In monarchist countries it is standard practice for Republican legislators to take the required oath to the Crown with a mental reservation. Only when highly excited do they term this routine act "perjury."

*Field Marshal Sir John Denton Pinkstone French, later ist Earl of Ypres and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland where he barely escaped assassination in 1919. He died at Deal Castle, Kent, in 1925, following an appendicitis operation.

/-Present Governor General of the Free State, appointed by George V.

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