The Treaty Negotations The Final Phase of Talks


When the delegation returned to London on 4 December, the British, inevitably, refused to consider external association. However, Lloyd George was reluctant to allow the negotiations end in failure. He arranged to meet with Griffith and Collins privately to discuss matters.


On the morning of the 5th, they returned to the issue of the Boundary Commission. Lloyd George again gave his assurances that the Boundary Commission was the best means of ending partition. In return, the Irish would have to accept remaining within the Commonwealth. Griffith and Collins were eager to reach a settlement, knowing that the British weren’t prepared to offer much more than they already had. Collins was also fully aware that the IRA stood no chance of success if the talks failed and Ireland and Britain returned to war.


As a further incentive, Lloyd George promised to allow Ireland to put its own tariffs (taxes) on imports. This would give the Irish government the ability to introduce protectionism, something that Griffith had been campaigning for since he founded Sinn Féin in 1905. As a final gesture of goodwill, Lloyd George altered the terms of the oath of allegiance, so that Irish politicians would first take an oath to the Irish Constitution and then to the British monarch.


ALLEGIANCE


Allegiance refers to loyalty to a superior authority or group. The oath of allegiance proved to be a controversial and divisive term in the Anglo-Irish Treaty as it required all members of the Dáil to swear their loyalty to the British monarch. This was one of the contributing factors to the split in Sinn Féin, as many believed it undermined their allegiance to the Irish Republic.


The delegation said that they needed to return to Dublin to put these new proposals to the Dáil. However, Lloyd George said that the Northern Ireland parliament was meeting the next day, and that he had promised Craig he would inform him of any decision made during the negotiations. The situation they were now in highlighted the confusion over whether the Irish delegates were full plenipotentiaries or not. That afternoon, with the other delegates in attendance, Lloyd George asked Griffith if he was going to renege (back out) on the letter he had written on 12 November, when he accepted the idea of the Boundary Commission. Lloyd George produced Griffith’s letter in front of the other Irish delegates. At this, Griffith declared that he would sign the Treaty, regardless of what the other members of the Irish delegation did.


Lloyd George then played his strongest card. He told the delegates that if they refused to accept his new terms, this would lead to a resumption of war between the two countries. The Irish delegates were all too aware that this would result in a conflict that Ireland could not hope to win, and would lead to untold suffering inflicted on the Irish people. Under all this pressure, the Irish delegates eventually signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty at 2.15 am on the morning of 6 December 1921.


The Terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty


In total there were 18 points to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Under the terms of the Treaty, Ireland would be known as the Irish Free State. These were the main terms:


• Ireland shall have the same constitutional status in the Community of Nations known as the British Empire as the Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa, with a Parliament having powers to make laws for the peace, order and good government of Ireland, and an Executive responsible to that Parliament, and shall be styled and known as the Irish Free State.


THE PURSUIT OF SOVEREIGNTY AND THE IMPACT OF PARTITION, 1912–1949 159


CHAPTER 3 TOPIC 3


KEY CONCEPT


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