Paris,
June 27, 1919.
I entirely agree with the general tenor of your cable of the twenty- fifth about the Irish question and I firmly believe when the League of Nations is once organized it will afford a forum not now available for bringing the opinion of the world and of the United States in particular to bear on just such problems.
WOODROW WILSON.
Of course, the thing which lay close to Woodrow Wilson's heart was the setting up of the League of Nations. Unless England and France should consent to the establishment of a league as part of a world settlement, any solution of the Irish question through the influence of world opinion was not in the reckoning. The wise, prudent thing, therefore, to do was first to establish a world court before which the cause of any oppressed peoples might be brought. This is just what he had in mind and what he succeeded in doing. To have thrust a settlement of Ireland's affairs into the foreground of the Peace Conference and to have made it a sine qua non would have been futile and foolish and might have resulted in disaster. Unfortunately, the friends of Irish freedom, deprecating and bitterly resenting well-considered methods like this, were desirous of having the matter thrust into the early conferences at Paris. The President knew that England would never consent to this and would resent any attempt on his part to carry out idea. If the President had done so, England would undoubtedly have withdrawn from the Conference and thus the great cause of the League of Nations, which formed the foundation stone upon which the Armistice was based, would have gone by the board. The President was looking far beyond a mere recognition of the Irish Republic. He was seeking to accomplish its security and guarantee its permanency through the instrumentality of a world court like the League of Nations. What would it have availed Ireland to have been granted Dominion government or independence unless contemporaneously with the grant there was set up an instrumentality that would guarantee and protect it? The only thing upon which the Peace Conference functioned was the settlement of the affairs of those nations affected by the war.
Why didn't Wilson bring Ireland's cause to the attention of the Peace
Conference? was the query which frequently reached us at the White House.
The President in his Western speeches discussed this matter in the
following way:
"It was not within the privilege of the Conference of peace to act upon the right of self-determination of any peoples except those which had been included in the territories of the defeated empires—that is to say, it was not then within their power—but the moment the Covenant of the League of Nations is adopted it becomes their right. If the desire for self- determination of any people in the world is likely to affect the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations it becomes the business of the League; it becomes the right of any member of the League to call attention to it; it becomes the function of the League to bring the whole process of the opinion of the world to bear upon that very matter.
"Article XI is the favourite article in the Treaty so far as I am concerned. It says that every matter which is likely to affect the peace of the world is everybody's business; that it shall be the friendly right of any nation to call attention of the League to anything that is likely to affect the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations, upon which the peace of the world depends, whether that matter immediately concerns the nation drawing attention to it or not. In other words, at present we have to mind our own business, under the rules of diplomacy and established custom. Under the covenant of the League of Nations we can mind other people's business, and anything that affects the peace of the world, whether we are parties to it or not, can by our delegates be brought to the attention of mankind. We can force a nation on the other side of the globe to bring to that bar of mankind any wrong that is afoot in that part of the world which is likely to affect the good understanding between nations, and we can oblige them to show cause why it should not be remedied. There is not an oppressed people in the world which cannot henceforth get a hearing at that forum, and you know what a hearing will mean if the cause of those people is just. The one thing that those doing injustice have most reason to dread is publicity and discussion. At present what is the state of international law and understanding? No nation has the right to call attention to anything that does not directly affect its own affairs. If it does, it cannot only be told to mind its own business, but it risks the cordial relationship between itself and the nation whose affairs it draws under discussion; whereas, under Article XI, which I had the honour of advocating, the very sensible provision is made that the peace of the world transcends all the susceptibilities of nations and governments, and that they are obliged to consent to discuss and explain anything which does affect the good understanding between nations."
Sir Frederick Pollock, in his valuable work on the League of Nations, comments pointedly on this privilege:
Various Irish writers, including some who deserve serious attention, have raised the question whether the standing problem of Irish autonomy can come before the League of Nations. There is only one way in which this could happen—namely, that the Government of the United States should declare Irish-American sympathy with unsatisfied nationalist claims in Ireland to be capable of disturbing good understanding between Great Britain and the United States. That is a possible event if a solution is not reached within a reasonable time, but it is more likely that a confidential intimation from the United States would not only precede a formal reference to the Council, but avoid the necessity for it.
The friends of Ireland in this country have often asked me the question:
"Would Woodrow Wilson have intervened in behalf of Ireland?"