Mr. De Valera goes on to say that the Government
proposals in the draft of July 20th were based on the latter of the premises which we have quoted. Those proposals had therefore been rejected, and he adds : " Our rejection is irrevocable." Ho next describes those proposals as being not an invitation to Ireland to enter into a " free and willing partnership " with the great nations of the British Commonwealth, but an invitation to Ireland to accept a status " definitely inferior " to that of the Dominions. With a curious but familiar looseness of logic, he then points out that the British Dominions not merely have an implied constitutional right to separate from England, but are protected by the thousands of miles that divide them from Great Britain. Ireland would have " the guarantees neither of distance nor of right "—as though Mr. Lloyd George could confer the right of distance ! The " geographical propinquity " of Ireland is the very fact which makes the position of Ireland quite different from that of the Dominions.
