The Senate passed last week a Resolution urging that negotiations
should be begun at once with the United Kingdom over the payment of the Land Annuities. Mr. de Valera knows that he is invited to negotiate here, but, so far as we know, nothing is being done at present on either side. We have tried elsewhere to-day to put quite simply the facts of the dispute. As we wrote last week, it is towards an Arbitration Tribunal that we should like to see steps taken at once. We know the obstacles. Mr. de Valera insists that he should be free to nominate a foreigner or foreigners on the Tribunal. As we have said before, we see no essential objection at all to this. There are foreigners obviously qualified by character and attainments to judge in this case. We are quite prepared to urge His Majesty's Government here to make this concession, not because we want to save Mr. de Valera's face, but because it would be such an immense gain to get a Tribunal established which His Majesty's Government in Southern Ireland would accept. But so far, the Government here will not agree to this claim to nominate foreigners, on the ground that it would cause resentment throughout the Empire and would flout the Statute of Westminster to which the Mother Country and the Dominions gave voluntary agreement before it became law ; for the Statute definitely contemplated an Imperial Court for just such disputes as this. No effort should be spared, and no punctilio should be allowed to stand in the way of alleviating the ill-feeling and the economic loss.
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