proposed they would then appoint and ratify plenipotentiaries so that he could give a note to the Press for publication to the effect that to-day the text of the letter to the British Premier was read, that the Dáil approved of it unanimously and that the following were chosen as a delegation of plenipotentiaries to continue any further negotiations with the British government.
He then nominated in the name of the Cabinet the following persons as the delegation: the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. A Griffith, as Chairman, assisted by the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Economic Affairs and also Mr. Duggan and Mr. Gavan Duffy. He proposed that these five be ratified as their plenipotentiaries by by Dáil. They could take their names one by one. Also that Messrs. Childers and Boland be secretaries to the delegation, and that their position was unchanged. As he told them at the last meeting he thought it wisest he should not be a member of the delegation the reason being exactly the same reason that they inserted that second paragraph in the letter, that they wanted to emphasise in these negotiations they were not entering as a political party but as a nation.
He asked them to leave analogies out of the question. Nothing disgusted him so much as introducing analogies when there was no analogy there. Their position was totally different to that of the American States or South Africa, and let them deal with plain facts.
He knew fairly well from his experience over in London how far it was possible to get the British government to go and when they came to that point they would have to deal with the matter in a very practical manner. To be in the very best position for the possibilities of a break down and to be in the best position to deal with those questions as they would arise and not to be involved in anything that might take place in those negotiations—to be perfectly free —he asked the Cabinet not to insist on his going as one of the deputation. They would therefore understand that the Minister for Foreign Affairs should be chairman. There was a question of whether they should send the delegation at all but he took it the approval of their letter meant that the Dáil would approve of the delegation going.
Now his duty was, he said, to propose one by one the delegation for ratification. He therefore proposed that the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Griffith, should be chairman.