370 THE BRITISH APPROACH TO POLITICS

and industry were systematically ruined in English interests.1
The age-long discontent with British rule reached its final climax
after the War; it was argued that Britain, which at the Peace
Conference championed the right of Eastern European peoples
to self-Government, could not refuse it to the Irish. A dreadful
process of civil war, murder and reprisal, continued until 1922,
when King George V made a speech urging both nations to
"forgive and forget". A Treaty55 was made between His Majesty's
Government and the leaders of the Irish Sinn Fein ("ourselves
alone", i,e., National independence) movement. Negotiations
followed, and in 1922 the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act,
created a new Dominion comprising all Ireland, except the Six
Counties in the North East. Here lived the descendants of colonists
settled by English rulers in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries; their vigorous Protestantism made them unwilling to
join with the Catholics of the rest of Ireland. The Irish Free State
(Constitution) Act 1923 gave to the Free State the rights enjoyed
by the Dominion of Canada, except that the Irish Parliament
could not make laws which contradicted the provisions of the
Treaty- Chief among these were the recognition of the Free
State's membership of the British Commonwealth, the Oath of
Allegiance to the King required from members of the Irish
Parliament, and the right of the British Navy to make use of
certain Irish harbours. While many of the Irish accepted these
terms, a large section declared they would be content with nothing
less than the recognition of a completely independent Irish
Republic. Such a Republic had been proclaimed in the Rebellion
of 1916, and Mr. Eamonn De Valera who since 1919 had been
designated as President, led the opposition to the Treaty. A new
and horrible Civil War between the two sections of the Irish
l>roke out. The Treaty supporters were victorious, and for nearly

1 For the legal and Parliamentary relations of the two countries, see
Ch. DC.

1 In law there cannot be a " Treaty " between the King and his subjects :
the document is known, officially^ as "Articles of Agreement for a
Treaty".