84 CONSTITUTIONAL LAW OF BRITISH DOMINIONS
Chapter Mr. De Valera to accept arbitration unless a foreign
element was permissible.1 There was a minor issue as
to tlie scope of the arbitration, namely, the number of
payments to which it might extend, and at one time
the British Government seems to have proposed to
limit arbitration to the annuities. But ultimately it
appears the offer of that Government was to accept
any tribunal so long as it was an Empire tribunal, even
if it did not comply precisely with the principles laid
down in 1930. The refusal of Mr. De Valera, therefore,
was based on this aspect essentially, and may be re-
garded as a revival of the claim of 1924, that the rela-
tions between the Free State and the United Kingdom
are relations of international law, and therefore suit-
able for reference to a tribunal whose members may
include foreigners. The British insistence on refusing
this proposal rests in turn on the belief that it is vital
to maintain the doctrine that the relations of the parts
of the Commonwealth inter se are not relations of inter-
national law, since otherwise the Ottawa Conference
agreements for trade preferences would be rendered
nugatory by the operation of most favoured nation
treaties.
The chance of the necessity of authoritative settle-
ment of inter-imperial disputes is naturally increased by
the prospects of trade arrangements between parts of
the Empire already achieved and contemplated. It is
clear, though the proposal was not accepted at Ottawa,
1 Mr. J. H. Thomas, House of Commons, June 17, 1932. On the
refusal of the State to accept an Empire tribunal, and the withholding
of payments, British duties were imposed on Irish Free State imports,
and were met with retaliatory duties, and the creation of an emergency
fund of £2,000,000 to foster Irish industry and wheat-growing to create
an economically independent State.