NEW CONSTITUTION DEBATE Woman Professor's Alarming Doctrine
From Our Special Correspondent The Draft Constitution was still in committee last week, and one important change was made.. Reluctantly President de Valera assented to the use of the name " Ireland " in the English version, in place of the Gaelic Eire which he had proposed to make the legal name of the island in English as well as in the national language. He considered it illogical for a country to recognise two names, but he yielded to the plea for " Ireland" made by Deputy MaoDermot.
The upshot of this is that Uachtanin na h Eireann will be called President of Ireland when English is used.
An amendment which sought to declare that Ireland (Eire) is a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, was lost.
Only Three in Favour The Government and Labour Parties voted against it. Only three deputies, all Independents, voted for it. The Cosgravc party did not vote at all, and were castigated next morning by the Irish Times, in a leading article which ignored the canons of Nationalist doctrine.
llad the amendment been accepted. Ireland would be organically part of the Imperial fabric. because her relation with the Commonwealth would be part and parcel of her political structure.
The position taken up by the Government, and not opposed by the Cosgrave party. is that the Constitution is that of an independent sovereign State, and that State's part in or relation with the society of States termed the Commonwealth is contractual and terminable.
While the C.osgrave party wishes the relation to be continued, it does so only on the principle that the relation is voluntary. The de Valera party (1 am using these titles for the convenience of English readers) regards the present relation as forced upon us, hut continues it for the present in the hope that a friendly cession of Irish unity will come from it. Were Irish unity ceded, the question of continued association with the Cornmonwealth would be put to the nation, to be decided on its pure, dispassionate, unaggrieved merits.
Women's Rights The debate over the position of women under the Constitution continues. An Rioghacht, a society devoted to the promotion of the ideals of the Encyclicals, has praised the terms of the Constitution as being closely in accord with the Papal documents; but Professor Mary Macken, of the National University, has written to the Press that " encyclicals and constitutions move in different spheres ": an alarming doctrine from a spokesman of Catholic womanhood.
The President has promised a revision of the clauses in dispute, not in order to change their purport. but in order to remove all doubt as to their complete recognition of women as equal citizens with men.