***CANNABIS EXPERT GENERAL JAN SMUTS FIXES IRELAND
Today, the role of General Jan Smuts in cannabis prohibition is all
but erased from history. Not much more prominent is his role in the
division of Ireland.
The League of Nations is remembered as a failure because of its
weakness against German remilitarization under Hitler.
But it was also a failure because it got bounced into agreeing with Smuts' dubious wisdom about weed.
It could hardly question the authority of the man who had designed the League of Nations, the very same Jan Smuts.
Interestingly, when the British Empire ratified the League of
Nations' unscientific 1925 opium-equals-cannabis treaty on February 17
1926:
"His Britannic Majesty's ratification shall not be deemed to
apply in the case of the Dominion of Canada or the Irish Free State
and, in pursuance of the power reserved in Article 39 of the
Convention, the instrument shall not be deemed to apply in the case of
the Colony of the Bahamas or the State of Sarawak under His Britannic
Majesty's protection."
https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=VI-6-a&chapter=6&clang=_en
[1298]
Any idea why that might be?
As far as the Republican Irish were concerned, they were not going to
support anything the British Empire favoured, having only just
achieved a degree of independent rule - but without six of the nine
Ulster counties and without exiting the Empire - following an awkward
intervention led by Smuts in 1921.
The resulting provisional government was instantly at war with itself
and its legitimacy challenged by the anti-Treatyists. This was
replaced in 1923 by the government of Cumann na nGaedheal of W T
Cosgrave and Kevin O'Higgins, the more conservative, pro-monarchy
"Society of the Gaels".
Despite its earlier omission, the IFS ratified the Opium Convention in
1931. Ireland had no cannabis law in force until 1937. The original
exclusion of the IFS from the Opium Treaty requires further
explanation but it is just possible all sides had had enough of the
South African general's effect, on Britain's behalf, upon their
situation.
Equally, ratification likely appealed to their sense of being a
"grown-up" state and equal among nations. At any rate, there
was no public vote on it.
Both sides sent their soldiers, not their diplomats, to the treaty
negotiations in London. The Irish sent Michael Collins, who had given
the English a bloody nose in the Irish War of Independence, while the
English sent a South African general who had proved his talent for
sending other men to fight and die in preceding decades. [3991]
"Churchill was responsible for establishing both the Auxiliary
Division and the Black and Tans during the Irish War of Independence.
He defended their activities, saying they enjoyed the same freedom as
police in Chicago or New York in dealing with armed gangs. He
initially advocated the military defeat of the IRA and its supporters.
By summer 1921, however, as the Colonial Secretary he was pressing for
negotiations. His desired negotiating position was to offer a measure
of Irish self-government from a position of strength: he 'wished to
couple a tremendous onslaught with the fairest offer.'"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill_in_politics,_1900%E2%80%931939
[3864]
Superficially, Smuts appeared to be the ideal intermediary, vowing
for autonomy for small countries, he was on the side of Empire but
distant. Ireland had supported the Boers. Smuts was not English, but
somehow "one of us" to both sides.
But in fractious talks - boycotted by independence leader de Valera -
Smuts wanted Ireland to hold dominion status in the Commonwealth,
declared the issue of the north over, and ended up insulting the Irish
representatives - "small men" - via leaks and published
documents. And with the mess created, Smuts was off the Irish Treaty
job and on his way back to South Africa. Smuts, with his world vision
based on Empire, never got how much the Irish hated the English
aristocracy.
Ireland's situation was compared to that of South Africa. Such ideas
did persist after 1922 in the form of Kevin O'Higgins, but not for
long.
"His [O'Higgins'] plans included a more reasonable line on the
Irish language (in other words, dropping mandatory language
requirements for civil servants and curtailing language education),
accepting a visual representation of the king on Irish coinage,
replacing the Irish tricolour flag, holding a separate coronation of
the British king as King of Ireland in Dublin, and appointing Charles
Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Lord Londonderry, as viceroy of Ireland. The
assassination of O'Higgins in 1927 put paid to such schemes.
Comparisons between O'Higgins and Smuts are worth exploring further,
as they reflect the interplay between developing national
consciousness and broader imperial identities."
https://www.theirishstory.com/2023/02/14/jan-smuts-and-the-anglo-irish-truce-of-july-1921/
[3553]
In 1921, with the brutal war at a stalemate, it was time to start
lying. Smuts enjoined in a game of deceit to bounce the British
Cabinet into agreeing to mollify its nearest but most troublesome
colony. The episode demonstrates Smuts' art as an influencer skilled
in the technique of endorsement, but a malign influence in the area of
public health, as his bright ideas on behalf of the Colonial Office
merely got more people killed. Indeed, the Irish might have noticed
that he owed his position to colonialism, first by the Dutch and, when
that didn't work out, on behalf of his British overlords.
"The initial breakthrough that led to the truce was credited to
three people: King George V, Prime Minister of South Africa General
Jan Smuts and David Lloyd George. The King, who had made his
unhappiness at the behaviour of the Black and Tans in Ireland well
known to his government, was dissatisfied with the official speech
prepared for him for the opening of the new Parliament of Northern
Ireland, created as a result of the partition of Ireland. Smuts, a
close friend of the King, suggested to him that the opportunity should
be used to make an appeal for conciliation in Ireland. The King asked
him to draft his ideas on paper. Smuts prepared this draft and gave
copies to the King and to Lloyd George. Lloyd George then invited
Smuts to attend a British cabinet meeting consultations on the
'interesting' proposals Lloyd George had received, without either man
informing the Cabinet that Smuts had been their author. Faced with the
endorsement of them by Smuts, the King and Lloyd George, the ministers
reluctantly agreed to the King's planned 'reconciliation in Ireland'
speech."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_War_of_Independence
[3865]
The Treaty was a kludge and a terrible compromise of necessity by
both sides. Hiding behind their inappropriate representatives, the
political masters, Éamon de Valera and Churchill respectively, stayed
away. Collins had been convinced before he arrived in London that he
was being set up as a patsy for the unpopular division of Ireland and
rebranding of Empire - the "Irish Free State" - that was the
outcome. And he returned to Ireland to be told exactly that. A schism
with de Valera ensued.
Ireland had become part of the UK in 1800. The result of the 1921
Anglo-Irish Treaty was civil war between the pro-treaty National Army
and the IRA, ensconced in the south-west "Munster Republic",
whose border remained hypothetical and little-contested. A British
Field Marshal was assassinated in London. Cosgrave cracked down as the
IRA forces were reduced by superior firepower to guerilla insurgents.
Frustrated at the lack of a political rapprochement, the NA resorted
to brutal executions.
Overall Smuts' recommendations and the Empire's manoeuverings had led
to a treaty which merely replaced one war, the Anglo-Irish War of
1919-21, which claimed ~2300 lives including 900 civilians, with
another, the 1922-3 Irish Civil War between the pro- and
anti-treatyists, in which a further 1399 died, including 336
civilians. Ireland gained full independence from Britain in 1937.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEb_CfgX2Bw
[3593]
In 1965...
"...during the visit to Dublin of Dr A. L. Geyer, the South
African High Commissioner to London, de Valera argued that Smuts had
been responsible for the British rejection of his proposals in the
summer of 1921. As Nicholas Mansergh would later write, 'de Valera
never forgave Smuts'."
https://www.rte.ie/history/truce/2020/0824/1160994-i-have-brought-both-mules-to-the-water-jan-smuts-and-the-truce/
[3554]
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The Englishman stands for the rights of everyone disadvantaged,
discriminated against, persecuted, and prosecuted on the false or
absent bases of prohibition, and also believes the victims of these
officially-sanctioned prejudices have been appallingly treated and
should be pardoned and compensated.
The Englishman requests the return of his
CaPs and other rightful property, for whose distraint Slovenia has
proffered no credible excuse or cause.
The Benedictions represent both empirical entities as well as
beliefs. Beliefs which the Defence evidence shows may be
reasonably and earnestly held about the positive benefits of CaPs
at the population level, in which the good overwhelmingly
outweighs the bad. Below, the latest version of this dynamic
list.
THE BENEDICTIONS
REFERENCES
TIMELINE OF DRUG LAW v. SCIENCE