***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]
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 rapprochment, 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