Comment on Treaty
In a review of the Treaty, Curran says that its major significance was that it gave Ireland the power to gain complete independence. However, he says that it was a major weakness that Collins and Griffith had accepted a loosely worded formula on the functions of the Boundary Commission instead of insisting on a precise definition. If they had insisted on the boundary being redrawn in accordance with the plebiscites in specified local units, then the British would have found it difficult to resist such a demand as the Irish side had accepted terms which did not guarantee unity and, since they had accepted that the unionists would not be coerced into a united Ireland then the unionists did not have a right to coerce nationalists in Northern Ireland. Curran also states, in a review of external association, that (because of British rejection of external association) war was a much more likely alternative to the Treaty than external association.