the state is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland". This too was seen by the British Government as another anti-partitionist attempt to lay claim to the whole of the island. In the run up to the adoption of the new Irish Constitution which took effect on 29 December 1937, the British Cabinet considered how to respond as regards the new name. A report to Cabinet by the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs reported that "[De Valera] feels strongly that the title Irish Free State was one of the things imposed on the Irish by the British in 1921". The same report recommended that the UK Government use "always the Irish term 'Eire' when referring to the State, and ourselves avoiding the use of the term 'Ireland,' except to describe the whole island as a geographical entity". It so happened that the Constitution would come into force when the Westminster Parliament was adjourned over the Christmas. Accordingly, the preferred course of the Prime Minister making a statement on the matter in Parliament was ruled out. Ultimately, in response to the new constitution and in consultation with all the Governments of the British Commonwealth except the Irish Government, the British government published a communiqué on 30 December 1937, the day after the Constitution took effect. In the communiqué, the British government recognised that the new constitution gave the Irish state two names Ireland or Éire. It also implicitly recognised that the two names had an identical meaning, by declaring: The British government finessed Article 4 and ignored Articles 2 and 3: if the Irish constitution said the name of the state in the national language was Éire, then that (written as "Eire") was what the British government would call it. By doing so, it avoided any need to call the Irish state, in the English language, Ireland. The change of name effected by the 1937 constitution (but not the other constitutional changes), was given effect in United Kingdom law in the Eire (Confirmation of Agreements) Act 1938 which covered the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement between "The Government of Éire and the Government of the United Kingdom". Under Section 1 of that Act, it was declared that (for the purposes of United Kingdom legislation) the territory "which was ... known as Irish Free State shall be styled as ... Eire". The British approach of calling the state Eire was greatly assisted by