I understand that agreement was reached that the Adjournment would be moved at 5.30. I had expected myself that the Adjournment would be formally moved and that we would have had an opportunity of hearing the Taoiseach and of having a debate upon whatever he might think fit to say. However, I understand that he will be available and will intervene later in the debate. We are undoubtedly in a very great emergency, and it is for every member of the Oireachtas to give of his very best to the country and to the Government to see that that emergency is solved in the best way for the Irish people. I think, however, the emergency should not blind us to certain unalterable facts. For example, there has been a good deal of talk about assisting the Government and about the functions of the Opposition in this particular crisis. The Government has been elected by the Dáil. It has a sound majority, but I think the amount of its majority has nothing whatever to do with its title. It has this title because it was elected by the people and it has certain rights and responsibilities. It seems to me that its rights and responsibilities must be recognised by everybody, and that the Government is entitled to ungrudging obedience in its proper sphere, not only during this crisis, but in ordinary times. Those for whom I speak recognise that system and that we must do our best to work it, but many people, who talk a great deal about democracy and about fighting for the democratic system, want to begin fighting for the democratic system by abolishing, for all practical purposes, parliamentary government. That, Sir, is a thing for which I personally do not stand.
It might help us to have a proper appreciation of the position in the country, in the Dáil and in the Seanad, if we remembered that the present Government is in office by a very small majority of votes. In other words, when you meet four voters on the street the mathematical probability is that two of them voted against the Government. At the last general election, even after the settlement had been made of our quarrel with England in the economic sphere, these people did not then trust the Government to do the job that was to be done in normal peace times. Those who do not belong to the Government Party, whether Independents or members of other Parties, represent very close to 50 per cent. of the voters in this State, and they have, therefore, responsibilities, rights and duties which they must perform. It is not possible for them to adopt a policy of shutting their eyes and opening their mouths and seeing what a Fianna Fáil Government will send them. I want to suggest that that would not be the best way to serve the State and might not even be the best way to assist the Government itself in the crisis.
We have adopted, not by formal motion but on the part of the Government and without dissent, a policy of neutrality. We shall, presumably, endeavour to carry out that policy, but I suggest that it is not necessary for Ministers to go around this country now as if they were Ministers in a warracked State. We have had a great many crises of one kind or another, and I think we are bound to survive this one as we survived the others. I think a more hopeful note might be struck generally than has been struck, particularly by Ministers, in their discussions of our present position. The war did not come suddenly. I have, for example, a document called "The Report of a Food Defence Plans Council" in England, published in 1937, so that, as far back as 1937, the British were making plans for feeding the civil population in the event of a major war in which England would be involved. Therefore, as far back as that it must have been quite clear for the Government here in control of the machinery of this State that some such problem was at any rate very likely to arise. There seems to be very little evidence that any forethought was taken for that matter. For example, the Emergency Powers Bill, which was debated in the Dáil at the beginning of last month, had not to be drafted rapidly. It could have been drafted six months ago. I do not mean that it should have been published six or 12 months ago, but it could easily have been drafted six months before the emergency actually arose. As a matter of fact, on the day before the Dáil met it was impossible for any member of the Opposition to get a copy of the Bill until close on the midnight of Friday, so that very little forethought was taken.
A number of things which have happened in the country since have mystified the people, and no condition could be worse for people in a war situation than to be mystified. We have had the changes in the Ministry, for example. I was present in the Dáil on Wednesday last when the Taoiseach gave a reply to the question addressed to him asking for an explanation of that particular matter. Since then I have had the opportunity of reading the explanation which he gave at greater length on Friday when concluding the debate in the Dáil. I must say that there was a distinct difference between his answer on Wednesday and his explanation on Friday. Neither of them carried to me, at any any conviction. Without being offensive to anybody, if at the moment a crisis arises you take a man, who has been in a particular Department for a period of seven years, out of that Department and you put him into another one, it is undoubtedly to be understood, in certain cases at any rate, that the man is deemed not to be competent to deal with the crisis. That may not be so, but certainly that is the impression left.
The explanation that the Taoiseach gave on Friday that he had to make a whole lot of moves, like moving men on a chess board, seemed to me very unconvincing. I do not understand at the moment why the Minister for Justice, who has administered several difficult Acts for seven years, should suddenly be translated to Local Government when a crisis of this kind arises. The ex-Minister for Education, if I may so call him, is present and may I say that it seems to me that the relegation of the Department of Education to the care of a Parliamentary Secretary, who has not yet been appointed, is entirely thoughtless. The Taoiseach is now Minister for Education. He is Prime Minister, Minister for External Affairs in a war situation, and as well as that he is now Minister for Education. He will, we understand, have a Parliamentary Secretary to do the day-to-day work of the Department. The exact meaning of that is that no other work of any kind will be done in the Department of Education except the day-to-day Departmental work. As a friend of mine said to me: "The Department will be left to free wheel along by itself in a war situation."
That seems to be a very shortsighted scheme. As a matter of fact, as was said in the Dáil last week, we are all agreed that when this war is over we may very well be faced with a completely new world. One of the things which we need to do in this country, particularly if we are not to be engaged in the war, is to do some thinking and some deciding as to what steps we are going to take in the postwar situation to meet that new world. One of the things which above all will need revision is surely education. I feel that ever since this Government came into office they have done nothing new, nothing bold in the Department of Education. They simply took the policy of their predecessors and continued it in a very hum-drum and not particularly effective fashion. Quite a number of problems arise for solution. It is nearly 18 years now since an Irish Ministry of Education was established in this country, in January, 1922. We need to know what progress we have made not only in a general way but towards a solution of the particular problems which we set ourselves to solve—for example, the Irish language problem. It seems to me a very foolish thing that in these circumstances we should now leave education entirely to a Parliamentary Secretary, because in the nature of things, the Taoiseach, at once Prime Minister and Minister for External Affairs, cannot devote himself to the Department of Education. That is merely a nominal thing. It would be unfair to expect him to do anything more than let the thing go on. We would also need to know what we have accomplished in education. For example, we should need to know whether our so-called technical or vocational education is really filling the bill; whether it actually fulfils the need that we have, and whether it is not more commercial education than technical education. These things have perhaps no immediate relation to the war, but they are things which we would need to consider, and it seems to me that in the years to come we should give them proper consideration. It is clear that we are not going to do that. There has been no new thought, no movement in the Department of Education at all, and now this crisis has been availed of to deprive it of a Minister—not to give it to anybody who would stir it up in any way, but to let it, as my friend said to me, freewheel along Departmentally on its own. That, I think, is very bad policy, taking the long view, for the country.
With regard to other matters, too, there seems to be a lack of clarity of thought and confusion in people's minds. I listened in the Dáil last Wednesday to the answers given with regard to A.R.P. Everybody is mystified about it. Some people have spent quite a lot of money blacking out their houses. Other people are illuminating, particularly Government Buildings. As a matter of fact, Leinster House is one of the most illuminated places in the country. I have had letters from relations in the country, living in a small country town where there is a complete black out. They write up asking if things are bad in Dublin and if it is safe to keep children here. I listened to the Parliamentary Secretary in charge of the A.R.P. speaking in the Dáil last Wednesday. It was quite clear from his reply that there was no cohesion of any kind between the Department of Local Government and the Department of Justice, represented by the Guards, and the Parliamentary Secretary himself. That is not a matter that can be excused simply by saying that there was an emergency because, as I have said, all that kind of thing has been going on for a long time in England, and a long preparation is necessary for it. If there is going to be an order made on that subject, I hope that some account will be taken of the difficulties of our poorer citizens, for example, in Dublin, and in the country, but particularly in Dublin, in spending money to carry out the regulations thoroughly. Our poor citizens, who are indeed our best citizens, should be considered when such regulations are made.
The same thing applies to censorship. The Leader of the Labour Party in the Dáil read out what seemed to me a very amusing and very harmless article on the weather, which has been censored out of a weekly Dublin journal. That is entirely ridiculous. I have not got any actual documentary proofs of this, because I had not a pen in my hand at the time, but I listened in on the Paris radio to the French version of the Pope's address to a number of Poles at his castle outside Rome, and I subsequently listened in to the version in English from 2RN. I am quite convinced that the version given from 2RN was a much shorter, a much more restricted version than the version given from Paris, or the version given from London. Surely we are not bound by our policy of neutrality to refrain from telling the people of this country exactly and entirely what is said by the Pope, who, apart from his spiritual affiliations with this country, is himself the head of a neutral State? The first draft of that speech in the newspapers did not correspond at all with the broadcast, particularly with the French broadcast. I wonder whether the suggestion is that we are so enthusiastic about our neutrality, or find ourselves in such difficulty about it, that we cannot go as far as other neutral States? I read, for example, a report of an address by the Minister for Information in Brussels to a number of journalists—his staff seems to be mainly composed of journalists—and he rejected entirely the idea of censorship. Yet, there can be very little doubt that Belgium is in at least as difficult a position as we are.
There are other points which strike one about the present situation. We are not at war at all, and yet the war is going to cost us money. It is not going to bring us the profits which the last war brought us. The last war brought us an immense cash profit. An enormous amount of money was spent in the country during the war. Those things, in the nature of the present situation, cannot now happen here. We are beginning this war—which is going to cost us money, which is going to increase our expenses, and reduce our revenue—with an income tax of 5/6 in the £; in other words, with the same income tax as Great Britain, which has been making war preparations on a huge scale during the past couple of years. The thing is indefensible. There can be no doubt at all that money has been extravagantly spent here, and we are now in the position that it will be very difficult to get more. While we must do the best we can in the new situation, we must also take account of the fact that the reckless and foolish spending for some years past has brought us to a position when we will find it very difficult to get more money by way of taxation from any class of citizen.
We heard here this evening a discussion on tillage. I do not want to go into that at all, but it seems to me to be rather simple-minded to think that by dividing up the land now we can increase our agricultural production. It is obvious that, whatever steps are now taken, those particular steps will not carry us very far within say the next three years. Tillage means a good deal more than a man with a spade digging in the field. It means fertilisers, it means machinery, it means man power and it means seeds, and we lack a great many of these things. Our man power has been flying from the land, and whether the Government can find a scheme for putting back upon the land people who are living away from it, and who could be more usefully employed on the land than drawing the dole or any kind of relief in the cities, is one of the problems we have to face. We cannot help feeling that the policy of the late Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Hogan— another cow, another sow, another acre under the plough—is certainly the policy which we ought to adopt now, and which would help us in this war situation, and make us secure in the situation which is to arise after the war.
Our position, therefore, has been worsened, but as I said in the beginning I for one do not want to pursue the policy of crying over spilt milk, and I suggest that Ministers should not go around the country lamenting about their troubles, and painting the dark picture which they have been painting so far. We should like to hear whether there are any plans to deal with the present situation, to give us increased production, for example, to see that the money which is spent is spent to the best advantage, and that we do not pursue a policy—in some matters it seems to me we have been pursuing it —of slavishly imitating other countries. We have a problem of our own to solve here, and we must solve it in our own way. If we do that, it seems to me that we have many advantages. This Government, for example, has an advantage which no other Government in this State had. It has the advantage of a considerate and helpful and experienced Opposition, which is not taking advantage of its difficulties. We have a small country and a small population, and we have a production which presumably can be increased. In those circumstances, if there were no panic, and if, instead of shifting Ministers around from place to place, we could have some thinking as to what must be done to make the country survive this crisis, then I think we could survive this crisis as we have survived so many others. In the meantime, I think the gospel of despair should not be preached by Ministers or anybody else.