I did read at some length an extract from Canon Luce's statement. I am not reading, I am afraid. I am sorry that it seems to disturb Senator Lenihan. At the same time, I have no doubt that such stimulus is intellectually valuable and may be fruitful, but I can assure him that I am not reading now.
I want this machine to be saved, then, for the time when the electorate will be sufficiently educated, as I said, to use it as it can be used and to good purpose. By the single transferable vote, in my contention, P.R. offers a system which ensures that political Parties and political ideas will be represented in Parliament, in this House and in the other House, in proportion to the voting strength they command among the electorate. Such a system is eminently just, and to desire any other system, even for Party benefit, seems to me to desire to derive Party benefit from electoral injustice and disproportionate representation.
Senator O'Quigley has already given the House figures about the proportion between the percentage votes got in recent elections and the percentage of seats secured and it is quite apparent in the 1933 elections, in the 1948, 1951 and 1957 elections, that on each occasion the big Parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, were the only ones that got more than their proportionate share. In other words, our present system, with many three member constituencies, does, in fact, in practice, encourage and favour the bigger Parties.
I shall not weary the House by giving the percentages, unless somebody is prepared to deny that contention, because it can be shown for each of these elections that the only two Parties that on each of those occasions got more than the percentage of seats to which their percentage of votes entitled them were Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the two big Parties. To deny that, I suggest, is impossible, and I do not believe anybody will challenge me to produce those figures which I am quite happy to produce if anybody does.
The present case against P.R. seems to fall under three main heads: first, the multiplicity of Parties which it is said to produce; second, Coalitions which I may call ad hoc Coalitions, made after the election and, third, that it produces weak unstable Government.
To deal with the first objection first, that it leads to multiplicity of Parties, if we, in Ireland, look at other countries, that seems to be manifestly untrue. There are just as many Parties in Northern Ireland, in the Six-County area, as there are down here. They have the Unionists, the Independent Unionists, the Nationalists, the Labour Party, the Irish Labour Party, Sinn Féin and a number of Independents. They have precisely the same kind of pattern as we have here, although they have not got P.R. —which personally I regret—but the real fear here is not that there will be a multiplicity of Parties, but that there will be competing groups offering much the same policy, but commanding perhaps greater or less public confidence, arising out of their promises, from the electorate.
There are, in fact, very few Parties in this country and most of them derive not from P.R., but from the fact that the people have observed the failure of the bigger Parties, when in power, to keep faith with the electorate. In my opinion, Clann na Poblachta which was the only new Party in recent times which reached anything like fairly large representation, got into power, got into prominence, by taking the 1927 Fianna Fáil policy and promising to implement it. I would defy anybody to find a difference between the Clann na Poblachta policy which they put before the people in 1947-48 and Fianna Fáil policy in 1927. The difference which the people thought they saw was that Clann na Poblachta at least was going to implement it.
What produces the multiplicity of Parties and the subdivisions, is not P.R. but dissatisfaction with the failure of the big Parties to implement their policies. P.R. does not create divisions; it reflects them. It reflects the existing ones, and the single member constituency system merely allows one to pretend that such divisions do not exist. It seems to me that to smash the machine which reveals divisions that are still there, on the pretence that you are getting rid of the divisions by smashing the machine that reveals them, is like thinking that the cure for an unpleasant face is to smash the mirror in which you have just observed it.
The second objection is that it produces ad hoc Coalitions—Coalitions after the event—Parties of widely differing policies coming together after the election. I recognise that there is a modicum of truth in this objection. I think it is fair to say—so far as I understood him—that the Taoiseach's main objection was made under this head. I say that there is a modicum of truth in it. There is a tendency to have post-election inter-Party bargaining. I believe, for instance, if we had a really effective Labour Party in this country, it could never imagine itself taking part in a Coalition with the highly Conservative Fine Gael Party. They might in certain circumstances have said: “So far as your legislation is progressive, we will support you,” but to take office with them seemed to me to be a negation of Labour Party policy. That is my personal opinion but it is obvious that certain bargains were struck, perhaps because the Labour Party is not a very real Labour Party at all. Nevertheless, if the public wanted it, and if the differences are so small in fact between the Parties, why should they not come together, and who is the Taoiseach to tell them that they must not?
We have, in fact, in this country five Tory Parties—Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Labour Party, Clann na Talmhan and what remains of Clann na Poblachta—five Tory Parties with five Tory policies—sometimes looking a bit more progressive at election times, but when solidly entrenched in power, looking very Tory indeed. Why should we not have a five-Party Tory Coalition? I do not see why not. I think it would be a pretty clear reflection of the will of the people.
The main Fianna Fáil objection to that, and to joining with any other Party, lies in the fact that they would have to share the power, would have to share the kudos, and perhaps would have to share the spoils of office, but it would also—and that is one value I would see in such a coming together of all the big Parties who really have the same policy—expose, once and for all, to the people the failure of that policy, whether it is called Fine Gael policy, Fianna Fáil policy or whatever Party policy you like. It would expose to the people that the policy itself was wrong, and not the electoral system, nor indeed the T.D.s or the Ministers.
James Connolly saw that long ago. In 1897, he said: "If you could remove the English Army to-morrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of a Socialist Republic, your efforts would be in vain." That was Connolly's view of what it would mean and I believe the failure of the successive policies of Irish Governments so far would be shown up, if these five Tory Parties would come together.
It is objected also under this same heading that the electorate—and the Taoiseach said it here in this House— are not told in advance that there is going to be a coalition, and so do not realise that there would be a coalition, and that therefore it is not fair. We must recognise, in so far as it concerns 1948, there is some validity in that point. I did not see any suggestion before the election in 1948 that there would be a "get together", a "rallying together", a coalition against Fianna Fáil. I think there is something in that suggestion, but it has no validity at all in relation to 1954. The people knew perfectly well what would happen if they voted inter-Party in 1954. Therefore, that objection is quite unsound in relation to 1954. The electorate knew exactly what voting for the inter-Party would mean and they knew also—and I think this is significant—how they could increase or diminish the weight of each Party element in the potential Coalition Government. They also knew exactly what the alternative was, and they threw out that alternative—and that alternative was a Fianna Fáil Government.
Furthermore, even in 1948 before the election, Fianna Fáil had an over-all majority in the House, and their Government had 18 months to go, but they were irritated by losing two by-elections, so that instead of going ahead with their policy which they had power to implement—it was not upset in any way in the House—they went to the country and asked the country for a bigger majority, for what was called "a clear majority". That was the main issue in the 1948 election, and the people requested to pass judgment on that main issue in that general election gave the answer: "No", and threw Fianna Fáil out of office.
I should like to ask: did Fianna Fáil learn any lesson from either of those defeats? Did they say: "We must recognise that for some reason the electorate has rejected us. Why did they reject us? Is it because of our policy, because of the way we have been implementing our policy, or is it because we have not yet implemented our policy after 16 years of unbroken power?" I think it legitimate to expect a Party in such conditions to put that type of question to itself.
I have suggested already that the coming into being, into prominence, of Clann na Poblachta was due to the fact that they took the 1927 policy of Fianna Fáil out of cold storage and promised to apply it. Yet after these defeats, what Fianna Fáil, in fact, said was: "No; there could be nothing wrong with us." I am afraid that is the attitude of Fianna Fáil—maybe it is the attitude of any politician who has been in power for a long time. It is not to be found solely in Fianna Fáil, but it is very obvious in Fianna Fáil. "There could not be anything wrong with us, so what is wrong? It must be the voting system, the electoral system. We shall have to change that." The Bourbon family in France were thrown out, and when they came back, it was said of them that they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. That was due in their case to inordinate pride, and it came before a very big fall.
Now, I should like to say something briefly about the two Coalition Governments for which, I have made it sufficiently clear, I had no immense or passionate admiration. But let us look fairly at what they were, what they did and compare them and their results with one-Party Government results, forgetting for a moment which Party was more arrogant or which Party talked most about what it had done.
In fact, the first Coalition Government was very interesting to observe, because it was composed of the Ministers of different Parties. It is true to say that each one of these Ministers was on his toes to show that he, his Party and his Party's policy could achieve results and bring things about. For a considerable period they did well. That cannot really be objectively or impartially denied. For the first time great strides forward were made in many Departments; though, admittedly, they were strides that could have been made long ago during the 16 years that Fianna Fáil were in power.
That is one of the things that most irritate the present Government. It irritated them when they were in opposition that the Coalition Government did things relatively easily which could have been done long ago.
There was then his healthy rivalry between ministerial colleagues. It remained for quite a time a friendly rivalry. We all know that that friendliness broke down in the end. But within the terms of Tory Government—and that is the only kind of Government we ever had since we got self-Government in this country—they did a reasonably good job. Fianna Fáil may not like that; I view it objectively and I am not a supporter of Coalition Government—they did a good job, both at home and abroad.
In one field in particular more was done in three years than had been done in 25 years before. Ask any T.B. patient, sick person, ask old people, people in the workhouse, the rich or the poor, what was achieved by the then Minister for Health, who was, in my contention and in the belief of many people in this country, the most dynamic and consistently effective Minister we have yet had in any Department. He is not the Minister of whom the Coalition is most apt to boast. Yet he was a Minister with a brilliant record of action. The record of several others of that time in Government stands up to critical examination. Viewed fairly, it will be found that the first Coalition brought the country at least a little further on the road of progress until it smashed itself up when it ran into an ecclesiastical road-block.
Yet, how wrong the present Taoiseach was in his judgment of that first Coalition Government when it came into power, because on the 9th February, 1948—I am quoting from the Irish Times—the present Taoiseach is quoted as saying:—
"The Coalition would fly apart and we would be forced into another general election within a few months."
He was wrong. It ran for three and a quarter years which is just a bit over the average life of British Parliaments since 1918.
The second Coalition Government— I do not want to dwell too long on it— was, I think, less courageous and a less effective Government. It was elected, though, by the people who knew exactly what they were doing. Those people had been consulted by Fianna Fáil when Fianna Fáil had an overall majority. Fianna Fáil went to the people, and the people had said: "Give us back the Coalition again." Though it failed to solve the problems of poverty, unemployment and emigration, its successor to-day, with an equally overall majority, has not been conspicuously more successful in any of these fields.
The third objection to P.R. was stated to be that it does not give strong Government—stability. I should like to ask this question. Does the single seat constituency really give stronger majorities? I should like to give two quotations. The first of these is from an article in The Contemporary Review in 1948 by John Fitzgerald. This article is about the Irish general election in 1948. Mr. Fitzgerald says this about it. One is a remark of his own and the other is a quotation from the Irish Times. The facts he mentions are significant:—
"...In bidding to become the Government at its first general election the Clann——"
—He is referring to Clann na Poblachta—
"ran 93 candidates. It secured 14 per cent. of the total poll, but only 7 per cent. of the seats (173, 166 votes; ten seats). In many constituencies its candidates between them polled well below a quota, and failed to secure representation. Thirty-one of them forfeited their deposits. Some candidates of other parties, including Fianna Fáil, also lost theirs. Fianna Fáil (de Valera) secured 42 per cent. of the votes, and 46 per cent. of the seats."
The second quotation from this article is one from the Irish Times:—
"The election results have proved that the system of the single transferable vote makes for stability rather than chaos.... The threat to political and economic orthodoxy, constituted by Clann na Poblachta, has been largely removed by the electorate."
I suggest that that is proved, supported and confirmed by the figures that Mr. Fitzgerald quotes before that.
The second quotation is also from Mr. Fitzgerald. This is about the British election in 1951 and is from The Contemporary Review of December, 1951. This is in relation to a British election under the single seat constituency system. This is what he said:—
"After more than 18 months' experience of continuing his Government in office with the minute majority of six in the Parliament elected in February, 1950, Mr. Attlee secured a dissolution and asked the country for a renewal of confidence with ‘adequate' parliamentary support."
In other words, he went to the country. He had a majority of only six, and he asked for "a clear majority" under a system which the Taoiseach tells us will give good, strong, clear majorities. Mr. Fitzgerald goes on:—
"The votes cast on October 25th, however, show the country still very evenly divided and the new House of Commons is only slightly less closely balanced than its predecessor ...Although there were only four unopposed returns and nearly 83 per cent. of the citizens voted, in the 621 constituencies fought by 1,376 candidates only 27 changes in party representation arose. Though small, the changes were vital, Labour suffering a net loss of 20 seats to the Conservatives. Mr. Attlee therefore resigned, and Mr. Churchill, with a majority of 17, now leads a Conservative Government."
With this wonderful system which ensures stability and strong majorities, you switch from a Labour majority of six to a Conservative majority of 17 out of a House of 625. That, I submit, makes nonsense of the contention that you are necessarily going to get big majorities out of the single seat non-transferable vote.
On the question of stability, I should like to remind the House that we had this stability, that is to say, if you judge stability by what the Taoiseach seems to mean, and what the Fianna Fáil speakers seem to mean, the big power of the Government. We had it very strongly here between 1922 and 1927 because the minority in the Dáil was minute, 20 or 30 members. Mr. Cosgrave had a very big majority. Is the Taoiseach or Fianna Fáil happy that the country was in a better state or better governed because of that big strong majority with the tiny Opposition? Do they think that the country became less stable in 1927 when Fianna Fáil were in the Dáil between 1927 and 1932, in other words, when the Opposition was made bigger and more effective? Will Fianna Fáil contend that that made for less stability and less good government? Was it better when they stayed out, and when strong Government could tend to do what it liked, and snap its fingers at the Opposition? Was it improved by the increase in the size of the Opposition by the coming into the Dáil in 1927 of Fianna Fáil? The answer is obvious.
One of the dangers about strong Government is that it becomes arrogant in power, and fails after a time even readily to discuss parliamentary amendments, much less accept them. It grows in arrogance as it grows in power. Govment strength. Strength to do what? What is it precisely that the Government has to be strong to do?
Do the supporters of this Bill want the Government to be strong enough to be able to implement its policy, or to be strong enough not to have to bother? I am afraid it is the latter. If your Government is really strong and in office for a long time you do not have to bother so much. There is not so much urgency about applying your policy. That is what happened in the 16 years of Fianna Fáil power.
What was said in relation to the Fianna Fáil paper could be said about the Party. It was said in The Bell, in an article by Dr. Vivian Mercer, that “the Irish Press started with high ideals and a big overdraft. The two diminished side by side down the years until now it has no overdraft”. I am afraid that that is what happened to the Fianna Fáil Party. It started with high ideals, to which many of us who were young at the time looked with hope. It grew in arrogance with increasing power—and arrogance which it has not unlearnt, even after being defeated twice.
I believe, on the contrary, that there is great public benefit to be derived from a situation where the Government is not strong enough to be able to snap its fingers at public opinion, and where if it fails to keep its promises it can be thrown out.
How many remember what in fact the Fianna Fáil aims were? I will refer to them. I will refer to their policy when they had just been elected to these 16 years of power. I should like to quote some words of the Taoiseach on that point. He said:—
"That the whole basis of production, distribution, finance, and credit requires complete overhauling is amply evident from the reports of the various committees which are summarised so admirably in the Secretary-General's report."
I am quoting, by the way, from collected speeches of Mr. de Valera, Peace and War, page 13:—
"If we shirk any item in this task, if we fail to make the radical changes obviously necessary, if we fail to organise our economic life deliberately, and purposely to provide as its first object for the fundamental needs of all our citizens so that everyone may at least be reasonably housed, clothed and fed, we shall be failing in our duty, and failing cruelly and disastrously."
He added:—
"But it must be a will that will seek effective action no matter what interest is crossed——"