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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 19 Jul 1928

Vol. 25 No. 7

PRIVATE BUSINESS. - CENTRAL FUND (No. 2) BILL, 1928—REPORT STAGE.

I move that the Central Fund (No. 2) Bill be received for final consideration.

Before this Bill passes its Fourth Stage, there are one or two points that I should like the Minister for Finance to deal with. In replying to the debate on the Second Reading, the Minister slightingly referred to what he described as the "vague generalities" of Deputy de Valera's speech. Those who have read that speech and have studied it will not agree with the Minister's description of it. It is as precise and as detailed as a speech could be, dealing with a general question of that sort—the question of the over-taxation of this country, and the lack of policy on the part of the Government to deal with the declining revenue and to deal with the declining population. At any rate, whatever the Minister's own opinion may be in the matter, there was one aspect of that speech which was not a general one, one aspect which was dealt with in detail and one aspect which the Deputy substantiated with figures. That was the alarming slowness with which revenue is coming in for the current year.

No person scrutinising the weekly returns issued by the Department of Finance can now have any other opinion than that the estimate of the revenue which the Minister proposed to this House in introducing his Budget will not be realised. In order to carry on the services of this State, in order partially to defray the normal expenditure of this State the Minister budgeted to collect from the citizens an extra £1,149,000 this year. Scarcely more than a quarter of the financial year has gone, and yet we find that there has been a continuous decrease in the rate at which the revenue is coming into the Exchequer. In the period for the week ending 30th June the amount collected was £870,000 less than for the corresponding period last year. For the period ending 7th July there was £959,000 less than for the corresponding period of last year, and for the period ending 14th July, according to the returns which we have just received, the amount is no less than £1,212,000 less than it was this time last year. Just remember that figure, £1,212,000 less than last year, and this although the Minister imposed extra taxes and adopted expedients which would mean that the revenue would come into the Exchequer more quickly than last year. How is he going to deal with that situation?

That question was put to him very definitely in the debate upon the financial motion and in the debate on the Vote on Account, and the only reply the Minister gave to that question, which must be seriously disturbing the mind of any person who is interested in the trade and industry of the State, and in the prosperity of the country, was a very extraordinary one. He said: "I am a long time dealing with these matters. I have been watching from month to month and week to week these exchequer returns, and they do not affect me in any way." The exchequer returns do not affect him in any way! The fact that, notwithstanding the extra taxation imposed for the first fourteen weeks of this financial year, the revenue is less by £1,212,000 than it was for the corresponding period last year, does not affect the Minister in any way! That is the extraordinary statement which the Minister makes. As Deputy de Valera showed in his speech, the Minister is faced with a situation which he never had to contemplate before. The figures which were quoted in that speech on the Second Reading Stage of the Central Fund (No. 2) Bill, prove that conclusively. Those figures are very important, very alarming, very significant, and, therefore, very well worthy of repetition. They show that in the first quarter of 1925-26, 25.4 per cent. of the total revenue was collected; in the same quarter for 1926-27, 23.7 per cent. of the total revenue was collected; for the corresponding quarter in the year 1927-28 there was collected 25.5 per cent. of the total revenue, and in the corresponding quarter for this current year only 21.7 per cent. of the estimated probable revenue has been collected.

I think that is a very striking decline; it is a very significant decline, and it does show that we have already reached the point at which taxation must and will yield for some time to come a diminishing return. I think that the Minister ought to be very seriously affected by those figures—the Minister whose duty it is to balance this Budget and to see that the State shall always honour its obligations— whose duty it is to see that the expenditure upon Government services will never exceed the capacity of the citizens to pay. The Minister is faced with these figures showing a rapidly declining income, figures which prove conclusively that the taxpayer is being bled dry, and yet the Minister, with Olympian aloofness, declines to think that it affected him in any particular way. That attitude might be quite all right for a devotee on the banks of the Ganges or a contemplative in a hermit's cell, removed and remote from mundane matters. But it is not the attitude which a Minister for Finance, charged with the administration of the revenues of this country, and with duties to this State and citizens, should adopt. It is not the attitude that is going to serve and save the country whose sons and daughters are leaving it at the rate of thousands a year. It is not the attitude which a Minister for Finance should adopt in a country which, as the very figures issued by his colleague in the Department of Industry and Commerce indicate, is dependent mainly on an industry that is unable to support the number of people who are endeavouring to find sustenance on it. That is the position as it seems to me.

I do not wish to labour this matter, but this is the last opportunity, before this Bill goes through, that we in this House shall have of compelling the Government to face up to the situation which is developing. Therefore, we have taken advantage of the Report Stage of the measure to extort, if we can, from the Minister some expression of his attitude towards this problem and this situation, asking him to give us some idea how he proposes to deal with it and how he proposes, in case this decline in revenue should go on, and that these diminishing returns should increase rapidly, in the end to avoid further borrowing and balance his Budget.

In that connection I would ask the House to remember that already there is a considerable proportion of normal services to be met out of borrowing. The Minister classified in his Budget statement as abnormal, expenditure which in most other countries would be met out of current revenue. He proposes to meet that expenditure by borrowing. If, over and above that, he has to borrow still further in order to meet what now looks like a certain deficit on his Budget statement, then it is inevitable that the social services of this country will have to be curtailed or restricted. We feel that the present Government Departments must be overhauled in such a way as will make further borrowing unnecessary. Already far too great a proportion of the moneys extracted from the taxpayer go to defray the services of the public debt. That has been increasing every year from 1925 to date. In 1925-26 there was a sum of £899,000 taken out of the taxpayers' pockets to meet interest and sinking fund charges. In 1926-27 that amounted to £1,082,000; in 1927-28 it was £1,229,000, and in 1928-29 the Minister estimates that it will be £1,606,490. But that estimate was on the basis of his Budget statement that the taxes which he proposed to impose for the current year, including the additional taxation which he proposed to impose, and including the concession which he proposed to deprive certain taxpayers of— upon that basis he still thought that he would have to borrow an additional amount which would compel him to set aside £1,606,490 for interest and sinking fund charges. If, however, his anticipations are not realised and if the taxes which he has imposed do not yield the anticipated return—and it looks now as if they will yield something very much less—is it not quite clear that, instead of having to set aside £1,606,490 for the services of the public debt, we shall have to set aside a very much larger amount?

What is to be the consequence? There is only one thing that we can see, only one thing which will inevitably ensue if we are to forecast the future of the Government by the Government's past record. Wherever economies had to be made, wherever money had to be secured, it was secured by a reduction in the social services. The old age pensions were the things which had to provide the major portion of past deficits. And though only three months ago, or something less, the Minister did restore to a very small section of the old age pensioners the shilling of which he deprived them four years ago, we know that restoration was made grudgingly and we know that if an opportunity does arise—I am not saying opportunity, but if the need for it does arise—that shilling will be taken away and the old age pensioners will be subjected to further reduction.

How do you know?

I do not know for certain, but I can read the figures and I can read the signs, and I can see that there will be a declining revenue, and I can see the necessity for the Minister to borrow more. I can see the public debt mounting up and, judging the Government's future by the Government's past, I anticipate that when the money is to be found it will not be found by the payers of super tax or by the payers of income tax, but it will be taken off those who are entitled to secure from this State at least the right to die in decency and comfort after having served the State through 70 years of their lives. We know that any money the Minister for Finance has to find will be found by him. There are Parties in this House who might find it in another way. There are other Parties who would look at certain services of the Government, who would look particularly at the administration of the Gárda Síochána for a saving in expenditure, who can see a force drawing something like £1,600,000 of public revenue, a force that has been severely criticised by the judges of the State, a force which, as was admitted by the Minister for Justice, does not exist for the protection of the citizens, but for the persecution of those opposed to the policy of the Government, a force supposedly to protect the citizen against the house-breaker and the wrong-doer, but which, nevertheless, can set men on one side for the ignoble duty of harassing an honest citizen, seizing him 14 or 15 times in one month, subjecting him to the indignity of a search, violating his home, and all without any excuse or justification being given. It was alleged as some justification for that, that the person to whom I refer, Mr. O'Donnell, was under suspicion; that he was a suspected person. The Government took 15 opportunities to justify this suspicion, and they did not succeed in doing it on one single occasion. Not one single document was found to justify the arrest of Mr. O'Donnell. Not one single document was found in his house or on his person. Having failed to find anything on the first and second occasions, they continued to arrest him simply with the idea of carrying on a persecution of that man because he happens to be a journalist who criticised the Government in his writings and who has written things that were rather unpleasant for the Government.

Is the Deputy in order?

I am considering the payment out of public revenue towards the administration of one Department where I believe a saving could be made.

It is scarcely desirable to go into details on the Report Stage of this measure.

Deputy Byrne asked me where we were to find the money. I was suggesting one particular branch of the Government service in which a certain amount of money might be saved. I know that when I suggest that to the Minister he will rise and tell me that no one will save money by putting four buttons on a Guard's tunic instead of five. I do not know how many buttons are on a Guard's tunic, as I have never come into such close association with the Guards as to be aware of the number. I am not suggesting that there should be four instead of five buttons, but I am suggesting that the Free State should be policed in the same proportion as England and Scotland. In the Free State the proportion is one Guard to 475 persons, and in England and Scotland the proportion is one to 763. I am not suggesting, as I say, that we should reduce the number of buttons on a Guard's coat, but I am suggesting that we should reduce the number of people who wear those coats.

I suggest to the Deputy that he should confine himself to the general question rather than to the question of the number of buttons on a Guard's coat.

The general question which I am putting to the Minister is: having the facts which we put before him, and which he cannot deny, how does he propose to deal with the situation which is developing? We suggest, as he exercises a certain financial control over every Department, that there are certain Departments to which he should devote his attention. We are criticising the way in which money is spent on certain Departments, and we suggest, in view of the maladministration of this particular service, that he could secure a sum of about £800,000 a year. He could reduce the number of Gárdaí by half, and in that way reduce the burden to the taxpayer by a substantial amount. Nothing would be lost. If there is any person who asks what we are going to do with those who retire, I suggest that industry will be able to absorb them, and, if it were not, it would be better that the shopkeeper and the farmer should be able to employ some of them and be able to use the money put in his pocket to employ some of them so that they would be creating wealth for the State instead of consuming it in idleness, as they are doing now. If they had to subsist on the unemployment dole, as many honest men have to do, they would be less costly than walking round as leisured gentlemen drawing anything from £2 10s. to £3 or £4 a week. That is one of the ways we would like the Minister to face up to the situation, to go through every Department and find where economies can be made.

The Minister denies that economies can be found. The Minister is always able to find reasons, not very substantial, for doing nothing. He finds a reason for his inactivity in the industrial sphere, or for the inactivity of his Government in doing nothing for industry, by saying that we cannot put anything further on agriculture. At present agriculture has to maintain too many persons. According to the returns issued by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of all occupied persons in the Saorstát, 53 per cent. are engaged in agricultural occupations, whereas the corresponding figure in Denmark is 29.1. It may be said that 53 per cent. of the population, or almost twice that of Denmark, have to find employment on the land. They have to give a return for that livelihood, and their work is productive, but if we contrast the exports from Denmark, where only 29.1 per cent. are agricultural workers, with the exports from the Saorstát, where 53 per cent. are agricultural workers, we see, as a matter of fact, that the 53 per cent., who ostensibly get a livelihood on the land, are not working or maintaining themselves on the land, or, at least, the land is not worked at its maximum efficiency, and that if it were the number employed would tend inevitably to decrease. The Saorstát for the year 1927 exported £2,232,000 of bacon and ham, while Denmark exported £23,398,000 worth. In the same year the Saorstát exported £4,574,000 worth of butter, and Denmark exported £23,247,000 worth. I could go through practically every one of these figures and commodities to show that Denmark, more efficiently managed and with a more efficient Minister for Agriculture, is exporting much more per capita of the population employed on the land than the Saorstát.

What is the moral? These people cannot obviously live in comfort on the land in Ireland. The land is not able to maintain the number of people who are compelled to find a livelihood on it. If agricultural processes in Ireland are made more efficient, the number of people who will find a livelihood on the land will tend to decrease, and, unless they are absorbed in industry, they will be forced to emigrate. That is the problem which the Minister is up against. He must develop the country in such a way that he must either absorb in industry the population which cannot be absorbed in agriculture, or allow the stream of emigration to continue. How is the Minister facing up to that problem, and what is he doing to solve it? The Minister said that he could not do anything because he does not want to impose any greater burdens on agriculture. He falls back on the old argument that tariffs increase the cost of living. I hope before this debate closes that it will be shown that the statement of the Minister that tariffs increase the cost to the consumer is fallacious. When the problem is examined thoroughly it will be found that tariffs do not increase the cost of living. They provide employment and absorb some of those who have to be maintained by the State in idleness. So far as they create opportunities for industrial development, and so far as that development ensues, they increase the purchasing power of every person in that industry. That reacts to increase the purchasing power of people in other industries who sell their products to those engaged in the first industry. If the whole question were examined home it would be found that in a fully-protected country, where full advantage is taken of tariffs, they are able to build up a sound industrial population, able to supply, so far as possible, the needs of the people. Thus, so far from increasing the cost of living in terms of wealth, it would tend to decline through the operations of tariffs.

In the debate upon the Second Reading of the Bill, various questions were addressed to the Government in relation to their general policy. In so far as these questions did draw from the Minister for Finance a general statement of his policy and the policy of the Government, in respect of industrial development, that debate was worth while. I think that I stated during the course of that debate that I had become convinced that the Government had in fact no policy, that they were working from day to day, dealing with problems which each day brought, without any carefully thought-out plan to guide their actions. I would like to withdraw that statement. They have a policy. They have declared their policy. They have declared a policy based upon certain facts, and I hope to prove that they have a policy which in itself is wrong in so far as the facts upon which it is based are wrong and are not as they contend them to be. The Minister for Finance speaking on the Second Reading debate of the Bill, said:—

We see that for strength and development—every kind of development, cultural and otherwise—that the population of the country should be increased. We see that the population cannot be increased merely on getting increased agricultural efficiency. We see, therefore, that industry must be built up. We believe, however, that in the beginning industry can only be built up by throwing an additional burden on agriculture. We are trying to increase the prosperity of agriculture. We are going slowly with our tariff policies because we believe that at the present stage there are other policies as well as tariff policies, such, for instance, as an industrial policy. Because we believe that at the present time agriculture cannot bear an increased burden, our aim in industry is not to produce everything the country might produce.

That is a general statement of the Government's policy. It shows that in one respect they have a grasp of the true situation, but it shows also that they have lamentably failed to arrive at any correct solution for that situation. Mind you, that is not a casual statement made in debate. It is a considered statement of policy, and the Minister for Finance was careful to assure us that that was the case. "We cannot," he said, "come to the Dáil and announce half-baked policies which we have not thought out." We must not take this as a half-baked policy, as something which has not been thought out. We must consider that the Government is staking its political future upon the wisdom of that policy, and if I can prove, as I think I can prove and prove easily, that that policy is based upon an incorrect interpretation of the facts, then it is obvious that the Government will have to admit that it is going on the wrong road. The Minister informed us that, in his opinion, the result of any general policy of tariffs, or the result of any extension of the policy of tariffs must be that for a time, in certain instances, an additional burden will be thrown upon existing producers. He added: "It is for these reasons that we have hesitated to plunge into a policy, regardless of cost, of aiming at increasing the amount of manufacturing industry." If it is a fact that providing protection for industry in this country is going to increase for a time, or permanently, the burden which is thrown upon existing producers in the State, then the Government's policy is right. If it is a fact that we are unable to develop the industrial arm of the State without imposing such a burden on the agricultural arm that the agricultural arm will be unable to support it, then the Government's policy is right, but I would like to point out to Deputies that the only example given by the Minister for Finance, of the imposition of a tariff resulting in an increased burden upon agriculture was the example of the boot tariff. He said that there were others. He said that in some cases, of course, the tariff had not resulted in an increased burden on the community, but he gave us as an obvious example of increased charges to the community the boot tariff.

If I can prove that the Minister for Finance had obviously not thought out the problem, had obviously not examined the figures which are available in the Department of Industry and Commerce in relation to the problem, then I think I can prove that the Government has embarked upon a policy which has not received in advance that consideration which a Government policy should have received. I maintain that any person who goes through the statistics which are made available in this country by the Department of Industry and Commerce and the statistics which are made available in England by the Board of Trade, will be able to find out for himself that the statement made by the Minister for Finance was incorrect and that in the particular example which he gave, the selected example of the boot tariff, the imposition of that tariff did not in fact result in an increase in price to the consumer. If the Minister was basing his statement of general policy upon a fact of that kind, one would have thought that he would have produced figures to substantiate his facts. One would have thought that he would have produced the wholesale price lists issued by the boot manufacturers inside and outside the State to show that since 1924, since the tariff was imposed, there had been an increase in the wholesale prices of boots. He did not show that. He made a general statement. He implied that it was well known and that it needed no substantiation in the manner I have indicated. In regard to boots sold to the consumer and made in the factories of the State there has been no increase in price. I submit if the Minister examines the price lists of factories in the State he will find that is so. I submit if he goes into any shop in this city and purchases a pair of Irish boots he will get a pair of Irish boots far cheaper than he will get a pair of boots of similar quality produced in England and imported here.

Fifteen per cent.

That is the point I am going to deal with. He said they will be 15 per cent. cheaper. He said in his speech on Second Reading that if you impose a tariff of 15 per cent. on the foreign produce the price of the home product will be increased to almost the entire amount of the tariff. I am going to prove that since the tariff was imposed on boots in this State not merely has the wholesale price of English boots imported to this country been reduced by the amount of the tariff, but in fact England is sending in boots cheaper here than she is sending similar boots to any country in the world. The figures which I am going to quote I prepared before the final trade returns for 1927 were available, and so I based them on the first nine months of the year and the first nine months of previous years. That fact makes little difference in the conclusions, because we are not dealing with quantities; we are dealing with quantities imported in relation to the declared price of the boots. In the year 1924, which was the year in which the tariff was imposed, the average wholesale price of boots imported into the Free State from Britain was 9/6; in 1925 it was 8/4; in 1926 it was 8/1½, and in 1927 it was 7/2. In the year 1924, as I have said, the average price of boots imported into the Free State was 9/6. But in that same year the average price of a pair of boots exported from England to any other country in the world was 7/11¾. In the year 1924 the British boot manufacturers had practically a monopoly of the boot trade here and were charging us a monopoly price. They were charging us 9/6 for the boot which they were prepared to sell elsewhere for 7/11¾. But let us examine the course of prices of British boots exported to every country in the world except the Irish Free State. In 1924 it was 7/11¾; in 1925 it was 7/7¼; in 1926 it was 7/7¼; in 1927 it was 7/10¼. In 1924 we found that the price of British boots imported into the Free State was 9/6, and the price of British boots sold to the rest of the world was 7/11¾.

The difference in price was against us, but in 1917 we find that the average price of British boots sold to the Free State was 7/2 as against 7/10¼, the price which was charged to the rest of the world. In 1924 we were paying 1/6¼ per pair of boots more than the rest of the world were paying for the same pair of boots. In 1925, the first year during which the tariff was in full operation, we were paying 8¾d. more. In 1926 we were paying 6¼d. more, but in 1927, not merely were we not paying more, we were paying 8¼d. less. Let me examine these figures. The British price to all countries in the world except the Irish Free State, taking 1924 as a base, show that in 1925 there was a drop in price of 4.7 per cent; in 1926 a drop of 4.7 per cent., and in 1927 a drop of 1.5 per cent. Applying these percentages to the prices charged to the Free State for British boots, taking 1924 as a base, we find the prices which would be charged to the Free State if we had to buy from England boots at the same price which England was charging the rest of the world, would be as follows: 9/6, 9/0½, 9/0½, 9/4½. The actual course of prices was 9/-, 8/4, 8/1½, 7/2. If we add to the actual prices charged the full amount of the tariff we find that the course of prices in the Free State plus the tariff, the actual prices Irish retailers had to pay for the boots were 10/4, 9/7, 9/4 and 8/3, and by comparing these prices with the prices England charged for her boots to the rest of the world we find in the year 1924 Britain bore 3½d. of the full tariff of 1/4½. In 1925 she bore 9¾d., in 1926 she bore 1/0¾, in 1927 she paid 2/6, which represents the entire amount of the tariff plus a bonus of 1/1¼ per pair. Does that indicate that the price charged by Irish boot manufacturers has increased by almost the entire amount of the tariff? Does it not indicate the contrary? Does it not indicate that Britain which had a monopoly of the boot trade in this country in 1924 now finds that she has to fight for the very existence of her trade, and has to accept in Ireland prices much lower than she can secure for the same commodities throughout the rest of the world?

Do these figures not in themselves prove what I have said is correct and that Irish boot manufacturers as a result of the tariff are able to sell their boots at less than what they sold them before they were protected? Do these figures, even if the agricultural workers of this State still persist in buying imported boots, not prove that they are able to buy them at less now than they were before the industry was protected? How then, has the imposition of a tariff on boots increased the burden on agriculture? The Minister took that industry as an example; he based his whole argument on what happened to that industry, and obviously advanced that argument without having considered the facts, and if, as I think, these figures prove conclusively that his facts are wrong and that the protection afforded to the boot industry did not increase the burden on agriculture, then we trust he will go to his Executive Council and get them to endeavour to change their policy and give Irish industries a chance to survive before it is too late.

I would remind Deputies that in many cases the end is almost in sight. I asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce some time ago to supply me with a list of manufacturing concerns in this State which, during the last four years, had been forced to close down. The list covered three or four pages of foolscap. Factory after factory, industry after industry, has gone to the wall, and for the last year or a year and a half there have been crowding around the doors of Merrion Street and around the door of the Tariff Commission representatives of important Irish industries asking for the protection they know will mean the survival of their industries and not getting it. And they also are going slowly—flour-milling, coach-building, woollen mills, the paper mills—all are going. The number of factories engaged in these industries now in the Free State is much less than the number engaged when the Ministry first came into office. It is because of their timorous policy that these things are happening; it is because they have not got a fair grasp of the facts and are basing their policy on wrong conclusions that we see unemployment widespread through the country, and twenty thousand to thirty-five thousand of the best of our manhood fleeing every year, seeking in America the employment they are unable to get here.

I trust the Minister for Finance will give these matters his serious consideration, and that he will realise, no matter what he may say to the contrary, that they are, in fact, working upon a half-baked policy which is at variance with the facts. If we can get a start even now in reviving industrial production in this State, we would be able, I believe, in a very short time to produce a very different set of circumstances from that which now exists. There is still enough vitality left in the State to make a complete revival possible once a start is made, but if we are faced with this non possumus attitude of the Ministry, this timorous dealing with important facts, then the last hopes of Irish industrialists are slowly disappearing. I hope in time we will be able to convince, if not the Government or the majority in this House, the Irish people, that prosperity for them lies along the same road that the people of practically every other nation took. We are not a nation apart, that the policy which succeeded in Germany, America, Canada, New Zealand and Australia must fail in Ireland. People who can advance as serious arguments statements of that kind surely should not to be entrusted with the guidance of our national policy. The economic laws which prevail in this country are identical with the laws that prevail elsewhere, and the solution to similar problems which were found elsewhere should also apply here. Therefore, I trust, even at this stage, before the House votes on account a sum of seven and a half million pounds to this Government, that they will demand from the Government a statement of policy that will be in closer relation to the situation than that which was given to us. If they cannot get that policy, I hope they will refuse this vote on account, as an indication of their disapproval of the Government's attitude.

If there is one person in this House who has a perfectly open mind upon the subject of tariffs it is myself. If there is one man who comes to the investigation of tariffs purely and simply as an investigator I think it is myself. I regard tariffs as just one of the bottles on the shelf, one of the packages in the national larder, out of which will be combined by the national chemist—the national house-keeper—that food and that tonic which are required to put industry upon its feet. It is in that spirit of one who has nothing to say for tariffs because they are tariffs, and has nothing whatever to say for any economic expedient because it just happens to be that economic expedient that I think this House is entitled to resent—I think this is the first time I have used any language of that kind in relation to financial discussions—the treatment which the House has received from the Minister for Finance when he was asked for information in relation to these matters. He delivered the bald statement the other day that some commodities had increased in price to the community, due to tariffs, and that some had failed, and I, as one imagining that the Minister for Finance, in possession of the whole resources for investigation of facts in this country, must know his facts in relation to a matter which came precisely under his jurisdiction, asked him for information as to the number of industries in which prices had increased to the community. I thought I would have got three or four definite articles which had increased, and which he knew had increased, as the result of investigation. I thought I would have got, and I was entitled to get after that statement by the responsible head of the Finance Department, two or three specific instances where it had not increased. Instead of that I got a vague general statement on the subject of tariffs, which has opened up this particular discussion.

Now, what I am going to say is this: that in relation to his statement concerning the boot tariff, the Minister for Finance was either saying what he knew to be false or what he was privatively ignorant in not knowing was false. Ignorance is of three kinds. Pure nescience, the things you do not know, and privative ignorance, ignorance of the things which, in all the circumstances, you ought to know. I say that the Minister for Finance said to this House, speaking as Minister for Finance, that in relation to specific articles some had increased in cost and some had not increased in cost. In making that statement, without the knowledge on which he based the facts, he was speaking in privative ignorance. I went to a good deal of trouble, exactly in the spirit of an investigator, to try to find the truth in this matter. I investigated the whole of the facts which were available to anyone examining this simply as a statistical problem, and the facts set out by Deputy Lemass. If statistical information is to be taken as settling this issue, then the issue is settled in relation to the boot tariff, that not merely has the proportion to the extra profit which was being obtained per unit in Ireland due to their commanding financial position here been taken away, not merely has the amount of the tariff which has been added to the price of the goods been taken away, but that some of the ordinary profit, as distinct from the surplus and bonus profit, due to a privileged position, has been taken away. If the Ministry were in a position to produce to the House figures as good on the side of the statement that has been made by the Minister for Finance as figures which we have been able to produce on the side of proving the Minister for Finance's statement was wrong, he would have produced them. As far as the statistical case goes, it goes by default, and it goes to the knowledge of the Minister for Finance by default unless he is culpably, privatively ignorant of the facts in this matter, on which he presumes to speak with the authority of his office in the State and the Government he represents.

In the "Economic Quarterly Journal" of June 27, by a very reputable economic investigator there is an article which is within the knowledge of his Department, in which the general tendency which has been developed in Deputy Lemass's speech was shown to be beginning and was carried up to 1927, when the statistical case was against the Minister for Finance. It is within my knowledge that Government Departments which have come in any relation to these facts are in possession of the developed knowledge which has been offered to them by Deputy Lemass. All I am saying for the moment is that the statistical case, if you are to rely on it, is overwhelming, and I will not rely on it. That case I put to a meeting here in Dublin, and, having given those facts and figures, I said that case from a statistical point of view is too overwhelming to be true, and I was driven back to investigate this case actually in the factories and in the shops. There has been a certain change in the nature of the goods which are brought under this particular heading, and, while the change in the nature of the goods is not sufficient —I had no evidence that it is sufficient to upset the statistical case as shown— it is enough to make it necessary for us to try to find, by actual detailed investigation, whether or not it is substantially true.

My method was to go to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and ask them for precisely the information which ought to be in the possession of the Minister for Finance before he could have truthfully and honestly made the statement which he made to this House, but the Ministry of Industry and Commerce had not got it. The facts upon which, and only upon which, the Minister for Finance could honestly have based the statement he made did not exist within the knowledge of his Department and of his Government. So we are up against the fact that, not merely did the Minister for Finance speak in privative ignorance, but that he is openly and deliberately guessing at things he ought to ascertain. I asked them to get those facts, and their answer was that they had no means; they had no machinery, and the staff were otherwise occupied. They had not got the facts upon which the Minister for Finance based his statement, and they had not the machinery to get them, but the Minister for Finance could make a statement without the facts and in face of the statistical information which was available. Is that the sort of way in which you think that you can carry on Government in this country? Is that the sort of responsibility with which you can envisage economic policy, when those who ought to know do not know and do not try to know, and them, in open, deliberate and blatant ignorance of the facts, misstate the facts in spite of the statistical evidence which is available?

If that is the kind of responsibility which lies behind the statements that the boot tariff has increased the cost of boots, you know how much reliance to put upon any of the statements of an economic or statistical nature that you get from the present Minister for Finance. Now what I did was this: I recognised that there were two classes of boots being made by Irish factories, one in which, broadly speaking, they were experienced and had a good deal of knowledge. That was the general class of working boots for ordinary people. I knew that they had a good deal of training and a good deal of experience, as well as a considerable output in that matter. There was another kind of boot which they were not making to any considerable extent, and that was fancy boots for women. I said that if we find any lack at all it will be on that side, but that here we will take as our test case the worst case from the point of view of the Irish boot manufacturer. We will take the thing in which he has the lowest output, of which he has the smallest experience, and in which he is up against the greatest difficulty, the difficulty of meeting a variety trade. I got boots made by firms across the water which were being bought as best sellers, which were being sold even by those factories in their retail shops as the best value that one could buy for money and as good sellers. I got the same boot made, imitated if you like, by those factories, boots so exactly alike that, apart from my opinion of the difference of apparent quality and finish, no one could have told one from the other. I got from the firms the actual wholesale prices which they paid for those imported boots, exclusive of the tariff. I got from those firms the actual price of the boots as they were sending them out to the wholesaler. I put those in a sealed envelope and brought the whole lot, boots and invoices, to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce. I said: "Take those two boots as a sample and send them for any examination you like. We want them cut up and hacked and we want to know whether the Irishman is producing as good a boot and whether he is producing a boot at as good a price."

That investigation went on, with the whole information sealed, in the possession of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce. When that investigation was completed—it is the only information of a detailed kind which, as far as I know, can be in the possession of the Minister for Finance—this was the verdict: That the Irish boot was built of better quality stuff throughout, and that in every place in which inferior material—good enough, but relatively inferior—could be used, the better material was used in the Irish boot, and that the actual price of the boot delivered to the Irish wholesaler from an Irish factory in that exceptional commodity, chosen deliberately to be the most difficult one for them to produce economically, the Irish factory was sending out a boot which was delivered to the wholesaler, quality and price taken together, without any single cent. of the tariff added to the price, and as a matter of fact for a certain amount less than the nett price of equal quality goods imported into this country without a tariff. This information is in the possession of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

I am going to carry this further by bringing to the Ministry for Industry and Commerce the boot on the extreme left of that, the boot which is used by the farmer and the farm labourer in the field. I will put up against it the best boot that England can produce for the same purpose, and now, before this thing is investigated; I am prepared to back in any sum you like that the statements that I have made in relation to these extreme cases, women's fancy boots, will prove to be true in relation to the Cork factory making boots in relation to ordinary footwear for the ordinary man. I am prepared to stand over that statement now before the investigation is made in any amount if anyone likes to take it up. That is a distinctly better line to take than that adopted by the Minister for Finance, who, in culpable and privative ignorance of the facts, chooses for the purpose of bolstering up his political argument, to libel the trade and commerce of his own country.

We asked him had tariffs increased the cost of blankets? He did not know. I know. Has it increased the cost of margarine? I do not know whether he knows or not. I do say in relation to these things that are manufactured under a tariff within my knowledge, where I can have access to the books and know what is going on, that to my amazement, having regard to the smallness of the economic unit with which we are working and the difficulties under which we are producing, there is no evidence in relation to Cork-made boots, Cork-made blankets, and Cork-made margarine to bolster up the statement made by the Minister for Finance that the tariff has increased the cost of boots, or increased the cost of tariffed articles. I would have expected that it would, if I was only engaged in an argument. I think this House knows that I have never said a word in favour of tariffs as tariffs. I come to them as an investigator. I want the facts, and I have gone to more trouble to find out the facts in relation to this than the whole Ministry of Finance apparently has done before it stood over a statement libellous and slanderous. Deputy MacEntee has painted a very difficult picture of the present rate of the inflow of income. If we take it statistically, the position ought to give us very great cause for fear. If what has gone on up to the present continues, the next Budget is going to be calamitous and even more dishonest than the present one. Perhaps it will be calamitous in both cases, because it will have to be obviously calamitous.

I say deliberately that I am not going to judge the revenue now. I hope things are not as bad as they look, and they look very bad, but for the moment we are entitled to hope that there will be such a change as to put a different complexion on the case. Remember that dragging in assets as income, though it may make things more comfortable for the Minister for Finance at the moment, does not represent any improvement so far as the outlook of the State is concerned. He is taking in either the proceeds of token coinage, or something in lieu of the proceeds of token coinage, and calling it income. He has no more right to call it income than if he sold the seats in this Dáil and called the proceeds income. He is anticipating his revenue of next year and calling it into this year. That is a sort of thing an ordinary clerk would be sacked for. Even if we do begin to fill up the vacant places in the Budget in that way, it may make things a little more comfortable on the surface for the Minister for Finance, but it will not hide from any discerning man the fact that the position is bad and dangerous, because it is in the hands of those who to-day control. We had the outlook upon these matters by the Minister for Finance in his speech the other day when he spoke of insurance. He did not want the help of the Dáil.

Faced with a beginning of the tackling of the really serious fundamental economic problem of this country, the problem of getting control of ancillary services, he does not want the help of the Dáil. He does not want anybody to give him ideas. He has no thought of any other portion of the House, no consideration, no knowledge. They may have loyal help they are prepared to give in binding public opinion behind them in the difficult effort with which he is faced. None of that is required by the Minister for Finance. Alone he can do it. I do not believe that alone he can do it. I do not believe that the two front Benches of this House combined, I do not believe the support of every member of this House, I do not believe the organised support of the whole public opinion of this country behind him will make the task he has got easy. I know he is making the solution impossible when he treats offers of help with impertinence. "The land can support no more people." That is a sentence of death which, under the regime of his colleague the Minister for Agriculture, the Minister for Finance has delivered on this Budget.

The Minister for Lands and Agriculture and the leader-writer of the "Irish Times," a very able man, form a combination which stands for this country dependent upon a single industry, and that industry cannot support any more people—the permanent condition of a little poverty-stricken, hard-driven, small people living upon the verge of starvation in bad times, and just on the right side of it in good times. But the Minister for Finance does not want any help or assistance. His Government does not want any help or assistance from any man on these benches, or any man in the country, or anybody outside himself, in tackling the problem of how to get this country out of the grip of probably £60,000,000,000 fighting to keep her where she is.

The insurance grip which holds this country—I am not blaming them for it; they are doing their own work—have behind them £1,000,000,000 of reserves, and the Minister for Finance, who wants to get out of their maw one and a half millions every year, does not think he needs any more help than that of his own two hands. The man who told the banks of this country that he had a shot left in the locker for them did not look for any help then. He did not look for the only help which would have enabled him to say it safely, the help of united public opinion, and he comes in here a few hours after, crawling and unsaying all that he has said, and he is crawling since as the price of that impertinence. Their strength was unfortunately greater than his own, and he was prepared to set up a Bankers' Commission to deal with everything that the ordinary commercial man in this community ought to have knowledge of, and he accepted from those banks the definite instruction that no one should appear on that Commission except their own representatives.

Surely the Banking Commission is a long way from the Report Stage of this Bill?

No help from the Dáil— satisfied with his own little strength. Why, they cannot agree amongst themselves. The Minister for Lands and Agriculture asked us the other day if we would stand up to him man to man. Can they stand up to each other? Can the policy of the Minister for Finance, that the land can support no more people, stand up to the policy of the Minister for Lands and Agriculture, who says that any attempt to do anything outside that—well, it may happen, but he has nothing to do with it? He wants all the money for agriculture, all the money for that land which, according to the Minister for Finance, cannot perform its primary duty of supporting the people. The Minister for Finance knows as well as I do that all the twaddle about concentrating on the standard of comfort that he talked was twaddle. We are coming to a Recess, and during that Recess all the wisdom, all the initiative, and all the capacity to tell the truth which is represented by the Front Bench opposite is to be concentrated upon our problems.

There is no man in this House who is entitled, upon the evidence which has been offered to him to-day, to believe any statement that emanates from the Minister for Finance. And, in spite of that, for as long as they do remain there, for as long as they are a Government, in every good thing they attempt to do we will help them; in every problem which they have to face, any knowledge, or information, or ideas, which we have will be freely given to them, careless who does the work, so long as the work is done; careless who gets the credit so long as the work is well done. It is time that they recognised that a section of this country, however big, can never get this country out of the difficulties into which sectionalism has thrown it. It is time that this Government recognised that they must get behind and above all unpopular policies which are for the benefit of this country, and again all through that, as long as they are there, we will help them to clear up the mess that they have made; we will give them any assistance they like, and their self-sufficiency, their lack of frankness and their incapacity will not prevent us from doing our share in trying to clear up the mess of which three, four or five years of this misgovernment has reduced this country.

There is no answer from the opposite benches. I waited to see if someone would rise to speak, but even the Minister for Finance now leaves the Chamber. Such is their interest in the crisis with which the country is faced at present. We are rising to-day for a Recess of some months, and throughout that Recess the emigration, the fruits of rotten government, of unnational government, will continue. All our efforts in this House are futile from the national point of view; from the point of view of the poor people of Ireland. It has been pointed out by Deputy MacEntee that there is every indication of a deficit in the Exchequer. How will the Minister for Finance meet that deficit? Will he explain to us what particular method he proposes to adopt? Will he come to us in six months', nine months', or a year's time in a state of panic, with some legislation to cut down the social services or to increase taxation, or will he float another loan, on the basis of international finances, which we will have to pay for at exorbitant terms? Some of those methods he will have to adopt. In the meantime, while the deficit continues he will have to go from month to month working upon short-term loans from the banks. From his point of view, the best thing that can be said of him is that he is working on a hand-to-mouth policy.

But surely his knowledge of the history of this country is such that when he sees certain evil fruits produced by a particular system he must argue back to the causes. If he consults history he will find that in every case, whether in the seventeenth, eighteenth, or nineteenth century, the same economic causes created the same economic results, and behind it was the jealousy and the hostility of the British economic policy. The key of the present situation is to be found in a phrase of Churchill's which he used about the period of the civil war in 1922. He said: "There are other sanctions besides military sanctions; there are economic sanctions," using the word "sanction" in its legal sense of punishment. That is the economic system imposed by England upon this country through the medium of a supine Government. I wish to speak with all charitableness of that Government. I will go so far as to say that it does not see clearly on this question, because I do not believe that at least some of the men that I knew in the old fight could have changed so much. A wise man once said that do as he may, a man cannot entirely rid himself of God. I am inclined to believe that there are men in the Cumann na nGaedheal Party who, do what they will, cannot entirely rid themselves of nationality.

Or charity. Charity is a practical thing, and I, for my part, am always willing, if I see a man who did wrong yesterday turning round and doing right to-day, to clap him on the back and forget the past. If tomorrow the Government was to adopt a really national policy in reference, first of all, to the financial agreements, telling England that we are not able to pay these annuities, which are really an Imperial contribution, and re-open that settlement, reduce whatever extravagance can be reduced, and examine the whole tariff proposals from the point of view of putting an embargo on the entry of everything that can be made in Ireland, shutting out the British competitor at least until such time as we are able to live ourselves, and, further than that, to examine closely what would be a really national policy on the question of credit, we would be prepared to assist them. They cannot, at this stage, be ignorant of the views propounded by a great authority—Keynes—on the question of credit. It is now some years since he pointed out that, by the restriction of credit, a particular result was produced, and that was that the reduction of initiative and industry had the consequent result of unemployment. That was done side by side with the attempt to reduce wages in England, and at the same time it had a similar effect in Ireland, because it reduced production in Ireland, and in that way was one of the big factors in causing emigration through unemployment. The Government should realise that the farmers in Ireland to-day are in almost exactly the same condition as they were in when they were paying rack-rents. There was a time in Ireland when rents adjusted themselves on the basis of tithes—one tenth of the harvest—and that worked out in a more humane way than the present system, because at least it adjusted itself to the bad years as well as to the good years. That is not so now. I have it on the authority of farmers of considerable experience that if you take the outgoings of farmers to-day you will find that what they pay out corresponds almost identically with the amounts that they paid in the rack-renting days of long ago.

People are apt to shrug their shoulders at the attitude we take up in pointing out that there is behind this a British economic policy. But one of the qualities of that economic policy in England is, and has always been, to make it out to be a sort of providence, a natural law, and that this natural law is simply in the ordinary course of nature exhausting the population of Ireland. If we look back we find it is not the natural law at all. As I said before in this House, one of the most striking things that occurred at the meeting of the First Dáil was, when each Deputy got up and pointed to his own constituency, where during the nineteenth century so many homesteads had been wiped out of existence, and so many inhabitants driven out of the country owing to the policy of Great Britain in Ireland. The policy which reigns now is exactly the same, and produces exactly the same results, and unless the Government is prepared to shake off its present attitude, turn around and do the strong thing, the national thing, this country will go on drifting to the very edge of bankruptcy.

A nation shows itself in its greatest strength when it is on the defence. That was true in Ireland during the conscription crisis. We are now up against something that is not so picturesque, that is not so nerve-racking, but that is insidious, and that is bad for the nation, and if the Government could take up a proper attitude, could use all its organs of propaganda instead of allowing them to be used for denationalising purposes; if it would co-operate with us in a policy of bringing home to the Irish people the real crisis that is there, and put the nation on its defence we could have a bloodless victory in this country, which would be something corresponding to the sacrifice made by men like Terence MacSwiney.

There are a few points in connection with Section 2 of this Bill that I want to deal with briefly. It empowers the Minister for Finance to borrow, and in view of the general fall in revenue this year, and the increased expenditure, it is evident that at the end of a short period the annual debt charges will overpower this State. It has been already pointed out from these benches that there are ways of finding revenue. The particular point that I wish to deal with now is this: Is it not ludicrous that the State should give over to the banks a free gift of the note issue of six and a half millions, and go to them then periodically to borrow money at five or six per cent? My suggestion is that the note issue should be administered by a public board responsible to the citizens, and that the profit should go towards the relief of taxation. If Churchill in England brought in a Bill in the morning giving a note issue——

The Deputy cannot argue about a note issue on this Bill.

I content that the profits derived from the note issue given to the banks should go to the relief of taxation. It amounts to about £400,000.

I do not want to restrict the Deputy, but I want to make it clear that this is the Report Stage of the Bill, and he can only argue on what is contained in the Bill itself.

In this discussion I think everything has been dealt with —tariffs and all forms of taxation. I am dealing in particular with Section 2 of the Bill which gives the Minister for Finance certain powers to borrow, and I am suggesting an alternative by which he can get money instead of by borrowing.

The Deputy cannot put an alternative in the Bill at this stage. He is too late to change.

It is quite evident from this section of the Bill that there is no financial independence in this State. When the credit of the State is controlled by powers who are hostile to any advancement here there can be no progress where that is so. You can have the same form of political independence that Liberia and Nicaragua have, or any of those States whose economic policy is administered through America. You can have that kind of political independence. You have it. But until you have financial independence there will be no economic progress here. I must protest against your ruling in this matter, because the particular things I had to say were very relevant to the whole matter. I notice that every time I start this subject——

The Deputy cannot question the ruling in that form. I think I have explained very clearly that the Deputy cannot advocate on the Report Stage of the Bill the inclusion in it of something which is not now in it. The Deputy knows that quite well.

As the Minister for Local Government happens to be present, and as his Department may be considering the question of motor taxation between now and the beginning of the year, I would like to bring to his notice a matter that is becoming more and more important in every country. I refer to the question of allowing some reduction in the tax on old motor cars. I believe that the French Government, some time ago, agreed to allow a reduction of 50 per cent. on cars five years old and over.

Surely that has nothing to do with the Bill.

It has something to do with the Department of Local Government. My point is that we are wasting important assets, and I suggest it has something to do with the Central Fund Bill, that through the policy of the Department of Local Government very important assets are being wasted. If I am able to show that thousands of motor cars which are imported here at a very high cost to the State are scrapped after being used for six or eight years simply because of the high taxation placed upon them, while they could give another six or seven years' service if the tax were modified, I submit that is in order.

As I said, the French Government some time ago made a reduction of fifty per cent. on cars five years old and over. The British Government, through the Chancellor, have recently signified their interest in it, and promised to give the question very careful consideration before the next Budget. It cannot be anything like as important for any of these countries as it is for this, because they are manufacturing countries, and if a car is scrapped it means that their own manufacturers are getting the advantage of it. We import cars at a very high cost, and it surely should be to the interest of the State to get the fullest possible advantage out of them. Yet, in spite of the frequent appeals which have been made to the Government, they have never shown any desire to consider that point of view. At present every garage in the country, as well as many out-houses belonging to private people, are full of cars which are still worth a considerable amount of money for transport purposes, but because of the very high tax levied upon them the owners will not use them.

I wish to make it clear that this Bill deals with the supply services, and, strictly speaking, has nothing whatever to do with taxation or ways and means.

In the supply services is there not a Vote for the Local Government Department?

The Deputy must remember that a speech which may be quite relevant to the Second Stage of the Bill is not relevant to the Fourth Stage.

I bow to your ruling, of course, but I am not convinced. I think that the policy of the Minister for Local Government might well be criticised on this Bill.

The Deputy will realise that on the Fourth Stage of the Bill he cannot go into details. If the Deputy dealt with general policy, as other members of his Party have done, it would be quite relevant and in order, but he cannot go into questions of detail.

If we were to speak in strictly general terms the criticism would not be worth very much. One has to resort to examples to make his remarks any way interesting.

I want to point out that details should be discussed on the Estimates rather than on Bills such as this, but certainly not on the Report Stage of such a Bill.

Wasting national assets, after all, is not a detail.

This Bill is simply the Estimate in the form of a Bill. The Deputy is really advocating other legislation and dealing with a matter that would be appropriate to the Second Stage of the Finance Bill.

I do not agree. I might not advocate any legislation in connection with the matter. I could leave out that part and still deal with the waste of national assets. To suggest how to avoid that waste cannot be very much out of order. However, I have brought the matter under notice, and I hope the Government, since they presumably desire to make the fullest use of the country's assets, will give it some attention.

There is another matter in connection with transport that ought to receive attention, if the stories which are going around be true, that is, the diversion of traffic from the port of Dublin to the port of Belfast. Last Thursday, in connection with the Dublin cattle market, several people had to send their cattle to England via Belfast owing to want of boats in Dublin. One very important salesman refused to do so and insisted upon a special boat being provided. It would be very serious if this is to be general—if the shipping interests in Dublin conspire to divert traffic which rightly belongs to Dublin, to divert it at great expense, in spite of the great objection of consignors, and to insist upon traffic going via Belfast, which would normally go via Dublin. No one of any Party would hold that that could be right. That it is going on to a very serious extent is borne out by figures given by the Minister for Agriculture of Northern Ireland in a speech a few days ago in connection with the visit of the delegates to the World's Dairy Congress. He expressed the pleasure with which the Government welcomed the delegation, and went on to say that Northern Ireland was a very small part of the British Empire, but it was not unimportant as regards agriculture, as their exports of milk and butter were over £3,100,000; live stock, £5,450,000; poultry, eggs and feathers, £3,706,000. These figures could not be correct if the Six Counties were not getting a great part of the Free State traffic. It appears to us that they are not entitled to get any part of that traffic, and that, so far from traffic that would be normally for Dublin being diverted to Belfast, it should be the other way about, and that, even where Belfast would be the natural route, an effort should be made to divert the traffic to Dublin port.

I listened very carefully to the Minister for Finance's remarks on the Second Reading of the measure, and I must say that I thought them anything but convincing. His defence of the Government's lack of a more intense industrial effort was certainly not borne out by the facts. His whole defence was based on this: that if industrialisation was forced it would mean a burden on the farmers. One would be prepared to believe that perhaps if there were not very important facts contradicting it. There has been a great deal of talk during the past year, for instance, about a tariff for coach-building purposes—on motor bus bodies, etc. I think the Minister would not hold that an increased tax on these would seriously affect the farmers. I think he would not hold, no matter how high the tax was, that it was going to mean any increase of the burden on farmers. Assuredly, there is no more glaring case at present. Motoring undoubtedly costs the country a large amount, since practically everything connected with it has to be imported, and it would seem the first duty of any government to examine that matter, and see if there is anything that could be extracted from it for the benefit of the people, so as to reduce the big volume of imports. They have looked, and apparently have accepted quite contentedly, the system by which probably 70 or 75 per cent. of the bus bodies in use in the country are being imported from Great Britain. We know that the Minister made an enormous concession in his Budget when he agreed that when the chassis only was imported the importer would be allowed three months' credit, and where the body was also imported he would be allowed no credit. No doubt that was a terrible shock to people like the Associated Daimler Company, who have only a capital of five or six millions behind them. I have no doubt they had very sleepless nights over that terrible attack on their interests—that they were deprived of the three months' credit if they imported a bus body with the chassis. If that is the spirit in which the Government is examining the different industries of the country, I do not think there is much prospect for industrial life here in the immediate future.

As I said, there would be no possible burden on the farmer. There was an old-established industry in which Irish craftsmen have shone for years and years—so much so that they were welcome in every coach-building factory. They are at the head of that industry in Australia, which, loyal Dominion though it is, established the biggest coach-making works in the world by a system of protection. Notwithstanding all these factors in favour of it, the Government has not attempted to give it a chance here. It is so with very many more of the industries in the country. Frankly, I do not think that the House should be satisfied to pass this measure. I do not think they should be satisfied, especially in view of the Minister's statement. I hope that the vote will show that the House is not satisfied, because it is clear as the noon-day that the country is anything but satisfied. The country is anything but satisfied that the best is being done either for the country or the town.

In connection with the Minister's attempt to plead the farmer as an excuse for his rather slow pace in industrial effort in recent years, I think it could be argued that a lot of the farmer's expenses, and the expenses that he is feeling most at the present time, would be reduced if there was an industrial population in the towns that could contribute towards the social services, that could share in the upkeep of the institutions of the country, and that could share in the national taxes and in the local taxes. If that big advantage to industry was to be put against the rather shadowy disadvantage of slightly higher prices, I feel sure the farmer would very greatly welcome industralisation. At all events, it is rather strange to see a Government that claims to be protectionist making a present of the argument that tariffs mean high prices without apparently any real justification, because, as it has been pointed out here, there is no justification for it in the very instances which the Minister himself quoted. To make a present to the free trade section in this country —and they are a very vocal and powerful section still—of the argument that tariffs mean high prices, is the most extraordinary attitude for a protectionist party to adopt. It shows completely, I think, that the Government is only protectionist from the lips out.

The real explanation of the whole thing probably is that the Government has a very small majority at present. Its majority is made up, you might say, of six or eight men who favour the old system, who are traders first, and believe in importing everything possible into this country, who have no vision of an industrial Ireland and have no wish to see an industrial Ireland. Their majority depends upon those people, and, naturally, they have to be influenced by what they desire.

The Minister for Finance may as well admit, I think, that that is the real explanation as to why industry cannot be fostered and as to why they look on so calmly at huge volumes of goods coming into this country month after month. The people in the towns in Ireland ought to be producing these goods, and are prepared to produce. We could produce them as cheaply here as in any other part of the world. To me, at all events, it seems that as long as that state of affairs prevails, as long as the people are starving in thousands, when the work they ought to be doing for this country as a whole is done in other countries, I do not see how any Deputy can conscientiously vote for this Bill.

I have nothing to add to what I said in previous debates with reference to the yield of revenue during the present financial year. It is impossible to draw, so far, a conclusion as to what the revenue yield for the entire period of the year will be. With reference to other matters raised, I just want to say a word or two in regard to the question of boots. When speaking on the matter previously I was making a general argument. I was interrupted by a question and I simply quoted boots to illustrate my argument. I was not purporting to deal with the question in detail and I do not want to deal in detail with it now. I will just say this: With reference to the figures quoted by Deputy Lemass, if we were to take them on their face value, and if we were to take them, as he suggests we would take them, they prove far too much; they prove so much that anybody would be suspicious, because the imposition of a tariff here clearly could not produce the results that he purports to prove to have taken place. As a matter of fact they prove nothing. We would have to have very much more complete statistics, and statistics covering factors with which he does not deal at all, to have anything proven. I think it was admitted by another speaker from the same benches that there had been changes in quality. Deputy Lemass did not deal with the question of quality at all, and while I could criticise his figures more satisfactorily if I had them in print before me, I am clear that he would have to think a good deal more about the matter and get a good deal more facts together and put them into statistical form before anything at all could be proved.

Now I have personally had experience of the effect of the boot tax in one way. Contracts are placed periodically for supplies of boots for the Army. These boots are heavy boots, boots of the kind which firms here are well equipped to turn out. They are very much like the heavy country boot which the factories have been turning out here. They are, perhaps, better material in many cases, but they are that kind of boot. Prior to the imposition of the tariff, it was our custom to give up to twenty per cent. preference to the Irish manufacturers. It has been our custom, in all cases where Government contracts are given, to give some preference, which is not stated publicly, as a rule, because if it were, it would prevent the tendering being as keen as it ought to be, but it has been the practice to give some preference to the Irish manufacturer. When the tariff came on, it was decided that so far as the boots were concerned, the Irish manufacturer could have no greater preference than the amount of the tariff. It happened very frequently that cases were brought before me showing that the Irish manufacturers would lose the tender if we simply gave it to the lowest tender, adding 15 per cent. to the lowest outside tender for the purpose of ascertaining the amount which the Department of Defence would have to pay. The Department of Defence were reluctant to give these tenders to outside firms, and, in many cases before the final decision was taken, they were given to me. In a considerable number of cases I authorised a line of action which in the ordinary cases of tendering, would be somewhat objectionable. I found what the lowest English tender, plus 15 per cent., would amount to, and if that was less than the lowest Irish tender I authorised the sending of a letter to the Irish manufacturer who had sent in the tender stating that if he saw fit to reduce his tender to so much he would get the contract, otherwise it would be given outside the country.

More recently the practice has been to act simply on the tenders as received, and if the Irish manufacturers' lowest tender was more than 15 per cent. over the outside tender, to let the contract go out. Consequently, within the past year or so, I have not seen these cases of boot contracts so very much. But since this debate was started I asked for what had happened in the most recent tenders. Within the present year, two contracts for boots have been placed. In one of them the lowest English tender was 16/7 per pair. The lowest Irish tender was 18/9 per pair. That tender was for 11,000 pairs of boots. In that case the Irish manufacturer got the tender, because if 15 per cent. is added to 16/7 it brings it above the lowest Irish tender, namely, 18/9. In the other case the contract was for 10,000 pairs of boots. In that case the Irish tender was 18/2, and the lowest English tender was 15/6. Now 15 per cent. added to 15/6 would bring it to about 17/10. Consequently, the contract for those ten thousand pairs of boots went to the outside firm. The experience all along that we have had in connection with the purchase of Army boots fully confirms what I have said, that the tariff does result in the consumer here having to pay more for the boots than he would have to pay if there were no boot tariff in operation. It is a matter that if we wanted to go into in great detail would require a great deal of consideration, and it would require a great deal of preparation of the cases on both sides. But as against those general statistics which Deputy Lemass has presented, I submit——

Might I ask the Minister just a question about this 15 per cent. preference? Does it apply generally, or is it only in boot contracts that this 15 per cent. preference is given? If it were a contract for iron goods, or steel, or any other Irish-manufactured goods for a Government building, or a building that was subsidised by the Government, would the Irish manufacturer get a 15 per cent. preference, or is this preference only given in the case of boots?

So far as all the tenders are concerned the preference is given to the Irish manufacturer. I am not prepared to state what amount is given. In one class of goods we would be prepared to go further than in another class of goods.

It applies only to Irish manufacture?

Only to Irish manufacture.

A firm here in Ireland that imported stuff would not get it?

Oh, no; it would be only on Irish manufactured goods.

What was the average price paid to outside firms for Army boots in 1924 before the tariff was introduced?

I could not say. I do not know. In that time we did give a preference. The position was the same. I explained that we had a rule before the tariff was introduced to give up to 20 per cent. My recollection, as far as it goes, is that we gave a preference up to 20 per cent.

Could you give a list of the prices tendered by English firms?

I really have not a table of statistics before me to argue this matter in detail. I have given the figures for the last two contracts that were placed. I am stating now that that has been the position all along, and I am proceeding to argue from that, that I suggest here we have something that is a more effective proof in relation to this matter than the series of figures which Deputy Lemass put forward. I do not know how they were made up and confessedly they have no relation at all to the quality or the type of boot. They have simply certain average figures, and it is clear that the Irish manufacturer is so small a factor even yet in boot production that the imposition of the tariff could not possibly have had the result which Deputy Lemass purports to show. There are people who argue that the British manufacturer in certain cases has paid the tariff imposed; that he has really lowered his prices, and that he has sent in his goods at the same price or a little over the same price, that the purchaser here would have to pay had there been no tariff. But there is no proof of that, and the facts that we have had, the variations that we have seen in regard to prices quoted by English manufacturers for, say, Army boots show that is not so. Sometimes the Irish firm was not able to get the contract. More generally with the help of that 15 per cent.—I should have said not generally, but in the greater proportion of cases—the Irish manufacturer has been able to get the contract, though sometimes that only happens when the Irish manufacturer had an opportunity of offering revised prices. I think that those are the only matters that I would wish to deal with at the present time. Deputy Moore did raise the point with reference to the taxes on motor cars that had been in use for a considerable time. I do not agree with the point of view put forward by Deputy Moore, but a Departmental Committee has been sitting dealing with the taxation of motor vehicles, and it is probable that before the 1st January next proposals will be submitted to the Dáil with regard to the Road Tax.

The Minister is aware that that was denied by the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. They denied that the Committee is dealing with motor taxation.

The Committee has to deal with the Road Fund and the prospects of motor taxation generally.

That was emphatically denied by the Minister for Industry and Commerce and by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health.

Well, I cannot reconcile that. I was asked to appoint a representative on the Committee for the purpose of doing that, and I appointed a representative. Further than that I cannot tell the Deputy. This is a matter that is entirely apart from the question of supply services. It is a question of whether or not we should impose a road tax with respect to the age and value of the vehicle, and not in reference to the uses of the roads by the vehicle or the damage done by the vehicle to the roads. I do not agree that it is desirable that the changes the Deputy suggests in this matter should be adopted. I think that they are matters to be dealt with at quite another time.

Generally, it seems to me that the Deputies on the other side in some cases, whether they admit it or not, are by way of being doctrinaire protectionists. They believe protection is always good, that the manufacturer will always play up, and that there will be no unnecessary burden, and generally no burden at all, cast on the public as a result of protection. The experience that we have had does not show that. There are cases in which no burden will follow the imposition of a tariff. That could seldom happen in the case of an industry which is not big enough to supply the requirements of the country, or that cannot quickly be made big enough. But cases have happened, and may happen, in which no burden will be imposed. Other cases have happened in which I am most clearly of opinion that a burden has been imposed and in which there is ample evidence of that. There have been cases in which manufacturers will show themselves extremely alert and willing to take advantage of the opportunity offered, and there are other cases where manufacturers have not stirred at all or taken advantage of the opportunities offered them. Consequently, the position must be admitted that the effects of imposing tariffs will be very uneven. Sometimes entirely good results can be obtained by the imposition of a tariff, and in other cases you get no results commensurate with the disturbance and expense thrown on the public.

If the Deputies opposite have a policy it does seem to be that if a tariff is advocated it must be supported, and if a tariff is asked for one should be granted. When we entered on the imposition of tariffs we recognised that we had a good deal to learn about the matter; we recognised the thing was experimental in this sense, that nobody could know what response would follow the imposition of tariffs here, and it was in that sense we regarded the imposition of tariffs as experimental. There was at least one of the tariffs imposed early that most of the people who studied the matter, and who were in contact with the industry involved and the effects upon it of the tariff, described as a mistake. There were other tariffs in connection with which we did not know whether a proper rate was or was not imposed. It was because of that we thought it necessary to set up the Tariff Commission. Take the case of boots. When the tariff on boots was being imposed, my own desire was to make it twenty per cent. People who had been in touch with the boot manufacturers, the people who had been advocating a boot tariff, said that ten per cent. would suffice, and that with such a tariff the existing boot factories would expand and that new factories would be springing up. A tariff of fifteen per cent. was imposed. It was simply a chance shot. We could not tell from the way in which we made our investigations whether it was going to be sufficient or too much. For these reasons we set up the Tariff Commission.

Deputy Moore blames us for not having imposed certain tariffs in connection with coach building before the Tariff Commission has reported. I think we would have been wrong to rush in and decide one way or the other in advance of the investigation which is proceeding. When we discovered that it was easily possible to err in the matter of tariffs, it would have been easy for us to say: "We will have no more tariffs for three or four years, or some specified time, until the effects of the existing tariffs are clearly seen." We did not feel the industrial situation in the country was such as to adopt that line. We realised that industries which had survived until the end of the European War, and which might have survived for a long time if it had not been for the tremendous economic disturbance brought about by the European War and following it, were in great danger of extinction, and for that reason we set up a Tariff Commission. We did not bind ourselves to accept the view of the Tariff Commission either for or against a tariff, but we did promise the Dáil not to lay proposals before it for tariffs until they had been fully investigated. I cannot think that in connection with industries there can be a sounder policy than that.

I cannot believe that it is a sound policy to rush ahead, having had only one side of the case heard, remembering that you cannot get an impartial statement of any case from one interested party. If there are delays, if particular factories go out of operation, that is not necessarily a great evil in itself. It is not necessarily a great evil that some of the weaker factories should go. As a matter of fact, in many cases the imposition of tariffs will not prevent weaker industries going. Generally the effect of a tariff in any industry will be to bring more capital into it, to get factories put up in the most favourable positions with modern equipment, and the result of that is most likely to be that the small factory, the closing of which Deputies deplore, will be closed all the same. I would not rush into a tariff which will affect a whole industry simply to save one or two particular factories going out of operation. The going out of operation of factories is a cause for hastening inquiries as much as possible, but it is not a sufficient justification for doing that without proper investigation. Because an industry has been here in the past is no reason why we should determine in advance of investigation that that industry should be saved.

Tradition is of no value?

I do not say it is of no value, but world conditions may so change that an industry may not be potentially nearly as valuable as industries which have not been in existence at all. It may not. We know that industry was conducted on a different basis in the world in the comparatively recent past. There was a form of distribution which does not exist to-day. There was a distribution which could not be maintained without a burden on the consumer and, without a burden on the consumer, lowering the standards of life, of preventing the standards of life developing along the lines on which they develop in other countries. Because there is not that distribution of industry, it is a fact that there may well be industries here which it is not specially desirable to maintain, and the Government neither takes the view that we should manufacture everything here that could possibly be manufactured, nor does it take the view that because there has been an industry here it should be kept here.

The view it takes is that we should promote industry to a reasonable extent and of a kind that could be economically carried on here. The real object of our industrial policy is not to be self-contained, not to be able to live within a stone wall, not to be able to make everything which is made in other European countries, but to have sufficient industry to provide variety in economic life and to provide variety of occupation and interest for the people and the means of supporting an increased population. It we can crystallise the difference between the economic policy of the Government and that of the Party opposite it is in that way. We do not aim at getting back to conditions which are not compatible with the form that industry has taken in the modern world. We do not aim at getting a sort of national self-sufficiency that might have been all right when there were not the means of transport and travel that there are to-day. We recognise all these developments and improvements and the value of modern methods, of, even, mass production, and we aim in our own way at getting the advantage of them and using them. We are aiming, therefore, not at going back to past conditions but trying to shape an economic policy and structure that will enable us to support a population comparable with the populations of other countries, and to support it without having the burden of the maintenance of an industry, which this country is not at all suitable to maintain, and which would really mean that we were going to pay for the mere luxury of making something here, something which was not essential, something which was only one of many things that we require here rather than import it from outside.

Does the Minister forget that we are in Ireland?

Does the Minister stand for a self-contained Empire?

We are paying very dearly for it.

Question put.
The Dáil divided; Tá, 69; Níl, 60.

  • Aird, William P.
  • Alton, Ernest Henry.
  • Beckett, James Walter.
  • Bennett, George Cecil.
  • Blythe, Ernest.
  • Bourke, Séamus A.
  • Brennan, Michael.
  • Brodrick, Seán.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Byrne, John Joseph.
  • Carey, Edmund.
  • Doherty, Eugene.
  • Dolan, James N.
  • Doyle, Peadar Seán.
  • Duggan, Edmund John.
  • Dwyer, James.
  • Egan, Barry M.
  • Esmonde, Osmond Thos. Grattan.
  • Fitzgerald, Desmond.
  • Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
  • Good, John.
  • Gorey, Denis J.
  • Hassett, John J.
  • Heffernan, Michael R.
  • Hennigan, John.
  • Henry, Mark.
  • Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
  • Holohan, Richard.
  • Jordan, Michael.
  • Keogh, Myles.
  • Law, Hugh Alexander.
  • Leonard, Patrick.
  • Lynch, Finian.
  • Mathews, Arthur Patrick.
  • McDonogh, Martin.
  • Coburn, James.
  • Cole, John James.
  • Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.
  • Conlan, Martin.
  • Connolly, Michael P.
  • Cooper, Bryan Ricco.
  • Cosgrave, William T.
  • Craig, Sir James.
  • Crowley, James.
  • Daly, John.
  • Davis, Michael.
  • McFadden, Michael Og.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • Mongan, Joseph W.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • Murphy, James E.
  • Murphy, Joseph Xavier.
  • Myles, James Sproule.
  • Nally, Martin Michael.
  • Nolan, John Thomas.
  • O'Connor, Bartholomew.
  • O'Hanlon, John F.
  • O'Mahony, Dermot Gun.
  • O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
  • Reynolds, Patrick.
  • Rice, Vincent.
  • Roddy, Martin.
  • Shaw, Patrick W.
  • Sheehy, Timothy (West Cork).
  • Thrift, William Edward.
  • Tierney, Michael.
  • Vaughan, Daniel.
  • White, Vincent Joseph.
  • Wolfe, George.

Níl

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Denis.
  • Blaney, Neal.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Boland, Patrick.
  • Bourke, Daniel.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Buckley, Daniel.
  • Carney, Frank.
  • Carty, Frank.
  • Cassidy, Archie J.
  • Clancy, Patrick.
  • Clery, Michael.
  • Colbert, James.
  • Colohan, Hugh.
  • Cooney, Eamon.
  • Corkery, Dan.
  • Corish, Richard.
  • Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
  • Crowley, Tadhg.
  • Davin, William.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • Everett, James.
  • Fahy, Frank.
  • Flinn, Hugo.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • French, Seán.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Goulding, John.
  • Hayes, Seán.
  • Holt, Samuel.
  • Houlihan, Patrick.
  • Jordan, Stephen.
  • Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
  • Kent, William R.
  • Kerlin, Frank.
  • Killane, James Joseph.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Kilroy, Michael.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick John.
  • Maguire, Ben.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Moore, Séamus.
  • Morrissey, Daniel.
  • O'Connell, Thomas J.
  • O'Dowd, Patrick Joseph.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • O'Reilly, Thomas.
  • Powell, Thomas P.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Sexton, Martin.
  • Sheehy, Timothy (Tipp.).
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Tubridy, John.
  • Walsh, Richard.
  • Ward, Francis C.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Duggan and P. Doyle; Níl: Deputies G. Boland and Allen.
Motion declared carried.

I move that the Bill do now pass.

Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 70; Níl, 59.

  • Aird, William P.
  • Alton, Ernest Henry.
  • Beckett, James Walter.
  • Bennett, George Cecil.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Byrne, John Joseph.
  • Carey, Edmund.
  • Coburn, James.
  • Cole, John James.
  • Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.
  • Conlan, Martin.
  • Connolly, Michael P.
  • Cooper, Bryan Ricco.
  • Cosgrave, William T.
  • Craig, Sir James.
  • Crowley, James.
  • Daly, John.
  • Davis, Michael.
  • Doherty, Eugene.
  • Dolan, James N.
  • Doyle, Peadar Seán.
  • Duggan, Edmund John.
  • Dwyer, James.
  • Egan, Barry M.
  • Esmonde, Osmond Thos. Grattan.
  • Fitzgerald, Desmond.
  • Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
  • Good, John.
  • Gorey, Denis.
  • Hassett, John J.
  • Heffernan, Michael R.
  • Hennessy, Thomas.
  • Hennigan, John.
  • Henry, Mark.
  • Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
  • Blythe, Ernest.
  • Bourke, Séamus A.
  • Brennan, Michael.
  • Brodrick, Seán.
  • Holohan, Richard.
  • Jordan, Michael.
  • Keogh, Myles.
  • Law, Hugh Alexander.
  • Leonard, Patrick.
  • Lynch, Finian.
  • Mathews, Arthur Patrick.
  • McDonogh, Martin.
  • McFadden, Michael Og.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • Mongan, Joseph W.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • Murphy, James E.
  • Murphy, Joseph Xavier.
  • Myles, James Sproule.
  • Nally, Martin Michael.
  • Nolan, John Thomas.
  • O'Connor, Bartholomew.
  • O'Hanlon, John F.
  • O'Mahony, Dermot Gun.
  • O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
  • Reynolds, Patrick.
  • Rice, Vincent.
  • Roddy, Martin.
  • Shaw, Patrick W.
  • Sheehy, Timothy (West Cork).
  • Thrift, William Edward.
  • Tierney, Michael.
  • Vaughan, Daniel.
  • White, Vincent Joseph.
  • Wolfe, George.

Níl

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Denis.
  • Blaney, Neal.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Boland, Patrick.
  • Bourke, Daniel.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Buckley, Daniel.
  • Carney, Frank.
  • Carty, Frank.
  • Cassidy, Archie J.
  • Clancy, Patrick.
  • Clery, Michael.
  • Colbert, James.
  • Colohan, Hugh.
  • Cooney, Eamon.
  • Corkery, Dan.
  • Corish, Richard.
  • Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
  • Crowley, Tadhg.
  • Davin, William.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • Everett, James.
  • Fahy, Frank
  • Flinn, Hugo.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • French, Seán.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Goulding, John.
  • Hayes, Seán.
  • Holt, Samuel.
  • Houlihan, Patrick.
  • Jordan, Stephen.
  • Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
  • Kent, William R.
  • Kerlin, Frank.
  • Killane, James Joseph.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Kilroy, Michael.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick John.
  • Maguire, Ben.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Moore, Séamus.
  • O'Connell, Thomas J.
  • O'Dowd, Patrick Joseph.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • O'Reilly, Thomas.
  • Powell, Thomas P.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Sexton, Martin.
  • Sheehy, Timothy (Tipp.).
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Tubridy, John.
  • Walsh, Richard.
  • Ward, Francis C.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Duggan and P. Doyle; Níl: Deputies G. Boland and Allen.
Motion declared carried.
Bill certified a Money Bill.
Barr
Roinn