It arises out of a speech of the Minister on the occasion of a motion before the House that the law should be amended. This Bill proposes to amend the law and there is an exact and absolute continuity in the whole business. It is just on a par with the Minister's information about finance matters that he does not know what is in order on the Bill. I am not blaming the Minister for his lack of information, his lack of knowledge or competency. He is in the unfortunate position of having got a job to do that he is incapable of doing, but the people who are suffering are the unfortunate farmers of the country about whom the Minister cares nothing whatever.
He talks to us about a political somersault. Does he understand anything about the different circumstances in 1931 and to-day? Does he know that the Derating Commission opposed derating in this country because of the extra taxation it would mean? Does he know that in the last six years he has imposed five or six times that cost and has not given the farmers derating, and that, not alone has he not given them derating, but he has given them actually £78,000 a year less than they were given before he changed his position from this side to his present side? The Minister stated that I said that the conditions in agriculture were prosperous in 1931. I said that compared with to-day agriculture was booming, and this measure, with all its predecessors since the Minister entered into office, has piled taxation on every section of the community regardless of their capacity to bear it.
We are faced now in this year 1938 with a complete political somersault on the part of the Government and, one might almost say, with their full acceptance of the main plank in the Opposition's programme of the last six years — the bringing about of a settlement with Great Britain. They have done it and I am glad they have done it. My complaint is that they did not do it six years ago. They had not the courage to do it six years ago, but the desperation of their followers has probably driven them to it, together perhaps with the knowledge that the financial and economic policy pursued here during those six years could not continue indefinitely. Never was a country so sabotaged by a Government as this country has been by this Government during these six years, and never has there been such an attack made on its national economy, its working classes, its traders, its farmers and everybody who goes to make up the working people of the country, as that made by the policy of the Government during that period. Some have done remarkably well out of it. We have increased our indebtedness, national and local. We have made it practically impossible for farmers to meet their obligations.
We shall probably be told by some of the spokesmen of the Government that they are trying to evade their obligations, but looking up the records of the farmers of this country for a period of something like 30 years in relation to their payment of annuities, I find that no banker in any part of the world had a better class of customer amongst his first-class customers than those who comprised the Land Commission annuitants of this country during those 30 years. We find now that during the last three or four years, those years of marvellous prosperity to which Government spokesmen occasionally refer, the arrears of annuities are double what they were over 30 years, until the Minister took up office. There is no political somersault whatever on the part of this Party in connection with derating. The circumstances of 1931 and of to-day are as different as chalk and cheese. The agricultural exports of this country have diminished to a greater extent than the sum of money about which the Government was in dispute with Great Britain. The British have got all their money — every penny of it that they could have got out of this country — but the farmers have lost, and lost heavily, and they are no longer in a position to pay their rates and annuities which they were able to pay when this Government took office.
We are invited now to put down a motion in connection with derating. We do not propose to do anything of the sort. If the Government, from top to bottom, require to know anything about derating, they can look at what has been said during the last six years, and they will learn in the course of the next five or six years, if it does not take them longer, that they will have to adopt, if not derating, some other policy to rehabilitate the agriculturists of this country. They talk about it being inequitable. Inequitable, if you please! They are great judges of what is equity. What has been their policy in connection with agriculture for the last five or six years? It is an entirely different one from what we are dealing with now. During that period, it had reference to remedying, as far as possible, the baneful effects of their conflict with Great Britain. There were two main sources of improvement for agriculture — wheat and beet. We have 225,000 acres of wheat this year, and approximately 50,000 acres of beet. One farmer in five benefits by the beet business, and probably one in six, or one in eight, by the wheat policy. When they speak to us about equity, I should like to know whether, if derating was adopted as a policy, everybody would not get something out of it, whereas, according to their own scheme for assisting agriculture, one in eight in one case, and one in five, in the other, get the benefit. What matter if it were of any benefit to them, but a more expensive and extravagant proposal for assisting the main industry of the country could not possibly have been conceived by anybody.
As far as the Government is concerned, they have no policy for agriculture or industry at present. Why, only this evening, when the Estimate for Industry and Commerce was before the House, one had only to look at that Estimate to see that it alone was a condemnation of the Government's policy. What did we find? A sum of something like £200,000 was being put into the production of industrial alcohol, and at the other end of the series of figures with which we were supplied, it was estimated that a sum of £168,000 would be received from the sale of industrial alcohol. That looks all very well on paper, but what are the facts? The alcohol is worth, from the point of view of commerce, or as a commercial proposition, 4d. per gallon, and we are to pay 3/- per gallon for it. We are, therefore, going to receive that sum of £168,000 by reason of charging nine times the actual value of the alcohol. Similarly, with regard to a whole series of items in connection with that Estimate, taxes of one sort or another are being imposed on production in this country. Fees in connection with cement alone will probably amount to £20,000 or £30,000. I know that the Minister collected £100,000 in connection with cement alone in the last year for which we have published accounts. I mention these things because these items are the engines and the vehicles of production. Tax those things which are essential for the setting up of factories, or for production of any kind, and you might as well put an extra shilling or two on income-tax on the people concerned. The Estimates are littered with particulars of various revenues that are collected from this, that or the other form of production.
Notwithstanding the fact that the Ministry has persuaded a large number of very foolish people to vote for them and return them, and that they have now got a splendid majority, they will have eventually to adopt the policy that we have put before the country, whether they like it or not. It is no wonder that their Leader announces their intention of doing that now. My only complaint is that they did not do it when it was first suggested to them. One of the first things they will have to do is to reduce the cost of government, which has grown beyond the capacity of the taxpayer to bear. This Bill shows no improvement on its predecessors in that respect. A period of something like six or eight months has passed by since negotiations were concluded with the British Government to bring about a different state of affairs, but notwithstanding the change that has taken place, the same policy apparently is to be continued. Nobody outside of Bedlam ever heard of such a suggestion as that. The whole machinery of the State practically was mobilised to deal with the conflict with Great Britain. That is now over, and what are the new plans? We have not heard about them, and we have to face the same costs as if the conflict were on still.
I should like the Minister to devote his attention to the latter part of the extract from the report I read of the Derating Commission:—
"It was also found as a result of an investigation made for us by the Bank of Ireland that the proportion of its deposit accounts attributable to agriculturists rose from 51.03 per cent. at the 31st December, 1925, to 52.32 per cent. at the end of 1929."
They add this:
"There is no reason to think that this experience is not typical of the experience of all Saorstát banks."
Now, let the Minister, if he likes, look up what those returns are. I am quite sure the banks would accommodate him in that respect. I am quite sure; knowing, as they do, the importance of this matter to our national finances, that they would facilitate the Minister in every way possible. Let him inquire from them individually for his own information, and for the guidance of the Ministry, what has been the experience since and compare the figures for 1931 with the year ended December last. Let him see whether that picture will not tell its own tale. At the annual meetings of the banks which took place this year in respect of last year's business reference was made to the large number of withdrawals of deposits made in the rural areas and expression was given to the regret of the bank directors at the inability of depositors to restore these moneys.
The position to my mind is quite a simple one. If the Minister is going to continue taxation at the peak figure that it has reached at the present moment, attention will have to be directed towards increasing production in this country, increasing in the first place its agricultural production in value and quality, towards lessening the costs of those engaged in industrial output, towards lessening the costs of the article to the people, towards trying to reduce those unnecessary expenses that have been imposed in one way or another on industry and commerce in this country. If the Government proposes to do that, it will have to put its own house in order first and reduce the terrible pile of taxation which it is imposing on the people.