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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 26 Jul 1923

Vol. 4 No. 18

DEFENCE FORCES (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) BILL, 1923. - SECOND STAGE.

MINISTER FOR DEFENCE (General Mulcahy)

I have already remarked on the circumstances in which this Bill comes forward as a temporary measure. At the same time it comes forward as a complete measure, because the Bill was approaching completion in our hands at the time the necessity came to bring it so hurriedly before the Dáil. With the exception that certain transitional clauses have been put in, at the end, and with the exception that clauses with regard to the Reserve have also been included in the Bill, the Bill is practically the complete Bill that, under more leisured times we would have put before the Dáil. As a matter of fact, as far as the military authorities are concerned in the matter, it may be considered that the Bill has with them gone through the Committee stage. I have referred also to the possible objections that, doubtless, there are to putting a Bill of this size and importance through, and, as it were, putting the complete responsibility for the details of this Bill on the Oireachtas. But for the better doing of our work and the better envisaging of the situation requiring a Bill of this kind, I think it better, and absolutely essential, that the Bill would be put through in the form in which it is at present, rather than in any mutilated form, the practical result of which would be, perhaps, to put into the hands of the military authorities more general powers than this detailed Bill gives them. I realise that if this Bill passes through, it will pass through with less discussion than in ordinary circumstances. The reason we will not have that discussion is because of the want of time. Perhaps, therefore, there is not the same necessity for going into details as there otherwise would be. There are certain things with regard to the Bill that should, perhaps, be said now. The Bill is divided into a certain number of parts and chapters. It gives the Executive Council authority to raise and to maintain armed forces and it places the control of the forces in the hands of the Executive Council. It places the responsibility for organisation and administration on the Minister for Defence.

All commissions at present are temporary. As this Bill is a temporary measure, all commissions granted under the Bill, if passed in this particular form, would be temporary also. What might be called permanent commissions could not be granted to any officer until we had our permanent Defence Forces Bill. The Bill, as I say, is to be regarded as a complete Bill in itself under which commissions would be granted by the Minister, and would be held during the pleasure of the Minister, who might dispense with the services of any officer. But the commission of an officer could not be cancelled without the holder thereof being notified in writing of any complaint or charge made or any action supposed to be taken, and he would be called upon to show cause. The Bill provides for the having of commissioned officers of certain specified ranks, and for the setting up of a college that would prepare candidates and put them through the necessary course of study for the holding of such ranks. Under the Bill the Minister would be responsible for the preparation of regulations regarding the pay of officers. In the matter of enlistments the Bill provides a specified routine to be gone through for the enlistment of the soldiers. It safeguards the position of the ordinary individual with regard to enlistment by stipulating that if a person offers himself to be enlisted in the forces he will receive from the recruiter a notice informing him of the general condition of the contract he is about to enter into, and he shall be directed to appear before the District Justice or the Peace Commissioner for attestation. If he fails to appear, or on appearing declines to be enlisted, no further proceedings are taken; but if he appears before the District Justice or the Peace Commissioner he shall be asked whether he has been served with and understands the notice, and whether he assents to be enlisted, but the enlistment shall not be proceeded with if it is considered that the recruit appears to be under the influence of drink or in any other manner appears to the District Justice or the Peace Commissioner to be incapable of taking an oath of allegiance, promising to obey his superior officers and giving allegiance to the State. In the general matter of the organisation of the forces certain stipulations are made in the Bill, but certain matters are also left to the Minister, who, as I have said, under the Bill is responsible generally for organisation Matters such as these would require to be attended to even under this temporary Bill.

The Minister would require to deal with certain matters in connection with the constitution of the General Headquarters staff, and the ranks and titles and duties of the various officers attached to that staff. In regard to the division of the State into military districts, the Minister will require to deal with the constitution of Headquarters staffs for those districts and the organisation of the various combatant armed forces and departmental services, such as cavalry, military engineers, infantry, air force, medical and veterinary services, and military police. The titles of these various forces, the pay warrant we have already referred to, and the general regulations correspond with the existing regulations in the British Army. These would be regulations regarding the interior economy of the Army not provided for by such special regulations as the pay warrants. Rules for procedure of courts-martial, equipment regulations, recruiting regulations, and such matters as these would be embodied in special sets of regulations. There is also the question of the Reserve. The Bill provides for the formation of a Reserve and for general matters in connection with the Reserve. The Reserve will consist of officers and men. The officers will require to be men who served as officers in the forces and retired therefrom, and the men would require to be men who had retired from the forces also.

In the matter of discipline the Bill provides general regulations under which the Army shall be disciplined. In its details the specific offences for which soldiers shall be punished are set out, and in each particular portion of the Bill, where an offence is stated, the maximum punishment award in connection with that offence is definitely stated also. Most of the offences are of a purely military character, such as offences against military discipline and offences committed by one soldier against the person or property of another. Military Courts may try persons subject to military law for an offence which is a civil crime, subject to certain restrictions in the case of treason, murder, etc., when committed by a person not on active service. The various offences of this type are set out in Part II., Chapter 1, of the Bill. The only offence for which the death penalty can be awarded, when troops are not on active service, is mutiny. In a sentence of death in such a case the confirming authority is the Minister for Defence; but the sentence will only be carried out subject to the confirmation of the Minister for Home Affairs. Cowardice, treachery, mutiny or desertion, and striking an officer are, on active service, punishable by death as the maximum penalty, but these are the only such offences so punishable. In the case of a death penalty the sentence has to be awarded by a three-fourths majority of the Courtmartial, and in every such case it would be subject to the confirmation of the Minister for Defence.

Field punishment is not permitted by the Bill. That is to say, no soldier can be subject to punishment except in a place that is definitely specified in the Regulations as being a place of military detention, or a military prison. There shall be in attendance at every Courtmartial a Judge Advocate, and his duties are to advise the Court on all questions of law, and to see that the proceedings of the Court are accurately recorded. The Judge Advocate at a General Courtmartial must be a Barrister-at-Law or a Solicitor, as well as being an officer. There is ample protection for officers and men in the matter of general redress of wrongs at the hands of a superior officer or otherwise.

In matters with which the civil population are closely concerned, in the matter of billeting and in what are called the impressment of carriages, the Bill is very restricting on the military authorities, so much so that until the proclamation to be issued under this Bill actually establishing the Defence Force the terms are so restricted as to practically put the Minister for Defence and the Army Authorities into rather a legal hole; but the general circumstances are such that we are prepared to suffer from that particular disability.

All billets will be secured through the civil authorities, except in special cases and in time of emergency. Billeting consists of assigning quarters to officers, soldiers, and horses by means of an official order requiring the person to whom it is addressed to provide the necessary accommodation, and the power of billeting in the Bill is confined to the civil authorities. In times of peace officers and men can only be billeted under the direct authority of the Minister for Defence, and in time of emergency billets for officers, soldiers, or horses can only be demanded under an order signed by an officer of not less rank than Commandant, and in these circumstances they shall be provided for by the civil authorities direct. Only in cases in which persons liable for the provision of billeting have refused to carry out an order given them by the police, can a military officer of the prescribed rank actually commandeer such billets.

In times of peace no person with the exception of certain persons who shall be named can be required to give billeting except by their own consent. When billeting does take place private houses are entirely exempt. Troops may be billeted in any victualling house as defined. The expression victualling house is defined as including (a) all inns and hotels whether licensed or not; (b) all livery stables; (c) all premises licensed for the consumption of wine or spirit on the premises. “The keeper of a victualling house upon whom any officer, soldier or horse is billeted shall receive such officer, soldier or horse in his victualling house and furnish there the accommodation following, that is to say, lodging and attendance and food for the officer or soldier and stable room and forage for the horse in accordance with the provisions of the 5th Schedule to this Act.” Where the keeper of a victualling house on whom any officer, soldier or horse is billeted desires relief he can obtain it by providing adequate accommodation in the immediate neighbourhood if approved by the billeting authority, that is by the police authority who for this purpose is described as a superintendent or an inspector of the Dublin Metropolitan Police or of the Civic Guard. They make out an annual list of victualling houses liable to supply billeting, and any person aggrieved may apply to a Court of Summary Jurisdiction for redress. The keeper of the victualling house can also complain to the police of having an undue proportion of officers or soldiers billeted upon him.

In the same way, in the manner of commandeering transport or applying for transport it will have to be sought through the machinery of the civil authorities, and in times of peace motor transport shall not be liable for requisition—that is, the Army authorities cannot in times of peace in any circumstances requisition from the civil population, even through the medium of the civil authorities, any motor transport.

The transitory provisions of the Bill are in order to get us over a very particular difficulty arising out of this present situation. Part I of this part of the Bill cannot come into operation until there is a definite proclamation by the Executive Council establishing the Defence Forces The transitory provision of this Bill is intended to bring the present Army, which for the purposes of defence are styled the National Forces, under the disciplinary section of this Bill. There are pending, subsequent to the passing of this Bill, (1) a proclamation establishing a Defence Force, and (2) a proclamation establishing a Reserve The necessity for including the section in regard to the Reserve in the Bill and for the actual proclamation establishing the Reserve is because of the fact that at the present moment we have an Army which, if the men were released at the time at which their period of attestation ended they would vanish automatically by the end of this year. It is necessary, therefore, that recruiting should be started afresh, or that, as portion of the recruiting, re-attestation of some of the men at present in the Army should be carried out. The Bill provides that men may be attested for an original period of attestation of 12 years—that is, just to give any scope that may be necessary; but our present intention, not fully defined and not fully decided upon yet, is that the men who are to be recruited in the immediate future ought to be re-attested if serving at the present moment, and would be attested for a period of 18 months, and would be required to give two years to the Reserve. The passing of the Reserve clauses of this Bill would put us in a position to require men recruited now to give a small period of service to the Reserve, which would mean that in the years 1925-26 we would be in the position to have a much smaller Army, perhaps, than we would be able to be content with or satisfied with if we had not a Reserve to call upon in case of any great emergency. Generally we are in a period of transition. It seems to us a matter of necessity at the present moment for keeping our strength to what it should be, and in such a manner as not to bring any great financial burden upon the country, that we should put the Reserve clauses into this Bill. We may then expect as a result of this Bill a proclamation establishing a Defence Force and a proclamation authorising us to establish a Reserve. There shall also be issued a pay warrant. At the present moment members of the force are paid at certain rates, and they are paid in addition dependants' allowance. These rates were fixed and the dependants' allowances were granted at a time and in particular circumstances. It is not the intention that men recruited in future under the new conditions should be paid dependants' allowances. There will be certain arrangements by which men will be paid married allowances under certain conditions, but dependants' allowances as they are known at present will not be paid, and certain alterations in the matters of pay will also be made and come into operation in the case of men either re-attested from the present Army for service in the newly-constituted force or for men who were recruited for that force.

Generally the Bill has been very carefully framed for the purpose of legalising the existence of the Army, and for the giving of legal authority for the carrying out of the different matters entailed in the organisation, training and discipline of the Army, and for giving the Oireachtas full control over the Army. The Bill has been, as I say, framed purely from that point of view, and framed carefully from that point of view, and, while I regret the circumstances that make us ask the Dáil to pass it rather hurriedly and without due consideration, I feel that if the Bill is passed as it stands for a period of twelve months the Oireachtas itself will have a valuable opportunity of considering the different clauses of the Bill and the effect of those clauses in law. The military authorities, on the other hand, will have an opportunity of seeing in actual practice the powers it was proposed to take somewhat permanently under this Bill. Nothing but good can come out of the putting, as it were, of the cards of the Bill on the table and of leaving them there for a period of twelve months, some of them at any rate in practice, and some of them that cannot possibly come into practice, and that in the meantime there is nothing in the Bill that would prejudice the rights of any individual in the country, or prejudice the real important matter, the grip and the power of the Oireachtas or of the Executive Council in controlling the Army. Therefore, I have absolutely no hesitation on my part in appealing to the Oireachtas for the passage of this Bill through the Dáil and through the Oireachtas as a whole even in the very short space of time and with an inadequate examination and consideration of its various clauses. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.

If this Bill were the only business before the Dáil, and that the whole of the period between now and the dissolution could be devoted to it, then I think possibly the request of the Minister could be granted with much less demur than must be given to his proposition as he has placed it before us. A Bill of this kind ought to be before the country for a couple of months rather than for a couple of days before it enters into detailed discussion. It is not the only Bill that is put before us, and, therefore, in the week or two that will pass before the dissolution, this Bill cannot receive the consideration that it ought to receive, and I am going to ask the Dáil to disagree with the view of the Minister and not to give this Bill a Second Reading. I do that, recognising quite well that an Army Bill is required. I recognise it is necessary that a Bill should be passed legalising the Army, but I am not convinced by what the Minister has said that this Bill ought to be passed into law, and passed into law without close discussion and a great deal of amendment. I believe that the essential needs would be well served if the provisions comprised in Part IV., transitory provisions, or such of them as are applicable, were made into a temporary Bill, with such regulations as are at present in force, and that, attached with the Schedule, they would supply all the real needs for a period of three or four months. We have placed before us a Bill of 243 sections, with two or three pages of schedules, raising, as I believe, one of the greatest issues that could be placed before the Oireachtas—that is to say, the form which a Standing Army should take and the composition of a Reserve Army. The whole question of military defence of the relations between the military and the Legislature, and the relations between the military and the public, are all raised by this Bill. Questions that have been the subject of the gravest discussion for centuries in other countries, and in recent years prior to the European war, caused an immense amount of controversy in democratic countries as in autocratic countries. The Minister comes to us and says that his advisers, the Army authorities, have for a considerable time been examining into the question of what kind of Army is to be established in Ireland. They have brought to us their conclusions in the form of a Bill, and we are asked to pass that Bill at a few days' notice without adequate consideration, practically without any consideration, and allow it to become law. The Minister says it is only temporary, and that the experience that would be gained during the temporary period would be valuable in the making of a permanent Act. No doubt that is true; but, as I have had to say frequently of late, in doing that you would be establishing in an Act of Parliament certain ideas that are very apt to become fixed, whether they are good or bad, wise or unwise, and I think the Minister has not made a satisfactory case in desiring the Dáil to pass this Bill through all its stages without the consideration that such a Bill requires.

I want to just point out a few of the detailed defects. I feel that it is almost useless to raise a general discussion upon the form that an army should take and what the military requirements of this country are. This Bill proposes to establish a Standing Army, with a Reserve, and to invite soldiers to enlist for a period of twelve years, or such less period as may be from time to time fixed. Some of the defects that I want to call attention to, that to my mind make it necessary that the Bill should not be passed, because of the character of the Army which will emerge, are these: I notice right through the Bill there is, whether it is intentional or not, a marked distinction in the consideration which is given to the position of the officer and that of the soldier. Right through the Bill one finds running the idea, borrowed from older armies, that the soldier is of one clay and the officer of another; that the officer is of a different class, and, therefore, should be treated in an especial manner. In my belief the provisions of the Bill rather set the course for the establishment of an officer caste in this country. Right in the beginning we have the first hint, as I say, no doubt copied from definitions in legislation affecting other armies. In the definition clause, Section 3, paragraph 8, "the expression `soldier' does not include an officer as defined by this Act." From that we go on, and we find that the commissioned officer is in an entirely different position towards the country, through the Minister, from that of the soldier. The Minister may appoint to commissioned rank any person, whether one having had military experience or not, whether capable of commanding men or not. He may give any person a commission to command soldiers, and that commission carries with it such control and such authority over the mere common soldiers as may well endanger their lives, not to speak of their liberties. We all know how, as a matter of fact, inexperienced men, without training, without ability, very often with nothing but a name, have been given commissions in other armies and placed in command of soldiers of experience, causing the loss of the lives of those soldiers. And the Bill proceeds on the assumption that that system is a good one, that the Minister may pick out whom he wishes and give him a commission. Henceforward the mere ordinary soldiers are to obey the lawful orders of that officer. The officers are appointed, and the soldiers shall serve those officers.

While I am on this question of commissions, it might be well to draw attention to the fact, as indicative of the mind of the authorities in the drawing of this Bill, and tending to contradict a claim that was made by the Minister himself, that through this Bill the Army will become quite definitely subordinate to the civil authorities; the Minister is the ultimate authority. "All officers shall hold their commissions during the pleasure of the Minister.""The Minister may appoint to a commissioned rank any person." And the Schedule giving the form of commission is to be signed by the Commander-in-Chief and Minister for Defence—one person, not two persons. It is the assumption of the drafters of this Bill that the present position in which the Commander-in-Chief is also Minister is to be perpetuated, and that the Minister for Defence shall be the Commander-in-Chief. I do not know what the mind of the Ministry is in this matter, but I think I am right in saying that, the Dáil has been living in the expectation that there would be a civilian Minister for Defence, to whom the Commander-in-Chief would be responsible, but that is not the mind of the Ministry. We are to have a perpetuation of the present position of Commander-in-Chief and Minister for Defence in one person, the Army under the Control of the Commander-in-Chief; the Minister who issues the commissions to be also the Commander-in-Chief. I say that the effect of that combination makes the civilian administration subordinate to the Army, instead of vice versa.

To come back to the differences in treatment of the soldier, as compared with the officer, the commission which is granted to the officer notifies all men that the Minister trusts in his loyalty to our country, and reposes special confidence in his courage, honour, good conduct and intelligence, and, having that trust and confidence, grants a commission. No pledge of loyalty is demanded of the officer in receipt of a commission. No demand for attestation or oath or declaration from the individual. The Minister trusts in his loyalty. He may be deceived. That does not matter. He is not going to ask for any oath or declaration, and I think he is right in that. I do not think it is worth a snap of the fingers. But why make a distinction? Why, when you come to the soldier, do you demand of him that he shall take an oath and solemnly swear that he will faithfully serve as a soldier in this Army? The reason is, of course, that the soldier is selling himself. The Minister pointed out and quoted from the Bill to show that the soldier is entering into a contract of service. I ask the Dáil to note that. I think—I am not sure—that that is a new idea affecting the relations between a soldier and the country. He is entering into a contract of service, but bear in mind that the contract takes all and gives nothing. The contract of service says that he voluntarily enters the Army, and will accept such pay, bounty, rations, and clothing as may from time to time be prescribed in accordance with law. I know quite well that that is the commonest form in respect to armies and Government service. But the civil servant in the past has not entered into a contract of service. The soldier, I think, has not heretofore entered into a contract of service. He may be held to his service because of his attestation and the rates of pay, gratuities, bounties and pensions may be altered by the State, notwithstanding anything he may say. But when we are entering into a contract there is supposed to be some kind of equal liberty on either side to withdraw or to continue. There should not be a change in the terms of the contract without the consent of both sides. It may be a good thing that this new provision should be made, and that the new service should be in the nature of a contract, but let it be a real contract, not a one-sided one.

Right through the Bill will be found differences in the method of treatment in respect to offences. For similar offences there are different punishments. Sometimes the punishment of the officer may be more severe than that of the soldier for a similar offence. At other times it is less severe. In the case of the officer caste it is assumed in the Bill that the moral obloquy that attends certain punishments is enough. In the case of the soldier that is not supposed to have any effect. He must be imprisoned. When an officer is found guilty of being drunk when on duty during active service he may be dismissed with ignominy. If not on active service and found guilty of drunkenness the officer may be dismissed or some less punishment may be imposed, but no ignominy is attached. The soldier, if he is found drunk on active service, shall be imprisoned, while the officer is dismissed—a thing he may be playing for. I do not want to suggest in this part of my criticism that the punishment of the officer may not have the effect that is desired to prevent these offences happening and to remedy that kind of indiscipline. It may be the most effective method of preventing those offences; but I submit that we ought to so control this Army and discipline it as to make the same kind of punishment have the same effect. The assumption in these differential clauses or paragraphs is that the officer is going to be affected by the moral sense of his cronies, his companions, his family and the public with whom he mixes, but that the soldier is of different clay and is not going to be affected by any such thing. His mentality is of a different type, and he must be punished by imprisonment.

The question then should be raised: Who are the persons to whom control of this Army is to be given; who are the persons who are to be the officers in this Army? Shall I say who are the persons who may be the officers of this Army? Until five years have passed after the establishment of the Military College the following persons shall be eligible for appointment to commissioned ranks:—(a) Citizens of Saorstát Eireann; (b) officers and men serving at the time of the passing of the Act in the National forces; and (c) such other persons—not citizens of Saorstát Eireann, not officers and men now serving—such other persons as may be approved of by the Minister.” What does that suggest? It suggests that the Minister who may be appointed, who may be acting as Minister for Defence and Commander-in-Chief of the Army, may look around to France, Germany, England, or America for adventurous men who want to fight in the Irish legions and give them commissions. That is the most charitable view. Some people would be unkind enough to say that it may be that you want to appoint certain ex-officers or present officers of the British Army, or certain scions of the nobility who would like to continue their connection with Ireland, having had ancestral homes here, but preferring to live in England; “however, to show our appreciation of your past services we are prepared to give you commissions in our Army.” Some persons may be unkind enough to say that that would be the intention. It is certainly allowable. Why? I suggest that my first proposition is more likely to be true—that it is designed to make it possible to employ French or German or American military men, give them commissions, and put them in charge of certain operations, not merely as advisers, but to give them some authority as commissioned officers.

Then we come to the question of the Reserve. The Minister has urged the necessity for this part of the Bill being passed, because it would enable a considerable reduction in the Army, and therefore in the cost of the Army, to be made within a year or two. I am not going to discuss the wisdom or otherwise of having a Reserve of this kind. It will require a good deal more consideration than it has been possible to give within these last couple of days. But the form which the Bill takes suggests the necessity of having a thorough discussion of the details—such a discussion as is not possible within the limits suggested by the Minister. One knows how Reserve forces in other countries have been used for purposes for which armies were not designed. One knows how military Reserves can be called up in times of labour disputes to put men who are Reservists under pain of death or penal servitude for disobedience as soldiers, for disobedience in refusing to do work which as civilians they have refused to do, and legitimately so. Now, I am sure the Minister will say that such a thought is entirely beyond the bounds of possibility within his intention. But we know something of what has happened in France, in America, in England, South Africa, Switzerland, not to speak of Germany in these matters. We know how easy it is, in times of labour disputes, to foment trouble by calling upon the District Justices, as it would be in this case, to require the officer of the area to call out the Reservists to do certain work, to undertake certain operations, which may be thought to be necessary for the preservation of public order. I am drawing attention to this, not because I think this Bill is particularly defective in respect to the powers of officers under this Reserve clause, but because I want to show the necessity for a close examination in Committee of this Bill, and comparison with the powers given to officers and military authorities generally in other countries under other Acts. We are asked to pass this, to avoid examination, to take the Minister's intention as being all that is necessary, to have perfect faith in the good intentions, and trust to these good intentions being carried out by his successor. Well, that is asking too much of the Dáil; it is unreasonable. It is placing the Dáil and Oireachtas as a whole in a position in which it should not be placed. It is asking us to relinquish our duties, and to put our signatures to a document which we have not been able to read, or certainly not been able to give proper consideration to. I could go into some details in regard to these sections dealing with the Reserve and the openings there are for misuse, for using them tyrannically, but this is really work for the Committee Stage, and I feel that the position the Minister is placing us in practically deprives us of the right to examine this Bill in Committee. To go back for a moment to the distinctions that are made between the officer and the soldier. I note that the officer's person is sacred. "What in the captain is but a choleric word is in the corporal rank blasphemy."

In Section 37 it will be seen that the soldier who strikes an officer during active service is liable to the death penalty, or if not on active service to penal servitude. The officer who unlawfully strikes a soldier is liable only to imprisonment at any time. That is seen under Section 63. As I said, that kind of distinction runs right through the Bill, and indicates the state of mind in regard to the Army and its place in the public life; makes it incumbent, in my opinion, that the Bill before it passes, should have a great deal more consideration than it is liable to receive, being introduced in the way it has been. There is a small matter which gives, perhaps, a small indication of the state of mind. I will just ask the Deputies to refer to Section 158, Sub-section (3), and to note what is used in reference to the treatment of lunatics; how different it is from the references to previous acts in recent Bills that have been passed through the Dáil. We have always referred to the short titles of Bill and their index numbers, but here we are asked to go through the long process of referring to the 10th Section of the Act of the Section of the 30th and 31st years of the reign of her Majesty, Chapter 118, entitled an Act to provide for the appointment of officers and servants of District Lunatic Asylums in Ireland, and to alter and amend the law relating to the custody of dangerous lunatics and dangerous idiots in Ireland." I think it must have been a printer's error. He was at the job and he wanted to extend the time occupied in printing this section. I am sure it is only the printer.

The one laugh in the Bill.

I hope the Minister will not allow this Bill to pass through with that sub-section in that form. I am sure the real defects of the Bill are very much more worthy of note. But this is the kind of defect which would excite the risibility of the critics. Seriously, I think that the Minister is making a mistake, and is asking the Dáil to stultify itself in putting a Bill of this magnitude and this importance before us with a request, almost an ultimatum, that it must be passed, and passed without due consideration. Because it has been duly considered by the military authorities, therefore we can, for one year at least, trust to its working out without grave effects and without serious damage. I am not prepared to agree to that, and I believe that the real needs that were described by the Minister as the necessity for legalising the present Army, and giving legal authority to enforce discipline, could be attained without fixing upon the country, as I contend this Bill does, an army system, even if only for a year, which is opposed to the desires, as I think, of the majority of those who have had an interest in the development of the Volunteer forces, and who have some regard for what the military requirements in this country in future may be. I think the Minister should have given us his views of what those military requirements may be. He did not even indicate the numbers that he has in mind, but those are, perhaps, left over for a later speech. I want the Dáil to say that they are not satisfied that this Bill meets the requirements of the case, and that because the Dáil is not to be given a full opportunity for close analysis and careful consideration of the details of the Bill it ought not to receive its Second Reading.

Deputy Johnson, in almost the concluding sentence of the speech which he has just addressed to the Dáil, touched upon the matter which makes me feel doubtful about this Bill, and that is whether the majority of the people in this country do desire an Army of the kind foreshadowed in this Bill or not. I can very well understand how this Bill came to be before us in the form in which it has appeared here, and, looking at the size of the Bill and the obvious care with which it has been prepared, I am not surprised, indeed, that it took a very long time to prepare and frame it, because if this country is going to have an Army of the kind contemplated by this Bill, then I think this Bill is a very good Bill indeed, and could scarcely be improved upon. The Minister, however, told us that this was only a temporary measure. Although it was to be a temporary measure, he told us that it was still as complete as the organisation over which he presides could possibly make it. I am inclined to agree with him in that. I imagine that it was never intended that the Dáil should be deprived of the right and the power to criticise every line and word of this measure, but it is the circumstances in which we find ourselves and in which the Government find themselves which has compelled the Minister to thrust this Bill upon us and tell us we must take it as it stands. If circumstances were otherwise than they are, then I would say that that was very unfair, and indeed I would think it was an outrage upon the Dáil and the nation to bring in a Bill of this kind and of this size, and say it must be passed in a week or ten days or a fortnight, or whatever the period allowed may be. But we must remember that the Irish Free State was conceived in one war and was born in another, and that we have never known peace from the period long before the Treaty was signed, and that we have had in one form or another substantially the Army that we have to-day on active service in this country, and that it was essential and is essential to provide regulations for the government of that Army, and that those had to be drafted and provided in time of war. It is now necessary, when we are going to have a General Election, when we do not know what may happen in the country, to provide at once regulations for the government of that Army and for its discipline and for its internal administration—"interior economy," I think, were the words the Minister for Defence used.

Now that would be perfectly proper. For an Army of the kind contemplated by this Bill regulations of some kind must be passed. I do not myself feel able to blame the Minister, who has been no doubt for a long time preparing these regulations with the intention that they should be fully discussed, if he now finds himself compelled to bring in the Bill without giving us the proper time to consider it. I do not blame him for that. But what I do desire to guard against is that this Dáil or any future successor of ours should be committed by this Bill to the type of Army that this Bill contemplates, and that they should not be able to change it. The Minister did tell us that this is merely a temporary measure, and it is quite true that Clause 1 of the Bill says that this Act shall remain in force for one calendar year after the passing thereof. That is the common form in Army Bills in England since the Bill of Rights. It is called the Army Annual Act, because it has to be passed every year. But, although when that Act was first passed they contemplated an Army that was to be dissolved at the end of one year, that Army is there ever since. It is the most perfect instance of an absolute standing Army of professional soldiers, although the making of that Army under the Army Annual Act was intended not to be a permanent Army of that kind. You have now in Great Britain the most complete instance of a standing professional Army to be found in the whole world, although, as I say, under the original Army Act it was only intended for one year. Therefore, the first provision that this Act is only for one year does not make it a temporary Act. It is true that it is called a Temporary Provisions Bill, and that, I think, might be relied upon as showing that it is not intended to set up a permanent Army, but under this Bill a permanent Army could be set up, and unless we take precautions those of us who may be returned here after the election may find that a permanent Army has been installed under this Bill. One of the very points Deputy Johnson finds fault with is, curiously enough, one that I am inclined to think indicates the intention of the Minister that this could only be a temporary Bill, because the very Schedule in which he read out the form of attestation concluded by "I the Commander-in-Chief and Minister for Defence authorise and declare all these things." That satisfies me that when the Minister was framing the attestation oath he took the form in use at the present time, when one man is filling both offices, and that he had no intention of perpetuating that for the future. However, that is a matter between Deputy Johnson and the Minister. I do not know what the truth may be about that. I do not want to prejudice the framers of this Bill or the case they want to make, but I want to prevent the framers of the Bill from prejudicing the country by it. Remember what we are. Let it not be supposed for a moment that I question the full authority of this Oireachtas to pass any Act it likes binding this country, and that Act will be binding upon this country. But although we have the power, still as St. Paul said, "Though all things are lawful to us " they may not be expedient. We were sent here a year ago to draft a Constitution and to pass the necessary legislation for the government of the country. We have drafted the Constitution, and we have provided new constituencies and we have enormously enlarged the electorate. And although it is quite true that one-third of the elected representatives have not thought fit to attend here I doubt very much whether the people who sent them here, or at all events the large majority of the people who sent them here, would have agreed to their being disfranchised in the way they have been if they knew that that was going to be the result of their actions at the election a year ago. Now, I feel very seriously indeed the gravity of doing anything that might tend to saddle upon this country a standing army of the British or Continental type, and that is what this Bill undoubtedly would do unless its absolutely temporary nature was clearly safeguarded. I do not want to argue for one side or the other, but it is well known that a standing army of this type is the most expensive form of self-defence a country can have. Great Britain, with this type of army, spends far more every year in keeping up her small army than Continental nations spend in keeping up armies ten times the size. It is true that they have conscription; but has not the country the right to consider, and has not the Dáil itself the right to consider before it decides upon an army of this kind whether it may not fairly copy the example set by some of the Dominions, and whether that example would not provide us with a Defence Force we need at one-tenth of the cost contemplated under this Bill. Australia and New Zealand have a system by which every male who is not physically unfit from the age of twelve to twenty-five I think has to spend sixteen days in every year doing military training in a military camp. Sixteen days out of the year is not very much, but a boy who begins at twelve and goes on until he is a man, giving sixteen days each year to military training and military discipline acquires sufficient military training to enable him to turn out as the forces from Australia and New Zealand showed in the great war, as good a soldier as the very best in the whole world.

The same system prevails in Canada. There, for a period of four years, young men spend from 14 to 16 days each year in military training camps. That short period does not take much from the life of a man, or from his time for enjoyment. A somewhat similar system obtains in South Africa, with the exact details of which I am not quite familiar. In pre-war days the Australian Defence Force, run on the lines I have stated, cost something like two and a half millions, while in Canada a similar force cost something like one and a half millions. In Canada, the permanent army is something under 4,000 officers and men. These are permanent long service officers and men kept to train the men who come each year for their annual period of training. The total estimated Army Vote for Canada in pre-war days was something like one and a half millions. I suggest that we ought to consider, and the country ought to have an opportunity of considering, whether a Militia Force on these lines might not be better suited for the Saorstát than a permanent Standing Army of the Continental or British type I hold no brief for one side or the other, because I have not taken time to consider which would be best suited to the needs of this country, but I object to being committed to one particular system by this Bill before I have had an opportunity of investigating the advantages or disadvantages, of one system or the other. I know there are many systems, and I think we ought to have time to consider which is best for us. For these reasons, if I was not able to assure myself that this Bill did not permanently commit us, I would, even at the risk of putting the Government into greater difficulties at the last moment, vote against this Bill; but I believe that we could so safeguard ourselves as to bring into force this Bill for disciplinary and interior administration purposes only for the twelve months for which it purports to be put in force by Clause 1, and that we might, by proper amendment, safeguard ourselves and our successors in that way.

It seems to me that if we so amend the Preamble as to make it perfectly plain upon the face of it, which it certainly is not now, that this is merely a temporary measure, we will then be protecting ourselves and our successors from having this Bill thrown at them and of saying that the Oireachtas has decided that this is the kind of Army the Saorstát is to have, and that therefore, it cannot be altered in twelve months time. The Minister has assured us, and I have no doubt whatever that his assurance will be accepted, that he regards this as a temporary measure. He will have no objection whatever, I am sure, to saying so on the face of the Bill itself, or to putting into the Bill substantially the words that he used when he was moving the Second Reading. It seems to me that if we struck out the second paragraph of the Preamble, which is the one that most commits us at the moment, "whereas it is adjudged necessary by the Oireachtas that a body of armed forces should be raised for the Defence of Saorstát Eireann," and that the concluding paragraph was amended by making it quite clear that this Bill was passed by us as a matter of urgent necessity, and to provide temporary regulations for the government of the Army, that, I think, would safeguard us so far as we can do it from being told that by passing this Bill en bloc without consideration, we had adopted the principle of everything found in it. I do not commit myself to words, but I think if the last paragraph were to read: “Whereas it is a matter of urgent necessity to provide a code of laws and regulations for the enforcement of military discipline in the existing armed forces of Saorstát Eireann”; that is the truth, because we have the forces and have not got the regulations, and it is necessary to pass this temporary measure for the enforcement of discipline. Then the provision could read on “and such other armed forces as may be raised under this Act.” The Preamble could then read on in the ordinary way that this was a Temporary Provisions' Act to be enforced for one year. I believe that if amendments on these lines were introduced in the Preamble, making it clear on the forefront of the Bill that we were passing it as a temporary, urgent necessity alone, then it would not be open to anyone to lay the whole blame on us that we had committed the country to a standing Army without consulting the country. I believe that the country has a right to be consulted on this matter, and that we have not the right, until the full electorate of the country has spoken, and has sent people here, to commit the country to one from or another of a National Defence Force. I hope the Minister will not think that in anything I have said I am casting any aspersions whatever, or that I am disparaging in any way the existing force. I tried to protect myself by saying that I did not commit myself to one side or the other for the simple reason that I have had no opportunity of considering or contrasting different systems. If we are to have a standing Army, I myself do not see how we could get a better one than that which this Bill provides, but looking at the matter in a cursory way, I am far from convinced that an army of this type is the sort of army that the Saorstát needs or can afford. I shall, unless I can get some more or less satisfactory assurances that amendments of this kind can, and will be, introduced on the Committee Stage, feel disposed to vote with Deputy Johnson against this Bill. On the other hand, realising as I do the urgent need for a measure containing the bulk of what is already in this Bill, I am prepared to vote for it on the assurance that we will not find military colleges established, and all the machinery that will be set up for a permanent independent Army if this Bill were acted upon, in full blast when members return here after the General Election. I do not suppose that anything of the kind would really be attempted, but I would welcome an assurance from the Minister or the President or from anybody else who may be authorised to give it that it is not intended to use the passage of this Bill, which is presented to us as a temporary measure, as a means for ensuring the permanent institutions that the Bill proposes to set up.

It might help if I dealt with the particular objection of Deputy FitzGibbon now.

I would like to ask is this closing the debate?

It is only to deal with a special point raised by Deputy FitzGibbon.

The matter of committing the country to a particular form of Army and the matter of our views at the present moment as to what an Irish Military Organisation ought to be, or as to what an Irish Defence Force should be, I am not prepared to deal with now. Anyone with a sense of responsibility who is defining these matters which may, more or less permanently affect the form of this Defence Force, cannot say in the present circumstances in Ireland, what type of Defence Force ought to be in Ireland. It is not as if we were proposing a permanent Defence Force along the lines of this Act. We have been presented with a situation that was as a cauldron of boiling oil, and we have had to deal with that situation practically and without any great chance of thought in the matter. Just as the present Army forces in Ireland are a reaction against certain events in Ireland, you might call this particular type of Bill a natural reaction to the type of armed forces that have had to be set up here. To think that in six months time there might be any possibility of having Military Colleges of a well-defined type set up in Ireland is forgetting the laws of lag and inertia that there are in all human things. So, it would be forgetting those laws to think that the form of Army we have at present in Ireland is going to pass in a year or two years. The intention of this particular Bill is to deal with the present situation. We consider that this Bill is likely to be required to deal with the years that will come immediately after the present situation, but we do not want to commit anybody to that. If there is anything in this Bill that can be taken out, without prejudicing the actual terms of the Bill, it can be done. The Bill is to be in operation for the short period of twelve months, or any less period until some other Act is passed. I certainly would be prepared to make any excision in the Bill or make any addition to the Bill that would make it perfectly clear that this was a Bill to deal with a temporary situation and to deal, if you wish, with a temporary Army.

There can be no doubt that it is sincerely meant that this measure will be a temporary one. I am afraid examining it one finds evidence throughout it that it cannot really be so construed at all. Before I go into that, let me state what I would take to be matters of common acceptance, not only amongst all Deputies here, but by all reasonably minded people in the country. We do know that the Free State Army had to be hastily gathered together; its organisation and much of its detail were hastily improvised to meet a situation in which a blow was aimed at the very existence of the State. The Army had to be formed in that way. It had to run in advance of the Legislative authority generally adjudged to be required before such acts are undertaken. We are now faced with the fact that a dissolution will very soon occur, and here is this Army that has been gathered together and that has no legal existence whatever. That has to be remedied before this Dáil can pass out of existence for the formation of a new Dáil. These are, I say, matters of common acceptance. All that is wanted in the way of a legislative instrument, at the present moment, is something quite brief, giving the necessary powers to continue what has been done in order that the new Dáil, when it meets, will have a free hand in considering whether what has been done is of the kind that should continue, and in the second place whether it is of such a kind that the country really wants. Deputy FitzGibbon dealt with this point and stated that he did not desire to take sides as between the two forms of Army which might be suggested. So far as I personally am concerned I feel that this country will not require a standing Army. Our sister States in the Commonwealth have been through this period and they have decided for the militia form of Army—a loose and expensive form. Deputy FitzGibbon quoted the cost for the Army Defence of Canada prior to the war. The cost of the Army Defence of Canada for last year came to, in the English equivalent or Irish equivalent of money, just a little more than £2,000,000. Our Bill is 10½ millions. Canada and all our sister States and a great number of Continental nations have come to the opinion that the militia form is the wiser form, whether accompanied by general service, universal service, conscription, call it what you will, or not. They have adopted it, and in all European countries at the present moment the terms of service are being shortened. Only the other day I noted in the Press that the Belgian State fixed its Infantry term for twelve months, bringing it down from a longer period. The longest term outside France is that of Poland, where they have fixed the period of two years. Our provisions are quite different. It is perfectly clear from this Bill that it imagines a permanent standing Army. I will even go further. I will quote certain passages from it to show that it contemplates a standing Army of the rigid type that England has, and which England needs for purposes which are not the same as our purposes. Some of the most extraordinary provisions in this Bill really contemplate in the end a kind of paid Praetorian Guard. We have been reminded several times that the Bill is entitled, "A Temporary Provisions Bill," and we are informed that the Act will continue in force one calendar year after the passing thereof, and shall then expire. Section 144 says, "A person may be enlisted to serve as a soldier of the Forces for a period of 12 years, or for such less period as may be from time to time fixed by the Minister." Although this Bill is only to run for twelve months, whereupon it shall expire, at the end of that twelve months the New Parliament will find that a number of persons have been engaged under terms of enlistment that may be twelve years, and will anyhow be more than twelve months. That is by necessity giving a certain fixity, a certain rigidity and permanence, such as the temporary provisions referred to in the Short Title scarcely are consistent with. We go into still more elaborate features in this Bill. Section 153 says:—

"A soldier of the Forces who has completed or will within one year complete a total period of twenty-one years' service, inclusive of any period served in the Reserve, may give notice to his commanding officer of his desire to continue in the service in the Forces; and if the prescribed military authority approve he may be continued as a soldier of the Forces in the same manner in all respects as if his term of service were still unexpired, except that he may claim his discharge at the expiration of any period of three months after he has given notice to his commanding officer of his wish to be discharged."

It is hardly congruous with a Temporary Provisions Bill that is to last for twelve months, to enter into provisions as to what is going to happen to what I have described as paid Praetorians when they have served for 21 years. There are many provisions of that kind—provisions that clearly contemplate an army which will be established as a standing army. Although it is perfectly clear that the Minister in moving this Bill is honestly desirous that we shall not bind the hands of our successors, the provisions contained in the Bill are such as must inevitably bind the hands of our successors if this Bill be passed in its present form.

How does the Bill come before us? The day before yesterday leave was given in the Dáil to introduce this Bill. Yesterday at mid-day we received copies of it in time for a Second Reading to-day—a Bill which contains 245 Sections and a number of Schedules! Some of the sections I have read. They look forward, as I have said, not to twelve months ahead but to 21 years ahead. These are the provisions we have brought before us on such short notice, without time to consider. We are asked to put those provisions through, and we are told that if we do pass them in this form, if we do rush them through with this extraordinary haste, that because the Bill is only a Temporary Provisions Bill, and because there is a section in it by which we are told it will continue for twelve months and then expire, the subsequent Dáil, when elected, will have its hands entirely free. I admit that there are many provisions in this Bill that are very necessary at the moment—particularly the sections dealing with discipline which are very urgently required and should be passed. But why go into the question of enlistment? Why go into questions of the prolongation of enlistment outside or beyond the period defined in the general purposes of the Bill? There must be, I take it, a re-enlistment of a good many of the soldiers in the Army at present, within the next three or four months. That is a matter of common knowledge, and one might take it as a matter of general acceptance. But when these reenlistments, or new enlistments, are to be considered, let them be considered in exactly the same light of their being merely temporary provisions that will bind the State for no longer period than the Bill itself purports to bind the State, in order that when this Bill shall have expired in the normal course defined in the sentence in which temporary provision is ensured, punctually at that moment, or as near afterwards as possible, the State will be able to resume the enlistments of an earlier period, and that it may have its hands entirely free in order that it may consider whether it will undertake a Standing Army of about 30,000 men, which will cost this country at the most economical working £5,000,000 a year, or whether it will go in for a general service principle, such as has been outlined by Deputy FitzGibbon, or, in the third alternative, go in for a more decentralised militia form of army, such as other nations have. It is much less costly, answering many of the difficulties that Deputy Johnson referred to as distinguishing between caste and caste, and is being more and more approved of, not as the result of theoretical thinking, but as the result of the experience of other nations. This has been necessitated because of the charges that are accumulating against the States every year, as they are accumulating against this State every year. Feeling the menace of having a professional force professionally engaged for warfare, and for a number of considerations, both practical and ideal, both material and otherwise, these States have come to that conclusion.

I believe that we will desire ourselves to follow more or less along those lines and develop either a decentralised militia or else have general service on the lines dealt with by Deputy FitzGibbon, and adopted in all the sister States of the Commonwealth. But when these conclusions are to be taken, the new Dáil if this Bill is passed in its present form on the lines set out in its provisions and expounded by the Minister, will find its hands tied because of these enlistments that have been taken for a number of years, as well as because of a number of other provisions.

There is one further reason why the course of action suggested by Deputy FitzGibbon should be adopted. This Bill has taken a long time to prepare. I am not making any carping criticism, when I say that a Bill of this length must inevitably be full of a number of things that the Dáil would not care—and I do not believe that the reasoned wish of the Minister would be that the Dáil should care—to pass. Let me just quote one or two. I choose them because they occur in the earlier part of the Bill. I have actually made a list of 35 recurrences of a phrase which shows that the Bill does require to be amended at least in one very important and cardinal feature. I take the phrase as it occurs in Sections 6 and 7. In Section 6 (2) it is set out that "members of the forces shall serve under such conditions and for such periods and at such rates of pay as may be prescribed." It does not say by whom it shall be prescribed—whether by the Army Council, by the Minister, by somebody responsible to the Dáil, or by somebody not responsible to it. It is assumed that what is meant by the phrase is "prescribed by the Minister." I take that for granted. But I deal with it as a matter of drafting, and I am not referring to it in any other sense than as a matter of drafting. This phrase is repeated without the additional words that the Minister means, 25 or 30 times. It is repeated that number of times without the necessary completion. That would be a very serious thing.

The word "prescribed" is defined in Section 3, the definition Section. There are thirty-one definitions in that Section and this particular one is No. 19.

I apologise. I did not notice that definition; I had skipped the entire definition clause in view of the fact that 245 Sections had to be read in a few hours. Looking at that particular definition, I am not sure whether that would be sufficiently clear. However, let us say it is. There are other matters. I notice in one case, for example, that the Minister on the 23rd March, in answer to a question directed to me, gave the pay and allowances of officers and men. I have gone through the various ranks, both of N.C.O's and Commissioned Officers that he mentions, and there are some curious discrepancies that I am not able to account for, and which ought to be explained before any Bill is passed by the Dáil, setting down these ranks in any final form. I return to the original point which is this: Some stabilisation, some authorisation of the present Army, is required. If a Bill is to be a Temporary Provisions Bill for the Defence Forces of this State, these Temporary Provisions should be merely the setting out of what is immediately required to give form and authority to what has already been done. I suggest that Part I, Chapter I, which says "It shall be lawful for the Executive Council to raise and maintain an Armed Force to be called Oglaigh na hEireann (hereinafter referred to as the Forces), consisting of such numbers of officers, non-commissioned officers and men as may from time to time be provided by the Oireachtas," and paragraph 5, which says: "The control of the forces shall be vested in the Executive Council, subject to the provisions of this Act," is the essential business of this Bill. Once we have done that, not much more requires to be done except to pass the Temporary Provisions and let all the rest be passed into a Schedule, and so be left over for subsequent Dála. When they are elected they can deal with this matter without their hands being tied by very elaborate provisions which it would be easier to continue than to revise, and particularly without their hands being tied by enlistment that automatically runs beyond the period of the Bill, which is claimed to be for twelve months only, although the enlistments will carry it on for a longer period.

Dubhairt mé an lá fé dheire go raibh gádh le Bille den tsord seo, ach nuair do léigh mê an Bille mar atá sé os ár gcomhair indiu annso, b'é mo thuairim nár cheart glacadh leis in aonchor. Nílim ag trácht anois ar na puintí do chuir Tomás Mac Eoin agus na Teachtaí eile os cómhair na Dála, ach tar éis an Bhille do léigheamh, táim cinnte nár ceart don Dáil glacadh leis. Nuair a dhubhairt mé gur ceart Bille den saghas so do thabhairt isteach, ní le Bille mar seo a bhí mé ag súil. Tcím gur dhubhairt an t-Aire féin gur Bille sealadach é seo. Ach, sé an locht atá agam air gur doigh le aoinne go raibh na daoine gur cheap é ag leanamhaint sómpla an Bhreatain Mhóir. B'fhéidir go bhfuil gádh le sin i Sasana, ach níl aon gádh leis annso.

I dtaobh na puintí do luaidh Tomás Mac Eoin agus Darghal Figes, nílim a rádh aon nídh mar gheall ortha soin. Ach deirim go bhfuil puintí eile in san mBille, agus ar an adhbhar soin ba cheart gan an Bille a glacadh. Dubhairt Gearóid Mac Giobúin gur ceart leasú éigin do dhéanamh ar an mBille, ach an leasú do cheap seisean ni dhéanfadh sé an ghnó. Caithfidhmíd Bille éigin do chur i bhfeidhm do'n Airm. Is dóca go nglacfaidh an Dáil leis an Bhille seo, ach déanfaidh sé docar don Airm agus don tír.

Maidir leis an saighdiuir, níl gúth ar bith aige. Caithfidh sé géilleadh do ghach ordú ó'n oifigeach. Ní féidir liom an Bille do thuiscint 'na lán puintí, agus ní féidir le formhór muinntir na Dála é do thuigscint. B'fhéidir go dtuigfeadh na dlígheadóirí é. Coithcís nó trí seachtmaine ó shoin, dubhairt Teachta sa Dáil nár bhféidir rudaí áithrithe tuitim amach, ach de réir an Bhille seo ní raibh an ceart aige. Dubhairt an t-Aire an lá fé dheire ná raibh aon difríocht idir na fearaibh agus na h-oifigigh. Deirim-se go bhfuil. Tá sé sa mBille, agus is mór an difríocht a theasbaineann sé sin idir sprid na bhfear agus sprid na n-oifigigh. Ní fear-oibre oifigheach. Duine os cionn fear iseadh é Sin mar a mbionn sé ins an mBreatain Mór.

Tá puint beag eile agam; agus b'fhéidir nach puint beag é ach puint anmhór. Baineann sé leis na cúirteanna fén mBille. 'Sé oifigheach a tabharfaidh breitheamhnas ar oifigigh eile, ach ni thabhairfidh saighdiúir breitheamhnas ar shaighdiúirí eile. Níl an Bille cosamhail le aon rud a dubhairt an t-Aire an lá fé dheire. Ar an adhbhar soin, iarraim ar an Dáil gan glacadh leis.

Ná tuig gach a gcloisfear duit mar is mó bréag a ndéan gach toisg. Sílim nár cheart do Theachtaí míniú a bhaint as an mBille seo nach bhfuil ann. Nuair a sgriobhtear i roinn den Bille nach saighdiúir oifigeach, ní ach convention é sin. Ní cheart a rádh gur daoine fé leith na h-oifigigh. Is féidir focal eile do chur isteach annsan in ionad saighdiúir. Tá an focal soin ann mar “definition.” Ní cheart míniú do bhaint as focal mar sin. Ni dhéanfaidh a leithéid sin de ghearáin aon mhaitheas don Bille, ná don Airm, ná don tír. Nuair a n-iarrtar cead, fir a thabhairt isteach san Airm go ceann dá bhliain déag, ní cóir tuiscint shin go mbeidh an Bille seo i bhfeidhim níos fuide ná aon bhlian amhain. Ní raibh a leithéid in ar n-aigne cor ar bith. Ach ba mhian linn cead a bheith againn rudaí mar sin do dhéanamh dá mbéadh gá leo. Ba mhaith an rud an Bille do fhágaint mar atá sé. Nuair a bhfeicfidh muinntir na tíre é agus nuair a thuigfidís é, beidh sé soiléir doibh gur Bille é ar mhaithe an Airm agus ar mhaithe na tíre ar fad é.

I regret that in the circumstances some of the Deputies do not consider satisfactory the case we have made for passing this measure in its fulness, and as a temporary measure lasting for twelve months or until such time as a permanent Act is brought in, and that they should oppose it. The appeal to draft a shorter measure sounds reasonable, but the actual effect of a shorter measure would be inevitably to put into the hands of the military authorities greater powers than they will have under the Bill as it is at present framed. To simply take the transitory provisions here and preface them by a Clause in the manner which Deputy Johnson suggests, would be to leave us without Defence Forces by the end of the year, and to even safeguard ourselves against that would mean putting general powers into our hands that it is better should not be put into our hands.

You have provisions here suggesting that soldiers may be enlisted for the original period of enlistment of twelve years. When we were framing this Bill originally, and for the purposes of putting it through as a more or less permanent Act we did not contemplate that we would recruit men for the original period of enlistment of twelve years. What we had in mind was that we would not recruit men for a longer period at most than two years. We were working on the lines of the British Act, bearing in mind the South African Defence Act and the Canadian Militia Act, and we considered that it would not be introducing anything prejudicing ourselves or prejudicing the position in any way to put in these Clauses which I think are taken from the British Act itself. But I can guarantee that in regard to any man or any recruited man between this and the passing of the permanent Act that any subsequent Government shall not be prejudiced to the extent of having a larger number of men on their hands enlisting for a longer period of years apart altogether from the fact that in the enlistment contract, even though a man was enlisted for a period longer than twelve years, still the position of the Oireachtas would be quite sufficient to dispense with the services of such men. But it is not our intention to enlist men for a longer period than eighteen months or two years according as the sizing up of the situation shall determine, and it is according to that that we framed these particular regulations. The argument that we want to form a standing army as distinct from the militia is something with which I do not agree. There is nothing in the Bill, even as a permanent Bill that would necessarily lead us in that direction. The Bill is the outcome of the forces we are dealing with and of the necessity of the times and we have so organised upon those lines. We cannot proceed as in normal circumstance when you could satisfactorily arrange for the defence of this country against both external and internal dangers simply by a militia, or simply by going into a scheme of training of men for a certain number of weeks every year. Consideration of these things satisfactorily cannot even take place so far as I can see even in twelve months' time. I am, as I say, quite satisfied to safeguard the future along the lines suggested by Deputy FitzGibbon and also by Deputy Figgis, and I have taken a note of what Deputy FitzGibbon has suggested, and will see that as far as possible the objection he makes is met, although I might feel inclined to argue that the prejudicial effect of the Clauses he spoke of is not real at all. In the matter of the distinction between officers and men that is one of those distinctions that I spoke about in Irish, that it is not reasonable or proper to make. There are of necessity distinctions between officers and men, and there are of necessity distinctions between officers and men particularly when they have to be dealt with in regard to offences. If an officer gets drunk a couple of times you cannot deal with him in a certain way, and then leave him to carry out his officer's duties, because they are of a particular type, and he stands in particular relationship to the body of men, whereas you can reasonably deal with the soldier who had got disgracefully drunk on a couple of occasions, and send him back to his ordinary work. But, because you had to deal with two different classes in two different ways, that does not create two different classes. The creation of these differences will re-act upon the army situation. It is not reasonable, I say, to make such deduction from anything in the Bill, or that there is any likelihood of an officer caste—I do not know much about the word—developing. I think the fears expressed in the matter were the fears of imagination.

Now, with regard to contracts I do not know that there is anything in the Bill saying that when a soldier enters the Army and signs his attestation form he is signing a contract form, but actually he is, and the terms of that contract will be the terms that will be plain to be seen, and if happily per chance in that contract it makes portion of the contract such that the man will have to accept any changed conditions that may occur either in matters of receipt of clothing, or receipt of pay or any other conditions with regard to his original enlistment—if he is likely to suffer a change in these particular ways during his period of contract there is no reason why the contract should not be made plain in regard to such provision, and it would be no less a contract. With regard to the question of commissions being issued by the Minister as distinct from the Executive Council that is a matter I will look into before the Bill comes before us again. Actually the Minister issues commissions on behalf of the Executive Council.

I think the Minister rather misunderstood the point; it is not the difference between the Minister and the Executive Council, but it is the conjunction of making one person both Minister and Commander-in-Chief.

I was going to deal with that, but the objection was made about commissions being issued by the Minister as distinct from the Executive Council.

That was not in my mind.

Some Deputy who spoke made it. In regard to the Commander-in-Chief and the Minister being one and the same person, that is the point that will be made clear I think by the Ministries Bill which, in one or two respects, will be complementary to the Army Bill as far as the Minister and his particular powers and sphere will be concerned, but it is not the intention that the Minister, if Commander-in-Chief, will be anything but a civil person, or it is not the intention that he will be in any way a person bearing Executive military authority or acting in a military capacity in any way.

With regard to the point as to the persons who may be taken as officers into the Army and who may get commissions that question is dealt with in Clause 18, paragraph (c). In that particular case it is simply a matter of leaving the powers to ourselves, to the Minister or to the Army Authorities to meet any particular case that might be found to be reasonable or necessary, but it is not the intention to give commissions to or to place in responsible and commanding positions in the Defence Forces of the country, men who are either French, German, American or English.

It is possible to do that under this Section.

It is possible in words, but I doubt if it is possible in actual facts. In the matter of numbers complaint was made that any succeeding Government is likely to be committed to any recruiting that shall be done in the meantime. An undertaking has been given to the Dáil in the matter of Army expenditure, arising out of the Estimates, that we shall have the numbers in the Army reduced to not more than 30,000 men by the end of this financial year. Actually the arrangement is that we shall have not more than that number of men by the 1st of March of next year, and the new Government will have plenty of time, in the meantime, to see that such arrangements are made and such precautions taken that will not put it in the position of being unnecessarily saddled with expenditure in the matter of the Army when it comes to deal with the expenditure that it will be called upon to enter into for a period after the 1st of April next. Attention has been called to the fact that in certain Continental countries the period of service for soldiers has been reduced very considerably, but there is also the fact, in connection with these Continental countries, that they have universal military service. Our present outlook on the Army, even though people may find complaint with the expression that it is supposed to get in the terms of this Bill, is that we should recruit men for short service. We have in mind that we are now under special conditions, and that we will transmit to it conditions very much different. There is this particular advantage that I feel in putting the Bill in this particular form before the country, and in not making any radical change in it, that you have a complete thought, as it were, there, and that that can be subjected to wide criticism in the meantime. There will be a wide understanding of any implications that it is proper to find in any particular clauses, and we will be in a better position to say that the matter has been fully thought over and that it has been thought over with reference to a very definite and complete expression of thought as to what a complete Army Bill should be; and though there may be found inconsistencies in this Bill, that a particular clause has been inserted in it which makes it a temporary Bill, I say the Bill is a complete Bill, and that the temporary clause only happens to be in it because of the conditions in which we find ourselves. These inconsistencies will not then be inconsistencies. I repeat again that I appreciate the very great difficulties and differences with which Deputies, who feel their responsibilities, have in accepting this Bill with little consideration and in a hurried way. On the First Reading I indicated the particular circumstances in which I found myself asking the Dáil to pass the Bill in this way, and I feel that in the Bill itself or because of the circumstances in which you are asked to pass it, it is not reasonable that the Dáil would turn it down, or would ask for such discussion of it as might delay the passing of it to such an extent that we would be left without the powers that we require for legalising and controlling the Army.

I was not quite able to follow the Minister's undertaking, and I desire to ask if I understood him correctly to say, because I am anxious to vote for the Bill, and to help the Executive to that extent to get such powers as are clearly required if the Army position is to be stabilised, that he is willing to make the Bill consist of just those essential clauses, and to put other parts into a Schedule, so far as the text itself is concerned, so as to leave the matter free for subsequent Legislatures, and, under the second head, that the enlistments set out in the Bill will not be for a longer period than the term of the lasting of the Act itself.

Deputy FitzGibbon's objection was to the second Clause in the Preamble of the Bill. He asked too, that the fifth Clause of the Preamble should be amended.

What I said was that I wanted to make it quite clear that the Oireachtas was not committed to this Bill as a permanent measure. I am not very particular about the words in which that is done. What I want to ensure is that it is made quite clear that this Bill is passed as a matter of urgent necessity, and to make regulations for the existing forces. The wording I suggested was:—"That whereas it is a matter of urgent necessity to provide a code of laws and regulations for the enforcement of military discipline in the existing armed forces of Saorstát Eireann, and for such other armed forces as may be raised under this Act," and to delete paragraph 2 of the Preamble.

In that case I take it the rest of the Bill would stand as it is, including the enlistment sections?

I think there was some change required in the second sentence of Section I.

I would like that it should be stated with regard to enlistment—this would force the matter upon the attention of subsequent Dála— that it would not be for any longer period than the running of the Act.

It might leave us in the position that immediately that new Act was passed our standing army would automatically stop, and we would have no carry-over army. I am prepared to consider the putting in of the Clause that is suggested there, which it is thought will satisfy the scruples of Deputies who feel that they are committed by passing the Bill in this form. With regard to the recruiting, I am prepared not to recruit a man for a longer period than two years, say, with a short period of reserve, because, as I have pointed out, it is necessary to secure a reserve. That reserve would be for a short period too. If the period of recruiting was 18 months the period of reserve for such a man would be 2 years. You could take it that your recruiting period would not go longer than 2 years at the present moment and any period of service plus reserve that there might be in the case of a man recruited in the meantime would not be longer than 3½ years. I have pointed out that the reserve Clauses are Clauses that will enable us to maintain during the two or three years immediately to come our defensive military strength, and will not involve us in great financial expenditure. Otherwise my proposal would be that the Bill would practically stand as it is.

Question put:—"That the Bill be read a second time."
The Dáil divided. Tá, 37; Níl, 8.

  • Liam T. Mac Cosgair.
  • Donchadh Ó Guaire.
  • Gearóid Ó Súileabháin.
  • Uáitéar Mac Cumhaill.
  • Mícheál Ó hAonghusa.
  • Liam de Róiste.
  • Séamus Breathnach.
  • Peadar Mac a' Bháird.
  • Darghal Figes.
  • Deasmhumhain Mac Gearailt.
  • Ailfrid Ó Broin.
  • Seán Mac Garaidh.
  • Risteárd Ó Maolchatha.
  • Pilib Mac Cosgair.
  • Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh.
  • Sir Séamus Craig.
  • Gearóid Mac Giobúin.
  • Liam Thrift.
  • Eoin Mac Néill.
  • Liam Mag Aonghusa.
  • Pádraic Ó Maille.
  • Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
  • Fionán Ó Loingsigh.
  • Séamus Ó Cruadhlaoich.
  • Criostóir Ó Broin.
  • Próinsias Bulfin.
  • Séamus Ó Dóláin.
  • Aindriú Ó Láimhín.
  • Próinsias Mag Aonghusa.
  • Eamon Ó Dúgáin.
  • Peadar Ó hAodha.
  • Séamus Ó Murchadha.
  • Liam Mac Sioghaird.
  • Tomás Ó Domhnaill.
  • Earnán de Blaghd.
  • Uinseann de Faoite.
  • Mícheál Ó Dubhghaill.

Níl

  • Tomás de Nógla.
  • Riobárd Ó Deaghaidh.
  • Tomás Mac Eoin.
  • Séamus Eabhróid.
  • Liam Ó Daimhín.
  • Cathal Ó Seanáin.
  • Risteárd Mac Fheorais.
  • Domhnall Ó Ceallacháin.
Motion declared carried.

I am again in the position of asking the indulgence of the Dáil to have the Third Reading taken earlier than it ordinarily would be taken. I would ask to have the Third Stage fixed for Monday, the 30th.

In that respect, I wish to say that the position is one that I am not going to make any objection. The simple reason is that I think the opportunity for any consideration or amendment of the Bill is out of our hands and we had better let the Bill pass in the way the Government wishes.

Third Stage of the Bill ordered for Monday, 30th July.

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