I am very glad to notice that Deputies generally have thought fit to ignore the suggestion of Deputy Nicholls in seconding the vote of thanks when he said: "I do not think that there is any need for dealing in detail with a subject like this." As we all know, and as Deputy Nicholls should know, it is very important that the Address of the Governor-General, which is not a personal matter but merely an expression of the opinion of the Government regarding their future policy, under the circumstances which prevail in this country and under which the Ministry has been returned to office, every aspect of that Address should be thoroughly discussed. As Deputy Captain Redmond said, it should be finally disposed of before any legislative measures outlined in that Address are introduced into this Dáil. One would imagine from the very short statement of Deputy Nicholls that he was returned to support the Government without knowing the programme that he was returned to support. Unlike every other country, or the governing party of every other country where normal conditions prevail, this Government has been returned without putting any definite legislative programme before the people. Therefore I think that is a very important reason why Deputy Nicholls, even as a member of the Government party, in seconding the vote of thanks, should have dealt in detail with the address of the Governor-General. The Governor-General in the Address refers to the recent Electoral Act passed in the last Dáil, whereby every person has a right to share in the setting up of the government of the country. I deny that the Electoral Act, which brought a certain register into operation, gave the people who are entitled to it the right to share in setting up the Government and participating in the administration as a whole.
I know of many instances where hundreds of voters' names appeared on the first print of the register, and when the final register was produced those names were omitted without any explanation being given to the parties who had a right to have their names on that register. I am very glad the Minister for Local Government indicated a few days ago that it was the intention of the Ministry to set matters right on that point. One fails to understand, however, why in the recent election a very large section of the community failed to exercise the franchise. It is quite true that in other countries a certain section of the community failed to exercise the right which they have in the setting up of the administrative machinery. To me it appears that the people who in the recent election refused to take their share in the election of the Government were, to a certain extent, ignoring Parliamentary institutions.
If such was the case I should say people should be compelled to go to the polling stations and register their opinions in the ballot boxes under the penalty of a fine. Those who refused to acknowledge their duty in the setting up of the Government of their choice should be penalised. The Address goes on to state that time and opportunity in the past year did not permit of any but temporary provision being made for the Civic Guard and Military forces and states that it is the intention of the Government in the Dáil to introduce measures giving a permanent form to the Civic Guard and Military Forces. I cannot fail to notice the manner in which the Civic Guard have conducted themselves under the very trying conditions in which they were working as compared with the general conduct of the military. Might I express the hope in the new re-organisation foreshadowed by the Minister for Defence that only those who have conducted themselves in a proper way will find a place in the new Army organisation, and that any officers or men who have by their misconduct thrown discredit and dishonour on the Army and the Government will find themselves in the ranks of the demobilised.
I think it is eminently desirable that it should be made quite clear to those who compose the army that this army, which is paid by the whole of the people to protect the people, is not conducted on the amateur lines of the army which had only the support of a section of the people previous to the Treaty being signed. The method of demobilisation indicated by the Minister for Defence is generally satisfactory. It goes further than the statement made in this Dáil two or three months ago when he said it would be quite possible to reduce the army to 30,000 within the year. He has now stated it will be possible to reduce the army to 20,000. May I express the hope, especially in view of the great amount of unemployment, that demobilisation will be gradual, and will, as far as possible, only take place in accordance with the requirements of the labour market. It might be far better under conditions existing at the moment to have 5,000 or 10,000 men in the army under discipline than to have them going out on the unemployment dole and misconducting themselves in a manner in which they could not be dealt with as if they were in the army. I do not want to go very much further into the question of army discipline. It is rather a delicate matter, but I think the Government will realise that the overbearing attitude of many army officers resulted in the last election in a considerable number of people voting anti-Government not so much because they were anti-Treaty but because of the overbearing attitude of the servants of the Government. I want to draw the attention of the Minister for Defence to the practice of military officers going about in civilian attire. This should be discouraged, and in any other country is not practised to the extent to which it is here. There is also the question of the non-payment of old outstanding accounts. I happen to be one of the members who frequently receive communications from constituents of mine who are still owed old accounts dating back to 1922. I see no reason why those old accounts should be outstanding and why Deputies in this Dáil should be called upon to go to Portobello Barracks frequently to ascertain why such and such an account, which has been outstanding for two years, has not been paid. The Minister for Finance, in a statement to the Dáil, said that many of those accounts were fraudulent. That may be so in some instances, but it is a remarkable thing to find fraudulent accounts or overcharged ones certified by local officers as being correct. I hope he will give this his attention so far as the years 1921 and 1922 are concerned.
The Address claimed that the Government intend, have, and will, continue to take effective steps to deal with all those who challenge its authority. So far as I am concerned, I have always been quite prepared to support the Government in any effective steps they might take, so long as they were constitutional, which they might deem necessary to deal with those who challenge the authority of the people's Government by force of arms, and I am quite sure that every Deputy is prepared to give every possible support to the Government to see that armed robbery, which has recently been such a menace to the citizens of the State, shall be put down, and put down in the strongest possible manner. I realise that while this armed robbery goes on it makes it very difficult indeed for the State to come forward and ask the people to lend them money, so that it may carry on the ordinary work and machinery of Government. In my opinion, the extent to which it was going on until recently helped to reduce the credit of the State and to bring down its borrowing powers when it is necessary, as at present, for the State to look to the people for the money required to carry on.
We have had a very interesting debate on that aspect of the Address dealing with the question of high prices, high profits, and high wages, and, mark you, the Governor-General says: "High prices, high profits, and high wages can no longer be sustained by a country whose economic life has agriculture as its base and foundation." I deny that high prices, high profits, and high wages exist in the country's main industry, agriculture, and so far as that aspect of the Address is concerned, it does not exactly picture the situation as we find it today. So far as I can gather, representing, as I do, an area that depends to a large extent upon the prices which it receives for its agricultural produce, profits to the producer have gone down in many cases below pre-war figures, but notwithstanding that there is no reduction whatsoever to the consumer. I was deeply interested in the speeches of the merchants, made from the Government benches, speeches largely, perhaps wholly, directed to the question of high wages, without making any attempt whatever to justify the profiteering going on in the community in which they themselves were associated. So far as I can see the producer, on the one hand, and the consumer on the other, are being fleeced, and it is quite possible that if the producers were better organised and the consumers were organised through the co-operative movement they would eliminate that very dangerous section, the profiteering section, which, in my opinion, is the principal cause of the industrial upheavals in recent months. The Government set up a Commission on Prices that sat for a considerable period. Deputies have been furnished with the Report and Recommendations of that Commission, but up to the present we have had no indication from the Government, except this very vague thing from the Governor-General, as to what the Government intends to do to deal with the question of profiteering. It may appear strange to say so, but we have to face the facts, and so far as Dublin is concerned, in my opinion the greater part of the trouble is due to the high prices of beer and stout. Deputies may laugh and may appear to think that is not correct, but beer and porter or stout is looked upon, and is, in fact, a food to a certain class of worker, and while the prices stand at their present high level, I think that the Government is not justified in failing to deal with the question. I have figures to show the profiteering going on in that particular trade. At the present price the gross profit on the sale of one barrel—32 gallons—of draught porter is £3 5s. 0d., draught stout, £5 3s. 0d.; bottled stout consumed on the premises, £9 6s. 7d.; bottled stout consumed off the premises, £5 10s. 5d. The nett profit on the sale of one barrel of each of the above per week would show, in fifty-two weeks, a gross profit of £1,189 10s. 0d. If five barrels of each per week were sold the total profit for the year would be £5,947 10s. The corresponding figures for 1914 were: profit on one barrel a week of draught porter for fifty-two weeks, £277 11s. 0d., as against £1,189 10s. 0d., and the profit on five barrels of each per week for fifty-two weeks was £1,387 15s. 0d., as against £5,947 10s. 0d. I would like to hear from some Minister what has been done or what they intend to do to deal with the question of profiteering in the licensed trade. If they deny that it exists, then we know where we stand. But if they admit it exists to the extent of the figures I have given, I would be glad to hear what they intend to do.
In the wages disputes during the last six or twelve months the Government have thrown the weight of their influence and support on the side of the employers to bring down what they said were the high wages, while at the same time they have made no attempt to deal with the profiteering. Deputy Egan referred to what he called the standard of luxury, and indicated that the large increase in the number of picture houses in Dublin, compared with the time when he was a boy, was due to the high wages which the workers are spending in the very foolish manner of patronising picture houses. He did not exactly say that he would rather see the workers remain at home, after a hard day's work, in the slums in rooms for which they paid 10/- or 12/- a week, or go into the nearest public-house and pay the high prices I have indicated for porter. I do not happen to be a patron of picture houses myself, but it would be very interesting to know from Deputy Egan what liberty or what pleasure he will allow the ordinary worker who has worked hard for eight hours on the Dublin quays, or at some other business. He referred also, and naturally we have had a good many references of the same kind, to the domestic differences supposed to exist in the ranks of the Labour movement, and indicated pretty clearly that the industrial disputes were created by these alleged differences. It would be rather an unusual experience, not alone in the family circle, but in the wider sections of the community, among labourers, manufacturers or employers, to find that everybody, in the days in which we are living, were united. It is quite true that certain individuals who took very little part in the building up of the Labour movement, and have recently issued a challenge—a challenge which to me, and I am only speaking as an individual, meant the setting up of a dictatorship within the Labour movement. As a Labour Party, recognising that the governing principle and the foundation of our movement is that the rule of the majority should prevail, it was up to those of us who stood by the principle of majority rule to stand up to the challenge, and if workers or people associated with the Labour movement, and they are very few, thought fit to support such a claim as that, a claim that definitely meant the setting up of a dictatorship, and if the country suffered as a result of the struggle that went on, not in the Labour Party, but in one particular union, then I think that whatever has been done to defeat that challenge was in the interests of the country and, no doubt, also in the interest of the Labour movement.
There seems to be an impression in the minds of many speakers, particularly those from the Farmers' and Government benches, from the employers' side, that the only people who pay taxes in this country are the farmers and merchants. It is quite clear that so far as the taxes of the merchant are concerned they are in all cases passed on to the consumer, so that that aspect of the case does not impress one who finds himself in the position of the ordinary consumer. There was a very lengthy discussion on the question of finance and high salaries, and the Minister for Agriculture, in dealing with the question of high salaries in the Government service, said: "The Dáil is entitled to know that the salaries we pay are what we can afford to pay." Looking through the Estimates, which we scanned very closely in the early part of the year, and which we dealt with at considerable length, one finds it hard to understand why there should be any necessity for three individuals in the Governor-General's establishment drawing £2,800 per annum, and salaries of £1,100, £1,000 and £700, while at the same time the Minister for Agriculture comes along and says there must be a cut in the teachers' salaries, which are not a quarter of what these individuals' salaries are. In fact, the item of £2,800 for A.D.C.'s to the Governor-General represents, roughly, the average salary of ten teachers, or the payment at the maximum figure of 107 old age pensioners. I would be very much interested to see on what grounds the Minister for Agriculture would justify that item, and there are others like it in the Estimates which we passed some time ago. The Minister for Agriculture also indicated that the cost of living could be reduced only by some superhuman effort on the part of Deputy Johnson. He did not tell us how he thought Deputy Johnson could do that, but there are ways which I would suggest to the Minister for Agriculture by which he himself could help to bring down the cost of living. We are well aware that the high internal transport rates are placing a very unfair burden on the charge of the commodity to the home consumer, and on the other hand, that the low rates from British towns, either inland or sea borne to the Irish port gives a decided preference by their low rates, the British articles being dumped into the home market as against our produce. I would like to give one or two figures to bring it home as clearly as I can to the minds of the Deputies how it works out in practice. Some time ago I was speaking to a constituent of mine who is a very large egg exporter, and he told me that he was gradually losing his trade in the British market on account of the very high internal freight charges. I made inquiries, and looked up some of the rate books to see how the position affected him. I took the cost of eggs from Port Laoghaise to Dublin, a distance of 57 miles, and found it was 9d. per ton per mile; the rate for eggs from Port Laoghaise to London, 385 miles, works out at 3?d. per mile. The rate from Dublin to London, 334 miles, is 2¾d. per ton per mile, showing that the home consumer is having an unfair burden placed on him by the high internal rates prevailing as against the charges from Dublin to the British markets. The rate for butter from Ballybrophy to Dublin, 72 miles, is 7d. per ton per mile. From Dublin to London, 2?d. per ton per mile, and from Ballybrophy to London, 400 miles, the rate is 3d. per ton per mile. Bacon from Roserea to Dublin, 83 miles, is 6½d. per ton per mile, and from Dublin to London it is 2?d., and from Roserea to London it is 2¾d.
Within the Ministry for Agriculture there is a department which used to function previous to the setting up of the Treaty, whereby people who were affected by these very high rates on agricultural produce could seek assistance, and bring their grievances before the Railway Rates Tribunal. To that extent public funds were at the disposal of people who suffered in this way, and in many cases they succeeded in having the high rates on agricultural produce reduced. Deputy Gorey would say, no doubt, that the high internal rates are due to the higher wages of the railway workers in Ireland. I will tell Deputy Gorey in advance that if he can produce evidence in support of that I will be agreeably surprised. The general conditions of railway men in Ireland and England are the same, with the exception that railway men in Ireland are paid a lower rate for Sunday and overtime work, and 2,000 Irish railway men, who work the very small companies, work 10 per cent. below the average rate for other railway men in Ireland and England. It is not a question of the higher rate of wages, in this case, and it must be a question of bad organisation in Irish railways. It is for the Minister for Agriculture, and those behind him, to justify that system, or to say in what way they intend to have it remedied. I have quoted rates, from my own constitutency, for agricultural produce, and it is a constituency that was a large exporting area so far as these commodities are concerned. The rates quoted may appear high, but as many people know, for the last two years the railway goods service was very bad; so far as export is concerned, and in many instances these commodities had to be forwarded by passenger train, where the rates are 100 per cent. higher than those I have quoted. A significant thing in connection with this question of high internal railway rates is that the Northern companies, and companies serving the border in or around the Six Counties area, have reduced their rates to a considerable extent. Some time ago a Commission dealing with this question went very closely into the existing railway rates, and an official of the Department of Agriculture in his evidence said that the railway companies, such as the Great Northern, the Midland (Northern Counties), the Belfast and County Down, Dundalk, Newry and Greenore, the Derry and Lough Swilly, the Sligo and Leitrim and Northern Counties, the Cavan and Leitrim, the Clogher Valley, Castlederg and Victoria Bridge, etc., having a total road distance 1,303 miles, of which 530 miles are in Saorstát Eireann—I merely draw attention to this aspect of the railway rates, so that the Northern companies, which it cannot be said are in a different position to those in the Southern area, have reduced their rates from 150 per cent., pre war, to 100 per cent., as well as abolishing many of the flat rates.
The result of that is that the people in Mayo, Sligo, Cavan and Leitrim who forward traffic are getting a natural inducement to send their traffic through Belfast port. That is probably one of the reasons why the railway companies in the Six County area have agreed to this reduction. The official attached to the Department of Agriculture was asked whether any representations were made to the Southern railway companies to bring about similar reductions. He stated representations had been made, and that the companies declined to agree to any of the reductions that were given by the Northern companies. The financial position of the Southern railways was pleaded as the reason why they could not adopt these reductions. The official further stated: "At the present time none can challenge the reasonableness"—and this is a very important matter for the Minister to explain—"of the rates originally imposed by the Minister of Transport on the 1st September, 1920. Under the Act it was laid down that any increases directed by him were to be deemed to be reasonable. The present position is that until there is some repeal of the provisions of that Act, as far as Irish produce is concerned, these high rates of Sept., 1920, obtain, except in so far as the companies may voluntarily modify them as the Northern group did, but none can compel them to reduce them." That is the evidence of an official associated with the Minister for Agriculture, given at a recent Commission in connection with railway transport rates. The Minister taunted Deputy Johnson with having in a speech which he said lasted over an hour — and which got only three inches in the Press——
