Vol. 6 No. 15
(resumed):
"That the Dáil is of opinion that the Government in considering the fiscal problem should have regard not merely to the admittedly restricted view of the matter taken by the Fiscal Inquiry Committee as indicated in their final Report, but should examine the problem in the broadest possible aspect—due regard being taken of all the factors affecting the general well-being of the Saorstát."
I take it that the only purpose why this discussion has been resumed is to enable me formally to terminate it. I think the motion that initiated this discussion has fully served the purpose I had in view. Deputy Johnson regretted, in his opening remarks, that these terms did not call for a declaration of Government policy. Now as a matter of fact I think it did secure that to a certain limited extent, but that was not exactly what my intention was. I do not think there is any Deputy so foolish as to imagine that my purpose was to get the perfectly harmless and innocuous motion which I tabled adopted by the Dáil. I think that would have been rather a futile achievement. But what I did wish to obtain was a full, frank and non-party discussion on the question of fiscal policy in the Saorstát, before the Government mind had set into rigid mould in regard to it. That, I think, was essential if the fiscal system and economic life of the State is to proceed on enlightened and intelligent lines of development.
Certain Deputies have taken exception to the tone of my allusion to the members of the Fiscal Committee. I think, though, that such Deputies fail to appreciate what I desired in that respect. Sir, I came to bury Caesar, not to praise him. I have dealt with no member of that Committee in any personal sense, and I decline to accept the invitation that Deputy Cooper issued to me to do so. I have taken them as a body constituted to advise the Government and the people upon the best means of promoting the economic well-being of this State, and it is no answer to my analysis and exposure of the fallacies of the Report to tell me that its authors are men of notable academic distinctions. In the absence of any rebutting arguments to the charges I have made, these distinctions add only to the seriousness of my indictment. I have seen a suggestion in a certain quarter that these gentlemen should be retained in the service of the Government to formulate a definite fiscal policy, and it would not surprise me in the slightest if from the same source it was mooted that the members of the Committee, or some of them, should sit as a permanent tribunal to determine Government policy in regard to the partial Protection foreshadowed by the statement of the Minister for Industry and Commerce.
If such a statement was made seriously here I would feel it my duty to oppose it as strongly, as strenuously, as I could, and I hope I would have the majority of the Deputies with me in such an attitude. If I am asked for proof, or evidence, to justify such an attitude I should refer to the Report as ample evidence of the incapacity of its authors so to act. However, I trust to the commonsense of the Government to avert such a contingency. I listened very carefully to what I might call the counsel for the defence, and in not a single speech directed towards that end did any Deputy rise to the height of confuting, or even challenging, my main contention, namely, that the Report was inadequate, incomplete in its survey, inaccurate in its premises, and misleading in its conclusions. Not a single Deputy who differed from me on this matter has ventured to attempt to indicate where I erred in any one of these assertions. I think they were very wise, indeed, to refrain from essaying such an impossible task. What was the nature of the arguments of those who endeavoured to defend this Report? I think it is obvious to every person who listened carefully to them that they were feeble, irrelevant, and unconvincing. I listened carefully to such speeches as were delivered when I was present. I read in the Official Report the others that were made by those who criticised my analysis of the Report and, with one exception, there was hardly one of those speeches which was not at least a qualified admission of the wisdom of Protection under certain eventualities. That exception was my friend, Deputy MacBride, who, though he lustily belaboured Protection, gave us no case for Free Trade, and made no attempt to show that the countries that had pursued a Protectionist policy had not benefited by that policy. Deputy MacBride, in the course of his remarks, said: "Was it Protection that made Germany prosperous? It was no such thing. It was the despised professors who made Germany prosperous." If Deputy MacBride would look up his history of pre-war Germany again, and trace the source of its sudden commercial and industrial uprise, he would find that it could all be attributed to the adoption of the economic teaching of Frederich List, whom no one could accuse of being a Free Trader. It is quite true that the patriotic research of certain German professors added materially to that prosperity, but they were professors who followed List, and not Cobden, and certainly none of them told the German people that the principles of Free Trade would act like drops of petrol on German brains, and clean out the greasy blots on these brains—that is if there are any German brains. That kind of stupid insult is reserved for the Irish people, to be served out to them by, of all men of the world, the person who is paid by the Irish people to teach national economics in the National University. I am sure that it is no wonder, if such are the national economics taught in the National University, that five professors brought in such a verdict.
Take the other Deputies who spoke. Deputy Egan wound up by saying he had an open mind on the question. Deputy Cooper was not a doctrinaire Free Trader. Deputy Heffernan was only a conditional Free Trader. The Minister for Agriculture said: "I am not saying for a moment that it may not be possible even now, at this stage of our affairs, to select a system of protective tariffs which will help to develop certain industries in the country, without seriously affecting the position of the farmer, or affecting the position of the farmer to any extent. I think it can be done, and I hope it will be done." The Minister for Industry and Commerce said: "Moreover, I think it is recognised that it may be possible to devise a limited system of protective duties which will not injuriously affect overhead charges of our main industry, agriculture, and which can be modified, and, perhaps, extended, according as measures for the relief and development of the industry begin to show substantial results." I was interested to note that the Minister for Industry and Commerce had become a convert, or a disciple, of Mr. Baldwin, because I noticed, in the course of his statement, he quoted from the declaration of the ex-British Premier, that the question of Protection is more one of expediency than of principle.
Is it to suffer the same fate?
Well, the circumstances are somewhat different. I am supporting the Minister for Industry and Commerce in his declaration, and I did not support Mr. Baldwin. When the Minister had finished his statement, I felt inclined to say: "We are all protectionists now." As a matter of fact, the fall of the walls of Jericho does not seem to me to be such an amazing thing after witnessing the collapse of the doctrinaire Cobdenism. The report of the Committee is the first serious challenge. But yesterday it might have stood against the world, and now none so poor as to do it reverence. There are two very significant things which I think have been amply established by this discussion. One is that few, if any, Deputies accept the Report as an authentic guide in the framing of a tariff policy for the Saorstát, and the second is, that those Deputies who endeavoured to defend the Report, and rebut my charges against it, have, even to a limited extent, signally failed to make good their case, and, therefore, my task in reply to the few comments made, has been rendered comparatively easy. The speeches, or the supposed criticisms of my statement by Deputies who do not see eye to eye with me, were, in the main, really criticisms of statements I did not make, and of views which I did not advance.
Here and there in the Report there were occasional statements made in flat opposition to those by myself. For example, Deputy Bryan Cooper stated that in his experience the cost of living in the protectionist countries of Western Europe is higher than in Free Trade Britain. Fortunately that is a point upon which a good many Deputies, probably, have had personal experience, and can judge how far he is accurate. I do not know, but it may be that when the Deputy travelled in Europe like one of "The Innocents Abroad" he fell into the hands of Continental profiteers, or it may be that this higher cost of which he complains is due to an alteration in the standard of his tastes and requirements when he travels in Europe. At any rate, I know that my experience has been entirely the opposite to his. When he states that in one city on the Continent he bought a hat and paid 8s. or 10s. more for it than he would pay in this country, I can only reply that he has been either unfortunate or extravagant, because in another Continental city I bought a pair of shoes for 10s. or 15s. less than I would pay here.
Irish manufacture.
Someone said Irish manufacture. It so happened that when I was in this particular City I had a new pair of Irish shoes, and they were pinching my feet, and I thought I would test Deputy Cooper's theory on the relative prices. I may have been lucky, and Deputy Cooper may have been unlucky, but these are not the tests to apply to an analysis or examination of this question. The test to apply is the standard of cost of living of people ordinarily resident in these countries as citizens. The Fiscal Committee stated that a protective duty acts as a hindrance to the development of an export trade. We know that the protectionist countries of France, Belgium, Germany, and the United States are with increasing success capturing the markets from Free Trade England. I think it is universally recognised that that successful competition is attributable largely, if not entirely, to the benefits or advantages conferred on the manufacturers of these countries by the lower cost of living. Quite recently the Bradford Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution calling for protection of the home woollen market against French competition, and I think the picture of the centre of the most highly organised woollen manufacturers in the world calling for help in that way points a moral that it is well for all interested in this matter to take notice of, and that is the kind of handicap that the protection of the home market imposes on the French woollen manufactures. Deputy Cooper complained that I had not furnished him with sufficient stop press news about tariffs. I made no pretence of exhausting the subject, though I think I dealt with it fairly fully, and I quoted instances from the experiences of other countries ranging from the present time back to the early forties of the last century, all pointing to the fact that a protective duty does not, and never did, increase the general prices.
Deputy Cooper fastened upon the earliest of these examples I gave, and endeavoured to discredit my argument with the contention that it was out of date. He ignored all the rest, and then complained that I had not given him stop press news. I have no doubt that if I had confined myself to examples from recent times that the Deputy would have declaimed in an equally impressive way that I was basing the conclusions on the existing abnormal times, and that, therefore, such conclusions were unreliable. That kind of tactics would be pardonable in a schoolboys' debating society for the purpose of scoring a small point, but one looks for a more serious treatment of this matter from a Deputy in an assembly that is charged with the well-being of the nation. I hope if Deputy Cooper should again intervene in a discussion such as this that he will discard the transparent device of the Free Trade special pleader which looms so largely in the Report. I am glad to see that there is still a Cassabianca among the Farmers' Party. I was sorry, and it was tragic, I think, to witness the pitiful show that the Farmers' Party made in this discussion. I would, however, make an exception in the case of President Wilson—I mean Deputy Wilson, and I am sure even the Deputy himself, if he were here, would not resent a little accidental prophecy.
Although Deputy Wilson made no pretence of understanding the subject, he did, in his very brief contribution to the discussion, display a commonsense readiness to learn facts and be guided by them. But the other Deputies—Deputies Heffernan, Gorey and Baxter—certainly did not give me the impression that they had even the most superficial knowledge of economics of any kind. Deputy Gorey, that distressed agriculturist who goes to one of the highest-priced tailors in town to buy his clothes, said: "Those who are readiest to criticise agriculture are those who know least about it." Then he and his colleagues proceeded to criticise Irish manufacturers and to lecture them on how to run their business. I think it may be taken for granted that the Irish manufacturer knows at least as much about his industrial concerns as Deputy Gorey or Deputy Baxter knows about agriculture.
Deputy Heffernan simply took as the text of his speech the Report itself and proceeded to re-state those contentions which I had already disposed of. My answer to his speech is the statement I made in moving this Motion, a copy of which I hope to furnish the Deputy with at an early date. I hope he will read, mark, learn and inwardly digest its contents. If there was anything wanting to show the weakness of his argument it was supplied in his own words. He said: "My facts may be wrong, but these are the facts which I have been told." In another place he says: "It is rather difficult to prove statements of this kind." Then, after quoting Harold Cox, he says:
"This is a quotation not from a German professor who lived eighty years ago, but from an English economist living at the present time, who should be thoroughly conversant with economic affairs, and his words are not meant to apply to the Irish question at all, and have no reference to it."
I think that Deputy Heffernan would be well advised, the next time he intervenes in any discussion of this kind, to equip himself with more reliable authorities. He suggested in his speech that the Committee was restricted by the terms of its instructions from exploring fully into the question of tariffs. I disagree with that suggestion altogether. My complaint against the Report consists very largely in the fact that whilst the Committee inquired very fully into matters entirely irrelevant to such an issue, they have completely ignored certain considerations and facts which are fundamentally important and essential to such an inquiry. I did not see anything in the Terms of Reference requiring these five professors to apply the telescope to the blind eye in one case and to the good eye in the other.
As I have said, there was very little in the speeches of the Deputies who opposed me that I need dissent from very strongly. I agree that this subject is a very wide and many-sided one, and that, apart from its inherent importance, it requires the most careful study and thought in order to cope with its many complexities. But I fear that there was a tendency, probably unconscious, amongst those who are sceptical as to the advantage of a tariff, or its effects on a particular industry, to misrepresent the facts which I have advanced, because they conflict with the views that they have imbibed or inherited, rather than arrived at by a process of reason. I would say to them that this subject is wide enough and complex enough, and the relevant facts are numerous enough, to allow of honest argument and honest divergence of opinion, without the necessity to misrepresent each other.
For instance, most of those Deputies to whom I am alluding, join issue with me for having introduced the example and experience of the United States in developing my argument. As a matter of fact, I introduced the name of that country only once or twice, and then in association with the names of other countries, for the purpose of illustrating certain specific points which I was making. I have never suggested, and I do not suggest now, that the example and experience of any one country afford conclusive proof one way or the other. But that example and that experience are helpful. The example and experience of a number of countries, spread over a long period of time, are so helpful and so good that to ignore them in this connection would, I think, be an act of the most egregious folly. I find myself at variance with one or two points made by the Minister for Agriculture. I am sorry he is not here. In the course of his statement he said:—
"My statement is that the immediate effect of a comprehensive system of Protection would lead to an increase in prices. I wonder does Deputy Milroy deny that? He interrupted me a good many times, but he did not deny that. Of course it is axiomatic."
I would have thought that the Minister would have realised that it was the severity of his rebuke that subdued me into reluctant silence. It is quite true I did not interrupt him with a denial at that moment, but I shall repair that omission now. I do deny his contention most emphatically. This phrase, "Protection will increase prices," has been championed by speaker after speaker, without a single attempt at proof, until it has become almost as familiar to our ears as that rather mournful watchword of the Minister for Finance, "I must balance my Budget." It has even found an echo outside. I read that at a certain gathering the other day, when they were discussing this question, another gentleman, also a professor, delivered himself of this:
"It was his opinion that Protection would make the country poorer. The country was not going to get rich by making people poor."
He has taken one sentence of his own as an authority for making a subsequent declaration. In my statement I cited several incontestable instances to show that the effect of protection in such contingencies has been to lower rather than to increase prices. And what am I met with as a reply? There is no analogy. I suppose all these countries are thanking God that there is no analogy between themselves and Ireland. We have had from Deputies and Ministers declarations and conjectures and the prophetic predictions of the wise young Minister for Agriculture. You cannot argue with a prophet, now matter how young he is. You can only contradict him.
The Minister says his contention is axiomatic. If he had said it was rheumatic he would be much more accurate in his definition. He says, "There is no issue in reality as between Protection and Free Trade to be considered, but merely whether we can impose a tariff on any article of import or protect any existing industries or protect the birth of any possible potential industry in the country." I hope he is right, and that the issue is in reality going to be narrowed down. I have made it perfectly clear in my statement that I favoured Protection only in the special economic circumstances of our own country, and for its own particular industries. If I were a Britisher my position on this question would not, probably, be very much different. I might, quite possibly, be expressing the views that Deputy Cooper so ardently voiced here some time ago. I did not advocate protection without discrimination. Here are my grounds for dissenting from the statement of the Minister for Agriculture. Close on 40 Irish manufacturing industries gave evidence before the Fiscal Committee in support of protective tariffs, and each one of these, with one trifling exception, were prejudiced or damnified by the Report, not upon the merits of each case, but upon general principles. The Committee went so far as to say, that so far as economic considerations entered into the question of protection of these industries they entered objections. In other words the whole forces of the free trade economists were mobilised and drawn up in battle array to deny these industries the right which is accorded to small industries by practically all countries outside the one we are living in, and the one that Deputy Good referred to as the "Sister Isle." I think he should have called it the step-sister isle.
resumed the Chair at this stage.
I have been charged, or at least complaints have been made by Deputies, Ministers, and the Press that I did not give sufficient details. To Ministers and Deputies I would say: "Go to the files of evidence given before the Fiscal Committee, and you will get sufficient evidence." To those editors of the newspapers I would say: "Examine the advertising columns of your own journals, and in the advertisements of foreign wares you will find details, illuminating and conclusive." In the face of the evidence given, and the manner of its treatment by the Committee, what is the use of suggesting that the only issue to be discussed is the one advanced by the Minister for Agriculture? I am very glad, however, if he speaks authoritatively for the Government, that the issue is going to be narrowed down to this small compass. I am also quite satisfied that the issue will be dealt with much more satisfactorily, and much more profitably, now that the Free Trade battle front has been broken and its generals, or shall I say, its retainers or camp followers routed.
The Minister made another statement which seemed to me to impress the Dáil, or many Deputies, considerably, especially Deputy O'Sullivan, which rather surprised me, as I understand he is a Professor of Economics, and I thought he might know something about the subject. The Minister stated in the most emphatic, deliberate and impressive way that 80 per cent. of the total wealth of the country is derived from agriculture. I am not challenging that figure. I ask, does the Minister ever reflect that that might possibly be a symptom of weakness and decay, rather than one of economic strength? Supposing we had no manufacturing industries at all, and supposing the present system went on until industry was so depressed that it had vanished from the State, the Minister's percentage would go up to 100 per cent., even though agriculture went down to almost zero. I am really surprised that such plausible and fallacious arguments should be put forward seriously, if the Minister really understood the implications of such an argument. I tried to prove in my statement that Protection was more necessary for small farmers than for any other section of the community. Not a single Deputy made the slightest attempt to controvert that statement. Probably no Deputy was in a position to do so. I deny altogether that Protection—I mean an intelligent, discriminating Protection—will inflict any hardship on the farming community. On the contrary, it will create employment in industrial pursuits for the surplus rural population. It will lead to a cessation of the dole, which at the present time is paid in the main out of the farmers' pocket. It will help to create a more diversified home market for agricultural produce, and, therefore, lead to the development of agriculture on healthy lines. The Minister made one final desperate effort to put up some sort of case. He was driven to his wits' end to discover something that may be described as a healthy tendency in agriculture at the present time. He suggested, or implied, that we are developing our dairy industry. The fact of the matter is that we have far fewer milch cows now than we had 60 years ago, and double the number of cattle of other kinds, which is quite the reverse, especially in regard to the matter of milch cows, in every other country in Europe.
That certainly is not to me an indication of the development of that industry. I am perfectly at one with the Minister in his desire in regard to the necessity of ameliorating the lot of the farmer. I cannot accept the idea that there is any antagonism between the farmer and the manufacturer. On the contrary, I think they have much in common. As Arthur Griffith once expressed it, one is necessary to the other, and an injury to one means a hurt to the other. I am one of that small, but tactful, minority that issues no messages of goodwill to the Irish people at the beginning of the new year. But you will note that there were others here not so considerate of the people's feelings. There were several ministerial messages sent out. There was one which struck me more than others. I forget the Minister who was actually responsible for it. It had something to say about hard work, and I conclude, therefore, that it was issued by the Minister for Foreign Affairs. My additional reason for arriving at that conclusion is that if this Fiscal Report is to be taken as a clue to the means by which to provide work in this country, then, in a short time our homes, our shops, and our warehouses will be stocked exclusively with foreign affairs. Hard work and efficiency, we were told, is the only way to build up the nation. Hard work is a very fine thing. I have had a very close acquaintance with it in my life. It is a good thing, once you can get it and then get paid for it. I wonder do the people who issue these admonitions realise that there are many thousands of people in this country to-day who are asking what are they going to work at, what are they to become efficient in? Are they to work hard at drawing the dole? I believe there is even a statutory limitation to the amount of energy that can be expended in that occupation. Are they to become efficient in standing at street corners, watching the lorries bringing in foreign goods, the importation of which has been in a great many cases the cause of their unemployment? Are they to become efficient in listening to their children crying for the bread they cannot provide, or are they to become efficient in dying like rats in a trap, or are they to become efficient in filling paupers' graves? If there is any virtue in, or any sincerity behind, these messages that were issued at the new year, calling upon the people to work hard and to become efficient, if it is not a mere ghastly joke at the expense of those unfortunate people who are impotent to save themselves from social wreckage or expatriation, the Government will devise their policy and their administration so that those to whom these admonitions are addressed can give effect to them.
I think this debate has served a useful national purpose. I think the issue involved in it can yet secure something of even greater national value. We are emerging now from a period of clashing hatreds, and though those hatreds have been forced into a sort of quietude, they have not yet been finally extinguished. I think that some cause or some issue that would raise the minds of all sections above, and away from, those violent convulsions and those bitter antagonisms that swept the country during the past couple of years, would bring a blessing of infinite magnitude to this nation. I believe this issue we have been discussing can do that. The discussion on it will arouse not destructive passions but serious thought, and examination of what are the real factors that enter into a genuine conception of freedom. If that term is to be something more than a mere political shibboleth, it must be a synonym of national health and advancement. Political institutions which are not based upon and expressive of economic freedom are simply instruments of servitude. I believe we won a great battle in the Treaty of 1921. We won fiscal powers, the use of which I am advocating to-day. England's attempt at the economic conquest of this country was thereby bottled. Let us make sure, by using our fiscal powers to the full, that the bullocks of the grazier, which figure so largely in the calculations of my critics in this debate, shall not yet become the means by which that conquest will eventually be consummated. There are many other things I might say, but the time draws to a close. I wish, before I sit down, to say—seeing that the Minister for Finance is present—that I believe I will have in him a staunch ally in what I am urging, and an ally who will advocate the achievement of the cause I have indicated on the lines I have indicated. I say this because I find in the "Free State" paper of May 27th, 1922, an article by him in which the following occurs:—
"The plan adopted of excluding certain classes of British goods last year, though only carried out to a small extent, did demonstrate in its operation how quickly Irish industrial enterprise would respond to the stimulus of Protection. Enough, indeed, was done to convince all who examined the results that the erection of an Irish tariff wall—even one of the most moderate dimensions— would immediately be followed by extraordinary industrial expansion."
I wish to finish by congratulating the Minister for Industry and Commerce on embodying in his statement the acceptance of the principle of Protection. It was a small, a cautious, perhaps even a timorous beginning, but it was a beginning on the right road—a road on which the Saorstát policy will yet go very far, according as it is realised that it is the only safe way by which we can now achieve the realisation of all that this country struggled for in the harsh and sorrow-laden days.
I move the adjournment of the Dáil until Wednesday, 3 o'clock.
The Dáil adjourned at 4 p.m. until Wednesday.
