We are jaded members of a jaded House. The conclusion is a foregone conclusion. Deputy Redmond, with prophetic foresight, has already indicated it. The amendment will be withdrawn and victory is ready with her laurels to crown the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I feel that were it not for the encouragement of Deputy Johnson's remarks yesterday evening to intervene now would be indefensible, as merely delaying the final stage. But Deputy Johnson said that there had been so much propaganda against this scheme that it is highly desirable that something by way of propaganda in its favour should be inaugurated, and the great value of this debate, as has already been said by our colleague here, is that it has begun that great work.
Yesterday evening I was seething with excitement, dreading the hour of ordeal when it should be my turn to speak, and in the tension of that hour of strain I made a verbatim note of all the speeches that were delivered. Do not be alarmed, sir, I do not propose to read them all. On studying to-day the speech of the proposer of the amendment to the resolution, I became convinced that sufficient justice had not been done to him. There is a story told of a man of letters, that he claimed he had written the best comedies that had ever been conceived, and when it was pointed out to him as rather an extraordinary thing that they had not been acted, he retorted that that was the very proof of their success; they were so exceedingly witty and humorous that the actors themselves could not restrain their laughter, so that it was impossible to have them played. Deputy Connor Hogan's speech had so much of humour, so much of subtle charm, that we attended rather to the language he employed than to the ideas that the language expressed. Consequently the full weight of his speech was not felt. It was not a speech in support of the amendment as formulated, but a speech which summarised practically all the points that had been made, whether in newspaper articles or in letters to the editors, for quite a long time past. I would like the Deputy to believe me that I do not accuse him of plagiarising these; on the contrary, I believe that those letters indicate a frame of mind and a line of thought that are natural to those for whom the Deputy has been able to speak here.
He has put his case more dexterously than they. He asks us to be wise in time, to display caution, not to go too fast. I was tempted to translate the Latin equivalent of his caution, Festina Lente, as an encouragement to the Minister, if-differently interpreted, “Make haste in Lent.” With caution incarnate Deputy Hogan warned the Minister and the Executive Council to go slowly. That is not exactly how the newspaper articles put it. They say that there is a decided intention on the part of the Government to stampede the country. I have an article here from a very weighty organ of very weighty opinions, in every sense of the word. “The Government is suspected, not unjustly, of an effort to rush the Siemens-Schuckert scheme over the nation's head. We shall oppose any such tactics of hustle.” Deputy Hogan and the party of which he is the spokesman have opposed these alleged tactics of hustle. What does the amendment propose? “That the proposals should be further examined by other experts of international reputation.” It was said of a very distinguished Irishman that his mind was like a clock—the works functioned only when the pendulum wagged. Deputy Hogan has the habit, the possession of which I envy him, of thinking while he talks and because he is talking. The rest of us are unfortunately subject to the limitation of having to think first and talk afterwards. Deputy Hogan modified his proposal into, “We accept a Commission of the Oireachtas.” He is afraid, incidentally, that without such further inquiry we shall have, as he said, a white elephant on our hands. It is to save the nation from that awkward predicament that a further inquiry has to be instituted. That is not unlike one of the processes of the British law courts which suffers a man indicted for murder to be tried three times in a case where there has been a disagreement of the jury, but, suppose the disagreement was on the first trial and the second jury agreed to find him guilty, the matter is at an end and there is no further prosecution. Similarly, I dare say, if the Farmers' Party could get a committee not necessarily of experts, to decide unfavourably on these proposals, then the matter would be declared ended and the nation would be exhorted not to go on with this tomfoolery. Yet the Deputy who recommended this further inquiry realises that, in effect, there should be no end to it.
Deputy O'Sullivan has pointed out very clearly what was the precise relation of those experts employed by the Government. The experts, or rather, the inexperts, whom the Farmers' Party would recommend, whom, on second thoughts, the Deputy recommends— what have they to inquire into? To what end is this cross-examination that the Farmers' Party desires? The problem is a three-fold one. As pointed out in the report, it is first of all, technically a problem for engineers; secondly, it is an economic problem. It is essentially an economic problem, but what the experts have not pointed out, it is likewise a problem of public policy, and that is a matter that concerns us quite as much as the economic aspect of it. Is the Government trying to rush the country, to stampede the country into a policy that is wrong? With your permission I will read a little further from the article. "Finally Parliament must not overlook the effect of its decision on the great neighbour who buys 95 per cent. of the Free State exports. It is true that English shipping companies have given contracts to German yards, but only after they failed to get equal terms at home. Now, the Free State Government propose to give a monopoly to Germany at the expense of the Irish farmers' essential customer. Will this be good business? The Oireachtas will be lacking in its duty to the people if it refuses to probe all the momentous issues which are involved in the Government plan." The casual reader might be foolish enough to interpret that as a threat and look on those as menacing words, but, knowing the organ in which it appears, I realise it is merely a warning of the same type as appears in a pamphlet circulated to most, if not all, of the Deputies some time ago with the name of a very distinguished engineer on the cover, Sir John Griffith. The hand is the hand of Esau, but the voice is the voice of Jacob. Now, I am not dealing for the moment with the inaccuracy of the statement that a monopoly is being given to Germany. I am dealing rather with the suggested history. We have had such a lot of these histories in connection with the suggestion of stampede that even at the risk of being more than usually tedious I would like to dwell on them. This is a letter from a well-known Irish engineer, Mr. Arthur E. Porte. It is written as if to illustrate the wisdom of the proverb, "Let the cobbler stick to his last." When an engineer becomes a historian he loses a great deal of his authority. "We are forced," he says, "therefore, to inquire why Dublin is offered current by Siemens at one halfpenny per unit. The answer surely is simple. Siemens arrived in the field too late to propose a monopoly of the Liffey. Other groups had already developed Liffey schemes in great detail and at great expense. No Liffey amendment, with large propagandist possibilities, could be moved. Consequently we are now offered a scheme the financial essence of which is that Dublin—because the Liffey schemes were available to supply it with current at three-farthings a unit, while the rest of the country makes up the loss in paying excessive prices. I challenge any competent person who is familiar with the history and financial details of the Siemens' scheme to gainsay this general conclusion."
I accept that challenge. I happen to know the precise date at which this distinguished Irish graduate in the employment of Messrs. Siemens first approached the President of the Dáil. It was not because that it was too late an hour to make approaches for a Liffey scheme, but it was because that engineer, as patriotic Irishman, had his interests centred upon the economic development of his own country, and, finding himself in the employment of a firm whose operations were world-wide, he set himself to interest his employers in the exploitation of the Shannon water power, and, instead of their going out to give their experience and ability to China, they were, very happily for us, persuaded by him to turn their attention to Ireland. The fact that Messrs. Siemens came to Ireland at all, and were willing to divert their energies from other centres of operation, was due to the case that Dr. McLaughlin was able to make for the possibilities of the Shannon. Now we are asked to believe that Messrs. Siemens and these employed to scrutinise with vigilance every detail of Messrs. Siemens' plan, did this thing hurriedly. Why, if it were only a priori, would not one come to the conclusion that a firm accustomed to the operations of the magnitude that Messrs. Siemens engage in would not undertake a project of the kind in a hurry? Every single record of the height of the Shannon at every period of the year in the last 100 years was carefully studied in Germany. Every ordnance survey map, and the reports of all the Commissions that ever sat under the British regime to investigate water power in Ireland, were carefully studied before they came on the ground to inspect the actual territory. That is not a case of hurry. It is not a case of superficial investigation. Everyone knows, to take a small example, how anyone expert in a particular department can with extreme and almost incredible rapidity form a decision which would occupy the inexperienced man for months, and leave him still in vacillating doubt. That is the difference between acquired dexterity and the ordinary amateur mind.
Now, who are those experts whom we employed? Are they men who are accustomed to slur business, to do things in a half-hearted way, and in incomplete measures? The Government had the advantage of being lent the greatest men in the electrical world in Sweden. Everyone knows, as regards civil engineering applied to water power, that Switzerland stands foremost. There are great men in Germany, and there are great men in America, but Switzerland is the pioneer in this, and was the pioneer in all those almost magical undertakings in the making of roads, the construction of mounbridges, and the construction of mountain railways. Switzerland has the same pre-eminence in those affairs as Ireland has in linen, whiskey, or shipbuilding. We have a careful report of these experts, two of them from Switzerland, who have devoted themselves to the civil engineering elements of the problem, and two others, Swedish and Norwegian, to the aspects of the case in which Ireland more resembled their own country. We have had an extraordinary number of geographical discoveries in the course of this debate.
Deputy Darrell Figgis, who has some distinction as a novelist, for example, has exercised his imagination with regard to the comparison of other countries. I took a note of his speech, and I find that a great deal of it was devoted to unnecessary repudiation of a charge of interestedness financially, but a great deal of what he had to say I had already read in that pamphlet which was published under the name of Sir John Griffith. With regard to the repudiation I thought at the time of the famous epitaph on Craggs, which one may read in Westminster Abbey from the pen of Pope:—
"Statesman, yet friend of truth, of soul sincere;
In action faithful, and in honour clear;
Who broke no promise, served no private end,
Who gained no title, and who lost no friend."
He has pointed out, and some of the members of the Farmers' Party likewise, that you have local centres of electrical production in Switzerland. Anyone who will compare the map of the two countries, not to speak of comparing the countries actually as regards their physical contours, will realise that we have a tremendous advantage over Switzerland, and in fact over those other countries, in the possession of the Shannon. That is a paradoxical remark, no doubt, to make, because it is notorious always that while Ireland has plenty of water she has very little water power, and when I made that remark to two of the chief men of Messrs. Siemens-Schuckert their answer to me was that that was perfectly true until 1920, since when things had altered in the way of capacity for engineering to develop energy, even in the absence of a natural head of water, or fall. It is very interesting in that connection to notice what the experts have said, and I dwell upon it because there is a natural assumption that on account of the flatness of the land energy is not forthcoming from our water sources. Someone said about the Irish rivers that they were like the Irish people, so lazy that they refused to flow out of the country. That, of course, is not true of the Liffey. The remark I wanted to dwell on is at page 4:—
"The exploitation of water power depends on two factors—(1) The relation, in time and quantity, of the flow of water to the demand for energy, and (2) the available fall or head. In the case of the first factor, the conditions in Ireland are very favourable as compared with most continental countries—the greatest flow occurs in winter, when the demand for energy is greatest. Excess winter energy can possibly be used for seasonal industries for which labour employed in summer on the farms should be available. On the other hand, the conditions as regards head of water are unfavourable in this country, being in the main a flat country, and consequently capable of developing only a limited amount of water power."
This is important, I think, in connection with the criticisms of Deputy Figgis. The alternative would be to have a number of local stations as in Switzerland, each a centre of power development, or to have the one central station. Now that brings me immediately by an easy step to the questions who are Messrs. Siemens-Schuckert and why the date 1920? Anyone who will look at an industrial map of Bavaria will see that in comparatively recent years there were various centres of production, some by water power, some by coal and steam. All those have been utilised as transforming stations in connection with one big central energy producer. Messrs. Siemens executed that work. They executed a similar work in Pomeroy. Therefore they are no ordinary contracting firm looking for business and such in their character and operations that no firm can be got to tender against them in profitable competition. There has been a great deal of criticism here this afternoon and yesterday evening. I must not forget my friend, Deputy Gorey, who was so keen about the chastity of his honour and the honour of his country that he felt if he voted for the Minister's resolution that he would have done something for which he would be punished here and hereafter. A great deal was spoken of giving this contract to be tendered for by others in open competition. Let us not forget the history. Generation after generation it had been reported that there was plenty of water and no water power. Even Mr. Challoner Smith, whose excellent data were utilised by Messrs. Siemens, and to whom a great tribute has been paid by them, was quoted, and rightly quoted, by Deputy Figgis yesterday evening as speaking as a result of all his investigation of "the Shannon myth." When our Irish engineers, who according to the measure of their opportunity, are, no doubt, as great as any other land produces, turned their minds in consonance with the movement everywhere to be witnessed of seeking to develop water power into electrical energy, it was to the Liffey they devoted their time and attention. You had at one and the same moment three different competing schemes for the utilisation of the Liffey, and it was generally accepted that the Shannon was no use in comparison. This firm, prompted by an Irish engineer's brain and patriotism, was able to show to the satisfaction of four of the greatest experts in the world in those particular matters that the Shannon power could be exploited advantageously. Then, what are we asked to do? Give their plans, give their brains, give their results to anyone who comes along to tender. That is really what this demand for competition reduces itself to when put into plain language—give a free present, gratis, of all the detailed plans of Messrs. Siemens-Schuckert to any other firm that comes along. Is that national equity? I ask is it good business? I said we had to consider this in its three-fold aspect as an engineering problem, an economic question and public policy. Is this going to be a land that will attract the brains and enterprise and long experience of men in other countries to help us in the development of our natural resources? Is this to be our history that the first time that a marvellous possibility opened itself out to the men who had the genius to perceive it, we utilised all that they could give us, and then in the name of the supposed—it is purely supposition—saving of some pounds in the matter we turned them down.
We have been told that German machinery is inferior. If it is, it is a very extraordinary thing that Great Britain, as the "Daily Mail" articles are continually showing, is sending its orders to Germany. Japan sends its orders to Germany. I suppose that is because the products of the German factories are notoriously inferior. The article that I quoted from, after telling us to think of the effect upon our great neighbour, the farmer's best customer, goes on to say:—
"It is true that English shipping companies have given contracts to German yards, but only after they failed to get equal terms at home."
Surely if that is a defence for English firms giving their orders to German contractors, it is good enough for us. They could not get equal terms at home. Could we have got equal terms at home? If we had waited for terms at home we should have a Liffey scheme and no Shannon scheme.
There is more misrepresentation current. The critics of the Government's position are very much like the star performers of a certain type in English music-halls, described as quick-change artists. The Minister for Industry and Commerce yesterday, in recommending this proposal on the economic side, and in showing that consumption will probably be forthcoming to meet all the requirements of the case, repeated what is dwelt upon in the experts' report at page 56:
"To the experts it appears to be a self-evident matter that the quantity of energy produced on the Shannon scheme, in the first place, must be assumed to find its application in the general electric supply services, i.e., lighting, household and industry."
The Minister laid great stress upon the fact that for the consumption of the energy to be supplied, he was not counting upon any new extensions of industrial enterprises; that he was really building upon domestic consumption. Observe how that can be tortured into something quite other:
"Mr. McGilligan has, both in the Seanad and in the Dáil, emphasised that he is not relying upon the starting of new industries."
That is quite true.
"Therefore, while we may have no new industries in any one of the twenty-six counties, as a result of the proposed electrification, we incur risk to one important existing industry——"
That, I take it, is a reference to the substitution of electric eels for salmon—
and by his admission that no new industries can be reckoned, Mr. McGilligan takes from his scheme the strongest argument that would have commended it to the country—in fact, the one argument that made the Siemens' plan welcome to many when it was first outlined.
Everything that the Minister said is within the recollection of the House. He never declared that no new industries can be reckoned on. He simply said that he was not reckoning on new industries as a factor in his calculations. I was rather surprised to find so accurate and so scholarly a critic as my friend, Deputy Thrift, falling into a mistake similar to that which the journalist whom I have just quoted fell into. Deputy Thrift boasted, in an aside, that he had "got one in for education." I think those were his words. And the "one" that he "got in" was: "It is disappointing to find that the electric current will not be used for the electro-chemical industry." That was due, I dare say, to reading a paragraph at the top of page 56 by itself, instead of reading it as a continuation of something at the bottom of page 55:
For heating purposes, the Siemens-Schuckert scheme assumes a consumption at the partial development of 40 and at the full development of 60 million k.w.h. per year. For electro-chemistry it is suggested that 135 million k.w.h. in the partial development and 188 in the further development might be used. The experts consider a reduction necessary in the estimated consumption of heating current but think that about half the amount mentioned in the project will be used if available at low prices.
This is the remark at the top of the succeeding page:
As for the electro-chemistry, the experts find it doubtful whether the power resources available should really be used for that purpose.
This is criticism on partial development and that is not a declaration that there is no current available. It is an expression of opinion that, under the partial development scheme, it is doubtful whether the power resources available should really be used for that purpose.
In order to form an opinion on this question it is necessary to examine in its whole extent the production capacity of the Shannon scheme, relative to the requirements in the district in which its energy is intended to be sold, i.e., in the entire Irish Free State. To the experts it appears to be a self-evident matter that the quantity of energy produced under the Shannon scheme, in the first place, must be assumed to find its application in the general electric supply services....
There was another respect in which those experts anticipated the verdict of the Farmers' Party. Deputy Hogan and Deputy Baxter were both very emphatic in their statement that the farmers would not utilise electricity. The experts make a somewhat similar statement:—
"The experts are aware that in Ireland it is thought that the rural population would be unwilling to introduce the use of electricity to an extent worth mentioning.... The experts are not inclined to the opinion, however, that this condition, which, no doubt, represents the present situation, will continue to exist for any great length of time."
This is the passage in connection with which Deputy Figgis—I am sorry he is not here—attempted to mislead the House—I say that deliberately—by misreading. I drew his attention at the time he was reading it to the omission of commas:
"In Ireland the amount (of dairying) is four times greater... Where electricity is availed of in the dairies of Norway now"—there is a comma there, introducing the parenthesis—"practically everywhere refrigerators are also used."
I draw attention to that because it is stated in some of those articles and letters to the editors that there is no use in the dairy industry for electrical energy, but that what is wanted there is steam. That is one of the contributions to this subject refuted by the statistics mentioned here in the report that I have quoted. Deputy Connor Hogan finds himself supported by one of these engineers in another particular. This time I do not refer to the experts. The Deputy said that probably very few in the House are able to understand these documents. His words were: "No individual could enter into the stupendous calculations," and he made a plea to have them condensed. I know that when I was a law student and obliged to learn equity, the great difficulty I had was that I could not get hold of a book big enough. Students generally began their study of that complex and intricate subject with a compendium, and the result was that it was a case of getting off by heart without understanding, or going without altogether, and the bigger the book the better the chance was of understanding. However, different people have different tastes. Deputy Connor Hogan does not think that this is of very great value. Here is what an engineer writing to the "Irish Times" says: "Both documents"—that is the Siemens' document and the experts' report—"may be useful for propaganda purposes. They are of small technical value."
"They are of small technical value?" The product of the finest brains and the richest experience in this special department have no technical value. They are useful for propaganda, yet they are unintelligible to so highly intelligent a Deputy as Deputy Connor Hogan, so that the Deputy's colleague, Deputy Heffernan, does not require to go to special committees on Private Bills in order to hear the experts contradict each other. One thing, however, that emerges and is hopeful from all the debate is, that the Farmers' Party are not opposing. Deputy Gorey, Deputy Heffernan, Deputy Baxter and Deputy Connor Hogan have all assured us that the Farmers' Party are not opposing. True, Deputy Baxter's non-opposition was of a somewhat fierce character. He struck me as willing to wound, but yet afraid to strike. Yet the Farmers' Party will hardly adopt Deputy Baxter's criticism in the main, and try to make it appear that this is a measure that was intended for the benefit of cities and towns, and that the credit of the country, which is an agricultural country, will be pledged therefor. I hope I am not doing an injustice to his statement. What is in the minds of all these Deputies is what is in the mind of Deputy Thrift—Can the Government give us an assurance that this is going to turn out profitable?—Deputy Thrift asks can we be absolutely certain that it will be a commercial success. I ask myself, is that the test that is applied by a great nation going to war? Countries have taken the great risk of declaring war without knowing that they were going to win; they had courage in themselves, in their own capacity and their own resources, and they counted upon winning through. This policy of caution that is recommended to us is very good in small commercial enterprises, but as the experts have warned us, this is not to be viewed as merely a commercial enterprise.
The electrification of Ireland must not be regarded as a purely business affair, but as a great national economic question. When the question of financing the national electrification scheme arises, the State will naturally find the greatest measure of economic independence involved therein a factor of vital importance to itself.
The people who used to assure us that we had plenty of water, but no water power, were the people who have coal to sell to us. A few years ago an Irish-Canadian friend of mine wrote me a long memo which he asked me to submit to President de Valera and his Cabinet. It was to the effect that what six millions of British coal was able to do for Ireland, he and his associates in Mexican oil could do for two million pounds' worth of oil. I pointed out to him that if all the industrial resources of Ireland were dependent on power produced by oil arriving in tanks the moment that England engaged in her next great war, these would be paralysed, and therefore it was essential that we should have the source of our power inside our own area.
Now, even if coal became cheap, as cheap almost as dirt, it would still be worth while for us to develop our water power for the sake of our national independence, to be self-supporting and not dependent upon some other country. Deputy Hogan invited those of us who believe in that, and believe in the scheme, to show the measure of our belief by financing it ourselves, and he added, without interest. Surely that is not a proper test to apply: to finance it without interest. It would be a fair test of one's sincerity, of one's convictions, and of one's faith in the future to say: "Will you finance it yourself?" That is precisely what we are proposing to do. Now, Messrs. Siemens want to finance this. They not only want the contract, but they want to carry out all the work, and they want also to supply the capital and control it. If we had advocated that what answer could we make to those who spoke about peaceful penetration, and spoke of putting ourselves in the economic grasp of foreigners. Why, obviously, as a question of public policy there should be either no Shannon scheme or it should be worked by our own capital. Messrs. Siemens could get at any moment millions to finance this from capitalists in America. I have no doubt that the very fact that Messrs. Siemens are to carry out this contract will secure for us a loan for the purpose at a most favourable rate. That is another of the excellencies of the scheme. There is where the world-wide reputation of these people counts as an asset in our interest. How long have we been waiting with caution for our independence to govern ourselves? No one ever said: "Be cautious about risking the friendly feeling of the great neighbour that rules you by asking for power and liberty to rule yourself." Well, now that we have achieved our independence we are to become delicate and careful about the sensitiveness of some firms in England lest they should be hurt in their delicate susceptibilities so that we are to be under a worse thraldom in the name of achieved liberty than we were in when, obviously and in fact, we were under alien rule. That is the most extraordinary proposition that I have ever heard of, and that is called wisdom. I call that timidity and pusillanimity, as it was called by other Deputies. I want to show confidence in ourselves and in our own capacity to make good. This, I take, as a real testing of the capacity of Irishmen.
