If you adopted an arrangement to have the duty refunded or a draw-back paid, it would be difficult to be sure that you were not paying back at a higher rate than the duty was paid at, or that you were not paying on different goods altogether. It is a matter that would not be easy to arrange. It is quite different from allowing certain goods in on certain conditions without duty, with the idea that they should be re-exported, because in that case you know exactly what is going to happen to these goods; you can have the premises inspected and make arrangements to ensure that the revenue will not be defrauded. But, in the case of an ordinary trader simply bringing in goods, not for re-export, you cannot exercise supervision.
There has been a good deal of talk in the course of this debate about a Geddes Committee. It seems to me that the people who talk about a Geddes Committee have not given themselves time to think a great deal about it. As a matter of fact, most of the discussion and advocacy of the Geddes Committee has been simply in the nature of repeating a parrot cry. I do not know whether anybody who talks about it has tried to find out exactly how the Committee worked and what in effect the Geddes Committee was. If you had really a Geddes Committee that would do what is wanted, a really perfect committee would put its imprimatur simply on all the demands of the Treasury officials. A Geddes Committee that was not absolutely perfect would sit in judgment between the Treasury and the other departments that wanted to spend. The Geddes Committee that would try to make investigations on its own behalf in the departments would be a joke. I do not say that the time may not arise when some sort of a committee like that, to put its imprimatur on the demands of the Finance Department that certain services should be cut down, might not be a good thing. Such a time may come, but there is no volume of demand which the Finance Department is making on other departments and which it cannot enforce. Your Geddes Committee must hear the evidence that the people from the Finance Department put up to it. It can, if it likes, hear any evidence in contradiction from the departments that wish to continue expenditure, and come to some decision. But to get a group of business-men or others to come into a department and decide whether there was too much staff for the work to be done, or anything of that nature, would be impossible. It would be impossible, again, to get the business-men; it would be impossible to get the personnel of the committee. There are not so many business-men of outstanding ability, who have the leisure, and who would have the backbone to stand up to the sort of criticism to which they would be subject, to do this work. If it were supposed to be possible that a committee such as has been suggested should actually go into the departments, go through each branch and inspect the work of each clerk, you would have to have men who would be prepared to spend many months—perhaps I should rather say years—at the work, away from their own business, and they would want to be business-men of some standing. Obviously they could not be had.
You cannot put up a committee such as that to deal with policy. Some people think that if you had such a committee the Government or the Dáil should delegate to it such questions as recommending whether we should have a Department of External Affairs, or a Department of Fisheries; whether we should have any connection with the League of Nations, or whether we should have an Envoy at Washington. You could not delegate such things to a committee. You gain nothing by trying to divide your authority and getting up a super-Government of some sort over the Government that you have.
Then again, apart from big questions of policy, there are minor questions that have, at any rate, a political complexion, and I have no hesitation in saying that, in some ways, a very large number of possible people for such a committee from the point of view of their business knowledge and standing, would be utterly impossible and unsuitable because of their political past, and because of the political questions that arise. We are a new State. We have divisions of a type that do not exist in Great Britain. Things that might be well done five or six years hence could not so well be done now.
I may say that I spoke to representatives of various business organisations on this question and discussed it frankly with them, and, after discussion, at least a couple of groups of business men whom I met said frankly that they did not believe there was anything at all in this Geddes Committee idea and that in fact it was really in the nature of "tosh," the circumstances being what they are.
Deputy Cooper asked about the cost of collection of the Customs entry duty and the parcels delivery fee. There is no appreciable cost involved in the collection of either of these taxes. They are extremely easy and cheap to collect. The postman collects one in the ordinary round of his duties and it adds nothing appreciable to the cost of Post Office administration. The other is collected by affixing stamps and involves very little trouble, except the counting up of the items by the Customs officer.
It is not true to suggest that we are really imposing a multiplicity of small taxes and that we are altering the scheme of taxation, as it were, by doing that. Listening to Deputy Cooper, one would have thought that when we took office there were two or three great main taxes and that we were adding a multiplicity of vexatious small taxes to them. In fact, we have probably removed as many taxes as we put on. There were duties on chloroform and a number of other preparations which we have removed. There were safeguarding of industries duties and key industries duties which we removed, as well as the duties we removed from tea, coffee, and cocoa. To suggest that we are really adding to the number of taxes in a way that is vexatious to the public is not a suggestion that will bear examination.
Neither is our position in relation to the imposition of tariffs exactly the position of Great Britain. Deputy Cooper talked about the system the British are initiating, whereby firms or industries who want protection will have to prove unfair competition, prove that they were likely to employ more labour, and that they were efficiently conducted. That is all very well when you have a big industrial country and when dealing actually with the safeguarding of industries, but when you are dealing with a country that is not industrially developed, when your tariffs—if you are going to impose them—are not so much for the protection of industries that are there and in full development, but for the protection of industries that are in their infancy, and for the stimulation of industries, you are in a different position. I am not saying that in the course of a year or so we ought not have some sort of formal tribunal examining matters and having cases made and opposed before it. At present, certainly, we cannot apply standards that are suitable in Great Britain. It may be that an industry was not efficiently conducted here and that might be one of the reasons for applying a tariff so that you will bring in people who would conduct it efficiently. One might say that the application of a tariff in certain cases has already done that. The fact of an industry not being efficiently conducted in Great Britain would be a case for not putting on a tariff.
Several Deputies referred to the question of beer and spirits, and it was suggested that it was unfortunate we had not budgetted for a reduction in the duty on beer or spirits. A reduction in the beer duty that would give one penny reduction per pint would be £1 per standard barrel, assuming that the brewers also gave some reduction. The cost of that, if there was no increase in consumption, would be something like £750,000. We made inquiries, not in connection with this Budget, but in connection with last year's Budget, to see if there was likely to be any increase in consumption that would prevent the loss to the revenue being the full £750,000. The result of the inquiries, which were as careful as we could make them, was that there would be really only a very slight increase in consumption and that we would have to look on certainly three-quarters, or more than three-quarters, of the £750,000 as a dead loss to the revenue. We did not feel that we would be justified in giving that reduction at that cost, and in consequence, were unable to give other reductions, because while a small number of people might with some justice claim that beer is a necessity to them, they are nothing like one per cent. of the community. People who could justly claim to be habitual users of beer or stout are only a very small proportion of the community.
When you are thinking of a remission of taxation when it is high, and that only a limited remission can be given, you must remember that an article such as sugar is used by the whole community—men, women and children. Beer is perhaps used by one-sixth of the community, or perhaps less. Perhaps not more than one-tenth habitually use beer or stout. You would be failing to give a reduction, or would give a much smaller reduction on an article of common consumption in favour of giving a reduction on an article of much more restricted consumption. Again, as the beer revenue is not falling and as the yield from spirits duty has fallen, and shows some signs of falling a little further, it could well be argued that it is really on the duty on spirits we should give a reduction. Socially, I do not think that would be desirable. I do not think it would be well to aim at increasing the consumption of spirits as against the consumption of beer. In any case, if we were to give reductions that could be felt on both beer and spirits we would be unable to give any other reductions elsewhere.
It may be that the pot-still industry shows signs of dying out. Certainly it does not seem in a good way. It is not merely a matter of the duty we have put on spirits. In other countries the distilling industry does not seem to be dying out. It seems to be flourishing. I do not know what steps could be taken by distillers here to check the sort of decay into which their industry seems to be falling. I am certainly convinced that the cure is not in a reduction of duty on our part. Their outside markets seem to be falling away. Whether the fault is theirs, or whether it is due to circumstances over which they have no control, I do not know. The whole question of the decay of the pot-still industry is a bigger one than we could deal with in this Budget, in the ordinary way. It may be well that fashions have changed or that the ordinary development of the industry has made it necessary for a complete revolution in methods here. As I say, that is a very big matter.
Much the same reply applies to tobacco. Tobacco certainly is not fully a necessity. It is not used, shall we say, when we take the women and children of the country into account, by one-third of the population. A reduction that would be felt appreciably would be a reduction that would involve very considerable sums of money. Deputy Cosgrave talked about a reduction of 3d. per oz. I think 3d. per oz. would involve us in almost one and a half millions of revenue. I do not think we could justify giving a reduction there at the expense of a reduction in other commodities.
Deputy Figgis suggested that it was not proper to borrow for the money necessary to re-pay Ways and Means advances and Savings Certificates. He said that should be done out of revenue. If we were to provide for the repayment out of revenue of Ways and Means advances and Savings Certificates, as well as what we are already doing, that is the repayment of the National Loan Sinking Fund and Compensation Stock drawings, we would be providing £1,240,000 out of revenue for the redemption of debts which, I think, with the size of our debt and our actual position, would be somewhat unnecessary As a matter of fact, the repayment of Savings Certificates will not require anything in the nature of funded borrowing. The amount that will come in from the taking out of new Savings Certificates by the public will far exceed the amount that will be required to be paid out of the Central Fund for Savings Certificates cancelled. Ways and Means advances are in the nature of temporary borrowing, which may well be funded. I do not know whether Deputy Figgis's remarks were made after any consideration.
Deputy Figgis also asked when would steps be taken to float a new loan. My answer would be that that question cannot arise for a considerable time. We have £1,600,000 of an Exchequer balance. If we raise a new loan, the money must lie in the Exchequer; by law it cannot be invested. We would get some small rate of interest on it, but we would pay 5¼ per cent. on what we would borrow. Naturally, we would not float a loan until we had actually increased our short-term borrowings. It would be some considerable time after our Exchequer balance was exhausted before the question of floating a loan would arise. Deputy Redmond said that really we were not deducting sufficient items from the total, with a view to getting at the normal and recurrent expenditure. He suggested that we should only regard £1,000,000 of the Army charge as normal. I cannot see that we can, in any reasonable time, get to the position where the cost of the Army would only be £1,000,000. I think it would be entirely unsound to regard such a small portion of the Army cost as recurrent, and to borrow the rest. If we were to take a figure that we do not see some reasonable and immediate prospect of getting down to as recurrent cost, and borrow for the remainder, we might find ourselves piling up a type of debt that would be very injurious to the credit of the country and to the ordinary industries of the country through the effect of State credit on those industries.
I am absolutely satisfied, and firm in the opinion, that we must never put ourselves in a position where we can be accused of riding for a fall in the matter of State finance. It was suggested that separate rates of reduction might be made in income tax under the various schedules. There are many things we might do in the matter of changing the system in regard to income tax. But I do not see that we can do very much until we have arrived at some simpler procedure in the matter of double taxation relief. I believe that if we were now to depart very largely from the system under which the tax is levied in Great Britain, the granting of double taxation relief or the recovery of tax due under the Double Taxation Relief Scheme would become a very much more difficult matter. Computations are difficult enough at the present time. The principles under which relief is given are complex enough, and if we added to these by widely separating our provisions from the British provisions, I think it could only have the effect of making the Double Taxation Relief Scheme, as it exists, unworkable. If it were made unworkable before we had a simpler one to replace it, the effect would be to drive capital out of this country. I feel that in our position it is easier to drive capital out of the country than it is in most other countries. The capital itself, in a great number of cases, is actually out of the country. What is here is ownership of the capital. There is £150,000,000 or £160,000,000 of Saorstát-owned money actually invested outside. One of the ways in which we can drive capital out of the country is by driving a proportion of the owners of that capital out. If you do that, you do sustain a national loss. comparable in some ways to the loss sustained by the absenteeism of the landlords. The people go out, the wealth goes with them, and national ownership of a certain amount of money is lost. We cannot afford to make it practically impossible to get relief from double taxation. I think I have already said that we are exploring means to get the whole problem of double taxation put on a much better basis. I have written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in connection with certain proposals that are on foot in the matter. I hope, before the next Budget comes along, we will have got something that will be equitable to this country and will not involve us in any loss of revenue. We certainly could not accept any arrangement that would involve us in loss of revenue. I hope we will arrive at a system that will be simpler for the taxpayer and that will avoid much of the vexation and delay that is inevitable as long as the system stands as it is at present.
We have been asked: "Why close the door?" Deputy McBride has said that the Minister for Finance is obviously against protection himself. People have asked: "Why not put a tax on woollens and on leather?" It is easy to show why a tax should not be put on woollens or on leather. I think I have already dealt with woollens. If we put a tax on woollens and do not want completely to destroy all making-up and tailoring in this country, we must put a higher tax on apparel. If we put fifteen per cent. of a tax on woollens, there must be a thirty per cent tax on apparel. One can stand for putting a thirty per cent. tax on something like furniture, where the purchases are not so frequent, and where the renewals are not so necessary and so urgent as in the case of clothing, but we do not feel that we could—or that any Government could —in the position that exists, stand for putting up the cost of clothing by, say, thirty per cent. or more. Consequently, it is impossible to deal with the question of the taxation of woollens. The same thing applies to leather. A fifteen per cent. tax on boots would be no use if you had ten or fifteen per cent. on leather. You must add the boot tax to any tax you put on leather and again, you would have a rise of a marked character. In any particular class of goods, that rise would have reactions on public opinion, and on the experiment, that would be very bad indeed. There is no possibility that a tax could be put on either of these articles for several years to come. There is no possibility of the boot or making-up industry being so firmly established, so well organised, so well capitalised, for some years at any rate, that we can think of taxing woollens used in making up, and leather used in the making of boots. People who feel alarmed at the prospect of closing the door for a few years and people who are interested particularly in articles of this sort, may be satisfied that whether the door is closed or not, the things they are interested in will not be really materially affected. I am not a against protection, and I am not a believer in protection as a panacea. I certainly am not a believer in our deciding that everything that ever has been made or that can be made in this country should be made the subject of a tariff, so that for the future the whole requirements of the country in that particular line, shall be made here. We feel that we must limit the speed at which we can go. Even assuming that we were to go the whole hog, it would be necessary to limit the speed.
It would be improper to put on the country the cumulative burden that would be involved if an undue number of protective tariffs were to be imposed. There are a number of industries which we cannot really give protection to, because we must go slowly, apart altogether from the question of regarding the matter as experimental. Those interested in those industries, instead of attending to the adoption of new methods and trying to meet and overcome their difficulties, would, if some pronouncement were not made, spend the whole of next year on our doorsteps, or spend the year in clamorous agitation for tariffs, in seeing Deputies, promoting agitation and, perhaps, making their case a great deal worse than it would have been, if those concerned in the management had simply made up their minds that nothing was coming to them for the present and that they had got to get their teeth into it and hold on. Certain things have been mentioned here and regrets have been expressed that tariffs have not been put on. There are a great number of things that could be protected. But we simply cannot take them on. It would be unfair to the country. I believe it would destroy the prospects of the experiment that we are making and I believe it would add to the cost of living and add to the burden that the agricultural industry has to bear. Brushes and brass ware, iron-founding and polish-making, paper-making and agricultural implements, earthenware chemicals, artificial manures, slates, cement, building stone, builders' woodwork, carriages, vehicles, matches—all these and other industries are clamouring for some sort of protection. I am largely in agreement with Deputy Baxter when he talks about trivial industries which clamour for protection. I certainly feel that a lot of these little industries have no real possibility of growth before them and that it would simply be burthening the community to protect them. In any case, I think we have gone a long distance. It will be some years before all the space we have made by these protective measures for our industries to grow in has been filled up. It will be a long time before our boot industry is supplying anything like the percentage of the country's requirements that it might supply. I suppose we will always have a certain percentage of imported boots, but it will be a very long time before eighty or ninety per cent. of the boot requirements of the country is provided by our own factories. There is ample room for the absorption of labour, the extension of premises and the installation of new plant there. It will be a good while before all the hosiery that is needed in this country is made here and until all the articles of apparel that the country requires are made at home. There will be room for growth each year and it is not necessary to be in such a hurry in the matter. There is no necessity for us to be seeking out some new thing each year to put on our lists in order to give employment to people who, perhaps, will not be employed by the industries already protected.
I think we will give those industries already protected a greater chance of benefiting if we do not extend tariffs unduly. It is said of certain countries, with very high protection systems, that they have neutralised to a very large extent the benefit of protection in the case of each industry. A very high tariff means increased production-cost to each industry, with the result that some of the benefit of protection is taken away from that industry. I feel that, whether we go very far or only a short distance, it is better that we should be content to go by reasonable steps, and that we should, as it were, dig ourselves in industrially before we try to advance further. Let some of those industries that we have protected get themselves well established. Let them accumulate or attract the capital that is necessary. Let them train their workers. Let them get their plant. Let them reduce their cost. Let them conquer the market here and be in a position to bear their share of any burden that may be involved by fresh advances. I do not think that any Deputy should have any regret that we are going to stop, for the moment, in the matter of protection and that we are going to let those tariffs that we put on have their effect to some reasonable extent and let the country have a real demonstration of what can be done. It is clear, from the case of the boots, that a year or two years gives you very little time for knowing what exactly a tariff is going to do. We have given a good deal of consideration to this matter and Deputies will, I think, if they reflect, see that we are well advised in arranging for a halt and for the possibility of what would correspond to a stocktaking by the whole country.
What I said in my Budget statement had reference to manufactured goods. Although I cannot see that agricultural tariffs would have any effect, it did not preclude the possibility of agricultural tariffs. I do not think that the Farmers' Union, or any other representatives of the farmers, will, on consideration, think it wise to demand tariffs on any particular class of goods, but if they do, we are not precluded from dealing with them in the next Budget.
Deputy Gorey talked about the number of civil servants employed by the State—22,000 or 23,000. Two-thirds of those are employed in the Post Office. Apart from the additional staff required in the Board of Works, in the Army Finance Office and offices dealing with damage, commandeering and work of that character, a number of the additional officers are engaged in the Land Commission and in the Department of Agriculture. Lately, I was asked by the Minister for Agriculture to sanction certain additional payments in respect of cow-testing. I could easily have taken up the attitude that we could spend no more money. But I had the view that expenditure on cow-testing was reproductive, and that, even though it was devoted to some extent to the employment of some sort of State servants, it was proper expenditure and good expenditure. I believe that the expenditure being undertaken by the Land Commission is absolutely good expenditure and reproductive expenditure. When you have the lands divided, you will have real wealth produced, as well as contentment created that will be worth the expenditure. There is no use in talking about the employment of people as if it did not matter whether they were working or not working, or what they were working at. It all boils down to a question of what value the community is getting.
There is not a bit of use in talking about twenty, twenty-two or thirty millions and talking about Denmark. The real question is what is being done for the money. Is it a kind of productive or reproductive expenditure? It may be that certain expenditure is too long in being reproductive and such as we in our circumstances could not afford. There might be need for cutting that off, but the real question in connection with expenditure is what is being done with the money. Deputy Gorey said the expenditure could be reduced by four or five million pounds. It could. I was looking at the Estimates the other day and saw that they could be reduced by fourteen or fifteen millions without destroying the means of preserving order and continuing the State. We could do that by wiping out the Department of Agriculture, by stopping the work of the Land Commission and abolishing the old age pensions, by saying that people who wanted their children educated should pay for the education, thus stopping all expenditure on education, on hospitals, on harbours, and grants to local authorities for asylums.
We could save 14 or 15 millions in that way if that were a policy that commended itself to the Deputies, and we could have low taxation, but I do not think this country would benefit by cutting off services which all modern nations regard as essential services and are taking up more and more. I do not think there is any great room for reduction in expenditure. I do not say that some fairly substantial amount cannot be saved, but when people are talking about sums of four or five millions they are talking without having considered the matter very fully. If we like to cut off all services they can be cut off, but I do not know any big service that can be cut off. It is very common to say that national health insurance can be cut off. I do not think that is correct. I think there is a great deal of misrepresentation on national health insurance, that on the whole very good value is given, and that even the agricultural worker gets good value out of it. While the system may be improved, it is not the kind of system that you may cut off. Neither can you get rid of money for services that are a distinct social benefit.
It is a common theory that civil servants are tumbling over one another in the offices. I do not say you might not have a superfluous staff here and there. One of the things in the organisation of the Civil Service that seems lamentable is the sort of bottle-necking in the matter of responsibility. A great number of men and women in the lower ranks of the Civil Service are put on work of a routine character where they are very much controlled and have little responsibility. The responsibility is more concentrated than it would be in many types of business organisation. You will find that lower types of civil servants may tend to go to seed, but in all the responsible grades of the Civil Service I think anyone who has experience will say that you will find no more hardworking class in the community. Anyone will know that there is no one in this Dáil who works harder than those types of civil servants do. The suggestion made that you have men with big salaries walking around the offices and spending the time idling, is the biggest nonsense that could be sent around. That is the sort of thing you will always hear and that will always be thrown out by people who would not be able to pass an examination to get into the Service to the end of time.
Deputy Gorey suggested that one of his principal objections to the Budget was that he had no confidence that there would be a response to the gesture which was held out to industry. I do not agree with him. I really think there has been a good deal of a vicious circle in this country, that you had not efficiency in industry because you had not the industrial spirit and you had not the industrial spirit because you had not the industries there as a result of inefficiency. By breaking this vicious circle we will have. I believe, better work and people turning to industry. For instance, men of one particular class from the point of view of money and education are going into professions. I believe it would be a great gain to have men of a particular stamp and education turning their minds to industry and production rather than other ways of life that, in many cases, mean their export to other countries.
As regards workers in industries, I believe if there is a development and a prospect of steady employment you will have a good response from them too. I feel satisfied we will have a good deal of difference in the whole mind of the country and in the minds of all sorts of workers if we once get any sort of progress going. This will not be without its effect on the farming community because it will do more good for the farmers than anything else if some of them were to think more freely about their own business. Great improvements could be made in agriculture, but the farmer is very often unable to turn to those new methods and adopt them. Any change in the outlook of the country is going to have its reaction on agriculture.
We did one thing at any rate for agriculture and that is the arrangement to inaugurate a beet sugar industry. Deputy Wilson said that it was ridiculous that a subsidy should be given and he said you could buy Tates' cubes at 30/- per cwt. A beet experiment must be a costly experiment and big sums must be paid over a long period of years before there could be any hope of that industry standing on its feet. You must get people in to build a factory. Big sums must be invested and if you are not sure of a supply of beet, big expenses must be incurred. Experts must be brought in from other countries. You must get the farmers accustomed to growing beet and able to grow it. The industry will only get on its feet when the farmer is able to get a big crop each year with a high sugar content, and when the farmer is able to grow beet well knowing the treatment that suits the climate here He must also be willing to grow beet with a small profit. A great deal of the growth of beet depends on its careful cultivation and the condition it leaves the soil, as a result of the good cultivation and heavy manuring it requires. In other countries farmers do not expect big prices on the beet. It will require that the farmers must be paid at first what we may regard as abnormal prices which the beet sugar industry could not pay until the heavy crops are grown.
I do not know whether the Minister for Agriculture referred to the beet-growing experiment, but in any case it is the foundation of agriculture, in many of the countries in which it is grown. If the experiment is a success here it will not only give employment, but it will give it at seasons in the year when it is badly wanted. It gives it in the winter months. It will also increase winter dairying and improve the efficiency of agriculture. It has done that in other countries. There are countries now, that after long years, are able to grow beet in Europe without any subsidy. It will be a long time before we reach that stage, but if we reach the stage in a short time when it can be grown at a moderate subsidy, it will be worth our while to have factories put up. The industry, when set up, will have a revolutionary effect on agriculture. Taking all the facts into consideration, we are not paying very much more than the British, and the experiments have been going on there for a very considerable time. Big losses have been incurred. Certain workers will have to be taught how to work. It will take many years, and as I pointed out when I was speaking on Wednesday, our terms are not comparable with the British terms unless those facts are taken into consideration. Then, again, this country has certain disadvantages compared with Great Britain for anyone starting a beet industry here. Firstly, coal, which is a big item in manufacturing sugar, is dearer. Transport is, perhaps, worse and the cost of transporting beet to the factory is an important item. Engineering workshops do not exist here. Any break-down in the plant during the manufacture of beet sugar, unless it can be immediately repaired, involves the breaking of the process and heavy losses. One of the results of the small number of skilled workers in this country with regard to the item of equipment, will be that the equipment will have to be triplicated here, where it is only duplicated in Great Britain. Repair workshops will have to be set up for factories of a size not required in Great Britain, and mechanics will have to be brought here. Higher wages will have to be paid them. All those things will make the subsidy required very heavy, compared with the subsidy required in England. We are satisfied, after a great deal of thought and study, that the terms we have got are good ones, and may be described, having regard to all the circumstances, as being even with the English terms. Deputy Davin, I think, asked whether the National Cycling and Athletic Union would be included with the Gaelic Athletic Union, and Deputy Heffernan asked would Rugby and hockey and other such games. The form of the section which will go in the Finance Bill has not yet been settled. The only thing definitely settled is that the illegal position which has existed cannot be allowed to continue, and must be regularised.
The proposal in reference to the Dog Tax was to make a change in regard to the financing of the expenses of the District Courts. In the past, the Petty Sessions Courts, which the District Courts succeeded were financed out of the Dog Tax and other funds and now we wish the District Courts to have their expenses provided by the Dáil in the ordinary way. The proceeds of the Dog Duty tax will go direct into the Exchequer. The duty has been 4s. With a 1s. stamp we are making it a 5s. duty. It will be slightly higher, therefore, in the case of a person who has a certain number of dogs and pays 4s. each on one stamp. There would be one or two other remissions in the case of a dog transferred from one owner to another. I think the point which Deputy Gorey raised about putting the particulars of a number of dogs on one paper can be met and I see no reason why the difficulty cannot be got over.
Several Deputies have referred to the Road Tax and some Deputy referred to it in connection with the Ford car. I certainly would be prepared to meet the case but I do not think we can legislate specifically for a particular type of car, even if it is made here. I do feel that in the present formula the car pays an undue proportion of tax, compared with other cars of the same weight which travel at a high speed and that the formula is unfair to that car. I think we cannot legislate for that particular car. Whatever is to be done should be done generally, and I would not like Deputies to take it that we are going to propose a petrol tax, because the duties we are deciding to impose in this Budget will for some time give just as much as they can do to the Customs administration, and I would certainly not like to do anything that would add largely to the press of work that is to be done there, because if you overload your Customs administration it can only have the effect that care will not be taken to collect the duty. Remember, that well over half our staff are young men just brought in. If you start those young men with the practice of not collecting the duties you will have demoralisation in the service for which the country will pay dearly in the future. On the other hand, if you are overburdened and insist that the duty be collected, then you will have great delays in the importation of goods and a genuine cause for dissatisfaction amongst the people. I think, even if it were to be effective, this proposal could not be attempted under the tax for the present year.
We believe that Farmer Deputies are looking at the future and looking at the whole position from too narrow a paint of view. However important industry is, you cannot measure the life of a country by simply taking the industries. You cannot talk about farming and ignore the people who are brought up on farms and have to be provided for. You cannot talk about farming and ignore the people who have come off the land into the towns. We cannot split this country into a whole lot of economic segments and deal with each separately. We must have the country as being one economic unit, and we must try to do the best for the whole country on the balance. I have said before, and I wish to repeat it, that I believe that for a reduction of taxation or anything of that nature, the best hope is in the improvement of productivity. I regard these protective tariffs as being in the nature of an investment. I have said that often before, and I think it is an absolutely true presentation of the position. It may be that we are too poor to pay very much in that direction, but we are not so poor that we must neglect the future for the present. It costs something to send a boy to learn a trade. It costs something to send a young man to a university to learn a profession, but if he is any good it is a good investment. If the industries here are such as have any prospect of growth, this is a good investment. It should repay the whole community to spend a little to enable them to become established and to grow strong. The growth of these industries will mean an increase of wealth to the whole country, and if we have new industries springing up we will have new sources of revenue.
I do not anticipate any great falling off of revenue because the boot tax or the apparel tax in a year or two may not yield such a return as the workers in these industries who would not otherwise be employed, will be consuming dutiable commodities, and new sources of revenue will be created. I believe that if you increase the number of industries, if you increase the population of the country in a way that it can be supported, not merely the increase that occurs through the stoppage of emigration, but an increase through increasing the productive capacity of the country, then the public services will become proportionately cheaper. Your Post Office service will become proprotinately cheaper, your Customs system will become proprtionately cheaper, and so also your headquarters administration. Your expenses and the losses incurred in educating and in bringing up children and sending them out of the country when they could earn and repay what has been spent on them will cease. A lot of your doles and unemployment grants and expenditure on works of relief in giving employment will also cease. I believe that by having, as it were, the country taught its trade, and the possibilities of the country developed, you will get great relief from taxation and you will get opportunities for the farmer. But if you look at it in too narrow a way and think of nothing but keeping down expenditure, regardless of what the result may be, you may make your farmer a worse farmer, you may cause social and political difficulties and disturbances to arise in the country and you may breed such a spirit that the farmers, in the end, will be far worse off as a result of this economy.
I think it is about time to take some sort of hopeful and confident outlook for the future, in feeling that in this country we can do at least what other peoples have been able to do in their countries by bending our minds, all of us, with something of the altruism that was in the political movement, to the work of economic development. I do not see any reason why everybody should not be anxious for the development of new industries, for improved methods in all industries, and interest in them, in the way that they were interested in the political changes and the political cause of the country, in the past, and if we can turn what there is of patriotism and public spirit in the country into economic channels, I think very big results can be achieved
