——recognise that strict orderliness is incumbent on everybody in the House. As far as I understand, we are to discuss the contents of this Bill. One may discuss the contents of a Bill in that it is good, that it is bad, that it is over-full, or that it is lacking. I am trying to get that view. It seems, therefore, that what I have to do is to discuss the actual provisions which are here, because they are here; actual provisions which are here, which are bad, because they are bad: and provisions which would fit into the general scheme of such a Bill as this, which are not here, and in their being not here, destroy the integrity and completeness of the measure itself. For instance, sub-section (1) of Section 1 says that income tax shall be charged for the year beginning on 6th April, 1928, at the rate of 3/- in the £. That is a flat rate, and I am going to suggest that a flat rate of that kind without limitation—I will not use the word discrimination—or without alleviation, on industries of all kinds and characters, on methods of attaining income of all kinds and character, does not fit into the scheme of things which would be designed by one who took a large outlook, not merely upon the present necessities, but upon the future possibilities of the country.
I, for instance, am very little concerned indeed with what the income tax is upon existing income in this country. I consider and regard the income tax of 3/- upon existing income in this country purely in relation to the fact of whether that 3/- is a flat rate upon all existing income, is an encouragement or is a discouragement to the production in this country of the income which does not exist, and the income which must exist if we are to maintain in this country a reasonably-sized population upon a reasonable standard of widely distributed frugal comfort. I object to sub-section (1) of Section 1 on the ground that a flat rate of this kind is a direct discouragement; that it does not recognise the things that ought to be recognised; that it does not deal with the things that ought to be dealt with; and that it does not envisage a Finance Bill as a Finance Bill ought to be envisaged: as an instrument of production, as one of the controlling influences, the determining avenues which decide along which path production shall flow. I object to sub-section (1) of Section 1 of Part I upon that ground.
There is a silly idea abroad and it is incorporated in that section that income tax of 3/- or 4/- or 2/-, or something of that kind is a thing which can be put down in bald language of that kind, and justified without regard to its consequences. Who pays that income tax in the ultimate? Surely it is a matter which ought to be in a Bill of this kind. There ought to be in sub-section (1) of Section 1 of Part 1 of this Bill something which would clearly state that 3/- in the £ income tax shall be charged under certain conditions. It is one of the basic propositions in economics that any cost which is common to all competitors in industry has to be added to the cost of the goods sold by all competitors in that industry before competition begins to operate to cheapen the price of goods. And, in so far as capital is one of the three or four necessary concomitants of production, and in so far as fluid capital is required in this country urgently, and in so far as fluid capital can obtain, whatever we chose to do to prevent it, its living international wage, then if we are going to keep capital flowing into that industry we must pay to it that living wage. And that living wage is a net wage, a net wage after the deduction of all its disagreeableness in costs, wherever the income accrues. Therefore we have in this particular section a statement that at the rate of 3/- there shall be added to the cost of production in this country—in so far as the cost of production in this country is expressed in the position of fluid capital —3/- in the £. I object to that. We have stated in sub-section (1) of Section 1 of Part 1 of this Bill that exactly the same onus and burden is to be put upon capital whether it is functioning in Irish industry, for the purpose of producing wealth out of which the general State shall be maintained or whether it is merely being taken for purely luxurious purposes. For that reason I object, and that is the first of my objections to sub-section (1) of Section 1 of Part 1 of this Bill.
Sub-section (2) states that super-tax shall be charged for the year beginning on the 6th April, 1928, at the same rates as those at which it was charged for the year beginning on the 6th April, 1927. Why the same rate? Why the same rate upon all things? Why no differentiation? Is there any suggestion in that section that consideration has been given to the idea that a Finance Bill, like every other Bill which is introduced into this State, is to be judged by this test: whether it is one of the functioning machineries of increased production in the State? Not at all.
Income tax, like all taxes, filters back, and must be paid out of the total production of a State and, therefore, eventually must be taken from the producers in the State. But to suggest that all the people in the State and all the producers in the State are in exactly the same position, as this clause does, relative to the State, that without discrimination of person, without discrimination of trade, without discrimination of intelligence, of industry, and energy, without taking into question whether they are adventuring into the difficult task of producing a difficult wealth or whether they are simply lying upon their oars, these two clauses themselves are quite sufficient to condemn this Bill from the point of view of any large constructive effort in relation to wealth.
I could take this Bill word for word and clause for clause, but at the moment I prefer to pick out, as some "queen courtier unbidden that brings her gems to the sun." I would rather choose here and there from the mass of wealth and riches of the follies of this document than merely trace the sequence of folly on which it has been constructed. You have in this Bill the amazing proposition that the actual means of production, an actual piece of the functioning machinery of production, shall be taxed and shall be increased in price. There is no other meaning in the suggestion that the commercial lorry, used for commercial purposes, should, upon its capital costs, be taxed for the purposes of revenue. You might just as well tax coal. You might just as well tax lubricating oil. You might just as well tax management itself. I can see a State bankrupt, seavenging in every corner to meet immediate liabilities, with the sheriff in, with the enemy at his door, actually driven to the last limits and to the last expedient to which hard-driven bankrupt men are driven—I can see them doing things like that. Men sell their cattle to pay their annuities. Hundreds of thousands of cattle were sold in the last few years to pay arrears of income tax, but then the sheriff was in on the men. This is the philosophy of the man who has the sheriff in the house. Let us tax the means of production. Let us drive up the cost of transport. Let us increase the cost of production in this State, and this from a Government who came here the other night and told us that in relation to a great industry the question whether or not it should have protection would be decided upon the fact that its cost of production must be as low as the cost of production in the most highly developed industrial States in the world. And this Finance Bill, which I ask Deputies to judge and examine not merely as a financial instrument but as a responsible contribution of a responsible Government to production in this country—this amazing Bill, actually, deliberately, for the purposes of income, increases the capital cost of a producing instrument in this State.
Frankly I, personally, as one who has a certain amount of respect for the conventions of economics, could not, if I were to imagine an inditement to offer to a responsible Government in relation to finance, if I were asked to express in a sentence folly that was abysmal, I could not find a sentence more severe than that which accurately describes this clause in this Bill. And what for? In order to get part of the twenty-three or twenty-four million pounds which our national housekeeper tells us are necessary for the housekeeping. You and I as ordinary people know that we have to decide what is available for housekeeping and have to keep our housekeeping within the limits of that which is available. The purpose of this Bill is to get the amount of money which they say is necessary, not the amount we can afford. There is no man in this State, at the present moment, who thinks that within the actual existing production which is going on in this State and the probable production which will go on in this State as far as we can predict it on ordinary limits— there is no sane man in this country who thinks that we can afford to take out of that limited existing mass of production or lack of mass of production the amount we are now taking.
The capital of the whole of this country has been recently estimated by a representative of the American Government who came over here at between £400,000,000 and £600,000,000 that is for the whole of Ireland.
The capitalised value of £24,000,000 is £480,000,000. That is what we are paying for the mere functioning of government in this country, for the housekeeping that is going on. That is what that Bill is for, to absorb the whole produce and product of £480,000,000. What are you getting for the £480,000,000? What are you doing without because you are spending the whole product of £480,000,000 inside the pages of this Finance Bill? What are you getting for it? "Bankrupt of intelligence, bankrupt of initiative, bankrupt of everything of value to Ireland." Those boomerang words come back on the man who uttered them. They are true of the Government that framed this Bill; true in every detail—bankrupt of intelligence, bankrupt of initiative, bankrupt of everything of any value or use to this country. And when it is all done, what does it amount to? £800,000 or £900,000 included in the balancing of this Budget made up of non-recurrent revenue.
