CONSTITUTION (AMENDMENT No. 10) BILL, 1928. - DECLARATION UNDER ARTICLE 47 OF THE CONSTITUTION. – Dáil Éireann (6th Dáil) – Thursday, 28 Jun 1928

CONSTITUTION (AMENDMENT No. 10) BILL, 1928. - DECLARATION UNDER ARTICLE 47 OF THE CONSTITUTION.

The PRESIDENT

I move:—

That it is hereby declared that the Bill entitled the Constitution (Amendment No. 10) Bill, 1928, which has this day been passed by Dáil Eireann, is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace and safety.

The passage of a Resolution in this or in similar terms by the Dáil and by the Seanad is the means of securing that the Constitution (Amendment No. 10) Bill, which has for its object the removal of Article 47 of the Constitution on the ground that it is undesirable and dangerous, will not be held up by virtue of the particular Article which it is intended to remove. The speeches which have been delivered by some Deputies against this measure are themselves a fairly clear indication as to the intent and purpose of certain Deputies in the event of a Resolution of this sort not being carried. In view of that situation we have got to consider what would be likely to be put before the people in the event of a petition being served in accordance with the Article which it is proposed to remove by this measure. Might I bring to recollection some of the statements which have been made in the course of the debate on the Bill almost from its inception? Just a few things stand out prominently which merit our consideration.

Deputies have not been lax in bringing up some of the statements I made during the General Election, and in quoting them here in the House, but none of them has been so industrious as to find out what was said in connection with these two Articles. I find on looking up some of the statements I made that I addressed myself at meetings to those two Articles, one in Cork on the 13th September, 1927, and the other in Kilkenny on 9th September, 1927. We stood not alone for a particular policy or line of policy during the General Election, but through the courtesy of those who were opposed to us we were invited to stand practically over everything that had happened in recent times here and in the country. On those issues the result of that General Election is fresh in the minds of the people here. Following upon that is the usual course by which the President of the Executive Council is nominated by the Dáil, and he in turn nominates the other members of the Executive Council. The Dáil then proceeds to do its business by majorities, which is the well-known democratic method. According to what we have heard here during the past few days it is very desirable that the majority in a Parliament, according to the extraordinary doctrines we have heard during the last few days should only concern itself with what will please, convenience and placate the minority. That is not my interpretation; it is not the interpretation of the people of the country; and it is not the interpretation which will commend itself to any people who have any idea of democratic rights or freedom.

Examining some of the statements made in opposition to this measure, I find there has been a disposition on the part of those opposite to say that it is not and was not intended that the Referendum or the Initiative would be lightly used, though Deputy Ryan was candid enough to admit that questions that might not commend themselves to this House, such as the reduction of the liquor duties tax, might be presented to this House by certain persons so interested. On that question you would have not alone the trouble and expense in the first place of getting up the Initiative, but, secondly, in the event of the Dáil not accepting the recommendations of those who had an interest in having the liquor duties reduced, to put that as an issue to the people——

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

The President is moving a motion which does not seem to raise the question of the Initiative.

The PRESIDENT

I was going on to say that one of the things which would be promised the people in connection with the Referendum on this particular Bill, that that particular item and every other item of social reform which any person in the country had propounded would be presented as a reason why the Initiative should be kept, and in the background would be the proposal that this is the only method of getting rid of Article 17 in the Constitution. In respect of that, from our experience during the last few days, and our knowledge of the various attempts to create heat and friction over that matter, we would have the public peace, the public health and public safety endangered. That is a thing that as long as I have any responsibility for administration in this country I will see is not going to happen. That was one of the principal objections to this measure, that it closed the door in respect of taking out Article 17 of the Constitution, that we had here pictured for us during the last few days. It is no longer love of this country but hatred of another country which constitutes their patriotism. I do not subscribe to that conception. This resolution is necessary for the public peace, health and safety, and I move it accordingly.

Mr. DE VALERA

The members opposite have shown in the past that there is very little limit to their audacity, and when we see in cold blood this motion moved and the members here asked to subscribe to lies one realises that there is no limit—none whatever— to the audacity of the members on the opposite benches. Just listen to the motion:—

"That it is hereby declared that the Bill entitled the Constitution (Amendment No. 10) Bill, 1928, which has this day been passed by Dáil Eireann is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace and safety."

The gentlemen who went out on that cry when they were panic-stricken a short time ago ought not to be in a condition of panic to-day. Now, apparently, they are panic-stricken lest the people should be appealed to, lest the people should have the opportunity of deciding whether they should give away and surrender the powers which in the last resort would enable them to keep an unscrupulous Executive within check. We heard some gentlemen this morning talk about the dignity of this House. I wonder what respect has the proposer of this motion for the dignity of this House, for the dignity of any individual in this House who does not want to subscribe his name to a lie?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

The Deputy might call it a manifest untruth.

Mr. DE VALERA

If you wish to get a synonym of that kind for it, all right. It is quite obviously, manifestly untrue and false. There is no immediate danger from which the people have to be saved by the passing of this motion. They have to be saved from themselves, I suppose. I was wondering what excuse was going to be given by those who proposed this motion.

I was listening to see was there any reasonable excuse that could be given for it. The excuse is because heat was generated here that it was dangerous that this question of the rights of the people should go before the people. When here in this House a debate was in progress on the military resolutions, the result of which was the putting to death of 77 young Irishmen, this was the excuse that was given for it by the proposer of this motion, who thinks now there is such danger in referring this to the people that we must pass a lie or manifest falsehood, as the Ceann Comhairle prefers it to be called, in order that the people should be saved from themselves. The President of the Executive Council, speaking on the introduction of these military resolutions, said that these resolutions were necessary because of the action outside, which was a direct challenge to the authority of the people. Who is directly challenging the authority of the people now, and challenging them and trying to deprive the people of that authority not after consulting them and asking them, but after trying or proposing to this House anyhow that we should do it by means of a subterfuge or lie? At least the men who challenged it before did it openly and honestly; they did not attempt a subterfuge or lie for it. That is what is proposed here, and we are, in cold blood, every one of us, being asked to come and subscribe to that. I do not wish to quote from the dead, and consequently I leave some of this matter to be read by anybody who is interested in the reasons that were being put forward there for the execution of young Irishmen. I will ask some of the Deputies here to come and read the speeches made by the late Vice-President when these motions were being introduced, and I leave also aside for anybody who wants to read them and satisfy himself on them the statements made by some of the other gentlemen who are over there. The people are being asked—no, they are not being asked, we are told that they were told last June that they were going to be deprived of these rights and that nevertheless they returned the Executive. The people were told these Articles were to be cut out. Why? Because we outside this House were trying to use them as a means of getting in here honourably, without having to pretend or appear to acknowledge allegiance to an outside power. They were not talked of so much when it came to the next election, because we happened to be in.

The PRESIDENT

As a matter of historical accuracy it is in September the statements were made which I referred to.

A DEPUTY

Quote them.

Mr. DE VALERA

It is all right, the general election was the time that was put up. Probably. It was only when it was made quite clear that we were going to use that particular machinery, the only way open to us in the Constitution, in order to get in here and allow those we represent to be represented properly, that the question for the first time was raised of taking out Articles 47 and 48. When we came in here there was no question of the removing of these Articles. There was a Bill on the stocks which had passed a certain number of stages. There was no question of reintroducing that Bill. It was only when we, in accordance with that Article, produced in this House the 96,000 signatures, not merely 75,000, but 96,000 signatures, to a Petition asking that that Article should be put into operation that there was a question of removing it. You are trying to do the very same thing by this series of amendments as you are trying to do by this resolution; the resolution is an attempt to fool the people into thinking that you are acting constitutionally, when you know perfectly well that you are not. The present attempt by these Bills to get out of the obligations of Article 48 will not impose on anybody who tries to see beyond the surface. I hope this attempt by means of an obvious falsehood to get justification to prevent this Bill being sent to the people will fail. If ever there was a Bill that had a right to be sent to the people, that justified a Referendum, it was this Bill, because if you did get the authority of the people to act without the Referendum, to take these out, there would be some justification for your action. If the people wish to surrender the powers of being the final arbiters, well and good; but as long as these Articles are in the Constitution you are not entitled to deprive people of these powers. I say the action of the Executive in those two things is absolutely unconstitutional. We on those benches have not, as we indicated, very much respect for the Constitution, but at least we were honest and told the people we had no respect; but the gentlemen on the opposite benches went out and asked the people to support them because they were supporters of the Constitution, of the guarantee of the people's liberties and these Articles were pointed to. If you went to one of your political opponents and spoke in private with him and argued with him about the nature of this Constitution you were met with Article 47 and told: "Look how democratic it is; look at Articles 47 and 48. If the people want to do anything they can do it"; but the same audacity is going to be used on this occasion to get a majority who happen to be attached to this particular Party to forget all considerations of honour and decency and pass this lie.

Mr. T.J. O'CONNELL

I honestly confess that I feel myself in very great difficulty in finding arguments to use against the proposition which has been moved by the President. It is difficult to argue against a motion of this kind where a statement which is so obviously incorrect is put down in the form of a motion and we are seriously asked to pass it. It is quite difficult to find arguments, and it is quite useless evidently to put up any argument as to why a motion of this kind should not be passed. It is quite clear that the Government are prepared to stoop to anything in order to get their way in this matter. I remember discussing this very question about a week ago as to the future of this Bill or the possibility of a motion of this kind being moved. A certain member of my own Party said it was just possible that the Government would do this. I scouted the very idea that they would stoop to a thing like that. I said they would never do a thing like that. I am speaking sincerely and honestly——

Mr. G. BOLAND

The Deputy has a lot to learn yet.

Mr. O'CONNELL

——because I could not think, even knowing them as I do, that a motion of that kind would be put before this House. We are asked to say if the people of this country are asked to vote on a simple issue to answer a simple question, yes or no, that they will immediately destroy the peace of this country. I say that is a slander on the Irish people. I have no hesitation in saying that. The President goes to America and other countries. Many people here are in the association with people of outside countries for the purpose of securing peace and other things. It has been his and our boast that the blessings of peace have been brought to this country. We are now told that we are so little removed from a state of disturbance that the discussion of a political question like this is going to plunge the country into disorder. I do not believe it. I do not believe that the President himself believes it. I do not believe that any member of that Party believes that the discussion of this thing will endanger the peace of this country. Last year we had two general elections. We had public meetings of all kinds all over the country. Let the President stand up and say that the public peace of the country was in danger. He knows it was not. What becomes of the right of assembly? Is that Article of the Constitution going to go altogether?—the right of the people to assemble peacefully and without arms to discuss political questions. What danger does the President foresee when he asks this House to pass a resolution of this kind? Where is the danger? What is going to happen? Let us follow out calmly what is going to happen if this resolution is not passed by both Houses. Sixty-two members of this House, if they desire to do so, will have the right to sign a certain petition asking that this Bill be held up for ninety days. Sixty-two members of this House represent a very considerable number of the people of this country. If we base it on the numbers mentioned in the Constitution to the effect that one Deputy is supposed to represent some 20,000 or 30,000 of the people, sixty-two members of this House will represent one and a quarter million people of this country. That is a considerable proportion of the people of this country.

They ask that this Bill be held up for ninety days. In that ninety days there is a right given to one-twentieth, I think, of the people of this country to sign a petition that this measure be referred through machinery that is already there in our electoral Bill to the people. If one-twentieth of the voters on the register sign that petition and asked that the Referendum should be put into operation with regard to this particular measure, then the Referendum is put into operation. If the President is so sure as he says he is that the people want these Articles out—he states that definitely—then the people will express their wish in that direction and everybody will be satisfied. He thinks if a political discussion of that kind were to take place in the country that the public peace would be in danger. That is surely too much to ask us to believe. I think it would be good for the people of this country to discuss political issues of that kind, and to learn to discuss them in a calm and peaceful manner. The people that are preventing them from doing that are not doing what is best in the interests of the people. It would be far better to let them discuss them instead of to be always having the people, as it were, tied to their apron strings. They feel that they are constituted as the political guardians of the people, and that the people must not have the right to discuss these things. If there is to be political discussion in the country over these matters, does the President seriously think that that is going to endanger the public peace? The questions will be misrepresented, he says; the real issues will be misrepresented. Has the President ever fought a general election? Has it been always the case at the time of a general election, or a bye-election, that the real issues were correctly represented by one side or the other? I am sure the President is no child in these matters. I feel strongly that this proposal is not worthy of the Executive. It is, as I stated, a slander on the country. It is nothing else to say that the provisions of our Constitution could not be carried out without endangering the public peace of the country. I certainly will protest as strongly as I possibly can against a motion of this kind being carried.

Mr. BLYTHE

Deputy de Valera has said that what is stated in this Resolution is manifestly untrue. Deputy O'Connell has spoken in the same sense. It seems to me, on the contrary, that what is averred here is manifestly true. Once this matter has been raised it must be settled with as little delay as possible if there is not to be a breach of the peace. Without wishing to lay too much stress upon it, I do say that the tone of the discussion in this House, the arguments that have been used, and the violent accusations that have been thrown out, do show that if the discussion of this particular matter was carried into the country it could not be peaceably carried out.

Mr. DAVIN

That only applies to two Parties.

Mr. BLYTHE

I would like to say this, if the main opposition in this House conducted their opposition to this Bill in the same temper as the Labour Party conducted their opposition, I would not for a moment believe that there was going to be any danger to the peace of the country.

Mr. G. BOLAND

You do not believe it now either.

Mr. LEMASS

It is a manifest untruth.

Mr. COONEY

Hypocrisy.

Mr. BLYTHE

The behaviour of the Deputies on the other side in this present discussion has been very closely similar to the behaviour in another discussion. (Interruptions). I have no doubt at all that the attitude would be that nobody who was supporting the Bills would be allowed to speak, and that any violence that may be used against them just, as any accusations that may be made would be justified. (Interruptions). I do not say that the public disorder would be such as could not be dealt with.

Mr. LEMASS

Can I move the closure? However, I do not intend to delay the House. I intend to give an opportunity to Deputy Gorey to redeem his past, and I conclude my speech by hoping that he is speaking, not merely for himself, but for other members of Cumann na nGaedheal.

Mr. FLINN

I should very much prefer to give way to some of the mute inglorious Miltons on the back Benches of Cumann na nGaedheal, the dumb, driven cattle, the people who intend to come here as long as this Parliament will last, who tear themselves away unwillingly occasionally from other parts of the House to come in and ask to which Division Lobby they have to go and nothing else; who for years have been here and never opened their mouths. These dumb, driven cattle——

A DEPUTY

Not like Deputy Flinn, anyway.

Mr. FLINN

I am prepared to say here, and to say outside of here, outside of the privileges, outside of the protections, and outside of the inhibitions of this Dáil all that I believe in this matter. I am not prepared to be one of the dumb, driven cattle of Cumann na nGaedheal, who come here just to register their votes in the Lobby.

Mr. CONLON

Would it not be well for the Deputy to come to the motion and deal with it?

Mr. GOREY

That would be drawing attention to his mouth.

Mr. CONLON

Of course, it may be very useful to be allowed to deal with something outside the motion, rather than to deal with the motion itself.

Mr. FLINN

It is important for the people of the country to know that the back bencher of Cumann na nGaedheal, the ordinary representative of the people, the man who has been sent up from Galway, from Roscommon, from Nenagh, from West Cork and from East Cork, has said no word, has sat dumb, and allowed merely his own Front Bench to make up his mind for him and speak for him. You are up against a frigid and calculated lie, and the silent members on the back benches of Cumann na nGaedheal are asked to go into the Lobby and declare that that frigid and calculated lie is the truth, because in the declaring a frigid and calculated lie the truth they are able to dish their political opponents, they are able to take away from the people control over this Dáil. They are prepared to save themselves the necessity of going back and convincing the people; they are able to save themselves from the necessity of going and meeting us on the hustings and hearing us give exactly the same reasons to the people that they do not dare to attempt to answer here. That is what the dumb driven cattle of Cumann na nGaedheal are going into the Lobby to vote for, and that is why I would infinitely rather give way and hear the ordinary representative of Cumann na nGaedheal, the ordinary representative of the people—five hundred thousand odd of them—who have sent them here to have wills, to have ideas, to have voices and opinions of their own, and to make their own contribution to the development and the existence and the strength of this State, not merely to be echoes of the caucus on the Front Bench. It is significant that Fianna Fáil Deputy after Fianna Fáil Deputy has to rise, and that though we stand and wait, not a single ordinary man on the Cumann na nGaedheal Benches has the courage to have or express an opinion.

Urgency, immediate urgency, violent urgency; the public safety in peril if you do not have immediate urgency. No evidence of it whatever, except party political necessity. There is immediate danger of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party. There is distinct definite danger of the existence of everything that the Cumann na nGaedheal Party stands for if they do not pass this Bill at once. There is danger if they leave themselves to the people, immediate danger. That is the danger to be guarded against and in which this Constitution, bad as it is, is to be scandalised. Keep the people out of it, do not let them lay sacrilegious hands upon this Constitution for which so much blood and treasure has been spent. Keep the people away from it, that is the danger; there is no other danger. Members sitting on the Cumann na nGaedheal back benches shall never be allowed to submit this thing to their constituents. Their constituents are of such a character, their morale is so low, their respect for their members is so small, their regard for the decencies of public life is so nonexistent that Deputies cannot discuss these matters in their constituencies. That is what Deputies opposite are saying. Every man who goes into the Division Lobby and says this great constitutional question cannot be considered and discussed in the face of the people without endangering the public peace of this State is insulting his own constituents and doing a thing that he would not dare to do unless safeguarded by the removal of these Articles, and the particular overlay on this Bill in the passing of time that will enable them to forget the insult that was thrown back into their teeth in return for the vote they gave to the dumb driven cattle on the benches of Cumann na nGaedheal. The President says that in Cork on the 13th September and in Kilkenny on the 19th——

The PRESIDENT

The 9th.

Mr. FLINN

The 9th. The President said a lot of things. Does the fact that the President said that mean that he came here with a mandate to do it? On what date did the President say he was going to abolish proportional representation? On what date did he tell the people how at a certain by-election he did not get the amount of support he would have got if he had abolished it? Did he come here with a mandate also, I ask Deputies on the back benches of Cumann na nGaedheal, to gerrymander the constituencies in any way he liked and to tear out of the Constitution what they have boasted was one of its democratic elements? How has he a mandate for one thing and not for another? Has he merely to quote something he said somewhere, somehow, sometime, and so long as he has a majority, no matter how fundamental the alteration that he wants to carry, he has a mandate and a right and a duty to do it? That is the sort of argument that cuts deep into public peace in this country. That is the sort of argument which will, if it is believed, turn the people into looking for other ways. Personally this story of mandate to do all sorts of things, founded upon some obscure utterance of the President's in an obscure place to be quoted when it suits him and to be hidden when it does not, carries no conviction whatever to me.

We lose control over this measure, and it is suggested that we should freely do it because contingently some time, this year, next year, or some time, whenever it suits the political Party necessities of the Government opposite they are going to amend in some way, somehow and in some direction Article 50 of the Constitution. We are to buy this pig in a poke. We are to trust to the President, to trust to what we know of his method of manipulating the Constitution, and to keep his word for the carrying out of that. The greatest constitutional issue, greater altogether than this, because this is only part of the machinery, a great piece of the machinery, but on that fundamental matter of setting up in this country two States he gave an offer. He said, get your men to operate this portion of the Constitution and you can go ahead, but when he found it could be done he went back of his word. We are to accept the word of such a man with such a record. But the elision of Articles 47 and 48 is going to be compensated by the expansion in some direction at some time of Article 50. Does he realise that under the Bills passed through the House, under the extension of time that we are giving as part of the blackmail bargain to the Seanad, that they can hold up his amendment of Article 50 until it ceases to be operative under the Constitution and until he cannot put it in under the Constitution? Did the President explain that to Deputies of Cumann na nGaedheal? Did he tell them that the promise he made to them is contingent upon the Seanad not using the powers which he is giving them deliberately under another Bill for the purpose of making it inoperative? Is that what he does not want us to tell the electorate upon the hustings? Does he want us to go to the country and tell the people what power they are actually losing under this Bill? That is the danger—a danger to everything the Cumann na nGaedheal stands for to-day, the danger of the great betrayal, the danger of the building up in this system over the head and the authority of the people something that even the people altogether will not be able to get out of it except by use of means which are not contemplated in any civil Constitution. They do not dare to go to the country; that is the immediate danger, not to the State, not to the public safety. The President just managed to drag in these words at the end of his speech, just managed to drag them in by the scruff of the neck, that is all he could do. He could not show they had any connection; he had just dragged them in. That is all he did; this frigid and calculated lie.

It is suggested—and I do not know whether it is speeches like the speech I am delivering now and the speeches that have been delivered in this House —that these speeches are going to be a danger to the public peace, health and safety.

Mr. DAVIN

Not at all.

Mr. FLINN

No, not lightly used. If this instrument is left in the hands of the people to be used by them as I believe it will be used, responsibly for high matters of national interest, how on earth is it going to interfere immediately with the public safety and public peace? Does this House really want that there shall be no means by which upon the larger Treaty-barred issues of the Constitution the people will be unable to express their opinions without coming to an immediate clash? Do they really want that there should be taken out of this Constitution the means by which—without coming to a definite and immediate clash with the co-signatory of that so-called Treaty—we can put before the world the visible demand of the people of this country that there shall be changes in the Treaty-barred portions of that Constitution? Will the keeping of that power in our possession produce immediate dangers to the public safety of the country?

Down in the country paid organisers of the Cumann na nGaedheal organisation were saying that we were a Party of accomplished liars. We can return that compliment because this frigid and calculated lie is a frigid and calculated lie upon the surface. Every man who hears it, and every man who endorses it, and every man who goes into the lobby in support of it, knows that it is what it is—a lie, a barefaced lie, and nothing but a lie. There is no necessity whatever for Article 47, we are told. The Seanad would under no condition, we are told, interfere with the liberty of the people. The Seanad would not hold anything up from them. They came to this House and asked for the Public Safety Act, which took out of the Treaty and which took out of the Constitution all the primal safeguards for personal liberty, they demanded it on twenty-four hours' notice from the Seanad, the very Seanad that passed round notes among themselves not to alter it by one single comma and by not one single word, for fear it might go back to a Dáil which was then in possession of a majority to defeat it. If that Seanad had held up that for them there might have been some justification, there might have been some respectability, from the national point of view, in regarding that as an institution which, in return for taking away its power from the people, should be put above the Dáil, which was capable of passing a Public Safety Act in the way it was. But it did not.

Under this thing you are giving the power out of your hand. You are losing control of the greatest democratic instrument in the Constitution, and you are doing it, not in the interests of the public safety, but in the interests of the continued existence of a Party and for what that Party stands—the betrayal of everything for which what all that is best in the country stands, and which makes for everything that is for the public safety and interest of this country. Unworthy of the Executive some one said. Worthy of the Executive! Worthy to be its gravestone. When its epitaph comes to be written it will be a very merciful and overstrainedly merciful epitaph which will simply label them "duds." It would be a strain upon honesty to put merely that title upon their graves. They are men who have taken every sacred thing they have laid their hands on and turned it into a Party purpose, coined it into a Party purpose, and to-day they are calling upon the public safety of this country, which they have no more regard for than they have had for anything else that is holy and sacred in the country. They are calling upon the public safety to shield and to cover faces in the most shameless misuse of the Constitution for Party and partisan purpose that has ever disgraced the history of any legislative assembly.

Mr. HOGAN (Minister)

I think Deputies in most Parties will agree that if by passing this Resolution and by getting this Bill through the Dáil, and getting this Bill without a Referendum, we save the country from a fate that may possibly overtake it—such a fate as having Deputy Flinn going ranting through the country at a time when the people should be thinning their turnips— that would be a full justification for this Resolution. I ask the Parties to examine that aspect of the situation. There were a good many things said, and the Labour Party put up a point of view, and Deputy Redmond put up a point of view, and I ask them, if we are bound to have a Referendum on this Bill, to consider for a moment the position of having Deputy Flinn going from Galway to Nenagh—he will keep away from Cork for good reasons which are connected with the last election—to have the Deputy going to Galway and Nenagh and other parts of the country talking the sort of "blather" that we have listened to here this evening. I have listened to Deputy Flinn's speech very carefully. I seldom listen to his speech and I try to go to sleep. I listened carefully to this speech, and I could not get a single point out of it— not one. I tried even to get one. In the beginning, when the Deputy came to the Dáil with a certain reputation for oratory. I used to listen to him, but gradually I came to discover that I could not get a point from any speech that he made. He has ranted there for the last half-hour in the House and talked about "duds." He has carried on in the same way as a cheap jack would on a market day in the country. But he has never made a single point against our policy or against this Resolution.

Mr. KILLANE

You could not pick it up.

Mr. HOGAN

I want to dispose of one point. We are told that it is unconstitutional. We should give up this misuse of words. This Bill is not unconstitutional, and if it were unconstitutional the courts are there and we can be stopped quickly at any time——

Dr. RYAN

That is right.

Mr. HOGAN

I may be allowed to say that the courts are impartial——

Mr. COONEY

And the jury?

Mr. HOGAN

You will not have to get even a jury this time. This is a serious matter. I wish you would treat it seriously. Deputy Redmond made the point that this was unconstitutional. If it is unconstitutional the courts are there and they can deal with it. If we are to talk in this way of unconstitutional action of any kind —good, bad or indifferent—I want you to remember that the courts are there to stop us, and I have sufficient respect for the legal advisers of the Party opposite if not for themselves——

God help us if we are to depend on that, with a motion like this on the Table.

Mr. HOGAN

I did not interrupt Deputy de Valera and why should I be interrupted? It must be that I am getting at the place where the shoe pinches; I must be getting on the raw. I want Deputies to realise that there is only one safeguard in any country and that is the character of the people. If you demoralise the people—and an attempt has been made in this country to demoralise them——

Mr. G. BOLAND

You did it very well.

Mr. HOGAN

But that attempt did not succeed, although it was tried through institutions, referenda, and other things. There is another safeguard, and it is fundamental also, and that is the character of the people returned to the Dáil. That is the only safeguard in any democracy. You have that safeguard here, such as it is. You have it here and you have to be content with it.

This is all neurotic; this is a form of neurosis. Deputies should remember that hysterics of that sort do not prove anything, but tend to the discredit of the person who engages in them. It is all very fine to discuss this matter in an academic way, but I say that I am speaking for the people of the country here when I say that every honest man wants a rest from politics. There is not an honest man or woman in the country who has any real hope for the future of the country while these political issues are being discussed. There is not one of them who does not want to see this country getting a chance to settle down, to do the work that will really make us independent.

I asked what is the object of all this pother that is taking place to-day.

Then why are you so anxious to get it out?

Mr. MacENTEE

After the typical harangue in the manner of "The Playboy of the Western World," or "The Ploughboy of the Western World," which has made the name of Minister for Lands and Agriculture a byword in every constituency in Ireland, and which has already cost him, at any rate, the good opinion of the twelve men who heard him upon his oath in the witness-box——

Mr. HOGAN (Minister)

I thought you were going to say £500.

Mr. MacENTEE

—it is time for us to come back to the terms of the motion:

"That it is hereby declared that the Bill entitled the Constitution (Amendment No. 10) Bill, 1928. which has this day been passed by Dáil Eireann is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace and safety.

With the passage of a Bill deleting an Article in the Constitution, which provides and confers upon the people a certain right, the Minister for Lands and Agriculture tells us the people value it so lightly that not five per cent. of them are concerned whether it is retained in the Constitution or not. That is his private opinion. I would like the Minister, or some member of the Government Party, who proposes to follow him, to answer the argument against this motion, which was put forward by the Minister, that there is an Article in the Constitution which the people think so lightly of that, unless it is deleted immediately, it will endanger the preservation of the public peace and safety. That is the motion we are considering. We are not considering what Deputy de Valera said, or is alleged to have said, six years ago—I do not want to repeat what I said at the beginning—by a person of the calibre of the Minister for Lands and Agriculture, who admittedly is one of the most unscrupulous politicians in Ireland. What we are concerned with is what is happening in Ireland to-day. If this motion does not go through, what cataclysm is there that will engulf the public safety, what man's life, and what man's property will be endangered, if it is not adopted by the Dáil? We have to consider this question each one for himself, and if there were any independent Deputies present, untrammelled by considerations of Party and still free to exercise their own judgment in the matter, I would put it to their own individual consciences to ask themselves whether the words contained in the motion, which has been proposed by the President, are true in fact or are false. That is what you have to decide. I think Deputy Redmond put his finger upon the issue. It is unconstitutional to use one portion of Article 47 to delete that Article without referring it to the people. It was held, and held by me on the Second Reading, that this Article was one of the fundamental Articles of the Constitution, in so far as it had been referred to in Article 50, in terms which I will again recall. Referring to future amendments of the Constitution it says:

Any such amendment may be made within the said period of eight years by way of ordinary legislation and as such shall be subject to the provisions of Article 47 hereof.

What does that indicate? That no matter what amendments may be made in the Constitution, Article 47 would still remain, and that all other constitutional amendments hereafter proposed and accepted by this House might be referred to a Referendum of the people. The President, in the course of his speech, said that the principal objection which had been urged to the Bill referred to in this motion is that it closes the door to the removal of Article 17. That is admittedly the real purpose of that Bill, to secure in that Constitution certain Articles which are repugnant to the general mass of the people, and are revolting to every man of honour who knows the history and the evolution of the oath. But this Bill is going to fail, because whenever the Irish people do desire their freedom, whatever the President may say, whatever Deputy Thrift and Deputy Cooper may think, the Irish people are not going to be held prisoners in the paper bag of this Constitution. That is the service—and possibly we have reason to be grateful to him—that the President has done to this nation. He has shown us how easy it is, by the use of a merciless majority, to tear up the Constitution, and he may be certain that the precedent which he has set will some time or other be availed of. They think they are wise in their generation. Against the rising tide of Irish nationality they are building a paper dam to preserve and to secure what the late Vice-President referred to in terms of contempt as "the trappings and insignia of a foreign monarchy"—the symbols of Irish serfdom and Irish slavery. They are not doing that. Make no mistake. We have directed the attack at the President and the members of the Executive Council, because they appear to be the immediate instruments of this, but we are very conscious that all the time they are not doing that of their own volition, they are doing it at the dictation of others. I wish there were some of them here for once to listen to some plain truths because another time will come when the Irish nation will speak to them, not by the voice of men pleading in this Dáil for the rights of minorities, but will speak to them, remembering that in this vital issue, when a fundamental right of the people in this Constitution was being taken from them, Trinity College and those who are associated with Trinity College stood where they always stood, on the side of England and against Ireland in every matter. The Minister may sneer.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

No. I am thinking of Deputy de Valera.

Mr. MacENTEE

The Minister, I think, has nothing to sneer at.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I would only like to say that Deputy de Valera was in Trinity.

Mr. G. BOLAND

He is the Chancellor of the National University—your Chancellor.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Not by the wish of the people of the University. That is what he is always afraid to test.

Mr. MacENTEE

This faction, although it is a minority in this country, to-day enjoys a position of unexampled power and privilege. It is powerful within the counsels of the Executive Council. I might go further and say to the Minister that it controls the Executive Council, and I challenge him to deny it. To serve the purpose of that party, to secure its support in the House, the President introduced this Bill. Was there ever in all history so disgraceful a bargain, that the rights secured to the people by the Constitution should be stolen from them by the Government, taken without their consent, and virtually, on account of the attitude the Press has taken up, without their knowledge, stolen from them and used to purchase the support of a faction whose votes are necessary to maintain that Government in office?

There never was and never will be a bargain of that sort that did not inevitably and eventually drive those who made it to the potter's field of politicians. Clare and Castlereagh are not the only Irish politicians who found dishonoured graves. I have referred to the price which the Government has had to pay in order to secure themselves in office, in order that they might carry out and make dominant the political principles which the Minister for Lands and Agriculture avowed here openly, for the first time I believe in this House, a few minutes ago. This man who does not want dishonest political issues raised in Ireland, who says that the people are sick of politics and want to have a rest from them, is afraid to put before the people an issue which is not, in the sense in which the word is being used as a term of contempt or as a sneer, a political issue, but a big fundamental issue—he is afraid to put before the people a principle to which the Government you have to-day gave lip service in their Constitution. This Minister will not allow the people to vote and decide whether, in fact, they want to have the last word and the final judgment upon the action of the Executive Council, not five years afterwards when it may be too late to save the country from the ill-consequences of that action, but at the moment when the action is contemplated and before it is carried through. The people are not to have the last word upon such an issue. The Minister for Lands and Agriculture says that it is a dishonest trick to ask that they should, before this House passes a Bill which proposes to delete the Article of the Constitution that provides that every amendment practically to the Constitution shall, if a significant minority in the House require it, be submitted to the people for a final verdict. The Minister for Lands and Agriculture, who avowed himself a politician so unscrupulous, so determined and so incurably a politician that he was determined to use every article of the Constitution, every trick and every artifice which that twopenny lawyer's mind of his, as he said himself, could think of in order to defeat the policy of the minority party in this House, says it is a trick. I make bold to say this: that not only is it the policy of the minority party sitting here on the Fianna Fáil Benches as avowed Republicans, but that it is the policy of those sitting on the Labour Benches who, I verily believe, are Irish Nationalists. It is also the policy of a good many who, still misguided and still afraid to stand up and to assert their native manhood and still afraid to stand up for the rights of their country, nevertheless follow that Minister with distrust and with uneasiness, at the same time believing in the same fundamental principles of Irish nationality that we do.

The Minister for Lands and Agriculture, who thinks that the people are tired and sick of polities, because he himself is sick of politics, sick and tired of the politics which he expounded in order that he might rise to position and power on the ladder up which he has climbed, now when he finds himself entrenched in a position which some years ago he never dreamed of occupying, wants to kick that ladder aside and to say to the people: "Forget everything I told you and forget everything I preached to you, and above all things forget what I told you six years ago—that this Constitution which we are framing is going to be a weapon that you can use to secure the full measure of your rights," to secure, as the late Kevin O'Higgins himself said, "the things that you have written upon your banners."

I was going on to refer to the fact that there had been a bargain made in this House, a bargain which I said was a disgraceful and dishonourable bargain, and a bargain which I believe will ultimately end in disaster for those who have been parties to it. The minority in this House think that they have secured something by that bargain. That thought is wholly illusory and vam. They have secured nothing. When the majority of the Irish people, as I said at the beginning, declare for freedom, nothing that is in the Treaty, nothing that is in the Constitution, no power vested in the Seanad and no power vested in any officer of this House, no instrument of that Government is going to stand between them and their rights. The chain that Deputy Cooper set the Executive Council to forge for the Irish people will melt like a rope of snow, but before that happens something else will have disappeared. The Imperialists, notwithstanding the power which the present necessities of the Government has endowed them with, have purchased nothing, nothing of any permanence and nothing of any value. They have purchased nothing, but for the first time they have given all. The only practical safeguards that a minority had under this Constitution were the safeguards provided by Articles 47 and 48.

The character of the people, according to the Minister for Lands and Agriculture, was a great safeguard, but the character of the people, the justice and the sense of equity which is innate in the people, never can become operative when Articles 47 and 48 are removed. Those who sit on the Benches on this side know from sad experience that there is no safeguard whatever in the character of this House and of this assembly. This House is not a legislature. This House is not a deliberative assembly. This House is the instrument of a caucus which dominates, controls and determines for the majority Party in this House. Let us realise what constitutional government has come to. Since we came into this Dáil, was there ever upon any single vital issue a free vote of the House taken with the Whips off, when every man might vote as his own judgment and conscience dictated? Has that ever been known?

Many of you have been here for the last six years. Did any one of you, on any vital issue of truth and justice where a man's conscience had to decide for him, ever have the privilege of exercising that conscience and voting according to its dictates? When the time came, as Deputy Lemass said, you were driven like sheep by the Whips into the Lobby. Is not that the great defect of representative government at present? There is no open decision. The decision is by a caucus sitting in secret for a purpose which it never divulges, and the decision is made effective by the majority in this House. That is my answer to the Minister for Lands and Agriculture, and I tell him that, as the experience of the past few weeks has proved to us beyond denial, there is no safeguard in the character of the Deputies here, that the majority which could deprive the people of the rights conferred on them by Article 47 of the Constitution, without allowing that important issue to be submitted to the people directly in order to have the peoples' own unmistakable verdict on it, whether by five per cent. or fifty-five per cent. they declare for it, does not matter. But the majority that could do that, and is capable of it, that has the power under Article 50 of prolonging the life of this Parliament indefinitely, and suspending every member of this Party indefinitely, and of proclaiming a military dictatorship if it cared to do so, is what we are living under.

I ask him can he say in all sincerity within himself that the passage of this Bill is essential to the immediate preservation of the public peace and safety? I ask him to drop for a moment the mask of the politician, and as a man who can decide between truth and falsehood upon the facts, to point to one incident in the past three weeks in this country that would show that the public peace and safety, as implied in the terms of this resolution, are in danger. That does not mean to say that if we were to have a brawl at a street corner a Bill is to be rushed through to stop that brawl. There has not even been a brawl at a street corner. There is no indication in the Press which supports the Government, and is anxious to support them, that the people are so clamorous for this measure; that unless it is passed through the Dáil with indecent haste there will be a revolution, that the people will storm Leinster House, that they will surround the President in his residence and call upon him in the name of the people to pass this measure depriving them of their rights which the President guaranteed to them and sealed that guarantee with the blood of his own countrymen six years ago.

I do not think I have anything more to say. I do not think it is worth saying anything. We came to this House driven to it, as I said before, by force of circumstances. We came here not of our own volition, but to use this Constitution in a peaceful way to ask the people, by the exercise of the franchise, to amend that Constitution, so that it would be made acceptable to every Irishman who lives under it. We came here sincerely desirous of serving this country, anxious to put aside the history of civil turmoil and strife which had, if you like, disgraced the last five or six years. We came here realising with Tone that only a united people could win freedom for this nation. We have found every avenue to that barred by every trick and artifice, as the Minister for Lands and Agriculture admitted, that they could devise or resort to. They endeavoured to make it impossible for us to proceed by constitutional means. I am not going to make any threat, but I do know, as I said before, that once the Irish people make up their minds to be free nothing in that Constitution, nothing in the Treaty, no power now vested in the Seanad, no power conferred upon any officer of this House by that Treaty is going to stand between the Irish people and the realisation of their age-long desires.

Mr. DERRIG

It seems hardly necessary to add anything to the discussion that has gone on here during the day. It is obvious that no real arguments have been put up by the Government Party who defend this motion. The effect of the motion is, on the pretence that there is danger of commotion, rebellion or riot of some or other kind in the country, to rush through this legislation in such a way that all power to have it called back again would be taken away from this House, that the die will be finally cast, and that this safety valve will be closed down for ever. It seems to me that an occasion like this, where the issue undoubtedly is a big one, would call forth some bigness, some generosity and some element of statesmanship, if there is any such, from the Government benches, because since we came into this House we have played the game pretty squarely. We have done our best to show that we have a real interest in the affairs of the country. We do not give way to any member on the opposite benches, let it be the Minister for Agriculture or the President himself, in our desire to do what we can while we are here to advance the interests of the people. It was for that reason we came here; also because we believed we had these safeguards which the President attempted to do away with when he tried to pass certain legislation, which would mean one-third of the electorate of this country would be deprived of all representation on the lines on which they were proceeding. We took certain steps; we came in here believing there was some remedy, some way out, that of the stepping-stone which men on the other side have apparently slipped on, that there might be some part left, that whatever was there would remain, that we had now reached the position of a desire for peace, concord and all the rest the President speaks about, and that we had reached a position that if we did not agree on certain things we could agree to differ. We felt the methods laid down in the Constitution for the ultimate advance of this whole people to freedom, these methods and constitutional regulations, should be left there.

We thought that would be the case, and now it comes as a startling surprise to find that the President, who talks so loudly about religion, honour and public morality, who had these things flying on his banners down the country, goes back on all these. He spoke loudly about them. He wanted us to believe that he and his Party stood for the honour of compact. We hope he will not throw away this last chance. If there is any bigness in him he will rise to the occasion, and say that as well as honouring compacts with the foreigner there are people in his own country with whom he should do something to honour his obligation. There is a large section of people disgruntled and discontented because they feel these things which were promised — these aspirations which we thought would be fulfilled in due course, this path towards freedom upon which we were to march under the new Dominion — have not come to pass. These people have their ideas; there may be apathy and a lack of national spirit in the country, but assuredly that period will pass and there will be a new rising up if there is anything at all in the Irish Ireland movement, anything at all in the past traditions, assuredly the new generation will come forward with a national spirit and will demand to walk away. We want to leave that way open to them.

There was no immediate urgency in this matter. Even if the Referendum were left there you would require a majority of the voters on the Register or two-thirds of those who had voted to carry it. Was that not sufficient for the Cabinet, in addition to their majority here and a majority in the Seanad and the new powers they propose to bestow and the safeguards of proportional representation — are they not satisfied with all these things? Have they so far forgotten themselves? Are they so very weak and threatened with impending defeat that they have to come along, five or six years after, when we are anxious to have concord and when things are settling down, with this thing which will do more to create bitterness than anything else since the Civil War? I say not alone has the President not given us a clear deal in this matter, but we have not been granted fair play, and the rules of the game have not been played as the people who sent us here and we understood they would be played, but the President has deliberately tried to take advantage of us. He has tried to make us believe that you can set a boundary to the onward march of the nation by passing his resolution after discussion of a few hours, that you can put an end for all time to the spirit of 1916 and 1920 and the spirit that persists still on his side of the House as well as ours. He is quite mistaken and it cannot be done. No justification whatever has been made for this. I need only say as far as the preservation of the peace is concerned that this Bill by its passage will do more, not to create an immediate menace to peace or feeling of insecurity in the country, but will do more than anything else to give credence to the rumours that have been abroad that the Government Party have been slowly slipping into real imperialism, that instead of taking up a stand somewhere in order to advance towards the full national goal, instead of having got renewed courage from the fact that they have support here on all questions of general national interest, on questions in which they could legitimately demand our support, instead of advancing steadily in the proper direction, they are still being pulled by the tail by the old Unionist minority of this country.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Will I be allowed when replying to refer to unemployment, prices, and land?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I take it that Deputy Little is coming to the motion.

Mr. LITTLE

I was dealing with the argument put forward by the Minister for Agriculture, and what I wanted to emphasise was that the hectic political activity did not come from this side of the House, but from the other side and that economic problems were being neglected. When the Minister for Finance was speaking I could not help thinking of his attitude towards the people. He recognises the people as masters, I suppose, but there are things which a master must not be consulted about because they might make him angry and might disturb his peace. It is just as if a servant smashed a valuable piece of crockery, and, in order to maintain the peace of the household, feared the jurisdiction of the master and hid the valuable piece of crockery. That is the attitude of the Minister for Finance. He will not consult the people when the people have a right to exercise their authority. In other words, he is willing to recognise the authority of his master only when it suits his convenience, and he will run away from him when he is afraid that he will get the punishment which is his due. The Minister for Agriculture actually put it forward as a serious constitutional argument that this measure of the Government was justified, if only to avoid the ranting, as he said, of Deputy Flinn. I think that this House deserves a little more respect than having an argument like that put before it.

After all, even if he disagrees with the speeches made on this side, even if he finds that some speeches more than others are unpleasant to him, even if he comes to the conclusion that some Deputies make the kind of speeches which he does not like, surely the Minister does not offer that as the only argument he could offer for setting aside the normal operations of the Constitution. He told us that we had a remedy in the courts. He did not elaborate the sort of remedy that was. He did not tell us what authority the Judicature has over the conduct of the Legislature, nor by what machinery a mandamus order of the courts could be enforced against the conduct of this House. He suggested it and said that that was our proper remedy. He said that what this country wants is a rest from politics, that we were only raising this question to distract the people from the poverty of our economic programme. If he wants to get the country a rest from politics let him and his Government postpone the enforcement of this measure. We shall give him the rest he wants from that sort of politics. If he carries out the normal operations of the Constitution he will get all the rest he wants and all the harmony he desires from this side of the House. We are willing to co-operate in every way to increase the purchasing power of the people and to end unemployment and emigration in this country.

Mr. CLERY

I feel that to say anything on this motion is useless, since the President and his Party will not make any attempt to defend their attitude in bringing it forward. Evidently before they brought it forward they decided that they would not defend it in any way, so that they must have a guarantee from the majority of their members that they would be prepared to vote for it. They must have had a guarantee from their muzzled members that, no matter what they bring forward, they will support it. I wonder if any of those who vote for the motion have read it. If Deputies opposite are muzzled from speaking and expressing their views, surely they are not muzzled to prevent them reading the motion they are asked to vote on. It contains only five or six lines, and the least that Deputies might do for their constituents is to read motions on which they are asked to vote. Having read that motion no Deputy, in justice to his constituents, should vote for it. We have been listening to a certain amount of hypocrisy dished up by Deputies opposite for the last few weeks. There has been a lot of heat, but if it has been introduced it is because the Party opposite, especially the Front Bench, have been preaching nothing but hypocrisy from the beginning. From my position here on these Benches I can almost see the leer of hypocrisy coming through their faces. You can easily see that they are not in earnest about what they are saying. They have, I suppose, to put up a fight, and they are doing it as best they can. Deputies behind them know that it is bluff. They have to vote no matter what happens. There has been some talk about insults to the dignity of the House. They should realise that whatever little dignity is due to the House has certainly been dragged in the mire owing to their conduct. I have been in the country during the week-end. I met people who are supporters of the Free State Party, and I know what they think of the attitude of their Party in the House. They want to know what are they doing and why they are not tackling the questions which the country wants to have tackled. Has there been an upward curve, or has the country turned the corner since we began to sit all night and now to sit all day? Have we tackled questions affecting the farming or business community? Have we got down to bedrock? Have we left out of consideration things which the country do not want, and are we doing the things which the country requires to have done? We have not been doing the things which the country wants because the Government insist on keeping the House sitting all night. What have we been doing? Saving the country from a war by tearing out the much boosted Articles of the Constitution, Articles which, according to Ministers as they went through the country, were the very things upon which the people gave them their support.

Now, because the people of the country are waking up to the situation, and because there is a possibility of the people demanding that these Articles of the Constitution should be put into force, the Government say that it is against public peace and order if we do not immediately pass this Bill. That is certainly the kind of hypocrisy that will bring no dignity to this House. If there has been any heat since these matters were introduced, it is because the Government have created that atmosphere by bringing forward motions of this kind which cannot be said to have any respect for the Constitution, and if there are to be any heated scenes in future, it is only because such motions will be brought before the House. In the first place they know that there is no demand or no urgency for these measures. For the past few days we have been discussing a Bill in which the Government propose to give the Seanad the right to hold up a Bill for a year and a half. Now they say that if a Bill which has been only passed to-day is not put into immediate operation there is grave danger to the public peace. I think that even the back benchers on the Government side cannot believe that nonsense and hypocrisy, but they cannot give any other excuse for putting it through. They said that even the heated scene to-day — the Vice-President gave it as an excuse — was one of the reasons for bringing forward this motion, but has not this motion been on the Order Paper for some time? They just took advantage of the scene here to-day, and said that that justified them in bringing forward this motion. The real reason is that they are afraid that if this Bill is not immediately made law, the country cannot be bludgeoned into accepting it, and that the country will realise what it means in the meantime. The only way is to bludgeon the country into accepting it.

I am sorry that Deputy Thrift is not here, but at the same time I realise that it would be useless for me to say anything to him if he were. A few weeks ago he brought forward an amendment in opposition to a motion by our party for the Referendum, and he made a grand appeal for unity. He drew tears from all our eyes, asking us to see that this long-drawn-out campaign should cease. He asked us was there not other work to be done; were there not other things upon which we could agree to work, and why would we not tackle these things, but for the last three weeks, since the Executive brought in ten or twelve Bills, which do not deal with the things that Deputy Professor Thrift talked of, that have no relation to the relief of unemployment or the vital issues that affect the lives of the people, there was no talk from Deputy Thrift of the things upon which we might have agreed. The things that the Government are doing now are the very things that Deputy Thrift wanted to have done, and not the vital things which affect the Irish people, such as the provision of employment. I can quite see that Deputy Professor Thrift had just to play the villain of the piece for the President in this matter.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I would like to hear the Deputy on the motion and not on Deputy Thrift.

Mr. CLERY

The President took advantage of the Dáil by getting Deputy Thrift to bring forward that motion. I am afraid it is not much use appealing to Deputies on the opposite Benches to oppose this motion, because I believe they will not. They probably have opinions of their own, but I feel it is little use in asking them to vote against the motion. They had their private meeting, and perhaps the President gave them reasons for this motion that have not been given to the House. He must have given them some reasons, because there are some men on the Cumann na nGaedheal Benches who, knowing them as I did at one time, I believe, would not vote for that motion on the plea the President has made to the House. They will not do it if they are honest men, honest to their constituents and honest to the Constitution as it is. If they want to give fair play to the people they will vote against this motion, otherwise they will bring off a mean trick on the country that no honest Irishman could stand over.

Mr. CARNEY

This motion reads: "That it is hereby declared that the Bill entitled `The Constitution (Amendment No. 10) Bill, 1928,' which has this day been passed by Dáil Eireann is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace and safety." If this Bill is not passed, something dreadful is going to happen the country. There is going to be war or something else, some great cataclysm, some great disturbance in the country as the result of it. The whole fabric of democracy will potter and decay, to quote the words of Deputy Cooper. The President, some time ago, very valiantly indeed, stated in this House that he would not allow the people of this country to be threatened by any threat of force, but here the President comes along with a Bill, comes along with this thing here, and threatens the people with war if this amendment to the Constitution is not passed. "You are going to have war," says the President. Then the President will allow the people of this country to be threatened by any threat of force? Let loose the dogs of war. Does the President really think that the people of this country at this time of day are going to be taken in by claptrap like that, because if he does, he is an optimist; he is a prince of optimists. We have had the Minister for Lands and Agriculture, who seems to have adopted the role of Punchinello to the Government Party without the tragedy that attends Punchinello. He told us on these Benches that we would get certain rights, what we were entitled to, no more and no less. A Deputy on these Benches asked what were the rights and the Minister for Lands and Agriculture said "The Treaty."

In this debate the rights that we were going to get were contained in the Treaty, no more and no less. He did not explain whether it was the Treaty that originally existed or the thing that exists now. The Minister for Finance said there has been no great demand for the Referendum or the Initiative or Article 47 or Article 48 of the Constitution. Yet 98,000 people have signed and placed before the House a petition under one of those Articles. "There has been no demand!" There was no demand from a quarter of a million nationalists of Ulster for the carrying out of Article 12 of the Treaty — none at all. Their demand was ignored and Article 12 disappeared, and so did Article 5. Yet the Minister for Lands and Agriculture tells us, "You have your rights. Those rights are contained in the Treaty. You have no more and no less." And we have the mutilated Treaty. I wonder does the President or any member of the Executive Council think that any Deputy or any individual in the country is going to be hoodwinked by a motion like this; that if this Bill, which is intended to mutilate the Constitution — the Constitution that the President told us long ago could not be changed by one iota or one comma — is not passed there is going to be immediate and terrible war. Yet the President will not allow this country to be threatened with any threat of force.

We on these benches were taunted with having made threats, with having said that if certain safety valves were screwed down there must occur an explosion in the country some time. It was perfectly true, and if it had been stated 700 years ago it would have been perfectly true, because every time there was a safety valve screwed down there was an explosion. We have only to look back on the history of the country to see it for ourselves. We have been taunted with that, and yet the President — the acme of perfection — tells us that if a certain thing is not done there is going to be a war. We do not know who is going to make the war — we are not told that. But it is necessary that the Constitution should be mutilated or somebody somewhere in this country is going to wage war upon somebody else. "It is necessary for the preservation of the peace." When the President was told that he got a majority in this House, on the occasions that he did get a majority, simply because there was a threat put before the people — because the people were told, "There are certain things you shall not do, and one is that you must not fail to return us to power or there will be an immediate and terrible war"— the President denied it. Now, if we do not walk calmly and tamely into the Division Lobby and pass all these mushroom Bills that the President introduced, we are threatened with war.

"Come along," says the Minister for Lands and Agriculture. "Let us get down to bedrock. Let us get down to brass tacks and deal with the problems immediately before the country, the problems of agriculture, of unemployment and so on." Who interfered with these problems or with the efforts to solve them? Was it the Fianna Fáil Party? Not at all. The President comes along with a sheaf of Bills under his arm and in ten minutes he introduces them here, and since the President came along with his Bills we have been discussing them night and day. We have not interfered with them, but if one of these Bills is not passed somebody is going to fight somebody else. There were problems before the Dáil of unemployment, etc. There were motions down, such as the one dealing with widows' pensions, that could have been discussed. We were perfectly willing to discuss them on their merits — we would be willing to stay up all night and discuss them. Did we get an opportunity? Not at all. There was something which, at some future time, by the will of the people might have affected the grip that another country has on this country and might have affected the position of the Executive Council. Hence the President comes along with a sheaf of Bills and since that time there has been no motion discussed in this House regarding unemployment, widows' pensions, agriculture or anything else. The President can get us to stay up all night to talk about his Bills — to mutilate the Constitution. They told us that when they were framing the Constitution they were absolutely incapable and incompetent — that is what it amounts to. The Minister for Finance admitted that two Articles which were supposed to give power to the people were only the "pipe dreams" of faddists — useless things. We have been told for the last couple of weeks that they were useless. Still, because of these two Articles something might happen sometime. Hence the President must interrupt the work of the Dáil, hold up the work of the country, hold up his own Estimates, and stultify the work of the people's representatives, in order that these Bills shall be passed. Because there was delay in passing a certain Bill he tells us that there is going to be a war. How valiant he is if there is a threat of war from any section of the Irish people, but the President is not so valiant if there is a threat of war from any other country.

Why should anyone in this country wage war against anyone else if this Bill is not passed? The Minister for Lands and Agriculture — the Punchinello — has not told us. In his usual bantering way he has tried to get the people's "goat"— I will put it that way — but he has certainly made no contribution to the debate. He has given no strong reason for anything that has been put forward by the President. I could not class the statement made by the Minister for Finance as an argument. Surely the President is not going to have the audacity to tell us that he put up any argument?

I know he is audacious and that he can pervert things in certain ways, but I certainly thought he had not the audacity to tell us that this is to be an argument for us. Perhaps the President, if he gets an opportunity of trying to say a word or two later on, will tell us who is going to fight somebody else. What is it all about? I had some sort of notion that all the fighting men in the country were away in America. Where all the mythical legions are to come from is more than I know. Perhaps the President would tell us and perhaps he would tell us again what is the urgency and hurry for all this. Why rush this motion along? Why are we threatened with war if this thing is not done simply in the twinkling of an eye: it must be very urgent. Does not the President know that there are 90,000 unemployed in this country, that these 90,000 are entered on the books of the Labour Exchanges without taking any account of the rest? Does he not recollect that we have to vote money for several things that will be of benefit to the country? Why could not the President go on with the job? Why blame us for holding up the Dáil when he himself is holding it up with his footy Bills? If the President or the Minister for Lands and Agriculture wants to come down to bedrock and deal with urgent problems that affect the country we are perfectly willing to go ahead with them and after a twelve hours' day if the President came here and said, "We will have to sit on until eight in the morning," we will sit on to solve these problems. But this does nothing to solve the problems of the country. This is not the way the country should be held up in its work. By introducing Bills — if you like I will make you a present of the fact — to amend your own defective Constitution from your own point of view the Government is wasting time. If the Constitution was defective from the point of view of having these Articles included in it they are wasting the time of the country now by trying to amend it. They have wasted three weeks of the country's time in trying to do something which should not have been done according to them. Still, we have Deputy Thrift and the Minister for Lands and Agriculture and the whole bunch telling us, "Let us get down to bedrock and discuss the immediate problems that confront us in the country." If they want to put anything across the country quietly, if they want to give anything away the same as they gave our people in the North away, they say, "Do not discuss politics; let us do that sub rosa. Carry on the good work. Mind the bread-and-butter problems all the time, because we can keep on working the hidden hand behind the scenes. We can do what selling is necessary and we can get all the damn good bargains necessary.”

Perhaps the President, if he is going to wind up this debate, will give some reasons and some explanation to the House why this holding up of the country so long is necessary. Perhaps he would tell us why he has left men walking the streets and starving, and why he has held up the Estimates, why he has held up every Deputy who should be doing the work of the country. Perhaps he will explain that, and afterwards, if he succeeds in convincing his own automatic voting machine, as I would call it, perhaps he would go to the country and come upon a platform and convince the country that he was perfectly right in holding up the work of the country, perfectly right in seeing people starving because they were unemployed, and seeing the good work of the country held up in order to cut Articles out of the Constitution which should have been left in, or else never should have been put in. They were put in there for the express purpose of "pulling the wool" over the eyes of the Irish people. It has come to the stage now when the President thinks it is perfectly safe to remove the wool, and so the President has brought in two Bills to remove it; that is all there is to it. The President thinks the time is opportune to tear away the mask and expose himself to the people. Perhaps he will tell the people why he held up the country so long in having this removed, and why he is telling the country now that if we get the wind up and pass this Bill everything will be right, but if not we are faced with immediate and terrible war. Perhaps the President will try to explain his own words, when he said definitely and clearly, "I shall not allow the people of this country to be threatened by any threat or force."

Mr. COONEY

To-day we buried Articles 47 and 48 of the Constitution, and those of us who were present at the funeral will recollect that the scenes which were enacted at that funeral were not scenes which one would expect to witness at any burial. This evening, on resuming, we had sufficient evidence before us that the corpse which we buried in the forenoon session was a corpse of something which died an unnatural death, and already the spirit is haunting us, and consequently the necessity to exorcise that spirit. Hence we have a Resolution from the President. It is hoped that by that resolution, or motion, everything will be made safe for all time in the future. In common with many of my colleagues on these Benches I again want to ask members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party to point out, or give some scintilla of evidence of the truth of their fears, that the defeat of this motion is going to lead to bloodshed in the country. I challenge my colleague for North Dublin City to tell me how the defeat of President Cosgrave's motion is going to lead to revolution in the North City. Except it is going to be the revolution of "Shamrock shovels" I cannot for the life of me think that there is any serious danger of the slightest disturbance of the peace.

On a previous occasion in this House I did warn the Government that they were taking an action which was likely to lead to serious disturbance. That was when we were debating the adjournment for a period of three months last November, and when we had ample proof of the fact that there were thousands of people in the city on the verge of starvation and on the verge of despair, in such a condition of poverty and misery that one really did fear, and had good cause to fear, that the peace might be disturbed and that the good order of the community might be disturbed, and when I put forward that view and appealed to the Government to continue in session, to continue to keep the doors of this House open and to continue giving us and any other Deputy in this House who desired to do so an opportunity of suggesting ways and means of alleviating those pitiable conditions, I was met with the sneers of the Ministers. As a matter of fact those sneers are all we have ever received since we came in here. Perhaps it is best so. Let them continue sneering. The line of demarcation, at any rate, is being kept very clear between those who stand for the people's rights and those who either have not the courage to do so or who are deliberately conniving at denying the people their rights.

The manner in which Article 47 and Article 48 have been abolished and the methods that accompanied their abolition are sufficient proof that we are under the heel of a tyrannical Government. Someone, I think, on one occasion named it the Cooper-Cosgrave-Jacob Government. Those three interests combined are working insidiously day and night for the purpose of getting into their control all the resources of this country. Presumably when the motion is passed they will have secured an obedient majority in this House to carry out their dictates whenever the necessity arises. But I really do submit, in all sincerity, that it is fair and just to ask the Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies, those who still have the audacity to go through the country talking to the people on occasions, to give us some statement in the matter, no matter how brief, justifying their support for this motion. The only point which the Minister for Agriculture made in supporting the motion, so far as I gathered, was that he feared if it were defeated the people would have to submit to the rantings of Deputy Flinn. There are two ways of looking at that statement. I think one can see it in the light in which the Minister did not intend. The rantings of Deputy Flinn are nothing more or less than an expression of the desire in the hearts of the people for their rights. That is the very kind of ranting which the Minister certainly does not want to hear. He is prepared to take all necessary steps to prevent such ranting. He has to submit to it here, however, but he hopes that that ranting will be so altered in its context that by the time the people see it in the Press, they will view it as ridiculous and without any point.

Any Deputy who sat here listening to Deputy Flinn to-day, and who could not see and understand the various points with which he dealt, and dealt clearly and intelligently, is certainly not worthy of occupying a position in the Ministerial ranks. With reference to the scenes which were witnessed here to-day, let those who regret those scenes understand the cause. If they come to understand the cause, then perhaps we will be able to avoid it in future. The cause of those scenes was the deliberate flouting of the people's rights by the Ministers in their action in bringing to a close the discussion on such an important motion. That was a flagrant disregard of our view-point. I, at any rate, gather when that incident occurred here——

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

Mr. J.J. BYRNE

I was rather astounded this evening to be invited so frequently to take part in this debate. My colleague for the North City, who has just sat down, threw out a very visible challenge and really convinced me that I should get up and say something.

I have now dealt with the whole programme that Deputy Lemass wants me to deal with.

The Deputy will have to come to the motion.

Mr. J.J. BYRNE

I now come to the motion by saying that I think I have cleared the air when I said that if I have to go to my constituents in the North City of Dublin and explain these constitutional issues to them, and if they ask me if I stood behind the motion that has been moved to-day, I would have no hesitation in saying that in my opinion, and with some knowledge of constitutional law, in reply to the bulk of those on the Opposition Benches, who have no knowledge of constitutional law, that the thing that was vital for the safety of the State and for the peace of the country was this motion.

Mr. COONEY

Above all, vital for the Government.

Mr. M. O'REILLY

I suppose there are Deputies who do not look on this as being of very great importance. There are others who look on it as being, I suppose, of average importance, and a good few who look upon is as a very serious business. The constitutional history of most countries is largely comprised of contests between people and governments for the people's rights. The people generally succeeded. They wrung their rights from kings and other forms of government. In Ireland, for the last five or six years, we seem to have more or less reversed the position, and the Government seem to have embarked on a campaign of wringing rights from the people. This motion we are dealing with is one which should give rise to very serious consideration. We have, for the last three or four months, at times embarked on serious economic problems. We made efforts to solve these problems, and I believe that is really what the people of Ireland want. They do not possess a very large number of rights, but simply because their economic position is in such a state, they do not seem to have the heart to look for these things. But I believe that this particular motion should not be necessary. When the Constitution was being framed certain individuals, I suppose, proposed certain clauses. These men must have been convinced that they were good and would be useful things, or else they would not have been put there. I do not think it is an argument that can be used, that these men were not sensible, that they were not statesmen. I am quite confident that these men could foresee, and did foresee, that some great advantages could be derived from these clauses, but for some reason or other, when a section of the nation proceeded to make use of these clauses, and proceeded to test them, immediately we had all the economic policy thrown to the winds, and there was a mad rush to embark on amendments of the Constitution, and on bringing in motions for safety. We have been at this for the last three or four weeks, and, as I say, the most important things have been left completely out of the question. Really I believe that the policy at the back of all this is a policy of mere political convenience. These clauses would not have been put into the Constitution if it was not intended that some use would be made of them, and if it was not intended that the use that was to be made of them would be good for the country, so that it leads me to believe that it is simply a matter of political convenience. I believe that the judges of this will be the people of the future, or some historian, who will be inclined to put it down to being a matter simply of political convenience. What will be the feeling amongst the people of Ireland, who are really hard pressed — what will be the feeling in the United States, where they were told that we were prosperous, or, at least, that we had turned the famous corner, when they read that this Bill, passed by the Dáil, is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace and safety? They, just as the people down the country, will, I am sure, begin to wonder where the danger lurks, where the danger lies of this terrible eruption that this particular motion is supposed to save. That is not the way to bring about the economic revival of the country.

The real effect of this will be to tighten credit. I understand it has been inclined to get a little freer lately. The real effect this will have, as I said, will be to tighten that credit. Capitalists are not inclined to invest money in a country that has such motions as these tabled. The reason given is that it is necessary to hurry this. What is the necessity for hurry, or why should it be there at all? If, as I said, the effect is to disturb credit in a country that is already famishing for the want of that credit, I believe it is a very wrong thing for this House to pass. It is strange that after all the talk we have heard, after all the good prospects that have been held out to us, we should be faced to-day with a motion of this description. It is really a disheartening thing for a nation already disheartened. There is no danger. They do not want any such precautions as these, because there is no danger of anything like a disturbance of public safety or of public peace. We simply availed ourselves of what was there for the purpose of being availed of. Why was it put there if it is wrong to avail of it, and why was not this Article taken out when the mistake was discovered, or when it was found that it was unhealthy and bad for the Constitution of this nation to have it there? That brings me back to giving the same reason — I cannot find any other for it — that it is simply a matter of political convenience. Another reason that I could give for it would be this: Young governments are inclined to embark on such expeditions. They imagine, I suppose, like young people, that they are complete masters of the art of government. The art of government consists of a good deal of consistency. It consists a good deal in creating in the people a belief that the Constitution is a sacred thing. It has been taught that it is a sacred thing. It will not sound very well amongst the people if in a few days' time they are told that we are able to wipe away two or three clauses of this particular Constitution. The people will imagine, and quite justly that any number of clauses can be wiped away in the same fashion, and they can always say to themselves: "Well, such-and-such a clause is there this week, but it will probably vanish next week."

That is one thing that will weaken the whole position, and it is the one thing that young and inexperienced governments embark upon. As I have said, the people expect consistency in Governments, that there will be a certain amount of consistency in the Constitution, and that the rights they had in the Constitution will be preserved and defended by their representatives. My reason for intervening in this debate was that I felt it was necessary that I, on behalf of the people I represent, should make my protest against the quick and unreasonable change proposed in the present Constitution. The people believe that not only had they rights, but that it was their duty to exercise them. What has been the result of that? That in two or three weeks the whole Constitution has been changed, and those particular Articles are wiped out just because the people attempted to take advantage of what they had a perfect right to take advantage of. The Minister for Agriculture made some remarks on the necessity of giving up political discussions. We did not raise any political discussions here. We did not raise this as a political discussion, but simply tried to carry out, in a perfectly legal and orderly manner, what we were led to believe we had a perfect right to do. That is what has caused all these discussions that have taken place during the last three weeks.

Perhaps the Minister for Agriculture is right that political discussions should be eliminated, and that what the people need are purely industrial and economic discussions. I say it is very difficult for people to settle down to industrial and economic discussions as long as the present Government continue amending and eliminating clauses from the Constitution, especially the clause that a portion of these people consider they have a perfect right to use and enjoy. The Minister for Agriculture also spoke of decisions by the people on what are fundamentals. Now what is fundamental to the Constitution and what is fundamental to the people from the people's point of view is eventually what will win out. What may be fundamental to a particular Party under the Constitution is quite another thing. The people are generally always wiser and are always right, and it is the people of this country who will eventually decide what is fundamental to them, and what they believe are the fundamentals will be the fundamentals of the Constitution. I agree thoroughly with the leader of the Labour Party that this motion is a blemish on the name of the Irish people, that it is a motion that should never have been brought in here. I believe it is a motion that will do harm to the credit of this country, and if it does that it is doing very serious injury indeed. These are my reasons for opposing the motion.

Mr. P. HOGAN (Clare)

I did not intend to intervene in this debate at all, but Deputy J.J. Byrne left me no option. I flatter myself, whether it is a thing on which I should flatter myself or not, on being a constitutionalist, a full-blooded, die-in-the-ditch constitutionalist, and when I see the Constitution of this State being riddled, as it has been for the past few weeks, I am somewhat perturbed. When I see the motion that is on the Order Paper to-day asking that this Bill should not go through the ordinary procedure and should not be referred to the people, I ask myself what is the reason for it. I must say that I got no answer whatever when listening to any of the Ministers who spoke. I got no answer until Deputy J.J. Byrne spoke and, no doubt, as he always does, he voiced the true feelings and the true opinions of the Government Party. He said that there were certain inter-dependent clauses in the Constitution over which we had no control. These are his words, not mine. Therefore, the Irish people who, we were told, had complete control in their own house, who had complete control over the Constitution, and complete control over their freedom and destinies, have no control over the Constitution. The Deputy let the cat out of the bag. He said that, seeing that we have no control over certain inter-dependent clauses in the Constitution therefore we must not submit these things to the people, and that is the reason I see why there is anxiety on the part of the Executive Council in getting this motion through the Dáil.

We must not tell the people that, what certain parties in this country have been telling them for the past seven or eight years, is a terminological inexactitude. I do not want to quote Deputy Flinn. I want to use another phrase that we got from another place like the Constitution probably. It is with some regret that I say that, because I did think that there was never any use in belittling what we had won. I think there was never any use in making little of the Treaty or the Constitution framed within the Treaty. I did think that we could make each advance a starting point towards something else. I thought that we could model the Constitution so as to give us greater and fuller freedom, but now I find, on the words of the learned spokesman of the Government Party, that there are clauses in the Constitution that we dare not touch, that there are conditions governing us from outside, and that there are people of greater importance than the Irish people in this Constitution, that the Treaty is of greater importance than the Irish people, and that we dare not submit certain clauses of it to them. That is exactly what Deputy Byrne told us, and it is a source of some regret to me that that is the case. That is the reason why I think we should not allow this motion to go through. If there are clauses in the Constitution over which the Irish people have no control there should not be such clauses. Deputy Byrne ought to be the last man to try and have them in a Constitution governing the lives and liberties of the Irish people. They should not be there without the sanction of the Irish people or having been submitted for their sanction.

Mr. J.J. BYRNE

On a point of information, does Deputy Hogan know that the same clause is in the Constitution of every Dominion within the British Commonwealth?

Mr. FLINN

To hell with the Dominions. To hell with the British Commonwealth.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Including Liverpool.

Mr. FLINN

Up McGilligan and the Republic!

Mr. HOGAN

I am not concerned with what is in the Constitution of the Dominions. I am sorry that Deputy Byrne is leaving. I endeavoured to hold on while he was speaking, and I thought that he might pay the same compliment to me, and I might be just as interesting. I am not concerned with what is in the Constitution of the Dominions or in the Constitution of monarchies. What I am solely concerned with, and what the Dáil should be solely concerned with, is what the Irish people think should be in the Constitution. We should not model our Constitution on that of Australia, Canada, or anywhere else, but upon what the Irish people think should be in it. We should not be afraid to submit any Article of the Constitution to them and say, "This is the freedom we asked you to sacrifice so many lives for. This is the Constitution we asked you to engage in war for. This is the Constitution which those who defended it and put before you said was the whole Constitution and every comma of the Constitution," knowing at the same time that there were clauses in it over which they had no control, according to the statement of Deputy Byrne. So, therefore, it is outside influence that still controls us and is still our master. I wish to make my protest against this attempt to prevent the Irish people from having a say in any of the clauses of the Constitution. They should have their say in them, and this attempt to take from them that right is the only reason I can see for this motion. Therefore this motion is an attempt to muzzle the Irish people and prevent them from having their say. That is the only thing that is in danger. The public safety is not in danger, but the reputation, the character and the veracity of those people who stood for that Constitution is in danger, and that, I suggest, is the reason this motion is being rushed through the Dáil. It is because there are inter-dependent clauses in the Constitution over which we have no control, that the reputation of the people who stood for that Constitution and recommended it to the Irish people knowing there were these inter-dependent clauses in it, that their honesty of purpose, their intelligence if you like, their life as a political Party, and nothing else, are in danger. The public safety is perfectly safe, and the people are perfectly safe. It is only the character of a political Party that is in danger.

Mr. MOORE

The statement that was most applauded here this evening was that by the Minister for Agriculture, a modern version of "Get on with the work." He said, and I think truly, that the country generally was fed up with politics, and that the people were much more concerned with questions of agricultural and industrial improvement at present. Undoubtedly that is the case. We here are not to be taken as not appreciating the desire of the people to get on with the work. I believe we are at least as keen to get on with the work as the Government Deputies. I think I used the very same arguments as the Minister for Agriculture myself yesterday in regard to another Bill before the House. I think I asked what was the importance of it, and whether there were not more urgent problems than settling the powers of the Seanad with regard to the holding up of Bills.

Could not the present powers be left a little while longer, so that more urgent legislation could be attended to? We appreciate the point made by the Minister for Agriculture, but we must remember that that cry to which he gave utterance has been familiar now for some six or seven years. Notwithstanding all that the dominant Party have said on their platforms, and through their various organs of expression — the newspapers certainly have never missed an opportunity of pressing it home — there has not been that agricultural and industrial progress. The point arises then whether you can have agricultural and industrial progress merely by crying out for it.

Are there not other things to do than merely talk about agricultural progress? Are there not other things to be considered? Are there not deeper motives in the people? Are there not longings and yearnings higher than the mere desire for bread and butter? Have they not to be satisfied before agricultural or industrial progress can be achieved? I think the Government more or less realises that these longings do prevail. The Minister for Agriculture is a realist, and as a practical man he has to take this into account. He must be conscious of some mystic character in the people because we remember that only last Sunday week, I think, one of his fellow-Ministers went down in state to Tone's grave and gave an idealistic address on Tone, and he tried to connect up Tone with the present position in Ireland. I wonder was that done simply as a pastime, or was it a recognition that there was something in the people other than a desire for bread and butter? If the Minister is the realist and practical man he pretends to be — the man that the "Irish Times" praises him so much as being — is he not very impatient of that ceremonial at Bodenstown? I think that it is all a pretence of realism and practicality, and he too is uneasy. He feels that it is not enough to say "Get on with the work," that the people do not respond to a mere commonplace, superficial thing like that, for he is far too deep a man not to realise that that as a cry is a failure, that it gets nowhere, and that it attracts nobody.

If he comes along with a programme that is repugnant to them, to their traditions and aspirations, no matter how willing they are, they will not welcome him if he has that programme as part of his policy. I think it is quite safe to say that the Minister realises that, and that speech of his to-day was merely an effort to appeal to the superficial qualities of Deputies in the House, to appeal to the superficial inclinations and aspirations of people. Well, as I have said, the cry, "Get on with the work" has been going on. We are here very eager to get on with the work. We feel stability is an important thing; it is more important to the people on these benches than to the Deputies opposite because many of us here are not, as many of the other Deputies on the other side are, men of property. We have to live by earning our living and to those who are not professional politicians who have to live by day-to-day labour, stability is an important thing. To me, anyway, it is a desirable thing, and I know many Deputies of my Party for whom I can say the same, but we know stability can only be attained on certain conditions. We know what we have been doing this week and last week is not going to lead to stability, to agricultural or industrial improvement. There are many, low as the vitality of the country is at present, many thousands who are watching this debate and the progress of things here, and when they see what is being done this week they will not be encouraged, they will not feel that they have at last reached stability and done with politics. So far from that, in my opinion it is going to be a very disturbing element. The fact that such an unconstitutional thing can be done under the name of constitutionalism, the fact that a Government because it has a small majority in this House, can make use of that majority to carry a ridiculous motion like this without putting up a single argument to support it, without making a pretence that it has any truth or reality behind it, such action is going to make people disappointed. These people may not be the majority of the people, but they are key people; their influence is going to tell, and instead of establishing the Constitution, instead of making people feel that anyhow the way is now clear for evolutionary progress, that things are going at least to proceed in a normal way, I think a great many people will feel more disappointed and dissatisfied with conditions than ever. There will be very few in the country satisfied with the statement that if those two Bills were carried to the country and a vote of the people were asked it would lead to disturbance and disorder. I do not think there are very many fools in the country who will be deceived by that cry.

Two general elections were fought last summer, one under rather extraordinary conditions sprung at a moment's notice. There was, I admit, on both sides very strong propaganda, in posters, newspapers and so on, of the matter appertaining to the election which tended to develop excitement if the tendency to excitement were there at all. Yet, we found those two elections passed off in an almost model fashion. Now within the past week there have been local elections conducted throughout the country and local elections have often led to something like disorder and to a great deal of excitement. You find the newspaper comment is almost universally agreed that there was apathy on the part of people and that there was no interest in elections, 30 per cent., voted in some part of Meath, 32 per cent. in some other part and so on. Yet the Government tell us that if this harmless Initiative and Referendum, this product of faddists like the Chief Justice, Senator Douglas, and Judge Murnaghan is to be explained to the people and they are asked to vote there will certainly be such excitement and disorder as will endanger the peace of the country. Deputy J.J. Byrne and a few others may be deceived by it, but I think if one could see into the hearts of the Government's supporters at present, they do not feel too happy with the case put up for it. Certainly, when Deputy J.J. Byrne asked what was he to say to the electors of North City I felt like telling him that if he minded as little what he said to the electors of North City as he minded what he told a public meeting in Donnybrook last September it should not worry him much. But I suppose Deputy Byrne's remarks did not influence a great many people and we need not worry about them. Anyway, I have heard no case made out for this resolution. I think if it is passed it is going to have a most unfortunate effect. As one who believes in evolutionary progress; that great progress can be made here if things were conducted in a normal way, I believe it will be a most unfortunate thing if this resolution is passed and that it will create discontent and contempt for the Constitution and contempt for representative government. It will do nothing but injury, and if I thought I would influence anyone not to vote for it I would appeal very strongly to him to think, at least two or three times, before he gives his consent to the measure.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

took the Chair.

Dr. TUBRIDY

It is a terrible state of affairs when you have a man like Deputy McDonogh from Galway, who was always a constitutionalist falling asleep during this debate and not realising the terrible danger that he is in from rebellion and revolution. It is not fair for the Government.

Mr. McDONOGH

I am very much awake, with all due respect to you.

Dr. TUBRIDY

I am glad to hear it. I just wanted to warn you that there is going to be a terrible revolution in this country. I was afraid you might not know it.

Mr. McDONOGH

The sort of revolution you will bring will not make much difference. A half dozen of your sort would not make a man.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

The motion.

We cannot discuss that.

Mr. McDONOGH

Will any sensible man come along and invest money in this country while that is going on?

[Interjection by Deputy Killilea.]

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I wish that Deputy Killilea would give an opportunity to other Deputies in the House to make a remark occasionally.

Mr. KILLILEA

I wish you would make the same remark to the other side.

Dr. RYAN

I will not admit what Deputy McDonogh says, but we can have it out some other time.

Mr. McDONOGH

Any time you like.

Dr. RYAN

The sooner the better. We have been taken to task here about our conduct, and were told that we could not conduct ourselves in this House. Perhaps if we were imbued with a little of the courtesy of the President, and referred to our opponents as toe-rags, we might be all right. We are opposing these Bills as best we can, and we believe that they are an infringement on the rights of the Irish people, and, if any of us have got into trouble during that opposition, we cannot help it. There have been very few Deputies—I do not know any on the opposite side—who have got down to the motion before the House and tried to show what is the real danger to the public peace and safety if these two Bills are not passed through.

It would appear from some of the speeches on the opposite side that Deputies do not realise or do not know what this motion is about. They do not realise that the motion implies that unless the Referendum and the Initiative are removed from the Constitution there will be an immediate danger to the public peace and safety, that unless these two Articles which have been in the Constitution for practically six years are removed there will be a danger to the public peace and safety. That is what we are asked to vote on, on this question. We are accused of threatening but I do not think we have ever made such a silly threat as that—that there is going to be public commotion or danger to the public peace and safety unless these two Articles are removed from the Constitution. It has not been shown that there will be. As a matter of fact Deputy McDonogh told us that there is absolute apathy at the local elections and that there is only between a 30 and 40 per cent. vote. If there is going to be that apathy, if a Referendum is taken, where is the commotion to come from? There might be some justification for this motion if Deputy McDonogh came back from the country and told us that the people were scrambling round the polling booths, that 98 per cent. had voted and that the other 2 per cent. were knocked out of action and could not poll, but that did not happen and there is no necessity at all for it. But they have a reason of their own. It is because the Government are afraid that there would be apathy amongst their followers to defeat this, if a Referendum were taken on the question.

We were told by the Minister for Agriculture that there were not five people in the country to-day interested in the Initiative or the Referendum. Yet, these five people are going to work up what must amount practically to a rebellion if there is to be a Referendum. Five or six people are interested; the other 3,000,000 do not care about it, but these five or six people are going to endanger the public peace and safety if this question is put to a Referendum. That is the sort of argument put up from the Galway Deputies. I do not know if we had contributions on the subject from any other constituency. Deputy J.J. Byrne from North Dublin did not deal with that aspect of the question. He introduced himself as an authority on constitutional law and ruled anybody on this side of the House out as knowing nothing about constitutional law and he then went on to expound the subject of Dominion status. In that connection his exposition on Dominion status does give us an insight into what is really behind this motion. What is really behind this motion is not that there is any danger to the public peace and safety in referring this particular Bill to the people, because everybody knows that a vote can be taken on that Bill with the greatest safety, but what the Government is afraid of, in case the Referendum and the Initiative were established, is their own safety. That is what they are afraid of. They are afraid of the public peace and safety, always meaning by the "public peace and safety" the peace and safety of the Government and the keeping of power by that Government. I do not remember that we used any threats on this matter; I have not heard any such threats used by anybody on this side of the House while I was present but I say that if they were used, we have certainly this to say, at any rate, that we did not use as silly and ludicrous a threat as the threat involved in the resolution before the House.

Mr. BLYTHE

I claim to move "That the question be now put."

Question—"That the question be now put"—put.

The Dáil divided. Tá 59, Níl 48.

Tá

Aird, William P.
Alton, Ernest Henry.
Beckett, James Walter.
Bennett, George Cecil.
Blythe, Ernest.
Bourke, Séamus A.
Brodrick, Seán.
Byrne, Alfred.
Byrne, John Joseph.
Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margaret.
Conlon, Martin.
Connolly, Michael P.
Cooper, Bryan Ricco.
Cosgrave, William T.
Craig, Sir James.
Daly, John.
Doherty, Eugene.
Dolan, James N.
Duggan, Edmund John.
Dwyer, James.
Egan, Barry M.
Esmonde, Osmond Thomas Grattan.
Fitzgerald, Desmond.
Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
Gorey, Denis J.
Haslett, Alexander.
Hassett, John J.
Heffernan, Michael R.
Hennessy, Michael Joseph.
Hennessy, Thomas.
Henry, Mark.
Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
Jordan, Michael.
Kelly, Patrick Michael.
Keogh, Myles.
Law, Hugh Alexander.
Lynch, Finian.
Mathews, Arthur Patrick.
McDonogh, Martin.
McGilligan, Patrick.
Mongan, Joseph W.
Mulcahy, Richard.
Murphy, James E.
Nolan, John Thomas.
O'Connor, Bartholomew.
O'Leary, Daniel.
O'Mahony, Dermot Gun.
O'Sullivan, Gearoid.
O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
Reynolds, Patrick.
Rice, Vincent.
Roddy, Martin.
Shaw, Patrick W.
Sheehy, Timothy (West Cork).
Thrift, William Edward.
Tierney, Michael.
Vaughan, Daniel.
White, Vincent Joseph.
Wolfe, George.

Níl

Allen, Denis.
Anthony, Richard.
Boland, Gerald.
Boland, Patrick.
Brady, Seán.
Briscoe, Robert.
Brodrick, Henry.
Buckley, Daniel.
Carney, Frank.
Cassidy, Archie J.
Clery, Michael.
Colohan, Hugh.
Cooney, Eamon.
Corkery, Dan.
Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
Crowley, Tadhg.
Little, Patrick John.
McEllistrim, Thomas.
MacEntee, Seán.
Moore, Séamus.
Morrissey, Daniel.
O'Connell, Thomas J.
O'Dowd, Patrick Joseph.
O'Reilly, Matthew.
Davin, William.
Derrig, Thomas.
De Valera, Eamon.
Fahy, Frank.
Flinn, Hugo.
Fogarty, Andrew.
Gorry, Patrick J.
Hayes, Seán.
Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
Houlihan, Patrick.
Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
Kent, William R.
Killane, James Joseph.
Killilea, Mark.
Kilroy, Michael.
Lemass, Seán F.
O'Reilly, Thomas.
Ryan, James.
Sexton, Martin.
Sheehy, Timothy (Tipperary).
Smith, Patrick.
Tubridy, John.
Walsh, Richard.
Ward, Francis C.

Tellers: Tá: Deputies Duggan and Conlon; Níl: Deputies G. Boland and Allen.

Motion declared carried.

Main question put. The Dáil divided: Tá, 59; Níl, 48.

Tá

Aird, William P.Alton, Ernest Henry.Beckett, James Walter.Bennett, George Cecil.Blythe, Ernest.Bourke, Séamus A.Brodrick, Seán.Byrne, Alfred.Byrne, John Joseph.Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margaret.Conlon Martin.Connolly, Michael P.Cooper, Bryan Ricco.Cosgrave, William T.Craig, Sir James.Daly, John.Doherty, Eugene.Dolan, James N.Duggan, Edmund John.Dwyer, James.Egan, Barry M.Esmonde, Osmond Thomas Grattan.Fitzgerald, Desmond.Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.Gorey, Denis J.Haslett, Alexander.Hassett, John J.Heffernan, Michael R.Hennessy, Michael Joseph.Hennessy, Thomas.

Henry, Mark.Hogan, Patrick (Galway).Jordan, Michael.Kelly, Patrick Michael.Keogh, Myles.Law, Hugh Alexander.Lynch, Finian.Mathews, Arthur Patrick.McDonogh, Martin.McGilligan, Patrick.Mongan, Joseph W.Mulcahy, Richard.Murphy, James E.Nolan, John Thomas.O'Connor, Bartholomew.O'Leary, Daniel.O'Mahony, Dermot Gun.O'Sullivan, Gearoid.O'Sullivan, John Marcus.Reynolds, Patrick.Rice, Vincent.Roddy, Martin.Shaw, Patrick W.Sheehy, Timothy (West Cork).Thrift, William Edward.Tierney, Michael.Vaughan, Daniel.White, Vincent Joseph.Wolfe, George.

Níl

Allen, Denis.Anthony, Richard.Boland, Gerald.Boland, Patrick.Brady, Seán.Briscoe, Robert.Broderick, Henry.Buckley, Daniel.Carney, Frank.Cassidy, Archie J.Clery, Michael.Colohan, Hugh.Cooney, Eamon.Corkery, Dan.Crowley, Fred. Hugh.Crowley, Tadhg.Davin, William.Derrig, Thomas.De Valera, Eamon.Fahy, Frank.Flinn, Hugo.Fogarty, Andrew.Gorry, Patrick J.Hayes, Seán.

Hogan, Patrick (Clare).Houlihan, Patrick.Kennedy, Michael Joseph.Kent, William R.Killane, James Joseph.Killilea, Mark.Kilroy, Michael.Lemass, Seán F.Little, Patrick John.McEllistrim, Thomas.MacEntee, Seán.Moore, Séamus.Morrissey, Daniel.O'Connell, Thomas J.O'Dowd, Patrick Joseph.O'Reilly, Matthew.O'Reilly, Thomas.Ryan, James.Sexton, Martin.Sheehy, Timothy (Tipperary).Smith, Patrick.Tubridy, John.Walsh, Richard.Ward, Francis C.

Tellers:— Tá: Deputies Duggan and Conlon; Níl: Deputies G. Boland and Allen.

Motion declared carried.

Mr. COONEY

Shame! Bribery and corruption again win the day.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 28 Jun 1928