I will be very brief. Let me say at the beginning that I am all out in favour of this Bill. I consider it a very reasonable Bill, and I consider it long overdue. I believe that this Bill is one of the most important Bills that we have had to deal with for some time. I regard, and I believe a huge majority of the Dáil regards, the Irish language as one of its most precious heritages. I look upon the Irish language as the sheet-anchor and one of the hall-marks of our nationality. Therefore any measure of legislation that will tend to forward the language of this country is appreciated, I am sure, to the full by every member of the Dáil. If we let down the language, down goes this nation. If the language were not cherished and succoured by the Government, I for one would not remain in the Government Party. What is the policy of the Government? The policy of the Government, I take it, is first to do all it can for this country and for the people of Ireland; to cherish the language of Ireland and in every way to support and maintain our Irish institutions.
Some Deputies have talked about compulsion. We all know that the avowed policy of this Government is to advance the language. Surely everybody in the Saorstát in the year 1928 should know that no public appointments in future will be made unless the candidates have a practical knowledge of the Irish language. I for one, at any rate, when speaking to the Irish people for the last five years have stressed that point, and I told them that if they failed to learn the language of Ireland, if they had no love for the language, well then they should look upon the language from a bread and butter point of view of life and from the materialistic point of view. It is nonsense then to say that anybody or that everybody did not know what the policy of this Government is and I am sure succeeding Governments will be in the matter of forwarding the Irish language. I look upon the legal profession as one of the chief props of this State. If we go to Paris or Berlin or Madrid and visit the courts of law in those places what language will we find spoken there? In the Parisian or Madrid courts or in the Berlin courts, the language you will find spoken is the language of those countries.
It has been further stated that barristers and solicitors are officers of the courts and that, therefore, they are officers of the State. In a sense they are, and on a different level, say, from the other professions, doctors, engineers or other people. All the law proceedings in the courts are given widespread publicity in the metropolitan papers and in the provincial papers. Take up any of these papers when any law proceedings are on, and you will see the space that is devoted by the papers to these law proceedings. Therefore, I regard the legal profession as forming perhaps one of the main props of this or any other State. Barristers and solicitors in a sense are compulsionists. They compel the man in the street and the people of the nation to do something very often against their wills. It would appear that in the Dáil in the year 1928 there are some members of the legal profession who are adverse to this judicious vis a tergo. I have recollections that I have read in, I think, the "Independent," that the Incorporated Law Society, sitting here in Dublin, had a debate recently on the Irish language, and that in the course of that debate they turned down the Irish language.
I hope they will not bring an action for libel against me if I am wrong. I take it that their turning down of the Irish language was one of the great factors why Deputy Conlon and his colleague, the other back-bencher, saw well and thought it wise to introduce this Bill. I think it was Deputy Buckley who made the statement that the schools that were most proficient in the Irish language and in Irish education generally were the schools that were most proficient in other subjects. I take that as a fact, and I think it is a very significant fact. If the children of the Saorstát were able to obtain such high marks, because, undoubtedly, of the fact that they studied the Irish language, therefore, I believe, it follows that the legal profession in studying the Irish language will be assisted by that very fact. Its study will help to clarify and brighten up their minds, if I might say so. I, for one, hope that when they do study it the fact of studying it will bring additional rose nobles into their coffers. The language of Ireland has been compulsory in the Saorstát for a considerable time. It is being taught in the schools. The teachers were compelled to learn the language. Those who did know it were brought to various Irish-speaking centres and they were made, and rightly made, to refurbish their minds as regards a knowledge of Irish, and then they taught it to the children. I think that the language has now been taught compulsorily for four or five years. The children of to-day will be the men and women of to-morrow, and if any profession, or section of the people, failed to stand shoulder to shoulder with the rest of Irish-Ireland, I think that any National Government of the day would be lacking in its duty if it did not use some judicious compulsion in compelling that section to study its own language. Twenty-eight years ago, when I was in college, I studied the Irish language from Father O'Growney's books. I have some of them yet, and in my spare time I take them up whenever I can and study the language. I venture to say that the sacrifices and sufferings which the Irish people have experienced for the last ten years or more would in great part be nullified, and the amount of freedom accruing from those sufferings and trials, the amount of material gain if you like, would be wasted and, to many of us in this Dáil, the whole matter would be a calamity unless the Irish language was cherished and brought to the forefront as a language of any country should. I am very glad that this Bill has been introduced. I think it was necessary, because, as I have said, one of the chief props of the State, namely, the law, did not in my opinion take that interest that it should have taken in the question of the Irish language. I am very glad indeed that Deputies Conlan and McFadden have brought forward this measure which, I hope and believe, will be carried by an overwhelming majority.