I think we are at liberty to deal with the whole Budget statement on this Resolution. Looking over the statement again, I think there are some things which need elucidation on the part of the Minister. For instance, the question arises of the manner in which the relief on agricultural rates is to be distributed according to population. It is not quite clear whether the Minister means that there is to be a bulk sum given to the counties. If that is so we would like to know what arrangements are to be made within the counties, whether there is some scheme by which relief will be given to the individuals concerned. It is very difficult to discuss the effect of this mode of distribution until we have that point clear. Perhaps the Minister would be good enough to explain that matter before I continue further. There is another matter which he could explain at the same time — the extent to which the definition of light oils, and so on, would involve paraffin, turpentine, or white spirits. If these two points were explained, it might be easier to deal with other matters.
Financial Resolution No. 13—General (Resumed.)
The £750,000 will be distributed to the various counties in the manner I indicated yesterday and, within each county, it will be distributed in the same way over the land as the old agricultural grant was distributed. Paraffin is not included in the definition of hydrocarbon light oils mentioned in the Resolution. White spirit is, as is also turpentine.
Paraffin is not?
No; paraffin is free of tax. Turpentine and white spirit are included.
I understand there are certain Irish industries which depend on that, and I take it the Minister will be prepared to make the necessary exemptions if it can be shown that certain Irish industries practically depend for their raw materials on that.
I think that applies only to turpentine. The substance that would come under that head would be turpentine; I do not think white spirit would.
I merely mention the matter so that the Minister may be prepared to make the necessary exemptions when we come down to details. I have not had an opportunity since the Dáil adjourned to work this matter out for each of the counties in order to see the amounts that would be given to each in accordance with the Minister's scheme, and the extent to which the distribution of the money would be really equitable. Before I deal with that matter, I think I should first resume where I stopped yesterday, when I was speaking on the general principles.
We are dissatisfied with the provision for relief made in the Budget, because we think it is quite insufficient to meet requirements. When we introduced, a short time ago, a motion for the giving of relief to the extent of £1,000,000, no Deputy on any side of the House said relief was not urgently needed. Nobody in the House suggested that the sum proposed, which was the sum already mentioned by Government spokesmen—£1,000,000— was anything beyond what was actually needed. As a matter of fact, there was a general admission that a much larger sum was needed in view of the conditions in which farmers found themselves. The only reason why we put down £1,000,000 as half the amount necessary to complete the de-rating of agricultural land was because we realised that as long as the present Executive was in power they proposed to get that sum by way of extra taxation, and we could not see how the sum for de-rating could be got without imposing burdens that would be greater, perhaps, than the burden it was proposed to remove from the farmers. We did see very definitely how the sum of £1,000,000 could be got. When the Government were replying to our motion not a single member suggested that the sum we were asking was a sum beyond what should be given. Now we find that this sum has been cut down to £750,000. The sum of £1,000,000 was taken by us because it was promised by the members on the opposite benches.
We did not go into the question of de-rating or the best method of distributing the relief, because we did not want to give Deputies on the opposite side an excuse for further postponing the giving of this grant by pretending there were complexities in the scheme. When Labour Deputies put forward a suggestion by which certain discrimination might be made in favour of the smaller farmers, whatever agreements we might have with them in principle we regarded their attitude as unwise at the time because we saw that it would be availed of as an excuse by Deputies on the opposite benches.
It is admitted that agriculture is our principal industry, and that it is in a bad way, yet we have the Deputies on the opposite side going back on their own definite promises to the public and proposing to put off the farmers with three-quarters of the sum originally mentioned. The Government are making this offer, having had, in addition to their own investigations, the benefit of the full report of the Commission that was appointed. I do not say that there was anything very brilliant in the report of the Commission or that it added a tremendous lot to the amount of information that could have been found available in the Statistical Department. A number of people considered this question for a considerable period and, as a result of their own investigations, plus the information available in this report, the Government come along and, instead of trying to do more for the industry on which the welfare of the country largely depends, they propose to whittle down the sum by one-quarter.
We are disappointed on that score. We do not think it is fair to the farmers to do that. The farmer is suffering by the fall in prices more than any other person in the community. We gave figures to show there was a reality about this depression in agriculture. We showed that tillage had diminished and stock had diminished, and that the amount of taxation and rates borne by the farmer imposed a heavier burden now than in the past. I pointed out that on account of the appreciation of the value of money the amount the farmer has to pay in rates now is higher by some millions than it was a few years ago. The Minister told us that expenditure has been pretty well stabilised and the amount of the revenue to be raised has also been pretty well stabilised. I say that it has not been stabilised; in fact, an increasing burden has been put upon the farming community.
Our own belief is that not merely should £1,000,000 be given to the farmers immediately, but that sum of money could be obtained, if the Government were so minded, through economies in the direction that we pointed out. There is a limit to which fresh taxation can be imposed. This is fresh taxation. We admit it is necessary to relieve the farmer, but we think the relief of the farmer ought, in the present instance, to come by a reduction of unnecessary expenditure, expenditure that is not productive. We have pointed out the items on which these savings could be made. The Government has not attempted to face the question from that point of view.
We pointed out, on more than one occasion, that there is a large sum of money leaving this country every year in the shape of land annuities. That money should be given back to the Irish people by way of restitution for the sum they were robbed of through over-taxation. They paid millions in the way of over-taxation. I maintain that that money should be given back to the people in restitution. Instead of that we are sending it out of the country. Relief should be given to the farmers out of that money. As it is, you are proposing to give the farmers relief, but you impose fresh taxation in order to secure that relief. You are imposing upon them a scheme of fresh taxation, and I submit that they will bear, not merely their share, but more than their share in the existing circumstances.
We are dissatisfied with the proposals because they are not sufficient as regards amount, and we are also dissatisfied because the amount is to be provided, not by reduction in expenditure, not by savings and economies, and not by keeping at home the money that ought to be kept at home and that is rightly the property of the Irish people, but by putting new levies on the farmers which will, in many cases, place a heavier burden upon them than the burden of which they are being relieved. We have heard from the opposite benches that this pretended relief for the farmers is purely in the nature of taking the money out of one pocket and putting it into the other. We thought that if the Ministry were determined that they were going to get this not by saving but by further taxation, they would try to get that taxation, as far as possible, in a direction which would not impose new burdens on the farmer. But how do they propose to get it? They do not propose to get it by an increase of 6d. in the £ on the income tax, but they propose to get practically half of it by taxing the small farmer on one of the necessaries of life. There are few small farmers in the country into whose households it will not be necessary to bring from a half-stone to one stone of sugar weekly. That will mean a tax of fifteen shillings to thirty shillings per annum. Therefore, every small farmer whose rates do not amount to fifteen shillings a year or to thirty shillings a year is going by this legislation actually to suffer. His actual burden is going to be increased, and he will have to supply this money which is to be used in giving relief to his neighbours. If we are to deal fairly with the small farmers in this matter, we ought to have regard, in the first instance, for that particular class. We ought not to compel the small farmer to pay more than he has been paying instead of paying less. We ought not to go and increase his burden instead of lightening it.
There was one good idea in that report on de-rating which was presented to the House. That was an idea by which you would have, as they call it, progressive de-rating. The suggestion was that whatever amount of de-rating was to be given, the small farmer should get his full share. That was to say, that farmers with a valuation of from £15 to £20 a year should be exempted. There should be a larger amount of relief proportionately for the small farmers than for the big farmers. If it is necessary to help the agricultural community, if it is a fact that the industry is in a desperate condition at the present moment, then surely the people who deserve relief most from us ought to be the small farmers, who are far more numerous than the large ones. We have that principle in the income tax regulations. There is the principle of exemption of small incomes. We have tried here in the past to get that principle adopted to a wider extent than at present. We believe it is a wise and sound principle because at the bottom of it there is the idea that communities should provide for taxation out of their surplus, that there ought to be a subsistence allowance which ought not to be encroached upon. We think that that subsistence allowance ought not to be encroached upon in the case of the small farmer. But it is being encroached upon, and, in fact, every farmer whose valuation is smaller than the amount which this tax on sugar means to him, will by this proposal be placed in a worse position than he is at present. He would demonstrably be in a worse position than heretofore if his rates were under, say, 30/- a year.
A certain proportion of the petrol tax will be passed on to the small farmer. In the appendix to the report of the de-rating Commission it was suggested that a certain percentage of the petrol tax would be passed on. The farmer will have to bear his proportion of that. It is plain to everybody that there are few small farmers who will not have to buy from a half stone to one stone of sugar per week for their families. That means a certain burden of 15/- to 30/- a year. As I have already said, if the farmer's rates are less than this sum, the proposal is definitely penalising him.
I could hardly trust my ears when I heard the Minister making this announcement. On previous occasions the Minister spoke about taking money from one pocket and putting it into another. For that reason I could hardly believe my ears when I heard him say he intended getting this money through a sugar tax. Remember, sugar is more of a necessity than, perhaps, tea. This tax upon sugar will in the long run work out as a heavier tax on the small farmer than a tax that would bring in an equal amount in the case of tea. So that from the point of view of inadequacy and the wrong method in which it is proposed to raise the money, I cannot get words to express how dissatisfied we are with the proposal made by the Minister.
There is another point to which I would like to refer. We know that the Executive Council have been looking for a long time past for an excuse to interfere with the powers of local bodies. Even inadequate as this grant is in the way of relief on rates, it is being used by the Ministry to put forward a certain policy. It is a screen for the policy that they are determined to pursue. That policy is to diminish still further the powers of local bodies and to interfere with local government, as we understand it. I am not going to say that there are not any things in local government that might not be remedied, but we are going to oppose any extension to the counties of the managerial system as it obtains in Dublin and Cork. We are going to oppose that strenuously. There is some special virtue in small numbers, apparently, in the minds of members of the opposite benches. When the Cork City Bill was going through, I opposed the setting up of a small council because I felt it was smaller than was reasonable and that you could not get the representation of opinion that it would be advisable to have in a body of that kind. I opposed it because I believed that in practice the number would be too few. What has happened here in Dublin? There is the difficulty of having enough members for the necessary committees. If you want a good working council, you must have it sufficiently big to enable the necessary committees to be set up so as to distribute the work amongst them. There is a limit beyond which you cannot go if you want work properly done. The idea that you can get three or four supermen to do the work of a council is at variance not only with the principles upon which we desire to work, but it is at variance with common sense.
We believe it is to the general advantage of the community to give to the local bodies as much power and control over their own immediate affairs as is consistent with the general coordination of the work of the community as a whole. There is already more work here devolving upon the Executive Council than they can carry out. What happens? They have to depend to a large extent on the permanent civil servants to do their work. They have to act on the advice of these officials, and necessarily so. In most cases they have to be guided by the advice of the permanent officers. So that if the policy of the present Government is going to be put into full effect we are going to find ourselves, in the long run, a community governed by bureaucrats who have no immediate responsibility and who will not have to answer directly for their policy. I think that that is bad. I think that, on general principles, it is very much better that we should devolve upon local bodies to the greatest possible extent the right to govern themselves and to take measures for their own welfare. I say that under the cover of this partial relief, as a screen for their advance, the Executive propose now to attack the local bodies. I hope the country will not permit that and that Deputies will not permit it. It is a bad and wrong principle to use a measure like this as an excuse for it, and it simply means that Ministers are still as audacious as they have been in the past. Obviously they do not mind anything except to take the measures that they think will give themselves the greatest grip over the affairs of the country as a whole. I think it is a wrong principle. It is altogether running contrary to the direction in which we were moving some years ago, and, to say the least of it, I am surprised that some Deputies opposite are standing for it.
With respect to petrol, I should like to know whether the Minister has considered the question of what steps the Government might take so as to diminish the burden of that tax upon the community as a whole. We believe that the Government could take steps which would diminish the burden of the tax upon the community. We have suggested more than once that the Government should examine the question of a petrol monopoly. I should like to know whether they have done it, and what are their conclusions. I think when a tax of this sort is being placed upon the community, and when there is a possibility of protecting the interests of the community by State action, that the State is bound to take that action, if it can.
These are the main points which occur to me at present. We shall have an opportunity of going into them in more detail later on. I have not, on account of the indefiniteness at the time, been able to examine the proposal of the Government with reference to the distribution of this money. I would have to examine it from the point of view of two or three alternative explanations, so that I shall have to wait until we get the Minister's direct explanation as to the basis on which it is to be worked. I do not believe, however, that this method of trying to remedy two errors by superimposing one on the other is going to work out properly or equitably. When we work out the figures and examine the amount that will be given to each county, and the relief afforded to the different sections in each county, basing it on general principles, I do not believe that that method of correcting one error by imposing another is likely to work out. If Deputies will examine how much will go to their own counties as a result of these proposals on the basis of the explanation that has been given by the Minister, and then examine the question as to how within these counties the relief is to be distributed. I do not think there is any Deputy who will be satisfied that it will work out equitably in some cases. In some cases it may work out all right. But the other principle was certainly one which would work out equitably, and that was that if there is relief to be given it should go at once to those who need it most, and these are the people undoubtedly with the small valuations.
That was our policy.
No. If Deputy Davin goes back and examines the proposal at the time he will find that it was based on a different principle altogether. It was based on the use that was made of the land. I do not deny that that would be a very important thing to examine into.
There was more than that in it.
No. So far as I remember, there were certain penalties — there was to be a certain amount of tillage and so on.
There was a valuation basis.
It was not on the value, but on the method of working and use made of the land. I do not deny that there is a point of view there that would require examination, but I hold that to attempt to do it would be a most complicated business and that it would mean a great increase of officialdom and so on. The particular suggestion in that report does not involve any increase in officialdom. Our interpretation of it, if it were being applied, would be this: that every farmer, big and small, would be relieved of taxes on £15 of his valuation. That would mean in the case of the small farmer a proportionately higher amount of relief. When we remember that it is the small farmer who is going to bear proportionately the biggest part of the burden, the case for relieving him is made stronger. It is still stronger when we remember that on account of the tariff policy we are imposing upon the small farmer another burden which is proportionately heavier for him than for the larger and wealthier section of the community. I say that there is a case in justice that could be made for relieving him and that if you are going to distribute this sum it should be distributed in that way, rather than the way proposed by the Minister.
The Minister's proposal is simply to try and correct one error by imposing another. It may work out in some cases, as I said without having examined the figures, but I doubt very much whether on examination it will not be shown that this is going to work out most inequitably in a number of instances. In the case of a number of counties and in regard to individuals in these counties, I do not see how it can work out equitably. I do not say that simply because the amount available is not enough. I do not say that it is going to meet the demand that there is at present and the need that there is at present. We believe that the sum ought to be increased so as to make a greater amount of relief available for all the farmers. But, when we are restricted to this particularly small sum, then the people who ought to be relieved by it ought to be the small farmers first. If the Ministers are going to hold on to their present method of raising that tax, then I say the case for relieving the small farmer is still greater. So that, from every point of view, we are dissatisfied with the main proposals in the Budget. I hope that before the Dáil is finished with it Ministers will have the good sense to recognise that they are acting unfairly towards the small farmer, towards the very people who deserve most help, and that the opinion in the House will be sufficiently strong to force them to take that point of view and act in a common-sense manner.
I am very glad to notice that the leader of the Fianna Fáil Party has come to recognise that there was something, after all, in the point of view which we put up when his motion was before the House some time ago in the matter of discrimination as between the large and the small farmer. I am very glad that he has been converted to our point of view.
On a matter of personal explanation. I know that Deputy O'Connell does not want to misrepresent me, but if he goes back to my statement made at the time he will find that I agreed then in principle with the idea of helping the small farmer first, but that I objected to his amendment on the grounds of its practicability at the moment when we wanted immediate relief and when we were opposed by people who would be only too anxious to take hold of any complexities in order to say that the scheme was impracticable.
Mr. O'Connell
I do not want to say any more than I have said. Deputy de Valera led his Party into the Division Lobby against discrimination. Whether we are all agreed in principle or not, that is what actually happened. We wanted to give relief to the extent of three-fourths on the current rates to people below a certain valuation and one-half on certain conditions to those above it. There is not much in the point at all, and I do not want to make any particular point about it, but Deputy de Valera again, to-day, said that we were unwise in pressing that motion, and I say I think that if anybody gave a headline to the Government for the action they have taken to-day it was the Fianna Fáil Party. I leave it at that.
We will not leave it there.
Mr. O'Connell
No, nor will we leave it there either.
Get on with it.
It is very early in an important debate to introduce simulated heat.
Mr. O'Connell
I apologise.
The Deputy is not in the wrong. Deputy de Valera was heard in silence, Deputy O'Connell is entitled to speak to the House, and people should not pretend to be vexed when they are not.
Mr. O'Connell
Perhaps to smooth matters I will deal with a matter not so controversial and refer for the moment to the petrol tax. I ask the Minister whether he has given consideration to the great amount of forestalling in petrol that has taken place in the last few weeks and even months. He must know, I am sure, that everyone believed for some time past that there would be some tax on petrol, and those dealing in petrol acted accordingly. I understand there are very large stocks of petrol in the country at the present time, and the ordinary motorist who buys petrol from to-day will undoubtedly have to pay this 4d. extra, and that 4d. is not going to find its way into the revenue. I am surprised that the Minister did not take some steps to collar that 4d. It will go now to the people who increased their stocks in the last few weeks and months. I think a way could be found either by means of stamps or otherwise to see that the money found its way into the revenue. I pass on the tip for what it is worth. I suppose it has been given consideration and perhaps it was found not to be practicable. But I think it would be practicable, and I think that a great deal of revenúe is going to be lost by not having made preparation to meet it.
Now coming to the proposed relief of the farmers, I shall be very interested to hear the Minister's defence in regard to that special proposition. For, as already stated by Deputy de Valera, I cannot imagine anything more preposterous than the proposal to give relief in the manner in which it is proposed to give relief so far as half of this amount is concerned, and the more one examines the proposal the more extraordinary it appears to be.
I said yesterday, without having looked into the figures, that I believed there would be many of the small landowners, especially in the West of Ireland, who, instead of getting relief would find themselves with an extra burden of taxation, and I think the more one examines the figures the more one will see that. What is the Minister's defence for that? There are, according to the returns printed in this report of the De-rating Commission, 378,568 holders of agricultural land, and of these 170,334 have a valuation of £7 or under. That is, that practically fifty per cent. of the occupiers of agricultural holdings in the country have a valuation of £7 or under. What is the measure of relief that these holders will get out of this £750,000? It is not easy to calculate it on the statement of the Minister alone, but I estimate that the average relief in rates from one county to another would be 2/- in the £. Perhaps it would be more in the counties thickly populated, but certainly less in those thinly populated, but I think it would not be far out to say that the average relief that will be given will be 2/- in the £.
I find the average valuation of these 170,334 people is £3 5s., and the relief they will get under this grant will be 6/6, or, let us say, 7/6 per annum. What are they faced with on the other side? I think a very low estimate of the cost of this halfpenny per lb. on sugar would be 3/- per head per annum. Take the average small farmer landholder in the West; his family consists of four or five people. The average in Mayo at any rate is five. This new tax will cost such a family 15/- per year. I am giving a conservative estimate; it is much lower than what Deputy de Valera said was spent on sugar, but it will work out at about 15/- at least for the average landholder. Talk of taking money out of one pocket and putting it into the other! That would be fair enough and an equitable arrangement enough. But that is not what is happening here. What is happening here is that you are taking money out of the pockets of the poor small farmer and putting it into the pocket of the big farmer. That is what the Minister's proposal amounts to. There is no shadow of doubt about it. He can work it out on balance himself. These 50 per cent., or at any rate 45 per cent. of the small farmers in the country are the people who are most value from the social community point of view, because these men till more and produce more proportionately than the people who have the larger holdings.
Now I do not know on what principle the Minister lays down this new method of helping the farmers of Ireland — taking 15/- from them and giving them 6/6 in return as help. We all heard of getting 9d. for 4d. in the old days, but this is getting 4d. for 9d. so far as the vast majority of the small farmers are concerned. I see Deputies for Mayo on the Cumann na nGaedheal Benches. In Mayo, two-thirds of the occupiers of holdings are valued at £7 and under. I suppose we will have Deputies from Mayo marching into the Lobby in support of this proposal to put an additional tax, for that is what it is, on the small farmers in that county. That is what is being done in this Budget — a new tax is being imposed. The newspapers this morning give it the heading, "Relief for the Farmers." It is the most extraordinary from of relief that I have ever heard of. I have been speaking of how this tax is going to fall on the small farmer, those who are supposed to be getting relief. But what about every working-class family in the country, in all our small towns and in the City of Dublin? Everyone of these families is called upon to pay this extra tax. If we examine the question of who are to benefit, we find that, in the main, the benefit is confined to about 10 per cent. of the farmers who own holdings of high valuation. They do not eat any more sugar than the small farmer. I doubt if they use as much, because as a rule their families are smaller. The position is that every working-class family in the country and every small farmer is asked to contribute in this way to relieve those large farmers of a certain burden which, we all agree, is pressing very heavily upon them.
I called this Budget yesterday "the rich man's budget." I observe that some of the newspapers this morning say there is no justification for that description of it. We do not see anything coming to working-class families or to the members of the small farming community out of this Budget, but we do see something going to the big farmers of the country and to those who are able to indulge in the sport of racing and to attend race meetings. They are getting relief to some extent out of it. We see, too, that the income tax payer is getting off again this year. We have seen the Minister for Finance go to great rounds to explain why the income tax should not be raised. We see his anxiety for the few people who come across here from England every year and remain for a while. I agree with him that it is right, of course, to encourage these people to come, but it is the outlook of the Minister that I am criticising, his anxiety for these as compared with the anxiety he has for the thousands of people who will be hit by this tax.
His anxiety about the money that we get from them.
Mr. O'Connell
Of course; all the anxieties of the Minister are concerned with money. I take that for granted. I am quite ready to concede the point that the Minister is not doing this because of any special personal liking that he has for these people. I am talking of them as tax-producers, and I am quite ready to accept the point the Minister has made. There is no doubt that the amount of benefit which this relief will produce will be entirely disproportionate to the money which will be spent on it when the tax is raised, and especially in that particular way. Some people who deserve encouragement most will not be encouraged. They will get no relief, and it will mean nothing to them. To the vast majority of ratepayers this proposed relief will mean nothing whatsoever. As far as one can see, no steps are being taken to secure that the relief given to the big ratepayers to the extent of £30, £40 or £50 will go into greater production. There is no provision to see that that will be done.
Again you have this extraordinary position. We know there are a great many people in this country who hold and own land who do not derive their living mainly from the land. There are shopkeepers, doctors, lawyers, professional people of one kind or another ——
Schoolmasters.
Mr. O'Connell
And sometimes schoolmasters, as Deputy Gorey reminds me. On this occasion I am with Deputy Gorey. The people I have referred to do not derive their living in the main from the land, nor are their families dependent on the land for a living. But they hold land, and therefore under this proposal of the Minister they are going to get relief. Why should these people be specially relieved from the burden of rates? I do not see any argument in favour of it, or any justification for it. The big shopkeeper down the country who, perhaps, owns three or four farms, is going to get very considerable relief under this proposal of the Minister, and those who are going to pay for that relief are the poor little farmers and labouring people, who are having this tax of a ½d. per lb. extra on sugar imposed on them. Is that equitable taxation?
I make no special reference to the petrol tax, but undoubtedly some of it will be passed on to customers, especially in so far as it is used in connection with commercial vehicles. The man who distributes goods around the country by means of a lorry will take some steps to ensure that the increase in his costs, due to this new tax on petrol, will be passed on to his customers. I believe that is what is going to happen.
We shall all be interested to hear from the Minister or from some of the Minister's supporters some justification for this increase in one of the necessaries of life. I am quite sure that if the Minister had looked around he could have found some other means of raising the amount that he estimates under this heading which would not press so heavily on the poorer members of the community, and especially on those who are supposed to be getting relief. An increase in the rate of income tax was one suggestion. Even if the Minister ruled that out, I believe that other ways could be found of raising the money.
What the Minister has done in this case is to take the easy course. In looking around for a tax to raise a large sum of money in a fairly simple way he sees that the easy thing to do is to put it on one of the necessaries of life. That is what he has done here. I cannot conceive how the Minister can have any hope that the main feature of his Budget is such as to give any lasting benefit to the farming community. I have a great suspicion that the whole thing is only meant as a kind of gesture, a yielding to the agitation that undoubtedly exists in the country for some form of relief. The Minister's attitude seems to be this: "We will just give them this form of relief and say that it is relief for the farmers. It will take them some time to find out whether it is real relief or not, and perhaps we will have the general election over before they find out." That seems to me to be the idea that was at the back of the Minister's mind when he made this particular proposal in his Budget.
The silence from the Cumann na nGaedheal Benches to-day and the half-hearted applause we heard yesterday at the conclusion of the Minister's speech are indicative of the dissatisfaction felt by Deputies on that side at the manner in which the Minister for Finance has redeemed the Government's promise to give relief to the farmers. For the past six months, as Deputies will remember, Ministers and other members of that Party have at election meetings, at private Cumann na nGaedheal meetings, at carefully-selected audiences in the principal towns, and even at the despised cross-roads, been talking about the great measure of relief that was forthcoming and that would be announced in the Budget statement. The President started the chorus, the Minister for Finance took it up, the Minister for Education followed, and the Minister for Agriculture was probably the loudest. Of course, at the beginning they did not indicate the exact nature of the relief they were going to give or the amount they were going to spend on it. They inspired the political correspondent of the "Irish Independent" to do that.
There was a by-election in County Dublin, which took place on the 9th December, and on the 2nd December, one week in advance, the "Irish Independent" came out with a headline announcing that £1,000,000 at least was going to be given in relief to the farmers by the Government. That announcement, following the definite undertaking which the President gave, had a considerable effect upon that election. Deputies will remember that it even accelerated the race of Mr. Belton to the Cumann na nGaedheal Party. Because of that announcement, and because of a letter which the President wrote him, he was induced to record not merely his own vote but every vote he could influence — the whole five of them — for the Cumann na nGaedheal candidate, and the Cumann na nGaedheal candidate won. The result of the election, however, did not stop the chorus. The members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party spread the glad tidings over a wider area around the country, bidding against one another like buyers at an auction. One million said one, and £1,200,000 said another, but Deputy Connolly capped it by offering £2,000,000.
I was thinking of the million you were going to contribute. That is, the million you promised.
The Deputy promised over £2,000,000, and this so startled the Government that an order went out to the whole Party: "For heaven's sake, shut down on the relief," and they all obediently shut down. From the date of Deputy Connolly's announcement to the date on which Deputy de Valera's motion was moved in the Dáil there was no word about the relief. A mysterious silence fell over the whole subject. Nothing was said. The promises were forgotten. Even the electoral value of those promises could not induce members of Cumann na nGaedheal to speak about them until Deputy de Valera moved his motion here and forced the Government to realise that there was one undertaking they gave to which they were going to be forced to stick. Under that impetus the Minister for Finance was induced to redeem the promise to the extent of three-quarters of a million. Instead of the £1,000,000 which the "Irish Independent" spoke of, instead of the £2,000,000 which Deputy Connolly foretold, we have the proposal to expend three-quarters of a million on the relief of farmers.
This question of relief for farmers and the question of de-rating has, of course, been under discussion in the country and even in this House for some time. Over twelve months ago, the Government set up a De-rating Commission and they told us that there would serve on the Commission men representative of every part of the country and of every section, that the best brains that they could command were to be brought to help the Commission so that the whole question could be properly discussed and some scheme devised by which relief could be given to farmers, if total de-rating were not found possible. The Government asked that Commission for a report. They got, not merely one report, but three reports and an addendum, and they rejected them all. The Minister for Finance, when Deputy de Valera's motion was under discussion, said that if the motion were proceeded with in the House it would not be possible to get men of ability, who had other things to attend to, to serve again on Government Commissions. What inducement is there to such people to serve on Commissions if, after twelve months' labour, they find all their work ignored, and a slipshod scheme devised to do something which the majority of the Commission stated should not be done? Of course, the Minister for Finance stated yesterday that the Government found itself in agreement with the report of the majority of the Commission. I do not pretend to be quoting the Minister's words accurately, but I think he stated that although the Government found itself in agreement with the report of the majority it realised that its recommendations could not be put into effect, so as to give results before the General Election, and consequently it was reluctantly compelled to ignore the recommendations and to embark on a new project of its own.
The main objection to full de-rating advanced by the majority of the Commission, and on yesterday by the Minister for Finance, was that it would necessitate an excessive amount of taxation. As Deputy de Valera has stated, this Party has committed itself to carry out a scheme of full de-rating by withholding and using here money that is now being exported and which is our legal property. We have argued before the matter of the land annuities and, no doubt, we will argue it again. No matter how stubborn Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies may be, no matter how deluded they are in consequence of the fallacious arguments advanced by the Minister for Finance, they cannot get over the fact that we have a legal right to hold that money and to use it for such purposes as this if we are so minded.
If the League of Nations so decides.
If Deputy Connolly would use his energy in trying to find out exactly what our case is, instead of engaging as he is, in conjunction with the Minister for Finance and others, in the treacherous activity of suggesting methods to England by which the payments could still be enforced, even though our legal claim had been proved, he would be serving a more useful purpose. Deputy Connolly talked once about de-rating, and, in the interests of his Party, I advise him to be silent to-day. He might say something which might force the Government to do something else for the farmers, however reluctant they are to do so. No one can say that full de-rating is not possible because the money is not available. The money is available. The fact of the matter is that the majority of the House prefers to use that money, as the President stated, "to cement the bonds of sympathy that bind us to the British Empire," rather than in giving relief to the Irish farmers. However, we can reconcile ourselves to the fact that justice to the Irish people in that matter will not be done while this Government is in office.
They have announced that they are going to spend three-quarters of a million on the relief of farmers. How do they propose to expend it? As Deputy de Valera and Deputy O'Connell pointed out, they propose to spend it in a manner which will give the least amount of relief to the people who want it most. The amount which they are giving is not much. I am sure the majority of the members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party, if they would express their minds, would say that at least the £1,000,000 which Ministers promised, and which Deputy de Valera asked, should be made available. The fact is, however, that we have only got three-quarters of a million. I would like Deputies to realise that if we got an extra quarter of a million it would be possible to give, not merely the relief which they are actually proposing to give at the moment, but, in addition, sufficient completely to de-rate all agricultural holdings under £15 valuation.
As Deputy O'Connell has pointed out, the holdings under that valuation are 67.4 per cent. of the total. What is more important than that, the great majority of the agricultural population get their livelihood from such holdings, and although we cannot place too much reliance upon the accounts which are given in the appendix to the De-rating Commission's Report I would like, in particular, to attract Deputies' attention to the fact that these reports would seem to indicate that, in the last year covered by them, farmers under 25 statute acres secured, as a return for their labour, remuneration less than that given to hired agricultural workers in that year. The accounts show that a farmer in that position realised a deficit after all outgoings had been met, allowing for his own work at a labourer's rate. In other words, the owner of a farm of that size secured in that year a smaller return from his labours than he would have got if he had hired himself out as an agricultural worker. That is a class of the community that requires assistance most. That is a class of the community to whom you are going to give least. The attitude of this Party is, of course, that all persons engaged in agriculture at the present time require assistance, and that there is a case to be made for some re-distribution of the national income so as to enable those engaged in our most important industry to carry on at a reasonable profit.
We want to see the assistance given all round, but when you have limited the assistance to three-quarters of a million you should spend it in the most equitable manner. The suggestion is made by Deputy de Valera, based on the addendum to the minority report, that instead of giving proportionate relief a flat rate of relief should be granted to all farmers. In other words, you should give to each farmer sufficient to de-rate the first £20 of his valuation, so that a farmer under that figure would pay nothing and farmers over would pay proportionately less. That seems to us a simple and just method of distributing this money and the only consideration which could have prompted the Government to reject it, in favour of the scheme they have brought forward here, is the fact that the chief political support of their Party does not come from the class of the community that would derive most benefit from it. Deputy de Valera said yesterday that this year's Budget was not an election Budget, but an election fund Budget. I think that was a very accurate description. Most of its provisions appear to be directed towards the conciliation of the classes of the community that subscribe heaviest to the Cumann na nGaedheal funds.
How is this three-quarters of a million going to be raised? I am convinced that you could get that sum of money without putting an additional halfpenny on taxation. I think there is room for economies in existing Government services which, if effected, would yield a much larger sum than that you are now proposing to expend on farming relief. We have in the past indicated the manner in which these economies could be effected. I do not propose to do so again here now. I do not think it is possible to convince members of the Ministry that they could possibly make a mistake. It is a waste of time trying to do so, but I want to assert that in imposing these additional taxes on the community the Government is doing something which is not merely unjust but is unnecessary.
If the purpose of the Government were to carry out some sort of redistribution of the national income, then obviously the taxes required, if any were required at all, to raise this sum should have been taxes which would not fall upon the agricultural community itself. We have here a very great disproportion between the amount of revenue secured by direct as against indirect taxes. As Deputies are aware, indirect taxes are those which are paid in the most part by the poorer classes. Direct taxes are paid in proportion to wealth. Here some 70 per cent. of our total revenue is raised by indirect taxes, in comparison with 30 per cent. in Great Britain and similar percentages in other countries. Instead of taking the opportunity which he had, when additional revenue had to be raised by taxation, to redress that balance, the Minister is merely proposing to make it worse. The only taxes by which he is proposing to get this three-quarters of a million from are indirect taxes, a large part of which, as has been pointed out, will have to be paid by the very people whom he is proposing to relieve.
I do not think there are many members opposite who can contemplate, with pleasure, the prospect of facing their constituents after this Budget. If I am mistaken in that, if the people of this country are satisfied that the Government have done all that they could, or should do, then they have got all they deserve to get. I am convinced, however, that even in the ranks of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party if a free expression of opinion were possible we would find the majority prepared to say that the cheese-paring attitude of the Minister for Finance and the slipshod methods of distribution of the relief which he proposes are thoroughly unsatisfactory. The talk of relief that took place, the promises that were given by Government Deputies and, in comparison, the actual proposal of the Minister for Finance, reminds me of the lodging-house landlady that one reads about in comic papers who, when putting butter on bread, first takes a large lump on a knife. With one swipe she puts it on and with another she takes it off again. That is exactly the procedure the Minister for Finance adopted. So long as votes were to be obtained and an impression to be created he was prepared to talk in millions. When it came down to producing concrete proposals, under the impetus of Deputy de Valera's motion he took a downward swipe and took off a quarter of the million pounds which he had promised.
The motion before the Dáil is a very nebulous one, and I doubt if any material results would come from its passage or defeat. This is merely a debate following the discussion which took place yesterday for the purpose of giving the Dáil an opportunity of expressing its opinion. In that case it is quite possible that some members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party may express their opinion in this debate. If they do I want them to be honest and to tell us whether they think their constituents will be satisfied with this proposal or not. If they are quite honest I am sure we will learn that the whole country, irrespective of party or class, is thoroughly dissatisfied.
I wish to congratulate the Minister on the Budget that he has produced under what everyone must admit were extremely difficult conditions, caused by the fact that the world is passing through a period of depression unequalled in extent and intensity in modern history. The past two years have seen the most severe economic depression the world has ever known, and we are of course implicated, although fortunately in a lesser degree than other countries. The Free State is one of the few bright spots in a very dark world, and the Minister for Finance, by his wise financial policy in handling the nation's finances, is entitled to the thanks and gratitude of the people. Residents of the Free State have sustained colossal losses of capital and depreciation in the value of property, which perhaps can be better illustrated by the fact that £11,000,000 per annum is received from investments abroad, and as the value of stocks, particularly industrials, has fallen to such an extent that it would be difficult to estimate the countless millions lost. It has been unfortunate that it became necessary to impose fresh taxation, and a tax on petrol and sugar will penalise a lot of people who can ill afford it. On the other hand, of course, it will have a beneficial effect on railways. We must agree that there is a huge sum invested in the railways of this country, and if something is not done to come to their relief they cannot go on. I think that although the petrol tax will hurt a lot of people, it will benefit a lot of other people.
Taxes have been put on in order to relieve the farmers. We must all agree that the farmers are the wealth-producers. Without them there would be no circulation of money at all. If they go down we all go down. Therefore, in view of the present position of the farmers caused by world-wide depression, it is essential, in my opinion, that all classes of the community must come to their rescue. They must take the broad-minded view that it is essential in their own interests that the wealth-producers of the country must not be allowed to be crushed out of existence.
I rule out the question of the land annuities, because I do not believe that they can be "pinched," no matter what Government is in power, whether it is a Fianna Fáil or any other Government.
They cannot be "pinched," but they can be retained.
It is simply a stunt to catch votes which deceived a good many people in the past, but even the unenlightened are beginning to get enlightened.
As regards the removal of the tax on racecourse betting. I wish on behalf of the vast number of people interested in racing and breeding to thank the Minister for meeting their request to have this tax taken off, which they believe was causing a grave injury to a great industry, the third largest asset of the Free State.
Why put it on sugar?
In connection with Deputy Davin's interruption, I might say that one of the most prominent members of the Labour Party was the strongest advocate of removing the tax.
He was not in favour of putting it on to sugar.
The Minister does not agree that the tax has injured racing. I do not intend to debate that matter now, because the tax is gone and all is well that ends well, but I would like to say that it is now up to the racecourse executives to entice the public back. The betting tax and entertainment tax are now gone, therefore the onus of bringing back the racing public is now on the stewards and racecourse executives. The Irish people love sport, but they want clean, good and cheap sport, and it is up to the responsible persons to provide it. If they do the great traditions of Irish racing and Irish horses will be upheld.
As regards the tax on cinema films, I ought to tell the House, before I say anything on this subject, that I am quite conversant with the position of the cinema industry. I have recently become financially interested in a very small way in the talkies, and, therefore, I am not getting up to talk about something I know nothing about. It is my convinced belief that this tax has been arrived at hastily, and in endeavouring to point out some of the defects I do so with some little knowledge, which we all admit is a dangerous thing. It is a very important matter. The talkies are a very popular form of entertainment. The increased import duty on cinema films coming into the Irish Free State will inevitably fall on the exhibitor, who is already burdened with heavy taxation in the form of entertainment tax, censorship fees, and the existing rate of import duty at one penny per foot. The duty is now being increased by 200 per cent. The great majority of cinemas in the Irish Free State are very small and badly paying propositions to-day, and these small cinemas constitute between 95 and 97 per cent. of the number of cinemas in the Irish Free State. There have been of late many requests and appeals from these exhibitors to the renters for the reduction of hire terms of films, and the now proposed increase of import duty will mean one or two alternatives— either bear heavier losses, or close down altogether. The 97 per cent. that I refer to are, of course, outside the city areas. The Minister referred in his Budget statement to the fact that he had got an increase in the entertainment tax of £20,000. He has got that mainly through the talkies, and if this tax is going to be put on without any consideration of the claims of the cinemas I believe he is going to lose that amount and more. The added duty will mean that films which in trade terms are called "shorts," and which are essential to the exhibitor, will not be imported into the Free State. These "shorts" comprise topical talkie events, comedies, one and two-reel dramas, trailers, nature studies, scenic "shorts," and could not bear the added costs imposed by the new duty. The result will be that no short films will be available for cinema programmes in the Irish Free State, thus inflicting a grave disability on the exhibitor and causing an absence of educational matter from the programmes submitted to the public. The British Movietone News, the Pathé Gazette, Gaumont and Paramount Films will be excluded as the life of those news films is very short and they are soon out of date. It is my belief that the decision to impose this tax was come to hastily and without the due consideration that ought to have been given to it.
I would ask the Minister, before he introduces the Finance Bill, to meet a deputation from persons who are conversant with the subject. If that is done I feel sure that the injury that will ensue to a highly popular form of amusement will be diminished. I make that appeal very strongly, and I hope that the Minister, when replying, will agree, at least, to receive a deputation from the people who are interested in this very important industry, which is producing a huge yield from the entertainment tax. If he agrees to do so it is quite possible that agreement may be reached. I stated at the beginning that I knew very little about the matter, but my information is that a very large proportion of the picture houses throughout the Free State will close down if the tax, as introduced, is imposed.
The fact that Deputy Shaw has advocated the remission of the additional tax on sound films will, I think, give very great cause for hope to those who are engaged in that particular industry. Having regard to the fact that the Minister for Finance, in relation to another tax for which Deputy Shaw demanded remission——
And Deputy Ruttledge and Deputy MacEntee.
—a tax for which Deputy Shaw demanded remission, said that there were no merits in that demand, a tax which the Minister said was not doing any damage to an Irish industry, but which was remitted in answer to the appeal of men who, the Minister said, had themselves definitely damaged that industry in their methods of advocacy of the remission of that tax, if the criterion for the remission of taxes is to be the criterion laid down by the Minister for Finance when he remitted the tax for Deputy Shaw in preparation for a by-election in Kildare then anything would be remitted. The Minister said that the plea for the remission had no merits, and that the men who were advocating it were actually damaging an Irish industry. Nevertheless, on the ground that he could not risk further damage to that industry by the methods of advocacy adopted by Deputy Shaw——
And Deputy Ruttledge and Deputy MacEntee.
—Wait a moment. As a result of the agitation of these executives, for which Deputy Shaw was responsible, the Minister gave way. We all know how to get rid of taxes in the future. All we have to do is to blackguard enough, to damage an industry by our methods of advocating the remission of a tax, and then the Minister for Finance will show that he can be blackmailed and sabotaged into doing a thing which he will not do on the ground of decency and justice. Presumably, the Minister wrote this statement and, therefore, he cannot be accused of not doing it with premeditation. He has given the most dishonest, the most callously undemocratic lead in the reasons which he gave for the remission of this tax in the thoroughly abominable speech on that matter, in an attempt partly to be humorous but really to get votes.
He also said that there was another reason for increasing the tax on sound films, namely, that it would have an excellent effect on preventing people drinking. The Minister pays a sort of lip service to the idea of the desirability of people not drinking. The revenue return from spirits and beer is disappointing, but still he thinks that possibly the fact that people are drinking less is to the good. The specific reason, however, which he gave — and, of course, he hid it — for putting the tax on sound films was that it would prevent people drinking. That is the type of loose morality and slipshod talk which runs through the whole of this particular statement and which, I repeat, was written by the Minister. If it were a cross-roads speech or a speech made by someone who occasionally drank and who made it extempore under the influence of drink I could understand a good deal of what is in it. Having regard, however, to the fact that the Minister for Finance does not exceed in that particular respect and that this was a premeditated effort, it was a very disgraceful outburst.
Take his discussion of the De-rating Commission. Since Deputy O'Sullivan, the Minister for Education, was put up to spend fifty minutes before telling the House that he was going to give way to Deputy Thrift's amendment on the Referendum, we have never had an exhibition like it. This is a parallel case, equally incompetent and equally discreditable. The Minister starts by praising, in detail and by name, the members of the Commission. What would happen if we were in detail and by name to attack that Commission, to attack its honesty and sincerity and also the amount of attention it has paid to its business? Knowing that he could get away with it on one side, he, in detail and by name, favourably criticised the individual members of that Commission in the exercise of their functions. He plastered them all over with treacle and then kicked them downstairs. In future a Commission will know that when a Minister for Finance, a responsible member of a Cumann na nGaedheal Executive, praises them it is a preparation to kicking them downstairs and insulting them.
He wobbled and wibbled and rode the fence backwards and forwards, and all the time everybody in this House knew, as when Deputy O'Sullivan got up to speak on Deputy Thrift's motion, that eventually he would have to come down on the side that paid him as a party. The majority of that Commission reported against de-rating. The minority reported in favour of a grant of one and a quarter millions. Deputy de Valera had introduced a motion in this House for a grant of one million. Therefore, the Minister could not refuse, and he had to give some bribe. There is no conviction whatever of sincerity, no belief whatever, it is specifically stated in this written speech, that this £750,000, in the opinion of the Minister for Finance who provides it, will do any good. He had to find a sum. He could not take one-and-a-quarter millions, because that would let down the seven civil servants who unanimously rejected de-rating. He could not take the one-and-a-quarter millions because that would be specifically approving of the Minority Report as against the Majority Report. He could not take the one million because that had already been proposed on these benches. So the wobble ended in £750,000. Imagine the position in which it is specifically stated by the Minister for Finance that the money will not perform its function. The House has to face another fact.
My colleague of Cork, the President of the Executive Council, Deputy Cosgrave, went down to Cork and he said the money would be given, but it would only be given under conditions which would specifically stimulate production. There is not a word of that. There is not a suggestion of that. There is a direct and specific repudiation by the Minister for Finance that this will effect that particular purpose. If anybody tells me that the President of the Executive Council did not know what the Minister for Finance was going to do on the Budget, when he made that speech, certainly I do not believe it. Now they have introduced two taxes for the purpose of meeting this difficulty. On the petrol tax, for the moment, we do not want to say much, because it will have to be discussed in detail later. Reading through the actual provisions of that resolution, it is obvious that certain things have been forgotten. It is quite easy to make an omission. As Deputy de Valera has already pointed out, there are certain hydro-carbon oils which come under the actual definition — we have gone into it specifically with those concerned — of petrol used by paint manufacturers, polish manufacturers, and which would not be the subject of tax. I am quite sure the Minister had no intention whatever to tax them.
I understand the Minister for Finance said that turpentine did come under this tax. That would in some cases mean a tax running into well over £1,000 in the case of individual manufacturers. The Minister for Finance was mistaken in saying that white spirit does not. White spirit does come under this tax, and white spirit is used for manufacturing. If there is no amendment made in this matter, and I think an amendment will be made, the effect will be wrong and certainly will not be what is intended. It is a peculiar fact that the cost of white spirit to manufacturers in Ireland, to the paraffin manufacturers, is, roughly speaking, 3¾d. a gallon more than it costs in England. If an amendment is put down to relieve them of this tax it will put these prices pretty well on the level. White spirit can be used, about half and half, for the purpose of driving cars, but owing to the difference in price between white spirit and petrol, even with the fourpence tax, it will not pay to use it in competition. So far as I can see, the Minister will not lose any revenue if he remitted this particular tax.
I quite differ from those who think that the petrol tax will not to a very large extent go back to the consumer of the goods. It will certainly go back to the consumer of the goods in so far as the goods are used in transport by way of bus service. The bus service now will be a monopoly service in the possession of the railway company, and there is no reason whatever to believe that the extra amount of this tax will not be added on to the prices of transport. As far as the ordinary consumer of goods, in the case of goods carried on a petrol lorry, is concerned, I need hardly tell you that the tax will go back to the consumer eventually. One of my real difficulties is that I personally do not think the taxes are necessary, but I would rather separate them into two classes. It is stated that we are going to collect £450,000 from the petrol tax. As far as the sugar tax is concerned, the £350,000 or £300,000 which it represents can be saved. I would say that even for their own party political purposes, for their own political benefit, it would pay them to find an economy which would cover that £300,000 instead of putting it where they do.
The whole position, as disclosed in the Budget speech in relation to sugar, is thoroughly discreditable. I am not speaking so much of the tax. I am dealing with the position in which you have the sugar beet industry, supposed to be one of their boasts. It is now admitted that in addition to a subsidy which will run into two or three million pounds eventually, in addition to that covering sugar, which is supposed to be covered in the subsidy contract, you have another subsidy which is equal to very nearly twice the value of the manufactured sugar if you import it. I mean, it actually trebles the price, that is the cheapest sugar that comes out of Carlow. On that sugar which, according to the Minister, costs at the end of April 6/3, you have a subsidy of 11/8. In other words, the Carlow sugar on these figures costs the consumer three times what he could buy sugar for elsewhere. When you take in the subsidy it runs into between five and six times what he could buy sugar for. If that is what is called creditable finance, I must say that this must be a very rich country to be able to stand it. Under the extraordinary financial arrangement made by the Government, they do not seem to be able to sell that sugar in competition.
The Minister did not, he told us, go to the dogs. Personally, I do not care where he goes, but when he goes he should remember that the dogs do not pay an entertainment tax, as far as I can see. I do not see any reason in the wide world why they should be in that privileged position. I have no prejudice against dog-racing, but I do not see any reason whatever why it should be in that privileged position. Deputy Shaw said that he was somewhat interested in entertainments. I personally am. I say that merely to disclose my interest in the matter, but I have no objection whatever to an entertainment tax. It is a thing out of which the State is quite entitled to get money if it likes. The only question which it must keep in mind all the time is that entertainments of a particular character and at a particular price — I mean entertainments below a certain price — should be regarded from something more than a mere financial point of view. I think that there is a psychological case to be made for providing cheap entertainment to brighten the lives of the people. At the present moment people can get for very considerably less than the price of a pint of beer an evening's entertainment. I think that is very much to the benefit of the country, and it is the only thing which I personally say should be taken into consideration in alleviation of the entertainments tax. Otherwise the Government is entitled to get from entertainment whatever they reasonably can get.
I think it was Deputy Hogan, last year, who proposed that admission prices up to sixpence should be exempt from tax, and I think the Minister met us to the extent that he exempted entertainments up to fourpence. I have had experience of reducing prices from ninepence to fourpence for portion of the house very largely for the purpose of taking advantage of that action of the Minister. From what I saw of the people who were using that portion of the house, I am perfectly satisfied that there is a case for it. In the one case, when it was ninepence you would get, perhaps, a man or two coming in, whereas now you have families coming in under the fourpenny charge. That is a very desirable thing. There are families who are obviously of that class and condition. One is rather surprised at the quality of the people whom a 4d. admission tax brought in who were not apparently able to use the entertainment at a higher price. The Minister would be wise to take that line into consideration now.
The Minister, as usual, has divided his expenditure into normal and abnormal. The abnormal expenditure might be defined as that portion of the total expenditure which, being taken from the total expenditure, will provide the amount of money with which the Budget will balance. In the past there had been very reckless misuse of that particular device. Last year it was my distinguished pleasure — I think it deserves that phrase — to congratulate the Minister on the comparative increase of morality he had shown in his Budget of that year. He stole less last year than he did in any previous year, the reason being that there was less to steal. He had already removed practically everything that he knew was not screwed down, copper-fastened and riveted over.
Except the income tax.
I will come to the income tax later. This year the Minister has actually gone out of his way to tell us that there was £60,000 that he could have stolen but did not. I calculate that he has used for this purpose, roughly speaking, £15,000,000. He has turned wind-fall assets, pre-existing through the Treaty and otherwise, into out-of-pocket expense money to the extent of what he admits to be a National Debt. It is really very interesting to see that after absorbing that £15,000,000 by methods which satisfy him, he now boggles at £60,000. It shows an immense improvement. He tells us that one of the reasons why he does this is that the practice of taking out items of this kind is liable to lead to abuse. It has led to abuse in the past, and all he is concerned with at the moment is to give some advice to his successors. He has debauched the finances of the State to the limit, and now he tells those who come after him that they should not do it. There is nothing that is more common than the wisdom of old age in this country. "If youth but knew and if age but could."
This economic and financial roué who has done his worst, and who has ceased to have the capacity to do any more evil, now comes to the young people who are coming on, and, out of the experience of what he has done, advises them not to follow his example. The fact that his principles have never affected his practices in the past may take a good deal of value from the sermon as a sermon, and I am afraid that he will have to depend upon the intrinsic virtue of those whom he addresses and not on any virtue of his own. He has grabbed the money in the past which he got out of the token coinage; he has grabbed the brewers' credit. He grabbed the advance of the repayment of income tax. He has grabbed, for the purpose of current expenditure, the whole of the pre-Treaty arrears of income tax. He has converted into money the actual realisable script of the resources of the Education Department which he took over. He has sold the patrimony of those whom the Congested Districts Board looked after. I do not want to go into the rest, but now he boggles at £60,000. There are some other items on which he could lay his hand, but possibly he does not know them, and for that reason it might not be wise for me to tell him. It may happen that the British Fleet has not fully understood his instructions or that the Ten Commandments may have got out of hand, or that the dead notes may not, in fact, have got into his possession. As and when the dead notes, a pre-existing asset, get into his possession, they also will be called "out-of-pocket expenses." All we can say for him at the moment is that he has been virtuous because he was impotent to do evil.
I was very glad to see, and I always like to encourage, any sign of dawning intelligence on the benches opposite in relation to finance. I was very glad, indeed, to hear some remarks made by the Minister for Finance on the subject of income tax. It is apparently evident that he is beginning to have a glimmer of understanding of the dynamic as distinct from the static aspect of the question. Later in the discussion, when we come to offer him amendments which last year were rejected on the Finance Bill, and when we come to offer amendments which he himself suggested on a previous occasion but rejected when we offered them, I will quote to him some of the passages he used in relation to income tax. The Minister, on another occasion, referred to the capacity of abnormal income tax to damage productive enterprise and the possibility of a lower income tax stimulating enterprise. There is a hope that when, somewhere like 300 years after Tibb's Eve, his Income Tax Commission does eventually report, he will be able to provide the machinery which will make this tax, instead of being a detriment to the productive capacity of the State, possibly a stimulant.
One thing the Minister did not tell us was that he did not divide his income into normal and abnormal income. Miscellaneous assets in the past have included a good many of the items which he has so misused. He has used them in the manner that he would call budgeting, but to my mind he has used them in a manner which, in criminal cases, would be called malversation. Later we will want to know what is the nature of the assets. He told us that he took his total debt and, by a series of bright and brilliant manipulations, he reduced it from £20,000,000 to £15,000,000. He again includes in his assets a debt of £284,000. He is laying down the credit position of the country as an ordinary man would offer his credit to a banker. The ordinary man would say to the banker: "I owe £150,000, but I have here £150,000 worth of realisable assets, recoverable debts owing to me." What the Minister for Finance has included among his assets is a sum of £284,000 owed to this State by the State itself. This £284,000 has been advanced to an unemployment fund, and it has to be collected from industry in the future. The Minister credits himself with the whole of that £284,000 in blatant ignorance of the fact that there must be on the other side of the account a debit of £284,000, all for the purpose of deceiving the Dáil.
The Deputy should not say that the Minister is deliberately deceiving the House. There are certain limits which ought to be observed and the Deputy knows them.
Then we will simply say that in privative ignorance of the fact that £284,000, which is put there as an asset, has a debit against it of £284,000, or in incompetent disregard of that fact and in blatant failure to point it out to the House, the Minister has put £284,000 as a credit which he knows to be a debit. I find in the White Paper which was issued previous to this, and on which this Budget is based, that the Minister has provided for this year only £300,000 for the Shannon scheme. If he knows anything at all about what is going on in the development of that scheme he knows that the scheme must have more than £300,000 in order to carry on. More than £300,000 is, in my opinion, obviously required for distribution; it is obviously required in order to enable the Shannon scheme to earn for the country the dividend upon the money which has been put into it. If the idea is to make the Budget balance by starving the Shannon scheme of the money which will enable it to be productive, then this is economy of the worst possible character.
The Minister has told us that the Savings Certificates are going ahead at an enormous rate. They are going ahead for no other reason than that all gilt-edged stocks are rising. Where gilt-edged stocks are rising it is a proof in the ordinary way that ordinary industry is depressed. The last thing we want to see is a condition in which people are rushing to put their money into fixed interest-bearing stocks of that kind. This country has escaped the avalanche which has, to some extent, fallen on other countries. Many people think that that term ought not to be used, but I am using the term roughly. At the moment there is simply a break-down in the capacity of people to use the huge machinery of production, distribution and exchange which is required for the carrying on of business. Why have we escaped? It is not through any merit of ours; it is not through the merit of anybody in this country. Our building has not collapsed simply and solely because there was not any building to collapse. Other people have broken down because they have a highly-developed economic system, a highly-developed commercial and industrial productive system. We could not crash either in our commercial, productive or industrial system, because we have not got any such. We are boasting of what is really the result of one hundred years of failure to move with other people.
If we had here a population twice as large as our present population, if we had the machinery of distribution, exchange and commercial relations which would be required to maintain that population, then we might have been affected, but it is because we are poor and have a small population, and because we are utterly undeveloped, that we have escaped the storm. It is because we are lying flat on our faces that the storm has passed over us which has afflicted other peoples. I can put up with crude ignorance of facts of that kind and I can put up with a certain viciousness, but honestly I cannot put up with the stupidity which we have to face from the other side of the House. Every time I look at these people they remind me of the picture of the Irish mother standing helplessly in front of her small boy, with a stick in her hand. She says to him: "If you are bad I can leather it out of you, but what can I do if you are stupid?" That is the position of the Minister for Finance and that is the position of the entire Ministry to which he belongs. That also is the position of the Budget statement which he made. There is no sign of inspiration and no sign of even ordinary morality in his method of using his finances. He has not stolen much, because there was not much to steal. In no single place has he told the truth significantly to the people. He has added in things that he knows do not exist or that he must have known never existed. He has imposed taxation which, according to the opinion of the House, is going to fall on the people he aims to benefit, and he has given way in relation to taxes for the benefit of people who, because of their active agitation, are destroying the very industry that they profess to serve.
I would very much rather be able to say that I was glad to think that after eight years some sign of inspiration and of understanding of the basic problems of this State, some appreciation of the narrowness of the resources and of the necessity to use them, had crept into those dull, dark minds. But the more one reads this written statement of the Minister, the more one is convinced that you simply have pure hack-work done for the occasion, without the slightest attempt to fit in with any permanent purpose of national or industrial development in this country.
[Professor Thrift took the Chair.]
I think I might join in the congratulations to the Minister on producing so admirable a Budget. It is something in these days to find any Minister successfully balancing his Budget, and I think that even our opponents will admit that our Minister has succeeded in doing that. Were it not for the needed relief to farmers, there would have been no necessity for the Minister to go beyond the limit of the taxation of the past year. I do not intend to go very much into the speeches made from the opposite side, but I am mainly interested in a few remarks made about agriculture. Deputy de Valera's chief difficulty was that the relief given to farmers was not general. A similar remark was made by Deputy O'Connell. I think the greatest tribute that could be paid to the Budget is that Deputy de Valera, having pointed out one or two little things that he did not agree with, said that he unfortunately had not time to study the Budget sufficiently to criticise it further. I am not saying that these are his exact words, but that was the impression left on my mind. I think that that, coming from the Leader of the Opposition Party, is a fair tribute to the Budget.
Deputy O'Connell naturally made the point that the relief given was least helpful to the smaller farmers. That is unfortunately obvious. I have noticed that there was no great objection to de-rating as a whole on the part of the Opposition. Certainly, I did not hear any remark to that effect from the chief Opposition Party. De-rating as a whole would have had the disadvantage of doubling or perhaps trebling the discrepancy between the relief to the large farmer and the small farmer. If we were to give relief by complete de-rating, it is obvious that relief would have to be given pro rata to the share of the burden of local taxation borne by the different farmers, unless we develop some new method which is bound in itself to lead to further difficulties.
Reference was made by Labour Deputies to the proposal which they had put forward recently by which so much would be given to people under £15 valuation, and so much to people under £30 valuation, and nothing to those with a higher valuation. On the face of it there may be something in that, but I do not know if it occurred to them that distributing the relief in that manner would also have obvious defects, because they would still have the man with the very low valuation, say, of £1 or 10/-, who would be relieved only to a very small extent, and there would still be the same difficulty which now faces us as regards the taxation necessary to pay for that relief. One thing which, perhaps, has not occurred to Deputies opposite is that the class who come within the category of people with a very small valuation are what I would term uneconomic holders. I do not know whether Deputies agree with me in that or not. I hold that a man with a valuation of £5 is an uneconomic holder who could not be expected to make his living by agriculture, and certainly does not. If he does, he is a superman. I think it will be recognised by Deputies that at least in the congested districts these people share in other grants which it is impossible for the larger farmer to take advantage of. Everybody knows that the small uneconomic farmer takes his share of road, drainage, and several other grants by getting actual work. The farms of these men are so small that they do not provide occupation for the farmer and his family, and they are compelled to take part in other work.
I do not think there is any Deputy on this side of the House anyhow who would not be glad if some method could be devised by which this £750,000 could have been more equitably distributed. Personally, I could not devise a scheme which would satisfy everybody. The larger farmer, perhaps, in pounds, shillings and pence gets the greater share of the relief, but when we come to analyse his position we will find that possibly he does not get the greater share. He certainly bears the greater burden of the local services. He contributes the larger share of the cost of the roads, home assistance, mental hospitals, etc. If we come to the relief of these services it is only natural that we are going to take some of the burden off him as well as others, and that he comes in for the larger share. It also has to be borne in mind that almost certainly he is a large employer of labour and very often employs the very class of small farmer referred to by the Labour Party and others. Even in my own county, which is not a congested one, there is a certain number of small farmers who are what I might call uneconomic holders and who, to their credit, are not too proud to take advantage of any honest method that presents itself of enlarging their incomes, and in that way they take advantage of Government grants, which other members of the farming community do not take advantage of.
On the whole, I think the method proposed for raising this money is about the best that could be devised. There has been an honest endeavour made to distribute the burden evenly between the rich and the poor. Deputies will admit that the 4d. tax on petrol, which will provide the larger part of the money, will fall most heavily on the better-off class. Perhaps some of it will fall on the larger farmers who have been so maligned here. These difficulties in connection with the relief of farmers on a de-rating basis have not been presented now for the first time to Deputies and to the people generally. We all felt, and some of us had the courage to point out, the very difficulties now launched out by Opposition Deputies as if we had never seen them at all. We did see them, we looked for a way out of them. It was not easy to find. Certainly to most of us the plan adumbrated by the Labour Party of giving relief in a progressive manner as between the very small farmer, the one a little bigger, the medium-sized farmer and the large farmer seems one which would lead to such criticism all over the country that I do not think any Minister in this House would attempt it.
Is the Deputy aware that there were only two classes in the amendment of the Labour Party?
There were three.
No; under £50 valuation and over.
There was the third party that was to get none.
No.
I thought there was a third class who, as I say, was to get none, but even with two there is practically the same difficulty as if you had only one. Even with £50 you would still have the man with 10/- valuation, and you will have the same difficulty the Minister has with a man of £200 valuation and a man of 5/- valuation, and if the Deputy were the Minister for Finance he would find the same difficulty in getting out of that as the Minister has. The man of small valuation is the snag in front of anyone who attempts to solve this problem by de-rating. I think the Minister has succeeded as well as anyone could who would attempt to solve this difficulty. I believe the Minister has adopted a fairly admirable method of getting over the difficulty.
Deputy de Valera made another point. He said that the small farmer gets a very small share of the relief, but it must be remembered that certain other things fall most heavily upon him, as, for instance, tariffs. I absolutely agree that tariffs fall most heavily upon the small farmer, and the smaller the farmer the more heavily they fall upon him. But I would like to ask Deputies: what is going to become of the small farmer if the Opposition got into power and their wholesale system for general tariffs were applied? At least we made some effort in the tariff legislation we passed to impose tariffs that would fall least heavily upon him.
As to Deputy Flinn's contribution to the debate, I can only say this: it seems to me listening to him that he had more or less swallowed a bushel of gaseous insolence and he was disturbed in his mind as to how he would get it out without exploding the House. Anyhow, it was difficult to follow his reasoning. If one gets so far beyond himself in his speech as to be always on the border-line of insult one's contribution to debate ceases to be effective.
I do not think I have much more to add to this discussion, which, on the whole perhaps, has been more or less a futile one. There were only two points raised against the Budget, one is that probably the petrol tax will fall too heavily upon the rich, and the other that the sugar tax will fall too heavily upon the poor. As between the two there seems to be more or less an even balance. Any other defects in the Budget are so difficult to find that they have not been enlarged upon in this debate.
What about the betting tax?
A very good thing, I think, that that tax is taken off. There was very great demand in the country for the abolition of the betting tax.
Not from the poor?
Yes, even amongst the poor. How many of the poor on the border line of Deputy Davin's own constituency are interested in the maintenance of the Curragh, and other race meetings in districts not a million miles from the Deputy's constituency? I think most of us were satisfied, although the Minister did not seem to be actually convinced, that the continuance of the tax, the revenue from which was diminishing, and which some of us anticipated would disappear in a few years, would eventually have a very bad effect on Irish racing. Even Deputy Davin, I think, would not get up and publicly advocate the restoration of that tax.
It is the poor bookmakers I am worried about!
The poor bookmakers can mind themselves. I congratulate the Minister wholeheartedly on his very good Budget, and in my constituency I am not afraid to stand up and defend it. The Budget is so good that I want to point out again that the leader of the Opposition, having referred to one or two obvious points that opened up the discussion, practically ended his speech by saying that there were so few faults in the Budget that he required some time to enable him to discover them. These are not his exact words, but they are what it appeared to me he intended to say.
Deputy Redmond, in his speech yesterday in praise of the statement made and the provisions opened up by the Budget, said that the Budget statement was a very dull one, and went on to deduce from that the argument that he was altogether in favour of the provisions made in it. If Deputy Redmond had said that the whole Budget speech and the policy outlined in that speech was dismal and disappointing it would be much nearer the mark. At the outset I want to express my very deep disappointment, and the disappointment of my Party and our people generally, at the absence from the Minister's statement of any indication that he intended to make any improvement in the social services in the country.
We had yesterday, in the course of a debate on another Vote, a very interesting contribution from Deputy Byrne, who went on to point out how much more favourably we were placed than our neighbours in Northern Ireland in regard to unemployment. But the Minister and the House know that in Northern Ireland the social services in many directions are far in advance of those provided here. And I regret very much, more especially in view of a recent statement by the President in Cork City, that the Minister has not indicated what provision he intends to make for the scheme outlined and advocated by this Party in regard to widows and orphans. The President indicated, as far as I remember his speech in Cork City, that the object was desirable and worthy, but he did not give any indication as to how financial provision would be made for it. I think we were entitled to expect, having regard to the prolonged delay that has taken place in order to enable the Minister to make inquiries in the direction in which inquiries had to be made in reference to the proposal in the Budget, some indication from him as to what he proposes to do as a result of all the information he has received, and more especially as the President, in his speech in Cork, mentioned that a certain figure would be necessary to meet the cost of such a scheme. One might have expected also that the Minister would have outlined some provision for relieving the present unemployment position in the country.
Last week we had a prolonged debate on housing. The promise was made that housing legislation of some kind would be forthcoming. I confidently expected that the Minister, in his Budget statement, would have informed the House what it was intended to do in that direction. It was disappointing that no statement was made indicating what it is proposed to do to meet the needs of the majority of the people in the country in that matter. I regard the concluding statements made by Deputy Bennett in his speech — it was the only portion of his speech that I heard—as an apology for the tax that it is proposed to impose on the poor. I was surprised, too, that the Deputy took the line that he did in regard to the balance of the tax that it is proposed to impose. I thought that in this House we were unanimous in the view that, if relief had to be given, it should go to the most deserving section of the people. I was surprised to hear the Deputy make an apology for the giving of relief to people who clearly do not need it at all as urgently as another section of the community. I feel that the Minister himself personally owes a good deal to a certain section of the people of the country. Previous legislation for which the Minister was in great part responsible was calculated to deprive the small farmers of many privileges that they had enjoyed hitherto.
I have stated in this House more than once — the statement has also been made from other parts of the House — that the legislation introduced by the Minister some years ago with regard to old age pensions produced very severe consequences so far as the small farmers are concerned. Those of us from the country who have an intimate connection with the administration of the Old Age Pensions Act know that, as it is framed and administered at present, it hurts very much people whose valuations range from £10 to £12. I intend to show later how unreal is the pretence that any relief is being given to such people under the Minister's scheme. I want to emphasise that real relief is required for these people, if only to make up for what has been taken from them under previous legislation enacted by this House at the request of the Minister. It seems an extraordinary thing that, when the Minister for Finance is faced with the job of finding money for any purpose, it is on the necessaries of life he imposes a tax. That has happened on previous occasions. We have another example of it in the case of the sugar tax. When one realises that wages in this country have been forced down to a very low level and thinks of the condition in regard to unemployment and of the alarming position that obtains in the case of great numbers of people who are dependent on charity, there surely is no justification whatever for imposing a tax on the necessaries of life.
The Minister, however, seems to be pretty consistent in his actions in this respect. Previously we had an example of a similar kind. On the occasion when a reduction was made in the rate of income tax there was at the same time a tax imposed on the necessaries of life. We have the same policy continued in this Budget. In view of that the Minister will have very great difficulty in persuading people through the country that such legislation is not aimed along class lines. That is clear, I think, from the policy outlined by the Minister, as well as in a number of other schemes that he introduced here. All this goes to show that the poor people of the country are being handicapped and harassed to a great extent as a result of the Minister's policy.
I have before me some figures with regard to the amount of money that it is expected will be circulated through the various counties under the Minister's scheme for giving this relief to the farming community. It is expected that under the scheme, that is 50 per cent. on the old basis of assessment and 50 per cent. on the basis of population, the amount available for the county I represent will be something like £90,000. The rate for the County Cork for the year 1930-31 was £247,248 on land. That worked out in this way: rate for West Cork, 5s. 8.59d.; North Cork, 4s. 5.53d., and South Cork, 4s. 6.02d. The valuation of the County Cork as regards agricultural holdings is £883,336. The number of people in the County Cork whose valuations do not exceed £10 is 17,155. Out of the £90,000 available for the whole county the amount of money that will be distributed in respect of these 17,155 holdings will be £7,000. The number of holdings in the county with a valuation exceeding £50 is 4,637. The position is that these 4,637 holdings will be afforded relief to the extent of £47,500 as against the £7,000 distributed over the 17,155 holdings of under £10 valuation. I think these figures give a clear indication of where the relief is going to go and to the little attention that is paid to the condition of the small farmers, say, in West Cork who were referred to in very enthusiastic terms in my hearing on more than one occasion by the Minister for Agriculture and other Ministers.
Let us take some examples and see what the effect of this sugar tax will be in places like West Cork, where the valuations do not exceed £7. Take a farm with a valuation of £7 on which there is a family of five. Under the Minister's scheme that farm would get relief to the extent of 14/3. But as a result of the sugar-tax that farmer will be paying 15/- a year, so that to a man like him the relief, instead of being a gain, will mean a loss of ninepence.
I estimate that the cost of the sugar tax in a year for an average family of five persons would be 3/- per person. Going on that basis, and taking the case of a farmer with a valuation of £10, the relief given would amount to 20/5, while the tax on sugar would represent 15/-. I think the figure given by Deputy de Valera to-day as to the amount of sugar used weekly in the home, a half a stone or a stone, is a little too high. The figure I have worked out would be somewhat less.
In order to make the matter clear I will deal with two examples from West Cork, I will take the rural district of Dunmanway, in which I live. The population of the rural district is 11,377, and the number of houses 2,245. The number of farmers there under 50 acres is 429. What I said regarding those under £10 valuation would apply here. In Castletown rural district the number of houses is 1,670 and the population 9,362. Taking an average of five and a half persons to a family, the extra cost of sugar would represent about 17/6 per year. The benefit of the Minister's proposals would amount to 12/- or 14/-. The figures I am giving are approximate and were made out hurriedly, but I think they represent the real position. No attempt has been made to exaggerate in any way. I regret very sincerely that the Minister has not devised a scheme whereby people whose valuation amounts to £10 or £12 would get some concession, or some direct relief. The Minister's proposals will not justify themselves when one remembers that the small farmers work very hard, and that they have very little to offer their children. Their position is little better than that of slaves. Everyone believes that something should be done for them. It seems to me that very little provision worth mentioning is made for them in the Budget. Any that is made is immediately eaten up by the new taxation that is to be imposed upon them. Apart from that I feel that the imposition of a tax of this kind presses very heavily on people in towns and villages, as they are not getting relief of any kind. The tax that is going to fall upon that class represents a good deal to people in their position, when we realise how necessary sugar is to the average family, especially where the children are young, and where it is used freely. I say again that it is regrettable the Minister did not look for other avenues to find money in order to give the relief that he has promised, and that he has not endeavoured to give it directly to the people who need it most.
I do not want to discuss the petrol tax, or to say much about the betting tax beyond expressing my own view, that any tax imposed on betting, either on the racecourse or on bookmakers, would not be enough, if it aimed at banishing and prohibiting betting completely, by taxation if necessary. I know nothing more demoralising or more damnable, as far as the working classes are concerned, and, in fact, people generally, than the amount of betting that goes on, as well as the amount of crime, extravagance and default that it leads to. That is my own view on this question, but I have no right to say that the members of my Party associate themselves with that view.
One can say very little about the proposals in the Budget beyond supporting the views expressed by the leader of this Party when he said that the Budget was one to be received with feelings of profound disappointment. Nothing that could be said for it will take away from the fact that a direct tax is being imposed on the poor, while the Minister has not made any demand on people who are able to pay. The Minister ought to have found, if not the whole of the £750,000, as Deputy Redmond suggested, at least the greater portion of the money in that way, and thus avoided, as he could have, taxing the poor. It is a pity the policy the Minister has been responsible for — for the past five or six years — has been continued this year in the Budget. His proposals savour of the provision of relief, in many directions necessary and urgent, but they have not been devised in such a way as to benefit people who need it most, and who can badly afford to pay extra taxation.
One matter, I think, stands out clearly in this Budget, and in the statement made by the Minister for Finance, on the de-rating portion of it, and that is, that the Government had not the slightest intention of giving any form of relief to the farmers who need it this year, until they were driven to do so by the motion put down by this Party. I think that feature stands out clearly in the ill-advised and ill-considered manner in which the Minister raises revenue. It is now nearly three years since farmers in this portion of Ireland looked for de-rating. When the matter was brought up here on two occasions the reply given by the Minister for Finance was that we should raise it by a tax on tobacco, tea and sugar. He wanted, in the first place, to make the demand for de-rating so unpalatable to the country that the townspeople would prevent it. He wanted to get the poor people of the country up against de-rating. He appointed a De-rating Commission in this manner.
You withdrew your motion.
Supposing in County Cork the road workers applied for an increase in their wages of 2/- a week to the County Council.
Mr. Hogan (Clare):
They would want to.
They would certainly. The matter was considered by the County Council, and the County Council said: "We have only so much money to spend on roads. If we are going to give 2/- a week more to the road workers we will have to cut the county surveyors' salaries." The meeting was held and a Commission was appointed to report on the matter, and consisted of the three county surveyors. That is what happened in the case of the De-rating Commission. The Government appointed the very men who would, in the ordinary course of things, have to find the coin. Their names are in the Majority Report. The very class who would be tariffed for de-rating were appointed on the De-rating Commission. I asked a question here to-day as to the salaries and cost of living bonuses paid to certain members of that De-rating Commission and the information was refused. I have totted it up as well as I can, and I find that during the eighteen months six of them drew something like £11,000 between them. That is how the Government formed the De-rating Commission. Nobody could expect much more from them. You have to take a Minority Report here, which, after all, has been signed by men with some knowledge of local circumstances and the position of the farming community. They have stated that in their opinion £1,200,000 is necessary to relieve the farming community this year. If we have to take the Minister's own statement, the only reason why those who signed the Minority Report did not sign it for the full de-rating was that they did not want to do away with local government. The Minister has done away with local government, but he has not even proposed to give the farmer what is contained in the Minority Report. That is the actual position. Those learned gentlemen who signed this Majority Report wound up by telling the farmers thirteen ways of making money. I wish some of them happened to be planted on one of those farms alluded to by Deputy Murphy a while ago for twelve months.
Another statement made here by the Minister is a definite sneer at the position into which he has brought the farmers of the Free State. He says the farmers' position is in much the same position that the city workers would be in if there were no trade unions. Having taken the Farmers' representatives here into his fold and gagged them, he now sneers at the farmers for not having representatives here. The Farmers' Party has cost the farmers of the Free State during the past three years £330,000 in hard cash. The presence of these Farmer representatives in the Dáil has cost them £80,000 in the delay in vesting and £250,000 by voting against the motion brought into this House for a million pounds for de-rating.
What about their salaries?
I do not want to count their salaries. I do not think there is a farmer in the country who thinks they are worth them. That is the unfortunate position the farming community find themselves in.
While speaking on Deputy de Valera's motion I said that I challenged Deputies on the opposite benches to give one single reason why the farming community should be asked to contribute to local government services and every other business in this Free State left go free. That is the present position of the farming community. I see no reason for it. I maintain the farmers are entitled to full de-rating from agricultural land. If after that they become liable for income tax let them be taxed on their income like every other section of the community. I see no sound reason why any farmer in the Free State should be asked to contribute to local services in his business any more than any other business in the Free State.
Take any one of the majority gentlemen appointed on this De-rating Commission with salaries from £1,200 to £1,700 a year. The amount they contributed to local services were the rates paid on the valuation of their houses. The Minister found that he could not evade the issue, that he will have to give something this year for de-rating. He taxed petrol and then said: "I will do something now that will make de-rating so unpalatable that it will end any further demand for it." Then he taxed the poor man's sugar. The statement is made here that it is not indispensable to the poor, that the poor and their children can do without sugar for their tea. Anyone who has anything to do with children knows very well that children cannot do without sugar. The Minister, last year, was able to find £219,000 for bribery for ex-Army officers without even asking the authority of this Dáil, and he could not find the extra £300,000 that was required. The Minister had his two eyes perched on a by-election in County Kildare, and gave a relief of £48,000 to the horsey men this year. Of course they were more an object of charity than the poor man's children. The poor man's sugar should be taxed rather than the gentlemen who go to race meetings.
The abolition of the cost of living bonus on salaries of over £400 a year would mean a saving of £326,000, but the poor fellows with £400 a year and stretching up to £1,500 a year were more in need of the cost of living bonus of £140 up to £210 a year. The poor fellow with £1,500 a year is more in need of £4 a week extra for fear his family would starve than the poor are in need of sugar. That is the attitude of the Minister and of the Executive Council. Income tax is 4/6 in England and 3/- in the Free State. The man with £1,500 a year who gets £199 13s. cost of living bonus added to it, would pay £37 10s. extra if 6d. were added to his income tax. That would be hurting the poor, as represented by the £1,500 a year man, whose family might starve.
What does Deputy Flinn say to that?
What would some highly-paid railway official say to it, too? That is the attitude of an Executive Council that is absolutely contained in the pocket of Deputy John Good. They dare not put on an extra sixpence on income tax for fear they would find themselves put out of office by Deputy Good's Party, who rule this Dáil. That is the reason for the amazing position in which we find ourselves. The Minister for Finance wants to induce people to come over here. They will only have to pay 3/- in the £ in income tax, whereas they would have to pay 4/6 in England. A shilling difference in the income tax would be enough to induce these people to come across, if there is any need for them to come, and, from my experience of them, I think they take more out than they bring in. £750,000 is to be given in relief to the farmers, and we are giving something to the farmer for nothing! In view of the absorption of the Farmers' Party into the ranks of Cumann na nGaedheal, the farmer, we are told by the Minister, is in the position of the city worker who has no trade union. We all know what that means. I think it is better for those who represent the farmers, and I think I have a better right to represent the farmers than the defunct Farmers' Party, to state definitely to the Minister, "Thank you for nothing. We are only getting portion of what has been stolen from us, and that portion is hardly worth taking."
As has been pointed out here, something like 17/6 is being taken out of the pockets of every family in the country for this relief. The ordinary small farmer in my constituency will get about 10/- or 11/- in relief of rates and he will pay 17/6 in taxes for it. That is the actual position. The more we examine that position the more we come to realise that the Executive Council had not the slightest intention of giving any relief whatever in rates. Their only object in giving this relief was as a sop to the farmers, something on the lines of the three hours of the twelve months which they gave to the publicans and on the lines of the Town Tenants Bill, that is worse than useless. I think the time has come when the farming community will definitely put an end to that Government. As has been pointed out by Deputy de Valera to-day, we are prepared to give complete de-rating to the farming community by keeping in this country what the people of the country are legally entitled to.
Do you include the landlords as well?
I do not. As far as the landlords are concerned, if the Land Commission functioned properly, under proper legislation, it would have done away with that ugly brand which displeases not alone Deputy Davin but myself, the rancher and the grazier.
What about your de-rating motion?
Do not draw me any further. If you look for it you will get it. As far as this subject is concerned, the more we look into it the more we realise that there is no use whatever in the farming community looking for relief to the present Government. They are not going to get it. The Government has not the slightest intention of giving it. The Majority Report of the De-rating Commission told us quietly that no further relief would ensue, that if there was there would not be an extra acre ploughed or an extra cow on the land. This De-rating Commission was just like a packed jury with a full knowledge of what the verdict was to be. The verdict was put down on different lines. I think the very least the farmers might have expected, even from the present Government, was £1,200,000. I think anything less than that would have been absolutely useless. The £750,000 is practically useless to them. It will not carry them anywhere, especially when the majority of them would have to pay more than that in the new tax that is being imposed on sugar. That is a position of affairs that nobody can stand for. We have here staring us in the face three definite lines on which £600,000 odd could be got without any necessity whatever of touching the unfortunate poor, but of course not alone is the sugar to be made unpalatable, but de-rating is to be made unpalatable as well. That was the whole idea underlying the motion of the Minister for Finance. He got something like £50,000 out of the tariff on butter. He is remitting £48,000 of that to Deputy Shaw's constituents, the racing men, and, as far as I can see, the sooner the farmers of this country realise their position and put an end to the present Government the better. It is the only way out of it that I can see. A Government that could come in here and propose a motion like this, giving £750,000 to the farmers, and at the same time turn around and put a tax on sugar that would bring in £300,000—a tax that will cost the farmer on small holdings more than the amount they will get in relief—is not deserving of support. I think it is high time that that state of affairs was ended. The farmers are entitled to full de-rating on their agricultural land. If the present Government are not prepared to give it, they will soon get a Government that will give it.
I can guarantee that to the President of the Executive Council, but I do not believe that the present method of endeavouring by taxation to create an atmosphere against de-rating will for one moment succeed. I think that the time has come when the farming community will band themselves together and put an end to it. I do not think that the constituents of the six Deputies of the Farmers' Party who came in here and took directly out of the pockets of the farmers a sum of £330,000 in the last two or three years will have any reason to be thankful to them. I think that that Party has cost the farmers far more than they will ever gain from it. Of the £330,000 a sum of £250,000 was thrown away directly by the six Deputies of the Farmers' Party because, had they voted in favour of Deputy de Valera's motion to give a grant of one million, it would have been carried by one vote.
How much would the landlords get out of that amount?
The landlords would get very little when we were done with them.
They would get about one-third.
They would not. I may say that I am glad to know that the answer I gave to Deputy O'Connell educated him sufficiently to be able to allude to-day to the schoolmasters and others under a £15 valuation who would become exempt—the gentlemen who go out into the country, buy six or seven acres of land and build nice houses to live in. I suppose the next motion will be to have these houses exempt from rates. I know that the idea of the abolition of the cost-of-living bonus in regard to all salaries over £400 a year is rather unpalatable to some Deputies, but I think that the Labour Deputies should be as anxious as I am to put an end to it.
Keep to the landlords.
So far as I am concerned, I have taken more out of the landlords' pockets in my constituency than Deputy Davin has in his district. I can only see one ray of hope in regard to this question, and that is that there will be a new Executive in office this time twelve months who will bring in a Budget which will give to the farmers the relief to which they are entitled. Deputy Davin should be the very last Deputy to speak on this matter, considering the fact that he voted for handing over to John Bull three millions of the farmers' money. I do not think that he should raise any noise now about the position of the farmers. Perhaps when he speaks later he will tell us what is the policy of the Labour Party in regard to the retention of the land annuities. I would like to hear it definitely put forward. Are they in favour of holding that money in this country, or are they prepared to do what they did when that subject was voted on here, six going one way and seven the other?
Where did you get your figures?
From the Division List.
The Deputy will not hear anything about land annuities on this motion.
I was hoping to hear it from Deputy Davin.
Mr. Hogan (Clare):
My contribution to this debate will be brief. The President is glad, but he will not be glad when the truth is reiterated. There are two matters to which I wish to refer. I can quite understand Deputies Bennett and Shaw being in favour of the Budget statement. I can quite understand their attitude on this matter, but there are other Deputies on the Government Benches whom I would like to hear. I should, for instance, like to hear Deputy Byrne as to whether he is in favour of a new tax on the working class people in his constituency without getting any return for it. I should like to hear from Government Deputies, say, from West Cork, Donegal—Deputy Doherty, for instance, who was very eloquent about me a few nights ago—and Mayo. I should like to hear Deputies from those districts say what they think about a Budget statement which proposes to tax the small holders in those areas to the tune of 15/-, and to give them in return benefit to the extent only of 7/6. I wonder would they be as eloquent as they were recently when the Government policy was announced by the Minister? They are silent. Their silence, however, is probably more eloquent than their speech. I think that their remarks would be more relevant, more pertinent, than those of Deputy Shaw and Deputy Bennett.
There is one point that has not been touched on so far, but I think it is very important. While the Minister increases taxation there is a threat that he is going to reduce representation. We are told that the county councils are going to be remodelled. We are told that the work of the boards of health is going to be drawn in to the county councils and that the number of county councillors is going to be reduced considerably. That is a matter of very great importance to the community, especially to poor communities. It was interesting to me to hear the Minister for Finance yesterday make reference in his Budget statement to members of county councils. I think I have never heard a more undignified statement regarding a body of public men than that made by the Minister yesterday. The majority of county councillors are men who were on public bodies at a time when their resolutions and activities were applauded by the Minister for Finance and the President. They were considered then to be men who were taking risks and doing heroic actions for a principle and an ideal. Now, however, we find the Minister for Finance referring to them in the most undignified terms which I have ever heard used by any Minister towards a body of public men. He said:
It is proposed to introduce at a very early date proposals for the reform of the county councils. The work of the boards of health will be drawn in to the county councils, the size of which will be substantially reduced. At present even, when a council has only a normal number of wind-bags, the whole time of a meeting is frequently wasted on a few unimportant items. The consequence is that many of the men who would make the best type of local representatives are increasingly unwilling to serve as member of councils. With a reduction of the number of members it is anticipated that the number of wind-bags on the various councils will decrease more than proportionately. It is proposed to introduce a managership system for counties somewhat similar to that in operation in Dublin and Cork. It is believed that the reforms contemplated will not only tend to prevent unjustifiable increases in expenditure but will in many cases enable sound economies to be effected.
That, I repeat, is a most undignified statement to make about public representatives. If the Government thought it necessary to make that statement it should have been left to the Minister responsible for the control of these public bodies. I do not know whether the Minister for Local Government would be responsible for such a statement, but, if that is the attitude of the Government towards public representatives, then we know that it is not the personnel of the councils to which the Minister refers but that it is an attempt to wipe out democratic control and democratic government. These windbags to whom the Minister for Finance refers have had to take into consideration and be responsible for the care of some 84,396 destitute people.
We are going to have it broadeast from the National Assembly that the men responsible for the care of these people are windbags. When we are going to have it broadcast from the National Assembly that the people who have the care of the destitute poor and who have asked the ratepayers to provide something like £527,000, are a party of windbags, I think it is time that somebody connected with public bodies in the country, somebody who has a knowledge of the sacrifices which these councillors have to make in the discharge of their public duties and the amount of time they spend attending county council meetings, board of health meetings, and other meetings, should make that statement, and make it clearly. There are members of county councils on the Government Benches and it is up to them to say whether they agree with the description which the Minister has given of these county councillors. It is up to them to say whether they applaud, as some of them have applauded, by their silence, the imposition of a tax twice as great as the benefit received.
I was somewhat interested this morning coming into town to know what the newspapers might have to say about the Budget introduced yesterday. The first thing that struck my eyes was the poster of the "Irish Times" announcing "Spring Show Awards." I think that about sums up the benefits which the farming community are going to get as the result of the Budget. I think the Spring Show awards, such as they are, will be of just as much benefit as the Budget to the farming community, who have been looking forward to it for the last five or six months, since the President made his famous announcement in Dun Laoghaire Town Hall. The Budget, on the whole, apart from whatever benefit it may confer on the agricultural community, is very Cumann na nGaedhealesque. They balanced the Budget this time. They have balanced it by carefully manipulating abnormal items. It does not take a financial wizard to balance a Budget by that method. All one wants to know is a little about addition and subtraction, but more especially about subtraction. There does not seem to be any rule followed in the method of deducting these abnormal items. As a matter of fact, there is one particular item dealing with compensation awards, and the only reason, as far as one can see, why a certain sum was taken to be abnormal expenditure was that the sum was sufficiently large to give a surplus in the Budget of £2,850. It was nicely done, and the Minister or whoever may have been responsible for the balancing of the Budget made the necessary deductions to a nicety. There are a few items also which arise under the heading of capital expenditure in the commencement of the Budget on which one would like to get a little further information. For instance, in the creameries purchased on behalf of the State we had a certain asset. We find that asset has been written down by £168,000. There is no explanation in the Budget statement as to whether that is the total amount by which it is expected this asset will have to be reduced, or whether it is only the amount that has been taken off this year in anticipation of further sums being written off in years to come. We would like very much, naturally, on questions of this kind, to know what exactly the position taken up by the Government is, whether they believe that having deducted this £168,000 they have now reached what is really an asset, which will stand at the figure at which it now stands.
There is again a small concession given in the reduction in the registration fee of companies. The amount is reduced from £1 to five shillings per cent. We are told in the Budget statement that this was done in response to continuous agitation from the Chambers of Commerce and so on, but surely the Minister for Finance should be able to give some good reason why any change in taxation should be made apart from the reason he gave, that there was agitation in the Chamber of Commerce, because as a matter of fact there was agitation also that there should be no de-rating of agricultural land. Why the Minister should agree with the Chamber of Commerce in one thing and disagree with them in another I do not see.
Mr. Hogan
He agreed with them in both things.
To a certain extent, he did agree with them in both things, but the Chamber of Commerce will not believe that they got their point altogether. The Minister for Finance, in his Budget statement, referred to another matter and I would like to quote his words: "I have observed that when a Commission or Committee of Inquiry is bursting to offer remarks upon a subject which it was not asked to examine, its observations are generally more notable for zeal than for discretion." That is a thing which did not strike some of us before, but I believe the Minister for Finance is well justified in that statement. If we were to take the Commission of Inquiry into de-rating and look at the terms of reference under which that Commission sat, we would see that they were asked to inquire into the question of de-rating, what effect de-rating would have on local government, what effect de-rating would have on production, and many other questions connected with de-rating. That Commission was not asked by the Minister to make any suggestions as to how farming could be made to pay in this country, in connection with the de-rating question, but even so, the report of this Commission on de-rating, as the Minister for Finance very well observes, is generally more notable for zeal than for discretion when their report goes on to tell the farming community how farming can be made to pay in this country.
This report in Section 159, page 71, gives us thirteen headings under which agriculture could be made pay in this country. I believe, if one were to write down the thirteen headings under which farming could be made to pay according to the majority signatories on this Commission, he would have exhausted every possible branch of agriculture. They commence with the improvement of livestock; they go on to the feeding of livestock; to the improvement of the milk yield of cows; they go from that to poultry, from that to the standardisation of products for marketing, to the manuring of land, more especially grass land; they pass on from that to seeds, and from that to agricultural education. They then pass on to credit facilities, to drainage, fencing and so on; to the improvement of machinery and co-operation. They end up with one of the most brilliant recommendations that a commission could possibly make for the improvement of agriculture; that is, that an effort should be made to prevent the rise and fall of prices. They recommend research into, and, if practicable, the adoption of measures designed to reduce fluctuation in the prices of agricultural products.
The whole world has been tackling this subject for years, not only in this country but in Europe, and even in America. All over the world this question has been examined and considered as to whether prices could be stabilised or not in agriculture. This majority, in their zeal, as the Minister said, reject de-rating for some better method of making money for the farmer. In their zeal to reject the proposal for de-rating, they go on again, as the Minister says, without very much discretion, to tell us that that is the salvation of the farmers in this country. The salvation of agriculture in this country will be in preventing the fluctuation in prices. But, as we might expect, even those ten brilliant members who signed this Majority Report do not go further into the question. They point it out as a desirable thing, but they do not go further into the subject or give us any indication of how that very desirable object could be achieved. I agree that if it could be done—if the majority who signed that report could do it, or if the Department of Agriculture could do it, or if the Executive Council could do it, or even if the whole Oireachtas could do it—there would be no necessity for de-rating. The point, however, is that they have not done it, and they have not told us how it is to be done. When they have given us thirteen points of how to make agriculture pay, they pass on to tell us that de-rating is not to be recommended.
We have had Commissions like this sitting before. We have had members of the Government and officials of Government Departments pointing to methods by which farming could be made to pay in this country. I would like, very much, if the Minister for Agriculture or the Executive Council would seriously consider the question of letting one of those members or any other member of a Government Department take over a farm under present conditions, stocked as it is at present, with the liabilities it has, and let him get all the benefits of what he says the Government have done for agriculture. Let him get all the benefits of the Land Acts, Agricultural Credit Acts and all the benefits of de-rating up to the present. Let him get all the Department's leaflets in pursuance of this policy of education and let him follow up this education; let him get the benefit of the Livestock Breeding Act and of the Eggs and Butter and Fresh Meat Acts. Let him get all these advantages that have been pointed out to us in these reports; let him then take over an ordinary farm stocked as it is, with the liabilities it has, and then let him show the farmers of this country how far is he making that farm pay.
It may be that the farmers in this country are not farming satisfactorily and to the best advantage. It may be that that is so. I do not believe it, but I am open to conviction on the point. I would like to see that proved especially by some of those people who sign reports such as this, in paragraph 159, telling the farmers of this country how their land could be farmed and how their farms could be made to pay. I would like, again, before passing away from this point, to say that I absolutely agree with the statement of the Minister for Finance in his Budget that people who sit on a Commission and are given terms of reference are more notable for zeal than for discretion when they depart from those terms of reference and give advice which they are not asked to give. That is so in this case.
The Minister says—he is relying on this majority report when he says so— that the farmers are neither overtaxed nor under-served. He probably got his information from this report, because it has given very valuable information on the subject. On page 119, they tell us the amount contributed by the agricultural community to taxation as compared with the amount contributed by the non-agricultural community. They tell us that the agricultural community only drinks 30 per cent. of the total amount of intoxicating liquor consumed in this country, although the agricultural community is as four to three of the non-agricultural community. So the position is really that if the farmers and farm labourers were drinking their due share, they should be able to drink 57 per cent. of the amount of intoxicating liquor consumed in the country. But they are only drinking 30 per cent. In that way, the report says, they are not contributing to the taxation. Is it the farmers' fault or is it the fault of the agricultural labourers? At any rate, they tell us they are not paying their share of the taxes. That is because the well-paid townsmen can afford to drink four glasses of whiskey for the countryman's one glass of whiskey.
We are told that the farmers are not contributing their fair share to taxation and that if the countryman was doing his duty by the Exchequer he should wear four suits of clothes as against the three suits he is now wearing, and he should wear four pairs of boots as against the three pairs he is using at the moment. With regard to tobacco, the countryman has an advantage because he actually smokes seven ounces as against the townsman's six ounces. When it comes to cigarettes, the countryman gets only one as against the townsman's four. The result of it all is that the countryman is not contributing his fair share to taxation in the matter of tobacco. The same applies to motors. Countrymen are using motor cars to the extent of only 15 per cent., and they should, we are told, use at least 57 per cent. The farmer who is neither overtaxed nor under-served and who does not require de-rating is not doing his duty when he is not buying a motor-car like the townsman. If things were right we should have somewhere between six and seven times as many motor cars in the rural districts as we actually have in order to satisfy those who signed the Commission's majority report.
If the farmers were able to drink as much, to smoke as much, to wear as many suits of clothes and as many pairs of boots, and to use as many motor cars as the townspeople, then they might be able to get de-rating, because they would have then done their share in paying taxes. It is only under such circumstances they would be entitled to de-rating. That is the view of the members of the Commission who signed the majority report. It is because the farmers have not done their duty that the members of the Commission do not see that they should be given de-rating. The only case where country people are paying more than their share is in the matter of dog licences.
We come now to the reference in the report to property and income tax, estate and stamp duties, corporation profits tax and excess profits tax. The agricultural community are paying only 2 per cent. while they should be paying 57 per cent. There are big numbers of farmers who are actually not paying corporation or excess profits taxes. They are not doing their duty to the State, because they are not contributing a corporation profits tax or an excess profits tax like people in the towns and cities. When it comes to the expenditure side of the national and local finances we are told the country people are getting more than they should get. On page 121 there is a table set out and certain services are taken. They say that the agricultural grant to the extent of 100 per cent. goes to agriculture. We will admit that. They take the Department of Agriculture and they say that £782,000 goes to agriculture—fully 100 per cent. Is that true? What about the £150,000 paid in salaries here in Dublin? Surely that money does not go, to the extent of 100 per cent., to benefit agriculture? Surely a good deal of that money goes to benefit retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers in the city and also benefits professional men living in the city.
We notice that the year 1928-29 was taken, and in that year, out of the £782,000 voted for agriculture £443,000 was by way of loans. For agricultural purposes a sum of £38,000 was granted; for co-operative creameries, £35,000, and for the purchase of creameries, £370,000, making a total of £443,000. Surely some of the signatories to the majority report know that when the Minister for Finance introduces the Budget he takes account of abnormal expenditure, and that the money that is voted in that way for loans is paid back, principal and interest, over a number of years? Even in their own figures they indicate that the agricultural population contribute a small amount towards the services of debt and so on. It is unfair to include in this amount that goes to the Department of Agriculture the amount given for loans. In the same way we can take the Land Commission, and we find that there is a sum approximating to £200,000 paid to officials in Dublin. Surely the whole benefit of that £200,000 does not reach agriculture?
When they are making up the amounts contributed to local bodies and are assessing the advantages to be gained from those local services, they exclude gas and electricity and divide the remainder on a population basis. There are services in towns from which the country population get no benefit. There are such things as sewerage systems and water supplies, and in some counties the agricultural population has to pay portion of the debt on some of those schemes. There is also the cleansing of streets in cities and towns, and the population in the country cannot be said to get any benefit from that. There is also expense in the making of footpaths in villages, small towns, and also cities, and the agricultural population can hardly be said to get much benefit. The whole thing, however, is put down on a population basis. How can the Minister for Finance be justified in his statement that the agricultural population is neither over-taxed nor under-served?
The De-rating Commission has made its report. We were warned here on a former occasion by the Minister that if we did not pay serious attention to a Commission such as this and wait for its report before considering any scheme of de-rating we would be paying a very poor compliment to Commissions in general, and it would be impossible for any Government to get any self-respecting person to sit on a Commission if we were to vote money for de-rating before the report was issued. Nevertheless, the Minister has turned down the Majority Report completely, and he also turned down the Minority Report and, in fact, all the Reports, and he came in with a scheme of his own for £750,000. That scheme did not agree with any forecast made by members of his own Party in the country. It was evidently a scheme that could fit in with a tax on petrol and sugar and with some manipulation of abnormal items in the Budget. He felt he could not pick out any other abnormal item. He could not raise the money by any other method and he could not see how economies could be made. The most he could do was to offer £750,000.
I am certain that the agricultural community are very disappointed today—at least any of them who have seen the daily papers. There are others who have to wait for the weekly papers, and they, too, will be disappointed to learn that the amount of relief will be only to the extent of one-third of what they paid last year. There are, perhaps, some innocent people who still believe Deputies like Deputy Connolly when he talked of £2,000,000. What will those people say when they read the papers and when they realise that they will get only one-third of what Deputy Connolly promised them?
Was it not reasonable?
They are going to get less than the President of the Executive Council promised them.
Will the Deputy give the date of that?
I do not remember it.
Will the Deputy give the words?
I do not remember them.
I am like the Deputy —I have no recollection of it.
Sometimes I remember the sense of it, if there is sense in it, but I do not remember the exact words.
Or the amount?
If the President denies it——
Positively.
Then I withdraw it.
I saw it.
Where did the Deputy see it?
I saw it in literature sent out—one million pounds.
I have no recollection of making such a statement, and I should like to see the evidence of it.
I shall try and fish it up.
Do.
We can come back to this question again. What about the Farmers' Party, who, when we introduced the motion to give one million pounds by way of relief in rates, were promised by the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Local Government — I suppose speaking with the approval of the President—that the million pounds would be given in the Budget. The Farmers' Party went into the division lobby with the Government and kept the Government in power, and now these unfortunate Deputies have to go back and face their constituents and try to explain how or why they should deprive the farmers of £250,000. It is not fair. If the President had any regard for his allies in the Farmers' Party he would not treat them like that.
Deputy de Valera stated to-day that the tax to be levied in order to raise this money was going to put the small farmer in a worse position than before. I think that cannot be denied. Deputy O'Connell actually gave figures—correct figures, as far as I can see, because they were not disputed, and there are some very smart men on the other side who would very soon take them up——
Will the Deputy give a few figures on the same subject?
Deputy O'Connell said that half the farms of the country are under £7 valuation. He said that the amount per head that would be contributed under the sugar tax would be about 3/- per year. I think he is quite right. If the average rate paid last year was 6/-, and if there is going to be relief of one-third of it, that is, 2/-, and 2/- on a £7 valuation amounts to 14/-. If a small farmer has a family of more than four, the President cannot deny that he will be worse off this year than last year, if he is going to buy sugar. He can lose the sugar as well as the rates if he likes, but if he buys sugar he is going to be worse off.
How much worse?
Two shillings.
Mr. O'Connell
He will pay 15/- in tax and get 7/6 relief.
That is a lot better. I like to hear that.
Mr. O'Connell
I gave the figures. Does the President want to hear them again?
Deputy de Valera suggested that if the Government were to pursue this policy of collecting the tax that, in their opinion, was necessary for this de-rating from the small farmer and the working man, they should at least give a complete measure of de-rating to those under £15 valuation. If the million pounds which was promised by many members of the Government Party—excluding the President this time, as he denied it —had been given, it would be possible to give the flat rate that they are going to give under the £750,000, and, in addition to that, completely de-rate those under £15 valuation.
We were told by the Labour Party that we have taken that suggestion from them. If we have, we have been influenced by the Minority Report of the De-rating Commission. We have not, however, exactly taken the Labour suggestion, because their limit was £50 valuation for a small farmer, and our ideas are so small that we only go to £15 valuation for a small farmer. Even supposing we had adopted the Labour attitude, we have learned from the Minority Report and are progressing in that direction. The Labour Party, on the other hand, are going backwards, because their representative on the De-rating Commission signed the Majority Report, which was completely against de-rating. He did not want it at all; he was altogether against it.
Mr. O'Connell
I should like to make an explanation arising out of that. The person referred to by Deputy Ryan was appointed on the Commission by the Government and not by the Labour Party. He did not represent the Labour Party in any way or consult the Labour Party as to his action, and we are not in any way bound by what he did at the Commission. I should like that to be quite clear.
I am quite prepared to accept that and am very glad to hear it, as a matter of fact. Various methods were suggested here for raising the money. It is not necessary to go into all the arguments again about keeping at home what belongs to us and not letting it go to other countries. It is hardly necessary to go again into all the economies that could be made in Government services. Even if the Government could do neither of these things, they could have thought of something beside a tax which would fall on the poorer sections of the community rather than the richer. In his Budget statement the Minister discussed at length what an addition of 6d. to the income tax would do and he dismissed it. He did not go very much into a discussion of the proposed tax of a halfpenny on sugar. He said one very interesting thing, however—that sugar is not looked upon as being so indispensable as tea by the poor. That was a most extraordinary statement for any man in a civilised community to make. The Minister ought to know, and the Government ought to know, that sugar is absolutely indispensable to the children of the poor, as well as to the children of the rich. Tea is not indispensable. It may be that adults would do without sugar rather than without tea. That may be their taste, but it is not for the good of their health. It would be absolutely destructive to the health of children if they were to be deprived of sugar. One would not think of giving tea to a baby of eleven or twelve months, but you must give it sugar—you cannot substitute anything else for it. The Minister ought to know something about this question from the social point of view, yet he made the statement that sugar is not looked upon as being so indispensable as tea by the poor.
The point has been made here by previous speakers that the Government, in proposing this very inadequate amount of de-rating, have certainly not satisfied the agricultural community. But even so, even if the agricultural community was to be disappointed at the amount offered, the Government might at least have spared the small farmer and the agricultural labourer, and indeed the workers in the towns also. Surely those who are advocating de-rating in this country did not ever suggest that the poor people in the country or in the towns should be made to bear the cost of that scheme. There were various suggestions made as to how this money could be got from economies in Government departments; but if the Government in their wisdom felt no economies could be made, surely they might have thought of some better method of taxation than to revert to the most necessary article of life and, above all others, that required by the poor and especially by the children of the poor. Surely they could have thought of some other article to tax, and I think that even those members of Cumann na nGaedheal Party, such as Deputy Connolly, who has already become reconciled to this sum of £750,000, though a few weeks ago he wanted £2,000,000, even he and they should make some attempt to show their disagreement and displeasure towards this proposal of the Minister for Finance to raise that amount of money, or at least half of it, from the poorer members of the community. They should make an attempt, which could have been made, under various other heads to get that money from the well-off people in the towns. The people in the towns that I refer to now are those referred to in the Report of the De-rating Commission who can drink four glasses of whiskey to the countryman's one, and three pints of porter to the countryman's one. People in the towns who can afford these luxuries should have been compelled in some way to contribute this money towards the relief of the rates on agriculture.
We have at last reached this point in a controversy as to de-rating, that we now know that we cannot have de-rating—I am now referring to full de-rating—without getting a reduction in the extravagant expenditure of the Government, and without getting the land annuities which are being paid by this country. Members of the Farmers' Union and others in the country who up to this time have continued to support the Government must now realise that it is impossible for them to get their demand of full de-rating without supporting the policy of getting back the land annuities. When that time comes I am perfectly certain the Minister for Agriculture, as a farmer, and the members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party who were also farmers will accept the annuities without making any further reference to them as being stolen from the British Government.
Perhaps the Deputy would now leave the question of the land annuities at that.
I do not propose to deal with it any further, but it has already been referred to in the earlier part of this debate as an alternative method for the purpose of full de-rating.
I am quite sure it must only have been a passing reference.
A sort of life-belt.
We cannot debate the question of the annuities on the Budget.
I should like to ask why it would be out of order to bring in the question of the land annuities as a means by which de-rating should be met.
I am trying to make it clear to the Deputy and the House that it would be absolutely out of order to reopen the whole question as to whether the annuities should be retained or not on the Budget.
I suggest that is not the point. The point is to indicate that this was a means that should have been adopted.
And I allowed the Deputy to do that.
What I wanted to make clear was that those people who have hitherto been misled by the promises of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party must now feel that if they are to get full de-rating they must fall back upon the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party for the recovery of the land annuities. Any other policy would amount to a question of robbing Peter to pay Paul or adopting the policy of the landlady in one of the Abbey plays, where she pawned the dress suit of one of the lodgers in order to get money, and when that particular lodger wanted his dress suit the landlady pawned the overcoat of another lodger, and so the chain went on until a crisis arrived, where it would require more ingenuity than the Government possess to get out of the difficulty created by such a policy.
Now we are in the position where the children of the poor people are to be robbed of one of the essentials of life, as Deputy Ryan pointed out, namely, their proper quantity of sugar. Because in order to give the small farmer six shillings by way of de-rating that small farmer and his family are going to pay taxation on their sugar of at least 15/- a year. There are one or two aspects of this tax upon sugar worth mentioning. Sugar itself is a stimulant which supplies the place of alcohol, and to discourage the use of sugar is to encourage the use of alcohol. That sounds apparently very funny to the President, because he is totally ignorant on the subject.
Oh, absolutely; but I think there is a lot of difference between a bottle of whiskey and a lump of sugar.
I do not know whether the President is suffering from too much sugar in his stimulants or not.
I have been bone dry to-day.
Another aspect of it is that if we now impose this tax it will prove a very considerable element against the prosperity of the Irish confectionery trade, which is at present struggling against great odds. Deputy Hogan has already pointed out the insult offered by the Minister for Finance to the county councils.
As very often happens insult precedes injury, and the insults which are being given to the county councils at present are to prepare the way for a general injury to local democratic government in this country by certain changes in the future. Now the real causes of defects in the local councils at present are due to the low vitality of the people, brought about largely by the fact that most of the younger generation have gone out of the country through emigration. Rural depression is so great that it creates apathy in the country. There are no means in the country for the formation of an independent public opinion owing to this apathy and the absence of possibilities of having proper social conditions. So that, instead of trying to build up from the point of view of the prosperity of the people, giving them a higher standard of life and a greater capacity for forming public opinion, the Government is doing the opposite thing, and where they find a low vitality they are going to destroy a considerable amount of the machinery of local government.
There is one matter in the Budget statement which has disappointed many people. It is that, in spite of the long period taken in the matter of having a simplification of the forms used for the collection of income tax, the Government do not yet seem to be prepared to introduce any measure for that purpose. The Minister for Finance pointed out the amount of labour that has been devoted to the investigation of that problem. I do not wish to minimise the problem, but I would urge on the Minister that he should, as quickly as possible, examine the findings of the Committee dealing with that, and introduce some simplification of the forms used for the collection of income tax.
It took a fair amount of time for the De-rating Commission to discover that farmers were not over-taxed or under-served. The Minister for Finance, being a bit more charitable, proposes a scheme here to relieve the farmers. Of course he was not over-enthusiastic. He was too wise for that. He did not make any great promises to them, but at the same time they have had promises made to them that, if de-rating would not be introduced or could not be put into effect, some relief would be given to them. It is rather unfortunate, even though this Commission discovered that farmers are not over-taxed or under-served, that such is the case. It is rather unfortunate that the terms of reference of the Commission were so narrow, a Commission that spent a considerable amount of time carrying on its investigations and one that cost a good deal of money, as to prevent it from going into matters other than those with which it dealt, so that this House might have the opportunity of discussing some reasonable alternatives. I have not the slightest doubt that sound alternatives could be found, but the scheme before us is not a sound one.
I am sure what the Commission was faced with was to prevent, as far as possible, taking money from one pocket of the farmer and putting it into another. This proposal of raising money by a tax on sugar and on petrol might have been fairly workable six, seven or eight years ago. But we have to face the fact that farmers are up against a number of problems other than those concerning local rates and taxes. We are faced, for instance, with an acute transport problem. That has been seriously mishandled. No attempt has ever been made to solve it. I know that the railway companies are in difficulties, but they pass on their difficulties to the farmers. As Deputies know, the farmers' produce is sold, for the most part, in a foreign country. Therefore high freights must add greatly to the cost of production. At the present time competition is very keen and the outlook for the farmer is not very bright. I think that this Commission should have inquired into a matter such as that. I am sure farmers would be quite satisfied if it were not possible to give relief as a result of the investigations of this Commission an improvement could be brought about in the prices they get for their cattle, sheep and pigs. If, for instance, it were possible for them to get ten shillings a hundredweight more than they are getting for their cattle, that, I think, would go some way to satisfy them.
The Minister for Finance, not having got the advice of the Minister for Agriculture on these matters — the Minister for Agriculture knows all about them — ploughed his own furrow, with the result that we find the poorest section of the community — of course the Minister for Agriculture had nothing to do with this — taxed with an additional ½d. per lb. on sugar. Sugar is one of the necessaries of life, and is very largely used by the poor and by small farmers in the West and most other counties. The result of that will be that any relief they may get will be more than counterbalanced by what they will have to pay as a result of this tax on sugar.
I was greatly surprised to hear the Minister announce that he proposed to put a tax on petrol, especially when we consider the conditions under which the farming community have to carry on at the present time. This tax will not apply so much to the County Meath, but I know that it will be felt severely in other counties. Lately, on account of the awkward transport system, and the fact that the railway companies do not appear to be able to tackle this problem or to give an efficient service, we have this position, that at this season of the year most of the lambs offered in the Dublin market arrive by lorry. In that way this tax will mean an addition to the freights charged for getting lambs to the market. That will give rise to a very serious situation in Longford and other counties.
A number of small farmers in these centres started a little business of their own in conjunction with exporters in Dublin in the case of lambs and pigs. The employment of motor lorries provided a handy means of transport in connection with that business. I suppose the exporters will make provision to meet the effects of this petrol tax, with the result that the farmers concerned are going to lose. As far as Meath is concerned, I do not know that this will mean a lot of difference to the farmers there. They send up a certain amount of pigs to Dublin, but in other parts of the country where lorries, as a means of transport, are in very general use, the effect of this tax will be serious for farmers. The Minister for Finance must have forgotten all that or did not know that such a scheme was in operation.
It is rather unfortunate that in these hard times the farmers who are engaged in carrying on this business should, as a result of this petrol tax, be punished in the way I have described. It is rather unfortunate, too, that this Commission did not devote some of its time to an examination of that problem. The Commission has produced a number of very long reports, reports which tell us nothing that we did not know before. We are told that the farmers are not over-taxed or under-served. I think the Commission could have been usefully employed in examining this transport problem when it discovered that it could not proceed with de-rating. The transport problem is serious from the national point of view. It is a very serious one in the case of farmer-producers — that is to say, people in the West of Ireland who produce store cattle, and people in the midlands who fatten or finish cattle. The imposition of this petrol tax will be a big disappointment to these people. There is hardly a doubt but that it will hit all classes of the community. The present economic circumstances of the country will, I hope, compel an early examination of that problem. There is no sign of the times improving. On the contrary, there is every sign that things are likely to go worse. It is rather unfortunate that such a scheme as this should be introduced into this House. It is out of date, and will unquestionably, if put into operation, hit severely a big portion of the community.
[The President and Deputy MacEntee rose.]
Is the President going to speak?
To conclude.
Then we may take it the discussion will not be concluded to-night.
Does the President want the last word?
I believe I could conclude in 15 minutes, and I will give the Deputy 45 minutes.
I am not anxious to have 45 minutes. What I have to say about the kernel of the Budget is going to be said very quickly.
As a compromise might I make a short speech?
If the Deputy is going to speak on behalf of the farmers I would like to hear him.
One cannot speak on the question of the Budget without fully appreciating the difficulty of the Minister for Finance. I think it is pretty clearly understood that the most unpopular post in any Cabinet is that of the man who holds the purse.
Hear, hear.
No matter what proposals are incorporated in a new Budget the Minister for Finance is bound to tread on somebody's corns. He is bound to find a number of disgruntled people in the country who will say: "This is a very bad Budget." But, having regard to conditions and the times in which we live, and having regard to the agitation which has been going on for two years and which brought into being the De-rating Commission, like many others, I feel very disappointed at the manner in which the agricultural community has been dealt with in the Budget.
There are some misconceptions in regard to de-rating. I heard people say that they did not agree with de-rating, that the farmers wanted to get a dole; in other words, that they want to be spoon-fed by other members of the community. That is all a mistake. The agitation for de-rating, as I understand it, was not an agitation for the purpose of giving a dole to the farmers in a period of depression. It was an agitation which should have been treated on its merits, as one dealing with the important question of the incidence of taxation and its bearings on the agricultural community. Had it been dealt with in that way by the De-rating Commission, one could understand the form of report which was brought in. But it was not dealt with in that way. In passing, let me briefly analyse the three reports which the De-rating Commission brought in. Enough has probably been said about the Majority Report. I do not think the Majority Report disappointed anyone in the least. It was clearly understood, I think, by most of the John Citizens of the Free State, when the De-rating Commission was set up, that it was more than probable, and in fact very likely, that the majority would report against de-rating. In my opinion the number of those signing the Majority Report would have been more numerous were it not for the fact that the agitation for de-rating took a rather stronger turn during the period that the Commission was examining it.
Other Deputies have dealt with the Majority Report. I might dismiss it by saying that it is merely what we expected. There are certain phases of it that possibly deserve a passing reference. The Majority Report, to my mind, went entirely outside the terms of reference. I want to deal with one particular aspect of the terms of reference. I do not think it has been referred to before. When asked their opinion as to whether it would be advisable to transfer some of the services now dealt with by local bodies, such as mental hospitals and other institutions, the Majority Report dealt with the mental hospitals, not as to whether they could be more economically dealt with by the State, or under present conditions by the local authorities, but they went into the question of how the patients should be treated, which was entirely outside their functions, and, as I would put it, strained themselves to find an argument against putting this service on the State instead of on the local rates. They strained themselves so far as to go into the medical side of the treatment of patients. I do not wish to refer to that beyond saying that that is clear evidence that those who signed the Majority Report sat down at that Commission and heard evidence, and then searched the Blue Books of the State to beat it by statistics, which they themselves say are not above suspicion.
I pass from the Majority Report and come to the Minority Report. In that Report they clap the majority on the back by stating that they are fine fellows, and that the only fault they had to find with the Report was in the phrasing of it. They went on to make a case for complete de-rating, and having made the case they tore it in two and said: "We will give them half." I do not think, when this question was discussed before, there was any Deputy or anyone outside who did not admit that something had to be done for agriculture. I am one of those who believe that de-rating is by no means the best way of dealing with agriculture. But it is the best means under present conditions, owing to the disorganised condition of the farming community and the condition of agriculture generally. It is the best means of bringing home to the unorganised agriculturists of this country that the incidence of taxation is against them, and if the agitation for de-rating served no other purpose than to bring farmers together it was indeed a very good thing. I asked a question here yesterday, I think, of vital importance to the State for the purpose of judging exactly what our economic conditions are. It was to ascertain the amount of remittances that come from America to this country through the Post Office and the banks. I asked for a return for three years. The Minister for Industry and Commerce stated that he was not in a position to give those figures for the banks, but that he was inquiring into the matter. I hope he will give them later. It would be a revelation to a great number of people who have not examined this question to find that the remittances which came through the Post Office for the years 1928, 1929 and 1930 worked out this way: In 1928, £1,600,000 was remitted to this country through the Post Office; in 1929 the figure is practically the same; in 1930 there is a drop of approximately £200,000. That is £1,400,000. Two arguments can be based on these figures. Of course, they are in a sense only half the value, because we have not got the bank returns. What I want to point out is: the difference between the Post Office and the Bank returns is this: The £1,600,000 remitted to this country through the Post Office is remitted in sums varying from £1, £2 and £3 up to £5. We may stop at £5 for Post Office remittances. The poorer people in America send £1, £2, £3, £4, and £5 to their friends on the land in Ireland. The aggregate represents £1,600,000 for two years, and £1,400,000 for the last year. If we had the bank returns they would show larger sums. They begin, say, at £10, and run up to £15, £30, and so on. I am not going to hazard a guess at what these figures are without any material, but I made inquiries through local branches of banks, and I know that the amount is considerable. I know also that the drop for the last twelve months is really astonishing. To give you one instance, in one bank the figure dropped from £18,000 to £2,000—that is, one-ninth. Basing our argument merely on the drop in figures, we find that that source of income to agriculture in this country is diminishing. That kept the people on the land and assisted them to eke out their existence under present conditions during the agricultural depression. That source is likely to be a falling one and a source of income which the Minister for Finance cannot reckon with. It is outside the economics of the State, and he cannot take it into consideration in his Budget. Suppose for a moment that something happened in America, which is badly hit industrially. Suppose they did what they are doing in Australia and stopped that export, it would be a very serious matter for this State. If we take it the other way and say: "Here is a sum of money coming into this country annually that nobody takes stock of, that nobody reckons in the revenue of the farmers, having forgotten it or not being aware of it." In judging the farmer's condition from the industry in which he is employed, we forget the fact that into that industry is coming £1,600,000 from one source that we have forgotten. We still do not understand the fact that the farmer himself is in a very depressed condition. I do not want for one moment to discount the excellent financing of this country. I do not want anything I say to be construed into an attempt to belittle the country or the Government or prosperity of the country, but I want to point out certain things regarding the condition of agriculture which most people are not aware of and which a great number of people might be aware of but do not take proper note of.
I pass from that and will deal with what has been given as a dole, if you like, with what relief has been given to agriculture in the Budget. I do not want to institute comparisons, but I say this, with reservations, that I am perfectly conscious of the difficulty of budgeting a large sum, £750,000, within the scope of the people who pay taxes in this country. We must not forget, no matter what else we may forget, that when all is said and done agriculture is to-day, was yesterday, and will be to-morrow the principal industry in this country. That cannot be forgotten. Bearing that in mind, we must remember that whatever we do in the way of financing this country there is only one standard by which we can draft a Budget or by which we can look at any Act which we pass in this State. The first standard by which we must judge it is the standard of what will be its effects on the principal industry. There is no nation in the world which does not have regard to its principal industry, and if we find that the industry which is keeping the bread and butter in our mouths is suffering from a lack of capital or other disabilities, and it is suffering in this country from many disabilities, the principal one being that what is taken out of the land does not go back, it must be assisted. That is one of the most important things for a farmer. The farmer is one of these men who is spoken about in a derogatory way in this country.
I want to speak about our industry. Those in charge of agriculture, whether they are graziers, tillage men, dairymen or whatever they be in the ordinary conduct of their business on the land, must put back into the land what they are taking out of it, whether it is by grazing, by tillage, by meadowing, or by milk. What I hold is happening in this country is that the profits that come out of the land are not being put back into the land. Until we recognise the fact that the principal producers in this country are the men in charge of our principal industry, who make money for every man, for the men that the Minister for Finance said had their yachts, as he said farmers had no yachts, until we get the profits into the farmer's pockets and keep the parasites off his back, keep him in close contact with the consumer and ensure that the profits go back into the land, just as he has to manure his land, we will be living in a fool's paradise and will have killed the goose that lays the golden eggs. I wish to express my amazement at the manner in which the £750,000 is being raised to relieve agriculture. I reiterate that I fully appreciate the difficulties of the Minister for Finance. Remember the Minister stated, in dealing with income tax, that there is a great amount of that coming in year after year from arrears. Let me say also that there is a great amount of income tax coming in that is not alone arrears, but that is only technically due, and not fairly due. That is a matter for the Revenue authorities, and I will pass from it.
When we consider the question of a tax on an absolutely necessary food, as against the tax that might induce somebody, by reason of the low income tax, to come back into this country, well I would always come down on the side of the people who want to get the cheap necessaries of life and not on the side of those who may or may not come to live in this country. Of course it is a cheap country to live in so far as income tax is concerned. For that reason, I say that the Minister for Finance and the Executive Council made a very serious blunder in putting the tax on sugar. Another alternative is that it might be possible to effect economies which would bridge the difference between £750,000 and whatever the petrol tax would yield, but certainly sugar will be a very unpopular thing to go to the country with. If I might put it this way, sugar has taken the starch out of the Budget.
Dealing with this sugar question, a very extraordinary thing came to my knowledge just this evening. Sugar affects sweets and a whole lot of things, but there is one item it affects very seriously. Tinned fruit is a form of luxury, if you like, but it is indulged in by people of moderate means and poor people. There is a class in this country living on the farmers of the country who go into Grafton Street and spend 7/6 on a pineapple or 1/- on a peach, who buy fruit out of season and in season, no matter what the price is, but there is another class in the country, the vast majority, who if they do wish to give their children a treat after dinner give them a little preserved fruit. Those people are going to suffer very materially over the sugar tax. From the information I have got, and the Minister for Finance will correct me if I am wrong, the tax on a dozen tins of fruit under the old conditions was 2/3, but with the extra sugar tax it will be raised to 3/9. In other words, the cost to the consumer will be about 4d. per tin on tinned fruits. There is a point in this that I would like to put before the Minister. Let us compare that with the British system. The British tax on preserved fruit is 2¾d. per dozen tins, and the tax under the present Budget, with the extra halfpenny on sugar here, will be 4d. per tin. In other words, the tax will be 4/- per dozen tins here, while in Northern Ireland and Great Britain the tax is 2¾d. per dozen tins. This shows the ramifications of tariffs. I understand that the tax is put on in this country on the weight of the fruit, while in England it is put on the sugar content. I give that suggestion to the Minister for what it is worth. It is not, I suppose, a very serious matter so far as the revenue is concerned, but it is a very important matter so far as those people who like a little fruit after dinner are concerned.
I wish to say in conclusion that the sugar tax is a black mark in the Budget. It is taking from the agriculturists half of what is being given. They are getting a third of what they asked for, and half of that third is being taken from them, so that they are really only getting one-sixth. Having regard to the consumption of sugar, it is very doubtful if there is going to be any return from it. I am perfectly certain that the farmers of this country and the labourers of the country will receive this Budget with amazement and regret, and I am sorry that it is so. It will only mean that in the future the agitation for more relief will become more intense and more severe, and I believe the Budget will have brought it on.
In a recent debate in this House the Minister for Local Government made it his business to make special mention of my name. He drew the attention of the House to a speech I made down in Mayo, and said he would very much like to hear me on de-rating. He is going to hear from me on the present proposals of the Government and as to how Mayo is affected. I would draw the special attention of the Deputies from Mayo, no matter what side of the House they belong to, to the few figures I will give. Dunshaughlin rural district, Co-Meath, has a population of 7,800. It has a poor law valuation of £107,000. Castlebar rural district has a population of 20,000 and a poor law valuation of £44,000. I stated publicly that I did not believe in de-rating if it was going to bring about additional taxation that would fall as a burden on the poorer consumers. We have here a proposal in this year's Budget to put a tax on the food of the people, and by this tax almost half of the total amount the Government propose to give in relief to agriculture is going to be raised. In the County Mayo we have a district like Belmullet, with a poor law valuation of less than £12,000 and a population of 14,000, almost twice the population of Dunshaughlin, and under the Government proposals districts like Dunshaughlin will get half the total amount voted in this year's Budget towards the relief of agriculture. I wonder what benefit this is going to be in the County Mayo to a man with a holding below 30/- valuation. The Minister for Local Government is quite aware of the number of people who are below that valuation in the County Mayo. The people of Mayo are, I suppose, expected to get wildly enthusiastic about this report and to throw their hats in the air and thank the Government for the wonderful gifts they are giving them. Westport Union has a population of 27,000, and a poor law valuation of £40,000, more than three times the population of Dunshaughlin and about one-third of its valuation. There are thousands of farms in Co. Mayo under five acres, and there are thousands of landholders with a valuation below £2. We have already in operation an agricultural grant in connection with which even the discrimination proposed by the Minister for Finance is not made in favour of the small land-holder. The big land-holder is already getting his full benefit out of that agricultural grant, and he is now going to get one-half of the total sum voted towards the relief of agriculture. I repeat what I said in public — namely, that I am against those proposals if they mean a burden on poor people. I have not the figures before me as to what it would cost the small farmers in Mayo, many of whom have ten mouths to fill. It would be a nice calculation to ascertain what it will cost them in the year to pay this additional burden on sugar and what benefit they will get in return for supporting the Government.
I can assure the Minister for Finance that if he expects any enthusiasm west of the Shannon for these proposals he will certainly be very much disillusioned, and if he expects any bonfires to be lighting on the hills of Mayo he will be very much disappointed. In Mayo we have a population of roughly about 170,000 and a poor law valuation of about £345,000. I venture to say that when this Budget comes into operation the consumers, the poor people, the small land holders and the workers in the small towns in the West and other parts of Ireland, will be paying both as regards the sugar tax and, indirectly, the petrol tax, at least, £500,000 out of the £750,000. Coupled with the proposals of the Government is also the suggestion which practically amounts to the total abolition of local administration. One of the chief features of local administration at present is the action of armchair theorists in Dublin who think out grandiose schemes on paper without knowing anything of the conditions in rural districts, especially in congested areas in the West. They propose immediately to take steps to shove these proposals down the throats of the people whether they suit particular districts or not. That is the type of mind which some of us used to be up against even in the national movement. It visualises everything while standing at the Pillar and imagining that a penny tram would take a man from Castlebar to Belmullet.
That is the type of mind which is upsetting and disorganising local government with fantastic schemes. More has been done in the West, particularly in Mayo, for the improvement of the sanitary conditions and the uplifting of the people in that way by the operations of the Land Acts and bodies like the Congested Districts Board, than ever has been, or will be, done by Acts of Parliament compelling the people to be clean. More has been done by these bodies by giving the people decent houses to live in, a chance of making their livelihood and improving their conditions, and generally living more healthy lives, than ever will be done by coercion and by inspectors, medical and otherwise. Anybody who knows anything about the conditions in the West or who takes the trouble to acquaint himself with the conditions in that part of the country knows that what I say is true. It is not coercion, it is not inspection, nor is it the law, by holding a threat over the heads of the people, that has improved the conditions in the West in the past twenty years. More will be done by Acts like the Gaeltacht Housing Act, even though it does not go far enough, than ever will be done by Coercion Acts in regard to sanitary conditions. If the Minister for Finance thinks for a moment that the people of the West are going to accept these proposals in full satisfaction of their claims for relief in the depressed condition of the agricultural industry he certainly is very much mistaken.
I do not intend to make a very long speech; in fact, I would not have spoken at all were it not for the play made by the Minister for Local Government with my name in a recent debate. He has got my views now and I hope he is satisfied.
I am perfectly satisfied with the views expressed by the Deputy, but it would have been interesting to hear them before, because they show the absolute insincerity of Deputy de Valera's motion for a grant of £1,000,000.
They show nothing of the kind. They show the absolute insincerity of the Government in their proposals.
We are going to give what we promised.
You are not.
The Deputy has simply explained that the Party opposite had their tongues in their cheeks when they proposed a grant of £1,000,000 for the relief of the farmers without distinction.
That is another of your arm-chair theories. The Minister is not giving what he promised, and he knows it. He is giving what suits his party and those who support that party and subscribe to its funds. That is what he is doing, and he knows it. There should be no talk of anybody having his tongue in his cheek. He has his tongue in his cheek very much now.
The farmers will have £750,000 in their pockets.
Yes, the farmers in places like Dunshaughlin will have the bigger portion of it in their pockets. These are the people who stand by the Minister and his Government. The Minister apparently still believes in that fine old cry: "To hell or Connaught." When the Minister gets up and proceeds to give me a lecture on ethics, I would remind him that we have had in Mayo a double dose of his personal administration during the past six or twelve months, and I can assure him that the County of Mayo is not very pleased with his personal administration, and will have more to say about it on a future occasion.
Read the local Press.
Yes, we will, and I can assure the Minister that the people of Mayo will deal with him when they get a chance.
I think that enough has been said about this Budget to make everyone realise that it has brought nothing but gloom and disappointment. It has brought disappointment to the farmers, who were led to expect great things from the Government. We had the Press and Ministers for some time back, and we had the Minister for Local Government, on Deputy de Valera's motion, telling us that the Government would find the money to relieve the farmers, and that they did not require Fianna Fáil to tell them how to do it. On that occasion the Minister referred to a speech which I made some time ago down the country, when I stated that the Government had set up the De-rating Commission merely to keep people talking. I think that that statement has now been proved. The Commission was set up purposely to keep people talking.
As has been pointed out by other Deputies, not one single proposal or none of the reports in regard to de-rating was accepted or acted upon by the Government. Instead of that they brought in a proposal to give the farmers £750,000 and along with it, another proposal to raise half of that money by a tax on the food of the people. That is what it is; it is a tax on the food of the people. There is no doubt that a certain number of farmers will benefit to a certain extent as a result of the granting of this £750,000, but there are other people, about whom the Minister for Agriculture is continually talking, the poorer class who will not. I would like to hear the Minister for Agriculture on this proposal. Will he tell us that this class of farmer is going to benefit by the proposals brought in here by the Minister for Finance? He is very silent to-day but I hope he will not be silent next week. There is no doubt that when he goes to particular parts of the country where it suits him, he is very solicitous for their welfare but when he goes to other parts he tries to get the ear of the big farmers there. The Minister is very clever when he goes down the country. He is like the Minister for Local Government in that respect. The Minister for Local Government told us on one occasion that they would find the money when the day came. They have found the money and I want to ask the Minister are they satisfied that this money is not being taken from the poorer sections of the community?
During the past three or four weeks we had Ministers speaking throughout the country promising great schemes. We had the President going down to Cork and telling the people there that they were going to subsidise production and export. I think the House would be much better occupied in considering something that would subsidise production or export than with a half-baked de-rating scheme. It is just a sop brought into placate certain interests in the country. There is no sincerity, good, bad, or indifferent in it. This tax on sugar will fall on the poorest class in the community, on the workers in the towns and the farm workers in the country. Even if the farmer gets a certain amount of advantage out of it, he will have to give it back to the agricultural labourers because they will have to pay higher prices for their sugar on account of the extra taxation. There will also be a certain amount of the petrol tax passed on to the agricultural community. A large amount of the transport of agricultural goods is done by motor transport. The railways down the country at the present time are almost broken up owing to the competition of motor transport. That motor transport is being used for the purpose of bringing agricultural produce to Dublin and the various ports and also to convey it to the shopkeepers in the various towns. A big proportion of the petrol tax will therefore be passed on to the farming community. We are not, however, so much opposed to that as to the additional tax on sugar, a large amount of which will be borne by the farming community.
The Minister for Agriculture on several occasions stated that the farmers paid 70 per cent. of the taxation of the country. The De-rating Commission, however, after examining the question for sixteen or seventeen months, told us that the farmers did not bear their just proportion of the taxation of the country; that, in fact, they only bore 30 per cent. I think they got that from the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. They took the hint from the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, but they did not go to the trouble of telling us in the report what they based their figures on. I would like to hear the Minister for Agriculture on that point, and as to whether he agrees with the De-rating Commission in that respect.
In the majority report of the De-rating Commission the farmers were told thirteen ways of making money. The number is very significant — thirteen. I wonder will any of the farmers adopt any of these thirteen great points? If they added one more point it would be like the document which a famous President in another country formulated. He had fourteen great points, and they live in history. They brought in thirteen points after some sixteen or seventeen months' consideration. They will also live in history and will be like that famous President's fourteen points. None of them is to be put into operation; they are, in fact, more than anything else, an insult to the intelligence of the farming community. There is no doubt about that. They are an absolute insult, and they can be classified as nothing else. For any responsible body to think, after examining the position of the farmers in this country for that long period, that these thirteen points were going to save them from ruin — well, certainly that proposal does not appeal to me, nor does it appeal to very many farmers. They look upon the whole thing as an absolute fraud. The report is looked upon as an absolute fraud and nothing else.
We would like to hear the Minister for Agriculture on this question of whether the de-rating proposals are going to save the farmers. It is said that this grant is going to save the butter industry during the present summer. Is he satisfied that what he is giving the farmers, this £750,000, is going to save the butter industry in the present summer? I would like to hear him also on the question of whether it is going to save the bacon industry. The bacon industry may not be in as serious a position as the butter industry, but it is, nevertheless, in a serious position. I would like to hear the Minister on these points.
Amongst the thirteen points of the De-rating Commission we had one thing which struck me as very funny altogether. We had a man with £1,500 a year telling the farmers that they should buy proper seed to put into the ground; another telling them that they should buy extra manure and apply a certain quantity of artificial manures to grow more grass. I question if farmers need be told that. There is one thing the farmers require information on and that is the weather. There is a monthly report issued by the Department of Agriculture, and it tells the farmers the kind of weather we had a month previously. On the 1st May there is a report issued telling the farmers that the weather was very cold on the 1st April. Sometimes they are told on the 1st May that hay was getting scarce on the 1st April, and so on. In the report for the 1st September they will be told that corn was backward on the 1st August.
That is the sort of information that the farmer gets. On the 1st January they will point out that there was snow on the 1st December. That is the sort of agricultural information given in these reports. By the same token it would be interesting to point out that this report costs about £2,000 a year to the country. We are given no information beforehand, information that would be of some use to us. The information given in these reports is not even as good as the information given in Old Moore's Almanac. It would be worth something to the farmers if the money spent on the report were expended in supplying information as to the kind of weather they were to have on the following day or on the following week.
Mr. Hogan
We will arrange that.
Make it the fourteenth point.
That is quite right. That is the very thing that would make a good fourteenth point. The other thirteen points are of very little use to the farmers.
Mr. Hogan
I can actually satisfy Deputies' curiosity in ten minutes. I am rather flattered by this debate, because, apparently, the Fianna Fáil Deputies are very anxious to hear me, and recently their anxiety to hear me has become greater. The Fianna Fáil Deputies are now adopting most of my policy. We are getting nearer to each other. I am greatly disappointed at the reception that this proposal to give the farmers £750,000 for the relief of agriculture has met with, because after all it is practically the same, with some improvements, as Deputy de Valera's policy a fortnight or three weeks ago. What has caused the change now? What is it all about? I have listened to Opposition speech after speech here this evening from people who supported enthusiastically Deputy de Valera's motion less than a month ago, that we should set aside a million pounds in relief of the farmers' rates. Now, the whole afternoon has been wasted by Deputies opposing tooth and nail this grant of £750,000 to the farmers. I could quite understand Deputies getting up and regretting that, instead of giving £750,000, we have not given one million pounds. It would not take any Deputy more than two minutes to say that, but that is not what has happened.
I do not like to interrupt the Minister—we have only four or five minutes now——
Mr. Hogan
In other words, the Deputy wants four or five minutes now in addition to what he has already got, and I only want ten minutes altogether.
What is the basis of distribution? Is it on the agricultural population basis or the population of a whole county?
Mr. Hogan
What has happened since Deputy de Valera moved his motion here? Speaker after speaker then got up on the opposite benches enthusiastically supporting Deputy de Valera's motion on that occasion just as strongly as they are opposing this. What is the reason? What is the cause of that change? Let us look back for a moment. What happened a fortnight ago? We all know that the Fianna Fáil Party had come to the conclusion that I was right, and that they would have to stop talking nonsense about tariffs and concentrate their efforts on reducing the overhead expenses of the farmers. Deputy de Valera announced his conversion to that policy a fortnight ago. The Fianna Fáil Party then had the idea that the De-rating Commission would report in favour of de-rating, and they thought it would be good politics to get in first, and they came along with their crude motion for one million pounds for de-rating. Now the De-rating Report has been issued, and the majority of the Commission has reported against de-rating, and we have upset all the calculations of the Fianna Fáil Party. We have come along with a grant of £750,000 towards de-rating, and they oppose it. That is the whole story in a nutshell. We are all paid £360 per annum; Ministers are paid a lot more.
They are worth a lot less.
Mr. Hogan
We are all paid £360. It is a good wage, but notwithstanding that we are paid all this, we had to sit here the whole afternoon listening to dreary drivel, Deputies getting up and unsaying everything they said a fortnight or three weeks ago. When they came down to details on what points did they attack our proposal? First of all, it was unfair to the small farmers. Who made that case? The Deputies on the benches opposite. The Deputies who, a fortnight ago, brought in a proposal which made no discrimination of any kind, good, bad, or indifferent, in favour of the small farmers.
But the Labour Party did.
Mr. Hogan
The Labour Party did, and Fianna Fáil opposed the Labour Party and went into the lobby against them. After all, I admit the duty of an Opposition is to oppose. That is sound enough, but the Opposition ought to have some policy other than merely saying "No" when we say "Yes," and vice versa. What are we going to do in regard to our £750,000? Half of it goes just as the old agricultural grant went, to the counties, on the same basis as the agricultural grant was always paid. The other half will be paid on a population basis? Does that discriminate in favour of the small farmer?
What population?
The Minister should be allowed to make his speech without interruption.
Mr. Allen rose.
The Deputy will be permitted afterwards to ask questions.
Mr. Hogan
The greater the population the more they will get. The counties with the biggest population and the poorest farmers will get the most. Who opposes that? The Deputies who made no such discrimination in their own proposal. They oppose the sugar tax, because they say that it is a tax on the poor. To some extent it is. Income tax is also a tax on the poor. It is a tax not only on the people who pay, but on everybody who benefits from Government expenditure. It affects our whole borrowing policy. So also is the tax on tobacco, or any other tax, a tax on the poor. Who are the Deputies who concentrate on the sugar tax? They are Deputies to whom we have been listening for the last year advocating a tax on flour and Indian meal, advocating an increased tax on boots, an increased tax on clothing, and an increased tax on everything the poor man has to buy. Those are the Deputies who have the impudence to come here now and in the name of the small farmer to oppose our motion. It is nothing short of arrant hypocrisy and will deceive nobody.
I move the adjournment of the debate.