And if he is going to get none of the £2,000,000 and if, as producer, he gets not what he is accustomed to get, but something less than the cost of his production, is next year going to see him continuing his production? Apparently we are all going to be like camels piling up sufficient in our humps to last until we get to ordered conditions again. The Minister for Defence has said and he is now joined by the Minister for Justice that we have more food than we can consume and the implication is that though we may lose our exports we are going to be better fed. It must be obvious to the merest tyro in economics that, if I have a surplus in production and if I have to sell it at less than the cost of production I will go out of production next year, and that is well known to those Ministers who put before the public this nonsense about having more food than we can consume. The President, at any rate, is perturbed about the surplus.
Let me recount three phases through which we have gone in this matter. First, it used to be said that, though it was recognised that Britain could impose taxes on the surplus we exported to her markets, the British never would in fact put such taxes on, that they never would dare do this. The phrase used in this connection was: "They do not buy from us for the love of us. They get from us only what they cannot get elsewhere, and they, therefore could not tax our produce." But now we know that they have taxed them so we must hastily shuffle off that track. The next move is to the argument that we can discover alternative markets for our produce. But I notice there is now used in this connection a phase and a setting that were not used before the beginning of this month. There was an exhortation by the President in Limerick last Saturday to the people "if they saw an alternative market, let them grab it." There was also his statement yesterday that while we are searching for an alternative market we need this money. Apparently we have not yet got those alternative markets although when Fianna Fáil was politically in the wilderness its paper every week discovered a new avenue to new purchasers. We were then advised that we could get our surplus produce disposed of anywhere we liked. It was so good that there were people who, on economic grounds, were ready to buy all that we could send to them. Wher are they now? The third phase we have now reached. Since our first hope has not been fulfilled and Britain has in fact taxed our goods and because our second also has led to disappointment and we realise we cannot get an alternative market, we have got to work a huge economic change, a complete change in our production so that for the future we will not be depending upon foreign sources for some of our supply and will not have to sell abroad as much as we are now selling. That will be probably found in the end as false and as deluding a suggestion as either of the other two. For I must repeat and stress again that there was a time, and not so long ago, when there would have been an uprising of back and front benches of Fianna Fáil if anybody dared to assert that England might find it impossible to tax goods of ours going into that country. It was regarded as the last word in treachery, and equally it was regarded as the height of folly, to say such a thing in the situation as it then existed. The facts are there now to provide the answer. It was equally a subject for mirth if one suggested that if there were alternative markets they would have been found out by good business men long ago.
We were told again and again that it was only because of certain shady influences that were around and about the Government and the country that these markets had not previously been found, and the statement was made by a man who is now a Minister that if it were not for actual dishonesty on the part of the Government these markets would have been found long ago.
Now we cannot, as we have a new Government, attribute the failure to find these markets to any of these shady influences. Where are we to find a market for anything we have surplus to our own requirements? What does this surplus amount to? A sum of £28,000,000 used to come into this country as payment for goods produced here which we could not sell at home. We received, as a matter of fact, more than £28,000,000, but allowing for supplies of agricultural produce that were imported into the country, the balance that remained after paying for these supplies was £28,000,000. We had an income of £28,000,000 annually from that market. That market has very nearly gone completely. We are just on the brink of its complete and entire annihilation. We are going to feed the people of this country with that £28,000,000 surplus and neither the Minister for Defence nor the Minister for Justice appears to think that there will be any reaction from that on the producer.
This debate has centred mainly round the land annuities. I want to bring the House to a realisation of the fact that if the land annuities were out of the way, if the land annuities question were settled and done away with, we still are faced with the loss of that market in which we ordinarily disposed of £28,000,000 worth of goods. We have conferences going on at Ottawa. We sent a delegation out there. We sent them out unprepared. We sent them out having received no notification from any Government except Australia and Southern Rhodesia. We are going to do everything on the spot. We are going to have conversations and memoranda passing while things are allowed to drag along here. The Conference meetings have been proceeding, and in their proceedings where are we? I must say that, when I first heard that this economic conference was to be held at Ottawa, while I realised the precarious position in which we had placed ourselves by our antics on the oath, I had believed that Ottawa might not, in the end do us much harm, because I thought that all the discussions at Ottawa were going to be coloured over by one great anxiety—a drive on the part of the Canadians and Australians with regard to the entry of wheat into the British market—and that in the wheat melée our other interests would not be prejudiced. The Conference has been under way now for nearly a fortnight and we have this surprising fact suddenly emerging—that both the Canadians and Australians have made up their minds that wheat is no longer the pivotal point upon which deliberations are to move, so far as they are concerned. They have both stated— although one more resolutely than the other—that neither preferences nor quotas for wheat matter much to them any longer. The Australians have stated that through their farmers and through their representatives at the Conference. The Canadians have stated that clearly through their farmers, but not so clearly through their representatives at the Conference.
If Deputies read the papers, they will see that there is still a push being made with regard to some small preference or quota in respect of wheat by Canada. But what has the Conference turned upon in the main? In the main, it has turned upon meat and dairy produce. The Committees divided themselves on the first day of the Conference along the following lines: that where Britain was to argue her points to the Dominions, Britain preferred to meet the Dominions singly, and for these discussions would not meet the Irish Free State at all. When it came to the Dominions urging any point, the arrangement was that the Dominions were to argue that point—whatever it might be—as one combined group. For that combined group the line of division there was a division on the views on the subjects to be discussed and Committees were set up (1) on meat—that is to say, beef—and certain other products of a meat type, (2) on butter and eggs, cheese, bacon and (3) on other things in which we are not interested and which I shall leave aside for the moment. The Dominions were to make their case on each of these subjects and present their reports as a group to Britain as to what preferences in each subject they wanted on the British market. What was the Free State position in that respect? We are told that, on their own initiative—I suppose they got in first by a short head—they decided that it would be embarrassing for the British, while present conditions lasted, if they took part in these discussions, but they intimated that they would like to be associated with the Committees because it would give them information on which they could found trade agreements with the other Dominions, excluding Britain. And so the situation out there developed to the point —day after day, one can follow it in the papers which record what has happened—that the Committee upon beef has almost reached conclusions and is presenting these, probably to-day, to the British Government and that the Committee dealing with butter, eggs, cheese and bacon has reached conclusions upon the first two of these things and is likely to reach conclusions on the others at once. These memoranda are being presented to the British. In these memoranda, we do not join because we are not permitted to join. A conference therefore that, to anybody who had experience of previous conferences and of the controversies that went on between the Dominions and Britain, appeared certain to them upon the position of wheat on the British market, has now suddenly turned into a drive by the Dominions to get in Britain a preferential position for their meat, bacon, butter and eggs. New Zealand is pressing her case on those points. Australia is pressing her case vehemently on those points, and Canada is pressing her case most vehemently on cattle, but also with some vigour on the other points. The Irish Free State on these points of vital importance to her economic existence has no representations to make because she will not be allowed to make them. One other point must again be stressed. It is not the land annuities that is stopping progress at Ottawa. If the land annuities question were completely cleared off, the Ottawa problem would still remain. The British say "You broke one agreement, that about the oath, and we will make no further agreements with you; why should we imagine that a treaty made in Ottawa would have more sanctity than a treaty made in London?" This House may be witnessing, without knowing it, the complete annihilation of our cattle trade. It is certainly witnessing, if not the annihilation, the partial destruction of our trade in butter and eggs and everything allied with bacon, a new and surprising item that should be taken into consideration when Ottawa is being thought of. The English made great preparations for this conference. They had committees going upon it. Their economists wrote about it and, in the main, the economists' views as to what might emerge from the conference were summed up in the monthly review that appeared in June. Most of them had the same point of view—that there should emerge from the Conference a Commonwealth group, tied together by material bonds, by mutual preferences given at that conference, one to the other. But it was also asserted on behalf of the British group that there were two other groups that had to be borne in mind. One was in the Argentine. It is stated that the amount of British money located there is not less than £500,000,000 sterling. The other was the Scandinavian countries. The Scandinavian countries were only dragged into the argument by these writers because they believed that, possibly, Denmark with some shade of difference in the preferential treatment would have to be allowed a good and secure footing in the British market. Towards the end of last week, the trade supplement to the London "Times," summing up the results of the Conference to that point, said that there had emerged this, as the big item. It was recognised that there was every likelihood of a preference being given on meat and the only point left for consideration was whether they would get from within the Common-wealth all the meat they wanted. And in that contest this phrase, which must sound very ominous to Irish ears, or some suggestion like it—I do not pretend to quote accurately—was used: The British consumer for a long time past has come to realise that chilled meat is a great deal better than frozen meat, that chilled meat commands a better price than frozen and has better qualities than can be looked for in frozen meat and that if it is not yet commercially possible for New Zealand and Australia to send meat in chilled condition rather than in frozen condition, there was, luckily, the Argentine, where £500,000,000 of British capital was sunk, willing and able to supply all the chilled meat that Britain could eat. We are footing around with the oath and the discussions at Ottawa are going on the basis of a preference in the British market for meat, butter, eggs and all pig products while we are not being asked by the British what our views are on anything. We have ourselves, in an excess of delicacy, decided not to put forward to the British any demands as to what we want on the British market. There was a delicacy that was late in coming but, at any rate, it shows that those who had no appreciation of the position when sitting in a Government front bench here have, in Ottawa, an appreciation of the ludicrous position in which they have placed themselves. They there realise that you cannot damage your best customer in his pride or break an honourable engagement with him and hope to get a favourable trade agreement with him while that is going on. According to the last account I have read in the London "Times," three points fall for consideration almost immediately at Ottawa. Is any larger preference than 10 per cent. going to be given to Dominion products? The answer to that was, undoubtedly. The second question is to what range of goods not now brought under these preference rates must the preferential rates be extended and that is also why it is clear that the preferential rates should be extended to articles coming within that preference and the third was to the operative date and as to whether that could not be brought nearer again extending this period to the earlier date of the 15th November.
Let us now see our side. There is going to be a preferential rate for beef in the English market, and we are not going to get that preferential rate, which means that there is to be a preference against Irish beef in the English market, even if the land annuities were out of the way. A higher percentage than ten per cent. can be given in this preference, and where the preference is higher than the ten per cent. already given it will be against our goods if the land annuities were out of the way. That is a situation in which we meet to discuss giving power to the Executive Council to spend two millions of money in any way they like—two millions of money raised from where we do not know, but probably raised by those new tariffs devised and which means raised by the people of this country. Hence it means that instead of getting a remission of two million pounds from us this year we will have two million added with the additional four and a half millions mentioned in the Budget which are to be paid by the people, so that we shall find ourselves down eight and a quarter million from what was promised. No longer do we hear they cry that Britain dare not tax our exports or the reassuring cry that there are alternative markets. Now we are to have a new situation. The whole economy of the country is to be turned topsy-turvy from which it is hoped that something new may emerge.
What are the new plans? Deputy Norton tells us there are none. Everybody knows that there are none. Their plans, of course, will be new tariffs with what result they do not know.
Deputy O'Neill dragged in appropriately enough reference to the Russian situation. I find it impossible to equate what is taking place there with what is likely to happen here. What has happened in Russia? There you have a country with resources that are illimitable in comparison with what we have. The people joined their forces under a military bureaucracy. They had a plan for ten years' time and they are depending upon confiscation to a great extent. I fancy in Russia also they did not find the peasants there were threatened with having too much to eat.
The peasant who is only a serf has been brought under the machine of the bureaucrats. They have been thrown out of their homes to rot and die; their farms confiscated, and more fortunate people put above them. And in the end, what happened to Russia? They have year after year to impress upon the farmers the necessity of supplying the Government with enough goods to send abroad in sufficient quantities to purchase their imports. Why does Russia now want these goods for export? Because it became plain to her that she must send something abroad to get the machinery and other materials that she wants for the re-creation of her State. They have robbed the peasantry of their property and their goods and of their food. The Minister for Defence thinks that we will have enough food to force down the peasants' throats. The Government will create new markets and a highly organised industrial State will be erected upon what there was before. Russia has not been able to do, despite her illimitable resources, in ten years what this country sets out to do in two years and with the expenditure of £2,000,000 in two months while the Dáil is out of session. There is to be an expenditure of £2,000,000 of money in two months. I wonder is the rate to be progressive and is there to be an extra £12,000,000 a year, and when will the end be. As Deputy O'Neill said in Russia at the back of the revolution and at the back of the Russian movement you had people who thought all this; they had some plan. They were noted throughout the world as the Intelligentsia in that particular area. We have not seen any evidence of that profundity, of that experience in business or of that capacity in handling anything that would make us believe that the group opposite has either the knowledge or capacity of the Intelligentsia in Russia backed up with the illimitable resources and food crop and business plans applied to the objects to which they set their hands.
That is one example. I will now take another. Some of the Central European countries have been the bane of Europe's existence for years past because of their instability that expresses itself there in money wasted economically and politically as a result of all these things. Only a couple of years ago the whole of the countries of Europe were brought together in order to try to rehabilitate Austria. Plans were concocted and presented to them at a meeting at Geneva for their approval. The plan was that Austria had unfortunately founded herself upon the production of cereals and the markets were saturated. And the countries that seemed best able to weather the storm that had burst upon European communities were the countries that had gone in for the production of live stock and live stock commodities. Therefore the economic friends of Europe gathered together there decided that Austria must be given the help required to enable her to change over from wheat growing to cattle raising. And the League of Nations by means of funds at its disposal rendered assistance, financial, economic and agrarian to that country. A couple of years passed and yet Austria was not much nearer to a change over from cereals to cattle and now they have no League of Nations help and no money except what they gathered from their own people. They had experts but we have only those to be found on the front bench opposite and yet we are to get this country turned round from its present methods of production to something else whatever that may be so we will not have to look for markets for export of agricultural produce and will not need to buy some of the other stuffs that come in here to-day.
According to the peculiar statement made by the President in Limerick "We should sell to whatever country is prepared to make a bargain with us on the terms that we will take from them what they want to sell, if they take from us on decent terms what we will sell." Where is the place that will do that? What are we going to sell? Whatever we sell we will not be selling it to Governments unless we sell it to Russia. What Government is going to make any agreement with us? What is likely to happen is not that Governments will buy from us but merely that we will have to go to the best possible trade in whatever country it may be.
There is no country in the world which at the moment has not got most favoured nation agreements, and if that is so how can we get better prices in these countries? We have only to turn to the trade returns to see what, in the face of the most favoured nation terms, we have been able to sell to those countries. Of course there are countries with which we could make special agreements, assuming there is a country that wants to make an agreement with us about any item of our production and wanted to give us favourable terms. Every one of those countries, it must be remembered, is tied to its surrounding countries by most favoured nation clauses and whatever they give to us, in the way of special treatment, must be immediately given to every other nation with whom they have most favoured nation agreements. And do you think that the nation that has erected a tariff barrier against butter is going to come forward to give us a lower tariff for our butter? If they did that for our butter it would automatically break down their regulations for all other butter coming into their country. I do not think these things have been thought of. It is a case of going ahead helter skelter; new markets are to be opened up and all the rest of it. Do they expect that new tariff barriers are going to produce new markets? What is the new system of production going to be? I see that the wheat nonsense that we heard so much about at one time is now being resurrected. I see that the wheat nonsense, which we thought had been overlaid for all time, has now been resurrected, and the people in the West of Ireland are going to be helped to grow wheat and efforts are to be made to enable them to direct energies to a new form of occupation. The Limerick people also are to grow wheat. As Deputy Norton asked, is there any plan? The one glimmering of sense that there has been since the Dáil rose last was the statement that came from the Minister for Education that if there was going to be nationalisation it meant more extravagance and more expense in the long run. I only hope that it will be borne in on Deputy Norton's mind that the Government is against all these policies of nationalisation that that Deputy seems to favour so much. We are told often about the mandate that Fianna Fáil looked for from the electorate. I want to read one that they may have forgotten. Item 6 of their programme was:—
To negotiate trade agreements that would secure for our products preference in foreign markets, always subject to the condition that the protection required for the maintenance and development of our own agricultural and manufacturing industries will not be lessened.
Then this follows:—
"The people of Britain and ourselves are each other's best customer. Our geographical position, and other factors, make it unlikely that this close trade relationship will rapidly change. Machinery and other capital equipment for our industries will have to be purchased from abroad. We can in these purchases accord a preference to Britain in return for a preference in her markets for our agricultural produce."
A later poster, which promised security to everybody in the country, promised this specifically to the farmer:—
"A guaranteed market and guaranteed profitable prices for a large part of his marketable produce, increased competitive power resulting in increased exports."
Now we are against increased exports, only because it has been found to be folly. We are going now to saturate the home market with everything produced and to buy only from the home market.
We have got no indication from anybody as to how this money is to be raised, nor have we got, from those responsible for the plan of the two million pounds fund, any idea of how it is going to be spent. Does the House know that Senator Connolly has nailed America to our mast? America, it seems, is going to help us in all this struggle! Senator Connolly is regarded as the economic brains of the Ministry. We had a little specimen of the protrusion of those brains to-day in the Bill that dealt with the Control of Manufactures, and it was not a pleasant spectacle. Worse than all, we have this in addition, that behind all this talk and footling arguments there is this—the most dangerous thing which we have to contend with. There is a belief that members from these benches opposite are inspired. They do not need to think out plans; that it is only human frailty to think out the road on which they propose to travel. The divinely inspired man can set his feet anywhere. The divinely inspired man—the enthusiast—is the most dangerous man that any country has to deal with. The enthusiast and his doing run all through the pages of Greek and Roman literature. He is always depicted as the man who did the most damage—the man who believed himself inspired by God to do certain things. In our times that is the type of man who fills the asylums and mental homes. That is the kind of mentality which we are dealing with, the mentality that scorns plans, that believes it can do anything. We cannot even take example from nations around us, for people who believed themselves divinely inspired found to their country's cost that the inspiration was lacking when the moment of trial came. It is not an unusual feeling that runs around. I quoted in this House before, and I want to quote it again, that there are people who believe that "politicians as a whole believe that if only they can be possessed of sufficient political power, they can do anything." And then the single phrase follows "Even to the avoidance of the logical consequence of their own economic actions." It is said further by the economist who wrote that "that the politician believes that, given complete power, he can in a short space of time bring about a complete change in the institutions of the society in which he finds himself." Then, as this economist remarks at the end of that phrase, "this naïve idea will be found to be at the root of every modern Utopia and every modern aim."
