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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 9 Nov 1932

Vol. 44 No. 10

Appropriation Bill, 1932—Second Stage.

I move that the Bill be now read a second time.

As there was no time for discussion when the Estimates for the Ministry of Finance were reached, would the Minister not make any statement now in regard to the financial position or in regard to how his Budget Estimates are working out? We have had changes that are greater than would be brought about by a Supplementary Budget, because there have been special powers for imposing new taxation without coming to the Dáil. If we had a Supplementary Budget the Minister would certainly make some statement on the position and prospects in regard to the working out of the Estimates which he presented to the House last May. Will he not make any statement now?

There is nothing, I am glad to say, to be alarmed about in the Exchequer position. It is as sound as it can possibly be in the circumstances and, certainly, much sounder than it was this time last year. I do not propose to go into very extensive details in the matter and I am sure the Deputy will be satisfied if I deal with the two principal heads of revenue—Customs and Excise and Inland Revenue. On the basis of the Budget Estimates, it was anticipated that the aggregate revenue from Customs and Excise would show a net increase of £460,000 for twelve months. In actual fact, the revenue to October 31st amounted to £8,709,000 as compared with £7,936,000 at the same period last year, showing a total increase to date of £773,000. That compares with an estimated increase in yield for the year of £460,000.

On the Inland Revenue side, it was anticipated that the total receipts into the Exchequer would show an increase of £1,477,000. For the first six months of the year which, as the House I am sure is aware, is the lean period, the revenue shows an increase of £461,000 over the corresponding period last year. I think that, bearing in mind the fact to which I have already drawn attention—that the first half of the year is the lean half, so far as Inland Revenue is concerned—is equally satisfactory. I do not wish at this stage to make any prophecy as to what the position will be at the close of the financial year, but on balance, taking into consideration the yield from Customs and Excise and the yield from Inland Revenue, it would look as if the estimates of revenue are going to be exceeded. I do not know whether it is necessary to go any further than that. I think that it would not be undesirable to point out that in the last return which I have received, the return for the week ending 5th November, 1932, the total expenditure up to that date was £14,884,992, which, as the Deputy must be aware from my reply to the Parliamentary Question which he put down this afternoon, includes £784,000 emergency payments and also includes a sum of approximately £1,000,000 placed to the credit of the Suspense Account in respect of R.I.C. and other payments which are normally provided by vote of the Dáil.

I do not wish to forecast what the attitude of the Government in regard to these moneys might be, but I think if the present Exchequer position is to be discussed with reference only to the position which has been created by the dispute with Great Britain, the House should bear in mind that there is available for the purposes of financing the services of the State a sum of £1,000,000, in addition to the £537,000 which appears as an Exchequer balance in the latest Exchequer account, and that in addition to this there is also in the Suspense Account a further sum of £1,490,000 odd, which has been paid to that account in respect of the land annuities.

I think it will be easily understood, and I think it should be realised not merely in the Twenty-six Counties but elsewhere, that the Government is in a very strong position financially to carry on even in the circumstances of the present economic dispute, and that, so far as we can see, it will not be necessary for us to impose any additional taxation in order to see that dispute through to a victorious conclusion.

The Minister gave us some details about the yield of taxation. Of course, the yield of taxation that has been obtained up to the present does not represent the yield on the basis of the Budget, nor does the expenditure represent the expenditure that was then contemplated. If we were to look back at the Budget position we could see that neither is the revenue that the Minister then anticipated going to be obtained, nor are the savings that the Minister forecast going to be effected. The sum of £900,000 from various duties has now sunk to something like £200,000. I am not anxious that certain of the savings the Minister forecast should be obtained, because some of the methods by which he proposed to obtain them were methods which I do not think he should follow, but it is quite clear that he is not going to take the requisite steps, or if he takes them at all, he is certainly not going to take them in time to obtain those savings.

Since the Budget was before the House there has been thrown on the Exchequer new expenditure on a vast scale—expenditure on certain new lines has been undertaken. Up to date, on subsidies mainly and advances to the local authorities, the sum of £784,000 has been paid. Now it must be clear that there is every prospect that the sum of £2,000,000 which was voted by way of emergency fund will not suffice. Even at the old rate of expenditure, and with the taxation that was in force, the £2,000,000 was utterly inadequate. Subsidies were being paid which were nothing like what would put the farmers in the position that they would have been in if the Government policy had not led to the imposition of the British duties in which they were mulcted.

If the bounties had been on any sort of an adequate scale, instead of something like £533,000 having been paid up to date in bounties, probably double that sum would have been paid. As circumstances now stand, if the Government intends carrying on this war, to give any assistance to the farmers that is more than a mere makebelieve, it will be necessary for them to put these bounties on a level which apparently they had not contemplated at all—to an amount that is going to eat up very rapidly the sums that are in the Suspense Account, as well as the Exchequer balance.

The Minister says that it will not be necessary to impose new taxation because these particular sums are in hands. Well, I think it is clear enough from the figures that we have given, and the figures that have been published, that it will not be necessary to impose new taxation if the Government maintains expenditure at the level at which it has been, that is, if it does not allow expenditure to go beyond the level at which it has been, but I would say that if they are determined to continue this conflict they cannot reasonably do as little for those whom their policy is making bankrupt as they have been doing.

If they are determined to continue this struggle, if they are determined to impose these ruinous losses on the farmers, then they must do something to make it possible for the ordinary farmer to continue without being forced into bankruptey. The Minister I think must face up to this, that the £250,000 which he has already passed out of the Emergency Fund to the Councils by way of advances in respect of Agricultural Grant is not the only sum he will have to advance. Money has become so short that no matter what efforts people may make there are going to be greater shortages in the next few months than there have been up to the present. As far as can be judged on the figures that are available, if the Government is not going to stand callously by and allow a whole class of the community to get into a financial position from which it will be very difficult for them to retrieve themselves, or for the State to retrieve them later, provision will have to be made that has not been made heretofore.

I do not know what the Minister really thinks about the revenue prospects, looking a little further ahead —and it is sometimes necessary in mid-year to look ahead, not merely for the remainder of the financial year, but to have some regard to the coming financial year. I am sure it is quite obvious to the Minister that, whatever he may do in the way of the collection of income tax in the present financial year, the profits are down and earnings are down so much that the prospect for the period that will begin in April next must be very gloomy. And it seems to me that the financial policy of the Government is leading this country straight into a mess which it is very serious to contemplate. The mere fact there may be enough money in the Exchequer and enough money in the Suspense Account to meet the requirements of the Exchequer on their present scale for a few months ought not to cause the Minister to refrain from looking ahead, and it ought not cause him to refrain from taking all steps he can possibly take, all the influence he can bring on his colleagues to induce them to bring about an emergence from the present situation. So far as one can judge we were promised by the Government that this sort of situation would never arise— that their policy in regard to the land annuities and other matters could be carried out without the country suffering any ill effects at all. Now, we have seen all those optimistic prophecies had no foundation, that they were wrong and misleading, and I think if the Government now promise that without increased taxation, without any new burdens, without a danger of running the whole State up against an impasse, we might carry on, they would again be deceiving themselves and deceiving the people. I think already, even on these figures that we have, the situation looks so ominous not for, as I say, a period that will come in a month or two, but just looking a little further ahead, it is so ominous that I think the Government must give it much more serious consideration than they appear to have given it. If they are looking no further than a month or two ahead, if they are quite content because there is going to be cash for that period, then they are guilty of great negligence. Perhaps they have not had time to adjust themselves to the increased seriousness which the position has taken on within the last day or two, but I am perfectly clear that the country is going to suffer even if the Exchequer does not suffer in the next few months, and that even if there is not adequate relief given the position of the Exchequer is going to be very impoverished indeed at the end of this present financial period.

A Chinn Comhairle, as far as the actual Vote itself is concerned, I am not going to anticipate the debate scheduled before this House for Tuesday next, but there are certain aspects of the Government policy to which I should like to call attention, and it may be appropriate to do so here, possibly a little more appropriate to do so than it would be on the occasion of the Vote of Censure that is tabled for next Tuesday. A certain amount of money has already been spent and I gathered from a statement that appeared in the Press some time ago that more money is going to be spent. On account of the failure of the Government to make the most of the splendid opportunity they had—one of the best opportunities, from a purely economic point of view, that had been afforded to this country for quite a long time. I refer to the complete failure on the part of the delegation we sent to Ottawa to bring anything of any use to this country back from that Conference—a failure on the part of the delegation, but a failure also on the part of the Government as a whole to make the most of that particular opportunity. So complete has that failure been that the public are inclined to ask why did they go. It cannot be alleged that there could be any doubt as to the attitude of the principal party with which useful agreements could be made—that the Government or the delegation were left in any doubt as to the British attitude towards the problem of entering into negotiations with them to make new fiscal and financial bargains. We ask in face of that why did they go. It is not merely a question of the expense involved, it is a question of the futility of the whole procedure. Are we not justified in suggesting or in supposing that it is merely to save their faces, so that afterwards—even though it was clear there was no prospect, from the attitude they had taken up and were continuing to persist in, that there could be any outcome from the negotiations on the lines desired by most of the people who had the economic and the financial interests of this country at heart—they would be able to say "we tried at all events."

I quite admit, as far as going there is concerned, they did try. Surely the Government had taken very effective steps before the delegation even set foot on the special train for Belfast to see that nothing came out of these negotiations. During that period I will say the usual very good propaganda was carried on by the Government Publicity Department. We were told, amongst other things, that we might look forward to very important results from that Conference and that, in fact, all the cards were in the hands of the delegation. Now that reference to cards was made before the delegation left, and the House will understand it was meant purely in a figurative sense. In that case, I suggest, if that were so, they seemed to have played the game particularly badly. I admit, as I say, the propaganda was well done. So far as that is concerned it is about the best thing the Government does—in propaganda they have few equals. Personally, I only know one Government that at all approaches them in the art of propaganda—a Government whose policy is not very different from their own. One thing is clear to the people of this country as a result of our failure at Ottawa. As a result of the events that have taken place in the last couple of days and couple of months the value of the British market is realised, not merely by the people of this country, who for such a long period have been sending a large portion of their surplus goods there, as the House knows perfectly well, but by practically every country in Europe. Not merely would the Dominions be anxious to form for themselves favourable trade relations with Great Britain, but I can see exactly the same thing happening with various other Powers who stand in no particular political relationship with Great Britain. We see at the present moment a very distinct rush on the part of various continental Powers to get favourable trade terms with Great Britain.

We alone stand aloof; we will have nothing to do with them; we alone have let the favourable opportunity pass. We alone, whose very geographical position makes it desirable that we should keep and extend our foothold upon the British market, and which is almost vital for our trade and the transport of our goods, have decided to stand alone. Other countries may make bargains with Britain. We are debarred from making these bargains, as was quite clearly pointed out before the delegation left for Ottawa, by the policy of our Government and by the refusal of our Government to deal in the ordinary international canons and the relationship with other powers. That was made quite clear. The whole procedure of the Government—I am talking now both of the passing of the Bill through this House for the removal of the Oath and of the adopted procedure fixing the responsibility for failure on the Government. Once the Oath Bill was through this House it was clear no further bargains could or would be made with this country.

What is the position now? We propose to spend more money. What for? This is a proposal coming from a Government which was very chary and very sensitive when it was a question, for instance, of the Governor-General's salary or expenses. Now they propose to subsidise our manufacturers whose trade has been hit as a result of the failure of negotiations. That is the policy of the Government. There are to be subsidies for our manufacturers because they are hit. Why are our manufacturers hit? They are hit because we refuse to acknowledge the obligations that we entered into by Treaty. They are hit because we refuse to do something, and as a result they are put in this position. We see the extraordinary spectacle of our Government scouting all British markets, and, at the same time, giving sibsidies to our manufacturers to put them in a position which they could have been in but for the incredible and almost insane policy of our Government, and the way they have dealt with the Oath position.

That is the position we are in now. We are giving subsidies not merely in connection with the special Import Duties Act, not merely in connection with the dispute over the land annuities, or the withholding of pensions, but in connection with the ambiguous position that we are in so far as our membership of the British Commonwealth of Nations is concerned. That was made clear. The duties that will automatically come on this country, after 15th November, are due entirely to the failure of our Government to accept this position as a member of the Commonwealth. It is precisely owing to our action, and the way in which we dealt with the Oath, that for economic purposes we are, practically speaking, outside the Commonwealth and do not get the position of advantage that the other Dominion Governments get. In fact, in order to save our manufacturers, and put them in the position that they could be easily put into if we had a sensible Government in power, we have now to pay these bounties. The responsibility for these bounties that we were led to believe would only be of very minor importance, in the first instance, to secure our position in the British market, is to be shifted now from the shoulders of the Government on to the shoulders of the people.

It was said by the Government that a mandate was given them in regard to the Oath. But again and again it was put clearly before the people, by the spokesmen of the Government, that no trouble need be anticipated from a Bill for the removal of the Oath. Why was that told to the people? Was there any foundation for that optimism on the part of those seeking the suffrage of the people? We were told that the English people did not care about the Oath, that we need not anticipate any injurious consequence, economic or otherwise, from the removal of the Oath. It was owing to the removal of the Oath, to the breaking of the Treaty, and to the manner in which it was done, and to our attitude towards another nation to which we were under obligations and towards which we acted in a manner that no other country would have done, that these consequences followed with the result that, so far as one can judge, we are faced with complete failure at Ottawa.

Take the main issue. There is no use throwing the responsibility upon the people for these matters. The responsibility is upon the Government and it is their business to shoulder it. The people never gave them a mandate for bringing on a struggle and a fight of that kind. In fact, that is precisely what the people were told there was no danger of. Now we have the extraordinary spectacle of the proposed bounty to manufacturers because of these very things. Many Deputies are aware of this. The House, no matter what other views it might take, of other Imperial Conferences, knows that great advances were made in most of them, and indeed in all of them, since the time that we became a Dominion. Deputies well know that the name of this nation, and the names of the representatives of this nation, were writ large upon these conferences. I suggest you can have no more striking contrast than that between the complete failure of those who participated in the recent conference in Ottawa and the success, and the considerable good, that followed from the success that attended other Imperial Conferences at which our delegates were present.

What was the position at the recent Conference? Our delegates went to Ottawa and did nothing. It was a magnificent delegation. I admit it might not have been as good as the first-class delegation that went to London recently. It was a large delegation that went to Ottawa, and their whole negotiating force was immobilised there, and they could do nothing. Not merely did we not get anything for ourselves, owing to the fact that we were not in the position to strike any new bargain with the country with which we were economically connected, and in whose trading with us we have such an economic interest, not merely did we not do anything in that direction but we could not take part in the negotiations of the other Dominions with that country. Deputies know as they must have read in the Press that considerable advantages were gained by the other Dominions at this Conference.

I put it to the House that if our delegation, instead of being reduced to a cypher, a mere nullity, in these matters, had played their part, it is clear, as it was clear in any of the other Imperial Conferences, when much more thorny subjects in many respects were being debated, that the concessions given to the Dominions could have been even greater. Not merely have we lost what the other Dominions have got, but we have also failed to push our own case, to gain even greater concessions; to make these concessions that were given with regard to mutual trade even greater. Even a short time before the recent election, not with the same fanfare of trumpets, two members of the late Government, the then Minister for Industry and Commerce and the then Minister for Agriculture, went to London. Amongst the articles on which a duty was put following partly as a result of their representations were certain articles of agricultural produce. From these duties that were put on against other countries, against some of our rivals, we were free. That was obtained on that occasion. Now nothing was obtained. Can anybody tell me what good was served—it is extremely difficult for me to find out and for the public to find out—by this recent visit of the delegation?

I should like to know have the public any idea of what did occur there. The public at the time, those interested in the matter, because vital interests to the country were being debated at Ottawa, and those who looked upon it merely as a matter of news, were undoubtedly stirred up from time to time by certain pieces of propaganda. "Advances were being made"; "friendly relations were being maintained"; "the ground was being prepared." Prepared for what? For the magnificent effort the other day? When we had one portion of the Government in Geneva and another in Dublin and negotiations were to be entered into in London, we were told it was not because of what was done in Geneva that these negotiations were being entered into; that the foundations had been laid long before; that the whole atmosphere had been improved; that a settlement certainly had not been come to, but things were much better. If I may use a word generally connected with propaganda, because it seems to be nothing else now, that was the dope served out to the Irish people. We must assume that there was no foundation for that; that no advances were made; that that was all for the deception of the public.

It surely cannot be that the delegation sent to Ottawa did not realise that only one man can decide whether the Republic is to be sold or how it is to be sold, that he must make that decision himself; and that no other member of his Party, of the Government or otherwise, dare make an advance in that particular direction. It may be that advances were made in the way of exploring possibilities, of putting an end to this disastrous dispute between the two countries. If so, why did they end in such complete failure? Were the Governments brought nearer? Is there any evidence of that? The Governments were already far apart. Was the only result of the various cogitations at Ottawa that, whereas before they sat at different ends of the table, later they required telescopes to see each other, they got so far apart? Was that the only result of that, the most magnificent of all the delegations that left this country? Was the sea-divided Government quite as incapable of doing business as the Government sitting united at home? Where did the fault lie for getting nothing? Where did the fault lie for the false rumours broadcast in the Press? Was the delegation at Ottawa quite as incompetent as the Government here to appreciate the greatness of the opportunity that was offered to this country, and the seriousness of the situation that confronts this country?

These are questions I suggest to which the country has a good right to expect an answer. What precisely was done there? Are the Government in a position to tell us? Was nothing done? We did gather from the very highest authorities that it was not all merely negotiating with the other Dominions besides Great Britain; that it was not all a question of entertainment; a harmless game of cards and nothing else; that serious work was done, even as far as the British were concerned. Where is the result of it? Not merely was this strong delegation there, but they were in telephonic communication with the one man who can decide on policy, general policy and detailed policy, so far as this country is concerned. The result was—nothing. Just apparently an effort, while times were getting a little stringent and hard in this country, to keep up the humour and the pecker, so to speak, of the Irish people; just an effort, when the people were beginning to feel the pinch of an altogether unnecessary struggle and, what is called, a war, to induce the people to hang on in the hope, Micawber-like, that something would turn up, something which the Government could not foresee, any more than they could foresee anything else that is likely to follow from their actions. I should say that of all the Imperial Conferences that this country has taken part in, this has been the most disappointing and the most barren of results.

There are other aspects of the Government policy that I should like to deal with as well in a general way. Whether you can call what they do a policy or not may be open to very grave question. It really is not a policy thought out from the beginning. They may have a vague idea as to whither they are going. Certainly the rest of the country does not seem to have any idea whither they are drifting. They may, as I say, have a general idea as to whither they are going, but, so far as the actual implementing of that general idea is concerned, then it is simply a matter of one blunder after another. I am not going to touch in any way on the dispute between the Government and the British Government as regards the non-payment of the land annuities, and the non-payment of pensions. Important as that is, and much as it looms in the eyes and the minds of the public, my own personal opinion is, and has been for months, that it has served the Government to this extent at all events: that is has distracted the attention of the people from what I consider, at all events, much more dangerous aspects of the Government policy; the policy revealed in the speeches of the Ministers, the policy revealed in the whole trend of legislation in this House, and the policy revealed in the different Budgets that have been introduced in this House Every day, I think, will bring to the ordinary citizens of this country, a stronger conviction that, whether it is the intention of the Government or no, or whether it is the intention of the head of the Government or no, we are drifting, and drifting very quickly, in a direction that is contrary to the wishes of the great bulk of the people in this country. It does seem to many of us, and, as I say, every month that passes tends to strengthen that conviction, that the Government seems to have, speaking economically and socially, one foot rather firmly planted in Moscow, and the other dangling out in a vague way towards Rome.

Oh, I will get there.

Precisely, you will get there.

And the Government is getting there, too, and I put it to anybody in this House, when that question and that danger is being discussed, to notice the extraordinary advance of the importance of that question and the position it occupies in the minds of a large number of people in this country at the present time compared with the position it occupied, say, three years ago. It is easy for the Government to pretend that that is not their policy, but everything they do, and everything they say, so far as their general economic policy is concerned, seems to point in that direction. It may be that they are as blind in regard to the results of this as they are in other matters. I quite admit that that is possible, but each day makes it a little more incredible that they cannot see where their policy is tending and that they cannot see what the danger is that is plain to many of the ordinary people. As I said, this is, and has always been, to my mind, a much bigger issue than even the very great issues involved in the dispute with Great Britain over the land annuities. I can well understand why they get the support of their left wing, the Labour Party. I do not know whether the two Parties are amalgamated or not——

You should understand it, anyway.

Unless the Deputy will explain whether there is an amalgamation.

He has explained long ago.

Are they the left wing of that Party? Because it seems, at times, that they are in danger of being left behind by the more immediate Government Party. The immediate Government Party is quite as strong and quite as advanced in these matters as the most advanced of the Labour Party, and I can well understand why it is that they get the support of certain members of the Labour Party. I can well understand that certain members of the Labour Party through the country may say: "This might not be Socialism or Communism at the moment, but at least it makes the advent of these things very much nearer and very much easier." I can well understand, as I say, that attitude being taken up and support being given to them by certain sections of the country, because they interpret the policy in that particular way. What is the pretence underlying the alliance or amalgamation? Why are they getting the support from that particular wing—the so-called Labour Party in this House? The ostensible reason is because the Government is making an attempt to deal with unemployment. Is it the results of its various attempts to deal with unemployment, the results of its having a policy of unemployment which it forced on the country and which is certainly remarkably unpleasant for employment? Unemployment is their policy, and I am speaking now not of the relief works they are giving, and which are reaching a scale that has probably not been reached since the famine years, these temporary palliatives of the problem, but of the way in which the policy of the Government has affected employment in this country, has driven many a person out of employment, has taken away the living of very many people and has made what is quite as serious, perhaps, the position of most people in employment a matter of extreme uncertainty.

We have the Government, of course, speaking with rather different voices. Sometimes, we hear from the Ministerial benches that eight months is all that is wanted for this policy to show its results, and yet, yesterday, speaking in another place, the head of that Government, having pointed out that they were dealing with employment in their general policy, and the methods they were taking to deal with it in a permanent way—the new economic policy for which the Government is responsible—said:

It was inevitable, in building up that wall, that a certain amount of dislocation and a certain amount of temporary unemployment in certain directions was caused. We knew that.

Later on, he says:

You cannot feel absolutely certain that, in the first four, five or six months, or even in the first year or two, the amount of employment given will fully compensate for the unemployment that may be caused in other directions.

That is what the head of the Executive thinks of the more immediate results of the unemployment policy of the Government. Strike a balance, and, apparently, so far as he can foresee and, after all, nobody can accuse the Fianna Fáil Party of not being willing to prophesy good things, you cannot promise that, in two years even, the number of people given employment, as a result of the new efforts, will counterbalance the number thrown out of employment. In the meanwhile—relief works. In two years you cannot be certain. Now, the Government's prophecies, even for a couple of months ahead, as already pointed out here to-day, have shown a remarkable tendency to be falsified, and I wonder if, even in two years, the situation will not be much more bedevilled if the present policy is allowed to continue, than it is at present. You have all that disturbance and dislocation caused in the vain hope—it is nothing better—that the destruction of our present economic system may, in some vague way, bring about a better system and more employment. We do not get it from any experience; we get the usual a priori form of reasoning in which the members of the Government, and especially certain members of the Government, are so prone to indulge. The effort is made to build up here, a self-contained country, cut off, not merely politically, but economically, from the rest of the world. We know, now, although efforts were made to explain it away as having been made in a purely political sense, and the country is now in a better position to judge, as a result of its experience, what the President meant by this policy of non-co-operation. We see the results of that policy preached twelve months ago to a body similar to that to which he spoke yesterday. It is not merely political non-co-operation that we have with Great Britain. We have economic non-co-operation as well, and to a tremendous extent.

Even if it be granted that Ireland can be made self-contained, supposing it is wise to make that attempt, supposing great damage will not be done to this country by that attempt, there is a problem of a very definite nature to be faced. Certain steps will have to be taken to realise that particular dream. I think those familiar with the Government, with their policy and actions, will be convinced that they are just assuming we are already self-contained. They are acting as if we were, acting as if the things they foreshadowed and dreamed of are already here. So keenly do they hold that view, and so keen are they on trying to destroy one of the principal markets we have, that of Great Britain, in order apparently to concentrate on the home market, that they forget the home market is not yet in a position—and if they continue their policy it will probably never be in a position—to absorb the produce of this country. As in many other respects, they appear to be taking the second step before they have taken the first.

As regards the home market, what have they done to increase the purchasing capacity of the public here? Let us take this Appropriation Bill and let us take the various proposals that have been put through here by the Government. Are they calculated to increase the purchasing power of the community? They offer the home market to our manufacturers. One of their first acts is to take steps to make that home market worthless as a purchasing power. Our manufacturers may get the home market and have a monopoly, but the purchasing power of the people will be so diminished that even those looking forward to great benefits from tariffs will probably find themselves in a much worse position than before. There is at the moment a great deal of suffering because of the action of the Government.

The Government Party has been in various kinds of opposition for a long time. The members of that Party were revolutionaries and, like certain other people, they have, even when they became a Government, continued to be revolutionaries. Strong statements have been made; the President's statements in certain directions seem strong. One often wonders what they mean when translated into reality. One wonders what is the real authority here. The President may find that amusing. I notice—it may be a guilty conscience on his part— that when certain things are referred to relating to his Party—Communism, because he is definitely going for it and has an uneasy conscience, or control by bodies outside the Government, because he knows there is that control —always laughs and scoffs as if there were nothing in it. It is quite an easy matter to laugh and scoff, but it does not do away with the uneasiness.

The Deputy himself is finding it hard not to laugh at the moment.

Will the little nugget shut up? The country feels that, as we are under a revolutionary Government, we have here what so often happens, a twofold authority. It is quite a relief, so far as mere words go, to find the head of the Government making an appeal for freedom of speech. It is a pity he did not do so earlier; it is a pity so many of the speeches coming from the occupants of the Front Bench opposite and from other supporters of that Party were not in danger of being misinterpreted by their enthusiastic followers throughout the country. Let us hope, despite the false innuendo in the President's speech, that even his enthusiastic followers will respect the minimum rights of the people so far as free speech is concerned. But when we see that particular statement accompanied by the declaration that under the last régime freedom of expression of opinion practically did not exist, then I am afraid the value of the other statements tends to be diminished.

There was full freedom of expression of opinion under the late Government when that expression of opinion was not appealing to violence or goading people on to violence. And nobody ought to know that better than the members of the opposite Party. Rarely has such a successful campaign of propaganda gone on against any Government as that conducted by the Fianna Fáil Party for years when the last Government was in power. There is no foundation for the charge that when there was not direct incitement to violence and when there was not violence urged, the late Government interfered with freedom of expression of opinion. If the President's appeal for liberty of opinion and freedom of thought in political matters is as well-founded or has as much basis as the innuendo to which I have referred I fear it will have the effect, not of the more unguarded statements that he makes and that seem so often to be effective, but of other statements that he makes and that his followers pay little attention to.

We have a Government that have got into the position of drifting. They adopted certain measures, measures that were simply panic measures, forced upon them by the unwise steps they took in the first instance. I have already admitted that they are busy. They are very like the man who, when wrestling was a popular pastime, gave a very amusing exhibition of a man wrestling with himself.

A quotation from Deputy McGilligan.

That is what the Government have been doing for the last six or seven months. The measures the Government have been compelled to adopt are measures that were forced upon them, not because they foresaw their necessity, but because they are hasty measures brought forward in an effort to get them out of difficulties into which they landed themselves. If anybody wants to consider the work of the Government let him compare the way in which this country was able to face the future less than twelve months ago and the fears with which the country faces the future at the present day. I am willing to admit—we always warned the people of it—that a certain amount of the difficulties ahead are due to world causes over which the Government has no control; but a great deal of the uneasiness, the fear with which the people look forward to the future and a great deal of the blackness in the immediate prospect are due solely to the policy of the Government.

Arising out of the speech we have just had from Deputy O'Sullivan, a number of very interesting queries arise. I should like to put these queries in the hope that some one of the Deputies opposite will, during the course of this discussion, wrestle with himself and make some reply. I have that hope, but like quite a number of the hopes that have been entertained from time to time about the Party opposite, it may prove to be completely without foundation. It is remarkable that since the late Government went into opposition they have not submitted one suggestion as to the policy which might be adopted in respect of existing conditions in this country or given us the slightest indication of what they themselves would do under similar circumstances. I do not know if they have any ideas upon the subject. If they have they might share them with us. There is no reason why they should be so selfish. Perhaps in the secret counsels of Cumann na nGaedheal there is wisdom displayed, even by those who, in this House, appear to be the most stupid. I appeal to the leader of that Party, whoever he may be or, if the leaders will not act to the back benchers, to insist that some share of this wisdom which illuminates the dark and secret counsels of Cumann na nGaedheal should be given to the people in general, and to the members of this House in particular.

We have had a number of clever speeches by members on the Front Bench opposite, in which they scored a number of minor points against the Government but, in respect to the major problems they have been dumb, and have no constructive proposals or suggestions of any kind to offer. I want to give them an opportunity of repairing the damage which has been caused to their reputations, by their apparent lack of interest in the proceedings of the House since they became an Opposition. I realise that it takes a period of time before a Party can become an effective Opposition, and I do not anticipate that the Party opposite will be really effective for at least five years to come. But, by training, they should at least make an effort, and I suggest that it will go a long way if they can answer the questions I am going to ask. Deputy O'Sullivan stated that the duties which have been imposed upon Saorstát produce sent to Great Britain, and the duties which are about to be imposed in a few days time are the result of the attitude of this Party in respect to the Oath of Allegiance and other questions which have arisen out of the Treaty. I want the Deputy's authority for that statement. I want him to tell the House precisely if his friends in the British Government authorised him to make that statement here, and, if so, why they make it through him. Why did they not say it for themselves? Has he any authority for the statement? He has made here an announcement which is of great importance, one in respect of which he should give the fullest possible information to the people. The British Government announced that the duties were imposed for the purpose of recouping themselves for losses through retention of the land annuities. Deputy O'Sullivan stated that that is not so. He stated that the duties were imposed because of our attitude towards the Oath of Allegiance, because of our attitude towards the Treaty, and because of our attitude towards the British Commonwealth of Nations.

Might I interrupt the Minister? It is the last time I shall do so. I did not say what the Minister has alleged. I made it quite clear that, as a result of our attitude towards the Oath, the spokesmen of the British Government made it clear that they could not enter into any further bargains with us, and that as a result of entering into no further bargains the concessions granted last March, 10 per cent. over other nations, and that after 15th November other duties would be put into operation against us. It was stated again and again that as a result of our failure to honour agreements that we had made, and made before the land annuities question cropped up, no such bargains could be made with the Government of this country. I referred, so far as the other portion of the statement is concerned, to the duties that come into operation on 15th November.

As I understand the Deputy, he says that the British Government made it clear that they were going to enter into no agreements with us in consequence of our attitude towards the Oath. When did they make that clear? Did they make it clear to the Deputy? They did not tell their own people or the Government of this country that that was the reason.

They stated it publicly.

On what occasion and in what public document?

In speech after speech Mr. Thomas stated that they would not enter into negotiations with people who would not keep their word.

Again we have the old question of dodging the issue. The statement of Deputy Professor O'Sullivan was that the reason the British Government would not make an agreement with this country at Ottawa was because of the attitude towards the Oath of Allegiance. Did he make that statement?

On what authority? We cannot get an answer to that question.

In public speeches.

The Deputy then stated that the duties which have been imposed on our produce, and that are about to go on, are due to our attitude towards the British Commonwealth of Nations. Again, I am asking him for his authority. Did Mr. Thomas send him a private and confidential communication to that effect? Did some emissary from the British Government come and discuss the decision with the Executive Council of Cumann na nGaedheal or its general director. He knows that. They have not told us, and they have not told their own people. What is the authority for the Deputy's announcement? Is there any? I will put another question. If the Oath of Allegiance had anything to do with these emergency duties, or with the other duties which are about to come into operation on 15th November, what will be the attitude of the Deputy when the Oath of Allegiance has been removed? The Bill to abolish the Oath has passed the Dáil. It did not pass in the Seanad in the form we wanted, and is held up, but automatically it becomes law in eighteen months. Supposing the Deputy's Party was seeking a mandate for election as the Government, would they seek a mandate to restore the Oath? Can we get an answer to that? Has Cumann na nGaedheal decided, when the Oath is gone that they are going to ask the people for a mandate to restore it?

We will tell that when it arises.

Can we not be told now? Is there any reason why we cannot? Is it a secret? We cannot get an answer. Apparently Cumann na nGaedheal has not made up its mind on it, and has some surprise tactics to adopt on the question, or possibly another secret agreement with the British Government. However, we cannot be told. I submit that if they ever again contemplate the possibility of being given a majority at an election by the people, they must make up their mind on that question and must announcing their decision. They cannot possibly get back into office without announcing their policy in respect to that question. When the Oath is gone are they going to ask from the people a mandate to restore it or are they not? We cannot get an answer now, perhaps we will get an answer later in the afternoon or an answer at some public meeting in the country, or perhaps the next time that Deputy Professor O'Sullivan stands up to talk about the red flag he will remember it and give an indication of the decision arrived at in the meantime.

Deputy Professor O'Sullivan spoke at considerable length, and in an elephantine way, tried to be humorous about the Ottawa Conference. He said that the attitude of the British Government towards the question of making trade agreements with the Saorstát had been announced before the Saorstát delegation left. That is quite true. Before the Saorstát delegation left the British Government announced that they were not going to enter into trade agreements at Ottawa with the Saorstát. Deputy Professor O'Sullivan asked why did we go there. Does he maintain that we ought not to have gone? Can we get an answer, why? Is it suggested, because the British Government announced in advance that they were not going to make a trade treaty with the Saorstát at Ottawa, that the Saorstát should not have sent a delegation? Is that the contention of the Party opposite? They do not know. Apparently, that is another question which cannot be answered; one in respect of which Cumann na nGaedheal has not yet made up its mind. They are willing to come here and to ask us to state why we sent a delegation, months after we told them, but they are not prepared to state what their own attitude would have been in the circumstances. The Party opposite apparently has given up all hope whatever of ever again appearing before the Irish people as serious contenders for a majority. They cannot possibly hope to get away at another election with that attitude of indifference or inability to come to a decision or of secrecy concerning their policy. As a Party, and in relation to these matters, do they know what course they are prepared to advocate? If so, it is up to them to tell the House and the people whose support they hope to secure. Would they have gone if they had been here under any circumstances as a Government Party? Would they have sent a delegation to Ottawa after such an announcement had been made by the British Government? We went to Ottawa for the purpose of establishing contact and discussing trade relations with other nations represented there.

And the wearing of top hats.

I should like to say a few words about the hats. It is rather difficult for the ordinary man to understand the working of the slave mind.

I shall try to give an illustration of it. The person who possesses a slave mind labours under a desire at all times to make other people feel that he is somewhat better than he is. One notices, on particular occasions, when the person not afflicted with this particular complaint acts in a purely natural and normal way, that the slave-minded individual is continually at pains to establish his bona-fides to be present in a particular place or to act in a particular manner under some particular circumstances. When representatives of the nations of the earth assemble at Geneva for the purpose of discussing the affairs of the whole of mankind and regulating international disputes and things of that kind, they wear slouch hats and soft collars—some of them wear no hats at all. Certainly, they do not go elaborately out of the way to bedeck themselves in any exceptional or abnormal way. But, on the part of the ultra-conservative sections of the people now comprised in the British Commonwealth, there is an extraordinary desire to adhere to a rather humorous and certainly mediæal form of attire on State occasions. Whenever they themselves forgather, it is the common practice to bedeck themselves in this manner.

Does the Minister describe the top hat as mediæval?

Mid-Victorian.

To the Minister for Industry and Commerce, that is only a small difference.

When the representatives of the Saorstát went to this gathering at Ottawa, as when they went to similar gatherings in other places, they, being in Rome, did as the Romans do. My own opinion is that it is a most foolish thing to do. The one desire we have is that, sooner or later, those who favour that particular form of attire will realise how foolish and how remarkably uncomfortable it is, particularly in a warm climate like the Canadian climate.

However, we went to Canada and, as I said, in Canada we had discussions with the nations there represented other than Great Britain. We had no discussions with Great Britain. Deputies are aware that we went there following an announcement by the British Government that they did not propose to have discussions with us there upon trade matters. With those other nations we did some useful business. We concluded certain commercial treaties and we took steps that will lead to the conclusion of other commercial treaties in the future. These things are of definite value. I am prepared to admit that the total trade we could possibly do with all these countries would not equal, at any time, the trade which in the past we have done with Great Britain. But is that any reason why we should have refused to discuss trade matters with representatives of these countries or why we should have refused to make trade agreements with them? Is that what the Party opposite are advocating? Apparently not. I feel that we should get some more information on one or two other matters. Deputy Professor O'Sullivan referred to the steps being taken by this Government to deal with the unemployment situation. He referred to "relief works on a scale not equalled since the famine." Does the Party opposite want these works stopped? If, by any misfortune to the people of the country, the Party opposite came back to office, would they stop those works? Are they opposed to those relief works being undertaken? What is their attitude on these matters? There was considerable unemployment here last year. There were certainly as many unemployed then as there are at this moment and the Party opposite looked on at that unemployment with complete indifference. Do they propose to advocate that policy amongst the people? Is it their intention to oppose the proposals to be brought here by the Government for the easing of the hardships of the unemployed? If not, what is their policy? Have they a policy? We have been told that unemployment is getting worse. Whether that is so or not, I do not know and nobody knows, for the good reason that there is no figure for the period prior to this Government coming into power with which the existing statistics can be compared. Our predecessors—the Party opposite—took good care to ensure that no such figure would be available. I want Deputies to appreciate the fact that there are more people in insurable employment now than there were at this time last year.

That figure is available and that figure was supplied to Deputy McGilligan here last week and he had to admit it. The Deputies who are so continuously anxious to decry the efforts of the Government and, in so far as it is possible for them to make it more difficult to ease the problem of unemployment, will be glad—or sorry according to their personal feelings—at realising that their efforts in that direction are not quite so successful as they hoped or thought.

Deputy Professor O'Sullivan talked about the British market and he said that early last year two Ministers of his Government travelled across to London without any fanfare of trumpets and as a result of what they said there the British Government changed its age-long free trade policy and imposed, for the first time, an import duty which applied to foreign countries and did not apply to this country. The Deputy talked of the success which attended Deputy McGilligan's efforts at the Imperial Conference and asked what happened at the Ottawa Conference.

Now let us get behind Deputy Professor O'Sullivan's rhetoric. A duty was imposed on butter coming into England from countries other than the British Commonwealth. Of what benefit was that duty to us? I want an answer to that question. A ten per cent. duty was imposed on non-Commonwealth butter. What benefit was that to this country? When this Government came into office in March, some time after that duty had come into operation, we found the creamery industry in this country on the point of extinction, and we were compelled to bring in here a Bill providing an export subsidy on butter to keep the creameries going. That subsidy on butter was brought into operation long before the British Government thought of imposing emergency duties of any kind on our products. I want Deputies to consider that bounty on butter in relation to what they are saying now in connection with the trade in the rest of our products in the British market. They are anxious to represent the catastrophic fall in prices which has taken place in recent months as being due to the dispute between ourselves and Britain, when they know that this fall in prices is not due to anything of the kind. As far back as 1927 members of the Fianna Fáil Party pointed out in this House to the then Government the inevitable end of the policy that Government was pursuing. We pointed out that there could be no security for Saorstát products in the British market; that step by step, week after week and month after month, the prices of our products were gradually going down to a point at which it would not pay us to stay in the British market. That point was reached last year. At the present time if the duties that have been imposed by the British Government on our produce were taken off, it would still be the case that the prices our farmers would get for their produce in the British market would not pay for the cost of production.

Deputies heard the Minister for Agriculture last week pointing out the position. The producers of milk in this country for creamery purposes are getting a higher price than the producers of milk in any other country in Europe. Consequently, the fact that that price is itself too low, lower than that which operated in 1928 and 1929, cannot be attributed to any action taken by this Government. The prices which our farmers, up to yesterday, were getting for their beef were only 1/- a cwt. lower than the prices which the English farmers were getting, and the English farmers were howling out for the complete stoppage of imports in England. Do Deputies opposite read the Daily Mail.

I do not think that is true.

It undoubtedly is.

Well, if Deputies did read the Daily Mail they would have noticed that, day after day and week after week, for over a month past, representative meetings of English farmers, agricultural authorities, and leading articles in the daily papers there called for the prohibition of cattle imports from the Free State because of the disastrous position of the British cattle trade. Is there any certainty that if we took the advice of the Party opposite and renounced our claim to the money in dispute between Great Britain and ourselves, and paid these moneys over to Great Britain that we would not be faced with precisely the situation with which we are now faced? The British farmers and the British Press have been calling out for the prohibition of Irish cattle exports, not because of any dispute between us and the British Government, but because of the fact that the British farmers have cattle on their land which they cannot sell. Why cannot they sell these cattle? Because there is pouring into Great Britain a deluge of beef and mutton in much greater quantities than it came ever before, and at prices which the English working-man is able to pay. The decline in English exports and the consequent economic depression which has hit England have made it impossible for the British working-man to pay a price for Irish beef and mutton which would pay for the cost of their production. Do Deputies opposite read the Irish papers? Did they see in the past few days that the producers of mutton and lamb in Australia had decided voluntarily to decrease their exports to Great Britain by ten per cent? Did Deputies get the significance of that announcement? Do they understand that at Ottawa the British Government were continuously pressing upon other countries at the Conference that these countries should, by their own action, decrease the supply of meat deliveries to the British market in order to bring up the price? If the Deputies on those benches would give five minutes real consideration to the problem which is before this country and not merely to the methods by which they might score a small debating point against the Government they would be able to take some useful part in the discussions before the House.

The fact is that what we foretold five years ago has now happened. There is butter coming into Great Britain from Poland and other countries at prices which it would not pay us to produce, and there is bacon coming into the British markets at prices at which we could not continue to export bacon at all. Chilled beef from the Argentine and from South Africa comes in in consequence of a new process which enables that meat to be carried across the Equator, and it comes in free. The country that continually goes on selling and depending for its prosperity on one special class of article and which was depending on one particular class of market in which to sell that article was leading to inevitable disaster. That is what this State was doing under the late Government. We now reap the fruits of that policy. It does not matter whether England put on a tariff of 10 per cent., or 50 per cent., or 100 per cent. We cannot stay in that market. It may be that we may continue exporting these things at a loss to get credits abroad, just as happens in the case of Russia. That would happen if the English market were operating in the way it was when the late Government was in office.

We have got to face up to the fact that conditions now prevailing throughout the world, particularly the conditions prevailing in Great Britain, are such that if we desire to secure our people against the worst hardships of the depression we have got fundamentally to change our policy. We have been maintaining bounties upon cattle exports so that there would be no hold-up in that connection while we were changing the economic structure of the country in other ways. In the future it may be necessary, no matter what losses are involved, to continue exporting cattle, pigs, bacon, butter or something else, just as the Russians and the Germans are doing and as other people throughout the world are doing, not because they are getting for these products an economic price but because they must export something if they want to import machinery and those other articles of produce which they cannot produce within their own shores. I would advise Deputies opposite to consider the advisability of standing beside Ireland in this fight. We have Deputy Professor O'Sullivan coming here and talking about the repudiation of agreements. The best legal authority in Great Britain in the past few days has published a letter in the Press in which he denies the legality of the agreements of 1923 and 1926, and consequently there could have been no repudiation of them. But Deputy Professor O'Sullivan sets his opinion against that authority. What does it matter a rap to Deputy Professor O'Sullivan whether his arguments are right or wrong so long as in this crisis he is standing, as some of those behind him always stood, on the side of the English against the Irish people. What is their advice now? What do they tell the people now in the situation that has developed? They are giving the same advice as they gave them ten years ago: run for safety, surrender your rights, it does not matter so long as you buy a temporary peace.

They bought that temporary peace in 1921, or at any rate they paid the price and thought that that was what they were getting. Let them look into the decade that has elapsed since then and see if it was a good bargain. Of course, we have all sorts of suggestions: that, if they came back into office, by their policy of surrender, and of bartering our rights for anything they could get for them, they could produce a good settlement. For ten years they were paying over these moneys to Great Britain. They never, at any time, questioned either the legality or the morality of these payments or the ability of our people to continue them. Now that they are out of office and are anxious to get votes from the people who turned them down last March they would, if they came back into power—as we see from the suggestions made in their official paper and in the statements of their leader—go over to England and try to get some slice cut off these payments. They would go with their hats in their hands because of their ability as beggars, and again come back with some sop to throw to our people. Why did they not do that before the election? What advantage would it be to us even if they did succeed in doing that.

I think it is about time that we got a definite declaration of policy from the Deputies opposite. We want to know where they stand. This country is facing a crisis as grave as any it has known in its history, and those who want to see it survive have got to realise that the Government in office, the Government on whose shoulders the responsibility for making a plan rests, must get the co-operation of every sincere Irishman. We are entitled to get that co-operation. We are not entitled to the little traitorous thrust that we have got from Deputy Professor O'Sullivan to-day: that we broke our word, that we repudiated agreements by which we were bound, that we took action which involved a breach of the Treaty. Legal authorities in Great Britain deny that. These are the suggestions that we get from the Deputies opposite. Surely this is a time when they should consider the advisability of abandoning that policy; of coming in with us, and, if necessary taking action with us, even though they cannot agree with the policy of the Executive Council and may feel that there are mistakes in the plans we are submitting to the Dáil. If they feel it is their duty to criticise where they think criticism is necessary, then it is their duty to follow up that criticism with alternative suggestions.

We are facing a situation now which is going to call for a sustained organised effort to get production developed in this country along new lines, of reducing our dependency on external supplies for essential commodities, and of organising the export of the agricultural goods needed by our own people in order to pay for external supplies. The Deputies opposite are getting an object lesson to-day which they should not neglect. They talk about the subsidies we are paying on cattle and about the bounties on exports. They see cattle going out at prices which do not pay the cost of production to the farmer. They are seeing that now for the first time but that always has happened. Cattle were going out in the past at prices which looked in the newspapers much higher than those now prevailing, but if they were they were being accompanied by this sum of £5,000,000 which is now in the Suspense Account. That sum of £5,000,000 was not represented by a mere figure in a ledger, but it was represented by so many head of cattle, sheep and pigs and lbs. of bacon going free to Great Britain. If we have to continue that process for a little while so that we can have an interval in which to re-organise our trade, then it must be done. We are doing it now, knowing quite well the significance of our action. Heretofore we were doing it, in respect of a great part of our people, in complete ignorance, and the same applies in respect to manufactures.

Deputy Professor O'Sullivan again tried to crack some of his elephantine jokes about the duties and the subsidies that are going to be made available to enable some of our manufacturers to continue the trade that they heretofore possessed. We have provided a number of these manufacturers with a market here much larger, much more valuable and much safer than they ever had in Great Britain. Those who are new to the position can well afford to ignore whatever insignificant trade they had abroad and turn their attention to the development and capture of the trade that is now available here. Some of them had to fight for a place in the export market and those we are going to help to remain in that export market until such time as the employment which they give can be substituted by employment in some of our other industries. The Government's policy in that connection has been evolved in consequence of a definite plan. It is a definite step in the effort which we are making to re-model the economic machinery of this State so that our total dependency on foreign sources of supply and foreign markets for our exports will have been removed.

Deputy Professor O'Sullivan talked about the ambiguity of our position in the British Commonwealth. I think he is right. I do not think there is anybody in this House except perhaps a few theorists on the Independent Benches, who will maintain that this country should remain associated with the British Commonwealth under circumstances in which no advantage was conferred on our people by that association. I think there is no Deputy in the Party opposite who will not admit that he will decide at all times in the future for or against that association in relation to the benefits that it means for us. That is the sole test. We are not tied by any bonds of love or affection to the British Crown. We are not associated by any tradition, any common effort or common origin with the British Commonwealth as the Canadians, the Australians or the New Zealanders are. We are in the British Commonwealth in large measure against our will, and the question whether we are to remain there or go out of it must be determined, and will be determined, in regard to the relative advantages which each course offers to us. Are there any advantages now?

Is there any reason now, while Britain maintains its present policy, why we should remain in association with the British Commonwealth? Will the Deputies opposite answer that question. It is easy to talk about ambiguity. If there is ambiguity, there should also be a desire to remove it, and if the present ambiguity continues much longer it will be necessary that very direct action to remove it will have to be taken.

There is one other point I want to deal with, arising out of Deputy Professor O'Sullivan's speech. The Deputy asked a question, and I am going to answer it. I hope that my example in answering his question will encourage him, or some of his colleagues, to answer mine. The Deputy asked why did the negotiations end in failure? I am going to tell him. During my visit to Ottawa, to which he referred, I had discussion with British Ministers concerning the situation that existed between these two countries. Other members of the Executive Council also met these Ministers officially and unofficially from time to time. At these discussions and from other sources I had an opportunity of finding out what precisely was at the back of their minds in relation to this country. I found—in fact, it has now become fairly obvious—that the idea upon which those Ministers were working was that if they put sufficient pressure upon the people of this country that our people would be induced to change their Government. The British Ministers were hypnotised by the smallness of the majority of this Government in the Dáil.

Did they tell the Minister that?

They are planning out their policy upon this basis——

The Minister does not answer that.

I will answer it. They are planning out their policy on this basis, that if they inflict sufficient hardship upon our people, that our people, in order to avoid that hardship, will take the easy course, will put the Cumann na nGaedheal Party back into power. Would Cumann na nGaedheal come back into power on these terms? What would the freedom of this country be worth if an outside power, by way of economic pressure, was able to dictate not only the policy of its people but the personnel of its Government? If the people were to submit to any such conditions, then this Dáil might as well be abolished as a meaningless thing. All the empty trappings of freedom that we see here can be swept away as so much nonsense, and we can go back, heads up, into the British Empire as some of the Deputies opposite wanted us to do a few years ago.

If we are determined to maintain the status of our nation and the sovereignty of our Parliament, if we are determined to maintain our right to decide our own policy and to elect our own Government, we will tell the British Government, on behalf of all classes and of all sections and all parties, that no matter what devices they adopt to hurt our people, or no matter what economic pressure they may impose upon us, they will not succeed in forcing us to change our Government or our policy by these means. They may persuade us, they may convince us, that we are wrong. They may induce us to adopt different policies by argument or by any other such means, but on the day that they try to coerce us to change our Government or our line of action, we have got to stand it out to the end or abandon our claim to sovereignty. If Deputies opposite read the Daily Mail or any of the other newspapers printed in Great Britain in support of the British Government, and which circulate in this country, they would see there that the reason for the policy of the British Government is the desire to put Cumann na nGaedheal back into office.

On the day before the deputation left for London to take part in the negotiations which proved to be abortive, there was a leading article in the Daily Mail warning the British Government that if they made concessions to Mr. de Valera the position would be such that they could never hope to get back into power. The British Government took the warning and the negotiations were abortive. Of course, Deputies opposite conclude that if negotiations break down it must be the Irish delegates who are at fault. That is the slave mind again. It never entered their heads that possibly the breakdown was due to the determination of the British Government that the negotiations would not succeed. You heard the President say that, in his opinion, they were no such things as negotiations at all—that it was obvious from the day they met that there was not going to be that free and frank discussion which most of us associate with negotiation. The failure of the British Government and the refusal of the British Government to face an impartial tribunal, and their determination to impose duties (designed not to secure an alternative to that which they have lost—because they will not do that—but put on definitely to impose a hardship on our people and to restrict and prevent our development) are designed for another purpose. They are designed to get themselves back into the position in which they, and not we, will be the people who will determine the national policy here. We will not allow that, and Deputies opposite will regret it very much if they allow themselves to be used as the tools of British policy in that manner.

One can occasionally feel sympathy with the other side, and one can occasionally feel sympathy across the floor of this House with a speaker on the opposite benches. I must confess that seldom have I felt more moved to sympathy with any speaker on the other side than with the unfortunate Minister for Industry and Commerce during the speech which he has just delivered to us. He got up, and it was perfectly obvious, I think, to everybody in the House, that he was at a complete loss as to what he was going to say. He hesitated, he paused, and he flung out rhetorical question after rhetorical question—a sort of appeal: "give me an answer and I will know something to talk about"— and after going on for some time along those lines of "for goodness sake give me something to talk about," he finally discovered that that method of getting material for his speech was not going to be effective. Then he indulged in the very empty rhetorical outburst with which he concluded his oration.

I want to touch very shortly on a few of the matters with which he did deal in these rhetorical questions. He wanted to know what was the policy of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party towards the Oath. He knows perfectly well what it is. The policy is that the Oath is part of the Treaty— an integral part of the Treaty—and that to remove it is a violation of the Treaty. The Cumann na nGaedheal Party stands for the preservation of the Treaty.

And for its restoration!

I argue that, as far as restoration goes, I am pretty confident that there will never be a question of restoration, because I am pretty confident that the Government opposite will not be, and could not be, a Government eighteen months from now, because as a result of the policy of dragging down the country to economic ruin as it is being dragged down now, there will be simply no country left for any Government to rule over. You need not think, by any of your silly speeches now, and by your false promises, that you can again fool and delude the people as you fooled and deluded them by all your promises during the last election— promises that you ran away from and deserted the very moment that you got into power—promises that possibly you never had any intention of keeping, and that you could not have kept even had you desired to do so. You were to take down expenditure by two million pounds—easily done and to be done forthwith! The Minister for Finance comes along, and the method in which he carries out his pledges is by adding four million pounds. That is one matter with which the Minister for Industry and Commerce dealt.

Now, I will deal with another of his questions. He said: "Would you have gone to Ottawa?" The proper way to have dealt with Ottawa and with the British Government was by sensible negotiation—negotiation in the spirit and with the determination that it would not be through any fault of yours if a successful issue to that negotiation did not take place— negotiation with the intention, if you could, to achieve peace. That is the spirit in which you should have gone into negotiations, and not with the full and complete determination that those negotiations were going to be fruitless and that President de Valera would be able to carry out the policy which he outlined in October of last year—a policy of non-co-operation as long as the Treaty was in force. You have that policy of non-co-operation now and it was in order that you might try your policy of non-co-operation, and your "other round with Britain," and your "showdown with Britain" that you went into negotiations with the full determination that they would prove to be fruitless. What you wanted was war, to have your war and you are going to prosper thereby!

The Minister for Industry and Commerce made an astonishing statement, a statement which everybody in the Dáil who had the slightest interest in the cattle trade knows to be untrue— that there is a difference of only 1/-per cwt. between the price of beef in the Irish market and in the British market. It is upon facts like that that the policy, as far as there is a policy of the Government, is built up. The Minister talked about payments to Britain and of how the last administration continued making payments to Britain. He knows, as every single Deputy in the House knows, or ought to know, that the land annuities were not paid to Great Britain. Not one penny of the land annuities ever went into the British Exchequer. The land annuities were paid to private individuals who owned land stock or land bonds, and to nobody else. Not one penny of them went into the British Exchequer. They were paid into two particular funds and out of these funds they were paid to particular individuals who were the owners of particular stock or bonds. That is known to every Deputy. These private individuals were paid their private debts in the shape of annuities. The Minister talks about payments to Great Britain, about the slave mind and about the last administration being under the thumb of Great Britain—all that sort of nonsense, every single word of which, as he himself knows, and must know, is the product of his own imagination and which has no substance or fact behind it upon which it could be rested or built up.

There was another and a much more significant thing in the speech of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. There was a note of despair—that this country is down, that there is no future for the country, that we can fling up our hands in despair and give up hope. Our cattle trade is gone, ruined for ever, and our agriculture is lost. That is the note which the Minister sounded. The cattle trade has been and always must be the foundation of Irish agriculture. It must be the mainstay of the Irish farmer. Everywhere throughout this State you can breed cattle and breed them successfully. You have, in certain parts of this State, pasture land unequalled by any pasture land to be found elsewhere. We have advantages in the rearing of cattle that no other nation in the world has got, and by cattle I mean, of course, sheep and horses as well as cattle strictly so called. We have great national advantages. In other things, like wheat-growing, we have terrific natural disadvantages which make it impossible for us to compete with other nations. Wheat-growing can never be a substitute for the cattle industry. I shall deal with that, however, on another Bill.

The cattle industry must be the mainstay of our agriculture. I do not say that in every way the cattle industry was in a perfect condition; it was not. There was room for the improvement in the breeding of cattle and there was room for improvement in the management of cattle. The correct policy, the policy which we enunciated from those benches, and which we shall continue to enunciate, was this: that the cattle trade would have to be the mainstay of our agricultural policy and that we should endeavour to improve the quality of the cattle we were exporting. We were improving the breeding and we also might have improved the management of our cattle, that is to say, gone in more for early maturity and for utilising the products of the farm in the feeding of the animals on the farm. That is the agricultural policy which we put forward and that was a sound agricultural policy for this country, the only sound agricultural policy which could be put before the country. It is wrong, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, told us, to foster the cattle industry. A sum of £20,000,000 came into this country in 1930 from the cattle, sheep and horse industry. These exports are gone. "We do not want the British market; it is hopeless for us"—that is the policy upon which the present administration seem to have embarked. They have killed the cattle industry and they seem to rejoice in its death.

A certain Roman Emperor once said: "If you want to see my monument look round you." One could see the city of Rome around him as he had built it up. If anybody wishes to see the monument of the Fianna Fáil Party, the monument which President de Valera is raising for himself, all he need do is to look round this country now and see the condition of things in it. Let him look round this country in another six or nine months when the policy, or the absence of policy, of the present administration has borne more evil fruit than it has up to the present. He will see in the growth of unemployment, in a struggling people, in broken industries, in a country reduced to the verge of bankruptcy if not to actual bankruptcy, the monument which President de Valera and his Executive Council have raised to themselves. We have lost our agricultural market and admitting that, the Minister for Industry and Commerce proceeds to say that the administration which has brought this country to the verge of bankruptcy is an administration behind which any Irishman should stand. Surely to goodness any Irishman who takes any interest in this country, who puls the interest of his country before the interests of his Party must see that ruin is being brought in the State by the Party now in power. He must if he has any feelings of patriotism at all or loves his country at all do what he can do, what lies in his power, to see that this administration remains in power no longer.

There is another matter with which I want to deal, and which arises out of the economic position. The farming industry is broken. There has now to be a series of relief grants on an unprecedented scale. They have already been given during the summer months, a period during which relief grants were never given in the history of this country before. They have to be given on an unprecedented scale. In other words, having destroyed agriculture and broken agriculturists, you have to feed by means of relief grants, three-fourths, if not more, of the agricultural population. That is your agricultural policy as it is working out in practice. We are asked what is our policy towards those relief grants. We know that there must be relief grants. We know that the incompetence of the administration in conducting the affairs of this country has been such that relief grants are an absolute necessity if there is not going to be starvation. We know that. We know it is one of the principal and chief fruits of the incompetence of the present administration. That is as clear as daylight. You are going to have the population—because you have taken away their means of livelihood by your ill-advised conduct—starving, or you are going to give them relief grants, but I would point out to this administration that relief grants are a very sorry substitute for productive work. Although relief works may be of temporary assistance in particular places, they cannot be of real permanent assistance. You cannot keep up relief works because you have not got the resources. You cannot keep the whole population upon relief works the whole time. You may give relief work in one particular area, but the fruit of your relief work is very quickly explained. Because you have brought poverty and are bringing suffering upon the country you are demoralising the people of this country, and you are enabling the people in this State who wish to preach the gospel of disorder to scatter the seeds of disorder upon fruitful ground. When you have a people who are reduced to penury, it is easy to spread discontent amongst that people. That is the position to which you are now reducing—if you have not already reduced—the people of this State, and, therefore, it becomes more and more important every day that those forces which are making for violence and making for disorder in the State should be firmly encountered and firmly met, and that they should not be bowed down to as the Attorney-General and the Minister for Justice have bowed down to them.

A Leas-Chinn Comhairle, I dealt on a recent occasion on the Law Charges Vote, with the conduct of the Attorney General with reference to the Kilrush affair, and the inquiry which was held there. I stated that it was an absolutely wrong thing for him to flout the ordinary courts of this country and to take away from the District Court —the properly constituted court—the hearing of particular charges against three individuals. The Attorney-General on that occasion proceeded to make a speech in reply, but the Attorney-General did not attempt to explain why these charges were withdrawn, why the cases were taken away from the jurisdiction, so to speak, of the District Justice, and why they were referred to a special commission. He said—I am reading from Col. 902, Vol. 44 of the Official Reports—"In view of the fact that this Commission was about to be set up it was intimated clearly to the court that my hands were kept absolutely free to take whatever action I wished after the findings of the Tribunal. Had the Tribunal, as Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney suggests, found that these charges should be proceeded with, that the evidence justified the charges being made that were then formulated or that other charges were to be preferred, I would not have felt in the least bound by anything that had happened at the earlier investigation to drop the charges. I would have proceeded with the charges."

I challenged the Attorney-General with having pre-judged the issue before the Commission was set up to try the guilt or innocence of the Guards, and that is his answer, that he had not pre-judged it, that he had kept his mind perfectly clearly open, and was waiting to see the result of the findings of this Tribunal to take proceedings.

Why did he keep that secret? Why did he not make that known before the magistrate when the question came before the District Justice in Kilrush? If he had made it known I do not say that it would have excused his conduct. I do not think that anything will excuse the taking away from a properly constituted court of this country the trial of a case. The taking away from a competent court of criminal jurisdiction the trial of a case, and the putting of it before a Commission of Inquiry with no criminal jurisdiction whatever, could never be justified, but if the Attorney-General did not wish to have the matter appear to the public to be pre-judged by him he might at least have made that clear, instead of making the very opposite clear.

I am reading now from a report of what happened before the District Justice, Mr. Flood. I am reading from a report in the "Irish Independent" of August 24th, 1932:

Mr. M. Maguire, K.C., instructed by Mr. J. Lynch, State Solicitor, for the Attorney-General, said that the first two charges had been withdrawn. "With reference to the third charge of obstruction," continued Mr. Maguire, "it is proposed to set up a full inquiry and examination into the truth of any charges or complaint of violation of duty preferred against any member of the Gárda Síochána. It will be a full and impartial inquiry into the circumstances of the occurrence. I am anxious, therefore, to say nothing which would in any way prejudice a fair and impartial hearing. The facts which come out at the inquiry will be submitted to the Attorney-General."

Now, that is the statement which is made by the counsel representing the Attorney-General. Is there any statement there that not only is it to be an inquiry into the conduct of the Guards but that it is to be an inquiry into the conduct of Mr. Ryan and Mr. Gilmore? Not a word—nor could there be. This Commission which was set up by the Minister for Justice was a Commission which could not inquire into the charges against the Guards, and the Attorney-General knew, and knew perfectly well, and must have known that when he says: "The other charges are withdrawn; there is going to be an inquiry into the conduct of the Guards, and the charges which the Guards are making are withdrawn." He has made it as clear as possible to the public, and as clear as possible to every member of the tribunal, that he himself has made up his mind that the Guards are not to be believed, and that no prosecution is going to follow the findings of the tribunal; because to my mind to have a Commission set up to examine into matters, and to have a charge withdrawn before it sits and a further charge brought after it has sat, would be simply absurd.

If the Attorney-General wished this tribunal to consider the matter in an unprejudiced fashion, the course he would have adopted was the course of applying for an adjournment, and I say even that would have been wrong. There should not have been any adjournment. The cases should have been tried out by the District Justice, and then, if the Minister for Justice was not satisfied with any findings of the ordinary court—the District Justice—or, if the matter was sent on for trial, the findings of the jury, the Minister for Justice could have set up afterwards any court of inquiry he considered necessary in order to satisfy himself on any question at issue.

That would have been after the court was set aside, and if I do not entirely grasp the full meaning of the Minister for Justice I think on that particular occasion, he sinned against the light. I think on this particular occasion the Minister for Justice was anxious to take another course, and I think influences of some kind or other were brought to bear upon him which compelled him to act against his own better judgment.

I think the Deputy should be a little more explicit. This is rather a serious insinuation and I think the Deputy should elaborate on it somewhat.

I say from the Deputy's speech, and I think it is so, that the Minister for Justice himself did not approve of this particular course which was taken. I say that that seems to me to flow from what he said on the last discussion here.

Perhaps you would cite the passage.

Yes, I am going to and I am going to cite another passage too. I am quoting from Volume 41, cols. 241-242, 20th April, 1932:

"If any Civic Guard has committed an offence against the code— it is a well known code, his own code—and if there is any question of indiscipline, there is an ordered method of dealing with it. Let the charge be made. If any member of the Civic Guard has offended against the law of the land, the courts are there just the same in regard to him as anybody else."

That was a very correct statement, if I may say so, of the position by the Minister for Justice. The courts are there, and the courts should be utilised, and their jurisdiction should be ousted. The Minister for Justice, when he made that statement, was perfectly right. I wish he had acted upon it. I thought the Minister still held that view—but he did assist in taking away this charge from the cognisance of the court. The Minister in the debate on law charges said (I am now quoting from page 923):

"In so far as charges were made against Gilmore, Lowe and Ryan, I had no very direct or immediate concern. The courts of the country were available to deal with any serious charge, seriously supported, against Ryan, Gilmore and Lowe."

Of course, he was not responsible— the Attorney-General was responsible. The courts were there and the charges were seriously supported because they were sworn to by two witnesses. Why was not that carried out? The Minister for Justice seems on both occasions to have thought the court should be availed of, but another course was adopted. He goes on to say that suppose there had been a trial at Ennis before a County Clare jury, and disciplinary action had been taken against three Guards, what would be said in this House and what would be insinuated. In the first place, I might point out to the Minister for Justice that the case could not have been tried before a Clare jury, because a charge of murder cannot be tried in the Circuit Court, or a charge of attempted murder cannot be tried in the Circuit Court, and on both sides the charges were charges of attempted murder. They would have been tried here in the Central Criminal Court, and if the Central Criminal Court had found the Guards guilty, or Mr. Gilmore or Mr. Ryan guilty, then the ordinary procedure would have been adopted, and whether the Guards were found guilty or acquitted, still, looking after the discipline of the force, the Minister for Justice, if he were not satisfied with the verdict, could have set up any Commission he liked, nominating any person he liked, to satisfy himself. But here a course was taken in which the whole issue was prejudged; in which that court, hearing the matters in dispute, was told in so many words, certainly it was made plain to them by the action of the Attorney-General, that the Attorney-General had made up his mind against the courts. Is that a fair attitude in which to ask a court to act in a case in which a person was supposed to be impartial like the Attorney-General, and who tells them in other words "your course is smooth"? That is what the statement made in the District Court and what the action of the Attorney-General made perfectly manifest to the court. Now I am going to say a few words on the constitution of that tribunal of three men set up to hear these charges against the Guards. I stated on the last occasion in this House, and I again repeat that the finding of that Commission has no effect upon my mind; that it was not a tribunal fairly constituted and acting under such circumstances that its verdict could be taken as the verdict of an impartial tribunal, and I reject its findings altogether.

I was told that I had attacked a leading member of the Bar, and I heard a great deal in the speech of the Minister for Justice and in the speech of the Attorney-General about the merits of that particular member of the Irish Bar. As a matter of fact, I had not mentioned his name. I did, during some part of a discussion, mention the fact that it was perfectly obvious that one member of the court who was solicitor to the I.R.A. in Kerry could not be expected to be impartial in a tribunal of this nature where his own clients are, in fact, involved. Perhaps we will be told why this gentleman was selected. And remember if one member of a tribunal is tainted the whole tribunal is tainted. So far as the other members of the tribunal are concerned, I will content myself by saying this: that it is astonishing to me that either of these gentlemen, especially Mr. Lynch or any member of the Irish Bar, or any Irish solicitor, would act upon a tribunal when the Attorney-General had quite deliberately prejudiced that tribunal. I am astonished that they consented to act upon it. The Minister for Justice tells us that a Court of inquiry was set up under the Dublin Metropolitan Police Act, incorporated in the Police Forces Amalgamation Act, 1925. Of course, there was, but under quite different circumstances. There Guards were charged with using violence towards person in their custoday. A very horrible murder was committed in the neighbourhood, and the Guards, who were tracing the murderer at the time appeared to have lost their heads, and did use violence to certain people in their custody. There was no doubt about that. A Commission was set by the then Minister for Justice to inquire into the amount of compensation that should be paid to the persons injured, and to decide whether the Guards were, or were not, guilty of serious misconduct. The fact that they used violence was not denied. The Guards received various punishments and the individuals injured received a certain amount of compensation, but they were not satisfied, and brought High Court actions. But the amount of compensation awarded in the High Court, and the amount awarded by the Commission, was very nearly the same. I cannot now charge my memory with the exact figure. What on earth had that to do with a case like this? Of course, Commissions and bodies of individuals have been selected to inquire into charges against the Guards. These Commissions have a particular mode of procedure which has been acted on, not once but considerably more times than once, but not actually by the Minister, because under the same section the Commissioner can hold inquiries into charges of misconduct against Guards, and, no doubt, there will be subsequent inquiries of the same nature.

No one challenged the right, in certain circumstances, of the Minister for Justice to have inquiries made into the conduct of the Guards. What I do challenge is that when criminal charges are brought against individuals and counter criminal charges are brought against the Guards, that the whole of these proceedings against the individuals are stopped, that the Courts having ordinary criminal jurisdiction are ousted, and that a Commission is set up in circumstances that have been so completely and entirely prejudiced before the hearing by the conduct of the Attorney-General.

Now what is the atmosphere? How does this tribunal hear the case and where does it hear the case? The Inquiry is held in Kilrush. It is held where there is shouting in the Court while the Inquiry is going on and no order or decorum preserved. Is that an atmosphere in which justice is going to be done to the Guards? Why hold this Inquiry in Kilrush? Why hold it in an atmosphere that will be so hostile—hostility, not on the part of the respectable people of the County Clare, but hostility to the Guards as far as the element that goes into the Court or wants to get into the Court, on this occasion to hear this Inquiry, is concerned? The I.R.A. were taking no risks. The night before this Commission opened an attempt to murder two Guards was made in the town of Ennis. They were fired at, and they returned the fire and captured a rifle. One never knows but that the Minister for Justice may now say that the Guards fired on themselves. I do not know, but so far as any person, who can form a fair opinion is concerned, it is as clear as can be that the Guards were attacked in Ennis the night before the opening of this tribunal and were attacked in order if the attackers did not succeed in murdering the Guards they would succeed in intimidating the Court of Inquiry.

But I have not quite finished with the Attorney-General and the Minister for Justice yet. The Attorney-General had an open mind. He had not made up his mind at all and that occasion meant nothing to him, and the three gentlemen on the tribunal never thought about that case and he had in no way made up his mind. It is very unfortunate for the Attorney-General that the Minister for Justice turned himself into his agent. First, the Minister for Justice read out part of the report of the tribunal, and I may now, incidentally, express the hope that the Minister for Justice has definitely made up his mind to publish the whole evidence and the whole report of this tribunal. Commenting upon one of the findings he says: "He," that is the Attorney-General, "is not to be content with the wounding of these three citizens without justification, but he is to pursue them with a hopeless prosecution which he knows in his heart and conscience he cannot sustain, and the House is asked to take the attack upon the Attorney-General seriously." So now we have it in the view of the Minister for Justice the Attorney-General knew at that time, in his heart and conscience, that he could not sustain this prosecution and he made up his mind according to the Minister for Justice. He said himself he had not, but the Minister for Justice drew the conclusion, which everyone else must have drawn, that he had made up his mind. I want to be fair to the Minister for Justice. On the basis of a paragraph in this report—the report was not before the Attorney-General—he made up his mind. The report for whatever it is worth is wrong after that. Let us know what was the evidence and the case that when two Guards have definitely sworn that a murderous assault was made upon them the Attorney-General knew in his heart and conscience that that charge could not be sustained. Let us have that. So much for the Kilrush Inquiry. Now I sincerely hope, in the history of this country, no citizen of this State will be treated in the fashion in which these three Guards from Kilrush have been treated by the present Administration.

The other night when I spoke here upon this matter, Deputy Cleary intervened in the discussion and wanted to know why I had not made reference to the case of Dullea and the case of Levison. I told him that my reason was because on the Vote for Law Charges the Department of the Minister for Justice could not be discussed. On this Appropriation Bill, however, it can be discussed and I now take up the challenge of Deputy Cleary and will discuss these two cases. As far as Dullea is concerned, he was found guilty by a jury in County Cork of rape. He was tried before a Judge and jury and convicted. The Minister for Justice was asked in this House why the prerogative of mercy was exercised in this man's favour, and we were told: "We will not give you any reason; we will not give you any answer; the use of the prerogative of mercy is not a matter that should be discussed." Why not? Surely it is one of the matters that ought to be discussed. Surely if men are going to commit crimes like rape and their sentence is going to be commuted into nothing the public mind is very ill at ease. Surely the public want an explanation. The Minister for Justice would give none, but, after several questions had been put to him, he finally made a statement to the effect that neither of the men should have been imprisoned for an hour. Then we gathered, not by direct statement, but by implication, that the Minister for Justice was not satisfied that the men were guilty. He would not tell us himself, but, I presume, these are the grounds upon which he acted. I should like to know why. This man was found guilty by a jury who had every opportunity of seeing him and of seeing the complainant, and he was tried before a very experienced Judge. So clear was his guilt in the eyes of the Judge that, when a civil action was tried arising out of this occurrence, the Judge expressed his astonishment at the commuting of this sentence. There is no doubt that Dullea was astonished. I am sure there could be nobody as astonished as Dullea was when he found that he was innocent. As I say, the Judge expressed astonishment at the commuting of this sentence, and Dullea himself on the second occasion did not deny his guilt. His defence I believe in the first case was consent.

Consent is the whole point.

Consent would be an equally good defence on the second occasion. One was a criminal charge of rape and the other was a common law action for assault, and consent would have been a perfect defence upon the second occasion. He did not raise it. Why is the verdict of a jury to be set aside when the jury are satisfied that there was no consent, when the Judge is more than satisfied, and when Dullea himself on a subsequent occasion will not even contend that there was consent? Surely that was a shocking exercise of the prerogative of mercy. Why Deputy Cleary was so anxious to have it discussed I do not know. Let us take the case of Levison. Some time ago in this House the Attorney-General said that if anybody read the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeal in the Levison case they would be satisfied of Levison's innocence.

The Deputy, I presume, is referring to the Minister for Justice.

I beg the Attorney-General's pardon. If I said the Attorney-General it was a slip of the tongue. I meant the Minister for Justice.

If the Deputy attributes it to me, I should like the reference to it.

The Minister for Justice challenged us to read the report of the Court of Criminal Appeal in the Levison case, and said that if we did read that report we would be satisfied of the man's innocence.

I beg the Deputy's pardon.

I am speaking from recollection.

On a point of order. I asked for the reference to that. I have a very clear recollection that I referred to the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal as showing that the Court of Criminal Appeal could not interfere on a question of fact. I stated that if the Deputy had read the charge of the learned Circuit Court Judge he would marvel at the conviction.

I have simply my recollection of what was stated. It does not matter very much, because I am going into the question.

On a point of order. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney attributed to me a statement which would have been both inaccurate and extremely foolish. I challenge him now to produce from the Official Reports any warrant for the statement he made, and if he cannot do so——

The Deputy stated a few moments ago that I informed the House that if Deputies opposite had read the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal——

When the Minister said "Official Reports" I thought he meant "Irish Report." I mistook the sense in which he used the word "report."

If the Deputy will look at the "Official Reports" he will find that the statement that he attributed to me was not made by me. I think that the least the Deputy ought to do, in justice to himself, as I do not care a fig, is to withdraw it.

I am perfectly ready, if the Minister says I have in any way twisted, or put the slightest wrong implication on his words, unhesitatingly to withdraw.

It is not a wrong implication, but attributing to me words I never used.

Then I withdraw anything the Minister likes. I shall come down to the facts now. This man Levison was charged with assisting at an illegal operation. I am reading now from the Official Irish Reports. The evidence against him was the evidence of a girl called Bridie Kelly. She had been made pregnant by the action of a man named Rubenstein, who was tried with Levison, and both were found guilty. The charge against Levison, of which he was found guilty, was the charge of being present and aiding and abetting while this illegal operation was being carried on, and there was also a charge of conspiracy. The evidence against him was the evidence of this girl, who said very clearly and definitely that she had been to see him on one occasion as a doctor, which fact was not denied; that he had advised her to go to a gynaecologist to see whether she was pregnant or not; that she was given a letter to Dr. Levison by the gynæcologist saying she was pregnant. She then said that at the suggestion of Rubenstein she went to a certain house and there an illegal operation was performed upon her, Levison being one of the persons present. She subsequently, however, became pregnant again, and went to Levison and had a conversation with him in his own house. A great deal of controversy took place as to what occurred on that occasion and what occurred on a subsequent occasion, because she subsequently, after going to his house the second time, met him in Dame Street on 20th October. There was a contradiction between her evidence and his evidence as to upon what occasion he asked her if she was pregnant again; a matter which, if the jury believed her as to the time at which she said he made this remark, and he admits having made the remark, it would certainly have thrown a very considerable amount of light on his guilt, and would have been the necessary corroboration which the law requires before a jury can find a person guilty, without due warning from the Judge, because this girl was, of course, a consenting party. She was, as the law puts it, an accomplice of Levison's, and the rule of law is that a jury should be very careful and hesitant in finding a person guilty on the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice, but they can if they like.

Now, that is an artificial rule of law, and, in this case, it was very clearly impressed upon them by the Judge who tried the charge against Levison. It was put to them, to use the words of Judge O'Byrne, who delivered the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal, "in the most solemn and specific manner by the Judge that they should be greatly upon their guard not to convict a person upon the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice," but none the less, in spite of that warning, and knowing and being fully aware of what the rule of law was, the jury did, in fact, convict, because they believed the story of this girl and did not believe the story of Levison. Here is what the Judge said:

When the case went before the jury they had before them the evidence of Bridie Kelly, and it is only right to point out that apart from the matters already referred to——

One of the matters referred to, I may say, was that this girl had had a previous illegitimate child, denied it at first, and, subsequently, owned to it, and that it was also alleged by one witness that she had talked about a black doctor to him, which she denied. Apart from these two matters,

her evidence was clear and consistent and the witness was not shaken in cross-examination, though that cross-examination was of a most comprehensive and testing character and extended over many hours.

That is the view of the Judge on the evidence of Bridie Kelly.

The evidence and the conduct of the accused, on the other hand, do not appear to the Court to be either clear or convincing. On the 26th October, 1931, before the accused was arrested, he made a voluntary statement to the police. In the course of that statement he said: "I have no recollection of speaking to the girl, Kelly, at the Olympia Theatre on Tuesday evening last, 20th inst. It might be possible that I was speaking to her in Dame Street some evening last week. I do not remember any conversation I had with her." In the course of his evidence the accused admitted having spoken to the girl in Dame Street, and he gave the substance of her conversation as set out above. He was asked in cross-examination why he told the police that he could not recollect having a conversation with Bridie Kelly in Dame Street, and his answer was—"because it was a week back.... and for the moment I could not recollect it." It was further suggested to him by counsel that, if a person met him in the street and asked him to perform what was an improper operation, that would certainly impress itself upon his mind, and his answer was—"Oh! No, I would not say that."

The Judge goes on—I do not want to read further extracts to the House because they are long—to show what a completely unreliable witness Levison was. You have a girl whose testimony is believed by the jury and whose testimony is described by the Judge delivering judgment in the Court of Criminal Appeal—because only one Judge delivers the judgment of the three Judges who hear the case, that being the rule of procedure—as being unshaken under cross-examination, and you have his view also that the defendant, whom the jury did not believe, was an unreliable witness, and yet you find that, in the teeth of all that, the Minister for Justice, in exercise of the prerogative, finds that the unsatisfactory witness was telling the truth, and that the man whom the jury disbelieved was telling the truth, and decides that the witness whom the Judge delivering judgment in the Court of Criminal Appeal believed he is not going to believe, with the result that this man Levison, convicted by a jury in the city of Dublin, and the conviction affirmed in the Court of Appeal, for a very serious and horrible offence, is let out by the Minister for Justice.

This prerogative of mercy is a great power. It must be used with judgment. If it is going to be used in the fashion as from these two cases it would appear it is being used, if the Minister for Justice is going, out of some whim or caprice, to release persons found guilty of very serious and very heinous offences indeed, it is very bad for the morality of this State. I do not, for one moment, suggest, and nobody could suggest, that the Minister for Justice has the slightest sympathy with either of these crimes—I do not suggest that for one half second —but I do think that, in serious and grave cases like these, it is a very terrible thing to have a man so utterly lacking in judgment, as the Minister for Justice obviously is, exercising the prerogative of mercy. Men who commit serious crimes must be punished. It is all very well for the Minister for Justice to speak of a man taken in sin and that we are throwing stones at him. If a man is taken in a sin, which is also a grave legal offence, that man must be punished, and you can call it throwing stones or not precisely as you like. I do ask this House to hold that this prerogative of mercy must be used with judgment, must be used with discretion, and must not be used according to the caprice, because it can be nothing else, of any Minister for Justice, and that men obviously guilty and so found by juries of their fellow-citizens should not be free to walk about the streets or roads of this country to-day. They should be serving their sentences properly imposed upon them by the courts.

I have nothing more to add to this debate. The economic policy of the Government is as hopeless a piece of despair as you could find anywhere. It is a giving up of all hope. It is a mere waiting with the fantastic belief that some extraordinary events will occur which will come to the salvation of their administration and to the salvation of this State. The finances of the State are being dissipated and flung away. The load of taxation which has been put upon the citizens of this State is a load of taxation which the citizens cannot bear and I venture to think that, whatever may be the callous attitude of the Executive Council, however little interest they may take in the sufferings which they are bringing upon the people of this State, all those persons who give, in this present time, their support to the present Executive Council are persons who take a very small interest indeed in the welfare of this State.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce admits that the crisis with which this country is now confronted is the greatest in its history. In such circumstances he rightly calls for an organised and disciplined effort on the part of those of our citizens who believe we are entitled to claim a revision of what is known as the Ultimate Financial Settlement. One would think that to an appeal on such an issue in a crisis like this the response from the Cumann na nGaedheal Benches would be greater than what it has shown itself to be. During the whole course of this crisis the attitude of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party has been that the Government in everything they done have been wrong. In no case have members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party shown any evidence of their desire to offer helpful criticism with the object of guiding the Government along right and safe lines.

There is on the Order Paper in the name of ex-President Cosgrave a motion which I presume will come before the House in the very near future. It asks the Dáil to agree that the Land Commission Annuities should not be collected so long as the present tariffs continue to be imposed on Irish produce sent to Britain. Some of the supporters of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party are at the present moment engaged in an organised effort demanding that the moneys in the Suspense Account should be released for the purpose, presumably, of relieving people not willing to pay land annuities. I agree that, under normal circumstances and were we not in the midst of an economic war, it would be difficult enough for the farmers to pay their annuities in full. That is one of the reasons why, long ago, I made up my mind that the Government would sooner or later have to demand a revision of that financial settlement in the interests of the farming community alone.

Imagine Deputy Cosgrave suggesting that under present circumstances the people should not pay their land annuities and, at the same time, demanding that the Government should release the moneys in the Suspense Account in order to relieve those who have not been paying. If there is any section of the community entitled to consideration——

Mr. Lynch

I will ask the Deputy to indicate when Deputy Cosgrave told the farmers they should not pay their land annuities. If I am not mistaken, what Deputy Cosgrave said was that the Government should cease collecting the land annuities.

If the Deputy will look at the motion on the Order Paper he will very soon realise that is the advice the ex-President is offering to the country.

Mr. Lynch

Perhaps the Deputy would read the motion?

The motion is in the following terms:—

That as the British tariffs on Saorstát agricultural produce impose on farmers a burden at least equivalent to their Land Commission Annuities the Dáil is of opinion that the Executive Council should take appropriate steps to suspend the collection of annuities during the period of the operation of these tariffs.

Mr. Lynch

Is that not exactly what I said?

As is well known in the country, the ex-President has ex-Deputy Heffernan and others going around advising the farmers not to pay.

Mr. Lynch

The Deputy said that Deputy Cosgrave went around the country advising farmers not to pay. This motion, on which apparently the Deputy bases his statement, is to the effect that the Government should cease collecting annuities in certain circumstances.

The mentality behind that motion is very easily understood by those who have been reading, for the last couple of months, the advice given by the leading spokesmen in various parts of the country.

Deputy Davin should either substantiate the statement he has made or withdraw it. He said that Deputy Cosgrave had gone around the country advising the farmers not to pay. He has been asked to substantiate that statement, but he has not done so.

The wording of the motion conveys that quite clearly to anybody who wants to understand its meaning.

The Dáil has yet to give its decision on that motion.

I suggest to the Minister for Finance and his colleagues that if they are going favourably to consider the suggestion about the release of the moneys in the Suspense Account, the people who have been honest enough to continue to pay their annuities, difficult as it has been for them to do so, should get more consideration, if ever it comes to that point, than those who have not been willing to pay and who have actually refused to pay.

Mr. Lynch

Quite right.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce asked the House and the country for organised and disciplined effort in order to assist the Government successfully through the present crisis. I suggest there is an obvious duty imposed on the Minister and his colleagues to tell the country what is their policy in the changed circumstances. Undoubtedly the action of the British Government during the past 24 hours — their decision to double the duties hitherto imposed upon produce exported from the Saorstát — has altered the circumstances to a considerable extent. May I express the hope that when the censure motion comes before the House next Tuesday the Government will be in a position to tell the people what is their policy in the changed circumstances? The Minister's call for disciplined effort should be followed, in my opinion, by a definite statement as to the intentions of the Government with regard to the internal situation.

I was delighted to read in to-day's papers the statement of President de Valera, in very definite and clear language, informing all concerned as to the future action of his Government in relation to citizens who carry and use guns without proper authority. I think that statement, clear as it must be to those who always want to criticise the Government, will convey to soberminded citizens the attitude of the Government on matters of that kind.

Mr. Lynch

We hope it will.

On the question of discipline as it affects the community as a whole, and particularly in view of the Kilrush Inquiry Report, I will quote an extract from a leading article in the "Irish Press." It is interesting in so far as it indicates a change of attitude on the part of certain people within the country — a change of attitude which, in my opinion, will bring with it a more disciplined viewpoint. Dealing with the report of the Kilrush Tribunal, the newspaper says:

In this country there has been a special difficulty in securing co-operation between people and police. The best and quickest way to over-come it is by stern punishment of indiscipline and abuse of authority and by the police themselves keeping always before them that they are the guardians of the peace and the servants of the people.

Hear, hear!

I gladly subscribe to that altered attitude on the part of people who, within recent years, and not so very long ago, took quite a different view of the situation. Here we have a demand for £530,365 for the maintenance, during a certain period of the financial year, of the Civic Guards. I would like the Minister for Justice, whom I am glad to see here, to indicate what is the position of the Civic Guards in relation to attempts by bodies of individuals, organised bodies in some cases and individuals acting without any association in other cases, to break up public meetings and to deprive public men of the right of free speech.

I congratulate the President on the very clear and straightforward statement he made yesterday, regarding the attitude of the Government towards those who claim the right, and who carry arms without authority. I would like if the President had gone somewhat further. In the report dealing with the matter he stated:

The present Government is not going to permit any section of the people to take certain duties upon themselves or interfere with the functions of the Government.

I believe it is the duty and the function of the Government to see that every public man, and every person, who wants to express his views upon public matters gets fair play and such protection as will prevent meetings from being broken up in disorder. Some time ago an organisation calling itself the Army Comrades' Organisation was established. Shortly afterwards a meeting under the joint auspices of Cumann na nGaedheal and the Army Comrades' Association was held in Trim. I have no objection to members of the Army Comrades' Association or to members of other associations meeting ex-President Cosgrave outside the town or receiving President de Valera outside Kilkenny and marching with bands and cheering to the echo any statements with which they may agree, but it is certainly a very serious thing if either the Army Comrades' Association, or the old I.R.A., or any other organisation——

Mr. Lynch

The new I.R.A.

Are ye the old ones?

Mr. Lynch

Sure thing.

You look it too.

——interfered while the Civic Guards are there to keep law and order. I understand that in Trim the Civic Guards were absolutely brushed aside by the body calling itself the Army Comrades' Association, which took over control of law and order in the town during the meeting.

Question.

The Deputy will have an opportunity of speaking. Since then meetings have been held at Kilmallock, Mallow, and in Cork City, at which organised bodies of individuals were present carrying hurleys, sticks and other implements — which it was thought necessary to have in order to drive home their point of view on the people present — and successful attempts were made to break up those meetings which were addressed by prominent members of this House. The Cumann na nGaedheal Party was in office for ten years, which was a long political life for a Party that came into power in this country under very peculiar circumstances. Fianna Fáil is in office to-day, and at some time in our lifetime — if we live long enough — and it may not be very long — Fianna Fáil as a Government might be as unpopular as the Cumann na nGaedheal Party is at present. For that reason they might require the same protection that the chief Opposition spokesman required, and is entitled to receive to-day.

The only reason I raise this question is to ascertain what instructions have been issued to the Civic Guards regarding their attitude towards organised bodies of individuals, or others, who behave in a riotous manner during the course of public meetings and who, in some cases, succeed in smashing up these meetings. It is a very serious matter, especially in the circumstances with which this country is at present confronted. If we are called upon for co-operation and for disciplined effort in backing the Government, that Government is entitled to maintain law and order, and to see to it that no body of individuals, other than the paid servants of the State, is allowed to interfere in matters of this kind. There were no arrests as a result of what happened at Trim. The people who attempted to smash up the meeting in Kilmallock were severely criticised in a leading article in the "Irish Press" on the following day. The names of the individuals who took part in creating the disorder and in attempting to smash up the meeting there were printed in the "Irish Press."

As there are cases pending as a result of the Kilmallock incidents, I do not think it is fair to speak on that question. Summonses have been issued.

If that is so, I am very sorry that I referred to it. I did not know that. At any rate, I am entitled to ask the Minister what instructions have been given to the paid servants of the State in connection with attempts to break up public meetings, no matter by whom addressed. The fact that no arrests were made as a result of the meeting in Trim proves that there is some doubt in the minds of the Guards as to what their duties are in such circumstances.

I notice that in the disorder that occurred at Cork during the week-end, two or three persons were arrested for severely assaulting the Guards. It is quite apparent that the disorderly element was fairly well organised there. Notwithstanding that, it is evident to everyone who read the proceedings that the leaders or others have not been dealt with. It is natural to expect that individuals who assaulted the Guards would be arrested and that the Guards would have to take action for their own protection. What was done to protect the other people concerned?

Mr. Lynch

Ordinary summonses.

I think this is a very serious matter that responsible and highly educated members of this House, and members of the Government Party at that, should go around the country and say certain things which, in my opinion, they should not say. I have a report of a meeting which, it was stated, was addressed by a very prominent Fianna Fáil Deputy at Ballylongford, County Kerry, describing his attitude towards the Irish Republican Army. He said:

His attitude and that of his Party was that they were not an illegal organisation, nor could any body in any country whose avowed intentions were the betterment of their country and its complete freedom from a foreign yoke be described as illegal.

Will the Deputy say how that has any bearing whatsoever on the Appropriation Bill? If the person quoted is not a member of the Executive Council, he is not responsible for policy. Is he a member of the Executive?

I should not have noticed the matter — I certainly would not have treated the matter so seriously — were it not that he stated that he spoke for himself and his Party.

This Bill is concerned only with the adminstration. I do not think that the statements of a particular Deputy can be discussed on this Bill.

I bow to your ruling. With regard to the attitude of certain sections of the people in attempting to break up public meetings, I suggest to the Minister and his colleagues that whoever is responsible — it is quite evident that some of them are supporters of the present Government— for organising these attacks are doing more to prop up and advertise the A.C.A. and Cumann na nGaedheal than if they boycotted those meetings. If I had any share of responsibility or influence in the councils of Fianna Fáil, I should advise their associates and supporters who are not open to political conversion to stay away from A.C.A. and Cumann na nGaedheal meetings — to boycott them, if necessary. They would be doing more in that way to finish Cumann na nGaedheal and the A.C.A. than they are doing to-day. I raise this matter because I am concerned, to some extent, as regards the authority of the present Government and its administration so far as affects my own constituency. If, as some people seem foolishly to think, the I.R.A. is not an illegal organisation, would they go so far as to suggest that individuals associated with that organisation have a right — they have tried to exercise the right — to tell Land Commission officials that they should not divide land in certain places unless the spokesmen, or alleged spokesmen, of that organisation are told beforehand who is going to get the land? Are they entitled to drive cattle off estates in parts of the country where they should know if they knew anything that the Land Commission were dealing with the estates? I hope we shall have from the Minister for Justice a very definite pronouncement — one which will let all those who are anxious to challenge the authority of the present Government know where they stand and how they are likely to be dealt with if the challenge is persisted in.

I have been a member of the Labour Party since this Parliament was first established. During the earlier periods, even up to the past year, members of this Party were held up to ridicule before the people as an Imperialist Labour Party. What was the result of that? The very people who held them up as an Imperialist Labour Party, as not having any authority to speak for the labour or trade union movement, are the very people, as a result of being looked up to, who were responsible for the closing down of the "Evening Telegraph"——

That is a long way from the Bill.

I do not want to go into this matter at any greater length. I repeated the words used by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in which he appealed to the Nationalist element of the country for co-operation and disciplined effort. That, the Government is entitled to during this crisis and as long as they are in control of affairs here. While he is entitled to claim that, we, who support him, are entitled to know, from the Minister for Justice particularly, in what respect and to what extent he is prepared to back the Guards in asserting their authority in the country and in administering the laws made by this Parliament in a firm, fair and impartial way. We are entitled to ask that those who challenge that authority shall be dealt with in a firm, fair and impartial way.

I rise to ask that an opportunity be given to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands and Fisheries to make a statement which, I think, he is now prepared to make. It was promised during the debate on the Estimates that this statement would be made, and I want to hear the statement before I make my speech, which will not occupy more than ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. I do not want to press the Parliamentary Secretary if he is not prepared to make the statement now, as I know he has only been a few days in the Department. But if he is prepared to make the statement, I should like that he make it now.

The net total of the Estimate for this year is £214,049, as compared with £432,157 for last year. I shall deal with the causes of the variation under the principal sub-heads. Under sub-head A, there is an increase of £3,749 as compared with last year, the figures being £35,119 and £31,370 respectively. It will be seen from the details that the increases occur practically under, or in connection with, the Gaeltacht Services. There has been a new appointment of a responsible officer in charge of the section dealing with kelp, carrigeen and other marine growths, also an outdoor inspector. There has been an increase of £1,082 on staff in connection with the administration of the Housing (Gaeltacht) Act, due to increases in the numbers of both indoor and outdoor staffs. The increase is, in fact, greater, because whereas the salaries of the five temporary surveyors were last year included in this Vote, the salaries of three of them who were seconded from the Land Commission are this year provided under the Land Commission Vote.

Under Accounts and Establishment, there is an increase of £1,923. The increase of work in the executive branches has resulted in throwing a corresponding burden on the accounting section of the Department. Under sub-head B — Travelling Expenses— there is an increase of £1,200, of which £1,000 is in respect of the staff dealing with the Housing (Gaeltacht) Act. Building operations under this Act are now taking place on a larger and wider scale and a larger staff is engaged in coping with the work of inspection and supervision. There is a small increase of £25 under the heading of Telegrams and Telephones, due to the extension of the latter service.

Sub-head E relates to fishery services. Under "Vocational Instruction including boat building," there is an increase of £500, due to the building of boats at the Department's boatyard for the Sea Fisheries Association. This is more than offset by an estimated receipt under sub-head O of £700 for sales of boats to the Association. There is no change under E (2). Under E (4) there is a reduction of £325. The provision of loans for boats and gear has gone as this service has been taken over by the Sea Fisheries Association and is now provided under G (3). Under sub-head F (1), which relates to Inland Fisheries, there is no change. Under sub-head F (2), there is a reduction of £200, the provision in the previous year having been found to be rather more than required. There are no changes in F (3) or F (4).

Sub-head G relates to grants to the Sea Fisheries Association. The grant in respect of administration is the same as last year. The provision under G (3) — Advances for Boats and Gear — is down by £15,000. The sum provided is as much as the boat-yards of the country can absorb. The Association is at present keeping every boat-yard busy and would be glad to see additional facilities provided for the output of boats. The Committee is very loth to go to boat-yards outside the country for boats. The provision under sub-head G (4)— Advances for General Development— is intended to make provision for works of a permanent nature such as lobster pots. Although the sum is much less than last year, it will probably be adequate for any works the Association may wish to carry out during the year. It is proposed to erect a mussel purification plant on the East Coast, and it had been hoped, when these Estimates were prepared, that this work would have been carried out in the last financial year but circumstances arose which made this impossible.

Under sub-head H, relating to rural industries in the Gaeltacht, there is a net reduction in the total provision of £12,250. There is an increase of £1,300 under sub-head H (5), this amount being provided for exhibits at the Cork Exhibition of produce of the Gaeltacht industries. Working exhibits were provided at this Exhibition and the workers had to be brought from the Gaeltacht and maintained in Cork. Under sub-head H (6), there is an increase from £700 to £2,500 for advertising and publicity to further the sale of Gaeltacht goods. Under sub-head H (7), there is an increase of £550 under the heading of freight. As against this, it will be noticed that there is a reduction of £1,000 under freight in J (3), in connection with the marketing depôt. The latter sub-head bears the freightage charges outward from the depôt and it was found that the division last year did not represent the proper relationship.

Sub-head I relates to Marine Products. Sub-head I (2) shows a reduction in travelling expenses. Under I (3), which relates to the scheme of collecting, dealing in kelp there is a reduction of £4,750. The figure last year was found to be too great and it has been somewhat reduced. I (4) relates to carrageen development, and in that item there is a reduction of £500. J (1) deals with the expenses of central marketing for the Gaeltacht industries. In J (2) there is no change and in J (3) there is a reduction in general expenses of £950 to which I have already referred. Sub-head K deals with "Loans for Industrial Purposes" and stands at the same figure. In M (1) and M (2) there is no change. There is a reduction of £35 under sub-head N due to the sending of only one technical adviser to the International Council for the Study of the Sea instead of two as heretofore. In appropriations-in-aid there is a reduction of £10,900 which arises chiefly under the sale of the products of rural industries.

Mr. Lynch

I am afraid that I must have succeeded in getting myself completely misunderstood.

The Deputy was completely out of order in discussing this Estimate.

Mr. Lynch

In connection with the Estimate at this stage, I must say that I would not care to go into the matter in the way in which these Estimates have been accustomed to have been gone into in the past, but there were certain points about which I wanted to be clear. I have not got the information I wanted about them. For that I do not blame the Parliamentary Secretary because he has been appointed only within the last few days and it will take him a couple of years to learn all the ramifications of the Department. I would be very far from blaming the Department, too. But I wanted to hear a statement on the operations of the Sea Fisheries Association at the start and a few things about the Gaeltacht and the carrageen side of the industry. At any rate, the principal thing about which I wanted to hear was the Sea Fisheries Association. I did not want to hear about this merely from the point of view of personal curiosity or because I am an ex-Minister of the Department. I want to hear them because I believe it would be fair to the Sea Fisheries Association to hear now when they have had an opportunity of saying what they have done that that should be known.

It is not that I want to find fault. It is because I want to praise. I want them to tell the country exactly what they have done. They have done it at at great cost of money. I do not regret that money, and I believe that this House would be terribly foolish to regret the money that is being spent in the operations of the Sea Fisheries Association. I want them to go on spending the money in that way so as to try out the position and to make a complete investigation of the situation. That is really why I wanted the statement. I regret that statement was not made in that way. I do not blame the Parliamentary Secretary, and it is possible that the staff of the Department did not understand what I was at from what was reported to them here. The Sea Fisheries Association are operating at considerable cost to the country. They are doing certain work, but the Deputies must remember that they are getting us away from the position that we used to be in on giving a Vote to the Fisheries Department for the lending of boats and gear on solvent sureties. When you came along to get the money off these solvent sureties you were begged and requested to let them off. The Sea Fisheries Association must be able to get away from that position. They are giving boats in another way to the members of the Association, to men who are proved fishermen. As members of the Association they have to give up their catch to the particular official of the Association in a particular district. From the catch the State grant towards the provision of the boats will be repaid. That is a brief statement of the position.

I believe that we should be prepared to face a considerable loss for a number of years so as to try this scheme out. So far as I am concerned, as a Deputy in Opposition, if we are still in Opposition, and if my friend is still on the Government Benches when this Vote is next before the House, I, as one member of the Opposition, will stand for trying that job out. Let us try out whether or not we really have a fishing population who are prepared to work. Let us try out all the talk we had from platforms and in the Press of the hard-working toilers of the sea and all the talk about our seas teeming with fish. I should like to see that tried out. The way to try it out has been found at last. The foundation is there, in the Sea Fisheries Association, for trying it out. I want that tried out for a number of years, and let us find out exactly where we stand. Then, if we find out that the giving of boats and the giving of gear to our people along the coasts, whether in my constituency in Dingle or Caherciveen or in the Gaeltacht or anywhere else, is not a paying proposition, we can stop it. That is my point of view, and I believe it is the right point of view. I believe that in the building up of the Sea Fisheries Association we have the right point of view, and I believe in the building up of that Association. After a number of years we will find out what the situation is. I am not optimistic, but I believe that there are fishermen who will prove themselves well worth being given boats and gear. I also believe that a great many others who pretended they were fishermen will be found out. That was the principal thing that I desired to hear from the Department. There were a few other things that I wanted to hear a little more about. The Parliamentary Secretary merely glanced at the kelp industry. I do not want to stress it, but it is one of the things that I would like to hear something about. It is one of the things that is not the fault of the Government. I am anxious to hear what are the hopes of the Department as to the future of kelp. Up to the time that we left office, undoubtedly everything looked rosy. It is not because we left office that things may not be looking so rosy now — I make the Parliamentary Secretary a present of that — but because we are so far away from Chile and of the change in the position with regard to Chile. At any rate, I am afraid that the future for our kelp is very much jeopardised. I would like to know whether the Department has investigated that aspect of the matter. I admit that up to a year ago we had great hopes, because of the Galway iodine factory and of the prospects of a factory in Donegal, for our kelp gatherers. I am afraid that we cannot say the same to-day, that at the moment one does not know what the future for our kelp gatherers will be. The value of crude iodine has fallen by nearly 70 per cent. There will be a natural fall in the iodine produced here from our kelp. While we hoped a year ago that we would get great things from our iodine factory in Galway, I am afraid that is not so to-day. I would like to hear the contrary if it can be said.

As to carrageen and the Gaeltacht industries, I will not adopt the attitude that many Deputies on the other side used to adopt when they were on this side of the House. I will not attempt to criticise everything that the Government and the Department are doing. I feel that the Department at least is doing its best so far as carrageen and the Gaeltacht industries are concerned. At this stage I may be permitted to say that the Minister, in taking over from me, took over at least a staff — I will not say anything against the Civil Service — that were not merely civil servants, but were apostles so far as the Gaeltacht was concerned. They were enthusiasts for the Gaeltacht, apart from their daily work from half past nine to half past five. In fact they did not care when their day ended. I say that especially for the secretary to the Department and the assistant-secretary. I do not like to mention names, but certainly in the case of Mr. Moriarty and Mr. Bradley, their work never ended.

As to the position with regard to carrageen and the Gaeltacht, I do not want to press the Parliamentary Secretary for information, as I know he has had no opportunity of investigating the affairs of the Department. But as to carrageen, I presume he feels the same in relation to it as to every other industry in this country, that it has felt, unfortunately, the effects of the breeze through the hostility across Channel. Before I left the Department we started an intensive advertising campaign of carrageen. We had medical advice about it. We were able to put in our advertisements statements about carrageen that were substantiated by good medical advice, statements that would prove attractive especially, perhaps, in the British market. I am satisfied that policy could not have developed in recent times, and for that situation I naturally do not blame either the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary recently appointed.

I was glad to hear the statement made, I think, by the Minister for Industry and Commerce in connection with boat building. He said that they were loath to go outside the country for boats. I clap him on the back for that. That was entirely our attitude. Between Killybegs and Baltimore, as well as in Arklow and other places, we did our best to organise persons who would provide the boats necessary for the fishing population of the country. If the Government resolve to continue that work I, at any rate, will pat them on the back for it. If they impose tariffs against boats suitable for the fishing population that can be produced in this country I will pat them on the back.

The Parliamentary Secretary referred more or less en passant to the mussel purification grant. I have not heard much about that in the last six months. It is a thing that I was interested in. There was a question at one time of having the plant at Drogheda. I would like to know whether it is feasible to have it there. From many points of view Drogheda would be a most suitable place, because near Drogheda, at a place called Mornington there are mussel beds. But I have an idea that just before I left office there was a decision that Drogheda was not so suitable: that Dublin might be more suitable. But wherever it is to be I would be glad to hear that money is to be spent in the direction of providing a purification plant. If we cannot do that there is only one other thing for us to do for the mussel fishermen, whether at Mornington near Drogheda or at Cromane in the County Kerry, and that to to provide subsidies for them to have their mussels purified at Conway in Wales. I understand that purification plant is a simple one. It was considered twelve months ago that the capital expenditure would perhaps be very large — eight, nine or ten thousand pounds. We considered that a very large sum. Of course such a sum is only a mere bagatelle to the present Government. I can assure the Parliamentary Secretary that the capital expenditure on the plant would not be more than £9,000 or £10,000. Of course he could get a more accurate estimate from Mr. Hassard or Mr. Greene. I think it would be a wise expenditure of money because by means of it you would be providing something of perpetual value. You would be providing for these mussel fishermen in out of the way places, whether at Mornington or in Cromane, a means of earning a livelihood. Those at Mornington are even worse off than the mussel fishermen in Cromane. If they could get their mussels cleaned at a cheap rate near at hand they would be in a position to make a living out of their industry. As it is the mussels are very often condemned in the British market. Nothing that the Parliamentary Secretary's Department can do will prevent that, because it is the medical officer of health in some English centre, whether it be Manchester, Birmingham or some other place, who will certify whether the mussels will be allowed in or not. If he can get mussels from Mornington passed into these markets, the people down there — some 130 families — will have a living and it will be worth while.

Leaving the nice things about the Department, I should like to refer briefly — and I am not saying that the Parliamentary Secretary is at all responsible — to this question of the remission of fines for offences in connection with the fishery laws. First of all, I might explain this, that for a short period the Department of Justice was either remitting or reducing fines, or saying that the law should take its course with regard to these fines, without consultation with the Minister for Lands and Fisheries. This was while I was in charge, and it was for a very short period. The matter was drawn to my attention because I found the Department of Justice particularly ill-informed about many matters that were brought before them at the time. I took the matter up with the late Mr. Kevin O'Higgins and, after a rather acrimonious talk, he agreed that no decision of the Department of Justice would go to the reduction or remission of any fine, in regard to fishery matters, without the imprimatur of the Minister for Fisheries. This is just by way of introduction. I need not say that day after day and week after week, during all my time in office, these cases came along. There were at least half a dozen such cases each day sent over to the Minister for Justice — involving a report from the Conservators, a report from the Justice who tried the case, a report from the Gárda Síochána, and the memorial put before him. The Parliamentary Secretary will find many of them before he is many days older. I scrupulously read through many of these files and in a very short time made up my mind that at least for some years a lesson should be taught to the poacher and the poisoner and so on. Over a number of years— and I invite the Minister to go back over the files in order to see that it is so — my recommendations were normally that the law should take its course. We brought in very stringent Acts in 1924 and 1925 governing inland fisheries. There were minimum penalties. The District Justice had no option, when a certain person was convicted of a certain offence, but to impose a certain penalty. There is undoubtedly room there for the prerogative — I make a present of it to the Minister for Justice — but the cases came along and, as I say, over a number of years I recommended that the law should take its course. Afterwards, I pointed out exactly what remissions should be made, but normally, up to the very day I left office, the proportion of remissions of penalties was comparatively small. They should be easily got from the Department, and there is an official of the Department of Lands and Fisheries here who should be able to verify easily whether what I say is correct or not. I felt that this was something which we had, if we would only conserve it.

As Minister for Lands and Fisheries, there was one thing that I could do by legislation and by administration. There was another thing that required a great deal of work by the Sea Fisheries Association. But in the inland fisheries we had an asset which required only to be conserved. As I said, by legislation and administration you could create a big asset for the country. I felt that that was something that we had to conserve and that the administration should go that way. If the Parliamentary Secretary will look up the files he will find that all that I have said is absolutely true. I have the greatest sympathy with the Parliamentary Secretary. I know that he has come here to answer questions and to speak on things of which he has only a few days' knowledge. It would be utterly impossible for him to answer all of them and it would take him a couple of years to go into all these matters. I am merely raising them in order to bring them to the notice of the Government, especially with regard to the remission of penalties. I want the Government to examine these things closely, because eventually the Board of Conservators will be found throwing up the guns. There are a great many people always anxious to take the easy way out. But there are others who want to do their work conscientiously. My information on the matter to which I referred earlier, and as to which I was challenged, came from a member of the Board of the Limerick Fishery Conservators. I will give his name if it is required — he is not afraid — Fred McKibben.

On a point of accuracy — I did not challenge the Deputy as to where he got his information. I asked him if he was authorised by the Board of Conservators to protest against the return by them of a penalty which, according to the police, they ought not to have received and to which they were not entitled. The Deputy is entitled to get his information as he pleases.

The Minister must be aware that it is from a member of the Board of Conservators, who was Chairman of the Board, if he is not Chairman now, and he got it from the Clerk of the Board, who got the instruction from the Department. The Limerick Board of Conservators did not feel at all pleased at the instructions which they got and they felt that they might as well stop paying bailiffs, and they are a Board that in the last year reorganised their bailiff system in an extraordinary way, scrapped several bailiffs, putting in a new system of bailiffing which has culminated in the most excellent provision against poaching and similar offences in their area. I hate to discourage persons who have a public spirit of that kind. They have nothing to gain by such action, but they are public-spirited men. Mr. McKibben, I think, owns a salmon weir on the Shannon, but most of the persons who stood with him on this matter are persons with no axe to grind. They are persons who are only actuated by public-spirited in seeing that public fisheries are protected in the State. These fisheries are an asset. We are boosting tourist traffic and trying to encourage visitors, and if we let these things go by default it will be known and the country will suffer.

Deputy Lynch has reminded me of a few things I should like to say with reference to mussel fishing and inland fisheries. I am glad that he devoted his attention to a matter over which we have genuine control, and industry of considerable importance. He mentioned Mornington and the demand there for a purification tank. Of course, this demand did not arise yesterday.

Mr. Lynch

No.

Mr. O'Reilly

The tank has been in demand for a couple of years. The industry is of great importance to an area like Mornington, and the purification tank became necessary because of certain sanitary rules and regulations made for marketing in England. This industry in Mornington gave a living to a number of people. They were all deprived of their employment last year and the year before because they were not provided with a purification tank. The control of this matter rests with another body in Dublin, a body which is a branch of the Department of Lands and Fisheries. I suppose they call themselves the Sea Fisheries Association. That seems to me to be a rather sleepy Board. They seem to spend most of their time dreaming. I have approached this Board on many occasions and my representations have always met with a deaf ear. Some six months ago I had a letter from them stating that the matter was to receive immediate attention and that they were deciding on erecting a tank. I think they ultimately decided on erecting a central tank in Dublin, which would do the whole lot.

The erection of the tank could not cost very much. It is not a very intricate business and would not entail the employment of any specialists. At any rate, the result of the matter is that these men and their families are absolutely idle. This has led to very serious abuses. There is another river close to Mornington, and I am informed that it has been the practice to take mussels from the Boyne and dump them for a couple of hours into the Nanny. That is a serious matter, and it has arisen because this body, to which I refer, went asleep. I have not a terrible lot of sympathy for the Sea Fisheries Board. Their objects are good, but they need some stimulation. They require to be shaken up a bit. Deputy Lynch stated that people in his constituency were in the same position as those in mine. The people in this area for generations lived on the collection of mussels, but by the action or inaction of this Department they have been left idle for the past couple of years.

Mr. Lynch

I must not be taken as being in agreement with the Deputy on that, that by the action of the Department these men were left idle.

Mr. O'Reilly

I took it that the Deputy meant that they had not done their duty.

Mr. Lynch

Any statements I made certainly did not convey that either my constituents or the Deputy's constituents, were left idle as a result of the action of the Department.

Mr. O'Reilly

In any case I can say that they were left idle in my constituency because they did not get the tank.

Mr. Lynch

The Deputy's information about the tank is so very bad——

Mr. O'Reilly

Is it so very bad?

Mr. Lynch

I am afraid it is.

Mr. O'Reilly

Any information I have in regard to the tank is quite good. This information is correct anyway.

Mr. Lynch

It is a bit too good, but I shall not have to answer the Deputy.

Mr. O'Reilly

The information is that they are still without it and have been without it for a considerable time. That is surely unfair. In regard to the question of inland fisheries I have had many complaints. I have had complaints from the fishermen at the mouth of the Boyne that the length of their nets was curtailed by a couple of yards. Further up the Blackwater and the source of the Boyne, in fact around Trim, and from Navan to Kells there have been complaints by fishermen that they catch nothing. I could not understand what had happened when more fish did not get up the Boyne, because the nets were specially shortened for the purpose of letting them up. And it rather puzzled me for a long time. At one court in Navan I saw it reported that one of those people who had rights on the Boyne to catch salmon in traps—they are very old rights, and historically most interesting—was prosecuted because he had not closed his trap when he should have closed it. In fact he had kept it open all night. I made inquiries at once to know what amount of fish these people could catch in the traps and I found if they left them open constantly they could catch a great deal more fish than the ordinary poor fisherman, who has nothing else to live on, could catch at the mouth of the Boyne.

I further made inquiries as to what became of the fish when the inspector caught them in the trap, and it seems the fish were not confiscated. Here is a case in which these old rights, historically very interesting, remain in existence. The fisherman at the mouth of the Boyne must be deprived of his living, as well as other people further up the river who pay licence to fish, and cannot catch any fish because there is none to be caught. I take it that system is inequitable. As to salmon it is not every year they come up. I admit that that is the case— that there are years they do not come up—but I do not believe for one moment that the shortening of the nets in the Boyne is going to prevent so many of them coming up. When they do come up what happens them with those numerous traps that are along the Boyne the whole way? I should like that question to be examined to see if the law works out equitably. After all I think it is only fair that those men who have no other means of living, at the mouth of the Boyne at Mornington, but through salmon fishing, should get a fair and reasonable chance of getting that living. I think it is not fair that so many of those traps should be allowed, even with those rights and royalties, giving men who really do not want an income a considerable income from them. Those fishermen should get something better than they have been getting in the past.

I do not want to labour this particular point, but fines have been imposed, and Deputy Lynch objects to some of those fines being reduced. Now I have known fines for the last couple of months being imposed on one particular individual by accident. I know it is by accident. He caught pike, and there seems to be some reward given for pike if they are caught. He was actually catching pike, and he was prosecuted for salmon poaching and fined £20. I do not think in his whole life he could pay £20. If the fine is not reduced he will have to go to jail, and he has six children.

Mr. Lynch

That statement, in comparison with what I have been stating, is utterly ridiculous. The taking of a pike out of the river is an entirely different question. I do not know how he could possibly be fined £20, but if he were it was utterly ridiculous. Mind you, there is an Appeal Court. The cases I asked about were not appealed against.

Of course I am not criticising Deputy Lynch. I am glad he brought that up.

Mr. Lynch

If the person was fined £20 for taking pike it was utterly ridiculous I agree, and the fine should be remitted.

It should certainly. What I want to call the attention of the Minister to is that I certainly, and perhaps many more Deputies, would want to be satisfied exactly as to the reasonableness of the laws and regulations that those sea fishery people, as well as the inland fishery people, have at their control. I do not believe all the revenue we are getting from them compensates in any way for certain rights and privileges that certain people who live by that particular trade should enjoy.

Deputy Davin a few moments ago in the course of his speech referred to the duty of the Government in keeping order at public meetings, and the right of free speech. He went on to refer to a meeting at Trim. I do not know whether or not Deputy Davin was present at that meeting in Trim, but I was there, and it is because I was there that I rise to give my view of what happened at Trim. I think if Deputy Davin had been at Trim, from the speech he made here to-night, he would have been the first man to pat the Army Comrades on the back for what they did, because in the speech he made here he stood up for the right of free speech.

He referred to the parade at Trim of the Army Comrades' Guard of Honour for ex-President Cosgrave. A Chinn Comhairle, if the Army Comrades were needed at Trim I think it was because the right of free speech was denied to ex-President Cosgrave when addressing his constituents in Cork. At that meeting in Trim a Deputy of this House, Deputy Eamonn Duggan, who is the elected Deputy for the constituency, was the first speaker on the platform to address his constituents. He was not allowed to proceed with three sentences when an armed mob of hooligans right in front of the platform tried to shout him down with cries of "Up de Valera." There was an appeal made to them to keep quiet, and although they may not agree with what the Deputy had to say, at least they could give him a hearing in his constituency. All the time the reply was "Up de Valera," with the result that the Army Comrades who were there walked over and said: "Look here boys, if you do not allow the speakers on the platform to proceed we will have to remove you from the meeting——"

Did they say it like that?

——and anything that occurred at Trim happened because the right of free speech was denied to the speakers. I think if Deputy Davin had been at that meeting he would not have made the hostile remarks he made here about the Army Comrades. I will guarantee to Deputy Davin that at any time in the future when the right of free speech is allowed at public meetings there will be no need for the Army Comrades.

A Chinn Comhairle, I want to get back to the main point if I can. The Minister for Finance, in opening the discussion, said that the Government were in a strong position financially to carry on. We are all glad to hear that, and I hope that the Minister has in his mind provisions for all the interests of the people at the moment and in the future.

Yesterday, those of us who are interested in agriculture were staggered at the announcement that the tax of 20 per cent. imposed by the British on our cattle and other agricultural products had been doubled, or increased to 40 per cent. Now we agriculturists have been, within the last five or six months, given the solace from the Ministerial Benches that we would not suffer very much. As long ago as July last the Minister for Finance, in introducing—I think it was our emergency tariffs, said that it did not matter one whit whether the duties were 20 per cent., 40 per cent., or even 100 per cent., if the British liked to make them as much, as everybody knew that the British farmer and consumer would have to bear the cost himself. I do not think that that statement was borne out. Those of us who have had experience in farming for the last five months know that that statement has not been verified.

The Minister in that same speech told us not to worry, that new and alternative markets could and would be found, and at a later stage in the House—carried away, I expect, by the enthusiasm of his Minister for Finance—the President in this House in introducing another Vote said that one of the two objects of the Vote was to find new markets. There was naturally on this side of the House a belief that the discovery of new markets was not so simple as it appeared, and we said so, and after considering it for 24 hours and sleeping over it, the President himself—notwithstanding the enthusiasm of his Minister for Finance—came to the conclusion that new markets could not be found, and he was honest enough to get up in this House and state it to us. Regardless of the declaration of the President, and, I suppose, desiring to give some semblance of life to the statement of the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Agriculture has been attempting to find new markets, and has been purchasing cattle in our Dublin market for export to Belgium—to supplant the export of horses to Belgium by the export of cattle at a somewhat similar price—and the Minister refused to tell this House what he paid for the cattle or what he got for them or hoped to get for them.

To-night, when we should naturally expect from the Government Benches some voice of sympathy for the unfortunate plight of the agriculturists, practically the only Minister who did get up outside the Minister for Finance, worked himself into a state of frenzy. His main speech consisted of taunts to those of us on this side to answer this question and that, and in the end he wound up in a fervour of enthusiasm for the nationality of the people—he did not say the common people, but the people of this State.

I do not want to work myself into a frenzy of nationalism. Our nationalism on this side of the House is just as fervent as the nationalism of the gentlemen on the Government Benches, but there is something nearer to us than nationalism at the present moment. I will admit if you wish that the present Government Party did in the last election get perhaps a limited mandate to engage in some sort of negotiations about the annuities question. I do not want to go into that matter very much, but they did not get, nor did they ask for, a mandate to involve the farmers and the workers of this country in a war such as they are engaged in. There was no mandate given nor demanded for that fight. We, the farmers, were put into the front line trenches against our will. We were conscripted, and as conscripts we should have been, in the ordinary methods of warfare, between civilised Governments entitled to some subsistence allowance, some allowance to carry us over during the continuation of that war, to help us, ourselves, to exist, as well as our families and those dependent upon us—the unfortunate workers in the agricultural farms. The Minister will answer me that they did make an attempt—that they gave us bounties. The bounties that were given to help to tide the farmer over that difficulty did not reach the farmer. The Minister for Agriculture said a night or two ago that they did, but every farmer to whom any Minister speaks will refute that statement.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce to-night, speaking on a subject of which he knows nothing, told us deliberately that the difference between the price the farmer receives for his cattle in this State and the price the farmer on the other side of the water receives is one shilling. Every schoolboy and every schoolgirl who has read anything about agriculture knows that there is not a semblance of foundation for that statement. We have a responsible Minister in the Government Party getting up and in his reply the only tangible allusion he did make to the agricultural question was to say the price we got for our cattle only differed from the price of the English farmers by 1/-.

Is that all he said?

That was all he said so far as it relates to the export of cattle.

He did not say 1/-per cwt.

1/- per cwt. if you like. If 1/- per cwt. is the only difference in price between cattle here and cattle in England, then why in the name of commonsense would any man, that God gave any reason to, engage in the operation of buying cattle here and selling them in England at a difference in price of only 1/- per cwt? It cannot be done and the Minister knows it could not be done.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce was in a difficulty as to what kind of speech he should make in this House and he asked us a number of questions. He began by asking us if we were in power instead of they being in power, and if the same situation arose what would we have done? We would not have lost our tempers, that is one thing we would not have done. We would have attempted to keep out of trouble; we would have thought better before we entered into a fight, and anyhow if we conceived that a fight such as has taken place would have taken place, we would have deemed it our duty to tell the people concerned, namely, the agriculturists, that they were going into the fight, and let them be the judges as to whether it was reasonable or not. The Minister said he was quite satisfied he had funds enough to carry himself along. I am not satisfied that the Minister has funds enough to carry him along. If the Minister has to provide an adequate substitute for the farmers' loss of market, if he is to make any effort to keep the farmer on his feet for the next few months while that market is in suspense, because that market has ceased at the moment, the Minister will need a much greater sum of money than he has already made any provision for. I do not know whether the Minister, or his advisers, have made any attempt to discover the number of unsold cattle there are in this State—the number of cattle that must be, or should be, disposed of within the next six or seven weeks. If he has, and if he has any regard for the unfortunate owners of these stock, and if the Government has any material regard for the owners of these stock, he must make some provision and see, as I said originally, that something akin to the subsistence allowance a conscript would be allowed in an ordinary war be provided for them. We, the agriculturists, did not ask for this fight. The Minister will tell us we did. We demand, and there is justice at the back of our demand, that the Ministry having unfortunately driven us into the position against our will that we now find ourselves in, must make some attempt to drag us out of it.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce talked a lot about Ottawa and about their negotiations. I do not think we gained anything new from the Minister's exposition as to what did happen at Ottawa. He began by saying there were no discussions with Great Britain. I think he meant there was no discussion on the larger issue, but he did not say that. He followed it up later on by saying he had discussions with Ministers of Great Britain, and that certain things came to light in these discussions, notably that the British blamed us for a certain condition of affairs or rather they thought certain things happened by which we gained. But he refused, when he was interrogated, to say that any Minister told him that because they had not. If the Minister for Industry and Commerce attempts to come up here and make a speech containing what I might term such eye-wash as that, we do expect some other Minister, with a greater appreciation of what this House should expect from a Minister, to deal more fairly with the House. The Minister said, I think, they had engaged in giving bounties long before there was any talk of a war with Britain, and that they began by giving bounties on butter. They did give bounties on butter, but not bounties in the regular way—but bounties in which people should find themselves directly, without the intervention of the Government, lifting money out of one pocket and putting it into the other, without any reference to Parliament whatever, or without any levy upon Parliamentary funds—that was the method. The Minister for Agriculture in introducing the Dairy Produce Bill was good enough to say there was nothing new in the Bill; that the Bill served no new purpose except this: it was to put into effect the legislation passed by the previous Minister for Agriculture, which enabled the farmer to achieve all that the Dairy Produce Bill could achieve for him if he wished to achieve it. The only new element in the Minister's Bill was that it compelled the farmer to do what he might have done if he wished. On the admission of the Minister for Agriculture himself, that was the only new thing that the Dairy Produce Bill gave him. I will admit that later on there was an attempt made, but that was subsequent to the beginning of the economic war, to keep up the butter industry. There was a definite subsidy price of 117/- laid down. That would have been necessary to my mind, anyhow. We all know that the butter industry was possibly going to be in a perilous condition this year.

All during the election those of us that knew anything about the dairying question, in our talks with the ordinary farmers, told them that the position of the dairy farmer was not a happy one. We made no secrecy about it. We told them that if the position of the dairy farmer became worse no new Government, whether it was the late Government that was returned to power or not, could afford to let a main section of the greatest industry disappear. We told them that it would be the duty of any Government that came into power to see that that did not happen. As far as those of us, in the Southern Provinces at least where dairying is mainly carried on, were concerned, we told our people that that would be the duty of any Government, and if we made any promise it was that that would be one of our first duties if returned. It was the duty of the Fianna Fáil Government as well, and they knew that that was the obvious thing to do. The Minister taunted us with the question: "What would Cumann na nGaedheal have done in these circumstances?" The Cumann na nGaedheal Party would have done, as regards butter and dairying industries, something similar to what the Government have done except, perhaps, that they would have bettered it.

They would have taken the fat out of it.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce asked another question: "Did we wish the Relief Grant to stop?" He knows full well the answer to that. No individual and no Party, in this House, wishes the Relief Grant to cease. If it was the Cumann na nGaedheal Party that was in power, instead of the present Government, there might be the same necessity for the Relief Grant as now, but we would not have allowed the present conditions in regard to unemployment to creep upon the people unawares. It would not have been our policy to go out, week after week, to tell the people that all was well. We would have told the people—and that is the record of the late Government when in office—that the position was serious. They always told the people the worst end of it and the methods they proposed for the redress of the grievances that the people suffered from.

There will be in this House, in the next week or two, a great debate on another aspect of the situation. But to my mind the position, at the present moment, is almost so serious that it cannot wait until next week. The position of the farmer, who has perishable commodities in the nature of fat cattle to dispose of at this late date in the year, is so unfortunate that even a day, not to mention weeks, is injurious to him if there is a hope of a remedy. I hope Ministers are not losing sight of that great question, and that they are not going to wait until they come to this House to answer the Vote of Censure, or some other motion, to do what it is their imperative duty to do, and that is to see that some immediate action will be taken to tide the farmers over the unfortunate position that the Ministry has driven them into. The Minister for Industry and Commerce would ask: "What would you do?" I do not know what we would do if we were in the position of the present Ministry. I can only say I cannot conceive our Party being in the position in which the Government and the Ministry find themselves to-day. But having played the fool with the farming industry under the guise of nationality it is the obvious duty of Ministers to set about remedying the circumstances in which we find ourselves before it is too late. Within the last week I believe writs have been issued for the farmers' annuities—so I am told. How are they to be met? How is an unfortunate farmer going to meet the liability as to his rent or his rates if he cannot sell his produce? The position is simply intolerable for any one even remotely connected with agriculture, and for the workers to whom the Ministerial supporters in the Labour Party are responsible.

For what annuity is the farmer being writted? Is it for his June instalments?

I have not seen any of the writs.

It is scarcely for the November instalment?

If it is for the previous one I am rather surprised inasmuch as the Ministry gave a moratorium for the old ones.

It would be a wonder if it was in June, because it was a lengthy and prosperous period.

It was an interregnum, the moderately disastrous period. The very disastrous period came later. The central period was June. It was between March and November. At that period they had done a certain amount of damage, but not as much as later.

If it was June it should have been prosperous after ten years of administration by the Party opposite.

We do not say the farmer was prosperous in June. We were not responsible for last June, but for June twelvemonths, and any person who knew the farmers' position in June twelvemonths, knew he was in a happy position relatively.

So happy that he kicked you out twelve months later.

He did not kick me out, nor if the Minister himself came down, and attacked me in my constituency with his knowledge of agriculture, would he be able to kick me out.

Are you throwing down the gauntlet?

There are some Deputies on this side who know something of the difficulties of agriculture and are not afraid to tell the farmer and the agricultural labourers about these difficulties, and that these difficulties are very real. If we were in the position of the Government opposite we would not be afraid to admit that we were responsible for some of those difficulties. One of the reasons why the Minister for Finance and his brother Ministers find themselves on the Front Bench is that we were the Party that told the whole truth to the people. We were the Party who never denied the result of any legislation on which we embarked, whether it was unpopular or not. We were the Party who refrained from making mountainous promises, knowing in our hearts that they could not be fulfilled. And it is because of the bounteous promises made by the Fianna Fáil Party at the last election, and their unfortunate attempt to fulfil some portion of these promises that the people—the agricultural people, at least, and, incidentally, the commercial people of this State— find themselves in the position in which they are.

The position of the commercial people is perhaps only very little removed from the disastrous position of the agriculturist, because on his welfare depends their welfare, and they know it. I hope that the Minister's declaration, that he has quite sufficient funds at his disposal to tide us over all these difficulties, is correct. I hope that his statement means that he is convinced that he has at his disposal sufficient money to recoup the farmers, because the farmers look to him to recoup them for the losses that the Ministry have caused them. I hope that the Appropriation Bill we are now discussing gives the Minister all that he needs to tide the people over the difficulties I have mentioned. I warn the Minister that the people expect that the Ministry will do that. They expect, and they demand, immediate and ample relief for the agricultural community. I will admit that it appears to me impossible that the Minister could give such relief. But, to a Ministry to whom nothing was impossible at an election period, it should not be impossible. To me, a back bencher of the ex-Government Party, and to some of my colleagues, it appears almost impossible that the Ministry can provide adequate relief for the farmers. The farmers, unfortunately, expect the Minister to face up to the impossible circumstances in which he has placed them, and in the end they must get that relief or the Minister and his colleagues must fall. I believe that the temper of the average farmer is nearly at breaking point.

He will not stand much more of you.

He will not stand much more of it, as Deputy Corry says, if I interpret Deputy Corry's language rightly.

Not from you.

The Deputy has put it in a nutshell. I am only sorry that with Deputy Corry's knowledge of agriculture, on which he speaks such a lot, the Ministry passed him over when making an appointment within the last few days.

Wait for your turn.

You have a sense of humour.

I must have a sense of humour when I suggested any such possibility. I am afraid, however, that my capabilities for expressing humour at the present time are tempered by the tragic circumstances of agriculture at the moment. Possibly there are not many Deputies on the opposite benches who have to exist solely on the output of agriculture, as some of us here have. I do not know how many of them have. At any rate, to those of us whose sole means of existence is agriculture, and the disposing of agricultural produce, this is no laughing matter. This is a serious matter not alone for us but for the people who sent us here; and the farmers, big and small, whom the Ministry have driven into a position that farmers themselves could not have envisaged even six months ago; a position that farmers never even dreamt of; a position that I, as a middle-aged man with a knowledge of farming extending over forty years, have never seen anything like before. I remember when farming was at its worst state in the late eighties. At that period and since, there have been ups and downs in the world markets, just as there are now, but even at the worst of times the position of agriculture or of the agricultural workers was never as bad as it is in this November of 1932. I will admit that possibly there were some circumstances over which the Ministry had no control; circumstances of universal depression. Those circumstances, however, have existed for the last three years. They have, perhaps, been progressing and extending. The full force of them had not, perhaps, reached us; but a great amount of depression did reach this State a year or two ago. If the State survived, and did not feel the consequences of the depression of that period, it was because there was a sane Government in charge of the affairs of the State. We are not going to deny to the Ministry the existence of world-wide depression. We do say, however, that the Government Party were not as generous to us in the last few years, because they did deny it. Everybody knew there was a period of depression encircling the globe during the last three years. The Party who are now the Government denied the existence of that depression. They said it was not there; that it was not one of the things which created difficulties for the Government. They were not, however, ten days in office when, miraculously, depression suddenly descended on the State. It looks as if the Ministry were unfortunate, or to put it in another way, that we were fortunate: that the depression centred on this little State just as the Ministry came into office. They know as well as we do that there was depression in this country for two years past. The people know now, even if they were carried away by the almost inconceivable promises of the Ministry, that depression did exist then; that it was only by the wise legislation, the wise and careful use of the country's money that the position was tided over until March, 1932; that our financial position was preserved in such a way that we were able to carry on, meet our liabilities and look the world in the face; that we were not in the ignominious position in which the unfortunate farmers are at present. The farmers have no hope of redress unless and until, like the workers in some parts of this State, they summon up their courage, march on Dublin and on Government Buildings, and demand what they have a right to expect, relief from the consequences of the position to which the Ministry, almost distracted by their enthusiasm for an impossible transaction, had brought them.

Tell us about the thirteen farmers.

The Deputy might have said "impossible farmers."

I hope I have not encroached on the debate that is to come next week. I did not mean to. But it was impossible to talk about the things I mainly want to talk about— the sudden stoppage of the farmers' market—without in some manner adverting to other events.

What about the resolution your thirteen farmers sent to Thomas?

These interruptions must cease.

I wish the Minister would conscript Deputy Corry and utilise his unpaid services solely for the farmers' purposes. The Minister, or the Minister for Agriculture, was, to my mind, rather ill advised in deciding not to select him as his righthand man. Perhaps it was Deputy Corry's sudden conversion a month or two ago, to the views of the commercial section of the community, his sudden temporary desertion of the agricultural brief that left him in the position he is in at the moment. Perhaps that is one of the causes why Deputy Corry does not assume a higher position in the ranks of the Fianna Fáil Party.

The Deputy is now inviting interruptions instead of avoiding them.

The Deputy looked for a retort and he is going to get it from me, when he interrupts, until the Chair intervenes. At any rate, I, on behalf of the people who elected me, and they were mainly farmers, demand from the Government some redress for the position into which, as I said, we are forced against our will, chiefly by the action of the Minister.

I would like, in the course of this debate, to deal with some questions that have been raised here which affect all the people of this country— the dispute with England, the legal and other merits of our claim to retain the land annuities and to retain the R.I.C. pensions—but I feel that I would be acting unfairly to other Deputies in this House if, having regard to the comparatively short time that is now available, I did not confine myself to matters appertaining directly to my own Department, and, for that reason, I will be much briefer than I had intended to be when, about five o'clock this afternoon, I decided to take part in this debate.

Deputy Fionán Lynch is the last speaker, so far as I am aware, to deal with this new grievance of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party—the manner in which the prerogative of mercy is exercised and the manner in which the statutory power to remit fines is given effect to. Deputy Lynch was concerned, in the main, with fines in fishery cases, but his contribution to this debate has a value which extends far beyond fishery cases. It is a remarkable contribution, because I think it reveals the mentality and outlook of the Party opposite, whether they are seated on the Front Bench or on the back bench, or, I should say, whether he is seated on the Front Bench or the back bench, because the Party consists of two at the present moment. In regard to the exercise of this prerogative, Deputy Lynch said that for a short time after he became Minister for Lands and Fisheries, the Minister for Justice, and the Minister for Justice alone, dealt with the remission of fines in fishery prosecutions. He said, and I quote his words:

I found the Department of Justice particularly ill-informed. After an acrimonious discussion, Mr. O'Higgins agreed that he would not reduce fines without

The Deputy said, I think, "ultimatum," but he meant "imprimatur";

of the Minister for Lands and Fisheries,

I can hardly imagine acrimony on the part of Deputy Lynch. In another legislature, the angry sheep was once spoken of, and, while I would not make such a comparison in the case of Deputy Lynch, I certainly would not accuse him of acrimony. The acrimony must have been on one side in the course of this discussion, and, really, if Mr. O'Higgins then foresaw what Deputy Fionán Lynch says afterwards happened, one can readily forgive Mr. O'Higgins a certain acrimony. What does Deputy Lynch say?

Mr. O'Higgins conceded the claim of the Minister for Lands and Fisheries to deal with the petitions in the fishery cases save in so far as the Minister for Justice, in fact, registered his decision,

and I may say that under the present administration anything that I do in regard to the fines in fishery cases is pursuant to a report of the Minister for Lands and Fisheries. Deputy Lynch, having asserted that right, what do we find him doing? Deputy Lynch says here to-day:

I made up my mind that for some years a lesson should be taught to the poachers and my invariable decision was that the law should take its course.

I would like the House to consider what this power is, whether it be the power of reducing or remitting a sentence of imprisonment or reducing or remitting a fine. It is something in the nature of a judicial power. It is not strictly judicial, in the ordinary interpretation of the expression, because it is the duty of the person exercising that power to acquaint himself with the facts from any source that is within his reach and by any reasonable means within his command. He must receive them, perhaps, from persons who have had them only at second hand. He must get the facts, but, subject to that, it is a judicial power. It is a power that is vested in some particular individual in order that he may exercise it in every particular case brought before me and such is my conception of the responsibility that attaches to the exercise of that power and to the weight of the duty cast upon me, that every single case, be it great or be it small, is considered individually, on all its own facts and all its own circumstances, and, then, acting on the evidence and on the knowledge that I have, I proceed to exercise the power. Contrast that with the exercise of the powers newly found, newly taken away from the late Mr. Kevin O'Higgins after what Deputy Fionán Lynch describes as an acrimonious discussion. Deputy Fionán Lynch does not feel that there is anything terrible in confessing to this House that after getting that power, after finding that the petitions were coming in, he there and then, to use his own words, made up his mind on a certain matter—"I made up my mind that for some years a lesson should be taught to the poachers"——

Hear, hear!

"My invariable decision was that the law should take its course." Another Deputy has confirmed the inference I drew, that Deputy Fionán Lynch has really voiced the individual and collective wisdom of the Opposition Benches because the Deputy applauds that manner of exercising such a sacred trust as the prerogative of mercy or the power to remit fines—that before you receive the petitions you solemnly lay down for yourself an invariable, and inflexible rule of conduct. That may commend itself to Deputy O'Connor, I am sure in all good faith he thinks it is a very admirable thing to do, to lay down beforehand what your rule is to be in regard to offences not yet committed, in regard to petitions not yet drawn up or signed, in regard to a whole crop of cases extending over years. Instead of taking each case separately on its merits, you are to make for yourself that easy road. If any one's intellect or conscience would allow him to make that rule for himself, he would ease greatly the burden of the discharge of this unpleasant duty.

I am sure that the Minister from whom Deputy Lynch got this power after an acrimonious discussion—the late Mr. O'Higgins—did not take that view of his obligations. I am quite sure that every case that came before him was considered without any preconceived idea, without any prejudice; that it was not judged by some inflexible, unbendable rule that the Minister had laid down for himself beforehand, but that there was an effort, a striving, to do justice in each case. Deputy Fionán Lynch is so oppressed with the excellence of that system and I am sure Deputy O'Connor is quite pleased with it——

——Deputy Fionán Lynch is so delighted that, nothwithstanding the answers he got to his questions to-day in regard to the fines on Mr. Michael Cullinane, Main Street, Brosna, Co. Kerry, he returns in the course of his speech to condemn the manner in which clemency was exercised in Michael Cullinane's case. Will anything convince him? He knows that the local police inquired into the Cullinane's case; that they satisfied themselves and every reasonable person who has taken the slightest interest in the matter that the water bailiff was in error; that Michael Cullinane was never next or near the place but, on the contrary, was miles away from it and had as much to do with the offence in respect of which this fine was imposed as Deputy Lynch himself or Deputy Batt O'Connor. Notwithstanding that, Deputy Lynch condemns the exercise of any clemency in that case, such as the return of the fine, and Deputy Batt O'Connor, who knows nothing at all about the case——

I would like to tell the Minister that I am a native of the very village that Cullinane was charged from. Now, do I not know something about the case?

Mr. Lynch

On a point of explanation. I can assure the Minister that I have no personal knowledge of the case at all. I merely asked a question as to why certain fines were returned, and on what authority they were returned. There was no appeal. There is always a chance of an appeal in a District Court case. The man was fined by a competent District Justice. Whether that was right or not we do not know. I am not disputing the fact that afterwards something apparently transpired in this case. Why was there not an appeal, or, if the time for an appeal had passed, why was there not information given to the Board of Conservators when they were instructed to repay the fine and costs? They were told baldly to return the £4 to Michael Cullinane, Senior, whom I do not know. I know Brosna, because it is part of my constituency, but I do not know the man. I do not know whether he is a supporter of the Minister or of mine. The Limerick Board of Conservators were baldly told to return him the money.

Deputy Lynch was informed this afternoon at 3.15 p.m. of the facts. He may or may not deny that he had been previously informed of the facts; that he had been told what the police found. If the Deputy says that before 3.15 this afternoon he did not know what I told him in answer to his question, then I will make him a present of that. At all events, he had that information then, and at 7.15 he comes in here fresh as a daisy and he repeats the whole story. Perhaps in the meantime he has seen Deputy Batt O'Connor, who is a native of Brosna, in the County of Kerry, and who, I suppose, is ready to raise his right hand and say that the Chief Superintendent and the police are wrong and that Cullinane did it.

Deputy Lynch did not approach me. We never spoke about the case. Caught again.

The House has now in broad and vivid contrast the two methods of approaching the exercise of the prerogative of mercy. The House can choose, the public who read the official reports of this House can choose as to whether the O'Higgins and the Geoghegan method of taking each case by itself and looking into the facts of each case is preferable to the Lynch and Batt O'Connor method of beforehand making up a rule and saying that for years that rule will not be interfered with.

That brings me to the specific charges that have been made against me here this evening by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney. The Deputy referred to the Kilrush case and he said that he rejects the findings of the tribunal altogether. Of course he said that last week and I am afraid he did not impress anyone very much. Last week, he seemed, by a studied vagueness and haziness of language to convey the impression that I had resorted to something novel and unheard of in having the Kilrush Inquiry at all. To-day he says: "Oh, there were several others of these inquiries." In the whole period during which Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney was Minister for Justice there was never one single inquiry held by a tribunal appointed by him in the way Mr. O'Higgins appointed the tribunal in 1926 or, in the way I appointed it in 1932. Not one. If there had been possibly the police of this country would not have fallen into the disfavour and the unpopularity into which they fell from 1927 onwards. We know they were not in that position when Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney was nominated Minister for Justice.

Since I had the honour to fill that office I have endeavoured to retrieve them from that position, and I venture to think that my endeavours have not been in vain; that the confidence and the respect of the general public in the Gárda Síochána has been growing, and rapidly growing, since March last, and that that growth has been greatly accelerated since the report of the Kilrush Inquiry and the action taken pursuant to that Inquiry. While I am Minister for Justice I will not allow the whole police force of this country to be judged by the standard of the blackest sheep in the flock; I will not allow them all to be tarred with the same brush. When occasion arises —and I believe, from such knowledge as I have acquired of the Gárda Síochána, it will rarely occur—for an inquiry similar to the Kilrush Inquiry, it will be held, as the Kilrush Inquiry was held, on oath. It will be held, as the Kilrush Inquiry was held, by men of unblemished reputation; men whom members opposite may be willing to wound but whom they dare not strike. Such inquiries will be held in the interests of the public at large and in the peculiar interests of the police force themselves, because, nothing is more calculated to inspire confidence in the police force, and nothing is more calculated to marshal and to mobilise public opinion behind the enforcement of the law, and the vindication of justice, than the feeling that those who are responsible for the police force of the country will see that that police force—as indeed it generally is—is discharging its duty in a perfectly honourable, straightforward, and scrupulous fashion.

Nothing that Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney has said about this Inquiry, or about the members of it, will have an intimidatory effect upon me, or the Government to which I belong. We will support the police in the proper exercise of their functions—as we have supported and encouraged them—but we will be also keenly alive to the equally high and solemn duties we owe to the public at large, that the servants whom we employ on their behalf—because they are the servants of the public— will not be either violent towards that public in whose service they are, or even impertinent to that public. We will ensure that for the people of this country. As I said, there has been a contrast in the way the prerogative of mercy is exercised on both sides. We hope also that the contrast will be no less striking, no less colourful, in the manner in which we enforce proper discipline in the police, to the manner in which it was enforced for a few years preceding the change of Government.

Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney talked about some fancied invasion of ordinary constitutional rights in regard to this Inquiry at Kilrush, its institution and its conduct, and with the glee that, I am sure, he has often exhibited at Claremorris Quarter Sessions, he said that the Minister for Justice announced last week that the charges against Ryan, Gilmore and Lowe could have been brought to Ennis Circuit Court whereas they were only triable at the Central Criminal Court. Of course, Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, if he lives to be 120 will never learn his facts. He will never appreciate the importance of learning his facts before he ventures to fulminate. That was his weakness as a Minister; that is his weakness now in Opposition. If he had been aware of the facts he would have known that before either the Attorney-General or I had an opportunity of expressing anything in the nature of an opinion upon the matter of the Kilrush occurrences the responsible police officer— not a local police officer—but an officer for the time being in charge of the entire police force in the country had stated on the 17th August, 1932:

As you are no doubt aware the prisoners are charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, and unlawful assault and obstruction. Having regard to all the circumstances of the case I beg to recommend that the charges of attempted murder and conspiracy be dropped, and that they be charged only with assault and obstruction. If this course were agreed upon ....

The charges of attempted murder and conspiracy to murder had been fully gone into by the police on or prior to the 17th August and there is the recommendation. The charges of assault and obstruction of duty could, of course, have been brought at Ennis Circuit Court. It is nonsensical to suggest that they could not have been tried there, but should have been transferred to the Central Criminal Court. Ennis is the obvious, natural and statutory place for the trial of these charges if they were to be proceeded with at all. To use the words of Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney: "He hopes the Minister for Justice will do what he was hesitating about; that is to make the evidence in the Kilrush Inquiry available so that the public may have it."

The only hesitation I evinced last week was in asking the House, and in particular Deputy Cosgrave, to consider whether the expense of printing and publishing the very voluminous evidence given at a hearing lasting four long days was justified in the public interest. I said that if, on consideration, Deputy Cosgrave advisedly asked me to publish that evidence, I should certainly go to the Executive Council and have the matter considered. Deputy Cosgrave did not then repeat his request and has not since repeated it. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney has now put it forward and I shall do this without waiting to consult the Executive Council— I shall have a typewritten copy of the stenographer's typescript of the evidence made, and I shall place it in the Library of Leinster House so that it will be available to every Deputy. That will provide reasonably wide publicity. When Deputies and members of the other House have read the evidence in the Library, it will be for them to say if it merits a still wider publicity and if the State ought to incur the expense of printing and publishing it. It will be for them to say that, but in the course of a week or so—as soon as such a very big job can be undertaken and carried through—I shall have a complete copy of the verbatim report made by the sworn stenographer at Kilrush placed on the Library table at Leinster House.

Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney glides away from Kilrush to a case on which he is able to voice even more frothy indignation. He goes straight away to the Dullea case. He says: "Look at this Minister for Justice; even when a person is charged with rape, he exercises the prerogative of mercy." I am sure that it occurred to Deputies, when they listened to Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, that the more heinous and terrible the charge is the greater is the measure of duty cast upon me to look into it. If the charge be trifling—something that does not entail a long period of penal servitude or imprisonment or other serious consequences— I may reasonably treat it in a more prefunctory manner, but when it is a charge as grave as that made in this particular case, I must, of course, look into it with care. That I would have done in this Dullea case where the charge was rape and the sentence penal servitude, even if I had nothing more before me than the petition which the Governor-General transmitted to me. But I had something more. I had a letter bearing date, 14th May, 1932, from a Deputy on the opposite benches —quite properly written by that Deputy for one of his constituents—in which he said:

I have had some inquiries made in this case and some solicitors who were present in court told me that from the evidence given it was clear that consent——

He puts "consent" in inverted commas.

should have been presumed in the case. The petition speaks for itself, and I may have a chance of seeing you in the lobby next week about it.

When I have not merely a petition, but when I have my attention drawn to a salient point in the case by a Deputy in this House, I naturally give the Dullea case all the attention I can possibly give it.

I think the Minister will agree that all that letter states— I have only heard its contents just now—is that certain solicitors have said that consent was present. The Minister seems to me to be suggesting to the House that the Deputy stated, as his own conviction, that that was the case. The text which the Minister has read shows, I think, that the Deputy is informing the Minister of what certain solicitors who were in the court stated. That seems to me to be a thing which the Deputy might tell the Minister, but it has no bearing whatever on the case. It does not make the case so or not so.

The Deputy must have been having an after-dinner nap. He only half-heard what I stated or he could not possibly have drawn that conclusion. He certainly would not have the nerve to impute such an inference to a member of the House who was awake and listening to me. What I stated was perfectly clear—that having got a statement of that sort from a Deputy, drawing my attention to the fact that solicitors who were present in the court when this case was tried had formed the opinion, from listening to the evidence, that consent must be presumed—that having that before me, I must go into the facts with the greatest care. And I did. I found that the Deputy who wrote that letter was merely discharging his duty in writing it and that the solicitors who were present in that court and listened to that trial were merely voicing a sense of justice and doing their duty as citizens when they conveyed to the Deputy what their opinion was, because that opinion coincides absolutely with my opinion. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney says that afterwards, when a civil action was brought, the same point could be made in that action. I wish Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney was here now to listen to a statement of what the position is. Quite a different degree of proof is necessary in a criminal charge involving penal servitude from what is necessary in an action for damages. You must have, in a criminal action, the case proved home beyond all doubt and, in a sexual case of this sort, while you can get damages in a civil action merely on oath against oath, you need something more in a criminal case.

It was, I understand, agreed to get through all the stages of this Bill to-night, as it must be law by the end of the month and it should be in the Seanad for twenty-one days.

I am not aware of such an agreement.

There was an agreement.

The Minister affirms that there is an agreement?

When was that agreement made? I have no knowledge of such an agreement.

I may have been misunderstood. I do not think Deputy Coburn was here on Friday when the Estimates were disposed of. An agreement was formally arrived at between the Whips, that the Estimates would be disposed of on Friday and the Appropriation Bill on Wednesday.

I am quite aware that there was an arrangement that the Estimates would be allowed to go through without very much discussion. I am not aware that there was an agreement that the Appropriation Bill would be allowed to go through to-night to a schedule time.

Did the Minister reaffirm that that agreement was arrived at?

Yes—on Friday.

I should like to say a few words on this Bill.

It must be through all stages before 9 o'clock. Private Members' Business is to be taken at 9 o'clock.

In connection with the Dullea case, is the Minister prepared to place more confidence in the opinion of solicitors listening to a case than in the opinion and the verdict of the judge and jury?

It is my own opinion; it is not the opinion of the listeners.

The Minister was very dignified just now and took half an hour to say what any plain man would say in five minutes. He was going round corners all the time. As representing a section of the people who are seeing through all this game and as one who is trying to confine the issues between certain Ministers on the Front Bench and certain exMinisters on the Cumann na nGaedheal Bench—and there are large numbers of people in this country who want to end it all—I am proclaiming my right in this House to object to this Bill being gone through without my having an opportunity of expressing my opinion in regard to the amount of money that is going to be expended when the Bill is passed. I want to know from the Government now whether it is their opinion——

If the discussion is to be carried on, I think the Minister for Justice is in possession.

The Minister for Justice was interrupted by me to call his attention to the fact that it was 9 o'clock. If the House decides that the discussion is to go on the Minister for Justice resumes.

I want the discussion to go on.

I do not know that any section of the House so desires.

The Deputy will sit down.

If there is intimidation outside I for one want no intimidation here. If intimidation is going on outside there will be none here.

The great man who was going to do away with capital is not to keep me in order.

This debate has been going on since 3.30 to-day and the Deputy had an opportunity of rising to speak during the six hours' discussion.

I have risen to speak now in my own time.

It was decided at 3.30 p.m. to-day that Private Deputies' Business would be taken up at 9 o'clock.

I am glad that the discussion has ended and——

The Deputy seems to want to resume it.

I just want to remark that I rose six times to-day during this debate and I did not get an opportunity of speaking.

The Question is: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I object. You have decided already that the Minister for Justice is to continue.

I ask for the opinion of the House as to whether the debate is to conclude now.

I think I am entitled to speak.

No. If the debate is to be resumed the Minister for Justice is in possession.

It was agreed to-day by all Parties in the House that Private Deputies' Business was to be taken up at 9 o'clock.

All Parties—you represent nobody and neither does your Party. I will resign my seat and fight any one of the seven of you in the morning.

Deputy Coburn is after twisting enough already. The Deputy has represented a good many Parties in his time. I suggest that it is quite unfair to Deputies who attend here every day in the week, as distinct from Deputy Coburn who comes here whenever he likes and then passes out, that their time should now be wasted listening to the turbulent eloquence of Deputy Coburn.

I have attended here every day since the Dáil met and I resent that remark of Deputy Norton.

Are we to have Private Deputies' time at 9 o'clock?

That is a decision of the House. I want to know whether the House now desires to carry out that decision.

Would I be in order in moving that the Question be now put?

I accept the motion.

I think I am entitled to speak in this House, and no Deputy can prevent me from speaking, if I like.

The decision of the House is about to be taken. The Deputy must sit down. I shall now put the Question.

I object. I think I am entitled to say a few words now. I think it is most unfair that I should be prevented from speaking. This decision has not been reached——

A Deputy

Chair!

I have as much respect for the Chair as the Deputy has. The Deputy never had much respect for the Chair.

Question:—"That the Question be now put"—put and agreed to. (Deputy Coburn dissenting.)
Question:—"That the Bill be read a Second Time"—put and declared carried.

I move that the Committee Stage be taken now.

Question put and agreed to.
The Dáil went into Committee.
Bill passed through Committee without amendment, and ordered to be reported.
The Dáil went out of Committee.
Bill reported without amendment.

I beg to move that the Bill be received for final consideration.

Before it is received for final consideration I should like to say a few words on this Bill.

On the next Stage, if at all.

Question put and agreed to.
Question proposed: That the Bill do now pass.

I move that the Question be now put.

I accept that motion.

Question:—"That the Question be now put"—put and declared carried.

I now see that I will not be allowed to speak. There are great defenders of liberty on the Front Bench there. They do not want to hear the truth.

Question:—"That the Bill do now pass"—put and agreed to.
Bill certified as a Money Bill within the meaning of Article 35 of the Constitution.
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