Policy of Executive Council.—Motion of Censure.

Mr. Cosgrave

I move:—

That the Dáil censures the Executive Council for its continued failure satisfactorily to adjust the differences between it and the British Government and condemns it for pursuing a policy which has caused grievous injury to the agricultural industry, serious damage to the export trade of the country, heavy losses to the community and gravely increased unemployment.

As Deputies will have realised from a perusal of its terms, the motion which I have the honour to move asks the House to censure the Government for its failure to secure a satisfactory solution of its disputes and differences with the British Government and for its pursuit of and persistence in a policy which has brought material loss and spiritual degradation to this country.

A vote of censure on the Government is a normal incident of Parliamentary procedure; the moving of such a vote is part of the routine duty of a Parliamentary opposition. This motion of censure is, however, in no sense a formal one. It is brought forward in this solemn hour of the State's misfortune in deepest earnestness and with full conviction that if the country is to be saved from appalling suffering and perhaps irreparable loss the people must be rid of the present Government. No Government ever had such opportunities for advancing the interests of their country as had the present Government. No Government were so neglectful of their opportunities or wrought such havoc in such a short period of time as the present Government.

At the last General Election the Party from which the Government is formed appealed to the people for a chance. With a bare majority they were enabled to form a Government and were given the chance for which they craved. Their supporters, with the election cries of peace, prosperity, work for all and the end of starvation still ringing in their ears, believed they saw their dreams realised and the promised land, flowing with milk and honey, spread before their delighted eyes. The people and the representatives of the people who were in opposition to the newly-formed Government saw it enter on its career with feelings of apprehension, but with no feelings of ill-will. The Eucharistic Congress was at hand. The Ottawa Conference was shortly to be held. True, the deep depression which for some time had settled on other parts of the world, but which had hitherto left us practically untouched, was moving towards us. But had not the new Government their plan? Was there not a wizard at its head by whose wiles all dangers would be dissipated and all ills be cured?

Swiftly came disappointment, disillusionment and, unfortunately, disgrace. The plan was mislaid, miscarried or never existed. The magic arts were but the conjurer's bag of tricks, and the idol had feet of clay. The wonderful manifestation of a people's faith occasioned by the Eucharistic Congress and the diginity and solemnity of the social functions attendant on it were marred by the indiscretions of the Executive Council. By their neglect of the ordinary canons of international decency and their obstinate insistence on unilateral interference with the Treaty, they involved themselves in vital disagreement with the British Government and, by breaking the pledged words of Griffith and Collins and of the Irish people, brought discredit on the honour and reputation of this State, subjected their representatives at Ottawa to public humiliation, and made it impossible for advantage to be taken of the unique and timely opportunity afforded by the Commonwealth Economic Conference.

By their action in repudiating agreements honourably entered into by representatives of this country and of Great Britain and honourably acted on by both countries and by the Parliaments of both countries, they precipitated a dispute with Great Britain fraught with disastrous consequences to all sections of the people. By their blundering incompetence in the handling of that dispute they not alone involved this country in a terrible economic war of attrition with a rich and powerful nation but they have, by their actions, precluded themselves from seeking or making an honourable settlement. Through neglect, incapacity, lack of statesmanship, want of foresight, the Executive Council allowed themselves and permitted the country to slip into a wholly unnecessary and wretched struggle which, in order still further to mislead the country, they tried to dignify with the name of a "war," while they were without a plan, without an intelligence staff, and without an adequate supply of war material.

Since the inception of this war their handling of both the internal and external affairs of this country has been so reckless and irresponsible that the country is now facing political and economic disaster. By their proceedings and procedure they have put us into bad relations with our neighbournation, destroyed the principal industry of the State, ruined the valuable and only market for our agricultural produce, prevented us from securing beneficial preferences and trade agreements with Great Britain, made this State, whose credit and reputation had heretofore been so high, the laughingstock of the nations, swelled the ranks of the unemployed, impoverished if they did not entirely ruin the farmers, and brought anxiety, suffering and loss to every section of the community. The tale is a sorrowful and sordid one. That this country, until recently the envy of larger and longer established States, could in the space of a few short months be brought to such a disastrous and deplorable condition is almost incredible. That it has been brought to such a condition, even the Government themselves cannot fail to realise. Such is the state of the country and its people now, such is the menacing prospect now before it, it is the duty of every Deputy, unless he is utterly callous to the sufferings of the people, to insist that this tragic state of affairs will be ended and the country spared from irreparable damage and disaster.

An examination of the procedure and methods adopted by the Government in reference to the relations between this country and Great Britain discloses on the part of the Executive Council inefficiency, lack of preparation, want of any clear or wellthought-out plan, neglect of the accepted principles of international courtesy, and utter disregard for the real interests of this State. In the case of disputes or serious differences of opinion between individuals or business firms ordinary courtesy demands and normal practice requires that they should communicate to each other the fact of and the nature of their disputes and differences and endeavour by personal contact or private correspondence to adjust their differences. So, too, in international relations the ordinary decencies of international life demand that disputes or differences of opinion between States shall be communicated and conducted through the medium of a well-settled and wellregulated diplomatic procedure.

But our Government, who pride themselves on and who take such care to advertise their good manners, their adherence to international standards and their respect for Christian principles, have violated them all most flagrantly, and instead of adopting the usual and normal international procedure, started last March in a moment of political exaltation to tell the world of their disputes and differences with the British Government and of how they proposed effectively to twist the lion's tail. Instead of acting as other Governments would have acted, they initiated a new method of diplomacy. Instead of sending, as they ought to have sent, a courteous, even a firm dispatch, to the British Government informing them that they had, if they had, a reasoned legal case for the retention of the land annuities, summarising the considered views of the Executive Council and their recommendations as to the manner in which the questions at issue should be resolved, and indicating a desire for a just and amicable determination of the points in dispute, they broadcast their case and their plans. They did not broadcast their designs to the Irish people, whose representatives they were. They did not broadcast them to the Irish farmers whose industry was to be vitally affected, they did not broadcast them to the British Government who were to be the other party to the dispute. They broadcast them to the United States.

Broadcasting is an expensive modern invention. Somebody paid for the Message broadcast by the President of the Executive Council. But the farmers, labourers and business people are still paying and have not yet paid in full for the folly of that transaction. Apart from the question of a breach of international good manners by that broadcast, they were guilty of an even more serious blunder. The Executive Council gave the British Government three months' notice to prepare for the conflict which was so obligingly foreshadowed by them. The British Government took notice of the information and employed the three months in making their preparations. The members of the Executive Council employed this time in denouncing the Irish Opposition, piling on taxation, increasing the number of the unemployed, stifling industry under the pretence of saving it, watching with indifference an increase in the number of persons in receipt of home assistance, and counting the Land Commission annuity moneys which they would have available for spending when the British would come to their senses and apologise for having taken them for the last ten years.

The British, although they received no official intimation of the Government's intentions of retaining the land annuities, were obliged to take notice of the publicly announced intentions of the Irish Government, and the matter then passed into the stage of inter-governmental despatches. But the Government were not apparently yet accustomed to the practices of international intercourse and though they had placed the land annuities which they had collected to a Suspense Account they did not inform the other party to the dispute of that fact, but ungraciously allowed them to discover it through the extraordinary channel of a communication by a private Deputy of this House to a private Member of the British House of Commons. The Irish people heard of this Suspense Account through an announcement made in the British House of Commons and have since been vouchsafed no further information in reference to it by the Irish Government.

The subsequent stages of the matter are still fresh in people's minds and no detailed recapitulation of them is necessary. Discussions took place between British and Irish Ministers and though we were told that these discussions failed by reason of an inability to agree on the personnel of an Arbitration Board which would determine the legal question of the destination of the annuities, the people were left in a state of bewilderment as to what really was the point at issue between the Governments. They did not know, and from the confused utterances of Fianna Fáil spokesmen they were unable to ascertain, whether the Government were standing on their supposed legal claim and were insisting on retaining the annuities until the British proved their legal claim to them, or whether the discussions were in the nature of negotiations for a friendly settlement irrespective of strict legal technicalities. In any event the Irish people found themselves plunged into an "economic war" for the ostensible reason that, though both parties to the dispute agreed in principle to arbitration, and to be bound by the results of arbitration, a form of arbitral tribunal, or rather the personnel of such a tribunal, could not be agreed upon. As commonsense people in this country were unable to see in such a failure any justification for the Government's action in allowing such a dreadful calamity to overtake this country some steps had to be taken to avert the country's anger. False analogies were made to the Feetham Commission, in an endeavour to mislead the people into believing that the British Government were putting forward a claim to nominate the chairman and, indeed, to pack the tribunal. We refused, and still refuse, to believe that that problem was insoluble. We were convinced, and now are still more firmly convinced, that a way out could have been, and ought to have been, found, and that the insistence of the Government on their claims in this respect was wholly unjustified, and certainly was not a matter of such weighty principle as necessitated the Irish farmer and the Irish people in general paying such a heavy price as they have paid and are still paying because of it.

The endeavour to distort the facts as to the real cause of the economic war having failed, an endeavour was made by Fianna Fáil to work up in the country a jingo feeling, a spurious war spirit. We refused, and the country, approving our refusal, also refused to have any act or part in any political trick, designed to convert a sordid and unedifying dispute between two Governments into a war between two peoples. This country should not have been plunged into an economic war. It should never have been involved in an economic war with Great Britain, nor with any country whose trade with us was of such magnitude that interference with it would cause havoc to our commerce and our main industries, dislocate our trade and bring about widespread unemployment. If, however, wiser counsel was of no avail, and the Government were determined to persist in their attitude and so cause the war, they ought not to have allowed that war to start in the month of July, or in any month prior to the period of the annual dispersal and disposal of our cattle. We have ministerial authority for assuming that the Executive never, during the months from March to July, seriously considered the possibility of such a war coming upon them. Indeed, had not Fianna Fáil, prior to the General Election, assured the farmers that their policy of retention of the annuities would not involve them in any serious dislocation of their business, and that Great Britain could not afford to do without the Irish cattle trade? But the Dáil is entitled to know whether the Executive Council ever considered that they should have so arranged their plans as to insure against the possibility of such a war being started and carried on during such a critical period. Even a casual consideration would have enabled them to see that dislocation of our cattle trade in the late winter months would have had a less serious effect on our economy than such dislocation would have during the months of Summer and Autumn.

If the Government were determined to precipitate this war they should have, and could have, so handled the situation as to secure that the war could not have started during the vital months of Summer and Autumn. Those months could have been employed in a serious endeavour to find a solution, and, if the Executive Council were determined on war, in perfecting the country's preparations. The annuities could even have been paid without prejudice and under protest. We have lost much since the 15th July and we are further away than ever, not merely from victory but from even the hope of a satisfactory settlement.

Finding themselves unexpectedly faced with the accomplished fact of an economic war, how did they seek to cope with the situation? How did they seek to preserve the Irish people's interests? They used the only methods known to Fianna Fáil—retaliation, extravagant expenditure of money, misleading or false propaganda, and frantic denunciation of their critics. They rushed through this House a measure conferring on the Executive such extraordinary powers of taxation as were never before conferred on a Government. They demanded those powers as an indispensable weapon with which to fight the British. They cannot complain that they were denied any powers they sought. The Irish taxpayer, the Irish consumer, the Irish trader, the Irish farmer, the Irish worker, the Irish unemployed, have all long since felt how that weapon has been turned against themselves. The British Government, in order to recoup the moneys they were obliged to find at the expense of the British tax-payer, by reason of the witholding of the land annuities, imposed taxes on Irish products which, of course, the Irish producer had to pay. The Irish Government retaliated by putting fresh taxation on the Irish producer and consumer. They sought for, and obtained, a vote from this House of a huge sum of money without disclosing how they proposed to raise it. They affected satisfaction with the advent of the economic war which they told the people was a blessing in disguise, enabling them to rid themselves of their appalling dependence on one market and one industry. Then they proceeded to subsidise, by means of bounties, exports to that much despised market. It is not easy to determine whether the cattle bounty was a recognition by the Government of the importance of the hitherto despised cattle trade or whether the giving of the export bounty was merely an underhand method of paying the land annuities. They endeavoured to delude the people by assurances of alternative markets and of the injury which the economic war would do to England. It was only after the British had taken the retaliatory steps, which it was obvious to any sane man they were bound to take, that we had the cynical and belated confession that no alternative markets were available or to be found. Sometimes, they advised the farmer to sell his cattle and sometimes they advised him not to sell. They held out vague hopes of a settlement, always a few weeks ahead. Histrionics, posturing and posing took the place of constructive action, and denunciation of their enemies at home and abroad took the place of charity and goodwill. After months of anxiety, suffering and loss, came the news that the Government had achieved a Conference with the British for the purposes of discussion and negotiation. It seemed as if the Government had, at last, realised that their pride was a matter of only minor importance compared with the interests of the Irish people. For months the Cumann na nGaedheal Party had persistently and consistently advocated a settlement of the outstanding disputes with the British by means of friendly negotiation based on changed conditions, inability to pay, and the publicly announced desire of British Ministers to deal with the Irish claims in no ungenerous spirit. Speaking in Ballinamore on the 8th July last, before the economic war had started, Deputy Blythe recommended negotiations as the proper and only secure method of dealing with the disputes. On the 15th July, Deputy McGilligan, in a speech which Deputies will remember, indicated the way of negotiation as the safest as well as the most honourable way out of the morass. Indeed, every Deputy of our Party urged the Government to adopt that way out, and preached it as the policy of this Party to the people. Because of our advocacy of that policy, we were dubbed knaves and traitors by Government spokesmen and accused of playing England's game. We could afford to ignore these manifestations of incompetence and hysteria, calm in our conviction that all decent people in this country realised that we have always kept faith with the Irish people, that our policy and our actions were always actuated solely in the interests of the Irish people, that we could afford to dispense with vituperation of the British because we had kept faith with them and they had kept faith with us and because we were Irish and were conscious of no inferiority.

On every occasion we urged our policy of abandonment on legal claims and a settlement by friendly discussion and negotiation. We took pains to make known as clearly and forcibly as possible our conviction that no hope lies along the lines of legal argument for the retention of the annuities or for remission of any part of the liability to pay them. We made no secret of our want of confidence in arbitration as a method of settling the disputes. In our view, the soundness of the legal opinions which we had obtained when we were a Government remained entirely unimpaired, and we were convinced that arbitration proceedings could have but one result, a result adverse to the Government's claims. We were not prepared to stake the State's chances on a single throw of the dice. It was with feelings of satisfaction and hope that the country learned of the projected conference for the settlement of the disputes which was to be held in London on the 14th October. Although the people generally regretted that such a step had been so long delayed, the Government delegation went to London backed by the wishes of the overwhelming mass of the people of this country that the negotiations should be pushed to a speedy and successful conclusion. The failure of those negotiations, or discussions, or whatever they were, came with unexpected and startling suddenness. The reason for the failure soon became apparent. The Government's demands from being untenable had become absurd. Their idea of negotiations for a settlement corresponded to those of the litigant who, when approached to settle with his opponent, agreed to do so on the terms of being paid the full amount of his claim, with all his costs and with a written apology from his opponent for having defended the case.

Mr. H. Flinn

That is the British claim.

Mr. Cosgrave

The President endeavoured to hide his ludicrous failure and the folly and futility of his fantastic demands by emotional references to Ireland's just claims and his own marvellous pride which refused to allow him to go cap in hand to the British. There is no room for, and no necessity to invoke, either individual pride or national arrogance in this period of the country's history. As the result of the Government's policy, stark poverty and acute distress would now seem to be the only prospect for the people and for their children and, perhaps, for their children's children unless immediate and effective steps are taken to avert threatened calamity and disaster. The President has put it out of his own power to make an honourable settlement. Worse still, the achievement of a favourable settlement by anybody else is being made daily more and more difficult.

One would have thought that the Government would have been satisfied with having adopted one line of policy which, having an economic war for its consequence, brought havoc to our main industry and dislocated our trade and commerce. Not content with the adoption of one ruinous line of policy, they must needs embark upon a second, involving further immediate and prospective damage to the business and industry of the country. Almost as the first important act of their official career, they announced their determination to take steps in reference to a vital provision in the Treaty which the other party to that instrument regarded as a fundamental breach of the Treaty. Without any proper consultation with that other party, the Government introduced into, and passed through this House a measure designed to remove from the Constitution the clauses providing for the taking by Deputies of the Treaty oath. We have already made our attitude on the proposals embodied in that Bill abundantly clear, and I need only now refer to the consequences which have followed from that provocative proceeding on the part of the Government, so far as the trade and industry of the country are concerned. That action has cost, or is likely to cost, this country far more even than the amount involved in the land annuities dispute. But for it, there could have been gained for this country benefits of incalculable value, not merely to our agricultural industry but to our people as a whole.

The Ottawa Conference has been held and our delegates to that Conference have returned empty-handed. The golden opportunities presented by that Conference have been wasted because of the Government's persistence in their fruitless pursuit of a political will-o'-the-wisp. In the full glare of the limelight that played upon Ottawa, in the presence of the representatives of the other member-nations of the British Commonwealth, and in face of all the world, the British Government refused to enter into any trade agreements with the Irish Government. The Ottawa Conference was unique. It presented the chance, not merely of an individual's lifetime, but of a nation's lifetime. The failure of the Government to secure for the people of this country the benefits which were ready to their hand was not merely deplorable, but was criminal. Let us be just to the delegates. They were given an impossible task. Over the long-distance telephone sounded the crack of the whip and the words of the master calling them to heel. It is permissible to ask the question which many people have asked—why did the personnel of the delegation to the Ottawa Conference not include the Minister for External Affairs? Workers, farmers, manufacturers and industrialists rightly regard economic affairs as of much more vital importance than political concerns. Whether the business experts went to Ottawa and the political experts went to Geneva does not matter now, but we may be permitted the observation that Ottawa was of the first importance and of the gravest moment, even if Geneva were the more spectacular.

The Government professed to realise the importance of the Ottawa Conference. The conditions operating internally and externally must have been perfectly well-known to them. The staff and ward-robe arrangements for the delegation to Ottawa were not only complete but elaborate. We have no information as to the preparations made, but whatever they had in hand, one thing they could not ignore. Abundant supplies of livestock and livestock produce were here—in the possession of our citizens. They had been the equivalent of cash—they represented solvency or insolvency, according as they were sold well in the best market or discounted by reason of Government policy or the failure of the Government to secure their free entry into the one and only international fair capable of cashing the sum total of the supplies of our home fairs and markets.

We have no information as to whether, as I have already said, it was the business experts who went to Ottawa and the political experts who stayed at home, but we are entitled to know what recommendations, if any, were submitted by the Ottawa delegation to the Executive Council, six members of which were available at home. In all those weeks of conference, were there no approaches to the solution of the dispute between the Governments, assuming for the moment that the disputes involved the different interpretation of the Treaty on the oath question and the legal aspect of the question of retention of land annuities and other moneys?

At this moment no country, large or small, in any part of the world, is indifferent to the all-importance of trade, and it is not to be wondered at. It is the only solution of the greatest of all modern problems, the problem of unemployment. It is possible that our delegation never paused during their deliberations to invite the British delegates to consider what had brought all their Ministers to Ottawa "to explore the means by which they may promote the prosperity of peoples." Each of the nations present there had one object in mind—the prosperity of the people they represented. However they might desire the general application to the other States members and to mankind of that laudable formula— the fundamental national objective was its individual application.

The Irish Free State and Great Britain had much more to gain from a settlement and much more to lose from failure than any other of the States represented. The country must refuse to believe that no formula was supplied by either side. Was there a suggestion from the British? Was any such suggestion or proposal considered by and forwarded to the Executive Council, and, if so, what were the observations or decision of the Executive Council? Was there a proposal from the Irish delegation? What were its terms? And what were the observations of the British delegation—or its decision as to the terms so proposed? The country is entitled to demand and receive an answer to these questions.

The Executive Council must strictly account for their actions, which have resulted in the throwing away of an unique and entirely favourable opportunity of countering the effects of world depression in our own agricultural and commercial industry. The Imperial Conference of 1930 was so impressed with the necessity of reorganising the economic forces of the British Commonwealth of Nations that provisional arrangements were made for holding a special economic conference. At the time, we were not so vitally interested. Our exports had been, with some exceptions, less affected by the fall in commodity prices than most other international products. It was, however, obvious that the fall in prices, the reduction in volume of trade, the disturbance occasioned by financial crashes, and the growth of unemployment in practically all countries, could not all take place and leave us our markets and our prices unaffected. No single country has been sufficiently well equipped politically and economically to be able to formulate and carry into effect a policy designed to meet and beat the harmful effect of industrial depression. High and extended tariffs, increase in expenditure by the central authority, with a corresponding heavier taxation, have had the inexorable effect in other countries that we have experienced here—a sharp rise in the number of unemployed and greater insecurity for those still fortunate enough to be in employment.

The different members of the British Commonwealth of Nations had tried their own various devices, political and otherwise, to rehabilitate their internal economy, without the desired results. The Imperial Conference of 1930 marked an appreciation of the size of the problem and of the failure of members of the Commonwealth individually to effect an improvement in trade and commerce in the area of their own jurisdiction and the necessity of coordinated efforts of all the State members to make a combined attempt to improve their economic conditions.

The policy actuating the resultant Conference of 1932 was a bold policy, as it was bound to involve advantages and preferences, concessions and limitations. We had much to gain from its advantages, many benefits from its preferences. The conception of the Conference was an extension of trade, with a corresponding increase in employment. Our trade position was stronger in relation to Great Britain than any other Dominion. Had Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa relatively equivalent imports from Great Britain, the advantages and preferences they would be entitled to claim, and would have been bound to secure in view of the importance of their market to British exporters, would have been such as to cause any concessions or limitations which they could have been pressed to grant to appear trivial in comparison.

So far as our trade with Great Britain was concerned, its maintenance depended exclusively upon the prices we obtained for what we had to sell, the higher the price and the greater the volume, the better and the more extensive our purchase. Consequently we were in a position to have made a much more favourable bargain than was actually made by any other Dominion.

It is difficult to realise that such a chance was deliberately thrown away, and that the material advancement of this country was callously subordinated to the pursuit of political futilities. And yet such is the reality. We are now worse off than we were last February. Not alone are we enduring the effects of a senseless economic war, not alone have we failed to secure the preferences which we were justified in expecting, but we have lost the preferences we had, and practically all our main industrial exports are subjected to an additional import tax of ten per cent. We are economically outcast, and other countries less favourably situated than this country are eagerly seeking to take and are taking advantage of our folly.

What has been the effect of these insane policies and actions on our people? It needs no descriptive effort on my part to bring home to the people their effects on our agricultural industry and on our farmers. Farmers in their own everyday life know and appreciate the significance of the present conflict. Good-will in the British market is an essential, not only to the sale of our agricultural produce but to the normal trading relations which should subsist between neighbouring people. The good-will which we had in the British market was of incontestable value to us. Equally the good-will which the British had here was of incontestable value to them. Let us ensure the maintenance of that good-will, the loss of which would mean permanent injury to our trade.

Whilst this fight is, so to speak, being fought around the hat-band of the farmer, we must remember that involved in it are also the shopkeepers, traders, manufacturers and business people in general and their employees. As a result of the contraction in the volume of our trade, the loss to transport consequent thereon, the fall in price of our exports, less money was in circulation. Then followed a restriction in credit which was inevitably bound to accompany the disastrous policy of the Government. The farmer being deprived of the opportunity of selling his produce is no longer in the position to meet his obligations to the shopkeeper or to pay for goods that he buys. The shopkeeper in his turn therefore, despite all his desires to the contrary, and despite his realisation of community of interest, to put it no higher, that links up his fate with the farmer, despite his anxiety to lend a helping hand to his country neighbour, no longer finds himself in a position to give the necessary credit. The policy of the Government, having brought about the ruin of the farmer, must inevitably lead to a contraction in business in the towns with loss to the shopkeeper, and the certainty of a reduction in the number of those employed in the distributing trade.

And manufacturers are in no better position. They depended on the prosperity of this State and have suffered by reason of the diminished purchasing power of the community, while at the same time bearing charges even heavier than those falling on them in more prosperous times. Factory output depends on sale. Accumulated stocks may be more valuable than bad debts, but their realisable value is what concerns the industrialist.

What of the workers in our towns and cities? Fianna Fáil advertisements before the Election promised explicitly and in great detail that in respect of "a few industries" 84,605 additional workers would be employed. Has that promise been realised even in the smallest measure? So far from placing additional people in employment, has not the policy internal and external of Fianna Fáil increased unemployment and brought insecurity to thousands of men who a few months ago had every reason to believe that their jobs were sound and likely to continue? There is no need to tell this House or the intelligent workers outside that industrial progress must go step by step with the prosperity of our farmers. The blows aimed by this Government at the farming community have decreased purchasing power, and have inevitable reactions on employment in our towns and cities. The huge increase in taxation has also played its part, and relief grants, so far from being a remedy, but aggravate the disease and give us a vicious circle of more money withdrawn from industry, more unemployed, more grants from rates and taxes and even higher imposts upon those who are still fortunate enough to have work and wage.

There is general agreement that tariffs alone are not a solution for the problem of unemployment. If they were, that problem would surely be non-existent in the United States of America and in post-war Europe. Here, a spate of customs duties, ignorantly and recklessly imposed, have not only failed to open up avenues of satisfactory employment, but have actually proved a menace to those who were at work in March last.

On the cattle trade alone, the rail-roads—already hard hit—are losing from £12,000 to £14,000 per week. The self-styled "Railway Party" has added to the insecurity of the employed railwaymen by a tariff on coal and grease. Workers engaged in the transport and distributive trades have been hit—dockers, motor-mechanics, shop assistants and others employed at trade union rates and under reasonable, agreed conditions have found themselves suddenly thrown upon the labour market without any prospect of a job, while we have it on the authority of the Leader of the Labour Party—the Government's greatest ally and most trusted adviser—that "the whole tendency of the new industrial development is towards low wages and bad conditions of labour."

The only remedies suggested are grants or a fundamental change in our whole economic system. Grants, as I have said, are temporary, expensive, and in the long run increase unemployment. For a fundamental change in our economic and social system, even if such were practicable or desirable, neither Fianna Fáil nor Labour has a mandate from the people. The only real hope for our workers— and the phrase is a comprehensive one —is stability of political and economic conditions, the development of our agricultural industry, the maintenance of friendly relations with Great Britain and the intelligent and prudent use of the complete fiscal powers which we enjoy under the Treaty.

So much for the past and the present. The past is gone—whatever advantages it may have left to us—whatever disadvantages we may have to endure. The future is still before us. How is it possible to conserve the nation's wealth—to expand its potentialities— to utilise the resources of the State by profitably employing our people in the development of our main and secondary industries? Agriculture must be our major concern. On its prosperity depends the success of our secondary industries, the creation and expansion of which need not and ought not proceed to the prejudice of agriculture. The preservation of that industry is as important as the political preservation of the State. Government policy is directed towards conserving for the home market some ten million pounds worth of foods and feeding stuffs. Let us ignore for the moment criticisms of that policy—taking into consideration only the purpose it is intended to serve. The underlying theory appears to be that by this means we would enter into possession of a ten million order for agricultural produce, thereby adding to the farmer's receipts, increasing the number of persons employed and strengthening our cash position and contributing to our economic independence. We had, up to a short time ago, an external trade of three times the value of these imports. We are not so wealthy as to be indifferent to £10,000,000 of trade. If that be admitted—how do we regard trade to the value of £30,000,000? It is three times as important. The most advanced theorist on the Government Front Bench will not deny that it is possible to formulate fiscal proposals theoretically to save the £10,000,000, and at the same time to adopt a sound policy which will secure external protection for our agricultural exports. What are the objections or obstacles towards entering into arrangements for securing those preferences and advantages for our agriculturists? One outstanding object appears to be that the Executive Council of this State has an objection to the British as such; that they believe the sole object of British policy is to injure Ireland, and that they are convinced that any arrangements made between the two countries would be to the advantage of Great Britain and to the detriment of this State. What is the objection or obstacle on the part of the British Government? British Ministers have stated that they are not disposed to make agreements with a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations which breaks agreements already made.

This Dáil must consider the implications of that pronouncement. I find it difficult to discover a basis for external relations which does not involve adherence to and acceptance of treaties or agreements made. The interpretation of a bilateral agreement or treaty is a matter for both the parties and not for one alone. It by no means follows from this principle that treaties or agreements are for all time. There is only one satisfactory way in which they may be altered, amended or rectified, and that is by conference, consultation and agreement. The existing disputes and differences between the Irish and British Governments are all of them capable of adjustment and ought to be adjusted and settled by that method without further delay. When they have been resolved we will be in a position to obtain the advantages accorded the other State-members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and in addition to gain such further advantages as our very special circumstances require. The flow of trade between Great Britain and the Irish Free State is greater than that of the other Dominions. Its maintenance depends upon the sale of our exports at a price which will enable us to continue our production. Present prices would not enable us to continue our trade with Great Britain any more than present taxes and rates would enable us to continue employment and trade here. A complete resolving of all the matters in dispute should take place. We can then devote ourselves amicably to those problems which, however severe in these difficult times, cannot be solved while we have an economic war and uncertainty on our external front.

I have indicated only some aspects of the sufferings and material loss which have been caused to the people of this State by the mistaken policies of the Government. The picture is incomplete. Great as are the material losses, the spiritual losses are far more terrible. In conditions as they now exist, discontent and unrest have developed with alarming rapidity; political passions have been aroused to a degree hitherto unknown even in this country; implacable hatreds between fellow-countrymen are a commonplace; the vices of avarice, greed and envy are widespread; the loosening of morals which invariably accompanies all periods of strife is apparent; class hatred is being stirred up; the very fundamental principles of Christian Charity are in danger of being forgotten; and religion itself is being menaced by the stealthy but steady progress of the forces of social and moral disintegration. Is it not time to end all that? Is it not time to forget the past and to keep our eyes firmly on a brighter future and to bend our united energies towards its achievement?

Minister for Education (Mr. Derrig)

The statement which Deputy Cosgrave has just read has covered a very wide field indeed. Not alone has he succeeded in dragging in social functions which were held in connection with the Eucharistic Congress but he has in his concluding remarks gone back on the old clarion call which served him so ineffectively in the last General Election—the cry of morality, the safety of religion and the safety of civilisation in this country. But let us remember that this speech, which has already gone across the wires to the British Press, is not going to be hailed there so much for the hope it holds out that such a strong statesman is going to save the Irish people from dreadful disaster, dreadful ruin, —social, political, moral and economic—but that there is a statesman here who is not afraid or ashamed to get up, when a life and death struggle is being carried on between this State and Great Britain, to tell us that the Government in power who are responsible for seeing the people safely through the struggle, are insane, are dishonourable, are incapable of fulfilling their duty, that they have completely abandoned whatever interest they had in their own people and have simply reached a stage when their only purpose in life seems to be to create worse confusion so that they themselves might escape.

What is the position? What assistance has Deputy Cosgrave and his colleagues given to this Government to enable it to reach a fair and honest settlement? In connection with that, let me call the attention of the House to the fact that Deputy Cosgrave himself in his concluding remarks emphasised the necessity and the importance of negotiations, of an understanding and of an agreement in which there would be a complete resolving of all our difficulties. What is the policy of Deputy Cosgrave in regard to that matter? Is it support of the existing Government in standing for our full claim? Let it be remembered before this economic struggle was entered upon that we stated our policy to the people. We were elected to carry out that policy and we are going to carry out that policy. If we fail Deputy Cosgrave and his friends will have ample opportunities of showing the Irish people how they can do better for them and of doing better if the Irish people give them a renewal of their confidence. At the present time I would suggest that the speech that has just been delivered is not going to help us in this struggle.

Let us look at the facts. The facts are that during the last week or two the British Tory Government has suddenly inflicted the present embargo on the Irish cattle trade. They deny that it is a measure of protection for their own farmers. They want to pretend to the Irish people, as well as to some of their own people, that in fact it is not retaliation, that it is an effort to raise further money to endeavour to recoup themselves for the moneys we are withholding. At any rate their whole policy is an admission that they have failed utterly to raise the money that we are now withholding. Their 20 per cent. tariff has only succeeded in raising something like £500,000. As against that we are holding an annual sum of some £5,000,000. It is suggested that in order to reach a settlement with Great Britain we should first have handed over these sums of money and then postpone a settlement until such time as we could have reached an understanding as to the form of court or tribunal which would resolve our difficulties.

Deputy Cosgrave has stated that the agreements that were entered into were entered into by the representatives of the Parliaments of both countries, but we deny that that statement is a fact. When we stand for our rights in this matter and insist upon our rights as a duly mandated Government to reopen this whole question, chiefly on the ground that it has never been sanctioned by the Legislature. I submit that it is mere rhetoric, a mere waste of time to pretend that there is something dishonourable and disgraceful about it. If Deputy Cosgrave and his friends had an ounce or a shred of patriotism they would have followed the line that some of them at least gave us an indication they were going to follow—that if there was going to be an international settlement of war debts and war reparations we were not going to be left out in the cold, that we were going to look for our rights in the full international sense, that we were going to claim that the matter would be dealt with in an international manner, not that we were going to take up the attitude that we were a mere province, and that we had no rights. It was not the attitude that we were going to make our claim on account of agricultural depression, that we realise we have no legal case whatever, that we are going to abandon it and to swallow everything we said, to say that the lawyers who gave us their opinion on the matter did not know what they were talking about and that we are going to go hat in hand and ask them for a small remission. Do the Irish farmers require merely a small remission in the matter? Are they content to accept Deputy Cosgrave's policy that he is going to accept some settlement on a basis that is going to mean a small remission or a small reduction in these payments and at the same time that a sum not of three millions in respect of the annuities, but a total of five millions is going to be dragged from the Irish people irrespective of whether we have depression here or not?

One would imagine that the country was in a dreadful condition, the country which was in such a splendid condition, if we are to believe the statements of Deputy Cosgrave, when he was in charge of the Government here. He says that our national credit stood high. Has that altered? He referred to our unemployment figures and said that the general level of prosperity, the general standard of living was higher than that of other countries. Has that altered? Not at all. The national credit is as high as ever it was. As regards unemployment, if we take into consideration the fact that under the present Minister for Industry and Commerce there has been a large increase in registration of unemployed persons, that west of the Shannon, where you had no registration under the last régime, more persons registered as unemployed than you had in the whole of the Free State under the previous administration, and if you add to that the extraordinary increase in population which is taking place in these districts I think you will have to admit that the figure of 80,000 does not mean that worse conditions prevail now in regard to unemployment than heretofore. It merely means that large numbers of persons, farmers' sons and so on, have now registered. We have now, at any rate, a definite criterion. We have a definite figure. We are not running away from that figure. We admit that is the figure and we are taking steps to remedy the unemployment that it indicates.

When we were endeavouring to settle during the months of August and September the dispute with Great Britain, and when it was essential that whatever our opponents believed they should at least stand behind us in an endeavour to settle the question, you had one Party being quoted in the "Daily Mail" saying "Do not let Mr. Cosgrave down," and you had another Party going round the country telling the farmers not to pay the annuities as they were already being collected by the tariffs. They were not collected, as the recent actions of Mr. Thomas have shown, and they will not be collected now either. It may be that our cattle will be kept out altogether. That may be the result, but no sensible person believes that the British Government can ever hope to collect the sums which we now hold in respect of the annuities and other payments. At the same time these people were encouraging the British to stand firm against our claims and the other Party were trying to create the greatest possible trouble for us, trying to create obstacles in the way of the running of the local administration, aye, and creating a Body, the White Army—John Bull's White Hopes—so that our delegates in Ottawa could be told when they were trying to effect a settlement that oh, they did not know what they were talking about—that they, the British delegates, knew that in a month or two they would have civil war in Ireland. How was it possible for any group of plenipotentiaries or delegates to make a settlement in those circumstances?

General Mulcahy

Now, we have it all.

Mr. Derrig

Now this Government, whether it is right or wrong, represents the Irish people at the moment, and when Deputy Cosgrave or anybody else quotes patriotism or even theology I say it is their first duty as Irishmen to support the existing Government. Until such time as it is clear that the existing Government had failed in what they are attempting, I submit it is their duty to support them. During all these months what is the position? We were told the Irish farmer is not getting the bounties. Why, during the period since Fianna Fáil came into office, sums amounting to some £3,000,000 have gone into the hands of the agricultural community. The people who told us that the farmers are paying double, conveniently forgot that under this Government there has been inaugurated a scheme of relief works, a scheme of public works, a scheme of housing, an addition to the old-age pensions, an increase in the agricultural grant, a scheme of loans for heifers, and that there has been an amount allocated for subsidies for export trade during the current year of something like one million and a half. On the whole a sum amounting to £3,000,000 has been paid to the agricultural community in one shape or another. Therefore, the present Government has paid out money, has endeavoured to keep trade and industry in the position they should be, and I submit that there is more money in circulation, that there is more comfort in the homes of the poor, that there is more hope and more security and more feeling that no matter what happens things are not going to drift, that there is a Government in power which is going to take resolute steps, at any rate, to improve the condition of the poor people, whom we heard very little of during the past ten years.

Deputy Cosgrave lashes himself into a fury of rhetoric as to the breaches of international diplomacy that have taken place. What about the breaches of trust to the Irish people that took place when secret agreements were made handing over those vast sums of money to Great Britain? Look at the English Press and see that constitutional English lawyers of eminence believe that the Government that negotiated these agreements and that carried them through were guilty of grave irregularities in not bringing them before the Legislatures, and if Deputy Cosgrave, who now sermonises us about breaches of international diplomacy, had told the Irish people what he was doing at that time, if he had informed the Irish people that the whole question of our future financial relations was being gone into, and that he was not going to come to any agreement or make any final settlement binding on the Irish people until the whole thing was made public, the present situation would not have arisen. But those people who are responsible primarily for the present situation, who have weakened the hands of the present Government in coming to a satisfactory solution, would be the first —the first, moryah—to come along and claim the benefits if this Government is successful. Those people who have tried to weaken the case of the Irish people in every possible way during the past six months, are preaching around the country and putting down Motions in the Dáil, that the farmer should not pay his annuities—they who have done nothing to help the Irish people in maintaining their rights, who have done nothing to tell the British Government: "No matter how we may disagree with the present Government, at any rate, we do not agree with you." Read the English papers and hear the chuckles of their Dublin correspondents when the 40 per cent. tariff was put on recently. "Be assured," said the Dublin correspondents, "that no matter what happens Deputy Cosgrave's Party, at any rate, are not going to find fault with the British Government." They are not going to find fault with them. They are going about the country telling the people that the British Government have a perfect right to do what they are doing. Even if they go further and put a complete embargo on cattle, presumably then they will be more delighted. They will be more satisfied. What is the reason for that? Is it real patriotism? I submit it is purely a Party action. It is purely an attempt to get Party advantage out of the present situation. If we know the temper of the Irish people, if we appreciate their traditions and the way they look upon these things—and I think we can sum up the present situation as well as our opponents—that is not the frame of mind in which the Irish people, when they come to vote, will look upon it. They will look upon it as a gratuitous going out of their way on the part of the Opposition to help our opponents across the water.

We are aware of the fact that there is hardship in the country, and that there is this formidable list of unemployed registered. We are aware that many of the farmers are unable to meet their obligations, but we propose, in addition to the steps we have already taken, which I claim have put at least £3,000,000 additional into circulation amongst the agricultural community since we came into office as compared with previously, to take further steps if necessary. It is not to-day nor yesterday that members of this side of the House realised that this was a situation which was likely to arise, if not within a year or two, within a comparatively short period of years. We saw competitors from Siberia, from the Argentine, and from all over the world, driving our products out of the British market. We saw that the Irish farmer was getting a price for his products out of which it was utterly impossible for him to meet his ordinary costs and expenses. We resolved, and we put it to the people very strongly in the recent election, that, if we are going to get away from the state of affairs that is threatening other countries—that left them face to face with revolution, face to face with a complete abyss, not knowing where they stood and having no plans to meet the situation— it was not when the disaster had come to us that we should make plans to meet the future. We told the people it was our plan and our policy to produce all our requirements in our own country. We told them that we realised a complete change in our country could not be made overnight, but that while it was being made we were taking steps to alleviate the situation, —even if this particular crisis had never arisen—and endeavour to relieve matters for those in the livestock trade and other trades, while we were going on to an economy that meant more people on our land, meant a system of husbandry which would give higher labour content; that, instead of turning out cattle over hundreds of thousands of acres of this country, giving employment to nobody, not even producing their own milk, their own potatoes or their own butter, in an agricultural country, we would employ some of those thousands who were walking around the streets and whom the community would have to support in any case. We saw that it would be better to devise some scheme, and that is the scheme we are proceeding with, and by means of which, if God gives us strength, we hope to help our people both through the world crisis and the particular crisis that is upon them at the moment.

Mr. O'Hanlon

A Chinn Comhairle, I think the House is labouring under a great disadvantage in not discussing this question to-day, with a White Paper before it, unlike what has been issued a few weeks ago. I would like to know exactly what occurred when members of our Government went across to England to negotiate the settlement of this unfortunate dispute. So far as the White Paper is concerned, it is merely a restatement of the case which we have been listening to since this question arose first. There is no evidence to show that those who undertook to negotiate got down to brass tacks, in other words, there was no form of negotiation whatever. To place the situation in its true perspective before the House, it is necessary for us to go back to the general election, and to see exactly on what programme the present Government was elected to office. The first plank of their programme—I can be corrected by the Government if I mistake their case—when they went before the electors was the removal of the Oath. That was held out to be the one thing of paramount importance when they got into office. We were told that the reason it was so important was because there would be no peace in this country until that objectionable Oath was removed from the Constitution; that it debarred a certain section of the community from taking their place in this House. That Oath has been removed so far as this House is concerned. I shed no tears on its removal. As it was so aptly described by the present President of the State, it was, at best, an "empty formula," and so far as my conscience is concerned, in signing that declaration, I never read allegiance to any one except the people of this country no matter what that Oath contained. But there are people, or we were told that there were people, with such tender consciences in the country that they would not come in to do the business of the State unless this Oath was removed. As I said before, it has been removed, and it was the most important point stressed at the general election by the Fianna Fáil Party.

What was the second plank on their programme? The second plank was the witholding of the land annuities and their annual payments from Britain on the grounds that these payments were not legally due; that they had advice from eminent lawyers that there were just and legal grounds for withholding those payments from Great Britain. I would not like to make an estimate as to how many people voted for the Fianna Fáil Party on those grounds, but I would venture to state that, fifty per cent. of their votes were got at the last election in the belief that those annuities would not have to be paid either to Ireland or Britain. But we leave the question of to whom they are to be paid on one side. Undoubtedly, the electors were led to believe that they were not payable to Great Britain, and consequently, there would be a saving of up to three million pounds on the annuities and about two million made up under other heads. Now, that was plank No. 2 on the Fianna Fáil platform when they went to the electors last. I will return to the Oath in a moment.

Plank No. 3 was a complete, I might say revolutionary, change in the whole economic system of the country. I think these are the three main planks which brought Fianna Fáil to be head of the State, and on these three items we are going to discuss this motion of censure to-day. Getting back to Plank No. 2—the annuity question— we had from the Fianna Fáil Government a statement that seven of the most eminent lawyers in the State advised them that the annuities should not be paid to England; that they had sound legal opinion backing their case not to pay them to England. Against that we had seven equally eminent lawyers on the Cumann na nGaedheal side, who said these annuities were bound to be paid to England, and that the law was the other way. So far as the ordinary man in the street is concerned, the lawyers fought a drawn battle on this question whether the annuities were legally due or not. Where are we then? Where are the negotiations? How is the man in the street to know whether these annuities are payable or not? It reminds me of a view of the law expressed by one of the immortals who said "the law is a h'ass." Dickens, to my thinking, has very properly summed up the legal aspect of this annuity dispute.

Now we come to the economic change, and we cannot deal with it without reference to the annuity question. Years before Fianna Fáil became the Government of the country, in fact, years before they came into this House, they told the people they were going to industrialise this State, and that agriculture was finished. They did not tell that in so many words to the electors at the last election. They certainly did not tell them that when they switched over that the value of agricultural produce was going to fall by forty or fifty per cent., and what is more if they had told the electors what was going to be the net result of the switch over in their economic policy, I doubt very much if they would occupy the Government Benches to-day.

In viewing this economic change, I cannot help thinking that Mr. Thomas was led into a trap on this question of the annuities. He did for the President of the State what he could not do for himself. He succeeded in putting on twenty or twenty-five per cent. tariffs on produce going to the British market thereby falling into the trap deliberately designed by the President of the Executive Council, so that he could make the change without going to the people for approval. We come back again to the importance of the third question. Is it not strange that the question of the Oath, which was the question of first importance to the Fianna Fáil Party, should be left over and that that section of the community which would not come into the House because of the Oath are to be left outside for eighteen months more; that there are three by-elections to be fought in this State, and that these people who, we were told, were asking that this Oath be removed in order that they might get representation in this House, are still debarred by the Oath from seeking such representation. In other words, they are waiting eighteen months before the Oath can be removed. Why? Because they are afraid to abolish the Seanad. Why did not the President take his courage in both hands, and, when the Seanad refused to pass the Oath, bring in a measure to abolish the Seanad? Why did he think it more necessary that the people should be brought to a state of poverty by a precipitate change in the economic policy than that the objectionable. Oath should be removed forthwith? No attempt was made to remove the Seanad for the simple reason that there are too many Labour members in it. The Labour Party have their weekly meetings with the Government, and they say to the Government: "If you remove the Seanad we will withdraw the support of our men in the Dáil that keeps you in power." In other words, the Labour Party has become a Party that puts place before principle.

When this change in the economic policy of the Government was under discussion in this House, we had Ministers foolish enough to say that when the change took place the people would have beef four times a day; they would have a daily orgy of beef eating which would be the envy of a cannibal chief. But when the Government made the change they found out quickly their mistake and it became necessary to try and patch up their blunder. Then they came along with bounties. To whom are the bounties being paid? Who are getting the bounties on the live stock and live stock products? They are certainly not going to the farmers. I spent two or three hours, a week ago, assisting in trying to devise a plan by which the bounty on pigs would come back to the raisers of pigs in my county. I was in conference with the most intelligent farmers of the county and, after three hours' discussion, we discovered it was impossible. We found that it was beyond our power to secure a shilling of the bounties for the farmers for whom they were presumably intended. Why cannot the Government devise a scheme, if they are anxious to help the export trade, by which the bounty can be paid direct to the farmers? If the Government does not do something like that I say to them that when they come before the country at the next general election, whenever that is to be held, they will find themselves in very great difficulties.

As this debate is to close to-night, and as I am sure there are a great many other Deputies bursting for an opportunity of speaking, particularly the Labour Deputies, I shall not detain the House further. I should like that Deputy Davin and his leader, Deputy Norton, should have full time to take part in this debate. I suppose most of them are now in consultation with their friends in another place and that when they are fully briefed we can hear the whole story. I consider it unfortunate that this motion was brought on so soon. It would have been better to allow the people to have a little more experience of the economic change in the country, but as it has come on I support it, and I think condemnation is due to the Government for the policy they have adopted. I intend therefore to vote for this motion.

Professor O'Sullivan

The Deputy who has just sat down touched on many points of interest. I know there is a view prevalent in the country such as that to which he has just given expression. But, unfortunately, those who have a sense of responsibility—and I know Deputy O'Hanlon has such a sense of responsibility—know that the country is faced with a very painful dilemma. It is only by political experience that democratic countries like this can advance. For ten years there was no normal change of Government— the Fianna Fáil Party for ten years deprived the country of any opportunity of normal change of Government —and it was only natural that the country would, in the circumstances, be deprived of the experience that comes from such a normal change. The country was without that experience which every democratically-ruled country has of such a change of Government, and, as a result, bitter experience may now be in store for the people of the country. I would impress upon Deputies that the effect of that experience may be such that the country may not be able to survive it in our generation. Though it may be desirable, from the point of view of political education and experience, such as that to which Deputy O'Hanlon has referred, it is questionable whether it can be achieved without, in fact, inflicting irreparable loss on the people. Neither can we accept the easy course outlined by the Minister for Education, namely, wait until they fail and then others can have their chance. There may, if this policy for which the Government stand, is allowed to continue, be very slight opportunity for any constructive party or body of men, willing to adopt a sane policy in this country and entrusted with the conduct of government, to adopt such a change of policy. There are many aspects of the Government policy which we have grave reason to condemn. Some of these aspects are even more serious in what they portend for the nation than that which forms the subject of discussion here to-day. In fact, this dispute, as used by the Fianna Fáil Party, in their heroic efforts to kill the cattle trade, as the last speaker pointed out, has also obscured many other dangers, especially, for the time being, from the people of the country. But I think we can look upon that aspect of their policy now under discussion, as part and parcel of the policy the Government is pursuing, and that it is a policy which is driving a large number of the people of this country to desperation. The leader of the Opposition, in his opening statement, did not at all exaggerate, when he painted in sober colours, the passions that are being let loose and that are being stimulated here at the present time; the efforts that are being made, not unsuccessfully, to appeal to greed, envy and avarice, and the efforts which are being made to set up a class war. I am quite willing to believe that there are many people who seriously and sincerely think that out of a mess and chaos of that kind something better will come for this country; that there are people who have such belief in the constructive efficacy of their own particular nostrums, and the great creative power for which they stand, as to think that when they have brought the present system to ruin, to destruction, as is their declared policy, they will be able to put something better in its place.

What has the country got, faced as it is with this threatened destruction? Mainly certain things enumerated by the Minister for Education. Relief work. That, at the very best, is merely a palliation and has the disadvantage that it can only be carried out on anything like a large scale by eating into the capital that the country requires for proper development. Loans for heifers! In the present situation of the cattle trade! It was announced by the Minister for Education this afternoon that one of the great schemes they have for coming to the help of the people is loans for heifers; and that from a Government who have always made it clear that they are out for the destruction of the whole cattle trade! That is one of the palliatives they now offer the unfortunate farmers. Then we have the subsidies. Who has gained by the subsidies? How are they helping the export cattle trade? There are complaints every day that very little assistance is given in that respect to the farming community. Then, with that childish belief in figures that characterises apparently every member of the Government, that belief as my colleague, Deputy McGilligan once put it, that they are doing sums on a black-board, it is said that Mr. Thomas only raised £500,000. But that £500,000 does not represent what the farmer has lost. What the farmer lost was a great deal more than £500,000. If anything like the £2,000,000 or £3,000,000 due in respect of land annuities is exacted in the way of collecting tariffs when our goods arrive at English ports, that would only represent a small portion of what the farming community in this country loses, and continues to lose, as a result of the policy of the Government. They have lost, to a large extent, the sale value of most of their cattle. Their losses are represented not merely by the cattle that have been exported and on which duty has been paid, but more particularly by the cattle that have not been sold owing to the fall in price, and that it will now be very difficult to sell owing to the increase in duties, referred to by the Minister for Education as an embargo on our cattle trade. These are some of the losses. I doubt if they have the mathematical exactitude that appeals, apparently, to the members of the Front Bench. They are quite satisfied if they can get their officers to turn out columns of figures as to people in employment.

As to the failure at Ottawa: That may have been due to the personnel of the delegation that was sent to Ottawa. We do not know. Nobody can tell what occurred there. We are asked to believe that while they were there, in close touch, apparently, if we can judge by the newspapers, with the British statesmen, they never broached a settlement of the question; that no effort was made to understand each other's point of view. Either that was done or it was not. I am not speaking now of formal negotiations. I am speaking of what may be much more useful—informal talks. If informal talks, and advances to an understanding, at least, of the position of the two main parties in this dispute did not take place, there was a shameful neglect of their opportunities on the part of the delegation. They ought, at least, to know on each side where they stood. If they knew on each side where they stood, why was there the farce of the negotiations that took place in London the other day? What is the excuse for them? What was the excuse for the belief, sedulously spread through the country, the belief that also prevailed on the other side, that there was a possibility of accommodation? The delegation had met at Ottawa the members of the British delegation. They must have known what the British position was and the British must have known what the position of our Government was. Under the circumstances, if nothing was done in the way of an approach to an accommodation, what else was it but a farce to stage these negotiations in London? Was nothing done? The House, in this most vital matter, is in complete ignorance of what occurred there, whether an advance was made or not. As I say, if an advance was not made, or, at least, if there was not an understanding of the position, it was a shameful neglect of their opportunities on the part of the delegation sent to Ottawa.

One thing is quite obvious from this White Paper. From the way in which our case has been handled it is quite obvious that we will get no settlement of this matter in dispute between the two nations as long as we have the present Government in power. You cannot have a settlement negotiated or carried through by a Government whose avowed policy is a policy of ill-will. From the start the head of the Executive Council, and the Executive Council, in so far as they have collective responsibility, have not advanced an inch towards settlement of the question—a difficult question perhaps and one requiring negotiation in a proper spirit. They have indeed added to the difficulties with every step they have taken. If there had been no advance made in conversation at Ottawa or Geneva, what led the President, the members of the Government, and the other parties to the negotiations to think that there was any chance of accommodation? We see from this White Paper that, in comparison with the last time on which they met the members of the British Government, they are much further away from a settlement now. And that is negotiating ! Of course it is quite true, as Deputy O'Hanlon pointed out, that there was no attempt to negotiate. There was no consideration on the part of the Government for Irish interests and for the economic interests in this country that were being threatened and ruined by the policy they had been pursuing in political matters for the last six or seven months. They wanted a burst-up with England. If you read their speeches, are they not speeches animated with hostility to the people with whom they profess themselves anxious to enter into negotiations? They profess friendly feelings. Have they ever shown any such friendly feelings in practice? If two nations regard each other with feelings of hostility of that kind trouble is bound to result. Anybody who has the slightest experience of international affairs knows perfectly well that even with two nations animated with good feelings towards each other misunderstandings may happen. But when you have got a Government that still insists upon looking upon the other party to these negotiations as a hereditary enemy, you simply cannot expect a settlement; trouble is inevitable.

An effort is made to stimulate that hostility and to whip it up in this country. Has not every effort been made to make the spirit of the Irish people, which the Minister for Education boasts of knowing, explosive? They promised the people that they would open up these things—we are told. See the way they have done it—no approach to a settlement or any effort to make a settlement. It was a settlement that the Irish people wanted; it was not dialectics or law. It was not in order that the President could show what a great "arguefier" he was. It is quite obvious, as I say, that a settlement, as an ordinary man understands a settlement, was not wanted. And, remember, that when I speak of a settlement, there are no grounds whatsoever for supposing, as the Minister for Education supposes, that such a settlement would merely mean a small concession. On what does he base that? Is it on the information that was brought back to him from Ottawa or Geneva? Why does he say, before any attempt was made to enter into negotiations, to enter into bargains, that the result of those bargains must be merely a small concession? On what ground did he base that—on the ground of the information that he got from his colleagues from Ottawa? Again, we are completely in the dark.

This whole question, as they must know perfectly well, has cut across every other piece of policy in this country. You try to start your industries here. You try to help to them by tariffs. What good are the tariffs when you have killed the purchasing power of the market? The Government has a policy of building up by tariffs—they may be wrong in that policy, but, anyhow, it is a policy that a person can understand. They have put it forward as their policy to build up the resources and industries of this country by means of tariffs and to reserve the home market for the home manufacturer—and this is the home market they give him! How can the country purchase from the towns and, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, what chance is there of the towns being able to purchase from the country? The shopkeeper is bound to meet his creditors and he is unable to get the money which is due to him in the country and he is faced in many instances with bankruptcy. How can he keep on his business in the present situation? How can he keep on the employment he gives? You have neither a market in the country for the towns nor in the towns for the country.

This situation has been brought about by the Government's two diametrically opposed policies, one cutting right across the other. I shall not go into the question of the legality of these payments. Our view in the matter is quite clearly known, apart altogether from any agreements —and I thought that, by this time, the so-called secrecy, the allegation of secrecy, about these agreements had been exploded, and sufficiently exploded, but, apparently, any libel, if it is libellous enough, can be repeated ad lib. Apart altogether from any agreements, the money was due to be paid ultimately by the tenant purchaser to the people who gave the money. The channel may have been different. If the British Government had never come in, our Government would have been liable for the payment of that money. We would have to collect it and pay it over to the bondholders. The agreements may have changed the channel; they may have made other differences advantageous to this country but that is practically all that they did. However, into the legal aspect of that question, I am not going. But one thing is clear and that is, that, even if they are due, nobody can deny the extreme advantage it would be if we could honourably get out of having to meet these obligations at the present time—if we could get somebody else to take on these obligations.

Has there been any advance or any attempt at an advance in that direction in these recent negotiations, as revealed by the statement of the President some weeks ago, or as revealed in the very meagre White Paper that is presented to us as summing up the pith of these negotiations? That was the question in which the people of Ireland were interested and vitally interested; namely, can accommodation be reached on the subject of these payments? That, apparently, was not raised—it was not even seen, so far away were the two sides in the so-called negotiations. It was not even seen by the parties and they did not even hint at it. They kept all the time to the legalities. What you had, therefore, was not negotiation but you had the Irish representatives putting their case as if they were before a court— and they were not before a court. The only thing they argued was the legal aspect of the case. That was the only thing that was argued, so far as we can judge, by the delegation in London. When you put up a legal case, it is met in the same fashion, and one legal aspect was put up stiff against the other and there could be no accommodation. On that question, there was one answer to all the claims made —either the moneys were or were not due—but no accommodation was possible. The question of accommodation was not raised then—and that is negotiation ! There was simply an opportunity once more for the members of the Irish delegation to show their ability in argument, though there was no court there and though it was a number of statesmen and politicians on both sides who had met to see whether they could reach accommodation. Our delegates behaved at best as if we were before a court, arguing merely a legal case.

There are references in the President's statement here to Shylock and so on. What opportunity did he give to the other side except to put forward their case in the strongest fashion? Did he ask them for reconsideration of the amount? He did not. He did nothing except state the legal case once more. He referred, I think in the very same sentence in his statement in this House in which he referred to the British playing the part of Shylock, to the fact that Great Britain herself was pleading for reconsideration of her debts, but he then adds that England did not pretend that they were not due. That is the whole difference. He limited the discussion to the question as to whether they were or were not due. The other countries that plead for a remission of all or portion of their debts do not plead that they were not due. They would have ensured their case not being even considered had they done so. They do not deny the legality of the debts, but they say "We want reconsideration on the basis of ability to pay." But we could not do that!

England could do it and all the great Powers of Europe could do it, but we are too proud! We would not ask that —it is impossible to think that this great, proud nation would demean itself to do what, according to the President himself, practically every nation in Europe has been doing. We could not do it. We must have the strict legal claim. I wonder if in reality the Government or the supporters of the Government believe in the strength of that legal claim? If and when the President is able to carry out another portion of his declared policy—the setting up of a Republic in this country—he will have an opportunity, possibly, of having that decided in a court of international law. I would advise him not to take the opinion of that court. I would advise him, in the interests of this particular claim and in the interest of what this country can get out of this particular claim, not to appear before an international court. I so advise him, not because the people in that court are not eminent lawyers—they are—but because I do not think we would have even a prima facie case to argue before them.

Then, he wants to correct a misdescription in the incorrectness of —the exact word is hard to use or to describe—Mr. Thomas's references to his consistency. I understand that the word used was "consistency" and not "inconsistency" in upholding the Republican idea—in some of the papers, anyway, it is "consistency" but it does not matter. The question is what is to be our position in the British Commonwealth. Was it not clear from the speeches of the very people with whom he was going to negotiate that that was the fundamental question behind it all?

Examine the very terms of reference that were given by the President:— To see how far an accommodation could be reached in regard to the future financial relations—between what? Between the Irish Free State and Great Britain—not the Irish Republic. Surely that particular thing was bound to crop up if the negotiations went any distance. Was that the reason the negotiations were never entered into? Was that the reason there was no negotiation and no discussion which might mean a new settlement of these particular matters? If we could, for instance, get a settlement in our favour —say a remission of a large portion of these debts or an undertaking from Great Britain to meet these debts— that would mean a new arrangement between the two countries. Were they in a position to carry out that agreement, or were they willing to carry it out? Were they not debarred by their very attitude towards the Commonwealth of Nations from any possibility of carrying it out or even entering into negotiations about it? They could not make an agreement striking off a large percentage of these debts. The Republican attitude that was outlined, the view of the President on that particular matter, debarred them from anything of the sort. The people in the country should realise that.

There were no negotiations in London because there could not be any negotiations that would be in any way beneficial to the people of this country. The fundamental stand of the President made that impossible. His attitude towards the Commonwealth was very helpful! "As long as I am in it, I am in it." That is clear! That clears up the whole atmosphere! In regard to other matters he said: "Now I am out, now I am in"—also very helpful! If agreements were to be made, that was not the attitude to adopt. It was quite obvious from statements made by men on the other side in public that agreements could only be made on the basis of our place in the British Commonwealth of Nations. Let Deputies on the other side or Deputies amongst the Labour Party ask themselves: Could there have been any negotiations in the circumstances? That is the policy that is being backed up by seven trusty men who got into the Dáil, and incidentally into power, by being pro-Treaty. They know that the whole difficulty is due to the obstinacy of the President in not facing up to the issue. Instead we had the farce—not the comedy, because comedy can be dignified—played out to the end.

The Minister for Finance goes over with his scales and the question of the gold ounces is raised. There is a claim for what we lost by England going off the gold standard. People in this country complain that we lost a good deal more by going on the gold standard. Why was there not a claim made in that respect? You need not drop the other claim: you can make both. It is quite in keeping with the policy of the Executive to make a claim for both. What was achieved as a result of the proceedings in London? There was a momentary throwing of dust in the eyes of the Irish people. "He is gone over for a settlement,""There will be a settlement,""It will not be a perfect settlement; it will not be exactly everything we desire and people will be dissatisfied, but there will be a settlement this time"—inspired remarks of that kind were going around the country. We did not get even an approach to a settlement. There was simply an effort to blind the people. The idea, apparently, was to tide over an extra week or two in the hope, as far as the disappointment of the people was concerned, they would get accustomed to it.

What was the result? The President returned and there was nothing done. We were told that the fault was altogether on the other side. There was the degrading assumption that it was because there was a certain type of Government in England that there was no settlement. It is hard to be amazed at anything the President does. We were not even amazed when he based the freedom of this country on an English statute during the debate on the Oath Bill. I confess I was a little surprised when he came here a few weeks ago and stressed that under the National Government in England there was no chance of a decent settlement, no chance of justice. In other words, he told the Irish people: "Wait until there is another Government in power in England and then we will have a chance." I wonder is that an inspiration from the Labour Party? Do they think there will be any change? Who was the Foreign Minister who refused to sign the Optional Clause without reservations? Was he a member of what the Minister for Education calls the Tory Government? No. he was one of the colleagues of Deputy Davin.

Mr. Davin

What?

Professor O'Sullivan

Perhaps I should say he was one of the analogues of Deputy Davin. He refused to sign. We had a reference in the speech of the Minister for Education to-day to the unreasonableness of the Tory Government. Again, Ireland is to become a plaything in English politics and, as is usual, that proposal comes from the super-nationalists.

Mr. Davin

What is the alleged association between myself and the unnamed gentleman?

Professor O'Sullivan

I withdrew the word "colleague" and I substituted "analogue." I distinctly withdrew the word "colleague." It was used in haste and, as I thought it might hurt the Deputy's feelings, I withdrew it.

Mr. Davin

I merely want the Deputy to be correct.

Professor O'Sullivan

The last thing I would like to do would be to hurt the Deputy's feelings. I think Mr. Thomas used to be in the same trade union as the Deputy.

Mr. Davin

But not now.

Professor O'Sullivan

Not now. Is Deputy Davin satisfied with the reactions of this policy on the railway position? No doubt he thinks it will help them greatly. What is the Deputy's attitude with reference to the interference with the cattle trade? However, that will not prevent him walking in to the support of a Party that has repudiated the Treaty, destroyed the Treaty, that has brought about the complete opposite to employment in this country. It is useless to expect anything to come from a Government that stands for these things and that has done these things. This is the occasion to deal with our cattle trade! The object, we are told, is to kill the cattle trade. We all had the pleasure of listening the other night to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. The Minister was extremely eloquent—perhaps a little indiscreet, but at the same time eloquent. We had from him a paen of victory over the destruction of the cattle trade. What is the position? If the Minister or members of his Party go down the country they will find that the people there were being lulled into a sense of security—it is almost incredible, but it is the fact—that the English people could not do without our cattle. "John Bull would have to tighten his belt; they would starve him out, and he would have to give in"! That is what the people were told, and that is what a large number of them believed. They believed that without our trade that country could not carry on.

The same Party comes now and tells us that instead of that being so, the English people are really anxious to keep out our cattle, and are only utilising this dispute as an excuse for doing so. Apparently, so far from being dependent on our cattle, they are willing to utilise this dispute to keep them out and are anxious to do it. The Minister for Industry and Commerce asked us to read the "Daily Mail"—I thought his organ was the "Daily Express"—which day after day has complaints from the English cattle trade against our cattle trade, complaints that Irish cattle are being dumped, and asking to be saved from the Irish cattle trade. Of course the Irish Government must come to the assistance of the English cattle trade. That is the only way to read their present policy. The unfortunate dupes down the country were told that the English would be obliged to give in, that they could not do without our cattle. That is the constructive policy and the international policy of this Government! The Governments, of course, never expected any trouble! They never do until the thing happens, and the people were led to believe that there would be no trouble. They were told by members of the Government, over the removal of the Oath, that no one in England cared two pence about it. I think the phrase used by a very high personage on the opposite benches was that they did not care a thraneen about it. Yet we have the present situation. We have the unfortunate reactions of that whole Oath situation, of this way of conducting business, on the main industry of the country. And the Government is satisfied, and is prepared to fight it until this country is reduced to a shambles. That is its policy, and behind that policy we are asked to rally, behind a policy that we think is disastrous for this country, behind a policy for which we think there is no excuse, behind a policy that can only have one result, as far as this country is concerned, and that is a disastrous one. We are asked to rally the country behind that disastrous policy and to say that we shall not be guilty of the crowning sin of not trusting Fianna Fáil, and not giving Fianna Fáil a chance. They got it.

The leader of that Party must have something up his sleeve. Otherwise, he could not have taken up such a stupid line. "He has a trick there." There is only one sound trick. Let him give up the impossible position he has taken up—that is the only way to meet the situation. The belief that this question can be solved by tricks is a mistake. There are certain issues at stake, issues of grave importance to this country. Our hold on the English market was of great importance. We are losing our hold and we gave an opportunity to those who are our rivals in that market, not merely by passing the Oath Bill through the Dáil, but by the way we handled the Oath question. Naturally our rivals were keen to make the most of the opportunity and they did so. Now we find the English market flooded with cattle while we have our cattle still on our hands. What position are we in now? What position are the unfortunate people in who have cattle on their hands? I remember that Deputy Gorey pointed out here, during a debate that took place, the unwisdom of the advice given from the Front Government Benches, telling the people to hold the cattle. We gave a fillip to our rivals in the English market and we held our cattle. If they were put on the English market now they would be a drug, so that the English Government may adopt the policy outlined by the Minister. He says that they were anxious to keep out Irish cattle as they wanted to save their own cattle trade. Instead of the destroyed cattle trade we have a wheat policy. No one has explained how the cattle are to be got rid of, even with a successful wheat policy; no one has explained what market we have for these surplus cattle even if there is a wheat market here—the cattle necessary to consume the crops that must be sown in rotation after wheat.

The issue before the people, and before members of the Dáil, should be perfectly clear. I can well understand the belief that may have prevailed in some of the benches opposite that the Treaty did not give full freedom, that there was continuous interference in the policy of this country by the British Government. I was in the last Government for a number of years and there was never the slightest interference as to how we were to conduct policy at home or abroad. Surely the members of the Government now in power have the intelligence to know that there is no interference. They would have proof if there was interference with our freedom. Those of them who took part in International gatherings must surely know that there are few countries in Europe whose policy was not much more interfered with, and much more subject to outward dictation than our policy ever was at the hands of the British Government. That these views could be held when the Party opposite was in Opposition is understandable, but that they could be held at the present moment by any one of intelligence in the Government and by any one who has records and files and who knows the relations between the two countries is absolutely incredible. In the light of the new knowledge that they have acquired of the real freedom that this country enjoys and that no declaration of a republic can increase —but may diminish—I ask sane members on the opposite benches seriously to consider the issues involved. There is no good telling us at the present moment that nothing can be gained in the English market. Perhaps not—in a state of war—but in the normal state of affairs a great deal can be gained from normal relations and especially from preferential trade relations between the two countries. That is what we vainly expected from the Ottawa delegation, but that was not accomplished. We ask the various members of the Labour Party and those who profess to have an interest in employment, and also those on the other benches who have an interest in the economic welfare of the country to have an end put to this. We ask them to reconsider their position before it is too late and before the country becomes a mere funeral pyre for the satisfaction of the head of the Government.

Mr. Cleary

This is a very unreal debate, the most unreal debate I have heard for a long time. The speeches from the Opposition members, Deputy Cosgrave, Deputy Professor O'Sullivan and Deputy O'Hanlon had nothing of sincerity in them. I am convinced, after listening to them, that nobody would be more seriously disappointed if this motion was carried than the Leader of the Opposition. He does not mean that the House should pass the motion at all, but with a certain airing of his political views, and a certain cringing and pleading to the worst instincts of the people, he thought that the national outlook might be smashed and brought to a lower level than Deputy Cosgrave succeeded in bringing it to during his term of office. We were told by Deputy Cosgrave, or by members of his Party—and in particular by Deputy Hogan—that they were most anxious that the country should get at least two years of Fianna Fáil Government, that it needed two years of Fianna Fáil Government. If they were sincere about that, why the pretence of putting down a motion on which they want the Government to be defeated? I think this motion is not meant to be serious. Hence, the speeches that have been made in support of the motion cannot be taken on the merits, or in any sense as a contribution to the debate. Of course Deputy Cosgrave complained that the negotiations have broken down. They have broken down. Every possible effort was made by the President—and he should know more about it than Deputy Cosgrave—so that the negotiations would succeed. Deputy Cosgrave is now disappointed. So am I disappointed that Deputy Cosgrave, after his ten years of office, and with his wide experience of negotiations did not point out how they could succeed. Deputy Cosgrave has a very wide experience of negotiations, and discussed very important matters with the British Government. He approached them on a number of occasions. Does the Deputy suggest that the manner of approach adopted by him should be adopted by President de Valera, and that not only the manner of approach but the agreement adopted by him should be adopted by President de Valera?

Does he, when he finds fault with the President for broadcasting Ireland's claim in a frank and clear manner to the world, and not to the British alone, suggest that Ireland's claim should be kept secret and that the British should only be communicated with in a secret manner? He said that there were well-defined general principles of diplomatic intercourse. What are the "well-defined general principles of diplomatic intercourse" that President de Valera has ignored? Did Deputy Cosgrave, when he was in office adopt those "well-defined general principles of diplomatic intercourse?" Was the keeping secret for nine years of vital agreements—agreements signing away millions of money, the property of the Irish people—was that in accord with the "well-defined general principles of diplomatic intercourse" that, he complains, President de Valera ignored? Was it in accord with the "well-defined general principles of diplomatic intercourse" that Deputy Cosgrave and his Party dealt with the Boundary problem when it was being argued out with the British Government? Are those the principles that President de Valera should have adopted? Does Deputy Cosgrave find fault with President de Valera because he did not follow the same course that the Deputy adopted in 1923, when he made a secret agreement with the British Government, or the same course that he adopted in connection with the Boundary fiasco, or the same course that he adopted in 1926, when he made a further secret agreement with the British Government? If President de Valera had adopted that course and if he came back and, without stating the facts of the case, told the Dáil and the country that he had made a damn good bargain, would he be acting according to the "well-defined general principles of diplomatic intercourse?" If he did that, would Deputy Cosgrave be satisfied? What is his complaint? In the very nature of things, the one thing for success in the relations between this country and Britain, the one thing for a successful agreement on behalf of the Irish people that President de Valera could not do was to follow the "well-defined general principles of diplomatic intercourse" which Deputy Cosgrave adopted when in office. If President de Valera did that, we might have another fiasco similar to the Boundary fiasco; we might have another secret agreement as vital as the agreement of 1923 or as the agreement of 1926. I think that the President is to be commended for not following Deputy Cosgrave's line of negotiation.

I thought that the Deputy, as the result of his varied experience of negotiation, as the result of the numerous damn good bargains that he succeeded in making with Britain, would have told the President in plain language how he would approach this question. I thought he would have pointed out plainly the mistakes he himself made when in office or, if he did not make mistakes, the wonderful success he had achieved in negotiation. I thought he would have told the President how he brought about these successes. These would be practical suggestions for Deputy Cosgrave to make. They would be helpful to the President, and would be appreciated by the country as a whole. Instead of that, he comes forward with a political harangue. We hear again that the Church is on the verge of ruin. I thought that when he was in office he had throttled Communism for all time. I thought he had finished the job. He tells us that the spiritual losses cannot be imagined. That is, I presume, because we have not made another secret agreement with the British, or brought back another damn good bargain of the type that he brought back. He tells us that implacable hatreds are being raised up again in this country, that avarice and greed obtain in the country and that a loosening of morals is taking place; that class hatred is raising its ugly head and that Christian charity is diminishing. No man preached more about these things than Deputy Cosgrave did when he was in office. He should have found a way of combatting those evils and he should tell us about it. As regards class hatreds and the creation of strife and bitterness, does the Deputy not realise that if there was one man more than another who threw in that red herring in the united ranks of the people, it was Deputy Blythe, when he went down to Clifden and gloated over the fact that his Party, or branches of his Party, were organising the A.C.A., and that when sufficiently organised they would make smithereens of the I.R.A.? What about class hatred and the throwing in of red herrings amongst the Irish people? Is Deputy Blythe not to be censured, or was it to Deputy Blythe's speech that Deputy Cosgrave referred to-day? He should not find fault with President de Valera because of that. He should have a meeting of his own Party and give them a lecture and not talk here about Christian principles and the success—or lack of success, as he insinuated—of the Eucharistic Congress. He should have a meeting of his own Party and tell them what he told them before—that this country must honour its bond, must pay 20/- in the £1. He should preach to-day that manly doctrine that he preached about eight months ago. When he speaks to-day about an honourable agreement, honourably made with Britain and honourably kept, does he suggest that that honourable agreement, as he holds honourably made, should be still kept and, in his usual phrase, that 20/- in the £1 should continue to be paid by the Irish people? Are those the methods by which he suggests a settlement should be made with the British—the payment of the 20/- in the £1.

Mr. Gorey

Not the paying of 50/-, which you are doing.

Mr. Cleary

This honourable agreement, honourably made, was dishonourably kept secret for about nine years. The Deputy knew that he could not remain in power if that were not done. I hope that this question of the payment of 20/- in the £1 and the keeping of agreements will be remembered by members of Deputy Cosgrave's Party when they get up to speak on this motion, because these matters were forgotten by the Deputy. Deputy Cosgrave spoke about hypothetical, absurd and fantastic claims made by this Government against the British Government. The British will be very grateful to the Deputy for that. A good many of the British people, including some leading men in the legal world, were beginning to believe that there was something in the Irish claim. The British Government were not at all anxious that this claim should go before an Arbitration Board which would not have its hands tied in any way. They did not want it to go before a clean court. They were definitely coming to the conclusion that there was something in the claim. They will be grateful to Deputy Cosgrave to learn that it is a hypothetical, fantastic and absurd claim. That will help the British in some little way.

The Deputy tells us, in the same breath, that this Government has failed lamentably in its economic as well as its political programme. He tells us that they got a good chance. They got, according to the Deputy, every chance to make good and fulfil their promises. What chance did they get from the Deputy's Party? What chance did the President get on the very first occasion when he was crossing to London to meet the British? On the previous day Deputy Cosgrave's friends in the Seanad turned down a Bill which passed through this House and which the Seanad itself had allowed to pass through the Seanad without challenging a division a few days before. They threw out that Bill and thus sent an encouraging note to the British that President de Valera was not going to have his way in this State. That is the grand chance the President got to make good.

On every occasion when the President was either replying to a note from the British, or stating his case to the British, or preparing for negotiations on the case, or when anything was published or any case made to the British, Deputy Cosgrave made it his business to do as he did when he went to the Aberdeen Hall at the Gresham Hotel and condemned the case made by the Government, thus giving the British powder for their guns. That is the grand chance President de Valera has got on every occasion. When the Irish people were settling down to peace amongst themselves some rumour was started, fathered by the Cumann na nGaedheal people, and spread throughout the country showing that things were not well in the Free State.

At one time, the rumour was that the civil servants were going to rebel. At another time, it was that the Army was going to rebel and at another time, it was the Gárda Síochána who were going into rebellion. These rumours were published in papers with which Deputy Cosgrave has great influence. Only about a fortnight ago one of Deputy Cosgrave's newspapers stated that the Army were ordered to stand to arms; that something like rebellion was to happen in this country. That was the sort of talk favoured by Cumann na nGaedheal agents. At another time, the rumour spread was that Jacobs were closing down; once more it was that Guinness was leaving the country and, last week, there was talk that a carpet factory in Donegal was closed down.

The Government had to come out on that occasion and to deny those false, disgraceful Cumann na nGaedheal rumours which are trying to break down the morale of the people. That is the fine chance that Cumann na nGaedheal is giving this Government. Cumann na nGaedheal knows that it is not giving the Government a fair chance; they know that they do not want the Government to succeed; the only hope for Cumann na nGaedheal is that the Government will fail; that the British will break this Government and then Cumann na nGaedheal would have the chance of saying "look at the mess you made by putting President de Valera into power." Cumann na nGaedheal has no hope of coming into power. Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies know that if this motion were carried the people who would suffer would be themselves. They know very well that they do not want to be put into office.

General MacEoin

Chance us.

Mr. Cleary

Cumann na nGaedheal does not want office. What would they do for industry? How would their policy save us from world depression? Deputy Hogan, the ex-Minister for Agriculture, said, five months before he went out of office that the world depression had not yet hit this country and that it would not hit it in full force until the spring of 1932. And now we are told that this world depression is all the result and is all the fault of President de Valera being a proud man and because of his vanity. We were told that that, coupled with the loosening of public morals, is responsible for the state of affairs in this country at present.

Deputy Cosgrave complains that President de Valera has no ability and that his Ministers are all duds. That is the position according to Deputies Cosgrave and O'Sullivan. But Deputy O'Hanlon who is one of the shrewdest politicians in this House because he can always have a leg in each way, paid the President's Ministers the tribute that they succeeded in bluffing Mr. Thomas to such an extent that Mr. Thomas did exactly what they wanted him to do. If that is the type of mind that governs Cumann na nGaedheal I think it is time for Cumann na nGaedheal to re-organise its ranks and to bring back Deputy O'Higgins. They ought to try to infuse new blood and try and find a new policy for their departure from the twenty shilling in the pound policy and "honour your bond." They should formulate some other policy instead of criticising the Government. If they put up that policy they will be treated by the Government in a decenter way than they deserve.

I might mention, while I am at it, one word about the farmers of this country. When I mention the farmers I do not mean the farmers in certain parts of the midlands who attend a hunt meeting to-day in silk hats and come out to-morrow in corduroys to talk about the victims of President de Valera's Government. I mean the working farmers, the men who work on the land, not the ranchers who run Deputy MacDermot's Party. I do not mean the cattle men either. I do not want to talk about them, because if any men have been made the victims of Deputy Cosgrave's régime it was the cattle men. Deputy Cosgrave so directed policy for ten years that the only men who could live in this country were these men, but they had nothing to fall back upon but the success of the cattle trade. As Deputy Hogan said here some years ago "we can only be successful here while England is successful; we can only be prosperous here while England is prosperous, and if England totters, we totter too." He said we would have to wait to get out of this depression until England became prosperous. The only means we had in this country was a dependence on the cattle trade. Everything else was killed by Deputy Cosgrave's régime. Now the people who have the cattle to sell are in a desperate state too. Deputy O'Hanlon talks about the bounty not reaching the farmers. How much better prices would they get if Deputy Hogan were still Minister for Agriculture?

General MacEoin

Forty per cent.

Mr. Gorey

Or fifty per cent.

Mr. Cleary

Can they tell us that the British market would not be closed by a certain preference if Deputy Hogan were still in power? If England would give that big concession what would he give in return for it? If Britain put up a tariff against Irish cattle or Irish farm produce and built a market for her own products, what would Deputy Hogan's policy or Deputy Cosgrave's policy be? Would you have them preaching the doctrine that ranching was the only hope for the country or would they be preaching the doctrine that the Saorstát should go back again to tillage? That is the policy of the present Government. Deputy Cosgrave was not able to bring about industrial development here and he was not able to make farming a paying policy after ten years. This Government while it was being stuck in the back for it by Deputy Cosgrave's agents has done very well. I think when we regard the hard facts that this Government have run up against in the few months since they came into office it must be admitted that they have almost performed miracles.

Mr. Gorey

They have performed them.

Mr. Cleary

People now who go into industry are being given a chance of succeeding and the industrial development will guarantee success to our farming industry here. These things may not please Deputy Gorey. I remember when the Deputy was pressing here for a tariff on bacon. Many members of the Cumann na nGaedheal have a hobby or every three or four of them have a hobby between them; they want their own particular industry to be protected. Deputy Gorey wants protection for bacon; Deputy Bennett wants protection for the butter industry, and so on, but they want no other industry outside that protected. They must look at things in a bigger, broader way than that and they must accept in toto the Government's policy of protecting Irish industries so as to give a livelihood to the people here at home. They must take a stand against Britain that was not Deputy Cosgrave's stand when he was in power. The people will win this struggle if they are prepared to back the Government.

Mr. MacDermot

Deputy Cleary is a spirited orator, but I doubt if any member of this House has such a knack of making statements more widely divorced from fact. I do not propose to go through all, or nearly all, of the statements that he made but I might mention a few of them. One is his statement that one of the characteristics of the present situation is a sense of security in the minds of investors. I must say that that piece of information astonishes me and I am sorry that he offers no evidence in support of it. Another was that the particular agricultural organisation with which I am connected consists of ranchers when, in fact, ninety per cent. of our members are small farmers. Another was that the Seanad had chosen the occasion of a visit by President de Valera to London to pass a drastic amendment to the Oath Bill, when, in point of fact, the Opposition in the Seanad made an offer to postpone the question of the amendment of the Oath Bill in view of the negotiations and that offer was not accepted by the Government.

A Deputy

Why should it be?

Mr. MacDermot

I am not saying why it should or should not have been accepted, but in view of the fact that they did not accept that offer, I think it is outrageously unjust and misleading to blame the Seanad on the grounds that they timed their amendment to conflict with the President's visit to London.

Deputy Cleary further stated that the British had refused to go to a clean court of arbitration. That again is a statement which seems to me utterly untrue, and again the Deputy did not attempt to support the statement by any shred of evidence.

Turning from Deputy Cleary to the Minister for Education, the Minister, when referring to alleged advice given to the farmers of this country not to pay their annuities, waved a denunciatory hand in my direction and, therefore, I feel called upon to say that I never gave such advice. Quite the contrary. But I did say, and I have no hesitation in repeating it, that owing to the policy of the Government the vast majority of the farmers of this country will not be able to pay their annuities, and I think that future events will justify that statement. I also stated that, in my opinion, it was grossly unjust of the Government to try to collect the annuities in view of the effects of their present policy towards the farmers, and I have no hesitation in saying that. I did say, however, that the legal obligation of the farmer to pay was plain; and that for anyone who was able to pay to resist payment would mean that he was landing himself under unnecessary expenses. The Minister for Education seems to have entirely forgotten his sense of humour when he blamed Deputy Cosgrave in one breath for having put over a colossal fraud on the Irish people and in the next breath for not denouncing that fraud and helping them to upset it. He complained that the Government had no choice between handling over this money to the British or retaining it, and that it was therefore entirely wrong to blame them for doing something brusque or dishonourable in retaining it. He seems to have forgotten, however, that it was open to the Government to enter into negotiations with the British about the land annuities and the other matters concerned long before they fell due and that the Government did nothing of the kind.

The only other remark I have to make about the speech of the Minister for Education is that he surprised me by apparently shutting his eyes to the degree of misery and poverty existing in this country at the present moment. He apparently enabled himself to do so by recounting all the various financial benefits that the Government had been conferring on the poorer members of the community. I do not deny that the Government has been shovelling out money, but shovelling out money is not the way to bring prosperity to a nation, and it cannot take the place of profit-earning capacity, and the Government have done infinitely more harm by lessening the profit-earning capacity than they have done good by shovelling out money. I hope that, in the course of this debate, the Government will do something to clear up the fog that undoubtedly exists as to what their policy is. The misery which exists in this country is considerably heightened by the feeling that people do not know whether the Government know their own minds and that the people do not know what the Government are driving at. We hear of this economic war and of the fact that the Government are waging it on our behalf. But who knows what kind of victory the Government want in this war? Do they want to get back into the British market and into the British system, or do they want to get out of it? The larger part of their propaganda seems to mean that they want to get out of it —that the British market is a dying economic unit and the sooner we cut adrift from it the better. They do not seem to have turned their attention to the fact that the evidence that the British market is dying is the same evidence that every market in the world is dying. What market in the world at the present moment has not enormously decreased in buying and trading power during the last few years? Have they considered the desirability of cutting adrift from the world as a whole and sending Ireland out on a voyage into the ether? Besides the doubt as to what kind of victory they are aiming at, there is a doubt as to their whole economic out-look—a doubt as to whether they are in favour of the system called capitalism or private property, or the system of State socialism. There again the bulk of their propaganda would lead one to imagine that the aim was State socialism. And, in particular, there is a doubt as to whether or not they approve of the extraordinarily ignorant, ill-informed and clap-trap kind of attacks on the banks of this country which are constantly being made by their less responsible supporters. To those who admit that the economic condition of the country at the present moment is deplorable, the entire Government case depends on the assumption that we are being bullied by the British Government and that the British Government is attempting to coerce us. Has the British Government bullied or coerced us or attempted to do so since the Treaty, about any matter on which no agreement existed? Did Great Britain retaliate for any of our tariffs? She might have been entitled to do so without being a bully, but did she do it? Did she try to bully us into giving the Shannon enterprise to a British firm instead of to a German firm? Did she interfere about such matters as the Union Jack, or God Save the King, or compulsory Irish? If not, there is a presumption that she would not have intervened and would never intervene in any matter that did not involve a breach, or a supposed breach, of an international agreement. If that presumption is justified, it is an abuse of language to complain of bullying and coercion, and the argument that if we are not obstinate on this occasion, we shall be subject to constant English interference about all sorts of things, is completely fallacious. Our Government holds that the Agreements of 1923 and 1926 are invalid. Suppose that is right; still it must be admitted that these agreements were believed to be valid and our Government brusquely repudiated them.

Why did they adopt such a brusque manner of repudiating them? I think the answer is the same as President de Valera gave a few days ago as the reason why Mr. Ryan made a speech in College Green saying that Cosgrave and Co. must not be allowed to make speeches. The answer is that they want to be acclaimed as fools. There is no nation in the world that would not have resented the sort of action our Government took. We should have done it if we had been in the place of the British and to have done it is no proof of a bullying disposition. But, could we claim that these agreements are invalid? I maintain we could not. If these agreements had been made by a Government which was only momentarily in office, if they had placed on the country burdens that were entirely unexpected, if the Wyndham Land Act with its loan and its bonus had been forced on us instead of being universally welcomed and acclaimed, if the Legislature had refused in any degree to implement these Cosgrave agreements, if they had been repudiated by the country at the first available opportunity, then we might perhaps claim that they were invalid, but they were made by a Government which held office for ten years. The financial obligations they placed on the country were not greater than had been expected at the time of the Treaty.

The paying over of the land annuities in particular to the British Government for transmission to the stock-holders was not in any way a novelty. Legislation to implement the agreements was passed by the Oireachtas and in the two general elections of 1927 the Government which made the agreements was again returned to power by the people of the country. In these circumstances I regard the attempt to repudiate the agreements on narrow technical grounds as indefensible. The President says that the only alternative was to go to the British Government with our hats in our hands. Deputy Professor O'Sullivan has pointed out that if that metaphor would be applicable to a request by us for a revision of our financial arrangements with Great Britain, it would be equally applicable to a request by France, Italy or Great Britain for a revision of their financial arrangements with the United States. I do not know what country could afford to throw the first stone at us. We prefer, however, to follow the example of Bolshevik Russia, to denounce our own fellow-countrymen as traitors and to refuse to be bound by financial agreements entered into by a previous Government. I confess I find this infinitely the more humiliating attitude of the two. It is also an attitude which, in our case at any rate, is far and away the less sensible and practical.

If our present Government would accept a Governor-General without insulting him, would recognise obligations of loyalty and friendship to its partners throughout the Commonwealth and would drop its programme of bluster, jingoism and the breaking of agreements, there can hardly be a doubt that a favourable financial revision could be obtained. It is because the Government has chosen instead a path fatal alike to the honour and to the prosperity of this country that I have no hesitation in supporting the motion. The Government's apologists say that our life-blood has been ebbing away owing to our habit of paying our debts and that we have not noticed it. That is sheer nonsense. But their policy of repudiation is poisoning our life-blood and we do notice it. And if, owing to overlapping and confusion as between the 1920 Home Rule Act and the Treaty there was a legal flaw in the British Government's claim to continue receiving the land annuities, those who discovered that flaw, and who, on account of it, have dishonoured engagements subsequently entered into on our behalf, may pride themselves on their ingenuity but they cannot escape the condemnation of history for the moral and material damage they have done to our people.

General MacEoin

I intervene in this debate merely for a few reasons. I have listened very carefully to the speeches made and I know the situation as it exists throughout the country. I think that any person, knowing the country as it is to-day, is entitled to ask Deputies, whether they be on the Government Benches or on these benches, are they aware of what the situation is? I think I am also entitled to ask them the question: Can any speech, any statement or any query that may be put to them change their minds or their Party affiliations? Remember this country of ours is much bigger than Parties or persons. To-day it is faced with one of the gravest situations that it has ever been confronted with in its history. That being the case I think that every man, nothwithstanding where he may have stood in 1920-21, 1922, 1916 or even 1914, should ask himself to-day what is the problem that confronts him and the problem that confronts the country. If he asks himself that question I think he must come to one conclusion. That is, in a nutshell, that peace must be established between this country and Great Britain. The markets must be restored to our farmers and a re-arrangement of our financial obligations must be entered into.

The motion which we are discussing reads as follows:

That the Dáil censures the Executive Council for its continued failure satisfactorily to adjust the differences between it and the British Government and condemns it for pursuing a policy which has caused grevious injury to the agricultural industry, serious damage to the export trade of the country, heavy losses to the community and gravely increased unemployment.

In ten or twelve years of the history of the country, there was never a more serious motion put down for the consideration of the House. Deputy Cosgrave made a speech in introducing that motion which I think in the mind of every right-thinking person must be received with approbation. I am perfectly satisfied that if the Government had the courage just to face up to the responsibility that rests upon it things might be much different. I want to assure the Government that it is no pleasure to me to censure them because I have always supported the proposition that the Government of this country, whoever they are, are the people of the country. I for one at no time have censured the Government of the country because I feel that I am censuring the people when I am censuring the Government, and therefore it is only an extreme situation that would put me into the position of agreeing to a motion such as this. I want to make myself perfectly clear on that, because as I say censure of the Government means censure of the people—censure of the people for being so foolish as to elect men who would create such a situation as we find ourselves in to-day.

I appeal to the Deputies of the House to apply the ordinary tenets of business transactions or the ordinary creed of business dealings to this problem, and to put the country above and beyond Parties and individuals, and urge if necessary that we should have a private session in the House so that we could arrive at a decision by which the country could be saved from the position that I believe and that I know it is going into. At the last General Election we were told—I was listening to it in at least six places; I was listening to it in Carrick-on-Shannon; I was listening to it in Newtowncashel, and I heard it in many other places—that whether England liked it or not she would have to buy our cattle. The story that was put forward was "We shot them down in 1920-21 and yet they bought our cattle"—that was a speech I was listening to—"and surely we are not doing anything more to them now than we did in 1920-21, and yet they had to buy our cattle." If anybody with any sense examined that argument they will see that it is bound to be wrong. The Minister for Agriculture told us that he does not care whether Britain puts on 20, 40, or 100 per cent.—that this country is going to survive and that we do not care. Would that mean, sir, that we would just get the bounty for selling them, or that we would have to give them something for taking them from us?

Mr. Gorey

No bounty if they die.

General MacEoin

I am afraid that neither the President nor the Minister for Defence nor the ex-Minister for Defence of 1922-23 has ever had an appreciation of the situation. What is the appreciation of the situation at the moment? What is the situation? Have you ever had an examination of it? Where are you going? What are your plans? What do you intend to do? Who is the enemy? What is your intention about him? Can you beat him? What are his forces? There are many questions. Have you your scouts out? Do we have to take it that the Secret Service Vote that was passed here last week has something to do with that? What are you doing? I am perfectly, satisfied that you have not applied even the ordinary military tactics. Every statesman says that a military man is only an amadán in his own way. You have not applied military tactics. You do not know where you are going, you do not know what you are doing, nor do you know what the end is going to be. Will we have a truce in a month? Will we have it in five months? Will we have it in two years, and how many casualties are we going to have in between? I am not at all satisfied that the Minister for Industry and Commerce knew the number of casualties he was going to have in this battle, nor am I satisfied that the Minister for Finance has fully appreciated the situation—that he can tell the number of casualties he is going to have in this economic battle—because I regret to say, and I regret it with all sincerity, that the military forces of the State are not operating instead of the statesmen or so-called politicians of the State.

Deputy Cosgrave, when he was speaking, told you that this Government had an opportunity to do something for this country that no other Government had, that is because of various circumstances, and that they have failed to do it. There are Deputies who have spoken and said that we should still pay them a tribute of confidence. I submit, sir, that we cannot do that. We are told that President de Valera has led the country in peace and in war. I regret to say that on examination that statement does not hold water. He has done neither one nor the other. He has led it neither in peace nor in war, but he has done this —I do not know whether I should say it or not—he has brought us up to the shores of Lough Swilly and he has swamped us all there. Mind you a great man led the Irish people here once. He was all right, he was not a bad Irishman at all, but because he did not know what to do at the right time, our people got killed there on the shores of Lough Swilly. However, that is a bit of history, I suppose. We have to ask Deputies of this House to weigh up this situation and allow no prejudice, or Party tags even, to keep them from doing their duty to the people of Ireland, because as I have said before, the people of Ireland are above and beyond all Parties. Now the situation is this, that we are to fight to the end—we are to fight to a finish. To finish where? What are we to do? Does it mean that the Government are going to resist up to a point at which we will have to put up the white flag? Does it mean that we are going to go on with the arbitration that the Minister for Justice repudiated in Athlone? The Minister for Justice, speaking in Athlone a short time ago, said that he was now opposed to arbitration. Why? Did it mean that he has lost faith in the legal advice which he tendered? Does it mean that we have to go on like this for two years more? If you were at the fair of Longford, or the fair of Athlone, or the fair of Fermoy, inside the last three weeks —I have been in all three fairs—and heard the people talking there, you would consider the situation and consider your position in a very definite manner. The people are lulled into a sense of false security. They are told to wait. They are told that everything will be all right, that you have men at the head of the State you can trust. That is your supporters' cry to me when I meet them: "Give them a chance. Wait. Everything will be all right. They will settle next week. I have heard on the most reliable information that the President is going back again, and that everything will be all right." He went to London on 14th October, but had he had the courage on 14th October to effect a settlement—aye and even to make what Deputy Cleary describes not as a damn good bargain, but a damn bad bargain—and come back, the people would have hailed him as the greatest hero this country ever produced. But he had not the courage to do it, because, remember this, it will take an Irishman to do that—to come back and say to the Irish people, "That is the best I could do. I could not do any better."

Collins and Griffith went over and made their bargain and came back to the Irish people and told them so. Yet in the Seanad we are being told by no less a person than the President that an advance had been made in that Treaty which it was not possible to imagine in 1922. If Collins and Griffith happened to go over and make a bargain, and if they had to go back instead on that bargain, where were the people of this country? But we had Irishmen that day at the head of the State, and we had Irishmen able to take responsibility for the things they had done, and to say "we have done it, it is the best we could do, and if anybody else comes along and can do better let them take a chance." There are Irishmen to-day who can do it, and I appeal to the Deputies on that bench, and I appeal to the people of Ireland, to give Irishmen a chance to save our country and do the things which are necessary in our greatest hour of need.

Mr. Norton

A Leas-Chinn Comhairle, I listened with very considerable care to the speech made by Deputy Cosgrave in support of this motion. There was a certain phrase used in his speech which gave me the impression that at one stage Deputy Cosgrave was suffering from introspection. Histrionics, and posing were other phrases used in Deputy Cosgrave's speech, and having listened to him at very considerable length, and having taken particular note of the vituperation and the extravagant language used, one could not help thinking but that particular phrase was perhaps more suited to the speech than in the sense in which he used it—that phrase as applied to his opponents. It seems to me, listening to Deputy Cosgrave's speech, that he was like a person who was sent to a party to recite a piece of poetry, and when he got to the party he found, instead of there being a party, there was a wake, but still insisted on reciting his poetry, because the speech was thoroughly unreal, the language extremely extravagant, and running right through the whole speech one could discern no evidence of any statesmanship. If any one lesson was to be drawn from the speech of Deputy Cosgrave, it was an advice to the Government to surrender, and to surrender at the earliest possible moment. I will just quote a few phrases from the Deputy's speech. He accused the Government, and I suppose, incidentally, the Labour Party, of having broken the word of Collins and Griffith and after Deputy Cosgrave made that speech he had Deputy MacDermot saying that the Government here was pursuing a jingoistic blustering policy—a policy of brusqueness, as the Deputy put it. But even the Government that was guilty, according to Deputy MacDermot, of such a policy has not yet attempted, since they assumed office in February last, to break the Treaty in any one respect. Nothing which has happened in this House, either by legislation passing through this House, or by any of the administrative or effective acts of the Government, has amounted, even in the smallest degree, to the slightest infraction of the Treaty. What the Government has rightly said is that they are not always going to take the view that the British people take of the Treaty—there is an Irish view of the Treaty—and any executive act of the Government, or any administrative act of the Government, or any legislative act of this House, can in no way be constituted as an infraction of the Treaty. But to say, as Deputy Cosgrave said, we broke the word of Collins and Griffith who he said regarded the Treaty as a stepping stone, is something I think which clearly does not fit the realities of the situation either in 1922 or in 1932. Then Deputy Cosgrave went on to say that the country should not have been plunged into an economic war. The Deputy was quite careful not to say who plunged the country into the economic war. Inferentially, I suppose, it was the Government he intended accusing of plunging the country into an economic war. Then we get sagelike advice that we should not have started the war in July, we should have waited until the winter came and started it then. As I listened for one hour to the Deputy's speech, I began to wonder, as the minutes petered out, when we are going to get any condemnation of the Party responsible for plunging the country into the economic war. I wondered when we were going to be told why the war started in July, not in December. Never once during his 60 minutes' speech did Deputy Cosgrave say one word in condemnation of the British Government, which while Notes were being exchanged on the best means of settling this dispute, precipitated the economic war by imposing a tariff on certain of our imports into the British market. It was the act of Mr. Thomas, acting as the instrument of the Tory Government of Britain, that plunged this country into an economic war. It is the very act of Mr. Thomas again, acting as an instrument of the Tory Government, that is keeping the country in a state of economic war. And the action of the present British Government, with its dyed in the wool Toried complexion, is the action which that Government pursued in 1921, and for generations before in relation to this particular country. Never once during Deputy Cosgrave's speech was there one single word of condemnation of the precipitate action of Mr. Thomas in imposing a tariff on our imports. No. All the vituperation, all the abuse, all the hard words, all the bitterness was kept by Deputy Cosgrave for his fellow-Irish-men. We are told that the Government here had repudiated an agreement to pay the land annuities and the other disputed payments. We were told by Deputy Cosgrave in a speech made in Cork last Sunday and somewhat similar to the one delivered here to-day that the agreement to pay money was ratified by the Dáil. Not one single member on the Cumann na nGaedheal benches, except by a process of guessing in the light of what was done afterwards, could possibly say, not even from the debates on the 26th July, 1922, which Deputy Cosgrave quoted, that the payment of the land annuities to Britain was in any way ratified by this House or ratified by the people of the country—if that is the debate that is relied upon for ratification.

Are there any Deputies on Cumann na nGaedheal Benches who still believe there was a definite ratification of the 1923 Agreement? If there are, let us have evidence of it here to-day. There has been no ratification by this House. Not even the British people contend that it is obligatory upon us to pay the land annuities as a result of the alleged agreement which has not been ratified by the Parliament of the country. Lord Hailsham, speaking yesterday in the House of Lords, as reported in the "Manchester Guardian," said: "The Government were asked to promise that before committing themselves to any proposals for the control of civil aviation they would submit full details for the approval of Parliament, that Ministers could not be bound not to enter into tentative agreements, although any agreements reached could not be binding until ratified by Parliament." So we have Lord Hailsham saying in the British House of Lords that while the Government by Ministers could enter into a tentative agreement that agreement could not be binding until it was ratified by Parliament. The very same position happened here. Tentative agreements were entered into by Ministers representing a Cumann na nGaedheal Government, and those representing the British Government. They were brought back here but never submitted for ratification, and no specific ratification took place from 1923 to 1932. Lord Hailsham gives us this view of the responsibility of Government in respect to the control of civil aviation. I wonder does he accept the same view of the Irish situation. The circumstances here were precisely the same as described by him in his speech in the House of Lords.

Deputy Cosgrave went on to tell us, in that blood-curdling fashion that characterises his statements, that there was a loosening of the moral fibre and that the country saw red ruin staring it in the face; that there were in existence in this country from the point of view of moral calibre people who were the worst in Europe. Will the Deputy say where he got his authority for that statement? Will he say, after consultation with any ecclesiastical authority in the country, that that is the position to-day? I want to know upon what information he based that libel on the Irish people. Has he forgotten so soon the magnificent and inspiring spectacle that took place in the Phoenix Park in June last? Is that the kind of fervour and devotion that would characterise a nation where there was a loosening of the moral fibre and where a country was heading to spiritual degradation? Everybody will recollect that during the progress of the Constitutional Amendment Bill through this House the same kind of thing was said—loosening of the moral fibre, spiritual degradation, Communism rampant all over the country. One Deputy discovered 400 Communists in one parish although everyone knows that so far as the Communists, as a Party existed, they existed only in the unstable imagination of some people who wanted to talk of them. A Communist in the last election could not muster more than 178 votes although he was a member of a certain union. Then we are told that Communism is a menace to this country. The same kind of thing was tried by the Cumann na nGaedheal Party to justify the abrogation of the constitutional guarantees of liberty that have been given to the people. The same kind of extravagant thing was tried again by Deputy Cosgrave's Party to return them back to power at the last General Election.

We are told now that the salvation of the country depends upon getting rid of the present Government. Apparently some Deputies on the Opposition Benches are feeling the loneliness of their positon. Presumably if we are to pass this motion we are to select some other Government than the present and, apparently, the Cumann na nGaedheal Party are active candidates for office. Before the Dáil takes action upon this motion one has to ask oneself what would be the consequence of passing this motion. I do not give this Government the certificate that it writes for itself. I say it could do better, in many more things than it is doing at present, and, I say, at this crisis, it should have taken bigger strides than it has taken and dealt with the situation in a bigger way. But in a choice between this Government, having regard to its social and economic policy, and the last Government and its social and economic policy, or want of such a policy, I have no hesitation in saying that the present Government is best in the interests of the plain people of this country. For the last ten years we were told that the last Government was a wonderful Government, so wonderful that some members of that Government had begun to believe that they had the divine right to rule. They believed that there was no possible alternative Government if they went out of office. A change of Government did take place. The transfer of the machinery of Government has taken place and none of the wild and desperate things prophesied at the last election followed. The old constitutional growth has been strengthened by reason of the possible transference from one Government to another. None of those horrible dangers then forecasted by the Cumann na nGaedheal Party has proved to be true even in the slightest degree. One would imagine that the Party which made such an attack upon the present Government would of itself be able to show a record such as they might well stand over. But if we take their record under various headings and analyse it the story is a very different story to that which Deputy Cosgrave and Deputy Professor O'Sullivan told us to-day.

For the past ten years we had as the outstanding characteristic of the last Government their neglect of the industrial possibilities of the nation. For ten years it failed to deal with the industrial position while industry itself went to ruin and decay. For ten years it toyed with the problem of industrial development. During these ten years —1922-1932—more industries went out of existence in that period than during the worst days of the British Administration. Deputy McGilligan might, if he were here, furnish some enlightening information upon that point. In the same period we know the Minister for Agriculture showed complete neglect of the agricultural possibilities of the nation. The ex-Minister for Agriculture in the past ten years carried out a policy which he said here in the Dáil last week had no connection with wheat. Indeed, relying upon grass, was the policy of the late Minister, and here in the House he engaged in a bout of political shadow boxing to try and show that the wheat policy of this Government is a disastrous policy. He put up nine pins and knocked them down again. These were the tactics of Deputy Hogan in this House. He contrasted wheat versus beet in the Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Bill as if wheat versus beet was the real issue in the Bill.

Mr. Hogan

I never mentioned beet.

Mr. Norton

Read your own speech.

Mr. Hogan

I never do.

Mr. Norton

The whole policy of Deputy Hogan for the last ten years, and it was a policy to which he successfully converted his Government, was a policy of reliance upon grass as the chief source of livelihood for our people; to produce beef for the British market and keep on producing beef for that market, even if the circumstances are such that the bottom has fallen out of that market or that it cannot now absorb the beef which Deputy Hogan, as Minister for Agriculture, urged the country to keep on sending to that market. In the realm of industrial development, and in the realm of agricultural development, the late Government have nothing to talk about. They have neglected the possibilities in both these fields.

We are asked to censure this Government so that Cumann na nGaedheal may come back to office to carry on for another ten years, perhaps in a more aggravated form, the neglect and the mismanagement which characterised their policy for the last ten years. Deputy Cosgrave had his foot on the loud pedal of unemployment to-day. Unemployment was the keynote of the Deputy's speech. His heart almost bled for the plight of the unemployed. I have no doubt that every other Deputy who speaks from the Cumann na nGaedheal Benches will shed the requisite amount of tears over the plight of the unemployed to-day. When Deputy Cosgrave talked so learnedly about unemployment he might well have adverted to the census figures of 1926 so that we could have a proper picture of the unemployment problem. Everybody knows that under the census compiled by Deputy Cosgrave's Government, it was shown that there were 78,000 people registered as unemployed in 1926. The extent of the figure was apparently so astonishing to the Cumann na nGaedheal Government of the day that it was only after considerable reluctance and considerable pressure they published the volume of statistics disclosing that extraordinary unemployment problem in 1926. We had 78,000 unemployed people in 1926 in the heyday of the Cumann na nGaedheal alleged prosperity. Here to-day, in an economic war forced upon us by a Government which wants us to conform to its conception of what our constitutional, economic, and political growth must be, we have perhaps a greater unemployed problem than in 1926. I doubt, however, that the unemployment problem to-day, if tested accurately, and if the evidence is sifted carefully, is anything worse than the unemployment problem which the last Government handed over to its successors when it went out of office in February last.

We were told by Deputy Cosgrave in his speech at Cork on Sunday last that his Government was not a rich man's Government. Deputy Cosgrave, apparently, does not like the appellation "a rich man's Government." We all know from the record of that Government during the last ten years that everything it did during its period of office indicated that it was the best exponent of the rich man's economics in this country. We had the old age pensions reduced during its period of office and reduced at the same time as it was reducing the super-tax for the super-taxpayers and the income tax for the wealthy income taxpayers. This is the Government we are to put back into office. Deputy Mulcahy, during his period as Minister for Local Government, distinguished himself in that regard, and distinguished himself also by the low wage policy which was a feature of the Local Government Department under his administration. Every possible effort that could be made was made by Deputy Mulcahy, as Minister for Local Government, to squeeze the workers down to the lowest possible level. We saw that exemplified in the policy of his Department in enforcing low rates of wages for employees of local authorities and especially for those engaged on relief schemes.

As if that Government's record in industrial development, agricultural development, unemployment, old age pensions and low wages was not enough to condemn them in the eyes of the working-class people, some members of that Government, not satisfied apparently with that humdrum list of reaction, tried to organise a private mutiny of their own in the Army. We are told that this Government is heading for ruin and chaos. It was not the fault of the members of the late Government that we had not ruin and chaos some years ago, because if the mischief-making propensities of these people could have had their full scope, the people in 1924 would have been confronted with a situation in the Army and in the country very much more serious even than the economic war in which the country is engaged to-day.

In the other portion of Deputy Cosgrave's speech, the final act of solicitude for the poor was when he referred to the plight of the railways. Deputy Cosgrave might well have consulted Deputy McGilligan before that paragraph went into the statement, because during the past ten years under the Cumann na nGaedheal administration close on 6,000 railwaymen lost their employment in the railway industry of this country, while Deputy Cosgrave's Government stood helplessly by failing to take steps to put the transport services of the country on such a basis as would provide staple employment for the railwaymen that Deputy Cosgrave is apparently concerned about to-day. If there is that concern for the interest of the railwaymen to-day, one is entitled to ask why was there not the same concern when close on 6,000 railwaymen lost their employment during the past ten years.

We are asked to pass this motion to censure the Executive Council for its continued failure satisfactorily to adjust the differences between it and the British Government, as if the responsibility for all the adjustment rested on this Government and not upon the British Government. Lord Parmoor, who will not be accused of being a member of the Fianna Fáil Party, or of the Irish Labour Party, as he comes from very good old Conservative stock, in a letter written to the "Manchester Guardian" to-day, quoting Professor Keith in a previous letter to the same paper, says:

Professor Keith points out that there is no binding agreement to accept a purely Imperial arbitration in the case of a dispute between any two members of the independent Commonwealth which in the aggregate constitute the British Empire.

We have Lord Parmoor on the one hand, and Professor Keith, a very eminent constitutional authority, on the other hand, saying that there is no binding agreement to accept Imperial arbitration in the case of a dispute between two members of the Commonwealth. Yet the burden of Deputy Cosgrave's speech was "Get your Imperial chairman as quick as you can or surrender as quick as you can." The rebuke from Lord Parmoor and Professor Keith to the Cumann na nGaedheal Party, as exemplified by Deputy Cosgrave's statement to-day, will I hope not be lost on the Party.

Lord Parmoor goes on:

There is, in addition, a fundamental objection to the attitude of our Government. When there is an arguable difference of opinion as to the obligations undertaken in a contract, it is on the parties seeking a redress to bring this difference for decision to some competent or agreed tribunal. This principle is the more important when there is a great disparity of power, as is the case between this country and the Irish Free State. It is certainly a curious anomaly that our Government, which is seeking to produce an international system of law and justice, as opposed to the discredited use of force, should impose crushing penalties before the rights of the two parties have been properly ascertained.

We have there Lord Parmoor, a very particular friend of the present British Prime Minister, a confidant of his, an active political associate of his in recent years, saying that there is no obligation to bring this dispute to an Imperial arbitral tribunal and to accept its verdict and that it is grossly unfair and an anomaly for the British Government "to impose crushing penalties before the rights of the two parties have been properly ascertained."

This Government, of course, can get peace to-morrow. Every weak man can always make peace with the bully but it is on the bully's terms. Peace can be got to-morrow if the Government is prepared to surrender. Peace can be got if it takes Deputy Cosgrave's advice to surrender at the earliest possible moment, and, while we on these benches would welcome an honourable settlement and a peaceful settlement, so that the two nations so closely associated geographically and socially might be able to lead lives of concord and peace, one with the other, while we are prepared to stand for an honourable and for a peaceful settlement, and while we have done everything in our power to effect an honourable and peaceful settlement, we are not going to take Deputy Cosgrave's advice, to throw up our hands and surrender in this fight, in the discreditable defeatist spirit that Deputy Cosgrave commended to the House to-day.

This motion that Deputy Cosgrave has submitted is a motion which is entirely unjustified by the circumstances surrounding this economic conflict. It is entirely unjustified when it was the action of the British Government in imposing tariffs precipitately against our imports that was the cause of the economic war, and the extravagant statement read by the Deputy in support of the motion was completely divorced from the realities of the whole situation. One cannot help thinking that the motion was political trimming and that the speech made in support of it was political shadow-boxing. The only purpose served by Deputy Cosgrave's speech will be to give renewed heart and renewed enthusiasm to the element within this country, and without this country, who are not standing for an honourable, peaceful settlement, but who want to beat this Government to its knees to-day just because it is an Irish Government acting in accordance with the will and authority of the people of the country.

Mr. M. Hayes

I always admire the glibness and eloquence with which Deputy Norton can make a speech, the appropriate adjectives he can apply to what has been said on the side with which he does not, for the moment, agree, and the way in which he can very successfully avoid any allusion to the exact and precise difficulties with which the country, including the people whom he particularly represents, are now at grips. He tells us, for example, that the only thing contained in Deputy Cosgrave's speech was advice to surrender. Let us be quite clear at the very beginning, if we can be clear at all in the cloud that the Government, and its Labour henchmen throughout the country, have created in this matter. We have a Government in power, which is in power principally because it asked the people to give it a chance to govern, and which assured the people that, if it got that chance to govern, no evil results would take place either to our external trade or politics or to our internal order. We all remember, and I will not inflict any pain on you, sir, by producing or quoting them, the advertisements which said that the Government had a plan and that the plan would put into work a specifically mentioned number of people. It was, I think, as mentioned, over 80,000 people. Now, the Government is in power and has been in power for more than six months. It has got its chance and if there is one thing clearer than another it is that it has not produced any plan, and, if Deputy Norton was in its confidence before the election or since the election, he has not vouchsafed to us on any occasion, nor has any Deputy on the Labour Benches vouchsafed to us, any indication of what that plan for solving unemployment is or of what the plan is for putting this country on a proper political basis, if there is something wrong with the political basis on which this State now rests. There was one plan, and that was to get Cumann na nGaedheal out of office. That has been extremely successful and Deputy Norton, in his speech, seems to be an echo from the past. He finds it so difficult sitting where he sits to support another Government that, instead of telling us what is good about this Government, he tells us, and it is an old story, what was wrong with the last Government. He does not tell us why he is supporting Fianna Fáil. He does not tell us what Fianna Fáil is doing. He tells us, and it must be a great consolation to the people in Kildare to know, that, in 1924, certain members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party nearly made a terrible mistake. It must be a great satisfaction to Deputy Norton's constituents in Kildare, who are getting bad prices and seeing bad prospects, to know that Deputy Norton, in a very melodramatic way, can tell us that chaos was nearly produced by somebody in 1924.

Mr. Norton

Does the Deputy deny it?

Mr. Hayes

And forgetting to add that with a Cumann na nGaedheal Government in office, chaos was not actually produced at all. All that kind of thing is very far removed from reality and is very small comfort to the people facing these realities at the present moment. We are said to be in an economic war with England and Deputy Norton asks us why we do not explain what mistakes the British Government has made. The reason is quite clear. There is a Government in this House responsible to this House, and it is to that Government that we must address ourselves. We are now speaking in a fully sovereign Parliament of a fully established and properly recognised State, and we are not going to make any progress in this Parliament by abusing some Government that is not our own. Deputy Norton, just as he is really out of date when he speaks of 1924, is also out of date when he tells us that there is a Tory Government in England. It does not matter to us what kind of Government there is in England. The position we are in is that we have a Government here which must deal with the British Government and the idea that our politics here should be based on any hope that a change of Government in England would be a help to us is a retrograde idea. It is a step backwards and that kind of thing is only said by people who do not know or who pretend not to know that they are now speaking in a free Parliament. But while we are talking about a war with England we have had statements made here about the rights of Government. They talk about their mandate, but Deputy Norton has completely omitted to state that, apart from war with England, we are also in the act of making a radical change in the whole economy of the country, and while all these things are going on a cloud is being raised all over the country to prevent the clear thinking and calm discussion of the present situation which are now more than ever necessary.

Deputy Norton, instead of telling us how this thing is going to end, has raised the usual cry that everybody who asks that it should end and that some intelligent step should be taken to end it is a friend of the British. In other words, this allegation that everybody who gets up here is giving heart to the British—is that the phrase?— or is a friend of the British, does not recognise that the Irish people are free, and is not acting in the best interests of the people—all that kind of thing simply arises from a desire, a deliberate desire and a plan deliberately carried out, to prevent the people from getting any clear thinking or calm discussion about the muddle that has been made of their affairs by the combination of Fianna Fáil and Labour. We were promised before the election that every kind of thing would be done for us. There was one advertisement which said that more and more people could be employed and that there was no reason, I think it said, why it should ever stop and there was supposed to be a plan. In fact, there was no plan. As a matter of fact, I think Deputy Norton and Deputy Davin are now taking counsel with the President and some of his Ministers in order to formulate the plan that we were all told existed last February. The plan is only in process of being formulated now. If I know anything about it, it consists of the very well-known, very old, sordid and futile process of dragging as many grants as possible from the Government for different constituencies, having in mind all the time the next election. It is a very old scheme; there is nothing new in that.

Mr. Davin

It does not apply to your constituency.

Mr. Hayes

When Deputy Davin in terrupts, he is always vexed and always inaccurate.

Mr. Davin

Not at all.

Mr. Hayes

I think Deputy Davin ought to sit tight. I do not think he ought to interrupt. He is the most— well, perhaps, I had better not say anything about him. What I was about to say was that this Labour Party which is now spoken for by Deputy Norton is keeping in office a Government which have only one object and that is a political object. That political object is to smash the basis upon which this State rests. They have not an economic object and they have no economic plan. They have no plan for doing anything but smashing the Treaty. Deputy Norton and Deputy Davin are now engaged in trying to get some plan to enable the Government to do the things they promised to do. That plan will consist of doling out money and in meeting the members of the Labour Party and of any other Party who may care to go into the scramble in order to get as much as possible for their various constituencies. As Deputy Cosgrave pointed out, that is no remedy. Having no plans, they are going around the country beating the big jingo drum. It is much easier to go down the country and say "To hell with England" than to sit down with British Ministers, engage with them on the level, come to a conclusion and then come home and stand over that conclusion.

There is another aspect of the struggle upon which we would like to have some elucidation from the Government Benches. I heard Senator Connolly, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, discussing this question on 4th August. So far as I understood him, he said this quarrel with England was not unwelcome to him, he welcomed it because it gave the Fianna Fáil Party an opportunity of putting their economic policy more rapidly into execution. If the Government welcomes this dispute with the British, how can they be expected to take any steps to end it? Do they really want it ended at all? If they welcome it and if they have an economic policy, then surely if it is a blessing in disguise there is no necessity for them to take any steps to end it? It is not a blessing in disguise for the people who are suffering, and these people live not only in the country but also in the towns and more particularly in the City of Dublin. The result of the Government's policy has been a continued increase of unemployment in this city, a continued increase of unemployment among people who had reasonably good jobs —fathers of families who had jobs at a family wage. The only people put into employment, in the main, are girls at bad wages, as Deputy Norton himself told us last Wednesday evening.

We are not going to get any nearer to a settlement by consistent misrepresentation of our opponents. Deputy Norton summarised part of Deputy Cosgrave's speech by saying that Deputy Cosgrave's position was "Get your Imperial Chairman." As a matter of fact, Deputy Cosgrave and his Party have taken up the attitude that the legal aspect of this case is the aspect that is least likely to bring any fruit, any comfort or any improvement to the Irish people generally and to the farmers in particular. The Government have a legal case and they have another case. We would like to hear if they have abandoned the legal case and are going on the other case. To say that Deputy Cosgrave's position is that there ought to be a Tribunal with an Imperial Chairman is a gross and a wanton misrepresentation of what he did say.

Let us assume we are in a war. How is it going to end? How does a war ever end? We are not asking that this Government should surrender. On the contrary, we think that approached properly in this year of grace, 1932, and in this month and with all the things that have happened even since the Government took office, the Government have an excellent case to present to the British by way of negotiation. We do not consider it politic or expedient that, with any kind of a Chairman or Tribunal, the question of whether we are going to make these payments for all time should be, so to speak, based upon the throw of the dice or subject to arbitration on legal grounds or to the decision of one man. We think that is not a desirable or expedient course. We think, in view of all the circumstances that have appeared in the papers even within recent days and the likelihood of Great Britain escaping a great many of the payments she makes, in the light of all that is happening, there is a good case to be presented to the British on the basis that we are now unable to pay and that circumstances have changed for them as well as for us. No matter how long this particular quarrel goes on, it surely must be settled in the end by conference. What is preventing it from being settled? What are the obstacles in the way? In the first place, a great number of mistakes have been made already in the method of procedure.

It seems to me that this Government should make clear their political position. The political position of the Labour Party has changed. They used to be a pro-Treaty Party, but they are now supporting a Government, which, in its essence, is anti-Treaty. If the members of this Government will take their courage in their hands and make clear their political position to the people here; if they will forget their own political past, cease to worry about their own place in history, take up an Irish attitude of negotiation and negotiate in an up-standing way with the British as Irishmen without any inferiority complex, without intruding into the negotiations all kinds of principles that have nothing to do with them, it seems to me quite possible that an agreement could be made. What this Party does not understand, what I do not understand, is what end anybody sees to this thing. We are told we must fight this struggle to the end. To what end and with what loss? Surely, if the Great War ended with a conference this particular struggle between the Irish and English Governments must and should end with a conference.

If our Ministers would rid themselves of some of their own foolish political speeches, shake themselves free of some of their own political allies in this country, make clear their own political position, and go over to negotiate in a friendly way with the British they could come to a conclusion. Surely from the point of view of the Labour Party that is the way all disputes are finally concluded. We are told that negotiations have already taken place. But, what the President told us took place could hardly be described as negotiations. They were rather discussions. It was rather, on his own showing, as if he went to England and told the British what he wanted in great detail; and they told him they would not give it to him, and he came home. That is not the meaning of negotiations. Negotiations in any case mean not suffering from an inferiority complex. They mean taking your courage in your hands. They mean making agreements. That involves "give and take," and means standing for agreements. For my part it seems to me, in all the circumstances, that that must be done. If this Government is not prepared to do it, then somebody else should be allowed to try it, although the circumstances are now such that every day it gets more difficult for other people to make the agreement, which, in the end, must be made, and which we hope will be made. The longer that agreement is delayed the worse it is for the workers, for the farmers and for the Irish people.

Minister for Finance (Mr. MacEntee)

Deputy Cosgrave in his public pronouncement is very like a ballerina. He never forgets his public. And he did not forget the public this afternoon when he read to this House the address that had been prepared for him by an unknown hand. Before the words were uttered they were in print and offered here in less than one hour, in a leading evening paper.

Mr. Bennett

The "Telegraph."

Dáil Éireann debate - Tuesday, 15 Nov 1932