This trade agreement which we have before us, and one other contained in the next page of the Report are the only results that this country has been able to derive from the greatest International Economic Conference that has been ever held. I said before, about this, that those who were going to sell their souls for a mess of pottage might, at any rate, have seen to it that the mess was going to give some sort of a substantial meal. The speech we have just listened to shows what is thought by the Government of this agreement. I have a sort of feeling that the Minister has never been more uncomfortable in his life—and he has had many uncomfortable moments in this House—than in moving this motion. The only thing I regret is that in order to add to his embarrassment the gentleman who signed this agreement on behalf of the Free State, was not present to listen to him and to add, if that were possible, to the Minister's wonderful and powerful persuasion in asking us to pass this agreement.
We started for that Conference, in so far as we were to have dealings with people other than the United Kingdom delegation, with the greatest of hopes, at least so we were told. There was, however, no preparation made for the Conference. I asked a question, in the early part of the Summer to find out what precautions had been taken, what consideration had been given to the Agenda and what discussions there had been with any of our producers, likely to be interested. And the most we could get was the sapience of the President that at the Conference only general lines of agreement would be laid down and nothing in the way of detailed trade arrangements was in prospect. The Minister for Industry and Commerce to-day referred to the trade agreement between the United Kingdom and Canada, and I think that in Schedule E there is detail enough to show how completely astray was the point of view held and announced here before our delegates went to Cánada. But the fact that such a viewpoint was held prevented any discussion being had with our producers, with the object of discovering what we might get from members of the British Commonwealth outside the United Kingdom. And yet we were told by some of the delegation, before they started, that unless agreements could be secured with the United Kingdom there would not be much use in going to Canada. We were told in a later message from them, after their passage across the ocean, that they were still in the same frame of mind and that what they did would not count unless they could come to an arrangement with the United Kingdom. In the end this is the only concrete thing that we have got from this International Conference. But these were high hopes held out to the people of this country with regard to our prospects at the Conference, and these hopes did not found upon trading prospects with the United Kingdom. The Irish Press wrote a series of editorials bearing on these matters. In one dated the 3rd June we were told this:—
"From the preliminary Press statements that reach us from the Dominions, it is clear that at Ottawa there will be the deepest divergence of opinion and little prospect of any substantial agreement between people whose economic interests differ so greatly. In that atmosphere we can fancy what Mr. Thomas's ‘tact' will produce. The Irish Delegation will go earnestly anxious to do its best both for the Free State and to make the Conference as a whole a success. That Mr. Thomas's preliminary action is to announce Britain's adoption of a policy of bad manners is Britain's concern and nobody else's. The Free State imports over fifty million pounds worth of goods each year. The Dominions can supply many of these goods as well as Britain. If business, therefore, is to be done at Ottawa—should the Conference ever be allowed by Mr. Thomas to get that far—the Irish Free State is in a perfectly happy position. It has a tariff weapon which it can use in favour of whatever Dominion has the good sense, as well as the good manners, not to go to Ottawa full of anti-Irish spleen."
If, bearing in mind our "perfectly happy position" as described, we have to comfort ourselves with whatever little hope is to be gleaned from this agreement we would have—possibly, too hastily—to conclude that all the Dominions went to that Conference without having the good sense or manners to be empty of Irish spleen. Something similar was repeated on the 22nd July in the same paper. In an editorial which devoted itself to the prospects of an entire breakdown of the Ottawa Conference and incidentally went on to speak of the speech of the leader of the Irish Free State Delegation, that is, the Vice-President of the present Government, we find this:—
"Most of the speeches at the opening of the Ottawa Conference yesterday show what small hope there is of much resulting from the deliberations thus begun. The spokesmen of all countries were full of geniality. They overflowed in optimism, they saluted each other in graceful phrases but they avoided detail. Not one of them produced a plan by which entry of specific goods to one market would be permitted in return for such-and-such a preference in another."
And later down it stated:—
"That it will be a hardly fought battle goes without saying. Britain wants markets for manufactures but is not willing or is actually unable to give in return markets for the primary industries of the Commonwealth—wool, dead meat, grain, fruit, dairy produce. The Dominions want larger British consumption of their products but as they are building up native industries themselves, they are reluctant to permit the dumping of British manufactured goods. To resolve that mammoth clash of interests is not Ottawa's only task. Each individual Dominion has a conflict among her farmers and her factory-owners. The farmers are willing to lower the Dominions tariff wall to British manufacturers in the hope thereby of getting a bigger share of the British purchasers of their products. The factory-owners on the other hand naturally want the tariff walls as high as they can get them. If out of this conflict of opposites Ottawa can produce an economic paradise, the various Delegations will be the joy and the envy of the world. Far more likely is it that each of the Delegations will win a little for itself and that in five weeks' time that little will be magnified to conceal the lot in which no agreement could be reached."
I should here remark on my own that that last happy phrase is a perfect description of the speech of the Minister for Industry and Commerce this afternoon. But—to continue the Editor's criticism—
"Mr. Seán T. O'Kelly's speech was one of the best delivered. He set out the claim the Irish people have on Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other English-speaking countries, the claim of a nation which helped to make these lands great. He stressed the fact that the delegates he led were there, as the others were, ‘to seek first of all the interests of our own people.'"
Then this special point, so much in our favour, was harped upon again.
"He pointed out that the Free State was in a position to take particular advantage of any opportunities the Conference gave."
This is the quotation which is given from that speech of the Minister:—
"Special difficulties have arisen affecting about 85 per cent. of our trade, difficulties which may involve substantial changes in the form and direction of that trade."
The editorial then continues:—
"No doubt Britain no less than the Dominions understood the reference. If we can get from other nations manufactured goods hitherto supplied from Britain, we shall get them there. A trade of some £30,000,000 is thus available for competition by States other than Great Britain. In so far as the Ottawa Conference will provide the Free State with opportunities to exploit that situation to the Irish people's benefit, thus far will it be of real advantage to this country. For the rest, the Free State Delegation will use its best effort to make the Conference, despite the unhappy star under which it meets, as successful as the opposing interests within it permit."
So we must regretfully accept this Treaty as the result of the exploitation by our Delegation of the exceedingly advantageous position in which they found themselves there, and as the best we could do even after the Vice-President's ominous warning that difficulties had arisen affecting about 85 per cent. of our trade, "difficulties which may involve substantial changes in the form and direction of that trade." We had purchases of £30,000,000 worth of manufactured goods to play with. The United Kingdom Delegation had been worried that through their blunders, or, as the Minister for Finance had with tactful delicacy phrased it, because certain statesmen were going to "act like John Bull in the Canadian china shop," £30,000,000 trade was likely to be endangered, and although this warning had been conveyed in one of the best speeches of the Conference and although we were in a perfectly happy position with a tariff weapon at hand to use as we pleased, this pitiful thing is the result.
What does it come to? Relate Article 1 to Article 2 and it simply means this: that for a period of five years certain, and for as long a period after that as the Treaty is not denounced, we give to Canadian goods coming into this country preferences equal to those which we give to the most favoured country in the world, whether that be a Commonwealth country or a country outside the Commonwealth of Nations, and in return we secure that our goods will be charged at whatever rate British goods are charged going into Canada. was it delicacy that made our people refrain from putting into the first paragraph that we would give to Canadians the preference we would accord to Britain? If so, why did not the same delicacy operate in the next clause? I can only explain the reference to Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the second Article on this basis, that there be a definite recognition by our delegates that the goods we were most likely to encounter in competition for the Canadian market were British goods and that the preferences we would have to fight would be the preferences accorded to British goods, notwithstanding the minatory nonsense about substantial changes in the form and direction of 85 per cent. of our trade. In the second Article it is clearly stated that whatever preferences Britain gets on goods going into Canada, we also must get them. But in Article I, although, I think, it is clear that the country most likely to get the best preference from us under normal conditions is Britain, we do not say that Canadian goods will get whatever preferences have been from time to time accorded to British goods. We avoid the hurtful British reference by setting as the standard the lowest preference, whether it is that of a Commonwealth country or of one outside the Commonwealth. This childishness is in keeping with the minatory tone of the Vice-President's statement when he said that 85 per cent. of our trade was affected by the difficulties which had arisen and "which may involve substantial changes in the form and direction of that trade." That was only put up there for the moment, the bluff, so easily called, that we might give a preference to some outside country lower than what we are by force of circumstances almost bound to give to Great Britain.
At any rate, this is what we are signing for five years: that we guarantee that Canadian goods on entry into the Saorstát shall not be subject to any other or higher preference than goods coming here from any other country, that is, we grant the completest most-favoured-nation terms, or most-favoured-Commonwealth State terms, and in return we get a guarantee that our goods shall be admitted to Canada at British rates. First of all, what is the amount of trade we do? The Minister says that the figures were about £133,000 one way, as against three quarters of a million pounds the other way. We exported the former and smaller amount and imported the second amount. The most that the Minister could tell us about the future, as the result of this gilt-edged agreement, is that there have been meetings already with producers in this country and that steps have been taken to investigate the possibilities of trade with Canada under the new conditions. What about the other side of it? What about this trump card which we had in our hands—the £30,000,000 worth of trade which we had with Great Britain? What is the prospect of our doing that trade with Canada rather than Great Britain? Because, if we are going to do a big trade in sending our goods to Canada, it is pretty certain that after a bit Canada is going to demand from us a better percentage of our trade. Has the Minister any indication from Canadian manufacturers that they are likely in the near future to replace in this country the goods that are now being manufactured in Great Britain, and if so, to what percentage of that British trade and over what range of goods?
The second point to be considered is this. It is apparently considered really beneficial that goods going from here into Canada are to be put on terms of fair competition—equal competitive terms—with goods going from Great Britain. Do our manufacturers say that they are likely to export much under these conditions? If they do, what manufacturers are they who say that they are going to carry on trade under these conditions? It would be interesting to know. Are they amongst those manufacturers who call for a tariff against British goods when those goods come in here on equal terms. If this really is a benefit, it means that our people have some hope of standing up in an equal fight with British manufacturers, when both are exporting to Canada. If that is so, why cannot our people manufacture for the home market, where they have the advantage of production at home and the protection of the amount of the freight paid on goods coming in here. Why cannot they manufacture for sale here on equal terms and without help against the British industrialist?
This agreement, however, cannot be taken by itself. For the moment, it is the only thing we have got to consider, but the terms of this agreement and indeed the terms of all these agreements, were so arranged at Ottawa that they were supposed to interlock into one decent whole. Even though the more important pieces of that interlocking whole are missing for the time being, we have got to see that this agreement will not prevent any decent trade agreement being made later on with other countries. The Minister has referred us to the agreement made as between the United Kingdom and Canada. Sooner or later, this country has got to make a trade agreement with the United Kingdom, and I think that we will then have to take this agreement between the United Kingdom and Canada as the model. We must at least take it as laying down the lines upon which other trade agreements will have to proceed if they are to be made with the United Kingdom. There are, therefore, two or three items of importance that arise immediately upon this three clause Treaty of ours. If we are going to have our goods subject to no higher duty than is leviable upon United Kingdom goods we have to look elsewhere in this Report to find out what is the present position as between Canada and the United Kingdom, and what system is there in the agreement now made between the United Kingdom and Canada for varying the duties now established.
In the Treaty between the United Kingdom and Canada the first eight Articles give the British side of the bargain. The first Article provides that the free entry of goods allowed under the Import Duties Act, 1932, is to continue, but subject to a certain reservation made in Schedule A. In Article 2 the Government of the United Kingdom bound itself to invite its Parliament to pass legislation to achieve what is set out in Schedule B. In the third, they bound themselves that the general ad valorem duty of 10 per cent. imposed by Section 1 of the Import Duties Act, 1932, would not be reduced except with the consent of the Canadian Government. The fourth is a relaxation Article. The fifth is full of danger to our derided cattle trade. The sixth is a most important Article from the point of view of producers here, because it comes to this, that as soon as the United Kingdom Government had received from the Commission which was then sitting a report upon the re-organisation of the pig industry in the United Kingdom then that Government bound itself to introduce to its Parliament measures regulating the supply of bacon and hams, from all sources into the United Kingdom. It also makes provision for this—and a most important item it is—that there would be free entry of Canadian bacon and hams of good quality up to a maximum of 2,500,000 cwt. per annum.
The Commission that was dealing with the bacon industry in the United Kingdom has since reported and has recommended a rationalisation scheme. Already negotiations have been entered into with quite a number of countries which were sending bacon and hams into the United Kingdom in fierce competition with the goods that used to go from this country into the United Kingdom, and about a month ago agreements were made, regularising this trade, and enforcing a reduction of imports. Article 7 has regard to tobacco and has no reaction, good or bad, upon this country. Article 8 is an extension clause with regard to the Colonies.
The other side of this agreement is very important from our angle, because if and when we have a trade agreement with the United Kingdom it is to be presumed that this type of conditions will have to be regarded. The first of this new series of Articles is number 9, referring to the very lengthy Schedule E appended to this agreement. Under that Article the Canadian Government bound itself to invite its Parliament to pass the legislation necessary to substitute for whatever duties were then leviable the duties set out opposite the different items in Schedule E. That will represent, in so far as the items set down in detail in Schedule E are articles manufactured here for export or with an exportable surplus, the advantages we get under this agreement in return for binding ourselves for five years to admit into this country Canadian goods at whatever is the lowest rate that we impose upon any goods coming into this country from anywhere. In addition, there are six Articles that must be read together. Articles 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 deal with the arrangements that were made at Ottawa with regard to tariffs against British goods. I do not intend to go through them in detail, but the general effect of them is this: the Canadian Government bound itself that no duties hereafter would be imposed upon United Kingdom goods going into Canada except after examination by a non-party tariff board; it also bound itself that existing duties would be sent for revision to that same judicial Tariff Commission; it bound itself to bring into its Parliament any reports received from that Commission, and to invite that Parliament to pass the necessary legislation in accordance with the Commission's recommendation. Even the terms of reference, in a general way, are given to this Tariff Commission.
Article 10 says that the Canadian Government undertake that protection by tariff will be afforded against United Kingdom products only to those industries which are reasonably assured of sound opportunities for success. That is the first limitation. The second is in Article 11: "During the currency of this agreement the tariff shall be based on the principle that protective duties shall not exceed such level as will give the United Kingdom producers full opportunities of reasonable competition," and that reasonable competition is defined, "on the basis of the relative cost of economic and efficient production, provided that in the application of such principles special consideration shall be given to the case of industries not fully established." Article 12 provides for the constitution forthwith of the Tariff Board. No. 13 is an Article which provides for the review of existing duties. Article 14 provides that "No existing duty shall be increased on United Kingdom goods except after an enquiry and the receipt of a report from the Tariff Board." Article 15 guarantees the United Kingdom producers full rights of audience before that Tariff Board when it has under consideration any matter arising under Article 13 or 14.
Let us analyse these clauses in reference to the new position. Our goods are going to enjoy the tariff rates which, under this clause, are given or likely to be given to British goods. Look what that means—that hereafter, either with regard to existing duties or any new duty that may be proposed, a judicial, non-party— and, I think, even non-political— tariff board has got to investigate. The United Kingdom producers have full rights of audience before that Board, and the Government, in so far as it has any sway over Parliament, binds itself to introduce legislation in accordance with the reports submitted from time to time. The basis of the report is to be that protective duties shall not exceed such level as will give the United Kingdom producers full opportunity of reasonable competition, so that the standards our goods have to pass, reading these clauses side by side with our own trade agreement, is the tariff which Canada is allowed to put on, scaling that tariff to the height required to give British manufacturers reasonable protection on the basis of the relative cost of economic and efficient production. Economic and efficient production will hereafter rule the tariff rate on goods going into Canada, and that rate, which is to be set according to the standard of British economic production and British efficiency, is going to rule our goods going into Canada also. Most of the tariffs we have put on in this country recently have been imposed on this basis, that the ordinary competition we suffer from Great Britain is not reasonable competition, and yet we now adopt for this trade agreement with Canada the standard which a Tariff Board in Canada will give on the basis of British efficient and economic production, and will give only to industries in Canada which are reasonably assured of sound opportunities for success. It is abundantly clear that this trade treaty of ours with Canada is not worth anything as a trade agreement in itself, and the only thing we have really to consider is how far it may hamper us eventually in making the really valuable agreement, that which we ought to have been engaged in making with Great Britain. I stress here again and feel we should bear it in mind all the time that we have got eventually to make an agreement with Great Britain and it will presumably follow the lines laid down here in the agreement made with Canada, and that further agreement which is in this book and made with Australia. The trade treaty put before us is the only little fragment which has come to us from all the mutual advantages that were sought and, to a certain extent, got from that Ottawa Conference. We talk here of having a new scheme of economy— readjusting the whole economics of the country. We are to some extent achieving that in a Bill which is now in its last Stage in this House, and that Cereals Bill pivots on the price to be paid on certain articles and on the tests adopted to determine whether that article is up to standard. We have been told by the people responsible for the Bill that they do not know whether they can ever define what the standard of millable wheat in this country is.
That is the haphazard way the present Government are changing the economic system of this country, while strangely, at the same time they are subsidising all the dairy products and live-stock exports that used to be so condemned. For the whole trend of these subsidies is to keep going the particular form of economy that prevails in the country and which has always been so severely condemned, and so recently condemned by the people who moved this Wheat Bill. But in contrast with that muddled procedure Ottawa did represent a real rationalisation scheme—Ottawa is represented by these other agreements in which we have no part. Only in a slight way, by this agreement with Canada, do we fit into probably the biggest rationalisation scheme ever attempted. I have already referred to a clause about bacon. I use the bacon arrangement to illustrate what I mean. An arrangement was made with Canada, that even after a named Commission had reported, no matter what was done on foot of the report, Canada was to have free entry for bacon and hams up to a maximum of 2,500,000 cwts. per annum. Those who have followed events in recent months will have observed that there has been further progress in that particular rationalisation process in bacon and ham, progress made mainly with the Commonwealth countries but also with certain other foreign countries with whom Britain is engaged at the moment in making trade agreements. So, too, with butter, meat and other items of importance, and all done in connection with a very big and well considered scheme of economic re-adjustment in Great Britain. That is what is happening at the moment on the other side of the water, and instead of playing a foremost part in that scheme we are in exactly the same position as we were in at Ottawa—we are in the corner for the time being, we are in the corner at this most important period when all the re-fashioning is going on on the other side. It is, of course, argued that this is not the true picture, and the newest method of explaining our difficulties is to say that it is not the tariffs put on against us which are causing the harm, but that it is the lowering of prices which has taken place in England generally and which is due to the decline in purchasing power of the English community.
Now, it is common case with everybody that if we were normally operating with the United Kingdom we must have made our best agreement with the United Kingdom, and that these other ones with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and all the other countries would be of minor importance in comparison with the United Kingdom one. We had this trump card of the purchase of £30,000,000 of manufactured goods which we did not intend to purchase from the Dominions, and in return for that we should have been able to get a better footing in the British market for the goods we were producing here— producing at a profit to our own producers—and we should have guaranteed to continue in that production instead of making this fatuous change over to a particular type of product like wheat, with which the world is saturated at the moment, and which we cannot produce at anything like the price at which it can be produced and imported into this country. Remember also that these agreements made at Ottawa carried with them, not merely the question of the quantitative regulation of imports into Great Britain, but also carried with them this promise that on meat products of different types there is to be consultation during this year and next year, with a view to stabilising the prices of certain primary products so as to give to the Dominion producers a price to which they could look forward with certainly year by year. And there was a further promise given that prices were not going to be stabilised at the level to which competition had reduced them just now— there was, at any rate, going to be an increase in the wholesale prices. That was the time when we should have been able to play a part which would be of advantage to the producers of this country, because we certainly had the advantage that we purchased so much in the way of manufactured goods from the United Kingdom—more than any other Dominion could claim. With regard to the point that the lack of purchasing power of the British consumer had caused the drop in prices of these meat exports to the United Kingdom from the different Dominions, that point was questioned in the English Parliament, and this emerged. A single item was taken for purposes of comparison—the amount of frozen mutton and lamb imported into the United Kingdom. The information sought by Parliamentary question was what was the amount imported from Australia and from New Zealand respectively during the twelve months ending 30th June of this year, and the average annual imports from each of those countries during the five years ending 30th June, 1931. The figures given were these. The annual average for the five years ending 30th June, 1931, from Australia, 690,000 cwts.; in the year from that to the end of June 1932 this figure had risen to 1,190,000 cwts. From New Zealand the annual average during the five years was 2,935,000 cwts., which had risen in the twelve months to 3,908,000 cwts. Since that question was answered and because of it, or at any rate because of the discussions going on to which that question was relevant, there have been many negotiations in Great Britain with a view to having the quantity of imports from these countries reduced, and great reductions have taken place.
When these reductions were taking place we should have been prominent in securing place for our goods and in ousting the goods that were coming from other countries. If it does happen that the chance comes to us of getting an agreement with Great Britain before the new system is consolidated, and before the new five-year arrangements have been made primarily with the Dominions, but extended outside the Commonwealth so as to replace the products that are no longer going from this side to Britain, then eventually what we will have to consider is the same type of agreement as has been made between the United Kingdom and Canada. But, at the moment, we have not even an indication from the Minister of what might satisfy the revengeful feelings of certain people here who want only revenge and do not care what happens to the country's economy. We have no indication from him as to what portion of the £30,000,000 purchases heretofore made from Great Britain is going to be made in the future from Canada, and, as a complement to that, he has not told us what fraction of the exports that we used to send to Great Britain is, from this time, going to enter, under the new arrangement and because of the new arrangement, Canada.
Unless we get an answer to these two questions I cannot see that there is any positive good likely to result from this new trade agreement. In itself, it is not to be objected to. I do not say that it does any harm, but I can see very little good proceeding from it. Could the Minister tell us what steps are being taken to investigate the possibilities of further trade with Canada and, if they have progressed, to what point? Would he say what hope there is of any industrialist here getting an increased trade with Canada because of this agreement and to what extent?
The only virtue that the agreement has is that it does not seem likely hereafter to impede a good arrangement being made with the only one of the Commonwealth countries with which a good arrangement, one worth anything, is possible. But, accepting it even in this unenthusiastic way, a few points require care. I do not know just what emphasis can be put on the line or two which ends Article 11 of the United Kingdom agreement with Canada: "Provided that in the application of such principle special consideration shall be given to the case of industries not fully established." I presume that that, at any rate, has got to be read with Article 10, where that Article ordains that protection hereafter is only going to be given "to those industries which are reasonably assured of sound opportunities for success." It seems to me that if there is ahead—as the hope of it certainly is in most people's minds—a good trade footing with Great Britain, and if those two Articles hereafter govern our trade relations with the United Kingdom. then some number of these unascertained 300 factories that the Minister boasts of having started in this country will probably not last long. At any rate, the principle, if it is to be called a principle at all, on which the Minister operates in accumulating tariffs on in this country will have to be changed, because I presume all the time, taking the analogy of the agreement that is here with Canada and the agreement with Australia, that much the same type of procedure will be proposed to us eventually so as to ensure fair play as between the manufacturers of the different countries of the Commonwealth. The way that fair play is to be secured is, first of all, by the appointment of tariff boards to assess tariff applications and, further, by their appointment on the basis that they are to be non-party and, in the main, they are to be judicial.
With some reservations that plan can be accepted here. But there would have to be some reservations made. At any rate we shall require hereafter to have explained the fulness of the phrase "special consideration shall be given to the case of industries not fully established." Taking that as the principle with some reservations, even that principle can be accepted. For that reason I personally would have no objection to the agreement that we have before us in these three articles being entered into between the Irish Free State and the Dominion of Canada, but I can see no real good coming out of it. There was a golden opportunity afforded for securing material benefit to the people of this country, if the Delegation had really gone there, as the Vice-President said, "to seek first of all the interests of our own people." But if this is all that he can bring us back to show how well he observed the pledge that he put on himself of seeking "first of all the interests of our own people," then we must say that the evidence is not convincing. The interests of our own people are not going to be helped to any great extent by this.
The point about signing for five years need not, I think, worry us to any great extent. If this is a good agreement it is worth making for five years, particularly when we get the clauses exposed to us as they are here so that we can read them for what they are worth, and make up our minds as to what will result to the country from them. If it is a bad agreement, I do not think there will be any difficulty in getting a variation of it, if it can be shown that a variation is required in the interests both of the Canadian people and of the people of this country. There is nothing outstandingly unfair as regards the balance of these two articles, because in the end they come to the same thing: that we each guarantee to the other the entry of goods on a United Kingdom preference basis. Because of an anti-British pretence there is a delicacy about accepting in Article 1— it is clear throughout the article— a recognition that the United Kingdom is going to be the test as between ourselves and Canada. It is the rate at which United Kingdom goods will go into Canada or come in here that is going to matter to each country. We might as well have said that in Article 1, but for all that it matters it can remain as it is.
This, however, has to be stated in relation to it—it is on this basis it has been discussed by the other Parliaments concerned—that this five years' agreement is accepted subject to the constitutional reservation which must have been present to the minds of all the representatives who agreed to this five years' agreement at Canada, that no Government can bind its successor. It can only, when it ceases to be a Government, plead with its successor to continue an agreement such as this. If circumstances change with the advent of a new Government, then agreements of this type might have to be scrapped. That is, no doubt, understood. The only warning that might have to be given beyond that general warning is this, that if hereafter it is found that this does not interlock properly with a Saorstát-United Kingdom agreement then it is this agreement which must fall by the way, because the United Kingdom agreement which will eventually have to be made will be the really important one for the people of this country.
If the present Government do not set themselves out to get the other parts built all round this, and if some other Government has to take the matter in hands later, this will not be regarded as a foundation, but as something which is merely to be inserted into the general agreement.
While this agreement was being hammered out in Canada, there were a few speeches made there by our representatives. Because no reference to it appears in this treaty, I would like to have some information about one matter. A statement was made by the Irish Free State Delegation to the Financial and Monetary Committee. Incidentally, as regards that part of the report, I might remark that those who produced this book so definitely on the model of the two books brought out previously by the United Kingdom Government need not have followed it so closely as to copy out the obvious miscalculations in relation to money that appear in the other booklets. In the second part of the report, as presented there, this occurs:—
"The Irish Free State pound, resting on a sterling exchange standard, has at all times up to the present been maintained at parity with the pound sterling. The position of the Irish Free State as a creditor country has facilitated this. There is, accordingly, no problem of exchange instability between the Irish Free State and the United Kingdom with which this Conference need be concerned. Notwithstanding this, the Irish Free State is materially interested in the general problem of exchange instability as exemplified in recent times both in the world generally and more especially in the case of some of the inter-Commonwealth exchanges. The delegates of the Irish Free State consider that the stabilisation of exchanges between members of the Commonwealth could profitably be investigated at this Conference, and that any progress made would be a valuable contribution towards the solution of the wider problems that may hereafter engage the attention of the proposed World Monetary Conference."
Did that investigation take place at the Ottawa Conference? The next paragraph states:
"Should other members of the Commonwealth find it feasible to maintain stability in terms of sterling, the methods to be adopted for this purpose would appear to be likely to involve problems which would be common in several respects to those members and the Irish Free State, and on which the interchange of views at this Conference should serve a useful purpose. The experience of the Irish Free State in operating a sterling exchange standard suggests that there are points of policy in the administration of such a standard on which communication and co-operation between the various authorities operating such a standard would be beneficial to all."
Again, I would like to know if there was such communication and co-operation at Ottawa when this matter about the operation of a sterling exchange standard took place. The next paragraph states:
"It is recognised that wide issues affecting exchange standards in general involve considerations which could not well be explored fully by a body having the limited membership of this Conference. Nevertheless, if the method of a sterling exchange standard, or something approximating to it, is to be adopted generally, even as an interim measure pending further advance, it would seem to be very desirable that the members of the Commonwealth who resort to this method should have the advantage of some enlightenment from the authorities of the United Kingdom as to the policy to be pursued in regard to sterling itself, and especially the expectations entertained as to its future exchange relations with free gold currencies."
On that there is a continuation of the previous question. Did the Irish Free State delegation have the advantage of some enlightenment from the authorities of the United Kingdom on this question? It is recognised in that part of the report which I have read, the Irish Free State Report, that any question of maintaining stability in terms of sterling or operating the sterling exchange standard or not doing so is regarded as a matter for consultation and communication between the different members of the Commonwealth both when this memorandum was put forward and now. Seeing that nothing appears about it in the agreement, we would like to know whether there was any conference, anything even approaching an agreement, any arrangement whereby the conferences held out there were to be continued, and if there has been since then any continuation of conferences of that type.
I notice in the report from which I have read a statement which, if it was not added to by some sort of oral evidence on the part of the delegates, cannot be taken to be an accurate statement of the position here:—
"Despite the fall in production at home and the reduced external trade, it has been found necessary to increase the burden of taxation which was already intensified by the steep fall in prices previously mentioned. Owing to the growth of unemployment and increased distress generally throughout the country, the Budget provision for normal expenditure which usually runs to £26¼ millions, has had to be supplemented to no less an extent than £2½ millions in the current financial year 1932-33."
Why 2½ million pounds was stated at Ottawa when the Minister for Finance was boasting in this House that the Government had added 4¼ millions by way of increased taxation, I fail to understand. I say that unless this report was accompanied by some sort of a commentary, some oral evidence, it cannot be regarded as accurate, because the phrase "for normal expenditure" would have had to be explained to the delegates at that Conference.
I cannot understand the phrase put before the Conference in connection with unemployment in this country and I would like the Minister to explain it. On page 132 under the heading of Unemployment and Emigration the report says:—
"Even before the present depression began, the Irish Free State had to contend with a severe unemployment problem. At the Census of 1926, the number of persons who stated that they were out of work was 78,000..."
That, of course, the Minister must know is a misstatement. There were never 78,000 people who described themselves as out of work. The question they were asked to answer was not that and the distinction has got to be made. Out of work has a certain significance. It applies to people who must work in order to gain a livelihood and who are unable to get work.
