I propose to take the Fifth Stage now.
Constitution (Amendment No. 19) Bill, 1933—Report Stage.
Question put—"That the Bill be received for final consideration."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 53; Níl, 28.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Browne, William Frazer.
- Carty, Frank.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Doherty, Joseph.
- Everett, James.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Jordan, Stephen.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kissane, Eamonn.
- Lynch, James B.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Norton, William.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Kelly, Seán Thomas.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C. (Dr.).
Níl
- Anthony, Richard.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Dolan, James Nicholas.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Holohan, Richard.
- Keating, John.
- MacDermot, Frank.
- McGuire, James Ivan.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Minch, Sidney B.
- Morrisroe, James.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Nally, Martin.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Roddy, Martin.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Traynor; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Motion declared carried.
Question proposed: "That the Constitution (Amendment No. 19) Bill, 1933, do now pass."
On previous occasions I gave what I consider fairly good reasons against this Bill. The Bill merely proposes to shorten the length of time during which the Seanad can hold a Bill in suspense. I pointed out before that with the Constitutional conditions in this country it is desirable that there should be power of delay and considerable delay. By this Bill we are removing the last shadow of control that there is over the Executive Council. I know that the President considers as a personal affront to himself any suggestion that a Government of which he is the head could be otherwise than perfect. But we are legislating here to decide how legislation shall take place in this country and how control of the country shall operate. As I pointed out before, this country, almost unique in the world, can have its fundamental law changed by an ordinary act of legislation. The courts can be abolished to-morrow by a Fianna Fáil majority. Deputy MacDermot, speaking on this Bill, said there were two countries in Europe, Spain and Turkey ——
And Bulgaria.
Yes, and Bulgaria. There are three countries in Europe that have not a Second Chamber. We are evidently not going to have a Second House, but Deputy MacDermot realises that that does not really make an analogy in this case. He and other Deputies in the House will remember that in Spain when a Bill was brought in a short time ago which was recognised as being detrimental to the welfare of the Spanish people, there was a general hope felt not only in Spain but outside Spain that the Spanish President would recognise his power to refuse his signature to that Bill. In this country we have no such equivalent as the President of Spain. The equivalent here would be the Governor-General and the Governor-General has no power to refuse his signature to a Bill. We have a Government in this House with a majority of one at the moment. This is a Bill not for the present time but for the future as well. The Government can bring in any Bill it likes. With that majority of one there is no power to check that Government elected at a hectic moment, by people without much experience and who were prepared to believe any lies told them, a Government elected on the cry that they should be given a chance. To such a Government this Bill is now proposing that all this power should be given. There is no monarch and no Government in Europe to-day as sovereign as the Executive Council here. I admit that that was so before this Bill was brought in but the Seanad could, if they thought it was for the welfare of the people to do so, hold up a Bill for a year and a half. That period is now being reduced to three months.
It is urged of course that the people in this country do not want the Seanad. As I pointed out here already, there is not one man in one hundred who has given a thought to the Seanad. The people in this country have not had a long experience of control of their State. They only see what is obvious. The idea of a Second House was not a bright idea that anybody thought out. It came from a long process of evolution. It was found by people that the monarch himself should be controlled to some extent by Parliament. The power then moved into the hands of the Executive Council and it was recognised that the people should be defended, in so far as one could take precautions, against any possible law that could be made against them by the Executive Council or anybody else. Now we have the position here that the members of the Government have no check on them. I do not think that they will take it as an insult if I say that during many years they cultivated a subversive organisation in this country. They now refuse to take the action that every law, human and otherwise, demands that they should take to protect the people against that organisation.
What is to prevent this Government from suddenly declaring that the Army of this country should be the I.R.A.? It is very hard to get any strong movement going in the country, to get any movement crystallised so that it would affect a Government in three months. But if a Government should have to stand over that for 18 months it would be more difficult. If the proposal is beneficial one may be quite certain that 18 months will serve to convince the people and to convert opponents to the beneficial things in the Bill. But here once the Government makes up its mind that a thing should become law no power is there to withhold them.
This is a Bill to extend the power of the Executive Council. There was a time when people denounced Czars and absolute monarchs but I should like to be told what absolute monarch was ever in the world with more power than the Executive Council in this State? It was generally recognised by philosophers and people who theorised about Governments that the whims of the people should not be given immediate effect and that fundamental law should operate; that Governments and even monarchs must rule or govern according to the law. Here we have a Government governing according to the fundamental law of the Constitution but we have power to change that Constitution at any moment that the Government sees fit to do so. Kings, when they really fulfilled the complete kingly function, were themselves bound by law. The old Greeks considered that even the gods had to be bound by justice; but here we have a Government that can change the very foundations of law in this country at any moment that it suits them to do so, and the most that can be done, when this Bill is passed, is that the Seanad can hold it up for three months. Of course, in a short time we may have a Bill introduced to abolish the Seanad altogether. For instance, take the case of the President of Spain, elected under different circumstances from the Government, not being a symbol of the same whim that elected a government; when he sees that a thing is clearly not in the public interest he can stop it and refuse to give his signature to it. Here in this country, however, there is nothing that can stand against the Government as long as it has got that machine majority which it got as a result of the elections.
It seems to me that this Government should get away from the idea that they are perfect and from the idea that somehow or another the people who voted for the last ten years for one thing really wanted another and that now they have voted for this Government they will continue to vote for it for ever. The President himself would wish and would acknowledge that it is right and proper that there should be some protection for the people against irresponsible action by the Executive Council, but here we are not going to have it. The Government in this country, and I admit, it was true of the late Government, has more power than any Government in the world that I know of. From time to time we changed the Constitution and I am prepared to stand and assert that we never changed the Constitution in any point where it was not abundantly clear that it was for the benefit of the people of this country. We never sought to subvert the fundamental law of this country and, if we did, there was dissent, and dissent, as members who have been here from 1922 up to the present know, representing the various phases of public opinion during the period who did not represent the mood of the country at any one moment but the mood of the country over a fairly protracted period. It is right to assume that although the people may be wrong and unbalanced for a short time they are less likely to be wrong and unbalanced over a period of years. Consequently, I think that this Bill has no purpose—and I do not want to be unfair to anyone—except a slight vindictiveness against the Seanad. The Seanad did hold up the Oath Bill. There was no urgency whatever about the Oath Bill. The people had voted for Governments that approved of the Oath for a period of ten years. Consequently, one must assume that there could be no really strong objection to the Oath or, if there was, it was of recent and sudden growth and it would be only fair to allow a certain amount of time to elapse in order to let the people see whether they still held the same point of view after 18 months which they held at the time of the election. The Seanad has not been what one might call a wrecking body. Occasionally they have held up Bills, but there has never been any Bill, to my knowledge, which they have held up or delayed which was necessarily and clearly for the public good. There was never a case where a Bill was for the benefit of the public when the Seanad did otherwise than what is normal. Deputies talk about the way the Seanad passed the Bills of the late Government. It is somehow or other assumed by the members of the opposite side that no right-minded person should approve of anything brought in by the late Government; and the mere fact that the Seanad passed Bills is taken to mean that the Seanad was only influenced by the desire to approve of whatever the late Government did. There is no ground for that assumption. The people voted for the late Government and voted for them over a long period of years.
I would again urge on this House— I know it does not amount to anything while they have the majority—that they are moving in a completely wrong direction, the direction of complete dictatorship. There is no country in Europe to-day with a more complete and absolute dictatorship than has the Government of this country with, perhaps, the exception of Russia. In Italy you have a Fascist Government and a king, whose functions are extremely limited but who has functions nevertheless. The King is part of our Constitution here but we know that the Constitution demands that the King must act according to the advice of the Executive Council. Consequently, the Executive Council here is supreme, as no monarch has been or no government in Europe is and yet our present Government is not satisfied. They want even greater powers than our predecessors had, and they kick against even the suggestion that what they want to have done might be delayed a little by another body. It makes them impatient.
As I have said already, it is no good arguing against this thing, but it is clear to everybody that there does require to be an elaborate machinery of Government to protect the people from themselves. When this Bill is passed this Government is going to have an absolute and supreme power and we know that the Fianna Fáil majority is going to support it because their own Party is in power now; but who knows what Party will be in power in the future? Some of us are convinced that the whole policy of this Government is to create here a mentality which means inevitably a revolutionary outlook which may result in the putting in of a government here of which no right-minded person could approve. We are preparing the ground to make things easy for that. The conscious self-righteousness of the President is only effective as long as he remains President. He may conceivably go out of office and in this country then we are going to be in the position that any Party which at any given moment is able by its catch-cries to get the support of a large majority of the people of this country can get complete control of the Government of this country without any power to delay or hold them. I admit that it existed very largely before the President came into power. He was not satisfied. According to him, we were only acting on orders from outside. I notice the President has not said that since he came into office, because he knows it was not true. But having held up the bogey to the people of this country that there was a power outside this country that was affecting the people here, he is using that now to get all the power into his own hands on the assumption that whatever he does is perfect. The President said yesterday that, when large sums of money were put into his own hands for his heirs and assigns, we must assume that it would be an affront to him to suggest it would go into his own pocket.
That does not arise.
I agree, and withdraw that. The President proposes this now because he is satisfied in his own heart that he knows what the Irish people want, but he will agree that it is at least possible that somebody may succeed him who may not have a heart of such a photo graphic nature as to be able to say that. He is proposing a complete Fianna Fáil dictatorship without any restraint or trammel upon it and that is what European history reacts, and has always reacted against. That is what he proposes for the Free State.
A good deal of prominence has been given to the argument of the President, in support of this Bill, to the effect that the existence of proportional representation in this country has made it less necessary for us to have a strong Second Chamber. I feel disposed to recur to that point just for a moment. My opinion about proportional representation is that it has the effect of putting the country more at the mercy of party machines than the previous electoral system. The arrangement, for instance, at elections under which the constituency is divided up into strips and the people are ordered to vote 1, 2, 3 in such and such an order for the candidates of a particular party, and the whole basis of party organisation that springs from the proportional representation system, has the effect of minimising personal relationship between a member and his constituency. It seems to me that the machine has tended more and more to thrust out the individual in politics as a result of proportional representation. So far from that being something which makes a Second Chamber less necessary, I doubt very much if it is not something that makes a Second Chamber more necessary. When added to that you have the existence of a system in this country, which I believe to be very unusual, where in the big Parties—in fact, I think, in all the Parties but our own—each individual member takes a specific pledge never to vote against his Party, it means that the discussions in this House, as Deputy Fitzgerald has just remarked, and as I have often heard remarked here before, become to a large extent make-believe because they cannot affect a vote. They might conceivably affect the vote of a whole Party, but an individual will never vote against his Party. We had an extreme instance of it on the Economies Bill, for example, when Deputy Breathnach made very strong speeches on one side and yet was unable to give effect to his views with his vote. It appears to me that the existence of that system within the Dáil and of the proportional representation system in the country tend to make a Second Chamber more desirable rather than less desirable.
The issue raised by this Bill, however, is not really whether we ought to have a Second Chamber or not. If the Second Chamber were being completely abolished I could see some considerable compensations. There would be the compensation of the saving of expense, in the first place. In the second place, there are a number of able men in the Seanad who might perhaps come into this House if the Seanad were abolished. There are a number of able men in the Seanad who would be perfectly capable of weathering the storm of an election and getting in here, but they shrink from it. Most of us, I suppose, dislike elections, and it appears a pleasanter and more dignified course to go into a Chamber where you have not to face the hardships of a popular election. I think that those men would be capable of doing far greater service to the country if they were in this Chamber than they are doing at present in the Seanad. If this Bill is passed, the Seanad becomes something which I cannot understand anybody being in favour of. It becomes a sham safeguard, and not a real safeguard. I agree with Senator O'Farrell when he says that whatever people's views may be about having a Seanad, he cannot understand anybody being in favour of a make-believe Seanad. A sham safeguard is extremely dangerous in politics, in business or anywhere, because is gives people a false confidence that they ought not to have. It is very bad for people to think a safeguard exists when it does not exist. The inevitable effect of this Bill, coupled especially with the system of election which tends to make members of the Seanad depend upon the goodwill of the leaders of the different Parties in this House, must necessarily degrade the Seanad into something which is simply not worth while. I do not understand how any unprejudiced or reasonable person can think this a good Bill.
I do not know whether it is worth making any reply to the speeches which have just been made. They are simply a repetition of the statements made on the Second Reading.
I must say I do not at all agree with the last speaker with regard to proportional representation. Deputy Fitzgerald talked about what people might do in a hectic moment. I do not think it is possible, under proportional representation, to get a swing over of public opinion which would require the Seanad to save the public from itself, in the circumstances we have heard I think that one of the supposed safeguards which the Seanad supplies is not needed in our case precisely because we have proportional representation. A person would be very hard set to make a case that this House, for instance, constituted as it is, is not a fair reflex of public opinion, that is assuming that elections are held without intimidation and without force. It is from something of that sort I imagine we need protection rather than protection by such means as we have in the case of the Seanad. It was precisely because the preceding Executive held elections at times when it was obvious that there was no freedom that we have had a good deal of the difficulty which existed over a considerable period. I still hold to my view that the existence of a system of proportional representation does offer a more effective safeguard against violent changes of public opinion, and any evil consequences that may follow from it, than a Second Chamber, particularly a Second Chamber of the character we have here.
The next point is with regard to the real purpose of this Bill. Again, we have to ask ourselves whether the Second Chamber is to be a controlling body or not. If you give it delaying powers to such an extent that it is in fact able to make futile the aims and objects of the constitutionally elected Executive, then it is in fact a controlling body. When it is considered that a period of 20 months is practically one half of what we may expect to be the normal period of office of Governments here it will be seen you are giving to the Second House a power of control which is quite in opposition to any theory of democratic Government. We do know of course that Governments are not perfect, and we do know that there is no machine which can be devised that would give a perfect Government. We are keeping to democracy simply because we believe that on the whole it is a more suitable, more definite and more satisfactory form of Government than any other. If we are going to have democracy we must accept its implications. One of its implications is that when the people have voted for a certain policy, and put in an Executive to carry out that policy, they are really in favour of it, and that those who oppose it are opposing the will of the majority for the time being. For instance, as happened here when a subject like the Oath had been discussed for years and had definitely been one of the principal matters at a general election, and when it was held by the majority Party that the removal of that Oath was very important from the point of view of domestic peace, I do think that it was assuming powers of control for a Second Chamber under such circumstances to hold up the Bill and insist on holding it up for the period of 20 months.
I think I indicated to the House that the question of whether there should be a Second Chamber or not lies this way in my mind, that if I could see devised, if I could devise myself, or get suggestions for devising a Second Chamber which would have functions of a definite character differentiating it from this Chamber, I would be prepared, for one, to favour such a Chamber provided the members were relatively small in number, and that the powers of control over this Chamber were definitely limited. There is no doubt whatever about it, the power of delay is, for the time being at any rate, an effective power of control. The period I have mentioned in this Bill, five months, is a reasonable period. It is a considerable fraction of the time which an Executive Council has normally at its disposal for the purpose of putting its policy through. The period of five months appears to me to be a fairly reasonable period.
I tried to get members of the Dáil to believe that that was so by pointing out to them that Constitution Committees which were set up in 1922, not by us but in quite a different set of circumstances, and consisting of people who might be regarded in a sense as experts on the matter, had severally sent up reports, and in these reports the period indicated was a period of 180 days. That period was later, I understand, increased to 270 days as the result of certain negotiations or conversations that took place between a minority and the representative of the Executive at the time. I admit it was not a very big increase. That is the history of the matter, as I am informed. I have seen the draft reports, and in two of these reports 180 days are specified as the period of delay. I submit our five months period is a close approximation to that. If you like, we are narrowing the period still further, but I think the period to which we are narrowing it is justified, considering that the Chamber, as it is elected in its present political way, is tending to become more and more, and will become more and more as time goes on, a mere reflection of this House.
The question mentioned by the Deputy, the complete question as to whether we will or will not have a Second House, is not being determined. The period of five months might possibly be changed. If there were a committee sitting on this whole question, a recommendation might be made for a somewhat longer period, but personally, I think this period is sufficiently long as a period of delay. It gives the members of the Second House ample opportunity of criticising any measure that comes before them. It gives an opportunity for the submission of suggestions, and it gives any body in the country which might be affected by measures submitted to the Seanad an opportunity of pressing their views upon their representatives or upon the Executive of the day. If there are any hardships likely to be inflicted on persons, and if amendments proposed by the Seanad would alleviate those hardships in any way, then the bodies affected will have sufficient time in which to make their representations to the Executive Council or to their representatives.
I think it is not necessary to go back on the history of the matter. When this extension of the period of 270 days was originally under discussion I protested that the extended period would be used for political purposes, and that it would be used to obstruct a new Government with different ideas from those of the Government that was in office for ten years. I am now convinced that it has been so used and we are determined that what we regard as abuses of that particular type will not be permitted indefinitely. We are not necessarily determining, although I would stand for it if the matter came up even now, that this should be the delaying period if the Constitution of the Second House is altered. We say, at any rate, that pending the abolition of the present Chamber or the substitution of it by another, its powers of delay shall not be longer than the period in the Bill. For those reasons I press for the passing of this measure.
Mr. Cosgrave rose.
The President has just concluded.
I think not. This Bill was originally introduced by the Vice-President; I believe it is in the hands of the Vice-President, and ordinarily he should conclude.
I do not wish to prevent the Deputy speaking, but I would like to mention that I have been in charge of the Bill; I have been acting for the Vice-President in the matter.
The Bill that was introduced by the Vice-President was indicated in the Paper and it was ordered by Dáil Eireann on the 7th June, 1933, to be printed. May I ask for the ruling of the Chair on that matter?
The President rose to wind up. Any Minister may conclude for another member of the Executive Council.
The President did not mention that he was concluding. The Vice-President is in the House. I understood the President was merely contributing to the debate. On previous occasions when I was in the same position I rose to speak, but I did not conclude the debate; I merely took part in it.
As a matter of order, both for the present and the future——
That is not for the President to decide; that is a matter for the Chair.
I am presenting my case against the proposal put forward by the Deputy.
Presenting what?
I am presenting the opposite case to that presented by the Deputy. The Deputy wishes to speak. I submit I was concluding the debate.
The President did not say he was concluding.
If the Deputy had been in his place he would have known that since I returned I have been in charge of this Bill. I have spoken on the Bill the whole time through and I submit I concluded the debate just now.
I am not concerned with that; I am concerned with what was on the Paper.
I submit that what has been done is in order and in accordance with practice.
That is for the Ceann Comhairle to decide.
I submit to the Ceann Comhairle that it is in accordance with practice that the Minister who has been clearly in charge of the Bill through several stages, the Second Stage and so on, and in regard to whom there has been no interruption of this sort, is entitled to conclude.
This Bill was introduced by the Vice-President. He was responsible for the First Stage and, speaking from recollection, I presume he spoke on the Second Stage. It was not indicated by the Chair or by the President that he was concluding the debate. I submit that it is a debate that should be concluded by the Vice-President.
The facts are that I got up to put the question; I was actually on my feet when the President rose and said he wished to reply to some points raised. That was a very definite indication that the President was about to conclude.
I did not take it as such.
I had stood up to put the question when the President rose. I am definitely of the opinion that the President did conclude.
Then I ask permission to correct what was stated by the President in the course of his address. He said that the previous administration had elections here in which there was no protection for people and in connection with which force was used. I deny and repudiate that statement absolutely.
Question put: "That the Bill do now pass."
The Dáil divided:—Tá, 57; Níl, 32.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Browne, William Frazer.
- Carty, Frank.
- Cleary, Micheál.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Jordan, Stephen.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kissane, Eamonn.
- Lynch, James B.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Timothy Joseph.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Crowley Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Doherty, Joseph.
- Everett, James.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Norton, William.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Kelly, Seán Thomas.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pattison, James P.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C. (Dr.).
Níl
- Anthony, Richard.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Dolan, James Nicholas.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Finlay, John.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Holohan, Richard.
- Lynch, Finian.
- MacDermot, Frank.
- McGuire, James Ivan.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Minch, Sydney B.
- Morrisroe, James.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Nally, Martin.
- O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcús.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Roddy, Martin.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Traynor and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett
Motion declared carried.