When the House adjourned last night, I was dealing I think with the statement that was made by Deputy MacDermot. He suggested that while he believed there was no sharp practice, that there was nothing wrong being done by the Government at the present time, still that something indelicate was being done. I resent as much the charge of indelicacy in this matter as I do the charge of fraud or corrupt practice on the part of the Government—just as much—because indelicacy in this matter can have but one meaning, as far as I can see, and that is impropriety which is of a kind approaching more to sharp practice, either on my part as an individual or as head of the Government. I suggested to the Deputy, when speaking in that way, that he should develop that point a little more and show exactly where there was what he thinks was delicacy or indelicacy. I should like him to tell us whether he thinks it would be indelicate if National Loan Bonds, let us say, were given to his Party and accepted by his Party. Would it be an act of indelicacy on their part to accept them simply because it might some day happen that his Party would be a majority in this House, and that it might be his duty, in his capacity as member of the Executive Council, to bring in a Bill here providing for the repayment of those bonds, or for the payment of interest upon them? Would it be indelicate on the part of the Labour Party, if in a similar position, to accept Dáil Eireann Bonds or National Loan script for their Party even, let us say, simply because the payment which would be made to anybody who held those bonds would be made to them as a Party when they happened to be the Government?
Dáil Eireann Loans and Funds Bill, 1933—Committee Stage (Resumed).
Perhaps it would shorten matters and save time, if I intervened at this stage. I distinguished sharply between these bonds and such an issue as National Loan.
Why?
For this reason, that as I understand it what is going to be done about these bonds was a matter not definitely settled. Here we are actually called upon to legislate. It was not a chose judgée. It was something that required legislation by the Oireachtas to settle in due time. It appears to me I might take a couple of illustrations though they are not exact parallels to this case. Take what was known as the Marconi case in England which occurred somewhere about 1910 or thereabouts. Certain members of the then British Cabinet acquired shares in the American Marconi Company at a time when the British Cabinet was entering into contracts with the British Marconi Company. No impartial person imagined for a moment that Mr. Rufus Isaacs, as he then was, and Mr. Lloyd George would allow themselves to be influenced in the government contracts by the fact that they held Marconi shares. Nevertheless when the matter was brought to light it created a great stir and scandal and it was considered that it was an undesirable thing for Ministers to lay themselves open to this sort of insinuation that actually was made at the time by some of their political enemies.
Take the case of the German Dawes 7 per cent. loan. A week or two ago Herr Hitler announced that the interest and sinking fund on that loan was going to be paid. The holders breathed a sigh of relief because nobody knew quite what was going to happen after the upheaval in Germany. Now if it transpired that Herr Hitler's Party had a substantial wad of Dawes bonds assigned to it by German-Americans it would certainly have laid Herr Hitler open to the sort of insinuation that British Ministers were left open to in connection with the Marconi case.
Here we have a loan which is not like any of our other State loans. It was a loan that from various aspects had been the subject of violent controversy and the ultimate fate of it was still uncertain. As I understand it, unless I am wrongly informed, there were matters quite uncertain about it apart from the date of payment, which had to be decided by negotiation and compromise, such as the settlement of the back interest. Now I suggest that whether as leader of the Opposition or prospective leader of the Government, the President was bound to be intimately concerned in the discussions that would take place here in the Dáil when the time came for legislation to be introduced; and that it was not desirable that he should put himself in the position of being personally interested already. The President went so far last night as to say that, even if he accepted these bonds personally and not for his newspaper, there would be nothing objectionable in it. I suggest it would be objectionable, and that it was objectionable for him to go after them even for his newspaper.
Let us suppose that the Cumann na nGaedheal Government had still been in office when this legislation was called for. Might not this occur, judging by the description of the character of Cumann na nGaedheal Ministers which we heard from the Government Benches last night—might it not come about that, owing to the fact that the Fianna Fáil Party organ was going to benefit immediately by the repayment of the loan, the Cumann na nGaedheal Government might keep postponing and postponing the payment of the loan in order not to benefit the Irish Press? That was a possibility which I suggest the President must have considered, taking the view he did of the character of Cumann na nGaedheal Ministers. If so, was it fair to the American holders of these bonds that such an obstacle should be raised in the way of their getting their money. I put it to the President that that sort of problem might have arisen here and other problems connected with this loan, which it would be his duty to deal with whether as Leader of the Opposition or Leader of the Government, and that his attitude towards them might quite conceivably in theory be influenced by the fact that he had assigned to him a considerable number of these bonds for the benefit of the Irish Press. Supposing the Irish Press had been in a much worse position than it actually is. Suppose it was in a state of absolute insolvency and could not carry on, would not the position be that even if this was a most unsuitable moment to pay off this loan, the President would have very strong pressure put upon him to do it for the purpose of saving the Irish Press from destruction. It appears to me in these circumstances that there is absolutely no parallel between this particular loan and the loans to which the President has been comparing it where nothing still remained to be settled by legislation.
I have listened to the explanation and the parallels and I hold that not one of them is satisfactory. It is suggested that the difference between this and the others —between these Dáil Eireann Bonds and the National Loan Bonds—is that nothing was definitely settled. Now, the dates are rather important. I gave to the House here a whole series of statements, starting immediately after the Treaty and continued uninterruptedly down to a little over a year ago, when the present Opposition were in office, and throughout all of that, there was not the slightest suggestion that there was not an intention to pay on these bonds, not merely their face value, but also the interest that had properly accrued on them. When I went to America and took assignments of these bonds in lieu of cash—and I pointed out to the House that roughly there was about as much cash subscribed as there were bonds subscribed, at the same time that there was cash subscribed here in Ireland—we had Deputy Fitzgerald, representing the Government here, telling us for years ahead of that, as these extracts which I have read informed us, that he told everybody in America that it was the intention of the Government to pay the money on these bonds. Already the receivers in New York had decided on distributing the balance pro rata and, I think, probably about that time, if not just at that time, stating publicly the amount that was being distributed on each bond. The receivers were actually operating. Money was about to be distributed. Every person who assigned one of these bonds had the knowledge that they were going to get, either through the receivers, or through State action here, the full equivalent value of these bonds; and if ever a State was pledged—there was an Act in 1924—this State was pledged to redeem these bonds, and nothing but sharp practice on the part of the previous Executive Council could possibly prevent that being done.
It was suggested last night by Deputy McGilligan that, while he had told the American Minister and communicated in writing to him that this Government could not pay this money until the receivers had handed in their final report, that did not bind him to pay it at that time. But what was the clear implication? The Government here officially had stated that they intended to pay this money—I will read the paragraph—but Deputy McGilligan tries to make a quibbling point to the effect that all that was said was that they could not do it before a certain date. This is what Deputy McGilligan, then Minister for External Affairs, wrote to Mr. Stirling, the United States Minister. The Minister for Finance, I think, explained to the House that that was presented to us as one of the documents when the legal representatives of the bondholders came over here a short time ago to make inquiry as to what the present Government intended to do in regard to the implementation of that promise. I pointed out to the House that that was the beginning of definite action on the part of this Government—that the legal representatives of the bondholders came over here, sought an interview with the Minister for Finance and myself, presented us with these formal documents which had been forwarded to them by the State Department in New York, and asked us definitely what this present Executive Council intended to do with regard to the implementation of these promises that have been repeated over and over again in public statements on these benches and in a very definite form in this official document. This is what occurs in this document:—
"The Government of the Irish Free State has repeatedly acknowledged this obligation to repay the bondholders of the External Loan and this view has not been modified as a result of the decision given by the New York Supreme Court. The question at issue is, accordingly, only one of the proper time and machinery to be adopted for the repayment of the loan. My Government is satisfied that no action can be taken until the receivers in New York have distributed the amounts they hold."
Now, the Deputy, who was then Minister, sees in this an opportunity to quibble although, in fact, when you take it along with the public statements that were made by the Minister for Finance, there can be no doubt whatever about it and what its intention was—no doubt whatever. The obligation was there. It was a long outstanding obligation. The duty to pay was there and to pay as promptly as may be, and the only excuse for not paying was given to the effect that the receivers had to present their final report to the court before it could be done and that after that was done machinery would have to be established. I said that, taking that in conjunction with the statements that were made by the Minister for Finance, there could be no doubt about it and, of course, I had only to look up a few of the files to find an explicit statement on the part of the Minister for Finance that payment would proceed immediately after the completion of distribution by the receivers,—which was the natural conclusion to be drawn from that letter and from the acceptance of the obligation and the previous general statements. Besides that, we have it here expressly set out in a cutting from an interview in the New York Sun. Speaking about the payment of these loans, Mr. Blythe, it says, pointed out:—
"It will be necessary, of course (Mr. Blythe pointed out) for officials of the Free State to make a thorough examination of all accounts and records held by the American courts and to be supplied with a list of names of subscribers, together with the amount of the subscriptions and the amounts already paid."
Of course! And the records are now available. However, Mr. Blythe goes on to state:—
"That will take some time; but once it has been checked, the Free State Government will proceed immediately to establish connection with one of the big New York banking houses and, with the co-operation of the Dublin Government, will be asked to settle all the claims in full."
What is the use of quibbling, as the former Minister for External Affairs was trying to quibble last night? What is really the difference between these bonds and any other bonds? The Ministers certainly, at any rate, accepted full responsibility for their payment. The Government stated that it was going to pay them and mentioned the time, and the time is this very time, because at this moment the final report of the receivers is being presented. We have to be in a position to make claims in the court now for these documents and we have to show our good faith in all these circumstances by producing a completed Act of Parliament under which these payments will be made. Now, I say that any ordinary person under these circumstances, had as much security as he can ever have in cases like that, that these bonds were going to be paid. It is quite possible, of course, to repudiate debts and people with State bonds of this or any other Government have always to face that possibility. It is not a likelihood. States know they have to borrow money again; communities know that their credit is an important asset, and they are not likely to behave in that manner. This Government, no matter what we wanted to do, if we were at all to take over and accept the continuing responsibilities would have to accept that.
Might I ask the President was it a matter of course that his Government would accept all the financial responsibilities settled on by the previous Government?
There was no trouble whatever in this respect, because all Parties had been agreed upon it. I quoted from General Collins's statement. I quoted from the statement of the previous President, Deputy Cosgrave.
Where?
I quoted it when the Deputy could have heard it if he were in the House. I am not going to quote it again. I quoted from several Cabinet Ministers, the most important being the Minister for Finance. In every one of these, continuing right through, there was the clearly expressed intention that this State and the people of this part of Ireland, through their elected representatives, were going to accept that responsibility. The Marconi case has been suggested. If there was a question here of our coming in to do something special for somebody or other then a case might be made, but I submit there is not. I submit that there is clear definite proof—proof that I challenge any committee of the House to go and examine—that this time was chosen for the payment of these funds owing to circumstances over which we had no control whatever, namely, the time at which the receivers had completed their report. I do not know the details of the Marconi case, but I do say at least on the surface of it that it is a very different thing to act as a trustee and to put assignments in an enterprise, from taking shares in some corporation or other in which Government contracts would come in. There were no Government contracts in this case. There is no action taken by the Government in this case except action that was determined by things in which this Government had no real determination—by outside events. We are paying this money because it is due. We had Deputy Rice last night telling us that it was not due.
On a point of order, that is not what I said. I said it was not payable at the present time.
It would be very interesting to get the records.
Mr. Rice
I made it quite clear that I meant it was not payable at the present time as the conditions are not fulfilled.
My hearing is not too bad and I can understand words when I hear them. I am quite prepared to take the Deputy's correction, but I want him to understand that I believe it to be a correction. I do not say that people cannot make mistakes. The Deputy now is not going to say that these were not payable. Now he says, not payable at the present time. I stated that this was the time indicated by our predecessors and that, from a business point of view, it is not an unsuitable time. The rate of exchange was suggested by some Deputies opposite as being the reason, but I pointed out yesterday that the rates of exchange when these pledges were made on previous occasions were respectively 4.41 dollars and 4.45 dollars, and that the rate of exchange is more in our favour to-day than it was then and, if we are at all capable of reading the course of events, it is much more likely to be in our favour when the full machinery is set up and the payments are actually being distributed.
I pointed out that we have no complaint and can have no complaint on the score of the exchanges; that these moneys were given to us at a time when 3.67 dollars or, say, 3.70 dollars, taking an average over the period, purchased for us the £ and now that same £ is going to repay 4.52 dollars. It was 4.52 the day before yesterday. I did not see the figures since.
Will the President give the wholesale prices of commodities?
If the Deputy wants to ask a question let him wait. I said that the rate of exchange was so much in our favour that we were actually paying our interest charge out of the benefit in our favour of the exchange. The economic war was mentioned by Deputy Minch.
Before getting on to the economic war, I should like to ask if the speech of the President is in order—if it is referable to the amendment before the House at all, or if it is not a Second Reading speech? I submit to the President that he is not dealing with the amendment at all.
In reply to the Deputy's question, it is my opinion that 80 per cent. of the debate was not relevant to the amendment. But the debate having followed those lines, the President is now in order in answering statements made by other speakers on the amendment.
On a further point of order, may I point out that this is the second Second Reading speech which the President has made on the amendment?
And the thirty-second impertinent remark by the Deputy.
This whole debate ranged over a wide field.
May I put a question to the President before we get away from the particular point he was at? At the time when he was in America raising subscriptions for the Irish Press were these bonds readily discountable in American banks at their face value with merely the ordinary discount for interest; and, secondly, arising out of that, were shares in the Irish Press forthwith issued to the people who assigned the bonds to the President or have they not yet been issued?
I will come to those points in a moment. I was just dealing with a statement made by Deputy Minch. Deputy Minch suggested: "We got those moneys for a physical war; let us retain them now to fight the economic war." If we did want money to fight the economic war, and if we did want help again from the sources from which we derived it on previous occasions, I say that the proper way to get that help is to acknowledge and to honour the obligations that we have voluntarily taken upon ourselves.
What about your attitude?
It is easier to explain my attitude in regard to it than it is to explain that of the gentlemen opposite. That English war cuts in two ways. When we hear Deputies talking about the need that this country has at the present moment of conserving its resources, and when we hear them trying to suggest that we should use some legal technicality to get out of some obligations that were as clear as any obligation ever undertaken by any people, when we hear those people trying to get out of them now by legal quibble, it is astonishing what a difference there is between their attitude towards England, towards keeping here money which would be only part restitution for what we were robbed of, and their attitude towards money which was given to us by others to help us in our hour of need when we were struggling against that enemy. However, I am dealing with the question of keeping those moneys at the present time, as they are needed. I say if we do want money again, if we ever again want from our friends abroad money to defend the interests of this country, then I say it does not matter what body of men are here representing the Irish people, it is their duty on the first possible occasion to pay this money back, and that is the wisest course to take.
We are doing that. How are we doing it? In the case of the smaller subscriptions, because of the large number involved, we are paying in cash. The larger subscriptions are being paid in bonds of this State. I submit, then, that in choosing the present time for the payment we are not choosing a time to suit ourselves. That time was already predetermined and definitely decided upon by our predecessors, in circumstances over which neither they or we had definite control. I submit that it is a duty to pay this, that it is a favourable moment to do so, when we come to view the amount of money involved, and that, if we ever want to raise an external loan again, the payment of this money on terms that have been arranged, and which I for one consider quite fair, should be proceeded with out of hand.
We have an amendment which says that a certain class must be excluded from the payment; that, for instance, the Irish Press, which went ahead with the work of establishing a newspaper, and which entered into commitments with those who assigned the bonds, is to be deprived of the capital on which they had counted, simply because that enterprise is not one that is in favour with the Opposition, or with some of the Deputies of this House. To my mind, it is practically on a par with an action of this kind taken by an Executive; suppose that the funds, let us say of Deputy MacDermot's Party, consisted of those bonds that are to be redeemed in a few years, and that coming on to an election time the Government, because they knew that that Party had those bonds, brought in an Act to exclude that Party from getting those moneys. That would be corruption, to my mind, and studying the attitude of the Opposition to-day, and carefully studying some of the statements that they made at the time, there was just that danger, that there would be in office men who would abuse their office by making that discrimination. I know it is gall and wormwood to them that they are not here to do it, and that is the whole trouble. They are not here to do it, and it is the great and supreme pleasure of my life to know that they will have to digest that gall and wormwood.
The President does not look very pleased about it.
I am more pleased than the Deputy may imagine. I am very pleased that they have not got the power to do the dirty thing they intended to do.
The President had a better expression than that.
I am delighted that you have not got the pleasure of doing it.
Better again.
There is not going to be any discrimination here. The Gaelic American newspaper is one of the newspapers, I believe, to which those bonds were legally assigned. Are we going to discriminate there because that paper opposed us in every possible way for a number of years, and supported the people opposite? Not likely. As long as there is a legal transfer of bonds this money has to be paid back to the legal owners, and it will be paid back to them. That is the purpose. We are not going to accept the amendment, which we know was designed for purely Party purposes. It is asked whether the bonds were quoted on the American Stock Market——
Not on the American Stock Market.
They were not quoted on the Stock Market, nor were they being discounted as far as I know. They may have been, but I do not believe they were. The individuals who had them had an assurance as definite as it could be, published ten times over in the newspapers, and privately conveyed to them by the letters which they got from the Receivers, that the moneys which were due to them on those bonds would be paid. Now for the next question. I have answered the first one. The next question is whether bonds of the Irish Press were immediately given to them. Instead of getting shares of the Irish Press an American corporation was formed, and the dividends on all the shares purchased with their money are to be transferred under trust deed to them for division in America amongst their own shareholders; for a very good reason, that, in America, American Corporation Stock would be more readily transferable, and more information could be obtained about it than Irish Stock.
That was an act of the representatives of the assignees, an act taken for their own defence, for their own protection and in their own interest. The position then is that the moneys that are paid on these bonds, like on any other bonds, go to their legal owners and in so far as those that go and are assigned to the Irish Press or to me, the moneys will go to the Irish Press, and the bondholders will get in America an equivalent number of shares of the American Corporation which will carry with them their pro rata dividend on the stock, and if there is any distribution of assets——
Dividend on what?
I remember very well another statement made some time ago by the Deputy on the other side when he happened to be sitting here. He was asked would he suppress the Irish Press and he replied: “No, it will suppress itself.” It suppressed him. It helped to suppress him and it will suppress——
It is going very rapidly in the direction I indicated according to the balance sheet I have seen.
The balance sheet! Let us get back to the balance sheet.
Let us get back to the amendment.
There is no question, I take it, of the opposite side suggesting that there is to be no reply by me. I pointed out quite clearly that in newspaper enterprises one of the things that has to be safeguarded when you are starting the paper, one of the things that you have to see to is that you have capital to meet the losses that every newspaper expects to make for two or three years after it has started. In our prospectus of £200,000 we put roughly half of it to meet the losses which we expected, not losses which occurred but losses which we naturally expected in such an enterprise, losses which everybody who knows anything about the business knows will occur in the first year. What the gentlemen yonder are trying to make much of is that instead of having lost the £100,000 that we anticipated, the Irish Press has lost £59,000, or half of what we anticipated.
So far.
Oh! well, we can be just as good prophets as the Deputies on the other side, and we will see. What is more, I do not know the 8,000 shareholders in the Irish Press if everyone of them does not take very good care, as a result of the debate in the last few days, that the interests of the Irish Press will be pushed as they have never been pushed before. And if I were looking for money in America for the Irish Press I believe that the debate for the last two or three days would enable me to get more money than I otherwise would have got, not less.
Now I have only to show certain things. Firstly, that this money was due. It was due because any representative body that claimed to be representative of the Irish people could not shirk the obligation and shirk it with honour. Secondly, the time was not the time selected by us. It was the time selected outside of us. Thirdly, that the amount that is being paid is a fair one in all the circumstances and that our people's interests in the matter are being well protected and those to whom the money is owing and to whom the money is to be paid are getting a fair bargain anyhow.
With regard to this amendment, I say we are rejecting it because it was designed from a mean Party motive, namely, to try to prevent going to the Irish Press the money which is legally due to it—money on the strength of which the Irish Press started perhaps earlier than it would otherwise have started. I say the attempt to deprive it of this money by any subterfuge of this kind would be an act of positive injustice, an act which the attitude of the gentlemen opposite showed they were quite ready to perpetrate, if those gentlemen had been on this side.
In the speech to which we have just listened we got a historic account of the bond issue, in the first place, and of subsequent events in the second place. It was rather reminiscent of the newspaper which the President has mentioned, for there were certain gaps in the story. In the first place, when these bonds were issued in the United States of America they were issued by a person acting on behalf of the people of this country, a person filling a national position, not leader of a Party, not leader of a section, and not a divider of the people. In the course of the speech mention was made of the promise that the late General Collins had given and the promise given by myself. I interjected a request for the date and I did not get it. It is characteristic of the discourtesy which other members of the Executive Council acquire from the example of the President of the Executive Council that I could not get that information. People who posture as gentlemen and as being national in character and so on must give better examples of public courtesy.
When he learns a little of it himself he will get it back.
When I asked for the date I was denied it. Why do I ask for the date? Reference was made to the promise by General Collins that this money would be paid. One of the first questions put in the Dáil when the Treaty was under discussion was whether these moneys would be paid; whether the Dáil bonds would be redeemed; whether the bonds issued in America would be redeemed. The answer was that they would. I asked for the date in respect of that question. I had a special purpose in getting the date. I wanted to know whether or not it was before or after the time that as leader of a section of this country, as a person who has divided this country, that the President of the Executive Council entered the courts of the United States objecting to this State taking possession of these moneys that had been unexpended after an undertaking had been given that the money was to be repaid.
Just look for a moment at the picture. We are asked if we are going to pay. We are denounced if we say we are not. Fortified by the pledge that was given by the Minister for Finance that the moneys were going to be paid, this sectional leader goes to America or instructs some person in America to move in the courts to prevent this State which had been pledged to pay these moneys from entering into possession of the residue of whatever sum was left. These are the gaps that are left in the story to which we have listened and I say it is characteristic of the newspaper that is begotten by the same person that this story should have the same omissions. During the course of the debate we heard about documents. My position is that unlike the present President of the Executive Council we did not enter into possession of documents that were held by our predecessors. All the documents in my possession when I was President of the Executive Council are in that office now. I stated that we really did not want these moneys, that what we wished to do and were going to do was to add to the money in America a sufficient sum to pay all our liability in respect of the Dáil bonds in America. All that is on the records. But notwithstanding these facts and notwithstanding that pledge and that statement this case went on in America. This case, brought by Mr. de Valera and his friends, went on. It is a case which has cost this country an enormous sum of money which it could ill-afford, money which the people of this country must pay. It was the policy which the last speaker, the present President of the Executive Council, put upon the people of this country. Having all the time undertaken to pay this money, we are now taxed by people who endeavoured to prevent this State from entering into possession of this money, with refusing to honour our bond.
On the plea that it was the money of the Republic it was got by people who called themselves Republicans, but it was to be paid by people who were styled as traitors, usurpers, or people who had perpetrated a coup d'êtat, or something of that sort. They were willing to take our money, delighted to take it; there was nothing wrong with it, but we were not to enter into possession of the assets in connection with this debt.
You had already entered into possession of them, all you were entitled to.
All we were entitled to?
Who was entitled to the rest of them?
We were entitled to pay the full sum and now we are told we entered into possession of all the assets we were entitled to. Was Saorstát Eireann entitled to pay that money? Would it be just that it should pay that money and not enter into possession of the assets? The President says we entered into possession of all the assets we were entitled to. What did we enter into possession of? Whatever was left out of the £375,000 collected here, plus whatever remained of the unexpended balance there was from America. We paid the £375,000 with interest and this money would have been paid five years ago but for the action of the President of the Executive Council and his pawns who went to America, putting cost upon this State, endeavouring to prevent the State from getting that money. Why? Because it was not a Republic. What did he succeed in doing? He was asked by the judge: " I am told you had a Republic?""Yes," he said. "Had you your own currency?""We permitted the British to circulate their currency here.""That is not the question I asked you," said the judge. "Had you your post office and did you issue stamps?""No," he said, "we permitted the British.""That is not the question I asked you," said the judge.
In his sectional capacity, and having lost his representative character, the President dragged this country in the mud in America; dragged the differences amongst the people in this country before the people of America and exposed every weakness he could possibly expose of the Irish people. I did not do that when I was in America. When I left there it could not be said that I uttered a single word of criticism in relation to any persons, and, God knows, if there is a man who could speak about them it is [. The grin that comes from the Deputy opposite is the last grin that should come from any man in Ireland, and well he knows it. I could make a greater exposure of the Deputy than any other man, if I wished to do it.
Do it.
There is no man in this country who has less right to say a single syllable than the Deputy, and many on those benches over there know that. Stop the grin; it ill becomes you.
Mr. Crowley
Why not take up the challenge?
I will take up the challenge at any time I please. There are no puppets on this side.
They are all well bred.
Yes, sir. I wish we could say the same of others.
Are you going to do what you said you would do?
I will, any time I please.
You will select your own ground for it?
Perhaps I will.
Dr. Ryan
At a Cumann na nGaedheal Convention.
Whatever delay there has been it is of the President's own making; it is his own design all the way through. The American courts found we were not the successors, that there was no such thing in existence as an Irish Republic and this money should be returned to the bondholders. What is the purpose of the amendment? It is to pay the money to persons from whom the money was borrowed, to carry out the terms of the bond with the words "not negotiable" written on it. It is to ensure that the people in America, whoever they were or from whatever class they came or whatever their subscriptions were, having put the money up, should get it back.
The President has certainly brought discredit upon Government in this State in seeking to get for Party purposes money that was subscribed for a national purpose. He is perfectly at liberty, having passed the amendment, to go to America and to vindicate the terms he made a short time ago. He said that if he went to America now and asked for money for his Irish Press he would get it. Let him go and get it. Let us here at least endeavour to ensure that our Government will be free from allegations of anything in the nature of political aims in a matter of this kind.
When are you going to select your ground?
Any time I wish.
You are a bright boy.
I am very bright and I may tell the Deputy that he was not very bright on many an occasion when I met him.
The ex-President on good breeding.
Blue blood.
The well-bred man.
Why do you not stand up and do it like a man?
One remarkable thing in this debate was the endeavour of the President to explain to us that he is under no suspicion, that he has done nothing wrong, that he has done nothing upon which any man could conceivably ground a charge against him. He is perfectly above suspicion, and to show that he is completely above suspicion, that there is nothing that anybody could find fault with in the slightest way in any part of his conduct, he took two hours yesterday and 40 minutes to-day to explain his clear, apparent rectitude. Although he required two hours and 40 minutes to make his statement, I am afraid that even at the end of that time he has failed to establish his point. The fact that there was a great deal to explain and the fact that his conduct was to himself inexplicable is, I think, demonstrated by the extraordinary length of time which the President found it necessary to take.
Last night Deputy Norton declared that this was an important question, that it was a question which would be considered outside this country. I agree with him. Deputy Norton said he hoped the speeches of Deputy Fitzgerald and Deputy McGilligan would not be reported in American papers. I hope they will be. I hope the debate will be fully reported in American papers, including the speech of the President. Then let the American people who are interested in this matter make up their minds and decide upon this issue. Let it be brought home to them firmly and clearly that there are men in this House who are determined to vindicate the integrity of the House; that there are men who are determined to make it clear to the world that we consider integrity in our public men is a matter of the very greatest importance, a pearl of the highest price. I do not want to discuss this question with anything approaching some of the heat or passion which President de Valera has endeavoured to introduce. The whole House is upon its trial in this matter and I think it is better to approach this discussion very quietly, very calmly, not having its path directed by any fiery blow given in a passionate exhibition of rhetoric, but rather led by the quiet, cold light of pure reason. Observing that, I cannot see how any Party will come to the conclusion that at any rate, if not worse, the President has acted with a want of judgment that does him infinite discredit as a public man. I put it no further at the moment than that he displayed a terrible want of judgment.
Of course the President was very careful to tell us that not one penny of this money has reached his pocket. There is an assignment here of money to him, not one penny of which has gone into his pocket. What has that got to do with the question at issue? How does that help us one single step forward? Very few people value money for its own sake. Nobody, except a miser, values money for its own sake, but people value money for what it brings them. Some people value it because it gives them pleasure or luxury. There are other people who value money because it can give them power. If President de Valera had a very considerable amount of superfluous money of his own, I wonder on what he would expend it. If he was in the happy position of his colleague, the Minister for Justice, and had a great amount of superfluous money, I do not think the President would spend it or adopt such an expeditious way of getting rid of it as setting up a racing stud or keeping a yacht. I do not think he would buy a steam yacht. I think if he had a considerable amount of superfluous money he would spend that money in a way which would help him to realise his ambition. I think if he had a considerable sum of superfluous money he would invest it straight away in a newspaper and, therefore, although this money may not go, and is not going, into the President's pocket at all, still everybody in this House knows from his public career what is the polar star by which the President steers his course. The establishment of a newspaper is one of the instruments by which the President hopes to obtain and keep power. This money is being expended just as much by him, in satisfying his ambition, as if it was spent on satisfying his pleasure in the establishment of a stud farm or a steam yacht or anything else.
Of course we have been told there was in America when this money was in the air, a sort of snatch and grab business, that everybody was trying to grab some of it from the persons who advanced it, and owned it; that some of it was going to this religious purpose, and some of it to another religious purpose, and that the President came in just merely competing amongst others in order to get some of it for his newspapers. But there is an enormous difference between what happened in his case and in the others. The persons who gave money to the Chinese Mission and to the Yorke Memorial, and for other similar purposes mentioned by the Minister for Defence last night, knew they were giving the money for charitable purposes and were not expecting a return.
Does the Deputy exclude those religious bodies?
I will deal with that fully if the Minister will allow me to make my own speech in my own way. They spent that money on a completely different footing from those persons induced by the President to part with their money. These people were induced by him, Leader of the Opposition in this House as he then was, to invest in nothing less than what purported to be an industrial undertaking, a business undertaking which was to be a profitable investment for them and their money. I am not going to repeat what I said, on the Second Reading, I content myself by saying there was this money which did not reach the hands of the persons entitled to it. It was that money which the President set himself out to get. He asked here what difference was there between these and other classes of bonds. Why may I ask, if there was no difference between those and other classes of bonds, was it that those bondholders were circularised? Why? Because it was judged to be easier to induce those bondholders to hand over their money to President de Valera; that is the reason they were circularised. Why was not that form sent out to other bondholders—to holders of National Loan in this country, whether First, Second, or Third National Loan, and asking for power of attorney? Why was not a circular sent to them with the request: "Will you send me your security with power of attorney making me master of this money?" Why was that course not taken? That course was obviously taken with the American holders because President de Valera knew it would be easier to get from people something not in their possession than it would be to get money they had at their bankers or that was safely invested or money that was in their touch, that they could realise at any moment they wished. This is always a very suspicious procedure. After all, there is no contract which comes into the courts, that is more easily set aside than what is called a catching contract with heirs. A bargain is entered into by somebody to purchase from an heir—from a person who cannot realise his money, who has to wait for it until some special event in the future happens. To acquire, by reversion of that nature, is always regarded by the courts as a very suspicious circumstance and it is a sort of contract very rightly and easily set aside by the courts. Yet this is just precisely what happened here. There has been here a catch bargain, in that the person concerned was going to receive a sum of money at some very indefinite time in the future. Now, the President, according to the document, is absolute owner and master of this money. It is a carefully prepared document which says that every right, title and interest, every single bit of title that the person possesses as entitling him to the money, every single penny of that, is transferred to President de Valera for a consideration of one dollar. I wondered why the sum of one dollar was mentioned. I think I know. Though not familiar with American law, I think it bears sufficient resemblance to the law we know in this country, to make it plain why this false statement was drawn that there was one dollar paid. It was this: In that assignment to President de Valera a statement of that kind was introduced in order to make the sale binding. I do not actually know whether it does or not. I take it that that has been put in to show that it is not a voluntary assignment, that it is not something that a person can go back on if he wishes, that once this fly had been induced to enter into the spider's web there was going to be no retreat—no way out again.
The Minister for Justice, a few moments ago, asked me what would be the effect of this amendment upon persons like the Chinese Mission. With regard to that, I hold that if President de Valera even at this eleventh hour takes that course, which I think he should take, the same thing will happen to the Chinese Mission as will happen to the Irish Press; that is to say, the money, the owners of which have said they will invest it in the Irish Press or give it to the Chinese Mission, will be returned to them and be at their disposal. It will be absolutely free for them, if their minds remain unchanged, to hand the money, if they get it in hand, into the coffers of the Chinese Mission, or into any fund they like, and to dispose of it exactly and precisely as they wish. That is what we want. We want to see that every person who has lent this money, every single person who is a bondholder here, gets back his cash and gets it into his possession here and now and that he has an opportunity when he gets this cash to deal with it precisely as he likes and not to be told: “Oh, indeed you are poor, no doubt you want it now.” President de Valera told us the other night that plenty of the people who advanced this money and who were well-off then are no longer prosperous and that it would be a god-send to them to get it now. They will not get it now. As far as this money has been assigned to him, they will not get it now. They will not get it now even though they may be in need of the actual necessaries of life. They will get nothing but a bit of waste paper in response for what they gave before.
The President, of course, has told us: "I do not want this money at all for myself. I want it to expend on the Irish Press to satisfy my own ambition, and I am a trustee.” He admits here now in this House, and I do not see how he can ever go back on it now that he has made the admission, that he is a trustee of this money, that he is not the owner of it. He says: “I do not claim under that assignment to be the owner of this money. I claim to be nothing more than a trustee.” Well, how should a trustee act? There is one thing which the law does expect and which every person, whether he is a lawyer or a laymar does expect, and that is that a trustee will use the utmost care and circumspection in the way he invests or deals with the money of those who entrusted their money or property to him. The President is the acknowledged trustee. What is he going to do with it? He is going to invest that money of these deserving people, as he himself admits these people have trusted him with their money, in a concern called the Irish Press, the shares of which I do believe are not worth a farthing at the present moment.
The Irish Press settled you.
We have seen the balance sheet of the Irish Press. It is a very interesting document. It is this company, that has just issued this balance sheet, in which President de Valera is going to invest the money which he holds, as he himself says, as trustee. Rumour, of course, does not always tell the truth. Rumour is sometimes, to use a famous expression, a lying jade; and the rumour I have heard is that when the general shareholders of the Irish Press met together to see this balance sheet and have it read to them and discussed, that the police had to be called in. That may or may not be true. I am not vouching for the truth. All I can say is that it is a rumour that has had very wide circulation and, as far as I know, is absolutely true. If it is not true, I can be contradicted.
It is about as true as the kicking cow story.
Let us examine this balance sheet for a moment in order that we may know the position the company is in in which the President is going to invest the money he holds as trustee. It has issued capital shares of £183,783 out of a nominal capital of £200,000. Therefore, at the present moment, it has issued shares for all except £16,000 worth of this total nominal capital. That is rather interesting, because we were told, of course, by the President, in the course of his argument, that the Irish Press had been established because of the commitments of these persons who had presented him, for investment, as he says, in the Irish Press, with their share of these moneys. I do not know the exact figure of the amounts which were given in this fashion to President de Valera. nor has he told the House: but the figure was mentioned in debate here as being something between £80,000 and £100,000. I do not know whether that is correct or not, but I think it is pretty well-known that a very large sum indeed of that nature is represented by assignments made to President de Valera. So, therefore, he has had all except £16,000 of the necessary £200,000 to make his paper a success. and he now is evidently going to increase the nominal capital of the company by another £70,000 or £80,000 or £100,000. I have no means of knowing the figure, but it is some very large figure indeed, because in everything that he said and every representation he made was “This company can be made a success if I have £200,000.” He has got £200,000 all except £16,200 odd and a sum of £19,503 which has not been called up but which, I presume, is owed by solvent people and can be called up. What becomes of the commitments? The President had his 183,000 shares issued and would have floated his company if he had got no answer from these people. That is all we can see from the published figures.
What is the condition of this company? We see that its working expenses are enormous—£223,000 a year. We see that its revenue is only £188,000 and that at the present moment it has not only no available ready money but that it has got a colossal overdraft with the Munster and Leinster Bank of £19,500. Yesterday, Deputy Fitzgerald described the Irish Press as a bankrupt concern. President de Valera grew very angry. No doubt, the Irish Press is not a bankrupt concern in the strict meaning of the term. No order in bankruptcy has been made against the Irish Press. Looking at this balance sheet can anybody say that if the Munster and Leinster Bank issued a debtor's summons to-morrow against the Irish Press there is any available asset shown there with which they could meet that sum of £19,000? Looking at this balance sheet it must be obvious that this paper is at present carrying on at the sufferance of the bank. It may be said that £90,000 has been invested in buildings, premises, plant and furniture, but it is equally well known by everybody, because everybody can remember the time when the Freeman's Journal was for sale, that no matter what the plant and buildings of that nature may have cost their value becomes very small when they are being sold second-hand. They are valueless to anybody except a person who wishes to carry on a newspaper. In consequence, I repeat that if a debtor's summons were issued to-morrow, nobody reading this balance sheet can see how this paper could resist an order being made against it.
That is what you would like.
It does not matter what I like or do not like. I am dealing with hard facts, not with likes and dislikes. It is in this concern that the President says he is going to invest money which he admits he holds as a trustee.
Mr. Kelly
Three hundred men will be knocked idle, but that does not matter to you.
If the President took what I think would be the right and proper course, if he stated to the House "I am going to be above suspicion——"
Dr. Ryan
He is.
——"I am going to take a course with which nobody can find fault; I am going to give every single person who handed that money to me, now that the money is available, a chance of getting his money back." You can ask him to invest it; you can give him your own views that you think this paper—if you do think it—will ultimately make good. Send him that balance sheet; send him your own comments on it and then ask him: "Are you still willing to invest your money in this paper?" That would be the straightforward course, that would be the honourable thing to do. It is not only what a man of extreme punctiliousness in the matter of honour would do. If I might quote one of the most famous passages in English literature: "The chastity of whose honour would feel a stain like a wound"—not merely a man of that kind, but I believe any man who has got real self-respect and respect for the position which he holds would take that straightforward course and say: "Your money can be paid to you in cash if you wish; I am not going to hold you to that voluntary assignment you made to me some years ago." If the President did take that step, a great deal of the strength that lies behind the arguments in favour of this amendment in my judgment would pass away. But will the President take that course? I am afraid not. If he did take that step, there would be another very strong objection to refusal to accept the amendment. Of course, every member of the Fianna Fáil Party can, at the bidding of the President, order his mind not to work, and pretend that his mind cannot work, and the Labour Party may do the same at the bidding of the Chief of its allies. But is not that the only reason why this money is being paid at present?
That is absolutely a falsehood.
Because of the needs of the Irish Press. Is not that what every person would have to say?
Mr. P. Hogan (Galway):
Of course they would.
Every person who looks at this matter would have to say that. Let us consider where we are. We have a Minister for Finance who comes into the House and tells us: "I cannot by taxation raise one single penny more; I have come to the end of my powers of raising money by taxation except I come down, and come down hard, upon the necessaries of life of the very poor. There is no possibility of raising money otherwise by taxation." The Civic Guards, whom they say are not overpaid, are to have their pay cut. Civil servants, whom they say are not overpaid, are to have their wages and salaries cut. The Army and the teachers, whom they say are not overpaid, are to have their pay and salaries cut. "All State servants are to have their pay cut, because we cannot balance our Budget unless we do. We have come to the end of our financial tether." That is what the Minister for Finance says. It is in these circumstances, in the present condition of the finances of this country, that the Government choose to make this enormous payment. They have to make reductions amounting to over a quarter of a million pounds in the pay and salaries of persons whom they say are not overpaid. Then they come along and propose to make a payment of well over, I think, £1,200,000. That is a payment they can make no matter where the money comes from. Why is that? The country has owed this sum of money for a considerable number of years and we are asked to believe that, by a strange accident, just at the time it is necessary for the continued existence of the Irish Press it is absolutely necessary, apart from any other considerations, to pay it. All over the world States are finding it hard to pay their public debts. All over the world they are making application for time. But in connection with this particular debt we will not say a single word about time. Why not? The Irish Press cannot give time, because the Irish Press will be dead.
We have heard a great deal about legal obligation. If the President were logical there would most distinctly have been no legal or moral obligation. I myself very much question if, in the strict meaning of the term, there was any legal obligation to pay this money. I very much question whether, in the strict meaning of the word, there was any legal obligation that could be enforced in the courts against the present Government or any Government of this State. I do think that there is a moral obligation. I do think that it was of the very essence of this loan that it would, be repaid when this State had a sovereign Parliament of its own. I do not think it was of the essence of the matter at all that there would be a Republic. I think it was of the essence of the matter that as soon as this State had a sovereign Parliament this money would be repaid. It had a Parliament very closely approximating to a sovereign Parliament after the Treaty, and owing to the exertions of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government it has at the present moment a Parliament which is absolutely sovereign. Although it may not be of the absolutely strict letter it is according to the very spirit that this money should be repaid by a sovereign Parliament in this State. There is a very strong moral obligation, but at the same time we should bear in mind that it is in the nature of an ex-gratia payment. When the finances of this State are really sound, when the finances of this State are in a position that they can afford this payment, then and then only is the time at which this repayment should be made. It is the condition of the finances of this State, and not the condition of the finances of the Irish Press, that should dictate the time of repayment.
If the debate had finished up last night, as many people thought it would, it would not be so clear—even though it was fairly clear then—as it is to-day that the one motive behind all this debate, and behind the amendment introduced by the Opposition, is a bias and a certain grudge against the Irish Press. Anybody listening to the hysterical speech of Deputy Cosgrave a few moments ago could see that he still feels very sore because the Irish Press—it must be admitted—played a big part in removing Deputy Cosgrave across the floor of the House. It is because of that that Deputy Cosgrave was able to get himself into such a hysterical mood to-day in trying to endanger the Irish Press, and at the same time endanger the credit of this State. I remember on one occasion here before when, in the most important debate that came before this House for a long time, Deputy Cosgrave was making the principal speech from the Opposition Benches in defence of a case about the economic war, and that England was entitled to £5,250,000 a year out of this country, and he finished up that debate with the main argument— because he had made no other argument as to why it should be done—with the belated boast that he was well reared and well bred. Because he is well reared and well bred, in his own belated words, we are to take his attitude as being bona fide on this question, and assume that it is on the interests of justice he is backing up a motion of this kind.
There have been certain imputations made against the President of this Assembly from across the floor of the House. There were imputations made yesterday that he, in the first instance, and again that members of his household benefited out of a particular industry in this country, and that, because of that, the President was trying to boost up that industry by having it backed out of State funds. The imputation came across the floor of the House that his family were benefiting, and that there was corruption in the administration of public funds because of that.
I want to make this assertion, that as far as documentary evidence is available there is only one bench in this House where corruption did take place as far as public funds are concerned, and that is the Front Bench opposite. If there is any doubt about that let members of the Front Bench opposite go to the Public Accounts Report of 1926, and they will see there that some of the men who made those imputations have not a clean sheet themselves as far as conduct is concerned. They are throwing across the floor of this House imputations to try not only to ruin the industry but to try to ruin the clean name of a good family in this country. That imputation comes from men with dirty hands and dirty records.
And then they are pious!
If any members on the back benches doubt what I say let them go to the Library and read the Public Accounts Report of 1926, page 407. They will read there about some of the dirty work done by those men, and it was not talked of as being a disgrace for members of the Front Bench then to meddle in public funds. They should look to their own hands and their own records before they fling imputations across the floor of the House, but any tactics are good enough to try to ruin the name of a particular individual, or to try to belittle this State now that they have no further interest except an abstentionist interest in this Assembly. We had strange faces in Leinster House yesterday evening on the Front Bench opposite. We had back in the House the man who has adopted an abstentionist policy now that he is no longer Minister, Deputy Hogan. Mind you, his abstentionist policy has not changed his tactics. He did not come back to the House to discuss agriculture, which he used to be interested in. He came back to try once again his old tactics, and the old tactics of the Front Bench as it used to be constituted, of trying to bemean the name of President de Valera. They should be tired of doing that. Did they ever fail in any instance when they could fling mud, when they could make insinuations? Did they ever fail during the past ten years to try to bemean his name and belittle him as far as propaganda is concerned inside this House and outside? They failed. They got their answer. Surely, under the changed circumstances, they are not so muddle-headed as to think that they are going to succeed now, but of course they have got to obey the call. There was very little talk of an amendment of this kind on the Second Reading of this Bill. There was no suggestion about corrupt dealing to the extent that there was mentioned yesterday. A few days afterwards the Irish Independent issued its instructions that the slander campaign against President de Valera should be started again, that it was again time that the lash should be taken out. The Irish Independent call for a slandering campaign was obeyed by Cumann na nGaedheal leaders with just as much promptitude as Maxwell obeyed its call in 1916. The Irish Independent boasts that it is an independent organ. It is so independent that it can dictate policy. It was so independent in 1916 that it could dictate policy and spill blood through its appeal at that time to General Maxwell, and it is so independent that it can launch a slander campaign not only against the President of this State but honourable Irishmen in America, men who took an interest in the Irish movement when the man who last spoke was interested in a British recruiting campaign. That slander campaign has been launched again. It is a very independent paper. I give it that praise. Its call was never lost sight of in Irish history. They never failed. They have launched again the slander campaign, but it will fail as dismally as the efforts of the Party opposite to slander Irishmen at home and abroad in the past.
Deputy Norton expressed the hope yesterday that the report of this debate might not be published in America. I wonder would it be wise to have it published there or not? Perhaps it is wiser that it should be published there, because as far as the State here is concerned the people of this country know too well the men who are engaged in that slander campaign, and they know too well the organ that dictated it. Surely to goodness the Irish in America are just as well informed of the dispirited position of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party as the Irish at home. I think, therefore, that it will do no harm to Ireland to have it known that those men are still on the war path, as far as belittling the name of Irishmen is concerned. Having it published abroad would not injure the Irish cause. We all know that Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney has a particular interest now in trying to injure this State. He spoke a few moments ago about the bonds that were transferred in this instance.
There is a great campaign now to prevent people who are legally in possession of these bonds from being paid. He was anxious to emphasise that there was a legal way of this payment. He was the very man with certain other legal officers in Cumann na nGaedheal who was particularly anxious to bolster up the case for the British Government a few months ago. I wonder what would be the attitude of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party if this Government were paying the £5,250,000 to England? Would they introduce an amendment here that the payment of the Land Purchase Bonds would be only to those from whom the lands were purchased some years ago, and that the money would not be paid to those who had got transfers from the original holders in the same way as these American bonds stand now? Would they introduce an amendment that this money would not be paid until the bona fides of the holders would be proved in court, and that the money would not be paid to the people who owned the land bonds now? As a matter of fact, they do not make any such objections.
From the very start of the case the Irish Press is entitled to these bonds. The pity of it is that Cumann na nGaedheal are not on the Government Benches! All they can do now is to try to slander the members of the Government of this State, to injure this State and, at the same time injure the Irish Press. Did we not all notice the delight and did we not all notice the gloating that was expressed in the Cumann na nGaedheal Benches when Deputy Fitzgerald read out the balance sheet of the Irish Press? What a delight they felt that that balance sheet showed that there was a little bit on the wrong side or on the short side. It did not matter to them that 333 people would be put out on the road. Then the Irish Independent could go ahead and tell any lies they liked and cover up any lies that the Cumann na nGaedhael Party wanted covered up. Would it not be grand if the Irish Press were beaten? Is it not a grand thing that they are able to gloat over the Irish Press balance being on the wrong side?
I am firmly convinced, however, that there are numbers of men on the Cumann na nGaedheal Benches who do not agree with this attitude. I know definitely that there are going to be a few notable absentees from the Division Lobbies when this Vote is being taken. I am glad, anyhow, to know that the Leader of the Centre Party has dissociated himself from the attacks and the charges of corruption that were made yesterday by the discredited leaders of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party. Personally, I would be sorry if the balance sheet of the Irish Independent were on the wrong side. I would be sorry if the 300, 400 or 500 people employed were thrown out of employment. I think it would be a tragedy to these employees, and I would not be at all delighted. It might mean a lot for the Republican movement and for the Fianna Fáil Party, but I do not think it would be good for the country, as a whole, as far as employment is concerned.
But thanks be to goodness we are in a position to look at things now in a broader way than the Cumann na nGaedheal Party are. After all, maybe we are too hard on them. They had a hard time recently. They are discredited. Their policy has gone bankrupt. They have concentrated their hopes now on Deputy Alfred Byrne, who is trying to get some unique collection of individuals again together. They hope that they might get in amongst them and in that way might again win back to power in this country. Cumann na nGaedheal is in a transition stage if a transition stage is the proper way in which to describe it. One cannot blame them for this. It is hard to blame them for their mean tactics, when you consider their record. By their mean tactics they want to injure their opponents. When a certain type of terrier dog is cornered he will bite you. You cannot blame him for that. That is the position of the gentlemen of the Cumann na nGaedheal. For years they were monarchs of all they surveyed, and now they have fallen. All they have now to boast of, in the words of their Leader, is that they are well-reared and well-bred. If that gives them any consolation we accept it. Where they are carrying this thing too far altogether is when they want this State to refuse to fill its obligations. They are carrying their bitterness and bias too far when they slander the name of the elected representatives of the people here.
The Cumann na nGaedheal Party go beyond all reasonable methods when they try to slander Irishmen abroad. That is going a little too far. I think they themselves have now realised that they have gone too far with their campaign of slander. The Irish Press has got a good advertisement. The last speaker wondered what would happen if President de Valera had to go to the Irish people in America, and tell them that the Irish Press was in danger of collapse. I know that if the President would go to Irishmen in this country and tell them that the Irish Press was in danger of collapse he would get the biggest amount of money that has ever been collected for the Irish cause. The Irish Press has got a good show by this attempt to bring discredit on it, and to charge the Government with corruption. Corruption has been imputed to them, but all these imputations will go back to the Cumann na nGaedheal Benches, from which they came.
I would like to give my assurance to the last speaker that I certainly do not wish to see the Irish Press fail. So far as my information goes on the question of newspapers in this country, and my information is from sources which should know something about the matter, the Irish Press is beginning to show itself a good advertising medium in this country. It is not a good thing in any country for one paper to hold an autocratic position. It becomes impossible for business people and advertisers to deal with a paper which has a monopoly. From that point of view it is a good thing to see the Irish Press coming along and proving itself a success as a paper and as an advertising medium. All that seems to me to have nothing at all to do with this particular amendment.
It is my belief, and I hold the belief for obvious reasons, that the sole object of the whole Bill which we are now discussing is defeated by this amendment. The amendment proposes something which would undoubtedly make this an inconvenient time to bring forward this Bill. I did not put myself in possession of all the facts which are indicated on this question of the Dáil funds. But from the information which I have gathered as the debate progressed it seems to me that the Irish Press is entitled to benefit. As I said, I am not in possession of all the facts but so far as this discussion has gone it seems to me that when these funds are being paid, whenever they are being paid, that the Irish Press will certainly be a beneficiary. The way the whole matter appears to me is this, that I regard it as an extremely expensive way of providing £100,000 for the Irish Press to impose on the people of this country a capital liability of £1,500,000. I would much prefer to see a Bill introduced for the sole purpose of providing £100,000 for the Irish Press in its present condition than to see the nation saddled at this precise moment with a capital liability of £1,500,000.
As Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney pointed out, the Minister for Finance came here a few weeks ago and pleaded, as the sole justification for the "Cuts" Bill, that the Exchequer is in desperate need of money. That was the justification pleaded on every stage of the Economy Bill. In that condition of affairs we have this Bill brought in. The President told us that the receiver has closed his account, that the rate of exchange is in our favour and that money can now be borrowed at a lower interest than has been the case during the last twenty years. They are facts which undoubtedly should weigh with anyone trying to arrive at a conclusion on this amendment, but placed beside the fact that the Minister told us here that he was desperately in need of money for the purpose of carrying on the economic war I think what was mentioned by the President fades into complete insignificance. I believe that this Bill could be postponed to a more convenient date, a date when this country would be better able to support this capital liability of £1,500,000. I think there is no member of the Government Party who will dispute the statement that this country is at present unable to foot such a capital liability.
There are two or three matters which need consideration when arriving at a conclusion upon the question of whether one is going to support or oppose this amendment. One is the financial condition of the State, and another is whether or not the present is a good time at which to introduce a Bill to raise money. Another point which must occur to the mind of anyone studying the question dispassionately is the present condition of the Irish Press. It seems to me that one cannot overlook the position of the company when trying to arrive at an impartial judgment on this amendment. The way I work it out is that the Irish Press, as proved by the last balance sheet, is in need of a considerable sum of money. The next point is that it would, if this Bill were passed, get into its possession £100,000. It is going to cost the country £1,500,000 to do that. I base my support of this amendment upon my discinclination to cost the country in its present condition £1,500,000 in order to provide £100,000 for the Irish Press.
The Deputy who has just spoken questioned the advisability of undertaking a capital liability at this stage. He did not seem to realise that when he used the term "undertaking a capital liability" he completely destroyed his argument about last year's Budgetary position. After all, the Deputy must realise that even though he was against this capital liability being undertaken by President de Valera in 1919, even though he and the people for whom he speaks thought that President de Valera and those associated with him were murderers and should be shot or hanged by the British, it was, nevertheless, a capital liability undertaken in the name of the Irish people and on behalf of the Irish people. He should realise that the proposal is that this capital liability should be met by the creation of another capital liability, not by payment in cash. Of course we realise the Deputy does not think this is an opportune time to do it. He probably hopes that it may never be done. We realise that another rival newspaper the Deputy is interested in——
I am not.
——is in a rather poor condition at the moment.
I certainly am not interested in it.
We realise that another newspaper in which the Deputy is interested, which used to boast——
The Deputy has definitely stated he is not interested in the other paper to which the Minister has referred. It must also be remembered that a Deputy represents here the people who elected him.
I did not say the Deputy was financially interested in the paper.
I have no interest good, bad or indifferent. If anything, it is quite the other way about.
And the Minister should accept that.
We realise, therefore, that the Deputy wants to see the Independent fail. I put it to the Deputy that one of the best ways in which he could see the Independent failing is to examine its balance sheet and to put the details——
On a point of order. The Minister has not withdrawn the statement he made and I think, in accordance with procedure here, the Minister is supposed to do that.
The Minister has stated definitely that he did not mean a financial interest. In questions of this sort it is usual to take the Deputy's word. The Deputy has not mentioned any newspaper except the Irish Press.
I take it the Deputy agrees that he, like myself, is interested in seeing the Independent fail.
Are we to have a withdrawal—an acceptance of the Deputy's word—or not?
The Deputy assured me he has no interest good, bad or indifferent, and I am taking it that, like myself, he wants to see this paper fail.
The Minister is taking the Deputy's word?
Surely.
It is quite clear now.
I am taking it that the Deputy, like myself, wants to see this paper, the Independent, that called for the execution of James Connolly, and the other 1916 leaders, meet the fate it deserves. I suggest to the Deputy that one of the best ways to act would be not to oppose this motion but rather to get the Independent newspaper to put out placards stating their present circulation. The Deputy, like myself, will realise that a couple of years ago the Independent used to represent itself as the paper with the largest circulation. Quite recently they changed over from that plane to one to the effect that they had the best circulation.
What has this got to do with the amendment? Let the Minister come down to business.
Deputy O'Connor will realise the effect of what I am saying, that one of the best ways that the Independent can beat itself would be to publish the fact that they have deserted the claim to have the biggest circulation, and that they now are satisfied to claim that they have the best circulation.
We had a discussion dealing with the Irish Press for hours yesterday. The Deputy to-day referred to the Irish Independent. I do not know what paper will come up next, but it would be better to get down to the matter before the House. There is no reference whatever, whether in the amendment, or in the motion before the Dáil, to any newspaper.
There is to the Irish Press.
Yes, incidentally, that question arises.
The Irish Press seems to many Deputies to be rather like sour grapes. Thanks be to goodness for the amendment, and thanks be to goodness, also, for the fact that there are people in this State very jealous of the Irish Press. It was the greatest satisfaction to me to be here to-day and yesterday, and to see the pains taken by Deputies opposite to speak of the Irish Press, because I regard that as the best guarantee of its success. It was a delightful treat, and I only hope Deputies opposite will continue this treat for another few weeks. I say it was a delightful treat, because it was a long and arduous job to build up a paper that would stand for the Irish people, and we are delighted to see that those who stand for the British are now taking the attitude towards the Irish Press that the fox took towards the grapes. When the fox could not get at the grapes or bring them down, he said they were sour. The Irish Press is up on top; it has come to stay.
This debate has wandered very far afield. The Minister for Defence, in his first speech, spoke a lot about honouring our bonds and so on. There is nothing in the amendment which proposes not to honour our bond. When the Minister came near to the amendment an analogy was drawn between the assigning of these bonds and the assignment of National Loan Bonds. There is no analogy whatever. Why were these bonds asked for in America instead of cash? If anybody came to me and asked me to hand over any stock that I might have in National Loan, I would answer that it was perfectly ridiculous. I would tell him I have only to open the daily paper and get the quotation for National Loan, or ring up a banker or stockbroker to learn that National Loan is quoted at 100 and so and so. National Loan is subject to an arrangement so that it might be registered for transactions that might take place in it. When the bonds we are now discussing were issued in America no such arrangement were made. First of all they were not negotiable. Nothing would arise upon them until such time as certain conditions were fulfilled. Until that happened there would be no question of payment upon them. No register was kept.
Some strange points were made by Deputy Norton, but President de Valera has spared me the trouble of answering Deputy Norton. Deputy Norton put forward a clearly bogus case. Having lost the balance of power, Deputy Norton and his Party have still to crawl behind President de Valera. I say here that President de Valera was quite right in springing a general election, because although the President does not give me much credit for the affection I have for him, I have this esteem for him that I think he was quite justified in showing that he had sufficient self-respect not to continue any longer relying for support on Deputy Norton and his Party. Deputy Norton's case was practically demolished by President de Valera himself. I know how the President got the support he did get. I know his methods rather well. Deputy Norton said that I could not believe that the bonds were valueless, but I would remind the Deputy of what President de Valera himself said in 1926. He said, in page 43 of the White Paper (a) and (b): "I have been convinced from the start that while it was important to maintain the position, our chances of success were very slight." He was then fighting in the American courts, claiming that the residue was due to himself and his friends calling themselves the Second Dáil. He went on to say: "The Free State had made a gesture that they will pay the bonds whether they get the money back again or not. They have not done anything so far. I doubt very much that if a portion of the bond money is paid back to the bondholders the Free State will do so." That was in December, 1926, and that was the President's view then. He doubted very much if the Free State would pay. He had a certain amount of justification for that. We had from time to time made statements that we intended to pay this money back. But there was no commitment; these were mere statements. Although it was certain that we would pay this money back, still, so far as I can judge, we could not pay back that money at a moment when we would have possibly an interest in making a case to England that we could not pay money she was claiming to be legally due to her. The President is right when he says that these Ministerial statements were quite different to people having the money in their pockets. Deputy Norton says that we could have paid it any time from 1922 on. We could not. These loans, as they were called, which were raised in the years 1920 and 1921, were not ordinary Government loans. When it came to paying them back there would have to be an organisation set up and an enormous amount of work would have to be gone through in making lists of the people, and notes of the amount of their subscriptions.
Here I am prepared to defer to the President if I am wrong, when I say, that either what information was available of the bondholders or guaranteed members of the organisation was being gathered together was in our office in Washington. We were trying to get together a list of the names of the subscribers and the amount that each subscribed.
That is all nonsense.
And then came the moment in this case when the court ordered that all documents in our possession should be handed over to the court. My memory may be wrong, but I think that the court ordered that the lists and documents should be handed over to the court. We could not proceed, therefore, to pay out money when we had no lists of the people nor of the amount each subscribed. There was also a difficulty in this country. The President is quite right when he says that really it was not possible effectively to pay back, because the Government as the trustees of the people must take care that it does not pay back what it does not owe. We would have to exercise enormous care to see that the money was only paid back to those who had subscribed it. Deputy Norton may talk about an organisation. He says that not even Deputy Fitzgerald could believe that these bonds were valueless. I have not access to the files now, but the President has access to them and so have his officials from the various Departments. The Dáil will remember that a number of years ago we announced that we were going to pay back the loan that was raised here in Ireland. If the President looks up his files he will find that very serious consideration had to be given to a situation that was arising here at that time.
To the best of my memory, we issued a public warning that we would not recognise transfers because, to my knowledge, the moment certain people, who were watching things rather closely, saw from various indications that that money was going to be paid back, they proceeded to go around to people, who were less alert than they to their own interests, and to buy up bonds for small sums that had no relation to the value the bonds possessed provided we intended to pay them. I myself, in the Cabinet, advocated it and I think that Finance accepted it. I would not swear to that because I am speaking from memory. But I advocated that a warning should be issued against transfers. I think, after that, it was agreed that no serious traffic of that nature, which was effectively swindling the subscribers, was taking place and, consequently, the clause that was intended to be put in was not inserted. But we had to advert to it here, and just note this: Here we are, a small country of about 3,000,000 people, rather like America to the extent that both nations are self-centred and preoccupied with their own affairs. In France and other countries the man who buys his paper in the morning wants to know as much about Russia or Germany or Yugo-Slavia as about France. In Ireland it is different. It must be remembered that in 1925 this matter of repayment was a matter of importance and of very big news in the Irish newspapers and the vast number of people here only read Irish newspapers and are only interested in Irish news. In spite of that, here where the information about, the repayment of loans was a matter of great national importance and public interest, it was necessary for us to issue a warning to save people from parting with their bonds for some small consideration that bore no relation whatever to their value.
In the United States of America there is a vast population. I believe that in some speech in the Carlton Hotel in New York President de Valera described the size of the country compared with Ireland. Some of the newspapers there have 120 pages in them. No person could read them in one day. In such a country and in such newspapers, Irish news is of comparatively small importance and gets very little space. The published notice and the whole knowledge of this Government's intention was not able to be conveyed to the people there in the way in which it could be conveyed here or anything like it. There were tens of thousands of subscribers there, and probably are thousands there at the moment in America who have no idea at all as to the proper idea of this thing. The President read some document and said that it would not be sustainable that the people were not aware of the value attaching to the bonds. He did not mention that the only value that could be known to the people at that time was 58 cents to the dollar and not $1.25.
The Government has issued advertisements here in this small country from time to time with regard to contracts, and I have known potential contractors who have complained with regard to the contract that they have not seen the advertisement here in one of our own newspapers in the country. The position in America was something that bears no relation to the position here. The chances in America, unless the man belongs to some Irish organisation, of hearing of the Government's intention here or seeing it advertised in the papers, are infinitesimal, comparatively speaking. If you issue a notice here which is a legal notice, the person cannot claim that they were not aware of it, although they may not have been aware of it. We could not have gone into the court in America and suggested there were no means for the people to know that these bonds were worth 58 cents of their value. That could not be argued, but I am satisfied that there were thousands who had no clear conception of what the value was. Why was big machinery set up under the control of one of the most able lawyers in America—as I might almost have called Horatio Bottomley the most able man in England—to persuade or induce the people to hand over these bonds? If the bond was worth 50 dollars and realisable at any moment there was no point in going over the amount. It is just like a ragman coming to your house. You say to him: "As far as I am concerned this stuff is of no value to me." Often he can take it away for nothing. I remember George Bernard Shaw telling me that when he was moving he invited a man to take away a lot of papers and books he had and the man said: "I will give £50 for them." Shaw said: "I thought you were going to ask me to pay you for taking them away." In the same way over there, at a certain moment a person came along with the glamour of Irish patriotism about him and said: "I am not asking you to make any further sacrifice; just hand over that bond to which you do not attach any value; it may be of value to me to the extent of 58 cents."
These people had given the money not as a gift. It had been announced, particularly by the Party opposite, that the object for which that money was given had failed in attainment, and, consequently, legally on the face of the bond it was not due for repayment. There have been three cases in the American courts. One was the case in which President de Valera was directly interested, claiming that the residue should go to himself and to his friends. Another case was the Hearn Bond case, and ours was the Noonan case. Our case was that the residue should be handed over to the Free State on condition that when it was handed over the Government would accept full responsibility for the full amount and would guarantee to pay the full amount, but the court refused that.
Deputy Fitzgerald, when he was in America some time in 1929, did his best to get some of these bonds and failed.
Never! I assert on my honour that I never asked for these bonds.
What was your interview with Cardinal Hayes about?
Cardinal Hayes is a public man, and anything said here will probably be reported. My interview with him had no reference whatever to finances or to these bonds. I went to pay a visit to Cardinal Hayes in New York, as he was a great man and a public figure, and a supporter of the Irish cause, and as I was a public man here. If we spoke of Irish affairs at all, I would certainly not have made a reference to anything like that, or any reference to Party differences here. I do not admit I got one bond from any person.
I cannot accept your statement because I know otherwise.
I am prepared to meet the Deputy outside, if he can produce any proof. I should like him to give the name of any person from whom I tried to get a bond. Let us get any name from him.
All right.
The court had refused to recognise the responsibility of this State for paying all back and had refused the Noonan case. The court found that the trust for which the money had been subscribed had failed in attainment and had no prospect of ever attaining that condition. That is to say, that there was no prospect of the condition which would warrant the claim for repayment ever being attained. Some of the people at that time would realise that there was going to be the repayment which we have had at 58 cents to the dollar. The majority of them, I assert, did not attribute any value to the bonds they parted with. The vast majority of the rest of them did not attribute a value of more than 58 cents to the dollar. There is no analogy whatever to this red-herring that is dragged across. If someone comes along and asks you for your scrip of National Loan, and if you take up the Irish Independent, the Irish Press, or any other paper, you will see there that one share has a value of £103 to-day. Nobody can do that with regard to these bonds in America. On their face, they were valueless unless the trustees were empowered to redistribute the residue pro rata. There is one point that is overlooked. The President now, by this Bill, is announcing that this Government is due to pay back this money. He brought a case in the American courts to deny that. It was a very costly case. He also promoted the second bondholders' case, which was also a very expensive case on both sides.
I think I made it quite clear that the bondholders intervened themselves and in most matters my case was quite contrary to theirs.
I shall read from page 39, documents A and B:—
"Mr. Seán T. O'Kelly: The Ceann Comhairle was in America previous to my going over and this litigation was going on before that. I first came into this matter when I was appointed as envoy and landed in America in 1924 and when, shortly after my arrival there, I was sent by the then President power of attorney which gave me power to act as representative of the trustees and took their place as far as the lawyers were concerned, and gave opinions and advice that might seem useful to the lawyers in the case. Later on, acting on instructions from here, and arising out of advice given by the lawyers, I was instructed to get formed a bondholders' committee, and that committee took a practical form about April, 1925."
That is enough for that. The suggestion all the time is that we are trying to prevent the original bondholders from supporting the Irish Press. People have talked about the Irish Press employing 333 persons. That 333 only represents to me half of 666, the number of the Beast. I will say frankly that I should like to see the Irish Press stop publication.
A Deputy
That is the whole truth.
Just as the Minister for Defence would like to see the ruin of the Irish Independent. I shall give my reasons. The very style in which it is written is moulded in the most appalling——
We are not discussing whether the Deputy would like to see the Irish Press suspended. We cannot allow that to go on.
Very well. Personally, I would not regard it as a national evil if the Irish Press ceased publication. Speakers on the Government side have expressed the opinion that the election of the Government to their present position was due to the existence of the Irish Press. They may be right. The President said he was completely disinterested in the Irish Press. But, if what they say is right, he is now President of the Executive Council, and drawing the emoluments of that office by virtue of the existence of the Irish Press. I am not asserting that. Personally, as far as I can judge the political movement of this country during the years, and the appalling disregard of truth on the part of that Party in speaking to the people of this country, whose historical circumstances had made one believe that, once they attained national freedom, somehow or another the evils which afflicted humanity were going to pass away, it seems to me that without the Irish Press the Government would probably have got a majority. But that is only my opinion. Deputy Norton would not like to prevent the Maynooth Mission to China from getting the money. I think Deputy O'Brien was also terribly upset about that. As far as that is concerned, the people gave these bonds over to the Maynooth Mission to China. My amendment would mean that the Government here would see to it that the money due on the bonds would go back to the original subscribers. I am one who believes that these persons wanted to give that money to assist the Maynooth Mission. Then they will hand it over.
Did they not do it already? Of course they did, and once is enough.
The position at that moment was that they were worth 58 cents in the dollar. Another 67 cents are to come along now.
They assigned the whole bond.
The bond was not negotiable.
Dr. Ryan
It was assignable.
Yes. This Bill is to bring in a special form to provide that the money will go to the assignees. Why should we think that the people who, in 1928, handed over the bonds to the Chinese Mission would now, if they got the money, refuse to part with it to the Chinese Mission? I do not think so. Why is it assumed, on the other side, that if these people can get their hands on the 67 cents to the dollar before the Irish Press gets it, that the Irish Press will never see it? Why is it assumed that the acceptance of the amendment means that the Irish Press will not get the money. I have no doubt that some of the people would still pass over the 67 cents. I have equally no doubt that a good many people would not pass on that money. When the people have the money in their hands, and their minds are fully informed on the subject, if they want to give the money then they can give it and nobody is proposing is that they should be prevented from doing it. What we are proposing is that they themselves should have an option in the matter.
There is a point which I wanted to bring out when I was interrupted. There was a question raised on the Money Resolution for this Bill as to the amount of the residue in America in December, 1922, and the amount distributed. There was interest accruing on the residue there. It was announced in the court that it was at 2½ per cent. I think the court ordered that a higher interest should be demanded from the date the order was made. Consequently, there was an amount there in 1922, plus the interest accruing, when the money was distributed—the 58 cents in the dollar. Do Deputies think that that represents the money that was there in 1922, plus the interest that was divided pro rata amongst the people amounting to 58 cents? Out of that money was taken the law costs, law costs imposed through the action of President de Valera. Another matter that has not come here is this, that in America—I do not know what is the position here—when there is a question of trust money like this in dispute, and it is decided by the court that it be returned pro rata to the original subscribers, trustees are appointed by the court, and those trustees deduct for their services a percentage of the whole amount. Consequently, out of this original money has been deducted a percentage for the trustees, and the law costs in a number of expensive cases in America. That whole situation, involving an enormous sum of money, has been brought about by the action of the President in America. It does seem to me rather scandalous—I should not like to be as severe as Deputy MacDermot and say indelicate—of the President, having imposed those enormous costs on the unfortunate people of this country, to insist that this Bill should go through in a special form that will permit him, as trustee for the Irish Press or whatever it may be, to get possession of this money without allowing the original subscribers to opt as to whether or not it will be handed over to them. Deputy Norton said that my objection to the organ is that it does not support us. That was a very nice way of putting it. I would go further and say that one of my objections to the organ is that not only does it not support us, but it does its best to misrepresent and malign us in every possible way. What is going to happen? The Irish Press, when the President loses his temper and shouts at me across the House, comes out with a big heading: “Stinging Replies of the President,” and I am going to be taxed to permit the Irish Press to misrepresent me, to misrepresent the Party I represent, and to misrepresent what I think are the best interests of the Irish people. I am going to be taxed for that, and everybody else is going to be taxed in this country to assist that. You can talk about equity and justice and honouring your bonds, and all the rest of it, as much as you like. The Fianna Fáil Party denounced us as not being a national Government. Why? Because we were the Government of the Irish Free State. We were not revolutionary, so we were traitors and not national. Why? Because we worked the Treaty. When they became elected and worked the Treaty, breaking it here and there when it suits them, we are told they are a national Government. The Minister for Finance said the other day that only for the Irish Press there would not be a national Government here now. A great many of the people who voted for the Government in power are people who are Communists, who belong to the I.R.A. and various other organisations, like that which to-day announces that they thoroughly disapprove of this Bill, and disapprove of the Irish Press incidentally. We are all going to be taxed to keep that paper going, and to keep that Government in office. That does not seem equitable. If anybody proposed that I should be taxed to keep the Irish Independent going I should object also, but not quite so vigorously, because, though the Irish Independent may have its little prejudices here and there, it is not a bought organ. At one moment the Minister for Defence gets up——
What about its action in 1916?
——One moment. The Minister for Defence gets up and talks about the Irish Independent as being controlled by us, and the next minute he talks about it as controlling us and giving us our orders. The truth is that the Irish Independent is independent as far as I am concerned. I should strongly object to being taxed to keep it going, but I object much more strongly to being taxed to keep a paper going which I think represents a policy against the best interests of the people of this country, which consistently attempts to mislead people by the suppression and twisting of truth, and which by its very style is calculated to bring about a sort of liquefaction of mind.
I must say I nearly fell down when Deputy MacDermot got up and talked about the President being indelicate. I am not going to pretend that I wore kid gloves with the President yesterday; I did say quite a number of harsh things, but I should really hesitate before I used that word "indelicate." I may have talked about sharp practice, and pulling the wool over people's eyes. That does not affect him much, because he might say that he got Frank P. Walsh to do those things. Just as he said to me at one time last year, when I pointed out that his Minister for Posts and Telegraphs had recommended that we should not be allowed to have free speeches, he can say that he was not present. He was not present when quite a number of things were being done in America, so he feels quite right in his conscience, but when it comes to accusing him of being a bit indelicate that is a personal matter. I know exactly what the President felt when that was said. It required great self-control on his part to prevent that lock from coming down when replying to Deputy MacDermot. That is a thing that should not have been said. My sympathies were all with him. You can say really harsh things such as I do at times about the President, but that sort of thing is not to be borne.
With regard to Deputy Norton, that independent man, he got up and disapproved of the speeches which I made and which Deputy McGilligan made, and proceeded in a clumsy way—which must have disgusted the President, who likes a little delicacy about those things—to support the money going to the Irish Press. I know Deputy Norton's type. He likes, when he goes around the constituency and into Government offices to get a good reception. I should just like to put one thing to any intelligent man in the House, or woman for that matter. Suppose Deputy Cosgrave, when President, had gone to America and had run a big campaign with an organisation there for getting possession of those bonds; suppose, having done that, he then brought in a Bill for the repayment of those bonds, and resisted any attempt that was made to let the original subscribers opt as to whether or not they wanted him to get possession of the money to be paid on the assigned bonds; does anybody here think that Deputy Norton—clumsily or delicately —would have got up and said that he disapproved entirely of what was being said of President Cosgrave; that he entirely held that the bondholders should not be given any say in the matter, and that the money must go to President Cosgrave? If anybody wants to test the honesty of Deputy Norton in this case, let him put the question to himself: “If President Cosgrave had gone over to raise this money, would Deputy Norton have got up, repudiated the people who raised a question about it, and stood up for President Cosgrave's action?” Every man in this House knows that if that had been done, Deputy Norton, if he were here, would have got up—or Deputy Johnson, if he had been here— and would have denounced in the name of purity in public life such an action on the part of Deputy Cosgrave.
But Deputy Norton gets up to defend it when President de Valera does it. Why? A very good reason. President de Valera has a certain amount of personality, and he has got it fairly fixed in Deputy Norton's mind that his place is to be crawling before him whether Deputy Norton holds the balance of power or does not. I am rather flattered in this matter, because the last place I spoke when Deputy Norton was on the platform was in the Rathmines Town Hall, in 1927, when Kevin O'Higgins and I stood up on the platform and, in spite of howling women, insisted on saying what we had to say. Deputy Norton got up and tried to make a speech, but he did not go on with his speech. He was not able to stand up to them. At the time I told him what I thought of him, and I am flattered now at knowing I was then right.
That has nothing to do with the amendment.
It is only a little reminiscence that goes occasionally with me as it does with the President. One of the Deputies on the Government side said that there was very little talk of this amendment on the Second Reading. Anybody who takes the trouble to read what I said on the Second Reading will remember that I advanced a series of suggestions about these bonds just as the man says in court that he is innocent, that he did not use the words, and that if he used them he used them in a different sense. In this debate I went on rather the same line. I said that this was not the best time to pay back the money, it was not the time to pay it back, and that if we insisted on it a case could be made against it by those people who went into the American courts, but still, if we intended to pay it, then it should be paid to the original subscribers and not to the assignees. Then this Deputy gets up and says there was little talk about this amendment until after the Second Reading. But on the Second Reading this amendment was indicated. The Deputy suggests that the Cumann na nGaedheal Party has got its orders from the Independent, while all the time the Deputy knew that this amendment was implied in what we said on the Second Reading Stage. There has been a lot of discussion about the President as trustee for these moneys. He told us that all the moneys that came from America for the Irish Press will be credited to these people and that the subscribers to the bonds are going to get whatever interest is due to them. I take his word. I am not saying that that is not so, but if that is so it is a variation of the proposal that was made to them in America, because it says on the prospectus:—
"Whilst these funds are being solicited by way of donations, Mr. de Valera will, of course, not derive personally any monetary profit from them. He intends to make the necessary and proper arrangements to ensure that if any profits accrue from the enterprise, or, if there should be any distribution of assets, such profits and the amount of any such distribution will be made available for the donors, according to their respective donations. For that purpose a register of those on whose assigned bond certificates a payment of ten dollars and over is made will be carefully kept. Payments of amounts less than $10, and the fractional parts of one dollar in payments amounting to more than $10, will be accredited to the assignors as advance subscriptions, for which they will receive an equivalent number of copies of the weekly edition of the proposed newspaper when issued."
I mention this in fairness to the President. He changed his mind afterwards. He said that in the case of every penny he brought from America that the bondholders would receive a share of the profits made or it may be that in the heat of the moment he spoke hastily when he should have qualified what he said. I raise this point now to allow him to clear it up. As Miss MacSwiney said the majority of the people who subscribed heavily in America were actually Free Staters. I know that a great many Free Staters were misled into handing over the bonds. Quite a number of them representing the more intelligent section did not part with their bonds. Miss MacSwiney said as stated in page 42 of this book which I am reading: "The largest bondholders are Free Staters, but it is better that it should go back to the bondholders than that it should go to the Free State and how far will that implicate us in any statements they may make that the Republic has failed?" One would deduce from that that a large number of those bonds that have been assigned were bonds of a small denomination and possibly of less than ten dollars.
I gathered from President de Valera's statement that the original intention set out in the prospectus was varied. But we want to be quite fair to him and I think he should be able to announce why that variation was made. On the Second Reading I was challenged as I am always challenged when I refer to things in the Dáil. One is always challenged about the column and the reference and if you put an "if" or an "or" where it should not be you are denounced as misrepresenting the case. President de Valera however gets up and suggests a case or puts it by implication or says that he thought it was so and you have got his word only. But you have to get his word in print in some authoritative way and read it as it was uttered and then he will proceed to give you what he really meant and not what is in print before you.
On the Second Reading the Minister for Finance got up and when I referred to these things he challenged me to produce the documents. What was the implication? That I was concocting what I was saying, and the Minister for Finance did that when the Minister himself knew perfectly well that what I was reading out were the words of the document that had been distributed in America. When I told him that I was reading from the United Irishman he said that he did not believe anything that appeared in the United Irishman. Now I have since carefully dug out the original document that was distributed in America and I am ready to hand it over to the House to be printed as a White Paper if necessary. The President will recognise his own handwriting produced “photoscopically” to show to the people in America that this was the great de Valera himself writing to them. The House can have this; if anybody questions it I am ready to hand it over and have it printed as a White Paper.
To come back to my amendment, my amendment does not deprive the Irish Press of one penny. It in no way proposes to dishonour our bond. In no way does it propose that. My amendment proposes that we will pay back with interest to the people who subscribed it the money they subscribed and, if, presumably, they are honest people and some of them have parted with these bonds fully realising their value, we presume they will hand over the additional 67 cents in the dollar to the people to whom they assigned them. Some of them sold their bonds for what was a fair sum considering the money was not realisable at the time. They will now presumably hand over that 67 cents in the dollar to the people to whom they sold them. But if some of them parted with the bond on a misunderstanding they will then have the option of retaining the money or giving it, and moved by patriotism they will assign that to the Irish Press which, as the Government put it, is a valuable financial property. Now there is nothing in my amendment to prevent them handing over the 67 cents in the dollar to President de Valera or to the Irish Press or to whomever the money may be owing. There is nothing whatever. The only thing proposed in my amendment is this: that the money shall go back to the people who subscribed it.
That same proposal would be incorporated in the Bill that provided for the payment of the Dáil Eireann Loan in Ireland, if we had not been satisfied that as a result of the warnings issued on the part of the Government here when the traffic in the Dáil Loan Bonds in Ireland commenced and when people were asked to part with their bonds for sums that bore no equivalent to their value, if we had not been satisfied that the warning was effective. If we had not been satisfied that that traffic had been stopped and that there was no serious situation to be met, an amendment similar to this would have been inserted in the Act under which we repaid the Dáil Loan. I myself knew cases where £1 worth of bonds were sold for 7/-. If that traffic had gone on to any extent a clause similar to this amendment would have been inserted in the Act. The President will find that very matter on the files in Government Buildings. At that time there was no question of the Irish Press and there was no question of the political colour of the people who were trying to get these bonds cheaply from unwary people. I am quite prepared to be told that all the people who were engaged in this traffic of buying these bonds were Cumann na nGaedhealers. They might have been but if we were not satisfied that the thing had not been stopped a section exactly similar to this amendment would have been inserted in that Act without any reference to the Irish Press or Fianna Fáil or President de Valera. The President has got up and said there is only one thing operating in our mind and that was a desire to injure the Irish Press.
A Deputy
Of course.
Very well. The President will find that we had a desire to prevent a similar traffic in 1924 or 1925 and it was only when we were satisfied that that attempt was nipped in the bud that we stopped. Whom were we trying to injure then? Simpleminded people up and down the country who in our hour of trouble in this country had subscribed the money. We wanted te see that these people were not going to be defrauded and that they were only going to part with it for the value. That was the purpose then. I am satisfied now that if the President will refer to his officials he will find that whole matter was gone into here in 1924 and 1925 in regard to the repayment of the bonds. As far as the repayment of the bonds in America I must say that I did think that if this amendment was going to be resisted some sort of decent case would have been made against it.
The Minister for Defence said that we must honour our bond. There is no suggestion that we shall not honour our bond. Every other thing is dragged across to misrepresent and try to convey a false impression as to what the exact purport of the amendment is. Its exact purport is to see that the money is paid back to the people who subscribed it and if anybody attempted to swindle them on a previous occasion—I am not saying anybody did—the original subscribers will now have an opportunity of defending themselves from being swindled. If they have lost their 58 cents on the dollar nothing can be done to get that back; but at least they will not now be swindled, without an attempt to protect themselves, of a further 67 cents on the dollar. If any of them desired then and desire now that their interests should be handed to President de Valera to keep the Irish Press alive to fulfil whatever functions it does fulfil, there is nothing in the amendment that handicaps or hinders them from doing it. There was no argument brought forward, but there was a lot of abuse thrown away at us. I admit we occasionally give a little back. What argument is brought forward? Something that the Irish Independent wrote 17 years ago, as if that has anything to do with it. If any good case could be made against my amendment it would have been made. It was not made because it could not be made.
I do not propose to worry the House with a long speech after what we have listened to. I think one of the most tiring things the House can experience is having people who think they are showmen perpetrating their theatricals here. There is another place for that and if Deputy Fitzgerald wants to amuse himself by gesticulating with his fingers and his hands he can go to some second-class show house and parade as long as he likes to an empty house.
The people sent him here.
That was their mistake.
To get back to the amendment, there are a few pertinent questions I would like to put to Deputy Fitzgerald if he were here. He complained that we have made no case against the amendment. I want to know from him what case he has made for it. An amendment is put in here which suggests that an attempt is being made to defraud certain innocent people in America; in other words, pull the wool over their eyes. Is Deputy Fitzgerald trying to pose as the great protector of those innocent people? I have listened to his two speeches and there has not been an indication that any of these people alleged to be defrauded have written to him or anybody else declaring they were and that they did not know what they were doing. That is the essence of it. Of course I am not surprised at anything that comes from the Deputy or his colleagues; but why come here and suggest by implication, by innuendo, perhaps even by direct words, that these poor people did not know what they were doing and they were defrauded? Did a single person write to him and say so? Has any one of those alleged defrauded people sent a petition or a communication of any sort to Deputy Fitzgerald pointing out the circumstances under which they were taken in? Not one. It was his duty and not ours to make the case. It is our duty to answer any case made. He has not given a solitary scintilla of evidence to show there was any individual defrauded or taken in by what happened.
Let us examine the facts in order to see how easily Deputy Fitzgerald could have secured evidence, if there were evidence available. It was pointed out by the President that the previous Government made several promises to pay this money. It has been suggested that certain announcements that would be made in newspapers, owing to the size and so on, would escape public notice. The Deputy has not suggested that notice would not have reached the people interested in those bonds as to the payment by the Free State Government, as to the honouring of the bonds. The people knew perfectly well, long before President de Valera went to America in 1927, that those bonds would be honoured, and they had the definite statement that they would be paid. President de Valera did not go to America at that time in the darkness. He did not go out on some secret boat or anything of that kind. There is no suggestion by Deputy Fitzgerald that he did. He went out quite openly and issued statement after statement about the Irish Press being founded. These statements were circulated freely in America. At any rate, when he went there he made it clear to the people the type of project that was in hand. A certain sum of money had been collected here and a further sum was collected in America at the same time as those bonds were being assigned.
No attempt has been made to suggest in regard to those documents that were executed at that time that the people who executed them did not know and approve their contents. No suggestion was made that undue influence was used in getting the people to execute them—no suggestion, except by the sort of sideway that only Deputy Fitzgerald can be guilty of. There was no suggestion that they were got by fraud. Those are grounds on which documents can be set aside, but Deputy Fitzgerald made no attempt to show that such grounds existed. He has not referred to one individual out of the hundreds who assigned bonds who complained and said he was defrauded. Was there ever such a ridiculous or absurd case made in this House? The Deputy seemed to convey that we are a most fraudulent people. Surely Deputy Fitzgerald, who must be a pillar of the Church, a great gospeller and the bulwark against everything anti-religious and all that sort of thing, the type of man who must be expecting in the quickest possible time after he dies that he will be canonised, does not suggest that those who got assignments for the purpose of helping the Mission to China got them by fraud. Nevertheless, the Deputy comes with an amendment which will prevent the money assigned to the Mission to China and other religious purposes going directly to them.
Not at all.
"Not at all," from another bulwark of the Church.
That is very cheap.
What does it mean? I put it this way to Deputy Morrissey: supposing one of those persons who made an assignment has since died does that mean that the money which that person had assigned to the Chinese Mission is recoverable from the Chinese Mission or is the Chinese Mission to get it? Will Deputy Morrissey answer that question? In the lapse of years a large number of people who held these bonds will have died. According to the amendment whether those people assigned their money to the Chinese Mission or not does not matter, the money will go to another purpose altogether. We have heard a lot here about the purpose to which this money is going. We have heard a lot about the Irish Press. Unless Deputy Fitzgerald is able to prove that those people who assigned their moneys for the Irish Press were weakminded, and did not know what they were doing, or that some extraordinary influence was used upon them, it does not matter one whit what they do with their money. It was their money and it is for them to do what they wish with it.
We hear of extraordinary things in wills and assignments made under wills. We hear of people cutting out their relations altogether, but that is their own affair. They can leave their money to anybody they like and nobody should be entitled to come along as Deputy Fitzgerald does, and say, these people should not do so and so. The people, who are referred to in this amendment, acted with their eyes open, and they acted in a national spirit. What was in the minds of those people was that they gave this money for the advancement of the national movement. That movement advanced up to a certain point where it was held up. Later when they found another national advance was being made they decided to take part in it and they were glad to have the opportunity of allowing the money which they subscribed earlier to be made available in order to allow the present advance to go forward.
What annoys me in this debate is that people are making charges, and bandying them about without one single bit of evidence to support them. We had Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney coming along and saying he heard the police had to be called in to a meeting of the Irish Press shareholders. He said it was only a rumour. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney may have forgotten, through his continued absence from a certain place, about the rules of evidence. Somebody should remind him about those rules, for if ever he goes back again and if he makes a statement in court if he has not evidence to back it up, he will be told he will have to withdraw it unless he produces the evidence to support it. But he comes in here, having forgotten apparently what he learned, and tells us that the police were called in to the Irish Press meeting, and he adds that it was only a rumour. He would believe anything that would injure the Irish Press. I do not want to say anything personal, but some people have reasons for that kind of feeling. No case has been made for this amendment. There has been no evidence put before the House to show that there was default. All these people who gave this money, and who are being made catspaws of by Deputy Fitzgerald, who is trying to use them for political advantage in order to try and damage the President and throw a slur upon him, are being used for that purpose without their consent. The Deputy is using people who are not with him either in national feeling or in national sentiment. He is using these people without having their authority, and using them for one purpose, in the hope that they might go back on the promises they have made.
There was one thing that I liked in the speech of the Minister for Justice, and that was its brevity. It is a pity, for the sake of order and for the good of the country, that the President was not as brief in his first or second speech as the Minister for Justice was. But I object to the President and the Minister for Justice putting the Chinese Mission on the same level as the Irish Press. I have no doubt whatever that whatever may have been the methods used to get this money assigned to the Irish Press, that such methods were not needed to get the Irish people to assign their bonds to the Chinese Mission or to the Yorke Memorial.
Can the Deputy prove they were not needed?
I am suggesting they were not.
The Deputy has no evidence of that.
Nothing that has been said by the Minister or the President has removed that. Perhaps the Minister would allow me to make my own speech. It has been said in this House that it is not possible to prove things, and I think that is a very useful ruling from the point of view of the Government Front Bench. It is quite true, anyway. During the litigation in America the President either personally or through his representative, at a cost of roughly 190,000 dollars to this country, saw to it that the Irish Free State would not honour her bonds that we heard so much about. If I remember aright, I think it is the opinion of most people in the House that the President's argument was that the Free State were not the legitimate successors to the First and Second Dáil. Does the President claim, as President of Saorstát Eireann, that he and his Government are the legitimate successors to the First and Second Dáil? Does he claim that, particularly in view of the official statement issued by those who claim that they are the only legitimate successors and the only persons entitled to carry on on the authority of the First and Second Dáil? I want to know what happened since the litigation in America that enabled the President to come in here and to put up a case, after his effort, at a cost of 190,000 dollars, to prevent the Free State carrying out their obligations in 1925.
In raising this issue I do not speak of the President in his personal capacity but of the Government as a whole. So far as I am personally concerned I dissociate myself absolutely and completely from the accusation that the President, at any time either during his period in America, or now, had any desire whatsoever to benefit himself personally or any member of his family. Although I do not agree with the President politically, and so long as he follows his present bent I never will agree with him, still I believe he is a man completely honest and straightforward.
I want to say now that it is well known to most people in this country that the Irish Press cannot continue to live unless it gets this money. I want to remind the President of this, that when the Irish Press was looking for subscriptions in this country they said it was for a non-party paper. What has happened since the Irish Press was first issued shows that the money obtained in this country was obtained on false pretences, because the Irish people were asked to subscribe to a paper that was to be non-party, because the people were asked, and it is on record, to subscribe to a national newspaper that was to be a non-party paper. What does a national newspaper connote? To-day, we have the position that it is neither a newspaper nor national. It is a party organ.
We would like to know what the Deputy means by a party organ?
The President knows much better than I do what a party organ means. He can explain it much better than I can. If there is one thing for which the Irish Press is bought to-day—and let me pay it this tribute— it is for its sporting news, its tips on English races.
As a party organ?
I am talking about its news. If the President can get, to use his own words, a legal quibble, he will be glad to jump on it, but the fact remains that the Irish Press is neither a newspaper nor national. It is simply a party organ of which the President was the controlling director. I wonder why he has ceased to be the controlling director. The President told us last night that they were advised that the Irish Press, just like any ordinary newspaper, would have to be prepared to lose a certain amount of money for the first two, three or four years. I am quite prepared to accept that statement from information which I got from people who were in a position to advise on that matter. He said that £200,000 was subscribed, and that £109,000 of that went into machinery and other overhead expenses, which left him with a capital——
I spoke of the prospectus.
I understood the President to say that there was a sum of £200,000 subscribed.
The Deputy should be careful about his facts before making a statement. I was quoting from the prospectus showing, before the paper started, what were the intentions.
I am prepared to accept the President's correction, unlike some members of the President's Party. I do not want to misquote him. I am bound to receive his correction. I had thought that the President said that £200,000 had been subscribed to the Irish Press. I am more inclined to believe now that that was the sum mentioned in the prospectus. The President said that £109,000 of that was going to go into machinery and other overhead expenses, and that £200,000 of working capital would be required and that was considered quite sufficient. Would I be correct in saying that the President as a director of the Irish Press, was advised by experts that he would want to be in a position to lose £200,000, before the Irish Press, or any other Irish newspaper, for that matter, could be put on a paying foundation? I think I would be correct in saying that.
Again I ask the Deputy to quote what he knows instead of surmising.
I am telling the President that I was informed that the President was advised that the directors of the Irish Press, or of any Irish newspaper, starting at that time as a party organ, or as a newspaper attached to a party, would have to be prepared to stand a loss of at least £200,000 before they would get upon their feet. That is my information, and I am suggesting that the £91,000, plus the £100,000 that must be got from the American bonds, is the reason for this Bill.
There is another point I want to put. What would be the position of the people in America who assigned their bonds if, as might quite easily have happened, the present Government had not been returned to power, if the Irish Press had failed within the first six months? Would their money have been lost completely, or would there not be a clamour that, because the people were so foolish as to assign their bonds, we would be in honour bound to pay the money? I should like the President to look into that. I want to make this point and to let the President if he is going to speak again in this debate answer it; and let us hope, sir, if we are going to get away out of this House at all before Christmas, that there will not be the same liberty on every Committee Stage on every Bill that comes before us as the President and others in the House have had on this, because if they are to have the same liberty on all the controversial matters that come before this House, I am afraid we will be lucky to get home for our Christmas dinner. But it is not a question of honouring our bond. Every Party in this House agrees that the money should be repaid to the people who subscribed the money. There is no legal quibble about it—none whatever. We heard Deputy Cleary and the Minister for Defence talking. It is a pity the Minister for Defence did not tell us all he might have told us seeing that he spent six months during the time he was in this House in America, trying to raise money for the Irish Press, and told us on his return that when he arrived in New York on a Christmas Eve, there might have been a sober man or woman in New York but he did not see one. Then we have this from the President: “If we want to borrow money again the wisest course is to pay all we owe and not indulge in legal quibbles.” I wish the President would apply that all round. There is no suggestion on this side of the House that the money should not be repaid, but we are trying to see that it will be repaid to those who lent it and not to those who intercepted it.
(The President and Mr. O'Connor rose.)
There is an objection to long speeches and I would be happy to end the debate if——
Is the President going to reply?
Deputy O'Connor——
Deputy O'Connor has not spoken yet, and the President has made two long speeches.
Deputy O'Connor has taken me up incorrectly. I said I would be very happy to end the debate if there were no people on the other side to stand up and add a new list of things to all they have already said. I was about to say that if Deputy O'Connor got up I should like this to be the last, but if not there might be other things to answer.
Tá go breagh!
I was accused of discourtesy by the Leader of the Opposition, because I did not give him the quotation or the reference which I gave in the Second Reading speech. I try to be as courteous as I can, but when I am met, as I was a couple of days ago, in dealing with the time of the House, I think that courtesy would be lost on people of that kind. I told Deputy Cosgrave, when he asked for the information, that if he had been in his place in the House he could have got it, and I do not propose to go any further to get it for him.
Deputy Fitzgerald, in his last speech, and other Deputies after him, referred to the cost to this State of the litigation in America. Just as they have got away for ten years with the cry that I caused the Civil War, that I put the Irish people at each other's throats, so also Deputy Cosgrave and Deputy Fitzgerald would like to get away now with the suggestion that the expense of this litigation was my fault. I was appointed trustee by Dáil Eireann of certain large funds. It was my duty to defend these funds in accordance with the trust, and I went over to America to defend them against the claim that was being made here by the Executive of the time to get possession of the funds. It is suggested that it was I who was defeated in that instance. I was not the plaintiff. I was defending the trust. Those who brought the action were the Executive of the day, and they claimed in the American courts to get these funds as a matter of right. I denied their right to get the funds. There was a body of American citizens, representing those who had subscribed to the funds, who also put a claim in against the Free State claim, as Deputy Fitzgerald indicated. If the judgement in the American courts meant anything, it certainly meant that an outside court at that date did not regard the Irish Free State as entitled to get the balance of that money. Was I as trustee not entitled to hold such a view?
I knew better than anybody living the circumstances under which that money had been obtained, because I had been one of the principal people in soliciting it. I knew the purpose for which it was subscribed and I claimed at that time, and I would do the very same thing to-day, that the balance of that money was not, at any rate, clearly due to be paid over here to the Irish Exchequer. That money was subscribed for certain purposes. A part of it had been spent. The remainder of that money was either for the purpose of continuing the effort for the original object for which it was subscribed or it was to go back to the original owners. The American court held that it should go back. I say that the judgment of the American court was a complete defence of my attitude in denying the right of the Exchequer of the Free State at that time to get the money. It is now suggested that, because I denied the right of the Government at that particular time to get that money, I should logically say that we had no obligation to pay back the money. Certainly I have never claimed that you have to pay back the money twice. The money that was not spent here for the purpose for which it was originally intended was being sent back and you were going to get due credit for it. But for the money that was spent here you had a full obligation, and this Bill is carrying out your obligation precisely in that respect. You are taking credit for the money that was distributed, and you are completing the fulfilment of the obligations, which I hold were obligations for any Government that was functioning here and that claims to represent, as we claim to represent, the majority of the people even in the Twenty-six Counties.
These are two different things. I know that people who would be inclined to take advantage of a legal quibble—Deputy Cosgrave suggested it —might possibly be inclined to say: "Well, if the court did not adjudge this balance ours, we have no responsibility for paying anything," even though everybody knows that the greater part of that money was spent here from 1920 to 1922 for the explicit purposes for which it was subscribed. Some speakers, of course, deny that there is any suggestion that this money is not due. Deputy Rice corrected himself to-day. I stated that he had said that the money was not due, and he denied that. I said I was prepared to take his correction, but I have since got the transcript of his speech. It is a matter of record, but here is what he is reported as having said: "This country, through its Government, now proposes to pay a debt which is not due." That is what he said. He corrected that to-day when I charged him with it. Other Deputies, whom I heard speaking, are apparently of a like mind. There are two questions here. Is this money due or not? Do we accept that it is due? I am willing to accept the assurance of the Leaders on the opposite side that officially their Party accept it as due. I hope that is understood anyhow. Am I right in taking it then that, with a few exceptions, we are all agreed in this House that this money is due?
Does the President mean legally due or morally due? I think Deputy Rice was referring to the legal case.
Deputy Rice is well able to make his own case. He did not make that case this morning. I cannot know what he meant. I can only take the words he used. We regard it as a moral obligation anyhow and our predecessors regarded it in exactly the same light. Why, then, does a Deputy say that the whole object of this Bill is to saddle the Irish people with a burden of £1,500,000 in order to get £100,000 for the Irish Press? I take it that Deputies, with one or two exceptions, are agreed that this money is due and that we are bound to pay it. As regards the time of payment, I have shown, step by step, that the time of payment was clearly indicated as the time at which the receivers would be furnishing their official report and the necessary machinery for repayment would be set up. I told the House, and it is a fact, that the first step was taken by representatives of the bondholders, who came over here and asked me and asked the Minister for Finance what we are going to do about implementing the promises that had been officially given, and officially communicated to the American Minister and to the American Government. We told them that we would implement those promises. I was told that the time was approaching when the receivers would be putting in their final report. Our Finance Department indicated that, in order that payment could be made, records and so on would have to be got possession of. We were advised that in order to get possession of those records, and to meet any claims that might be made against them, we should make it quite clear beyond any question of doubt whatever that payment was about to be made on those bonds. We took the proper steps to do that. This payment is being made as an obligation due at a time and in conditions under which any Executive Council sitting here would have to make that payment. We are told that this is all beside the point. Very well. Why do all the Deputies talk about it if it is beside the point? I am as willing as anybody else to come down to the narrow terms of the amendment. The Minister for Justice has spoken on that amendment, and shown clearly why we should not accept it. I wish to say that one of the reasons why I would not accept it is because I regard it purely and simply as a political manoeuvre by our opponents. I have not the slightest intention whatever to give way to a political manoeuvre of that kind.
Hear, hear!
Those moneys will be paid to those to whom they are legally due.
Legally?
Yes, legally due.
I thought it was a moral obligation.
No person will get those moneys except persons who are entitled to them according to law. Every person who claims repayment will have to show reason for his claim. Deputy Fitzgerald spoke a while ago as if those records over in America were in the state of confusion that they were in here. They were nothing of the kind. Conditions in America were different. A perfect record was kept in America, and the only difficulty there has been in America was the difficulty that a number of subscribers did not continually register their changes of residence. Those subscribers, at the time they assigned their interest in the bonds for the Irish Press, knew the value of them. One would think that, as was suggested, there were private circulars sent around and that there was a lot of hole-and-corner business about this question of raising money in America for the Irish Press. Quite the contrary. There was a campaign here for raising money for the Irish Press. I said that, before I went over to get money in America, applications had been made for shares for the amount of capital that it was intended to get here in Ireland. In America, subscriptions in cash and subscriptions in assignments, roughly about fifty-fifty, were made. They were taken pound for pound of their value, in the sense that every person who assigned a bond knew that he was going to get the equivalent interest to a similar amount in actual cash. There were public meetings held. The organisation and work were done by American citizens. They went around and canvassed for cash and for those bonds. It was quite clear that in all cases the bonds and cash equivalent were the same. The assignment had to be in strict legal form. There were two witnesses, and the witnesses' signature had to be attested before a notary public.
I told the House last night why it was, to use the terms that were used in the United Irishman recently: “de Valera takes no chances.” I explained to the House why I could not take chances. There was a large sum of money being invested in plant and machinery. We were starting on the minimum capital on which this enterprise could be successfully started. I wanted to be assured that there was no bird in the bush business about this assignment of the money that was involved, that the assignments were at least as valuable, and that I could regard them for the sake of the enterprise as being of equal worth to their face value. I probably thought that it might come to more, but I had to take them, for safety sake, at that value. Knowing that the receivers were actually about to distribute the money, knowing the money that was immediately being distributed, roughly judging the time in which that distribution should be completed, knowing the estimates for the losses which a newspaper starting had to face, and studying those estimates, I came to the conclusion that the moneys that would be required for the Irish Press would come in at the times they were required. I had a good deal of facts upon which I could base my calculations. I was not a prophet in the sense of being able to know that I would be sitting on those benches when the payment was to be made. I had seen the statements by the Minister for Finance before we actually bought the plant and machinery. I had to make a further subtraction because I saw that it was clearly the intention of the Executive Council that was then in office by hook or by crook to prevent the Irish Press from getting the money that it was legally entitled to, and to try to get away with that on a pretence of anxiety for the interests of the people who had subscribed their bonds. I personally did not do much, in the sense that I did not come into close quarters with the individuals who assigned their bonds. There was an American Committee—a Promoting Committee—set up. That Promoting Committee published literature. I gave that letter which was referred to to-day in my own handwriting. They solicited those subscriptions, and canvassed just as they had canvassed for subscriptions for the Republican Loan. Every public statement I made had the effect of making it clear that those who were assigning those bonds were subscribing those bonds as capital to an Irish enterprise.
That is the ultimate use that would be made of it. I have kept my promise. The accounts have been audited. They have been forwarded to the American corporation. The moneys that will be received will be similarly invested and the accounts sent over to the American corporation, and that American corporation will receive any dividends and will have its title to any assets of the Irish Press pro rata, exactly the sum in dollars and cents that we pay to the Irish shareholders. That sum the American shareholder would be paid in cash.
These being the circumstances, I want to know why there should be a clause here which is intended, if possible, to deprive the Irish Press of the assets that it is entitled to?
Just the same as I would be entitled to get my interest from this State if I had held some of these bonds myself, when the time for redeeming them came about, if I choose to give them for a Party purpose at election times I would be entitled to do so. It is all nonsense to talk about the ratepayers' or the taxpayers' money being used to support the Irish Press. Would Deputy Cosgrave get interest on any National Loan Bonds he may have? Are we entitled, because we are here in a majority in this House, to say that we are not going to give the taxpayers' money to support Deputy Cosgrave if Deputy Cosgrave wants to make that money available for his Party machine? Are we entitled to say that because that money does come from the common purse, in lieu of something which the common purse got, not as a present, that we will not pay it? If that is going back to individuals who are legally entitled to get it from the common purse, what is wrong with it?
One Deputy suggested it is indelicate. I tried to find out what was indelicate about it. We had Lloyd George and the Marconi shares spoken about. I do not know the facts of the Marconi business, but from the explanation the Deputy gave there is no comparison between them because that was a question where there were Government contracts and the members of the Government were taking shares in a concern in which the Government was directly interested. There is no parallel whatever between this case and cases of that kind. Then it was suggested by a Deputy last night that Cæsar's wife should be above suspicion. There are only certain distances that you can go. If an angel from heaven came down to this country at the present time and stood on this side at any rate, with an Opposition that has been for ten years doing everything that was humanly and inhumanly possible to misrepresent the position which some of us occupied, I do not believe that even that angel could hope to defend himself against suspicion. Not the slightest hope would he have of being above suspicion under these circumstances.
One Deputy said that I should have foreseen all this; that I should have foreseen that the Leader of the Opposition might come into office and that he should be very careful. Well, at the time, as I said, in dealing with that particular matter, I was not considering whether I would be in office or not. I was calculating and I knew that if I were in office I would act towards the Irish Press in the same spirit as I would towards any legal owner of the bonds. I knew that if my opponents were in office, from the statements they had made, that they would do everything in their power to abuse their position and to prevent the Irish Press from getting that money. Well, the wheel of fortune changed that. Fortunately it has put me into a position in which that effort can be defeated. If ever there was a case where my inclinations would be to resist an appeal to change, it would be in this case, because I believe there is only one motive behind the bringing in of this amendment. If I have over-reached anybody, if anybody in the United States has assigned a bond as a result of my over-reaching him, he has his remedy. But I am not going to start once more a new campaign to get what was already given. Even regarding myself as a trustee, not for a part of this, but as a trustee for the whole lot, I would not be entitled to go and risk the money that was put into that enterprise by sending back money which belonged to that enterprise on the faith of which and on the giving of which that enterprise was started.
Does not the President see now from what he has just said that he has a dual capacity, that he is in the position of having one duty as a trustee which might conflict with another duty as head of the Government?
No duty whatever conflicts with my duty as head of the Government. That is where I differ from the Deputy. I do not see any conflict whatever. The moneys are due to be paid to those who have the legal title to them. Nobody attempts to claim these assignments which have already passed the scrutiny of the American courts. These assignments have been adjudged as proper legal assignments. If anybody has any legal case to make let him make it, let him prove it. There is no conflict between my duties as President and my duties as trustee, none whatever. Those who have legal rights are going to have their rights safeguarded.
Now, unfortunately or fortunately, the history of years back has been brought into this debate. One part of it had reference to my attitude in the bond litigation in America. I have tried to explain to the House that I was defending a trust, to see that the balance of the moneys which were unexpended would not go to those to whom I thought they did not properly belong. I was upheld at least to that extent by the American court, and the fact that I was upheld in the American court is proof positive that my action at that time was not purely for the purpose of causing trouble. I had a trust to the Irish people on the one hand and a trust to the American subscribers on the other. I carried out that trust and defended it to the best of my ability. Anything I said with regard to that I am prepared to stand over to-day, not something that Deputy Fitzgerald, who did not even remember the newspaper, may quote. If anybody has documents in which there is any inconsistency shown between the attitude I am adopting to-day and the attitude I then adopted, let him show them to me.
I stated that the moneys belonged to the Second Dáil. I believe it. If in 1927, whilst we were still outside this House, we had got a majority in the election, we would have summoned the Second Dáil and accounted to it. But we did not get that majority and our opponents took very good care that such a case could never again arise. They put it out of our power to go to the Irish people again under such circumstances. We came in here and in a new election we told the Irish people what we proposed to do. We are paying this money, not as a determination of the rights or wrongs of a particular case as to whether the Free State was entitled to get these moneys or not. I say to-day that they were not entitled to get the moneys. Why are we paying them? We are paying them for the reason that I have already stated, that any assembly purporting to represent the Irish people could not afford to ignore their obligations in that regard. Miss McSwiney was mentioned by Deputy MacDermot yesterday, and he suggested that she and other people associated with her were not prepared to pay these moneys. I am perfectly certain they would be. If they are aggrieved with our action, my action, to-day, the reason they are aggrieved is because we are doing something which they think it would be their privilege to do.
We happen to be in the position in which we have control of the resources of the people for whose benefit the money was subscribed, and because we are here at the time when this payment is determined upon, we are prepared to fulfil our obligations. The question of a succession of States is a nice question. The question of how long a de facto Government may have to continue and the conditions under which it would have to continue before its full rights would be recognised is also a nice question. Our position is that the Irish people have deliberately accepted a certain policy which we put before them at the election. They have supported us in that policy, and as their representatives we are carrying it out. Our right to pay this money is that at the moment we represent the majority of the people concerned.
Deputy Cosgrave said that there have been gaps. I have documents here from which in the future the history of the last ten years will be written. These documents are here, they are in Government Departments, and there are many other documents of a parallel kind outside. In the future, when history is being written, it will be written from these documents, and I for one will not be afraid in the slightest to have, in history, my conduct during those ten years judged with the conduct of the gentlemen on the opposite benches. We have Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney trying to pretend that I am a most inconsistent and changeable person. I told the House last night what has been the basis of our policy. We believe in the independence of our people—the right to complete and absolute independence. We believe that our people as an independent people would choose a Republic. We mean to help them along that road, and the only way in which the Irish Press can be said to be a Party newspaper is in the sense that it is animated with the same purpose that animates us. It is not a Party-controlled organ. The Executive of the Government could wish to put into it whatever they choose and it need not be put in.
The terms on which the money was subscribed for the Irish Press were very definite. The pledge I gave was that it would be a newspaper as good as we could make it; that that newspaper would have for its policy the support of the Irish people in their efforts to secure complete independence and a Republic, if the people, when they got independence, choose to have it in that form; and that, so far as the economic policy was concerned, the economic policy of the paper should be that of reversing the economy of the past, the economy which was forced on this country, the economy of British free trade. It was pointed out that the policy of the paper would be to support the establishment of Irish industries and the balancing of our agricultural industry with manufacturing industry. That is the only sense in which the paper can be said to be a Party organ. It belongs to the proprietors, who are the Irish people. I think I said 8,000 shareholders. I believe there are 10,000 Irish shareholders and the paper is their property. I launched it; I set it going. It is going.
Going.
It is going as rapidly as it possibly can in the direction of becoming a real, big daily newspaper.
The Deputy will never sing the auctioneer's word "Gone" in connection with it. It is going all right.
The loss that has been referred to here was anticipated. It was in the nature of the enterprise. Again I say it is not a Party newspaper in the sense of a Party-controlled organ. The Party does not own it or control it. It is owned by the shareholders and its policy can be controlled by the Board of Directors. The only case where I would intervene actively —and I would intervene as trustee on behalf of those who subscribed the moneys—would be if the policy of the paper were to depart from that of supporting the movement for Irish independence and supporting the policy of economic independence also. Are its rivals Party organs? It is no more a Party organ than they are. They are Party organs in the sense that they support the policy of our opponents. You have, for example, the Irish Times. Is it not quite clear that the Irish Times supports the Unionist policy? Then you have the Irish Independent. What has been its policy for the last ten years except supporting the Party opposite?
Are you sure?
When I went to America I said that there was in Ireland a need for an Irish national newspaper. One-half at least of the electorate in this country, I stated, had no paper in which their opinions were voiced, no paper that would give them the truth, because the opposing newspapers were hiding the truth whenever it told in favour of the policy of our side. The paper is established under conditions which make for success and, if it is not successful, then it can only be attributed to the fault either of the Irish people who will not support it, if they refuse to support it; the power of advertisers, if they are able to exercise the power to prevent it getting the advertisements to which its circulation would entitle it, or some action outside ordinary business affairs which might be taken by those who would be in a position to do it harm.
Undoubtedly if the Opposition were on these benches, at this moment when this Bill is going through, they would try all in their power to do it harm, but they are powerless, thank God, now, absolutely powerless to do it any harm, because their attacks upon it will only rally round it, every one of the 10,000 shareholders to whom it belongs, and every single person who realises that this attack is made upon it because it is a powerful defence of the Irish people's rights. It is because of its importance in the life of this nation, to the people, that those Deputies on the benches opposite have been venting their venom upon it for the last two or three days. I have said all I want to say upon that now. We have not come to the end of the discussions that will take us back to the history of the last eight or ten years and I shall have more occasions still in which I shall be able to explain what really happened.
The President has just expressed himself as anxious to see the history of the last ten years rewritten in a different sense from that which he says now obtains. For my part, I think far the best thing that could happen for this country would be, if the history of the last ten or 15 years, instead of being rewritten, could be obliterated from our memory altogether.
What does the Deputy know about it?
When I listened to the President to-day saying seriously that it was the supreme happiness of his career to watch Deputies on the opposite benches digesting gall and wormwood it confirmed my view that it would be far better if the memory of those years could be obliterated, because that expression of his reveals the predominance of Party hatred and not of statesmanship or patriotism. The supreme happiness of his career ought to be, and I hope will be, to see the country reunited and the Border abolished.
I made up my mind, at the beginning of this debate, that I could not support this amendment unless I could see definite proof that there had been sharp practice and misrepresentation in inducing American hondholders to assign their rights. I have not found what seems to me to be adequate evidence of that in this debate and, accordingly, I do not feel able to vote in favour of this amendment. But I do not recede in the least from the point I tried to make this afternoon and last night, that it was an unfortunate thing, an indelicate thing for a person occuying the position that the President then occupied, as Leader of the Opposition Party in this House, to go round canvassing American bondholders to assign their rights to him, when the value of those rights was something that rested upon the decision of the Irish people, as expressed through the Oireachtas. The President confirmed every word I said when, just now, forgetting himself, he made the statement that to adopt the course that the Opposition had been inviting him to adopt, of accepting this amendment and giving the people an opportunity of deciding now whether they wanted to subscribe to the Irish Press or not, would be a breach of his duties as trustee. That absolutely confirms my point of view that he put himself in the position where two duties might conflict. He says they do not conflict. I do not say that they do conflict, but I say that they might conflict and he should not have put himself in the position where his motives could be, as they have been, misinterpreted or vilified, where insinuations could be made, as they have been made, in this case, and in other similar cases to which I have alluded.
I did not intend to speak on this debate but I trust my remarks will be brief, or rather will be comparatively brief because we can only speak in comparisons, judging by the long speeches we have had from the President. I suggest so far as this amendment is concerned that at least seven-eights of the speeches were completely and entirely irrelevant. Whether they would have been irrelevant to a Second Reading debate is open to question, but they had nothing to do with the amendment we had been discussing. I am not saying that possibly from the President's point of view that was not a wise course to pursue.
We have had examples of the President's logic on several occasions in this House. We have had examples of his extraordinary love of "arguefying" and we had one again this afternoon. I certainly am not going to waste the time of the House by following the example of these extraordinary logicians. To the man who can prove to his own satisfaction that the Irish Press is not a Party organ, and can do that by logic I say that is quite enough of his logic so far as ordinary people are concerned. It is only a mind of that kind that could not see the point raised by Deputy MacDermot of the conflicting duties owing to the dual position of the President. Nobody in this House or outside this House has been ever able to convince the President of anything, at any stage of his career, by argument or anything else. I quite admit that it is only people legally entitled to the money that will get it. The President and his legal advisers in America have taken very good care that he could make that promise and stand by it. I have not the slightest doubt that those who assigned over these moneys to him for the purpose of the Irish Press have done so in a manner that is legally unquestionable. But I suggest if that is so he should not, speaking in his capacity as head of the State, if he has any sense of decency, state that anybody in America who is dissatisfied has his legal remedy. He has taken good care they have no legal remedy. I can at least give that much credit to his legal advisers in America that they have made it perfectly clear that there is no such remedy. What I would like to put before the House is this.
Everybody will remember the circumstances in which this money was collected. I am not going into the history of it and I am not going to follow the President in his irrelevancies. I want to be strictly relevant to this amendment. Everyone knows, so far as this country is concerned, and the same holds good so far as America is concerned that most of the people who subscribed to this Dáil Eireann Loan never expected to be repaid. I wonder is that denied. It was said by President de Valera's own lawyer in America when making his appeal. "I presume" he said "that you are one of those many people who never expected to get this money back."
I suggest that the very circumstances under which this money was subscribed coloured the whole minds of the people for long years afterwards. I know it did in this country though the Government in office, from 1923 to 1927, determined to pay the internal loan and issued notice to that effect. They prescribed a last day by which all applications should be in, and yet the fact remains that even though that was solemnly stated by the Government and that the issues were announced in the paper and payments were made, the bulk of the people never put in their claims until that date was passed, with the result, as everybody knows who had anything to do with this business, whether as a Minister or in his capacity as a Deputy, that there was a tremendous delay in the payment of the claims owing to the fact that they did not come in. Everybody knows why they did not come in. They did not come in because the people did not believe that payment was going to be made, and that after the definite advertisement by the Government that payments were going to be made. It was only when the first payments went out that the great bulk of the people in the country who had subscribed to the Dáil Loan began to get busy and to send in their claims. That was the mentality that prevailed in this country at that time and I suggest that that was the same mentality that prevailed when Mr. de Valera was in America asking the people to assign these bonds. It would take a great deal to convince me that these people did believe that these bonds were worth their face value. Legally, they should have known it, I agree, and from the point of view of legality the President has an absolutely copper-bound case. He made sure of that. That is one of the objectionable features of the case— that he has seen to that and that there would be no going back now when the people see that these bonds are worth something. The President has seen to it. I will admit that.
The President suggested in his speech that he went as Leader of the Opposition to America and that he kept out of sight the fact that he might be President in the future. Yet he relates, as he said, that if the Cumann na nGaedheal Government were kept in power this assignment would be made ineffective. That extravagant prophetic vision of the President that was able to segregate the fact of the bonds being good under the Cumann na nGaedheal Government and that he might come into office and that he might be President—it was only the President's mind that could perform a piece of logic of that kind and make that sharp division between the different lobes of his brain. He held himself aloof in America. He did not do any nasty work. He kept himself above all that. Nevertheless, the fact does remain, and this is what the House ought to consider if this country is to avoid a first-class scandal so far as the ordinary decent-minded people are concerned, that this is the man who was at that time the head of the second largest Party in the State, the man who, even when he deliberately excluded the idea, must have believed, and strongly believed, that he would come into office. The man who, we know from various speeches he has made, has believed for a number of years that he has a divine mission so far as this country is concerned— except when he excluded all that, that man went over to America and got the money in this particular way.
If the President is quite so sure of his case, why does he not do what this amendment allows him to do? Why does he not give back the money to these people who subscribed it? There is doubt—and considerable doubt, to put it at the very lowest—as to what value the assignors put on these particular bonds. There is considerable doubt. Talking as an ordinary commonsense man and avoiding the legal quibbling which the President always brings in so effectively, at least to his own satisfaction, but speaking from the point of view of ordinary commonsense, it is impossible to believe that those who held these bonds assigned the full value to them. Many of them, I am convinced, looked upon them as so much wastepaper. Many of them never thought they would be worth their face value and a great deal more. Why not give these people the opportunity to do what they like with the money? Let them subscribe to this great national organ that is not a Party organ, we are told. Judging from the humour of the President, when Deputy Morrissey paid the tribute to the paper for its sporting columns, it evidently ceases to be a Party organ because it has sporting news and other side-shows as well. What else is it but a Party propaganda sheet?
Is there really any serious doubt about that I wonder? What we are asked now is to take advantage of the unpreparedness of mind and those who subscribed out of their generosity—to quote the Minister for Finance—to take advantage of their short-sightedness and give that money over to keep alive for a little longer period a propagandist sheet of that kind. There has not been for many years in this country an example of a Party organ like that. Does any sane man believe that anything can get into that paper, or be allowed to remain in it once it has got in, if the President of the Executive Council objects to it?
A Deputy
What proof have you?
I am asked for proof. I leave it to the commonsense of the House and of the country to judge that. The President mentioned many reasons why that organ might fail. They were quite amusing. We were told that the advertisers might not see the great advantage of using its columns notwithstanding its magnificent circulation. There might be some cult against it—it was not quite clear what —some malign outside influence—but it would certainly be some interference of an extremely vicious kind with the organ of the Irish people. The Irish people themselves might not appreciate it. But the one reason why a paper of that kind might fail was left unmentioned, namely, its recognition by the people and by the ordinary public as a tied Party organ, so far as practice is concerned, of a most pronounced type. Other papers were mentioned. The Irish Independent was mentioned as a supporter of our Party. I would be glad to know that. I may say that before the election of 1927 I doubt if any organ did us one-tenth of the damage that that newspaper did with its wide circulation. I am not aware that at any time our Party, even when we were a Government, had the slightest power of influencing either the views or the news in that particular paper.
It put us out of office.
I know perfectly well that it did a great deal more to put us out of office than it was alleged here last night the Irish Press did. To say that it is a Cumann na nGaedheal Party organ is ridiculous. I would ask Deputies seriously to consider the futility of the pretence made by the President. At one period of his speech he almost left us under the impression, with that sweet reasonableness he always professes—I notice that most obstinate men always profess sweet reasonableness; it is one of their outstanding characteristics—that he would accept the amendment were it not for the fact that this Party brought it forward to make Party capital out of it. I think I am not misrepresenting the President when I say that one particular portion of his speech went along these lines. If that was his only objection, why did he not himself who, as far back as the time he was in the United States, and I presume every month since, saw all this, draft his Bill to put the Government of this country and this nation above suspicion. He did not expect perfection in Cæsar's wife. That sort of thing can be carried too far. He did not want to be above suspicion. Well, certain things ought to be thoroughly above suspicion. I am not aware of any degrees so far as the business of Cæsar's wife is concerned. I am not aware of the degrees that the President hints there may be there; nor am I aware of the degrees so far as the public honour of the Government of this country is concerned. I think that, in these circumstances, the House would do well to accept the amendment. It gives the House an opportunity of saving, not the Fianna Fáil Party, but, at least, the Government of the country, which is an important thing. For that reason, I would ask the House to support the amendment. As I said, at least seven-eights of the speech of the President—I had not the misfortune to hear his other two speeches but I was told about them; and I am sure they were on the same lines—had nothing to do with the amendment. If one quarter of the professions of the President are worth their face value, if they are worth any more than a number of subscribers thought the Dáil bonds were once worth, then I suggest this amendment ought to be accepted.
It is difficult to comprehend why this amendment should not be accepted, if there are no ulterior motives behind the Bill. The amendment merely asks that the money should not be paid back to anybody but the subscribers. I think it was not fair to have the debate develop on the lines of a competition as to the relative merits of two daily newspapers. There is nothing about newspapers in this amendment. Strong points were put up to the President from these benches and I, for one, who have an open mind on this matter, would like to have heard those points replied to. It would be not only useful but necessary to have them replied to in order to help Deputies to make up their minds. It is also essential for the sake of history. When the future historian of this period is studying the materials at his disposal there will be no truer records of this and other matters than the records of this House. It is due to the House, in the first instance, in order to help Deputies to make up their mind, and it is due to posterity that the President and his colleagues should clear themselves of the imputations levelled against them, not so much by the amendment, as by the proofs as to the motives actuating the President and the members of the Executive Council in resisting the amendment. It is due to the fair name of this country that their characters should be cleared, if they can clear them.
The President made statements here to-day that a schoolboy would not make. It is quite apparent from the evidence adduced to the House, which has not been attacked by the President or his colleagues or any member of his Party, that they had the records of those who subscribed to the Dáil Loan in America and that they used that information, and also information that these bonds would be redeemed, notwithstanding that there was a general impression, both here and in America, that they would never be redeemed. I am not a lawyer, but there are two very expensive lawyers in this House. as we know. One of them has just flown—Deputy Geoghegan. There is another expensive lawyer—the Attorney-General—a very expensive one. One of them was worth seven guineas a day to Hamar Greenwood. He is worth twenty guineas a day now.
Dr. Ryan
To hammer you.
I am not hammered yet, but that hammer will hammer the Minister. It has levelled him up more completely than his failure in agriculture will level him up. The premier agricultural county of Ireland will not be the last to find that out. The people there have found a portion of it out already. Longford and Westmeath have found out the other gentlemen.
Dr. Ryan
That is relevant.
The President said to-day that it was as natural to deal in the scrip of the Dáil bonds as in the scrip of National Loan. Again, I repeat that I am not a lawyer, but I know a little about the English language. These Dáil bonds were not negotiable, and yet the President of the Executive Council negotiated in them. As was explained here to-day by Deputy Cosgrave, the ex-President of the Executive Council of the Free State, a few years ago there was a residue in those funds created by the Dáil bonds. Claim was laid to them by the Government of the Free State. They presumably were prepared to accept responsibility for redeeming those bonds, but Mr. de Valera, as he then was, although he claimed to be President of the living Republic, the Executive Council of the Second Dáil, said: "No, the Free State is not entitled to that money. We, the successors of the established Republic of Ireland, are alone entitled to it." When he was asking us to-day to believe this, that, and the other, and the logic of all his actions, which no human being could follow, I was quite expecting him to say that he was in the direct line from Saint Peter, and that he was infallible. I know how fallible he is, and so do the Members opposite. If we are to accept the statements made opposite, the Irish Press has been responsible for putting the Fianna Fáil Government in office. It might have had something to do with it. I am quite prepared to admit that after ten years of any Government, even if it were a Government of archangels, a change is good and healthy for a democratic State, but if the Irish Press is going to take responsibility for putting the Fianna Fáil Government into office, and take responsibility and pride for the depredations that Government has done in the last year and a half, then the memory of the Irish Press and the memory of the Fianna Fáil Government in this country will be a similar memory to the memory of Cromwell. The erstwhile friends and colleagues of the President, the members of his Executive Council, and a good many members of his Party, when he made claim to those bonds in America, make that claim of being the direct successors, not of Saint Peter, but of the established Republic. Even his colleagues at that time, those of them who were manly enough, found him out and sacked him—turned him out of the Second Dáil. What have they to say now? I will quote from the Irish Independent of to-day:—
"The Executive Council of the Second Dáil, Government of the Republic of Ireland, declares that it intervenes because Mr. de Valera persists in an attempt to assert a claim on behalf of the Free State Executive similar to that which he opposed in the courts of the United States when advanced by his predecessors in the Government."
Now where is Deputy Cleary?
This is the man who could not tell a lie. This is the man who could not err. This is the man who never blew hot and cold. This is the man who said here that he believed that the people who carried on what they are pleased to call the Second Dáil support his action, but here are the words. If they are not their words there is a good action against the Irish Independent and there is another way of getting soft money for the Irish Press.
Do not put it too hard.
I got no mercy from them and they will get none from me. I know all the lies that were told. I know all the hypocrisy that was in the Party.
You were too honest for them.
The Deputy is a good judge of hypocrisy.
They bite the hand that fed them for the last seven years. £1 a day! And I am responsible for it! What a crime I have committed against this country in bringing them in here. The Irish Independent report continues:
"Last March, when the intention to tax the people to the tune of £1,000,000 to repay American bondholders was mooted by the Fianna Fáil leader, the ‘Executive Council of the Second Dáil' directed attention to the fact that the bonds carry on their face the provision that only on the lapse of one month after the international recognition of the Irish Republic would they be exchangeable at the Treasury of the Republic— and redeemable at par within 18 months after Britain's soldiers had evacuated the Irish shores for ever.
"In addition they were to bear interest at the rate of 5 per cent. per annum from the first day of the seventh month after the freeing of the country from British military control.
"These essential conditions being disregarded in the present proposals, the arbitary and autocratic scheme which Mr. de Valera sponsors for political ends, must be exposed and resisted.
"The Executive Council of the Second Dáil has been at pains to prevent factious Irish conflict on this matter in the United States. It becomes its duty now to notify the Government of the United States that the Free State has no right to the pertinent documents lying there which Mr. de Valera has signified his intention to apply for.
"Equally does it become its duty to oppose any effort to tax the citizens in this guise to provide funds for a partisan newspaper, and create a false precedent regarding the owner ship of moneys withheld on different pretexts from the Government of the Republic and its political arm."
Now, who has the right to shout "Up the Republic." The solitary occupant of the Front Bench, if he has kept abreast of political events here, knows who were in the Executive Council of the Second Dáil, but he would want to have kept more abreast of political events than he has kept abreast of agricultural events to be able to give an enlightened opinion on it. What does the Second Dáil think? What is the opinion of the direct successor of the Republic established in 1916, re-established after the General Election of 1918, in the month of January, 1919, and the living Republic that we have been told has existed down along the line? Will any Deputy opposite get up and deny that the sponsors of that statement are the successors of that living Republic as claimed on many occasions by President de Valera? Was it not as President of that Republic he sent us an illuminated address or picture signed by himself as President of the Republic to the relatives of every man who was executed and of every man who lost his life on his side in the Civil War? Will he deny that? If he denies it perhaps he might be put in a queer place if one of these were produced in this House and they can be produced.
Read it again.
No. The living Republic! What does it mean? If these bonds are redeemable now, if, as the President said to-day, I forget his exact words, but it amounted to this that if there was an obligation on any nation to honour its bonds by payment it is on this nation to redeem those bonds now. All of us who knew anything about them have a reminder of it here by the living Republic. I will not say whether it is living or dead. But those opposite? Let them say it is dead and see how long they will live. Let us get the opinion of the twenty guinea a day gentleman on the legal position of the living Republic.
The Deputy must remember that Deputies are here as Deputies and not in their professional capacities.
According to the President we are in honour bound to redeem these bonds when the receiver has made his final report. We are in honour bound to redeem them regardless of our ability to pay at that particular time. Will the Minister for Agriculture or the Minister for Justice or the Attorney-General of any of the other few Deputies on the opposite benches tell us how these bonds are now matured? Have we got a republic? Is not that the test of the maturity of the bonds or is the latest development, the latest twist of President de Valera, that we have a republic now? Is his latest twist that it was an Imperialist Parliament when somebody else sat on those benches? Were they Imperialists when it was Deputy Cosgrave and his Party sat there?
The King's Ministers.
Yes, the King's Ministers and now it is a republic. That is the obvious implication in this Bill. These bonds are now matured and should be redeemed regardless of our ability at present to redeem them or not. They must be redeemed. Those bonds bore a statement, I think, that they were redeemable some time subsequent to the international recognition of the Irish republic. Not only have we not a republic but we have not a public man in authority in this country to-day courageous enough or honest enough to declare a republic and yet these bonds must be redeemed.
Let it be clear that no case has been made from this side that they should not be redeemed. No case has been made though the President has astutely tried to make that case. The Minister for Defence taunted this side with not wanting to redeem the bonds that were subscribed by friends in America, while we were paying £5,500,000 to England. It was nearly time that the gentlemen opposite found out that we should not pay that money to England. They know when that hare was started. They know who stared it. They know it was started by Peadar O Domhnaill——
And Colonel Moore.
Yes, and Colonel Moore, and the Front Bench kept out of it until they were able to weigh what election timber was in it and if it was likely to gain them any votes.
I do not think that hare is in this course.
It is a hare that has been chased all round this room a million times in the last few days.
It will not be chased any more to-day.
Well, if I am not allowed to participate in the hunt I will accept your ruling. However, I think the hare will come home to her seat anyway. The President said a terrible lot of interesting things. I wonder where the agitation started to have these bonds redeemed just now? Has there been any agitation from America? It has not been mentioned. I have not heard of any. I do not hear many things and it could pass without my hearing it. But in making the case the gentlemen opposite do not make any point about that. The President went into the realms of high finance to-day, but he resented a mere Deputy asking him a question on it. I submit, a Chinn Comhairle, it would be no harm to pursue the President into those realms of finance for a little bit. I will not trespass too much on your indulgence.
Some previous speaker has made the case that this was not an opportune time to redeem these bonds. There is such a thing operating between countries as the gold standard. The paper that we have to lean on now, the paper that our friends opposite on a famous occasion could not understand, is the paper that is backed by King George and all his works and pomps. Our issue of the £1 note is not equal to its face value in gold. That point was made by a previous speaker, and the President said neither was the £1 equal to its face value in gold when we borrowed this money from America. As a matter of fact, I think these are substantially his figures:—We borrowed the money when the dollar stood at 3.75 to the £1. I doubt that figure, but for the sake of argument I accept it. We are now proposing to repay this money when the £1 note is worth 4.45 dollars. The advantage is with us compared with our borrowing. But the President, poor man, I am afraid, walked into it. When 3.75 dollars were equal to the £1, we borrowed the money. I should preface what I am going to say by this that we cannot take a bunch of currency notes over to America to pay this debt. They are not money. They are only tokens of value. We have got to pay America in value, not in paper. How are we going to get the value to America if we are to pay America £1,500,000 worth in gold to send them? I take it we have little or no securities over there. Then we have got to send the value and we have got to have that £1,500,000 in goods. We have got to pay it with the bullock, the pig, the butter, cream, etc., that we produce. Let us come down to the terms of values and wholesale prices when this money was borrowed. The bullock that sold at £40 when we borrowed this money, and when the rate of exchange was 3.76 to the dollar, would fetch about £15 to-day.
£10.
Give them the benefit of the doubt and make it £15.
I will not.
The Deputy will unbalance me in my figures. Deputy Curran says £10 and I believe he is nearer the correct figure than I am.
I will bet anybody a fiver that I am.
We have a racing gentleman occupying the Front Bench opposite and I wonder if he will take you up. We are all glad, of course, to see his sporting colours going past the post on the Curragh. Anyhow, let us assume the animal would be worth £15 to-day. The sum of £40 would represent 150 dollars. That was the price of a bullock in 1919-20. One bullock would pay back 150 dollars. If you talk business here you must talk of commodities, because international indebtedness is paid not by money but by commodities. A bullock will now fetch £15. That would get you 66 dollars at the present rate of exchange. If it is a sum of only £10 it will get you 44 dollars. It will take very nearly four bullocks to-day to pay in gold currency what the value of one bullock was in 1919-20. The President and the intelligentsia of this State say that now is the proper time to pay this money.
The Minister for Finance and some Deputies were talking here to-day about breeding. I wish this well-bred, well-fed, well-read Minister for Finance were here now to give us some idea of what he has in the back of his head and what are the responsibilities and duties, as he conceives them, of a Minister for Finance. A Finance Minister should not be a taxing master or a tax gatherer. He should be a responsible man capable of looking after the finances of this country. The Minister was not even permitted by the President to reply to criticisms on the Budget statement. The President, who would not allow the Minister to reply to Budget criticism, came here to-day and said that now was an opportune time, because the rate of exchange has risen from 3.76 to 4.45 to pay the money back. He left out the essential point, the quintessence of the whole matter. I asked him what was the wholesale price level and I was told that I could find out, or something like that. Will the President make a proper comparison on the basis of our ability to pay now as compared with when we borrowed the money? Is there any intelligence amongst them at all? They have shown that there is very little by all the abuse that has gone on for the last couple of days over this matter.
The President resented the suggestion of sharp practice. What is sharp practice if it is not to collar these American bonds, not for a national purpose but for a Party purpose, not for the purpose of helping Ireland, but to crush the country, as it has been crushed since this great Government organ won its victory, and since the Government and the destinies of the country were handed over to a Party who have shown, in the arguments they put up here to-day, that they are unscrupulous as regards national interests so long as they can serve Party interests? They are incompetent to deal with international finance, as has been shown by the President here. We borrow money. Our money is not gold. We do not dig gold in this country, but we produce cattle, sheep, pigs and crops. Is there anything else we do produce? Yes, we produce a lot of wood—on the heads of certain men in this country. That is going to be improved upon and we are now going to put turf on their heads. We do not produce precious metals. We produce the necessities of life and when we have to pay a foreign debt we must rely upon the produce of our own land, so that in the last analysis we pay our international indebtedness with our country's products.
What is the price of that produce now? What is the price in gold currency, the international standard? What was the price in 1919-20? That is the correct basis of comparison, but the President overlooked it. He probably did not know; in fact, I am sure he did not know. The Minister for Defence was glad that this matter was raised so that he could show what the British side was going to do. He waved his hand as much as to say that we on this side are the British side. Another Minister asked why was this debt not paid during the last ten years. The whole debt comes to £1,500,000. If the Party opposite did not blow up bridges it could have been paid six months after the Treaty was signed. The Minister for Justice laughs. Why should he not laugh at the irony of the whole thing—the man who led the bridge-wreckers across the Mayo and Sligo mountains. The people of this country had to pay 6d. in the £ for six years for all the damage then done, and we are coolly asked why was this indebtedness not paid before now. Twenty times what would have liquidated this debt went up in smoke and the Party opposite were responsible. We were told a few days ago about the necessity for keeping out the wreckers. No less a person than the President came down to the level of the ward politician. "Keep out the wreckers."
The recent Dublin election surely has no bearing on the subject-matter under discussion.
In this amendment the President and his Government get an opportunity of showing that their transaction was a bona fide transaction. It is questionable if this House could legally, in face of their contract, pay these bonds to anyone else. It is pretty evident that from the nature of the case people in America had no intention of subscribing to the Irish Press. They had this old scrip in their hands and they said: “We have been giving all our lives to help Ireland. Here is this thing. It is no good to us”; and, in that way the President and his organisation in the States raked in what filled up the capital to start the Irish Press. The obligation to redeem the bonds which they carried was that after a certain time, after international recognition of the Republic, these bonds are redeemable. That does not put any obligation upon this Government or Dáil to redeem these bonds. As pointed out, I think, by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, if as a result of the Bill now going through these bonds are redeemable by this Dáil the money is not in the strict technical sense redemption money but ex gratia payments. The Irish Press can keep this scrip, but they could make no claim upon the ex gratia payment. If the whole thing was bona fide and if such enthusiasm was displayed in America in subscribing to the Irish Press as we are told by Ministers on the Government Benches, then, the same sympathy must be in America for the Irish Press now. If they wanted money in the morning for this paper they would get it quite readily if America is in that frame of mind, and so they should let this amendment go through. Let the original subscribers get their money back and then, if they have the enthusiasm for Fianna Fáil which the Party claims the people in America have, this money, when it is received by the people in America, will be sent back to the Irish Press. They should show the same thought for the Irish people in America as for the people in Ireland.
And the people in County Dublin.
Or in Gloucester Diamond where you hunt.
Where you could not stand.
You would not stand long there if I were there.
A Deputy
Attended by the A.C.A.
Deputies have been told three times in the last half-hour that they must not interrupt. The next reminder will be much more severe.
It would be better, I think, if Ministers would not try to misrepresent the issues raised in this debate. The President was at pains to create an issue that did not exist and he was helped in that by the Minister for Defence. We were told that the previous Government honoured what they should not have honoured, that is, that they honoured their loans to England, but that they would not honour the redemption of these bonds. Nobody that I heard speaking here made a case, on his own behalf, or on the behalf of any Party, against the redemption of these bonds. It is dishonest to try to create that issue, or to use it as a smoke-screen.
May I interrupt for a moment? I thought it was arranged that at half-past eight the debate on Estimate No. 9 should be resumed. I wonder is that arrangement to be fulfilled, or whether there is any possibility of getting this debate speedily concluded, and allowing us to get along with other Parliamentary business?
I am in the hands of the House in the matter.
Am I to proceed, or what is the arrangement?
I tried to speak in this debate, but I was not called upon when I rose. Another person was allowed to speak who had already made two speeches.
I do not know whether the Deputy wishes to reflect upon the Chair?
No; but I would like this debate to continue a little longer.
I have had no expression of opinion from the Opposition as to what they desire.
I think that Deputy Mulcahy, who is in charge of the Opposition at the moment, should express some opinion on the matter.
It is the first I heard of any understanding to interrupt this debate at 8.30.
In announcing the Order of Business it was stated that certain Votes would be taken at 8.30 o'clock; I think Votes 9 and 2, but I am not aware of any arrangement that this matter now before the House should be adjourned.
If an expression of opinion is required from me I think this debate ought to conclude soon. I think it would probably help business and would be more satisfactory to allow this debate to conclude rather than to let in, on another occasion, Deputies fresh to continue the discussion as we saw to-day.
That is my opinion also. If there was any possibility of this debate concluding, at a reasonable hour, I do not want to interrupt it for the purpose of taking Government business.
What is a reasonable hour?
I am full of hope.
As a number of other Deputies wish to speak upon this, and as there appears to be general agreement, on both sides, that the debate be brought to a close as soon as possible I will not say any more.
My few remarks will not delay the House because I intend to speak to the amendment. I support the amendment for the reason that it advocates the repayment of this money to the subscribers and I am somewhat surprised at the great row kicked up by the Government against that very honest amendment. As Deputy Belton has already said, we do not refuse repayment to the subscribers but we want it done properly and correctly. There have been points made from time to time about the subscribers and about their assigning their bonds over to the Irish Press. Friends of mine have written to me from America who have stated that they got circulars asking them to put their money into this wonderful national newspaper that had been promised to the Irish people and they wrote home for advice to know was that really true and was Ireland going to have one great national paper that would not belong to any Party. That was the idea that was sent around when they were advocating that those bonds should be made payable to the Irish Press.
Listening to the debate, and to the President speaking on the debate, it was rather amusing to me to see the attitude the President adopted. I understand his mentality fairly well. I was associated with him for a great many years, from the very night the Volunteers were first started. It was amusing to me to see the attitude he strikes when he wants to impress the people—the great tub-thumping and shaking of the hand. He has a wonderful understudy in my friend, Deputy Cleary, and, mind you, he gets away with it. He leans back and looks around and sees what effect it has. Well, it has an effect, because, according as the President gets excited, the "yes men" get excited also and there is wonderful enthusiasm and if anyone on this side of the House dares to open his mouth he is told to sit down. The great patriot, the Great White Chief, the great leader of the Irish people, is the one man who is endowed with Irish nationality and we on this side of the House have no room for Ireland. We are John Bulls, friends of the English, and we have no spirit of nationality. That is the dope that goes down and the "yes men" drink it all in. A good example was the remark of the Minister for Defence, Deputy Aiken, the other night, when, questioning some speaker, who was making his case just like I am making my case, he said: "What right have you to speak who did not subscribe to the Dáil Loan?" That was a wonderful thing to say. If I might claim the indulgence of the House, if having subscribed to the Dáil Loan is any hallmark of nationality and if it entitles one to speak I can say that I have been a substantial subscriber to the Dáil Loan. I challenge any Deputy on the other side to have subscribed as much as I did. Not alone that, but I collected some thousands for the Dáil Loan and can prove it from the Minister for Finance. That was in the days of danger, when, perhaps, we had no security that we would ever get paid. And yet, we are the people who have no love for Ireland or no spirit of nationality! When the Sinn Féin Press was smashed and the machinery destroyed, the Press which was doing the work of those days, some of us subscribed close on £700 to put up the machinery so that Sinn Féin could be set going again. That was not John Bull's work. We are still the same men and if I get up to advocate that there is no necessity to pay this money just now, I am speaking in the interests of Ireland exactly as I have always done all my life and not because John Bull has any hold on me.
Deputy Cleary and President de Valera stated that when all the rest of Ireland is wrong all he has to do is to look into his own heart to find what is right. That is the kind of stuff that goes down. I admit it goes down. There are still a great many "mugs" in the country, but our roots are deep in the soil of Ireland, and we have a wonderful love for it, and we made every sacrifice that could be made by an honest Irishman and that entitles us to stand up in this House and say that we support this amendment and for no other reason. It is an honest amendment, giving the right to the American people to get back the money which they subscribed for certain objects. Why this indecent haste in paying it anyway? The Americans are not shouting or bawling to have it repaid. As Deputy Belton said, it takes four bullocks now to repay what one bullock would repay a few years ago. It is no time now to repay it, especially when the American people themselves are not howling for it. The different countries in the world to-day are trying to rearrange their money matters and to see how they can postpone settlement of their debts. This is a little country. Owing to the policy of the Government who went across the way and are supposed to be the extreme patriots, this country to-day is not able to repay that £1,500,000. Let us take time. The indecent haste about it is that you want to get control of this money to help you out of your difficulties with your daily paper. Ireland should be first in your thoughts and not your daily paper. Think of the conditions of the farmers of the country. Think of the cutting of the salaries of the teachers and the civil servants. You did that because you said the money was needed and now you pass a Bill to pay £1,500,000. That is why I advocate the amendment. If we are to pay it let us give it to the people who subscribed it and, when they have it, if they want to hand it over to you after that we will not stand in your way. It is about time this humbug should stop and that honest Irishmen should be allowed to have their say in this country.
Mention was made of the wool being pulled over the eyes of the people in America. I was speaking with Americans yesterday and they said that they had subscribed but they had forgotten all about it and that anyway when they did subscribe it they gave it as a free gift and did not care what happened after that, just as when subscribing to the Dáil Loan we never thought we would see the day that we would get it back. But we did not mind. We knew it was for Ireland and we thought that nothing was good enough for our country. As I said, we should put our country and its welfare before Party politics and a Party newspaper. The debate we have had here for the last two days and the long speeches which we have had from the Front Benches were all due to the fact that they hoped to get this money for Party ends.
I am supporting this amendment because I stand for the repayment of this money directly to the people who subscribed it. I think it is a dirty trick on the part of the Government to turn round and take advantage of the people who put money into this loan and ask to have this money assigned to them, because I believe that the subscribers were under the impression that there was no possibility of repayment being made to them. President de Valera is seeking to get the money for the support of the Irish Press. I myself have had some experience of putting money into business. Unfortunately for me, I was induced by a friend to put money into a business. I did not know enough about balance sheets to ask to see one, but when I looked for something out of my investment I found that the business was in bankruptcy. For that reason, I will never be a party to allowing a business like this to pass in any institution with which I am connected. I suggest that the money be paid back directly to the people who subscribed it. Then let the President, or anybody else, put their balance sheet before these people and if they wish to subscribe money to the Irish Press, or for any other purpose, let them do so. I want it to be known that I am not going to be a party to having the people deceived and deprived of their money.
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Aiken, Frank.Bartley, Gerald.Beegan, Patrick.Blaney, Neal.Boland, Gerald.Bourke, Daniel.Brady, Brian.Breathnach, Cormac.Breen, Daniel.Browne, William Frazer.Carty, Frank.Cleary, Mícheál.Concannon, Helena.Crowley, Timothy.Daly, Denis.Derrig, Thomas.De Valera, Eamon.Doherty, Hugh.Doherty, Joseph.Everett, James.Flynn, Stephen.Geoghegan, James.Gibbons, Seán.Goulding, John.Hales, Thomas.Harris, Thomas.Hayes, Seán.Hogan, Patrick (Clare).Jordan, Stephen.Keely, Séamus P.Kehoe, Patrick. |
Kelly, James Patrick.Kelly, Thomas.Kissane, Eamonn.Little, Patrick John.Lynch, James B,MacEntee, Seán.Maguire, Ben.Maguire, Conor Alexander.Moane, Edward.Moore, Séamus.Moylan, Seán.Murphy, Patrick Stephen.Norton, William.O'Briain, Donnchadh.O'Dowd, Patrick.O'Grady, Seán.O'Kelly, Seán Thomas.O'Reilly, Matthew.Pattision, James P.Pearse, Margaret Mary.Rice, Edward.Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.Ryan, James.Ryan, Martin.Ryan, Robert.Sheridan, Michael.Smith, Patrick.Victory, James.Walsh, Richard.Ward, Francis C. (Dr.). |
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Beckett, James Walter.Belton, Patrick.Bennett, George Cecil.Broderick, William Joseph. Curran, Richard.Daly, Patrick.Davis, Michael.Davitt, Robert Emmet.Dockrell, Henry Morgan.Dolan, James Nicholas.Doyle, Peadar S.Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.Fitzgerald, Desmond.Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.Hogan, Patrick (Galway).Holohan, Richard.Keating, John.McFadden, Michael Og.McGilligan, Patrick.McGuire, James Ivan. |
Brodrick, Seán.Byrne, Alfred.Cosgrave, William T.Costello, John Aloysius. Minch, Sydney B.Morrisroe, James.Morrissey, Daniel.Mulcahy, Richard.Murphy, James Edward.Nally, Martin.O'Connor, Batt.O'Leary, Daniel.O'Raillv, John Joseph.O'Sullivan, Gearóid.O'Sullivan, John Marcus.Redmond, Bridget Mary.Reidy, James.Rice, Vincent.Rogers, Patrick James. |
Before we go on to the section, I should like to ask when does the President propose to make available the document from which he quoted last night?
The President is not here.
The President has gone away. He heard the question.
I am perfectly certain that the President does not propose to deal with the misrepresentations of Deputy McGilligan. He did not read any document last night, or quote from one.
The President himself did purport to quote from a document last night, did so flagrantly, and did so after a warning had been given by the Chair as to what the procedure of the House was. So much did he know that himself that he urged the House to reconsider its procedure, and stated that he did not consider it was quite right. Under those circumstances, I think I am quite within the procedure of the House and quite within my rights in asking when it is proposed to make available for Deputies in the ordinary way the document from which the President quoted.
The President is not here now.
May I take it then that a Deputy is not to be precluded from his rights simply by the disappearance in the obvious way in which the President disappeared—by the runaway fashion in which he disappeared? May I take it that I may hold this question over until the President does make one of his infrequent appearances?
We are now dealing with a Bill which has in its first section this definition: "the word ‘subscriber' includes (in addition to the meaning given to it by the Act of 1924) any person claiming through or under a subscriber." I said last night that that was an enlargement of the original group to whom those moneys were, by anybody, declared to be due at whatever time they became due. I asserted last night and I assert again that that amendment has been introduced for one purpose, and one purpose only, and that is in order to get in a particular Party organ which supports the Government. We have heard to-night that it is not a Party organ and that it is strain upon the patience of some members of this House to have that point made. It certainly put a strain upon their mentality to have it argued as it was argued. What is the position we now arrive at? There is a story told by O. Henry of a man who committed a particularly despicable act. When he got to Heaven, as the story ran, there was a cluttering up of the worst type of criminals, and those guilty of the most despicable acts, to avoid the glance of St. Peter. They were looking for this man. They clutched one man and he said: "I did not do that. I only robbed the pennies from the blind man's cap." Another man said "I did not do that; I only robbed a widow of money that she wanted for the support of her children." A number had other excuses, admitting themselves guilty of very mean and despicable acts, but always clear that they had not done the one thing for which the particularly mean criminal was being sought. That Party opposite can pride itself that it has got away with the loot. It has. The President can say, or his Parliamentary Secretary when he is questioned, "I did not rob the public purse for a Party organ. I only cut the labourers' wage." You can hear the Minister for Finance say: "I did not rob the public purse for a Party organ. I only got men thrown out of employment which they had been in for 20 years to give work to people who were on the streets owing to my Government's activities."
They came to make inquiries about particularly mean and despicable things done to this country, which is leading it to poverty and destruction. The President alone, I should say, bears the burden of this looting of the public purse for a Party organ. History repeats itself. Seán T. O'Kelly was envoy of the republic in America in 1924. He got together the bondholders, acting on President de Valera's advice, in order to put up a case against the republic, when the President was standing apart—as he always is—for the republic. At one time, Seán T. O'Kelly found that his mission had ended. Whether he had been recalled, had resigned, or was kicked out, does not emerge. But he had to leave, and in Documents "A" and "B" which we published, he announced, to use his own words, before he left the office to which he was attached in America, representing this State, "I grabbed all I could, and got out." The Party that sent that man to America as envoy is now in possession of the public purse and, while the going is good, they are making good. They are grabbing now what they can get preparatory, I hope, to getting out. At any rate, this debate has done one thing. Don Quixote long ago made a mockery of the ancient code of chivalry. We have a new type of Don Quixote at the moment, and a peculiar and comic type of Sancho Panza, standing by his side, in the person of the Minister for Finance, to aid him. What was an honourable transaction between the people of this country when fighting nationally for a certain purpose, and the folk in another country, kindred of ours, who lent their money to support that national cause, is now being demeaned, and the whole transaction sullied, just because this mouldy newspaper has, even in its second year, become decrepit, because they want to get a little more capital to prolong the weak existence of a newspaper that already has signs of death upon it. They can do that. They have got the votes. They have certainly no mandate for this robbery.
That is a hard word.
Deserved. They have got no mandate for this. They never said anything about it in the election address, no matter how extravagant their promises were about moneys to be saved, industries to be started, new markets that were to be found, and general prosperity achieved. There was not a word that this country was going to be taxed this year to the extent of £1,500,000 for the discreditable purposes for which these moneys are going to be raised. It was said long ago, in connection with that, that if people were going to sell their souls for a mess of pottage they might, at least, make sure that the mess of pottage would give them a decent meal. Looking back on the whole transaction now, having passed away from the amendment that would have saved the scandal of having to find this provision of £100,000 extra for the Irish Press, the hungry have an opportunity with an unwholesome type of diet, to make a good meal of it. The people about whom the President referred last night in such glowing terms are now being made to stand by—what? A Party newspaper in its hour of necessity. That is all there is to it. We had many foolish statements made in the debate last night that: “This paper was not a necessity.”“It is not a Party organ.” I hope that phrase will be blazoned forth throughout the country. It is a good index of the pitch to which the Government was brought in the debate. “The Irish Press is not a Party organ; it is not a necessity. Its prospects are good.” We are learning like the Minister for Finance, the longer we live.
We come now to the invisible markets for agriculture. We know a little about the invisible factories for industrialists. Up to this we had heard nothing at all about the invisible profits. We have all three now. Can the Minister for Finance, who is left alone to try to clear up the mess the President has left behind him, say that there is any other purpose in the phrase used in the Bill than that it is an enlargement of the 1924 Act, so that "the word ‘subscriber' includes (in addition to the meaning given to it by the Act of 1924) any person claiming through or under a subscriber"? Can he say whom he has in mind, other than the people whose money has been clutched for the Irish Press? Can he even give the case of an individual, with a decent sum subscribed, who has sold to somebody to whom it was right this money should be paid? Can he give a single example to warrant an enlargement of the phrase, other than the example which shouts itself aloud to everyone, and which has been shouting itself aloud since the Bill was introduced?
This should not be called the Dáil Eireann Loans and Funds (Amendment) Bill. It is a poor law relief Bill—outdoor assistance. We had the pathetic appeal made yesterday that there are 333 people employed in the Irish Press. Only one conclusion could be drawn from that, although it was not uttered by the President, that if the £100,000 is not paid to them they may not have 333 people employed there. That, from the very people who can destroy factories in this country, or who put, at least, an equivalent to that number of people on the roads by their activities in the last Budget. Of course, that does not matter. That can be viewed in a detached way. No one in this House was getting any profit, any sustenance, or any joy from these people being in employment, and there are not going to be many hearts sick on the side of the Government, if they are thrown on the streets. If the Irish Press went down there would be sick hearts and sore heads on the Government Benches, but it would not be because of any human feeling for the 333 people but a great deal of human feeling, and very human feeling for 11 people who sit as members of the Government, because the Irish Press is in the background now, and they are afraid that if the buttress of the Irish Press were removed from them, they might not sit there much longer. At any rate there has been a conscience aroused in the country in the last 24 hours over this transaction, a definite conscience aroused that it is trafficking in public moneys in the open way in which it is now seen that that trafficking is being conducted. Better still than all that, there has been another awakening and the sanctity, the odour of incorruptibility, the austerity that certain people had clothed themselves with, has departed. Mind you, on the whole, it is nearly worth while paying £100,000 to the Irish Press for that.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis,
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Doherty, Joseph.
- Everett, James.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Geoghegan, James.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Jordan, Stephen.
- Keely, Séamus P,
- Kehoe, Patrick,
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Kissane, Eamonn.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Brady, Brian,
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Browne, William Frazer.
- Carty, Frank.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- Norton, William.
- O'Briain, Donnchadh.
- 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.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C. (Dr.).
Níl
- Beckett, James Walter,
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Broderick, William Joseph.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Curran, Richard.
- Daly, Patrick.
- Davis, Michael.
- Davitt, Robert Emmet.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Dolan, James Nicholas.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
- Holohan, Richard.
- Keating, John.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McGuire, James Ivan.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Minch, Sydney B.
- Morrisroe, James.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- Nally, Martin.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Reilly, John Joseph,
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
Would this be the proper time to raise again the point about the confidential document?
The Deputy may ask a question if he desires.
The President has fled once more. I will ask it when he is here.
Amendment 2 seems to be consequential on amendment No. 1 and I presume that it falls with it.
Is that your ruling?
Yes.
On this section I should like to give notice that it is intended to move, on Report Stage, an amendment extending the time within which applications for redemption may be made until, approximately, August, 1934.
I should like to ask whether that is the only amendment the Minister intends to move to the section on Report Stage, because I think another amendment is both necessary and desirable and, in justice to the Minister's own position as Minister for Finance, it ought to be introduced by him. He told us when we were discussing the Money Resolution that the amount of money left in the United States in December, 1922, was 2,377,434 dollars, and that the amount subsequently paid out, after the American court judgment had been given, was 2,188,379 dollars. There is missing as between these figures a sum of 189,055 dollars. There is missing also the very considerable amount of interest accruing on the main sum lying in the United States banks from December, 1922. The President told us to-day, when going back and standing very solidly over the attitude taken up by Collins, Griffith and Cosgrave, that these sums were proper to be paid by the State to the subscribers in the United States.
I do not like to interrupt the Deputy, but it seems to me that what he is saying now has no relation to the particular section we are discussing.
We are discussing the fact that remains in Section 4, now that an amendment has been defeated that would have limited the definition of the word "subscriber" that certain people would be authorised, under Section 4 as it stands, to make claims.
I think that has already been dealt with.
It is because it has already been dealt with that the point I am now making arises.
Not, I think, on Section 4. That is all I am suggesting to the Deputy at this stage.
I would ask you, sir, to keep me in order if you think it necessary to do so, but it is because the amendment has been defeated that it is necessary, in the interests of the Minister for Finance and in the interest of such integrity as members on the far side wish to claim, that I make this other point. I ask the Minister if he proposes to introduce, on Report Stage, an amendment to deal with the matter? The President to-day said, with regard to us on this side of the House, that "at the first possible occasion, it was their duty to pay it back," that is, the moneys that were subscribed in the United States towards the Dáil Loan Fund and the President reminded us to-day that at the first possible occasion it was our duty to pay it back. The President will now be coming to the Minister for Finance, as the head of a Party, and presenting to him certain claims as a subscriber inside the new terms. The President, as the head of a Party, was responsible for the grave deficit in those funds which I am now pointing out and which amounts to 189,055 dollars, together with the amount of interest that accrued on the major sum. I want to ask the Minister for Finance whether he will deduct, when he receives claims from a person who, contrary to the case he makes to-day in the United States and before the court, drove this country and the taxpayers of this country to the expense and costs that are represented there and then, in the circumstances described to-day, got power of attorney over some of these funds, from the amounts claimed by the President as head of a Party, the amount which will recoup to this country the amount lost to this country by the President's action in the American courts.
I suggest again that that cannot possibly arise on the section. This section does not deal with moneys. It deals with applications for redemption.
The Minister for Finance will receive applications from the person who was responsible in 1927, and in the intervening years, for a loss of 189,055 dollars, together with more, perhaps, than that sum again in interest. He will be presenting to the Minister claims as a subscriber inside the enlarged term here. Will there be deducted, from the amounts that will be paid by the Minister on these claims, the amount that will recoup the taxpayer of this country for the loss sustained by the actions of the President when, as head of a Party, he took the action I speak of in the United States, and I ask the Minister whether, in the first place, he will introduce an amendment to deal with the matter on Report Stage and, in the second place, whether he thinks it right that the taxpayer should again pay out a sum equivalent to this loss to the head of a political Party in this country?
May I direct your attention, sir, to Section 2, which deals with the redemption of the external loans and sets out the terms and conditions on which redemption is to take place? Section 3 deals with the method of redemption. Again, I suggest that what the Deputy is saying is out of order. The terms of redemption have been accepted by this House by the passing of Section 2 of this Bill. It was on that section that the Deputy, if he had been awake, should have raised this matter. As to what the Deputy has said, he well knows that there were several committees of bondholders participating in these proceedings. Some of them were inspired by the Government of which the Deputy was then a member. The Government of which the Deputy was a member was a party to these proceedings. In fact, I think it initiated them to compel the trustees to do something which their deed of trust forbade them to do. If there was any money dissipated in the whole of these proceedings, it was the Government of which the Deputy was a member was responsible for the dissipation of the assets. The courts competent to try this issue, having heard the case put forward on behalf of the then Government of the Free State, decided against that Government and determined instead that these funds should be repaid to the bondholders who entered into the litigation in order to protect their own rights. If there is any question of any person being made responsible for the recoupment to this State of the money so squandered, it is the Deputy and his colleague who sits beside him.
The Minister appears to be misinformed about the facts. He talks about one bondholders' committee being instigated by the Government of which we were members. It was. Why? In order to protect the interests of this State. Another bondholders' committee, instigated by the President, was taking certain action. It was our duty, as the President says, to pay back this money. Consequently, it was our duty as custodians of the interests of the Irish people to see that the residue of the assets became available here before we became responsible for repayment. The money was in the Federation Trust Bank in New York. We wanted that money handed over. The men who had been trustees under the First Dáil and who had been supplanted, I think, by the Provisional Government or the Third Dáil, resisted. We had to take the case into the courts because they resisted the handing over of that money to us. The Minister says that the court found against us. The report in the Journal of International Law indicates clearly that in no circumstances would the court have found in favour of the case put forward by the present President of the Executive Council. The case went against the President, who put this country to the expense of running those cases in the United States. When he found that that case was going against him, he instigated another case by a bondholders' committee. It was our duty to safeguard the moneys for the people in this country and we certainly did instigate another committee.
What would have been the position if we had allowed the matter to go by default, as the Minister suggests we should have done? He says that we were to blame for fighting the case in the American courts and, consequently, that we placed the cost on the people here. What would have been the position if we had not fought the case? The country has through the action, as I maintain, of President de Valera, been put to the loss of the legal expenses of these cases, plus the rakeoff, or commission, of the trustees who had the distribution of the residue in America. What would have been the position if we had not fought the case? In that event, a sum of money belonging to the people of this country, which President de Valera now says we are bound to repay—a sum of about 2,500,000 dollars—would have been placed in the hands of men who wanted that money for no other purpose than to resurrect and carry on the campaign of destruction that took place here in 1922 and 1923. If we had not resisted that case, the revolutionaries in this country would have taken possession of 2,500,000 dollars or more. They would have used that to the detriment of this country. When President de Valera had decided that the oath he fought about was only an empty formula, he would come in and say to the unfortunate Irish people: "I got that money; I held on to that money to use against you and now, by Jove, I am President of the Executive Council, comptroller of the public funds, and I am going to make you pay that money back." Anybody must admit that if we had sat idly by and allowed that money to come into the hands of those other people who had no intention of repaying it but who were leaving it to the public purse here to repay it, we would have been rightly condemned as failing completely in our trust. That money was desired by those people for the sole purpose of using it against the elected Government of the Irish people.
The picture presented by the Minister of our going forward with a vexatious case is not the true picture. President de Valera said in Documents A and B that he was always satisfied that he had no chance of winning the case. He thought he had no chance of winning it, but he pushed it forward knowing that. What was running through all the correspondence—Documents A and B, the White Paper, the letters of E. de Valera and others published in 1922—was:"Let us keep the Free State from getting that money." What is the Free State? The Free State is the people of this country and the elected Government——
Is the Deputy speaking to this section?
I am replying exactly to the Minister——
A point of order was raised by the Minister. I shall now allow the Minister to reply to the statements that have been made, but I want to advert to the point that was raised by the Minister——
I think that my point of order should have been taken before certain statements were made by Deputy Mulcahy.
I am telling the Minister that I shall now allow him to reply. This point should have been raised on sub-section (2) of Section 2.
I should like to argue that very briefly. This is the only section on which the matter could be dealt with. The amendment that would be necessary would either have to be put in under this section or the point raised would have to be dealt with in a new section, because the type of claimant I spoke about is a special type of claimant that will have to give special information. Under no circumstances, could that special type of claimant be dealt with under No. 2 or No. 3. I submit that we are dealing with a special type of claimant and whether the matter could be dealt with under No. 4 is really very arguable. What we want to get from the Minister is what his intention is in the matter.
No type of subscriber has been specifically excluded from sub-section (2) of Section 2. That is clear. The sub-section refers to "full satisfaction and discharge of the capital of the external loans and of all claims in respect of interest thereon." I should think that Deputy Mulcahy's point as to whether certain moneys should be deducted by the Minister for Finance when certain claims have been submitted, would clearly have arisen under that sub-section. The Minister did not direct my attention to that sub-section when raising his point of order. But Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy Fitzgerald did proceed. I will allow the Minister to reply. The only thing that we can discuss on Section 4 is the form and manner and time in which application for repayment is to be made.
May I explain the cause of my interjection? The Minister, in replying to Deputy Mulcahy, made a statement the import of which was that when we were a Government we acted wrongly by not letting the 2,500,000 dollars in America go by default to another body. I got up to correct him historically, and to point out that the suggestion that he has made there as something desirable to have been done is a suggestion that we should have done something which would be nothing less than treason to the people of this country. I feel that my interjection was justified for the sole purpose of replying to and correcting the statement made by the Minister. I had no other purpose in making the interjection.
I am not saying anything at all about the Deputy's intervention. I am merely pointing out that I will allow the Minister to reply to Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy Fitzgerald, and that all that can be discussed on Section 4 is purely the form and manner and time of the application for repayment.
The point has been made that because the President was a party to certain proceedings in the United States, that when certain bonds that have been assigned to him are presented for payment, the expenses of that litigation will be deducted from the amounts which may be payable on those bonds. In that connection Deputy Fitzgerald has spoken with a candour which is unusual coming from the benches opposite. He has made several important admissions which I would like to recount so that I can show the effect of them. He said that there were trustees appointed by the Second Dáil to hold this loan. That was his first point. The first admission Deputy Fitzgerald made was that President de Valera was a trustee appointed by the Second Dáil. These moneys, I would remind the House, were collected on behalf of the Second Dáil by President de Valera as President of the Irish Republic.
He never was that.
The Deputy had better rid his mind of that obsession, and there is documentary evidence to prove that, so far as the Deputy is concerned, it is an obsession.
What is the document?
The document that has appended to it the signature of the then Acting President, the late Arthur Griffith—the trustee deed upon which those loans were held by the President with his Lordship the Bishop of Killaloe and Mr. Stephen O'Mara. At the foot of that document appointing the President as one of the trustees is appended the signature of Arthur Griffith, the Acting President of the Irish Republic, acting for Eamonn de Valera, President of the Irish Republic, and the signature is witnessed by the former secretary of the Executive Council, Mr. Dermot O'Hegarty.
Is the Minister suggesting——
That is documentary evidence at any rate.
That is not documentary evidence.
There are many other documents. That is one, at any rate, which should be before the mind of the Deputy.
On two occasions when he was proposed for such an office by the Dáil he refused it.
The Deputy has had the unpleasant experience in this House, when on a previous occasion he made a statement which he repeated to-night, of having one of the members of his own Party getting up and giving him the lie.
He did nothing of the sort.
Deputy MacEoin did it.
The point, at any rate, clearly emerges that President de Valera, the person who collected these moneys in America on the authority of the Second Dáil of the Irish Republic, was appointed by the Second Dáil a trustee, and charged with the custody and safe-keeping of these funds in America. That is the first point that emerges from what Deputy Fitzgerald said.
Is the Minister speaking with knowledge? Was the appointment by the Second Dáil or by the Executive Council of the Second Dáil?
I am dealing with Deputy Fitzgerald's admissions now, and with nothing else. The second point that emerges is that, once again, on Deputy Fitzgerald's own admission the Second Dáil, to use his own phrase, was supplanted by the Provisional Government.
I said nothing of the sort.
The Deputy did. I took it down and it is on record, and it exactly represents the facts as nobody knows better than Deputy Fitzgerald. What then was the position? This supplanter of the legitimate Government—the Provisional Government—which by a coup d'état secured control of the forces of the State, proceeded to endeavour to secure control of the funds of the State which were then lodged in America, and they took action against the trustees. It might very well happen that a trustee, looking at all the circumstances of the time, might feel convinced in his own mind that the possibilities were that the courts would decide against him; but, whether that was his opinion or not, he at any rate was bound to defend his trust, and it was in defence of his trust that President de Valera became a party to these proceedings at all. Therefore, his participation in these proceedings was in no way vexatious and in no way unnecessary.
Could that be said of the Provisional Government? They had no claim to this fund. Nor could that be said either of the intervention of the bondholders' committee, which was set on foot by those supplanters, to use Deputy Fitzgerald's own phrase. If there was one person who was justified in participating in these proceedings at all, in using any part of the funds to defend the trust, it was the trustee, particularly when he had the support of a second out of the three trustees. Therefore, there was a majority of trustees, who felt that these moneys should not be handed over to the Provisional Government as they did not rightfully belong to the Provisional Government. But there is no suggestion—the suggestion has not been made by Deputy Mulcahy or Deputy Fitzgerald—that when the members of this committee of bondholders which they brought to birth, this ill-begotten child of their own viciousness, present their bonds for repayment that they are to be penalised in the same way as the person who defended his trust; those people, whose sole idea was to secure a violation of that trust, are to be allowed to go unscathed. They are not to be mulcted in any way. Their vexatious litigation which, undoubtedly, did result in an unnecessary expenditure of these funds is to be condoned, is, in fact, according to Deputy Fitzgerald, to be commended.
I do not know whether it is necessary for me to do more than point that out to the House, and ask the House to draw the conclusion from it that the whole of this debate has been motivated by nothing except disappointed spleen—that the people who, when they were in power in this country, made up their minds to do something which would be dishonest and dishonourable and to withhold from the original subscribers their full rights, or to withhold from the representatives of the original subscribers——
That's the point.
——their full rights. These people, since they are no longer in a position to do the material injury, which they first contemplated, are now prepared by flinging mud from the midden to damage as far as they can the reputation of the man who stands at the head of the State and whose name will go down in history when theirs are forgotten and when their descendants will be glad that they are forgotten.
I think I should on this section like to say a word to the Minister to urge upon him to look into this matter of the Fenian Bonds before the Report Stage. The President in the United States said that the holders of the Fenian Bonds should also be recognised by the Dáil Republic. I do not know what the position is with regard to them now. Perhaps the Minister would have that matter looked into before the Report Stage. I am not sure that under this section they would be entitled to apply as other subscribers are applying.
I think I should be entitled to reply to the Minister.
No. There was an opportunity afforded on the previous sections for this matter to be discussed and fully discussed. When I came into the Chair sub-section (4) was under discussion and I could not then have informed myself immediately as to what were the particulars. The Minister for Finance raised a point of order. I did not give a decision, pro or con, at the time not knowing what had happened. I wanted to make myself acquainted with the provisions of the previous sections and having made myself acquainted with them I discovered that the matter which Deputy Mulcahy raised should have been properly raised on Section 2 (2). Now I allowed Deputy Mulcahy to proceed, and I allowed Deputy Fitzgerald to supplement what Deputy Mulcahy had said. In fairness to the Minister I thought I should allow him to make a speech in reply. But the statements were concerned with certain litigation in America. Deputy Mulcahy gave his view as to that and so did Deputy Fitzgerald. The Minister than gave his view. The position now is that I cannot allow the discussion on that matter to be carried any further. The only discussion that I can allow is on the application forms for redemption.
You, sir, allowed Deputy Mulcahy to speak. The Minister replied to Deputy Mulcahy and in replying to Deputy Mulcahy he made certain statements which were contrary to facts. I got up to reply to the Minister for Finance, not to supplement what Deputy Mulcahy had said. The picture you have given is that Deputy Mulcahy spoke and that I supplemented what he had said and that the Minister replied. That is not what happened. I repeat again that Deputy Mulcahy spoke, the Minister replied to him and I replied to the Minister.
Did the Minister make two speeches?
He did, sir. I just wanted to point out that I thought you were in error.
There were two speeches. Your point of view was given on two different occasions. Then this was started, but I could not allow that matter to be discussed on Section 4, so that ends the matter.
What you stated was that you would permit the Minister to reply.
And I did.
Yes. And I gather from what you said that you had in mind that we had spoken on this side twice. As a matter of fact the Minister had already replied to the point made by Deputy Mulcahy, but in that reply he misrepresented things as far as I can make out. Feeling that nobody was to be allowed to correct his statement or to state otherwise, I ask to be allowed to reply. The Minister made the most fantastic statements as to what happened.
I cannot allow the matter to be further discussed.
I should like to ask the Minister whether he proposes to make any arrangements so that the form of the application will be of such a kind that he will be able to inform himself as to the claim and where and to what extent did the Minister think they had in any way been responsible for the loss.
I have definitely ruled out that. Deputy Mulcahy had plenty of opportunities under Section 2 (2) to raise the matter as to whether subscribers should be asked certain questions and whether certain information should be demanded from them. Now the Deputy is trying to ask the Minister if he will, in the form, ask if certain people were responsible for certain things. That is clearly endeavouring to get in what was dealt with in a previous section.
I would not raise the matter if I thought it had been.
On Section 5 I would like to ask the Minister why he considers that the present is the time to impose this burden of borrowing on the country?
I consider that the present is the time because of the very explicit undertaking given by our predecessors that the moment that the receivers had taken their discharge this loan would be repaid. That undertaking was given by the Minister for External Affairs in the Cosgrave Government to the representatives of the U.S.A. in this country in a letter written in October, 1928. I consider further that this is a very desirable time to repay the loan because the circumstances favour the repayment of the loan at this particular moment. The third reason is, that we are able to make the repayment upon terms that are particularly favourable to this Government.
And the poor Irish people in America want the money badly.
Are we to understand from the Minister that he is basing the obligation to pay this money simply and solely on the undertaking given by the previous administration and on nothing else connected with the status of the State?
Surely the Minister cannot say that the present circumstances favour the payment of this loan when every single branch of the public services is being cut; when every labouring man in the country is suffering intense distress caused by the reduction of wages and salaries? Surely the Minister cannot say in these circumstances that this is the time to send 1,500,000 dollars over to America?
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Browne, William Frazer.
- Carty, Frank.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Davin, William.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Doherty, Joseph.
- Everett, James.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Geoghegan, James.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Jordan, Stephen.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Kissane, Eamonn.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- Norton, William.
- O'Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Kelly, Seán Thomas.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pattison, James P.
- Fearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C. (Dr.).
Níl
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Broderick, William Joseph.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Curran, Richard.
- Daly, Patrick.
- Davis, Michael.
- Davitt, Robert Emmet.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Dolan, James Nicholas.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Holohan, Richard.
- Keating, John.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McGuire, James Ivan.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Minch, Sydney B.
- Morrisroe, James.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- Nally, Martin.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Reilly, John Joseph.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
I would like an explanation as to what the exempted clauses mean, or what is the meaning of exempting those clauses.
Has the Deputy, for the purposes of this debate, not read the Act of 1924?
I have it here.
If so, the Deputy is aware that sub-section (1) of the section reads:
"It shall be lawful for the Minister to take such steps as he shall think proper to ascertain the names and other particulars of all subscribers to the external loan or either of them and the amounts subscribed by them respectively."
I did not ask about that. I asked about the exempted sections.
The Deputy has the exempted sections before him.
Why exempt them?
Because the promise of repayment provided for in this Bill is much more favourable than the terms under Section 6 of the Act of 1924.
What can be more favourable than giving to the Minister powers to purchase such certificates for such price as the Minister thinks proper? Why take that out?
Would the Deputy develop that point?
Yes, if the Minister does not understand what is in his own Bill. It is proposed to take out sub-section (3). I shall read it:
"That Minister may at any time redeem all or any of the stock certificates issued under this section."
Why take that out?
I will ask the Deputy to tell me why it should not be taken out.
If the State enters into this, I should like to give the Minister power to purchase such certificates at a price that he thinks proper.
I do not think the Deputy has read the Bill. If he had he would see no certificates of the kind contemplated in this particular section are going to be used under this Bill.
Then what is the harm in leaving the section in? It gives the Minister power to purchase certain stocks and some of them may be lying around from the 1924 period. Is that a hardship? He is asked to pass judgment that something he is going to do is proper.
There is no reason why a statute of this date should suffer from any such verbosity as the Deputy is labouring under.
I never heard the pot calling an aluminium kettle black.
That is what the Deputy is, an aluminium kettle, the lightest thing made.
And the Deputy is the blackest. But, seriously, can we not get an explanation?
Tá
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- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
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- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
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- Harris, Thomas.
- Jordan, Stephen.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
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- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
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- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Davin, William.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Doherty, Joseph.
- Everett, James.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Norton, William.
- O'Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
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Níl
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Broderick, William Joseph.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Byrne, Alfred.
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I should like to know when does the President propose to lay on the Table of the House the document he quoted last night, that being a confidential document which, according to a former ruling, should be laid on the Table of the House when it is quoted?
I gave a complete answer to that last night, and I do not propose to repeat it.
May I point out that the President has already stated that he did not quote from the document, but Deputy McGilligan, by innuendo at least, has several times made the statement that the President did quote from the document. Is the Deputy entitled to continue to make that assertion after the President's statement?
It is interesting to see that the Minister for Finance has changed his tactics. Last night he said that the President had quoted but that it was not confidential.
No.
Does the Minister for Finance deny that he said last night that it was not a confidential document?
I do.
He now says that he was merely paraphrasing and denies that he said that the document was not a confidential one.
I say that I said last night that the President did not quote from a confidential document. I said that he did not quote.
This is a matter we will have to find out when the Official Report is before us, but it is my recollection, and I think it will be the recollection of most Deputies in the House at the time, that the Minister's attempt to defend was not that he did not quote but that what he quoted was not a confidential document.
The Deputy is allowing his verbosity to get the better of him and is mixing up his imagination with his recollection.
Verbosity! I like the pot calling black to the aluminium kettle.
The Deputy has described himself properly—an aluminium kettle.
Well, at any rate, I have both imagination and recollection, which the Minister has not yet been able to give evidence of to this House. That was the statement he made last night. The President said he gave an answer. I heard him give four answers, in his usual way. First of all, he said he was going to quote from a confidential document. Is the Minister going to say anything? Secondly, he said that he would challenge anybody to deny that there was in the confidential document what he was going to state; and, thirdly, that he would only quote slightly from the confidential document; and his fourth answer was that he did not think it was a good rule of this House that, when a document has been quoted from, it should be made available for Deputies.
With all respect, I suggest that this discussion is not in order at this stage. The only thing is whether a Deputy, after the President having stated that he did not quote from a document, is entitled to continue to assert that the President did quote from a document. I think it is the usual practice in the House to accept the statement and not to allow the matter to be brought up continuously and vexatiously.
I am not aware that the President said that he did not quote from a confidential document. Last night, when the Minister for Finance blundered into that statement, the President brushed him aside.
Not for the first time!
Not for the first time, as the Deputy says, and I am sure not for the last time either if he has any sense of right and justice. The President has not yet made the statement that he did not quote from a confidential document. In fact if the President had not made that statement, why did he go on to state that the rule of the House, which required that a confidential document from which a quotation had been made, should be laid before the House, was a bad rule and should be inquired into? I am persisting in this.
I understood that we are now on Section 8 of the Bill, or, at least, we ought to be.
Deputies
Order!
I move to report progress.